Episode 155 - A Lot of Sauce - Kingdom Hearts 2

A scattered dream that’s like a far off podcast.

Welcome back to the podcast this week! Today we’re doing an episode that was a long time coming and talking about Kingdom Hearts II. The only numbered entry in the series we hadn’t talked about yet and probably the simultaneously most loved and most controversial Kingdom Hearts game. KH2 is an action RPG like its predecessor, but amps up a lot of the mechanical interaction to be much faster and more stylish. At times, it plays like a character action game with you executing 20+ hit combos and flying through the air, but its depth in combat lies in a different area than in those games, focusing more on the different meters and timings as well as your ability to navigate the command menu and just generally being aware of your surroundings. In a way, this is the first game in the series that has a real mechanical hook to latch onto rather than its presentation and IP crossover content. However, that is still present and is a large part of why these games are so loved. The Disney worlds are back and the narrative writing here starts the trend of what people understand to be Kingdom Hearts story writing as a whole. This game introduced Organization XIII, nobodies, and characters like Roxas and Namine to the larger public and whether that stuff is going to float your boat is purely a matter of taste. What is noticed though is a loss of the simplicity and innocence the first game had. Though this could also be a good thing, as the characters introduced add a lot more depth to the storytelling, and lore wonks most likely come back to things said in this game as a basis for many theories, but it is markedly different than it was in Kingdom Hearts and the feel of the game is changed because of it. There are other changes, too. Levels are more open to facilitate the flashier combat, platforming has been all but stripped out, and the gummy ship levels are fully reworked, but these are all things to be played and listened to, so let’s just jump in. We’re going to be talking about the game’s focus on being bigger and bolder and badder and some other b’s too, probably, than its predecessors, the moody character writing and how this actually set the game apart from its contemporaries, and we discuss what part of the game if executed slightly differently would be on the front page of the New York Times.

Thank you for listening this week! It took us a long time to get to this game, but it’s finally done and we’re all better off for it. The legacy of this series is taken pretty seriously by its fans, and that’s something that is difficult to talk around when going back to this game after a long time. While we, when taken as a whole, are very familiar with the game and have nostalgic attachment to it, it is pretty old as far as games go, and while that reflects in some of the design decisions that were made, it absolutely does not diminish the impact this game had both on its own franchise, which was paradigm defining, but also on games as a whole. It has a lot of appeal both for people who already played similar games as well as for people who got into it for the Disney stuff and ended up getting exposed to some of that classic RPG weirdness. So which are you? Did you play this game at the time of its release and grow up with the series as many people my age did, or did you play it retrospectively, or something else? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re going to be devolving into a more primitive state and talking about Donkey Kong 64 as we kick off (and in all likelihood, also end, given our current schedule) Simian September, the spiritual successor to Ape-ril, so we hope you’ll join us for that, and not stop listening for the continuous unhinged themed month ideas.

NOCLIP Pocket E86 - Literal Science - Kingdom Hearts

Podcast go, Sora go, go!

Welcome back to NOCLIP Epilogue! Today we’re going back to one of our first ten episodes and talking about Kingdom Hearts. Kingdom Hearts is an action RPG with a dash of platforming on the side, as exploring the different worlds is a big part of both the goal of the game’s design and the appeal. That being said, the real notable thing about Kingdom Hearts, particularly at the time of its release, is its association with Disney. The game incorporate characters, locations, music and other themes and references to many Disney films throughout its levels and its plot. For a lot of people, this is probably why they got into the games in the first place, and I really can’t blame them. The source material is treated reverently, and at least here in the first game, incorporated into the plot in a way that feels real, necessary and additive. Waiting to see what movie each level is going to take you into is a real selling point for the game and because of their incorporation of characters and music, it really makes the sense of being in a movie you love even more palpable. Aside from this, it’s a game released in 2002. There are some limitations due to original hardware, design trends and other problems of the time, but if you can look past that, it was an extremely unique game and of the sequentially numbered entries in the series (358/2 does not count as numbered, lol) still the one that delivers on its premise the strongest. We’re going to be talking about what can make going back to the game a struggle for some and a joy for others, the game’s dedication to its concepts and unique ideas, and we do everything in the end of the world.

Thank you for joining us again this week! We’ve piled up a few epilogue episodes (thanks to an unlucky roll during Mystery May, one more than we had originally intended) so far this year, so I hope you find it a worthwhile exercise. Let us know in the comments if you’ve been enjoying them or not and if you have suggestions of other games we should revisit! Kingdom Hearts is obviously a huge series and the reason we decided to handle this one now is because our next main episode is going to be on its sequel, which will complete the trilogy of episodes for us, so we hope you’re looking forward to it. Until next time, remember you can leave a comment or join us over on our discord to leave game suggestions or talk about the games we’ve been discussing. Next time, we’re going to be talking about the Secret of Monkey Island, since we’ve been suffering point and click withdrawals recently, so be sure to check us out then!

Episode 154 - A Farm Upstate - Rimworld

A Warg is hunting the podcast for food!

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re going to be talking about Rimworld, a colony sim strategy game. Rimworld is one of those games that you probably either already love or have never heard of, which is to say, it is exactly what its audience wants it to be, but appears absolutely inscrutable from the outside looking in. In Rimworld, your goal is predominately just to survive by collecting resources, managing colonists, and handling combat, all of which can become vastly more overwhelming than it appears on the surface. That sense of not being able to quite manage everything feels like it is an intentional decision, though. The game bills itself as a “story generator,” and a well-oiled machine of a colony, while satisfying, doesn’t exactly generate many stories. Having to handle unexpected breaks in the system, and in your colonist’s emotional state, keep things feeling tense and unexpected. As a simulation-heavy game, and one made by an extremely small team, there isn’t much power left for the cutting edge graphics, which have not been pumped up on level three, that you may be used to in modern games, but it’s simplistic style fits well and is part of a presentation that does not slouch in other areas. The sound design in particular is outstanding, with instantly recognizable sound cues for different actions and events, and a soundtrack that will, subjectively, rock you into another dimension. The UI, on the other hand, can be a bit confusing at times and lends the game its notoriety for being immensely difficult to get into if you’re new to the genre. It is a complicated game with a lot of deep systems and a lot of strategies to learn and develop, so you’ll have to listen to see how we adapted. We’re going to be talking about the struggles of starting the game, the wackiness the mechanics can bring to the table, and determine which famous work of Spanish surrealist art it most resembles.

Thank you for listening this week! Once you listen to the episode, it will become abundantly clear that one of us in particular is a massive fan of this game, so it comes highly recommended if you can stomach the learning curve and the amount of time it will suck out of your life. But I also get that it’s a tough game to start, so we’d love to hear your experiences. Have you been playing for years, or did you pick it up recently? Have you played with the DLCs or only vanilla? What do you think about Thrumbos? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord. Next time, we’re going to be finally talking about Kingdom Hearts 2, the last in the main trilogy we haven’t talked about so expect that to be kind of the reverse of this episode. We hope you’ll join us then!

NOCLIP Pocket E85 - Playing Broomstickers - Chop Goblins

Oh no! They podcasted the building down!

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re going to be talking about Chop Goblins, a surprising-in-many-ways FPS by David Szymanski. Chop Goblins is short, with only five levels and five weapons, and can be beaten for the first time in two hours or less, but because of this it never overstays its welcome and keeps introducing new things over the course of the game, including new enemy types. The titular Chop Goblins are not a design that is easy to take seriously, along with most of the rest of the game, but you can see in them that there actually was a lot of care put into making the game feel right. Different kinds of enemies require different strategies to effectively defeat without taking damage, and managing groups of them is core to playing the game well. The game is a “boomer shooter” by definition, but it has a strong core that comes from experience and the love of the genre. I’m not sure how else you’d want me to synopsize Chop Goblins, it’s just a simple, fun game with a better core than you might expect. We’re going to be talking about how the levels and music are used to emphasize the game’s innate silliness and comedy, the feel of all the weapons and what makes them each interesting choices, and we draw a a comparison to one of our favorite games of all time, Rascal.

Thank you for joining us this week! We did this game partly to get through something short because we have a lot of more time-consuming games coming up this month, but also because I played it on release and it has really stuck with me for some reason. Seeing a game this competent with this ridiculous of a premise just really warms my heart. Did you play Chop Goblins? …why not? Let us know down in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re returning to the ole Epilogue well and doing an episode about Kingdom Hearts, sort of in preparation for our next big episode on Kingdom Hearts 2, so we hope you’ll keep an eye out for that!

Episode 153 - Rinko Suave - Ghostwire: Tokyo

Next time we meet, I’ll have lived a good full podcast.

Welcome back to the finale of Spooktember in July! Today, we’re going to be talking about Ghostwire: Tokyo, a first person shooter game from Tango Gameworks, the developer of The Evil Within. Ghostwire is a sort of a horror game, but with an emphasis on magical first-person combat and Japanese culture, which makes it sort of an odd experience because of where its priorities seem to be. The open world parts of the game are in a lot of ways bog standard, with myriad collectibles, “Ubisoft towers” to clear to open new sections of the map, sidequests and other digressions, but on the other hand, there are also pages upon pages of item and character descriptions, full of folklore and details about everyday life in Japan. It makes the actual world of the game feel very realized, and downright educational at times. The combat contains a lot of systems, but not a lot of incentive to engage with that depth, as encounters tend to be fairly easy to overcome either with your basic “elemental weaving” attacks or with stealth, limiting the amount the player will actually experiment with the advanced techniques or other weapon items like the bow and talismans. To some extent, this is a shame, because the game’s setting and visuals are at times captivating, but taken as a whole this still isn’t a bad game and there’s a lot of fun to be had if you’re willing to look past the more banal parts of its design. We’re going to be talking about our perception of how this game was received and its potentially overlooked content update that adds a lot of good things to the game, how the open world both succeeds and fails by following trends in design that are over a decade old, and we address the very real danger of flip-kicking school children.

Thank you for joining us again this week! We had fun cobbling this stupid theme together, and this was the game I’m most happy to have had a reason to play. Not because it’s the best of the games we talked about, but because it’s a title we likely wouldn’t have played otherwise, and one that is pretty fascinating at times. It isn’t groundbreaking, but it focuses on things most games don’t, and it’s always fun to see something in the triple A space trying to do weird things. What did you think of Ghostwire? Did you play at release and if so were you aware of the update that came out? Was I justified in comparing this to No Man’s Sky? Let us know in the comments or over on Discord! Next time, we’re going to be tackling a game on the complete opposite end of the genre spectrum and talking about Rimworld, so we hope you’ll join us for that!

NOCLIP Pocket E84 - Made My Eyeballs Sweat - Ghostrunner

If this is podcast, we never should have climbed down from the trees.

Welcome back to Spooktember in July, the month where we barely even know what’s going on anymore. Today, we’re talking about Ghostrunner, a first person platformer action game where you have to execute difficult platforming while avoiding bullets and doing cool cyberpunk sword tricks. It is a categorically awesome concept in all the ways that games can be, really. The obvious first comparison to make is to Neon White, which we just talked about a few months ago, and the comparison isn’t a stretch. Both games necessitate the player repeat sections repeatedly to get them as close to perfect as they can in order to succeed and move on to the next level, but Neon White is much more forgiving, and subjectively, a bit more motivating. Ghostrunner is a much harder game, something that is obviously a design choice, but because of that the act of completing a section is often reward enough without wanting to go back and get all collectibles or improve your time. This doesn’t make the game bad, however, but it is a much more daunting experience just to complete. The mechanics are very tight and their strength comes in the form of trying to get the player into a flow state, but then the biggest issue facing the game is that when it does stumble, it breaks that mindset and begins to feel frustrating more quickly than a more forgiving game might. This could all be irrelevant to you, though, depending on how tough you like your challenges to be, and it is a well polished gem if hard is what you’re looking for. We’re going to talk about boss fights and why they weren’t as successful as they could be, difficulty and its necessity to the game on a conceptual level, and we determine the true identity of the Ghostrunner to be an eighteen wheeler.

Thank you for joining us again this week! This game was really the lynchpin for the whole “Spooktember in July” bad idea we had, since we were able to cobble together a theme after wanting to just talk about the Resident Evil games we did. That said, it’s a game I’m happy to have played, one because I had a reasonably good time with it, and also because it’s such a good example of the razor edge you walk when designing a game with difficulty at its core. Which side of the fence did you fall on? Were you able to carry this game out to completion? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time we’re going to be talking about Chop Goblins, a bit because it’s short and we need some breathing room for some bigger episodes coming next month, but you can see it as a bit of a bonus Spooktember game if that suits you. Hope you’ll chop on down for that one.

Episode 152 - The Winters of Our Discontent - Resident Evil: Village

How dare you talk about saving your podcast when you’ve murdered mine?

Welcome back to the podcast, and to our delightfully themed Spooktember in July. We’re concluding our first set of games with Resident Evil: Village, currently the latest main series, non-remake Resident Evil game, and one that received a lot of hype prior to release thanks to a marketing strategy that involved a nine foot tall vampire lady. One of the first things you might notice in the game itself is how it relates to other games in the series. Specifically, RE8 features the same protagonist, Ethan Winters, as RE7, a game that was making obvious strides to return to the series’ survival horror roots, which had largely been supplanted by a more action-heavy approach since RE4. Now, in Village, it seems like Capcom wanted to mesh the two and the inspiration taken from RE4 is pretty obvious with the game containing a merchant who can upgrade your weapons, and a more dynamic combat system with enemies who are faster and more threatening than those in the previous title. While this persists across most of the game, several quieter moments break up the action (sometimes becoming the best parts of the game themselves), but the two halves of the design philosophy never really meet in the middle and it ends up feeling more episodic than a real blend. That isn’t to say the game is bad, it’s actually quite good, but it does sit in an awkward place in the series. Unless something this game does is just really your “thing” it’s hard to recommend if you haven’t played some of the games it is directly referencing in its design. We’re going to be talking about the design of each of the levels and how they follow a certain structure and brisk pace, we talk about the inclusion of the merchant and an economy in the game and how that effects how you play it compared to other RE titles, and we discuss the nuances of the relationship between the “Big Bad” and the “Small Bads”.

Thank you for joining us again this week! The Resident Evil cycle of the month is now over, so let us know what you think. How do you feel RE8 stacks up against other games in the series, or just other horror games in general? I personally like that there is a high-profile triple-A horror franchise that is willing to pour money into doing weird stuff like this on occasion, but game development of this scale always comes with some baggage. Continue the discussion over on our Discord server or in the comment section. Next time, we’re moving into the “Ghost” phase of Spooktember in July and talking about Ghostwire: Tokyo, so we hope you’ll join us then, even if it is statistically unlikely you played the game.

NOCLIP Pocket E83 - A Big Boulder - Resident Evil 4 Remake

“Fun” rhymes with “podcast” for a reason, stranger.

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re going to be talking about the Resident Evil 4 Remake that was released this year. Why are we talking about this game on Pocket? Well, we wanted to squeeze it in closer to its release date and the focus of the episode is mainly going to be on the way the remake differs from the original, rather than our typical beat by beat discussion of the game itself. This resulted, of course, in an hour long Pocket episode because they changed a whole lot, actually. The bones of Resident Evil 4 are still here, obviously, and the Village portion of the game is still similar to the original in many ways, but there is a ton of new and altered content throughout and that’s without talking about the fundamental changes to the gameplay. Leon controls in a much more fluid way which feels more modern, but necessitates a change in the overall combat system. Enemies are much more aggressive and have new angles of attack to match Leon’s ability to parry with the knife, perform stealth kills and even move while shooting (what a novel idea). This makes the game even more action-focused than the original, which was a massive departure from the series at the time of its release. Basically, even for fans of the original game, this remake represents fantastic new content, rather than a replacement, and that’s probably the best thing they could have done for a remake of an icon like this. We’re going to be talking about combat and difficulty and how the updates change what the game feels like to play, the slight change in tone to bring it out of the B movie camp that defined the original, and we call out the great offense that is adding crafting to Resident Evil 4.

Thank you for joining us again this week! We probably could have gone on about this game for another hour and done a full episode, but we were afraid it would be a little redundant both with the discourse that has already happened and the fact that we had already covered the game in the past. Not to mention we have a slate of games planned for the extremely well-thought-out Spooktember in July theme month we have going on and didn’t feel like it would fit at a different time in the schedule. How did you feel about the changes to the game? Was the remake the first time you’ve played RE4, and if so do you have any desire to go back and see where it came from? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord server! Next time, we’re going to be moving along into the next subtheme of the month and talking about Ghostrunner, so we hope you’ll join us then.

Episode 151 - Sacred Octopus Stick - The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Expand-a-band-band, podcast stash!

Welcome back to the podcast! We took a bit of an extra long time with this one, but if you’ve played this game, I imagine you’ll understand why. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a massive open world game and the sequel to Breath of the Wild, the game that some people said redefined what open world games should be. To an extent that is true, and we have already seen a lot of its impact on the genre, but Tears of the Kingdom adds a pretty significant amount of innovation on top of that, and some of that stuff is going to be hard for developers to replicate. And all of that while reusing the same ground map as Breath of the Wild. Tears of the Kingdom is huge, yes, adding large new areas to explore and containing thousands of discrete goals to accomplish from quests to shrines to dungeons and collectibles, but its most defining feature is a more fiddly one, specifically the new abilities that let you manipulate the game’s physics system on an entirely new level than Breath of the Wild was able to pull off. Ultrahand, Recall and Fuse let you use the game’s environment more or less to your whims, building contraptions with prepackaged device spheres to do anything from driving a car across Hyrule to making an enemy-seeking robot, shoot arrows imbued with an absurd number of item specific properties and move objects back and forth through time, opening a ton of possibilities not just in combat, but in traversal and puzzle solving. Meanwhile Ascend makes you entirely rethink the way you look at the game world, the effect of which isn’t dissimilar to Red Faction’s destructible environments way back in the PS2 era feeling like a revolutionary upheaval of game systems. The experience of playing this game is somehow very different from playing its predecessor, but with a familiarity that makes it feel simultaneously very comfortable but also tricking you into maybe not being as blown away as you could be. We’re going to be talking about our exploration of the mechanics and how our experiences differed in how and when we realized we could take advantage of our new abilities, the inclusion of new enemies and dungeons that felt significantly different from each other and from Breath of the Wild, and we confirm that the Ganondorf we are talking about is the shirtless sexy Demon King one.

Thank you for joining us this week, and apologies for the late release! Tears of the Kingdom is probably going to be one of (if not the) most talked about games this year, and we aren’t exactly early to the discourse, but I hope you enjoy the episode. I’m not kidding when I say Ascend has changed the way I view games, with me thinking I can travel vertically in everything I play now. It’ll be a while before the effects of this game wear off on people. What did you think? Was the game worth the wait since 2017? Did the game make your Switch catch on fire? Let us know over in our Discord or in the comment section! Next time, we’re entering into the very well named and not stupid at all “Spooktember in July” where we’re going to be talking about Resident Evil VIII (or Village, or 8, I suppose) so we hope you’ll join us for that.

NOCLIP Pocket E82 - Diarrhea Wednesday - The Bunker

One whiff of this and you’ll have your throat slit over the last tin of podcasts.

Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket! Today, we’re going to be talking about The Bunker, an FMV adventure game with a surprising level of production value. We chose to cover this game partly because we had played it before, and there are several other things coming up that are going to take up a lot of our time, and also partly just to expose ourselves as people who keep really hoping for an FMV game to really knock our socks off. This didn’t manage that, but it still has some interesting qualities. Being a more modern game, The Bunker lacks the B-movie cheesiness that is honestly the selling point for a lot of older FMV titles these days, but having a focus on more of the filmic quality is a direction you rarely see these types of games go. Using actors with experience and some truly outstanding set design goes a long way to make the game feel more like a movie. More like a movie, in fact, that it does a game. The Bunker’s level of interaction is low. Barring one or maybe two instances, your choices have no impact on the plot unfolding, and most of the things that require player input could have easily been accomplished without it, making the interactivity feel like a token inclusion. While it doesn’t strike the perfect balance, or much of a balance at all, there is something that still feels pretty novel about it, and the story it tells is at worst competently executed and pretty interesting. We’re going to talk about how much interaction the game has and what impact it really makes, the environments in the game and how much they sell the premise, and we talk about the things that really don’t need to follow a schedule.

Thank you for joining us again this week! This was a short episode on a pretty short game because we are gearing up for some bigger things in the future and we wanted to maintain living while still being able to get them out in time. Still, this is at least kind of a strange one to look at right? FMV is a dying, some would say dead, subgenre and to see the amount of care put into making this feel like a modern piece of media gives me at least some respect for it. Have you played any FMV games in recent times? How do you think the genre holds up, and is there a way of making an interactive film like this more satisfying to play? Let us know over in the Discord or in the comments section! Next time, unless we find the inspiration to do some kind of filler between this and Zelda, we’re going to be talking about the Resident Evil 4 remake, so we hope you’ll join us then.

Episode 150 - You Betcha - Super Mario 64

It is decreed that one shall pound the podcast.

Welcome to the 150th episode of NOCLIP! Today, we’re celebrating, in a way, by finally talking about Super Mario 64, one of the single most defining video games of all time. Platformers, and probably games generally, were changed forever following the success of Mario 64, and that influence is impossible to deny. We’re going to be looking at that influence, and specifically, the problem solving that went into making this game work as well as it did. The technology that made this game possible was new at the time, and much of what makes playing video games in 3D possible needed to be defined and explained to the player. How do you see where you are, how do you interact with enemies and navigate the world? These questions needed solutions and the elegance with which most of them were handled is extremely impressive for what is essentially a first attempt. That being said, the game is extremely old in the context of the medium, and playing the game now is very different than playing it then, so seeing how the things pioneered in Mario 64 have been iterated on, or in some cases, have remained staples of the genre since, is also an interesting exercise. Does it “hold up” to the cruelty of time? Is the game even fun for someone playing it for the first time today? This is a question that will have a more immediate and well known answer as time goes on, but we are right at that edge where its legendary status and ubiquity among people playing games still mean that most people have an attachment to it and are able to contextualize it in line with its contemporaries. This much is true though, it holds up better than most, if not all of its immediate contemporaries, and the contributions it made to the medium are still obvious even now. We’re going to be talking about the obsessive diegesis of Mario 64’s world and how charming it is, the level and objective design and how experimentation was core to the game’s success, and we make an argument for Nintendo to do some pretty unorthodox DLC.

Thank you for joining us this week! Super Mario 64 is a game that, honestly, hasn’t been on our schedule for a very long time for a number of reasons. The number of people who have talked about it already being among the most potent reasons, but there were other reasons this didn’t feel quite right for us to do. However, given the kind-of milestone of being our 150th episode, and with Nintendo being in the spotlight recently due to Zelda, it felt appropriate to take our shot at the almost 30 year old game finally. And personally, I’m pretty happy with the result. Let us know what you think of our discussion of this classic down in the comment section or over on our Discord. Next time, we’re going to be talking about The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and it’s probably going to be delayed by a bit, so we hope you’ll anticipate that.

NOCLIP Pocket E81 - Strategy of Flailing - Octodad: Dadliest Catch

Why is every podcast fish?

Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket, and our final episode from Mystery May! Today, we’re talking about Octodad: Dadliest Catch, a game about an octopus doing his best to blend in with human society. The game is straight out of the Goat Simulator era of physics-based games, and owes a lot to all the QWOP-inspired physics hell games that came before it, but what makes Octodad stand out is that it’s just much more playable than most other games in the genre. In Octodad, you control your legs and arm separately, with a wobbly ragdoll character and everything in the environment weighs nothing to allow for it to maximally fly around everywhere when you bump into it. However, the game has a plot and it wants you to finish it, so it never reaches Getting Over It levels of difficulty. In a way, this does make the game weaker, as the crazy physics interactions are less pronounced, but it’s a game you can finish and one that doesn’t overstay its welcome, giving it more of a feeling of real player-friendly design and making it a great jumping off point for getting into the genre. We’re going to be talking about the game’s perceived difficulty, how Octodad cultivates its comedy and makes it work, even at the player’s expense, and give you our top strategy tips for cheating at the arcade.

Thank you for joining us again this week, and for seeing us through Mystery May this year! We’re really happy with how it turned out, so we’ll be dredging the table up again next year as well. Did you play Octodad at any point in the 9 years since it came out? Did you play the original freeware Octodad? How did you feel about Mystery May and are there any games you were really pulling for off our table? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re going to keep it a little bit unorthodox and are going to be talking about The Bunker, an FMV game about people living in the post-apocalypse, so we hope you’ll keep an eye out for that.

Episode 149 - It's a Slant Rhyme - Child of Light

What is love known by? When it hurts to say “Welcome to NOCLIP.”

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we are doing as the dice instructed per the rules of Mystery May and playing Child of Light. Another game that’s been on our list for a while, Child of Light is an Ubisoft developed RPG that showcases the studio’s “UbiArt Framework” engine that was designed with the intention of being able to develop with artist’s ease of use specifically in mind. As a result, Child of Light is a game that has an obvious focus on delivering it’s storybook-styled visuals over all else, and therefore has a strong and consistent aesthetic throughout. Beyond the visual style itself, the music fits the theme well while not being overly showy, and conversely, the writing is done entirely in rhyme, calling attention to itself massively and just being a big in-your-face element of the game. Playing the game, though, is more traditional RPG fare, with its big distinguishing twist being a combat timer that allows strategies based around slowing or interrupting enemies and choosing attacks based on the length of time they take to cast. It fits together well enough but contains some design pitfalls that makes this a flawed game, but still an interesting one. We’re going to be talking about the abundance of systems and the harm they can do to the player’s experience, the really charming character and visual design and how they fit it together with the narrative and gameplay, and how Ubisoft really changed as a person once they got that sweet-sweet Rabbids money.

Thank you for joining us again today! We’re sad to see Mystery May close out, because it’s been a surprisingly fun time not having to make decisions about what to play. Were you one of the people who played Child of Light when it released, and if so, what made it grab you then? Did you pick it up recently and become confused at the weird DLC elements that just kind of got thrown in? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, with full control back in our hands, we’re going to be talking about Super Mario 64, sort of keeping with the theme of “how did it take them this long to cover this,” so we hope you’ll join us for that!

NOCLIP Pocket E80 - If He Had Wheels - Rascal

Take out the reptile, first of all.

Welcome back to the podcast! For our first Mystery May title for Pocket, we managed to roll a critical miss, forcing us to do an epilogue episode on Rascal, probably the worst game we’ve covered for the podcast. What started as a joke episode based on a history with the game became probably the podcast’s most enduring reference point for things being done badly and given how old the episode is, it probably was high time we took another stab at it. This episode isn’t overly long, and features far fewer hosts, but hopefully this is a good introduction to the game and why we keep talking about it, even after five years. Rascal itself is a 3D platformer for the PS1 that pretty much behaves in every way contrary to how a platformer should. You have tank-esque controls, a camera that will absolutely not do what you want it to do, and a terrible gun that you use to fight infinitely respawning enemies that appear offscreen and kill you. It’s a nightmare, but at least it’s a funny nightmare. The game so confidently thrusts you into its meat grinder of ill conceived challenges that you can’t help but laugh at your own poor fortune. We’re going to be talking about the outdated design philosophy that is expected of games of this era, the baffling design philosophy that makes up the rest of the game and we talk about all the games that were definitely inspired by Rascal’s secret genius.

Thank you for listening this week, or at least I hope you listened to make playing this game again worth it. We are actually happy to resurrect this particular meme, though, because we’ve referenced the game already this year, possibly multiple times. This is as close to a signature game as we have on this podcast, so hopefully this can be the last word, unless we roll a critical miss again at some point in the future… But did you play Rascal? Why? Was it out of a call of the void style curiosity because you saw the game lying around? Were you given this game as a gift, either by someone who didn’t know better, or more likely, as a gag? Let us know over on our Discord server or in the comments below! Next time, the dice deigned we talk about Octodad: Dadliest Catch, closing out an extremely weird chapter in NOCLIP Pocket history, so we hope you’ll join us for that.

Also, massive credit to this frankly incredible guide, that we reference multiple times in both this and the original Rascal episode: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps/198413-rascal/faqs/37867

Episode 148 - Knower of the Tomes - Braid

All those years ago, Tim had left the podcast behind.

Welcome back to the podcast! For our first episode in Mystery May (but with rolling dice instead of solving mysteries), we’re going to be talking about Braid! Braid, as honestly you’re probably already aware, is a puzzle platformer that received a massive amount of recognition and acclaim when it launched on the Xbox Live Arcade way back in 2008. Far more puzzle than platformer, in Braid you use standard platforming controls and the ability to reverse time to collect puzzle pieces and complete levels, with each new level offering a different gimmick that changes the way the world and sometimes your abilities work. Gameplay-wise, the puzzles are extremely well-built. Never being outright unsolvable for the average person but also deep enough to provide a challenge and featuring some truly unique solutions. To some, this will be the biggest draw of the game. For others, the game’s melancholic tone and vague story will be the thing that hooks them, and it is also well crafted. The writing is eloquent and evocative, calling to mind how we as people handle mistakes and questioning the fantasy of being able to turn back time to correct them. As two different elements of the game, they both really sing, but when experienced together, how well do they mix? We’re going to be talking about our difficulties with the puzzles, our difficulties with piecing the game’s message together from the parts it gives you, and we make listening to the episode without being embarrassed about it a difficulty by telling a yo mama joke at the halfway point.

Thank you for joining us again this week! Braid coming up first on Mystery May is a great example of what we designed the whole system around because it’s been on our list literally since the inception of the podcast and kept getting kicked further down the road. It feels good to have finally played it, but missing the cultural zeitgeist on this game may have done more harm than we realized? Do you think Braid still holds up and its intentions still come across in the modern day? Do you think Braid has had an impact on game development or just indie game popularity generally? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re going to be talking about Child of Light, as deigned by the fates, so we hope you’ll join us then.

Mystery May tables: https://noclippodcast.net/mystery-may

NOCLIP Pocket E79 - Marth Tiara - Shadow of the Colossus

Podcasts that are once lost cannot be reclaimed.

Welcome to the very first (kind of) NOCLIP Epilogue! On this series, that we’ll come back to every once in a while, we’re going to be revising some of our earliest episodes to rehash our discussions but with more media literacy and higher quality audio. For our first formal entry in the series (not counting Undertale, which we did as a primer to the Deltarune series, which, you know, we’ll get back to at some point), we’re going to be covering Shadow of the Colossus, which was our second ever episode. Shadow, in case you’re somehow unaware, is the second game from Team Ico, and is loosely set in the same universe and has a similar visual and mood to Ico. There is a dour atmosphere over the whole game, with a plot centering around a character attempting to revive a dead woman, a mysterious masked man and his cadre of knights and a Godlike figure named Dormin who promises to help with the resurrection if we do a task for him. There’s an air of mystery around the entire process, from what you’re doing to the plot itself and even who the characters are, and this lack of certainty cements the atmosphere of the game as well as keeps the player on the hunt for clues, making the whole experience more intellectually stimulating in addition to its mechanical challenges. As for what you actually do, Shadow tasks you with taking down 16 enormous boss creatures by physically climbing all over them and attacking weak points. Your player character controls in what feels like a very fragile and imprecise way, making this task feel difficult and imposing. There’s a lot more to say about how the game mixes its themes and its mechanics, but that should be the gist if you aren’t already a fan, so listen to us unpack the rest of it in today’s episode. We’re going to be talking about the way everything from the world to your horse contributes to the overall themes of the game, we talk about the pacing of the game and its ambitions versus the game we really got, and we speculate on what Mono’s last will and testament probably had in it.

Thank you for joining us again this week, and for indulging us this nostalgic look back at one of our favorite games we covered. Hopefully the epilogue series continues to do what we intended, as I feel like even this shorter episode gets across what makes the game good better than we were able to do seven, almost eight, years ago. What did you think about this episode format? Do you have suggestions for other games we covered in the long-long ago for us to take another look at? Let us know over in our Discord or in the comments! Next time, we’re doing our first Mystery May pocket episode, which is a different style to previous years, and through a series of events that are unfortunate, we ended up being forced to do an immediate epilogue follow up on the worst game we’ve ever covered (debatably) in Rascal for the Playstation, so if you enjoy when we suffer, please join us then.

Episode 147 - Ghosts in Football - Neon White

Not bad for a dead podcast, huh?

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re going to be talking about Neon White, a first person platformer with a little bit of shooting in it. First person platformers aren’t exactly rare, per se, but they’re less common than the majority of other types of games in the genre, and so it’s worth considering the intentionality of its choice when a game comes out that uses the perspective. Neon White is maybe one of the best uses of the genre that I’ve ever seen. Because of its focus on getting fast times on each stage, the first person perspective gives a real sense of speed that you can actually feel, making you physically lean around when you play the game because of the focus it requires. It offers precision in shooting, an element of the game that feels less like eliminating threats and more like doing tricks in a Tony Hawk game; quickly spinning around to pick off some enemies after taking a shortcut or strategically shooting something coming up in the distance to save a weapon card for use later. The whole game gives a sense of continuing improvement and trains you to see the lines each level has and then to look away from them to find a faster route. The game has a less-than-novel, but still very cool narrative which feels like Battle Royale but set in Heaven, and characters that are easy to like despite falling into certain tropes and archetypes. It’s serviceable, and serves as downtime between the frantic action of the main missions. Neon White is a very rad game that does cool stuff in an awesome way. We’re going to be talking about the functionality of the gun/soul card discard system and how it adds to the decision making in gameplay, motivation to do better and whether it comes from the game or from within yourself, and we do some classic shipping of characters.

Thank you for listening today! Neon White was one of those games that seems like it’s going to be intimidating, but then ends up being surprisingly accessible. If you got through the game, did you feel like it could have been harder and offered a more robust challenge, or was what’s there more than enough to keep you entertained? Did you try to push your scores as low as they could go? Let us know over in the Discord, or in the comments below! Next time, we’re entering into Mystery May, but not like the old Mystery May where we did mystery games. Now, we’re taking a bunch of games that have been on our various lists of games to play for years that we never seem to get around to and putting them on a table and letting dice decide our episode. The first one selected for this month is Braid, the classic puzzle platformer, so we hope you’ll join us for that.

NOCLIP Pocket E78 - The Stranger - Perfect Tides

At least I’m not ugly and annoying!

Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket! Today, we’re talking about Perfect Tides, a point and click adventure game in true throwback fashion. With a pixel art style and several ways to interact with your environment, you explore the island of Perfect Tides solving puzzles and picking up inventory items. Yet, this isn’t really the draw of the game. It can be, if you’re looking for an adventure game that’s like the classics, but more forgiving, but the character work is the real star of the show here. You play as Mara, a 15 year old girl (in the year 2000), as she struggles to find her place in life, participating in the early internet, going to high school and trying to get along with her family. It’s not new ground to cover, for sure, but the depth of characterization given to Mara, as well as many of the supporting characters in the game, is deeply impressive. Most people will be able to relate to at least something Mara is going through, and the game’s perspective helps to provide some self examination on how we all handle our trauma. It’s a rough game at times, both mechanically and as far as content goes, but the end result is a beautiful study of teenage life. We’re going to be talking about the up-and-downsides of styling this game after old school adventure titles and express our mechanical woes, we separate the story from the characters and discuss how much importance is placed on the latter, and we make some medical suggestions, even though we are not doctors.

Thank you for joining us again this week! This game caught at least me off guard with just how frank and relatable it was, but I imagine that must be different for everyone. If you played it, what did you think? Were you in the age range to appreciate the references to the culture of the new millennium, or do you think that doesn’t really matter because we all know Flagpole Sitta or whatever? Let us know down in the comments or on our Discord! Next time, we’re going to be introducing a new (kind of) series to the podcast, epilogue episodes, where we go back to games we did early on in the podcast and examine them with fresh eyes and give our updated opinions in a more listenable package. For our first (second, if you count Undertale, which is part of a separate series on Deltarune, which…oops, stay tuned on that one) epilogue, we’re going back to Shadow of the Colossus, which was our second ever episode, so we hope you’ll join us for that!

Episode 146 - Red House Studios - God of War: Ragnarok

Close your heart to it.

Welcome back to the podcast! Today we’re going to be talking about God of War: Ragnarok, Santa Monica Studios follow up to 2018’s God of War. And honestly, you in all likelihood know what this game is all about, so let’s just jump into it. Ragnarok is a direct continuation of the events in the previous game, and more than that, it almost feels like a direct continuation of the development of that game. It builds entirely off the systems that existed in the first game but adds some more variety in the form of more unique bosses, different companions and, eventually, a new weapon to play around with which does expand your options in combat. Does this variety actually change enough, though? Yes and no. While the combat feels more varied, and not fighting thirty more trolls is a welcome change, it still has some issues, some of which feel even more pronounced here in the sequel, and the basic systems aren’t really altered enough to ever really feel like you’re playing something different than 2018’s game. As a narrative continuation of the previous game though, this one does make strides in fleshing out its characters further, giving several of them proper arcs they didn’t have previously and completely revitalizing some characters into something more than archetypes. It’s a mixed bag of a game and one whose successes and failures are actually pretty complicated and a good indication of how huge games are being made, so we hope this episode can unravel at least some of it. We’re going to be talking about the sequel-y-ness of this game, both in how it’s built off its predecessor and how it sets up for a probable third game, the combat and its accompanying gear system, and what sort of hairdo they could give Kratos to most set off the vocal internet video game fans.

Thank you for listening again this week! This episode sort of exemplifies why it can be so complicated to talk about the big new releases when they come out. For one, we’re like six months late to this particular party because of our scheduling, and for two, we aren’t really “God of War fans” in the traditional sense, so we aren’t coming at this from a place of excitement or anticipation for the sequel. If you are, what did you think of the game? Do you think our criticisms were well placed? Let us know in the comments or over on the Discord. Next time, we’re going to be talking about Neon White, a fast-paced FPS platforming game that somehow jammed a deck building element into it, so we hope you’ll join us for untangling that.

NOCLIP Pocket E77 - Poisoned With Golf - Jazzpunk

If you need me, I’ll be in the podcast cellar.

Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket this week! Today we’re talking about Jazzpunk, an unorthodox adventure game from 2014. When I say unorthodox, what you do in the game from a base mechanical level is pretty normal, moving around and interacting with objects and your inventory to solve puzzles and progress, but the logic of the game and the scenarios you play through are all pretty surreal and feel designed around the question “why not.” The game isn’t too hard to wrap your head around though; the scenes themselves are bizarre, not the puzzles’ requirements. The result is a game that is genuinely funny at times, with lots of one off interactable gags and minigames that you can get through pretty smoothly, with enough content you will probably miss to make each playthrough a little bit different. We’re going to be talking about why it is that jokes landed sometimes and not others, the aesthetics and world design that feels so varied from level to level, and the number of Wilhelm screams one is allotted in any particular work.

Thank you for listening to NOCLIP Pocket again this week! If you hadn’t surmised, yesterday’s fast food centric episode was an April Fools gag, but honestly this game could have fared fine as an April Fools Day episode itself. It was a weird little experience to play through, and one I wish I had actually played closer to when it came out. Comedy ages in weird ways sometimes, and something felt a bit dated about some of these jokes, though the overall vibe is still pretty good. What did you think? Did Jazzpunk hit the right notes for you or is it a bit too aggressively strange? Let us know over in the Discord or in the comments below! Next time, we’re going to be talking about Perfect Tides, which is a point and click game, so we hope you’ll join us for something very much in our usual wheelhouse.