The podcast is charging in for another episode with John, Lorelai, Crystal, and Lilith. This week, John’s been playing more Raidou: Remastered, and Pokémon Emerald Seaglass. Both he and Lorelai have been obsessing over horses with Umamusume Pretty Derby and she’s also been playing Persona 5 The Phantom X when she was at multiple Pokémon conventions. Lilith has been going into a lot, playing Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Dragon Quest XI, and every Build Engine game you could imagine. Crystal has been living the good life with R4: Ridge Racer Type 4. In the news we go over the Druck leaving the Last of Us TV show and a ton on the XBox Layoffs.

You can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on Social Media @TheGamesline, Lorelai, John, Lilith, and Crystal.

Also, don’t forget to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, and tell a friend about the show!

If you want to send in questions, send them to our email podcast@gamesline.net!

You can also join our Discord channel at thegamezone.zone!

Our theme song is “Crush” by Melt Channel, from the album Magic is Real.

Edited by Lorelai

Video Production by Lorelai

Here’s an excerpt by Crystal:

Lorelai: Umamusume is what if iDOLM@STER didn’t have the mediocre rhythm game that it made you do for training stuff.

John: My frame of reference is immediately Monster Rancher, because that’s what I played as a kid.

Lorelai: I genuinely am shocked at how much I’ve been enjoying it.

Crystal: I’m looking at the Umamusume wiki right now; I didn’t realize there were 131 playable characters.

John: The game has been out for 4 years in Japan, and it was honestly very strange how long it took to come out over here. But it was also highly delayed for its initial release anyway. The reason why they have all the idol stuff is because it was originally supposed to come out when all the idol stuff was very big. When Umamusume came out the idol stuff was less of a thing, and now, over here, it’s even more so less of a thing. Everyone’s just kind of like, “Why are they singing?”

Lorelai: [laughs] Yep.

John: I’ll be honest, I don’t watch any of the concerts. Cancel me if you must, but I don’t. I just want to race. I want to win. That’s what I’m here for.

Lorelai: I like watching the races. It opened the ability for me to skip the races half the time, and I’m like, “No! No, I refuse!” 

John: You get to skip it if you’ve gotten first place with that character in that specific race before. But I watch it, because it’s exhilarating! You want to see your girl win! And sometimes they pull off some crazy shit, and sometimes they get last place for no reason because they don’t feel like it, and you have to deal with it. That’s sports.

I’ll actually talk about it on the anime podcast next time, but Lilith and I watched one of the movies last night with some other friends. It’s the Beginning of a New Era, and that’s why she says she likes Agnes Tachyon, because she’s in that and she’s insane and it’s great. I was ready to just be like, “Oh, you know, it’ll be cute because it’s these characters that I know, whatever.” But I thought it was just a great sports story! 

I would say the main girl is a little underdeveloped, but overall I just thought it was compelling and extremely well-animated. So I would recommend checking that out if you have any interest in Umamusume, or if you’re just a sports anime fan. It feels something like a Haikyu!! or a Slam Dunk or something like that.

Lorelai: I haven’t watched the anime yet. I’m gonna have to now, I hate that.

Lilith: Like John said, it was surprising that they were doing the sports anime “teeth gritting and screaming” except they’re all horses. But also just really impressive animation overall. At one point, I jokingly said this was Redline for horses.

John: And it is! It pretty much is!

Lorelai: Horsegirl Redline!?

The post The Gamesline Podcast Episode 57: Horse Racin’ and Subway Slammin’ appeared first on Gamesline.

I don’t know what Gamesline is in 2025. I want to be optimistic, but we’ve been doing this for over a decade, and we’re all very different people. I would love more than anything to continue to do this forever, but we’ll see. I don’t mean to be foreboding here, I just genuinely want to hear what we could do to keep y’all interested, I suppose! I’m going to be 31 years old this year, and it sucks to have to think about balancing my career with this, like I gotta figure out bills!! I have things to do at a job! It’s weird. I will do my best to find this balance. I’m going to post this, then chat with the crew and find out what we want out of 2025. Thanks for reading.

5. Momodora: Moonlit Farewell

Momodora’s a consistent franchise, and the finale was a solid Metroidvania that wrapped everything up nicely. I wouldn’t call it a boat-rocker, and I wouldn’t call it a bore either. Moonlit Farewell met expectations perfectly, with stunning visuals and charming gameplay. A lovely capstone on a niche franchise, I can only hope more folks check these games out since the series is wrapped, and I also hope the developer continues to create these well-polished experiences. I don’t have a ton to say about it because it’s a simple game, but I do hope Metroidvania fans go back and give this one a go if they skipped it last year.

4. Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore

This could have been so many things. Obnoxious, boring, rote. Instead, Arzette is a loving homage to something that many would never think deserved one. A celebration of an extremely stupid moment in gaming that has been transformed into new art time and time again. It then transcends that homage by being not only a fun game, but by being as goofy as the Zelda CD-i games that inspired it, standing right next to it in iconography. I know we’ve only had Arzette for a year, but I’d say Frich the Frog’s “FINE DINING” line is up there in the YouTube Poop (YTP) pantheon already. Arzette could only be made by people who not only loved YTP, but Wand of Gamelon and Faces of Evil, the original games, as well. That’s what sets Arzette apart from most parodies, a pure, unbridled love for something that many people would consider garbage. They even made a CD-i style controller to use with the game, how could you not at least love the effort put into Arzette?

3. Metaphor: ReFantazio

They made another Persona but this one has better politics and doesn’t have a gay panic scene. That’s already a plus in my book. 

Okay but for real, Metaphor’s got one of the best casts in an Atlus game. Pretty sure I said the same about the Persona 5 crew, but this one’s just as good, if not better at times! Not having to worry about romance options allows for stories to feel more natural, since you’re not having to stop near the end of Hulkenberg’s route to turn her down and slam the brakes on her characterization. Studio Zero did a fantastic job breathing life into the world of Euchronia, as well as all of its citizens. Battle was fast and fluid, I loved the aspects of press turn that got integrated into the standard Persona style combat. I loved that the bosses are based on Hieronymus Bosch paintings, fitting the hellish might of the game’s antagonist. Louis is iconic, a villain who has understandable motivations but unacceptable methods. It made the political aspects of the game more realistic, with desperate people siding with his ideals in a hope that they’ll be spared from getting crushed in the machine. As we’re currently seeing in the US, buddy, we’re all gonna get crushed in the machine. 

This hit all the marks for me, but there were two other RPGs I still enjoyed a bit more. But Sega released them both so I don’t think they’re gonna complain.

2. Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth

The Like A Dragon cast continues to be the actual best cast in gaming. As much as I love Strohl and Eupha, they’re not Ichiban Kasuga. Nobody is. When this game was announced, I wanted to be fully done with Kiryu’s entire plot, as the seventh game felt like the perfect hand-off to the next generation of old man criminals. I ended up happy to be wrong, as Kiryu’s return in Infinite Wealth was a heartbreaking, incredible walk down memory lane with one of the greatest video game characters of all time. Kiryu’s bucket list could have easily been a bunch of nostalgia-bait, and it kinda is, but Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio did a fantastic job showing Kiryu’s turn from a man awaiting death to a man who wants to use what time he has left for himself and his loved ones.

The Ichiban story, in which he searches for his mother in Hawaii, is a bit weaker, but there’s still some lovely moments throughout. The RPG aspects have been polished, and I did appreciate that the party getting split up lets them get more time to shine in combat. Like A Dragon as a series is always welcome, and I ate this up, alongside The Man Who Erased His Name, the prelude to Infinite Wealth. I’d count TMWEHN alongside Infinite Wealth, as they go hand-in-hand story-wise and the prequel makes everything that happens with Kiryu in Infinite Wealth far more tragic. Like A Dragon continues to be a salve in these harrowing times, a glimpse into a world where bad people get their asses kicked and good people are sometimes involved in organized crime. 

1. Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance

Ooooough Shin Megami Tensei….The brainrot….It’s real. I loved my entire playthrough of Vengeance, and it’s almost purely a gameplay thing for me. There’s a hypnotic quality to the flow of combat once you start building strong enough party members, and I had a ball blasting through everything that stood in my way. I drafted out fusion chains, I calculated stats, I did the WORK to make my team as balanced and powerful as possible, and by the end of the game I was crushing my enemies under my high heeled boot. I’ve been appreciating games that allow me to fall into a relaxed state these days, probably because if I introduce more stress into my body my heart will explode. Finding that chill grind in Vengeance helped me latch onto it quickly, and I was glued to it for months. 

Aesthetically, Vengeance is visually passable but audibly excellent. Please go listen to the Qadistu Battle Theme at least, please. There’s only a few new songs added to this update’s OST, but all of them are bangers with zero caveats. The new additions are sprinkled through the entire release, and while it doesn’t feel like a completely new game compared to the original, it’s the only way I’d recommend trying the game out, since a ton of the little frustrations got ironed out. It sucks a ton that the original version of the game is practically garbage now, with a full-priced release required to get the actual definitive version of SMTV. But….It’s worth it!!!! And it’s on sale all the time, so if you’ve never played SMTV, you really gotta hop on this one. 

The post John’s Favorite Games of 2024 appeared first on Gamesline.

I remember the first time I played Persona 5. I was 20 and had just finished my sophomore year of college bitter at my friends, ready to spend a semester in a whole other part of the world. At that time I was taking up a factory job over the summer to help build any sort of funds before my departure. I’d play Persona 5 for hours when not at work and barrel through the story. Having just lived through the first 6 months of the Trump presidency, the first time I’d see my supposed “electoral power” crumble to the hands of white supremacy, I wanted something that I thought could speak to a better tomorrow. I was disappointed, realizing that I was asking for a lot more than changing someone’s heart and hoping that goodness can lead to a brighter future. I was bitter, angrier, and a lot lonelier than when I’d started the year. On the trips to and from the factory all summer I’d listen to “The Dream Is Over,” the second studio album by Canadian punk band PUP. There was something raw and unfettered in those songs that, as someone who never really went super heavy in his music tastes, I felt drawn to. I didn’t want to be an elaborate phantom thief going on jazzy heists after high school, I just wanted to be a pissed off and immature twentysomething for a bit. Hopping in a magic cat car didn’t appeal as much as wandering around my hometown haunts like a ghost of some kind, detached from the place I grew up but still unfamiliar to the hustle and bustle of New York. A much more personal fantasy at that point, that my depression and anger were justified in some way I couldn’t describe outside of turning the volume up on my earphones.

Metaphor: ReFantazio is the newest game from Atlus, and the second game from Studio Zero after their remaster of the puzzle game Catherine, helmed by former Persona director Katsura Hashino. This turn-based RPG takes place in a medieval fantasy world where horrific monsters roam in the outskirts and the kingdom itself is divided amongst eight tribes of human-adjacent beastfolk. The king of this country has just been assassinated, and in the midst of his funeral comes the revelation that in his dying days, the king knew his reign would be soon coming to an end. Rather than depending on lineage or the leading religion of the Sanctist Church to handle affairs, he used his royal magic to set forth a challenge: the person who could bolster the most faith and trust in the common folk would be the one to seize the crown. One man already stands in high contention with these rules, the king’s own assailant, Louis Guiabern, who talks of a strong hand needed to wield power and ensure a fair world can be created. Amongst all the other prospective heirs to the throne is the player character, a young man guided by the fairy Gallica to help the prince of the country who’d been put under a wicked spell many years ago. Armed with an ancient sword and a fantasy book depicting the ideals of a fantasy world, the young man sets off to save the prince and save the kingdom.

Taking A Step Out of the City

For the most part, Metaphor is a welcome addition to the Persona family of games. Events unfold with a calendar system, where each day you’re to choose between battle opportunities, events that let you raise one of your five Royal Virtues, or spending time with a party member or close ally to your cause in order to gain some benefits in and out of battle as the story continues. The setup of the battles is a little unique, where at every dungeon you’ll roam the overworld freely with enemies you can attack in real-time to stun and then initiate turn-based battle, resulting in a huge ambush on your side that can make fights easier, to the point where lower level enemies can simply be whacked once to gain quick EXP. In battle, the familiarity continues, with magic divided into 6 elements alongside a physical damage split between slash, pierce, and strike affinities. If you’ve played any Atlus RPG in the past, these systems are not difficult to parse and you’ll find yourself in the groove of the main gameplay in no time. 

The Archetype system is your main source for freshness in the formula; the magic of ancient kings brought forth by you and your party members willing to use the anxieties of the world as fuel for their ideals. Each Archetype specializes in its own set of skills, the protagonist’s Seeker Archetype wields a mix of wind-focused spells and healing magic, while the swiftly unlocked Mage Archetype utilizes fire, electric, and ice spells. Between the followers you gather both in your party and through conversation, more Archetypes become unlocked that all playable characters can make use of, mixing skills when needed. This mechanic opens up a ton of party customization, being a lot more engaging than just waiting for the last party member to show up and spam Almighty spells. Synthesis skills are based on what Archetypes you have in your party, which means that you can spend two turns or more for more powerful spells that can mix stat effects with raw damage or just fully help out in a dire recovery turn. The more you build your followers’ connections, the more slots you gain to inherit spells from other Archetypes, leading to an even deeper well of customization options. There are equivalents to the enhanced Personas you can unlock for your party in the Persona series, but these Archetypes still require you to level up and develop other lines of magic in order to be used effectively. It’s the first time I’ve had an RPG give me three physical strength leaning characters who felt palpably different between tanking hits, full on damage dealing, and amassing skills that get amplified from critical hit cultivation. There wasn’t a “wrong” way for my party to be set up, as long as I knew what I needed for each dungeon and boss, I could make do or even just take the time to grind a little and bring an Archetype with more suitable skills that’d work well to support my team.

We’re Actually Working A Little With Themes!

Of course, the mechanics of the game don’t matter in this genre if the story is lacking, and for what it’s worth, Metaphor is maybe the best of Hashino’s stories, that alone a loaded piece of praise. The last three installments in the Persona series have substantial fans for a reason, but those stories also have some pitfalls, whether it be the disconnect around this idea of following the status quo willingly as a means to subvert the status quo, the persistent use of homophobic and transphobic jokes that only have a punchline focused on “it’s funny that these men are uncomfortable with these weird people,” or the whole history of the women in these games being undercut by whether or not the player chooses to date them at the end of the story, the brakes were being pumped immediately with the news of this game tackling issues like discrimination. Overall, I think Metaphor’s writing is actually at its best when it is focused on the complexity of bringing groups of people together. Your quest comes in direct conflict with the political motivations of Church officials and the understandable anger from the populace who simply knows that something has to change, but might not be certain what that change looks like. 

The themes around liberation through art and community connected with me, especially at the start when Gallica, your fairy companion, casts a spell that introduces the primary timbre of Shoji Meguro’s compositions for this game that introduce bombastic orchestral movements with the chanting of a Buddhist Monk in Esperanto for the “choruses.” Despite the hardships of the world, people still find time for song, theater, craftsmanship, cooking, and other flights of fancy. You collect books from your party members over the course of the game as ways to boost your stats and also learn a little more about them, either the poetry that one character writes or another party member’s literacy book containing their name scrawled over and over. The centerpiece connection between art and action is the protagonist carrying around his personal novel that depicts a society devoid of the strife and segregation he and his party deal with currently, and each character you meet gets to reflect a bit on having that fantasy of a better world, while trying to maintain a brave face to their own reality.  

Ultimately, that too becomes a piece of the story’s core when you realize antagonist Louis has a copy of this very same novel, which has also influenced his more absolute ideals. Two interpretations of a text at odds with one another is cool to see unfold, and the question the game poses on the importance of fantasy in these cases is one that definitely had me reflecting on my own creative inputs and outputs in the last few years. You don’t topple the monarchy, that was never going to be the intent of this game, and to go in expecting that is really counterintuitive to what the game does focus on, which are the ways we try to make use of the systems we’re in to support one another. There’s a lot missing for sure, especially in regard to how class is a factor in this unrest even when characters outright name money as a source of other struggles. We’re talking Brave New World levels of caste division at times with some tribes like the horned Clemar and long-eared Roussainte being the typical seat holders for government office while physically striking outcasts like the batlike Eugief are sparse in the capital cities of the country. Then of course comes the amount of furryfolk Paripus who just live in destitution or sell their bodies to study igniters, the Church approved tools for harnessing magic that are sold at ludicrous prices. It’s these pieces that give me pause when it comes to just how much I can praise this game, or what specifically I think works. There’s that brush up from 8 years ago where I can’t help but ask “so how do you take this thought further?” and Hashino just doesn’t answer that. That’s on me, I’ll go make my own game if the question haunts me so much. 

A Bleak World Bursting With Characters

The cast of characters you interact with in Metaphor is perhaps one of the most fleshed out ensembles in an Atlus game and that’s paramount to having this narrative on unity land the way that it has with so many people. Your immediate party members include the young noble Strohl and former royal knight Hulkenberg, both eager to support your cause with their own anxieties to deal with between the wellbeing of communities displaced and the sense of duty lost from previous failure. Heismay, the disgraced former knight, becomes an immediate highlight of the party for not only being coded as one of the oldest, but having a story around loss and what it means to find anything to keep pushing forward. This is the most rounded I’ve felt a cast could be, and while some characters I’m less than excited about, like Junah where it feels like she gets tethered by exposition, overall it makes sense why these people join your cause. This also extends to the followers outside your party, from the Catherina the upstart Paripus (one of the more beast-like races in the game) who wants to give her people better means of survival, to Maria, the daughter of a felled member of your initial group who’s learning how to help others for the first time and what it means to care about others. What helps as well in making these conversations stand out is your protagonist actually has a little interiority! Rather than just leaning into the formula of “positive, negative, and weird answer,” the player character’s dialogue feels like someone having a conversation, and that helps to push characters into that next tier of their follower rank. An extra boon is that the protag is voiced, making those conversations far easier to settle into. There’s a fullness to their narratives and I was consistently invested.

The writing also helps in bringing your main villain to a consistent level of threat throughout the game. Louis is cold, calculating, and ambitious from start to finish. You learn very immediately that he is unashamed in using people for his schemes, and has even committed more than enough bloodshed to get to his current position. But his charisma and resolve are what create a fanbase of sorts amongst the populace, and Metaphor does such a great job of continually asking: What if Louis is right? There’s no reality of this game where the answer is yes, but it at least entertains the question and gives Louis a platform to peer down on for the time being. It’s how you bring your party together, it’s how you build the stakes of the narrative in a way that feels natural, and it’s how you help develop the politics of the world when even at the most popular you might be, people cling to the promises of someone else because it does feel more aligned with their own beliefs. He stays calm, he gives amazing speeches to the masses, and he always focuses on this idea of right to power through very material methods. Louis would’ve thrived in the manosphere I’ll say that much. Genuinely, the game makes it so that Louis having followers is believable, so if you stand against him, talking to NPCs around town and hearing their reasons why they support the king’s assassin makes the struggle to gain popularity feel grounded. 

Throughout this game, there’s a lot of focus on the right to rule, structures of leadership, and where creative pursuits and art as a whole slot into the conversation amidst an unrest of the people. Apart from the overall race to the crown that your group gets entangled with, the game’s populace is mired with a lot of issues from racism to literal monster outbreaks. On one hand, yeah it’s a little dissonant that there’s another story about a chosen king coming forth to bring everyone into a grand new age. The way that there’s this call for the imaginary and the unknown and yet we can’t imagine a way to govern that would move away from a monarchy. On the other hand, the game still sits with the unrest of its society and how its people are so tired in the midst of this tournament. In that overall journey, the potential candidates give some perspective on what those communal anxieties are, which is such a great purview to that pipeline of local to federal concerns. People who want oligarchy, people who want to just loot from the nobles, people who think no one under the age of like 50 should hold power, you got all of these folks running around and trying to piece together how exactly access to power leads to change and prosperity. Your party, this rainbow coalition of people from different tribes but also people spurned in some way by the systems currently in place, helps to paint at least what that potential next step could look like. 

I played this game in November and finished up right into the middle of January. Within that time I’ve seen an election go the worst possible route it could, media companies other and silence the voices of immigrant and queer minorities, tech dickheads continue to use generative AI in a way that can only be described as maddening when compared to the one weird trick of “using thought,” money continue to be poured into a ghoulish state to fund a genocide, and thousands of people lose their homes due to wildfires on the West Coast. In a way I’d play through the game sometimes to piss myself off a little, having this quest that was much easier to solve than everything else going on in the world. Grand Trad’s dealing with physical manifestations of anxiety and a theocratic iron rule, but shit at least they have water on their planet! It was conjuring that feeling from nearly a decade ago, wanting escape in a way but also feeling dejected at the idea of just running from what’s going on, hoping for a fantasy closer to home.

The Final Encounter

The final moments of the game actually speak to some of that, which really took me by surprise. By the end of the game you find out that the prince you’ve been fighting for and the player character are one and the same (roll with it), and the world you live in is in fact a post apocalyptic scenario where the accumulation of magic ended up leading to war and the eventual formation of the tribes. Louis is himself a member of the Elda tribe, like the prince, and witnessed the murder of his parents when the tribe was ransacked earlier by the Church’s warrior monks. When you finally confront Louis at the penultimate moments of the game, he reveals that his plan is to effectively force everyone into an anxiety induced Instrumentality as the magic source of the world is literally fueled by fear, and those who become consumed and overwhelmed by that fear turn into the “human” beasts that roam the world (who themselves are all loosely based on Hieronymus Bosch’s famous depictions of hell, genuinely great designs). Get pumped up with fear and will yourself through it to effectively come out the other side as part of Louis’s alpha race. It’s the kind of future that relishes in the idea of strength and logic to prosper, something that is so inherently opposed to what your party’s been able to cultivate for its support. You eventually best Louis with a big beam and the game ends not at the coronation, but a year after your initial reign where systems start to fall in place, people feel like they can breathe a little easier, and your party sets off on another journey of their own to see beyond their kingdom and experience the world with a new lens. 

One thing that’s curious about the morals of the game is that at no point are you ever trying to find a peaceful resolution to your rivalry with Louis. You gain allies, you find opportunities for peaceful solutions when possible, but a lot of moments in the game do hammer in the fact that sometimes your dream is in opposition to someone, that you do need to take drastic measures to make that dream happen. Louis does become a bit of a comically evil man towards the very end, but the times you do speak with him ultimately boil down to the realization that yes he talks big, he’s also used people, you need to kill him so you can move towards a world that doesn’t involve people like him in power. You plan assassinations, bring the atrocities of the church to light, and overall force the populace to sit in discomfort of what’s been going on. It’s a far cry from just changing someone’s heart to make them suddenly do the good thing. Maybe it’s what happens when you see a successful assassination happen once in the development cycle, and once more when the game’s out. Regardless, there is a sense of mortality that also makes the motif for the awakening of an Archetype so palpable: ripping out your heart and yelling out your truth for the world to hear. 

Metaphor: ReFantazio is a solid JRPG with great gameplay, a fun little soundtrack, and characters that really are fun to see grow and support each other. It’s a long game, at times really asking you to settle in for a session to get a few plot points settled out of a bombastic display. I am not giving Hashino the Nobel Peacy Prize for this script but it’s maybe the least I’ve sat there just loathing the story I was taking in. I love Heismay, Hulkenberg, and Basilio amongst all the other characters you meet. Above all else, there’s no single character that I just wish would get off my screen or who acts in a way that feels like the story needs them to be an active nuisance. The Ryuji and Morgana beef sits heavy on me since it took a whole separate game for them to give one of your main party members a personality and depth. Here though, you do have a tight package of a game whose only sins are following a bit too closely in the footsteps of its forefathers when it comes to level grinding and timesinks for the completionists to spend hours on to get those achievements.

Beyond Just Fantasy

If you’re reading this review, there’s a likely chance you’re also getting really tired at what’s been happening in the world lately. This winter especially feels a lot colder when more and more people are realizing that hate and prejudice are especially profitable at the moment. Earlier last year I played a game that helped me get through a very personal moment of uncertainty, and while it was a salve for that winter, so much has compounded by the end of last year that my time with Ichiban feels so distant.

This past December I had a day where I woke up and by the time I got to the subway I just started to cry. It was a constant stream of tears, of just this unwell feeling. I wanted to yell, to run, to have someone hold me and say that things would be OK. I managed to do my work and show up how I could at my job but it’s the most fully inadequate I’d have felt apart from full on physical illness, a genuine mental health decay.  It was a mix of so many things: of feeling I’ve wasted time somehow, that I’m not helping anyone, and the idea that I’ve just become a little colder as well in some way after everything I’ve had to go through in life so far and that others keep having to go through and one day I’d just be curmudgeon waiting for the day I no longer wake up. It was genuinely agonizing and difficult to sit with. I have more language for it now thankfully, where really I’m focusing on the hole much more than I am the donut lately.

Metaphor was not the cure all that suddenly made me feel better. There’s no one game that just answers all the questions and there never will be. What this game did for me was at least provide a tangible means to just put these thoughts somewhere, to make a number go up because my spirits couldn’t for the time. From that came methods for me to work back to my full self, talking to people at the local bar who’d been playing and also talking about other games we’d play, or making plans with friends to see each other after not doing that since the summer. Posting all this in February, that pit of anguish feels so long ago now.

I hope that this game makes you reach out to someone you hadn’t in a while, or has you pick up that other game you might’ve ignored. Hell, maybe even pick up that book on your shelf that you haven’t found the time to actually read. Do the things you like, share them with others, support the people here and overseas who are dealing with a lot more than maybe you and I right now, and keep waking up each morning. Even in your own community, take the time to look past yourself and help someone else out. The thing about anxiety is you either let it sit on top of you all day or you push through it. It doesn’t leave you, and it hopes that you lose the energy to do anything at all about it. Personally, I strive to do the latter, because the former means I miss out on things. I miss out on the people I love, the things I love to do, and the chance to see something I might not have before. For every bad day I could have, and I’ve had plenty at this point, they’re made up by the days I remember I’m not out here by myself. You aren’t either, and it’s especially important to remember that now. Take care of you and yours, we need you here.

The post My Kingdom For Some Equity – Metaphor: ReFantazio Review appeared first on Gamesline.

John and Maverick convene to discuss the officially revealed Switch 2, which had been leaked in its entirety before so it’s not a big surprise or anything. Plus, Maverick has some thoughts on Adios and Helskate, John reviewed Blade Chimera and is messing with Pokémon romhacks again, Katsuhiro Harada gave everyone a fright, Sony is canceling live service games, Miku’s in Fortnite, and there’s an update on the Punch-Out!! rumors.

You can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on Social Media @TheGamesline, @John_Michon, and @justmaverick.

If you want to send in questions send them to our ask box at gamesline.tumblr.com/ask.

You can also join our Discord channel at thegamezone.zone!

Our theme song is “Crush” by Melt Channel, from the album Magic is Real.

Edited by Lorelai

The post The Gamesline Podcast Ep. 47: Nintendo Showed It appeared first on Gamesline.

Nightdive Studios will be remastering the The Thing game, originally from 2002. Based on the John Carpenter movie, it has updated graphics and quality of life upgrades. There’s no specific release date for it yet, but it will be released on PC and all current consoles.

The Big Catch, the game from former Yo! Noid 2 developers Filet Group, has a standalone demo available now. (For transparency, friend of the site Myles does the UI for this game.) The game will also be published by XSEED.

Lego Horizon Adventures from Studio Gobo. A mix of the style of Horizon and goofy Lego jokes. Out on PS5, Switch, and PC holiday 2024.

No More Room in Hell 2, a sequel to the Source mod. Includes permadeath and eight player co-op. Early access Halloween 2024.

Harry Potter Quidditch Champions. Out September 3rd on everything. JKR go to hell.

CuffBust from the creator of Choo-Choo Charles. A team of prisoners attempt to escape from jail while another team of guards try to prevent it. 2025 projected.

Star Wars: Outlaws trailer. More shown at the Ubisoft event. Coming August 30th.

Neva from Nomada studio, creators of Gris. Sidescrolling platformer about a lady and her wolf. Very gorgeous! Due out in 2024 for everything.

Civilization VII, the big 2K Games title this time around. Coming in 2025, gameplay reveal in August. Developed by Firaxis, coming to consoles and PC at the same time.

New trailer for Black Myth: Wukong. Out August 20th. There will be a bunch of preorder bonuses and special editions as well.

Once Human, out July 9th. There’s a little white guy in the trailer, they didn’t focus on it at all????

Metaphor: ReFantazio new info. Went over character archetypes, which assign abilities to different characters in your party. It’s Personas. You can equip guys to get abilities. The game is due out October 11th.

Meta Quest game Batman Arkham Shadow. From Camoflaj. About Batman fighting the Rat King. Fall 2024.

Terry Bogard and Mai Shiranui are getting added to Street Fighter VI! Returning characters Elena and M. Bison as well! They will be DLC for Year Two.

Tears of Metal, a hack and slash game. No date.

Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero, with a new story mode with “what if” elements. Father-Son Final Flash!! October 11th release. The first season pass is confirmed to have 20+ characters as well!

Delta Force: Hawk Ops, team based extraction shooter. Looks bad. Who cares. There’s gonna be a Black Hawk Down mode based on the movie?

Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves new trailer! B. Jenet and Vox Reaper announced. Due out 2025.

Blumhouse is publishing a bunch of horror games. Quite a few all in a sizzle reel.

Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind from Digital Eclipse. Side scrolling beat em up. No release date.

Deer & Boy, an indie game from a first time dev.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance II. Looks very similar to the original, a lot of focus on story. Due out 2024.

Slitterhead gameplay. From Bokeh Game Studio, ex-Silent Hill folks. You can jump into people to control them and fight a bunch of crazy monsters. Looks way more character action-y than expected? November 8th.

A Killer Bean game. First and third person, slo-mo, what you’d expect from this kind of game. Early access this Summer. It’s a roguelike? Wild.

The new game, Cairn, from The Game Bakers, creators of Furi. A mountain climbing game, inspired by people who lost their lives trying to summit K2. Northernlion will be saying insane things while playing this.

Ivy Road, the creators of The Stanley Parable, are making a cozy tea shop running game, starring a character who would rather be in an action game. It’s called Wanderstop, and is due out this year.

Unknown9: Awakening is out Fall 2024.

New trailer for Italian Soulslike Enotria: The Last Song. Demo available now, will be out on PS5, Xbox, and Epic Games Store.

The First Descendant trailer. Out July 2nd.

Innersloth, creators of Among Us, announced Outersloth, a new indie game fund to help smaller developers get more funding. There’s a variety of games already funded from this, Mars First Logistics, Battle Suit Aces, Mossfield Archives, ONE BTN BOSSES, Rogue Eclipse, and Project Dosa. There’s also a new trailer for the Among Us TV show.

Sonic x Shadow Generations new trailer, with the official release date of October 25th. Shows off new Shadow powers and stages, including freaky wings on Shadow? Includes a costume of Terios, a cancelled beta version of Shadow that became famous in the fan community.

Dune game, alternate reality where Paul wasn’t born. Dune Awakening, a survival MMO.

Uncapped Games, a new studio, revealed Battle Aces. It’s an RTS, focused on making is “less tedious”. Beta test soon.

The Finals‘ new season was revealed.

Alan Wake II physical release! Also, the Night Springs DLC, three episodes based around three characters in what if scenes. Play as Rose the waitress in her fanfic, Jesse from Control, and Officer Tim Breaker in the Dark Place. Releases tomorrow.

New World expansion. Out October 15th.

Honkai: Star Rail‘s next chapter starts soon, new characters. I don’t know anything about this sorry.

Dark and Darker, a first person dungeon crawler. Looks very Elder Scrolls, but is also apparently an extraction shooter at the same time. It’s already out.

Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, Capcom’s new hack and slash, is due out July 19th.

Hyper Light Breaker‘s early access will be late Summer.

skate. has a trailer with Tim Robinson. Then they showed a batch of new gameplay, and said console playtesting will happen this Fall.

Palworld has a new island with a bunch of new Pokemon rip-offs. You can build oil rigs now. June 27th.

Valorant is coming to Xbox and PS5, with a limited beta June 14th.

Very long SuperCell game trailer. It will not be linked. It sucked.

Monster Hunter: Wilds showed off a new monster, a sand worm, and will release in 2025. Gamescom will have more information.

Phantom Blade 0 has a new gameplay trailer to wrap the show up.

Day of the Devs revealed that UFO 50, the collection of games from Mossmouth Games, is releasing September 18th.

The post Bulletin+: Summer Game Fest 2024 appeared first on Gamesline.

To kick things off, a remake of Mario vs. Donkey Kong is happening. The sequel to the classic Donkey Kong ’94 is getting a new release, with co-op added.

Splatoon 3‘s Wave 2 expansion, Side Order, launches next Spring. This single player mode has you climb a tower, defeating enemies and upgrading your Inkling or Octoling to your liking, with different stat changes available depending on your current run.

The final wave of Mario Kart 8 DLC is out this holiday season. This expansion includes the return of playable racers Diddy Kong, Funky Kong, Pauline, and Peachette along with the Mario Kart Wii track Daisy Circuit.

Remakes of the Another Code/Trace Memory games, Another Code: Recollection, were announced as a single package. These will be pretty substantial remakes, and will be the first time Another Code R is available in the States.

The most oomfie game to ever oomfie, SPYxANYA: Operation Memories, was announced. In it, you play as Anya Forger from SPYxFAMILY as she travels about with her parents and works on a photo diary for school.

Remasters of the first three Tomb Raider games were announced, with the ability to swap between new and classic graphics at will. They’re also coming to pretty much every other platform.

WarioWare: Move It! got a new trailer showcasing some of the forms you’ll have to take for each of the 200 microgames.

Some solid indie ports were announced for Switch, including Trombone Champ (out now), Dave the Diver (out October 26th, with a demo available now), and Horizon Chase 2 (also out now).

We’re So Back

Eiyuden Chronicle has a release date, April 23rd, 2024. The Suikoden successor has been a long time coming, being Kickstarted in 2020.

Vanillaware’s latest game has the sickest title ever: UNICORN OVERLORD. It seems to be a Fire Emblem-style tactical RPG, and the art is as gorgeous as ever.

F-ZERO is back as a 99-player battle royale. In the style of the SNES original, F-ZERO 99 has you race against 98 other players, letting you customize your car and otherwise rev it up.

The Princess Peach game previously announced last Direct has a title, Princess Peach: Showtime! Peach travels through a massive theater and dons costumes to gain new abilities. Rose described it as a “direct to DVD Barbie movie” and that’s such a high compliment.

And finally, holy crap they’re remaking Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door.

There were a few other trailers, including a new Among Us map, a Contra remake, and some League of Legends games. Check the full Direct out below.

A few other tidbits did drop from the Japanese Direct. Demos for Star Ocean 2‘s remake and Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince released (worldwide, even!), and the newest game from Onion Games, Stray Children, was announced for worldwide release. An RPG in the style of the legendary game moon, Stray Children will also most likely be co-director Yoshiro Kimura’s final RPG.

Roundup of the Absolute State of Play

Bennett Foddy wanted to make sure this show got off on the right foot. Baby Steps is big budget QWOP with a dash of comedic writing on top.

Ghostbusters Rise of the Ghost Lord is a PlayStation VR2 game that seemingly features a multiplayer component. The game includes an all original cast and plot, implying the Ghostbusters branding is only cosmetic.

Resident Evil 4 Remake has revealed a DLC remake of the popular Separate Ways segments following Ada Wong. They also announced Wesker and Ada coming to the evergreen Mercenaries mode and a VR component of RE4 though details on it were sparse.

James Cameron’s Avatar is coming to gaming with Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. This open world FPS allows you to explore Pandora as one of its blue inhabitants, complete with mating via hair braids.

Sony Sends Us Supplemental Sequels

Ghostrunner, one of the coolest and most visually attractive games of the last few years, is getting a complete sequel with the inspired name of Ghostrunner II.

Helldivers 2 brought us one of those horrifyingly uncanny trailers with paid actors mimicking in-game commentary, and alongside it the news that Helldivers has gone third person.

Insomniac’s Marvel’s Spiderman is back for the third time in Marvel’s Spiderman 2. The open world map has been greatly expanded with inclusion of Brooklyn and Queens. However, the prominent feature shown is the ability to switch between controlling Peter Parker and Miles Morales with little break of in-game flow. This mechanic will also apparently be used for narrative purpose as each hero can only take on certain missions.

Tales of Arise showed off a cinematic trailer for its DLC Beyond the Dawn though no word was given on whether it will add any of the missing features from previous games.

Dispatches From

Hoyoverse continues its partnership with Sony by bringing Star Rail to the PS5 with a trailer that shows of highlights from the most recent version of the game.

Foamstars is Sony’s answer to Nintendo’s Splatoon and it continues to have just the strangest aesthetic and tone of any game that was shown. It’s also having an open beta from September 29th to October 1st so you can check it out if Splatoon was just too normal for you.

Finally We’ll Know Sephiroth

Finally, Square Enix continues to show they have the best cinematics team in the business by pulling all the stops on their new trailer for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. This one shows the return of classic party members like Vincent and Red XIII, the latter finally being given the playable treatment he was snubbed off in the previous entry. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth releases February 24th 2024 on two discs for physical release.

The post The Bulletin: Open the (Thousand Year) Door, Get on the Floor appeared first on Gamesline.

So why the fuck are these nightmarish early 2000’s C-tier game outfits being added to its dancing game?

It feels weird, in 2018, to be looking into media I enjoy and falling into a trap of seeing what is not only the most base level blatant horny something could be, but also a cry back to the good ol’ objectifying days of watching bad anime on the internet. Besides that, it feels bizarre to see these characters from a game so specifically about and against that sort of objectification to fall prey to the same classic stereotypes.

The opening chapter of Persona 5 shows a good example of what happens with women through the eyes of so many men. It shows the egotistical Kamoshida, a school teacher who starts hitting up and blackmailing girls in his classes in order to illicit sexual favors. When the player gets to see through Kamoshida’s eyes in his palace, it’s shown how he views women as objects of lust, things to be won and nothing more. He’s also treated and described as a terrible person because of all this.

So now, seeing this exact same viewpoint, this exact same toxic archaic ideology being used as an advertisement for another entry in that game’s lineage, is a little more than frustrating. It’s a common thread amongst Atlus games to lose their message over time, but this feels like a new level of extreme. When Persona 4 Golden came out and changed its ending to feature things like a more feminine Naoto, and a more prim and proper Kanji, it was disappointing for sure, but even then it was the sort of thing you’d expect and just mope about for a bit. With these outfits, I’m just sort of flabbergasted and left wondering “did anyone who made this game play Persona 5?”

Persona 4 Dancing All Night had the same problems with outfits, but even then that was still a game based off of a source material that itself was decently misogynistic and, so it didn’t feel like such a slap in the face. Seeing deeper characters like Ann, whose character arc has a non-insignificant focus on being taken seriously above just her looks distilled down into objective eye-candy, feels a lot worse than seeing the already over the top Rise wearing a sexy Santa outfit.

I’m hardly one to begrudge sexualization in media, as an avid fan of hornier games like Bayonetta and a lion’s share of terrible anime, but there’s such a lack of tact or idealization in this that just really hammers home the whole problem. None of these outfits play well with the characterizations of the girls, none of these outfits even attempt to mingle with them. Haru gets the closest, but even then her representation of a musketeer gets bastardized into an outfit entirely focused on her legs. Characters like Ann and Futaba aren’t even so lucky either, with both getting some sort of bizarre combat armor that feels WAY too much like the nightmare “Battle Panties” from Persona 3, a game that came out over ten years ago.

It’s possible to create titillating outfits for these characters without objectifying and mischaracterizing them as well, and even Atlus has shown this. If you look at an outfit like Mitsuru’s from Persona 4 Arena, you can see the blend between the elegance and refinement of her character, as well as the intent to show sexuality. Instead of seeing something like Makoto in a leather jacket with a bikini top or something more up her alley, we get her in some sort of weird chainmail jumpsuit. Instead of seeing Anne wearing something that would fit into her lifestyle of modeling, she gets to looks like Slave Leia.

All of this groaning is even ignoring the fact that there will almost assuredly be no equal representation in shitty horniness for the guys. Both male and female characters will undoubtedly get swimsuit outfits, but there will be no corn ball horny outfits for the prior like we get for the girls. There won’t be any hot Ryuji, there won’t be a Joker with his abs out. It would never even occur to the developers who designed these costumes, because they’re still caught on these base level ideas of what “attractive” is, and what “sells,” that feels increasingly out of place.

Persona 5 was trying to be about change, but Persona 5 Dancing Star Night looks like it’s just about bringing things back to the way they always were.

The post Persona 5 Dancing’s Horrible Hypocrisy appeared first on Gamesline.

It may be near impossible to accurately describe Rock of Ages 2 and not come off as someone stringing together random words found in the dictionary. You play as Atlas, who has dropped Earth and fallen into the world along with Sisyphus’ boulder from the original game. You’ll travel around Europe, much like an over-world from Super Mario 3, defeating other historic and ludicrous figures with boulders of their own. These matches take place on a downhill map, where you and your enemy place traps, towers, and weapons in the way, all while trying to survive and build up enough speed to knock down your foe’s castle door and defeat them.

Rock of Ages’ core gameplay is certainly unique, but it still has plenty of common touches. Calling it tower defense is the closest descriptor, but also a misnomer. You place objects like towers, catapults, or bombs, but also more ridiculous items like whales, lions hanging from hot air balloons, or fireworks cannons, all of which either impede your opponent or erode their boulder, causing it to deal less damage. Most of these objects don’t really get in your way, as much as they simply crumble beneath your boulder. However, a trap, weapon, or even stone wall in the right place can send you flying off the edge or, more frustratingly, slow you down. The hand of God will place you back on track, but those precious lost seconds can give your opponent more time to ram your castle. Even with tower defense elements, Rock of Ages 2 is more a race than anything else. Frustratingly, I’ve lost more battles by being stalled out than by clever strategy.

Each match plays out just a bit differently too. Every time you defeat an enemy, you earn the boulder they used and gain access to more items to use in your next bout. When I beat Vincent Van Gogh and Adam and Eve, I could start using their inflated cow and prehistoric cheese wheel boulders, each with their own unique controls and attributes. New battles take place on unique courses every time, some high in heaven bouncing down clouds, others rolling across painting landscapes from famous artists. Some focus on staying on the course while trying to push your enemy off, while others are landlocked and more centered on racing to damage your opponent.

While the repetitive gameplay quickly builds tedium, the constant absurdity provides plenty of levity. You face off against a burning giraffe, the loading screens resemble a fighting game versus screen, Van Gogh vomits on a boulder, there is an homage to Pokemon as a part of the story, and in one instance, you’re bouncing on The Thinker’s brain as he watches dancing girls. It all becomes wonderful background noise to a sometimes frustrating, sometimes too simple game.

Rock of Ages 2 feels like an enjoyable fever dream. I found myself trying to strategically place whales next to castles while guiding a boulder covered in tar. No sentence you use to describe this game will ever seem like sanity, and that’s why I love it. Rock of Ages 2 doesn’t just embrace its own absurdity, it wants you to embrace it too. Each time a level introduced a new shade of nonsense, I wondered just how crazy the game could really get. It turned into a bit of cat and mouse as I dove deeper into the rabbit hole, trying not to blink in the face of lunacy. And oh, is there plenty of lunacy to stare into.

The post Rock of Ages 2 (PC) Review appeared first on Gamesline.

The series will be made by A-1 Pictures, who also helped make previous animated Persona projects like the Persona 3 films and, most recently, the Persona 5 prequel OVA. The voice cast for the series will also be carried over from the original Japanese dub of the game, meaning there won’t be any weird jarring moments of “uhhh that’s not my Makoto?”

While the quality of Persona-based anime has always been questionable, some becoming so maligned they were struck from the canon, it’s better in situations like this to just sit back and hope for the best. I mean hey, if it’s bad, at least Persona 5 is still damn good.

The post Atlus Announces Persona 5 Anime Series appeared first on Gamesline.

Given the name of the game, I imagine this will involved 13 mechs in total, or at least one special 13th mech. Beyond that not much is revealed but it certainly has me excited. I love the feeling of despair, sadness, and inevitability that oozes from this trailer. No release date yet but I’m content, for now, to watch this trailer over and over again.

The post Atlus’ 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim Looks Amazing appeared first on Gamesline.