Get Played - Kingdom Hearts

Episode Date: June 17, 2024

Description: Matt opens his heart and shows Heather and Nick the light of the Kingdom Hearts franchise. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @getplayedpod. Music by Ben Prunty benpruntymusic.com. Art by Duck Brigade duckbrigade.com. Check out our Anime watch-along podcast Get Anime'd and our complete Get Played, How Did This Get Played? and Premium DLC back catalogue only on patreon.com/getplayed. Join us on our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/getplayed Wanna leave us a voicemail? Call 616-2-PLAYED (616-275-2933) or write us an email at [e-mail] Advertise on Get Played via Gumball.fmSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a headgum podcast. Hey guys. Hey Matt. Matt! It's actually, it's actually, it's not Matt anymore. Oh! I just, I've joined. Oh, okay!

I've joined Organization 13 and actually the Matt that you once knew is not here. I stand before you as his nobody, Xtam, and I want you guys to join with me in organization 13, and I wanted to see what you guys think about that. All done. Yeah, I'm, look, I'm very suggestible, and I have joined a lot of things over the years, but I just want to do a little bit of due diligence. So let me just punch into Microsoft being

a what is organization 13 real quick. I want to go a step backwards beyond that and just say like, hey, X Tam. Yeah. You know, I don't want to dead name you here, but like this, your new name is, that's, I could be wrong. Isn't it Matt X backwards No, it could be it's just it's a so what happens is when you become a

member of organization 13 you want obviously you don a black cloak right you see Zip up I look like it's like a leather zip up cloak hoodie thing. Yeah, you have like a weapon that's kind of like reminiscent of like your personality. Right, so this all matches everything I'm seeing on the Kingdom Hearts Wiki. And then you have, your name becomes an anagram of your name with an X in it.

And obviously Tam being an anagram of your name with an X in it. And obviously, Tam being an anagram for Matt, not the best anagram, but it's what I got, you know? And so, and honestly, let's think of me not as the same guy, I'm a different guy. I'm a separate guy. What exactly do you do in a Organization XIII? Because, like, again, I'm really interested in this weapon, but so far I've heard cloak and I scramble up my name.

What do you mean? What do we do? We're organization 13. Look, I'll just say last time I kind of joined an organization, Sight Unseen, I ended up going up to the Capitol steps on January 6. And I'm now kind of just facing this criminal conspiracy prosecution that's really kind of just taken my whole world for a spin. So I don't want to just enlist in something again, that's going to end me and land me in federal court. I've joined the Freemasons, Scientology, and Nexium. And I wanna know what this organization offers that those three didn't,

because those three didn't work out great for me. Well, I guess the cloaks are included. You don't have to pay for the cloak if that's what your concern is. Okay, okay. You get the cloak for free. So you get the cloak, you make a weapon out of something you like and then you get a crazy name. Yeah. And that's it.

And where you know, all we have to do after that is, you know, seek out keyblade wielders and, you know, try to manipulate events across different worlds and conduct experiments. But that's other than that, it's like really, it's really, really chill. You could have like whatever hair you want. Okay. I thought maybe this was the organization where I'd finally get to kill Donald Duck.

We're not so much, I mean, you could, if he comes across us and we have to, you know, take him down, we have to take him down, but. So you're saying the main, maybe the main thrust of Organization 13 is the murder and decapitation of Donald Duck. Because if so, I'm in. Hey, sorry, I'm back at a step away for a second. I just I was getting really fired up for this.

So I grabbed my Viking helmet and my Tiki torch. I'm fucking we don't need that stuff, but I'm glad you're on board. I'm not Weiger anymore. I'm ex-Irwig. Let's go. We simple and clean as Matt discusses classic series, Kingdom Hearts in this week's Game and Tell episode of Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between. It's time to get played.

I'm your host, Heather Ann Campbell, along with my fellow host, Nick Weiger. Hi, that's me, Nick Weiger, and I'm here with our third host, Matt Apodaca. Hello, everyone. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the premiere of Video Game Podcast, where Matt has something special for us in store. He's finally going to introduce us to his favorite games of all time, the Kingdom Hearts series. This is a format we've done in the past.

Game and Tell is when we bring forward and elevate and celebrate a game that meant a lot to us. I did one episode about Street Fighter III. Did I do an episode about Out of This World? I don't remember. And Nick did- I don't think you did, no. Nick did one about, I think it was like a lengthy RPG that like was really intense

and probably involved a lot of like city management and puzzles and like probably a language that you had to learn in order to engage with the game. Cause that's the sort of thing that Nick likes. Yeah, no, it was actually dream daddy, a dad dating simulator, but you were close. But yeah, this week Matt's gonna game and tell us all about Kingdom Hearts.

But before we do that, we all always like to talk about the other stuff we're doing, the games we're playing in a little segment. Also, in case you're like, why is Heather doing so much lifting today? It's because our boy Nick Weiger went to the dentist and I'm trying to take some of the luggage off of his trolley.

I'm trying to take some of that, off of his trolley. I'm trying to I'm trying to take some of that. Some of the slices of beef off his sandwich. I'm trying well, real hard to like take the flat tire off his car and replace it with a spare tire. Who's the spare tire? Remind me. Remind us, Nick. You went to the dentist because they were rehinging your jaw for what reason again?

Okay. Just to make sure that beef, the beef on my sandwich is okay. Yeah, no sandwich has been made better by removing beef. No, we, we did. It's time for the question we ask every episode, which is, what are you playing? What are you playing? Hey, it's me the Resident Evil merchant and I'm always the guest right here right now To ask you quit what?

What I don't know you caught me by surprise. I'm always the guest right here. I guess so It's not it's not untrue unt, just the phrasing of it made me laugh. Do you have other people on the show right here that you record more than one episode a week? We don't. We don't typically record more than one episode a week. No, we try to be kind of weak of. Yeah. Alright. So I am always a guest right here. Yeah, I guess it's true.

Yeah, I think that's fair to say. More often than not, I would say. Nick, are you on Twitter? So I was pretty active on Twitter for a while, and then I took a month off in, I want to say 2022, August of 2022, and then I just never returned because I was like, you know what, I don't miss this. It was that late?

Yeah, I think, like I kind of think my life is, but I was pretty inactive by the time, by you know, I kind of like stopped regularly using it, my use of atrophied a little bit during the pandemic. And I just never returned to it. So, so I guess short answer, no, I'm not on Twitter currently. Okay. Well, then that explains why you won't reply

to my ads. Yeah, I don't know. I guess some of these were screen captains sent to me. Also, I think to at I think you need to you know, include a username. You can't just say Nick, are you there? Like you can't just type out my first name is taxed. Oh, yeah. All right. Well, I'm new to Twitter. So I didn't I didn't know how any of this works. Anyway, time to get on. It is. Oh, man, they got, they got a new boss over there. He's shaking stuff up.

They made the likes private. Yeah, I heard about this. I also heard that, you know, apparently that these days you get online, you get on X, the new platform, and people will just, in your replies, you'll just see porno all the time. People are just sending porno is that true? I don't apparently I've heard this second hand. I haven't received that sounds like an absolute nightmare. I haven't I haven't gotten any of that night.

I think it's best I kind of besieged by porno bots. Oh, man, guess I gotta engage more. Anyway, I'm a doctor. What do you plan? Well, thank you so much for teaming me up because I have two huge updates. Wow. Here they come. Well, first of all, we're recording remotely. Is that guess is it worth saying? I had about the novel coronavirus covid-19. I'm doing fine. Yeah.

For safety, we're recording remotely. Totally fine. But because I've been down for safety or recording remotely. Totally fine. But because I've been down for a couple of days, I do want to stress it was very mild and I feel fine and I'm OK. Inconvenient, but it was fine. Yeah, I had time to really sink some time into some games. OK. And because all my plans changed, because I had to stay home and over the weekend after Summer Games Fest

Well, first of all Sam Lake ahead of and like the main director at Remedy games they make Alan Wake and all those games control presented did a presentation showed off the a trailer for the night Springs DLC for Alan Wake 2 and Announced that it was coming out the next day in 24 hours. So the next day Saturday I'm booting up my ps5 checking in on Alan Wake to download that update and I play through all three episodes of The night Springs DLC and the night Springs DLC what it is is it's three individual stories That are sort of like what-if stories Set in the world of these games so in one of them you play as the fanatical waitress Character who is like obsessed with Alan Wake in a very very funny

All of these are hilarious for the most part. This one was super funny because she has, she's insane. And she thinks she has this like special connection to Allen Lake and thinks they're in love and they're not. But she goes around this town. It's basically like a bullet, like frenzy thing where she's shooting all these enemies and stuff. And she, I had like basically unlimited ammo. Like it was like, I had at one point like 500 shotgun shells and the game wants you to just be firing at

all at all times. There's that one. There's one where you play as Jesse from Control, which was really cool, in a sort of alt version of the story from Control where you're trying to find your brother. And then in the third one, you play as Sean Ashmore, the actor's character, Tim Breaker from Alan Wake 2, who is supposed to be his character from the game Quantum Break, but which was an Xbox only release. And so because he can't be in other stuff, Microsoft owns that character and that IP. They changed his whole deal and just made him a different guy

with the same stuff. It's wild, it's so meta and so funny in the game. That one is the best one, I think. That was just incredible and so well done. And I really loved it. And I'm eagerly awaiting the next DLC, which I think might be story DLC in the same way that the controlled DLC teased

Alan Wake 2. So we'll see what happens there. But that was only like three hours. It was they're all very short is the thing. But in the last couple of weeks, you know, I've been back in on Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and yeah, I stopped with stopped to try to do all the side stuff. Just wanted to get through to the main story and I finished it and it was, it's unbelievable.

It is, like I've spent so much time with these characters and this world because of playing through all the, playing through all the games, like obviously the original and then remake and then jumping straight into this. So these characters are so important to me and so special. Yeah. The story is so special to me. It's very exciting to see the, um, the subversions that the story takes in this,

in this remake, uh, version of, of the story, right? Like obviously in the first one, there's some stuff that is a little different in in this one It's no surprise there's stuff That's a little bit different But the way that it blows out the story too and what in what it sets up is so cool And in and I'm just like I'm just blown away by I thought it was really amazing I thought I liked this one more than I liked Remake and I loved remake a lot. I think this is a better game. I think this one more than I liked remake, and I loved remake a lot.

I think this is a better game. I think this is like it's it's like it's I mean, potentially like an all time game, honestly. And it's the second disc of the of the game. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, it's it would be like saying disc to a Final Fantasy seven is one of my favorite games. Insane thing to say. But I do sort of feel like that. Like it was like really unbelievable

and just so well done in like the stuff that you remember from the original that hit super hard in those moments because you spend so much time with the characters, hits hard in a different way in Rebirth. And I was just like, I was so happy to be done with it, kind of, but not like I want I, I kind of want to see what else is going on with with these with with the world.

I know that there's a couple of games in the series I haven't played like Dirge of Cerberus. I don't think anybody recommends I do this. Nobody. I don't think anybody thinks that's a good game Or crisis core to exclusive People seem to like crisis core fine, but nobody is like emphatic you got to play crisis core But I like these characters so much and I loved this game And I was really really happy I played it and then while I was finishing it all I could think of was I wish you guys had finished it with me

oh that's a very nice sentiment and that actually makes me feel like like dog shit but just cuz I do I do wanna play cuz I yeah I do really I loved Final Fantasy 7 original obviously and I loved I loved the remake it just didn't get a round of playing rebirth it's a chucky game but I finished your thought I I loved Final Fantasy 7, the original, obviously, and I loved the remake. I just didn't get around to playing Rebirth. It's a chunky game. But I finished your thought. I finished it at 102 hours or something. Like it was...

Yes, that's what scares me, is just hearing how huge it is. And the last game I tackled of that length being Baldur's Gate 3, which I played through twice. I was like, man, it might be a minute before I commit to something that meaty again. Yeah, it was tough to do. And obviously it took me a little bit longer than I had intended.

But all that to say to the combat is is as good. If not, there's stuff in it that I think is better. It's a little more fun, a little more action packed. And I love it. And I'm not done with the world of Final Fantasy. I am back in Final Fantasy 16 trying to finish off the Rising Tide DLC before I jump back into Elden Ring. And folks, that's it for me. Who would like to go next?

Well, yeah, I want to if you were to receive a PlayStation 2 game, do you have any way of playing it? I have a PlayStation 2. But I don't. I mean, here's the thing. I probably would just try to play it on my Steam Deck. You know what I mean? Oh, okay.

It's just I have to, if I'm gonna play it, but. So like if you received, if you received a copy of Dirge of Cerberus in the mail, you would be like, oh, I'd rather play this on my Steam Deck. I would find a way to do it. I have a PlayStation 2 handy It could it could happen. I could play it on on the correct hardware I don't know if I have a monitor now. You don't have a monitor that has let you hook up

Yeah, has the wave to let me Do it but man, I love I love this just just making me think of how aesthetically pleasing the PS2 slim was. That's the one I have. With a tiny guy. It's so fucking cool looking. It's really good. It's like the size of two DVD cases as I don't know if we could tell we could at one point, probably no one would be interested in this topic. But just talking about the aesthetics of various consoles, if we dig deep on that,

because like that's one of my favorite ones just to look at as a piece of hardware. Because it's because the PS2, I mean, let's save it for the episode. The regular regular PS2 chunky big. It's a chunky boy. Then they fit all that in a thin guy in a little one. I love I love when they stuff the guts into something real small. Well, I'm going to request that you phrase that differently in the future, but. The best way to learn a language immersion, living where the language is spoken and using it every day.

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Thank you so much. I'm happy to have my life back. I've been really busy the last week. You know, I'm back in the office in person. It's a lot of work. So I've played like, I'd say four rounds of Fortnite and that is it. That is all I've had the opportunity to play. I will say Alan Wake is in the shop in Fortnite.

Oh, wow. Wearing just like the plainest suit. He looks like he doesn't belong in the game. Like, cause everybody else is like in like neon and like, you know, skateboards or they look like they're from the wasteland. Alan Wake's showing up in like a tweed suit. Yeah, he looks like a professor.

Yeah, he's a professor. So Alan Wake's in Fortnite. His suit costs $40 I think, or his skin costs $40. Good God. Really? I think so. Wow. forty dollars good. God really so Wow That's a lot of money to be able to play as a guy that kind of looks like my dad Just a normal man. Yeah, just a normal man with a beard But that's all I've done. I've had a couple round. I guess here's a I

Mean I ran into a listener and a battle bud from the Discord in Ranked. Oh wow. Which was kind of incredible. I don't know that I've ever come across another player that I know while playing Fortnite and they were on the, you know, we were playing solos. And so that was pretty wild and made me wonder

if the player numbers on the servers are inflated because it just seems so unlikely. But yeah, but I then soon thereafter, squatted up with the Needles-ass panda Walmenter Miss Funyun, like all the all the battle buds. I just want to give them a shout out. But that's it. Nick? Nick, what are you playing?

Heather, thank you so much for asking. You know, so I try so hard to avoid games on my phone I get so addicted to them and I don't want to be looking at my fucking phone But the thing is I'm in a few different group chats and people are always playing fucking New York Times games and so I got the NYT games app and I got to say This is a really slick app. It is I. And I do like the word games on it. We've talked about Wordle in the past. I was not playing Wordle for a while. I'm back playing Wordle again.

Wordle is very fun. And it's also a thing where it doesn't take a lot of time. But here's my rationalization. I have two rationalizations here and I recognize the rationalizations. I don't wanna be looking at my phone this much, but I am anyway. One is that, I don't know if this is pseudo science. I don't know if, looking at my phone this much, but I am anyway. One is that I don't know if this is pseudoscience.

I don't know if I believe this got discredited when everyone was talking about this back when brain age was the big thing on the on the Nintendo DS. But, you know, I have heard that word games, these sorts of things are good for the brain. So it's not like this is just it's not like I'm playing some pay to win fucking app game or I'm playing. I'm just, you know, again, I'm putting a bunch of time into to slay the spire or. Hearthstone like it used to, and whether I'm having fun or not, or Marvel Snap, I do feel like I'm just like the hours are blazing by. This has like kind of a finite endpoint. These are usually fast to play.

And again, it feels like it's, you're using your brain space productively, whether that's true or not. The other thing is that I just find myself like anyone with like an odd like three to five minutes on where I'm just looking at my fucking phone. And again, I hate this fucking thing. It ruined my life. You do shit every day?

Yeah. No, actually my phone never goes in the bathroom. This is absolutely true. Oh wow. Yeah, it's banned from my bathroom and from my bedroom. Those are two life changes I made that improved my quality of life overall. But I do find myself like, whatever,

I'm waiting in a queue or something. I was at the dentist earlier today, as Heather talked about. And I was just like, I've got a little bit of time to kill. I can hop on there and I can play Wirtle. I really like the mini crossword, which is just, if for anyone who hasn't played it, it's just a really skew, like fucking, in what's the opposite of embiggened?

And in small-end, a real shrunken like crossword. It's a real, real tiny guy. Yeah, it's kind of an M small-end is I think the best way to put it, crossword. And, but you could just rattle that out really quick. You can literally play this in like, It's kind of an M Smolland is I think the best way to put it crossword. But you could just rattle that out really quick. You can literally play this in like a minute or two minutes. And that's very fun and satisfying. And then also this other game, Connections,

which is just a really well-designed game. Heather, Matt, Ranch, any of you played Connections? Do you know how this works? I play Connections every day. So it's very fun. And it's just like, it's a, and Rachelle was nodding along as well. It's like, you know, you get, you have a four by four grid.

So 16 different words in blocks. And then you're just trying to find the connections between groups of four words. Now this game is new to me. So at first I was like, okay, all these words are five letters, but that's not how it works. It's a little bit more thematic than that. So it'll be like, oh, each of these four words

all represent neighborhoods in one city. And each of these four words all describe the size of something. And so like when you figure out how to categorize these things and some are more obscure than some are more obvious, that's a really satisfying reveal when you find out how these things are structured. So I have been spending some time

with the New York Times games app. I wanna touch on one other thing, which is not directly video game related, but I think has a game component to it. Oh no. So we're right now. All right, then I won't, nevermind. Well, no, I just don't know where we're going.

Hunting man. I'm nervous. I'm not, yeah, I was like. Anytime Nick's like. The most dangerous game they call it. I wanna talk to you guys about something that's not a video game, but is a little game I've been playing. Like, I'm like, oh no.

So what it is is you buy all these knives and you get other people to sell the knives for you. And then they get some money, and then you get some of the money. Sort of gamified in a way. and then you get other people to sell the knives for you and then they get some money and then you get some of the money. Yeah. Sort of gamified in a way. Anyway, no, I was gonna talk about, we're in the midst of the NBA finals and we're recording this episode after game two

and before game three. It looks like the Boston Celtics are going to win the title over the Dallas Mavericks. Who knows, things might change by the time this episode is released and two more games of basketball will be played. But anyway, I was thinking about this from a kind of, from a game design standpoint, because as has happened with all pro sports,

and Matt, you're the resident MLB head, the resident Dodgers fan, you have observed this happen with baseball, the money ball effect, the hyper optimization of sports that happened with the introduction of analytics driven by computers. And what has happened with basketball has happened with all sports is that things have been min-maxed

and what used to be kind of a diverse array of play styles has been, the term I've seen some people use is aesthetic erosion, has kind of like turned into just one ideal play of one ideal way of constructing a team and playing the game. And the biggest factor that's been influencing that in the NBA is the three point shot. Now the three point shot was introduced in the NBA

back in the 1979, 1980 season, I believe, but it was not really utilized. It was like kind of a situational thing until analytics underlined the obvious fact that a three pointer, a three point shot is worth 1.5 times as much as a two point shot. And when you think of that from through the prism of expected value, or the thing they'll say in sports is effective field goal percentage, you're in a better space by just attempting more three pointers than two pointers. And what's happened over especially the past 10 years, and the biggest example is the Golden State Warriors, though this year's Boston

Celtics are another example is that teams have revolved around having an array of players who can all shoot a lot of three-pointers. And basically the whole way to play the game is pace and space, drive and kick. So the idea is we'll play fast, we'll have everyone at the perimeter attempting three-pointers, and then the drive and kick aspect

is we'll have one player try to get close to the basket. When the defense converges, we will throw the ball out, pass the ball to another player who can attempt a three-pointer. I'm vastly simplifying everything because I know a lot of our audience does not follow basketball, but I'm just kind of talking about this in general terms.

And I'm going somewhere with this, I promise. What's happened with the finals is that Boston, who again is the favorite and has been the best team all season, has the most three-point attempts in the league of any team. Dallas, who is the probable runner-up, though they also could win the whole thing, has the fourth most attempts of any team in the league. What's happened statistically, and I'm calling these from a array of sources, but the team that makes the most three-pointers in a game wins about 80% of the time.

The team that shoots the higher three-point percentage wins about 70% of the time. And this to me is the most indicting of the balance issues with the league is that the team that attempts the most three-pointers, again, just attempts the most three-pointers, whether they're made or miss, has a win percentage about 70% as well. So again, just the most effective way to win a game is just to shoot a lot of threes. Part of that again, goes back to expected value, which is that, for instance, Michael Jordan, consensus best NBA player of all time shot 51% from two shooting on two point attempts for his career. The league average in the 2023-24 season for three point percentage, so the average player

shot 36.6%. If you run the expected value of a 36.6% three point attempt and a 51% two point attempt, it's more valuable. You're going to receive more points per attempt from a three pointer from an average player as opposed to, you know, you're gonna receive about a 1.9 points per attempt, as opposed to what you would get from a two point attempt

from again, the greatest player in NBA history. So some would just say it's kind of a broken game design and how do you approach this? About 1.9 to 1.1 points, I'm sorry, 1.9, 1.09 to 1.1 points per attempt for a three-pointer from a league average player and 1.02 points per attempt from a two-point attempt from Michael Jordan. So one idea I had about this, as I was thinking about this is, how would you rebalance this

if this was a live service game? I know. Because- I know. Because, go on, please. I would add a five point shot from half court. So that's one possibility, right? But then what happens if you add a five point shot is,

the issue is that that that again? Everyone is attempting too many shots from a line from long range Now the expected value of a five-point shot attempt like you know What is what is a 25% chance of that is one point two five, right? So now but the the the incentives have shifted towards let's just shoot as many five pointers as possible. And that becomes a completely chaotic game. One thing you could do. But that fixes it.

It'd be interesting, because now all of a sudden there's no reason to shoot three pointers. We're all just gonna be heaving half court shots the whole time. Most of any basketball game with people just completely missing. Yeah.

Yeah. And I haven't even gotten into another aspect, which is that the, there which is that because the basketball court is longer than it is wide, there's a corner three, which is a shot from the side of the basket, which is closer and thus players shoot a much higher percentage from a corner three than they do from what's called an above the break three. So I have a quote from Dan D'Antoni, who is Mike D'Antoni's brother, Mike D'Antoni, one of the kind of the progenitors of this pace and space

shoot a lot of three pointers approach. And Dan D'Antoni was also a coach in the NBA. The best shot in basketball is the corner three. The next best shot in basketball is any other three, other than free throws, which we try to do when you get to the foul line, you score 1.5 times every time you get to the foul point in the in the pros the other factor is if you get to a this is more Mike D'Antoni if you have a layup

or dunk attempt and that's not highly contested it's worth 1.8 points per attempt I did thinking probably you know you should about 90% if you're right at the rim it's 1.3 from the corner and so it's just like you're right at the rim. It's 1.3 from the corner. And so it's just like, you're just much more likely to average out to more points over the course of the game if you're shooting more threes from the corner and more shots right at the rim. Go ahead.

I've got another fix. Yeah. If you miss a three, you lose one point. See, that's interesting. Now the other factor is, and I like ideas like this, but the other factor that you run into, and Matt, again, you saw Now, the other factor is, and I like ideas like this, but the other factor that you run into, and Matt, again, you saw this with the MLBs, because these pro sports legs

are so stodgy and traditionalist, we're not talking about a live service game that's been around for three years, we're talking about a professional sport that's been around for, in the NBA's case, 75 years, in baseball's case, over 100 years. So it's not like, if you were just rebalancing this, you might say, hey, let's try making a three point shot worth two point five points.

Oh, you know, OK, you know what? That's that we kind of nerfed the three pointer too much. Let's let's kick it up to two point eight points. OK, two point eight feels right. But you're never going to fucking do that in basketball. They're never going to be able to market a two point eight point shot. So they have to figure out some other solution or just accept the game as it is. What about style points? Then you're kind of getting the NBA street sort of action sports. Somebody's

head and then slam dunk it. Then that's that's that's three points right there. The idea I like that I think is interesting and I don't know if they'll they'll ever attempt this. But if you took the three point arc and I was talking about the corner three, and you just made it run all the way to the sidelines, instead of having the corner three, you just eliminate that, so you have basically above the break threes, is what they're called,

is the only three point shot that's allowed, then all of a sudden you make it so that they're, it incentivizes more mid-range two point attempts. I think that's what would happen, but again, they'd have to play test it this year. But isn't it interesting, because like, I mean, gosh, I mean, I am the last person that should be weighing in

on this at all, but like. No, not at all. But I brought it up cause I was, I was just interested in it from a game design standpoint. As far as, as far as live sports goes, I would say, what would you say? Basketball, one of the higher scoring games? Like, cause like there's constantly scoring all the time.

Sports scores are routinely over, you know, a hundred. I think the average number of points per game. Yeah, I have the stats up. The league average number of points per game in 2023, 24 was 114. It's a very high scoring game. So obviously like optimizing the shots benefits the players. Right. But like in that it incentivizes them to try to to shoot threes

and, you know, get a higher percentage of of of a higher scoring percentage, let's say. But then the game to me functionally as an audience member, as a spectator, stays the same. It doesn't become more exciting. Whereas in baseball, when they implemented the pitch clock in the last like year and a half, that's made the game more exciting because games have been on average. On average, last season, games are like a half hour shorter,

which is huge in baseball because a lot of times you're watching a baseball game and, you know, even baseball fans will be like, this is let's put us out of our misery. Like, you know, especially for teams that are doing great. You're like, I kind of want to just get this get this game over with. But there's not like you either hit the ball in baseball or you don't, I guess, is the other thing. There's not going to you're not going to get a an extra point for hitting a home run.

That'd be cool. You automatic point and then you get to run the bases. That could be interesting. I don't know where I'm going with this. I guess what I'm saying is, the game isn't that different if they make the points in basketball different from a viewer standpoint.

It's maybe a little bit more exciting because people are going for maybe a little bit more exciting because people are going for it a little more and that's it's fun to see people go for it. But the score is ultimately going to stay the same. It within within the same range. Yeah, I mean, it's first off, it's interesting that that to talk about it from a baseball standpoint, I mean, it is in some way, in a lot of ways, a simpler game. It's an individual sport disguised as a team sport, right? It's pitcher versus batter is the fundamental conflict. And that's, I think,

the reason why everyone says that, you know, money ball is the example of the Oakland A's optimizing their team became the template for baseball. And baseball became a solved game first because it's a much simpler, a sport or much more straightforward sport to apply analytics to than basketball, let alone something like where the ball is always in motion like soccer or something that's got a bunch of discrete plays and really specific positions like, like the NFL. You want to drum up excitement in the MLB, you buy the best baseball player playing the game and have him be on

your team. And then you charge everybody in the stadiums to pay for that. Well, this is, this is another layer of, of sports and that why balancing them is so interesting is because team construction is another aspect, like things like the salary cap and the draft exists ostensibly for competitive balance. And with MLB, I know that those things have been skewed because of the way salaries are handled. And some teams just decide it's more lucrative to not compete.

I mean, the LA Clippers in basketball, which I know way, way better, was an example for a long time where they had a famously thrifty and racist owner who just was like, I don't want to spend any money on my team because we'll make more money that way. Yeah. And so I know that that's an issue too.

That's something in and of itself. But what you were talking about in terms of like, it again comes down to, goes back to aesthetic erosion and just kind of like the feel of the thing. Like I like watching three pointers and the same way I think baseball fans like watching a home run. So I don't really like think it's like a huge deal, but it has made it again.

So there's like kind of one way to build a team. And if a player can't play competent defense and hit three pointers, they really don't have, you know, any sort of place in the league. Whereas in the past, there used to be a lot more variance in terms of how individual players in terms of how individual teams ran their offenses and defenses and in terms of which players with which skill sets could potentially flourish at the highest level. So I guess part of the argument is maybe like,

hey, is some variants in play styles just kind of more interesting to watch? In the same way that like, it's kind of like in Fortnite, sniper rifles were completely OP and everyone at the highest level was just using sniper rifles. Yes. And like, yeah, you could mess around with other guns

if you wanted to for fun. Yeah, OK, so, but that sort of thing happens. And then they update it, and they, you know, they nerf sniper rifles or whatever the fuck, or they nerf drop rates for sniper ammo, whatever things they do to kind of make it less powerful. But again, because sports moves so slowly in terms of adopting rule changes,

those things are less likely. I was about to give maybe the worst example possible. I was gonna say, it would be like if you went to a live skateboarding event and Tony Hawk only did the 900 like 10 times in a row, that would be boring. And then I was like, no, that'd be the most amazing thing you've ever seen.

But I mean, anyway, I like, I guess I didn't really have to say any of that, but I was just, I've been thinking about it more because it's just like, none of us have ever had to say anything we've said on this. I don't know. I just, I like, I love video games and I, and the NBA is the one sport I follow and basketball. I've watched most of any, any sport over the course of my life.

And it's, yeah, the rules have changed over time, but it's just kind of interesting to see the state of the game now versus where it used to be. And again, there's kind of just kind of one way to play. And is there any way that will be addressed or will they just sort of say, like, that's not really a problem? We don't really. My favorite. Some of my favorite rules in in sports are like the very like arbitrary ones

like you can't have this color shoe or whatever, or like that type of that type of stuff. Oh, yeah, I love that, because it's like, come on, what do we do? What do we do? I like how I like how in baseball the player the the managers were uniforms. That's my Every sport cool. I wish Every job did that I wish you had every fucking boss had to dress like the people that work for them And cosplay as the working class but

CEO of hot dog and a stick has to wear the uniform that'd be honestly that'd be really really good I agree that's how it should be I've never been to a live basketball game Wow that's a hoot I'll take you they got hot dogs you should totally go yeah they got plenty of hot dogs many as you want I mean it'll charge you an arm and a leg but that's no problem for me, baby. Nothing gets between me and my hot dogs. Name your price, I say, when I get to the hot dog vendor. What would it be like? I did this is this is maybe an article that someone at some,

you know, like I would not write, but like, if, like, if, if people, if I was a kind of person who wrote articles, it would be interesting to survey like multiplayer designers from like who work on like live service games, like Fortnite or League of Legends or Apex Legends or CSGO, whatever. Just like survey them and say like, hey, here's some balance issues with pro sports.

How would you possibly address this? And I just kind of get some off the wall ideas, and like, I don't know, hey, a touchdown is worth five points. I don't know, what would that do to sports? I do, for some reason, think, having watched some football in my life, the points are bad in football. I don't think they're good.

I think seven is maybe too many for a, is it seven? It's, so it's six for a touchdown. You can score, you can kick an extra point for one point or you can throw or pass, throw or run an extra point into the end zone for two. I don't know how I'd fix it, I guess. I guess I want. So it's so one

basically one touchdown equals two field goals with three points but the extra point makes it so that you have to you know it's it's it's more than... What about a points multiplier? Right like so if you do let's say you do a field goal that's three points right but then your second field goal in a row is worth 0.5 more. So then every field goal you do in a row is then, you know, it's then one point, maybe not 0.5, because then you're going to go in the negative direction. But then if it's like 1.5 more each time or something.

So now I'm driving down the field and I'm within, I can try to get it to put it in the end zone, get touchdown, but my fruit my field goal is now worth four point five points Maybe it makes more sense to just sort of like kick a kick a field goal on third down Yeah, then maybe there's a pass that might get intercepted Maybe they're style points too and you can throw the football at the back of the head of the you know guy in front Of you or whatever and then use that to score a touchdown then too. I think that's pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. And then if a player like is really good, they like catch on fire.

Like they actually get on fire. Honestly, maybe they're all on skateboards. They that could be another thing they could do. Guys, should we get into it? Yeah, let's talk about Kingdom Hearts. Let's talk about Kingdom Hearts. Okay. Um, and this we're doing this right now because I mean, as of recording, this is happening tomorrow, but this will have happened in the very recent past for those listening to it when it releases on Monday.

And then way in the past, if you're listening to this in the future, that's just how time works. Kingdom Hearts is coming to Steam. It was previously on console only and then came to PC via the Epic Games Store and it was locked there. And it was, so it's now gonna be on Steam, meaning you can now then also play it on your Steam Deck. Take all of Kingdom Hearts on the go with you.

Very exciting, very good stuff. The bundle, I wanted to say the name of the bundle that all of it is sold under. It's Kingdom Hearts Integra masterpiece, that's great Integra Integra Word I've never seen or heard before No, yes, I love it what I love a new me into growing why not?

into growing to grow into grow into grow and then also let's not forget the best part of it. Masterpiece. Very, very good. So if you don't, if you're not familiar with Kingdom Hearts, it is a series of action role playing games created by Tetsuya Nomura and Shinji Hashimoto. And guys, of course, there's original characters in these games, but they also have care some characters from the Square Enix universe some characters from like Final Fantasy Mostly Final Fantasy games, but there are some characters

That crossover with the world ends with you and I'm Honda in Honda Einhander Einhande Einhander. Yeah, this was a this was a this was a shmup. Yes. This was a Square Enix shmup that I had for PS1. But then they also crossover with various characters and worlds from the world of Disney. And

you're probably wondering how does this even how does this even happen? What the heck? How did they even come up with something like this? Right. Well, let me tell you. Please do game and tell us. Well, also, I want to let you know there are 13 games in this series. Wait, there's 13.

There are 13. As in organization 13? That's so many. As in organization 13. But here's the thing, there's more on the way. And, you know, it is there is, there's just so many, there's so many games, not all of them are playable today. Some of them were browser games only, you know, which is great, but none of that stuff

is canon to the story. So I'll tell you, this first Kingdom Hearts game was released in March of 2002. I want to take a step back from that for just a second too. So this game, if you could believe it or not, was actually inspired by Super Mario 64. And by that I mean, it was one of the first games to use a 3D space and be able to explore in an environment. Right. So they wanted to do something like that with Disney characters.

But I guess Tetsuya Nomura was like, I could do this with an original character if you let me use the Disney characters, we can figure this out. He came up with the pitch of Kingdom Hearts and brought it to Square Enix and Disney. He happened to actually, I think, run into somebody from Disney and they were like, yeah, sure, whatever. Like, just go ahead, do it. And so that's how Kingdom Hearts was born, basically. It was a meet-cute. A meet-cute. You like just bumped into a guy and was like, hey, I have this idea for a new franchise. In an elevator. That's wild. I think that here's the thing. It's not that crazy because they shared an office building at the time in Japan, but it's still like hey

Can we do this and they're like yeah sure whatever? In this first one like I said was released in 2002 in Japan and then In then sept in September 2002 in the US And it has sold six million copies making it theth highest selling PlayStation 2 game of all time. Wow. Top 10. Top 10, not nothing. Maybe we'll revisit that later on in the episode as well.

Ooh, okay. And this is Tetsuya Nomura's first game as a director, by the way. And then I probably got it in December of 2004, if I'm if I'm thinking about it, because it was at that point on PlayStation Greatest Hits. So I didn't get it when the initial hype around it was like I didn't get it when it was new. So I got it when it was like discounted for $20 or whatever. PlayStation Hits was sold as. But I knew some of the characters from Final Fantasy and obviously I knew the Disney characters

So let's just see what this is little did I know that it was going to take over my entire brain But that's they mean that's just the first one like and then that then the story if you are not familiar with it It's this kid Sora teams up with Donald and goofy as they travel across various Disney themed worlds to stop the plans of the evil Maleficent the Mean lady from Snow White You know that we know is you know why is Sleeping Beauty actually is Maleficent and And her allies who are various Disney villains you got your Hades you got your Pete Goofy's Pete is one of the main main like toughs in this game and they're seeking to harness the power of darkness right in Sora discovers that he is a chosen wielder

of the keyblade and the keyblade is a weapon crucial to saving the world from darkness because it locks darkness away and unlocks the light. And along the way, he meets, he reunites with his friends that have, they're all from this one island called Destiny Islands. And there was like a rift that sort of sent them all across different worlds and stuff. And he, he uncovers his own mystery of his own identity, battles a bunch of Disney villains. Jafar's there too, I forgot about Jafar, Captain Hook.

And there are these creatures called the Heartless, right? And the main antagonist of this game is Ansem, who is voiced by Billy Zane. And he is the seeker of darkness, and he's trying to unlock the power of Kingdom Hearts itself. But then, you know, of course Sora, he comes out ahead at the he's trying to unlock the power of Kingdom Hearts itself But then you know, of course Sora he comes out ahead at the end of the day with the power of friendship And that's basically kind of what happens in all of these the power of friendship is huge in these games

If you got friends, you're doing you're doing just fine in the Kingdom Hearts series. I like I'll say and I want to get Heather's Kingdom Hearts history and POV, but I barely really played any Kingdom Hearts. I was thinking of when Kingdom Hearts 3 came out, like, oh, you know what, I'll play through all this. That'll be my way in. And then it got kind of middling reviews. I was like, ah, maybe this isn't the one for me to dig deep on.

But I might mess around with everyone's team, but like, as far as my overall awareness, I love how like, and I mean this affectionately, Matt, and I know you know I do. I love how like stupid it is. Like, it's like really dumb. It's very stupid. But like, people like care so much about it. Like, they get like really emotional about like, again, like, goofy's rival, Pete. Like, it's like, they think about like, they think about that shit really emotional about like, again, like goofy's rival, Pete. Like it's like, they think about like, they think about that shit that's like, you know, meaningful. And I kind of love that.

I love how much lore it is. Like I'm just like a guy who's like, anytime there's like dense inscrutable lore, there's just volumes and volumes of material explaining backstory and shit. I love how much unnecessary detail exists for this franchise. Like, yeah, for example,

did you know that there was a Keyblade War? That's part of this, there's a Keyblade War? That's great. I am, so to answer your question, Nick, I was a day one Kingdom Hearts player. Let's go. Wow. I, you know, as a Final Fantasy junkie, I was like, the selling point of the game

was not Disney. I was annoyed that Disney was in it. I showed the trailer to people and I was like, look at this fucking crazy game. And everybody would laugh. But like I was like, clouds in this squalls in this. Maybe Sephiroth is in this, I gotta play this game. Yes, and Sephiroth should be noted, the voice of Sephiroth in Kingdom Hearts is in SYNC's Lance Bass.

Yeah. Yes. Good stuff. This I know, the voice cast, cause I know Lance Bass, I know Haley Joel Osment. Is Sora, yes. I believe is still with the franchise, is Sora, and then Mandy Moore is another kid figure. She plays, I think she plays Aerith in the game,

if I'm remembering correctly. I mean, these are all time capsules of the year 2001, 2002. Yes. That's why all these voices are like who they are. But I play Kingdom Hearts 1 and I'm like, this fucking game's pretty good. It's got great music and I love all these outfits. So then Kingdom Hearts 2 comes out and I play that

and I'm like, this game is actually good. Like actually good. I, you know, I'm a boy Sephiroth in there and he's, he's hard to beat. And that's the way it should be. Like you should feel sick when that song comes on. I've said this before on the podcast when you hear that, you should be like, okay, fuck. Um,

then I played kingdom hearts game boy advance. I played kingdom hearts on the PSP. Whatever those games are called, I don't know, they're like 371 over 65. I'll tell ya, there's Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories from the Game Boy Advance. There's Kingdom Hearts 358 over two days. There we go, Chain of Memories. Yeah, and then there's- Chain of Memories.

Birth by Sleep is the PSP one. There we go, Birth by Sleep. That's the one with the three protagonists or maybe there's two of them. Yeah, maybe the second best game in the franchise. So I'm playing these Kingdom Hearts games and I'm more and more psyched about the release of three and three comes out when I'm dealing with that first bout of cancer back in 2020 or 2019, and I'm like,

fuck yeah, I'm gonna play Kingdom Hearts 3. It's perfect timing. Boy, oh boy, that game did not, I didn't like that game. No. I was real bummed out by that game. But I've watched that trailer for Kingdom Hearts 4 a lot. Yes, I'm always excited. I'm excited to play that.

So I'm not a Kingdom Hearts head like Matt, but I would say by virtue of just how many titles I've played, I guess I'm a fan of the series. You're close, you're very close. I would say that you are because I mean, you've played more than the main ones. Like you did the extra homework. I did the extra homework.

You played the card battling one, Chain of Memories. I mean, the problem with the Kingdom Hearts, the reason you play it on PSP though, is because there's not a ton of great games on PSP. No. At the time. So you're like, oh shit, a Kingdom Hearts game

and it's new? I'm in. I know, I know. I wish I hadn't played that one on PSP, but to catch us up to, I just, like, I don't wanna go through all of the main stories of all these games, but I'll just go through, like,

because we'll be here for- Yeah, we don't have 10 hours. We'll be here for the rest of our lives. Right. But after Kingdom Hearts 1 is Kingdom Hearts Chain ofana memories released for the Game Boy Advance in 2004. And it is a card battling system that card battling game that retells the story of the first one kind of through like Sora trying to regain his memories, his memories are taken away.

And so he sort of replays key moments of the first game in a card battling type game. And I loved this when I got it. And I think it's a controversial pick now. It's definitely the slog when you are playing through these games because one, it's story beats you already you just saw. And it's in a more complicated way to experience the story. But I played through it a bunch of times when I was a kid and I loved it. And then, of course, in 2005, each all coming out rapid fire, by the way. In 2005, Kingdom Hearts two comes out. And I've told the story on the podcast before. I did not get this game.

At release, but. My uncle, not my uncle, I've talked about on the show, I did not get this game. At release, but my uncle, not my uncle that talked about on the show, but my other uncle. Through challenged me as a 15 year old to give something up for Lent, and he was like, and if you give something up, I'll get you whatever the thing you give up is at the end of Lent. And if I guess if you don't know what Lent is, it's a Catholic, what would you call it?

Practice where you give up something for 40 days and then you don't sin. You also don't sin at all. And then, so my thing was I was like, okay, I'm trying to get something good. I'm not trying to just get like a, you know, cake or sugar or something. Yeah.

So I was 15, so I was trying to gain the system. And so what I did was I gave up video games for 40 days and I did police myself. I did do this correctly, because at this time I knew it was not true, but I was like, still worried about going to hell. Yeah. And my reward,

I was still worried about going to hell. Yeah. And my reward, my reward for doing this was Kingdom Hearts 2 because I got to pick. I was like, okay, I'm getting Kingdom Hearts 2 then. You're gonna get me that. And he did. He, so I played,

I played through all that and it just continues the story. Such an impressive feat for a 15 year old who loves video games. Yeah. The idea of that level of restraint. Because 40 days when you're that age feels like 40 years. It feels like an eternity. Time moves so slowly.

Luckily I discovered jacking off. I'm really impressed he did that. Christ. It is funny that there's a Josh Hartnett movie about Lent and the idea is that he's so horny that for Lent he's like giving up like jacking off for 40 days and then he's like going crazy. You used to be able to do a Catholic comedy, you know?

Nowadays you can't do that anymore. But Kingdom Hearts 2, obviously I've talked about this game a bunch on this show. This is my favorite video game. It takes all the best stuff from Kingdom Hearts 2, obviously, I've talked about this game a bunch on this show. This is my favorite video game. It takes all the best stuff from Kingdom Hearts 1, the inscrutable lore, the characters you know and love, but it also amps it up a thousand percent. And also the gameplay, and Heather would agree with this, I'm sure, is perfect. The combat is perfect.

It's all just really great stuff. You get these there are these other forms that you can take or then you can like dual wield keyblades and it it just feels really, really good. And there's a section in this game that I love so much. And if people ask me, what about it is in this game that I love? And it's such a I don't know. This is I don't know if it's the part that everybody would say is like the

best part of the game. But there's a section of the game where you're in the world of the Disney movie Mulan. And in Mulan, there's the big fight on like the snowy hills where all the Huns are coming and it's like a big crazy, it's a battle, it's a big war. In that section in the game, there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of Heartless everywhere. So it just kind of feels like you're surrounded by Heartless and you're just going nuts, just swinging that keyblade

all over the damn place and it fucking rules. It is so, so good and I love it. And it's like not even the coolest part of the game, but that to me, I was like, this is King of Hearts 2, baby. This rocks. There's a photorealistic Johnny Depp in it. It's great.

It's in the Pirates of the Caribbean world. It's very, very good. Makes no sense. Cause you also adopt those, something that I haven't said is, and when you go to these Disney worlds, you often will adopt the clothing of the world, which is also kind of fun,

because there's just like a bunch of outfits and stuff. This is another thing that I know with my peripheral Kingdom Hearts knowledge, and I love this. I really, really love this. You go to Nightmare Before Christmas World, you're dressed up like a scary pumpkin guy, and I'm trying to think of some of the other. Sometimes you're wearing your normal clothes.

I'm sifting through the ones, and I'm thinking of all other. Sometimes you're wearing your normal clothes. I'm sifting through the ones, and I'm thinking of all the ones where you're wearing your normal clothes, because this doesn't happen in all of them. In the Pirates of the Caribbean world, you are a pirate, so you're wearing pirate costume, but everybody looks human except you. It's like it's very-

It's very fucking weird. It's very weird, and borderline kinda sucks. Like it sucks to look at. Like, it's tough to sort of consider, It's very weird and borderline kind of sucks like it sucks to look at like It's like it's tough to sort of consider, but I it's it's my absolute favorite game In the series and just overall in general Next in that Matt that that rocks I'd I think that's I'd I love that love it. And I love that also that you had,

you have a context for it where when you got this game, it was like such a powerful moment for you. You know, the idea of like, I try it. Exactly. I won. I won. And your award was a JRPG. I defeated God and I got an RPG for my spoils.

The next game in the series is a game I have not played. It was for mobile phones. No. It was called Kingdom Hearts Coded. And it was eventually remade for the DS, but I just never, I never got it. Where I believe it was called recoded, right? Yes it was, it was called recoded.

Recoded. R-E-Coded, yeah called recoded. Right. It was it was called recoded. Recall it. Yeah. Yeah. Coded. But again, it's it's just another sort of retelling game. It's very interesting that they are. They're so focused on your memories and what they mean and in the context in which you remember them and stuff. Speaking of memories, I'm horrified by how many of the names of these games

I actually remember. Like why is recoded in my head? It's because it's not good. That could have been a memory of like my dad. Like I don't. And instead it's Kingdom Hearts recoded. It's recoded. And then the next game is released for the Nintendo DS and it's called Kingdom Hearts

358 over two days. And. Yeah. Love that. It takes place, get this, in sort of three times. It takes place near the end of the first game. So not at the end of it, but sort of in tandem with the end of the game.

And then it's in tandem with all of Chain of Memories. And then there's a part of it that is leading up to Kingdom Hearts 2. And it's released after Kingdom Hearts 2, I should say. Is this one good? What's the consensus on this one? This one is good. It's a game about Roxas, who is Sora's nobody, who is like his other half.

He's a blonde version. He's kind of a handsome little guy in a jacket. And he loves salty ice cream. He loves salty ice cream. And so he's, it takes- That makes two of us by the way. I mean, here's the thing same. I love it That's good. Not too salty. I don't want it to be like all salt Yeah, of course not, but he gave me a little smack of salt in there

I'm gonna be like this is good shit. This game is about is about Roxas and his time in Organization 13 so you get a little bit more backstory in in in these games And what Tetsuya Nomura has said about these spin-off games, they all seem kind of crazy if you think about it too much. Like it's like, oh, the main story isn't even in all the games, right? But right, his thought on the spin-off games on different platforms is those are stories that we don't have time to tell in the main game. So like if you want, they're not necessary exactly, but they are helpful to the overall

understanding. They are skippable if you want to skip them. But they do make up the entire story if you want it. They don't want to spend too much time with new characters because the first couple hours in Kingdom Hearts 2, you're playing as Roxas and that feels insane because you think you're getting right-ended again. Yeah, you think you're getting, yeah, yes. But then you do switch over to Sora and then you realize what Roxas' whole deal is. But I like it, I think it's a really good one.

I don't know if, I don't think I still have it. And I wasn't able to replay it in the HD remix collections because a lot of these games, they don't remake or remaster. They did do it for Chain of Memories. They did a PlayStation 2 version of it, but sometimes they just put the cinematics from the games on the disc and you can watch them and experience the story that way. And oftentimes they'll add scenes that are not in the game,

like to cover for the stuff that you experience in the game, they'll just add stuff. So it's like, you get like a whole three hour movie of Kingdom Hearts on one of these collection sets, which is pretty cool, I think. Then next is Birth by Sleep, which is the PSP game. And this is now set 10 years before the first the first Kingdom Hearts game.

And this one, as I said earlier, I think is like the second best game in the series. It is very, very good. Wow. You play as three characters and who are Tara, Ventus and Aqua. And they all rock and they you can it's all you play through their their stories separately. So it's like the same story from all three of their perspectives. And there's a scene at the end of it where one of them because one of them is Roxas by a different name, and I can't remember which name is his unfortunately

I think it's I think it's Ventus. I think he's Ventus At the end there's like a part where he's like if something happens to me Kill me And they're like, this is a fucking kid. This is crazy. This is, and at this point, they're starting to ease off on the Final Fantasy characters. And the only one that is in Birth by Sleep is Zack from Final Fantasy VII, which is,

and Crisis Core. Really specific choice, yeah. And I had a PSP when this game was out, but I didn't get this one. And I played it only as the 2.5 HD remix version, but I do think it's the second best after two. It's really, really good. Is there any speculation as to why

it became more Disney, less Final Fantasy? Well, I think it's... I think I read an interview about this. I think so too. And it was that once the original Kingdom Hearts cast had been built out so much, there wasn't a lot of room for Final Fantasy characters. Yeah. Sure, that makes sense.

Yeah. You don't need school helping out in characters. Yeah, sure. That makes sense. Yeah, yeah. You don't need right. Cause it's like helping out in missions. Yeah, taking that being the taking the place of like the traditional like JRPG character. Yeah, yeah. You know, when you have a lot of those from your own franchise, that makes a lot.

Yeah, you need to see like Waka running around or stuff. The only thing that's retained, I think is, speak for yourself. I mean, yeah, you can, you can walk around if you want. The only thing that's still in all of them is Moogles. Moogles are at like item shops and things like that. It's it's strange with all this conversation, Matt, that you haven't spent an hour talking about the gummy ship. Well,

the gummy ship is one of the things that I don't like unfortunately You don't like the gummies. Oh, I think I mean I don't love it to me. That stuff is like I don't I like that there's like a reason to have a minigame for Traversal I guess but I also kind of just want to get there you can skip that stuff once you've done it once but I've kind of just want to get there. You can skip that stuff once you've done it once. But I've never really like optimized my gummi ship. You can get through like the whole game with the base gummi ship. You know what I mean? Like you don't have to like really soup it up in the way that it's encouraging you to. But they've also changed the gummi

ship section a few times. And I think it became okay in three. I think the first version of it is bad. In two, it's like whatever. And then in three, it's fine. But I don't particularly love it. I do like to see Chip and Dale in the first one. That's where you see them. And as a twin, those are my guys.

I don't know if they're canonically twins, but, you know, they're they're at least brothers. I like I just I guess I just like the idea of a gummy ship in general. And you're a gummy skeptic to its implementation. I'm a gummy skeptic. But the the you know, as I as I tend to say, speak just speak for myself, gummy ain't yummy. But the idea of a gummy ship, you know, I don't like it. Was that I'm worried I'm going to eat it. Oh, I might take a bite.

I didn't. That's not my. I don't like it because it's like not fun. Yeah, it's not. It's all of the stuff you can do in Kingdom Hearts. It's not fun, unfortunately. But the rest of it is very good, is the flip side of that. This next one is called

Kingdom Hearts 3D Dream Drop Distance, and you guessed it, it's for the Nintendo 3DS. Maybe I played that one too. This was one I didn't play, because at this point, I was out. I kind of had it falling out with Kingdom Hearts a little bit Let me you're a little older and you're kind of you know a bit Yeah, you're you're you're not a you're not a you're not a kid anymore Maybe you're like feeling more like a grown-up and like ah this 3ds game about this kids franchise

Maybe it's a little bit less for me. This is one of those Heather has stepped away to try to retrieve the box for this game. I do remember this game and I remember specifically the subtitle. I mean all these games have great subtitles but Dream Drop Distance is pretty great and I also like the idea of it being a 3DS thing but we've got 3Ds is the way that it's implemented. Yes really really good I love that as well. Very clever. And in this game, you play as Sora and his friend Riku and you do drop the it's called drop because there's like a drop system. And what that is is you have a certain amount of time in each part of the story to do what you're doing on in that part of the story.

And then once you run out of time, you switch to the other character, which is pretty fun. Is is is this the same Riku is from Final Fantasy 10? It's a different Riku, actually. It's a different Riku. And they were going to put Riku in the first one. And then they swapped in Riku for Yuffie, because I think that was too confusing.

That was too much for Kingdom Hearts. Or we can't have two Rikus, two different Rikus. Heather is now holding up the box for the Nintendo 3DS. The box art for these games is usually really good. That's some really nice box art. Yeah, it's great. I think all the art are the art direction of the series is really. I've played this one.

I played about half of this through, I played about half of it on the 2.4, you know, one of the HD remix games. And I do think it's really fun, I just never finished it. The thing that this one has going for it over Kingdom Hearts 2 is that the Tron world is more inspired by Tron legacy than the original Tron. That's fucking cool.

So it is really cool. Heather, what are you holding up there? So I guess I, you know, it came with cards. Yeah. And I don't know if these are, so the 3DS could do those AR cards. Like if you put down those cards on a desk or whatever, they do stuff.

There's three cards in here that are in perfect condition because by the time the 3DS comes out, I'm working. And so it becomes humiliating in those first, before I decide to be like, fuck this, I'm a nerd. Everybody needs to know it. I'm not going down, I'm not backing down. I really hid for a while my gaming and nerddom. Mary likes to tell the anecdote

of when she first came over to my apartment, I got for a dinner or whatever, I didn't have any visible nerd stuff. Not a single action figure out, not a video game in sight, nothing. Wow. And that's because I had gone in the closet as a nerd. Like I was like hiding everything.

So when the 3DS comes out, I'm working at like, I'm working at Saturday Night Live and I use it to take I use it to take 3d photos of like The writers room and stuff and some of the shows and like show those to people I'd be like, oh, isn't this neat? You can take 3d photos with this thing, but I certainly wasn't gaming like not in front of people so right So yeah, I don't um ladies and gentlemen

It's Sora Donald and goofy Master flow motion to execute acrobatic movements and attacks. Oh, yeah, I forgot about flow motion flow motion I wish I had played this one on the on the 3DS, but I simply did not. And I played it a little bit on my PS5 in that HD remix. And then the next game that came out in the series, actually, that's not the 1.5 remix in these remixed collections, I should say, are just HD compilations of some of the previous games. So 1.5 is Kingdom Hearts, the final mix, RE chain of memories or re chain of memories

and 358 over two days. And then 2.5 is Kingdom Hearts 2, Birth by Sleep and Recoded. But then there's also a 2.8 final chapter prologue Yes, there's another one that is Kingdom Hearts dream drop distance HD Kingdom Hearts 0.2 birth by sleep a fragmentary passage Which is one that I actually have not played because I haven't gotten to that yet and then There's there's a series called Kingdom Hearts.

It looks like a stylized X, but it's pronounced key. It's pronounced key. Hmm. Interesting. And that is a Kingdom Hearts. Key is like the Greek character. Yes. Got it. And these these were set in a in the earliest era of Kingdom Hearts and you could create your own character and join one of the five unions in the quest to collect Lux, a mysterious

light and fend off darkness known as Heartless. And this was a web browser game as well. And if it was a web browser, I wasn't doing it. But for some reason, this web browser one was canon and did tell stuff about the cataclysmic Keyblade War. And then the next game after that is Kingdom Hearts III, which I'm sad to say I never finished. I never finished this one. I don't think you're alone in this. I think a lot of people I think a lot of even enthusiasts

bounced off of this game. I mean I heard it was it was quite a bummer. There's stuff in it that I really liked There was a there's I mean Not to be like a frozen hater, but there's a frozen area that I did not love and hater, but there's a frozen area that I did not love. And you basically do all of, do you wanna build a snowman and let it go? In a mini game, you hear all of it. And like, we don't have to do this. Yeah, that feels excessive.

And there's already a bad rhythm section in Kingdom Hearts 1, in the Little Mermaid area, that sucks. That stuff is not their strong suit. Although the final game in the series as of now is Kingdom Hearts Melody of Memory, which is a rhythm action game that is set after Kingdom Hearts 3 and the DLC,

which is called Remind, and it retells the entire story of The series but in a rhythm game format, which is insane Did you mess around with remind with the DLC? I didn't cuz I never I mean I was like I heard it I heard that the DLC was actually good and people really liked the DLC Yeah, I wonder if that's that there was any any redemptive quality to the whole package from that. I don't know.

I do want to at some point jump back into Kingdom Hearts 3, maybe start over and experience it all the way through and and play the DLC so I can see what's going on. Because as Heather mentioned earlier, Kingdom Hearts 4, I'm hearing 2026. That's what I've heard as well. And more than that, I've heard that it takes place in the real world, which is something that it feels like Tetsuo Nomura has been trying to do for so

long. Yeah, yeah. Uh, I'm, I'm very excited for it. Um, just based on, I guess, nothing, like I've been, like, why would I not be excited for it? It's, it's, these are my favorite games. I love these. Um, I don't think I dislike any of the ones that I've played.

There are some that I like more than others, of course. And obviously, like Nick pointed out, there's a lot of affectionately stupid stuff in these games, but I'll always play a new Kingdom Hearts game now. I feel like I can't make the mistakes I've made in the past of skipping them. I got to just see them through and experience it. Because in many ways, there are no other games like this. I mean, there are a lot of games that are strange, and there are a lot of, of course, JRPGs,

and this follows a lot of that type of stuff. But Kingdom Hearts, there's nothing like Kingdom Hearts. As far as I'm aware. It's all crazy stuff. It's it's really really good and I mean there's I feel like there's not a way to really talk about the whole series without like there's because it's all It's all gobbledygook. It's all nuts. Like I've talked about What the world is right? There's like the

There's multiple realms in these games. There's the realm of light the realm of darkness and in the realm between and That's where most of the action of these games takes place in the realm between right and I talked about key blades Oh, I didn't talk about this about key blades really in each world There's a key blade that sort of looks like the world So like in the Jack Skellington area There's like spooky key blade. Yeah cool in the Tarzan area. There's like jungle key blade. That's pretty cool, too Yeah, that is cool And then some of them just kind of look like sword some of them and they have different buffs and things like that

Which is pretty fun. I Recently, of course, I've mentioned, got a tattoo of a Keyblade. I got the 2 Become 1 Keyblade. That is a Keyblade that is only in the 2.5 remix of Kingdom Hearts 2. I love that. I love how specific it is.

It's a very, very cool looking Keyblade, and I love it so much. Gosh, I've talked about Organization XIII, the Heartless and the Nobodies. There's all this stuff in these games where it's more like, if there's a dark side, there's a light side. So if there's Heartless and they're dark

and they're black, the Nobodies, they're white. But they're the same type of thing, kind of. It's always two sides of the same coin. And then there's these two sides of the same coin. And then there's these two, there's Master Xehanort, who's like the main guy who's sort of trying to orchestrate this whole thing. He's like the main antagonist of the entire franchise.

Everything bad that has been going on is because of Xehanort. And that's a thing that you have to hear a lot in these games, names like Xehanort. Good name. It's pretty good. And then the main thing at the end of the day is it's all about your friends.

And it's all about the struggle between darkness and light and how your friends can help you sort that out. And I mean, isn't that what we're doing here? Who's your, here's a question for you. Who's your like favorite Kingdom Hearts character or characters? And did you have also a related question, who do you remember being like the most useful

like party members or your favorite party members to you? Oh yeah, well, cause obviously your main party is Sora, Donald and Goofy. And then when you go to different worlds, you can often recruit like the main character of the world that you're into your party and sub them out for Donald or Goofy. Well, I mean, I'm just a big Nightmare Before Christmas guy. So I love Jack Skellington and like see him. Yeah, I just like seeing him. I think he's a cool character, cool character design. In the Agrabah world, you get Aladdin.

I've always been a big Aladdin fan. Those are all Kingdom Hearts 1 area people, but I loved recruiting Tron to the party too. Like none of them are like so good, is the thing. They're all basically like just another guy, but they have their unique sensibility or their unique power, which is cool. You also have summons, like you can summon the genie,

which is pretty fun, and you can summon him in any world, which is cool, whereas like the the guest party Members can't be in other worlds, but you can bring you know genie to Pirate to the Caribbean or whatever that's like fun to see I actually don't even remember who's in Kingdom Hearts 3 which is interesting A lot of the games take place in a lot of the same worlds like so you'll see You know different parts of, you know, Halloween town. You'll see it in one game and it'll be in a different game.

And you'll be like, oh, this is I've been here before, but it's a little different now, which is which is fun. But my favorite, as far as great characters go, obviously, it's, you know, Sora is my guy. Sure. I love Sora. He's maybe one of my favorite characters like in things like It should it should be noted that Donald is Canonically the only

wizard or mage in any Final Fantasy game to release a He's done the most powerful spell of any magic user in a Final Fantasy game. It's been him. Which is pretty sick. It's like gigas something. What is it? Hold on. And then there's like all these memes of the game too, where you're Donald is your healer of course and there's these There's this noise if you have low health. That's like a siren. That's like and

Donald won't be healing you it's like so it's so frustrating you could have it set to always heal and he won't do it Okay, so this thing right here says Donald Duck is considered by many fans to be the most powerful mage in all of Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts. For a long time, his reign as the supreme magic user in the franchise was unchallenged. Oh, but now I guess he's been usurped because of the release of Final Fantasy 16. Oh, well, good. Interesting. They couldn't let that slide, I guess, could they? They had to take it back.

It can't be Donald. It's got to be Clive. No, when... I think that's a bit of a mistake, honestly. When Kingdom Hearts 4 comes out, he's going to heal the world. He's going to like, he's going to heal the entire fucking universe or something in a single spell. Yeah. Oh, it was Bahamut from Final Fantasy 16 is now the most powerful, which is pretty cool. If it's gonna be anybody from Final Fantasy,

might as well be Bahamut. Where's the, what is the source on this? This article in on Kotaku. Oh, so I got it. I got it. I got it accepted as gospel. Yeah, sure. I'm trying to think there's anything else I want to say about these games before we roll into the segment. Here's a question I have for you. For like, like, what do you think about how much in

terms of your passion for this game? How much of is the gameplay driving it? And how much is the story driving it? Like, is it an even split or is this something where, for me, I do like JRPG combat, but when I'm really into a JRPG, a lot of times it's the story that's really pulling me through it. I think it's common for most people. Even though if you asked me, gun to my head,

to tell you the story off the top of my head right now, or I'm dead and I couldn't do it, I do think the story is pretty fun. And it's the reason they keep coming back because like I was just talking earlier about these Final Fantasy seven characters and how you spend so much time with them and how you get to, you know, just learn so many things about them and see them go through so many different changes and so many different, you know, trials and tribulations.

Right. You have these same characters even though They are sore Donald and goofy most of the time going through stuff not just in one game over several games So there's not that much growth. I mean because Sora is roughly the same age I think in Three to two, but is maybe a little bit older from two to one So there's not that much time has passed but a Lot goes down. So I do think that like the story is fun and I don't know like it's silly and dumb that like the Disney stuff is in there maybe but I You know, I'm from Southern California. So I grew up going to Disneyland a lot. So

This is your Disney stuff is like, I like that. Like I like seeing that and it's like kind of, it's funny. And like, it just adds to the weirdness of it all too. And like, I don't know. So I like seeing that. And like, I was more interested in that when I was playing it than I was in the Final Fantasy characters that I didn't know that well.

Cause I hadn't played any at that point, you know? So my first introduction to some of these characters was in Kingdom Hearts. Like, I didn't know who Cloud was. I thought Cloud was like a new guy. When I when I when I played, when I fought him as an optional boss in the Hercules like tournament area. I didn't know he was a real guy.

I thought he was just from the game. I was like, oh, I guess he's- He is a real guy. Yeah, Cloud is real. Did you know who Sephiroth was by the time he showed up? No, not really. Fuck. So when that music hit happened,

you were like, uh oh, who is this guy? I mean, I could tell from the music that this was like a scary guy. But like. But I didn't know, I had no idea. You know, like those are my introduction to those characters. So in that respect too, I owe Kingdom Hearts a lot

because maybe I wouldn't have even been interested in Final Fantasy at all, if it weren't for these games. Yeah, it seems like it was a formative gaming experience for you, these games. Yeah. That's a big part of what got you into games and informed what kind of games you want to play. And I do. But to speak on the combat combat too, I do love the combat. It's just hack and slash. You're just pressing square a lot is the thing. But you can get different abilities too.

So you have another menu, like limits or something, right? Where you can have a different attack or a specialized attack. And so that's, I's like, or where they, I can't remember what they're called in Final Fantasy VII, but like when you have like braver or like- Limit breaks. Limit breaks, yeah.

And like those are really cool. I like having those. And then like, you just get all the different types of magic too. And so then it becomes, which magic spells are you going to upgrade? What spells are you going to upgrade? What attacks are you going to upgrade? What key blades are you going to be using?

Because like I said, like not every key blade is they're not all equal. So like optimizing your build, as it were, can make or break the game, because like I remember being a kid and being in the final boss area and having to do it over and over and over again because I was just not, just not getting it. And like at that point, I had never finished a JRPG before and like just didn't know what I was doing.

And then finally just being like, I gotta just like, I think change up what I'm, my whole thing and just like starting like from scratch and like switching out my key blade and things like that and then finally getting it and feeling so accomplished. Also because the final boss in Kingdom Hearts 1 is the guy you've been seeing all this time, Ansem, turned into a ship.

Turned into like a ship that's like a guy. And it sucks to look at at it's ugly and gross, but it's you know, very in line with Final fantasy right final bosses just looks nuts But The thing yeah I mean the story and the gameplay are both like I'd say the things that I really love about it because it, it just feels fast and loose and I don't know, like I think it's like, they're,

they're so methodical with the story. It's so funny. I've heard anecdotally, they, they, they take it very, very seriously. There has to be a reason for like why this character is talking to this character and when and things like that. Like it can't, it's not just like, I'll just put them there.

It seems more cynical than that. It's kind of not. They have to think about it very seriously. And like they come up with good reasons for why Sora would be having a conversation with Olaf, for example. Like they don't just pick whatever. I mean, at that point point they probably were like,

let's get Frozen in here because it's hot. But like some of these other Disney IP, they're like, let's go back to Steamboat Willie era and we'll do a level in black and white. Like that's cool, I like that shit. Yeah, that is cool. And of course Pete is the main antagonist in that level. Here's another question for you.

Yeah. And then I wanna see if Heather has any final questions or final thoughts as well. But like my last question would be, you talked about Kingdom Hearts 4 is on the horizon. As a fan of the franchise, who is maybe a little bit less enthused about its most recent mainline entry,

what do you hope to see in KH4? I mean, Disney is so different now than it was when Kingdom Hearts 3 was even out, right? They've acquired so much. I want like, the Disney parks are so different. I honestly wouldn't mind like a haunted mansion area. I think that could be kind of cool. Like just that's a great idea. FEMA after the ride could be pretty cool. I wouldn't be shocked if they were trying to get a Star Wars area in there.

It would be a lightsaber. Keyblade is just it's it's such a gimmie. Yeah, like, you know, they they they put in a Star Wars area, but it's the Star Wars galactic star cruiser hotel. It's like this sucks. It's Galaxy's edge from the theme park. It has to take place. That does feel kind of Tetsuo Nomura-ish. Like, just like, no, I want it to be the hotel.

The closed hotel nobody liked? Yes. Yes. My question for Matt. Yeah. Oh, sorry, Matt. I didn't realize you were still. No, there's a, in the trailer for Kingdom Hearts 4,

there's a very brief glimpse at something that looks like it could be the foot of a AT-ST on the Battle of Endor. Wow, love that. So, who knows? Matt, my question is, I love the music of Kingdom Hearts. Do you have a specific area that is like your go-to? Like, oh, I really like this theme.

I'll go first while you think. Yes. I love the original Traverse Town theme. Oh, so cozy. Yeah, I know that song. Very cozy vibes. I think you made me played it on the podcast. Ooh, do, do, do, do, do, do.

Yeah. Ooh, do, do, do, do, do, do. Yeah, that's really good. It feels like, because it's such a short loop, it also feels like a real core memory, like hearing that. That and the opening piano of all these fucking games, it's like, oh wow, I'm much younger.

The music in the Hollow Bastion area goes pretty hard. That's where you meet the beast from Beauty and the Beast. Yep, yep. The music in there is pretty intense because it kind of just feels like everything's fucked at that point But I really like that area and then you know, it's fun to hear the spins on the Like the Danny Hoffman night maybe for Christmas score. That's probably like my favorite area just because I like the aesthetic of it, too

Yeah and I like to hear what they're doing with the honestly the space paranoids Tron music fucking rips actually Hmm. It's really really good from Kingdom Hearts 2 and then from From dream drop distance, but I would say yet those and then a lot of the boss music is really good the boss when you're in Kingdom Hearts 1 the music that boss, when you're in Kingdom Hearts 1,

the music that's playing when you're fighting the big guy from Fantasia, that like big sort of demon thing that's coming out of the volcano. Oh yes, right. A really awesome boss fight where you're flying around. Also, you can fly. And you can fly sometimes for a little bit

if you have a thing from Peter Pan that he gives you But you have to have it equipped But that's that music is always really I because I played that section so much Because I died a lot in in in those final moments early on when I was playing it But now I can't even oh, I mean, I guess I played through these games Maybe like two years ago at this point. Like I played through Kingdom Hearts one and two and they were on Game Pass.

And I mean, with this new release, I'm I'm kind of fixing to maybe at least do two again. I loved I love playing Kingdom Hearts to any any chance I get. Yeah, I will say over the course of this episode, I I added Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 plus 2.5 remix, HD 2.8 final chapter prologue, and Kingdom Hearts 3 plus 3 mine DLC, all to my ever growing wish list on Steam. Hell yeah.

I do hope to actually tackle these at some point They they get better like like the first one. I feel like is like Vegetables a little it's a little slow Yeah, but I but I know what I'm getting into when I'm playing a 20 year old game So I'm not yeah, you know, I'm not gonna be too precious about it gosh 20 years Life or than more than yeah gosh what happened to me. I used to have it all time rocks right fucking sucks My back hurts I Was that was really well done man? Place rambling, but I hope you guys get what these games are to me

There yeah, they're a mess there. They're there. mess there a nightmare think about kind of fitting Yes, if that's your self evaluation yes, I feel insane, but let's move on to a segment. I Love it So I mentioned earlier that Kingdom Hearts is the 10th highest selling PS2 game of all time. Right. Let's see if Nick and Heather can guess the remaining top nine in our recurring segment pixel chart.

Oh, we got to guess nine of these. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Question up top. Are any of these from the same franchise? Yes, a couple of them. A couple of them. so there are some repeats.

All right, go ahead. I'm ready to go. Let's do it, Heather. Grand Theft Auto, San Andreas. Number one, number one on this list. All right, so at 17 point, let's go with what we're, I'll say what the numbers are first, actually.

So Kingdom Hearts, number 10, 5.9 million sold, right? Yeah. Now that we have number one, San Andreas sold 17.33 million. Quite a few copies of that game. Now, is this worldwide sales or North American sales? This is worldwide. This is worldwide, okay.

I'll just guess, we'll just see if the other Grand Theft Autos are on there. Is Vice City on there Vice City is on here number four ten point five million sold and is GTA 3 also on there number six on the list Okay, eight point three zero five very granular Yes, now is that it for the Grand Theft Auto franchise? The other GTA's? Yeah, off the board. Yeah, Okay. All right, let's see.

Final Fantasy X. Final Fantasy X is number five on this list. 8.5 million sold. I'm gonna guess another GT game. Is there a Gran Turismo on there? There might be. Is Gran Turismo 3 on there? Gran Turismo 3 A-Specismo 3 a spec fourteen point eighty nine million

number two on the list Wow Number two Gran Turismo. Yeah, I remember that being a huge franchise Okay, okay. Okay. Is there are there any other? Let's let me think um Are there it I guess that we could see if there's another Final Fantasy on there, is Final Fantasy XII on there? Number nine on the list with six million.

Wow. Wow. No way. Final Fantasy XII is on the list. Yeah, I thought that was more niche than that, and I'm actually staggered that it outsold Kingdom Hearts II. I would have never guessed that. Yeah, I guess maybe just, what is it called?

Brand recognition, right? People are gonna buy Final Fantasy at this point in the series, maybe not at 16, but at that time people were still buying Final Fantasies. So how many slots have we? We've got two Final Fantasies, three GTAs. So that's five. Yeah. There's maybe one more in a series that has been previously mentioned and then two other games. Is there is there.

Yeah. Go on. Sorry. Gran Turismo Kingdom Hearts. So we're only missing three more games. There's three more games on there. OK. I'll I'll I don't know. Fuck. Because I don't remember the subtitle and I don't remember if it was a it was a number four, but I'll just guess Gran Turismo four. It is Gran Turismo. Four is number three on the list.

Eleven point seventy six million released. Does it have a subtitle? I just have Gran Turismo four. I think that's it. Gran Turismo is ace back. Two more games. OK, I guess we haven't missed a shot yet, Nick. Be careful. You guys are doing really good. All right, then maybe I'll hold my fire

because I was gonna take a swing. No, take a swing. Because we're talking worldwide, I wonder if skewed by Japan sales if Dragon Quest VIII is on there. It is not on the list, you fucking idiot. Fuck. Whoa.

Nick just got up. I'm so upset. Dragon Quest 8 is on there. It is not on the list you fucking idiot Nick just got up so I'm so upset He got up, and he I think he's trying to set his dick on fire Fucking thing won't start I'll say one of these is gonna be impossible to guess and. And one of one of these is a game we've played. I mean, I have I have an idea, but go on, Heather. I have an idea. Yeah. Resident Evil four. Not on the list, unfortunately. OK. OK. OK.

Is it are these third party games? Uh, is is one of them a third party game? Yeah, it's one of them. OK. I will guess Metal Gear Solid 2, Sons of Liberty. That is on the list number seven. Ooh. And that's the, there's not another Metal Gear. There's not a Metal Gear on the list.

What about God of War? God of War not on the list. Ah! Is this a first-party game? No. Okay, is this a sports game? first party game? No. OK, is this a sports game? Sort of. Is it sort of is it SSX? It is not. This is at the right.

Is that the right ballpark? It is. No. OK, sort of a sports game. If you think of this particular thing that they're doing in this game as a sport, but they might be doing it just for fun. I don't know what the the lore is okay, okay? So that is this is this a third party game as well did I do you say that yes? Okay, this is a third party. I'm thinking of it differently because at this time I would say Metal Gear was a first party game no because it was like PlayStation exclusive

It was but it was held by economy. I guess you're right. Yes, okay. Yes, then this is third party as well. Yes, okay All right, so this was developed by Konami. I guess you're right, yes. Oh, okay, and yes. Then this is third party as well, yes. Okay, all right. So this was a PlayStation exclusive. This one is not. This is not a PlayStation exclusive. I would guess no, but it must be because it sold so much. Oh, okay. Let me see. I know what it isn't.

It is not God Hand. It is not God Hand. Which is a shame. No, but you gotta get it out there, right? I guess it was, it is PlayStation exclusive, of course. Can you give us the publisher? Namco. Oh, there's a Namco game, okay. Na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na.

Could you imagine the world that we would live in if Icata Mari Damacy was in the top 10 highest selling fucking manga hit? Sensation. in the world that we would live in if Katamari Damacy was in the top 10 highest selling. Fucking mega hit. Sensation. But it wouldn't be a Ridge. It means we'd be the president of the United States if that were the case. It wouldn't be a Ridge Racer,

cause that's a driving franchise, and that's probably too explicitly a sports game. Is it a fighting game? It is. Is it Tekken 4? It is not. Is it Tekken Tag Tournament? It is not. Fuck. Is it Naruto Fighters? No. Is it a Tekken game? It is a Tekken game. Okay. Is it a numbered Tekken game? Because I'll just guess another number. It is. Is it Tekken 5? It is. Okay, there we go. It is Tekken 5.

That is the top 10 highest selling games on the PlayStation 2. Number 10, Kingdom Hearts. Number nine, Final Fantasy 12. Number eight, Tekken 5. Number seven, Metal Gear Solid 2, Sons of Liberty. Number six, Grand Theft Auto 3. Number five, Final Fantasy 10.

Number four, Grand Theft Auto Vice City. Number three, Gran Turismo 4. Number two, Gran Turismo 3, A-Spec. And number one, Grand Theft Auto Vice City, number three, Gran Turismo four, number two, Gran Turismo three, A-Spec, and number one, Grand Theft Auto San Andreas. That really just kind of, I think maybe this is the generation where the sales just completely shift over to the West, and we see how much games,

whether they were Western developed or not, were games that were targeted at Western consumer preferences dominated the global sales charts. That's really interesting how that happened. Honestly, too, looking at this, this is a banger list. Oh my god, a lot of great games on there. I'm not a huge Gran Turismo person or a big Tekken person,

but these are all bangers. Yeah, I don't really play racing games. And the Tekken game I played was Tekken Tag Tournament. I think that's what what for was. I don't know if they actually released a four. But I you know, I'm not I'm not the biggest fighting game guy myself. But yeah, those are those are all well regarded.

And I know the Gran Turismo franchise people loved or maybe still love. I'm surprised that Kingdom Hearts even got in there based on just these other ones. They had, in the games that aren't on here too, isn't that interesting? Kingdom Hearts over God of War, Kingdom Hearts over Prince of Persia in the Sands of Time,

or another favorite of mine, any other of my favorites. But I'm happy it's there, and I'm glad you guys let me talk nonstop about I love parts today. I loved it. I could I'll take all that that you got. Yeah, I also have 10 more pages in my Google Doc. Speaking for myself, if you hadn't spotted us Kingdom Hearts to I wonder if I would have gotten it. I might not have. I probably would have guessed a bunch of other things before I

got landed there at number 10. Pretty, I know, 10 could have been anything. Yeah, it could have been a Jack and Daxter, it could have been a Killzone. Twisted Metal Black for Crying Out Loud. I kind of thought like a God of War 2 or Twisted Metal Black might make it on there, but here we go.

Could have been Crash Bash. Na na na na na na na na na. In a perfect world, it would have been Katamari down my seat. It would have been really, really good. It's actually, we love Katamari in the sequel. At number one, with 64 million copies sold. Where every person that bought PlayStation 2, it was a one-to-one sale.

By the way, we made it through an entire Kingdom Hearts episode PlayStation 2, it was a one-to-one sale. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. By the way, we made it through an entire Kingdom Hearts episode without talking about how Ranch's BF just replays these games obsessively. Mark told me in my DMs that he's starting Final Fantasy VII Remake

and I said, let's fucking go. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Mark's a king. Love that. I like to hear it. That's this week's Get Played.

Our producers, Rochelle Chan, Ranch, yard underscore underscore sard on social. Our music is by Ben Pronti, benprentiemusic.com. Our art is by Duck Brigade Design, duckbrigade.com. And hey, check out our Patreon, patreon.com slash get played where you can find our entire pre headgum back catalog plus ad free main feed episodes and also our Patreon exclusive show, Get Animated,

where we continue to watch the eighth MS team, Mobile Suit Gundam. It's not just a watch, it's a live. We're continuing to live the eighth MS team. It rocks, patreon.com slash get played. We're continuing to live the 8th MS team. It rocks. Patreon.com slash Get Played. Hey, we should note, Heather, you're going to be gone for a couple of weeks.

The Fortnite enthusiast will be gone for a Fortnite. You're going to Japan. Yes, Nihone, ikimasu! I'm going to Japan and I'm gonna have a good time. And maybe, if we're lucky Maybe I'll do a couple world warrior segments while I'm abroad But I've had a tough six months taking a vacation. Yeah, no absolutely well-deserved. Yeah Celebrating I'm gonna go to the Godzilla store guys. I can't wait to go to the gods

I've never been to the Godzilla store.. I can't wait to go to the gods. I've never been to the Godzilla store Do you think he works there if he does? Way to go Like he's like real put off cuz I'll be like oh no don't don't crush me. He's like I this is my job Don't, don't crush me. And he's like, this is my job. Don't come harass me at my job. Uh oh. Whoops.

Oops, I'm laying down. My shoe has gotten this grating. And actually, I don't think anybody got played today. I think what we actually did was we all figured out what our power was in that friendship is our power. Friendship is our power was and that friendship is our power. Friendship is our power. Wow. That was a hate gum podcast.