Transcript

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hello and welcome back to the Gaming Backlog Book club.

Just a reminder, we do go into some story spoilers here and there and if you want to hold off on those or you haven’t fully played or even started yet, maybe go back to our intro episode and then come back here once you’re done.

Well, Alex, we just played through Katana Zero in a very quick couple of days. I’m curious of your initial thoughts.

[00:00:28] Speaker B: It was fun overall. Also, I enjoyed it.

[00:00:31] Speaker A: Yeah. Considering the story, not the type of game you would typically play is what you’ve.

[00:00:36] Speaker B: It’s not the typical. Yeah, it’s not the typical. The game I would usually play. I did enjoy it overall. I will say I definitely got frustrated. It’s one of those games where obviously on your levels you have a lot of enemies that you got to take out and one hit restart, you back roll right at the beginning of the level. It reminded me a lot of Celeste, which I played. And I loved the story of Celeste. I did.

Again, it was another frustrating game of getting through the levels with your jumps and dashes and making sure you time everything right. And I hit spikes. But Katana Zero, like Celeste, is one of those ones where once you get through the level it is so satisfying. You feel so much better about yourself and feel like, okay, I can continue. Let’s keep going.

[00:01:23] Speaker A: You feel like you’ve climbed. I mean, in Celeste, I haven’t finished it, but I know it’s about climbing a mountain. So you finished climbing the mountain here. You finished mostly just killing a bunch of thugs, but yeah, same level of satisfaction.

[00:01:36] Speaker B: Yeah, there definitely was definitely the same amount of satisfaction and the set. Overall, I enjoyed it. And we’ll talk about the weird. I’ll go with weird and unique story that it has for being a sort of shorter game.

So. But yeah, what did you think of it overall?

[00:01:57] Speaker A: I mean, first impressions, right? Combat is fun. The slow mo mechanic obviously is really helpful, especially early on to be able to time things, learn how quickly a bullet comes and then you can kind of adjust and later not have to slow mo to deflect or dodge bullets as often. It’s still somewhat necessary, but, you know, it really helps you to adapt to that. I definitely would say I benefited from having played a game like Dead Cells a fair bit with precision dodge rolling being second nature to me already.

But the timing and the restart from the start of the section factor makes things tough, obviously, since you need to be perfect because of the one hit deaths, at least you get a one hit kill everyone with bosses Here. But it’s.

I.

Something about a katana in a game is always entertaining to me. So the fact that it centers on that is great. And I like the bullet time bullet deflections.

Something just so satisfying just about that even if you don’t end up finishing the level and get killed, it’s still fun to do that every single time it happens.

I think the other thing that caught my attention that I was caught off guard by it was. It was. It’s a very funny game.

There are moments that legitimately had me laughing out loud and others that were super dark and horror tinged too.

Some enemies had hilarious names. What was the guy? The Lenient. Lenny the Lenient or Larry Lenny the Lenient. And as soon as you pass by when you’re. When you’re just short of the 100,000 credits, you need to enter the elevator, you’re just like, okay, go for it. You’re almost there.

[00:03:31] Speaker B: They don’t call me Lenny the Lenient for nothing.

[00:03:34] Speaker A: Yeah. And it’s funny because you enter a level and sometimes and everything’s on a timer, but sometimes you can just sit there and listen to the. The thugs having their conversations and remember someone just saying, I forget what the guy’s name was. Something the strong. And he said he never misses leg day. I don’t think the. I don’t think zero or the dragon can kill him. And then you end up like accidentally killing him even, and he’s just like immediately gone. Which is just super funny, I think also. So you don’t. Right. There’s. There’s some story here. I knew that there was a degree of story because in the trailers there’s the conversation with the psychiatrist and there’s some dialogue boxes so you can see all that and know that it exists. If you go into the shops where you buy this game in the first place, but you don’t know at first what’s going on. Obviously in anything related to any games related to gangs or assassins or whatever, there’s always that kind of revenge factor. Seems to be a major arc. Arc of the story. Look at John Wick, look at many other things. But in this one you don’t at first know what’s going on at all.

[00:04:35] Speaker B: No, it was very. Yeah, it was really kind of confusing at first of what exactly is going on. It’s just like you. And you’re just. Every time after you beat like a little bit of a level or whatever, you’re going and seeing a psychiatrist.

[00:04:49] Speaker A: Right. And I think the interesting thing too, right, is that you have all those different factors piling in. You know, you don’t know why you have these weird creepy dreams about playing catch and then being attacked by shadows, or why you need medication from your psychiatrist through injections on a regular basis.

But the effects, you know, when you get injected, the effect that happens to the screen when it does happen.

Sure. Seemed to indicate it had something to do with your precognition or time slowing mechanic. And I think that was. They made that pretty obvious. But you don’t really find out much more about it, the drug itself, Kronos, until a bit later.

Yeah, right. I think even at the end of the story too. Here’s the thing, you don’t.

There’s no, there’s no cut and dry answer to every last detail. You learn one major detail that I think is pretty important. But a lot of the characters that you’re fighting against or fighting alongside, you still don’t really know anything about them by the time their credits roll, which is kind of funny.

[00:05:53] Speaker B: Yeah, there’s. Yeah, there’s a couple of them. Like there was Snow.

There’s a character called Snow in there that you see just a couple times. And then she has a boss who’s just a shadow she’s working for.

[00:06:05] Speaker A: Yeah, the shadow. And they have some weird.

[00:06:09] Speaker B: Yeah, they just, they show up a couple times, but they never go into full detail. Like, I know there was times, I think we thought you saw this character Snow, a couple times you thought, okay, I will, I’ll probably fight her. Maybe she’s a boss later on or something.

[00:06:23] Speaker A: Right?

[00:06:24] Speaker B: No, that didn’t happen.

Yeah, they, they, they definitely as there was a big, big part of the ending of learning more about yourself and everything, the character that you are.

But a lot of the time there’s little side characters or those side little stories that you thought might get tied up towards the end, but weren’t. So maybe as we thought, they’re supposedly making, as I think we saw a dlc. Maybe they expand on it more. I don’t know if it will have to still do or it’ll be a brand new story, but we’ll see maybe in the future.

[00:07:02] Speaker A: It’s. Yeah, there’s. So it’s. I mean, gather as much as you can from the story that was presented the way it was and otherwise it’s environmental storytelling. There’s a fair bit of story here, but it just wasn’t fully fleshed out or wasn’t fully told at least. But. So when you gather, obviously a lot of your assassination targets end up getting either. It all depends on how you play it. Right. If you just talk to them, in many cases they end up either killing themselves or getting killed. In my playthrough, I was just talking to that tech billionaire. I think it was one of the earlier levels. He ends up jumping off the building if you don’t immediately kill him.

[00:07:38] Speaker B: Yep, I did that. Yeah, same. I was just talking to him and he just jumps off.

[00:07:41] Speaker A: He says something cryptic about not realizing there were any of you left. Which also makes it seem like you’re a clone or a creative person of some sort. Right. That ends up being semi true where you were, had a normal upbringing, but you’re a psychotic supposedly, so they used you as a test subject to work out this Kronos drug.

The scientist in the level before him is blown up by his captor before you can get anything out of him.

At least that’s what happened in mind. I don’t know if there’s other options for it.

[00:08:11] Speaker B: No, that I. I had the same.

[00:08:13] Speaker A: Thing that happened to you too.

[00:08:14] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:08:15] Speaker A: So yeah, I mean there’s a lot of weird leads to, to kind of track down or ponder on as you go through. But really at the end of end of the day, this game is all about the gameplay. I think that’s what really hooked me. And it’s nice that it has a bit of story backed behind it, but it. I just really enjoyed slow mo slice dodge, jump around, sneak around a little bit and get through that.

[00:08:35] Speaker B: But yeah, same. I mean as I said, yes, I got frustrated with some of the levels.

[00:08:40] Speaker A: But you’re going to get no broken controllers though, so you’re.

[00:08:42] Speaker B: No, I did not break no broken controllers, nothing like that. A couple of times where I just gripped the controller harder and like I know I can do this. But yeah, the game, the gameplay is definitely what makes the game.

As we said, it’s a one hit each stage. You have a bunch of enemies that you got to take out and you got to take out every enemy in that stage to be able to move on. There’s a little timer bar at the top and if you get hit once, then you press the reset button, you go right back to the start of stage and you do it all over again. But then once you kind of figure out like a, like a pattern or some way that you can do it, like they give you multiple ways of getting to different enemies. Like you could go up through a floor, you can go down through the floor or just rush them or as we said, like yeah, the dodge. The dodge mechanic Was great to be able to slow down time and then if someone’s shooting at you and slow down time and you swing your katana, you can deflect the bullets right back at them and take them out. Right.

[00:09:40] Speaker A: They give you some fun tools, some projectile tools that you can throw.

[00:09:43] Speaker B: Yeah, they give you.

[00:09:44] Speaker A: They give you multiple heads and vases, and eventually you get a remote detonation mine or sticky grenade. That was a lot of fun to use because it’s. Just walk into each other and blow them all up in a couple levels.

[00:09:58] Speaker B: There was. There was a flamethrower I remember in.

[00:10:01] Speaker A: A couple of hours. That was entertaining too. Of course, everyone stands around red barrels just like in every other game.

Just. Just complete idiots. But I think both of us got the biggest laugh out of the fact that you pick up a gun and we were actually sitting next to each other when I was playing this section. So I picked up the gun and said, what a gun?

No way. I thought this game was all about a katana. And I hit the button expecting to shoot, and he just throws the gun at the guy. So that was awesome.

[00:10:30] Speaker B: Yeah, that was great. I had the same exact thought. Yeah. When I played through it because I. Yeah, I beat it just before you. And then. Yeah, we saw each other and then you finished it while I was sitting with you. But yeah, I had the same thought too. Picked up the gun. I’m like, oh, am I gonna get to shoot this? Like, is it like five rounds or something? And I can just shoot this quickly and then. Yep. You just. I busted through a door, I pressed a. And I just threw it right at a guy’s head and killed him.

[00:10:55] Speaker A: I was like, oh, okay. I also especially enjoyed it. It’s obviously super satisfying to deflect the bullets. So then once you get enough practice on a particular section of a run and you know what the. Their enemy patterns are or what they’re going to. How they’re going to react. You can do it without bullet time. And then also I really enjoyed just like dodging through a gunshot and have the enemy take out their friend because they shot in the wrong moment. That friendly fire detail was fun, I think.

One thing. So I know I hinted at this with you, and I know you had a different experience in the mer. Well, in the Murdaur Hotel, which of course they have the neon letters of O and W flickering in and out. So it’s the murder hotel. Another great touch. You get hit on by the receptionist. And I really got a kick out of the fact that based on your selections. In the conversation with her, you can actually have a legitimate impact on the story or the gameplay. So I chose the cosplay option or that route of conversation when she was questioning my bathrobe outfit and katana and went into. They gave you a couple options. I think one of them was actually pink achoo and the other one was some very super specific name of something with. It was like a seven word phrase or something.

So I, I chose that. And then she was like, well, that sounds weird. So I just, you know, you, you play it all nonchalant. Then you go and finish it off. Kill whoever was in that place. Your main target.

When you go back, you go back all the way to the receptionist. So when I came out of the elevator at the end of that level and the security guy said, hey, you’re covered in blood and you look suspicious, I just said as my response that I was wearing cosplay.

And the receptionist concierge corroborated the story and said I was the character’s name. Because she remembered the character’s name. And so I was able to just walk off for free. How great is that?

[00:12:47] Speaker B: That’s cool.

Yeah, mine was totally different on that. I forgot what the other options were. I think, I think I just did the frustrated route with her of just being like, let me pass, let me through.

And I was like, probably options of like, whatever. It was like, I’m here to do this. Just let me through. It’s like, oh, you can’t go through. It’s like, just let me through. And then I forgot, I forgot how I got through, but I got, I got through. And then I think I come back and when I came back out, she said something to the police or somebody and I think she gets killed.

[00:13:23] Speaker A: Well, that’s no fun.

[00:13:25] Speaker B: Yeah, so that was, that was my mistake. I didn’t even.

And I think I came back out and she was like, it’s that guy, that guy. And then I think I had to fight somebody. Old shot. And then I think she gets just hit and crossfire accidentally and gets killed.

[00:13:41] Speaker A: Makes sense.

Makes sense. You’re gonna get ratted out if you’re being rude.

[00:13:45] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:13:47] Speaker A: I think what’s curious is right, that that seems to have just a minor effect on how the. That level itself goes. We’ll get to it at the end. But it actually has a larger impact on that one piece. Has a larger impact on the ending. Not the ending itself, but the final moments basically of gameplay. But I think just continuing on through the main part I really liked the rewind feature. I mean, obviously it’s a VHS tape, so you’re basically everything you’re playing is just you imagining going through it.

It’s your precognition ability that this Kronos drug is giving you, I guess. But so when you get killed, you rewind back and you go back to the start. It’s just a fun way to go back to the checkpoint because it’s all in really fast motion. But it kind of feels like a bit of a reverse Dark Souls or Souls like experience. So you don’t have to run back to the boss, but you. You just see it go in reverse.

I also love the Super Meat Boy style. I haven’t played Celeste, but I played Super Meat Boy, which is very similar. So once you finally finish a level in Super Meat Boy, it does a replay of your winning run, but along with kind of like right here in Katana Zero, you get to see your winning run in normal speed, no slo mo, which is like a nice highlight reel once to give you a little break before you continue on in Super Meat Boy, you end up seeing all of your fails and your one successful run all at the same time.

So the screen is just delightfully covered in splatter because every time you hit a buzzsaw or fall into a hole or whatever, you just see all this meat flying all over the place.

And right. This just shows the winning run. But it’s still quite entertaining in any way.

[00:15:22] Speaker B: It is an entertaining thing to just, yeah. Be able to sort of watch back of how.

How you got through the level. There were times where I watched it back and I was like, I don’t even know. Like, I feel like I’ve done that however many times before. I’ve tried to get through this stage and it worked. Somehow just out of chaos, it worked. I will say I did wish like this game at the end. I didn’t see it in the options, but it would have been cool if there was a death counter. I’m sure mine was.

[00:15:45] Speaker A: Yeah, that would have been fun.

[00:15:46] Speaker B: Quite high.

[00:15:47] Speaker A: Pretty high.

[00:15:48] Speaker B: But it would have been just funny to see. Like, I can’t remember if I think Celeste does have a death counter. I think Celeste does tell you. And if I remember rightly, for Celeste, mine was like maybe over 1200 times.

1200 deaths.

Yeah, it was a lot.

Same with Cuphead. I know Cuphead is another sort of similar game like that where it’s like, can be a 1 hitter.

I think me and you played through that and we had however Many probably close to 2,000 deaths on that one. That was.

[00:16:19] Speaker A: I was going to say, doesn’t this want to make you go back and finish the Cuphead dlc?

[00:16:23] Speaker B: I know we need to do the DLC on that one. Yeah, that’s a.

[00:16:26] Speaker A: For context. Alex and I played through the original Cuphead, the main story in Co Op and as frustrating as it can be, we both had our strengths and weaknesses and revived each other as long as we could on each boss. But then once one of us died, the other just carried through until we finished them off. We did start the dlc, the delicious last course, somewhat soon after it came out, I want to say, but didn’t have a chance to continue. Maybe one day.

[00:16:52] Speaker B: Yeah, maybe one day we’ll continue that. But yeah, I do wish there was sort of maybe like a little death counter just here just to see. Just curious on.

[00:16:59] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:17:00] Speaker B: How many deaths I got throughout the game to get through each stage.

[00:17:04] Speaker A: Um, also. So we just played a couple weeks ago. We played through Turtles in time and ended up at kind of bonus level doing a couple of other turn Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles beat em up games. But the motorcycle level here seemed like a.

Almost like a flashback to a couple weeks ago. It’s just such a quick, unexpected callback to Turtles in time that this experience gave us. Considering it’s not a beat em up at all. It’s a very different type of game. There’s also just something. It seems that there’s something so cyberpunk about motorcycles.

I’m sure there’s a reason for it that somebody can explain. But between this Cyberpunk 2077 that I know has motorcycles. Ghost Runner is another game that pretty much seems like it’s just this in 3D also has motorcycles. There’s the Akira movie. There’s a motorcycle sequence in Final Fantasy 7, the original. I’m not sure about the remake yet. There’s. I don’t know. I don’t know what it is. Motorcycles and cyberpunk, they just go together.

Pv.

[00:18:01] Speaker B: Yeah, they do. Yeah. Basically.

That was a fun level though.

[00:18:05] Speaker A: The motorcycle was really entertaining. I really enjoyed it.

[00:18:08] Speaker B: That was really irritating to.

[00:18:09] Speaker A: I mean, kind of wish they throw in another one or something similar to it. But hey, you know, maybe just go replay. It’s nice that you get access to repeat just chapters in this instead of having to replay the whole game.

[00:18:19] Speaker B: Yeah, that was a nice touch.

[00:18:22] Speaker A: I think the other main point that I had is right, the boss fights. I really enjoyed them. And by the end of the game, I kind of wish they had more boss fights. I mean, they can be very frustrating because they’re still one hit death. But they don’t last too long once you got it down. I think once I. My couple winning runs against the bosses ended up being like two minutes long, maybe. In reality, Mr. Kissy Face was a lot of fun. I pretty much used slow motion to better learn his attack patterns and how far he could reach because he had that giant pull axe. But then I ended up doing it all in fast motion. And same with the final boss, right. That one was. She had a sniper rifle, a laser sniper rifle I don’t know about.

[00:19:00] Speaker B: Yeah, that charges that she has to charge up, but you gotta get to her before it fully charges. And so I got destroyed by that.

[00:19:06] Speaker A: Sniper a million times. And it’s a bunch of minions too, which.

And then they mix up the minions at some point and you end up fighting the nunchuck guy when you’re getting shot in the back.

But it’s all just part of the fun of figuring it out. I. I think. So there is, right? There’s a true boss ending that I don’t think either of us knew about. It’s a bit obscure.

We didn’t go back and replay the portions again because there’s a very specific set of things you need to do to unlock it. One of them being piss off and have the receptionist at the hotel die. Another one’s just like really talking back on the phone calls and basically just trying to hang up or being a hole to the psychiatrist on the phone. And there’s a couple other pieces I don’t remember, but we did watch a YouTube video of it. And it sure gets trippy. There’s.

It’s weird.

[00:19:55] Speaker B: Yeah, it got really weird. Just quickly though, before we actually talk about that fight, I did mention to you. Because then later on in the game, just speaking of that receptionist in the hotel, as I said, mine died, yours lived. Later on in the game, you go to. I think it’s the bunker. Like, it’s like the last stage of the game, the bunker. And to get into the bunker, you have to go through another receptionist to.

[00:20:16] Speaker A: Get into the same person.

[00:20:18] Speaker B: For you, it was the same lady. For me it was a different person. It was some older dude. And for me it was just like. He was like, what are you doing here? And I was like, oh, there’s like an option of like, I’m attending a conference, but I forgot my badge.

Can I just go through? And he’s like, no, I can’t let anybody through. He’s like. He’s like, you need a badge and whatever else. I was like, oh no. They said they would give it to me inside and all that I just need to go through. And it’s like, no, it’s like, please, like they’re waiting for me inside. And he’s like. And that by the end he’s just like, you know what? I don’t get paid enough for this. Go on through.

[00:20:53] Speaker A: Nice. Yeah. This person basically just said tried to hit on you again and tried to set up a date essentially was how it played out for me.

Yeah. There’s a lot of fun callbacks and funny details there, especially when you’re able to compare your version of the playthrough with someone else. So this is, yeah, useful. But yeah, I think the. The right. So jumping back into that final. That final true ending boss is the psychiatrist just mutates into this monstrosity. It’s super grotesque looking and has a bunch of weird appendages and injection like needle appendages. To me, it looks like envy from Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood. If you’ve seen that or I think one of the weird ending characters of. Of Akira.

[00:21:34] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I mentioned that to you. Yeah. When. When we were together, when we were watching that video, I was like, that looks exactly like Tetsu at the end of Akira when he’s just like that giant blob and weird blob amoeb like amoeba type thing at the end of Akira.

[00:21:54] Speaker A: And. Right. I guess, you know, the story here is super weird. There was seven years ago there was a war. It kind of. They made it look like the Vietnam War in some ways. And there’s. I think. I don’t know for sure, but the artwork for the DLC and that trailer for the DLC looks interesting and maybe related to that. But it turns out, right, you were the one in your dreams that was killing the scientists in the floating cabin room thing because you were a brainwashed soldier along with the dragon and you are 0 one of the first Gamma soldiers.

But you know, when you’re brainwashed, you don’t have any control of what you’re doing. It almost like a Winter Soldier type story. But it seems like everyone that was part of this program is trying to fight back and eliminate everyone who made them the way they are.

Almost standard storytelling for that kind of thing. But I think what’s really curious, that I’m really curious about is all the stuff behind the scenes. Right. Who is the Russian V. Mobster guy? Who is Snow who is the shadow guy that Snow is working with trying to overthrow the government. I also don’t know if we ever find out who the.

Who the final boss, like the normal final boss character even is. They just show up. They were another. They were another soldier. Right. It seemed like that wasn’t the same.

[00:23:07] Speaker B: I was trying to.

I remember that. I don’t remember them giving like as we know, we had kissy face. There was another one earlier on who had.

Was sort of Metal Gear ish. I thought to me was like a dude with a sniper in the lab.

But then when you get to him, he’s just in a cryo tank and it’s kind of like him in the cryo tank controlling a program of himself or something. As a sniper.

[00:23:32] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:23:34] Speaker B: Which was weird. I forgot his name now.

[00:23:36] Speaker A: He.

[00:23:36] Speaker B: He had like. It was like three names. But yeah, the final one I don’t believe had a name at all that we fought.

[00:23:45] Speaker A: It’s. These are all things that I think are really good.

Some people have the time to create lore videos and deep dives and it’s worth watching or reading about, whether that’s on Reddit or online somewhere or on YouTube because I don’t think I have the answers here. I mean it’s.

There’s a lot of time loop stuff going on. There’s obviously the Kronos drug that allows you to manipulate time.

I’m wondering if the dlc, if the DLC has been long awaited, I wonder if it will explain anything further.

[00:24:16] Speaker B: Maybe.

I hope so. I think. Yeah. We watched a trailer for the DLC that came out four months ago and it said DLC still coming. Coming soon.

Still free. It’s like, okay, well, four months. But I. I mean, I know it takes time, but I don’t know. I don’t know. Hopefully they.

[00:24:33] Speaker A: I believe it was announced multiple years ago, which is. Honestly, I’ve had this game in my Switch library for a long time. I wanted to play it. I almost picked it up a couple years ago and realized the DLC was coming out and ended up putting it back into the backlog. Because I was thinking, well, maybe it’s sometime soon it’ll come out. Well, it still hasn’t. So I guess there is my. My question for you is, will you be playing the free DLC when it comes out?

[00:24:57] Speaker B: Yes, I’ll play the. Yes, I will definitely play the free DLC when it comes out.

[00:25:02] Speaker A: I know it was a bit frustrating, but I’m glad that you’ve enjoyed it enough to. To try that once it Drops.

[00:25:07] Speaker B: No, I would definitely. It’s just like if they did this like Celeste 2 or DLC for Celeste, I don’t think they have those developers. I would, I would play that as well to continue that.

[00:25:17] Speaker A: I, I gotta get to Celeste so. Well, I’m glad you enjoyed it. What would you give this as a rating or review Before I give it a rating?

[00:25:26] Speaker B: One thing we didn’t talk about which is phenomenal in this game is the soundtrack.

[00:25:30] Speaker A: Yes, absolutely. I think. Parting thoughts. Aside from just really fun gameplay and satisfaction coming out of frustration, the soundtrack is phenomenal.

[00:25:40] Speaker B: Yeah, the soundtrack is so most likely.

[00:25:42] Speaker A: Gonna grab the vinyl once it is restocked. It’s just too good.

[00:25:47] Speaker B: Yeah, it was great. Like just every level you get a different.

[00:25:51] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:25:52] Speaker B: Different song, different tune.

It works so well with each level too.

[00:25:57] Speaker A: Yeah, the mood bounces all over the place and they just did a great, great job with it.

[00:26:03] Speaker B: They did. So. Yeah. Back to that. So. Yes. What I’d give it. So I would probably give it.

Yeah, it was frustrating. It’s a weird story. I did enjoy the. I, I did enjoy it. Again, it’s that level of. Yes, it’s, it’s frustrating because it’s a one hit death and you got in some stages, 20 plus enemies that you got to kill before you can even move on. And you got a timer above you that’s counting down. You gotta. So you don’t have unlimited time.

But again, once you complete it and you get past part of a stage or overall, the whole stage, like overall because there’s multiple sections in each one or a boss fight, you just feel so satisfied after like I did it. Who.

And then it just makes you also feel like, okay, I want to continue. Like I’m just going to keep going. I want to move on.

So with that I would, I would say the story was a little, little weird. I do wish it kind of.

They gave a little more detail.

I feel like just. It kind of was just like, oh, it’s all about Kronos. Kronos. And then at the end you’re the guy in the dream and then just ends. That’s like, oh, okay.

I would probably say, I’ll say a 7 1/2 out of 10. Yeah. 7.5 out of 10.

[00:27:19] Speaker A: Nice. Nice. I’m. I’m. At the end of the day, I’m just glad you enjoyed something that you wouldn’t typically go for. So I, I probably give it an 8. I really enjoyed a lot of the gameplay mechanics and, and I’m intrigued enough about the story to to absolutely grab the DLC and relaunch once, maybe do a couple practice runs of the early levels. But it was just good, good fun, good time.

Yeah, I am satisfied.

[00:27:48] Speaker B: No, I am too. And I am glad I played it. As I said, it’s something out of my comfort zone. I played something similar with Celeste. Not fully though, because again, Celeste, it’s not weapons. You’re not killing people. You just. You’re jumping around trying to dodge dash, not get hit by spikes. So the combat in this definitely made it more fun and a different type of element.

Yeah, of element. But I did enjoy it. So yeah, I am glad I played it.

[00:28:12] Speaker A: Wonderful.

Well, tune in next week to find out which game Season 5 of the gaming Backlog Book Club will be about. Or if you want, just rewind like Subject 0 and play this again. See you next time.

[00:28:26] Speaker B: Thank you all for listening.

If you want to follow along and discuss our playthrough of naive games on the Gaming Backlog Book Club Podcast, please give us a follow on your podcast platform of choice. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Pandora, Amazon Music or Pocketcasts, as well as our Discord and Instagram under the same name. Thanks.