4Player Podcast

October has arrived but before we dive into a slew of horror games, we take a closer look at 3 recent releases spanning 3 very different genres. Brad gives us his initial impressions of a visual novel and the latest game from Vanillaware, 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim. Nolan finally has his hands on Spelunky 2 and Nick played through Mafia: Definitive Edition, a ground-up remake of the original. We discuss the sudden announcement of Luna, Amazon's new Stadia competitor and we have some fun trying to decide which fictional post-apocalypse we would prefer to be stuck in.

This may not be an official Final Fantasy VII Rebirth special but it may as well be as it accounts for more than 50% of the episode! Most of us have all spent a decent chunk of time with this hotly anticipated follow up to Final Fantasy VII Remake and while the game certainly has some ROUGH edges in places, it still manages to live up to the hype! Quite honestly, Rebirth is a baffling game; Capturing the spirit and variety of the original game in the most fanciful, expensive way possible... while clumsily fumbling the ball in some truly unexpected places. We also spend some time talking Fantasy Critic, random movie talk, and continuing to shake our heads at the awful state of the industry right now.

• Random Movie Talk! (2:55)
• Housekeeping - Fantasy Critic updates (14:20)
• Impressions - Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (46:10)
• 4Player Minute (1:52:40)

We open the show this week with the reveal of our community's top 10 games of 2023! After that, we are finally able to play and talk about Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League; Rocksteady's long-awaited follow-up to the Arkham series and their first (and hopefully last) foray into GAAS. Krispy has played the entire campaign and has plenty to say about it; Both positive and negative! Brad talks more about Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth this week but he focuses entirely on one aspect... a mini game that can only be described as "Sleazy Animal Crossing." Nick gives his early impressions of Persona 3 Reload as well; Which coincides with his first time playing this game... ever! Finally, the Chris's talk about Helldivers 2 which certainly holds the potential to be surprise hit... the question is: Does it have legs?

• Housekeeping - The Community's Top 10 Games of 2023 (3:50)
• Impressions - Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League (30:20)
• Impressions - Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth (1:01:15)
• Impressions - Persona 3 Reload (1:20:00)
• Impressions - Helldivers II (1:35:00)
• 4Player Minute (1:59:20)

This week, Biomutant fails to deliver the experience we were hoping for but it's not all bad. Brad delivers an update on the Monster Hunter Rise 3.0 update and elsewhere in the industry, it begins to feel like E3 season despite the obvious caveats that go hand-in-hand with the event this year. We talk about the rumored Souls-like Final Fantasy spin-off from Team Ninja and we give our impressions of the big Dying Light 2 and Horizon: Forbidden West reveals that dropped this week!

We took a week off of podcasting but dipped our toes into the wild world of Content Warning and the results were hilarious to say the least! Chris Davis revisits Shadows of Doubt now that it is approaching its 1.0 release later this year; It's an interesting discussion that delves into the strengths and weaknesses of making games using procedural generation. Brad talks about Inkbound, the next game from the creators of Monster Train and of course, we spend a little more time with Dragon's Dogma II. During the Fantasy Critic and 4Player Minute segments, we talk a little about the recent news regarding Star Wars Outlaws, Assassin's Creed codename Red, and impressions of the new Fallout TV show on Amazon Prime.

• Housekeeping (2:30)
• Impressions - Content Warning (8:35)
• Impressions - Shadows of Doubt (24:35)
• Impressions - Dragon's Dogma II (51:00)
• Impressions - Inkbound (1:01:20)
• Fantasy Critic Updates (1:35:35)
• 4Player Minute (1:48:00)