Triple Click - Triple Play: Final Fantasy VI

Episode Date: February 25, 2021

It's finally time! Per Jason's orders, Kirk and Maddy are playing through Final Fantasy VI. This week: they get up to the Opera House. What has aged well? What hasn't? Will the grind and tedium break Maddy's brain? Will Kirk fall in love with Celes and crew? Find out on this week's Triple Click!One More Thing:Kirk: Demon’s SoulsMaddy: You’re Wrong About podcastJason: Bravely Default 2 Links:Support Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinJoin 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

We've decided to stop making the show until we hear more news on Hollow Night's Silk Song. What's that? Oh, we can't boycott. All right, let's go. Welcome to Triple Click where we bring the games to you. Today we are talking about the wonderful old-school JRP Final Fantasy 6. Does Kirk love it? Does Maddie love it?

Let's find out. I'm Jason Trier. I'm Kirk Hamilton. And I'm Maddie Myers. And we are back for another episode. Hello. Hello. Hello. Here we are. Nice to see both of you. Today we are going to talk about Final Fantasy, and I'm very excited about that. But first, we should say that if you like Triple Click and you want to support us, you can become a max fun member. Become a member of our fine network that we host the podcast on. And you can help make the show. Help us make the show. Become part of this whole grand experiment that we've created here. We are entirely listener supported. And on top of feeling really good about support.

the show, you also get bonus content every single month, an episode, bonus episode, every single month from Triple Click, including this week's episode on The Mandalorian, which was a lot of fun. And we really enjoyed recording and talking about and geeking out about Star Wars. So that was super fun. It was so fun. That was a lot of fun. Talking about Star Wars.

It was extremely good. To become a member, go to maximum fun.org. slash join. If you are a new member, you will suddenly have, like, so much bonus content to go through from previous. Previous Beanscasts and other episodes we've done. So go check it out. But for today's episode, we are going to talk about Final Fantasy 6. A little bit of backstory here is that in 2020, as we do every year, we all made some predictions. Whoever won the predictions vet would get to pick a game for all three of us to play as part of our game club here on Triple Click. Kirk and I both won this year. So we were playing both of our games,

Half-Life 2 for Kirk and Final Fantasy 6 for myself. We were starting with Final Fantasy 6. For this week's episode, we all played up to the Opera House, which is like maybe 20%, 30% through the game. And I'm so curious to hear your thoughts. So I have played the game a bazillion times, including just again now for this show. Kirk, you played the game once with me.

Maddie, you have not played the game at all, so I really want to hear your take. What do you think of this game having played through the Opera House? Are we starting with me? Yes. Okay. You're up. No pressure. I'm having a tough time, Jason.

I really feel like I'm being paid back by making you play Kirby last year when I won the bet, and I know you didn't enjoy it. And playing Final Fantasy 6 is like, this is not the kind of game. game I would have ever played in my life. I would never play this game. I would never attempt to beat this game ever. Tell me what you don't like about it. I will. Well, let me start. Let's start at the top. So like the opera house is perhaps the most incredible thing ever in this game so far. It's such a good scene. I understand having seen it now and experienced it now why you asked us to play up to this point because even in the midst of playing it, I could feel my memories of every tedious thing that

I had to do prior to that point melting away, like the ghost train level and the serpent trench and like so many random battles every time you walk even a foot anywhere that is like, okay, here we go again, like time to battle some of the same six guys again. Like all of that melted away. And I was like, look at this opera house. Look at these incredible visuals. Look at this entire opera that they've written for the game using the, this like audio, like having the engineer in using like the game, Game Boy audio, since I'm playing that version of it to make it sound like these characters are singing and you can like sing along with them. And it's, it's so freaking cool to like have something that theatrical and

bombastic in like a Game Boy game that I have hitherto not enjoyed that much. But I get, like, I'm already forgetting it because I'm like, I see now what this game is capable of narratively and like creating an environment in a space that you can explore. Like those things about the game are so great. But then there's so much tedium as well in this game. There's so much about it that is slow as heck. And I think part of what's biasing me against it was the listeners will remember. I recently played the original Final Fantasy 7 and talked about it on the show.

But that version of the game that I played lets you do so much more skipping of battles. And I don't just mean fast forwarding. I mean, the game lets you outright skip a ton of battles, which is like the tedium to me of an RPG. Yeah, it adds cheat codes, that version of the game. It adds like literal cheap. Yeah, yeah, it's like it's such an easy mode. It's like you can just basically play the game only for the story and the exploration aspects and not have to fight extremely similar battles over and over again. This is like I'm playing the real FF6 now.

Like I'm playing all the random battles, you know what I mean? You're in the shit now, Maddie. Yeah, I mean, the problem here, I think maybe you would have enjoyed this experience a lot more of Square had actually put out a version of Final of Six. It was like properly handled. Yeah. But yeah, playing in a way where you can hit a fast forward button definitely is essential for this game playing today. When you're playing a game that's like 30 years old or 20, 20, 25 years old, sometimes like it has these things that have aged poorly, such as random encounters and constant random encounters. This game is like full of random encounters.

And you can't just escape from them all because then you'll find yourself underleveled when you get to a boss and you'll just be screwed. Although there are ways to break the game that I can talk about a little bit later where you don't really have to think about it anymore. Yeah, give me those cheat codes. And in fact, in the second half of the game, you can, one of the first things you can do is you can go get a relic that actually lets you turn off random encounters and bam, suddenly you're set for life.

And that doesn't break the game in a bad way where you end up being underleveled from that? You can't be under-leveled, but you can also like selectively grind, which is a way better way of doing it because you can go find a place where it's like, oh, okay, I can just do this for a few minutes. One thing that I will say, Maddie, and then I'll throw it to you, Kirk, for your overall impressions is that as a kid playing this, I think that like, I mean, first of all, I think you have more tolerance for TDM as a child when you're playing video games. Oh, God, yes. I wish I could have played this when I was 11. I mean, that's what I keep thinking is like I would have just explored it forever. I would have played it for 100 hours. It's a huge game.

You have no idea where to go if you're not using a walkthrough, which I am unashamedly using a walkthrough because I, you know, I'm trying to be a game. Which is great. Totally fine. But if I were a child and I were just exploring it, I mean, I dealt with random encounters and games as a child.

I just was like, whatever, this is the game. I'm just going to play the same thing over and over again because that's what it is. But as an adult, I'm like, I get it. I don't think the combat in this game is interesting enough for me to want to spend this many hours of my life. life on it and I'd like to get to the rest of the game.

No, it's not. Well, so the other thing is that as a kid playing it, you get to hear the music and you can't just go on YouTube and listen to the music track. So it's like, like, just sitting there and rocking out to this music was the reason that I, like, got into every single point of it. And the music is really the best

thing about this game and the reason that this game is so special in my mind. Anyway, Kirk, you've been quiet. What are your kind of overall thoughts on this game? Yeah, somewhere between you and Maddie. I'm enjoying it. I guess. I had more fun watching you play it than I think I'm having playing it, only because you really knew what to do, and we were kind of talking together. I don't think you weren't

watching me, you were playing it, and I was telling you what to do. You took over quite a bit in combat and stuff. This was the first time I'd really play the combat. And I remember at the time saying, when I really play this, I will then get a feel for how the combat actually works, which I certainly have now. I have figured out this game's combat. I've done a lot of it. And yeah, I'm struck by a few things about it. One is definitely how much of it, if you look at it as like a pie

chart, this huge part of the pie is just repetitive shit that waste your time or just kind of empty content. Like just sort of moving shit around in menus and figuring out where to put this thing or that thing or like de-equipping all of your party so you can re-equip them

later. This stuff that just takes forever. Or just walking around which takes forever. You got Sprint shoes, right? Yeah, sprint shoes. I mean, like... Even with sprint shoes, though. It's still so slow.

Like, when you're in a town and... And you can also hold B, like, with a GBA version. Yeah, but if I want to go, like, explore a house and find some thing or I was doing this... No, yeah, it's still a super Nintendo game. Everything takes forever. Yeah, no, I know. I'm just saying that that is the experience I'm having, regardless of when it came out or what it is. It is, like, a remarkable amount of the overall time that you spend playing it is just spent on, like,

kind of empty moving around. or looking in menus. And then as a result of that, or maybe just because of the style of this game, the story is really interesting. It's a thing that's true of a lot of JRPGs and of Final Fantasy 7 as well to a point. There's a kind of a minimalism to the story

where everything is painted in really broad strokes. Every character is like a total trope and like speaks in these like hilarious sentences that are just very plainly saying what they feel in a way that almost does feel like an, opera at times. It feels like it's kind of got that same energy where you're dealing with all of these archetypes bouncing into one another and expressing their inner desires in like one tiny line of usually okay translated English. Well, you're playing the Game Boy version. The Super

Nintendo version is like the wild translation. Sure. So yes, I'm playing the GBA version as well. So there's also this funny quality where there's a kind of a hollowness to the story that it leaves space for you to fill in a lot of your own stuff, both because the art is so sort of old-looking, old-fashioned and not detailed. You can kind of imagine what these characters look like. The character portraits, I think, are really cool because the characters never quite look like their sprites imply. When you see their portraits, they're always kind of odd-looking or sort of ugly or weird. And I like that because it sort of tickles my imagination. And I like all of that. I like the way that you have to kind of project so much onto these characters, even if overall, the...

the story feels pretty shallow because, like, there's almost no subtlety. There's almost no, like, depth to anything that's happening. It's just very much, like, this bad person is doing that. And, like, the bad guy is literally just this, like, hyena laughing maniac who just wants to murder everybody for no reason. And so the story is, like, fun in this broad way, but then there's kind of nothing underneath it. And then so much of the game is kind of, there's kind of no there that it just turns into

this big kind of funny, diffuse experience that I'm finding, I kind of find it appealing in a way. Like it's really laid back when I play the game. But it's like you, Maddie, it's not a game I would have sought out. It's very much not the kind of game that I played as a child. And so I'm finding myself spending a lot of energy trying to imagine what it would be like to be a child who played this kind of game. I keep doing that the whole time and thinking about myself as a child. So you guys are trying to figure out what it was like to be me. I'm basically like, what was Jason like when he was 11? Well, not you.

Because I think I would have liked it as a kid as well. In some respects, I mean, there's some pretty prominent female characters in this game. You start out playing Tara. I think the cold open, as it were, where you're being introduced to this mysterious world, where some people have magic powers and are brainwashed and controlled by this government. Like, I was so into the first hour of this game and then I started getting really bored. But the first hour is really great. And, like, that world of magic, it would have.

really tickled me as a kid and been like, oh, this is interesting. I want to write a bunch of fan fan fictions about this. Like I would have been way into it. But then I think the other issue that I have with the story that is a little bit different from yours, Kirk, is that there's also just so much of it. So it's not just that you have like these moments where like, okay, we're going to go get on a ghost train together. Apparently there's a ghost train in this world. Sure. It's also like, in addition to that, we're going to have this whole other story about this one guy's wife and kid who died and, like they're going to be on the train suddenly and like that's very dramatic and I'm like I barely know this guy and then like we're going to have a whole other storyline about a completely other

character and there's like 12 characters who you need to remember and like they're kind of well defined but I'm also kind of like I don't really know these people that well because they've each only got like six lines a piece total to describe everything that's ever happened to them in their entire lives and each of those six lines is going to give you that piece of information about them but it's also like, who are they? And there's so many of them. So I don't know. That part of it is kind of tough.

And the other thing about the story that was surprising to me is it's very silly. Like it's very funny. Yes. There are many things about it that are just jokes. Like the octopus that you fight over and over who shows up at the opera house to be like a joke villain that is like sort of cast in opposition to the quote unquote serious villain of Kefka who's like an actual. threat or like sets or I guess the threat in that particular scene but but both of those villains are already so silly that I'm like did I need an even more silly villain in ultras to like help mitigate the fear that child to me would have had like how scary like the wizard guy seems in this game

but like but don't worry there's also this octopus who's like even sillier it's like it's like it's for kids you know what I mean like not in a bad way totally it is a totally weird game like it's It's really like, oh my God, just, I had the same thought of. I have this in my notes. It's just like, is this just basically a Marx Brothers movie? And I know that it becomes much more serious. I know there are like big dramatic things that happen. But like, how serious could this game ever be given the baseline is really absurd reaction like shots of little sprites?

Like making huge googly, like, you know, Looney Tunes eyes. And then just really funny looking stuff happening. Like slapstick stuff where like when Selly's, I don't. I don't know how to pronounce any of the character's names. I'm sorry. Celis, when she, like, decides whether she's going to be Maria or not, she, like, comedically runs into the door and smashes up against it,

falls over Pratt-Fall style, and then runs through the door. Like, there is slapstick comedy in this game. Why? One of my favorite things is, I do love the little Sprite animations, as silly as they are, and as weird as that they make the tone of the game. It does make it just all feel like this ridiculous Saturday morning cartoon. There's a scene where, what's his name,

the knight, the like, he has like the samurai abilities. He's like the knight of the king. Sion. Yeah, comes out to like face off against the head of the other army. And it's like the imperial army is trying to take down the castle. And there's just guys like jumping at the wall and then falling on the ground. Yes. Yes.

Like they can't get up the wall so they're just like bouncing off of it. They forgot their grappling hooks, man. It's so funny. It's like a dramatization in this very silly way of a siege. And it's like Tom and Jerry's verse. version of a siege. Okay, so I have to get out a couple things. So first of all, Kirk, to the point, I've been wanting to respond to this for a while,

to the point you made earlier about the story being very broad. Did you guys both take Edgar and Sabin to Castle Figaro after the Battle of Darsh, like I told you? Yes, yes. Of course. So one of the highlights of the storytelling in this game for me, and this is, again, with the giant caveat that this is storytelling from the early 90s. So video game storytelling has changed quite a bit in that, is that there's these optional scenes like that, or you find out what their deal is and that Edgar took one for the team

and flipped a coin and was like, so basically Edgar flips a coin and he says, whichever of this wins this coin gets to do what we want, gets to go be free, and the other one has to stay behind and rule the kingdom. And it's heads. And Edgar's like, okay, well, I guess I have to stay and Sabin goes and becomes a martial artist and follows the dream and Edgar sticks around. Then about four hours later in story time, maybe less, two hours. hours later in story time, you get on Setzer's airship after the opera house, and Edgar and like, Sellis makes a bet with Setzer that like, oh, we're going to flip this coin and its heads, and the Setzer picks it up, and he's like a two-headed coin. And if you have Sabin and your party

at that point, he's like, wait a minute, what? Like 10 years earlier, he learned this thing. So it's like, there are a lot of those moments that are super cool that only happen. And like if you have the right party configuration. And I always really enjoy that about this game. Same with Locke's story, which I think is also like told a lot through optional cutscenes. The other point I wanted to make is that, yeah, this game is very much about giant tonal disparities and constant giant tonal disparities. The second half of the game, I don't want to spoil it

because we will be playing more, but the second half of this game is a giant, giant tonal shift and like it's almost, it's like super bleak to the point where it's like actually gets depressing and it's like you're remembering some of the slap like stuff when you start seeing stuff like you might get really into it and i'm curious like are you guys mattie are you like curious to know what's up with terror are you curious to see what's going to happen next i mean they've sort of implied some stuff like she you meet this other old esper guy and learn what espers are and he turns into a rock you know video game stuff

um sure and so of course she like either is human or is an esper is like one of one or the other of those things or both of those things. And I'm sure that that'll be a dramatic reveal as to the true state of her nature. And her inability to experience emotions is already a running theme with her. I think all of that is very interesting. But again, I'm like, it's odd to play a game that has these extremely serious moments juxtaposed with like just the goofiest shit you've ever seen in your life. And like the, I feel like that pendulum swing is a lot stronger in Final Fantasy 6 then Final Fantasy 7, which is only really my point of comparison because I just played it. And that was another scenario where I was like, wow, this is a game with little sprites who are

experiencing PTSD. And like, how do you depict like a flashback in like a serious moment where like Cloud is walking around slowly and he's like, you know, six pixels tall or whatever? And like how do you, yeah, like how do you convey that in a game that has very limited visuals and still have it be really emotionally affecting? And I thought that that game did a good job of that. And this game does too sometimes, but then other times I'm like, this is not working for me at all. So, I mean, it's clearly like they were working some things out in terms of what kinds of stories they wanted to tell in a game like this. And FF6 just feels like it has a lot of ideas in it and like no one said no to any idea story-wise. It's like every single thing, like the silliest idea, the darkest idea.

It's an ensemble cast, yeah. But it's not even just that it's an ensemble cast. It's like every single idea is here. Well, okay, but there's a thing that's like, I think that once you like, you're still in the first couple of layers of the onion that is the story. And I think as you like, no, I'm not saying your points aren't valid because they're totally valid. No, I know.

I just, it's hilarious to me that like I have 20 hours to go. And I'm like, yeah, and there's going to be even more absurd things that happen in the game. You know what I mean? But continue. The game gets better. The game does get better. Now that you have espers and like you're learning that mechanic and like you can teach

all your. characters magic, things will get better for you. But so, like, even the characters who have, like, who are generally full of slapstick, like, cyan and, like, Gao, who you meet on the belt and is, like, a joke of a character, like, turns out they have, like, some real, there's some twists in there. And a lot of that stuff is also very optional. And there's, like, this heartbreaking stuff scene involving Gao that, like, you only get in the second half the game if you take him to a certain place.

and then you see like his tragic backstory. And so there's some stuff like that in the game that I think like in retrospect might make you appreciate some of the older stuff more and some of the slapstick stuff more because it's very much a game where like some of these characters are like trying to like put facades on to hide real sadness. Like Edgar for example, his womanizing, which is a whole thing that's like super weird and creepy. Yeah, not super funny in 2021. No, not at all.

No, no, no, not at all. Not something that is justifiable, not something that is H-12, but as a character, at least my read on it, is that, like, that is very much like a facade to hide, like, a lot of bleakness that is inside of him. Not saying this is cool or something that should be there. Right. I mean, I would say a lot of the game has a sort of like, oh, it's funny for all the male characters to be attracted to the female characters around. There's quite a bit of that, but which I would say fits into the overall slapstick and almost opera-esque mode and tone of the game.

But Jason also, I think that everything you're describing speaks to the sense I have that this game was built to be something you feel nostalgic about. Because again, even as I'm playing it, I am already only remembering the best parts of it because the best parts of the game, like the Opera House that we mentioned, are quite good. And the parts of it that are kind of weird or silly are easily minimized in the face of the other hours of content I've experienced that are stronger or sadder. And I can already see how if the last chunk of the game, last third or whatever it is, is very dramatic and has a certain tone that is much more internally consistent and, like, has all these twists and turns, that will be what I'll remember and what you probably remember when you play. And then you're, like, more easily capable of shrugging off, like, the sillier things or the more tedious things in the game that you're like, well, that stuff is kind of dumb. Because you're remembering all the good shit, but it's still like a 30-plus-hour game that has a lot of extraneous tedium. minute, which is really just because it was made in 1994, you know? Yeah, something you said, Maddie, that I think is interesting and very true is that it feels

like they had a billion ideas and no one said no to any of them. I feel this way about Final Fantasy 7 as well, and it's funny because I played that one for a letter series. I played this one because I tied Jason in this bet. And so I always wind up playing these games as a result of some kind of a deal because that's the way to get me to play them. And I always, I had the same thought, which is it's totally wild how much ground these games cover. And this does establish the kind of Final Fantasy, or it continues to establish the Final Fantasy framework of a ton of variety, just sort of moving from thing to thing to thing to thing, and never settling into the steady groove that you get into with like a Dragon Age Inquisition or The Witcher or like

a Western RPG, where pretty early on you're just in the world and you're doing side quests and it's kind of this vibe where Final Fantasy is much more, you've got one part, you've got one party and then one person leaves and then suddenly you're somewhere else and then everyone's different and you're playing a different character and now you're here and they're mixing up differently and you're meeting a new person and now you're doing this and matter. It's like it moves, yes, it moves in a very handcrafted way. That would be impossible in a modern game only because it would be so expensive to do all of this stuff. Like the ghost train sequence alone would take a million years and that would be the first thing on the cutting room floor. Like that's its own whole game like if you

want to do that or the serpent trench like anything where you're like flying around those riverbeds and all that stuff. Like, that's its own entire other world. The whole sequence where Locke is sneaking around the town and he's stealing costumes and, like, changing outfits so that he can get out, which is really cool. They were able to do it because the game is so low-res across the board, they could just really easily, I'm sure it wasn't easy, but like they could feasibly make this stuff and then just stick it all together.

Yeah, I think they said they made this game in a year, by the way. Right. So it has this kind of feeling of extreme broadness that I do think, at times, the story suffers, even though I'm sure that over time, like, it does flesh out. And I like the thing with the coin, too, even though that kind of feels in ways like the exception that proves the rule, like, that's a cool little example of subtlety and, like, a callback to a thing. But there aren't that many of those. Like, it's not like that's happening all the time.

Mostly it's people just being like, hey, I'm sad, you know? And then, like, another person being like, I don't know. No, there are a fair number of those. There are, like, a good number of big ones throughout the game. No, like subtle, subtle storytelling moments that like reveal a lot more about the characters that you have to really piece together yourself. And you just haven't gotten to them yet, Kirk. Broadly, though, it is painting with a very broad brush and it's not a lot of depth because they are not able to convey the depth with the technology that they had available to them. And they opted instead to have a ton of variety and this whole thing that is just this like really variable experience, which is interesting.

and doesn't feel modern in any way, but that actually kind of makes it stand out to me more when I'm playing it. It feels more like a different kind of experience that I just don't really have playing games now. Yeah, well, so there's some things in this game that, like, you would never have seen ever before, like splitting your characters into parties and defending choke points and, like, as enemies come towards you,

or, like, having the, even having three scenarios and getting to play them, like, one at a time to see what all the characters are doing. Like these are things that RPGs were not doing back then in any real capacity or like like yeah. I mean just yeah, the lock thing that you mentioned like stealing costumes, it really is just throwing one thing after another at you. And yeah, if you wind up, if like some of those things wind up not resonating with you, then I can totally see why you would bounce off this game. Like Maddie, it seems like you really didn't like the Phantom train. Personally, I was like blown away at this concept of like a train.

Why? Yeah, there's a little bit like what the hell is happening. Yeah, well, so it's this concept of like a train in the middle of the forest that like shepherds lost souls. I mean, it looks cool. It's a real, it's a problem that like you're expected to give a shit about Sian and his family when you literally just met them, right? And he's like the ninth character that you've met or something. Right. I like, I feel bad that I laughed at that.

I was laughing in in curjulity at it. I was like, what? What is this video game doing? Well, but also like to circle back, Jason, do you like it when the game makes you split up your parties and defend choke points? Like, do you think that's fun? This is a leading question. I clearly don't think it's fun for my tone of voice. But like genuinely, do you enjoy that aspect? I mean, so the OP way, I should have given you this as a tip. But the pro way to play that is to just stack one party and just kill all the dues with a single party instead of like worrying about spending on. Well, you can't avoid them all. I mean, I guess we're talking, we're talking about the Narsh battle here. If that's, that's. That, I played that multiple times before I finally got through it. Oh, that sucks. Okay, yeah, I should have told you.

Like, you stick your best characters in one party, and then you can just get the, you just stay up top and you just get them off with that one overpowered party. I kind of have gotten it to the point where I have three or four characters that are just ludicrously overpowered with area of attack. Like, Gao has this one rage ability that I got that just murders everybody and Sabin has his whatever that's called Rising Phoenix that murders everybody and Eggers Bioblaster murders everybody in that battle

Oh, excellent So I mean you could I just made parties that were completely unstoppable It's very easy to break this game Yeah Did you guys get the chainsaw when you were in Zos? Yes I have it yeah

That breaks That helps break the game Speaking of weird things in this game I love the chainsaw Because he puts on a Jason mask sometimes Yeah Yeah yeah yeah You're like okay

Sure Yeah and there's even more stuff That is like Like this game is very much like the directors watched a ton of movies from Star Wars, which is kind of the big overarching influence here, to like rush hour, which is very like Sabin scenario and like Sabin and like a Sion and Shadow in the camp is like very buddy cop movie. And it just like they took a bunch of movies and just slammed them all together. This is also the first RPG that is like really cinematic and like plays around with

camera pans and like different different perspectives and stuff like that. I do like that aspect of it. Same. I think that some of the things they do, they do a trick where, the camera will be panning downward as scenes play out. This is I think Edgar is having a memory of their father dying, I think, during that scene. And the camera, like, it's basically sliding by overhead, which they don't have very much to work with in terms of perspective because it's just this top down. You know, they don't have a lot of degrees of camera freedom, but they're still doing this stuff. Or the focus, I like the way that things come into focus and then become more pixelated as they go out of focus. So when like a huge explosion happens, the world kind of shifts out of focus.

and you can tell, oh, something like just happened. They're very clever with some of that stuff, I think. Yeah, so the point you guys are at, okay, so you've seen the Battle of Narsh, Tara has flown away in her pink naked form. Oh, yeah. Superpowered Asper form. Her super cyan form, yeah. Yeah, kind of, yeah.

I think at this point in the game, I mean, like, this is where the story really starts to pick up. But the Opera House, I want to talk about the Opera House specifically because, like, obviously you guys seem to both really enjoy that sequence. And, yeah, that was a good. one of those things that just like blew people's minds when we were growing up because there was there's been nothing like that like an entire friggin musical in a in a video like it was ridiculous for the for the early 90s even today it like still holds up incredibly well and just the idea that you would play as Celeste like through this scene and like have to pick your lines and the music is just incredible

um fun fact that the opera theme is actually like a bass for like uh uh eris's theme which i'm sure you know kirk um It is. I have that in my notes. At the very beginning, it starts with almost the same sequences, erashton. So already, like, we know it's, shit is going to get real when you start hearing those three notes that, that, like, a little, little chime. Yeah. Tug the heartstrings. Yeah. It's a good song. Yeah, I mean, so, so, so, like, you can see as uneven as you might have found it. Yeah, I think you have a very good point, Maddie, about, like, really having these memorable moments. And I bet if you ask some people who, like, maybe haven't played it 20 times, like, to have and know the whole game by heart, but like maybe played it once as a kin, they might be like, oh yeah, the opera house or like a couple other things. And that's really what stands out in their

head. Oh, yeah. Or like specific character moments. I mean, obviously I'm not far enough yet, but even I can remember like just a few lines about each character that I'm like, of course, those are the moments that define them. And then I'm already beginning to forget some of the lines that people said where I'm like, wait, what? Who are you? Like even like all the guys hitting on the girls in this game, which annoys me every time it happens, it's also very forgettable because it's just presented as a joke every time that's not really key to the story and like the actual romances that unfold. Except for Locke. So when Locke hits on people, it's actually key to his story. But yes. This thing for Celeste is very much a key to his story. It's clear that Locke has actual

feelings for Celeste, although he also has like a dead girlfriend in a box in his village. So like that's fine. He sure does. I saw the flashback with that. It was very fun. funny. What happened exactly? It's like he... Okay. Should we say this is funny? These are things I can tell are not supposed to be funny about the game. When I say funny, I mean it's ridiculous. It's not, it's a tragic backstory because wait, what happens? They like went to a cave. Remind me what happens with her? So like they go into a cave together. She gets amnesia. He's walking across a bridge. The bridge is about to collapse. She runs out to the bridge to push him off of it while it's collapsing. She's very,

brave. She falls. She gets brain damage of a kind. She loses her memory of this incident and also loses her memory of who he is, but not who her parents are. So she has some memory loss. And her parents blame him for all of this and kick him out dramatically. And so they've broken up. But then also she gets killed by the empire. And then she dies. She dies in a war, imperial attack. and he feels bad that he didn't force himself into her life, even though she didn't remember who he was. And I don't know. So what I thought was funny about that was just that as tragic backstories go,

it was just funny that there's an extra amnesia wrinkle in the little bit. And I found that funny. She could have just died in the war. She could have just fallen and died. And instead it's like, then she lost your memory. And her family kicked me out. And then she died anyways off screen somewhere. And I was like, what was that backstory?

Like, what? It's like they fridged her and then they like did it again. They were like two fridging. He's perfect. They wrote a backstory and then they realized they actually needed a reason for Locke to hate the empire, so then they had it more. Oh, yes, of course. They need to motivate him.

It feels a little bit hamfisted. And, like, clearly he's going to find some piece of treasure that resurrects her because, like, various characters keep mentioning that there's some sort of relic that does that. And then I'm sure he's going to have some moral quandary about whether he should be with his dead girlfriend who didn't remember who he was when she died or if he should be with Celis who, like, may or may not be attracted to him. But I'm sure she will be by the. end of the game because it's a whole on solo Princess Leia thing. So like, fine. They hate each other now,

but, you know, will they, won't they? Those are my predictions, Jason. You can laugh, laugh gently at me because I'm sure I'm wrong. I guess we'll see. Well, I'm glad that you want to see what happens next. So you don't need it that much. I don't. I think the story's fun and I am laughing at it, but like not in a way where I dislike it. I'm laughing at it in a way where I'm like, this is fun and I want to know what will happen. The things about the game that I don't like are the tedium that I mentioned. Like, it is just, there's so many systems in it. And like Kirk said before, like, there's a lot of menu navigating and, like, even just little things, like the change from six to seven, like an FF7, they actually show you how much your total HP is on that front screen.

Whereas in this game, you just have to remember in your mind, like, oh, that person has over for 100 HP and now they're all the way down to 179. I should heal them up and they'll actually be quite strong or maybe oh they only have 220 HP like it's not really that big of a deal if they're not healed all the way up do you know what I'm talking like just little UI changes like that make a big difference if you guys you guys are using optimize for equipment right of course thank god for yeah yeah what would you do without that button yeah there are ways you can kind of streamline it but yeah there's definitely menuing especially once you get espers and you have to worry about relics and like every time you get a new party you have to equip your aspers equip your alf yeah

Could be your equipment. Yeah, it can be of real pain. Again, we're talking about a game from the early 90s. Oh, yeah, yeah, of course. There's going to be a lot of this stuff. And, yeah, JRP's in general are tedious. I'm currently playing a modern JRP that I'll talk about after the break. I think that that's an interesting thing that maybe we'll come back to when we're at the end of the game. But I think that the way that this, as much as this is a game from the 90s, and you've said that a bunch of times, you know, well, again, this is a game from the 90s.

It's very old-fashioned. There are a lot of things that this game does that modern GRP's still do. It is part of the establishment of a framework that sort of perplexingly still carries on to this day and is thought of fondly. And like every time one of, like a JRP in one of these long running franchises, a Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy comes out, there's always still some amount of this weird cruft that just requires you to get through it. Well, because some people don't see it as craft. It's important to establish here that like some people enjoy the rhythm of these. In fact, I think it was Kirk Hamilton to run an article.

about like liking random encounters and defending random encounters. I like turn-based battles. I don't like random encounters. Good Lord, come on. Yeah, well, I think that like there are some people, there's some people who still have a fondness for it. I'm sure, and there are people still like these games. If you ask the developers, the developers of these games almost all of the time would say,

oh yeah, we had invisible random encounters because we couldn't, literally couldn't show enemies. Like we didn't have the memory limits. And that's why when you got a remake of these games, you get Final Fantasy 7 remand where it's like a totally different combat system that's a lot more fun and engaging because a lot of this stuff is like shorthand. Even the concept of a world map is very much like shorthand because they couldn't create an entire like life scale,

vivid world map, so they have to like create this facsimile of it. And that's the case of like these enemies popping out of nowhere and all this other stuff. And so yeah, to your point, Kirk, I think it's interesting that like some of that stuff is carried on. And yeah,

I'll talk about that a little bit more after the break. We do have to wrap things up shortly. But yeah, any final thoughts, anything that we haven't discussed that you guys want to share, Maddie? I don't know if I would recommend that people play this game. Because that's kind of a sad statement. I'm sure some of our listeners are playing along, but I feel like I would recommend this as soon as there's a good port of the game where you can actually do the kind of skipping that I think would seriously improve the game. Like on the level of the FF7 port that I played that I really enjoyed and of course that game still has its many faults. It's just easier to play in that format.

Playing the original version of FF6, especially if you're a listener who has really fond memories of the game, just preserve your fond memories in Amber because those are all accurate. There's great stuff in here. Like keep your fond memories and then when there's a really good port, maybe play it then. Those are my thoughts so far. Kirk, any final thoughts before we move on? No, we've gotten up to where you and I stopped when we streamed it together all those many years ago and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next. I mean, looking forward to doing the beans cast on it. Yes, I'm very much looking forward to

to hear what both of you think. And yeah, we'll be doing a beans cast on the game once we've all played through the entire thing. Maybe we'll talk about it more in future episodes besides the beanscast. I don't know, we'll see. We'll see how it goes. All right, why don't we take a break, and then we'll be back with one more thing.

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And we are back. Kirk Maddie, it is time for one more thing. I'm going to go first because mine is very relevant. I've been playing a game called Bravely Default 2, which is a new game that comes out on Friday for the Nintendo Switch. And I've played like, I don't know, six, seven hours, not a ton of it yet. But this is a game that is, funny enough, an old-school JRP. This is like in the lineage of a series of games going all the way back to Final Fantasy

The Four Heroes of Light for the DS, which was a very strange game that was designed to recreate old school JRPGs and then that led to Bravely Default and then there was Bravely Second and then Bravely Default 2. There's a game called Bravely Second and then a game called Bravely Default 2. That is scurrying for you. That makes sense. Yeah. So yeah, so this is very much like an old school JRPG.

There aren't random encounters. you see them on the map, but it's turn-based battles, there's items. It's so funny and bizarre playing this next to Final Fantasy 6 because like some of the the spell names, the item names, the naming conventions are all very similar. You pick up a Phoenix Down and use it to revive, like you use a tent to heal your party, even to the point where it's like FIREaga and Fira like the same magic spells. Like there's a raise spell and then an arise spell that raises your character at full health. It's exactly the same as Final Fantasy 6.

It's so strange to be playing both the ones. The combat system is a lot more fun because it's a lot more elaborate and you can do a lot more complicated things with the whole brave default system, which is basically like you can take a loan on future turns and then use them all at once. So you can store up a bunch of turns and then use them and it's complicated. The key is what you really want to do is you take a loan of the GameStop turn and then at the right time you cash that in and you get maximum damage. Right.

You short on your turns. You definitely don't give it to. to somebody else and then find out that you have fewer turns than you thought and so on and so far. Definitely not. You have to, well, you have to sell at the right time. Exactly. But, um, so yeah, so I've enjoyed it. It's really tough

actually. Um, and I've only recently just started like really figuring out how to unlock the quirks of its combat, but it's very much a game where like you need to use. There's also a job system. So all your characters can get different classes and you have to like use all the, all the nitty gritty parts of these jobs. Um,

but the friggin, the story is like, I I guess I'm interested in the story because these games usually have fun twists and turns. But the story is literally, like, you meet this girl who turns out to be a princess and is looking for the four crystals of like earth, water, fire, and wind. And it's like, oh, my God, this has been the same story of every JRP since the original Final Fantasy. I guess Final Fantasy 6 doesn't have crystals. Magisite, I guess, does count as crystals. But, like, this has been the kind of, like, finding the four elemental crystals has been the story of so many frigging games now. that it's like, oh my God, like there's a point where there was a point where because a lot of these games hadn't been made.

It was around like 2012 when Bravely Default came out. And it had been a while since we'd seen games like this. It was like, oh, cool, a homage. And it felt a lot more fresh. But now because we've seen a lot more of these games, it's a lot less like that and it's a lot more tired. Maybe it's also because I'm playing Final Fantasy 6 at the same time. But yeah, but I'm enjoying it. I mean, it's a good game.

If you're out there, if you're a Cheripede, and you're wondering, like, should I check out Bradley Default too? I'm definitely enjoying it so far and the complications of combat are really interesting to me. There are a lot of really tough boss fights that I've been struggling to get through and enjoying a lot. Nice.

Cool. But yeah, man, I am definitely getting a lot of turn-based JRP these days. No thanks. To switch to Mario or something, get a pallid cleanser. Maddie, what about you?

What's your one more thing? So, since I was playing Final Fantasy 6 and I had a lot of battles where not that much dialogue was happening. I got some podcast listening done. And I finally listened to this podcast that Kirk has recommended in the past. And many people have recommended to me in the past. And it's called, You're Wrong About. And it's a couple of reporters who go back and look at public figures. A lot of times it's women, but not always, who people made a lot of assumptions about and got wrong in some

notable way or even just notable crimes that were committed where the public perception of it isn't super well known and there's like a media narrative that was constructed at the time that people had about it, but that doesn't really have all the facts. And they'll revisit that and do a really deep explainer about it. The one I started with was the five-part Princess Diana series that they did, which is a little different from what they usually do because it was quite long and detailed. But I watched all the crown on Netflix and I liked it and I had spent all of it Googling like how accurate is this about like literally every plotline on the show and then after the fact I was like looking up a bunch of stuff and even though I had done that the princess die

series on your wrong about still told me a lot of new stuff that I did not know about her and I was very fascinated by that and then I listened to the Monica Lewinsky one and there's one about Matthew Shepard who's a gay guy who was killed in a hate crime in the 90s and that's all I've got so far, but oh yeah. I mean, they go back and like talk about scandals where you think you know what the whole story was and then you learn a bunch more about it. And I don't know, I'm just finding it really fascinating and I recommend it. Cool. Yeah, I love this show and to recommend a few more since I've been going through their whole backlog. And yeah, it's like anti-nostalgia in a way. It's, it's things that you remember. But the whole point is to puncture our memory and to show us how

the story as we were presented it was actually really fucked up a lot of the time. time. It reminds me of the whole Britney Spears thing that's in the news. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I wonder if they'll probably do an episode about Britney Spears and it'll be fantastic. And I should say, though, as much as each episode is a bummer, they are hilarious. Both hosts are very funny.

Sarah Marshall is like a frigging hilarious person. And they both play their roles very well. And she's just got, she's the master of the rejoinder. It's a great show. A couple episodes that I recommend to people that they might like is there's one about Yoko Ono and John Lennon, super, super good. There's one about Ibonics that I just listened to, about the whole Ibonics thing that happened. That is, I will warn you, enraging.

Because the truth of that story and, like, what I remember when I was a kid and it was happening, they're so separate from one another. It's the most fucked up thing that happened. But it's a great one. Everyone should listen to that episode. It's amazing. And then their OJ. Simpson, like, endless series on O.J. Simpson is just, like, really great. They just do periodic episodes, it seems, about O.J. Like I was trying to figure out where to start with OJ Simpson and then I was looking at the backlog and I was like, it looks like they just do one about OJ every few months. Is that right? You can go back to the beginning. I think that the first one is about Nicole Brown. I think that the first one is about Nicole Brown. I think that the first one is about her and the first two are about her. But there's a whole sub-series about Cato Cail, which is fascinating. There's like five episodes about Paula Barbieri, who is the model who was dating OJ through the trial. And I know everything about Paula Barbieri now, who was someone whose name I couldn't have even remembered before this. Anyways, I

love that show and it's your one more thing but I'm very glad that you're listening to it and the archives are fantastic. I definitely recommend it if anybody is playing a game where there's not a lot happening in the game and you just want to stimulate your brain. It's perfect for that, perfect podcast for that. Very very good. Yeah, Final Man 66 is a good game to play while listening to podcasts or watching a TV show. I got to say. So true. Kirk, what's your one more thing? My one more thing is another JRP called Demon Souls. Cool. Very different kind of JRP. Yeah, it's a Japanese game that could technically be called a role-playing game. I have played a ton of Demon Souls now.

Again, this is a copy that Sony sent me. I'm pretty near the end. I could talk about this game forever. We just did a whole Soul series. I really love it a lot. It's, you know, I don't know if it'll quite stick with me the way that Bloodbourne did just because of the story in the world aren't quite as, like I'm almost at the end. I've only got a couple bosses left.

And it just doesn't quite have that sort of bewitching. thing that Bloodbourne did. Well, it's disparate. It's five disparate world. So, like, have nothing to do with one another. Other than being just... The Tower of Latria is one of the best levels in any Souls game I've ever played. I can't believe how cool it is. And it looks so amazing in the remake. Holy shit. Tower of Latria, worth playing for that alone. It's so cool. And it kind of has some Bloodbourne Energy, Latria, too. I think that's why I liked it. Yep. When you go down, yeah. A couple thoughts on this game. One is, these games have the funniest difficulty curve of any games I've ever played in that they're very, very difficult at first. And then they reach a sort of point where it's pretty balanced and

you feel in control. And then they become so easy by the end. And like I am ludicrously powerful. I am a god among men. And I waited to go to all the other worlds. I played through one, one, two, one, two, then one, two, then one three, up through one four. And I was like really high level by the time I went to Latria and I just crushed my way through Latria. Like I was untouchable through the first like through the first art stone. Then the second one wasn't even hard. I beat the final

boss on my first try. I beat like every boss in my first try because I'm so powerful. Well also because the bosses in this game are actually super easy even if you're not that powerful. The boss is in this game like that. Yeah, but I mean like there's like a boss in the in the valley of defilement where I could just shoot him with a bow and he's supposed to

heal himself to make that impossible but my bow does so much damage because I'm so high level that I killed him in like 30 seconds of just shooting him. Like it really is like it's kind of I've kind of busted it. I'm too powerful. And it's funny, this happens to me in a lot of these games. This happened to me the first time I played Bloodborn and there are still challenging things.

There I still die against some of the later bosses in each of the world. But it really is. It becomes very easy and I can see why people say the real demon souls begins here about New Game Plus because when you get to New Game Plus, you have all your gear, you're at the level you're set up but you're not going to scale anymore when you level up really. It's like gets pretty diminishing returns. And then you have to do the whole game again and everything is as hard as it should be, which I would do if I weren't, you know, I'm probably not going to do that just because

that would take a really long time. I thought you were going to say, I thought you were going to say people say the real Demon Souls is Sekiro because you can't out-level anybody in Sekiro. Well, so, and that is, I think, that is an interesting, another way in which Sekiro sets itself apart from these other games and is, again, the exception that proves the rule, like we talked about on our Souls episode, that it doesn't do that and is just an equal level of challenging throughout, which is cool if that's what you want, even though I actually sort of like this rhythm, and I like that new game plus lets you keep going and find that balance.

Another thing I wanted to note is the world tendency system in this game is super cool, and this is a unique feature to Demon Souls. And that is that depending on certain actions you take in the world, each of the worlds you're going to achieves a lighter or darker tendency. And this is something I'd always heard about, but I didn't understand it and didn't understand it for a little while playing the game to my detriment until I looked it up. But basically, if you die a whole bunch as a human in one of the worlds, your world becomes darker and darker like that world does until it's pure black. And then there's like really tough enemies everywhere and everything gets super harder. And it's very hard to raise yourself back up to a pure white tendency, but you need to be at a pure white tendency to get some items in the game or have some quest events happen. And also you can go to pure dark and get some things too. But it's also really hard to get that much dark because you are only a human's,

form when you beat a boss and then you die and then you become in soul form the rest of it. Right. Well, you would need to write, you could be thoughtlessly using the blue stones to make yourself human all over the place to get more health. Like if someone didn't know. But you would have to really deliberately like make this happen. Like it's harder to stumble. Well, if someone didn't know, you could just think like, well, I've got all these things to make me human. I'm going to be human. And then you just die and you're not realizing that you're making the game harder for yourself and then you're stuck, which I do think happens to lots of people. And I needed to upgrade my claim more. This thing you can only get in pure white of

World 2. Anyways, I was kind of stuck at neutral because I had died in human form enough times to get it stuck there, and there was no good way to make it white. So I got into the system, and what I wound up doing was, I asked a few friends, we were trying it, but then I went on the triple-click Discord, and I was like, in our, there's a Soulsborn channel there. And I was like, hey, does anyone want to just come and invade my world and let me kill them? Because that's something that'll level you, level up your world and make it more white. So Boomy Giraff, if you're out there, boomie giraffe was like, sure, man, I'll do it, whatever. He's like way higher level than me and still playing.

So he just comes in and like a champ just stands there and I like just chop him down with my sword and we're kind of chatting on Discord and he just keeps coming in and I'm like murdering him and it made my world pure white and I could get my,

get the sword. And actually I think the system is very cool. I think it's badly explained and the one thing I wish is that if you could go in co-op against a boss in the same world, I think that should raise your world tendency and it doesn't

which I think is just like a weird oversight. It should. Because then if you got screwed, you could like just go play co-op online and um you know and like raise your world up but you can't do that so instead you have to kill invaders which just feels like it forces you to do the thing i did which is kind of not the spirit of multiplayer and um the last note is i'm very glad that i paid for PlayStation online a PlayStation plus because that plugs the game into play online i played the first few hours offline and then was like uh i guess i i guess i'm going to do this and i like found a deal on PS plus and paid for a year and like the

whole game just came to life. All of the little notes came in, the little ghosts were there, the red spots, everything. And it reminded me that I loved that about these games. So I was glad that I was playing online. And then I've been going and playing co-op with people and like just helping out. It has a kind of a monster hunter energy there. So I'm loving it. It's fantastic. It's a great launch game, even though it's really 10 years old. Like it really is a really cool PS5 showcase. It's a system seller. Yes. I think you've hooked Maddie. Maddie is like, oh man, I have to play this game after the 20 hours you forced me to play of Final Fantasy 6 Jason I was truly having that thought it's clear that it was all over my face I just was sitting here thinking like man I really

want to play some dark souls after we finish recording this up when you finish dark souls I bet you'll like demon souls they're very complimentary and this makes me want to go play dark souls I just want to play something I feel like I understand what I'm doing there yeah I'm making progress in a tangible way and I'm not just moving items around in a box. That's all I want. Yeah, but at least you get to listen to the soundtrack, the Final Fantasy Six soundtrack. It's true.

We didn't really talk about it that much, but yeah, it is great. It is great. Which is amazing and all the different motifs. Kirk should really do a strong song on it. But that's for another time. All right, that is it for this week's episode. I will see you both next week. Yep, see you both next week.

Bye. Triple Click is produced by Jason Schreyer, Maddie Myers, 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

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