Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Octopath Traveler 0 Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: December 3, 2025

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Solo leveling arise overdrive. The fast-paced action RPG based on the popular solo leveling franchise has just been released. Head on over to Steam to begin Sung Juno's epic journey to become Shadow Monarch today. Yo, what's up? Welcome to Kind of Funny Games cast for Wednesday, December 3rd, 2025. I'm on your host, Blessing, Adi L.A. Jr., joining me is the Nitro Rifle, Andy Cortez. Hello, hello. Hello, Andy. How's it going?

I'm great, man. I'm great. We got some stuff rendering, got a lot of, Goody things cooking. Got a lot of smileys. Oh. Got a whole lot of stuff getting ready for 2026. A lot of stuff getting ready. Blessing and I in the meeting room yesterday.

Oh, yeah. In a conference room. I got my feet up. He's got his cup of coffee and a cigarette. And they said no smoking inside, but I disagree. I was like, I disobey. Give me one of those.

I mean, you know, like we're supposed to smoke and cigarettes in there. Don't you guys wish we could smoke? No. In what way? No. So cool. Like we could do without the consequence? Oh, exactly.

Exactly. the cancer or the death. That would be pretty sick. Yeah. Yeah. That's also Greg Miller. Hi. Is there a reason why you're sitting there and Andy sitting here? I feel like whenever I...

He played the most. I was going to say, when you have somebody who's going to talk a lot, I like having him there. Oh, a person in the middle, do with this whole lot. When you're bopping around, you think, because you're going to ask a question about the review. I'm going to talk to you, but then I'm going to try to include Andy, so I'll turn that way. It's just easier this way. That makes sense. I like when you try to include me like that.

Makes you feel good. Love you, buddy. Thank you, man. Love you, too. You didn't get the message today is crew Kru neck day. I didn't get the message. Crew. Crew.

We got to do some other temperature in here. It's cold. It's so cold. Now, we can't. Here's the thing. It's because of all the technology. It's got to be cold. And it can't go.

I think it's just the outside weather, isn't it? Well, that too. But I mean, that's why it's cold, cold in here. But you remember the old studio where it was just melting. So it's like, we can't complain too much about it being too cold because I get it. We're lucky to have it cold. I think it doesn't have to be this cold, right? I think it's just like the thing of as the person who has to like make sure we

pay the heating bill. Yeah, I think it does. Yeah, I think it does. Also, like the thing of like, it's... 5,000 square feet is really expensive to heat, bless. Yeah, but like, we just didn't adjust the temperature as the year got colder. You know what I mean? Like, outside gets colder, but we stay the same. And so I feel like we just got to find it a standard. We'll talk about it off.

My biggest issue, you turn that heater on and it's like... Like, there's no happy medium. When the heater's on... The heat is on. Like it just gets really, really warm in here when the heater is on. Yeah. And it's like, it'll be on for five seconds and it's like, ooh, already. Like I'm feeling it.

Like, it's so, it's so bizarre. That's weather, man. It's crazy. I feel we're almost there. Because we figured out earlier in the year. Here's what I'm saying. Just join the crew neck boys for a week and see how that goes. Mitten.

Well, I'm like, you got a t-shirt. You got a t-shirt on. So you're getting too much heat. And to use your hands to exhibit what cold air does to a jacket like that. Go inside his jacket. It's very confused. That's weird. I thought you wanted me to do like this.

That's crazy. We got a review to talk about it. Let's talk about Octopatch Traveler Zero. Because remember, this is kind of funny. Gamescast each and every weekday we get together and talk about the biggest reviews, previews, and topics in video games live on YouTube, Twitch and our podcast services around the globe. We don't do that in the show. Why are you giving in the Tim?

Why do you give in the Tim? It's a daily thing. The games daily thing. I think I didn't do that a couple times But it was mainly because I forgot If you love what we do Support us with the kind of funny membership on Patreon YouTube Spotify or Apple Podcast

To get all of our shows ad free Watchers record them live and get a daily exclusive show it's funny I took out the watches Record them live thing but I can't remove it from my brain Yeah Because it isn't a thing anymore You can watch us record things live all the time on Twitch Yeah

Perk if you're just anybody I mean YouTube yeah all that stuff And Spotify Did you know not that I'm not Spotify They're live streamed to Spotify yet. One day. Yeah. One day.

For a chance to be a part of the show, some of your thoughts and opinions as YouTube super chats as we go. Housekeeping for you. We're an 11-person business all about live talk shows before this was KFD about Idos Montreal, horses and bionicles. After that was a screencast about 2026 movies and after this episode of Gamescast is going to be the stream, which is going to be that Elton Ring night rain. Can I interrupt for one second?

Yeah, go for it. Over here, I've never seen this on Twitch before. I know you guys stream more than me. Ken Jr. 61 gifted a sub to Creed, which is great. But then it says they've given 476 gift subs to this channel. That's awesome. Ken Jr. is unbelievably supportive. Thank you, Ken Jr., also, because of the amount of subs that they've given out,

has won, like, a lot of different giveaway stuff during the different marathon streams. So Ken Jr. won one of the Silk Song drawings and asked for the green prints and the dancing, I forget the hell, whatever its name is, from Silk Song. drew that for him and then he posted an image of like hey I got it framed it looks awesome and then I realized oh you also asked you won a drawing of Rayquaza

during the the Pokemon marathon stream and was like damn putting in the work thank you Ken Jr. for keeping us in business I want to make sure because people are shouting out Ken Jr. as they should I know Ken Jr. I've never seen Twitch say over their lifetime they've given out

461 stuff yeah yeah it's pretty impressive stuff. You're a kind of funny member today's Greg ways about the relief of finally being able to talk about an embargoed video game. It's this one. Thank you to our Patreon producers, Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster, and Delaney the Somme twining. For now, let's start with topic of the show.

Tots, tats, tats, tats. It's a review, a video game review, for Octopath Traveler Zero. Coming to you from the creators of Octopath Traveler, an Octopath Traveler, too. They finally made the Zero. Square Enix. You used to be Project Octabath, remember that?

Remember, yeah, Project Octopath? And it's a working title. And then, you know what we're going to do? Wait, what was the working title? What was triangle strategy? I think that was also just, I think that was working title, Triangle Strategy, and they're like, ah, we like this one too, actually. Oh, shit.

Wait, so that's a different game. Yeah. Yeah. Damn. It looks, I mean, it's HD2D, but it's more tactical. Ah, that's where the strategy comes in. Okay, gotcha. Shoot, you're right.

It's the whole triangle thing. I like that. Octopath Traveler Zero. You're the protagonist of the story. this time that's different. Yep. You choose your appearance, your voice, motions, and your favorite dish with a new character creation feature.

Greg Miller. Hello. You've played Octopath Traveler Zero. I have. What are your top level thoughts of Octopath Traveler Zero? I have played 70 hours of Octopath Traveler Zero, rolled credits at like 55 hours. And I'm using a little fast and loose here because I'm going off the steam number on the outside rather than the game save number because you know things change.

and this game is amazing. This game is a nine out of ten. Wow. Even 70 hours into this game, I will continue playing this game. And I think the highest praise I could possibly give it is that this is now my game of the year. Whoa!

We'll see if that ends up when we get to January and we submit our top tens and go to the whole thing. But I adored my time with Octopat Traveler Zero. It was definitely a game I started up and was like, I was concerned, number one, because of course, we did an episode of this very show this year in the past six months, right? That was like, I'm, I got to stop trying to play turn-based RPGs. I just can't do it anymore. And I was, of course, talking about Expedition

33 there, but I brought up persona 5 fatigue. And in that episode, I called out the fact that I love Octopath and Octopath Traveler and Octopath Traveler too, but even those games, I had never seen all the way through to credits. I'd never actually beaten. I put in a bunch of hours, loved my time on them but constantly got sidetracked. So getting this one, it was the, all right, let's try this again. And is it going to be another thing that I do 20 hours of, 30 hours of, and then, you know, get distracted by another review. And instead, it has been a month nonstop of playing this.

Anoying Jen, if you have not, if you missed our review of the Rog Alli X, a device I truly love, it is so fucking loud. My wife calls me, Mr. Clickley, Clacketing, throws me out of the bedroom now when I'm playing it. Because I'm there fucking boost, boosting up my points and unleashing my attack. and doing the fucking thing in Octopath Traveler Zero. But absolutely adore this game and I'm so happy with it. Andy, what are your top level thoughts? Well, okay, so this is a weird one

because this is one that I hadn't even planned on playing. I, like many turn-based games, look at it and go, okay, probably not for me. Or maybe I'll hop in, much like I did last year with metaphor refontasio and go, I see why this is going to be a lot of people's goadies, but I'm 15 hours in and I'm about an eighth of the way through or whatever. I'm good, right?

And this one did kind of catch me off guard because Moonlighter 2 doesn't play super great on Steam Deck. And I was going on a trip to New York and was like, hey, I'm going to want to play something on the way over there. Greg, can you just give me a code for Octopath? It's got city building. I'm kind of fascinated by that concept. And I like the art style, right? And so he got me a code and it kind of, it grabbed me in a way that I wasn't expecting it to. And I think that the game is still like, my top level thoughts are you shouldn't expect, you know,

Shakespearean writing in this video game. And that kind of throws me off and that's why I dock it points even though I don't necessarily plan on finishing this game. I've only played it for about 23, 24 hours. Only. And, but it did, it, it kept me going in a way that I wasn't expecting. In a way that I feel like I could have dropped off and played a lot of other stuff in bed on the Steam deck. This game kind of kept me going in ways that surprised me. I do enjoy a decent amount of the combat.

I think that the story is awesome. The writing and dialogue that gets you, there? Not so much. I won't put a score on this because I'm just not quite there yet. Brash the search. Yeah. I'm... 20-some hours. Yeah. Yeah. Um, which I thought, like, as I'm making my way through it, thinking, man, I'm making

really good progress. And it's just, it's not what do you think. But it surprised me in a lot of ways that, like, especially for somebody like me who normally drops off of games like this. I was like, surprisingly into it. I'm, I barely touched it. I'm here to host. I'm here to ask questions. I do you thing, man. I played this. the first hour. You're here to complain about how cold it is.

Yeah, I'm here to talk about the temperature in this office that was changing throughout the year because we're getting into the winter months. I played about the first hour, which funny enough, I think I've done for every Octopath Traveler game. I see it. I'm like, oh, that looks cool. I hop into it and I get so intimidated by the

length and magnitude of these games. But I wanted to try this one out because of the city building stuff. I remember that from the trailer and that looking like a cool system they had going on here. And then it was Greg that I think I talked to where you're a kind of you were into the game so I was like oh how's the city building stuff and you're kind of like that's fine it didn't seem like that was one of the stained out things so that for me that was enough

to go I don't know if I have it in me then to want to play 80 to 100 hours of a g-r-pg like this right now but Greg I want to come back to you sure because you saying this game is your game of the year is huge especially coming off of what you just mentioned earlier in the year you're talking about turn-based all this stuff not maybe hitting for you in that same way yeah go off like tell me about what is it about Octopath Traveler Zero that uplifts it to this level for you? And I do want to interrupt because I did walk by his desk as he was playing Octopath. And this is like the third time I'd seen him playing Octopath. And I'm assuming I was there for the podcast.

I was there for a story time with Greg. I'm shocked that we're on day two or three of this. And I said, damn, a lot of time for Octopath and you kind of just, you know, didn't really give, you bounce off expedition and he laughed to say i'm a piece of shit i'm sorry i get that i'm not exactly it's like i know that for so many people you know how it is like as we went back and i mean if you want to bring up the comparison right away like octopath expedition clearly i know expedition is going to be everyone's game of the year in the world in the the year 2025 understandably so it's a great game as i've talked about i totally see it

it's work of art i get all of that for me it was just and i think this is where octopat comes to your point of why does this one work for me so much. Octopath marches to the beat of its own drum, which is a trite thing to say. But the way it does its storytelling, it's world-building, its setup of what's going on here, I never felt disconnected to compare it to expedition

from the main storyline, the main quest, the main objective. For me in a video game, I like being a character, like knowing this is my motivation. This is what I'm doing it, right? When we go back to Expedition 33 and me and my criticisms of that game, I think that game opens so strong, right?

The painters. Oh my gosh. The gummage. All this stuff. This is awesome. This is awesome. And then we get to the section of the game where it goes RPG of like, cool, now there's this man made of straw that we're helping and we're running and we're making jokes.

And I'm like, why are we, what the fuck is going on? There's a crisis. The love of People I love Killed in front of me I'm here on this beach I almost murdered myself 10 seconds ago

You know what I mean Like I want that And so And this is I know There's so much too And don't get me wrong I'm not This isn't about talking shit

About Expedition So please don't get hung up on that Everybody in the chat Octopats deal is First off for me Comparing it even just to the last Two Octopaths games Right

Because this is the third one clearly You create your own character here And that is your character. An Octopath and Octopath 2. Two games that I do love. You of course get eight playable characters in there, hence the name Octo as you go through and have

their interwoven stories connect and do these things. I don't put that together. Well, and of course here, Spoilers. You didn't rate. For Octopath Traveler Zero, of course, you now have eight playable characters at all times. So you have the character

you created who never leaves your party. Then you have seven slots to fill in battle. You have so many other characters because you're bringing them into their town. Andy, you never put together the octopath was because there's octopath. There's eight paths. There's eight paths. That's crazy. And you're crazy.

Wow. They're so deep. First off, I fell off of those back in the day. And I say fell off when I put in 30, 40 hours to each one or whatever it was. Like, I would fall off of those because I'd be so into Primrose's story. This is so fucking good. And then it'd be like, all right, cool. You've finished that chat.

chapter, the next chapter is five levels above your character level, so it's time to go off and do the other quest. And then the other quest weren't as good. And I didn't connect with it. I didn't love this. I wanted to stay with that thing. Octopath Traveler Zero, giving me my character that I get to create. Andy made a joke about it, or you did, bless, I think, of making the, you choose, you immediately from the customization screen, you do the stuff of what you look like, blah, blah, blah, then a little bit of your background in terms of what your job is going to be. And then what is your favorite dish, which you then name, which is the nerdy-ass shit I'd be. into of like what does your mom make

the why does this food matter like that kind writing your own backstory to it and I love that boil for me for me based on the image it looked like beef Wellington I was like beef wellington but then you go into this town of Wishvale right where your dad's there you've got a bunch of friends you've lived your entire life this is

great and then the three villains of this game like they have been introduced before they're here for these rings of power and a similar like oh that's fucking I never put that together. I didn't pay much attention to the story of Octopath Traveler Zero because you put Octopath

Traveler in the title, I know I'm going to play it. So when we saw the debut trailers and stuff and you saw the Zero, I never put it together that the Zero is a ring. Like the zero is a ring because this is all about these rings of power. And it's like I don't think you should have connected it at this point. But when you play the game, maybe you

should have. The title of this game is blowing Andy's mind. So like when you were going through and doing this damn thing, right? Actually, I'm sticking with this. You go. I'm sticking with this. You go. both so the that is a ring the bad guys show up they burn down your town and they like if you've never played an octopath

game it's not a prequel it is a prequel oh it is a prequel okay okay did I screw it what I no no I because when we point out it's a ring I was like wait it's called zero because the fucking ring no it's also and it is they've talked about this interviews it's a zero because they're doing the yakuza zero thing of or yakuza zero like they want new people to be able to jump

in here and not be hung up on do I didn't play the other one but the image of the zero like is a straight up ring holy fuck yeah it's a right yeah just goes deeper than we could have ever imagined uh they come in, they burn down your town as that you see there, you flee, and then you come back with your childhood best friend and decide that you're going to rebuild the town.

And for me, that was such a great jumping off point to what we're doing here. What is the purpose of my character? My purpose is that I'm trying to get the band back together. We've scattered to the winds because these people burned down our town. Let's go find out, let's figure out who's alive.

And where I was driving a second ago that I got lost, sorry, if you've never played an Octopath game and you look at it, and of course, if you're an audio listener. I assume you know what this game looks like if you don't. This is the HD2DR. This is the 16-bit stuff that Octopath Traveler dropped originally. We all went Slackjod. What the fuck? And now

Square's done it a bunch of times. You've seen this everywhere. But they're the originators of it. So it is a... But sometimes the squirrels are different. Like... Sometimes the squirrels are different. Really throws you off. Have you talked to him yet? I talked to the other one. What did you? The one on the bottom. What do you say? I don't know. Just like squirrel it? Or something.

Have you talked to? Shut the fuck. my God. It goes deeper. You go into this though and it's like a very cutesy game. It's cutesy 16 bit art, blah, blah, blah. This game jumps into slavery. You child and there's murders left and right.

Like talking about selling your body. Like this isn't an adult game put through this. I would say cheeby filter, even though I guess it's not cheapy technically, right? Which is where my problems are. Okay. You want to jump in? I love to.

Because it sets up the stage that way. And then for me again, and serious themes are being tackled and the stuff's happening and I'm having to break the news to people that their kids are dead or their parents are gone or what That's pretty sick.

So it is this idea of like, again, Wishvale at the core of it and I want to come back eventually and I will because it's one of my cons the town building stuff I'll come back to because you are making wish feel. It ends where it should be in terms of like making me care.

Don't worry. What's your call? Oh, it's on your enjoy cons. It's both. Wow. Have we made the graphic yet? Enjoy cons. We got to do that.

I missed an episode. Things that you enjoy and the cons. Oh, okay. Enjoy cons. I like it. So you bringing up, Greg, that how adult a story is. I agree. In my list of things that I enjoy, it is the story.

I think the story so far is awesome. The things that happen in the story are awesome. But it's got the writing of a Pokemon game. And it's so hard for me to, even though I am still enjoying a lot of what happens, it's so hard for me to differentiate those two things. When I go into a Pokemon game, I know what I'm in for. I'm not expecting my face to be blown off with crazy soliloquies and like amazing bars of just like, whoa, holy shit, what a great.

Like I know what I'm in for. I know that characters do stuff because of the convenience of the story. And things rarely ever make sense. And you ran into a random guy in a bar and he goes, oh, hey, you must be so-and-so. of want to take on this quest to fight this one guy. And like, it doesn't make sense, but it's a, you know what you're in for.

So it's kind of just a video game, right? And the game is so dark and so serious. And there are crazy, fucked up things that happen. But it's just the writing that, it's so hard for me to separate those two things of, like,

how awesome the things are that are happening. And the words that are being delivered to me are just straight out of a, of a Pokemon game. So that's one thing I, I warn people that I also did turn off the voice acting because I wasn't super impressed by it, but also the lack of quality writing for me

just exacerbated. It was exacerbated by the voice acting of like, I feel like this is even worse than it is because a human is talking and saying these words, and it sounds so dumb and like these situations just don't make sense. Is it the tone of it being this pixel art, like 16-bit style JerepG, or do you think it's even beyond that? Because I know what was the PS1 game that you really like that you talked about?

Vagrant Story. I know Vagrant Story is like one that really hits for you. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, like, stories like that really hit for me and like the way the writing works hits for me, but the way that characters, you know, if you've ever played a Pokemon game and you walk into a building and they go, oh, you must be the new trainer in town, go fight so and so forth. And it's like, none of this makes sense in the real world.

and like these things wouldn't happen in a realistic situation. People just don't walk up to you and just say like, oh, you know, take whatever you want out of my, you know, refrigerator or whatever. But the, but you know what you're in for with the Pokemon game. And I just feel like totally that's what I'm getting here. Even though.

I play the other octopaths. No. And I heard that they are like that as well. That's my thing. I've seen, I've read Hym's review today, the GameSpot author's names escape. me. I read their reviews and going through it.

And it's interesting to see people's different takes and stuff. And yeah, I think that's an interesting one of, I don't have that complaint here, but as somebody who's played the other ones, I feel like my, I had calibrated. I wasn't coming in expecting like amazing writing. Yeah, and that's kind of where,

you know, I would just say, if you never played an Octopath, manage your expectations because I, you know, if I were getting this level of writing in Expedition 33, I'd be really led down by it. Interesting. Now, the stuff that happens to the story, fucking awesome. I see somebody saying like Andy likes Dragon Ball Z, so I don't understand this. It's all about expectations. When I watch an anime, when I watch my hero academia and dumb shit is happening,

I don't care because it's an anime and I know what I'm in for. But I think because of how dark and messed up and serious the story is, to be met with writing that just feels like really, really lacking, that's what kind of bums me out. One of the things, if I can... Yeah, I don't know. I think calibration and why this game works. works again so well for me right is I want to use two examples a movie and a TV show all right this is a humongous game as you know it's hilarious to see hym's review is I put more than 70 hours in but it's a review in progress still not I still have to do this and that blah blah like octopath traveler zero and one of the reasons I love it in the way it's structured and the way

it's set up is a trilogy of movies in one game where legitimately you finish this for this thing and like all right cool that's going to be it and then it's like back to the future to the fuck it is we got to worry about xy and z and like holy shit you get done with that that's when the credits roll that next big part the credits roll you come out of that and now it's like cool here's the third movie that's following up on all the stuff that's happened so far of like what happened after x y and z and blah blah blah and you go off and do that i love that and how it's jam packed but the actual way it's jam packed i was i was you know every night i go to bed i drift off thinking about this moment reviewing this game and talking about it yeah the best comparison i could

have, and I think this applies to the writing expectations and dialing yourself in, is that when I was recapping one night, everything that happened in that one night of play, right, versus where we were hours and hours and hours ago. It dawned on me. I'm like, oh, the reason I love Octopath and the way this game is going is because it's Nashville, the fucking TV show Nashville. If you remember when I was obsessed with Nashville, the joke was that Colin watched an episode with me, went away, came back two episodes later, and was like, what happened

with that thing. I was like, oh, that was settled in that episode. And he was like, he's like, the way, this show, one episode of this show is like a half season of another show. And it's the idea here where, yeah, I think the writing or whatever and the plot beats get boiled down. And again, they do chapters, right? That's what you're, you go off in this question. It's prologue, chapter one, whatever. There's parts to them and all this stuff. But they move at a quick pace. But the payoff is, I think, personally, Nashville is a JRP. Yeah. I think hours later, it's coming back and meeting that character again and seeing how it's changed and oh my god that like like i just headed at my desk with a moment where i went on you know one of these quests or whatever bump into this

character that i know extremely well from that first movie and i'm like oh hey what's going on oh my god that happened because of x-y oh that's cool you know what i mean yeah that's a change and evolved and nobody is safe and they can all be killed nobody really matters with the exception of you now i will say after once i got past the calibrated period that's where i like started enjoying myself more and understanding what I'm in for, what this journey is, yeah, for sure. Yeah. I also in my enjoy cons.

Enjoy cons. Things I enjoyed, again, I love the story. The story just does some bad shit stuff. Yeah, if I can. Surprises a lot. I want to toss in. Kevin was running the villains trailer. Like, again, I think that is such a strength of starting this game

and setting off on this quest you're on, this journey you're on, that these three motherfuckers who have a hand in burning down your town, are so delightfully evil are so they chew this scenery you know August pops up marvelous and it's like I can fucking I see him and hear his line

and again I never turned the VO off and I never found the writing bad I expected it to be what it was and so I fully bought in like I knew what I was getting into so I was so I love all three of these folks and how they are and what they are for me in terms of enjoy cons

the con right is I think that second movie thrusts you into this civil war all of a sudden, which for me was, we weren't fully removed from, I'm here to get Wishvale off the ground. Clearly, this is affecting the continent, right? We got to get Osteron, we got to make sure they're safe here, whatever, but it still was, I don't know if I'm fully bought in, but then I was shocked by the fucking end of it that I was like, damn, we did something here. Like, we fucking did something. And yeah, this does matter to me in the way they view me and, you know, you're the chosen one. They call you in this game or whatever. You name your own character. They can't say your name.

Like, there's a whole bunch of great shit here that really is, the more invested you are. I'm just going. I'm sorry. Oh, yeah. Back to town building, which is another big part which we've seen multiple times up here. I wish fail, rebuilding it, doing your damn thing

here. That's cool. And I love the thing. And I love bringing people back together. I love watching them meet each other again. What about so-and-so and like, they didn't make it. And everybody gets sad. There's a whole bunch of pull-at-your-heartstring gravestone moments up in this place. My problem with is you see it right now, the town building, it takes so long to get it fully opened up. It was like Monday, I think, where I was celebrating right before I went on a podcast and I finally maxed the town out, which finally gave me unlimited rule to do whatever I wanted to.

Up until then, like, it's very much pulling back the- It's a progress blocker. It's pulling back the reins all the time of like, you do this thing. you can be, oh, this new section you can go through and change up. And it's like, okay, but by the time I got to it all being open, like, I've already put shit everywhere. Like, do I really, do I need, is there a reward? Is there a reason for me to go in and really get into the minutiae? Which is what I had wanted throughout it. I wish I had had access to the entire town early on to lay it out to put down my gravel roads and put, you know, choose this style and do this thing. At this point, I'm so far gone. I'm kind of like, well, this is what Wishvale is. I would have

rather have had it from the jump. And this is all just me complaining. Like, you can now go through and do it, but I feel like it has an identity. Not to mention I have like just a gillian fucking houses down because I've recruited so many people. I got more questions about that. Firstly, I want to shout out a super chat from Big Curse MD who says, Andy, let me blow your mind.

The first letter of the character names in the first game spell Octopath. Wow. Yeah. That's really cool. I didn't know that part. Wow. Getting back. Miles per hour.

Whoa. That's a big one. That's huge. Getting back to the town building conversation, one of the bullet points from the game page on Steam mentions talking about the town building. Restore your hometown through town building. Invite companions and allies to live in a town of your creation. I know you just talked a lot about the building aspect and opening up and how that doesn't happen. You didn't have it fully opened up until getting way later to the game.

How do the allies and companions factor into it? Is there conversations you can have? Does it feel like a nice little hub area to come back to? Do you look forward to hanging out in the town? I don't feel like I hang out in the town nearly as much as I would like to. What I will say is when I finally finished the, not even the thing where I opened it up to everything, but when I finished the getting,

restoring Wishvale, whatever that quest line was, even though it kept going and there was more to do. At the end of every one of these chapters and these stories, you get a nice little piece of art that's like basically a charcoal sketch or, you know, whatever drawn. And it's on a page and it says Finn at the bottom corner. And when I got that one,

one of my favorite characters, Stia was in the photo, and she was looking back and she had a tear and ride, I teared up. Like, it's like, so it is like, I have that connection to Wishfail. I have that connection to the people in my town. Like, I think you have the core group that you're introduced to early on of like, these are Wishvale residents. They're fucking, you know, Fen, what up, bro?

You know what I mean? Me and Stia, we're fucking rocking this goddamn thing. But then the more you add and the more you bring in, like, you go out and you meet people in other towns, you can go over them and it'll be like, oh, well, you know, if you brought me in, in and put me into, this is all, they're not saying this. It's on their, you know, little page. You invite them in, they would, you know, if you put them in the training house, people would

train faster. They get more XP quicker, stuff like that. So there's buffs and benefits to go do that reason for it. Random guy in town gets you wood, you know, while you're out doing stuff. Random other guy gets you stone. Random other person's really good at cooking. So it has more meals available that then pop up. But you have to house them first, I think, to get those. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So it's like, it's pretty fucked. you invite a lot of people and then you're like, I don't have anywhere if you all to stay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So you eventually can just place them out town, yeah, we're on town or whatever they won't get them out of it. To your point though, or to your question, the core group, a thousand percent. The people who are running off and meeting who are old Wishvale residents and I'm bringing back,

yes, I feel like this is great. I love what I'm doing here. I'm feeling a connection to the town to the point that I would tear up at the end of it. The other companions you meet that you can meet and bring back to town and then also have on your team,

which you can cycle whenever you want to, right? way that's hit or miss where it's like I meet some guy and he's got the orange bubble so he's a side quest and I go off and I do the thing and we had to go shake down somebody who was bouncing him they can be intense not intense but like involved quests they can be pretty simple you can just get them and then they're there to hang out in your town

and give you the buff or do the thing or being on your team but my team was very hard to break into like I wanted Stia I wanted Fenn like there was other people I'm not going to get into that start joining up or whatever there's characters from the original octopath in here. Oh.

That I was like, well, come on, bro. Get over. Bring that. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Yeah. I mean, they're not like,

it's not like Muppet babies. But they're mentioning like, there's one specific of like, I can't even hold the sword. I guess I could come off here and do this with you or whatever. So it's like they're there and around, but like it's not so much about them. It is you trying to get your town back to be in a bustling metropolis or whatever.

So it's not so much about the other people as much as it is about the praise I'm getting from both. the Wish Vale residents and then the core companions I'm using because you have them there and you'll you know whenever you're back there you can hit for me it's a little option button right and get your little party chat like cutscene of what they're all saying to each other and them interacting and that's cute for when I'm using these characters from the you know

my quest or whatever and then the one nerdy librarian lady I'm like why you're talking you sucked in battle no one no one's weakness no one's weakness is the fucking tome get out of here you're I got I got many questions now Mainly about allies. I want to ask about your party. Battle, we haven't even talked about battling. It says,

choose over 30 allies. I want to ask about that. I want to ask what a path action is. But before we get there, of course, you can super chat in with questions that you want to ask the panel. And you can, of course, go to kindof funny.com slash Patreon

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Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. Greg, tell me about combat. I thought Greg had something. In allies and party. Tell me about everything. What do you want to know? Let's start with party actually.

I want to know when they say engage in exhilarating in strategic command battles, choose from over 30 allies to form a party comprised of up to eight characters. Is that as overwhelming as it sounds? No. And that's, I think, honestly, something that we rarely get to see slash talk about in the preview review cycle. When I previewed it, my argument, one of the things I was saying was like, it does feel really easy.

And I'm wondering what's going to happen with that. where it's like octopath travel and this is always so hard especially for me somebody who quote unquote loves the series but i'm not like crazy diehard i haven't even completed the other two right but it's that idea of like i i do remember hitting bosses where i was like fuck i'm this is not working out for me right now and i need to figure it out um so in my notes because i kept a little notepad with me as i went right i have it over here yeah my first game over came 23 hours and 20 minutes into the game. I was level 26 taking on a level 28 quest and I got killed by for the first time. And I was like, okay, now 23 hours in sounds like a lot. But then you realize I'm 70 hours in now.

And what's fascinating for me about my little notes is that they quickly go from all right, cool, here's this thing. And what a great twist. Oh man. Here's, I love seeing a Superman logo. Yeah, you know, I could like do it's kind of notes. Yeah. Well, it's like, oh yeah. So I did. Oh, I have a digital notebook now that I love. Bullock and I'll say, how do you get a soup? But then they quickly turn to, okay, wait, it's this guy's battle, this, that, the other, where I'm like, I start taking notes

about what I'm doing. All right, this guy, wave one, he's weak to dagger, staff, ice, okay. And then like, to do, like, you can make meals at home and then eat them to get buffs, right? But again, I always forget to be it. For however many hours you're playing, you don't need to ever worry about that, but then you get to this shit where it's like,

fuck, now they're actually giving me the challenge. And they do it so. Kevin told me out with the lights. Oh, God. They did it so gradually, right? And I think... I was like, oh shit, Greg's coming in. Can you imagine?

If Tim they debuted a song finally, came out to talk shit to me? Greg's coming to do a wrestling bit. No, they did it so gradually that it never was overwhelming. And it's the same thing then with the crew. Where originally the crew was, I start picking up different people. Well, first off, it was like, even in the early part where I was like, damn, I made it by that fight with this, by the skin of my teeth or whatever, I was using, like,

I only had three people in the party. I was like, oh shit, right. I forgot that this one I can have eight people in here. I should really go, because you have four people fighting in the front, four people in the back row. You can switch them on their turns what you want. So like, it's not like you're doing eight moves at once. You basically, you know, you're doing your four moves,

then they're hitting you back and then you can switch out to everyone. And the way it works is a boss might have like a number, a big boss might have a number eight with a shield, meaning they have eight hits until they are dazed. And the way that you dazed them is you look at their weaknesses and their weaknesses and you kind of start to learn how the game is played because there may be five squares next to the boss's name and the five and one of them

the second one might be dagger and you know okay the first one is always sword yeah so that means that they're also weak to sword so i can hit them with sword and dagger and then the the sword will reveal itself yeah to say you want to throw up a if you can throw up a just a gameplay battle kevin where there's shields and little boxes on the screen when they're like right about to fight. Yeah, this is how it works in terms of you start every battle when you meet somebody. This is perfect. You don't know what their weaknesses are. So right here, let's just assume this battle was starting. You'd see the Forrest Ratkin 3 up there with four question marks. And then you'd assume, based on where we're at now, four shields. But as your team starts using your

weapons, you'd find, okay, cool, pull damage. They're weak to the week to. You hit them with the axe. Okay, they're weak to axes. Those knock off the actual numbers of the shield. The shield eventually breaks. This is called the boost and break system and then you can unload attacks on them. And if you look on the characters on your right, those are all your party members on the top right with the health bars and everything. But if you look and see on the

top right, like, I guess almost all these characters, all the characters actually, they have like five lit up dots above the health, right? And those are multiple hit things. Those are your boost points. Yeah. So like if your character, if the enemy is weak to

axe and they have three shields, you can boost your attack by three times meaning it's going to hit four times. Because your attack is one, and then you could boost it by three times and use those little tick marks at the top, and you gain them every time you do a move

that isn't one of those boost moves. How does it look in animation? So it's a gun, dun, dun, dun, yeah, and you see the damage hit, and then the shields get taken out, and then ban, the enemy is, the enemy is days, and then it's like, go off, go, everybody, use your super power. So then back to your point blast, it becomes this thing

of early on, yeah, let's just overwhelm, break the shields, destroy, right? You have, if you're watching us right now, you see the HP and the SP on everybody, obviously, your special points for your elemental attacks, your super moves using the weapons, yada, yada, yada, so it might, as you get going and you get into these boss battles, bless, it does become this dance of like, okay, cool, well, I could, yeah, use all my BP right now to get Stia to use her axe to smash this shield, but why not just use one of hers, use, and then I see that I have three people on my little you know, active time battle, meaning that they can then break, because I know he's weak to sword, he's weak to this as well. Then we can come back in and boost our spells to make those,

like dropping, you know, 999 damage, or 9,000, 99 damage. You start getting into that system, let alone again where I'm at now, where I've been using one of the characters in there, I don't know who's announced, so I won't. But he's got goad, right, where he can, like, goad the enemies to then attack him for, you know, I think when I boosted, it's nine turns now. And they'll come at him with all the physical attacks, but his evasion goes up as well. So I'm not having him attack anymore. I'm just having him do that. So everybody else can get in their moves without having to get as ass kicked by this giant boss and stuff like that.

But again, that stuff happens so gradually that it isn't overwhelming. And to my point that I was driving at earlier is like when you're meeting these characters early on and adding them to the team and then you finally get to, oh, now I have nine people so I can actually choose who I want on there. There it's set dressing, right, really, where I think, what do you want to do? This character seems cool, right? They come in with their dagger and their axe and they're from their. tribe and they don't it's cold but they refuse to it's like oh this is cool and you bring them in but it's like it's not until hours later that I'm in a battle where I'm like man you're awesome but useless in this fight I need somebody who has fans so let's get a fan person in there that can

use the fan attack imagine like the like the yeah not like our fans we're not sending kebabs out there to like like the Japanese fans you yeah yeah yeah that's what yeah that's what I'm yeah or uh which one has that malignant oh you're talking about moral combat yeah that's katana Catana is that. Okay. One thing I'd like to, Kevin, and if you can go back to one of those battle screens

that you were doing so great on, if I get a hold on one of those, the other thing to call out is these ultimate skills. Your character has it based on the ring or whatever that you can use and use these attack and you can unlock more as you go.

Right here, as we're looking at this, this is great, Kevin. When is it up, by the way? When do you get, I think it's just based on the amount of damage you're doing or whatever. It might be the number of turns. I'm honestly not sure.

But you see that square on its side up there, right? That diamond on the very first character that's lit up there with blue up there. Eventually these ultimates you can unlock for every character. So again, back to what it's like here at the end game, suddenly everybody has a mastery

skill and they're all different. They all do different things. So it becomes who do I need in this battle? What's the best party management makeup here, right, for what I need in these fights? Do you have to level up these characters individually? So yes, but it's like you're at the end of everything. It's the classic

JRP battle screen. Again, I think it's faster than most, which I really appreciate about this. sometimes this is a dated reference but for me it's got that half minute hero vibe of like especially I double the speed of the battles I go in there I just clown the people out in open world

get there the whole thing's fill in and then I'm right back to running around to whatever my real job is or whatever very quick very active in that way you are getting XP for them you're also getting JP which are job points you then can go into their things and change their skills equip their skills

unlock new things and then once you've unlocked all their abilities then now you get into cool now it's mastery time where Sia is always using double axe so I'm going to go in there and on that move I'm going to keep putting points into to give her that movie make it even more powerful

You also find like invigorating nuts sour I got one for you if you know you find like strong nuts you know there's these things you find in the world that you can then apply to the character

to make their critical stronger to be given more SP to give them more HP and they're called nuts Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, those are the permanent ones. You're both left and right in this game. I was collecting those for the longest time, not realizing what they were.

And then I thought they were just consumables for battle, but they are the permanent things. Oh, gosh. Like, so it's, I, like, you're building characters out. I accidentally put way too much, way too many on one character. And she's just like, in any other, in any other, I got so many nuts on me. So many nuts on me. She, in any other games, she'd be a glass cannon, just a tank or a glass cany character that's going to have low health but like high damage.

Dude, she's got like four or 500 more health points than everybody else. I fucked up, yeah. A couple things I do want to talk about in the cons section of my enjoy cons. I think the game is really

handholdy. There's not a whole lot of room for player discovery. You're not really just finding things. You mark and track the quest and it tells you where to go and that's it. And I wish those a bit more like freedom there. If I can, not to be that guy.

I think that opens up the more you play. Okay. Where I'm with you. Very early on, it is very much like, okay, cool, do this. It also is later on. And I think it's because what are the cons? The overall cons people have for JRP's in general,

where it is just too obtuse. Like, what do you want? There are plenty of times where there are like, even now, hey, we need X, Y, and Z. And you're like, okay, cool. And then you leave and come back and hover over it. And it's like, it's found in fucking Flames Guard. Like, okay, cool.

Like, I know where to go and find it, which on the one hand, I'm glad they're not wasting my time. On the other, it can be too much like that. But I've had, I think again, to the like slow boil of there was a moment I wouldn't, I won't say obviously. But it was that came into an area and there was a person standing there and then didn't even have, they engaged with me and started talking. And we started fighting. And I was like, holy shit. Like, this wasn't what I was expecting. Yeah.

And now that like the training wheels fall off. I feel like after that, not really. Some of them fall off after that first movie I was talking about. And then it does become like, okay, cool. The first 24-hour movie. I know, I know. And I'm not... 20-hour.

That's why I'm not at all trying to be like... Yeah. Actually, but like this is a noted con, but I do think that works to its advantage later on of like, I still now get excited when I see the blue chest because I can open the blue chest, if that makes it. And then even later on, they do more stuff of like, okay, cool. Now I've built this building, but you need to put things in it. So you need to go find these things.

And then it's... My, another big con I have and it's... It's not even a nitpick. This is like a serious problem I have with a fucking game. Don't give me dialogue choices if you're going to ignore them and make me do the thing anyway. That's a JRPG. Do you want to follow me or not? No.

No. Oh, come on. You know you want to be a part of this. And then you just go, don't give me the choice. Just say, we're going to go to this thing next. We need you, man. That's all I need. The reason they do that, because I've noticed this in so many JRP,

it's just that they want a reason for your character to talk. Like they're like, what's the thing? Like, how do we get elicit a response? And so they had to put it in your hands. My character, so they give you two options that don't matter. My character talks enough where like, they'll be like, oh, and how's you,

oh my gosh, I haven't seen these so long, how's your mother? And you see, again, I have dialogue off, but you see the little ellipsies pop up. Yeah, for the record, they do that thing. To be clear for somebody who's not playing the game or whatever, your character does not speak. They're a silent protagonist,

but when they're asked questions, dot dot comes out. So they are speaking in world, but you're not getting VO from them. You don't know what they're saying because you're filling anything with your own head of like, oh no, I did whatever.

And then the characters go like, oh, shit, damn, that's too bad. Or like, oh, nice, that's great or whatever. But it's, there's no exaggeration. Again, I'm 20 hours in. I've had about eight moments where I always pick no just because I want to be disappointed

and I want to be justified on my fact that I'm mad about this thing that just don't give me the... See, and I'm so goody two shoes. I've never clicked it. I'm always like, this doesn't matter. Yes. Yes, I will probably.

And, you know, and there were, there were times early on, though, that it wasn't always like that, though. The later decisions became more of, like, I'm mad that you have this even in the game. Just tell me to go there. Tell me, you're coming with me. We got to do this thing and have my character just do the three dots and, all right, let's fucking go on this adventure or whatever. But the first several times, maybe there were several situations where I'm worried about, oh, I don't know if I'm going to come back here. Do I want to go with them yet?

I'm going to hit no. Come on. You know you feel a lot. You feel you're passionate about this cause. And then you just go with them. It's like, oh, that sucks. And everyone is like that. Yeah.

And again, my issue is just like, just don't put it up. I'd be totally fine with that. You know, you're, you're hurting the RPG in this if you're not letting me role play. Yeah. As somebody, when somebody goes, yeah, we, do you actually. still want to fight them? No. Come on. You know they pissed you off, though. Let's fight them. And so the illusion of choice. And this is

a conversation we've had on Game Awards conversations. So as a group or whatever. But I think this is back to it of like, are these just turn-based games, right? Where this is the first time when I say I love role-playing games.

Audience knows, you guys knows, I'm talking about Bethes. I'm talking about Outer Worlds from obsidian. I'm talking about that kind of game, right? whereas the JRP, the term-based RPG, for the most part, usually I'm like, this isn't, I want choice. I want my choices to matter, da-da-da-da, whereas in this game, it might be the first time, and I did not grow up with playing Final Fantasy's and having that affinity for those things, right? This might be the first time where I'm really, it really clicks of like the role of like,

cool, you're my healer. So I'm only doing this. And now that I have these mastery moves, I know you use your arrows all the time. That's what I use you for. So I'm investing in those. You're my arrow guy. that's your role, which isn't me carrying water, making excuses. It's just for the first time that kind of makes sense to me in a way of like,

I'm with you of like, I would love it to be like, what do you want to help? What do you want to do? I had some people in the chat educate me and, you know, give me a little schooling on this, is that when Dungeons and Dragons became very, very popular, Western game developers took the decision-making stuff from RPGs and Japanese developers and Eastern developers

took the stats and the numbers stuff. So like you create a character. I saw somebody in Twitch had asked, can I select my skin color? Yes, there are eight skin colors. There are eight eye colors. There's eight haircuts. They all, also, another little fascinating thing.

Very woke this game, they always call you they. Oh, that's cool. Whether you're, you know, masculine-looking or feminine presenting or whatever. Like, they always just say they, which I think is like, a neat thing to do, but also just like, just lazy, though. Yeah, but it's also not that hard to just say, like, replace all the he's with,

that's a very easy thing to do. You know, they did something? Yeah, there was a, oh, that gets changed to, like, the she. Oh, you don't know them? They're the, they're the chosen owner. Like, that happens. But, yes, it is still, you know,

you are picking the class that you want to be, and then midway through, you have a new job that you can unlock, and now, because I started off as whatever character, but then I realize I like the idea of like the chosen one being this more magical person so I am role playing in that way

where I like doing more magic type stuff because I it is turn-based. Normally I will stick with roles and Dodgers and Perrys but we have plenty of good people in my squad that can do that. So what if I lean more towards like magic and also your drip is sick? Like you're not ever replacing your armor

like each class has its own set armor. So if you are set to be the whatever mage cleric, whatever it is, you have like a purple robe and it just looks sick as hell. But the hunter might have

like a green kind of like, you know, leather, whatever the fuck, you know, they look like a hunter and then the warrior might look a certain way. But there's no customization

visually there. It's just whatever class you are selecting in that moment or whatever class you have moved to, that's how you look. Nice. Yeah.

Yeah, I was going to mention, but I think you hit the nail on the head already as far as like, tenant-wise, the difference between JRP's and Western RPGs design-wise, yeah, the way it goes back to J-R-PGs is about the numbers, right? Western RPGs, as far as what the RPG-isms are,

usually leaned towards like the choices and like the, you know, I guess, party, like, how you treat party and all that stuff, right? Like, I saw somebody in chat earlier and say, how's this a JRP, but Red Dead Red Dead Redemption 2 isn't a JRP. And it's like, I don't think... Well, Japan. Yeah, like, Red Dead Redemption 2, take that up with like Fallout in Western RPGs and Western RPGs and it's like, like, I don't think... what those do as far as what makes it one or not. JRPGs as far as how they operate. Yeah, like the choices,

I'm so used to playing a persona or I'm so used to playing games that I'm making a dialogue choice, but I know my dialogue choice doesn't mean shit to this game. Which is a bummer in, because I think it just like, I, as I'm doing this and kind of annoyed by it,

there's still a part of me that's going, but maybe this is a dialogue on something. And maybe it's a, you know, you're the chosen one. Destiny will make the, make decisions for you anyway. I'm hoping there's like a deeper meaning, but I think it's just bad game design

if it's not that, you know? That makes sense. I'm hoping that like in another world where I finish this game and I play 80 hours of it and I roll credits on it that like by the end of it, I'm like, oh my God, that's the reason why none of my choices were letting me pick no, because there was always this guiding hand or whatever.

But I doubt that's the case. It's just kind of annoying to hit those spots. We've said a lot. We have. Have you guys talked about path actions? No. That's one thing that I saw on the store page for this game, where it seems like they make a bigger deal out of it, right? Use path actions to invite people to your town, engage in battle, and obtain items.

Where you go and what you do is entirely up to you. Greg, what is a path action? So path actions have been an Octopath from the get-go. They change them up a little bit here in terms of what it is. Like Octopath Traveler 2 is the one I'm most familiar with in terms of recency bias. But you would have your group with you and you'd have a thief with you and you'd have whoever could it, talk to them and interrogate them, whatever. And you can walk up to people in these towns.

And rather than hit A to get whatever general dialogue from them, you could hit the other button, and you would get the option to steal from them if you had your thief with you, to interrogate them, if you had whoever with you, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Now giving you your chosen one, they've boiled it all down there.

And I think personally, streamlined it in a way that I enjoy more. Again, when I would be hours into the other games, get a new person and have a new option, it was almost like, I don't want to steal from this guy. That's not what I would be. You know what I mean?

That's not the crew I'm running with kind of thing. So here they've boiled it down to what, it's investigate. Then it's either entreat, which is like you basically ask them for free stuff because you're the chosen one. You're here at up the town. It kind of. They may own like five items and you can buy them from them or you can haggle them down and it'll tell you.

Well, not even that yet. That's when you want to purchase. So I've been giving you the options here, right? Of the first ones to investigate, which is like you ask them. First off, you see what your success for, a chance for successes in all this stuff, right? So it's 100% for lots of times. It'll be 5% for somebody who's tough that you have to come back for. Yeah.

Anyways, you find out more information about them and also tell you what items they have. Then it's either going to be entreat where you can say, you don't actually say it, but go in there and try to get their stuff for free because I'm the chosen one. Why not give me this thing? Blah, blah, blah. There's another one, yeah, where you can buy things from them. But on top of just buying it, you can haggle from them. So you can go in there and you have a percentage chance of getting something at

off or, you know, dirt cheap or whatever. Then there's, you can ask them to come, or recruit them to come be a part of the, not your party, but one of your helpers, where you can say, hey, come be a, or that's higher, I guess, higher than, I don't know the difference. If you, so, I do. I just misspoke, sorry.

You can either, for some people, get them to come be a helper, which is in battle, you have a little tab there called helpers where you can do your move. You can use your magic spell. You can heal, you can do your physical attack, but you can also then do a helper attack, which would be, depending,

anything could be I'm going to give great sword damage I'm going to heal the entire party I'm going to raise criticals you do that it doesn't count as party it doesn't go against your turn so you get basically a bonus action from somebody you can pay for those people or you can actually just ask them depending on what the deal is and get them

then there's yeah the recruit people to come to the town come live with your town invite them to do that then there's another one where you can fight them to get stuff so there's like I guess the problem that I had was recruit and hire I couldn't tell the difference because you're still asking them to be a helper is you're recruiting them to be a helper and it's free

and then higher is you're paying them to be a helper and you have to pay me have coin gotcha gotcha so yeah so they they become the helpers which is a really cool system having those extra moves and it was that thing forever that I ignored like not ignored but like I filled up the helper team and I was like all right I never was thinking about using them and then late game when it is fuck I need to use this great bunch to hail the entire team but I can also at least get one in

to break that sometimes it comes down to that where it's like I just need one more hit to break the shield and this person, that, you know, entire section, right? Those two guys I can swap between on that turn. Neither of them are going to have the weakness. I guess there's three versions of it, because there's higher, you pay them, or you can haggle them, and there may be like 60% haggle success rate. So you could be like, hey, actually, I'm going to try to haggle you down, like, whatever you're charging. And if you fail, you'll get like a little negative tick, and it'll be like, hey, your town's reputation, your reputation when the town has dropped. And

if you fail four more times, then you can't really talk to NPCs. But 60%, that's pretty good. I might do it again. I failed again. I might do it again. All right, now I hired them for cheaper. Then there's recruit, which is for free, where you're just like, hey, come be a part of my squad. And then

there's impress, which is, I fight you to show you that you should like just be one of my helper guys, right? And they're not a part of your squad. They're not a part of your octopath. They're just a random dude. and the impress is really cool because you could get really strong dudes

to come through to like town guards and I fought one last night that was like I'm a level 26 and this dude was like a 32 I was able to beat him to felt great and now he's in my little helper squad and he's super strong and then the final one is invite

yeah right and the invite one is just like come be a part of wish veil back something I think that's interesting that I would call it from my personal experience And the reviews I was seen today, there was mention of grinding of like, it's a turn-based RPG that's going to be grinding. There was only one battle where I got my teeth kicked in and I'm like, I'm not strong enough.

So I then it wasn't even so much that I had to grind like I just ran around the open area. I went and did the other side stuff to go do that I had open. And I want to say the reason I think grinding wasn't a bigger deal for me was that everybody I could impress or fight or whatever I did. So I would stop and do that for every person that I would talk to and battle. So I think that kept me leveling at a better pace maybe than some reviewers. Andy, what are your final thoughts about Octopath Traveler Zero? A surprising video game really have enjoyed it.

If Night Rain weren't out in an hour, if Night Rain D.C. wasn't out an hour. And if Metroid Prime 4, it comes out Western. No. Yeah. No. Comes out of three. No. Oh, shit.

I didn't know that. So if Night Rain wasn't out. Very soon. I haven't finished it. Like, do I need to finish it to play the deal? No. Okay. You only need to be two bosses.

But like, yeah, if there weren't, if there weren't so many things, I mean, I'm surprised that I even put this much time into it because it, it is sticky. It grabs you. It, you want to learn the mysteries. You, once I got past the stuff, I didn't dig. Like, I was still coming across amazing story moments that kind of just get like, what the, like, in my bed alone with the, the X-real glasses that Tim lent me. his older ones, just like sitting there

and just be like, what the f this is like insane stuff. It's really good. I'll tell you after this, obviously, I was, but again, for that third movie, like the start of that third movie, there's a character they introduced voiced by someone that was like, what the fuck? Like, you know what I mean? Like, they're burying this post credits, like this entire thing that flips everything on its head, awesome.

Yeah, really, really enjoyable. I'm Neil Patrick Harris. I'm Neil Patrick Harris. I've come through a time portal. Stone Colt, one beer, two, Yeah, I think it's a very enjoyable game. I think if you dug any of the other octopath, it seems like this is going to be another one you're going to want to get. Greg, what are your final thoughts here?

Octopath Traveler Zero is a 9 out of 10. It's an amazing game. It's my current game of the year. I need to go back. I want to finish during break here. I guess just post this. I need to finish Donkey Kong Bonanza. I know I was enjoying quite a bit before I got sidelined on that.

But I'm so happy that I found this. I have felt broken as I've tried to talk about. not liking turn base and that not being really what encapsulated it and it's totally got me man I'm enjoying this so much I will continue to play this and I want to go back like I never did a live alive alive you know what I mean like I know you do I know you a lot yeah sorry live love love like there's I want to do that I but it's the same thing of these games are always so big there's always so many other things to go play see a stars I was enjoying and ended up stopping for a different review and never made my way back that's like a shorter it's like a 25 hour game

There you go. I see a star that should have gone back to. Yeah, yeah. Or I should have just played a period. That, you know. Yeah, this is one of those. I adore it. It's going to be criminally underplayed.

I think like they all are, but that's what makes them, you know, classics and cult classics like that. So, also pretty massive year for big, chunky quality games when we talk about Silk Song being 20 bucks,

Expedition 33 being $50 and this being $50. Really cool. Yeah, I didn't realize this is a $50 one. Yeah. Well, ladies gentlemen, M.S. Thank you so much for hanging out with us talking all about that Octopath Traveler Zero.

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