Triple Click - Triple Play: Final Fantasy VI, Part 2

Episode Date: April 15, 2021

Kirk, Jason, and Maddy dive back into their ongoing playthrough of Final Fantasy VI, picking up where they left off last time (the Opera House) and going until the end of the Floating Continent. Do Maddy and Kirk like it more now? What's the deal with that flake Shadow? Why is Edgar such a creeper? And whoa, did Kefka really just do THAT?One More Thing:Kirk: Monster Hunter Rise (Finishing/Friction)Maddy: The Content Mines podcastJason: Saga Frontier RemasteredLinks:What did Edgar really say about Relm? https://legendsoflocalization.com/what-does-edgar-say-about-relm-in-each-final-fantasy-vi-translation/The Caves of Narshe FF6 Walkthrough: https://www.cavesofnarshe.com/ff6/walkthrough.phpSupport 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

You know, I just don't understand why an emperor would have a clown be an important leader in their military. It just seems like... No, wait, Kefka, I wasn't talking about you! Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week, we're returning to Final Fantasy 6, and good news, Maddie and I are both liking the game a lot more. We've got some espers to shuffle, some Octopi to sketch, and some statues to rearrange. So let's get to it. I'm Kirk Hamilton.

I'm Maddie Myers. And I'm Jason Schreier. And hello. Hello. Hello to both of you. Hello. It's nice to see you both. It's beautiful in Portland. I haven't talked about the weather recently, but it is beautiful in Portland.

I'm just telling the world. Here we go. The weather is really nice. And that's all I'm going to say about it. It's beautiful in New York too. And my daughter, my toddler, who's now almost 19 months, loves going outside. And she loves just sitting in the dirt and just scooping up dirt and putting it on her pants. And it's amazing.

Who doesn't love doing that? You can't beat it. You can't beat it. I love it too. It's a great springtime activity. You know what it is another great springtime activity is becoming a max fun member and support. During the creation of podcasts. That does sound like a good spanking activity. Like triple-click. So if you notice, if you listen to this show, you probably hear that we run ads for other maximum fun shows during our sort of ad break in the middle of the show.

And all of those shows, they're all really cool. You've heard this. It's like huge diversity of like talent and perspectives and all these people talking about all kinds of different things. That's maximum fun. That's the network we're a part of. And if you become a member of it, you pay a certain amount per month. They're different tiers. And then you support the creation of whichever shows you listen to. Maybe it's just triple-click. Maybe it's triple-click and a bunch of others. And we each get sort of a portion of your pledge to support the network. And that helps us keep making the show. So thanks to everyone who has become a member to support us making this show. And the thing is, if we become a member, it's not just something you can feel good about. You get bonus episodes of Triple Click every single month.

We do all kinds of things. Beans casts, we call them, which are spoiler casts, about movies and video games. We talk about our favorite movies or our life stories. I don't know. We do all kinds of things. Our favorite albums. Kirk can't figure out what his favorite album. No, it's impossible.

No, it's impossible. You know what my new favorite? Man, I've been listening to Carol King Tapestry. One of the best albums ever made. Okay, we're not doing this. I brought this up. You shouldn't have even said anything. That's my new favorite album, though.

It's so good. Give me a break. Those are on the bonus feed. Yes, sorry, sorry. So speaking of bonus episodes, we are doing a Beanscast for April that's actually going to run a little bit late. So this is a two-part announcement. First of all, it's going to run at the very beginning of May, which is a week

later than usual. They usually come out on Monday at the end of the month. The reason for, that is that we are doing a beans cast on the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe. So just a big MCU spoiler cast chat about everything. And the reason we're making a little later is because we want to get to the end of the first season or only season of Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which is currently hearing on Disney Plus. We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about Wanda Vision. Maddie has a whole bunch of thoughts on that that I know are really cool. I've got a bunch of

thoughts too. We're going to talk about just civil war, the movies, this whole... The Avengers movies, Black Panther. This whole Civil War. this whole Marvel world that we live in. Yes, it's going to be fun. We're going to spoil them all. So you've got to watch every single movie and every show. Get watching. Or you could not do those things and enjoy whatever you want.

You just got to be caught up on your Marvel history for like your MCU lore these days. Anyways, that's what's going to be our beans cast for this month. If you want to hear that, become a member. Maximumfun.org.org slash join. And thank you so much again to everybody who's become a member. All right. We have a video game to talk about Jason. take us away. Let's do it. This week we are doing a triple play. We're all three of us play a video

game and it is once again Final Fantasy 6. Final Fantasy 6 part two. Just as a quick refresher, we had a bet last year. We each made predictions. Whoever got the most right would get to force the other two to play a video game. Kirk and I both won. My game was Final Fantasy 6. We're playing that in the first half of the year. Kirk's game is Half-Life 2. We're playing that in the second half of the year. And you guys have both been playing Final Fantasy 6. On our last episode, you played up until the opera house. On this episode, you have played through the end of the floating continent. So just a big old spoiler warning right now that if you haven't played Final Fantasy 6, if you're not caught up yet to the end of the floating content, and if you're playing

along and you don't want to know what happens, it will be spoiled up until then. Won't spoil after that, but we will spoil the big twist of the game, which happens right up to where you guys are. All right, let's get to it. Kirk, Maddie, what did you guys think? Have your thoughts? You both were kind of negative on it. Have your thoughts changed since we last discussed it? Kirk, you have a lot to say. First, let me just say that, like, I know there's sort of a narrative around our first triple play of Final Fantasy 6 that Maddie and I both just totally hated the game. Having edited that episode, listened back to it, and also played a one-third role in the creation of the conversation that was recorded, I know that I didn't actively hate it. I feel like we, Fair enough. There were a lot of things that we struggled with about the game, and I can't speak for you, Maddie. But, you know, it's like, it's more complicated than that. And I think to some extent I maybe came off more negatively than I really feel about the game.

Well, we focused on the criticisms, I think, a lot. Yes, I think we did. And I think that that's just partly because you really like the game and we had these criticisms. So then that's, like, going to be the natural point of conversation. There have always been from the beginning, things that I really like about it. The music, which we barely touched on is incredible. The whole overall vibe. It's nice.

It's funny. It's weird. It has that Final Fantasy energy. I liked this part of the game much, much more than I liked the first whatever, however, 20 hours that I played. The second 20 hours or 15 hours or whatever. I like a lot. I'd love to see your game timer. It's kind of hard to tell.

And the game has definitely sort of coalesced into more of a thing that just feels coherent to me, despite there's so many momentary incoherences to it. So just very broadly, and I have a lot of particular things, but very broadly, I really was actively having fun for a lot of the time that I was playing for these however many hours. Maddie, what about you? Me too. I also felt a lot better about the second 15 hours that I played. And I think that's probably about right for how long it took me.

I would have to check my play timer after this. Of course, I'm using a walkthrough, et cetera. I'm using every trick in the book to get through this game. But I did enjoy the second 15 hours more. And I think it is because the tone is a lot more even. And I'm going to make a comparison here that won't benefit you. at all, Jason, which is Sailor Moon. And I know you've never watched Sailor Moon. I've never watched any anime. I know, but I just, I feel like the second, third of this game really reminds me to

Sailor Moon, and that's, that's a compliment for the record. It's because it is, it's not only because it's like, you know, a female fronted game about a girl who has superpowers and it's mysterious and she's figuring out who she is, et cetera. That's Susagi's narrative in Sailor Moon. Of course, it's also the humor of the game and the tone of the game and just the age group that I think the game is probably best suited for is like, you know, eight to ten year olds, the age I was when I saw Sailor Moon, feels like just the right sweet spot for at least the second third of the game. The first third was a lot more vacillating between super goofy, like slapstick humor and weird sections that I was like, I'm not sure why this is here.

The second third, there are still goofy slapstick sections. There's still altros. There's still like over-the-top anime villains monologuing essentially. And that's all like, you know, Queen Barrel and Sailor Moon. And I'm down for that. And it's paired with just a lot of lore and world-building stuff that is revealed in a pretty fun way. And you're discovering more of Tara's story, which I'm enjoying a lot. And the balance between grinding in this section and story, I thought was more palatable

to my tastes as well. So that's like the equivalent of Monster of the Week episodes in Sailor Moon. story episodes. So that's my comparison and my compliment for the second third of this game. Yeah, I like that. Can I just share a list of things I liked that I have taken from my notes? They're very short. Please do. Okay. The first one says, I like Ultros and it's fine. Yeah, I do too. I liked him better this time. I was like ready. I was ready for Ultros and I was like, now he's funny to me. I like this guy now. Do you like how the way to defeat him ultimately is to show him a picture of himself? Yep. And he's like, oh, I'm just this, like, oh, I'm just this,

like sad old octopus and he just leaves. There's always a funny thing with beating him and just it's funny I think the joke has worked on me. It's like kind of a family guy thing where you keep telling the joke until it becomes funny. But it doesn't become funny. So that's one. The next one is

I just wrote Kefka Oh Krud. I like how Kefka curses. I like that he just says crud. This is in our translation we're all playing the GBA version. I enjoy that he says crud. I wrote Love the Esper human sex dramatization in the flashback.

Okay, yeah, I was going to ask you guys what you thought of this, because it's so funny that like the two are like, they look at each other, they've met like two seconds ago, and then it's just like they like turn into stars and are like circling and then a baby is made. I was very confused as a kid not knowing how babies were made. I was like, wait a minute, so this is how it works. Well, that's how they're made. And this was the first time you saw how they're made.

Right. Yeah, I was like, okay, so I go. go into a monster fantasy world and then I become a star. You're a monster of your dreams and you're a mere human, but you find true love together. It's kind of like, it's the 90s kid version of watching old cartoons where the stork brings a baby, only it's two stars from like an Esper and a human, creating Terra. It kind of reminded me of what you said last time, Kirk, though, about all the different ways that this game finds fun little camera tricks or like filmmaking tricks to explain something

very quickly, which in this case is like sort of a kid. friendly version of a love story without bogging you down and a bunch of scenes where they talk to each other more. Like, I got it. It's like comical shorthand that they spin around and turn into sparkles and then they suddenly have a baby. But I also got it at the same time. Yeah, yeah. It was a form of shorthand that worked for me even though I also laughed at it. I enjoyed it. It's funny, but it's romantic in its way. It's cute. Yeah, it is cute. And there's nice music. And you're like, aw, that's Tara. And I'm pretty sure I predicted that she was going to be half Esper, half human on the last step. So I felt very vindicated.

that I was right about that. Good job. It's worth noting that like a playable flashback, a lot of this, and I hope you guys, I'm glad you're both enjoying this a lot more now. But I hope you also just like take a few minutes to think about like what this meant to back then and like the context of it all because so many of these things were revolutionary in a video game. Like the concept of the cinematic stuff I mentioned last time, how cinematic the game is. But also like the concept of a playable flashback is just so like I had never heard of.

I don't think there's any game that. did anything like that until this. And then it would be iterated on in Final Fantasy 7 in the next game. It happens all the time now. It's like everything's got a playable flashback every time we turn around. But this really is. I mean, it's groundbreaking

in how it switches characters and perspectives so often too. I mean, the playable flashback isn't just a playable flashback. It's a playable flashback where they put you into not just a different character, but in a whole different world and they introduce it to you very in Medias Res where it's just like here we are in the world of the Espers, which is

Also, like, I can see the influence on Undertale, which is just cool. It feels very undertale-ish with the monster realm and the gate and all of that. As much as, you know, Undertale Ode to Earthbound, it also kind of borrowed this. Wait, so I'm going to go through a few more of the things that I liked. Please. L.O.L. How you can use the bathroom in the Imperial Palace. Which does speak to a little thing that I think is enjoyable about this game is it's so big, and it is kind of surfacy in the way that we talked about.

Last time, like, it's, you know, it's all, it's kind of like, They've got really shallow tools. So there isn't like deep physics simulations of anything. But because of that, they can do so much little stuff like that. And I just think it's funny how your character kind of squats on the toilet and there's like a toilet flushing sound if you happen to go use it. And there's so many things like that. Maddie, I'm also using a walkthrough from shout out to Caves of Narsh, which is like. Yeah. You recommended this to me after the last episode.

You were like, you should use this Caves of Narsh walkthrough. And I have been ever since. And it's a wonderful walkthrough. Kind of a belated suggestion to the listeners now. but it's really great. It's a really intense walkthrough in some ways. Like the person who wrote it is like knows everything about this game. So if you wanted, you could do everything in it and literally like 100% the game and the

B-Chi area and everything. But it's also just very charmingly written by someone who loves the game and like makes lots of jokes and is having fun as a writer. So anyways, I've used that and that's helped me find some of these little hidden things. Just like they're like if you want to see, you know, an alternate cut scene that you would never see like go to this house after going here. And it's made me realize, you know, the first. breadth of like all of the little hidden things in the game which do make it feel pretty rich when you like start to experience them and then realize that they're all totally optional and you can miss them okay i just have a couple more um i like that shadow uses a smoke bomb to escape a burning

building yes i very much enjoy that perfect example of the kind of humor that this game does that i enjoy where it's like it's slapstick it doesn't really make any sense but it doesn't super matter because that's just enough humor within the realm of the world that it's cool, as opposed to, I don't know, the serpent trench. We don't need to talk about that. So I think the concept of that is that he's using an item that has in the game, like in gameplay and in battles, it has the effect of letting you escape something.

Right. So the concept is that like it lets you escape this battle situation. It's like using a Phoenix down to revive someone who dramatically died or whatever. It's like the joke equivalent of that. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Right. It's funny because he's just a ninja and ninjas used smoke. about like in sort of popular fiction to escape things but he's in the middle of this burning

room and it's like how is that going to get you out of here but it does get him out of it yeah like everyone's passed out and there's no way he could like carry them all out in time so he just puts down a smoke bomb easy easy man shadow is such a flake okay yeah let's talk about shadows so yeah you guys do you guys both saved him at the end yeah i did i mean you'll learn more about him the guy only cares about money i'm sure that's the only thing he cares about you'll learn you'll learn you'll learn a little a lot more about him. You'll learn a lot more about him in the second.

I've learned some things about him. So one thing worth mentioning that I already noticed is that Realm, who I've loved, I got to say, are people mixed on Realm? I think Realm is very percocious. I love that. No, nobody's mixed on Realm. And her music is amazing. Her music is wonderful.

Yeah, that's the thing. It's really just like when she comes out, the music plays. And it's very like Yuimatsu's, Arette's theme, like, just, they're different, but it just has that same kind of beautiful sort of serene energy. And I'm like, I love Rome. Like the minute she showed up, I was like, I love this kid. She's great. And she has this ring that also works on Shadow.

And that is this implication of this relationship between them. So you already start to see it. And this is an example. And also Interceptor likes her and he doesn't like any of us. And the dog goes to safer. So that's pretty subtle. And I know I was sort of being like this game is generally not very subtle last time. But anyways, I enjoy that there is subtle stuff going on with Shadow,

despite the fact that he had. maybe sold us out to the empire and also just keeps leaving and I have to keep like unequipping him of all of his stuff fucking shadow just yeah dude does not give a shit yeah yeah I don't even want to put anything on shadow I'm just like that guy's not going to stay whatever like I'm like I'm like saying just scrolls and then shadow will disappear again I'm like damn it should have been reading the walkthrough more I'd never know when this guy's gonna leave um do you guys do you have more stuff on your list correct oh um no it's fine I do but I we can just keep moving.

All right. I have some things that I want to talk about with you guys. So first of all, okay, so first of all, I was actually a little worried

you guys would bounce off. You would get really mad at the Magitech facility, which is the first thing you do after the opera house and that dungeon is a pain in the ass and has tough enemies. It wasn't so bad.

Yeah, there are so many other annoying things in this game that was, that didn't even register for me, TBH. Good. So one of my favorite parts of any Final Fantasy game,

and this was like such a thing back in the day on the Super Nintendo in PlayStation role-playing games is that moment where you first get the airship and you can explore the entire world. And I wonder if you guys had feelings about that when you first got, so not when you actually got it after the opera house, but when you first had access to flying it yourself. Did you guys have, like, how did you guys feel about that? I really enjoyed it. I thought it was super, super fun to fly around and go wherever I wanted to go

and like do a little grinding, get some more outrageous with gow and like just go to towns that I had like kind of done a cursory once over with and just check things out. I mean, it just, it opens up the world. I mean, it's very obvious for me to put it that way, but it, it, there is a huge difference between navigating the overworlds and the airship and not constantly getting belabored with all these battles all the time versus like walking around, trudging around, which is, is something that I know I complained about in the last episode, like how long it takes you to do everything. Even if hypothetically you had the ability to fast forward in this game, it's still a lot of trudging around and the airship really changes that dynamic. Yeah, also the airship music is

really good just to mention the music again. It's so... And those graphics, those mode six graphics. The world of adventure. We're setting sail on the skies. Like it just has this great energy. And yeah, it's, I've been thinking a lot about friction just in general. It's sort of something I keep talking about that we talk about a lot in general. The idea of a game throwing up roadblocks and making things sort of hard to get through and, like, difficult instead of just being super smooth. This game has a ton of friction a lot of, you know, old RPGs from the 90s do just because there's a lot of menus. They hadn't figured out how to streamline things yet.

And yet, when they remove that friction entirely in some limited way, the way that the airship just totally removes random battles and makes it so you can just go start checking things off the list. Like, if you want to go to the belt and, like, go get some more stuff for Gao, go do it. Like, go right away. And then just hop back in your ship. and that is really, really nice. Like, the freedom comes from the fact that you are free of something.

And what you're free of is, like, the thing you were kind of suffering through for the first, you know, X hours of the game. Uh-huh. Okay. So then, okay, so you guys, then you go through a bunch of stuff. You do the sealed cave. You've learned about the aspers, blah, blah, blah. And then you get to the point where the emperor is like, actually, I've changed my mind. I don't want to fight with you guys. And you invite you to this banquet. it. What did you guys think? Sorry, Kirk, you wanted to say something? Oh, I mean, just about this section. Yeah. Well, yeah. So I wanted, I want to know. So before this banquet even starts, first of all, so you guys are both using Waku. So you might have known exactly what to do and like what to say. I'm not at first. I started using the walkthrough halfway through because I was like, wait, shit. This is going to matter. Okay. So, so first of the emperor makes you go around and talk to soldiers and some of them fight you and some of them try to waste your time. Kafka, if you run into Kafka during this party. he waste your time and you have like four minutes to talk to as money as possible.

Then the banquet starts and you have all these dialogue options and it's like the first time in the game that you have dialogue options and it's super weird. Then it turns out and maybe you don't even know if you're playing this game for the first time blindly but it turns out that everything you've been doing talking to the soldiers and choosing dialogue is on a point system and the items you get after the whole thing are based on how many points you got. So yeah, what did you to think as you were. flame to this. I really like this. It's kind of as another

adventure game set piece, is how I think of it, which you've had dialogue options before at the opera. So it's sort of similar to that, where you're being given these sort of dialogue tests that you then have to pass. It's really cool. It's like a great change. But the opera, there's a guide

first. There's like a music book first that tells you what the answer is. They're not, they're not in a but it's the same concept. It's a combat-free dialogue challenge that is more in line with an adventure game than with this kind of game. Did you use a walkthrough when you were playing? No, I mean, I've been just checking the walkthrough as I play, but I was like, no, I'm just going to play this and see how it goes.

I unlocked some stuff. Like I did okay. It's pretty clear most of the time what you're supposed to what you're supposed to say. Yeah, what the best options are. And if it's not clear, you don't offend the empire. It's kind of scored like 521, I think, or 520 maybe. It's like the middle one is pretty much fine, like you'll get there. What I like about this is that it's super clear that this is sketchy. Like, obviously the emperor, like, is going to betray you. He's this huge asshole. And I appreciated that all the characters are like,

this is bullshit, like, be on your guard, like that they weren't all just like, yay, cool, we're all friends now. Like, that just was kind of nice that they instead wrote it to have the characters all be super suspicious. And even when Locke and Terra go off afterward, the rest of them are like, be on your guard, this is fishy. And then, of course, it does turn out to be a huge double craft. Yeah.

I also really liked the ongoing plotline, Seles for the same reason. I mean, that's just been happening throughout this whole time, like before and after that scene, where the characters are all debating, well, not debating, but kind of talking about whether or not they think she truly betrayed you or not, in a way that I found really realistic and fun to read and just hear each person's perspective, like, well, you know, she probably was on our side or maybe she wasn't or I don't know. And like Locke, obviously has feelings for her. And all of that added a lot more texture to the character's motivations in a way that I was kind of missing in the beginning of the game. But by now,

I care enough about everyone. And also I felt like those exchanges were a little better written. So I liked it. And then I also enjoyed that it wasn't so heavy handed that it was some big surprise when she was on your side in the end because like, of course she is. And the characters kind of knew that as opposed to being like, what? Oh my God. What's going to happen? Like it didn't, they felt like people to me, you know? Well, that's what's really interesting about the scene afterwards in Albrook with Locke and Sellis in the middle of the night or Sellis is like really pissed at Locke for not for like even having a shred of like hesitancy and reluctance about her. Yeah, I mean, I don't take that as her being pissed. I took it as her just being too upset to speak

to him about any of it. But the fact that you don't know is part of what's cool about those scenes because it's like it's so open to interpretation in a good way where it's very minimalist. and it doesn't tell you what the characters are saying or feeling all the time and you can't even see their faces. So you really have to just look at their literal body language of these tiny sprites and be like, well, I think Celis is mad or I think she's sad or whatever and you can just take whatever you think. Well, what happened was the developers of the game listened to last episode

and they heard Kirk saying like, this is a game where everyone says what they feel and we're going to change that for the rest of it. Yeah, I appreciate it. I think it's true that those scenes are slightly bad. better written than others or significantly better written than some other scenes in the game. And yeah, it comes back to that minimalism thing where they're doing a lot with a little because they only have like five or six motions or something per character and then a couple of unique animations.

Like they fall down, they kneel, they jump and look surprised. And they use the needle for so many different emotions, which is kind of fun and interesting. Like sometimes it's like a funny slapstick kneel and sometimes it's like a just tragic grief kneel or like any number of other uses. Or it's taking a poop kneel, which is where we're taking. The most important one. Or vomiting on a ship, Neil. Yes, that's right.

Yeah, it's very, it speaks to the creativity you can get from limitation. Yes. Yes. I think that that is very true of this game in general and felt more true as they were sort of getting into these second layer emotional interactions between the characters. Now that they're all established, all 50 billion of them, including the ones like cyan, who I'm just like, why are you in this game? I don't know. You know you haven't even met him all yet.

No, I'm sure. God. I mean, there were more introduced than this one. Like, we haven't even talked about Strago yet. Or Mara. Yeah, but there are two new party members that you guys haven't met yet that you can get in the second half. But yeah, can't wait. Well, so, but there's just this, there are things with that scene with Celis and Luck where she, she can look down and, like, she looks kind of sad and thoughtful. And then she looks up.

To her, sprite is really good. And, like, Celis is a just well-designed character, like, and they're doing a lot of smart things with her. The fact that she's removed from the game for this big chunk. And then also the fact that you land with her after the floating continent and she's alone is like also really smart, I think. And I haven't really played past that. But like just the fact that the game takes you into the perspective of the one person who I've been the most curious about at least, even more than Tara. I'm like, but sell us though. Like what's her story?

And that I like that decision to be like after this huge, you know, culminating moment, this giant twist, this shift into the second half of the game. And now here you are. It's just you and her. And she's, like, alone and there's no, she has no sense of what happened to all of her friends and, like, has to kind of set up from there. Well, she's been, like, in a coma for a year. Yeah, for a year. Right. Which is, like, an absurd, like, lost-esque, like, sudden reveal of, like, now.

So a year went by. And it's like, I don't know, it feels like a new season of television or something. We picked a good stop at the point. Just wait. Oh, my God. Maddie. Just wait. Oh, boy. Yeah.

Okay. So, and then you guys meet Strago. Strigo, we talked about Realm. Straggo is another funny, silly. character, kind of the stereotypical like old man, mage. And I always enjoy it in the mage village when you

like catch them using cure and fire and stuff and they're always like, cure, it's like they have some puns afterwards. Curio cabinet. Yeah, it's so funny. And then General Leo dies. Rest in peace, General Leo.

Do you guys know that there were all sorts of rumors back in the day about how to revive General Leo and like, didn't want it to bring it back? It was a whole big thing. I think it's just like people don't really die in these games. So when someone does, it's very shocking. No, they do. They always, Final Fantasy games since.

Well, they did have the little tricky thing with Shadow, where it seemed like Shadow was dead for a hot second and then he came back in this game. So, like, I can kind of understand how then people would be like, Leo might come back. And I guess you can and you can let Shadow die, right? Yeah, and Final Fantasy 4 also killed some people, aka 2, the one before this, on the Superdentinator.

And then, so with General Leo, he's like you get to control him for a minute before he dies. He's really good too. I wish he was in my party. God. That's the thing. People were like, why would they create him for combat if you can't get him in your party? And yeah, he's super strong. But just for the sake of a dramatic scene, which is so much cooler. It's like just for the sake of this one set piece. Exactly. Exactly. And it's like part of another great old school Final Fantasy tradition is like letting you play for a second as this guy who's super over powered and like you can't do it again like with sephoroth and final

fantasy seven and stuff like that yeah there are a few times this this set piece here that we're talking about is when general leo fights kefka and then kefka kills him through all this trickery and it's like kefka's like first great betrayal when he betrays you on behalf of the emperor emperor before his second great betrayal when he basically betrays the whole world and so that scene and then also the later scene when kefka betrays the emperor they both they're cut scenes that play out in the combat engine like the side view combat engine. I like that kind of stuff too.

There are so few perspectives and types of sprites in this game that they can use that it really shows you like how they're just using every single piece of the game. Every time the Esper's attack and rampage, I think it's funny only because it's a little clumsy looking, but it's really effective the way that the world shakes and everyone falls down. And then the battle vision versions of the like Esper's come flying across the screen. and they're all huge and more detailed. And it's like, oh, God, they're pissed off.

Like, they're in battle mode. Yeah, I think that's good stuff. Yeah, it's really good stuff, especially when some of them are like ones you already have in your party and you're like, wait a minute, what? But yeah. Okay, I want to talk about that one Edgar line because this is like a very controversial, very creepy thing. Do we have to? God. I mean, kind of. I don't know.

It's like notorious. Yeah, we're canceling Edgar. It's been so long. He's going to delete his Twitter. We're going to fire him from the internet. I want to say. So my initial interpretation of this is very charitable. So in English, okay, so in the Supri-N-E-S version, they totally removed it.

So in the line in, and I'm going to link in the show notes to Legends of Localization.com, which is a great website, and they have an entire breakdown of what he says. So him and Realm, the context is they're leaving Thamas, everyone's leaving the Masa. Leo just died. People are upset. Got to go after the Empire, et cetera, et cetera. Edgar, Realm says, what's wrong, Realm is like, how old are you,

Realm's like 10, and then Edgar says something. So in the Super Nintendo version, the game I originally played, he says, you've grown up entirely too fast, lighten up, okay? So totally fine, line, nothing at all, objectionable about that line. In the GBA version, the version we all just played, he says, not even a lady yet. Here's hoping you're still around in eight years, kid. He also, the animation is him like smacking his forehead like, oh, I can't believe she's only 10.

Like, so much. So Edgar is a character who hits on everybody in the game. So you would assume that like, oh my God. And there are other lines that I looked up because I was remembering like all the Castle Figaro ladies. Like they all have lines as well where they're like Edgar hits on everyone young and old and we just can't escape him. Like there are some kind of dire lines about Edgar. So let me. So, okay. So my interpretation. of that GBA version originally was, okay, he's just saying like, like he's, he's really hoping that she makes it and she like gets a chance to grow old. And I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. Then I read what the original, what the original Japanese is.

Oh, God. Okay. So the Japanese version, and this is a translation by, um, by Clyde Mandolin for legis of localization. Um, realm, realm leaves. She says, I'm going on ahead. And then Edgar says, yeah, that'd definitely be a crime. I'd better just forget about it. So it's way worse in the original Japanese. And Edgar is like a total fucking creep. I mean, Edgar is a total creep anyway. You slice it, really.

Yeah, he is. He just is. Like, that is a part of his characters. He's even worse. It's just even more egregious, yes. Anyway, moving on. I want to talk about the floating continent and then the end of the world.

But before we do, I want to talk a little bit about the mechanics. Because one of the things that happens where in kind of the break point where we left off, is that you really get to know the Esper system and you got a lot more Espers and then you can start customizing all your characters with magic. And that's really when the game's combat starts to shine because you can like really decide how you want to customize your party. Did you guys, what did you guys think of that?

Did you like take advantage of the Esper system? Have you been rotating Espers to teach everyone magic and stuff? I mean, I have been, but I don't love it. I'm sorry. I feel like this is a part of the game where I'm just like I am not a JRP person. This is too much spreadsheet stuff for me. and I just don't like moving little things around in the boxes enough. And that's it.

Yeah, a lot of menus. A lot of menu. But I like the rest of the game. I like the theory of using an item and then having an imprint on you where you get the ability or even just an ability once you level it up and it encourages you to kind of cycle through things. And you can customize your magic build for each character. And I like the fact that it fits in with the lore of the world where there was no magic. And so your party members are all gaining magic.

this magocyte that the espers have like sacrificed themselves to give you like that's all cool I don't like the system just because it's like maddie said it's so much micromanaging and like it's it's not just that it's hard to even read it's just there's a legibility problem with the size of the screen and the fonts and how much they can fit where you have to go into the esper menu you have to look at what percent you are and all the spells to see like where you're at and like really keep everything in your head and I'm like it's a good system in general and it has this thing that I'll actually talk about in one more thing with Monster Hunter where there's

like there's a lot of this sort of really chewy frictiony stuff where you're having to just get your head around these menus and like these systems can be satisfying the more familiar you get with them and it's why so many of these games it's like well you'll like it after 15 hours because after 15 hours

you'll have just gone through the damn Esper's menu which by the way is under abilities also like why can't they just see it. Why? There should be the Esper's menu like whatever so it's anyway but that's like one small symptom right of the same thing that like all the menus are just a mess. Abilities, magic, but then you navigate up from magic to Esper's. Right.

Try to remember who has what Esper. It's a lot of clicks. There's a lot of stuff like that where I'm just kind of frustrated and bummed out by, like, even taking a party, like, selecting someone and getting them down into the party box is like kind of hard. Like I still am. Yeah. I'm wondering if that's actually just the version of the game we're playing.

Like, wasn't that hard on the GBA? It can't have been, right? Like you just use the D. pad, right? I know what you're talking about, though. Like, you have to navigate multiple times to get down to the box. Yeah, because you grab them and then you have to go through the two rows that exist for all this future characters. That's why you have to navigate multiple times. There's just, there's some UI stuff.

So did you guys find that like the combat, you just didn't care about the combat or you enjoyed it more or enjoyed it last? There were times when I enjoyed it. I mean, there were certainly moments when I would like figure out an attack or set of attacks that worked really well on an enemy or I'd just happen into it. or I'd be like, oh, I remember this enemy type and this works really well. And then those are like the satisfying Pokemon-esque moments where you're like, it's super effective. I found this thing that works really well in this moment and that rules. But more often than not, I was frustrated by something and then eventually I would Google it

and be like, what are the 70s weaknesses? I just need to get through this. I mean, we're about to talk about the Flooding Continent, which had a maze that I personally did not care for. And I had also had the like time to battle at the very end that I did not personally care for either. Yeah, we'll get into that in a sec. Yeah, we'll get into that in my memory right now are some of the more frustrating battles that I actually enjoyed less than the prior 15 hours of the game where I was liking the battles fairly well.

So there's something to that though, and I think that can kind of just tie in with how I feel about combat and also the floating continent in that dungeon. Because that was the most challenging dungeon by far. Each fight is just like much, much more challenging. That's like where behemoth turns up for the first sign. Like there are just some enemies that really will kind of wreck you. And I, it's hard to totally gauge the combat. I mean, I guess I can say that I think the combat is good, even though I'm not really playing it in the right way just because I don't have the billions of hours that it would take to really master the system.

So I'm like looking at guides and stuff and I have a party build that's like pretty sick. And I can just crush. Like if you know which abilities to use, the same four abilities from the same four party members will just kill everything in the game. And like if you can, you know, fast forward through combat, it's just like, you kind of like get going. And this is kind of like if you're playing Final Fantasy 6 in a modern context, the combat just becomes a different thing. And I don't know that it would really be possible, at least as an adult, to recreate like the feeling of the many, many hours that you could spend as a kid if you had just infinite time playing this game, like figuring it all out for yourself, which could be really rewarding and cool because it's so dense and complicated. And clearly, you know, well designed and there's all these interesting. interplays between like, you know, weaknesses and strengths and different characters and summons

and, like, party makeup. There's so much there. It's so unbelievably dense and varied. And I'm a little, like, skating through it just because, like, it's just too much. Like, it's so, so, so much. Yeah. Well, so part of it is resource management. And that's something that I think, like, if you're playing the most efficiently,

then you don't really even think about that. But, like, the floating continent, especially in, with, like, the Air Force fight beforehand, When I was a kid, a lot of that for me was like managing my potions and like making sure that I was like killing things efficiently. Or your cure spells or whatever. Right. Which I have like maximum number of high potions at all times. Right. If you have a maximum, if you're playing like, like if you're optimizing and using the chainsaw and like the best spells on every single attack, then you don't even have to worry about that.

AKA doing rising Phoenix in 95% of fights. Yeah. Well, just wait. In the world of ruin, Sabin gets this ability called Phantom Rush that will just destroy everything. see. It turns the game into easy mode. So to then come back around to the floating continent, there's just, there's a thing in these games that is just, I think, a bad feeling. And it's something that games don't really do anymore. And that's great. And it's just the feeling of being in a maze that's deliberately designed to be hard to read like the floating continent,

where you need to sometimes walk up to a corner and like the wall will just fall away for you to keep going. Or maybe there's a button you step on and you have to backtrack. anytime you're somewhere like that, especially in this game, it's really easy to get stuck in a situation where you're like, I don't actually know where to go. And then I start to just feel stressed out because it's like, well, anytime I want to just go walk and bump into the walls over there, but to do that, I'm going to have to go and, like, trigger a bunch of fights,

and I don't know when they're going to happen. And this is like the reason, I think it's like the fundamental problem with random encounters that are just invisible on the map, is it feels like walking through a minefield that's constantly changing. And even though I can win each fight, there's just this feeling of like, oh my God, another friggin behemoth and like here we go again. I started just running away from every fight in the floating continent because I was like,

I just need to, I want to know where the next thing is rather than like fight yet another dragon. And so that, it did kind of exacerbator highlight for me, the sort of frustrating aspect of these dungeons with the random encounters. Yeah. I accidentally wasted some time in the floating continent by getting lost and then I did not use a walkthrough because I cockily was like, ah, it's a maze. I can figure out a maze.

I could not figure out the maze. And so I played it for like an hour. And then I was like, well, I've walked around this maze a lot. And I have learned nothing, although I've learned a lot about myself and like my emotions. That's the important. And shadow. So I actually like reverted back to an earlier save, started over at the floating continent and then just used a walkthrough like word for word and just followed it, which is not how I

prefer to play. But I feel like I got the full continent experience by playing for an hour and getting really lost. So in a way, it's like I beat it by discovering how to defeat the maze. at the, near the end, jump down to the airship and then have to start over again. Oh, I did not do that. I did not return to that airship. No way. Some people thought that was the final dungeon, but you guys knew that it was not. And then, yeah, there's that annoying timer section. The timer section as a kid, I lost to that quite a few times. And then you guys both waited for Shadow. Good. Thankfully, you guys listened to my advice.

You waited it out. Your advice was kind of, was kind of vague. Listeners, Jason's advice was like, when you have the chance to wait to wait for a character, wait as long as possible. I think that was the answer game. Yeah, it was very... Which, like, I was like, okay, I see that I'm being asked to wait here. Well, because you get stressed, you're like, oh my God, it's 10 seconds left, is he really going to show up here?

And then he finally comes and it's like a cutscene so you don't have to worry about it. And then the big twist, the world has come to an end. This was like, totally, like, speaking of things that were unprecedented and like mind-blowing, like, this whole concept of like the entire world. coming to an end because the bad guy actually pulled off his master plan instead of just getting like foiled at the last possible minute was was mindling and you guys will see what happens because the second half of the game is entirely set in this bleak depressing world where you'll get to go

around to all the cities and like meet people who you met last time in the world of balance which is what the first half was called and see what this horrible world has done to them and it's it's going to be really dark as you guys will see but um first of all did you you, did either of you know this is coming? Maddie, like, did you have any idea this is going to happen? No, but I mean, there is the fact that these are mustache trolling villains, so it's not like I was like, wow, I bet Kefka in the emperor, like the emperor's totally going to overcome Kafka. It's all going to be fine at the end. Like, I didn't think that was going to go well, but I also did know there was more game. Yeah, but the mustache trolling villain never actually

like executes on his plan the way that Kefka did. I guess that's true. I mean, I wasn't necessarily expecting him to like move the statues around. I mean like in that sense I wasn't like oh yeah I was surprised by that part sure and I wasn't expecting the world to end I did not know that the world was going to end that was a surprise to me pretty wild I think Kirkney because I feel like at one point Kirk you said you like had read ahead in a walkthrough and you knew that it wasn't that I read ahead and a walkthrough I just knew because like ambiently it was just something I picked up like I knew that there was a huge twist in the middle of Final Fantasy 6 and that there was like an apocalyptic thing that happened and the whole map changed like I

But it was like the kind of thing I'd heard ambiently and I had never really looked into. So, you know, playing the game, I was like, okay, I guess Kefka is going to fuck shit up and like the whole world is going to end. And that's going to lead to the second half, which is going to be wild. But, you know, seeing it was still effective. And I can imagine what it would have been like to play this without knowing that. And, you know, this reminds me a little of Krono Trigger, which came out after this game, right? But Krono Trigger plays with some of these same ideas of like with time travel added in. as a mechanic and is so like the next step after this of being like,

and now we're going to make it so that you can actually warp between the worlds and, like, affect the timeline because it's a time travel game, but there is this future world that's all destroyed and this past world and stuff. And I like playing the game that sort of set that in motion. Like you were talking at the very beginning, Jason, about how you can just see all of these ideas that are in this game that then would go on to become, you know, eventually become tropes, but like just also be explored in subsequent games. This definitely feels like one.

I mean, Zelda's done some of those things. Oh, for sure, for sure. Yeah, I mean, speaking of Zelda, so now you guys are in the part of the game where I won't spoil anything, but like essentially after a certain point, it will become very nonlinear. And it gets to the point where you can go challenge a final boss at any point you want, but you're probably not going to be powerful enough. And instead, you'll want to go around like accumulating stuff and doing things, finding your party members and seeing where everyone wound up.

Do your weapons break? Your weapons do not break. Fighting some moblins. You will fight moblins. Yeah, yeah. So I'm very excited to see what you guys think because the second half of the game is a little, it's way less linear and way less scripted. And so it can feel disjointed at times.

And also it's heavier on the combat than the first half is, heavier on the dungeon crawling at least. So yeah, very excited to see what you guys think. But we'll have to save that for the beans cast. For sure. We will do, I believe, in June. is the plan? I think we'll announce it officially, but

assume like anyone who's playing the game with us and wants to know how much longer they have. Assume you have at least another month and a half or so to play through the rest of the game. So yeah, we will be back to talk more about Final Fantasy 6 back then. I'm glad you guys are enjoying it more. I hope the enjoyment stays

at that level as you guys finish the game. Are you both like, do you want, because last time you both wanted to like have nothing to do with the game afterwards, you were like, all right, putting it down for a while. more me than Kirk, I think. Now that you've seen the world get destroyed, are you like, do you actively want to go back and play it now? Or are you thinking you'll take a break again? I kept playing it a little bit more than Kirk, I think, just because I was so curious about Cellis and like what her

situation was. So I like kept playing a little bit more. And it's weird enough that I'm, I'm like, wow, I want to know what's going to happen in the rest of the story. I'm not like super excited to hear this is a more combat heavy chunk of the game because I actually care about the story. But that's okay. It's fine. I will get to hear what. happens to the characters and I will just fight my way through it. Yeah, same. And I didn't play anymore after Celis, but actually kind of for the same reason, I was like, oh, I'm intrigued by this and I actually really want to keep playing. So this is actually a good place to stop because I will remember the game as,

oh, it's at that point where I wanted to see what happens next, which I won't play immediately, but I'll pick it up and I'm, yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Good. Oh, man, you guys are in for some treats. Some of my favorite parts of the game are coming up. But also, just be warned. I just want to warn you guys on anyone else who's playing along that because it's non-linear, there might be some points there. You're like, wait a minute. Well, I like this is very disjointed, but that's just the nature of the beast. Anyway, let's take a break, and then we'll be back with one more thing. Are you riddled with guilt over your TBR pile? Are you filled a shame about a book that you

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No matter what you read or how you read it. We'll help you do it better. Green glasses. Every Thursday on Maximum 5. Hey, kid. Your dad tell you about the time he broke Stephen Dorff's nose at the kid's choice awards. In Dead Pilot Society, scripts that were developed by studios and networks

but were never produced are given the table reads they deserve. When I was a kid, I had to spend my Christmas break film in a PSA about angel dust. So yeah, being a kid sucks sometimes. Presented by Andrew Reich and Ben Blacker, Dead Pilot Society twice a month on maximum fun.org. You know, the show you like, that hobo with a scarf who lives in a magic dumpster. Doctor Who? And we are back.

Kirk Maddie, it is time for one more thing. I want to go first because I'm going to leapfrog off of a point that you made earlier, Kirk about invisible random encounters. So I've been playing Saga Frontier remaster, which is a new Square Enix remaster of an old PlayStation 1 game. That's part of the Saga series. Do you guys,

are you guys familiar with the Saga series at all? It's very weird. I know what they are, but I've never played one. Only through you. It's incredibly weird. It's like this series of incredibly niche JRPs that are just so complicated and like player unfriendly

that like they almost make you, it almost feels like they're actively working against you as a player when you play them sometimes. They're very much games that are like, that have to be taken on their own terms. They're unlike any other JRP out there. They're games where you could get stuck and have to restart your entire safe file

because you did things the wrong way or like didn't grind enough and got stuck in this part of the game in a dungeon with like only one character and you can't do anything about it. So there very much, I read this comment on Reddit or something that described it well. It was basically like, this is a game

that will meet you at its own terms and you can either choose to accept those terms or you can go play something else. It'll tell you to fuck off. But one of the interesting things that the remaster version does is that it has a flee button to combat and makes it so it automatically works so you can skip any combat encounter in the game.

And that, as I've said before, that combined with fast forward, which is also in this, make random encounters so much more. more palatable. In Sago Frontier, they're not invisible, but they're essentially unavoidable because there are these sprites on the map that will run at you in super speed, so you're running

into them constantly in dungeons and stuff. And being able to flee and just escape any encounter makes the game so much more pleasant because you can choose, instead of having to take it at its own terms, you can be like, you know what, I don't want to fight these monsters. I'm going to grind a little bit later and play a bunch

of monsters over there, and I'm just going to skip all of these combat encounters. And it makes it much more pleasant to play. It's still not a game I would really recommend to most people because it's so esoteric and so unfriendly to play. But if you're like me and you played it as a kid and you want to go have that nostalgia blast and see if it's as fun as you remember,

then check it out. Sagra Frontier Remastered. Definitely not something that either of you would give a shit about. Yeah, that's fine. One JRPG is enough. One JRPG is definitely enough. No. And this is like, I wouldn't recommend this to anyone

except people who have played the old version or like massacus. For some reason the saga series has been getting all this traction at Square Anex. They're like new sagas and remasters of the series. Chrono Trigger has never been touched, but like every saga game has a remaster on the switch. It's really ridiculous.

I think it's because the guy who made the saga series, like the big director is still at Square as opposed to some of the other like top directors. Chrono Trigger has some like complicated stuff. It's very much, yeah, like a politics thing. And so Square puts all this money into the saga series of all series. but like, chrono trigger can't even play it on Switch. Disappointing.

Anyway, Maddie, what's your one more thing? My thing is a podcast. I have been doing a lot of packing and unpacking in my life lately, so I can't recommend you're wrong about because I already talked about that podcast a couple one more things ago. But this is a different podcast that I've also listened to a patently absurd number of episodes too. It's called The Content Minds,

and it's hosted by Ryan Broderick and Luke Bailey, and they are an American guy who currently lives in South America and a British guy. And every week they talk about weird stuff that's happening on the internet around the world and various trends emerging on social media and do their takes on it. And it's very rare that I find cultural critics

who I not only agree with, but who actually have a take that heightens whatever I already thought about the weird, you know, media discourse of the day might be. And I just really, really dig it. Like they've talked about NFTs, they've talked about the Royals, which in particular I don't know a ton about that.

And so hearing Luke Bailey analyze it from his perspective of actually knowing about UK politics is really helpful and cool. And then to have Ryan Broderick contextualize it with like living in other places in the world and how are people reacting to it here? It just, I don't know. I learned a lot from it. And I ended up going back and listening to like every episode they recorded before the coup on the US Capitol attempted coup. And like hearing them predict it and make their predictions based on internet trends that they were seeing and then hearing them react to it. was fascinating and weird, and I just really dug it. So I recommend the show if somebody else has way too much time on their hands. I want to hear a couple smart people talk about the internet

and how people talk on it. Kirk, what's your one more thing? My one more thing is the third part of my trilogy that I have been creating these last few weeks on Monster Hunter Rise. We didn't even know it's a trilogy. It's like Star Wars. You just sprang it on us. Well, there was that big cliffhanger last week where I revealed that the switchblade was the father of my longsword. Right. And my longsword cried, no, and it fell into a pit and it lost its hilt, but it has a robot hilt now. It's a whole thing. It was cool.

You started with episode four, though. Like, it was confusing at the beginning. But then it was like, oh, it's part of like a commentary on tropes about one more thing. Well, next week you're going to get into Monster and Her World, and that'll be your prequel. Right, right. Of course. So Monster Hunter Rise. I beat the game basically

what is there of it now, though it's going to continue to be expanded this year, but I beat the final Elder Dragon, and I've reached end game, let's say. I've played a lot of this game. I really, really, really love this game. It's the first time I've gotten into a loot game, honestly, since I stopped playing Destiny 2

several years ago. So it's fun to play a game like that. My thought on it, my last thought, is related again to friction, which is the thing I've been thinking about with Final Fantasy 6 and with this game, both Japanese developed games, both in long-running series from very different eras of gaming, but have some similarities and just how there's a lot of menus that aren't always easy to navigate,

and that part of the joy of the game is, like, in spite of all of that, finding a way to have this like smooth, skillful, fun experience. And that expresses itself a lot of ways, like, the way that you maximize your build and customize your menus so that you can, like, use the menus effectively in combat is actually like a big part of the game. Like making the game more user-friendly is part of the game. And as you get better at it, the game becomes easier to use in the menus because you've learned how to set them up. So there's that. But there's also, like, in the game itself, there's stuff that once you figure out how to use it, it's so fun and freeing and doesn't feel, or it feels like I'm navigating a bunch of, like, very frictiony stuff.

Like how they're, it's like, you can't just jump. There's no just straight jump button. But if you learn how to use the wire bugs, which are the, like, little, like, sort of grappling hooks that you, you can use to do all kinds of special moves, and you learn the map really well, once you know where to go, you can, like, hop on the back of your dog and you ride up to a wall, you jump off your dog in mid-air, you, like, shoot the wirebug to the wall, you run straight up the wall, go over the edge, off the top of the wall, then in mid-air, your wirebug is refreshed, and you can, like, cast them through the air, and you become like Spider-Man.

You can get around the levels in this game like Spider-Man. And now that I'm good enough at that, I'm, like, flying around it when I'm fighting guys, like a monster will knock me back and I'll just come flying back at him in midair and I'll like pull my sword out in mid air and hit him and then like you know when he runs away I'm like flying through the level like going through all these like really high nooks and crannies through the canyons and it's like being Spider-Man only in Spider-Man you just hold down a button and like he does it automatically and you're just like flipping around and you look awesome and you can kind of make it more complicated if you want but that's all you have to do in this game it's really hard to do that

you have to have enough wire bugs you have to know to go get the extra wire bug in that in that area You have to know the level really well. You have to kind of know where you're going, what you're doing, have a feel for the rhythms of it. But once you do, it's actually kind of more rewarding that you can be like Spider-Man and Monster Hunter because the game does not make it easy to do that, but it makes it possible.

And that's been a really cool thing about this game in general. It reminds me of a Souls game in that, like, you get a lot out of it once you've mastered it. And you're Spider-Man. And you're Spiderman. Well, you know, in Bloodborn, the part where you got injected by a a mutant spider and then you start We all know. For sure, and your Uncle Ben dies and he's so sad. We've seen it all before.

It's true. So anyways, that's my kind of final thought on the game is that part of the reason the narrative around it is that it's so hard to get into it. It's just always the first thing people talk about is like, oh, I know those games are good, but it's so hard to get into it. And there is something essential to the game tied in with that difficulty, that friction, how hard it is to navigate those big chunky blocks of all of it at first, that once you've figured out how to get through them and you're skating around up above the blocks and around the blocks and you can kind of play with them in all these ways, it's really fun. And that process and then the end point of having mastered it is so rewarding that I think it is actually kind of an essential part of why I'm enjoying the game.

So that's my kind of final verdict is that difficulty, that thing that people always complain about is essential to the game and does make me like it more because it's possible to reach this level of not mastery. I'm no master, but, you know, expertise in it. And it's really just a great game, and I loved it. Same with a Souls game. But although I think, I feel like a Souls game is probably easier to get into, like the barrier for entry is probably lower. It's also more straightforward. There's just like not as much like navigation,

and you can't like turn it into a DMC game the way that you kind of can turn, especially RISE since they added this wirebug thing. I mean, that's what's made this one so fun. It does have this element of speed and verticality that the series hasn't had before. Cool. All right. Well, that is it for the thing. this week's episode.

It is. See you both next week. Yep. 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 dot org slash join.

Find us on Twitter at triple clickpods, 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. Maximumfun.org. Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Audience, audience supported.

I thought in my head 60 seconds. Okay, got it. And then you're like, the minute. I was like, what? What? What's that? What? 60 seconds?

Is a minute? What kind of nonsense is this? No, no, no. 100 seconds. 100 seconds. We're on the metric system of time. Yeah, 100 hours per day. Makes sense.

100 days per year. That would be amazing. 100 years in a century. Right. I mean, it's all, it just scales right down. Easy, easy, easy, easy. Yeah, the U.S. version where this is just all weird, 365 days in a year. Why do they do that way?

Well, it's also so confusing when you talk to your friends in England and they're in April and they're like, yeah, 100 seconds in a minute. Right. It makes deadlines really hard overseas. It does. It really does. It makes a lot of things much more complicated than they need to be. This explains World War II. This is the show. We're doing a great job.

It's true. We're doing good.