Castle Super Beast - CSB 225: There's Aloooooot Of Things I Loooove About Annabella (feat. Gene Park)

Episode Date: June 29, 2023

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[♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ All right, there we are. Hey, what's up? Gene returns to the podcasts. Helped you strong and powerful What's up, man? right I Friend of the show jean park is finally back after a long time it is and I've recovered. I was in the hyperbolic chamber and defeated the cell That is cancer. There you go and Congrats again, man. Yes, siriously. That is awesome. And uh...

You know, no one has to toss a Senzu bean out to at any point either, so... Yeah! That's fucking... That is awesome. And uh... Happy to have you. There is much to do this week.

There's a lot to have you. There's a lot going on. And you there's a lot going on and Not that we necessarily have to take it, but we have been given permission to disrespect our guests time so We're gonna do our time is valuable not a bit. We're gonna do our best to cover the many many things that have happened over the last seven days I suppose I mean, so... Fuck, do we want to start? Okay, well, if I have... There's shit that's basically like about to spill over and be gone from my brain if I don't start...

Yeah, do it, go! Going, so... Um, I will start with the fact that, um, I've now beaten the Mass Effect trilogy. You beat Marauder Shields, congratulations. Was that final ending of Mass Effect? That's the trying to save you from the ending bit. Yeah, no, they're the final grunt that you shoot in that game is just some generic thug and it's his shields and it's just marauders shields right?

It's just for the area of when boss battles were bad, dude When are we gonna be dumb at boss battles bro? Oh my gosh. Oh my god, right? Can't boss battles be used yeah, right? Right, okay? I see yeah, there's a lot of loads There's a lot of shit going on where people were just yelling things and me and Reggie are just like, dude, we're not even gonna begin to try to understand the 18 memes that are going off right now because every- People-

People age late. Not only that, but like, people are teleporting back in time to when they were 13 and their eyes are rolling back in their head and they're not even conscious of what they're typing anymore. They're living in the past in this moment, screaming things and we're like, yeah, sure, man. Probably a funny thing, but we're just going

for what's in front of us. It was a time. So I have, I'm really glad that the way I did it as we talked about it in the moment. And then the next day I came back, I digested a little bit, I came back, I gave a couple more thoughts and now I'm gonna come back on this again.

But the distance, of course, means it's not as sharp already because so much shit has happened since then. So I'm glad I got it out right away because I wouldn't have been able to do so, articulately if there was too much time passed. But in the end, first off, fucking huge thanks to everybody who's been watching and enjoying that.

And a lot of people have basically said that they fucking love this insane run more than anything else in that it's been you know a Completely fresh way to watch this this Classic trilogy and that's the goal I have anytime we go back to something classic So I'm really really happy that that ended up working out despite you know The anxieties in the middle and the nervousness about how to proceed and the switchovers and such in the end it worked out amazingly and I gave a million kudos before but I'll get Dal triple down and give kudos again to asana for really helping us out with the.

That's that assana. Hey. Good job. Amazingly. She did so well at like basically serving the role of like okay the person that would be in the room that knows what's coming this is kind of the prep and we can make those amazing moments happen like red versus blue at the Citadel and things like that. Yeah, now that it's over, I have to say,

a long time ago when you decided to do your mixing and match with the characters, everyone was sitting around going, yeah, there's something we wanna warn you about, which is the red and blue situation, but we don't know how to fucking tell you, because it's like the biggest spoiler ever. Right. But hey, look at that.

That asked not just jury rigged a solution. Yeah. It just worked. And the energy was the best possible outcome. That's, I love that more than what the original would have been there. So that's incredible. Everyone got a real fun experience out of seeing that type of thing for the first time. Plus, the fact that there's two of us there as well

is like there's different energy to like how we both play the characters and yet, yet I'm bickering with him and the choices and so on and it's chaotic energy the whole way through, so it's a lot of fun. Great run through that. Now because there's so much to go into I guess I'm just I'm not gonna dwell too long I'll just get to like the bullet points, but The way things played out as you hit that ending What strikes me the most is that? Okay before you even get to the room there's what I know I were gonna spoil the ending of mass effect We're gonna spoil the ending of mass effect three for We're going to spoil the ending of Mass Effect 3

for anybody who doesn't want to hear about that. And by extension, the Mass Effect universe, I suppose, to some degree. OK, so one shout-outs to Anderson for having a clean, awesome, unsullied run through that series. Keith David, top to bottom is just a great character and that finale you get with him.

Keith David's a great character. Yeah, you're right. Where's the lie? And then when you get in like that full thing you get through the game with him, that it's unstated, but it's quite clear that like this is a paternal figure you have. It's not Hackett who's military with you.

It's he's reaching out, he's on a personal level and he's talking about his own family troubles and you kind of have that moment where he's like, you did good son and you're just like, ah, that's awesome. So that was airtight top to bottom. Contrasting with that, you get Tim, Timmy Boy, who I'm like, he's got to show his face

at some point, and all I really want from Tim is through, I'm not even gonna ask for the justification of where your infinite nonsense plot money came from. You're, you know, I just want to hear, like through your indoctrinated self even, either what you thought your idea was and why it would work or you break because you kind of realize, shit, I'm indoctrinated, right?

Like, it does, it never made sense. Either the wreck, even though the recognition that it never made sense, or, you know, an actual verbal boss battle, and in what we ended up getting is this insane thing where he goes, no, you don't understand. We got to do it this way for humanity. And then you go, but what if you're wrong?

And he goes, oh, and then one follow-up question shatters his mind, you know. I think that that elusive man's like, you know, because it's supposed to be like, what are you gonna do? And they're supposed to push you and pull you to, like, elusive man's pitch is awful. It is so uncompelling, it is so unconvincing. The guy is crackling with fucking mind control and cyborg energy and you're like, he doesn't make any good points at all and it's totally uncompelling. And like the last couple of moments before that are basically just like him going, no, we have to burn those orphanages

because the smoke will be useful for creating a mess. You're like, it's just, it's the level of evil has gone beyond anything you can possibly comprehend. And you're waiting for that. Like, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt if you can look me in the eye and just say,

okay, here's where we started and it kind of made sense here, but then I got indoctrinated and now it's kind of fucked up, but we never even get that. So it's all a wash, the whole thing feels pointless, right? And I guess I just can conclude it. It's like, well, if your muscle is represented by chylang, then your brains are not gonna be that compelling

or impressive to begin with. I was about to say, what was your impression of chylang? Fucking god, just get it. Ugh. I mean, it's kind of wild that even for something that old, but still it's only it's like it's not like from 30 years ago, right? It's from like a little over 10. So it's wild that they kind of still thought, nah man, this cool ninja guy with the edge is gonna just do it. And it's like, you like, I don't know. Shut up, talk.

He's a Naruto OC. There's nothing. There's just less than nothing happening. And then you even get to kill him in the most nothing edgy kind of way of like ignoring then turn and stab. And really, that's, I mean, I'm like, even that's too much for it. I would have preferred it because what happened is, and I think what I like, even that's too much for it, I would have preferred it, because what happened is,

and I think what I was told is that a mod was basically responsible for, you can get the broken sword afterwards, it's like a trophy, you know? Yeah, I didn't have that. And that's like, I'm like, don't acknowledge him that much, don't give him that much respect. Some people just need to get John Wick one.

Do you know what I mean? The ending of Kylang in my heart for Shepherd is like Tally saying, wow, you finally killed Kylang and Shepherd goes, who, who eats what? Yeah, just that's it like you'd really just some people that think they're high up on the villain list deserve nothing more than pop and we're out. There's no acknowledging you're just another fucker and it's done, right? So anyway, um, and timeless cringe, timeless, timeless. It feels like the opposite of when you got to the end of Final Fantasy 6 and you were like, wow, after all these years, this is still good. And then you get the highlight is like, wow, after all these years, it's still bad. And then you get the highlight. It's like, wow, after all these years, it's still bad.

It's not even like ironic cringe anymore. It's just so sincere and just sad. Yeah. And you can't even like pretend, it's not even a thing where you're like, oh, but his design is so cool. It's like, no, it's no. It's top to bottom, fucking falling apart, you know?

So anyway, you get that shit. And yeah, so we move into the finale room. And it's like, oh my God, right off the bat, fucking it all leads back to Vancouver Child. Here at the end of all things, a Vancouver Child awaits you on the other side. And it's just, I'm like, I'm so fucking over the mystical, all-knowing child trope.

It's, I'm like, even back then, I'm like, I, we get it, we get it. God is a little innocent child. Orm because of Shepherd's grief. And, you know, like, of course, that whole bit of like the one that, you know, you can't stop thinking about because PTSD. And I've already said this already that, I know, you can't stop thinking about because PTSD. And I've already said this already that I don't outright dismiss the idea of shepherd

being haunted by one random kid. If you take that and have shepherd confused by why, you know, and if it's like, oh, because trauma takes on unpredictable forms and you never know how that's going to express itself in your day-to-day life. And they played with that idea, then you'd have a valid reason, but that's gonna express itself in your day-to-day life, and they played with that idea then you'd have a valid reason, but that's not what they play it for. They just played.

You killed millions of veterans. They play it for the completely nonsense, mystical child coming through all knowing, yaddy-yadda, whatever. And it wasn't until I think two steps into that conversation that I didn't realize that we were being presented with a list and it was just a like part one, part two, part three to the thing. I thought it was still a conversation going and at some point there would be a like, all right, which one of these options are you going to go with? But it's actually process of elimination.

So I put this out, we talked about it in the moment, and then I, like I said, I came back to it the next day and had a few thoughts. At the in the moment, the first thing I'll say is there's what I thought was cool and was interesting about this entire ending sequence, because there are some things that are worthy of calling attention to. Certainly the feeling of the final moments with your squad, the build up of getting to say, I'm not going to say goodbye, but you know what this is, right? It's very desperate. Yeah, and it's a real back against the against the wall struggle, you know, those stakes are what they are.

Those were played out really well. And the little reparitos that are just just as happy you on the ground at that point, or you know, it's doing the thing. But when you kind of have that moment where the first proposition, right, the red control ending, excuse me, the red destroy ending. Just draw.

Right, gets proposed. Not knowing what necessarily that was, the idea of it immediately struck me as fascinating and a really interesting point because the way I took that, and what I find I think was cool about that, is the idea that all right, Shepherd, here you are. You can fix the problem and make the reapers go away.

But you know how throughout the whole series, we've been talking about how robots are really alive and respecting them. Do you actually believe that though? Or deep, deep down, does it just feel nice to kind of say that, but you really think that life is organic and the robots are kind of on another tier that doesn't really fully matter.

Because if you have to sacrifice them to save the rest of us, would you do it? That's an interesting question. I think that's a really kind way to phrase that question. Because I think that the way that that was designed was the destroy was a hit button solve problem Like the problem is overtly solved like it's gone However, there needs to be some downside at all

At which point they go well people like the geth, right? Okay, it'll also take out the geth So there's your downside and ed and anyone dependent on synthetic right and so and then the the count will be catastrophic however uh... organics will survive now i think it's a really good question right this is this is really important and it's one of the issues the people have a ending right away

to the korean's die as a result of you hitting that button? That's a really good question. Totally dependent. Now on cybernetic take-out. I was not under the impression that like machines as a whole stop existing, it's more like anything AI or to that advanced level falls apart, right? But perhaps VIs would continue to work. Perhaps anything mechanical still works, to that advanced level falls apart, right? But perhaps VIs would continue to work.

Perhaps anything mechanical still works, machines and computers and such, but anything that's approaching that level of sophistication would fall apart, right? Even within that casualty count, again, it's not that they took this angle on it, but the implication that you as a player has to take a moment and actually

question whether or not you believe the bullshit or whether or not you're real about it. Like, okay, if you really think this life, because we all can think of aliens as valuable life that is just like us in a different way, but the idea of the robot is a harder one to reach to. Like you have to take a leap of faith that its intentions are pure enough and that its thoughts are sophisticated enough that mirror our own stupid bullshit to be cool. Of course, but like in this,

but you still, but like you have to take that leap to go like and we think your life is worth protecting and validating to the same degree as everything else, right? And there's obviously complications when you get into the, like well, what if it can carbon copy itself forever and we get into the weirdness of, you know, the soul and so on. But the thesis statement, at least from the jump,

that has the geth, activate from the moment where they ask, whether this unit has a soul or not, is a nice potential counterpoint in the form of this proposition. You then move on to the blue control ending. Oh, you're wanting a controller. Well, that's the order it's presented in. Oh, yeah, you're right. It's just like you can become a god and take control of the situation. If you think that none of these outcomes are going none of these outcomes are gonna be good enough.

And then you will be the one to decide. Of course, you have to become something less than human. You have to become something more than human. You've gotta just become the god of all of the reapers, and with that, it's interesting how they go. All right, so let's put the Paragon color on the Paragon Solution, which is I think that's a really good. That's the one thing I love about the ending is like destroy is red

So it feels renegade, but yeah, but that's kind of the pair of gone right and then blue is like no We'll fix it. I'll be the right one. I'll decide. I know what's good and then it's like oh, we're blue-fash all the way We're going hard down that line and then you's like oh we're blue-fash all the way we're going hard Down that line and then you get no you don't get the context initially right so that cuts off at the fucking planet And you just you leave you get blueballed but when you get the extra cutscene the extra little slide show you see that moment of like and Your your renegade shepherd or whatever the case is will be like, and I will be the one to decide. And those who have wronged me will face my army. And it's like, okay, and here we go,

I, the Lord thy God, I'm a jealous God, visiting the iniquities of the Father and to the children, you know, like you're straight up marching down a path of like, and you are the one who will determine how what peace means in the future. Got it, perfect. This outcome I'm sure is even better

than the one we were about to face, right? I think blue is like dramatically hurt by the fact that it's the option that Tim wanted you to pick. And Tim's going to get there. So then you move on to the synthesis. And the synthesis is like actually guys, this is probably the least amount of destruction.

And all you really have to do is hit the button and now we're all on the same side and as you may have heard, Reggie hit the button and Pulled the trigger and went full-grain and I'm like, well, I guess that's it boys Racism is defeated. We have now all become one and everybody gets the pass, right? We have now all become one and everybody gets the pass, right? Like, and it just hard cuts to the filter where everyone is a fucking robot. And we're all the same now. We all, you know, everyone won together. We get along.

No problems whatsoever. And all it took was the complete and utter removal of any free will or bodily autonomy. And all you had to do was completely and utterly change what life means in the universe forever and the concept of freedom. I think that the green synthesis ending does not play, it does not go into in-game or in the text enough that you are violating the bodily autonomy of literally every thinking creature that it currently exists. And you have to face that as a preferable outcome

to the casualty count that would otherwise occur, right? So that's kind of where you're looking at it. Like, all right. We have entries and plans. I fucking feel like it's every day. Yeah, yeah, all plans. Every day. It cuts to like leaves that are cyberneticized. Oh my god.

And you just have to go, all right, but hey, less things died and everything got to long. And the husks that were like, ah, are going, oh, you're a friend now. Hey. First belly's down, yeah. Yeah, and huskhead sitting on your desk over there is now an actual person going

Oh, with no body right wild so okay These are your propositions now what I initially kind of walked away from with these three Besides being tired of the fucking child delivery system trope that we got there is the part where Oh, yeah, well sorry and as an aside by the way the hilarious where, oh yeah, oh sorry. And as an aside, by the way, the hilariousness of, as he read you walked up to the reactor to jump in for the green ending, the fact that he put the gun up and Dano's like, wait a minute, you can aim that.

They let you, can you? And immediately he didn't do it, he hit the threshold, so he threw the gun down. I'm like, oh, I bet you, there was something there. And everyone's like, yeah, you can shoot the child. You can shoot the child for ending four. Right. Which gets put in after the fact and the result of that being a cynical ass fuck you, you don't want to play our game. Well, find them. Take your ball and go home bitch. That is hilarious. Right? You don't really get an ending out of that because you choose

to not play and the game says,. You don't get to play. But when it comes to those three now, I initially walked out of that going, this bothers me because it feels cynical. And I'm like, it feels like a cynical result to a very complicated, large, rolling three-part story with a million dominoes that's hard to juggle. And I understand how difficult it is to get to this point. But these endings are just like, they're all like, yeah, I know when you have to say that look,

it's gonna hurt no matter what, but you gotta choose what kind of pain. But the idea of literally going this game is all about choices, pick which one of these, and they're all kind of not just fucked up in what they proposed to you, but targeted fucked up because the cynicism I kind of realized after I came back to it and thought, like, this bothers me, but I don't know how to fix it. And then I came back and said, okay, wait, hold on, I think I have an idea of how to fix it. The reason why the cynicism bothers me is because you spent so much of your time in that game

trying to provide an example of hope, right? As shepherd and people like Edie are asking you about that. And going, why do you go against odds that are clearly impossible? And you're kind of just like, because we believe in each other. And because sometimes you just gotta do what's right. And even if it means sacrificing yourself, you know, all that kingdom heart shit all that

Exactly right all that like You know basically Shimon and and and fucking Camina talking to the anti-spirals about like the odds of bullshit The human spirit the adiata so When it comes down to it, the game is like, no actually, you know how you've spent the entire time going like that, and you've spent the entire time rallying against the likes of people like fucking Tim and people like fucking Serran. Well, it turns out those guys are right,

except they're just not here yet, but because it's you, you can do their bad idea good. You can get the hard call. So the synthesis ending is like, oh, Sarah was right actually. We should act Sarah's ending. We should just join with them and give up all freedom and live in a harmony of nothing because really this is, just join the hive mind, board get up, right?

But this is twisting that board presentation to be like, what if it was bright green and happy? And we had a baby in our hands, and it was a little baby board. The synthesis ending is not presented as such, and I don't even think they might have even considered as such when they made it. But when you pick synthesis,

you are admitting that you played three games only to go along with the original villains plan. And you've talked him down so hard initially that he fucking blows his brains out after realizing the indoctrination. But now you're like, hold on a minute. Maybe we can scoop it back in

because maybe I need to actually,'re right, you know, and then One step before that is the fucking control version of things what you just fucking I walked past Tim's body on the ground Because he wanted control And he's like now you can't right furthermore I saw the art of like the potential Tim monster boss fight where he gets big dumb stupid arms and shit. And it's like, oh, I'm gonna say I'll ever say it. It was exactly, it was Bane. It was a Bane Tim.

And the description being like, oh, he uses his intellect to fight you. Meanwhile, he's fucking jacked out like crazy. It's like the dumbest shit ever. But Tim's ending is the fucking blue, and you're like, that is so cynical because he gave you no interesting proposition of that ending. And then now you're faced with the same choice and you go, yeah, you know what? I got a bigger dick. I can swing it wider and I can fucking fix the things that Tim was gonna not do. And I won't make the same mistakes because I'm special,

which is literally the history of Fash. You know, we're gonna do it different this time though. There's a lot of little things over the course of the series that were like kind of like a little, I wouldn't even call them flaws. They're just like goofy little things. But when you get to the ending, they start to show real problems.

The control ending is victim to the fact that they were never able to decide what renegade actually fucking is. Renegade in Mass Effect 1 is, I'm willing to make the hard calls and make the necessary sacrifices to do what's good in the end. And then 2 and 3 are various flavors of total bioware psycho, right? And so when you get to the point of three, I'm like, what is the implication for control? Is this a character that's just like, this is what's best, and I eat with a heavy heart, make the hard decision?

Or is on a beat techno god and fucking genocide whoever I want, like there's no way to feel it? And I think that that's a reflection of the fact that in one, your range of activity is naive, good cop trying to do the right space thing or evil shitty bad space cop being racist, right? And, you know, but that's as far as it goes and then from two onwards, it's like,

oh, but you might actually be completely outside the system and you might actually be, actually, no, you're not might, you will be responsible for the deaths of tons of innocence as you roll through the galaxy, you know, but hey, Winters coming, we got bigger shit to figure, bigger fish to fry. So that fact that the game's entire final choices that they try to push as like your choices matter, or this is what it is, so here you are, are just the villains that you have handily struggled and argued with and fought against the entire time, and then you ultimately have to concede to that, is cynical. And it feels fucking dry, and like, again, there's no hope to be found in that and I don't think that hope needs to be the final

triumphant force in the universe but the idea of this story concluding in a way where it's completely absent doesn't sit well with me so so go ahead and I can yeah those two endings are viciously cynical. And destroy is left to you as the optimal choice, the most moral choice because you don't have to worry about control, you don't have to worry about bodily autonomy, and the reparsals will be gone. But then it runs into the fact that Mass Effect 1 and 2 and 3 had very confused themes. The original theme of Mass Effect, it's number one's primary theme,

and it's the theme of the first book that the writer of Mass Effect wrote, is AI of value as a living thing. But that kind of got muddled and kind of dissipated in an important, but then they rock it back up in three. You deal with Eity and her self-actualization over a very long period of over two games. You deal with the guests, that self-actualization, and their right to autonomy in the world. And the person who's trying to do is like, I'm trying to create a better future. I'm trying to create a hopeful outcome is left with the decision. By the way, the largest non-reaper effect

you have had on the galaxy is going to be genocided by you hitting this button, because that's just the way it goes. It's very important to note that I've described the story of Mac Walters and Casey Hudson disappearing into a room for three days to write the Mass Effect 3 ending with no oversight from anyone. Rannock, everything to do with Rannock and the death and the Koreans and that ending

was done and being made before this ending was even written. There was no communication. And if I understand correctly as well, this is already after the fact that Drew Carpassian was off the project by that point entirely, right? So, so, but like, Rannock is written unaware that there is going to be a genocide

the death button later in the game. And so this kind of is another bit. So like before I even get to like what I think the fix kind of what could have been, it's like the part where you look at back at what one was and what two was, and then three, you, when you, it feels as if like some of the best stories that we fucking love that are airtight are the ones

where you can see how well put together, everything was from the jump and everything that was set up back here echoes again in the future and doesn't just echo but like actually has application it feels like a deliberate thing. It doesn't feel like you just wrote it as you went along right. Um writing yourself into a corner and then finding a way out of it. Sometimes works depending on your style, but in the case of this, where it's this game that you're just building on top of a framework and trying to figure out what the themes are as you go.

We know that AI versus humans are the overall thing, but a lot of it feels like an incoherent way to get to this finale. It feels like you just have to patch work work this conclusion into being, you know. It was pointed out to me after the fact that like the whole thing where E.D. is the moon AI at the end of the day that you faced, there was a line when she first shows up and you go, oh, I don't trust that, especially after what happened back then. And they're like, oh, we assure you, she's nothing like the moon base. Don't worry about it, right?

Like, there's stuff where they just clearly had to swerve it around at the last second by grabbing anything they can find as a through line and making it relevant here, but it wasn't necessarily planned that way. And so you can feel that, right? But there's no accounting for the fact that business and time and writers and all that shit

will have an effect on the quality of a game and so on with crunch and yadda and all that bullshit. So when I kind of was like, all right, I don't like how this went, but I also don't know how you fix it because it's so complicated. I kind of came up with something that I'm like, here's what would have satisfied me given how complicated this whole fucking thing was. And my preface that I put out there is that I'm not a writer, I don't know how to, you know, coherently smash these ideas together

in the best way, but to start out with this was a framework. I was thinking that if you basically said, fuck the idea of this pick your ending bullshit, you end up with destroy. This is going to happen, right? You've been on a mission to destroy the Reapers from day one, so we're going to hit that point and that's your goal ultimately.

Now, what should, when you kind of take that and focus on the part where I was mentioning, what I found the most interesting is like, the dilemma of how you think about organic life. That can be a reflection of your choices that you've made along the way. What kind of player you've been in, what kind of example you've set, because when you decide, okay, this is the way it has to go down, we have to sacrifice all synthetic life, it would be so fucking interesting to hear from ED and from the GF and like what they think about this type of proposition. So I'm going to dive back into development of Mass Effect Rez ending right now.

So we haven't talked about something which is the ending pre-patch Right. Yeah, I heard about that. I heard about that Importancy so it's of importance now that you bring it up because you're like I would like to talk to Edie about The possibility of her dying for the greater good or Legion at the possibility of Genesiding his entire fucking race in order to solve this problem. Well, let's roll it back just a little bit. Every follow-up question you could have possibly had to starchild is new, is not present in the original release, which led to an extra scenes post credits are also there. So you get into the situation,

including Legion, which, and the Legion are including fucking DLC, Leviathan question. Yeah. So do you get into a situation post release where you got to a situation where the kid explains the three outcomes and you're like, if I hit this button, will it kill the death?

But you don't get to even ask the question so you don't even know. Like you're like maybe, and then the ending, like slides don't even show you and you don't even know. You just, let alone not knowing what your party fucking thinks a bit. You don't even know the real outcomes of those fucking things.

When they first dropped it, so you had even less context, that's fucking insane. Um, yeah. Well, now... The favorite thing about the red ending, the destroy ending real quick, is, especially in the context of 2023, is if you ask a player now, would you get rid of all AI and you think about the consequences? You only get a rid of chat GBT. Yeah huge-titted women with like 12 fingers and You know, I got a hard choice. We're riding like shitty NPC and Siri and Siri. That's it. You know, that's it

Yeah, Tesla cars. That's it. Right. So it's really really easy choices Red red red red red. Yeah, no, but that's that's it. I think I think like by by taking that choice and and zooming in on the destroy ending and like let's now focus on the agony and the sacrifice and what synthetic life feels about this proposition so far. And that's where your choices and the rolling character you've played should come into play, right? And I think you could even have to pull a quote for you

from Casey Hudson. This is a paraphrase. Don't worry guys, your choices are going to definitely affect the ending. We're not gonna get into a situation where you get to the end of the game and you're given choices A, B or C and it doesn't reflect anything that you've done.

This is a real close. That's a threat of it. From the Mass Effect III lead up, you can go find it right now. It's the funniest, that's amazing. Wow. Yeah, there's always something like there's so many examples of like the last game contradicting the current thing. It's it's insane, but But what are we? Yeah, so so I think would be even interesting as well is like the idea that like maybe if you set an example of like

That selflessness being installed into you know like something that they picked up on they would even go as far as to like You go, you know what? No, I'm not gonna sacrifice you guys and then they go being installed into something that they picked up on, they would even go as far as to, you go, you know what, no, I'm not gonna sacrifice you guys. And then they go, yeah, well, too bad we already did it. Like, we're not gonna let you even say no to that short, and you can have a moment of like, ah, fuck, God damn it, the geth are heroes here. Or, you could have, or maybe they're like selfish

because they're like, you've taught them, or they've picked up your example that, no, self-survival is important. And, you know, they never quite got around to building that Dyson sphere they wanted to. But, you know, I don't know, whatever. Like, a million ways to play out the chaos of that. And then, like, you ultimately going, well, I'm going to press it anyway or I don't. But that should have been where your choices mattered the most. And it would have been a great place as well because again, the whole AI versus

organic thing, you have the ultimate, unknowable, unsolvable. I keep saying that and I know some people actually were like, actually we want you to be able to shoot them and bring their HP down and have them be very defeatable, but I'm fine with the idea of like that's a just a, that's a lost cause if two of these things show up on your planet. But to counterpoint that with the idea of like and here's the best example of synthetic life and it's they're willing to make that sacrifice or maybe they're not, you would have a fucking way more satisfying place to go with this whole thing. And what I was thinking of in the moment was I was like, you could even have the literal example of asking the ghosts of a trillion dead souls how they feel about

their sacrifice. Why not? Because that's what's about to happen right now. That's what the synthetic life represents in that moment. You know, that javic comes right back around on it. So I feel like that would have been something. I've gotten assists from, of course, Dadasana, who found the exact text of that quote, which was from 10-0-1-2012. So pretty much right before the game came out. Quote, at this point, we're taking into account

so many decisions that you've made as a player and reflecting a lot of that stuff. It's not even in any way like the traditional game endings where you can say how many endings there are or whether you got ending A, B or C. The ending was already written by the time that's cool. Okay. Yeah. And, you know, and then the other thing too that I really hated was like, okay, so you have another variable besides your personality

Which is your war assets, right? How many check was as we call them have you managed to us to amount because yeah And you you you you you you use that to verify like okay? So whatever you feel about your your or bad choices, how capable is the citadel of pulling it off? The whole thing where you get up to the last second and they're like, we're not going to tell you what the crucible is because it's clearly going to be a reveal of something that is big and you've known the whole time.

I remember hitting a point where I'm like, at this point, we're so far past where you should have already implied or gotten to this or built up something that I don't care what your reveal is going to be. So when it turned out to be it's the thing from the macaque, great, you know, you can't string that shit along and give you nothing on the macafe and at all. Like don't even hate, don't even acknowledge it, just go, there's a macafe and stop asking about it, right? There's a, you can do that in a way that is like at least fill her in an idea of what's going on or at the very least Something that doesn't leave such an open amount of fucking hole for is it a laser that's gonna fire out and You know target every Reaper is it like just give me something man, you know, and like that felt so unsatisfying the entire time

that it also deflated the tires by the time of the Vancouver kid rolled around. So, you know, all of that kind of leads to just like, yeah, you get that final scene of the star child and whatever, tiny Tim, whatever they call it, the future people. Oh, you want, yeah, if you look, that's seen really closely,

that's just a human asset and a smaller, human adult asset. Sure. Yeah. You look closely at it, it's just a scale down full adult. Yeah, and it's just the little kid drilling for a coconut, asking Shimon, like, hey, who the hell are you? And he's like, I don't know, doesn't matter.

Like whatever, you know. But that is like, I don't know, it doesn't matter. Like whatever, you know, but that is like, so it feels like that was the attempt to make things feel not cynical at the end of the fucking credits or whatever, but it just completely fails because you're like, well, life still continues to exist. And I guess the cycle was there or not,

depending on what kind of shepherd but eh, it all meant what, you know? So there was a little attempt at a hopeful seed place there and even maybe even a, hey, check it out, it's the comms of Lyara going, if you're in the future, we're all dead, but maybe you can fix the problem. Say, all right, whatever, like, I just, yeah,

that's overall the takeaway digested, you know? So I wanna bring up something that is from the original cut to the extended cut, which is not about let's make the ending better. It is actually in regards to whoever wrote the extended cut looking at it and going, for the reality of the IP, we have made massive mistakes in the original games ending.

So the first thing to point out, and I went and checked and watched them while you were talking, in the original ending cut of all three endings, every mass relay is blown to pieces. The, all of them, they are annihilated. So immediately, immediately, question number one, when they wrote that, they forgot that mass relays exploding, destroy the entire solar system.

Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. The original cut of the ending has every planet you have ever seen. They put that some mistake. Oh my god. I thought about that. Yeah. Yeah. The same mistake. Second of all, there's the cut where, oh, they're trying to outrun the explosion, in the ship, and then they crash land on the planet and they get out of the Normandy and they're like, oh, we're on a planet, oh, we're in all the party members that would be there, are there, right?

Well, if all the mass relays are blown up and the crew of the Normandy is stranded on a desert island, presumably for the rest of your lives. It is a coin flip as to which ones will survive because people on your ship are biologically incompatible with each other's food. So did you land on a planet that humans can eat the food? Tally and Garrus are fucking dead. Did you land on a planet in which Garrus and Talley can eat the food? No human crew member will survive.

Past a couple of weeks. That moment was clearly not meant to be like pulled to put under the microscope. That was a moment of just like moment. The mass relays are gone. Like every like, you know, like the supply chain, you know, like you can't get PlayStation 30s anymore. I mean, so it was, you know, there's a thing about how, like, how precise space battles had to be in the first and second games and talking about the codex of every bullet you fire, you know, must know where it's going. Otherwise, that goes through space and fucking causes collateral damage and on a scale you've never imagined. And then when you're fighting above the earth, it's just nukes in all directions, you know?

Yeah, and like there's like that precision idea of knife fight distance, just goes right out the window, you know? There's a million things that are just not meant to be thought about for more than one second. It reads like an ending that was written with no feedback. Because that's what it is. Because that's what it was. It was a ending that was brainstormed by two guys and was never given out to anyone to go,

Hey, is there any problems with this? Because like the other people, the other leads on the team would have gone, well, our, our, our tally and garris gonna fucking starve to death on this new planet. Yeah. And, and to some degree, it's like, shut up. It doesn't matter about the individuals. We're gonna lose some. That's not the point. Move on. You know, that is the, that's the biggest problem.

The reason why I harp on that specific example so much is by the end of Mass Effect. All the problems I have lit the endings original state is, you know what, the wider galaxy is important. I want you to tell me which of my party members will die as a result of these decisions because the characters are the ones I actually give a shit about. Right. Right. You know, so it just, it comes together in that fucking way, you know

And I guess looking back to where you see like when you get to see it side by side especially like oh my god The fact that it's really just a photoshop filter on the green and they add some little the same shots But they add a little bit of green glow and cyber eyes texture. You're like oh really? No green glow and cyber eyes texture you're like oh no this was okay by the interesting time when especially by-ware games they felt like they had to have they give you multiple endings you know like they're like well Corona triggered like the Corona trigger did it in like 96 or whatever no why can't we do it in 2012 and it's also interesting that like multiple endings aren't

really a thing that much anymore these days. You don't get to choose what you do at the end of last of us part two. They just tell you. So I think... I know nobody here play for spoken, but for spoken actually gives you a fucking choice at the end of the game. And it's jarring. First of all, you never gave me a choice in the rest of the game. Oh really? You know choices the whole way through.

No choices in the whole game. They just give you a choice at the end for some reason. I'm just like, how did this game from my 2012 ending teleport into this game? I don't understand. I think there's something important to note about the Corona trigger thing and how, I mean, we all love that is is that ChronoTrigger has an ending and then several new game plus endings. It has a bunch of goofy what-ifs, and that's very different from walking into a room and going, which one? You know, pick a color. That's the one. You have, you beat the game, and then you get extras that are going out into different places. It's really wild because Mass Effect was built and like thrived on.

Man, you can choose anything, but when I got to the end of the series, finally, I was overwhelmed with this thing of like, yeah, this should have been the Paragon storyline, the whole way through, and instead of making alternate versions of events, they should have just made slightly more of those events and just had you be a fucking good guy. Because like the amount of times that I was like, wow, that's a cool choice I made. That, there are a couple of those. And those were always kneecapped by later events,

going, guess what, the rest, the Queen is back. Right, right, right, right, yeah. And what I was actually like, like, and following through on like, being a character that is like, you know, spurred on by your convictions, whichever they are, whatever they may be, or even if you, or even spurred on by your lack of conviction, you can have moments where you take something like the proposition of the control ending and the synthesis ending which are like these fucked up

concessions that you know that venerate the villains you've defeated and have those be the those endings could be the best version of the argument those characters want to make right? Like the great the blue ending should be Tim talking to you about that and you going I see and that's where your piece comes from but here's why that's fucked up right and If there was a way to took to you know confront the saran aspect of The green ending that can be a proposition of look no bodies piece, peace, the least amount of destruction, is this not a desirable outcome?

And then you can go, but here's what's fucked up about that, you know, and let show those examples as like the best possible argument, but then you can mass effect, converse your way down from it, you know? It would re-use under illusion that they actually gave a shit from Mass Effect One. If you somehow gave a call back to Serran,

if Tim was there talking through it, and they're like, oh yeah, all built up to this, even though they clearly just improvised it, and just like stumbled upon it, but at least they could have pretended that they gave it to the illusion, and we'd be like, oh, okay, now we have some agency, and I feel like I actually had agency throughout the story

as opposed to this weird Deus Ex This literal Deus Ex ending, you know, that's it and then whatever choices like you make that like are you know Escape your control. You know what shit. You know that your intentions at the very least were again not so hopeless, you know Yeah, man. So anyway, we got a lot to fucking move into but that's that's that luckily enough, woolly and All of this discussion about the ending gets even funnier if you pick destroy and Your war readiness is at the absolute maximum Because only in that circumstance do you get a single shot of the end seven armor Taking a breath from under the rubble

Mandating that ending as the real ending. It's a kind of ending. Oh Mass effects for what the fuck was the whole point of all this shit Lyara dusted it off this she picked up and we looked at the mass effects for here it is look. Yeah I mean God Dust it off the, she picked up and we looked at the mass effects for her. It is. Look. Yeah. I mean, God, I just, I don't even know how you make it coherent at this point. And I don't even think, I think like jumping far away from everything known if for the setup for Andromeda is like not, it's the right choice, but just making it interesting. Fucked it.

Just making an interesting jump, you know? But like, there we are now now direct continuity instead, right? Yeah, I it's it's like this overwhelming feeling of at some point. They're like, oh shit We made it so we can't make any more Mass Effect games. Mm-hmm. Fuck side side No, I earlier when I was talking Gurd side note, if you're a Shimon pronouncer or a Simon pronouncer, you guys can, you've been fighting for years,

fight each other and whoever survives is gonna be correct. And in the meantime, we'll just use both interchangently and make some of that. Great. Yeah, so I don't have any desire to see Andromeda necessarily the most, you're good. You're good You're the most damning right now. You're okay the most damning thing being that people going like it's not even that it's like hilariously bad. It's just like mid to nothing

And then one and a half star trek episode and that's a wolf wolf our spark so Yeah The hair fucking here's the end of the trilogy, you know Hair lies red here lies blue and at the end of the day the truth was green green was the truth If mass effect for hasded back as the playable character that would be the most cowardly fucking embarrassing thing in the world. Oh my god, he's so awful. Okay, I already hinted at that. I think that one teaser trailer where it's like Lyara like looking into the distance like, oh my love is still out there, whatever, you know.

Yeah, yeah, she gets up and she she dusts off the thing is she she picks up a she's very dust off is like oh here's the massive for she picks up a shepherd helmet and it's like it's Liyara and she could be a thousand at that point for all we know but it still is that so yeah anyway okay reconstruct shepherd because that's what shepherd was. Yeah, you do it a bunch of times Who's the stop is hit the button again? Boop, you know Okay, so there was that from that The other thing that happened was I went to too many games and

I had a good time that was fun basically yeah that was an infilly and the overall you know got to do uh... we did a panel with iPatchWolf and got to head basically sat down and had some whiskey with David Hader and that was cool. And David Hader is a charisma fucking max that dude, who is just so, like he's the type of person where like he was check you signing in right in front when I like went to check in and like introduced myself, said, hey, how's it going?

And then for the rest of the weekend, he was just like, oh, hey, Willie, how's it going? What's up, and like just has the whole name memorization ability thing. Oh, that's a good one. Which is like, god damn, that's super cool. And on top of that, you just kind of like, yeah, like Saturday night, just he's the kind of thing where it's like, he knows, like so,

and I was chilling with Vinnie, you know, Vine Sauce as well. And like, we were all just kind of sitting there watching as like David just kind of sitting there watching as like David just kind of took control of the room and was holding court and the way Vinnie put it was like really good We're just like he knows what Every what he means to a lot of people and he knows what It means to him this and I think especially considering like the fact that there was five

He kind of there's a little bit of an ooh, solid snake went away for a minute there, so there's an appreciation. And he's just like, yeah, he's down to just sit and tell stories and have fun and give him as much of himself to talk to everybody and he's like a great at it. And I remember too, I had a burden question for the longest while that I wanted to ask.

And I finally did get to ask. And I remember at the end of X-Men 2, which he wrote, I was like, there's a part where when Striker and his fucking squad is attacking the mansion, there's a bunch of soldiers that walk in that are wearing kind of like blue Soldier things and a soldier gear and they're you know suited up But their faces all have literally just snake eater camo on and I was like was that because that game movie came out right The year before snake eater dropped So is that a thing? And he's like, no, that was just completely coincidental. We just kind of randomly had that face camo stuff

appear on those soldiers because we needed Wolverine to be able to kill some facial soldiers because now the rating for that movie went up. And so we're like, if these guys are trying to kill a bunch of kids, then fuck them. They can die as opposed to people you might care about or whatever. So like, he kind of summarized that,

but it just happened to line right up with Snake Eater. And the face camo is like, it really looks like something out of the catalog that you can wear. So I was like, okay, fine. And then someone else asked about the watchman ending and the shift from the fucking squid town to Dr. Manhattan, you know? And I was like, ooh, that's something I've wanted

to know for a while, what, yeah. What is the logic on that? I didn't, I don't, I think I knew, but forgot that like he was also responsible for that as well. And so, yeah, he kinda of went on about, yeah. And so he talked about working with Darren Arnowski and how they're putting that script together and all that stuff, but that moment, it was interesting

because I'm like, I, because he basically, and I'm probably gonna not do as well of a job, but he's describing the process and how he kind of went like, okay, so it kind of came down to the idea that he's like, in a story, in a movie, he's like, he's basically said, I believe that you get one source of magic, right? And that, especially in one where they were already pushing

for time and that the idea was that it was, three hours long and they're trying to condense and so on. More than that, generally confuses audiences and or can get more weird or complicated. So you wanna keep things to one's sources and more concise and what the tight way to write it. And I went, okay, and I mentioned, I said, I said, interesting, although,

like clearly Alan Moore thought that it didn't have to be that way, right? He had something else that he had a different, Alan Moore doesn't give a shit, though, the way he was thinking about that quite differently. And he went, like, okay, look, I'm never gonna say a bad word about Alan Moore because he's talented and that dude's amazing

and like, you know, like he wrote a masterpiece and the thing is, I guess, just like the amount of time he had to write that and the amount of things that were in there to build all that up over the course of a longer journey when you're reading it is not the same as being there in a theater for two and a half to three hours. So it was more just kind of like a reflection of like what this was gonna be for that time period

and for the time of the run time and such, you know? And I was like, okay, I still don't, is kind of like a reflection of like what this was gonna be for that time period and for the time or the runtime and such, you know? And I was like, okay, I still don't, I still, I disagree, I still think that like the original ending sets up a lot of questions and things that about that world that Alan Moore set up that are better. But I get why?

I get what he means and why he was going for. But like, yeah, overall I think But I get why I get what he means and why he was going for but like yeah overall I think watch him in the comics still this fucking you know way better at that getting that point And so he kind of told that story to and I was like huh So just a bunch of little like yeah, random factoids like little itches that were like oh yeah I always wanted to know what that was about you know, and he was just fucking great so shout out to him. Kira Buckland was there, got to hug and say,

what's up and shoot the shit a little bit. And she introduced me to Casey Mangelo who's voiced him, Pat McPoreo, but also is Shinji. And you're like, oh man, you are Shinji. Like you just completely embodies that energy, you know, so Yeah, that was all that was just yeah overall a really really chill time and you know shout out to Vinny Good dude overall. I just can't you're you're hearing me fond hard over David Hader because like he's that dude bless him David Hader because like he's that dude. Bless him.

Yeah, so no, no, he's shinging in a good way. In a good way. Like he's like, you know, kind of, he's, he's got the voice. He's guy left. He's got that energy. He's kind of a small guy. I'm not, not, not in the standing over the hospital bed kind of way. That's not, no, that's not what I'm getting at. Stop it.

Stop it. Okay. Backdown. Good times there. Yeah. And then I suppose I should kind of acknowledge the part where the CEO this weekend went down and blank a one, the first major of a Street Fighter 6 tournament. Yeah, I'm gonna get to blank eventually. I just got it in my more time. Yeah, all blank is the winner. Blank is the winner, woolly. The amazing part about I always remember when someone picked, well, I think it's V-Review picked Makoto once in Super Street Fighter and her forums on sorriukin.com went from two viewing to like 900 in one moment because everyone's like what the fuck is going on?

You know, and then that night like everyone jumped online and started lab in blanka. Everyone on Twitch was like lab in blanka testing blanka shit out. So it's this wild thing and like all it took was of course, Benna like this fucking amazing player showing off some of the the the the basics. And I definitely looked at it and overthought because I'm like all the setups have complicated shit that I see the best backup players doing. Like Wolfgang is a player who does amazing shit and so on.

He didn't even do all that shit. You don't need it, dude. He just kept it simple. And I was like, wow, nobody hates nothing planned Blanca. I mean, the knowledge will be shared and people will get better real quick. But for this first CEO tournament, he just did, yeah, he just kept it simple to the basics.

And I was like, fair enough, man. When you have fundamentals and you know where to be and what to press and just not, you don't have cracks in the armor, then the gimmicks can be gimmicks, but underneath them is a solid player, and that's what we saw there, right? So yeah, that's pretty interesting.

And nobody knows what Blanca is. Don't know. Well, one day they will wake up and find themselves face to face, eye to eye, and their hands will be shaking and they won't even know how they got there. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, there. You will shake our goddamn hands, motherfucker. Yeah, so that was fun as well.

And so with the end of Mass Effect, there is an ability to transition things. And I suppose this is a decent time as any to explain and unveil the new era that is being that we're calling Wully versus Cloud. So the short version is this. Obviously a big part of what we're about to talk about here is going to be FF16 in a minute. So we are currently going to pause FF9 and we're gonna switch to FF16. No way. Yes. That's cool.

I am genuinely astonished. My mouth open at this turn of events. And before we get into, because you play through the demo content, right, before we get into that and me and Gene talking a little bit more in depth, I need to know the answer to one question, which is what obviously the game is really good. And like the fact that I felt how fucking fun it was is a good like important part of why I'm willing to make this kind of switch. At the same time, I think I was looking at it like there's a there's an interesting I was watching the response to I'm curious that we can at for some reason

my fucking chat things not working but if you can unease mode because I'm curious to see what people are saying in regards to this type of thing. I'm not talking about 16 shit in depth just yeah, so you can fit, you can just put that back to normal. But anyway, the thought I kind of had was that I saw a lot of feedback. A lot of people were definitely just like, oh, hey, this is super hype. I'll, I guess, but you know, see you in 10 years when you actually start the full thing. Right? My chat is full of that. Jean was hanging out my right streamer like you were

say that yeah you are that's right you were yeah you know I got that and then and then there's and then there's the the other side of it uh where it was like um you know um only woolly would only this type only woolly would like stream the demo on the day that the game is coming out or whatever. And it's like, okay, so the specifics of why that happens doesn't matter necessarily, I guess, because it's like, it's on the thing about. But the reality is, the game was coming out that night.

I had one day in the gap in the schedule to meet up with Reggie to record something after we finished Mass Effect. And it was a little pocket of time. And your suggestion to do the demo so that we could talk about something and have some context was a pretty good one. Because otherwise we'd have Jean on

and you'd be like, yeah, it looks cool. Exactly, right? So that was ultimately like why I was like, okay, this fits in here. And then it takes a night to put that into editing form so that it comes out on the channel in its form. But it doesn't matter because what you see is the game is already out and he's playing the demo,

what an idiot, right? Okay, there's not much I can do about that. But, oh, it's good. And then, yeah, it carries over. The same file carries over. You have questions you can ask us because you know exactly what the game is like. Absolutely, absolutely.

But the thing, I guess, is ultimately that, like the fact that the FF9 and FF16 has, there's a lot of overlap in the amount of people that are fans of both of those things. And there were some people who kind of understood that I was trying to play a bit of it so that we could talk about that. And then I was ultimately interested

enough to go play this at some point. There's some people understood that. More people didn't care or understood and were like, yeah, but it doesn't matter. This is what's hype now, come on. I'm like, okay, there's that part of it. Something else I've been doing too was looking back at the analytics of everything

with Woolie versus the algorithm. I've been, every once in a while we try things we adjust and so on and so forth. And we were coming up around that time where I was looking to tweak, there was a tweak that was, let's start playing classics that I haven't played as a conscious decision. You know, that was a point that popped up and we did that for, we did that for a bit and saw how that looked. And we're, you know, so this is just another one of those

reconfiguration moments where you ready fire a little bit. And ultimately, there's the part of it where, yeah, the game is fucking hype and sick and I really want to know what comes next. Now at the same time, I understand too that like there's no getting around the fact that there's gonna be people that are not happy either where you go. Like you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't do this type of situation. The number of people that were giving feedback on the fact that this is a bummer and they were looking for it to the end of nine. That's not lost on me. And there's a lot of people that were kind of worried that like, I'm like, oh, I'm not enjoying nine, so I'm dropping it.

And I really couldn't say how untrue that is. That's the first truth. And that's real truth. Nine is awesome. I'm loving it. I absolutely intend to come back as soon as I can. And I love, I don't like the idea of the unfinished plate. The thing is, of course, is that like, in a lot of cases the circumstances are like,

oh well I was doing it with little V and then that stops and that's why the act is a stop. Or you were playing Sonic, you know, I was doing that solo when Reggie was not around. And, you know, but I want to hit the credits whenever I can. So, it's not about me not enjoying nine or anything like that.

And I know there's absolutely the part of it where it's like, you're gonna forget what's going on. And it's like, yeah, and I will rewatch and I'll recap myself And I have notes for every single episode we've recorded that I'm gonna reread as well when the time comes So that will be caught back up my thought as well as that who the fuck knows we're like maybe there's an alternate reality crazy timeline Somewhere where we're you know I finished 16 and then jump back to nine and by that point I can fucking jump to some crazy even more HD version of it the double MoGraming mod genuine possibility. There's a genuine possibility that I can jump onto some amazing new crazy shiny version of that game that we could switch

Out over to with the timing of things so who knows but That is over all the sentiment and But that is over all the sentiment and with that I'm also gonna be trying out a couple other things. We're gonna do a couple more Wolleverses, whatever is in. Overall, I'm gonna take the things that I see are like, hey, these are pretty successful, people like seeing this and I enjoy doing it. Well, we're gonna do that more often on the schedule.

And with that Wolleversus Cloud era thing, there's a thought as well that occurs, which is I realized, I've said it before, but it when I take a look at everything, it's important to underline that like a lot of the time, the way I play things, and I know that I get flak for taking a million years to get around to slower, to get through through lower games and so on and so forth. And that's always bothering me. I've never heard that in my life. It bugs me that I can't do that and that everyone is able to basically go,

like yeah, most streamers don't have this problem. What's the deal, right? And I realized it reminded me of when back with best friends, we were like talking about how DSP is immortal. And yeah, right. And the reality of the situation is DSP is one person and we're a group. So there's a difference in what that means. Yeah, once I started doing stuff completely by myself,

I'm like, oh, wow, no one's going to get forced me to stand up. So every time wife actually makes me stand up and walk around, but you know, that's that's the one I mean. So what that then leads me to realize is that every time I understand that I'm being compared with how slow I play these games and get through them, I know that I stop to talk and I know that I do things that people don't like and I have these habits and so on. But there's also the part where there's just a limited amount of time that I can sit with Reggie in a given week.

And if I, if it was just me, I just get Reggie a cot. And if it was me on my own, then they would make more sense to be able to have the kind of schedule that you compare the average person's ability to get through a game but like in most cases we can sit down and play a game once a week. That's that's the limitation of what it means when you're when you have another person. So, I know the explanation isn't gonna make the feel better but at the end of the day there is a thing where I don't think most people that you're comparing me with are always doing it with somebody else. I think most people are able to just get up in the morning,

hit the button, go till nighttime and call it a day. So I'm operating under a different constraint, you know? I have something to say before we get too far away from it. Sorry. As somebody who is flown, as somebody who is like, ass deep in 16 and has beat nine many years ago and just beat World Tour. Let me tell you, bro, my personal,

my personal feelings is you should just throw World Tour right in the trash. Yeah, I get that. Forget about it. And I did see some people saying that, you know, yesterday here, today and so on, ever since I talked about it. But here's the problem, guys.

I love Street Fighter, and no, I want to play Street Fighter. And I probably love Street Fighter, possibly more than you love Final Fantasy. So the idea that it's like, we get it, will we, but we just, but don't do the thing you really love instead do this? No, I want to play Street Fighter 6. I'm gonna do that, right?

So the only follow-up I would say to that is that playing World Tour is actually fairly far away from playing Street Fighter 6. I get it. It is a very different beast. I get it. But the idea of a Street Fighter story mode at all is so, that's like final fight-ish.

There's so much there that I'm already interested in on premise And this is the thing I love more than anything else all the time of part of my life is based around this shit Like it's kind of crazy and wild to me that you'd be like hey woolly no stop doing the thing that you fucking love that much I really isn't a Washington Post about three fighter six, you know, and I even understand yes And thank you for that we even had somebody come by and game that the physical I in the bottom of the box. I'm gonna put it in the bottom of the box. I'm gonna put it in the bottom of the box. I'm gonna put it in the bottom of the box. I'm gonna put it in the bottom of the box. I'm gonna put it in the bottom of the box.

I'm gonna put it in the bottom of the box. I'm gonna put it in the bottom of the box. I'm gonna put it in the bottom of the box. I'm gonna put it in the bottom of the box. I'm gonna put it in the bottom of the box. I'm gonna put it in the bottom of the box. I'm gonna put it in the bottom of the box. I'm gonna put it in the bottom of the box. I'm gonna put it in the bottom of the box. I'm gonna put it in the bottom of the box. I'm gonna put it in the bottom of the box. I'm gonna put it in the bottom of the box. I'm gonna put it in the bottom of the box. I'm gonna put it in the bottom of the box. I'm gonna put it in the bottom of the box. I'm gonna put it in the bottom of the box. I'm gonna put it in the bottom of the box. I'm gonna put it in the bottom of the box. I'm gonna put it in the bottom of the box. I'm gonna put it in the bottom of the box. I'm gonna put it in the bottom of the box. I'm gonna put it in the bottom of the box. I'm gonna put it in the bottom of the box. I'm gonna put it in the bottom of the box. I'm gonna put it in the bottom of the box. I'm gonna put it in the bottom of crazy about like that when I was like, guys, that's ridiculous. Like, stop it, just do the WFF9, give us what we want.

I'm like, dude, come on, man. I would have felt. Come the fuck on. I would have felt remiss if someone had not said that out loud with words to your ears at least once. And I need to reply to that to say why I think that's ridiculous, you know? So, with all, he's like, there's always gonna be a part of me that's like why I think that's ridiculous, you know? So, with all these like, there's always gonna be a part

of me that's like, I fucking, I'm only gonna play what I care about at the end of the day. And I wouldn't be doing 16 if I didn't think it was the fucking sickest shit based off of that initial premise, but it presented an interesting moment to try this type of thing out. And going forward in the future, you know, I'll see how it goes,

but the willingness to potentially put something on hold and come back seems to be what most people are kind of do anyway. And I don't think that it'll ever sit particularly well with me to have things that are unfinished. But I'm going to try this out in the circumstance, given how much it overlaps in a particularly interesting way with my interests.

And again, there's a part of this where you have to realize too that a lot of that too is me going into the genres, into FF, into Silent Hill, into all these things, there's me putting out into the world, I'm reaching out and expanding my horizons with all these blind spots you guys have presented to me over the years. And so, you know, again, I just, the idea of like, and then here's the one that you super love that is all up your passion and that you're just like,

yeah, put that on the back burner, fuck you, like that's crazy. So no, we're gonna do this, we're gonna run World Tour, we're gonna run FF 16. And I'm very excited to fucking pick back up and you know save the boy VV needs protecting but Yeah back to my original question What was the tipping point when you were playing that demo where you said fuck it? I'm gonna move shit around for this. I it wasn't during the demo

Oh, no, it wasn't the iconic challenge was fucking awesome And I felt really good about how they finally opened up the combat and I got to see what it was about I'm really happy they put that in there because it was very basic in the beginning of course and you're like all right I see what you're going for and then they go all right All right are the are the are the moderns away? Are they all gone? You casuals go, all right, all right, are the moderns the way? Are they all gone? Are you casuals are gone? All right, let's show you that real shit. You know, no, I'm teasing. I mean, that's what the Icon challenges for.

It was for folks like us who want to quote a quote lab. Yeah. Client, you know? Yeah, and they show you what that system is going to be like with style switching and with the full tree and multiple icons to switch from. But it wasn't that moment. That just kind of made me go,

oh, I see where we're going long-term here. You know? How are you starting to demo them? No, it was afterwards when I saw, I was thinking about it and I was like, huh, I wonder if I should play that myself on my own and then talk about it with you guys on the pod and kind of go on through a time.

Because I've done that with like FF7R I played on my own. Right, right, yeah. So I was kind of wondering, I was like, maybe I should pop this open and just start it for myself. And then I was looking at the feedback on the demo when the first episode went out. And the responses from people essentially being like, this is really hype. We really love it. Also, like, too bad you should, you're not going to get around to it ever.

And there's some people that were like, hey, no one would blame me if you drop this or that, but, you know, it was just, there was a bit of that energy, you know. And then, of course, when I did announce it, then yesterday there was the counterpoint where the ones that were like, actually, I am bumped about the drop of FF9 to which I wanted to say, it's not a drop. And I do fucking love it and we're gonna come back. But that's what it is. And again, how fucking crazy and awesome would it be

if I came back in a world where it was a shinier return to that game? You know, that's the whole thing, right? If you did that happen? Yeah, okay. I'd restart the whole thing, I'd get back to exactly where I was and then we'd pick back up in a shinier format.

You know, that would be that'd be a cool reality to to live in. So all this to say that there's these little moments of like it, you know, almost like with the blue red fucking switch. It's like in the moment I but I see there's gonna be it's gonna be good. I think it'll be okay. And I think we'll have a lot of fun and we'll enjoy it. And I also think that knowing how much time I have to record with Reggie in a given week you got to make time do got to do what you can with that time if you can't increase it, you know and so

Yeah, I'm gonna try to do what I can to also streamline this playthrough. I'll do things off camera If I need to a Elden ring style to make it go a little bit smoother, get the lore going off camera, side quests and so on. There's a very obvious list of things you could easily do off camera in this game. Yeah, I know, I'm gonna do my best guys. I'm gonna do my best to make it as not, to feel not as excruciating as it might be if you're like waiting for one session a week and so on.

So this is my promise, but like that aside, I, this is the reasons, this is what we're doing. And I think it'll be good, you know? And then of course, like, the anything that I haven't finished that I'm, that I want to get back to is, is always there. And I do want to maintain the ability of saying, like, yeah, the playlist in that game, you hit the credits on it every time. But we're gonna see where this goes for now. I hope that makes a lot of sense and I hope you understand it. So you really like soak in his music as soon as I'm

literally or started kicking in and you're like oh is this a soak in that I've heard so much about skiing. You was this the power of soaking at that video right now. Yeah, there you go that icon boss battle starts between Fucking Phoenix and ifrit and the choir starts going and it's like oh Shit, oh this is different like yes, it's an epic theme with the traditional to use of the word epic But if we're gonna get this power for the next 50 hours, let's fucking go. Like, yeah, that was a real nice, and because, you know, yeah, in the way that like,

it's just, yeah, getting a taste for something awesome at that early on in is like, that's a nice promise for what's gonna come, you know? I believe I get it now. This is the man who is composing on his hospital bed, a hospital bed like fucking, yeah. You talked about it. The idea, because I had cancer, right?

And so the idea that you are doing anything while undergoing chemo is heroic. So the fact that he are doing anything while undergoing chemo is heroic. So the fact that he wrote this fucking music, why he was doing chemo is just like, I can't even imagine that. He wrote to the edge on his fucking, quote unquote, deathbed. And he thought it was his deathbed. And it's like, that is the best track in a game with over 1,000 pieces of music in it.

It's unbelievable. That's crazy, man. And I like to the idea that it's like, we grew up, you know, where like, Uematsu was the name that you just heard, you know? And, um, and, you know, there would be other, these other names, and obviously, like, you know, Michiro Yamane, you know and and

Shogi Meguro Matsuda, yeah like you kind of just fucking And it's like whatever the game is you can trust that your ears are gonna be in for a fucking, you know blast with it I Don't think you've ever played anything that he composed. I don't know for sure. You played FF 14. No. Is it just 14? because yeah, yeah, Yoko Shimamura, of course. Like, like, because there's always that thing of like, oh, you might happen across, you know, this composer, if you played maybe this random thing over here, but yeah, Mario fucking hoops,

that's hilarious. No, I've never heard, I've never played a game with sockets. I was like, okay, that's another one that's gonna go on that list and we'll fucking, we're gonna see where this goes. I really, really hope as well that what we heard in that intro and in that battle was a light motif that will return in different formats throughout that journey. There's a lot of laymo tees. Holy yeah. Okay. So you guys played the fuck out of 16? Okay, so you guys played the fuck out of 16

Oh, we were looking at the group chat right here. I got woolly at the top who played the demo content I'm down here. I'm about 35 40% and then we got Jean up here who has beaten the game for real Jean twice Twice now. I'm on fantasy mode right now in the hard mode Which like before we get off the music, I have to, there was an interview in which a Yoshi P was talking about how Sokan's instructions for a lot of the music was a lot more specific than usual.

Usually he would get, for 14, he'd be like, yeah, do whatever for this. But they had a lot of like, oh, I want this type of tone. Like, I want a lot of it to sound like classical music. But every now and then, Sokan would show up and do stuff that was wildly not what was asked for. And last week, I got to one of those boss fights in which it is a synth dance track for a bar fight.

Pure dubstep. Yeah. And it is. It is. Okay. What I expected for this boss. And I have been going back to it on YouTube to listen to it over and over and over. Me too. When you say pure dubstep, you that you are not scaring me away. I'm, my, I was raised and I am listening. It's good. Like it is so good. It is so good.

The musical presentation, actually no. Well, I'm, Gene, back me up on this. The presentation in this game is so above and beyond. Absolutely everything. These are the most expensive boss fights I have ever seen. Okay, now just so that we also have a frame of reference here, right? My comparison point is as somebody who's played perhaps 30 or less percent of the Final Fantasy series, I've played perhaps four or so of them. For you guys, it's pretty much all of them, right? I've played perhaps four or so of them.

For you guys, it's pretty much all of them, right? I've touched all of them at some point. And I mentioned it. Right. And then, for me, yeah, that's it. Right, and the most important one being 14 as the creative business unit predecessor project, as well as everything else that is being cross-promoted

including I believe what's the deal that we can currently get? A free month or so or whatever it's going to be a free month. Yeah and you also you get a you get a well you get a free trial that includes a Rolmery born and the critically acclaimed Heavensword expansion for free up to level 60. There we go, thank you. There's a voucher in 16's box for 14. Yeah, yeah. So when you're talking about how fucking good this shit is, you're comparing it to literally every other Final Fantasy as well.

Right, all the high-level. I was very curious about God of War, Ragnarot, which is this game makes God of a war ragnarot looks tiny I have to agree Well, I read that in your I don't know if you said that on Twitter or you said that in a refugee But I remember reading that and be like that's stupid. That is a stupid thing to say Wow, I'm playing through these these experiences and I'm like I'm stupid. That was a stupid thing to think It's big okay

But big with stuff Not big empty Like well, do you remember a Do you know what people you go wow that was incredible and somebody looks at you and goes that wasn't shit Just wait till the next part. And you roll your eyes. Uh, yeah. Yeah.

That's what Final Fantasy 16 is doing. That Phoenix, ifritthing is weak as fuck. That's the ending sequence of wonderful 101, where you go, oh my fucking god. And the game's like, will you shut the fuck up and just sit and wait for what we got in 30 seconds? You know, you're like, I'm sorry. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's what I wrote in my review that the fights in this game makes Avengers Endgame look like a brawl and Walmart. I would agree. It's because it's Avengers Endgame is tiny compared to the shit that happens in Final Fantasy 16. Okay. Okay.

Yeah. The scale certainly feels like that, you know, like the opening point obviously, you know, countries, lore, and then, you know, there's two obvious things that come up one, Game of Thrones in the terms of just like people sitting around and arguing that politics, which I love, but I also love the idea that, based on from what I saw you saying on Twitter and stuff, that it's like, okay, there's a feeling of that Game of Thrones, but that gives way to hard Final Fantasy, give it a second.

Right, that's cool. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, at that point, being the basis. But that gives way to hard Final Fantasy, give it a second. Mm-hmm. Right. That's cool. Yeah, at that point, basically. So, I'm not exactly there yet. You're getting there. But I can see the steps that we will be taking to get to the part where... Yeah, get that Game of Thrones shit out of my face.

It's time for magic and friendship. Right. Sure, sure. get that game of thro'n shit out of my face it's time for magic and friendship right sure sure yeah um so yeah i guess uh do you know approximately yeah but approximately where are you pet or like rather what percentage so the game has a really laughably obvious point in which to tell you how far along you are, and it's your upgrade wheel. Your upgrade wheel is telling you, at least, Gene, you can tell me if I'm stupid, but it seems like my upgrade wheel is telling me in no uncertain terms exactly how far left I have to go based on how much of it is empty. So it's like looking at the Mega Man stage age. Yeah, Mega Man bosses, right.

Okay, I got you. Oh, you have seven more bosses, so you know exactly how much more. And like they just show you the bosses over and over and over and over in cutscenes talking and being like, oh, I'm over in this country. I wonder how Clyde will get to me here. Yeah, yeah, okay.

Okay, okay. He'll never reach us up here in the sky, especially now that he's down underwater in a different... I'm about to say 40% maybe. Okay. The, it is not, so it's a character action game, through and through. It is clearly made from...

Unapologetically. But it's not, and I saw an interesting comment on Twitter, which I forget who it was, but the point being that it was a good thing to say, which is it is not like devil may cry. It is very much not like devil may cry. And it shouldn't be judged in its proximity to devil may cry. N kindness juggles Exist Mm-hmm, but comboing the enemy into oblivion is not the purpose. It's right much closer to kingdom hearts actually Which is a very good action game when they let it at the end of the day There is no style meter, right? I think there is oh shit. Oh shit. Okay. It's just only on replay. Okay. Okay. Um, because I think that the fact that the game is called Final Fantasy, right?

And like with a number and not any kind of other like suffix makes me automatically go your goals are So your goals are to make a final fantasy game and anything that's less that is what you should be like considering, but don't judge it on a DMC game. Exactly. Like, no, I that I feel because I'm like, I would judge it on a final fantasy, you know? When FF7R got more action oriented, it's like, okay, but the parts that were still there that were ATB were what I was looking at it to like preserve. And then everything else is just how to

fucking flare on top of that system and make the combat feel good, you know. And here I can see that it's like, like, they went way harder than I expected, but what I expected was it's still They went way harder than I expected, but what I expected was it's still gonna have you needing to do some, I expected some kind of like micromanaging of your systems and not just timing and moves and launchers and so on, you know? So yeah, it makes sense to not judge it that way. Well yeah, you're gonna have to take the abilities you want

and then you're gonna have to read the tool tips then you're gonna have to assign them to your hot and then you're gonna have to read the tool tips Then you're gonna have to assign them to your hot bar Then you're gonna have to hold down the right trigger and hit them based on their cool downs while you're doing your regular rotation And avoiding a oes on the ground in there you can tell this was made by the fucking F14 team It's basically final fantasy 14 and it's been extended like the auto regular attack You're just actually attacking with square and then like the rest are just Yeah, obviously managing cool downs and like yeah, I think like dodging lanes of attack. I dodge the I dodge the series of grids on the ground from Benedict areas and I'm like oh

Okay, I guess that's what that is right like yeah There's a mini boss. There's mini bosses with like straight DPS checks, you know? Yeah. And with Enraged Timers and you're like Jesus. It's, you're fighting enemies that look like, I fought a Griffin. There's a, there's an notorious mark that's a Griffin, right? And it's like, that's the Griffin I have in my fucking inventory right now for my Final Fast 4.

It's exactly the same. It's doing the same shit. It does in the level 61, sorry, 51 dungeon. When you fight it as a boss, it has the same dive attack, it has the same tornado. It is, like, it's also hype as fuck when it's like, yo, who's rolling in? It's a Dragoon. What's he about to do? A jump? Because that's what Dragoon's fucking do. And that's that's what we've been doing. Not just that. Do you remember a long time ago when you were making fun of the Endwalker presentation and you were misreading character

names that we're going to appear in End Enwalker and you you horribly butchered Estinians name No, okay, well you horribly butchered Estinians name Estinian is the Dragoon party member that hangs out with you in Final Fantasy 14 They even go far as far as to the Dragoon boss fight in 16 is his voice actor. Oh wow. As the as the Dragoon you know. Okay. So they're just they're laying in 16 is mostly every 20 minutes. Like, oh, this is just like final fantasy 14. So I will I will use the best example, and I will not even mention the name of the boss. But it is so

hilariously just this other game, but for single player, that I fought a boss during my last session. And the boss forms in in the arena, and me and 30% of my chat started yelling, fuck yeah, it's Pepsi Man! Pepsi Man is here and Everyone else goes why the fuck are you yelling Pepsi man? He's not even blue He's not the boss was not even blue But to those who understand why I'm calling this enemy Pepsi man and watching me deal with Pepsi man mechanics

I'm calling this enemy Pepsi man and watching me deal with Pepsi man mechanics Or like wow they are just that picking up shit and just dragging it and dropping it into a different folder It is it is that on the nose. It's more than made by the same team. It's full of the references and then It's it's as everyone is, it's trying to gateway drug you across the bridge. Could you repeat your advice about PlusQuests? Oh yeah. Every time you see a quest marker and has a Plus sign, you should do it because it'll give you a good quality of life upgrade or a new equipment or a new feature. And I totally forgot because I only played the vanilla Final Fantasy XIV.

That is exactly the same UI element. Yeah, he said 16 in his tweet, but it applies, it's even like the same icon. Yeah, more or less. It fit into 16's UI. It's hilarious. It's it's endlessly hilarious like the the I was talking with people in my chat last last night. No the couple nights ago when I was going through the second big crystal dungeon And I got people going oh, yeah, this is this is the dungeon layout from St. Moriands our burrito from back in the fucking Evans word

Like it's it's all there. It is a remix basically Like there were rumors about ff11 being turned into a single player game This kind of is ff14 turn into a single player game So I glue what I was wondering about I guess was like Yeah, like like as you kind of mentioned that It's like are you gonna hit the point where it's not just the voice actor. It's literally a cameo reference in some like direct Way of a thing. I was gonna get so mad if I played all through Final Fantasy 16 I didn't realize that it's actually like an offshoot or spin off of Final Fantasy 14 and I just never realized it

You know like oh, this is the multiverse and in Final Fantasy 16 is one of them. I'm just like I mean that's like that Evil shit, right? I don't mean to break it to you guys, but that's a genuine possibility There are actually the 12 remaining shards in 14 that have never been seen Okay, you could just roll with it. But will you mention a cameo character? Not exactly, but you do have situations in which you have, hey, this character in Heavensword is an older adult male role model figure that's like a dad to you and a bunch of other characters.

And it's a really cool guy and we'll take care of you and has a really emotional arc. Okay, here's the same actor playing a older father figure to your character who will take care of you and has a really like, especially with Heavensword because it's the writer of Heavensword that is writing this. So like yeah, no, just copy past it. It's good. It's fine. It's still good. So again, because I haven't gone through all of them, you know how like in FF6 the

summons are like like people you can talk to they're right there like legitimately. Oh, yeah, yeah they're the experts. Yeah, the experts exactly Are there and then like in nine as well? We're talking to Ramma and things like that And then like in nine as well, we're talking to Rama and things like that So there's always that idea of just like okay. Well here are the same summons I dola and zikon's whatever you call them in each in each iteration in 14 because you're reaching into all of these different worlds like are they the same incarnation? in all the worlds or, is it one being? No, 14 has the summons be like religious iconography. And the idea is that the, the, the

the summon will look like what its worshipers think it will look like. They have no basis in reality at all. So like, like if, like, uh, and in turn, in some cases, the same summon can be summoned multiple different times with different appearances based on who's summoning them and what they expect. Okay, okay. So it's a lot of it is just like the belief and the religious worship.

It's a power. Yeah, got it, got it. Okay, cool. Interesting. When you talk about 16, Gene, back me up, you were working on DBZ rules. Like like the summons are are super saiyan levels. That is just the side of you. Yeah, okay. Yeah, because when they're when they're going super saiyan, you're like, oh my god He's going primal. It's like that there's like a actual like lexicon around like, you know, powering up as an icon, you know?

Mm-hmm. But I mean, so far, I mean, it's really early, but like, the, they talk about like, things that are like, almost like, Oh, the feed-ics chose you as opposed to me or whatever. It's almost like, well, I don't know if you're gonna say literally that there's a point where a being called the Phoenix is talking and going, I'm fucking picking that kid. I have not encountered that. It appears to be like an innate birth state. Okay. This kid has a tail. So when you're flowing in the, you know, the height of combat, I guess two things are one, cycling through instead of like quick switching

on the D-pad, you know, is one of those things. We're like, ah I wish I could go straight to the icon. I want right now. No, you don't but you don't the rotation, right? No, here's here's the thing. I only learned this a couple nights ago. You know, Torgal Torgal button, right? Torgal has a sick and Torgal has ravage, which is the the pop-up Did you realize that Torgal has exceed timing for your regular combos? Oh shit So addition to your own little flame shots it you do four squares in a row and then feather Torgel as like an addition instead of the magic tack Then you'll get a

punishing sick or a punishing ravage or a precision sick or precision ravage, which will be a different dog move, which will have different properties. They didn't have to go that hard. So yeah, you want that deep path for dog hunting. They didn't have to go that hard. That's what, that is why in the Benedicta boss fight they show you dog combo

Right right as part of that sequence Don't get rid of your deep head. Okay, and then I guess my second question is guess my second question is, you know, it's not the bar to compare, however, the any good character action game will introduce your insane power level above the average enemy and then introduce the enemies that can keep up with you which I've already seen in the iconic challenge and then introduce the enemy that will overwhelm the shit out of you and fucking keep up, right? And now you're dancing. And I know that when the icon battle starts, it's a set piece battle. It's not the combat system fully.

Oh, do you know that? No, I don't. But I know. I'm just saying, I'm not saying nothing. I'm saying it's really actually not. Do you know that no I don't but I know I do really actually I don't know but I see a Kaiju battle and I'm like all right We're gonna get like you know a little cool Panzer Dragoon section and then we're gonna get a maybe even a little like whatever Bayonetta Kaiju battle moment About the platinum games moment, right? Wait. It's like, oh, this is just a shooter now.

Yeah, it turns into a little something else whereas the game systems are, yeah, exactly. So I kind of like, for example, when I was fighting Benedicta, I was like, okay, we're gonna fight on foot. And then at some point, we're gonna pop off and take it to the skies. And then the money fucking goes nuts, you know?

The money goes, it does. What the money does with nuts, yes. Um, so I guess I'm just, I'm just going to ask about like the on the ground challenge before the money goes nuts into the set. So so you know, you know, when, you know, you think of mentally of like an encounter at a big boss fight and you're like, Oh, now here comes the somebody standing next to a big valve that says money money on it and looks back and starts trying it. This is not that.

This is somebody looking at it, grabbing it, and throwing it down as hard as it can so it starts to free spin. It is, I mean, one of my only problems is like the game has like two budgets. There's the budgets for the shit that matters and there's the budget for shit that doesn't. It is, I mean, one of my only problems is like the game has like two budgets. There's the budgets for the shit that matters and there's the budget for shit that doesn't. It's worlds apart. What it basically becomes reverts back to Final Fantasy 14, right? Yeah, no, man, like that on.

So it's just animations, you know, like people waving their hands around, you know. Okay. Like all the, all the, you know, like the side quests that are clearly being written by Koji Fox because they have names like cock and balls Yeah Nothing in the in the demo showed off any like Low budget moments That's right. It didn't front it was all front end like you know through line get you get you onboarded right? Like, you know, through line gets you get you onboarded, right?

Yeah And and I guess like when I said when it's sad on that map for a minute I was like, oh, that's interesting because I guess my thought is that I would expect final fantasy to have you on foot for a while And then eventually that opens up and you do the the full travel thing But I guess here you might be doing that a little sooner than you think. I don't know how you get around. Okay, it is a Final Fantasy Tactics ass map. Okay.

I appreciate the quick, was active time lore button. That's a very woolly ass fucking addition I approve of. I have spoken to people and I it is my responsibility to tell you woolly. There is a guy you can talk to that just has all that shit later. So yes, I found out that in the demo you cannot go back to those moments to get the context But in the real game you can update in person and you don't have to do it all It has a mask that codex and that's wonderful because as much as I love it It became Immersion breaking when it would change from scene to scene in the same cut scene and I'm like, but I'm just in the scene right now, you know, so

That's that's the thought right I I don't know a couple screens where people were like check the ATL they tell you more about the the mark and I'm like I am not stopping this fucking cutscene to read tidbits about this dude's tattoo. I will find that out later. Thank you tidbits about this dude's tattoo i'll find that out later thank you uh... think about active time war is that it's a fantastic system i fucking love it right this is the this is the final fantasy game that needed at the least

you know house of because it's not that complicated of it of a story to be quite honest uh... and and and lately and when i interviewed youCP, he actually made a reference to like, oh, I know that we've been in trouble for having a lot of proper nouns. So he was like directly like addressing like the criticisms of LC, a LUC, a Final Fantasy XIII. And he's like, oh yeah, well, we got icons here,

but like, you know, like we try to make it real simple. And it's like, yeah, it's really simple. It's like, icon is the most fun. Yeah, they're like, and branded and- And branded and- Are like the words that you need to figure out. And once you got that, then you're pretty good. Yeah, you need icon branded, bearer, dominant,

and a fucking, there's a word later that starts with A, but they tell you what it is when it happens and that's it you know it's funny you kind of describe that as like a lot of pronouns versus a proper nouns versus the I guess games that that are stories that don't have that I think about whenever I tune into like a sci- story, and I expect jargon, and I like it when there is, because it feels like, ooh, there's meat on this bone, there's a world that I want to dig into and find out more about, you know? So in a sci-fi setting, I'm looking forward to that, but maybe in something that's not

that, or in a modern day, I'm not expecting it per se, and basically, it's not even that it's sci-fi, because I'm looking in front of me at there's a disco elisium fucking curtain in front of me, and I'm like, in disco elisium, I love the jargon of the world and the places I don't know, and the things and the concepts of, and put your brain in another place,

and think about the pale. Like, it's how fantastical the setting is is and how much they want to take you there and they want you to immerse you in that setting. I accept more jargon for that payoff, you know, and if the story is much more simple and character driven, then yeah, it doesn't have to be there. It's really fascinating because it goes way out of its way to be incredibly simple to understand, and the core metaphor of everything about Summon's slash icons slash dominance is incredibly clear.

It is so blatantly obvious down to the language they use. When you transform into an icon, they call it priming. And the icons are viewed as weapons of mass destruction, aka nukes, and all the language around them supports that. It's very clear. There's no confusion. Within the first cutscene of the game, you are watching a battle in which people are bringing out nukes, and it was a bad idea. Right, right, right. I mentioned them like, yo, vibes of that lost Odyssey intro

where you have a war and then the mages in the back kind of rolling up. Yeah, and then also like, you really, really quickly just establish people, characters and places, you got fucking characters yelling, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, people, characters, and places, you got fucking characters yelling, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, you know, and all that to establish the rating that we're rolling with. And then like two scenes with your mom,

and you're like, okay, got it. Oh, you got it. The worst person that's ever existed in the whole world. Understood, yeah, just established, you know. And as someone may say that they do a good job of like, like, there's someone in FF14 that's similar to that energy that like they've had experience or setting this kind of like, how do they have established a humongous bitch, a turbo bitch in a fucking 30 seconds, the intro, a long, long amount of practice with

stormblood characters. There is a lady who is running the government who is the most monstrous bitch that game has ever seen. Okay. The coloring is even purple on both. Like it's okay. I get it. You were practicing. Got it. We'll see about the active time war later in the game. It's good to pad that you're not really because later in the game, they actually fuck up and it spoils you. It's boiled on a plotting. So were you using it in in every scene? I did not use it in every scene. No. Okay. Just as in moments of confusion, like, how did you use it in every single no. Okay, just as in moments of confusion,

like how did you use it in the end? I used it mostly to be like, okay, what is the game saying about this character now? Now that this happened. Okay. Okay. It's kind of interesting because sometimes they would even like tell you the mindset of the character.

Which is a little bit more than you need, I think. But it's fine. It's good. It's great. Yeah, you actually started using a lot more towards the end. And that's because I was like, am I really following the story right? Is that what's going on? And it's like, okay, that is what's going on.

If motivations change and someone gets lost, I guess the idea is like, now that this has happened, this person is doing this or is thinking about it. Yeah, yeah. There's also some features later on in the game that take like absolutely exhaustive detail to make sure you know absolutely everything that's going on in every country and every location with every character.

And I'm looking at it and it's a really exhaustive system. And I have to agree with Gene that's like, but I don't need it. I understand what is happening. It's really obvious. Hmm, you don't need it. Like, it looks so confusing, but it's like actually pretty straightforward.

This person loves that person. This person hates that person now. That's it. Like, it goes all the way to like relationship chart with like the lines of like this person, doesn't like this person. And it's like, yeah, I know. I know, dude.

So as an outside observer as well, when I look at Final Fantasy, I think of the first six games as bright and colorful Amano characters wandering through a painterly world, right? Yeah, I would think so. And then when I think of like seven and up, well, seven is a particularly like, you know, steampunk tech world and all that, but overall, there's definitely that impression of like, here come the fucking anime hairstyles and the wild young clucky characters that are like attractive and powerful doing

the modern square thing, right? and You don't really get I haven't seen anything that feels like is not that up until I guess gritty clive right now No, it's pretty grounded. It's very tactics in 12 and vagrant story. A huge proportion of the cast is in their 30s. Yeah, so that's what I'm kind of getting at, I suppose, is that even in 12 when it's like,

okay, there's a friend and ball theory and all these other characters that are around that are pretty awesome. There's still that whole young, teenage, power-kid thing that's generally carrying through all of these games, right? And then I suppose there's no bond parallel here for sure. Right. It's the younger version of Clive, if anything. And then you jump into this, or just like, oh, the world is kind of just,

everyone's a bit tired and old and gray. And that's okay, you know? And yeah, so I guess I was just wondering if like, this is the first time that the franchise has kind of gone that way, or maybe I just missed something, you know? No, like you're dealing with Guy, I mean, you saw Sid in the iconic challenge, right? It's like in his 40s and and the dude fucks.

Like you're constantly going through the game, being reminded that this is an old guy who fucks all the time. Yeah, I kind of, I wonder about the, like when you see the decisions that lead to designing characters that look like, the squalls and the lightnings of the world. And overall just that cool hairstyle, young, plucky appeal or such and the edge to it. Um, Sephiroth, energy, wherever you can get it.

Like, it's a very bold decision, I guess, to like, just go, we're not... Doing that? No, you salt those versions of the characters literally die. Yeah. Like, we're just not doing that at all, They're like, huh? Okay, that's cool. I'm super down. I'm just surprised that the brand is like, let's go in that direction and that no one at like square is going to kind of step in and go, hold on a minute. We want to market this. This grumpy old fuck can't be the face, can it? You know, like, yeah, it is. Yeah, well, I mean,

they still make lives like super hot and like, you know, is. Yeah. Well, I mean, they still make Clives, like super hot. And like, you know, the biggest chest. Well, he's got huge tits. That's true. Yeah, no, he is. He is like a hot, damaged fucking, you know, dude, I guess. But I suppose it's like, he feels like the tired old party member that would be supporting the young hero

on the coming of age. Or an orange or whatever. Yeah. The coming of age journey, right? I love Clive. Clive's good. He's a good boy. He's like shadow. He would be like the shadow of your party. Yes. Yes. He would be the older like tired party member, not the star of the show. So that's cool. That's cool. Anything I guess like interesting in terms of, um, any little, like, any triple triads or any little mini... No, the, the, the, the side quest,

I wish, man. The side quest this in this game is notorious marks, aka, you want to go fucking fight your ass off, big bosses. Okay. Yeah, so, like, yeah, so the bigger activity is basically the hunts, which is what Maximilian Dude did in the Final Fantasy event where he played against an SRank hunt, like 15 levels

above him. And he got direct. Yes, you want to go do a bunch of optional boss fights here. Yeah. So the optional boss fights are definitely where like the most of the challenge is because the game isn't really, and I think Pat is also experiencing these two,

is that the game isn't that hard at all. Oh, I haven't done once. Well, so that was my question when I was asking about the challenge on foot before you hit the set piece is that another way of phrasing that in a way is like when you encounter weapon in a traditional final fantasy, you're, you know what you're in for. You're gonna sit there and fight a long ass fucking menu battle.

But this is an action game. And it would be kind of insane to just drop you into, you know, a fucking all-father Rodaim battle. So what are they doing? The game is being balanced around people who play Final Fantasy. I remember I was getting into a very climactic, big fight, big icon battle.

The one with the good music we were talking about earlier and I'm like, wow, this is fucking so cool. And then I whooped the shit out of him. Like no problem. And it was still a fantastic, bombastic moment, but I'm judging that what Gene's been talking about, Final Fantasy mode is that like the difficulty is backloaded to new game plus.

New game plus. Okay. And even now that I've experienced most of Final Fantasy mode, it's not that much harder. Like I've died more times in Final Fantasy mode, so it is appreciably harder, but I'm still kind of like kind of coasting through it. Kind of. So G.E. And G.E. And most of the big fights are like when you have there's a big attack that will kill you in one shot. That's it. Awesome. You did mention as well.

You did mention as well that the writing is like if this is your first final fantasy, you'll be really satisfied with it. If it's not, it's okay. If you played any other JRPG before, then you'll be like, oh, okay, this is what they're doing. If you haven't, you're like, oh my god, this is what an interesting concept. I can't believe they went there. That poses so many interesting questions and more at least. But if you, if you, if you played any other game, you know, we've seen this.

Yeah, okay. Then you see, then you see then then you've seen this before and Story right now where I'm going I wonder what's going to happen once we finish this part What could occur I don't know But it's well executed Pat kind of guessing like what's gonna happen already, you know It's a it's a familiar concept concept but it's executed well enough. Oh it's executed well.

It's executed cleanly. It's clearly told. It's just very, again, goes back to how this game doesn't really need active time more because it's really simple. Hmm. At least simple. There's very few situations in which I ever had to be like

who the fuck is that guy? Because they'll cut to like, you know, a bunch of old ministers arguing about bullshit around a table. And then I'll just put the location in the fucking corner and I go, oh, this is the political death of this kingdom. Okay, done. I don't need to know their names, they're not important. And what do you guys think of the future of Final Fantasy looking kind of like this for at least the next couple games?

I think that's a good idea. I'm okay with it. I've talked about it before that they've been forever chasing the advent children dream of making video games that look like that. That's it, I've moved it. And so now they were pretty close, well they made DeCitya, which is pretty much that. That's it. That's it. That's it. And so now they're, you know, they tried to, they were pretty close. Well, they made Dysidia, which is pretty much that. Right. But then they haven't made a story-based Final Fantasy game and seven remake and 16 are two different solutions to the same issue that they're trying to address or the same desire that they want.

You know. Yeah, it's a good observation that like you're pointing out there where it's like when everybody is looking at like what they're trying to direct and what everyone is impressed by is like the high octane cool, you know, well choreographed fight scenes, but not everyone wants to actually have to do all that manually, but it is true that character action in terms of like how you give freedom to the cont to the player is best suited for controlling a scene that actually is that insane instead of watching it, you know. It's a way of putting a HUD over what would otherwise

be an impossible to think of sequence in a video game, you know. So yeah, as long as that goal is to deliver on that, then I think it's rad as fuck as well. But certainly, you know, they're gonna tweak an experiment and find new ways to, you know, perhaps like, make something that's more team-oriented if that's the goal of the combat or whatever. Because thinking about as well, the edging up to this with FF7R and with the way 15 played as well, you know, where you're like, you're like, yeah, like the step up to character action has been in the cards for a long time.

It just wasn't the full commitment until this point. Yeah, I think the thing that was pointed out as well is that it's not like it's a bad time for traditional RPG fans as well because Tokyo RPG Factory and a lot of the other classics that are coming out now are also like, whether it's remakes of them or new ones. There's stuff that's very traditional

that's available as well in the old RPG style. So, Final Fantasy going where it goes and then those things still existing for people is overall, like you're eating well, you know? Personally, I'm sorry, I have to do it. I'll go ahead Pat. Personally, my excitement for a lot of the future of Final Fantasy is that I fully expect a massive majority of the features I'm enjoying in 16 to be part of the announcement of the next 14 expansion in a couple weeks. I can see active time lore, I can see everything you talked to Vivian about being added into the patch cycle because it seems like you know what game fucking needs that shit 14 does.

Oh yeah Vivian is a character that gives you the lore dumps of like what all the different added into the patch cycle because it seems like you know game fucking needs that shit 14 does. Oh yeah, Vivian is a character that gives you the lore dumps of like what all the different countries are doing. Like she's like you're going to for like okay what what's the status of the nations now you know. Right and like that 14 has a lot of parts in it and was like no I'm juggling like over 150 characters. I actually could genuinely need a chart please

Where I 16 doesn't really need it because it's like oh here's your girlfriend and here's your friend So there's no in there's no in game 14 wiki no Huh It's it's it's that's why I'll actually buy the book loser Jesus Christ so by now buy the second, and it's out of stock, and the shipping's $400. Which is why it's so hard for me to get back into 14, because it's like, I have no idea what happened. In a relevant board, I barely paid attention,

even if it's worth me. Fine, I could just tell you, it'll take five minutes. There is one thing I wanna talk about, especially now that the gene is here, about 14, which was the kerfuffle before the game came out about the fact that the game doesn't have any depictions of any people of color whatsoever. Oh yes, yes we should talk about that. And Joe Shipe gave a really unsatisfying answer in interviews about, well they wanted

to go with a really specific depiction of medieval Europe and yada yada and it wasn't very emotionally fulfilling and it didn't really seem like the real answer. I don't believe it is the real answer. Jeans gone through the whole game, I've gone through plenty. It becomes fairly obvious why they would have been very, very uncomfortable including large amounts of people in color of this game, it would have gotten on the news. It would have become like a massive shit show scandal. Well, you're aware of the opening scene in which you talk to a bear and the bear is too afraid to talk to you, right? The water bear who won't even speak to Clive in the intro, the guy with the tattoo, the guy

who... Oh, that was fun. Oh, the servant. The... Yeah, the intro. The guy with the tattoo the guy who Oh, Taddle's one. Uh, uh, oh, the, the, the, the, the servant, the, uh, the servant. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the slave. Let's him as slave slave. He's not a servant. He's a slave. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's what the world is. Yeah. The slavery plot in Final Fantasy 16. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. oh yeah, and it goes and it goes Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah, I could feel that and I'm sitting here and I'm like if these were if either People on the side of the scene where people of color

Mm-hmm people would snap that and Throw it up on insta or fucking whatever and then that would get picked up by local news, and everybody go crazy. Like, I know, I almost immediately was like, I called them like, okay, are we gonna just go straight to San Leverto, are we going straight to the history of Haiti, and the fucking wild violence slave uprising for freedom based on getting the weapons from the fuckers that are imprisoning you you like like you know like I'm looking at this going oh yeah

right off the bat the energy of the ones who are the slaves have the extra power you say hmmm well now right because there's always two types. There's the setting where the ones with the extra power say that we're greater than you and we're gonna oppress you, those who have no power and we can live in Magneto world or the other way around, you guys are scary, we're afraid of your power, so let's suppress it. And then you go the other way and like obviously,

the moment they go, wait, what if I didn't do that? And yeah, I feel it. I feel it. That's my issue with the story and Pat, you're far enough where we can just talk about this freely and it's just whatever, but it's like, like I guess I don't understand why nobody else before Clive said it or said whatever,

decided to do the uprising I guess, because you were the ones who control fire. And I'm not saying that, like, obviously, I don't wanna be like Kanye West and be like, why didn't they just say free themselves? I'm not doing that, you know. So the game try, from what I can pick up. Freedom was a choice, Clive.

Freedom was a choice. Freedom was a choice, yeah. The game tries to. There's a lot of good things about Annabelle. That there's the game really desperate. I love Annabelle. The game tries to put the pieces in place to be like, why haven't there's been an uprising.

Every single person that you run into that is a bearer is a downtrodden fucking husk that is being worked to exhaustion slash death and can barely feed themselves. They point out in the story that Rosaria, the country that Clive is from, is the only country in the world that sees bearers as anything other than, like, subhuman non-animals, right? And Clive is the only person you see

in his whole country treat those people like anything less than trash because clive is a good boy Yeah, well, I guess the the thing is always just like then turn on the good old RE5 slider and do a population uh, fucking pigment randomizer and just drop that filter on the NPCs and get what you get You know, I don't know. Yeah. You think they also, there's also a lore reason later on that it's all just white people. But it also makes, the all white people thing makes it interesting because it's like,

you're talking about the people sitting around the table. It's like, I can't fucking tell any of these people apart. So it all just look like regular white people to me, you know. There's a second part to that. I'm looking at the rant, so the, let's, you're describing like the non-named white characters, like all the politicians and all the, you know, random characters. I fucking bet you anything. I recognize a lot of those character face archetypes

from the 14 characters. Oh, Jesus Christ. Oh, yeah. Okay. Well, you might want to even go back and look at one of your clips. There is a guy in the very first table scene where Benedicta and Hugo and all those people

are all arguing about the war. The first guy that stands up has a big beard on his face. Dude, that is a 14 character preset. Oh boy. He goes to tell us to sit down. Yeah, the big guy. He goes to tell us to sit down. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That guy's beard. That is like midlander face four. OK. Yeah, I think those characters are being built by template. I mean, ultimately, just don't Elden ring me and tell me that, you know, look, the setting where we live is just one where it happens to be this way. And, you know, they just don't exist, but you know what does? People made of literal rock.

Like, okay. You know, so- I think they just didn't want to do an interview in which they said out loud, we are scared of people being mad at us if we show horribly violent slavery depictions of people of color. Right. Okay.

I can, it just goes and like, man, I played like the last two sessions were just non-stop nightmare shit and I'm just like man I don't think They did not want to have to deal with that. They wouldn't because there's a definite part in the beginning of the game You had to begin in the game where it's like this is the racism part This is the part we learn all about the racism. This is where Clive learns that racism is wrong. Yeah It's slavery is wrong and then so that's why when you enter the world,

the music is like a droning E minor, like, what the fuck is going on here? Is the world about to end? What's happening is race and gene. And then you realize, oh, it's the racism all around me. That's establishing this. It's like racism is the audio equivalent of the yellow Mexico filter.

Yes, sure. Sure. Soakin is hitting the theme of like the yellow mexico filter yes sure sure sokin is hitting the theme of racism right now yes yes he knows got it got it And okay, all right, all right. It's got dog combos. That's that's a big cell. Um, and yeah, you get introduced to like, proper version as well, just to establish like, okay, you care. Now here's fucking poppy. Ready to jump up in the air with you and finish off your combos. Also, I felt like there was an exceed already in the form of shooting your little flame in between your swings. It is, but you can use the dog as an ender instead of that.

Fantastic. Okay. I keep thinking about what Suzuki said about how this is masterpiece, and it's like, was he just hyping or does he actually believe that? Because it's like, this is different from Devil May Cry 5. I don't think is as good as Delmae cry 5 But I thought it's good. It's not as it's not as complex as Delmae cry 5 because in this game You don't have directional inputs there are zero directional inputs and there's no pause combos either

And but there okay, okay, okay. Yeah, he's right Yeah, but at the same time this is certainly like the biggest platform. I think that genre is going to ever get in terms of widespread audience, you know, introduction to that shit. Definitely. If anybody comes out of the other end of this going, that was a really cool game, but the gameplay in particular, I'd like to go further. We can fucking point them to the pipeline, you know, so

Exactly. I mean there are a lot of parts in this game where it's like oh this is what bayonetta 3 would have looked like oh yeah It's the money in the comparison is so obvious and immediate. It's it's sad Okay, all right, let's see. There's a lot of comparisons, you know like like Part of the reason why I I'm not like super high on the story of FF 16 is only because I'm comparing it to like, near automata. Okay. Okay. Well, yeah. And it's like, okay, I'm comparing Final Fantasy 16 to like the absolute peak. And it's like, okay, so that's, that's where I'm coming from. Okay. And what I would expect is a comparison to FF14, and by extension, 15, and by extension, you know. Yeah, it's way better than 15.

Oh, fuck yeah, oh my God, night and day, not even close. No question, you know. And I love 15, but yeah, 15 is about hanging out with your bros, but guess what? I like my bros better in 16 than I did in 15. So the only thing it had going for it is already lesser than. Okay.

Yeah, the one thing about 16 though is that like the women writing isn't like, is better than it was in 15 but it's not like amazing you know like. I mean in 15 I didn't know that women existed in that. There's one women and she dies you know. Yeah. And in this one she doesn she dies, you know. Yeah. And in this one, she doesn't die, which is nice. But I feel like FF16 is still very much like a really good game about like a lot of different types

of cool men, basically. Yeah. Yeah. Catch it. And 15 was about that too, but 16 is just more so because he's men are a lot cooler. And like 15 was about a bunch of cool boys. Boys, the boys

The boys are going on the fucking road trip Yeah, I mean and I and I feel like so far 16 Well to me 16 is like a bunch of dudes going at a drunkenly singing their drunk and revelry songs And then they just get melted by fire drunk and leasing in their drunken revelry songs rarararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararar You are a literal walking nuclear bomb. Why are you just taking it? So I can't think about how Geralt, because there's obvious parallels between Geralt and Clive. They wear the stores of sand, they both have the same British Batman, or European Batman and Gravely voice.

But I feel like Geralt wouldn't have taken that shit. He would have found a way to embarrass the racists, whereas Clive is like, oh yeah, I'll totally, I'll be your Uber Eats driver, you know. There's a really, there's a moment that I dealt with a little bit ago, in which Clive is accosted by some essentially clan members, who are like just saying everything the game setting supports about him. And I'm sitting here going, I just

got a gameplay upgrade 30 minutes ago. And I'm looking over at my chat and I'm like, how long do you think it's going to take me to sweep these dudes into the dirt? And the answer is sub 30 seconds. It took me 28 seconds to murderize them all into goo. And Clive knows that. Like, Clive is aware of his ability to pulpify anyone in his vicinity, but he still just takes it. And I saw that fight when you did that. And that was when I made the obviously observation

that this is basically the same thing as a yakuza like a dragon game yeah were you were you heat action move the children uh-huh you must their faces into the classroom and then the next cutscene they're like oh my god I can't believe you did that to me you know huh there's that there's that funny little video game disconnect that you that you have to get used to you know Because like the way the way Pat styled on these racists is like he was like nooking the the back yard It was fire and brimstone everywhere and then the next is like oh you really showed us mate, you know

Oh, dude There's one where two random guards wanted to duel me and I just stingered one into the air for 25 seconds and he never hit the floor only for the cutscene to have him take a knee and go whoa I'm surprised to hear that because the impression I got Based on the intro was that like as soon as we go forward in time, that you're in a world where peace was never an option. And I kind of assume that that- Well, the lives of good boy.

Okay, okay. Yeah. Is it gonna try to solve things with his gravely, incredibly handsome Ben Star voice his slightly damaged giant tits in his charm but he didn't turn into guts no yeah yeah yeah okay no despite having justification to most reserved this game gets is what you saw already which is yeah the basically the the Evangelion, like, like, you know, you know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like me to the moon, you know. And the true, yeah. Hard cut. Exactly, yeah, that's exactly. Cool. All right. That's a pretty, it's gonna place as any.

So let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. All right, let's take a quick word from our sponsors. This week, the podcast is sponsored by Factor. I've heard of them before. Yeah. It's kind of like the X factor but But for food for food Yeah, no, so basically a factor is the number one ready to eat meal kit that can help fuel you up You want to basically be able to eat well and stay on track to reach your goals. So the whole point of

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Um, how do you need new socks when I tell them? Okay, so, is there anything not FF16 related? Uh, that's interesting. Did you, uh, did you been up to G? Uh, not really. I'm trying to get into Diablo IV. I put that off for a long time. And I also want to get into Street Fighter VI. I want to do my own World Tour. You're an English. I've only done the beginning of I got to the part where you have to travel across two different cities to get the Gucci bag, the fake Gucci bag.

That was about as far as I got basically. I think that's like my favorite part of of World Tour is everything about that Gucci bag is the stupidest fucking thing in the world and it's so funny. Yeah, it's such an expensive looking bag. Cool, okay, well fair enough man, 16 is a beefy ass fucking thing to spend your time on. So yeah, I'm making my way through a fine fantasy mode. Like I said, it's a little bit harder. A lot of the enemies are tankier. The max level cap for the regular game is 50.

And Final Fantasy mode will take you to 100. And 100? 100? Wow. Not 99. Holy shit. Yep. All the way to level 100.

And the first enemy you fight in Final Fantasy mode is level 50. So it just scales up basically from there. And then like all the weapons that you're getting now, there will be better versions of those weapons in New Game Plus basically too. The enemies are really tanky, but the enemy countenance are remixed, so that's fun. So, you get a lot of interesting mini-bosses early in the game, so all of that just makes a lot more fun. And you have your full kit at the right at the beginning.

That keeps it always interesting. So, the grid will fight, you can fight her with like Bahamut and Odin powers, you know Is there anything changed about them when you're going back around you can plus they do have new moves They know They really hard. I'm dead. Yes. They know they did their homework. They did their homework That's great. This is a good. This is a solid new game plus mode So this is why I'm having fun with it. Mm-hmm. Okay, Pat All right, so I have I have some life interests to discuss that are not related to video games first first thing first

Page and I have embarked on transforming me into a stereotype in that I do actually need to get new socks. I need to get white socks. I now have a bunch of shorts and I have new, new balance shoes to go along with the dad look. I am also now a happy report that my son's ultrasound came back,

and his legs are appearing more normal, not as baby legs. He may be free of the curse. Maybe. Here's hope. Here's hope. Okay. Now, baby legs would be normal for a baby. Yeah, but we're talking,

there was some baby leg is in the Those altru sounds of okay particular baby legs, but looking more normal 30th percentile now, so He the idea that my boy will be the first boy taller than his father in like a hundred years Family would be pretty cool in like a hundred years. And family would be pretty cool. That would be nice. Yeah, the page factor. Yeah, no, that would all be, that would all be on page.

Uh, he might, he might be able to defeat you. Uh, I would all, uh, I also recently, you know, what with me being a little overweight and you know, having, having a boy on the way we decided to go ahead with a and you know the fact that I you know the candy and whatnot I decided to go ahead and get a preliminary sugar test just to make sure only to find out that life is not fair and that my sugar is completely normal despite all that bullshit that you saw me do. Willie. Willie has seen me do a lot of stupid, stupid, sugar-based bullshit. Over the long time that I've known him.

I mean, it's for... It really kind of just comes down to ripping open a bag of reasons and not stopping until... Like, something physically restrains you? Yeah, um, there were some mistakes made and for it to come back, it's totally average, is not fair. Okay, well, it's damn short. So, some of us have to fucking earn our keep

and others get a nice ride to not diabetes villain. I'm getting a free pass on this one, but I can't reach some of the shelves in my own house. So, you know, that's when I was getting scan for cancer. And I asked, you know, because I smoked for like 22 years, like heavily. Yeah. And I asked what my lungs look like. And they're like, oh, your lungs are fine. Well, yeah, I mean, I don't mean to be too derivative, but like isn't the lung cancer rate for Asian

Americans? Like basically nothing compared to white Americans? I guess so, yeah. I mean, like my grandpa had lung cancer, but he was also 92, so he was like, fuck it, I'm not quitting. You're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're

you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you. He was like fucking you know, I'm about to exit. It's fine, you know Jesus I'll do that. I'll be smoking again when I'm hit when I hit 75 I love my fucking. It's fine. I don't care Yeah, I've heard I've heard about stuff like that and I mean no I guess it would ever like you know different different to groups and ethnicities and this that bat tend to, I think, have different, you know, proliferations of certain things, and I mean, certainly diabetes is no stranger to the black community, in fact, I believe,

we call it the sugars, you know. Like, I'm going to have a hard attack. I'll live. You think it's going down? That's hopefully fine, but I mean, it's it's gonna happen. What? Yes. I heard my. Yeah. Anyway, I heard some wild shit one time, and I don't even know how real. Anyway, whatever, moving on, it's fine. Come on. So my wife and I recently attended a prenatal class,

you know, learn about the incoming birth and, you know, things that we can do to prepare and all that. And we were hanging out with a bunch of other expected parents, which is one of the first times that we have done so, right? And you get that feeling, yeah, pages in the chat, birthing class, right? You get that feeling that you're kind of just not like other people sometimes.

So it's very calm, it's very open, very accepting, and the nice lady going that she's a doula, going through the things, like, hey, everybody, what's your name? And, you know, what are you worried about? And, you know, where do you draw your strength in life? You know, and we're going down the list. And people, like, oh, I draw my strength from my breath. And, you know, this family is like, we draw our strength from God. And then they turn to my wife, who shit looks at them and so I draw my strength from spite. I I've you labor as a as an adversary to destroy in order to get my baby.

That's fucking metal. Let's go. That is fucking sick. Everyone has like a little chuckle, but it's like, oh, this is one of these things is not like the others. That rules. Let's go page. Fuck yeah. Yeah, just just a little interaction.

And it's like, yeah, it's, it's, it's, yes, page. You will win. It's true, but still, it's, it's, it's, yes, Paige, you will win. It's true, but still, it's just a fun little thing. As for video games, I played the Final Fantasy 16, don't need to go into that. I've been playing non-stop more and more Street Fighter in which the only thing that I wanna say is that the discovery,

I think today, of like a perfect option select in the corner that will cause you to never get thrown. And people don't understand how fucked up it is. It's so fucked up. It's like the most broke and thing I've ever seen. That thing has to go now. And thankfully Capcom has already talked about the fact that they're on it.

The thing that sucks is the idea that it's based on the thing I was just praising, which is the simultaneous input assistance, right? So I talked about how some moves require two punches to be pressed at the same time and some require three. If it's a two-button move, you can press that, no problem on a sticker or a controller, but if it's a three kicks or three punches moves, that's a lot harder on a pad. So I wish they just made everything two, so it wouldn't be an issue. But what they did was they made it so that you put on a button that you click and then when you toggle this on, if you press any punch, it'll automatically become all three punches

and if you press any kick it becomes all three kicks. Useful because if you press in previous Street Fighter games, if you were to press all three punches and all three kicks, you would usually just get the fiercest, the heaviest button out visually as that's the priority, but then it's just doing, it's registering all three. So what ends up happening is because this game does a little thing where you can hold simultaneous assist button, press jab, and you'll see a jab come out, but the game will register all three punches behind that jab, right? That means that if someone goes to throw you and you are holding heavy punch and heavy kick, and then you press the assist button, It turns into light punch and light kick, which is how you tech a throw,

but it doesn't actually make you do it. It just puts the input out into the world in a way where if you're getting thrown, you'll get to break that throw. That's a bit complicated, but essentially it allows you to perfectly hold block and if someone tries to throw you, they automatically, you automatically break the throw. And if they try and hit you, you'll keep blocking.

Yeah. So it's a very serious problem that needs to get fixed. And the fact that they've answered immediately means they're going to probably deal with that and roll out a patch, even if it doesn't involve any other changes. Because balance changes, things that affect characters, you want to always be like, eh, maybe give it some time, choose how to handle that with the season, maybe when the new character is dropped, post-evo.

But when it comes to massive bugs that are huge problems that can break the way the game plays, or combat the systems involved, you have to address that much sooner. This is one that, like, them giving an answer right away. Kind of implies we're probably gonna see a rollout real quick. Shrive had a similar thing as well. That was patched out very fast with the,

I think it was like proximity, faultless defense or so. There's a Roman cancels. There's an early bug that kind of got patched out within the same week and people didn't even have a chance to do any tech forward or so. Because if you had to ban that button, that would really suck,

because that's an in-game setting that you can use, and it actually helps for characters that require three button inputs and taking that away would be pretty shitty, you know? So yeah, hopefully that comes soon. I also wanna give like a shout out to the state of the fighting game community in general because, wooly, we'll remember this,

I'm sure Gene does. Historically, like 25 years ago, the way to deal with this bug was to never tell anyone about it for as long as you live Save that's for nationals and have people go wow this guy is Incredible a teching throws in the corner. It's crazy. Yes. Yes, every time Right, okay, so I need to address right off the back There's a story going around that says the button is already banned. Apparently that's not true.

So if we have to get into the nitty-gritty on this, the Japanese CPT rules state the list of buttons that you can use and how they apply, including or not including that button, but listing that it just uses whatever in-game control functions are available. Meanwhile, the English CPT rules do include use of the simultaneous assist button,

and they also mention you can't do anything that's not available in the already selectable game button prompt choices. So because simultaneous input is not a system level thing or a console level thing, it's an in-game option, and it is listed on one of the CPT rule translations We can assume that it is in fact allowed so that is not a real story about it being already banned I

Forget what I was talking Street fighter six street fighter six. Hey man So I've been playing a lot of Jamie and Geef and that's great and then I hopped on to DJ and Did my placement matches with DJ before looking at DJ's command list and got diamond and I'm like Wow this character is is like gets to do shit for free Yeah character is like gets to do shit for free. Like, or free. Like, everything is free. Damn, it's just free. Spacing is free. Got a good projectile. Got an incredible drive, Rush. Yup. Some characters feel like they don't have to work his hard. This is upsetting. It makes me upset. This is it. You get a big blow up for sure.

You know, and in particular, like the thing with it too is that like a lot of the time the weaknesses, like once you look at it top down and you know what they are, it becomes more evident, like, okay, you have weaknesses that are the same as like this other character or this other archetype. But in terms of just like the average skill level of the player that has to deal with that,

Gael and DJ are in the exact same camp of, my strength is if I'm down backing, good fucking luck, right? And then like, I'm kind of winning the match by default if I have the life lead that I'm down backing. Now the moment that I stop, it's on you to make use of that time and find a way to either bait me into doing something wrong or slip through my defenses, but for the most part, I'm a solid rock that you cannot get in on. You just like, it's done. Like I cannot believe like DJ's low medium punch into his light machine gun upper

does more damage than some characters raw supers. It is like the most brain dead thing in the game and it is just like 20% of your life right there. And you've got a great reversal. The angle like up all has a weird thing that misses sometimes. Zegief level one super misses sometimes. Marissa.

Zegief level one is the worst move. Right. Marissa's angle like Zegief's is too high. Marissa's is too low. And they with on anti air situations, up kicks with DJ, they hit, they connect, and in some cases, like even if you're spaced out a little bit further back

and you're trying to bait them, they still catch you, you know, yeah man. And then his drive rush is so fucking fast, and it goes so far, and then you get a low out of that, and you go into like his crouching medium kick or so, unbelievable, you know, and then even if you don't have your charge, you can into like his crouching medium kick or so unbelievable. You know, and then even if you don't have your charge, you can still do his slide as an anti-air that's amazing too as well.

He gets to do a lot for free. He really, really. And it's like I was, you know, I messed around with Jury and like I was, you know, trying to learn Jury stuff and I'm like, well, why play Jury? I'll just go back to DJ. DJ stuff is easy. Like, Jury has to hit buttons. I don't have to hit buttons with DJ.

I just have to hold down back. So I don't want to hold down back. So it took basically, what it's going to kind of come down to is that like the only time DJ is going to start to feel like more fair and you know, as you fight, is when you're fighting against people who took a second to go like figure out what he's got and like where the weaknesses are.

Because they're not immediately apparent and evident what you can get around and what to look out for. But like with anybody, there are weaknesses. You're going to have to go study them a little bit. I like Street Fighter 6. I have a new complaint about Street Fighter 6. The way they're handling player 1 colors is embarrassing. It's the worst ever. Being able to get all the second costumes and all those colors in World Tour is great.

But like, I watched some of CEO and CEO was like literally all player 1 colors because no one can fucking unlock them on tournament setups. Mmm. Awful. Awful. and can fucking unlock them on tournament setups? Mm, awful, awful. Yeah, I really do wish that the full costumes were available for tournament setups because that was what we got for the previous games and at some point, maybe not launch version, I think,

but definitely at least by the first season or so or second, they would have all the colors and all the costumes available so that you get the most presentation variety on tournament streams. You want the stream set up to have a lot of things to show off the game at its best, and lacking colors and lacking costumes is certainly not it. It's weird.

I'm kind of surprised there is no like monetization option for buy every color. There is. Like it's there is. You're missing color 10 for some people, but you can buy usually a three through nine right off the back. No, no, I don't mean per character. I mean a button that says give me the whole game. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right. says give me the whole game every time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right. You just, you'd have to go to the each character, give me all of them and then get those one by one, you know, so, but yeah, I would definitely agree with that.

And again, I hope that we see that free up a bit more over time. Or just like, you know, have those dailies and weaklies and shit to give you drive tickets like Christ. There's like, you can earn like 400 drive tickets a week. It's like the words. Or a battle pass with enticing rewards. I maxed out that battle pass instantaneously

and it still doesn't give you shit for drive tickets. So, you know, that's another thing you could do as well. But yeah, I'm not gonna see the battle pass. And I was like, oh yeah, the guys were right. This is a terrible battle pass. When it was over. The worst ever. Yeah.

It's like not tempting at all. It's amazing. Yeah. Last but not least for me, I played Amnesia the bunker. And wow, what a good game especially especially after Amnesia 1 was really popular but weak. Amnesia 2 was one of the worst horror games I've ever played and Amnesia 3 called Amnesia Rebirth is also one of the worst horror games I've ever played, but the bunker is incredible.

Bloober team. It is. What's that? Bloober team? No, frictional. Okay. It is, it is, you have a safe house and you're exploring a bunker which has a bordering on invincible mutant going around a World War I bunker in which you are having to...

Wait, it's not... it's not fictional? Who the fuck is it? I don't know. Anyway. In which... It's so difficult. You're having to find fuel to power a generator in order to actually turn the lights on. And you have a hand-cranked flashlight

as you're walking around and pushing boxes in front of holes in the walls of the monster can't get to you as easily, and trying to burn your way around things or use rocks to break down doors. Like it's kind of like an immersive sim horror game. It's excellent. It's absolutely fantastic.

It feels like a really good version of what Silent Hill for the room actually wanted to be If that would then I realize do you understand what I mean? Okay, right Gene? Yeah, yeah actually had Funny enough the Silent Hill for the room came up this weekend and I was kind of told that like there's stuff in that that is worth this weekend and I was kind of told that like there's stuff in that that is worth checking out to see how it's handled. Yeah, that game's cool and it sucks. Yeah, yeah. That's really what it is.

Yeah, and I know I know what that means. I think I know what that means. Like individual awesome ideas, overall execution failure. Yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah. Cool. And that's it for me. I'm going to be playing Bunker Street Fighter 6

and Final Fantasy 16 over at Twitch.tv slash Pat Stairset. Go to it. Go to that website. For me, it kind of brings Zelda to. I'm actually playing Zelda 1.0 where all the glitches are still available. Oh yeah, that's the good one. Yeah, so I'm basically essentially quote-unquote raw-dogging Zelda. Patch 3.

And so now I have a collection of 5 master swords that are all unbreakable. Fantastic. And the three of them are fused with like elements. So like I have like a master sword, an unbreakable Fantastic and then three of them are fused with like elements So like I have like a master sword an unbreakable master sword for like Different situations like if I want to like quit ice rafts that I break out the ice master sword that doesn't break Nintendo's like you know gene we can offer you some protection and you're like nah man. Give me the weird shit Keep it in there. What's the point if you can't get fucking weird? Yeah, yeah, all right I mean I really beat the game so it's like like let me just have fun with it now. Mm-hmm

Cool well, yeah over on my end so yesterday we started world tour Sponsored by junk food shout-outs to snack box for that. You can check out those episodes because they're gonna be dropping on woollyversus on YouTube and of course on the Twitch. And tomorrow we'll be picking back up with Final Fantasy 16. I'll load up my save file from the demo and you know, just resume from there.

So those one out of five to five out of five, we're gonna see on the episodes are actually gonna get updated to just be parts one through five and resuming from part six So tune in tomorrow This weekend as well We won't be streaming because so another Street Fighter majors going on. We've got ultimate Montreal air dashers. You

med is happening. So if you're around and you are looking to get some Street Fighter action, then that's the place to be. So gonna be out at that. But yeah, that's the schedule for the meantime. And if you happen to be curious, Woolly versus the algorithm side channel as well. We just dropped the latest woolly versus whatever episode return of the slop in which Yeah, it got it got real. There's a lot of moments in there of of visceral Damage whether directed to me or Reggie we both took damage that fucking Joker video man God which ones up Is it Joel Havill I think is the name? Oh, yeah

Never ever just oh Have you heard of kick Batman? Oh fuck it's no good. It's no good So yeah, that's all have stuff. He's doing just good stuff It's legal. Yeah, so that's out go check it out good times all right so News fuck Boy all right listen slow news week right all right listen

Here's what's up. There are the stories that are not Nintendo Direct related, and then there are the ones that are. So we can completely forgot there was an Nintendo Direct. Yes. It feels like so long ago, but yeah, let's do it. So let's touch on what we can. Obviously, we got to go a bit faster just to, you know, because this is a thing.

But in terms of the pre the the pre Nintendo direct stuff, for one, there was certainly a big ass headline. I like you want to talk about the the console wars being similar to the Cold War. Microsoft exec was ready to go spend Sony out of business to strengthen Xbox. Yeah, that's Matt Booty that came out of business to strengthen Xbox. Yeah, that's Matt Booty that came out of the FTC filing when they're going through everybody's emails and finding out all the stupid, stupid anti-competitive shit they said in correspondence that a judge could look at.

So, you know, it's almost like in perfect mirror to Sony emails from earlier a decade ago leaking some wild shit. Of course you got now this where Xbox CFO to Tim Stewart was, yeah, they're having a discussion about Microsoft being in a unique position to spend Sony out of business to get ahead in the console war. And then also the positioning, I believe alongside this story of Microsoft saying that we're effectively losing the console war and that's why the merger should not be blocked, right?

Yeah, I mean, I'm gonna paraphrase it slightly and Jean as a actual reporter man You could you could let me know if my ballpark is inaccurate But like Microsoft has spent days talk telling a judge that their video game penis is super small and that they desperately Desperately should be allowed to buy a bigger weener from someone else Like it's embarrassing. It is interesting that the assessment is as follows too,

because you have to look at how we've been talking about a lot of the up and comers, so to speak. The stadium's ears perk up and the lunatics are rising to hear what has to be said. And I quote, in games, Google is three to four years away from being able to have a studio up and running. Amazon has shown no ability to execute on game content. Content is the one mode that we have in terms of a catalog

that runs on current devices and the capability to create new. Sony's the only other player who can compete with Game Pass and we have a two year and 10 million sub-lead. Like right off the bat, it's like, okay, we've been staring at Amazon trying for a while now and yeah, no, don't even look twice at it. Dismissed immediately. Yeah, no, don't even look twice at it. Dismissed immediately. What were the two companies that Microsoft suggested they buy? It was Sega and Bungie.

Bungie, they were talking about, hey, you know what we can do? It's just by Sega, we'll buy Bungie, we'll have good Sony. Oh, take that. But the one that got me the hardest was that they admitted in court that the reason why the Bethesda acquisition went through was that there was a rumor that Sony was going to make Starfield exclusive for PlayStation.

Like, it wasn't even confirmed, and they just jumped on it so hard. Like ridiculous. Yeah, I think the wording was, if we had to look back, we would say, hold on, okay. A different view in general might be that we're in position to be able to outspend Sony, to spend Sony out of the business. If we think about video game content matters in 10 years,

we might look back and say, totally would have been worth it to lose 2 billion or 3 billion in 2020 to avoid a situation where 10 cent Google, Amazon, or even Sony have become the Disney of games and own most of the valuable content. So, and then it goes on, it's talking about the streaming aspect of it

and comparing it to Hulu CBS and where video streaming content has gone and such. And it is clear for as well, too, that like the whole Netflix of games thing with Game Pass, like is kind of just not gonna happen. Like, it seems as if like they, it's still the major one thing they're kind of holding over. That's like their best feature or so,

but like at this point, I also kind of wonder if like, do you, at what point do you kind of just move what do you do? Do they look at it and go like, all right, let's try to accelerate this and move the generation forward because we're kind of tapping out on this one, you know? I mean, the game has numbers of plateaued like, you know, it just is not getting any bigger than 29 million, you know. I mean, I never hear you guys talk about Game Pass. Like, do you guys even use it?

I don't use Game Pass at all. It doesn't, hey, it doesn't work on my fucking computer. I tried. I literally tried to sign up for it and I can't get it to work on my computer. I've never, I haven't used it. I don't use it at all. The value of what it is sounds fucking incredible. Like, I've talked about how watching,

I've seen friends that switching over from their computer to Xbox stuff and that's overall a really useful thing to have. But I feel like I didn't expect that to be like in the cards from the launch of the gen. I didn't think that was gonna be like the one thing that they were holding onto in a way. I thought they would be like,

okay, we're trying to compete with our exclusives and we're trying to get our multi-plat games to when you over to this side and so on. And yeah, it just kind of slowly became like, over time, the only good thing I've heard people referring to Xbox Service in general about has been game passing and not much else. You know, the, the, I mean, this is barely related or whatever, but just like this weekend

there was a street fighter tournament and I rolled up with my PS5 pad and then they're running it on a two PS4s and then the third setup was an Xbox and 100% of participants said we're not playing on that. Not a single person was prepared to even bother interface with it whatsoever. It's like, yeah, I don't know. It's the only thing I've heard mentioning Xbox in the last like three years has just been game pass, so that's it, you know? Yeah, they admitted, like, they put out numbers and they're like, we only own like 16% of the market share

and that Sony in particular is like beating their ass. And they had this, there's this insane back and forth that keeps going on, which is they're getting up and like, they're putting their hand on a fucking Bible and going, we promise Call of Duty will always come to PlayStation forever, big promise. And then it comes out well, you just bought Bethesda and canceled the PlayStation version of that game. Why the fuck should anyone believe you about Diablo or Call of Duty or any of that shit? I don't know, because I said it in front of the judge. Hmm.

I feel as if like my cabits are always going to be to just lean towards grabbing the individual thing that I can keep forever. And even with like PlayStation Plus, even though I've subbed to it, like I feel like I've only grabbed maybe one or two games from time to time when someone's been like, oh yeah, this thing's on it. Go grab that. And I was like, oh yeah, I should. But it just usually doesn't, it doesn't come to mind, I guess, when I think about it. But, you know, in any case, I don't know if there's much else to this, but I guess we'll find out as the battle continues to rage on

They're the hey, I'm not hey. I am not a economist. I am not a legal expert But a somebody who has followed the video game business for a long time This seems like there is no chance in hell this merger is going forward And that's really funny. There are new wrinkles every week that it comes up certainly It would be really funny if we wasted all this time and all this discourse and all this like hand-ranging over Nothing happening And there's all all of this stuff also reminds me of the famous story when Microsoft at the very early days of Xbox

went to Nintendo and says, hey, why do we buy you? And Nintendo literally laughed them out of the room. It's Microsoft's goal set. It was basically Nintendo laughing at us for a whole hour. Yamachis tells Balmer to suck his balls. It's this really strange thing because Microsoft's go to is like let's buy the whole company. Let's lock it down, right? But at the same time, this is the same company that has made some of the most dramatic fumbles

ever. Like, they didn't decide to have, like, Genshin Impact, I think, went to them first. Like, Resident Evil 4 was like on the table for them instead of Nintendo. And they have bought, they've bought like, developers only to have the make games that they cancel a year in and then the fucking developer dissolves. You're like, what was a phantom break? No, a phantom dust?

Phantoms dust. Like, why the fuck did you buy them? You bought them to evaporate them into nothing after working on it for a year? So whenever I'm thinking about that and how it's just all, there's that entire history of just like the purchase into atrophy into death, right? The fucking the minus touch. I have to, that's where I kind of go like, is the epic games buy out the better way where it's like we're not buying the company, we're not going in on that and kind of killing it off, but we're guaranteeing a number of sales of your a given project that is otherwise Uninfluenced by us, you know where they the exclusivity they purchase for some games like I remember when the

SNK was talking about the samurai showdown Deal and such where it's like they come to an indie game or they come to a studio and they just basically go, we will buy so many copies of this essentially for exclusivity on our platform that you pretty much have to kind of take the deal. It's just that lucrative, but it still keeps your independence at the very least.

Yeah, because the Microsoft deal is like, we're gonna buy you and we're gonna put the game out and then your company is going to die Somehow something something's going to happen and your company will die and then we'll just add it to a list of of shit that just had the one and done Something to the idea that We're talking about Microsoft which is not an entertainment company that we're talking about Microsoft, which is not an entertainment company.

No, not. Sony has movies, Sony has Sony pictures, Sony has Sony music, Nintendo has always been a creative company. Microsoft is not a company that seems to know how to deal with creative people. Yeah, they deal with software people. And I offer people creatives.

And I always are, and I was like, oh, well, fabled dead now for 12 years, you know. It's funny too, because that just reminds me of like the little tidbit that's like up until the PlayStation 3, Sony's biggest income was still medical equipment. Yeah, right. Some wild like figures like no, their medical equipment wing was the most profitable

arb of the company and like the PS3 was the first time that overtook that. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, I first see a situation in which this merger does not go through. And then we start to get rumbles of meetings in which SEGA and Atlas, sorry no, no, Atlas part of the second half, but SEGA and Konami and all these companies are getting Microsoft reps in going, so how much would it take and they get fucking laughed out? Just like, no,

no. I mean, it is nothing happened. You do, like, we all, the console wars thing has always been like this outside speculative bit. So it's an interesting thing to get a look at what they actually think internally, you know, themselves, of themselves, and furthermore to then get the statement of, okay, but no look, though, look at, look at it, it's really small, you guys.

It's so tiny, like, just look, look at lips, look at it. It's really small you guys. It's so tiny. Like just look, there's nothing there. Come on. It's kind of wild. Yeah, but like even without, even without like making fun of their tiny business penis, like having, having like people go up and be like, we're really bad at running our company.

And that's why you should let us eat this other company is the strangest fucking thing ever. I don't imagine a weird. I don't imagine people that are in future propositions to be bought out would read these emails with confidence, you know. Oh yeah! Like say you want to work with Microsoft and you have your future boss saying how bad he sucks shit

Yeah Anyway, so other stuff going on Not officially announced yet, but apparently AEW fight forever has an online stadium stampede match type That uses a battle pass and it's a battle royale style mode pitting together 30 wrestlers at once, fight in a massive stadium and be the last wrestler standing. So battle royale rumble once again, except this time in a wrestling game now as a mode and there's some pictures of Kenny Omega riding a horse

or a golf cart and a full football stadium of wrestlers just going at it. Rumble verse, I suppose lives on and not quite. Actually, no, this is not rumble verse. This is just like the actual wrestling game doing the battle royale rumble thing, you know. wrestling game doing the Royal Rumble, the Battle Royale Rumble thing, you know. Um, but, uh, yeah. Uh, I, I, I, I'm always curious to see like, more on how that idea gets, gets implemented

in what they're going to do with it. Do you Irish whip somebody from the fucking five yard line all the way across the football field and they have to keep going until they hit the other side and just run into the field goal. What are you going to do? How's that going to work? Yeah, anyway, that's a thing. Hey, I have breaking news. You might have seen it though, Wolves. You remember how disappointing it was that the DokaPon Kingdom like Western release removed the ability to name people whatever you wanted, right? The game's coming to fucking steam

So people will be able to fix that. So there goes that. Yeah Interesting. Okay What's the point if you can't name your friend's bobby-cotic? You know, really? That being said, oh my god, Ducapon Kingdom is coming to steam. That means everyone can be touched by its nightmare. Satan is invited into your steam library. Here we go. Um, shit, actually, let me read to the back. I gotta read the bathroom real quick. Uh, have fun. Alright, be ready. Quick one. Okay, Dope. Uh, what up? We are back. Just marking my time. Put it in it. Yeah, so... Before we, again, hit the Nintendo,

direct the other thing I caught this week. And yeah, a bit of a weird one, just the Skullgirls updates have gone through and they came out and basically made some changes to the content. The woke updates. The woke updates have been dropped. The skull has been infected by woke. It has in fact.

Momen girls. And then that has led to the steam reviews getting bombed pretty hard. So I guess like taking a look at it, they more or less updated the art books and some of the artwork from the concept designs and things like that. In some cases, literally just like background characters that were not necessarily in-game stuff. There was more or less trimming down of like fan service stuff like that, and then references to like Nazi arm bands that got edited out, and some of the depictions as well with big bands backstory. So for me in general, like I've said before the past that I'm like, general, like I've said before the past that I'm like, eh, I'm generally like not that big on censorship, like I don't really, you know, it's like not something that I like, but

the difference I guess in what I make a distinction on a lot of the time is when a publisher or studio is kind of like, when a larger corpus coming down and mandating that in a way that is not what the creators want versus if the creator of the thing decides to make a change themselves to the thing they made, it's kinda like, okay, well, you can do what you want to your work. I think when it comes to the big bands one,

it's like, I think that like the impact of that being pretty visceral is one that like, you know, does make that story more, I mean, it certainly is like, you can imply, I guess, the police brutality and violence in that point, I don't think it weakens it to, or makes it that over the top to show what they had originally. But when it comes to the stuff, for it's like a bit less horny

and or just they're making those changes, I think it's a big overblown deal that people are exploding into insane over reactions over something that's pretty fucking minor and hardly a big deal, you know? I don't think it's really something to go crazy about in terms of If they just decide to do that themselves. It's kind of like yeah, okay. Well, that's that's fine. It's your fucking game, and like

That's that's you know how I feel about it. I think there's three things to go on here one is the changes are overall minor but Like I think parisols removal over armband on some pallets is like a like a genuine downgrade because it makes the colors the less interesting. But overall it's it's pretty minor. I think changing or removing things from the art book people paid for is bullshit. I think the art book there's a lot more precedent for no I bought the fucking art book of the game as it was made back and then I think it's silly To change anything from the art book. I think that's ridiculous

And third I think that the steam reviews of the people screaming about this all having like 25 minutes of play time is the funniest fucking thing in the world. Oh is is that what's happening with the... Oh, yeah! I didn't see the play time that. The view prom is exclusively from people who can't do one combo in that game. Interesting. Okay. Yeah, um, so, like, is it... Cause it, like, is it, it's not, is it the gallery in-game or is it like a digital...

I believe it's like the steam art book as it's a little collection. It's like a separate thing has been altered and some parts were moved. Okay. And I'm like, that's stupid. Yeah! Like that's concept art. You should see what the concept art is. Even if it's changed now.

I guess, I mean, yeah, it's not like, I guess I just think like if somebody like, you know, whatever makes their thing and then like later on they decide to like update or change that or whatever, like I generally, like I said, I generally prefer not to see that stuff change, but I, if somebody, if the person who made it is the one that's deciding to do that, that's the one person that should be able to do that, I guess, is kind of how I feel about it. It's like, it's different energy if I feel like someone's

being mandated or spanked into this, or it's being forced because it's going through some other publishers designs for the product or whatever, but if it's just if it's coming from the creator themselves I tend to feel differently about it. It's like yeah, do your thing. It's here. It's your work, you know. This is a thread a couple of weeks ago of people really really disappointed in me and Suzy to spear hunter because we both like Cammy's ass and they're like that's really disappointing of Jean and Suzy to do to like to like a thick ass to be promoting Cammy's ass and it's like okay guys I mean I don't think you can promote it any harder than that Winpoes does

I don't think I think Cammy's doing a good promoting. In fact, I think they had to position that fist right on the fucking middle point because they knew exactly how nuts that WinPose would get in the traditional costume as well. Not that they're hiding much, because from the beta we saw Chun Li, Anjury and everything else going pretty hard.

So yeah, if you want to go hard, go hard. And Skullgirls has gone pretty hard from the jump. I mean, there's all kinds of tentacles and shit going on or whatever, and, you know, they're doing their thing. Yeah, so I'm actually looking at the tentacle alteration, and the tentacle alteration technically covers up some of like a girl's body, but there's so many extra tentacles that it actually makes it much more pornographic.

Right, right, because of how the extremes go. Yeah, look, like at the end of the day, like, I'm basically, I'm like, yo, I'm pro horny, but if you are like, I want to make, I feel like making my thing less horny, then I'm like, yeah, okay, no, that's up to you, whatever. But if you decide to go horny, I ain't gonna fucking, I got no problem with that. You know what I mean? People will get out of pointing out that zone tan is in the game.

Yes, exactly. You can't get on that zone. You can't undo zone being there, exactly, right? That's the origins at the end of the day. So, yeah um you know that that that is kind of it uh the original base the youtube s a s had a really good uh thought about resident evil games and how they handle horny um because lady d was a way where resident evil got the perfect balance of horny where like she enjoys being horny,

which is powerful in her hornyness versus one of the boss fights in Resident Evil 6, where like it's the sister of one of the main characters and she's naked and she's like enslaved. She's also writhing and you shoot her with like a million bullets as she's naked. Yeah, that whole boss fight is uncomfortable. It's very, very uncomfortable. It's awful. I hate that part of the game. Yeah, so there's definitely,

like there's things like that where you're just like, what are we doing here? I've made oftentimes reference to the weirdest parts of ultra-despair girls, Dagen Rump, or how it's like, wait, what the fuck is this boss fight? You know, and of course, one of the classics is the Hitman Absolution sexy battle nun corpses, you know, in that cutscene where he's got to like kill them all.

And it's just, it can absolutely get fucking weird and uncomfortable for sure, but yeah, I guess like I said, like I feel like I look to the person that's making the thing as the like you are the arbiter of how you want to feel about this and if you're going to go all in, then like all right, let's see how this goes. Barring again, like that fucking weird shit, but um goes, barring again, like that fucking weird shit, but at the same time I'm seeing some people say, hey, but George Lucas though. There's actually a really fantastic breakdown of my thoughts about the changes to the art book in our chat right now. It's from Artorius, the trench fighter says, in the case of the art book specifically, I think it's less of a case of, quote, the original artist shouldn't be able to change their art

and, quote, and more, quote, hey, I paid for personal copies of this art specifically, not access to a Google Drive folder of art that you can change as you see fit. Hmm. Okay. Like, they're just like, if it would, it, it like all you have to do is like mentally change it to a physical art book And it would include somebody coming to your house and like the idea is your book the idea is I bought this thing in its current state For the state that it is in and and just because it's digital the it's not the same as like patching a game or so People are aware that games change, but like your books. And now we're in the realm of that whole album changing thing. We're remember Kanye would like patch his albums

to change the songs as time went on and stuff. Yeah, that's bullshit. Yeah. That was a moment in time when Kanye was literally like patching, you know. Right. And his lead is the album. And if I remember correctly, some songs and tools.

I was a famous tweet. I'm a fixed wolves If I remember correctly, too Like there were some songs that were literally unfinished that then went to being finished like a better master after the fact But yeah, okay, no from that perspective from the perspective of like the thing that I purchased Yeah, I get that that that that makes that makes sense mm-hmm that I purchased, yeah, I get that. That makes sense. Mm-hmm. Yeah, though, I did not see the part

where the hours on the complaints were being taken. Oh, it's so fucking funny, dude. That is there. But yeah, and the thing is, too, is like I said, when I looked at the, at first initially, it seemed like it was mostly just handling the, the, the horny, but the, um, yeah, I feel like with the big band one and stuff, I'm like, I, like, the stomping out, like, scene in particular where you're just like, oh, that's a fucking, yeah, you're, you're absolutely eliciting Rodney King

in that moment there. Um, I don't think that makes like, I think that moment, like, it, like, it establishes big bands backstory as a tragic as it is, you know, but Any case though the It would be a lot different. I suppose if there was a reprint and then the physical version of this had a Chain had changes in the reprint as opposed to the thing on your on your hard drive then Mm-hmm Yeah, what are the limits of that? How far do you go, you know?

Overall, I find this just to be totally pointless. I don't understand what the impetus was to change like the the art on like a niche fighting game title that's like almost 10 years old the art on like a niche fighting game title that's like almost 10 years old. This is an interesting conversation to have. I think where we started with Mass Effect 3, which Mass Effect 3 was kind of the start of like the death of the author conversations, you know. Yeah. Yeah, I imagine like it could be like basically the dev team working on it is kind of like, and there's some stuff looking at it now that we, that it launched with that we currently disagree with, I guess,

or we wouldn't have wanted that necessarily to be what it was. I think some of the changes talked about some of the horny being directed at like underage characters or something like that. I don't know which specific scene that's making reference to, but yeah. No, that appears to be the reason why are at the very least like the impetus. Um... In any case, uh, then there was the Nintendo Direct. Oh my god, do you guys care about Pikmin? Cause I fucking don't. I'll tell you what I do care about.

Uh, right off the bat, I will, like, extract and uh, fucking, uh, put on a plateau. How fucking sick? Penny's big breakaway looks. Thank you, man. Looks so good. Um, from the team, from the Sonic Mania team, um, they revealed this platformer that just looks fucking awesome

and colorful and you're running through on walls and you're they should have just called it Sonic Mania too. Oh, it is. But it's 3D. But it's 3D and it and it just yeah man I'm like whatever this new world is and these new characters are and whatever's happening I want I want this their speed you're you're rolling on your yo-yo You know they really understand what helmet momentum works, you know absolutely It just looks you know it kind of is like so when I played What the fuck was it called god damn it that sonic fan game that was then 3d Shit, I forget what it's called but it had a like similar idea to how this looks with the Mega Man legend style

art cues for how you handle real world 3D with low poly, Robo blast, yes Sonic Robo blast 2. This looks like taking that and adding some time and budget to it and just joy and fun and you know like tons of mechanics that show you like oh there's a lot of different ways you're gonna control these characters and you know beat the enemies up and the yo-yo can do combat the yo-yo can do traversal it can helicopter it can speed through walls like it fucking just looks like a good old time. So yeah, um, check that shit out. It's also coming to steam too So you don't have to get it on switch, but that was awesome They also then announced sonic superstars

Which is I they said for the first time ever for player simultaneous sonic and I was like wait what? Yeah, that's true Really? Three characters, we only did co-op yeah, huh well Yeah, so they showed off that um and Then of course the big announcements fucking Super Mario RPG

After all this time Yeah, fuck yeah, I was amazing Um, Gino officially gets acknowledged not just in the form of a costume But for Reels this time Uh, yeah, man, that's that's a nice one didn't expect to see that Um, I want Qlex to look like he's a fucking unreal engine character. What do you do for that? What do you do for that? He's in the fucking luminous engine, you know, for some reason, you know. That's pretty awesome as well. Like, I know the, there's now, like,

we'll know. Qlex is the super boss. Yes. RBG and he's basically a literal final fantasy endgame boss in Super Mario RPG. Shout out to the star egg taking care of him for me. Oh, yeah, that's the way. But, yeah, it is, it is a cool because like, you know, there are a number of different Mario RPG franchises at this point, like, that you can, they can decide to jump back in on, but this has always been one that we've been like, yeah, that original, like, did some different stuff

that was really fun as well. And, I know too that, like, I heard some people say that, like, the amount of remakes we're seeing kind of signals that this is the end of the switch's life cycle. Yeah. I believe that, that's a certainly possibility. You can get the big remakes out if you have nothing original down the pipe. And if you do have anything original down the pipe,

you've moved it over to the launch of your next thing. I would say the signal to the end of the Switches lifecycle is the fact that a second Legend of Zelda game came out on it. That is often the pattern. That is true. Alongside that was the new Princess Peach announcement, which is cool. Cause yeah, there was the original Peach games. Haven't seen anything in a while. That was was that that was that was DS, right?

Not even 3DS. If I remember, yeah yeah original DS yeah the one where she uses her emotions to attack the power of emotions yes just got the rest woman is powerful so emotional yeah yeah she's gonna get hysterical her tears will help solve the platforming puzzle and when she got angry she she like, come to me if we, and then like become super angry, you know. Yeah, maybe, maybe we'll get like a movie peach that like jumps

into the Mario Kart outfit and start swinging around the spear. I like the stage aspect of the peach game. And it's like, oh, is that a throwback to like Super Mario but a three you know? Yeah. Yeah. There's also a transformation tease that they end on and you know there's always that like they're never going to do Bowsette in any world shape or form whatsoever.

No, however. But an official character was the evil peach incarnate from the thousand year door You know, so they have there is that little thing there But there's also the idea that like Nintendo is like who the fuck we're never doing that again Give us this series back how dare you because thousand year door went fucking hard So we were talking about the end of the Switch Life cycle. Well, Bobby Coddick in the fucking FTC trial today just casually mentioned the the sequel to the Switch is coming very soon. Well there you go. Yeah.

Um, no, so, so anyway I don't know if I should use a character from a game that opens on. I believe episode one of my playthrough was Paper Mario a thousand year door is that a noose so anyway, and then then announced Super Mario brothers LSD apparently

Super Mario drugs just Wonder is first of all just moment to moment holy fuck at that animation, right? like they they saw I saw great thread Describing like wow Super Mario wonder looks really good now. Let's look back at how fucking dog shit the animation in Super Mario, new Super Mario Bros has been for like eight years. So they've been, it's not like they couldn't do it, but they've been generally really conservative and like afraid to touch it too much with all of the

new Super Mario Bros games, you know, all the way up to Mario Maker even, like they'd get like wild with some of the power ups and shit, but in terms of like giving extra animation to the little moments of platforming and stuff, like they've kept it like, like hey, if you want the old thing, you don't want that to change too much, we're gonna more or less keep that 90% intact and we'll fuck with a little bit of extra here, like oh you got your cat powers or whatever.

But, and I remember too, it's funny because I remember that, and I remember two people, I know a friend of mine, and someone I used to work with that were huge Mario fans that were like, that's right, you better fucking not fuck it up and make it weird, keep it the way it is. You know, and like even when they first, I wanna say, well, I think it it was one of the first new Super Mario Brothers

games that came out for the DS, not even 3DS or so, way, way early DS. I remember one of them was already kind of like, I don't know about this new 3D look though. They should have just went with CRISPR Sprite Art. Art and, you know, so like the level of just like, though the wall I remember them having towards all new artwork depictions, even if they were playing it super safe, was pretty aggressive from these people that I knew. I'm glad to see that finally they're just like, fuck it. We're doing all kinds of fun shit with just a little extra animation. And 90% of the time again, you're still just doing the normal platforming and stuff.

But there's more flavor and there's more fucking personality to it. The new Super Mario Bros. style, like Mario had like a fucking 3D face just painted on with like a generic expression no matter what was happening. And it looked like shit. And the new one, like, he actually looks like an art style character where his mouth is to the side. And it's like, you know, this is an actual design character, and it's evocative of the old artwork that you would see in the instruction book.

And it's like, this is perfect. Stylize it, man. It's crazy. Yeah, it's crazy that it took him as long to figure it out. Yeah. And then on top of that, like, yeah, you get daisy. But for anyone who's a daisy fan that's happy to see your playable, for all you know, that's a hallucination caused by the fucking LSD. So you know, like he touches the wonder seed and then, you know, just Mario, take one of these seeds, full tab and put it under the tongue.

Let it dissolve, give it about 15 minutes and let's see what happens You're now it now Mario One popular Twitter account that will be objectively ruined by Daisy's inclusion in this game and It is a very sad process because that that saved a save you a click video game clicky click on life support to become the fucking daisy hq uh... uh... clicky on uh... sudoku watch uh... yeah no sorry folks daisy might not be real

uh... daisy probably never existed at all i would like i want the power to wear off and do do and then she just fades into fucking and game dust. Because she's from Super Mario Land right. Yeah, from Sarah Hasseland I believe. Yes, but her last is Sarah Hussler. Like was it? Was it ever anything? Was it not just another dream that Mario was having for Mario 2? Yeah, it's like, Murtles and Shaggyz.

Yeah, guys, what the fuck are you doing here now? Does anyone find it very strange that it's taken approximately 65 years of Mario eating mushrooms to have a game that has any psychedelic-looking visual synod at all? Is that not the idea? Yeah, because Nintendo did everything they can to run the other direction from an obvious drug reference. You know, and they managed to really like keep it out of the movie too as well. Like the mushrooms are these big extreme power ups and they never are like, you know, these dried things that you slice up a little bit, chew on for a minute and and see what

happens. things that you slice up a little bit chew on for a minute and and see what happens Anyway, I like I like the whole thing where like Mario was on top of like a stampede Like they ran they ran over the flag and it's like this reminds me of like when I first saw Super Mario world And I saw like mode seven graphics in like a 2D Mario game right? You know, yeah some of the wild are like, oh my god, it's actually kind of 3D. What's happening?

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, Mario's also think where like your brain knows what to expect of the formula. So when you fuck with it, it kind of like grabs your attention, you know? Yeah, no, let's, I appreciate that. Because I basically like, I feel like Kirby games get to be daring

From game to game they get to fuck with the formula aggressively and change everything as long as you get your little pollo Buddy to absorb powers everything else can change but Mario's got to be Mario's got to be Mario, you know So this looks like an an actual like fucking attempt it like I don't know like Mario 5 or something like you know Like there would be a number attached to this in a way. Yeah, it does remind me of like the forgotten land of 2d my own games kind of you know Pretty kind of like just before me low. Yeah They also shut off a Dulu, Luigi's Mansion Isn't that a new remake? Luigi's Mansion is a remake.

Yeah, it's the dark moon enhanced. I love that game. Luigi's Mansion 3 was one really, really big hotel, but Luigi's Mansion 2 is across five big mansions, which is cool. I've only played the first one, but I really like to... Yeah, actually have different layouts like layouts in each like world Like mansion and everything and it's fucking cool. Okay. Yeah I was gonna ask how that series went because again like I really like the first one, but I didn't touch the others, you know

does the Formula I guess stay interesting over time Yeah, totally okay They showed off the Archim trilogy hilarious I I was expecting them to announce that that was a cloud game at the end of it, but so thank god, but Man, I have been waiting for the Archim games to be on the switch for some reason and Because I like the arc in games, you know, yeah, but like why the switch I don't know because I like playing them and it's like I'm using on my switch and it'd be cool

It's just like boot of a Batman game, but you know, it was so weird when I was what art what the fuck Arkham night is gonna like look and run like oh shit, yeah It was so weird when I had to like when I was like let me go back to figure out how to play the first one and then like you're like wait I can't there's no easy answer to this problem you know and I don't think the switch performance is going to provide that answer anyway think the switch performance is going to provide that answer anyway for anything. If I want to go look at you know, Arcom 2 or 3. Yeah, and they also completely skip over what I would argue is actually the best one. Or what else is it's arched origins. Yeah, so I like that one.

I know for I know in my heart, I don't know for real, but I know in my heart I don't know for real But I know in my heart the reason why that is is because Arkham origins had all those Progression blocking bugs that they made announcements that they were never gonna fix And they don't have a deal They don't want to deal with the fallout of releasing a version of the game that has like sequence breaking problems that can Fuck your safe file up and getting shit for it. And they never actually fixed them. Not only did they not fix them, they put out a goddamn press release saying we are not going to fix these. We don't care. I can find them for you if you want. It's fucking embarrassing. Wow.

Was it kind of in the tone of, hey guys unfortunately, we heard, but also get fucked like what? Oh, Game's article from 2014. The team is currently working hard on the upcoming DSTORI DLC and there are no current plans. There are no plans for releasing another patch to address the issues that have been reported on the forums. If we do move forward with creating a new patch, it will try to address the progression blocking bugs

for players, not the minor glitches that do not prevent one from continuing to play. The issues that are not progression blockers will unfortunately no longer be addressed. We apologize for any inconveniences, cause for some of you and want to thank you for being patient. And then they never released another patch ever again. Oh, show me that database.

It's like cool, it's hard to hold over again. It's like, no, fuck it, this is all. Oh, show me that data base. It's like, cool, Tartu all over again. It's like, no, fuck it. This is all you get. Show me that bug database. I will tell you a story. Goddamn, I can see it in my mind right now. I'm getting excited at the prospect of that kind of data base. You probably know somebody who can get you to look at that.

Actually, I do. I do. I'm pretending I don't know people that are directly involved actually. He he he. Yeah, you got me. Ah, yeah. Fucking vampire survivors getting it's, it's do odd Nintendo direct.

That's all you're supposed to. Hey, you're interested in having your switch burst into fucking flames. Here you go. Co-op vampires. I mean, there's something amazing though about like an Nintendo Direct stopping to introduce this fucking pixel-looking shit in the middle of a Zelda and Splatoon announcements. You know what I mean?

It's more important. It's more important. And there not even, there's no like, there, like, I feel as if this were maybe two generations ago, they would have to couch it in between some sort of language, like, get a feel for the throwback graphics of the retro style, vampire survivors, paying homage to the classics, and just downplaying what's happening on screen? I'm like, you had an impression of the switch presentation. Yeah, you know?

Yeah, that was actually a pretty good, like, you wrote it all pretty well. I feel like that would have been the way they couched it, you know? But like, now they just went, nah, man, here it is! Take it or leave it. Fuck you, like... The most visually messy game I have ever seen in my entire life is getting four player co-op. Mmm. Yeah.

I don't know how that's gonna work. No, like they showed pixel games before. And why? Yeah. Why not? Well, I mean, like it's, it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's me otherwise. More icons like like four summons on your same side. It's like, what the fuck? Like you, so you have four unstoppable beings on the map now as opposed to one bullet heaven. They they that has to come along with stages built for co-op that just send the universe at you, right? As well as a one frame per second toggle.

Like, you know, you will get an update as to what's happening in this world once per second. Good luck. Echo location. Um... Yeah, no, but uh uh uh uh... That's it. Like usually when they cut to a pixel game it was it's fucking Octopath and triangle strategy, you know, so that was hilarious Metal Gear Solid Master Collection More importantly has a date

October 24th For one and it's a one four four four four four four four four four

four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four four 4 4 four four 4 4 4 four four 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 and one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight screenplay and digital masterbooks. And I heard that, you know, certain people will have more things to say once that release date gets a little closer. So we will see. Also, Konami fucked up and you can see that the next collection is going to have MGS 4 and well, I missed that. Where the fuck was that? Where the fuck did that happen?

Konami's website has like a timeline of events that has buttons for the games. Oh, the classic website for MGS 4 and V-swacker and five. Oh, man, we haven't had one of those in years, dude. The classic website leak that used to be the best. Yo, did you guys know there's a new Marvel dropping and here's all 12 characters with their perfect portraits in PNG transparency. That's the best one ever. Just like is Virgil in

this game? Yes. Here's his high definition render like it's coming. Yeah, I'm just starting the middle of your games on October 24th on my channel. I'm just gonna say that right now Do it wait so four plus what? The second collection is at least four plus piece walker plus five plus five Okay Yeah, so babe all and acid plus five. Okay. Yeah. So, Bable and Acid, Acid, or not listed, but who the fuck knows?

Acid fans stay losing. And they're not. They're not fans stay losing. I forget, by the way. It's me. Can you have them? Who's the best? Bable is super cannon.

Ghost Bable. Ghost Bable is insanely cannon Jean. Okay, so, okay. Babel's cannon, Ass it's not cannon. Pops is cannon until anything contradicts it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's right. It's like, it's like contract terms where this is real,

but if there's anything in the future that says it's not, then defer to the future. But otherwise, fill in the blanks. I'll suck sucks ass. I suck. I, I, I, it's the one though I sat and actually went through, whereas Peace Walker, I didn't, but everything with the fucking,

the Peace Walker itself is, and Paz, just, yeah, I am, I am worried about it. Oh, I forgot about Paz, and yeah, if you were Paz, I invented Doritos for you. Do you want to wash them down with Mountain Dews? Pops got dumb, but I enjoyed some of them, some of it, and I remember when, uh, there was the, like, the dumb, the dumb Kojima is of just like the man with the same code name is zero and you're like what does that mean? It's no okay. I went to New York City to watch the Hideo Kojima documentary made and produced by Hideo Kojima. Yeah. And it was really weird because because first of all,

it's an hour long documentary that's basically like the making of Death Stranding, and they're dropping all these proper nouns of Death Stranding. So like the movie wouldn't make any sense unless you played fucking Death Stranding. Yeah, of course. Yeah. And then in the Q&A afterwards, with Jeff Keely, of course,

because Jeff Keely was definitely gonna be there. Could you ever keep talking about dying all the time? I'm just like, is this motherfucker dying? Hmm. I hope not. I don't know. Yeah, I certainly hope not too, although he is the type that,

well, I was about to say on the one hand, because you know how there's Pete, there's the, the, the nor McDonnell Chadwick Boseman style, like, I'm just gonna hold this close to the chest and you'll find out whenever you find out. Hey guys, what's up? Yeah. But at the same time,

lest we forget Kojima, I'm okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so, I can just say, he mentioned he's doing three projects, which is Death Stranding too. other one is the whatever whatever mystery game He's working on with Microsoft and he has a third game

He says is not a man announced yet because it's still in his head Okay, that's not you're not work fuck off. I love this man And I love I love that I've done any work on this game you're not working on a game And I love that Jeff Keely is now his anger interpreter his bulldog and his guard sorn sworn fucking Blade of Kojima ready to see Peter was laughing as soon as the announcer says and, a Q&A session with Jeff Keely had ever wanted the entire theater exploded into life. Yeah.

He will die. Jeff Keely will take a mortal blow for Kojima. Yeah, yeah. He's jumping in front of that bullet, dude. OK. All right. And then I guess, yeah, I mean, you know, we can there's a couple other things here star ocean the second story are Hey, I've played it. Let's cool. So I know about star ocean the second story

Star ocean the second story is an RPG so good that it is carried a really bad RPG series into the future based on entirely how good it is. If I'm not mistaken, there is one good star ocean game and it's this one. Right. This is before the thing, the problem, right? Yeah, oh yeah, it's before the problem. And my understanding as well is that star ocean can be very enjoyable as long as someone who has played it tells you the exact moment

went to stop. No, actually, I would tell you that every single star ocean game is mediocre to terrible except for two, which is absolutely fantastic. Hmm, okay, okay. Yeah, a friend of mine was basically saying like, there's a minute that you should stop playing But you can play them and then like that's your at your eject point, you know

I'm looking over and people are literally even saying like six is okay Like yeah, no, that's that's the that's the the criteria. We're working on here. I didn't even fucking know there was a six That's the criteria we're working on here. I didn't even fucking know there was a six. Who gets a sh**? And now you know that there is a six and it's okay. It's fine. It's okay. Man, what a wild feeling.

It's very hard. Hey, food, yeah, thank you. What a wild feeling that is like to find out parts six exists and that like it was all right Yeah, okay remember and fucking star ocean is the series that has that fucking nappy time with edgy bullshit Uh-huh, uh-huh I don't know if anything else caught your attention, but detective Pikachu is there and caught your attention, but Detective Pikachu is there and warrior wears doing it, you know, it is where it is. Detective Pikachu is being voiced by Kaiji Tang. Okay.

And um, get me a Ganondorf from Mibo stat. I need it. I need it. Maybe, maybe you can just crack it open and like pour all the water out. And it can quench. I want a Zelda one. It's awesome too. What's the Pokemon DLC? Is that?

Uh, the... I'm gonna get the lights started and violet. The hidden treasure of area zero. Yeah I'm mildly excited about it. I think I'm I feel like I'm full up on Pokemon. What are you looking forward to about it? Not much really I mean follow up question. What is your last? What looks cool? Area zero is like the last section of the Pokemon squad of

vitally game is like the final boss area. And it's a cool area. And it's like that was a part where when squad of vitals was actually becoming cool and in the game ended. So I'm going to let you guys know that Kisat beasts is going to have online multiplayer, co-op trading tapes, raids, and versus battles in the near future.

Yeah, meanwhile Pokemon Scrowded Violet is still 15 frames per second, you know. Yo, check out Kisette Beasts. Kisette Beasts fucking rules. Right, worked on by, you know, one Mika Farrer as well as currently being L-P. by German spy, I believe if you want to take a peek. Incredible. Yeah, there you go. But yeah. It's like, she's like, there's that thing.

You're like, yeah, what you looking for? I don't know. I don't know. It's Pokemon. What am I supposed to be looking for? Yeah, that's you that's fair like laser can on the problem with you to still did they don't have to do shit Because you're like what I like Pokemon. Yeah, that's it. That's it. It's just I'm just like I'm still not sick of it Like I'm in star wallets. I'm just like I'm just a built-in audience for it. It's like that is valid

For sure. Okay, well, in any case, thus begins my hunt for that amiibo anywhere I can see it. Probably just going to like basically hit up video games New York at any con they're at and just like, be line it because uh I need stat yeah no you're up in New York let me know I can come up hmm oh cool we'll do yeah man I'm long overdue for another swing through that part of tone uh cool all right let's take some

letters was there any news that we forgot to mention oh yeah Metro Prime 4 is dead. It'll never see it again. What do we got? It's being directed right now. Is it being dragged to the recycling bin as we speak? Yeah, it was really funny to not see it at the direct at all. It's just nuts, man.

And also, I wish the developers of Silksong would just fucking kill me already. Because I look like a fucking clown every single Nintendo direct and Sony event and I look like a fucking asshole So it's on shut up at X box Okay, yeah, like a year and a half ago on the thing that's said by the way everything here is coming out this year And then they came out and said by the way we're not coming No, I was actually holding 60% of it that's coming out this year

Why this Xbox live so much? What the fuck, dude? Well, it's easy to lie. Retro studios and notes, Metroid Prime, four, six years ago, they're currently hiring new talent. It is definitely the perfect dark for Nintendo. Last I heard that that game got completely scrapped and restarted Hmm. I'm like I don't feel as

Like hungry for it since we've been served up some dread That did a real good like yum yum fill for the for the Metroid Mm-hmm, but still you know, yeah, I'm probably I'm actually pretty serious that kind of got you know as well Mm-hmm I keep standing too so Yeah But in any case Let's take a couple of letters

Have you always want to send in a letter make it good first of all, let's just make the letter good to make it brief third Castle super beast Mail at gmail.com. That's Castle super beast mail a gmail.com All right, the letter should be good. That should be the first part remember that Okay Hello men fueled by racism and smaller man kept alive through white woman jump scares. Okay. What did you brought me this cocoa week?

Can you not see what's coming up behind you in your camera? I'm on the discord. Do I just need a mirror? Just look at what's coming behind you. I did have a mirror at my old newsroom because I was, I always fucking hate need a mirror. Is that just just look at what's coming behind you? I did have a mirror at my at my old newsroom because I was I always fucking hate it like eating at my desk And I co-workers would just come out to me like hey Gene What you working on what you eating there? I'm just I don't spit on my fucking food I just want to know when the encounter is is approaching before it happens

No, I like these random battles of social Social awareness, you know, but look, hey, man, I too have committed to a life of white woman jump scares. So it is what it is. They're sneaky. They're silent. It usually goes the other way, though. She jumps way too much when I'm around.

But are you doing that thing where you're preemptively knocking on doors or walls, but then that scares her? No, that's where I'm at. Like, you can't, if I'm in the shower, there's no way to talk to me without scaring my ass off. There's just, but that's it. It's there and it's immediately followed by her being like, God,

damn it. I hate that I'm this jumpy. There's nothing I can do. There's just nothing. There's nothing you can do. There's just nothing, there's nothing you can do. There's no way to, because the alert that you have to preemptively give is already a startling of thing.

So, I'm going to be like, I'm coming in the bathroom, I'm coming in and I'll be like, ah, at her saying that. I was like, what is this? Yeah, so really good. I'm ready to die. So, I, you're just a nice girlfriend because I would tell her like, hey, I'm coming in the bathroom And she'll literally like scream like I'm just like I just it's just me in the house. So I like you that I'm so mean earlier. Yeah

I suppose that means that you know in punch mom's case she signed up for a black man jump scare Yeah, That's great. Alright, well anyways, there's a long explanation and context here. But there is a TLDR, which is appreciated. Do you guys have specific games that you think will be made one day, but haven't yet, especially ones that would be extremely your shit. Yeah. Absolutely.

I used to hope they make a character action Final Fantasy game. Right, right. Yeah. Stuff like that. Yeah. I mean, I used to hope that there would make a Jetset radio visually themed rhythm character action game that was synced to the music every moment.

No, I think for the longest while, I think there's always been ideas I've had for like, oh, it would be cool if this game existed. And like the coolest ones are always ones that I'm like, damn, if one day I ever had infinite money or a team of talented people, I could probably make this or something and then it'd been a fucking alternate reality. But in terms of ideas that are just more obvious, someone just needs to get there. One is I've wanted a Super Robot Wars fighter forever

and we're finally starting to see one with I think it was called Iron Combat or so, but like I announced, I talked about it a week or two ago two ago. They're making a fucking super robot where it's fighting game finally. That's great. And then an extrapolation, I suppose, of the same kind of thing is playing more with mecha games into the genre and doing funner things. I think it's only a matter of time. We're never getting steel battalion again. That's insane, and it's done. Hell no, we're not less. Never. But I think it's a matter of time before someone takes a crack at a game where you do 5v5 and each of you

is working on a part of a robot and you have to fight each other. And someone's the pilot, someone's working the legs, someone's working the missiles and the arms, someone's working the core and the body, and you get to do a fucking mecca, the mecca, 5v5 thing. I feel like that's gonna happen. We just, it's just, we just need to wait on it. That's a little bit like loss,

or not, loss planet two. When loss planet two, Oh, the two, jumping into one. Yeah, and then like you're all controlling like a vehicle and you're like running around. Like it's like C of these with a big robot and with lost plan and mechanics. I would like to see Capcom versus Capcom, but I don't think that's ever going to happen.

It might, it might, but we have to get all the marvel out of their system. They have to really never want to go back. And the thing is, Tatsunoko can approach Capcom and be like, hey, guys, do you want to do this for us? Where other companies will go to Arxis and be like, can you make a fighter of our property? Which unfortunately has shifted the thing. Yeah, at one point, it was like, hey, do you want to do our properties versus Capcom? But Arxis is just, do you want to make our own version of, you know, of your, the thing you do? But no one's gonna approach Capcom and be like,

hey, do you, do you versus you? But, but maybe, maybe, it's just- Capcom should approach Capcom and say, we would like to work with you Capcom and work together to make a Capcom versus Capcom game. They should, they should. And I think like, at the very very least like us and Max and stuff are gonna fucking keep barking that out there

until it gets carried downwind and someone, you know, thinks about something. I mean, the fact that Mega Man Battle Network sold as well as it did, the battle collection or whatever, like they responded to that and went, oh shit! People like these guys, huh? Well, here. We chilling. It's of course it's old well. Exactly. Yeah, my new game is Mega Man 12. Just fucking giving me Mega Man 12. And now, well now, uh, battle network is in Teppin, right? So, like, they're kind of like responding to that somewhat. Um, but yeah, that's it. I would for me be really excited if they made

Like a really good moral combat game Cast cast mine toss So good to say out loud. You don't even know. We got a big one. I feel it in my fucking chest dude. We got a big one. Oh yeah. Okay. Jean, I was mentioning earlier to you, Willie, I would like a final fight game in the style

of Street for Street's or Rage 4. But then... Oh, that mean you have them. Yeah, simple. Just revive Final Fight, take it out of Street Fighter, or it doesn't need to be in Street Fighter forever. It just gets super beautiful animated. Give it give me Mocky from Final Fantasy to Final Fantasy to Final Fantasy II. All the warriors. I mean, we love it.

We love it that Final Fight exists in Street Fighter. It's a solid 33% of that world and growing. But like there's been enough great beat-im-ups recently in the form of, yeah, streets of Rage 4, a River City Girls, and a couple other things that you could do some fun shit with the art style, with the combos, and the playable characters.

You can bring back every final fight character we've had, plus throw in one or two fun Street Fighters in there, you know. We can finally see what happened to Mike Haggar, like why is it like did he die, you know. He's not dead, but he's got a memorial stadium and makes no fucking sense. Exactly, you know. Kimberly and Zeku have a place on the Bushin Reu team, you know. Yeah, fucking if we're not going to get Sea Viper back as a character on the roster, we can get her as a beat-em-up character. Yeah, fuck it.

Throw the girl from Aliens vs Predator in there too. Why not? Linn Kurosawa. Yeah. Doesn't Fox on that? But not the character. Really? Outlink Kurosawa.

So, so the humans from AVP Capcom edition are still owned by Capcom, and that's why they were able to use them in Cannon Spike. Yeah. Fun stuff. Oh, Cannon Spike, hell yeah. Just going out with it, absolutely. All right, one more here. Coming in from Jordan, who says,

hello, Pat and Woolly, this is Jordan, I hope you're doing well. A story and a question. Back in sophomore year, summer time, I'd browse YouTube and watch random videos of old anime Ovas. There was one I watched and I didn't think much of it and it's a blur.

Years later, I tried to remember it and I got nothing. All I remembered was it was sci-fi and the plot was basically alien. A monster was found with a distinct ugly gray face and the ending was in some flesh hallway. Drove me up the wall for years trying to remember it and it lived rent-free in my head. And about 10 years later, I had it. I was going to find it. I went to Wikipedia, looked hard, and eventually found something called Roots Search. With all the descriptors I mentioned earlier. and looked hard and eventually found something called Roots Search

With all the descriptors I mentioned earlier I found this and told my brother We we he's an old anime connoisseur. We sat down to watch it and it was dog shit It was absolutely one of the worst things I'd ever seen the righty was horrible Motivations for everyone especially the villain were're confusing and batch it insane. And by the end, there, anyway, it was appalling and awful and it ends on a cliffhanger. You can't possibly care about it by the time it finishes. I can't believe this is the thing that I've been thinking about for 10 years. So, with that said, have you ever had a desperate search for something for years only to find it was disappointing or downright awful?

Darland Focal Band, they suck! Um... No. I have gone back to stuff that I enjoyed when I was younger and like wow this is dog shit. But not something that I've actually sat around and like, what was that? The closest I can think of is I've had games that have taunted me on the video store shelf for years looking at their box art and going, what is that cool though? Is that good? And I remember a bunch of them, like, yeah, the box art could attract you. And I remember going to micro play every fucking, you know,

time we went to go rent something and I saw that box for evil zone. And I was like, what? What is this thing, though? There's like anime going on and there's like a, this anime girl with the staff on the cover and on the back There's more like different Chosen what is this is this cool? This might be cool And then you find out F a F.O That's that's the most I can think of is like video game store teasing into fucking the most own bizarre Think of his like video game store teasing into fucking the most own Bizarre

Legacy of evil zone and all of us shitting all over it in the best friend days is that somehow that video got to Paul Iding Whoa watched it and then later on was describing it as a video he saw where they're like yeah, I watched these guys I'm like, oh no Colonel Campbell, no, don't. He's like, I don't know. I got paid. I did a good job on it. Yeah.

I mean, Dad's diver was basically like the salad. It's like there's a Tokuhiro and every stage of the arcade mode is a different episode. But fuck, man, then you have to play the goddamn thing. Uh, anyway, um, yeah, that's- that- that was- that's my version. Gene anything like that or? I don't- I- I don't think I have any way that I think... Closed thing was, yeah, I- I remember something being good and then I go back to it and say, yeah, it's okay. It's like, like, breath of fire, I guess.

But I was- but the breath of fire is still good though, so I don't know. Yeah, that- that- wait, the movie? No, the game. The Captain, good though, so I don't know that that wait the movie No the game the cat. Oh, what do you think? Think of the the the fucking McConaughey and fucking rain of fire they're fucking rain of fire Oh, the the dragons with the acid mix. Yeah, yeah, I movies trash dude But that detail is cool. Yeah Okay, oh But that detail is cool. Yeah, it's cool. Okay. Oh, yeah. Well, you know, that'll do, then. That'll do.

All right. Oh, there was this one Korean movie. Well, this is one where I liked it. Where I remember watching this Korean movie about dragons fighting each other. It was just called Dragon Wars D-Wars. That's the whole movie's name. It's Dragon Wars colon D-Wars. And I was like... That movie good. And then I watched it. I was like, yeah, this movie's fucking sick, actually.

This bunch of dragons is fighting like a bunch of like military helicopters. And like the main character looks like like K-Mart, like Tom Cruise. And who won the d wars jean uh... one of the dragons i guess i mean like the tom cruise guy turns into a dragon like like at the at the end of the movie he fights the other i'm looking at the fucking poster for this it is he was the war oh my god

yeah it's like the chat look it looks like the chat knows but yeah drag and dragon d war dragon wars d wars is phenomenal like it's it's such a bad movie. Robert Forsters in it. He's spiced all his nonsense and what are the kids? What the hell are you talking about? I don't know. Whoever wins D-Lose. Oh my god.

Alright, call it there. Alright, have a good week everybody enjoy your fantasies and Gene Working the people find you and that's right you're you're actually having a new podcast. I'm co-hosting It's an intender focus podcast call it punching up look it up on your on your podcast networks Comes out every every two weeks Otherwise you can find me at WashingtonPost.com. Look for Jean Park, I guess.

Or on Twitter, Jean Park. –Dank tweets. –Come into the show, man. –Let's appreciate it. –Have me again. Yeah, this was... My first appearance, how long was it? –Oh, couple months.

–Six months? – my first appearance was like years ago oh the first one oh it was like 2019 or something I bet I was in my I was in like my old apartment like two apartments ago so like we've all moved all three of us have moved since then but yeah that first appearance was really good for me you know like yeah a lot of listeners here have known me since then, so it's good to be back, good to see you all. Right on.

And the chat too, so. And you're plugging the shirt. You got the merch going there too as well. Yeah, yeah. A lot of people confuse me for working at the Wall Street Journal, because people always confuse the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.

Those are very different. They're very different, but I'm always getting, oh, don't you work for the Wall Street Journal? I was like, no, we're the ones with the kringi edgy, like, like, yeah. Yeah, no one is the one who doesn't have a slogan or anything like that. No, we're the ones, we're the edge lords

with democracy, dynasties, and dagonists. Brought to the Amazon. And then abbreviated as WAPO, which every time I see WAPO, I hear it in that voice. I hear a voice going WAPO. I think of fucking Epo's dog. Oh, WAPO. WAPO.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Yeah, alright.