Game and Tell: Super Mario RPG with Django Gold

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Speaker 3 Okay, Matt.

Speaker 3 If we go into this labyrinth and retrieve the chalice of destiny, we can save our kingdom. All right, Nick, I'm ready.
I have my equipment. I have my items.

Speaker 3 Let's make it happen. Holla Miz.

Speaker 3 We're just up against such incredible odds. And with just the two of us, we really could use a third party member for this quest.

Speaker 3 I don't, you know, I think we can do anything together, but it'd be a lot easier if we had just one more person.

Speaker 2 Well, wait, well, hey, guys.

Speaker 2 I see that you want into this labyrinth.

Speaker 3 Ah, it's a monster. Ready, your attacks.

Speaker 2 Yeah, ready your attacks.

Speaker 2 Or we could join forces,

Speaker 2 and I could be on your team when we get this challenge of destiny.

Speaker 2 What say you, boys?

Speaker 3 All right, let's squat up. Welcome to the party.

Speaker 2 Wait, hold on, Nick, hold on.

Speaker 2 Tank, this guy is clearly evil.

Speaker 3 He's on our nah. This is great.
This is, we need, we were just saying we need a third.

Speaker 2 This is exactly what we need. Man, what's wrong with you? Are we sure Matt's not a

Speaker 2 bad guy?

Speaker 3 You think I'm a bad guy?

Speaker 3 Matt's not a bad guy. He's my friend.

Speaker 3 Thank you. Yeah, I'm not a bad guy.
I'm just, you know, you're sort of, you came out of the shadows. You sort of, you know, appeared out of.

Speaker 2 Where I live, I live in the realm of darkness.

Speaker 3 And it's just, you know, usually RPG party members, you know, we're sort of all kind of on the same page. We're all, you know, sort of happy, the lucky, positive.

Speaker 2 There's precedent. There's precedent.

Speaker 3 There's precedent.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 2 In Super Mario RPG,

Speaker 2 you have Bowser in the party. I believe that

Speaker 2 Sapphiros joins up for a

Speaker 2 short period of time in Final Fantasy VII.

Speaker 2 So I

Speaker 2 befold though.

Speaker 3 It's cool that in our reality, video game systems and

Speaker 3 RPGs exist and we played them and know about them.

Speaker 2 It is cool.

Speaker 3 Just makes it makes for an first of all, it's cool because it's fun to play.

Speaker 3 And second of all, it makes this discussion easier because we know we have like a shared understanding of what we're talking about. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So this is great. Yeah, I totally.

Speaker 2 I have to say, I was a PlayStation monster myself.

Speaker 2 What were you guys? Where were you? Who were your mains?

Speaker 3 We actually had, like, my dad was really cheap, so we had a PC engine, which was released as the Triple Graphic 16 in North America. Yeah, yeah.
But, like, he got it as a discount at Sears. Sears?

Speaker 3 He worked there.

Speaker 2 So, like...

Speaker 2 Wait, which Sears? Which Sears to do Destiny? You know,

Speaker 3 the Sears on Brockton. Again, it's great all this stuff exists in our world where we're going to the labyrinth to find the Chalice of Destiny.

Speaker 2 I'm on your side. We have a

Speaker 2 He was a branch manager. We would have been friends in another time, I think.

Speaker 2 Isn't that weird?

Speaker 3 Isn't that wild how that works?

Speaker 2 Yeah. Maybe we could

Speaker 2 maybe we could unequip Matt in the party.

Speaker 3 You're gonna take me out of the party.

Speaker 2 You and I.

Speaker 3 We can't boot Matt. He's my friend.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 I'm really sorry. I'm out of breath.
I ran up a lot of stuff. Oh, so you sound like that because you're just tired.

Speaker 3 I thought that was your normal voice.

Speaker 2 I live 40 floors below this

Speaker 2 40 floors below this place.

Speaker 2 Well, that's low.

Speaker 2 You live

Speaker 2 below the labyrinth.

Speaker 3 We traveled from another a different realm. That's like way farther than the 40 floors.
But like we, you know, we rode like where tigers over here, so.

Speaker 2 I'm giving myself a headache

Speaker 2 doing this.

Speaker 3 Doing this? Like, being alive?

Speaker 3 You just want to not do this?

Speaker 3 Yeah, let's just not do this.

Speaker 3 Okay, fuck the chalice then. I'm out of here.

Speaker 2 Get these were tigers. I'm going back home.

Speaker 3 Yeah, let's go. Let's hit up that Sears.
Let's go see your dad.

Speaker 2 I remain the undefeated boss of the labyrinth.

Speaker 3 We party up with Bowser and throw down with Boyer as we discuss the beloved and soon-to-be-remade Super Mario RPG this week on Get Played.

Speaker 4 Welcome to Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between. It's time to get played.
I'm your host, Heather Ann Campbell, along with my fellow host, Nick Weiger.

Speaker 3 That's me, Nick Weiger, and I'm here with our third host, Matt Apodaka. Hello, everyone.

Speaker 4 Hello, everyone, and welcome back, Bucket.

Speaker 2 Whoa.

Speaker 2 I had to do it. It's back.

Speaker 3 The Long Norman Tetch Race has returned.

Speaker 4 I was on the street in Amsterdam the other day, and somebody rode by on a bike and shouted it at me. And I was like, holy shit, I gotta, I gotta bring it back.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 4 Also, that story seems fucking fake, but it was a thing that happened.

Speaker 2 Fake news.

Speaker 3 Yeah, you get three Pinocchios from PolitiFact.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God. Okay.

Speaker 4 Well, boys.

Speaker 3 It's a, here's the thing. I'll be seeing this on Snopes.

Speaker 3 Here's the thing about a catchphrase is that

Speaker 3 it can become something of an albatross. So just be wary of deploying it too

Speaker 3 readily.

Speaker 3 What do you mean, Nick? How do you have any experience with that in particular?

Speaker 4 I don't think wow counts as a catchphrase. I think it's just a thing you say.

Speaker 3 Hey, man, Trump said it in his latest press release. So

Speaker 2 the world is listening.

Speaker 2 The world is listening.

Speaker 3 His press release opened with Wow All Caps exclamation point.

Speaker 3 He was president for four years.

Speaker 3 Good times. I'm surprised he never

Speaker 3 got like a motherfucker out there.

Speaker 2 Like

Speaker 3 when he was like

Speaker 3 addressing the nation, like, what's up, motherfuckers?

Speaker 2 How is that possible?

Speaker 4 Look, this isn't a political podcast. And so our comments, I mean,

Speaker 4 everything is politics. So by that, I don't mean, we're not apolitical because that's political.

Speaker 2 Right. But

Speaker 4 this isn't a show where we talk about politics. We talk about three things.
We talk about

Speaker 2 Rise of Skywalker.

Speaker 4 That's right. We talk about video games.

Speaker 2 Oh, let me just add

Speaker 2 questions for our guests.

Speaker 3 Sorry.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 And we talk about Hideo Kojima. And that's about all we do.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's correct.

Speaker 3 Hey, we have a guest today,

Speaker 3 a writer and comedian. His new stand-up special, Bag of Tricks, is coming this fall to YouTube.
Django Gold is here. Hi, Django.

Speaker 2 Hey, everyone. Hi, gamers.

Speaker 2 Wow. Wow.
Hi, gamers. Addressing the nation of gamers.

Speaker 2 This is me, Django.

Speaker 4 We're recording over Zoom. And the first question I have for you is, you have a map in the background, and I love maps.

Speaker 2 What is this map? This is Vietnam pre-U.S. involvement in the U.S.
war. Wow.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 4 Not a political podcast.

Speaker 2 Not a political podcast. No, no, no.

Speaker 2 It's truly an apolitical fascination with the country, not even the history of that, just the country itself.

Speaker 2 I used to be a big Vietnam guy, and I ordered that on Etsy, and I foolishly didn't realize it was pre-U.S. involvement, making it almost worthless for my interests.
So it's all about, yeah.

Speaker 3 Django, I want to ask you, because this is a video game podcast, and

Speaker 3 are you someone who has, because I know you were a big video game fan when you were younger. I know some of the games we talked about

Speaker 3 leading up to this record

Speaker 3 are from your youth. Are you someone who still plays video games, or is that more of a a lapsed hobby for you?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I'd say I'm what you would call like an intermittent gamer

Speaker 2 where half of the time I'm not playing any games and half the time I'm like devoutly, really into a game such that it starts like affecting my sleep and health.

Speaker 2 Right, yes.

Speaker 2 Like when the Resident Evil 4 reboot came out a couple months ago,

Speaker 2 there was like a week and a half where I was doing nothing except playing that, like staying up to like 4 a.m., waking up, like going through the motions of like today will be a normal day.

Speaker 2 Oh, I will wash the dishes for 30 minutes, and I will eat a delicious breakfast, and then like play Resident Evil for like 12 hours straight.

Speaker 2 So I have like this addicts, addicts mindset where like, you know, it's like binges and purge sections, but when I'm gaming, baby, ooh, it's binge season.

Speaker 3 Talking about RE4, did you play it on the GameCube, I assume, or on PS2 back in the day?

Speaker 2 No, I actually only played it on the PS4 like three years years ago when

Speaker 2 it got like kind of a crappy port PS4, but still very, very, very fun. And then the Rebo is obviously fantastic.

Speaker 3 So like, what are your, what are some of your favorite, and I know we're going to talk about a game that's important to you in a little bit, but I'm curious, like, what are some of your favorite

Speaker 3 video game, either individual titles or franchises?

Speaker 2 I got to say, like, as the pandemic... was it was really getting to the heart, I played most of the Resident Evil games and they really

Speaker 2 did it for me.

Speaker 2 I I think they're just really fun. Yeah.
It's kind of dumb, but like the puzzles are so easy.

Speaker 2 Because they're like designed.

Speaker 3 I love an RE puzzle. I love it.

Speaker 2 It's like find the red, you know, the red key and put it in the red slot. And like, I would like solve the puzzle.
And I'd be like, I did it. I solved the puzzle designed for a child

Speaker 2 to do in 1998.

Speaker 2 It's like so dumb. Like, find the wolf key and put it in the wolf medallion.
Like, yep, what can I say? I guess I have a gift.

Speaker 2 Solve this cipher. And it's like, C T A.
Hmm, these letters are out of order. Yeah, I got it.

Speaker 2 They really make it so easy. And yet, like,

Speaker 2 these games, like, they really, like, they are perfectly designed to tap into whatever endorphins you want. So I would genuinely feel like accomplishment.
Like, by God, I've done it.

Speaker 2 Maybe I'm not such a failure after all.

Speaker 3 I want to, like, that also points to something which I think is,

Speaker 3 those have value in those games.

Speaker 3 And I think in games in general, I know Heather like kind of loathes shitty puzzles, but I think they're so important for just like pacing and just sort of like breaking up the action.

Speaker 3 Like, I'd rather have a good puzzle, but sometimes it's just like just an unending string of combat in a, in a game that's got a narrative.

Speaker 2 Uh-oh.

Speaker 3 Oh, here, Heather's, Heather's vigorously shaking her head.

Speaker 4 I've been thinking about this this week specifically because of our We Play You Play of Final Fantasy 16. Yeah, and I think my

Speaker 4 ultimate design of a video game would be that the first

Speaker 4 encounter you have with a creature

Speaker 4 would be the combat that you did for 60 hours and you both scaled in power and learned new moves, but it was just one encounter and you didn't have to do anything else in the game.

Speaker 2 It's one fight. Yeah.

Speaker 3 You're fighting the same enemy repeatedly?

Speaker 4 Just no, you never stop.

Speaker 3 You never stop. It's one ongoing fight.

Speaker 4 One ongoing fight where you're both powering up and learning new abilities.

Speaker 2 Oh, I see.

Speaker 4 And like, maybe there's like a flash on the screen in the corner that's like, now you can press X and triangle in order to unleash your fury.

Speaker 4 Yeah. And like, but

Speaker 4 it is a non-stop combat for 60 hours against one enemy who maybe gets bigger, fancier.

Speaker 2 That's a cool idea. But no fucking thing.
No fancier.

Speaker 4 No fucking anything.

Speaker 2 Just one guy.

Speaker 4 And it's, it's you could call it the last fight.

Speaker 3 You want to play Gandalf versus the Balrog, and just stars are wheeling overhead, and every day is as long as the age of an earth while you're just engaged in combat with this

Speaker 2 undefeatable foe. I kind of like that.

Speaker 2 It can be like combat, but also, you know, the two of you might do a quick little puzzle battle at one point.

Speaker 3 See, no, I like that pitch.

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 2 At one point, oh, God, there's three keys.

Speaker 3 Now, so I'm someone who can run into one of these Resident Evil 4 puzzles and be like,

Speaker 2 all right, so what do they want me to do here? What's going on?

Speaker 2 Why do they make it so impossible? Yeah.

Speaker 2 You need to have 160 IQ to play this game. No, there are no crystals like this.

Speaker 3 Hexagon and this other crystal shaped like a triangle where it is supposed to go.

Speaker 3 A baby's play set is is what these rules are.

Speaker 2 It's the equivalent of moving the thing along the set track to the other end of it.

Speaker 3 I have that, and then a wall of red yarn just being like, What does it mean?

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's like object permanence.

Speaker 3 So, so you mentioned you're kind of a feast or famine in terms of your gaming habits.

Speaker 3 Yeah, did that like you know, I imagine, and especially I think you've been in New York this whole time, you know, super affected by the COVID pandemic lockdown when that happened.

Speaker 3 That's when a lot of people, like, I feel like got really, really into video games.

Speaker 3 Did that affect your habits at all?

Speaker 2 It was true. Like, like, like March 14th or something was when I saw the writing on the wall.
The first thing I did is I went on Craigslist. I got this used PS4.

Speaker 2 I was like, you know, this, this is the time to do it. Yeah.
I think the first thing I got, I believe, was Death Stranding, which had just come out. Wow.

Speaker 2 Hell yeah.

Speaker 3 That is an alpha move.

Speaker 2 That rock. Yeah.
Just like immediately started hauling crates

Speaker 2 along a gray landscape. Like, yeah, the pandemic's not so bad after all.

Speaker 2 I'm essentially a gig economy worker. Yes.
That was my escapism was

Speaker 2 delivering shit. Yeah.
So it was that, and then the RE4 games and Last of Us Part 2 came out sometime around that time. So that was like a pretty solid patch

Speaker 2 of gaming.

Speaker 3 And I'm not sure where it goes in

Speaker 3 your hierarchy of fandom, but we here on this podcast, like Death Stranding is a game we all like love and gush about repeatedly. I mean, did you find yourself connecting with it?

Speaker 2 I enjoyed it a lot. I mean, I thought it was just so weird.
And, like,

Speaker 2 one of my pet peeves in games is when they have a lot of dialogue or lore that you kind of have to, like, I would always, like, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh.

Speaker 2 So, unfortunately, that was one of those games where they're just like jam-packing you with that, which, you know, it's not my favorite thing in the world, but I just I like the mechanics of it.

Speaker 2 It's like so dumb how, like, you would get better at balancing so you can carry more gear.

Speaker 2 Like, it's like crazy, like, such a strange reward system where, like, instead of upgrading your weapons, you're becoming like better at walking.

Speaker 2 Oh, this slope isn't a problem for me anymore. You know, like, it's just like so crazy, like, how it just kind of allows you to reset your expectations.
But yeah, I thought it was great.

Speaker 2 It's like so creepy and like sad, you know, all the things you want, yeah. To be sad, be alone delivering boxes.

Speaker 3 And, like, a strange game for the times, too.

Speaker 3 Like, I felt like playing that and then playing The Last Last of Us Part 2 when it came out had a certain punch, you know, like just like in public when you'd go on your daily sanity walk and be like, oh, like that person's not wearing a mask.

Speaker 3 I better go over there. They're gonna, they're, they're a clicker.
I gotta get out of there.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 4 I feel like Death Stranding was like such an accurate, and we've talked about this before, an accurate like dilution of the loneliness of COVID.

Speaker 4 The surprising side effect of Last of Us Part 2 coming out when it did was I envied the crowd scenes. I was like, oh man, there are all those people just hanging out.

Speaker 2 Camel Crossing.

Speaker 4 I'd be like, hey, my friend's coming over. That's not going to happen.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 I mean, like, whatever. Maybe we would have figured out how to fit whatever game that came out at the time into the narrative of like this speaks to our reality.

Speaker 2 But there is some

Speaker 2 life in Mortal Kombat of sorts.

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Speaker 3 um okay so django you mentioned something about like a like a deluge of dialogue and like a lot of lore and stuff in in in games um

Speaker 3 but i also know that that that there there's a there's another type of game that you mentioned uh which is lucasart's adventure games and those are ones that kind of like live in a lot of like dialogue and and story and stuff and and and puzzle solving uh but you like uh those games as well

Speaker 3 What works about those games for you? And what are some of your favorites?

Speaker 2 I mean, I think that was actually, that might have been my first real exposure to gaming was that in like whatever

Speaker 2 grade I was in, we had a PC in the classroom that we had like

Speaker 2 the Secret of Monkey Island uploaded to on 3.5 discs or whatever. So I think that might have been the first one.
And I think as a kid, they were just funny and kind of quirky.

Speaker 2 And the dialogue for that wasn't that bad because it was interspersed with jokes, you know? So

Speaker 2 that makes it like a little like

Speaker 2 a little more, like I can latch onto it a little more as opposed to like something where it's just like blocks and blocks of text without any real interruption.

Speaker 2 I started feeling a little silly seeing a character somberly explain the history of their world or all that.

Speaker 2 But Monkey Island, Sam and Max, all that stuff was just kind of fun and zany in a way that appealed to me as a kid, I guess.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I love Sam and Max Hit the Road. I never really messed around with the Telltale Salmon Max's.

Speaker 2 I'm not sure if you got around to those. Is that the newer incarnation? Yeah,

Speaker 3 there was a newer newer version.

Speaker 3 The LucasArts game is the only one I ever played.

Speaker 3 But I do like, yeah,

Speaker 3 I mean, those games were extremely my shit of just like Secret of Monkey Island in particular was my introduction to that type of game,

Speaker 3 not gaming in general, but that type of game. And then, you know, Full Throttle, Grim Fandango.
We covered.

Speaker 3 Day of the Tentacle on here and Maniac Mansion. We covered both on the podcast.

Speaker 3 And yeah, I like, again, games like that.

Speaker 2 What about Loom? Oh, yeah, Loom. Yeah, we do.
We haven't given him a song.

Speaker 3 I tell you, the thing in Loom, where, so, so Loom, it's like you're kind of a spellcaster who uses a hooded sort of mage who uses

Speaker 3 music to do your spell craft. But when I like learn, and it's a, it's a trick that happens in

Speaker 3 Ocarine of Time as well. But like the mechanic of that you can play a song backwards to reverse its like.

Speaker 2 Oh my God, you're right.

Speaker 3 It's like, it's like, that's such a cool thing and it was one of those things like oh like i get i i don't know it's one of those moments when the the concept of game design kind of clicked with me as a kid yeah yeah it's very abstract for a child to play like it's really kind of cool to like assume a kid can do that

Speaker 2 that was also an era like where i would be like writing down like

Speaker 2 like i would write write down a spell like a line of paper which you had to call back to you know it's like very much like like a full full project you know you don't they don't really hold your hand at all did that game make you feel like an adult?

Speaker 3 Because the other ones were all kind of jokey, and that one's like kind of a more serious, straight-ahead tone. I was like, oh, yeah, this is like a mature game.

Speaker 2 It is. It really is.

Speaker 2 And it's not at all. I mean, you know, compared to like Wacky Maniac Mansion, I guess.

Speaker 3 And on that note, there was another game I know you mentioned is Mist, which is a game we actually haven't talked about much on the podcast, but

Speaker 3 that's something you latched onto?

Speaker 2 You know,

Speaker 2 Heather is shaking your head. I don't stop shaking your head.

Speaker 2 I don't want to be a hater here. Yeah.
But it missed, if you'll recall when it came out, was like a smash sensation. It was a huge game.
Huge game. Like on the cover.

Speaker 2 Then we're a game that's like shaking up the world. And it isn't really that fun.
It just like, it's like visually kind of like interesting and neat, but it's like a slideshow style game.

Speaker 2 You click to go to a new destination and you're automatically transported. And just like...
Even as a kid, I'm like, this is kind of lame. It's like, that doesn't have a sense of humor to it.

Speaker 2 It doesn't really, you don't really feel like you're exploring in any real sense. I never really liked it.
And like looking back on it, I just don't get what the appeal was.

Speaker 2 I guess because it was just like a new visual kind of language

Speaker 2 for people in the 90s, but I don't think the game itself is really that cool. And I remember the puzzles being kind of frustrating and not like that logical, really, in a way.

Speaker 2 They just kind of like play by their own rules. So I think I'm a missed hater, I gotta say.

Speaker 3 I was

Speaker 2 like, choose notebook.

Speaker 4 This is the best guest we've ever had, guys.

Speaker 2 Down with Myst.

Speaker 3 Myst is one of those games that people would, like, my dad has played so few games in his life, but Myst was like a game he played, I think, because

Speaker 3 he liked technology, and that was a game that showed off the powers of a CD-ROM drive. It's just like graphically was so much

Speaker 3 like, like, you know, had all these pre-rendered tableaus that, you know, like, like at the time, looked like, looked cutting edge. But yes, I agree.
The puzzles are very obtuse.

Speaker 3 And then also kind of tonally it's kind of up its own ass it was kind of like a proto jonathan blow game but like less interesting and uh yeah i i just like i i agree with that do you remember the pissed p-y-st

Speaker 3 there was a missed there was a missed parody game called pissed that was like released you could like buy it at like fucking comp usa or eb games or wherever they do that with like anything like jurassic park would come out and there would be quick a quick to rush like parody called like jurassic pork or something like that

Speaker 2 right right yes

Speaker 3 yeah there was a mark there was like the like like the the the mad the full full on like mad magazine parody of something would just be released and it was just like it's it's such a it was such a different climate um

Speaker 3 well uh well look uh i we can talk about these old games all day and we're gonna talk about an older game in a little bit but i think we should uh step ahead to the present and django ask you and everyone what are you playing yes should i go first

Speaker 2 yeah go ahead

Speaker 2 no no well django you go ahead.

Speaker 3 Heather didn't very much look like she was going to go first, though. No.

Speaker 2 I'm just saying.

Speaker 2 I am not playing anything at the moment, but what I am doing, as I mentioned before we start taping, is I have been fanatically watching very short clips on YouTube of people beating Elden Ring bosses, particularly one-shot videos in which a player who has, you know, amassed all the upgrades they can,

Speaker 2 many playthroughs through, has figured out the exact combination of buffs and spells and equipment they need to do to beat some of these later game bosses with one hit.

Speaker 2 And so it's like this really great, satisfying thing you watch where a guy like spends like the first half of the video taking his various tonics and potions and casting his various protective spells and all that, and then goes in there and just lays out the boss with one hit.

Speaker 2 So I've been watching those like, you know, for about a week and a half, I'd say.

Speaker 2 It's just like, yeah, doom, go fuckers.

Speaker 2 Very, very, very good.

Speaker 4 I don't know that I've ever used this descriptor on the podcast before, but

Speaker 4 those videos sound sexy to me.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God. These guys are studs.

Speaker 2 They're absolute alpha males destroying these fake goblins and such.

Speaker 3 I love that shit. I love seeing mastery

Speaker 3 of any field because that's something I will never achieve. And just when someone's like, oh, you've dedicated your life to this one thing.

Speaker 3 And I honestly, like, the more trivial, the more impressed I am. Like, just like, like, like, whatever.
Yeah, you did a, you did a blindfolded Sekuro no-hit run. Like, that's, you know what?

Speaker 3 That's fucking unbelievable. What a ridiculous thing to do.
But honestly, it's such a great use of your time. Like, it's such a great thing to just, like, have that achievement.

Speaker 2 I mean, half the internet now, or not half the internet, but a good portion of the internet is just like watching someone be good at grilling. watching someone get

Speaker 2 playing guitar. It's just so satisfying to watch someone who has it down.
And like, yeah, it's like very like calming.

Speaker 2 and you do feel like I carry a sense of accomplishment, like accomplished, like, we did it,

Speaker 2 you did the work, and I was supporting you.

Speaker 2 Look at this fucking dude, dice cantaloupe, Jesus Christ, he's a surgeon, yeah.

Speaker 4 It's funny to think, like, I've never really thought about the internet in the way you just described it, but it used to be like,

Speaker 2 like,

Speaker 4 I don't know, a hundred thousand years ago in your tiny caveman tribe or your, your, your tiny, you know, your, your hunter-gatherer tribe, that

Speaker 4 there would be the guy who was good in your group, but you weren't seeing the best guy. You were only seeing the good local guy.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4 And it wasn't until circuses

Speaker 2 started traveling that you'd be like, holy shit. Oh, my God.
I thought it was

Speaker 2 that guy doing.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 4 And then television exposed us to like the Olympics. I mean, if you lived near the Olympics, you could get to see the Olympians.
But like generally speaking, you'd be like,

Speaker 4 but now, because of the internet, we have seen the best guy at every fucking thing.

Speaker 4 There is nothing you can think of. Like there's somebody who is really good at chopping carrots.
And there is a video that they've made. And if I were to look it up, I'd be like, that's the best one.

Speaker 4 That person is the best at it.

Speaker 3 And there's also so many people people who are like like it's just like because the population is so vast and everyone has access to social media like the point

Speaker 3 zero zero one percent of like fucking anomalous genetic freaks are overrepresented and so i think that leads to like whatever i mean like the the bad side of that leads to like body dysmorphia because you see these instagram fitness models and who like are just at a

Speaker 3 like at a level that no one could really achieve except but but it looks like that's everybody because they're overrepresented in that group um

Speaker 2 yeah it's fucking men yeah go on start getting insecure about your own ability to chop carrots yeah

Speaker 2 oh man

Speaker 3 i'll never be good enough the the thing we've talked about this on the podcast before but you know the there there is a there's a streamer and she beat uh millennia the elden ring boss with a dance pad she beat two millennias one with a dance pad and one with a controller at the same time

Speaker 3 and it's just like that's fucking unreal like i can't believe that someone was was able to achieve that and i think i could spend a thousand hours attempting that and not be able to do that and like i don't know how much time this person spent doing that but it's just like

Speaker 3 i i don't know like you know you know even if you're that talented and even if you're that uh dedicated like like you can still like there's still so many hours of practice that have to go into it.

Speaker 3 And I guess that's what I appreciate about it.

Speaker 3 Yeah. So I was watching Steph Curry jack up three-pointers.

Speaker 2 Well, the question is, raising off? Jack up, jack off? Jack up. It was not jack.

Speaker 4 You said jack off three-pointers. I said jack up three-pointers.

Speaker 3 What does jacking off a three-pointer even mean?

Speaker 2 I don't know. What does jacking up a three-pointer mean?

Speaker 2 Take it a shot, man. Jacking off three times in succession because they call that bowling turkey.

Speaker 2 Also, something else has to do in the volume. But it raises the question, I was just thinking: like, so let's say you can play, you can beat Melania with your feet and your hands.

Speaker 2 Can you become a violin maestro? Or is this like,

Speaker 2 like, is it in these people's power to do that as well? Or is people's brains only

Speaker 2 equipped to do like this very esoteric video game skill?

Speaker 3 Right. Was that specialized?

Speaker 4 When you say it that way, it also makes me think that we, that the person who beat Millennia with a dance dance revolution pad

Speaker 4 is a superhero.

Speaker 4 Like, she's like,

Speaker 4 we have, I've seen footage of her. Yeah, she's a superhero, right? What an incredible, like, I've, I don't know.

Speaker 4 Sorry, I guess I'm just geeking out for a second here about how we've all seen superheroes now because of the internet, like, real ones.

Speaker 2 And sure, their feats have become less impressive over the years, but

Speaker 2 sure, a superhero has gone from scaling scaling a building to flipping a water bottle on its,

Speaker 2 you know, on its

Speaker 2 edge.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 3 No, I don't know. I think, I kind of think that it's just like there are people with that those that that degree of aptitude in any population is just what you dedicate your time to.

Speaker 3 It's, it's, it's like

Speaker 3 whatever.

Speaker 3 I think it's like you see the same thing in like certain athletes and certain sports are concentrated in certain countries because those have a culture of doing that or like, you know, the an environment where you can practice that skill.

Speaker 3 I don't know. So I think that

Speaker 3 I would guess probably yes, but also it's kind of more interesting if the answer is no. That it's like, no, that's the one thing this person can do.

Speaker 2 It kind of makes me wonder what my thing is.

Speaker 2 Because there's a jillion opportunities, but there must be one thing out there that, statistically speaking, I'll never try that I would just like dominate at. And it might be juggling.

Speaker 2 It might be, you know, playing dance dance with my, you know, being millennial with my feet.

Speaker 2 I don't think I'll ever find out.

Speaker 3 Most of us never do.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Podcast.

Speaker 2 On that note.

Speaker 3 Matt, what are you planning? Okay, so I have some updates. Last week I said I'd finish Final Fantasy 3, which I did do,

Speaker 3 and I loved it. I thought it was a really great, really fun game, satisfying final boss fight, really fun.
I started Resident, not Resident Evil, I started

Speaker 3 Final Fantasy IV, and when when I say I started it, I like

Speaker 3 I just barely started it. So I'm not, I don't, I haven't played enough of it to like

Speaker 3 truly speak on that. But that's like sort of the next thing that I'm going to knock down, I think.
Still chipping away, obviously, at 16 as well. But my major update is that

Speaker 3 I bought a used 2DS from eBay.

Speaker 2 Wow. Love.

Speaker 4 I love it. I love it.

Speaker 3 My 3DS has seen better days. It's running pretty slow.
And

Speaker 3 the stick, like the little analog stick, the top part of it has come off. So it kind of like hurts to put your thumb on it.
And so I was like, oh,

Speaker 3 the form factor of the 2DS is really funny.

Speaker 3 Like, I have it right here.

Speaker 3 It's pretty nice.

Speaker 3 It actually, it wasn't terribly expensive either. And it also, like,

Speaker 3 has like it was like brand new. Like, there's not a single scratch on this thing.

Speaker 3 and so i've been i've been playing with this quite a bit i hadn't beat metroid samus returns for the 3ds and so i um

Speaker 3 i've started playing that a little bit i didn't really i had never held weight on that bad boy yeah because i don't think i've ever held one either uh it's not very heavy it's like i mean it's like i don't know i i'm so bad with

Speaker 3 stuff like that you asked me an impossible question um i is that compared to a jersey mic sub

Speaker 3 i mean this is like the last bite

Speaker 2 Oh, wow. Okay.

Speaker 3 It's like, it's pretty, it's pretty light. I don't know.
I'd say, probably, like, maybe there's like two or three bites left.

Speaker 3 Uh, it's, you know, it's going to depend on the sub, uh, the contents of the sub, you know.

Speaker 3 Right, what do you put on that bad boy? Yeah, uh, it is soaked. It is, I did get it Mike's way.

Speaker 2 Soaked familiar, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 Uh, but it's also like

Speaker 3 I had read a lot about some of the

Speaker 3 3ds, 2ds models, and I ultimately landed on the flat one

Speaker 3 because everyone was like, that one is so sturdy. It is built, it's built like a fucking truck.

Speaker 3 Like, it's, because this one was designed for kids, like, for like young kids, because it doesn't have any hinges. So

Speaker 3 the weakest point in the system has been eliminated. So it is just like a piece of bread

Speaker 2 form factor.

Speaker 2 Were kids snapping those earlier ones?

Speaker 3 I think they're like, yeah, maybe a little rough with it.

Speaker 3 Or like, you know, if you drop it, like, that's like a sort of like a weak point in in in the hinge but like since you could i'm not gonna try but i think you could drop this thing and sort of be all right unless it you know fell on the screen side of course um but i i i'm i'm having a blast with it it does it also feels very comfortable in the hand very comfortable in the hand

Speaker 2 it's so comfortable

Speaker 2 yeah

Speaker 4 matt the screens are different sizes right and in just

Speaker 3 yeah they're uh the top screen's bigger the bottom screen's a little smaller i think it's kind of like that in different aspect ratios yeah yeah that's it's i know that's how it is on the actual unit like the 3ds unit

Speaker 4 i do wish that the

Speaker 4 just just for the aesthetic

Speaker 4 I wish that the screen surface area on the bottom screen matched the surface area of the screen on the top screen, but only the portion that was required lit up.

Speaker 3 You just mean aesthetically.

Speaker 2 Yeah, aesthetically.

Speaker 3 I see. I'm going to want the whole thing filled in.

Speaker 2 I can't with the

Speaker 3 widescreen bars or something on the sides.

Speaker 3 I don't want it in 4.3.

Speaker 3 You know?

Speaker 3 I would want it to match and be full. too.
But also,

Speaker 3 they have the 3DS XL models and those those have bigger screens. And that's honestly like probably what I should have got.
Because let me tell you, you guys know this.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 3 Start getting, you know,

Speaker 3 as time goes on, let's say.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 3 Your eyes start to hurt a lot.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Like, not hurt, but like, they just are, things are getting harder to see sometimes. So, like, a smaller screen, I'm really like, I'm getting in there.

Speaker 3 You know, I'm wearing glasses when I'm playing at nighttime.

Speaker 3 That's just like, that's just the reality now.

Speaker 2 So, does the Switch not have that problem? I don't have a Switch. I'm just curious.

Speaker 3 The Switch screen is like, is like eight inches, so it's like basically like a full Jersey mic sub.

Speaker 3 But it is,

Speaker 3 it's the screen's bigger, and like the text is usually bigger. This is like, I mean, this is smaller than a phone screen, you know? So, like, this is sometimes I'm like, what does that even say?

Speaker 3 It's also a lower resolution, but yeah, I think the

Speaker 3 yeah, I mean, even the switch screen, though, I don't want to stare at it for too long.

Speaker 2 No, you know,

Speaker 3 I usually play docked if I'm playing, unless I'm playing at night, obviously, but like if I'm,

Speaker 3 if I have my drillers, I'm playing on the, on the TV, so I can not be like, you know, what's it say? That's it for me. Uh, Heather, what are you playing?

Speaker 4 Well, I've been preoccupied playing this week's game for this podcast, as well as our We Play, you play for the end of the month, which I have dedicated hours every day,

Speaker 4 which has saddened me a little bit because I like, you know, enjoying Final Fantasy games like a fancy meal. Like, they don't come around very often.
You really want to experience it.

Speaker 4 And I feel like I'm pushing through a little bit faster than I normally would.

Speaker 4 But that brings me to

Speaker 4 a point about the soundtrack for Final Fantasy 16, which is, I guess, what I've been playing this week.

Speaker 4 The soundtrack was released on CD, and and I've thought about buying it on CD because it is eight

Speaker 2 discs.

Speaker 4 Whoa, it's an eight-disc soundtrack.

Speaker 4 And I think back to like the soundtracks for Final Fantasy, you know, seven, eight, they'd be like three discs, and you'd be like, holy shit, so many discs.

Speaker 4 What an enormous amount of music.

Speaker 2 Eight discs.

Speaker 3 That's a lot of discs.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Also comes with a great sticker of Torgle.

Speaker 2 One like One sticker, eight discs.

Speaker 4 One sticker, eight discs.

Speaker 2 Terrible ratio.

Speaker 2 What the hell are they trying to scam you out of this?

Speaker 2 It should be one to one.

Speaker 4 I also

Speaker 4 realized because I was emulating Super Mario RPG,

Speaker 4 I never think of the computer that I have as a game system. I only think of it as a writing system or a Photoshop system.
I and playing Super Mario RPG, I was like,

Speaker 4 I might cozy up with some retro games this week.

Speaker 2 Oh, I might play a little

Speaker 4 something, something,

Speaker 4 a little nice type.

Speaker 4 So, yeah, that's I've just been fixated on the Final Fantasy soundtrack and that eight-disc collection.

Speaker 3 I wish they would release it on vinyl.

Speaker 4 I wish they would, you would have to buy

Speaker 4 40 pounds of vinyl.

Speaker 2 The warmth, the grooves.

Speaker 4 It's 199 songs.

Speaker 4 That's a lot of music.

Speaker 3 I feel like I hear three songs when I play the game.

Speaker 2 Jeez.

Speaker 4 But that's what I've been playing.

Speaker 2 Wow. That's it.

Speaker 3 Well, it falls to me.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 3 No one's going to tee me up.

Speaker 2 I think we're done.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think we got enough.

Speaker 3 We're good.

Speaker 3 What am I playing? Someone might ask.

Speaker 2 Hey, Nick.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 What are you playing? Thanks, Matt. So I've been,

Speaker 3 I think I've been playing Final Fantasy 16, but I've also been

Speaker 3 finding things to play other than Final Fantasy 16, which maybe speaks to my overall assessment of the game, which we'll talk about next week on a We Play You Play.

Speaker 3 But one of those games is The Case of the Golden Idol released some DLC Golden Idol Mysteries, The Spider of Lanka, in June, and I finally got around to playing it. It was on Steam sale.

Speaker 3 I picked it up. This was developed by Color Gray Games, and I finished two of the three scenarios that are in the DLC, and I'm eager to dig into the third.
So, just a refresher for anyone who

Speaker 3 maybe heard me talk about this game at length last year. It's one of my case of the Golden Isles, my favorite games of 2022.

Speaker 3 It is basically, you know, we were talking about LucasArts' adventures earlier. It's not exactly that, but it is the same sort of thing of you have, rather than

Speaker 3 a scenario where a player character is interacting, you are viewing a tableau.

Speaker 3 You are viewing like a moment in time with a bunch of different characters and objects in a location or locations, and you can examine each of them.

Speaker 3 And it basically comes down to a sort of a lateral thinking puzzles of figuring out what exactly is happening in this scenario.

Speaker 3 So for instance, in the first one, in the in the DLC, you are at a some sort of card game and there are just a bunch of dead bodies everywhere, and two or three people have survived, and you're just trying to figure out what happened.

Speaker 3 And the puzzle is: first off, what are the rules of this invented card game? And then also, who murdered who in each order?

Speaker 3 And you just sort of deduce that from all of the clues that are present in all of the scattered objects.

Speaker 3 A character will have like a business card or a letter that's on their person that you can examine, and that will give additional context.

Speaker 3 There'll be a sign on the wall, and there'll also be like bloodied murder weapons, and so on.

Speaker 3 So, it is a lot of deduction. It is a lot of lateral thinking, and it's really, really fun and really, really satisfying when you finally solve one of these puzzles.

Speaker 3 Also, it has like it's it has a great, it does a great job of like dispensing just enough red herrings where what you think is the obvious solution to one part of the puzzle later on.

Speaker 3 This has happened to me with both of the scenarios that I finished. And I, I, I, I suspect this is not specific to me.
What you think is like, oh, well, that's obviously that.

Speaker 3 I'll take care of that and I'll set that out for later, set that aside for later. Then like eventually got tripped up.
I was like, why is this not this not all sinking? Why is this not all adding up?

Speaker 3 Why am I not getting the satisfactory sting that I solved this thing?

Speaker 3 It's like, oh, wait, that one thing that I thought was correct, was obvious was actually had another layer to it that is hidden in all the depths of detail that are present here.

Speaker 3 So the gameplay is super duper satisfying if you like puzzles,

Speaker 3 aka not Heather. It also has like this, this, just the world of it is so fun.
It's like this invented world that's akin to like an 18th century Earth. It's, you know, colonialism is a big theme.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 I think by virtue of having an invented reality, they are able to just, you know, not get married to Earth specifics and invent a bunch of other stuff like a fucking poisonous blue cricket and

Speaker 3 that sort of shit.

Speaker 3 And then also like

Speaker 3 the art style, which I talked about when, and people have, have, I think it's a, it's a, it's a thing that that some people find repulsive. It is disgusting, but I really like it.

Speaker 3 Like it looks like like kind of, it's kind of like a VGA sort of 256 color palette, it feels like it's looking first like kind of an older pixelated point-and-click PC game aesthetic.

Speaker 3 And then the character designs are, they all look like just like nasty people. They're just like kind of all like like, you know, they have, they have weird expressions on their faces.

Speaker 3 They're all kind of intentionally repulsive. I mean, it's clearly a choice, but I really dig it, and I think it fits with kind of the nastiness of the reality that they're establishing.

Speaker 3 Also, the soundtrack, too, it's kind of like dissonant and, you know,

Speaker 3 unharmonious.

Speaker 3 It's like that's kind of jarring in its own way. And it all kind of works for this unsettling, violent reality that you're trying to get to the bottom of.

Speaker 3 I want to note one other thing here. as I ran about this.
There is a Switch port available for this game.

Speaker 3 I've been playing it on Steam, but for those of you out there there who just are on who are on Switch or don't have, you know, don't have access to a gaming PC, you can check it out that way.

Speaker 3 And I think it will be very, very playable on Switch because, again, it really is just a point-and-click mechanics and really is just examining a tableau.

Speaker 3 So, I love this game, and I really, really am enjoying the DLC. I think it does a great job of heightening what's already in the existing package.

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Speaker 3 You know, it's another great game.

Speaker 3 Super Mario RPG.

Speaker 3 This is our game and tell format. And Django, when you emailed me via mutual friend,

Speaker 3 you sort of introduced yourself, and I think we knew of each other and we worked on some of the same things, but never really crossed paths.

Speaker 3 But in your introductory email, asking about, like, you know, hey, maybe coming on the podcast,

Speaker 3 you asked,

Speaker 3 can we talk about Super Mario RPG? So this was clearly kind of at the top of

Speaker 3 your mind.

Speaker 3 What is it about this game that has connected with you so profoundly?

Speaker 2 I think it might be the best and S and E S game. Wow.
And that is

Speaker 2 a great console that has a lot of classic games on that really stand the test of time. The Super Mario RPG, and I'm not even a huge RPG guy.
It's just so much fun.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 there's just something about that game when it came out. Like, it was just so different and, like, silly and weird, but also the mechanics of it are really tight.

Speaker 2 And there's a really strong sense of exploration where you have like a lot of

Speaker 2 disparate world zones that feel genuinely like fun and like kind of you're excited to explore. So I think it's just a combination of the exploration and the humor.

Speaker 2 And I think the movie Game Cancer are also very fun. And that really just like kind of makes it for me.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it's a game I played when I was younger as well. And I, you know, I did not have as

Speaker 3 strong of a reaction to it as you do, but I did like really, really like it. And I do think it's a really cool game.

Speaker 3 And I love what it led to, which is you know the paper Mario franchise and the Mario and Luigi superstar saga games um you know non-square developed but so clearly inspired by the success of this one uh the game was released in 1996 for super famicom and super nes pointedly not released in pal which is just one of those weird like nintendo quirks of the era of they're just like ah fuck it europe doesn't get this one uh developed by square and published by nintendo in kind of their

Speaker 3 symbolic final collaboration, I guess you'd say. I mean, the next year, Final Fantasy VII releases for PlayStation 1.

Speaker 3 So it's kind of the end of the, I guess you call it the second party era of Square is

Speaker 3 developing for Nintendo consoles exclusively.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 Shigeru Miyamoto was somewhat involved, was heavily involved producing this project. And right now, of course, Nintendo being Nintendo, even though there is a remake

Speaker 3 about to come out, it is currently unavailable. You can't either, you know, you have to play it on

Speaker 3 emulation. Have you, Django, have you revisited this game in recent years at all?

Speaker 2 Not recently. I think like 10 years ago, I got a ROM hack and I played it then and I found it really, really held up.
Last night, in preparation for this, I went back and watched a few videos.

Speaker 2 I was like looking through the Beastieri, which is like 700 or so monsters or stuff like that. So

Speaker 2 I was really kind of

Speaker 2 taking my toe back in the waters.

Speaker 2 And what you're just talking about now, when it just came out, it just occurred to me, I completely forgot about this, which is that when I first, as a kid, dropped 70 bucks for this game and and brought it home for the first time at first i was like what the fuck is this because yes right i thought i was getting a mario game yeah just two degree side scrolling power-ups and all that and the the game as it opens just is so weird and different like bow like bowser's like immediately like sidecast like you know out the door you have this other like weird kind of like industrial era villain it was just so so different and strange but i'm glad i sticked with it because it really was like a great experience as a kid and you know 10 years ago i i had the same sort of experience and i'm curious about heather encountering this game because i i i don't heather i don't think you've played this game before no i i i i had not played the game before um

Speaker 4 because

Speaker 4 when it when i saw the previews for it i was like that's not mario i and also i'm you know sega forward

Speaker 4 so to to go to blockbuster and rent the console in order to try this mario game was such a huge barrier of entry that i was like

Speaker 4 I don't think that's going to happen.

Speaker 4 And when I did eventually get a Super NES and like started building my library, it wasn't one of my priorities because it felt like this strange stepchild of Final Fantasy and Super Mario.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it does have, yeah, for sure. When you put it in that term, it does kind of feel like a strange Mario knockoff of the Final Fantasy

Speaker 2 series.

Speaker 4 Also, imagine the slap in the face for Nintendo to give Square their main dude to be like, hey, you guys make great games. Make a fucking RPG.
And Squaresoft's like, you got it.

Speaker 4 And they make Super Mario RPG, beloved by all, like, fantastic game from what I've played

Speaker 2 of it

Speaker 4 this week.

Speaker 4 And then immediately they turn around and make Final Fantasy VII for the PlayStation. Woof.

Speaker 2 It's rough. Yeah.

Speaker 2 The,

Speaker 3 yeah, it's a

Speaker 3 you talked to like not tracking it down when you were building your retro collection.

Speaker 3 I think this is one of those gate those carts that became oddly, or not oddly, but became just like super expensive.

Speaker 3 Like, I think it was like kind of a, even though it was a, it was a relatively successful game in North America, I think it was pretty pricey to track down in the secondary market.

Speaker 4 Well, also, I mean, super NES games, we talk a lot about how expensive games are getting now, but super NES games were regularly $70.

Speaker 4 Like Mortal Kombat, when it came out for Super Nintendo, was $69.99. And if you lived in Canada,

Speaker 4 those prices were $89.99. Like

Speaker 4 it was not an inexpensive bargain system. So the cartridge itself probably also, if you went to Electronics Boutique or however you got your games in the 90s, what was the other one? Babbage's?

Speaker 2 Babbage's. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 4 If you went to Babbage's, like, you ask your mom, like, hey, can you buy me one game? Or your dad, can you buy me one game?

Speaker 4 And how many kids were going to be like, I want the Mario that's that's not a Mario?

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 that's one of the challenges my expectations.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I'm going to like, I'm, I know it's going to cost you $70 with tax, dad, but the game I want is the Mario where you can't control his jump in real time.

Speaker 4 I want a time-delayed jump.

Speaker 2 Huge learning curve.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Well, yeah, and also being kind of, you know, like isometric, like everything about it was a little disorienting at first if you didn't have the expectation that this was going to be an RPG.

Speaker 3 I mean, I'd played some, it sounds like Django, this was not a genre you were as into, but like I'd played some other RPGs and some other square RPGs on

Speaker 3 Nintendo Super Nintendo when I encountered this game for the first time. So I kind of knew more what I was in for.

Speaker 3 But the things that I think were refreshing for it were, by the way, I always love doing this

Speaker 3 because, you know, you talked about games, how expensive games used to be. I just, I brought up an inflation calculator, and a $70 game in 1996 is what would be like $130 today.

Speaker 2 That's absurd. It is weird how video games are still $70.
Like, they haven't changed that. Why is that? Is that just like a number that people associate with a game?

Speaker 4 They also went down in price. They went down a little bit.

Speaker 4 During the CD era, it was so much less expensive to produce a game, like to physically produce it, that the prices dropped. And now they're back up there.

Speaker 3 The thing that really

Speaker 3 connected with me is another thing that

Speaker 3 shares in common with Chrono Trigger is there are no random encounters.

Speaker 3 And that's the thing I always found so fucking annoying in RPGs is just going around the map and then just you're randomly, I mean, Matt, you're encountering this right now, playing those old school Final Fantasies.

Speaker 3 Like

Speaker 3 you're just trying to explore a map or a dungeon, and then you randomly get pulled into a combat situation. Um, here you see enemies on the in-the-world map, and that's how you encounter them.

Speaker 3 Yeah, but like, I, I, I, this is, I, I had never, I had never played this before, and when I saw that, uh, they're just on the map, and you can avoid them if you want, I tried doing that a little bit, but then, you know,

Speaker 3 like any RPG, there is like, uh, you know, a leveling system, right? So I was like, oh, like, you can't avoid all of them.

Speaker 3 Like you have to like do some so you can get experience and then, you know, upgrade your health or upgrade your attack or something or upgrade your your flower, which is mana in this game or whatever.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 I was like, I was, because I was trying to avoid them because I don't like, I don't like the combat in our intern-based RPGs usually.

Speaker 3 But once I started getting into

Speaker 3 like, you know, when I get a new party member for example or like uh started actually leveling up I was like okay like there is like um there's rhyme in reason to this it is like fun I was enjoying it yeah I mean I like JRPG combat I assume Heather's the same but like I actually think this combat is really kinetic and fun and active and it's meant to be

Speaker 3 and it's meant to be like you know hey here's a here's an introduction to how these sort of com this sort of combat can play to someone who's like less familiar with the genre it also was a system that um in some ways Square ends up using in Final Fantasy VIII.

Speaker 4 Right. Like the, as soon as you're about to land an attack, press the button again to add bonus damage stuff.
Like that's, that becomes like a square thing for a short while. And then also

Speaker 4 mother does the same thing. The mother games are like, click it on the beat and

Speaker 4 your attack is more powerful. And that feels a little bit more like actual combat.

Speaker 4 yes like just giving me the button twice i'm like okay okay there's a little bit of something here i i gotta i gotta time this a little bit better

Speaker 3 yeah and and uh you know obviously retain for paper mario and and superstar saga as well it's like those they they all sort of were like okay this is how a mario rpg is supposed to play um did you

Speaker 3 I'm curious, Django, like, okay, so

Speaker 3 you don't play this type of game generally. You were kind of more expecting a Mario game.
Like, How do you start to really have a connection with it?

Speaker 3 At what point are you like, oh, wow, this is really working for me as a kid?

Speaker 2 Man, I would say probably like, I mean, this honestly might have been my first ever RPG.

Speaker 2 Wow. Which is kind of

Speaker 2 a momentous occasion in a young boy's life, obviously.

Speaker 2 Your first baseball glove and your first kiss and all that.

Speaker 2 But yeah, I think it probably was like once I started like developing like the idea in my head, like, oh, as you progress, you can boost your stats.

Speaker 2 And that's the part of my brain that really is like, oh, yeah, that's the good stuff.

Speaker 2 You're giving me any numbers that can go up and make me myself more powerful.

Speaker 2 That is what gets me. So I think that was probably what it was, realizing, oh, I'm getting better.
I'm improving.

Speaker 2 I think that sense of accomplishment is kind of what tends to hook me on these games. And I think that's also why a lot of these,

Speaker 2 basically every action game now has this type of system where you can upgrade your weapons, you can upgrade your stats and all that. That is a very important

Speaker 2 mental part of these games, I think.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I totally totally agree. And I think also the

Speaker 3 like, I mean, that's the thing I love about RPGs. I love numbers going up.

Speaker 3 But also, I think the, I think the, the other thing that, that, that, in terms of like the stuff that like kind of blew my mind about this game is that Bowser can be in your party.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Like Bowser eventually being like, like, that is like a crazy thing for a kid to wrap their head around.

Speaker 4 And, and he also reveals that he's putting on a performance. Yeah.
Like you're when you first encounter him and he's outside of that tower, he's like,

Speaker 4 he's like,

Speaker 4 ah, man, I really miss the good old days when it was like

Speaker 4 fucking Mario's like there.

Speaker 4 And then he sees Mario and he's like, oh, I've got to be confident.

Speaker 2 I got to

Speaker 4 put on the facade.

Speaker 2 They give him an inner life, which is an astonishing thing at that point in time.

Speaker 2 Three-dimensional characters with

Speaker 2 loss in their heart and such.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I didn't see the Mario movie yet,

Speaker 4 but I wonder if that sort of becomes the canonical take on Bowser is that like the dude is a little bit like

Speaker 4 he's pushing a little bit with his whole persona.

Speaker 3 Well, yeah, I mean, I think that's definitely an element in the Super Mario movie.

Speaker 3 I think there's there, but, you know,

Speaker 3 again, I'm going to mention these games repeatedly, obviously, but like, you know, like in Paper Mario, it's like that's, that's 100% an element that's retained is him being like a semi-tragic figure.

Speaker 3 And I think that there's a part where you're playing as, as Peach in one of the, I think, I think the, the, the GameCube Paper Mario, and like you find Bowser's diary, and it's got all these like hey to stand entries.

Speaker 2 That's right. And it's like,

Speaker 3 it's, I don't know. I think, I think it's a really fun take, and, and I'm, I'm glad that element's been retained.
Yeah, I guess this did establish a lot of

Speaker 3 Mario canon in a way, or just like Mario conventions, if nothing else.

Speaker 3 While we're talking about NPCs and while we're talking about party members, you get Mellow early on, or Mellow, however you want to say it. And I think he's your first party member.
And then

Speaker 3 as the game progresses, there's another party member who I feel like we just kind of have to mention because I think Super Mario RPG enthusiasts are going to expect it.

Speaker 3 Because I know he's like a fan favorite

Speaker 3 from this particular game, which is Gino.

Speaker 3 Gino,

Speaker 3 the marionette come to life.

Speaker 3 Did Django, did you connect with Gino at all?

Speaker 2 If I recall, Gino is like the badass, right? Gino is like the really like, he's like the most cool, powerful warrior in your party. So like, yeah, I think I must have connected with him.

Speaker 2 So like Mario is like your basic character. Malo is like kind of like a healer, magician type.
Gino was a badass. Bowser was like a brutish badass.
And then Peach, I guess.

Speaker 2 Hey, Peach was a healer and Malo was the magician. Is that

Speaker 2 Malo's the mage? Does that sound right to you guys?

Speaker 3 They both have magical, like, I didn't revisit it for this particular discussion, but like they both have like, yeah, they're both magic users and

Speaker 3 the, yeah, you're, you're, Gino's more like, yeah, DPS, just like a heavy hitter, like you were saying.

Speaker 2 What's DPS stand for?

Speaker 3 Uh, damage per second.

Speaker 2 Very cool.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that is cool.

Speaker 2 We're all like, that's cool. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah, Gino's cool.

Speaker 3 I'm not sure if Heather and Matt, if you got far enough to encounter Gino yet, but. I've not met Gino, but

Speaker 3 I'm excited to meet him because that was kind of the fun thing about

Speaker 3 visiting this game for the first time, visiting. I wanted to say revisiting, but I'd never played it before.
But visiting doesn't sound right on its own.

Speaker 3 I think you can say that. I think you're fine.

Speaker 2 I'm visiting the game.

Speaker 3 And I did want, I was playing it on my analog pocket, and I was like, oh, this is a perfect pocket game. Like, it's so fun.

Speaker 3 And, like, the thing that really struck me about it was that, like, I, because I'd heard about this game, I just didn't know.

Speaker 3 I just didn't know, like, what it was like. And to see RPG conventions mapped under Mario and it all works, I was like, oh, this is unbelievable.
Like, I can't believe that this game actually exists.

Speaker 3 Like, the fact that there is like,

Speaker 3 like,

Speaker 3 there are magic users, and that

Speaker 3 could be a healer within the party. And then, like,

Speaker 3 just like, I don't know, all the other RPG elements of it all. Like, it really works.
I loved it.

Speaker 3 It's such an interesting game.

Speaker 3 I kind of like,

Speaker 3 what I appreciate about the game is,

Speaker 3 again, it was, like you were saying, it was a bold gambit for the time.

Speaker 3 It looks great, which we haven't really talked about.

Speaker 3 And it kind of set the template for how Super Mario RPG style games might play. And if anything, it kind of bums me out

Speaker 3 when you look at this game and you look at the first couple of paper Marios and then you look at where that franchise ended up going. And it got so far away from the more conventional sort of

Speaker 4 Marioed up up and with some action elements but pretty conventional RPG approach that I think works so well for this game I think one of the best parts of this game is the lack of tutorial and the simplicity of telling you what you're supposed to do with the buttons

Speaker 4 like the first the your first encounter is just it just shows the buttons that you can press above mario and you press them once and it tells you what it does and that's like

Speaker 4 that's such an excellent system. Instead of bringing up a full menu at the bottom of the screen, that you then cycle through each of the things,

Speaker 4 select that, then select it again, then select it again to enable it. And I know that there are eventually

Speaker 4 with Super Mario RPG, there are eventually multiple menu presses within your,

Speaker 4 we'll call it a crucifix grid.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's that's that sounds right.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 4 But it was, I was like,

Speaker 4 when I started, I was like, did I skip something? Because it just brings you into that first encounter and expects you to be like,

Speaker 2 all right, cool.

Speaker 4 Press some stuff. Figure it out, which is also what Mario games do.

Speaker 4 Like instinctively, the first, you know, creature walks at you and you have to do something because he's walking at you. And that's how it teaches you the game.
So it really,

Speaker 4 I was, I was mildly impressed. I thought it was a good, I think it's a good game, guys.
And that's not a surprise for anyone. I also, I had to look up when the game was,

Speaker 4 when the game was developed. And

Speaker 4 the initial development of Super Mario RPG began in 1994, right?

Speaker 4 Final Fantasy VII

Speaker 4 also begins its initial talks in 1994.

Speaker 4 Now, we all know that they thought they were going to produce Final Fantasy VII for the N64 disc attachment, like the drive, the hard drive, but that it wasn't feasible.

Speaker 4 And so they start shifting in 1995, the development of the game to PlayStation. So this game,

Speaker 4 like they know

Speaker 4 they're, they're, They've got a mistress and they're still looking Nintendo in the face

Speaker 2 while these two things are happening.

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 I mean, it's great that this game is so good because they very well could have just taken every cool idea from it and just given it to Final Fantasy and like turn it into some kind of slop.

Speaker 2 But it is kind of

Speaker 2 based on that background, it is kind of cool that it turned out to be this good,

Speaker 2 this different than Final Fantasy VII II. The flavor is very, very Nintendo-y.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 It's also the weird kind of timing of the era and because this is like one of the last gen, or the the end of the of a console generation this is towards the end of the life cycle of of uh of the super nintendo super famicom i mean i just look it up this came out in march in japan and may in in the us in 1996 and the suit nintendo 64 comes out in june of 1996 so it's like you know

Speaker 3 this this this was really kind of the dying of the light for that era um

Speaker 3 i guess though that happens a lot like i think if we like probably look back and we're like, we're just talking about the Last of Us Part 2, it's like, well, that came out at the very end of the PlayStation 4 life cycle.

Speaker 3 So, you know, that should happen sometimes.

Speaker 4 Two things that I want to say before I forget. One is that Gustavo

Speaker 4 Santoyaya

Speaker 2 Gustavo, there you go, thank you,

Speaker 4 may have leaked a

Speaker 4 Last of Us Part 2 remastered for the PS5, which makes sense because then, you know, you can play it and watch the HBO show, which will come out in like eight years.

Speaker 4 And then, also, we talked earlier about the graphics on this game, the

Speaker 4 look of Super Mario RPG.

Speaker 4 And there is this

Speaker 4 modern tradition to make pixel remasters and pixel graphics as the way that an emulator looks. while playing a old 8-bit or 16-bit game, and that that wasn't the the way they would look on CRTs.

Speaker 4 And if you play this game on an emulator without using scan lines, it is fucking ugly as shit. It is just a mushy color garbage.

Speaker 4 Like you can't differentiate between anything that's happening on the screen. But the moment you drop on those scan lines, it's gorgeous.

Speaker 4 And I wasn't a huge fan of this pseudo 3D look in the late Super NES life, like the Donkey Kong Country, the Super Mario RPG, that plastic play action figure look.

Speaker 4 But I do think it's extremely well implemented. And the remaster of this game that is coming out has gone back to those original assets and

Speaker 4 redone them.

Speaker 4 And those assets look amazing.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it was the kind of the silicon graphics era of like they'd use those workstations to pre-render stuff, and that was the big Donkey Kong Country thing.

Speaker 3 I assume the same process was used for Super Mario RPG.

Speaker 3 It certainly look like the same sort of models, but I think it's again, it was the end of the kind of the 2D gaming era of dominance, and they were just like, I don't know, what else can we do to make things look interesting?

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah,

Speaker 3 I have a couple other things I want to talk about. One is, and I think this is another character you probably, Heather and Matt, haven't encountered, but Django, you may remember Boshi.

Speaker 3 Yes. This dude,

Speaker 3 let me see if I can just share this

Speaker 2 tab here. Here we go.
Boshi. Badass Yoshi.

Speaker 3 Bad Yoshi.

Speaker 2 Nice.

Speaker 3 He's a bad blue Yoshi with sunglasses.

Speaker 2 Well, as much attitude.

Speaker 3 A spike collar.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 How is this the first time I'm learning about Boshi?

Speaker 3 Boshi's great.

Speaker 2 You really seem to catch it.

Speaker 3 Boshi's a Chad.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Boshi should be in every game, in every Mario game. What did they do?

Speaker 2 Oh, that's right. You have to beat him in a race.

Speaker 2 He's like the hot dog, like fucking

Speaker 2 badass Yoshi in town. Oh, God.

Speaker 3 He's Mario Sonic.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 3 I wonder if that was kind of the inspiration.

Speaker 2 That would totally track.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 And then, and the other thing, and I'm curious if you have any thoughts on the score, Django, because the score is by Yoko Shimomura, who we've talked about on the podcast, but you know, very prolific video game composer, the Kingdom Hearts franchise,

Speaker 3 Street Fighter 2, Live Alive, which came out, which the remaster came out recently. And I have a couple tracks I set you, Matt.

Speaker 3 It's hard to distill the soundtrack just down to a few things, but I picked just, well, let's just play

Speaker 3 this first one: Fight Against a Somewhat Stronger Monster.

Speaker 2 That's the title of it.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it's one of the battle themes.

Speaker 4 She's also the composer in Final Fantasy XV. Just want to

Speaker 2 give it a little bit. Hell yeah.

Speaker 3 So, you know, put a little stank on it, but

Speaker 3 also, if you want to get a little ethereal, a little mystical, you can play a track like

Speaker 3 listen to something like Beware the Force Mushrooms.

Speaker 4 Such Traverse Town vibes on this song.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Like this, you can really hear her Kingdom Hearts work.

Speaker 3 more jaunty than Ethereal, at least in the beginning, but you get what I mean.

Speaker 3 They should have,

Speaker 3 you know, how there are Final Fantasy characters in Kingdom Hearts? They should have put,

Speaker 3 they should have put Boshi in Kingdom Hearts.

Speaker 3 It's a licensing nightmare to make that happen, but I totally agree. They should throw Boshi in more things.

Speaker 2 That first song of the banger, man, that really took me back. I forgot about those huge drums.
It's like very, very, very, you know, percussive.

Speaker 2 And then they have the fucking, they have the shitty 1990s DJ scratch, like, like, keyboard preset sound every so often.

Speaker 2 It's like an accent. That's so funny.

Speaker 2 That track absolutely rocks. And yeah, that second one was awesome, too.
Very, very

Speaker 2 renaissance-y, I guess I would say.

Speaker 3 Do you have, Jaygo? Is there anything I feel like we kind of been all over the place in terms of

Speaker 3 adding our own thoughts, but I'm curious, is there anything we've missed? Anything you want to talk about this game that we haven't touched on?

Speaker 2 One thing that took me,

Speaker 2 brought me back to it, was

Speaker 2 looking at it last night, was just like the overall sense of humor it has.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. It's a very silly game with lots of funny little moments to it, and a lot of it is made possible through some really great physical comedy with Mario, who never talks.

Speaker 2 So because he never talks, it gives you a little bit of an obstacle when he has to communicate with other characters. So there's oftentimes it was like, Mario, explain explain what happened.

Speaker 2 And he has to mime through it, which can be done either by like motions, but then like

Speaker 2 he'll imitate another character and transform into it and then like show what happened with that. So it's just a lot of small touches like that that make the game very funny, which I really

Speaker 2 appreciate. There's not a lot like Mario is always a very funny franchise because it's all very silly and you're in a giant boot, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 2 But this game really hits the sense of humor in a way that I really enjoy at the time and is frankly kind of make me want to go back and play again. You might have to buy one of those little SNES

Speaker 2 ROM things they released recently. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 Well, you saw the Switch remake is coming. I did.
Switch Remaster. I mean, is that going to persuade you to get a Switch?

Speaker 2 Ah, God, I really want to play the Zelda games. And so that might put me over the top.

Speaker 2 The problem with this is I know any game like this is just like, bam, 100 hours of my life gone. So like it's really hard.
Like, like, I have so much shit to do.

Speaker 2 Like, can I really stand playing Mario RPG a third time? Maybe.

Speaker 3 Yeah, that's the, that is the exact quandary we face every single week on this show.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 I did take two screenshots in the game that made me laugh.

Speaker 3 They were from really, they were early on, but you're talking to you, or, you know, Toad is talking to you, and he's like, oh, this bad guy went that way.

Speaker 3 I'd go do it myself, but I can't because I forgot my bazooka at home.

Speaker 3 He has a bazooka, a military-grade weapon that he just like has.

Speaker 2 Yeah, they wisely do not have guns in this game.

Speaker 3 And then, in this other one, in uh, just a little further along, uh, Mario, I was talking to like this little kid character that was like running around.

Speaker 3 It's like a little, the same thing that Malo is

Speaker 3 running around.

Speaker 3 And uh, it says, Mario, let's say you and I get hitched in a few years, okay?

Speaker 2 I was like, What?

Speaker 2 Stop running around, me and a good woman.

Speaker 3 Yeah, Mario's a catch.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 3 Yeah,

Speaker 3 it's a really cool game. I mean, I'm glad we got to talk about it.

Speaker 3 I think it's like

Speaker 3 you talked about the sense of humor.

Speaker 3 I think that's a really great thing to drill down because, again, that's the, it was trained in a lot of these, in these Mario, all these Mario RPGs that came from Nintendo.

Speaker 3 But I also think, like, you know, I suspect, I don't know, he's probably fucking talked about it in an interview, but I suspect Undertale was partly inspired by the tonally by this game because it's the same sort of thing and i i you know i know that that the the games that have been cited are like things like

Speaker 3 uh like like the like the mother series like earthbound and you know this is kind of in that same sort of world so it i i assume this one also

Speaker 3 uh it

Speaker 3 drew a squiggly line to that game so yeah it's it's uh it's i don't know it's really cool heather matt any other thoughts uh i'm very i'm very excited for the remake uh i you know,

Speaker 3 uh, would like to press on with this, but just the reality of

Speaker 3 uh, what I have in front of me right now, I probably like won't spend that much more time with the original.

Speaker 2 But when the remake comes along, I'm all in, I'm ready.

Speaker 4 Yeah, the remake,

Speaker 4 like, just watching the trailer for the remake again, having played the limited amount of it that I've played now, I'm like, oh, wow, it's it's the same cutscenes, but they have new camera angles.

Speaker 4 I also love the look of the characters being ported over that same design sensibility of that little squat, a little squat Mario, the little guy.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yes.
No longer the spelt, sexy Mario that we identify now.

Speaker 2 I mean, the dude's been in like a bathing suit recently. Don't even talk about it.
I'm going to get too horny. I don't want to hear it.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Does he have a

Speaker 2 belly button and nipples, or is he one of those? He does. Okay.

Speaker 3 And like a single, like he has like stout hairs or something, too. It's like

Speaker 2 all

Speaker 2 triple Italian. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Homer Simpson amount of chest.

Speaker 3 All right. Hey, let's do a segment.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 3 This is a new segment.

Speaker 3 I'll explain what it is after I say what the title is, okay?

Speaker 3 The,

Speaker 3 oh, God, I'm so nervous.

Speaker 3 Okay, here we go.

Speaker 3 Then this new segment. Yeah, also, just for everyone listening to this, Matt, the only context Matt gave us is that he has a new segment and he's unsure about it.

Speaker 3 So, we don't know anything else about what's about to happen. No, but I think it's going to be, I think it's going to be good.
I did sort of

Speaker 3 in a panic

Speaker 3 prepare this last night. So, here, here we go.
This segment is called What's Their Age Again?

Speaker 3 Now, it's time to say the age to me.

Speaker 3 Are they 19? Are they 23?

Speaker 3 Is it canon? Is it just a thought? Then match your research, probably not. Can our contestants guess their age? What's their age again? What's their age again?

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 3 So I have some video game characters' ages.

Speaker 4 So good, man.

Speaker 2 And you have to tell me what... Nick is frozen in laughter.
He's enjoying himself.

Speaker 3 So I know that this is like a thing that Nick does. That's why I was like extra nervous about it.
And I just really wanted to make him proud.

Speaker 2 That's all.

Speaker 2 Matt, I'm beaming.

Speaker 2 I'll never have a son, but

Speaker 2 you could have me

Speaker 3 with someone that's like eight years younger than you.

Speaker 3 Okay, so here we go.

Speaker 3 The premise of this segment is I have some video game characters' ages, and you guys have to tell me what you think their age is, and then I'll tell you if you're right or not.

Speaker 2 Okay. So they all have canonical ages?

Speaker 3 They all have canonical ages, and I will say some of them are looser than others, but this is what they've said.

Speaker 3 We'll start with an easy one. Sonic.

Speaker 2 How old is Sonic?

Speaker 3 Microware, I know this. He's 15.
All right, that's a point for Nick.

Speaker 3 Sonic is 15.

Speaker 3 He's always been been based on the image of an edgy teenager with attitude, and his Wikipedia entry lists his age at 15, and it's also noted on the Japanese Sega website. So that's one point for Nick.

Speaker 2 15 is also when your body is exploding with hormones, covering an acne.

Speaker 2 Sonic is having wet dreams every night.

Speaker 2 Yeah, he is like shameful backing off. Yeah, I don't think he's that confident, but anyway.

Speaker 2 It's a little too young.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I would say 18 would be a better age, but nonetheless.

Speaker 3 Yeah, he should be. Yeah, you should, maybe, whatever.
You want me to know that he could make him 17, but like, yeah, like 15 is too young.

Speaker 3 He's always pregnant, so that, like, that's kind of like a layer too. That's like kind of that's another thing.
That's weird. That becomes dark when he's 15.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 And he's pregnant with Shrek's baby.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Here's an here's the next character

Speaker 3 just recently discussed.

Speaker 2 Mario. How old is Mario?

Speaker 4 Heather.

Speaker 2 Heather.

Speaker 4 I believe he's the age of the Christ, 33.

Speaker 2 Heather, that is incorrect.

Speaker 2 I was going to say, yeah, 35, something like that. Okay.

Speaker 3 Django also incorrect, Nick?

Speaker 3 I think he's younger. I think he's in his 20s.
I want to say he's 27.

Speaker 3 Just over, Nick.

Speaker 3 So no points awarded here. Mario is about 24 or 25 years old, according to

Speaker 2 Shigeru Miyamoto.

Speaker 3 That's a depression era, 24. Yeah, that's like back when you had like five kids at age 20.
When life expectancy was 37. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 God damn.

Speaker 3 So, Nick still had one point. How's this going? This is like fun, right? This is funny.

Speaker 2 Yeah, we're having fun.

Speaker 3 Okay, here we go. This one's maybe a little trickier.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 3 Solid Snake in

Speaker 3 Metal Gear Solid 2.

Speaker 2 Heather.

Speaker 2 Heather.

Speaker 2 24.

Speaker 3 Heather is incorrect.

Speaker 3 Jenga, you play the Metal Gear Solids at all?

Speaker 2 I have not played them at all, so I'm just guessing purely off the poster art.

Speaker 3 If you like Death Stranding, you might want to try a Metal Gear Solid. They're absolutely worth revisiting.
There's the HD

Speaker 3 remasters are coming out of

Speaker 3 the originals in October. Maybe wait until then so so they're on more modern platforms, but very playable.

Speaker 2 My guess on the poster is

Speaker 2 38.

Speaker 3 Okay, interesting.

Speaker 3 Interesting, but no vertical.

Speaker 2 Interesting or correct? Interesting or correct.

Speaker 3 I want to hear what Nick says.

Speaker 3 I think he is a little older in Metal Gear Solid 2. I think the chronology.

Speaker 3 I'll guess the over there, and I'm just going to say he's... I don't think they would do this, but I'm just going to say he was 40.

Speaker 3 that is incorrect

Speaker 3 Django is closest

Speaker 3 but there's actually two answers

Speaker 3 love this

Speaker 3 because

Speaker 3 there's a large swath of time that is covered in Metal Gear Solid 2 right there's the prelude that you play the tanker mission so he's 35 yeah when the tanker sinks But then he's 37 when the big shell incident occurs.

Speaker 3 So I'm going to give Django the point for being closest.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 3 38. We're getting points for getting closest.

Speaker 2 I feel like I should have gotten you were, but like, that was, you were like two, but you were like two over.

Speaker 3 Okay. One over, I'll sort of like, okay, yeah.

Speaker 2 Sounds like the rules are kind of changing on the fly here. Yeah.

Speaker 2 It is.

Speaker 3 Are we still having fun? Is that sort of like

Speaker 3 that's okay?

Speaker 3 Having a little less fun now, but go on.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 2 Kratos in God of War Ragnarok.

Speaker 3 How old is Kratos?

Speaker 2 Weiger. Heather.

Speaker 2 I heard 19.

Speaker 2 19, Nick.

Speaker 3 Okay, so now you're having your own own fun.

Speaker 2 Kratos is the dad.

Speaker 3 Kratos is the dad. Kratos is the dad.

Speaker 2 Heather.

Speaker 4 35.

Speaker 3 35. That's a great guest.
It is incorrect.

Speaker 4 Oh, goddamn.

Speaker 3 You have to think about.

Speaker 2 Ragnarok is the most recent installment, right?

Speaker 3 Ragnarok's the most recent installment.

Speaker 2 Ragnarok.

Speaker 3 But you also have to think

Speaker 2 he's.

Speaker 4 Oh, shit.

Speaker 3 He's like a demigod, right? He's in the Greek mythology, and now he's in the Norse mythology.

Speaker 4 Oh, god damn it.

Speaker 2 I think he's probably in his 50s at least.

Speaker 2 I played the game before that. Part of it is kind of like breaking down a little bit.
So I got to say 55, maybe.

Speaker 3 Okay, you would be correct if you added 1,000 years.

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 3 he's somewhere between 1047 and 1055 based on the sort of context within the games and what people have been able to figure out.

Speaker 3 So it's tied up, one apiece. Nick and Django, Heather, you can still get on the board.
Heather, you technically still could win, actually. There's a couple more here.

Speaker 3 Wow, I don't think it's gonna be how old is Leon Kennedy in Resident Evil 4.

Speaker 3 I'm a wire girl, I'll buzz in, and I'm gonna guess 26.

Speaker 3 Okay, I'm gonna hold.

Speaker 2 We are holding. Heather.

Speaker 2 Heather.

Speaker 2 24 and 27.

Speaker 2 Wait, is there a flashback in that game?

Speaker 3 No, but Heather, the game takes place over like

Speaker 3 it's like two days or something.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's like a long weekend. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I think, God, I think 24 might be right. Someone says to say 25.

Speaker 3 Okay, Nick is closest. Leon is 27.
He's 21 in Resident Evil 2 when he's a rookie, but then six years later in Resident Evil 4, he's 27.

Speaker 3 Didn't Heather say 24 and 27?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Wait, did you say 27 also?

Speaker 2 Yes. Okay, then Heather gets to the point.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 3 Wait,

Speaker 2 she gets two guesses and she gets it because one of them was right. In that case, I have a range of guesses to populate the board with.
Don't poke holes in my little game.

Speaker 2 It's all tied up.

Speaker 3 Okay, it's all tied up, and that's actually lucky because this next one is worth two points.

Speaker 2 Wow, great.

Speaker 3 How old are Joel and Ellie in The Last of Us 2?

Speaker 3 You have to get both right.

Speaker 2 Exactly.

Speaker 3 I think this is just established in the game. I'll let someone else go first, but I think this is just established in the game.

Speaker 3 I think this one there is like a very clear answer to.

Speaker 3 Or at least based off of what's established in part one.

Speaker 2 I think Ellie is probably like 19, and Joel's like 51.

Speaker 3 I'm going to let everybody guess. Okay, so

Speaker 3 Joel, start of Last of Us Part 1,

Speaker 3 has a teenage daughter,

Speaker 3 20-year time gap,

Speaker 3 and then another five-plus years between the end of that game and Last of Us Part 2.

Speaker 3 I'm going to say

Speaker 3 56 and 17.

Speaker 3 Heather?

Speaker 4 Joel is 53.

Speaker 3 Ellie is 18.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 3 So we have to get both right. So it's possible that none of us got any guy

Speaker 2 gets a point here. Very possible.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 None of you got it both right. Okay.
But this, this,

Speaker 3 this one is worth two points. So I could award one point

Speaker 2 for a half point.

Speaker 3 Does that make sense?

Speaker 3 I mean, yeah, if you just want to keep changing the rules as you go, I guess it makes perfect sense.

Speaker 2 To the bonus row. Whatever.
It's fucking in our game.

Speaker 3 Joel and Ellie in The Last of Us 2 are 56

Speaker 3 and 19.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 3 So Nick gets a point, and Django gets a point.

Speaker 3 Which leaves our game still at a tie. You know what? Ty goes to the guest.
Ty goes to the guest. Django wins.

Speaker 2 This is the first for what's for what's his age again? What's their age again?

Speaker 2 The inaugural What's His Age Again winner, Django gold.

Speaker 2 I didn't prepare a speech.

Speaker 3 This is huge. Congratulations.

Speaker 2 Thanks to all of you. Thanks to all the fictional characters for being the age I thought they might be.

Speaker 3 Django, before we wrap up, we have one more question that I wanted to ask you earlier, and I'm just curious, like, when you play a game where you can customize your name, having the name Django, Django, do you play as Django?

Speaker 2 Very seldom. I want to really escape my current reality when I play video games.

Speaker 2 So, I give him a cool name, like Thrasher or Wiz.

Speaker 3 But Django is a cool name, isn't it?

Speaker 2 It is. I just, you know,

Speaker 2 for some reason, yeah, I want to escape. I want to be someone else.
I want to be a different character.

Speaker 2 So, I always either go stick to the default like a normal, or I just pick some random silly game.

Speaker 2 I, however, am very against names that are too silly. Like, I'll never just call my character like ass-management or bad.
Like, that's like, that's a sin.

Speaker 3 Yeah, that destroys the reality. I'm with you there.

Speaker 3 Well, hey, that's this week's Get Played. Our engineering is by Alex Gonzalez, Dead Air Alex G on Twitter and Instagram.
Also, we have Get Animate.

Speaker 2 Heather, what are we talking about this week?

Speaker 4 We're talking about the melancholy of Harihi Suzumiya season two,

Speaker 4 which we are continuing our watchdown in broadcast order, beginning with episodes eight and twelve on Crunchyroll,

Speaker 4 which are episodes 1 and 2 of the second season of The Melancholy of Hari Suzumiya.

Speaker 4 You can check that out on patreon.com slash get played for new episodes of get animated and old episodes of get animated as well. So check it out.
It's us talking about anime.

Speaker 3 And it's now, you know, Stitcher Premium's Demise is now the only place you can get that, patreon.com slash get played. Check it out.
And there will be more on that soon.

Speaker 3 I feel like people have been asking and have wanted an official answer about what's going on with the back catalog and other things that are on Sigurd Premium. We still don't know.
So we don't know.

Speaker 3 That's our official answer at the moment. As soon as we know, we'll have a better official answer soon.

Speaker 2 Exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Django Gold, our guest. Django, thank you so much for joining us.
What an absolute delight. The special is Bag of Tricks.
It's coming in the fall.

Speaker 3 I want to give you a chance. I've been doing this with guests right now.
But

Speaker 3 first off, if you want to share any thoughts on the WGA SAG After Strikes, because you know, I know this is a big thing a lot of people are dealing with.

Speaker 3 If you have any personal experience you want to share on that, and then also, yeah, yeah, plug the special and anything else, social media, anything else you want to talk about.

Speaker 2 Sure, I can get that out of the way real quick. Just follow me on the

Speaker 2 various social apps at Django Industries, one word. And yeah, the special bag of tricks will hopefully be out in September.

Speaker 2 There is a joke about video games in it, listeners. So if you want

Speaker 2 to watch the whole thing front to back to get that one joke about video games, I think you should.

Speaker 2 And share it with friends and see if they can find the joke about video games. But no, the special will be very good.
It's my first special after 12 years of doing stand-up.

Speaker 2 And I gotta say, it's looking very, very funny and interesting and different. So please watch it.

Speaker 2 As for the sag after WGA strike, it's just really weird to be in a situation where the villains are so cartoonishly evil.

Speaker 2 It's just like odd, because you could like in most

Speaker 2 conflicts in life, you can see the point the other person has, and like like, you can try to find a common ground.

Speaker 2 But the studios, and like, specifically, like, the few dozen people at the top, the studios have been acting so maliciously and unfair and bring such little value to the table.

Speaker 2 It's just bizarre to be in a conflict like this where you're fighting, like, an incompetent Darth Vader who's looking to, like,

Speaker 2 climatize the Death Star or sell it off for parts. Like, it's just, like, so shitty and bad, and they've just been doing such a bad job of messaging.

Speaker 2 So, like, we have the morale, we have the righteousness, and hopefully, we'll come out of this with a way that people can actually support themselves, creating the things that people like and that people want.

Speaker 2 And on the other side, you have these people who just do nothing except like harvest and deplete that which people like. So, it's really

Speaker 2 an ugly foe to be going up against. I'm confident a few more months of this, we should be hopefully in a better position.

Speaker 3 Awesome, love that.

Speaker 2 Yeah, love it.

Speaker 3 Django, Jago, congrats on Bag of Tricks.

Speaker 3 And thanks for being here.

Speaker 2 Thanks for having me, guys.

Speaker 3 And at AMPTP,

Speaker 3 this week you got played.

Speaker 2 Oh, shit. And that was the turning point.
I was going to say, if we find out next week that this is all over, it was because we did it. Yeah, that's right, too.

Speaker 3 What's going on? It's Lamorne Morris.

Speaker 4 And Hannah Simone.

Speaker 3 And we host The Mess Around, a New Girl Rewatch podcast now on Headgum. Now, here's the thing.
Every single week we chat about an episode of New Girl, and we really get into it.

Speaker 3 Like we get up in there. We get up in there.
You know, we reminisce about our times on set. We share behind-the-scenes tea.
We react to re-watching episodes that we haven't seen in years.

Speaker 3 We talk about how Jake Johnson is dog.

Speaker 4 That's not true. We talk about so many memories we have of working with the biggest stars on the planet.
I'm talking Prince, Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo.

Speaker 3 We're just two BFFs having a good old time, okay? Sometimes we even talk to other co-stars like Zoe Deschanel, Jake Johnson, Max Greenfield, and Damon Waynes Jr.

Speaker 3 And your dad, we talk to your dad on this show as well.

Speaker 4 Make sure you subscribe to the mess around wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes drop every single Tuesday.