We're in the anime mech battle zone, hell yeah. We both had some reservations coming into 13 Sentinels, which were promptly proven wrong because this is a total banger of a game. Part JRPG, part visual novel, part tactical mech strategy game, part brain-bending convoluted sci-fi time travel, all bizarrely compelling. It's good stuff!

Support Bastard Sword by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/bastard-sword

If we honour our part of the vow, promise me you'll be my consort. We've finally finished our first playthroughs of Shadow of the Erdtree, and we have thoughts. A lot of thoughts, in fact! In this episode, we give a little bit of our general impressions and a lot of our impressions of the storylines and the (surprisingly huge) lore implications of what happens with Miquella, Leda, and, of course, our main man Igon. Thanks for listening and please be sure to let us know what you think!

Support Bastard Sword by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/bastard-sword

Sometimes games just don't make the impact they should have, either getting overlooked entirely or obtaining "cult classic" status. Those are what we talked about this week, a small selection of some of our favorite under-the-radar games. They're not underrated, mind you - everyone who has played these generally loves them - but they just don't get the attention we feel like they deserved. Drew talks about Hypnospace Outlaw, an awesome early internet simulator/detective game, and Spec Ops: The Line, a surprisingly heady deconstruction of military shooters. Josh brings Risk of Rain 2, a mechanically-rich roguelike shooter, and XCom 2, a deep and phenomenal tactical RTS.

Editor’s Note from Josh: We finally fixed my audio! Also, in my segment about Xcom 2, I mistakenly said The Spokesman was voiced by Peter Cullen (Optimus Prime). It’s actually Jon Bailey of Honest Trailers fame. He also does a great Optimus Prime voice, hence the confusion.

Support Bastard Sword by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/bastard-sword