Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - AEW Fight Forever Review & More Final Fantasy XVI! - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: June 28, 2023

Sancho West joins Tim, Greg, and Mike for their review of AEW Fight Forever and some updated thoughts on Final Fantasy XVI. Follow Sancho @SanchoWest Time Stamps - 00:00:00 - Start 00:02:26 - Housekeeping 00:03:34 - Tim’s Game Awards Concert Experience 00:07:45 - AEW Fight Forever Review 00:36:22 - Ads 00:49:46 - Mike’s Experience with Final Fantasy XVI Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up and welcome back to the Kind of Funny Gamescast. Of course, I'm Tim Geddes and I'm joined by the Master of Hype Snowbike. Hey, hey, I'm on the Gamescast. I love it. Can't wait to talk to you today, Mike. There's an energy that you're giving off right now. That worries me. I could mean anything.

I just don't know. I'm not going to talk about this week. Who knows? I like how he was in power safe mode before this. Head down on his desk during all hands meeting. Great. Also, Monday morning, guess what I did? I invited him to my house to watch money in the banks.

So I just give me an answer. She dodges the question. Who's the headliner of that one? I don't want to talk. I already told you. The headline. Civil War. God, of course, that voice you hear is the Big Daddy himself, Greg Miller.

How about? Greg, when is money in the bank? It is noon on Saturday. Shut up. Because it's in England. July 1st. Yep. Oh, the bloodline civil war.

We got a bad history of civil wars over here. Got back. Yeah, yeah. Real excited about that. I guess not. That doesn't work at all. I'm confusing the Revolutionary War. with the Civil War.

They have no real. I'd have to call Lucy about it. You would have to. You would have to. How excited are you for money in the bank? Our special guest live from Los Angeles, California, Sancho West. You know, speaking of Los Angeles, there's only one wrestler that Calabella, and that is L.A. Night.

Yeah, that right there is going to win money in the blank. L.A. Knight. Book it. I cannot wait to see what it all goes down. When Logan Paul was the briefcase, Sancho. I will expect a congratulatory text to me. Man, the only thing I think about is the only reason why they want Logan to win so you could take it all over his podcast.

But what it comes down to when it's all said, Nana, when it's all said it done is L.A. Night. I love so much, Sancho. I'm with you. I'm rooting for L.A. But I think that Logan has this one in the bag. But now, this isn't the wrestling podcast, or is it, Greg?

Oh, you better come over, you fucking asshole. Today we're going to be talking about AEW. We got Sancho here and Greg, who both played it. We're also going to get a little Final Fantasy impressions for some of the boys over here who haven't really given their thoughts yet. But before we get into all of that, of course, this is the Kind of Funny Games cast each and every week right here on YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games. We get together to talk about video games and all the things that we love about them.

You can get the show live by going to Patreon.com slash Kind of Funny. You also get the show ad-free, and you get to be a Patreon producer. just like Delaney Twining has done, and we appreciate you so very, very much. Besides that, you can get a whole bunch of bonus content, Greg. Can you? Anything specific you want to talk about?

There's a whole bunch of Gregway's up. That's always exciting. We appreciate that quite a bit. Tomorrow's Gregor is going to be me talking about the new Superman, the new lowest, so you can go get that Patreon.com slash kind of funny. He stoked about that. Kind of Feudies are always fantastic.

I don't know if you're aware. I am the current champ. I am the current champ of Kind of Feudy. Thank you very much. This season 8. and season nine champ. That's right. Chapman right here. Don't worry about it. Having some fun of it. A lot of people

talk about me as a season one champ. They don't talk about I haven't been invited back since I won. It's not even accurate. Season one was so long ago. Yeah, if it's accurate, you have to find out. We're going to Patreon.com slash kind of funny. You can get all that. Two more Patreon producers. I want to shout out here. James Hastings and Casey, Andrew.

We appreciate you all so very, very much. Today we're brought to you by better help, but I'll tell you about that later because I want to begin with something real quick, Boys. Games castes the show about video games, all the things we love about them. I got to celebrate something I love about video games this weekend at Los Angeles, California. I was in Hollywood at the Hollywood Bowl, Sancho, because Jeff Keely put on the Game Awards, 10-year anniversary concerts, the first of what I hope becomes an annual tradition.

It was a 10 out of 10, oh, if not monthly, Greg. This shit was incredible. You're going to burn out so fast. Hell no, dude. Dude, I love this stuff. I love this stuff. Nah, nah, no, no. There's enough for it to be annual for sure.

And I think especially when it comes to just the pure celebration of video games that Jeff has been pushing for a long time. We're big fans of over here. But they did such a great job of making it a fantastic show, just musically, a fantastic performance from like a scale point of view. Hollywood Bowl is an incredible venue. The fireworks were awesome. But I went with Gia, who is completely unfamiliar with any of this. and the show was still fun for her. It was still a high-quality, well-paced experience.

I thought they did, I've been to dozens, if not hundreds, of concerts and orchestra-type things. Many of them, video game-related. I feel like this did the best job of giving context to what we're seeing. For every single song, they would have someone come out and kind of explain what's going on, who they are in relation to it. You see, Mario's a plumber, everybody. So that's really what we're thinking of when he went, ding, bang, ding, bing-bing.

They had Neil come out and do the intro for Last of Us. They had Brian Intahar, do the intro for Spider-Man. They debuted Spider-Man 2's new theme song. And the kind of production just got crazier and crazier as the night went on. Like it kind of started off obviously daytime as it transitioned to night. The lights got really cool. Then eventually for Spider-Man, there was like ridiculous projections going all over the place. They brought the turn on the dark cast back, had them swinging above you.

Yeah, exactly. And it with the fireworks and all that stuff. and then the big encore was Jack Black coming back out because Sanacious D performed their song video games earlier in the night, coming back out, doing peaches, the crowd went wild. Pretty much a sold-out show.

I don't know by definition if it was sold out, but looking around, I was blown away that there was no empty seats. Would you say you were gobsmacked? Gob smacked, Gregsmacked, exactly. That's a band, right? That's God smacked. He did a song in Prince of Persia Warrior Within,

which if they did this annually, eventually they'd be. get down to that. You know what I'm talking about? Gotta have Halo. You really do. Big lack of halo with that one. Well, so that was an interesting thing is I feel like this one focused a bit more on the present than looking back too much. We got Starfield. A little, I mean, that's the future, right? Spider-Man going into Spider-Man 2, too. Like, I feel like there was a lot of that type of game. Greg Miller. What was your read as the music aficionado of the Spider-Man 2 theme, be greater? Incredible. And especially the way that they showed it.

I mean, first playing a medley of Peter's theme from one, Miles' theme from two, and then stopping, and then being like, now we're doing Spider-Man 2. And doing that, having a mix, I thought it was incredible. I think the new theme is incredible. And again, having a lot of the composers actually there made it feel really, really special. Like the composer of Hades was the one performing. Oh, that's awesome. The music, which was really great. The conductor for the night is the composer of the Mission Impossible movies.

I'm out here fanboying out about all the nerd music. shit. But I thought Keeley did a great job of just like presenting it all. The musicians were incredibly talented. And it was just a super fun experience that like I'm so happy I got to go to. I'm so happy that everyone there seemed to have a good time. Everyone I talked to was like blown away of like this was an amazing experience. And I I'm going to push way harder to have more of us go next year if, uh, if they do it. And I hope that they do. Um, but anyways, great, great experience, Mike. I wish you were there. Bought tickets. Didn't go, though.

I hate you so much. Super sad I didn't go. Yeah. Did you at least resell them or anything? No, I gave him away to a good friend. Give him away. All right. Well, enough about that.

If you have more questions, tweet at me, I'd love to answer them. Greg Miller. Timothy. Getty's. You've been playing a little game called AEW Fight Forever. Correct. Something that you've been really excited about. Of course.

Why? Well, I think, you know, Greg Miller and video games has a bedrock founded on professional wrestling video games. I think, you know, you could go as far back as pretty much the start for me, right? Ghostbusters is the Sega Master System game that grabbed me. But when I found WWF, when I found what would become WWE, it then became the annualized thing of going through and living those fandoms together in tandem, right? You know, you've seen the videos of me on rapping Royal Rumble on Genesis and saying

goody-goody gum drops and getting raw the next year and et cetera, so on, into high school where we were talking about, you know, these amazing games from A.K.I. right, and talking about, hey, it's WCWNW a revenge. Hey, is WrestleMania 2000. Hey, it's no mercy, right, the pinnacle at the top. And then, of course, the move over to Smackdowns, and then me getting hired at IGN and reviewing Smackdowns, and that being one of the reasons they hired me and were so excited about me

and yada, yada, yada, all the way through to now where, of course, I am technically a WWU superstar and have my card in the game, WW2K22, right? Like, or 23. Like wrestling video games are as much a part of me as video games, period, are a part of me. And so, of course, listening to the one and only Kenny Omega talk about wanting to make an AEW video game, getting it together, going with Eukes. Youx having a lot of people who not only, Yukes being the people who made the Smackdown games, the 2K games before, of course, 2K then tried

to do it themselves and shit the bed that took a year off and then came back and found out their rhythm, but also having a whole bunch of people who made those N64 games were talking about right from the AKEI A.K.I. Games. This is something that's been high on my list. You know, when when they set off and said, we want to make a spiritual successor to No Mercy, you have my interest, you have my attention. And as we've gotten closer, we've seen the internet react to screenshots and videos and be a little rough on it and this, that, the other about it. And the entire time I've sat there and looked at it and I go,

this looks like what a modern no mercy would look like. The amount of times I've said when we do play a 2K WBE game, I don't know why you're trying to make it so photorealistic. I don't know why you're getting hung up on this. You get into those uncanny valley moments, right, where it just doesn't look good. It just doesn't work. Why are you doing that? Just make it look like a no mercy would.

And they did that here. And I think AEW fight forever in the run up to it as we got more information on it as they started dialing back expectations. Where they were very clear of like, listen, we're never going to be able to compete with the visuals of WWE. We are never going to be able to compete with the modes of WWE. This is our first time making a game. And Kenny Omega was like, I want to make a no mercy spiritual successor. that has that kind of arcade gameplay. They've succeeded at that.

I think on the kind of funny, I'm the lead reviewer on this one. I'm excited because I know Sancho has been, we haven't talked. I've talked to no one about this game. I've been reviewing in a vacuum, which I always honestly appreciate because it's exciting for me too.

I'm giving on the kind of funny scale this one, a three out of five. This is okay. And I know that I always talk on these shows about how I like okay because it could be, it's okay, or it's okay, you know what I mean?

I would, if you were going to ask me in a colloquial conversation, I would say this is good. This is a good wrestling game, but I'm talking about the foundation, I'm talking about that arcade gameplay. I'm a big fan of not Sam wrestling, the podcast from Sam Roberts.

And he, I don't know what's going on. People are getting codes. Mega rand streaming this tonight. I'm like, well, that's not the review embargo I got, but whatever, you know, it's a weird thing. He talked a little bit on his podcast about it. It was like, I've only played a little bit of it. And, you know, it's something I can see myself coming back to in like 10 minute bursts,

10 to 15 minute bursts. I think that's exactly right. I don't think there's a lot of meat on the bone in terms of stuff to do outside of it. But I do think the engine in the moment-to-moment gameplay is fun. If you're single player, I might not be like, oh, yeah, you're going to be around a long time. But for me, it's a three out of five. I'm excited to hear, Sancho West.

So Sancho West, give us the little story just like Gray did it. Like, what's your kind of history with wrestling games and then lead into? What would you give AW fight forever on the kind of funny scale? One of my favorite memories of wrestling and video games was going to the Frank Irvin Center to a signing with Sean Michaels. I'm in line. I have my Nintendo 64 cover of WWF Warzone.

Oh, yeah. And if you don't know, on the cover, it's Stone Cold, but on the back of the cover, it's him getting body slammed by Stone Cold. And I remember I'm just shaking and not nervous, and I hand him the back of the cover, like, side my box. And he pauses and he looks at it. He's like, hmm, and he just signs it real quickly. And I had never been so starstruck in my life when I see the heartbreak hit Sean Michaels. Everything that Greg said is beat for beat, the same for me. I remember playing WrestleMania in the arcade in the arcade.

smoking dudes left and right with the Undertaker doing the infinite ultra-combo at the very end. So the entire thing about wrestling, it is at my core, and my favorite wrestling games are the Nintendo 64 ones. Those are the ones that you don't need any meat on the bone. Those games had literally nothing. They just had modes. They barely had any tutorials, and they told you to basically figure things out in yourself. And there was some of that magic of like, oh, I could do a dive out of the ring by just running towards it. I could dive over. the corner of the turnbuckle, just diving over it, and those were the magic

moments that I enjoyed the most all those games. So when I got the opportunity to review AEW, I was very excited because just like Greg said, Kenny was talking about bringing back that old school vibe. It totally does capture it. The big thing though is I understand, like

this is what it feels to me is just like, look, this game has been in development for such a long time. We just need to get it out. And it's just like as a content creator, we have the same vibe. It's like, sometimes you're going to throw something out there and it's not perfect, but at least it's out there.

And you kind of get that vibe from it because there's a lot of missing things. And as they started to scale back, there's no commentary. There's no kind of like in-depth move set list sometimes. You will find that a lot of the wrestlers have the same set list. And you kind of like, hmm, that kind of feels weird. How many knee strikes are they going to be out there? So you can start, once you start pulling the thread or the yarn ball, you start pulling at it, you start seeing that there's not much here.

So, but at the end of the day, there's a little spice in there. There's something magical in there behind all this kind of stuff that's not there. And that's what this game does really well. And on the kind of funny scale, I would definitely have to agree a three out of five. It's okay. But honestly, without that engine and without recapturing some of those moments of the Nintendo 64, I would give this a two out of five. As a single player experience, the A.A.W. Road to Elite, it tries to Calvert,

the vibe of the AEW rise from the announcement to all the way. But the problem is it, Greg, that I found. And I don't know if you found the same way if you played through that, the whole entire thing. I did. Is that because of the production delays, this feels like AW from three to four years ago. And the product that has been served now in AEW is not the same as it was way back when. And without that historical legacy that it does at WWE showcase or WWF and all those kinds of things, it doesn't ring as hard as it should.

And like, for example, there was a moment when you win the FTW belt from Taz. And you win the belt and everything. And then there's a huge disconnect because it cuts to Brian Cage accepting the belt. You're like, but wait a minute, I just won that belt. It doesn't make any sense for you to show me this moment in AEW history. So there's a couple of those disconnects. Overall, as someone that loves Crispy controls, is not as crispy as a Nintendo 64.

It's a kind of weird delay when it comes to using the moves. But everything about it, I would say the best opportunity that reason why I went from a two to three, Tim, was that I was playing with my friend. And that is where the game shines the most. Multiplayer, the random shenanigans,

you could literally get on a skateboard and go down the ramp. You could do a sick OLLI and land on somebody. You could use finishers with weapons that are electrocuted, wrapped up bats with barbers, wire. All that kind of stuff is available for you and it's like a big sandbox. But with the $60 price tag, the full boat price tag, that's to me, that's where it gives me the pause.

Sure. But I would have to say, though, like Greg said, this is a great first step. And this would definitely, if they wanted to, if they did a W, like an AEW versus New Japan Pro Wrestling, a forbidden door sequel, that in itself would make this worthwhile. I hope that, you know, support this game. Don't give up on it because the engine is where the magic is for me. Yeah, lots of unpack. I'm glad we're so aligned on so many of your points, Sancho. You know, I think what's interesting to start with

is you compare it to current AEW programming. And of course, how long gestating this game has been. Of course, as you just saw in some of the gameplay, Cody Rhodes is in there, right? Which, of course, Cody is now infamously with WW. It has been for a year now, right? It's been a while. also hilariously remember right when they released the box art for a eW fight forever

CM Punk was front and center then he got into a giant brawl with the elite and left the company and they took them off the box but they've somehow come all the way around now to where see and punk is back like two weeks removed as this game comes out which is pretty hilarious and he's still in the game obviously just not a cover athlete um what is so jumping off of that i think it's a very uh salient point to call out right i am not an AEW fan that's not i'm not a hater, it's just the fact that I've tried a few times and I've never caught the cadence. I've never jumped on board. I've never found somebody that I'm like, I want to watch the program for this. Now, that might for some people, even though I doubt you'd be watching this preview and

be like, well, I shouldn't trust Greg or the fact that I work for WWB here and there. Like, I think that this is a compliment to how much I like the game. In the same way, when I was growing up, Tim, I was ride or die WWF. Like, I did not watch WCW. I did not like the product from WCW. So when WCWNWO revenge drop and I was a hardcore WWF war zone guy and I came over and played that. I was like, oh man, this is such a better wrestling game. It became my de facto. I know WCW. I know the NW through that lens. Like I now know AEW through it. And so what I actually want to counter one of Sanchez things that he didn't like, even though there's plenty to talk about about what I didn't like in Road to Elite, I appreciated when you win the FTW Bell when in I, of

course made Andy Cortez had him go through there, right? He's my road to elite male, and then I made Jen to go through the women's division. When Jen won the woman's title, what is cool, and I think honestly, one of the things I know you loved so much, Tim, from the WW Showcase series, you get this video

that is, yes, it's not your character winning, because it's the real footage of like, here is when they introduced the FTW belt, here's what happened with it with Cage. Here is the women's title the first time. When you start Road to Elite, it's starting as if they are starting AEW, so it is, we had a vision of going through and doing and it's you know it's keny omega talking and they're not short which

i really appreciate like when i when i uh beat cm punk right and they go into the cm punk makes his debut thing it is a meaty full on here's all the footage i mean they cut the commercial but they do the whole thing of like in 90 seconds we have a 90 second commercial break you've waited this long you can wait and then they come back and he's talking in the ring and it's like damn and they don't blur crowd faces they don't blur refs faces like i annoys me in w w w showcases right they do a really good job of, as me not knowing the product, here's what's happening and here's what happened in real life. I appreciate that.

So I love that. So my question to you is, I remember actually like the reason that I got into wrestling period kind of started with playing SmackDown versus Raw. So a little later than your guys' memories of the N64 stuff. But I remember finding characters I liked, Eddie Guerrero, liking his moveset so much. And then that translated, oh, I like you on TV so much as well. So playing this, you getting a little bit of an education on AEW, you're aware, but like this stuff is like updating you more and getting you, I think even better foundation. Did you find people that you're like, I want to know more about this Orange Cassidy fellow?

Well, I know about Orange Cassidy. Right. It's not like I never saw anything from AEW and I listen to a wrestling podcast and no stuff. So like coming in, I know who I'm doing. I mean, you have like, you know, you have Cody Rhodes. You have Dustin. Brian Danielson. Exactly, right.

I mean, Chris Jericho's there, right? My favorite wrestler of all time and things like that. But yes, I did get introduced to people. I had never heard of Powerhouse Hobbs. I just didn't know him. I knew he was Team Taz, right? So I was like, I'm a Taz guy from ECW way back. I was excited to play his hook, who is actually DLC coming up.

So he's not even out yet. He's part of the season pass. So when they introduced Hobbs, I was like, oh, I'm going to try him because he looks like he's my speed. And yes, he is now one of my go-toes in exhibition to go through and play as him and have that out there and have that experience with it. But then back to the road to elite thing because I don't want to let it off the hook. No, it's the biggest thing that they have.

It's the only biggest thing that they have. Exactly, right? And so it is your career. It is a year of AEW, but it is four main blocks where it's like four months, where you play through the weeklies and the dynamites and maybe you go to a dark or maybe they introduce something there.

Then it's a pay-a-view, right? So you get four paper-views to play through for this career. I'm not even going to say, I remember it with rose-tinted glasses. Because when I got a steam deck, The first thing I allegedly did was download WrestleMania 2000 right on it and play through it and immediately go into the career mode there with Kurt Engel. And you remember how it was a branching thing. It didn't matter if you won or lost.

The story went and it changed whatever. Starting up, you know, uh, uh, road to elite for the first time, I was like, okay, cool. They immediately toss you into the casino battle royale. So you, you know, you draw your car and you come out. Super difficult. Super difficult. Especially when I was like, I was like, oh, I want to learn the game. I was just jump into a crew.

It's the first thing that happened. I, you know, I get eliminated. And I'm like, is this going to be one of those goddamn things I have to keep? Oh, no. Okay, no. We will move on in this block they call them. I will move on this block. All right, cool.

And so it's like, yeah, you know, I'm going to go tag with gold dust. You know what I mean? He's not gold dust. He's Dustin. And I get in this thing of tagging with him. I'm like, okay, cool. We're together. And like, Road to Elite is this both endearing.

And then I think at times, I think, I'm my second play through a little bit annoying of like, it isn't just hey here's the story it is cool you wrestled last night and now you're here and you're it has a little plane fly to the city you're in austin and so now that you're in austin what do you want to do because you can jump straight to the match or go to dynamite at the end of the week but you can also uh work out you can eat you can do you can go do an op you can go play a mini game and they do all this because you also have skill points money energy and a mood meter that are then going to affect how you enter the match. And so you're balancing all these systems to go do it, which is fun and quirky. And like when you, you know, your energy is low. I would go eat. You go to eat. And it's always one of the same waitresses bringing over a food and they tell you about the town you're in. So it'll be like, you're in Austin. Tex-Mex is huge here. They explain what Tex-Mex is. I like this. I'm into this idea. At the end of it, it shows you, you scarf down your food and you get the plus whatever. And then it shows you just a j-peg of the food and explains it makes a little thing about it. There's a great game informer Easter egg in there.

reference I loved. It's just because William Regal's like, this is what Russlers do. When you're on the road, you get to go see all these things and sightsee and interact with all. Greg, hear me out. This is super Capcomy. All this is all Capcom-type vibes. And this is all Kenny's influence. I really feel it.

Well, it's, I think it's definitely, it's yukes in that Japanese game development style and in-jokes here. Because there's a great turn of, there's a great one, I want to spoil anything, but like, you talk to the waitress at one point, and she spells out how this word is said, and your character responds like, oh, that's great on account of there being no VO.

Like, you know what I mean, explaining why they were. That's funny. That's funny. And it's like real cute the first time, but then the second time I'm like, all right, skip all these conversations. Because it is like, I got to go work out to do the thing,

to get the skill points to apply to my wrestler, to make them better and do this. And so there's a thing there. But like, for me, I love wrestling, as you just called out the main event that this Jabroni wouldn't know anything about Civil War at Money in the Bank this weekend, right? Story. Wrestling is about story.

And so what they get wrong here that I don't think No Mercy did back in the day, right? Wrestlingania 2000 did of giving you a narrative for what your character was going on here. I have this whole thing. It's Andy, it's Dustin. They're a tag team. I hate being tag team.

Tag teams are really fun in video games. They're definitely not fun in this, but we'll get to that. Run the whole thing, do the whole thing. You know, all of a sudden, Andy's ring gear is missing. Andy wrestles in his street codes. Close. We win the tag team title.

and as we're celebrating with the titles, Dustin confesses, I hid your clothes as a rib. Like, I hid your clothes. And I think it was a choice if I could turn on him or not. I turn on him. The little JR, like, pops up and it's like,

oh my God, like they turned on them. What does this mean for the tag team champions? I don't know. I beat the road to elite and it's never referenced again. I guess we're still the tag team champions and I walked off with the belt because it doesn't matter. I got to another, like not even feud storyline. Then it abruptly ends.

in the fourth block. And granted, this is kind of choose your own adventure. You know what I mean? Not really, but, you know, there's different things like there was in no mercy. So there might be a way to get a more cohesive way.

But like, for me, for Andy's end, it was the final one was like, all right, well, he's just wrestling a bunch of different people every night in kind of a gauntlet way.

And then now he's going for the AEW world title at the end of it. I was like, what the fuck? You know what I mean? Like, this is just so nonsense. And what I found in Jen's storyline, because it's different for male or females,

but it is the same if you were to go through as a man that you start with the battle royale and then branch if you lose again. Like there's fewer female characters in the game. So it felt like there was a more cohesive thing. But even there it wasn't like, uh, you beat me at this thing. So I'm doing it's like, I'm coming out and I'm doing the food thing and I'm doing the photo ops and I'm, you can win multiple belts. But it doesn't feel like I'm accomplishing anything because they're just tossing belts at

me. It's like, all right. Like, yeah. So, Sancho, you being more of an AW guy, right? Yeah. Yeah. So did you feel that they did a good job representing the different personalities in AEW? I think they kind of did.

I mean, I've heard that it could be better. Like that's what I mean. It's like the idea is there, but the execution is not there. So for example, those workout things and whatnot, I wish I could actually work out like in Grant that Fado. I think that would have added a little bit something to it. You do get the personalities of the young bucks and Kenny a lot. the elite mini-games are so hilarious and you just totally feel

it is the BTE segments that you see on YouTube. It has that same kind of humor, but there's no depth to it beyond like the initial, you get the initial like Greg said, you laugh at it, but then after that there's no nothing more than that. I think like I said, when I mentioned that it does not represent today's AEW

is there's a lot of great personalities that are over right now in AEW that are missing. Like right now, the tag team, the acclaim are so funny and they're so, awesome and they have Billy Gunn for those WWF fans, W.E. Fans, Billy Gunn is the third member or they call him Daddy Ass. He's in there too.

And Tim, they like to say Cizor me. That is their thing for the acclaim. All that's missing. Like, that's right now. That's way too current, though. I've seen that angle take off, right? And that's that thing. Right. Yeah, there's no way to get that in. That's the thing that you see that is the shortcomings of this

AEW game. And as well, it does feel like a forever ago when you see MJF feuding with Jericho, but the MJF back then is not the same MGF that we have now. MJF is the world champion, and he has a totally, he has the same kind of personality, but it is

such more refined, so it's so alarming when you go back to see this old footage, like, oh yeah, that's where they came from. Does that work, though, in a way? Well, that's what I mean. With the N64, nostalgia play of it all, of like, you play no mercy, you play something, and it's like, I mean, the rock's not on WWE currently, but like,

there's still something there. Like, is it too soon to be nostalgic for those early AEW days? Well, that's a good point. I just think right now AEDAW is on fire lately, especially when they just came off forbidden door. I mean, they have some of the greatest matches with especially Will O'Sprey and Kenny Omega that

you, if I was a fan who just saw that pay-per-view, I'd be like, oh my God, I want to play Will O'Spray versus Kenny Omega, and he's not there. I mean, granted, I know he's not AED official, but there's like, you want that, and that's what is so much better when it comes to WWE.

is that 2K3 product, the 2K23, this is practically almost one for one that you've seen that it's happening right now on TV. They make those adjustments and you could have the bloodline right now. And I know the comments are being like, well, that's what AW said they can't compete with that. But I do feel that that is a part of these wrestling games is kind of having that.

Let me recreate those things. And the creative wrestler as well is not as in depth that you would be hoping for. There's not a lot of faces. There's not a lot of hairstyles. If I can pick up, like, that would be the overall problem, I think, beyond, the overall problem is that it's, beyond, it's a shallow pool across the board where I got in and I made Andy, I got in and I made Jen. This is very much, which I'm not against how it was in Russellman 80 2000, no mercy of like, listen, it's not photo realistic. It's going to, you're going to get as close, blah, blah, but it's extremely limited from hair styles to T-shirts,

two names they call Andy, I think it's, Andre C, because there's no Andy and there's no Cortez. They call Jenny Miller, because there's no Jen, right? And it's like, these are little things,

but I'm trying, the pool is small on all of this. In like, you know, they have create an arena, but you start with a template of one of the existing shows. You can't upload stuff,

which makes sense, but you, like, you have to be using like the AEW or, one of the paper view names or whatever on some of the chairs or whatever. Yeah, the matchup screens have to be dark or full gear

or double or nothing or AEDA. Like they let you get a little bit creative with like, you know, the flooring for the mats and this and the other you put statues in there. But at no point do you feel like I'm making something from the ground up. Does it feel like there's a purpose to even having a creative arena if it's that limited?

Or do you think that they should have just not even had that stuff? I think if you didn't have that, I think then it would be glaringly obvious how thin the game is. I think to Sancho's point, like, even me playing, I did not get a chance to try multiplayer stuff.

There is online, there is ranked, there is private, there is all that stuff. I didn't get a shot, a chance to do it so I can't speak to how it works, nor did I do anything local.

But I think this is a local game in the same way for No Mercy. It was me and my friends at the N64 playing it over and over again. So there I could see screwing around and making a different ring, making a different thing.

They use, again, the no mercy stuff that I really liked there of like, when you're playing the game, no matter what you're doing, you're earning bucks, right? You're earning in-game currency that you can then go spend to get new moves, Cody or the female ref, some different things.

It's like, oh, what a great idea here. I've done Road to the Elite once and a half right now and then played a bunch of exhibition and I bought everything. I think I might be short, like, maybe seven moves. And none of it was like, I immediately bought Cody Rhodes because he was behind the in-game stores, not paywall, but you know what I mean? it was like once I got him I was like oh I don't want anything else so just keep buying

everything in there it's like whatever like it's not motivated to do it I'm hoping with the dLC the season passed they'll update that they'll go you know they do give you the whole like daily weekly and then forever challenges that are in there of play you know 50 matches we get this thing do that thing play a match as chris jericho and do something which is a nice motivator but like it's all surface motivation it's all shallow motivation where I'm i enjoy this game I enjoyed my time with it, but I'm not coming back to it, unless maybe the season past adds more stuff or does some stuff to it. Just to pick up where Greg left off about the multiplayer,

that's where it clicked a lot harder than it has in the single player experience. When I brought my friend, I played, I've known since college, we had so many laps and we're having like 30, 40 minute, like drag out battles. We're trying to figure out, like, how to climb the ladder, and it's like not really clipping correctly. Like, all that kind of stuff, we're having a good time. doing specials after special. And that right there is where this game is going to succeed.

When I was thinking about the review, I was like, well, what kind of game is it? And one of my things that I always like to say is it, do I have to meet this game halfway? And you do have to meet this game a little bit more than halfway for you to really embrace what is trying to do. And I think those multiplayer moments are what's so great. And I was just thinking about Tim what you asked, do these wrestlers feel like these wrestlers? I would say the bigger the superstar or the bigger the AW pro wrestler, the more it feels like them. Like Kenny Omega's moveset,

it's much more deep than most of the roster. Like Kenny has like six different signatures. He has five different finishers almost. And you can see a lot of the, when the wrestlers do have that love and character, that it feels like them. But as I was creating my character, and my friend who noticed this as well,

he's like, does all the wrestlers have these knee moves, knee strikes to the belly? Because that's all we were doing. And we're like, it doesn't have like distinct like, No Mercy, the Rock has his signature strikes, and, you know, and Kane has his signature throat strikes. Like, those are the kinds of things you feel. And over across the board, I think Greg nailed it on the board.

You know, it's a very shallow move list in some areas, but in the areas where you want, where it matters the most, the finishers, the signatures, it totally captures. There's nothing like being, um, freshly squeeze Orange Cassidy and putting your hands in his pockets. Slossed out. And now, dude, now you have that, that, that variant. And it's really cool.

And it's really fun to play that. And like I said, the best magic is discovering new things. Like, okay, I could use this skateboard, go up into the ring, flawlessly, dive off the skateboard onto someone down below. Like, that is where this game excels in. And a couple of things, though, that I feel that WWE does do better is that it does feel like you're watching wrestling sometimes, like especially with the animation setups, like, you know, John Cena's five moves of doom, like all that is set up beautiful.

in the WWE product. And here, you have to create the magic, but it's there. Like, you could set up a, like, I was Adam Cole and nothing like dropping the boom on someone where he does the ton in the crowd. Greg, we didn't talk about it, but the crowd is actually really good in this game. Like, I feel like the crowd is alive. So when I'm Adam Cole and I do my tot and the crowd goes, Adam Cole, baby, and I go right there and I lay down, I put my knee pad down.

Like, those are the things like I feel the game gets right. And if you feel that fun in it. but I just hope they don't give up on it. Like that's the one thing I hope they don't. It doesn't have the bells and whistles, but you can add bells and whistles to it. It does have some of that Smackdown Magic that you were talking about, Tim,

where it's like some weird, awkward backstage segments, but it doesn't have like the random run-ins or the brawl in the back room, that kind of stuff, or all of a sudden, like, you know what? Let's fight in here in the bathroom, like that kind of stuff. So it doesn't have that. But I think it could do it,

but convincing people to spend $60 in this day and age for a game. In this economy? In this economy? That doesn't have much. That's going to be hard unless you have like a solid friend group or an online community to play because I didn't get the chance to play like public matches or rank matches.

So it's to be interesting to see because we all know, I don't know if y'all gentlemen on the board here, did you all ever play online matches? They're very cheesy. Like people do the cheesy stuff. The cheesiest stuff. And I could see that happening with some of the moves here.

but yeah i i i think it like i said when it comes to the multiplayer i think it's a that's where you're going to have the most fun with this title 100%. i've a really big question about this game here before i ask you here's a word from our sponsors this episode is brought to you by better help it's so easy to get caught up in what everyone else needs from you and never take a moment to think about what you need from yourself i know this from experience how often it just seems easier to care about others and to keep it moving. But when we spend all of our time giving, it can leave us feeling stretched thin and burnt out. Therapy can give you the tools to find more balance in your life so you can keep supporting others without leaving yourself behind.

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Greg Miller. Hey, buddy. Is this game fun? Yes. I think it's fun. Even without the multiplayer, it was that thing of once I got my sea legs for it, you know, we are,

you know, WW2K has been the only game in town for quite some time. Sorry, FirePro. You've been around too, but you know what I mean? So it is kind of a step backwards. I'm like, oh, there's a block button for punches and a block button for reverse button for grapple.

Like, okay, I need to work my head around that. I think they do a really good job in some respects. It's hit or miss of really nailing what they're going for. No mercy. that engine, right, was known for being pick up and play. You could get in, you could master it, you could play no matter what,

you could master it if you wanted to, right? This is the same thing of weak grapple, strong grapple, you know, hold it, tap it, weak, you strike, strong, strike, punch or kick. But I really love the thing in here of, you know, before where it was like, you know, you had to do in the NCC4 games, you'd hit your joystick that would put you into special mode, right?

And then you had to get a strong grapple and then into your thing. Now they've eliminated that where you can just, if you, once you hit it into special, you're in the right setup. You can hit the joystick and they'll grapple and do it for you. Signatures are on the D-pad. You can just hit that from a different thing and go for it. You can go right into those moves and oftentimes have enough time for two.

It's easy enough that I felt like after my first match, I was like, okay, drag the body with this, pick them up with this, do this thing. I can figure that out. You know, your first, their tutorials I think are pretty great at. All right, here's how the ladder match works. Here's how lights out is going on. Blah, blah, blah. The game is fun to play. It is fun to go through and do it.

I do think there is a difficulty problem, I would say, where, you know, when I started it as Andy and it was on normal, I eventually got to where I was just beating people and I was just destroying them in like, I felt one to two minutes. Like it was, I was coming in and, you know, you're doing a whole thing of gaming the system to a degree too of like if your mood super high, you come in with more momentum so it's easier to get going. And I, your moon? Your mood. Your mood. Your mood is up there. You're excited to be there. And you're investing your points and building your character. so I'm making my finishers stronger, you know what I mean? With the in-game currency, I'm doing for that mode.

Greg, did you do the power-up where you have your special the whole week? No. I literally, oh my goodness. I saw that, but I was like, I don't even need it. I just don't need that. I kept putting it to the other stuff. Great, because they start throwing the random gauntlet matches. It's like, ah, here's all the villains.

It's like very like, here's all the villains of AEW. You're going to go through. And then I had special the whole time. So I'm like literally just throwing down everybody. And like, wiping the floor with everybody. But it's like, that's worth it. That's the kind of thing. Like, that's where it's fun when you lean into the absurdity of it, the capcon of it.

But, yeah. When I popped out, though, I cranked it up to Elite, right, especially because there was a trophy for it. And I was like, oh, man, this might be tough. And it wasn't. It was marginally more difficult than what it was, which wasn't difficult at all. And so there's that part of it, but I still enjoyed playing it. I still enjoyed seeing a road to elite. I was excited to find, oh, the woman's one's going to be different than that.

Not to mention if you really wanted to, you could go through and not lose the match you did or win the match or choose, you know, to work with somebody. against somebody because there are parts in the storylines that are like, all right, cool. Like if you want to be on our, in our faction, right, then let me win this match and then, you know, blah, blah. And if you don't, it'll go to the way. And Jen's thing she got kidnapped by a week for a week.

And they took the bag off right. Like, I told you not. And it's like, I'm sorry, Mr. Brody Lee. And it's like, that is the over the time. And then JR, they're like, they do, Brody Lee's like, you know, the late great Brody Lee. It's like, hey, listen, like, if you don't report me to the cops, I'll give you a title shot at the next paper of you.

It was an accidental kidnapping. And they're like, all right, cool. And so I'm like, they're leaning into it. But then JR's like, oh, man, it sucks you were kidnapped. They're like, now you have time to get ready. You used to go straight to the dynamite tonight. Like, all right, whatever. Like, that's what you're coming in for.

It's enjoyable, I think, and it is. I, you know, I think the animations look good for the most part. There's a few times they don't. But for, like, I'm talking about how it is fun to play, and I do like it. I do want to call out a number of things I think hold it back, right? And these are small quibbles, but they are there. You know, some finishers, can transition right into a pin.

You can be in the middle of the finer and then hit L1 and go for the pin. Lots of other moves can't, which I think is such a weird thing not to be able to do. You know, like, you're coming up off a signature elbow drop and it's like, this is my third signature or my second finisher. Like, just let me go into a pin from that. I couldn't on that. Targeting is terrible. It is.

I can't, I, oh, like the, you know, the story mode, of course, dropping you in a lot of tag matches, a lot of four ways. And so then it is, you know, clicking L3 to change who you're looking at or whatever. But there's no arrows. There's no color. coding. So it is you're trying to follow eyesight, which led to people getting a drop on me a lot. It can be pandemonium when there's that many people in the ring, which is never fun.

Because it's not pandemonium in the sense of like, anything can happen. It's pandemonium. I'm fighting this guy and they're trying to grab the guy behind me, but they grab me and now we're there. The AI can be stupid as hell where it just gets stuck on people and it can't get to where it's going. Your person can be terrible at breaking up your thing here. What are you laughing? You're laughing at him. The gameplay is so funny.

You know, it's one of those intergender matches are here that is not in WWE. I appreciate that. I like it too. Not only do I like it, of course, because it's a smaller roster. I like it because then it got integrated into Jen's story. Like she won the women's world title pretty much right away. Then it got the belt got dropped. Then it was like, okay, well, you're here.

So now this happened. But like, can you go out and fight CM Punk tonight? And you went out and did all these different things. And it was like, oh, my God. It was Matt Hardy needed me to go and fight somebody in his place. And it was like, oh, my God. You know, she's fighting. And she didn't.

She won. And now once that. happen, it's kind of just bed and now it's just a mix up where you can fight a you can, your women are fighting men and it's not like a big deal. It's not like a weird thing going on. I like that. I like that finishers and signatures are so easy. I already said that. I mean, she's good.

I hate the pinfall and submission system. There's no visual feedback for it. You know, your pin, they want you to kick out. Mash the buttons. Okay, but like you're not showing am I close? Am I far away? Am I matching am I mashing good or bad? Same with submissions. I don't know what's going on with that. And then yeah, you know, again, I hate

tag matches so it's so frustrating to do the thing of like, hit your special on the guy who's legal in the ring, poorly target the other guy, run over there and knock them down, hope you have enough time to get back and do the pin. And I do not like the mini games. They put in these mini games that are, you've seen them online. I think a bunch of them, right, of like catch the tokens and don't get blown up by the bombs.

And then there's pushing each other out of the fucking wrestling, yeah, push each other out of the ring. They drop them into Road to Elite and it's like, ah, it's like, fun. It's like, I don't want to ever do this. And I don't enjoy doing them. And then they're outside of it, too, for you and your friends. to go do. The only one I thought that was interesting that I wish they did more of

was there is an AEW trivia game. It is like, all right, you know, which one of these wrestlers isn't from Canada? Like, there it is right there.

It's like, those are interesting, but they put all this stuff in there. And again, it's interesting to see you try to push this, but it also feels a lot like Superman 64 when they added a multiplayer mode and it was like,

I don't need that. I don't need the Superman 64 in general, but I don't need that here. This seems like padding of a degree of like, well, you could do it in your thing, but you could also do this. And it's like, I'm okay. Like, you know what I mean?

It's just a weird thing. Yeah. Any closing thoughts for you, Sancho? Uh, I guess my, my main thing about it is that there is, like, the input of the controllers is not as crispy as a Nintendo 64. 100%. It's like a little bit. And like, uh, which leads to like very poor countering.

You don't really feel that you nail a counter sometimes. You can't counter into a special. I've tried like so many times to do that. I haven't found the ability to steal a. special as well. Those were some of my favorite things to do. And I played this game for hours. I was hoping to steal specials.

Steelers and use their move? Yeah, yeah. Use their move. So, like, this is one of the other problems, I think, not with the game, but with, is this to be your creative character or anybody? Anybody. I was like, I know there's passives, right? I don't know which wrestlers have the past.

Exactly. When you, they have a whole much of stuff under the hood here of like, oh, well, you have the in the corner buff or this, that, the other. When I was building out, Jen, I already looked at the trophy list and saw, there was a trophy for, you know, winning off of using somebody special against them. When I was going through building her out, I went into the different things you can buy with the money to add to your character and it was there, the gimmick theft. And so I did it there, but yeah, I don't know.

Like, you can, like, they have a bunch of weird menu things where I was like today, like, and my final things before we went, I was like, I never really went into this menu where it's the options in the jukebox, which, of course, like, you can turn on whatever music you want or don't want. Because originally I was like, dude, I'm so sick of hearing the same three songs. And then I was like, oh, there's a section here that has way more songs. Why wouldn't you just put it all on random? It doesn't matter.

Then there's a thing of like you go in and it's the superstars. And if you use the superstar or beating them, I forget in exhibition, you unlock their autograph. There's information in there and this, that, the other. And then you can put your profile thing. I was like, why is this all buried over here? So I don't either know right off the bat of like who has gimmick theft and who doesn't or whatever.

So it's like there's a lot they've added in there that I don't think is necessarily the most compelling thing that you need to go find. But there is stuff under the hood. it's happening. But then I'm also confused of like, I ran Andy through Road to Elite. It ended. Andy's available to play and he seems like he has all the stuff I

unlocked in Road to Elite, but that's still not like a full run of, he doesn't have every finisher he should have, right? Because I didn't buy those slots. So then I was like, okay, I'll do another Road to Elite with Andy and buy those slots.

I did that, but it only carried over some of my thing. I'm like, I don't understand what the fuck's going on. Are you looking forward to next year's if there is one? There's not a chance in hell there's a game next year. Oh yeah. No way.

No way. There's a chance there's a sequel. A chance, yes. If I was a betting man, no, I don't think there will be. I think this took so long and gestated for so long that I would be shocked if it's going to be big enough that AEW is like, let's do it again. But I'd love to be wrong because I'm with Sancho of like,

I enjoy what I played and I think if you would add to it, again, like remember, I can never remember. What was the first one? I loved. WCW versus the world? Yep, there you go. Right. I remember when that one started and you compare that to revenge,

that to no, Mercy that to wrestling 20, that's a wrestling 20,000, that's no mercy. Like, you see how these things went and evolved and changed and got huge. I'd love to see that here. But I just don't think

AEW is big enough that it's going to get every AEW video game fan to buy it. And I don't think the game is good enough that it's going to get every wrestling fan to go by. Yeah, and that's the thing as well. Like, it just does not have the legs and what keeps the WWE games alive is that creative custom wrestlers and all that.

The mod community is just phenomenal and they could put AEW wrestlers. And that's the thing, right? If you really wanted, like, if you love wrestling games and you love AEW only, you're telling me you're not, you haven't bought WW2K just to get into the creation suite where they've made all these people and it is up to date and it is, you know, everybody who's current on the roster doing their current thing and their upload, like the creation community is so amazing over there. I can't imagine that other than supporting the team you love, like when I fucking bought ECW Revolution and I was so fucking over acclaimed wrestling games, but I still fucking bought it, Paul, because I was there to support you. God damn it. Basically, Tim, you're buying this. You're buying this to put a button on this.

You're buying this game for the engine. That's it. Like, you're buying it for the wrestling engine and the nostalgia of it and it still captures that magic. Once you start pulling at it, then you realize, well, there's not much here. But if you have a good Tim, you can have a great time with some friends with it, but it's the engine. And I hope, Tim, that they do make another, because I want to see the rainmaker in this

engine. He has some movesets in it, but that's the problem, Tim. You can't make Okada in this game. You should be able to make him like it, but you can't. There's none of his gear. There's nothing like that. WDWE, you could literally make any wrestlers because they kind of put those kind of gear in there for you to connect the dots to make Okada. Yeah.

I'm hopeful for you. We'll see. You know, factions in me didn't happen, so. I'm missing a voice right now. We haven't heard from this man, Snowbite. Hey, I'm here as a while. If you've been an audio listener, of course, you haven't heard my voice. But have you been watching, I've been really enjoying this conversation.

conversation, right? Are you going to come to enjoy money in the bank on Sunday or Saturday? There's spikes where I smiled and I was like, ooh, I'm interested in this game. And then there's moments where I was like, oh, man, that's too bad that this game isn't hitting that. You know what I mean? But I will say this, Greg, boot up fucking this video game and money in the bank and we'll have to each other. I love that.

I love that. But here's the deal, though. I haven't heard much of your voice today, but I haven't heard a lot of your voice. And one of my favorite things that I ever heard in that voice was about a week ago. When you come up to me and you're like, Tim, this Final Fantasy game, what's up with that, man? What's up with that?

And then you start texting me about your experience while you're playing it, losing your mind from how hyped you are. I am so thrilled about this. What do you think about Final Fantasy 16? Tim, I'm happy to say that Final Fantasy 16 has got the sauce. Okay, that is a must-play video game of the year.

I'm really blown away. It is like truly my first ever Final Fantasy experience. I did about two hours and seven regret that I never went back to it but you know I put down that place I did the boy band for about two hours never went back to it so this is the first one where I'm sitting on the couch and I'm fully engaged

and I think you know what it is not only is the combat incredible and we'll talk about that but it's the story really honestly Clive in this story is really bringing me along where I am wowed at every turn right I am excited to see what is next what's going to be the next big reveal

Ben we had on the, you know, the Twitch stream earlier, I was blown away because at first, I was like, okay, this guy's voicing a character, that's cool, like didn't really know much what was going on. After X amount of hours, I'm like, man, this guy is killing the role right now. Him, all the other voice actors really bring something special to this world. And yeah, I'm loving this. I'm having a ton of phone with it. So how far are you? Because I know you're still pretty early. And do you plan, do you think you're going to roll credits? Yeah, I'm about to raid the Capitol. So, you know, it's going to be pretty something special.

Of course. If you played the game, you know what's going to happen here. I will roll the credits. There's no question about it. I am finding about an hour to two hours nightly where I am playing this. I am getting lost in the world, right? I think as a Final Fantasy newbie, it is cool to see enemies that I'm sure have been in other Final Fantasy games where it's like, oh man, look at this crazy creature that I'm

fighting. And then, yeah, every single time it pulls me in and I want to play more, right? Like, you know, just helped out the madam. you know, she got me in on the back side of everything. I've really loved that moment, right? I'm still searching for my little bro out there. Like, where is my little bro? Why doesn't he want to talk to me?

I've accepted my truth as Clive and, like, I've brought on a new side of me that I think a lot of people are going to like. Also, like the battlefield will probably not like, but that's super dope. I mean, what's up with these other warring factions? What's up with these godlike creatures? Why, when am I going to fight this jabroney on a horse? Like, there's some dope stuff, damn. I can go into the whole story.

I'm blown away. And then the combat side of things, I think really something special is, is you're in it for the story, like I have been so far. I think they do a great job at like right when you're done with the tutorial, they give you the three rings, which is, hey, if you're not good at combat and you just want to smash square to get through this, here's a ring for that. Hey, if you don't know how to call in the dog to go do some stuff, here's a ring for that. Like, hey, you forget about health potions sometimes.

Here's a ring for that. And like, equipping those have made it so I can just, enjoy the story or I take one off and I try to get better at that process like the combat right and it's like I love that idea of jumping right in saying hey you want the training wheels on you just want to enjoy this in coast here you go kudos to them for that that was a smart move absolutely sancho have you been playing any fall fantasy okay so um when I asked Greg about you know doing AW he was like how about Final Fantasy you ever played that before can you give us some thoughts of that I was like I was like I've been in Fortnite

torment for so many years, right? Because that is what I do. I cover Fortnite. I cast Fortnite, host Fortnite. And so I don't have time for single-player games. And games that require so much 40, 80-hour play-thrus or whatever in the open world, this is not me, especially when I'm a dad of two. But this game bangs, dude.

This game is really good, dude. This game is amazing because I know Final Fantasy, you know, is a term-based combat and all that kind of stuff, where you're going back and forth? And I know for the longest time when I was growing up, you would see a sick-ass trailer and then you would see the gameplay,

like, wait, why is it all pixel art? Like, this will look really cool in the trailer, but here we are, and this game has that magic. It looks like the trailers. Like, that to me is amazing. As someone who's been missing Onimusha for so many years,

like I missed that series and I'm waiting for Oni Musha to come back. Every time I'm watching a show that has any kind of samurai, like Onyusha. This has an onimusha type light vibe to it. It's not as chunky as onymusha. It's more fluid.

But to me, it feels as someone who's been in multiplayer lockdown that I'm reading a book and I'm enjoying this grandiose story with these grandiose characters. And then like you think like this fight is almost over, but then it hits again. It's like a cascading tidal wave of another moment, another epic moment, another epic moment. And I'm about like a third of the way into the game. I just got my dominance of the wind one, whatever, you know. And that to me, those moments were just so cool. Now, granted, you could be elegant with this game.

You could be Andy Cortez, right? You could parry and you could dodge. But I'm just being a monster. I'm literally just dodging and spamming my triangle as much as possible with no care of disregard to anything because it is, as Mike said, it's a very approachable game. It's not like Eldon Ring where it punishes you for messing up. The spawn points are very forgivable.

And I like that. And you get all your potions back. And you could explore if you don't. If you want to, you could do side quests or you could just what we call it for in a white line, go white line the story. Just go straight through and have a great time because these cutscenes, even though they're hefty and they're long, they're amazing. Like I never felt so engrossed. Like it's like a Game of Thrones type of thing and so I love that notion of one of the dumb things I had said and I say a lot of dumb things to him is

Hey, yeah, oh now One of the dumb things is like it feels like I'm playing a musical where you're so excited to get to the next musical number which is the next boss fight So you know there's the you know sometimes the The fighting is like monster closity and you're yeah you got to go through a little little arena and you could like I said You could butcher your way through it but when you get that musical number starts hitting and the cutscenes starts going and like Mike said in the story rams back up again you're just like I'm all in

and this game is singing this game is singing something that I've been missing a very long time and the last time I had this kind of feeling was what's recent was Resident Evil 2 remaster like they don't make I love games that are just perfect paste and perfect capsules of entertainment and this is what is doing for me

and I know it's not Final Fantasy the way it was where the boy band won and all the Final Fantasy 8s and 7 remasters I know it's not that but dude It just lets me know that the world of Final Fantasy There is this room for it They should allow these type of games in it Because like who knows maybe I'll pick up one of those MMOs or maybe I'll try that out

Because my only experience of Final Fantasy Was I used to work at Circus City and they used to sell those big old white cases that had the external hard driver Oh my god 5,000 11th You remember those? Dude like nobody bought those things They just sat collected dust And then that's my only kind of a tie to this franchise.

But yeah, yeah, like I said, when you start doing some nasty combos and you're switching between the two powers, oh, Mike, tell me, Mike, it feels like you're on a whole other level, right? It's a whole other level. The combat is so fluid and sweet. And then the fights are epic and grand, right? Lady B up on the clock towers is like, oh, my gosh, this is so cool, right? And, like, Lady B's got two dudes and, like, they're both badass dudes, you know what I mean?

Like, that storyline is lit for sure. Where that goes, Tim? Let me tell you what. Dudes be dudes, man. They're not happy about things. They ain't happy. They ain't happy. Dudes be dudes.

I mean, I just can't spoil it, but like if you played it, you know these dudes be dudes right now, you know? Greg, I know you haven't played too much, but I haven't really heard your thoughts on what you have played so far. I was super intrigued. I, so the, yeah, there's nothing to really report. I'm still sub three hours in this because it came in. We were in the middle of something. Oh, no, we were getting ready for SGF, but I was still obsessed with the office. with Jen.

So then at some point, I played those three hours to see if, is this going to be good? For me, is it going to work for me? Super loved the combat. I wanted more of the combat in those three hours. I know the game's just getting started, obviously, and like the story, but then put it down to move to A.W. To keep playing Diablo to work on another review that I can't talk about, Platinum, another game that I'll eventually be able to talk to.

So the hope is now with breathing room to get back to it. But I think I honestly might just restart it because even now it's like, I know it's got the great story recap system. but I'd love to, because what was it? I, yeah, I started it here at the office. And so I started on my shitty screen over there. I'd love to start it in the basement on the giant TV screen and go from there. Yeah, you totally, I definitely think you should do that.

At the same time, I do think that the opening hours of the game, like three hours, very kind of basic tutorial stuff in a way that, like, it's not that I'm worried about not being able to play the game. Yeah, but even then, stories. Story-wise stuff, like, I think you'll be okay. Okay. Like, I personally think that it'd be better for you to just keep pushing forward. Okay.

you'll get hooked, they'll catch you up, and like all that other stuff, like they do a good job, I think of even kind of repeating it over and over, because now I'm on my second play-through the game. And when you are doing, so that's my thing. It's like, I'm working on that platy, baby. It seems attainable. It seems like it'd be a fun thing to do. Something that I'm a little concerned about is I'm definitely going to like 100% get all

of the things in the game. And I'm very, very, very close to that already. I have a couple hunts left. and then there's a couple like weird little things I need to collect, but I'm doing it. But the biggest thing is New Game Plus. They add a lot to the game. There's a lot of incentive to want to keep going. Like I don't want to even, it's not big spoilers, but I don't even want to say exactly what some of the things are.

But the type of features I want from a New Game Plus. I often complain when New Game Plus isn't at launch with a video game because it's like, when I want to actually play it is right now. And like give me good incentives of like, Not just making it fun, but making it even more fun. Like, give me some things that I'm like, oh, I am incentivized to want to replay what I have just played. And I mean, the cutscenes alone are a great reason and like the boss fights alone are a great

reason. But I think this game has enough other stuff and it being available right now. I'm like, oh yeah, man, I'm here. And that being part of the platinum is beating it on a new game plus mode. And I'm like, it seems a little lofty. I still need to get back to Zelda. But I'm also like, I don't want to stop playing if I'm on Fantasy 16. It's so damn good and rewarding.

So I'm having a blast playing it right now again even. And in New Game Plus, you can essentially skip the first three hours. It's like that's what I'm saying. I feel like they even understand that there's like a real starting point of the game. But yeah, Sancho. Tim, I was going to say, you were, you know, we talked about the concert. They had this song there, right? Oh, yeah.

How was that? I mean, I just got chills even. You're just saying that. It was the first time they ever played in Final Fantasy 16 Music Live. And like, I said this on my review. This is the most nitpicky Timass bullshit that only I will complain about. But I have such a dumb trained ear when it comes to like orchestral shit where it's like, I know when it's a real orchestra or when it's like a MIDI,

this is an electronic representation of a violin or a horn or whatever. And things have gotten real good choirs of is this a real voice or is this kind of a, you know, I'm blanking on the word. sound fonts or whatever. And again, I think that there's, it's unrealistic to expect 100 plus hours of original music

be fully orchestrated and all that stuff. You just don't see that. But I do think, and also the levels of arrangements and stuff in this game are insane and so complex. Hearing these songs that I've now heard for 80 fucking hours over and over and over, hearing it

live. And with the live orchestra, I'm like, this is where it's at, man. It is so good. It is so rich and just so damn amazing. And I feel like in the game itself, it's just like, I wish that there could be like an actual, like an

orchestra or placement or something one day. Because eventually there will be all the different concerts that they have all the songs and all that. But man, it is. The music is so good. I must have listened to, like there's only one song on Spotify right now called Find the Flame from Final Fantasy 16. I must have

heard to listen to it a hundred time. Can you find? The Flame is that the main theme? It's a musical. It's like, I mean, it's one of them, like, like the main big boss. I think it's like the main boss theme. Oh, okay.

Yeah, you put a Final Fantasy 16 concert on and I'll be there. Oh, yeah. Hell of you. Now, will you be there or will you just buy tickets? I will purchase tickets and support. Oh, I have a question. You know, I'll be there. I'll be there.

Greg. Do you or everybody, um, lean with Greg, do you feel like this is like an uncharted type pace? like minus the side stories like if you just did the main missions because that's what I feel like to me like you you want to see that next cutscene

so you will go through like the monster closets and you'll go through the little combat areas just to get to that because that's the kind of quality of cut scenes that I'm getting from Final Fantasy and that's one of the like fleeting thoughts that I had like this feels like very unchart like the cutscenes

the cinematics the quick time events the cinematic what strikes and the cinematic dodges like all that kind of stuff it feels that to me like I got a war type-esque it feels very patient PlayStatione so to speak when it comes to a single player experience I'm way too early to know I hope so

I know that was one of the things you talked about after you reviewed it or like Greg I think you're gonna like it because it's got to worry this is a PlayStation game this is a PlayStation Final Fantasy and like you know what that means it's exactly what Sanja was just explaining like this is a third person action adventure

narrative based we give a shit about production values we're going hard It's also PlayStation exclusive. All of that stuff, though, it's like, yeah, I think that this game is just as similar to Uncharted 4 as it is any Final Fantasy. And I'm saying all of this only in the utmost, this is a game for me. I am obsessed with this game. The production values are there, the stories there,

the reward system that you're talking about, Sancho of, like, getting to that set piece and everything in between being so fun, that stuff's all there. It is open, but it is also very, very, very linear in a, way that I appreciate. It doesn't waste your time. There are some open things that you get to. Some of the side quests, it's really interesting where the way I played it, I just did them all. I feel like the side quests are excellent in this game because of what you get from them, which is fantastically written conversations and deep characters that you give a shit about and all of them relate and connect. And the more side quests you do, the more rewarding the end of this game is.

Having said that, I understand why people are like, yo, these side quests are not it because they're basic as hell and they're all just take thing A to place B for reason C and it's like all right cool but I think that what you get from those is so worth it that it's like man this is what I'd be looking for from a side quest

whereas I compare it to like God of War Ragnarok where I would say like those are some of my favorite side quests I've ever done because doing them I didn't realize I was doing a side quest I felt like I thought I was doing main story content because it felt like every single thing was that big whereas

this, you're not getting set pieces from the side quests. You're just getting, again, incredibly, incredibly well-written bits of information that strengthen the entire experience. Yeah, I had to deliver porridge to an old man, and I still had fun doing it because he had a great writing. Yeah, that's great, okay, good. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, that's like a metaphor of life. We just need to all have great writing, and people would care about us. Yeah, that is true. That is true. Speaking of great writing, write something great in the comments below. Let's get the engagement up. Greg, what's the code word today? The code word today is

West but East question mark. Leave that in the comments and we'll see it everybody. Sancho, thank you so much for joining us for your thoughts on AEW, Final Fantasy 16 and all that good stuff. Where can people find you? You can find me at all things at Sancho West. I am on live on Twitch TV.

Sancho West, holy, for a long day. Monday through Friday, I am there. You can see me like at 10 a.m. Pacific. We're using tandem with the kind of funny. so he didn't say hello. I know the boys are alive too, but say hello to me. Hell yeah, man.

Mike, thank you for joining us. I hope your final fancy adventure continues. I'll tell you what, man. I got a lot going on. A lot of stories that I got to get into. Yeah. And Greg, I hope more than anything, I start getting texts from you sometime soon.

I'm like, dude, I just got this. I just got this. Because I do think you're going to fucking love this game. I hope so, and I hope to get back to it tonight, unless we're playing Diablo. The Gablo. You know what I'm? blow, Tim.

I got demons to slay. Video games are cool, everybody. Let us know in the comments below what you will be playing this week. But until next time, I love you all. Goodbye.