Alon’s joined by Teddy and Madeline talking about two games we’re playing in the saaaaameish genre: Slay the Spire and Balatro. Comparison may be the thief of joy but also it’s really fun to do bad things (like being really greedy in card games). Let’s dive in.

The next episode will be the first in our Majora’s Mask Gameclub! Play along!

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Show Notes:

The game is over and the credits are rolling! This is the grand finale episode of the Ocarina of Time Gameclub and for this one we played from the Fire Temple through beating the entire game. There are a lot of spoilers in this episode, and this game is kinda unhinged.

Did we get every heart piece? No. Did we get every skulltula? No. But we had a fun time playing through a great journey and a great game.

Not sure yet what’s next, but it might be Majora’s Mask. Stay tuned.

Timestamps:

00:00 - Intro and how we felt completing the game.

02:16 - What did we remember and game manuals.

05:04 - Fire Temple

11:39 - Volvagia fight and boss fights in general

15:14 - Ice Cavern

19:04 - Water Temple; actually good?

30:25 - Water Temple could have been the first temple

32:20 - Morpha fight

33:48 - Z-targeting and projectile speed

36:43 - Alon got stuck again

38:25 - I’m not supposed to be here yet

40:41 - Coddle me or don’t, time travel paradox, and under the well

44:32 - Iron Boots vs Lens of Truth

47:35 - Shadow Temple

51:20 - Hover boots / worst item in the game

58:06 - Gerudo Valley, Desert Colossus, and Spirit Temple

01:04:32 - Could have been more time travel stuff

01:12:12 - Sheik is Zelda???

01:19:06 - Secrets (unless it’s mandatory) and exploring

01:25:54 - Ganon’s Castle and boss fights

01:39:05 - Outro

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Thumbnail art from Tom Garden: https://www.artstation.com/tomgardenart

Is this game good or stale or dated? No, it turns out this game still rules.

We played all the way through the Forest Temple for this episode and talked about solving the puzzles, the combat, being a kid, the music, time, Navi, technology, and more. Hey, listen!

Next episode we’re recording after beating the whole damn game.

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How many episodes will there be? Time will tell. We're going with the flow.

For this episode Dugan and Alon are a couple of hours into Ocarina of Time and we’re talking about our progress so far, Dark Souls, the difficulty, the vibes, the nostalgia, and more.

Next episode we’re recording after the first three dungeons.

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"What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make and end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from" – T. S. Eliot

Special guest Damon coming in hot off the press for this episode. We basically rediscover books and what is good about reading because that's mostly what Citizen Sleeper is, a good old picture book. There are also some dice rolls and currency management but they don’t mean that much after you get rolling ^_^.

We forgive the lack of difficulty because this game has style, beautiful descriptions of mushrooms, and a critique of capitalism that hits hard.

Next Gameclub we’re doing Hollow Knight.

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Timestamps:

Show Notes:

This game is about Marissa Marcel. You watch raw footage of three of her movies, and some behind the scenes footage associated with those movies. You can rewind and fast forward. But all the clips are hidden from you, and you can only find these clips by clicking an object in the scene that takes you to another clip with a similar item, and you watch all these scenes out of order. Sounds kinda bad? But it totally rules!

We briefly debate whether or not this is a game, and really the answer is immaterial. This “game” is an incredible accomplishment. It was moving, funny, creepy, and dare we say…original? None of us had played anything like it. More games like this please.

Next Gameclub we’re doing Citizen Sleeper followed by Hollow Knight

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Timestamps:

Show Notes:

StarCraft (gotta love that one word and double capitalized title). This is a cool game. Even the metallic lettering of the title is cool. The music is good. The voice lines are funny. If not entirely dignified, StarCraft feels mature where other games in the 90s were often irreverent or puerile.

The human campaign follows the rise of a terrorist faction in the midst of a galactic race (species) war. The Zerg campaign follows the quest to bring their species to biologic perfection, where the Protoss campaign is somewhat more muddled, and has maybe aged the worst. The Protoss are sort of Roman? Having an honor culture that is a bureaucratic nightmare for those just trying to save the galaxy. But their units are maybe the coolest so there’s that.

The campaign is long and it really shows its age. It has almost no tutorials and the beginning of almost every mission is the same: a 15 minute period where you plod along and get your economy up to a point where you can actually build an army. The pathing of the units is also atrocious: marines can fight but pray that they never encounter an elevated path/ramp because that is the ultimate counter.

A lot of our StarCraft opinions are informed by and likely inferior to observations made by game designer David Sirlin. Kind of essential listening is his podcast on both StarCraft and Starcraft 2 as we reference it a lot (links below)

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Timestamps:

Show Notes:

For this gameclub the Wide Flank gang played “Tunic”. An isometric action game that at first glance looks like The Legend of Zelda, but is really so much more. Spoilers aplenty this episode so if you are considering giving this a go, play it before listening and reading below.

What you thought was a cute little Zelda game turns out to be much deeper and darker as you explore the far reaches of its world. You gradually uncover pages of an in-game manual, written in an alien language, and you struggle (in a good way) to use it to decipher the world and the mechanics. Tunic does a great job of being just accessible enough, where nothing is too out of reach, letting you peel back the layers of mystery at a satisfying and challenging pace.

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Timestamps:

Show Notes:

What words describe Bloodborne? Gothic? Victorian? Lovecraftian? Scary? Impossible? Funny? Bloodborne is an enigmatic, genre-defining game. Chat GPT described it best in a haiku:

“Bloodborne’s Depths

Hidetaka’s Twisted World

Challenge Accepted”

Its gameplay loop and mechanics are polarizing inside and outside of the Soulsborne fandom; too fast for lovers of Dark Souls, but too slow for high-octane gamers like Alon. We played it to varying levels of success. Is a game that is most fun after 30+ hours of playing a good game? Why do we love facing and defeating impossibility? How can we be friends when we feel so differently about this game?

Few games have matched the immersion and setting of Bloodborne. The further your character dives into the world of beasthood and paleblood, the more you depart from the waking world outside of your Playstation. Jump in.

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Timestamps: