Tactical Ponchos | The Grinding Gear Podcast #139

Expedition 33 special with music YouTube extraordinaire, MarcoMeatball is today’s offering! Marco joins the boys to talk not just about the exceptional music of Clair Obscure. But also it’s story and the hot takes that start flying around chat whenever someone gets to the ending. Enjoy this deep dive in Sandfall’s first game as well as our brains’ as content creators!

Will Pokemon save us from the Ai? Stormgate, you remember Stormgate right? Tim Morten had a rather honest rundown of where he feels the post-Blizzard design team went wrong and brings up the changing landscape of Venture Capital. The episode can’t help but get real on the eve of Pokemon’s release. Love em or hate em, Nintendo is about to drop another massive Poke’drama’pocalypse into the world as reviews come in around 8/10. Xbox continues its cursed run by talking about an upcoming “ad supported” tier of Xbox Game Pass. We’re both playing Megabonk. Emails and more.

The Round Table gathers. 7.3: The Promise of Tomorrow MSQ ends the Dawntrail ark in traditional fashion. Garrett, Kyle and Jesse freshen themselves up on the story happenings, having played it back in August. Preach, recently caught up, shares a fresh viewer's perspective. Is Calyx around for the long haul? What does that mean for the story and Sphene? What lessons have the devs learned from Dawntrail and what will they carry into the future. One thing is clear, FFXIV is a story first game and it’s future rides on its ability to capture it’s fans once again. 7.3 seems a solid start.

A day of many trailers, of many announcements. Kojima Productions, Capcom, Star Wars, Silent Hill and more. The Prince of Sweden is giving awards to Split Fiction. Fornite is trying proximity voice chat. The Expedition 33 continues, Garrett’s playing Hollow Knight and Kyle is READING BOOKS?! 

Nintendo Direct! New HOTS patch! The problem with game music. AND SO MUCH MORE! SupportOurBromance.com or… well we won’t enshittify. So, thanks for the support!

The tubes are on fire. Or maybe they have been for a month. In a massive conspiracy turned reality, YouTubers found that they’re views have dropped by half in the month of August due to YouTube’s new features. Indie games don't know how to price themselves in the wake of Silksong’s release. We got the Yoshi P interview round up covering all the teases and perhaps walkbacks on the upcoming job update. Blizzard continues to C&D classic plus private servers. Hollow Knight, Expedition 33 and more.  Supportourbromance.com if you're a player who likes change, but also for everything to remain the same, with exciting changes on the horizon.

Expedition 33 talk later, news first. Silksong is only $20 but Monster Hunter Wilds certainly wasn't. Blizzard shuts down Turtle wow, or plans to. Yoshi-P asks people to be nicer. Then our thoughts on the first 3 hours of Expedition 33. Emails and More

Video games! More are coming and the ones that are here are under debate. Thats Gamescom 2025 for ya. A few winners grabbed our attention. Kyle is playing Hollow Knight. Crossovers be damned, MTG Airbender is looking real good. World of WarCraft showed off its newest expansion Midnight. Pick your side, because FFXIV mods lovers and haters are at each other this week. We got the full rundown to help you pick your side. Garrett’s watching Evangelion as an adult. All this and more. 

The merch cluster is under attack. Pokemon Worlds took place in Anaheim this week and it was invaded by SCALPERS. While Garrett and Kyle attempt to fathom this, Japanese McDonald’s was also forced to end their Pokemon Happy Meal tie-in early. Gamescom is tomorrow, and World of Warcraft is set to show its newest cinematic for Midnight. Dandadan, Alien: Earth, and so much more.