7 Minutes

It's a new year, and that means a new slew of games coming down the pipeline. In this episode, we discuss which upcoming titles we're each looking forward to, and then dive into some of the latest headlines creating waves in the industry. What do we think of Xbox's move to release certain exclusives across platforms? And do we agree that the age of the console-exclusive is coming to an end? Tune in to find out.

Timestamps

0:00 - Introductions & What we’ve been playing

51:59 - 2024 releases we’re looking forward to and why

1:24:48 - What does the future look like for Sony?

1:35:31 - What does the future look like for Xbox, and for consoles in general?

2023 was certainly one for the books in gaming. A string of AAA juggernauts, sleeper hits, and unexpected surprises hit our consoles and PCs this year, and were (and still are) struggling to keep up.

So which of 2023's list of gems made our top-five games of the year? Which hit our honorable mentions? Listen in to find out!

Timestamps

0:00 - Introductions & What we’ve been playing

17:56 - Metacritic Fantasy Draft Finale

23:09 - The Best of 2023: Our Honorable Mentions

35:53 - The Best of 2023: Our Number 5s

55:02 - The Best of 2023: Our Number 4s

1:06:43 - The Best of 2023: Our Number 3s

1:19:11 - The Best of 2023: Our Number 2s

1:36:58 -The Best of 2023: Our Number 1s

After a brief hiatus, we're back and, boy, did we have a lot to catch up on. From Tears of the Kingdom to Super Mario RPG, we cover 12 games we've been playing since our last episode and our thoughts on all of them. Is Lords of the Fallen perhaps one of the best Soulslikes in years? Does Mario RPG meet the high bar that the original set? And is Midnight Suns the sleeper hit you should be checking out? Tune in for all this and much, much more.

Timestamps

0:00 - Introductions and near-final Metacritic draft updates.

7:32 - Thoughts on The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

41:23 - Thoughts on Final Fantasy XVI.

1:10:47 - Thoughts on Marvel’s Midnight Suns.

1:14:38 - Thoughts on Paper Mario (via Switch Online).

1:16:19 - Thoughts on Sonic Superstars.

1:19:16 - Thoughts on Cocoon.

1:22:05 - Thoughts on Baldur’s Gate 3.

1:30:48 - Thoughts on Lies of P.

1:42:13 - Thoughts on Assassin’s Creed Mirage.

1:43:12 - Thoughts on Lords of the Fallen.

1:51:01 - Thoughts on Super Mario Bros. Wonder.

2:06:55 - Thoughts on the Super Mario RPG remake.

Glitches, day 1 patches, poor performance, and underwhelming quality. In this episode, we discuss (and do a little venting about) the unfortunate new normal of the games industry: releasing imperfect games that need to be patched upon release or that simply fail to live up to expectations and hype.

Timestamps:

0:00:00 - Introductions and what we’ve been playing.

0:53:17 - Metacritic Fantasy Draft Bloodbath.

1:04:17 - Glitches are bad.

1:45:12 - Glitches are … good?

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild completely revamped the series, making a sharp detour away from the well-worn formula that most of the games have followed since A Link to the Past. Its sequel, Tears of the Kingdom, is set to continue the story of Link and Zelda's adventures in this iteration of Hyrule. But while we're all Zelda fans here at 7 Minutes — some of us more than others — we're not all in agreement about how we feel about the new direction the series has taken. How did we feel about Breath of the Wild in 2017 versus how we feel about it now? What do we think of Tears of the Kingdom from the very carefully teased, minimal footage we've seen and info we know? And what do we want from the game? Tune in to find out.

Timestamps:

0:00 - Introductions and what we’ve been playing.

48:54 - Zack’s thoughts on Breath of the Wild.

55:39 - Dom’s thoughts on Breath of the Wild.

1:03:23 - Robert’s thoughts on Breath of the Wild.

1:15:55 - Angie’s thoughts on Breath of the Wild.

1:27:16 - Dom’s thoughts on Tears of the Kingdom.

1:34:00 - Robert’s thoughts on Tears of the Kingdom.

1:41:18 - Angie’s thoughts on Tears of the Kingdom.

1:52:28 - Zack’s thoughts on Tears of the Kingdom.

There are a lot of gaming streaming and subscription services out there today, and they're not all made equal. This week, we sat down to discuss which services we use, the pros and cons of each, how we'd like to see them improve, and what we think the future of these services looks like.

Timestamps:
0:00 - Introductions and Metacritic Fantasy Draft updates.
9:09 - What we’ve been playing.
1:11:40 - Game subscription services.
1:27:16 - Live service game tangent.
1:36:04 - Back to game subscription services.

So we've been gone. For a while. But we've been playing games (lots of them) and we're ready to get back into the podcast — and brought a new friend! Robert and Angela's cousin, Dominic, is our new cohost, and in this episode we're discussing our Metacritic 2023 Fantasy Draft. We've each chosen 10 games we think will be the highest-scoring this year and are competing to get the highest score. What games did we choose and why? Tune in to learn more and hear our inevitable segues into other gaming-related topics.

Timestamps:
00:00 - Introductions and what we’ve been playing.
38:24 - Pitching the Metacritic Fantasy Draft.
40:10 - Robert’s picks.
45:56 - Angela’s picks.
55:24 - Dom’s picks.
1:00:50 - Zack’s picks.
1:18:10 - Cyberpunk 2077, cross-gen games, hardware limitations and the future of Nintendo.

Angela, Robert and Zack drop all pretense of being a general purpose video game podcast and talk at length about licensed games of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s (but especially the 1990s).

Timestamps:
0:00 - Introductions and what we’ve been playing, with longer comments on Pokemon Legends: Arceus, Wordle, Shenmue, and Halo Infinite.
41:14 - Introducing the topic.
46:01 - Movie tie-in games.
56:16 - Licensed games for long-running IPs.
1:33:51 - Superhero games in particular.

In our second season debut, Robert, Zack, and Angela take on rhythm games, a genre that burned bright in the late 90s and throughout the 2000s, and is now a faded ember. From narratively focused titles like PaRappa to cover band fantasies like Guitar Hero to fitness-adjacent spectacles like DDR, we talk about it all.

Timestamps:
0:00 - Introductions and what we’ve been playing.
26:58 - A brief topical discussion of Microsoft’s purchase of Activision-Blizzard.
35:55 - Angela’s and Robert’s introduction to rhythm games, and how we categorize the genre.
43:22 - The lost heyday of rhythm games.
1:02:29 - The spectacle of rhythm games, and performing in front of an audience.
1:05:32 - The strange corner of portable rhythm games.
1:08:01 - Getting older and keeping up with rhythm games.
1:17:02 - Did the flowering of weird plastic peripherals open the door for accessibility in game controls?
1:29:39 - Three traditional gamers hate on Just Dance and Zumba.
1:34:07 - Closing thoughts.

We’re closing out our first season of 7 Minutes with a look at the games we loved from 10 and 20 years ago. 2001 saw the discontinuation of the Dreamcast, the dominance of the young PS2, and the release of several new systems, including GameCube, Xbox, and GBA. 2011 was a decidedly mid-generation year, with the only notable hardware release being the 3DS. Finally, rather than just talk about what we’ve been playing since our last recording, we reflect on our favorite experiences with the games of 2021. Join us for one last season 1 ride, and we’ll see you next year.

Timestamps:
0:00 - Introductions.
1:38 - 2001.
33:02 - 2011.
1:25:49 - 2021.

Games journalism has by its nature always been bound up with games marketing, but in the NES/Game Boy/SNES era of Nintendo’s uncontested industry dominance, the biggest Nintendo-focused magazine was not only endorsed by Nintendo but actually produced in-house. Zack, Angela, and Robert discuss that strange and charming cultural artifact, Nintendo Power, and drift into talking about other game magazines past and present too.

Timestamps:
0:00 - Introductions and what we’ve been playing
9:31 - The history of Nintendo Power.
31:19 - Features and oddities of Nintendo Power.
44:04 - Other game magazines of Nintendo Power’s era.
52:55 - The game magazine landscape today.

While home consoles have always tried to differentiate themselves from the competition with Blast Processing, Emotion Engines, and other chimeras of engineering and marketing, no home console did so much to differentiate itself from its competitors and predecessor as Nintendo’s weird little Wii, which turns 15 this month. Robert, Zack, and Angela talk about their Wii memories and the console’s legacy.

Timestamps:
0:00 - Introductions and what we’ve been playing.
17:10 - The birth of the Wii and the death of many a hapless TV screen.
29:29 - Miis!
36:16 - Motion controls, novelty, and the strange identity of the Wii.
1:07:43 - Memories of the Wii’s library.

After its uncontested dominance in the PS1 and PS2 eras, Sony started the following console generation on the backfoot, beaten to market by the 360 and outshone by the wildfire success of the Wii. Still, even if eclipsed by competitors for much of its lifespan, the PS3 was a great little (or not so little) system with a number of selling points. Fifteen years after its launch, Angela, Robert, and Zack talk about the Spider-Man 3 font for an hour and a half straight.

Timestamps:
0:00 - What we’ve been playing.
33:13 - Our introductions to PS3 and our first games.
57:48 - PS3 library and system feature highlights.
1:09:54 - Revisiting the PS3 in recent years.

Six years after its release, Witcher III: The Wild Hunt is still frequently held up as the benchmark for both RPGs and open world games. Listeners know this game is a favorite of both Angela and Zack, who take the opportunity to talk at length about it. Robert fans will be heartbroken to know he couldn't join for this episode, but he'll be here next time. Warning: major spoilers for Witcher III and its DLC!

Timestamps:
0:00 - Introductions and what we’ve been playing.
11:26 - How we discovered Witcher III.
18:26 - The world of The Witcher, and White Orchard.
43:42 - Velen.
54:00 - Novigrad.
1:10:29 - Skellige.
1:29:05 - Kaer Morhen and the finale of the main game.
1:46:22 - Hearts of Stone.
2:01:10 - Blood and Wine.
2:18:45 - Gwent!

Whether we're in search of an escape, a virtual vacation, a comfortable set of genre tropes, or just some pretty lights to look at, the setting of a game can enhance, define, or completely undermine its appeal. Robert, Zack, and Angela tour the wide world of game settings, from forests to cities to space.

Timestamps:
0:00 - Introductions and what we’ve been playing.
9:50 - Deserts.
14:48 - Modern day Japanese high schools.
16:41 - Steampunk.
17:29 - Postapocalyptic.
20:46 - Japanese horror.
22:46 - Tropical, water-heavy settings.
27:13 - Winter areas.
29:33 - Cities.
35:17 - Medieval/fantasy settlements.
39:43 - Donkey Kong Country and setting drift over the course of a series.
42:08 - Forests.
43:05 - Science fiction and setting scope.
48:17 - Caves.
53:47 - Call of Duty and the role of sound design in reinforcing a setting.
1:02:17 - Dark/gothic fantasy.

There’s no accounting for taste, but that doesn’t stop Angela, Robert, and Zack from taking turns trying to express and explain our love for our favorite video game characters, heroes and villains and little oddballs alike. Fair warning that due to its nature this podcast will potentially contain spoilers for every character discussed, with the exception of Final Fantasy XIV’s Emet-Selch, who is discussed only vaguely.

Timestamps

0:00 - Introductions and what we've been playing (Hotline Miami, Murder By Numbers, Great Ace Attorney, Silver Case).
13:53 - Heroes!
14:28 - Samus (Metroid series) (Robert).
19:11 - Majima (Yakuza series) (Angela).
26:58 - Squall (Final Fantasy VIII) (Zack).
30:45 - Solid Snake (Metal Gear series) (Robert).
35:58 - Link (Zelda series) (whole group).
38:18 - Geralt (Witcher series) (Angela).
44:30 - Connor Kenway (Assassin’s Creed III) (Zack).
48:30 - Soap & Price (Modern Warfare series) (Robert).
50:31 - Robert just starts listing miscellaneous Nintendo characters.
56:25 - Cloud (Final Fantasy VII) (Angela).
59:05 - Leon (Resident Evil 4) (Angela).
1:04:14 - Kiryu (Yakuza series) (Zack).
1:07:09 - Villains!
1:07:09 - Nishiki (Yakuza Series) (Zack).
1:09:47 - Olgierd & Gaunter (Witcher III) (Angela).
1:13:00 - Revolver Ocelot (Metal Gear series) (Robert).
1:14:58 - Ganon[dorf] (group).
1:19:37 - King of All Cosmos (Katamari Damacy) (Zack).
1:20:49 - Yotsuyu (Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood) (Angela).
1:23:52 - Cranky Kong (Donkey Kong Country series( (Robert).
1:26:06 - Travis Touchdown (No More Heroes series) (Robert).
1:29:14 - Emet-Selch (Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers) (Zack).
1:31:18 - Her (Ruiner) (Angela).
1:34:32 - Odds & Ends!
1:34:32 - Shy Guy (Mario series) (Robert).
1:37:26 - What’s up with Nintendo’s big fat comic villains?
1:39:25 - Ser Aymeric (Final Fantasy XIV) (Angela).
1:40:06 - Lucas (Mother 3) (Robert).
1:41:34 - The Merchant (Resident Evil 4) (Zack).
1:42:04 - Rydia (Final Fantasy IV) (Zack).
1:44:12 - Estinien(Final Fantasy XIV) (Angela).
1:46:27 - Missile (Ghost Trick) (Zack).
1:49:51 - Snake & Kid Kat (Animal Crossing series) (Angela).

Nintendo had a virtual monopoly on console gaming in the NES era, to such an extent that in the 90s "Nintendo" was a colloquial term for games in general. By the time they rolled out their 16 bit successor, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, the world had started to change around them, both in terms of stiff competition from Sega and the proliferation of unofficial resources and devices, from GamePro to Game Genie. Thankfully, developers stepped up to the challenge with some seminal titles that are still revered today, like Super Metroid, Earthbound, and ... Cool Spot? Zack, Angela, and Robert revisit a console that was formative for all three of them in different ways.

Timestamps:
0:00 - Introductions and what we've been playing.
13:57 - Our introduction to the Super Nintendo, and what we think defined the Super Nintendo.
38:29 - Marrujo Trivia Challenge, part 1.
41:05 - The music of the Super Nintendo, featuring some mercifully brief impromptu a capella renditions of Yoshi's Island music. We also talk about the terminally x-treme 90s styling found in some Super Nintendo games.
57:15 - Marrujo Trivia Challenge, part 2.
1:00:13 - Weird peripherals, edutainment software, and a celebration of the three pillars of Super Nintendo games: brawlers, fighters, and mascot platformers.
1:23:36 - Marrujo Trivia Challenge, part 3 and finale.

Adam finally gave us permission to release our 35th anniversary Metroid podcast, so here we are. Robert, Zack, and Angela methodically bomb jump their way through the canonical series. Superfans of Metroid Prime Pinball, Metroid Prime Hunters, and Metroid Federation Force are advised to look elsewhere for their fix.

Timestamps:
0:00 - Introductions, what we’ve been playing, and our first experiences with the Metroid series.
17:49 - The original Metroid.
36:49 - Metroid II: Return of Samus.
41:15 - Super Metroid.
48:29 - The years between Super and Prime.
52:56 - Metroid Prime.
1:03:18 - Metroid Fusion.
1:09:53 - Metroid Prime 2: Echoes.
1:14:33 - Metroid: Zero Mission.
1:17:46 - Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.
1:22:24 - Metroid: Other M.
1:41:18 - AM2R, over the protestations of Robert and Angela.
1:43:50 - Metroid: Samus Returns.

There’s a lot of received wisdom among both gamers and the games commentariat regarding what counts as good or bad game design, and sometimes the line between a real flaw and a pet peeve is extremely blurry. Angela, Robert and Zack run through a hit list of classic “bad design” complaints and talk them out.

Timestamps:
0:00 - Introductions and what we’ve been playing.
6:39 - QTEs.
14:38 - Slow walking quasi-cutscenes.
19:53 - Audiologs, datalogs, and other world-building clutter.
30:47 - Tutorials, menu design, and ways to teach the player.
49:50 - Grinding.
1:04:08 - Limited lives, unavoidable damage, cheap deaths, and other setback/punishment mechanics.
1:23:34 - 30 seconds on diegetic vs non-diegetic design.

From cheat codes to hidden items to entire inverted castles, games have always been saturated with secrets. In the era before the Internet, these were slowly propagated via playground blacktop, print magazine, and BBS. GameFAQs changed the game by giving an entire Internet’s worth of weirdos a gathering place for sharing discoveries, and secrets have become much harder to hide, although vague patch notes and live service games add their own wrinkles. Zack, Angela, and Robert shine a light on the history of secrets in video games.

Timestamps:
0:00 - Introductions and what we’ve been playing.
11:15 - Secrets vs Easter eggs.
22:10 - Secrets felt different before the Internet.
44:42 - Cut content, cheat codes, and what exactly counts as a secret.

Welcome to the first bonus episode! While our podcast is not a reaction-heavy “news of the week” roundtable, Summer Games Fest and E3 were sufficiently packed with announcements that we had had quite a bit to say and decided to inflict that on our listeners rather than just each other. Because this is an unusual approach for us and a bit shorter than our regular episodes, we’re counting this as our first bonus episode.

Timestamps:
0:00 - Introductions and what we’ve been playing.
10:33 - E3, Summer Games Fest, and our reactions to them.

The gaming landscape has included multiplayer experiences for as far back as anyone can remember or bother to document — Tennis for Two (1958) and Spacewar! (1962) are among the oldest works in the medium, older even than game consoles, arcade games, or personal computers themselves. Angela, Robert, and Zack are all at least a little introverted when it comes to play habits, but would be remiss to ignore the wide world of multiplayer.

Timestamps:
0:00 - Introductions and what we’ve been playing.
8:09 - Our histories with multiplayer.
31:08 - Headgames, the unexpected, and hunting the most dangerous game.
56:06 - The crucible of online gaming.
1:12:00 - Dopamine hits, exploitative game design, and some odds and ends.

30 years ago, being informed about upcoming video games largely meant looking through monthly magazines or getting the information in those magazines secondhand. Those magazines, though, were getting their information from PR professionals, trade shows, and so forth, and for most of the last 30 years the biggest event in video game news has been E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo. Zack, Angela, and Robert discuss their own histories with E3 and other industry events (including time spent working both sides of the booth), and also talk about how games marketing and cycles of hype have changed over time.

Timestamps
0:00 - Introductions and what we’ve been playing.
4:05 - The industry convention experience from the POVs of media and PR.
23:47 - What’s the alternative to the show floor? How do games get the word out?
34:51 - E3 and other games marketing/PR from the audience perspective.
52:15 - From magazines to an online free for all: how the Internet has been changing things since the 90s.
1:08:34 - Nostalgic odds & ends.

From Pog to Tickle-Me Elmo, many 90s sensations proved to be short-lived fads, but 25 years on Pokemon still has more than a few diehards, to say the least. Angela (Fire type), Robert (Fighting type), and Zack (Bug type) wander through the history of the storied Pokemon franchise and, because this is a more laid back podcast, decline to add the accent to the name of the series in this podcast description.

Timestamps
0:00 - Introductions and what we’ve been playing.
5:13 - The original games and the era of Pokemania.
20:44 - Changes across generations, for better and for worse.
37:46 - Marrujo Trivia Challenge, Part 1.
41:44 - Pokemon lore and its relationship to the real world.
59:11 - Marrujo Trivia Challenge, Part 2.
1:04:18 - The movies, the mobile games, and what’s next for the series.
1:15:02 - Marrujo Trivia Challenge, Part 3.
1:16:51 - Final thoughts.

Game designer Hideki Kamiya is known for tense, challenging, and rewarding games like Devil May Cry, Resident Evil 2, The Wonderful 101, and Bayonetta. It's easy to expect certain strengths and design priorities from the games he has helmed as a result, but Okami stands apart. A long and bucolic game known more for its art style than its combat systems, Okami was critically lauded but so commercially underappreciated that it earned a Guinness World Record for "least commercially successful winner of a game of the year award." Unlike Clover's other games (God Hand, Viewtiful Joe), though, Okami has remained well-loved with rereleases on new systems every few years. Robert, Zack, and Angie reminisce about their time with Okami and its peculiar place in the arc of Japanese game development, predating and perhaps precipitating Capcom's 360-era pivot towards more "western" games.

Timestamps
0:00 - Introductions and what we’ve been playing.
5:30 - Okami and its relationship to The Legend of Zelda.
16:21 - Japanese games designed for Japanese sensibilities, versus for western sensibilities.
37:50 - Our experiences with Okami.
1:02:58 - How has the industry changed since Okami came out in 2006?
1:32:40 - Summing up and our favorite things about Okami.

For almost any hobby, budget is a limiting factor, but gaming is unusual in that it's a hobby often carried from childhood into adulthood. Even as free time shrinks and incomes grow, gaming itself can remain a constant. Angela, Robert, and Zack swap stories of getting gifts as kids, saving up for their first purchases, seeing what other kids' households were kitted out with, learning how to prioritize purchases ... and blowing a bunch of cash that they probably shouldn't have.

Timestamps:
0:00 - Introductions and what we’ve been playing.
11:13 - Childhood constraints: minimum money, maximum time.
27:38 - Limited gaming libraries and the effect on player mindset.
35:21 - Learning to be a picky shopper and exploring cost-effective ways to game.
51:43 - Compulsive spending problems, self-aware and otherwise.
1:06:52 - Odds & ends: discussing game/music associations, debating whether Red from Solatorobo is a “furry.”

Zack, Angela, and Robert look back at the the last of the legendary Game Boy line on its 20th anniversary. Is it fair to call it a portable SNES? Not exactly. Is it unambitious compared to its wild successor, the DS? Only sort of. Do the games hold up? Absolutely. And who reigns supreme when Zack puts the GBA trivia knowledge of the Marrujo siblings to the test?

Timestamps:
0:00 - Introductions and the GBA’s unique legacy as the last scion of 90s gaming.
12:35 - Marrujo Trivia Showdown Part 1.
17:22 - GBA hardware revisions and where we jumped in.
36:55 - Marrujo Trivia Showdown Part 2.
41:50 - Our favorite GBA games … and some non-favorites, too.
1:19:39 - Marrujo Trivia Showdown Finale.

Some games are so nice they release them twice, yet almost never unchanged. Sometimes the creators only make small tweaks like adding save states or a concept art gallery, and sometimes they make an entirely new game with the same story and premise, and there's a lot of variation between those two poles. Robert, Zack, and Angie discuss their own experiences with ports, remakes, and remasters, and can't resist broadening the conversation to talk about game preservation and history.

A discussion of Final Fantasy VII Remake from 34:03 - 37:29 includes some spoilers for that title.

Timestamps
0:00 - Introductions and what we think of when we think of remakes
16:11 - How ports, remakes, and remasters have (or haven't) changed over time
46:20 - Preservation and authenticity
1:14:50 - Worst and best remakes

The Legend of Zelda was first published 35 years ago this month for the Famicom Disk System, and has been one of the medium's most storied sagas since then. Angela, Robert, and Zack reminisce about the series and recount their own personal highs and lows with the franchise. They also discuss the trauma of lost save games and hardware failure, and more or less introduce themselves in this inaugural episode.

Timestamps
0:00 - Introductions
4:45 - The 35th Anniversary and our favorite Zelda games
36:38 - Least favorites and vocabulary lessons
1:08:07 - Lost saves and dying consoles