Triple Click - The Two Types Of Video Game

Episode Date: March 2, 2023

Octopath Traveler II has gotten Jason thinking of a brand new taxonomy... the two types of video game. This week, the gang talks about flow vs. thought, JRPG story-telling, the brilliance of Octopath Traveler II (and how it out-classes the first game), and mysteries in Metroid Prime, Elden Ring, and so much more.One More Thing: Kirk: Cocaine BearMaddy: RobocopJason: Tracers in the Dark by Andy GreenbergLinks: Tell us why you like Triple Click! Email [e-mail] or leave us a message at [phone]. Triple Click LIVE IN BROOKLYN, May 18th: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/triple-click-live-tickets-513213584647Featuring excerpts from Yasunori Nishiki’s Octopath Traveler 2 score Support Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinBuy Triple Click Merch: https://maxfunstore.com/search?q=triple+click&options%5Bprefix%5D=lastJoin 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

There's no feeling quite like a video game flow state when the world melts away and you can just go and go and go. There's no punchline. I just think that's cool. Welcome to Triple Click where we bring the games to you. This week we're taking an unexpected detour to talk about the fabulous Octopath Traveler 2 and what it tells us about JRP's and video game storytelling. Pick your starting character and let's get into it. I'm Kirk Hamilton. I'm Maddie Myers. And I'm Jason Schreier. Hello.

Hello. Hello everybody. Hello, my friends. Welcome back for another episode of Triple Click. For our first episode of March, 2020. We are here. We've made it to March. We did it.

It's almost spring. I wrote it on my calendar. That's how badly I want it. You wrote spring to happen? Yeah. You wrote spring? March 20th. Can't wait.

March 20th, okay. It's funny because here in New York, it's been the mildest winter I can remember. We had a blizzard today, and then it rained, which is worst case scenario. Welcome to WeatherPod. We're back to talking about the weather. On brand. Hey, look, if we're going to talk about weather, I got to say, it snowed like eight inches here in Portland or something, and it has been a total winter wonderland slash disaster over the weekend. A lot of places closed down, a lot of ice on the road. That's a

situation here. It's going to snow again for the next few days. So I'm just... Aside from today, it's been the mildest winter, is my point. So it almost feels like it's ready. Well, you can come over anytime. You want to build a snowman? We got it. We got the stuff for it. Can you sing?

Can you sing that song? We got a whole song that we could sing about that if we want to. Yeah, I'd like to hear that. Jason, do you remember the song about that that was about destiny where I was like, do you want to do a raid man? Or something like that. And I wound up writing all the lyrics of the whole song. Kind of appropriate.

We're recording this on the day that there is a new huge destiny expansion coming out that I don't think any of us is going to. play. Yeah, Maddie Kirk message me. He is like, I kind of want to play it. I was like, resist the air. Is that what this episode's about? Just a hard pivot to us talking about lightfall? Should we talk about that? Maybe. It's like, it's like we just describe like a new brand of heroin that comes out every few months and we're like, should get back into it? Guys, what do you think?

Heroin comes in brands, right? Is that anything? Well, I've got this new monitor on my PC and destiny looks really good and ultra-wide screen. Okay, anyways, we're our listeners to recorded show. You support our gaming habit, however healthy or unhealthy that may be from week to week. It's healthy now. We're healthy. We're healthy, lowercase G gamers here at Triple Click. We appreciate your support. And if you want to support us making this show, well, you can do so by becoming a maximum fun member at a maximum fund.org slash join. There are no ads on this show, except I guess for the promos we run for other MaxFund shows, but you don't have to listen to us talk about, I don't know, mattresses or therapy apps or whatever. that's more of a thing you'll hear on other shows, not this one, because we're listeners

supported. So maximumfund.org slash join is where you can do that. And another way that you can support our show, we have, we're going to be doing something kind of fun with this in the near future. But if you like Triple Click, if you've listened to Triple Click for a while and you have some thoughts on why, like why you like the show, that you would like to share it and maybe have be shared on the show. Well, we would love for you to share that with us.

So you can send emails to member stories at maximum fun.org. You can also leave us a voicemail at a phone number that will be down in the show notes. And yeah, you might get your triple click tale told on the show at a future date. Triple-click. Is this part of the Tales series? Yes, yes. Tales of triple-click. Tales of triple-click.

So anyways, there's the info for that. It's out of the show notes. And, you know, no pressure or anything. No big deal. But if you want to share a story, we would welcome it. All right, let's get on to the meat of this episode. Jason, take us away. So today we're talking about JRP storytelling and mechanics and mysteries, but really I just

want to talk about Octopath Traveler, which is a game I've been ranting and raving about for the past couple of weeks. So this game... I would like to say this is a game that Jason called the Eldon Ring of JRP's and also possibly game of the year in the summer. same newsletter. Interesting. I guess you called it

House of the Year. That's true. That's true. So Octoboth Traveler 2 is a sequel to a game from 2018 that I did not really like love all that much. That was the type of game that like a lot of reviewers fell for because of the aesthetics and the production values, which were great. Wow. He meant like fell in love with not fell for the rules. Okay, okay, okay.

I thought we were really coming out hot here. No, no, no, no, no. They fell for it as in they were enamored of it. The suckers. They got taken in by its wiles. It does have aesthetic wiles. A lot of reviewers fell for that game's production values, but structurally, it was kind of a mess. It was formulating.

It was anonymous. Outta Beth Traveler 2 fixes all those problems and more. And it's just a fantastic game for reasons that we will get into soon. But first, before we even talk about it, I want to introduce a new taxonomy. Oh, man. Yes. I believe. Finally.

It's been a minute. It's we're overdue for a new taxonomy. Kirkamati, I have a thesis to share with you, too. I believe that all video games can be summed up as either one of two things. They are either action or adventure. Gameplay story. There we go. They can either be flow games or thought games, is the way that I like to put it.

I like this. They can also. most games or many games also really take parts of them are one and parts of them are the other and a flow by flow game I am of course talking about the kind of instinctive actiony kind of flow state that a game will put you in whether you're just kind of sliding tiles in threes or jumping over mushroom gumbas in super marie brothers or i don't know hack and slashing and god of war and of course by thought I mean the actual decision making and giving things thought, stepping back and saying, hey, I want to think about this for a second, whether that's, I don't know, um, Starcraft puzzles and Professor Layton or making up strategies and tactics ogre games that make you step back and think, picking what to do next in civilization. And obviously a lot of games, probably most games, um, mix the two and have different parts that are flow state, different parts that are thought state. Um, and I think JRP's specific,

typically tend to be more about flow state. A lot of kind of turn-based battles systems, even though they ostensibly would require you to have some strategy. Most of the time you're just kind of like going through the motions, either mashing the fight button or just kind of like, if you're on a boss, maybe mashing the fight button and then also healing occasionally. But really, you're just going into the flow of it. And that can be enjoyable to an extent.

But also a lot of the time in JRPGs, you're also just kind of like going through the motions. you're walking to a town, you're going up to people, talking to people, you're not really thinking a lot as you do it, you're just kind of going through the flow. And again, that is a certain type of gameplay. I don't think it's a problem. But I found personally over the course of my gaming career, so to speak, that I really like games that have an emphasis on the thought or put, at least blend the thought in with the flow to the point where you, you, you, are really, you really feel like you are making decisions constantly. And the games that I enjoy most, with the exception of threes,

tend to have thought in some capacity. When I think about recent games, for example, maybe the case of the Golden Idol, that's entirely thought. Return of the Obridin, that's entirely thought. Outer Wild, that's a lot of flow because the exploration itself is flow, but the game itself and trying to figure out the story and the mysteries and stuff are all thought. Eldon Ring. That's a really good example of a mix of flow. Yeah, I was thinking of that as my next example. The action itself is flow. But the story stuff and the mysteries and the exploration, you have to spend a lot of time

thinking in order to piece everything together. So I bring all this up to say that one of the reasons, really the main reason that I am so in love with Octopath Traveler 2 is that it blends those two together in a really smart way in that thought is prioritized over everything. You are constantly making decisions and having to think about how to proceed. So when you're in combat, you always have to think because of this unique break system that we'll get into in a little bit that makes you just be making decisions constantly. And then when you're outside of combat, instead of as in most JRPJs where you might just go and explore a town and talk to everybody and then move on to the next town, you actually have to do a lot of thinking because you run into all these side quests that yes kirk i called

the elden ring of jrpg's in the recent newsletter because the side quests give you kind of a couple of breadcrumbs and then expect you to follow the trail to find uh hansel and gretel or whatever to take the analogy to the next level there um they really they create these little mysteries that you have to think about and and they're really fun in that way so i think that that kind of using that as a taxonomy to analyze games like this helps me at least understand why I enjoy a game like this so much because it feels like it's constantly just requiring me to use my brain. And I find that with games that are flow, I kind of bounce off of them a little bit more quickly. Certainly, I'm not spending 60 hours sinking into a game that is entirely flow the way I have with Octopath Traveler

too. So yeah, I'm curious to hear, well, so Kirk, you've played a little bit of it. I'm curious to hear what you think of the game, first of all, from what you played, and whether you think my thesis holds up. Yeah, I'm interested in your thesis. I mean, I've played four or five hours of the game. I like it. I think it's really cool. And we can talk some about why. But I actually, yeah, I want to focus a little on this flow versus thought thing. It's almost like two different gears that you get into when you're playing a game. Like you've acknowledged, right, that most games aren't entirely one thing or the other. And that is true for most of these taxonomies that we've done, right, there's overlap.

Some games kind of lean more in one direction than the other, and then some extreme examples are like really far in one way or the other. But it is like how much a game shifts between those two things and how elegantly it does can be a big part of the enjoyment of the game. Eldon Ring is a good example where you can play that as just a flow game. I think there are people who just, they just flow, man. You just get in the zone and you're just playing, and there's kind of nothing impeding you from just going to the next thing,

and the next thing, and next thing and exploring. And kind of, you know, you might get kind of stuck for a second because it's a hard fight or you're lost, but you don't actually have to engage too much with the puzzles or the mysteries for most of the game. Yeah, although the equipment, there's some thought involved and you're strategizing in terms of equipment and items and skill. Right, but you know what I mean?

Like, by and large, it's a pretty flow state kind of a game. You just play it and go. And then there's this layer on top of it that you can shift into it any time and that the game kind of urges you into where suddenly you really are in a very thoughtful, you know, mindset, which can then be really fun. With Octopath 2, I don't know. I'm definitely in kind of a flow state with the game a lot. I think that it kind of flows along, and that's for a couple of reasons.

It's partly the way that combat works, and it's partly the way that the writing works. So this is a game where you, like the first game, there are eight main characters who all feel like they would ordinarily be side characters in a role-playing game. And the way I think of this game, and what I think is such a cool idea about the first one and is executed much better in this one, is that it's like they removed the silent protagonist from the JRP or just from the RPG, and they said, what if instead of having this kind of, of empty vessel of a character who everybody orbits for the story. We just removed them entirely and then had the whole story just be about the interesting side characters that everyone always says are the best characters and the best stories anyways. And then the story was just a series of loyalty quests that gradually overlap more and more and more and more and become kind of this tapestry rather than the loyalty quest being the best part of what's otherwise a just

chosen one narrative or whatever in an RPG. So that's the structure of this game. And the first game I didn't love either. I played three or four of the act ones and then just kind of went and played something else. And that was because a lot of the characters were pretty tropey, or very tropey, actually, and uninteresting. And what I'm finding in this game is it's not that the characters and the stories aren't tropey. They're really tropey still. I don't actually have to think too much about what's going to happen because each one is this little, you know, serving, like individual serving of a little story where it's like, oh, I am the son of the king and the king is old and my war-loving brother is really powerful and leads the army

and the king says he wants me to take over because I understand peace. But then my brother betrays both of us and kills the king and he takes the kingdom. It's like, okay. Or another one is like, I have been framed for the murder of my family and now I'm in prison and I need to get vengeance on the friend of mine who betrayed me. Like they're all like that so far. I know there are kind of variations and twists, but they're well enough written or interesting enough, they subvert the tropes enough that I'm like enjoying them. But actually, I'm kind of just flowing along. And I think that's partly because of where I'm at in the story. And I'm curious how this compares to where you are, Jason, since you're near the end of

the game. But it is like this, these early goings of this game are actually very flow-like, because it's just, you know, learning the ropes of a JRP combat system and then just going through these like pretty familiar, pretty cliched stories that are still enjoyable enough for me to like. and of course look and sound absolutely gorgeous, and so it's just very pleasant to play. So, okay, I want to just make one more point on thought, and then I'm going to throw it to you, Maddie. I know you haven't played Octopath Traveler,

but I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this dichotomy and JRP storytelling in general. But first, Kirk, I just want to say, so when I think about thought on a macro level in a game, I think another part of it is kind of like mapping out your, or kind of even figuring out what to do. what you're going to do, your kind of mental taskless. Okay, I'm going to go over here, and then I'm going to do this quest,

and it'll leave me over there, and then I'm going to do that, and it'll take me there. And I think that there's kind of structurally, there's a difference in a game that has this big flashing marker system where it tells you exactly where to go and what to do every time you highlight a quest, which feels like more of a flowy approach, because you don't have to give it any thought, versus an Eldon Ring.

And so when you say, I kind of disagree with the concept that you could play Eldon Ring just as a flow, because I think even kind of putting together in your head, like, oh, Blade said that a falling star hit over there, but I don't know exactly where it is. So I'm going to chalk that up to my mental do list or write it in my diary that I'm keeping next to me or whatever. And then I'm going to, I have to take care of this other thing. And then I want to go back to the round table. Yeah, I wasn't speaking in absolutes. it's not Tetris effect.

Like I understand that you do have to think. It's just a pretty flowy game as a general experience. Well, yeah, I just mean that nature. And we've talked about checkpoints in Eldon Ring or markers in Eldon Ring and how appealing a game is without them. That, to me, has always just been more appealing to have to actually give it some thought to what you're doing next and put it together. And anyway, Octaveth 2 has that in speed.

So I might, I mean, I've picked up the game and played for two hours without following any of like the main quest lines and just being like, okay. I have to bring this person using my path actions, which are these character actions you can take outside of combat, like guiding someone or dueling someone or stealing from someone, an MPC. So I'm going to use a path action because this woman says that her, she was engaged to marry someone, but has never even met him and wants to meet him. So I'm going to go find him. And, oh, while I'm there, I can also go explore this secret dungeon that I just found,

but haven't had a chance to visit yet. And then I'm going to go do that, and then this and then that. And that sort of kind of planning out is part of the thought experience in my head. And I think that applies to Octopath 2, especially as you get further and further in the game. Combat we can talk about it a bit. But yeah, Maddie, I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this taxonomy and also and how it applies to JRP's and stuff like that. Yeah, I really like this taxonomy, although it is kind of breaking my brain because I never thought about games this way. So that's great.

I'm going to spend the next few weeks trying to decipher. That's my goal here. Whether Metroid Prime is mostly flow because I feel like as I'm playing it, I'm also thinking about what I did last. That's a good question. I would have said at the beginning of your description, it's entirely flow because I'm just, I'm running, jumping, ball mode. I'm flowing all over the place here. But I'm always analyzing. I'm reading text logs.

I'm thinking the whole time. And there's even puzzles as to where the Chosolora is. This is a Metroid Prime episode, right? But yeah. Let's say, can we stay on Metroid Prime for a second? So I've been playing through Metroid Prime as well and also continuing to play Dead Space remake. And there's definitely an interesting difference along the lines of this sort of dichotomy is that in Dead Space it's a lot more flow because I'm going and doing things like I'm going and now getting whatever. You're on discrete tasks that you can barely accomplish due to the high octane environment you're in.

Well, it's always like, well, the plants are going to kill us all soon. to go deal with the plants. They're like, oh, the engines are broken. You need to restart the engine. But in that game, you just press a button and a little laser pointer tells you where to go. And then you just follow the line and you're going to fight some monsters and press a button. And then some people will tell you to go somewhere else. Where in Metroid Prime, it is a lot more thinky.

Yes. Because you have to shift gears a lot out of that flow state because you can't just run around because a lot of times don't know where you're supposed to be going and have to remember where you were. And yeah, what this unlocks, et cetera. And that was one of my favorite things about Eldon Ring was that shift between. between flow and thought. And I agree with you, Jason, that the fact that it blends those two things is what's so exciting about it because I really like the thought parts.

I mean, we've talked about Case of the Golden Idol a lot, and I agree that's almost entirely thought. But to have that switch between how great from soft combat feels and then also the big picture of, what does Ronnie really want me to do? That's so weird. What is really going on here is extremely pleasurable as a game experience. But also on the thought tip and the JRP tip, I know it's a bit of a topic change, but I do want to hear more from you, too, about why you think sometimes really trope-laden storytelling works and why sometimes it doesn't. Because that's also fascinating. Yeah. Well, so real quick, Maddie, I think on Metroid Prime, one of the thought aspects of it, one of the biggest thought aspects of it is having to remember what the thing, like discovering a new item and then remembering all the time.

times where you've run into things that you can now unlock and just going back and backtracking. But yeah, Kirk, I know you have thoughts on video game JRP trope specifically in when they work and when they don't work. Do you have a kind of theory there on what makes them work and what doesn't? If you need a thought starter, one of my comparison points was persona five, which I would describe as having some very stereotypical high schoolers in it and yet still being extremely pleasurable in the way that Gossip Girl can be pleasurable or Riverdale. can be pleasurable. Yeah, I don't have a finalized way of thinking about this,

but Octopath 2 has been making me think about it in particular. Because the game is so fashioned as this nostalgia object, despite being a new game telling a new story, it's designed to look like pixel art, like look like a sort of Super Nintendo era, like a 16-bit JRP. That's what the characters look like. But the look of this world, for anyone who hasn't seen it, is three-dimensional.

There's really strong depth of field, so you'll be focused on a character in the foreground, and the town behind them will be out of focus. Like there's a camera sitting down in a little diorama. Diorama is the best way to put it. That's what it feels like. There are modern lighting effects, so you'll be carrying a torch, and it sort of lights all these little things. Everything looks so beautiful.

And, of course, the music is really, really good in this game, especially the nighttime field music in any of the different regions. It's always this woman singing and like, I'll probably play some of it behind you right now. Just because like really, really beautiful. I mean, I'll just, I'm honestly playing the game 50% because that music. I just want to hear the next beautiful track. Hi, everyone. Kirk here as I edit the episode. I just wanted to credit the composer on Octopath Traveler 2.

It's Yasunori Nishiki, who is also the composer on the first game. And while I didn't love the first game, I did love the music and I love the music. and I love the music for Octopath Traveler too. Just like this nighttime Enya stuff, man. It's so good. Okay, back to the episode. So there's this kind of nostalgia play going on with this game that I don't mind at all and that I have a hard time differentiating from the nostalgia that I feel when I play, say, Final Fantasy 6 or Suikodin 2, the games that we've played through together.

Because it's weird. It's like back then in the late 90s, people were just making. games, and I don't think they were made to evoke nostalgia, even though they are often very sort of emotional and nostalgic stories. There's a lot of sepia tone flashback. There's a lot of melodrama. But they were modern stories being told at the time. Now when I play those games, I feel nostalgic for just, you know, the past. It's like watching an old movie. If you watch a 70s movie, it just makes you feel nostalgic because everyone's talking on courted phones. This game makes me feel that same thing. And I allow for all of these cliches because they

all play a role in that feeling. And that really works for me. I just am, you know, I'm like, well, yeah, of course. It's this really, you know, it's this one story about succession in a kingdom that I've heard a million times. But this whole thing is kind of a throwback. It all feels like a cliche. So it's fine. And I let that go. And then Maddie, you mentioned persona, which is interesting because persona isn't that. It's, you know, it's set in the modern day. It's all about the internet. It's about modern kids. But it is about high school. And so it makes me kind of nostalgic for being a student. So I guess my only thought I'm coming up

with right now anyways is that there's some element of nostalgia in almost every JRP I've played, whether you're actually playing as high school kids or you're playing a game that reminds you of what it was like when you were in high school. And I know that can't be the case because not everyone was in high school when they played these games. Not everyone is my age

or, you know, our age range. And yet, it's still there. It's still something that I notice and think about. I think to a party being similar to a clique, though. And when was the last time you were in a click of five people? Maybe it was high school. I don't know.

I mean the triple click of three people. Well, that triple click of three people right here. Yeah. So, Kirk, I just, I don't think, well, I'm curious to hear your thoughts as you play more, but I don't think that the main appeal of this game is those main stories. Like the stories are fine, whatever. Sure. The characters are fun.

But really, the appeal of this game, at least for me, is being in this world that just feels so vivid and rich with detail and beautiful and full of like these NPCs that the thing I've enjoyed most about this game is just going around and using the path actions that let you see NPC descriptions and just seeing how all these people because everybody has if you go around and you use that path action on NPCs in any town everybody has their own little personality and like twist or subversion or trope and some of them connect to others I mean one of the highlights of this game for me was just getting to this new town and there's a castle and you you go into the town and there's this um uh princess standing outside and you talk to her and she

says something boring whatever it doesn't really matter but then you check her description by using your path actions and it's like this princess it's basically this is me paraphrasing but this princess has been surrounded by suitors for the past year but she isn't interested in any of them uh if only people knew that she was secretly in love with her childhood friend and then you find the childhood friend. And again, this is all entirely just completely like random NPC detail. It's nothing to do with the main story. You find the childhood friend and it turns out it's a woman and oh, hey, that's this cool little detail that you just find in the game. And that sort of thing is everywhere. They're like probably two dozen towns in this game and each of them is full of

NPCs with their own just like rich backstories and details. And then on top of that, you'll just find secrets like hidden all throughout the world map. Another one. And I'm sorry if this is spoiling things for people, but I just can't resist, like, sharing all this stuff. You can find, you can find this guy just randomly in the map, this little guy who is, like, a soldier, and his description, he's described, like, his NPC name is described as, like, amateur story or a soldier, or training soldier or something. And Hikari, who's one of your characters, has this ability to duel with people. And when you talk to this guy, he says, I need to train.

I wish someone would train with me. And so he used Akari, and you'll duel with him. And then after the duel, you can kind of cycle in this game. You just press a button, a cycle between day and night. So after the duel, he's knocked out on the floor. But then if you cycle a day and then you go back to him, you'll see that he's become, he's no longer like a trainee soldier. Now he's like a training soldier or something like that.

And if you try to duel him, he'll be a little bit stronger. And you can keep doing this. And he just gets stronger and stronger as you duel him more and more because he's like training. And again, this is just some random NBC. has nothing to do with the main plot. And eventually you can get him so strong that he just kicks your ass. And then now he's arrogant soldier.

And he'll be like, the trainee has become the master now. I no longer need you. And it's just so funny. These little details are just so funny and rich and just really make the game's world feel just like this incredible place that you want to spend all this time in exploring.

Yeah. I mean, based on what I've played, I'm just reacting to what I've played. I think it makes me think some thoughts about JRP's storytelling. But to kind of explain the structure of this game, the way that it seems to work based on what you're saying and what I've played, it starts out with a mostly undirected series of first acts that you can do as you build your party.

And there is even some thinking, I suppose, to use this breakdown. In the beginning where you choose your starting character and then afterward, it's not clear what you're supposed to do. you're just sort of at the open world and you can do whatever and then you realize oh if I just look at the map it says where all the other characters are

so I guess I just go get them and then you have to go get them so there is already some open-endedness it's not telling you okay now go get the next person they're right here you could just get on a ferry

and go across the ocean to the other side of the map and get a completely different person if they look cooler and then as you play you get more and more characters in your party and then each character

has a unique ability and I know you explain this sort of, but to make it really clear to people. There are eight characters, Octopath, and each one has this unique ability. Sometimes they change from day to night, and you can change it from day and night. So they all have different abilities. Okay, they all have different abilities at day and night. But some of the abilities are similar, so they all do a bunch of core functions

and some of them cross over with one another. Yes. So there's crossover, and there's basically, there's an ability to let's you learn things about a person, an ability that lets you get people to come with you, and ability to let's you steal things from someone or abilities from someone. Those are, you know, that kind of thing. And this guy, Oswald, for example, has, he's the one with the Count of Monte Cristo, back story where he's been wrongly imprisoned. Yeah, there's even some of that in his act one where his ability is that he can, like, study someone and learn about them if they're, you know, close enough to his level.

And so you're in this prison and you have to learn about people. And it's very fun because you'll talk to a guy and he seems kind of shifty. And then you study him and you realize, oh, okay, this guy's actually a rat and he's been turning people into the guards forever. and that's really cool. So then out in the world, I can imagine how as you build a party, they become this multi-pronged puzzle-solving sort of apparatus that I can adjust and move through the world. And while, yeah, you can go do their stories

and learn what's going on with them narratively, the fun of the game, and it sounds like this is what I'm very excited about with this game, is that there are all of these little hidden puzzles that you can solve all these different ways with your cool little toolkit, depending on which characters you have and how creative you can be with their individual actions. The thing I want to throw out there, and this is for all three of us,

since we've all played this game, is this is true to the lineage of a lot of the JRPGs that we've played, especially Swaykoden 2, right? I'm not like imagining this, that a lot of these opaque mysteries, these things where you go talk to someone with a certain person in your party, and then you come back later

and there's something that's changed and there are all these little hidden stories, isn't this kind of very similar to what was going on in Swaycoden 2? Yeah, to some extent. Speaking 2, I would argue, is more opaque and there's a lot more of like you kind of need to have a walkthrough. Really, all of this, I mean, a lot of this lineage can be traced back to the NES slash Atari slash arcade days back when they wanted you to buy the strategy guide and like call up Nintendo Power Hotline to get your clues for what to do next. That's why a lot of that stuff had esoteric secrets. I think this is a lot more fair in its side quests, although there's some that I still haven't figured out or something.

some little bits and pieces of the game that I still am trying to piece together. And that's why, I mean, you mocked or gently mocked earlier when I called this the Eldon Rings of JRP's, but it's really similar in a lot of ways. And I think the secrecy of the... I only laugh because it's just a little bit Skyroom with guns. Like, calling anything the Eldon Ring of anything just makes me laugh. I mean, I hope you saw some of the irony in that sub-sac newsletter headline. But I also, I want to talk about the combat.

because I think the combat is really like, that's what you spend a lot of your time in this game doing, is fighting battles. And I think it's really worth bringing up because it's just so much better than your average turn-based system. And Kirk, I think it kind of gets more complicated and more interesting, the more you play,

as is often the case of these kinds of games. So the way the combat works is it's turn-based. You see your character's turn order on the top of the screen, and every enemy you encounter has, weaknesses, right? And so when you meet a new enemy, you'll see on the bottom of their kind of avatar, whatever, the picture of them, you'll see a number, and then you'll see a bunch of kind of question marks. And the question marks each represent a different weapon type or element type. So an enemy might be weak to spears and fire or whatever it is. And the number, if you, every time you

hit them with one of those weak points, that number goes down. And so if it starts at five, you hit them five times with different swords, and that's a weakness, then they go to zero. And when it hits zero, they're called broken and they take more damage and they're stunned for a turn so they can't do anything on that turn and basically they're just weaker. And so as you play more and more, there's also this whole boost system where you can like give your characters extra power or extra hits using a kind of a special currency called bonus points or boost points that go up every turn. And so as you go, this gets a lot more elaborate and complicated because eventually you'll

got to bosses where you really have to start thinking and doing less of the kind of easy flow state, like, okay, I'll just smash this random encounter with my dagger a bunch of times and that'll be it. And Kirk, it's worth noting that in the chapter ones, most of the enemies you face are weak to whatever your character has. So it's a little more straightforward. So when you get to bosses, you have to spend a lot more time strategizing and thinking, okay, I'm going to break this boss on that turn. So I want to have my characters ready to go to do as much damage as possible on that turn

or else the boss will kick my ass on the following turn. So how am I going to do that? And oftentimes if you're doing it right, you have to plan like two, three turns ahead, like full rounds ahead in order to optimize that damage dealing. And there's a lot of cool ways you can do that with items and skills. You can equip each of your characters with like a sub job that gives them a suite of new skills. And so, and you can combine them in really cool ways, and then all of your characters get these, like, limit breaks that they can do as well that also add cool new powers. Like one of the limit breaks, I think the dancer's limit break is you can turn any ability from just targeting one person to targeting all of the people.

So all the enemies are all of your party members. And you can really break the game with some of the combinations here, which again is very reminiscent of Eldon Ring. And with like that perfect combination of kind of like flow and thought, it winds up being that bosses are. super fun and really fun to just break apart. I got my Hikari, the warrior character, dealing like 30,000 damage per hit when a boss is done, which is just super fun. It's just incredibly fun to break the game and know you did it because you were just planning ahead or like doing smart combinations or whatever it is. So I think that's worth noting as well with this game specifically that that's like a big part of the appeal. Maddie, have you played any JRP's his combat systems that you?

you've actually enjoyed? And if so, what made you enjoy them? Well, I mean, Kingdom Hearts doesn't count. I know. Well, see, the reason why Kingdom Hearts would count for me is because of the same reason that I like Final Fantasy 7 remake and why I will be sad if part two of that gets delayed and I'm still really looking forward to it is because anything turn-based, I don't know what it is. I just feel I have trouble getting immersed. Let's put it that way. I like some real-time combat to be happening in order for me to really get into it. Otherwise, I feel like I'm, I don't know, I can't stay focused on it. So that change is huge for me, but I will say, like, I got pretty far in Persona 5 because the way that that game

is set up, it still manages to feel like action matters and it's always happening. And I think some of that is sound design and some of that is also the stacking of skills, which is not on the level of what you're describing, Jason, where you need to plan ahead that far, but there's still a little bit of planning ahead whereby you're like, okay, this person has certain kinds of attacks. If they do this, then the next character and line can do that to build upon the existing attack. And that's very delightful. I would prefer not the turn base. You might like active as traveler too. I think that might. It is very persona-like in that sense, in the weakness sense.

I think so, although I think I would still probably never like the turn-based combat. The part of what you're describing that excites me is the Eldon Ring storytelling of it all, which I really enjoy. And I think I would like reading the item descriptions and discovering stories and having that be its own reward. Like, exploring as its own reward, I mean, I'm a fan of Metride after all and also Eldon Ring. So that part excites me, even if the turn-based part doesn't necessarily. Yeah, I agree about Persona 5 in that the combat, it's so punchy. The animations and the sound designer is so killer. And it automates some things that Octopath Traveler 2 purposefully de-automates,

and it moves a little bit faster. But they're actually really interesting comparisons. Because, Jason, when you begin describing the combat system in Octopath Traveler 2, I'm sitting there thinking, okay, how would I be hearing this description if I had and played the game and it just played persona. And it starts out, you know, you're like, well, you know, each enemy has different weaknesses and you want to hit the weaknesses because then you break them if you hit the weaknesses. And that's all, I mean, that is just persona.

Yeah, it's super similar. But there are these crucial differences in that Octopath Traveler 2 makes you take, I think, time into consideration on a different level, which is pretty cool, because in persona, you break an enemy and they're down. And then if you break all the enemies, they're all down. And then you just get to do a ton of damage to them, and then they're back up. up, right? That's the kind of the sort of fulcrum around which all the combat cycles is this, get them all down, do that big funny attack where they all jump on them and do a big cloud of melee, and then they come out and then you keep going. Or you beat them with that attack. Where in Octopath, what's cool is you hit them at their weak spot a lot of times, enemies don't immediately go down unless it's like you said at the very beginning when they're just showing you how it works. But even where I am, like a little later on, you have to hit them a few times and it shows you how many times you have to hit them. So it gives you that information. So you're looking at the number thinking, okay, like Throne A, for example, who's the thief character, her alt, like, which charges pretty fast, lets her do two attacks.

So she can do two attacks, and that lowers them even more. And then you can also do the whatever it's called, the charge up thing where you get multiple attacks on your turn. The boosting, yeah. So boosting, right. So you can, like, advance, you can bank attacks or you can hold your attacks back. You can block for a turn to build up a boost for next turn with the goal of getting them into the broken state. so you can do maximum damage. It reminds me a little bit of bravely default, too, I guess,

because that game also, right, same developers. That game also had some of that sort of bank your moves and then you have a debt that you have to wait and pay off. I do really like that. I think it's a smart way to add a layer of complexity to a system that works basically like persona system, which is kind of an if it ain't broke, don't fix it kind of situation. It's a good fundamental system,

and I like how they've adjusted it. Yeah. I will also say that one of the exceptions to my turn-based rule is Fire Emblem, because that also involves spacing. And also it doesn't necessarily have a time limit on a fight, but you can only take so many hits before you die. So it always kind of feels like the clock is ticking in a Fire Emblem scenario. And I would guess also a tactics ogre haven't played it, but it's a similar turn-based scenario. And that, for some reason, still always makes me feel the fun kind of stressed out. And it kind of sounds to me like Octopath is borrowing from some of that in that you're planning multiple attacks ahead of time.

And in Fire and Limelage, you also still have the rock paper scissors of it all where you're like certain attacks are good against certain kinds of enemies. But I have to make sure the right enemies are in the right spot to do those attacks. That's very fun to me. It's the thought, the thought above the flow that really helps. It really is. I mean, it's like these games all are adding thought layers on top of the flow where Persona 5 really is pretty flow. heavy. You have to think sometimes for bosses, but a lot of it is just the music's going. You're just fighting dudes and it really is just like a flow. Yeah, I think, so that's a cogent point. I think

with percent of five, you're not really thinking a lot. I mean, occasionally you might have to decide, like, do I want to attack or heal with this turn? But like most of the time, you're not really giving it that much thought. You're just kind of selecting the weak point and that's the end of it. In Octopath, especially with the boss battles, there's a lot more because as the bosses get more challenging and more elaborate, they present really interesting scenarios. Some of them might have weak points locked off until you defeat like some of their minions. Others might start casting a special spell or something that you know is going to wipe your party or hurt your party. And so you have to get them knocked out in order to stop it. And so you have to kind of look at the turn order and be like,

okay, they're coming up in two turns. How can I do this? Do I have to start going into my items? Do I have to use all my boost points right now to knock them out before the attack goes? Or do I weight and risk that they're going to say, okay, my character's hit points are pretty high, maybe I'll just suck it up and take the attack in anyway, and there's a lot of decision making that goes into it. That sounds a lot more like a fire emblem to me and a good one. Yeah, it's just there's no

spatial positioning. Right, of course. But to throw another game in there, this is also a lot like Marvel's Midnight Suns. Yes. Oh my God. You're so right. Especially the later battles in that game, once you start taking on the super tough enemies that can regenerate health, there are so many times where I wound up in those situations where the fight is starting and I'm like, okay, I got to burn everything down just to get these two enemies off the board. How am I going to do it?

And then you wind up in this much more kind of min-maxy strategic thinking layer than just, I would have all attack the first few guys and we'll see what happens. Which is really pleasant, especially when a game can sort of manage that gear shift. Like it can pull you from one mode of thinking to the other effectively, which all of these games, I would say, do pretty well. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's really smart. And it's like, it's constantly presenting you with these decisions. And I think that's just what has made it so interesting for me and so good for me is like it actually saying, hey, you have to think about what you're going to do next.

You can't just go through the motions the way you would in most turn-based games or most JRP combat systems. All right. You're kind of selling me on it. Yeah, it's really good. It's a pretty cool game. I do, I do really like what I've played so far. I'm really doing it. You'd really like the music.

You'd really like the little descriptions. I think you might be tempted. Maddie, you might be tempted to skip all the cutscenes of the main character stories. Because like the mid-character stories, that's not why I'm playing the game. I think they're fine. Some are better than others. I mean, it's a lot of Fire Emblem Engage cutscenes. It's a head and shoulders above Fire Emblem Engage for what is worth of storytelling.

So just to give you, just to give you a taste of it. So yes, Kirk kind of summed up a couple of them. I picked my starting character was Throne, who's this thief who like lives in the back alleys of this like New York like city. By the way, the game, it's not set in like a medieval fantasy world. It's set in like a turn of the 19th century, like, Industrial Revolution type world with like a Wild West section, like a samurai section and like their deserts and snowy fields and scholars. It really is. It's like there are different areas. It's in Westworld.

It's set in Westworld. So Throne, her story is that she's like part of this gang of murderous thieves who like go on assassination missions and stuff. and she decides to break free of them by killing the people who run the organization and, like, winds up on this quest to find them and hunt them down. And there's some cool stuff there. Again, some of the stories are better than others. There's one who's just like, it's so funny in comparison. One whose story is entirely, I want to go be a big dancer in the big city. I want to be a popular dancer. And that's, you might think that her story goes places, but it doesn't. That's the entirety of her stories, that she wants to be a dancer. They really do feel like JRP's side characters, which is nice because even if a story is kind of whatever, you play through it pretty quick. And then you're out to the world and exploring and doing the fun stuff. Another thing I wanted to note is two big things that I think make the most significant impact when it comes to changes from the first game. So one is that in the first game, it never really felt like the characters were connected because each of their stories, you just see them solo. And some of the stories, it didn't really make sense why the villainous thief was hanging out with this, like, pious cleric.

type and it didn't really work for various reasons. It felt like eight people on independent adventures and like it made no sense that they were traveling together. In this game first of all none of them are really either too good or too bad so it kind of makes sense that they're hanging out together

they're all more in the kind of ranging from chaotic neutral to like to like I don't know chaotic evil like a little bit of evil here in there's nobody who's like super great or anything except maybe Hikari but more importantly there's a lot more party banter it's called where you like press the plus button on your switch

and you'll see an optional little skit when they talk to each other. And this time, instead of just just being random little skits that happen every once in a while, they happen a lot more often and they have been during the story missions so you can see whoever's traveling with your party actually comment on what's going on, which really adds a lot of flavor to it. So in the story cutscenes, you still just see your one character, but in the optional party banter, you see other people talking to them and being like, oh, how did you feel about this? Oh, you look like you're struggling because of this and they actually talk about what's happening. So it feels like they're traveling together. A little thing that I like is also just that in combat, they'll just be like,

nice job, Hikari. Way to go. Throne. And it's very heavy-handed, but actually it sort of works. Yeah, it helps. Yeah, it makes it feel like they all know each other. And the other, just real quick, the other really important thing is that in the first game, and this was the worst part, this is what really just made me not like that game very much, or at least not love it. Every single chapter followed the same formula. You get to a town, some cutscenes play, you use your path action, you go through a dungeon, and then there's a boss, and that's it. And that happened 31 times. There's one exception. There are four chapters. I can't believe you played that whole game, man. Well, I was reviewing it. You're the, and you're the

JRP man, too. I'm yet to grind. I haven't had to grind once in this game, and I'm basically almost done, which is nice. So yeah, so it was just so formula, like this game switches it up. Like some chapters, there's no bosses. Some chapters, there's no dungeons. Some chapters, like do things differently, have two dungeons. Sometimes chapters branch. So it might be like with Throne, for example, after chapter one, there's like mother's root and father's root because you're going to find mother and father.

And so they'll find them with your knife. Yeah. And so, exactly. And so it just feels, it's kind of, some of the changes are subtle and small, but it just makes it feel. so much better than the first game because you're not in the same formula over and over again and you don't know what to expect there's a ton of variety a ton of interesting stuff that happens and yeah man this game i could just go on about this game forever because i haven't been this like done a game since probably all didn't ring and really it's one of the best jrpg's maybe i've ever

played like i love it it's just fantastic house of the year jason shrier yeah i i love it i think it's awesome. And I think, yeah, Maddie, I think even you would get a lot out of it. I mean, best JRPJ since ever played, that means I might think it's okay. Yeah, exactly. It's a bold statement. All right. Why don't we, uh, we've given this enough thoughts. So why don't we flow our way to, uh, the next segment? We're going to take a little break. And then it's time for one more thing. If you have trouble falling asleep, try sleeping with celebrities. Tell me about your view of, of succulents. I'm not a, I'm not a huge fan.

It's a different kind of sleep podcast. There are some real benefits to parking illegally. Featuring remarkable guests and unremarkable topics. There's two Orlando airports. From the creator of Depresh Mode with John Moe, it's sleeping with celebrities. Every week on Maximum Fun. Nighty Nightingeat Sleepy Heads. Hi, I'm Jesse Thorne, the founder of Maximum Fun, and I have a special announcement.

I'm no longer embarrassed by my brother, my brother, and me. You know, for years, each new episode of this supposed advice show was a fresh insult, a depraved jumble of erection jokes, ghost humor, and frankly, this is for the best, very little actionable advice. But now, as they enter their twilight years, I'm as surprised as anyone to admit that it's gotten kind of good. Justin, Travis, and Griffin's witticisms are more refined, like a humor column in a fancy magazine, and they hardly ever say Bazinga anymore. So, after you've completely finished listening to every single one of all of our other shows, why not join the McElroy Brothers every week for my brother, my brother, and me?

All right, Kirk Maddie, it's time for one more thing. Maddie, take us away. Okay, I saw Robocop for the first time. Pretty good movie. For the first time. It's so good. I'm so excited to you watch it. I love Rubikop. Man, it's a good movie. Pretty good. This was a really big hole in my personal canon, and I feel very proud to have finally made it happen.

There's nothing Kirk enjoys more than when people first watch classic 80s movies. I know. There's nothing I like more. So if I get to do it myself, it's like I'm completing my own sense of joy. It's one of the great joys of life, for sure. Yeah. Yeah, I have some more classic 80s movies that I'm going to try to complete. I will see if I talk about them on the show or not. If they're as good as Robocop, I might. TBD. But Robocop, classic sci-fi movie, Paul Virhoven directed this.

And I'm a big fan of his. I was really into Starship Troopers as a teenager. Still kind of my go-to example of satire. If people want to understand what it is. And I just, I have so much nostalgia for it, especially as like a teenager growing up during the War on Terror, the Forever War. and we're just, I mean, we all were surrounded by propaganda for that as teenagers or, you know, 20-somethings. And watching Starship Troopers in that exact time period for me, which just hits so right.

And I think I would have really dug Robocop then. I still liked it a lot as an adult already knew what the deal would be in terms of the militarization of the police force, depiction of this futuristic version of Detroit, and just the depiction of the future generally is being corporate controlled. like this private corporation controlling the police force and turning a somewhat ordinary cocky cop into a cyborg, terrifying cyborg cop who you also feel pretty sorry for, which I didn't actually expect. I kind of went in thinking robocop would be a bad guy, but he's not quite a bad guy. He's a sympathetic figure, and I thought that worked pretty well. I thought it was pretty fascinating. And I did want to shout out one of the simplest filmic techniques I've ever seen, but it really worked for me.

So if anybody's rewatching it and they want to think about this, welcome to subtlety with all the weight of a huge axe landing on your head. The moment at the beginning when Murphy, who's the lead cop, human cop at the beginning, gets killed by a bunch of criminals, the shot position and the music is very similar to the moment significantly later in the movie. when all the cops turn on him and they're all shooting at him. And there's so many moments where somebody is shooting at someone just like a comedic number of times. Like it's just really, I don't know,

it feels like a Paul Virhoeven thing to be making violence comedic almost because of how extreme and absurd it is. And that marriage of those two moments really worked for me where I was like, oh, wow, like the cops are now presented as the same as the criminals. Again, you know, now, axe-shaped subtlety here, but it still really worked for me.

And I dug it. I liked it a lot. I read some good articles about Robocop and Satara afterwards. I really like Paul Verhoeven stuff. And I recommend it. Also, I do not subscribe to Amazon Prime. I don't pay for it. But you can watch it on there for free with ads.

So even if you don't want to give Jeff Bezos any money, you can still watch Robocop. I'm sure I'm still paying him somehow. Yeah, you are giving him money by watching ads. I don't care, Jason. I don't know. Look, I have Amazon Prime. It's impossible to like... It's not avoidable.

What am I doing? Anyway, that's how I watched it if people want to check it out. I recommend it. Robicop. Cool movie. Cool. That's all. Kirk, what about you?

What's your one more thing? I watched a cool movie too. It's a movie called Cocaine Bear and you'll never guess what it's about. Is this... As soon as I saw that name and the trailer and everything about it, I was like, this is like them trying to recreate snakes on a plane for the mom. Modern era. So, well, what I think is on the plane is pretty recent.

They're both the modern era. That's not that recent. That was like 15 years ago. Yeah, it was pretty long ago. Hold on. I'm going to look this up. Snakes out of plane was 17 years ago, Kirk. 17 years ago.

Time flies. So it's the same kind of idea, yes. But I would say a much more successful film overall and a really good time. So I'm sure everybody listening to this knows cocaine bear. I'm not on social media, but I'm guessing that there's a lot of cocaine bear. on social media. This is based on a true story where a guy jumped out of a plane

with a bunch of cocaine and then died on impact. She didn't open. I can't remember. He dropped all the cocaine, and they couldn't find all of it, and then it turned out that a buried a bunch of the cocaine and died.

That's the true story. And the filmmakers, this is directed by Elizabeth Banks, the wonderful comedic actress who now directs film. She directed, I think, pitch perfect three as well, but was the star of so many

you've seen her and everything. She's great. She directed this. And the question this movie asked is basically like, well, we know the bear died. We don't know what happened in between, before then. And also maybe the bear didn't die. And it's sort of a result of. What would happen if the bear was an apex predator on cocaine?

Right. And cocaine just turned a bear into a superpowered bear, which is basically the premise for this extremely, extremely silly sort of comedy, slasher, you know, animal attack movie along the lines of, yes, Shark Nato or Deep Blue Sea, or. Snakes on a plane. Though I watched Snakes on a plane, I mean, it was a long time ago, evidently it was 17 years ago, and I remember thinking, this sucks.

Like, this movie is nowhere near as good as the premise. This whole thing just feels like a bit that shouldn't have been made. And it was just kind of slapdash and not very satisfying. This movie is really entertaining. I went and saw it with some friends. Emily and I went to the theater.

If you can see this in a rowdy theater full of people, it's really fun because everyone is reacting because the movie is very much designed to be viewed that way. It's super funny. It's super silly. It'll be gross and ridiculous. And it's just very, very funny. But it's also just a better put together movie.

Like there's real work put into the special effects of the bear. They really kind of did it. The bear looks amazing. And all the scenes with the bear are great. There's one set piece in particular that involves Margo Martindale in an ambulance with the bear chasing the ambulance and a bunch of people. The movie kind of peaks early. It's definitely the peak of the movie.

it's awesome. And it had just been a long time since I'd been in the theater for that kind of like, whoa, oh, like everyone yelling and, like, laughing and cheering. And that alone was really fun. Is it really, you say it pinks early, does it really sustain across an entire movie? It feels like it should be a 20-minute sketch. Well, it's a 90-minute movie. Yes, it does. It's a 90-minute movie. I wish that the climactic scene had been as great as the mid-film ambulance set piece. So it was like, that was a little like, ah, I've And if only they had the climactic scene be just as audacious and ridiculous. But yeah, no, of course, it's a 90-minute movie.

You're sitting in a theater. You're having a beer. It flies by. It's great. It's like the opposite of, you know, a three-hour Academy Award-nominated whatever drama. Like, it's very much that kind of thing. And it's just funny to think I, the minute I heard about the movie and started talking about it with friends, I was like, this movie is going to destroy at the box office. It did.

It had a killer opening weekend. I bet this coming weekend, there's a lot of people like me out there telling their friends, hey, if you want to have a good time, go see Cocaine Bear in the theaters. And it just seems like as much as the James Cameron's and the Tom Cruise's of the world are like, come to the theater for our big, amazing, impressive things and as impressive as TopGut and Avatar are, a big draw is actually a movie like this or a movie like Megan earlier this year. These kind of silly, comedic gross out. I should note, we saw Megan a couple days ago, and that was part of why I watched Robocop because

I was just on that robot action movie kick. For Robocop's a lot smarter than Megan. Megan's really fun, though. I will say that. And yeah, we're going to watch Megan, too, and I bet it would have been fun to see in theaters. Also, Ray Leota's last film, Cocaine Bear. Wow.

Yes. Yeah, they, it's a funny performance, and of course, a fitting role. Anyways, it's a funny movie. It's a good time. I'm sure everyone already knows about it, but I just wanted to kind of co-sounding seeing it in theaters because there are worse things you could do with a Friday evening. Cocaine Bear also could have been the title of Ray Leota's most famous for All Good Fellows.

It could have just been called Cocaine Bear. This really is kind of a Goodfellow's sequel. It technically maybe actually could be based on the character he's playing unclear. That's funny. Anyway. Cool. My Woverthing is a book. I read books while you guys watch movies.

I don't have time. I need flashy images on screen. That's it. I just need cocaine and cyborgs. And robots shooting people's arms. All I do really is play Switch. I play Octoboth Travel or two on the Switch. I don't read books.

No. I'm reading a book. It's really, really cool. It's called Tracers in the Dark by Andy Greenberg. Andy Greenberg is a reporter for Wired, I think formerly of Forbes. And this book is about these kind of people whose job or who have spent the past few years tracing down criminals in the crypto world, in the cryptocurrency world. For example, the Silk Road, Drug Network, the people who traced down the guy who was behind it, this guy who went by the moniker dread pirate Roberts from Princess Bride. And the book is all about like how they did it.

And we meet some of these characters who did it, these people who are like into solving the puzzle of cryptocurrency and figuring out how you trace it, how you trace the blockchain. One of the characters he introduces early on is actually the person who like helped co-lead this research paper on how blockchain and Bitcoin is not, or Bitcoin specifically, is not actually anonymous. and how you can trace back, like, where the address came from and all the, you can't find, like, their name or personal details or anything. You can use that information combined with

other information to potentially trace people and how many, like, crimes that helped uncover. And it's really, really interesting because so much of it is just, like, fascinating behind the scene stuff. There's a whole section about this, like, corrupt FBI agent who himself just, like, wound up, like on the take for cryptocurrency stuff and like wound up using his position to exhort the dread pirate Roberts and the Silk Road and like get money out of them and really just fascinating stuff and it sounds like they needed robocop in this scenario they did they need well they need crypto crypto cop mattie if you were titling the book you could call it crypto crypto or you could call it cocaine

crypto crypto cocaine crypto um robocop five he does some cocaine and then I don't know. We'll make it work. And I think the real thing to note here is that it's just written extremely well and good writing can really just carry you through a nonfiction story no matter what. And this book is really, really good at that. It reads like a great thriller or something like that. It just has a good. It's just extremely readable.

And so I really enjoyed it. I haven't finished it yet, but I'm really enjoying what I'm reading so far. once again called Tracers in the Dark by Andy Greenberg. And that is it for this week's episode. So Kirk, Maddie, are you guys going to, after we finish recording this, are you going into flow mode or thought mode? What are you thinking? Probably flow.

Because I'm going to eat dinner, which I would say is flow. Yeah, I was going to say, I think I'm going to give some thought to what to have for dinner and then flow my way to the kitchen. I'm going to go edit this episode, which is pure flow mode. No thought required. That's fair. All right, guys, I will see you both next week. Yeah, see you both 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 maximum fun.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.

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