In this city, one hope shines through the night: The Gamesline Podcast starring John, Rose, Lilith, and Nikolas! John enters the pastoral world of Pokopia while also returning to Raccoon City in Resident Evil 9. Rose played many games, including Resident Evil 9, Nioh 3, Marathon, Slay the Spire 2, Trails Beyond the Horizon, and Mewgenics! Lily played ULTRAKILL Layer 8: Fraud, Trails to Azure, Monster Hunter Rise and numerous Next Fest demos, including Annihilated, Cicadamata, and Firestarters. Finally, Nikolas has also been playing ULTRAKILL and Mewgenics!

In the news, Nagoshi Studio is in danger of shuttering, Nintendo is suing the US government over tariffs, PlayStation isn’t going PC ports anymore, Xbox is officially making a new console, Pokemon Winds and Waves was announced, Highguard is shutting down, a new Hunter: The Reckoning game was accidentally revealed, and Cookie’s Bustle is free from spurious copyright claims.

You can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on social media @gamesline.net, John, Rose, Lilith, and Nikolas.

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 Crystal with video production by John

The post The Gamesline Podcast Episode 84: Cookie is Free appeared first on Gamesline.

The Gamesline crew is here to revive the most provocative podcast event of all time. We took your questions that are on the more…salacious side…and answered them in shocking detail!

Before that, we did talk about video games. John played Trails in the Sky 1st and liked it, and played Hotel Barcelona and thought it was terrible! Lorelai is playing the usual. Jackson’s here and he’s been on Sonic Racing, Shinobi, and Hades 2! Plus, Doug Bowser retiring, EA is going private, and they’re charging for people to watch the Capcom Cup?

You can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on Social Media @gamesline.net, Lorelai, Jackson, and John.

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 and Produced by Lorelai

The post The Gamesline Podcast Episode 69: Sixty-Nine Revival appeared first on Gamesline.

We begin with a punchy discussion about the September 2025 Nintendo Direct and Nintendo’s place in the industry, then weave into other news items such as developments in the ongoing litigation between The Pokémon Company and Pocketpair, rumors of a new Drakengard project, the Panzer Dragoon II Zwei remake, and the Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection!

Then, we move on to personal game journals! John’s continuing his Digimon Story quest with the Time Stranger demo, Lilith reports her experiences with Trails SC and Artis Impact, and Nikolas played Sonic Racing Crossworlds!

You can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on Social Media @gamesline.net, John, Nikolas, Crystal, and Lillith.

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 and Produced by John

Here’s a transcript from Crystal:

Crystal: SCPs and creepypastas are communicated in a digital format, which is why it’s clever to interpret them as Digimon. What other things communicated in a digital format would you like to see reinterpreted as Digimon?

Nikolas: Is that what Digimon are supposed to be? Little mon-ified versions of online ideas and stuff?

John: So. Kinda. Kinda. The one time that they tried to make it very direct was when they did Appmon, and that almost killed the franchise. There is a Digimon in the Appmon franchise that is called Tweetmon, and it is supposed to be Twitter.

Lilith: Is he like a horrible, hateful creature?

Nikolas: Well no, cause he’s named Tweetmon, which is before it got that bad.

Lilith: Let’s not pretend Twitter was anything more than what it was. It was not a fallen soldier, that place was always a shithole. 

Nikolas: Yeah, but, you know, very extreme shithole difference. 

Lilith: I mean, does it matter if the shithole gives you cholera or gonorrhea? They’re both bad.

Nikolas: They are bad, but hey, the old shithole is one I made friends on. And the new one, all my friends left, so now I just use Bluesky.

Lilith: It always befuddles me—and I know we’re moving off the track of the question in the first place—but I never understand the social media apps, because in general I don’t understand how people form an economy of social interaction. Because odds are, if I talk to someone more than one time in a row in a reply thread, I will think to myself: “And now they’re justified to kill me.” And then I will never speak to them again. 

John: I don’t know about that one.

Lilith: Having social anxiety and being an extrovert is really stupid, I’ll have you know.

Nikolas: What I did was just, “Oh, these are people that I’ve talked to, and they reply every so often, I should send them a message in the DMs function of ‘Hey, do you use anything like a Discord that would be easier to talk to you with?’”

And then they either ignore me, and I know I don’t have to pursue them further, or they say “yes” and now I talk to them consistently. And that rocks, I like that. It’s just one message to have to send out, and either you’ve made a friend, or you can just basically tell them “okay, fuck off” in your own brain.

Lilith: See, that’s fair. I, like the black mold in my Steam library, just kind of manifest in people’s servers, and then they struggle to get rid of me.

But, to answer Crystal’s question, things that I think could be subsequently digitized… here’s the thing, I don’t mean to punt straight away, but there is a targeted demographic of cryptids on the internet. Like, dude who exclusively wants to post about trains, or whoever operates very very niche wikis. So, give me whatever it is the Digimon equivalent of someone’s entire vested knowledge catalog of the steam train.

The post The Gamesline Podcast Episode 67: Directistential Crisis appeared first on Gamesline.

John, Lorelai, and Lily convene on this Gamesline podcast to discuss the quality of ex-professional wresters’ acting careers. Then, video games. This week, John and Lily tried to Trails in the Sky 1st Remake demo, Lorelai and Lily go in-depth on the Final Fantasy XIV patch, and the PVP event in Umamusume happened and was horrifying. In the news, Gamescom, Silksong, Kirby Air Riders, Bungie’s CEO leaving, and more!

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

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 and Produced by Lorelai.

The post The Gamesline Podcast Episode 64: You Don’t Get Better Than Dave Bautista appeared first on Gamesline.

John and Nikolas convene to chat about the Nintendo Partner Direct, the Switch’s price increases, an update on the itch.io situation, and what was announced at Evo! Plus, some talk on Mario Paint, Donkey Kong Country 1 and 2, and more!

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

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 and produced by John.

The post The Gamesline Podcast Episode 61: Partners’ Direct in Time appeared first on Gamesline.

We’re here with more insight and opinions on the gaming world, this time focusing in on the strife NSFW creators are going through on itch.io thanks to payment processors. Plus, the Vshojo debacle, John finished Donkey Kong Bananza, Lilith loves to hate Shodan in System Shock, Crystal is playing very old games again, and Nikolas gets John’s goat with Smash Bros. opinions.

You can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on Social Media @TheGamesline, John, Nikolas, Cystal, and Lily.

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 and produced by John.

The post The Gamesline Podcast Episode 60: An itch.io Needing to be Scratched appeared first on Gamesline.

(Apologies for some audio reverb near the start, John’s new to this!)

On this episode of the podcast, John produces for the first time! Plus, we talk about Donkey Kong Bananza, the issues with payment processors and Steam, Death Stranding 2, Gravity Circuit, Crown’s Gambit, Project: AMICA, the live action Zelda movie, Ubisoft, and we recommend each other a bunch of games!

You can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on Social Media @TheGamesline, John, Nikolas, Rose, and Lily.

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 and produced by John.

The post The Gamesline Podcast Episode 59: Bananza Slamma appeared first on Gamesline.

It’s a two person episode this week, as we go over the ongoing woes of the Subnautica developers’ and publishers’ legal spat. Plus, John tried out the Hololive and Godzilla TCGs, Crystal is still playing Ridge Racer Type 4 and has finished Final Fantasy IX‘s first disc, Romero Games is still alive, and we answer your questions!

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

John: There was a listing on the U.S. Copyright website for a “Untitled Donkey Kong Project; Motion Picture.” So, they’re doing a Donkey Kong movie, it seems.

Crystal: That makes sense.

John: How do we feel about Donkey Kong’s own movie, starring Seth Rogen?

Crystal: It’ll probably be really bad. But, you know, a lot of movies are bad.

John: Are you a big Mario Movie hater? Because I thought it was okay.

Crystal: “Hater” implies a passion that I don’t think I can muster for that movie, but it was just, like…

John: Passable.

Crystal: People have made the criticism that the movie doesn’t have a script, which is accurate. But also, the movie doesn’t have any images. I’m already not the biggest fan of the Mario aesthetic, but it feels like they somehow made it more generic by Illumination-ating it up. So, I don’t know what’s here for me to grab onto.

John: Yeah, I kind of agree. I went and saw it because I got a free ticket. It was okay. I don’t know if this Donkey Kong movie’s going to be okay. Maybe, maybe not.

Crystal: It kind of pisses me off that Miyamoto is a financially successful film producer… he truly does know the market!

John: I would rather he be doing this than he continue to be in the active gamer’s room. As soon as they stopped having him be in the driver’s seat, as it were, they started doing more interesting stuff again. He is just so conservatively minded about game design and story and all kinds of stuff comparatively these days. And Koizumi has been better in that role so far, and I’m happy about that, and that’s why I’m interested in Bananza too. 

So, Miyamoto, go ahead and keep being a movie producer. I’ll go play the cool video games that are being made when you’re not sticking your fingers in there and telling them “no.”

Crystal: They’ll make Zelda games with stories these days.

John: [laughs] Maybe we need another person there to get the stories to be good. We’ve moved into the “has a story” section of the Zelda experience, we need to move into the “has a good story” experience. Maybe in about 15 years, we’ll see.

Crystal: Are Zelda stories noticeably worse than its peers in the industry?

John: Some of them, yeah. You’d have to take it on a case-by-case basis. The way they treat Zelda in those games ain’t good, is all I’m gonna say.

Crystal: That’s true, it’s not good.

The post The Gamesline Podcast Episode 58: Trading Card Game Evaluation Expert John appeared first on Gamesline.

John is joined by Scott, Lorelai, and Lilith to go over the goings-on in the gaming sphere! After a long talk about Western comics, the crew goes over Konami’s fashionably late not-E3 stream, and everyone had something to get excited about in it except John’s and his Yu-Gi-Oh expectations. The crew has all played Deltarune‘s new chapters, and they have thoughts! Plus, Lorelai and the Nioh 3 test, Lilith went deep on the Next Fest demos, Scott’s Nightreigning, and John beat Xenoblade Chronicles X.

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

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

Here’s an excerpt by Crystal:

[Listener Question: What is your favorite evil choice in a game?]

John: Yeah, I don’t know, I don’t have a great answer. I’m never really inclined to do that. I’m such a goody two-shoes I just want to do the nice things.

Scott: Doing evil choices in video games is fundamentally unpopular, people only want to be good.

John: And sometimes in a lot of games it just sucks!

Lilith: Most of the time, an evil choice in a video game amounts to something that’s a bad option for literally everyone involved. You’re just doing it to be a dick.

Scott: Right, games that actually embrace what an evil choice would be are games where you gain something out of it that you wouldn’t otherwise, because you’re incentivized to treat people that way. Like, that quest in Pathologic 1 where you’re carrying a bunch of food around, and you can just steal that food. Because otherwise, what’s the point? You’re not going to get much out of this otherwise.

Lilith: Most evil acts that we understand in real life come from this—as silly as it is to say, the smallest scale of it is choosing not to return the cart at the grocery store. Real evil choices are just that exploded in scale, where it’s like “I could spend $300 million to give my employees healthcare, but then I wouldn’t have $300 million.” So, if we’re really answering it that way, the best evil choice in video games is giving a poor person a gold coin and then immediately pickpocketing it back from them.

Lorelai: That’s honestly what I was going to go with. There’s so many games where you can do it, like all of the games from Larian where you spend a ton of money buying everything and you just steal it all back. Or you just steal a thing, sell it to them, then buy it from them.

John: I’ll always love that clip where it’s a Khajiit that robs you, and then they turn around and you take it back and they’re just like, “It was worthless, I don’t care.”

Lorelai: In Divinity: Original Sin, there was this one plotline with a beggar who’s like, “Hey man, I’m gonna steal from that cart over there so I can get some food. Can you please watch out for me?” And you can be like, “Yeah man, I can do it.” and then immediately tattle on him to a cop. And then you can watch him get taken to jail, for the thing you said you were going to spot him on, and you can then go to that jail, and then murder him in jail, and take the thing he stole.

Scott: I love open-ended games. It’s nice that we’re having an actual exploration of what it means to be a shitty person. You obviously should never do something like this in real life, but the fact that you can simulate it in some way… that is an achievement on its own.

John: I will say, I don’t fully think that it’s a really amazing way to do it, but I do appreciate that they give you the Accomplice option in Persona 4. Figuring out what was going on, and being like, “You know what… I’m into it, let’s keep it going.” That’s interesting. I don’t think it fully pulls it off, but I think it’s an interesting concept and I would love to see that kind of stuff happening again. If Metaphor had a thing where it was like, “You know what, this Louis guy… I’m gonna team up with him, fuck y’all,” that could be interesting!

The post The Gamesline Podcast Episode 54: Whipping It Out! appeared first on Gamesline.

John got a Switch 2 nice and early, so here he is messing with the hardware and checking out Pokemon Violet‘s FPS upgrade, GameCube on Switch 2, and Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess!

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The post John has a Switch 2! Let’s mess with it. appeared first on Gamesline.