Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon

Alex and Luke talk Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon.

Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon is a 2018 platform game developed and published by Inti Creates. It is a companion title to developer ArtPlay's 2019 game Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night and was conceived to fulfill the promise for a retro-style accompaniment to Ritual of the Night after its Kickstarter campaign exceeded crowdfunding goals. Curse of the Moon follows Zangetsu, a cursed swordsman hunting down demons for revenge, as well as three other playable characters named Miriam, Alfred and Gebel. It features an 8-bit aesthetic and gameplay style similar to Castlevania games on the Nintendo Entertainment System, particularly Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse.

Alex and Luke both played Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon on the Nintendo Switch. Alex rolled the credits, Luke did not. Luke is decidedly bad at Metroidvanias.

This episode is unofficially brought to you in part by Daddy X.

Transcript

Alex 0:22

What up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of Lo5 Gaming. Welcome back. If this is your first time listening, fucking sweet. Glad to have you. My name is Alex, and there's my co-host and brother Luke.

Luke 0:33

Hello. Shouts out to the old millennials. Alex, Alex got a game selection for you. Old Millennials, Young Gen Z or Gen X. What's up? Old Millennials Young Gen X. What's up? We got a game for you.

Alex 0:46

Bloodstained curse of the moon, bro. Yes, sir. So this game, I've been wanting to play it for a while. I picked it up a long time ago, and I've got all three games in the series, and I've been meaning to tackle them, but I want to do this one first because it dropped first. And I will just come out and say it right now as I am fully aware of how niche this game is.

Luke 1:06

Well, it's like it's a you know, I make the the old millennial young Young Gen X joke because it's a callback to uh a Wobagon era of gaming or a far, far away era of gaming. So it's it's very delicately made for a very specific group of people.

Alex 1:20

Right. So if you're someone that's like, oh man, I wish they just bring out a new Castlevania game for me. Well, Bloodstain is your game.

Luke 1:28

A new old Castlevania game for me. Yeah, I don't want that new fangled 3D nonsense. I want all the old sprites.

Alex 1:36

So this is like a really interesting game. So Bloodstain, you might have heard of Ritual of the Night. So that one, I'm honestly, I'm a little disappointed I didn't just have us play that. Not really because I enjoyed this, but uh yeah, Ritual of the Night is like way more. So as far as you know, you've got your Metroidvanias, right? So it's like kind of a mesh of the Castlevania Metroid uh genres, correct? Sure. So this so the game we played, Curse of the Moon, is very much in line with the Castlevania part of the Metroidvania's, whereas Bloodstained Ritual of the Night is very much in line with your Metroids. Uh so I start dabbling in that a little bit, you know, as a big Metroid stand myself. I was like, maybe I should have had folks play this one, but you know, I'm happy to uh be able to have knocked this one off the list.

Luke 2:23

Yeah, I mean it's like for me, um, who's not I'm I'm into like the newer interpretations on the genre, so like it's kind of fun to be taken back to the roots, even though it's a new game, it's it's like 100% styled in the super old school Castlevania. Ace's dad had like an old laptop that we played on, and it had the original Castlevania. So like I have some super foggy memory of playing like black and white Castlevania, so it was like kind of funny to be uh we liked it even though we gotta get Ace in a pod one of these days, dude.

Alex 2:53

He's like we call it a lot of things.

Luke 2:55

Tyler as well. Tyler and Ace can have their moment in the sun. Yeah, um, so yeah, we played it a bunch, even though we sucked at it, and I kind of felt the same. Like I'm better at games now, but I'm like, man, this is it's not too hard. The bosses are pretty tough. We can get into all that later. But the aesthetics, man, it's all about the aesthetics. It was really cool.

Alex 3:13

At base value, this game is pretty darn difficult, but then when you start to learn it, dude, it it be it becomes like a lot easier. It opens up and it's all about pattern learning, and that is um a big part of Metroidvania is just learning enemy and boss patterns and level patterns for in this case. Yeah. If you're not if you don't have the patience, or if that's not something for you, you're gonna fucking hate this game. Did you beat it, dude? Did you end up beating the final boss?

Luke 3:38

Yeah, dude, totally. I nailed it, crushed it so hard. Did you really? No, I quit. Ha ha. I told you, I don't even think I got to the final boss. I got to that one on top of the ship where the wind was blowing, and I was like, I have I have no patience for this. I loved the game at the price I got it at, and like picking it up and like derping around a level and hearing the music and the sound effects, but like was not down to just straight up grind out some of the bosses. Dude, all you gotta do is learn their tells and then they become really easy. Yeah, so and it's like you know, I can see myself picking it up because like the the dragon boss was like really gnarly for me at first, but like I enjoyed beating that.

Alex 4:18

Um the boss animations were like a huge highlight of this game for me. They just like the whole like all the levels and stuff there are fine, they're pretty cool, but act the actual like bosses, it's it's fun. I mean it's in that eight butt style, so it's not crazy, but it's you know, that's they they definitely had a lot of things.

Luke 4:34

Like the bosses did look crazy, like they had like let's say they had a budget. 40% of this budget went to the music, 50% went to the bosses, and the rest is for the other parts of the game. Like the bosses and the music, like absolutely slap in this game, and then the rest of it's like it's pretty cool.

Alex 4:51

The it's it took me a while to get used to it. So you start with your first character, your main character. Uh what's his name? Zingatsu or something like that. Does it sound right?

Luke 5:00

Uh, not guy from Castlevania, you mean? Yeah, that's another thing. So the uh legally distinct. Uh, what's his name from Castlevania? Like legally, legally distinct.

Alex 5:09

Yeah, I think it's I guess it's worth mentioning then. But this came in 2018, right? So it's relatively new, but like you said, it's kind of made in the style of uh Castlevania of the old, especially the first three Castlevania games. So Castlevania games evolved over time as well, but like this is a really a throwback to the original three Castlevania games, which like so I love Metroidvania's. I always say that, and like I've dabbled in some of the Castlevanias, but but to be honest, like I play more Metroid stuff than than Castlevania, and and like those games aren't super like how many of you are masochists sure, or if you like really love the the genre, like you'll go back and play those, but like they're not super approachable. Like the first couple of Castlevanias are fucking hard, dude.

Luke 5:49

And like I feel like you'd go back if you liked like the vibes, like if you like vampire kind of dark gothic shit. I feel like whenever I saw the bloodstained, like the more higher end one you were talking about earlier. I was always like, That's for a specific group of people who love those vibes, which is the anime slaps.

Alex 6:05

So I was trying to dig it out, dude. But there's like a somewhere on Metacritic, I was reading this review, and it straight up says, like, this game hits a very specific niche, and it's gonna be great for folks, but it it scores well on Metacritic, like because people that like like this game, like really fucking like this game. It's just not for everybody, like this genre is a tough genre, it can be it can be rewarding, but it's also super frustrating.

Luke 6:28

Well, with like indie games, there's been like a boon of like the super polished versions of your childhood favorites, and this fits into that. So if someone loved, as you said, if you've been looking for Castlevania, but not that 3D newfangled shit. If you've been looking for that for 20 years, this is it. So like I like them. Uh a game I've played a ton of, and I tried to get you to play over the time is uh is Shovel Knight.

Alex 6:49

I'm just waiting for you to make it one of our games of the month.

Luke 6:52

Might have to. Uh I got like deep Shovel Knight vibes, which is like it's a prettier, glossier, more in-depth version of this game. Okay. Um, I'd say this game was like more bite-sized, which was cool, actually. I very much appreciated just tackling level and playing it for 10-15 minutes and being done. Yeah, it takes about four hours, maybe even less, three hours to beat the game all the way through.

Alex 7:13

Yeah, so who's the homie on the Discord? He had an excellent quote on uh Dave, probably. Dave from uh Tales from the Backlog. Indeed. Because he played with it, uh played a little bit of this when we when we announced the game. Yeah, I think he rage quit.

Luke 7:25

He did. Shouts out to Rage Quitting. Uh I got a little further before I rage quit, but I did eventually. Uh no, he said that Shovel Knights the way you think you remember these games being. And then he goes, Bloodstain is actually how it is. Yeah, right. He's like, Fuck that shit. Yeah, it's like when the nostalgia sheen wears off, it's like the true reality of what it was actually like is bloodstained. And I thought that was pretty funny, even though I'm I'm a younger millennial, not whatever. So like trying to age us. Man, six years makes a difference. You you ran into games like this, whereas like I when I played that Castlevania I was talking about earlier, like it was super old even then. So, like we knew what we were getting into, but like, yeah, I don't know. When you're talking nostalgia, it's important to benchmark when when you had your youths, because you're gonna have more like you're gonna have more tolerance and patience for a game like this because it's gonna bring you back to playing on the couch with the plastic covers, which is I'm assuming how you played these games, old people.

Alex 8:24

I'm just gonna continue to really derail us and say that I haven't played a bunch of the Castlevania games. I've definitely dabbled in a bunch of them, but you own them all. What are you talking about? Also, so I mean like I've played like the first couple levels in most of them. I've gotten deeper into the Game Boy Advanced ones than any other ones. Those ones are really well done. But what I really love about Castlevania is that fucking Netflix show, dude. That's what really pulled me into that whole whole fucking I don't know, story.

Luke 8:46

We we can't call it an anime because made in a western studio, but um okay. Uh fair enough. No, dude, the detail that goes into that show. So when you have a tower, when you build a tower and a spiral staircase going up the tower, you have the handrail on a certain side. So if someone was running up the tower, their right hand is blocked by the wall, because then it's harder for them to fight against you. Whereas you, the defender, can swing openly because that's the rail side on the right hand side. Are we following? In the anime, the anime is so detailed that when the secret library that's built underground, yeah, that's flipped. So better better defend from up down going up. So, like the the nitty-gritty that goes into that anime, plus like people out here, they're like, I'm just here to watch like um bisexual vampires. Like, we're not me too. Actually, that shit's cool too. No, that's my favorite anime. Uh, it's right up there at Cowboy Bebop one or two. I don't, I don't even know. Yeah, I can't remember any of the names of the casual, I'm such a casual, but like those are my two favorite animes ever, and it's not even close.

Alex 9:52

Yeah, I was tearing through the uh I don't remember what season it is for sure. It might be the end of season one, maybe it's I don't know, whatever. But there's uh I can't remember any of the people's names either, but there's the you know the great Dracula's material, yeah. Right. So Dracula's some though, right? So the uh the half vampire or whatever. Yeah, he's got the he's got the two trainees, and they end up they end up having a threesome. Definitely remember that, yeah. Yeah, but like so so my wife comes in, I've been watching all this shit, and there's like you know, it's it's just hilarious that she walks in, like, wow, there's like a threesome's going down. She's like, Whoa. And I was like, there's some shit going on too.

Luke 10:26

She's like, You make fun of me for my romance watching reality.

Alex 10:31

Right on, but we didn't. This isn't even a Castlevania game. So, like, I mean, so blood stained Curse of the Moon, dude, spin-off of Castlevania basically, though.

Luke 10:38

So, like what legally distinct Castlevania. That's almost the name it's just that's what the game should be named is bloodstained, legally distinct Castlevania.

Alex 10:46

So the so this particular game though, Curse of the Moon, was actually so Ritual of the Night was announced, and they did a Kickstarter campaign for it. And Curse of the Blood Moon or Curse of the Bloodstained Curse of the Moon is a stretch goal for their Kickstarter, and that's why it's like shorter and it's supposed to be like a prequel companion story to Ritual of the Night.

Luke 11:07

Okay, which is kind of cool, and more parallels to Shovel Knight in these these Kickstarter games, my dude.

Alex 11:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, and it does so like this game follows Zengitsu, I believe his name is. Uh, and it's one of those things where the so the second one, Ritual of the Night, they actually say some of these names out loud, but I still I'm still gonna butcher them. But uh this level you get new characters introduced, and he goes, I don't know if I can trust you, but it supports the ends to my means. You know what's really interesting, and I didn't do this, is when you so you unlock three different other characters, right?

Luke 11:36

Which is a cool gimmick, yeah.

Alex 11:37

Right, and uh but you can choose not to take them into your party. Did you know that? No, yeah, so it actually affects the end game. So, like obviously, I you know was like, Yeah, fuck, let's go. But if you choose not to, you can like just rock with Zengetsu the whole time, and that will give you a different ending, or you can choose to pick up, you know, whatever members of the party and you can choose just not to give them, and that will also uh affect the end game, which is kind of cool.

Luke 12:01

Yeah, we should probably stop talking about Castlevania anime and briefly explain that in this game you collect these characters along the way and you get a party in the sense where it's I actually really liked that. Um, I don't want to call it a gimmick, I'll just say like mechanic of it. Like I feel like that was kind of unique. I don't know if I've noticed that in any other games of this style. Like, I know you could play as like different characters within Castlevania, like Richter or whatever, instead of I can't think of main characters.

Alex 12:26

I want to say Castlevania 3 has a very similar uh system.

Luke 12:29

So you're not playing of them as the same time, but you hit one of the bumpers and it switches over, and they have like a different base attack, they have a different special, and like throughout the levels, you can which is very much like a Castlevania thing, like you can un you hit the candles down or whatever, the lanterns, and you can get different special attacks, right? Like one at a time. So all the different characters have different special attacks available to them that can give you different access to different areas of each map. So there's like really cool replayability. Like I liked the whip lady. Um, that sounds more fetishy than I wanted it to, but Miriam, I want to say her name is given the graphics. It's you know, I'm sure someone back in the day was like, Oh my god, you should probably show hot.

Alex 13:09

Dude, uh, yeah. So, like, she's the main character that you start off with in Ritual of the Night, and they've like really gone full anime with that one.

Luke 13:16

So she's got she's like she is uh Ginormous boobs and some 12-inch 12-inch heels that she runs. Yeah, yeah, okay.

Alex 13:24

It's worth mentioning, dude, that's so the producer of this game, uh Koji Iguirashi. All right, okay, and he is the uh producer of the Castlevania series, so like that's why you get so many similarities. It's the same producer for whatever reason. Like, I I don't know, I didn't get too into the weeds on this. I'm pretty sure there's this like a licensing thing or whatever, and I don't know. Like, if you talk to Castlevania stands, they are like, Why can't we get a new game? I think it's all tied up in some politics, and that's one of the reasons why he went out and did this.

Luke 13:52

That makes sense as far as like the Kickstarter stuff. Like, right, I know for better and for worse, there's usually people attached to the old, like the big, big bad example is like the the original people behind like Mega Man did like an Uber successful Kickstarter, and I forget what the name of the legally distinct Mega Man that they came out with was, but it was like a huge flop, like not as promised. It's like yeah, it's like the opposite of a Kickstarter success story. It's like one of the pitfalls or I don't know red herrings or whatever you call like the bad examples. So yeah, uh that would make sense that like one of the original dudes is behind it. So yeah, the different characters, super cool. I love the long whip. Who's your favorite person to play as? I saw in the screenshot of the final boss you're playing as the old man, dude.

Alex 14:32

Yeah, that might have been because okay, so part of this game, and this is again just going totally off the rails, but every single boss has like a self-destruct. So when you beat the boss, they still hit you or like try and hit you with like one last hit. So whenever I'm whenever I'm playing a boss, I always try and like hit the bumpers to the character that has the most health, just because like I'm trying not to die after I fucking take down the boss. Uh so I'm not sure.

Luke 14:59

I really like that. That shit is his best, dude. That's his by far the I mean he's got a big thing. The balance is pretty nice because he's got the super short rod of attack, so like it's a nice balance of like you can get right up next to a person with some defense, but also like you gotta be like eh, and it's super annoying when you're like when you're spelling any amount of reach.

Alex 15:16

Yeah, that spell in particular, too. You can you can cast it and then you can hit the bumper and it and it transfers to the next player. So I don't know if you notice that way too late. Yeah, yeah, it's key to man, it's like really, really helpful. Yeah, I do. I don't know. Like, I think that uh so get so Zagetsu, this is the dude with the sword, you like main starter character. Uh Miriam is the chick with the whip that you're talking about. Then you got Alfred, who is the the wizard, and then Gibel, Jebel, something like that, is like kind of your like half vampire dude. If you get really into the lore, which we don't really need to get super into the lore on bloodstained, but Miriam and Gibel are brother and sister, and had all these weird like experiments done to them, very like Witcher-esque style. Um in the second game, in in Ritual of the Night, there's like these shards that you collect, and uh basically it makes them stronger. And Gibel is actually the main bad guy in that one, which is kind of interesting. Uh, so this, like, I'm not sure where exactly I think this is a prequel, or it's just like set off in a totally different timeline. Not entirely sure. Like, you can get into the weeds on this shit, but I'm not sure any of it really matters. And by not sure, I mean it's it doesn't fucking matter at all, but that's also very Castlevania of it, you know.

Luke 16:29

Yeah, I didn't pay any attention when they're like, we need to do this, and I'm like, demons got it, killing things, got a sword, tight, got us to do a bat, he's clearly a vampire, right?

Alex 16:41

Uh, but to like to go back to your question, my favorite your my favorite it's Miriam, dude. Like that whip is pretty much like the Donatello of this game, right? So you got like extra reach, it's like pretty powerful. The noob stick, yeah, right. And so you need so yeah, I used her a bunch.

Luke 16:56

It's interesting to the vampire guy because he had that up attack, and like a lot of enemies jump at you or do like a little swerve up and down thing, and it's like you didn't have to think as much, you're just like bah, and you just totally with him, which can be a little tricky though, if you have uh an enemy on the ground because he has to be underneath them.

Alex 17:12

So it's like, I don't know, this game, like as I got better at this game, like I got a lot better at switching to the characters to help me like figure out whatever I needed to beat in that level, right? So, like you start to adapt to the levels better by switching your characters around, which is pretty cool. Like, you gotta really like lean into that mechanic to to make this game doable.

Luke 17:32

One thing I wish I could remember in the moment, because I'm I'm a hack. I like I go in like a moron and I don't want to think about stuff sometimes. And like if your character's about to die and you just switch to the party, when you die, it's not like your party member jumps in, you gotta like start back from a checkpoint, which is frustrating. Like if you flip, if you flip back and forth really quick, like you can last way longer. So I wish I would have remembered that anytime that I was playing, but I was just too busy being like don't give a fuck.

Alex 18:02

Yeah, nah, for sure. So that that reminds me, dude. So like there's two version or two difficulty levels you can play this game in. So you've got casual and veteran, and anybody playing veteran, uh, I don't have something to do today. Yeah, continue. Dude, anybody playing veteran is truly a masochist, like it's just like impossible. I don't know how anybody's the first level, and I was like, wow, this is clearly the way to play it. And then I got like two minutes into the next level. I was like, This sucks. Oh man, I mean, I it made a little bit more sense to me after I beat this game and I started playing nightmare mode, which is basically the new game plus version of this or whatever. In veteran mode, you get a certain amount of lives, okay? And then if you lose, if all of your characters die, you lose that life, and you also get knocked back by enemies. So if you're struck by an enemy, you like are basically stunned, which is makes it pretty darn difficult. And it's a very Castlevania thing. So if you do casual, you get infinite lives, and you don't get knocked back when you're struck, which makes the game way more approachable. And also, like, dude, there's no way I could have taken down the final boss without infinite lives. Like, you know, like the only way, and like the thing is, and as I beat this and like continue to play it, like you learn the tells and like the the patterns. I guess if you if you understood the whole game and you had played it through then, yeah, sure, you'd probably take it as a veteran, but like anybody just approaching this game, get ready to put in hours and hours and hours of learning this. So, like, just play casual.

Luke 19:21

Yeah, I get that if we were back in the late 80s, where like that was my cool Castlevania game. Whereas like now you buy it as an experience, and it's like I have so many other games to play that I'm not trying to grind and learn this specific little game. So, like I I you know, I play this for a little, a little quick dance. I'm not here to I'm not here to master and route out these, but I can see like back in the day, like with this style of game, how like you wanted to get extra mileage and like this was the really cool top of the line game you had at the time. So I can I can totally see that. But this game came on 20 games. Yeah, well, for the literal veterans, for the literal veterans of the genre, though, they're they probably would have been furious if it was too easy, you know. So this is for the this is for the diehards. So I like that casuals in there because it should just be labeled like would you like to have fun? Yeah, right. And like, did you really love it? That's what veterans should be like, did you really love it? Try it again with some more challenge.

Alex 20:19

So you didn't get to see this, but when you uh beat the final box not on that.

Luke 20:23

When you're talking about dude, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alex 20:25

You're never gonna get that capital G back.

Luke 20:27

I totally totally saw this. What are you talking about? My little bit honored tradition of not beating any of the Metroidvania's. Dude, you know, yeah, do you know it's pulling back to Super Metroid?

Alex 20:38

You know what you'll appreciate, dude, is that the final boss has two stages, like two phases, like very reminiscent of uh, you know, it's not like crazy in this genre, but it reminded me of when we were playing Ocarina of Time or you know how Ganon has two phases and it kept fucking me up on the second phase right before the podcast.

Luke 20:58

Like you didn't beat that before you hit puberty, but as a grown ass man, right?

Alex 21:02

Right. Upon my return, dude. Well, I have you like hanging over my shoulder and shit, and I was nervous. Oh man. Oh man. But yeah, no, there's two phases, and the and like it's once you figure out like how to approach it, it's not too big of a deal. But oh man, like anytime anytime there's a boss battle with two phases, it's always such a kick in the balls when you like take down the first part, and all of a sudden you're like, Oh, by the way, the hard part hasn't even started yet.

Luke 21:30

Yeah. As we wrap up, there's a pros and the cons. I can hit this pretty quickly. The pros is it's like a total vibe. The music slaps. The music and the sound effects are like most of the fun I had in this game. And then when I had the patience to beat the boss, I thought it was awesome. Like they're really cool, they're really fun. It's rare that I take screenshots in games, but like sure, this game got a handful of screenshots, and I was like, this is super cool. Uh some quick cons is that it's not the deepest experience, and that's like kind of on purpose. You know, we just talked about how you could yeah, yeah, and it's just like it's a it's a fun experience. So um, I'll give my finishing thoughts on that when we get into the would you recommend this? But what do you think? What are your pros and cons? What are your loves and didn't likes, however you want to phrase it?

Alex 22:18

I think it's a I think it's a great nod to the genre, right? Like I think it's you know, I think it's for for folks that love Castlevania, especially the older ones, like it's a super cool spiritual successor, if you will, you know, like it's we mentioned it earlier, but the boss battles, man, are they're dope. You you know, like it's a very, you know, once you learn their tells, they become easier, but they're pretty tough. And then the new game plus mode that I mentioned, nightmare mode. You play everybody again, only you do it with your party of uh three. So you lose. Like, I'm not gonna go super into it because you didn't beat it, and I don't want to give too many spoilers. Not that that matters too much, but you only go back with three in your party. All the bosses have like a little thing extra, right? Uh, which is kind of fun. Yeah, so it's like basically it's like, oh, this will be easy, and it is easier because you've learned all their tells, but everyone has like an extra thing, and you're like, Oh shit, now I gotta learn that. Sure. So that's that's a cool like twist, and it like continues the story and it makes it's like a really cool angle on the whole new game plus thing. But the boss, the bosses, though, dude. Like the bosses are super cool, the animations are fun. Like that whenever you take them down, there's always like a little like uh quote unquote cutscene, you know. So it's like this is like there's a cool animation whenever you win. So I think I thought that was really cool. You know, I don't love how for me this game is is cool, but I can see where like a casual or somebody that's like not super into this genre, it's not super approachable, you know. And I think it's like made that way on purpose, but um it's made for what it's made for. Yeah, did you have a favorite boss?

Luke 23:40

Uh the money guy was the easiest, but I also thought the graphics around him were the coolest.

Alex 23:45

Yeah, dude, that Valak that double headed dragon was pretty dope too. I think you probably did you play against a vampire lady. I think her name's Bloodless, but she's like starting starts in a weird bath, and then like she's pretty tough. She's got like umbrellas, you gotta jump on the umbrellas. I don't think so. When's that? Dude, so the there's the boss that you can't beat with that blows the wind around. I'm actually on him in nightmare mode. Then there's the next boss's bloodless, and then after her, there's another guy named Bathin or something like that. And then Gremmer is. That's a strong statement, actually. Like, I like this game a lot, but like it's not anywhere near my like top tier games, like it's it's fine, you know, it's it's what I wanted it to be, more or less. Like it's but it's uh but it's not one that I'm like everybody needs to go out and play this fucking game, which I kind of did for the podcast, but but but you know, so everybody that had a bad time, but now you know.

Luke 24:57

Nah, so like the you know, before we get to the side quest and we usually say, would you recommend? And I think the best way to put it is this is an airplane game, this is a weekend game, this is a road trip game, this is a weekend game. Sure, did I say weekend twice? Doesn't matter. This is a like, I am in between games, or I just want like a quick little jaunt. And like when it was on sale, like it was for like five bucks, it's like to totally send it for five bucks, and if you're feeling naughty, ten bucks, whatever, but like it's worth that price, you'll get that much enjoyment from it. And if you have just some time to spend with a game that you don't have to get too invested on, but you can dig the retro vibes and the music, like this is it. So that's kind of that's kind of how I would some summarize my experience. Was like it wasn't, I mean, clearly I thought I was on the last level, but I was totally noobing it up. I would it's a little embarrassing, but whatever.

Alex 25:49

Um you've got some good some good battles ahead of you if you do pick this up.

Luke 25:52

There's some fun, some fun bosses going on. And it's a game where I'm gonna find myself with some time somewhere down the road, and I'm gonna be scrolling through my library, and I'll be like, oh man, it's not it's not gonna take me forever to remember these buttons. Like, I got this, so like I think that's really cool.

Alex 26:05

Doug, the the final level is by far the toughest one. There's this weird fucking shit. I don't even know what it is, like if it's bats or wind or whatever, but it scrolls through, dude. Oh man, I can't wait for you to like see that, just get really pissed off. It's because like that was like Joy-Con drift, or is this difficulty? No, it's like so. That part of the final level was just grueling, and the boss, like it reminded me, dude. It's funny because like the the last boss in particular really reminded me of some of my struggles during you know, quote unquote struggles. But like you remember playing uh Metroid Dread, and like you really have to learn everything that they're like the bosses are doing to be able to beat them.

Luke 26:44

Yeah, it's a dance, yeah.

Alex 26:45

And I died way more times in dread than I did in in this game. But I figured out because I'm playing casual, I also figured out ways to cheese it, dude. So like when you die, when you lose a character, like you were saying earlier, you go back uh with the remaining characters in your party. Uh, but if you are on casual, you have infinite lives. So what I started doing, especially versus the last boss, is if I lost like one of my characters, I would just like run off the cliff with the other three, yeah, and then I can then I could return with all four and like take advantage of all four. And that that was like uh you know, made it a lot easier to because then you can use all four, you can lean on all four of their like attributes to be able to beat the boss 100%. Um, so that type of thing and choosing a little bit to get that win. But but I'm I'm all right with that, dude. I'm I'm a fucking casual gamer, so I'm like I'm ready to do this. If you if you learn if you listen to last month's episode, you will know that we have no honor, like we're not straight up putting it in codes, but like we're we're save scammers, we're save scammers, we're right on, but uh yeah, no, you know. So I don't know. If the question is like, would you recommend this? Like if you are Castlevania curious and you want to play a game that's a little bit more approachable than the original Castlevanias and get that same flavor, totally like send it, dude. But like if that's not if that didn't intrigue you at all, just fuck off and don't play this game.

Luke 28:05

Yeah, if you want some more meat on the bones, get shovel night.

Alex 28:07

The game slaps. So totally, yeah. I've heard I mean, dude, I want to play. I have that game, I'm just looking for an excuse to play it.

Luke 28:14

Yeah, it's it's tight, and it has other characters, but like that are balanced, but not like the interplayability of like interchangeability, perhaps. But being able to do that, that was like one of the strengths of this game for sure. It's just like there's a lot of balance. It was cool, it's cool, right on. They clearly thought long and hard about this small but pretty awesome experience.

Alex 28:33

So, yeah, yeah, I have I have the second one, and I've started playing Ritual and Night, and like Ritual Knight's like uh a non-to that like it's more of the uh like the 3DS area of Castlevania and Metroid, which is kind of cool.

Luke 28:46

Nice, nice, yeah.

Alex 28:47

Man, why don't we take a little break and come back with our unsation sponsor? The Daddy X.

Luke 29:00

Oh, dang, the Xbox Boys, Xbox Boys, oh dang, Daddy X in the house. Pretty much side question is gonna be that every month. This is how am I taking advantage of Game Pass?

Alex 29:14

Yeah, no shit, right? You're Xbox, you're a box boy. Congrats boy, thanks, bud. Yeah, the wifey uh get to be an Xbox, Daddy X is what it's named in the household. You name yours?

Luke 29:27

Yeah, it's daddy Xbox, I think, or Daddy Boxer it's daddy X. I think it might be the yeah, well that's confusing. That's what mine's you stole my Xbox name. That's what we always refer to it as. Yeah, I don't think we're the only ones. No, but yeah, no, it's been fun, man.

Alex 29:44

Um you know, the council wars, they say they're over, but I don't know. Are they?

Luke 29:49

Yeah, hey man, PlayStation just wants to grow by making Xbox smaller.

Alex 29:54

And I'll tell you what though, I was thinking sponsor Microsoft's Daddy X. Right. Sorry, PlayStation. Should have sent us some money. Yeah. Also, Xbox, you could just like give me a month free of Game Pass. It is the best deal in gaming, isn't that a thing?

Luke 30:12

That's a big people say. It is. Yeah. And they're currently getting sued by the Federal Trade Commission, Xbox, the merger with uh Activision.

Alex 30:20

Oh, yeah, that's right.

Luke 30:22

Which is kind of funny. If you're gonna try to, if you're gonna try to monopoly bust, like you could probably go for someone like Apple or something like that. But yeah, sure. Go for my big company.

Alex 30:31

Yeah, Xbox is such a fraction of Microsoft's like overall like comp like corporation. Like, dude, it's wild. They don't even need to be doing video games at all, but they do.

Luke 30:42

Uh yeah, I suppose. I just think it's like uh Phil Spencer literally said, like, he's just salty. That's PlayStation's like playing such a dirty game. Like, PlayStation is like the king of console exclusives and pettiness of all the different of all the different makers. Like, like not even Nintendo. Like, Nintendo plays nice with the others these days. It's just PlayStation. And like PlayStation, Smash players, though. Oof. Following that shit. Oof. Yeah. That's been that's been salty forever. They got weird PR moves. I'd love to hear what some of their decisions are like. But we're you know, we're we're box boys. Um, we we might be Nintendo stands, but we're we're box boys right now. So this is about being box boys, all right. Get yourself an Xbox. Get yourself.

Alex 31:26

I can't when good fucking like I can't actually tell people to go out and buy Xboxes, they're fucking really expensive. Yeah.

Luke 31:32

Plus, it's like just get whatever you want. Uh get yourself get yourself the Xbox shaped mini fridge because that's hilarious. Have you seen those?

Alex 31:41

I have there could they there's like a couple sizes of them. They've got like the one that actually is like the the size of a of a big Xbox, like the the Series X, and they've got like one that's like a desktop one. It's ridiculous.

Luke 31:52

Your your office could use one, just keep gamer fuel in it, and just have a drawer dedicated to Cheetos and Doritos, and then have an Xbox fridge full of mountain dudes.

Alex 32:01

That sounds glorious.

Luke 32:04

Doesn't sound bad.

Alex 32:06

Unsigned sponsored, next gen, current gen. Are they still calling it next gen? So garbage it's been out for like four years.

Luke 32:13

It's like two, but still silly as hell. There's like two exclusive on each console, and it's it's been a mess. Coronavirus. Low five Xbox Boys Box Boys from two PlayStation loyalists who have been transformed because we're tired of waiting for PlayStations.

Alex 32:33

Pretty much. I got the Xbox. I got the Xbox, and now there's like articles that are like PlayStations available. I was like, I'm fucking whatever. Whatever, man.

Luke 32:43

I waited long enough.

Alex 32:44

Daddy X. Daddy X.

Luke 32:48

The mick rib of gaming. Continue.

Alex 32:58

You'd have been side quested, bro. You got some side quests? You got time for side quests?

Luke 33:02

Well, first of all, big announcement is that I have now beat Slay the Spire with the Ironclad. I was getting really bored. I'd beat it with the silent, who's the stabby poison guy first, a few times actually. And then I beat it with the defect, who's the robot bro. Um, or lady. I don't know if the robot needs a gender. Um, but anyway, uh that was a really cool run that I slayed the spire. I beat the heart with, um, which is really hard, by the way. And the game is a rogue-like, it's roguelike, it's has some light, rogue-like features, but like I think you do unlock some cards for future runs, but for the most part, every run is randomized and you run into different stuff. So I've been trying, I've been playing just as the ironclad to try to beat this main thing, and it's been driving me nuts because you get a little bored of his style. It's nice to switch between the the different characters, but I'm trying to beat it with him, so I you know zeroed in on him. This is what I do when I'm like holding up a baby or feeding a baby's. I would just be playing this in my bed at night. So finally beat it, finally had a run put together that I beat the heart and uh felt really good and gave myself like a small but intense fist bump before I went to bed. It was pretty sick.

Alex 34:19

I was like, Oh yes, and like dude, I don't think I've done like the the gamer fist bump or the you know since uh probably Metroid Dread, dude. When I took down one of the I don't remember if it was like the boss before the final boss or the final boss, but I fucking I was so stoked. I was like literally jumped up off the couch and was like, Woo! And Anna was like studying at the time. She's like, What the fuck? Don't worry about me.

Luke 34:42

My best was that uh the Star Wars game blanket on the name, Fallen Order. Oh, yeah, which they released a trailer for the second one, which looks sick.

Alex 34:50

Uh first one Cal with that first gritty beard coming in.

Luke 34:54

Oh yeah. Uh the first one's a good game, although flawed, but overall a good game. Souls like Star Wars experience. Uh, but Trisha with my wife would just look at me and she'd be like, Stop kicking me, please. Because I'd be I'd be sitting on the couch and I'd be like laying my legs and I'd like tense up and like kick her on accident. That's how intense it was getting. Uh, and the other games to highlight Ori and the uh Blind Forest. Great game. Ori's fun. No, I've slowed down on it, you know, babies and stuff, and all the other games I play. But it's like a game that I when I pick it up, I really like playing for like a half hour, hour or so, and then I kind of fall out of uh the mood for it. But then I pick it back up and it's awesome again. That's been sweet. Uh, and then lastly, uh Xbox exclusive from Obsidian Pentiment. Pick it up on Game Pass, dude. It's really cool.

Alex 35:41

I didn't realize that was an Xbox exclusive.

Luke 35:43

Yeah, I mean, maybe it's on PC because it's Microsoft as well, but I think it might just be Xbox exclusive. Good chatter about that one.

Alex 35:49

I did download it.

Luke 35:51

Godless, it's like you're reading a book essentially. It's uh it's a murder mystery kind of thing, and uh I don't think I would have liked this style of game as a kid, but I definitely like it's just like cool, like doing the different dialogue options. Like Obsidian's always been a developer that's been pretty good around that sort of thing, as far as uh Knights of the Old Republic or even one of the Fallout games that they made. So it's cool. You have these different, you know, you're trying to get to the bottom of things, and I'm not super deep into it, but when I catch some time for it, I I think it's pretty dope. And uh it's on my short list of games to have as next month pod, as for good conversationslash an incentive to play more. So there you go. Pentiment.

Alex 36:32

With that Daddy X in the household, I do have Game Pass again. It's funny if you've been if you've been with the pod since the beginning, we were kind of like, oh, Game Pass pretty tight, like because I had it on the computer or whatever, and then I cut Game Pass because I was like, fuck this fucking premium backlog bullshit. I got too many games to play.

Luke 36:47

Yeah, we were new to PCs, so it like it gives you instant backlog, whereas now I buy games on Steam that I'll never play.

Alex 36:53

Yeah, totally. But now, you know, I've got the first month for a buck or whatever it is to have Ultimate Game Pass on the PC and the and the Daddy X. And uh, yeah, so I've been dabbling, dude. I think the ones that Power Wash Simulator. Dude, I did fuck with PowerWatch Simulator right off the bat. I haven't really picked it up again. I found some other games to really fall into, but that was it was like it's like a fun one. Just like I did like enjoy my brief time with it. Sure. Um I also bought NBA 2K 23 playing ball again, bud.

Luke 37:23

That's right.

Alex 37:24

Uh and that's been fun, dude. I've been doing a uh I've been doing um a playoff run seven game series, I think five-minute quarters, uh, with the T pups. And dog, it's don't get me started.

Luke 37:36

Don't get me started on the Timberwolves right now, dude.

Alex 37:38

I know they in real life they kind of suck. But oh my god, I tell you what, man, in 2K, they're fucking awesome to play with, man. I haven't had this much playing like with the because I always play as the Timberwolves, and they haven't been fun to play. Granted, I like it's been I'll I'll go. I think the last what was it, 2019, 2K to 2019 probably is the last one that I picked up, and then Epic gave away like it on the Switch as well. Yeah, yeah, hey man, whatever. That's what that was the only system I had at the time, and I got it in there. Uh and then I got it. I want to say that Epic Games gave it away, like uh maybe 2K20 or something like that. So I played I played that for on the PC, which was nice. But 23 is great, and I tell you what, the roster we have right now with the Tipper Wolves, it's super fun to play with in 2K. Real life, not really working out the way that we hoped, right? But I for the game now, dude. Oh, it's so fun. You just like throw down with ant. You got like, dude, you got the two big boys down there, like doing work, like it's great, it's so much fun, and everybody can hit threes, half the team can hit threes. It's fucking awesome.

Luke 38:41

Ironically, the problem in real life is they haven't.

Alex 38:44

Yeah, that's just it, dude. It's it doesn't reflect what's well, which is I don't know, whatever.

Luke 38:49

Uh, for the listener base, Alex and I have a long honored tradition of Al getting his absolute ass whooped games. I mean, yeah, it's the it's the first game I was able to own him on, and I remember his face being there was a shift. I can't do this anymore. Momentous shift.

Alex 39:06

Oh man. Uh I'll take you down now though.

Luke 39:10

Yeah, no doubt. Um, what probably not still, probably not still, but we'll see.

Alex 39:15

Dude, I started playing um started playing mass. I'm trying to change the subject because I don't want my my pride to get hurt too much. Sure. Uh dog, I've been I started Mass Effect finally, and it's been it hasn't totally grasped me yet. Like uh I've I would say I've gotten out of like the kind of tutorial period of it or whatever. So they you know I've got my shift. Have you played this game? Mass Effect?

Luke 39:38

I played three, which is a divisive entry. I'm still considered good, but uh yeah, I played three, which was a weird place to pick it up, but there was a ton of hype around it. That was back in high school.

Alex 39:49

Okay, um, yeah. So I'm starting with the the remaster, like they got the legendary edition or whatever. So I've been I'm playing that a little bit, and it's cool, but it's also like I can just tell so I finally got command of my ship, and now you can like explore around and kind of choose like what how you're gonna approach this story, which is like cool in concept and everything, and I can understand why people love it, but I'm like I'm like, I don't know if I really want to be exploring like the whole fucking like trying to find like people out in space and shit.

Luke 40:18

I think the problem when you get all three of them at once or have access to all three of them at once is it sounds so cool to see it all through, but like if you just had the first game when it came out, or if you just wanted to play the first game, like that 50 hours you're about to invest sounds dope, but like yeah, 50 hours into a game that you'd like to play the next two sounds daunting and shitty. So dog, I know, and you know me.

Alex 40:40

Like the half the reason we played Curse of the Moon is because I wanted to start the series off at the first game. So, like, here I am playing Mass Specs, and I'm like, yeah, yeah, it's like it's cool, but so I've like I've got into that a little bit. I've actually uh started playing a bit of the new like Halo Infinite or whatever, and that's like low-key pretty fucking tight, dude. Like, I'm not big Halo dude, but that game is fun. It's cool.

Luke 41:02

You had to have land partied back in your college days, right? Uh high school, actually, bro. We did a little bit of college. It was middle school for me, so I was like, Yeah, that sounds late for Al, but yeah. Um some fond memories.

Alex 41:16

Uh, one of our listeners, uh, shout out to Chris Madden. He's uh likely uh he gives us some listens, man, from South Korea. But uh he was one of the homies that we would uh get I would get together with and we do some land parties over at uh Pat Oxley's place uh back in the high school days. But that was fun, man. People would bring their Xboxes like the original Xbox and bring their fucking CRT TVs and we'd get a couple of different rooms going. Uh dude, good times.

Luke 41:40

Uh we had we had no soda in our house for the local listeners. We had no pap in our house, yeah. Like growing up, like it was water, milk, or yogurt juice, but you know, Midwest. How can how can you tell someone you're from the Midwest without saying you're from the Midwest? I grew up drinking YoJ yogurt juice, but anyway, uh, so we would have our land parties at Jake McKeever's house where there was candy and chips and pop and no bed times, dude. Uh his mom was like, bro, why do you why do I wake up to you puking every time you're here, my guy? That's awesome. I was like, I don't know. This is Luke was born to party, dude. It's just like when I was a kid going to the old country buffet, and I rolled my first two times there. You can't give me all this freedom.

Alex 42:28

Can't give me all this freedom, dude. I beat Rode 96. That game is fucking dope. Um, yeah, so cool. Uh that one really great. Like I know it's pretty strong. Yeah, it did.

Luke 42:40

I liked it, but yeah.

Alex 42:42

So that's a narrative-based game that actually incorporates like action pretty darn or action adventure pretty darn well.

Luke 42:48

It's first person, but that's just like throw weird mini games in there.

Alex 42:51

Yeah, I appreciated that too. So that got me that got got me turned onto the genre a little bit more because I've kind of avoided that type of game. Uh, so I've been playing Life is Strange, True Colors, and that's pretty cool, but um, it has its like shortcomings, but it's that's been fun too. So I've been playing that, and then another one that I gotta throw out there, dude, vampire survivors. Can't believe you haven't fucked with this yet.

Luke 43:11

This game is so dope.

Alex 43:14

I don't even I've heard of it, but I don't even think I've looked into it. I scoffed at the game, like I knew it was gonna be tight, and I don't know, it's only it's like five bucks. I think it's something on sale right now.

Luke 43:23

I think you're just a vampire boy. I think that uh I think that you're probably watching True Blood and other sexy vampire shit when I'm not around. I think you're I think you're low-key just a vampire boy.

Alex 43:35

Oh maybe, I don't know. Do you remember back in the day? Do you remember my vampire Halloween outfit? Probably not. I know. Mom got me this like I had this like fucking gnarly, awesome cape, dude. Mom had like this brooch that she put on there and shit, man. Oh man, I was super into vampires for a little bit. All right, but I didn't get into those movies.

Luke 43:50

Loki we got ourselves a vampire boy over here. Alex watches all of the uh what are those?

Alex 43:58

I don't watch any of that shit. Vampires have always been cool.

Luke 44:00

What are those?

Alex 44:01

But they kind of suck, like Blade, dude. The movie Blade, fucking dope. That's a dope ass vampire flick.

Luke 44:06

Als of Mig Twilight, bro, is what I'm saying. Yeah, he read all the books. He's an English major and he'd act all smart, like my Hunri Shumpchan or my uh my Kurt Ronnegan. I'm so edgy, and then like underneath the actual book, he just had Twilight, and he's like, Team Edward, team Edward. Uh last minute shout-outs. Uh happy birthday, Tyler. It is today. As of recording, play play Hades, you bitch. That's all.

Alex 44:33

Oh man, hasn't played Hades and you gave us all that fucking portal shit.

Luke 44:36

I know. And Hades, like, he's enter the dungeon to the max. Like, that's his like he might as well get the marine tattooed onto his fucking butt cheeks. But uh, he'll love Hades, it's like the greatest game ever. So play the old man, he's like a million years old this year, so he should play it. It's tight.

Alex 44:51

I don't want to play another stuff, dude. I'm playing a bunch of stuff, but but yeah, happy birthday, Tyler. Thanks for uh hanging with us for another Lo Five Pod. Uh check us out on LoFivegaming.com, follow us on the socials, hit that Discord, folks. Got some cool people in there talking about video games, and that's also where we'll drop notes on our whole adventures like throughout the month on whatever game we're playing. We announce our game in there. We always have a thread talking about you know what we're doing, dropping screenshots. Uh, it's always fun when people join in on that. Makes the whole book club esque experience of this podcast work.

Luke 45:23

All right, good luck to Kirgo Chains and the boys. Go Vikes. All right, peace. Oh dang, Super Bowl bound. Don't say that shit.

Alex 45:30

You said it last time.

Luke 45:31

Yeah, it was a joke. Don't say that shit. Don't put that on me, Rigabobby.

Alex 45:36

All right, peace, everybody. Don't play bloodstained. Or don't.

Luke 45:40

Or don't. It's your choice. Hey everybody, I yelled at Alex off the off the mic that ain't no one that's listening to this podcast is real mad that the bloodstained plot was spoiled for them. So he's gonna jump back on. He's gonna explain the anime nonsense. What do you got? What what happened? What's the what's the spoiler, my dude? Spilled them beans.

Alex 46:23

Yeah, dude. So when you play through the original mode of of Bloodstained, you're playing as your your four characters, right? And then Sword Guy, Whip Lady, Juan Guy, Dracula Dude, Miriam Zigatsu. Come on, man, didn't you play this game? You don't remember everybody's name? That's not the point here. Uh, but when you're playing Zigatsu, at the end, when you when you are taking on the final boss, you defeat it, and then Zigatsu, like if there's this game's crazy, dude. There's multiple endings depending on what you choose to do. So, like, if you're going and progressing along and you don't pick up Miriam, that will change what the end game is. But you know, why wouldn't you add everybody to your party? So if you got everybody in your party, basically Zigatsu, uh, the main sword guy character will uh the main boss turns into this like dark hole, whatever thing, and he and he goes and blocks it from the rest of the party, right? He saves the rest of the party, but that corrupts him. And what happens then is the game does end, but then it unlocks nightmare mode. And in nightmare mode, you end up playing as the three other characters of your party without Zingatsu, and then instead of the final boss, you're transported to a ninth level, and on the ninth level, you battle the uh and on the ninth level you battle uh the corrupted Zingatsu, and then that's the the true ending of the game. So it's kind of cool, man. It's cool how the uh you know this game that is very like on surface level is not that in-depth or anything, and but uh as you kind of go into it and play more of it, it has this like story that unfolds, and if you do a little interneting, you can get really into it. But it's uh I just thought that was cool, man. And it's like a cool aspect of this game that uh you don't always see.

Luke 48:01

Yeah, that's why I scolded you post-recording. I was like, that's actually kind of a gnarly little thing to um include. So you might as well, because uh I can't imagine anyone being like, I was gonna play this game and then spoiled and got you, short guy. Right. It's been ruined, so whoever's into it already knows. So I think it's all