Triple Click - Triple Play: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

Episode Date: February 29, 2024

Kirk, Maddy, and Jason return to the world of buster swords and moogles to hunt Sephiroth, trying not to get too distracted by all the minigames along the way. It's time for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, the sequel to Final Fantasy VII Remake. How good is it? Let's discuss!One More Thing:Kirk: Oppenheimer in 70mmMaddy: True Detective S3Jason: BalatroLINKS:Preorder Jason’s Book! https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/jason-schreier/play-nice/9781538725429/Support Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinBuy Triple Click Merch: https://maxfunstore.com/search?q=triple+click&options%5Bprefix%5D=lastJoin the Triple Click Discord: http://discord.gg/tripleclickpodTriple Click Ethics Policy: https://maximumfun.org/triple-click-ethics-policy/ Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointripleclick 🚀  SUPPORT TRIPLE CLICK:Join Maximum Fun | Buy TC Merch💬 JOIN THE TRIPLE CLICK DISCORD🎮 Triple Click Ethics Policy📱 SOCIALS | @tripleclickpodInstagram | YouTube | TikTok | Twitch

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is a sequel to Final Fantasy 7 remake, which is a remake of Final Fantasy 7, but it's actually kind of a sequel to Final Fantasy 7. Welcome to Triple Click where we bring the games to you. Today we are talking about Final Fantasy 7 rebirth, the ongoing saga of Cloud and his friends going on an adventure around the world to play card games. I'm Jason Shire. I'm Kirk Hamilton. And I'm Maddie Myers. Hello.

Hello. Hello. Hello, my friends. friends, welcome back to another episode of our little old podcast. Hey, guys, did you know that we are a listener-supported podcast? I just found this out. What? Breaking news.

I just found this out. I already knew. I've known this for a really long time. Wow. Kirk didn't tell us. We are supported by all of you fine folks out there. And to reward you for helping make this show possible by going to maximum fund. org slash join and becoming a member today, we will give you bonus episodes.

including one that we're about to put up very, very soon, our kind of February bonus episode, which is about Marty Scorsese, Mr. Martin himself, and three of his movies that we are watching and discussing, a Goodfellas, Casino, and The Wolf of Wall Street. Three greats. The Wolf of Wall Street. And, yeah, you can get that by becoming members today.

Go to Maximumfund.org slash join and get some bonus apps, including a whole back. clock of them and make the show possible. All right, Kirk Maddie, we have a lot to discuss today. We have a big old chunky video game to talk about today. It's full of chunks. This week is the release of Final Fantasy 7 rebirth and we are all playing it. And so there is very much to discuss. In fact, I have a feeling this is this game is so bulky and has so much to talk about that we're probably going to have to do it over the course of a couple weeks, but we'll see how it goes.

Several weeks. Seven weeks. Maybe we'll get it all in today. In the meantime, yeah, maybe we'll squeeze it all in. We'll get it all in today. How much could there be is what we're all saying? You know, you can actually, you can record a podcast at 1.5x speed, so that's what we're going to do.

That's true. We should, so we can get it all in there. People that know that, that you can hit a button on our end. Yeah, that's right. Not to spoil our feature bonus episodes, but I feel like we're going to have to go in depth on this game for a beans cast as well. Oh, for sure. For sure.

So, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is. a new RPG from Square Enix. It is the sequel to Final Fantasy 7 remake, which came out in 2020, and it is the second part in what will be a trilogy called the Final Fantasy 7 remake project. This remake is the only remake in history that required three entries to be remade, unless you count the Hobbit movies, I guess. Yeah. And it is continuing the story of the first game. The first game, we will probably, as we talk about this, since as this episode is going live, nobody's played the game. We're not going to get into any story spoilers for rebirth or anything like that. We will probably get into, like, we will spoil the ending of remake, which I think is fair game right now.

If you haven't gone and played the ending and you're still unspoiled on the kind of the nature of this remake project, then go play the end of Final Fantasy 7 remake. But we will get into that and we will get into kind of what it means for the game. the trilogy as a whole. All right. I have played the hell out of this thing. We're going to do some initial impressions, but I just want to say, I have played 62 hours of this game. Yeah. And I don't think... And you're not, you're not done, right? Well, let me kind of set the scene for you guys, and then I'll throw it to you two to talk about your kind of where you're at and your initial impressions. So I'm up to chapter 12. I think they're either 13 or 14 of them. I have done like every single side activity you can possibly do in this game

because the structure of this game for people aren't aware yet. So the first one, the first part was all set in Midgar, which was kind of a series of linear corridors and city, kind of city alleys and sewers and reactors. This game is set in an open world, and what that means is that essentially it is structured in a series of regions. So for example, when you get out of Midgar, you get to the Grasslands region,

which is the first one you play as when you first enter, the game. And each of those regions has a ton of not only side quests, which are kind of like specific, story-based scripted activities, but also world activities, which are kind of like, hey, go and activate this tower, go and find this thing, which will get you a bonus for this thing. We'll get into all that in a bit. But just that, with that context in mind, I have done every single one of these activities. And so I got to this point where I'm like 62 hours in, I finished this chapter, chapter 11, and then I was like, okay, now I feel like I've done all of the side content this game has to offer. Now I'm going to start just like go up to the end of the game and finish the story.

But no, after chapter 11, you unlock even more side content, including new side content for each of the areas you've already explored. The scope of this game is kind of baffling. It's a little mind-boggling to behold. That said, I love this game so much that I feel compulsively drawn to do every single thing in it because it is just like, I'm just blown away by how much I'm enjoying. And I never do that. I'm not a completionist at all. I never do 100% in anything, but this game just has its hooks in me in a way that.

What about Sweet Coden 2? You did 100% on that. I did, I did. But that's a different kind of open world. It is and it's not. This game also feels like Jason Trier-Catnip to me in a lot of ways, but go on. But it's usually now the kind of the, like, go around the world and fill out a checklist and do activities is very much not what I typically do. But in this game it is.

And we can get into why and maybe why it's Jason Trier-Kat-up. But overall, I love this game to death. And 62 hours in, I would happily play another like hundred hours. Like, I'm totally fine with that. I will play this game forever if I must. They should make it a live service game so I can just play it forever. more Queen's Blood, more mini-games. Yeah, man, I could just play Queen's Blood forever.

Anyway, I want to let you guys talk. Maddie, why don't you start off? How much have you played and what do you think of it so far? I'm not sure my hour count, but I know I'm up to Chapter 7, so I'm sure it's like 20 to 30 hours. I went on a honeymoon somewhere in there, so I was away from my PS5 for about a week. In real life, you should say. Yeah, that's right, not in the game. Unfortunately, me and Ayrith haven't quite worked that out yet.

I'm still hoping to take her on a date and the golden saucer when I get there. Fingers crossed, folks. There is a dating sim element of this game. We can talk about that. But yeah, mainly this game, I'm enjoying it a lot. I also think this game is so funny. It's much, much funnier than I expected it to be. And it is reminding me of how many funny aspects there were of the original Final Fantasy

7 and how many weird parts there were. And I'm really pleasantly surprised by that, and I'm excited to talk about how funny some of these mini-games are. But I also want to hear Kirk's thoughts on Queensblood, aka Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. I am really enjoying myself. I've played 40 some odd hours. I'm in Chapter 9. I've been doing almost all of the side stuff, pretty much all of the side stuff. I missed a couple of things in the most recent area I was in, just because I just sort of found myself accidentally almost going to the next region, but I'll probably go back and do them.

because I am finding it to be a pretty soothing process, just sort of cruising around, and have been actually working really hard lately. I've been in like full production mode on strong songs. So as a result, just when I finish work at the end of the day, I just sort of want to chill out. And I'm finding the game to be a really relaxing game to chill out with. And part of that is that I don't feel in a rush.

So all three of us are playing early copies that we got from Squarespace. We've all had the game for quite a while. So as a result, I just kind of didn't feel the need to power through it. I think we're going to, if we wind up doing a beanscast or something, it won't be for a little while. So we have time. I just, I can kind of relax. And this game is really benefiting for me from taking that kind of relaxed approach to it. Even though I do want to know what happens in the end.

And there's, of course, this big question mark at the end of this game that does kind of keep me going. I'm finding it's possible for me to relax and really enjoy myself. Yeah, I'm really liking it. I think it's just a real audio-visual treat. It's beautiful looking, I think, beautiful sounding. The same two composers are on this game as on remake. They are Mitsuto, Suzuki, and Masashi Hamazu, who, of course, are then taking the work of Nobuo Uwimatsu

and reworking it into a billion different shapes. So many of his melodies, especially his main Final Fantasy theme, aka Cloud's theme, have been just reworked and sort of threaded through one another in so many beautiful ways. But also there are just some great original tracks. I love the music in this game. I mean, I was just in this mountainous region where this kind of like synth pop, I don't even know what you'd call it. Jam was playing. And I just was cruising around doing battles in the world and just loving the vibes of the music.

There's so much stylistic variation that if you're a fan of music, Really, I mean, it is like the thing that makes me just like playing the game. I just have headphones on and whatever I'm doing, oh, my chocobo needs to go detect something and dig it up. All right, it's kind of silly. Like a lot of these mini games are very kind of silly. They don't really require much of you. But then this really funny funk jam comes on with super funky music. And it just makes the whole thing kind of work.

Or Queen's Blood, which we've mentioned a few times, this very complex card game that is channeling a bit of Gwent, channeling a bit of, I don't know, a lot of these games have this sort of thing in them, where you go around and you challenge people throughout the world and you get new cards and can build new decks. And it's very complex and well-designed game. I'm having a great time with it. And when you play, there's this jazz tune that plays every time you're playing, where this trumpet player takes this smoking solo.

And it kind of just happens over and over and over again until I've heard this trumpet player just go off like a thousand times or something at this point. And it hasn't gotten old. So, yeah, the music is actually a really big part of what I'm liking about it. So, yeah, I'm really enjoying the game. I think it's fitting just right for me into my current daily life. The music, yeah. I mean, the music essentially is kind of metaphorical for the entire game

in that it takes what was really what people loved about the original, it was really great about the original, and just expands it in like a thousand different directions and applies it to the whole thing. And you're just seeing all this unfold, and it's almost mind-boggling how many ways they go with it. I have to have heard 15 different versions of the chokobo theme at this point and I'm genuinely curious at this point how many there are in this game.

I feel like every Japanese studio musician on every instrument has at some point in their career performed the chokobo theme probably just for this game because it's played on so many different instruments and so many different styles. It cracks me up. It's almost a joke like a meta joke in the game. Well, because there's a different chokovo. Well, there's so many different chokobos. Yeah, there's a different chukobo in each region.

And yeah, there are also a bunch of different variations of Teva's theme, of Arith's theme. There are a lot of different kind of plays on that. And so I think that is like a good way to talk about this remake. So let's zoom out for a second. At the end of the first game, spoilers here, it was revealed through the game that some of the characters in the game were aware of the events that took place in the original Final Fantasy 7, including Erith being aware that she dies. Sephiroth being aware that he loses. And then there are these creatures that hang around called Whispers of Fate that kind of exists to keep the game on track, to keep the remake on track to the original Final Fantasy 7.

At the end of the first game, you defeat the whispers, and it ends with this kind of tantalizing Chiron saying, the unknown journey will continue. And so for this game, all bets were off. It was kind of like, where are they going to go with this thing? From what the three of us have all played so far, it actually follows the structure of the original pretty closely. You're going to all the same locations in pretty much the same order. There are a couple of variations here and there. Fork Condor doesn't exist as a place anymore. Gangaga is now a required city instead of it was just optional in the game. You didn't have to go there at all in the original game.

And obviously, everything expanded in big ways and subverted in some ways. But overall, the structure is pretty much the same. And there's a lot of stuff in there that is just kind of like, feels more like an expansion of the original than an actual change and twist of fate and stuff. Obviously, the big question is what happens at the end, and none of us have even gotten there yet, and I don't think anyone listening right now wants to know what's going to happen at the end. But I was actually a little surprised that they haven't gone in totally different directions in some ways, that it is following the kind of the outline set by the original, but adding some stuff along the way. Yeah, I think they're still, they're doing enough tantamination.

tantalizing teases of slightly outside of the established canon events. And then, of course, this split timeline that they showed at the end of remake with Zach arriving at Midgar, that kind of is still in play, even though that seems to be maybe a whole separate timeline. And it's not clear what's going on. We know no more than people knew at the end of remake. It's the same question. Right.

Or people who've seen the trailers that have also shown that same split timeline that Kirk's describing. So it's, you know, there is still this, of course, this big question of what's going to happen at the end of this game. And just like in remake, there's that same feeling of, okay, we're doing the thing again. We're showing you these fun, reimagined versions of the stuff that you've done before. But there's also this little tease of, oh, well, but maybe things are going to be different. And that is, I at least find that really good balance. Like, I think it is fun to just go do the things that I know and see these new versions of them.

And I do like having that little hint of magic at the outside that maybe something could be different this time. Yeah, yeah, I agree. And so if you're kind of an obsessive fan the way that I've always been, it's actually there's so much stuff in there that is like little stuff that I think people who played the game a few times will really appreciate it. And here's a slight example that you guys probably don't know about. A lot of people probably don't know about. in the original So in the Japanese version of the original on 1997 there was this legendary enemy fight

called Test Zero that was kind of like it was at the bottom of this well or this basement or something like that and it was this enemy would appear and he wouldn't do any damage and he had some crazy amount of health and then dropped some crazy gear. It was one of those things that like

sounds like a playground myth that you hear about almost like oh that legendary thing if you walk around in circles 99 times you'll eventually find this thing Yeah, exactly, me under the truck. But this thing was real, but only in the Japanese version. And I know about this because I got this strategy guide for the game that happened to be based on the Japanese version,

and then so it mentioned this thing. In this game, they mentioned Test Zero. They just happened to, like, mention it in this funny little context. And I was just like, holy shit, like, I can't believe they're actually mentioning this thing. So there's a lot of little stuff like that. There's also the big picture stuff. I mean, things are fleshed out and expanded.

What was, like, one screen in the original game? game is now an entire friggin' town with like side quests and activities to do. This is a humongous game. I don't know like it is really, it is one of the one of the largest games in a while. And Maddie, you were telling Kirk and I that you felt a little bit, um, you, you, you, you, you had some feelings about the, the bloat of it all. Uh, you want to elaborate a little bit? Sure. I mean, there's a few things in here that I'm like, I don't, I don't know if this is fully working for me. I some, some, there's so many, many games. Like to such an extent.

And some of that is also just the issue that I took with the original game, too. Like the middle of the original Final Fantasy 7 is very weird and meandering. And it's like after the characters of Avalanche have committed this environmental terrorist act and they've escaped Midgar. It's almost like they don't know what to do. And the game kind of doesn't either. And then they eventually work up to facing Saffroth at the end. And that's the middle of the game that we're in now. And with that being fully expanded and having so many more mini games added, it feels like the characters meandering is just happening so much more than it did in the original because it's literally taking more hours to do.

And the characters themselves are sort of mentioning that. Like periodically, like, you know, Ufi will be like, oh, I'm so excited to go to the golden saucer and play arcade games or whatever. And Barrett is like, come on, be serious. Like, you know, we've got a mission. And then me, the player, I'm like, do we though? we doing it? Like, I've been playing a lot of Queensblood, man. Like, I don't, what am I doing? Like, periodically, I will be zooming out and being like, what are we the characters supposed to be focusing on? Because there are so many sparkly distractions all around me that the actual

plot kind of gets lost. Do you know what I mean? Kirk, you look like you have response to this. I know, I totally know what you mean. I mean, I've always loved the Midgar sections of Final Fantasy 7. Yeah. And this really feels like the next part of the game. It's true to it in every way, but that means it feels very different from the first part. And, you know, thinking back to playing through Final Fantasy 7, I remember getting out of Midgar, it's an amazing feeling when you see the world map for the first time and everything stretches before you and then you start to play. And it's where Final Fantasy 7, the original, reveals how strange it is, how varied it is, how much is going on. You're just

doing so much weird stuff. But it's also definitely where you're. the game loses focus and you're like snowboarding as cloud and whatever and it has this feeling of like wait a minute it was so focused for those first whatever couple dozen hours in midgar and now it's really changed this feels the same way i'm cool with it because it is just a very different game than remake what remake had going for it that i really liked is it was so exciting to see all of that stuff from the first act to meet tifa and erith and bear it and like to see them in this full you know looking like Advent, Children characters, to get to replay all of those events and that, just that whole story in Midgar, which is like a really thrilling story.

Shinra is so omnipresent. It's this feeling of like fighting against these people who are up above you and like, you know, fighting your way out and kind of railing against injustice and then they get framed and they're hated. And it's like a very, it makes sense. It could be a movie, like that plot where this part feels very true to the next part of the game. I mean, this rebirth feels very true to the second part of the game.

So it just requires a gear shift. It actually works for me that this is a different game. Like it's a whole new game. And as a result, it has a whole new energy, a whole new rhythm. And yeah, a whole new sense of pacing, which there's a tension there for sure because I really want to know what happens. There's this big question at the end of this game. And I do want to know the answer to it, at least before I'm spoiled on the internet. But either way, I'd like to see what happens.

and there's just no way to make a game designed in this way that's channeling an original that was designed in the way Final Fantasy 7 was. There's no way to make that feel as propulsive and structured, you know, as well structured as it needs to to kind of carry you along. So I'm not really sure how they could have resolved it. And I'm in the end fine with it because I do sort of enjoy just having something where, you know, every so often it's just open world time. And I spend a couple of evenings just going in and doing 10.

towers and like investigating, I don't know, doing little quick time events and writing my chokobo while it sniffs around for treasure. Yeah. This was discourse in 1997, to be clear. It was. I'm sure it was. It's a very clear. Why are we breeding chokobos when Sephiroth is about to destroy the planet? There is a plot. I don't want it to seem like there's like you're sent out into the world and there's no guiding thread here. The plot is generally, is loosely that this group of freedom fighters or terrorists or whatever, Avalanche has decided that Sephiroth is a graver threat to the world than Shinra is. And so they're going on this quest to find him and stop him. And so to find him, they're kind of following these black-robed individuals from place to place. And that's the kind of loose

thread that takes them around the world to all these different places. But, well, it's not no, Midgar. No, well, it's not that it's a loose thread. It's just that there's so many distractions along the way. And it's not just that they're like going and doing arcag games and the gold saucer. It's like this game, especially, I mean, this game has more mini games than ever game. Any game I've ever played. Ever. Like, I've never played a Yakuza game. But this game has so many different things.

And it's like every new region you get into, it's almost, it's shocking how laid into the game they're introducing new mechanics and new like bespoke things that were just designed for a single area. And it's almost, it's, I mean, I love it because it's just, it just changes things up all the time. Especially in contrast to a game like Final Fantasy. 16, which came out last year, and it was just the same thing over and over again. Every side quest is exactly the same. And this is totally different. It's everything is just a total send-up. But I think that is what creates that sense of incongruity, the same way that the first

game did, where it's like there's so many distractions you can do along the way. You can go and be clearing open world activities and finding, summoning crystals and going and hurting cats and searching for new chocobos and all this stuff, popping balloons. Stuff as your chocobo. There's a lot of sniffing. Yeah, hunting for treasure. It feels like it doesn't, the characters don't have that same sense of urgency in the gameplay that they do in the story, which is 100% the case with the original game as well.

But they also kind of do at the same time, which I think helps the game work on any level, is that periodically Cloud will just have a sudden PTSD flashback and all the characters are like hugging him and worried about him. And it's like, oh, right, we're dealing with life or death circumstances here. like Cloud's PTSD flashback seem kind of magical and mythical and have since remake. And that's just the circumstances of the world that we're in. We're in sort of a magical army world. And so everything is very high stakes.

And so like that can happen amidst these very goofy mini games of like Cloud riding a segue around and like, you know, all the characters picking out swimsuits that they're going to wear to the beach later and, you know, playing a shooting mini game or whatever. it may be. Like, those things are all happening at the same time, which I guess you could argue is it's just like real life, but there's absolutely nothing about this game that really feels like real life in any meaningful way because it's the craziest circumstances ever. But because it's humanizing and because these characters also do feel like people, it works. And that heart, that kind of thrumming beat of those characters' friendship is always what keeps me going, even when I

am kind of annoyed by some of the mini-games personally. I still really love just the dynamic between all the characters and the banter that they will have with each other while they're doing a minigame where I'm like, I don't know why Red is playing soccer right now, but I'm living for the Ares Dialogue. You know what I mean? Like, that is the writing in this game, that's what it has. That's really, the biggest thing Rebirth has that the original did it is the writing is just stellar.

And the original, I mean, the translation was so megal and it's amazing that we all actually enjoyed this game when it came out. But in this game, I mean, the writing is just everything about, like, everything from the main storyline to the little sea plot, like, bantered, like, barks that they have during combat and during, while clearing out towers and stuff, sometimes can get a little repetitive, but still, like, it's just all top-notch. And I think that's the main reason that I talked before about how I'm compulsively completing everything. It's just because this combination of the music and the writing and the

combat really working really well, just all of the systems are really humming together that they create this game that is much more than the sum of its parts. And so even when you're doing things that are on their surface tedious, it's just so, they're so, they go down so easy. They're so fun and enjoyable to actually do. Yeah, I think that the performances are really good as well. All of the actors are terrific and the animated performances of the characters are just really strong. And the thing that I like about this game is that they're leaning into all of this extra space to make a really great hangout game. I mean, the first one, and by that I guess I mean, remake, it didn't have that much hang time. Like there were a few sequences. There's this really interminable sequence in

remake where you go into the sewers and then through the train graveyard. And the saving grace of that sequence is that Tifa and Eirith are getting to hang out for the first time. And they get to know one another. And it's the beginning of their friendship, which is something that is really fun to see and that the writers have done a great job with. And that continues to just be like, endlessly fun and funny in rebirth. I mean, their relationship with Cloud. It's very, you know, Archie and Betty and Veronica. The way they're always looking at him and kind of laughing and he's this kind of weird introvert and doesn't know how to deal with them.

That dynamic is super fun, but then Barrett is terrific. Red 13 is terrific. Ufi, who we met in the DLC, is terrific. All these actors are so good. And there's so much time to just hang out with them. Like you were saying, Jason, something that I find really appealing about the side quest, is that there's a little bit of stitching, tying them all together. It isn't just like, go do this and you'll get a little bit of XP.

There's always some extra little lineo dialogue or extra context. A lot of what you're doing in the world, or they're called World Intel Events, and you're doing them for Chadley, who's this little robot boy. He's in the first game. I love Chadley. Chaddly is like a constant presence. He's very passive aggressive at times and can be pretty annoying. He's hilarious to me.

But he's much better in this game than he wasn't. the first one where he was... Yeah, I don't have a strong memory of him from the first game. Well, he wasn't in it a lot. He's... In the first game, he was, like, built to be inoffensive and neutral almost,

or it was, like, because he's added just for remake, I feel like they wanted him to just not stand out at all, so he's kind of a cardboard cutout. But in this one, they make him a little more sarcastic, and, like, he challenges you to Queen's blood on the boat and everything. I'm living for it. He's much more integral to the structure of the game, because all of these world intel events that you're doing

are getting points with him, and he's kind of the vendor where you spend them to get unique materia. And it kind of winds up making you feel a little bit rewarded for those things mechanically. You get some points with Chadley. You get a little bit of narrative reward. And then there's always a few lines or something kind of funny will happen. You'll come across an NPC or one of your party members will say something.

And because something that's really cool about this game is that your whole party goes around with you everywhere you go. So you have three people in your combat party. And we should definitely talk about combat, but maybe in a little bit. You have three people active in your party, but then everybody else is there too. So you're always able to get all the lines of dialogue that anyone might have in a given scene. And it just lets it feel like this big hangout where everyone's just cruising around. That was really not the case in remake just because the Midgar section of the game doesn't play that way. I do really like that section, but it's just a different thing.

And so the hang aspect of this is a big part of this kind of relaxed, whatever, you know, hang out, just listen to everybody talk thing. And it's really great. And then, of course, there's also, I mean, there's like a middle tier of side quests that are more narrative side quests. Each one of those is tied to one of your companions. So you get, like, bonus points with them. And there's a whole, like, friendship meter that you're building up. Those are definitely worth doing because you get real, like, cutscenes with each character. There's a lot of time with each of these characters and a lot of time watching them all together.

And because the writing is so good, the performances are so good, that really is the heart of the game for me. It's why I'm bothering to play even many games that I don't super care about from a gameplay standpoint because they nearly always will reward me by having banter or some additional conversation that I'm like, oh, but this is really adding to it. Like I wanted to hear Tifa's thoughts on this because I just want to hear her talking. And that is enough for me regardless, even if I'm like, why is my chokobo sniffing 99% of the time? You're really, you're fixated on the chokobo sniffing. Everywhere I go, the chokobo sniffing. Cocoa has a question mark over its head. I just ignore this.

I need to ignore this. I don't really care if my chokobo smell something. Why is it so weird that chokobos? I don't know, man. I just think it's weird. I don't know. I'll get over it. I just find it.

It's a throwback to a couple of the older games. Final Fantasy 9. It's probably just because chocobos themselves are really weird. I mean, they're adorable, but like they're an absurd huge chicken that you ride around. Oh, yeah. Definitely. It's a very silly, it's a very silly idea. Well, it's, which makes it even better when like you have Final Fantasy tactics, which is this dead serious political plot and they all ride chocopos around. Oh yeah, it's good stuff. Yeah, let's talk about the combat. I think that that is really the kind of life stream of this game, so to speak, because that's what you're doing a lot of the time, especially when you're out in the open world, doing activities and stuff. And I think, I don't think it hasn't changed much since remake. The core gameplay is all there. still. But something about it feels a little bit better. I think my theory, one of my theories here is that because you're fighting a way larger variety of enemies and not just the same machines,

there's more kind of, it's a little bit easier to tell when they're going to attack and you can kind of recognize accordingly and block accordingly and dodge accordingly. In fact, I just did a battle that was kind of one-on-one with Cloud and someone else and it almost felt a little soulslike and that I was expected to be constantly defending and blocking and pairing in order to actually get him down. So that was pretty cool. But yeah, something about it. And it's not the synergy stuff, which is the new stuff that they added, which is basically new abilities you can do with your party, because that's just an extra thing to do. It really, it just feels like they've cleaned up some of the visual effects and some of the kind of animations of it all and made it

feel a little bit better. But what do you guys make of it? Are you guys enjoying the combat? Because I'm loving it. Oh, yeah. I love it. I can't. remember well enough now, but I feel like the shortcuts for different moves are faster now. Like you can just press the shoulder buttons to get to additional moves. I mean, you can also just press X to open up the full combat menu, which I do all the time because I forget that I can also press the shoulder buttons. And, you know, it's fine. But I do love how many options there are for kind of making combat work for you. Changing between characters is really easy. And I love doing that because everybody feels slightly different and they all have different.

abilities and the thing Kirk mentioned about how you can kind of change your parties. You know, I have certain characters I like more than others, but I've really been trying to change it up because, again, they all feel different and it's really cool to see all the different synergy abilities that each of them have. And it just feels great. It feels really good. I remember at the outset of remake, when we all played that demo, I remember being really weirded out by the combat in that demo and being like, this feels really strange. Like, it's, it's kind of like turn-based combat, but not, and I don't understand it. And then as time went on, it just came naturally to me.

This game feels like a much smoother on-ramp, even though it had been a while since I played Remaker Integrate. I just immediately locked into this, and it made a ton of sense to me. I don't know if that's a balanced change on their end, but there was just something about it that just immediately clicked in a way that the previous game didn't, where it took, like, a few hours before I was like, oh, yeah, okay, I get it. I understand what I'm supposed to be doing. This one feels amazing, though.

Yeah, I'm loving the combat in this and kind of notably didn't love the combat. It never quite clicked for me in remake. I think I just didn't really commit to it and I never really learned how it worked and kind of just mash my way through the back half of that game. And then I remember liking the combat more in Integrate. I liked playing as Ufi and sort of saw a lot of people, like enough people, I don't know, in our Discord or wherever, just critics, other podcasts. castors, just people saying, man, the combat in that game was so good in remake, was so good.

It was so fun. It was such a great evolution of the Final Fantasy Combat system that it made me think it was maybe more of a me issue than an issue with the game. I think it did have a learning curve. I agree with you now. Yeah, oh yeah, sure. You know, it's for whatever reason it didn't really connect with me. So this game, I kind of came into it thinking, all right, I'm going to take this seriously.

I'm going to meet it on its own terms and, like, really learn how it works. So I did all the Chadley Sim fights for each character. And then I've still been doing them just because they're a good way to practice fighting. And as a result, I've sort of really, I've really clicked with it. I love it. I love playing as each character. They're all very, very different. And I've just sort of gotten my head around it and how it works.

It's not always super empowering. You have to play well. There are times where the tide can turn against you and it can get extremely frustrating and difficult to come back, but that's the way it works. I mean, that's the way the combat works. You have to play well, and you have to basically maintain momentum. I found that the way to think about combat in this game is there are individual moves that you're doing, you're working on timing, you're working on strategy, you're following your ATB and trying to use abilities smartly to exploit weaknesses, all of that, which would just kind of, it's the same as any action game. But there's this feeling

to a fight, especially a boss fight, like you're either kind of in charge and you have momentum, or you're on the back foot and you've lost momentum. And a lot of that is tied to ATB. ATB for anyone who hasn't played the game, it's basically this constantly charging meter that gives you at certain segments the ability to do your special moves or cast spells. And the more you do, the more ATB you get.

So if you're attacking a bunch and you're on the offensive, you're building up ATB super fast and you can do better and better attacks and kind of keep the enemy going and then you stagger them and everyone has ATB and then you get a limit break and you can just like totally mop the floor with an enemy. The flip side of that is when you lose momentum and you're on the back foot, you suddenly have not enough health to heal. You usually need to use ATB, at least until later. And so you need to build that up, but that means you need to put yourself at risk.

So you're attacking the enemy, trying to build up ATV to get healing, but you're taking damage because you're more at risk, and then you start getting knocked out, and you need to build up ATB to use Phoenix Down to bring people back, and you can wind up in either a vicious cycle or a virtuous cycle. and I find that once I got my head around that, that a lot of the game is just trying to get yourself into a virtuous cycle and then figuring out ways to disrupt the vicious cycle when you get stuck in it, which is usually like use items, like just get really aggressive with how you're healing, you know, pause and pull back.

Use a distance character back up. Right. Like once I got my head around that kind of bigger picture of combat, I find that I really, really enjoy it because then once you have that all locked in, you can just get into the nitty-gritty, like playing as Tifa and playing as Cloud, especially. They're both such fun, like brawler characters. Tifa's so much fun.

Cloud is so powerful. He has some amazing moves. And yeah, then the shortcuts, I've been really customizing them since you can only have four at a time. But if you, you like stick with a weapon, you can learn its special ability. There are some really amazing ones that I've gotten now. That was a good tip, like switching around with the weapons to level up each of their abilities. I'm really enjoying that. It doesn't take long either.

There's this game example for tips. There's a lot to understand. For sure. Yeah, I think, Kirk, to your point, I think that there are ways to make sure that you're in a virtuous cycle and that you don't get sick in the vicious cycle. And some of the ways to do that are kind of advanced techniques. I mean, one of it is that this game very much wants you to be switching party members constantly because each of the party members becomes the focus of the enemy when you are playing as them and also builds ATB a lot faster and so can use abilities and spells a lot quicker. And so what you can do is you play as cloud for a bit. You smack your enemy around. Maybe you get to low health. You switch to someone else. And then, the attention will be a little bit off cloud and you could use that someone else to get some healing up on cloud. You can also play around on the TRIA. You can do materia that lets each of your party members use their spells or abilities automatically when they get ATB so you don't have to manually think about it. There's a lot of stuff you can do. This game is very, very deep and it's

cool that there's all sorts of like combat simulations and different challenges that you can do along the way because this combat definitely deserves that. One more thing, before we take a break for one more is we've got to get into Queens Blood a little bit. The best game is brilliant. I mean, I think it's the best card game, best mini game that I've seen in a game since Triple Triad, the kind of the iconic Final Fantasy 8 card game. And I think this is even better.

It's so addictive and fun to play and feels like at the very beginning, even as far as you guys are, it's kind of, it's very easy. But it gets much, much more tougher. They're much, much more difficult as you go. There's a point you hit. where you'll suddenly, like around rank six or seven or something, you'll start seeing, even five. I've definitely had some extremely different. Yeah, you'll start seeing enemies, like, really just, like, throw down a lot of debuffing cards.

And you might find that, like, an enemy has a deck where they can put down, like, replacement cards on all of their guys. So you think that you have them beaten, but then you do, you do not. And I won't sum up the whole thing. We could talk about it more a little bit. Next time we talk about this, which I think will be next week. but in short, it's a positional-based card game where you're thinking about how to get the most power in three different kind of horizontal lanes. And you have to think about both the power of your cards and also the position of your cards and how they capture other points and allow you to play new cards.

And it's just a treat to play. It's so addictive and fun. And there's so many different people you can play against. And then there are also challenges, like little puzzle challenges you can do. it's extremely well made. It could be a game on its own, like a phone game. That would just be a blast. Well, I mean, it could be sold as a standalone, like,

like the way they released, Gwent. Yeah. I could see that happening. I could see that happening. It reminds me a little bit of Marvel Snap in a good way. Like, it, because you're controlling space and like each of the, each of the cards, like, has different abilities, and you can, like, build a deck around a certain type of card or a certain type of ability.

And whoever you're playing against will have some specific tactic that their deck is themed around. and then you need to build a counter deck because you can do infinite rematches. You never really need to lose a match of Queen's Blood in this game. It's very friendly towards that. You can agree to lose if you choose to, but you can just infinitely restart and rematch them

and keep rebuilding your deck forever until you find one that works, which is also very fun. I like that. Yeah, I love it. There's a nice amount of drawing your opponent out, which is a big part of the game, because there aren't that many squares,

there aren't that many moves. so matches go very quickly and a big part of it, for me at least, of my strategy is drawing my opponent into overcommitting so that I can then steal their squares which is I think a big part of just when you start to figure out how it works there's a very satisfying feeling of realizing like

oh okay I can't just be aggressive I should actually be defensive and let them come to me and that'll give me the advantage and it works on those multiple levels and then yeah those gimmick games man there's one where you have to play the board is reversed and it was the hardest thing I've ever done in this game It was so hard for me for whatever reason.

Oh, yeah, that one's fun. Because my deck is just designed to go left to right and suddenly my deck has to go right to left. It was a very fun challenge. You can build a deck just of like there are enough cards that go that way. Yes, I built an entirely new deck for it. So it's super fun. I do every Queen's Blood game I come across.

So, yeah, I'm wild about it. They're really fun. It took me a while to learn, but I love it. Okay, this game is really good. We're going to talk about this game more next week to stay tuned. I think a lot of you out there will be checking it out. and starting to play either today or tomorrow. So next week we can get a little bit more into the story and the gameplay,

knowing that a lot of you out there have played it. But in the meantime, if you're on the fence, I mean, this game is amazing. I love it. So yeah, go check it out. All right, let's take a break, and we'll be back with all more thing. I'm Emily Fleming. And I'm Jordan Morris. We're real comedy writers.

And real friends. And real fucking cheapskates. We say, why subscribe to expensive streaming services when you can stream tons of insane movies online for free. As long as you're fine with 25 randomly inserted super loud car insurance commercials. On our new podcast, free with ads, we review streaming movies from the darkest corner of the internet's bargain bin. From the good to the weird to the holy shit, look at John Claude Van Dam's big old butt. Free with ads, a free podcast about free movies that's worth the price of admission.

Every Tuesday on maximum fun.org or your favorite. Podspot. Welcome, everyone. Step right up. We're going to heal you. We are the healers, Ross and Carrie. Yes, yes. You there. You look like you're upset. Come up here. Yes, you are healed because you've listened to our podcast. Yes. Have you been having trouble with demons? Are you sleeping too much? Too little, just right. We have the solution. It is to listen to. Oh, no, Ross and Carrie. A show where we examine unusual claims. We show up so you don't have to. Find us on Max month fun.org. We won't actually heal you. And we are back. Kirk Maddie, it is time for one more thing. I'm going to go first.

I am playing the indie hit game of this year so far called Bellotro. Have you guys served to this game? Have you guys had your eyes on this game? Got it installed on my steam deck but haven't played. Not surprised. Card Shark and poker fan Jason Trier playing Bellotro, a poker game with crazy rules. man this game I wouldn't even call it a poker game so this game first of all be warned this game is fiendishly addictive like this game is

really really scary you you you stay away from this game if you have an addictive personality so okay not play it however it's not really a poker game as much as it's a poker themed roguelike and so the way it works

is you as in any rogue like you start a run and you you play a series of rounds of this game, and in the game you get a bunch of cards, and you have to make up poker hands. But you're playing, you're not playing against a computer opponent that can kind of counter and you're trying to beat them or anything like that. Instead, each of these hands is worth a certain number of, there are kind of two numbers you have to think about here, number of chips, and then a modifier, a multiplier for that number of chips. So let's say you've got

a pair, and a pair is worth 10 chips times two. And so you get 20 chips for this poker pair. And so each of these rounds, you have to get past a certain number of chips. The first round might be 300. And so you have to find a way to get 300 chips. And you have a deck of cards. And every hand of each round, you get a certain number of cards. And you have to make a poker hand out of that.

And then you can discard cards if you don't like them. And you have a certain number of discards per round as well. And you're trying to hit that number of chips. And the way that it kind of blows up and becomes something else entirely is that in between each of these rounds as you go, you can get modifiers that change the nature of pretty much everything in the game. So there are, the big one is what's called jokers. And these jokers, you kind of, you can get, there are dozens and dozens, probably hundreds of them. And each of them modifies things in different ways. So, for example, one might say you get an extra multibuster.

multiplier every time you play a spade. Another one might say you can make up straights without doing them in sequential order. You can skip a number along the way. So a straight could be a instead of 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, it can be 10, 9, 7, 5, 4, or something like that. And these jokers can be really, really powerful and can then synergize with each other to create all sorts of cool effects that make you rack up points. You can also do other crazy things to your deck. I mean, you can add modifiers to each card. You can get rid of cards. You can add new cards. You can ostensibly have a deck by the end of a certain run that is entirely aces. And so you are just playing four of the kinds all the time. And what really makes this game so addictive is that based on, it's really a roguelike in every sense of the word. It's based on how you start and what kind of like modifiers or abilities you might pick up at the beginning of the game. You can then build the rest of your around that and find others that synergize with what you're doing. And that is really the appeal of the game. So poker really is nothing to do with it. It's kind of just an excuse to find synergies that play off one another and maximize your power level. And that's represented in the form of

chips. And what's really addictive about this game is finding the new possibilities and the combos and trying to break the game as much as possible. And I've seen amazing gifts and videos of people like breaking a billion in the chips count because they found some super crazy. broken strategy. And the more you play, the more modifiers you find, the more powerful you can get, you can add challenges to your runs. And it just, it's, it's, uh, it's a blast. It's really, really addictive. It does sound really fun. And like it would take over my life. Yeah, it can. It's really dangerous. I mean, I've been playing on my steam deck. So it's my like before bed activity in the past few nights. So you have been sleeping then. I've been up a little too late for the last few nights.

But I mean, a little too late for me means I'm going to bed it a lot. 11.30 instead of 10. So like let's put this in context. Okay, but nonetheless, I mean, you have young children that are going to make sure you get up in the morning. It's true. They will wake up in the morning. Yes, they will wake up at six no matter what. So yeah, but it's like, it's really, really good. And especially on the Steam deck, it's been brilliant to just like play it in bed before like every night. I just play a run or two before bed. And the kind of, it's one of those games where I think a lot of people will just get sick of it after they feel like they've seen all there is to offer. for those X number of hours where you're like really getting into it and getting into the synergies

and figuring out what you can and can't do. It's just so much fun. And the art style also is really appealing. Each of the jokers you get, the jokers are really the most powerful of these abilities you can get. But there are a bunch of other things you can get too. But the jokers have this kind of funky little art style where the drawings on the cards, like each of them have a clown in like some silly situation.

And like they're very amusing to discover. and enjoy. So like, for example, I don't know, there might be like a joker on a motorcycle or something representing some card with a punny name or something. I can't think of any off the top of my head, but they're all very silly and fun. And it's just a very easy frictionless game to jump into in the way that the best roguikes are. A game is called Bellatro. If you haven't heard of it, you probably have. It's going pretty viral. I think it's sold some like 250,000 copies or something, is pretty amazing for like a tiny little indie game. So yeah, go check it out. It's really cool.

All right. Maddie, what's your one more thing? Okay, so I'm continuing my true detective watch and I've reached the end of season three. This is my favorite one yet. I loved it. It's incredibly good. I don't know what I'm going to think of season four. So stay tuned for next week on Triple Click, where I have completed a whole of season four, probably. But this season, so good. I really think it's better than season one. and I know season one is like the beloved season, but here's why I really loved this one.

The two detectives get along with each other the whole time. Doesn't mean they don't still have conflicts, but it's very much like a dudes rock buddies scenario. So even though they have all these problems throughout and there's the multiple timelines and you're trying to solve the mystery over the course of the season, you know that the relationship between the two cops at the center, the two detectives,

the true detectives, they are going to be buddies the whole time. And that just really kind of has this sort of loving feeling almost through the whole season that I sometimes kind of watching the first two seasons. I was like, do I even like any of these people? They don't like each other. Why am I watching this? Like they can't stand each other and they're constantly fighting and they can barely solve a freaking mystery because they're all yelling at each other all the time. The first two seasons are very much like that. This season is not like that at all.

Doesn't make the mystery any less stressful. And by the same token, um, the relationship between, I don't know the actress's name who plays Amelia, but she's the character who's with Wayne Hayes, who's played by Mahershala Ali, and their marriage is very much like a marriage you root for the whole time, as opposed to kind of the marriage in season one that Woody Harrelson has where you're just like, Jesus Christ, man, like he's such a philanderer. There's so many, so many scenes where you're just like, what is going on here? You just kind of have to put up with him being a philanderer for all of season one, which really

bothered me. It's fine. It's who he is as a character. He's a scamp and his wife obviously hates it and it's very upsetting. This season, the season three storyline, you're rooting for them and they fight. They have problems. But their love is very much of a piece the entire time. And kind of the storyline is about Mahersha Ali's character, Wayne Hayes. He has dementia in the future timeline, the 2014 timeline. And so he can't remember the case. and what happened. And so he is going back and piecing together what happened and still trying to solve this case that plagued him in 1990 and 1980. And having that be the through line to have like memory be a part of it and this really strong friendship with his former partner and his

relationship with his wife. Like I just loved it so much more to have that be the theme that in the end it's about these relationships and this community that you build and solving this really sad mystery of these two missing children and how it affected their families and their community is kind of resonating through the friendships of these characters. I don't know. I just liked it so much more. So True Detective Season 3, really good television show. Check it out. I'm excited for you to watch season 4. I really liked season 4 on the whole, but we'll talk about it maybe when you've watched it. Maddie, I love it. Unironically, I love it when you, when your one more thing is the same thing for like four weeks in a row. I love to watch it progression. Well, it's kind of been different every week if you think.

about. That's true. It's different seasons, but still. Well, yeah, I don't know if I'm going to actually finish season four in a week. So it might be two weeks from now. It's only six episodes. It's pretty short. Maybe too short, you could say.

The other seasons have been eight episodes. I kind of wish season four had been eight episodes. Yeah. Still really good, but it could have used an extra couple episodes. I've never watched a show. Oh, check it out. Jason, you got to watch it. Yeah, you like it, man.

I think you dig it on my to-do list. Just watch season three. Skip the other two. Kirk, what's your one more thing? My one more thing is a little movie called Oppenheimer that I finally saw. Have either of you seen Oppenheimer? Of course, yes. Oh, you have.

Oh, you have. Well, I've seen it. So I had not. And I was considering watching it on Peacock because now you can just stream it. And I saw the placeholder art for it and it showed a little trailer. And I was just like, man, I don't want to watch this on a TV. Like I keep missing Christopher Nolan movies in the theater. And I was like, I wish I could see this in the theater.

And then a buddy of mine texted me like the next day to say, oh, hey, Hollywood Theater in Portland, an incredible local theater here. They show all kinds of cool movies, a lot of stuff on film, a lot of classic movies. He's like, they're showing Oppenheimer tonight's the last night. They're showing it in 70mm you want to go. So he and I and another friend went and saw it. And I was so glad that I saw it in theaters. That's, I guess, really what I wanted to talk about. It's a great movie.

I mean, holy crap. I really was blown away by it. I like Christopher Nolan. It's fun to just watch movies by a guy who takes such big swings. I even like Tenet. I know some people, though, but I kind of love that movie. But this movie is going to win. I think this movie's going to win everything at the Academy Awards.

Like Hoyt von Heitama. I'm probably pronouncing his name wrong. This is the Dutch cinematographer who also shot Nope. I believe I've talked about him on the show because you and I, Maddie, talked about Nope. Yeah. And you can see that there's some similarities. I didn't know he was involved, but now it's clicking together for sure. He shot the movie.

It is so amazing looking. Holy crap. Just the focus, the film, the way it looks, these close-ups on his face in the White House. Of course, the whole atomic bomb sequence, everything that comes after. My God. The speech he gives afterward. Well, yeah. That scene.

So seeing it in theaters was so intense. And that really just made the whole movie work for me. That sequence. Yeah, the speech he gives. Oh, my God. Like one of the most intense experiences I've had in the theater in so long, the nuclear test, of course, as well. But also the last hour. And really the entire experience of the movie, this was the last night of the Hollywood.

It was a pretty full house. So it was everyone was there. And man, I mean, like when the bomb went off, you could hear a pin drop in this room that's full of, you know, whatever, 150 people or something. And just I haven't had that experience in so long. And there's something about that shared experience. And, I mean, it really, really worked for me. And it's so cool that Nolan is one of these guys who's, like, always out there being, like, the movie theater is where it's at. I don't want to, you know, he got so upset when Warner was like, we're going to put all our movies on streaming and they'll be date one on Max.

And he was like, are you kidding me? And watching this movie, all of these people, these incredibly talented people who, like, did so much work to make this amazing thing. And it is so incredible on the big screen. Like, yeah, I would be so insulted if, like, Zazlab. was like, yeah, whatever, we'll just put it on TV. It's just like more content to churn out for people to just swill down. Like, fuck that guy. Like, it really is an incredible achievement.

Also, the editing, Jennifer LeMay is the editor on this. My God, it's going to win best editing. This is going to win every Academy Award. There are good movies this year, but like, holy cow. There are good movies this year. He's up against Marty. I don't know. Even so, and I haven't seen that movie, but like.

Oh, you should check it out. I really love to date on all my awards. picks. Well, so that's actually kind of my last thought before we say goodbye is that this is a three-hour movie. It's a very intense movie. And I can absolutely imagine that if I had watched this at home, I would have stopped after the nuclear test and then come back the next day and watch the final hour. And the movie would have greatly suffered for me for it. We didn't for what it's worth. We watched it all the way through. We did. We watched it all in one go. Three hours. It was a rough go. It was like getting ready for a flight

We were like, okay, Oppenheimer Like it's gonna be three hours That's good We have a wonderful TV It's beautiful but it wouldn't have been the same I mean I wish I'd seen it in a theater But it is what it is Well so having just watched a bunch of three hour movies at home

This week for our Scorsese cast Each of them I paused at some point And I didn't do the thing where I just sat through the whole movie And this movie Especially that last hour because it climaxed at this two-parter with like the nuclear test and then the speech he gives afterward. It is this like devastating, overwhelming experience. And then it goes on for another hour.

And like it would just be very easy to come back and watch that almost like an episode of TV. And it'd be fine. You'd still get the feel for it. But really, the movie is a cohesive three-hour story. And it all has to happen at once. And so being in the theater, I just had to watch the whole movie. And it made me wish I could go watch all these Martin Scorsese movies in the theater. Like just the whole thing.

It makes me wish I had gone and seen Killers of the Flower Moon in theaters. Why didn't we do like a triple-click special cinema where we just showed all three Scorsese movies in a theater? Why didn't we do that? Why didn't we organize that? That would have been awesome. I bet the Hollywood does that kind of thing.

And it really made me want to wait to see some of these movies in the theater. So I guess that's my advice to anyone out there who's still waiting to see Oppenheimer. If you can find it in a theater or even just go see it when it comes back, do it. They're re-releasing tenet in theaters apparently. I'd love to just go see it in theaters. I watched it at home and it was fine,

but like, that'd be way more fun to go see that in the theater. So anyways, hooray theaters. They're great. There's a museum here in Queens called the Museum of Moving Image, one of my favorite museums. And a few years ago, they played casino and Goodfellas in theaters. Oh, wow. They saw, I think I just saw Casino there. But, yeah, that's awesome. That's so cool, though. That would have been a great way to see that movie. Yeah, I think they played movies there often, like old movies. So, they're a lot.

opportunities out there if you look for them. Yeah, yeah, it's worth looking. All right. So, yeah, just a remind. That's a fun reminder that if you want to hear us talking about Scorsese, you should go become a member to Maximum Fun, and you will get that bonus episode real soon. All right, Kirk, Maddie, it's time to say goodbye,

but we will be back to talk more Final Fantasy something next week. That's going to be fun. See you both next week. Yep, see you next week. Bye. Click is produced by Jason Schreyer, Maddie Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I edit and mix the show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom DJ.

Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode may have been sent to us for free for review consideration. You can find a link to our ethics policy in the show notes. Triple Click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun podcast network, and if you like our show, we hope you'll consider supporting us by becoming a member at Maximumfund.org slash join. Find us on Twitter at triple clickpod. Send email the triple click at Maximumfund.org and find a link to

to our Discord in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network of artists-owned shows. Supported directly by you.