Thank you for pressing start on episode 87 of Underplayed KZUMS indie video game podcasts.

Today we have two secret games, followed by a review of our featured game Bomb Rush Cyber Funk.

Here on Underplayed, we review indie games of all kinds, the games with small budgets but big hearts, the lesser known experiences with imaginative ideas.

I'm Bo PO, and I'm joined by another.

He got the platinum in going under.

It's one of his numerous claims to fame.

He's the obto your IB in a cooperative game.

He runs like a pony.

He loves pepperoni.

It's the one and only Disco Cola.

What's going on?

I have been so busy I feel like I've been running around with my head cut off.

Too obvious.

Anyways, how are you I'm?

Doing just fine, my claustrophobic masochist.

That's funny you say that about running around with your head cut off because I was recently trying to remember the expression like chickens with their heads cut off.

But when I was talking about a situation that was particularly confusing and a lot of people didn't know what to do, the way I was remembering this expression was I said they were running around like chicken heads cut off from their chicken bodies.

It.

Really rolls off.

Really.

I really didn't nail the expression, but the sentiment was there.

That just reminded me of a an expression faux pas that I did.

I just thought you'd find that.

It was funny.

I wish I could have been in the room.

Oh well.

But anyway, those are references to our featured game, Bomb Rush Cyber Funk.

My reference was just a tiny moment of dialogue it with a very particular character.

But as soon as I saw a claustrophobic masochist, I wrote that down.

I was like, that's what I'm going to call this.

Oh, you know what?

I think I remember that part now.

OK Yeah, yeah, it took me a minute.

I'm like.

It's a little bit later into the game, yeah, but here at the top of the show, we just want to say this real quick.

This is our last quote UN quote normal episode of season 8.

And next episode we have something very special.

We'll be doing our our season finale.

It's like our award show.

We'd give out thank yous.

We rank our favorite games.

We give awards for like favorite soundscape, favorite art direction, that kind of stuff.

So keep it tuned.

It's really fun to just like recap the season, but then we also plan the upcoming season after that.

So we'll be planning Season 9, all of our featured games, all of the guests we know that we're going to have, and we've nailed down pretty much all of them.

Yeah.

So we already know what's what's going on in half of Season 9.

Yeah, we're really excited about what we're doing.

They're going to be some firsts for sure.

And just the way that we're pairing guests with games, I think is really exciting and I can't wait.

There's a lot of variety coming our way.

It's going to be a very unique season.

This season was pretty unique too.

It was it's going to be more of that, but also more like Bobo said, firsts, before we move on from this topic, I want to mention we do have a Google form that's like pinned to a lot of our socials.

It's where you can ask any questions, any follow up on game discussions.

So if there's a topic that we didn't mention in that game's episode, that's where you can fill it out and we can cover that in a small section of the season finale.

We don't really have any takers on that yet.

So I take that as we've had a full and comprehensive discussion, but I'd be happy to talk about things that maybe Bopo or I didn't think about.

Yeah, definitely.

And then you had a couple things that you were talking to me about before we hit record today.

Yeah, sure.

One involving your family, which is really cool.

And then one involving some news with a publisher recently.

So this we could have talked about this in the next episode because we always have a section.

It's like, what are you going to play in between seasons?

But I've been playing a lot of Donut County and Untitled Goose Game because my kids are super in to Donut County or as we call it whole game and Untitled Goose Game or as we call it Goose Game.

I this is the mind that you get to Co host with tonight When you said whole game for some reason I know that game is about holes but my mind went to WHOL game like this is an entire game.

We played the full game.

We played the entire, actually whole game.

My my oldest did play through almost all of Donut county all by themselves except for like the last boss essentially.

They played through the whole whole game.

They played through the whole whole game.

No, but my youngest plays it a lot of days.

Their favorite levels are the one with the snakes, the one with the cockroaches, the dark level which I don't like.

Someones gotta play it.

I guess so I'm.

Not going to.

And what's the one that they've been playing a lot this week, The one on the highway, which is?

The 405.

Yeah, which is my favorite level.

That's great, but I have to do the balloon section for them because they're too young to like.

Understand where you have to snap the pictures of the raccoons holding on to them and yeah, and then they fall down the hole.

Yeah, they they don't quite understand the catapult and the shooting stuff.

That part's a little weird.

I remember that part taking me a second to understand what I was supposed to do.

So for a little kid I can understand.

That my oldest got it but my my youngest is not quite there yet.

OK they what they did do.

This is hilarious.

In the cockroach one where you have to make the soup, there was one day where they were playing the cockroach level and they just went around the room trying to get as many dead cockroaches as they possibly could.

That was the whole point.

It caps.

Oh, it does.

It does.

It's that like 10 I think.

Oh, interesting.

Eventually, there's no more.

I always avoided it.

So, like, I never even thought to try that.

Yeah.

And your kids have been into bugs a lot.

Recently, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, We've got a lot of bugs.

Every day when we're dropping off my oldest at school, the youngest is like looking for bugs, and when we're picking them up from school, they're looking for bugs.

So I see a progression here.

You, you have a little section in this whole game with cockroaches, right?

Then what you need to do is find a kid friendly indie game that's about bugs.

And my mind first went to bug Fables, but that's a little too advanced.

That's too advanced.

But you find a few games in between this one level and whole game and bug Fables.

You know, a simple 2D platform or maybe with some bugs, simple adventure game, something friendly.

You know, here's the thing.

They're really into Wild Kratts.

Which do you remember Zabumafu on PBS?

No, you don't remember.

And.

Didn't watch that, yeah.

OK, well, Zabumafu is a lemur and has obviously passed on since we were children, but the two men that were like the owners of Zabumafu or something were the Kratt brothers, Chris and Martin Kratt, and they're just like animal people.

Oh yeah, I I'm looking at this up.

I've seen this picture of this thing before, but I never watched it.

So they have their own animated show now called The Wild Kratts.

And in every episode they get like they call it creature powers.

And a lot of times they get bug powers and there's like mobile games on the tablet from like the PBS app and so.

There you go, there's your gateway.

That's exactly it.

And they're getting good at like platformers now, which is like their biggest struggle for a long time.

OK, perfect.

That's the next rung on the ladder, right?

Yeah, from the cockroach level in Donut County, you go to that, maybe play a few of those, then in maybe a few years time you get them playing games like Bug Fables.

I don't know, maybe something a little simpler than that because that's a little complex still.

And where I see this ending up is they are doing the Deathless Run of Hollow Night Sulk song.

I knew you're by the.

Time by the time they're like 12 or 13.

Yeah, most likely.

And Dad is very proud.

Yeah, next to that.

And also a little bit jealous because I doubt Dad can do it.

I I don't think I would ever be able to do it either.

It's wild.

Yeah.

Cool.

Yeah.

Love that they're in.

They're playing games.

Next, I want to talk about something I saw on social media recently.

It's a game.

It's related to a game I've wanted to play like since before it came out.

It's called Cookie Cutter.

This is like a badass punk rock kind of Metroidvania.

Pretty violent and like bloody, but in like a punk rock cartoony sort of way.

But they recently were like, all suddenly like, hey, don't buy our game right now.

Please don't.

We're going, you know, we're going to court basically like, don't buy our game.

Wait till we tell you like if you haven't already bought it, don't.

And so basically what's happening there is that they came out with what they call the divorce plan.

They were trying to separate from their publisher.

And so they like took it down from storefronts for a while and as far as I can tell right now it's back up on steam, but I haven't heard that it's back up on PlayStation or Xbox or switch.

I didn't, you know, look to verify quite yet, but they said, hey, you know, it's back up on steam.

We're trying to get it back up on these other platforms.

And also we're going to do APS 5 version.

There's DL CS coming.

So I was interested in it because I've been interested in cookie cutter and we've also heard like really positive publisher stories on the podcast before when we talked to like no alone.

And so this was like maybe the most negative experience I'd heard of in an indie game publisher relationship.

So I guess if you're out there sub cult joint and you I want to be a guest on an episode of Under Plate someday, let me know.

We'd love to hear about maybe a negative publisher relationship and then just talk about cookie cutter after that.

Yeah, or if it's too painful to share about things, just talk about your game because that's always fun no matter what.

I have heard of this happening here and there.

There's, I don't know, every single detail behind the Disco Elysium controversy, but there's a lot there where the original work of that studio was sort of, I guess, taken over by the wrong people.

And I, I actually don't know, I think I might be miss speaking on this a little bit, but there are some painful, ugly stories here and there in the gaming space.

It happens in AAA, AA, triple I, smaller indie studios and publishers.

It, it happens too often, I think.

And yeah, it's good to be aware that just because like, this is an industry of fun and video games, like it's not always, you know, good relationships, you know, it's, it's hard.

It's hard out there.

Yeah, but this is like one of the examples of like they like took back their power, You know, it was like, oh, they took down the publisher and they're like full in full control too.

So it, I don't know.

I don't know why it resonated with me so much other than I've wanted to play cookie cutter for years.

Yeah, for sure.

Well, that's a good end for them, a good place for their story to end up, and we wish them the best and I guess we will move on now.

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Thank you for listening.

It's time for our secret games.

In Secret Games, we're each going to review one indie game we've been playing recently, but we don't talk about what games we're going to review before we arrive to the recording studio.

So I don't know what Discocola is going to talk about.

Discocola doesn't know what I'm going to talk about.

I don't know this time.

That's right.

I I mean ideally that is almost every time, but last time he did know.

That was a unique case.

That was a very unique case.

You can listen to that episode if you don't know what the hell we're talking about.

But anyway, we'll start with you, Disco Cola.

Let the mystery be no more.

Reveal your secret game for Episode 87 of Underplayed.

My Secret Game This episode is a game I bought day one and have been looking forward to for a while.

It comes from Evening Star and it is called Penny's Big Breakaway.

Oh, I just have to say, you like to find some synergy with your secret games and our featured games.

This.

One.

I hope it's obvious.

This one's obvious.

I could have seen it coming if I had given it literally any thought beforehand, but I didn't try to predict anything.

But Dang, this makes sense.

Yeah, Dang, it makes sense.

And I I've actually seen you stream this.

I did.

I streamed this a while back.

Like a year and a half.

Yeah, I played it on something I think the weekend it came out.

I think I streamed it on Switch like 2 days and then that was that was it for a while.

And then you replayed it?

Yes, in in preparation for the episode.

Cool.

So in this I'm going to say specifically 3D Sonic like game.

You play as Penny, a very talented yoyo performer.

Yoyoist yoyoer.

Thrower actually.

Thrower.

I've heard that yoyoers like to be called throwers.

This is something.

So I'm a juggler.

That's a little bit of back story from we've talked about on the show before.

I think one or two other times.

Yeah, and in my juggling travels, I have encountered throwers.

I was about to say yo yoers for just the layperson out there, but I've heard this term throwers because they're throwing the yo-yo I guess to get it going.

I knew you'd have the scoop on this.

You know, I kind of am starting to doubt it and I kind of want to look it up real quick.

Thrower.

Yo-yo, there's a subreddit called R slash throwers and it looks like they're talking about yo yos, so I think I am right on that, but I am not in the subculture.

The most I've ever been close to it is just I met some throwers.

I know a thrower locally pretty well.

And yeah, I guess yo-yo ists makes sense.

Too Yo's yo general, That's an attorneys general joke for you.

They who yo-yo?

Those who are about to yell anyways, Penny sees a flyer for this like great annual festival to perform in Emperor Eddie's Royal Court or something.

And on the way to the audition, she finds the cosmic string.

And this sort of turns her yo-yo into this sentient being that sort of acts a bit like an untrained dog.

So when Penny arrives at the palace, there's this massive line.

Somehow Penny finds a way to the front of the line, does her act, only for her yo-yo to act out and embarrass Emperor Eddie in front of everyone.

So now Penny is Public Enemy number one across all of the world of I believe it's called macaron.

Oh OK, love that.

Yeah, so now Penny must jump, zoom, swing and platform her way across the different zones to outrun Eddie's Penguin army and find a way to clear her name and make it home, and maybe even help a few citizens along the way.

The inanimate objects with sentience as it's giving Cappy from Super Mario Odyssey.

You know and.

I'm sure other examples.

I started a speedrun video today of Penny's big breakaway and they literally compared it to Cappy with some of the tech that they do in the speedrun.

So.

And I think I was also reminded of that from watching you play a while back, Like, this was quite a while back when the game released.

But yeah, I I just remember thinking like, Oh yeah, this seems inspired by that.

But anyways, to move on to the stuff I enjoyed, I think that the kineticism in this game is really solid.

If you know some of the basic tricks, you can combo everything in a way that keeps the momentum going and it feels really, really good to zoom through some of these platforming sections.

Additionally, related to that, most parts of most stages are really well designed in a way that once you know the most basic tricks, you can sort of sight read a level pretty easily and you know the intended way to zoom through that part of the level.

And while there are sort of branching paths all over the place, it's often pretty easy to tell which one is the one that is the speedy one that you want a combo on and and keep your momentum up throughout.

This game does have boss fights, and they're pretty varied and fun.

And I find that they're generally easier and breezier than the main levels themselves.

To me, that's how that should be.

The traditional levels can feel a little bit long at times, so the boss fights are like a nice action combat break from the running and jumping and maintaining combos.

Next up, every level has three citizens with a quest for you to complete, as well as 3 hexagonal coins that you will use to unlock bonus star levels.

Oh.

Fun.

Yeah.

I really enjoy seeking these out in each level.

It gives me something to collect, and as we know, collecting stuff is kind of my jam.

I think the art direction as a whole is really attractive.

We'll occasionally get animated scenes in the game and they're really cute.

Additionally, this game does something with draw distance that I think simultaneously supports the art direction while also performing a ractical function.

It just like adds this.

Interesting filter to the draw distance.

You know, after it's a certain amount of distance away, but it looks like it's part of the art style.

Like it makes sense that it looks like.

That so this is a way of sort of disguising that the draw distance is making things disappear.

It's adding this look on top of things to make that look a little bit more intentional.

Is that right?

Yeah.

OK.

I'm trying to find this in the trailer that I'm watching and I'm like maybe it is so seamless that it's happening in front of me in these really quick video clips from in the game and I'm just not able to detect it.

But I'm sure if I sat down with the game I'd notice it like more as I play so I'm not like noticing things popping in and out.

All the time if I I have my switch with me so after the recording I can try and pull it up and we can we can take a look.

Sure.

Lastly, I think the music is really great.

It features Sean Bialo and T Lopes.

T Lopes made a big name for himself after composing music for Sonic Mania and Sean Bialo appears on many of the modern retro beat em UPS from tribute games.

Many of those games also feature T Lopes, so it's really clear that their musical styles complement each other and they're just great for these high speed Sonic like games as well.

So I really appreciate the music in this game.

On the flip side, things I didn't drive with as much at the top, I did specifically call this a 3D Sonic.

Like not just because of controls and vibes, but because the camera is fixed.

And playing this sort of like helped me to realize that's how Sonic 3D Sonic games are maybe different from traditional 3D games.

The camera is sort of fixed at certain points.

So you don't really have any control over the camera and it's a hard thing to get used to.

Like when you try to use the R stick to, you know, maybe your instinct is to try and move the camera, it just throws the yo-yo instead.

But more than that, if you're sort of in the explorer mind space rather than trying to go fast, it can kind of be hard to see up on high platforms that are maybe behind the camera and behind the character.

And it's possible that those platforms have like one of those quests or one of those collectibles.

It would be one thing if the game taught you that there were never platforms like that that were out of standard view that had these items or people on them.

But sometimes they do, and most of the time they don't.

But you know, sometimes they do.

So it's like, OK, I got to figure out how to jump behind my camera into basically a faith jump that I can't.

See, it's almost like the game needs a third analog stick, like just given the fact, you know, and I think of I actually think of like the GameCube controller had like the sea stick, you know, And it's almost like we need one of those just for the camera.

And then we need one for movements of Penny and then we need one for the yo like aiming that yo-yo.

I imagine it'd be hard to do that any other way.

Yeah, and you know what might be different even it still breaks up the momentum of the game.

But if I had like a a function in the pause menu where I could take free control of the camera.

Just for a moment.

Just for a moment so I can just take a spin around Penny to see what's going on and decide if I want to spend that time trying to faith jump onto this platform.

I didn't think about that before, but that would be a nice function.

This is reminding me of something that Ratchet and Clank games used to do, where Ratchet and Clank is a 3D action platformer series and most of the time what you can see is pretty fixed.

You can rotate your camera in those games, but there are times where, especially for optional collectibles like titanium bolts or gold bolts, maybe they're in high places that you can't see from where you're standing.

But if you remember to, there is a first person camera mode in a lot of those games.

Maybe most if not all of them have this.

You can go into first person.

I think you might be fixed to the spot you're looking at.

You can't move, but you do have the option for a moment to tilt the camera way up, like way up to a ceiling or way up in the sky.

And I remember that's how you did optional things, and that's how you would sometimes get, like, skill points, which unlocked cosmetics in those games, Yeah.

Spiral Games did that too like you could and it served a function when you were spitting things at.

Yes, exactly.

Right.

But you're not doing it all the time.

It's actually there's lots of levels where you don't do it.

Yeah, it's just for very rare cases.

So yeah, anyways, a lot of the time those collectibles are on the main path or you can see them if you're getting the right height on the main path.

Sometimes they're just off to the side.

And like every platform in this game, platforms you're never supposed to touch all have collision.

So like you can get onto anything if you can dream it and you can throw to it like you can get there.

Well, that's pretty cool.

That's pretty cool.

It's like the idea of an open world game saying anywhere you see you can go.

This is like anything that you see and can reasonably touch, you can climb on top.

Of Yep and that honestly stresses me out but right as an explorer but.

No, yeah, I would be doing that too.

I'd be going everywhere trying to just find everything.

See what is where.

Yeah, exactly.

Next up, getting the angle right when swinging through the air can be challenging, especially if the camera angle, which again is fixed, happens to be like changing or rotating at a fixed point, you know, at a set point in that jump.

So sometimes I can find myself swinging into a direction I don't want to swing into.

Next.

Sometimes there will be obstacles that are clearly intended for you to use the swing move to get through a tight space.

Like for example, there might be two flamethrowers and you need to use that swing move to get through the narrow opening of the two.

Sounds hard, but it's never clear to me like how much of my string and yo-yo is part of my hit box, if any of it.

So I don't totally know how to thread the needle at all times.

And so I'm just kind of like you're trying.

I keep trying until I get it.

Essentially, when doing trick point quests, sometimes you'll be asked to get a certain number of points.

Hey, I know.

Does that sound familiar?

Yes, I was doing that last night a lot.

When I'm doing that, keeping the combo going that long isn't really the most fun.

Once you do find a loop that's easy to perform in a small amount of area, you can just do that loop over and over until you reach the point threshold.

But one of the moves that helps to keep the combo going is to like throw the yo-yo below you.

On PlayStation, this is done by pressing circle.

It also kind of function similar to like Sonic's ball roll is essentially the idea.

But this doesn't always seem to activate in a consistent way because you need enough time for your yo-yo to go down and grow to the big size and then Penny can land on it.

But if you're going like super fast, it doesn't always consistently activate in a way, and so you can lose your combo super easily if you're trying to rely on that move.

One of my biggest complaints is that while the game has a lot for a lot of different people, I don't know that it all works together all at the same time.

I think zooming through the levels is fun, but trying to do the collectibles along the way can kind of destroy that momentum.

Yeah, it's like you want to do one or the other.

Exactly.

Finding the collectibles is fun, but you're really like skipping a bunch of ramps and half pipes to do so, so choosing to focus on one of the two will hurt your score at the end of the level.

And so there's even score.

And while score is given the least emphasis and importance, it still feels like a burn to get to the end of a level, even if you've done really well and still find that you're like thousands of points away from the reward threshold.

Sure.

So that can be a burn.

So it's just kind of like.

Yeah, I've done all this work and then I see that I get this grade that doesn't feel deserved.

Yeah, it's just.

Kind of like a sour taste in your mouth after you've had all this fun doing all this exploring, being thorough.

Right.

So it's I don't feel rewarded for being thorough.

I don't feel rewarded for being just fast and I don't feel rewarded for just collecting stuff.

I have to kind of like pick which one I want to do that time.

And then mostly I find the Penguins to be incredibly annoying.

They are a near constant nuisance.

And the only move that actively removes them that actually feels satisfied to perform is the like spin move where you rotate your body and your yo-yo around.

But it's also the like least effective move to get rid of the Penguins.

So they're, I mean, they're best left avoided altogether, obviously, usually by skipping over them as fast as possible, which is a good gameplay motivator, but only if you're like in speed mode.

If I'm trying to explore, they're an incredibly unfun burden.

One of my favorite pairings of narration to visual is hearing you complain about the Penguins while I'm watching the gameplay trailer in which Penny is murdering Penguins with her yo-yo and then being chased by a giant ball that's made-up of the Penguins that have formed into one cohesive hole.

And they're chasing her like the boulder in Indiana Jones.

Yeah, they're a bit of a pain, and I don't know if it's the case in all sections where there are Penguins, but I believe they almost always infinitely spawn too.

So you can't just like spend the time to clear the area, I think.

Get rid of these.

Eventually they will come back, so at the end of the day, Penny's Big Breakaway was another one of those games I was really looking forward to for a long time.

Overall I enjoyed it quite a lot.

I think the controls, momentum and kineticism are well designed.

The story and characters are all light hearted and whimsical.

The music and art direction is really strong.

I do find the individual parts are greater than the sum of its parts.

I've done my slightly speedier playthrough and I plan to do a collectible playthrough next, but trying to do both simultaneously feels tedious and occasionally frustrating.

Of course, I wrote all that before watching Donkey Games play Penny's Big Breakaway and he's literally doing both the speed and the collectibles at the same time and just nailing it.

So I guess it's actually just a skill issue, but that's.

A funny video I've.

Seen that it's pretty good all the same.

I do still recommend this to people who are maybe waiting on a new Sonic game though.

I've also kind of heard that Sonic hasn't really missed for the last couple years, so maybe you're not really feeling an empty hole there.

At the end of the day though, for me, I give Penny's Big Breakaway an 8.5 out of 10.

Nice.

I think you're very positive on this in a way that I haven't always seen people express when they talk about it.

So I'm feeling hopeful about this and I I love a 3D platformer.

I would give this a try.

And I really love the expressiveness of the characters.

I love the just the personality of Penny.

And that's just one of the easiest ways to make a game fun, I think.

Yeah, she's just one of those people that brings out the best in other people too.

And we see that in the game, and that's just, that's just cute.

It's just.

Cute.

It's a cute looking game.

I I've always been curious about it.

Where can you play Penny's Big Breakaway?

You can play Penny's Big Breakaway on PC, Xbox Series, Nintendo Switch where I played it the first time, and then PlayStation 5 where I played the physical edition this time.

Wow, awesome.

It is now time for My Secret Game.

And my Secret game has virtually nothing to do with Penny's Big breakaway or Bomb Rush cyber funk.

I'm swerving, baby.

OK, swerving like on a yo-yo that is shaped like a wheel.

I'm a I'm a swerving Mervyn that's going to get cut from the edit.

My secret, My secret game is Luto.

How can you distinguish between what is real and what isn't?

Do you trust what you see, what you hear?

What happens when everything starts to feel wrong, to seem fake, like a trick?

I wondered.

I wondered if you might pick this one.

Yes, which I I did stream this game, but I'm always playing lots of games.

You don't know if I'm going to actually.

It's rare that it's one that I catch you streaming that you actually pick.

But yeah, this time I had a feeling I was like, maybe this time.

And I'm kind of hoping you saw enough to kind of, I don't know if you would fully get what's going on, but I hope you saw enough that you kind of like understand the gist, but I also hope you didn't see too much.

I don't understand much of the story at all.

OK, so cool, that makes two of us.

No I'm just kidding.

I I do understand more than you, but it is a psychological game with a lot going on.

O Luto is a 2025 sychological horror game.

It was developped and published by Broken Bird Games.

It was also published by Select to Play Astrolabe Games and Select Division.

The game synopsis from the Steam storefront reads quote.

Luto is a psychological horror experience where you take on the role of someone unable to leave their home.

Every attempt to escape will lead you deeper into the unknown, where nothing is as it seems and everything will test your senses.

End Quote.

I want to thank my friend Rusty for gifting this game to me around my birthday actually.

Nice.

Don't remember how this came up.

I think he just asked me for a game that I was looking forward to or something and I mentioned this and I mentioned this because this is actually been on my wish list for, I want to say 2 years I.

Know I've heard of Luto before and usually when I've heard of something before it's from you so.

There was a demo I played for this like 2 years ago I swear and it stuck with me and I really wanted to see the full game.

And I think, I don't know if they announced a release date and then they kept pushing it back or if they announced it for 2025 and they were just very vague about when it would come out.

But it might have appeared like it was going to release in 2024 and then they pushed it to 2025, something like that.

It was just on my wish list for a long or it was on my radar for a long time and then it finally came out a little bit earlier this year.

So I want to give a content warning about Luto.

According to the steam page it says quote this game contains depictions of anxiety, depression and suicide and may not be suitable for all audiences.

End Quote.

So this is a game that talks about death and all the emotions that can come along with that.

This game may trigger feelings for certain people and may be very uncomfortable for certain people.

So I also understand that listening to a review of a game like that can be challenging for some people depending on where you're at, but just know that I won't be talking about some of these heavy themes too in depth.

If you decide to play the game though, please know this about the game.

It is scary and it's very heavy and it deals with these subject matters.

Yeah, it it can visually be a little bit messed up at times.

Yes, there's a there's that too.

But this is a game where you play in the first person.

You're in control of someone who cannot leave the house they're in.

And this game has a surprise opening where it actually opens in a sandstorm in a desert, which consumes you.

And there's this narrator voice that comments on what's happening to you, and they call you Sam.

And the sandstorm turns out to be 1 of Sam's many recurring nightmares.

You'll see it a few times throughout the game.

And Sam wakes up in the bathroom, ready to go to work, and you find these notes around the house that you can inspect.

You also see evidence of a family and of their move through boxes and things strewn about.

And you pick up Sam's sketchbook where he keeps drawings of things that he notices.

And this is the journal that you will end up using to keep track of your findings and some vague tasks throughout the game.

And the days keep cycling through before you get the chance to leave the house.

So you'll approach the front door to leave with your keys and it will just transition from Monday to Tuesday.

A title card comes up that says Tuesday, and then the game teaches you to, I think it teaches you to run on Tuesday and you can hold a trigger button to run.

And when you kind of start to do that, it'll just transition to Wednesday.

So you can't leave this place.

And the narrator all the while is commenting on this happening.

You start to hear sounds, you see strange things, and there's this ominous voice that calls you on the phone in the house.

And what happens from here is this game Luto evolves into something that gets super experimental and more horrific as time goes on, all the while having the narrator talking to the player.

This is a psychological horror game with puzzle elements.

I would say the first half is more focused on puzzles and setting up this mystery.

The second-half feels a little bit more like a walking simulator with lots of themes going on and ambiguity to the story that you know.

There's a lot to the story that is pretty clear cut, but also some things you can theorize about I think.

And the main goal of this game, without spoiling anything, is to, I guess it's to find these four lights and release them.

Just going to leave it at that.

And along the way, the game is very scary.

There are moving bed sheets, There are things that crawl around in your peripheral vision.

There are jump scares.

There's this general feeling of terror and loneliness and dreads.

And Luto translates to mourning for someone's passing.

So that's where the title for this game comes from.

So here's what I liked about Luto.

First, I really love the ambiance and the horror vibe.

I love.

I think it's excellently done.

It's done through visuals and sounds.

It's done through music cues, sound effects, tension that builds really scary payouts.

Doors that will close and lock behind you and you'll turn around and you'll see something new.

You will see objects that are inanimate and then look away and look back and something has changed.

The environment will change.

You'll see a familiar place, but it looks way different now.

I yelled so many times playing Luto.

Yeah, you did.

I have several clips on my Twitch channel now of me just screaming because something scared me.

So I know that that's not everybody's thing, but I played this around Halloween.

It was a great Halloween time game.

So for those of you who can stomach all that.

I think this is going to satisfy you when it comes to the the feeling, the vibe, the scares, the production value of this game is super impressive.

It looks gorgeous.

It has amazing fidelity and I think this is.

The lighting is so good too.

The lighting's so good, the the shading, everything.

I think this is Broken Bird Games first game, so I'm now I just want to see what kind of visuals they'll come up with next.

And then also just the way they take abstract concepts and find a way to represent those things visually.

Sometimes through a metaphor, sometimes through a scary sequence that actually is representative of a very real human experience.

These kinds of ideas that we see in artful horror films, like over the past 10/15/20 years, we've been in a renaissance of horror cinema that explores the psyche and explores the human experience.

And we might get really scared and terrified by a movie, but a lot of modern horror movies have something to say, and this game has something to say, and I really love that.

This game really swings for the freaking fences and it's entirely unpredictable.

I thought this was just going to be a game about grief and that it would just be about someone being lonely and things getting scarier and scarier.

It is that, but it's also 10 times more unpredictable, 10 times stranger, 10 times more experimental than I could have imagined.

And by the end, I think Luto does things that are really highly emotionally affecting.

And I was surprised by the reflection on certain emotions, certain events.

And I streamed this.

A lot of people were resonating with what this game was saying by the ends.

But I also get into some dislikes here where the entire experience isn't a home run for me.

The entire experience kind of feels a bit uneven, I guess, where the first half feels really puzzle heavy.

You have to kind of stretch your intuition a little bit.

You have to go off of hunches and sometimes you're right and that's really rewarding.

But then the game really kind of gets away from the puzzle stuff at at a certain point, and then it just becomes really weird and experimental.

And some of the ideas later on in this game, like I'd say in the last third or so, did not hit for me.

It felt like they almost were throwing anything at the wall and just seeing what sticks.

And there's a sequence that genuinely shocked me, not because of how scary it was, but with how out of place it felt.

And I didn't really understand why we had to do that and why that part in particular was not so effective.

Like I, I just feel like it was clutter that could have been trimmed.

And then also there are other things like the Narrator's voice is very interesting.

The narrator's voice, I'll just say, does not stay static in terms of feeling throughout the game.

But at the beginning, it feels really mismatched with the tone of the first couple hours.

And the voice actually reminded me of the Stanley Parable.

It's like you take PT and you take the Stanley Parable, and there are even times that reminded me of Indica in this game too.

It's just this weird combination.

But that weirdness, that sort of dislike I have, it doesn't necessarily represent the entire experience.

So it's not like it ruins anything, but it's just there are some interesting, memorable, yet weird and odd decisions that are made, and I'm not sure I agree with all of them.

So Luto is extremely cinematic and artfully crafted.

It's one of the scariest games I've ever played.

But not only does it scare you, it's psychological aspect puts you in the shoes of someone grieving.

Which I don't recommend everybody if you don't want to experience those kinds of feelings, but it adds up to a beautifully poetic conclusion, even if it does make some odd choices.

I thought about giving this a nine out of 10.

I thought about giving this an 8 out of 10.

I think I'm going to go right in the middle and for me this is an 8.5 out of 10.

I think this is really, really interesting.

I would like to replay it sometime knowing what I know now about the game and seeing if I pick up on new things.

It is playable on PCPS 5 and Xbox Series.

So when you started this, you had mentioned it for the possibility of your annual Halloween scary game marathon.

Having now finished it, does this seems something that is feasible for an entire group of people to play, passing the controller around without getting the full context of the game and maybe not being people that regularly play games?

Yes and no one.

I think yes, it would be fitting because it is short enough to reasonably fit into a day.

So what Disco's referencing is something we've talked about before, but I'll say it here again.

Every year we do a Halloween party where we pick a scary game.

We play through it in person with our friends passing the controller.

We've done games like Resident Evil 4, Dead Space, Bioshock, Little Nightmares, Carrion, Inside, lots of different horror games of different styles.

I think this would work because it's like a three to five hour game deending on how long those puzzles take you in the first half, especially when it comes to giving everybody at the party an experience that they can take something away from.

I'm not sure that's going to hit for a lot of people, especially because people come and go.

Some people only show up for a little bit, but that's kind of always been the case.

Like nobody can fully absorb a game at that party except for like maybe me because I'm the host and but even then I'm distracted and stuff.

So I think this would work really well overall, and I think the scare factor would make it a really great Halloween game.

Do you think any of the emotionally affecting pieces hit anybody that doesn't see the full game?

Actually, if you're there for mostly the second-half, I think it can still hit for you.

I I because I think they do start vague and they get a little bit more focused with some of the themes by the end.

And then like, I think things are pulled into a little bit more focus in the last, like, hour in a way that I liked.

So yeah, I think you could get something out of this.

You just won't have gotten to know some of the characters and back story in the beginning.

But you might not need all of that.

Sometimes it's just about like the emotion, the feeling, the sentiments of a moment that can really give us something to take away.

So I liked it a lot.

People seem to resonate with it on Twitch and yeah, it's it's fascinating.

I'll be thinking about it for a long time.

Well, one of the one of the elements, I don't think it's a spoiler to say is that there's this phone that rings a lot and there's analog technology, man, just I love it in a horror game and horror movies.

So I'm that alone was like, I at least want to try this someday.

Yeah, definitely.

I it's definitely kind of got like a classic horror feel to it, but it also feels, you know, inspired by PT and it feels like its own thing.

It's cool.

I think it's really well done.

It's just, it's quite the looker.

It's quite a stunning game.

So I, I do recommend it to horror fans.

And I'll also say, interestingly, the demo I played about two years ago, it did not resemble any sequence in this game.

And just to pique your interest a little bit, tiny little spoiler that actually isn't that much of A spoiler.

This game comments on this.

Interesting.

It comments on the fact that the demo does not resemble any sequence in the game.

Is that I'll just leave it there.

Well, I don't want you to.

I want to know more.

You got to play it.

It's.

If I didn't play the demo, will I still get it?

Oh watch a playthrough of the demo OK and then play Luto on like PS-5.

This is like when PT actually came out and it's like, oh, this is about Silent Hill.

I'm like.

OK, no, I don't call that a huge spoiler because it's not a huge like hinge upon which the game is centering its story.

It's just like it caught me off guard that it did say something, mentioned it, yes.

But gosh, there's so much more.

I'm going to go listen to spoiler casts if there are podcasts that talk about it.

I don't know how much it was covered, but yeah, it's fascinating.

So those are our secret games, Penny's Big Breakaway and Luto.

Let's move on to our review of Bomb Rush Cyberfunk.

It is our featured game.

Bomb Rush Cyber Funk is a 2023 action platformer developed and published by Team Reptile.

I love their name so much, the game synopsis from the Steam storefront reads and I quote and I will say this is one of the strangest synopsis.

I wonder if this is the same thing it says on the back of the case.

Could be I had to read this in the season finale last.

Season.

Maybe that's what I'm.

Thinking so, it reads quote bomb rush cyber funk is one second per second of advanced funk style.

Battle rival crews and dispatch militarized police to conquer the five boroughs of New Amsterdam.

Become all city.

We didn't know what all city was and I still don't understand second per second.

One second per second.

What does that?

Mean I don't need to know it's bad ass.

I guess so.

I have never encountered that phrase and I respect it.

And we also didn't know what All City meant, but we do now after having played the game.

So.

So Disco Cola.

Yeah.

When we do a featured game such as Bomb Rush, Cyber Funk, you and I split up the job of covering the story slash setting like I do the story slash setting and then you talk about the gameplay.

Yeah, I think you have quite a lot to talk about with the gameplay for this game.

I think I found a way to to trim it.

That's good, I have my work cut out a little bit for setting up the setting.

Certainly unique.

It is one-of-a-kind.

So just strap in, strap on.

I don't know.

Keep your keep your head about you.

Don't get red in the face as you try to follow along.

We're nailing this, nailing it.

This is a great episode.

You don't know it yet, but actually, I mean what I'm saying.

We are now.

Hey, I'm about to do this and I'm going to do really well.

OK, manifesting.

So this is a third person action platformer that highly resembles Jet Set Radio, a Sega published series of skating action games from the early 2000s where you spray graffiti and battle rival gangs.

And I just wanted to ask you if you've played the Jet Set Radio games.

That's what I was going to ask you.

No, I've never played it and I do want to now.

I was at a sleepover or something like way back in the like early aughts and I remember who, whoever's house it was, they had Jet Set Radio and I think I touched it for like a few minutes, but I don't even consider that having played it.

You know what?

I mean, I always, like, admired how it looked like, how the case and the poster looked.

And I was like, that looks so cool.

Yeah.

And that was like.

Colors the.

Extent of it.

Yes, it's like this, a lot of neon paraphernalia, a lot of just like sort of new age, like futuristic skating and graffiti.

And it's like not distant sci-fi future.

It's like just kind of within reach.

But this story in Bomber Cyberfunk is absolutely bonkers.

It takes place in New Amsterdam, which is made-up of five Burrows, and each one is controlled by a different gang of graffiti artists who ride skates, skateboards and bikes around to tag the city.

And graffiti artists in this place are known as Riders and they are persecuted by a ruthless police force.

And the story stems from a group of the three biggest writers in New Amsterdam.

There's Foe, DJ Cyber and Felix.

And the back story here is that Felix is the only writer to ever have become All City, which means he paints it over all 5 boroughs and essentially ruled over New Amsterdam.

But before the events of our story, Felix was killed mysteriously and you play as Foe who is in a police cell.

And there's this escapee named Trice who helps Foe break out of prison with the goal of starting a new gang in New Amsterdam.

And outside the police station, DJ Cyber shows up who throws a vinyl records at Foe as Foe is escaping alongside Trice that his new friend that they're going to start a gang with.

DJ Cyber throws this vinyl record at Foe and decapitates him.

And it's OK because a red cybernetic head is placed on Foe's body and he is revived with no memories about his past or who he is, but he's still nonetheless a new member of Trice's gang, the Bomb Rush Crew, alongside 1/3 gang member Bell.

So as the crew, your goal is to explore New Amsterdam's open world, challenge the rival gangs that control each of the five boroughs, and strive to become all City.

As in, paint over all the boroughs of the city and take control.

There are many other developments that occur and I won't spoil those, and it sounds like I just said a lot, but actually a lot of what this is is in the first like chapter.

First tutorial.

Level, yeah, a lot of it happens pretty quickly, so I wouldn't consider much of that spoilerish, if anything.

This game anyway.

We'll go to gameplay now.

What do you do in Bomb Rush?

Cyberfunk.

O in bomb rush Cyberfunk you do quite a lot.

Foremost is jumping chucker.

You can do this without a sport tool.

That's what I'm going to call a sport tool, the whole category family.

Of.

Skate, skates, bike and skateboard.

They are sport tools.

Amazing.

You'll have skates to start, but you can also get the skateboard or the BMX bike.

You also have a boost pack that will give you a bit of a double jump, but it also will give you a boost, so more on that in a second.

And you will use these sport tools mostly to platform, but platforming often takes the disguise or the form of largely using half pipes and rails to get around.

All the while you can perform different kinds of tricks on half pipes, rails or while airborne by pressing the different trick buttons.

The more tricks you perform in a combo, the more you fill up your boost meter.

And this is the other thing that the booster pack does and it it just gives you literally a boost.

It's like a rocket propelled backpack.

And boosting while doing tricks within a combo can also lead to a massive score.

So you can use it for score tack, you can use it to reach further distances or just boost your speed.

There are also various kinds of collectibles scattered throughout New Amsterdam.

This will include songs, different outfits, at times different unlockable characters, new graffiti, and you acquire all these by platforming using all of the different pipes and rails.

But your strongest focus for the most part of the game will be tagging the various graffiti points.

And this will be the way you up your Rep points.

And this is the main thing, Rep points being the thing that unlocks the various story progress triggers.

So the more Rep you get in each area, the further and further you get toward challenging the rival gang, right?

That's how I trimmed it down.

That's great.

I think that's awesome.

That really does cover it.

Yeah, This game is pretty recent.

It's released in 2023.

Which is more recent than I thought.

I know.

Feel like I've been hearing about it for the better part of a decade.

If you told me it came out in like 20/19/2018 I would have believed you because I've just heard a lot about it and we this is actually a semi recent addition to our featured game lists.

It wasn't always on there and I forget which one of us suggested it.

I'm.

Sure it was me because I've been dying to play it.

Yeah, if it was, if it was me, you immediately agreed to it.

Like let's put that on the list.

But as I look at Team Reptiles gameography, this is far from their first game.

They've released other just hyper stylized games and they actually revealed that they have a new game coming out.

I don't know if it has a date, but it's it's coming to PC and consoles.

It's called Hyperfunk and it looks a lot like Bomb Rush Cyberfunk.

I'm not going to say how I feel about that.

I'm very interested in it, I'm watching the trailer now like for the first time and it looks looks really cool.

But disco Cola I have a suspicion about what you thought.

Are you looking it up?

I'm looking at the website right now and MB Punch is one of their other games that they have a trailer for and that looks sick.

Yeah, I'm.

Going to check out that trailer immediately after this episode.

MB Punch, Lethal League, Lethal League, Blaze, Bomb Rush, Cyberfunk and now Hyperfunk in their game.

Ography but Disco Cola.

I do have a suspicion about what you thought of this game.

I think you quite enjoyed it, but I don't want to steal the spotlight from you.

What'd you think of this game?

I so I've avoided saying much about bomber cyber funk at all, but like you said, I think that, you know, I love pretty much everything about it and to make an early guess, I kind of think you feel that too, if I'm going to be honest.

But to.

Not me.

Not confirming or denying.

Saying literally nothing on purpose?

Yeah, no.

Spoilers.

But to break it down and the like section is pretty much everything dude.

Was that a DJ pun to break it down?

Let's pretend that it was OK.

Yeah, I love everything about, but pretty much everything about this game.

Wow.

OK, cool.

I didn't went growing up, I didn't get to play too much of the old skateboarding games, but when I did, I got to tell you I loved grinding on rails in those games, Yes, and that is like a majority of the gameplay.

Here you are on rails more than anything else.

Yeah, if you're me at least.

I don't know if you chose a different path that I didn't think of, but.

I mean, yeah, this game does encourage you to do that.

And in those classic sport, what did you call them?

Sport.

Tool action games like your Tony Hawks, which I devoured as a kid.

You are grinding a lot, yes, but you're also going off of ramps, you're in half pipes, you're you're doing all kinds of skate things all the time.

A lot of it is grinding, but I feel like the balance here is way more leaning toward the grinding stuff and I loved doing that in SSX games.

Tony Hawk.

I'm sure there are others.

Just anything where you're on a sport tool and you can you can do a grinds and the game makes it easy to do that because you just hop on a rail and you're grinding in this game.

Yeah, moving on like making combos, gaining momentum, jumping across wide gaps and reaching unthinkable heights feels incredible.

I love doing that.

I, I don't feel like you have to be insanely good at platforming or tricks or timing to keep your combo or momentum going.

I think this game's just like pretty accessible for the most part.

Even if you haven't played skating games, and I haven't played a lot of skating games, I still got into the vibe pretty quick, I feel like.

Yeah.

And it, I think it does simplify things.

So I, I think it can be a little overwhelming to play some of those classic sport tool action games because you can do grabs, you can do flips, you can do special moves, you can grind, you can explore and like you can do a lot of those things here, but your move set is just really streamlined.

So a person new to this idea is going to just like get on board faster.

So yeah, I like seeing a graffiti tag way up high and then just sort of like walking in the street, working my way backwards, following rails and following scaffolding and billboards and trying to figure out how do I get from ground level all the way up to the Franks tag way up on this building.

Yes, there's a joy in that for me.

Yeah, there's this exploration.

That's what I do in a lot of 3D platformers.

If there's a space I want to go to and it's way far away, OK, what are the ingredients to getting there?

How do I break it down?

And I have to swivel the camera around.

I have to do, you know the thing we were talking about where I'm tilting the camera up and I'm trying to find the order of operations to get there?

Yeah, absolutely.

One of my favorite things of all is that this game is actually a platformer.

Like if you recall in the Season 7 finale, I called this a bit of a sports game thinking it would be primarily like Tony Hawk games where you're sort of like score chasing or whatever.

I I know that the better comparison is Jet Set Radio, but like I said, I haven't played that before.

But all this is to say is that it does have all of those Tony Hawk Pro Skater sports tool elements like I expected, including points and combos and tricks.

But it's all mostly a means to platform.

And our primary drive is to use all of the different ramps and rails to platform, and then we can do tricks and gain points along the way if we want to.

But mostly you're just grinding on a rail or getting on a pipe to platform to a new tag.

Yeah, if I was not chasing a score because of a challenge that I had active, which are very specific moments in this game where it asks you to to break a certain score or to get a better score than the NPC within a certain amount of time.

If I wasn't in the middle of one of those, I would still do tricks on my way to platforming because it's just fun to do.

Just because it's fun.

It's very visual.

There's a flair to it.

And I I liked just, you know, on my BMX bike, just doing like a a flip trick where the whole bike spins around.

Just it looks really cool.

It always looks cool.

And then I like the variety of graffiti available to us.

There's various kinds of art styles to accommodate different tastes.

I found myself gravitating more toward the cute graffiti or the more like, I don't know what to call it, like the girl power graffiti.

Anyways, wherever I could conveniently, I would opt for the cuter stuff.

And most of all, I think I love the culture of this game.

I've always been somewhat familiar with the more like white punk and ska side of skateboarding culture, but I've never really been exposed to much of the black hip hop and graffiti side of things.

And I kind of love it.

And this is where I want to go on a slight tangent.

Please do.

I've talked about games that change my DNA, but there's also movies that have done that and one of them is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Mutant Mayhem.

And this largely has to do with like the music, but it it has a lot of that same culture.

So like for most of my life, I've only liked sad dad, indie music and 80's pop and like I sort of shut myself off from a lot of other stuff.

But something shifted when I watched Mutant Mayhem and Bob Rush Cyber Funk is just a lot of that same vibe.

And it's doing a lot for me in broadening my horizons, not only in music, but like culture as a whole.

And so I just, I really want to experience more games and movies with this side of skating culture.

So like this is my way of saying to the audience, I'm open to suggestions, but to make it short, I've just I love the culture of Bob Rush cyber funk.

It's interesting you say that about like skating culture because I've experienced skating media through movies and games quite a lot.

But playing this and seeing the graffiti actually reminded me of more art and graffiti focused media and I thought back to as different of a style of a game that it is.

I thought back to Sludge Life because that game focuses on graffiti quite a bit too.

Yeah, I thought of Sludge life too, and I almost mentioned it in that whole section.

I didn't find a way to connect the dots because I haven't actually played it, but.

Yeah, there's not really a skating culture, but there's like a hip hop culture in that game.

And it, it feels very urban, even though everything's covered in sludge and it's very cartoony and very fictional.

It just feels like it's drawing from that part of our real world.

And it's like plastering that personality over this like really ugly, disheveled place.

It's it's fascinating.

And so when I look at the art in Bomb Rush, it's reminding me of a lot of the graffiti tags that you're seeing in games like that.

And the the graffiti and the music in this and loving that so much has made me even more interested in going back and trying sludge life.

Yeah, and there's a sequel to that, so there are two Sludge Life games, so you can get a lot in there.

And then to close off the like section, I do want to specifically mention the music like it rules like between this desert child lunar Lux cross code and the voice acting in slay the Princess and 1000 times resist and maybe even lost Nova music.

How are you going to pick your?

Favorite.

I don't know how I'm going to pick my favorite soundscape.

I love the tunes and all those games and I really love them in this game.

And I I briefly here want to point out something that they did with the music when it would transition to a new song.

It wouldn't be a simple crossfade.

It wouldn't be a simple on to the next track.

They lined it up so that the upcoming song would match the beat of the current song.

And I want to point to that because I noticed that that's something that some of our KZMD JS have done and I so I specifically want to shout out Miss B, the longtime host of the Kick It session.

She would do the painstaking work to do that every single.

Song.

It's a lot of work.

Every single show.

It seems effortless when you hear it like and sometimes you've you took a film scoring class, I think in college.

And one thing that you learned is that sometimes film scoring, effective film scoring is scoring that you don't even notice this happening.

Like you are not watching the movie and thinking in real time.

Oh, I'm listening to that score and I'm noticing that score rather like more effective scoring is you feel an emotion or you're just like you're invested, you're immersed in the film and you don't even realize the score is helping you do that.

And when you listen to a show like Miss B is, you're hearing that happened so seamlessly and you stay engaged.

You just want to keep listen.

You don't want to turn the dial off, right?

Because it doesn't feel like there's a good time to end.

You feel immersed, you feel engaged.

And I, you know, for as many times as I might have listened to to Kick it session, I actually actively saw her like lining up the beats with button presses to get that transition just right.

And it's an incredible, it looks like an incredibly challenging thing to me.

And so this game focused on something that true and proper DJ specifically, maybe even hip hop DJs do.

And that's impressive that they had that attention to detail in something as simple as transitioning from one song to the next.

And that's reinforcing just one aspect, one slice of hip hop culture.

Just like in in tiny moments throughout this whole game, you're getting that over and over.

Yeah, I love that.

So big shout out there to the team and to misby.

I'm going to flip the coin here.

Talk about things I didn't like as much.

It'll be very brief.

I don't really understand how to get the multiplier to function properly.

Like I can get a combo going and basically keep it going forever no problem.

But as far as like getting the actual multiplier to maximize my points in the end, I was struggling at the end because like the multiplier will make all the difference in those point battles at the end, yes.

And I just, I couldn't quite nail it.

I I definitely have stuff to say on this.

I think I'll wait a moment, but I I know exactly what you're talking about.

Yeah.

I don't like the combat sections with the cops specifically the one cop like her outfit and you know her whole look is like mega dope.

She looks awesome.

She's got this like a giant silo shaped pack on her back and she looks like a badass.

But I don't enjoy the encounters because I think the combat itself is lacking in the momentum that we're actively in at all.

Other times it's just sort of like slow and it kind of breaks up the game in a way I don't enjoy.

You can be on your way to something and a police officer can like, hit you and you fall off of your your skateboard or whatever, or you unequip your sport tool and it just really does ruin the flow.

Yeah.

Another thing, I wish we could open the graffiti guide after we've already triggered the little like graffiti mini game.

Instead, what we have to do is sort of plan ahead to make sure that we've got our phone open to the one that we want to perform or have it memorized.

Oh yeah, the the memorization is the thing that I thought of, but I didn't think of having the phone open on the design so that you have a little CHEAT SHEET.

Yeah, I would have times where it's like I keep accidentally because it's just like I'm going really fast and I just got to re tag it.

So I'll just like, accidentally pick.

Any direction and like you can re tag things with new art, but sometimes you get that one shot to get a billboard and then you're you fall down and then you'd have to do the whole platforming section again.

Some of those re tags really long.

So you cared about that a lot?

I cared about it to a point.

There were times where it was like it was way too hard to get up here and I don't whatever is up there is staying up there.

But there were times where it's like.

I've used the same for accidentally in my last several tags so.

It's all going to look the same.

Uniform, and it's not even one of my favorites.

So having your phone open before you actually start the tagging is the way to like, have that guide in front of you, but you can't open your phone while you're already actively tagging.

That makes sense.

Yeah, I, I honestly didn't care.

I like, there were a lot of times where I just randomly selected, you know, I just, and I would try to think like, I don't think I've done this combination in a while.

And then I'd be like, oh, I just did that.

One exactly.

And then lastly, this is a small complaint, but also kind of not.

If there is a completion bonus, I don't have a good idea of what it is.

I do automatically feel compelled to nab all the graffiti tags.

Like that's something I want to do.

I want to get all the songs, I want to get all the collectibles.

But like.

How do you track that?

Well, I guess.

It tracks it.

It does track the number.

Is there a point other than my own self satisfaction that makes that effort worth it?

Like do I get something at the end of it for tagging everything?

I don't know.

I have, you know what?

There's something in me that says no, that you don't get anything.

I don't know why.

I I'm not basing that on any real concrete evidence.

I just have this gut feeling that you don't.

Yeah, I know.

I did look into it a little bit, but I didn't get the answer for like what is necessary to get some of these because there's unlockable characters that I didn't get and I don't know what goes into unlocking them specifically.

And it one of them is like an important character, so I don't know if that's like the completion bonus.

It does make sense because I was finding outfit collectibles for like question mark, question mark, question mark, and I just thought, oh, that's a character that will unlock.

Oh, I guess maybe it could be a character I unlocked.

A lot of the ones I found were for like story based unlocks.

Like the Angel guy?

Yeah, OK.

But I don't.

I don't know if there is a completion bonus.

I don't know it.

And I would love to know what that is.

I would love for the game to have told me what that is.

Yeah.

Even though I wanna do all these things anyway because it's fun.

I just.

I wanna know that there's something at the end.

Does that make sense?

It does, yeah.

Like, you wanna know what you're getting into?

You wanna know is that gonna be worth it?

You wanna know what you wanna be excited about?

Yeah, yeah.

But.

I get it, yeah.

To conclude, I love bomb rush cyber funk.

The only time I'm not really having fun is when I can't quite figure out how to get up to a graffiti spot that is really high up or maybe even behind a wall that seems insurmountable.

I am driving with every other aspect of the game.

The gameplay, the music, the look of it, the crazy ball story, the music, the grinding, the collectibles, the character design, the platforming challenges, the music.

The only thing I can think of that keeps this from a 10 is maybe the nebulous aspects of the point system and maybe even the lack of in game motivation to complete the wrap and collectibles.

Otherwise this is a bomb ass game.

I love it.

I give bombers cyber funk a 9.5 out of 10.

Amazing.

I'm so glad you loved this.

I didn't expect you to actually love it this much.

Really.

Yeah.

I mean, I thought you would like it.

I thought it would be somewhere between.

I don't even know if I'd want to guess a score, but I thought, I guess I expected you to really, really, really like it.

I didn't expect you to like love it this much.

I will say I liked Bomb Rush, Cyber Funk.

I didn't love it.

Oh no.

Yeah, no, but I'm still very positive on it.

So hold on, let me, let me talk.

I thought for sure that you would love it, but.

Yeah, so I thought so too.

But my overall thoughts?

This game is bananas.

This game's wild.

Here's what I liked the visuals.

I really like the cell shaded style with all these bright colors and crazy outfits.

I love the visual identity of this.

Just seeing the cybernetic head on this human body that's iconic.

Like that is an indelible image to me.

The look of the city is cool.

I think it feels futuristic, but also like not too distant.

So feels pretty much of this world, maybe a little bit into the future.

And then with some tech that's pretty wild, like the the boost packs, the jet packs and stuff, you know, people aren't just walking around cities with those on.

But then also I guess we have big mechanical things that we see later, which is really fun.

But the characters are full of personality too.

I really like Trice as this cool as hell gang member who breaks you out of the police station.

And whenever you encounter your bomb rush crew out and about, they're like dancing.

People are dancing everywhere.

The rival gangs are like doing these hip hop dances.

The music is full of bops.

You already expressed that perfectly.

The speed and maneuverability I think feels really great.

I find that it's very easy to aim your jumps and there are so many times where you drop from a high place and you need to find a rail to grind.

And I just never had difficulty with landing that.

And it's just tuned really well, like a fine-tuned 3D platformer.

It's great.

It it feels like a dream to control this.

I would, if I had to nitpick, I'd maybe want our default speed to be just a tiny bit fast, just a hair faster.

Are you talking about default sport tool speed or default sport tool speed sport?

Tool speed, but also I'd take faster walking.

Speed too, but I was actually curious, is it faster being on the bike then on the skateboard?

It almost seemed that way.

I'm going to tell you a little secret.

You didn't play, never used the bike.

Did you use?

The skates I used the skateboard and most of the time I used the skates, OK.

Most of the time I used.

The bike, I never touched it.

I wanted to.

Try all of them I.

Played a couple chapters.

With just the skateboard.

And then I was like, you know what, I should just pull out the bike, see what happens.

It would make sense just from a like physics perspective.

But I don't know.

And it also felt like when I got trapped by the police, like the chains that.

Grab you on the bike.

I didn't get stopped as much.

Interesting.

Maybe I don't have me.

I might go try that.

I don't know if the stats are actually.

Different, but pull out a stopwatch, no?

I didn't do that, no.

It'd be interesting to.

Do that, but I didn't go.

To that those lengths, but yeah, I love how this game feels the dream sequences in this game.

There are dream sequences in Bomb Rush, Cyber Funk, and I think these are my favorite times in the game.

Interesting.

Yes, because I think these have some of the most satisfying.

Platforming.

Ideas.

They feel special.

You don't get many of them, but when they do happen, it feels like this game is going a little bit Psychonauts.

It feels like the game is becoming a Tory game for a second actually.

Like a just a faster paced platforming platformer.

And I, I want a whole game where we're just doing that.

Personally, I would love that, where we take a break from the score challenges and stuff and just trying to find the tag spots.

I would love a game just focused on these really cool playgrounds of dreamlike ideas.

Really weird constructions of like buildings and vehicles and rails that we're grinding on for some reason.

And then I get to some things that I didn't enjoy as much.

I actually have a handful of mostly smaller frustrations, so nothing here is derailing my experience.

Pun, thank you, intended Ding.

But added.

Up they do kind of effects my score for the game and I think like chief among the dislikes would be that while this game feels great, the overall idea of what bomb rush cyber funk has to offer feels a little bit stale for me before the ends.

Some of this has to do with the facts that there's a recognizable formula in all the chapters that announces itself and you just kind of get into that rhythm and you can marathon this game retty easily.

Like you get into the groove with it, but it's not doing a whole lot different other than changing the environment.

And like, you know to expect after a certain amount of time that you're going to have to find graffiti spots and tag them so that you get your wrap up, so that you get the attention of the rival gang.

So that you face off against one of them where they do a sequence of jumps and grinds and you have to mimic them.

Another one will go in a score attack against you.

You have to beat them.

You do all those challenges, then you do the team battle, then you do a boss battle.

And like, those are a lot of steps, but it's a loop that's like identical, like every chapter pretty much.

And so I'm feeling the staleness a little bit there, but I'm also feeling staleness because we don't get any unlockable additional moves or abilities.

Everything you do unlock is cosmetic, and I don't always care about that a super ton.

To the game's credit, it is streamlining the idea of being on a sports tool, but if the game is like 8 to 10, maybe more hours of that, it starts to feel a little bit tired for me by the end.

I also think the tricks in the point system are again, straightforward, kind of basic, despite a huge part of the game leaning on them.

And I find that it's so odd that much of your score depends on a very specific action that you need to always keep in mind when you need to chase a high score.

And that's leaning into corners.

That's the thing that builds up your combo more than anything else.

And to me, in a game that's about graffiti and skating slash riding a bike around, that's weird to me that you need to go out of your way to like grind and hit corners and lean into them.

That's really what multiplies your score.

And I, I just, I don't know if I necessarily agree with that.

I wish I got more points for throwing in tricks.

You do get points, but it's pretty minimal in the grand scheme of things.

So that's maybe going against my Tony Hawk lizard brain from growing up.

Like I'm used to all these ingredients to a score adding up and informing the score.

And it really just feels like if you're not hitting those corners and getting boosts while grinding specifically, your score is not going to be good enough.

And then I would say that the combat feels really button mashy and boring.

This is kind of building off of what you said, but I would I'd go a step beyond and say that like enemies are sponges.

They take so many hits to defeat.

There's no like good feedback when you're doing it either.

That's another thing I was going to.

Say I swear there are no sound.

Effects that happened when you hit enemies.

When that is in a game, you don't really notice it and you're feeling an impact without realizing.

You know that it's necessarily the sound effects doing that.

But when the sound effects are absent, there is something very strange about that, that you're doing this action, you're fighting something and it's not giving you a sound.

Also, the police machines that like trap you, they shoot chains at you and you try to break free and then they shoot more chains.

You can try to break free all you want, but you're just going to keep getting hit by those chains unless you let the thing capture you and break free of the chains and then tag that thing, which I didn't even find out until like several chapters in.

Yeah, I.

Didn't even do.

That evading that is such an annoying thing.

And there was a time I tried to download the video that I captured from the PlayStation app because I did save a video of it, but the video had like a glitch and I couldn't download it to my phone.

But I had a moment.

I'll try to send this to you.

I got attached to these chains.

I'm skating away.

I went around a corner of a building and the chains were still attached to me through this big building.

That doesn't surprise me and it's just like I can't get.

Away from this stuff and it's just.

So annoying.

I think the police encounters are just, they just get in the way, they slow things down, they ruin the flow of the game I think.

And then navigating the phone menu to select the map and select other things.

It just felt clumsy to me.

I didn't like always pulling that open and I didn't always like how limited my map view was on the phone.

So I have a lot of nitpicks, a lot of tinier complaints, but I think Bomb Rush Cyber Funk is full of really fun personality.

It has a rhythm and a loop that becomes recognizable, but it's also mostly a breeze to play through.

It doesn't remain absolutely fresh the entire time, but it's always unapologetically weird.

It feels great to control.

I did have a lot of fun with this.

I'm going to give it an 8 out of 10.

That's what I guessed.

OK, perfect.

So I'm glad I expressed myself.

Accurately.

There on that, but I wanted to just compare some things to what I remember from Tony hawk games.

One thing I appreciate is that you know this game really wants you to grind on stuff and I remember in Tony Hawk games you would have to press a button to activate a grind.

In this you just hop on stuff to grind.

And I never missed that feeling of like needing to press the button because I feel like that would have been super annoying.

Something I thought of too that helps to speed up the game.

Is that if you are on the ground sans sport tool and you jump on a rail, your sport tool automatically equips and you start grinding.

I love that.

Yeah, I love that.

Also in Bomb Rush Cyber.

Funk you don't wipe out, you might unequip your sports tool, you might get hit by the police and you might get sent flying in the air and you land you know down and you need to hit a bumper button to re equip your skateboard if you want to skate away if you fall in a pit like that's the longest you're going to have to wait to get exactly but.

In Tony Hawk games, you can't just spam.

Trick buttons and expect to stay on your board, you'll wipe out.

You have to be mindful about how much time you have in the air to do a graph trick.

For instance, in this game, you can just spam the buttons and when you hit the ground during a flip trick, the animation just cancels and you keep moving.

So I like the the seamlessness there.

And it's going back to that idea of streamlining the idea of a sports action genre.

I feel like there would be a lot more frustrations if you're being chased by the police and you're trying to grind on stuff to get to really high tag spots and every so often you're hitting one too many buttons and you're falling off.

That would be incredibly frustrating.

And so I really like that that part specifically is streamlined for us.

Another thing is like one thing that's in common between the games is that there's a huge emphasis on getting high scores.

So in Tony Hawk levels, like often you'll have to chase a high score within a certain amount of time, and we do that here.

Another thing that's streamlined here is if we want to do like a wheelie or a manual on a skateboard, we just hold a button down.

I remember in Tony Hawk games, you'd have to do this thing where you flip your stick up and down to do a manual, and that felt kind of fun, you know?

But I also like just holding down that trigger, especially when I'm in the heat of like trying to maintain a combo.

And I want to like, did you find yourself doing that?

Oh yeah, There were so like the little robo post challenges.

Yes, there's a lot where it's like you, you have to like you have to do that.

Did you make it work?

Did you do all those?

Not all of them, but most of them.

You did most of them.

There were some that had like 9.

Or 11 of them.

And I was.

Like no, that's not happening.

I don't even know where half both of them are.

Yeah, the I can only think of one right now off the top of my.

Head, I haven't finished and it's because I don't know where all of them are.

Yeah.

So there's some I imagine I would have to look up a guide.

For and a lot of times it unlocks like either a cosmetic or I think like an elevator where that you can take down to a bottom floor so that you have a quick access to where you just were.

I want to talk about the tagging choices too.

Before we get there, I want to talk about a couple of things that I noticed.

In your complaints section that I didn't necessarily have and I want to explain how I played the game to avoid those.

So when I am playing bomber cyber.

Funk.

Whenever possible, instead of like trying to progress the story at every point that the option becomes available, what I'm focusing on is reaching every Rep point I possibly can.

And especially if it's in a section of the game where you can tag stuff and you won't get any heat, because there are points in this game where heat just isn't a thing.

Like cops don't come after you, right?

It's only when you're working on the most recent.

Chapter and in that area related to that chapter where heat can build but after a certain point.

After a certain point, yeah.

Even then, sometimes it's like I'm getting.

Like 100 something Rep before police or even an option.

Sure.

So we're talking about the part of the loop where you first enter an.

Area there's a rival gang and you need to sort of like get their attention yeah.

By getting some Rep yeah and at that point the police are not going to build up they're not going to chase you because you're not gaining heat yet yeah.

It's after you do the challenges with the rival gang that the heat starts to build.

And so this because I played like this, I avoided 2 of your complaints.

One the police, even though when police is an option, I am always like aware of where the closest changing room is essentially you can get around it.

Yeah, you can go reset that heat and I'll I'll usually only do.

Like 2 tags before I'm like OK I'm going to go.

Go here real quick.

It's smart.

I would get up to heat like 5.

Never even got there.

Oh yeah, there.

Are guys that shoot at you and stuff, but also I feel like there are times where you.

Can't get every.

Tag because you need to progress that area and then you start building up more heat anyway.

Like you're going to build up some heat at some point.

And I wasn't always near a changing room and that heat builds up fast sometimes.

And so that's why I got to heat.

Like I think it's only like 3 or 4 where the turrets start showing up.

And those annoyed me before I figured out how to dispatch them.

I thought that you just had to live with them, and I think that's the game also, not necessarily clearly explaining.

Yeah, I didn't that until you told me.

I didn't know I could tag those things.

I.

Found out by complete accident.

I just had to let one grab me and I was mashing.

Buttons.

I mashed, I hit R1 at some point and I got the prompt to tag it.

I was like whoa.

And when I tagged it, it became deactivated.

Not permanently, but for enough time for me to get away.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Well, anyways, all of that is to say that like.

By tagging as much as I possibly can first, I avoided a lot of police encounters, but also avoided some of that staleness that you're talking about because for me, I'm basically doing one right after the other after the other where possible.

Sometimes they unlock more of the level once you interact with that challenge.

I was trying to get all the tags I could too.

You know, I I love crossing off all the side tasks before the main thing I was trying to do that and I was still building up the heat.

I think I just didn't understand everything about that aspects.

But also I probably didn't have as much patience for the extra complicated tags.

It's like the ones that require like a path that you can't even see or that isn't even near where you are.

And I found that there were some tags that I thought were a little unreasonable.

I had to look one U there's there about 3 or 4 that I did that.

I was like I was a little.

Much.

Yeah, like there's and I only got lucky because I got a lucky jump.

I'm thinking of like.

Millennium.

Park there's there's the tall building.

With the Billboard, that's like the ultimate one in this area, but the way you get to it is a super specific pathway far away and you have to grind on billboards and rails all around the city and it's like circumnavigates you around to finally the building you're jumping on vents and all kinds of stuff.

And it's like I, I never would have.

I've been able to figure that out on my own.

I had to look that up.

Yeah, there are several.

There are several and there was like 1 so.

Like if you have your phone open and you're just walking around, sometimes there will be waypoints in the distance and it'll point to either story points or graffiti points that are still open.

And for the longest time, the only one I was missing in the first borough was like behind this wall.

And I was like, none of the rails or vents or buildings I've seen.

I don't think I can even cheat those to jump over this wall that I can't jump on.

And it wasn't until I was like just kind of screwing around, just giving it one LastPass before I gave up on it, realized that, oh, I have to like slide under something, which is something that we don't use a ton, but we use sometimes.

And that never like never would have occurred to me.

I know.

So just some things are not going to occur to you.

There are.

Paths that lead you to entire like secret areas in this game and you just have to know where exactly to grind, where to climb, where to jump to in a very specific corner of a map.

And if you don't find that, you're missing out on this whole section.

So I I guess that would be like another complaint.

I didn't really touch on, I think those points that sometimes show up that show you either a quest or a graffiti spot, those should always be on by default.

And I found that I only had those unlocked for one area, and it's because I found an item that unlocks them on your map.

Oh, interesting.

I mean, I had those.

I don't remember collecting that.

But I remember, I don't know, this is another thing the game wasn't.

Explaining I feel, but I I feel like I picked something up in Millennium Park and that unlocked map markers.

That's the only way I didn't always have them.

I picked this thing up and then map markers showed up just for that area.

So I feel like every area has Oh yes, there's like some sort of map item in there.

There's like a.

Map that you pick up and I only found it in one of the.

Areas in the game, so I didn't explore that well, I guess.

Yeah, I think I had all of them.

I don't know I I was never struggling to find.

Map markers.

Interesting.

Yeah, I could only find the one and I'm pretty thorough with exploring.

Like, I played this game for a good eight hours.

I, you know, didn't try to speed run it.

But yeah, I just think that stuff should always be on because you still have to do the the challenge of getting to the place.

Like, that's the challenge.

I think there was a time early, early on where it was like, I don't know.

Which direction to go to get to the next borough, but that was shortly alleviated.

I I do like the map pings.

You open the map and it just show.

It drops like a ping circle thing in the direction you need to go.

I was using that all the time.

It was great for the tagging choices.

You know, you said you had the phone open sometimes as a cheat code.

You said you did like a certain style of tagging, like the the cute gentler designs.

I wanted to make sure I used every single tag at least one time.

But like, when I could, I was gravitating toward that stuff.

Yeah, I was mostly randomly doing them, but I would try to again vary things up.

And I really liked the one with, it's like the yellow guy with the crazy arms.

Lefou.

Yeah, that was the one I did on accident the most.

Yeah.

I would I would try to input like a new.

Code and I'd be like, oh, it's Lefou again.

I must really like that one and I liked the design of that.

I would take that as like a bumper sticker.

Oh, that'd be cool.

Magnets from this game or bumper stickers.

I wonder if they already did that.

They might have the time passed.

Dang.

It.

And then like, I liked how you said the culture of the game earlier.

You use that phrase that made me think of all these moments where we're getting to know the gangs.

And I like the intro to Chapter 5, like the gang called Futurism.

It's like the femme group and we're getting a little snapshot of them as we're hearing about them.

All the dialogue in this game is just text.

There's no like spoken nothing more than like, Nah, man, right.

A couple, a couple little.

Flourishes.

Yes.

And someone says about futurism.

These girls.

They are cyber as hell.

You know, there's a lot of fun dialogue in the game.

Yeah.

Oh man, what did they they said Frank's have like.

Varied roots or something.

And I was like, nice, yeah.

And just like the character, just the DJ, Flesh Prince was like, not at all what I was expecting.

I like Walt so hard.

And we had we have to go back to Flesh Prince at one point.

So good and so like all the I want a game or ATV show episode about each of the gangs basically, Yeah.

Anything else to say about?

Bomb Rush Cyber.

Funk, I know, like we're not touching on what happens in the story, but, you know, you said you liked the story.

I thought the story was pretty gripping and very interesting and memorable.

I I don't know if there's any more to say without, like, spoiling stuff.

Yeah, I didn't.

I didn't see it coming really, honestly.

And that's a, that's a compliment.

You know, I will say if I may, without spoiling, I just.

Want to try to say this like as mysteriously as possible.

I know what happens, but if you asked me to like verbally tell you, I would get a little like brain twisted because it's like this thing on this thing, but then later it's this thing on this thing.

Do you know what I'm talking about?

I thought I did, but now I don't.

Basically like.

If I think of all the parts and pieces and where they are, but then where they actually are, I get it.

But I would not be able to coherently summarize it without referencing a wiki entry on the story and being like, Oh yeah, that's right.

It's it's just there's a lot of like twists and turns, I guess.

Yeah, I liked.

I liked what ultimately became.

The final boss and what I thought was going to be the final boss was ultimately not in a great way, in my opinion.

There's something about it feels like turncoat, but.

It's not really like turncoat.

Right, there's something about, may I say this.

Who you play as?

Yeah, what you play as, That's very surprising.

We'll just.

Leave it at that.

About that.

Yeah.

When you step back through and it's like, oh, that's where we started anyway, it's a fascinating game.

I guess we'll call it there.

Sure.

You had a very positive experience with this any.

Like final.

Words from you So I played this on my junk profile because I looked at the.

Trophy list and I don't know, maybe even the completion rate.

And I was like, I don't know if I'm up for that, but I might do it again, might do it again.

I don't know.

I'll have to double check.

I have to double check the trophies.

I think of all the games that you could do that with that we've featured.

Where you could go back and like just do it all again and try to go for that 100%.

I think this would be fun.

This.

Yeah, that it's possibly a good one that I still haven't doing it once.

Yeah, I still haven't found all the graffiti spots or even close to them, but I I'm willing.

Yeah, well, that's our review of Bomb.

Rush Cyber Funk.

You can play it on PC, Switch, PS4, PS 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series.

Disco Cola rated it a 9.5.

I rated it an 8.

That's the end of this episode of Underplayed.

You can find more of our episodes at kzum.org/underplayed and on common podcast platforms like Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

Our music was composed by Jack Rodenberg.

Our art comes from Oni Mochi.

Check out our show notes where you can find and follow us across social media.

Under Plate is on Blue Sky, Instagram and Threads.

You can also find my links down below and I stream a variety of indie games on Twitch and I am at Disco Cola in all of those places, including.

Twitch where maybe I will finally play Digimon Story time stranger.

That's the one that came out this year.

That's the one that just came out and I've been looking forward to it for SO.

Long and I haven't touched it yet.

You can also check out one last reminder.

We have an open Google Doc for you to submit any questions you have about any of the games that we covered or any of the guests.

I don't know how we would answer any questions about guests, but we can to our due diligence.

We might evolve that to just being more of an open-ended.

Form that people can just ask about any game like past or present or future maybe, OK, we can talk about that.

We can talk about just so that it's a little bit.

More Evergreen, but.

I don't know.

We'll, we'll talk about maybe how to get that out there.

We could put a link to it in the show notes, you know, just for easier finding.

So we'll talk about maybe how to do that for next season, but next time we'll be reflecting on all the games of Season 8 and we will plan our featured game roster for Season 9.

We'll also announce all of our Ucoming guests.

Very exciting stuff.

Until then, everyone keep on playing.