Triple Click - Triple Play: Suikoden II

Episode Date: February 17, 2022

And now, for Jason's dream episode: the gang plays Suikoden II! Kirk and Maddy give their impressions of the first 25% of the classic JRPG, from the very beginning through getting your very own castle. Do they love it as much as Jason? (No.) The three of them talk about the relationship between Riou and Jowy, the parts of the game that feel clunky in 2022, and what it's like to recruit all those characters. Plus: Dracula!One More Thing: Kirk: Horizon Forbidden WestMaddy: MurdervilleJason: Also Horizon Forbidden WestLinks:Support Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinBuy a Triple Click t-shirt: https://topatoco.com/collections/maximum-fun/products/maxf-tc-tclogo-shJoin 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

Here's how to get your friends to play the game of your choice. Just start a podcast, do a new episode every week for seven years, develop a tradition where we all make predictions for the year and get the most predictions right. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. Today we are talking about SweetCone into one of my favorite games of all time. But will it be one of Kirk and Maddie's favorite games of all time? I don't know. I guess we'll find out. I'm Jason Shrier.

I'm Kirk Hamilton. And I'm Maddie Myers. Hello. Hello, my friends. Did you guys watch this again? Super Bowl? No. Absolutely not.

I didn't really know. You know, I was going to go hang out and watch the commercials and then I wound up not doing that. Though I actually, one of the things I did instead of watching the Super Bowl was play the game that we're talking about on this episode. Actually play both games that we're talking about on this episode. Oh, yeah. Play mainly the main game of this episode.

The game itself is very exciting. I want a bunch of money, which is good. But that's really what's exciting about it is Jason's bets, Jason's predictions, which also paid off to the plot of this episode. Yes, my predictions and bets are very similar. More relevant to you two, the halftime show was like essentially designed for millennials, like for people in their 30s and early 40s. I did watch that or I watched some clips of that.

I watched the first part of it was fun. It was cool. It was cool. It was cool. It was cool. I saw the tweets about that and I was like, all right, this is worth checking out. It was fun. It was like a bar mitzvah throwback.

Which is very fun. I feel like that's what you said about J-Lo's halftime show. as well. Are all half-time shows kind of a bar mitzvah? I think they are. Well, it's just that all halftime shows are now appealing to people our age for music that was popular when they were old enough to have a bar mitzsche. Who had bar mitzvahs at age 13. So when we were growing up, when we were younger, the halftime show was like 70s music.

It's so funny. It's always like 20 years before. Exactly. The Blues Brothers, like Belushi and Akroy doing the Blues Brothers routine, like that sort of thing. But anyway, um, welcome back to Super Bowl cast. Welcome to me talking about the halftime shows. The triple click NFL podcast. Hey, did you know that we are entirely listeners supported? it. We do not have ads. We do not have sponsorship. All of our promotions on the show are just us being

part of the Max Fund network. We do not get money from that, but we do get support for the show from you, the listeners. And we're very appreciative of that. If you support the show, if you become a Max Fund member, not only do you get that fuzzy feeling, a warm fuzzy feeling inside that you make this show possible. You also get a monthly bonus episode from us. You do. Including one that hit just this week, which is the three of us just totally going to town on Yellow Jackets, the new TV show from Showtime, which is incredible. And we just like do a full-on beans cast of it. We get into deep spoilers.

And it's our February bonus episode. Super fun. Really enjoyed that one. I also compare every single member of the cast to a member of the cast from Lost. So that was fun. Really holds up. It's a pretty good comparison. It does.

And so just reminder, if you want to become a member, go to maximum fun.org slash join. All right. on with the show. So today, we are doing a triple play of Sweet Code 2. That's right. All your other favorite podcasts are talking about Horizon and Eldon Ring and Hot Gaming News. And we are talking about a JRP from 1998. So a little bit of context here. The reason we are all playing this game is because we had a predictions bet that I won. And so I got to pick the triple click game of 2022. We have all gotten up to the point where you

get your castle just after recruiting a character named Shoe and seeing the cutscenes that unfold there. So we will be spoiling up until that, including the cutscene that you get when you go and you talk to Victor at the bar and you learn about your main character's adopted father

slash grandfather Ginkaku. So we will be talking about that. Adoptive, actually. Adoptive, yeah. You can't adopt your own grandfather. I mean, I guess you could. I mean, I guess you could. But that isn't the situation in this game. It's important to note that. Adoptive. So this will be spoilers for the first chunk of the game, and we will be getting into it. I'm very curious to hear what you both think.

We've been talking about a little bit, but we've saved most of our in-depth conversation for this podcast. And so what I want to do is I want us to each give our initial impressions in kind of the order of like positivity that I think we're going to go in. So I'm going to start and then Kirk and then Maddie. How do you know? How could you possibly know? So I want to talk a little bit, before I even throw it to you guys, because I do really want to hear what you think. I just want to talk a little bit about why I picked this game and what it means to me. Because playing this game, I haven't played this game through in a while, and it just reignited some fun memories and also some memories of the tedium of 1990s JRP's.

We can get to that. But I think that this game, especially for its time, but even today, there were really no games that were telling a story as, impactful as this one. And you guys are kind of seeing the beginnings of it. It will obviously go on and on and get more complicated as the story goes on as the game goes on. But just the depth of the storytelling and especially the relationship between the three main characters, Rayu, Joey, and Nanami was just not really something you saw at the time. And it's fun that we played Final Fantasy 6 last year because that's a really interesting point of comparison where it's got an engaging story. But like the character relationships are just not there. And you combine that with all the other things

I love about this game, like the quirkiness and the weird humor and the animations and the recruiting and the castle building and the, all the fun stuff that you guys are just like hitting the castle, you really just start to get a taste of everything. And so we'll get into that as well. So yeah, replaying this game, uh, just brought back a lot of fun memories and made me very happy. Um, I also, so how old were you when you played it the first time, just out of curiosity? Um, because you were like 10 for FF6, right? And yeah, I was young. I'm going for 556. Yeah.

So it came out, I played the first one just because I just stumbled upon it and Toys Arrest in like 96 or 97. So the second one I was paying attention to on release date and like knew, oh man, this game is out today. So I would have been 12 in 1999 when it came to the U.S. In the fall of 1999. Came out a week before Final Fantasy 8. So most of the RPG world, most of the video game world, especially the RPG world,

was going 3D. And so this was like one of the reasons it wasn't, didn't get any attention. mention back then is because it was like a rare 2D game and nobody wanted to play 2D games. It wasn't seen as cool, even though the graphics of age much better than a lot of its peers at the time. All right, I'm going to throw it to you guys. Kirk, why don't you give some initial impressions first? Yeah, I'll keep it kind of short just because I think we'll get into the particulars. So this is a kind of an interesting one because I've played this exact chunk of the game one time before. This was back when Jason, you and I were both working together at Kataku, and it's been a bit of an inside joke between us.

You've tried to get me to play it many times, and in fact, you successfully got me to play it once. And I played pretty much this exact amount. I think that you were like, well, at least play up until you get to the castle. And then I just sort of lost momentum and went and played something else. Didn't we stream it together or something? We played a little bit streaming, and then I played it on my own and played a lot more. So I played this before, but it was a while ago. and it was sort of a different time,

and I think that helped me appreciate the game more because I could separate it a little bit from the context in which I was playing it, which I have to say, it is interesting playing these 90s JRPs, but the fact that this is the second one in a row after last year you and I tied the bet and we played through FF6,

it does kind of, like, it's the same feeling of like, okay, I've tried to play through some of it earlier, but now it's the weekend before the episode, and I'm trying to like really quickly get through this game. And it's not a... It's homework. It's homework. And it's... It is kind of and it's in the middle of this really exciting season for games. I'm like playing

Horizon Forbidden West and playing Dying Light 2. Anyways, my point is that I am not holding that against the game because I don't think that's really the game's fault. That's just the circumstances under which I'm playing it. And I think this game I mean, it's... It really is just sort of a case study in

all of the good and the bad or the at least like interestingly compelling and the tedious and frustrating of games of this era. And I think it's a really interesting artifact. Like it is from an interesting time period. I think just like in movies, when movies were all moving to CG, and then you'll see those 90s, those like early mid-90s movies

where they're still using like matte backdrops and lots of practical effects. And it's kind of the peak of that. And those movies actually hold up a little bit better than early CG. It's sort of the same thing with 3D and games like this, where it's really a beautiful looking game. and a sophisticated game narratively on one level, even while it's remarkably unsophisticated on the more surface dialogue level.

Yeah, that, it's hard to, yeah, that's a hard one. We can get into that. The localization for this game is really atrocious. There are a lot of just straight-up errors, it's worth saying. Yes. And it's like when you're kind of playing it and just being like, oh my God, it's like I'm reading something that was written in Cran by eight-year-olds,

even though over time this narrative that's unfolding is far beyond any eight-year-old and is actually very complex. So I've been finding that all very interesting. The combat system doesn't do much for me. It's just another JRP so far. I just am like, okay, whatever, I don't really care. And yeah, I mean, I've been enjoying it and finding it interesting,

and it really feels as though just now, the point at which we've stopped, is the point at which the true narrative and the real history, which is this game's strongest point, is just beginning to kind of show itself and unfold. So I'm looking forward to seeing what's next. Yeah, so what I'm curious, to see is with both of you, if you ever get to the point where you want to play more and you're

not just playing because we have to for this podcast. So I'm curious if you're like, if you get to the point where you're like, oh, I want to keep playing to see what happens in the story. I mean, I got to that point even over the weekend at a few places, just I was like, well, I could play a little more horizon. And I was like, no, keep playing Sweet Coden, just because I'm like kind of in a groove and I'm making progress in it. It was that same fun video game feeling. Maddie Myers, you're up. Give us your unvarnished thoughts. I loved it. It's my game of the year. And I have no complaints. So I had a nightmare about this episode. The nightmare was, I'm very anxious. I just want the listener to know that it's actually quite hard to look deep into Jason's eyes on the call and tell him that I don't like something that's this important to him. And to hear him say how much he loves the game. And like, he played it when he was 12. And I have to come in here and be like, well, I found it tedious.

Almost every single moment of it, I thought to myself, people like this. I don't. But other people do. That's fascinating to me. And that is kind of how I've had to approach this assignment in a similar way to FF6, where I was also like, I don't like this. Why don't I like it? And why might other people like it?

And I was reading a lot of criticism of Final Fantasy 6. and I don't mean criticism like people saying they hated it. I mean like, you know, the literary kind where people were like, here's what works about it and what doesn't. And I did the same thing for this game, read some long game fact threads of people arguing about it, in part because I just wanted to understand what people liked. Did you get spoiled?

How did you avoid spoilers? A little bit. And honestly, Jason, it helped me because the first five hours of this game were a really rough hang for me. So I actually played the first 30 minutes twice because I lost my save. that sounds annoying, but it wasn't. It was probably helpful because I think the first 30 minutes of this game are kind of confusing. And I like read all the dialogue a few times and it took me a while to understand the betrayal that happens in the very first scene. And I feel like part of that is the

clunky dialogue, which just ends up washing over me in a weird way where like I have trouble even grabbing on to anything that's happening. And I feel like somewhere around hour six or so, I finally started being like, I think I know who each of the characters. characters even are. And like, I'm now finally seeing the names often enough that I get it. And some of that was me looking at wikis and being like, okay, this is so and so. This is so and so. And like, I don't play that many games that are this old. And I didn't play this kind of game when I was this age. I was, I was playing fighting games. I was playing stuff with sprites in it. But I wasn't playing really long story games with sprites. So I just, I don't, I don't like have practice

mentally with like this kind of work that it takes to be like this is a tiny sprite but it represents a person and I need to remember all that and to me it's very hard for me to get past the idea that this is like a game for children which I know I struggled with this with Final Fantasy 6 too where I was like this is for children and there's like jokes for kids in here but then that would be juxtaposed with like really heavy stuff and this game does that too and I find that very strange and like Kirk I know you and I talked about like tone whiplash in FF6, and there were a lot of instances in Sweet Code into where I felt like a lot of that. But I'm speaking too broadly. After I got to like hour six or so, enough major plot machinations were happening that I was sort of willing to move

forward and be like, I feel like I get who these characters are. I was also really helped by the fact that there's quite a funny scene when you're trying to sneak into muse. And even though the translation's very clunky, those lines are funny enough. where the characters are disguising themselves as the wrong ages and the guard doesn't believe them. It's like a classic bit. And I laughed at that and I was like, okay, like I'm finally getting on board with these three main characters, which then meant that when we finally got to Jawi, betraying everybody, which by the way, I knew would happen. But I was more invested because I knew that because I was like, okay, at least this story's going to get good at some point.

Like, I can't, I can't just go with these people if everyone's going to get along. I, like, needed to know that something was going to happen, if that makes sense. I had to believe in that. And then when we got there, I was like, this is really cool. I like this scene, and it does some interesting stuff. I feel like I'm, I don't know how I'm going to feel about the rest of the game, but I remember having almost a similar experience with F56 where we got to the opera scene. I think that was our first mark.

And I was like, I really liked the opera scene. I feel like I really get who Tara is as a character. character in Celis and I really like them and I understand them and even though there were weird parts of that game that I don't know why the fuck they were in there and I feel this way that Sweet Codent do as well I can at least be like all right I see where the main plot is going and I don't want to say that's enough for me but like I'm stubborn enough that I'm I will complete my assignment I will beat this game I will learn the mysteries of Sweet Codent too I will collect all 108 Pokemon I will write a rap song about every single one of them

it's going to be great. So, okay, so this game, this game does not really give you a good taste of things. It really does a disservice to itself for the first few hours because, even though it starts with a fun scene, like, oh my God, a betrayal.

Like you said, Maddie, to your point, I think the localization, if there was ever, if Konami decided to make video games again and no longer like chase gambling, and they decided to remake this game or remaster this game of the new translation, I think it would really play well.

It would help a lot. It would help a lot. Yes. But yeah, after that scene and you wind up with the mercenary fortress, you're like, who's going on? What's going on here? A little bit of context here is that if you play the first game, Flick and Victor are like significant characters in the first game. I looked that up too. And that helped me too to be like, okay, I'm supposed to know who these guys are, which is why the game is lavishing so much time on their dialogue and their little one-liners with each other.

Yeah, but you don't need to because they develop in this game, too. So you wind up, like, they wind up growing, and you by the time you've gotten to your castle, you're like, oh, okay, these are good lieutenants. Sure, but it's like the feeling of seeing a cameo and a Marvel movie of someone you've never heard of where you're like, I can tell I'm supposed to know this guy and it feels kind of weird that I don't. That's how it feels when Victor and Flick show up. But then the game starts throwing chores at you, and it's like literal chores, like, go buy boots and clean up some boxes and clean the floor. And the idea is that, like, it's supposed to be. setting up so that you can use all these items, like collect these items, and then, like, Joey is, reveals this tactical. Oh, do you pronounce it's Joey? Okay. I say J-J-J-I.

Whatever it is. It doesn't have to J-O-E-I. It'll change. From J-O-W-Y to J-O-E-I and, like, just be interchangeable sometimes. But anyway, yeah. So it's Joey Tribiani. Yeah. Great. That really changes how I feel about the game. Your Chandler and Joey. I should have named my protagonist Chandler. We are friends. TM. There's a reason for that and the reason you do all that is because it's supposed to show how much of a tactical genius Joey is. He's like this masterful genius dude who like figures out just with the dirty rag and like a flint that you can escape this this personary fortress. But still in in practice it's just a lot of like roaming around not having a world map so you don't even know where you're going. You don't know anything. Don't know where the towns are in relation to each other. Just wandering. And then. the thing that Kirk ran into was extremely tedious and frustrating where you don't even know why Polika hasn't shown up and you don't even know how to trigger this next story.

It's like a major character. Well, it's a trigger. It's a story trigger that sometimes Cherokee is one of the big problems of JRPGs back then is that like story triggers could be esoteric and you might not know what's going to trigger this next story. And yeah, really you don't get a sense of the political like stakes here and really what the whole story is going to be about until you get to amuse and you see the. that amazing scene on Joust and Hill where all the leaders are arguing with each other.

And you really start to see, oh, there's a lot of depth here. There's a lot of interesting politics here. And so, yeah, I do think that this game, like many other games, just has a slow beginning. And that really takes away from it and burns a lot of people out, loses a lot of people. Yeah, I think that's an issue. The first hour is like the fact that I'd played it before made those go down smoother. Just because understanding. that it's basically you need to know

that Highland and Jousten are the two important political entities but then also understanding that jouston is a city state or is a collection of city states governed I guess from the seat in Mews and that it's these other places that we're going to visit and go

and that you can see on the map and I've got a world map open in my browser along with a walkthrough and all this other stuff and I'm really like taking the game apart almost while I play it and had played it before. That made it all make a little bit more sense and hold together a little bit better.

But yeah, I mean, FF6 had this a little bit, but this game has it a lot more where it's like watching children who have had the plot of Shakespeare explained to them then just try to put on Shakespeare. And so they're like, I'm Hamlet, you kill him, you're bad. You know, it has this feeling of like the dialogue is so messed up

because the localization is so really terrible. and as a result There are quite a few cliches as well I mean this is this is a part where I feel like I'm going to break your heart Jason I know there are some really cool political machinations in that scene

where everybody's around the table but there are a lot of these characters are really one note and I get it like maybe they'll change later but like which characters are exactly okay let's talk about Nanami Nanami is basically every like tough girl to be

contrasted with every other super feminine woman in this game, but deep down she really just wants to be told she's beautiful, but she's tough and she doesn't look beautiful. And like, okay, like, I've seen Slayers, I've seen Lena Inverse. Like, I've seen anime before. Like, I know what I'm looking at here. And like, the princess who's Luca Blight's sister, like, I did look up some of the spoilers for her plotline, which I'm sure we could talk about in a future episode. And I just was already like, okay, like, there's so much, like, the way that the female characters are treated in this game is a pretty rough hang for me so far. And I don't know if it's going to get that much better. And like, Annabelle's probably the coolest character that we meet in the game and

then she gets murdered. And I was like, God damn it. Like, I thought she was so badass. Well, she was willing to use child soldiers. That was kind of a mark against her. Yeah, that was bad. And also, much like every other tough gal, she deep down really just wants Victor to love her on up and treat her like a real lady. Like that is such a trope of the 90s. And I feel like games have, and a lot of media has gotten past it now, but like it's really a time capsule. Plus, like Riu as the player character, I feel like he's also like very tropey in the sense that like he doesn't have a personality at all. Like I showed, I like jokingly tweeted at you that screenshot from the Dracula fight where his two dialogue options in response to Nami saying, let's destroy him.

like, let's destroy Dracula. He can either enthusiastically say, yeah, or he can say, like, how dare you talk back to me like that? And it's like, who is this guy? Like, he's either like the biggest asshole ever or he's like, really nice. I mean, you're also describing Commander Shepard like that. I don't really think that's like a video game protagonist thing. I don't know, man.

No, I'm not. Commander Shepard is not that binary. Riu is, I mean, I'm calling him Riu. You can name him whatever you want. These choices are so simplistic. And I get that this is like an early example of stuff that will be cooler in other games later. But it is like going from chess to checkers for me. So first of all, be careful because oftentimes the choices are like don't mean anything.

And it's just like that simple dialogue choices like that. But sometimes like especially later on some choices like actually branch out the plot. People can die. But that stresses me out too. No, people can't. Well, people can die in battles. No, people will only die in army battles, only in the army battles. That's a whole other thing.

Maddie, I don't think this game, I don't know, Nami, you might change your mind on, and I think you will based on how she's developed later, but I don't think this game will please you with how it handles female characters because it's not good at handling female characters. I mean, Jowie's interesting. Again, this is why I was like, thank God somebody changes, somebody subverts my expectations in this game. Like, Joey's betrayal, I'm here for it, you know?

So there's a read on this game that might help you appreciate it, which is that Raiu and Joey are lovers. Yes. And I think that... I ship them right away. Yeah, and I think that if you play the game with that framing, you might appreciate it more money. I don't...

Yeah, I mean, straight up, like, it's not like... And it also doesn't handle race well. There's, like, one... They're like three black characters in the game. One of them is like a Jamaican stereotype, type werewolf dude. So there's a lot of stuff in this game that is like, no, excusing it. From that perspective, yes, there's a lot of problems. But I do think that there's more depth unveiled. Like we are only talking about 25% of a story. Especially, I mean, yeah, your main character

is, we talked about this last week with like silent protagonists and the badass and the chosen one. Your main character is all of those tropes in one. And he's like 13. So how old do, how old do we all think the main trio is. Young enough to be considered kids. Yes. So they're children. 14, 15 maybe. I was expecting there to be a time jump before I was declared leader of all.

But there's no time jump. I'm a boy king and I have a castle and people are willing to give me entire troops to command. So Raiu is 16 according to the Sikid and fandom wiki. That's older than I thought. So, I mean, 16, like, this is medieval tie. Like there are... Sure, yeah. And Nami's actually supposed to be older than you.

Not that she acts. Yeah. She's probably like 18, 19. I don't know. But like, six of the ages don't bother me. Like this is... If you think of like middle ages, like there are plenty of 16-year-olds. Yeah.

I mean, it doesn't... It's not something that bothers me. It's more just... It's part of my own sense of expectations about how I should be perceiving story beats and how seriously I should take the stakes, basically. Like, are we looking at Ash catch him here? are we looking at DeNiras Targaryen? You know, like there's a slight difference in age there, but it's meaningful.

A lot can happen between 13 and 16, you know? So after the child soldier's sequence, did you guys, did you both wait for Joey outside with the Nami? Yeah, of course. Because you, like, sit there waiting. Because you can choose to go inside, and if you do, you miss out in, like, one of my favorite moments in the game. So I was thinking about that, and I've been thinking about the Sopranos a lot recently,

because I'm always thinking about the Sopranos. And there's a scene in that there's like a running thing in the Sopranos. knows that when the FBI tries to flip you, they let you back out on the street right away. So you're only gone for like 24 hours. You're only gone for a day because they don't want people to suspect anything and they want you to just like get right back on your feet. And I was thinking about that and how it's always left unsaid. But Joey like is captured and then let to go out, left to go right away. And he like can't explain how he got out.

He's just like, oh yeah, I surprised them. And how that is kind of subtly showing you even right then and there in this emotional a moment that like, oh yeah, he's going to betray you. He was like, he turned on you right then and there. They flipped him. They flipped him, guys. So, yeah, to sort of complete the loop on the idea here of watching children perform Shakespeare, I don't mean to suggest that this story is operating with the thematic complexity of Shakespeare. But I do think that it's operating with quite a bit of complexity. And I agree, Maddie, that there are a lot of tropes at play. And there's definitely just, you know, a lot of the tropes are sort of tired. They especially feel

tired now because they've been tropes for another 20 years, but I have a sense they were probably tired then as well, even if fewer people were tired of them. And, you know, so it's got that issue, but if I think of this as a piece of music, it's not a composition where there's a lot of, like, rich complex harmony. It's more that there are a bunch of strong melodies all happening arranged in a very careful way, and that's kind of cool. Like each character, it's kind of one-note, and we even call characters one-note, right? So it's like a melody, a single-note thing. It's not a lush chord with a bunch of instruments playing it, it's one-note, but they're a bunch of one-note characters, and they're actually arranged very carefully, and in that scene where the city-state

leaders are all talking, you start to see them all bouncing off of one another and get a sense of, like, oh, okay, this is pretty complicated. This world, as it exists, is complicated, and then, I mentioned this before, but I think that the best thing that this game is doing so far is implying or imparting a sense of history to me as a player. And that's really where it's becoming interesting. Because even there, again, kind of one note, the whole story of your adoptive grandfather and the duel and the foreshadowing there and all of that. It's all very trope-laden and very simple, but it further complexifies this world. And it does make me feel like, okay, this is cool. Like there's all this history with these people and their ancestors.

You know, there's a smaller history with me and my sister and our family and our upbringing. And they're working with these interlocking single note, one note parts in ways that, in a way that I actually think is pretty cool. And was unusual, I'm sure, at the time and still feels kind of unusual for the kind of complexity they're going for. It's just, it is a shame or, you know, it's a little frustrating that it's both so tedious. there's so much micromanagement, so many menus, so much of that JRP nonsense. It's better than FF6. It's a generation later, but still fairly tedious. And also just, yeah, it is unfortunate that it's presented with this translation,

with this localization that is at times just so childish and so just even tropeer. I mean, it's like tropey characters, and then the dialogue is just totally like, I have the one line written down. It's goodbye, big brother. You're not my big brother anymore. Goodbye, Jawi. Like people just deliver these lies that are just. real stinkers just over and over and over.

Yeah, well, I think that to me reads like something that in Japanese would be a lot more. So, I mean, the way this game is localized was it was like one guy with a spreadsheet over like a tiny period of time. I don't blame that person, whoever they are, for what it's worth. I'm sure they were very tired. Yeah, I can't even imagine. And it's just like, like Excel sheets, you don't even know the context of what you're actually translating.

Yeah, I mean, I think, I guess maybe it's just because I grew up playing some of these games. My brain kind of filters out the bad dialogue and just learns to read the emotional tone or what it's supposed to be saying. No, for sure. I totally understand one being able to do that. I think you get used to it. And it's definitely a lack of literacy I have. There's so many things about this game that I'm like, this isn't... I mean, it's why I haven't even talked about the battles at all because they seem pretty well designed for a thing I don't like. And that's fine.

We can get into that in a sec. But, Kirk, I want to respond to one thing, which is, to your point about it being this world, I think that's the biggest appeal of the series. And I didn't want to get into it too much because I know you guys are never going to play another C-Coding game, but like all five of the main ones, they're all set in the same world. And they're all, like, developing the same story and lore

that one of the reasons that compares to Game of Thrones is because, like, in one, in the first game, something might be mentioned. In fact, Joustin is mentioned, like, almost bypassing. There's, like, a scene where the Joustin army comes and attacks you. And then so it's so cool to then get to go to Jocston. And then in Succoated 2, as another example, there's a character who you will recruit way at the end of the game, random optional character named George Prime. And he's like this super badass soldier has no story whatsoever. He just kind of appears.

And then Richmond, the private investigator, who you can recruit and then you can use to find out facts about all of your characters, which is a very fun little game. By the way, I love that there's just a hard-boiled PI hanging out in his trench coat with like jazz music playing. There's, you have Dracula, right? So you get out more. Yes, yes. Also, you liberate your castle from Dracula. Yeah. So, okay, so you use Richmond. I guess you can. Love that. I don't, I, I'm using love kind of loosely, Maddie. Trives me insane. You use Richmond to investigate George Pryman. In one point it, I'll be like, I heard he killed a queen.

Cut to Sweet Coat in 5, which is set 15 years before Sweetin 2 and tells the whole story of George Pryam killing a queen. So like, these games just like build on each other so much. And like, so many different random throwaway things will just lead to. other things in the games, and that is one of the things that is just tremendous about them. But you have to be super invested. I want to talk about recruiting characters real quick, because that to me is always been an incredibly fun part of this game. It's like, you see a new character with a portrait, and it's like, oh, this guy is important.

Like, am I going to get him on my side? Maddie, what do you make of that? As someone who has played like a little bit of Pokemon, are you enjoying that aspect of the game, or have you not really gotten to it enough? Don't even phrase a question that way. you're just going to be sad. You can't tell until you talk to people whether they have a portrait or not.

So really, if I were playing this game, the exploratory way that that 13-year-old or 12-year-old Jason Shrier may have played it, I'd have to talk to everyone. And for a little while, I was trying to do that. There are some unique sprites for the people that have portraits. Jason, I'm not going to be able to tell that. Okay, fine, fair enough.

I just... Generally, they look pretty distinctive. If you see someone, you can generally tell. I mean, sure. But there are also just a lot of... lot of people in this game and some of them will tell you, I think the item shop's over there. And some of them will tell you, have you seen what's in the item shop? And some of them will tell you, oh, I really got ripped off at the item shop. Like, it's, it is making me crazy. And it is

why I can't talk to everyone in this game anymore. And I've, I've given up on it and I've decided that I can no longer do that if I'm going to sustain the emotional fortitude necessary. So now I just know which characters I need to talk to. And that changes things very slightly for me, but I still don't feel like there's each story is, I mean, they can't be deep enough because there's 108 of them. So it's always going to be a really short interaction. And some of them are kind of cool, but some of them are really short or just like weird, but not in a funny way. I don't know. I mean, this is another thing about the first five hours that I was really struggling with where I was like, if the whole game is me talking to different,

108 different people for roughly five minutes, I'm going to go insane. But then eventually I was like, okay, I need to not care about all these other people. I need to care about Jawi and Ryu and Anami and kind of focus on them and focus on like Victor and Flick and just kind of think about them as my like, you know, Cloud Strife and Tifa and so on. And these other people are just little sprinkles on the cupcake. And I'm not supposed to feel like I need to care about them all. So, okay. So there's a rhythm that you'll get into after this point that we've just reached,

which is you're in the castle. You are sent on a story mission. You go out, you go on the story mission. Maybe you talk to people in the new town and maybe you find some new recruits there. After the story mission, you come back to base and then you have some downtime. And you can go back to old towns and look to see if new people have shown out. And part of the fun is like stumbling upon like these new cutscenes or like trying to figure out and then you can also. Like the three houses of it all.

I mean, this is why I really liked Fire Emblem Three Houses where you go back to the period of the game where you talk to every single character and you get unique dialogue. Like I do like when games do this and I care. And then there's more. Well, and then there's like mini games in the castle and character development that you'll see. And I think you will start to enjoy it more after this point that we've all reached. So I am curious to hear your take the next time. We'll see. Kirk, say something positive.

Talk about how it's a piece of music again. That was great. I loved that. Well, so I've, for some of my own thoughts on recruitment, it's stressful at first. And I think that's because I'm playing it wrong like we're playing it a little bit wrong because we kind of, I don't, Jason, this wasn't you exactly. It's just the knowledge of the game and everybody knowing that you can get this ending by collecting 100 and 8 characters. There's a great conversation, by the way, in the triple-click Discord just generally about this game. It's been a lot of fun.

And I've seen this voiced by a few different people. The idea that it's just a little stressful knowing that you can miss characters during those opening hours. It is. But only you guys are ready past that. Yeah, yeah, I know. It's not that it's practically important. It's not that we can miss a million characters. It was that I knew there were a couple we could miss, but it wasn't totally clear.

Jason, you wrote some wonderful tips for us, but I wasn't, like, referencing them constantly. That there's only two that you can miss, that Clive conversation. and then what's his name on the battlefield, Gilbert. And even he is just like the computer is probably just going to get him. So knowing that is cool, I was more stressed out about it than I needed to be. So like I was saying, I think that was just kind of a wrong-footed way to go into the game, is being like, oh, God, I have to get everybody. Oh, no, like I triggered a cut scene just now.

Does that mean, oh, no, like Toto burned down? Does that mean that I missed the guy who was there, which I had a whole panic about? Because then that guy turns up later. So I'm Googling frantically like, can you miss whatever his name is, the guy who's in the town. Like Zamsa or something? Zamsa, yeah. So like, that was on me. Again, that's, I think, just sort of like I went into it with a little bit of the wrong

mentality. If I had just been like, there's two people you have to get in the opening hours, don't worry about everything else. That would have been less stressful. I think in general, these characters are not as strong individually as the characters in, say, Final Fantasy 6 to pick a comparison from last year. You know, each character just isn't as well defined. But that's not the point of the game.

And I think it's actually kind of interesting and more modern that it's this story of pulling together a whole bunch of people. And it's like a tale of revolution that's actually more relevant in its thematic content to an actual revolution. Or I guess this is kind of a revolution. This is like you're fighting off an overwhelming force because you have to actually build a coalition and get all kinds of different people. And everyone needs to pitch in and risk something and help fight together. That's a cool narrative. And a lot of those people are jerks. then you have to kind of learn to deal with that, yeah.

Or just weirdos. It's a cool narrative and it stands in contrast to the like, a few superheroes will save us. The rest of us can just do our thing, which is just like not really very accurate and a little bit more tired. So I like that they're doing that. And again, it is kind of like you're assembling,

you know, there are more of these single notes. Each of them is a kind of a one-note character. A lot of them are very shallow interactions. You literally just like help a guy up off the street and buy him breakfast and then he joins you. And maybe that's the end of it. I'm keeping that guy in my party. I've decided it's awesome.

I like that guy. I go and shake a tree and a little guy falls out of it and he joins me. Okay, something I recommend is experimenting with a bunch of people in your party because some of them are hilarious and have funny animations. The animations in combat are great. The animations are great. Don't worry about people being underleveled because the level system is really good and it'll like get people up really fast. Just like three battles and all of your party members will be on the same footing. Something else that I think as you recruit, as you guys play more and now that you're,

you have the castle you'll appreciate is that like recruiting isn't just like getting these people and then you can use them in battle they'll also give you like open up these shops in your castle and open up like give you mini games and stuff and there's one that you guys will soon discover there is a cooking mini game which is generally considered one of the highlights of this game because we really enjoy and it's got an entire storyline that is extremely enjoyable that I think you guys will enjoy and that's part of the fun is that like as you discover this rhythm Again, the rest of the game, it's so interesting. The part you guys played, that's like a classic JRP rhythm. But the entire rhythm changes from now on because you're constantly going back to your headquarters. And so you have this base of operations, like you mentioned, three houses, where like every time you go back, you're like, oh, I can check the suggestion box. Oh, I should go see if any of these characters want to talk to me and say anything interesting. Oh, I should go see if there's a new opponent for the cooking battle for the cooking contest. Oh, maybe I could do that.

and that I think you guys will enjoy. So yeah, you've gotten past the bad part of the game. Well, I mean, it's not the bad part. I think that it works in the context of the pacing over, of like the long pacing of the game, because I think they're very effective at communicating this sense of persecution and rootlessness through the beginning.

Like you're constantly being chased out of wherever you are, and it's exhausting and kind of like, oh my God, really, like, we just arrived here and here's friggin' Luca Blight again, like to burn the whole place down. And we're under attack again. and we have to run and run and run and you keep getting rooted out of wherever you were. And it seems clear that this is meant to be an exhausting setup to, okay, finally we have a toehold. We have this castle.

Let's build this thing up and let's like smack that guy and beat him and win. And like I get that. I can see that pacing even though I've only played this first part of it. So that makes sense to me even now. I wouldn't call that the bad part of the game just because of that. There's other things about it that are sort of tedious. but that's not, I don't have a huge problem. Yeah, the thing that I find tedious

is the dungeons. I think the dungeons are pretty poorly designed and monotonous. Maze-like, but not enough on way. Yeah, yeah, I just kind of classic. Sindar ruins is just like gray rock. That one sucks. Can I just remind me of

FF6 and like the numbers of times there were similar dungeons? But to sort of speak to just the pacing of it, the only reason I disagree with you, Kirk, is because I feel like the game really has a villain problem up until Jowie betrays you. And after that, I was interested. But Luca Blight is so one-note as a villain that I was really bored by him.

And that was another reason why I was like, this game's going to be a tough hang for me if we don't get something more interesting going on than just a stone-cold sociopath who simply loves blood and loves to kill. He loves to kill. He's here because he loves killing so much. He loves killing. Like the torture scene, I thought was an example of bizarre tone whiplash where he like makes the woman crouch and oink like a pig and then kills her. I was like, this is not, I don't know. I wasn't impressed. That was the part of the game where I was still struggling.

And I was like, I don't know what this game is trying to achieve tone wise. And it doesn't feel even to me. But then once I got to the Jiaoie thing, I was at least like, okay, this is a story about a specific. friendship and like this history that Ryu has, the player character has with his own family and like he's sort of predestined to be in the situation but it's tragic because this was his friend, et cetera, et cetera. I can follow that story. But up until that point, I was just like, I don't care.

It's so funny, just like with six, I love the total lip laugh. Well, the thing that I find effective is I don't see Luke of Light as an effective character. He's just an avatar of Highland. And Highland as this abstract force that is. is just constantly at your doorstep pushing you and pushing you and pushing you. I think that pacing-wise works well. But I agree. And I think that scene is like really fucked up.

I was like, wow. You know, like Lugo Blight just seems like, yeah, he's like the most evil jerk ever. It like becomes almost comedic, which is like definitely not what they're going for. But it's like so wrapped around. No, it's kind of what they're going for. But I do think that as an avatar for this unstoppable force that's just chasing you, he's kind of whatever. Like I don't care about his character at all. but I do find it effective to just feel like you're constantly under pressure from this powerful,

you know, unstoppable army. Yeah. So, like, why do you think Dracula's in the game just, like, to have more female characters be brutalized? Or, like, what are you guys on this leading question I've posed for you? Yeah, I mean, he's kind of a running series joke because he's in the first game. And then it's just like a dumb, silly thing. It's like, oh, actually, that was his doppel ganger. Yeah.

Okay. For the record, I actually thought it was a really cool pre-Dracula that this game was Game of Thronesy in the sense that it is almost devoid of magic. And magic is just sort of almost like this grounded thing that everybody has. And it's like as unspoken as the fact that anyone can theoretically learn how to sword fight. And this isn't a mystical thing. Like Luca Blyte isn't possessed by a demon. Sure, you and Jowie find some magic rocks or whatever. But like it's a chosen one story, but it's not like Tara.

I mean, I thought that story was cool. But I liked that the story was doing something really different with that. It was like more Game of Thronesy in terms of its implementation of magic as more of a strategic thing alongside the rest of the ground and reality aspects of the world building. But then Dracula was in the game and I was like, I don't know what's going on. It's not important. Nexlerd is not significant. But you can't just say that, Jason. It's like a huge fight.

But it wasn't a huge fight. It was barely. He was barely there. Well, you know what I mean. There's like a whole beautiful cut scene. Like Dracula's like in there, man. They really lavish some care on Dracula. Go ahead, Kirk.

Well, just to interject, I think I understand what you're saying, Jason. Maddie, I certainly understand what you're saying. Yes, so far I do appreciate that this is largely just a story of a kingdom where there is some magic. I have known other JRP's to do this as well, and I'm assuming that by the end of this we're going to be in some alternate dimension fighting God. But I don't know, maybe we won't be. I'm going to assume that it tends to be these things start out pretty much. grounded and then in a JRP there just comes a point where they're like, and now, oh, there's huge monsters and you're going to go fight deities.

But the Dracula thing did seem to me, like, one of these things that is sort of weirdly typical to JRP's of this era where they're just like, okay, and now, but it's something different and we're going to do a thing with Dracula, okay, end of the Dracula part, and now you have a castle and we're kind of back to it. And like, it doesn't make it work. Like it's weird. It just sort of sticks out, but it is kind of typical of the era. Yeah.

It reminds me of the ghost train part of FF6 that I also had a similar problem with. There you go. The ghost train is a great comparison. But this is like the context here, it's part of the world building, right? In the first game, you fight him, Victor comes with you. There's a storyline about how he raised Victor's village and killed Victor's wife. He meets this cool sword who's snarky and tells jokes. Yeah, you meet the sword.

I love the sword. He's so uptight. So the sword. Again, this is all from the first game. So it's kind of just continuing that story. Anyway, we are just about out of time. But I have so many more things to complain about. No, I'm kidding. I don't.

I loved all the battling. It was so good. We will revisit. We will be back with part two of our sweet good into Triple Play. A little bit later, we'll provide an update on timing in the future. In the meantime, let's take a break, and we'll be back with one more thing. I'm Biz. And I'm Teresa. And we're the hosts of One Bad Mother, a podcast about parenting.

parenting. Parenting is hard and we have no advice, but we do see you doing it. Halk if you like to do it. Didn't we have a bumper sticker a while back that was like honk if you did it? That's what it was. I think it was honk if you're doing it. Why did we not ever make those? We did make them. I think they're still in the max fun store. Honk, honk, you're doing it. Thanks, biz. So are you. Each week we'll be here. to remind you that you're doing a good job. You can find us on maximum fun.org. Hong Kong. Toot, tut.

I listen to Bullseye because Jesse always has really good questions. What did John Malkovich wear when he was 20? I don't know how to describe it. There's always that moment where Jesse asks a question that the person he's interviewing has not thought of before. I don't think anyone's ever said that to me or acknowledged that to me and that is so real. Bullseye.

Interviews with creators you love and creators you need to know from maximum fun.org and NPR. And we are back for one more thing. Maddie Myers, what's your one more thing other than complaining about significant thing?

No, I'm done with that. Now I just want to talk about this Netflix show called Murderville. That is so funny. Okay, so the premise of the show is that Will Arnett is a investigator, a detective for the police.

What's his name? Like Tommy Seattle? Isn't that his name? Tommy Seattle. Yeah, Detective Seattle. And it's a comedy. And, you know, most, it's, it just sounds like I'm describing a scripted sitcom about Will Arnett playing a comedy comedic detective role. But.

Terry Seattle. Sorry. It's Terry Seattle. Every single episode, they bring on either a comedian or just a very funny person who's good at improv to play the new recruit, the new partner. of Detective Seattle, and that person hasn't seen the script, doesn't know the circumstances of the murder, because there's a murder in every single episode, has to name the murderer based on all of the clues

that are presented for them by the various actors who do know the script and do know the clues that they need to reveal in each of their conversations. And that person just has to improv their way through each scene and try to keep up. And it's so funny. I feel like I laughed out loud every five seconds at every single episode.

And I love all of them. And there are only six of them. And I think that's messed up. And there should be more episodes of Murderville. And I hope it gets renewed because it's a brilliant premise. And a fun subversion of the proliferation of procedural detective shows, which I didn't think it was possible to subvert that. But they have done it.

And Will Arnett, so good. I love this show. Emily and I have been watching it as well. It is great. It's so light and funny and just silly. And I recommend that about it. It's just very, very silly. But also, you can solve the mysteries.

And it's kind of like... Yes, I love that. If you ever read Encyclopedia Brown, it reminds me of Encyclopedia Brown mysteries, because they're very clear, like, this same woman comes in every episode, and she's the, like, Emmy, and she lays out the clues for you. And you have to pay close attention. And then they go and interview the suspects, and you can totally solve it. We've watched a few episodes.

We've solved some. We've missed some. The first episode made it clear, oh, okay. So we can try to solve this. And that's been a fun wrinkle on top of it. to try to solve this wacky murder mystery. But yes, I co-sign it. This is a wonderful show.

Oh, man, I can't wait to watch this. I'm very excited. It's so funny. I can't believe it's only six episodes. That's just sad. But it's where every single one of them, a priceless jam. Very good. Yeah, I'm very, very excited.

Very excited to watch out. Kirk, you and I happen to have the same one more thing. So let's talk about it, shall we? You and I are both playing a whole lot of Horizon Forbidden West. Yes, which Maddie has also played. We're all playing early review. copies of this game that Sony sent us. We're going to do our triple play on the game next week.

And Kirk's already beaten it twice. Is that right? I've played a lot. I've played like, this is a long game. I've played like 50 hours or something. I think I'm about to start the final story mission. Though there's a lot of side stuff in this game that's all pretty much feels like story stuff too. So it's kind of, there's a lot of great side content as well in this game.

How far am I? I told you the quest on that. Am I like halfway through or less or more? You're like halfway, a little more than halfway maybe through the story. The thing is, I would say that this is just kind of a 50 to 60 hour game where you could then play another 10, 15 hours on top of pretty cool side stuff. But like, I would just describe it as that link. You can play a lot more than 10, 15 hours.

You can play 10, 15 hours alone on the board game. Okay, that's true. That's true. And I haven't played much strike. Let me, can I give some impressions? I wrote down some bullet points. Yeah, please. So we're going to talk about this a lot next week if we don't have a ton of time.

Here are my takes Or my bullet points Things I just wanted to share this week It's really good and I like it a lot I think it's just a really Really good game Like it's a winner Me too I love it

I think it's awesome It rolls Very fun Yeah people are really gonna be psyched about it It's really good I've been playing it on hard difficulty Which has been fun Me too I love that too

It pushes you to really use All of the new tools The elemental damage the traps Though I just learned this This game has good accessibility options like Sony's games, to their credit, have recently. And you can do a custom difficulty. And if I don't that, I would have made it so that the monsters,

the robots, the machines have a lot of health. But Aloy's health is just normal because she's a little squishy on Hart at first because it's an RPG and you have to level up. And I found that a little frustrating. Now at this point in the game, Hard is just great. It's like a super fun challenge, or at least I really like it. But there's a lot of difficulty options. Plus you can change it whenever.

I mean, it's easier to know how to level up and which skills you want to think if you're already on hard. But yeah. And there have been times where I've just been like, whatever, this story sequence just isn't fun on horror. There's no reason to play this on her, and I'll just kick it down to normal, play through the story sequence, go back to heart. It's very nice to the list you do that. I have a button remapping tip for anyone planning to play it. I recommend trying this anyways.

Remap Dodge to R1, the light melee attack to square and crouch to circle. R1 Dodge, square melee, circle crouch. The story, we're not going to say anything about the story. The story is really spoilable. So like try to play it unspoiled because there's like major moments in the story. Really cool stuff. There's a lot of it.

Yeah, there's a lot of writing, a lot of dialogue, a lot of acting. So much dialogue. And like there have just been so many moments in the story where I've been like playing the game and I'm like, what? Like a huge thing happens and it's been a real pleasure to play it completely unspoiled. And there will be things that we're just going to start, people are just going to start seeing and are going to get spoiled. So like try to avoid spoilers and will be pretty light unspoiled.

next week. And then what's the other thing? Oh, I'm playing in performance mode. And you can kind of notice that the graphics aren't as good. I've seen some discussion about that. But it's worth it to play at 60 frames a second. It's so smooth. It's fine for me and I greatly prefer 60 FPS. There are

some people though who prefer 30 who prefer the high fidelity version. I will never understand that because it feels so good to play 60%. I think if you're playing on a 4K TV, it's even more noticeable. And I'm playing on a computer monitor. Yeah, me too. I'm playing on a 1440 monitor and it looks great

and performance mode like especially after the day one patch it was pretty buggy at first but that's the review copy they sent us and it has been patched yes it was buggy I don't know how many of those bugs still exist I did mention it's still a little buggy I've had a crash since that so it'll be I'm sure it'll get some patches post release especially when you use there these new

abilities called valors that are basically limit breaks you just toggle them and you can get some cool power or something and those are so buggy like the camera has just like clipped all over the place and I use those And yeah, a lot of camera, camera bugs. Definitely a game that was made during COVID. You can tell that this is a game made during the pandemic.

Yeah, I also really, really enjoy it. I just will never get sick of the feeling of like drying back a bow and firing at a robot dinosaur and watching the glowing weak point and watching the component come off or like seeing the health get knocked down. I've decided to slow down time this playthrough. Oh, good, Maddie. Do you notice you don't have to unlock that ability this time? I appreciate a lot of the abilities. I've decided to go ahead and use that the whole game.

So that's really changed things for me a lot. Yeah. So it's so interesting. So it feels like they've really just gone through a list of like problems in the first game or things they could have done better in the first game. Like the skill tree is totally revamped and super good. That's huge now. The crafting system, you can like set jobs and like set your own quest to like go find things

that you need to upgrade your pouch or whatever. There's a lot of stuff that's just melee is improved. The stash, you have like an inventory stash, which is so nice compared to the first stuff. strategically transported from town to town. Very convenient. The animations are much better. But the one thing that they didn't do is they didn't make it easier to just pick things up. You have to run around and just press triangle every time you see something to pick it up.

And I wonder about that. That's clearly a deliberate choice at this point. And I guess it would make it less interesting, less satisfying if you're just running around and vacuuming every piece of medicinal herb you see. But it is still interesting that they added that they have this like tedious. thing from the first game that is carry it on to the second game where you just have to run around smashing, trying. Yeah, it's an interesting

friction point and that you can like unlock an ability that lets you pick up more health things each time. But you still do have to do it after a fight. You still have to get them. It's not a terrible ritual after a massive fight with like a building-sized robot to go around and refill your health and just sort of catch your breath. It's definitely, I can

see why they wanted it in there. Yeah, it can be peaceful in that kind of like Animal Crossing like Starter Valley Way where doing tedious fast can be good. Skyrim is what reminds me. Yeah. It can be comforting.

And then the other thing, and this really drives me crazy, is that when you sneak up behind someone, you get the silent strike, like, prompts, and you have to press R1 to do a silent strike. But at least 10 times I've gotten in a position where, like, the prompt goes away for a second, you hit R1, and it's just a regular attack. Happens to me all the time and drives me crazy.

God. And that was like a problem in the first game, too. Zero out of 10. There's a problem in the first game too And I can't believe that they haven't figured out of way to fix that That drives him crazy But pretty minor complaint But yes

It is consistently annoying Yeah minor complaint And I also I almost don't want to do that Because like the bow and arrow combat And just like dodging around I just fought this huge Like that

A robot That was so much fun So you're fighting this giant robot And just like Setting traps running around the arena Like circling him strafing dodging, shooting arrows. Every time I got a chance, it is just so much fun.

There are very few games that I've enjoyed the combat as much as I enjoy in Horizon, and especially in Forbidden West, which I think is even better. Yeah, we'll talk about it a lot more next week, but it is a real winner. I'm very, very impressed with it. Definitely a winner. It's a wonderful game. Okay. Thank you guys very much for playing through Sikun and 2.

Enjoy playing the rest of the rest of the end. Not over yet. And thank you to all the listeners for listening. listening and supporting our show. We will be back next week. Don't forget, Yellow Jackets. Beanscast is up this week. So go become a member and you can listen to that. As for you too,

I will see you both next week. Yeah, see you next week. Bye. Triple Click is produced by Jason Schreier, Maddie Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I edit and mix the show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom DJ. Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode may have been sent to us for

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

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