Bastard Sword

It's Blaspheming time! This week, Drew finally convinces Josh to power through Blasphemous, a super unique and absolutely beautiful 2D action platformer. We both come away very positive on the game overall, although it does have some frustrating design choices that keep it from quite reaching the all-timer status. We also give a quick update on some of the games we've been playing lately, including Metaphor: ReFantazio, Lies of P, Horizon: Zero Dawn Remastered, and Case of the Golden Idol, along with spending a minute discussing the recent TGA nominees (let's gooooo Erdtree). Thanks for listening! Support Bastard Sword by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/bastard-sword

Much like making a podcast without being listened to, there's something innately satisfying about creeping through the shadows without being seen. The Last of Us Part 2 kicked us back into a stealth mode and reminded us of the simpler pleasures in life like going prone in tall grass and occasionally making people stop moving. Stealth games, it turns out, are pretty dope, but there actually just aren't that many of them these days. We talk about why we think that is, what happened to the genre, what makes for a good stealth system, whether or not we're on the cusp of a utopian sneaky-mans-eliminating genre revival, and a couple games we've been digging lately - Splinter Cell: Blacklist, and Intravenous 2 (a killer indie spiritual successor). Thanks for listening! Support Bastard Sword by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/bastard-sword

So we uhh punted on Resident Evil 6 - we'll come back to it, I promise! - but we did hop on a couple huge, critically-acclaimed and fairly awesome big recent releases that we had to talk about. Josh has been diving into Metaphor: Refantazio, the new sprawling JRPG epic from the Persona devs, while Drew has been creeping ever-so-slowly through the thick fog and thicker dread of the Silent Hill 2 remake. We also do a quick check-in on some of the big recent news stories, including the Disco Elysium fracture studios, the Halo Studios rebranding & engine switch, and the sad downfall of plucky, down-on-their-luck indie developer Ubisoft. Thanks for listening! Support Bastard Sword by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/bastard-sword

Spooky season continues with one of the least-beloved entries in one of the most-beloved survival horror series. Despite still being the best-selling game with the words "Resident" and "Evil" in the title, RE5 has a reputation as being not necessarily the nadir of the series, but the moment it began shamelessly trend-chasing and plummeting toward irrelevance. Despite the gleeful dive into full-on action schlock and the story's descent into dumb-even-by-Resident-Evil territory, we both found a lot to like about Resident Evil 5! Support Bastard Sword by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/bastard-sword

I guess that's... the last of him 😎. This week, we tackle one of the more controversial major sequels in recent memory, The Last of Us: Part 2. Almost a half a decade (and a remaster) later, the internet is still very.... uhhh, divided on the story of this game. We spend some time talking about the choices it makes, how well they work for us, the upcoming season 2 of the HBO show, and the damn-near perfect combat design. Thanks for listening! Support Bastard Sword by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/bastard-sword

"You are a violent and irrepressible miracle. The vacuum of cosmos and the stars burning in it are afraid of you. Given enough time you would wipe us all out and replace us with nothing -- just by accident." Disco Elysium is an absolutely breathtaking experience, a medium-defining accomplishment that's equal parts beautiful, ugly, hilarious, devastating, charming, hopeful, and human. It's a game that does so many things, effortlessly bouncing between different tones and subject matter all while spiraling around a deeply relatable and nuanced examination existing at the very brink of ever being able to get his shit together. It's amazing, absolute S-tier by any metric that isn't wrong, and we had to forcibly cut ourselves off so we didn't just rave about it for 5 hours. Support Bastard Sword by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/bastard-sword

And we're back! Thanks for bearing with us while we got out lives together for a couple weeks - we made our grand re-entrance with a look at some of the least-anticipated games of this year or any other. There's been a unique phenomenon lately of these extremely high-profile failures; just this year we've had Suicide Squad, Skull & Bones, and Concord blow through mountains of cash and release to the world's biggest collective "...but why though?" and it's actually kind of fascinating how we've gotten so many unmitigated disasters back-to-back-to-back. WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN? Is gaming dooooooomed? How can we ever recover from this? Those are the questions that we almost certainly don't answer in this episode! Side note, this was recorded in the extremely brief window between Concord's release and its complete implosion, so put a mental asterisk on some of our observations about that particular game. Thanks for listening! Support Bastard Sword by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/bastard-sword

UFO 50 finally released after having been in development for ages, and its one of the most low-key ambitious games I've played. It's extremely cool, as you'll hear me say no less than a dozen times in this mini-episode, and I couldn't wait to share some of my excitement about it. Thanks for listening! -Drew Support Bastard Sword by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/bastard-sword

We appreciate all the support! Just wanted to drop a quick update here to keep you aware of what's going on - you may have noticed that our schedule has fluctuated a little bit, soo we're taking a few weeks to get ahead of schedule. Check back soon, and thanks for bearing with us! Support Bastard Sword by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/bastard-sword

What if we killed some giant hulking beasts, but felt really bad about it? Shadow of the Colossus is an absolute all-timer, one of those lightning-in-a-bottle moments that can never be replaced or replicated. Even as we approach its 20th birthday, it stands as a high watermark for spectacle, atmosphere, and just overall game design. We were feeling a little too negative with our last episode, so we wanted to spend some time heaping praise on an absolute masterpiece. But wait, there's more! We also catch up on some recent gaming news, including the phenomenal Doom 1 + 2 Nightdive re-release, the early reviews for Black Myth: Wukong (uhh we recorded this before the weird NDA controversy, yikes), and a handful of promising indie releases. Thanks for listening! Support Bastard Sword by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/bastard-sword

Liking videogames is a concept that's quickly aging out of relevance. Games, some would argue, are objects of gratification - things to relax with, to wring joy from, forces of pure good put here by smart and dedicated humans hoping to instill a little bit of happiness into the endless slog of human existence. This theory has long since proven antiquated beyond any usefulness, so this week, we posit an alternative: What if games are bad, actually? And what if you should feel bad for liking them? It's true! All the things people (at least those far less handsome and critically aware than us) enjoy are secretly really, really not good, and any reputation otherwise has been achieved entirely by the wool of mass psychosis being pulled over your eyes. Fear not, though, we have come to rescue you from the hellish bliss of ignorance and share the enlightening gospel of the newly-reformed Church of the Bâstârd Sword: The Last of Us and Red Dead Redemption 2 are kinda mid, actually? Support Bastard Sword by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/bastard-sword

There was something disturbingly familiar about the episode before me. The description was all pretty fonts. "You are in a Podcast, Bastard Sword." The truth was a burning green crack through my brain. Listener analytics hanging in the air, glimpsed out of the corner of my eye. Endless repetition of the act of recording, time slowing down as I fumbled for the right words. The paranoid feel of someone editing my every sentence. I was in a podcast. Funny as hell, it was the most horrible thing I could think of. Support Bastard Sword by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/bastard-sword

We're in the anime mech battle zone, hell yeah. We both had some reservations coming into 13 Sentinels, which were promptly proven wrong because this is a total banger of a game. Part JRPG, part visual novel, part tactical mech strategy game, part brain-bending convoluted sci-fi time travel, all bizarrely compelling. It's good stuff! Support Bastard Sword by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/bastard-sword

If we honour our part of the vow, promise me you'll be my consort. We've finally finished our first playthroughs of Shadow of the Erdtree, and we have thoughts. A lot of thoughts, in fact! In this episode, we give a little bit of our general impressions and a lot of our impressions of the storylines and the (surprisingly huge) lore implications of what happens with Miquella, Leda, and, of course, our main man Igon. Thanks for listening and please be sure to let us know what you think! Support Bastard Sword by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/bastard-sword

Sometimes games just don't make the impact they should have, either getting overlooked entirely or obtaining "cult classic" status. Those are what we talked about this week, a small selection of some of our favorite under-the-radar games. They're not underrated, mind you - everyone who has played these generally loves them - but they just don't get the attention we feel like they deserved. Drew talks about Hypnospace Outlaw, an awesome early internet simulator/detective game, and Spec Ops: The Line, a surprisingly heady deconstruction of military shooters. Josh brings Risk of Rain 2, a mechanically-rich roguelike shooter, and XCom 2, a deep and phenomenal tactical RTS. Editor’s Note from Josh: We finally fixed my audio! Also, in my segment about Xcom 2, I mistakenly said The Spokesman was voiced by Peter Cullen (Optimus Prime). It’s actually Jon Bailey of Honest Trailers fame. He also does a great Optimus Prime voice, hence the confusion. Support Bastard Sword by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/bastard-sword

Those stripped of the Grace of Gold shall all meet death, In the embrace of Messmer's flame. It finally happened! The new Elden Ring DLC has us so hyped we had to jump on a quick call to discuss it for a bit. We're both taking out time with the (full-game-sized) DLC but we already have some opinions we wanted to share, and started to scratch at a little bit of the lore and the theming. There will definitely be more coverage of this as we continue to push through and poke at the edges, so stay tuned and DON'T SPOIL ANYTHING OKAY (and also ps thanks for listening we love you) Support Bastard Sword by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/bastard-sword

It's a festival... of games! In the summer! This week, we skim through some of the more exciting games shown off during the barrage of forwards, directs, and not-E3s over the past couple weeks (side note: this was recorded prior to the Nintendo direct so we didn't get to talk about that sweet, sweet Metroid Prime 4 action). Some of the highlights were the expected-but-still-pretty-neat Doom: The Dark Ages, the unexpected-and-very-neat Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and the Star Wars: Outlaws gameplay showcase that certainly was a thing that existed. Thanks for listening! Support Bastard Sword by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/bastard-sword

Ooooooooohhh Elden Ring. In the leadup to Shadow of the Erdtree, we decided to look back at every game in the Soulsborne series (and rank them from "worst" to best. It gets pretty contentious at times - this is like picking a least-favorite child to both of us, but unfortunately the content gods demand content so someone has to be sacrificed. We went with every FromSoft game from Demon Souls up through Elden Ring, with an obligatory Kings Field mention because we are handsome and smart and wish to impress the internet by letting you know that we have heard those words used together before (did it work? Do you think we are handsome and smart and cool? Please?). Thanks for listening! Support Bastard Sword by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/bastard-sword

Katana Zero!? This week, we talk about the rumors about a totally speculative new Doom game that definitely hasn't been revealed since we recorded, we talk about Project Zomboid and the concept of "forever games," and we talk about Katana Zero, one of our favorite games of recent years, indie or otherwise. We also do some deep lore speculation and figure out how it could possibly share a universe with Animal Well, which seems exceedingly likely. Support Bastard Sword by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/bastard-sword

There was a podcast here. It's gone now. This week, we cover Sony's underwhelming 2024 State of Play presentation, Konami's perfectly whelming Silent Hill Transmission and extended gameplay look at the Silent Hill 2 Remake, and the upcoming indie survival horror game Holstin, which has a lot of heart and an equal amount of promise, even though it hasn't quite fulfilled it yet. Support Bastard Sword by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/bastard-sword