Triple Click - Playing Games At The Wrong Time

Episode Date: September 1, 2022

Who would our dream interview be? What's a "game as a service"? And have you ever played a video game at the wrong time? This week we open up the listener mailbag and take some of YOUR questions on all sorts of topics. Plus: why Kirk and Maddy are replaying the same games over and over and over and...One More Thing: Kirk: Persona 5 RoyalMaddy: Assassin’s Creed OriginsJason: The RehearsalLinks:Featuring excerpts from “Crossing the Hill” by Hitoshi Sakimoto from FF Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift, and “The Ideal and the Real” by Shoji Megoro from Persona 5 RoyalSupport Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinBuy a Triple Click t-shirt: https://topatoco.com/collections/maximum-fun/products/maxf-tc-tclogo-shJoin the Triple Click Discord: http://discord.gg/tripleclickpodTriple Click Ethics Policy: https://maximumfun.org/triple-click-ethics-policy/ Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointripleclick 🚀  SUPPORT TRIPLE CLICK:Join Maximum Fun | Buy TC Merch💬 JOIN THE TRIPLE CLICK DISCORD🎮 Triple Click Ethics Policy📱 SOCIALS | @tripleclickpodInstagram | YouTube | TikTok | Twitch

They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks, but you know what you can do? Play persona 5 over and over and over. Welcome to Triple League where we bring the games to you. This week we are opening up the listener mailbag and taking your questions on all sorts of things from persona 5 replays to games as a service. What are they? Let's find out. I'm Jason Shrier. I'm Kirk Hamilton.

And I'm Maddie Myers. Hello. Hello. Hello, it is us again. My two favorite gamers for another episode. Better call triple click. Did you know that you have rights? Yeah, why wasn't that our ad?

You're given ideas away, Jason. That's true. We just recorded that new ad. That'll be our next year. And people would be like, why is this video game podcast mimicking Better Call Saul, the TV show? And they'd have to listen to find out more about why that is. to learn why that might be. Better click thrice.

Well, okay. We'll work on it. We'll workshop. Yeah. If you want to help us support more of these catchy slogans like better click thrice, you too can become a max fun member today. Hey, did you guys know that we're entirely listeners supported that we don't have any advertisements on this show, so we rely on.

I had no idea. I haven't been thinking about it at all. On our dear listeners to help us make this thing possible. So it's true. We only can do the show because of all of you fine supporters out there, and we very much appreciate all of that support. You too can become a Maximum Fund member and help us make the show possible by going to maximum fund.org slash join.

And in addition to helping make this show possible, you also got some cool extra bonus content. You get a monthly bonus episode from us, including our most recent one, which just went up earlier this week, which is a big old beans cast, aka Spoiler Cast on Better Call Saul, the spectacular TV show. I think definitely one of the best bonus episodes we've done. I really enjoyed that one.

It was really fun. Fun show to talk about. I didn't know where that conversation would go when we started, and I just feel like I was, I was listening back to it someone. I'm like, this is pretty good. This is a good conversation. You guys will not be shocked to hear that I've rewatched that ending courtroom sequence over and over again every single day for the past like three weeks.

It's great. You just have a TV with that dedicated on a loop in your living room. It's pretty, it's pretty good. Man, just all the subtlety. I have replayed those final shots in my mind a lot. Like, I've just kept thinking about that show. If people need motivation to watch all six seasons, let us be your motivation, you know? Oh, my goodness.

Let all of us tell you. And even if you haven't watched Breaking Bad as Maddie came to test. Yeah, of course. So worth watching. Stans alone. One more thing before we get into the meat of the episode. episode, we are doing a book club. Yeah.

Triple read, Jason. We are doing a triple read. Next week, better read thrice. Next week, next week, next week, we are going to be talking about the book Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. And we're only reading it because it says tomorrow three times in the title. Exactly. And we triple tomorrow.

Yeah, triple tomorrow. Yeah, she should have just called it triple tomorrow. Yeah, yeah. It's a really cool book. I finished it last week. really, really good. It's about game developers and very video game, lots of video game references, and in fact, a certain book by a triple-click co-host is referenced in the thank you pages, like as part of the acknowledges. Which co-host's book was referenced. You'll have to read tomorrow and tomorrow to find out. It is actually my published Dragon Age fanfic, which is the first acknowledgement at the end of the book. I was surprised to see it. Who's that, who's your Dragon Age fanfic about?

It's my Iron Bull fanfic. Yeah, you're Freddie Vince Jr. Red fanfic. Honestly, if you're going to write fanfic about one Dragon Age character, probably, probably it. It's a great book. Everyone should go check it out, and yeah, we'll be talking about it in-depth. Next week, we'll be spoiling it.

So that's a good, that's an episode that you'll want to be caught up on the book for. Even if you're not, should be fun to listen to, regardless, because there are a lot of just interesting game developer stuff, a lot of interesting themes of love and loss and friendship. and it's just a really good book. Really enjoyed it. Creative strife, stress, etc. Yes.

Yes. Yes. I'm always, I'm a sucker for, as better can call Saul can attest. I'm a sucker for any sort of like love story that goes on for years and years. I'm just a sucker for that. Leftovers. Love story plus career drama, partnership drama. It's great stuff.

Yeah, unrequited love story too. Anyway, we'll get to that next week. Now on to the episode. this week we are doing a burning questions. So we are answering some questions from all of you fine listeners out there. Wow, you help us make the show possible and you give us questions. I love it. It's just really nonstop.

Just appreciation for the listeners. Just a reminder, before we get into it, you can always reach us at triple click at maximum fun.org. Send us your questions. Send us your best, your weirdest questions. I really, we always appreciate the ones that go a little outside. of the box as opposed to the like, how did you get your start as game journalists, which is like fine, but like we've answered that a million times. So ask the questions that we probably haven't

seen before and you'll be more likely. Right. Like how did you get your end as games journalists? And then we like have to predict the future. Well, Kirk can already answer that that's true. Is a podcaster or a journalist? I would say he's a games critic now on a podcast. We've forced him to continue to play video games for work. So it's true. And you can keep forcing him to by going to Maximum Fund Benoics. Okay, Maddie, why don't you start us off? Let's get into some questions. Sure. So this first one is from Henry, who writes,

Hi, Jason, Maddie and Kirk. I'm a longtime listener of Kataku split screen and really enjoy everything you do. On the Triple Click Podcast, thank you for continuing to churn out great content. My question for this week... Yeah, we love to churn. I love to churn content. It's my favorite thing. My question is for this week is how you guys find the time and focus on playing through Persona 5 Royal after beating Persona 5 once already.

Persona 5 was a masterpiece, but after spending 120 hours in my playthrough, I find it very intimidating to dive back into the same game, which consists of even more content. Thank you. And by the way, press reset is a fantastic book. That's true. It is. You're right, Henry. So, Kirk, this is a question for you.

And Jason, it's also a question for you. Yeah, both of us have like somehow, I knew as soon as Kirk started replaying Persona 5 that he would stick with it. But yeah, Kirk, you take this one first. Yeah, I guess I've been playing Persona 5 Royal most recently. It's actually going to be my one more thing. For most of your life, yeah. So it does feel that way.

So I'll save my thoughts on the game for that a little bit. But this is an interesting question about replaying games, and in particular replaying long games. And yeah, so Persona 5 Royal, for those who don't know, is Persona 5, which is the game that I played through and reviewed in 2017, is that right? for Kotaku back in the day, played it before it came out, kind of blasted through it in a few weeks of kind of hazy weeks.

And my main memory is that I had injured my back and I was lying on my back with my leg up, like stretching my lower back playing remote play on Avita for like dozens and dozens of hours. So anyways, I played it then and now here we are in 2022 and I'm playing through Royal. And Royal is a new version of the game that adds a bunch more stuff, some small stuff, little combo finisher moves, some small tweaks to combat. It kind of smooths out combat and makes it more fun and better in a lot of subtle and unsubtle ways. And also adds new characters and I think a whole new month to the calendar. If you do stuff right, I still haven't gotten to any of that stuff, a new dungeon.

So there's kind of a lot. A new semester to this game that is already, yeah, as Henry says, 120 hours if you play it the long ways. So, yeah, I'm finding at least, I've been playing this game for months. I mean, I'm still playing it, and I've been playing it on Steam Deck, which I think makes a big difference for me, at least with replaying games this year, because I've replayed a lot of things on Steam Deck and I've been finding... You should know that you're streaming it from PS4. Oh, yeah, right.

I mean, soon people will be able to play this natively on Steam Deck when it comes out on Steam in October. But, yeah, I've been streaming it using Chiaki from the PlayStation 5, which works great, and, you know, I can only play it at home, but I'm at home a lot and just sit on the couch and play it while Emily watches TV or something. And that's made it a much more low-impact way of playing it. Like the first time that I played this game, I was really dedicated because I knew it was very long and I had to write a review. This time, I know how it ends. I'm in no hurry, and I'm sitting on the couch.

So I just will play like half an hour or an hour each night. And I'm finding it really fits well into how I'm feeling right now when it comes to gaming. Like I'm not actually up for a game like Eldon Ring that's new and a game. requires a ton of focus and attention. So it's been kind of nice to just cruise through this game that's, you know, it goes down really easy, especially once you know how combat works and what you're doing. It just sort of goes and goes and goes and goes. And yeah, for this game, at least, it's worked in that way for me.

Yeah, so I think a couple of thoughts on Persona Five, which I, so I started replaying Royal and then played through all of it, actually just right when the pandemic started, because that's when Persona Five Royal came out. So that was like a good time. to be playing a game about repetitive, doing the same thing every day and like following a routine. And it was funny, there was one point I thought, there was a line of dialogue where it was like,

it's flu season. So make sure you put on your mask. I remember that. Masks and stuff. Really surreal. But I think there are a couple of things that make percent of five in particular very replayable. And then, Mandy, I'll throw it to you to get kind of overall thoughts

and like why you would replay a game. but I think Percenta 5 in particular, when is the vibe of it? It's got a very cozy vibe, the music and the menus and the coffee shop and the curry. And it's just got this sense of home that I think if you're really into the game, you just really enjoy spending time in that world. And I think that can be a good reason to play. That's one of the reasons that so many people are enamored of games like Stardue Valley and like Animal Crossing is just like it feels like your second home.

and I think persona vibe, this by being a very different type of game, has those same vibes. The second thing is I think that it really, to your point, Kirkker, it really suits a replay. It's really suitable for replays because A, it's got a specific structure to it where you can just be like, okay, I'm just going to do a couple days here, a couple days there, and then stop. And B, you can make a lot of different choices every single day. You're just constantly making choices of like, okay, am I going to. I go spend time with this confid on or this confid on or what am I going to do today. And so you can make a play-through feel pretty different the second time.

Yeah, you know, actually, to that just really quickly, the one thing that I'm finding in my play-through is that because of the power-ups that I have, I can play through dungeons in a single go. And the dungeons are where I lose momentum and I'll take long periods of time away because each time I pick up the game, it's just go straight through the dungeon and keep going and going and going and they take, you know, several hours to get through. And so that's where I'm not making decisions and I do kind of lose interest. Yeah. Yeah. So Maddie, as a non-percent of it, like, what drives you to replay a game? Yeah, I love replaying games, which is part of why I like this question. And I mean, I never beat persona five, but I played enough of it that I totally

understand why somebody would replay it. And I feel like I had a similar feeling as soon as I beat Eldon Ring. I immediately wanted to replay Eldon Ring. And of course, the game, the fact that New Game Plus even exists and so many games just plays into that sensation, that sort of sense of, oh, I don't actually want this experience to end. I want to keep hanging out in this environment. Like in persona, it's really specific what the fantasy is. Like, there are these very charming high school students. You're sort of reminded of what it's like to be a teenager, the stresses of that, but also just the magical aspects. of having a mask and who you truly are.

And I don't know, there's the Buffy the Vampire Slayer aspects of it all. I mean, that all works great. But I just, I think it's the vibes. I don't think it's like, oh, I'm having the sensation of replaying it again so that I can get better at it. Or that's usually not why I'm replaying a game. Like, I've done that. But even when I think back, like, I replayed the Gears of War one and two a lot. And part of that was because I just enjoyed it.

playing them on harder levels, but I also just thought Marcus Phoenix was like a very funny character and I just enjoyed how stupid that game was. And I like enjoyed the vibe of that game, especially when I was sad. And I was just like, I just want something that has a really specific dumb vibe to it. It's like rewatching, I don't know, law and order or something very procedural where you know what's going to happen. And there's nothing like video games when it comes to that, especially when you already know where everything is and where the dungeon is and how to beat it. And that's just really, really comforting in a way that even just watching a TV show for a second time doesn't quite scratch the same edge as just literally replaying a game that you know everything about. I used to replay a lot of old JRPs for similar reasons.

Yeah. I mean, we all replayed Zelda together. I mean, like there's certain things about it that are just, it's you remember it. You remember who you were when you first played it. and then how different you are. And I don't know. It's just, there's something about it. And I'm a rewatcher, too.

I'm actually rewatching Daredevil right now because Jason talked about it. And it's fun to rewatch things, just like it's fun to replay things, because it lets me relax a little bit and just appreciate the craft and sort of study it more critically. Oh, yeah. And I'm just a huge fan of doing that, obviously. And that is like a great pleasure of replaying games. Sometimes, you know, it's nice to be better at the game, to replay Bloodborne. for example and to just feel like I have more mastery over it.

But then that also lets me relax and appreciate just how cool the encounter design is and the level design and just sort of see the bigger picture, which I at least find very rewarding. And that's true across all media in different ways. Kirk, you should replay Returnal and try to beat it fewer than seven deaths. If it comes on on PC, I might replay it this time. Well, see how I do with all those patches. They made it harder. Oh, that's true.

I don't know if I could do seven deaths again. I didn't know they made it harder. They made it harder? Jesus. Yeah, they got rid of some of the healing the healing tricks you could do. You know, that was what everybody said about Returnal. It wasn't hard about it.

Yeah, it wasn't hard enough. Please make it harder. Too easy. One more point on Percent of 5. Percent of 5 Royal adds a new character and a new, like, as you said, Kirk, a whole new section, but it's at the very end of the game. But it's like teased throughout the game. So one of the first things you see is this new character.

You meet her several times. You meet the doctor who is another new character. It does a good job. of hooking you into the new stuff and making you want to play through the whole game so you can eventually get to the new stuff because the new stuff is exciting enough that it'll make you want to play through it. So that's another reason that a lot of people replayed all a person with five. A little bit manipulative, but it does work. Well, I mean, it's, it's effective. Anyway, let's get to the next question. Kirk, your turn. This question comes from Jen. Jen writes, high triple click.

First off, I'd like to start a petition that Kirk changed his last name to rhyme with Maddie and Jason's last name. I think about this every intro. I will now think about this every intro, and I've never thought about it until Jen's email. But I can imagine if it's I'm Maddie Myers, I'm Jason Shire, and I'm Kirk of the Shire. I'm Kirk Hamle Shire. Right. You want it to be something that rhymes. Humire. Unfortunately, my middle name is Carlson, so nothing to do in there.

Okay, anyways, back to Jen's question. Jen writes, I'm hoping that you can explain games as a service. I hear that phrase a ton as I'm listening to different video game content, and I have absolutely no idea what it means. Thanks for everything you do. I especially wanted to throw a thank you to Maddie for being a female voice in gaming. It's rare that I get to hear other women talk about video games, and I've learned about some of my absolute favorite games from her recommendations on this show. I appreciate everything that you all do.

Thanks, Jen. Also, thanks for plaguing us with the earworm of our names not rhyming. Yeah, I know. That's definitely something we're going to remember for the rest of our lives. Also, I really feel for Jen with this question, because games as a service is such a stupid term. And it's a great example of the thing we talked about in our pilot episode where there's like certain language that is just part of games as a culture.

And this is one of those terms where we use it all the time. And I don't even think about it anymore. But it's like a marketing term. And it's like a corporate. It came from software as a service. Yeah. And that's where it originally came, which is the idea of like you just, you have to have a subscription or you have to like keep paying.

for licenses to something. Like Adobe, like how Adobe programs work now where you have to pay for a subscription to use Photoshop. You can hear the disdain in my voice. Pro Tools and Sebelius. So many music programs. Nobody owns anything anymore, man. You don't even own anything. So, okay. So the

idea is it's kind of a nebulous term because it can be used to apply to a lot of things. But in general, what it means is that a game, instead of just selling you a product and then moving on to the next product, a company will release a game and then continue working on And you see that the most classical example of that is multiplayer games, like a Fortnite or an MMO or World of Warcraft or really anything that's continually updated.

And then the other part of that on the part that makes investors slobber all over the term is that they're monetized to sell you things. They're monetized in a way that is like long term. So they want to sell you things over time. It could be subscriptions. It could be microtransactions. It could be battle passes. It could be loop boxes. It could be all sorts of stuff.

And so that's the kind of like the general term is that this is a game that isn't just like you play it once and then you're done with it. It is a game that is just like constantly evolving and getting new patches. And then the borders are kind of like blurred because a lot of games these days are getting patches and getting updated. But in general, a game like this, the game is a service, it usually has some sort of multiplayer component and it usually is like monetized for the long term. It's like a game where they want you to keep spending money on it for months after release. I think that's the gist of it. Yeah, I'd say the term is usually used as a pejorative. And you'll see it written as gas, G-A-A-S, since that's the acronym for it.

And because it's a kind of corporate term and it's used as a way of describing how we're going to get money off of this game, you don't actually see it used to describe games that do constant updates if those constant updates are free. For example, No Man's Sky, you could describe it as being games as a service, but that's not really how people describe it because that's not what Hello Games is trying to do. They're just apparently going to release stuff for that game forever and just keep making it better. And it's all free and they're not really interested in charging for it. And you don't see people use the term because I do think the term has a lot of weight and it has that kind of pejorative quality. Kirk, it's funny you say that because it just speaks to your kind of bubble of the world of the internet versus is my bubble of the internet. So because

I've been at Bloomberg for the past couple of years, one of my jobs at Bloomberg is listening to earnings calls and covering quarterly financial reports. So I will write up some numbers and a press release from a publicly traded company like EA or Activision or Take 2 and I will listen to

their CEO, brief investors on their quarterly calls every three months. And they talk about games as a service all the time in an opportunity. Yeah, in a very positive way. Because it's just a corporate term. Like it's just a term that they would So EA, I believe the stat, I'm saying this is off the top of my head, so I'm sorry if this is wrong, but I believe the stat I saw most recently is that 71% of EA's revenue in some most recent fiscal year or fiscal quarter came from their service games. And so that speaks to why this has become such a trend.

And so with EA, it's like FIFA Ultimate Team and like Apex Legends is a big one that's a free to play game that is monetized over time. And so, yeah, it's in a very different world if you're covering the publicly traded companies in the way that Bloomberg does. It is used very differently on earnings calls versus gamer forums where I hang out. Exactly, versus social media versus Discord versus gamer forums for sure. One thing I will say is that they've really, we don't have to harp too much on this, but games of the service, in addition to the monetization side of things, they really transform the way that game developers function and like. Sometimes for the better in the sense. that you have a longer-term job

where you're just, you're working on Fortnite and you will be for the foreseeable future. Not that, I mean, people have reported crunch there as well, so maybe that's not a great example. Well, it's less about crunch and more about layoffs than the layoffs cycles that constantly hit these companies. And like, so if you go to work at Bungee right now,

you're working on a game that came out in 2017 unless you're on a new project. But if you go to work on Destiny 2, you're working on a game that came out five years ago, but it's constantly updated because it's a game as a service. But yeah, it's really transformed the industry this whole concept of games as a service. And unlike, for example, NFTs and that weird trend, games of service are here to stay.

And that's kind of like a, that's a trend we're going to be seeing for many years to come is this idea. And then there's a lot of talk of like, and the three of us have talked about this of like oversaturation of games as a service and how nobody has time to play more than one of them. And how is that going to affect things, especially as new ones, continue to come out. We saw with Anthem and then the Avengers that. it's really hard to gain traction and like really become a successful game as a service. So yeah, lots to talk about there. It's an interesting world. But that's the gist of what it actually is.

Yeah. All right. Let's do another question. Here is Corey. Corey says as people in or adjacent to the games industry, definitely adjacent. We are not in the games industry. How do you filter through the slog of things people say you quote unquote have to check out? Do you generally find the games slash books slash other stuff that are generally recommended to you as opposed to advertise turn out enjoyable?

How would you recommend someone separate the wheat from the chaff without just buying everything to try it out? I thought about this. So Corey prefaced this question by saying that they're kind of susceptible to recommendations and find themselves just sort of getting new stuff because they hear someone talking about it on YouTube or on a podcast or something. And I have this feeling sometimes in the world of music when it comes to musical gear, actually, have this feeling too. And I think that my approach to that might be helpful for just broader recommendations. So the way I try to think about it when I'm at my best is I want to have a specific goal first, and then I look at what recommendations I've kind of been entertaining or looking at,

and then see which of those recommendations fulfill the goal. So in the case of a game, I might be thinking, what I really want to do right now is just play a really thought-provoking puzzle game. And then I'll think, okay, so what were the recommendations I was recently hearing? about, because I'll have like a big list or just, you know, I'll have in my head the things people are recommended. And then I'll be like, oh yeah, there was that one puzzle game that so-and-so was telling me to check out, and I'll play that. And it's the same with guitar, you know, or whatever. It's like, oh, I really want like a really cool delay pedal because I want to play this specific sound and like make this kind of song. And then you kind of trace that back

to, okay, well, what is like a really cool delay pedal I want to get? Rather than just, if you just watch YouTube or listen to podcasts or whatever in gear as well. as in games, you'll just have a lot of people being like, this is awesome, you gotta get it, you gotta check it out, and if you just go with that. This is game of the year, got to play it now. And like this pedal, oh man, this overdrive pedal sounds so good. And you're like, I have like four overdrive pedals, I don't need that.

You know, it's so it helps to kind of go past the thing and get to where you actually want to be and then reverse engineer it. How many of your podcasts are talking about overdrive? I don't listen to Gear Podcasts, I guess, but on YouTube, it's all I do is watch YouTube videos about overdrive pedals. This is why Kirk doesn't go on Instagram anymore. It's just endless reels of people recommending overdrive pedals. It is.

I'm not even kidding. That's really what it is. Yeah. My hack is that I, well, I have so many friends. I'm so popular. But I only have a few friends where I really agree with their media taste. You guys know what I'm talking about. And it doesn't mean I'm better friends with them.

I mean, there's certainly people that are on this very show where I really disagree with them about certain video games they're like. But, but there are... Are you saying that you're not going to play the new Trails game? Trails to Zero. I don't know. I didn't... I don't know.

But there are people I know where I'm like, if this person and these two people really like this thing, I'm probably going to love it. And I'm sure you guys have that calculus as well. And it's obviously taken me years of trial and error to figure that out. So this is kind of a poor recommendation for Corey. but that legitimately is how I find movies, TV shows, books, games that I really like is usually because I follow like enough critics or friends or like, oh, Maddie, this one is the one you're going to really like. But I also have the luxury of having a job where I have to get outside my comfort zone sometimes and try things I didn't necessarily know or think I was ever going to like and I can try them in a really low-stakes way because usually I'm getting them for free. So that means I also can take a risk on something where I'm like, I don't know anything about this at all. And then maybe I love it or don't.

But sometimes I'm like, I know about this and I think I'm going to hate it. And then I don't. And that's something that someone like Corey doesn't have the luxury of where it's like there's no reason for me to try this other than, you know, just editorial judgment and enjoying trying things. And then I end up loving it. So I don't know, maybe just try being games journalist and getting a bunch of games for free. I feel like that might either help or hurt. I don't know. Jason, what about you?

How do you decide? Yeah, I feel like there are a lot of ways. I don't know. I don't really have a method other than word of mouth and just being like, hey, what's like if someone tells me if like Russ Fresh Dick excitingly DMs me about something, I'll be like, okay, I'll check this out. But like, well, games I kind of see is different than other media because games, I like to play everything just for the sake of my job and this podcast.

But like books or TV shows or other stuff, yeah, I don't really have a system, just word of mouth or like reading the New York Times book review and like seeing what seems interesting. I find that like resources like the library help because then you can just try stuff without actually having to buy it, which is nice. And same with all these bazillion streaming services. Like if you have, I mean, I happen to have a couple of go-to ones like Netflix and HBO and then Disney Plus and then I'll just go. through them and be like, oh, okay. I mean, like, there's no real barrier for entry that, like, that is blocking me from trying this out. So I might as well just try it out. But yeah, I don't really have a good answer to this question, unfortunately, other than, like, if I'm hearing enough buzz about it, if enough people on my Twitter feed are talking about this one show or this one

book or this one book is pretty rare, but this one game, then I guess I got to go check it out. I got to be part of the zeitgeist. Got to know what everyone's talking about. So I definitely succumb to that, that kind of peer pressure part of this whole equation. That was always what my grandma said about any trashy media that she would ever consume. And I think about her excuse all the time when I'm watching trash is, well, it's what everyone's talking about. She would always be like, I'm not personally interested in this at all, but it is what everyone's talking about, which I found hilarious. I have spent way too much money on games just because a bunch of people were talking about him, even though I knew I would have no interest in them. and I bought him and just like never played them or played him for an hour.

Well see, I don't. I try not to do that. Especially when before I started working in games media or like at the very beginning of my games media career. That's when I did it. Same. That's what I try to avoid now. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. All right.

Next question. Maddie here. Okay. Kyle writes, Hello, triple click, but maybe mostly Jason. I would agree with you, Kyle. My favorite game of all time. No, Kirk, too.

Well, that's true. Is Final Fantasy. tactics. I've been looking for a game like it since it came out, and I haven't been able to get into anything, even stuff like triangle strategy. Am I not able to find anything because nothing exists and I'm chasing an impossible dream? Why is Final Fantasy tactics out of all my favorite games, the only game I've had this experience with? I am curious, Jason, because I know you, you liked Triangle Strategy, right? So this might be a stumper from Kyle. What do you think? Well, triangle strategy is a different type of game. A lot of these games are a lot of strategy RPG's

Fire Emblem triangle strategy. There are a lot that have come out in recent years. And none of them are really recreating the Final Fantasy tactics formula in the same way. Like there's something about the alchemy of Final Fantasy tactics, whether it's the party composition and the customization of that combined with the story, combined with the sprawling scope of it all and how it unfolds over years and years across like massive countries and like it takes 70 hours to play through the whole thing.

just some, there's some winning formula in that whole, and the music and art and everything. There's a real winning formula in that whole combination. That said, I was recently talking to a game developer buddy a few months ago, and we were lamenting the fact that like no other studio or game developer has been like, why don't we just copy this exact formula of Final Easy Tactics and make a game like that? Because it could really work pretty well. It is a shame that has a...

All of said, also, there's a game called Tactics, Ogre that was Matsuno, the director of Final Fantasy Taxis, directed that a couple years before. It's almost like a prototypical Final Fantasy Tactics, and that game is actually getting a remake on consoles and PC later this year. So that could be a good kind of satiate the craving while you wait for the Final Fantasy Tactics remaster, which I think is probably going to come next year. So there's some games that'll satiate the craving. But yeah, there's something quite like it. I'm excited for Tactics Oger. I played the original and liked that game. You know, I would say one thing, maybe Kyle has already played this,

but I actually really like Final Fantasy Tactics A2. I didn't play Advance. I'm not sure the difference between the two, but A2 is on DS, and that was the first Final Fantasy Tactics that I played. Kind of the first Final Fantasy game that I played, maybe. I just randomly played it on DS a long time ago. It's really good. It has that FF12 music. That's just this incredible score.

And I love that game. And it is Final Fantasy Tactics. I think it's different in some ways. But if you haven't played that and you have a 3DS or a DS, you could give it a shot. Well, it's a very different game. All the classes are different. All the races are different. What happened was, like, Evil-Lis, which is the world of FF12.

Tactics A2 is set in that same world. The world of Final Fantasy Tactics is called Evilist also, but it's like a very different version. Like, it changed over time. It's a little confusing. But, yeah, some of the same people. worked on them all. And yeah, Matsuno, the director of tactics, went on to direct 12, at least for a while before he left the company. Right.

I just think Kyle should check out StarCraft too. It was pretty good. StarCraft too, another good option. This has actually been a pretty wild year if you're like a fan of strategy RPGs because there's like a bunch of new ones coming. There's Deo Field Chronicle, which is another strategy RPG coming. Tactics Ogre, like I mentioned. Yeah, like a few of them. Deofield, I think, comes out. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Next question. Kirk, do you want to read this next one? Sure thing. This comes from Nathan. Nathan writes, hello. I am a big fan of the show and I have been listening for the last year and a half. First, I want to say congratulations to Jason on his new son. I have two kids of similar ages,

two and a half years and six months. So it's pretty cool to occasionally hear what you have to say on parenting and gaming. A question that I have. Have ever felt like you played a video game at the wrong time? For me, Outer Wilds was kind of meh, and I think it has to do with timing. I was in the middle of playing it when my second son was born two weeks early.

After that, I had much less free time and in shorter spurts. I felt frustrated when I couldn't make any meaningful progress in my 30-minute chunks of free time. Ultimately, I ended up using guides, which I think hurt my overall experience, even though it's a game that I thought I'd love. This is a great question. Yeah, have either of you played a game at the wrong time? Yeah, I just want to say using guides for Outer Wilds really does for an experience. And also playing for 30 minute chunks would be so tricky.

It would be frustrating. I'm imagining how frustrating that would be. You have to be willing to just sort of throw away a run in that game and then try again. And if you couldn't, it would be frustrating. Yeah, absolutely. I feel like I've talked about my examples before, but I can mention them again. Dark Souls is the big one where I tried it. And I was like, this is stupid.

And everybody, it's too hard. And I don't understand this. And there's the same skeleton a thousand times. probably 2012, 2011, like early on. When it came out. Yeah. But it had been hyped still, even though it was like relatively soon after it came out. It was like, you know, post-Demon Souls world.

Like I had some friends who were into Demon Souls. And I knew a guy who was really into Dark Souls and was like really selling me on it. And I just was like, I don't get this. And I'm annoyed by this entire culture. And then years later, I think Dark Souls is awesome. And people kind of had the chance to hear me go through this with Final Fantasy 7 on this show, like early in this show, because I played remake after mocking Final Fantasy 7 for many years of my life for being fine. And then I replayed Final Fantasy 7, like the actual game on my phone. And then I played it on my switch and I like restarted it because I was like, I want to keep playing it.

And I never actually beat it because it's hard to beat final. Middle viz seven. Pretty long. But I have a lot more respect for it now than I did then. And in my case, I guess both examples are people described the game to me wrong and overhyped the wrong things about it to me. And I went in with both misconceptions and also I think it really was the wrong time for me on Dark Souls.

I think I just wasn't in the right head space for it at that time. Again, you have to really be patient and be willing to lose a run. I mean, it's kind of similar to Outer Wilds in that way. where you just have to be okay with vibing and I'm not always in the mood for that so those are my examples yeah I've talked about this on the show before but three years ago when we were still

at katakas wood screen and my daughter was born Death Stranding came out and there's a baby crying in the controller and I was like my goodness my goodness this is not the right time you hated it that was so funny I remember that I remember that it would like give me like oh it was just like triggering like to hear of it You hated the climbing too, though.

I feel like it was like the baby noise was the reason you hated it, but then because of that, you extrapolated that out to being everything about it was frustrating. And it is an intentionally frustrating game. Right. It's a game about struggling. Yeah. It's a hard game.

I can see that. Yeah. And Jason was tired and struggling and didn't enjoy doing that in a video game for some reason. I don't know why. And that's happened to me. It's happened to me with a bunch of games that are less dramatic than that. one probably ruined death's threatening me for me forever. But it's happened to me in other points where I just have not been in the mood or the headspace to play a game and then try to pick it

up later. I think because especially when you're starting a new game with all new mechanics and all new world, you really have to be in the headspace to just learn things and like be prepared to just kind of not just zone out but be actively thinking and teaching yourself mechanics and stuff. And sometimes a person is just not in the mood for that. Sometimes you just want to zoned out on the couch or like play StarCraft 2 where you played it a bazillion times of horror or replay a game replay a persona 5 or whatever you just don't want to learn something new and so that's happened to me quite a few times but um revisiting that same game later on especially when there's word or mouth that is like oh you got to stick with this you got to try this out that that

always uh always helps yeah if you come to mind for me um i i played demon souls when it first came out in 2009 and definitely bounced off of it. And I think I was not ready for that kind of game, and it wasn't until Bloodborn that I was. So yeah, I think that's a pretty common one. One for me is after Destiny. Like my video game life is sort of divided into BD and A.D. Before Destiny and after Destiny, because that was just such a huge amount of my gaming time. It was a game I just, Jason, you and I both played so much together, played home. hundreds of hours, really got into it, learned how to write about a service game to call back to an earlier question. In that small part, we played hundreds of hours because of each other.

We enabled each other's. Yes, we did. Yeah, the two of us and our friends really, a lot of social pressure there. So, and yeah, I mean, I played so much of it and burned out pretty hard. I was fairly addicted to the game for a little while. And as a result, there have been times where I play a game that either has some similarities with Destiny or is specifically designed to be like Destiny. Warframe comes to mind as a game that I was, you know, I thought I'd pick it up and try it. I was still like Kotaku at the time. It seemed like it'd be a good game to cover and it was popular and fun. I played a little bit of it and it was pretty fun and I know people really like Warframe, people got excited that I had started writing about it. And then I just had to put it

because I could not do it. I couldn't play another MMO-style service game with an endless grind and tons of loot after Destiny, especially so soon after Destiny. But I still have that feeling I started feeling that way with Assassin's Creed Valhalla, too. Really, any game now that is just tons of endless content and grinding, I just eventually, it is the wrong time because it is AD. It is after destiny. And if it falls in that time, which is from now until the rest of my life, I will never really be able to play that kind of game.

And then the last one that comes to mind, which I've talked about a few times in the show, is Rocksmith, the guitar teaching game, because I played that for the first time as a game's critic who played music and had learned guitar, but wasn't like actively practicing guitar at the time. And I thought it was okay, but I was sort of pretty conflicted about the way that it was teaching and the sort of gamification of music education.

Now, all these years later, I play a lot more guitar. I'm practicing guitar. I'm taking lessons. I've played some Rocksmith, and it's great. I think that that kind of like gamified lesson has been really normalized, especially with guitar. There's tons of apps that let you plug in a guitar and teach you, and it's a really good way to teach basics.

So I've really come around on it, and I think I was just thinking of things differently. It was just kind of the wrong time. I was in the wrong headspace the first time I played it. It happens. Okay, this one's a quick one. So let's go through it real quick. This is from Garrett. Garrett says, seeing as you three have experience to some degree or another with interviewing game developers. I was wondering if you have a dream interview you'd love to have someday. It could be a developer that you admire more as a fan or maybe a developer you have a hunched of juicy stuff to write about. Who would it be? Is there any reason why you'd pick that developer in particular? I have a few. Well, so for me,

it wouldn't be a journalistic interview. It wouldn't be where I sit down and talk to someone on the record, because that puts things in a certain, like, energy level. It causes a certain vibe. They're on the record. Everything is more formal. It would be, can I just be hanging out with this person in a totally off the record way, having a drink, or we're a little loose and talking? And that would be Hittitake Miyazaki, the director of the Souls Games. I think that man is fascinating. He doesn't give very many interviews. When he does give them, they're very interesting. He's a very open, thoughtful person. And I think that off the record, just talking to him about why he makes games the way that he does. And his vision of video games, it just seems like

the conversation could go any of a million directions. And I would love to have that conversation. And also assuming that we're both just fluently speaking Japanese or fluently speaking English, whichever language is necessary. Since we're fantasizing here. Okay. So you both have like the babblefish in your ear. Yes. We've both had a babel fish. Yes. okay. Maddie, what about you? I mean, I was assuming this is not only anyone living or dead, but also time travel is involved. So I just was like, sure, it's a time travel for game developers. Why not? I mean, so our co-worker at Kataku Cecilia did some reporting about women who worked at

Atari way back in the day. And I mean, of course, people remember things differently when a lot of time has passed. And I always thought that was fascinating to think about in the way, that women who worked in the industry felt really early on when it was actually happening was probably pretty different from how they feel about it in the social context that we exist in now. So I feel like that would be really fascinating. I mean, it's impossible to do. But it's the kind of thing that I wish there were more records of that, especially because like early on games weren't necessarily socially coded as like a male hobby.

And there was this time period where just it seemed like any way. one could make a game and computers could be accessible to anyone and it was really exciting. And that's not a time period I lived through. It's just what I've read about. So I don't know, I don't really have a specific name, I guess, but also Hideki Kimia as in the bayonetta guy is really funny. So that's my like boring answer where I'm like, he'd probably be fun to talk to as well. You probably wouldn't be. Yeah, that would be super interesting. Yeah, those are my answers. The women of the 80s. Yeah, the lady arcaders of days gone by. I'm Jason, how about you?

Yeah, I mean, I think I've talked to you a lot of my quote-unquote dream interviews already, but the one that has always gotten away is Shigarami Amoto, the, of course, iconic creator of Mario and Zelda and such. I did, I once did like a group interview where like I got to ask one question of him, but I never done like a real proper sit down with him. And he's done a million interviews, so I doubt I would even like have some questions. that he hasn't been asked like a dozen times before, but still it's not like with that generation of people getting older, there are only so many opportunities you get to like sit down and meet,

meet the icons of game development. And I think it's also telling that all three of us, you sort of pick Japanese game developers. I think that's because like English-speaking game developers, anyone, any of us could really just email it any time. And then many cases... We have done. We have had those interviews and those opportunities.

But the dream is like, part of it is the translation barrier. And then it's also just the fact that it's much easier for PR people to be withholding when they're across an ocean and several time zones. A lot of barriers. It's just harder to really get to a really cool interview in those circumstances. Yes. Yeah. Whereas, yeah, like if we wanted to interview a U.S. legend like Tim Schaefer, we'd be like, hey, Tim, come on our podcast. Yeah, we've done that.

That's happened. Okay, cool. So thank you to everybody who sent in questions. Just a reminder once again, you can send in questions to triple click. At maximum fun.org. Send us your best ones. Let's take a break and we'll be back for one more thing. This week, the greatest discovery becomes Greatest Trek.

That's because Greatest Trek is for way more than just discovery. We're the hit show on Maximum Fun that covers all the new Star Trek shows. Lower decks, strange new worlds, Card, Prodigy, Discovery, and any other Star Trek show Paramount throws at us. Come check it out for our funny and formative recaps of all the new stuff this Star Trek industrial complex churns out. It's in your podcatcher every Tuesday. Subscribe to Greatest Trek.

It's a new Star Trek podcast from The Makers of the Greatest Generation. Hey there, it's Madabelle Gerwich. And I'm Laura House. We host Tiny Victories, the 15-minute podcast that's about the little things. Getting into the tiny victory frame of mine is about recognizing minor accomplishments and fleeting joys. Isn't it a wonderful day when the first password you try actually works? When it's freezing cold outside and toasty as I'll get out in my shower, my tiny victory is that I turn off the water and get on with my day.

We can't change this big, dumb world, but we can celebrate the tiny winds. So join us on maximum fun or wherever. you listen to podcasts. Let's get tiny. And we are back. Kirk Manney, it is time for one more thing. I'm going to go first because I'm the only one with something new to bring to the table. And then I'll throw it to you guys for some old things. But I know you guys are curious about this. I watched the new show, The Rehearsal, on HBO by Nathan Fielder.

And it is wild. Talk about something with buzz, something that everybody's talking about. You guys, it is as wild as people say. I've got to say. I really enjoyed it. But even saying that you enjoyed it, there is there always supposed to be a caveat there. Like I quote unquote enjoyed it. And it's hard to explain exactly why without ruining the essence of the show. But I will explain the concept of it, because the concept of it is pretty straightforward from the beginning. So the concept of it is that we all have awkward situations or things that we are worried about or nervous about in our

lives. And so Nathan Fielder, using HBO's budget, was able to, is able to craft these meticulous, elaborate rehearsals for people so they can practice these moments in their lives and perfect them before they actually happen. So, for example, in the very first episode, there's this guy who's part of a trivia group, and he's told his trivia group that he has a master's degree, but he doesn't actually. And so he wants to confess to them that he doesn't have a master's degree. And so Nathan Fielder sets up this elaborate construction of this bar, the Alligator Lounge in New York City. He actually builds a set that is the entire bar. He hires actors to play everything from like not only the person who the main guy is making a

confession to, but also the waiters and the other extras in the bar and like tries to make it as real as possible. And then he creates a conversation tree based on every possible permutation of what can happen and just practices it with the guy over and over and over again. And then we had to watch the real thing unfold. But then from there, and this is a six-episode show, things get a little crazier. That's where I'll leave it. Things get a little crazier. It gets into a lot of ethical questions. It kind of like raises questions about whether this show should have existed, what kind of damage it did to people. A lot of ethical boundaries reached in the show.

It reminded me a lot of this show called Kid Nation that I was obsessed with like 15 years ago when it came out. I was telling you guys about this the other day. It's the show where like they took 30 kids and brought them to this like abandoned Wild West town in the middle of like Arizona or like somewhere in the West and have them create a civilization and like have to make food. It's just like Lord of the Flies the reality show which sounds like a 30 rock joke or something. but it was real. That was the pitch. It was dead, dead serious, totally real. These kids were like age 8 to 15 and each of them fit like an archetype. They went out scouting for kids who were like like everything from like the super nerdy weird one to like the brady girl who like is way out of place and like yells at people. It's just totally every archetype to the older bully, every

archetype you can think of. And as you're watching, it's kind of like it raises some ethical questions about whether kids should be participating in a reality show and what kind of effect this is going to have on them long term. Even if like physically they weren't going to like the producers are all around. They're not going to let them starve to death or anything like that. But like psychologically, the impacts that this might have. Anyway, the rehearsal raises some similar questions. Great. Both shows highly entertaining, also unethical. Also like you might question whether you should really be entertained by them while watching them. But yeah, the rehearsal. I recommend it.

You might also be like, oh, this is all fake, so it doesn't really matter. So it leaves everything is left ambiguous and ethically, like, yeah, just watch it. You guys should watch it. It's worth watching. I'll try. I tried to watch Nathan for you, and it is a type of cringe comedy that I cannot sustain for very long. But I would like to try again.

This because it's like it's only six episodes and it's always like one. there's stuff that carries over from episode to episode. So it feels like a more coherent story as opposed to like, Nathan, for you, just like individual episodes telling stories. Plus, everybody's talking about it. So I kind of have to watch it. Yes. It's in the zeit guys like we said before. Anyway, Maddie, why don't you go next?

Sure. So I'm replaying a video game that is one of my favorite video games of all time. Why? Because my coworker. So my co-worker Nicole Clark, she's really into Horizon Zero Dawn and the Horizon games, but she'd never played an Assassin's Creed game before, even though every single thing she's described about Horizon, I'm like, you would love Assassin's Creed.

You would love Assassin's Creed. What are you doing? And Assassin's Creed origins, my favorite Assassin's Creed. Recent ones are very different than the other ones. Well, that's a good point, but she hasn't played any of them. But the recent ones, if you like Horizon, my pitch to you, Assassin's Creed Origins. It is on Xbox GamePass, so she's playing it now. And so am I for really no reason. Like she was DMing me about how great it is. And that was enough to get me to reinstall it and play for like six to 10 hours, which I don't know.

There's just something about this game, man. I love it. And the first six hours are so good. Like I do think the game has some issues later on with pacing. But the beginning of it, is incredibly good. The way that they introduce you to Bayek as the character, your point of view character, he's so sympathetic, he's so charming and yet also is grieving and tells jokes in a way that I have always found really humanizing. And like all the side quests are awesome. And you feel like you're really connecting with everybody. And also ancient Egypt is like the coolest setting ever. And so I'm just biased anyway because it's my favorite setting. So like, of course, this is going to be my favorite one, but then also I really like the characters. Biac and I are freaking cool.

And like, I don't know. It's just the best. I don't know if I'm going to beat it, but I might. Like, it's really good. Like every single thing about it, I'm like, I just think this is a really good video game. Good vibes. It's good. Got good vibes.

The UI's good. The camel riding is good. The signposting in the game, like the little golden thread that you follow when you're like walking around the dunes. It's beautiful. The music is incredible. Like, I could go on and on. I have no complaints.

Perfect video game. It's not perfect. But it's great. It's a great game. Yeah, I'm curious how it runs on Steam Deck. I would actually... Yeah, see, I haven't tried that yet. Consider replaying.

Because I am enjoying so much how good it looks. Because I didn't have this monitor back when. I didn't even have this computer back then. So I'm enjoying, it looks freaking incredible. Plus, it's been updated a thousand times. So it looks freaking great. No buds. It's really testament to the dearth of games this summer.

I'm going to replay. The both of you are just replaying the first few hours. I'm not going to say an 80-hour game. I played Dante's Inferno to completion and admitted to that on this show. No, well, Kirk, I'm talking about your one more thing. Oh, yeah, let's go. Let's do Kirk next. Okay, I'm up.

Yeah, I already said what it is, right? It's Persona 5, for all, which I'm still playing. So, yeah, I mean, I... Yeah, I mean, I... Yeah, that's the point I was making about the dearth of games in summer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm definitely in this mode of sort of just wanting to play the first few hours of things. It's a little different with Persona 5, as I already discussed earlier,

that that game, I just play an hour or two every few days or maybe an hour, three nights a week, two nights a week. So I'm really just slowly making my way through it. And I'm actually curious if I'm going to finish it by the time it comes out for PC when I could actually play it natively on Steam Deck. And then if it does, I'm wondering if there's like a save game editor so that I could copy my exact progress over this week. You've got two months. It doesn't come out until October 21st. So you'll probably finish it by that.

I don't know. It's so long. You were just telling me, are you up to the six-thalice already? Yeah, you'll finish it by that. I'm at the casino. I don't know how many hours that is. And then you'll be just in time to play it again from the beach. Exactly.

I've been considering playing it again when it comes to Steam or Switch. You're talking about it so much that I'm like, I never beat that game. I could finally play it. When it comes to Seam Deck, you should. If it was on the Steam Deck, I don't, it's like the perfect Steam Deck game. It is the perfect scene back game. It definitely, especially the Royal version. The Royal version, so the original version kind of wasn't super satisfying in how it

handled a certain character at the end of things, but Royal does it, does it proper justice. So Royal is a good, it, Royal lands the plane correctly. Yes, but you will not, but Royal does things well. So that's actually what I'm going to talk about, is the differences between the games because I've been noticing all these subtle differences having played through Persona 5 the first time. And all the things that I already mentioned are different, are different. I know there's like big stuff yet, change to the end for that character you're referring to. And of course, there's this new character who's a party member eventually who's introduced.

And there's Dr. Maruki. Dr. Maruki is great too, especially because his theme music is really just a total bop. Maybe I'll play it in the background right now. You're hearing the theme music. It plays whenever you're in his, in the nurse's office, doing therapy session. with him and it's just this really groovy I really love it. You've been doing all his social links, right? Because you need to finish

all of his and consumers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And do it. There's a whole thing. Do your chores, Kirk. I check it regularly. It's a little stressful. Everyone should know. Well, the worst thing in the world, could you imagine? Okay, so in order to unlock the new content in the end of the game, you have to do

certain things. The worst thing in the world would be having to replay the entire game again because you didn't unlock the new content. That is the worst thing in the world. That's at the very bottom of the list. It is. Yes. It's true. I was just asking God, what's the worst thing in the world? And he was like, actually, no, it's the Percentify thing. And he was like, if you miss those gates and Persona 5 Royal, and you don't get to see the true ending. He's like, look, I've seen hell. I made hell.

Not as bad as a feeling as that. No, okay, so the differences I want to talk about, though, are more subtle. And I think they're really cool and interesting. There's, so Persona 5 has a kind of dodgy translation. And they've fixed a lot of the dialogue. My sense is that they changed every written line of dialogue, but they couldn't touch the ones that were voiced because they couldn't get all the voice actors back, though there are new recorded lines of dialogue, so some of the actors are back. So you'll still see some of the funky stuff where if you just are kind of skimming through it, it's fine and you get what they're saying, but then if I stop and read the whole sentence, I'm like, no one would say this. So that does happen, but it's cool

that it's cool that there are improvements to a lot of the dialogue. And then they've improved the characters in some ways that are subtle and cool, not just, you know, fleshing out the one character toward the end, but just little things to make characters who were annoying, a little less annoying. So Riyugi, for example, who's, he's kind of your main bro, just like, is his name Junpei in Persona 3? There's always, or the guy, what's his name, Yuskei in Persona 4, am I getting all these names right?

I think those are, there's always a guy who's like your first friend. Your buddy. Yeah, he's your best bro. And in this game, it's Riuji. And Riuji is like, he's an okay character, but maybe my least favorite character in the game. really annoying. He always gets angry and starts yelling and cursing. He's always talking really loudly about being a phantom thief and like giving away the game and you just are kind of mad at him

and everyone's a numbskilled. He's a numbskull. He's a little ex-kulled. He's a knucklehead. I would describe him as a knucklehead. And so he's still kind of that character. But now a lot of the time when you hang out with him, he'll call you afterward and you get just a little bit more of him. And I'm finding that it's actually kind of softening my take on his character. There's stuff like that a lot of the time, when you have a social link hang out with a friend, then afterward they call you. And sometimes it's just sort of extra color, but sometimes it really kind of does flesh out their character or sand off some of the rough edges. You'll have a sort of weird interaction with someone, but then they'll call you. And you can tell the writers we're like, how can we just massage this into a little more of a

fleshed out experience? And it adds up over time where I have just a more fleshed out and well-rounded sense of every character in the game in a way that's subtle but really pervasive. I mean, it's all these tiny little three or four line interactions, but they really did a lot of work. And I'd say it's kind of the most significant difference in a way between Royal and Persona Five, as much as obviously there are these big things, new semester, new dungeon, new character. But the character notes that they added, it's kind of a more interesting writing challenge. And it's really been interesting. So I really do like that about it a lot. Another reason to replay that game is to see all of that stuff. Yeah. No, for real though. It's like it's so much of it. They also change a lot of the mechanics

too. I mean, there's a grappling hook in the dungeons now and a whole new mechanic. And like you can use your gun. Your gun actually works because you replenish ammo. That is a bigger. The grappling hook is kind of a gimmick, but the ammo thing are the way that you have the baton pass from the start. They've made combat better from the start. It's more

fun immediately, which is I think good for anyone starting it. So yeah, anyway, it's still good. I'm still enjoying it. I'll be playing it forever. Percent-5. Still a good video game. Well, we'll be replaying it when it comes to switch. All right. That is it for this week's episode, thank you again to all the listeners. Thank you again to all the Max Fun

supporters. Go check out our Better Call Salt Beanscasts. It's really fun. And if you are not a MaxFund member, join today. Kirk, Maddie, I'll see you both next week. See you next week. Bye. Triple Click is produced by Jason Schreier, Maddie Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I edit and mix the show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom DJ. Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode may have been sent to us for free for review. consideration, you can find a link to our ethics policy in the show notes. Triple Click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network, and if you like our show, we hope you'll consider supporting us by becoming a member at maximumfund.org

slash join. Find us on Twitter at triple clickpod, send email the triple click at maximum fun.org and find a link to our Discord in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Maximum fun.org. Comedy and culture. Artist-owned.

Audience-supported.