Triple Click - Triple Play: Fire Emblem Engage

Episode Date: February 2, 2023

Jason, Maddy, and Kirk put on their Emblem rings and take a trip to the land of anime for Fire Emblem Engage, the latest entry in Nintendo's strategy-RPG series. They talk about the game's insipid dialogue, the terrible character art, and the pros and cons of grid-based combat.One More Thing: Kirk: Hi-Fi RushMaddy: Women Talking (2022)Jason: Poker FaceLinks:Triple Click LIVE IN BROOKLYN, May 18th: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/triple-click-live-tickets-513213584647Support 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

Fire Emblem 3 Houses was best known for having a time scale. Fire Emblemen Engage is best known for having a cutscene skit. Welcome to Triple Click where we bring the games to you. Today we are talking about Nintendo's new Fire Emblem, a JRP sensation full of tactical combat, anime protagonists, and a whole lot of tropes. I'm Jason Dreyer. I'm Kirk Hamilton.

And I'm Maddie Myers. Hello. Hey, hello there. Hello. It's us. there once again it is us coming at you for another episode it is February 23 is really terrifying really chugging along yeah the year is is really clicking along there I'm not no snow at least here in New York this winter thus far is very sad

definitely been snow in Portland we had a white Christmas does not usually happen in Portland Oregon but happen this year well that's exciting we got a little dusting over here which is the kind of snow I prefer. Just a little confectioner sugar off the top. A little bit of the best kind. A little crop testing for Maddie. Not enough to gum up the works, just a little bit of... I wouldn't call it crop dusting.

But... So, as you all out there may know, as you two definitely know, we are a listener-supported podcast. Did you guys know that? I knew that. I did know that. I heard about that last week. Yeah, Maddie told me last week and I remember. Yeah, you remembered from last week. Uh-huh.

It turns out we are not in a time loop. we can remember things. Well, because we are a listener to support our podcast, that means we rely on all of you find people out there to help us make this show possible. And you can do that by becoming a member of our network. Maximum Fun. Go to maximumfund.org

join today. Become a member. Help us make this show. And in addition to those fuzzy feelings, I always talk about, you know, those warm fuzzy feelings you get when you support your favorite podcasters. You also get monthly bonus content including pretty much a bonus

episode every single month from us there's now a giant stockpile of them so if you're a new member you got a whole lot of content to sort through including the one we just ran this week which is basically us going through our one more things one's more thing

of 2020 where we all talked about our favorite books our favorite shows our favorite movies one more's thing our favorite podcast and our favorite albums of the year. So that was super fun. Go out and check that out.

And of course, we'll be doing another bonus episode in February and another one in March and another one in April and so on and so forth. One more thing before we get going is, of course, we are doing a live show on May 18th. Just a quick reminder. Tickets are for sale now.

Get them while they're hot. You can get physical tickets if you want to come out to Brooklyn, New York, where the live show will take place. Or you can get digital tickets if you just want to watch it on street. and that is it for our kind of the boilerplate we needed to get out of the way. Yeah, table setting.

Table's been set. The table hasn't set. Kirk, what are we talking about today? We're talking about Fire Emblem Engage, the newest Fire Emblem game, and I wrote a little description of this game that I will now read to everyone. Excellent. Fire Emblem Engage out now for the Nintendo Switch is the latest in the storied series of tactics RPGs from intelligent systems.

In it you play as the Divine Dragon, a blue and red-headed chosen one who awakens after a centuries-long slumber, just in time to experience every single JRP origin trope at the same time. Amnesia, check, a squad of plucky helpers in each of the game's major classes. Check, a dead mom, check. Mysterious villain in a mask, multiple kingdoms each defined by a single attribute, and a protector on a horse who seems 10 levels higher than every enemy he fights. Check, check. and check. Before long, you'll be adventuring through those various kingdoms fighting the armies of an ancient evil.

The usual thing, you will do so across dozens of the grid-based tactical battles that the Fire Emblem series is known for, or a complex series of checks and balances, swords beat axes, axes, be lances, fire, and nukes armor, and arrows will straight up murder anything with wings. Those make every decision matter, particularly if you're playing with the now optional Permadeath mode turned on. Engage largely hues to the established Fire Emblem Formula. Its most significant new idea is a collection of emblem rings, which allow their wearers to summon the spirits of past Fire Emblem characters like Marth and girl Marth. And a bunch of other people that I don't know, and I can't keep straight. Red-headed. Red-headed, Marth.

Okay. But I'm guessing a lot of longtime fans of the series will probably enjoy. So more power to them. All the while, characters will grow closer to those they find. alongside unlocking perks, stat boosts, and new conversation scenes. Though those social elements are significantly paired back, compared with Engage's predecessor three houses. And that's basically it.

All three of us are playing codes that we received from Nintendo. I think we've each played different amounts that we'll talk about, but let's get into it. What do you each think of this game? Maddie, I know that you're a little more positive on it than Jason, so let's start with you just so we can start on this slightly more positive note. I'm starting to like it. It was a rough hang for me at first.

I had been warned by my Polygon co-worker Mike Mahardi about the story. He basically was like, you should skip every single piece of dialogue. And I'm not doing that. But I can understand why someone would because at the outset, there's quite a lot of dialogue that feels to me like placeholder dialogue. And it just, I don't understand why it's there. But the combat, really fun. I've finished Midnight Suns.

reviewed the Deadpool D.L.C. I don't have any more Midnight Suns to play. I needed a new head empty, endless strategy game, and this is definitely fulfilling that for me. And about 10 chapters in, Kirk, do you remember when the story changes? You meet the desert characters, and I actually like several of them. They're quite funny. And over time, I've decided that I think this game is funny, perhaps intentionally so. And perhaps not, but I've started to laugh a lot more at aspects of it that are very, very corny. Like there's this one character, Alchrist, who's a prince, and he's the younger brother of another prince. And his whole deal is that he'll apologize for absolutely everything.

And I just played- Including killing people in combat. Yeah, he will apologize after like getting a critical hit and murdering a dude. He'll be like, I'm so sorry, you deserve somebody better than I am. That's all of his lines. And at first, it really pissed me off. I was like Alchrist, shut up. You're so irritating. You're like the embodiment of low self-esteem.

That's not a character. But then I saw a support story, which we can talk about how those work. But it's a scene for all intents and purposes, a scene in which Alchrist got a wolf to stop attacking me the protagonist by apologizing to it profusely. And that made me laugh really hard because that's absurd and that would never happen. And I realized that Alchrist's superpower is apologizing really hard. And now I like him. So that's kind of my relationship with the game overall.

all is realizing that it's funny and the combat's good. But I want to hear Jason's rant. Yeah, and Jason, I know you're feeling a little less positively about it. So, yeah, what do you make of it and how far are you? Yeah, I mean, I don't really have a rant. I just kind of find it insufferable. So this game, oh, man, okay, I don't, I'm not super far. I just finished chapter five.

So, yeah, maybe I haven't gotten to the point where the game gets super good, but I am finding it pretty irritating to play for a couple of reasons. One first and foremost is, yeah, the writing is really rough and the story is just not engaging me, I guess, for lack of a better word. No, the story is not quite resonating with me the way that even the last Fire Emblem game Three Houses did, and that did from the get go. So I've just been skipping the cutscenes because I'm just like, man, life is too short for me to watch more of these kind of insipid dialogue scenes and anime cut scenes and stuff. Two is that this might be a little shallow, but the way the protagonist looks really pisses me off. Yeah, the hair I'm playing as a male protagonist.

So could you describe, let's, before you get into it, could you describe the way the protagonist looks for anyone who has not seen this game? Yeah, he's, so the protagonist's official name is Aalier. And he or she, they look like a joycon, like a set of Nintendo Switch JoyCon. One side of his hair is blue and one side is red, and then he has a blue eye and a red eye. And every time I see him in a cutscene, I just want to punch him in the face. And I'm not a violent person, so this is not, I don't know why I feel this way. It's just not, it just bothers me. And I don't want to play as him anymore.

And I feel that way about a lot of the characters. are just annoying me. They just get on my nerves. A lot of this game just gets on my nerves. The like cutscenes, I had to turn off all the animations because I was getting so annoyed at the engaged cutscenes. Me too. I turned them all off. And then the third thing is, um, I think a lot of people are kind of like in the boat of, oh yeah, okay, I'm just like getting past the writing, skipping the cutscenes because the, the battles are really cool. But, um, I'm in the boat of having just spent like many, many hours playing the remake of Tactics Oger, which came out in November and is another type of strategy RPG. And that game is so good and has so many interesting kind of strategic decisions that

you have to make and thoughts you have to make in character customization choices you get, that it really makes the Fire Emblem kind of like top down simplistic gameplay just seem pretty boring by comparison. whereas in tactics ogre you're kind of maneuvering your characters across a big grid and each of them have a lot of different options of kind of attacks and skills and items that you can use fire emblem is a lot more simple it's a lot more of just kind of following that triangle of like axes and swords and lances and them all beating each other specific ways or like bow is beating fire flying flying monsters or enemies and then everybody just kind of like attacking or engaging and attacking, at least thus far. To me, it has not been interesting enough to make me want to keep playing. So yeah, I don't know. I don't have a rant or just kind of like, I'm not going rail against the game or anything because, like, kudos to anybody out there who's enjoying it. But, man, I really prefer to fire on them three houses for a lot of reason, and I really prefer tactics ogre for a lot of reasons. So I'm just not going to keep playing. I found myself, like,

actively being like like just kind of like not looking forward to having to play more for this show. So I will not be playing anymore. I'll probably beat it. I don't know. After Midnight Suns, I was like, who has the time for a 90-hour game? And it turns out the answer to that is me. And the answer to that might still be me with this game even though I don't love it. But Kirk, over to you.

Yeah, so I've played a little less than you, Maddie. I've beat chapter 10, which is not the point where the game, like switches gears and suddenly becomes fantastic. It's just like a major kind of story beat and a pretty good, you know, turn of the tides mission, which these games almost always have. I'm remembering awakening having a mission like this and Three Houses, certainly having a couple of points where just like there's a big twist and the real evil

appears and everything goes to hell and you have to survive this multi-wave super like, I was like up super late last night trying to finish this mission because it kind of keeps going and going. But it's fun and like well designed and tense. That part I thought was kind of cool and unexpected on my part. So yeah, I'm kind of with you, Maddie, in that I, and with you, Jason, I'm with both of you. The game, I'm enjoying it. Like, I like playing Fire Emblem.

And I'm finding, like, some of the narrative stuff to be pretty silly in a way that I'm fine with. But mostly, I agree. I share your word choice, Jason, of insipid. I am finding a lot of the writing to be insipid. and I also am very turned off by the character designs. It's just maybe we're all old, and I know they brought on a young new character designer for this game that's very exciting,

and she's like done V-tubers and stuff. So it's like this is kind of, I don't know, maybe there's like an aesthetic thing that I'm out of sync with. The artist's aesthetic reminds me of 90s anime Slayers, so I don't know that these are new groundbreaking designs. Everything that's old is new again. I'm just saying like it could be that I'm out of step with some demographic that really enjoys this style and that thinks that the protagonist looks

cool, but I think she looks like a nightmare and just sort of like just cannot get, especially because I feel like, and this is not a spoiler because I haven't looked stuff up, but surely this blue-red thing is like some kind of story thing where she's actually two people fused into one person. I haven't been gotten far enough yet to know that, but there's a cutscene very early on where you, the protagonist see a version of yourself with all right hair where she's super evil and she's like murdering a bunch of puppies or something in this cut scene. I don't remember what they depict, but she's like, I'm evil and I have all red hair.

And I'm like, well, you look way better that way, first of all. But unfortunately, that's my evil self. And my blue self is maybe good. Yeah, so that's kind of, you know, just kind of, I'm not super drawn in by the world or the characters. I'm finding it all pretty shallow. And yeah, I start a story mission and a cutscene goes on forever. And it's so tropey that I really do just tune out. I mean, I'm playing on the Switch.

Emily's watching, you know, some Dr. Pimple Popper body horror show. And so I'm like hiding my face from the screen. And I can't look at the other screen because it's boring anime stuff. So I'm kind of petting the dog or something. It's just kind of not drawing me in. But the gameplay I am enjoying in so far as I like the gameplay of these games. But it's not, you know, it's makes, it feels a little bit like awakening, a little more than three houses. We can get into the gameplay particulars.

I am finding it very interesting to play it after having just played midnight suns. But let's talk a little more about gameplay, or I'm sorry, let's talk a little more about story and characters. Because I think that's kind of, well, I want to talk about both, but I'm finding that I care more about character and story in these games than I realized. So this game is written by some of the same people that wrote Awakening. And it feels kind of like Awakening insofar as like Three Houses was this interesting move toward much more of the kind of dating sims, social sim stuff. It felt more like a persona game where you're running around this whole school. There's all these characters all strewn around everywhere. You have these kind of in-depth conversations with them.

And so this is kind of a move back. But it's still missing something. And I've been trying to put my finger on what's missing. And I looked at this. I'm going to drop, you guys can open this or not. I'm going to drop a link to this. This is the IGN Wiki, the page for the characters of Fire Emblem Three Houses. And I went back after playing, you know, probably 12 hours or so of English.

engage and I just went and looked at this screen and it's just a big list of the characters from Fire Emblem. I miss these guys. Look at these guys. Three houses and I was like, holy shit. Like Ignatz, the kind of nerdy, quiet guy with glasses. Leonie, who was so cool, the like tomboy knight, Dorothea, who was like kind of like the like hot chick character but actually like had some interesting depth.

Felix, who's that sword fighter guy, Ingrid, Lysithia. I was looking through it. I was like, whoa, I remember every one of these characters. Rafael, the big dude, Petra, who's super cool. Bernadetta, the like really quiet spellcaster. Of course, like, Idleguard, Dimitri, and Claude. I was like, dang, I like really remember all of these characters. And it wasn't because I was so into the dating sim parts of it.

I thought that the, like, the, like, T-time stuff was kind of dumb. Like, I wasn't really into that part of the game. I thought it's just a small part of the character interactions. Yeah. Well, and the characters themselves, like, I remember their arcs and they had, you know, they were kind, they weren't one note, but they were, they had one. kind of defining struggle. And it could be that some of the characters in this game,

like I'll get to know them a little bit better. But those characters were defined. The characters in Three Houses were defined right from the start really strongly. Like there are some characters who were religious, so you'd see them in the chapel all the time. And that was just kind of a thing about them. Then look at the professors. Remember the professors?

Like, man, like all of these Catherine and Manuela, who's like this lush alcoholic and Shamir. So anyways, looking at that was kind of instructive for me to understand what it was about the character design that helped anchor me in the game and made me invested in the story because the actual story of Three Houses, it was fine,

there was some cool stuff with, like, Idleguard and all of that, but it was more that I just was really attached to all my characters. And I feel sort of similar about some of the characters in Awakening, though I don't remember that game as well. And this game, I'm really not feeling that connection. They just all feel like such shallow tropes

that it really is kind of detracting for me from the game, even though the combat and tactics are interesting. Mm-hmm. I don't disagree with you, and it took me a long time before I even started to have a couple characters that I thought were funny, and most of them I do not like it all. So I'm with you there. Yeah, which is kind of tough. The other really big difference is this game just has a significantly larger number of

characters. Like, it gets to the point where you are collecting characters so quickly that you could never get to know them all. And T-time is replaced. based with meals where a character just says one line to you after you give them a meal to level up your friendship with them. For example, as opposed to multiple lines and there's a whole mini game in the tea time structure in three houses. I know that that's the least important aspect of the game in some ways. And yet it is also telling that this version of the game is simplifying even that because

you don't really have enough time to get to know 30 people. I don't know how many people there are in the end, but I have dozens and dozens of people in my party at this point. A thing that you mentioned, Maddie, that I think is kind of indicative of some of the issue I'm having connecting with the writing is actually those callouts,

those barks during combat. They're kind of weird. I think back to an awakening. Was this name Frederick, who is the knight that you had, the guy who was... Yeah, they overpowered, dude. Yeah, who you have an equivalent

in this game. He's this big, huge guy on a horse. Vander. Absolutely, yeah, runs people over. Like, okay, we're going to deploy our arms. me up the right flank. Okay, what about the left flank? Okay, well, that's Frederick. Just, Frederick can just take the whole left flank by himself because he was just unkillable for the first, like, 50% of the game. But Frederick was not a particularly interesting

character. He's not as memorable, like, when I look at a picture of him as some of those characters from three houses. But he had these callouts. One of them, he would say, pick a God and pray. And then he would just, like, destroy someone. I still think about that. Like, if someone writes, pick a God and pray somewhere online, I'm like, hell yeah, man. That's Frederick about to get a crit on some schmo on the battlefield. Or he would say, believe, that was another one. And he had great callouts. And in this game, they're just a little off.

Like so often, there's, yeah, the one where Alcris is apologizing is weird. There's a one, it's the princess where she says, like, I will remember your loss after killing someone, which is a weird line. Because I know it feels like I'm, like, harping on a specific piece of writing. But she says it a lot. first off, I will remember your loss is like what you say to someone who had like a loved one die. She's talking to someone she just killed. So it's like, what?

Like your death will not be in vain. But is that what you say to the like enemy like shadow creature that you just eviscerated with a fireball? Like no. So it just has a weird energy where they're trying to make her seem gentle and nice, even though she just blew someone up with a fireball. And so it kind of is constant throughout the game. And it just leaves me feeling a little disconnected from all of the characters because it doesn't even make sense. Like the things that they're saying don't line up with the things that they're doing. Another thought that I had on this character note is that it's really kind of frustrating that everybody in this game seems to be obsessed with you and obsessed with the divine dragon and just like wanting to worship your feet.

And at one point I wanted to give it a fair shake. So I was wandering around the town and like getting into cutscenes. And I see Fram, who is this kind of like one of the first people you meet. And I went up and talk to her. This is funny because Fram is terrifying. But you picked the wrong person to talk to. She just starts freaking out about how she's in the, my guy's name as Jason. She's in the Divine Dragon Jason fan club.

And like just going on and on about how she's obsessed in my character. And I don't know, maybe some people are into that. No, I stopped talking a fan after that combo. Especially because she's a child, she looks like she's 10 years old. And just like watching this 10 year old girl be obsessed with me, it was so uncomfortable and unpleasant. Whereas with three houses, yes, you become. this like badass teacher who everyone wants to like hang out with and look up to and stuff slash have an appropriate relationship yes have an appropriate relationship but it does feel like a lot of the characters

in that game you really have to earn their respect and you have to get them on your side and like uh ubert is always talking shit to you and like there's a lot of a lot of interesting character interactions that i just haven't seen in this game so far and granted i should say again with a copy of that like I haven't seen a lot of it and have skipped a lot of the cutscenes. But like what I have seen is just been so bad that it made me want to skip the cutscenes. So it's just really frustrating. At one point, maybe at multiple points, you introduce yourself as, hi, I'm the divine dragon, Jason. And it's just so stupid. Yeah. It's all so stupid. It's very stupid. So something that I noticed, the day I was looking at fan art of Alchrist, because I was like, who's into this game?

And what do they like about it? And so I was just looking at a bunch of fan art. And some somebody was talking, added a laugh track to their cutscenes, which first of all was incredible. I got to find this tweet and share it in the Discord for people because that really changes the game a lot. It makes it so much more uncanny and yet also feels like it belongs there. And it just adds to the way that this game feels like a children's cartoon. And maybe I just feel that way because I was recently talking about watching Hey Arnold on this show. But it really does feel so simple. And the type of humor that the character is. characters engage in is humor that would be appropriate on a children's cartoon. Like,

it never gets that funny or that clever or that political or that intense. It's always kind of goofy. And either you can get on that wavelength, which I've realized that I kind of have, or you just never will and you should skip every single cutscene in the game. Yeah. And so I think that like the character and gameplay, at least for me, the story in gameplay can't really be separated and you can't really have one with the other because I think one of the reasons again thinking about to what I really liked about three houses and I love that game I played through it all or most of it at least at least until way past the time skip one of the things that I really loved about three houses is that even though the gameplay was pretty simple on a moment to moment basis just the grid base

going around and attacking is not super complicated especially compared to other strategy games one of the things you can get out of it and it makes it exciting is pairing up your characters and building your support levels and like knowing that you're going to get to unlock cool new cutscenes and like have interesting interactions with them down like when you go back to your monastery or your base later on and losing that for me it just makes there just makes me lose all of my interest in a firearm game because that to me is really important and so for me it's impossible to just like I was talking to our buddy rest fresh stick of of the besties our friends of the show um about this and he was like yeah just skip all the cutscenes. I was like, no, there's no point in me doing that. It's not engaging

enough for me just if I do that. Right. Yeah, it isn't, I think it's a good example of why story can matter for a game like this, just because it's weird. Like, I keep saying that it kind of tied me to the game, or it makes me feel pushed away, but it does just tie me to what's happening in a way that isn't essential. I mean, most of what I'm doing is tactical combat and making fun decisions and figuring out the best way to move around the board. But having that little narrative anchor does matter to me. I have realized that with this game, especially having played Midnight Suns,

which totally gave me that. And then also gave me a very different kind of tactical combat. So I want to talk a little bit about the combat, too. For starters, actually, before we get into the combat, like the nuts and bolts, I'm curious about permadeath, because I actually think there are a couple different versions of this game and that it plays very differently depending on, a couple of choices you make at the beginning.

So what difficulty in like Permadeth are you both playing normal with Permadeath or how are you both playing it? I'm doing normal without Permadeath, which is the most kids cartoon level possible version of this game and feels in spirit with what Fire Emblem in Cage is trying to achieve

if I'm being honest. I guess so, but okay Jason, what are you? Yeah, same, normal without Permadeath because when I do play these games with Permadev, I remember we talked about this back in the split screen news with three houses. When I do play these games of Permadev, I just wind up like saves coming. Me too. There's no point in doing it anyway.

I have less fun when I do that, especially when there's random crit chance with an enemy. I get very annoyed because I'm like, okay, that character died and I have to redo this entire section to save them. I'm not having the emotional experience of, oh, I guess I just lost this person in battle. Yeah, so I'm playing normal with Permadeath, but have also kind of thinking about starting a new game, playing on hard without permadeath. And I kind of think those are two very different games, and I think that this game might be really good, just from a gameplay standpoint, on hard with permadeath turned off. So I'm similar to the two of you in that when I play with permadeath and I'm remembering this now playing it, yeah, like a death is unacceptable to me.

And so I will reload a save. But in this case, you have a time crystal, which is something that was introduced in three houses, or I know that was in three houses, where you can, on normal difficulty, you can crank that sucker back as many times as you want and undo the entire fight. So it's a built-in savescoming system that lets you undo everything. Also in Tactics Ogre, by the way. Oh, nice. Yeah, I started that again over the weekend because I was just trying to remind myself of that kind of strategy. Whatever, we can maybe talk about that in a minute.

So anyways, yeah, I find myself effectively negating Permadeath. And then as a result, Permadeth forces me to play in actually a pretty rigid way, even on normal difficulty because the way that this game works with the sort of weaknesses and strengths if you misallocate your resources on the battlefield you can wind up just having someone get one shot

by like any of a number of different enemies and so you have to like rewind time and then move them back and figure it out the chapter 10 mission there's one enemy she's whatever I forget her name she looks like like Harlequin kind of she's like she does a magic

attack that's a double magic spell that does 20 points of damage each time. So if she gets off an attack on anyone in my party, she would kill them, given where I was at on the level. So I had to engineer a way that like we could just really lucky, like, move in and have her miss one attack. And then I could like clear her out and her extra life, like all in one turn. So she never gets to attack or counter anyone, which required a super specific, like I had to restart the fight a few different times. I had to do the exact same thing with that exact same fight. I think her name's Hortensia, the pink-haired one with the heart on her face. Yep, yep, Hortensia.

So because of this one attack, I had to totally, like, you know, rejigger my entire offense. So which then is, like, not that fun of a way to play, especially if you played on hard and turned off Perma-death. I feel like in that case, it would be more likely that I'm, like, really having to use the systems. Like, you do have to, you know, use all the strengths and weaknesses and all the special attacks. The engaged system is really cool because it can give your characters new attacks. that they didn't have access to before. Here's a sword, but this sword beats lances. So, like, you know, if you power up before this attack,

you're going to, you know, be able to break this lance attack, and then you have to be strategic with, like, where they're going to recharge their engage before you go into the next phase of the fight. There's a lot of stuff like that that you have to pay close attention to, but if someone dies, you have to be scrappy and you have to adjust, rather than just rewinding time and figuring out the optimal way of doing it,

which actually isn't quite as fun. So I'm curious if you have, if either of you have any thoughts about just how permadeff affects the game or how it affected you, I guess, playing with it turned off. Yeah. I mean, even though I'm playing with it turned off, I'm still going back and trying to save everybody as often as possible because sometimes I just want everybody there for tactical reasons. I mean, the game never gets that hard on normal, but that Hortensia fight you're referring to

is around where I was like, okay, there's actually a difficulty spike here. I want to make sure I keep all my guys alive so that I know what I'm doing. doing here and who I have and I'm not several turns ahead. And I'm like, wait, I don't have anybody with a lance anymore. Dang it. Which is annoying. But I did also just want to echo that I really like the engaged system and that that's another reason why keeping everybody alive is fun because if everybody has different rings

on, I mean, the rings. Jason, I don't know if you're far enough in the game to have really gotten into the whole ring polishing of it all. but well, it can be pretty fun in battle. I do like that aspect, that you can have somebody who, you know, is buddies with Roy or Ike or whomever, and that unlocks additional attacks that they wouldn't ordinarily get to do. And I came to rely on those certain attacks and really got used to, oh, this person's normally just a regular spearfighter, but then they can unlock these additional healing attacks.

And that's really useful in these scenarios. And I don't know, it's just another level of complexity that I really enjoyed. Not really related to the permanent death question, but definitely something that makes me excited about playing the game. Yeah, I enjoy, what's her name? The names have all blown past me. But the one who gives the princess the ability to do that shadow teleportation shadow walk. That's the best move. That's like the most, Ragnarok, something Ragnarok.

It's like the most. Yeah, it's called Warp Ragnarok. Yes, Warp Ragnarok. This is an ability that once you activate, she can go to anywhere on the battlefield and unleash a devastating magical attack, which is pretty groundbreaking mechanically for this series. Like it's a real, a real game changer. It is, although with Permodeath, obviously, it puts her at risk. Oh, yeah, you've got to be really careful how far you teleport her away. Yeah, it's smart.

It's a smart, smart system. So, yeah, maybe if I play a bunch more, maybe I'll unlock more stuff like that and get more into it. But, like, no. I mean, that's the part I've found fun for what it's worth. I don't expect you to continue, but as you get more rings and more abilities, you kind of end up in more scenarios where different exciting things can happen. And also your enemies have rings too, of course. I don't think that's some big surprise to learn. Yeah, the first time someone does warp Ragnarok to you is not a fun moment.

It's like, oh, no, I know how all of those enemies that I nuked with those felt. Another reason to not play with Bermedath. Yeah, so the actual combat, I think, is good and is interesting because I've played so many times. tactical games since getting into Fire Emblem. Like I guess I came up as a kid playing XCOM, so I always liked XCOM. Yeah, it's fun. And then it was like a lot of people, as I mentioned last week, Awakening was the first Fire Emblem game that I played, and I really liked it because it kind of fit with,

you know, my understanding of those kinds of tactics games, though I never played Advance Wars. I know that's kind of similar to. It's different. Advance Wars has an economic aspect to it, which changes everything. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure it's a different game. me like it's another tactic series that is sort of story that I never played.

Yeah, similarly, top-down map, grid base, yeah. Right, and I never really played it. But yeah, so I really like the way these games work, though I guess I'm finding it to be a little bit rigid feeling with the way that they've designed it.

And I think that's, it's not a bad thing necessarily, but it is something about the way this combat is designed. It doesn't feel super fluid. It feels pretty rigid and like I'm trying to solve a bunch of problems. Like, you know, there's this rock paper, scissors, basic combat system where you don't want to attack someone who has a weapon that's strong against you and you don't want to put

yourself in range of someone with a weapon that you're weak against because this is with a given character. Because if your character with an axe gets attacked by a character with a sword, there's a break and then they can't counter. Encountering is actually like a huge part of doing damage. A lot of times you want to like coax enemies into coming and attack. you, you do a little bit of damage to them and then know they're going to come try to hit you in their turn and you won't have to kill them in their turn and won't have to deal with

them. So it's kind of a big part of the strategy is making these decisions, but it doesn't feel like if you get yourself into a bad cul-de-sac like, oh, shit, you know, my guy with an axe is there's just two dudes with swords here. What am I going to do? You can sometimes adjust, oh, well, warp Ragnarok, what's her name over, and she'll nuke the one guy, and then if I pull him back, he'll chase him. And you can kind of adjust, but it feels a little more rigid than other games. And having just played a whole bunch of midnight suns, it's remarkable how much, much more fluid that game feels compared to Fire Emblem and how much I enjoy that fluidity. That's a game where you're constantly running around. Everyone's getting hit. The whole

battlefield is in a state of flux and can change on a dime and you're always having to just adjust based on the cards you have in your hand. And it makes for a much more sort of reactive, improvisational experience playing it. Mm-hmm. And it also feels less like you're solving a specific puzzle and more like there are a lot of different ways to progress because you can take any set. Well, there are some exceptions. There are some missions in Midnight Sense where you have to take certain people. Usually story missions are that way. But just the regular work-a-day missions you can do with any permutation of heroes. And then you just have to figure it out even if you're like, actually, this permutation of heroes is kind of crappy. But I guess I have to be creative. And usually there's a way to make that work in that game. Whereas in, in, this game, I mean, you have so many fighters that you're pretty much always going to have the right class types to get through a situation. But sometimes I will run into scenarios where I'm like, oh, I just took my guys in the wrong direction. Or there's certain areas where, you know, it's a big map and I've got like three guys at the bottom left and, you know, four guys up at the top right.

And I'm supposed to lead them on a specific path. But then I'm like, oh, I want to go get this chest for a second. And then that just throws off the entire map. And like four of my guys are way behind. Do you know what I'm talking about? There's a certain methodical nature to the fact that it's grid base and you can only move so far at one time. And I don't know, the most recent battle that I did was like that, where there were like optional chess you could go get. And I went and got them with one half of my divided party and the other half just went ahead to the main boss, which was the stupidest possible thing I could have done. I should have sent those guys to also get the bonus chest on their side of the room, because they all arrived at the boss way early.

And my other half of my army was like slowly making its way across. And I was just like, this is not only boring. It's just bad and stupid. And I guess there was only one way for me to progress through this particular map. And it was ignore the chests or have both halves of your army get the chest. Yeah, there's like a clockwork-like feeling to the way that these battles play out. It just is kind of rigid in a way that I think is, part of the appeal.

Yeah, it can be very satisfying. It can be very satisfying when it all clicks into place correctly. All the gears are clicking. And because you can really manipulate the enemy AI, at least on normal, I don't know if this changes on higher difficulties, but you see these little lines. So when you move a character to a spot, you then see the lines of which enemies will be able to attack them standing in that spot, which winds up being really crucial information as you're playing the game because, you know, you can see, oh, well, I can't go here because

six people will go and attack this one character. And, you know, if they all attack this character, even if it's, you know, my Vander, my toughest character, he'll still probably get killed. So then you wind up manipulating the AI in this way, like, okay, well, I'm just going to go here because that means the two of them will come up and we'll kind of draw them out. I'll stand next to this column, so only two of them can see me from here. Yeah. And you can also do the thing where it's like, I'm just going to, like, line up my entire force, one square behind where the boss is going to come out and, like, attack them. And then we'll just get everyone super ready. We'll all heal.

We'll take six turns doing this. And then we're just going to move in and just absolutely mop the floor with everyone in our way because we all have a turn. Which I do all the time in these games. And it's a satisfying move. I mean, it's similar to the, like, RTS move where you're playing the AI and StarCraft and you build up your huge army. And then you just have so many of them and they're sitting right at the, you know, at the border. And they can just go run over the enemy. Like, that's satisfying.

It's just a different kind of satisfaction. action, and it's one that I'm finding kind of, it's kind of rigid. Like, at first I was like, well, I'm manipulating the game because I can see when the characters are going to come attack, but then I start to feel like, well, actually, it feels like the game is manipulating me. Like, I can only go to these certain places, and I don't feel free to just experiment and try things. And some of that I do think would maybe be lessened by playing with Permadeath off and then

making up for that by playing on a higher difficulty. Because then it's like, well, I don't know. Let's just see what happens. It's like let's send everybody in. If someone who gets killed, well, they get killed and we'll see if we can beat the mission. And if we can't, well, then we'll play it again. And we won't, you know, they won't die. Which just seems like maybe that would be a more enjoyable way to play this game.

Maybe. I'm thinking about going back and playing Awakening. Should I do that based on what I've described? I mean, Awakening is good. I've never played it. I should clarify, I've never played it. I haven't played it since it came out. This is on 3DS and it's good.

I mean, I really liked it. It has great music. And I should say the prep music in this game is good. The prep music in every Fire Emblem game, this is the music when you're getting your forces ready. But in this game, it's really good. It's probably not quite as much of a banger as the Three Houses prep music. It's probably playing behind me right now as I'm saying this.

But I love the Fire Emblem prep music. It's like my favorite genre of music. Maddie, I think you should play Tactics Ogre instead. That's an interesting idea because I've thought about that as well. It's a really different kind of strategy. but it's good. It is like, I like that kind of... What's the rigidity versus fluidity situation in tactics,

Oger? Well, I'll answer it in a second, but also I just want to add that at some point Square is going to finally release that remaster of Final Fantasy Tactics, which is really the granddaddy of all these strategy games, really the cream of the crop. Tactics hooker, I mean, I would say it's... I don't know. I think it's pretty fluid in that you have a lot of options at any given

in time. It's also a lot grind or a lot more crunchy in that you have to spend a lot of time thinking about your builds and customizing your characters and getting equipment for each one and going through shop menus and stuff like that, which is something you don't have to worry about quite as much in a simpler game.

Like Fire emblem. That said, you have a way, way higher degree of customization and you can run an entire party of just like the same class of character, like all warriors if you want, or you can have this diverse party full of like all sorts of different like warriors and death knights and clerics and whatever.

So there's a lot of options and a lot of spells and a lot of weapon types and a lot of weapon skills. So a lot more options in tactics over, I would say. It also, the way it unfolds is that each character goes one by one rather than like each part, each army taking a turn, which I think significant difference. It's a significant difference and is way, well, I don't know, I don't know if one is better than the other. It certainly allows for more strategy.

Or just different strategy, I suppose. Yeah, different strategies, but more interesting decisions on a moment to moment basis, I think, because you have to account for who's going when and think about that with every move you make as opposed to just kind of bum rushing your army in the way that you two are describing. Yeah, and I should say, I think that on higher difficulties, and if you play this game more, this is back to Fire Emblem Engage. I think that it is actually quite a complex game.

There's a lot of stuff going on with the rings and the abilities you unlock and rolling new rings. You can make pretty customize it like characters. And then I think that matters more and more on the higher difficulties. So, you know, we're, I think all three of our understanding of the game is a little bit limited just because we've all been playing on normal difficulty. And we're only in the, you know, first actor too. But, you know, I think still like the first act of a game matters. And I do think this game makes some missteps in the first act despite its strengths.

So kind of a mix on it. Well, all right, that's Fire Emblem. Engage, Maddie. I'll be curious if you beat it. I'll be curious if I keep playing it because it is pretty playable. It is pretty fun. But there's going to be a lot of stuff competing with it. I know. And at least one of those games competing with it.

We'll talk about after we take a break and come back for one more thing. They can be anywhere at your office, in your car. And they are wrong. My mom says that the Greyhouse didn't exist, but she's wrong. He just doesn't wrong. Someone in your life is wrong about something. Something small, something weird, something vitally important. Only one person has the courage to tell them just how wrong they are.

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And I'm ball bearings. And I'm pigeons. And I'm water towers. And I'm cardboard? Surprise. We're actually humans. Humans making a podcast about those kinds of topics. Because those are real episode topics on the podcast, secretly, incredibly fascinating.

That's a podcast where we take ordinary seeming things like ketchup and socks and cardboard and bring you the little-known history and science and stories that make those things secretly incredibly fascinating. Secretly, incredibly fascinating. The title of the podcast. Hear the back catalog anytime and hear new amazing episodes every Monday at maximum fun.org. And we're back for one more thing. I'm going to go first because I played a video game, and this is a video game podcast. Dang it, and I'm going to talk about it.

I played a game called High-Fi Rush. which is a really fun video game that I want to tell our listeners about. So, Hi-Fi Rush was stealth released, I guess, a week ago or so last week, during an Xbox press event. They just were like, and surprise, Tango Game Works, the bakers of Evil Within and Evil Within 2. Ghost Wire Tokyo. Yeah, Ghost Wire Tokyo, sure, right, that weird one. They've been making this other game that's nothing like those games at all. And hey, it's out right now and it's on Game Pass and Steam and you can just play it.

So I've been playing this thing on PC, on Steam Deck, and really, really liking it. This is the best kind of stealth release where it's not just a game that comes out of nowhere. It's also like super, super fun. And then for a lot of people, because they have Game Pass, they can just play it. They can hear me talking about it and go play it right now, which is fantastic. So this is a rhythm action game where you play a dude. I don't remember his name. He's a kind of every man protagonist in the, like, he's a very generic protagonist, but actually kind of a charming character in a way that I wasn't expecting.

Chai is his name, by the way. They want, oh yes, his name is Chai, that's right. And he is, this is a very cartoony world. It looks a little bit like jet set radio. The vibe is a little bit like sunset overdrive. Those are some points of comparison. Very colorful, silly, very futuristic, and very cartoony. He goes to this big, wonderful corporation that's like a kind of,

a megacorp in the future that is offering a new program where everyone can get new powers from them and they want a bunch of volunteers and he volunteers. He has like a broken arm and he's put into this machine and it turns out this is all very sinister and this is a very sinister corporation. The machine is just sort of doing tests on people and it replaces his arm with a robot arm and then in a mistake that isn't supposed to happen during his, you know, transformation, his iPod falls into the machine and then is in. implanted into his heart. So kind of like Tony Stark, you know, has the like robot heart. This guy, Chai, has an iPod in his heart. And so now the music that he's listening, because he loves music,

he wants to be a rock star. But instead, you know, here he is. The music that he listens to is now pumping through his whole body. And for reasons that maybe he gets explained is also pumping through the whole world. So he is now, you're in this big factory, like this kind of whole corporate kind of city, I guess. That's a very corporate, colorful city. And you're fighting your way out, fighting a bunch of robots because you've been deemed a defect by the whatever overseeing powers that be. And the whole game is on this pulse. And the pulse matches up with the soundtrack. And I mean, it's a pretty good soundtrack so far.

First track is a Black Keys track. There's the first boss is a nine-inch nails track. It's like pretty rock and stuff. And everything matches up with the downbeat. So far anyways. I have some triplet stuff. Mostly downbeats. And you're just like, attack, attack, attack, double attack.

Rest, attack, attack. He runs in time. enemies move in time, and it's super, super fun. It's really satisfying to play because no matter how in sync you are with your attacks, the character moves in time. And I know it gets harder as you go. I've seen some people talking about this being like, actually, this gets pretty hard and I feel like my rhythm sort of sucks and I need to work on it. But at least in the early goings, it's been really fun. Just, I don't know, getting in the groove and like going along through this game, this like really colorful rhythmic game. So I'm loving.

it. I really, I wasn't sure what to expect. It started and I was having some sunset overdive flashbacks like, oh man, like, is this going to be, you know, like sort of a really annoying vibe? And it actually winds up just being weird enough to be charming. Like, it is silly. It is a lot of, you know, smash cuts and funny text. And there's a cartoon cat that, like, talks. And then, you know, like every character is a really cool kind of like alt kid. And his weapon is a big flying V guitar made out of metal. Like, it could be insufferable, but sort of it's working for me for whatever reason. Like, it's cringe, but in the right way, I guess. So I don't know. I'm really enjoying it. It's super fun. If any of that sounds good to anyone, and you have Game Pass in particular,

give it a shot. It's called Hi-Fi Rush, and it's a good game. I didn't realize it had licensed music in it. I knew it was a rhythm game, but I didn't realize it was like, Nine-ish Nails is in this game, et cetera, et cetera. That's cool. Yeah, it's like, yeah, as far as I know, it's all that way. There's some stuff that sounds like original compositions, like in the levels, but it kind of mixes in and out, I think. It's cleverly done. It's cool. Like all the whole game is really in the pocket, which is, which is neat. Sweet. Maddie, what is your one more thing? The most wildly different pivot possible. My one more thing is a movie called Women Talking that Dina and I watched last weekend and I'm obsessed with it and I, I'm going to try to

convince you to watch it because I think it's freaking incredible. I've heard it's good. And it's, okay, so you know the movie, 12 Angry Men? You guys familiar with this premise? It's just 12 guys in a room. They're a jury, members of a jury. They're just debating whether murder suspect did it or not. The whole movie is just these two guys, or 12 guys talking.

This movie is like that. But the women who are talking are members of this Mennonite cult. And some of them have been raped by some of the men that are part of their cult. And they are deciding what to do about it and whether they should leave the cult and how they would go about punishing the men if they were to stay. And what recourse they have. And it is like a psychological thriller whereby you are just riveted throughout this entire film to every possible twist and turn of the conversation. And you realize that there is not an easy answer to any question that is posed. they have very little recourse currently,

but they have some recourse. Like they've been given permission to make a decision about what to do, but within extremely specific parameters. And I don't know. It blew my mind. I mean, I love a movie where it's just a room of a bunch of people talking.

And it sounds kind of like a play, but it's not because the way that it's filmed, it's just the close-ups and the way the really weird long shots experimental sound stuff where characters are far away and you can't hear them. I guess the only other thing I'll say about it just as like a warning, there is no depiction of the rapes happening, but they instead show you the aftermath of it. So like you'll see women with bruises or bleeding because the whole movie is just kind of focused on these women's experiences and what they're going

through. So they don't necessarily show you men's perspectives except there's like one male character who's incredible. I don't know. I really recommend it. It's so good. And I did not know that it was based on a book. And I also did not know

that that book was inspired by a true story of this having happened to some women and the author sort of speculating as to what maybe happened after that.

But I would say don't look into that because the main thing about this movie that works so well is that you don't know how it's going to end. And so when you're just

hearing the women debating all their options, you can sympathize with them and be like, well, how are they going to get out of this one? And then another one will be like, well, what about X and Y? And you're like, oh, dang it. That's also going to make it even more complicated. It's just gripping. It's really good. So it's called women talking. I really recommend it. Hope it wins the best adapted screenplay Oscar. I'm rooting for it. I think it's really, really good. Nice. You're making anyone this and also our recent bonus episode has made me just want to find a way to watch more movies. Yeah. Because there are so many good movies and I really love movies. And just, don't make enough time for them. Yeah, we watch one every week, as you guys know. And it is, we have a movie night. And I really recommend it. It's a pretty fun thing. And it's a way to get movies back in your life and have a nice date night with your partner that's mandatory every

single week. Jason, what's your one more thing? My one more thing is a TV show on Peacock called Pokerface. Yeah. Starring Natasha Leone, who is really this quite a, quite an actor and quite a person. She has this fascinating story. The Sassadione, of course, is from Orange is the New Black and Russian doll and has this kind of iconic voice, this scratchy voice that sounds like a lot of New York Jews that I know, a lot of Scarsdale, a lot of women in Scarsdale, kind of sound like that. But she really owns it. So in the show, she plays as this lady. Oh, it's also, the show is also executive produced by Ryan Johnson, of course, of Knives Out. And it's part of the Star Wars universe, right?

Yeah, and as part is the sequel to The Last Jedi. The Broome Kid at the end of The Last Jedi is actually Natasha Leon in this show. I'm kidding. That's a joke. If you're a listener, you don't know about poker face. I'm kidding. There's nothing to do with Star Wars. It's kind of, it's a Murder of the Week type show.

I've only watched the pilots so far, but I'm really into it. So Natasha Leone plays this casino waitress who has this ability to tell when people are lying. So she can look at you. and you say something and she immediately just knows and she just has this gut feeling and can tell. Says her catchphrase which is bullshit. Bullshit.

It's the catchphrase. And obviously she, that can be a very useful skill and we find out that before the events of the show she was using this to just like go around the country and just scam people out of their money in poker games because if you know

when people are lying it's pretty easy to win in poker. And so the premise of the show is that there is a murder committed and it is of her friend, a close friend of hers. And when she kind of learns that, she sets out to discover what happened and then it sets her on this journey that I won't get into all the specifics of. But by the end of the pilot, she finds herself in rough waters and has to go off and kind of her life is unsettled. I'll put it that way. her she is no longer in the position she was in when she first started and yeah it's really cool and I'm really curious to see where the show goes really interested in watching more and really blown away by how enjoyable it is to watch and how enjoyable she is to watch not surprising given this is

natasha leone and Ryan Johnson but yeah looking forward to watching more it's a really cool show and I recommend it Kirk I know you've watched more than me yeah does it stay consistently good It does. Though it is interesting, I'll say, it is very much a formulaic TV show, and it's a little looser and a little just kind of lighter than I was expecting, even based off of the pilot. Because the pilot is written and directed by Ryan Johnson and is slick, man. I mean, the whole, the lighting, the camera movements, the way she looks, the way the rooms look, everything. You're like, wow. This feels like I'm watching a, like, 70s noir, like detective movie. The show becomes a little shang. Eggier than that as it goes. It's, because it's very like, there's a formula. It's an open mystery story, which is where they tell you what happened at the beginning. You know who did the murder. And then the fun of it and the fun with her ability is that you know who's lying because you know what happened.

And you know she knows because she knows anytime someone lies. So you'll see them lie and they'll be like, wait a minute, did they just lie? And they'll say four things. You're like, actually, those were all true. Even though that's the killer, they didn't say anything untrue. But then sometimes they'll be like, you know, I forgot where that thing was. And you're like, no, they knew where that thing was. And then you see her react and you're like, she knows.

And so it's kind of fun watching her piece it together because of her ability. But it is kind of, it's just a little looser. Like it's just, there's a little suspension of disbelief. It feels like watching Colombo or whatever. It has a kind of lighter. Which apparently was the direct influence. Which is totally fine with me. I feel like in the modern era of all these tight, amazing scripted shows,

I welcome the return of a Colombo type show. Yes. that is certainly how I feel as well. Like, it is not as prestigious as I might have even thought it would be based on the pilot, but that's fine. It's really fun to just watch this show in kind of the same way that Star Trek Strange New Worlds was fun, where it felt like this really kind of feels like watching the next generation. This is like just watching an episode, you know, Freak of the Week show. It kind of has the same vibe. So I enjoyed the first three or four episodes. And there's always a great guest star. Like, it's always, people are having a great time.

The cast is out of control. Like, yeah. So the pilot stars Adrian Brody, which is very fun. And he's great in the role. He's fantastic. That's great. I haven't started it yet because we thought it was going to be kind of heavy. And so I'm so relieved to learn that it isn't going to be. And instead it sounds like it's going to be like elementary or like any number of other kind of mystery of the week shows that we've watched and loved.

I was going to watch it anyway. I just thought it was going to be more of like a intense ride. The vibes I've been looking for and got a little bit of our Veronica Mars. Yes. So we'll see if that keeps up. Interesting. I'm very excited. It does have some Veronica Mars, though no voiceover narration, which is perfectly fine.

But yeah, it's a little hard-boiled. You know, it's our rated. The murder is there. People that you like will be killed in kind of brutal ways sometimes. Oh, people die? Oh, no. There are some deaths, Maddie, unfortunately. But yeah, it's a good show.

I'm psyched for the rest of the season. There is. Well, they toggled perma death on for this show. Unfortunately, there is. Okay. Imagine if the permadeff is a thing. Permadeh is such a funny word. It is.

It's such a video game word. I know. It's hilarious. I feel like somebody should make a video game-esque show where permadeh is turned off and like you have to use the ghost to figure out the murder. I may be describing the plot of murdered soul suspect a video game from a very long time ago that I liked. You know that game? You only live once where you like, it's a platformer.

Do you guys remember you only live once? It's a platformer where like you, I'm trying to remember how it even works. you're like playing and it's size swing. This is like a flash game. Yeah, yeah. And it's size swalling and then you're jumping and then you die. And then like you're just dead. Well, and then it's like all this stuff happens.

Like your character is just dead but like ambulance comes and like there's like people around. And it's like a whole thing where like you died but like the world keeps going, which is pretty clever. And then I think they turned it into more of a game. Anyways, I'm half remembering it and we're at a time. But we'll do an episode on Permadeth down the road. For now, that's it. We did it.

We made an episode of Triple Click. We did a great job. I'm really proud of us. I think next week we're going to talk about a game that we all like more than this week. So look forward to that. Totally different game, too. It's funny to think about FireOllum and Gage competing with the game we're going to talk about next in anyway. I like that we're all being mysterious.

People are going to have to guess what game could it be. What could it be? I guess it could be a couple different things. It's not for spoken. It's Mario. No, it's not. Or is it? Or is it?

You'll have to find out next week. Until then, I'll see the two of you when I see you. See you next, see you. Bye. Triple Click is produced by Jason Schreier, Maddie Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I edit and mix the show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom DJ. Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode

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

and find a link to our Discord in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Audience, audience supported.