Hollow Knight & Silksong

Alex and Luke Talk Hollow Knight and Silksong.

The duo dive into a Metroidvania double‑header: first the seminal Hollow Knight (Team Cherry, 2017) and then its long‑awaited sequel Hollow Knight: Silksong (Team Cherry, 2025). We unpack the evolution of the form — bug‑infested kingdoms, needle‑wielding protagonists, soaring difficulty curves — while comparing how the first game laid the groundwork and Silksong raised the bar (and the anguish). Two games, one legacy, endless edge‑of‑your‑seat platforming.

 Hollow Knight earned a Metacritic score of 87 on PC and 90 on Switch. HowLongToBeat estimates place a standard full play‑through around 27 hours (main story) and up to ~65 hours for completionists. Silksong debuted with a Metacritic score of 91 (PC), classified under “universal acclaim”. Play time estimates suggest around 40‑45 hours for a meaningful run, with full completion pushing closer to 60 hours+. All in all, two hefty games that demand stamina, precision, and a willingness to die… a lot.

Alex tackled Hollow Knight on his Nintendo Switch OLED, while Luke jumped into Silksong on his Steam Deck. Luke’s no stranger to the first game — he’s beaten Hollow Knight before — but neither of them rolled credits this time around. Along the way they compare platform experiences, controller feel, and how each game’s difficulty and structure landed differently for each of them.

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Chapters

• 0:22 Hollow Knight & Silksong
• 46:35 Unsanctioned Sponsor: Bein' fat bs who can't stop eating the rest of our Halloween candy.
• 1:00:05 Sidequestin'

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:21

What up, dog? Chillin', buddy? It took seven years. Seven long years. Not to get silk song. It took seven long years to get Alex just to play Hollow Knight. Dog, it's true. It's true. Welcome to the pod. How are we doing? Man, I'm doing good. It's nice to be here in person with you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And uh, yeah, we're we're entering the fall season. I was out doing some yard work today. What are you doing? I rigged a little leaves. The point is. He's got strong dad energy on me right now. That's what he's saying. Seasons are shifting. Hollow night. He's like, did you wake up early so you can fall asleep early after letting everybody know how long you've been working all day? Because Alex did. He's ready for that dad energy, dude. I am ready for my name. I fall asleep with a can resting on his belly. Yes, sir. Uh, yes, so welcome to Low Five Gaming. My name is Luke. And I'm Alex. It's great to have you here. Did you have to think about it for a second, dude? I had a look at the outline, see who I was. Alright, fair enough. Yeah, so we're doing a little bit of a double whammy. Um, we're just giving you a little Hollow Knight silk song Team Cherry Sampler, dude. So we're in two stages. Uh that was not a silly, stupid Luke joke. I have been nagging Alex to play Hollow Knight for seven long years. Probably pre-pod, to be honest. Well, I guess that would be true because the pod's not seven years, so yeah, yeah. And uh, I was thinking back today, I was like, it'd probably be good to tell my little Hollow Knight story. Like, how did I get Hollow Knight? What made it uh aware to me? And I do not even remember, dude. It's been so long. Interesting, really. It must have just been in the zeitgeist and very popular with like video game websites and like other pods, but I was definitely very strongly in my indie game phase on the Nintendo Switch, and uh Hollow Knight's one of these games that like really benefited from the Nintendo Switch popping off and like a lot of more casual gamers, non-PC gamers, getting a hold of these indies. Sure. So I got a hold of Hollow Knight, and I wasn't a huge Souls like or even Metroidvania guy that I can even remember or think of. So it's interesting, it kind of shows you to the mass appeal of the game and the mastery of the game that I was so hooked and I was so into it, dude. That is cool, and you were shilling it too, shilling it hard. Uh Ace bought it. Boing Boing. Tyler bought it, and my buddy Ben bought it and beat it, and it was this wonderful thing we could talk about all the time, and then I was like, ow, this is totally your type of game, and you're like, I know. And then you never bought it and played it. And I was like, You probably actually bought it because you bought we're never actually scooped it on a Nintendo sale a long time ago, probably years ago, probably seven years ago. I respect your uh your recommendations. I just didn't always jump on them. Yeah, there's a lot of games to be played as well. Um plus it's you know, for for better or worse, whether you like whether you want to call them search action, what do you want to call it? Metroidvania, the uh pretty strongly Metroidvania, I feel like. Me too, buddy. Yeah, me too. Yeah, but there's a lot of them, dude. Like, I mean, I'm I'm a 2D Metroid, especially fanboy. Castlevania, I've got like a hard on for Castlevania, but I've never really like rolled credits on any Castlevanias. I just love the the IP, I think. Yeah. Uh anime did some heavy lifting there. Totally, totally. It's a sick fucking anime. And then there's like, I don't know, there's just a mess of uh indies, and I feel like Hollow Knight, like, I mean, it's obviously an indie, Team Cherry, great, great, great team, small team, putting in work. This uh Silk Song took a long time to come out, but like Hollow Knight, I think if you look at the the discourse around the game, like people consider it up rational. It's uh yeah. It's like holy grail type shit. Like some people, I'm there gonna be people out there that think it's better than your Metroids and your Castlevanias. I'd say it's better than Metroid Dread, as I stare at this beautiful Metroid Dread poster in your office. And uh before we recorded, I talked about how slick and awesome Metroid Dread was. But if you held those two games up together, man, Hollow Knight really beats it. And then it's just credits yet, so I won't say that definitively, but you can because you have. I have, and then you know, it was so long ago. But what's funny is like these types of games I don't have the greatest perseverance through. Like I got the newer um Prince of Persia one. Yep. Was that this year? I think on the Xbox, and I was loving it. Did you roll credits on that one? Yeah, we did a pod on it. Most of the Metroidvania's I play, I get like halfway through and then I quit. They get hard. There's a difficulty thing, but there's also like burnout, maybe. It's a burnout thing for me because um there's a lot of them that I've done this to, but Hollow Knight was not one. I had to do it. Now, did I go sicko mode on it? Absolutely not. But that's why I like crazy stuff people do. I feel like Metroid hits the uh like the hours perfectly. Yeah, Metroids in general give you that 10 to 15 hours, so that is a good mark. But yeah, even shorter on the Game Boy, bro. Oh, sure. But I got super pilled on um Hollow Knight and just absolutely adored my playthrough. And then, you know, the whole world was just like, hey man, Silksong's coming, silksong's coming, and then it became everything it became as far as people have been thirsty for a silksong. Thirsty. Did they even was it even like delays, or they just never really announced when it was? It was like radio silence, and people just whipped themselves up into a fervor and it became a meme to like say it was announced, and it was like it became such like a pet hobby to like predict when it was gonna be revealed and all these types of things, and it got out of hand. Um, I'm sure it was annoying, but maybe charming to the developers. Yeah, I think because probably because of this podcast, especially early on in it, like I was really tuned into and it was just it's it is interesting to follow like the releases and all the new games coming. But as time has continued, and you know, like uh we we bring it up often, but having so many games, bro. Like, I just I'm so out of touch on like following games. Maybe it's just because I have a kid now, too. It's probably a larger part of it, right? Right, and not not to say I don't like playing, not to say. I used to watch like Nintendo showcases like very fervently, right? And then tried to care about Xbox very fervently for a little while, and then and it was an Xbox showcase that I think that's when I saw that they were the they dropped a uh silksong tease. Like this is like three years ago. A while ago, yeah. Yeah, but no dates or anything, and then you know, time time went on. But to my understanding, dude, a lot of people enjoying silksong. Yeah, and what's crazy is after they I don't even know how much money they could have charged, but to drop it day of at$15 is bananas. Uh for Hollow Knight. For Silksong? 20 bucks. 20? I want five dollars back silks on I mean inflation, bro. Inflation. Dirt cheap. But 20 bucks, dude, for like a full-on game. It's a much bigger game than Hollow Knight, which is already a very big game. Right. I think Hollow Knight was 15 bucks according to our notes. I do be seeing that. Uh which means I probably scooped it for like seven. You don't have a physical copy? I don't. This is a digital copy game for me.

unknown: 7:47

Wow.

SPEAKER_02: 7:48

Yeah. This would have been a physical copy, so I see. Well see, here's the deal. And this this will help us narrow down as to when I end up buying this game. It was I mean, I've always loved physical media, but like I it was at a point where I wouldn't have gone out of my way to buy a physical indie. So this must have been like six, seven years ago. But who knows? No six seven jokes allowed. Six seven. Not allowed. Yes. So it's probably you ready for a tangent? I've known about six seven for like a year and a half because I'm really keen in on the basketball and it'd be started as a basketball meeting. Alex has a LaMello Ball stan. Dude, not a Stan, but I like the guy. But anyways, I've known about it. So the fact that it has blown up like right now is like the probably the only thing I'm like, you're all fucking stupid. Not even I was completely oblivious to it, and then eighth graders are yelling at all over the place from the first day, and I was like, what does this mean? And no one's been able to tell me. And that's not the point. Yeah, that's not the point. So right. But anyway, let's reel it back in, little hollow knight silk song. Six, seven years ago, I was crushing this game on the Switch, and it was so good on the Switch. The handheld, the tight platforming, and then docking it, and like, because you yeah, brother, you get sweaty when you play these games. This game gets me fucking some sweaty palm bullshit when I'm playing Hollow Knight back in the day, and Silksong definitely now. So I've actually been as I'm playing, you know, as you're doing Silksong. Uh my from what I've heard from the chat on the internet is that it is harder. It's harder than Hollow Knight. Hollow Knight is hard. It is not, I have not yet reached a point. There's definitely points where like it frustrates me.

SPEAKER_01: 9:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 9:32

But it's it hasn't been a point where I'm like, fuck this game. Like, I'm not like, well, I will give myself breaks, but it's not like Celeste Hard. Um, even though I enjoyed how hard Celeste is. It's not Celeste hard, but like something to remember about Celeste is every time you die, you start right where you were, so you can get into a rhythm. This is very much a Souls like in the sense that you like start off at your bench. So you're this cute little bigger. And there's combat, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 9:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 9:57

You're this cute little bug, and you're in this little bug-like nest area. The environment is immediately gorgeous, and the sound is immediately just absolutely on point. I'm not a huge like video game soundtrack or sound guy, but like these games, even someone is like it's very atmospheric. Yeah, someone like me who's not paying too much attention to this in general is just absolutely blown away. Like it forces you to. Uh, and that reminds me a lot of Metroid when we our first ill-fated pod of all time was Super Metroid. And it was fascinating to look at Super Metroid from like that game came out like 30, 35 years ago now. Yeah, that sounds about right. How atmospheric that game is and how moody everything is, and the sci-fi is so cool. So it's like definitely in that family tree and lineage, and then it takes like some of the souls-like stuff. So you have the benches, although Super Metroid did the same thing with the pods, um, where you have that save point, and then you gotta go to wherever you were and then try to gather back like your souls or your currency. I haven't played Hollow Knight in a million years. Do you remember what they call them? Uh Geo. That's your Geo. Yeah, it's kind of like your essence or whatever. Uh, how much do you love the little map guy? Uh, I wish I could do uh he's cool. He likes he's like a little slug thing. Yeah. Yeah. Uh I was actually gonna bring him up when you're talking about sound because I think that he especially is like a really cool piece of the sound design because you'll be going across the map and you'll start to hear him humming, and as you get closer to him, the hum gets louder and louder, so you know you're closer to finding him or whatever. Yeah, and he has it's like a cool map system, mapping system where you're kind of charting it, but once you get the maps from him, like it actually saves your progress in charting it. And it's really it's a cool payoff when you get into each area, and then the nakedness you feel when you're in an area without one, especially after you learn that loop, it sucks so bad because you die a lot and therefore you have to get back to where you were to get your lost materials or just figure out your progressions. Speaking of souls, like, dude, it you pull up that map and it doesn't stop the gameplay. No, you get your shit smacked if you pull up that map. I think your little guy actually like pulls out a map, though. It's like pretty cute. Uh I haven't noticed that animation. That's cool though. When you like sit on benches, it like adds to like what you've discovered. Yeah, he feels in the map, which is cool too. I find that sick. Uh, but that nakedness when you're in a new area and you don't have that map, and then just like how warm and fuzzy you feel afterwards when you do get the map after from him is like fucking amazing. And I think it's a core a core element of Metroidvania's, and is definitely present in this, but you bring up nakedness, and I think that you know the the gameplay proper, like the action in the the fighting and the combat and the traversal, like like any true Metroidvania, you start out weak, right? Like you don't have all your moves or anything. It doesn't do the trope where you like have them all that like often often will happen in in Metroid where you like have everything and then you lose it all. Uh you just like start as like this hollow, you know, you start as this knight that doesn't have a lot of skill necessarily. There's not much of an on-ramp at all. Yeah, but it's what I really have been appreciating about Hollow Knight is how how impactful those upgrades are when you get them to the to the game overall. So like uh even even early on, like what is what's one of the first ones you get? You get uh the dash or whatever, probably. Dash made sense, but the mantis claw for me, I was like, that should like that was like morph ball level, you know, like the mantis claw made it made the because it the dash is like sure, it makes sense, right? I mean it both makes sense, but the dash is like, okay, there's a ledge that's far away, I can't make the jump, like I'm gonna need to figure out something else that like is gonna get me to to that platform. And you spend, I don't know, two, three hours of the game kind of just working with those two moves, and then you get the mantis claw, and the mantis claw lets you essentially do the Celeste thing where you grab onto walls and you can jump off walls and climb and shit.

SPEAKER_01: 13:38

Sure.

SPEAKER_02: 13:38

And then like this entire map that you were in, you can traverse it completely differently. Yeah, and for worth mentioning the controls are incredibly tight, very tight controls. And for me, granted, I am a gamer, so like you know, I have good game literacy. I'm just gonna say good, I'm not gonna say great. Yeah, right. But uh but like whether that were good gamers is a different argument, but do we have gamer literacy yes for sure? So like I was thinking about that though when I unlocked the mantis claw because like I was just jetting around this like screen. I was like just traversing super fast, and I was like, I wonder if like someone who doesn't play as much games would like if it would be such an explosive unlock that it is for me right now. And maybe, maybe not, but like it was just kind of a fun little thing because I that's how powerful I felt being able to jump from wall to wall. I can't imagine anybody who doesn't play a lot of games enjoying either of these games, especially. You think of the difficulty level? The difficulty, the the way that you have to find and stumble into things is all very video game coded.

SPEAKER_01: 14:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 14:38

And it's like it's not intuitive, I guess. If you're not a gamer, I can't imagine it's very intuitive at all. And it doesn't hold your hand for like a second. It doesn't, dude. You actually you mentioned me on the Discord, or maybe we're in. I think it was on the Discord, but you're like, dude, like don't be afraid to just like especially early game, look things up because this game doesn't hold your hand in like as far as and I have been like um even less so. Like I feel like Metroid is like it's more coded when you get something, like I feel like it does a slightly better job of like helping you understand where you need to go to next with colored doors, yeah. For sure, yeah, for sure. Whereas Hollow Knight, like, and I think that's part of Hollow Knight's appeal too is like how open it is because you can go to areas you shouldn't be in and fuck about, you know. Um, but Hollow Knight's for the exploring, yes, yes. But like how much you want to explore a little bit more confined, and I guess we could probably just talk about just the two games we're supposed to talk about without their ancestors so much, but there's so much exploring, and there's like lots of different ways to get to the different areas. It does suck really hard when you platform and fight. Platforming's very tight, controls are very tight, and you like cross like a pretty intense section, and the later you get into the game, you get to some very like dark areas. Yeah, no, I've noticed that already. And it's like, and then you get to somewhere and it's like you can tell that a ledge is too high up, and you just like sit there and you're like, I need to unlock an ability to get up there, don't I? For sure. So you'll run into that frustration. But I mean, I can you can already see that, like, where I'm at too. Part of being a Metroanian, dude. Yeah, and then another part which the game definitely crushes, is a combination of big epic bosses, epic mini bosses, and infuriating field bosses. Field bosses, you can't. Those are just like I'm not great with my technology tech terminology. Yeah, um, keep it in. But like a field boss is like kind of like a mini boss, but even just like it's almost like just like a regular beefed up version of an enemy, either like the first time you run into it, oh sure, yeah, that makes sense. Yep. But it's not like the same grandeur. Okay. Even the typical enemies in this game can be difficult. If you're not in the flow, like they'll fuck you up sometimes. I'm playing silksong, and I thought, I think I'm a pretty good gamer. And I played a bunch of fucking Elden Ring this year. So, like, when people are like, when I saw the discourse about people being like, this game's too hard, and like people just immediately upon release of this game just bickering about silksongs being too difficult, it's almost like Team Cherry is still a small team and they built this beautiful game, absolute labor of love, and it took so all these years, they say, basically, because they just kept adding to it and refining it. But it's almost like they themselves got extremely sick with the controls, yeah, and therefore just are like it's punishing as hell. So a very humble enemy in Hollow Knight can take you down. Any enemy in Silksong can take you down. So if you have like five health bars, it's like a little mask or whatever, yeah. In Hollow Knight, an enemy usually will take one damage. Almost every enemy takes like two damage in Silksong. And I'm like, why? It's probably because they're all like Team Cherit is good at the game now, so they're trying to give themselves uh I'm saying they they grind it so hard, and then I mean it's it feels a little obvious, but we should definitely explain a tiny bit. Like, you're this little this little knight in the first game, you're supposed to be kind of this nameless like creature, like husk, literally. And that's way into the story, which I never did. The story is very ambient storytelling, it's very not obvious. It is is very much like coded and like all these little hidden secrets. So, like some people are super into that. I've been reading them in this, but it's like I'm like, oh, this is stuff I'm not gonna pay. I'm paying attention, I'm like reading it, but I'm like, I'm not connecting the dots. It's it helps with the atmospheric vibes, but I never really connected the dots, and I never really cared because that's not what I was in the game for. I just love the way that the exploration and the way the environment made me feel and like how beautiful it was. Um, but people, there's like intense lore that people are super into on YouTube, and that's cool.

SPEAKER_01: 18:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 18:52

But you are Hornet in Silksong, and Hornet's like your rival kind of in the first game. You fight Hornet, and she's pretty tough. She is, especially the first time, the first time that uh she was like the first difficult boss that I faced, and the save point was far enough away where it was annoying to traverse back to her all the time. The boss fight had a lot of character, like but she taught me a lot, dude. Yeah, she taught me to slow down. I mean, that's how these games work. Like, yeah, it's like okay, slow down, figure out her tells, and get good. Get good. Yeah, no, it's like you're you're gonna learn the dance, uh, you're just gonna step on your partner's toes a billion times and you're gonna fall over a lot. And you play as her, and they had her. That's the thing about these games, dude. That's the thing about these games, is like you can lose to a boss like that just be extreme, 30 times in a row. But then when you beat them, right, yeah. It's just an unfortunate reality. When you beat them that 31st time, like sometimes you do it by the skin of your teeth. Yeah, but I feel like more often than not, you just like mop the floor with them because you're like, okay, that 31st time, you've like you've got it. Becomes like intensely rhythmic. Right. Yeah. So there's these have you faced the three mantises? They're like mantis kings. Uh, I don't think I'm there yet. Uh there's a time I'm traversing around, like I've unlocked the new area of the map, like the the whatever city or whatever. Yeah. I don't know if it's winter break or summer break, but I like aces over.

SPEAKER_01: 20:13

Moing!

SPEAKER_02: 20:14

And he just watched me get my ass beat by the mantises for like a good long time before I cleared it. I think when he played the game, he's like, Yeah, I beat him pretty quick, but maybe it's because I watched you die so many times. And I was like, um It is helpful. Like, that's what I did, not to bring a Metroid again, but like that's what I had to do sometimes is watch a boss fight so I could learn it and then uh continue. Well, in Metroid, it was almost like that Celeste version where you just start right over from the beginning of the boss. Whereas God, there's been a few sections where I've had to like because in Silicon, the enemies are tougher. They feel like they're even more intentionally placed to be annoying to slurry. Are you playing as Hornet? Like, I don't think that's a spoiler because that's like she's on the coverage. So she has her own moveset that's similar but different, and she's very fluid, very um dynamic. Like people who are like, Yeah, but you're given more cool dynamic moves, they're not wrong. Yeah, it's just it doesn't help me emotionally as I'm getting my ass beat. But it's like they intentionally put a lot of these enemies in very inconvenient locations and a lot of environmental traps. Right on. So like I'm just trying to get back to the boss fight, and if you just disrespect the game for the tiniest bit, you're just getting your ass beat by the simplest enemies. So you have to like I have to play the game under such specific parameters of like I'm in the right headspace, I'm ready to get my ass beat, I'm patient, I'm curious, and that's a long way of saying that I'm like 15 hours to 20 hours in, and I've barely gotten anywhere, and I'm as salty as I was clouding. Yeah, yeah, man. So you were earlier talking about like kind of the main gameplay loop. So basically you're exploring just like you know, we've already mentioned the Metrobania thing, but that's another big trope. Like you're exploring this empty map, uh, kind of these interconnected um different kingdoms in this case of Hollow Nest, just like any other great Metrobania, you're gaining new abilities to unlock previously inaccessible areas, yep. Uh fighting enemies and bosses. There's like 47 bosses or some shit like that. That's what I've got. Who knows how many I actually fought too? Yeah. Oh, really? So you there's a lot of options, so interesting. And then when you die, so you we start we talked about this briefly earlier, but uh you die, lose your currency, which is called Geo, and then you return to the corpse to recover it. So it's that same thing that you get in uh there's a few games that do. I think it's like originated with like a kind of the souls thing, right?

SPEAKER_01: 23:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 23:34

Right on. What's another good one that does that? Um, well, all the souls games, but then I'm thinking what's the other one? It's another night one, but it's got kind of an eight-bit feel. Uh, yeah, Shovel Knight. Shovel Knight. You gotta get your bag of gold and it kind of reduces every time. That's a bitch. That's what I liked about this game is when you go return when you retrieve your whatever it is, when you go retrieve your your geo out of the uh the soul, whatever's going on, it's the same. Your bag's the same. Do you have to fight it? Yeah, you just have to hit it twice. Oh, okay. Now it's like almost like this, like Hornet has like almost like this wasp, like Hornet's nest little like cocoon thing. Cocoon's the word I'm going for, and you just smack that. Probably one of the more interesting gameplay loops is you like for the sake of clarity, you just kinda like your attack when you attack, you build up like attack points, and then you fill up this little bar under your health, and then you can heal with that. Right. I actually like that. But it takes a few seconds, it can make the boss fights super intense. Yeah, healing being that intentional and like part of the combat and the flow and the dance of it all, like trying to steal yourself away. Like if you're low on health, you know you have to get a few hits in just to get that like bar up, and then you have to find a save. Like, if you can pull that off, like you have one hit and you're gonna die, and you like get in like two, three, four hits and then run away and then avoid their attacks and then heal, you feel like a superhuman. It's tricky too, right? Because the reason these palms be getting sway over here, dude. It's tricky too, because the healing mechanic, you like press and hold and it'll charge and it heals like one piece at a time. But if you tap that same button, it like casts a spell. Or shoots us like it shoots out a spell. At least where I think if that's the same thing in silkson or no, I think they might have changed that because that's tricky too, because sometimes I'll be hitting it too fast, and then like I'll blow my load and I won't be able to heal. Dog, I'd kill for a dodge roll. It might make the game too easy, but I'd kill for dodge roll. I've been playing other games where you have dodge rolls, and when you don't have one, you're just like sometimes I hit I like Phantom hit the button. Sure. And he'll start the or she'll start the healing thing, then I'll be like, oh, and I'll get hit and I'll have wasted it. Because if you get interrupted in that mechanic, you lose more health and you don't get any of those action the action points are spent. Right. So it like punishes you for being sloppy with it. Interesting. So that's so the so that you know, going back to the to the geo, the geos then uses used for upgrades, so that's what the whole money thing's for. It's like rosary beads and silksong, yeah. Um, which is cool. And then you unlock these different abilities and the different like special attacks. There's a big emphasis on like pins. Is that what it is in the first one? Yeah, yeah. Pins or badges, one of two. There's different uh shopkeepers up on the main the main area, at least you can change your loadout. What you'll run into, which is really sick, is that you upgrade your pin, your little needle thing over time, you can make it like longer and stronger. That's pretty fucking sick. Very gratifying. I have yet to like get good enough uh unlocks in silksong to make me feel more powerful. Oh, sure. So every time I've got a lot of people. Yeah. Uh just like a random pet peeve that this game has really brought out of me. Whenever I face like a particularly excruciating boss that I die to a lot, or like mini boss or field boss, I love it when they leave behind some sort of loot, so I have some sort of like fuck yeah, like here's like my trophy essentially. I don't want an achievement, but I want some sort of like in-game acknowledgement, like a big reward from it. And one thing that's in Silksong, I've just been noticing like a lot of times I beat these little bosses, and it's just like nice, yeah, you can move on. And I'm like, dude, but it took me like 50 times. At least give me a big bag of geo. Yeah, or like extra health, or like a stronger this or that, or that's been kind of annoying. And uh that's one thing I really like about like Elden Ring is usually get like some funky weapon or something. Yeah, so all those upgrades, I mean, you basically feed that back into your combat, so like you can improve your nail, get different spells. Um there's just like a whole bunch of different stuff. But then what I wanted to bring up was the charm system, which we kind of teased too, which is interesting because you brought up the the dodge roll, and it doesn't have a dodge roll, but are there are like a good what I thought of immediately was the charm that makes it so that you no longer like get hit back. I forget what it's called, study or something like that. Oh yeah, so you get the knock back when you Yeah, so like you don't get knocked back. If you like get hit, you don't get knocked back like I was like so there's there's certain things that like make you you definitely become more powerful, but you can tweak all those because you have a certain and you unlock more and more by spending more geo and stuff like that, but you're able to use a different set of charms, which I think like is like Elden Ring was doing that kind of stuff too. Yeah, you gotta equip like your map and your compass. So a lot of times if you're like exploring, you don't have the extra abilities, but if you make like a specific loadout for a boss, it's pretty slick. Right or a specific loadout for like a platforming section. Because the game it's a really, really nice blend between platforming and combat being the focus, and then sometimes some very tense action platforming. Yeah. Uh and once again in Silksong, I feel like every time I'm going to little sections, I have to like bait the enemy that they've plotted for me. Because so often they're like, Oh yeah, bounce off of this thing, and then bounce off of that thing, and then there's the ledge, and then you bounce off the first thing, and then something comes swooping down, and it's like, if I'm just trying to catch up to where I just died, I'm just losing my fucking mind. Dude, this uh if I you know to continue comparing this game to other games, I guess, like what I and I actually appreciate it in this game because I think just like Celeste, I mean you brought up how tight the controls are in this game. Same thing with Celeste, right? Yeah, super tight controls. And I think some of the platforming that I've been doing, even kind of early on, especially once you get the Mantis Claw. Well, actually, it's like primarily when I got the Mantis Claw, I was like, oh yeah, they got me doing Celeste shit now. Because there's like spikes on the walls that you gotta avoid, that kind of thing, jump around, do a dash, whatever. And uh to my understanding, there's like even more and more and more things that will like make traversal even different. But but I appreciate it. Like it's like I don't think beyond Celeste, like I know that like Super Meat Boy and all that kind of stuff, but I never really played a bunch of those. So like, but this like scratches a very similar, like at first I was like, I don't want to do any like Celeste like traversing of you know platforming, heck. But then I was like, whatever. Like, I got I am interested to see what they got because if like if they got this here, there's gotta be something cool on the other end, right? That's always the case. They set up really nice. I haven't I've had a little bit of luck with this in Silksong, but I have fonder memories in Hollow Knight of like they set up some like pretty grueling gauntlets of platforming, but the environments once again are so cool that there's like even a reward of like where you're exploring, it feels really cool to progress and got a lot of tension moments. Like, oh god, I'm like only halfway there, I gotta get like a little further. And then there usually is like a very gratifying reward at the end of a long platforming session. So I do love that, and it's just kind of a like amazing how those other games, some of those other games you mentioned, like their whole purpose is platforming, and some of the platforming in this game is on par with games that literal whole purpose is just a platform, so that's quite impressive. Totally. This game, I mean, we mentioned I think the original came out 15 bucks at launch or something like that. Uh Silksong, it's 2025, and they dropped that game for 20 bucks. And it's like, I mean, they could have charged more, so respect. Easily 30. Because they, you know, it's a it's a very beefed up sequel, it's it's much longer. And like the environmental detail. Details in the first game are very like stunning. But it's actually like for a 2D, or maybe technically it's 2.5D, who knows? There's no way for me to tell. The layering they do for the backgrounds is actually crazy. Like the things falling, the things you see in the foreground and the back, it's just like I can't believe how much they put into it. It's like they made the game five years ago, and then they just kept adding detail and layer for the floor. That's a free DLC too. Oh, I'm talking about Silksong too. Oh, word, word. How big of an upgrade like that seems to have been like already. And then the sound design, if you throw like your your little uh headphones in right there when you're playing, dude, all the little tips and taps and water drips and like the metal hitting metal, all the sounds are intensely gratifying in this game. I like to very much be a vegetable gamer these days, or like I'm just like listening to a pod or music and like not being very smart or to very locked in, which has made this game a struggle for me. But once again, the game really really wants you to observe everything and be super intentional. So if you can get into that head spice, it's just so crazy with all those details. Yeah, and uh just going back to the price of it, dude. Like I'm I think I'm probably like 10-12 hours in, something like that. From my understanding, like from no no spell understanding of like the areas, uh, I've only unlocked about half of the areas that get unlocked, as far as like uh, you know, Forgotten Crossroads is a starting area, and I'm all the way into like City of Tears or whatever. Yeah, and so that's that's only like halfway through. You're gonna like you're gonna get this ability that like is basically this big giant mega dash. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're gonna rip through the environment, and I want you to hold on to this memory when you first use that, and like there's this area which you were like, why I've seen like YouTube's of uh she was like somewhere where you you're like I don't know what this open space is for, and then you basically cross back over through that open space with that new ability, and just the graphics of it look so fucking cool. I even have a charm that I on that I like found or unlocked or something that I haven't I have not equipped, but it like makes it so your dash is like you can dash more quickly or something like this. Multiple screen type shit. Like it's a huge zooming. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Flying, clearly. Right um, yeah, dude. So Silksong, Hollow Knight, I recommend to almost any gamer. Right. Anyone who wants a challenge, loves like not necessarily a spooky season feel. You know, it's interesting though. It's it's very strong. Melancholy vibes, though. Cutesy melancholy vibes, right? But it's you know, we'll see. Like I said, I'm only halfway through the like I got half the areas unlocked, but like I it doesn't seem like there's gonna be a whole bunch of vibrancy in is in in terms of like churning up the happiness of the areas. They're beautiful. Don't get don't get it. Even when it's like extra beautiful and more colorful, there is always kind of that dark fantasy um emo bug boy vibe. Yeah, it's a vibe for sure.

SPEAKER_01: 34:00

Emo bug boy vibe.

SPEAKER_02: 34:01

It's cool. Anyone looking for like a hardcore challenge, it's such a reasonably priced game and it's so good and it's challenging and it hits all these different layers. Now for Silksong, I recommend it for people who have smashed Hollow Knight. So don't go to Silksong first. Don't go to Silksong first. I don't think you'd appreciate it, and you will bounce off the difficulty. I think if you love Hollow Knight and you're ready, like it's a true sequel in the sense where it almost like skill level picks up where you left off. Oh, interesting, yeah. Like I've really struggled. Like, I'm does the story continue from where the last one ends, or is there like a time thing without spoiling? It's not a prequel, like it's after the events of the first game. She references your character in the first game. I'm in such a different place in my life playing the two games where like I think I could handle a game like Hollow Knight, but I've struggled to play a game like Silksong, which is ironic because uh Tyler has just as many kids as me. Sure. And he's doing great on Silksong. He's doing better and I bugging suck. I mean, you mentioned earlier, it's a mind space. I think I think that's true of all Metroidvania's. Like you have to be, at least the ones that are like kind of difficult, like you have to be in a mind space to be able to tackle that kind of shit. Yeah, and like that was a lot easier for me to get into when I was younger without the kids. Whereas now work and then kids, I still got like a nice like two plus hour little chunk at the end of the day to play games. But sometimes I'm not trying to get my ass beat for sure. In silk song. But when I do it's that classic, like big boss fight. Like my wife the other day was like, Wow, that game really makes you angry. But there's also been some times where I make like some intensely dorky squealish noises. Payoff's insane when you beat a boss that you've been just like dancing with, essentially. Yeah. So yeah. So uh I think it's worth bringing up, you know, you you brought up the the long wait, right?

SPEAKER_01: 35:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 35:55

For from Hollow Knight to Silksong. And some reasoning behind that could be attributed to the team cherry, small team, basically three core people.

SPEAKER_01: 36:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 36:04

Like that's that's not a lot of folk making a game that like people, and that's and this is another part of this too. So so the three people they try to control their scope creep. So they're like, you know, they had a lot a ton of ideas, which you're you're speaking to earlier, uh, and they kept adding them. Um they have a philosophy of polish over speed. Yeah. So which is which I think shows if you look at this game, they spent a lot of time. I mean, the the first game was a masterpiece. Yeah. So they had ridiculous expectations, and those ridiculous expectations. You're bringing up what I was gonna say next, is the expectation piece. Yeah, and then they're just fine tuning, they're just polishing and sanding, and they're just going crazy with the development. Huge expectations. From my understanding, they've they've they've met with uh with Silksong, uh, more or less. There's uh I've seen a couple things. I feel like uh I maybe caught an article saying that they adjusted like the final boss or something, they like patched it because there was like a big pushback. Yeah, yeah. But they're listening, that's always good. They're listening to what the fan base is saying. This you know, so one one side of that uh that situation is the massive success. There's like big pressure for your next game to kind of meet that same like tier, right? But at the same time, the success of Hollow Knight also made it so that they didn't have any publisher pressure. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure they're filthy rich from it. Yeah, so they could take their time, yeah. Which is cool, it's a cool situation. Yeah, they really could, and they're not tanking economies like GTA 6 when they take their time. Yeah, and it's what like the Metacritic score on uh on Silksong right now is uh for PC is 93, dude. Yeah, yeah. I I would like to know. I mean, I guess guess what it is, guess what hollow night is? I'm gonna have to say 93 or 95, maybe. Yeah, I don't have the numbers in front of me, but but the open critics asked like you did. No, no, no. Uh it's high. I want to say that well, what I've got in front of me is the open critic score, which is a slightly different scoring system, is 89. Uh oh, wait, I do have the number. Metacritic on PC is 87. So that could be a time thing. Like, you know, Silicon's pretty fresh, so like we might get some like upset like reviewers over the next couple months that bring that down a little bit. But uh but silicon is reviewing higher. Silksong, it continues to be interesting to me as I play it and struggle with it and marvel at it, is like how much of a sequel it is in the sense of it's taking and building upon that last game. But it's almost like, hey, you played here's your intro to guitar book, here's guitaring book two. Sure. So like it just they must have felt like they needed it to be harder, because like just the fact that so many enemies take more health than they used to, and like you have to be so respectful to each enemy and their placement and not just rushing through and like being impatient, it's it's pretty crazy. So like I'm surprised the Metacritic store there's not more bitter, bitter people out there. I still would have given it a very high score. Sure. And will give it a very high score, because I guess we do that on this pod. But I would hold uh Hollow Knight in a higher regard. Interesting. Do you feel like that's be like the same similar well, I forget where you fall on the the tears in the Breath of the Wild, but like I prefer Breath of the Wild over Tears, but Tears is great. See, that was confusing. I was trying to think of that point too. I was gonna put a thread to that too, but then I was like, technically speaking, Tears of the Kingdom like blew me away so much with the the engineering folk like piece of it. Sure. But like the wonder could never be captured again, whereas this game, like, they can recapture the wonder because the environments are just so stunning. Ah, sure. Interesting. One thing where I'm like, I'm tempted to bounce off it and play easier games for my silly brain. But like, there's so many, like, I just got to a new area, like the Bellheart area, and like it's got this creepy thing going on, but it's kind of beautiful too. And I'm like, I want to see the rest of the map so bad. Everything I've seen is so pretty and so cool, and it's so funny. I was taking screenshots when I was playing my last play. Like, like it wasn't in the big two five, you're still taking screenshots on your Switch. That's crazy. Dude, I know. So it's one of those things oh, it's like it wasn't even it was just like I think it's the atmosphere. It's one, it is it is beautiful, and it wasn't like if I look at that picture now, like I'll be like, what the was I see? But like in that moment, like there was just something about the atmosphere, something about the overlook, and I was like, it wasn't like stunning, but it was like it had a like I was like, this is cool, like I want to take a picture of this. The world building, the world building and environments game, both games just go so crazy where it's like when you have these moments where you're like that's it feels like a kingdom, dude. Yeah, like it feels like you're you're you're traversing to a kingdom. Just wait until you get to the last area. Uh no, tell me what it's like. No, like um it makes you really want to push through that difficulty. So I'll be curious if it comes up in future side questing that I that I powered through, or if I just like pick up a few more times and like just really struggle to progress. I mean, I'm kind of fascinated because a lot of my pride has been like put at stake by no one other than me. Like I don't really like I got really far in Elden Ring, and I did not bounce off of Elden Ring because of the difficulty. I just got so far I just kind of burnt out, maybe. I got burnt out, and I got burnt out about like the gameplay loop of like how far you gotta go, and then you gotta reset, and then you gotta master this new area. Like that got kind of annoying. And I guess this pretty much the same thing for just immediately. Well, you re you recommended this game to to get to all gamers to play Hollow Knight, you said, and then you said Silksong should be played by anybody who's played Hollow Knight. Um, anybody who's played Hollow Knight and maybe even played Hollow Knight semi-recently. Sure, sure. I just find it to be such a like a skill jump.

SPEAKER_01: 42:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 42:03

And uh and a great continuation of the story, it sounds like. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's this there's this bug guy. Sure. And there's this kingdom he's in, and he does something. I have not roll credits, so I can't uh I cannot recommend one way or another. I can tell though, already that I will likely recommend it to folks, and I can already tell, you know, back. Well, you're the last person to play it. Yeah, I know. Well that's it. We all played it, we've been trying to get you to play it, so you can't recommend because there's no no one who hasn't played this game yet. Like you're the last one. That's what I was trying to get to, bro. Uh is uh this whole stretch. So you're son in 10 years. Yeah, you are uh you're definitely the first person that was like, play this game, dude. This is like super Alex coded, you're gonna love this game. And I'm like, I'll get to it. And then there's been other homies like throughout, especially the course of running this podcast, where they're like, Doug, you should check out Holland Knight. And I'm like, I will, I will. Yeah, uh, so I'm happy to be doing it now. Um, I'm not gonna rate it yet because I do want to roll credits before I rate it. Um, but I can tell that I will be recommending it, and I can tell it's what it's it's got its got its mantis clause in me, boy. Yeah, it is definitely a game where the I mean I was feeling it, I was like, this is good, I see why people are telling me to play this, but it truly was when the mantis clause got unlocked. I was like, I see how this game's gonna be. This is gonna be great. Yeah. Off the top, I mean, I played it seven years ago, dude. It's been so long. Just from what I remember and like the fondness I have for it. I've only known one person, my old assistant principal. He was like, I found it boring, and I was like, Did they roll credits? Dude, he like no, he barely got into it. Never got the Mantis Claw. Probably not, dude. And he's played like a bunch of harder games, but that always, but it really like it it is uh that is like a key thing in this game. Hell yeah. Uh and I always thought it was amazing he couldn't get through, but I used to recommend this all the time. So without having replayed it semi-recently, no, I'd very confidently give Hollow Knight a nine out of ten. We don't do that though. I'd give it a 4.5 out of 10. If I replayed it and maybe like the story, we've been doing this for almost five years, like four or five. What out of two? Dude, I get into my wife's been crushing books, dude, and she's on like 35. Although she counts audiobooks, dude. You can't count audiobooks too. And she's only read three audiobooks. So I'm like, 32 is an impressive number. You don't need to say it's 35. But anyway, uh, she's always like, I gave it a 3.75. And I was like, I want to know her system, dude. How'd she get it? It's out of five, and I'm like, just make it out. If you're hitting 3.75s out of fives, it's time to go up to 10. And she goes, shut the fuck up. No. Because like Goodreads and stuff like that does it out of five. So like I understand low five gaming tiered system. I understand this. I understand. Synergy. I get it. It's just that it triggers me. Pick an item from the game and make it five, and then tell us your score. It's four and a half geos. I'm sorry. That's not a lot of geo, bro. I mean, it is out of the maximum deal, but like we talk about, yeah, in the game. I'm just playing it picking up. I'm playing with you, dude. Uh and then my experience so far um with Silksong is that the detail is so gorgeous with the amount of like little things happening in the background and like the little like the sound design, the soundtrack, the tightness of the controls, like it is so fine-tuned, it is so exquisite. But the hot sauce is a little too hot for me. So, like four out of five Rosemary beads. So that's why I was kind of surprised that like Silksong, if you're rating the game, like if I worked for a publication, I would like to. Yeah, I would have to go into it further and I'd have to push through further. So maybe like, and then you're rating it on the more technical aspects, whereas like if I'm just like purely rating it on like enjoyability, no, like it, you know, an 80% seems pretty fair right off. Well, cool, man. That's uh with that, let's take a little break here from Sanction Spots. This week we are officially brought to you by being fat bitches who keep eating all the rest of our Halloween candy in the house. God fucking damn it. You also got Halloween candy, bro? Yeah, someone didn't porch pirate my whole bowl, dog. I spent Al has this video of some teen whose eyes get as wide as the moon and then just like really gets into like a stealing criminal posture. It's so funny. They like honestly, like they're and I was like disgusted by it. I thought it was clouding. And then I was like, I would have been disgusted as they happen at like you know,$15 worth of candy. Not even probably at that point, but but like my general point of being like the stakes are pretty low. It just makes me sad that someone just sees this opportunity that's just like greedy as fuck. Let's roll this back just a little bit. So Halloween, we I wanted to put Halloween and candy out because like we have my wife did a bunch of like Halloween decorations outside, so it was like cute. We got lights. So people, if that we don't get a bunch of trick-or-treaters in my like on my street in my neighborhood, it's weird. There's pockets, we're not in the pocket. Uh, but there's some.

SPEAKER_03: 47:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 47:31

Uh so I was like, well, I we have candy. We didn't have candy, but I told I told Anna, I was like, well, it'd be tight to that. So she went out and bought candy and then we ate about half of it before fucking Halloween.

SPEAKER_04: 47:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 47:42

Uh, but anyways, we put it out and I put a little note that was like, take a few, happy Halloween. Because we weren't gonna be here. We were we did trick-or-treating with uh Elsewhere, right? Yeah, Else Family, not me wasn't invited. You should have you should have yeah, whatever, bro. You should have hit us up and said you're trying to do something. I should have just begged to hang out with Al. You guys are ridiculous. You guys are ridiculous. You gotta come on, it was right there. Fuck off. Fuck off. It was right there. This is on the internet, no, nah, dude. But anyway, so I got this bowl of candy out there, and we had about four different like I said groups, but when I say groups, it was either one person or like a person in the head, you know, clusters. So we had four four events, and I got the reason I know this is because I have a Google camera thing. Yeah. By eight o'clock at night, we're on, we're driving back home by this point, 8 15, something like that. I get a notification that you know someone's someone's been at the door or whatever, and I look and like granted, like, okay, this is the end of the night. We didn't have any more trick-or-treaters come through after this, and that's another reason why I'm not salty about the whole thing. Yeah, that's fair. But this person, like you said, dude, like kind of comes up by themselves, looks around, and like kind of fumbles the bag a little bit. They got this big bag, yeah, and then they got into a stealing posture. It can only be described as a steal, because obviously, you know they emptied the bowl, but this person was like, yeah. Because of the because like the bowl's next to the door cam. I also love the fact that they just didn't notice the door cam. I mean, not that it's really good. There's a light that shows up when you walk by it. So, like, I just don't think they cared, which is like that's why I'm like, one, I'm not mad because like we didn't have any more trick-or-treaters, and you saved me from having a bunch of candy that I'm gonna eat by myself. I already ate all my son's candy because he's two. I hate it by person, dude. But they for sure. But but dude, like I'm gonna make you rewatch that video because, or maybe you saw it and maybe you noticed, but did you see how big that pillowcase was? It's just a just a regular ass pillowcase. Yeah, but like like full. Oh, so they'd been doing this, dude. Like that that was their thing, like they were out that night in the neighborhood. Like, I've seen like kids like yeah, I'm fucking old man now, and I've seen like throughout my course of life, like I've I've seen kids that have like gotten hauls. This was this was gluttonous. This was like a bald, like, I can't believe they could get more into that pillow sack. That makes me that's part of the reason I find it kind of funny, and like, because on one hand I'm like disappointed in society, and another hand, I'm like, what are you doing? We're just gonna go home. You're gonna go home with all this candy, and you're like fucking desperate. Dude, I hope they're selling it or something. I'm like, got one over on Netflix guy, and I'm gonna eat out his candy. I'm like, not even just me though, like the whole neighborhood, like the cornhouse in the whole neighborhood. It's like it's just like a weird, like kind of evil, but not actually like a little bit more than mischievous. What are you gonna do with you know, like they had to be a 25-pound bag of candy at this point? It's like tight, dude. Enjoy your mini Kit Kats, I guess. Uh took so good off of it. What's going on here? I'm just a fat bitch because uh we live right next to a Costco, and I was like, a few days clearance candy too. Dude, no, and we saw it on the way to Cub today, and I was like, Trisha's like, ooh, I was like, no, I don't care what the price is on any of that. No. Uh she goes into I was like, we need some Halloween candy, can't forget. Like, she gets three Costco bags. And I go, What fucking neighborhood do you think we live in? That's great. She goes, What do you mean? She's told me to get like candy. I was like, This is so much. She's like, I didn't know how much to get. I was like, not this much. And uh, your boy's just been crushing it. Um, they took the hundred grand out of the Costco assortment. I'm bitter as hell. Hundred grand good, dude. There's like four butterfingers, those have been consumed, so it's just like a tons of the shit I don't want. And she also got the gun. You fuck with Almond Joy? Yeah, fuck with Almond Joy, dude. People hate my almond joy. No, I fuck with Almond Joy. Almond Joy is like the Fritos of the Candy World. No one fire though. That's chili cheese Fritos. That's what I'm fucking saying. Is that if there's an assortment, if you're at a party and someone gets one of those boxes of like chips, the Fritos, there's always like three chili cheese Fritos, and I'm like, hell yeah. Like, I didn't rush to get the four Doritos, I'll just get them leftover Fritos. I'm a dirty boy. So a candy assortment, people are like, ugh, all I'm a joy. So I'm like, I'm a little slow. How about baby roots? What do you feel about it, baby Ruth? Nostalgic. They're all right. They're like these. We used to have the crunch. We used to have the Butterfinger Crunch. Crunch, I feel like. Let me finish this fucking thought. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The fundraiser box. Remember? Yeah, I remember the fundraiser box. Remember you were just our poor mother just had to buy a box of chocolates. You wrote way back to this. They went uh you could before it became like the Mars or whoever fucking owns these brands of candy at the time, like it was like it was a different thing. I can't even remember what it was called, but yeah, there's like it's like got that like royal branding type thing, and it's like your typical caramel almond milk chocolate crunch. Uh but no, we had like the Mars like pack once, and like do you still have the N64 games in that old box? Because that was always a vibe. Yeah, it kind of deteriorated over time. Yeah, that was always a cool vibe. But like growing up, dude, 100 grands deeply overrated or underrated. 100 grands are the the king's candy bar, and then Butterfinger Slap, and they'd have crunch bars, top tier, and then they would have Butterfinger or Baby Ruth, excuse me. Baby Ruth is probably the lamest out of those, then crunch bar, then Butterfinger, then 100 grand. Yeah. So I would I would tier Butterfinger above 100 grand personally. That's out of control, but at least at least they're close. Um I mean that would be a good one. Your son's only two. So you can't be having too much candy. I know we ate it all, and I didn't have any shame. Is he aware that you ate it all? Or is he just like he woke up the next day and he's too like uh well one, we didn't have like he didn't have a ton because he's two and we like hit some houses. Yeah, like four or five hours. Yeah, yeah. So like uh and two, like he did have some, like we we had candy with him and stuff or whatever, but like he didn't like he doesn't like fully grasp. He was like, This is tight, but like I don't really like so three's a different ball game. Yeah, I bet three, they like where's my candy, yeah. And you're like sure, sure, uh like it's been kind of funny to navigate it since it's like eat those vegetables, no, eat the rest of your plate. No, you know it's candy. You want some candy after dinner, and also they're like, and then or like waking up first thing in the morning, I want candy. And it's like, no, you need to go to daycare, I won't cry like a meltdown, like or like you know, they're just being huge stinker butts, and you're like, uh, I didn't throw away your candy. I'll do whatever, just don't throw away my candy. Oh man. Hey man, I am not above it. All right, they are just as mean back. Throw it into your belly, and Luke's eating his candy in front of his kids. So we have the massive piles of our candy, plus they like know about their bag and generally what's in there. Another new problem is it's very cute to watch them explore new candies. Like they had a Krabby Patty the other day, they were pumped with the little gummy Krabby patties. I haven't seen these. Yeah, you're a little too Spongebob thing or something. Um and they were like eating these different candies, and I think it's so fun, but they also love all the dog shit candies. Anyone out here uh giving lemonheads? I fuck with a lemon head. I mean, I wouldn't it's like a candy that like I wouldn't hate on, though. It's like a bottom tier. Candy corn, get the fuck out of here. Like, don't buy candy corn. Listen, brother. Candy corn in a bowl with some salted nuts, brother. Get out of here, you don't you can't be a candy corn apologist. It has a place. No, no, no, it has a place. Plus, no candy corn is being delivered on the city. Don't get me wrong, I'm gonna eat out of that bowl too, but like stop buying it and they'll stop making it. No, I have I teach in an area that's predominantly non-white, and some kids like, you probably like fucking candy corn. Other kid is an insult, and I go, Whoa, guys. I'm not saying candy corn's good, but like kind of underrated. And he's like, What the fuck? And I was like, dude, you get it in a bowl with like some salted peanuts, and I have this new student, it's this girl, she's white. I go, you probably know what I'm talking about. And she's like, Yeah, it's pretty good. I was like, Yes, I was dying, dude. Oh man. Uh, but anyway, smarties are the worst. I fucking smardy too. What the fuck's wrong with you? They're good, dude. Okay, so you talk about we've been talking chocolates, but then there's also like sours, tarts and sours. Like, there's different kinds of candies here. And like, what are the ones in the tube? Like, they're fucking good. Stop it, dude. I'll fuck with sweet tarts for sure. I'm chalky ass little bitches. You're gonna put those above. Wait, I didn't say that. It's just there's a bottom tier of candy, and people handing out suckers and all those types of things, like I hate you. Dude, they're just different. Because my sons want all that garbage, and they're like, they have this sticky thing that has gum in it, not quite old enough for gum, so I have to take it away from them when they get to that point, and that never goes well. Yeah, I suppose. So it's been it's been kind of hilarious and frustrating, which is just all of toddler hood. Dude, you made a note on your chocolates, like what's what's top tier for you, but like you gotta have some okay, you don't like sweet tarts, sweet dotts, you don't like sweet tarts bottom tier or bottom. Smarties, I think is what I'm talking about. Yeah, sure, sure. In the plasticky tube. Sweet tarts are different, right? So they're like the chewy sweet tarts bang casing on them. I have to look at a picture to see if I'm tripping here. Well, no, I know what you're talking about, but the the uh the chewy sweet tarts are basically it's like a it's like a hard casing deal. I mean, like I'll fuck with the Titsy Roll, but like they are definitely like lower echelon. Yeah. Yeah, sweet hearts. Yeah. Yeah, they're not they're whatever. But I like gummies, like sour gummies. Like I have this problem. Me and uh Derek Rose probably united on this one where we eat too many. Yeah. In college, he had too many gummy worms and he like missed a game because he was sick. Oh no. Word. I used to um I can't follow myself. You want to the king of the tart candy? Uh nerds clusters. Nerds clusters go pretty hard. It's pretty hard to argue against that. Uh just straight up nerds. Straighner's good too. Are they? Yes. We have we we have that in our one of the variety bags from the city. You talk about these bags, and you didn't bring a bag over today to you know help. I figured you would have been in the same case, and I was just bringing more poison, dude. You what do you mean you saw the kids steal all our candy? Yeah, but so I went outside and I had an empty bowl too, and I had been gone for a while, so I couldn't tell the volume of trick-or-treaters and if there was just one bad actor or not. So I refilled it and like a few more got taken out. I felt kind of bad. Uh, because maybe I love it. I hate it when neighbors don't do it. Yeah. It's like it's wild when you just have like a house that like blacks out and they're like, no, don't come to my door. It's like, come on, dude, like we're all trying to like do that's uh that's why we had a bowl of Canada because I didn't feel like turning off like all the like decorations that Anna like had set up. Yeah, it was like poopy and rainy out in the Minish Nota for uh Halloween. So we went to the mall, which had an event, which was actually pretty clutch. Uh so I left a bowl out under my overhang and it was pretty nice. Um but god, I just when people don't give out candy, it's like, come on, dude. Yeah, if you listen to it, the world's better when a bunch of people just do it. Just do it. The world the world's a better place when people are out and about interacting with each other, man. So uh also this has been brought to you by being a fat piece of shit who continues to either eat all your kids' candy or eat all the candy you were supposed to be giving the cheering, because your wife definitely overshot what needs to be done. Problem wise. Brought to you by Lucas and Bad Baby. Hey, lesson. Alright, man. So uh we just ate 100 grand. We had to clear our mouths, it took a while. I told you that wasn't involved in my sampler bag. It was actually crushing. Um I like toffee in my chocolate too. Where do you stand on that? Like heaths. Dude, Heaths are right up there at Butterfingers for me. Super slapped on. A lot of people be hating them. They put it in the old people branch. I know. And I'm like, that's crazy. We old men now. I always loved them. Same. But anyway. But uh but I'm outspoken. My love is outspoken for Heaths. So I I get old man categorized for that, and that's okay. Dude, excellent in a blizzard? Fuck that. Hell yeah, that's probably the best blizzard. Uh Butterfinger too. High school, just used to wait for dad to get to a second drink. I was like, Dad, if you give me some money, I'll go to Dairy Queen. I'll get you a cappuccino Heath Blizzard. It worked way more than it should have. 75 to 65% hit rate. Uh, what you been playing, bro? What you been saying quickly? Did I bring up Megabonk last time? I think I did. Maybe. I think I did, but goddamn, I'd be playing a lot of Megabonk. Well, I can speak to it now. I've been playing some Megabonk too. I was like, maybe we should do a pot on Megabonk instead of this other stuff. I thought about that, especially because I wasn't doing well with Silksong. Like I wasn't progressing, so I was like, no one's gonna lack what I have to think because I fucking suck. But also like Megabonk is so like encouraged me to get back into holiday, so it's fine. Megabonk is so like empty calorie, just delicious junk food gaming that like I don't know how we really could have talked about it because you're just like, yeah, you go around and then you beat enemies, sure, and you upgrade in his coup. Yeah, but god damn, it's cool. I mean, unlocked I like to so I'm not necessarily like good at it, but that's okay. Um better than I am, apparently. Yeah, I was get a little run with the colour. Alex has like a super high-end computer setup. Uh he's got a little jet engine of a computer, and he's got three screens, and I was like, can't wait to play this garbage game in this high-end setup. I love unlocking all the different little things. So like I don't necessarily try to win each time I play, but like to unlock different weapons, you gotta do different things and hit certain targets and like upgrade certain things to certain levels within a run. Sure. So I've been like, that's been giving the game a ton of replayability. Nice. I've been fucking loving that. Yeah, maybe I'll get there. I've just been kind of learning the ropes though, which is uh which is good in itself, but even today you show me how to like navigate because I just didn't bother to be honest. I kind of like go into that game and it's like I'm probably watching some Timberwolves, I'm probably like hitting that during the commercials and like you know or the or the Vikings. It's like uh I had the TV on, I'm playing this game at the same time type of game. Yeah, but uh, but that's good, man. It's um you know, when you explained it to me at first, you're like it's basically vampire survivors, but like you know, a 64-bit era 3D environment. Yeah. So playing some of that, I downloaded the I guess what they call it a game preview early access of skate. Oh, really? Yeah, okay. And uh I've seen some things. Yeah, I I'm old. Cause it is it free to play? Is that their that as their model on this one? So it's kind of like skate three if it was Fortnite. Okay. And you do this weird rolling thing. It's like very much trying to be streamed and memed. Yeah, okay. It's very for the zoomers and the alphas. Sure, sure, sure. Uh, which is okay. Yeah. I have to not be such bitter old man yells at cloud. But skate two and three are pretty hallowed ground for me.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:24

Like the skate games are like back when games and sequels came out within a few years of each other. That was all my high school was skate one, two, and three. So like those games were like some of the biggest deals to me at that era of my life. So it's like it's cool because on one hand, it's not as gatekeeperish because a kid can just pick it up. And I think that's super fucking cool. But on the other hand, there's like this like AI bot that talks to you in this awful AI bot voice. And I was like, maybe this is part of the early access, or maybe you thought that'd be cool, but like for how long this thing talks to me, like get a voice actor. It's annoying as hell. Yeah, you're a big company. Yeah. So I'm not I'm not sure, but I'm not necessarily burnt out on college football, because you know, one doesn't casually smoke crack. Um, but it's nice that I, if I don't want to start a new game where I'm like good on it, it's nice to like kick around the board for a little while and like they still nail like the mechanics pretty well. There's just like a lot of like the transition between GTA four and five, how they leaned into the cartoony a little harder.

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:04:34

The gameplay isn't still over the top cartoony, but they've definitely leaned into some elements where like you see streamers like jumping off buildings and doing crazy shit, and it's like that's fun for like watching a dude's clips or making content. For the content, uh it's great for so it seems like they built the game very consciously with like for the content in mind. Because Skate 3 retroactively became that, like as streaming went on the rise, people went back to Skate 3 and like achieved all these different goofy hacks. And so, like, I I'm not bitter that they leaned into that, but it's just interesting to observe after that checks out. It does. So, yeah. You've been playing anything or what are you doing that on your Steam Deck or the Xbox? That's on the Xbox. Okay. I'm torn between whether I want Tony Hawk, the new remake, on the Steam Deck or the Xbox. I'm waiting for one of them to go on sale. I don't know which one it would be better on, though. It probably would be a little bit more visually impressive on the Xbox. Yeah. But it'll run just fine on the Steam ED, I would assume. I somehow didn't mention it, but I chose Silksong. It was a gift from Ace Bleeing. Three or four boings. I know, dude. He's boinging it up, dude. Boing it up, big dog. Um he was like, yo, I'm gonna get you Silksong, but you want it on the Xbox and the silk uh Steam ED, and I really wish I would have said Xbox. Because when you're sweating on a handheld like that, it's tough. Yeah, I didn't bring it up during uh during our discussion of the games, but uh I've been it's on the Switch, and I tend to play my Switch handheld, I would say most of the time, right? Especially at this point of its life, yeah, yeah, yeah. But uh but I docked it the other night, and it happens all the time. I love handheld gaming, but it's like whenever you dock it or or you move, like you know, Steam Steam Deck will allow you to like you know carry your save onto the PC, whatever, yeah, that kind of thing. Uh whenever I move from a game that I've been playing on handheld to like a like a setup, I'm always like, oh, that's pretty nice. You're like Wowzers, yeah. Um, even like the controls, like I'm actually a bit of a Joy-Con apologist. I don't mind the Joy-Con. But playing with a Pro Controller, I was like, oh, I like this. Like the D-pad's nice. Switch's Pro Controller is one of the best pro controllers out there. My Xbox controller has almost completely fallen apart. That's wild to me. Mine's still in good shape. You just you play differently, dude. I'm a sweatier. I'm a sweatier boy. Uh Alex plays a tiny bit of a million games, and I play the fuck out of like seven. I mean, I guess. I guess. I think you like straight up just sweat harder. Like no, I'm no. Yeah, you do have more hours into. I have more hours in, more controller. You play the Xbox probably more than you play your Xbox. Although you use your controller on here, right? No, I have uh a different controller for it. My pro controller is like falling apart. Like it's unusable. So I have like the original one I have my Xbox with, and it's like you need a new one? I got an extra. Not an extra pro, just a regular Xbox. Yeah, it wouldn't hurt. That'd be pretty sweet. Thanks, man. I haven't given it to you yet. Just wanted to make this awkward. Just looked him dead in the eyes and went, thanks, man. I mean you're the one I'll kick me out of this chair when we started this pod. When we started this pod, he goes, Fuck you, get out of my chair. And I farted on it one last time. Not quite what I said. I said, I'm gonna big brother you. Yeah, get out of my chair. It's just a translation. It's not like you're sitting on the floor like when we used to play chess, bro. It's not like the other drama I passed out. Or when uh before Alex got his second chair in here, I'd be in a fold-up chair and he'd be in this chair now. So Al's a big hierarchy with him at the top type of guy. Dude, you if we were at your house, we'd you you could do it any way you want. Anyway, you playing any games, dude? I'm playing games with you right now. Uh not really. I mean, I've been dabbling, it's funny. I it took me a little bit for even though I said I did enjoy the, you know, I knew I could tell that it was gonna be good, but it did take uh a few hours before and a few attempts before uh Hollow Knight really was like, okay, this game's tight.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:08:46

Um, so I was like, I was kind of in one of my like, I don't really know what to play, I don't want like whatever. So Megabonk for sure was is like been in that like the games I've been playing, but not a ton. Like I'm only got like an hour or two into it, but it's cool. That one's been fun to mess with. Uh I actually tried to play some Tears of the Kingdom the other night. I was just stealing it. Did you ever beat it? No, so that's why I was like, you know what? I'm gonna I'm gonna revisit Hyrule, I'm gonna see if I can push this forward a little bit. Because that was one thing that I love about Breath of the Wild, and like not to say that I wouldn't necessarily like this about Tears or or even Breath of the Wild still, but like I looked at my hours because Nintendo got a new app that I put on my phone or whatever, and it shows you play times on everything. Dude, I've got like over a hundred hours, which is a lot of hours for me, on Breath of the Wild. Yeah, Tears of the King I got like 40, 40, 50 or something like that. Yeah, maybe yeah, right around 40. Even though there's the up and the down, I still felt it harder to get lost in that game compared to the first one because yeah, because you knew the map already. Sure, sure. Oh, that makes sense. But yeah, dude, like I just started playing it, and like it was one thing. It's like I just started doing stuff that was like not that Zelda's hard or anything, but like I started taking out some enemies that were like a little too tough, and I was like, Oh, I'm not ready for this right now. And like, and I just couldn't do it. No, there's there's a fluidity of those games where it's like if you it's almost like you gotta start from the beginning, yeah. It's kind of hard to drop yourself back in. It's very, very jarring to just plop yourself back into that environment. But other than that, dude, not not really. Uh not not not anything to speak to, you know, dabbling in uh you know some of the old retro stuff from time to time. Just uh NBA's back. So I've been watching some Timberwolves. What uh we finished uh Task. You hear about that one? I'm aware. Haven't watched. So we watched that, enjoyed that one. So that's a that's a solid like crime thriller for the folks that are that are watching crime thriller thrillers out there. Classic HBO-ness. Yes, yeah. I wouldn't say it's like the best the best option on HBO, but it's uh but it was good. We enjoyed it. Um the Mega Bonk and just super interesting that like Zelda, one of the best games of all time. I just couldn't do it that one night. There's some parallels to like how long we waited for Cheers of the Kingdom and how long the wait for Silksong was, and it was almost like kind of missed this little pocket for me personally of like how intense and carried away I used to get in with games. Yeah, I think it's worth like as a side quest goes, though, like I haven't done a Lego set like proper in forever. Yeah. And I did I got the Game Boy. We have a few plants at the house that I did, and that's pretty fun. Uh that's harder than you remember. It wasn't hard, bro. But like I make a few mistakes occasionally. Oh, sure, sure. I have to go back. I think on the on the Game Boy, dude, I did like there was like maybe one thing where I was off a little bit, but I caught it pretty quickly, fortunately. That is one thing about the builds when you if you like miss something and then you're like, oh man, where'd I mess up and you gotta go backwards? That sucks. But but dude, I have like a couple you ever like find yourself in the you know, we're gonna Midwest us real quick, but like at the target um checkout line, you know, they're everywhere. Yeah, I know, but it's a hella Midwest. Uh anyway, it doesn't really fucking matter. Here's the deal you're at the target checkout line and they got candy, yeah. And then they have like a little and then they've got like a little like uh they got various different things, candy, and then they got like little bags of Legos, yeah. Like 50 pieces tops. Yeah. Uh I would say like five, six years ago, I was like, I would like those would be like my impulse buys at the checkout line. Like I wasn't getting a butterfinger, but I would be like, I'll throw that little Star Wars like shit in my life, you know. So I was like, I did those, but like, dude, honestly, probably since I was like 12, 11, since I've done something like to the level, not that the Game Boy is like super difficult or anything, but it's like it's a ton of pieces, it's like 423 pieces or something like that. Which you wouldn't think looking at it. No, no. And it's like, dude, it's really it was really fun, dude. Like I just was like, it was kind of like I was like dating myself. You know, I was like, all right, here's like a like as in like not being old, but like you know, I got what yeah, it's like a little date night for me. I had a plan, I was like, okay, I'm gonna like you know, I'm gonna do this. The second plant that came in our Costco set, Trisha and I did together. Oh, nice. So we actually did have like a Lego plant. I get the dudes who are like Lego enthusiasts, like the adult dudes that have it's just a space thing. It's like I can't put together$300 Zelda Lego set. Like, do I want to put together the day coot tree? Yeah, I do. But where the fuck is that thing gonna go after? I although like doing this did make me excited. Like Elton is not old enough to have like he he'll get there soon enough, but um, but he's not putting these together quite yet. Like, you know, we're still in Duplo territory, and even then he's not like putting anything together comprehensive. Yeah, totally, which is good. That's what I was like, it's great. Yeah, but like eventually, and this is like the fun thing about being a dad, dude, and like you know, wanting to be involved in my kid's life. Hopefully he's cool with me like wanting to be. But like, dude, I'm I'm stoked for when he's like, Oh, I want to do like this big whatever set. I'll be like, Yeah, I'll fucking do that with you. You used to uh I used to I for Christmas or something, I got like a it was like it wasn't Legos, it was like mega blocks, yeah. It was an off-brand huge battleship, and it got too complex, and you were basically like let's go. You're like, I got this. You like acted like it was like, oh, I guess I can help you with that. Get out of here, and then you were like you were just like so happy doing it. But you definitely played it up a little bit, like, I guess I can help you. Yeah, you can't do it. And then I got like a second one that was like a jet, and you were like, Oh, that looks so fucking cool. Can't wait to put that together for it. Dude, Lego's cool, even the op brand Lego shit cool too. No, I I can't wait for the day the boys are old enough to like get into Legos. Like uh, it's gonna be a little, it's gonna be a little aggressive. So I like it, I can dig it. Yeah, well, thanks all for listening. This has been another episode like where I'm like, we're pushing 50 now, something like that. I mean, you might be. Get the fuck out of here. I wish I was. I wish I was all that fucking knowledge, experience, and awesomeness. Arthritis. I don't mind getting older, dude. Like getting like ages and I don't give a fuck. Although I am scared to be like super old where like I I mean I already feel it. Like in my body about mortality and death? Welcome to the Low Podcast. Are your parents old? D-Railing. Are you wondering what to do? Get the fuck out of here. Oh man, you get out. Hey, listener, get the fuck out of here. We're done. Go give it us a five stars. I love you. Hit the Discord, started a new thing, another miniature side quest. I'm trying to give a little more editorial flair to the podcast, to the content I'm putting out there. So I started doing a weekly, a weekly blog post that you could check out on low5gaming.com. Started calling them patch notes and save states. So I'm flipping back and forth on Mondays and what it is. Uh, but go check them out. Go give it a read. And your YouTube and TikTok's. We'll name them, dude. Uh yeah, start screen and and pocket picks. Thanks, dude. I'm trying to like throw you an alley oop. You're like, yeah, I got those. I do that. Appreciate it, brother. Jesus. Uh, till next time, y'all. Peace. Peace.