It's been a while since I played Remnant, and I haven't gotten to play Remnant 2 yet, but I'll try to explain the appeal as someone that really liked it. It's a co-op shooter with mostly good gameplay, seamless co-op, and a relatively simple progression mechanic that feels like I'm leveling up without signing up for a lengthy grind.
None of those things sounds particularly amazing, but those attributes can be surprisingly hard to find. I like completing co-op campaigns with a friend, and the vast majority of multiplayer experiences are designed around getting you to play them forever. Looter-shooters, Left For Dead-likes, etc. It's nice to play through a game, finish it, and feel like you had the full experience.
I'm sure I'd feel differently if I had a lot of other similar options available, but right now Remnant gets a big water-in-the-desert boost.
I was a huge fan of Remnant 1 because of the multiplayer portion of it. I played with friends initially and it was interesting to see completely different worlds and paths unfold between our different play sessions.
The huge perks to me were:
- save areas right before bosses (looking at you pre-Elden Dark Souls games)
- drop in/out multiplayer (I had multiple server connection issues with friends in Elden Ring even after digging through forums to understand the quirks of when someone can actually join your game in the first place)
Levels were not extremely long and all of my encounters with random players was positive. It made me want to replay the game with multiple randomized rolls of the story mode to try and collect more guns, perks, and armor.
You probably don't want suggestions, but how about "...where the rest of the best PLAY the best of the rest."? Anyway, loving the newsletter and the show and the resties in particular! All the best!
We mainly get to hear them discuss the best of the rest rather than playing it. It would be awesome to watch them play games together again. You should look up some of their old stuff on YT. (I can give suggestions, if you want.)
This is what we come to the newsletter for! Fan promotion of Besties content (because they've either forgotten about it or don't like to talk about themselves)
It's a huge bummer when you talk about a game that sounds great and then I learn it's on a $2,000 console that I don't own. Apple arcade has so many amazing games that I'll never play....
I don't know if comments on old posts get seen—but I wanted to let y'all know that when I looked up Brendan Keough's "The Video Games Industry Does Not Exist," the neat-sounding book you recommended on this episode, I found that a full PDF of the book is available through open-access on the publisher's website: https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/5572/The-Videogame-Industry-Does-Not-ExistWhy-We-Should. Pretty cool of Keough and MIT! I thought I'd mention it in case you want to list this link in addition to or instead of the Amazon one currently in the newsletter. Love the show, and thanks so much for all y'all do!
Re: Remnant—for me, what excites me about the game is the potential of some of its ideas. The whole notion of having a campaign be procedurally generated (so that no two playthroughs are alike) is something I find fascinating—it's been done in roguelikes for years, of course, but for a third-person shooter game to adpot that idea feels fresh, even if the moment-to-moment gameplay experience *isn't* so fresh. To be fair, you lose the "handcrafted" level design of something like Elden Ring in a scenario like this, but I feel like with some more thoughtful design of each piece of the puzzle you could have something more interesting in the future.
Also, I think getting hit with the train sequence as one of your first challenges was definitely unfortunate—the game is pretty uneven in its encounter design. There are some boss fights that feel like they could be pulled from Destiny with the amount of mechanics going on (there's one sequence where you have to sprint down a descending spiral staircase to outrun a moving lightning trap that felt like something straight out of D2), but others are much more straightforward "shoot the enemies until they die" experiences.
TL;DR: I think it's an interesting concept with fun co-op and potential for a better model in the future, even if it often fails to meet that potential.
I'm interested to see what the Besties think of Pikmin 4 next week. I got it on release for my wife who has never played a Pikmin game before (other than Tinykin, on recommendation of the Resties) and she's been loving it!
Hey! Thank you for sharing but please try to keep comments / links limited. We currently get pings for each comment and substack doesn't currently allow for concealed threading on the publisher side.
It's been a while since I played Remnant, and I haven't gotten to play Remnant 2 yet, but I'll try to explain the appeal as someone that really liked it. It's a co-op shooter with mostly good gameplay, seamless co-op, and a relatively simple progression mechanic that feels like I'm leveling up without signing up for a lengthy grind.
None of those things sounds particularly amazing, but those attributes can be surprisingly hard to find. I like completing co-op campaigns with a friend, and the vast majority of multiplayer experiences are designed around getting you to play them forever. Looter-shooters, Left For Dead-likes, etc. It's nice to play through a game, finish it, and feel like you had the full experience.
I'm sure I'd feel differently if I had a lot of other similar options available, but right now Remnant gets a big water-in-the-desert boost.
You forgot to mention in this newsletter that you talked about The Last Temptation of Christ!
I was a huge fan of Remnant 1 because of the multiplayer portion of it. I played with friends initially and it was interesting to see completely different worlds and paths unfold between our different play sessions.
The huge perks to me were:
- save areas right before bosses (looking at you pre-Elden Dark Souls games)
- drop in/out multiplayer (I had multiple server connection issues with friends in Elden Ring even after digging through forums to understand the quirks of when someone can actually join your game in the first place)
Levels were not extremely long and all of my encounters with random players was positive. It made me want to replay the game with multiple randomized rolls of the story mode to try and collect more guns, perks, and armor.
You probably don't want suggestions, but how about "...where the rest of the best PLAY the best of the rest."? Anyway, loving the newsletter and the show and the resties in particular! All the best!
We mainly get to hear them discuss the best of the rest rather than playing it. It would be awesome to watch them play games together again. You should look up some of their old stuff on YT. (I can give suggestions, if you want.)
Perhaps "... TALK the best of the rest." And go ahead! I've been watching monster factory.
There’s a whole series from 9 years ago called The Cooperatives, in which Russ and Plante play games together: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaDrN74SfdT6GxlIhY9nCpdDlWxRfpOq3
This is what we come to the newsletter for! Fan promotion of Besties content (because they've either forgotten about it or don't like to talk about themselves)
Happy to help!
Since my comment I watched the entire series...
https://youtu.be/B4geSrmdgXI
https://youtu.be/yQHWuTBwCSY
https://youtu.be/VO4o3H5-E9s
It's a huge bummer when you talk about a game that sounds great and then I learn it's on a $2,000 console that I don't own. Apple arcade has so many amazing games that I'll never play....
The cheaper option: Apple TV plays Apple Arcade games!
WHAT OMG
If they're good enough games they'll come out on the platforms of xX REAL TRUE GAMERS Xx amirite everyone???
I don't know if comments on old posts get seen—but I wanted to let y'all know that when I looked up Brendan Keough's "The Video Games Industry Does Not Exist," the neat-sounding book you recommended on this episode, I found that a full PDF of the book is available through open-access on the publisher's website: https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/5572/The-Videogame-Industry-Does-Not-ExistWhy-We-Should. Pretty cool of Keough and MIT! I thought I'd mention it in case you want to list this link in addition to or instead of the Amazon one currently in the newsletter. Love the show, and thanks so much for all y'all do!
Re: Remnant—for me, what excites me about the game is the potential of some of its ideas. The whole notion of having a campaign be procedurally generated (so that no two playthroughs are alike) is something I find fascinating—it's been done in roguelikes for years, of course, but for a third-person shooter game to adpot that idea feels fresh, even if the moment-to-moment gameplay experience *isn't* so fresh. To be fair, you lose the "handcrafted" level design of something like Elden Ring in a scenario like this, but I feel like with some more thoughtful design of each piece of the puzzle you could have something more interesting in the future.
Also, I think getting hit with the train sequence as one of your first challenges was definitely unfortunate—the game is pretty uneven in its encounter design. There are some boss fights that feel like they could be pulled from Destiny with the amount of mechanics going on (there's one sequence where you have to sprint down a descending spiral staircase to outrun a moving lightning trap that felt like something straight out of D2), but others are much more straightforward "shoot the enemies until they die" experiences.
TL;DR: I think it's an interesting concept with fun co-op and potential for a better model in the future, even if it often fails to meet that potential.
Hey y'all, love the podcast!
Have you ever done an episode where the four of you list your all-time favorite games? I think it'd make a great episode if you haven't.
I'm interested to see what the Besties think of Pikmin 4 next week. I got it on release for my wife who has never played a Pikmin game before (other than Tinykin, on recommendation of the Resties) and she's been loving it!
Did y'all ever discuss Vaudeville? I believe it was mentioned, but I can't recall if you played it and discussed it.
They didn’t all go in this thread. Not sure why.
I could share so many more, but just check out my playlist Polygon - McElroys:
Hey! Thank you for sharing but please try to keep comments / links limited. We currently get pings for each comment and substack doesn't currently allow for concealed threading on the publisher side.
My apologies. I’ve never used substack before.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLf6iJMGNISdOOkp8_-9gc87T8oXTLRnGa
https://www.youtube.com/live/gC3GAzrTxVo?feature=share
https://www.youtube.com/live/N7raP5IFUC4?feature=share
https://www.youtube.com/live/R60lqxg5Bd4?feature=share
https://www.youtube.com/live/p0qCDTAfmZ8?feature=share
https://www.youtube.com/live/GfT_MwS8OE0?feature=share