Get Played - Now That's What I Call Video Game Music: Battle Themes

Episode Date: March 6, 2023

Heather, Nick and Matt discuss what they're playing lately, PSVR2, and discuss some of their favorite battle themes! This month's We Play, You Play: Metroid Prime Remastered! Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @getplayedpod. Check out our premium series Get Anime'd On patreon.com/getplayed or on Stitcher Premium. 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] Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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and we brought in a composer with a lot of people who have been saying great things about you. Thank you so much. Yeah, because we know the music is what makes an RPG memorable. Yeah, a lot of the time you're looking at text on screen and stuff, and characters are just still... So you've got to really make a banger of a battle theme. It's got to be engaging because this is turn-based throwback,

you know, tactical combat, but we need something that just really engages the player. Yeah, and I think also a hallmark of the genre is that it needs to be something that you can hear over and over and over again. 100%, yeah, it's going to keep playing. We're going to have a lot of random encounters in our battle system. It needs to be something that you can hear over and over and over again. 100%. Yeah, it's going to keep playing. We're going to have a lot of random encounters. I'm going to set up the field.

Imagine, if you will, our spiky haired protagonist. He comes around a corner and he sees his first machine. It's a spider robot. And the spider robot unleashes an attack and the screen blurs and spins and you enter the battlefield. This is exactly what happens in the prologue. Yeah, you're spiky, you're a protagonist on the right hand of the screen,

you're a spider robot on the left hand of the screen and this music thunders to life. One, two, one, two, three, four. Give me a break, give me a a break break me off a piece of that sorry hey matt was that can you stop that real quick because i don't know if that would like the link was maybe uploaded to youtube and that was just a pre-roll ad. No, the link that I clicked said, this is the real one.

Yeah, that's the real one. And the title here, it says this is the real one, I promise. And that was through Dropbox or something? Everlasting Crusade Battle Theme. Can we just focus on those first drum drops Up at the top

Just cue that up again one more time I want you to feel the thunder Like you're ready to go Pull out your sword What magic are you going to use And you hear this One two three Give me a break

Give me a break Break me up I don't hate I don't hate the drums as the intro to the battle. The rest of it I find problematic because it's a Kit Kat commercial. Yeah, that's the thing. It's an existing theme for Kit Kats. No, it's not. The candy.

No, it's not. The chocolate candy. Even if it wasn't infringing on an existing song, it's like the brand, mentioning the brand. No, no. Limit break. Give me a break. Give me a break. It's a limit break.

Look. There's a chorus we haven't even hit. Oh, there's a limit. It's four. Okay, so I want you to imagine it's your fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, four hundredth battle in the game. Okay. How good is this song to be able to hear it more than once? Let's play it one more time.

One, two, one, two, three, four. Fuck yeah. The thing, the issue is that the song isn't bad. Fire on go. I would say as a jingle for the candy bar Kit Kat, it's not bad. Listen to this. Boom. As the battle theme for our, you know, Super Nintendo Genesis era throwback RPG, I don't think it's appropriate.

I want you to know how hard it was for me not to bring in Baby Elephant Walk. Okay. This is the same person we got for the boss theme. That's the issue. Yeah. This is my bad. Uh-huh. See, they're wearing a different hat.

It's the hat. The hat's what threw me. Yeah, I just didn't recognize. You guys don't appreciate genius when you see it. You don't appreciate that all the work and hard efforts are put into this. This is a hard, this is, this, first off, it's one or the other, guys. I guess it's this one.

This is better. I guess it's this one. This is better. We battle the same mobs to the same songs over and over again. And don't get tired of it as we pick our favorite battle themes this week on Get Played. Outro Music Welcome to Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between. It's time to Get Played! I'm your host, Heather Ann Campbell, along with my fellow host, Nick Weiger. That's me, Nick Weiger, and I'm here with our third host, Matt Apodaca. Hello, everyone!

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Get Played. We're in the studio, we're all looking at each other's faces. It is true. Not through Zoom screens. It is sweaty, it is sweaty as fuck. It's hard after adjusting to only having to communicate with people on screen that I am slowly working back into the world. Guys. Yeah. Don't like it.

Wow. I'm the opposite. I love talking to people IRL. Yeah. That's my jam. No way. I will say my big issue is and this is a thing that you mentioned about being sweaty. I mean, in the more literal sense, every recording studio is like a little too hot.

And I think it's just because of sound, right? I mean, Matt, you're from the production side, but it's just like if you've got like an AC going, that gets into the microphones and that poisons the well. Oh, I thought you meant that the content we were making was absolute fire. that poisons the well. Oh, I thought you meant that the content we were making was absolute fire. That too, you know, but I mean, all the more reason would be nice if it was a little bit cooler temperature wise. I feel like though, like, because there is AC in here technically and it's sort of on, but not really.

That's the whole thing. Like, this is like the coolest recording studio I've ever been in. Yeah. In terms of temperature. And it's still like a little too warm. Because like you could zap out, I mean, everyone who is actually like an actual audio engineer

who's going to listen to this is going to be mad when I say this. I'm like, you can just fucking zap it out. No, you get that shit out. Yeah. Just run the noise reduction in Audacity.

Dust your hands off. Call it a day. It's called Pro Tools, sweetie. Ever heard of it? Yeah. Audio Connect. One filter,

Command A, run the denoise filter and collect your eight hours of pay. In the summertime. Fucking lazy engineer. Fucking get him, dude. In the summertime, Heather, you're recording your garage. It gets hot as hell in there. Yep. Interesting that no listeners have ever commented That air conditioning Is really loud

You can zap it out You zap it out of there Well I also I also fill my pants With ice Oh yeah Yeah well that's the thing That's the thing

That's actually really hard To edit out You know just the ice Sort of just jostling The cracking Yeah And the squish Every time I adjust

My weight in the chair Ice trousers Feels like a thing that you would, that would be like a Kickstarter in like 2007 that would get like $150 million committed. Oh, it will be a Kickstarter in 2030 for sure. Yeah, yeah. When it starts- You'd be like, oh, I've made outfits out of ice.

Yeah, average heat on earth, 113 degrees annually. Yeah. What a pleasure on Earth, 113 degrees annually. Yeah. What a pleasure we're in store for. The future is going to be everything the dystopian novels told us it would be. And more. Yeah. It's going to be worse. Because you can't account for everything in a dystopian

novel. You know, sometimes it's like, oh, there's bands of outlaws that are, you know, racist or whatever. In other ones, it's like, the worldlaws that are, you know, racist or whatever. And other ones, it's like the world's too hot. There's no more water. And our world is going to have all of it. It's going to be great.

I just want the like one cool thing. I mean, there is cool things. You know what I'm talking about. Your phone is so cool. It's incomprehensible. I fucking hate that thing. Get out of here. Pisses me off every day.

But like, it's like, to put yourself back in 2007, not that long ago, and imagine just a flat piece of glass that you hold in your pocket that has everything on it and fast. Yes. It's fucking insane. No, it is. I was in, you know, I was watching a movie from 2006, the flip phone era. Yeah. And I was just like, oh, my God, that feels so long ago. Yeah. The idea that like a text message was just text that you would receive.

So, yeah, from that standpoint, it's like it's like, yes, that aspect is amazing. But you know what I mean? I mean, like a hover train or a fucking gigantic, you know, holographic woman. Fucking snow piercer over here. Yeah, exactly. Give me some give me something cool from one of these dystopian nightmare films. I was watching. So I was watching Party Down in order to prep for the new season of Party Down, you know, just to enjoy myself. Flip phones and Party Down. I don't know how old the show is.

It's not that old, right? Mid 2000s. Mid 2000s. Flip phones and Party Down. And there's an episode where they go to a Republican party and they're hosting a Republican party. And it's just the Republicans are depicted as like normal guys who are like, yeah, you know, we just want small government. And there's like a couple of people who are there's smartphones is exactly why this Republican group is presented this way. Because the invention of the smartphone is what creates the Republican Party of today.

Yes. So it's really it's an insane time capsule. It's also there's the like, I think it wasn't until like 2012 or something. It was later than you think where mobile use of Facebook surpassed like desktop use of Facebook. Like even when social media was in its nascent stages, it was still I don't know if I'm pronouncing that word right. nascent, whatever. It doesn't matter. It's okay. Yeah. None of us were mad.

Someone will be mad. Nascant. Nascant stages. The, like, it was all, like, on computers. So it's a completely different sort of, like, it's not like a thing you have with you all, like, constantly. Yeah. It's not, it's when someone would sit down, like, at their desk and then go home and forget about it.

And instead, now, I can look at TikTok, use a beauty filter on my face and be like, huh, maybe I should wear makeup. You don't got to do that. I could, though. I could wear real millennial makeup. I like it better when chicks don't wear makeup. Yeah, it's more real. I like it better when broads don't wear makeup.

Broads? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, you know, I like to see like the real thing. Yeah, let me see. Warts and all. True beauty. Warts? I like a dame with a lot of warts.

Yeah, and really stringy witch hair, kind of. Stringy? Yeah. Green skin. I love a witch. Near a cauldron. I used to just leave my phone at home. Yeah, isn't that wild? You didn't need it all the time. near a cauldron. I used to just leave my phone at home.

Yeah, isn't that wild? You didn't need it all the time. Also, I was like, who am I going to call? I'm with my parents. Now it's like a dare. Now it's like a challenge. Like, I read mindfulness books and they're all like,

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Last month, we talked this out live on the air. Oh. And we figured it out. Oh, we're doing it. I don't know. We thought we could maybe do it, figure it out, discuss. We don't have to. We don't have to commit to anything.

The next month of my life is looking like the most intense gauntlet I've ever experienced. So I pitch Minesweeper. Hey, I'll do a fucking hour on Minesweeper. Yeah. I wouldn't necessarily hate that certainly spent more than an hour of my life playing it the one

the one that we were kicking around that I did Metroid was Metroid Prime Remastered yes yeah cause Nick and I

are already playing it it was a selfish pick but it might also be like a little dated by the time this episode comes out but also I think like yeah well maybe people

will have time to play it and also people who have not revisited the remaster, but remember the original. And that does. We'll have their thoughts on it. Does it preclude us from in the future, not this coming May, but in the future doing a Metroid month? I don't know.

No, I don't think so. There's so much. There's so many fucking Metroids. You know, we could definitely do that. You know, hey, we could we could talk Metroid Prime Hunters. We could talk Metroid Prime Pinball. Yeah, that's right. Lots of Metroids.

The month's already halfway done. There you go. Street Fighter 2. What about Street Fighter? We could do a Street Fighter 2. Hey, I'd be down for

that. Yeah. There's a lot to discuss in Street Fighter 2. We just did Goldeneye. I'd be fine with Metroid Prime.

So are we good to announce Metroid Prime Remastered? Let's pencil in Metroid Prime Remastered. I think just do it. Let's just do it. I'm going on a flight tomorrow. I'll bring Metroid Prime Remastered? Let's pencil in Metroid Prime Remastered. I think just do it. Let's just do it. I'm going on a flight tomorrow.

I'll bring Metroid Prime. Wow. So there we go. And here's the thing. Have you ever played it before, Heather? No. I think just from my very limited experience with it so far, I think you're going to fucking love it.

Okay. Yeah. Having never played it, my initial impression of the game is it's a lot of like downtime where you're like looking for shit. And I'm going to be really angry about that. Just heads up. We'll talk about it.

Yeah. You don't have to like you can get by without scanning all the stuff. Like a lot of that is just like, hey, I'm getting some some flavor text to start to sort of understand the story of this reality more. I want to be dropped in, be told this button gives you ball and then the other button is gun. This button gives you ball. You want like this button gives you ball. So Metroid Prime remastered. Let's say let's say we're doing that.

We're doing it. I'm excited. I'm very excited. I can't wait. I'm going to I'm going to stop by my my favorite, my tangible game store here in Los Angeles, see if I can grab a copy, and then I'll bring it with me. Do you want to shout it out, or are you worried about the people swarming? Game Realms is in Burbank. It has a really nice, like anything that has limited runs or small press, they usually have copies of it there.

They also have a really, really well curated retro selection. So like when I bought Out of This World for the Dreamcast, which was like a super limited print, they just had it on the shelf there. Wow. And not like for a markup, just like this is a place to go when you want to find a rare game. So that means they'll have Metroid Prime Remastered

because a lot of the regular stores I'm hearing are having limited stock. Yeah. Ironic that it has a retro game section and we're playing a game developed by retro. So Metroid Prime Remastered coming- Ironic? End of the month.

Dame? We play, against Stringy. But it's a very definition of irony. Great. I can't wait to tell you guys how I played the lobby of Metroid Prime. And that was as far as I got. You're going to get more into it. Because it's fun. Nope.

It won't happen. I think you're going to like it a lot. My free time this month is going to be dedicated to the game I'm playing right now, the game I'm always playing right now, and then five minutes on the side for Metroid Prime. You're going to budget more time for it. Nope, nope, nope. Let's get into some video games we are playing right now.

Yes. And look, I don't know exactly how we're going to transition into this because as listeners, regular listeners are aware, last week we got an unexpected resignation from our regular master of ceremonies. A resignation full of resignation. Full of resignation from the Resident Evil merchant who normally stewards this segment into action. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But honestly, we don't need that guy.

Well, what if it's like a friendly chat? Yeah. What if it's just like, hey, Nick, what are you playing? Yeah, this is great. This is a great way to get into what are you playing? I think that's nice. We don't need the sort of, you know, tense presence of this hulking ghoul. Yeah.

And we're not putting him down. We're not putting him down behind his back because we miss him or anything. No, we don't miss him. Who misses that? We don't miss him. The guy almost never speaks to me. We don't even need him to do this because it's fine. Who even cares?

I hope he fucking dies. I hope he's on another podcast. What? I hope he's dead too. You hope he's on a different podcast. Yeah, he can be fucking the new Jamie or whatever on Rogan's podcast or something. Yeah, whatever. I don't care.

I mean, it would be an incredible crossover event if the Resident Evil merchant showed up on Rogan. Yeah, it's almost one of these things where, like, if somebody else that we knew went on, I'd be a little disappointed. But for him, I would love it. I'm just I feel like Rogan would just glom onto all of his politics. Yeah, you know, I don't even I don't I don't take any medicine anymore. I just have whatever the merchant has. I'm eating raw fish now. It's all I'm eating.

Black bass completely restores my health. Yeah, he said that this hunchback is actually the prime form for a human male. Nick, what are you playing? Heather, thank you for the question. So I'm going to talk real quick about, I'm talking about three things. I'm going to talk real quick. First up about Sekiro.

Still working my way through it. Dragonrot is a thing I've talked about. And this is the thing that as you're progressing through the world, one indication that you're dying uh is which you will do because the from software game is that npcs will get sick with dragon rot and they when you encounter them they will be just like the these like really nasty uh you know coughs like they have a tuberculosis or some sort of horrible respiratory omen. I wish COVID had been called Dragon Rot.

My God, how much cooler would that have been? That's the thing. I got Dragon Rot. It's like 28 Days Later has the Rage Virus. Why did we get COVID instead of the Rage Virus? I mean, I don't want the Rage Virus, but I want the name. That's what I'm talking about. That's what I'm saying. Give me the cool

parts of the dystopia. Give me that cool parts of the apocalypse. I want the name. That's what I'm talking about. That's what I'm saying. Give me the cool parts of the dystopia. Give me that cool parts of the apocalypse. I got the rage virus when I tried to freaking pirate Rage Against the Machine. There you go. So, one thing I like about Dragon Rot is that, first off, it's an indicator. It feels like a punishment. It feels

like a, you know, like, hey, you are getting demerits for this, but it also doesn't really affect your gameplay all that much because all it really does is reduce the percentage chance i've said this before on the podcast that you will get a bonus uh upon upon dying that you will get an unexpected thing so it's like it's like it's like pretty it's a pretty minor thing that you will get from uh restoring dragon rot or curing everyone's dragon rot but also it ties in thematically to just like the idea of like this is a punishing world and as as all these game worlds are this is a punishing world where we're all doing all we can to just try to stay alive and self-preservation in of itself

is so tenuous where you only like really the decision to save these others will can never can cannot be selfless. It has to be like at a time when it benefits yourself. So, yeah, I just I really like it. I think it works really well in terms of just, you know, in terms of the themes of the of this game and the and these sorts of games. And then also just like as a as a mechanic, as a device. I think it's I think it's great. I also want to talk real quick about Pizza Tower. So this is a game that I mentioned last week developed and published by Tour de Pizza, who for a long time, I think, was just one person.

I'm playing it on Steam. You know, it's one of those things with PC gaming. And I'm sure you both experience this with a Steam deck as well. It's just like you end up with those with having to debug some issues that are sometimes just specific to your own hardware and for me it was just like when i was connecting my xbox controller over wirelessly uh the the control was really it just had some weird like unresponsiveness in terms of like okay if i was like dashing and then i jumped um you're supposed to be able to just like keep holding the dash and that continues to work but I'd have to press

it again and I was like what the fuck is going on here why does this feel so wonky I plugged in my controller and it's fixed and it's the kind of thing of just like whatever I love PC gaming I'm glad these platforms exist I'm glad it's so easy for an indie developer to put something out but like that's just a thing you don't really run into on

consoles which is like my controller is going to behave completely differently plugged in versus wireless anyway the pizza tower the game uh that's a small tangent plays like wario land it looks like hey arnold or like another like 90s nickelodeon cartoon it's kind of got that like really you know the super exaggerated character animation um these uh these kind of like unpleasant looking intentionally you know character designs like really exaggerating squash and stretch uh with you know the with like the the jumps and the acceleration and stuff uh but the animation is really really nifty it feels like wario land but it also feels like sonic in the sense that so much of the game is about speed and you kind of get to that just on the cusp

of being out of control feel that you have in Sonic games at their best. You know, when you're just like, you're racing really fast, you kind of just don't really know what you're going to impact next until you learn the level layouts. And that's really, really fun.

The way it handles damage and death is, as far as I can tell, the penalty is only in terms of score and rank. Like you seem to be able to take, you don't really of score and rank. You seem to be able to take... You don't really have a health bar. You seem to be able to take a number of hits. You can fall down a pit and you just basically restart and respawn on that same run. You don't have

to redo any section of the level. The way all that is handled seems very user-friendly, but also it just has a built-in speedrunning aspect in terms of just trying to accelerate through these levels as quickly as you can, which ties in with how it works when you get to the end of a level, which is that you have to sprint through on the turnaround and exit the level the same way you got in with the timer. the turnaround and exit the level the same way you got in with the timer. And that's really cool. That's really fun because you've learned the layout, but you also like it feels differently,

obviously, to progress to the opposite direction. And it's populated with new enemies. I don't know. It's got a lot of personality. It's just a super fun 2D platformer that's just kind of get this retro 90s feel to it, slash 2000s Game Boy Advance sort of feel to it. And I don't know. I just feel like I think it's an absolute hoot. You truly sold it exactly as it looks.

As I pulled it up on my iPad here, looking at the design, it's 100% Nickelodeon, Ren and Stimpy, Hey Arnold, like that aesthetic. It is a beautifully ugly game. Yes, I think that and it's obviously, I think that's what they're going for I don't know, I think it's a delight if you like these sorts of

platformers. Also some real challenge in terms of trying to get to the A ranks, the S ranks and then the elusive P rank, I guess for pizza which is above S. Yeah. But anyway, yeah, playing some Pizza Tower. Looks like it's verified for Steam Deck 2. Oh, there you go. Maybe I'll be checking that out. Yeah, probably be a good Steam Deck deck. I'm looking at the color

palette for one of these levels and there are three different orange colors. Pink, purple, light blue, green. Like it is just a, like you would never see that spectrum of colors combined anywhere but 1990s animation.

Yeah, 100%. So fucking ugly. It's amazing. It's great. And yeah, you mean, we're not saying that in a pejorative way. It's like, that's what it's going for. Yeah, yeah, no, I'm, yeah, no.

It makes me sick. It's not, like it is. It is not bad. Yes. It is intentionally this, which means that it's good because it 100 percent looks like this. Yeah, for sure. So, yeah, that's Pizza Tower. I can I can say one more thing real quick. And this is this is Just fucking take over the podcast. Fucking toss it to me. There he goes. No, of course. The merchant's not here, and suddenly you're just like, you know what? I'm going to spend like 40 minutes talking about what I'm playing.

Hey, I got past the ball. I'm going to fucking take the shot. And the truth is, we have an additional 40 minutes of time because he's not here yet. So go off, King. Yeah. One quick thing real quick, just because I'm reading this, the new Sumner Redstone book, unscripted Sumner Redstone for people who don't follow that aspect of media coverage was the CEO of Viacom well into his 90s. of Viacom well into his 90s. Just one of the all-time fucking ghouls. Just a nasty fucking misogynistic,

profane, retrograde piece of shit. And just one of these real disgusting, gnarled billionaires that just like in this book, it's just talking about what a monster he is. His daughter was on this corporate board, and he would call her the C-word in meetings in front of everybody. He degraded his son in front of everyone. My cute daughter? Yeah, cute daughter.

But she was embarrassed. I'm a professional. Don't make me feel like a little girl. girl there's a point where there's a point in the book where uh like someone's like hey like talking to his daughter and is like hey sumner um you need to like patch things up with your daughter like you're being unreasonable like you know she has some good ideas for the future of the industry and this voice of reason is donald trump Oh, my God. But anyways, the reason I bring that up in this context is that that Viacom owned Bally Midway for a for a while. And there's a part of this book where Sumner Redstone is after the success of Mortal Kombat.

And obviously, like, you know, his his big company was National Amusements before he took over Paramount and then Viacom and CBS. And that was a, you know, it was theaters. And he also had arcades and was invested in Bally Midway. And Bally Midway was a huge moneymaker in the 80s and 90s. And then Mortal Kombat hits. And he's like, this is a big new thing. So he's just funneling money into Bally Midway.

And his daughter is like, arcades are dying. The movie industry is shifting. We can't be doing this. He's so spiteful at her that he appoints her the like in charge of Bally Midway. Yeah, that she's like, this company is not going to work. And it ultimately folds. And he ends up selling this company that he's invested billions of his own money in for like $100,000. So it's just it just kind of like I don't know. It was just an interesting little nod to video game dumps impact on the entertainment industry or Hollywood. And then also just like how this one like monster was so heavily, you know, entrenched in it and thought it was the future and was wrong. My daughter didn't believe in me. I guess I'd have a couple of words for her, too. It's good that when I look someone up like that and I don't know who they are, my first thought is, well, I'm glad this person's dead.

Really, truly, it looked it seemed to be he seemed to be just like a true piece of shit. He looks like his he looked AI generated in the photo that you pulled up on the screen. up on the screen. He looked like, like, uh, hey, Midjourney, make me a,

uh, billionaire who is rotting from the inside. Yes. And it literally just looks like that dude. Make me someone who's, uh,

the impact of their choices affects how they look. Yes, yeah. It is very, it is very FromSoft. Yeah. Um,

yeah, just, just a melting wax figure of himself. Yeah. Just a true, true piece of shit. Well, rotten hell, Sumner.

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with your first purchase exclusively at drinkag1.com slash getplayed. That's drinkag1.com slash getplayed. Check it out. Hey, Matt. Yes. What are you playing? Thank you for asking me. You know, you mentioned selling a physical copy of the...

Pokemon Black and White. Pokemon Black and White. In order to afford the Apple ARS. Yes. And I, in addition to playing this month's We Play, You Play, which I'm absolutely loving, and I'll speak more on later. Monday, March 27th. Yes.

On this month's We Play, You Play. Yes. Metroid Prime Remastered. Metroid Prime Remastered. I'm playing Pokemon Black on my Steam Deck. And this is the one Pokemon game that I skipped. And Pokemon Black in white, too. Trubbish!

Trubbish is there. Trubbish! I haven't seen Trubbish yet, but I'm very excited to encounter Trubbish. If I catch a Trubbish, I'm going to name it Heather and put it in my party. Trubbish! I wish the Resident Evil merchant had Trubbish's vocabulary. Just like one word. Still 40 minutes long.

I'm fucking loving this thing. It is. It's so good. It is such a refreshing. Well, for me, Return to Form, because I was a little disappointed in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet because of this sort of like. Everything. Everything. Everything, but specifically the lack of like... It was too open to me.

Like, you can tackle anything in any order. The bad guys in it aren't really bad guys. Like, you have to go to them. They're not really interrupting you in your story to become the Pokemon champion. This game, these fucking uh team plasma or whatever they are they keep showing up i was like get the fuck out of here dude i'm trying to get badges there's everywhere and i i love it it's great you have these two friends who are sort of accompanying your journey alongside you but not

in tandem. So you'll get to a new town and they're already there and be like, hey, Matt, shit's fucked here. It's bad. You got to help. This bad team took this little girl's Pokemon. And so you got to go deal with that and stuff. And also, it might be my favorite Pokemon aesthetic in a very long time. Wow.

Because it's a mix of, I mean, it's on DS. Right. So it's still 2D sprites, but it's late enough in the DS's life cycle where they've sort of figured out how to make 2D sort of 3D. Yeah. Where it has a little bit of both. And it's fantastic. I love how it looks. It plays really great on the Steam Deck. It's so fun.

I picked the pig, the fire pig. He's evolved to a second form right now, Pig Knight, which is very funny. And the team is coming along. I keep catching new guys and putting them in the team because I'm having a hard time picking who gets to stay in the squad because everybody in here is new, not necessarily new to me because I've seen them in other games, but I don't really know who's, you know, who's who or what's what.

So I'm having a really great time playing that and, and, and looking forward to, uh, you know, what, know what whatever else is coming next in that game and then probably playing pokemon black too um it's i love it i so pokemon black and white came out while i was living and working in um manhattan and was having new york city was having just greatest city in the world worst years of my life emotionally. Fold a slice of pizza in half. And I fully. I think that would be good at 1255. I fully believe that Pokemon Black and White allowed me to romanticize living in Manhattan so that I could tolerate existing.

Like I was like, oh, this is like where I found a Pokemon. I can do this. Yeah. I can make it through this. Wow. It's like if you were miserable in Paris, but you could imagine yourself as like being in a French movie. You know, like it really helped.

And I also, it's got... Trubbish. Had you played a bunch of Pokemon before that or was that like you had just jumped back into it? I jumped back in. Like I played I played Game Boy Pokemon Blue and I played Ruby on the advance. Ruby Sapphire. Yeah. And this is I think my third Pokemon game total.

Wow, yeah. And I was like, this is wonderful. Also, doesn't it have like a, or maybe that's the 3DS version. There's one where like it had like a fashion show. I don't know if that one's in there yet. I haven't experienced it. But every Pokemon game has some ancillary bullshit

that you can do where you can dress up your Pokemon and do a little fashion show or do like a sort of like, yeah, like a beauty contest of some kind, make sandwiches or whatever. It's always like something where you're like, OK, they show you how to do it so you can do it. And that's the one time that I do it. The best way to determine that you're dying as a human being is to look at games that you believe are recent and see how old they look and then be like, oh, my God. Oh, God. Games have come so far. Oh, God, I'm dying. Yeah. Yeah.

It's wonderful. It's it's because Pokemon black and white looks old. It looks old, but it has so much charm so fucking i wish they would make a game i wish they would make the next pokemon game in the style of like octopath traveler 2 yeah that too that hd 2d right would be so nice or remake remake pokemon like gold in that style and i would pay whatever they asked i'm looking at this i'm looking at some of this footage right now i've never played black and white and played most of the Pokemons, but this looks like a 3D engine

that the sprites are moving around in. Maybe these characters are also 3D models. No, I believe it's flat sprites on 3D backgrounds. If you could see battle animation, the Pokemon look like they're moving like cartoons like it looks like it looks unreal to me i i love it it's my it's my absolute favorite looking uh pokemon um so far um it's it i can't believe i missed it that's the that's my big takeaway is that i'm having so much fun with it. And it's exactly the type of Pokemon journey that I like.

And I completely skipped it. That's right. You got to play them all. Yeah. In terms of catch them all in a Pokemon. Got to play them all. No skips, baby. You got to play them all.

But Heather, what are you playing? Well, guys, I finally broke out of the shell of Fortnite. That's not to say I haven't played fortnight this week and in fact set up the ps4 in a different room so that mary could start learning how to play fortnight wow which uh she's dabbled in now we're keeping her uh on the on the sort of dl until she gets the uh controller scheme memorized but But she's played a few rounds. She knows how to, like, open doors, pick up weapons, fire the weapons, toggle through stuff. She went to the Kid Laurie concert.

Wow. But, you know, playing with the Get Played Battle Bus on our Discord, which is now, I think, 50 or 60 strong. Like, it's a real community. I love it. But the big news of this week is that I spent a couple hours not playing Fortnite while also playing video games.

And it was because I got PSVR 2, as I mentioned last week on the show. Very cool. Here's how out of touch I've been with... Well, first I'll say i i got the horizon demo uh it's fucking great you climb you climb by like climbing like you use your hands to climb heather is doing the motion above her head as she's climbing a ladder yeah it's like it's like doing mime work so okay cool. And the graphics look so smooth and so beautiful.

Really, really great. I would call it on par, if not because of ease of use, above the other VR headset that I have, which is the Valve Index. Okay. Significantly physically lighter also, which is the, um, Valve Index. Okay. Um, significantly physically lighter, also, which is nice. That's great.

Uh, but I'm so out of touch on, on, uh, oh, and I also played Rez. Holy shit. Rez in VR is incredible.

I've never played Rez. Oh my God, damn, it's so fucking good. Um, couldn't help but like, bop in place while, while while playing it because the soundtrack's so good it it feels like you're hacking a mainframe in a 1990s movie like you're flying through cyberspace as like a grid person uh attacking enemy ai great game love to be a grid man. Grid, you, a grid man.

But here's the thing. I didn't know until I looked up for today that Gran Turismo 7 was actually released a year ago. I'm not a Gran Turismo person. I thought the Gran Turismo 7 was released this week in accordance with the VR release because everybody on Twitter has been talking about it as a VR game and how exceptional it is as a VR game.

And I am here to testify, it is so fucking good in VR. It is crazy how good it is. And I'd like you to put on this music track that I sent you, Matt. Because I'm not a Gran Turismo person. I didn't realize that a lot of the aesthetic of Gran Turismo is smooth. It's just like chill vibes. So can you hit that? Can you hit that song?

So this is like your menu experience. Oh, hell yeah. Right? This just sold this game to me. I'm buying this? So when you play Forza or you play any of these other racing games that I've dabbled in, or you play like any of these other racing games that I've dabbled in, it's this, it's assaulting your senses constantly.

And Gran Turismo is more like a cafe experience. Yeah, there's like Cafe LeBlanc and Persona 5. But it also uses a cafe as part of its hub world. So like there's a cafe you spend time in, which is beautifully rendered. You get these little menus from these characters who work in the cafe. So it's almost visual novel-esque. And they're like, hey, I think you should collect these three FF Japanese cars. And then there's like a little history of what that is. And then you go into these races with the intention of unlocking those cars.

Wow. And you complete the menu. And it's this beautiful paper menu of those cars that you've now unlocked. And then you get like these slow panning shots of the cars while you find out more history about the cars. And then you go back to the cafe and you get like more menus. And people who review bombed this game

because... You can drive as a girl. What? Like that's what they would be mad at. I'll read from Wikipedia here. Gran Turismo 7 was the subject of review bombing on Metacritic two weeks after release, following changes made to the game through updates. It received the lowest Metacritic user rating for a game published by Sony. Criticism focused on its aggressive use of microtransactions

and the focus on grinding to unlock in-game currency and content. Players noted that updates to the game increased the time needed to grind, as well as reducing the amount of rewards gained, feeling it encouraged spending real money on microtransactions. I didn't know until I was reading this that you spend anything. No, I do remember this criticism at the time. It was like it was the kind of thing where like you'd have to like grind for like 700 hours to like unlock a certain car. The pricing of items was labeled by some as being too expensive, noting certain car cars cost as much as 200 real dollars. And bargain IRL. Bargain IRL.

During the first month of release, Polyphony, Polyphony, Polyphony, Polyphony, President Kazunori Yamouchi wrote that while he wished for players to enjoy content without microtransactions, he felt it important that cars reflected the prices of their real-world counterparts to convey their value and rarity. And his statement drew some criticism.

I'm not having any of that experience in fucking Gran Turismo 7. I'm getting these menus, listening to that smooth music in a VR helmet, and then getting on a racetrack, which is fucking identical to reality. So much so that when you come around a corner and the sun is in your eyes you're you're angling your head like so that you can like get out of the sun to see when you are driving at night the headlights in the in the rear view mirrors are blinding you. Like if you have, if you aren't sitting quite right in the, in the fucking driver's seat, it is.

I drove in the rain in a race and I was like, I am in a car and there is no difference. Like, it feels like I'm in a car and I'm where the, the, the only difference is that it feels like I've got like a nylon, like nylons over my, my head.

But otherwise, otherwise, it is visually identical. Yeah. To the experience of a real drive. Have you have you tried to do what you do when you play Microsoft Flight Simulator and just drive as fast as you can and crash into the first thing you see? There's not really crashing in Gran Turismo games. Yeah. But also, it's such a smooth experience that I'm just like, I want to be respectful in this race. Yeah. I'm getting a bonus if I don't hit other cars.

I see. I see. If I can get first place in the race without hitting another car and I get that extra currency, and then I can unlock like a... The difference between... So I'm driving a fucking Yaris or whatever and then I unlock the classic Mini Cooper and I'm in that car and looking at the environment of being inside of that car in VR I'm like this I'm in this fucking car

I'm in the real car the wow oh if you're driving in a car that's older and you're going at a top speed, the wind noise on the car is in your ears in 3D. So like you're hearing the wind the way you would hear the wind in an actual car. It's it's so fucking sick and so tight that I am going to drop money on a racing wheel. Wow. Which is something I've threatened to do on this podcast before, but have never actually done. And that's what I'm doing. I'm buying a fucking racing wheel.

I love it. I love this for you. Are you going to get pedals too? Yeah, pedals. I'm getting a direct drive racing wheel. So it has all the torque of a real fucking wheel. That's amazing. And I'm going to play.

I'm going to just sit, listen to that smooth music. Put it on one more time. I'm just going to sit in my racing chair and I'm going to hear as like the person in the cafe is like, have you considered maybe owning a mid-range sedan? Yeah. And I'll be like, well, yes, I have considered that. It's also because the game is so authentic and feels so real.

Yeah. There's pleasure in driving these cars that I would never fucking care about in the real world. Like I do not care about a Yaris. How dare you? If a cafe- I care about a Yaris. How dare you? If a cafe... I've owned a Yaris for years. If somebody at a cafe came up to me and was like,

you should collect this type of car, I'd be like, mind your fucking business. Don't talk to me like that. I want to add one more thing, which is that I'm speaking from a place of enormous luxury and privilege for this one game the experience of gran turismo it for without vr might be boring as shit like i like i like racing games it is so fucking good in vr it's it's i can't stop thinking about it i want

to i can't wait to try it the other day i woke up and I was like, I'm not going to play Fortnite. I'm going to go into the garage and I'm going to play a little bit of Gran Turismo. That's rad. First off, you described that very well. The only part of the game that interests me, because I don't like racing games, I don't like driving, period, is chilling in that cafe. That sounds fun. And if I could get a job in that cafe and just like not have to drive, I might be interested. But I'm curious because from what I've heard of this, it is so from you and from reading and listening to other people's testimonials, like it is like a very visceral, engrossing experience.

Do you feel anything like you get any like headaches or nausea? I don't. No motion sickness? i don't i don't but i'm not i like the only game in vr that has given me nausea was blair witch yes i'm not like if i play i could play beat saber for literal hours and never ever feel anything except beat savory. I wonder if a big part of it is just like our existing perception of like, if you're in a car, you are seated, but you're in motion. Yeah. Whereas Blair Witch, it's like it's simulating walking. But so you're either sitting or standing, but you're walking.

Yeah. That's super disoriented. It made me feel like I was going to fall over. Well, I was like, I'm racing in this car and I get far enough out in first that I started like looking out the window and then I was like, oh my God, I can look in the back seat. So I was like driving forward and like peering over my... There's a guy back there. There's a dude jerking off in the back seat.

You're a good driver. Maxi. You're a good driver. But yeah, it's, oh God, it is so pleasant and I cannot wait to have a wheel to play it because I think I might become a racing head. Wow. When that wheel comes, let me know. I'm coming right over.

You got it, buddy. I can't wait to try it. You got it. You can play that and the barrier of entry is you have to play 32X for 45 minutes. Hey, look, I'm happy to do it. We got to do that. We'll have to do that soon. That sounds so good.

It's so good. It's so good. Because I loved Forza. The Forza 5 game that came out last year on Xbox and Game Pass. And that is like the exact opposite of what you've described where it's like it's very like you know it's just a lot going on. It's aggressive. Yes. This seems like a nice

chill game Weiger. You were looking for a chill game. Love a chill game. You don't like driving. No this would not work for me. I want to say a couple things about the PlayStation hardware. The PSVR 2 hardware. One is it is so much lighter than the than the Vive or whatever the fuck it's called the valve index yeah yeah uh so much lighter which is a huge pleasure pleasurable experience

um i found that the field of view was smaller than the valve index like i feel like the the way you see the world is slightly more binocular. The controllers, as of right now, I'm still getting used to. Because when you slide your hand into the Valve Index controllers, you can like open up your hand and you don't feel fear of them dropping because you're kind of secured to the controller. But the PSVR controllers are more like i have to actually hold these um but the overall i can't every fucking time i plug in my valve index i have to troubleshoot for a half hour before i can get the fucking thing to work and with this i plugged it into my my playstation and it was like look around your room like there's no additional cameras there's no nothing like you don't have sensors or anything so i look around my room and it created a

uh rudimentary um what what's the word i'm looking for polygonal map of my room so that it knew where everything was and then was like great where do you want to play in this space and you could like get up walk around everything it has pass through so you can see what you're looking at and i was like well for this game i'm just gonna play on the couch so i select couch um it's so fucking good that i am going to remodel my office in order to allow me a larger play space for the PSVR. That's fucking great. Yeah, everything I've heard about the hardware, it sounds

like just a nice iteration on everything that exists. Nice improvement. I can't justify getting another VR headset when I have one that every time I put on my Oculus, it's like, it needs an update. And It's like, fuck this.

Never. I don't need an update. Also wild. So it has built in earbuds, which is a really interesting choice because once you put them in, you can't sense that they're there anymore. And I think over ear headphones would provide you this different like they've done a lot of work to try and make it feel invisible both with weight

and also the way that the earbuds are wired directly into the helmet and sort of dangle on little wires so that there's also no lag because I feel like that would create additional nausea it's a really pleasurable experience but by far Gran Turismo 7 is the best part of it it's a really pleasurable experience. But by far, Gran Turismo 7 is the best

part of it. Oh, it's a it's a legitimate, I think, also a safety concern where you don't want to be too locked off from the world. Right. I got some earbuds, some wired earbuds for my Oculus. And it was the kind of thing where it's just it's so clunky. Like it's like I kind of have them just kind of jerry rigged where, you know, they're routed through some straps and yeah, it being built in. That sounds like it's like a little thing that's there's a regular headphone jack that is in the back of the helmet and they come with a U-shaped dangling earbuds that snap into the back of the helmet, lock in place, and then the earbuds dangle down and you just put them into your ears. Does that make sense what I'm saying? One hundred percent. Yes.

Wow. That's fantastic. That's great. Well, hey. I'd suck the dick of that headset. Jesus Christ. Hey, she loves it. That was some beautiful music you played for the Gran Turismo Cafe Lobby.

But, you know, there's a very different sort of vibe we're going to get for the music we got on today's edition of Now. That's what I call video game music. We're talking intensity, passion, the fire of combat yeah with battle themes and i guess maybe we should begin with a quick taxonomy discussion of what is a battle theme in everyone's estimation my mind instantly went to jrpgs but i don't think it necessarily has to be limited and rpgs in general or you know wrpgs as well but you know i don't think it has to be limited to that no and i i do think a lot of my selections fall under that category sure uh but um i do think of it as like because a lot of games have combat encounters and there's different music for that

so i would think of it as more like combat encounter music in that it's not like necessarily like boss music. Right. But it's like when you're in an enemy encounter, this is what play. Yeah. I think it's, I think it's any,

any reused theme. Cause I feel like any specific, like you, if you're fighting sin in final fantasy 10, you hear that track that one time. But if it's a, if it's a song that recurs over and over again, that's a battle theme.

But also, there are also boss themes that play. Yeah, that's different. That's different. But even those that repeat, it's different than what you'll see in a normal combat encounter. I think we're all on the same page. Yeah. Because we've done boss themes.

This is different. This is different. This is non-boss themes. I have a track in my playlist, which I think straddles the line, and I will defend it. But I'm willing to defend it because I think it applies. I maybe do, too, which we'll get to that. Great.

The other thing I was going to say is that this is my experience looking up a lot of these tracks and settling on my three. and settling on my three. You talked about feeling old earlier, looking at games and figuring out when they came out and how dated they seem. For me, the thing that makes me look old is when I look up a video for a game that I played as an adult, and the top comment is,

my childhood. To run into that with a game released in 2007, you're like, Jesus Christ. That's rough stuff. Anyway, let's get into these. Someone other than me go first. Okay, I'll kick us off. We talked about this a little bit a little while ago.

Pokemon Ruby. Pokemon has a lot of great music in it in general, but the wild Pokemon encounter music is always really great and it's a it always has uh you know similar refrains but here's the one from pokemon uh ruby sapphire and emerald from that game boy advanced sound chip that's so good. That's so good. How good the Game Boy Advance sounded through headphones was always

so big for me, because that speaker was so tinny, but it has a real bass to it. You can tell what every instrument's trying to be. Yes, yeah. It's, it's, but it, but it's, it's, it's also got, like, a very, like, you know, that, that synthy chiptune-y sound to it.

Yeah. Like, it's not, it's not just trying to replicate. No. Real instruments. Yeah, I love that. I'll, I'll, I'll never get tired of the that super fucking fast run that gets into the combat encounters.

It's iconic. Great. Great stuff. Great pick. That's my first pick. That's great. That's great. All right, go ahead, Heather.

Well, so it's interesting that you would say that about instruments and you know what the instruments are supposed to be when you hear a song because the first pick I have is

I want to play the original version and then I want to play the version from the remake is the Final Fantasy VII battle theme, which when you heard it as a kid or before you were born in Matt's case, you were blown away by the sound chip on the PlayStation. You were like, holy shit, this sounds like real stuff. And I want to play a little bit from the original version here.

Like having only heard the Genesis or the Super Nintendo before this came in, you were like, oh my God, there's so many instruments. There's so much build. Yeah. But what you were actually hearing in your head is what was released with Final Fantasy Remake. Because when you hear the remake version, you're like, oh, this is how I remember the song.

Right. And so I want to play, my first pick is the remake version of the Final Fantasy 7 battle theme with real instruments Lydia Tarr would be furious to play this. It's so fucking good. Yeah, the whole soundtrack for this remake is unbelievable. It's astounding that they did it.

I feel like I could listen to that song at the gym and I would push beyond every limit that I'd ever had as a person. I would I would be like you'd limit break. I yeah, I would I would punch through a heavy bag if that was playing while I worked out. Wow. I think it's it is such a fucking jam. And I used to I used to run to the original like it was in my running mix and it would make me run twice as fast because i'd be like let's go but that new version

that is choice the track that i really i like locked in on was uh genova j-e-n-o-v-a uh which i just i similarly like from like know, I'd listen to it over and over again in the original soundtrack. And then, yeah, the remake version is just so like unbelievably epic in the arrangement. What were you about to say, Matt? I don't remember. Okay. Great. Nick, you're up.

Look, you know I was going to do it. I was gushing about Persona 5 Royal. Love this game. One of the best JRPGs ever made and an unbelievable soundtrack. Let's just play it. I was gushing about Persona 5 Royal. Love this game. One of the best JRPGs ever made. And an unbelievable soundtrack. Let's just play it. Last Surprise. Music by Shoji Meguro. That's Ugh I mean I feel like

I'm racing in Gran Turismo I can like hear the little the sound of like the menu the different little menu things that you have to go through when you're

fighting Yeah Ugh And maybe the odd Looking cool Joker Oh Morgana that you have to go through when you're fighting. Yeah. Ugh. And maybe the odd, looking cool, Joker. Oh, Morgana. Great stuff.

I gotta get back to it. Me too. I'm gonna start it all over again on my OLED Switch. I've been thinking about getting it for Switch. Oof. God, that's good. Yeah, it's good stuff. That's so fucking good.

A banger. The whole soundtrack, bangers. I like what... I feel like our characters as people are so well established that hearing these songs feels like we're inside each other's heads. Yes. A little bit. I'm glad you finished that sentence, but yeah. A triumphant sort of celebratory experience of being Matt.

Yeah. There's a rush into battle, kill as much as you can from me. And then there's like Nick Weiger's like, he's walking down the street and he's kind of jamming out while on his way to the train. Oh yeah. 100%.

Nick, you got on the train today, right? No, no. No. I mean like I would normally, I would normally on the train today, right? No. No. Fucking no. I mean, like, I would normally take the bus over.

We were starting so early. I was just like, fuck, I think I got to do a... You should get that analog pocket booted up and take it on a train and feel real smooth. That's a great point. I saw a dude playing a Steam Deck on the train. Holy shit. Last week, and it was... I was like, that dude's a fucking alpha. He train. Holy shit. Last week, and it was, I was like, that dude's a fucking alpha.

He was standing, too. He was standing with full head, like, over ear headphones playing the Steam Deck. Wow, yeah. Not every day somebody just, like, fucking big dicks you on the train. Oh, you got a video game podcast?

That's cute. Yeah, I'm playing the fucking Steam Deck. You bitch. He just shits on your shoes. While standing, horse style. In that shits on your shoes. While standing, horse style. Stand in that place. Apodaca.

Okay. What's your next pick? This next pick, I feel like, well, it's of course a pick I'm going to make, but there's a lot

of different types of this type of song in this game. So I'm going with Kingdom Hearts, but you know, every world has a different battle theme. Yes. It's true. That's with Kingdom Hearts. But you know, every world has a different battle theme. Yes! That's okay, man.

I was like, which one do I pick? Which one's one of my favorites? I'm a Nightmare Before Christmas boy. I love Nightmare Before Christmas. Okay. Big movie in my house. So I went with the Halloween Town battle theme from the Kingdom Hearts 1.5

OST, which is the same but here we go wow does this bring back fucking memories instantly you're sora you're sort of dressed like a scary sora donald's like a mummy goofy's like a mummy. Goofy's like a Frankenstein or something. What a compositional challenge to be like, hey, there's this really strong existing soundscape for this property. Just sort of slide in here and come up with something new that feels like it was always a part of it.

And it succeeds. It's so great. That's a great pick. All the music in Kingdom Hearts fucking owns. So it was hard to pick just one, but that one is great. I also want to shout out from Kingdom Hearts to the space paranoids from the Tron level. When Disney was like,

hey, we're trying to get people excited about Tron again. Look, I'm still excited about Tron. I'll take all that that you got. Any Tron you got, fucking shove it down my throat. I love Tron. That's my second pick. I'm going to have a pick, I believe, from that musician later on.

Oh, wow. But right now, I want to go back to 13 years ago, which is appropriate because my next pick is from Final Fantasy XIII. Wow. Released in 2010 and with music written by Masashi Hamauzu. Hamauzu? Hamauzu.

Hamaozu Hamaozu? Hamaozu. Final Fantasy 13 is not well remembered or well regarded. But the soundtrack to Final Fantasy 13 is among the best.

The battle theme for Final Fantasy 13 has no business existing or going as hard as it does. And here I'd like to play a little bit from Lightning's journey to whatever the fight. I don't remember what she was doing, like trying to make a crystal. I know she returned at a certain point. In like the third game? Yeah.

God damn it. What could have been for Final Fantasy XIII? But here is one place where it really, really, really bullseye that target. And we're going to have to wait a little bit for the fucking violins to come in. Okay. Because this is your opening salvo in a battle. So you're like doing your regular attack, you know?

I don't think I've ever seen this girl before. She looks cool. She looks great. Okay, so you're like, you're doing your basic magic. Okay, it's not bad. But then there's going to be a moment where you're like, fuck, I don't want to fucking fight this

monster anymore. And you pull out your like high level magic. Anytime like one of these themes has like you're settling into it and it's like, oh, this is a cool part. And then it gets to the next part. Like, no, this is the cool part. Yeah, this one is totally that. Here's actually what the song is. It's so good. part and then it gets to the next part. He's like, no, this is the cool part. This one is totally that. Here's actually what the song is. It's so good.

You know those rare occasions where somebody in the Olympics will do a icecapade or whatever they're called to Jurassic Park theme or sometimes you'll even see them do a Final Fantasy one. I feel like Final Fantasy 13's battle music would make for an excellent Olympics. I don't know what that event is.

You know, the event where they dance to music on the ice. Yeah, the Olympics. Yeah, I was that. I mean, that's a that's a great that's a great pick. I like it. It kind of evoked Final Fantasy XII for me, and I was like, is it the same composer? But apparently not.

No, he left in 2010. But here is a fun fact about Hamaozu, is that he was one of the vocalists in the chorus for One Winged Angel from Final Fantasy XII. Isn't that amazing? Hey, that's great. Yeah, sung bass for him. Well, that's a great Saying sung bass for him.

Well, that's a great pick. I'm going to a different franchise. So the Might and Magic franchise, huge PC RPG staple in the 80s, 90s, 2000s. And they had a spinoff in the same way that Final Fantasy Tactics kind of spun off from Final Fantasy. They had a tactical game of their own, the Heroes of Might and Magic series. Great soundtracks for those games. And the one pick I have is from Heroes of Might and Magic 3. When I was going

through this and when I was doing this exercise, I was thinking the combat themes of which there are four in this game was one of the things that I thought of. And I just think this just really sort of captures the intensity of and the kind of ticking clock of these tactical turn-based battles that you'll have in this game of high fantasy creatures. So this is Combat Theme 2. It was hard to pick which one of the four, but this is the one I picked. Combat Theme 2 from Heroes of Might and Magic 3 by Paul Romero, Rob King, and Steve Baca. Hell yes. That's good I love that the

art for Heroes of Might and Magic 3 shows at the bottom it says the sequel to the most popular game of 1997. Also, is that true? I don't know. Yeah. That's

great soundtrack. So good and so different than the other picks. Well, it's also like you have a you know, it feels feels very i think i already said the word primal so i'll repeat myself but it feels very primal it feels very like like oh shit we've we've got a bunch of fucking there's barbarians at the gates only that you know they're like they're fucking high fantasy monsters um they're basilisks and uh and goblins and then i'm guarding my tower with

with the you know pegasi uh but you know but it but it is like it just kind of kind of has that feeling yeah just like oh shit some shit's about to go down and then you have the time to consider your actions because it's turn-based but it also like feels like that it's got this urgency like just shoving you in the back the whole time. So, really like that one. Really like all the music from these games. Hell yeah. How about my final pick? All right, Apodaca.

Matt's final pick. This is my final pick. And, you know, this one might be maybe a bit of a surprise. I don't know. I've talked about how I've played this game. And this is, like, one of the few of this franchise that I have't know. I've talked about how I've played this game, and this is one of the few of this franchise that I have actually played. So anyway, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater.

Guitar Hero. And hear me out, hear me out. Through the Fire and Flames is a combat song. No, this game, I played through it several times on my Game Boy Advance, and I just fell in love with it. And it was paired with its sequel. And I played both those games quite a bit. But I would always go back to the first one.

And the combat music in the original Final Fantasy is so great and iconic to me that I figured we'd be playing a lot of Final Fantasy music today and I was like I gotta get in there I gotta get in there from the start so here we go here's the original Final Fantasy battle music that's just fun that's just fun yeah that's good it feels like a it feels like a little bit of danger yes like uh-oh almost feels like you versus a coffee machine and it's great because this is going to provide incredible contrast to my next song.

I played this game so much. Sure. I dabble with the thought of getting the Pixel Remaster. Honestly, daily. Yeah. Is that from the NES version or is that from the Game Boy Advance? That one is from the NES version. Okay, the NES version or is that from the Game Boy Advance? That one is from the NES version. Okay, the NES version.

I imagine the Game Boy Advance one is a little more. That's a smooth little track. Yeah, just a nice smooth little guy. But yeah, they're bundling 1 through 6 for the Pixel Remaster for the Switch. And I'm like, that's a nice package. That's pretty good but that's one of those ones where i like when i look at it is like did is did they just screw up the fonts though like because that's the kind of thing that would just bother me just enough where yeah it's the font is bad but there's a if you bought them on steam there's a

mod to patch in okay the uh the other um you know, the correct font, but not on Switch. I might also recommend getting an EverDrive for your analog pocket and just dropping one through seven on that, or one through six on that. And you don't even need the EverDrive anymore. You can just install the Game Boy Advance Core

and go to town. That's fucked. I got to do it. Yeah, I've done it already. And I have an EverDrive and I've done it. Wow. It's fantastic. But yeah, those are my picks.

The battle theme from Pokemon Ruby Sapphire. The Halloween Town theme from Kingdom Hearts. And the battle theme from the original Final Fantasy. Heather, what's your final pick? Heather's final pick. I love that original Final Fantasy because my next pick and final pick is from the most recent mainline

Final Fantasy game. It could be argued this track is a boss theme but the only time it appears is when you fight larger animals on the open field. So I think it is more of a large animal battle theme. It's not playing when you fight actual bosses. Okay.

So I think that this is like a, it's a variant on the battle theme as opposed to like boss specific. Right. I think so. This was written by the Kingdom Hearts composer, Yoko Shimomura. Right. I think so. This was written by the Kingdom Hearts composer, Yoko Shimomura. Right. And was first featured in the Final Fantasy 13 versus trailer, which I was at the Tokyo Game Show in 2007. seven wow and went into the private square enix theater and saw the very first trailer for 13 verses and i was like holy fucking shit this is going to be the greatest game ever made by people and it was in large part because of this song playing under that trailer with lyrics by

tetsuya nomura character designer and director, character designer of Final Fantasy VII, etc., and the director of Kingdom Hearts. But let's play a little of Omnis Lacrima. I would like to imagine

going into the Square office, the Squaresoft office, when Final Fantasy I is first coming out. Yeah. They're playing that battle theme, and they're like, yeah. And I'm like, I'm from the future. This is where this ends up. You've got to turn it up just a little for this. It's so good.

Ugh. She uses a very Kingdom Hearts chord progression in it. Yeah. It feels like a Kingdom Hearts song where Sora has to fight Christ. Gar, Sora, we're on the Christianity world. Can't believe you turned it down so early I could have listened to it forever it's so that was that was fantastic yeah it's really good stuff great fucking song um time for my my final pick Liger's final pick oh I was gonna do it no it's okay I gotta do it I gotta I gotta handle. I thought a lot about this pick.

The issue here is that you always want, we're compiling these. There's so much stuff that you can't pick because you have to get it down to three. And you also, there's like an element of like, well, fuck, I want to throw out stuff that people know. But I also want to have that cred of like hey i get this is a cool pick right you know yeah so i thought about it a lot and ultimately i just settled on like i kind of don't care if this is another fucking final fantasy and i don't care that this is kind of maybe an obvious one because i just think it's so good and it's one of the battle themes i think of first of all i i do regret not having any yasunori mitsuda on here because uh just some

great great composite a great composer uh you know a couple of great battle themes, Xenogears, Chrono Trigger. But the pick I went with is Nobuo Uematsu, the original Final Fantasy composer. And this is from Final Fantasy VIII. This is the battle track that plays during the sequences where you control Laguna, who is kind of the sub-protagonist in this game. This is Final Fantasy VIII, The Man with the Machine Gun. I think a lot of people prefer this to the actual battle theme. 100%. to the actual battle theme.

100%. But boy, when I first played Final Fantasy VIII and I had to play as this asshole, I was like, what is happening? The fuck am I playing as this guy? Oh, I loved it. Give me them fucking curveballs. I was just thinking about this

because we're recording at the SiriusXM office. This is the first time any of this music has been played here, probably. SiriusXM office. This is the first time any of this music has been played here probably. Should we roll right

into like Rick Springfield or something? Yeah, or like Patriot Radio. Wow. Bangers. All bangers, guys. Good stuff all around. It's good times. Love a battle theme. Love a battle theme. It can be scary, but. We did it. Good stuff all around. It's good times. Love a battle theme. Love a battle theme.

You know, it can be scary, but you got to do it. Send us some of your favorites. We'd like to hear, hey, you know what? You like that combat music that happens in Breath of the Wild? That could be a battle theme. Oh, yeah. You like that one? You could pick that.

Yeah. But send us some of your favorites. We'd like to see them in the Discord. Oh, we'd love to see it. We'd absolutely love to see it. I'll click on those links. I'll listen to see them in the Discord. Oh, we'd love to see it. We'd absolutely love to see it. I'll click on those links. I'll listen to that music. I'll be like, oh, that's good stuff.

You don't got to tag us. Yeah, you don't have to tag us. We'd love to see it. Yeah, we'll see it. Yeah, go ahead. Just know that if you don't tag us, we still will see it. It's fine. You can tag Matt.

No, no. He'll let us know. Don't tag me. You don't have to tag me. Tag Matt. Tag Matt. You don't have to. You absolutely don't have to.

But if you want us to see it, tag Matt, because then Matt will give us a heads up. Well, here's the thing. I won't do that. I will just hold it for me, so actually don't tag me at all. Okay, got it. Maybe just at everyone. Don't at the channel. Definitely don't do that.

Guys, how about a segment? Oh, my goodness. I'd love a segment. Okay. Okay. Can Nick and Heather guess the game based on the reviews alone? It's time for Blind Item Reviews. Blind Item Reviews.

Blind Item Reviews is hard, but I'm excited to play it. I love this game. It's a great game, and it's not just because I made it. It's just good. People love it. Okay, so just as a refresher, here's how it goes. I've curated some negative, mixed, and positive reviews for some beloved and critically acclaimed games. Based on these reviews, it is up to you two to guess what the game is.

And if you lock in a guess, here's how you can get points. If you lock in a guess during the negative round, you get three points. If you lock it in during mixed, you get two. And if you lock it in during positive, you get one. Does that make sense? Yeah. Okay. Points for the answers.

Yes, points for the answers. Okay, so here's our first game. Here's the first negative review. I didn't even finish. Extremely undeveloped storyline and like no challenge whatsoever. I almost bought it too, but I was like, maybe I'll rent it first. That thought saved me $40, LOL. It's pretty disappointing to like diehard blank peeps, but I mean, it wasn't that bad.

The graphics were awesome. I just wish there was more to choose from, LOL. So some clues there. $40. So that's certainly not our modern era and games cost fucking 70 unless it's an indie game but they are also mentioned renting it which you could buy a game now and return it and call it consider that a rent but i think that language makes me think of shout out to sonic Frontiers and me doing that. I think when you think of retail game,

also I'm appalled that you did that for Sonic Frontiers. I sent it straight back to fucking Jeff Bezos. It's so fucking good. Well, you know what? It sold like 3 million copies,

so they need your help. Good, good. I should have shat on mine. I'm mad at Matt. Me too. It's a good game. It's fine. I'm happy you guys like it.

Little feet on the sand. Does anyone want to try to venture a guess? Yes, okay. There's no penalization. Wretched game, $40. Story lost them. There are diehard peeps too as part of the- Diehard peeps, perhaps fans of the diehard peeps perhaps fans of the genre perhaps

fans of the game i don't think it's this but i'm gonna guess uh skies of arcadia the dreamcast rpg that is incorrect heather would you like to venture a guess where would you ever rent a dreamcast game could rent a dreamcast game fucking blockbuster didn't know it existed okay you'd find it somewhere hollywood video maybe i'm gonna guess tekken 2 incorrect we're gonna move on to the uh the mixed round here okay while i love blank and all this one was sort of bad in the areas that usually make blank games so memorable for one thing it was totally lacking in the plot area and most of the time it felt like I was just playing to find out what new skimpy costume I could

get the characters into next. Got it. Dead or Alive Beach Volleyball. Heather, incorrect. Fuck! I thought it was a Dead or Alive though, when you said that skimpy costumes thing. So that's making me think of... Are we in the right ballpark? Are we in the right generation?

Nope. What are you... Yeah, I'd say... We're talking because Dead or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball was Xbox original, right? I'd say we're in the ballpark. Xbox, Dreamcast, PlayStation games we've kind of mentioned. Definitely in the ballpark, yes. Okay.

Skimpy costumes. Is it an RPG? Perhaps. Perhaps. ballpark yes okay skimpy costumes is it an rpg perhaps perhaps one of my the one has skimpy costumes smokes coming out of nick's ears you know this come on nick uh hmm trying to think of an rpg of that era you know what i'll guess i'll guess Final Fantasy X2 or X2. Nick's on the board with two points. Holy shit. Final Fantasy X2. X2.

Wow. Nick. So, Nick, congratulations. That's two points. Let me check. Three female protagonists you're controlling? Party members? You do get new costumes.

Little costumes? Yeah. Well done. All right. All right. members, you do get new costumes. Little costumes? Well done. Alright. Alright, Nick 2. Here we go. Let's go on to the next one here. Negative. While a lot of people seem to like this game, I'm in a minority that don't like it so much. It's not a bad game per se, but the story is just a

rehash of fantasy and sci-fi cliches, and it doesn't have any fun with them. The locations are bland, as it's all caves and factories. Caves and factories, over and over again. Caves and factories. Hmm. Caves and factories. Caves and factories.

Caves and factories. Caves and factories. Mass Effect. That is incorrect. Heather. Cave Story. That is incorrect. Here. Cave Story. That is incorrect. Here's the mixed review.

It is an experience as much as a game, meaning it'll leave many people cold as it grabs by the right half of the brain. Blank good, then not quite excellent. So it grabs the right half of the brain. That's the creative half? I don't know if this person knew. Just trying to get anything here.

There's not a lot we can sink our teeth into except for caves and factories. Caves and factories. I'm going to guess Fallout 3. That's a pretty good guess. It's incorrect? Caves and factories. And sci-fi fantasy tropes. Sci-fi fantasy tropes.

I mean, is it Metroid Prime? It is not. Here's the positive review. I also think this one might be tricky because I don't know if you guys have played this game, but maybe you have. I feel like these are all pretty popular. Okay.

This is the best looking game for GameCube so far. With its futuristic sci-fi environments and an almost Pokemon-ish gotta find all these animals to get paid kind of play is a lot of fun. Better than Star Fox Adventures, better gameplay, all-around fun. The only thing is that the controls are a little weird at first, and you can only

take out your weapon when the game says so. Other than that, it's great. A must-play. Alright, so this is a GameCube game with pretty distinct gameplay. This is feeling like maybe something I didn't play. Monster Hunter! Heather, that is incorrect. Fuck.

It's not Eternal Darkness. I'm just trying to think of more like second, like lower profile, not AAA, or not like the highest profile Nintendo franchises. I'll guess Pikmin. That is incorrect. The answer, Beyond Good and Evil. Oh, Beyond Good and Evil. Okay.

Oh, Beyond Good and Evil. Okay. Oh. Oh. Okay. Just to... Yeah, that's about what that warrants. I remember very little about that game

except there was a pig guy. I believe... The only thing I remember is... And a female protagonist. Gay female protagonist? Sure. Maybe. Maybe I'm not remembering that.

Maybe that was a different game. You're thinking of The Last of Us. Maybe I was the game. Okay, here we go. Let's move on to... Oh, it wasn't a GameCube exclusive. That threw me off. No.

I think it was at first, and then it came to other... Got it. To other consoles. Because for a lot of these, too, I'm trying to pull contemporary reviews. Got it. Here we go. Negative review.

Very lovely and very infantile. The state of gaming has sunk so low that graphical grandeur has subsumed all strategy and tactics and intelligence. Fun? Insulting, really. Okay, strategy and tactics. Perhaps a clue to its genre. Visually dazzling.

They're talking about how beautiful it is. I'm wondering, is this a recent game? No. There's also a theme to the games. There's a theme. Okay, wait. What was the first one? The first one was...

You guessed it. Yeah, but I don't remember. First one was Final Fantasy X-2. And the second game was Beyond Good and Evil. Okay. Female protagonists could be the theme. No, but that's good. RPGs?

No. JRPGs? It's so general. It's hard to glom onto anything. Beautiful strategy tactics. What could the connection be? Final Fantasy 12. That's incorrect.

Fuck. It's a... Everybody's complaint was like, well, I'm not even playing the game. But it's lots of tactics in that game. Is the connection the era? The kind of the platform? Because we had a PS2 slash GameCube slash Xbox.

I wouldn't necessarily say the platform, but had like a ps2 slash gamecube slash xbox i wouldn't necessarily say the platform but the era the era um gears of war is incorrect here's the the mixed review nice graphics but otherwise about everything qualifies as being merely okay the fighting system could definitely have been worse uh it is sometimes even enjoyable. But there are still times that you don't feel like being that much in control since there's only one dagger button, and sometimes you attack the zombie you didn't want to attack. Otherwise, in terms of content, too much repetition. Okay, dagger button.

Hmm. I'm going to guess Prince of Persia The Sands of Time. It's on the board again with two more points. You got a dedicated dagger button. A dagger button. It's the one. One of the few games... I fucking hate both of you.

One of the few games my wife Natalie has played all the way through. Wow. She got super into Prince of Persia, The Sands of Time and played the shit out of it. Beat it multiple times. Did she play the other ones? The Warrior Within? No, Warrior Within. No, did not play Warrior Within or the third one that kind of

returned to form. The two... Not the two towers, but something like that. Yeah, I don't remember either. It's the two towers. You're both dead to me. What the heck? The other game, and this was one I meant to shout out last week when we were talking about Goldeneye, that I was listening to some...

Or no, I was playing Goldeneye and Nally was like, is this No One Lives Forever? I was like, how the fuck do you know that game? It's such a specific PC game that was like, you know. She has really, really specific games that she's spent time with. And then the rest of it is just kind of like this fast forward. That's amazing. Yeah.

But that was an early 2000s spy spoof PC game. Good sense of humor. Great soundtrack. Very GoldenEye adjacent. We got one more. Great. Heather, so far, I hate to say this, you can't catch up. I don't want to.

If she gets it on the bad, though, doesn't she get enough points? Well, you have four points. And the bad one is three. I guess I can make this an all or nothing. No, I don't want to catch up. I don't care. I don't care about anything. This game might need a balance tweak.

It might need a balance tweak. It was more before. I actually balance tweaked it before. The first, if you got in the negative, you used to get five. I don't give a shit. Maybe the negative is four. Maybe you split the difference. I don't care.

Yeah, maybe. I don't care. Is one bad worth two okays? It doesn't matter to me. Because right now, two goods are worth one okay. It's Quidditch rules. It's like you get one right and you won. Yeah.

Fucking dumb games. Yeah, fucking idiots. I think that's the worst thing in that series. Let's just do this last one just for fun. Golden Pinch is OP. Yeah. Here's a negative review this is one of the lamest games I've ever played one of the biggest disappointment

in the whole saga this game is so very limited in so many ways beginning from character cast starting soulless blank enter a magic realm very similar to the cliche used in many books for kids i'm trying to figure out what the point of connection could be here thematically

maybe it is just era big swing here because it's the only game i can think of that fulfills both being sucked into a world that's magic and also a sort of soulless protagonist world that's magic and also a sort of soulless protagonist the bane of my existence final fantasy tactics advance heather that is correct yeah well done i put it in there because i was like this will be funny if heather can guess it but yeah this person did not like uh Fantasy Tactics Advanced. And then the raving reviews otherwise are great. That's a setup. It's like a Narnia thing. Yeah, it's a magic book that sucks the protagonists into Ivalice, the actual Final Fantasy XII world.

So they know the world from the games. They're like, wow wow this is final fantasy this is i've been i've seen this that's wild uh and then it's i mean i've only gotten about halfway through the 10 000 hours required to beat that game so i know that there are some major reveals but it's pretty it's pretty great. Like your antagonist is a friend who doesn't want to go home. It's like the main boss.

Wow. I almost put a Final Fantasy Tactics the original track in my battle themes but I couldn't settle on one. Well,

that was Blind Item Reviews. Nick is our winner. What was the connection? All these games came out 20 years ago. Exactly 20 years ago? Yeah, in 2003. 2003 yeah wow all of them i know that's why i picked it it's interesting that we were talking about that earlier that

the idea that like games that you think are old or you know you look up games like you played and they're actually old now yeah all those games the idea that prince of persia and the sands of time a game that is one of my favorites, is 20 years old, is rough. It's rough to think about. All I can say is my childhood. My childhood.

Well, hey, there you go. That was Blind Item Review and that's this week's Get Played. Links to our social media are in the episode description if you want to join our Discord or just check in

with us generally. Our engineering is by Jordan Duffy, Jordan K. Duffy on Instagram. And also check out our paywalled show, Get Animated. Heather, talking Blue Lock this week. We're talking about the soccer anime Blue Lock,

which is not a soccer show. It is basically, and I'm selling you on it because I was disinterested when I was like, ah, a soccer game show. But it's more like Squid Game that is soccer themed than it is a show about soccer.

If you love soccer, it might make you angry. If you hate soccer, then this show's not really about soccer. And we're talking about, I believe, episodes five and six. So check out our show, Get Animated. We've talked about a bunch of anime. You can find it on patreon.com slash getplayed or on Stitcher Premium about a month after it's released on Patreon. And hey, guys.

I feel like this was a nice, friendly experience. I loved it. It's so good not to have an antagonist in the show. That's the thing. When the Resident Evil merchant shows up, he just throws all our vibes off.

Yeah. Here we're just all relaxed. He really harshes my mellow. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think we got played. Yeah, we got played. Yeah, we did.

I don't miss him. Yeah, I don't miss him either. Yeah, I don't care if he ever comes. Yeah, he was like, not like he was like my best friend or something kind of sucks I hope he's fine I hope he's whatever

doesn't matter yeah hope he fucking sold all his stuff or whatever hope his cats are okay