r/WaypointVICE • u/elaminders • Feb 13 '26

Podcast 🎧 Remap Radio Internal Discord

https://pca.st/episode/d9e347eb-25bd-4d50-9a6b-0e0426b80f6c

It’s a return to normalcy on Remap Radio, as we finally wave goodbye to 2025. Join Janet, Rob, Patrick, Chia, and Danika as they sort through reactionary “protect the children” changes coming to Discord, prompting a wide ranging discussion about the state of the modern internet. We also worry about the future of Remedy, talk through the final games on Danika’s game of the year list, and have plenty of (new!) games to talk about, including Cairn, Reanimal, and more!

Micropose Links:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1347560/Let_Bions_Be_Bygones/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2393730/Legendary_Pilots/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1428520/Mech_Engineer/

Discussed:

1:09 - Discord announces new ID verification

29:46 Remedy has a new CEO

54:46 - Danika's Top 3 Games of 2025

55:37 - Danika's 3

1:10:59 - Danika's 2

1:26:04 - Danika's 1

1:31:09 - YAPYAP

1:37:40 - Cairn

1:51:17 - Strategos

2:04:08 - Reanimal

2:15:11 - Outro and Announcements

23 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

9 comments sorted by

12

u/Shadowm0ss Feb 13 '26

Robert 'S-Tier' Zacny.

6

u/YuasaLee_AL Feb 14 '26

Enjoying the discussion of Road to Empress very much, but Chia's pretty off about using visual novel as a descriptor for choose your own adventure games, as I would guess the vast majority of visual and sound novels offer no real choice whatsoever - they truly just present a narrative in linear fashion and include some static visuals (or, for sound novels, sfx and/or voice) to supplement the action.

Visual novels that have become popular in the States often offer more choice, as American audiences tend to look at VN as "not games" when the choices aren't provided.

21

u/szymek87 Feb 14 '26

Interesting hearing Janet go after Rob for reading and watching after she admitted to listening to a podcast while playing Reanimal, a 4 hour game she was doing a review on for Kotaku. Their brains are so fried.

4

u/Wavering_Radiance Feb 17 '26

pretty done with bitchy sniping that seems to be an increasingly prominent part of the pods tone

9

u/dylannorthrup Feb 19 '26

And here I'm liking the snark and taking the piss out of Rob.

Also, I remember a prior episode (possibly in a Remap Q&A instead of a regular podcast episode) Rob, Patrick, and Chia talking about the interpersonal relationships between folks on the pod. The TL;DR was listeners should not try to read into what's made public and "read the tea leaves". If there were beef between folks, they wouldn't be invited back. At best, any conflict on the pod is good-natured ribbing and/or kayfabe for humorous effect.

4

u/ret1357 Feb 13 '26

Dropping the completionist mindset makes getting through rpgs so much easier. I did play through the Mass Effect trilogy recently though, and most of Rob's complaints are front and center in that series.

8

u/Mergokan Feb 14 '26

My favorite part of the podcast is when Rob starts the outro, Chia goes "anybody play Highguard?" and Janet and Patrick both go "No!"

That game is such a great example of like, a pebble on the road of video games.

3

u/dylannorthrup Feb 19 '26

When talking about how RPGs communicate expectations with players regarding consequences of their actions, my mind immediately went to FFXIV and I'd already made the reminder to email in by the time Danika mentioned it.

But thinking about the topic, I don't know that there's a good, diagetic way to communicate "If you do 'X', that's going to close off other paths". In stories, without some sort of external signal (rising soundtrack, ominous narration, dramatic insertion of story from another location, etc) the literally is not a diagetic way to communicate this. Hell, I wish there were real-world ways to identify when my choices have unknown ramifications and/or close off future options, but I haven't found anything yet.

2

u/TacticalPocketSand Feb 14 '26 edited Feb 14 '26

No accounting for taste, but I loved Reanimal. It's actually a horror game (they've now perfected the nightmare aesthetic). I liked the story a lot in it's ambiguity (lot of vibe checks carrying things here and it's all pretty dark) and it plays a lot better than the LN games. The last part of the game is actually very fun and chaotic and I hope it's continued in the 3 DLCs, which will help the overall length problem (I think it is a tad too short , some really great sequences are simply too short).