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The Super Banter Bros.
Hand Hold-y Hijinks | The Super Banter Bros. Episode 16
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In this week's episode of The Super Banter Bros., we discuss how tutorials are handled in video games, past and present. Has it ever been TOO hand hold-y?
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Oh, wait. Is it you or me that's doing this intro? Well, I I guess you technically started it, but uh I'll uh I'll I'll pick it up from here. Welcome. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00No, we can't do it this way. We gotta we we gotta be professional. We gotta appear professional to everybody that's watching or listening.
SPEAKER_01You you mean the the you mean the super banter bros, where it's two bros who banter about the things we love and hopefully y'all love too. It needs to come off as always professional and completely orchestrated?
SPEAKER_00I mean we need to we need to have something more like welcome to the super banter brothers, brothers, brothers, brothers.
SPEAKER_01I mean, we have we have already riffed on that exact trope in a previous episode. Heck, we've riffed on a lot of intro tropes in a lot of previous episodes. So why can't we riff on the trope where we're riffing on tropes and completely forget to schedule and uh plan out an intro?
SPEAKER_00You mean do something like really off the cuff, like we're kind of doing now?
SPEAKER_01I know, right? Like that it it that that can happen from time to time, can't it? I guess so. And this is one of those times. Welcome to another episode of the Superbanter Brothers. I am Superbanter Brother Grant Patrizio, and with me, as always, the freshest of freshly baked luchadors, Superbanter Brother. Senor Donut. And you heard us right. That intro was completely off the cuff, and usually we do have something planned. So um, hooray for improvising! Hooray for improvising.
SPEAKER_00Uh we really yes and the hell out of that intro.
SPEAKER_01We really did, we really did. It uh it actually reminded me of a musical I saw recently uh called Six, which was Oh, I love that musical.
SPEAKER_00Oh, you've seen it? Yeah, I took the missus to watch it for our anniversary. What's the musical you took me about? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Well, it was playing at the Pantages. Um but yeah, that that musical had a moment where they were all realizing, yeah, we should take our own power back. We shouldn't just use our identity of as one of Henry VIII's six wives as why we're doing this. And then one of them sassily turns out facing the audience. Well, imagine if we hadn't planned for that uh, you know, before the show, and then everyone else just looks with her. It's like, yeah, we planned for this. So forgive us for having a per conveniently perfectly accidental yes and it six moment right there. Um but yeah, uh, why don't we start this episode like we start every episode with my favorite donut? Tell us what you've been playing.
SPEAKER_00Well, a lot has happened since our last recording. And I want to tell you, since then, I have jumped on the Pokopia train. Oh boy. So much so that I have done collabs where both you, I, and Ashagod, shout out to Ashagod, uh, Twitch TV, uh joined our PPs in a fight for justice. And by fights or justice, we just we just dicked around and made habitats for Pokemon and got Pokemon to join us.
SPEAKER_01And see, that pun was intentional.
SPEAKER_00It was not, it was totally not. It was off the cuff. Uh, but we we played uh the game, and uh I'm gonna tell you right now, I don't think it's a stream title for me. Like everybody and their mom is streaming it right now. Um, by the time you uh listener, viewer, uh see or hear this episode, who knows if it'll still be a thing. I think I think it will. I think it has staying power, especially because they're in the tail end of their uh hopip um the hopip event, yeah. Yeah, did did you finish it by the way?
SPEAKER_01Uh yes. Uh I have all the habitats for Hopip, Skip Loom, and Jumpluff. Skiploom and Jumpluff have joined the island. Can't figure out a way to give Hopip a home, though, because it's always just stuck in the Pokemon Center.
SPEAKER_00Um after the event is over, if you uh it's automatically brought out, I guess, maybe I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_01I hope so because I made its habitat and only it can spawn there at this point. So hopefully I could just be like, hey Hopip, you've had a habitat for the last three weeks. You want to live here instead of the Pokemon Center?
SPEAKER_00Thanks. Can I just say how fucking annoying that event has been? Because every time I load up the game, a Pokemon is the talk of the town. Go to your poker center to talk to them. It's like, no, I'm done with it. I finished it. I don't want to.
SPEAKER_01The only thing I'm doing is just the the only time, like for the for the a long stretch of my playthrough with it, I just did enough to get one of each of the event items and then call it a day. But because I also figured out a way to get a crud ton of Pokemetal, which allows you to 3D print things and kind of jump ahead on getting certain items if you want to share with me, Senpai.
SPEAKER_00Share.
SPEAKER_01Well, um, for those of you versed in Animal Crossing, I am not an internet video told me about this, so I could be getting it wrong. But I and the internet happened upon me a video in which a user on Pocopia had made the equivalent of an Animal Crossing treasure island. Where in effect, if you take your camera, switch it to object mode, and take a picture of a something, you can get that something as a reference photo to 3D print using Pokemetal at a Pokemon Center. How do you get the Pokemetal? You go to a dream island by talking to one of the dolls that you can get. Sure. Each of the dolls brings you to a different dream island with different default resources. My best luck with getting this Pokemetal requires that you have the graveler ability and a bunch of hamburger stakes to power up your rock smash. Uh on the Pikachu Dream Island where I tried this, you have to dig kind of deep until you happen upon some. But I also tried it on the Dragonite Dream Island, where all you need to do is from the from the beach where you spawn on the Dragonite Dream Island, you punch seven blocks down. Then without eating a hamburger steak, just use Graveler and clear out a big space. Because you will bump into some poke metal down there and you won't be able to break it because your rock smash ain't powered up yet. Once you clear out that big space and get just the poke metal exposed, eat a hamburger steak, get a bunch of poke metal or the uh the fragments for poke metal. And among those fragments, you also get rare poke metal. So depending on how many hamburger stakes you get with you, um or you uh bring with you, you could go quite a distance in every direction to just get a crud ton of the stuff. And it takes anywhere from like two to five poke rare poke metal to print something you've never printed and don't have the recipe for. In one of those little Poke Metal mining sessions, I call it, I got like I got two or three stacks of 99 base poke metal and like 53 rare Pokemetal. Just take it to your Pokemon that can smelt or use a furnace to like turn resources into other resources, and bam! Stacks of 99 Pokemetal and however many Pokemet rare Pokemetal you can get your hands on, which is great for 3D printing, the trade system if you have Pokemon in a shop with a trade ability. Yes, it does take a little bit of time because you're mining a lot of space, but it's worth it if you can skip ahead on a few things to get the habitats for the Pokemon you want. Or pictures of pictures of all of the fossils to revive the fossil Pokemon and just jump ahead and do that early. Um yeah. So finding those little quirks and building out my own massive item storage den has made the game much more enjoyable because I don't really feel like I am flailing for item space or where to go to put things. Which when I am streaming the game, which I have been streaming the game nigh exclusively the last few weeks, I am one of those. Um, like one of the biggest worries I had, and I'm like, oh no, I'm out of item space. What do I do? I don't have to worry about that right now because I have a whole item storage facility with a massive crafting table. So I can pretty much get what I need for where I'm at in the game and not have to worry so much, which makes it more enjoyable.
SPEAKER_00Well, uh I'm happy for you, I guess, because I don't have the ability to do all of that just yet, because I am not as far as you are. But I will say that uh the game is very chill, very enjoyable. You don't have the same kind of nagging of other uh characters going, oh, it's been 84 years since I've seen you. And you're like, What? Dude, I just I I just got here. It's been I took a break. I needed a break. Where have you been? You know, it's just like okay, dude, look, this is not about me keeping up my virtual friendships with virtual things that don't exist in real life. I'm sorry. Um please forgive me. So it doesn't give you that added stress, but the only stress that I have that I've been running into is like, I'm getting all these resources. Oh no, I'm running out of space. And I have figured out how to make a super um storage place that has uh three times the storage of a normal storage box. Yep. But I don't have this crazy warehouse that you have, I guess. Um yet. But who knows when that'll happen.
SPEAKER_01If you're able to do the uh Poke Metal uh mining thing I just described, because Pokemetal, not the rare one, the regular, is what you need to make a bunch of those big storage boxes. One mining session will get you enough to basically fill up a warehouse with it because it costs two or three Pokemetal per box. It costs three. Yeah, three Pokemetal per box. So you could get 30 boxes at least off of one mining session if that's all you spend it on.
SPEAKER_00So I thought you were talking that there was like an actual like facility that indefinitely.
SPEAKER_01Oh no, I built it. I I I I built it in the uh in the Withering Wastelands using black rock and shiny stone, so it it sticks out like a sore thumb. But it's my little item storage den. And yeah, it was the first custom build in any of those games I ever made. And though basic in shape, kind of lopsided, it does its job, and I am proud of it. Um it's all you need.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, one thing that really bugs me about uh the housing system in Pocopia is after you make a habitat for a Pokemon, you then could, you don't have to, right? You could make a house for them. Yeah. But a house in this game is anything that has four walls and is sealed by a door, it doesn't even have to have a ceiling to it. Nope. Um, but the little like model kits that they give you at the poke center uh are little huts that have that are bigger on the inside. Yep. And I just wish that if you had made one of those building huts that could hold multiple Pokemon in them, that they would all be like that instead of having a mishmash of you know normal housing and then Pokemon housing, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01Hmm. So like you wish you could basically like all houses, even the ones you build, work in the same way as the um uh as the the huts or the the ones from the kits.
SPEAKER_00Yes, because there was there was a if you make a normal house, right, that's yeah, super tiny, it can house up to four Pokemon.
SPEAKER_01Which is pretty crazy to me, honestly.
SPEAKER_00Which is because it doesn't it doesn't have enough room for that many beds, first of all. You're fucking cramming them in there like Magikarp, like a fucking tin full of Magikarp to eat later on. And you're like, how the fuck are they living there comfortably? You keep on asking a Pokemon about their comfort level. It's like, oh well, I'm I'm really tight in here in this space. They don't even say that, they're just like, I wish I had a toy, or I wish I had a bed or whatever, and you're like, yeah, you know, whatever. Um, I just like if you make one of the the the like build kits though that is a full-on house, the house is big and you know, has a has pre-made furniture in there, but it's not as you know, it doesn't fit as many Pokemon as or it fits less Pokemon, more Pokemon than the smaller huts, I guess. What I'm trying to say. Oh, it's you have different huts, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, different sizes of uh house kits.
SPEAKER_00I just wish that all of them were like, hey, this can hold two Pokemon, this can hold four, this can hold six, but all of it is a big space to fill in, you know? Yeah, that's that's all I want. I want that to to happen so that it's easier to put Pokemon in different places or whatever. Um but the the whole the game is just it's it's addicting, it's ridiculous because it really is. I the past two nights uh I've been playing the game. I've said, hey, I'm gonna go back out to play the game for a bit while the wifey uh goes to sleep, you know, and the kiddo goes to sleep. And she tells me, hey, don't don't go to sleep too late. And I'm like, yeah, I'll be fine. Four or five hours later, I'm like looking at the time, going, what the fuck happened to the time? What happened to the time? Because man, uh, but like I said, I'm playing that off stream. I don't want to play it on stream. Yeah. Um, because I don't feel like I'm entertaining while I'm playing it. And that's just a me thing. I'm not like I feel like I'm not entertaining while I'm streaming that game. I feel entertaining when I'm streaming other games, like similar games, like Animal Crossing or whatever. But this game is more like okay, I'm gathering resources right now, and that's all I'm doing. Or I'm building a track and that's all I'm doing. Like I'm not doing anything story related, I'm just doing random ass things to, you know, uh build stuff or whatever. Yeah. Um, so I like I said, I don't feel like I'm entertaining, uh doing that. And it's it's nice to not have to like think about being entertaining when you're just vegging out playing a game that is somewhat monotonous, but in a good way, where you can just kind of turn off your brain and be like, okay, this is my task, this is what I'm doing. I'm gonna do it the exact same way. Uh, or I'm gonna find out a way to do it a bit more efficiently and do it that way. Boring, sure, but it's what my brain needs at the time, you know? Um, but I have been playing another game offs uh off-stream that I'm thinking about streaming, but I'm not sure yet. Uh, it's called Fallen Tear or Tear Ascension. It was a Kickstarter that I backed a while ago that is a Metroidvania, um which is very cool, uh, but it's it's in its uh early release right now. So it's still a bit glitchy, a bit buggy, um, doesn't run as smooth as it should. But uh it's it's a very fun game that I've been playing and you know getting into. Um but yeah, I'm actually quite excited about the upcoming month. By the time you guys hear or listen to this, it'll probably be over and done with. But uh this April, I'm actually taking part in a um donation drive for uh an org uh streaming uh team called uh Streamers Against Child Abuse. And we're gonna be raising money for an organization that uh features uh heavily on you know uh children and giving them uh what they need. I forget which organization we're working with, uh, because it's like I said, I just joined the team, but uh I'm gonna be doing fundraising for that all of April, and I'm actually quite excited to get started on that because it's uh this is only my second uh donation uh drive that I'm doing. So I'm super excited for it. Um don't know what I'm gonna play, but I'm gonna play a lot of different things, and I'm gonna have a giveaway that I do that's tied to the event, and then I am going to have a personal streaming goal um of raising uh I don't know what kind of amount yet, but if we meet the goal, I'm gonna do a karaoke stream. So that'll be fun, I guess. So that sounds that sounds awesome, dude. Yeah, what about you? What have you been up to besides Pocopia?
SPEAKER_01Well, yeah, Pocopia is the bulk of it. Um otherwise, though, it's just been a lot of different Pokemon things. Uh, the GameCube game Pokemon XD Gale of Darkness just got launched on Nintendo Classics.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01I I really want to play that one. It's just sitting in the backlog. Um, before Pocopia, it was my Infinite Fusion Insane Randomizer playthrough, which I can still pick up if I would like. Um, just everything fused all of the time, barely knowing what's coming. Some Pokemon names make it redundant, and ho ahey, it's a fusion. Um it it it's fun. Um, and then off stream, I did a playthrough of Pokemon Fire Red just to revisit it. Uh, I don't normally play to cheese through the game, but I kind of cheesed through the Elite Four in the champion because I knew Pokopia was coming, and I didn't want to let that game drop. Um, the key to my success was a Blastoise with Ice Beam, an Alakazam, and a way higher, higher level than the rest of my team Dragonite that I got as soon as I could from Celadon City. Um and then otherwise for stream, uh the Mega Man festival is happening in Cross Worlds uh this week at time of episode recording. So I'll be dabbling into that on stream to make sure I do what I usually do for those festivals. Um another game I got that I want to play but haven't started yet, Scott Pilgrim EX. Oh, you got it as well? I did. What did you pick it up on?
SPEAKER_00PC or Switch or Switch. Switch. We need to coordinate these things, brother, because like we do. We need to play these games together. Like that would be a perfect game to play together. We we do. Like I wonder if there's crossplay on it. Probably not, right?
SPEAKER_01Uh I I haven't I haven't looked into that. Um but I'm we'll look into it off off stream. Yeah, but we we just need to get better at planning these collaborations because we keep bumping into things that we would love to do together, and then by the time we think to do it, oh wait, it's uh what do you mean we're both already done with it? Anyway. But yeah, that's that's basically what I've been playing. And uh as far as the topic then to segue into it, just I don't know. Uh hearing you in our other chats talk about experiences you've had with games from the past, uh, my experience with Pocopia and how I approach playing games right now or these days. It's just the way we had originally talked about this episode, it was more how games impacted us growing up, whether it be our development as people, uh, the culture around us. Uh, but in a lot of ways, as we discussed it, it's kind of like how handhold y are video games these days? And to what degree is hand holding Approved, disapproved, too much, too little, how is it shown? Um, and just to use Pokemon Fire Red and Leaf Green as an example, the main way I got my Pokemon team to the levels they were when I beat the game, I had to have several separate grinding sessions for EXP, which also got me a lot of money that I didn't need to end up spending, which is how I could cheese it with 45 full restores and 30 revives with a team of under-level Pokemon. Exactly. But you had to stop and go through and literally grind on the same trainers for experience. I had to do that at least three times during my uh fire red playthrough. But in newer Pokemon games, they have an item called the EXP share, which gives all of your team half of the battle's experience points automatically.
SPEAKER_00Hold up, hold up. Did you did you call it exp? I called it exp, yeah. Experience. No, I know, I know what experience for, but I've never I've never heard it referred to in that way. I've always heard it as XP. Like the E is silent.
SPEAKER_01Oh, okay. Yeah. Fair enough. Um, I I for Pokemon, um, it's always just been the EXP share with me. I don't know why. I think whenever I see the E, I read the E. But that's just uh that's just a me thing, I guess.
SPEAKER_00So do you say cakey?
SPEAKER_01Instead of I mean No, I I say cake. I say cake. I know there are I know there are certain times when an E is silent, my favorite donut. I do. I do still teasing, but uh I mean there are certain cakey things out there, and I would call those cakey, but those are also tend to have a Y at the end.
SPEAKER_00Um we talking about cheeks here, is that what you're talking about? They're not sure what we're talking.
SPEAKER_01Potentially, anyway. Um but but yeah, like the dynamics like that in video games, where it goes from super not hand holdy at all to where you have to grind just to catch up, to now overly hand holdy in the case of the new games, where you can't even toggle on or off the exp share or the XP share or whatever it is you call it. Like you can't even turn that off now from a pause menu, it's just there the whole time.
SPEAKER_00Let me go back to Pokemon Leaf Green real quick. Okay, I am also playing Pokemon uh I am playing Leaf Green as well. Okay, um, so I recently heard about someone who played and beat the game without catching a single Pokemon.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Did they just use their starter or no? They used their starter, they used Pokemon that they purchased or won through gambling. Okay, and that's all and any Pokemon that they received through uh through trades uh that they had to do storyline-wise. So you could have gotten you could have bought a Mr. Mime or a uh um a Dratini, a Porygon, an Abra, a bug type.
SPEAKER_01You would have had to have caught a Spiro or a Polyworrel, or no, you could have you could have bought two Abra's to get the Mr. Mime. That makes sense. But the uh the lick it, if you wanted licketung, if you wanted Jinx, if you wanted Farfetch'd, you have to catch things to get those.
SPEAKER_00This person didn't catch a sing not a single pokeball was thrown. And they managed to beat the Elite for using only they didn't even use their starter. Wow. To beat the game. I forget exactly what they used, but I immediately was like, what how can you even play Pokemon without catching a single Pokemon? That is ridiculous to me.
SPEAKER_01I mean, the old catchphrase used to be gotta catch them all, not gotta not catch anything. So it does seem a little counterintuitive to the old branding there.
SPEAKER_00Right? Like, I'm just like I'm still blown away.
SPEAKER_01I mean, if you if you dive onto if you dive onto PokeTube as as much as I inadvertently and now just embracingly have over the years, you'll see lots of crazy challenges. Like, some people can beat Fire Red with only a caterpie or only a magic harp, or things like that. So it it can it can get pretty crazy if if people want to put the time and energy in. How they do that is beyond me because I would not be able to put that time and energy in, but it has been done.
SPEAKER_00I found the team, so they had this self-imposed challenge, and they had Lapras, Jolteon, Hitmon Lee, Aerodactyl, Cadabra, and Dragonair, with each Pokemon uh team member ranging from level 50 to 54.
SPEAKER_01Okay. See, that's actually a fairly competent team, though, build without having to like throw a single Pokeball. That's actually fairly competent.
SPEAKER_00Crazy. It is. Um, anyways, yeah, games have been holding our hands uh a lot since geez, uh I don't even know where to pinpoint where it started, honestly, because one of the God, I hate tutorial levels so much, but every game has some form of tutorial level now where they drop you in the game and they give you they give you a a word prompt bubble or something, or you know, hey, uh you reached this large gap. Okay, well, how do I get across it? And the game tells you immediately when you find gaps, you can jump over, press this button or whatever. Yeah. They just do that all the fucking time. And it's so annoying because it feels like it feels like uh game developers are treating us like idiots. Because a lot of people that play games know that buttons on their controller do something, and that by testing things out you're able to figure out how to do things, right? Yeah. Um in the past, there were tutorial levels, but they didn't hold your hand and you figured things out. Yeah. The best example that I could think of is one of my favorite games of all time, which is Mega Man X. Mega Man X not only had a fucking rocking ass soundtrack, but literally, uh but it didn't tell you how to do things. This was the first game that was uh in the X franchise. So the controls were very different than they were to previous Mega Man games, right? Because I believe they went up to Mega Man 7 before they did those uh either 7 or 6 before they did those weird, like, oh, they're newer Mega Man games, but they're using the old system instead of the X system.
SPEAKER_01Do you remember was it eight or nine that went back that went back to the original?
SPEAKER_00PlayStation, I think, originally, or the Dreamcast, or one of those newer systems where they went back to that kind of system, I think.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Um, but Mega Man X was completely different than its predecessors, and when it drops you into the first stage, you get nothing. You you hit game start and it drops you in the level, and that's it. And you're like, okay, well, what do I do? I have a controller in my hand. What do I what do I do with it? And by testing out what you can do, you figure out, oh, I can I can move left or I can move right. Okay, well, I'm gonna go to the left, and then you realize that you cannot go left, right? You can't in some stages, you you start off and you cannot go left, and that's what the game teaches you at the very beginning. It then teaches you that you can jump, that you can shoot, that you can climb on walls, that you can jump and shoot, jump and shoot, man. Um, you know, uh, there's this great video that I think is done by Egoraptor, where he breaks down um just how great of a game Mega Man X is, because it doesn't hold your hand, it doesn't explain anything. The only thing it ever explains to you is that uh when you beat a boss, you get a new weapon. That's all it explains to you. And throughout the rest of the game, you're left to figure out how each weapon uh acts and how it uh you know uh which which enemy it's made to take care of. Yep. So you're going through this game uh just testing things out and playing the game. All of it taught to you within the first 15 minutes of the game without stopping giving you dialogue that tells you how to do things or any of that bullshit.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_00It's it's maddening that we've gotten to this point, and I don't know if it's the game developers that are making the choice to make games like this, where everything has a tutorial and kind of holds your hands through it, or or not. Um how do you figure it? Or if it's I well, so is it the developer that's making it like this, or is it the publisher that's like, hey, we need to explain this to people so that they know how to play? Imagine if a person who's never played a video game sat down and played your game.
SPEAKER_01Ah, right.
SPEAKER_00Right? But even then, it's like, look, we are human beings that are capable of processing thoughts and testing things out. We can figure things out without being told how to do stuff. Yeah. It's it's just maddening that like one of the things that I hate the most, and that I don't want this episode to turn into a uh, you know, uh donuts screams at the clouds moment.
SPEAKER_01Um We'd both scream at some sort of clouds eventually. Continue.
SPEAKER_00The thing is, is that like one of the one of the things that I hate the most about current game developing is that when you're climbing in games, you have different colored uh outcroppings where your characters cues drive me bonkers. Like it's because they're so overt and they're jarring, they take me out of the experience. Hmm, you know, right? I just I don't know.
SPEAKER_01Like it like I see where you're going with that because it's some uncharted games, and I think in one of the uh I think one of the parts of the Final Fantasy remake trilogy had something like that. I think it was part two. Um it could have been both, but I remember I remember seeing like wait, does every climbable ledge look like a yellow and black hazard pattern in Midgar or in in um in the world of Final Fantasy VII? Every single one? Uh okay. Uh good to know, I guess. And you know, in that sense, it accomplishes its job. But I I I I agree with you in that tutorials can feel a little bit too tutorial-y sometimes. Um, where I'm where my brain's going right now, when I first played Sonic Heroes, and I had to learn, like, yeah, I'm a Sonic fan. I know control stick moves, I know jump is jump, I know when playing is Sonic, hit the jump dump button again, you do a little dash forward when you're like in the close, finicky, no reticle range for a homing attack, you do the homing attack on the thing. Cool. Like being being taught the buttons to switch to formations for certain things, yeah. I can appreciate the game being like, by the way, you can change your team members using this HUD up here, which also tells you what buttons to push, and it has the button indicator at all times. So outside the one tutorial level, or maybe the like, yeah, in one tutorial level two, if you're playing as Team Rose, they have chatter that tells you about it, like, oh, press the Y button to do blah. Doesn't do it every time. And even in the tutorial level where it's teaching you about the techniques, you still have to figure out how to use them properly to like get the fullest extent out of it in order to cross the gaps or to finish what you're trying to learn in the tutorial. So, like, at least to me, that's more like a middle ground hand holding experience. Where it's like, yeah, in a separate level that doesn't connect to, you know, telling the main story or the main plot, learn the buttons. We're not going to tell you everything about what the buttons do and how they all combine and how things change, but these are your tools. Learn how to use them to the fullest in the game. And, you know, that's that's a kind of tutorializing or hand holding I'm okay with because at least it's like, oh, wait, the game did tell me that I could do this thing with this, maybe try that technique here. Like, my favorite thing is learning what to do with the Rocket Excel, their take on the spin dash in using Sonic Heroes again. Um, learning what I can do with the Rocket Excel just by trying it, I'm like, oh, well, the tutorial told me how to actually pull off the move. Now I know how to use it. Um but yeah, you're about to say something, please.
SPEAKER_00Yes. The other thing uh that really, really grinds my gears.
SPEAKER_01Um, hi Peter.
SPEAKER_00Okay, let me rephrase. Let me rephrase. Um you can say grinds my gears, dude. I'm just I'm doing my Quippy thing. I know, I know, I know. It's it's it's because I I lost my train of thought. I had it and then I lost it. Umductor is back in business and we're here now. Um, so we have we have games that were like the the perfect example of how a tutorial should be is Mega Man X for me all the time. Uh but more recent games, uh Cuphead comes to mind as well. Cuphead has a completely optional tutorial level where you can go through and learn how to play if you do not know or do not want to give it a try. And here's the other thing is is it that uh developers or publishers think that people are too dumb to figure out their game, or is it that they believe that we're too lazy to want to figure it out and just want it to be delivered to us? Our generation nowadays is a lot about just tell me how to do it, just tell me how to just put on the show, give me out of commercials. I don't want commercials, give it to me now. I want to be able to do all these things. As a society, we have grown more impatient because technology has been able to deliver us things at a much faster pace than previously.
SPEAKER_01Ye oldy instant gratification. We have become addicted to it as a society now, right?
SPEAKER_00So what is it? Is it is it a fact? Is it a uh is it a fact or is it not? Is it that we are too dumb to figure things out, or is it that we are just too fucking impatient to try and figure things out and enjoy the game fully? You know?
SPEAKER_01I mean, depending on who you ask, what genre, and even what game, as little as I like to say this, it could very potentially be a combination of the two. Um those dose. Uh using uh Pocopia as a perfect example, uh that that whole thing with the Animal Crossing Treasure Island that I mentioned, I didn't go looking for that. You know, I just happened to it just happened to find me on a social media video feed. So I'm just like, okay, I'm gonna look into that later and see if it works. You already know how well it works. I explained the whole process. So it's it's one of those things where it's like now in the age of social media, uh targeted algorithms based on our own watch habits and things like that, sometimes we could just get things spoiled or taught to us in an indirect way that we try out later. It could also be, and I've found this to be the case sometimes, if I'm stuck on something and the game is in a way that I think is obtusely trying to tell me what to do, I take to the internet, figure out why I am stuck here. And then once I get the key to unlocking where I'm stuck, I then progress without needing to lean on the internet. There are certain games because of the way that the internet has just taken gaming, the direction it's taking gaming in the sense that the internet can be a massive hand holder for you if you really let it. I'm just like, there are some games that I call guide games, where you cannot play functionally without either tearing your hair out, using a guide, or both. And just because I want to enjoy the games I play, if I sense something that's a guide game, I tend to let it go. Just because I don't want to pull my hair out, I don't want to have the internet open whenever I'm playing this game, I want to be able to enjoy the game the way this is my turn to scream at the clouds, the way that I enjoyed my games growing up. Back when I played Sonic 2 on the Genesis, there was nobody there to teach me how to spin dash. I had to figure it out for myself. Um there were no there were no game saves or password systems in Sonic 2. So I had to beat the game in one sitting if I wanted to get to the final boss. Uh Sonic 3 had a rudimentary autosave system where if you got to the first act of a new zone, that's where the game would drop you if you turned it off. You know? Um, so I had to, if I wanted to beat that zone, I had to beat that zone in one sitting. But it it was never a matter of actually, there was one area in Sonic 3 that because of because the game did not explain this to you, and it was not used in any other capacity of the entire game. Sonic 3, Sonic and Knuckles, the two combined, uh, the Sonic fandom has affectionately called that area the barrel of doom. Because before a player's guide or the internet, most kids growing up with Sonic 3 did not know that if you got to this one barrel in Carnival Night Zone, all you had to do to move it while standing on it was press up and down on the controller. Because you were taught by the game pressing down it serves to duck and charge your spin dash, and that pressing up basically served no practical purpose. Sure, you scrolled the camera up a little, but nobody scrolled the camera up to get through a Sonic level. At least the people I know did I did not. The people I knew did not. They like just typically gotta go fast. You you face right, sometimes you're forced left, you jump on things and win. Um but see, since you used the up button to actually look up, you might have actually done that on this barrel and figured it out for yourself. So you got through the barrel of doom without needing a guide or early internet, is what you're telling me.
SPEAKER_02Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_01I feel like you are a more apt Sonic fan than I am in that respect, now Signor. Not even. Not even. But yeah, like the barrel of doom was a sticking point in terms of how do we get through here? And that was in a game where it didn't tutorialize basically anything.
SPEAKER_00That's you bring up a very good point about how gaming has progressed, right? We've talked a little bit about uh tutorials and how they existed back in the past or how they didn't even give you any kind of tutorial and just dropped you into the game and expected you to figure things out. Right. Um, but now it's it's more hand-holdy. And I want to ask the other question do you think that games are more um are more complicated now with the addition of 3D space and how open world your game is and what your character can or cannot do, what you expect your character can or cannot do, and how it's constantly being changed and evolved, and that's what leads to more hand-holding moments as well.
SPEAKER_01Oh, absolutely. Like the that there to me, there's no question there. And another dimension to dimension 3D, ha. Uh another another dimension to think about here is depending on the nature of the game itself. Like, if it's a very story-heavy game and you want to be able to cue the players into anything that changes as you get to certain parts of the story from a gameplay perspective, Claire Obscure Expedition 33 comes to mind. Um, you have to basically give a new tutorial section in like chapter four or five, just to be like, hey, because of story reasons, this mechanic just gets added now. And this character is stubborn for this character who has these mechanics compared to the ones you're used to being the primary spot in your party. So depending like depending on how you want to make your game, a developer wants to make their game unique and stand out in this crowd in the crowd of games where you know gaming is the most prolific form of storytelling these days. Above movies, above TV, like depending on how you want to make your game stand out, you might have to add mid-game tutorial segments to coincide with the story to help cue the player in as to, oh, by the way, the foundation you know might have changed a little bit. So rather than to not throw you to the wolves, here's uh here are the foundational changes. Um between the complexity of the game, a game wanting to be more unique, and the evolution of the player base needing instant gratification, or unless it is directly a puzzle game, not wanting to have to treat a non-puzzle game like a puzzle, I think that's why hand holding and tutorializing has in large part become what it is. And it's like it I don't even think it falls so much to the game devs in the sense of, oh, they have to think about what if nobody ever played a video game before. I think it's just to keep the players in touch with what they're trying to do as a game. Like, even in the uh like I recently, and by recently I mean within the last calendar year, played the uh Paper Mario and the Thousand Year Door remake on Switch 2. Yeah. Like the only tutorials I received after the base one were oh hey, these are new partners and new abilities. This is a breakdown of what they can do. Um, you don't have to use them if you don't want to, but if you want to, this is how you do it. If you need a refresher, go to the menu. Now now get back to being a paper plumber, pretty much.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Uh and you know, you also have to think about hey, we started playing with a directional pad and a single button.
SPEAKER_01Or anywhere between three and six buttons, depending on your early console and system of choice. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Because you had the you had the joystick, you had the button uh for an Atari, right? Yep, you moved on to the NES, which you had the directional pad, you had the A and B button and the select and start button.
SPEAKER_01Right? Then the Genesis came out with uh control pad, A, B, and C. And then depending on uh some consoles, you get A, B, C, X, Y, and Z all as face buttons. Um, then the Super Nintendo came out with their gamepad, four buttons, two shoulder buttons, and uh start and select. Then we get into 3D consoles where some variation of a Z button gets added, which means more shoulder button chicanery and a second stick in the case of the uh Yeah, I believe the PlayStation line of systems were the first ones to add a second stick. With the dual shock. Yep. Um, so yeah, games got more complicated and thus required more instruction.
SPEAKER_00But I I just remembered something. Yes, I think one of the first like moments of tutorial madness that I had was playing the Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that one was very tutorial heavy, but with good reason. Hey, listen. Okay, that was the madness part, but you needed to be taught about the Z targeting system, the the C buttons managing your items in the traditional way, like always being able, I think you were always able to have a shield up in Ocarina of Time for the first time. Because I think that was relegated to like the uh L button or something.
SPEAKER_00Yes, um, because you always had the shield had to be an item if you wanted to use it.
SPEAKER_01In other Zelda games, but in Ocarina of Time, it just became, once you got it, part of your move set.
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm. But yeah, no, like gaming has evolved to the point where these tutorials have gotten um have gotten more uh I guess invasive um than organic, I feel. Like going back to current examples of games that I feel do tutorials very well. Uh, you have a game like Hollow Knight, uh, which is a fantastic game that kind of drops you in the world and has you figure things out as you go. But when you get a new ability, it shows you how to do it, but it doesn't tell you in what situations to do it, it just has you figure it out. So it gives you the oh, hey, with this button, do this, or if you are low on health, do this, but it doesn't tell you in what situations to use things or whatever. You have to figure that out on your own. And it's that game is also a very gorgeous, well-designed game. Um that I feel does a great uh has a great system for how to play the game. It's it's a mixture, a hybrid of the two, where it doesn't tell you everything, but tells you what you need to get by. Because if you play the game, you see spikes, and you're like, oh, okay, so if I step on spikes, uh I get hurt, ouchy. Get hurt, ouchy, right? But it doesn't tell you that right out. You figure it out eventually because of your years of playing previous games, yeah. But what it doesn't tell you is that you can actually pogo off of spikes by doing a down slash with your weapon, so you now have another way to traverse a stage by using this knowledge to traverse uh dangerous areas, right? The game doesn't tell you that, you kind of figure it out as you you know play the game. And I wish more games would do that kind of system, but then again, Hollow Knight doesn't use all of the buttons that you have on screen or on the controller, it doesn't use all of them. A lot of games these times, you know, due to controllers and everything, you have two analog controllers and you have one D-pad, and the D-pad is used as another button or another four buttons uh in your game, right? Right, because the more complicated we get into these games, the more things you can do, uh, the more button space is you know utilized. So, you know, even to the point where these joysticks are now buttons themselves. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01You know, yeah, literally, L3 and R3, it's the same thing.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. And you then again, you also have the back of certain controllers being utilized as a controller space as well, or the front of a controller, as you know, with the PlayStation 5 and their uh their touch pad that they have on the front of the controller, you know, these controllers are getting more complicated um because these games are requiring it, and because the games are requiring it, because your character can do all of these crazy things, you have to figure out how to push all of that to a controller input so that the player character or the you know the player of the game can play your game, right?
SPEAKER_01And understand what they're doing as they play. Like taking it back to Sonic for more modern games, just for a second to uh hopefully emphasize this point. Um, modern games or in the classics, you had one jump button, or three jump buttons, really, because they all did the same thing. Um, and even in the like Dreamcast era games, you had a jump button, which allowed you to press it again in the air to do a thing. You had a get to the ground button, I will call it, because in Adventure One, you stopped all momentum and left your jump ball. In Adventure Two, it was for the treasure hunters to dive down to the ground, or for Sonic to use his bounce attack. And then you had like a spin uh an increase your speed button, which is like either the spin dash or the boost for the 3D games. And now that I'm thinking about it, Sonic Adventure 2 made the increase your speed button also the get to the ground button when you're in the air. So it's loading up commands and unique feels onto as many buttons as possible based on the controller that you have. Air Go, things can feel a little clunky, maybe needing a little bit more of an explanation to be like, by the way, if you press the button that you normally use on the ground while in the air, you'll bounce to the ground or you'll shoot down to the ground or something like that. Which, you know, it kind of has to tell the player that scenario. But as characters get more fleshed out in their movesets, as games get more complicated and developers want to make the games more unique and special and giving them something different, not just from other games in their own series, but from other games currently on the market, you kind of have to do more mechanically, which means more buttons, which you know brings us back to the question. Like, is it a is it a developer reason we're getting all of what feels like so much hand holding? Is it players not wanting to have to do the experimentation and just play the game, which is why the hand holding complaints are just increasing in number?
SPEAKER_00Is it a combination or is it just something else? I think it's a combination because honestly, uh it happens a lot where I'm watching a streamer play a game for the first time, and I hear them say, Why doesn't this game tell you you can do this? You know, and it's like, well, the the game it's it's trying to have you have that sense of exploration, you know. Um, and I I again I bring up Hollow Knight. Hollow Knight doesn't tell you everything that you can do when you're playing it, you kind of just figure it out through playing the game, yeah, right? Because it's it's one of those types of games that are like that. And I wish that more games were like that, where they tell you the basic things, like for example, uh like powers or whatever. Like I don't mind having to figure out your game's uh control scheme as long as it's like you know, natural.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Like if I assume that your if your game is a Metroidvania, then I know that there's gonna be a jump button.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_00I know that there's gonna be an attack button, whether it's a slash weapon or a pew pew weapon or whatever. But if I get new abilities, I do want to know how to do them. I don't necessarily need to, you know, have the whole thing described to me. But it's it's nice to know how to do these things. Uh Kirby, I think, did a really good job. Like Kirby uh returned to Dreamland or Dreamland Deluxe or whatever.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah, it literally just has signs with the button indications of like this is what you press to do the thing, but that's all it gives you.
SPEAKER_00Yes, but when you want to figure out how to do things specific to a power or an ability, you have to press the pause menu and scroll through it to see what your character can do. Like fighting games do this all the time, where fighting game just drops you in and you have to figure out what buttons do what.
SPEAKER_01Or and then the timings on the specific buttons to achieve certain combos. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00Um, I don't think you'll ever hear a fighting uh fighting game fan complain about what does this do? You figure it out. You figure it out. That's that's how the game is made to be played. You figure out what's going on, you figure out how to play, and anything else that is important, you'll you know, either go out to search for an answer if you're stuck in an area or whatever. You know? I really don't know where it's gonna go from here or how it's gonna be. Um but it's just it's weird, man. Like I thought this episode was gonna be more about screaming about like how just tutorials in general are just bad uh nowadays and everything is just hand holdy. But it's it's really turned into more of a discussion about you know why things are the way that they are, right? And also uh also I wanted to bring up something that you brought up a second ago. Uh and by a second ago, I mean minutes ago, because we've been talking for a bit. Fair. One of the things that I really appreciate about gaming now is that autosaves are a thing. Oh my god. Yep. Autosaves have been a game changer, uh, literally. Yeah. Because, you know, like you said, back in the day, we used to have to play these games in one sitting uh to complete it. Uh or or you had to write down a complex password like in Mega Man.
SPEAKER_01Oh my god.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. The password system, I hated writing down all these passwords, hated it. Um but with the invention of auto-saving, man, everything has just been so much more amazing. And the other thing that they've invented uh is especially uh in the um NSO store for the Nintendo Switch, where you can save games, save states, right, which ROMs have been doing for years. Uh, but then you also have the ability to rewind a game. Oh, yeah, the rewind button. The rewind feature that is available in these games is fantastic because you can now play a game that was maybe too hard for you when you were a kid that you never got a chance to experience. For example, Ninja Gaiden, right? And you can literally rewind the game and not fall into that pit, or not grab onto the wall the thought the way you thought you would, or not get hit by this enemy's attack that you thought you dodged. Like all of that is making these older games more accessible because now you have a way to save your state from where exactly you left off. Yep. Now you have a way to rewind in case you were on your last life, and now you don't have to worry about it.
SPEAKER_01Other retro collections, like standalone retro collections, have added a similar feature. Like uh way back in the day, there was this Aladdin and Lion King collection on the Nintendo Switch, and you best believe I used save states and the rewind button to solve things that I could not figure out or jumps I couldn't make to be like, I thought I had this. Am I not doing it right game? What am I supposed to be looking for? And instead of just using a guide, and that felt much more rewarding than using a guide would to be able to say, I finally beat a game that Child Grant couldn't beat.
SPEAKER_02Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. It's there's been a lot of changes to gaming from uh the tutorials that have you know been both a plague in just how they've been implemented, and you know, uh DLC of games that has forced games to release not completely finished like they were in the past, or how little uh quality of life changes like save states or being able to save at any point in your game without having to be at a save spot or whatever. Yeah. Like that was that those little changes, the save state, uh, the saving whenever the ability to basically pause your game and put your game into sleep mode and then pick up again, those have been fantastic additions to gaming in general, you know? Oh yeah. Um I don't know, man. This episode has been weird. This episode has been like just kind of a discussion on gaming and how things have changed and evolved instead of me just being upset at you know the current state of gaming and being like back in my day.
SPEAKER_01Um we we both thought it would be a back in my day when we didn't have safe states sort of vibe. But it it really does go to show that if you stop to think about it and you really try to understand the things you love, in this case gaming, that you understand why certain changes had to be made. And even if it's not even if it's not the perfect answer, it's an answer that makes sense and that it becomes your choice to either get used to and evolve with the gaming space or the game itself, or to choose not to in this instance. Like we started the episode, me talking about po like both of us talking Pocopia. I am a hopeless addict when I normally don't do cozy games, but it's something about the way it presents itself and it evolved the cozy game space, ha ha punny because Pokemon, it got me to actually give it its due shot. And I am an addict who streams the game regularly now. Um, but it's all about what the game does to stand out and how it presents itself and its systems. And whether it be constraints on a genre like not affecting your other players' islands or Pocopia in Pocopia, or a 2D beat em up that by default disables friendly damage or friendly fire while still enabling like co-op attacks. Like those small, subtle changes in the mechanics can change a genre for the better, which may require more or less of the hand holding tutorializing that we've talked about. Just combine that with the evolving player base and our instant gratification loving nature as a society. And yeah, it's just a lot of needing to understand the times instead of just curse the clouds as to why they are a change in it all. And speaking Of, if I may take a little bit of a lead on this one, because uh I'm sure you noticed there, for the deepest part of our conversation, Tango was all up in my face. Um, we normally end our episodes with a game or some sort of cute gesture of a sort, whether it be a game, a quiz, something like that. But because of the nature of this specific episode and dealing with the idea of just needing to adapt and change to the way the game is played, I feel like we were trying to come up with a game for this one, but as the episode's gone on and the original idea of the game, I just I don't know. I don't think the game idea we had would fit based on the way that the based on the way that the uh discussion has been going.
SPEAKER_00It absolutely does not fit, but I have come up with another game. Oh, so we're doing the game after all, all right. Bring it on. We're doing a game after all. Alright. I'm going to have you close your eyes. Okay. And I'm going to have you tell me what buttons are on a Nintendo Switch Pro controller. Not a Switch 2, but a Pro controller. The Nintendo Switch 1 Pro controller. Yes. Tell me what the buttons are. Okay. You have 30 seconds to describe all of the buttons that are on there. Starting now.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so we have. I'm starting with the face buttons on the right hand side of the controller. We have B A B A XY. We have a right trigger, a right bumper. We have the right stick. I'm slowly shifting to the left now. Uh we have the right stick, then we shift up a little bit. We get the power button or the button that turns on the controller. I forget which one it is. Um, then we have the plus button. We shift shifting over to the left again, we have the minus button. And I believe we also have a photo button just beneath the minus button. Then below the mine, then below the photo button, we have the plus control pad. Shifting up from the plus control pad, we have the left stick. Oh, both of the sticks are also buttons, by the way. Shan't forget that. And then we also have the left bumper and the left trigger.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Where is the Y button on the controller?
SPEAKER_01The Y button, I want to say of the four face buttons, uh, B button is the bottom, X button is the top, Y is on the in the middle, on the left side. Or did I get my X's and Y's confused again?
SPEAKER_00You are correct. Okay. It did take you longer uh to get the total of it. It took you uh about a minute and a half to get all of the descriptions of it, but you got it all right. Okay. All right. You ready for your next one? I'll try it. What were the additions to the Pro 2 controller?
SPEAKER_01The additions to the Pro 2 controller, there are these two buttons at the very bottom of the controller near where you put your hands. I still don't know exactly what they do, but there is one little indentation button on each hand grip on each side. Okay. Is that it? I think so. You are all the ones I've ever had to. I'm incorrect. Okay.
SPEAKER_00You got that there are, right? This is a switch to controller right here that I'm holding. The official one. There are all of the buttons that you mentioned, uh, except for one, and there are two on the back right there that you see that are the G L and the G R buttons, the ones that you mentioned. But the one that you forgot is the one that is dead center on the bottom right here that is for the game chat.
SPEAKER_01I totally forgot slash didn't know there was a game chat button.
SPEAKER_00And if you want to be technical on both the Switch Pro controller and the new Switch uh uh switch two controller, it's C and Z. Oh. There is a little button right there that is next to the charging cable so that you can pair your controller.
SPEAKER_01The pairing button. Oh my god. Uh there I there I go listing only the functional buttons and not all of the buttons.
SPEAKER_00Whoops. All right. Next one. Give me all of the buttons for a Game Boy.
SPEAKER_01Uh any Game Boy or Classic Game Boy. Original classic Game Boy. On like there, there's the do we factor in switches? Yes. Okay. On the up on the top of the system, uh, some it's on the left, some it's on the right. I want to say on the original Game Boy, it was on the right. Um, top of the console, on the right, there is the power switch. No buttons on the back side. Screen takes up half of the front of the system. On the left side, there is the plus control pad. On the right side, going from left to right is B, then A. Then is start and select on the bottom, start is on the right side, select is on the left.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Uh, you missed a couple of things. And I will show you. Because I have the Lego Game Boy. Oh, yeah, you have a prop. Here is the Lego Game Boy. You are correct. There is the D-pad, there is the start and select button, there is the B and the A button. The power switch is on the uh left, not the right.
SPEAKER_01On the left, not the right. Okay.
SPEAKER_00You also have this little switch right here for contrasting. Oh, the volume slider. No, for contrast. Oh, the contrast. And on the left, uh sorry, on the right is where you have the volume slider. Oh. So you missed two buttons uh on the system and you missed the position of where the uh power was. Got it. Okay. Alright. Are you ready for this last one? Shoot, let's go for it. PlayStation Dual Shock 1.
SPEAKER_01PlayStation Dual Shock 1. Um, this was on the PS1, correct? That is correct. Okay, so since it's on the PS1, they don't have the little button in the center that turns on the console from a distance. Um starting on the left side this time, we've got the L2, L1 buttons, L2 being toward the back, L1 being toward the front. Get into the face, we have the directional pad, and then lower on the controller for the DualShock 1 is where they keep the first uh where is where they keep the left stick. They have there's a rectangular button that I want to say is the equivalent of the select button. I don't remember the exact name, shifting from left side of the controller to right now. They've got two buttons in that little middle space. One is a select button of sorts, the other is the start button. Going to the right side of the controller, again, lower part of it, that's where the right stick lives. Then on the face buttons for that side, it is X at the bottom, circle on the right, triangle up top, square on the left, uh heading backwards. We have L1 or R1 and R2.
SPEAKER_00Did you say that this thing had two select buttons?
SPEAKER_01No. I was just I was just trying to like further clarify where I thought the select button was. Because it had a select button and a start button, like in the center of the controller between the sticks, uh, select buttons on the left, start buttons on the right.
SPEAKER_00Okay. You are missing a button. You are also missing the analog button. So on the very early edition of the uh DualShock 1, you had all the buttons correct, but in the very center of the uh controller, there was a little button that said analog. That oh wow because not every game used the analog sticks.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that toggled the feature on and off, didn't it? Mm-hmm. Oh my god. Yep. Dang.
SPEAKER_00When you think you know I lied. I got one more for you. Oh, okay. This one for sure is gonna trip you up because I'm pretty confident that you do not uh do not know this one.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Xbox series one controller.
SPEAKER_01Xbox series one. Oh boy. I know basic stuff with it, but I know I'm gonna miss a few. Um with Xbox controllers starting with the face, it's A on the bottom, B on the right, I want to say X on the left, Y in yellow up top. We got the um uh right bumper, right trigger, and then the right stick with its own button. That's it, I know for the right side. In the center of the con in the center of the controller, we have a dedicated start button. No, wait. There is a button there. Um I just don't know if it's like a dedicated start button or a menu button or its exact name, but typically it's uh what I associate as the pause button. There is a button on the left side, similar position to the pause button. No idea what that does. Um, then the left hand face, we have the plus control pad. I want to say on the bottom. Yes, on the bottom, and then shifting up, we have the left stick, which itself is also a button. Then we have the left bumper and left trigger.
SPEAKER_02Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_01Mm-hmm. There's probably some sort of pairing button on the top near the charging port. Um, you know, that the top center near the charging port. You're correct. Um part of me also wants to say they have like some sort of either button or gaming trigger lower on the hand grips. Okay. Um, either, and I don't know what the exact name of it would be. Like if if the upper two are like bumper and trigger, I don't know what those two buttons are called, but I want to say there's a button on each hand grip for like FPS games or something like that.
SPEAKER_00On the standard Xbox Series One controller, there is the XYBA buttons that are on the right side. There is the the stick over here, there is the D-pad, there is the other stick, there's the dedicated start button, which is the Xbox button, there is this button right here, which is the little uh square within a square uh window button. Okay. There is the little hamburger icon over here, which is the three lines. This is usually your start and select button, and then in the center, right here, there is uh what is the share button. Oh you can press it to uh you know share, uh record video or take a snapshot of what you're playing. Um, and you are correct, there is also a uh pairing button right there.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So there are no like hand bay hand grip buttons. Not on the standard one. And I missed a couple of buttons on the front face, the Xbox button and the the share button.
SPEAKER_00You you got the Xbox button because you said there was like a uh you know a power on button. I I gave that one to you.
SPEAKER_01Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00So yes. Uh you got most of the controllers correct. Um, but I will ask you one final question because I keep on asking you these final questions.
SPEAKER_01Of course.
SPEAKER_00Uh what was the addition to the PlayStation DualSense 5 controller uh to the DualSense uh 4?
SPEAKER_01Wasn't that the touch wasn't that okay? I know for sure the little touch pad thing was uh added or at least refined for DualSense 5 when it came out with the PlayStation 5. Um, I th I think that's one of the features. I think there was also a share button or a share button functionality added to the left-hand button near where the start and select buttons are. Um shooting why am I blanking on other buttons? I feel like those are the only two I have in my brain. Oh, let's take a look. Of course, with the prompt or the prop.
SPEAKER_00Yes, with the prop, yes. So you do have on your uh PS5 controller, you have the trigger buttons. You also have the fact that they added the uh pressure, the uh oh, the pressure trigger, like the light and then full on as a separate press.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Um forgot about that one entirely.
SPEAKER_00Uh there is another button that's right below the oh no, I pressed the PlayStation button by accident. Um no. Oh no, it's turning on. Um there is a button that's right under the PlayStation button right here, that is your mute switch. The microphone button for microphone, right? Uh but there is one other thing that I wanted to bring to your attention that you might not know, or you might know, which is the fact that if you look at your PlayStation controller and you look at the grips of the controller, it's all mini icons of the PlayStation buttons, triangle, X, Square, and Circle all imposed in the texture. Oh. So if I don't know if you have your PlayStation controller near you, um, you don't you would be able to see uh on the texture if you look very closely, you will see the buttons right then and there.
SPEAKER_01Huh. Well, that's a cool tidbit, but I'm not sure if it counts as a button to press. It doesn't, but I I didn't say button, I said what things did they add to the code. Oh, what things dull, but should have picked up on that.
SPEAKER_00Devil is in the details, my friend. Devil is in the details.
SPEAKER_01They really are. They really are.
SPEAKER_00But yeah, uh, I don't know, man. Like I just came up with this game like a second ago because I thought it would be interesting because we've been talking about controllers and additions and all this other stuff uh gaming in general. So what a trip down memory lane that we've had.
SPEAKER_01Uh now just imagine a developer trying to figure out a way to infuse button prompts with the textural feel on the PlayStation 5 controller grips. Just imagine. Just imagine. That would require some serious hand holding.
SPEAKER_00Literally, because you're holding it in your hand.
SPEAKER_01Ta-da! And with that, uh with that, we have been the Super Banter Brothers. We hope you've enjoyed this episode, which was uh far, I would say it was far banter-y than guided on a specific topic than are some of our typical episodes, which hey, it's in the name. We're supposed to banter. Um, I have been Superbanter Brother Grand Patrizio, and with me as always, the freshest fake luchador, Superbanter Bro, Senior Donut. And uh, we will be back with you again with whatever we feel like talking about next. Stay tuned on the socials, follow, subscribe, the whole thing to see what that is. Good night, everybody.
SPEAKER_00Catch you on the flip side.