Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Mega Ran (Special Guest) - Kinda Funny Gamescast Ep. 56

Episode Date: February 11, 2016

Special guest Mega Ran explains how awesome he is, we discuss the best video game music of all-time, Final Fantasy XV had a huge blow out of coverage, and we talk about all the things we hate most about games. (Released to Patreon Supporters on 02.05.16) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I am up for most entertaining online personality at the South by Southwest Gaming Awards. And it would mean the world to me if you went and voted for me. Of course, every time we win one of these things, it's a win for kind of funny. And it's a win for you because we get to go there and be like, hey, People who've never heard of us. Guess what? People like us. And everybody goes,

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SXSW, and vote Greg Miller for most entertaining online personality. I would take it as a personal favor that I will never ever be able to repay you for. What's up guys?

Welcome to the first ever episode 56 of the Kind of Funny Games cast. As always, I'm Tim Getty's joined by the coolest dudes of video games, Colin Moriarty and Greg Miller. It's good to be here with you today. And now,

for the first time ever on this show, we have Mega Ran. Thank you. Hello. I'm really excited about this. This is gonna be a good one. This one's gonna be worth a dollar. I can feel it.

If you believe that, well, you would already know that you went over to patreon.com slash kind of funny. You gave us a dollar to get this thing early. Or you could have went to YouTube.com slash kind of funny games and got it for free.

Patreon.com slash kind of funny games. Did I mess up? I'm just, I'm just being clear. It's been a long month of promoting the animated series link. I understand. It's hard to switch gears. One day.

One day I'll get that stuff. Anyway, this is a weekly show where you're talking about video games and stuff that we like. We're going to start this one off right. I want to talk about you, Megarand. Hey, what is your history and why are you here? All right. Wow. So we're going to go from birth to like now.

To now. All right. Well, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. West Philadelphia. Born and raised. In front of the TVs where I spent most of my days. So basically just, you know, growing up a fan of video games for a long, long time and a fan of hip hop at the same time.

And just watching both of them. rise around the same time and me just really wanting to get caught up in that that uh you know both of those cultures and um I started writing music I guess as a teenager and it took me

maybe 10 years of writing music until I figured let me try to inject some of those games that I love into the music and I made this album called Mega Ran in 2007 and uh we talked about Mega Man a little bit on it and uh and then Capcom heard it and um

immediately shut you down And they're like under no circumstance. They embarrassed me. No. No, they were okay with it. And they decided to let me keep making music. And they, you know, encourage me to make more, make a man tunes. And so I did that.

Then I went to other, you know, franchises that I really loved, Final Fantasy, all kinds of stuff. River City Ransom, mostly retro things. So I think I've then fallen into a bit of a, I guess, a niche or subgenre called nerdcore. Also another called Chiptoon. So I put those together. and what I call it is chip hop. It's a little bit of both. Chip tune, hip hop, chip hop.

That's my thing. Yeah. So right now, let's see. I am in San Francisco on a tour with my good friend, Richie Branson, game developer and amazing rapper. He and I work on projects together. We put out an album together

called Goals and Ghosts this past Christmas. And yeah, we're just out promoting it and hanging out and rapping and meeting people and driving, mostly. Mostly driving. So what does the tour look like then? What does it look like? This current tour?

I mean, it's been just, you know, into a city for a day, usually, you know, playing a show, getting to maybe eat some food and shake hands with people that are in the town. And then we play a great show and usually we have to go to the next city. Fortunately, the Bay Area shows are kind of close together and we get to kind of hang out in one general area. And so, yeah, we'll be in San Francisco. We'll be in San Jose. We'll be in Sacramento. And so yeah, it's usually playing a show, eating something terrible late at night, and then heading back home and getting a little bit of rest,

and then getting up, getting on the internet, handling all of our, you know, various clerical duties, and then getting back into a venue and doing it again. Now that's the thing. You're talking about these clerical duties and these emails you have to do. I would assume you have thousands of people who do these things for you. You're a big time rapper traveling. So for like a tour, is that all on you? negotiating spots and figuring out like where you're going point to point?

Yeah, I mean, how the hell do you do that? You save money if you do it yourself, you know? You don't have to pay anybody. So as long as I can do it at a pretty good high level, I think I've continued to do it. So I tour manage. I book the dates. I, you know, I organize the rental vehicle and how we're going to get there, organize where we're going to sleep.

And it's, I can do it in my sleep now at this point. I've done it for 10 years now. So I don't know. But when it gets to a point where I just absolutely can't handle it, then I'll bring in a tour manager. I've done a couple tours with managers and it's amazing. However, at the end, they're standing there with their hand out, like, all right, I made that happen for you. Now, compensate me. And it's like, I think I can do that. So I try it. And it usually works out well. Now, you said you've been doing it for 10 years, right? You've been out there doing all this

stuff. You're shaking it. So what I think you glossed over that I love about your story, right, is that you were a teacher, right? Oh, yes. I didn't even say that. Yeah. It wasn't like you're like, I've been making music now, I'll put video games in it. I'm a huge internet star. Oh, yeah, yeah. The teacher part is a huge, you know, path on the road to wherever I am now. And, yeah, I taught for six years, mostly middle school. And I had a great time doing it.

I started off as a substitute, you know, and dealing with middle school kids who, you know, are 12 going on 30. I think they know everything. I think it helped me a lot with my performances because it's, you got to be able to improvise. You got to be able to change on the fly. And ultimately, standing on the stage and standing in front of 30 kids is the same because you have to make them believe in you and what you're doing. And if the kids don't believe in you, they see right through you and it's over. You know, you lose them and you never get them back. So I was kind of a mean teacher though. It was

see, I don't believe that for a goddamn second. Everybody says that. No, I was mean. Oh, man, I was mean. You have to be with 12-year-olds. That's why I was going to drive there naturally because, yeah, that's the thing. I remember when we first met and we immediately found that we're brothers in arms we're friends like there's a connection here God dang it

and you've been a big supporter or kind of funny all those things but you're always so soft-spoken so easy going so down to help us out and do this stuff I can't these kids would have they would have

you would have you absolutely have to put on a different face they say you don't smile until Christmas when you're a teacher you don't smile you don't tell a joke

until you've had them for three months or so so did you feel like you were putting on an act every day? Absolutely. Absolutely. You don't smile.

You're like, get in there, sit down, works on the board, do it. Don't bother me, you know. And you have to do that every day until they get in the structure where they're like, oh my God, you might kill us, you know. And once they think you might kill them, then you can tell a joke and they're like, should we laugh? Yeah, so I think you got to build a level of trust and structure before you can, you know, divert from it. Have you, I'm curious, I've actually meant to ask you this, I think, several times ago that I saw you, like, in your teaching career, since it was some time ago now, now, these kids are kind of coming up, I mean, they're adults now, a lot of them. Have you encountered any of them as fans of yours? Like, have you heard from any of them? Like, maybe you don't remember them, but like, I had you and I absolutely have. It's strange, because you say that, like, they're adults. And one of, I was in Salt Lake, and the guy who put this show together was like, I think I know one of your ex-students, like, one of your old students. Like, one of your old students. You know, like,

moved from Phoenix to Salt Lake and I know him and I couldn't remember the name and but I was like that's very possible like these kids are grown now yeah you know they could have moved to different places they could have jobs you know and I knew him when they were 12 13 14 so it's strange but it's cool like I'll see comments pop up on YouTube and I'm like hey Mr. Jay good to see you still at it you know like students of mine and I'm like wow that's awesome I went to the studio once and a former student of mine was in the studio like making music and I'm like wow and he's like yeah mr jay you showed me how to do this and I was like what I'm officially old you know teenagers are growing up and becoming you know adults and uh

somehow being influenced by what I do which is kind of cool and scary but I love it though it's it's great to see those kids doing okay so you're acting tough to these kids but then you're also making the music I mean it was there did there come a convergence point where they all discovered like wait a second yep absolutely wait mr. Jarbo is mega and they would come into school and like, hey, Megaran or something like that. And I'm like, I have no idea we're talking about. What are you talking about? You got detention, you know.

But yeah, absolutely. They would find stuff. So then I eventually had to just insert it into the classroom as much as I could. I would show them videos of mine. I would then get into even running songs by them. Like, hey, I got this new song. I'm working on. Here, just listen to it.

You know, and they enjoyed it. Or if they didn't, they're like, Mr. Jay, this is kind of weak. You know, people need something to dance. to this isn't danceable you know like they'll give me good feedback I mean you know from the mouths of babes I mean they're gonna be very honest and that gives you a different perspective on your music that you don't necessarily think of so so I would run music by them we would do freestyle Fridays where I would rap for them if they all got a really good score on their test I would do some raps for them so I would have

them all hold up their items that they had in their in their desk and I'd go around the classroom just rapping about them pencils pens whatever and and they enjoyed that they had a blast or I would do that use their spelling words into the rhyme. And they loved it. That's awesome. That is so cool. You need the coolest teacher.

So one of the things I'm, you know, I was actually just talking to Nick about my best friend back home. Ramon is a bassist and like a studio musician and doing stuff. And he's finally playing with this guy next week on Seth Myers, whatever. And he's like finally, he's stuck with it.

And he like, and things are happening for him now. And we're like real proud of him. And I'm curious what that transition was from, not really being able to make a living off of it to making a living off of it. Because I played music since a very young age too. And I always tell Ramon and you're really the similar person where I'm like, you guys are keeping the dream alive for all of us who grew up playing music and wanted to be rock stars or whatever.

And like just, you know, we were good. But like you know, you right place, right time and all that kind of stuff. So what does it like to be able to quit that job and make a living or be comfortable, be able to tour and do all these kinds of things? I'm not saying you're like, you know, the fucking you two are muse out there. I'm saying he is like you. You can say that. I am.

No, honestly, it's scary as hell, you know, but I think it just happened to, you know, like you said, it's just a bunch of right things happening at the right time. And all the timing is just what helped it. And then, you know, it's very scary. But I think it's, it was something that I felt like I had to do. Like it was, I was at a, it was pretty young still. Didn't have kids or a wife at the time. So I figured I can take a chance and step out and try to make this happen. And I can always go back and be a teacher, you know.

So it was just a matter of finding, you know, just a number of, I felt like a number of signs were in the air, you know, things would happen. I made this album, Black Materia, and then Game Informer profiled it. And then I was playing at Pax and a lot of really bigger shows. And I thought, well, maybe I can do this. And I just decided to step out. And that was five years ago. And it's just been working out. But yeah, I mean, people say like, you live in the dream, you know, and I think I am, you know.

And it's, I don't take it for granted any second. I feel like, you know, I may need to go to Walmart, you know, and filling out an application or something. But I don't know. But right now it's going well, you know, knocking on wood. And yeah, it's been, it's been great. But it's all a matter of just taking those opportunities and taking those signs that because I think everybody gets it once in a while you'll get a moment. But you're like, oh, I'm afraid. Oh, I can't, I can't take this day off of work to go meet this record producer guy or whatever.

You know, and I think it's just taking those chances. Yeah. And sometimes they work out. So was it was Capcom coming to you kind of your first moment when you were like okay I can really do this? Because I remember when you first put up grow up and I love that song. It's one of my favorite songs ever. Wow. And then I listen to that and this was before the Megarang album even came out.

And then you had another album before that. I did. The call. The call. And so it's much more of a traditional hip-hop album. No video games, you know, things about that. But it was just a story of a guy who had come from a city and, you know, wanted to have dreams of fulfilling. is calling in life. That's what the call was all about. And I didn't know what that call was.

You know, and then things started getting clear after making that record. But yeah, I think it was IGN, who was the first. It was probably IGN's fault that Capcom scared the hell out of me because they posted it. And next thing you know, I had an email on MySpace the very like same day. And they're like, so, what are you doing here? You know, and I'm like, oh boy. Naturally, you think like this is something that's going to ruin you, you know. And but they were fortunately, like fans of what I was doing and they thought it was well done. They thought it was tasteful. They thought it was appropriate. But I didn't, I didn't think that was the big break, you know, because they didn't offer me a job or anything like that. So it was more or less

will allow this to happen, you know, and that was great. And it did a whole lot for me and continues to. And they didn't have to do that. So that's definitely one of those first signs you see where you're like, maybe you're on to something. And now you have to, you know, have the courage to just kind of keep pushing trying something else and until things stick. So I remember with Capcom, they've been really good about stuff. Then you did Mega Ran 9 after that. And then after that you did the Marl versus Capcom 2. The vinyl hip-hop thing they did.

That was awesome. But how has it been kind of balancing the random versus the Megaram stuff? Oh, that's been tough. And I've had conversations about it. There's a new song on the new album called The Meeting where Megam meets Random. And we discussed what, you know, the guy who came from Philadelphia who makes hip hop songs about, you know, life and growing up and the guy who wraps about in the voice of a video game character and can they both coexist.

And I think that they can. And I've finally discovered a happy medium where I can make songs like Infinite Lives on a new record where the concept is, is video game related, but applying it to everyday life so that everyone can understand it, realize it. So it took 10 years for me to realize that these guys can live together side by side and on the same record. Because what I would do is try to alternate. Like, all right, here's a random album. Here's a Mega Ran album. Here's a Mega album. Here's a random album. There's a mega ran album. And the Mega Ran albums would get so much more attention probably because of the games that they were, you know, sampling from. So I just tried to find a way where I could inject my own life story, my own, you know, lessons and things like that

into a track that may also, you know, reflect those video games that I grow. about playing. So where did black material fall then? So black material was like the second project after I guess after the first two Mega Man albums. So there was Mega Ran and Megaran 9. And then Black Material was 2011 and that was the one that kind of took off for me. And I remember one day getting a phone call from a friend who said, hey, you're on the first page of Reddit. And back in 2011, I didn't even know what that meant. So I was like, what are you talking about? And he's like, that means it's a big deal. People are talking about this. And I was like, what, really?

And then I got a phone call from PlayStation Magazine that day and Game Informer. I did a bunch of big interviews. And then had a big tour right after that. And then MC Chris asked me to join them on tour. And we did a three-month tour of the entire U.S. And I think so it was definitely the Black Materia album that kind of jumped it off.

And I didn't realize. You know, I knew Final Fantasy VII was special to me. But I didn't necessarily know it was, you know, as special to everyone else. Yeah, no, I love that album so much. Tell the people what that. project is so far black material is me taking the final fantasy seven uh nobu amatsu soundtrack and then um remixing it sampling it playing additional uh chords over it and retelling the story of final fantasy seven

as if through my eyes of of cloud and from beginning to end and um it's it became a pretty epic thing like it was this a really big project that we spent a lot of time on but i listen to it now and i'm like I kind of cringe because I didn't know as much about mixing, mastering, or things that I know now. And I'm like, I need another crack at that album, which is why, be a thing announcement,

we're going to be releasing a vinyl version of Black Materia later this year, which will be the songs remix and remastered. It's the reboot. The reboot. The 557 reboot. Yeah, it's the reboot.

Something like that. One of the things I love about you, both with Random and Mega Ran, is kind of your adherence to something that you find more in like Prague rock or space rock or something which is like the idea of a concept album. And that's like and I, you find that in hip hop,

but it's definitely not as common as it is in some like, and a lot of rock genres. Is that kind of, does that lend itself towards like the fact that you were really sampling Mega Man? I mean, that makes more sense at that time. But even with something like black materia, I mean,

are there, is that something, is that an easier way for you to write? Is that the way you want to like release your, your records typically? And are there like games that you're identifying in your mind that you would like to tackle for, mathematics standpoint like that.

Oh, absolutely. This is something that I have more fun creating in that way, you know, going through a character, going through a stage, going through a full concept and fleshing it out through a whole record.

So yeah, there's a lot of other franchises that have been on my radar for the longest. Oh, fuck, if you do a Mario Golf. I was thinking, you know, arcanoid, I don't know, you know. But,

Mario Golf, wow. But, yeah, Biolshock is one I would do. Oh, yeah. Love it. Man, Mass Effect. Gosh, uncharted. Games that I really, really dig from the current generation that I would think about it.

But I feel like I'm kind of rooted in retro. I was just like Castlevania Ninja Guardian. I would love to see you mess with some of these. Ninja Guyden would be cool too. And it has great music. So there are some retro franchises. But a lot of my friends wind up doing them. There's a Zelda album by Doc Ack.

He did for Ocarina, which is amazing. And, you know, I would have done something like that. Or, you know, there's a bunch of other ones. Chrono Trigger has been done. Richie Branson has done that. Matter of fact, where's Richie? Is he in there? Richie, come here for a sec.

It's like getting into a space show here. He's climbing all around. Richie, say what's up to the people. Y'all, it's good. Oh, yeah, it's Richie Branson in the building on tour with Megarann. I make video games and I rap. So it's kind of an interesting combination. What games do you make?

I program in Unity. I'm sort of good at, I'm going to get on my knees. That's fine. Don't worry about it. Yeah, I'm a programmer. You're praying at the altar. Yeah, I'm praying to the camera. Okay.

You can always do this. You can move the mic with you, do wherever you want. Yeah. Yeah, so, you know, I program in Unity 3D, C-sharp in JavaScript, and I started making video games after I figured rapping about them was sort of like, I wanted to do a little bit more, so I started making the games. And so I just, I just, you know, Jeff's put out a hilarious.

It's a short little flappy bird type game, but I put out a game making fun of Meek Mill and Drake's Beef. I love this. I'm so all about this. Yeah. Where can I get this right now?

It's at meekymill.com. I haven't dropped it on mobile, so you have to play it from like a laptop or a death top. I'm an email myself. Death stop. But yeah, it's called Mickey Mill. It's been on a lot of hip-hop

and gaming blogs and whatnot, and you guys should play it because it's so hard. I made the game and I haven't beat it. And the objective is simple. You just have to make a music. million dollars without catching ls from Drake and 50s.

That's easy. So no one can win because that's impossible for me. I made it and I'm like, okay, I can beat this and I got 300 and I rage quit. So if you look at all the let's play videos on it, like people are just rage quitting. I've seen a guy throw his headphones like, you know, and it's just like, wow. It almost feels good. Like I birthed this rage, you know. You are ruining people's time.

They're free time. You're ruining. So one guy was like, yeah, whoever made this is a dirt bag. I'll take that. Put it on the box. Yeah. You know, but it's just such a pleasure. You know, Rand is like one of my main influences on the music side.

And I remember when I first reached out to him to collab, you know, I just started really getting into the nerd course scene. I originally was like a professional music producer working for like Sony and Def Jam. And as I started to want to do the artistry myself, I sort of realized that I didn't want to go down that path because it just didn't feel natural. So like they tried to put me in this sort of pop rap flowrider type thing. And I was doing that, but it just felt like I felt so dirty. Like I'd take three showers a day. And then I was like, you know what? Let me rap about the stuff I like.

So I was on the toilet when they playing. I was taking a little break from gaming. And I heard this awesome theme music from Star Wars, the Old Republic, the MMO. And I heard it and I was like, you know what? I got a sample that and make a beat out of it. And then, you know, my first mixtape was born. It was called the Cold Republic. Damn.

That's awesome. So from there, you know, I was like, well, you know, there's people who do this really well. And Megaran was like the guys. So I hit him a nervous email like, hey, can I maybe send you a beat or something? And the rest was history from there. That's awesome. Where can people find your music? Richie Branson.com or otaku gang.com.

That's my little thing. I'm starting now. And play Mickey Mill. Mickey Mill.com. It's out there. And it's so terribly. Look, I didn't do any QA. I spent the week working on it.

So, you know, it may be a little buggy, you know, but it's cool. You know, it's fun. I got $350,000 on it today. So I'm actually better than the creator. Yeah. I looked at them like, yeah, how did you get $350,000,000, dude? It's so hard, but I did it. Yeah. That's so funny.

So that's cool, man. Awesome. Good to be here. Definitely, definitely go check them out. Not a problem. Miki Mel. Ritchie. Kevin, you put all those links on screen?

Go ahead and write it down here. I want all those links on screen, Kevin. All right, fine. Mega ran. Yeah. We got some questions for the audience here. I want to call out to our audience that you guys are filming a tour documentary. And your cameraman's been stuck in the door.

You are allowed to cross in front of our camera. Our audience don't knock down the camera. There you go. But you can walk in front of us and get your shots and don't worry about it. These are all best. No, you're good. There you go. Oh my God, Inception.

We have broken the wall. Bob Harold wants to know what you've been playing recently. Witcher 3 all day long outside of Miki Mill this morning all day, all day long. But Witcher 3 is amazing. I'm a little late to the party. I just got a PS4 and that was the first game I bought for it. So I love it. So great.

How far into it are you? I am at like the Bloody Barron. So I'm not far at all. Okay. But it's really good. You know, kind of busy touring. No, no, I don't mean like that. Oh, wow.

Like that, it's rare that I meet somebody who's super into Witcher. Wow. Ever play a game? Go back to meeky Mills.com. No, but it's like, no, I love that quest. You know what I mean? It's like creepy and it just gets worse and worse the more you play it. Oh, man, it's so good.

So, yeah, that and Rocket League. Tyler Truman wants to know Mega Man or Mega Man X. Mega Man, sorry. I know that everyone. Everywhere, except Colin, everywhere. Everyone is like, Mamma and X is better. Not to me.

I'm sorry. They're insane. All the power-ups, I mean, come on. If you put those power-ups in original Mega Man, the game would be so easy. Come on, if you could dash and jump off walls, the game would be simple. So, classic Mega Man.

Yeah, X, X, 2, X3, X4, good games, great games. But they're not Mega Man 3. They're not the classics. I'm sorry. Or Megamad 9. The fuck out. Victorque 13 wants to know Are you working on any

Voiceover gigs currently? Kind of but I can't talk about them That's the best type of answer Sorry Ghetto Nerd Society wants to know Have you ever thought about getting into game development? Perfect name by the way I love it

I haven't thought about it But you know riding with Ritchie is totally Making me want to get into it So you know in between my The many hats I wear Yeah I would love to I would absolutely love to That's something that it's crazy because we were talking about it.

It's something that looks so foreign, you know, when you immediately look at how to create a game. And you're like, I could never learn that. But just give a little bit of time and effort. I think you can make things that would surprise you. So, yeah, I think being inspired by Richie and watching, you know, the things he's done has made me wish. Like, man, I wish I had done that. But it's not too late. Yeah.

Final question. Michael Gulliver wants to know, how or what inspires you to create the music that you make and what is your process? Is that a who or what inspires me or how or what? It says who or what? Okay. It could be how. It could be how.

Gosh, it's going to sound really stupid and corny, but life inspires me, honestly. Like, just meeting new people, hearing about their stories where they're from, what inspires them, what's going on in the world, you know, the news. Mostly a lot of comic books and games, but that would be the obvious answer. but honestly it's just life like meeting new people and just from different walks of life and their journey and experiencing that and just through talking to people. And so I think it's really my job because it enables me to meet so many different people. And I think that's what inspires me to keep, you know, keep creating cool stuff.

What was the rest of that question? Was there more to that? Oh, what's your process? Oh, process of like making a song is pretty annoying to most people. It would be me playing a beat 75 times. probably over and over again until words come to me. But what I did recently, I did a shovel night rap for our Patreon. Patreon.com slash bits and rhymes, by the way.

And for the shovel night rap, what I did was I wrote out the entire story of shovel night, the best that I knew. And then I circled rhyming words. And then I moved words around. This is the process that I've never done before when it came to writing a song. But I took the beginning, middle and end, took the rhyme. I mean, words that I liked,

circled them, and then I worked on the song from there. And I had never done anything like that. So it's a fun way to tell a story. And that,

so that normally, though, is just playing a beat constantly. I make sure to revise. That's a huge thing is to never put out your first draft

because it's usually crap. And I learned that from college, mostly from writing classes. But I've put out a lot of crap. And so, yeah, it's just mainly just,

I think, given the time for the, for the, second and third drafts and letting those, letting the good stuff kind of shine in those. That's really the process. There you go. Top of two of the day.

Video game music. What are your favorite video game soundtracks? This is open to everybody, but I have a feeling that you're going to have some good answers here. Well, we're just talking about Mega Man X, and I don't want to totally dump on it because I think the soundtrack is amazing.

So X1, I love the soundtrack. Of course, the Mega Man games. Two and three are great. Nine is amazing. Castlevania is great, too. Current stuff, I was really enjoying the, gosh, shovel night, of course. Pretty much everything Vert does is amazing and blows me away. The Danny B. stuff on Super Meat Boy, Necro Dancers, really, really great.

So, yeah, those are probably my favorites right now. You know, a lot of the newer, I don't know, it seems like the more advanced the game is, the less I pay attention to the music. It's like, I expect it to be great, you know, so it's there, just background music. That's the thing right now with modern games, like, you know what I mean? Like when uncharted or Assassin's Creed or somebody puts out these things, and you hear you like, all right, this was great, but I don't, when I'm playing the game, it doesn't stand out. You know what I mean? It isn't like when I was playing Super Mario World before Pinkerton came out. Because once Pinkerton came out, I listened to that on repeat playing Super Mario World.

But before that, you know what I mean, when you knew every beat of that song. Oh, yeah. So much part of the game, right? See, I have a totally different experience with that where I still notice the music in games. Like, in current games, like Final Fantasy's, they're still just as stand out to me. And the moments are still like I identify them. When I think about a certain sequence in a game, I hear the music in my head. Uncharted, definitely the same way.

Well, the Vuvu Sualer or whatever. The Didgeridoo of Uncharted. But, yeah, just like all the... Nair! Nih! I feel like it's easy to say that old game music is better than new game music. And I love old game music. Yeah.

Probably more than new game music. But I don't think the new game music is like forgettable or... It's not that it's forgettable. I think it's just easy to overshadow because there's so much... Like here's the thing. Well, when I think of like current... Or not current... Yeah, current games, right, that have a soundtrack that sticks with me or that I'm playing and I'm like,

fuck, this is great. Right? Immediately what comes to mind is gone home and Firewatch. And I think both of those games are because it's slow. I'm walking, I'm taking, the whole thing is observing your entire environment, whereas like, you know, it's like in Metal Gear, right? Like, like, you know, when they use like, here's the year or whatever in Ground Zero's, right? Like, that's an awesome moment and sticks with me, but it's because like the control is taken away and it's like I'm watching a movie cinematic thing. I mean, I think even MGS 5 is a good example because Metal Gear to me, the music always has been kind of a big, a big deal.

And like it is tied to sequences and stuff. And Millicor Solid 5, because it's more open, it has less of those moments. But when it does happen, every time the, wah-ha, it's like, yeah. And when that Peace Walker theme kind of comes back, like, those moments are always, it's great. You know, and I'm like, oh, game music's still, like, very, very much a thing. Halo, I mean, come on. Halo is like some of the most iconic game music ever. And I think that, you know, you got to give credit to the retro stuff, like things like Ducktails and Mega Man and all the old Capcom stuff.

Like they got so creative with the use of the the chip tunes and all that stuff They're like yeah I mean that's the interesting thing to me is that and that's why I I love talking to you because The Mega Man like Mega Man three my favorite game of all time I mean all of our audience knows that but There's something about the Mega Man music in especially two three and then parts of four parts five parts of six and then nine I think really killed it in 10 was pretty good too, but that's so much better than everything else around it like it's it's like not it's It's like, it's, Castlevania's awesome.

Ninja Guy has got great music. A lot of the classic Capcom games have great music. There's great music all over the NES. But Mega Man is so much better than everything else. I don't even say that. I think that that's like, I just, I can agree with you.

Yeah. There's just like, there's just something about like the way, those songs, by the time they get the six, I always think of Flame Man song of Mega Man 6. Like that song is insanely complicated for the NAC. I don't even know how they,

how they do, like, do that with the chipset in the NES. And I'm, I guess I'm kind of one. with you like how do you identify for instance you did wiley which is my favorite song of yours that's that's a that's megaman two wiley stage one um and stage you but um how do you identify like what song because they're all really great so it's like you're going through a game and do you

did you hear at that point like i can slow this down i put a beat behind this and it's usually the ones that are stuck in my head forever you know and um i remember i remember making the first megaman mega man album in 2007 and asking my producer like what do you think of this and it was the the the bomb man theme And he's like, no. And he didn't think I could do anything with it. And so I ignored it. And I just didn't do it.

But then later, when we did the anniversary edition, I said, I'm going to bomb, man. I'm going to make this work. So I think it's more about that most of that music is so good that I think you can make it work. And if you're skilled enough at, you know, the production style of sampling, chopping, chopping, splicing, slowing down, you can almost make anything awesome. You know, you can make it work. If you got a great, you know, group of colors to choose from, you know, you can only help but to make something that's going to be really really good I think so I don't know it's

usually the I pick my favorites I'm like no we got to do bubble man like I love that you know so I like you got to do this you know so tracks that I really love were the ones that I went to first while he was the opposite because if you've ever been to a video game music festival or heard any video game music covers everyone does wow everyone it's that ice cap zone from sonic three yeah pretty much uh or um Sonic two chemical plant which I love and it's like everyone does it so you can't go anywhere without hearing it and when I went to my first mag fest or PACs

everyone on the schedule played the same song and I'm like for that reason I'll never do it and there was someone saying well do you like the Wally theme I was like yes I love it well then why should you let that stop it and that was the conversation that I needed to hear is like if you like it and you love it and you can't get it out of your head

then you should work with it not worrying about what someone else is done. You're going to have your unique spin on it. And a lot of people tell me it's their favorite song that I've done in the Mega Man universe. You told a story in it as well. It was a story. It doesn't even tell. Still Wiley

Stage 1 slash 2 in Mega Man 3 I think is awesome. And Wiley in Mega Man 10 stage 1 stage 2 is super emotional and weird. There's a weird dynamic in those songs. They're not all like, same way I feel about like Bright Man's theme in Mega Man 4. I'm like, there's a weird emotion in this song.

I'm like, this is kind of weird. I don't know if they even meant it like this. Well, what's cool? Mega Man does something that I think there are a couple of their franchise, specifically, old ones do where there is, you immediately can identify that it's Mega Man, you know? And even when they do kind of shift the gears and like make it more emotional or slower or whatever, it still feels like Mega Man. And it's weird because it's not like they're using instruments.

You know, it's just using the chipset stuff. But Mega Man has that. Sonic has it. That's the one thing that, like, no one can take away from the 2D Sonic. games is their soundtracks are amazing and you hear it and you're instantly like, this is Sonic. You know, you can hear a new version of those songs. You're like, that's a Sonic song, you know.

Pokemon's the same way with the battle themes. Like, all the battle themes sound very similar, but that's just because they nailed the aesthetic of this is a random encounter and you know, the whatever. It's always going to sound similar.

And Mario, you know, you can hear the new Mario Overworld and Underworld themes and you know that it's Mario Overworld. You know that this is the underwater song. You know this is the castle song. And it's like there's an artistry to that that's like blows my mind. I think Megaman is one of the first games to ever really, really get into that and nail that where they can just kind of like copy and paste. And I don't mean that in a bad way, just like the games. You know, it's the same thing over and over. But they kind of can really create. Um,

Megaman is kind of like the badass guitar solos of NES games where every single soundtrack, it's sound like there's so many layers to it, so many things going on, whereas Mario was always just like, there's the main melody, there's a rhythm and there's bass and that's it.

Whereas Mega Man was like all over the fucking place. And Sonic was the same way. Yeah. And then you get in things like Final Fantasy and that's when shit gets real. You know, no MoMAO's insane. And like even the older games,

they sound just, just as epic and orchestral as the orchestral versions in later games. Four and six, I think, are like great examples of primitive gaming music, more primitive, less primitive than any ass, but more primitive than what we got with disc-based games like Final Fantasy 7 and just more powerful hardware. Like the way in Final Fantasy 4 when the Red Wings are flying in the beginning or whatever, and it's like, ding, it's iconic.

And you don't need it to set it. any better than it sounded there. So like when they remix them and they play them orchestrally and they do them live and I'm like that's great but like actually the original version is actually probably better than this. You know? I think that the composition is so good that whether it is this primitive version or it's a full fucking 60 piece orchestra, I think that the sound's still there and I don't think that it's better.

I just think that it's a testament to the quality of the composition of how good it is. Sure, but I also think that like in my mind it fits the the aesthetic. Like when they remade Final Fantasy 4 for DS, I was like, I played it and I liked it. I liked it was way harder than the original one

as hard as it was supposed to be. But like that chibi styles like that was like this kind of sucks. Like this doesn't fit the way you know, Porman Palum committing suicide to save the rest of the party in the game or so you think

with their sprites or whatever is like way more resonant with the chip tune and the 16 bit sprite than it was with these chibi weird looking shitty DS graphics. You know what I mean? Yeah.

And like even though the music was of a higher quality like I felt like it watched it's emotional resonance. Yeah, but even the DSS quality is not not what we're talking about. You know, like I'm talking like when you get to like PS3 PS4 quality stuff like that's when

it's really like on another level. Like phone fantasy 15 is going to be fucking awesome because like the music for the one of the, I mean 13 even had it where the music was at that level where there wasn't orchestral versions. It was orchestral music. You know, Faum Fantasy 10 kind of did it but then it was still this like weird midi

awkward. Like, Final Fantasy 7 through 10 was the awkward stage of this isn't actual orchestra music. It's like elected It's still synthesizers, yeah. But this might have been more appropriate for the first topic, but I think it's good here because I have a question for you about how do you feel, I mean, games have always been

in some way in hip-hop. I mean, Biggie was rapping about video games. But it was just like, but it was just like not to the level that you do. No, it was a glancing thing. Yeah, exactly. But like they were always there. There was always, you know, I've been listening to hip-hop for a really long time and like I always felt like the communities were somewhat kind of intertwined in some way.

But, you know, one of my favorite rappers now is the last few years is currency. And I found him because he wrapped about Mega Man 3 in one of his songs. And someone told me about that. Like, it wasn't like a joke. Like it was a joke, but it was like straight up like just part of his rap about how he was stealing someone's girlfriend and bring her into their house. And they were going to smoke weed and play Mega Man 3 together. Like that was like what the whole was about. That is amazing.

And I was like, and I was like, all right, that's awesome. But then I was listening to his newest record. And I didn't even notice this. Tim, Tim had pointed out to me that on his. song No Squares. Like it's a God of War III sample. Like the song and and how do you feel about you know having your niche where it's dedicated to this? How do you feel

about some of the bleed over that seems to be more becoming more predominant not predominant but more noticeable in mainstream hip-hop? I think it's cool. You know we we've had me and Richie have had conversations about it and we in the beginning we get a little angry like oh they're coming in on our stuff. They're moving in you know and I remember there was a big

Wiz Khalifa thing where he sample chrono trigger and like it was a huge thing and people were like, well, this is an amazing track. Look at hip hop and video games working together. And we're like, wait, we've been doing this, you know, for a long time. And yeah, it's, I think it's cool, you know,

but it wasn't cool when I started, you know, and I feel like it was something that, you know, like you said, there's always been that occasional glancing side mention. Like, hey, I shoot you like Mega Man or something, some weird metaphorical use. But I think that just, taking it to the next level has has been helpful. But at the same time, it, I don't know, it's kind of got me stuck into a place where people expect that from me all the time, which is fine, I guess.

It's good to be known for something than nothing. But at the same time, I look at the bigger guys that do it, I think it's awesome. I think it's great when, you know, Logic released an album that was hosted by Steve Bloom, you know, where he's got the voice of Spike Smigel on his record, you know, on a major hip-hop release. And I thought that was awesome. So, so things like that. I think slowly you'll see a little more and more crossover of it. And I think that it can only be a good thing. I think it's we're still, we work hard to legitimize what we're doing basically.

Because people are like, okay, he's rapping about Mega Man. But wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. It's actually good, you know? Like so that's usually how every headline goes with my music. It's like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, don't close that window yet. Yeah. It's really good, though. You know, and it's like having to constantly try to legitimize it, you know,

And I think that at some point, you know, if everyone sticks with it and continues to raise the level, the quality level. And I think that people will take it as a serious thing and be like, wow, this could become a legit subgenre. You know, so I think it's cool, you know, when I see major label guys or like currency is really good at it. And he's into, he's into all the fandoms that I'm into. He does wrestling tracks. He does, you know, the video game mentions, you know. So I think it's okay. And you'll see more and more of it with, you know,

With artists getting younger and younger, they're all a part of the same generation. I mean, there are millions of people who play video games. Some of them have to be, you know, entertainers and musicians and things. You know, they almost have to be. So, yeah, I think it's awesome, you know, but I did a lot of research on it when I did a couple of panels at packs about video games and hip hop. And just noticing that the time period is almost identical. Late 70s, you know, first video game, late 70s first hip hop, both dismissed as fads, you know, as things that are going to just go away really soon, both multi-million or billion-dollar industries at this point.

So I think that with them both happening at the same time, it's only right. You know, only makes sense that they'll cross over a little bit here and there, you know. I just dive all the way in, you know, there's no reason to... Let the world catch up to you, Megara. Yeah, there's no reason to just tip your foot in there when, when, you know, if it was a big part of your upbringing, you know, just... We all played TechMobile or Zelda or Metroid or things like that. So, you know, and I'm glad that, you know, like I said with the Final Fantasy stuff, I didn't think that everyone felt this special about this as I did, but, you know, it's a cool thing that they did.

Yeah, I think there's a cool, you know, reverse thing that happens too where, yeah, we all played technical, we all played Zelda. So when you hear these things, it resonates with us. But for me, like, there's been times where I've heard samples from songs that I know it from video games. I don't know what this is, but then I fall in love with the music and I'm like, I want to go back and play it. I think a good example of that is Eminem's Hellbound that came out a long time ago.

Soul caliber, yeah. And I didn't know what that was from, but I was like, this beat. It sounds great. This is awesome. Like, I know this is a video game because they're saying round one. They're doing all that stuff. And I remember looking into it. And that's why I played Soul Calibber.

I'm like, I fucking love this. And then the same thing, like, I never played the Mega Man games until I heard grow up. I'm like, this song is awesome. I need to go back and get on this stuff. And then I started playing them. And it's just I also grew up listening to hip hop, loving it, loving video games. So I remember I've told the story before. But like, for me, going on the game facts, rapping hip hop boards.

Like, I was just constantly, anytime there was a thread that was like, hip hop samples or video game samples in hip hop like I would always check it out and see like who's doing stuff and it's it's awesome to see that like it was such a niche thing but then there would always be guys like Eminem like randomly doing it yeah what do you think of I mean you last time we saw you I think or maybe two times ago you were with Danimal who does more rock what do you think about kind of the the interpretation like the rock interpretations of you know gaming music as well because I remember being you know in high school in the late 90s listening to

Neskimos and the mini bosses and stuff like that. So yeah and so how do you feel about that? And like is there any interest in you? Because I, you know, just because you rap, you doesn't mean you can sing or sing. Just doesn't mean you can rap, whatever. But is there any interest in like sitting down with a band and like kind of putting real music?

I'm not saying it's like rap rock, which would be awesome because I love rap rock. But like something like that, that's not sampled electronically, but something that's sampled actually with a real band. Yeah, absolutely. We, um, when I first started off, you know, the first thing I did was Google to see if anyone had done anything like what I was doing. and I couldn't find it, but the things that I did find with the mini-bosses, the Nesquamos, the Advantage, and the Megas. And so I contacted the Megas, and we did one song with them using the Metal Man theme where they played.

They had that live. I'm just a big fan of the 8-bit chipset stuff. Like, that's just me. But I'm working with some bands now, actually. It's a band named Psychostick, who did a really great Mega Man song. I don't know if you heard it, but you would love it. I'm going to send it to you it. Okay. So I'm remixing.

We're going to remixing that track, and it's amazing. So it's a combination because they're playing. playing all the stuff with, you know, guitars, and then they're adding in Mega Man sound effects to tell about what's happening at the particular time. So I think that's the evolution of what I'm doing is to take the live instrumentation plus occasional sound effects of it so you get old meets new. And I think that's the, I think that's the next, the leveling up of, I guess, nerd music at this point. Before we move on in the next topic, this again goes kind of back to the first one, but what's your favorite songs to do live?

I love Wiley. Wiley is one, it's so weird because as you asked about the Mega, Megan Ramp versus Random thing, and when I go into a traditional hip-hop show, you know, I'm usually afraid of doing Mega Man stuff. I'm like, they're not going to know that. But I'll put on Wile and be like, I know that, you know, and people will, you know, they'll get into it. And so that's always like an icebreaker from me.

Dreammaster is another one that I love to play live, Infinite Lives on the new record, which samples the Robocop Game Boy and Commodore Game Over theme, which is epic music. It's so sad. It's way too advanced for Robocop. But it's stuck in my head since the 90s. And, you know, it was something that I definitely wanted to work with for a long time. So, you know, those are my favorite tracks to do because I think that they can transcend, you know,

the occasional gamer, you know, the hardcore gamer and the guy who just never even played games, just can enjoy it. So I think those are the three people I'm trying to reach with the music. So I think it's the combination of lyrics, you know, musicianship and performance that can bring those people together. And I think those three songs are the ones where I feel like I kind of nailed it. There are others, but those are my favorites. That's awesome. Topic three, Final Fantasy 15.

Now I've been saying for years, I can't wait for this game. I'm super stoked. I've been a big... So before we even get into it, let's talk about this for the first time on Gamescast. Me and Greg are hosting Final Fantasy Ungrateful. Covered, Final Fantasy 15 uncovered. Right. March 30th, which is an event

down in L.A. at the Shrine Theater. Don't know how people can get tickets yet. You go to Final Fantasy.com slash Final Fantasy15.com. With the Roman numerals. XV.com. Slash uncovered. Thanks, Colin.

You know the shit. I remember, yeah, I'm your PR manager now. I just remember from the image that we're 15% he takes. Yeah. And you can go. There's going to be 3,000 people there. Hopefully I see a lot of you there.

It's going to be a lot of fun. Me and Greger hosting their live stream that's going to announce the release State to follow fantasy 15. I'm very damn excited about this. This is like unreal to me. It's like a freaking dream. September 24th, 2019.

2019, that's your best. That is a Tuesday. I'm being told that is a Tuesday. So I mean, great. How do you feel about being part of this? I'm excited. And it's one of those things that, I mean,

we've talked about this before, right? But like when I, it was very, when this is getting announced, when it was going to find, be announced on Sunday the last or whatever Saturday at 9 a at 9 p.m. I had Reddit and Gaff open

and I was ready because I knew as soon as we got announced the first comments would be I thought they'd be a lot meaner everybody was super nice and there was a lot of people of I love kind of funny Tim makes sense why is Greg there and the first comment I saw on Reddit that did that I tackled it it was like hey

that's exactly what I asked Square Enix when they came to us and asked us to host and they had a good response which was I want to because I remember I originally tried to I was like, that's great for Tim, but that doesn't seem like a Greg thing at all. Like, because if you're not caught up, like, I've tried to get into Final Fantasy's and they just haven't worked for me. I totally respect. I understand its importance and video games.

I've been around long enough to do all that. You know what I mean? I respect it as a franchise, but it's never clicked for me. And so I told them that and I'm like, I don't know if I'm the right guy for this. And they're like, no, you're the exact right guy. Like, what we think we have with Final Fantasy 15 is a game that will appeal to the Tim's of the world, the people who love Final Fantasy's, but also the people like you that are interested. Like, I've been interested when you guys talking about the demos or whatever.

right. I'm like, maybe I'll give it a shot. I usually give most of the Final Fantasy's a shot. They're like, this is the one we think will actually get, you know, people like Tim and people like you that are nobs and don't know. And I'm like, okay, that's a good way to sell it. Not to mention that, you know, it's hosting. It's not even interviewing for the most part, I think. We're coming out, we're introducing this segment, that segment here's this thing. I'm really excited. It's going to be a lot of fun. But I'm excited. Don't get me wrong. You're excited as a fan. I'm excited as an event. I'm excited, as always, for people's excitement about video games. You know what I mean? I mean, yeah, it's going to be awesome in front of 3,000 people,

let alone with backstage all these people who are making this game for this audience. You know what I mean? To be part of that party, it's going to be right. Yeah, it's going to be super awesome. I'm very excited about the game. It's funny that you say it's for the use. It's for the means. The one person I think it's not for is the Collins.

You look at this one of them. No, that's true. That's true. But it's like, so recently at last week to announce this, to announce the announcement event that will announce things. Oh, Squaring, Classic Square. They had during their active time report, which is one of their, I think, monthly things that they've been doing in july in japan um for the january version they released it was a long like gameplay demo where they showed a bunch of stuff talked about a bunch of things

and they showed the nefheim base battle footage did any of you guys see this i haven't i watched it i was watching along with it yeah okay cool so it showed a lot of gameplay more gameplay than we've seen since kind of the demo yeah came out um back in march i think it was last year and uh we've seen a lot of advancements. The interface is totally different and it's more, way more action-oriented. And thank you. And the game looks like Melkier Solid 5, the Phantom Pain. Yeah. And I'm like watching it, I'm like, all right, great. This is Greg's Final Fantasy and this is not Colin's Final Fantasy. But to me, I'm like, it didn't feel like it when I played it. But I'm down with this. And this new version looks a lot faster than the demo. One of my biggest

issues with, what was it called, Duske? Yeah, Duske. Yeah, so dooske or something like that. My biggest issue with it was that it wanted to be fast, but it wasn't. Like, it wanted to be Kingdom Hearts, but it wasn't. It reminded me of PlayStation Battle Royale where it wanted to be Smash Bros, but it wasn't. And because that one little thing just didn't click right with me. Same thing here where it's like, this looks like it should play like Kingdom Hearts. It sounds like Kingdom Hearts has the same composer. She's fucking amazing, Yoko Shemura.

And it just isn't, though. It's not quite fast enough. And they look like they've sped it up. They've locked it down where the... All the stuff that I've been excited for for Fawfancy 15, even since it was versus 13, is finally starting to make its way back into it. When we first saw that trailer a million years ago, and you see the character like Noctus teleporting around and like warping and just freaking stabbing people with the swords flying around them. I'm like, yes, I fucking want this game now. And I'm finally starting to see that in this gameplay footage where the swords are around him and like the new interface has the four different swords mapped to the D-PAD.

So you can kind of mid-battle switch using the V-pad, which sword you're using. One's more of like a dragoon-type thing. So you can, like, jump up and do, like, the, you know, the screw-dive type thing. There's more of, like, a buster sword, where it's just, like, your normal sword. And then one's a bigger one.

Like, there's a whole bunch of different variants you can do. And it got me excited. It was the first time I've seen Final Fantasy 15, anything in a while that I was like, I got that same feeling that I've got back in the day when Versus 13 was first announced. Because since that, it's like, Yeah, 20 years again.

When we see them like, like him, baby knocked his hugging his dad in trailers and stuff. I'm like, all right, whatever. And our road trips and like, I remember that.

And that was the thing, you know, I had breakfast with Alexa today. You know, Alexa from games fun. She's so, so ready for, it's such a huge Final Fantasy.

I'm a badish fan. I remember when she was tweeting about that trailer. She's like, I'm in tears and I was watching like, cool. Yeah, that's a pretty trailer. My thing, I want,

I want this clear. Like, I am a huge fan of Final Fantasy. I'm not saying I'm the biggest fan. I'm not the most hardcore by any stretch of imagination. I haven't played all of them. I haven't beat all of them. But I've enjoyed the ones that I have, you know, put time into.

It's very much. And it is definitely part of my life and it's part of my video game heritage. And looking at this, I'm like, this is the Final Fantasy I want. I hope that it's good. If it's good. Because I don't necessarily need what Colin's looking for, like more turn-based and more, you know, classic and fantasy stuff. I like that this looks more kind of cyberpunky. like, shiny.

Metal Gear Solidity. So this whole gameplay was a stealth mission, which is, there's the metal gear stuff. But it wasn't just a stealth mission. It was a mission to blow up the base. So I'm like, all right, so it's Metal Gear Solid 5. Exactly. Yeah.

And you got to put the explosive on the tanker, and then you have to go up and turn off the power as well. Well, so you go in and there's these Magitech, like, warrior things. Shout out. Just exactly look like Metal Gear Solid 5. Or Metal Gear Solid 4, like geckos and shit. The Magic Walker's are from Final Fantasy 6th. No, exactly, yeah, yeah.

But I'm saying, like, they now, like, those little sprites are now these, like, giant, like, next-gen things. And by 10. That's cool, though. I like that they're bringing magic. There's so many little, little shout-outs like that that I'm like, this is for Final Fantasy people. You know, there is all those, like, little things.

But to see the character kind of, like, sneaking around, avoiding the light, and then warp killing, which is the fucking coolest thing. You just target these motherfuckers and warp to them, one hit kill, warped to the other guy. And the demo was really well-paced in showing off how it all works and how it starts off. He warp kills and does one person. Then he walks a little bit more. And then warp, warp, warp, warp, and just immediately like kills three. And it's like, oh, shit, that's super cool.

And you have your teammates kind of like walking around with you. And then there's these, there's a limit bar that like fills up. And when it's filled, when you're in a huge battle, you can kind of do these team attacks with your party members. And it's like classic stuff. And it looks, again, really like Kingdom Hearts. in a good way, but less floaty and less, um, you know, you know, less key bladey, but more cool, more badass and more like the fight scenes in Advent Children, which that's awesome to me.

I think that's really cool. And it doesn't look like it gets old. And that's something that I, I worried about in the, in the demo, it did. It very quickly was like, all right, I'm just doing the same animations over and over and over and over. This looked like it was a little bit more fluid and how you attack each person and how you go about each different thing changes up. And that seems cool.

But the biggest edition was this is the first time we've seen magic. And it's now set so that when you can use your magic, it goes to the D-pad. And it affects the environment. So if there is, you can set things on fire. And if there's wood around, the wood will catch on fire. So there was this, like, wooden staircase that had guards on it. And you can use fire on it. And it would, like, light all the guards up.

And so you're trying to take out, like, 100 enemies in this base. Because once you get notified, you're screwed. Sure. And you're doing all this things. then there's they said that there's other elements where like if you use blizzard on um areas of water it'll freeze it over and you can only imagine that that's going to have some like oh fuck Kevin now you can't spill coffee on me earlier no like the yore me like the yore me like the you're being like the most horrible boss right now just calm down he was bringing you coffee

and you flails your hand into it and that's exactly what happened earlier today yeah that's not the kitchen you know small small house yeah and he like turned as I was turning and we both it hit his arm. No, not true. I was crouching down, not moving. Kevin comes in like a goddamn wrecking ball and pounces into me and the fucking coffee goes on me

when I just made it. A little quiet. Anyways, I'm excited that if you use blizzard on water and stuff that that could be like environment puzzles because that's something that Final Fantasy hasn't really had before. It's usually just a lot of the overworld stuff just walk from point A to point B,

talk to a bunch of people and go from there. But like having to kind of figure some stuff, out. I think that could be really cool. And my favorite thing about the environment shit was there was a big boss fight at the end of it where it's like you fight one of the magic tech things. And it's, you're fighting it.

You can pinpoint certain aspects of the of it and I kind of, you know, take them out. And at one point you slice open the thing and gas spills all over the place. And then you use fire on the gas and it fucking lights the whole thing up. I'm like, hell yeah, that's fucking dope. Okay, that's cool. You're selling mega rain. There's a lot of moments

like that I'm like, oh, this is fucking cool. And going back to the party thing, there was scenes where when the bar fills up, but you're not near your party members, like the camera kind of shifts to that other party member. They do their attack and it goes back to you. But they're constantly kind of like talking shit to each other because they're bros. You know, and they're bros on a road trip. And I'm like, seeing all the initial stuff, them in the car, I was like, all right. See, for the initial stuff is what started getting me. I'm like, all right, yeah.

I can connect with a bunch of guys on a road trip. Not how much an idiot's on a train. It's weird and it's very not Final Fantasy. But then it got to the point now where I'm like, I like this. I'm really liking the story of what I'm hearing of what the plot of Final Fantasy 15 is and seeing the gameplay. I'm like, I'm fucking sold. So I'm more excited now than I've been for Final Fantasy 15 in at least six years. How do you guys feel?

I mean, I'm not excited about it at all, but I'm interested in it. I, you know, I, I've said before that I don't, I don't doubt that the game's going to be good. I just don't understand how it's a Final Fantasy game. And I, I felt that way about obviously 13 and 14 and 11. I just don't understand 10. I just don't understand like, why at some point the series has to mean something. It has to be some sort of convention. Otherwise, why or how is it a Final Fantasy game?

It's the same thing we were learning with Dragon Quest 10. It's like, you can't just call something this. And it doesn't have anything to do with what we, what we love about it. Because I consider myself a huge Final Fantasy fan too, but I consider myself a Final Fantasy fan of like one through nine. Like Final Fantasy games, you know, like when they were Final Fantasy games. There's nothing wrong with 10.

There's nothing wrong with 12 of you like those games. It's just like this is starting to lose its, its connection to like what Final Fantasy is, is tenuous at best? And it seems like 15 is like just a Final Fantasy game in name. Is that what we're going to do from now? And we're just going to reinvent everything about the game every time we release it now.

And there's just nothing about it that has a connection to it just because you hold something in Magic Tech armor. It doesn't mean it's like Final Fantasy 6, you know? So it's like I think that's the point though. I think they're trying to reinvent it and I think that it's not trying to reinvent the wheel every time, but I think this is they want this to be the thing that catches on and this is what Final Fantasy is now. I mean, it is now until they release the next one and the next one after that and we'll see what those games are. It's just like it reminds me we're talking about mega man. It's like, well, when you make a mega man a 3D Mega Man, it's not Mega Man, it's not a man, it's not linear, it's not linear, it's not like finding equipment and going back and backtrack. You know, or like, you know, when you make a, uh, you know, when you make a, uh, you know, when you make a, uh, uh, uh, you know, against Mega Man X, you know, or Mega Man Zero or Mega Man Battle Network or like, they don't just call these games Mega Man 17 and Mega Man 21, but they're like totally different than, and that's the one thing that bothers me because I like the conventions of turn based role-playing games and that's an even active time battle, but that's, that was the roots of

Final Fantasy. That's why I'm so excited about Dragon Quest 11 because it seems like they've they're hearing everyone loud and clear that like, well, you know, Dragon Quest 10, some people like it, but it's not Dragon Quest. It's Dragon Quest online. Why did you call Dragon Quest 10? Yeah. I think the difference though with Final Fantasy is that there are, always, even if there is the similarities, they're all different games, you know what you mean? And that's always kind of been the thing with that franchise. And even though, like, whether it's

turn-based, but like the active time battle or the, you know, like, whatever was in Final Fantasy 10, like, those are different things. Sure, I think they were just, this is very different, but. Yeah, I just think that there were more easily, like, there's the, the line from Final Fantasy 1 to 3 to 5 with,

with classes and then the like, all games have classes, but like classes you can change. And Final Fantasy 4 was a more linear narrative. And you had classes, but you couldn't change them. And characters came and go, like, you didn't really have a chance, like, a chance to customize in six. You didn't really get the custom. Like, Locke was always a thief and, and Tara was a mage.

But, like, you can remove them and bring them into your party and all that kind of stuff. And then there's just, so, like, there are subtle differences, but they're recognizable as Final Fantasy games. And I do think that they've, like, really started to lose the plot in terms of what Final Fantasy is. And that's, that's the, in my mind. And that's the one thing that's disappointing me about it. That said, Final Fantasy 15 looks fine. Like, I think it's probably going to be a good game. I wouldn't, I'm not going to go out of, I don't let them and say it's going to be bad

because I don't think that's going to be true. Yeah. I just don't know that it's going to be for me. But I've also realized that they're not really making role-playing games for me anymore. That's why I'm excited about. I think bravely default is kind of there. Yeah, bravely default for sure. That is the old Final Fantasy and they're just going that.

But they're using the Final Fantasy name because it's bigger. And like, they want that, I think, to mean something for generations to come. And I think that if they were to keep doing what they used to do, that just doesn't resonate with the mainstream audience, the same way something in a game like this. It doesn't mean that they have to use 16-bit bit sprites or 32-bit, you know, polygonal nonsense like they did in Final Fantasy 7, for instance, that looked great at the time.

But that's not it at all. It's just like there's just certain conventions. Like there's just not many games that speak to me in that genre anymore, like with the exception of, you know, cosmic star heroine looks awesome, which is basically like going to be a new fantasy star game and rainbow moon and rainbow skies. Like these kinds of games are like to speak to me a little bit more because they just, I don't necessarily, I like characters and storytelling in these games, of course, but I also play for, like, the mechanics and the predictability of the mechanics.

And I don't, Final Fantasy to me is not an action RPG. It doesn't mean that there's nothing wrong with being an action RPG. We love Kingdoms of Amor, we love these kinds of more actionary RPGs. But, I don't know, that's what I'm interested. I'm interested to see, like, what it is. Yeah, and a couple months ago, the director Tabata said that Last of Us was an inspiration for him and, like, for the direction of the game in terms of how they want to marry the story in the gameplay and kind of have it progress in a very non-forced way.

Where it's not, you know, every five seconds a cut scene or whatever and it's more just during the gameplay you get the story and get the character development and even the little bits of gameplay they showed like you saw that with just how it all progressed from them sneaking into that building to shit hidden the fan and like the boss fights and then the banter between the characters. I was like man, this is this looks cool like this could be really really really cool and like him talking about last of us in that way I think is really awesome that you know Japan's looking at Western games and like taking inspiration from the right once. They have to, right? I mean, that's the whole thing is I think Western games

started eating Japan's lunch quite a while ago and now they're trying to play ketchup. Sign of the times. What do you feel about Final Fantasy 15, Mayeron? Well, you know what? I remember seeing the trailer

a long time ago and I was talking to my buddy K. Murdoch and he's like, yeah, I don't know and he's a huge Final Fantasy fan and it was kind of the same thing we had opposite reactions to it. He's like, I don't know.

I was like, wait, this looks cool, you know? And I've been a fan from, I guess, one to nine, a little bit of 10. and but yeah I thought the first trailer looked good I haven't seen any of the new stuff so I'll check it out

you know if it's like Metal Gear that's kind of my complaint about I guess current gen games is that they're pretty much all like Metal Gear at this point like I think that that's that's the style of good game I mean and not to say that that's a bad thing but like that's that's how you make a good game like that's kind of what you know I mean I know uncharted it'll be amazing but but it's the same style of game that we've been playing probably since the beginning of this generation.

So, but yeah, I'll play it for sure because I haven't played a Final Fantasy game in so long. And, you know, and I liked what I saw way back when. So I do want to look at the new stuff and I'm going to give it a try because, you know, I'm hoping it will be good. That's great. And Colin, just so you know, they hinted that another demo is coming. Great. How does that make you feel? Well, I'll be interested.

I mean, the other demo bother me just in the sense like this is such a waste of time. I kept up there. I'm like, what the hell you guys doing? But this will be more telling now because I do think that they're probably going to end up really hitting this year. And so, you know, the trailer, the gameplay thing did end with coming 2016. Yeah, I don't think they would say that at this point. If they weren't sure, it's the same thing with The Last Guardian. Like, you just don't say things like that at this point with a game that's so tortured. So, yeah, I'll be interested in seeing what it's all about.

I'm going to play it. It's just, I'll see how long I play it and how much I want to get into it. My mind's just in a different place right now with games, like in terms of what I'm looking for. I'm looking for some more experimental or different types of games, some more narrative-based games. And it's not to say this is not going to have a story. It's just I doubt that the story is going to be really worth anything compared to a lot of the stories being told in other games. Because I do think that there's an inverse relationship, I think, in my mind in Final Fantasy, having played all of them, then not one through nine deeply, 10 until the laughing scene, I couldn't take it anymore.

And then 12, I beat, 13, I almost beat. And then that was basically it. And I do feel like there's an inverse relationship between the storytelling and the the changing gameplay also alters the importance of the resonance of the story, which I think started sometime maybe even with eight. Because eight had such a different gameplay system. I mean, seven's material was different, but it was really just a spin on Espers from six. But eight withdrawing and stuff like that. And, you know, really having to rely on monsters to like get your skills. And that was really fucking weird.

And that was when the series started to dive a little bit. and then nine brought it back up a little bit and then so it seems like they're emphasizing gameplay which is good because gameplay is king but the storytelling I don't expect to be quite there anymore we'll see. Final topic of the day as always brought to you by the Kind of Funny forums go

to kind of funny.com slash gamescast topic to leave your topic for us to read in the show just like Boiled Frog did. He says we all love video games we always talk about our favorite games why we should play this game or that game and why we're excited about this game's release whatever my question is what do you hate about video games? Is it multiplayer only games?

games without multiplayer, open world games, linear games, bad graphics, great graphics, bad gameplay, great gameplay. I hate great gameplay on a clip through the floor. Great story, but lore is too deep, episodic games. All right, we get it. There's a couple good things though, though. I think it's a great story, but the lore being too deep is a daunting thing that I would necessarily think about. But getting into a game, like for someone that hasn't played a Final Fantasy and looking at Final Fantasy 15 and not knowing what you need to know and not that. could be pretty intimidating.

I mean, that's why you see games like Witcher when it came out, right? It started downplaying its three, right? It was Witcher Wild Hunt, even though they had the three behind it, but they were pushing away from that so that new people would be like, oh, cool. I can jump in and play this, yeah. Same thing like infamous second son, right? Let's start dropping numbers. Let's start things new, start things fresh, get people in there.

Tutorials, man. You hate tutorials? Oh, like I really do. I hate, it's less so the tutorial. I can deal with it. I understand, like, that's just how games need to be these days. It needs to have that, like, introduction thing that you just keep

hidden A or X to skip through but I hate it when it's tutorial sections Twilight Princess and Kingdom Hearts 2 my God why are the first three to five hours of these games like here's how you play this game and here's this whole section that's totally different

than the rest of it's like stop like I get it I want to just get going you know I'm trying to run through I just I installed a whole bunch of stuff on my PS4 recently was playing one of them recently they had a really bad tutorial section where it was one of those things where it's like if you would just let me go and play the game i'd figure it all my own but it was like one of those like hold up hold up hold up now you're

gonna be times you have to hold r1 and hit down like what the fuck you just let me go you know what i mean i'll be fine but like it was like making you go every time and try and then go to the next part and try and then go to the yeah to the games that have tutorials that you don't even know you're playing the tutorial or the best are you know the most clever and back in the day i thought about mario stage one and all those kinds of the idea of that game telling you got to play and that that game's complicated compared to games today it's not No, I think that emphasis, to me, I was talking about this on our Reddit AMA that we did, where someone asked me, like, is resolution or frame rate more important?

And I'm like, well, frame rate's probably way more important because it actually is gameplay related. But are some of the gaming communities over emphasis on technical specs is infuriating to me. If a game's running at 30 frames a second, it's garbage. If it's running in 900P or 720, it's garbage. It's like, who gives a shit? Like is the game good? Is the game fun? You know?

I still say Riverade is like one of my favorite games at all time on Atari 2,600. That game is like one of the most basics thing that ever. But it's fun. Who cares what it looks like? It's the more, I could make that fucking game probably now if you just gave me like a little bit of a tutorial on how to code and so like that. It's not complicated.

It's just fun. There's nothing wrong with that. It doesn't mean that like things don't have to look like Whicher Three Wild Hunt to be fun. In fact, Witcher three Wild Hunt is fun, but it's also in my mind way too dense and way too big. You know?

Like, and so like I think that we, we look at things as like technical specs, scope, gameplay length, all these kinds of things. And I'm like, no,

no, this doesn't make a game good just because you can play it for 50 hours doesn't mean you want to play it for 50 hours. It means you should play it for 50 hours. It's a tighter two-hour experience like journey, more resonant than the 50 hours it takes to get to the good part of Final Fantasy 13. You know, so I think that like we as a gaming community rely generally on these weird things.

It's not to say, it's like we were talking about, well, I don't know, maybe we was on the show last week. Like, what about place? PlayStation 4 makes a game better other than its technical specs. Nothing.

There's nothing that PlayStation 4 is doing that PlayStation 3 couldn't do in terms of like games. You know, it's just like we have to just slow a roll a little bit and realize like maybe like let's just look at games at a more mechanical standpoint, a more storytelling or procedural standpoint in terms of like what we're getting out of them as opposed to like just pushing the specs and pushing the technical limits of these machines as if that makes games better inherently it doesn't. I hate unskippable cutscenes. Why would you want to skip the cutscenes? Because if it's before a boss fight. I know I know. And I freaking die three times. For me,

what drives me crazy with unskibble cutscenes is when it crashes or something happens or there's no save point on the other side. And you come back and you have to sit through the same thing. Like when you lose the boss fight and you have to keep going down. Kingdom Hearts like freaking Riku the third fight with him. You had to freaking, it was so hard.

And then I kept dying. It's like a five minute cutscene before. And it's like that's so annoying. I don't think about cutscenes is I hate when games don't have a subtitle option. I like having subtitles because I like knowing exactly what people are saying. Yeah. And it's so stupid to me when it's just not an option. Yeah.

Also games that don't let you button map or knowing. Not that I remap buttons often, but there are times when you want to. And I just don't understand this orthodoxy towards like, this is the way you play it. It's like, well, why can't I play it the way I want to play? It's a similar mantra to like being able to skip cutscenes. It's like, well, why did you want to skip them? It's like none of your fucking business. I'm playing the game.

You know what I mean? Great. It's my game now. I'm big on unskippables as a huge thing. but long loading times, but I guess you can't do anything about that. But I really don't feel that in 2016, that should be an issue. And it is way too much for me. Trying to play WW2K16.

And it's like, do you want to change your guys eyebrows? Yeah, I know. Now loading five minutes, you know, so. Yeah, those are the worst. The loads that are not something that's buried on the other side of a load screen even. But yeah, for WWE. Like a simple creation thing. It's just like, oh, boy.

I like I don't know I was just thinking of something when you were talking oh just like the forcing multiplayer I'm not a big fan of that I remember Titan Fall when that came out and how I was really excited about it and you know I don't have a whole lot of friends or that I want to play with sometimes I just want to play by myself once in a while

and you know I think having to play with someone is a little bit annoying you know so yeah that's a big one for me Maya Luke says, Hey guys, I'm a new user in the kind of funny forums because my friends and girlfriend told me you guys have a forum and a question thread, so I made an account just to join the community and support your Patreon page.

Thank you. Thank you very much. So my question is, do you believe Atlas might push back persona 5 this year because of Final Fantasy 15? No. No. Atlas ain't scared. If anybody, it seemed like Square was scared when they put out that survey or

whatever, yeah. I don't think they have anything to be scared. That game will drop. Maybe it doesn't come out here. I just can't imagine that. It'll come out in Japan, though. it'll come out um for sure yeah i don't i mean my theory and it might be crazy is that persona will probably out sell final fantasy at least in japan i don't know that it will it will have in here necessarily

but it won't um but persona is still good for a few million in the west um so far i'm maybe not but persona making that kind of cosmic jump um that quantum leap is aware from three to four to five where it's really relevant now yeah um because persona was floating around um localized on in north american PS1s back in anyone give a fuck about that game. So it's like it's interesting seeing you know how how much how far that's come. I think that game's good for good for many sales regardless of when it comes up.

Final Fantasy and they are like the inverse of each other situations right where I think persona is like everyone's like that's going to be amazing don't worry about it and Final Fantasy has so much to prove. Yeah. But it's still going to sell. That's the thing. Oh yeah. I don't sell it. Azriel 26 says hey guys what do you think Jamie Henning's Star Wars game will be?

Narrative driven. Yeah, third person. it'll be like uncharted in the Star Wars universe which I can't wait for Yeah that is excellent The Almighty Fofi That's a good name

Nice Rumors are saying that Namco is going to be launching the NX with Smash Bros My question is Do you think this will be a game of the year Port of Smash 4 with all the DLC included A brand new smash Or a release of Smash 4

With all a DLC plus maybe one or two new exclusive characters The NX version And is it smart for Nintendo to jump right out With Smash Bros? Yes it's smart I think it will be a game of the year thing

Do you think they tossing a bonus character or two? I think that they will. I think that they have to. And I'm very excited that this is a thing because I want this game just keep going. They've been doing so great so far. They put so much into it. The DLC is coming out today. Very excited to play with some bayonetta.

But yeah, it's, I think that that's a, it has to happen. It's one of those things that I'm like, it's too good to be true. Nintendo wouldn't do that. But we've seen so much rumors now that point towards it that I think it is undeniably happening. I don't think they'll call it the game. the year edition but I do think it'll be like the NX and we smash brothers NX yeah and it's just the Wii you can do you think this will rectify the situation put dry bones in it probably not and do you think it'll be a Mario golf launch at NX um entirely not this is a lot of bullshit

yeah no those that those things will not be a lot of bullshit about the NX right now um let's see you know what we're gonna call it there okay good yeah everybody go by Mario golf world tour on your 3DS it's amazing if you have the means go get Toadstool tour as well Mario Golf is endorsed by us. Mega Rand, thank you so much for being here. Oh, man. Thank you guys for having me. Where can people find you all of your stuff? Oh, man. Well, Mega Ram music is pretty simple. It's got all my music on there right now. Actually, right now I'm running a really awesome bundle with groupies, which is like my entire discography for like a buck.

So if you go to like groupies.com with two E's, no eye in it slash mega. And there's the team mega bundle with proceeds going to the American Heart Association. With if you pay a dollar, you get like four albums, you pay three, you get like six albums, I don't know, something like that. But it's a really good deal. It just started today. So you can grab everything for a really good price and help out a great cost. You can find me on Twitter at Megaran. It looks like Meg Ryan, but it's not.

And yeah, megarand.com is my home site. And we just launched a label, which is at randombeats.io. So, yeah. There you go. There you go. Thank you guys. you yeah what's your patreon and i'm on patreon patreon slash bits and rhymes or just bits and rhymes dot com myself and k murdock we do a video game inspired tracks every month just for you we just

released one today which is uh sonic the hedgehog we were just talking about that uh sonic one starlight zone track so uh go on and grab that i really like your game of the year one or your year a wrap up i should say thank you i appreciate it i definitely check out black material yeah yeah amazing album. Thank you guys. Until next time. Thanks for having me. Peace.