Castle Super Beast - CSB322: Mortal Kombat is the Drake of Fighting Games

Episode Date: May 28, 2025

Download for Mobile | Podcast Preview | Full Timestamps Twitch VODs are now being uploaded to the new channel: https://www.youtube.com/@CastleSuperBeastArchive Expedition 33: Act 2 Finale Spoilercast (Starts 2:24) Shawarma Wars What Counts As Pissing Your Pants? Nightreign Executor Mains Are About To Get The Whole Team Wiped Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan: AI is Dogsh*t Watch live: twitch.tv/castlesuperbeast Go to http://shopify.com/superbeast to sign up for your $1-per-month trial period. - Click this link https://boot.dev/?promo=CASTLESUPERBEAST and use my code CASTLESUPERBEAST to get 25% off your first payment for boot.dev. - Go to http://factormeals.com/castle50off and use code castle50off to get 50% off plus free shipping on your first box. - Go to http://auraframes.com and use code AURA20 to get $20 off their best-selling Carver Mat frame.   Adi Shankar Was “Unhappy” With ‘Devil May Cry 5’ Because It Took Spotlight Away From His Netflix Series: “I Thought The Franchise Was Dead; I Thought I Was Bringing This Thing Back” Adi Shankar responds. Baldur's Gate 3 dev calls Randy Pitchford's $80 Borderlands 4 comments "gross" because it implies the FPS is more important than "making it day to day" "Real fans are people who love & understand what you do, keep track, and engage with your shit regardless of how much they spend," Douse added. When asked whether Baldur's Gate 3 would also have had a $80 asking price, Douse said even if it did, "we would probably not suggest people do whatever they can to buy it, lest they not be real fans." ‘Marathon’ Isn’t Canceled, But It’s Bad We Even Have To Ask That Colin Moriarity: “I was told by someone familiar with marketing plans in a key overseas market that there are now no plans to do paid marketing for Marathon at all, I don't know if those plans were affected by what has recently happened or if that was always the plan or whatever but it is considered a fairly unusual move for a game of this high profile.” Mortal Kombat 1: We are hearing players’ requests for continued game support of Mortal Kombat 1, and, while we will continue to support Mortal Kombat 1 through balance adjustments and fixes, there will not be additional DLC characters or story chapters released from this point on. We understand this will be disappointing for fans, but our team at NetherRealm needs to shift focus to the next project in order to make it as great as we possibly can. The composer of the Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan TV drama and films, Naruyoshi Kikuchi, revealed that the soundtrack of the At a Confessional live action film was fully composed by AI. In 2022 and 2023, he also used AI to compose two tracks. They were used in the Rock-Paper-Scissors Kid episode and Rohan au Louvre. Dialogue between Dante and Vergil regarding Nero’s mother (PGR/Punishing Gray Raven)  

["Sailor Moon Theme"] Okay, your wire is back in. Yeah, I'm back in. I saw you. I decided to bag up at the last possible second. You boost bagged. Is it under control? I'm now ready to start the podcast with my emotional support dog, okay has the unit been secured Yeah, man. This is like honestly. I feel like I'm this dog's emotional support human mm-hmm Cuz like he's just a baby

There you go There you go, okay Yo If ever there was a game that I would say had been fated by the heavens to succeed, it would be Expedition 33. Have you seen today's news? 3.3 million. On what? Uh, was it PC? The 33rd day of sale oh that's cool that's cool the

mandate of French yeah the mandate of yes French that's great that's fantastic I like that a lot that makes me feel good cool okay so here So here's what I'm thinking, right? Speaking of threes, how about we wait, unlike the previous weeks, and we hit spoiler cast full speed at the end? Oh, I haven't beaten it. Oh,, I guess or act to act to act to spoiler cast yes, yes Yes, okay act to if we we have an act to spoiler cast that boy We have we're like weren't there right the fuck there. It's like like we're standing with our tippy toes on the finish line Okay, so act we can have an act two spoiler cast. Let's just throw it in.

So we'll have that in the third act of the podcast. There you go. And we don't have to play the tippy toe game or whatever. Yeah, I hate that fucking game. But also the front loaded hour and a half segment of the last couple weeks, which is just like, oh game talk fucking ff14 whatever baguette yeah okay so in that case okay um well i mean well okay well speaking of that um i don't know if you've caught wind but i'll bring this to you i don't know if you have any opinions um i have I will I will have one do you have do you have opinions on shawarma I it's already

made its way to me okay has it good good good yeah okay okay so Montreal shawarma is excellent because we have a lot of Lebanese immigrants straight up there's a Lebanese population in Montreal that's quite high all right therefore they make the good shawarma Let period that that is like the end of that discussion. Let's so let us let we begin with the conclusion then So for those who are catching up, this is very important. This is very crucial important important news Shit is popping off between Ottawa and Montreal right now. We are all gonna go fuck itself We are at arms and it's quite simple

How Ottawa can go fuck itself? We are at arms. And it's quite simple. There was a game that took place, I guess about a week or so ago, in the Professional Women's Hockey League between the Ottawa charge and the Montreal Victoire. And in the stands of said game, where tensions were already flying high people are watching playing Someone held up a sign from Ottawa and that sign read the following text Montreal shawarma is mid. Oh, that's so fucking good Fucking dare holding up a sign at an event with controversial like I you know You show you see were like wrestling shows that just some guy in the fucking nose bleeds has like ff8 was the best one

Yeah, yeah, and that was Ben star probably push rage Classic and then confusing people So someone had the audacity someone had the gumption to hold up a sign that said Montreal Shawarma is mid and of we are proud of our bagels. We're proud of our smoked meat but motherfucker Shawarma here is fire. It is amazing right. It's crazy. Such a stupid conversation because like no matter what region you are in the world, okay, are we talking about a cultural or ethnic food? Okay, let's just scale the quality alongside

the per capita population metrics and just be completely done with it. But here's what I do. If you're going to tell me that like fucking like Alberta has better Chinese food than British Columbia, you're a fucking stupid idiot. Are you fucking dumb? Are you an idiot moron? But here's the interesting part, because after this came up and I went, Reggie, you lived in Ottawa for a bit. What the fuck is this on about? And he's like, I don't know. And I was like, wait, what? Why are you taking a pause here? Right. And that so that led to me doing a little bit of investigative journalism, so to speak, games and shawarma journalist.

Not just games, journalism, not food journalism on the beat. I'm on. I put my little hat on with a little press ticket and I went and I looked into the situation. And here's what I found out. If you're talking about so that the the the bit about the population sizes and such, right? Ottawa is a small little... It's the capital, but it's one of those places. It is the capital. It's very pretty. But it's one of those cities, the way I describe it is Spider-Man could not swing. He would not have anywhere to go. He would be on foot, it would be rough, right? It is what it is. We over here have about twice the Lebanese population

size of Ottawa. And what that has led to is when folks are opening up restaurants here, they're opening up shawarma joints, but they're also opening up traditional Lebanese cuisine places. And you have a lot of options because you're serving up millions of people. You have a large population and different things to hit on. But with a smaller group of people,

you kind of just got to play the hits, right? So sticking to just Shawarma in Ottawa is the only real business move because you're like, we're going to go with what most people in a smaller place are going to want to hit, which is that one quick rap. It's the kind of the fast food takeaway bit, you know? But what that means is, even though they're the self-proclaimed shawarma capital of Canada, self-proclaimed, but what that means is,

is that they have been standing on just the shawarma game for a couple decades now. So they're getting a little big for their britches, right? They're starting to get a little cocky about it because they're like, we've just been working on this one thing, not the rest of it. And we're claiming, you know, greatness, and we're claiming to be the peak of it in Canada, right? So there's over 200 trauma places there, apparently. And everybody's coming at it

coming hot. You're coming in there saying that Montreal shawarma is mid as if boost and does not exist right there on Dude it's page looks at me like I'm crazy the first thing I do when I go home is Fucking ring up door dash black ideas and fucking boost on and then she's like really boost on Again, and then it comes in and then she's like give me some of that So yes, right so that right now and that right now. And some of those. Give me some of that. And the potatoes and the garlic potatoes with the sauce, right?

Right on the side there. Amazing. So the thing is that now this has spread out into a ways because you do have that and they have expanded and they have other boostans which to be fair are not as good as the original OG place. No, no. The one next to the fucking Geek and Gorgeous. Yes, exactly. the Crescent one.

But like- Everything on Crescent's better than everything else. It's not on there. But when you talk about just like tons of random places like opening up as well, there's names like Amir is a place you can go in and get a Shroma and they're usually like, eh, but they've spread out quite a bit. Basia is another place that's like, eh,

but there's a bunch of them. You know what I mean? They're around. But like if you're going to do you could do way fucking worse than going to a mirror for lunch. That's what I'm. Yeah. But it's just if you're going to get one and if you're going to talk about what the best in town is to offer what we've got, There's a couple places around that are not the walking into the McDonald's kind of thing off the corner that you're gonna get a much better result

in, for example. Because Amir is the kind of place where they might do, here's where you know you fucked up, is if you get a shawarma and they put lettuce in it, and then they heat the lettuce up. Fuck. Right? That's madness.

That's insanity, get the fuck out. Shut them down. Go leave. Leave. You're not allowed. I don't want this anymore. And that has happened before. But that's worse than mid.

That's a crime. However, the places that have since come pop up here, we've got places, Shawarma's with a Z opened up. There's Moods. Right? There's a couple different places that are like newer and have been around for a couple years in Set Up Shop. One place that's been crushing it that is currently being hailed potentially as the new king over here is Shawarma Original,

which I then proceeded to get a couple of bites of to make sure to remind Reggie where his allegiances lie. Right. And they do it with the thinner like the sage bread. So it's not pita and it's crispy and you got that thick you like you're looking at it like the meat to wrap ratio is massive. The toppings and sauces are on the outside. Right. Doing good stuff. Doing good stuff. And I the noises and faces he made were clearly like, you need to remember where you live and where your house is, sir. How dare you hesitate talking about Ottawa and what they got. So we did a little of that. And I had some and I confirmed that this is phenomenal, phenomenal shawarma from original. But what we then discovered, what I then discovered was there's a place that Ottawa

kind of claims as their big top joint, which is Dunya is shawarma. And they have recently expanded. And as of last September, they opened up a Montreal. Expansion. So we're going opened up a Montreal expansion. So we're gonna have a direct competition. So now I'm curious, I'm like, now I might need to go kick a door down and politely order a shawarma and see how it tastes. I think there's actually a way more interesting discussion

to be had here, which also surfaced its way to me via a certain poll that you took about food locations. I don't ever take polls. So when those things happen, that's just chat and mods do that. Really? I don't even see your stance. Not that the best places in town denote the overall quality of like a place. Oh, okay. So yeah, when the or okay. So that was a part of it. Yeah. Cause like I'm looking at Chatterino and like when a poll pops up it doesn't pop up there So I'm like, I don't know. I have no idea what the Self I guess

But but that being said yes I I disagree on the idea that the median should be called in here because but it does it is like the difference between a review of a game versus a Because but it does it is like the difference between a review of a game versus a a buyer's guide suggestion right should the price be included is this a decision where you're trying to if someone wants to find out should I buy this versus just judging it as a the art for what it was right I don't know like I'm of the opinion that when people go to a town like most people don't actually do any research whatsoever they just wander around to eat things I don't know if they do or don't. I don't know.

I think you do some, but maybe you do research into, let me go check out the activity place, like the biodome or something, and then you go, all right, we'll just eat anywhere around it. Maybe that's a thing, right? I definitely care about looking stuff up and seeing what's around, and especially if there's places that are worth going to that are great,

or I'm only gonna get one shot at, I do check out what the food Situation is and I want to go there So to me I'm like I don't the median of like oh if you walked in across like off the street to a random place It's such a toss-up because you can walk into a horrible place with the worst Shit ever with heated lettuce and fucking but you know what I mean like like what I tell you what man There is there is a core difference here depending on the person, right?

I guess so. And so I used, me and Paige used to do like a bunch of food research when we're out and about and whatnot, and you know what changed that? I'm only gonna walk this stroller two blocks. Okay, okay, I get that, yeah. There's a change to the situation. So the food scenario is the two blocks

from my fucking feet right now. Um, that and so like as I like as someone who's going to be like, you know, what is the city got going? I'm going to be like, yeah, let's let's hit up the spots that you that you stand on, you know, that you claim are like why you should come here, what you should check out, you know, if it's just it's I guess. Yeah, I can understand if you're looking for something that you're just like, I never want just, I guess, yeah, I can understand if you're looking for something that you're just like,

I never want to plan where I'm going, and I just want to walk in and roll the dice. I just think that even in a city where there's enough good quality places, there's always going to be bad businesses that you can walk into in any populated area that's going to be terrible food. I just feel that the game of rolling averages in a way is like,

you're still experiencing so there's so many chances of just getting something awful that I'm like, I don't even want to play that game. You know, why? Why even like, like, yeah, I just I'm just not interested in that whatsoever. So to me, it's about like if you say, yo, we got the best slice, you know, if you say we got the best fucking chowder, you got the whatever, you know, you hit up bodega sandwiches or whatever, every city's got their own things. I'm just kind of like, what are the names you stand on?

And like, where should I go check these out? And what's worth visiting? And so when it comes down to it, if you're gonna talk about like Montreal Shormer versus Ottawa Shormer, I'm so like, what do you bring into the table, right? The, my analogy was the Olympic team that we get together about Montreal Shormer versus Ottawa Shormer. So I'm like, what do you bring into the table, right? My analogy was the Olympic team that we get together

to represent the country is not a bunch of random people. You don't randomly grab your population and go out and play the game. You grab. Bro, that'd be awesome. Right? That'd be so great. That would be so awesome.

The American fucking All-Star team was crushing it with NBA stars You know like that's how they do that you you represent your city or country with the talent You know that I would oh, it's I would see every hockey game in a season. It was like 20 random people picked from moose head versus 20 random people picked from Hamilton. So you know what's funny is that like when it comes to boxing, they have an, there's a kind of middle ground on that where Olympic boxers are not meant to be multi-millionaire professionals, but they need to be like the best of the amateur circuit, you know, so you can be someone that goes through, has a lot of amateur fights and has a lot of

experience, but like they generally tend to want to go, or they tend to pick like people that are not crossing that threshold into Don King fucking, you know, high profile, crazy numbers, you know, so losers, the best of the amateur circuit, so to speak. Right. But anyway, all this, but all this aside, like, I'm just like, if you're, if you're, if you're putting those words out there, if you're speaking violence into fruition, right, you better be, you better come correct with it. And the fucking, if you want to put the little garlic sauce on top to this whole little thing,

when I was asking Reggie, I was like, so what are the places like, what do you remember, right? What's going on in Ottawa that they're so getting so, you know, big about this. And he's like, there was a really good place That had great show armor in Ottawa. I remember them. I was like, yeah, what were they called? Montreal shawarma, that's so fucking funny the name of the restaurant That is that is that is like That is that is that is like The kind of punchline that if you wrote it that way would come off like shit because it's so on the nose I can't it's real. It's perfect. I can't believe I can't imagine having to say that

Outloud to somebody as you're defending Ottawa Shorma and go like your favorite Pizza what's your favorite pizza joint in Chicago oh New York so with a straight face you gotta fucking say that shit like whoa beautiful that's great I love it oh god bless Oh, God bless. Hahahaha. Habibi. Oh, that's amazing. I love it. So yeah, that's what's going on. You know? You come with your fucking shawarma

takes, you best watch the fuck out. And I'm gonna find out what's going on at this Dunya spot and see what's happening. Give it a fair shake. But, uh, yeah. Just that's more to be continued. Hey, man. That's so fucking funny. Oh, my God. Oh, that conversation is over.

That is a that is a done deal. But hey, our nation's capital, though, they got a nice lawn. I don't want to hear. They got to want to hear nothing from Ottawa. It's got a Parliament is very pretty. They got a nice building, nice lawn, and their hockey team is... Anyway, all right, whatever. I think Victoria is a little prettier personally. That's the capital of BC out here. It's on Vancouver Island. It's gorgeous. But yeah, Ottawa's very pretty and the politicians go there. Well, I was going to say the team is called the senators. Your team is literally, you

know. But yeah, no, it's one of those spots where, guess what? Hey, Americans, how many of you thought Toronto was the capital of Canada? Be honest. Just show of hands, right? Because I feel like that's a common, regular mistake that happens because they're like, oh really, but that's the city everybody talks about.

That's the one I heard. I don't know, man. I think that's genuinely unfair. I'm gonna actually go to bat for our Yankee brethren here, because the city that matters is so consistently not the capital of wherever that it's crazy. Because times change in populations. New York City isn't the capital of fucking New York State?

Shut up, that's a trick. That's a fucking trick. It's, yeah, because when the founding of it occurs versus where the people move over time, it tends to change. But yeah, that's the thing is like, and Ottawa's not even in the top three. No, man. There's four cities in this fucking country that matter. Fucking Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal. You can swap them around however you like depending on what you value. And then the fucking governments in Ottawa.

Yeah, Calgary's out there. Calgary's out there. Yeah, whatever. I'd say that's on the list, but still. They got steers and hats and shit. Yeah. Solidus says Edmonton spoken like a true fucking Ontario kid. All right. No one would ever say. We're not gonna like yeah. No one in this life. Does Manitoba exist? Can you prove it? Wully? Can you prove it? One page and I drove through the prairies if had there not been a fucking sign denoting hey this is prairie number one this is prairie number two fucking nothing just couldn't be just a just fucking a thousand kilometers of featureless terrain I have I have nothing against

Manitoba but I also have nothing Manitoba like it I it's it's I learned in school that it exists. This is true. It's a nice clean rectangle No, it's not. That's that's a Saskatchewan Manitoba is the one that has the extra on the side because it's attached to Ontario. Oh fuck. I thought dude, okay, fuck Oh my god, you thought I was talking about Saskatchewan It's worse. I fucking forgot Saskatchewan existed entirely. I thought it went Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta, BC. I just deleted the fucking entire performance from my mind. No, no, that's our Wyoming.

That's the rectangle, you know? Bro, no one gives a shit. Oh boy. All right, yeah. And yet, and to be fair, my Wyoming opinions are learned from Garfield and friends that years ago. So it's wild because like I married to Paige, right? And she's from the States and like, I'll be like, I'll mention a state and she'll have like a really incredibly intense opinion about that state that I don't know literally a single

detail about at all. Yeah. And I'm like, why do they say skimity Riz Ohio? And she's like, oh, fucking Ohio. Yeah. And like, she can't even like get it out. It's just this like oppressive vibe. Like, oh, are you a mass hole? Are you from Massachusetts? You call yourself a mass hole, are you? Yeah, there's a lot of local shit. And I feel like the most important information

we've learned about states we don't know anything about is when Pornhub put out that search bar. Like, ranking. That's interesting information. That's fascinating as hell. Which states are into step and which states are into head tie? Let's go. Yeah, man.

Important, crucial. All right. Hey, you ever have something happen to you and then it becomes a discussion and then you start to bring it to other people and you have no idea if it's going to be like a big argument like vomiting into a purse or if it's going to be like a two a two sentence like yeah, okay. No, we yeah, we're in agreement. That's okay. So something I'm gonna be really brave here and talk about something that happened on one of my recent streams and I want to talk to you about a definition of something and see where you fall on it.

I would like to know what you consider pissing your pants. Oh. And what counts and what doesn't count. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. Let's set the stage. We can all agree, sitting, okay, okay. Okay. Let's let's set the stage. We can all agree Sitting standing walking somewhere with your fucking dick in your pants or your pussy in your pants and they're under the underwear Yep, right. You just fucking blast it and it's going down your leg. That obviously is count is pissing your fucking pants Yes, like there's no discussion there. Yes, right and we can all agree that if you're at the urinal and there's an

unfortunate drop or two of splash back off the **** thing of the urinal. Yes. That's probably not pissing your pants. Yes, correct. That's just an unfortunate reality. That's that's now here's the question. That's blow back. Yeah. That's blow back. When you go to the bathroom and you forgot about the drawstring of your pajamas existing at all and the stream exits your body and exits the pants but hits the drawstring and and splashes back on you, is that pissing your pants? Did the drawstring, it's a part of the pants, you didn't add that yourself.

It is part of the pant, yeah. That's pissing on your pants. That's pissing on your pants. That is, yes, that is pissing on your pants, yes. You have pissed, you can add the extra word, but you pissing on your pants. Yes, you have pissed you can specify you can you can add the extra word But you have pissed on your pants. This is okay. All right, we can agree on this I would actually agree with that. Yeah pretty clearly now. Here's here's the question Here's here's the real the real thick of it

So this happened on the Delta rune stream clearly fucking pissed all over the front of my pants Oh, yeah forgot the drawstring was there. Uh- Fucking pissed all over the front of my pants. Oh, yeah. Forgot the drawstring was there. And Paige was like, oh my god, this motherfucker pissed his pants. And my response was not even, nah. My response was, eh, it happens. To which she responds with, what the fuck? No, it doesn't.

To which chat started to fucking fight as to, nah, man, what the fuck? Or, yeah, no, it happens. Wait, she took it occurs. man, what the fuck, or yeah, no one happens. It occurs. She went for the bit and then you agreed and then reversed positions. You were supposed to fight back on that, yeah. Yeah, I was supposed to be like, no I didn't,

instead I was like, nah man, I'm just a little pissed to happen sometime. Okay, this went in a completely different direction from where I thought you were going. I have to say. What do you think was gonna go? Because I quickly did some math in my brain for a completely different scenario.

Oh yeah, what was your scenario? Okay, so here's where I thought you were going, all right? Yeah, okay, this is, fuck it, we're just inventing shit to talk about now. When you say as an adult, right, oh, I fucking pissed my pants, right? Now there's people, now there's a qualifier, which is when people get drunk and wasted,

you're just like, ah, I don't know where I am. I'm gonna give a free pass to anybody who's blackout drunk or anything. That's just like, okay. Sorry, for shitting and pissing. This almost doesn't apply, cause it's like, of course you pissed your pants, whatever. I'm not drunk, I pissed my pants.

Listen, man, drink less. If you like are just, your pants are up and whether you're going to the bathroom or not Whatever's happening if you give a little a little pulse out. Yeah, right a little pulse out of piss Yeah, you piss your pants As an adult. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Okay. I agree that okay. No, no, no. Oh, there's a follow-up What about You're done the urinal. Yeah, you're shaking it out. What about. You're done with the urinal.

Yeah. You're shaking it out. Yep. Shaking it out. Yep. If you're at home, maybe use like a toilet paper. Just like dab it up. Make sure you do what you got to do.

Take care of business. But then you put it back. And then the extra. Because the pressure got released. Yes. Because of the way you put it back. And the remainder. And like that fucking single millimeter remainder that was hiding at the back just falls out.

So first, yeah. Have you pissed your pants then? You still did. And here's why. Because you fucked up. Oh shit. You should know because by now if you are going, if you're creating waistband tension under the dick, then you are cutting off some of the piss and that's your fault.

You should know better. So this is better because if you keep creating any tension underneath is going to hold back some that is going to surprise you when you tuck it back in. You need to be loose flowing as it all comes out so that you don't have that situation. So this is the funniest thing because in my life is now a circle, right? Because I remember being like, I was like, I didn't like using urinals because I like to use a stall to piss Because I'd put my fucking pants down in my ankle like feels good man feels good man, right?

And like cuz there's no fuck it. There's no fucking mistakes happening here. Okay, right All right, and then butters like and it was my older brother was like what the fuck is go to urinal, right? And then sometimes that last drop would fucking hit I'd be be super mad. And now as an adult, now as an adult, fuck it. All bathroom activities, completely naked. There's no reason for their clothes to be on. Okay, all right. So that is an extreme, that is an extreme that we have taken that I am not following you

down that road. I'm quite content of saying I've learned how to manipulate the various boxers, shorts and things to, you know. Nah, no risks. Okay, but the point of establishing that a single pulse, right, you know, one key is pissing your pants as an adult is because if you are a child and you go, oh, but stop it, you didn't piss your pants as a kid, right?

You gotta take it easier on the kids. Exactly, and so what I did in my head when you started introducing this is I gave myself, I said it like, there is a reverse chart where the age you are has a higher threshold of piss allowed to come into pant before we say you have pissed your pants. If a three-year-old goes, uh, and a little bit and stops,

three-year-old's a piss pants, you're good. You're good, right? Nah, it's fine, you're good. If you're six, double that perhaps, right? And then we go up and up and up to the point where, somewhere in your teenager years or so, it's kinda like, okay, you shouldn't, are we getting to that level of like the whole thing is soaked because that as a kid is like yeah right you did right but but like

but I say like I remember like I was like eight or nine years old and I had that fucking horrible dream you know that fucking dream the dream where you're going to the bathroom oh yeah yeah yeah and then you wake up and you're like fuck that was not a dream I just pissed my whole life on the whole it's a The dream where you're going to the bathroom. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you wake up and you're like, fuck, that was not a dream. I just pissed my whole life on. It's a fucking disaster. Now I'm just old enough to feel intense shame

as I explain to my mom and dad that I gotta wash all these fucking sheets. Yeah, so I'm trying to create, I don't know what the formula would be, but it's almost just like whether you have to count it by volume or so, but age, the number of years you have been alive is just an inverse with the amount that's allowed to come out before we call it. Yeah, you pissed your pants.

All right, I pissed on my pants a little bit. On your pants, yep, that happened. Yeah, on my pants, and enough of the people were like, eh, it happens, and I was like, eh, it happened. Yeah on my pants and and Enough other people were like, yeah, it happens that I was like it happens Yeah, but you but I changed my pants But but all these tech Jack couldn't smell, you know all these technicalities where you're like Oh, you went over the waistband or yeah, you extra accessories got in the way. You didn't shake or whatever You know 40 I'm gonna take all my fucking clothes off. I don't give a shit. That is OK. That'll do it.

That'll do it. Who's going to stop me? But to anybody else, I say, you've got to learn the ropes. You've got to learn the tech. You've got to get up to speed with what causes a dangerous situation to occur. You know what's awesome? You know what's fucking awesome?

Genuinely fantastic. So I have the baby now, right? He's like almost to now now that like I have to teach him things every mistake I make you know What that's a learning experience? I can just I could just kick down the road so they don't so, you know, really Really? I I recently just pissed all over the front of my pants as a service to my little guy so I can remember to tell him to watch out for the waistband. Sorry, the drawstring. There you go, there you go, yeah.

That's good parenting. I would even, I'm even gonna extend it and say that if you're out there pissing in the woods or trying to write in the snow or something. And you don't calculate the fact that, A, there's wind. Yeah, wind's bad. The elements are in play now.

Yeah, you don't want that. And B, the stream drop off, you want an abrupt cut. But if it slowly trails off and that shit's coming back on you, that is still your fault. You should be using visual calculus, checking which way we're going, checking the external, and being ready for an abrupt stop to not let that fly back on you.

And if you don't calculate all that shit, you take all the blame, you take the heat for that. You pissed on your fucking pants. Own that. You pissed on your fucking pants. And also, there's a follow up to this, which is when I posted this story. I posted those on blue sky. I don't give a fuck anymore. I don't give a fuck. I had a couple of people be like, what?

You don't sit down? I'm like, I would rather piss on my fucking feet by accident every single day of the rest of my life than sit down and pee. Maybe that is like old school macho nonsense. I don't give a shit. I don't give a fuck. I'd rather fucking drunkenly piss all over the fucking seat and fall down than sit down to pee. I'm not. We can't listen. Last time this came up, a lot of people were out there talking about, nah, just sit down though. And I'm like, go fuck yourself. I will die and we'll just, we'll just leave it there. All right. I would rather die. And

that's it. I'm sorry. We're not going to agree. We're not going to agree. I don't care You know that scene in in King of the hill where Hank shakes George Bush's hand and he's got like a limp fucking handshake Sure, and he's like it just it just destroys his whole fucking thing if I went over to your fucking house And I'm like oh Realize you're in the bathroom And I open up and you're like sitting down to pee and I be like and I close the door and we have an awkward moment I'd be like the podcast's over

Like I'm just deleting your number out of my fucking phone not not just it's you know I look bad. We don't we don't have to fucking we don't have to psychoanalyze it We don't have to go further, but nothing no shame no shame to anybody, you know, but for me personally, I'm just not I You know it is it be how it is. No, man. Oh this bitch of an earth And you know what? I'm gonna be 90 years old and the the fucking gen Be or whatever the fuck they are that it's like can you believe people used to stand up to pee and I'm gonna be out There on my lawn going, yeah, just right now, I'm on my lawn, I'll do off standin'.

Yes, you fuckin' kids. I will always remember, I will always remember in fuckin' Naruto when Akamaru is spinnin' around 360-ing that shit and I was like, damn, look at him go. That dog is crushing it. Psycho crusher while just covering optimal, you know, like incredible. All right.

Cool. I'm glad we've taken care of that. I'm glad. So you know that thing we were talking about right before we started the podcast? Yeah. Like right before when we were talking about that, I'm like, man, we gotta get all this did you face your bone pants? Talk now, man.

Oh, it crossed my mind and I just, you know, I know exactly what you're thinking, 100%. Don't worry about it. What's going on? Oh, okay, so I'm gonna skip over the thing I actually spent most of my time with, which is I played Expedition 33. Yeah.

Which we'll save that discussion for later Yeah, um, I I you know took a few days cuz I was working on some other shit I got like, you know going on and like fucking you blasted through I Was just started being like, you know, I'm just gonna fucking start streaming this and well I had this moment Did you make a decision to go like hard as fuck? So I was like, I'm well cuz I'm looking at my schedule right and my schedule right now I'm on day like 19 or 20 of streams in a row And I have like 14 more to go. Okay, because it's

Doom expedition podcast doom expedition expedition podcast doom expedition podcast delta rune delta rune doom expedition expedition expedition podcast here comes fucking night rain okay night rain is like it's just like on and on okay okay you're and then the switch too and then you're trying to beat the clock yeah yeah okay and so i was like okay is there any possibility that I could possibly conceivably beat this game by the time fucking Night Rain comes out? I see.

I see. Okay. That's the answer to that question was, well, if I help put the baby to bed and then just go right back to it, I can just fucking blast it. Okay. And that represented a really genuinely hilarious interaction between my wife and I in which she's like, honey, you're working a lot. You're streaming a lot. I don't want you to get sick. Right. It's like, you know, I'm this is like 19 days in a row. It's like maybe that's a lot, right? I don't know whatever and I'm like, okay, I promise I will be in bed at 1 a.m. Which is not too late, right? It's late. It's not too late, right as

long as I Am NOT doing this highly specific thing. The story seems to be leading up to near the end of the second act. So it's 1255 and I'm doing this highly specific thing. And then Joel raids me with like 3000 people. Thank you Joel. That's Varg Skelethor. And then I get text messages from wife going, keep going, keep going. Yeah. Go, go, go.

Okay. Okay. So listen, raids are a really cool feature that can allow people to check out other people and encourage folks to see new folks. And that's all great. Uh, they are also a gun. They are a gun. And there have been a couple of times where at the end of my battery life where I'm about to fucking punch out and you get a raid. Three times your current audience. And you're just like, oh, because now you also have to be like, hello, welcome everybody. I swear to God, I'm not usually this dead, you know., you're like, oh fuck And you have to go into the pitch. Yeah, it's just you know, first thing I do BAM

Yeah, hostile hostile raids Don't bag check this out Mm-hmm, and then it's like and also I felt really bad cuz like To anyone who was in Joel's stream when he rated me, I was doing some spoiler-ass fucking super fucking spoiler shit in the dead-ass middle of the raid, and there was no way to take that off the fucking screen. There's nothing you can do about that, no. Involuntarily, although I think, no, the warning is just the warning before you click.

OK, is just about like mature viewers. You can't be like, oh, spoiler. It's like, hey, man, there's some dicks or whatever. Yeah. You know, back to the days of day one, Dark Souls three final boss spoiled on the PlayStation. That's the worst I've ever seen to date. Yep. Yep. Yep. The game itself, the game itself. But anyways, OK, so we'll talk about Expedition 33 towards. So, yeah, that's been. The game itself. That's the worst one. The game itself. But anyways, okay, so yeah, we'll talk about Expedition 33 towards the end.

So yeah, that's been the most of it. This morning, I took a look at the Tiny Build Indie Showcase that was sponsored stream. Okay. Which they showed off a couple things. They showed off a cool dinosaur game called Ferocious, which they played after streams very early. They showed off a game called The King is Watching, which is kind of like Loop Hero, but basically your peasants

only work the tasks you give them when you're physically looking at them. And there was another game I played called Drill Corps, which is fucking fantastic, which is a demo out now and it's coming out of early access in a couple of, I think a month, where you're basically just running like automated Mr. Driller underneath a platform, but every night you got to pull your little dudes up and then you play missile command with bugs coming down So you are having to run? How much do I upgrade the little dudes digging versus how much am I upgrading the turrets that are protecting my machinery as? You are like RTS base building on the center platform. Okay, it's really cool

You you said ferocious dinosaurs. I was like, oh, is that just like a dinosaur simulator? And then I see a man with a gun. Man with a gun survival game. I got killed by a scorpion. Gotcha. That game is very early. Okay. So there's that. And then me and Paige went through the Delta rune chapters one and two. The replay? Mm-hmm. Because hey, fucking glad we did that because turns out I don't mean Paige didn't remember like anything about chapter two. Oh. Like nothing. With Queen and Birdo and... Yeah, I know we remember Queen and Birdly right? But like we don't we didn't remember like and we remember Spampton but like the actual sequence of events or like what

the stinger and like the for the next chapter was like the meta plot like nothing like absolutely nothing. So hey that those Toby Fox games pretty good. It's also really strange because I remember we did chapter one and two in like single sittings. They were like just blowing through it. And it's like that was five and seven years ago. Those were very different paths and pages. That was a different world. So now we're like, we're like checking the fucking watch and texting the babysitter going, oh, we can we go through 30 more minutes, Mom?

Like basically. So the difference for me here is like, I would, I think I need a recap as well. But I would just sooner click through the old LP and just like, get the beats quickly, instead of like doing a full run through again, you know? So, yeah, but no, like doing it seems like it has more value. Also, I hate watching myself. I hate it. I fucking hate it. And it's for two reasons. One is that it emphasizes to me how much I am a fucking Skinner box in human form. So like something will happen in the game

and then I will say something out loud while watching it and then Pat will say it out loud at the same time. And I'll be like, oh, I'm a fucking input output machine. I have, I'm like, you can design scenarios to make me say certain things. Okay, well have you ever had the opposite, which is way more terrifying where you watch something And then you you respond to something that you see and then you in the video says the complete opposite thing Yeah, I hate it. That's way worse in my opinion super angry. Yeah past me. I'll take being so stupid

I'll take the Skinner box over the like what the fuck I don't like it. Yeah, okay. I don't like it yeah okay I don't like it okay fair enough uh what else going on uh not a whole lot we had the boy very briefly come on stream in audio form only during one of the streams so he could sing us Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and so he could tell everybody what daddy's noise was. Okay. So Paige asks the boy, hey little man, what's daddy's special noise? And every single time goes, pfft. Thanks, bud.

So cost dude. Confirmation that there actually is a baby then because up to now it could be an elaborate bit He beat the wall boss with rusty in armored core six On stream once So, you know, so you you didn't watch, but I was streaming and Paige had to go run an errand. So I grabbed like little six month old guy and I turned the camera off because you know, if his privacy and then I audibly gave him the controller. Ah, everybody, the baby is playing. Ah, yes. And then and then he beat the wall.

The wall. Rusty, you know who he beat the wall the wall rusty You know who else beat the wall Snoop Dogg? That's true While lighting up actually yeah, okay, you know got it and so you know there's the proof there For sure for sure aside from that all that much just kind of drooling away at Expedition 33 and hoping to get my computer fixed. So I don't know if I talked about that here, but my Intel 13th generation CPU is dead. It has the rot or the rust. Is that the living room one?

Yeah, that's the living room one. Okay. So Intel 13th gen CPUs were made badly and a little bit of oxidization crept into some of those models, which meant that over time it will essentially rust out. And I have been noticing like just catastrophic stability issues on that PC that have only been getting worse and worse and worse and worse and worse. I contacted Intel. They detailed my troubleshooting steps and provided my serial number and they said Yeah, no, you're covered for full warranty replacement and they sent me a new CPU. Oh, that's nice. So I'm gonna get my computer guy to swap it out. I know.

This week. Was that an extra or was that like just included in service? So I'm gonna get my computer. Gotta swap it out. I know this this week Well, was that an extra or was that like just included in service? That's included in service. Okay. Wow cool The only thing that the only thing I had to do is I had to pay $25 in shipping so that we would do There's two ways you can do it. You can send them your faulty CPU and they can send you a new one back or You can pay $25 and they'll send you a new one back or you can pay $25 and they'll send you the new one first and then you ship the faulty one back. Okay. Okay.

Which is a very big difference in terms of a primary computer use. Yeah. I just, I made a decision like maybe fucking 20 years ago when FutureShop was like, do you want to pay for an extra warranty when Future Shop was like, do you want to pay for an extra warranty? And I was like, no, I don't. Because these things, it never ends up being the case. And when you do, and you have to go through this like, interrogate- The RMA process.

The RMA process, the interrogation room, you know, returns and shit. And like the one time I ever went through like with the manufacturer warranty was when my Game Boy, I had a Game Boy color back in the day that I sent back to Nintendo. And they just did, it wasn't a replacement, they just, they cleaned it and then repaired and sent it back. But like, yeah, but it took so long and it was just so not worth it

that I was like, fuck this process. I gotta say, Intel's customer service on this has been excellent. Cool. I got a rep that would email me every two days with different steps and they'd be like, can you send us your BIOS information? I'm like, yeah, here you go. And then they've sent me, they filled out my customs form for me and said, just print this out and put three copies of it in the box and then use this sticker okay and then that's that so that'll be that'll be

fixed up nice so next week I'll talk to you about ff14 for the first time in forever but because I tried I tried to like oh maybe I'll play half an hour of the game after after the baby's gone to sleep. Crash, crash, crash, crash. It's a fun experience because you get to see what games are really vulnerable to a fucking CPU. And one of those games is FFXIV. Baldur's Gate? Fucking rock solid. Never crashes no matter what part of my PC is dying. FFXIV crashes every time I alt tab and every 20 minutes. Strange. Huh. Well, I'm glad that you had a decent customer service experience there because I... Yeah, I'm very happy with it. I'll let you know how it is resolved next week.

I'm very reluctant and traumatized that I'm just like, I'd rather just skip the whole process, fuck that whole thing. Then again, well, the different ways, the different use cases for my PC stuff is, if I could fucking preserve it in a deep cold, never moving, all atoms have stopped moving. You've got to hot swap cables constantly. So it's not really a viable solution. No, it's not really a viable solution. No, it is not. Cool.

I'll be streaming Expedition 33 and Night Reign this week over at twitch.tv slash Pat Stairsat. Go look at that. That's what's going on with Pat. Has 14, they started their new chapter and stuff. How many events past the beginning of the new era are they on? The 7.0 is the expansion and then there are 7.1 and 7.2 and today is 7.25. And they always go up to the X, whatever the expansion number is, 0.5.

So we're now halfway through the expansion as of literally today so woke Lamar 0.5 is that is that what wasn't about 2.5 2 okay okay whatever that fucking whatever happened yeah okay all right cool all right. Cool. All right, I will grab the baton, so to speak. The only things, so yeah, we talked about Shawarma. Hey, the Montreal Street Comic Festival happened and went, walked around, showing Foxcate around town a little bit. And we checked out some of the booths

and then yeah, I had a nice little time. The Ponto-kun artist was there and this time around it was like, I went in to get some more merch and for those who don't recall, Ponto-kun is the construction cone mascot of Montreal that is around. I fucking forgot. Yeah, and you basically have little cute little construction cone that you see everywhere in the city and uh, this one's got eyes on it and it's like having adventures all around town

um, and this, and like ever since the clip and then other people have seen her at a couple other shows and was like, hey I heard about you on this podcast and so she's like, oh hey what's up, you know, and shows and was like, Hey, I heard about you on this podcast. And so she's like, Oh, hey, what's up? You know, and got to be like, yo, like, keep just, this is perfect. Right. And like, one of the things I love the most about it is that like the little construction cone is not bitter or angry or anything. It's like, like delightfully enjoying itself and having fun in the most innocent way, which is just like perfect because what the thing is in and of itself is the statement.

So I got a little bag and some other stuff and I was like, can I get some of those little eyes? Because I want the little clear eye stickers so that if you see a cone, you can go just Ponto's everywhere. And she's like, well, I can't really sell them because we can't encourage people to go, to face whatever legally or so, but maybe that give them out sometimes.

Maybe there's other ways we can figure, but I just want those little cute rare cartoon eyes to just stick on a construction cone around the city. And I don't remember the name, but Ponto-kun has a little buddy, which is like a little pylon that also is a little more, it's like a little grumpy pylon as well. So, you know, the city mascot of construction continues. It's great. I want this to get like so much more big and like established so that it's massively hilarious and like innocent, but so clearly embarrassing in its existence, you know, to the city as an actual thing, you know.

It'd be wonderful if we could go to a downtown event or whatever and see someone in a giant construction cone costume just taking photos with the kids or whatever. Anyway, played a bit more of Kill Night and yeah, not much to say there except it's exactly what I was describing. It's a whole lot of fun and there's a just still standing by recommending that game really cool. And the rhythm of when you're getting, when you get better at it and managing all the different

imminent threats is a whole lot of fun. It has, when you're kind of surrounded and you're, you know, surviving and whatever. And in a lot of cases surrounded and you're you know surviving and whatever and in a lot of cases i think um you know the the the reverse difficulty curve i'll hold my hand up i reached out to a lebanese friend of mine oh during our schwarma discussion oh so we have a i believe i know who hey we yeah uh we have a Weigh-in from a Montrealer who is Lebanese Ottawa probably seen here has gone downhill

So there's a fucking wrench in that fucking conversation I will continue to investigate I Will continue to get to the bottom of this? All right, you're gonna have to go to Ottawa. I'm trying to avoid that outcome. I've been this entire. I want to. I want to. This entire setup has been to avoid that outcome but we'll see where this goes. What was I saying? Uh oh yeah. No, just uh uh uh uh it's it's, it's pretty, yeah, anyway, good game. Very fun, very cool. But managing the hordes coming at you where you have the reverse difficulty curve of like

a Gungeon or style game where you're like your guns suck at first so it's harder to survive everything coming at you. But then as you get better and stronger weapons, things melt away. But then more resilient things start coming at you. But then as you get better and stronger weapons, things melt away. But then more resilient things start coming as well. It's pretty cool. And you kind of have these moments where the difficult enemies that are in the Horde, which this is also very Doom Eternal.

The difficult enemies, once you have the solution to deal with them, you're looking forward to them showing up. Because you're like, that's the one where if I parry it, I get a big slowdown That's the armored enemy that's hard to kill But if I kill it with this weapon I get healing back, you know and so you kind of are just like surviving and killing through these hordes while looking out for

particular types of enemies to like spend your resource is on which you know Meleeing a certain thing is a type of resource as well. It's it's it's a is on, which, you know, meleeing a certain thing is a type of resource as well. It's a... Yeah, it kind of forces your brain to be playing two games at the same time, you know? It puts you in the run away from everything and kill the immediate surrounding wave coming at you is like an autopilot. And then on a second layer is like, how am I doing with building up my meter for all these different mechanics and surviving with life, you know? Does it create that thing that Vampire Survivors does where you hit a certain, like, you crest the hill and entire forms of enemies become non-enemies, they just become visual noise?

Entire forms of enemies become, yes. They just become visual noise entire forms of enemies become Yes, a hundred percent that does happen, but so now it becomes like picking out the danger from From the chaff a hundred percent the weakest level enemy by the time you're finishing off the level You've powered up to such a degree that they just melt when you look in their direction, right? That but but there's enough higher tier enemies coming out by that point in the survival run that the challenge is still there, right? And I would say that there's these five levels. Each one ramps it up quite a bit.

And by the time you hit the third one, I feel like you hit that point where you're like, oh, it's almost over. Time to send all the bullshit at you. That moment occurs, but then it just keeps happening for like the next half of the level. You know, you're like, oh, fuck, like you really want the per the player to, you know, die, get some currency, level up, unlock some strips of weapons

and pick a strategy for like coming back in with, you know, perhaps like the melee weapon that is going to do a full 360 blade around you instead of the one that just cuts three times in front or something. Cool game though. And then yeah, beyond that, Expedition later, we are in the wrap, we're wrapping up Cyberpunk and the right now just like spending a lot more time doing Johnny quests hanging out with Keanu Reeves. And what a great I've been mentioning it beforehand, you know, but like what a great sidekick to have in this game, because it's the it's the most not Kim.

Okay. Like like, like in in Disco Elysium, Kim is the reliable friend that is there to catch you and remind you that Johnny sucks ass. He's so flawed and fucking, but like, Kim is there to like catch you and you can rely on him and he's your bro and he like makes it okay for you to fuck up. And Johnny is actively trying to make you worse, you know, and like you spend enough time being like, well, you shut the fuck up,

you know, but you still like like, but there's a part of it where you're like, OK, and like, but we're all kind of flawed and fucked up. And he has his insane shit. And you have to still go with him to a degree. And like you're connecting on some levels, but his flaws are just so apparent and horrendous, you know? But I have a hard time picking out other characters from other games that are like him, that have this experience. I don't know if there's perhaps in other Western RPGs there's been characters like

this, but I feel like the spectrum of like, you know, reliable and then like fuck you, I hate you. And then there's like flawed, super fucked up on the in the side of like, I can't rely on you. But actually, there's charm in that, you know, it's like a weird in between space or so, you know, if I think across the cast of characters you hang out with in Mass Effect or Kotor, any BioWares or such, and the little beginning of the Baldur's Gate 3 that I played too, I kind of am like, there's a you're okay, get in, or I can't get away from you fast enough vibe that you kind of slot everybody into.

He's a different case. I think both of those are a great vibe for Johnny because he's stuck with you and you can't fucking get rid of him and The story is about how you can't fucking get rid of him. Mm-hmm So like I kind of love Johnny, but I also want him to go fuck himself. He's such a stupid asshole Yeah, like HK 47 is made the way he's made right and like baby girl, man I can't blame HK for being HK. It's just the way it is I make a fan cam hk. Yeah like hk 47 for christmas hk 47 is Is like consistent and real about what he's about but he's not petty about it. He's like

Can he's he's a true believer? You know and like johnny gets fucking petty man, you know, he's a true believer, you know? And like Johnny gets fucking petty, man, you know? It's, it's, Oh God, it's, it's great. It's great. Um, he's, um, he's a, he is a kind of Jimmy. Oh, there's a thought. Is he, yeah, he's a true believer in a cause that doesn't actually exist. And he's, he runs from responsibility,

but like you expose him for it and he kind of mopes, you know, like it's just, yeah, I don't know. He's, it's just, it's, it's a whole bag, you know, it's, it's something interesting to talk about one of the most interesting things, you know, um, and your comparison point for the other people, you're of the most interesting things, you know. And your comparison point for the other people you're hanging out with in that game, you know, you've got Jackie, who's a good guy, and, you know, you've got like Takamura, who you're like, well, all the all the other homies, all the main quest line homies are like, OK, you know, you're hard around the edges for your backstory, but you're generally a pretty noble person and you're looking out for,

you know, best outcomes here, you know person and you're looking out for, you know, best outcomes here, you know, and you just hear and like there's a lot of NPCs where you're like, oh, this could go either way because I'm trying to get a read on what you are in Night City. But then, you know, you get your like river style characters, which is like this cop you hang out with where you're like, you're like, you're fine, but you're kind of a car, you know, a little bit and you're just like, I, and then there's the romance element where you're like, ah, I think it's so amazing that car has become like a fucking noun and an adjective. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. You know, you know exactly what I mean. That's it.

But that's it. And so yeah, I find Johnny's a nice standout. And getting Keanu in to play just a random bro would have been a big waste. But here he's playing something quite interesting. A quest line in particular that we just had was like, you know, him coming across or we in the game, you come across like another anarchist messaging you and you're going on this fetch quest and you're like, it's kind of sounds like like bullshit, but you're kind of not sure where it's going or what's happening.

And he immediately hates the idea of some other anarchist just kind of like chirp it up, you know, and then you're like wait But is it is it because it's just the words or whatever? It's just this funny kind of thing, but no, but me though But then but then the other person is just full of shit and that it is a whole gag and there's a great payoff for it You know where you could kind of you're questioning it because you're like This is a bullshit thing where the the the other anarchist is just saying the words that would get the people going

without having any meaning behind it. But when you see Johnny getting jealous or angry initially, you can believe that he's actually just like, no, but me though. Like you second guess that feeling in him because he's so full of shit. And it's believable that he would be like that. 100%, you know?

So it could have gone either way. It's a great one. Fun stuff there. So yeah, we'll check back in a bit later. Yeah, so the Cyberpunk will continue tomorrow and on Thursday as well. And then on Saturday, hey, as announced online, gonna fucking jump on that internet.

Are you ready to triple team the Duke's Dear Freya? I'm so ready. Man, I had a great experience where they put that trailer out and they were like, oh, look, honey, it's the Duke's Dear Freya. And Paige just looked at me like I was insane. And I was like, you fought that. And she's like, oh look honey, it's the Duke's dear Freya and Paige just looked at me like I was insane And I was like you you fought that and she's like no I didn't And I'm like no you beat that you beat that up. She's like no I didn't like it's the it's the spider with the two heads

She did but she's like no she didn't no and I'm like, okay Okay, here's footage of Yeah, like Huh crazy. Oh, is it just cuz a spider boss is so is kind of a forgettable concept unless it does Page gets like two years away from a game. Oh Okay, okay damn So she was like, I don't know if I can play night rain and it seems pretty tough and I'm like paid you

Are you actually beat like 80% of these bosses already? She's like I did I'm like you absolutely did 100% definitely by the way night rain comes out on Thursday Yeah, they just announced that oh, okay. It's not it's not Friday. It lied. Well, we're Thursday. We, they just announced that. Oh, okay. It's not. It's not Friday. It lied. Well, we Thursday we are playing on Saturday. So yeah, it just means that we'll have a little extra time to to juice our boys up with whatever the fuck the permanent progression shit is in there. Have you have you seen the new classes and stuff? I saw that they put a sec or oh Katana user there. Oh, game. Okay, so here's what's about to happen.

Alright, that Sekiro Katana Knight fuck is about to get everybody wiped. Because how many people are going to pick this parry Katana user and get everyone killed trying to do cool shit? Welcome to the worst guy on your team. The worst, I feel it. Unless that parry window is a huge counter window, that sword fucker is getting everyone killed trying to be cool. Solo game. There's something really great about From Software Games because you can always see the little piece that they took from something else to use as part of the buffalo.

So I'm sure you used the, what was it called? The deflecting hard tier. Yeah. At some point in in in Shadow of the Earth Tree and it was like wow. Wow. That that is a that is the Sekiro system being transplanted into Elden Ring for 5 minutes because Elden Ring is not god damn Sekiro and so it's like actually crazy powerful and that's what I use to beat the final boss of Shadow of the Urchery. Right. And so I look at this and like I'm looking at this fucking character that is built out of the deflecting

hard tier. Right. It is like it is that upgrade made manifest into a full character archetype. Yeah. And like it's a little circle. And it's just funny. The design is like a, it's a Western night, but it's just holding us. Katana cause fuck off. Yeah. And it turns into a Wolfman. Yeah. Everyone you're going to get, you're either going to be three of that guy all running in three different directions or it's going to, or you're going to be one and it's going gonna be Leroy Jenkins the whole time. Yeah I my my desire is like well if I'm gonna play solo

That would be a great character to play and practice with I'm gonna hop on with the gang. Maybe I don't know the archer or the guardian or Something that has more team synergy, then none might be a better choice. Okay. I am looking at that motherfucker that pops a wall out of the ground, like an earthbender. The earthbender looks cool.

And has the, I'm gonna take a hit and then I'm gonna headbutt you to death. Yeah, the earthbender looks pretty rad. So you know what I love about Night Reign is that I have a really deep feeling that they're lying to us massively about what's actually in that game. I mean, what is there to lie about after they've shown Dark Souls bosses?

So they've shown Dark Souls bosses and they're like, ah, there's a bunch of stages. But the thing that gets me is that the menu for picking your character has eight characters on it, and they fill up exactly half of the selection screen. Okay. There is like a perfect amount for 16 characters on that screen. But here's the thing, it's not hard to just mix and match

all the equipment, weapons, items, and builds. And give them one ability. You know, that's, you can have a humongous character select screen there, right? And we said it last time, but if they figured out, like whatever the so every time they make a game is with the different publishers, right, but like Souls is

Dark Souls is a bandai, right? So yeah Bamco gave the okay for their bosses So why not their characters right like you can definitely imagine seeing that screen fill up and it would not be hard man Two moves and a super that's it I am I'm extremely excited to play Dark Souls Arcade Dark Souls Arcade man straight up we called it Elden Ring but it really wasn't you know or all those but also the Elden Ring fucking NPCs throughout that game too like at some point the question has to be are we going to sell you the ability to play as some of the cool cast members from the game? Right? Blythe comes in.

Hold on, have you been, how much have you been following the game's coverage? Cause they're doing that. Oh shit. Like in the last Night Rain thing, they said, by the way, you're gonna be able to get unlockable skins for the archetypes. Skins of NPCs. Yeah. So like, the guardian will be Solare. OK, OK, OK. They showed up a ton of them.

OK. Yeah, that's I kind of meant fully playable, you know. That's that's cool. That's I just started to type in Dark Souls night rain. Dark Souls. Then the marketing has worked Mission accomplished that's really funny. That's fucking great That's the launch trailer overview. I'll get I'll pull up the fucking okay shots I it's a bit like smash in the sense that like I want the characters moves as well and lines not just a costume But that's ash. Yeah. Yeah. Skin skin is skin is cool.

Actual playable character would be phenomenal. You know. And I think to be fair to like I've talked to enough people and I've gotten a very I've gotten people that are like excited for what they're seeing. And I've also gotten people that are like on the fence, you know, which understandably It's like yeah, let me get my hands on it. Oh shit. Yeah, there you go. That's a Dark Souls 2 man Yeah, that's our souls to man. That's a guy on the left is from Dark Souls 3 and then there's still air straight up Yep, okay. They know what they're doing. Yeah, they know what they're doing

Let's fucking cash in the the I think it is it is from software Smash Brothers So so so the bit here where like people are kind of like I'm not sure if the gameplay is what I'm looking for So like you can win some over by just putting some all-stars in that fucking cast, you know Absolutely. And yeah, you've got four games worth of them to pick from you know and and Obviously, we're not gonna see anything owned by Sony or by Sega, but regardless, there's a ton. Cool, yeah, we're going to jump on Night Rain and I'm going to hook up a second.

You're going to meet me, you and Reggie, we're all going to have our own setups. Yeah, I'm going to put a second PS5 up over here and we'll... Man, they did an interview recently where they're like, huh? Yeah, we didn't realize how many people would want duos. I'm like you're fucking insane. That's like the number one form of go up Crossplay would be nice. They don't do it, but it would be nice if it were ever a thing The only problem I imagine though is that like they can't get around that PC cheating shit, right? Like no Dark Souls games Souls games and PC cheats are just like yeah crossing that are like

Butter and butter it'd be so nice as a feature to have but that part You know you don't want to have people's getting their entire saves corrupted on a fucking console even even worse You know as a result of that, so I mean I'm gonna be blonde I'm gonna play 99.9% of this game completely solo. Because it's like, do I have two people that I know ready to go right now? No? Okay, I'm going to launch in solo. I can see myself going solo to learn the map and flows and then going online for like, you know, real runs, so to speak.

For four runs and then you're going to go, oh my God, I got so much further by myself, these motherfuckers. Holy shit. So somebody in the chat says, hope it balances for solo. We actually saw this happen when I was at your place and we played the Night Rain beta, Happen when when I was at your place and we played the night rain beta is that when two people dropped? And I was the only person in a match all the damage and aggression scaled math just scaled down Like enemies became less aggressive health values changed like it's it's fine, which is incredibly That's very impressive considering like back in the day It would have been like well it loaded in the three-player version and they died so now you're fucked You know so just so fucking get good. Yeah being dynamic about it is dope Someone in the chat asks me a really good question

Why do I think all randoms are bad at video games because I play games online sometimes? because I play games online sometimes. I think you're, I think you have a, there's a chance, sometimes you get good, sometimes you get bad, but my overall experience solo queuing, I've done, I haven't spent an insane amount of time doing it, so I don't have like, you know, whatever, thousands of hours to my name on things, but I can say that like, the bad experiences have been pretty abysmal. The mid ones are there, whatever, but like, queuing up with people, you know, always good.

No, don't leave it up to the air. Why walk into a random restaurant when you can do, you can look it up in advance and go to a place that you know is reputable. I've played a number of MMOs. I've played like 10 different Call of Duty's. I've played Apex Legends. I've played a number of MMOs. I've played like 10 different Call of Duties. I've played Apex Legends. I've played Titanfall.

I have played et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and things that require teamwork that use non-specific tasks. Yeah, no, players that don't, it's fucking bad. It's not, no. And don't It's fucking bad. It's not No, and I'm League of Legends. Don't tell me that. Why do I think people are bad at games? I played League of Legends and Monster Hunter and fuck it's like yeah so like when I went back into Titanfall to like for I was playing it for a while there last year and Like going back on that for example, you can like And like going back on that, for example, you can like just go crush it on your own

and help your team and be fine. Like you can go jump around. Like I like playing that game in such a way where I like to be a good teammate. So I'll grab batteries and jump on our partner's shoulders and I'll reload people who are low on batteries. I'm comfortable enough on foot outside of a Titan that I'm down to just go do that busy work while also getting kills and shit

But you can completely contribute to the team by not paying attention to any of that if you want to or so as well It's not as big a deal the game there does not punishing you for the teamwork falling apart So to speak, you know, but it's a fucking deathmatch shooter, right? I think folks are mentioning hell divers are making a good point I think hell divers is designed So that people who go off on their own can get things done on their own in a very significant way Like if I had to be really specific It's not about individual player skill. It's about the reality of team-based play and

Cooperation in general that makes me a little annoyed. And I always used Apex Legends as the all-time peak of my hatred of this. We're loading into a three-man match with Apex Legends. My choices are to go on my own, despite the fact that we're a team, or chase after one of the team members the entire time because they are playing a solo game in a team and they're just going to go their own way as fast as they possibly can. So my team experience is actually chasing someone down for 20 minutes to provide backup for their bad choices. Yeah, I've had versions of that, but I guess the difference for me is that it's not so binary. I've had fine games where I've loaded in with randoms and enjoyed it. It's just

suboptimal to play with people I know, but it's not enough to get in the way of it. So for Night Reign's purposes, each of of those runs I did throughout that that weekend. Yeah, I had I had great co-op runs. I had some terrible like quitters, you know, it was just a mixed ass bag. And at the point where I'm still like, well, whatever, I'm learning the game. So I'm not too concerned about those outcomes and I'm fine to just kind of go explore the map a bit and figure it out. But when a run turns sour and you're kind of like, okay, well, I'm not going to beat

this one. You just kind of switch your priorities up a little bit. But yeah, it doesn't ruin the idea of the entire game for me though. You know, I'm still down for it. I recently watched two videos that kind of delved into this topic. One was by Dan Olson over folding ideas. Why it's rude to be bad at World of Warcraft. Shout outs to Dan.

He's a mountain boy with me. Which is about an hour and 30 minutes of academic breakdown of the realities of instrumental tasks in World of Warcraft. It's applicable to all MMOs and all team-based games, but it's specific to, to, to wow. And basically goes into the, like the reality of like how this is the way things are done has completely ruined world of warcraft and instrumental practices about how things are supposed to be done becomes so enshrined that they then eventually become automated. And if you're not automating, autom like callouts that are like robots for you,

you're ruining it and just ruined it. Oh, that's what you just described is my understanding of all MMOs. Yeah, no, that's not. That's World of Warcraft. Okay. But is that- World of Warcraft has allowed add-on culture to break its core mechanics because so many people use add-ons that tell you where to stand and where to go that they had to design encounters with the assumption that you're using those add-ons. Which then means you have to use those add-ons. Okay. Yeah.

Most, nearly all other MMOs draw a line in the sand somewhere that is before that. So I would, the weird thing about that is that like, why wouldn't Blizzard have eventually just incorporated those as quality of life features into the game eventually, right? Well, the add-on that tells you where to stand to break every single boss fight.

Oh, like that. Oh, I thought you meant, okay. Because when my old roommate used to play like wow and stuff, there was a lot of HUD organizing stuff. Yeah, no, now we're in the HUD nightmare in which it'll overlay where all the boss's attacks are going to land. Oh, wow.

And it will call out to individual characters what spot to jump in. Jesus, yeah. And it's like you're basically doing a dance that a robot tells you. No, no, no, that's not what I meant. Okay, that spot to jump in Jesus? That's not what I meant that a robot tells you no no that's not what I meant Okay, that's crazy But but I could the whatever 14 does for example is they look at what's the most popular add-ons? That people aren't supposed to use ban the people they catch using them and then roll them into the next patch

Because you're not supposed to use add-ons and ff14 it's against the TOS Okay, but that doesn't mean the devs don't know what add-ons in FF14. It's against the TOS. OK. But that doesn't mean the devs don't know what add-ons are being used because they're popular. Yeah, I think the part where the, I was thinking of when you were describing how with 14, the bit where you have a role to play and this is how you fulfill that role.

And if you are subpar at that like this is a problem like you are a problem and Yeah, because like there's a straight expected line of performance and you know the way that a game like 14 gets around it is that like you have multiple orders of difficulty and It's like if you're doing a normal or easy difficulty thing then it doesn't matter You're gonna you're gonna you're gonna fucking beat it like you could be the shittiest motherfucker in the world You could be you'd be playing one hand doesn't matter you're gonna you're gonna you're gonna fucking beat it It's like you could be the shittiest motherfucker in the world You could be you'd be playing one hand doesn't matter, right? But once you hit certain like what it would essentially be a challenge difficulty It's like why are you even coming into the challenge difficulty if you're not here for challenging content?

Right. Yeah the why did you join up with me at the Super Battle Opera 3v3 tournament? If you don't know how to play Street Fighter? What the fuck are you doing? Well, so what it actually sounds like to me is playing rock band where you're like, oh, the person on bass is dragging the score down, but everybody else just has to play it perfect. And if someone fucks up one note, everybody's that much closer to game over or whatever.

But there is a thing to that, admittedly, where playing that in a room, playing rock band in a room with other people, and you're all hanging on, and whatever, different difficulties, is there's attention and fun to that. But if I had to queue up with 30 people, and everybody had to play their instrument perfectly, that would just feel unfun and angry and frustrating.

That's the difference between the two there. And then I watched about an hour of a different 90 minute video by Nakey Jakey who put out a video called How Counter-Strike Took Over My Life. And he basically goes into detail about the reality of queuing up and the way Elo works and Counter-Strike and describing how like he won his 10 placement matches required to put himself into the Elo through 3,700 of 30,000 and loads into his first real match. He's excited to do it. And there are two guys on his team that are sniping people through fucking walls and flying around and shit. And he's like, what? God, God damn it. What the fuck?

Yeah, that sucks. And he won, of course. Yeah. Yeah. No. Interesting. Yeah. Well, so yeah, online multiplayer is a crap suit. I mean, if you're, if you're in a situation like this, where again, like it's the, it's the point of what they're going for with night rain and you know, the, the experience of having two people just shit out and disconnect on you because they grief and be like, fuck you. I don't want to play with you or whatever. And then the game scales down to be like, okay, enjoy yourself alone.

That's good, right? Because if you have someone being a bit a piss baby and then being like, fuck this, then you can still enjoy and play and have the game scale appropriately and enjoy yourself doing that run regardless, you know? So, but the time was where you make it to like day three or whatever and something like that happens.

It becomes way, way, way worse and much closer to a waste of time, for sure. In any case, we'll see how it goes. But I don't mind the idea of this Dark Souls arcade bit, especially seeing as we all know that truly this is FromSo soft in their like Refractory period you know yeah allow them some downtime to make some quick bucks with some you know little online only Experiences and it'll be fine though. I'm sure they'll drop a insane

Multi-year narrative at some point again in the future, but hopefully not anything like what they just did because we don't need it. Yeah night rain this Saturday. Okay let's take a quick break. Yeah let's do it. Beer B. Alright let's take a quick word from our sponsors. I love sponsors so much dude I would hug and kiss every sponsor. Give me here. Give me here like that This week Castle Super Beast is sponsored by Shopify Yes, yeah, just please stop telling pat to stop kissing us just just Just kiss some money cha-ching Choo, you know what man don't you know what let's say don't kiss money money's filthy if you're gonna kiss it at least

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... A lot of the stories have your shot and your chaser, you know? So there's a part two to a lot of these. Hey, how about this one, for example? Addie Shankar sat down for a podcast with Kenny Omega. I say I've seen this. And they got to talking about Devil May Cry. And in the conversation, we had a moment that, you know, it's kind of like, I just saw the clip and I was like, oh, I think I know,

I think I understand all of it. I think I can zoom out. He gives the game away. He gives up the grift. I think I can zoom out and just orbital view the situation in its entirety. Absolutely. So, in the podcast, he says that he was unhappy when Devil May Cry 5 was announced because

it took spotlight away from the Netflix series. He thought the franchise was dead. I thought I was bringing it back. Right? Yeah, he didn't know the Devil May Cry had five, that that was even happening. And so in the in the in the quick clip, you kind of can get a gist of like the idea that originally he thought this was a niche thing that was dead long after four was going to say. And this was going to bring it back into the into the spotlight. And so now that it was coming back with five, which was a big triple A thing, it was like not as he was like upset at the idea that

like, Oh, he thought he was bringing it back. You know, well, wooly, if he had known DMC five was coming out, he should have instead gone with street fighter, right? Which also has a game like there's also movies and Street Fighter adaptations that have been happening for a while. It's just done Street Fighter so I could save Street Fighter. Street Fighter 6 is out right now. Yeah. There's you don't even know that.

But there's but but so then there's like human there's a mention of like oh like Dino Crisis or something. And like you kind of start to think about like, oh right when you see like a tweet with like Blazblue kind of start to think about like, Oh, right, when you see like a tweet with like BlazBlue kind of thing, you go, it's the thought that and I here's what I suspect because there's because there's the follow up here, right. But it's the thought that I imagine if you're like, you know, in the Hollywood world and like, with talking to producers and you're

that's how you're around and stuff. When you say a name like BlazBlue, a bunch of people around you are going to be like, what the fuck even is that? That's crazy. That's the deepest cut in the world. You know? And if you are somebody that likes these IPs or franchises or attached to them at all, and you've been following them, you're kind of just like, what? Yeah, no, that's here it is. It's been here. That's a thing. We care. You know? But I think in a world where like, oh, you're going gonna make a video game based movie? Is it Minecraft?

Is it Call of Duty? Then why even bother, says Hollywood. You kind of have this shift in perspective on it. The follow up was then after enough people saw that and went, what the fuck? You are mad at the idea of one of the sickest entries coming out and saving the, you know? Oh no, I did it and it was already successful, shit. Oh fuck, I needed to be the savior.

So there was a clarifying series of tweets that he put out to basically elaborate and explain that, let's see, that effectively the idea is that if he wants to get involved with bringing a franchise back, he doesn't want to grab the ones that don't need the help. If something is already popular, then it doesn't need a spotlight on it versus- I don't believe that for a second. I don't believe that for a second.

Versus something that is more quietly forgotten for a while that might need to be put in the spotlight. Right. If he meant that he wouldn't have said then he would have done Street Fighter instead. So, you know, and then again, there's the Dino Crisis like you like mentioned there. In reiterating it too, he says, when I saw DMC was thriving again, at the time, I wondered if maybe my energy would have been better spent resurrecting a property from Capcom that needed my help like Dino Crisis, Dark Stalkers or God Hand. Worlds I love that have been ignored for too long. I wanted to give the spotlight to worlds that need a boost. Like Street Fighter. He also blocked and deleted a bunch of shit over the fact that people

were like, but you said this. When I joked- Here's a video of you saying it. When I joked that I should have done Street Fighter, I didn't mean I regret making DMC. I meant that if I were choosing between AAA, Mega IP, I might as well go after the biggest. But that's not who I am. I routinely turn down giant titles to focus on stuff that I care about. Don't believe that for a second. I don't believe that for a second.

I think that initial, if that were explained initially in the clip, I think this would have been taken a lot differently, certainly. But I would say that in that conversation, just kind of going like, I got mad when devil may cry five came back Because I wasn't the saviour of it. That is a petty ass vibe to throw on top of those man and like That the wording of it. Anyway, the clarification afterwards It's different energy and it's that's a more understandable version of it. If you believe it. So the thing is that this would also be different too if we were looking at an adaptation that was like that faithful or cared about the source material in a way that didn't just

trample over things. You can really feel resentment on DMC5 watching it because it wasn't supposed to be here. So this is what it comes down to, I suppose. Again, if I'm thinking anywhere in a cold, if I'm coming at this with no outside influence on it whatsoever and you are making a judgment call one way or the other, the idea of these being the worlds that you care about and stuff like that would mean being... You don't have to be slavishly faithful, but you would be more respectful to the source material than the DMC anime was. And yeah, if you're mentioning that you are, these are worlds that you care about in this way, but like these are the things that you're

discarding and people that do care about these worlds are not recognizing the characters that you have on screen there, it doesn't really lend are not recognizing the characters that you have on screen there. It doesn't really lend credence to the idea that you care about these worlds in this way. Therefore, you don't get the goodwill on it. When the clarification comes out, where people are going to necessarily buy into that, unfortunately. Yeah. So like he, he wants more, he like, like remember Addie Shankar's Castlevania? So one, it puts fucking context of like, well, why Castlevania? Oh, because I can save Castlevania. Well, what did you actually do on Castlevania, Addie? Were you a producer or did you just kick in some money at the end so you could

get a producer credit. Yeah. That was one of those ones where like, initially I've been going around kind of just thinking like, oh yeah, that was the name that was associated. And it's like, no, no, no, Warren Ellis, that was, he did that. And there was a whole bunch of other people as well, sort of involved. It's not quite as cut and dry as,

this is Adi Shankar's Castlevania, you know? And that was like, oh shit, huh? I just bought into the marketing drop of that, you know? Which- I will tell you one thing. I want to be the guy who saves it or else I'd rather not do it or have it happen is Very big Capcom Capcom has dealt with this energy before Capcom has dealt with at least That it be like I would rather kill it Off then have this my name on it oh my god they've had

this before dude at least about one of those guys oh man there's been two oh man that's super true it's me or nothing is a fucking problem they've had goddamn okay Everybody knows who those two guys are. I mean, look, in addition to this, again, Street Fighter has been getting its adaptations and will continue to as we are finding out that Roman Reigns is slated to play Akuma. Sure. Sure. All right.

You know what? Okay, I'll see it. I'll you know what? Okay, I'll see it You know what I mean who knows I I think that I have been like Like I think I've just I've been I'm too deflated on live-action Street Fighter to ever care about it Even when the good ones happen because it's like, okay you have the which ones are those so well That's the problem right? Cuz it's like, okay, you have the- Which ones are those? So, well, that's the problem, right? Because it's like, hey, Raul Julia was cool, but, lol. But then you make a ton of money,

and then you have Kristen Krueg, which is fucking, yeah, that happened. And then, now there's like, no, but then there's the ones that a cool stunt team made, right? There's the shorts or like Assassin's Fist, or, and I'm just like, yeah, at this point, I'm just, I've been beaten up too much, much man I can't even I can't even tune in I would like a

Street Fighter live-action that treats the material with 1% more respect than Street Overlord and if we can't get that, that I don't want it. And I'm still waiting for it. I'm still waiting for it. You know, it's just we don't... It can exist. It cannot exist. It's fine. It's there. You know, it's just, I think the ship has sailed is kind of what I'm getting at. Because for everyone that's told me that like Assassin's Fist is actually pretty good for a web series, you know, I'm like, yeah, I guess. And that's where that'll go.

It'll be a web series that had a cool Street Fighter thing, I suppose. You know? Okay. It's not like a film thing that like even will never whatever I don't need to get into the whole like films don't need to exist to elevate things that don't need to be whatever You know like the Street Fighter 6 is there. It's fine. We're good It's you know when I so when I hear like our Roman Reigns gonna play a kuma. I'm just like yeah, okay, you know I Was last excited for Street Fighter story content with Udon doing their run of some

of those comics. Those comics are great. There were some really fun Udon takes on some stuff. I think, I'm not a big comic book guy, I don't read a lot of comics, but those Udon comics have my very favorite single panel in the entirety of anything I've ever read Which is cami opening the door and see and Chun Li No Chun Li opens a door and sees cami in a room and then you turn the page and it is Her tackling cami out of like an eighth story

Sick oh, yeah Absolutely no lead-up all. Just ah. I respect the fuck out of that entire series for the page one issue one is Charlie getting killed and then Charlie gets resurrected as shadow and dies again and fucking has and you know gets beaten and then comes back from the br- Like he has his multiple nonsense deaths make- be a part of the story in a way that's like Oh yeah, why did Charlie- Charlie show up in Alpha and then Alpha 2 and then a 3 and did Guile meet him? Did he not? It has it all working, the- the nonsense of- of all of that They had to really try pretty hard on that, you know, um Fucking wild and and then yeah, and then other little fun things where you're like

Oh, here's Omar Doga and doing his run on like a little Ibuki comic You want to see Ibuki being the ninja schoolgirl having fun? Hell, yeah, let's do it. Let's have fun You know, so yeah, I I legit enjoyed that plus the the Udon backstory comic for Akuma was actually like pretty fun, you know, like they go but they go into like young Akuma in a way that I was like Yeah, this is this is good. This doesn't destroy the character or do anything too embarrassing or you know Chinese Happen to Akuma would be more embarrassing than everyone he's ever killed survived What could ever happen to Okuma would be more embarrassing than everyone he's ever killed survived. I mean, incoming actual BFFs with Elena, right?

In the story mode, they properly set it up so that in World Tour he's like, hey, he's not even that evil to begin with. And now the meme is real. He truly does just hang out with Elena. You know? And further reading into that is like, her power is being friends with everybody and she's really good with nature. Therefore, right, if someone is like a beast, then it makes sense to-

That means Akuma's a wild animal. Akuma's a wild animal and she can talk to wild animals too. There you go. Done. Done. Anyway, so there was that part And then that was not the only foot in mouth as last week we were discussing Randy talk Randy shut the fuck up

So larian Steps in as we get the quote here. I think that Larian making BG3 and then getting to win big game of the year and then using that platform to tell everyone to shut the fuck up is like my favorite, favorite possible outcome. The fuck up is like the my favorite favorite possible outcome so the first recap for anybody the last time Randy was talking about the $80 pricing of you know games going in more expensive and then

Mario Kart world and all the switch stuff all these all these increasing game prices over the the the new generation And he said if you're a real fan You'll find a way to make it happen, and then everyone was like, dude, fucking come on, right? Just crazy Ken back from the dead. Just a tone deaf ass fucking thing to say in a situation where people are struggling. And the yeah, Michael Douse of Larry and basically said to that effect in response, real fans are people who love and understand what you do and will keep track of and engage with your shit regardless of how much they spend.

And then they asked him if, you know, Baldur's Gate three would ever have like an $80 price or something to that effect. And he said, even if it did, we would not probably suggest people do whatever they can to buy it, lest they not be real fans, right? Absolutely, ridiculous. Because the second part of it was after Randy said that,

it's like, also the publishing arm and other people will decide the price, so it's not even like it's up to those individuals or so. Yeah, that should have been your first answer, dumb shit. But fucking- I don't set the price, the publisher sets the price. And now that that's established, hey, too tough shit, I don't disagree with that price maybe is a

wild way to **** go with it. You know, like I don't set the price but if I did set the price, everybody who works with you would need to learn discipline. Learns that when the when the customer is really mad at you and and they're like, this is fucking bullshit, you look at them and go, I know it's bullshit, but my fucking boss, he wants to hit these, you know, I'm doing the best I can. And every single person in the world goes,

yeah, you know what, you're right, it is your fucking asshole boss, it's not you. You get the out. You really decided to go, no, it's me, it's me. You get the out of being able to be like yeah, we don't decide that shit. Unfortunately It's just the other teams or whatever but instead yeah, I know you're like fucking defend the corporations back off

Right the fucking just like insane wild like why are you going to die on this hill? Why are you gonna stand in front of that and be like no actually the pricing is fucking is not a bad thing. Deal with it. Be a real fan. I am. Yes. And then the end of that was also it does continuing inflation exists.

We give inflation bumps to employees for example to to our employees price increases make can make sense He replied on social media but saying that real fans will find a way is gross because it assumes your game is more important During a cost of living crisis Than say making it day to day, right? That's it. That's it. That's all. It's just it's not that hard to fucking Click these two things together and go it's the worst it's been Trivial don't be like yeah prices go up tough shit, you know it's it's so you know like You know to be fair to Randy Pitchford

He does have like a long history in game development and prior to game development, he worked in a lot of like Renaissance type like prop work, which is really interesting. So if you'd want like a better idea of like how he got to where he is right now, you can look on Google for Randy Pitchford medieval times and then you will you'll get like a decent history of like the type of things that he used to be up to hmm I see or you could just go back to episode 2 of this podcast I was so fucking funny when we were looking at the archive channel and it was like oh

wow right at the beginning right at the beginning Thanks for thanks for sending this boat off Randy really appreciate it. Yeah Yeah Anyway, it's just there's a weird part of it where this is kind of like you're not supposed to say this quiet part out Loud here, but hey also I know that we love and play these video games. They are not actually that important This might be this might be a wild take here, but don't say that they're actually not that important You know what's more important?

food rent And babies You know and people will make not the best decision sometimes to get something that they really care about in a video game or something sometimes. And like, yeah, that sucks. That fucking sucks. That's not a good thing when that happens. That's not like, oh, wow, you're so fucking hardcore.

You wow, you're so fucking hardcore. Wow, look at you. It's a bit of that orphan crushing machine mentality. If you tell me how much you had to sacrifice to buy the fucking premium edition $120 version of your favorite franchise game. All right. Foots continuing in mouths.

Just you can't stop sucking on those toes. Getting in between. I don't like that what you're saying to me, Minoko. I don't. I don't. I want you to stop. We're getting in between the toes on this one. I mean, I actually like the wording of it because to follow We're getting in between the toes on this one. I actually like the wording of it because to follow up on the marathon story, the latest

Forbes article from Paul Tassi who we talked about last time, the title is, Marathon Isn't Cancelled, But It's Bad, We Even Have to Ask That. Oh man. Yeah, so Sony's pulling advertising for it for the entire rest of the year. It's very, very, it's here. Okay. On a stage on a, on a, on, on the, the scale of like released to die to canceled released to die has been removed and now the lowest we are starting at is definitely delayed. Right. Yeah, so it's either Sony saying we're not gonna throw good money after bad with the advertising or it's delayed.

And now as far as confirmation goes, what was it? So yeah, Colin Moriarty says, I was told by someone familiar with the marketing plans in a key overseas market that there are now no plans to do paid marketing for Marathon at all. I don't know if those plans were affected by what has recently happened or if that was always the plan or whatever, but it is considered a fairly unusual move for a game of this high profile. Yeah, it's fucking weird.

And so it is basically almost certainly delayed. We don't know about cancellation, but that news that recently hit. And if it was like everyone was like glowing with their discussion of the gameplay about it, that'd be one thing. It would be different. That'd be one thing. But it was already rough going. And then you had this massive like the entire game's aesthetic. The one thing that was the saving grace in my opinion

that I'm hearing is stolen from somebody else and Like the person themselves doesn't have the energy to sue you over this But it's enough that everyone's talking about it company is like oh my god. What the oh geez you know Also, what's here's here's what happens right? I think whether or not the game is cancelled or not is going to depend. We'll be able to intuit based off of one factor, and that factor is how many days do we go after the plagiarism scandal before we see the game running in any way whatsoever at all? Because if it goes like a month and we literally haven't seen the game at all, it's like, oh, they stole so many assets that they have to fucking rebuild like the

whole fucking goddamn game. Right. Like that it's plastered on everything. The entire thought about the last stream where they had the art director on and they weren't showing footage at all. If the idea is that we don't want to show it because what if we show anything that is going to be stolen? You now have such an unmitigated disaster of how you fix this on your hands that yeah, if you don't delay, at what point does the cost just become not worth it? And whatever you replace it with, I guess you can do things that remove the artist's name and actual tag and shit from the game, but do you then just replace it with like other generic bright colored versions of that? Because now it has to be

like significantly different. You know what this makes me think of? Like really strongly, this makes me think of my favorite question I have ever heard a reporter ask in my life, which is Mr.. Trudeau How many more of these photos are going to surface to which he said I don't know and the follow-up question And the follow-up question Mr. Trudeau, can you round it up to the nearest five? So

I'm going to have the assumption that someone at Sony went and spoke to somebody at Bungie and was like, okay, how much of Your assets are tainted by plagiarism and someone said I don't know I I'm guessing actually that A number of the folks are like, okay. Look, it's not that bad We have a couple textures here and there we can deal with that and then the legal team is Looking and they're going, plus the person said, the person said they're not gonna sue us, so whatever. And the legal team is going,

ah, and they're freaking out and running in circles going, it doesn't matter if they say they're not going to, you can't actually have anything here be stolen. Now, you don't know. You can't. For five years. It is a, right? Oh, is it making money?

How's it doing? All right, gangbusters, wonderful. wonderful or not like the liability of having a sort of Damocles over your head That is we are selling thousands if not hundreds of thousands of copies of a stolen asset fucking game, right? By the way, I have to tell you remember bungee doesn't have Right, right, right the team that's gone. would be yes. Sony's lawyer. Yes. Yes. Okay. And the folks who were involved the last couple of times, they stole shit, right? Right, right. So Sony's lawyers are saying how much of this stuff is stolen. And they go, I don't know, like 10 things. And they go, what do you mean? You don't

know. And if the person that did this is in fact gone they might not actually know at all which means it all has to be done over the whole thing okay so the question I have is this how long until if not have it or has it has this already happened? internally someone goes You know, we can just stick these textures into mid-journey and just go make them a little different You know and then get the output spit You know and just drop the output right back into place where they were I wouldn't even be surprised If that conversation has not already happened right back into place where they were. I wouldn't even be surprised.

If that conversation has not already happened, how soon until somebody looks at the bank account, they look at the numbers and they go, drag that whole folder. We don't have time. Drag that whole folder, take the current, okay, the problem with the plagiarism is that it was targeted to one person. What we need to do is omniplagiarize in all directions

to model the situation. I think that if a lawyer has gotten involved and you are explaining to them that you getting in trouble because you cut corners and you're going to solve the problem by cutting corners harder, they're going to look at you with that look that lawyers give you. But that look that means that they explain to you what their billable hours are. However, we are currently, as you just described, cutting to a legal team of empty chairs. Perhaps a stuffed- So it'd be a different company's legal team, in which Sony's legal team is about, hey,

I want to insulate Sony from legal liability. I would like to imagine the legal team is a stuffed plushie of the arbiter, just propped up with maybe some glasses to look smart. Oh boy. Yeah, all right. We've moved from human plagiarism to the plagiarism machine. I hope everyone's happy with this.

It's not good. One might argue it's bad. But hey, listen, that solution that we might see, I don't know if we're going to see it coming down the pipe for for Marathon, you know, but this is clearly working its way in other industries because have you heard about the spoke Kishi Hibae Rohan the live action Jojo? I have not. Okay, so the Rohan TV drama series is they've got some movies and it turns out that those are there's two of them that are out and the yes, the composer of the films came out and proudly announced that AI was used for the entire soundtracks of the films, not and then they even go on to elaborate, not partially or a little bit, but entirely. And they were used for the rock, paper, scissors kid, for the episode RPS kid

and Rohan at the Louvre. And it's like, man. To place this on something involved with Eric, he seems so outrageous and so offensive. So this is why this is the pit, right? Because one, the proud nature of the composer coming out to be like, yeah, no, totally. It was awesome. We totally did it. It was not partially, but entirely AI generated, right?

You're like, cool, So why do you exist again? What's the point of your job? Just wondering, you know, whatever. But Rohan in particular, not Jojo, right. Not even the Araki a bit in, you know, Oigo Boigo. So the Oigo Boigo Brothers Adventure, like they have their little like comic book where like shit's happening in that little in that book, right? Rohan initially likes the artwork being that's showing up that like Oigo Boingo is doing and is like this is he's impressed with the work as a as a mangaka. And then he finds out that it's not him doing it, but it's the stand that draws it. And he fucking hates it afterwards, and he switches to being like, oh, fuck this thing.

This is garbage. Rohan in Jojo switches over to hating the work when he finds out the stand is the artist, not the individual. What the fuck are we doing, man? It couldn't be more thematically on point oh god yeah no it's great it's great um this took place in the Oigo Boingo Brothers adventure book it was it was it's just you like of

all the works to do this to you the one about the artist is crazy Anyways, uh, hey beyond that not much else, you know, um mortal combat one We hear the player's request for continued game support but yeah, no Do you? There will be ballast of judgments and fixes, but there will be no longer any DLC or story chapters released from this point on. And we want to focus on the next project and shift things around. Oh, I can't wait for Injustice 3.

Oh man. Oh yeah. I had a conversation with Reggie, you know Not too long ago and it's just one of these bits where I'm like I got I get upset around MK announcement time You know, we're looking at things going like Okay, like there's the part where you're like, yeah, this is a game this franchise It's gone popular and there's there's been examples of them having a game that's fun to play

It's impossible to make a Mortal Kombat game that is fun and has stuff going on Yeah, no, they know that a couple times in the 90s but there's a there's a deep just anger and frustration that you that comes out of me and and He was like, what's the deal? Right? And I remember is it was over I think we're flying back from somewhere and I was explaining I was just like it's because they always get Everyone's attention they do the job that other games struggle to do in terms of how many people tune in to see the new announcement

because of what fatalities are and what that represents to the genre. And the whole thing of the legacy of the title, right? It gets more attention in one day than fucking Street Fighter, the king of the genre gets over the course of a year, right? And every time it gets all these people to show up, it does absolutely nothing with them. It does nothing for it.

It just sucks because it has such a good opportunity to win over hearts and minds and they never do because they just don't give a fuck You know, here's a $13 fucking Christmas fatality now get out. I Just don't I like who cares when you're showing me how many people should watch that trailer on day one When this is what happens every time it it fucking oh man It is not fair. It is the Drake of fighting games.

Oh my God. It is bringing in a whole bunch of people. Oh no. It's bringing in a different group of people as an audience that are showing up that are like, yo, we're here for it. And then what do you do with it? And then what? You know? And anyone here want to check out any of this other shit? No? All right. Well, at least Mortal Kombat says that it's for adults on the box.

All right. I'm going to put you on Mortal Kombat timeout for that one We're putting up the fucking hourglass on that All right, um and beyond that Just another fun thing, but I've been keeping you've been keeping an eye on this punishing gray Raven shit You've been keeping an eye. I've been Virgil. Virgil be your little girl wife. I've been, I've been, I've been squinting. I've been squinting and looking at this thing because really and truly it looks like the people who make punishing gray raven have immense amounts of love and respect for the source material and are doing

the most incredibly faithful job of bringing these characters to life and doing them justice. And in particular, you're seeing like, oh, here's him sitting on the plastic chair. Here's all this artwork. Here's all this little fun bits and shit. And then just seeing the conversations that the characters are having that are like important canon material taking place outside of the games. You can have them talk to each other. You could have your little Virgil dating scene where he talks about, you know, the power of your hearts and so on. But uh, one interaction in particular that was fucking choice is Dante talking to him

going, so who is that person? Virgil goes, what? He goes, come on, you know, that woman, you're his mother. And he goes, I'm very, uh, I'm very curious about what kind of woman can win Virgil's heart. Maybe we can, when we see Nero again, we can have a big old family dinner. Ha!

All right. And then Virgil, not too much happy about that, replies, where was it? Oh fuck, sorry. God damn it, I just lost it. Ah, I can't read this, get in there. Oh, yeah, and what about you? What about those women around you?

What are you going to do with them? And Dante goes, I take back my question it's great that's great perfect yeah he can dish but he can hoes Dante what about them? Oh, I want to talk about You shut up never mind All right, um We have letters we have letters, let's do it Send it a letter to cast auperbeastmail at gmail.com Make it a good letter

You got to wonder if Virgil has some inner fucking like burn salve he's applying ever since I'm not your mommy V Like he's got to be extra pissy at Trish. You know what I bet the cope is on that Like, he's gotta be extra pissy at Trish. You know what I bet the cope is on that? Like the massive super cope? Well, that wasn't even me. Nah! What? That didn't happen to V.

That doesn't count. Yeah, that guy. You know, good taste in poetry, but embarrassing for him. That's a totally different guy. Couldn't be me! Nah. for him that's a totally different guy nah also the the other the other discussion being that like how many STDs those Virgil now have from getting plugged into the klyphod blood machine and having zero but everyone's blood all filters back into the into the roots into him so now he has taken he has cancers and diseases he has every blood-borne disease you can possibly have

you know inside his demon blood fine you know he's fine maybe you know, does demon blood heal you from blood diseases or does it amplify them? All right, I don't know man, he's either he's probably completely fine or he has all of them and they don't do anything Okay, let's take one over here Libro says hello caboose and Papoose one over here. Libro says, hello, Caboose and Papoose. You currently got a Papoose, so I can take that for the dump truck, whatever we want to do. That's fine. A few days ago, while talking to my brother about how I mentioned a dead game like Heroes of the Storm is pretty balanced actually since it gets about two patches a year, players had time to figure out viable ways to play almost every hero. So my question is balance or innovation? Do you think that it's better to push for new tech and improve bad characters or wait

for changes to come and fix them? Maybe a little bit of both from Libro. I think League patches way too often. I always forget how often and then someone in chat mentions how often League patches and I go, oh my God, that's way too often. I think it's like six weeks. Yeah. A lot of like, like I've seen many players get upset at like fighting

games that patch themselves every month or so, like shit. That's too much. Right. So here's the thing. Okay. League patches every two weeks. Okay. That's fucking ridiculous. Yeah. No people who like people who play like these games a lot, like it gets, when you, when, when you you when you learn a lot and then it's all irrelevant in 30 days that what's the point right is a really shitty feeling to have now we have also had the alternative which is you get a balance patch maybe before you die sure yes and it's called by the game again it's a super next to it yeah and this

is what games used to be certainly there was arcade versions of things that then got replaced for a while, but then stopped when a port happened. And that was that. So my old soul, I remember and kind of do want the dust to have time to settle. That is true. But I also know that like games are different now. In fact, media is different. Ongoing excitement that is paralleled online is just changed what these things are and how we enjoy them. It's, I can't say that I think it's out and out better, but it is just different. And so you have to stay on top of things more frequently than we used to, but it can't be more than once a month

or even once a month, that's too much already, right? And to take this into another medium, I would almost say that it reminds me of how JoJo part six getting dumped onto Netflix sucked because people kind of want that weekly journey through the series and the communal and or like progressive experience of going through it is much more enjoyable than just the binge, you know?

So it's, things are just not the way they used to be. And you can't just dump and forget it now, you know? I think once a year or twice a year is probably the best, personally. That works, that works. I think, you know, when you add a new character, of course, there's always things where people have to do little tweaks to fix bugs and whatever. But yeah, the major patch is being like, okay, new season, all right, fine. I'm okay with that. Okay, we've got one over here from Joe who says, dear female Corpo V and female Corpo V,

I wanna hear your Cyberpunk 2077 gang tier lists. I barely know a goddamn thing anymore. It's been like a year and a half since I played it. Okay, I got some quick answers because there's a whole bunch of them. You got the Sixth Street Patriots and Aldecados and all Tiger Claws and all of them, right? It's wraiths, etc I have the ones that stand out to me are

One I say the voodoo boys are sick because that's the Ptiti the the Haitian hackers that are like Getting into that deep deep old web shit. They're basically going from the Voodoo Boys, like the real world of dealing with the occult and magic and dark, scary things, the equivalent in the cyberpunk world is dealing with the Black Wall and evil AIs out to murder people. So they're dealing with the cyber equivalent of Voodoo,

which is awesome. I love them, I think they're great VDBs up top Animals are they're just like about getting ripped and then fucking pumping iron and just punching shit And they want big gladiator or Ritas to do it in so cool. I admire the purity and I admire the purity. And the mocks are also pretty cool, because it's like, yo, what if all the sex workers and street girls just went,

how about we fucking chrome up and kill the pimps though? And now we're a gang. And you're like, okay, yeah, cool, got it, done. That's top three. And then just on sheer aesthetic, shout outs to Maelstrom. They look like doom cyberdemons and they fully lean into the aesthetic of yeah, we're basically monster freaks. Like we're living in this cyber world looking like what you think a bad guy would look like. They commit to the bit so Maelstrom can get it. They're all on board. And similarly, Valentino's, on just the chromed out

fucking shiny aesthetic, gold all over the place, they are embracing the future and becoming as cyberpunk as possible. I think both of them are not cowards about it, and I respect that. Scav's on site. That's it. I don't remember a single one of those.

That's yeah, not any single one of those. That's yeah. Not a single one. There you go. Owen asks, hey there beasts of the castle. My favorite part of apocalyptic media is the beginning. News reports, debating with neighbors, loss of power, unexplained disappearances, etc. But what is the best way to maintain that awesome feeling of dread so that it doesn't just turn into an action flick?

I have no idea. I can think of World War Z, the film with Brad Pitt, is really fucking mid, except it actually shows the exact second that the world goes from totally normal to completely fucked. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. The thing with that is though, the opening montage of everything slowly falling apart, it's sped through. And I'm like, over a Muse song, unsustainable, which is great, but those are the parts you actually want to slow down to see the turning happen, you know I feel like there's different ways to go about it because on the one hand Like if it's all in the competence of the director in making the threat that continues into the apocalypse seem like Ongoing right? So the road is a great example of holy fuck depressing

It's all awful and every every time another person might exist, you are terrified, right? And a lot of that has to do with how helpless your main character is against the threat, versus whether they have the competence to fucking John Wick their way around the apocalypse. So I'm thinking of those examples where, these are, okay, these are not the... These are not sterling examples of good horror, but whenever the threat can only be escaped

from and you can't really fight against it, that's a kind of easy way, I imagine, to maintain that feeling, but that's not enough to make it a good movie. Like Bird Box. I'm not a good movie. Like, Bird Box. I'm not a big fan of that. Bird Box. I'm not a big fan of the invincible threat. I was about to say, the movie where you can't look at the monsters, right? Bird Box.

Yeah, like with the blindfolds or whatever, is like an example of like, they're so unstoppably strong there's nothing to be done about this, right? You're just fucked in a way. is like an example of like they're so unstoppably strong, there's nothing to be done about this, right? You're just fucked in a way. And that's, yeah, there's no, it kind of breaks the entire bit because you're like, there's too much there, right? You definitely want a little bit of push and pull.

I think A Quiet Place does a better job of that, where you're like, this is super busted OP, but like learning the game a little bit, you can start to move it in your favor but you have to you have to you have to balance that well you know and write a good fucking movie I mean there's also the annihilation way which I you know like I don't need to get into whole thing cuz I did I fucking didn't like it but like a lot of people did but I will say one thing about that where you're going into an unknowable weird dome of who knows what psychological shit's gonna happen to you

There's still a like you can't really fight back against this right is kind of the overall vibe But yeah, no, I think I think the road is like yeah, there's there's other humans out there actually post fall Run you are from them terrified of the other humans from them exclusively You are from them terrified of the other humans from them exclusively. Mm-hmm Mm-hmm. Just that's you can you can do it. Well, you know, the child is not doing fucking gun reload combos Cool all right All right, well that's the end of emails which means we're gonna segue into a short segment of spoiler cast for Expedition 33's act two ending. Spoilers start.

Not now. No. Well, you know what? Kinda a little bit. A little bit of a DMC spoiler cast. A little bit. Not quite exactly. Yes. Expedition 33. Little bit of a DMC spoiler cast a little bit not quite exactly Yes expedition Hontois there we go. All right starting now. So let's let's just let's just focus up exactly

Exactly, where are you at in the expedition 30s? I have completed act 2 I have begun act 3 and I have started doing activities around the world. I have done a couple of personal dungeon. I've done a personal dungeon quest for one of the team members. Is that the Reacher? I did Lunae's personal quest. You did Lunae's? Okay.

And then I fought a couple of the new super-chromas around the world. Some of them are fucking nuts. Yeah, yeah. So that's kind of the deal. So super chromas around the world and some of them are fucking no Yeah, yeah, so that's kind of and that's kind of the deal. So I know what's going on we know what's going on and why we're here and It's we know what the deal is now now you're just in now you're just in the end this end game rolling it through And if I can say right, okay, so one The wild thing about act Two of this game, to me, we were kind of talking about it before,

but it feels like as soon as Act Two begins, Guillaume leans in to the player and basically, all DMC players, and he leans in and he goes, hail Hydra. It is a hail Hydra moment for devil may cry fans, right? I also want to say that Gustav is my fit. I alluded to this earlier, but it wasn't like super specific Gustav's fake skills on his fucking skill tree is my favorite use of the interface as an fucking skill tree is my favorite use of the interface as an anti-spoiler I have ever seen in my entire life. I'm looking at those unlocked those locked skills

like oh man yes he's gonna get like a near oh man up on his arm isn't that insane that they showed you a bunch of shit that wasn't like that that's next level on it, right? It's so amazing It's so perfect. Okay, so I have so we're you know, I without doing them or whatever I'm looking at some of these bits and there's things there's still mysteries I don't have but I'm there's some of them are scratching on the gist. Yeah, the gist of it now Yeah, like I'm looking at Monaco and I'm like, I know exactly who you fucking are. Right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He goes, ow, ow, ow. And I'm like, oh yeah, you love feet, do you? You mean you're insanely loyal companion that carries his fucking stick everywhere? You love fighting and you're super down to like you're obsessed with feet. And then you run into this side room and we don't know much about the fucking pupper God damn it. It's I'm like, of course it is who else would that be in that family, right? Good stuff there

You know though the Lost Odyssey vibes are Immaculate when the battle theme I'm humming in my brain Sounds like it's from a sequel to that game that doesn't exist. Yeah Unbelievable through and through. And I might have had a word or two to say, but Cyrenne was just... Cyrenne's great. I loved it. I just fucking loved it. I'll tell you what though. I'm very happy. So I did Visage first and Visage is really cool. Me too. Sequence is really,

I did Visage first as well. Yeah. And I ran into a problem with the game. So the game, there's two types of ways to do multiplication in your game. If you have a 30% damage boost and then a 25% damage boost, you can either have the characters attack be 100 and have the first number multiplied by base attack and then the second number multiplied by base attack separately so you have a total damage of 150% or whatever. Expedition 33 says, no, no, no, no, we're just going to multiply everything by everything

by everything by everything by everything. So what happened was is Visage got to attack me once. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah. And you also weaken it by doing the side stuff, right? And so, yeah, I crushed it as well. I pulled all my gear off. I pulled all of it off.

And I'm like, because if I don't, I'm not gonna get to see this boss at all. And lucky me, I didn't. And so but the thing is, is we all want ballot row numbers, ballot row numbers feel good. Right. But and that's why it's so exciting when you get to the paintress and run wall and like stage two. And the game goes, I am just assuming

you are going to hit these guys at, at damage cap on every hit. That is the assumption. The progression knows that by the end of act two, there was, they're, they're, they're thinking that you're swinging for 9, 9, 9, 9 on each hit and allows the fight to balance itself around that speed. So even taking out Renoir Handley, when he comes in and does shit like, makes one of your team members vanish, right? Or you have the Patress who like, you struggle even getting damage cap on her

because of the way the phase works. It's well thought out, right? And then- And then they give you the power of breaking the cap that you can turn on and off at will, which is important because wooly, when you go to the top of the Reacher, when you go to the Flying Manor, you put that painted power in the trash for a second because we are talking about the difference between a damage cap number of 10,000 and a damage. My highest right now is my L hit somebody for 2.4 million.

Okay. I hit something. And it's like, millions. Yeah, I hit for a million. I hit for a million on something and I saw I'm like, oh, okay, because basically what happens, right, is the cap comes off and the game says, we get it, you're used to it,

now go out there and re-examine everything you've got because you never found out the real numbers, right? When something says five hits, medium damage, or two hits, high damage, you don't know what those actually mean. Yeah, no, extreme damage means extreme damage. So it's time to pull everything off and re-examine all your skills.

And that's where I'm now like, this is what's weird. As the game having taken, making me go through it to find what the real numbers are on things. It feels like also, cause we just fucking killed the Patrecyn, the whole thing went down. You're like, this is new game plus, right? It's like they took new game plus

and made it part of new game. So it's really strange. Cause I did. There's a there's the big scaffold tower on the Northwest Bloody Palace. No, the scaffold, the one that's made out of sticks and twigs and shit. Okay.

At the bottom is something called the crows. Oh, crows. Yeah. Okay. I did the crows. So that thing is called the Reacher. Yeah. Okay.

Right. That is the personal dungeon for Mael. OK. You go there and you do Mael's personal dungeon, right? Yep. That thing, I must assume that at one point the game had some of these things as part of its critical path.

Because that thing assumes you're doing 10,000 damage per hit. OK. I put on auto death bomb and nothing could have a fight with me until I hit the boss. And then if I had hit the boss with painted power on, I would have smoked it with a million damage

and I wouldn't have fought it at all. Lunae's dungeon, her boss didn't swing. It didn't get it. No. Her boss didn't. I just evaporated the fucking thing. because even if you're not doing enough damage in that first hit you're also stealing turns because you have fucking picked Those to let you do that right and you have cheater you have cheater like I have oh I got used cheater. I have I have it on and I have Verso doing three turns in a row

I have Verso doing three turns in a row. Like I'm getting to S and then immediately just fucking trouncing. I have Verso right now on a build where he doesn't use his skills at all. I have Verso on a basic attack build where he just stacks infinite amounts of burn. And infinite amounts of burn with a damage cap removed is like a million burn damage a turn Yeah, okay the hilarity of seeing that skill that's like you power up your next attack No, it's a skill that gets boosted in damage and by how many shots you took up to ten Yeah and you like you take ten shots and use the skill and watch as like, all these elaborate big animations to go like,

oh, 500,000 damage. And then this one thing is like, boop, a million, it's such a simple hit and the numbers go flying, you know? It's a real wild second or third act to this game. And yeah, you also know the deal, so you feel differently about the world. And yeah, you also know the deal, so you feel differently about the world.

It really does just feel like a New Game Plus epilogue. You know? The context of the world has dramatically changed. It's gone from a society crumbling, like the stakes are different in every stage of the game, and they're all about grief. Sophie's gone, I have to make sure that it was worth it. Gustav is gone.

I have to make sure it was worth it. They're all gone and none of them were real. I have to make it worth it. Isn't it such an interesting like ethical bit where you're like, okay, so how are you going to choose to look at this? Cause I can see where some people playing this are gonna be like, oh yeah, well, who cares? They're not real, right?

And like, you can do that, but it's like, these are clearly- It's gone on for too long. It doesn't matter anymore if they're not real or not. The elaborate, the power of what a canvas is, is to create a world. I don't care how petty it is to you from the outside or if you're like almost like looking at a robot and kicking it around like it's not real. These are real people with real lives over generations. It's crazy. You know? Also, the fact that I think this game can be fairly

accurately summed up, I did not come up with this. I've seen people say it and it's so dead on. Okay. The middle child, Daryl passed away in a tragic fire. Mom and dad are fist fighting every day whether or not to delete his Minecraft server. Like, like, like that. Like it actually does have an actual real life analog. Yeah, that's wild. Mom just sits around and plays Minecraft on Verso's server all day, and she's getting sick, and she's like, we need to turn this off. And the whole family, the whole fucking family

is screaming and fighting and coming to fucking blows over it. And she's just locked in there, you know? And you wanna talk about those most attack on Titan world shape learning the reasoning moments. Cause I'm like, I always wonder, I'm like, what is the aesthetic of how you've chosen to depict the Patress and how you've chosen to depict Blagommage?

And the idea of like, she is just sad and telling everyone how much time you have left because it's all I can do is fucking phenomenal, right? Because I'm holding them back over here. I'm holding them back for real. Sorry, that's all I got, right? There's still some questions I have and I want some clarification. So the role that Clea is playing is interesting in seeing how she works into the situation. Right? So she says it very directly in the flashback in Paris. Yeah. Which is Paris, by the way. Yeah, it's real Paris, yeah.

And it tells you what the sequel's going to be. So that's like, oh, the writers. The writers guild. The writers guild, yeah. So that's where I was like, oh, other expeditions? That's a dumb way to waste of a sequel. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, let's do art. The fucking writers are out there. What are they up to? Like oh other expeditions that's a dumb way to waste of a sequel no The fucking writers are out there, what are they up to oh the musicians you say huh? What are they?

Right now we get like flat-out mom and dad are fighting and mom is always gonna win because she's a better painter But I figured out a way. Yes stop chroma from getting to her. I fucked with XP Share. Which is like, you can, it said a little more explicitly later, but there's enough that I was being sure we were able to figure it out then. Chroma gets eaten up by Nevron so it can't go back. So yeah, there's a moment where you get to get a further part two of that. Like you go to a location and you get some more context from her. They just tell you this is like the never on the never on are what are keeping

the chroma from going. And that by, which is why they're all different arts, all the different enemy types in the game clashing with different arts and the stupid little tonal difference between how the sad morning serious people of Lumiere and the goofy little fucking Gesturals doing cartwheels those are painted by a child and fucking Esquire is your invisible best friend So good, of course he makes no sense a child made him He's the strongest character in the world And he doesn't afraid of nothing! He'll protect us!

He can fly! And Childs... He's always there when I'm sad and he gives me a big hug! And Child Superman is also involved in the saddest, most tragic like moment with Ciel and you're like, this is insane! Like it's so good. I, the escalation of the story becoming this solid while enjoying the game is fucking just, oh, I did not need the story to be as great as it is.

I've seen some folks say that they're not a big fan of how the focus goes from the people, the Lumarians to Vers, to the family. The family, okay, the change. And it's like, but the people in Lumiere were not the focus. Gustav and Mael and their grief over their lives was the focus. Then it was Verso's grief over a life

that he doesn't even live. That's it. And then it was Mael's grief over her her whole family just completely falling apart and just dragging up all these little Minecraft characters in with them. Gustav is about to give up ten minutes in just over being overwhelmed with loss and remember he's hot off of Sophie just getting fucking whooshed right like? Like the, that's it. That's the main character.

That's the focal point. You're following that around. And when it shifts perspective and what it does to Maiel's understanding of the world is super fascinating as well, right? Because you know that feeling of like, God damn it Verso, you asshole. You're not answering stuff,

but we know you're not, but, ah, right? Because you're the worst and you're a massive liar and a complete piece of shit and a traitor. The thing where in a lot of settings you go, you knew the whole truth all along and your way of dealing with it was like to dance around and kind of like push people in the right direction, but not quite give them enough context, right?

Yeah, because he guards truth with lies. And now you're kind of like, what is the conversation going to look like when you tell a bunch of people that they're, quote unquote, not real? Right? Yeah. No, they don't like it. And then you do that and they come back from death. And Ciel and Luna are like yeah I don't give a fuck you should have told us asshole okay one you should have told us to if we're not real and you can do anything that it's time for you to

start doing anything right now I mean wow I don't have to abide by the fuck wow death then you're gonna bring my fucking parents back, you're gonna bring back my fucking husband, you're gonna fucking do that shit. Like, okay, like literally, like it's almost like, and what, like what do you want me to do? Like, okay, so what? Like who the fuck, like at this point, who the fuck cares, you know?

What a great response to like, ooh, oh, you're actually, you know, like it's just like, no, no, no, no, no. My favorite things about the game. My feelings are real, I'm here, my memories are there. I don't give a shit, man. I'm not there yet. I beat the Reacher, so I'm a little farther. But one of the themes going on over and over and over

between Renoir and real Renoir and Verso. That's the confusion points I have. Yeah. And Maillel and Alicia and Alicia, who is Maillel and Aline and Clay and all of them is all of them talk up how why they're doing what they're doing and why it's for the right reasons and why they had to do what they do. And every single one of them is a hypocrite liar. Every single person is doing the thing that they want to do now for them.

Verso? And then they justify it after every single one. Is it is it someone saying it to Vers, or is he the one that says, you're doing this for Gustav, I'm doing, like, there's a line that kind of implies that people only care about their, well, you know, the relative point of view they have, like you care about who you care about, and-

And I'm doing it for my mom. I'm doing it for me, yeah, I'm doing it for my personal reason. It's like, well, it's not even your mom, actually. So like that there's a line that is that comes out of someone's mouth that just straight up says that. And like the argument between Renoir and Verso and like Renoir isn't real like Renoir the villain for most of the game was made to be that way. So this is where the confusion that I need more context and well I guess we'll find out later has

is the fake Renoir versus the real one and the idea of the mean one is how she thought of him but he was still acting, you know, against her interests. The trick is is that like the Claya and the mom like this is an unflattering portrait of Renoir. It's not. Like you would think that the only thing she did was she completely copied Renoir exactly. His soul, his mind, how he would do everything. The only thing she

changed is his situation. She took him from over here and put him over here. And the insane destructive drive that I have to protect my family no matter what is which family? Is it the real family out in the real world or is it the real family in the fake world that's not real? I didn't get that vibe from when we met him there. I, but like more, I feel like context will come from the furthering that conversation. I'm, I'm, I'm like Renoir.

Like painted Renoir is I have to protect my family. I will do literally anything to protect my family. Yes. He keeps talking about that. Yes. Including killing everything. Everything. It doesn't matter. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Right. Real Renoir is I will do anything that I can do to protect my family, including killing everyone in this setting, including you, Verso, because you're painted also.

So the thought is that like, because this is where that line comes in, where he's like, he wants his wife and child back right yeah, and I feel like there's an unsaid but perhaps Part of this conversation is he doesn't consider any of this to be real no It's nonsense is fake exactly and and that's the that is the big disagreement point where it's like for those that look at This as a just a channel for grief and none of it matters. Who cares? Turn, put your, put, shut the server down. Shut the fucking Minecraft server down. I don't give a shit.

What the fuck are you talking about? And Myelle is over here going, no, it's real to me! Because I lived it and I literally have two memories of this moment, you know, that are equal, they're fighting each other in their importance. It's like, oh, the power of this thing is, can't be overstated because if you can come out of that as a painter and be like, I care just as much for what's in here, that is real, you know?

The other thing that's, it's not clear. It's really not clear, but like, Aline and Anwar and Clea and Alicia outside the painting, don't age. It is unknown to me how much time is taking place there and how much time is taking place here. I mean, when they talk about hundreds of years or thousands or whatever and it's like-

Yeah, but that's in the painting. Yeah, I go paint time is different. That's what I'm assuming, right? It has to be. Yeah, of course, right? You can't sit there and not eat forever and just go, ugh, right?, yeah, of course, right? There's, you can't sit there and not eat forever and just go, oh, right. So yeah, we'll find out and all that, but no,

and, and Cleo is like kind of like the hard ass sort of nature of things being super practical about it. She's the golden child. She's the oldest daughter. You're like, you're, and you can just, you're like, okay, you're being pragmatic, but that's not what the situation calls for. And the fact that when you talk to her at the fucking tower

and you're just like, oh, oh, you're, you're like, there's a point early on where you're kind of like, I hear what you're saying, but you can be a little more sympathetic. And now you're like, nah, fuck you. Like I've heard, you know, yeah. So we'll see where this goes, but then we'll leave it there for now.

Act three on its way. I will say it does feel development wise that the game was built in a certain way. Like most of act three either didn't exist or was either it didn't exist at all and you were just gonna go right from act two right into Old Amir and Fight Renoir or a lot of this shit was mainline, like critical path.

Like Reacher is the most critical path thing ever. It should be the location you go to right after Act Two. I can't believe it's optional. But it ends up feeling like the world of Ruin. It ends up feeling like they ended up with a lot more time to make a lot more game. And we're like, okay, here's a battle tower. Here's this extra dungeon.

Here's this dungeon. Here's Renard's drafts, which is go wander Go wander around and find yeah I'm waiting to find out the deal about Verso and the like what actually went down to see it's like why is she treating? Alicia like such a piece of shit. What did she do? How bad beat the Reacher? How bad was it? Right that is that because it really feels it really feels like it's like Alicia like such a piece of shit. What did she do? How bad was it? How bad was it? Right?

Because it really feels like it's like. Cause you talked to my Ellen, she asked the most important question of the game, which is like, why did mom draw me scarred up from the fire still? Okay. Yeah. So everybody else gets to be their best selves, except for me.

It, you know, and I'm kind of in the dark on that right now. So yeah, we'll have to go learn but that the impression is you're like she's being fucking insufferable to her. Family fucking sucks. Family is complicated. They created an entire matrix like universe of people. Incredible. D dump their trauma onto forever. Also, we have magical God-like deific powers as artists. Now I want to play piano though. But you're from the now.

It really shows off. Hey, why? Like, cause the world is so strange. Tiger mom. So slap dash and so broken apart and all that. And it's like, oh, it's an it's an amateur. This is what an amateur would paint. Man, it's like a 12 year old shot. And like you see what mom paints, you see what dad paints, you see what Clea paints. And

you're like, Oh, yeah, so didn't know what the fuck he was doing. No, like, you know, you got you got the Father and the Holy Spirit being all up in in the business of creation And then JC is like man. I want to go DJ actually One of the manor doors you can find leads to a Dial it says unknown but it's it's it's Renoir talking right one of his law. Oh, yeah, I found that one I found it. Yeah, and he starts talking about how like art what art is Yeah order in the world and everything means something and like they all just stand around talking about how like who know? Ah is that kind of asshole who does not?

Understand that you could paint just to do it just to make happy little trees and a nice sunset Everything has to mean something and it all has to be so little trees and a nice sunset. Everything has to mean something and it all has to be so fucking deep. And the characters are all like, ugh. And you learn that Aline is actually the talented one and that she taught him. He's not even that guy. It's her. It's not a spoiler to tell you, but like when Raul is like a joke compared to fighting Aline. Like even with the damage cap still on, like he's not his wife. It's so funny. She's the talent. It's so funny. She taught him and he's all waxing

poetic, you know? Wonderful so far. We will like, we'll see where we go from here. All right. Spo spoiler cast over. Take it easy everybody. ["Spring Day's Theme Song"]