Thumbstick Athletes

Time for the annual Mid year recap...a refresher for some of the games we've covered earlier in the year.  This year we have excerpts from our episodes on Wargroove, Kingdom Hearts 3, Devil May Cry 5, Sekiro, and Fell Seal.

No nibblebits, feedback or "What We Played" for this week...but we'll get caught up on all that when we return to live episodes next week!

Super Mario Maker 2 is here, complete with new tools to create, new ways to play, and yes...a story mode.  Corey and Dan describe their first week with the game, trying most of SMM2 has to offer aside from the versus modes.  Later on in the pod, we discuss Harry Potter: Wizard's Unite and Summer Games Done Quick's outstanding new fundraising milestone.

Dan and Corey's Mario Maker 2 Levels:

Corey: Global Warming ID: 469-DPK-P2G

Dan: Participation Trophy 2 ID: 7BV-8FV-LDF

        Touchdown Boy 2 ID: M65-V8K-JKF

For this week we do something we don't often do, cover a mobile game for the main segment.  This time it's the Pokemon Go-esque Harry Potter: Wizards Unite.  Dan, Eric and Corey get their Quidditch brooms ready and....yeah, none of us know Harry Potter that well.  But the game is fun!

Immediately after the main segment Corey and Eric cover their games they've been playing, which include Cadence of Hyrule, Halo and Metro Exodus.

If you ever wanted to be an intrepid space explorer from a backwoods alien civilization, Outer Wilds has you covered.  From the wooden launchpad to fellow astronauts strumming tunes on a banjo by a campfire on a distant planet....it oozes atmosphere.  It also finds a way to kill or maim you in a horrible fashion.  It's a must play!

Later in the episode, Dan and Val discuss the EA and Epic's defense of loot boxes and microtransactions, and they both played Cadence of Hyrule and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite!

While this year's E3 wasn't particular mind blowing, there were still some amazing moments to be had.  Keanu Reeves in Cyberpunk 2077 during Microsoft's press conference, the excitement of Ikumi Nakamura while she was announcing Ghostwire Tokyo, and of course the sequel to Breath of the Wild being announced.  Each show had at least something to be interested in!

Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark does something that no game has done in quite awhile....scratch that hard-to-reach Final Fantasy Tactics itch.  Several have tried and failed, or just never came out.  (Unsung Story)  Fell Seal even improves upon the old formula with some modern quality-of-life improvements and runs really well even on old systems.  Can't wait for the Switch version!

We also cover today's Pokemon Direct, which revealed some more info on the Galar region, some new Pokemon, and the Dynamax system.  Some E3 news was touched on, and Dan gives brief first impressions of Outer Wilds.  

With no Sony or EA press conferences this year at E3, Microsoft really has the opportunity to go big.  Will we see Fable 4 announced, or the new console they've been working on?  Will Nintendo give us something other than Mario Maker 2 and Pokemon Sword and Shield?

During Nibblebits, Death Stranding gets a new trailer and release date, the WHO officially labels "Gaming Disorder" as a recognized illness, and what the heck is Pokemon Go Plus +?

We also give brief first impressions of Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark...which we will cover more in-depth next week.

The cultural juggernaut Game of Thrones wrapped up last Sunday night, so we figured it was a good time to cover the episode as a main segment instead of having it after the episode.  Turns out that was a good plan since the main segment alone ended up being over 90 minutes!  We could have easily gone on longer, but will probably figure out some way to incorporate Game of Thrones in the future.

Those who don't want spoilers can skip ahead to 1:33:00 for the beginning of our Nibblebits segment.

Will joins later on to discuss his illness and all the Horizon: Zero Dawn he's been playing.

Dan and Corey talk about RPG/CCG hybrid SteamWorld Quest, the next game in the SteamWorld universe from Image & Form Games.  It's an interesting blend of genres and gets quite a few things right. 

Later in the episode we cover Nintendo's most recent Nintendo Direct that focused on the upcoming Mario Maker 2.  In "What We Played" Corey gives some brief thoughts on Fell Seal, a Final Fantasy Tactics like strategy game that we're going to cover more in depth during an episode.

After the episode Dan, Val and Corey discuss the most recent episode of Game of Thrones...Season 8, Episode 5: The Bells.

We've mentioned characters before that we'd like to see in Smash Ultimate, but decided to have an official episode to compile and immortalize characters we'd like to see make the DLC cut.  Obviously Cuphead and the character from Hollow Knight make the list since they're on the artwork for the episode, but there are others..some we've talked about before and others that go way off the board.

During "What We Played" Dan gives his first impresssions of Steamworld Quest, and Will played more Hollow Knight.

After the outro Dan, Val and Corey cover this week's Game of Thrones episode, The Last of the Starks!