Fire Emblem, Wolverine, and Control Resonant (with Lucy James)

Triple Click

In this episode of Triple Click, hosts Maddy Myers and Kirk Hamilton are joined by guest Lucy James to discuss recent gaming impressions and

Key takeaways

• Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave features four distinct character storylines, including Kai's more 'shonen' style adventure.
• The dungeon crawling mechanic in Fortune's Weave is criticized as being superfluous and lacking tactical depth compared to the grid-based combat.

Main topics

• Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave
• Marvel's Wolverine

Notable quotes

The fire hose is on, and we are drinking up as enough video games as we can.

Conclusion

A thoughtful exploration of how development history and genre conventi

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:03) The fire hose is on, and we are drinking up as many video games as we can. Delicious. Welcome to TripleClick, where we bring the games to you. For our first glass, we have a nice Fire Emblem Fortunes weave to be followed by Insomniac's Wolverine, and then a little spoonful of Control Resonant. Three games, three of us, but not quite the usual three. I'm Maddie Myers. I'm Speaker 2 (0:32) Kirk Hamilton. And Speaker 3 (0:33) I'm Lucy James. Hey! Speaker 2 (0:35) You're not Jason Schreier. I Speaker 1 (0:37) know. Speaker 2 (0:37) It's Lucy Speaker 3 (0:38) James. We have Lucy James with us today because Jason is still in Japan. And Lucy, in case you didn't know, is the founder of the LookingFor.Game newsletter, which is wonderful. And people should definitely check that out. Very helpful Speaker 2 (0:53) newsletter. Speaker 3 (0:53) Also the co-host of the Friends Per Second podcast. Very fun list. And Lucy, thank you so much for coming on the show today and being a... Thank you for having me. I am thrilled to Speaker 2 (1:06) have you. And can I just say, as the first member of FPS to come on the show or that I've ever talked to, I think that's such a good name for a podcast. Speaker 3 (1:14) It's so good. Thank you. It's so good. I'm a Speaker 2 (1:17) real stickler about podcast names. And FPS, Friends Per Second, is a fantastic podcast name. Speaker 4 (1:24) I was. So we we had a big Google Doc and I suggested that one as a joke. Speaker 2 (1:29) Oh, it was your pick? It was Speaker 4 (1:31) my idea. And then the boys were just like, oh, that's it. That's it. I thought we were kidding. So Speaker 2 (1:37) thank you. Sometimes you just know. Speaker 3 (1:38) Yeah, we're picky about names here. So it's it's high praise coming from us. And if if you know, then you also know that every week we talk about the fact that we are part of the Maximum Fun Network, our podcast network that we love very much. And if you go to MaximumFun.org slash join triple click, you can get our monthly. bonus episodes. Most recently, we released a super double wide episode that was us talking about Sopranos seasons four and five. I've been seeing Sopranos for the first time. Jason and Kirk have seen it before. It's been a really fun journey. So the bonus has Speaker 2 (2:17) a Speaker 3 (2:19) ton of Sopranos content, but it also has us talking about video games and other TV shows and movies and our personal lives and all kinds of other wonderful. things. Also, our upcoming bonus episode for this month, which we have decided to call Triple Kiss, is us soliciting dating advice questions. Us Speaker 4 (2:39) giving Speaker 3 (2:39) dating advice. Can we give it? Or should we be soliciting it ourselves? Maybe we've decided we can give it. But I will say we've actually gotten a ton of questions at this point. So no need, unless it's an emergency. I feel like I have to include that. Like if you're listening to this right now and you're like, but Maddie, I'm only now hearing about triple kiss and I'll, I'll just, I won't know what to do if you and Jason Kirk don't answer my question, but truly we have plenty of questions at this point. I'm really excited to record that and get into that. That'll be a first for us. And since we have so many questions, maybe, maybe we'll do. it again. Who knows? We'll see how it goes. Obviously, triple click at MaximumFun.org is our email. But hey, you don't you don't even need to email us triple kiss emails. You could just email us regular listener mails if you want. And once again, to become a member and support our show, our wonderful listener supported show, you would go to MaximumFun.org slash join triple click, get access to the bonus app, support us, all that good stuff. Okay. Enough preamble. Let's talk about video games, shall we? Let's Speaker 4 (3:49) do. Speaker 3 (3:50) Yeah, so we're going to talk about a couple video games today. We're fitting multiple games into one episode. And the first one we're going to talk about is Fire Emblem Fortune's Weave, which all of us have been playing. This is a Switch 2 exclusive that came out very recently. And I, speaking for myself, I have... been a Three Houses fan and not so much a player of other Fire Emblem games. So I did play Engage and I thought that the combat was pretty fun to play in handheld mode in front of the television set. So I was really like, Fortune's Weave could go either which way for me. And I... I'm still only a few hours in. I think it's somewhere between those two games in my estimation. But Kirk, I really want to hear from you because I know that you were really excited for this game. And I want to know how far you are and what you think about it so far. Speaker 2 (4:45) I am pretty far. I guess I'm like five or six hours in or something like that. It ate more of my weekend than I was planning on. I started playing it with a Code Nintendo scent, but it was at launch, so I've only been playing it the same time as everybody else. And I'm playing Kai's storyline. There are four different kind of protagonists that you pick pretty early in the game, and then you play through their storylines. You can play through all four of them. They're all very different in tone and design and kind of... It really is like, it's like the three branches in three houses, only you can do them all if you choose to in the same playthrough. So I've played that much of Kai. I'm, I think, on chapter eight of Kai's story, if that helps orient anyone who is playing it. I think the game is really cool, especially the story stuff and the missions. I am much less enamored of the amount of busy work in it, and I'm surprised to find myself a little more mixed on like the mercenary recruitment. And just the kind of opacity of some of its systems and the way that I feel a little bit like I'm so overwhelmed at all times by information and the tools that the game gives me to sort that information are not quite up to the task. So I found that a little challenging. I've had a good time in our Discord actually just talking to people who've played a lot. harder than me and getting advice from them on just like, okay, what do I need to be focusing on here? And what can I excise? Because I'm just cutting, cutting, cutting as much as I can so I can get those good story missions and kind of get that. But man, I am very curious, Lucy, what you think. So I would love to know. And also your history with this series. Speaker 4 (6:21) Yeah, same. Light history with Fire Emblem. I had one that was on the 3DS and I forget. Which one that was? It Speaker 2 (6:28) might have been Awakening. That was the first one I got into. Yeah, that was a great game. Speaker 4 (6:31) That sounds familiar. I really enjoyed that. And then I kind of never went and played other Fire Emblems. I did get into Three Houses in a big way. Golden Deer for life. I skipped Engage. Decent choice. I'm also doing Kai's. Me too, by the way. I really wanted to do that Lestat Griffith looking. alucard man that's Speaker 1 (6:55) full-on alucard because Speaker 4 (6:57) you know a girl's got a type it feels like you should start with kai though because kai's on the far Speaker 3 (7:04) left and once i started kai i was like it feels like the game wanted me to start with kai so i guess i did the right thing with the Speaker 4 (7:12) beginner Speaker 3 (7:12) yeah Speaker 4 (7:13) storyline Speaker 2 (7:13) left to right yeah kai Speaker 4 (7:15) kai has such it has such like um Sora energy from Kingdom Hearts and well I guess more like Roxas energy in Kingdom Hearts 2 where it's like the two pals who just kind of tag along and I'm really enjoying it I totally understand what you mean about the busy work I'm not as far in as you Kirk but even the dungeon crawling stuff Speaker 4 (7:39) It's very strange to me because I'd rather just be on, I'd rather be moving on my grid. I'd rather, just give me the grid. Speaker 2 (7:45) Yeah. Can you explain what that means? Like the dungeon crawling? Because I agree with you, but I think for listeners who haven't played the game, like what do you mean by dungeon crawling versus other types of gameplay? Speaker 4 (7:54) So it's, uh. Actually, it's kind of strange that Xero Company, Zcom, did this a little bit too, with pulling characters back into third person, and you walk around in a dungeon, and you come up against enemies, and they're called clashes. So you're not on the grid moving things turn by turn. It is real time, and basically your entire party has a pool of health, the enemies have a pool of health, and it's just whatever you chip down first. They are phenomenally easy. You can, I never take more than, you know, six to eight damage in an entire dungeon. And there's also a way to just auto battle for you. And so I've basically just been doing that and sort of skipping to the end. I'm, you know, five hours into the game, but I'm already doing that. So, but I mean, it does, it's a great way of getting XP early on, but it just does feel a bit, Superfluous. Is Speaker 3 (8:49) that what it's for, do we think? Like, it is strange that that aspect is there. And that's also what I've been using it for so far. Speaker 2 (8:57) It is weird. Like, why would you put a different type of combat into your game that you then make skippable, which is somewhat of an acknowledgement that this is inessential. It feels a little like, you know, a kind of mobile tie-in game or something. Like, it just... And it's... Yeah, I'm not really feeling it, I guess. I was about to say that sounds harsh, but I don't mean it that way, but I kind of do. When you then play a story mission, especially playing as Kai, it's very easy for the first five chapters. But then the difficulty starts to ramp up, and I'm only on normal. I'm a little baby about Fire Emblem. I do play with permadeath, but I play on normal difficulty. And it's gotten a lot harder. And man, each one of these challenges in the kind of coliseum. It's really fascinating and engaging and difficult. There's all kinds of new strategies with every single one. I'm really, really into them and into the story. So then when I'm kind of doing this 3D kind of weird dungeon, it just doesn't feel that great. It's not that great to... to explore the combat system is this just totally watered down thing. I'm like, why am I doing this when the other part of this game also exists? Speaker 4 (10:03) Yeah. Yeah, it's really strange. Because like, if you think of, I was kind of thinking in my mind, sort of comparing it to maybe Final Fantasy XII. Speaker 1 (10:11) But Speaker 4 (10:12) the joy in the combat system with XII is that you've set all the gambits up and, you know, you are basically sort of masterminding and watching your plan unfold. Whereas with this, there's no tactical... element to it it's just these are my guys these are your guys my guys are gonna win unfortunately sucks to be you sorry Speaker 2 (10:30) sorry you ran into us yeah Speaker 4 (10:32) yeah Speaker 2 (10:33) it reminds me a little the feel of the dungeons reminds me a little of the dungeons in metaphor rephantasia i Speaker 3 (10:39) thought of that too because you have to run up to people and hit them right Speaker 2 (10:42) which is that persona thing as well where you there's this little bit of kind of twitch. It's not really very twitchy, but you do want to attack first while you're in the dungeon. And just the feel of the world, it has a kind of insubstantial floaty feel to it that reminded me of metaphor. And I didn't love that part of metaphor, even though in metaphor, when you do get into a battle, then you're in the full metaphor combat system, which is very delightful and cool and well-designed. So it kind of makes up for it with that. The thing is that that is like one part of this game that I don't like, right? And there's a lot of busy work too, which I've mentioned, and I kind of want to explain it, but also we're giving early impressions of this game and I don't want to like just spend too long focusing on those parts I don't like because so much of this game is really hitting for me and I think it's really cool. It actually feels to me like a game that I could play for the next six months to a year and almost like it was... designed to be that. Like, if you play through all four of the main storylines in Act 1, then I think they all come together for Act 2. And then there's in Act 3, you know... I think this is like a 150-hour game or something. And I could see myself burning out on it if I'm just like, all right, I'm going to finish this entire thing as fast as possible. But I really like the characters, the character designs. The music, of course, is killer. Fire Emblem music is always killer. And like I was saying, those story combat encounters are, I think, just phenomenal so far. Anyways, I've found them so cool. Speaker 3 (12:08) Yeah, I've really enjoyed... the story so far as well. And similarly, those big, you're in the grid, you're doing turn-based battling, it's Fire Emblem. That's the part that I'm really enjoying. And I totally agree with you, Kirk, like the kind of busy work of, there's like a recruiting mercenaries system that just has me opening up a guide on my phone and being like, what's the best gift to give to each of these mercenaries? I truly don't want to deal with this system at all. I'm literally just... I have a Google Sheet pre-saved that someone's already made. Just trying to get through this busy work so that I can get to the part of the game that I find enjoyable. And luckily that's speedy enough, although it does provoke the question in me of like, well, why have a system like that if it can so easily be mastered through a spreadsheet? But hey, maybe that's part of the fun. Sometimes spreadsheets are fun. But I did look at... Look at the success of Football Manager. There are whole Speaker 2 (13:04) games that are nothing but this. That's true. Speaker 3 (13:06) Yeah. And it's all kind of building up to the parts of the game that I really do enjoy, which are those big. Coliseum battles, as you referred to them, Kirk, which is an apt framing because that's really what Kai is doing in his storyline. I don't know what it'll be like for the other three when we get to them, but Kai is basically battling to get this wish granted if he wins this fighting competition and his father's been imprisoned for sort of archaic reasons and he's going to be executed. And that's like the premise of his storyline. And Speaker 2 (13:40) he's pretty chill about it for a 15 year old. He's like, oh yeah, my dad's going to die. Speaker 3 (13:44) And his Speaker 1 (13:44) dad Speaker 3 (13:45) are both weirdly chill about it. Which is funny. And there is at least like a moment after that conversation is had where like his dad's being taken away by the prison guards. And then Kai kind of like admits to his friends where he's like, I guess I'm not really feeling anything about this. That's weird. Like he has a line where he sort of lampshades the fact that he's having no reaction to his father being dragged away. But we all react in different ways. Grief is different Speaker 4 (14:10) for everyone. Yes, we Speaker 2 (14:10) do. It's true. Everyone deals with hardship in their own way. Speaker 4 (14:13) I was going to say, when that bit happened, I was sort of, there was a sort of, not plot hole, but it was like, you know, there was a person there who could have really overturned everything if you think about it. Right. Speaker 2 (14:25) There's a lot of that. Which Speaker 4 (14:27) I thought was a bit Speaker 3 (14:27) strange. There's a third character that maybe could have stepped in, in Speaker 4 (14:31) theory, and still could, Speaker 3 (14:32) maybe, prevent it. Speaker 4 (14:33) Honestly, I just thought, you know what? It's fine. I'm just going to get back and fight. Speaker 2 (14:38) That kind of big picture stuff, especially that, I think that is something very Jerry, we're not the only ones to point this scene out where a child's father says to him, you're never going to see me again. And everyone's being weirdly chill about it. Like there is some writing that's a little off tonally. But also I will say a lot of the dialogue is very funny and clever. There's a lot of really great writing in this game, or I suppose localization, where they've done a really good job of just... including lots of fun turns of phrase and jokes. There's a lot of good sarcasm. Each character kind of has their own voice. So a lot of the writing is really working for me. And I'm very curious to see the other sort of four, the other three, I suppose, storylines, because they're all really different, or that's what I gather. So these four characters to explain to listeners. Kai, who all three of us are playing as, is like a kid. And it's kind of the first sort of shonen kids adventure story that I've seen in a Fire Emblem game. Fire Emblem games are actually kind of adult in their storytelling, at least. It's usually like war and people dying and a lot of just sort of, I don't know, there's not a lot of kids adventure vibes in Fire Emblem, as much as it's kind of animated and feels a little bit like a cartoon. Then there's Dietrich, who is the Alucard character we're talking about. I gather his storyline is really intense and there's a lot of fighting. I think it's harder difficulty-wise. There's more intense battles. Then there's Lita, who is a very cool character, the musician. She's like a bard on a quest for revenge. I gather that her tone is very dark and very different from Kai. Those two storylines are incredibly different just tonally. And then there's Theodora. I know Jason is playing as Theodora and we're going to talk about this game again next week. So Jason will be able to speak to Theodora. Theodora is like the Amazon mega babe, like punch you into the ground, like mommy character, Speaker 3 (16:25) basically. I'm glad that's a trope now, by the way. Like we deserved this. It should have been a trope for our whole lives, but at least now she's here. Speaker 2 (16:33) What I think is cool and what I've seen of the story so far is that, you know, the frame of this narrative, and this is set up at the very beginning, is that your character, like, is actually none of those four people. It is a, they are like this other kind of spiritual figure who exists in the future where the world has been overrun by undead monsters. And then we're doing a Terminator where, like, we want to travel back in time and then change our fate so that we can, you know, subtly shift these four characters' fates so that they can then come together to fight the big bad. So you've kind of, that's why you're able to jump between these different timelines. And your character is always kind of present in shifting things, which I think is a neat idea for a framing and also allows for these different tones and lets you play all four storylines without having to restart the game and play it four times, which I like just never had time for in Three Houses as much as I wanted to. And it's cool because playing as Kai, like as far as I've gotten, you're in these, it's like during this Olympic kind of, you know, heroic, this. Speaker 2 (17:32) invitational Colosseum competition where like all the greatest warriors in the land and from lands afar have like come so that everyone can fight. And you fight against Dietrich and Leda and Theodora or alongside them. And so you meet them. The first time you meet them, you fight alongside them. But then presumably I'm going to have to, I know actually I'm going to have to take them on in the Colosseum. I don't think I'm killing them if I beat them. But like it's going to mean that I think there are going to be like different. alternate histories almost eventually. I can't really imagine how it works because I would have to think that each of these characters will win the heroic games in their timeline. And I think that's all really kind of, it's mind bending in a cool way. At least I'm into it. Speaker 3 (18:12) Yeah. I didn't really think about whether the characters were going to win in their timelines. That does seem like it also. provokes a question of how that could work but hey we're revealing if it just gets we've only played a few hours yeah Speaker 2 (18:26) maybe Speaker 3 (18:27) they all just survive or at the end something happens i wonder Speaker 2 (18:31) if i guess even thinking of fortunes weave the title i could kind of imagine given that there's so much metaphysical time magic nonsense going on that they come to the act one break when you've played everyone and it's like okay and now you're all in slightly different places but we're going to like weave you all together into one big army to fight the bad guy or something that kind of feels like where it's going that's not based on me knowing anything that's just kind of my Speaker 3 (18:53) Yeah. I mean, again, we're all really early in the game and I love that. I love that prediction. I think that makes a lot of sense, but that feels like as good of a place as any to transition the conversation to a different video game that I completed playing and is not. as fun to play, according to me, as Fire Emblem Fortunes Weave. It is called Marvel's Wolverine. It is a game by Insomniac, the team, the studio best known for making the Spider-Man games, which we've talked about on the show a ton. I believe we even have a bonus spoiler cast about Spider-Man 2 that people can go back and listen to if they want to. Big open world Spider-Man games are swinging around New York. This Wolverine game, very, very different from that. It is a linear story that I completed in about 11 hours. It is a melee action game, and it is very story forward. I am really curious what you think, Lucy, because I listened to the Friends for a second episode about this, and that was before you had played it yet. Speaker 2 (20:04) You were like refereeing. I think you did a great job actually of sort of refereeing this conversation between a bunch of different people who had finished it and reviewed Speaker 3 (20:12) it. Speaker 2 (20:12) Which is Speaker 3 (20:12) a great conversation, by the way. Really enjoyed it. Thank you. Yeah, Speaker 2 (20:16) very interesting. We'll link that in the show notes. Speaker 3 (20:17) But we forced Lucy to play it for us. So Lucy, what did you think about this video game? Because Speaker 4 (20:22) I was traveling and I had a PC with a laptop with me, but I didn't have a PlayStation. And so I couldn't have played enough. partake in that conversation. But a good few hours in now. I think it's just, it's fine to say that this game isn't for me. I, of all the Marvel properties, the X-Men are my favorite. I would not say that Wolverine is my favorite, but, you know, just in terms of him playing as a playable character, yeah, it's always going to be that guy. He's recognizable. He's iconic. He is more in the zeitgeist because of Deadpool versus Wolverine or whatever that. I don't like Ryan Speaker 1 (21:00) Reynolds. I can't bring myself to do it. Speaker 4 (21:03) And so this game is really interesting to me because I think it looks really good. Early on, at least, I don't know about the ending or kind of where it goes from the middle onwards, but it's, you know, like there are some story stuff that I like that it's doing. There were some moments between Logan and Jean Grey that I really like and feels like really cute. And it just feels like I'm a little voyeur looking in on something that I shouldn't be. But then when it comes to the combat, it's just very, very repetitive. And I've been bouncing between Blood of Dawnwalker, Control resonant and this. And so it feels that, I mean, I think the most damning thing I can say about Marvel's Wolverine's combat is that I was answering a bunch of text messages. I think I was even emailing you both with one hand and I was completing Speaker 2 (21:51) combat scenarios with Speaker 4 (21:54) one hand. Speaker 2 (21:56) Just Speaker 4 (21:56) square, square, square, triangle to jump. Speaker 4 (22:00) And then there are these sort of, this game would have killed if it came out in 2010. Speaker 3 (22:06) This would Speaker 4 (22:07) have been the bastion. This would have been the game that we held every tie into. I mean, between this and sort of like... But even Arkham is really good to go back to now. Maybe not the boss fights, but Arkham Asylum and City especially. They are so great to go back to. And Speaker 3 (22:21) the lineage of Arkham is here. And I feel like it's casting a pretty long shadow over this game. Speaker 4 (22:27) Stood the test of time. Whereas this, it's kind of pulling in a lot of AAA design tropes that I'm not a fan of. And that is the excessive hand-holding. Speaker 1 (22:36) I Speaker 4 (22:36) know the fart gas. as is unfortunately their legacy on this game, has been dialed down in a recent patch. But just... In Speaker 3 (22:47) case the listeners don't know, Lucy's referring to the Wolverine's heightened senses, which allow him to sniff where different characters are going. So if he wants to trail somebody, there's like a glowing gas on the ground that he follows around. Obnoxious blue trail. Yeah. Which Speaker 2 (23:01) I believe Gene Park dubbed fart gas quite memorably. Yeah, I Speaker 3 (23:04) think Gene Park came up with that. Yeah. which is a very evocative turn of phrase to describe the linearity of the game. And it's kind of like this game's version of yellow paint, I guess, Speaker 4 (23:15) if you want to. And there's also white paint, though. They have got that, too. But the thing is, the trend that I hate in AAA is that they desperately don't want you to lose attention for even a second. You can't get lost. There can be no friction. And there is no friction for me in Marvel's Wolverine. There are some nice moments. I can just fully accept it's not a game for me. Kirk, where's your Speaker 3 (23:40) head at on it? You ended up beating it possibly because I said I was going to complete it and maybe that socially encouraged you to complete it because you knew I was. Speaker 2 (23:50) Not exactly. So I played a lot