CSB312: Bad Things Happen When Jars Are Involved

Hello.

Did you beat Metaphor?

I beat Metaphor.

Can we talk about Metaphor?

Yeah, can we talk about Metaphor?

All right, hold on, hold on, hold on.

Okay, let's go.

Okay, it's a Metaphor spoiler cast now.

Okay.

All right, everyone, we're going to talk about Metaphor Refantasio.

Here comes comes the spoiler cast.

I cannot believe

that

the main villain.

Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.

Give them a second to leave.

Give them a second.

Give them a second to leave.

This is a very big game that literally, you're the only person I know that actually beat it.

Everyone I know that plays these games.

It's long.

It's very, very long.

So people.

It's long as shit.

People that I know love these games still need a minute to get through it.

It takes so long.

So, yes.

And that was because I like went super hard on it.

I would do like a fucking six-hour stream, and then I would help put the baby to bed, and then fucking go back at like 10:30 p.m.

And I do until like two in the morning.

And I was going at what I felt was like a reasonable push for this, especially for this week.

And it was still the insane Atlas, we are never letting you go,

you know, vibe.

And so, anyway, so let's.

You know what's really funny about that vibe is that it does feel like it is a marathon.

But, like, you look at the dates and it's like, oh, it's four months.

Yeah.

I guess it'll be like way shorter.

But what I, but what I actually feel, and that, like, you know, Punch Bomb came through and was like, did you beat it yet?

And I was like, no, that wasn't, that wasn't even, you know, that wasn't even the beginning of the farewell tour.

It's like

RPGs are, you know, every genre has gone through the thing where, you know, people that have been playing them their entire lives need higher and higher bars set for each entry.

And now, if you're not splitting it into three three giant, giant things, you get this kind of like persona bar where Atlas RPGs are going to just be more and more.

And like, to recommend this, it's a very good game to tell people that you're going to be spending minimum 100 hours, right?

This is a great Christmas present game.

It is, it's so demanding of your time.

And for this to be going into like adulthood where responsibilities means you have less and less time is nuts.

It's nuts that the group of people that were like, I have a ton of time and I'm in high school and I'm in, or I'm in college, you know, that we were playing like Persona a while ago are now who's buying these things, but you have less time than ever, but they have to hit a bar that's higher than ever of your time.

It's so long.

The ultimate like game as length argument that I can think of right now is that

if I got a video game for Christmas and it was the one video game, would that last me my entire Christmas break?

I mean, right?

Atlas games will.

Okay.

And then some.

So, okay, so here's the thing.

To play it at the breakneck speeds that, like, I'd say you make it through or like Schmup God Pad.

This is the fastest I've ever played a game.

It's unhealthy.

It's an unhealthy amount required, right?

No, Elden Ring was the fastest.

Okay, and here's the thing.

Consider somebody who has like a job that is not able to play video games as part of that job.

Yeah.

It's unreasonable.

It's unreasonable for someone to work a normal.

Let's do the math on this.

The average person

after work or whatever is going to have fucking, what, an hour, two hours of like video game time a day.

If they wanted to dedicate that time in their life to video games.

Yeah, when I was trying to

get through stuff, that would be a realistic depiction of it.

I'd say for me, or there was friends who liked to like crush achievements, get through everything.

Yeah, they'd be able to put in like three, sometimes even four if they stayed up late, you know.

Okay, but let's let's say you get like an hour and a half, yeah, yeah, a night if you want to be reasonable.

Now, you're not going to do that every single night, no.

Let's say you do that every other day, that's a hundred days,

yeah, like right there, like it's a hundred days.

Scratch a few uh weekends where you say, you know what, this Sunday, I'm gonna throw my whole Sunday at the game, okay?

Yeah, and you know what happens,

your wife is like,

why don't we go antique chair shop?

You're like, that sounds great, honey.

I would love an antique chair I can't sit in.

Yeah, responsibilities do start to kick in.

Anyway, so all that is understood.

And

that is a fictional scenario.

But

the point.

That's totally fictional.

Not at all real based on reality.

But

the point remains is that it's insane what they're asking, but I'm not complaining about the quality.

All right, so full.

Did you see the part of the game that they cut?

Did you see it with your eye?

Where you go to a bespoke, famous location and fight one boss fight and

the fucking school that they're building up the whole game?

Okay, okay, yes, yes.

The fucking ice school, and then you have a boss fight in front of it, and you don't enter.

Okay, so we can talk about it.

We can talk about it.

There's a couple different angles for this.

Certainly, as a video game, there's what's going on with it, like with the just asset, you know, usage and the way it's built.

But

what I, I mean, I was scribbling notes down as I was going through it, especially like for this last part, because I thought I had it figured out, and then I didn't.

And then the closing like rush, that final month,

really switched up what I kind of thought was going on with the game.

Okay, so for one, right?

And I feel like they've left, as much as this is,

it's the most political game that I've played out of Atlas.

No, no, it's not.

It's a metaphor.

I don't.

I know that I feel like whenever I say these things, someone will go like, bro, Persona 1, though, or, you know, an SMT game I haven't played.

And I'd be like, yeah, okay, fair enough.

But no, no, this is the most.

This is the most by far 100%.

Of the five that I've played, right, this is now the sixth.

This, uh, uh, this is, this feels like the most.

And um,

with that, it is also like

them.

Yeah,

it's them going.

It's their version of like, you can't go Disco Elysium hard, but this is as hard as we can go within

the context of where we are.

Exactly.

Within our own system, within our location, our time, space, you know,

whatever, placement.

It's also like, not just necessarily narratively, but there's also a, sorry, politically, but there's also a narrative bent to it because there's a there's been an ongoing problem in in fiction for a long time which is it's incredibly difficult to write a charismatic villain that people don't end up just fawning over to the point where their their own ideals shift their perspective yes the first time you the first like the first time you Tony Montana and Walter White and shit like this.

The first time you encounter a villain where you're like, the villain is debatably right.

You know, where people are going, like, this person did nothing wrong.

And you're like, ooh, I like that kind of villain way more than Cartoonish Evil.

Yeah, but then you get this one and you think that's what he's going for.

No.

Nah, nah.

Nah, fuck it.

Take it a step further, right?

And that's, it's interesting how you can have like an RPG playout where the twists are not even really huge twists.

They're all very foreseeable.

The only major real one is like the reasons why the villain is doing what he's doing.

But let's...

I actually,

I think they've gone really far with like anti-twists in this game in that motivations and

methods and Machiavellian things.

I mean, there's some good ass twists in there.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

But like the single biggest twist of the whole fucking game to me was that Lewis

was him.

Like assassination attempt

followed by by boss fight, followed by fall through the fucking thing.

No, I'm okay.

Really?

Oh, I.

You just, you just lived through that?

Yeah.

Are you serious?

I mean, I, I, so for me, I kind of, I looked at that and I'm like, that's the Griffith in you that is just dragging you through sheer determination to the finish line, you know, because how hard you believe in your, your, your, your ideals determines how far you can go, right?

Like your convictions

are your real life bar.

Yeah, bitch, I lived, but no, your convictions are your real life bar.

That, you know, um,

and I do have to give them like props for having a second villain whose motivations have no depth at all.

Uh,

which one?

Adachi would be the first one.

Oh, yes, yes, yeah, okay, right, right, right.

Louis, what, what are you, why are you doing this?

Because everyone was mean to me when I was a baby.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

I'm not going to, no, I'm not going to say no depth there.

I disagree with that part.

But, but I, uh, um, I think, though, just backing it up a little bit, um,

the fact too, as well, that, like, every time they make a point here, right?

They, it's, you can feel like in P3, uh, four, and so, where, like, you have a personal revelation and then you kind of internalize it.

And, like, you spend the rest of the game kind of like revisiting those topics from moment to moment, but you kind of leave that resolution where it was, where, you know, you're not, you're facing your true self happens, and then you're, you go on to solve the, the external problem in a way, you know?

In this case, I feel like even after you solve the problem, they spend so much time being like, hey, listen, just because people believe in you, because you fought and saved them from a big evil, does not mean they agree with your ideals, right?

They're the happily ever after as a concept is not going to suddenly switch on just because the sky turned blue.

And they spend all.

Heizme is like the most peak of that in this game, where you go through his thing and you deal with the you geef and their racism and all that and the kid and it's so sad.

And then you still play through most of the game where he's like, I don't like those fucking cat boys on this shit.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Which, I mean, and you know, you have that, it's such a trope, but I love it, is that that moment of, you know, Basilio being like, hey, old man, you you sure you want to die next to a fucking cat boy?

He's like

I'll deal with it.

I'll deal with it.

Okay

One

humans

Human beings

are panic attacks

Yeah, to be a human is to have a panic attack Yeah, that's right.

It is anxiety exploding out of you till it gets externalized in a completely unfamiliar, unknowable, insane form.

And

that is

like the...

It's a metaphor.

Yes, right.

Having a panic attack, having anxiety to that, when it explodes out of you, it turns you into a Titan.

You know?

That's already, that's already like,

that's a fantastic metaphor.

It's, you know, starting there and basically looking at it like,

you know obviously like i think we have uh you know there's a line where it's like nature used to be man's biggest threat you know but then eventually it became fear and it became internal internal things you know and i would say that like um a lot of fiction i've talked about like i've talked about like you know fear and hatred as these like uh um

These things that are,

you know, they poison the mind.

And we've, a lot of our fiction has been about going against that.

Anxiety in particular is a very specific and modern flavor of that you know um because it's not the same as just hatred and just fear it's it's a very specific flavor and at one point gallica says um

it's a mixture of hope and fear at the same time and i'm like oh that's a really good way to put it you know um so i like that that becomes like a focal point of what the game is dealing with to the point where like it's literally the currency of magic like oh no i'm being attacked by ennui Oh, oh, fuck.

I mean, like, ennui almost implies like disconnection from it, though, right?

Like,

this is being way too engaged and being unable to see outside of your own shit.

And overall, like, I feel like,

you know, as you're kind of having, you're getting towards those final months.

This is one of my favorite contexts for

the side, the super mission,

your kind of side super bosses.

It's totally dragged into the primary plot

and into the thesis statement of the game.

It's a really great way to introduce that, right?

Because you start putting together basically, okay, to me, at the very least, my interpretation of the events

are the thing that they keep repeating, strive towards fantasy, right?

My reading on that is that, like,

there's no perfect democratic utopia that doesn't exist.

Reading about it in in this book in this way, and you're like, hey, that's kind of like our world.

That's fucking crazy.

That's not a utopia, right?

There's no ability in striving towards the impossible idea because

you are creating a positive world and helping as many people on the way to that impossible goal, right?

So I feel like that is what they're getting at.

And there's a couple of points where like, okay,

you're keeping that in mind and going forward with things.

And then the

sort of the tower quest and then the dragons and then the final one is a really interesting like, okay, if that's your thesis statement, let's like argue against that, right?

Let's steelman it.

Let's go, well,

it's great that you're inspiring hope in people.

That's cool.

And you're teaching people that if you conquer the anxiety inside of you,

you can reach greater heights, you know, and become something more and overcome your trials, right?

But the whole final dragon, though, the whole final dragon bit, the conversation they have at the end is like, okay, but just because you're inspiring hope in people, like

don't like, does, what's the difference between that and like complacency, believing in someone that can do the job for you, essentially.

And like the, the, the, and the questions that it asks right up front.

Like your character, your party almost goes, shit, he's got a point.

Like they kind of buy into it.

And then it's only after beating it that they're like, no, no, no, no, no.

Just because someone can do it for you does not mean that you just need to sit and let that happen, right?

Being autonomous, being self-determining is super important as well to this.

So, yes, face your inner fears and all that, and you're overcome your anxieties, and other people can help you with that, and you can rely on others to show you that.

But don't

when you're relying on them, don't mean, don't have that be like, I'm going to sit back and have them drag me to out of it.

You know, I can't, I can't help, I can't get out of it myself if I'm not moving, waiting for someone to pull me out of my shit.

I was really glad that the game had an extremely extended epilogue that goes into this in more detail, where it's like, listen, the city on the hill is a metaphor.

It's supposed to be a striving goal that you can never quite reach.

You can never reach it.

And so the entire epilogue is you going to every single person you have ever met going, things are definitely better than they were during the election, but there's a lot of work to go yeah yeah yeah it's gonna take a really really long time and we may never do it but boy howdy i'm gonna give it a shot the world is slow to change um

things are all these issues that we're dealing with are way more complicated than again happily ever after you know um

and what's the line there's um

Yeah, yeah, there's that bit where

right at the end of that, that super boss,

the true enemy is the mind that refuses to see the complexities in the world around them, right?

Yes, you can black and white things, but but like if you are like trying to

look at this in a way where you want to not just see this type of suffering cycle over and over again,

acknowledge that it's more than like the people that are

looking at Luis and being like, nah, I want to believe in that though.

I have something inside of me that's like, yeah, that's easy, that's simple.

I am the right person to, I need to be on top and whatever.

It's going to take a while to root that kind of shit out.

You can't just hand wave it away.

But overall,

march towards the unreachable city on the hill, march towards fantasy, and like landing somewhere in between that and reality

is a pretty good place to be in the meantime.

Now, it just aim for the moon and you'll land among the stars.

But then it's like, okay, but hold on a minute, pause.

Moore is like, I am offering you reality, the one that you, the player, knows.

You can take it.

Nothing's wrong here.

It's fine.

Just take it.

It's good.

That'll do, right?

What a great psych out.

What a great psych out.

Really good.

Player only.

Like,

Will is not super psyched out by modern day Shibuya, but we are.

And then you're further psyched out by the fact that you look at it a little more closely and wait, it's wrong.

All that text is gibberish.

But here's the thing.

For us, the player, right?

What is more comforting than escaping into the world you know as a Japanese college student playing a JRPG?

Like, escape into the inside world you know of comfort where it's safe and nothing's crazy is happening and it's not dangerous and you can just you can just believe in this closed off thing, you know?

Escape inside when when when the outside world gets too scary and just believe in in in nothing you know and lock it down and don't let the outside world and like nah you got to reject that shit obviously you know but it's like it's the the fact that it's done through the lens of the player is uh um particularly powerful i

also like uh it's such a basic simple trick but i can't believe it's it fucking still works when earthbound asks you to put in your name and you fucking do and then it, yeah, and then they take a minute, but when they come back around to using it, oh, fuck, it's me.

What the?

You know, and that same thing here where you're like, oh, what the, I put my name in?

When did I do that?

Oh, fuck.

Right.

A million years ago.

That's really well done.

I, I, I love, so like, I feel like that, yeah, they, they responsibly address material,

and then, like, take a minute to just go point by point on each of these struggles and go, like, yep, we're going to keep working on this.

That's how you actually epilogue a story, and then you mumm the climb down, right?

On Luis,

your twist, quote unquote, it's the, it's just, it's so simple because it's him the whole way through, but it's like survival of the fittest, the big strongest survive plot world or whatever.

I gotta say, the survival of the fittest guy, actually,

really, actually surviving because he's the fittest for 99% of the lifetime was very refreshing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But it's also, again,

it's a world that you know villains usually want because they're like, well, I'm strong, so I'll thrive.

And I want this, you know,

twisted version of like, yeah, power might makes right and just make the world all about that, right?

And so there's

like a really clear metaphorical thing with Lucifer and the SMT series in that like he looks like Lucifer, he acts like Lucifer.

His ending for the world is the chaos ending for every SMT game, which is like, well, no, the tough meat will fucking thrive in this monsterized utopia.

How about him taking off the fucking crown?

Oh, you mean Klamar face, Lewis?

You know, the horns, yeah.

Lost my mind.

Yeah, yeah.

Lost it.

Yeah.

But

the

bit where

it's just like, what's the simple thing that you that you're like that's different here?

What's your twist?

And it's like, oh yeah, he still wants a world of these insane anxiety monsters popping off everywhere.

But the idea is those who are strong, not physically, but of will, can overcome it and do what you did and fight your way through on your own to the other side and find determination.

He is basically Senator Armstrong.

Yeah, the strongest survive, but like, it's like, okay, I understand that it would be unfair to say that like Granny needs to fight off a demon.

So it's not that.

It's Granny needs to be internally strong enough to

quell the demon inside, right?

And furthermore, why am I wrong?

This stupid fucking staff has been taking away their anxieties forever.

They were supposed to feel that shit.

I'm just giving you back everything that

was already yours, You know?

Of course, you want to talk about your metaphors, the crown literally weighing, literally taking the weight of everyone's pressure, right?

Everyone laying their anxieties on it, taking the blame, so to speak.

Why does the king look like shit so bad?

Oh my God.

Yes, he suffered personal tragedy, but he's just like slumping around, willing to fucking kill himself at any drop of ass.

Yeah.

It's like, oh, yeah, well, he's kind of absorbing an entire society's worth of bullshit.

And so that's why you have, like, towards the end,

the party is like, does Luis have a point?

And they're like, yeah, yes, but still,

you know, he wants people to overcome their anxiety too, but he wants you to do it alone, you know, and like having friends, fuck that bullshit.

That's for losers.

That's lame.

Be strong on your own.

Don't trust other people.

And of course, S-Lynx goes against the very fucking, you know, philosophy of that.

I only wish in those moments that like

Will, the protagonist, spoke to Luis the way that Stroll or Gallaka is yelling at him.

Yeah.

You know, I wish that

your silent protag, who's not silent, gets more of a personality as the game goes on.

Yeah.

But I mean, you know, you just want, you want to hit those points and like challenge them rhetorically.

Speaking of lines and shit, too, as well,

some of the absolute bangers.

One,

Louis starting the fight with Let It Begin is a fire line for a final boss fight.

Obviously,

the academia theme, like divine God,

heaven remix is the greatest shit.

You know, throwing in

your

staying sane in a fight, not bloody likely.

Like, getting your Seinfeld in there.

Always fun.

But what I fucking popped off for is throughout the whole game, my favorite battle cry on the party was Halkenberg.

Every once in a while, when you go to her, for all that we strive for, right?

I fucking love that line.

It's the best line the entire fucking party has.

It's great.

I get pumped up every time I hear it.

And having that then, when you get to him, get echoed and Luis goes back with, for all that I believe, I'm like, ah, they know.

They know how good that line is because he has his own version of it.

I love that mirror.

It's amazing.

How did the fight with Luis go for you?

Okay.

So my build was,

yeah,

I had, it took me to, I had seven days left before I was like, pretty much like, all right, hit the Coliseum up, waste time, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah, you, it, like, it looks like the math on it you look at when you get there, you're like, like, oh, maybe I don't have enough.

You definitely have enough to do absolutely everything.

So by the time I unlocked

Print, so Prince is insanely busted and you're like, why would I ever use anything else?

Like switch over to your merchant if you need to make some cash, but if you need to make some to farm or whatever.

I need to feed all my good abilities into Prince.

But the moment

I got

that and excuse me, and then Stroll Royal Warrior, it was like, oh, yeah, this is, it's done.

Um, because

each, like, the joke, I had to slow down how strong I was to make sure I didn't miss phases of each fight, right?

So, I definitely should have done that.

I remember I definitely missed phrases.

Okay, so were you, did you miss the phase of Luis, or did you miss the phase of Zorba?

I missed both of them.

Oh,

I also missed, I missed Luis.

I had to be told while the credits were running

that

Luis has

racist attacks.

Yes.

I didn't.

He started one on me, but I stopped him before he did anything.

I literally saw zero of them.

So what happened was, is that I had Prince and Prince was fucked out.

I had Juna on, not Juna, I had Yufa on support.

Which which she could do everything.

Then I had Heisme as a debuffer.

And then I had Basilio for damage.

And so what ended up happening is Basilio's turn would come up, and he would use a one-stock turn sync attack that would like break the damage limit and give the boss a blunt damage weakness.

Okay.

And then Heisme would debuff, and then Yufo would buff Basilio, and then Prince would attack, and then Basilio would hit the weakness that he created

with a one-turn sync attack.

And then when it was the boss's turn, the boss would target Heisme because I had every single thing on Heisme to go and target me.

And he would miss, and he would lose all turns, and it would be my turn again.

So that ability,

that ability is really busted for sure.

Heisme's final ability.

You can buy it on a ring.

By the way, and put that on your character too.

So the Dodge ring does the same thing.

That was pretty nice.

Getting Heisme's final royal fucking thief

is bat shit.

It's so nice.

It's the best ability in the game because it breaks every encounter.

And as a result, they're like, well, you're going to have to earn it.

You're going to have to work.

Yeah, it's so

each time I was like, okay, I have to get merchant up.

Okay, what do I got to do?

Get merchant up.

You got to go, okay.

Now you got to go get fucking sniper up to get, oh my god.

And then each branch, yeah, you have to invest

like halfway up, like maybe like 10 different trees of that to get to his.

But yeah, that's a lot of shit that's broken in that game.

Like BR Okinawan.

Okay, so I was not.

So, okay, well, two things.

One, so with the with the racist attack, I didn't get to see what it does, but I saw him go.

He basically started going like, he started talking shit about Klamar, I think, and then

he was priming it, but then I just stopped him before he could do it.

So what happens is, is that he will talk shit about Klamar, and the next turn, he will kill any Klamar party member on the field, which is only

control.

Yeah.

So you swap in.

Okay.

So it's supposed to be all the races are working together, and that's why you have a member of every single race on the team.

Because you have to switch them.

You have to bring in people of other races that can cover the ground.

It goes next turn.

You know what's funny too is the idea of like, well, I mean, Jesus Christ, like the races in this where you're like, oh, these are, like, if you wanted to talk about

like race, where it's like things that people that came from humanity and stuff, it's like, yeah, okay, but then, like, the you geef are, that's, that is literally another race, right?

That is very different.

When human beings talk about race, we're using the wrong word technically because we're not, we're the same human race.

We're talking about shade.

So Kleins is the word, right?

Like, there's a, there's Klein, okay.

Right?

Kleins is basically like,

whatchamacallit?

Eco-variations of the same

creature, you know?

And so that.

Like, most of it is like sunny weather or not adaptation.

Yes.

We tend to work the word race in when we start bringing in, like, you know, the culture or the social more and the other aspects of it.

Well, race is a construct to tell us that there's a fundamental difference here.

It's like, they're, it's like,

it's not like dogs and wolves.

It's like wolves and

pugs.

You're sounding like a realist right now.

Don't be a...

I'm sorry, I'm getting too real.

You're getting too real.

You meet you in the lobby of Big Pug.

But when you get a fucking...

But when you get a bat creature standing next to you and you're like, that is the cool, that is my best friend.

You know,

that is, that is the, that's an actual like race thing.

But yeah, you have you have and then you get and then you get oh, what are their names?

The the

Juna with the eyeballs and Alonzo.

Oh, God.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

The

shapeshifters.

I mean, yeah,

the fucking potato flyers.

Yeah.

I forget.

But

you get to see her little one for like a little, her little blob for a second.

Lalafells,

effectively.

Yeah, 100%.

We don't even show each other goddamn.

Animia, that's it.

We're too nydia, nidia.

We're too afraid.

That shit is super fun.

My build ended up being

Prince with Almighty Boost and Arcane Unity.

Yeah, yeah, no, no.

Yeah, everyone, yes.

Right.

It's built.

It's for you.

It does Almighty.

Yeah.

Get Almighty off of Merchant, which is best on the MC and put it on it.

Almighty all day.

Like, by the time you're hitting bosses that are like fully resistant, I'm like, Yeah, I don't give a shit, right?

Um, you put on, I put on um, um, the counter and magic counter because, like, when those pop, yeah, when those pop off, you lose all turns.

And the crucial bit was that last item that you can pick up at the magic shop, uh, the utilitarian manual, where

um

uh uh double techs cost one turn.

That's that is insane.

That is to infinity.

I feel like that is an item that they should not have let you buy until new game plus.

It's batshit.

It's completely batshit.

Because that, like, I was describing Basilio

giving himself damage, like, damage cat breaking weaknesses into themselves because of that fucking thing.

So, for me, what I ended up getting was, for me, it was stroll.

I had stroll with the utilitarian manual

and then the beloved great sword which is the sword that buffs up

synthesis right so fuck the high-end final end sword for him the the one that buffs your synthesis skills triples their damage and yeah of course it does like i you you know you unlock the like the 999 everything die like uh uh synthesis right with with um Prince, but it's like, I was hitting like 14k with stroll doing crimson moon sword art.

The what's the fucking the amazing like red one where you just slash the screen up?

Like, so annihilated every single game fight.

I they wanted you to beat this game,

right?

Atlas games, like you can get into a problem with an Atlas game, and when you get to the end, and you're like, this party isn't gonna do it, they're not gonna, oh shit, right?

So they gave you, okay, here's like

40 days

to get your shit in order, And also, the final dungeon is just you could just level yourself how long.

That's it.

That's it.

Sad.

Tyrant star.

Tyrant star is

what do you want the game to be when you fight?

You sit here for as long as you want and go as hard as you want to.

It's very simple.

You know, the auto-spawners actually come back when you leave.

It just says, how much time you got?

Where do you want to get to?

And it's interesting because

for for all the challenges that you're deleting, there is that one dragon where it puts you down to 300, you know, where it's like you have like a, you have a, uh, the poison dragon, um,

destroyer of the stars, I think it was called, uh, where it's just like, yeah, you're gonna have less HP, but who the fuck here cares?

Halkenberg is sitting in the back doing Holy Knight's proclamation and shielding everybody and getting a turn back for doing it.

Like, we're not going anywhere.

If I was going to say one thing about metaphor as like a problem, if you go hard on it, like I did, you get into a situation where like

I broke the game

before 9-11.

Okay.

Like, and

I basically ran the game plan I described to you to beat Lewis

from the events of 9-11 onward with like no change at all, and nothing could stop me at all.

Like, nothing, like, bosses were throwing out gimmicks and shit like that.

Like, no, they didn't have a chance.

Yeah, I know.

So, I noticed too that, like, I wasn't, I wanted to stay on the build that I had, and it was like the game was like, yeah, but go explore, make other builds, have fun.

You know, it was cut.

So, I switched off for

the parts after 9-11 up until

the inner sanctum.

But

yeah,

they chose the dates, y'all.

Oh,

it was so

on purpose.

Like the good old days before 9-11.

Hey, can I just talk about like a really, really great lie that the devs told before this game came out?

Like a great lie.

So the devs said

when people asked, hey, can I romance my S L?

Oh, I knew you were going to talk about romance.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And they said, there are no optional romances in metaphor.

And people went, I can't believe it.

Ah!

And so you play metaphor and you start going through every single character's S-link, and they're right.

There are no optional

romances

because they have decided, fuck you, we are picking for you this time.

And it is the girl who, if you are Will Metaphor, then she is euphemism.

he's euphemism exactly exactly um and guess what last time y'all tried to shove me uh uh next to you carry on that beach and i raged against it forever uh this time around euphorules so that's great i had no

i had no issues with it whatsoever the party is awesome the party's great and if you it's it's the best rpg party since like ff7 like if you every single character they're all amazing they're all good it felt it was so strong you know um even if you like you're like i like juna more and juna's like hey i got something to confess to you i'll tell you after the adventure's over

we'll talk about it another time so even if you felt like putting your feelings out there the game's like yeah

it's not what we're trying to do right now you know um

No, man,

everyone,

I said it when I first got Heisme, but I was like, I can't, like, I'm so compelled by his quest, by his plot, by the fact that he has like amazing wisdom that he drops.

He says shit.

I wish, he, I wish Heisme was there for like every other RPG that I've ever played.

I totally, you know, he's so, he's so incredible.

Ugh.

It's like, he's like, I know where you're coming from.

I get it.

But like, he fucking just, he talks you down, man.

Yeah.

And like the whole time, too, when, when Del and Basilio were hanging out, I was like,

I know it's going to be one of these cat boys.

Please be Basilio.

Please be Basilio because he's just cooler.

You know, I like, I dug it, I dug his vibe more, and I'm glad I won that bet.

There's something about Dell that kind of broke for me

because the game is using like a, like a, like a 60s, 70s, like British fashion style.

And

like, I dig it,

but for some reason,

Dell was the one where I'm like, like, instead of being its own,

like, take on like a style of fashion in a new setting, I look at Dell and I'm like, that dude is trying to be one of the Beatles.

Yeah.

And the fact that he has, like, a Liverpool accent, like, doesn't help.

Aggressively.

They are, they are aggressively looking like 70s or 60s, 70s fucking UK

Brit

pop dudes, for sure.

Yeah, like

he's a tiny Paul McCartney.

God, fucking.

What are the brothers that, the, the, the, the British brothers that have the famous song and then they split up and now they're coming back together and then they fucking ah, whatever, doesn't matter.

Okay.

CZ Top.

No.

That wasn't even cool.

That's not even remotely.

That's not even remotely.

Oasis.

Oasis.

Oh my God.

Yes.

I was just like, fuck it.

I'm like, you know, I'm like, here comes Oasis.

Like 70s coded.

But no, between the two.

That was great.

And I loved it when, you know,

I started putting, I started pushing Basilio towards Pugilist.

and then like and and you know martial artist and like when he you pick that archetype and get into a fight with him, and he's like, I love this path.

This is the perfect style for me.

He keeps saying it over and over, like, you did it.

You did it.

You picked the right one.

And it's like, you did pick the right one because this is going to be part of his final requirement, you know?

It's weird to me how the game balances the classes or sorry, the archetypes, in that, well, this guy's going to join the party really late.

So he's not going to have the built-up archetypes that the other characters are gonna have.

So, what we're gonna do is make each starting archetype more and more busted right out the gate.

Yeah,

you get Juna, and you're like, this is busted.

Then you get Yufa, and you're like, no, this is busted.

And then you get Basilio, and you're like, oh, I don't even have to use my fucking brain here.

Why even bother investing in

other types when I can just invest in masks and power through with, you know, masked answer?

Like, it or the summons are are just

multiverse.

I was like the mask wizard, the mask of the wizard, and it carried me like the whole game.

Yeah, I threw, I threw healer on her, you know.

Um, it's great.

Um,

I don't know if you had this, but

that fucking cat

in academia that gives you a reward the first time you pet it, and then never again

for the rest of the game,

150 fucking hours later, you're just like, oh, you know, he's so cute.

And I'm like, why did you give me a reward the first time?

Why did you fucking because petting cats is cool?

Of course.

But then now it's in your brain.

You're like, oh, maybe this, you know, and like, this is a game where if you use the bathroom on the right day, you might get a luck bonus.

If you fucking.

Oh, did you ever figure out what the specifics?

Every five days.

Yeah.

Right.

That's too far.

It's, but it's like, that's you're good.

That's not good for your obtuseness, right?

You know, it's so that's the thing is I'm like, oh, there must be a trick to the cat and the reward off the cat based on when you go or whatever.

It's like, no, no, you just get the one and now you're going to put, you're, now you're going to install a mechanic you'll never use again in the person's brain.

Um,

so yeah, you talk about the cut dungeon that is the magic school, right?

Where it's like, oh yeah, like they walk up to it, they look at it in the background, and then a dragon drops in front of you, you know, and you're like, No, don't go in there, we didn't finish it, yeah, yeah.

Um,

but don't do it, but but and then and at the same time, too, like this whole thing of like, this is our own new franchise, this is its own new place, you know, metaphor is a new IP

that is, you know,

you don't have to compare it to

Soul Hacker, Trickster, Persona Master, like, fucking

Devil Summoner, Dragon Grace Shinjuku.

You've been playing this game like in a vacuum, right?

Yeah.

Do you know how far it goes with the Shinjuku dungeon?

I mean, beyond seeing it for what it is.

Oh, okay.

No, no, no, no.

Wooly.

Okay, so I started to delve deep into the dungeon where it goes to just Shinjuku, and I'm like, wow, it is nuclear apocalypse.

again.

They literally cannot help themselves.

Yeah, I'm waiting for the Minotaur at the bottom of this.

Like, they cannot help themselves.

It has to be this.

But then you get to the Shinjuku dungeon.

Metaphor is not an SMT game.

It is an Etrian Odyssey game.

That is the final dungeon of Etrian Odyssey 1.

Oh,

that is the exact layout.

Oh my God.

That's why it's so so fucking mazy and complex.

Etria.

Okay, because on Etria, I was going like the air.

I kept, you know, I looked at Et E H T as like a scrambled the,

and then I was like, I can't.

Yeah, because in Etrian Odyssey, it deals with a similar apocalypse in which a tree grows from the bottom to like reunify society.

Okay, okay.

So Etrian Odyssey one, two, three, and four will be built on that island in the future.

Oh, my God.

That's the that's what the FOE system is.

Like, because that's why you have to deal with them in the grid, and they move with you on the grid because that's how it works in Etrian Odyssey.

And that's why the bouncing ears are moving.

Yeah, okay, okay, and there's doors and shit.

And because, like, that is the most complex map to navigate, and it takes a fucking while to get through all those floors, you know?

Because it's a different game's final dungeon.

Gotcha.

And when you look out the windows, you're looking at SMT4, you know.

Well, no, you're looking at Atrian Odyssey untold.

Oh, is it also like fallen Shinjuku City?

Yes.

I see, I see, I see.

Gotcha.

Okay.

This is what I mean.

Like, they literally cannot help themselves.

Okay.

Yeah.

Like, yeah,

Atlas believes there will be a nuclear holocaust and that demons will happen.

Okay.

Yeah.

I, I, like, but it's also that, like, we're going to give you the nods and we're going to give you the, the things, and you're like, okay, that's cool.

You're going to summon,

you're going to summon fucking Jack Frost.

Like, oh, there, there he is.

It's, yeah.

So that's, that's all fun.

I've seen him.

But I do feel, I do feel that, like, the way this played out too, is that it feels like this is a different, this is a start of a new franchise, though.

Like, this feels like I didn't get the feeling of this being a one-off.

I felt like this is going to be a revisited thing.

And

you can.

I mean, at the end, they literally ride off into the sunset to fantasy lives on.

Yeah.

And then they say, hey, what about that other country that you're going to across the sea?

Are we ever going to go there?

Maybe one day.

I mean,

the motivations are a ton of, they're very reasonable.

It's like, yeah, the world did not see you kill the monster.

They just saw you win.

So you should probably go actually inspire them or at least meet them so that you're not a faceless king, you know?

I think there's something amazing that this game does, and Final Fantasy 16 also does,

where it's like these cataclysmic world-altering events are actually taking place in somewhat isolated continents of a larger world that doesn't know what's going on.

Well, this whole game deals with one election.

It's one election of one country, you know?

You have to imagine the fucking Canada of this world just looking down and being like, what the fuck is going on in November?

Like,

hey, we got guys looking at

the country with the telescopes, and they got flying cities and shit over there.

What do you think is going on?

Fucking in November 4th, I see a giant face floating over America.

Like, we're like, what are you guys up to?

Like, okay, I'm going back to bed.

This is crazy.

You know,

it's one nation.

It's simply one place.

Yeah.

I love,

because, okay, I don't know how quickly you pieced it together, but I mean, obviously more is fucking Hydolotha Laius.

Yeah.

It's like that much I'm looking at.

I'm like, just look at him.

Look at his hair.

Look at every, like, yes, that is the most obvious.

Well, that's not even.

That's not even like it.

It's that like Thomas Moore wrote Utopia and Hithlodeus is the fucking king in Utopia.

Aha.

Aha.

Okay.

So it's like...

Like, it's even more obvious on top of that.

Didn't catch that reference.

Okay.

And there's a character named Hithlodeus in Final Fantasy 14.

Oh, yeah.

Which also has to do with Utopia.

Interesting.

Okay.

It's a metaphor.

I didn't catch those name, the sources on those name references.

Interesting.

I like that,

you know, you deliberately obviously don't spend too much time with the king or so because, you know, you need to make sure that these twists, quote unquote, as obvious that they're going to be, make sense.

The one with the prince, the moment they're like, you should pretend to be him.

I'm like, all right, that's it.

You're not even trying anymore, game.

You know, like, you know, but

the whole bit where it's like, it's like, okay, so just in the same way that the prince is like that you are, that Will is the second,

the magical cast off, you know, the mirror double, you have Moore who is like the mirror double of the king, but Moore is from his fucking hipster days when he was a young, like, beatnik.

This is what I looked like when I fucked you, bro.

Yeah, yeah.

So it's like, oh, this is the one who was rizzed up, who came.

I was killing it, man.

I was killing it.

Right?

He pulled up motorcycle diaries.

He pulled up and he fucking swooned

the Elden Princess and he jumped in the libraries and he was like, talking all that world revolution.

We got to fight.

We got to change things.

You know, like, he was so full of piss and vinegar.

And he still got the beret on sideways.

I'm like, ah,

of course.

It's not the old king with the fucking brr.

Yeah, this is my idealized self.

This is my best me yeah yeah yeah that more is the one who who fucking laid the pipe down um

it's it is wild to me it's like man okay so wow forden was behind everything that i was like legitimately shocked that he was behind every part of every problem he was involved in each step yes

and like all these different threads always get back to a cutscene where he's like yeah do it yeah and well the well that is extra impactful because the game opens on Louis stabbing King in the chest.

The first thing you see is, die, old man, fucking die, and on top of that, I love that we got so like one of my favorite parts of the

ending into the final thing is you get to see, hey, how, like, we've all, okay, Fortin's dead, and we've established that he was behind it all, right?

But, like, they keep saying, like, but, like, the king could have, like, stopped him at any time,

Right.

And so you get to actually see cutscenes of Ford being like, yo, so I'm going to just take political power away from you.

And Hythe Lodeus is like,

fucking, I don't even care, man.

Do whatever.

Yeah.

It's totally your fault.

The whole thing is 100% your fault.

But it's interesting because like he,

in the same way, he's very much like Luis.

And that's why that moment where he saves you and he's like, nah, just give up, dude.

He's coming from the same place because

he's looking at it like both Luis and Hithladeus are looking at it like

revenge is pointless because the system is broken.

And like, yeah, I can fucking solve my own

grief, but that's not the problem here.

I want to fix it at a larger, more macro zoomed out scale.

So going going and and the word fix is doing some very heavy lifting yeah yeah so that's it so it's like in the same way that it's like yeah luis could go kill all the people that burnt down the village but what the fuck does that accomplish you know same thing where hithlodeus is like yeah it's it's every it's it's the mind you know and so i'm going to force democracy as a system upon my death is a pretty interesting premise and setup

like bit.

I didn't know that was a part of the game at all, you know?

So like,

that was probably the biggest, like, twist that I was like, oh shit, there's a

death game thing happening here, you know.

Um, side note: when the king's magic is protecting all the entrants and you're high up in the ranks, does it ever it never applies to you, the protagonist, as a player, because you are consensually fighting with every enemy that you're encountering?

Uh, it no, it does.

There is

two instances: um, that shithead with the dog attacks you.

Yes.

And dies.

Yes.

Like Glodell.

Yeah.

There's also the boss fight that you have with

the monk

in the very beginning, Godot.

Yeah.

Where if you attack him, you just die.

Okay, okay, yeah.

So I know that you can't attack him.

So I never attacked him in that one.

Okay, that was part of the system.

But I was wondering, I was like, in gameplay,

was there ever a moment where anyone attacking you?

To make it so that once you've hit a certain ranking, that

this situation is kind of unlikely to come up.

Yeah, okay, okay.

Because that's my whole, I'm like, when you're high ranking and running through a dungeon, why can anything even touch you, you know?

Oh, people in the point out in the opera house and you're going through the opera house.

But they target you for only target you for.

Yes, yes, for sure.

Because they can't target you because they'll die.

But like, I guess up until that point,

nothing else that you're fighting counts, I suppose?

No.

Well, you're fighting non-human.

You're fighting humans or animals or other bits.

Or people that you engaged in a duel with on equal terms.

Congrats to Atlas for creating another Natico that's pure and awesome.

Oh, she's so good.

And the archetype she gives you and the bonuses she gives you are the best.

Yep, cooking.

Cooking.

I mean, what?

Speed cooking and experience, flat experience bonuses?

Sorry, percentile experience bonuses.

Yes, please.

Also,

I'm gonna just go make infinite MP heals now, and the game is now a joke because I'll do my best since.

The items I brought into the final dungeon, I looked at them and I'm like, there's nothing that can stop this.

There's nothing.

There's literally

my characters.

I'm like,

I built myself like 50 somas.

Like, who can stop this?

Yeah.

So, no, Maria,

amazing Nanako, too.

Good job.

Nailed it.

Perfect.

Awesome.

And you get to hang out with her mom sometimes when you go down there.

You sure do.

And she's alright.

I will.

And to that end, I was like,

I hope, because

I'm like, surely there will be a moment when you're doing the final attack and you have to think of all your bods.

Right.

And it's like, not exactly.

but I was waiting to have that one where you go through all of them, and then the last one is going to be Grius,

you know, but where there was no, there's no big kind of like Grius moment.

I was hoping for a little, I was hoping for a night.

Somewhat is.

I was hoping for a real Grius moment right before, you know?

The only thing that you get there is that in the final battle, you have one of every single race on your team, except

for,

I forget the the name but grius's race parapus should have been no no he's a parapis he's a parapist no grius is not a parapace he's one of the older guys he's a rogue

oh shit okay okay okay okay so it's like it should have been everybody right okay but he didn't get to be them he represents them yeah okay okay

yeah well and then i mean it's it's my it's it's a it's a little thing but i was i was i was waiting because they they give you grius's memento when when you're in inventory.

And like, looking at that every time I'm scrolling through my items, I'm like, they're going to do something, you know, but they didn't really do that.

But I mean, they talk about him enough, you know, like they talk about Alsace throughout

the dialogue.

But yeah.

Excellent.

Absolutely fucking excellent.

Just a what a good, what a like all nitpicks are nit picks.

They are

very minor.

Like, oh, this could have been

like, like, like, and also, this game

really doesn't feel like it needs a royal treatment.

No, it doesn't at all.

It really doesn't feel that way at all.

It feels totally complete.

Yeah, no.

I mean, I heard that there's a New Game Plus dragon or something like that.

Dude, New Game Plus is not worth playing.

I mean, it's a million years long, so I'm sure.

It's a

great game, and you can

increase the difficulty as much as you want.

Yeah, but for people like us who did that to the game on normal, you can't make that game system hit you hard enough

because you've broken it.

Yeah, I went up to like doing

the dragon towers.

I picked the hardest one first, it seems.

And like, the fairy is like, why would you pick this one first in the dialogue?

It's an Antrian Otison character.

Oh,

no shit, really?

Yeah.

Jack told me, but yeah, that is straight up a character from Entrian.

That's cool.

That's cool.

Okay.

That's kind of why she talks like she's from a, she's not concurrent to the location that you're in.

Well, yeah, she's throwing out her these, the I's, and thou's, but she's also going, you fucking scrub.

You know, um, bitch ass.

Speaking of that, though,

did you catch the hilarious moment where the prince wakes up and Will's voice for like three lines has a British accent.

There's a clip of me

blowing up my microphone,

just

screaming like, no!

He tries

for three lines and then immediately gives up.

Like the next scene, the camera cuts.

That's so funny.

He was so British for just a second.

And it makes sense, you know, given the world and everything.

And then the voice actor just went

into his body correctly.

And then lo and behold, right?

Why does Moore sound American, but Hithladeus sounds British, you know?

And so

when they come together, there's that moment where like fight Moore towards the end starts getting a little more British, but no, they throw it away too.

And so it's like when your mind is wiped, when you're a Brit and your mind is wiped, you become American.

I mean, obviously.

Obviously.

That's so fucking crazy.

Default settings for English are just American.

Incredible.

Absolutely incredible that they tried and gave up within the same scene twice with two different characters.

What a fucking game.

What a great game.

The first one, the first video game to get on that bathwater juice

while the memes are hot, right?

Striking while.

Oh, yes, yes, that's right.

Yes, you're right.

There's a mission where it's like, hey, go,

go, take a fucking Steve.

Go take a dip, Prince.

It'll be awesome.

Sell me your bathwater.

Okay.

You know, I'm going to do it.

I'm like, when did this game get written?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah, no.

They knew.

They knew.

I'm not going to, for a second, believe they didn't know.

You know, she lost like crazy dollars on that.

I believe it.

Because

she was like running afoul of some kind of food safety thing.

And so every, for every like bottle she sold, the fine was more than

what she was selling it for.

Oh, man.

So she like lost a bundle on it.

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

Um.

No, just seeing that mission pop up right there, you know, in the, in the last last bits, I'm like, yeah, okay.

Perfect.

Did you,

so yeah, I guess when you said you ran out of things to do, I guess you like, you would hit up the Coliseum.

I had done literally

everything.

Okay.

And had,

I want to say, like, 13 days to go.

Okay.

And so I went to bed.

Even like the optional storytellings and

all of it.

Oh, wow.

Wow.

Okay.

Absolutely all of it.

Interesting.

So I guess if you, yeah, okay.

So if you spend not only, not only if you single day every dungeon, but if you farm to like

insane strength.

So you remember the bottom of the Shinjuku dungeon?

You remember how there were three auto-spawners in one room?

Yep.

Yep.

Yeah, you can.

You just sit there.

Okay.

You can put a podcast on and really fuck that game's difficulty curve up.

So I did a little of that grinding, but I stopped when I got bored.

I stopped when I, you know, I kind of went, okay, I'm done.

I, I, I, I, luckily, I have a brain that can just ignore boredom if it's repetitive enough.

Fair enough.

I played Monster Hunter games.

Yeah.

Pardon me.

Um,

this is, this is not what I expected Persona 6 to be, but it's fucking phenomenal.

And I think we still have a Persona 6.

Of course we do.

Of course we do.

I'm being cheeky.

I'm being cheeky.

But

in terms of like

the last time we talked about those games, and it's like, okay, you've got, again, the personal growth, and then P5, you've got the society and like the nail that stands out, and then harmonizing with the group.

And this time around, I'm like, okay, Atlas, you're getting a little more comfortable.

You know,

you're getting a little more comfortable standing up and talking your shit.

It feels like metaphor was written taking in mind complaints about persona.

Right, right.

That's P5.

Yes, yes.

A lot of like, particularly like Western opinion on that story was, guys, we have to change society at a fundamental level by integrating ourselves correctly into society and defeating those who don't integrate correctly into society, which is like the opposite of its stated thesis.

And metaphor, at the very least, goes, I would like to change society for the better.

That's hard, though.

Yes.

It's going to be hard, though.

Yes, man.

And I kept thinking of, I remember from years ago when you were mentioning the

that bit about

like different schools of thought and like

the

I think it was like

therapy in in a Japanese context.

Oh, Eastern versus Western context is change yourself to fit the world or change the world to fit yourself.

Yeah, right.

And that bit where it's like, oh, we'll turn inside to you and see what you're doing wrong and how you can better fit into, you know, the tapestry.

And so like, yeah, a lot of that, I thought, I was thinking of that while going through this, and I was like, no, this game is definitely swerving back the other way from where P5

with the whole like, no, fit in, though.

Society's fine.

You know, this is like going like, no, no, no, no, no, there's shit that should change.

And it's okay to call that out.

And it's okay to want to work on improving that.

Don't expect it to happen overnight.

Recognize that that lady on fucking Sunlun Leo.

That main street piece of shit.

Oh, I love her.

Even after you have handed her the world and she's like, I guess, you elder piece of shit.

What has the world come to?

Don't touch me.

You know?

And you're like, what the fuck?

Yes, right?

She is a part of the world too.

And that you need to, and you have to acknowledge that she's going to be standing there no matter what you do, going, What the fuck is that gross elder prince up to today?

You know, while you breathe air and continue to live.

And everyone around her is like, I don't know, lady, the society has definitely been a little bit better than it has under Thithelodeus.

Um,

the

elder, yeah,

the, the,

also, that, that, the, the whole bit with,

uh, yeah, like, it, there were moments where this game like my eyebrow raised with the whole och or ochimaru extreme forgiveness any percent clear you know i was like

and like martira cleared that for me the whole the whole the whole you know martira glass line uh um was like okay no we're going to really loved the naivete of the party kind of being put on display where she's executed on the spot

and i'm and and people are like what did you fucking think was going to happen here?

She just admitted to

slaughtering an entire town's worth of children.

Feeding children to monster.

Like, it's the most horrendous thing you can.

It doesn't.

She's being nice and contrite, though.

Like, no, get the fuck.

That's crazy.

But then there's those bits where, like, the Alonzo quest, right?

Where it's like, oh, that feels bad for the piece of shit that fucking was orchestrating it here, you know, and he pulls his twists and

he, you know, he pulls it off.

I totally died.

Yeah, he pulls it off and it works, but it's still like on the way there.

It's like, your poor mom, man, you know?

Yeah, your mom's dead.

Your poor fucking mom, dude.

You know.

She's fucked up.

Not great.

I like that the non-party members, you know, like people with the portraits that pop up each time you talk to Brigitte for the first time.

I'm like, who the fuck is that?

What are you about?

And she's like, I'm an arms dealer.

And if you say generic RPG answers to me, I hate you for them.

You get no mag for talking basic shit to me.

You better say what you mean.

Also, if you tell anyone about my puppy, I'll fucking murder you.

I'm like, okay.

Okay, cool.

Sounds good.

Also, most of the remaining quest is going to talk about how much I hate being part of the war economy, but also I'm going to use the war economy to genocide everybody who touched my daughter.

Right, right, right, yeah, yeah.

Drebin, she's Drebin.

100%, right?

I'm going to get him.

I'm really surprised.

So I'm really surprised that Edini wasn't anything there.

I really thought he would be.

Because, yeah, back when you were asking, well, I mean, we touched on it last time where it's like Eufa joins the party, Edini doesn't, but Edini fucking looks like his grown naruto ass is going to join your party.

Yeah, well, he's going to be the king of Etria.

Right.

And he's going to invent Etrian Odyssey.

Easy on the eyes, that one.

He's going to do a bad job teaching, setting up a history program for their local school.

Because by the time you get to fucking Etrian Odyssey, ain't nobody knows what's down in that dragon dungeon.

Another one, another British haircut character, too.

I wonder, I mean,

I think suffice to say that, well, Atrian Odyssey is a different team, right?

And then they teamed up with Persona Q to to make those over.

Yeah.

Because like every other, like, um,

one of those references were all like, this is our shit, but like, that's from a different, a different one in particular.

But it's still Atlas.

Yeah.

Uh, Batlin's great.

Batlin's great.

Batlin's great.

What a good crier.

He's fun from the jump, but I didn't expect him to be anything but just a really cool voice.

Turns out he's fucking, you know, a solid.

I love him.

Fight yelling at the rest, yelling at the crowd toward the, like, all the way through to the end.

Like, that's a real one.

Um, yeah, no, everyone, everyone that you just kind of chill with.

Um, uh, um, whatchamacallit, uh, Martiro dude, um, uh, bar, uh, Barden.

Um, am I getting that right?

No,

anyway, um, yeah, Barden, Barden, yeah, Barden, yeah, even him, where it's just like that crazy fucking baby murdering shit was so insane that I am gonna overcompensate on security.

I feel like super understandable.

People in my chat were too hard on Barden, No, dudes.

Because, because, like, you get to like rank seven and eight, and you're like, he's like, I am creating a fascist police state for everyone's benefit.

And it's so obvious that it's a bad idea.

But

you've been like months removed from like, well, what drove him to this?

Oh, that shit.

That happened wrong.

Do you remember the baby conveyor belt crushing machine that was happening right now?

Yeah, under his watch, you know.

So, no, I completely got that.

And like, the fact that multiple times in his quest line, you, the protagonist, gets to be like, yo, dude, chill.

And he's like, ah,

you know, I'm like, no, no, no, I completely understand.

That overreaction is what happens when you're going, when you are getting over the fact that a baby crushing machine has just been discovered in your city, you know, especially since you were the safety inspector for the baby crushing machine.

God.

Yeah.

That's it.

That's it.

You know?

Oh, yeah, that game's great.

It's fucking great.

And

I can't wait to recommend it with a million fucking disclaimers because it's like, this is a game you might never finish with your normal time as an adult.

Give it a shot.

There's two disclaimers, right?

It's like, it's long and you can't drop it for a while and come back.

Like, there's you have a like when you drop it, you have like a two-week countdown before you come back, and the archetype system just goes

in your brain.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You need to, you need, you need to stare at that archetype system when you come back for a while for sure.

What I will say is, if I were playing this, you know, pre-Youtube and on my own time, I would play until I hit a Luis plot point

and then get hooked back in and then

that's your

trajectory slinger is every time you have a Luis date coming up, you know?

So

date with Luis.

Oh, if only.

I mean, I was, again, I was like, not,

I would not be surprised if they speed ran a eight.

tier relationship with Luis right before the end, you know, like I'm I'm ready for anything like that.

Like the villain gets his own relationship with you to discuss the difference in your philosophies.

I'm down, you know?

Why the fuck not?

I feel like Lewis is too much of a transparent psychopath for that to work.

But, but, like, too many of those conversations would just be like, I think we should...

stop using orphans for for airship fuel and then his response would be like why then how am i gonna get across but why would we have time for my meeting but okay that whole thing where he's like such a really convincing sociopath, right?

Like, and then we was talking about it last time.

You find out here that it's like

that wasn't just from birth.

That's self-imposed from trauma because PTSD turned you into that, right?

He decided to become that person because fuck other people and fuck other things.

I have my ideals and just me, and that's it.

You know, it's a self-imposed sociopathy.

At the same time, like he is given like maybe 50 different opportunities from every single character that ever talks to him to walk it back even a little.

Even a little bit.

Yeah.

Right up until the moment of his death.

He's like, no.

No, yeah,

this is how I want to do it.

Full speed ahead.

How about fucking walking through town and seeing all of his best generals being like, yeah, I got off the ship.

You know, like at some point, you're like, yeah, no,

the only ones that stayed are all just monsters now.

You know, it's like a, it's like a character that is standing there going, I have reached the apex of my personal growth.

I don't need to grow anymore.

And how do I know that?

Because you can't beat me up.

Right.

Right, right, right, right, right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like, if I, if I needed to have more personal growth, I wouldn't have survived this ridiculous assassination attempt, would I?

You can't touch Griffith, so you're wrong, and he's right.

It's that simple.

And then, yeah, you go from Lucifer form into, you know, the human, the shattered mask, you know, and then, of course, cutscene only,

the king archetype, you know.

Yeah.

I mean, I was wondering if we were going to do a

Luciferio, not Luciferio, what was it called?

Luciferius, I believe.

P5, you know, fucking tanking top of Gorilla again, you know.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, it's the whole airship, so you're fucking huge

in that cutscene.

But it's not clear because you're in the sky and there's no Sataniel, excuse me, Sataniel.

Yeah, that's the one.

But, you know, you get the point.

You get the point.

He's not Lucifer, though.

No.

Wing.

No.

Okay.

That's just about all of it.

There's, there's, there's,

there it is.

Um, it's such a good game, such a good game.

Go play it and and fucking

mark your real calendar off.

Well, you can't recommend people play it inside the part of the podcast that's the spoiler cast.

No, I suppose not.

That doesn't make any sense.

I'm glad you played it then.

How about that?

All right, let's take a break.

What else happened this week?

So,

uh, for me,

for you, for me,

I

played a little bit more

cyberpunk.

And I got to some pretty cool missions.

There were a number of nice missions.

It was one of those ones where I got a bunch of calls in a row and playing them.

And I watched as people popped off one after the other for each call.

Was like, hey, V, call me back.

Some cool shit over here.

And everyone's like, oh shit

and

and yeah you know what I'll talk about it in this order because

this is actually gonna be relevant for for the the the the next subject but I played

dream on which was like the

the super creepy um

couple that you're basically waiting to have for them to hand you a Superman suit

okay you know or waiting or waiting for the husband to put on the Superman suit, actually.

Oh, oh, oh, I see.

And

that was a pretty solid one.

Just a good bit where you kind of know, like, there's no solving this in any way that's going to make anyone feel good, but that.

Well, it'll probably make one person feel good.

Well,

fortunately or unfortunately, the quest does not go that way, but

it sure did feel like it was.

And yeah, no, it turned out to be way more fucked up than that, right?

In the end, it was Night City.

Oh, goody.

In the end, it was Night City.

Do you know the one I'm talking about?

Where you.

Nope.

No idea.

Oh, shit.

Okay.

Basically, you meet up with this couple and

they're like politicians and, you know, there's a whole like mayor assassination plot going on.

And you're trying...

It's the one that introduces you to

the

cool

buddy cop that you also hang out with for the hunt.

And anyway,

long story short is just

this sequence of discovering

Manchurian candidate style programming being a thing that you can do remotely to just remotely wipe and program people's minds and in this case, politicians who you want to elect.

Cool.

It's one thing to have them be corrupt and on your side and be in your pocket.

It's another to literally just program them to be the person that is in your pocket.

You know?

Okay.

And yeah,

proper horrors that come with that.

And then the other to yeah, the other two, there was

The Hunt,

which was a is so far my favorite side quest in the game.

You basically

the

cyberpunk turns into seven

for like 20 minutes, where you use brain dances to like try to figure out

the, you find, like, there's a killer, and you got to figure out like what's going on with them from childhood, where the trauma happened, what created the monster, and then you fast forward further in time to like what they're up to now.

Where is

Buffalo Bill's house?

Where is the well?

Where are the people?

Where's the, you know, the victims being kept?

And, and you gotta, you gotta track it all down and down to like, to the, the most recent, like, here is the victims crawling out from the barn, you know, go get there.

And like, you pull up, and um,

it's, it's, yeah, the whole thing is just a really awesome tense, plays out very much like a

detective thriller/slash buddy cop movie as you know, you're trying to track down

his

nephew who's like fallen into

this, you know,

killer's hands.

But

the way that it's done is you're reading through a series of emails of basically him getting like groomed online and like pulled away slowly.

So it's proper slime, you know?

It's a really, really good tense quest as you're like, it feels very against the clock, though.

i don't know i mean you never know how it always like sometimes that clock is hyperscripted sometimes it's not um but in this case uh i really really enjoyed how that played out you know and it reminded me of any one of those movies where you're like okay call the cops but they're not going to get there in time you know and let's let's let's break in and like are you going to find the yellow king midway walking into the cave you know or is it are you just going to find more bones what do you like what phase of is this act two or two?

Is it the king and yellow?

Like, themed, or are you just referring to true detective?

I'm just referring to true detective, right?

I'm referring to, like, because I'm, I, I'm fucking, you talk, you tell me something's got king and yellow shit in it.

I'm, I'm fucking there.

No, it's more along the lines of like, any time you have spent the movie piecing together the serial killer's clues, you know, and

you eventually get the final one that is like, we got his location and we know where the victims are being kept.

If we get there to, if we get there fast enough, we can possibly save their lives, you know?

Um,

and uh, just yeah, a little bit of that energy.

It was, it was really, really good.

Um,

and then the big one that had a lot of groundswell is Cinnerman.

Um, have you

heard of

Cinnerman?

You heard about Cinnerman?

People talk a lot about Cinnerman.

People talk a lot about Cinnerman.

And

because that is

real interesting.

And

I think it took a second for me to, like, I'm like, what's why are people popping off so hard about me playing this quest?

And it was like, oh, because when we first played

Binding of Isaac and I had that reaction to the intro,

that is something.

Yeah, Binding of Isaac attacked you.

So that had

a certain energy to it, which in this case, let's see if that gets revisited.

And

here's what I'll say is that

the

proposition, like the

thought that the quest brings out is very interesting.

I think the

what it poses in terms of like,

you know, the context of religion in Night City, right?

Is something that

there's a discussion there.

Is even religion safe from Night City's human dysmorphic society?

No,

it's not.

I was certainly having none of it.

You know, I mean, the character you meet gives you very little to lean into deliberately, you know, and makes a proper repulsive dude.

And I think

the one thing I heard from people is that like you can just like blow him away on the walk up to the quest

and like end it there, but like for the most part, once you're on the ride, you're kind of just locked into the ride, you know.

Um,

so uh,

here, and and by the end of it, I guess I was kind of like,

I wish it wasn't so on rails while introduce while bringing this this discussion up, right?

Um,

in some ways,

Sinner Man is like a Serbian film.

Let it sit.

Let it sit.

Okay.

I wish my dog was here.

Okay.

I know.

So, when the government is so thoroughly corrupt, that your death can be

as commodified as your life,

you have to question what the fuck is faith?

What is ethics?

What's morality?

What does all that mean?

What's the point?

What kind of life can you live in a world where beginning to ending, every aspect of it can be packaged and sold?

Right?

In this particular case.

I don't know, man, who I'm talking to weekly to describe every part of our lives for financial gain.

I just don't know.

Right?

Because sometimes I eat cookies and then I play with my baby, and that seems pretty good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you exactly, and that bit where it's like, okay,

the most horrendous parts.

of a Serbian film are to be filmed and sold to the highest bidders who want that premium entertainment, right?

That primo, mmm, those BDs with the real feelings gotta get the real real feelings he believes his bullshit and that's why that's why this this recording is worth so much you know the more this actually makes perfect the more diluted the better right very very interesting

um

i wish that once the quest started

that you weren't just on rails and then out because it feels as if like you don't fully get the ability to chew on that concept because you kind of have to play it out in

like either you get off the ride or you go where it's taking you kind of way.

And I think as well,

I know I've seen like some feedback where some people that are like people that currently still have faith are very shook by that quest.

It's kind of like, you know, hitting Ava

and hitting your first JRPG biblical analogy, going, oh my God, the blasphemy, this is crazy, right?

It takes it really far because it's a fucking horrendous character, and you have you can blaspheme pretty hard in a cyberpunk scenario, and you have, yeah, and you have that mother who

is in

the,

you know, the, that, that, you have that mother of the victim who's like

horrified at the entire thing and the fact that it's like stretching it out in this way, and she's just like, she has a very real get the fuck away from me.

Um, but all in all, I think like

what I was like, I, you know,

what I was hoping for is that like, you know, that Kotor moment of like, yes, no,

yes, lie.

Right.

And, um,

and like, you can, like, the version of that, I guess, is the, it's the like, don't release the, the tape or so.

But like, I wished, I wish there was more

to

all of that.

I, you know, once you were kind of locked into the studio and that sequence kind of played out the way it did, and then you kind of walked out, I was like, yeah,

that dude's pretty reprehensible.

I don't really feel two ways about that.

I feel like the reflection on Night City says, obviously, a lot, but in terms of the actions of the quest and the crucifixion and all that playing out, it's kind of like, yeah, fuck this guy.

Who cares?

Like, inhale, exhale, take your next breath, keep moving.

What are we doing here?

You know?

That's kind of where I landed on it, you know?

But

I can, but yeah, but it obviously had a very lasting impact for many.

And I think

more for the implications of

what it says about the world, perhaps more than the, like,

the blasphemy aspects of it.

But yeah, that's the takeaway I kind of had with it.

Most of what I hear from people talking about Cinnerman is just

abject shock at the events that take place.

Yeah.

It's fairly extreme.

Yeah.

I didn't find that to be shocking.

I kind of just, it's like you're on the ride with a horrible person and

the commodification of his death and what, yeah, like, like that,

sort of, but uh, you know, again, like, um, I, I, I think, I think that there's, um,

I, I think that could have been played out in, in, in a way where, again, you, you could have, you could have branched it more.

There could have been more options.

It could have been a little less locked into the path.

You know, I just, I don't know what to say.

Um, and I know that, anyway, whatever.

Like, some people, I've seen some people that are just like, it was boring.

I hated it.

I've seen some people be like, it was the best coast in the game.

But regardless, that's how I feel about it.

What was quite

kind of interesting, though, is in the next game,

A Thousand Times Resist.

Yes.

It's interesting how, like, hitting some of those moments and getting at some of what Sinner Man was actually touching on.

in a completely different context, but

A Thousand Times Resist, which I've beaten now, which is

just a walk and talk game,

engages with its point more and

allows you time to chew on and it allows you freedom to examine some of what it's getting at with this same kind of thing we were just talking about.

The end of A Thousand Times Resist did

more of what I was kind of looking for out of this kind of discussion, you know?

So I'm not going to spoil a thousand times resist, but I will say that

because that is a narrative fucking game.

The whole thing is the experience of

going through it that the first time and a second time for details.

But in conclusion, now that we're done, and it turns that, you know.

Oh, you're done, done.

Done, done.

Yeah.

It was a longer game than I thought.

It's very good.

It's really well written and there's

a lot of

Interesting things being said about the the the subject matter which is um the parental cycle of trauma and oh yes generational trauma.

There's a lot of that going around.

Yep.

Yep.

What you pass on, you know what you've what you developed in and what you push forward to the future.

Um you know, there's a lot of ways to to examine that subject.

This does a really, really good job of it.

In particular,

a differentiation between

what is internalized automatically from the moment you're born that you have no chance to avoid or separate from yourself, right?

Like

even despite your best efforts, like if you were born in Blighttown,

when you approach anybody, they're going to get a toxic bar that's going up, right?

Like, it's just, you're like, yeah, sorry, I was born in Blighttown, you know?

What do you want from me, man?

What I will say is that it is a slow burn.

The first moments of the game, like the first 5%,

start very strong.

Okay.

From about 5 to like 40%,

the pacing slows down and gets

bad.

Oh yeah.

And it's some narrow.

And the thing is, it's mainly discussing with, you're meeting characters, you're talking, and you're moving forward in it.

So you're just walking through a large garden area and you're meeting more characters and you're developing the world.

But

it, it, unfortunately,

in this kind of middle part, it like it's it slows down in a way that I was not enjoying as much.

And,

you know, there are definitely like, there's, there's enough going there with the, with the characters that, you know, especially the ones that you're meeting and that you like.

And the mystery is, is, there's always a, what the fuck is going on?

You know, there's a, there's a strong.

How long are you just stuck in the what the fuck is going on state?

So you get, you get reveals of answers to that, but you know, those moments where something might like reveal a whole bunch and then empty its hand and then pick up a new hand and you go, well, what's in that new hand?

Right.

I don't know.

This game doesn't do that.

This game will reveal one card and then like still hold the rest and then reveal one at a time while picking up new ones as you go.

It never wants to show the whole hand.

And sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't.

What I will say is moments that have

that last with me that I remember strongly are the ones where there's a huge like info dump and then recontextualization of events and

those happen here but while they're happening

new obtuseness is being introduced at the same time is I guess the best way to describe it I see now around the 40% mark

that shit gets really solid right oh yeah so um

it uh there there's a um

you know there was a a moment where we were kind of talking about how you you get near automata,

and, you know, if you start playthrough B and you're like, oh, it's the same game, you know, there might be a bit of a feeling of like, oh, well, I guess I do.

I just, is it just the same thing again?

There's a little bit different here.

There's a little bit different there, but it's not really like.

But one of the main, but one of the main things is in automata, if you love the combat, the combat can carry you forward through that second very similar playthrough until you start hitting playthrough C, D, and E, and then shit goes crazy, you know?

And then, you know.

But here, you're not getting that gameplay.

It's just talking to people.

So when those pacing moments dip, that you feel them really brutally, right?

That solidness that picks up around the 40% mark carries all the way through.

And I would say when you get to the finale, that last 90 to 100, it's excellent.

The finale is fantastic.

So how much would you describe in the game's total runtime is like push-through time?

About half of it.

That's rough, man.

That's a lot.

The thing is, is there's an asterisk there, which is if you love

some of these characters a lot and are charmed by them, you can,

that, you can, the gravity of that will pull you.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, it depends on how much you like the cast.

I will say that if you're if you're digging them, like I was digging the cast, I wasn't super locked locked in until much much later i was digging the cast and that made the pacing feel the way it did um

and then you know getting full reveals understanding motivations getting the the multiple angles of of what they're about and why they're they're doing what they do makes me go oh fuck okay i'm really interested in finding out more about you know where this is going and why and what's happening here um but overall it's a yeah it's a it's it's still a it's a short it's a you know for for being longer longer than I thought, it's still a pretty short game and worth experiencing.

Just know this: that you're playing a visual novel with walking in between.

Um,

and yeah, you're gonna, you know, um,

that that push-through moment or phase of it, it really depends on if you, you know, if you if you love the characters you're seeing and you're just like, I just want to know more and I'm all in on them, then you won't feel that.

But if you are like me, then you you do feel like

the the

the the weight of like, all right, now we got to hit this other side of the garden.

Okay, let's go through this sequence.

How long is the game?

I mean, it's 10 chapters, and I think if you're not let's playing it, you know, and

doing fucking inception episodes, probably like 10 hours, maybe.

Oh, okay.

You know, that changes the context because I know you've been playing it for a while.

Yeah, and there were certainly 13 Sentinels moments of like

going and watching myself play it to piece together the timeline and what's happening.

But you know,

if you if you way faster if you don't care about talking to everybody and you know seeing everything and like fully doing it, but if you're just beelighting for objectives, you can do it much, much faster, certainly.

But yeah, still very good.

In particular,

the closing

chapters of that game, it drops its thesis statement and then asks you some real, real shit about

in that cycle of trauma that

gets passed on from generation to generation,

like...

you choosing that you want to somehow stop that and like or improve it or be better than it or do whatever the case um

what do you choose

what is is what do you choose to keep what do you choose to release you know is

is there anything to gain from even the that like bothers you the most you know i gotta tell you as somebody with a a baby man and who may or may not

uh have some generational trauma um the vast majority of it is like hey

yeah i'm not gonna do that one.

Yeah.

It's like 99%.

It's like, hey, that was the wrong call.

Not that one.

Yeah.

There's the part that resonates the most with me is

there's,

I mean, I'll probably, I don't know.

Maybe I'll talk about this at some point or I won't.

But I'm, one of the tattoos I'm planning to get is something that is

basically like emblematic of

there's shit that

there's shit from my childhood that I

absolutely hate that

drives me crazy and pisses me off and is

always

going to feel immensely negative inside of me.

But undeniably, if I did not, if I if I ignore it and pretend it didn't happen,

I wouldn't be who I am.

So

there's shit.

I think about shit like that all the time.

Yeah.

And it's not religion.

I know the obvious thing is to go Willie talks about religion.

It's not religion.

I'm not talking about that.

I think about that shit all the time.

And it's, it's, um,

do you remember, this is such a strange poll.

You remember Lagan Hen?

You remember right in the big bombastic, you know, super robot thing, viral yells out, I'm glad for the events that brought me here.

Yeah,

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think about that a lot because

you know, you'll daydream about, like, well, what if I could go back in time and do things differently?

I'm like, the sequence of events that brought me to here as I am now are really specific.

Yep.

I don't think I would ever be able to get to this good spot if I was trying to do it on purpose.

Yep.

It's

really weird, but it's infinitely interesting to just think about that, you know?

And

it's something that I feel like is like, oh yeah, that's a forever.

I'm processing that one somewhere in my mind at all times, you know,

indefinitely.

It's

there's a moment like there's something like that that happens in Vagabond.

That is my favorite moment of my favorite manga.

That is why I'm so in love with that story.

That is exactly this subject, right?

It is like a moment where the character

where Musashi takes the worst shit he's been through and like figures out how to use part of that to

better what he is now and then

acknowledge that part that existed and then

try not to be haunted by it, you know?

It's a that that resonates very strongly for me.

And

with that

backstory bias, this game basically goes into a really fucking awesome

discussion about exactly that.

Let's look at everything on the table that you are and

go, what does it mean to push this forward to the next generation?

What does it mean to get rid of it?

You know,

imagine

your near automata, like we're sent, we're keep the data, you know what I mean, that you, that gets sent out and

type of thing.

Like, okay, we're collecting all the experiences, but what if we audited that

for

posterity?

What does the auditing process look like?

It was fucking great, you know?

So that, to me, makes the ending of the game absolutely stellar and worth recommending.

And I say this with heavy, heavy fucking bias towards that subject matter.

Right.

Honestly, I find it fascinating when you deal with like,

you know, any type of thoughtful narrative that's dealing with a

totally

form of social experience that you are genuinely, completely, totally unfamiliar with.

To the point of having difficulty rendering empathy because you don't even know enough about it to know what to feel when.

Oh, yeah.

I mean,

do you or anyone you know have family members that were in the Hong Kong 2019 umbrella protests?

Probably not.

I'm going to go with no.

I'm going to go with no on that.

You know, so let's take a minute to learn a thing or two about that as a jumping off point and then push forward in time, you know?

Deeply personal, deeply, deeply personal experience for the creator of this game, for sure, you know?

But yeah, The Thousand Times Resist

in the end, that's what all the stink is about, and

it's very well written.

Really enjoyed that.

So that is

what we pretty much did on the channel.

This

took a quick look at

the Rage of the Dragons Steam re-release and the Marvel vs.

Capcom collection.

Children of the Atom, God bless that animation.

It's so fucking good.

It's so fucking good.

I love it every time.

It's one of the weird cases of like the sequels had the animation get worse over time because there were more characters.

But the first of those fighting games, the X-Men Children of the Atom game,

it was the best looking one.

It was the whole versus series where every versus game looked kind of worse as time went on.

Except for the new new characters in Marvel 2.

Yeah, everyone lost frames.

Marvel 2 has like a bunch of characters to just look like trash.

There's Mugen frames standing still, you know.

But yeah, we took a look at some of those, so those are going to be coming out.

This week,

on Saturday, we're going to be taking a look at Iron Saga versus.

That's a sponsored stream.

It's a mecha fighting game.

You're going to get your Mazinger Z.

You're going to get your Ghetto Robo.

You're going to get all your

favorites coming together.

And you like robots, so this is a good fit.

I am a fan

of the mechanical humanoid,

especially the large ones.

I like getting into them.

And I like when the life rings start revolving.

So, yeah, come check out Iron Saga Versus.

We're going to

yuck it up in that for a bit.

Thank you to the team for providing.

And

beyond that, oh, go check out, I got a little plushie campaign going.

Oh, I saw.

Yes, makesh.com/slash petitions/slash

wolves dash in dash the dash lab.

If you want to get a little wolves plush, there's a little wolves with a little arcade stick that's also going to be plush.

It'd be super sick if it if it was a real one, but

and yeah, if you want to get one,

fortunately,

the amount has been pledged and it immediately hit that amount right away.

So it's happening.

If you want to get one, go head over there and

yeah.

I should get one for goofs.

get one so that boost can chew the fuck out of it oh he doesn't do that oh okay he the only thing he does is he sucks blankets okay

everything about that dog is like sad cute pathetic okay it's like oh does he chew bones no he just sits on his blanket goes

all right fair enough um

at the very least you can toss me across the room and keep the stick on its own if you'd like so i think I would probably just bring you up to talk to you as a prop.

I think I hate that one the most, actually.

Hold on.

Pledge $2 to do.

I think I hate that outcome more than any others.

Pre-order.

That's not a fun bit.

Oh, yeah.

Express checkout with PayPal.

Fuck yeah.

I don't like how this has turned.

Oh, thanks for reminding me.

I think I dislike this more than people talking about jars.

Oh, come on.

That's not even upsetting anymore.

Well, it's just, it's not even practical, really.

I mean, practicality was never the goal.

Like,

what about moisture evaporation?

You know, what about

loss over time?

What about

aerialization?

Or air airing?

Anyway, I just, um,

don't know that a jar would do anyone any good in this context.

Look,

look,

you can go check out the little plushie if you'd like.

And I'm not going to tell you what to do with it.

You can do whatever you want.

Okay.

That never really happened, right?

Patrick.

Thank you for making a pledge to bring this product to life.

The pledge helps this creator know that they're on the right track.

Was that real?

Their community wants this character to come to life.

Was that real?

Was it real?

Was that ever real?

The jar shit?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah, it's real a lot.

Yeah, absolutely.

Wait, hold on.

Hold on.

Let's back up.

Because there's multiple.

Are you talking about one man, one jar?

No, I'm talking about MLP jar.

Because I saw that.

No, no, no.

I'm talking about MLP jar.

That was real.

I've seen that.

I've seen that.

That was real.

I'm talking about MLP jar.

Oh, yeah.

No, people do that all the time.

That's that's oh, absolutely.

You can go ask Justin Wang about that.

He does documentaries on the jars.

He's the jar master.

Okay, got it.

In fact, I think he's done documentaries on both the jars we're talking about.

Okay, okay.

See, this is one of those bits where it's like, you know, the Internet Osmosis brought the energy, but I didn't know if it actually

happened.

Wang, Jar.

There's anything wholesome

there's Jarman, there's the Jar the Pony Jar update.

There's an update.

Nothing wholesome on the internet has ever involved a jar.

He has an interview with the Jar Man.

Nothing wholesome, nothing wholesome involves a jar.

It has never happened to us.

What about pickling?

And brining.

Yeah, but

sometimes people

know people high-end

confits.

people pickle gross things right

like cucumbers

well anything that's not a cucumber you know when you what about radishes pickled eggs

what about onions yeah

what about kombucha

see that there's there's there's fucking

i pickled eggs and and pickled pickled fucking

there's science labs with pickled fetus in it oh list listen listen i think brine and pickle juice is disgusting.

I'm just telling you

that

people use them for non-nefarious purposes.

Jars and bad things.

Name a fucking worse combination.

Um, all right, so yeah.

So, by the way, to anyone who needs to know this, um, make sure to fill the jar with water, it will increase its tensile strength.

I can't tell Pete.

Because that was his mistake.

Do you know that?

That's why that happened.

It wasn't filled with water.

Didn't pour enough water.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was an empty jar that time.

There you go.

Yeah.

Alrighty.

What the fuck is happening?

You can

catch the Iron Saiga stream

on Saturday.

But yeah, that's pretty much just going to be it for this week over on Wooly vs.

on Twitch and on YouTube.

Okie dokie.

What up?

So I played some Monster Hunter GU.

Who cares?

I played some

Kingdom Come Deliverance 2.

Who cares?

That's just pure peasant, amazing shit.

It's incredible.

What's actually important is that

Monday was Page and I's anniversary.

And so we played Split Fiction, the new Joseph Ferris joint.

Is it a bop?

It's so much better of a bop than it takes to

unbelievable.

Of course.

There you go.

It is.

See?

It is.

See?

I knew it, man.

It is incredible.

When those trailers, when those trailers.

Those trailers didn't really pop for me.

But I was watching.

I was watching them and I was watching as people were like, yeah, I don't know.

And I'm like, it doesn't matter.

It's who's making it.

It's who's making it.

They've never fucking failed.

Every one of those games from Brothers Upwards was great.

I'm like, I don't, whatever they showed, I'm like, I believe you're going to make an amazing co-op game.

And lo and behold, they fucking did.

So that game puts its foot on the gas and doesn't let up for multiple hours.

Like it is go, go faster, more game, more gameplay for hours.

The number one thing that it has over

It Takes Two is it just plays like a way better game.

Like all the different types of games that you're playing, they all play like

really, really well and feel really, really great.

Every different way to co-op in unique, interesting manners from stage to stage.

Fast, too.

Like really, really, really fast.

Awesome.

Like you are playing each sequence for like 10 minutes.

And the way they break it up is so genuine and so perfect because, like, the first big level is like primarily sci-fi, right?

So, you're doing your cyber ninja stuff, and you'll do, like, here's the wall, here's here's the segment where one character has to move boxes around the environment and the other one has to run on ceilings and do platforming, right?

And then you have 10 minutes of like, oh no, it's a it's a chase sequence where one character's driving and the other character's on the gunner, right?

And then it's like, oh, here's a side story, and what's the side story?

Okay, you're gonna play a fantasy game because it's the side story of the

the

sci-fi level.

And the

sci-story will be journey.

It's just going to be journey.

It will be Joseph Ferris going, would you like to play Journey right now as a co-op game?

And you go, yes, yes, I would.

Okay.

That's a good idea.

And you go back to sci-fi, and now you're doing like crazy

in the sky flying car platforming while one character is like fighting a boss and the other character is doing puzzles in the background.

Okay, now we're going to do side story.

What's the side story?

It's banjo-kazooie with pigs that can fart so hard they fly.

Okay.

So you're going to play this like dedicated banjo-kazooie level.

Like, uh, and just ping

like that the whole time so fast.

So it's already admirable that Haze Light is dedicated towards keeping co-op, couch co-op games alive.

And that on its own would be like a noble thing to be like, yeah, I love it.

But the fact that they're crushing it with each one is just that's fantastic.

Um, like, it's amazing.

I like Paige was like squealing in delight, and I was just like, ah, like the whole time.

It was, it's amazing.

Because, yeah, like the, the, um,

you know, well, I mean, Brothers was something different, but that was still just like, you know, with one player, you're taking both and you're having a good time doing, like, experimenting with the way they, uh, they play, you know, at the same simultaneously.

A way out, obviously, like just pretty straightforward, but premise and narrative.

Right up until the plot twist you saw coming.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right up until

the game just changes.

The game changes.

Yeah.

And then that is actually insanely exciting.

Yeah, but it's like, it's not that complex.

It's just very exciting.

That's it, right?

Yeah.

It just does.

Very exciting.

It just does it really well.

And

I would say that, like, yeah, the, the, uh, um, um,

uh, the last time around, you know, it was like, let's have a, like a fun little kid's adventure, but the main thing is like, let's do a bunch of co-op things that nobody else is really doing.

And like, once the idea is done, cool, next, you know, explore the, explore this one gameplay element for as much as you can in this one stage and then discard it and fucking start over next stage, you know?

That's really cool.

I felt like

it takes two was almost like a test game for Split Fiction because It Takes Two.

It Takes Two is a lot more thematically consistent because it's about divorce and working together and yada yada.

But actually playing it wasn't all that exciting.

Split Fiction does not have as strong of a thematic push, but actually playing it is like thrill house.

Nice.

Okay.

Like you're just like, oh,

the whole time.

Though what the story is about

is that you as an unpublished author are going to a big tech company who has told you that they're going to help publish your new books.

But then when you get there, they feed you into a robot that's supposed to steal all of your ideas.

Oh, no!

Oh, no, not the robot.

Oh, that's, that's, yeah, okay.

Which feels well time.

That's quite apt.

Yes, interesting.

Yeah, this is the kind of game that obviously it'd be fucking absolute gangbusters to start right now.

But

timing-wise, I got to look at a lot of things and figure it out, you know, but I super want to play it.

Just put it on the list for later then, because it is

good.

Very good game.

It's like I just like we came away from it like sweating and just like that's emerging Um, just one, one sesh like a couple levels, yeah, just one session so far.

Okay, we, we went through like the entirety of the first sci-fi level, so it feels like there will be four large-scale stages, which would be sci-fi fantasy, sci-fi, fantasy.

Gotcha, okay, okay.

And then, if you're, if your preference is the other one, well, don't worry, when you're playing the sci-fi level, the little side stories will be fantasy-based.

When you're playing the fantasy ones, the side stories will be sci-fi-based.

Okay, yeah.

So, you know,

I'll come back around to this for sure.

I think I'm just going to hammer out some cyberpunk for now.

It's a big game.

It could use that.

That sounds good.

The other thing that happened to me this week is that I was like, you know what?

I think I've played enough of Monster Hunter GU.

I think I'm going to switch my streams over to Monster Hunter Rise.

Because I never got all that far into Rise.

The Switch one that's

yeah.

I never did any of the Sunbreak stuff because it's been a really long time, and the Sunbreak stuff is the best stuff in there, so yeah, why not?

And I, and my

chat really seems to really enjoy playing Monster Hunter, but older Monster Hunters, so yeah, you know what?

Let's do it.

So I started to test out Rise, and I was like, wow, Rise is crashing like a lot.

That's weird.

It's crashing like a lot, huh?

Like every quest,

every single quest would crash.

And then I told Paige that and she's like, you know,

I forgot to tell you.

But the other day,

I turned on the computer and I went to go do something and it blue screened.

And then it just blue screened after it restarted.

And then it blue screened after it restarted again.

And eventually it just turned itself off.

And I'm like, oh.

Oh, that's not good.

And then it did that to me also.

And I'm like, oh, this is, this is poor.

This is poor.

And I'm like, because I have the CPUs that can be affected by the rust.

So I'm like, ooh, ooh, you know what I should do?

This is, this is the house computer.

Yeah, this is the house.

This is the one in my home.

You know what I should do?

So I have my hard drive that I have, my portable hard drive that has all the stuff I need to put on a new computer.

So that and you know, I pull my thumbnails for the channel off and, you know, shit like like that.

So it's like, oh, I can just reset this anytime, right?

So I'm like, all right, I get a USB key and I get Windows 11 on it and I use the media creation tool and I plug it in and I do a complete 100% clean Windows install.

And I'm like, all right, good.

So it's booting up.

to desktop after a completely clean Windows install and it blue screens when it starts to download the very first Windows update.

Then it restarts and blue screens before I can gain mouse control.

Okay.

And it does it five times in a row.

And I'm like, okay,

let's hit that.

Okay.

Hit that BIOS.

This is now outside of my level of expertise.

Okay.

Because I could go in the BIOS, but I would not know what to do from there.

Turn on or off.

Aggressive safe moding and then piece-by-piece diagnosis, basically.

So,

yeah,

I had already priorly done safe mode and stuff like that.

And I look back and I'm like, you know, I've actually, I've talked about this on screen.

I've had a lot of trouble installing drivers on that computer.

Like I go to install a driver, it just says failed.

I'm like, oh, okay.

So I'm worried that it's the rust.

So

we popped the computer in the car and we brought it to PC Man, my local PC guy.

And I was like, can you fix my computer?

And he said, yeah, I'll take a look at it.

And I was expecting to get a phone call saying, well,

your CPU is fried.

You'll have to RMA a replacement or buy a replacement.

And that would take this amount of time.

Oh, my God.

No, he called me yesterday on my show.

And he was like, hey, your computer's done.

I'm like, really?

What'd you fix?

Replace one part.

And he said, I'm not 100%

sure because I did a lot.

Okay.

Okay.

So then I, well, the reason why the podcast is late today is I went down there and ended up talking to him for quite a while over what he had done.

And

he

explained the sequence of events that he did where he basically cleaned it all out, went to the BIOS, did every single option to the BIOS he could possibly think of as a technician, checked every single component separately, ran diagnostics, and then he loaded it up in like an offline secure environment, installed Windows, and then installed every Windows update to date separately, followed by a reboot.

And then all drivers for every part of my computer separately via a reboot after a reboot.

The cleanest thing.

So that is

probably horrible overkill, but I wanted to be sure.

And now it works, and it's set my house, and it's working just fine.

And he gave me, there's a folder on my drive that is

all the things he installed and they're subdivided into folders in the order in which he installed them.

Okay.

Thorough.

So that if I ever run into any problem, any issues, I just do that again.

No new parts.

Nope.

Awesome.

He's like, yeah, this fan is dead.

I'm like, yeah, I know that fan is dead.

Okay.

Because

the limits of my abilities are like,

yeah, like, again, hit the BIOS up, do an aggressive piece-by-piece diagnosis.

But, but like once something isn't working like that's where I'm like I'm not gonna try to fix this I'm doing a part replacement you know yeah and so here's the thing if I had done a part replacement I would have had the same problem but had spent more money on parts

right because that wasn't the problem the problem was not

the part I'm the problem was

some

well I mean the the problem was a compound of errors that I had made in the maintenance of my computer right okay.

Because

what often ends up happening in most cases is like if you can take the part out, put it in a different computer and see if it fucking does the same shit.

And you go, well, it's that, you know, and then you go replace that.

So, yeah.

Okay.

So what was interesting, though, is that I called him on the phone to describe the problem and he was like, you better bring that thing in.

I don't think I can fix that on a house call.

Right.

I'm like, okay.

So I bring it in and I walk in the door and it was, hey, the streamer.

And I'm like, that's right.

He's been to my house.

Ah, okay, okay, okay.

Yeah.

And he's like, yeah, this fan is dead.

I'm like, yes, you disconnected that fan.

He's like, I did.

I'm like, yes, yes, you did, actually.

You were at my place doing a house call and

you disconnected that fan.

And then we shot the shit about, you know, bullshit while we discussed the computer.

And yeah, very cool guy.

Super helpful.

Cost me like 200 bucks.

That's it.

This person, this is a lost art now,

what you're describing.

It feels as if more and more.

He's an honest computer mechanic.

Yeah.

It feels like shit's built to be tossed and repurchased, you know?

Yeah, but sometimes it just

like if I had just replaced parts, I'd still have the same problem.

No, sometimes it's just like, yeah, do the cleanest, cleanest reboot,

reinstall, re-everything.

Yeah, and tweak things to be nice and whatnot good stuff uh and then the other thing is that like uh he updated my bios and then was like hey you have another computer like this right okay here's the bios information you need to update that bios i'm like thank you that's very nice

and then we held hands a little bit there you go because it was very it was a good moment there you go

uh do you also have that feeling where like as you're trying to solve the problem, like

I'm like, you hit a point where you're like, you know, if I spent the rest of the day, I could maybe fix this, but I'm an adult and I have a disposable income.

So I'm going to just well, for me, for me, it's always like, listen, is it worth it?

If I run into a type of problem, can I fix this in the time it would take for me to make out the equivalent cost through my own labor?

Like, yeah,

is it a better idea for me to go stream?

I'm just and just have a man who knows what he's doing help me.

I just, some like in the heat of the stress, there's always a part where I'm like, nah, I'm out.

I could, I could, but I'm out.

I don't want, I don't want this.

And so I don't want that.

So these are all considerations, but do you know what the real consideration is?

I want to work on this problem

to the point where when I have to ask a man for help,

it's not like, oh, okay, yeah, no, I got this in like two seconds, right?

Right, right.

I want to, I, I need to work on the problem

to the point where when the man comes to my house to help me, he doesn't think I'm a baby.

Yes, he's like, oh, yeah, no, this is a problem.

And here's the thing: is if somebody opens up the hood of a car, we can't do shit.

But if you open up a computer, we can kind of sound like we know what we're talking about.

Therefore, this is one of the few times where you get to be like, hey, honey, come listen to this or whatever.

Just be like, yeah, so, you know, I was tinkering around back there, pulled out the power supply, fixed that fan.

You know, there's a lot of dust, got the dust on it, was checking how the RAM was clicking.

You're like, ah, okay, whatever, you know.

So, like, for example, I had a toilet that was like running, you know, like the handle was a little fucky, and so it was like kind of just running constantly.

And I was like, ah, so I, you know, I popped it off, I turned the water off, and I'm, I'm fucking with it.

I'm like,

I don't know how to replace this part, and I don't even know where to get this fucking part.

So the plumber comes over and he goes, oh, yeah, this happens all the time.

And you fix it in like two minutes.

And

like,

he worked at it enough that it didn't make me feel like a little baby.

Because if he had walked in and gone and like

turned something and gone, it's fixed, I would have been like, oh, I guess I'm stupid baby idiot.

Yeah, no.

My version of that is I'm making three trips to Home Depot in the same

because

it was the wrong fucking nut.

And

that nut doesn't fit on this piece, and the back of the toilet needs that specific kind.

And oh, you got the plastic version, but it needed to be the metal one.

And just like hitting up that same aisle while it's not happening, but I'm imagining the person working at the paint booth is just kind of watching me walk back and forth in, out, and then an hour later back in again.

Like,

do you need an adult?

I never story of what happened to my keys.

No,

I never told you what happened to my keys.

So I went to my local hardware store because I needed, I, uh, you know, I, we moved in and, and we were just like, you know, we don't have enough copies of our keys.

You know, like, you know, I had, I had like, I lost my full thing of keys scare.

And I was like, oh, one of those we don't have a replacement for, you know?

So I went down there.

I'm like, hey, can I order some sets of keys?

And

the new kid who was being trained was like, Well, I have to learn how to make keys, so I'll do them.

And I'm like, Okay.

And so he busted me out, like you know, three, four sets of keys.

He's like, Here you go, man, great.

And then I brought them home, and then I tried one, and it immediately got jammed in the lock

and had the door stuck locked.

Oh, no,

Fuck.

That there's something.

And

I had to get a fucking

I had to get like pliers.

Not pliers.

I had to get a

wrench.

Yeah.

And fucking get a hold of it.

And like, oh, man, that sucks.

Yeah.

And, and, and I was, like, worried that it was going to snap off in the fucking lock.

And

then I went back there and had, like,

do you know when you're having an angry, tense conversation in which every emotion in the conversation is being contained within you only?

So, like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm mad enough that I could scream because I almost got locked out of my house because I got bad keys.

But, like, the kid is like 18 and it was literally, it's, I think it might have actually his first day on the job.

And, like,

the other guy was probably supposed to help him more than he did.

So like this is the type of accident that can happen.

Yeah.

But like I'm like losing my mind because my shit almost got fucked up.

So I'm like, hey,

so

I need replacements for these keys

because I almost got

locked in out of my house.

So if you could

redo them or maybe have one of the more experienced guys do them, because the last set was a little off,

I would really

appreciate it.

Like, you know, when like it's just like screaming to burst out, but you know, doing so would be wrong, and you're kind of just being emotional and like a baby about it.

The red check.

well you shouldn't have sent me out the door no with fucking keys you weren't 100 sure on man but it was his first day at frit and he this is my first day you know just yeah

um

well look you know you didn't like

I mean, if you're like the door locked and my baby is in there, you know, it's like, well, then I, then I'm, then I would be like, I need to talk to Matt.

We're going.

I need a, I need restitution for my smashed window.

Yeah.

We're talking about a different situation, but.

Okay.

Damn.

Right.

Yeah.

But yeah.

Split fiction is great.

And make sure an old guy who doesn't look like he wants to talk to you instead of smoking makes your keys.

Like the guy who's in work off of his smoke break,

like most of his time is spent smoking outside.

Yeah.

And he's come in to make your keys.

That's the guy you want.

Oh, no.

So, this is the same rule that applies to Waffle House, where, like, when you walk up to the Waffle House, you want the chef on his smoke break who looks pissed that you're walking in, who outs his cigarette and then goes, oh, fuck, and goes inside.

If I go to a restaurant and

I see the cooking staff, and it doesn't look like any of them have been arrested, I should probably leave.

Yeah, yeah.

Like,

listen,

the back of the house staff should have maybe been to a little bit of jail.

Right, right.

To make their cooking skills really excellent.

There's a sous chef, and if you ask for like where if he can find other things, he can probably provide.

You know, yeah, yeah, I know what you're talking about.

Yeah, aside from that,

it's basically been

it's basically been

fucking around in Monster Hunter GU and the Kingdom Come Deliverance.

Oh, being sad that my PC is gone.

You never want to hear English coming out of the kitchen.

Never.

You want unless you're in Quebec.

Yeah.

You want to hear every other language coming out of that kitchen.

Hell yeah.

Absolutely.

I do have have a small baby update, which is,

you know, man, they grow up so fast.

You're just speed running through all these phases.

But this phase,

this is a fucking good one.

Okay.

So

we're desperately trying to instill good manners because that's important for society.

So we're on the please and thank you battle.

Okay.

Right.

Now, he's very little.

So please and thank you are usually actually just the hand signals, right?

So, like tapping on your chin is please and

tapping on your chin and outwards is thank you, right?

But we're still trying to get the words out.

So, hey, little man, do you want your milk?

And you go, ah, ah, ah, give it, right?

And you're like, no, hey, we ask please.

And so he'll touch his chest like this and go, pa.

You know, okay, good, great.

Here's your milk.

Can you you say thank you?

And my little guy is trying to say thank you, but instead he goes, Deet do.

So you give him his milk, and this tiny little guy goes, Deetu,

and then like, like, wobbles away.

Ah,

yeah.

Don't

resist the urge to keep it at dee-doo for as long as possible.

Oh, no, no, no, no.

I, I, me and Paige are going to be saying dee-doo to this kid for 20 more years.

Oh,

remember, remember when you weren't even two years old and you would take your milk and you would go dee-do?

I remember.

Yeah, okay, yeah, I remember.

Okay, okay, no, that's fine.

What I'm talking about is like, um, okay, cool.

I'll have the car back by 10.

Deet do.

Like, and you just never even correct it.

Yeah, no, no, no.

You gotta learn, you gotta learn the regular words.

Yeah.

But yeah, that's what's going on over here.

As for the show, this week, this might be the most fucked up scheduled week I have ever made.

I changed my schedule.

I posted it like eight times because everything would go wrong and things would move and appointments would be reminded and then the computer died and then all sorts of things.

And now I'm changing it again because there's a sponsored stream coming up this week that just came in in the last minute.

But tomorrow I'm going to be checking out the Future Gains Show.

Okay.

Which is at 1 p.m.

Pacific.

Hold on, let me check.

It's the Future Games Show.

Is that a 1 p.m.

Pacific?

It better be.

Because that's the time that I think I was doing it.

It's going to be hosted by Jen English and Nolan North.

Okay.

Yeah,

1 p.m.

Pacific.

And we're also going to do more Monster Hunter later in the week, though I'm not sure which Monster Hunter it is at this point because I'm flip-flopping all over the place.

And I'm going to be doing a sponsored stream of a game called Once Upon a Puppet

either tomorrow or the day after.

Okay.

And that's over at twitch.tv slash PatStares at.

As you said that bit about

good manners, it just reminds me of the line and metaphor.

It's like, Good hygiene is important to communal living, I think.

It sure is.

Yeah, every time you use the bathroom, it's just a little like, yeah, that's why you got to do it.

Wash your butt.

Shit, don't change till you get up and wash your ass.

That's what grandma says.

You know, it's really funny to me, Wooly.

Every time I've streamed lately, someone comes in

the chat and goes, Hey, man, are you going to cover SAS screen shadows?

And I just, I just like,

nah, man.

No, I'm good.

Yeah.

No, I'm fine.

There's a deep, deep need inside of me to find out what's going on with Yasuke as someone who has been

apparently you don't get to play as him for over 20 hours or so.

Yeah, I heard.

Yeah.

I heard.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I've wanted a Yasuke game for so long.

Play Neo.

For so long now.

Neo, Neo, yeah, yeah.

He's there.

But, you know, but I mean, like, Yasuke on main, more so, you know.

This seems like a massive waste of time.

Like, I, I, I'll sing.

It's like the idea that.

Sorry after you.

No, I just, I, I, I'll, I'll see, but I have a deep curiosity inside of me to know what's going on with

him in this game and how that how that goes, you know?

We'll see.

There's something something about like i had to know oh yeah what what did you find out that it wasn't worth it

you know i'm kind of just like maybe

yeah

are they gonna make that that armor from the um

the statue of from the photo of of him with the with the leather you know and stuff i don't know i don't know anyways

um if i do i'll i'll be doing that in my own time you know so i'm not fucking subjecting to you.

I gotta take a quick break.

I gotta feed the dog dinner.

Dear beat.

Alrighty.

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All right, what's going on this week?

Couple of left field announcements

that I took note of.

One,

yeah, the city of the wolves beta.

Sorry, city of the Wolves.

Open beta number two.

Sorry, the what?

City of the Warves.

Thank you.

Open beta number two is incoming.

This time, including T-zock.

Fuck yeah.

And training mode.

Now we're talking.

We both got the number one thing we wanted out of the next beta.

The number one feature, as demanded.

Yes.

Training mode and the Griffin mask, which I prefer that, I have to say.

I can go either way on it.

I love both of them, but it's like

I also love King of the Dinosaurs.

Yeah,

but that's what I mean.

I like King of the Dinosaurs as a wrestler name, and I feel like the Griffin Mask is like a wrestler name, you know, like that's a that's a personality.

Um,

I think them putting out a second open beta for the city of the wharves is really smart because they were cooking a little bit with that last one

but they were also not cooking a lot with parts of that last one i mean they were whipping up a fucking uh uh

like a a michelin rated meal with the gameplay

yeah but the ability to get that meal to your house was a very very bad porter service how are you gonna get it to my house oh my cousin uh my cousin jerry's gonna drive it over really are you fuck not oh if you show up in person you're gonna get a great meal but if you're getting but i but the covid i want you to deliver it to my house please but it turns out you got to get it ordered and delivered and the delivery service is poor even though the meal is great that's the problem i gotta say woolly i don't know when i started doing this i started doing it a while ago there is like

Like it's a different pronunciation.

It's like regional or Canadian or whatever, but calling something poor, that's one thing.

Calling it poor is like oh oh so you have been really putting the you're really putting the thumb on the scale with that you've been doing that I love that you've been doing yeah you've been doing that for about 15 years now and I don't know anyone else that does it so it's a youism

but I is it is it a meism I know what you're talking about because you are the one that does it

oh I like it I think it works I think it works well for me I believe there's a a

there's a chance at some point in the future kind of of like how uh raiden and big bear are the face and heel of the same character right there might be a like

a fallen t-zock man unmasked that we that we get to at some point but i hope we never see his face i feel like it would be blasphemous like king

um

he's got to die in the mask doesn't have a face no no there's underneath there guess what leopard man

the moment you put the mask on, it's permanently grafted to your head.

And if you're an orphan who gets raised to be that, then it's like a symbiotic relationship.

Yeah, your identity was subsumed into the king mask.

All your words become roars, but everyone still understands you.

It's my favorite part.

It's my favorite part of that.

Yeah, so that is

going to be.

When is that happening, City of the Wharves?

It's happening next weekend.

So that's going down if anyone wanted to get hands on Fatal Fury, City of the Wharves.

And, you know, that game is very fun.

I suggest if you get a chance at it, y'all, check it out.

I would really like it if

they tuned up that netplay.

That would make me really happy.

It's...

Again,

you got a fucking shitbag delivery man working for a really good restaurant that just opened up in your neighborhood.

You know, like this is, this is an actual, this is a perfect analogy.

You know, like, you really want to eat there.

It's not the food that's the problem, it's the state that it arrives at your fucking door at.

Did my delivery driver eat some of my fucking fries?

This time around, you're getting the ingredients, so you can, you can try cooking it up a little bit at home, too.

Alongside this,

Night Dive Studios off the top rope with the I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream console port announcement trailer.

Yeah, I gotta tell you, by the way, man, Night Dive Studios,

they're all right.

Yeah,

now, ahead, they're all right, a head scratcher of a pull, except for if you remember me bringing up this game a couple months ago, because the amazing circus put it back on the radar for a whole new generation of kids when the creator basically said that

that series is inspired by I Have No Mouth, which then led to a massive spike in information, including people going back to our old LP

and like,

why so much noise

about I Have No Mouth Now?

Because The Amazing Circus, that's why.

And people that are like, yeah, this is cool, but why do they keep talking over it?

And it's like, oh,

modern day versus yesteryear.

So I'm looking at this trailer.

Is Harlan Ellison still alive?

No, but the voice and samples are.

It's just a port.

It's not a remake.

They're using the old recordings.

They're using the...

Oh, they're all using the old recordings.

Yeah,

no, they're just, they're just, yeah.

Bro, that is a mouse-heavy fucking game.

I'm interested to see.

It was also jank as hell.

It sure was.

Went through some trouble getting that to run properly.

Did I use Scum?

I feel like I used something like Scum VM to get it running or so, you know?

It was from way back, but anyway, if you ever wanted to know,

yeah, now's your chance to get a crack at it.

And the author of the book is the narrator, is the voice of M, the hateful computer.

And he puts as much hatred into it

as he wanted there to be because he couldn't cast anyone to do that.

Yeah, hey, this guy, he's not angry enough.

There's not enough venom.

There's not enough hatred.

Fuck it.

Fuck it.

I'll do it.

Shout outs to the word nano angstrom.

I it.

It doesn't mean anything, but you know it means real small.

A couple other things.

What else got announced?

Silent Hill F.

Silent Hill F got shown off.

I did, I watched the Silent Hill F transmission.

Directed by the, or written by the writer of Umi Nako.

And When They Cry.

The other one, the Kill Yourself anime.

The When They Cry series.

Now, Higurashi.

Yeah.

So it's written by him and scenario done by him, etc.

Seems like it's like, okay, Silent Hill in a Japan setting seems to be a

proper Japanese horror

vision.

No guns.

Picks up a pipe, picks up a, you know.

I guess

let's see what happens.

Yeah.

A couple things of note.

Unlike other Silent Hill games on Steam, this one has a massive

forward before you click through to the game.

It's not just scenes of violence and gore.

It's also like views of characters are of their era and do not reflect the state of the company like that.

That shit.

Oh, shit.

Okay, the

we're getting into the context is not supported by the company.

So that game's going to have some shit in it.

Okay.

The other thing of note is that the Silent Hill F transmission was an extremely Japanese style presentation in that they showed you the thing you came for first.

And then they had a 45-minute roundtable where they would bring out a dev and ask them a vague question in which the dev would just say, we're working really hard.

Okay.

Please look forward to it.

They would then bring out another dev.

And so, how do you think you're going to stay true to Silent Hill?

Well, we have looked back at the old games and we are all steam ahead and we are working very hard.

Yes.

And like that for like 40 minutes.

Yep.

Staying true.

Like, don't watch that.

Watch the trailer.

Please look forward.

Yeah, anytime someone comes out and says they have a message

in Japanese, they're like a special message, message announce.

My only question i guess is like this looks like it could be an interesting horror game why even call it silent hill

well because um so they

they did this thing uh when they were talking and going in circles on uh their silent hill transmission um in which they creatively rearranged

things that happened into a new type of truth known as bullshit.

In which they they said, Well, Silent Hill has always been

about Japanese horror sensibilities with Western settings.

And I went, No, it's not.

It's, hey, we want to make a fucking Stephen King game.

Let's make a fucking Stephen King game.

Let's make the fog.

So, obviously, since it's been a Japanese series the whole time, it makes perfect sense to cast it in Japan, which that's not a problem.

That's a cool setting to put a Silent Hill game.

And the Silent Hill series has gradually expanded the influence of the town, like it was

the town itself.

Then it was where you could send letters out to wherever James happened to be.

And then in Silent Hill 3, it's one town over.

And then in Silent Hill 4, it's two towns over.

Yes, the Silent Hilton Hill 4.

The Fog Everywhere system.

Ascension, fucking whatever is happening there.

Yeah.

But the real reason is that he got the Higarashi guy to write it, and he wanted to put it in a Japanese set.

I would have also accepted the answer to my question because, Wooly, you might not have clicked play on the trailer if it didn't call itself Silent Hill.

Well, that is also true.

If we're going to make a horror game at Konami, we should call it Hill Hill.

Brand

is important.

It's got that brand synergy on it.

Yep.

Yep.

And then you go, oh, are we going to see a Japanese version of the nurse?

Well,

probably not.

You're seeing the like,

you know, whatchamacallit,

Sadako style, like long-haired demon lady.

So, you know,

whatever her personalized old Japanese demons are.

But I guess the idea of the,

I mean,

can we say say that if we see pyramid head with a samurai sword it's safe to give up

oh yeah no that's not if you see pyramid head with a giant nodachi it's time to walk away

the game's primary uh visual theme is is flowers and orchids and lotuses oh fuck so there's like a lotus head

freak

uh and all that uh but that yeah no that that would be so cooked that would that would be so but that but look because we're saying brand recognition and it's like and there's there's a limit, but you know, perhaps

perhaps Umineko guy can do can do it.

Yeah, no, I'm not too worried about it.

Looks cool, yeah, don't know much about it other than uh some basic details.

And that F is like, you know, musical note in nature, right?

So, yeah, but it could mean something, it could mean friends

or family

or

F

it could mean many things

female protagonist.

That's right.

Never had one of those.

Wait, that's not true.

There was a moment where they were like, they were basically saying, like, Silent Hill has not been good to females, which came off like super strange.

Like, yeah, you know what?

Silent Hill does not respect women.

That is technically accurate.

I mean, there have been, you have played as girls in these games before.

Yeah, you know, Heather Ashley was fine.

There's,

There's Heather, there's Maria.

There's.

I have taken to just saying the word Heather Ashley because I can't.

I can't.

I don't.

I can't split.

I just think.

Yeah, there was that girl.

I'll never remember.

They're totally different characters.

They are.

They are, but unfortunately.

They're not even close.

But unfortunately,

they're a little close.

I'll admit.

I can't.

I tried and I can't.

You can, dude.

You can.

It's very hard.

I'm going to do something.

Yeah.

That is,

I guess, something to keep an eye on there.

And I suppose the idea is if they come out and then put a big,

like, hey, this is the writer.

It's someone who wrote things that you liked, probably.

Then you can rest a little easier.

Mayhaps.

Hey, Wooly, I sent you a picture.

Which character is that?

That's Resident Evil 4.

See?

See how easy it is?

Wait, wait, that's the character?

The character is Resident Evil 4.

Yeah, that's

what that is.

Oh, no.

All right.

They also announced Space Marine 3.

No shit.

Nothing to show.

In fact,

you click play on the trailer and it's just the artwork with like music playing.

It's just like, it's happening.

This is like a massive no shit.

This is very obvious.

Space Marine 2 blowing up the charts, selling one shit zillion copies.

But like, why just make a fucking like...

music play thing video like just

and it and the the announcement too says like development has begun on it.

It's like because it keeps people more excited to keep playing Space Marine 2.

It's so insanely early.

I guess it's, I guess it's that quarter.

Yeah, man.

It's March, dude.

Don't go anywhere, investors.

Stick around.

See how, you know, how this is the most successful Warhammer game ever made by an order of magnitude?

We're going to make another one.

When was Space Marine?

I'm going to make even more money.

It's like, when was Space Marine 1?

Like, what's the time difference between

those games is

fucking, what, 10 years more?

What are we talking about?

2011.

Okay, yeah.

That first one was rock solid, but it didn't set the world on fire.

14 years and then

one.

There you go.

Yeah.

Space Marine should have gotten a fucking sequel years ago.

That game was great.

But the world wasn't ready for Warhammer.

They weren't ready.

Okay.

Warhammer is in a better place now.

We got a.

I mean, right after we wrapped up last week talking about

the disco successors,

Zaum came out and put out their trailer for Project C4.

And

not much to this, as with all of this news, you know, is just it's going to to be the same thing.

Like,

you know, nothing new to say except just, yep, the Zaum project, I believe, is the one with the least amount of

any

of the meat from disco involved.

It's the one that is like the most husk because it's the

logo and the IP holders.

But

if I'm not mistaken, like, there was a first batch of people that left

post-Kurvitz, and then

there's a bunch of people I believe that there's a falling out because they like Kurvitz was like, yo, why are you fucking sticking around?

And they're like, because we got to paycheck, you know, we got to get paid.

I need to pay my fucking bills, which is an understandable

bit.

But I think at this point.

That's not, wait, I need to pay my bills is not a bit.

That is an under.

That isn't.

I'm trying a new bit.

Yes.

Surviving.

Yes.

Surviving in Estonia.

That is an understandable thing.

But

of all of them, I believe that this is the most skinwalker of the companies with the least amount.

No, it's not.

I'll tell you what.

Do you want to see what's the most Skinwalker?

Have you seen Disco Elysium on Android?

I heard there was a port that was happening.

Did you look at it?

No, is it out?

Is it done?

There's no, but there's footage of it in their trailer.

So do you want to feel really conflicted?

Is it a good port?

It looks really

interesting.

Because it's not a port.

It's a translation.

Into a

new

artwork for various scenes.

But that's not the part that made me go, like,

like full visual novel.

But the part that got me and was like, oh shit, this might have something is there is a very short clip right at the end where they show you in Martina's from like a street view, panning the camera to decide where to go.

Oh, with this like Google Street View thing?

Yeah.

I don't like that as much.

And it's like this might actually be a cool way to play that game.

I don't like that part.

It looks like you're going to, yeah, I guess you warp the thing and then click to the location.

Yeah,

that's not a thing, but the format change is interesting.

That's an interesting way to do it.

Yeah.

Man, what a fucking mess.

What a goddamn mess.

Like when Reaction Speed talks to you,

the fucking stat head becomes like the full phone behind the text.

It's like,

that's actually pretty cool.

That is smarter than just porting it and squint squashing all of it into a small screen.

That is more effort than doing it that way.

But yeah, no,

the soul, the blood, the life, all of that shit.

We'll see how this shakes out in a couple years.

But this is definitely a

beginning of mighty number nine announcement, beginning of

3B's question

moment

where

I wish I could fast forward and see the noises

I'm going to be making in reference to all of the shit that we're finding out right now.

You know,

I really, I, ugh.

Um,

yeah uh Josh told me that uh

apparently Argo Tulik did like a fucking insane nine-hour podcast uh talking about disco and I want to go check that out did he say anything

yeah apparently there's a part do you know I was gonna I was gonna continue that questions and no did he say anything apparently he said he says something he's like he says one big interesting potential world spoiler for disco and then he stops himself and then

goes, actually, I'm going to wait, let Robert tell you that if he ever needs to.

It's not my story to tell.

But, you know,

there's at least that bit that I was told about.

So,

let's see here.

What else did we find out?

We found out, ah, have you been, you heard about the

God of War

Amazon show?

I've heard about it.

So

the showrunner.

I don't think they can do a good show.

Well, the showrunner, Ronald D.

Moore,

has confirmed that

they've ordered a second season.

So they've ordered two seasons of it right off the bat.

Hold on.

Why does that name sound so familiar?

Battlestar Galactica.

Oh,

fuck.

Oh, no.

Right?

Right?

But here's the thing.

But he also worked on Star Trek, didn't he?

Here's the thing.

He did work on Star Trek.

In that interview, he goes, yo, yo, I'm not a gamer.

I couldn't figure out the controls.

I tried to play them.

They're like, isn't that a big order, right?

To be working on God of War.

And he's like, yeah, I don't know.

I tried to give it a shot.

I don't know how to play these games.

It's not, I can't figure it out.

And

then.

Oh, he wrote all good things.

Oh, shit.

Oh.

So I hear a lot of good things, obviously, about Battlestar Galactica.

And

you and various other friends of mine have had nothing but global.

That is like a 10 out of 10 show for every episode, except for three or four episodes from the end.

So take that piece of information and then take this part about, you know, he's like, yeah,

I'm not a gamer line.

This

show originally had a separate showrunner and a separate set of writers and everything that all walked out two years ago.

God of War, Amazon had a huge shake-up when the, it was originally the person that's doing the wheel of time.

and yeah i wouldn't want them to do that either and they peaced out and then this got handed over to now uh ronald d moore so this was a complete replacing of the writing staff and showrunner it's a salvage job that it's it's becoming now at this point and the thing is is that i'm not somebody who's like if you're a talented writer and you're you've proven that if you say i'm not into games and I couldn't figure out like the playing of it or whatever, that doesn't mean that you can't write a good story, right?

Certainly.

No, because like you've done.

Kratos' story is not necessarily tied to video games.

No, and like

you've been talented this far in other things that don't have to do with necessarily,

you know, oh, you can play the games or not.

But I would say that like, I feel like.

being attached to the material to some degree means that you're going to kind of care about it.

Like, it it feels like

it's taking on a job.

If you're a writer and you're like, they handed me a gig, I'll, sure, I guess I'll take this on.

I can probably write this character, you know, as opposed to like, oh, yeah, I have a feeling and a connection with this material, you know.

And this is, I don't know, I'm just standing out here fucking just observing the fact that he's like, yeah, he's like, yeah, I don't really play these.

I don't know.

And that someone, and he's taking over after someone else, you know,

on the project

left.

It's a bit of a a weird, like,

yeah,

that versus, I suppose, like, right, Henry Cavill talking about like how much staying faithful matters to him, you know, and how much he cares.

It's like, you kind of would hope that that connection is there, you know?

Uh, so I'm going over Ronald D.

Moore's,

you know,

work.

And there's a problem that you run into when you look for anybody who wrote on Star Trek.

And the problem is, is that they let you do anything the fuck you wanted on Star Trek.

Like,

what do you want to write?

This?

Fuck it.

Do it.

So I'm like, oh,

co-wrote all good things and House of Quark and

First Contact.

All right.

Also co-wrote Star Trek Generations.

Okay.

Like, every single writer on those shows has, like, oh, my God, that's one of my favorite episodes.

And, oh, no, they wrote that piece of shit.

Oh, wait.

Did I see that one?

I think I saw that one.

Oh, that one.

That's the one where fucking

Picard and

Kirk Hannah.

And Kirk shows up, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

I did see that one.

Right.

Like, oh, man, there's.

But that was the whole point of it, right?

It was like the captains meet.

That's the big deal.

Yeah, you know what?

That was the bad idea.

That was the idea that tanked that whole movie.

On paper, that could be done well if they do it well.

They had literally already done the exact same concept in an episode in TNG in which the gang gets to hang out with Scotty.

And that episode was good.

And that episode was good because it was contained to a 42-minute runtime in which Scotty had three or four scenes.

Hmm.

So, no

get to the end of the game, and the current protagonist of the sequel has to fight the old protagonist a bit.

I'm talking about fucking Star Trek, man.

No philosophical battles.

The whole fucking point of Star Trek is maybe you don't have to settle this in a fist fight.

That's like the whole.

No, no, no.

Obviously,

I mean like Kirk and Picard like having a, having a fucking, you know, an argument, an interesting discussion.

No, they don't.

No, they don't do that at all.

Okay.

They don't do that at all.

Believe me when I say, I'm, I'm infinitely more interested in

when the payoff of

the two characters meeting is a banger ass conversation more than an actual fight.

Shout outs to Legend of the Galactic Heroes, literally my favorite anime of all time.

The only time I can think of that actually happening in Star Trek and it being really, really solid is the beginning of Deep Space Nine, where TNG was still airing, and TNG still had a couple seasons to go when Deep Space Nine started.

So they had an episode in which Commander Sisko, who's running the station, meets Picard because the Enterprise is docking there.

And that was the first episode so that you could say, hey, look, it's the characters you know from TNG, and they're interacting with these new characters from Deep Space Nine.

And so, the doctors chat a little bit, and you know, it's like the passing of the torch because DAS9 is going to continue.

And

the reason why that was interesting is not just because

they're very different characters, it's because Sisko hates Picard personally.

Interesting because Picard killed his wife.

Oh, shit.

Okay,

indirectly, through

interactions are very weird and very tense and very aggressive.

Through captain decision-making?

No, but when he was a Borg.

When Picard turned into a Locutus, he killed millions of people and then they fixed him.

But the family and friends of those people are like, I don't care about that.

Yeah.

When that dude was a robot, he killed my house.

Okay, but is.

But that's a clear case of mind control.

So

it's not as messy as it would be if he like made a call that resulted in that, but yeah, all right, all right, all right.

Um, no, if he made a call, they'd probably actually be chill about it.

It's like, yeah, it's tough, you know, some sometimes you gotta, sometimes you gotta feed someone to the war pension to make sure the ship doesn't blow up.

Is their shirt yellow?

And

that's why Deanna had trouble getting her stripes.

Oh, really?

You gotta watch.

Oh, is that?

Yeah, there's an there's an entire episode about

Xana Troy trying to get her command pips for command instead of just being therapist.

And she keeps running the simulation in which the ship's about to explode.

It's like Kobe Yashimaru, but it's like an engineering problem.

But she's always

going on about ethics and stuff, right?

Right, but here's the thing.

The ethics of the situation demand you tell the engineer to go fix it in the poison tube that will kill him.

Yes.

Because it will cause the ship to not explode.

So yeah, because your ethical concern is the safety of everybody else in the ship right right trolley problem in space

um and that sucks

uh well hey look again you can get every life lesson you need from star trek it's all in there i so i didn't i i don't know about the full interview but at least a clip where this writer was talking it's like clearly you have the chops to write a good story and clearly you're not he does have the chops to write a good story clearly you're absolutely you're not going to take on a project if you don't have anything to say or if you're not interested in it, you know.

So, there, there obviously must be a reason.

Um, but it is just kind of like you'd, yeah, you'd, I guess, you'd expect to kind of hear that kind of like, oh, but despite that, here's what I find interesting, here's what I want to explore or look at,

whatever.

We'll see, you know,

um,

either way, now this is a little outside De Moore's wheelhouse,

like because you know, there's not going to be a lot of chips and

sci-fi elements to this

thing.

But he does know how to write a good Socratic argument, which is a great place to put for a Greek set.

For Kratos.

Unfortunately, what's not a great place for Kratos might be Amazon.

Oh, yeah?

Or Kyriou.

You know, so.

Wait, wait.

Kyru wouldn't be a great place for Kratos?

Amazon.

They're not really doing,

they're not really doing it so far, it seems.

And Harry Dubois, apparently, soon.

Did you see that insane quote out of Amazon in which they're like, we spent like billions of dollars on Amazon gaming and it never

registered as a blip to Steam?

And every single person's reaction to that was like, wait, that was supposed to compete with Steam?

It didn't even have an application.

What the fuck are you talking about?

So insane.

So insane.

It was so fascinating to read about this whole James Bond takeover situation to learn that like that deal and everything that was happening behind the scenes was because there was like one family that was just like, we control what happens with James Bond, like aggressively.

And that's why it's been so that's particular and slow and deliberate when something comes out, you know?

And one and like that one lady that was like overseeing it

has been telling them to fuck off for years.

And now they finally just kind of gave up.

So, um, shit was wild.

I had no idea that's what was going on.

But okay, I guess it makes sense if something like that is in the hands of uh a

um a family that is like the only thing we care about is James Bond.

We don't give a fuck about the bottom line or, you know, whatever uh uh quick flip overs or spin-offs you want to do with haliburry

um

all right so we get that

uh they also so another announcement on the speaking adaptations and all this um

there is a new starship troopers

coming

from

you know there's actually been a ton of starship troopers moving there's been a lot of straight to dvd like wild shit out there.

Absolutely.

Including, I think, the third one where they got,

what's his name back?

Main guy, pretty dude.

Cast for Van Diem came back for that one.

But

alongside this announcement is that Neil Blancamp

is

working on it.

Okay, all right.

And I'm like, that's that.

You got

that.

All right.

My interest is peace.

Yep.

Yep.

I'm curious.

That's a name I trust.

I'm curious about that.

So

he's working on it.

Now, while he's cooking, what's interesting as well, apparently this is a more faithful to the original book

version of things.

Oh, it's a redo.

of based on the actual original sci-fi novel by Heinlein,

which

I don't know,

but the

original book I heard is like actually just fascist, and the adaptation

in the movie was like making fun of that shit with the would you like to know more, obviously.

And it was like the satire only came in

in those in those movies, but like the book itself doesn't necessarily carry that.

It's what I've what I've heard, but I'm I don't know.

I'm just going off of what people have have said.

So

I don't know how true that is.

It's

that it's

okay.

Some people are saying that's an exaggeration.

Some people are saying it's half correct.

All right.

Yeah,

I caught some people saying that.

So I'm like, I don't know if that's the case.

But

I think.

Here's the thing.

The book is

arguably satirical right

and it's it's the novel version of

like oh you know is this making fun of fascism or glorifying but there's but there's room for doubt

but we live in a world in which if you look at starship troopers the film yes

people

also don't get that sataration true true true true so oh i don't think a deft touch is what's required on this topic yeah yeah yeah yeah fucking oh my god sacred Sacred and Terrible Air, man.

Oh god, there's this chapter where they're just talking about, what do you mean the

big film piece on the Nazi

actually making fun of him was interpreted as a hero piece and everyone took it as an inspiration and got motivated by it instead of seeing it for,

you know, the clown shoes depiction that it's supposed to be.

Oh, it flew over their heads.

They didn't get it.

The subtext was lost and they took it as sincere uh-oh uh-oh

yeah

yeah okay right if there if there's room if if there's no room for debating the movie that we saw but it still flew over people's heads the books are gonna be even harder to fucking pick that up on i get it that sucks i'm seeing folks argue in the chat as to whether or not it is satire or if it's not proto-fascist it's like that's not kind of the, that's not really even the point.

My point is, the general movie-going audience can't even fucking understand that Starship Troopers is a fucking satire.

How the fuck are they supposed to actually appreciate

any deeper themes?

I know writers that use subtext, or I thought I did.

I can't tell.

I can't.

Oh, hey, it might just be text.

I have an update.

I have an update.

Either last week or the week before,

I described some statistics on the general poor reading level and literacy rates among our American friends.

Yes.

I then saw a massive thread that somebody who clearly knew better than me discussing it in which

while what I said was technically correct, I was not aware that literacy rates among nearly all countries are similarly poor.

So the actual takeaway is that no one can read.

I did.

It's bad out there.

I did catch that and I did catch others.

Because yeah, upon my initial skepticism of that info,

as it turns out,

it's poor.

The level out there is poor.

It is very poor.

It's not the same as I don't know what these letters are.

But

it's rough.

I can't hold two ideas at the same time,

and I can't infer any context, and I can't infer any subtext.

It's a world

where half people are like the curtains are just blue.

I don't get it.

But at the same time, it's like

we read

words through using our phones more than we did as kids.

That's true.

I didn't use to read my phone.

And I didn't have a phone.

You know, and our parents' generation, like, if you weren't reading a newspaper or choosing to go read a book,

you just weren't reading at all, right?

That's it, you know?

So that's why we had the deer system,

drop everything and read.

You know, I'm working on teaching the kid to read right now because, like,

you're not going to have no non-reading child.

Well, the trick is have a cool-ass auntie who owns a comic book shop

that sends you books when you're a kid to get into cool shit.

That helps.

That helps a lot.

She ruled.

She She fucking ruled.

She's the best.

That is cool.

Oh, yeah.

Saved us.

You know, it's like, hey, you got a Bible.

You read that.

I'm going to be like, hey, you know what, Lil Pat Jr.

As many of these video games as you want, as long as I get to go into the goddamn

settings and turn voice volume down to zero.

Ah, interesting.

If you want to play your RPGs, you need to read these words, goddammit.

Disco Elysium original cut.

Yeah.

All right.

One last bit here.

Well, okay.

Actually, two things.

I mean, there's not much to this one, but it's like, you know, the latest saga in the Ubisoft chapter is that they're reportedly considering creating a fresh business to own the Assassin's Creed and other large franchises, as

Tencent might be doing a buyout.

The GUIMO family wants this is desperate.

This is super wants to maintain control of the company Ubisoft.

So then, why not create like an umbrella thing for all the brand?

And it's like, well, that's I've seen that before.

I remember when like Sega Sammy Holdings got created back in the day when you know those companies were coming together.

But it's a bit of a strange thing.

We're just like, why not just sell the IPs off piecemeal at that point?

You know, why even make the I have to maintain control.

But the name, like, why?

Sorry.

I have to maintain the control.

like the the dummy corp for it while the name you ubisoft is kept you know is is a it's strange but the company is going bankrupt and they're just spinning every plate they can to see if they can fucking just hold on for one more day i mean maybe the thought is get the get the payout of the brands and the ips being sold but hold the name so that if you come back with it in some new weird form you can salvage that recognition um

infographes into atari never forget if we put Pong in our logo, everyone's going to think, Atari, Pong, it's them.

I remember.

Not that stupid fucking spiral armadillo.

I'm talking to nobody.

Nobody remembers this shit.

It's, it's.

I'm not even aware of what you're talking about.

There was a really

best shot at recognition in this topic.

Yeah, there was a really shitty game developer called Infogrames, like back in

the PS2 era.

Terrible.

And then they were terrible, and then they rebranded themselves by buying the name Atari and then called called themselves Atari.

And then they put the Atari logo and they put Pong on it, and everyone's like, oh,

Atari.

Yeah.

Dude, I was like a 10-year-old and I knew that was dog shit.

Fucking.

I don't know how people got fucking fooled by that.

Skinwalker.

I guess it's because they can't read.

What's the fucking fake Pikachu?

It's that.

Mimikyu.

It's that.

It's Mimikyu shit, you know?

All right.

The other bit

Mimikyu is cool though.

Oh, yeah, oh that's all though the the concept behind Mimikyu is rat as fuck super dope

um

grain I say grains because it's G-R-A-M-E-S I it's not games and it's not grams it's not infogram and it's not infogame it's infograph

anyway uh

so

apparently uh squeenix started working with a dev to make a new front mission game.

That front mission game got canceled.

And then the dev used the same assets from that canceled game to release their own mecha game.

Blackjack Studio released its own...

its own game

called Mecha Rashi.

And when you look,

can you?

Would you like to see a screenshot of some of

on the left is the front mission game they were working on.

Oh my god.

And on the right

is

the original, original brand IP Mecha Rashi.

Y'all are going to get fucking sued.

They are.

That's literally what this news article is about.

Oh, wow.

It's the audacity is wild.

It like we, from behind the scenes, everyone I know in this industry, myself included, knows how much it fucking sucks when you work on a cool thing that gets canceled and no one will ever see it because it just gets buried, unseen, light of day, forever, you know,

unaccessible.

It's such a fucking waste of talent and time, but you can't, you can't,

you can't do this.

This is is crazy.

Oh my God.

It's just the assets.

It's everything, you know?

And you know that the team was like, fuck them.

We didn't waste our time.

You know?

You're going to cancel on us.

Well, fuck you.

We'll show you what.

And it's like, yeah.

I legit can't believe what is happening with the front mission series at Square Nicks.

The first one was like

kind of bad, a remake.

The second one has a ruined translation.

Like, it's ruined.

It's machine translated.

They have two steps to get it right on the third.

And the third one, all the footage, looks really bad.

Looks really, really bad.

You had

two tries to figure it out and then nail it.

The asset quality is better and the lighting is better, but when the robots punch each other,

there's no oomph to it.

It looks super fucking weak and shit.

Well,

yeah.

So with this story at the very least,

lawsuit is underway, and it seems

Blackjack's too.

This this looks deserved.

Yeah,

I think it, I think it was, are they located in China?

Hong Kong, in which case it's like, well, yeah, they give no fucks.

They gave no fucks.

That's that.

They don't give a shit.

That might be going to do.

Sumi?

The audacity might be explained by the location of the company, perhaps.

But

god damn, that's crazy.

Yeah.

I mean, if you know, there's times where it's like

this energy, we laugh at it because it ends up usually being like, oh, hey, look, Bayonetta 3 suddenly has giant dinosaurs that you can control while you fight at the same time.

Interesting.

I wonder when that came into production, you know?

I don't worry too.

Yeah, and then that's how we, that's how this, that's how it usually goes, you know, you have that little, oh, look at these features.

Yeah.

Wow.

They suddenly showed up and they, they're very different from what this originally looked like.

But

the brazenness, man.

Yeah, anyway.

It's literally no different at all.

It's exactly the same.

It's

like it's not, it's not even a different lighting pass or like a paint job.

It's like it's just exactly the same.

It is, it is, it is, yeah, well, fucking catch me, idiot.

Try to catch me.

Let's take some letters.

CastleSuperbeastmail at gmail.com.

All right, here's one coming in.

Hello, Pat's worth and woo boy van.

On episode 311, you were talking about not wanting to be cynical about games and how Pat learned to be cynical as a reaction to how uncritical he was.

And I wanted to chip in.

I was a sweet boy back in the day.

I had a.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Drake is now legally the loser of a rat battle, by the way.

That's it.

That's all.

He has now legally lost a rat battle.

A judge said so.

Yeah, that's it.

All right, moving on.

I had a seven-year stint where I got burned by every game I was excited for in 2015, Fallout 4, 2016, No Man's Sky, which I took a day off of work for.

2017, Destiny 2, 2018, Fallout 76, 2019, Sekiro, I Can't Parry,

2020, Cyberpunk, 2021, Halo Infinite, and Diablo 2 Remaster.

It got to the point where my friends told me to stop getting excited at all because I was jinxing good games.

If Elden Ring 2022 flopped, I was legit going to stop caring about games.

Have you ever had an Elden Ring-like moment where you almost stopped getting excited?

only for that to get reinvigorated.

No, never.

and uh, the one of the things that I really need to point out is that I just listened to that list, and there was like one thing about that list that really jumped out at me, which was every single one of those was a super large-scale, long in development, big like game, like and most of them were shooters.

It's the most screaming, obvious problem there is literally two of them were from the same franchise.

Give a shit about indie games sometimes, and also you don't have to play it on release.

Sometimes you can wait.

You don't have to be on the

cult of the new, on the bleeding edge sometimes.

And being only into Triple-A will disappoint you.

So,

yeah,

there's your problem.

All right.

Yeah, you should play.

You should widen widen your scope.

Yeah, somebody in the chat says go play UFO.

I was about to literally say go play UFO 50.

The words were forming and bubbling.

It's like, fuck all that shit.

Go play UFO 50 right now and make up for all those bad games with one really good one with all of them in it.

Go get that.

That's your fucking homework.

Okay, we got another one over here.

Hello.

No, you get no funny names.

Nice.

Rank the incarnations of Devil Trigger across the DMC series.

All right.

I have.

Two's the worst.

Who's the bottom?

Okay.

Okay.

Standout favorites.

Standout favorites.

The cut

full Nero DT from four.

Okay.

With the hood.

Okay.

Also, the cut Dante Shin DT from four were the two sickest designs that never got used.

And that's tragic to me because they're my favorite.

The Shin Devil Trigger and Full Nero from 4.

All right.

Counting what's in now, like honorable mention aside.

I fucking love Nero 4 with the Doppelganger ghost.

I love that.

I love that so, so much.

With the stand is the rattish shit.

And it's a devil trigger.

It's not the same devil trigger, but it is a DT.

That is also my favorite.

It's the best.

That is also my favorite by far.

By far.

It's so cool.

Sword swings aren't synced up correctly.

They're spinning in opposite directions.

There's a delay on some of them.

You know?

Yes, 100.

Right underneath that, I'm going to say Dreadnought.

Yeah, Dreadnought's all right.

I really like Dreadnought.

Dreadnought.

If I had to go

my number two, it would be Dante from 4, actually.

Okay.

Because it's the one where he looks the most like he's just wearing his coat.

Yeah, yeah.

Three, I mean, Caneco 3, you know, is also very like the coats right there.

I don't care for the Kanekos at all.

Well, I'm fine.

I would put them near the bottom.

So here's the thing.

Like, the bug stuff is more Sparta-ish, but it's not the coolest

the coolest shit is the yeah i i i'm with you i'm like i don't i don't i don't like i like them but i don't love them as much as i love the best the ones i love the most you know but they're but they're they're cool and if you want bug sparta this is the children of bug sparta i completely agree um

I like

those ones I've listed.

And you know what?

I'd even throw in above that.

So you said two is the worst, but what about Lucia?

Remember the angel bird?

That's okay.

I like her, Lucia's angel bird DT thing.

I thought that was interesting.

She has an angel trigger,

and I don't hate the way that looked.

I thought that was cool.

So that is a part of two that I'm going to give its flowers.

DMC1s are fine, I guess.

Yeah, they're, you know, they're, they're.

Actually, no, you know what?

I'm going to say that I'm going to see DMC two and then DMC one.

Two, one.

That's a badness.

3 is above those for sure.

You know, and then there's Sparta.

And

did I see...

I think I saw some fan art or something where it was Sparta, but the eyes were not like the super tiny ones on his cheeks.

They were in like

the dome up top and those were just a glowing like scar.

It was like a weird, different interpretation of him.

And I was like, oh, that's kind of interesting, right?

It was kind of of like the alien head seeing like the weird fucking inside skull bit where you're like, ah, a different take on it.

I'm not too, not, not, not, I don't hate it immediately, um,

versus the weird, squashed Muppet face, you know.

You know, I think I can solve this for myself very quickly.

It goes

everything from four,

everything from five,

then three, then one, then two.

Yeah, but but like way,

way out ahead is Nero with the stand.

Nero with the stand is the fucking power gap.

Way, way out ahead.

Uh-huh.

Uh-huh.

And look, Nero in five with his proper own, you know, fucking look.

Still cool.

He's cool.

But him with the stand is unbelievable.

Yeah.

There you go.

Again, I pull parts out.

I put Lucia up a little further.

I put Dreadnought up a little further.

The Canakos are there.

Again, you can't can't disrespect the fucking Kanakos.

You can't.

They're cool in their own right.

And the arm blade fucking sheath, you know, but

it's just.

I just don't like how skinny they are.

It's a different proportion.

It's a different energy and it's more bug.

And

I definitely am like, yeah, I like the less buggy stuff.

I do like how every weapon has a slightly different one.

DMC1 as well, right?

Like the.

Yeah, they're very, they are very slightly different.

The colors change.

All right.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

You know what?

You're right, guy in chat.

We didn't even mention Dino.

His hair changes.

So what's the next email?

Good afternoon.

Kaka, Woolly, and Pat.

I know where that's.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The discussion last week on poor adaptations.

With that, I'd feel remiss if I didn't bring up what is arguably the perfect case of an adaptation: Legend of the Galactic Heroes.

I'll include a link to a video that discusses and gives evidence over two hours, but I'll tell you in brief, I've heard about this for sure, I know what you're talking about here.

That the benefit of the entire series being completed upon its adaptation,

the animation studio was able to improve the existing material because it was originally a novel by reinserting events in chronological order that are told non-linearly in a dry textbook fashion in the novels.

It creates much

it creates much more drama and attachment to characters that end up dying over the course of the war, avoids spoiling major events that the books tick with the gravity of a historical event.

I'm sure there are other adaptations that could be expanded on if you want to give this discussion another round.

But in this case, I wanted to jog your memory on this classic and possibly improve the application as a masterwork, as it is a masterwork.

It is a masterwork.

You are completely right.

This is a great exception to that case.

And

that's why I'm just saying, like, if there's no absolute on it, that is a fantastic example of an improvement via adaptation, but it's just not going to be the rule, you know?

There's always going to be an exception.

When I said stop adapting things, what I really said is if you're bad at making things, don't make anything.

That's what I really wanted to say.

Well,

that's why my version of it is aren't necessary, right?

It's saying that in a lot of cases, very, very bad versions of this thing are coming out because the brand is trying to push itself into a higher tier of medium.

I think that if you are a bad artist, you should not be making art.

You should, in fact, quit.

And you should make that discovery very quickly.

So when you start drawing and you're not good at it right away, you should just quit.

Pat, people that are not artists are making art.

What the fuck are you talking about?

That's terrible.

That's awful.

What the fuck are you talking about, dude?

We're so far past what you're describing.

That's terrible.

All right,

see you next week.