CSB 288: MOUNT WOKE: The F.A.R.T. Queen Meta

There we are.

Good afternoon, Woolly.

How are you today?

Yo-Yo, not too bad.

How's it going?

I did not watch Mr.

McMahon yet.

Neither did I.

Okay.

We're safe for now.

I heard that he said I don't regret filming it, and I I guess that's all.

So he put out a statement that was, I don't regret taking part in this documentary, but they used their evil producers' tricks to create a narrative that wasn't real.

And I hope you remember that there are two sides to every story.

But isn't it like I don't regret taking part in this documentary that my former people had the okay to sign off on and ultimately, you know, like it's an official approved release.

It's, it's supposedly like, so I just saw someone in the chat said they leave out a ton of horrible shit.

Yeah.

I'm like, it's only six hours long.

Like,

how much?

How long do you want it to be?

I'm, I, like, I, again, I don't fully know, but I, I, my understanding was that this was like sort of not official, but like official approved and that it's going to do what it can to like, there's their, there's the official company distancing, but I'm sure there's a level that they're not gonna, that they're still gonna kind of try to massage.

I had heard that it was supposed to be like a puff piece, uh, but then all that rape shit came out, and they were like, well, we kind of really gotta

give that some attention because

we're all gonna look like frauds.

Yeah.

And so what does the end result end up being?

Like, it's, it starts as puff and then it becomes takedown, but like so controversial.

Why is it controversial?

Is it because of crime

yes

maybe

i mean you know

the the uh the the the wild stories of cookie crumbs and blowing out quads are are like the iceberg

who knew that the vince mcman iceberg of all these insane stories we thought were the bottom uh actually no there's just a giant giant chunk of ice under the water that's just rape like it's just who knew

That's wild.

Apparently, everyone.

Yeah.

Actually.

Okay.

Gotcha.

That's the other side of that.

That was good.

So this is.

It's apparently like tons of people.

So that's, I guess, what the thought would be is like, yeah, if you're going to like release something and then give it the okay, the okay needs to be, well, we've created our distance, but it can't further incriminate anyone else that's still a part of the organization and affect the image and such, you you know?

So that's that's kind of what I heard on it, but I don't know.

Anyway, hey, so like, hey, this is going to be strange, but I actually want to make an addendum to a conversation we had last week

because we were talking about the FF7 and FF16 sales stuff.

And I was scrolling through Twitter and I saw a mutual of mine, Chris Wolfhart, make the point that like, hey, nothing is ever going to sell as good as it did in 2021.

And my brain took a second and go, oh, yeah, right.

The pandemic.

Like, we've literally completely never brought the ad up once at all.

But yeah, no, nothing will ever, ever sell as good in the games business as it did during 2021 and 2022.

Yeah.

The thing is that because that conversation wasn't just FF7 though, it was also FF16 to 15.

Yeah.

You know, and like 16 is so much more like acclaimed and improved.

Yeah, and recent as well.

Hey, Right.

So, but we were like comparing like rebirth to remake, and it's like, oh, it sold more than double.

It's like, well, yeah, everybody was at home.

That's, I mean, the, I mean, at the end of the day, that conversation was just like, there are a bunch of factors that all you know

mix into why that did a melange.

So, what's up with you, man?

What have you been up to this week?

So, yeah, not a ton.

Um,

the

the the

main, of course, meat and meat and potatoes there.

Yo, Terry Bogart is out.

I've been playing a lot of Terry Bogart.

I posted a picture of someone of an Akuma disconnecting during my level three super, like 20 minutes ago.

Was it the big one?

It was not the big bang.

Okay, it was, it was just a regular level three super in the corner.

So, um,

yeah, I really do appreciate that, like,

um,

not every guest appearance in games gets treated with like the utmost respect, but there are some standouts when you feel them.

Sometimes they're just here.

Yeah.

Um, it's like, hey, look, we took,

you know, a couple of our existing assets, cobbled them together, and there's your weird version of the character you recognize in our engine.

You know, yeah, I think Tekken really like went above and beyond with its guest characters.

Like, Akuma just worked on a completely different universe.

And then like Noctis was like, no, we're going to, we are actually going to integrate all the stupid magic shit.

Yeah.

Tekken really did put a lot of love in there.

I think as well, one of the best comparison points for a long time was Shovel Knight because Shovel Knight shows up everywhere.

That's a fucking traveling hero.

But Shovel Knight in

Rivals of Aether in particular had the most amount of love put in by comparison to a lot of all these other cameos that you kind of were like, holy shit, everyone else was phoning it in, you know?

And so all that to say that Terry Bogart is, yeah, one of those, you know, like we've talked about the amount of shit we've seen from him in the trailers and everything, but like now that the full package is out and we kind of have the

top view, it's, it's insane, man.

Like, Terry feels like just a masterfully crafted little gift.

Like, I remember when we saw the power dunk, it's a target combo.

It's not like a move.

It's a target combo.

I'm like, oh, that's kind of a bummer.

And now, how often are you going to hit power dunk?

And the answer is actually all the time.

It's his best meterless combo if you just frame it.

And if you, yeah, you get to just you, you, you, you get a specifically timed version for a little extra damage there.

Um,

and like, then you have these other little things as well, where, uh, you know, when you do his

OD fireball and

it burns you out, so you spend all of your meter to do that,

instead of going like power wave, power wave, he goes into his old Fatal Fury 1 voice clip, power wave!

You know,

they just are grabbing little things in there.

They've even put a secret super in, you know.

Yeah, so you've got his old really awful motion.

SNK motion required.

Yeah, you need to do a

quarter circle back and then half circle forward and press like heavy punch and medium kick at the same time.

Yeah.

And then

and he does the same like Spoo Super.

He does power geyser, punches the ground, but instead of it shooting out at an angle towards your opponent, it shoots straight up, which is like the hitbox is the same, though.

Yeah, it just looks like the old style version of the move, you know.

So it's like, it's just there for the swag.

It's just there for the, you know, the nostalgia.

There is even a tiny little

tease

in there.

So, Terry's got the target combo where he jumps into the background and he changes the lanes, just like Fatal Fury.

And it sucks.

Yeah.

That target combo sucks.

You have to, and it feels like they're going lane changing's dumb, guys.

Come on.

So, like, you can only do it after you hit your opponent.

You cannot do it while they're blocking.

So, like, if you're going to choose to do that, you're giving up on what could be a better combo, you know?

His taunt as well, where like his forward taunt, he kind of tries to go into the background and it doesn't work.

And he goes, no line here?

All right.

You know?

But yeah, no, that's the, I went in and I put him to Japanese mode as well because you got to get.

Immediately.

You got to get the, you know.

Here comes the big one.

Big one.

Yeah.

Like, I don't want.

I don't want Terry to be the strangest man from Florida ever.

I mean, he sounds totally fine in English, but like you want your terrier, you know,

okay.

I want a Japanese man who doesn't speak English's idea of America man.

Yeah, the only thing is, too, is like over the years, there's been different line readings of Are You Okay, Buster Wolf, and it's never

quite the yeah, it's not always the same.

Like, the first one is my absolute favorite because it's that, are you okay?

Buster Wolf!

That's This what he's very chill and relaxed.

And like, and like, there's, I think, KOF 2003 where he's like, Are you okay?

Bast wow!

I'm like, dude, relax, relax, relax, take it easy.

You know, you can get it out there.

I want to, like, hold on to the wolf, you know, drag that line out.

But I like the long, the long, loud, are you okays, you know?

But, um,

yeah, that's all really just fun and stuff.

And we'll get into his gameplay in a second.

But I wanted to call attention to his world tour and story mode implementation because those

there's a thing that they're doing that makes all of these appearances make sense.

And so

the memes are like Kyokusanagi, forgotten in the dust, dead forever.

Sorry, Kyo.

Right?

SNK has abandoned

their mascot man, or he's never been, or whatever.

But here's the thing:

it actually makes complete perfect sense if you follow the history of the crossover between these two companies.

So, well, I mean, Terry and Ryu are cousins, they were made by the same people directly.

Yes, there is that, right?

The folks that left from Street Fighter 1

that went to form the Shin Nihon Keikaku or

whatever it is, the word, but whatever, the SNK Corporation.

God, Keikaku's fucking brain rot is in forever.

All according to plan.

But no, anyway,

the cool aspect here to the whole Terry inclusion is

so we kind of looked at it and went, oh, yeah, he's a brother.

He's been there from the jump.

What an awesome character.

Great pick, etc.

Right?

Same kind of energy, same kind of thing as like you have him showing up in

Fexel, fighting EX Layer and Smash Brothers, you know, and stuff.

So everyone recognizes the fucking homeless pizza delivery guy, you know, love that dude.

But

when you do his story mode,

and you see how

it's him running into Ken, and it makes fucking perfect sense because Capcom vs.

SNK 1, right?

The original

Million,

yeah, Drew Match of the Century.

Millionaire Battle or No, no, Millennium Fight 2000.

No, Millennium Fight 2000 and then CVS2 Millionaire Fighting 2001.

Anyway, in that, you have Kyo and Ryu matched up together.

They have the intro together where Kyo has the fire, throws it at him, and goes, oh, you're not afraid of my fire?

And Ryu's like, let's go.

And he's like, all right, bring it on.

Round one.

And then

in the kind of setup, you would then have

there's like an MP3 file on the OST of like the two of them fighting and such.

Ryu would then win.

Terry jumps in, beats Ryu, throws the hat out.

Ken jumps in afterwards, picks the hat up, Sorayo, tosses it back to him.

We get that awesome moment.

Everyone goes, oh, shit, perfect, right?

And you then look at

SVC Chaos as well, where the intro has Ryu and Kyo facing off against each other, and then there's artwork of Ken and Terry fighting each other.

Yeah, because it's black and white versus red and blue.

So it was always like, exactly.

So it wasn't like Kyo and Yori or like Ryo or Robert or anything.

It was always specifically these two face each other and then these two, you know?

And then Mr.

Karate's over there and Akuma.

And Akuma.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Right.

So

the fact that Ken and Terry are linked up there, it makes perfect sense.

So that when you see in his

ending in the story mode now, Terry's walking through Southtown or and then

he's Metro City and then he runs runs it to Ken, and Ken is like,

oh, whoa, what the, is that you, Terry?

And Terry's like, holy shit, Ken.

Damn, you don't look so good, you know?

And it's like, all right, how about it's been like, what, 20 years?

Hey, let's fight, you know?

And then Terry beats his ass and is like, okay.

And then Terry, and then Ken's just on the ground, like, oh, you know, like, he's all, like, dejected.

And Terry's like, whoa, dude, you alright?

What's the matter?

You know, your fire is usually much harder than this.

Like, it kind of felt soggy.

And Ken's like, like, yeah, I got a lot on my man, you know?

And he's like, oh, well, yo, we're the same kind of fighter.

I believe in you.

You know, you can get back up there.

And, you know, like,

I'm sure the next time we can, you can get that, that, that fire as hot as it usually is, you know?

And he's kind of like, it's not my business to ask, but whatever is bothering you, you know, I believe in you and stuff.

And picks him back up and has that little moment, you know?

And Ken's like, yeah, you know what?

You're right.

Thanks, man.

And he gets up and he hands him the hat back, you know?

And so you have that perfect little reference to that moment.

Um, and then they're like, all right, see you, man.

And it's like a nice little like homage to their original encounter.

So we were talking about what would happen with the new Fatal Fury game, and it was like, oh, it would be a perfect time for them to continue this crossover thing now that the two companies are talking again.

And hey, how about Luke or someone to get in there to be like the face of the new franchise?

No, the storyline between Terry and Ken continues because that's who's showing up in his game now, respectively.

Also, Ken's so much more popular than Luke.

Yeah, but I mean, you would also think Ryu, right?

You would be a clear possibility of the game.

Ken is so much more popular than Ryu.

But it's like because this is the Terry game, it makes perfect sense for it to be Ken that shows up as the guest, you know?

And I would love to see if his storyline there was like, yo, thanks for the pep talk, man.

You know?

Yeah, it's similar to how, like,

when we're talking versus, it's like Ryu is the one, like, like, clutching, like, grabbing hands with Cyclops.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, and you know, and if this was like a KOF guest or something, then you could expect to see Kyo and Ryu having their kind of, you know, their

interaction.

But this is very specifically, like, these two and the history of them across these multiple games.

Um, and then, of course, Mai and Chun Li also have a ton of artwork and moments of them together in their history.

There's literally, like, the first, like, showdown piece of, like them just like titty to titty, you know, like facing off like what?

And so that that needs no explanation.

That of course, if Terry and Mai show up here, then Chun Lee's gonna need to go over there, you know?

So

yeah, they're actually going for like a kind of like

rival narrative pick instead of like just who's the most popular representative of the franchise.

And I love that shit.

I love the idea that we get a through line from all the way back in 2000 till now.

So yeah, fun stuff with there being a little storyline there.

In World Tour mode,

I don't know if you saw it, but like Terry has not learned his lesson.

I am probably never going to load up World Tour mode again, but I do know what you're talking about.

Yeah, so

you show up and,

you know, kind of smartly, they've put Terry behind a special festival day where you have to select it because it's like, let's say for some reason something ever went wrong between these companies and they had to remove any licensed things.

They could just take this one special.

I don't think that's what's going on.

I think it's just

the NHAL storyline.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But like, they definitely made it like he's not integrated into the normal world mode.

You have to go pick him on a specific menu, you know?

And

that scenario system,

yeah, they kind of have a

you celebrate the knockout festival, aka K-O-F,

by wearing a hat, you know and then uh you go find a couple people interestingly there's some cameos in there franco bash is hanging out or like fake franco bash is fake franco bash is hanging out yeah um there's um i forgot his name but the um the monk with the uh the big straw hat as well um

you know like there's a bunch of like obscure pics chilling around you know but um

You then have Terry pull up and you know your character takes a swing John World Tour does his best and yeah He easily dodges that shit.

In one case, he kind of like leans past and then smacks that ass and sends you back over, you know?

So, of course, it's just like, oh, shit, Terry not fucking beating the allegations, dude.

Terry, keep your hands to yourself unless you're fighting.

Hey,

okay.

Bat, that, that, that, that.

Oh, man.

Yeah, and, you know, then you eventually go to the Pow Pow Cafe where they do a little fun, like, 3v3 system to homage, like KOF as well.

So fun stuff.

You can meet fake and then real eventually like Blue Mary Johagashi and

you got your Andy outfit and dude there as well.

Man, can we just get a CVS game already?

Like, holy shit.

So the problem with that, because I know a lot of people have went, oh, look, all this is happening.

This clearly means CVS is coming, right?

Okay.

No.

But how do you do that?

And you make another game in the middle of two companies trying to push their own thing and not fuck up your own push?

Like, if you're sprites, if you're trying to go back to sprites, they're not going to go back to sprites.

They're too expensive and they take too long.

Back to sprites.

Shut up.

Like, the idea of, like, yo, we got to do CVS3.

I'm like, and here, I could be a million percent wrong, and they could just be like, yeah, fuck it, we're going to do it.

But I just think that because of the way...

Tekken also had this problem of like Tekken not doing Cross Street Fighter, because we're trying to push our game and you're trying to push your game and then we're trying to push seasons.

And like, there's no way to squeeze in between there and not kind of interrupt the thing we're trying to do.

That's all great and shit.

Do it though.

Oh, I want it.

Yeah.

So that's kind of what I think the problem is: is that fighting games have become these long seasonal releases, and it's much more

feasible for both companies to be like, How about we guest in each other's games so you don't fuck up our bag and we don't fuck up your bag?

And we get a bit of crossover flavor, you know, without having to sort of fully.

We're probably going to see

characters jump over here and there and there and here for a while instead of a proper it makes more sense economically.

And here's the other problem.

What if the crossover sucks, right?

What if it's Street Fighter Cross Tekken?

What if it didn't have enough time or attention because it was the third priority?

And what you get is an afterthought.

And it's like, oh, no, now not only was this a failure that detracted, you know, it just like,

yeah, it dies on the vine even sooner.

And, like, you just, you know, you want these games to live up to the legacy, especially.

They need to have the right amount of attention and time put into them to be one of them.

So that doesn't seem to be a threat anymore.

Um, and it's not for any particular reason.

I don't think it's just like of all the

fighting game characters that have crossed over from one to the other in the past couple of years, they've all been treated like royalty.

Like, starting with Akuma and Geese, and I mean Noctis isn't from a fucking fighting game, but like guest characters of this type are treated like their beloved, beloved icons.

And I just between and I like if I had to choose between getting the half-baked crossover game in between the seasons of the active thing on both sides or

the both games getting a lot of love put into their guest characters, I prefer the latter, you know?

Well, I mean, no one wants anything when you put the two sides as one being beloved and the other being half-baked, Woolly.

Of course.

But I just mean that,

especially fighting games and the way they're released has changed so much that it's, you know, I think Cross-Tekken was like one of the last examples of like how that can go wrong, you know?

If they were like, I get, yeah, willing to be like, all right, there's an empty space here and we're going to clear the plate.

Like um, Netherrealm, for example,

you know, port whatever.

I want to talk about half baked.

Yeah, but like, because of the way they release things, like, and they're doing, they're putting out their own, you know, like MK and then Injustice or whatever, they could do their like, all right, we're gonna put both games aside and make an MK vs.

DC Injustice crossover thing again if they wanted to, because it's on their own schedule, you know.

But same thing with Marvel vs.

Catcom.

Yeah.

So that's how, that's how I feel about the whole like modern crossover concept.

But it is very, it's close as it's ever been.

And

taking the director's words into account as well.

They're like, yeah, we'd love to.

We just need to figure out when and how and stuff.

It's nice to know that

we're back in

the buddy-buddy

times with both of these companies.

I'm surprised as well.

So when it comes to the gameplay with Terry,

he is not

dominating like Akuma and Bison did.

He is

not this like pick him and collect your wins.

He is a good, like excellent all-rounder character with no outrageous strengths.

Yeah,

he's a good Shoto.

Terry, are you okay?

He's okay.

Is he the best Shoto?

No.

Is he the second best?

Maybe, but probably not.

I would say not.

But

he takes some work, and he's got some tools that you got to learn to use properly.

But like, it's, yeah, you got to earn it.

And he is weird.

That is a benefit for him, is that his shit is all weird in Street Fighters context.

Yeah, there's a lot of stuff he does that, like, you know, is

fake, so to speak.

And what that, what I mean by that is, like, it's kind of tricky, but, like, there's an answer to it, clearly.

But,

But yeah, he is kind of interesting and fun in that like because his fireball is on the ground, it goes underneath other characters' fireballs instead of clashing with them.

So you kind of get this little like, oh, we're not just going to sit here chucking at each other and kind of seeing who like interrupts the rhythm of that.

If I'm winning and we're both hitting each other, you got to do something, you know?

And yeah, the fact that his like heavy fireball is like very safe and plus and lets you kind of get stuff started.

It's fun to see like, you know, him have these like unusual situations where he gets advantage, right?

Instead of having like a button or so that gives that to him, he's got to like hit the tip, tip, tip of his burning knuckle or the tip, tip, tip.

Yeah.

I definitely, like, I am playing Terry and I'm getting this like, oh, these all these new situations because his stuff doesn't perform quite as expected or they don't fit within the mold perfectly.

And it's definitely not the emotion I felt when I loaded up Bison and it was just like, woo-hoo, just go.

You're going to just hit some buckets.

Yeah, yeah.

No, you have to do little things with Terry, like

after you land, like his tackle, then you have to perfectly time doing his crackshoot kick.

And you can do a simple, you know, untimed version of it that like hits you twice and then you can end your combo.

But if you wait for the exact right moment, you get three hits, which allows you to do a bigger ending follow-up, you know?

So I'm going to say don't go for the three-hit version.

It's really hard, and if you drop it, you drop the whole fucking thing, and it's a don't, don't bother.

I mean, if you feel like you're the type, if you, if you're feeling particularly like plucky and you know that you're an executionist to some degree, then, you know, do what you got to do, get your timing right.

But I know, yeah, like, it's frustrating to go for the fancier one and then, like, lose it all, you know?

But yeah, he's the character that has these little things like that, where

if you're really on point, you know, especially in the corner, he's got some really great juggles and stuff.

But yeah, like to do to do things that are like massively, massively damaging, you're putting yourself into burnouts because you're doing the power dunk one, two, three.

You know, you're doing a lot

and spending all your resources.

And

he's just not touching you the way like Akuma damaged Marissa.

I mean, Marissa's kind of becoming this weird, like, she was the damage character, but now there's so many others that can do her damage.

I mean, she's the damage character, but she's just not as good as the other two or three damage characters.

Yeah, then they're like, How about other people can do that damage?

And she's like, Aww, but what am I supposed to do?

I think the balance changes that went along with Terry's patch were so funny because they're like, They nerfed

Bison's scissor kicks by like

a little bit, a little tiny bit.

Did they change his stupid damage?

No.

Okay, so

this one's a little inside as we're talking, you know,

what the fighting game changes, but his scissor kick is a weird example of a move getting buffed and nerfed at the same time, and it's not quite clear why.

And I think they figured out what was going on.

So beforehand, when Bison did his scissor kick at you, he'd always push you back too far to be able to like.

You'd be so far away if you blocked it.

You'd be totally safe yeah so like he you you can act first but you can't really reach him because he spaces you out he pushes you out you know so what they did was they made it so it's like okay he lands closer to you but the bot his hurt box the thing that you can hit to punish him is is smaller also further away from you so you're like wait a minute you made him land closer but i can't hurt him closer what's the point of that why would you do both and it turns out it's just so that the things that were gonna hit him earlier are more consistent exactly right so it's like if you are able to touch him you can touch him and not have him like fall out of your combo that's all they were going for you know um and then they yeah they did some stuff like they're like hey we're sorry about geef uh

you know um they they they changed his his little knee that he could like keep he could like absolutely pressure you from even without just seeing it properly yeah um and like jp's anti-arrow is now back to not exactly what it was but anyway, they made some changes that were like, yeah, we went too far.

Sorry, pulling it back.

Might have gone too far in a couple places.

Not with Akuma or Bison, though.

No, those were, we were definitely at the right place with those.

But Rasheed.

Yeah.

Yeah.

A lot of people didn't get anything at all either, which is like, I kind of expected more there, but huh?

I guess, you know, we'll see.

But anyway,

all that aside, it is real dope as well.

I love the, like, again, talking about like love.

It's like the fact that Terry gets different behavior based on both costumes.

His jacket or his hat toss is like, I love that.

You know, I love that, like,

you have,

yeah, just completely unique intros and wind poses for both of those.

And I kind of, I don't know where else that would be a thing, but it would be great to see more of that, you know, more unique stuff based on the way they look and everything.

Don't know what his third costume is going to be.

I was wondering, like, are they going to grab one of those weird Falcoon designs for maximum impact?

You know what they should do?

You know what they should fucking do?

They should put him in Ken's gi.

Oh my God.

A Jeff Bogart outfit of his dad.

Yeah.

Sure.

I mean, one look he has that's technically a little different is his Fatal Fury 1 jacket is like a long-sleeve red jacket, you know?

Nah.

But I imagine.

Oh, people in the chat are saying basketball fit.

Basketball would be fun.

with the hat backwards.

That would be a lot of fun.

Yeah.

He does turn the hat backwards when he does the dunk, after all.

So that would be real cool.

There's some artwork of that.

But yeah, anyway, so it's just, but it's kind of fun in the end to see, like, okay, the idea of we're going to make the DLC character always be the strongest is now not confirmed to be the case.

You know, the guest is not allowed to dominate in the same way that

Bison and Akuma were able to.

But Akuma and Tekken was like a weird, weird situation.

Yeah, they, well, so I guess there's different ways to think about it, right?

It's like, do you roll out the red carpet and say, yes, you own this game, and then eventually we'll come back in and nerf and touch this?

You know, or do you just go like, a guest can never be allowed to be that great?

You know, we think it'll be depending on.

I wonder if they made Terry like really, really good and were like

the way we built him, if we add like one more frame on this, he's busted.

And if we tone it down, maybe like his standing hard punch, right?

It's like an incredible, incredible hard punch other than the fact that it's stubby.

I can imagine like, well, what if we lengthened the hard punch?

Oh, no, it's too good now.

Yeah, no, he's not, like, he doesn't have the hard punch that Luke has, for example, which is the fucking bah party starter, you know.

But instead, they made it so that his medium punch reaches first, but like you have to spend a lot of resource to convert afterwards, you know.

I think it's just a basic thing of just like, yo, Akuma's really popular.

He's the most popular.

Everyone loves him.

He's the fucking.

I like Akuma.

He's the badass, you know, like Ed Shoto from back in the day.

He's evil.

Yeah.

And so he's going to be strong.

That's it, you know?

And I think dictatorship.

And Bison's a charge character, and charge characters are hard to play, so they should be the strongest in every game that they're in.

No matter what.

Yeah, so

I think it really is just that simple.

And

I don't imagine that

my or Elena are going to be too terrifying, but

there will always be one thing with the character that is like, that has to make you go, what the fuck, when you see it.

Let's just wait until we see the healing target combo.

You have to.

Did you know if you hit this target combo, she just just heals

a little bit.

She gets a little bit of life back.

Yeah, immediate heal.

You know, there always has to be something about the character when you see the trailer that makes you go, what the fuck are they doing to get your interest?

And yeah, we'll see.

You know, I'm hoping for Mai she does like one of her eight dive kicks.

I hope that they.

Mai is a character that like

doesn't exist in Street Fighter outside of like maybe Vega, like Claw, Heavy Wall Diver.

Yeah, I mean, she still has her like ground, you know, the fans, and then

she's up there a lot.

Yeah, I think if they give her a lot of air mobility, that could be very fun.

And, like, it's fun.

Yeah, I like, I like, I, I, we, you know, I mean, years ago, I remember like talking to you about this, but like, I like Dong Juan in Mark of the Wolves.

I like characters that spend a lot of time in the air and get cool shit.

You know, um, back in Capcom versus SNK2,

um, there's a character, Mackie, who had an Air 720.

And if you landed that, you're a god.

Because you spent all your super bar, and you did a fucking

360.

It's like the board, it's like Zangief landing the air SPD, the air spinning ball driver, except it's the ultimate call out, you know.

I love that.

I love characters with tons of air options, you know?

So, yeah, let's see what they do for her.

But yeah,

Terry's fun.

So there's a little bit of that.

And yeah, you know,

again, not a ton else.

Made it.

I'm still in the middle of the Steel Samurai case in Ace Attorney.

So, you know, I can see these cases.

Yeah, those cases start to really pick up steam.

Yeah, they're padding out.

They're padding out.

Man, I mean, we'll talk about the news, but it really is interesting that literally everything,

everything that I like take a look at or touch comes right back around.

It is, it is becoming absurd.

So, they just announced the Phoenix Wright anime, you know.

Oh, I mean, like, just out of nowhere, I'm like, oh, hey, look at that, you know.

There's other things that are, you know, we're seeing, I mean, shit in fucking Dead Space that just happened.

And even things that Dino Crisis

is getting re-released, Dino Crisis on PSN, right?

You know, and like even things that I've described, I've just discussed or mentioned.

I'm like, hey, you know, I talked, I think two weeks ago, I was when I said, like, oh, yeah, I was thinking about checking out Legacy of Kane, you know?

Yeah.

And they're like, well, here you go.

You asked, here you go.

You know?

So, yeah, that's fun.

I thought for sure that the day after you finished that FF9 playthrough, they were going to announce the remake of that game.

I felt it.

I felt that that was.

And like, I felt that like just hanging up here ready to drop at any time and it just didn't occur.

I mean, there's just a little sometimes there's a little like energy towards like, hey, no one's talked about this thing for a while and everyone seems to really like it.

I've always wanted to play that.

Let's pop that in.

And then lo and behold, you know?

That was the same exact sentiment

at someone's office.

Hey, you know what?

You can't really buy Dynam Crisis anywhere.

Should we do that somewhere?

Why the fuck not?

You know, I'm downloading the HD fan updated texture version, you know, out there.

So, yeah.

But of course,

it doesn't work out when it's like, hey, you just missed it.

But, eh,

it's fine.

I'm like, you know, whatever.

I'll take it as is.

So, the hell, they even,

like, there's now some footage of the

Front Mission 3

that just dropped as well, right?

Oh my God.

That looks terrible.

I didn't go through all of it.

I just kind of.

It looks

awful.

What's happening?

So, for whatever reason, they didn't include the music in any of the demos,

but all the animations are totally weightless.

And

it's just lost all of its charm.

Oh, no.

And

it looks terrible.

Like,

unless they redo all the animations, I would be like, just play the PS1 version.

Well, shit.

Like, seriously.

And then the second game was like machine translated.

I remember that.

I remember that bullshit.

Yeah.

Okay.

I got to go check that out because I saw there's 26 minutes of footage.

So

I haven't seen, but like, there seems to be a lot.

I was definitely thinking, oh, when that drops, I'd love to touch it.

They have totally half-assed that whole series.

It's really, really depressing.

Ah, fuck.

Okay.

Well, I mean, I guess there's always the original if push comes to shove.

There is always the original.

But...

But yeah, anyway, so, you know,

we'll see what's happening with this Phoenix Ride anime.

I'm kind of like, they announced it, and I was like,

didn't that already exist?

No.

And the answer is no.

It didn't.

No.

I'm shocked.

Wait.

It's not.

Wait, it did.

It's not a new anime?

Oh, I'm sorry.

What did they announce?

Okay, I'm confused at what was announced.

Oh, it did exist.

I'm not crazy.

Oh, it was a 2019 anime.

So what are they announcing?

Okay, well then never mind.

I was completely mistaken by what I saw.

Oh, it's a recap video?

Oh my god.

So they announced nothing.

Okay, that's great.

Never mind.

My mistake.

I apologize.

And yeah, in Chipping Away at Shadow of the Earth Tree,

just went to the other side of the Shadow Keep and

peeked my head out the door.

And then this motherfucker riding a boar just rushed my ass.

So let me tell you.

So did you beat that dude or did you?

First shot.

Okay, so

that dude

was one of the nerfs that came down because he, him, he was

one of the bosses that people were like, you need to fix this.

Oh, yeah.

You don't need to nerf it.

You need to fix it.

And the basic deal was, is that he would, so everybody either beat him first try or struggled really horribly because what happened was is he'd do you'd see the cutscene and then he'd be like over there and then he would rush you right and he you would be in the room and the cutscene would end and he would rush you no no no no cutscene he just

he just rushed well it used to be he would rush you so fast that you had like one second to fucking roll out of the way or he would pin you to the door

like he he was like

he would he was coming at you okay and he would start further away during the first attempt.

Okay, so what I had was looking through the door, and I was like, What is that?

What I'm looking at, I can't tell.

And I took a step to the side to look around the spear that's blocking it.

And as soon as you do that, like the music starts, and the door locks, and you're just going like, Oh,

you know, I was like, I can't look.

Yeah, yeah, no, he he was like, so all the bosses in Earth tree, like, rush you, which is kind of cool, actually.

Uh, he was like too close to the door okay

so he he'd rush and you'd be like hey oh okay and he could he could he could trap he could do his charge move and trap you in the door frame oh no okay gotcha yeah because what happened was it again it was like it was you know it was fine um uh managed to do it and the afterwards i was like whoa look at this giant arena this is clearly a big important fight that just went quickly you know?

He had the same type of arena with the weapons and everything as you're as like a Godfree or, you know, like, um, it was, uh, yeah, it just, I didn't quite realize that it was even a remembrance boss, you know?

So, so you said you came out the back of the Shadow Keep.

So, there's like three exits out the back of that fucking building.

No, four.

Oh, Jesus Christ.

All I wanted to do was just, like, figure out the water thing.

Just drop.

I just want to drain the water and then see what's down there.

And then it branches into three different directions.

And I go, fuck off, everybody.

This is.

Oh, no, wait.

There's one, two,

three,

four.

Is there a fifth?

I found three paths, right?

So I found you go from the

eastern side of the shadow keep into, you find an elevator to the western side, or you go down into the water, or and then you go underneath to the grace tunnel, or you go out to where Gaius is, you know?

Okay.

Yeah, so it was just like,

okay, okay.

I thought I was just clearing up loose ends, and I'm on a path now, you know.

That area is both super complicated and oh, no, there's a fifth one.

Um,

and um,

it also exits out into the most zones of any location since Firelink Shrine.

I didn't realize it was going to be a firelight.

And two of them are actively hidden.

And yeah,

the fire knights that are in there are always real.

Those enemies are always real.

They've never stopped being real the entire time.

They just don't stagger.

They don't give a fuck.

again,

you're like looking in the water and it's like, what is happening in the, it's an ulcerated tree spirit.

So that's like the worst part of that.

That is the most awful part of the whole.

Because it's like it's breaking up the tree and you're like, oh, oh, what's that?

Oh, what could it be?

And like, I got like a decent look at it.

Yeah, it's fucking ulcerated tree spirit.

Oh, come on.

And I was like, you know,

maybe there's a chance that this will be a fun underwater variation where it'll try to attack me on land or something, you know, and like re- No, of course not.

Fuck off.

You're fighting the same.

I will say though that at that point

in the in the fucking game, when the ulcerated tree spirit like walks up, it's a fucking joke.

Like it is no threat.

But then you kill it and then another one attacks you.

And you're like, guys,

we get it.

It was supposed to be in Dark Souls 3.

You recycled it forward.

You're very proud of its animation.

But now we're hitting that point of repetition where you're like, does the joke become funny again?

You know, like when you, when you commit so hard that everyone stopped laughing?

Are we now Andy Kaufman?

It's kind of funny.

It's like you kill it and then you get a second one and you're just like, yeah.

Yeah, I can't.

I kind of am like, I'm almost starting to root for more.

Like, I just, I can't believe the audacity of these fucking assholes to take the same enemy and make you fight like a billion of them.

It's, it's nuts, dude.

Um,

yeah,

I'd love to hear the full story.

You know, recycled enemy, like, is it someone that's just really proud of their work?

Besides that part, is there something to it that's like, are we trying to create a new poison swap?

You know, like, there's gotta be an element of this where

Miyazaki is is

smirking as someone is like walking in going, you know, I think we can, I think another one actually would be.

So I was talking to some friends last night about Elden Ring, and

there was this feeling of like, so, okay, is it too big?

And

Miyazaki says, yeah.

Because they did that interview where they're like, we're definitely not going to make the next one as big as Elden Ring.

And you can feel that it's too big because

just

cut out every redo of every mini boss and above.

And it's still one of the largest games I've ever played in my life.

Oh, yeah.

Now, the thing is, is that I always hold the end of the spectrum of too big and bad to be

the way I felt walking around Mortal Shell, where

you had just massive expanses, the third area in particular, that had nothing going on in them.

Here, it's massive, but there's always something of interest.

It's the Breath of the Wild feeling, right?

Something of interest, and you go towards it, and then there's shit going on.

What I feel like contributes to the problem, so it's it's it's it's I know that, and we all love a nice big world to just get lost in.

I sure do, I sure do, Willie.

I wish there were more dead ends to just like feel like you've closed a chapter, you know?

So the DLC is actually really good at that.

Like almost all the zones dead end out.

They eventually,

but when you hit that point like I did in the East Shadow Keep, where you're like, actually, this is the furthest thing for...

You thought you were cleaning up the

Shadow Keep is like a secret hub.

Yeah, you thought you were cleaning out the side of the place of the legacy dungeon you already went to.

Turns out you were at an intersection, you know,

of a legacy dungeon.

You're in a roundabout.

And,

you know, when you get to the bottom of the fissure, and then it's like, okay,

end of cave, turn the fuck around.

You know, you got to the top of the peak with Bale.

End of dragon section.

Yes, and those parts are very reminiscent of Demon Souls, right?

Yes.

Where a Demon Souls, like, hallway ends and goes, turn the fuck around.

You did it.

And, like, you are done with the mind level.

You know, Dr.

Wiley logo is now available.

And there's a little bit of just like, okay,

I can feel like accomplished a little more frequently.

And so I just wish I got that a little more from some of these paths, you know, like not even to put them on rails per se, but like if you...

If you kind of know that you're walking into an intersection and each of those intersections is going to lead to further branches,

it's great for the wanderlust, but like when you do not get that eventual sense of accomplishment, if you just happen to pick five intersections in a row, you get exhausted.

You're like, I just got to stop here.

I can't take any more.

I can't keep track of all these threads.

You know, I feel like

from software,

dramatically, and I mean

dramatically underestimated

how

many people

were going to go everywhere other than where the grace was pointing them?

So, like, I feel like

their design process was that most players were going to follow the line on the map that the map showed them.

And then, if they hit something that was too brutal or turned their head and saw something really cool, that they would go towards that.

But everyone I've talked to used used those grace arrows as like a don't go there until you've gotten

its vicinity.

Because they've spent the last 10 years training us to

do the opposite.

You know?

Like literally, go explore elsewhere less you miss really cool shit.

So yeah, like it's it's become the the expected thing to go like a decade of the opposite quest lines that auto fail if you walk into a room in the wrong order.

Exactly, You know?

Or teleporting if you sit at the wrong grace at the wrong time.

You know, like it's, we know how obtuse that gets, and you're, you're afraid of walking through the wrong door and exactly.

Or killing the wrong boss and not advancing this and that.

You're saving it for like, okay, now I know we're going to move forward after I've sufficiently looked around the area and cleared that out.

And by taking that approach, is what burns you the fuck out on all these branches.

I have like a different complaint to make about Shadow of the Earth Tree, and it's very specific.

And that is like

after playing through both, obviously, and I played through Elden Ring again right in front of Erdtree.

I like Erdtree

considerably more than base Elden Ring.

And like, I wish I could go to the main menu and have it like start Shadow of the Erdtree as like a different menu option.

Interesting.

Like, you can mod that in, obviously, just mod a character that has all the bell bearings just teleport over to Moog.

But, like, I, the, the, the weapon variety in it alone

and the enemy variety is, is huge.

So you've done base game, like, two and a half times now, right?

So, like, I don't have, I only have my one run, uh, which was all over the place.

I don't think, I don't know what the game is like when you do a linear like user path one as designed and expected.

Dude, it actually sucks really bad.

Like getting, getting a file, like playing Elden Ring, incredible.

I'm using air quotes, getting a file ready for the DLC is terrible because

you go, I need this spell bearing, I need this spell bearing, I need this spell bearing, I need this spell bearing, I need this spell bearing.

I need these key items, I need these key talismans, I need these key spells.

And then you just start ping-ponging to all the things, going down like a mental checklist

and only killing the things you need to, and it's just really, really unsatisfying.

Interesting.

Okay.

It feels like, yeah, somebody in the chat said it's like a shopping list.

Okay.

And DLC-wise,

what do you like that's different?

I like the general encounters.

I think there is a huge,

huge amount of elden ring that is those catacombs that are not super good

and yeah there's been some and the dlc

is like do you want four of each catacomb and they're all really big and interesting true they they fixed that problem and you also get way more types of weapons in the dlc um the game also has like the weird problem of like well it has a scaling system so you can start the dlc anytime Well,

um, you still have to beat Moog, who is for real, and also, there's no merchant in the DLC to buy any of the Smithing Stones, and they give you them at random and kind of still expect you to have a maxed-out weapon,

so you kind of still have to do most of the base game anyway.

I um,

I like, I think in base game, areas that are

not just like

legacy dungeon, like, uh,

per se, but like the southern peninsula, for example, where you're like, it's an island, you can ride around and do everything on it, and then scrape that shit, and then you're done, you know?

And I kind of was like, okay, it felt satisfying to put a giant check mark on the bottom of the map, you know, at a point.

And then

here in the DLC, and I'm enjoying it, but motherfucker, I wrote into.

It's a little complicated.

Well, I wrote into Row,

and I'm like,

actually, I went like an hour or two into Row, and I was like, this is not what I want to do right now.

I did not mean to sign up for a legacy dungeon on the overworld in the outside that is...

just take like it's so big and it's going everywhere and I'm like fuck this I wanted to go clean up some loose ends I'm literally stopping halfway through you know or less.

So,

would you like to know a secret?

Sure.

You know how when you get to Elder to a from software game and you get to the An Or Londo equivalent area where you fight the big, cool thing, sometimes the guy that was used in previews or the thing that was being shown off, like Ornstein and Smoke, or the Looking Glass Night, or what have you,

and then the area right after it is like wildly terrible by comparison like everything after Ann Orlando or the Shrine of Amana or the entire snow area in Elden Ring

that's Rau

hey

you beat Mesmer now go to the penultimate area that sucks actually

And it's also that big.

It didn't have to be so big.

So Rao is not just really huge.

It's also super complicated because it has an entire interior that is just the catacombs.

Yeah, it's a mess.

The area sucks.

The last area, though, is awesome.

Okay.

Good stuff.

Yeah.

I just, I was, I came in with the checklist of like a couple things and I was like, oh yeah, let me peek out in this direction.

And then, you know, saw the little like pathway over to Rao.

And then, like, I was like, let me continue peeking my head in.

And then that peeking my head in feeling lasted an hour and a half.

It's not a peek.

It's not a feeling.

You know, I'm like, am I in a legacy dungeon or am I on the overworld right now?

Like, what am I doing?

You're in an overworld.

What are we doing?

And, and then a fucking giant shot an arrow up my butt and I was like, I'm out of here.

Fuck this.

I'll come back to that.

That was when I got there, I was like, I had a big sigh and I was like, I kind of just want to beat it.

Yeah.

The snow didn't bother me that much in base game.

It was a different pace of things.

Definitely.

And I mean, but it's a lesson learned after, like, you know, again, we talked about, yeah, Shrine of Amada and

stuff.

And like, yeah, Anaralondo, I mean, still, it was like, it's pretty, but empty, you know, ultimately.

But then the but then the library and such as you come through the other.

The library is like the winner out of all those post-game areas, but Tomb of the Giants and fucking fucking

Dragonass Lava Town are just fucking terrible.

So yeah, they just kind of...

Anyway, it seems like there's just some things that they're just like super committed to, you know.

And

if you make it to Rau

sooner than later, I suppose, then that's a...

I don't know if...

I feel like that would be a burnout risk.

Like, I feel like I'd be like, I'd need to look at it and go, what's this full area?

Okay, cool.

Let me let me save this for the end.

You know, well, the other thing is that route is like tough as fuck.

Like, the, the, the area is

like it's, it is like the second to last in the in the DLC's progression.

Okay, okay.

Yeah.

Um,

so anyway, yeah, just what I went past the other way around, uh, past Bonnie Village and started doing all that.

So, um,

cool.

Uh, I also do appreciate that, like, yeah, after Gaius, it's like, all right, here you go.

Well, because you, it's, and it's

because you're in a really cool, important place.

But I also, sure, but I also think it's because it's like, hey, from here on out, step it up.

You know, shit's coming at you hard.

So, you know, you deserve to get a little stronger.

Anyway, so yeah, that

so

you know my complaints about the uh the bell-bearings and Elden Ring space game, like on replay, like that you have to beeline to them.

It's gonna feel that way for the Shadow Tree fragments on replay of that DLC, okay,

where you're like, well, I'm more than 50% weaker unless I go down this checklist of scavenger hunt because I don't feel like going through every single dungeon and open world area ever again to scrounge for all of them.

So, uh, I want to uh shout out as well the

Shadow Tree Avatar,

where I feel like they have,

maybe in my opinion, they've probably perfected the annoying

surprise there's more boss

with ads.

I love that fucking thing, dude.

I loved it.

It really felt like, okay,

I see what you're doing.

This is your classic, oh, it ain't done.

Fuck you, there's more, right?

But because, well, one, like, even lore-wise, you're fighting avatars all over the base game.

But this one's a sunflower.

So, and it's, but it's like, because we're going to put them all in the same place, because why wouldn't the Shadow Tree have its own avatars?

It makes perfect sense, right?

And

you have that first form that you just, you evaporate, and then it pops back up, but like, each time you have to get like that fuck you surprise moment, you can repost the last one to do some starter damage on the next one.

And then even when it comes back out and annoys you the third time around, you're seeing the move list change, but they're adding like, and they're adding like these extra things with each phase.

But the last third version where you're like, oh my God, really?

We're doing it a third time?

It's like, yeah, but it's fucking tired.

And it's...

I thought I was doing something wrong.

Huh, how'd it go?

Like, I thought,

like, like you said, I evaporated the first form, and then the second one wasn't that too much trouble.

But when I got to the third, I was like, I had this feeling of like, I'm not doing something.

And you're not killing it.

And it's just going to keep getting back up.

Right, right, right.

I was worried about that, but I noticed it was, well, one, the music, you know, changes.

And then two,

it...

starts being really like slow and beat up in that third one.

And that's when I went, went, okay, no, wait, hold on, it's not just fighting forever, you know.

Um, and because it's doing its final, like, big attacks, but they're all followed up by collapse into exhaustion, it felt like a slog that you were actually hurting the thing, and like the endurance wasn't just to annoy you.

Fuck you, no, that's it, you know, the progression across each one was enough to feel like you're getting it, you know, and

for anything like that up to that point, point where, you know, I mean, whatever, four kings, five kings,

any fights where you just like, even the snail that pops out at the end.

I have fought the God Tree Duo and gotten through five

God Tree.

Sorry, Godskin guys.

Yeah, right?

Five.

Where you're just like, this is just, it's fuck you, it ain't done yet.

And there's no twist except for that.

Like, lol die, right?

Where I'm like, no, like, it feels so much better if you, if you feel like each one has something to it, you know?

The Great Ape is still the all-time best of this genre.

The

beat-up Sekiro

fucking, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like,

it's, no, it's nice to get that feeling of, like, it's going to start doing its cheapest shit now, but, ooh, I have it on the ropes.

That's it.

When the fresh godskin duo pops up, you don't feel that.

No, you're just like, oh, oh, they're spawning in another pair.

You know?

Just beat this one down, too.

Exactly.

And the difference between giving the player that feeling of like, I have them on the ropes, is like your motivation evaporating and rolling your eyes, pausing it, and standing up to stretch, you know, versus like, oh, shit, we got him.

Let's go.

And that's just

a simple little thing you can do with the same concept of the idea.

And so, yeah, the Earth Tree Avatar, the Shadow Tree Avatar, like they fucking figured it out.

And And I loved how they did that.

It makes me really excited for the next game they put out that is like

a normal size.

You know, like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like, take all these lessons

and just put them into a game the size of Dark Souls 1.

How sick just how sick would it be if like Miyazaki goes, I've finally done it.

This is the dream game.

And it's like a modest 60 hours.

You know, it's modest, man.

Like, it's like, yeah, it's just a really tight

experience that just like, yeah, we did it.

You know, I think the irony is that, you know,

if I think I have played less Elden Ring

than I have Dark Souls 1 or 2 or 3

because it took me so long to beat Elden Ring and the DLC that I was never like, oh man, I could just do it again.

Whereas with all the other Souls three Souls games, I'd beat it and I'd be like, Yeah, I could do another one right now.

I could just start right the fuck over and do it again.

Yeah, I

um

I mean, what I want from every Souls game, and ultimately, I guess, like, whatever.

I have my own thing that, you know, people know you all know about where I always feel like, why replay when you can experience a new thing?

Whatever.

But

I always do feel like I'm like, I want to experience this boss and I want to go to the memory of just this boss.

In the older games, that's a lot simpler.

Bonfire ascetic

or whatever, right?

Or just like, dude, hey, I want to fight the Adjudicator in Demon Souls.

Okay, give me a half hour.

Sure.

Yeah.

Or just be lying.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, and that's, even, yeah, when I was talking about like Sekiro as well, it was just like, yeah, just let me go to a list and just go that.

Let me, let me hit the great ape again, you know, because

I want to fight Moog again.

I want to fight the, you know what I mean?

Like,

I want to hit my highlights where I'm just like, yeah, this was these are the funnest fights, you know, the Millennia and such.

But I don't necessarily feel like rolling through Kalid,

you know, like I just, that's not doing it again.

Doing all of that open world stuff again

when you already know where everything is and the exploration aspect is done

is very, very, very harmed.

So I was thinking about why I feel so strongly about that compared to like a Skyrim or a New Vegas or something like that.

And it's because the world is just a violent shithole that has no one in it that talks to you or is your friend and there's no real like narrative dialogue or anything like that, right?

Like, I like going into New Vegas and just wandering from place to place because then I'll get to a town eventually and I'll talk to people and I'll be like, oh,

whatever, right?

Kaled is just a violent attack zone.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's a difference to games where you get to take a load off.

You know, you never do quite get those in these games.

You can talk to people, I guess, a little bit or, you know,

or anytime you walk into one of the two or three areas where it says, like, hey, no fighting, you know, you're like, oh, okay, we're going to have a conversation for a minute.

But, yeah, I guess, you know, when push comes to shove, if I ever really do feel like it, I'll just go PC mod and get my own boss rush going.

You know, but that's, but that's all I ever really want out of these experiences: I want to redo some boss fights.

Um, I don't really feel like I want to redo, yeah, the, the, the journey as much, you know.

So,

anyway,

chipping away at that.

So,

yeah,

that's pretty much it.

This week is going to be a bit short.

I'm going to be not here.

I'm going to be gone for the weekend, but I'll be getting in,

I think,

yeah, a Phoenix Wright and a session of Elden Ring.

And I'm going to be doing a metaphor-sponsored stream as well.

When's that?

I think, possibly, I think I'm going to put it for next week or after this week.

But I'm going to be checking that out as well.

Didn't try the demo out, so I'm not too sure, but I heard there's a lot of

oh, is the sponsored stream of the demo?

I don't think so.

I think it's the main thing.

Oh, then you'll have to wait till next week.

Yeah, yeah, I'm pretty sure it is.

So, but

I've been told that there's

we're going to talk about the demo in just a minute.

Peak, peak magic racism.

In just a minute.

Yeah.

So, anyways, Wooly vs.

on Twitch and YouTube for more of that.

Hey, I got to use the bathroom before we're talking about my week.

All right, BRB.

Yeah.

Hey, we're back.

So, let's think, Pat, what did you do with your week?

Well,

man, everybody wants to play fucking Space Marine.

So this past week, I had Mandalore

and

Duck Punk over on the show

and just shooting the shit and playing

fucking Space Marine 2 co-op.

And the takeaway, I think it was Duck that said it, was that it just feel, it kind of feels like the same kind of thing as Monster Hunter of like,

you just want, hey, hey what are you guys up to you you want you want to log in and and get some space marine out okay or like uh you want to bang out you want to bang out a couple co-op missions or like uh um helldivers

yeah very very similar

um

uh wonderful guests hilarious guys i had never met or spoken to duckpunk prior he seems really cool punk duck

What?

Punk duck.

Have I been fucking that up?

I call him Ed most of the time because he prefers that.

Either that or Ducky.

My bad, brother.

But yeah, and this week, Paige and Bricky are going to be playing

Space Marine 2 Co-op.

That's on Wednesday.

God, I need to actually look at

the schedule.

Yes, Wednesday over on Peach Saliva.

So

one of the nicest things about getting to know Duck is that I did not know he was crazy about Monster Hunter.

And it has been a long time since I spoke to somebody new who was like, Hey, man, hey, did you follow the TGS?

Did you see all the stuff?

I'm like, No, actually, I don't follow that anymore.

It's, I, I don't, I know, I don't have the time.

He's like, if I see cool great sword shit, do you want me to send it to you on Discord?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yes, actually, I would actually really like you to do that.

I appreciate it.

He's in there.

Thank you.

Sir Meow's husband as well.

Boo is super in there.

Like, there's, yeah, there's some Monster Hunter fiendin going on.

Okay, well, it looks like I figured out some people that I can bug about Monster Hunter once more.

People in the chat are complaining about a sound, but I didn't hear anything.

Hmm.

Weird.

A loud noise, but I didn't hear anything.

Did you?

No.

Okay, I think.

Sorry, I think that might have been me adjusting the mic, but

apologies.

Sorry about that.

Anyway, sorry to kneecap

current flow.

The main other thing that I did this past week was that I played the metaphor Refantasio demo.

Were slurs invented?

Listen.

Listen.

This requires context.

Context.

So context one,

I was sponsored by Atlas to do a tweet campaign, which I almost won.

I almost won that Royal Tournament social media campaign.

Bruce Green beat me by saying no taxes, which I can't beat that.

Nobody can beat no taxes.

But they sponsored me for that Twitter campaign.

They also sponsored me to play the demo, and they are also sponsoring me to put out a video next week.

Was it phrased no taxes, or was it phrased taxation is theft?

No, it was no taxes ever only free video games.

And it's like that's tough to beat.

Gotcha.

I personally ran on a I hate fire alarms.

Let's ban fire alarms, which everyone agrees that they are not helpful and they're useless.

It's pretty annoying when you hear a beep in the background of

a video.

No, I'm just talking about like living in a large apartment building where the fire alarm goes off every time some dumbass smokes too much like close to their alarm.

Gotcha.

And everybody has to evacuate and there's no fire.

But my point that I'm making is that I'm being very heavily sponsored by Atlas with multiple different projects.

So before I talk about metaphor, keep in mind that Atlas and me are friends now.

Like this.

Kissy.

Kissy friends.

So the funniest thing about metaphor and you asking me if slurs were invented is that part of the brief

of things not to do or say, one of them is racism.

Now you know what they actually mean.

What they really mean is don't go on an insane fascist tirade with the fucking Atlas logo on your stream, right?

Okay.

Okay.

Now, now, hold on.

Are we allowed to use metaphors?

Listen, hey, listen, listen.

So within like

five minutes of the game's start,

a elf is referred to as knife ears.

Ah!

It is, it is, it is, and by the time you are done

the opening cutscene, like intro, you are watching dog boys being hung for nothing.

Oh, my God.

Okay, okay.

like like it it is it is um

it is a full-blown like racial hierarchy society in metaphor now we I rolled through 16 with some fucking

you know with some bearers

and

that was you know there was a lot of content there was there was a lot of content yes there was there was there was there was some there was some juice there

I'm curious.

So this is immediately then.

It's really fascinating because I've been talking to people about it and looking at people talk about it.

And

in the metaphor demo, you find out that your main character that you're playing is known as an Elda.

which is the tribe that doesn't have overt animal or elf characteristics.

They don't have dog ears.

They don't have like a weird skin tone that's like a non-human skin tone.

They don't have cat ears.

They, you know, they don't have ram horns, whatever.

They're what you would look at and see as a normal person.

As such, they are the most

hated by society of all the tribes.

And this

like this shows itself like all the time.

Like when you walk through the hub, like the main town, there are voice clips of passerbys going, ew, an elder.

Like, ugh, gross.

Jesus Christ.

Okay.

There is a minor side quest in which you need to go buy medicine for someone's sick daughter.

And it's very, it's a super classic JRPG like.

trope, right?

Except you have to buy it from the church.

And the preacher there explains to you, listen, I'm not even supposed to talk to you because you are banned by my religion.

But

just because I'm a cool guy, I will sell you the medicine for 10 times its cost.

And your character goes, What the?

That's bullshit!

And he goes, Listen, I'm doing you a favor, really.

I shouldn't even talk to Elda.

So, really, I'm actually being really nice to you.

Your existence is banned?

Yes.

Elda are the only one of the tribes that exist outside of the game's like state-sponsored religion.

But like, are you banned from my sight?

Like, what does...

No, they're a religious minority.

And so it is taboo to interact with them at all.

Okay, okay.

So like, yeah, no, it's, it's, it race politics all over the fucking place.

All over.

Right away.

Right away.

And it's very in your face.

Oof.

Oof.

Okay.

Like, there's a very long conversation that I did not pick up on.

The fact that the reason why the conversation is happening with a shopkeeper is because they scoped you out because they don't want you next to their store.

Oh, my God.

Okay.

Wow.

Yes.

It's a metaphor.

Yeah.

Well, running around Tokyo in any of the persona games ain't going to necessarily have that happen.

No, not really.

Can't take on this type of

issue in the real world.

It's a metaphor.

Don't you get it?

There's also a real element of this being like...

Okay, so.

Metaphor is not a Shin Megami Tensei game.

No.

It is not.

It is also not a persona game.

It is not.

No.

However, they really want you to know that it's made by the creators of Persona 3, 4, and 5.

And the main character looks like Aigis and Makoto's baby.

Hairband, hair color, the eyes, even down to like what is essentially headphones.

The second character you get looks just like Yunarakami.

And he's even from the Sticks.

The third character you get is German Mitsuru.

Like,

it is overtly a, like, hey,

it's not Persona, but Simon Belmont.

Persona, though.

Sure, but, but Simon Belmont is like Yagami, right?

So, art styles are art styles.

What about, like,

actual,

you know, like

monsters and affinities?

Well, you see,

there's one type of monster that is above all others, and that is those dastardly humans.

The humans, the humans.

I remember reading that in the concept.

Yeah.

Those horrible, disgusting humans.

What an interesting play.

And they're all freaks.

They're all like absolute, like, complete, like, nonsense creatures.

And there's a lot going on with their visual presentation.

Like, in the anime cutscenes in which humans are depicted, all characters and environments are in 2D except for the humans, which are in 3D.

Like to add to their otherworldliness.

Okay.

Okay.

It doesn't have

humans.

Yeah, you're not going through Pixie and Jack Frost and Pyrojack and Unicorn and Picorn as your starter enemies.

It is proper, unique fantasy enemies, such as a big snake or an evil crow or some skeletons.

With one exception, when you go into the class system, which is called archetypes, not demons and not persona,

it's a very, it's like a much more traditional class system where like you pick a class for your character and you level that class up and they get new moves.

Okay.

And you can switch it back and forth on anybody.

It's kind of closest to like Final Fantasy Tactics system, honestly, where you have like a job and you can carry like a couple abilities over from any of the jobs you have unlocked.

So like all party members can do any job.

All party members can be anything.

Wow, cool.

Okay.

The only difference is that party members will start with like default like stat growths.

So like the first guy you get, it's like he tends towards physical.

Sure.

For example.

Sure.

And

when you go into the like archetype like list and you see like, hey, what kind of archetypes we got in here?

Well, some of them are called

Devil Summoner and Soul Hacker and Persona Master and whatnot.

And I believe in

not

related.

Definitely not related.

And also, like, Jack Frost is somewhere in the game.

There's a trailer out that shows like the Persona Master can, like, summon Jack Frost as their ability.

Wow.

So

it is very much like

an Atlas, like almost like a versus game of all their concepts together.

It's really interesting.

It's also,

I don't know what they were thinking.

I don't know what the fuck they were thinking.

They put out like a seven and a half, eight and a half hour long demo.

I think they're thinking our full game is going to be stupid fuck you long.

We can afford to get it.

Well, they're saying it's about as long as Persona 5, but it also has a post-game.

Yeah, well, that's stupid fuck you long.

Right.

So

you can transfer the save forward,

which is important because I have spent seven and a half hours recording footage for a video I'm making, and I haven't beaten the demo, and I don't think I'm going to bother.

Damn.

Okay.

There are

optional dungeons.

In this demo,

I saw people describing that there's like, there's some secret ones in addition to like

a secret dungeon in this demo in this demo

man the confidence that's ridiculous the confidence to give you fucking eight to ten hours of game

on demo to be like yeah this is a taste that's wild

okay

I'm typing something to you right now yes yeah yeah I heard that yeah that is ridiculous

there's a lot um

Also, it happens to be like super slick and super smooth.

And the interface is gorgeous

and whatnot.

It's why you show up.

We got to see that.

The music is incredible.

I just learned a little bit ago,

I was like, I thought that the lyrics of the combat theme, they were like singing in Latin because

you know that's what you'd kind of expect, uh, but doesn't sound like Latin.

And um, I went and looked, it's Esperanto, Esperanto,

they're saying it in fucking Esperanto.

Holy shit

after

bringing that back, shout outs to Dracula Flow.

We are going back into Esperanto again.

That's hilarious.

Uh, for those who don't know, Esperanto was a language that was developed fairly recently.

It was developed, first of all.

That's weird.

It was developed.

Yeah.

It was created.

By the UN, I believe, in order to create a language that all humans can speak, that you can learn no matter what language you speak on the planet.

Turns out creating languages for people to use is actually a completely useless proposition because you need native speakers.

to use the language to teach to other people.

But it was like the whole thing was that it takes less than two weeks to learn it.

And

so it should be, it's supposed to be easy to pick up no matter what your thing is.

Yeah.

Anyway.

So the demo is huge.

It's super slick.

It's essentially Persona 6 in a fantasy setting.

During the demo process, you unlock the daily life simulator, which is, do you want to go to a dungeon?

Well, you have to rest at night.

If you don't do that, you can go out into the town and you can talk to people and increase your social stats.

And your social stats include the one that's the most interest to me because you're going to try and become the new elected ruler of the kingdom.

One of your social stats is tolerance,

which you level up by dealing with the various tribes.

Hmm.

You have to, you have to build your tolerance.

You have to build it up.

You don't have to build it up.

You don't have it by default.

No, no, you're starting.

Yeah.

You start low.

Yeah.

Huh.

And you don't have social links.

You have bonds that go from level one to 10.

And as you level those up, blah, blah, blah.

In your natural state,

you're intolerant.

You're highly intolerant.

That's right.

Okay.

Okay.

It works exactly as you would expect in Persona.

Like, there's a little side quest about, like, hey, maybe if you learn to cook, your wisdom will go up.

You know?

It's really cool.

I seem to like it a little bit.

That's depressing.

Sorry.

Is it?

That's true.

We've all got to start somewhere.

That's really depressing.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

What else I want to talk about for it?

It's.

Yeah, so they have they have fixed every problem I could ever have with any of their battle systems with this one

every every minor foil like actually I genuinely the the the changes to their battle system is

the most interesting thing so in an SMT game you are fusing demons for your party right and then you skill inherit

uh and then you you know you're kind of trying to try to manage

your fusions together through the demon compendium.

And it can be a little cumbersome.

And some games, like, you don't get to pick your skill inheritance, right?

In this, and in Persona, it's like, hey, do you want to switch Persona?

Well, okay, what you do is you're in a fight.

You go, okay, do I have one of my 10 have a fucking wind weakness?

I'll switch to it and do the wind attack, and then I can all-out-attack everybody.

So,

first of all, neither of those systems are used, and it is is pressed turn from SMT.

It is.

Okay.

It is proper, like mean as fuck press turn.

Did an attack get nullified?

Everyone loses their turn.

Oh, shit.

Okay.

Kind of thing.

And the way that it works is in your party

menu, you pick your archetype before a fight.

You go, I want to be a mage or a healer or a warrior or a seeker or whatever, right?

And that's what you roll into in the fight.

And that's what you have during the fight.

That's what you have for the whole fight.

You're not switching in the middle of a battle.

You are, you're coming in is what you came in on.

But you can choose between any of those at any time.

It's a relatively small unlock cost.

And as you level those archetypes up, they learn new moves.

And when you switch to an archetype, you can choose to inherit anything from anyone.

So if I was, let's say I choose healer, and healer starts with Hama and a heal spell, right?

I could choose to spend some of the summon currency to give them the wind attack.

Is it using the same nomenclature, by the way?

Hama is what it's called when you do a light attack.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, there are slightly,

slightly different

names.

So, like instead of Dia, it's day

for a heal spell,

which results in the healing spell in that that game being spelled DEI,

which is really,

really funny.

God.

You know, before

DEI,

there was Latin.

But anyway.

Oh, my God.

But basically, you build up your roles like a job system instead of constantly switching back and forth.

And

if you do switch to one, level something up, and then switch back to another,

you progress, you keep your progress in each of those things.

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay, so you're just kind of picking up.

So you could be like, hey, I want to level up Warrior just to get to the part where they get like critical up

and then go back to Mage and then just inherit Critical Up from Warrior.

And you're not switching in battle, but now everybody in your whole party is fully accessing the class system at all times.

Okay, so basically there's a bunch of skills to unlock in multiple directions, and whatever you unlock, you keep, even though you change directions.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah.

So like when you go to healer, all you have is the healer skills, except there's a slot for inheritance.

Okay.

And as you increase your bonds with your followers,

from rank one to three to five to whatever, you unlock the advanced versions of those jobs.

But you only get to take one thing with you.

I don't know for certain, but I believe that the advanced jobs have more slots for skill inheritance.

Okay.

So

also.

In the end, you're kind of going to have a very customized team.

Yeah.

Also.

Oh, you unlock more slots?

Great.

Great.

Fantastic.

Also.

Every job, sorry, every archetype has your main character attack differently on the field.

Ooh, okay.

So in metaphor, you start with like a sword, right?

You don't have like the sneak attack or like single stab you would normally have in a persona game.

You have a three-hit combo.

And that's because if you want to do a sneak attack, you have to...

like get to an enemy and hit them with their your combo until they are stunned and then when they're stunned you have the squad attack them and then you you start a random battle.

Oh, you mean like on the overworld?

Yes, I mean on the overworld.

Your action button.

Oh, okay.

Yes, you are like, you are like, it almost kind of feels like Dynasty Warrior.

Like,

you are like roaming around the overworld and you are attacking enemies as if it were an action game.

Oh.

And if you stun them, you get to jump into a random battle with them losing their full first turn.

Okay.

Now,

how in-depth does that overworld combat?

So I didn't think it was in-depth.

And then I found out it actually really was.

So,

here's a couple of things.

So, Seeker starts with a sword.

You have a three-hit combo, right?

Well, your party will also join in on hitting enemies when you're doing that.

So, that's cool.

And also, enemies that you can't stun in one combo will attack you back, and them hitting you with their attack is what causes an ambush.

Okay, so if you take any damage, you get ambushed here, which is why you you have a dodge roll.

So on tougher enemies, if you want that first turn, you have to fucking fight them like an action game for a little bit.

To earn the RPG.

To earn your free first turn.

Fucking checkmate Showdown over here.

Interesting.

So that's how Seeker works.

But if you switch to

Mei, if you switch to Healer, right?

You have a piddly little staff, right?

Just piddly little staff.

Well, every time you kill an enemy with that,

your whole party heals.

And then you switch to mage.

And mage.

Kill an enemy as in, like, during the RPG.

Oh, no.

Sorry.

I skipped a part.

If you're three levels higher than any enemy, they auto-die to your earthbound.

Let's go.

Earthbound.

Or Yuji's thing.

Hell yeah.

Delete.

So, like, as soon as you're three levels above,

all enemies of normal strength will just auto-die.

Awesome.

And they tutorialize it too.

There's a whole section where you go through and they go, listen, beat up these dogs.

And you just fight the dogs like it is dynasty warriors.

Okay.

That's great.

And someone asks, do you get the rewards?

You absolutely get the rewards.

Nice.

And then you switch your character to Mage.

And instead of having a swing or like a rod attack, Mage does a fucking ice AoE around itself.

And when you kill enemies, even auto-kill enemies on the overworld, it regenerates MP per hit.

So there is a class that they give you right away that allows you to regenerate your MP to full

by just killing generic mobs on the overworld.

Whoa.

Okay.

So you are going to be one daying

every dungeon.

Mage.

Okay.

That's one of the first ones you get.

And is MP treated as limited a resource as it usually is in these games?

Yes.

It's still.

But you can just get it back now.

By switching to that class and just doing it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

So

all of the different archetypes will make your attack have different properties on the overworld.

When you mentioned Ryuji just now, is that something from Royale specifically?

Well, Ryuji had a thing in Persona 5 and Royal where if you maxed out his social social link, you would just auto-kill people that were below a certain level.

Okay, okay, okay.

Don't remember.

Yeah, I didn't do it.

Anyway, okay, but yeah, no.

So it is like probably my favorite type of like job system in an RPG, which is like set classes that you level up and get really strong and you can add a little juice to it.

The whole party can change it, and it has a really exciting like overworld combat section that like both like, cuts down on time massively and also, like, can improve your chances in the fights.

Wow, that's a really interesting thing.

I mean, like, yeah, I've

gotten to like the first game running around Persona 3 and like stabbing your fucking sword or spear out and trying to hit the little mucks was always like, oh, God.

Um, shit, did it make a noise again?

I heard that.

Sorry.

Okay, there's.

I heard a little beep.

That's weird.

Okay.

Yeah, let me fix this.

I don't want that to happen.

Something's up with the wire.

Sorry.

BRP.

Okay.

So.

Yeah, it seems cool.

Yeah, they've gotten better at those things and like running around

fucking Naruto running through SMT5 and slashing shit.

I was like, okay, cool.

That's fun.

You know, it's fast and whatever.

But ultimately, it's still just like, you know, do you start at an advantage or disadvantage?

And

adding a role and combo thing to that that sounds pretty cool that's interesting it it feels pretty cool yes

also it makes sense as to like how you can expect people to blow through so many dungeons in a game that has like a limited like like a time limit when once you get strong enough for parts of that dungeon there's nothing in the the the floor that'll even trigger a battle i wonder if this is like shit that we could look at and go like they're testing the grounds for a p6

No, it feels like all the other games were testing the ground for this.

Like, that's how it comes across.

It is a brand new franchise, ultimately.

Yeah, true.

You can take all your lessons here.

Okay.

I'm curious.

Yeah, this is functionally Persona 6.

Yeah.

It's a metaphor.

It's a metaphor.

It's kind of.

You get it?

It's like a simile, actually.

Yeah.

Or an analogy.

So there's one thing that I

didn't go into, which is the thing that surprised me the most, which is

your character talks.

They're a person.

They're a person.

Yay.

They have their own dialogue.

They don't talk that much.

Awesome.

But when you choose an option, they respond with their voice and they act in cutscenes.

And they are a character.

Fuck yeah.

It rules actually.

It's way better.

Give me a...

Just role play a person.

Don't insert.

Love that.

They also have a real name

depending on where you live.

So every country has a different

like, sorry, every language has a different default name.

Oh, you don't choose your, you don't enter your own.

Oh, no, you absolutely do.

But if you choose that you don't want want to do that

um there is a a default name that it will choose for you depending on your language

yeah so like in english the character's canon name is will

in brazil it's pedro okay in germany i think it's victor okay

cool that's fine i mean it gives you the option to say i don't want to name myself

well you also name yourself oh

you still have to do that.

Okay.

No, no.

The game looks you in the eye and goes, hey, Wooly, what's your name, Woolly?

And then it goes, you'll name it.

At the bottom of the text, it says, you will name the protagonist later.

Ah.

Earthbounds.

Okay.

Sure.

A little bit.

Sure.

A little bit.

A little bit.

Yeah, no, that game looks cool.

I'm going to play a bunch of it.

I can't believe I didn't fucking beat the demo.

So I was originally planning to be like, hey, you know what?

Forget the demo.

I'm not even.

I'm not going to bother.

I'm just, we'll just start with the beginning of the game, the day the game comes out.

And now I'm like, if it does that, I'm not even going to get to the fucking new shit by the end of that week.

Like, if I start on the Friday, it comes out.

So I'm going to be playing through the demo this week on Friday and Saturday.

Does the demo start at the beginning or does it like through?

The demo starts at frame one.

Okay.

Press start, go because it carries your progress forward.

Save it as if.

Save progress.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Nice.

So people out there are like

just like getting to the point where in the final dungeon you have available

where you can auto-kill all the enemies because they're so over-leveled and over-leveling fucking further in the week it's going to take for the game to come out.

So there's going to be a bunch of people that are just going to fucking blow through that early game with massively fucked up, overgrinded characters.

And that's fine.

This thing's going to be so fucking long, dude.

It's going to be so long.

So, you want to hear something really crazy?

They don't care.

You want to hear something really nuts?

They give you the calendar gives you, they give you the calendar.

It's on the main, it's on the menu.

Like, as soon as you get it, the game's only got four months.

Oh, there's a calendar system happening.

Oh, yeah, it's the same.

It's the same thing.

They're actually, you go to sleep and wake up and move.

Okay.

Oh, yeah, it's the same system.

But

it is four months.

from June to

October, I think.

10?

Yeah, June, October.

Yeah.

Oh.

So.

Hmm.

Okay.

Because I guess, like, in an SMT game where there is no calendar, it's like you're not going to bed and waking up and going back out to a new location.

You're just grinding those dungeons.

You're moving forward in the fucking story and going to new locations.

Yeah.

But I guess here this implies that there's a

home base that you are going to be departing from.

You know what, man?

Somebody in the chat said, well, there's no school, so

it'll feel longer.

And like, you know what?

That's a decent point.

Every day is Sunday in metaphor because you don't have to go to school.

Okay.

So then there's

outside of actually

running to

like, because you know, like, because Persona, you have your dungeon and day, and then you have your, outside of that, you have your activities.

Like, is it drawing a hard line between those things here as well?

Okay, so some of what I'm about to say is stuff that I gleaned from previews.

It's not from my own personal experience in the demo.

Okay.

Right.

So, in the demo, you hang out in the main city and it works identically to a persona game.

Do you want to go do something that increases your social stat or do a dungeon during the day?

If you did the dungeon, then you got to sleep at night because you're tired.

If you didn't do the dungeon, you can do social stuff at night.

Like, exactly the same system, right?

right?

Um,

the difference is that in the in the main game, when you finally get your creepy leg ship,

um, I forget a gauntlet runner, I think it's called, um, you have to travel to various parts of the country in order to you know progress the story and do side content.

And if you have to go anywhere that will take you longer than a full day,

the social stuff instead becomes hanging out with the people on your ship.

Ah, okay, okay, okay.

So that's your base.

Yeah, okay, cool.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Um, well,

I feel really bad because I'm planning to play the game on stream, and uh, the amount of times that I just went, it's like a metaphor, was like it's it's it's an alphabet.

It was so over.

It is a silly of a homonym, homonym

yeah yeah it's it's too easy uh oh wait that actually reminds me i will not be streaming it i will be recording it offline and uploading some shit straight to youtube so

you fucking uh did you forget which fucking promotion you're doing well

because i always yeah you're doing the same thing i'm doing you're doing a video well yeah but i always go i'm just gonna stream it and then usually it's not an issue, but this time it was.

So, no, yeah, no, this time they want a video for the release.

Like, I don't know.

So, anyway, whatever.

So, yes, it'll go for you.

Yeah, one last thing because this is something that I hemmed and hawed over.

So, you choose your stats on level up for your main character, like an SMT game.

Okay.

It gives you one free level, and then it says, hey, where do you want to put a second point?

And you have to kind of make the decision: do I want to make a strength guy?

Do I want to make a speed guy?

You know?

And

the way that stats work is when you have an archetype and you use it, like say you switch to warrior, it adds the warrior stats onto your existing stats.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

If you've, if you've been pushing strength the whole time, then yes, it will do more damage than strength, right?

But like, there's always going to be a base minimum stat for everything.

So you don't have to sweat it too bad.

But if you do want to sweat it too bad, you don't actually have to use any of your stats on level up.

You can bank them.

You can bank them for as long as you want.

Whoa, okay.

And then you can just go on your next level up.

It's like, do you want to use two points or three points or four points?

You can leave.

I'll wait.

You can leave the level up screen without spending it.

Yeah, interesting.

And you can just go into your character's profile on the main menu and be like, you know what?

I would like to use my points now.

Okay.

I've decided that I want my main character to be a magic focused guy let's let's let's push mag now even though you can change jobs you can't respect those though i bet you can't yeah okay i i would imagine you can't

um

yeah and other and other party members will they'll start with like very very obvious stat spreads that are like listen this character's starting with their two star highest are strength and endurance So

you could make them a mage if you wanted or a healer.

The game won't stop you and they're still going to have a base level of effectiveness, but they'd probably be like a little more effective if you made them a knight.

Well, that's, I'm curious to see, like, when you, when you, you know, if everyone can be anything, it's like, yeah.

So if you take the white mage and make her start stabbing shit, or...

vice versa, you know, like how much is that going to fight you with the with the...

Well, it depends.

So like one of your party members has really high endurance and really low magic attack, right?

But if you put the mage job on them, they'll do less damage than another character's mage, but they'll have a lot more HP than the mage class would normally have.

So, at a certain level, it'll balance out.

But, like, the idea is like if you make them not the thing they're supposed to be, they'll be a bad version of that thing.

Yeah.

No, it means they'll be a slightly less effective version.

Okay.

Cool.

I think the only two stats that would matter is like strength and magic because they just affect attack power.

Okay.

Yeah, no, this game's got a lot going on.

Oh, it also has...

Christ, it has the Mass Effect codex.

Whoa.

Okay.

Because there's so much, because it's not taking place in the real world where you already know how things are.

Brand new lore, brand new setting, a lot to establish.

So a keyword will show up in red in a dialogue prompt, and that means it's been added to your your codex and you click in on the right stick and it goes hey listen you want to learn about what a pirpis is that's a dog boy yeah okay do you want do you want to know what an elf is do you want to know how magic works well because shit i mean i saw someone say that's a five-day work week right like there's no weekends the calendar is is different so yeah maybe i didn't get that far the the demo only gives you three free days okay because yeah like if we're talking about an entirely different thing where like everything you know about the structure of the world system is different that it's like okay, well, yeah,

a codex button is mandatory for sure.

Cool.

Yeah, no, that game's, that game seems cool.

So, yeah, I'm going to be trying to beat the demo.

I should be able to beat it.

I already got through most of it, so now I know how to do it good, right?

There's a fucking optional boss in one of the mandatory story dungeons that I didn't even realize was a real fight.

I thought they're like, sneak around it.

It's dangerous.

I'm like, okay.

And I'll later find out: no, no, that's a real boss.

You can totally fight that.

God bless.

So, yeah, that'll be Friday and Saturday will be the metaphor demo.

And then on Wednesday, I'm going to be over at twitch.tv/slash Pete Saliva, a hanging out with Brookie and Paige, Planned Space Marine.

God bless transferring your progress forward.

Oh, and

Sunday this week over at twitch.tv, Pat Sareset is

the Silent Hill 2 remake.

That's this week.

I'm titling that stream, Let's Try to Be Fair.

Let's Try to Be Fair.

Yeah,

I think

the worst outcome would be not having much to say.

I

am not worried about that.

Okay.

I have a sneaking suspicion

that there will be plenty to say.

All right.

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all right uh there has all right i'm gonna take this away there's a big piece of news that we should have put into what are we playing but no it's news instead bellatro is fucking out on your phone shitheads goodbye everybody Podcast over.

It broke the fucking Google payment system when it fucking launched on the Play Store.

Man.

And then fucking Jimbo, I saw him on Twitter just having a freak out because it's the top paid app on the Play Store.

So guess what?

It's really fucking good.

And adequately, it's better than it is on your computer.

So

I don't know if you, have you been playing with a controller or a mouse on your computer?

No, I've been playing with my hands.

No, no, on the original version.

Oh, the original version?

Oh, I've been playing on with a mouse.

Okay.

So what I would do is I'd have my time back back when the boy was a potato, when he was in potato form, I would just crookify him in my arm here.

Right?

And he'd be just a little tiny potato.

And then I would just, you know, use my mouse.

Okay.

But now, now he can turn and look at the TV and all that.

So he'd know Bellatro is on the TV since he being a potato.

So I still think that's,

I mean,

I do prefer

my ability to play on the PC.

I had just used the mouse, so it's the least amount of movement required

to just use one hand.

There is that, like, because I was playing with the pad and stuff.

And in this case, the conversion over to touchpad, still got to hold the phone, admittedly.

However, the system they've changed by having you drag things to areas of the screen to sell

or buy or use is fantastic.

It's awesome.

It's fucking tastic, man.

It's great.

Yeah.

Real quick, like takes, like, it's just, it's, it, it becomes instinctual very quickly.

Um, yeah, you just kind of, anytime you're in the shop, you drag something to the top of the screen to sell it or to the right to buy it, you know.

And beyond that.

Society is over.

And then tap and hold to get your description, you know.

And the rest is just fucking Balatro.

That's it.

I know there was a bit of a kerfuffle as well when it went up because it was like in-app purchases, but I think it was just turned out to be the free demo can be converted into a full version.

So.

Yeah.

Yo, hey, now that the mobile version is out, Jimbo, you need to vampire survivors this and just fucking put out.

like a micro DLC every like fucking two months.

And people go, how do you keep putting out more?

It's crazy.

Just make up 400 new jokers.

Oh, God.

Oh, Jesus.

So I think, so I started playing just to mess around a little bit there.

And I still want to, I want to get my nan inf on the base game first.

I'm trying to accomplish nan inf,

which is the, when you break the score and you can, and like, the, the thing that it displays is N-A-N.

Yeah, it's just like, fuck it.

I give up.

The math.

It's hard.

Well, so apparently

it turns out that it stands for not a number, exponent infinity.

Right?

That's what naninth means.

Yeah, which is awesome.

Like, literally, like, we've lost the plot.

The game's just like, listen, it's going to crash if I keep running these calculations.

Great stuff.

I've got my strat.

You know, I've got my tech going and I'm trying to work on getting that set up.

But yeah, yo, fucking go get Balatro on your phone.

It's just the ultimate time waster.

It's done.

It's the best.

It's the best.

Okay, a lot of shit

this

week in particular because there was the state of play.

So just to go outside of the state of play first.

And we touched on a few things on the way here.

So we touched on

front make.

Front mission three.

The TGS demo

footage.

Boom.

I want to go take a look.

That sucks.

I've been super duper looking

forward to that as

wanting to get through that.

I've been talking about wanting to do a regular one for a while.

So

we'll take a look and see.

Also,

there was, we touched on as well, like City of the Wolves is getting

Ken and Chun Lee as guest characters, and that's cool.

We'll see how they handle the Cristiano-Ronaldo matchup.

We'll see.

Not too sure how that's going to go.

And that's all fine and dandy.

A minor little thing as well on Fighting Games, but Hunter, Hunter, Net Impact, was supposed to come out later this year, but it announced it's going to be delayed till 2025

because they're adding rollback.

Hey, that's weird that they hadn't.

What?

Well,

they said they're delaying the game till next year to add rollback, and to that I say,

sounds good.

Have a nice day.

That's why we're...

No problem.

Take it easy.

Why were you going to...

Every game that fucking company puts out already has rollback netcode.

Why were you even

that's weird?

Well, so because

it's not necessarily direct Arxis, it's Bushy Road, right?

Aiding and Bushy Road.

And in a lot of cases,

the publisher will determine how online and shit like that is handled.

See Darkness, see Dragon Ball Fighters.

You guys should add Rollback Netcode to that Hunter-Hunter game.

That's what I'm saying.

Well,

they finally anticipate the same noise that is made about every other game.

And then I'm sure when they they go to Evo and stuff and people walk by and try it and go, y'all putting rollback in, right?

And they'll be like, uh-huh, yes, sure.

And make a note and bring all that feedback back to the devs.

So, yeah, great.

Good stuff.

Take your time, add it, make sure it works.

And maybe also, well, I don't know.

We'll see, I guess.

But boy, those kids are real stubby in that fucking game.

Kind of feels like when you're playing as Gone or Kilua,

it's like

Beautiful joe you know little little small limbs they're tiny little nubs they're tiny little kids so but yeah uh no problem there

um i don't know how much of a story or what is going on here but for some reason a steam page has popped up for guns the duel

and

I don't know

if you remember, but I've talked about Guns the Duel quite a few

as one of the fucking most awesome games for movement ever from

an era of the internet

long ago.

Guns the fucking duel was an awesome game that just had you shooting and swording

in an arena, and you could fucking butterfly off walls and shotgun or Uzi or whatever.

And its downfall, besides some like bad monetization, was just the amount of cheating was so fucking out of control.

It was rife with cheaters.

And then there was also that level of like soft cheating almost where it was like, okay, so I'm not doing

an instant

infinite health and wall hack and my gun deletes you, cheat.

But I did change all my textures so that everything is gray and like faded out in the environment and only the players are like visible and dark.

You know, and you're like, oh my, like, my experience with Guns the Duel

was like so

like, I'm so sick of Guns the Duel.

Really?

Because I remember playing Max Pain 1, which was an incredible game.

And being like, oh man, it's really cool how Max Pain 1 feels like the Matrix.

And every time I would say that out loud, somebody would go, man, you know what's really like the Matrix?

Guns the duel.

Yeah, because you had characters that could do

the Trinity Wall run as a part of the game.

But besides people saying that in an annoying way, did you ever get to try it?

Yeah, I'm not impressed.

Okay, well...

I never cared for it at all.

I genuinely never saw what the big deal was about it at all.

I.

Well, it's really fun.

Dueling was really cool.

Making

different builds with different types of guns and different swords

and finding the right movement

to fight people was a whole lot of fun.

It had really, really fast kind of like snap aiming and moments of mid-air dueling that was really sick and a time when that didn't really exist in a multiplayer context.

Yeah, I know.

I just remember playing it.

I mean, like,

there's nothing here that makes me want to play this over

Quake 3 or Unreal Tournament or Day of Defeat or Counter-Strike.

Yeah, so I could wall run and third-person wall kick off into taking somebody out and then or slashing them and keep it going.

That's way more.

I love that more than you know like FPSing in a lot of cases.

Oh, you know what?

I'm watching footage right now and I'm like, you know what it is?

I believe

that your feet in a shooter should be glued to the floor.

Oh, I hate that.

That's boring.

That sucks.

That's why I love Titanfall so much.

That's why Battlefield Bad Company 2 is the best fucking shooter of all time.

My favorite thing about Titanfall is how little your feet stay glued to the floor.

So there we are.

We are diametrically opposed.

You know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, people in the chat, like, no, I like my shooters boring.

I want my shooters to be boring as fuck.

I mean, you know,

my neuron activated when I saw the double eject grappling hook kill in Titan Fall.

Though Titanfall is an exception because Titanfall fucking rules.

But that's the thing.

But it rules because of the ingredients, you know, and

some of those crazy movement ingredients were long ago seen in Guns the Duel.

In particular, like doing wild shit.

Like, again, yeah, butterflying off the walls was so crazy.

You just, you just, you just fucking, you mega man wall jump your way through a stage where the verticality of the stage mattered as much as the actual layout horizontally, you know.

Um,

so, but it was, yeah, and then, and then, you know, like, there was the, the, the cool shit you can do where you can, like, do the Trinity run off the wall.

Like, as cool as that was, it was also like, well, now you're on a path that can be.

Yeah, it's very DMC2.

It was like, you're actually not going to use the wall run all that much.

You don't want to telegraph yourself for that long, you know.

Um,

I remember when you were telling me about multiplayer PvP in Warframe, right?

And you were talking about how, like, it's not intended for that, but like there, the modes exist, and in it, movement is like the most important thing.

Yeah, it's also like fucking terrible.

Like, it's terrible.

Okay, well,

I can't speak to anything about about Warframe.

Like, like, guns, like, hey,

Warframe PvP

is bad enough that if you were to play it, you would understand why I'm not interested in Guns the Duel.

Because Warframe PvP is, like, the worst of all worlds.

It is remarkably terrible on every level.

Yet the PvE is so good.

Yeah.

Wow.

Okay.

it's crazy.

It's crazy how bad it is.

Okay.

Well, um,

yeah, this is a just surprise thing.

Um, so it seems as if it's like this might not even fully be a North American release of sorts.

It's it's confusing.

It says like languages are not supported on the Steam page.

Yeah.

Like, I don't, like, I, I, I saw this, got posted, and I don't know that we have any info as to why this is happening.

But either way, it's an old game that had

its servers died off, and that was it.

And then I think there was like a pseudo-sequel that came afterwards that was just not even remotely the same at all.

Like, there was like a guns 2 thing that kind of I remember people were not too happy about.

But Guns the Fucking Duel, man, is a that's a throwback.

That's some good shit.

I really hope we get a chance to jump back in there because, yeah,

I spent a good, a good,

I don't know how long it was.

It might might have been just like a summer a heavy summer and then like some months afterwards you know but like I was I was in there with some friends back in the day we don't talk about guns too fair enough

guns too I remember hearing people just hate that fucking thing yeah just hate it

um it was also um guns guns of the duel was also pretty fun because they had um

they had some cool artwork you know um

i i don't remember if it was like young take him specifically but it was like that style

and like some really cool like, yeah, like trench coat fucking, you know,

manhua character designs.

But

yeah, that popped up.

And then

just

a bit with

Stellar Blade Cross Near Automata.

Like I saw that trailer and I'm like, oh, cool.

They're bringing costumes.

And they're like, then they show the Stellar Blade TUB chick in, like, the fucking amusement park area.

I'm like, oh, no, wait, it's a thing.

It's like a real thing.

The thing that

like, the thing that is

stylistically,

you know, taking after the original thing is now straight up pairing up with the original thing.

And we just, we're putting it all together so you can goon while you goon.

Hey, listen.

Hey, Wooly, I have a question.

Do you know why they're doing the crossover with Nero Automata?

Yes, because according to the official Near Twitter account, they say, we will gladly say yes to anything for money.

So, like, 2B has been everywhere.

2B is like one of the most crossovered characters.

And if you were ever like, why is that?

And it's because the people who made Nero Automata are like, give money, though.

Yes.

No fucks given.

Yoko Taro is quite clear.

That's great.

Yes,

that's money.

Money, and she's yours.

Whatever you want, anybody.

Reminds me of John Carpenter getting asked, Hey, would you ever direct another Halloween movie?

And his response, like, if they paid me for it, yeah.

But the real underneath of that is if they paid him what he thought he was worth to direct another Halloween movie, right?

Right.

Well,

I mean,

speaking of

paying people and acquiring money.

Money dollars.

Yeah.

What say

we take some of that 2B money

and we get it over to the folks that made the day before

because, you know,

they just had a rough start, but Fantastic.

is looking for a second chance.

You know?

Bro, they fucking covered their tracks running away off of that game

like like the vacuum behind them to like erase the fucking

yeah man like

oh so yeah you can't have another bite at the scam apple

but that's where you're wrong because you're right you're right what if i use my words And then you go, damn, I'm going to reach for my wallet right now.

Right?

You know, what, like.

Oh, my God, it's a Kickstarter.

Are you fucking with me?

Of course it's a Kickstarter.

And you

know, sometimes the scumbag leaves town forever and you never see them again.

But sometimes they put a mustache and hat on

and they come back in the back door.

You know?

And hey.

Yo, this is a fucking, this is a double scan.

All right, so we

talked about this one some time ago, but there was a game called The Day Before that was being released by a company called Fantastic, and they crowdfunded.

And basically,

there was a lot of shit leading up to this Kickstarter that was

looking pretty dodgy.

And in the process,

there was a number of things that were starting to come to light, including like unpaid workers and trademark disputes and

fucking, yeah, like overall as well quality just being like shit and the whole thing led to people being like okay so this is just a scam right

and then the game launched in early access and then when people got their hands on it and

basically saw how bad it was

it shut down immediately and they just they kind of just disappeared

People got their refunds on it, but it was this

a wild moment where they replied, This is our first big experience, shit happens, and then they disappeared.

So

they have since

now come back around.

They're starting a Kickstarter.

And

yeah,

the core principles are now honesty, transparency, and professionalism.

And so the goal is to kickstart a new project and see if they can make some money.

And

you tell me what you need to do to have you leave here in a brand new Toyota.

What can I do to put you in a new Toyota today?

Just you say the words.

You know?

What are we looking for?

APR?

Financing?

Well, trust is

the basis of all relationships.

So

nothing.

Come on, the wolves are at old Gil's door, bro.

No, man, you ran away before.

Um,

Steam had to refund those people,

which means Valve had to fight it out with fucking the devs, right?

And so, they're on Twitter going, everyone got their money back.

It wasn't a scam.

What do you say?

Dude, that wasn't you.

That was Steam gave the money back.

Okay.

So, bro.

We just have

overly ambitious goals and a low, a low-indie budget without AAA tech or experience, embellished marketing, which we deeply regret, you know?

So, yeah.

Anyways, embellished.

Embellishment's one of those fun words

where you can

like exaggerate.

Hey, Pat, it wasn't 10 years ago.

It was only two years ago.

Okay, that was an exaggerate.

My brain said really long time.

Embellished is like, listen, I have the best cake for you.

Oh, it's a store-bought McCain Deep and Delicious.

Oh, that's a bit embellished.

But embellished can also mean we have a fully functioning game for you.

It was fun to play.

And then it's not, it's not, it's not at all.

It's a broken piece of fucking shit.

It's technically accurate to say you embellished it.

Technically.

Well, this is one of those times where, yeah, each of the tweets that came out announcing the studio's new project were just like fucking hit with those community notes.

Like, literally just warning potential scam.

Like, you know,

before you consider giving fantastic money, remember that they lied about the state of day, the state of the day before to investors, volunteers, and the gaming community with some links to some videos and such.

Anyway, at the original time of writing, they had made

about

100 bucks of the 15k they're looking for, but it seems as if it's growing.

So, you know, you get the word out there to enough people and some people are like, you know what, man, I do want to be in a Toyota.

You know.

Everybody has their own choices to make.

I would recommend you're going to do whoever is listening to me, you're going to do whatever you're going to do, right?

I would think very hard and long about not not doing anything regardless of this game.

You should think about not doing it.

Well, the fun part about

projects where you don't quite know what the fuck is happening on Kickstarter, if the game does complete and come out, then you can always

do that after it's out and good and

exists.

I would recommend purchasing the car that exists as opposed to

investing in the production from.

Yeah, like maybe you were like, I don't know about Shovel Knight.

I don't think Way Forward can do it.

And you know what?

I'll buy it later when it's done.

And then Shovel Knight came out and has been out for years and years and years.

And if you wanted to play Shovel Knight, you'd be like, oh, people like that game.

I should buy a Shovel Knight.

And you could buy it and then you would have it and it would be real.

Okay, but what if Way Forward

took the money and went to Tacoma?

I mean, they could do that.

And then gave them a bad thing.

They could do that.

They could do that if they wanted.

And then held their hat out.

Okay.

All right.

Well, excuse me.

Yacht Club.

Yacht Club.

My mistake.

They split right before that.

I always get it so confused.

Okay.

So, yeah, all that aside, the

other thing was we got to take a look because TGS is happening.

Death Stranding 2 on the beach introduced a bunch of new Kojima bullshit.

Hey, do you want to have a photo mode?

Sure.

What if it's a Kojima-esque photo mode?

What does that mean?

Well, it means you don't want to take photos of the characters, do you?

Who would want to do that?

No, you want to take photos of the actors behind the scenes.

What?

I think.

No, I don't.

I think.

I think it's been long enough that Kojima's like, hey, are they still mad about the Beauty and the Beast

system

from Metal Gear Solid 4?

Does anyone remember?

No?

I do.

Ah, shut up.

We're doing it again.

So you can fight the bosses in MGS4 and then go into photo shoots with them because they're all like models, you know, and they have this kind of secret mode to it.

And they're like, yeah, let's just do it again.

Let's just do it again.

It's fine.

Fuck it.

Something like violently parasocial of including the actors messing around for the photo mode so you can take photos of the actors in your video game.

I mean,

the fun bit about that is like the recordings of people just kind of improvising, just making noises, going like, ha ha ha, yeah,

like hands are like,

hey, whoa, hey, put that in the game.

I'm a genius.

Like, that was content.

Me just going like,

you know.

Anyway, we got introduced introduced to

Tarman.

George Miller.

Hey, do you guys like movies?

I got my movie friends.

I put my movie friends in the turn.

You fucking put my movie friends in.

I look at my movie friends.

Hey, Guillamo Del Toro was here.

I like his movies.

Do you know who else's movies?

I like this guy.

Ah, damn.

Kojima wants to be in Mad Max 3, man.

Or rather, Fury Road 3.

Yeah, he's in there.

And that's, you know, it's cool.

Does his thing.

Dollman, who we saw, is just.

I guess so.

This is your, like, you got to have your Mimir or your, what was his name in Lollipop Chainsaw?

Kevin?

The boyfriend.

Yeah, something like that.

You know, you got to have your little, just like, little puppet man, little fucking Thunderbolt, or not Thunderbolt,

Thunderbird puppet hanging off your shoulder.

Yeah, obviously.

So

Dollman is that.

And we saw him in the trailer as well with the lower frame rate as well, right?

He's got like

some of that Spider-Verse frame rate going.

And then, yeah, then we got a couple scenes with Tomorrow and Rainy.

Just

the most, just the Kojima names.

We're really getting to experience a career being defined as how far can a creative go in a situation where no one is even imagining the case of telling them no.

Right?

Eventually, Kojumbo is going to release like Megalopolis.

And you're going to be like, Kojumbo's gone too far.

Has he?

Or is it never, is it never enough?

Is it never enough?

It might never be enough.

He spent an entire career building up the momentum to never be told no.

Why start now?

And yes, I heard that thing is insane.

I'm curious.

We are like rapidly approaching

where

the phrase Kojima is a genius may or may not be farce, depending on who you're talking to.

Because like, doll man, oh my God.

Yeah.

Like I can see a situation in which someone is going, I can't believe how incredible Dollman is.

And them either like making fun of Dollman or actually being legitimate about Dollman.

But has he missed?

Yeah,

I would say he's missed.

There's some misses.

They're not total misses, but I have some definite qualms.

Qualms.

Qualms.

Qualms is fair.

Qualms is fair.

Has he missed?

I don't think he has missed.

And because of that, he gets to continue doing whatever the fuck he wants.

That's it.

That's why.

You know?

That's exactly it.

Trust.

There is always qualms, but he has not missed.

That's it, man.

Yeah.

That's why.

When are they going to show off Snake Man and Elekman

and Gutsman for Death Stranding 2?

Hey,

I think it's cool that Heartman can fall anywhere, anytime, and be okay.

They gave him a little catch suit to be like when he's about to, when his heart shuts down, he gets like frozen and

the exoskeleton saves him.

It's great.

And let's see who gets to drop the Oscar winning performance this time around, you know?

I did not think it was going to be

fucking Die Die Hardman.

I really didn't.

Dude.

Right at the end, just, oh.

At least this time around, I know when I see these little moments happen, like you have like that moment where fragile, like she kind of goes, Yes, now I'm only fragile in name only, and then like the little hands light her own cigarette, and then the tear comes down, you know, or like Heartman like collects the tear and puts it into it.

And I'm like, right, now you know, don't stop and try to figure out any of that.

Because even in the moment, with context, you will still not understand, nor will you ever let it rock.

You might let's all let's all take a step back and remember: the reason why the enemies in Evangelion are angels is because Anno thought it sounded cool.

That's it.

Yeah.

Christian mythology.

Don't think too hard.

It's because angels is a cool name.

That's it.

Anytime, like, Christian mythology still holds power over folks, and so when you fuck with it, it gets like, ooh, you know, it's the same thing in like SMT world or any of these games, right?

Ooh, there's a little naughty little ooh to it.

Lucifer.

Oh.

You know what I think is different about Kojima?

He'll never admit that it's only in the game because he thinks it's cool.

Like, you know, you know, that's why.

But, like, I'm looking at a screenshot of Tarman right now, right?

And there's a tar cat.

There's like a magic tar cat with tarman.

And why is the tar cat there?

I bet you anything, it's because he saw a black cat with somebody put a Halloween decoration on him.

And he was like, what if that was made out of magical tar?

Oh, cool.

But then he will start telling you about the fucking stick and the dinosaurs of the fucking oil

because black cats are important to Egyptian lore.

I could throw this, I could throw something.

It's lies, it's lies.

Because there's those are he comes up with that shit after.

Because the link between cats and Egyptian lore, when we go back, we know that they have been sacred animals.

And they

Dude, he's getting more and more convinced that he is writing his stories backwards.

I don't think he has to.

I don't think he has to explain it, or I don't think he has to admit it.

Because from day one, it was like, yo, do you want to be fucking Kurt Russell shooting at a mecha?

I do.

That's it.

Remember that movie?

That was cool.

So, like, it's self-explanatory, right?

It's this, like,

about it.

Well, well, and then in the middle of doing that, that, if you can learn a thing or two about muff, then you're like, whoa, real politics and real, you know,

FMBs?

I didn't expect that.

That makes me feel like this is more cool because he also, it's like those guys that are like super into like the simulated gunplay stuff in Japan where they get like the really, really realistic pellet guns, you know, and it's like, you're not going to have real guns, but you can get really, really close with these pellet guns, though.

You know, and just drilling that shit is like, that's the fun in and of itself, the simulation of it.

It's that.

It's when the cool robot thing has actual application and or resembles some real tech somewhere that you get that extra fucking geekboner going.

It's overwhelmingly so.

This feels like I encounter it anyway more with Japanese writers.

Where the three that come to mind is Kojima, Eriki, and whoever writes the fucking zero escape games, where there's like a moment where they just pull back and go,

Ushikochi, you

maybe, I'm not familiar with their name, but like they pull the camera back and go, You guys want to talk about this stuff I read on Wikipedia last night?

Did you know

that Singapore is named after the lion?

Did you know, did you know that shit?

It's crazy.

And then, how do I take this wiki dive from tonight and yes, and last night, and find a fucking pun for them?

There, there's

There's a, like, it's bordering on catchphrase for me now whenever I encounter this, where I utter the phrase, have you ever heard of the Philadelphia experiment?

It really is, though.

I think I nailed it, though, when, like, at the very least, the part that's like obsessed with puns is because

in Japanese, the multiple readings of words is a huge part of life.

Yeah, it's a thing.

It's linguistic change and it's a cultural thing.

It's humor.

There can be jokes with the spelling of a name being read two ways, but there can also be philosophical meaning in

like think about like think about it.

This is the

shittiest example I can think of.

Think of Ninja Gaiden Z Yaiba,

a fucking title that means nothing to non-Japanese speakers.

Sure.

It means nothing at all.

Sure.

Until you find out that the word yabai means bad.

So it's bad ninja.

Yeah, it does.

It does.

There's yabja it does mean bad yeah ninja guiden but the ninja is bad ah you get oh it's similar to yeah yeah but yeah okay okay yeah there you go right yes

yeah it's a metaphor thank you che it's a metaphor

no it really is just like it's looking at the english language and going how can we have multiple readings on this kanji and it's like but there There are none, Kideo.

All right, well, then I'm going to do it in English in the bluntest, most insane insane way possible.

And we're like, you mean the things we do in like fucking grade three?

Yes, that is what I am doing

because I am a genius.

Did you like it?

I kind of liked it.

Now, listen to me.

Like, a lot of the English characters' names feel like they're deeper than they are when you're talking about it in a non-English language.

Why is he called Die Hardman?

Well, you see, there's a movie called Die Hardman.

I was going to say, it's not because I watched the Bruce Willis movie one time.

Certainly not.

It has something to do with gourds, actually.

Yeah, definitely.

The stick.

The stick and the rope.

I can't fucking wait.

You combine a stick and a rope, and you know what you get?

A harpoon.

And you know what you use to kill harpoons with?

Ocean animals.

And

the thing is, last time you were still, if you, amongst all that bullshit, you were still just saving the world from nuclear apocalypse while fucking defeating robots and fighting cool dudes with superpowers.

And now you're just fucking trucking.

Yeah.

You're trucking

and parcel delivery.

We're trucking out here with ghosts.

Like Death Stranding is a Dracula Flow

parable, like stanza.

You would think the gameplay would be the most complex, insane action narrative thing ever.

And it's just nah, ropes, ziplines.

Nah, dude,

because human connection persists throughout even the most bizarre and outlandish of circumstance.

And people are always going to need diapers and iPods.

So you got to get out there and truck it till there ain't no more ghosts.

Also, I would say that like getting through those games, getting through Death Stranding, like the horror, at first, we kind of, the whole thing felt very horror, right?

Because you're like, the invisible fucking Satan zombies are going to grab me and float me into the sky.

I better kill myself before they take me, right?

That's proper horror.

And like now you're like, oh, we know the rules.

By the end of Death Stranding, the ghosts that are auto-kill nightmare ghosts from beyond the pale are like constr, like a construction up ahead sign.

So, like they're they're like they're banal, exactly, you know, and so I think we just have to keep everything as weird as possible

because, like, when the scary is not there anymore, the weird is still like you're still reacting to it as opposed to having no reaction at all, you know.

If this played off of more like scary threatening

Invisighosts that we are not afraid of anymore, it wouldn't have the same hit as like

what the fuck is is

Gitaru man doing over here?

What is what you know?

Like, I feel I feel like he has to keep it weird to keep us reacting to it.

Bro, Death Stranding has like a really special place in my heart because

it's one of the only games Kojima put out in which like one of the parts of the core themes is was like disproven within months of the game's release.

Because scientists were actually like, actually, there was a bonus extinction.

There was another one.

And so like that, but then,

but deeper than that is like, I

completely

disagreed with the game's core theme to the point where I got like soft locked during one of the game's final encounters.

I feel like Kojima is almost the ultimate example of like the belief that art is anything that elicits a reaction in you.

Yeah.

it's the ultimate version of that oh absolutely you have to feel some things anything i'm feeling confusion good art yes amazing

is that confusion

scary do you feel like a rope or a stick what dude

good good good good good

Like, oh, yeah, no, yeah.

You're fucking zoned right in on it.

You know, like, where other people are waiting and love it when their audience goes, fuck yeah.

Hideo loves when you go, what?

He gets off.

But I, but I get it.

He gets off.

He gets off on people going, what?

I thought I deactivated it.

Loves it.

Loves that response.

Ah, God.

All right.

Death Stranding 2 on the beach.

Beach full of Sandy.

Hey, before we move on, I'm actually going to take another bathroom break.

That's all right.

Beach full of sandy.

That all aside,

yeah, state of play

had a number of announcements

as well.

And

there's a lot.

We can point out the things that are not.

I don't remember anything.

I don't remember anything.

That's weird.

Soul Reaver Remaster.

I actually like that.

Yeah, we touched on that.

Ghost of Yotay.

Oh, you mean Ghost of Woke?

Ghost of woke ass shit ruining video games?

Pretty cool.

I'm curious about...

I like that we're jumping forward in time.

300 years.

Different location.

We'll see what's going on.

New stuff.

I liked it.

That's cool.

Do we have to do this every time?

Is this forever?

So, this is this might be forever.

I kind of hate that this is forever now.

It fucking sucks that it's just forever.

I don't know.

I don't have the wherewithal, man.

Okay, so

I brought this up very, very briefly right before the podcast.

And Willie just said basically what he just said right now.

And I was like, but no, not actually,

because this nonsense is actually starting to already cannibalize itself.

And to me, there is a before and after in the ongoing wokeification and ruination of all video games.

And that is

Space Marine 2 hitting the too woke Steam Curator list.

That is the turning point where

it is now like.

There's no criteria anything could ever meet that would make these people happy.

So, Wooly, you haven't played Space Marine and you're not super familiar with 40K.

40K

is like fascist jerk-off propaganda for the God Emperor of Mankind.

God Emperor of Mankind, yeah.

It is, it is,

it is so over the top that, like, cleanse the hair.

Did you watch 40K painting videos?

Hope your recommendations don't fill up with great replacement theory,

like, tutorials.

Cleanse the heretics, you know, for the glory of mankind.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Right.

And so it's like,

this,

we're like maybe a year away from every single game to ever release going on these types of lists.

We're never going to go back.

It's never going to go back.

And like these people are just gonna get angrier and angrier and angrier and angrier as the world ceases to like cater to them.

Yeah,

I guess.

I don't know.

How big are those Russian paychecks, man?

What's going on?

And the part that gets really funny

is that I don't even want to use their name because I don't want to invoke their power.

But one of the worst people about this nonsense

actually really likes Ghost of Shushima and wants to play Ghost of Yotay,

but the monster they have created

does not allow them to be excited for Ghost of Yote.

Yeah.

Because their social media presence is filled with people going, no, no, this thing's everything's wrong.

And they're like, well, it actually is kind of cool, though.

And And they're like, no.

And it's like, you created this for yourself.

You've narrowed it down so tight

that nothing

fits in the definition.

You know, I mean, like, I guess you get to watch the, the,

you get to watch them keep that same energy on release and or or play it angrily while frowning.

I think.

Play it while nodding your head.

I think we are on the cusp

of these guys

playing woke games in the closet

because the gameplay is sick.

And like, and like

someone mentioning the main character's name or a detail of the story of Ghost of Yotay, and people are like, How do you know that?

You play those woke games.

Closet, closet, woke is wild.

Oh,

man.

Yeah.

And then, and then, like, let's all just stand, let's just all sit here and like hug ourselves and feel the warmth of the countdown to a comment either on this clip that you're going to put up or the podcast itself or a quote tweet of the podcast going, why can't we just go back to the good old days of non-political video games like Metal Gear Solid?

Non-non-political.

And just, just, just fucking all that warmth, that fucking that heat bubbling up in your chest.

You know, I like these Rage Against the Machine guys should really just stick to the music.

You know?

Those are the two, right?

Those are like the funniest ones.

Or like, or like a system of the down is the other one.

System of the down, yeah.

It's just

right.

Yeah.

It's just it's just this like

it's this increasingly narrow worldview, and it's like

it's never gonna go back.

And also, it wasn't even how it was.

It's just it's just the first thing before I even knew the game existed was, you know, Ghost of Wokete or whatever.

And I was like, oh, oh, they announced this.

It's fucking hilarious.

They announced the Tsushima sequel, did they?

That's cool, I guess.

What's the issue this time?

You know?

Oh,

man.

Yeah.

It's also doing that thing where the misogyny is getting so intense that it's coming off like incredibly gay.

Oh, gross women.

We just need games for men with men in them doing man stuff.

Ah,

ah.

I see.

I see.

Yeah.

I mean,

the part that is always, though, in the back of my brain is that little thing that it's like, okay, but also if I say the dumbest shit now, I can make some money on it, right?

Like, there's well, that's the trick, right?

There's the direct incentive to say the dumbest shit.

So, like, if you were to go to jail now for some kind of crime, like some kind of like drug-related or horrible sex scandal, you could just say hey listen man actually

it was the secret shadow government that was out to get me because i'm too fucking based

you want some fucking nutrients and vitamin pills they were trying to stop me

yeah yeah

yeah

well anyway um

hey there's a ghost of tsushima sequel cool it's called ghost of yotte which uh first off off, great naming convention.

That's going to go a while.

Good job.

Takes place in

Hokkaido 300 years later.

And it takes place in a time period in which that part of Japan wasn't Japan.

Yep.

It was just the wilderness up north.

Yeah, and I think too, like, we've been getting inundated with samurai games, you know.

But I feel...

Well, there's actually, we're being inundated with one less samurai game in the near future.

Oh, you have the Assassin's Creed shit on the docket?

No, what happened?

Oh, Assassin's Creed Shadow canceled its TGS appointments and its show and is being delayed out to the end of February.

Oh,

I missed that.

I see.

So they waited 17 years so that they could release in the year of the sequel to their competitor.

And fucking...

And Team Ninja wasn't too long ago either.

Yeah, no.

They had a 17-year head start only for them to be sprinting past compliance failure to third place.

I mean, it's, yeah,

like,

they actually got there, I suppose, but it's just surprising that they even did bother.

The

what was I saying?

Oh, yeah.

So we are being inundated with samurai games, but the ghosts, I guess, thing is just the fucking, just, do you want to ride a horse through a flower field?

Dude.

Do you want to just have the wind at your back and like let that?

I want the wind at my back.

Yeah.

That's the, that's, that's, that's, this one.

That's what I want.

That's what this one is about.

Yeah.

And that's clearly the, they know that that's what I'm doing.

You know what else i want i want mount fuji in the fucking distance i want to see mount fuji there so that but didn't they so they said mount it in in the description hold on because they said it wasn't mount fuji but i'm like but that's whatever it's a big mountain i don't give a shit yeah big mountain i always live there i was like it's we're looking at a mountain that's not mount fuji it's mount yote you know oh whatever give me that give me that yote mountain as a as a herd tree i didn't yeah i didn't know that there was an yeah exactly that you could that hope i'm not i didn't know that japan had more than one mountain I'm sorry, and it's snow-capped and everything in the same kind of way.

And yes, it is basically an urchery, but yeah.

Um,

that is uh

Mount Woke.

Why is that mountain so fucking woke, bro?

Oh man, it's always fun to like see the exact like needle just pow.

I've described, I think I talked about how like I remember breaking it down to Min one time in conversation where it was just like, it's really simple.

You take one thing and then you take another thing that has nothing to do with that thing, but it has a vague link to it.

And then the link itself is not funny.

It's the thing that comes next to both of those things and linking these two.

That's the gold.

It's not layer one.

It's the second layer.

Right?

Yeah.

It's the mountain itself being called.

See?

That's funny.

See?

You do like that.

All right.

It is worth it.

It is pretty good.

It is pretty good, I have to say.

Anyway.

All right.

So yeah.

Not much to say besides, looks pretty, that's it, it's coming.

I bet that game will be hot.

You can't guns exist now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And

well, I mean, literally any weapons that were invented from the year 12,000 to 1600.

Which is a bunch.

Definitely.

And then, yeah, a couple other things.

They showed,

what was it?

Fear of the spotlight.

That looked pretty cool.

Looked interesting.

Kind of had a.

I was like,

kind of similar art style choices to

Crow Country,

a little bit, but like, yeah, just third-person angle on it.

But yeah, it seemed like an interesting survival horror concept going on there.

Dynasty Warriors Origins, which is like part tactical game.

Sure.

Apparently.

You know what?

Sure.

Dynasty Warriors,

another one.

Yeah.

Free DLC for Astro bot.

That's cool.

Dragon Age, the Vailguard.

So I want to hear something funny about Dragon Age, Velgard, Woolly?

So I took a quick look at that trailer and I saw it was like a big dragon fight.

And

I was like, oh,

that's way more action-y than I thought Fantasy Mass Effect would look.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That makes sense for the context.

I think it was funny that when I was talking about that trailer, I was like, I remember in Dragon Age Origins where if you fought a dragon, it was like an apocalyptic nightmare.

And there's too many dragons in these new games.

And then,

as I said that, a second dragon showed up in that fight, in that trailer.

And I'm like, yeah, it's too many dragons.

That game comes out on October 31st, comes out on Halloween.

Which is the same day the Horizon Zero Dawn Remaster comes out.

I

heard.

I saw that.

I saw that.

That it was like, yeah, the Horizon curse continues.

But my only thing this time around is like, well, hold on a minute.

That's not Elden Ring.

You know what I mean?

Like, that's...

Yeah, but it's also just a remaster.

Okay, but like, is

Dragon Age

like

that?

I mean, the impact of what Horizon fought, this is probably the most handleable of those bad decisions.

No, it's a remaster, man.

It's a re-release.

It's It's a re-release going up against what might be BioWear's first good game in like 30 years.

Okay, that was...

See,

there's an embellishment.

Okay,

I think I didn't fully know what the bit was.

I thought the bit was: every time Horizon comes out, it gets dropped on the same day as some monster of a game.

Yeah, no, that is correct.

Dragon Age is a monster compared to regular,

regular

Horizon, let alone a remaster.

Okay, okay.

Like, despite the fact, okay, despite the fact that neither of these games have had any cultural impact at all,

Dragon Age has actually sold a really crazy amount of copies.

And

is

there

big excitement for this one?

Because Because I thought it seems.

Everything feels very tentative.

Okay.

Everything feels low expectation, high hopes.

I don't.

I'm like, vibe check into the ether right now doesn't seem to be big excitement for a cool new Dragon Age game coming that will look like the best parts of the ones they reverse.

I think there is a huge, huge

spot

for

the first big RPG to come out

after Baldur's Gate 3.

Okay.

And that spot is going to Metaphor.

Out October 11th.

That's next week.

There's a free demo.

Your progress will carry over.

Anyway, what was BioWare's last release?

I literally don't even know.

I don't know.

Scroll, scroll.

It was not not Anthem.

There's no.

Scroll, scroll, scroll.

No way.

Come on, come on, come on.

Dragon Age of the Veil Guard, Mass Effect Legendary Edition, Anthem.

Okay.

Wow.

Oh,

wow.

Yeah.

No,

they need a hit.

They need a hit, bro.

Wow, this is a really good example.

of me and you talking about how games take too long to come out because the things that people care about for bioware are 10 years in the past it was inquisition into shadow realms which then got canceled into andromeda into anthem

when's the last time bioware put out a game that people cared about like like in their chest

like people like inquisition i'm gonna be kind

uh i'm gonna be that was 2014 That's 10 years ago.

That was 2014.

Okay, what about a game that everyone loved?

That was...

Mass Effect 3, 2012?

That was Mass Effect 2

in 2010.

2011.

So the last time BioWare put out a game that was like a fucking slam dunk

was 2010

on the Xbox 360.

Bro, if Dragon Age and Mass Effect 4 don't do like

big numbers, that company is going to die.

So, check immediately underneath,

you know, you get Mass Effect 3 2012, and then you get Warhammer Online, Wrath of Heroes, canceled.

Command and Conquer, Generals 2, cancelled.

Dude, that hurts.

I wanted that.

Inquisition,

and then in 2014, Shadow Realms, canceled 2015, Andromeda 2017, Anthem 2019.

So, boy.

So, I want to point out that Dragon Age Inquisition won Game of the Year, at the Game Awards of the Year came out, and everyone was like, What?

But

more importantly, in an interview with somebody who worked on Inquisition, they described

Inquisition winning Game of the Year as the worst thing that has ever happened to BioWare.

And I don't know if you remember that interview.

No, certainly not.

So Inquisition was the height of what's called BioWare Magic.

To BioWare Magic.

Yep.

AKA.

Where it's all going to come together in the last six months.

And there was a lot of staff on there that were like, oh, thank God, when this bombs, they're finally going to have to change how they run this company.

And then sold 12 million copies at the moment of the year.

Okay, okay.

And then as a result, they described it, this is the worst thing that has ever happened to Bioware because Bioware magic became like deified.

And that's how we got Anthem.

And that's how we got Andromeda.

The Antilarian technique.

Yeah.

Hey, this looks like shit.

Don't worry.

Right when you put that last batch of skull in right at the end,

it's all going to come together.

Kaboom.

Yeah, okay.

Man.

Alright, so because I'm like, that's it.

I was like, what I

just

feel like

the love for the best parts of Dragon Age is not being conveyed in the zeitgeist

for this.

The best parts of Dragon Age is the shittiest thing you could ever show in a trailer or gameplay presentation.

The best parts of Dragon Age are like...

The relationship.

Hey, you seem like a weird fantasy alien.

Do you want to talk about your weird dick?

Yep.

Yeah.

Okay.

Banging everything.

Okay.

Ass Effect will literally never peek harder than talking to that El Core and that Volus in your fucking office.

That was the best.

It was so good.

It was so good.

It primed your brain for a universe of possibilities where the races were all so unique and interesting and so different from anything you had ever seen.

I didn't think you were going to react with breathless agreement.

Oh my god, that room, dude.

It sets your expectations so high.

So high.

They're the most interesting things, man.

And to learn...

Number two for that series is like the three conversations you get to have with Legion.

Everything Legion says in Nass Fact 2 is the most interesting thing in that game.

Well, so, well,

no, I mean,

the Sovereign conversation in one.

Oh, it's very good.

Sovereign in one.

Well, Sovereign's conversation is so good, it kind of ruined that series.

It never delivered again.

It never, never, never, never, never delivered.

It never got back.

It couldn't.

You couldn't possibly.

We've done this.

The unknown, right?

But it's no,

it's the moment that you go.

The reason why the L Corps are so slow is because they have to make decisions about not falling to their death on their planet full of fucking cracks and crevices and that affects their politics and their behavior and also there's an they have to enunciate their fucking emotion it's just so interesting it's i'm like i have never encountered a race like this at all and everything has feels so well thought out in this one conversation that you're like man if this is the universe holy shit and yeah and then they're like they're like bitching and complaining that they're two to an office and that the human delegation that's only been around for 60 years has a bigger office and now that's complete fucking bullshit.

And they're right.

It's total bullshit.

Never again.

Never again.

Man.

When I, you know, like telling people about that game when I had only played the first one, that's like one of the first things I'd bring up about it.

Oh, yeah, dude.

You know, about like, yo, there's this race where, and then you go into the Alcora shit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um

well, anyway, so that, yeah, so that's why I guess that energy or lack thereof is why I was like, oh, well, I guess this time around, the Horizon thing is not as big a deal because it doesn't seem like anyone's particularly looking at this Dragon Age thing like it's going to be, you know, comparable to the other shit at Horizon.

People would be really happy to have a good BioWare game come out.

People would be, I would, I

would be really really

happy to play a good bioware game yeah but I mean isn't that torch passed you know I are we did we not like is is will we will see Baldur's Gate 3 is we will see in 31 days

like it fully as an outsider here feels on dragon age dragon agenda

was not made by people who made the Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, and it was really good.

And Baldur's Gate 3 was not made by the people who made BG 1 and 2, and it was really good.

Someone says, Wooly, I got one more in me.

Okay.

All right.

I understand.

It's been 10 years.

I get it.

I understand the I've got one more in me sentiment.

If this game is any worse than like an eight out of 10, get ready for the

most violent doom and gloom perspective on Mass Effect 4 you've ever seen for anything.

Like, just

legions of people just be like, who even gives a shit?

Just

rolling their eyes, going, whatever, I don't even fucking care anymore.

I hope that the new Mass Effect takes place in The Mess

or Themes.

I think that they're going to show off a Mass Effect 4 trailer, and they're going to be like,

Shepard, I can't believe you survived.

And I'm going to just turn that stream off and walk away from it.

And I'm just going to, I'm just going to just

go lie down, uninstall, uninstall, and lie down.

Like, I cannot conceivably imagine anything that could be more disappointing.

Well, anyway,

good times.

Yo, Hell is Us.

What the fuck was that?

That looks interesting.

It was a trailer with a dude in a raincoat and a sword with lights and weird Kojima-esque visuals.

It was very strand-it was a strand game.

It's a strand souls game.

It was a strand game called Hell is Us.

And I don't know what I was looking at, but it looked very cool.

That's Dark Souls, but it's got a cool aesthetic.

And apparently, the company behind it made some Warhammer games prior.

Some.

Okay.

What's the

the company?

Let's see.

Hell is Us.

Created by

Rogue Factor.

And Rogue Factor developed.

Made

Mordheim City of the Damned.

Necromunda Under Hive Wars.

I was sponsored to play that.

It was fine.

So this is way different from those.

This is very different from those.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

No, just artistic, visually interesting.

We'll see

what it turns out to be.

But it is a streamlined.

This looks like they're attempting to break.

And yeah, some souls-looking things too.

But

eyebrow raised.

Interest peaked.

The Midnight Walk seemed

interesting as well.

Just kind of like a little cute platformer.

Again,

art style design carrying that.

Very much so.

And then, you know, Palworld hit PS5, some VR.

It's really funny to see

Sony being like, we love Pal World while Nintendo's suing them.

Great timing.

Great timing.

A bunch of VR shit.

Who cares?

And

Shredder's Revenge DLC.

Cool.

Mona Lisa and Mondo Gecko.

Yeah, I don't suppose

got that new hot Horizon news.

It's not part of the state of play.

What was it?

Oh, well,

let me pull up

my

information on Horizon.

Let's see.

Guerrilla Games' next project is reportedly the live service Horizon Online project.

with Bloomberg saying Horizon 3 might be a ways off.

Fresh off of Concord.

Hey, man, do you want to play an online live service, maybe MMO of Horizon, everyone's favorite industry plant?

This franchise continues, so it's making money, I'm assuming.

All right,

let's do this.

Let's figure this out.

Horizon sales.

Because the Horizon sales numbers are actually quite high.

It continues to exist.

And like it,

I'm assuming that this thing is somehow just background successful.

I'm just not checking it out.

So, Horizon Zero Dawn

has sold across all SKUs 24 million copies.

Okay.

Which is very significant.

Yes.

What was God of War, for example?

Oh, that's a great question.

Because that would be a nice.

Which one?

God of War 2018?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that'd be a nice one.

God of War 2018 sold 23 million.

Okay.

Okay.

So it's approximately as big as God of War.

The main difference here

is that bundles are being included in this number.

Cheeky sneaky.

Pretty sneaky, sis.

I don't know if you noticed, but there's a lot of bundles that come with Horizon.

As a result, it is impossible to tell.

I know the real numbers.

It's impossible.

Oh, man.

So, I played.

Duck Hunt is one of the most influential games of all time.

So, I played about halfway through Horizon Zero Dawn, and I played a couple hours of Forbidden West.

They're really good, extremely well-made, slick, cool games.

They're not fake.

They're not bad.

They're excellent.

However,

everything in the world has conspired to make them feel fake.

So they always release in the shadow of a game that totally dominates culture for months.

Right?

Like Horizon Zero Dawn got like a week and a half for people to talk about before Breath of the Wild just dominated everyone's social media for a year.

The joke is that it's always your second choice.

Right.

Elden Ring did the exact same thing to Forbidden West.

I played Forbidden West like the week or two before Elden Ring.

It was really solid.

And I went, who cares though?

Elden Ring's coming out across the band.

So they're solid, but like, no, you don't see the cultural, like, Everyone's talking about Horizon because it's an exclusive, but also because something else just absorbs it, right?

So that combined with the bundle thing, nobody knows if this shit is popular or not.

I assume they do fairly well,

but they just make no impact, which is weird because they're in Genshin Impact and they're in Monster Hunter and they're in, like, Aloy's crossed over with a bunch of stuff.

And I also think the, the, giving it the

PC for the original version treatment is like, you do that for games that you think are going to sell well that you can can use to advertise the later one coming out, right?

So

it's

strange.

It's really, really strange.

And

forced franchise.

Everyone's second favorite game does not feel like the kind of thing that is rife for live service monetization.

Forced franchise.

Yeah, well, I mean, hey, man, Chinatown Wars,

Weishen.

That's what you want to play online.

Sleeping dogs, baby.

Yeah.

It's, yeah,

it's weird to hear that that's what they're doing with it.

Because, again, I just,

I didn't know how successful it was until you read those numbers off right now.

But I do keep hearing about it, and it does keep releasing and re-releasing.

So it must be doing that.

You know what we can check?

Horizon

Forbidden West Steam

numbers.

We can check the Steam charts,

which Sony has no fucky wucky control over.

Can you check?

Is there a way to see DLC, for example?

I imagine those numbers are all super hidden, but if you could check something like that, that would be

reality.

The all-time peak for Horizon Forbidden West on Steam

is about 40K

and has an average of about 4k.

And I don't, I realized upon looking this up, I don't know how that compares to other single-player games.

But it's still a PC port.

It's a PC port that's asymmetrically released.

Yeah.

I don't think it's going to be as a determinative.

No, it's got to be on release, you know, for that to actually.

Now, people are so people in the chat who would know better than me.

Oh, you know what?

Let's compare it to Ragnarok.

Ragnarok also just came out.

That'll do it.

Horizon, sorry, God of War, Ragnarok, Steam numbers.

Right?

What's the all-time, what's the all-time peak?

We're God of War Ragnarok.

God of War Ragnarok had approximately a 35,000 player peak.

So it looks like,

and a 24 peak was 22.

Players right now 16.

So it looks like Horizon and God of War are like

approximately the same.

Counterpoint,

it's funny to call Horizon a psyop.

It's it's it's listen.

You wanna you wanna you wanna get

you wanna get deep in the psyop nonsense?

You wanna get in there?

Let's get in there.

All right.

Do you remember when Horizon Zero Dawn?

Sorry, when Horizon, fuck, I hate the naming series of this fucking franchise.

Do you remember when Horizon Forbidden West came out and dudes were like, why Aloy so fucking ugly?

Why does she look like a man?

What if she looked like this and used like the AI WhatsApp filter to fucking yesify her to have like fucking big lipstick and fucking mascara and eyeshadow?

You remember that photo?

Yeah, version two of what they did for Mirror's Edge.

Okay, I remember that shit.

Let me give you

a shit.

Alloy got the faith treatment.

Right.

So, and everyone was like, that's ridiculous.

That's stupid.

Well,

sir,

they've released a comparison of Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Zero Dawn's remastered.

What?

Whoa.

And it looks like this.

Oh,

they literally fucking caved it.

They put the makeup on.

They fucking Yassified her.

They put it on.

Ah, damn.

They actually did it, huh?

Okay.

They actually did it.

That fucking did it.

That's pretty funny.

And then there's like, because I mean, there's things I don't know.

I'm like, why did Peter change, for example, right?

I don't know what that was about.

I don't know if that was ever explained.

You know exactly what it was about.

It's so he could look like Tom Holland.

Is that it?

That's literally it.

Oh,

okay.

All right.

But it's not exactly, though.

But it's close enough.

So people don't feel confused that the character is Spider-Man compared to the Spider-Man on the TV.

Oh, man.

God damn.

Okay.

And then here they actually went and did the fucking...

Oh,

that's great.

That's great.

I like that.

Yeah, no, Horizon is like, it's the Killzone devs.

Like, they do good stuff.

And, like, those games are really well made.

I really enjoyed the time I had with Horizon that I stopped playing the day that Breath of the Wild came out.

And I really enjoyed my time with Forbidden West until the day Elden Ring came out.

Yeah.

Like, that's just how it is.

Okay, well,

Horizon gas then.

Horizon gas.

See, the gas thing is different because people who play gas games are already playing their gas game of choice.

Possibly a free gas game of choice.

Yes.

Probably.

So, like,

I think it's really brave that Guerrilla felt like confident enough to announce

World of Warcraft 2

coming out in a couple of years

as the thing that will drop on top of their game the day of release,

can anything that's live service and not free survive at all?

Absolutely.

There are two that can: World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy.

And those games still have giant free trials that get you in for free for a while until you eventually have to pay.

They will put the hook in for free.

To the point where, in my brain, they're not free games, but they kind of

are because you get to spend so much time.

Depending how fast you play those games, you could totally get into a situation in which you'd never catch up.

Yeah, true Destiny, Destiny, Destiny 2, and

stuff was like a

one of those.

That's true.

That's true.

Okay.

Let's take some letters.

Hey, if you want to send in a letter, send it to castlesuperbeastmail at gmail.com.

That's castlesuperbeastmail at gmail.com.

But hold on a second.

Make sure your letters aren't too woke, or we may not read them.

Oh, boy.

You make sure that letter is based.

If you fucking send in woke mail, bro, like, I don't even see it.

He can't even see it.

It's gone.

Yeah, I know.

The Yakuza Like a Dragon trailer came out on Athlex.

It doesn't look very good.

I saw that.

Didn't have time to look at it, but it looks fine, it looks okay.

Alright,

we got one coming in over here from James who says, Hello, Castle Super Beast Mail.

Back when Blizzard made good games and their standards were it's released when it's ready, copies of their games came with what were called spawn versions.

I remember this.

There were versions of the game with less features that didn't require a CD key to run for the purpose of allowing owners to play multiplayer with their friends without copies.

I recall a few games for the portable Nintendo consoles that allowed a similar feature.

Certain GBA games let multiplayer with a single cartridge as long as you connected the link cables, and Nintendo games had an install that you could put on other DSs via Wi-Fi to play multiplayer.

Any other examples of this type of design that you recall?

I doubt that modern companies will practice this kind of permitting multiplayer with only a single copy, but do you think it should continue or become a more common or recent thing with current games?

So the only thing I can think of in modern context, because those are all great examples and I remember all of those.

I did all of those with my friends.

I had the DS copies that you would send via, you know, the, the, um, that to install for like multiplayer and the spawn keys on StarCraft and shit.

We did all of that.

When Steam had the buddy bundles, where you'd buy one game, but you'd get a second version that you could do.

There's a very rare type of Steam game that does that.

So it takes two and a way out.

Yeah.

And Frozen Synapse all come as double copies.

Those are great.

And those are the only things I can think of in a modern context that are willing to do that with you.

I don't know that there's anything else that would.

I mean, the family system is like a platform, you know, kind of thing.

It's cool.

I like the family account system.

It's good.

Yeah.

But something that's more along the lines of I'm encouraging you to get a friend and give them like a way to play with you this thing.

That's kind of gone by the wayside.

Yeah, that's gone by the wayside because instead it's like the game itself is free, but all the features that you would actually care about are paid

right yeah chatbox does always have that grab your phone and play thing to it there is that element i suppose but um i think it's um interesting that the the

most famous example of this business practice was not mentioned in the email which is doom

doom's shareware knee deep in the dead the first full episode of doom was fucking free It was just out and about, around,

came in on demo discs.

You could just get it.

And then at the end of Knee Deep in the Dead, it's like, dude, did you think this was cool?

Fucking send a letter

to us at id Software, and we'll send you the fucking rest of the two episodes in the mail.

Shareware.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Just give it to your friends.

It's a demo.

Go do whatever.

Spread it around.

I'm like, Doom got to do it because when you played Doom, and if you played Doom in 1993, was it 93?

You were just like,

oh my fucking God,

this is the fucking future.

There's never been anything like this.

Yeah, I'll mail a fucking check to some company to get two more episodes of this.

I might be misremembering, but I think like Advance Wars on the original GBA

had the,

you know, I think it had link cable,

like a download to your, like, like soft version of the game, but it also, of course, had just turn-based, like, pass it around, right?

So I believe you could play either or in that.

Yeah, man, that show was awesome.

People in the chat are pointing out that Deltarune is actually doing the shareware

thing.

First version of the game.

Episodes one and two have been completely free.

But the next batch of episodes are going to be paid.

Damn.

Copy it onto Halloween.

Also, people are saying it might release on Halloween.

Please don't.

Please don't.

Willie, you don't understand.

In my skeleton-based household, life is over when Deltarune comes out.

I see.

I see.

Okay.

You don't.

You don't understand.

I feel like

so far each chapter has been like a decent afternoon, though.

They're not that hard to, you know.

Yeah, except chapter two was significantly longer than chapter one, which means chapter three will be significantly longer than chapter two, and chapter four will be significantly longer, etc.

Think of Phoenix Wright

as a decent example.

Dylan from Gacha Hell says, hey, Pat and Woolley, a few weeks ago, Honkai Star Rail released version 2.5, and they came out with a powerful new character called Fexiao.

Fei Shao.

That's probably how you pronounce that.

I'm going to go with Fei Shao.

After a few days of theory crafting, people have concluded that the best team composes of Fei Shao, Aventurine,

Robin, and Topaz.

Now popularly known as the F-A-R-T team.

People are upset that their new waifu is being regarded as the fart queen.

This rules.

I didn't know where this was going.

This rules.

No real question.

Just wanted to give you this knowledge.

You know what?

Thanks.

Thanks.

That's awesome.

It reminds me of people who get super mad when you call Shadow Heart shart.

Shart.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like just super mad.

Hey, man, Farts Meta.

What are you going to do?

Fart queen meta.

What are you going to do?

We're in the fart meta now.