Episode 193 - Super Death - Spiritfarer

Do you know why we’re here? It’s because I have a small podcast.

Welcome back to NOCLIP! Today, we’re going to be talking about Spiritfarer, an incremental, management sim, narrative game. Which is a lot of ways to describe what is really a pretty simple game. The core of Spiritfarer is in its characters, spirits who you pick up from various islands and tend to while they come to grips with their own demise and prepare to go to the “Everdoor.” The storylines presented by each are genuinely heartfelt, the characters are expressive and the art used to depict them is beautiful. Some of their dialog might just be meaningful enough to provoke a strong emotional reaction from you. Many different tragedies play out with these characters, but also successes. Some just need a little more time to finish what they barely missed out on in life, while others fall into a state beyond repair and have to move on by their own will or not. And all of these great character moments and fantastic artwork is stapled onto what I would describe as a fairly slow paced farming sim game. Whether the gameplay of Spiritfarer speaks to you is going to be personal preference, but the game may be worth checking out for the other elements alone. We’re going to be talking about the value of spending more time in the game to building character relationships, the lack of value in spending more time in the game just getting from place to place, and, frankly, the value of our own time.

Thank you for joining us again this week! We’ve been on a bit of slow pace with releasing episodes, so I’m sorry if you’re someone who does listen week to week and we haven’t been there, but life unfortunately has been fairly busy and our games have been fairly long, this one being no exception. The pacing of this game may have been a little better before expansions were added, but it’s hard to say playing it in its current state. If you were an early adopter, let us know what you thought in comments, or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re going to be talking about The Talos Principle II, so I hope you’ll join us for that.

Episode 192 - Life Isn't Worth Living - To the Moon

Don’t tell anyone, but I always thought they were podcasts.

Welcome back to NOCLIP! Today, we’re going to be talking about To the Moon, a narrative game focused around learning about characters through one’s memory. I imagine this description will be quite short, because there isn’t a lot I can cover without spoiling the plot. While technically a sci-fi story, the game revolves around one character’s past, so those elements fall more into the background during the meat of the gameplay. The result is that despite the fantastical premise, the majority of the game feels very mundane which has the effect of making it easier for the player to relate to the characters in the story, and it’s very effective because the game operates on a personal level. As you learn more about each of the primary characters, you can start to see the depth they have and that characterization and what you think about their actions and motivations will influence the way you perceive the overall story. It kind of sounds like I’m just describing how to read a story, but engaging with this game the way you would a book or a movie will probably do you better than coming into it like it was Chrono Trigger. This is an extremely well written story with very little interactivity, and it’s well worth checking out if you’re in the mood for something simple. We’re going to be talking about what being a game brings to the table for this experience, how the game goes handles its characters, and we speak ill (and not so ill) of the dead.

Thank you for joining us again this week! We’re on the last of our Mystery May games after this, and it’s so far been a year for actually covering the games that have been on our list for a long time. The tragedy of this game, aside from Johnny’s story itself, is that we waited so long to play it that it feels to me almost obsolete as a game, though not as a narrative, which still feels very well written. Did you feel similarly to me, or were you more engaged due to the interactivity? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we ended up rolling a game that is has been on the list for less time than the other games this year, but one we’re excited for anyway, Spiritfarer, so we hope you’ll join us then!

Episode 191 - That Might Be A Pokémon - Half-Life

Forget about Freeman, we’re abandoning the podcast.

Welcome back to the podcast! We may be into June, but we’re in the ides of Mystery May right now, and the fates have deigned we play Half-Life, and I am not one to argue with the fates. Half-Life is one of the most influential FPS games of all time, and part of that comes down to the way the game builds a really impressive world for you to play through. Black Mesa feels as vast in some places and stifling in others as it needs to in order to create a tone that is full of anxiety as you conserve ammunition while fighting enemies with genuinely great creature design. It’s part FPS, part horror title, like Doom was, but with this added environmental element that really pushes it to the next level. The other part of its influence is really just about how good the game was when it came out. Levels are mostly well paced, even from a modern perspective, movement through them feels fluid and like you’re using all the parts of your toolbox, and the aforementioned ammo conservation feels well thought out. This one is an easy game to go back to despite it’s age, and it’s still just as moody while still having that over-the-top 90s sci-fi edge to it. We’re going to be talking about Source Engine movement, the pros and cons of Xen, and whether we were or were not excited to turn on pumps.

Thank you for joining us again this week! We’ve been consistently hitting the games that have been on our list for the longest this year, and Half-Life is one we’ve been dancing around for a little too long. This game still rules, particularly if you are a fan of its descendants, so if you haven’t given it a shot yet, I recommend doing so. And then let us know what it was like over on our Discord, or in the comment section! Next time, we’re going to be talking about To The Moon, which is not about the stock exchange, so we hope you’ll join us then!

Episode 190 - Goth Mommies - The Wolf Among Us

No, I’m Pod. He’s Cast.

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, for the second episode of Mystery May, we’re going to be talking about The Wolf Among Us, a narrative adventure game from Telltale. Telltale’s style of design really exploded with the Walking Dead, and has since led to a number of choice-based adventure games that would cite it as inspiration, but The Wolf Among Us sits in a unique position in their catalogue as the last indie property they would make a game out of following the studio’s previous success. Because Fables, the series that the game is based on, is relatively niche, many of the players for this game were fans of Telltale’s games specifically. This has led to the game having a particularly outspoken following, and a very positive reputation. And one it’s earned, we think. The game centers around a murder mystery, placing you in the shoes and paws of Sheriff Bigby Wolf trying to identify the killer. And this mystery is very well written, with pacing that makes the game’s five episode structure flow surprisingly well even when playing through the game all at once and characters that are deep enough to make sense of their motivations and, importantly, predict their reactions to your choices. Some of the mechanics show their age, with Telltale’s usual reliance on QTEs and truncated dialogue choices introducing a little bit of friction, but if these are things you can deal with, this may be the best example of what Telltale can do out there. We’re going to talk about the audience expectation that comes with writing a story using preexisting characters from two different mediums, managing tone with a mature premise but a silly pretense, and we revel in our success as podcasting magnates.

Thank you for joining us again this week! As we’ve mentioned on the last two episodes, it’s kind of crazy we hadn’t talked about a Telltale game up to this point. We have different histories with the studio, but we both like the games inspired by them and have played multiple games from them in the past, so it was honestly a matter of time. Do you think The Wolf Among Us is The Wolf Among the best games Telltale has released? Do you jive with the general structure and mechanics of this now twelve year old game still? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, the fates have deigned we talk about Half-Life, so be sure to join us for that!

Episode 189 - For Your Daddy - Monster Hunter Wilds

The guild authorizes you to hunt this podcast.

Welcome back to NOCLIP! Today, we’re going to be talking about Monster Hunter Wilds, the latest mainline entry in the series and the game that turned many peoples’ computers into puddles of acid. Wilds is a follow up to Monster Hunter World both in that it was made by the same team and that it mechanically doesn’t stray too far from the systems that World established. This is a good and a bad thing, because it means that the combat in Wilds is much more straightforward than it was in Rise, allowing you to establish a flow with each weapon and understand the basics fairly quickly. On the other hand, it also doesn’t feel like it has innovated much, particularly in the ways the game seemed to advertise itself on. Focusing on the larger environments, Wilds seems to have overstepped its own capabilities a bit, making the new areas harder to traverse, and without your mount, taking a long time to do. Additionally, much of the tracking mechanics have been stripped out, meaning you generally know what you’re hunting and exactly where it is when you set off, making the more-open world basically a nonfactor in gameplay. If you’re a fan of the series mostly because of the combat mechanics, none of these things will be deal breakers, and the new focus mode and wound system changes the texture of fights enough to make them feel fresh again, but there is a lot of truly unnecessary artifice surrounding the game that can detract. We’re going to be talking about what the story does(n’t) bring to the table, the wonderful new monster designs, and the horror that is palicos talking.

Thank you for joining us again this week! Monster Hunter Wilds was one of my most anticipated games this year, and despite what we talk about in the episode, I think it still holds up as a fun entry in the series, even if it isn’t substantially close to some of the previous games for me. How did you feel about the game? Did you manage to muscle through the first 10 or so hours to get to where the game opens up for you, or did you bounce off of it? If you were a new player, did you find this an accessible game? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord server! Next time, we begin Mystery May, where we roll a die to determine our next episode based on our tables (which you can view on our website if curious!). We’re starting with a “short” game (formerly “Pocket”), The Wolf Among Us, so we hope you’ll join us for that!

Episode 188 - Pretty Cute - Immortality

Artists create, podcast, and destroy.

Welcome back to the podcast where today we’re going to be talking about Immortality. Immortality is a game from Sam Barlow, creator of Her Story and Telling Lies and it follows in the same tradition as those games. Largely player-directed, the game involves watching clips of three films and footage associated with them in order to gain an understanding of what happened to the people involved. There is a set point at which the game shows you its credits, but whether you feel done at that point is largely up to you. Differing from the previous games, rather than inputting text to find clips, you click on elements in scenes to cut between them, following actors or props or other elements to see new things, and you can control the speed of playback and even play in reverse. Your understanding of these mechanics and how the internal logic of the match cuts works really determine what kind of agency you can exercise in solving the mysteries, so your milage may vary depending on how much you liked the core loop of Her Story in comparison to this one. Even so, the technical prowess on display here is still incredible, with a surprising dedication to capturing the feel of the eras of film each of the game’s three movies represent and performances that don’t feel like an imitation so much as part of film canon themselves. We’re going to be talking about the feeling of playing Immortality as compared to other games, the surprising directions the narrative takes and how it differed from our own interpretations, and in a spiritual successor to Haunting Those ROMs, we discuss what may be haunting THIS footage.

Thank you for joining us again this week! Immortality has been on the list for a while because we have a particular soft spot for Her Story and how different that game felt to anything else, and while this is more refinement than innovation, it’s still a really impressive title and would probably give you a similar feeling to us if it is the first of Sam Barlow’s games you’ve played. Did you pick up on the game’s secrets? Did you struggle to rewind because you were playing with a mouse? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re going to be talking about Monster Hunter Wilds, so I hope you join us then and that you have some free time in the coming weeks.

Episode 187 - Only Rock and Paper - Wanted: Dead

I’m a gourmet. Place your bet and let the Wheel of Fortune make a choice for you.

We’re back with our last fan suggested game this year, Wanted: Dead! This game surely is something. Mechanically, it’s probably best described as a throwback third person action game, having a focus on melee combat in addition to gunplay. The two seldom overlap or string together in a meaningful way, however and the whole process just feels a little clunkier than it probably should. Combine that with enemies who take far longer to take down than they should and spawn near constantly and the combat in this game can be kind of a slog. And it’s not like the levels are full of other interesting things to do to make up for it, either. The game is still kind of great though, despite being a mess. Because where the sloppiness and weird juxtapositions hurt the game mechanically, they make the narrative elements of the game a real marvel. With scene transitions that contrast heavily in mood and tone, sometimes abruptly cutting into minigames without any relevant context, you are being taken for an unpredictable ride. The dialogue only occasionally drives the story and the game’s levels have objectives that are wholly different from one another. I realize that this isn’t “selling it” to a lot of people, but I think if you have an appreciation for the strange it might be worth at least looking into this game. We’re going to be talking about the odd intentionality of the choices in the game, where the lack of cohesive design helps versus hurts the game, and we realize that this falls into a category of game we didn’t think about: Classic Katana Games.

Thank you for joining us again this week! This was a game I was aware of and wanted to at least try out, so I jumped on the suggestion when it was made. It really is baffling to go through, so just know that it isn’t going to make a ton of sense if you decide to try it out. Did you hear about this game and were intrigued? Did you not hear anything about this game, particularly anything good, and so ignored it for a year? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re going to be looking at Immortality, which probably couldn’t be further from the Wanted: Dead experience, so we hope you’ll join us for that and not suffer a grievous neck injury from the tonal whiplash.

Episode 186 - Where Sailors Hang Out - Shenmue

You like the podcast that much? Let me invite you to hell.

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re doing another community requested episode (calling it Fanbruary at this point seems a bit silly) on Shenmue. An absolute classic action/adventure game that happened to be a blind spot for both of us. Shenmue centers on Ryo Hazuki, whose father is killed in the opening cutscene in a pretty rad martial arts fight. This sets up the events for you to uncover the reason behind the murder, which you do by talking to characters, learning schedules, driving forklifts and doing a little bit of fighting yourself. The variety of activities to do in this game are what made it so unique at the time and the fact that all of your verbs aren’t based solely in combat still makes it stand out against most triple A titles released even now. That being said, it’s an older game and the number of different control schemes and things to do may feel a bit unintuitive and clunky to you now. What hasn’t aged as badly, surprisingly, are the visuals, which contain a lot more detail than you would expect from the early days of the 3D games. From character models to buildings to interior spaces, the level of fidelity on display is really impressive for the time, even if it did mean the game had to be spread out across three discs on release. Overall this game is a piece of history for good reason, even if the experience isn’t as groundbreaking if you’ve been keeping up with modern games. We’re going to be talking about the more positive aspects of schlocky elements of the game’s story and dialogue, the good and bad ways in which the game’s time-based mechanics impact the play experience, and we lament the necessity in our society to just go get a job sometimes.

Thank you for listening to the podcast this week! Shenmue is a game that really works best if you are able to dedicate the time to immerse yourself in it, and as a result this episode is coming a bit late and also we maybe didn’t get the premier experience it could offer. That being said, there is a lot to like here and even more to respect for the period this game came out, so all in all I think it was worth it. Are you a diehard Shenmue fan? What did you think of our speculation on further games in the series? Let us know over on the Discord or in the comments! Next time, we’re wrapping up our suggested games for the year with Wanted: Dead, which should be a significant departure from everything else we’ve played this year, so much like Shenmue fans, I hope you’re in it for the variety, and that you join us then!

Episode 185 - Roast Beef, Some Chicken, A Pizza - Castlevania 64

This is not the anger of a vampire killer. This is the podcast of all humanity!

Welcome back to Fanbruary! Today, we’re going to be talking about Castlevania 64, an oft maligned entry in the Castlevania series and the first to be in 3D. In classic Castlevania fashion, your goal is to infiltrate a castle and kill Dracula to restore peace to the world, so it doesn’t have a ton of innovation in that respect, but porting that formula to 3D means reworking the design of the platforming and combat, which it does surprisingly well…at times. Being on the N64, this game definitely has some amount of jank, but outside of some specifically problematic areas and letting the sometimes uncooperative camera slide, it feels better than you might imagine. Combat is very punchy, at least playing as Reinhardt, with his whip feeling satisfying to use and enemy effects like parts of skeletons falling off or heavy flinch animations giving meaningful feedback. The platforming is more hit and miss, but it’s serviceable enough that much of the early and midgame challenges feel fair and fun to get through. It hits some weird difficulty levels at points where the systems just aren’t prepared to keep up with the design, and it seems like a symptom of early 3D growing pains mixed with a team unsure how to work within the new limitations. Throw in the fact that the game hits that Castlevania cheesiness in its atmosphere and writing and the resulting game is much better than you may have been led to believe, which is to say, worth checking out, even if it isn’t the most exemplary entry in the series. We’re going to be talking about the importance of a game’s first level, the differences between playing this at the time and in the present, and we wonder if this game’s protagonist might also be a form of transportation.

Thank you for joining us again this week! We’ve still got more Fanbruary coming up even though it’s technically March now, so stay tuned. This was significantly more competent than we expected given its reputation, and overall had a pretty good time with it. Are you a big fan of the series and have opinions on this entry? Did you play this (or it’s weird expanded version) on the N64 or is this the first you’ve really considered it? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re going to be talking about Shenmue, so we hope you’ll join us for that.

Episode 184 - Bring Me the Cellos - Darkest Dungeon

In time, you will know the tragic extent of my podcast,

Welcome to Fanbruary! For our first listener suggested title this year, we’re talking about Darkest Dungeon, an RPG with Lovecraftian themes and light roguelike elements. Darkest Dungeon is known to be a difficult game, and it sticks to this design ethos with a commendable level of commitment. Depending on who you are, maybe too much commitment. With a large number of random factors affecting everything from what characters you get offered, the results of looting and in-combat effects, playing through the game’s dungeons feels like a Rube Goldberg machine of quirks, diseases, attacks and more triggering in a sequence that is almost always bad for you. This makes the climb for upgrades and ever-higher-leveled characters slow, but (I imagine) rewarding for dedicated players. And if you’re looking to become one of those dedicated players, don’t despair, or do despair, I guess, because the game’s non-gameplay elements do a great job of selling an atmosphere of hopelessness and fear, underscored by a charismatic and slightly shmaltzy narrator. This game has a lot going for it, but your enjoyment is ultimately going to be decided by your level of patience and how much you like turn based combat. We talk about the game’s difficulty and what parts of it we felt we could adequately prepare for, our biggest tribulations, and we discuss how part of the game could have been better if it was more like a pretzel.

Thank you for joining us again this week, and thank you for all your submissions for Fanbruary! I’m sure this is starting to sound like a thing I just say every episode, but as usual, we are running a bit behind this month, but we will get four episodes out for Fanbruary that just might bleed a bit into March. This game tried and successfully defeated us, unfortunately, but I’d be curious to hear from more long-term players if they’ve found consistent strategies or what high level play actually looks like, given that I only exhibited low level play. Let us know in the comments or over on Discord! Next time, we’re going to be talking about Castlevania 64, another game with a bit of a dismal atmosphere, but perhaps lightened by the jank of early 3D games, so we hope you’ll join us then.

Episode 183 - Drive-By Nap - The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

So this is the podcast energy. I’m overflowing with power!

Welcome back to the podcast and to the first full episode this year! We’re back from our now-traditional January break and talking about The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. This is the first full game in the series where you play as Zelda herself since the CD-i, which really did need to happen so we could finally stop pointing to The Wand of Gamelon as a standout of anything. This means that while the game hits a lot of the usual Zelda game beats, you interact with the world in a slightly different way. Link’s tools are still available to you in the form of sword, bombs, arrows, but it is tied to a resource meter so you can’t play the whole game in that way. Instead, you have the ability to spawn objects and enemies for a more open-ended approach to combat and puzzle solving. This is objectively cool, allowing you to use clever use of resources to bypass obstacles and come up with clever solutions and makes combat feel differently to other games in the series. However, this does also impact design in a major way with puzzles needing to be more open-ended and generic in order for you to have multiple ways of solving them, and it can get a little samey. How the game strikes the balance between novel, emergent gameplay and satisfying puzzle design is largely going to come down to taste, but it’s at least an interesting thing to have tackled by Nintendo. We’re going to be talking about the similarities between this and other Zelda games (and whether there are too many of them), how the more freeform design impacts dungeons, which are the meat and potatoes of the gameplay, and we test out a few new game design mantras about substituting Bigfoot in for content you couldn’t finish.

Thank you for joining us again this week! We’re back and extremely ready to tackle Fanbruary in the coming weeks, with this game being one of those that came out last year that we just sort of missed. We have taken the longest hiatus from talking about Zelda games we ever have, which is maybe too much of a dedication to the series because it’s only been a bit over a year, but it’s always interesting to see what this particular pillar of the industry is trying to do. Do you agree this game feels like it might be more of a cult hit? Did you find it too similar to other Zelda games and wish they had done more to change it up? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we begin Fanbruary by talking about Darkest Dungeon, the turn based RPG roguelike, but don’t worry if you haven’t gotten a submission in and would like to. We still have a couple slots undecided, so let us know what you’d like to see us play!

The NOCLIP Awards 2024 - Public Intellectuals

The Smashiest balls were the friends we made along the way.

The NOCLIP Awards are back again this year with all their usual prestige. I know you are all waiting with baited breath to see what games are getting the nod, while knowing full well that the games that released this year are of no object when you compare them to the games that we chose to play this year, which are the real contenders. When it is finally realized that we should be the true arbiters of taste, these awards will defeat all others in the public consciousness and weird new Elden Ring games will be announced on our podcast. This is the world I truly want to live in.

One thing you will learn after listening this year though, is that this was quite a varied year. Which admittedly, we do try to do, but it comes out in the variety of games represented. It’s a thing that always makes me feel good looking back through all the episodes we did and seeing the different experiences we had this year and both how the medium is changing as well as the wealth of games from the past that are still unique and worth revisiting. I hope we’ve influenced you to check out something out of your usual comfort zone, and that this show can make you reflect on the experiences that you had.

Thank you, as always for joining us for another year of NOCLIP and our dumb awards thing. We’re taking a short break, but will be back mid-to-late January with an episode on The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. And please don’t forget to get submissions in, through whatever channel you want (Discord, comments, email, twitter, whatever), for Fanbruary!