Tiers of the Kingdom: Sony First Party Games

This is a head gun podcast.

Hey, buddy.

So you might be expecting to hear our Metaphor Refantasio episode for this week, as promised, our We Play, you play.

Unfortunately, something happened involving me.

I got put on a jury.

So I've been at a trial and I've been unable to get into the studio and record.

This is 100% true.

So we couldn't do it this episode this week.

And so what we did, we're doing instead, we are going to do a metaphor episode.

It'll just be delayed by one week.

It'll be coming out a week from today, if you're hearing this on release day.

And so it'll be the first episode of December.

And for this week, what we're doing is we're releasing a new episode, but it was something that we recorded in the past to release in the future, if all that makes sense.

Not to get too granular with our record schedule, but sometimes we'll bank an episode so we have something just in case a situation like this arises.

So, yeah, so unfortunately, no metaphor episode right now, but fortunately, we'll have even more time with this sprawling, dense JRPG, and we will release that for you next week.

We play, you play, Metaphor Refantasio with the Triforce of Friendship.

Right now, enjoy this episode of our Sony first-party tier list.

All right, look.

We here at Sony know this industry works.

Yes, the PlayStation 5 is still in its prime, but we got to get ahead of it.

We got to start planning its successor, the PlayStation 6.

Now, look, there's been a lot of talk among the top brass.

The PlayStation 1, the PlayStation 2, the PlayStation 3, these all had iconic startup sounds.

Can we hear the PlayStation 1 startup sound?

A classic.

Sounds like a memory.

How about the PlayStation 2 one?

You're about to have a great time to hear that.

And hey, PlayStation 3 startup sound.

At least the original.

Gorgeous, just gorgeous stuff.

A masterpiece.

We need to match the beauty of those, the majesty of those,

the onboarding, the curtain opening of those for an experience of those.

And I think that we in this room can collectively figure that out.

So, what is the PlayStation 6 startup sound going to be?

Yeah, it has to sound like you're playing a video game, but also it can't just be just a video game.

It has to be a work of art.

You are going up a roller coaster while the sun is rising.

Yeah.

Hey, uh, hi, Dougette is my name, and I saw the memo for this meeting, so I came prepared

because

I want to hit the ground running with this.

I love it.

I love the initiative.

Thank you so much.

So I have a proposal for the startup sound of the PlayStation 6.

Unfortunately, my

audio tools crashed on the way here.

So, what I need from you guys is just a little patience.

What I'm going to do is I'm going to.

So, I have the sound.

I know the sound, but I'm going to have to lay it out like producer style, where I give you the bass line, the midsection, the treble, the percussion, and the punctuation beats.

And then I would love my audio engineer over here to combine those all the ads so you guys can hear what it sounds like.

That sounds like a live Reggie Watts performance.

Yeah, can I ask you just real quick?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Would you not do that and just come back with a completely?

I want to hear what Doug Ed did because I think we'll find out how the sausage is made in real time.

I think this will

sonically

introduce us to this in its full glory.

Well, so everybody knows that Good PlayStation Sound has a really good baseline.

So I want you to imagine you turn on your console and the first thing you hear is that low rumble and it sounds like this.

So that's like that baseline on it.

Okay, so, but then you also got these like medium bits that are always, always sparkly, you know, because it's like, oh, what's that is calling you?

And it's mystery.

So in the middle, you got this sound that's like this.

That's the sound that's in the middle of the of this of the startup sound.

Then you also have these sci-fi elements that uh that that draw you in and tell you that you're about to uh experience a world unseen

so that for that I've got this like it comes in right before the bass line is

and then you go into bass line and at the end you go out with a

In case that's just at the beginning and the tail end of the sound.

And then you've always got that high note,

that sunlight at the top of the of the of the

roller coaster, right?

I've never been.

So you

you got that high note that it's just inspiring, and that note goes like this:

And that makes you feel like I can do anything on the PlayStation 6.

So why don't we hit, why don't we hit all those sounds together and you guys can hear what the PlayStation 6 starts up sounds like.

I'm bleeding.

I'm bleeding.

So, is that good or is that bad?

Everyone else bleeding?

We're all bleeding?

Are you wearing a Baskin-Robbins uniform?

How did you get anything?

Well, I'm on my break.

We rank Mean Dads and Twist Metal as we make our tier list of Sony exclusive franchises this week on Get Played.

Welcome to Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between.

It's time to get played.

I'm your host, host, Heather Ann Campbell, along with your fellow host, Nick Weiger.

That's me, your fellow host, Nick Weiger.

I'm here with your fellow host, Matt Apodaka.

Hello, everyone.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the premiere video game podcast, where this week we are talking tears.

We're talking tears.

We're talking tears.

We're talking tears.

Not those kind of tears.

And in fact, I would say wipe those tears away and put a smile on your face, young man, because we are approaching the Christmas season.

Okay, Nick's about to turn his damn car around.

Don't understand the nice list.

Oh, shit.

You got

to bend the ear of the big man?

Yeah, I got authority.

Oh, my God.

Nick, put the cup down.

I'm doing fine.

The way you're holding the cup, you're gesturing too much with the cuff in hand.

Nick has a head gum mug in hand.

I picture it smashed against the wall any second.

He also filled it to the brim with eggnog.

It's like right at the line.

To be fair, what I saw was a cup full of brandy, splash of eggnog.

Two, well,

not to get into this too much.

Yeah.

I think two of the worst flavored things to combine together.

No.

Eggnog tastes bad and brandy tastes bad.

No, no, no, no, no.

No, no, no.

We stay in eggnog on this podcast.

It's one of the best.

It is one of the best consumable beverages that has ever been invented.

Not even one of these.

It's egg.

I was like, that doesn't bother me.

Like that's that's fine.

It's the nog part?

No, it's just the overall flavor of it doesn't doesn't work for me.

Let me tell you a story about how they don't have eggnog in Holland, right?

So I had to learn how to make eggnog myself.

Wow, I've never actually wanted to go to Holland more in my life.

Now that I know I could avoid this drink seasonally.

And I looked up a recipe and it involves egg.

You know, you fill a pot with egg

and then you slowly bring it up to temperature.

What they don't tell you is that if it goes above the temperature it's supposed to be, it instantaneously turns into a pot of scrambled eggs, the entire thing.

And the stench of cinnamon scrambled eggs

in an apartment that was like smaller than this room.

Yeah, one of the worst smells of my entire life.

And you're on a budget and you're just taking a dozen eggs and jumping them into the trash.

Yeah, devastated.

Devastated.

This is a good story.

No, I said it's it's a story.

Okay.

I thought you were trying to bring me on.

So that be thankful that somebody is doing the hard work and making it consumable.

Be thankful here in the States that you can go to a grocery store on probably

November 1st and get a good nog.

I'm kind of neutral on Nog.

Yeah, I don't really find myself craving the Nog all that often.

Ranchia, our producer, Rochelle,

do you like an egg nog?

I don't think I've ever had eggnog.

What the fuck?

Do you know what?

You You know what it is?

I actually don't.

It's a Christmas.

I never thought of it.

It is a.

I gotta jump on this grenade here.

It is a Christmas beverage that is the consistency of melted ice cream.

So it's thick.

It is dairy-based, usually, though you can get it like in oat-based or soy-based or whatever.

And the fundamental palate of the drink is sweet with cinnamon, nutmeg,

cloves.

That sounds amazing.

Yeah, it's like a melted milkshake.

It sounds amazing, but it typically sucks.

No, that doesn't.

It does not.

It's kind of like just drinking waffle batter in a way.

It's like kind of like,

you know,

it's a weird experience.

I am not like, I don't, I've never, I never do it boozy.

Like, I like, I just, like, that's not, I think I'd rather do like a hot toddy if I want to do like a seasonal shit.

Wow, that's good.

Yeah.

Or like a muled wine.

Yeah, mulled wine.

Yeah, that's fine.

Yeah, why why not both both of those are fine but if you're you know if you're heather and you're 10 and you really want to do christmas right you get christmas crunch from captain crunch which is the red and green captain crunch you fill a bowl with christmas crunch and then you fill it with eggnog and you eat both of them together and you have never been uh more happy, more excited, more bouncing off the fucking walls during the holiday season.

I'm, you have no,

let me just preface this.

And let me just say this:

you have no idea how happy I am for you that you had that experience.

That sounds like, to me, an absolute nightmare.

Not only am I drinking bad drinks, my mouth is now filled with my own blood because of the sharp Crapt and Crunch.

All right, let's not go too hard on it Captain Crunch.

I say Captain Crunch, stolen valor.

I'm pointing at a camera.

He served.

What's great also

about Nog as a cereal component is that the crunch doesn't go down because it does not get soggy because the viscosity of the Nog is so intense.

Oh, that's interesting.

No sog with the Nogg.

Yeah, so it doesn't get no sog with the Nog.

Unless you hit like a thin, like a shitty thin Nog, I'm sure it would

bring it down.

But like,

extra thick, like the way you made it, that thing's not getting wet at all.

No, no, no, yeah, no, no, nobody eats, nobody don't

catch and crunch eggnog omelette.

God

sounds awful.

I hated hearing that.

I'm just describing what has been said.

It is the holiday season, and we're approaching the year's end.

And that means our year-end games of this year episode, the goat season, is just around the corner.

So that'll be up in a couple weeks.

We're coming up on Goatsea season.

So, and we will.

What a time of year.

What a time of year.

Anyway, so we will be talking games of the year,

games of this Year in just a couple of weeks now.

For the first time, we're going to do a listener pick for Game of the Year.

We've done

the special episode, this year-end episode, a few years in a row now.

But for the first time, we are letting y'all who listen to the podcast vote, and you can vote for that over in our Discord.

So we'll be doing that for the next few weeks, and then we will announce that on our year-end episode.

Also, for those of you who don't know what our Discord is, I think, you know, sometimes you skip over the end credits of a podcast.

We'll say what it is right here.

It's discord.gg slash get played.

That's our Discord.

That's how you vote.

Yeah, hop on in and join there.

It's a nice little community.

It's really, really great.

Get some great mods.

Shout out to our mods.

Shout out to the mods, by the way.

Thank you for your service.

That's right.

Not stolen Valor like that damn Captain Crunch.

All right.

Cappin'?

He's capping, that's for sure.

Since we're approaching the year, the end of the year, we thought we'd talk about some of our favorite games from this past year.

It's time for what were you playing?

What were you playing?

It's me, the Resident Evil Merchant, and I'm here to think about the year in review.

Another zone is on the stone and another run.

Okay.

Not at all a Christmas song.

No connection to the holiday season.

Can I also say, to piggyback off of what Dick is saying, not the words, not any words.

Where the song has words?

Songs typically have words, unless they're instrumental pieces.

Another fog

That's okay, that's it.

I hope you had a bleed of your life.

Okay, that's pretty good.

Yeah, that's pretty good.

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This is an absolutely true story.

One time I was in Japan and I had my cell phone with me, but I was

following somebody around in the city and having a good time.

And then they locked me on a roof of a skyscraper because they were a crazy person.

That's a true story.

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I eventually got off that roof when the sun rose.

I want to know what you guys were playing this year.

Nick Weger, what are you playing?

Resident Evil Merchant, thanks so much for asking.

I thought I'd talk about a game, an indie game from August, that I really, really enjoyed.

And

that

I'm not sure where it will end up, if it will end up on my year-end list.

It might be my best of the year list.

It might end up being an honorable mention, but it was certainly a game that I really, really treasured that came out

and

I'm really glad I played through.

It was the Crimson Diamond.

This is a solo project from Toronto-based artist and designer Julia Minamata.

And this is a throwback Sierra/slash LucasArts adventure game, but you know,

a pre-mouse design.

It uses text parser input.

So instead of clicking on a drawer, you type in open drawer and so forth.

And part of the fun is figuring out what you can and can't do.

It also has some quality of life enhancements that I talked about when I brought this up previously when we talked about the game to make it more playable and forgiving, a really good log system, a hintbook system's well integrated.

But a big part of the appeal of this is just, you know,

the solo dev uh julia minamata is was a is primarily an artist and turned this from a pixel art project into a full-fledged game um which is awesome in and of itself uh but it it the bait the backbone of it is this gorgeous ega pixel art um and uh rose there's there's just one one screenshot uh i thought we could just show the room here i i know y'all saw some of this earlier but uh just to give a refresher on the art style Yeah, that looks great.

It's rad looking.

That's so good.

It's so classy.

It's so cool looking.

And, you know, it also is just so like using, you know,

it's great.

It's great art direction, but also like so true to like the limitations in terms of palette and

pixel depth available in the era.

EGA graphics was, I can't remember if it was a 16 color or

a 32 color standard, but there wasn't a huge palette to work with.

I think it was 16 color.

And

similarly,

there's a soundtrack that kind of sounds like a Sound Blaster sound card or an Ad-Lib sound card of the era.

The story is this charming and engaging mystery.

The protagonist, who you see there in that art, eavesdropping, which is an ongoing thing in the game.

Nancy Maple is a geologist, which I was like, give me a specific job.

How fun is that?

That is fun.

Nick, can I ask you if you chose this screenshot because it is a direct mirror of the uh ted cruise 9-11 post

woman listening in on a doorway

kind of a coy expression blaming the intern for posting it later uh this is a so and i also say this is you know it's a doronto based uh developer and i spent some time in ontario earlier this year And this game, looking back, it has such a pleasant, like kind of rural Ontario, like rural Canada sort of energy to it a lot of it is just like taught like it you know it has elements of of uh Canadian history which I really uh have an appreciation for but anyway I expected this one to be a little bit more of an indie darling when it launched it looked like it was like getting you know going to be a fair amount of hype and I thought this would would maybe get a little bit more uh renown uh than it maybe did um but you know it is a crowded field out there and and this this is a pretty esoteric experience even for a nostalgia slash pixel art sort of game uh you know some some of the the puzzles are kind of inscrutable.

And

so if you're not familiar with Tech Sparser games, you know, you may be in for that.

But if you are someone who

liked something like Case of the Golden Idol, which is a game we did an episode on and have a game I really enjoy or games like it.

If you like mystery games, if you like games with a, you know, that are narrative driven, that are that are about story, that are about interacting with characters, like I think you will really appreciate this one if you missed it when it was new to release.

So, yeah, the Crimson Diamond, that was a game I really, really enjoyed from 2024.

I feel like I heard, and maybe I'm misremembering the statistic, but that every day now on Steam,

as many games are released as were released in its first year of existence.

I can buy that.

Like, and if you look at the chart of like release, like the sort of, you know,

logarithmic, I don't know what the fuck, a chart that just goes in a U.

Yeah.

It's a U.

It's a sideways U.

Or an L?

It's an L.

A sideways L?

Anyway, exponential.

You know what's up?

Logarithmic growth.

Shut up.

Just, I should just shut up.

I know what you mean.

You're talking about like it's growing at an accelerated rate.

It's, you know.

That's the word.

Yeah.

Exponential.

I don't know nothing about no charts or graphs.

I'm just a simple guy.

Yeah.

You're just a simple guy, Matt.

There are a lot of games I like about you.

The other thing is...

The thing is, and now it's getting exacerbated with AI, obviously, but but like so many of them are

clones of successful games, games with similar names and similar mechanics,

just outright predatory games.

There are a whole bunch of porno games.

Like so many porno games are just coming out all the time.

And

so I think that's like a big part of why they're just, there's just so much like just shovelware out there, you know.

But yeah, it's, it's, it's, it is cool that the, that this game was released.

This is a game with a lot of

artistic

pedigree behind it, and it's really well crafted, and it's a really cool singular vision that I hope more people experience.

All right.

Yeah, it looks really, really interesting.

I don't know if it's necessarily my type of game, although I did like

Case of the Golden Idol quite a bit.

So maybe I will have to check this out.

I mean,

if it's enough for Nick to highlight it at the end of the year, maybe we should all try it out.

You know, it's pretty good.

Yeah.

It made the list.

It made the list.

Nick could have talked about anything.

Yeah, he could have talked about anything.

He could have talked about one of these damn porno games that come out all the time, I guess.

Yeah, that he said a lot.

He says that he knows that there's so many of them.

He's like, There's so many, they're coming out all the time.

There's so many of them.

He's like, I can't stop buying them.

He said, What is he getting ready for?

You want something to talk about one more time?

Uh, Heather, what are you playing?

What were you playing right now?

What was I playing?

Well, I'd like to start my segment with a little uh sound cue, so why don't we hit that music?

This game was not on my radar at all at the beginning of the year.

I wouldn't even call myself an Atlas fan.

Like, I enjoyed Persona, but like, have I played all of them?

Absolutely not.

But this game

grabbed me,

jammed me down in front of the television and said, what are you doing now?

And I was like, I don't know.

And it was like, you're playing fucking metaphor.

And I went, okay.

This game,

and this battle theme is so representative of the game.

This game

broke

the.

It broke the

addiction of the last few years.

I'm saying I sat down in front of my television multiple times, didn't turn on the other unnamed game, and instead played Metaphor.

I fucking love this game.

Wow.

And I didn't, I didn't, like, I dipped into

Rebirth, but I bounced off.

This game I have not bounced off of.

I'm still fucking playing it.

I love it.

You're the Drake meme, putting your hand up at.

No, I'm no fucking Drake of anything.

I'm absolutely not.

I'm not a Drake of anything.

Pointing at Refantasia.

Do not, do not ever say.

Rebirth, no, Refantasia.

That I'm the Drake of anything.

Let's just say I'm about to be the Kendrick and just.

It's really just a game that did, yes, completely came out of nowhere, at least here in the West.

And yeah, just a,

this theme, which is so awesome, the battle theme, Shoji Maguro is the composer, I believe, of this track and was one of the composers on this game and is a big persona, Shimigami Tensei and Persona composer.

But the Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal soundtrack is so incredible.

And, you know, this is like on the same level.

This game rules so hard that I thought, you know what?

After I finish it, I should really just go back and play Persona.

That's how that's how hard this game fucking slaps.

I

can't believe it.

Also, the art fucking, everything about it looks great.

The graphics are definitely not above a PS3.

They are like, it is a PS3 level visual experience, but but it is so fucking good that you're like, I don't need games to have ever improved beyond PS3.

Well, art direction goes so far, you know, and this is, you know, this, this game did not have great performance

on

PC.

Since we've recorded this, it's possible it's been patched to, you know, be running a little bit better.

But

it is just like,

this is a great pick, Heather.

I think this is an awesome game to highlight.

I'm excited to dive into this.

My copy is at home.

It was sitting on my my desk

when I got home

a couple days ago.

And I haven't started it yet.

And Isabel, my wife, picked it up, read the name out loud, said, Metaphor Refantasio.

What the hell?

The one episode idea I pitched out was

a triforce of subtitles off of Metaphor Refantasio.

That is pretty good.

It really is

up there with, you know,

what's the, what is it, ogre battle, let us cling together?

What's the

fucking

can't remember what it is?

I, uh, I, I, I like this game so much that I was like, should I go back and buy the um collector's edition even though I've already purchased the game?

Uh, I didn't do it.

Like, I have to stop doing that.

Yeah, I sort of made a promise to myself that I was going to stop doing that too, um, when I had three active ones going and then canceled all three of them.

I, I, the thing that tipped me was I looked at

Torgill sitting on my couch and I was like, this was a mistake.

I don't need to make the same mistake twice.

I have to correct myself.

It was tactics ogre, not ogre battle.

Before you get, again, the aforementioned Discord, very hospitable place, but it's the kind of place someone who's pedantic might correct me.

Tactics Ogre, let us cling together.

Yeah, Nick.

Just getting ahead of it.

Tell us what you were playing.

Okay, so I know Heather said she bounced off of it

i had no i i couldn't i couldn't bounce off of it because this year this year for me was the year of final fantasy 7 and the year of the jrpg in general if you recall start of the year uh i played through final fantasy 7 and then final fantasy 7 remake uh in preparation for uh final fantasy 7 rebirth which is the game i'm highlighting here and

that game took me months to finish.

That is so much Final Fantasy VIII.

It's so much Final Fantasy VII.

You know, I blazed through the original and the remake, you know, relatively quickly.

But by the time Rebirth came out, God, I don't even remember when I finished Rebirth.

I know that I did finish it.

Yeah.

But I spent so much time in it, and I just thought, this is, I mean, and I know a lot of people

like Weiger and many others bounced off of, or, you know, finished the first part of the remake and were like, this is good.

The game remake and then didn't play rebirth.

And if it feels like that was actually like

the bulk of people who played remake were like me, were just kind of like, I'm good at this point.

You know, like I had this.

But I did, I was eyeing rebirth.

And part of why I didn't end up committing to it is just because like I just kept hearing, especially from you, how meaty it was.

What a huge game it was.

It was, it was fucking meaty.

It was like, it was like, oops, all meaty.

It was, it was thick.

It was a big game.

I absolutely loved it.

I thought it was just like one of the most incredible experiences of the year and maybe ever.

I got a fucking punch.

In terms of gaming,

it's just,

it's, it's just more of the story.

It's just, it's, and it's more of the story that you already know.

But then it's also, what if there were 10 other things going on?

What if there was, what if there were like three new mini-games in every area?

You're like, okay, great.

What if Final Fantasy VII wasn't enough like Kingdom Hearts 2?

And so for me,

that sort of like really scratches an itch for me because I'm like, that's my whole thing.

I love that.

The combat in this game is so...

It's both...

very crisp and crunchy, but also fluid.

is, it is incredible.

It is great, great combat.

I love it.

If you did not love the combat in, say, um,

Final Fantasy 16, which uh is an incorrect take, I think, but if you did, if you disliked the combat in Final Fantasy 16, this is sort of a more of the action RPG style that you would be more familiar with.

Um, Final Fantasy 16 is like a character action game, basically.

Yeah, like it's like it's like much, like, yeah, there's, it's much more of an RPG, at least if assuming rebirth heightens what's in remake like that's remake is much more of like feels like an rpg combat feel and

look

i love my guys that's my those are my guys they're good guys

cloud beautiful

aerith uh

barrett uh red 13 kate sith

those are guys Those are there, and

I guess I'd do anything for them and I'd die for them.

Okay.

I love them.

And then, you know, I played Chrono Trigger and then Frog is like easily better than all of them.

I think Frog is like one of the greatest characters in media up there with Stone Cold Steve Austin.

Right.

A great guy.

And Homer Simpson and like all these great characters.

But Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, I think

I was looking up on my phone to see

the app, how many hours I spent playing it.

And for some reason, it's not telling me that because I haven't played it in some time.

Well, it can't load beyond 999.

Yeah.

There was a lot.

There was like, there was,

I believe it was like somewhere.

It was sub 100, maybe.

Maybe it was a little above 100.

But it was.

Okay, that's, yeah, all right.

That's, that's,

I mean, that's an insane amount of time, but that's more.

doable than some of the numbers I was yeah and it didn't have to be that way it absolutely did not have to be that way it could have been um a more truncated maybe 45 hour game right sure

But there, I was committed to doing a lot of the side stuff until I realized that I would never see the sun again if I

continued the way I was playing it.

An incredible game.

I can't wait for part three.

It kind of feels like they have every reason not to do it because this one sold at such a

half-life of the

previous part, but there's no way they don't make it.

God, I hope so.

I would be surprised if they don't make it and then release the entire thing as one big

Final Fantasy VII complete.

That'll get chumps like us double dipping on that, or I guess triple dipping in that case.

And then also, you know,

it'll also be, I think people who maybe bailed on rebirth will end up getting, I'll get the whole thing.

Because, like, I wouldn't have stopped if Rebirth had just streamed right out of remake.

I would have just kept going.

Yeah, me too.

It was the intermission that sort of killed the momentum for me.

The idea that they could have, and that they will eventually release a Final Fantasy VII that is like 300 hours long

is

startling and beautiful.

Yeah.

But I think it was just far and away one of the best games I've played this year.

And then looking at my list of games that I've completed, maybe one of the best of some of the previous years as well.

It's very, very good.

I'm going to hear it.

Salute to you for sticking with that, and I'm glad you loved it so much.

But also, salute to you for committing so

wholeheartedly to the Final Fantasy 7 experience, finishing the base game and then the remake and then rebirth.

They were really wonderful.

And

even, even, I mean, gosh, I loved 7.

So, I mean, I loved 7

original so much playing it on my Switch that I bought.

I own every non-Final Fantasy XI Final Fantasy game just as

an idea.

Incredible.

Thinking one day

when there's a lull,

maybe I jump into eight.

Maybe I jump into nine.

Maybe I do.

12.

Maybe you jump into 12.

Maybe I do 12.

I also don't.

Oh, you know what?

I own all three parts of 13 on Steam, actually.

I think that time is going to be kind to 13.

I think there's going to be a 13 Renaissance.

Hell yeah.

I can't wait to see what else is going on.

And you know what?

I know it was last year.

I'm here a year later looking at my list.

There was a DLC for Final Fantasy 16, and I finished it and I played that too.

And let me tell you something.

I also liked it.

Was it just one more level?

Absolutely.

I think you might be a square head.

I think you might like Squaresoft stuff.

I'm not even SpongeBob SquarePants over here.

Yeah, you might be because you love Kingdom Hearts.

You love a lot of Final Fantasy games.

I think, you know, you're tetanora pilled.

And doctor, I need to refill

my prescription.

Okay.

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Final Fantasy VII was one of the games that, I will say, me personally got me to buy my first non-Nintendo console.

I bought a Sony PlayStation for Final Fantasy VII as well as Resident Evil.

Oh, I feel a transition coming on.

And we're talking today

about Sony exclusive franchises.

This is our Tears of the Kingdom.

Tears spelled T-I-E-R-S format.

We're going to do tier lists of all these Sony exclusives.

We are ranking franchises, not individual games, because there are too many of them.

We're going to hit three hundo.

How many do we have?

There's like, yeah, like somewhere around 265 of these

we just can't do that we can't do them individual games and and we haven't played all of these games obviously so uh so we're gonna be talking about franchises holistically and a franchise to qualify must have at least two games unless it is a huge notable individual game uh we'll maybe get to some of those parappa s tier katamari s tier let's go

yeah but even that's like like is uh we'll get to it because parapa the rapper had um jam or lami so that is that the fran was that a franchise it kind of is and then there's parappa too you know i mean like we'll talk about we'll get into it uh but also the so first and second party games are counting third-party games maybe on a case-to-case basis but if a series is now multi-platform but was more prominent rose to prominence as a sony exclusive it is on the tier list uh that's like the crash bandicoot rule if you will yeah the crash bandicoot rule i think is in effect um any any other any other things i missed any other setup i missed uh i don't think so there's gonna be and there's so There's still quite a few here.

So I think.

There's plenty.

This is going to take us way too fucking long.

Maybe that's what we're doing.

So let's get into it.

And I have to go in an hour and 15 minutes, listener.

So if by chance they are still talking, I'm just going to exit the room.

Why don't we start?

Why don't we just start at, let's just start with Gran Turismo.

Gran Turismo, a good place to start because this is the biggest selling Sony exclusive.

This is their number one franchise.

I'm going to argue S tier immediately because

I don't like racing games.

I'm not a racing games person.

I own multiple copies of different Gran Turismo games and have played multiple hours of Gran Turismo in PSVR.

So I'm going to say if a fucking game that's like about like fine-tuning down to the

gram

your sports car,

if I can be invested in that, then that means that it's not just for the raceheads.

It's also for

people who don't care that much about their vehicles.

S-tier game, man.

It's S-tier.

So this was like, you know, this is very much, I mean, and

they're obviously simier driving simulations, but this is more of a driving sim than an arcade driving game.

And look, I don't really like driving games.

That's my own.

That's, that's my own, that's like, that's like me saying gummy ain't yummy.

I understand that is not a mainstream opinion, but I don't personally like driving driving games.

You don't like driving.

I don't like driving.

Yeah, for sure.

So why would I want to simulate it?

But this is a well-regarded franchise.

It is, again, the best-selling of the Sony exclusive franchises, of the first-party franchises.

The only argument I would make maybe against it being in the top tier is

I think it has had a little bit less of a...

cultural imprint than some of these other franchises here.

I think it's made a little bit less impact.

I think it's maybe been lapped by the forces of the world to some degree.

And I also think that it has declined over time.

And my understanding,

I only know the secondhand, is that there's been a little bit less, there's a little bit less of a positive response to like, for instance, Gran Turismo Sport, the PlayStation 4 entry or Gran Turismo 7.

You know, it's maybe a series that's that's waning a little bit.

But that's whatever.

I'm not going to put my foot down about this.

We want to put it on a nest here.

We'll put a nest here.

We're going to put a foot on the gas, so to speak.

I have a friend who full-blown bought a car rig and a VR helmet to play Gran Turismo.

Like the, the,

I believe, yeah, I do.

There are those enthusiasts who are super into this franchise.

Maybe it belongs in S tier.

Like, I don't think technically you get higher than Gran Turismo.

Like on a technical level.

Maybe, maybe in terms of like, oh, I like the open world goofiness of Forza.

I like doing jumps and stuff.

Like, fine.

But if you're like trying to play, there was a fucking movie about a kid who played the game so much that he became a Formula One racer.

Yeah, that is, that is amazing that that actually happened.

So even though that movie flopped, the game doesn't.

The game is so good that you can train for real races in it.

My only knock against the game and this game and the franchise in general is that it's too hard.

It's too hard to drive the cars the way I want to drive them, which is poorly

and in a fun way.

This game wants you to drive the car really good.

No, it's not a game you can just kind of dick around in.

And it's not as hardcore as like, you know, with some of these F1 games that are like, you have to basically drive a car.

But it's, it's, yeah, it's, it's, it gets, again, it's a lot more semi.

I would say we could put in an A-tier and maybe return to it.

But if Heather feels strongly and we want to jam it up in S-tier, I feel like Gran Turismo is an S-tier franchise.

And again, I don't like racing games.

I don't buy racing games.

Yeah, I guess

let's put it in the S tier.

All right.

And that brings us to our next one, Ape Escape.

Now, look, all of these can't go in the S tier.

I'm not going to look.

I love Ape Escape.

I'm not going to argue for Ape Escape being in S tier.

I think it is.

The first game is very good, the PlayStation 1 game.

There were some Japan-exclusive games that did not make it out over here, I believe, including Ape Escape 2001, the one where you vacuum off the monkeys' pants and wash them in a washing machine.

Yeah, great, great mechanic.

Yes, and the ad with a cartoon Frenchman saying pants, Trebienne.

This is a

I don't think

this is a franchise that sustained itself, and I think not all of its entry, it's kind of uneven in terms of how it progressed.

And, you know, it's not like there hasn't been an Ape Escape since once at the PlayStation 2.

So I think this is maybe a B-tier franchise.

I differ to you guys.

I've never played a single Ape Escape game except for the Ape Escape level in Astrobot.

Which rocks.

That in and of itself makes me want to knock it up a tier, but I don't think as a franchise it really is above a B.

Honestly, it might be a C-tier franchise.

Yeah,

I think it may be as.

Should we put it in the C tier?

Yeah, put it in C.

I mean,

it's not going to,

I do really, really like it.

I think it's a game that is due for a comeback, and Astrobot was a great way to

prove that.

I can't wait to jam Astrobot in the S tier.

I can't wait.

Should we go straight to Medieval?

Here's the thing about Ape Escape is like Ape Escape,

I just feel like it fell off with its second mainline entry.

And so that in of itself just doesn't make me want to stick up for it too much.

I do like that they're in Metal Gear Solid 3.

Yeah, that's fun.

That is fun.

The apes are awesome.

I love the apes.

If we were ranking the apes or if we were ranking

the mascots, these are higher than sea.

They have little sirens on their heads.

I mean, come on.

This is great.

They don't want to be found, and yet there's so many things that are impeding that.

They look like Muppets, too.

They got like a good Muppet design.

They look to them.

That is a good point.

They don't really quite look like monkeys.

They do in theory, but not one-to-one.

No.

There's a couple that I think we just have to move on to some of the bigger ones or else we'll be here all day.

Is this Medieval?

Yeah, Medieval.

So I only played Medieval the first one, and then they wait.

There was another game that was a Medieval, but didn't have the name Medieval, right?

What the fuck was that called?

Oh my gosh.

Was it Maximo?

Or wait, no, Maximo was the one that's a secret.

That's a secret ghouls and ghosts.

So I only played Medieval 1.

Oh, wait, was it there a Medieval 2 on PlayStation 1?

Boy, I can't remember.

I got to look this up now.

Anyway,

it's a game that didn't really, it has not aged well.

The original.

I mean, they did a re-release, and it's just kind of, you know, it's kind of a janky experience.

A fine 3D platform combat game for,

you know, the late 90s, for the early era of 3D gaming.

But I don't know.

I don't want to put it at D tier because it's...

I think it could be in the C tier only because I like the design of the guy.

He's a cool-looking guy.

This is a little bug eye.

Yeah.

Yeah, there was a Medieval 2 for PlayStation 1.

I did play that one.

It was Medieval Resurrection, which was the PSP one I didn't play.

I have not played Medieval, so I, again, defer to your judgment on the Medieval franchise.

On box art alone, I would give it a D tier.

I think.

The guy looks great.

I think the guy looks good.

I think that's enough to save him from the C tier.

But we could always revisit and bump him down if necessary.

It's not on the same level of ape escape.

Apes, but that's what we're doing.

Now that I'm seeing it, it's just there's no way.

I don't like being mean to it because it's like there's nothing inherently wrong

with this game, except that it's kind of of its time.

And as a franchise, you know what?

That's what it is.

As a franchise, it's two PlayStation 1 entries and a PSP entry, and then a remake of the PlayStation 1 one that was like fine.

That's a D-tier franchise.

All right.

Jumping Flash.

I have to say, I love Jumping Flash.

It was a pre-Super Mario 64 platformer where they were trying to figure out how platforming would work in 3D space.

It ultimately is extremely charming and a total failure.

I

played so many hours of Jumping Flash on the PlayStation.

So many hours.

And when Jumping Flash popped up in Astrobot, I literally just said to my screen, yes.

This

beloved franchise is a D-tier game.

Wow.

I fucking love Jumping Flash.

I would never say to somebody, you've got to play Jumping Flash.

But do I still own my copy?

Absolutely.

It's fucking great.

In the D tier it goes.

God, I love Jumping Flash.

D-tier game.

How about Wild Arms?

Woof.

So.

A beloved D-tier franchise, I get.

So.

I don't want to be that mean to it.

But it's so good.

And it had animate, like fully animated cutscenes on the PlayStation 1 with an awesome fucking soundtrack.

And nobody thinks about or loves Wild Arms.

I don't know.

I feel like there's a bit of a fandom.

Wasn't there an anime or something?

Wasn't there a Wild Arms?

I think there was.

And the...

But I like it has like this kind of old west kind of setting that's kind of interesting and I remember that being like like a like a very serviceable JRPG

Kind of coming in the was it was this was the first one out before Final Fantasy VII?

Because I remember that being one of the games that like kind of like filled the gap, or maybe the series in general was kind of filling the gaps between Final Fantasy.

I'm trying to remember.

April 30th, 1997 for Wild Arms.

Yeah, it was, despite its release being somewhat, oh, you took that, despite its release being somewhat overshadowed by hype for the upcoming Final Fantasy VII, Wild Arms was a critical and commercial success.

Yeah, that was part of the thing.

It was like part of like, it comes out and it's kind of like, oh, this is something to kind of like like bridge the gap to kind of like keep us occupied while we're waiting for final fantasy 7

um and they made a they made a number of them i didn't play them all but i don't know i think i i i would put this above like the medievals of the world oh no if you're gonna put but if you're gonna put

if you're gonna put wild arms above medieval then jumping flash should be should be a c

Have you played Jumping Flash?

No, I have not played Jumping Flash.

I think the Ubiquity of...

But I did play Medieval, and I'm happy with where it is, where it's situated.

I think when we're ranking the franchises, we have to consider either the ubiquity or the lack of ubiquity.

There is real...

Yes, that's a great point.

There is legacy and fandom with wild arms that I think puts it above the kind of like quirky jet, like PlayStation 1,

you know, glorified tech, glorified tech demos slash early explorations of what 3D gameplay could be that were more of the Meta Evils and the Jumping Flash.

This was a franchise.

These were fully-fledged games.

Yeah.

I think we could put it in the C tier and feel good.

If you want to advocate for Jumping Flash going up to C tier, then I defer to you.

How about this?

How about this?

I looked on Twitter for the last time Jumping Flash was tweeted about.

Was it yours?

No, it was not.

And it was only nine hours ago as of record.

So let's see when Wild Arms was last

was last tweeted about.

Twitter, real quick, to make this really funny.

Wild Arms was last tweeted about 47 minutes ago.

Oh.

So I would argue that by those measures, there is a, like if it's been nine hours since Jumping Flash and 47 minutes since Wild Arms, Wild Arms is indeed a C-tier franchise on popularity alone.

Wow.

You know what I like about the objectivity of that was that

you looked on your phone and you could have just told us anything.

I could have.

You reported the facts.

These are the facts.

This is a journalism podcast.

Everything we say is true.

That's right.

Wild Arms Million Memories.

What the fuck is that?

Anyone heard about?

No.

It was a smartphone game that came out in 2018.

Knock it down.

Knock it down.

Exclusive smartphone game.

Let's just move on to Wipeout.

There were five Wild Arms games.

I think it's well situated in the C tier.

Wipeout.

Oh, these games are cool.

Wipeout is good.

Look cool.

Play weird.

Yeah, play weird, but very fun.

I mean, when's the last Wipeout game that came out?

Did they attempt a modern wipeout?

I think they did.

Wipeout Merge in 2022,

which was maybe another mobile game.

Wow.

What was that?

Yeah, the Wipeout games are cool.

Now,

there was a Wipeout 64, wasn't there?

So how much do we want to say?

I mean, I I guess maybe this falls in the Crash Bandicoot rule of like,

this was enough of a PlayStation thing, PlayStation show piece, that by the time 64 comes out, it's already established as a PlayStation brand.

The thing about that, and

I want to honor that.

Yeah.

Wipeout 64 is the third Wipeout.

And Wipeout was released for Saturn the same year.

Yeah.

This is tough.

I think it's off the list.

I think it's DQ'd.

I think Wipeout just wiped out.

Wow.

All right, maybe fitting.

Good games, though.

Good games.

Sorry, Wipeout.

Great aesthetic.

Excellent soundtrack.

We're sorry to see you guys.

I didn't know Wipeout came out for Saturn.

I did.

Wow.

No, I believe you.

I'm not calling you a liar.

Do you know why?

Why is that?

Because I was playing it on the far inferior Saturn.

I was playing it and not having any fun.

Oh, my God.

This is rough.

Well, then, this is a big one.

Twisted Metal.

Yeah Twisted Metal big franchise one that kind of fell off a little bit but Twisted Metal Black was a really good entry.

That was the PlayStation 2 one

and then afterwards I think it kind of has disappeared.

There is obviously the Twisted Metal TV show which I really enjoy.

I think

I don't know how to rank this one.

I mean, it's like the thing is, it's like a cool idea.

Car combat is like a cool idea.

And I also feel like this is so strongly associated with

the Sony PlayStation brand i think

i mean not all the games are that good i think twisted metal one and two are beloved yeah twisted metal black beloved um

i think certainly due for a comeback uh as a game i think it could be a great game uh it's kind of amazing with how effectively sony has like taken like the last of us tv show um and you know turned that into additional sales of the the last of us back catalog and and and you know new ports of

new remasters of

the Last of Us franchise that they have not done the same with Twisted Metal, a very successful show.

I'm ready to buy.

I think Twisted Metal, because of the sort of variety of its entries, like the varying quality of its entries, is a

solid C tier series.

And it's a good, solid C.

I would put it in the B tier because I think to me that's a level, it's a level above above Ape Escape and Wild Arms.

To me, I can clearly have, there's a clear separation in my head between the prominence of those franchises.

And I know we're not ranking the guys.

Sweet Tooth is really good.

Sweet Tooth's a great guy.

He's really good.

Okay, put it.

I won't fight back.

Put it in B tier.

I haven't played any of the Twisted Metals since the first two.

I would like to revisit.

That was cool.

I think they're, you know, I wish that Twisted Metal could have the success that Rocket League has.

Yeah.

I would love that.

That's the way to relaunch it.

Yeah.

It's to have it come out and be like maybe a

free-to-play game with a bunch of different cars you can get.

Now, I think we're moving on.

Moving on to another big boy.

We got a big, big, big player.

The once-was mascot of the PlayStation brand Crash Bandicoot.

I want to put this in the A-tier on the commercials alone.

Commercials are great.

Yeah, shout out a past get-played guest, Alex Berg, who, of course, played Crash Bandicoot in some of the spots.

And hey, I should, while I do it, I should shout out my Doughboys co-host, Mike Mitchell, who plays Stew in the Twisted Metal Peacock series.

That's right.

It does a great job.

And I am going to say that Crash Bandicoot...

Yeah, I think this is an A-tier franchise, right?

It's kind of uneven, but like, it's fucking Crash Bandicoot.

I want to just argue for S-tier.

I know I'm probably not going to win.

The franchise post-Crash Team Racing is uneven.

Yeah.

Crash Bandicoot 1, Crash Bandicoot 2,

Crash Bandicoot Warped, and Crash Team Racing are

S tier.

Like, those are great, great, great games.

They are on fire with those.

Then after every crash after that, sort of diminishing returns, kind of the same stuff.

And then in particular, when they become not Sony's baby and they be in Activision, swipes them up from Naughty Dog,

they got worse.

Which is, you know, what Activision does, but I I think those first four games in particular are

S-tier entries, but I can see how then the series has been watered down since those glory days.

I respect you I respect your take.

Uh, I me speaking for me as a platformer enthusiast, I don't think of those crash games as being on the same level as uh, you know, the 3D Marios, the rare games like your Banjo-Kazooies,

the

Rayman,

Sonic Adventure.

I think of those as all

better,

more fully-fledged 3D platformers than the Crash Bandicoot franchise.

I would even just evaluating on those on the series at its best, I still think that

it peaks out at A-tier, but I think A-tier is where the whole franchise kind of should live.

Did I mention that he does a dance?

The animation is great.

The character is great.

The sense of Crash Bandicoot, like Crash as a guy, may be an S tier.

Like, when he kind of like

thrusts the air.

It's really fun.

It's really funny.

Jumping Flash is a rabbit the size of a bus made out of a machine.

Just want you to think about that.

It's cool.

It's a cool thing.

Do you want me to move it to the F tier?

I could put Crash in the A tier and be happy with that.

All right.

I think we've made a huge mistake.

No, just kidding.

I obviously just love Crash, but I get it.

And Crash Team Racing, I think, one of the great racers.

Yeah, I know.

Crash Team Racing was great.

That's also a game that Chandler plays on the Sitcon front.

That's right.

It's a real time capsule.

Yeah, that is really wild.

I was like, I've done the same thing Chandler's done.

It's like so 90s.

It's a 90s piece of media.

I think it's just a game that I played on September 11th, 2001.

Oh.

Wow.

Just a memory that I have.

Oh, no.

Trying to do something normal.

Oh, that was in in our own way.

Let's look at.

What's next?

How about, I mean, do we want to do Ark the Lad or is that too obscure?

We can move on to everybody golf.

I have not played the Ark the Lad game.

I also have not played the Ark the Lad games.

All right.

He seems like a good lad, I gotta say.

I don't know him.

But the way he looks,

this Ark the Lad guy, he seems cool.

It's, you know, this is, I guess it's a

the Ark the Lad timeline.

There's Ark the Lad, Ark the Lad 2, Ark the Lad 3 all come out, I believe, all for PlayStation 1 on

and as exclusives.

Then the franchise starts to expand.

So there was a Wonderswan entry,

so and then a PS2 version, but then that PS2 game, but that was kind of the end of it, or I guess a couple of PS2 games.

I think there is a fandom for Arc the Lad.

I think we've got to either put this into

an incomplete or NA tier, or we just leave it alone, or we just sort of say it's not kind of at the same time.

Incomplete.

Yeah.

We just leave it incomplete.

We don't really know what's going on with Ark the Lad.

I mean, should we just move on to the next big one here then?

We don't have to do everybody golf.

What?

Everybody golf.

Do you know everybody golf?

I think everybody golf was a pretty big selling.

Was it a big one?

Yeah, I

even I have played everybody golf.

Wow.

I didn't know about this.

I know.

I was at Hotshots house.

I don't know that.

I liked Hotshots golf.

Well, no, Hotshots Golf is everybody's golf.

Isn't it the same fucking thing?

I don't know.

I thought everybody was everybody golf.

I think everybody golf got rebranded as Hotshots Golf.

Oh, it did.

And then, and then they just decided, you know what, we're going to unify the brand.

It's all going to be everybody's golf.

Wow, that's great.

And you know what?

Then I do like these games quite a bit.

I think these are really good and really fun.

They keep.

Here's the reason that this one maybe deserves a bump up.

They are still making these fucking games.

The Last Everybody's Golf came out in

2017, and then a VR game came out in 2019.

So, you know, this is a franchise that has persisted since for 20 plus years, since 1997.

And if you look at its Metacritic, it has stayed pretty stable over time.

The franchise

in the low 80s, a couple of them are in the high 70s.

But I don't know.

This is a big-selling franchise.

I do think of this as kind of like

a PlayStation-defining franchise.

It's like an arcade golf game.

They don't have a lot of sports exclusives.

I think the big sports games on PlayStation are, I mean, it's like this, and I guess if you want to call Gran Turismo a sports game, right?

And MOB the show.

Yeah.

Which is now multi-platform.

So

I could see this being in like the,

honestly, in like the B tier.

B tier, yeah.

I think that's a place for it.

Oh, everybody's golf going up to B tier.

I had Hotshots Golf 4 spelled F-O-R-E, and you could unlock Ratchet and Jack.

So

that was huge for me.

I think I played the VR version, because, you know, when you get those VR helmets, you're desperate.

You're like, anything.

I'll play anything.

Yeah.

Gosh, I know.

I just saw I saw the new quest at Target today, and I was like, I have a Quest 2 at home.

It's just collecting dust.

Should I see what's going on in there?

But VR, it's just not ready.

We still, well, we still got to do a Vision Pro episode.

That's true.

Because you'll see that VR is ready.

It's just cost-broken.

We used to do this thing.

I guess we probably still will do it, but at the end of the year, where we say a game we're going to play the next year in our back catalog, and like two years ago, maybe three years ago, I said it was Half-Life Alex.

It's still haven't booted that fucking game.

I bought it.

Yeah.

Because I'm just like, first off,

it's a little bit of an extra step to stream a Steam game to your

quest, which I have.

Yes.

It's like just enough of a thing where it's like, okay, I got to do that fucking thing first.

And then every time I feel like I put on my quest, I was like, oh, this thing has no charge in it.

I forgot.

This thing just drains batteries.

But then also, like, I play for like 15 minutes and I get a headache.

I get nausea.

Yeah, I'm going to throw up.

Am I going to play?

But then Half-Life Alex, everyone's like, this is the singular, incredible experience.

This is one of the best games of the whole generation.

I've played many hours of Half-Life Alex.

I haven't finished it again because of the barrier of entry of like, okay, I got to go plug in all my base stations.

Every time I turn on my PC VR helmet, something has gone wrong and I have to like reinstall drivers or whatever.

If that fucking game came out for the Apple Vision Pro and you could just click it, I'd beat it within the week.

Yeah, because they're using it, and I understand why they have it exclusive.

They're trying to sell the Valve Index, but I don't don't know.

It is one that would be cool if you could just get it from the metastore or whatever.

It is so incredible to be inside that game and be like,

this is the future.

This is experiencing the future as a video game.

But it's, yeah.

It must have been like that for people who originally were playing PC games before everybody else.

Like the first time you entered into Zork 1 and the computer typed a sentence and then you typed a sentence back must have felt the way I feel when I play Half-Life Alex.

I would like to be playing more VR.

It is, it is, there's something novel about having an entire computer on your face.

Yeah, it's very interesting.

I use the Vision Pro like three or four times a week.

Wow.

I love it.

Next big one here.

Well, it was a big one, I would say.

Yeah, siphon filter.

This one has fallen off.

I mean, I think the last entry was on PSP, right?

I think so.

Yes, the last one was on PSP.

So this is a dormant franchise.

They've not had had a new entry since the PS2 PSP generations.

I remember the siphon filters being all right.

You know, they're kind of

fun little, you know, 3D third-person shooters.

It's,

I conflate them in my memory with Splinter Cell, which is a different game and a different publisher, but they are different experiences.

I don't know.

I feel like this is maybe a C tier.

Oh, man, above jumping flash.

I think.

I'm in D tier then.

I don't fucking care.

I'm not going to fight for siphon filter.

I think it's C on recognition, right?

Like, I think more people, if you were to pull 100 people, family feud style,

more people would know siphon filter

than jumping flash.

I think that's what I'm saying.

But what are we rating here?

Like, that's also, it's also our list.

So if we want to say we like something, we want to be, you know,

we can be iconoclastic.

We can go against the grain if we want.

Do we then bump up Jumping Flash?

Because I love it so much.

Because Heather likes it.

Yeah, I think so.

We've got reason enough.

Here, we'll bump it.

I will say, Jumping Flash has been tweeted about much more recently than Siphon Filter.

I do think Siphon Filter is one that does not have a long tail of influence or legacy.

I don't think people have a lot of nostalgia for siphon filters.

I don't feel like if they had, if they were Sony's next E3 presentation or whatever the fuck it is,

if at

the Game Awards this year,

Sony announced a new siphon filter, I don't think we'd have reaction videos of people flipping out on TikTok.

You know what I mean?

Like, I think people would be like, oh, okay.

Oh, TikTok, siphon filters.

I want to compare and contrast in defense of Jumping Flash.

The most recent tweets for Jumping Flash versus Siphon Filter.

The most recent tweet for Jumping Flash is Jumping Flash, my beloved.

Okay.

Got it.

The most recent Siphon Filter

tweet reads

siphon filter and socom were my shit.

I think that that typifies the feeling people have for jumping flash.

If you play jumping flash, you want to hold it, you want to cuddle it, you want to take care of it.

Yeah, whereas like the people who played siphon filter, they're like, fuck yeah, I remember that game.

That's great.

I said splendor cell, and I realized I was thinking of SOCOM.

That's the one I was, I conflated it with this

shooter.

I feel like siphon filter was more of an espionage type thing, no?

I guess third-person shooter game series by Bend.

Do you think I could have a separate tier list where Jumping Flash is

the only thing on the list and it's S tier and there's no other games?

Yeah, you could have that.

Or I think a Jumping Flash tier list.

Yeah, Jumping Flash tier list.

S tier.

I'm jumping Flips.

Jumping Flash up to C along with Ape Escape, Wild Arms, and now Siphon Filter.

I moved it up.

Just like it moves up by jumping.

Heather, I'm about to move it back down.

Don't do that.

All right, look, I know that you guys don't have the nostalgia for this.

I loved Cool Borders.

I loved Cool Borders, I'll say, until SSX came around.

Because SSX, I think, is the definitive snowboarding video game experience for me.

I thought it was really great.

Cool Borders is not unlike...

you know, your 1080 snowboarding or whatever it's called.

And

it's, I mean, it's the same.

It's just the kind of same kind of stuff.

You're on top of a mountain, you go down mountain on snowboard.

I defer to you, Matt.

And also, I am immediately already like seeing the matrix on what we were playing as kids.

Yeah.

And it's funny.

It's funny that we've always been who we are.

Yes.

Here's the thing about Cool Borders.

Uh-oh.

Even of the play, that era, I think people have more nostalgia for snowboard kids for the Nintendo 64.

I feel like there's more of like a snowboard kids, like, oh, yeah, that was my shit.

And then obviously, SSX comes along and eats its lunch, and Cool Boarders doesn't go anywhere.

I mean, I will let you place it where you want to place it, but I, I, you know, it's, I think it's a mid-tier select.

I do think this goes in the C tier, which is now becoming bloated.

That's the thing.

I think we're going to have to move to bump some shit down to D tier.

I think this is going to be tough.

Jumping flash back down to D.

Let's move siphon filter down.

Siphon filter can go and D.

Who cares?

Who cares about it?

Yeah.

And if you care about it, shut up.

I don't fucking care.

But you know what?

Because this is the thing about Cool Borders.

And all games that take place on a board

in this generation,

none of them are Tony Hawk's Pro Skater.

That's just the fact.

They're just not as good as

they're just not as good.

And Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, not on this list because it was multi-platform.

But

if it were on this list, it'd be in the fucking S tier.

It might be in the S plus tier.

All right, we're at the 70-minute mark.

It looks like we have a lot more to go.

We got a lot to go.

We got to start picking up the pace.

Look, Tomba.

I liked Tomba quite.

Tomba's fun.

Tomba's fun.

There are only two Tombas, right?

Yeah, there's only two.

Yeah, there's only two of them.

If I'll put it in C tier, I think he can go in the C.

I like that.

Fun little for people.

It's like a fun little kind of, you know,

a caveman platformer, a 2D platform.

He's back.

and tomba's back tomba's back they rem they they remastered tomba um parappa the rappa looks s i think it's s

i think it's s at kick punch it's all in the mind parappa the rapper s tier the game parappa the rapper i think is an s tier playstation one game yes there we go parappa the rapper 2

yeah

is not on the same level And

Umjamer Lamy, I think, is actually better than Parappa the Rapper.

I would consider that part of the same franchise.

Yeah.

So it sounds to me like you said Parappa the Rapper is S tier.

Umjam Orlami is higher than Parappa the Rapper.

Yes, but as a franchise, I don't think the sequel, Parappa the Rapper 2, was all that good.

It was in fact pretty disappointing.

And then that was it, right?

Like, have they continued the Parappa franchise at all?

I mean, it's, so we're talking about two good entries on the PlayStation 1.

As a franchise, I don't know how you make a case for this being an S tier.

I think this is, I think Parappa the Rapper is an awesome character.

Again, we're rating characters.

I think Parappa is an S tier.

I think we're rating franchises.

We're talking about a couple of very good PlayStation 1 rhythm games that are pretty slight,

that are games that you can finish in

an hour and change.

And

a PlayStation 2 game that doesn't really continue

on that same level.

But I like Parappa.

I'm a big Parappa guy.

I imported Um Jam Relami.

I was super into this franchise.

You know what?

I think it's an A tier.

I think him sit right next to Crash Bandicoot makes sense.

Yeah,

these are quality positions.

It's okay for him to be in the A tier.

Spyro.

I think Spyro's B tier.

I think Spyro's B too because he's just not as good as Crash.

Yeah, he's like a level below Crash, and that's okay.

I was happy to see Spyro in fucking Astrobot.

I will say I love him.

I love Spyro.

I love him.

He's fine.

Yeah.

He's just not as good as crash.

Yeah.

All right, next up, Legend of Dragoon.

Now, did they make more Legend of Dragoons?

I don't know, but I will say that one of the most disappointing experiences of my life was putting in Legend of Dragoon, enjoying Legend of Dragoon, and then trying to find anybody to talk to about it.

We could do, I mean, like, it's Legend of Dragoon was fine.

It was, again, another game that we were talking about the Wild Arms franchise that was another game that was like kind of in the same PlayStation 1 era of the the PlayStation Final Fantasies and was kind of had a really great production value like like looked looked really awesome for the era had some great great cutscenes but I don't think was any was doing anything particularly notable as a JRPG yeah it didn't it didn't have a large impact crater left in its in by its presence and that seems to make any other games i don't think so it seems impossible to me impossible to me that this didn't change everything with the main protagonist's name being dart dart is good a warrior who is searching for the black monster this is pretty yeah well yeah it's pretty good not not cloud looking for sephiroth

um i i never i never heard of i i i don't think legend of dragoon sorry sorry dad didn't mean to cut you off no i just never really heard of this before but i i

definitely remember this game well i i don't think I don't think this one just, I just don't think it should be on the list because it's just one game, right?

Okay.

It's off.

Take it off the list.

We're doing

franchises.

Fuck off, Dart.

I don't think the game, I think the game was notable in its era.

I don't think it's like Heather's point, I don't think this one had enough of a long tail

where

as a standalone game, it deserves a place on a franchise list.

Unless there's more Legendary Agoon games that I have memory hold.

I don't think so.

Jack and Daxter is next.

Boy, where does Jack and Daxter

is this an A-tier franchise?

I think Jack and Daxter go straight to A.

Let me tell you why.

Jack and Daxter,

the precursor legacy, if it was a standalone title, this is a

we're talking S probably.

Like, that's great.

That's good.

And then, you know what?

They decided that the series has grown up a little bit.

What if we make this a Granthet auto-like?

Let's go Jack 2.

Jack 2 rocks.

And then Jack 3 is like, what if we give him the same powers, but then we also make him give like sort of like evil powers, too?

That rocks.

And then Jack X Combat Racing does, in fact, suck, but it also is pretty good.

I like that quite a bit.

And then there's two PSP games that I did not play.

There's just a string of Daxter games.

There's a Daxter game.

And I think, look, Daxter as a character, funny.

Pretty good.

I did not play any of these games because of the way the dude looked.

And I am fully comfortable admitting that on a video game podcast.

You don't like the character design of Jack?

I did not like the character design of Jack.

He has yellow hair.

He's a little DreamWorks early 2000s.

You know what I mean?

He's going to get that cried a little bit.

A weird presence.

He has

Dragon Ball Z hair, but pointy long ears.

It's weird.

He's weird and he's smooth.

I like Jack.

I like these games.

I'd rather play these games, even

among naughty dog platformers.

I'd rather play these over

Crash Bandicoot.

Holy shit.

Right?

Aren't these better games than the Crash Bandicoot games?

Because the Crash Bandicoot

formula is a little more

Jack and Daxter is more

Super Mario Sunshine-esque versus Jack and Daxter or Crash Bandicoot being

more of a linear experience, I guess, is what I'm saying.

Yeah, no, it's a 3D plane, but it still is like a.

You were running down tunnels for the most part.

Exactly.

Okay, let's keep going.

Then after

Jax, we got...

Is Dark Cloud big?

No.

Yeah, we should talk about Dark Cloud.

Those games were all right.

There was Dark Cloud, and then there was Dark Cloud 2.

I believe they were both for PlayStation 2.

They were fine.

D.

That's a D tier game.

Is it D?

Nobody, I mean,

Nick, in his passionate defense of Dark Cloud, said they were fine.

Okay.

Well, what it was, was Dark Cloud came out in

it was a very early, like, not, not, like, like, almost launch window PlayStation 2 game.

And so, like, there were a lot of, like, there was not a lot of software there.

Um, and it was a fine, sort of, like, you know, 3D sort of

like kind of like it, like, you know, adventure, kind of, like, a Zelda-like sort of game.

And, you know, you're going through dungeons and whatnot.

But it didn't really do anything special.

I thought it was fine.

Okay.

You're arguing it down into the F-tier.

It's not an F-tier game.

No, it's not an F-tier game.

It can be in the D.

Because Siphon Filter is not an F-tier game either.

The D tier has good games in it.

Have any of us played SOCOM?

I've played SOCOM 2.

Because there's there by this list, there's like 50 SOCOM games, and they're across multiple PlayStation platforms.

I have not played a single SOCOM.

I think as we gotta, we gotta bump up Dark Cloud.

I'm sorry.

You guys remember Dark Cloud 2.

I was just looking at screenshots of Dark Cloud 2.

I was like, oh, yeah, Dark Cloud 2 had this cell-shaded aesthetic that was really cool.

And it did have some gameplay improvements.

He's getting awfully crowded.

Maybe Jumpy Play's got to go up to B.

I think maybe it could go back down.

I think it's the only way to go.

Nope.

Nope.

I think it jumped as high as it was.

go um so so com

so com

for me came out at a time when um

uh call of duty was the other option at this point like it was call of duty was still kind of new right but so com seemed different and i was like let me check out because i didn't like first person

uh shooting games at that point.

Okay.

And so

SOCOM, if I remember, is third person.

And I was like, let's, I'll check this out.

This is pretty cool.

And I played it a little bit, and I was like, I don't really understand this.

To me, now as an adult, it does sort of seem like the equivalent of military presence at a school, kind of

a tool for recruitment.

Yeah.

You know, anytime something is called SOCOM U.S.

Navy SEALs,

it feels a little

waraganda.

Like the Americas Army game they came out with.

Yeah.

I feel like the gameplay was good enough.

I think as a product, I have to put it in the F tier.

Wow.

Matt Apodaka

being put on the list at the Pentagon.

You know,

my heart's with the troops, of course.

Ratchets next.

Fucking ratchet.

I'm going to make.

Can I just say something?

Okay, let's say.

Let's hear it.

I'm just going to.

You're going to recognize these as numbers that you know.

Okay.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen.

Fourteen games in the Ratchet and Clink franchise.

Yeah.

What?

You're just saying those numbers?

There are a lot of, they did make a lot of them.

They're a lot, and they're still making them.

And for, I would say, by and large, they're mostly pretty good.

Some of them are great.

Some of them are

rift apart S-tier type games, type experiences.

Sure.

Yeah.

I think Gran Turismo is a little lonely up there, don't we think?

I think Ratchet, I think Ratchet could be in the S tier.

Yeah, preaching to the choir, my friend.

I think Ratchet goes in the S tier.

I think, like, also, I'm just like, if we're...

I'll differ.

If we want to bump everything, like from Crash Bandicoot down, like, if we want to bump everything down a notch, and then

Ratchet and Clank is in a tier by itself, like that's one option too.

But I cannot in good conscience put it on the same level as Crash Bandicoot, Perrappa the Rapper, and even Jack and Daxter, which I like, because Ratchet and Clank is still going.

And Rift Apart is one of the best 3D platformers ever.

And

I think it's got to be an S tier.

I would do, I would go one step further and also bump Grant Ferris.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no,

No,

I think Ratchet and Clank belongs in the S tier.

I think it is, it's the surviving franchise of the PlayStation 2 Sony mascots, and for good reason, the gameplay is immaculate.

Yeah, you're right.

It's just great.

It's just good shit.

Put Ratchet up in your tank.

It's awesome.

Great characters, too.

Great art direction consistently, great personality, and then also like

a lasting legacy.

And that, I think, speaks to something that the durability of the franchise speaks to where it belongs in this tier list.

Let's take a look at this Dark Cloud 2 screenshot real quick.

Now, he's going crazy with this Dark Cloud.

That's up-res.

That's a PlayStation emulator PS2, and it's up-res a little bit.

That's a really cool character, isn't it?

That's really, really cool.

Should I be talking about, should I show some shots from Jumper Flash?

I think we're good.

I think I get it.

The thing about Ratchet and Clank that is also astounding is, you know, a lot of games try to be funny

and don't succeed.

Right.

These games are pretty fucking funny.

Well, they do a lot of butt stuff.

They do a lot of butts to up your arsenal.

Yeah, it goes a long way.

It's pretty funny.

That's all.

That's that's just extremely good shit.

I'm in support of it.

Now, look, Sly Cooper, I also love

the games, I think, have a

cult following.

I think they have their fans.

I think they're incredible.

Really cool stories.

The

Sly Cooper developer Sucker Punch

has

continued to exist

and has

made the infamous games, but most recently

made Ghost of Tsushima.

That's right.

And so

it's an enduring studio.

And I think these games were really fun.

I think that the,

you know, hey, we were just talking cell shading.

I think the aesthetic of these games was really pleasing.

I think the character design looked awesome.

And

I think this probably belongs next to Spyro.

Yeah.

I think this is a B-tier franchise.

Solid B, these are good games.

Solid B.

Game.

Solid, rock solid B.

I haven't played enough of the getaway

to speak to it, but I do want to say that I did allow my dad to play it in VR because there's a small VR demo for the getaway.

And watching my dad pick up artificial, like guns that weren't in the room and merc people in VR

was

an A-tier experience for me.

I haven't played these games.

We got a...

I think we skipped the getaway.

Killzone.

Killzone.

Killzone achieved graphics on the PS3 that shouldn't have been possible.

They still stand up as gorgeous fucking graphics.

I liked Killzone.

This is a D-tier series.

Boy, D-tier feels harsh.

See, it is.

I think this was

PlayStation's.

They, well, PlayStation wanted this to be their halo.

Yeah.

They wanted it so bad, and it didn't quite stick the landing.

I played a couple of

yeah, it's also just like it feels gross, kind of.

You're like, I'm in a wear, a kill zone.

Get me out of this damn place.

But there are a lot of them.

A dormant franchise, the last entry was 2013.

So, you know, it has, it was basically just for the PS2 and PS3 generations.

I guess there was one for PS4.

It can go in the sea.

Do we want to consider

Eco, Shadow of the Colossus, and The Last Guardian as a franchise?

Like a Team Eco franchise?

Yeah.

Or do we rate them individually?

I didn't play The Last Guardian.

I have not played Eco.

Eco Rocks.

Shadow of the Colossus.

One of the best games ever made.

Fucking Rocks.

Last Guardian.

Kind of flawed.

Ponderously, but

interesting.

ponderously broken, interesting experience.

I think it's summed up in Astrobots' summary of the Last Guardian

icon, which was this thing sometimes does what you want it to.

Very funny.

I think this was, I think Shadow of the Colossus alone puts this in.

If we're evaluating this as a franchise, if it's a franchise, this is an S-tier franchise.

Because the first two games are S-tier.

Yeah, and it's also like

it has an aesthetic that I feel like is so strongly associated with Sony and

Yeah, just an extraordinarily influential game.

Also, what game has ever influenced Zelda?

Like, usually that goes the opposite direction.

Everybody's doing what Zelda's doing, but fucking Shadow of the Colossus influences everybody.

And I haven't seen Adam Sandler make a movie about playing one of these other games.

Right.

He did that.

Great point.

All right.

God of War.

I've never seen if he's playing Killzo with Don Chino.

Fucking God of War is an S tier for you.

God of War is just

the easiest S.

It's the easiest S.

God of War is like an unstoppable joggernaut of gaming.

Good job, God of War.

The worst game in the franchise is

really good.

Well,

they're great.

The whole thing with

the whole thing with

the God of War games is that they were created, you know, for the PlayStation 2.

David Jiaffi

was the, you know, like the this is like his like baby, his franchise.

And it gets completely handed off to a totally different, like the same team, the same studio, but like

completely re-envision the design and remake it for the for next generation after the kind of the formula that had been established gets stale.

And that version is so good.

It's in fact better than the original version.

Like the gameplay in those games is awesome.

um so i i think the reinvention in of itself is as its own franchise is an s tier but then if you take it all as one thing it's like yeah it's a this is a this is a thing that that is so strongly associated with sony and these games are for the most part all awesome the only reason i bought a psp was because there was a god of war edition psp that came with both of the god of war psp games and those are to this day the only psp games i've played also a lot of the that like look the even the original, like, God of War series was really influential in terms of quick time events.

And also, you know, Shen Mu was part of this too, but like, quick time events, which we saw in so many games for like three generations.

And thankfully, they're largely been dispensed now.

But a lot of that came from God of War being so successful.

But also, just like press to hold as an input, like it's like that was a lot less prominent before God of War established it as a way to open chess and open doors.

I can't think of another game where you have to repeatedly press X to push your daughter away while you leave her.

And let's not forget that there are six mini-games in the first three.

Super funny.

Just failing those on purpose.

I don't know how.

Kratos, you're not good at this.

I guess.

Loco Roco.

Loco Roco.

Loco Rogo.

If we're going off of vibes, it's an S tier.

If we're going off of the gameplay, I think this is maybe

another C tier, maybe a B tier.

I don't know.

These games are fine.

I liked the representation in Astrobot.

Astrobot, that was like great.

That was like the perfect usage of it.

And that's the perfect amount of like a loco Roco.

Put him in a B.

Put him in a B.

Look at his rich.

He is charming.

Look at his little face.

Go for it, Loco.

Go crazy, Loco.

Go, Roco.

We love you, Loco, Roco.

Look, I mean, the next big one is Uncharted.

I think Uncharted is not an S tier.

Even though those Uncharted games are really cool, I think it's just like, I think there's a thing of like, what are we actually putting in those hallowed, that hallowed top tier?

Do you think of the Uncharted games as reaching the heights of God of War?

You know what I mean?

Let me ask it a different way.

If an Uncharted game came out this week, would you play it?

Of course.

And people would go nuts for it.

My answer is different.

Oh.

Because

if you ask me, would I play it?

The answer is no.

The answer is, the question being,

would I buy it?

The answer is yes, because I've bought every single one of these, but I've never finished one.

But I do, I do like them, and I was trying to play an Uncharted one

pretty recently, actually.

Here's the thing.

If we're going to put The Last of Us in S tier, which I 100% think it should be, then Uncharted is an A tier game.

I think I'm happy with Uncharted being an A.

Do it.

Yeah, why not?

Let's move forward.

People are crashing their cars right now.

Little PowerPoint Planet.

How could they?

How could they?

It's fun.

No, that's a reasonable place for it.

Because also, like, you know, and during the pandemic,

I was playing through those games and it's like

really, really awesome set pieces, incredible production value, incredible art direction.

The cover shooter gameplay is starting to show its age a little bit.

Yes.

And that's also so much of the game is cover shooter.

It's just, you're just sitting there and you are just massacring

a bunch of

fellow treasure hunters.

Yeah, and if you're me, you're getting exclusively headshots somehow.

This next one, then, Little Big Planet.

Look, I think I've not played the main Little Big Planet games.

I like Sackboy.

I like Sackboy A Big Adventure, I think the game is called.

That is a really, really good game.

If Astrobot did not exist, it would be maybe the platformer for the PS5.

I think it's fantastic.

Sackboys design is awesome.

I love him.

I didn't play Sackboys Big Adventure.

It's Big Adventure, right?

Yeah.

I did play the little Big Planet games and,

you know,

I think the physics is cool, but it's the kind of thing where that genre is like

almost benefits from not having

physics, if that makes sense.

Like

it's almost like platformers just play a little bit better with their own kind of defined physical reality as far as versus like putting a physics physics engine in there.

And also like so much of this is like about like kind of building and creating.

And I don't know, it's just, it's just not what I want from a game as much.

I think this is, but I don't think this is quite a C tier.

No.

If we went Loco Roco in B, I kind of feel like maybe it's of a, it belongs right there.

I, I, I'm fine with the game.

I think we're just, I think what we're dealing with here is this is tier inflation.

Like we maybe need like an F minus tier and just need to bump everything down.

Or maybe an S plus tier.

Because I'm just like,

it feels like B is getting too bloated and C is getting too black.

But maybe that says a lot about a lot of these franchises and less about like how the tier is working.

So this is just kind of like a lot of middling.

Yeah, there's a lot of Sony exclusives that weren't like breathtaking.

And for a while, that was the hardest part about a PlayStation is you had like Nintendo had Mario and Zelda and Sega had Sonic and like you had these huge joggernaut franchises on those systems.

And then PlayStation was the system without standout games, but it had a lot of them.

You know what's interesting?

I think if we look at this list,

and if we were going to say we're not doing the Sony tier list, we're not evaluating against Sony franchises.

We're just saying, like, are these, where are these franchises among all franchises?

I don't know if we have anything in the S tier.

You know what I mean?

Like comparing to games overall.

It's just we're kind of grading on a curve because because this is just relative to Sody's first

party output.

Yeah, I think that's fair.

I think that that's a fair thing to say.

And I think that that's why we are

feeling tier bloat.

Yeah.

But The Last of Us is coming up and it's an S tier game.

And I do think it stands with other franchises.

I think very possibly.

Infamous.

Infamous.

Those games are cool.

I mean, this is, you know, again, more sucker punch.

I think these are like maybe B tier as a B tier franchise.

I think so too.

They're extremely fun.

I've never finished one, but I know that there is

a fervor for

people demand a remaster or ports of these because they're all locked on the PS3.

They're all just there.

Right.

And that's the other thing.

I wonder if they'll make another one or if they're just going to keep making, pumping out Ghost of Tsushima's.

But like,

it's a cool design the the kind of superhero and the light dark aspect of it all that shit is cool uh i don't know i'd i i'd like to see a new entry i think b feels right are we skipping demon souls well yeah i think this i think even though demon souls itself has never gotten off like not even the original demon souls didn't get like a pc port right which is just so like even though demon souls itself is so is sony exclusive

I think the Souls franchise is multi-platform enough where it doesn't make sense to rank it.

Which is also unfortunate for Bloodborne's sake.

Well, Bloodborne, well, Bloodborne is only on PlayStation.

It is not on PC, it is not on anything else.

Yeah, and that's also the case for Demon's Souls.

Yeah.

So if you wanted to say, like, hey, we're like Team Eco, we're going to rank Demon's Souls and Bloodborne together as a unit.

But I don't think that I think that's like a stretch.

Okay.

Then the next big one after Infamous is The Last of Us.

We're skipping Fat Princess?

Yeah, I think so.

Okay.

What about Gravity Rush?

Oh, Gravity Rush.

Yeah, could be a good one.

Gravity Rush was

the reason to buy the Vita.

And

it was

a really excellent,

unique gameplay system

that I played a lot of hours of.

I think it is a solid B.

It's it is unfortunate that nobody had a Vita because it's a good game.

Yeah, and it was a good franchise that unfortunately was let go of

in favor of the the big boys.

I checked it out pretty recently, actually.

I thought it was pretty cool.

Yeah, it's pretty cool.

Yeah, I didn't have a Vita never played it, but I'll trust you on this.

Um, it's excellent.

It, it's, it's great.

Okay, so then now let's go to The Last of Us.

S-tier.

S.

Yeah, I think it's an S-tier franchise.

I, you know, certainly among Sony exclusives.

I mean, it's, it's, you know, and the Last of Us

Part 1, not The Last of Us, the game, The Last of Us, not The Last of Us Part 1, The Remaster, The Last of Us,

probably the best game of its generation.

And The Last of Us Part 2, I mean, Heather has it on her best games of all time list.

I like it quite a bit.

I think it's, I don't like it as much as the first one, but this is, you know,

it's a huge franchise.

How do you remember my best games of all time list?

We talked about it on the podcast.

I know, but how do you remember that?

I don't remember it.

I couldn't list all of them, but I remember that one.

I couldn't remember it.

If you asked me, if you put a gun to my head and said, what were my top games, my brains would be on the back wall.

Don't threaten Nick with a good time.

I learned from The Last of Us Part 2 that you don't want to inflict pain on others

leads to a horrific cycle.

Being mean is bad.

Being mean is bad.

I was like, okay, I get it.

Charlie, no.

Is Helldivers, do we consider this?

I mean, we'll say Helldivers 1.

Everybody played Helldivers 2, but of course that's also on PC.

Helldivers 2, yeah, I don't know.

Helldivers 2 was a great time.

But it was also multi-platform.

Yeah.

And if we're evaluating it

as a franchise,

pretty uneven.

I kind of feel like Helldivers 2 is Helldivers 1, right?

Like,

nobody's thinking about Helldivers 1.

It's like Street Fighter 2 is Street Fighter 1.

Yes.

Sure.

Or Grand Theft Auto 3 is kind of Grand Theft Auto 1.

NA for now.

Horizon.

Horizon has the unfortunate curse of being released every time some other really good game comes out.

So I play, you know, there have been three Horizon games, right?

There are two mainline ones and a VR experience.

That's right.

I only played the first one

and I enjoyed it, although I bounced off of it.

I didn't finish it.

I finished Horizon.

Yeah.

Did you play the second one?

What's the second one?

I did not play the second one.

I bought it.

And it came out again during the same, some other game came out that same day.

Horizon 1 came out

the same day as Breath of the Wild.

Right.

Which is Horizon 2 came out the same day as Elden Ring.

So yeah, I bought Horizon and then only played Elden Ring.

And I bought, I went backwards to play Horizon 1.

And I think I didn't do it until after it made an appearance in Death Stranding.

And I was like, oh, shit.

What is this?

This is cool design.

Horizon's one of those games that I really want to like more than I do.

It's got everything I want.

It's got like post-apocalypse.

It's got like, you know, meaty backstory.

It's got good traversal.

It's smooth.

It's crisp.

I love the big, the big dudes.

Yeah, the big dudes are great.

I love the cross-eye.

Yeah, I love cross-eye.

Whatever they're called.

Yeah, those are cool.

But is it, does it, there's like, it's missing teeth.

There's something about it that doesn't bite you on a fold on

this game

I'm looking at this B tier where that's kind of hovering and I'm seeing you know, I'm looking I'm seeing infamous I'm seeing I'm seeing little big planet and I'm seeing Sly Cooper.

I'm seeing twisted metal.

I think I think Horizon has found its family.

Yeah, I think so too.

That's about where it belongs.

I think it's good and B.

These are all games that are that are good games.

And you know what?

I'm going to get the Lego one.

Yeah, why not?

Why not?

Why not?

I'm going to get it.

I'm going to crack my ass up at those little Lego Lego guys.

They're so funny.

When Stranding 2 comes out, is it a Sony franchise?

It'll probably be multi-platform, no?

Yeah, it's on.

I mean, well, this is the other thing.

People might say the Horizon games are you can play on PC.

But like, yes, I think Sony porting its own games to PC because it's trying to establish a base there is like its own thing.

Yeah.

We can kind of

Spider-Man.

Spider-Man, look,

it's not fair.

Spider-Man is just good.

Spider-Man's an S-tier.

These are S tiers.

Yeah, these are so.

It's also like this is just this is people buy playstations for these these exclusives i don't care about spider-man and i beat the fucking spider-man game yeah i was like like i was i i was propelled forward by how pleasurable it was to play you just they just do exactly what you want a spider-man game to do they're perfect they're so so good um

i didn't play days gone but there's also just one game right yeah so maybe we we we skip that uh ghost of tsushima same.

I look, I loved Ghost of Tsushima, awesome game.

There's a second game on the way, but I

think it's it's maybe an incomplete right now.

I think we maybe also skip that.

Then, okay, Astrobot has three games.

Love Ghost of Tsushima, by the way.

That was one of my favorite games of that year.

Uh, Astrobot, S, S, S, S.

I didn't play the VR one.

It's good.

Astro's Playroom, uh, the, the, the, the built-in game on the PS5, the packing game is fucking awesome.

And then Astrobot, the game is rad.

It's one of the best 3D platformers ever.

Hey, I got no problems at all putting this up in S tier.

I just

got the sun in the S tier.

It just

tier is getting a little crowded.

No, no, it's

just fine.

But if you look at those,

if any game in this set was announced tomorrow, we would be hype about it.

Astrobot deserves to be with

its brothers and sisters, Spider-Man, Joel and Ellie, Kratos, a Colossus, Ratchet and Clank, and a car.

I think there needs to be like an S plus tier.

That's what I would, if I was doing this on my own list, I'm not saying we have to do this now, I would add an S plus tier, and then I would just nudge up like, I would just nudge up like Last of Us, God of War.

Ratchet and Crank, Shadow of the Colossus, Spider-Man.

Yeah, Gran Churismo.

No, I would just nudge up like a couple of those.

But I think if S is like a,

if there's a concrete ceiling on S and it's it's like, these are games that are better than an A, I think all those are better than an A.

They're great.

They're really good.

They're fucking great games.

They're really, really great games.

And then I think that brings us to the end of the tier list.

Yeah,

look, it's very, very possible, even I would say probable that we missed something.

If we did, let us know

in the Discord.

That would be nice.

Well, I mean, like, is Journey, Flow, and Flower, are those all like a franchise?

Ah, yeah.

You know, this is the kind of thing.

I was like, I would say no.

But then again, if we're making the argument that these eco-team games are a franchise, then maybe yes.

I don't fucking know.

I think that this is a pretty good list.

Is there anything we want to move around?

I think it's a good list.

So I think it's pretty good.

I'll move maybe jumping flashback down.

I'm stunned that Katamari Damasi isn't a franchise exclusive.

It's not, but well, because I think there's, it's just been ported so many places now.

Right, but initially, like a lot of these games have been ported.

Like,

don't, isn't, isn't Katamari on the list?

I mean, Katamari is not on, it's just, it's nowhere on here.

Uh, I didn't make, I didn't make this one, but also, you know what else isn't on here, and it's, but it's on everything else now.

Final Fantasy VII.

Yeah, I feel like Final Fantasy VII is a PlayStation game.

Yeah, there was an era where if 7, 8, 9, 10 were all PlayStation - wait, 7, 8, 9, 10 were all exclusives.

11 came out for PC and PlayStation, and then 12 was an exclusive.

13 was an exclusive until it went over to Xbox.

Yes.

And then

is 15 exclusive?

15 is also on PC.

Okay.

And 16 is currently on PC and

PlayStation.

It's hard not to think of the Final Fantasy brand as the PlayStation brand.

But they're just not on Phantom.

But also 1 through 6 were not PlayStation games.

Yeah.

You could maybe argue that Final Fantasy 7

is a PlayStation brand because now there are so many games in the franchise.

What were you going to say, Nick?

Can we just look at the list one more time?

All right.

Nick's going to try and bump dump.

No, no, no.

I just want to give a recap since this is an audio medium.

The S tier, Gran Turismo, Ratchet and Clank,

the Team Eco output, including Eco, Shadow of the Colossus, and Last Guardian, God of War, The Last of Us, Spider-Man, and Astrobot.

In the A tier, we have Crash Bandicoot, Parapa the Rapper, Jack and Daxter, and Uncharted.

That feels right.

Yeah, it does.

These both feel right.

In the B tier, Twisted Metal, Everybody's Golf, Spyro the Dragon, Sly Cooper, Loco Roco, Little Big Planet, Infamous, Gravity Rush, and Horizon.

Great B tier games.

In the C tier, Ape Escape, Jumping Flash, Wild Arms, Cool Borders, Tomba,

Dark Cloud, and Killzone.

In the D tier, Medieval and Siphon Filter.

And the F tier, SOCOM.

What about what was that fighting game that launched with PlayStation?

Oh, the

not Tekken, it was

Toshinden.

Toshinden.

Right, Battle Regional.

That would be an F tier.

Soul Commerce launched with a Dreamcast.

It was awesome.

The Soul Blade games predated them.

But there were, I think there were some Soulblades on PlayStation.

All right,

let's do a segment.

It's time for The Price is Bite, spelled B-Y-T-E.

And hey, this is the Sony Exclusives Edition.

So I'll read the listing of a retro game and you guess the current buy-it-now or bid in USD without going over.

This is something that's listed on eBay, and Ranch you can play as well.

All of these are from the above discussed list.

Wow, this is awesome, Nick.

All right, first up, Crash Bandicoot.

I'll read the description of the eBay listing and we will look at an image here.

Crash Bandicoot, PlayStation 1, PS1 tested black label, orange disc, condition acceptable.

So this is opened, but this is not the greatest hits Crash Bandit Bandicoot for PlayStation 1.

I'm going to say $17.99.

Heather says $17.99.

I'm going to say, I'm going to say $27.

$27.

Rochelle, you got a guess?

$11.

$11.

Matt gets it.

This is $42.95.

Let's fucking go.

All right, Matt gets a point.

Next up, Pipo Saru, which is Pipo Saru 2001, which is what they called Ape Escape 2001 in Japan.

This is CIB, complete inbox for Sony PlayStation 2, a Japan import, conditioned good.

And the description says in quotes, last one.

We are looking for a buy it now price uh so heather you went first last time uh matt you go first this time and then we'll just go we'll go around okay i'm gonna say this is good this is uh 54 54

uh rochelle 85

85

17.99

Heather takes it because you can buy this for $20.99.

Wow, okay.

Yes, I think they printed a lot of these in Japan, even though it did not make its way stateside.

Sounds Sounds like there's the only one left.

Next up, Gran Turismo 5 Collector's Edition PS3, brand new, factory sealed.

We're looking for a buy-it-now price.

Okay.

So this is the collector's edition.

This is the PS3 one.

And then this has not been opened.

So this is a big box.

Ranch is up first?

Yes.

Ranch starts for this one.

$300.

$300.

Yeah.

I'm going to say...

Wait, it's my turn.

Okay, yeah, you're right.

$99.

Heather says $99.

Unopened Collector's Edition, PS3.

You can see the shrink wrap in the screenshot.

That's right.

That looks like fake shrink wrap, by the way.

It looks like.

It might have been resealed.

Yeah, it looks like resealed shrink wrap.

I don't know.

It looks pretty crisp to me.

I can see what you're talking about over there on the side, but the top is clean.

The top is clean.

I'm going to say

$400.

You all overshot it.

Oh.

And maybe this speaks to it maybe not being an S-tier franchise because you can get this right now for $59.99.

Oh my God.

Heather has one.

Matt has one.

Rochelle yet to get on the board.

Next up, Heather, you go first for this time.

So, you know, game collecting has gotten like, you know, like card collecting.

You can get these things graded now.

So this is God of War 2 Wata 9.4A.

This is a PlayStation 2 new sealed and graded copy.

$2.99.

Wata is the industry-leading video game and media authentication and grading company built by collectors for collectors.

We grade sealed and complete inbox media for most consoles and platforms.

Your guess is $2.99.

$299.

$299.

Okay, got it.

Yeah, I'm going to guess this is...

One, how could you have even the foresight to do something like this?

Yeah,

to keep it sealed.

Yeah.

And then also,

you know, you get it graded and you got it in the big plastic case now.

I'm just gonna say something wild and say $700.

Uh, and I would, I would buy this,

look at the grade, and then fucking crack that open and pop it in the PS2, baby.

Look at that beautiful game.

I love it.

All right, Heather has, yeah, the very poor economic decision.

Heather has one or has $299.

Matt has $700.

Rochelle, your guess.

$420.

$400.

Hell yeah.

Nice.

Unfortunately, you all overshot it.

I think this, again, was one that was, they printed a lot of them.

You can get this for $199.99.

Hey, still.

So no one gets a point.

Guys, I'm really sorry.

I have to exit the podcast.

All right, Heather's leaving.

So I'm going to give your point to Ranch.

Bye, Heather.

All right, next up.

It's a shame Heather had to leave because she would have loved this one.

The Last of Us, brand new, sealed, graded, 9.6 A ⁇ .

So this is graded by CGC, which is a different company.

PlayStation 3, this is brand new.

There are two bids.

Do you have any information about this company?

CGC?

Yeah.

I can look it up.

No, I'm just kidding.

Is it Ranch First?

Who went first last time?

Heather did.

Heather, so then it's you.

My high guesses haven't been helping here.

And I think it's because these games are just readily available to play.

But as a collector, you're still going to pay a premium for that grade.

So I'm going to say $150.

Ranch, what do you think?

Matt says $150.

$155.

$155.

They made a lot of these.

$12.50

for a graded

shield.

And I looked it up.

It cost $50 to get it graded.

So this embarrassing.

So this individual lost money in the grading process.

I was buying one of those fucking Bored Ape NFTs for like a million dollars.

Well, what it was like, it was like, you remember they had the death of Superman comic, and that came out at a time where like comic collecting had become this thing.

And so they printed so fucking many of them

that

there's like, even if you have a mint copy, it has no value anymore, no resale value.

I think that's just the case with some of these games.

All right, on that note, The Last of Us Part 2 Collector's Edition.

This is Sony PlayStation 4 2020.

I'll read the description.

The Last of Us Part 2 Collector's Edition includes the following content.

48-page mini art book, steelbook case including full full game, 12-inch Ellie statue, lithograph art print, and thank you letter, replica of Ellie's bracelet, set of six enamel pins, set of five stickers.

This is all included in a big honkin' box.

The condition is brand new.

We're looking for a buy it now price.

Ranch you start.

$666.

And Ranch is picking all the cool numbers.

$666.

I would imagine this is...

Yeah, I mean, mean, this is a more recent one, but these things sell out.

I like to remember buying,

having the option to get this because this was new.

Like, I bought this within the last few years.

I mean, I didn't get the collector's edition, but this came out while we were doing the podcast.

Yeah.

I'd imagine that at retail when it came out, it was probably something like $200, maybe $200, $200, $300.

I'm going to say $250.

Matt, so close.

Yes, so far.

$240.

No one gets a point.

It's tied up at 1-1.

All right, we have two left.

We're back with our friend Siphon Filter.

2001 PS1 Siphon Filter 3, U.S.

Flag 9-11 cover, rare sealed Wata 9.8 sealed A Mint.

What do you mean?

What do we mean USA American flag 9-11 cover?

Great question, Matt, from GameRant.

After the events of 9-11, Sony made the decision to to recall their shipments of the game to retailers before its release, forcing a delay of several months.

The reason for this was that Siphon Filter 3's original artwork featured the American flag surrounded by an explosion, which, for understandable reason, was not the best promotional image a game could have following the devastating terrorist attack.

Despite the recall, some retailers obviously still sold rare copies of the game to a small number of consumers.

So, this is a brand new sealed version of this recalled

American flag explosion

9-11 panic siphon filter three.

See, now that's good foresight to have.

Yeah.

Be like, I know that this is not the one I'm supposed to have.

I'm holding on to it.

It may have been a

GameStop employee or something who's just like, oh, yeah, they want this back.

I'll hold on to one of them.

We're looking for a buy-it-now price.

I guess $911 then.

Matt, very fitting.

And honestly, very patriotic of you.

Ranch, what's your guess?

Matt says 9-11.

$9.11.

Matt is going to take it because if you want to get this thing sealed, it is going to cost you $4,674.15.

This is a very, very rare game, and this is, you know, again, a brand new quality.

Matt gets a point.

Fucking fool.

That's so funny.

Yeah, and so what this is here, we saw that this is the new cover they came out with.

Looks like complete shit.

The replacement cover is just like these close, a close-up shot of these two very low poly character models' faces.

Big Buzz Light you're looking at.

All right, we have one left.

Now, this was not a franchise that we covered, but this was a game and a series that was initially exclusive to PlayStation.

And again, you know, a system seller for Sony.

I'm putting this up there because this is another very rare one.

This is Resident Evil Director's Cut Wada 9.8 A-sealed PlayStation 1 Rare.

And this one is also brand new.

So this is a brand new graded edition of Resident Evil Director's Cut.

Not the greatest hits version, which is a big thing for collecting.

Ranch You Start Now?

We're looking for a buy it now price.

$3,000.

$3,000.

This box art is different than any of the Resident Evil box art I think I've seen because it has the sort of fake Bruce Campbell guy on it.

Yeah.

Very funny looking guy.

Yeah, doing the sort of bug-eyed Ash from the Evil Dead type thing.

Yeah.

Gosh, I'm going to say $100.

Ranch takes it.

Whoa.

Because if you want this one, it's going to cost you $22,500.

Why?

I think because this was a really rare thing and because it was,

you know, it's not the greatest hits version and it's sealed and it's graded.

Wow.

Yeah.

$22,000.

Imagine sitting on a gold figures.

Yeah.

Hey, it's a tie.

How about that?

Good.

I think Ranch gets two points.

Yeah, that's right.

That the combined Deam of Heather and Ranch gets two, and Matt gets two.

Wow.

So, in a way,

you're all winners.

That's this week's Get Played.

Our producers Rochelle Chen.

Ranch, yard underscore underscore sardar.

Music goes by Ben Prunty, BenPruntyMusic.com.

Our art is by DuckBrigade Design, DuckBrigade.com.

And hey, check out our Patreon, patreon.com/slash get played, where you can find our entire pre-head gumback catalog, plus ad-free main feed episodes, and also our Patreon exclusive show, Get Animated.

Patreon.com/slash get played for all of that.

And hey, I'd never say this if she was here because she left.

Heather got played.

Yeah, and I feel like we didn't say she had a heart out.

We should have said that, oh, she had to leave.

Like, it wasn't like she didn't finally just blow her stack and like, I can't take this shit anymore.

Yeah, I'm leaving the show.

It wasn't like she was losing the game so hard that she left.

It was that she did have a heart out, and we did keep her longer than we thought we would.

Yeah.

So to actually, we got played, and Heather, we're sorry.

That was a head gum podcast.