**The Persona 5 Spoiler**

I'm still trying to get myself well after this incident. It's tangential, but I had Persona 5 spoiled for me on the day it came out or the day after. I'm not so much these days now that my work is online and reading comments gives me the fear. I used to have a habit of immediately opening the comments and seeing what everyone else was saying. It's still something I do, actually, with everything.

A trailer for Persona 5 on the official Sony account or the official PlayStation account on Facebook was posted, and I looked at the comments on this trailer for Persona 5. Someone had spoiled one of the major plot points as I was an hour in. I was like an hour in when I saw that one of my friends had shared a huge spoiler. It would have been cool to have not had that spoiled, but I plowed on anyway. I'm glad I did play the game because it's good.

**The Guilty Pleasure of Comment-Reading**

I'm guilty of immediately opening the comments and seeing what everyone else is saying. It was a habit I used to have when I worked online, reading colleagues' stories and things like that. Reading the comments on videos or tweets is something I do with everything. It's just something I enjoy doing.

**Persona 5 Spoiler Alert**

For those who don't know, I looked at the comments on this trailer for Persona 5 and someone had spoiled one of the major plot points as I was an hour in. It would have been cool to have not had that spoiled, but I carried on anyway. Now whenever I think about playing Persona 5, it's ruined.

**The Morwind Conundrum**

One game that I've managed to avoid spoilers for is Morwind. This might be due to my love of the game, or maybe just the fact that it hasn't really been discussed much by those who play it. It's a bit weird because I know so much about it, but at the same time, I don't want to spoil it for myself.

**Monster Hunter and the Joy of Playing with Friends**

Another game where I've managed to avoid spoilers is Monster Hunter World. Even though I know all the different monsters in that game, I still enjoy playing them with friends. There's something special about playing a multiplayer game with others who are just as enthusiastic about it.

**The Assassin's Creed Conundrum**

I've also fallen off the Assassin's Creed wagon after three games. My colleagues and online communities have discussed various aspects of these games, including their plots. I try to avoid reading those comments when they're discussing events from specific games because sometimes I'll read something that I know is going to happen anyway.

**Accountability and Backlog**

In our last conversation, we talked about our personal backlogs of games that we need to play. It's always hard for me to commit to a particular task like this one. But it would be nice to work on my backlog and finally get through some of the games that I've been putting off.

**Getting Back into Gaming**

For those who want to play certain games, but don't know where to start, there are a few options for them. One option is to play newer games in their respective series. Another option is to play older games in their respective series if you're interested in learning more about the story or gameplay.

**Conclusion**

In conclusion, knowing something about a game doesn't necessarily mean that it's ruined for me. I've managed to avoid spoilers for some games like Morwind and Assassin's Creed, but I still enjoy playing other games with my friends.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey PC Gamers and welcome back to the PC Gamer chat log I am Lauren Morton and hey everyone I'm Molly Taylor and this week Molly and I are bringing on our associate editor Tyler Culp to talk about our white whale games the unachievable games the games we have never played but really absolutely should have and we have deep feelings of guilt like about these very specific things this is not just the backlog not just the oppressive guilt of the like huge looming backlog these are very specific games that are like I call myself an RPG fan and yet I should be embarrassed to have not played this thing um or whatever other genres uh we come from but before we bring in Tyler to talk about that Molly what did you play last week uh I played a little bit I'm actually quite surprised I found I found some time between just life chaos to play some stuff uh I weird was like really in the mood to play a shooter which is so unlikely that is yeah that is not a a Molly if you go oh Molly like Shooters is is not the first thing a lot of people think of um but I did I played OverWatch 2 uh just yeah despite all like the PVE uh with all that getting like cancelled and stuff it's like that one shooter that I can actually like tolerate in my brain so I played a little bit of that and is that like a comfort game for you like to play with friends yeah kind of is yeah it's it's like a it's a game that you know when I want to just shoot stuff and I don't really care about it as well which I think helps I don't care about being good so I just go in I pee on people with Moira to heal them and and I I I did straight back out again you know I did that and then I went to a retro gaming Market over weekend super cool there were loads of games so we bought like me and my boyfriend we bought a few games we bought some PS2 games and we ended up playing quite a few of those over the weekend as well so I've played a lot of Crazy Taxi this weekend uh cuz I love talk Crazy Taxi we were yes so I play a little bit of Crazy Taxi and uh I did a lot of watching my boyfriend play San Andreas as well okay yeah yeah so it was really good like a little bit of retro gaming and a little bit of just a smidge of PC gaming as well but it's been been a good week for gaming I feel like nice yeah that was me how about you Lauren where did you get up to well I was just coming off like a month of so much traveling you know I was at GDC and then I was on some personal trips too last month so I was just like I was sitting at home reading a lot and I think my update this week on things I played is the same as last week which is that I'm uh was getting back into Sky uh Children of the light which came out on PC this week um so I was kind of preparing for that getting back into it um and the the steam version the demo that had been up for a couple months was like having downtime for like a little more than a week like 10 days or something uh leading up to like the proper launch so I had to pull it back out on my Nintendo switch instead of my steam deck which i' had been playing on and my goodness uh picking up the Nintendo switch after like getting accustomed to my steam deck it felt so tiny it's tiny just a little old thing um it did not take me long at all I mean I think when we first got our steam decks at the beginning of this year you and I were like oh yeah it's pretty big it's pretty chunky but I must have gotten used to it fast because yeah I picked up my switch and I was like oh oh she this is a feel right yeah pretty much so yeah I I got back into the sky the light I kind of uh have been Loosely sprinkling in hints to like some of my friends and my siblings like you should download it it's free um and I'll play with you because it's crossplatform I'll show you around I'll take your a little hand and we'll fly around together um collect Spirits all that stuff it's just ah it's such a um it's such a fun good cozy game I hope it takes off on PC we'll see what happens um but I do think it has the right mixture of like you know it is an MMO it's a non-standard MMO it's like it's it is a a cozy MMO and it's free it's by a studio that people know really well um you can see in the past couple weeks I I had an interview with their creative director Jova Chen um while I was at GDC so you can find some of the like uh quotes from him and discussion that I had about designing the the multiplayer and the socializing space of Sky um yeah so I've very much been getting back into that kind of in preparation for the launch and like and having talked to him recently it was all just kind of The Perfect Storm of stuff Al together so that's what I did last week yeah I think that's it that's all I played I didn't play anything new my my resolution has just died just as quickly as any other yearly resolution I thought surely I can try a new game no no it doesn't matter what resolution you pick in January it's really hard to stick to it is w we uh all right cool let's go grab Tyler C all right thank you for talking to us Tyler about our our very genres of games and the the sort of missing holes in all of our genres that's kind of what we've come to talk about like I I think sort of the prompt is I call myself a fan of blank and yet I haven't played blank do you have one like exemplifying example like the the big one I call myself a fan of this thing and yet I feel like a big one for me especially since now I've played like so much DIA before is that I have not really played Diablo I at all I know a little bit about it I think I I used to I remember being like really young and watching my stepbrother playing it like watching the cut scenes which terrified me because they're like extremely like violent back then uh but I have never played the original like the the action RPG that started it all I've I've never played I don't know anything like people talk about like oh I I wish this thing from Diablo I would come back like Rune words or whatever which is a mechanic that I don't even fully understand at this point and I I don't I'm too afraid to ask how it actually works but uh yeah never Diablo 2 is not a thing and it's it's funny because it feels like that is the game with any action RPG not even just Diablo 4 that people mention constantly but I just like I've never I know nothing about it I I just I I play all the newer ones so like I played three but never never the original or never the original that made everything popular which feels like a giant Gap to me because like I don't know it feels like it was like the blueprint for a lot of games these days that's such a pressure that we all have like no matter what genre you're a fan of is like the bat catalog like the the classic hits of any genre because that's going to be kind of my answer too but before I get to that Molly what uh do you have one big example yeah and it kind of it's the same with with you two kind of like an older one is for how much I love the final fantasy series I have not played nine I have not played nine if Wes was was here W would kill me I feel like it's like it's like the one that I always hear such good things about like more than eight more than 10 it's like the one that was wedged kind of it's like right at the end of the ps1's lifespan I think like Final Fantasy 10 came out on the PS2 and I just I never played it and I really want to I keep telling myself that I'm going to play it cuz I hear such amazing things about it I I feel like it's one that a lot of people a lot of like fans ended up skipping though I don't know why I don't know what is is it kind of a deep cut like what is nine about like I know Final Fantasy 12 is the steampunk one everybody knows seven like which which Final Fantasy is nine I don't actually know nine kind of like goes back more towards like the medieval Vibes if I remember correctly like more of like the classic fantasy that was sort of still in like one through six and then you know came along and it was like super futuristic this is the future it's green and black and then like eight came along and it was still yeah like eight came kind of kind of like semi futuristic I think and then nine kind of stripped it right back to the more like old school classic um I'm so sorry if I'm totally wrong with that that that's my impression as someone who has never played nine and I don't I don't know why that that turn maybe turned people off um but these days you hear really good things about it and it's one that I desperately desperately need to play have you played every single other one like except for n I've played a lot of them I've played four six most of seven eight uh 10 12 all the 13s 14 obviously uh 15 and I got like halfway through 16 so I play like a good chunk of them at this point um it's mostly just like the very very very early ones that I that I haven't played I call myself an RPG fan and more specifically I call myself a BioWare fan I've not touched Mass Effect ever none of them none of them no wow that's surprising it's in your it's because tell me what my defense is Molly oh thank you I knew I knew you would tell me the you're the same as me Molly knows uh yeah I always gravitate towards the the Fantasy games when I get the choice fantasy or sci-fi swords or guns I always go for the swords the fantasy whatever so given those like you know I discovered Dragon Age when I was like a late teenager probably that's when the first one came out and it felt like those were sort of like equal options like here are the big BioWare RPGs you get you get fantasy or you get guns and I was like well I'll play the Fantasy one and then sort of by the time uh I got deeper into it and I was aware I think of Mass Effect like I then very quickly was spoiled on Mass Effect and I just sort of like knew all the things that happened and I was like well I was less interested in it anyway I know it's a third person shooter not a first- person shooter but I didn't have like high drive to get into it and then I just sort of like was adjacent to that Community like that part of the internet and fandom I like witnessed enough of their stuff that I was like okay I don't need to play it myself I kind of know the Shephard memes and I know how Mass Effect 3 ends and I know uh which people everybody I know about GIS okay like I know about Garis so I don't need to play Mass Effect that's what you got to know about that's that's it you were free from being like extremely disappointed with Andromeda so I guess maybe it is a plus that you just haven't played it yeah exactly so unless unless the next next Dragon Age is also similar but we'll see don't don't say that Tyler don't don't do that to her crossing my fingers Man U so that's yeah that's my big uh my big hole in my back catalog is uh I guess the way I phrased it to you guys was which game should you be kicked out of your genre for having not played and I feel like I feel like Mass Effect for me that's fair yeah do you guys have one that's like it's so clearly your thing and this might be like some overlap we're creating a big vend diagram of things here but that's just so much your thing you should love it and like just something has kept you from playing this one particular game that's like it's made for you and yet I still feel like my answer is just always Dishonored too which just feels like God yeah CU I really like Dishonored and but like I I didn't really care that much about like corvo that was his name right corvo anano or whatever the main character guy I like I think Emily's design in this in the sequel really cool her her like abilities and stuff like I've seen bits of the game but I've never never touched it and I even own it like it's one of those things just sitting my steam library and I'm like one day I will install you but I I don't know like I really love Dishonored I really I I didn't like death loop as much I didn't even like obviously I didn't like redf fall I don't think anybody liked redf but it dis it's like i' I constantly am like hunting for a good like Arcane sort of style you know immersive Sim game and it's right there it's dishonor too probably but I just have not touched it yet what other things have you played like in like the immersive Sim type stuff like have you been let down by others or there's things that you've really liked and so you just never wound up going to dis I didn't really get into prey which was like their other one right that was a little bit closer to kind of a traditional immersive Sim I didn't really enjoy that that much um I never it's funny because one of the other games that I have not played as like the original DSX games either uh so I mean there's there's quite a few I guess the most of Sims that I haven't played but in terms of like newer ones that I think I feel like they're so streamlined in some ways that I don't really enjoy as much like especially like the new dayx games which I have played those are just they feel like regular firstperson shooters that maybe have some RPG elements and I I feel like there's a lot more creativity in some of the uh the older stuff but even dishonor too it's not even that old but like I really like all the like uh abilities in those games like the the blink ability to let you just like cross a bunch of gaps and climb up Ledges and stuff like that that stuff is like a blast to me because I mean as like even like an OverWatch player it reminds me of stuff like you know playing Tracer and stuff like that so in a stealth environment so it's really cool but yeah never never really touched it and also there's just a lot of like older immersive Sims that I have not ever like actually gotten into I tried the new like the thief remake they made like several years ago and that was Terri terrible like I I'm like clearly immersive Sims are like popular just because of the original like the original games that came out and probably not as many of the newer ones especially since that genre just seems to be very different now MH yeah maybe maybe with the mercy of yeah I was I say like maybe with the mercy of Sims maybe it's one of those things like you know when you play a game as a kid and you're like oh my God this is like the hardest thing ever it's so difficult and then you go back and you play it as an adult it's like this is so easy was I like a dumb kid I bet that's yeah I'm sure that's the case yeah I wonder if that's kind of the same thing where it's like it was like such a cool concept like at the time and now it's just hard to make it like interesting in a world where you can do so much more with the medium I don't know I'm not dunking on immersive Sims I think immersive Sims are really cool I'm not intelligent enough to play them optimally uh and to do goofy in them but I think I think for me like I think it it I know that I know this will probably kind of end up being yours answer as well orur to an extent I think the yakas are games like they are so they they they're like Molly coded they're like designed for me they're so Molly coded and yet I got like halfway through zero I was having a blast I was having a great time and then I do this thing where I just don't pick up a game for like 2 days and then I just forget that it exists it becomes days since you've played yeah yeah it's like it's like that text message that you're like oh I'll get back to that and then like 4 days goes by and you're like well it's too late now to reply to this and then you just never talk to that person again um that's kind of how it is with me and the alaza series and and I know I know that I love the out of those games just based off what I played of like the 10 hours 10 15 hours maybe even more I put into yaka a zero I know that game for me I know that series is for me especially now it's ter turn-based as well oh my God I'm I love a ter based game I complain that that they don't do that as much as they should anymore and yet I just I haven't played them I think it's overwhelming cuz I want to play them like in order so I like want to go through all the games and like do the story but oh my God that's so there so many of them it's daunting yeah there's a lot imagine starting Final Fantasy now yeah yeah right imagine if all the final fantasies mattered like that's that's how you saying they don't yeah wow they they matter they just matter in a vacuum away from all the other final fantasies that's the beauty of them whereas yaku it's like oh like you haven't played Yakaz of five oh good luck playak is probably the one you can skip oh I will tell you three three four and five are kind of weird and I feel like you can get the gist of them from like a good YouTube video walkthrough I'll tell you that about the oxa series but like zero through two deserve to be played and then the remakes of three through five I feel like maybe yeah maybe just watch The Cliff Notes on YouTube and then maybe play six and then get into seven so I shortened the list for you there's your filler episode uh recap Molly thank you so much I'm I'm a chronic filler episode Watcher though so me too yeah I can't I I I'm so bad for it I'm so sorry we're going off on a tangent do you skip the beach Arc and the the school trip Arc and all the other filler AR absolutely yeah no I will honest thought that was like the whole point of the yagua games is they are like a filler episode as a game the whole game is a filler it's true it's all side quest man it's all side quest very true uh I think mine is I I have haven't played the latest Yakuza game and I do feel bad about that I don't know if I want to call that like something that's totally my jam and I haven't played because like that's like the freebie answer I think for me it's got to be morrowwind um because I've played Oblivion and I've played Skyrim of course I've played The Fallout games at least all the modern ones um and Mora wind is the last like largely accessible like big Bethesda to RPG or I shouldn't say ESS modernized and approachable um big Beth as to RPG and everybody says how weird Mora wind is and I liked the um the mowind expansion for The Elder Scrolls Online uh that area of the game as well and that just it's like Tyler you were describing with um Diablo people who've played that older game reference these systems that are like oh they should bring XYZ back and I'm like I wish I had play I talking sounds cool it sounds so cool and I wish I could be mad about it with you like they had they had pole arms in Mor winds like spear weapons that you could stab people with and that hasn't been in since in an elder swirls game I don't believe um yeah I don't think so and like because I after playing Oblivion I have strong feelings about the uh the persuasion mini game um that like weirdo pie chart deal where but like once you understand it you can go through it so fast and it's so stupid and it's this it is so the most abstract version of what a conversation is the it is you like you have four pie wheels and in the the Oblivion uh chatting miname where you can like flatter somebody chat to them like insult them or something and it like it turns every time you pick a choice and the piece of the pie is like partially filled up to show how much impact it's going to have and you have to guess it's been so long since I've played it which like which thing each person values and you have to like use all four of them in the conversation but in the most optimal order you can devise that's like the most basic explanation I can give of it from what I remember but anyway it's so stupid but I kind of think it I kind of liked it and it's not that I think a game should have that again because it is a stupid system but it has this this nice place in my heart that it existed so I would like to go back to morrowwind and develop similar ridiculous opinions um about a very old game I think are there any that you guys have resigned yourself to like you're never going to play like I believe that Tyler you might get to dishonor too and Molly you might play a Yakuza game to to the the end credits I win you might play a yaka game to completion um do you have any that you're like I know I'm it's never going to happen like this isn't it's yeah oo that's a good one I I think for me um I feel so bad it's Terraria oh okay actually almost put on my list too yeah oh really I love like I love like don't star I love Minecraft I love star do all these like kind of little crafting like I feel like Terraria has like similar like shares similar Vibes with with all of those and I have I have tried in the past to get into it uh I have brewed the game up I have I have attempted to play and it's not because I don't like it and it's not because I think the game is bad like the fact that it is that the developers cannot leave that game alone and people still eat that up is like a testment I feel like to just yeah it's just how like how great that is as a game I just can't I can't do it every single attempt I have I have had has failed and I don't know why and it sucks cuz I feel like I could be a Terraria girlly I could I totally could and that but it's um it's it's never gonna happen and I'm so sorry for me that it's a sidescroller like for some reason everybody we all played Minecraft together and everybody was like play Terraria and I tried it and I was like I can't do I need 3D I need I truly do I don't know what it is man I can do a 3D platformer like action platformer but like as soon as you put it in like 2D sides scroll format I like I don't know how to jump I don't know how toces it's it is a miracle that I played um ory in the W of the W or or in the blind Forest rather I haven't played the second one it's a miracle I got through that game being aides scroll platformer but I pushed through it I think that's what's kept me away from Terraria but you don't know what it is for you Molly just just some unknowable factor maybe it is the 2D thing cuz I mean I love a 2d game I love a sides scrolling game like those are things those yeah like I those are things that I enjoy I like all of those but I I think in combination with like the crafting maybe that's just not doing it for me in a way that I really thought that it would yeah it's funny how your brain works and it's like you took away a dimension and now I don't want it anymore you made it flat I don't like it whereas like other things like life Sims I actually am very partial to the top down like star life and Farm Sims and when they get put in 3D I bounce off them more often actually for whatever reason so I don't know I don't have a grudge against 2D just 2D platforming can't do it I'm too stupid I'm so sorry I'm bad at it so I mean I because like one of the games that I have not played is also Hollow night and some of the reason is because it is like a sidescrolling platforming thing which I'm just not as good at as like a 3D action RPG thing so I did try a bit of hollow night and I was like like oh and I know it gets harder than this so I don't think it's gonna be good for me I should be good at this and also I should like it but something's not happening here and I haven't touched it again on my switch in since however long it's been since it came out whoops yep my you resign yourself to not playing Tyler yeah my I mean it's mostly a series I feel like I'm never goingon to play the Metal Gear Solid series just because I know too much about it at this point yeah okay I I feel like it's just like it's everywhere and like they all seem insane and that seems great but I I'm happy for the people that are into them but and they seem cool maybe I I've always wanted to try them but I I I mean I did play five but like every all the original ones that people love I I just know so much about them at this point I've seen them everywhere I need to play them I feel like everything I've learned about M gear solid has been against my will like I I have never never ever played a sing single game of metal gear solid and I know far too much about that series I like I remember everybody knows someone that knows way too much about middle Gear Solid right I had a I had an ex-boyfriend that was obsessed with the series and I remember I remember just like he was trying to tell me about all the different snakes and I was like I was like it's like a Dragon Ball fan telling me about all the gokus I just immediately like my brain switches off and I think I think on our team one time I think I asked because there was a solid and a liquid snake does that mean that there was a gas snake and it turns out that the answer is is actually yes I think I'm okay plasma snake do we have a plasma snake that might be a thing actually I don't remember but it could if it's not don't tell Kaja I mean it's Metal Gear Solid yeah like they have thought of everything so everybody really does have a metal gear fan friend I have a couple Metal Gear freaks in my life and yeah there are things that you learn about a the various snakes B snake and ocelot like C I don't know there's there's too much I feel like that's kind of how I feel about Resident Evil also Resident Evil is not within my genre like that's not I don't typically go for the like the third person action campaign thing like that kind of Falls in with I I know what were we talking about on a recent episode of the podcast Molly I don't remember well we were talking about like um it was when we were talking about yellow paint a couple weeks back and we were discussing like the tomb Raiders the Uncharted the that stuff I don't usually play those games so like I don't feel like irresponsible for never playing a Resident Evil game but I'm like every once in a while I look at people enjoying them and I'm like maybe I would like a Resident Evil game like maybe I could just you know shot a like 10 20 hour campaign and that would be a nice thing in my life life something that's not a 60h hour plus RPG I could learn the lore of Resident Evil and maybe that would be a nice addition to I don't think you want to honestly no no never mind I won't do it I'm so sorry it doesn't seem good there's too much there's there's like too many viruses too many zombie like adjacent things I mean they're not even on Zombies anymore right like there's like weird like plant fungus stuff so clearly I'm who could tell you yeah I'll just forever remember it was um this is also completely unrelated but the Resident Evil movie one of them uh welcome to Raccoon City I will never be able to eject from my head the trailer they did for that movie that included a down key like slowed down version of uh of what's going on um in it Molly I've showed this to you before and you probably I feel like you have I feel like you totally have yeah it's it's something that can just like bounce off your brain if you're lucky and I will never forget the like the like uh I forget even who's in welcome to racon city but whatever very serious there's like fire and like the city is in turmoil and in the background like that's good a very high equally high and low point of down key songs put into game uh adaptation movie trailers it's both the best and the worst thing I've ever seen in my life um I think the thing that I've resigned myself to never playing is um older RPGs like there's because again it's so daunting um I I at one point had like a long list written down on a whiteboard like in an apartment that I was living in um of like uh plcape torment The Fallout one and two Shadow Run games like all these things um that I'm just like I'm never I don't think I'm ever going to get to them probably I I think I've resigned myself to just it's not going to happen and it feels like this big missing chunk of like being an RPG person but like I've played balers gate one and two I've played ice wind Dale um I've played uh those might be kind of the high points I want to say tyranny but I know that's not a classic one that's actually a newer one it's just done in classic style but yeah I would I would love to have played any especially if I do anything if I get to any of them it will probably be the early Fallout games I feel like that's if I'm gonna go back for something it should be that since I've already done some like Infinity engine stuff like I have the balers gate and I have isce and Dale like it's okay if I don't do any other of those and I should do Fallout instead yeah see how can t is definitely one I I have wanted to play for a long time too yeah probably think so highly of it yeah right and it's also probably one of the ones that like I would be made for me too like it feels like it's it's super like writing for it's a Tyler ass game yes yeah everybody says it's very story focused like if you want the story focused campaign more than the crunchy numbers campaign and I feel like much as I'm a story person and I'm not a crunchy numbers person I think and Fallout I think the early Fallout games are very crunchy number RPGs but still feel like that's the thing I want to experience despite being less a Sci-Fi person Fallout I do enjoy some Fallout it's true is there uh I didn't prep you guys for this so you're you're kind of like faking off the top of your heads but is there like a game in your genre that you would say to someone else I don't know this is such a like common question as people talk about games like the the one thing that you think somebody should play out of like your whatever you want to Define as like your given genre for this question like if they were coming in and being like these are the things I haven't played even though I'm an RPG player which one should I actually do like I should forgive myself the rest but this one this one I should do what would you what would you tell them no um o maybe I would tell people to play narrow autometer that is that is the game yeah that is the game I would tell people to play it's one of those games that like if we're talking RPGs that is that is the the RPG you can pick a different genre but if we're talking if we're talking like like jrpgs which is something that I you know have have have enjoyed quite a lot over my years uh it's one of those games I wish could go back and play for the first time I love that game it is like so pretty looking it plays amazingly it's like the the way that game feels to play and just like interact with the world like I don't think any any game I've played quite makes me feel like as giddy as near autometer does just like the way it's so it like so effortly effortlessly like switches as well from like like open world exploration and then suddenly you're in like a little 2D SES scrolling segment and then suddenly it's like a little top down like shooting segment oh my God there's like so much to do it's such a fantastic game to just be in and be experiencing um and in my opinion that's a game that that everyone should play cuz I and I feel like everyone everyone knows near autometer at this point just because 2B is in absolutely everything so many Crossovers and her ass just keeps getting bigger and bigger progressively with like every collaboration that she that she stars in so go back and check out her Origins and see see how small her you're going say go back and check out her original ass yeah go back and check her original ass her original considerably smaller than recent collaborations ass we'll not have this ass revisionism happening in here the 1.0 ask I can't so the 1.0 ask yeah Tyler do you have a must play yeah this is hard uh I think I think all the people that have been like amazed at how we weird and like fun like alen wake 2 is should go back and play control I feel like not enough people play control okay control is like so good like it's like a I mean it's like a third person like action game but it's got all the remedy stuff in it it's even though it's like not it has some horror stuff into it like like I know that's one thing that holds like keeps people away from the Allen wake games is like maybe the horror elements and it does have some of that but it's more like it's a lot more like action but it's basically like a big building with a bunch of monsters and a bunch of like SCP stuff in it right so it's a lot of like weird like a fridge that I think there's like a there's a fridge where it's like you have to keep staring at it and if you look away it like violently kills you so it's like and there's like weird stuff like weird haunted objects in this game and it's it like it has like telekinesis you can just throw rocks at people you don't even have to shoot half the time it's just like it's such a fun game that is like goofy in that like kind of weird kind of campy remedy Style it it has amazing art Direction like I feel like it's still one of the best looking games I've ever seen and I just feel like yeah not a lot not enough not a lot of people ended up playing it and I think it's incredible like it's definitely like one of my favorite games of all time I think I the easy answer if Molly hadn't already said it would be yaka a zero because I do really feel like if if you love anything and I don't even know what to say if you love X you should play Yakuza I don't know what the answer to that is it's not it's not necessarily jrpgs because that's not what it is for most of the series um I don't know if frankly I told people a few different people this if you love Dragon Age if you love BioWare stuff like if you love story and like complex characters and melodrama like Yakuza is different but it has that like get attached to your faade that never let go grab them around their torso and shake them around because they're your very favorite doll um yuza has those qualities for sure uh but if I were not to say that I would probably say and this isn't even like what I consider my home genre but Shadow tactics Blades of the Shogun um that MIM games um which I get is shutting down right they said that uh their recent Pirate game was going to be their last which is unfortunate because all of their stealth tactics have been really great um so if you love those tactical things if you love like Hitman um it's not like Hitman because it's like it's say party management P but it still has the puzzling quality um Shadow taxic is really great that was like maybe maybe their first one I think and just like surprisingly good so enjoyable beautiful gives you those great moments of like setting up a three-way kill and having it like execute all at the same time because you're people with all their different abilities like all in the same place great game continue to recommend it I keep fighting for it to be in our top 100 every year um maybe this year's the year No it uh it had been it it comes in kind of low on the top 100 it might have fallen off this year in favor of other things but like for several years it's actually been on um and then okay other side of that same coin what from your like your big home genre or like things would you tell people to skip and be like yo don't feel bad you don't you just don't play it go do something better don't play this game don't go back I hate to be a hater I'm going to be such a hater right now all you little OSU freaks I don't know why you enjoy that goddamn game okay I love my rhythm games I love my rhythm games I cannot stand U OSU is like the like if you want a free game with like with like fanmade charts and the charts are actually good go play Step Mania go play Step Mania don't go play u i I don't know what it is I freaking hate this game I feel so bad because when when I tell people that I play Rhythm games they're like oh like OSU and I'm like no no not like OS I'm like not like OSU how dare you I feel really bad CU it's it's it's the game people think about when you tell people that you're into Rhythm games it's like that and Friday night funkin these days which ALS so for how much I like Friday night funkin is not a good rhythm game um that that may have changed it was not a good rhythm game when I played it even though I really liked it the music is great the art style is great the actual game play needed some work uh yeah I would say don't play OSU go to your local arcade go to your round one I know there's a I know there's a ton of them in America go to your local round one and go play some actual good Rhythm games or else that's me I'm sorry to like the genuine like millions of os fans out there I but they're playing a bad game is what you're saying yeah you're playing a bad game yeah you're a fan of game that's trash so uh I I mean OSU I I've never played OSU but it looks it never looked it just looked like a weird I don't know it looks like a rhythm game without any like fun in it like it just looks like it doesn't have anything going on I don't know really want to just play a bunch of songs yeah I guess because there's like a community with it but yeah uh I'm trying to think I don't know I feel okay mine maybe is also a little bit controversial I feel like um you can skip Dark Souls 2 I I feel like Tyler my first dark it's it's annoying it's I think like I mean honestly I do like parts of it but I feel like I always tell people because I've gotten a lot of friends into like the Dark Souls series and it's like play start like try Dark Souls to definitely give it a shot but like be you're you are you have the like permission to skip it because it's not I don't know it's never been my favorite I think it I understand why people like it but I just don't I think it's not I think it doesn't have as much like to me like the original game and then even the third one and obviously now like Elden ring which is technically not a Souls game but they feel like they have such a strong vision and two just feels like a little bit all over the place which seems to be some of what like its development just sort of caused that because it was kind of a mess but I feel like that game can only really be appreciated if you like are so interested in the series that like you want to go back to it kind of thing but I feel like playing them them in order is a bad idea like the two is just like it's going to frustrate you it's really long and I just feel like you might as well to move on to three but yeah fair enough that was my first Dark Souls game but just as a matter of like well you made a mistake so it came out and I had I didn't know about Dark Souls and somebody was like play Dark Souls 2 and I was like okay um never you shouldn't trust that person now like they they let you stray no more game wrecks um mine I don't know if this is controversial or not but the original Witcher um you don't need to go back and play first Witcher game not worth it yeah no it is respectfully I I guess as respectfully I as I can say it was ugly and it was clunky as I'll get out super buggy even though it's like playable now but like it's not good barely it it's it's a bit of a hassle to get it playable I had like horrible bugs like constant crashes to desktop and like the the level up screen in the original Witcher constantly bugged out on me where I could not click it I would get into level up screen I would not be able to interact with anything and I would have to force quit the game on top of all the times that it was like actually just crashing to desktop on me um the voice acting is not great I truly thought I truly thought going from Witcher one to Witcher two that they had replaced the voice actor for geralt but no that's Doug cockle all the way through no that's him it just something about how he was directed in his performance in the first Witcher or how they decided to cut the audio together was awkward um and he uh his talent in later witchers is not is not present there in the first one tragically uh yeah it's it's a clunky game that's another one where like like you're saying Tyler if you're really invested in the series if you really want to experience all of The Witcher okay go play it after you already care enough about the series to force yourself through that experience I played them starting with The Witcher one right before The Witcher 3 came out I was like I'm gonna play the first two and I'm gonna start with the first one and I muscled through it but for what and for what having strong opinions about Tris versus yennefer that is for what that is what I got out of playing the first Witcher game that's the only reason I'll tell anybody to do it is if you if you think like you like Tris better uh go back and play the first Witcher game actually you'll see the truth you'll know the truth but otherwise you can absolve yourself of that you don't need to go back for it you can you can play wild Hunt and just enjoy it because it's a very good game the witch definitely a reason why like The Witcher series really blew up with two I feel like there's nobody cared about one really yes I mean clearly it started something for cdpr like clearly that that is what started their success but yeah it uh the the difference in quality between one and two is startling it was startling when two came out that's the craziest part too right so yeah uh what's something that you like fully should have played wanted to play and now you're just not going to do it because it got spoiled for you either like the story or I I guess mostly story spoilers is kind of the thing or like it maybe it got spoiled for you in some other way like you had that experience of a friend trying to play it with you and just uh not letting you learn it on your own Molly you and I have those experiences sometimes any any kind of spoiling experience no I'm actually despite the fact that I have had people you know kind of be a little handh holdy when I play my video games some times I am surprisingly good at avoiding spoilers um oh there was a game that got spoiled for me and I never finished it um I spoiled the ending of it for myself by accident that was LA Noir I I accidentally yeah I spoiled the ending of LA Noir for myself uh totally just totally by mistake and then accidentally spoiled it for somebody else because I tried to whisper to someone in a Minecraft server that we were in and I tried to whisper and I just posted it like into the chat instead um and what a sentence yeah I I spoiled Noir whispering in Minecraft thinking I was whispering in Minecraft and I wasn't and I just blurted it out and um the person that I spoiled it for was very unhappy with me uh understandably but yeah I never finished it I think I was in enjoying the game and then I kind of saw the ending and I was like ah I like not I have no desire to carry on to the end now like this is this is fine but um apart from that I am like very very good at not getting spoiled I only got Mass Effect 3 spoiled for me like last year when I was editing someone's work on team yeah it took ages and even then um the ending of that game has fallen out of my brain so I'm still safe I'm still good I still technically do not know the ending of Mass Effect 3 um I'm I'm safe and I wish to remain ignorant that would make me really happy I think Mass Effect is mine too I I did definitely for all the other reasons I said why I probably wasn't going to bother playing Mass Effect at any point also you know cultural osmosis I know the ending of Mass Effect 3 so I'm like it's fine I don't need to play it myself at this point yeah I'm trying to think if there's any other things that like I've spoiled for myself in one way or another and then I'm like well I don't need to play it now but that's like that's the big one all the other big like story RPGs of my time the fallouts and the whatnots I mean I guess like when I go back and play if like if I get to play the original fallouts like I do pretty much know the plots of those and how they go but like they kind of echo those so many times too so it's sort of like you kind of know what's happening it' be like trying to watch a Star Wars movie at this point you kind of know like where it's going uh yeah I for me it's like it's well it's metal gear like all those games I just know too much about them but then also it's Fallout New Vegas specifically because like that's another one that people say that I would probably really like but I've heard like people are so effusive about that game that I every knows how New Vegas ends I know all the factions I Know How It Ends I I just know every storyline I mean I've also watched like parts of playthroughs and stuff too before so right that game I just know so much about that I there's no reason for me to really play it at this point yeah is there is there any that you're G to play like even though it's been spoiled for you like I mean I guess that's kind of what we've been talking about like some of the older games in our catalog is like yeah I know about these games but I'm gonna play them anyway but is there one where you're like I literally already know everything about this but I do I want to play it myself well it's t tangential um I had Persona 5 spoiled for me uh like the day that I got it the day that I got my copy of Persona 5 so like the day it came out or the day after it came out um I'm I'm like not so much these days now that my work is on the internet and reading comments gives me the fear I used to have such a habit of like then no I do still do it actually with everything but job stuff like if I watch a video if I like see like tweet I am so guilty of immediately opening the comments and just like seeing what everyone else is saying I'm such a comment reader I love reading the comments on stuff and it was a trailer for Persona 5 on like the official Sony account or the official PlayStation account on Facebook this was so this was like literally like 2017 when Persona 5 came out and I looked at the comments on this trailer for Persona 5 and somebody spoiled one of the major plot points as I was like an hour in and I was yeah I was so bummed out but I I carried on anyway I carried on playing and I'm you know it would have been cool to have not had that spoiled but I'm glad that I plowed on regardless cuz it's a good game do you have any like that Tyler I'm trying to think of like I mean I guess like honestly like mowind is probably one of those for me like because I just know so much about it too but it also just seems like it's still worth like digging into uh for all the reasons you said it just it's the weird one it seems to be like the the one that people constantly talk about that is not returned in any way other than I guess like the the Elder schools online so which I also didn't play that either so there's that I think um another one that maybe would be something that I would play to knowing so much about it and which is I maybe this is like a cop out a little bit because it's not really about the story stuff but like like monster hunter games like especially like world and stuff like I probably just play the newer one when it comes out at this point but like playing those games with friends feels like the way to do it so it probably doesn't really matter that I know like the the like final like boss fight or whatever like I know all the different like monsters in that game so doesn't really bother me I'd probably still just play it anyway yeah I I've managed to not know like the plot of Mor wind I really don't so that's nice at least I think maybe one thing is like various Assassin's Creed games which yeah I haven't like played a ton of the newer I I've played almost none of the newer Assassin's Creed games despite how much people enjoy them um but like as you say Molly because of work because of reading like our colleagues uh stories and things like that like I kind of I definitely know things that happen in Valhalla if not like also Odyssey and Origins but like I still might want to play them um even despite that uh and then I don't know I feel like there was one other thing potentially but I think yeah I think maybe Assassin's Creed various games I don't know I kind of fell off after four that's probably the last one I took seriously was yeah I fell off after like three I think so uh yeah cool thanks guys we wait recap quickly on the games that people should actually play these are these are the the ones that we felt like they should actually play Molly what was yours neotoma yes yes coold what was yours his control Yes mine was either yaku a zero or uh oh my God what did I say shadow tactics blad Shogun yes those are if you haven't hit those and those are your your home genres correct that go back for them but but you don't need to play the original Witcher and you don't need to play Dark Souls 2 and you don't need to play OSU and don't play good pleas forgive yourself Free Yourself those can come off the backlog according to us the the imminent Experts of our own genres beautiful thank you guys for just uh coming in and uh admitting to your great sins um of of your personal we were coming back in a year right to make sure we played the games that we skipped oh God accountability never absolutely not accountability for the backlog we can't we can't commit to something like that definitely cool thank you guys then uh you can always find uh more of uh all three of our writing at P gamer.com all of the usual news reviews guides opinions all that good stuff and you will as usual be able to talk with Molly and I about this week's episode at forums. pcgamer.com so until next time guys thank you bye hihey PC Gamers and welcome back to the PC Gamer chat log I am Lauren Morton and hey everyone I'm Molly Taylor and this week Molly and I are bringing on our associate editor Tyler Culp to talk about our white whale games the unachievable games the games we have never played but really absolutely should have and we have deep feelings of guilt like about these very specific things this is not just the backlog not just the oppressive guilt of the like huge looming backlog these are very specific games that are like I call myself an RPG fan and yet I should be embarrassed to have not played this thing um or whatever other genres uh we come from but before we bring in Tyler to talk about that Molly what did you play last week uh I played a little bit I'm actually quite surprised I found I found some time between just life chaos to play some stuff uh I weird was like really in the mood to play a shooter which is so unlikely that is yeah that is not a a Molly if you go oh Molly like Shooters is is not the first thing a lot of people think of um but I did I played OverWatch 2 uh just yeah despite all like the PVE uh with all that getting like cancelled and stuff it's like that one shooter that I can actually like tolerate in my brain so I played a little bit of that and is that like a comfort game for you like to play with friends yeah kind of is yeah it's it's like a it's a game that you know when I want to just shoot stuff and I don't really care about it as well which I think helps I don't care about being good so I just go in I pee on people with Moira to heal them and and I I I did straight back out again you know I did that and then I went to a retro gaming Market over weekend super cool there were loads of games so we bought like me and my boyfriend we bought a few games we bought some PS2 games and we ended up playing quite a few of those over the weekend as well so I've played a lot of Crazy Taxi this weekend uh cuz I love talk Crazy Taxi we were yes so I play a little bit of Crazy Taxi and uh I did a lot of watching my boyfriend play San Andreas as well okay yeah yeah so it was really good like a little bit of retro gaming and a little bit of just a smidge of PC gaming as well but it's been been a good week for gaming I feel like nice yeah that was me how about you Lauren where did you get up to well I was just coming off like a month of so much traveling you know I was at GDC and then I was on some personal trips too last month so I was just like I was sitting at home reading a lot and I think my update this week on things I played is the same as last week which is that I'm uh was getting back into Sky uh Children of the light which came out on PC this week um so I was kind of preparing for that getting back into it um and the the steam version the demo that had been up for a couple months was like having downtime for like a little more than a week like 10 days or something uh leading up to like the proper launch so I had to pull it back out on my Nintendo switch instead of my steam deck which i' had been playing on and my goodness uh picking up the Nintendo switch after like getting accustomed to my steam deck it felt so tiny it's tiny just a little old thing um it did not take me long at all I mean I think when we first got our steam decks at the beginning of this year you and I were like oh yeah it's pretty big it's pretty chunky but I must have gotten used to it fast because yeah I picked up my switch and I was like oh oh she this is a feel right yeah pretty much so yeah I I got back into the sky the light I kind of uh have been Loosely sprinkling in hints to like some of my friends and my siblings like you should download it it's free um and I'll play with you because it's crossplatform I'll show you around I'll take your a little hand and we'll fly around together um collect Spirits all that stuff it's just ah it's such a um it's such a fun good cozy game I hope it takes off on PC we'll see what happens um but I do think it has the right mixture of like you know it is an MMO it's a non-standard MMO it's like it's it is a a cozy MMO and it's free it's by a studio that people know really well um you can see in the past couple weeks I I had an interview with their creative director Jova Chen um while I was at GDC so you can find some of the like uh quotes from him and discussion that I had about designing the the multiplayer and the socializing space of Sky um yeah so I've very much been getting back into that kind of in preparation for the launch and like and having talked to him recently it was all just kind of The Perfect Storm of stuff Al together so that's what I did last week yeah I think that's it that's all I played I didn't play anything new my my resolution has just died just as quickly as any other yearly resolution I thought surely I can try a new game no no it doesn't matter what resolution you pick in January it's really hard to stick to it is w we uh all right cool let's go grab Tyler C all right thank you for talking to us Tyler about our our very genres of games and the the sort of missing holes in all of our genres that's kind of what we've come to talk about like I I think sort of the prompt is I call myself a fan of blank and yet I haven't played blank do you have one like exemplifying example like the the big one I call myself a fan of this thing and yet I feel like a big one for me especially since now I've played like so much DIA before is that I have not really played Diablo I at all I know a little bit about it I think I I used to I remember being like really young and watching my stepbrother playing it like watching the cut scenes which terrified me because they're like extremely like violent back then uh but I have never played the original like the the action RPG that started it all I've I've never played I don't know anything like people talk about like oh I I wish this thing from Diablo I would come back like Rune words or whatever which is a mechanic that I don't even fully understand at this point and I I don't I'm too afraid to ask how it actually works but uh yeah never Diablo 2 is not a thing and it's it's funny because it feels like that is the game with any action RPG not even just Diablo 4 that people mention constantly but I just like I've never I know nothing about it I I just I I play all the newer ones so like I played three but never never the original or never the original that made everything popular which feels like a giant Gap to me because like I don't know it feels like it was like the blueprint for a lot of games these days that's such a pressure that we all have like no matter what genre you're a fan of is like the bat catalog like the the classic hits of any genre because that's going to be kind of my answer too but before I get to that Molly what uh do you have one big example yeah and it kind of it's the same with with you two kind of like an older one is for how much I love the final fantasy series I have not played nine I have not played nine if Wes was was here W would kill me I feel like it's like it's like the one that I always hear such good things about like more than eight more than 10 it's like the one that was wedged kind of it's like right at the end of the ps1's lifespan I think like Final Fantasy 10 came out on the PS2 and I just I never played it and I really want to I keep telling myself that I'm going to play it cuz I hear such amazing things about it I I feel like it's one that a lot of people a lot of like fans ended up skipping though I don't know why I don't know what is is it kind of a deep cut like what is nine about like I know Final Fantasy 12 is the steampunk one everybody knows seven like which which Final Fantasy is nine I don't actually know nine kind of like goes back more towards like the medieval Vibes if I remember correctly like more of like the classic fantasy that was sort of still in like one through six and then you know came along and it was like super futuristic this is the future it's green and black and then like eight came along and it was still yeah like eight came kind of kind of like semi futuristic I think and then nine kind of stripped it right back to the more like old school classic um I'm so sorry if I'm totally wrong with that that that's my impression as someone who has never played nine and I don't I don't know why that that turn maybe turned people off um but these days you hear really good things about it and it's one that I desperately desperately need to play have you played every single other one like except for n I've played a lot of them I've played four six most of seven eight uh 10 12 all the 13s 14 obviously uh 15 and I got like halfway through 16 so I play like a good chunk of them at this point um it's mostly just like the very very very early ones that I that I haven't played I call myself an RPG fan and more specifically I call myself a BioWare fan I've not touched Mass Effect ever none of them none of them no wow that's surprising it's in your it's because tell me what my defense is Molly oh thank you I knew I knew you would tell me the you're the same as me Molly knows uh yeah I always gravitate towards the the Fantasy games when I get the choice fantasy or sci-fi swords or guns I always go for the swords the fantasy whatever so given those like you know I discovered Dragon Age when I was like a late teenager probably that's when the first one came out and it felt like those were sort of like equal options like here are the big BioWare RPGs you get you get fantasy or you get guns and I was like well I'll play the Fantasy one and then sort of by the time uh I got deeper into it and I was aware I think of Mass Effect like I then very quickly was spoiled on Mass Effect and I just sort of like knew all the things that happened and I was like well I was less interested in it anyway I know it's a third person shooter not a first- person shooter but I didn't have like high drive to get into it and then I just sort of like was adjacent to that Community like that part of the internet and fandom I like witnessed enough of their stuff that I was like okay I don't need to play it myself I kind of know the Shephard memes and I know how Mass Effect 3 ends and I know uh which people everybody I know about GIS okay like I know about Garis so I don't need to play Mass Effect that's what you got to know about that's that's it you were free from being like extremely disappointed with Andromeda so I guess maybe it is a plus that you just haven't played it yeah exactly so unless unless the next next Dragon Age is also similar but we'll see don't don't say that Tyler don't don't do that to her crossing my fingers Man U so that's yeah that's my big uh my big hole in my back catalog is uh I guess the way I phrased it to you guys was which game should you be kicked out of your genre for having not played and I feel like I feel like Mass Effect for me that's fair yeah do you guys have one that's like it's so clearly your thing and this might be like some overlap we're creating a big vend diagram of things here but that's just so much your thing you should love it and like just something has kept you from playing this one particular game that's like it's made for you and yet I still feel like my answer is just always Dishonored too which just feels like God yeah CU I really like Dishonored and but like I I didn't really care that much about like corvo that was his name right corvo anano or whatever the main character guy I like I think Emily's design in this in the sequel really cool her her like abilities and stuff like I've seen bits of the game but I've never never touched it and I even own it like it's one of those things just sitting my steam library and I'm like one day I will install you but I I don't know like I really love Dishonored I really I I didn't like death loop as much I didn't even like obviously I didn't like redf fall I don't think anybody liked redf but it dis it's like i' I constantly am like hunting for a good like Arcane sort of style you know immersive Sim game and it's right there it's dishonor too probably but I just have not touched it yet what other things have you played like in like the immersive Sim type stuff like have you been let down by others or there's things that you've really liked and so you just never wound up going to dis I didn't really get into prey which was like their other one right that was a little bit closer to kind of a traditional immersive Sim I didn't really enjoy that that much um I never it's funny because one of the other games that I have not played as like the original DSX games either uh so I mean there's there's quite a few I guess the most of Sims that I haven't played but in terms of like newer ones that I think I feel like they're so streamlined in some ways that I don't really enjoy as much like especially like the new dayx games which I have played those are just they feel like regular firstperson shooters that maybe have some RPG elements and I I feel like there's a lot more creativity in some of the uh the older stuff but even dishonor too it's not even that old but like I really like all the like uh abilities in those games like the the blink ability to let you just like cross a bunch of gaps and climb up Ledges and stuff like that that stuff is like a blast to me because I mean as like even like an OverWatch player it reminds me of stuff like you know playing Tracer and stuff like that so in a stealth environment so it's really cool but yeah never never really touched it and also there's just a lot of like older immersive Sims that I have not ever like actually gotten into I tried the new like the thief remake they made like several years ago and that was Terri terrible like I I'm like clearly immersive Sims are like popular just because of the original like the original games that came out and probably not as many of the newer ones especially since that genre just seems to be very different now MH yeah maybe maybe with the mercy of yeah I was I say like maybe with the mercy of Sims maybe it's one of those things like you know when you play a game as a kid and you're like oh my God this is like the hardest thing ever it's so difficult and then you go back and you play it as an adult it's like this is so easy was I like a dumb kid I bet that's yeah I'm sure that's the case yeah I wonder if that's kind of the same thing where it's like it was like such a cool concept like at the time and now it's just hard to make it like interesting in a world where you can do so much more with the medium I don't know I'm not dunking on immersive Sims I think immersive Sims are really cool I'm not intelligent enough to play them optimally uh and to do goofy in them but I think I think for me like I think it it I know that I know this will probably kind of end up being yours answer as well orur to an extent I think the yakas are games like they are so they they they're like Molly coded they're like designed for me they're so Molly coded and yet I got like halfway through zero I was having a blast I was having a great time and then I do this thing where I just don't pick up a game for like 2 days and then I just forget that it exists it becomes days since you've played yeah yeah it's like it's like that text message that you're like oh I'll get back to that and then like 4 days goes by and you're like well it's too late now to reply to this and then you just never talk to that person again um that's kind of how it is with me and the alaza series and and I know I know that I love the out of those games just based off what I played of like the 10 hours 10 15 hours maybe even more I put into yaka a zero I know that game for me I know that series is for me especially now it's ter turn-based as well oh my God I'm I love a ter based game I complain that that they don't do that as much as they should anymore and yet I just I haven't played them I think it's overwhelming cuz I want to play them like in order so I like want to go through all the games and like do the story but oh my God that's so there so many of them it's daunting yeah there's a lot imagine starting Final Fantasy now yeah yeah right imagine if all the final fantasies mattered like that's that's how you saying they don't yeah wow they they matter they just matter in a vacuum away from all the other final fantasies that's the beauty of them whereas yaku it's like oh like you haven't played Yakaz of five oh good luck playak is probably the one you can skip oh I will tell you three three four and five are kind of weird and I feel like you can get the gist of them from like a good YouTube video walkthrough I'll tell you that about the oxa series but like zero through two deserve to be played and then the remakes of three through five I feel like maybe yeah maybe just watch The Cliff Notes on YouTube and then maybe play six and then get into seven so I shortened the list for you there's your filler episode uh recap Molly thank you so much I'm I'm a chronic filler episode Watcher though so me too yeah I can't I I I'm so bad for it I'm so sorry we're going off on a tangent do you skip the beach Arc and the the school trip Arc and all the other filler AR absolutely yeah no I will honest thought that was like the whole point of the yagua games is they are like a filler episode as a game the whole game is a filler it's true it's all side quest man it's all side quest very true uh I think mine is I I have haven't played the latest Yakuza game and I do feel bad about that I don't know if I want to call that like something that's totally my jam and I haven't played because like that's like the freebie answer I think for me it's got to be morrowwind um because I've played Oblivion and I've played Skyrim of course I've played The Fallout games at least all the modern ones um and Mora wind is the last like largely accessible like big Bethesda to RPG or I shouldn't say ESS modernized and approachable um big Beth as to RPG and everybody says how weird Mora wind is and I liked the um the mowind expansion for The Elder Scrolls Online uh that area of the game as well and that just it's like Tyler you were describing with um Diablo people who've played that older game reference these systems that are like oh they should bring XYZ back and I'm like I wish I had play I talking sounds cool it sounds so cool and I wish I could be mad about it with you like they had they had pole arms in Mor winds like spear weapons that you could stab people with and that hasn't been in since in an elder swirls game I don't believe um yeah I don't think so and like because I after playing Oblivion I have strong feelings about the uh the persuasion mini game um that like weirdo pie chart deal where but like once you understand it you can go through it so fast and it's so stupid and it's this it is so the most abstract version of what a conversation is the it is you like you have four pie wheels and in the the Oblivion uh chatting miname where you can like flatter somebody chat to them like insult them or something and it like it turns every time you pick a choice and the piece of the pie is like partially filled up to show how much impact it's going to have and you have to guess it's been so long since I've played it which like which thing each person values and you have to like use all four of them in the conversation but in the most optimal order you can devise that's like the most basic explanation I can give of it from what I remember but anyway it's so stupid but I kind of think it I kind of liked it and it's not that I think a game should have that again because it is a stupid system but it has this this nice place in my heart that it existed so I would like to go back to morrowwind and develop similar ridiculous opinions um about a very old game I think are there any that you guys have resigned yourself to like you're never going to play like I believe that Tyler you might get to dishonor too and Molly you might play a Yakuza game to to the the end credits I win you might play a yaka game to completion um do you have any that you're like I know I'm it's never going to happen like this isn't it's yeah oo that's a good one I I think for me um I feel so bad it's Terraria oh okay actually almost put on my list too yeah oh really I love like I love like don't star I love Minecraft I love star do all these like kind of little crafting like I feel like Terraria has like similar like shares similar Vibes with with all of those and I have I have tried in the past to get into it uh I have brewed the game up I have I have attempted to play and it's not because I don't like it and it's not because I think the game is bad like the fact that it is that the developers cannot leave that game alone and people still eat that up is like a testment I feel like to just yeah it's just how like how great that is as a game I just can't I can't do it every single attempt I have I have had has failed and I don't know why and it sucks cuz I feel like I could be a Terraria girlly I could I totally could and that but it's um it's it's never gonna happen and I'm so sorry for me that it's a sidescroller like for some reason everybody we all played Minecraft together and everybody was like play Terraria and I tried it and I was like I can't do I need 3D I need I truly do I don't know what it is man I can do a 3D platformer like action platformer but like as soon as you put it in like 2D sides scroll format I like I don't know how to jump I don't know how toces it's it is a miracle that I played um ory in the W of the W or or in the blind Forest rather I haven't played the second one it's a miracle I got through that game being aides scroll platformer but I pushed through it I think that's what's kept me away from Terraria but you don't know what it is for you Molly just just some unknowable factor maybe it is the 2D thing cuz I mean I love a 2d game I love a sides scrolling game like those are things those yeah like I those are things that I enjoy I like all of those but I I think in combination with like the crafting maybe that's just not doing it for me in a way that I really thought that it would yeah it's funny how your brain works and it's like you took away a dimension and now I don't want it anymore you made it flat I don't like it whereas like other things like life Sims I actually am very partial to the top down like star life and Farm Sims and when they get put in 3D I bounce off them more often actually for whatever reason so I don't know I don't have a grudge against 2D just 2D platforming can't do it I'm too stupid I'm so sorry I'm bad at it so I mean I because like one of the games that I have not played is also Hollow night and some of the reason is because it is like a sidescrolling platforming thing which I'm just not as good at as like a 3D action RPG thing so I did try a bit of hollow night and I was like like oh and I know it gets harder than this so I don't think it's gonna be good for me I should be good at this and also I should like it but something's not happening here and I haven't touched it again on my switch in since however long it's been since it came out whoops yep my you resign yourself to not playing Tyler yeah my I mean it's mostly a series I feel like I'm never goingon to play the Metal Gear Solid series just because I know too much about it at this point yeah okay I I feel like it's just like it's everywhere and like they all seem insane and that seems great but I I'm happy for the people that are into them but and they seem cool maybe I I've always wanted to try them but I I I mean I did play five but like every all the original ones that people love I I just know so much about them at this point I've seen them everywhere I need to play them I feel like everything I've learned about M gear solid has been against my will like I I have never never ever played a sing single game of metal gear solid and I know far too much about that series I like I remember everybody knows someone that knows way too much about middle Gear Solid right I had a I had an ex-boyfriend that was obsessed with the series and I remember I remember just like he was trying to tell me about all the different snakes and I was like I was like it's like a Dragon Ball fan telling me about all the gokus I just immediately like my brain switches off and I think I think on our team one time I think I asked because there was a solid and a liquid snake does that mean that there was a gas snake and it turns out that the answer is is actually yes I think I'm okay plasma snake do we have a plasma snake that might be a thing actually I don't remember but it could if it's not don't tell Kaja I mean it's Metal Gear Solid yeah like they have thought of everything so everybody really does have a metal gear fan friend I have a couple Metal Gear freaks in my life and yeah there are things that you learn about a the various snakes B snake and ocelot like C I don't know there's there's too much I feel like that's kind of how I feel about Resident Evil also Resident Evil is not within my genre like that's not I don't typically go for the like the third person action campaign thing like that kind of Falls in with I I know what were we talking about on a recent episode of the podcast Molly I don't remember well we were talking about like um it was when we were talking about yellow paint a couple weeks back and we were discussing like the tomb Raiders the Uncharted the that stuff I don't usually play those games so like I don't feel like irresponsible for never playing a Resident Evil game but I'm like every once in a while I look at people enjoying them and I'm like maybe I would like a Resident Evil game like maybe I could just you know shot a like 10 20 hour campaign and that would be a nice thing in my life life something that's not a 60h hour plus RPG I could learn the lore of Resident Evil and maybe that would be a nice addition to I don't think you want to honestly no no never mind I won't do it I'm so sorry it doesn't seem good there's too much there's there's like too many viruses too many zombie like adjacent things I mean they're not even on Zombies anymore right like there's like weird like plant fungus stuff so clearly I'm who could tell you yeah I'll just forever remember it was um this is also completely unrelated but the Resident Evil movie one of them uh welcome to Raccoon City I will never be able to eject from my head the trailer they did for that movie that included a down key like slowed down version of uh of what's going on um in it Molly I've showed this to you before and you probably I feel like you have I feel like you totally have yeah it's it's something that can just like bounce off your brain if you're lucky and I will never forget the like the like uh I forget even who's in welcome to racon city but whatever very serious there's like fire and like the city is in turmoil and in the background like that's good a very high equally high and low point of down key songs put into game uh adaptation movie trailers it's both the best and the worst thing I've ever seen in my life um I think the thing that I've resigned myself to never playing is um older RPGs like there's because again it's so daunting um I I at one point had like a long list written down on a whiteboard like in an apartment that I was living in um of like uh plcape torment The Fallout one and two Shadow Run games like all these things um that I'm just like I'm never I don't think I'm ever going to get to them probably I I think I've resigned myself to just it's not going to happen and it feels like this big missing chunk of like being an RPG person but like I've played balers gate one and two I've played ice wind Dale um I've played uh those might be kind of the high points I want to say tyranny but I know that's not a classic one that's actually a newer one it's just done in classic style but yeah I would I would love to have played any especially if I do anything if I get to any of them it will probably be the early Fallout games I feel like that's if I'm gonna go back for something it should be that since I've already done some like Infinity engine stuff like I have the balers gate and I have isce and Dale like it's okay if I don't do any other of those and I should do Fallout instead yeah see how can t is definitely one I I have wanted to play for a long time too yeah probably think so highly of it yeah right and it's also probably one of the ones that like I would be made for me too like it feels like it's it's super like writing for it's a Tyler ass game yes yeah everybody says it's very story focused like if you want the story focused campaign more than the crunchy numbers campaign and I feel like much as I'm a story person and I'm not a crunchy numbers person I think and Fallout I think the early Fallout games are very crunchy number RPGs but still feel like that's the thing I want to experience despite being less a Sci-Fi person Fallout I do enjoy some Fallout it's true is there uh I didn't prep you guys for this so you're you're kind of like faking off the top of your heads but is there like a game in your genre that you would say to someone else I don't know this is such a like common question as people talk about games like the the one thing that you think somebody should play out of like your whatever you want to Define as like your given genre for this question like if they were coming in and being like these are the things I haven't played even though I'm an RPG player which one should I actually do like I should forgive myself the rest but this one this one I should do what would you what would you tell them no um o maybe I would tell people to play narrow autometer that is that is the game yeah that is the game I would tell people to play it's one of those games that like if we're talking RPGs that is that is the the RPG you can pick a different genre but if we're talking if we're talking like like jrpgs which is something that I you know have have have enjoyed quite a lot over my years uh it's one of those games I wish could go back and play for the first time I love that game it is like so pretty looking it plays amazingly it's like the the way that game feels to play and just like interact with the world like I don't think any any game I've played quite makes me feel like as giddy as near autometer does just like the way it's so it like so effortly effortlessly like switches as well from like like open world exploration and then suddenly you're in like a little 2D SES scrolling segment and then suddenly it's like a little top down like shooting segment oh my God there's like so much to do it's such a fantastic game to just be in and be experiencing um and in my opinion that's a game that that everyone should play cuz I and I feel like everyone everyone knows near autometer at this point just because 2B is in absolutely everything so many Crossovers and her ass just keeps getting bigger and bigger progressively with like every collaboration that she that she stars in so go back and check out her Origins and see see how small her you're going say go back and check out her original ass yeah go back and check her original ass her original considerably smaller than recent collaborations ass we'll not have this ass revisionism happening in here the 1.0 ask I can't so the 1.0 ask yeah Tyler do you have a must play yeah this is hard uh I think I think all the people that have been like amazed at how we weird and like fun like alen wake 2 is should go back and play control I feel like not enough people play control okay control is like so good like it's like a I mean it's like a third person like action game but it's got all the remedy stuff in it it's even though it's like not it has some horror stuff into it like like I know that's one thing that holds like keeps people away from the Allen wake games is like maybe the horror elements and it does have some of that but it's more like it's a lot more like action but it's basically like a big building with a bunch of monsters and a bunch of like SCP stuff in it right so it's a lot of like weird like a fridge that I think there's like a there's a fridge where it's like you have to keep staring at it and if you look away it like violently kills you so it's like and there's like weird stuff like weird haunted objects in this game and it's it like it has like telekinesis you can just throw rocks at people you don't even have to shoot half the time it's just like it's such a fun game that is like goofy in that like kind of weird kind of campy remedy Style it it has amazing art Direction like I feel like it's still one of the best looking games I've ever seen and I just feel like yeah not a lot not enough not a lot of people ended up playing it and I think it's incredible like it's definitely like one of my favorite games of all time I think I the easy answer if Molly hadn't already said it would be yaka a zero because I do really feel like if if you love anything and I don't even know what to say if you love X you should play Yakuza I don't know what the answer to that is it's not it's not necessarily jrpgs because that's not what it is for most of the series um I don't know if frankly I told people a few different people this if you love Dragon Age if you love BioWare stuff like if you love story and like complex characters and melodrama like Yakuza is different but it has that like get attached to your faade that never let go grab them around their torso and shake them around because they're your very favorite doll um yuza has those qualities for sure uh but if I were not to say that I would probably say and this isn't even like what I consider my home genre but Shadow tactics Blades of the Shogun um that MIM games um which I get is shutting down right they said that uh their recent Pirate game was going to be their last which is unfortunate because all of their stealth tactics have been really great um so if you love those tactical things if you love like Hitman um it's not like Hitman because it's like it's say party management P but it still has the puzzling quality um Shadow taxic is really great that was like maybe maybe their first one I think and just like surprisingly good so enjoyable beautiful gives you those great moments of like setting up a three-way kill and having it like execute all at the same time because you're people with all their different abilities like all in the same place great game continue to recommend it I keep fighting for it to be in our top 100 every year um maybe this year's the year No it uh it had been it it comes in kind of low on the top 100 it might have fallen off this year in favor of other things but like for several years it's actually been on um and then okay other side of that same coin what from your like your big home genre or like things would you tell people to skip and be like yo don't feel bad you don't you just don't play it go do something better don't play this game don't go back I hate to be a hater I'm going to be such a hater right now all you little OSU freaks I don't know why you enjoy that goddamn game okay I love my rhythm games I love my rhythm games I cannot stand U OSU is like the like if you want a free game with like with like fanmade charts and the charts are actually good go play Step Mania go play Step Mania don't go play u i I don't know what it is I freaking hate this game I feel so bad because when when I tell people that I play Rhythm games they're like oh like OSU and I'm like no no not like OS I'm like not like OSU how dare you I feel really bad CU it's it's it's the game people think about when you tell people that you're into Rhythm games it's like that and Friday night funkin these days which ALS so for how much I like Friday night funkin is not a good rhythm game um that that may have changed it was not a good rhythm game when I played it even though I really liked it the music is great the art style is great the actual game play needed some work uh yeah I would say don't play OSU go to your local arcade go to your round one I know there's a I know there's a ton of them in America go to your local round one and go play some actual good Rhythm games or else that's me I'm sorry to like the genuine like millions of os fans out there I but they're playing a bad game is what you're saying yeah you're playing a bad game yeah you're a fan of game that's trash so uh I I mean OSU I I've never played OSU but it looks it never looked it just looked like a weird I don't know it looks like a rhythm game without any like fun in it like it just looks like it doesn't have anything going on I don't know really want to just play a bunch of songs yeah I guess because there's like a community with it but yeah uh I'm trying to think I don't know I feel okay mine maybe is also a little bit controversial I feel like um you can skip Dark Souls 2 I I feel like Tyler my first dark it's it's annoying it's I think like I mean honestly I do like parts of it but I feel like I always tell people because I've gotten a lot of friends into like the Dark Souls series and it's like play start like try Dark Souls to definitely give it a shot but like be you're you are you have the like permission to skip it because it's not I don't know it's never been my favorite I think it I understand why people like it but I just don't I think it's not I think it doesn't have as much like to me like the original game and then even the third one and obviously now like Elden ring which is technically not a Souls game but they feel like they have such a strong vision and two just feels like a little bit all over the place which seems to be some of what like its development just sort of caused that because it was kind of a mess but I feel like that game can only really be appreciated if you like are so interested in the series that like you want to go back to it kind of thing but I feel like playing them them in order is a bad idea like the two is just like it's going to frustrate you it's really long and I just feel like you might as well to move on to three but yeah fair enough that was my first Dark Souls game but just as a matter of like well you made a mistake so it came out and I had I didn't know about Dark Souls and somebody was like play Dark Souls 2 and I was like okay um never you shouldn't trust that person now like they they let you stray no more game wrecks um mine I don't know if this is controversial or not but the original Witcher um you don't need to go back and play first Witcher game not worth it yeah no it is respectfully I I guess as respectfully I as I can say it was ugly and it was clunky as I'll get out super buggy even though it's like playable now but like it's not good barely it it's it's a bit of a hassle to get it playable I had like horrible bugs like constant crashes to desktop and like the the level up screen in the original Witcher constantly bugged out on me where I could not click it I would get into level up screen I would not be able to interact with anything and I would have to force quit the game on top of all the times that it was like actually just crashing to desktop on me um the voice acting is not great I truly thought I truly thought going from Witcher one to Witcher two that they had replaced the voice actor for geralt but no that's Doug cockle all the way through no that's him it just something about how he was directed in his performance in the first Witcher or how they decided to cut the audio together was awkward um and he uh his talent in later witchers is not is not present there in the first one tragically uh yeah it's it's a clunky game that's another one where like like you're saying Tyler if you're really invested in the series if you really want to experience all of The Witcher okay go play it after you already care enough about the series to force yourself through that experience I played them starting with The Witcher one right before The Witcher 3 came out I was like I'm gonna play the first two and I'm gonna start with the first one and I muscled through it but for what and for what having strong opinions about Tris versus yennefer that is for what that is what I got out of playing the first Witcher game that's the only reason I'll tell anybody to do it is if you if you think like you like Tris better uh go back and play the first Witcher game actually you'll see the truth you'll know the truth but otherwise you can absolve yourself of that you don't need to go back for it you can you can play wild Hunt and just enjoy it because it's a very good game the witch definitely a reason why like The Witcher series really blew up with two I feel like there's nobody cared about one really yes I mean clearly it started something for cdpr like clearly that that is what started their success but yeah it uh the the difference in quality between one and two is startling it was startling when two came out that's the craziest part too right so yeah uh what's something that you like fully should have played wanted to play and now you're just not going to do it because it got spoiled for you either like the story or I I guess mostly story spoilers is kind of the thing or like it maybe it got spoiled for you in some other way like you had that experience of a friend trying to play it with you and just uh not letting you learn it on your own Molly you and I have those experiences sometimes any any kind of spoiling experience no I'm actually despite the fact that I have had people you know kind of be a little handh holdy when I play my video games some times I am surprisingly good at avoiding spoilers um oh there was a game that got spoiled for me and I never finished it um I spoiled the ending of it for myself by accident that was LA Noir I I accidentally yeah I spoiled the ending of LA Noir for myself uh totally just totally by mistake and then accidentally spoiled it for somebody else because I tried to whisper to someone in a Minecraft server that we were in and I tried to whisper and I just posted it like into the chat instead um and what a sentence yeah I I spoiled Noir whispering in Minecraft thinking I was whispering in Minecraft and I wasn't and I just blurted it out and um the person that I spoiled it for was very unhappy with me uh understandably but yeah I never finished it I think I was in enjoying the game and then I kind of saw the ending and I was like ah I like not I have no desire to carry on to the end now like this is this is fine but um apart from that I am like very very good at not getting spoiled I only got Mass Effect 3 spoiled for me like last year when I was editing someone's work on team yeah it took ages and even then um the ending of that game has fallen out of my brain so I'm still safe I'm still good I still technically do not know the ending of Mass Effect 3 um I'm I'm safe and I wish to remain ignorant that would make me really happy I think Mass Effect is mine too I I did definitely for all the other reasons I said why I probably wasn't going to bother playing Mass Effect at any point also you know cultural osmosis I know the ending of Mass Effect 3 so I'm like it's fine I don't need to play it myself at this point yeah I'm trying to think if there's any other things that like I've spoiled for myself in one way or another and then I'm like well I don't need to play it now but that's like that's the big one all the other big like story RPGs of my time the fallouts and the whatnots I mean I guess like when I go back and play if like if I get to play the original fallouts like I do pretty much know the plots of those and how they go but like they kind of echo those so many times too so it's sort of like you kind of know what's happening it' be like trying to watch a Star Wars movie at this point you kind of know like where it's going uh yeah I for me it's like it's well it's metal gear like all those games I just know too much about them but then also it's Fallout New Vegas specifically because like that's another one that people say that I would probably really like but I've heard like people are so effusive about that game that I every knows how New Vegas ends I know all the factions I Know How It Ends I I just know every storyline I mean I've also watched like parts of playthroughs and stuff too before so right that game I just know so much about that I there's no reason for me to really play it at this point yeah is there is there any that you're G to play like even though it's been spoiled for you like I mean I guess that's kind of what we've been talking about like some of the older games in our catalog is like yeah I know about these games but I'm gonna play them anyway but is there one where you're like I literally already know everything about this but I do I want to play it myself well it's t tangential um I had Persona 5 spoiled for me uh like the day that I got it the day that I got my copy of Persona 5 so like the day it came out or the day after it came out um I'm I'm like not so much these days now that my work is on the internet and reading comments gives me the fear I used to have such a habit of like then no I do still do it actually with everything but job stuff like if I watch a video if I like see like tweet I am so guilty of immediately opening the comments and just like seeing what everyone else is saying I'm such a comment reader I love reading the comments on stuff and it was a trailer for Persona 5 on like the official Sony account or the official PlayStation account on Facebook this was so this was like literally like 2017 when Persona 5 came out and I looked at the comments on this trailer for Persona 5 and somebody spoiled one of the major plot points as I was like an hour in and I was yeah I was so bummed out but I I carried on anyway I carried on playing and I'm you know it would have been cool to have not had that spoiled but I'm glad that I plowed on regardless cuz it's a good game do you have any like that Tyler I'm trying to think of like I mean I guess like honestly like mowind is probably one of those for me like because I just know so much about it too but it also just seems like it's still worth like digging into uh for all the reasons you said it just it's the weird one it seems to be like the the one that people constantly talk about that is not returned in any way other than I guess like the the Elder schools online so which I also didn't play that either so there's that I think um another one that maybe would be something that I would play to knowing so much about it and which is I maybe this is like a cop out a little bit because it's not really about the story stuff but like like monster hunter games like especially like world and stuff like I probably just play the newer one when it comes out at this point but like playing those games with friends feels like the way to do it so it probably doesn't really matter that I know like the the like final like boss fight or whatever like I know all the different like monsters in that game so doesn't really bother me I'd probably still just play it anyway yeah I I've managed to not know like the plot of Mor wind I really don't so that's nice at least I think maybe one thing is like various Assassin's Creed games which yeah I haven't like played a ton of the newer I I've played almost none of the newer Assassin's Creed games despite how much people enjoy them um but like as you say Molly because of work because of reading like our colleagues uh stories and things like that like I kind of I definitely know things that happen in Valhalla if not like also Odyssey and Origins but like I still might want to play them um even despite that uh and then I don't know I feel like there was one other thing potentially but I think yeah I think maybe Assassin's Creed various games I don't know I kind of fell off after four that's probably the last one I took seriously was yeah I fell off after like three I think so uh yeah cool thanks guys we wait recap quickly on the games that people should actually play these are these are the the ones that we felt like they should actually play Molly what was yours neotoma yes yes coold what was yours his control Yes mine was either yaku a zero or uh oh my God what did I say shadow tactics blad Shogun yes those are if you haven't hit those and those are your your home genres correct that go back for them but but you don't need to play the original Witcher and you don't need to play Dark Souls 2 and you don't need to play OSU and don't play good pleas forgive yourself Free Yourself those can come off the backlog according to us the the imminent Experts of our own genres beautiful thank you guys for just uh coming in and uh admitting to your great sins um of of your personal we were coming back in a year right to make sure we played the games that we skipped oh God accountability never absolutely not accountability for the backlog we can't we can't commit to something like that definitely cool thank you guys then uh you can always find uh more of uh all three of our writing at P gamer.com all of the usual news reviews guides opinions all that good stuff and you will as usual be able to talk with Molly and I about this week's episode at forums. pcgamer.com so until next time guys thank you bye hi\n"