Triple Click - What's The Deal With: Xenoblade Chronicles?

Episode Date: August 4, 2022

Xenogears? Xenosaga? Xenoblade? Just what is the deal with all of these Xeno-games? In honor of the recent release of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 for the Switch, Jason walks Kirk and Maddy through the long-running JRPG pseudo-series, from giant robots to anime swords.One More Thing: Kirk: StrayMaddy: Misery (1990)Jason: Live A LiveLinks:Jason’s Kotaku review of Xenoblade Chronicles 2: https://kotaku.com/xenoblade-chronicles-2-the-kotaku-review-1820903229Autumn Wright’s Polygon review of Xenoblade Chronicles 3: https://www.polygon.com/reviews/23278797/xenoblade-chronicles-3-review-release-date-nintendo-switch-monolith-soft-hero-classesSupport 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

Draw your blade. Listen to a saga or spin some gears. These are the ways of Zeno. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week, we talk about one of Jason's favorite JRP's from the late 90s with turn-based combat and a story that will stick with you. It's Zeno Gears and the rest of the Zeno saga. I'm Maddie Myers. I'm Jason Shrier and I'm Kirk Hamilton and hello.

Hello. We're back again. We are back. to see the two of you after our break. After a short, refreshing break. What a long, difficult break. It was a long, hard break. You know what?

Yeah, it was for one of us. It kind of was for one of us, which we got to get into because, hey, it's the beginning of the show. You probably know what I'm going to say if you've ever listened to it before. If you haven't, welcome. Here's the thing I'm going to say. I'm going to say that we are a podcast that's on maximum fun. And I think that's really cool, first of all.

And second of all, it means we're listener supported. And if you want to become a member and go to maximum fun.org slash join, you would get bonus episodes. But hey, you might be thinking, Maddie, I am a member. And I'm still tapping my foot on that bonus episode from July. Where the heck is Maddie and Jason and Kirk talking about Marvel movies and TV shows? And that is coming. over to you to explain why that is the case. So there's this virus called COVID-19.

And as it turns out, if you get it, really can kind of be a bummer. And last week I got this virus and had a real bummer of a week where I was not really up for recording any podcast or doing much of anything other than lying in my bed and reading the Internet and occasionally going, so that's what I did for the last week. And it was a real drag. So it turned you into an elephant. It basically turned me into a very sad elephant. So, yeah, I got COVID, and we had to delay recording the MCU Beanscast that we will be recording today. And we'll be in the feed, as you're listening to this episode, probably on Friday.

So the day after you're listening to this, it'll be up. It's exciting. A lot of triple click this week. Yeah. A lot of triple click this week. And I'm pretty much feeling better. It's still kind of lingering. It's been a really annoying time.

but I'm pretty much all there. I may not be at 100% for this episode, but I think I'll be okay. Well, you've never been at 100%, Kirk. That's a good point. Even less of a non-100% than usual. Wow. Well, anyway, that bonus is only available to members, so hopefully folks can find it in their hearts and minds to go to Maximfund.org.

Join and become members. But let's say you're not a member and you're just in it for the free stuff. well, this next bit is also relevant to you, which is that our episode, which I believe will be the September 8th episode, if I managed to write the state down correctly, we will be reading a gamer book. That's right. We know how to read. And we're going to do it in time for that episode. Wow, that is a brag, I know, it's a huge brag. But we are gamers, so we're going to read a gamer book for gamers by gamers. It is a not. novel called Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, a reference to the play that shall not be named. The book is called Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, and it's by Gabriel Zeven, and all three of us are going to be reading it and discussing it. And I've heard good things so far, but who knows what the three of us will think. So if you want to read along with a little triple click book club,

September 8th, try to finish it before then. Okay. I think we should call it a triple read. I like that. Triple read. Triple read. Yeah. Yeah. Because three people are reading it on a podcast called triple click. Makes sense to me. It's like a triple play. Yeah. And then when we watch the Fantastic Four, it'll be a triple read Richards. Yep.

That's right. Great stuff. So enough preamble. Jason, what are we talking about today? Well, today we are talking about Xenoblade. What is the deal with Xenoblade? This JRP series with a weird-ass name that seems to have come out nowhere to become what a Nintendo's 10-full franchises.

I thought it was called Zeno Saga or perhaps Zeno Gears. So I was already interested to see that Zeno blade was the title you put into the podcast episode notes today. I don't understand this. That is interesting. I think by the end of this episode, you will have a deeper understanding of all things. Zeno. Or it's like we'll say Xeno, but I say Zeno. So we'll just deal with that.

Kind of like how you have to deal with how I pronounce Oregon. Oregon Trail Oregon, the state. I just switch it up. Or, I mean, people don't know this, but until I was like 18, I used to say that the plumber's name was Mario.

And I went to college and I kept calling it Mario and people kind of talked me into switching to Mario. But like, when you're in New York Jew, you say Mario. Yeah, no, I think of, I mean, Russ Freshday also in New York,

too. Who says Mario. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes, yes. He grew up like, minutes away from where I grew up and also where I was definitely a regional affect. So today we're saying, well, we're talking about what the deal is with the Xenoblade series. ZenoBlake Chronicles 3, the latest game in the franchise, came out last week.

And so a lot of people are playing that, myself included. I just started it. Kirk, I believe you just started it too. I'm not sure how much I'm going to play it for reasons we will get into a little bit later. But I wanted to give you guys and our listeners an introduction to the whole series because I think it's really interesting. and it's got this kind of unusual history. A lot of game series, especially RPG series, they tend to kind of stick to a single game developer,

stick to a single game publisher. But this, in part because it's not all one big series, it's one kind of loosely connected series, has bounced around a lot and had some kind of turbulent history along the way. So to start us off, actually, I'm curious to hear, have you guys played any games, any of the Xeno Gears, Zeno Saga, or Zeno Blade? games have you guys played any of these games maddie you definitely haven't because these are all

thick jirpgs that you and hate i did i did live with someone who was playing them and i tried to figure out which one i know it was one of several games where you play as cosmos who's like a cool i yeah that would be zeno saga got it okay so i i watched somebody else over their shoulder playing that for a while and was like this is not my shit and then i moved on with my life Yeah, yeah, I can see that. Kirk, how about you? So I've been aware of this series. I was aware of Xenogiers, at least, xenogiers, I suppose,

depending on how you want to pronounce it. Though I haven't really played them, just because Yasunori Mitsuda is the composer for most of these games, and I've loved his music since I played Chrono Trigger. And so I was just always like, well, what's that guy been up to? And then realized that he's been making the music for these games. No, I haven't really played them, though I had seen people speak very glowing.

of Xenogers. And then I wasn't even really aware that it was part of this broader series. And it sounds to me like what you're calling Xenoblade is kind of like Final Fantasy. Like it's a long running fantasy JRP series. Is that a correct way to describe it? Sort of. I wouldn't, I think it's even more loosely connected. Final Fantasy games are pretty loosely connected. This might even be even more loosely connected to the point where like the Xenobled games are almost a different. different genre than the Xenogers and the Xenosauga games. But let's go in chronological order. So I want to introduce you guys to this guy. There's this guy named Tetsuya Takashi.

Hello, Tetsuya. Nice to meet you. Yeah, it's good to meet you. He's not on the show, unfortunately. But we are saying hello to him because what if he's listening right now? Jason's swinging his webcam to the side. There's somebody sitting next to him. Surprise. Who is that? Oh, it's an elderly Japanese gentleman. Oh, hello. That's just a different guy who lives in Jason's house, so that's actually not him. Yeah, I mean, the elderly Japanese man who lives in my attic is actually not named Titsia Takashi. No, totally different name. But anyway, Titsuya Takashi is this guy. He is again, Velbray. Works at Square, not to be the original square, aka Square Soft, working on games like Final

Fantasy 6, which we all know well, and Krono Trigger. And one day he is kind of tasked with working on a sequel to Krono Trigger. And so he starts working on this game. and for various reasons, it turns out to not to be something else entirely. It doesn't turn out to be a sequel to the Chrono Tricker. Why is it becoming this game called Xeno Gears? Now, Xenogers is this like really formative RPG for a lot of people. It came out during the time when Square was really at its peak coming out with all these fantastic PlayStation games. It came out within the same three-year period as like Final Fantasy 7, Final Fantasy 8, Final Fantasy Tactics, like Chrono Cross, all these other incredible games that Square was just releasing constantly.

And Xenogers really stood out in a few ways. Here was this game that is kind of, it blends sci-fi and fantasy, but leans more heavily towards the sci-fi because it's actually all about giant robots punching each other. And so very inspired by, what's the name of that anime? Evangelion. Evangelion. Yeah. I say Evangeline.

I call it Evangeline. I would recommend not calling it Evangeline around anyone other than the two of us. Right. Probably a large number of our listeners might have texted. Or, you know what? Go with that. Just lean into it, make it like the Oregon situation, you know, just say it's your thing. It could work for you. It's my mispronouncing things. That's just my name. That's my new stick is just mispronouncing everything. Great. Anyway, cork, uh, Ma Dai. Let's go. Great.

So Zeno Gears, here's this game that is like truly epic. It's like 80 hours long. is this sprawling story. You play as this guy named Faye, who has all these secrets in his past, and he winds up discovering this possibly cursed mech, giant robot that he takes over. And so the game, it's a turn-based RPG with a giant world map. You do a lot of exploring. You do a lot of combat. Some combat and dungeons are done outside of your mech, and it's just like hands-to-hand

brawling, and there's like a fighting game-ish system that you actually might appreciate many because you have to enter combos and stuff. This is how I know this wasn't the one I watched is because first of all, you're not playing as Cosmos and second of all, there's a fighting game part. Would have liked it. Yeah, it's not, that might be pushing it. Well, but at least there's some combat, so, you know, I'm picturing. There are combos.

Yeah, it's, well, it's combos in the combat. Yeah. So, and then there's also giant meg combats. Sometimes you'll be in these giant robots and you'll have this, like, head-to-head gear combat. And it has this incredible, incredible story that just, like, like has one twist after another, this epic like battles and warfare and reincarnation and love

and all sorts of crazy stuff to the point where like there's this later in the game, you wind up discovering that you're on this kind of like weird sci-fi floating city and you wind up discovering that the food that everybody eats is actually people and it's even called Soylent. That should have been their first clue. This is just one thing after another. And in fact, the game was so big and sprawling that they actually didn't have time to finish the second half. So when you get to the second disc of the game, a lot of it is told in this abridged version where it's like these big plot events will happen.

And instead of seeing them, you'll just be told about them through these like weird slideshows and paintings and characters narrating what's happening. I actually happen to think it works really well because at that point you're kind of ready for the game to be over. And so from a pacing perspective, it kind of works for me. but a lot of people complained about the second half not being finished. But anyway, it's a fantastic game. This is a game that I loved growing up, still loved today. One large part is the music, as you mentioned before. Kirk Yasunori Matsuda is the composer of these games,

and Zeno Gears' music is just really top-notch, top tier. So Zeno Gears came out in 1998, PlayStation 1. At the end, you kill God. So it's a JRP. Yeah, sure. So this is a game that really stood out to me. And unfortunately, none of Takahashi's games following have really lived up. And I've been playing all these games, hoping that they would live up to Xenogers,

kind of the expectations, the bar that it's set. But sadly, none of them have done that, at least for me personally. So after Zeno Gears, Tukahashi wound up leaving square, forming his own company called Monolith Soft. And that's when he started Zinosaga, the games that you are more familiar with Manny. Those were actually published by Namco Bandai instead of Square. They were all on the PS2. He actually wanted them to be a six-part series. And he started them with like episode one, episode two, episode three,

with the idea that it would just be six episodes. And they were kind of like, it's hard to describe how they connect to Xenogers because there are a lot of weird and subtle ways. But the idea was that it would be both a prequel and a sequel and a successor. And there are a lot of kind of loose connections and then some more straightforward connections. I think his original idea was that Xenogers, the original game, would be episode five in the six-part series. And I'm not exactly clear on what the grand plan was, but it had to be abridged. And so it turned into a trilogy instead of six-part series because it just didn't sell well enough to justify the costs.

And Zeno saga, sadly, just like you, didn't have enough of an audience that people wanted to watch Cosmos and Crew fight each other. Yeah, yeah. That makes sense. For people who did stick with it, I mean, they were rewarded by, like, again, sprawling story, tons and tons of plot twists, crazy characters and character reveals. And there's like a character named Chaos. And this is the original chaos before that Final Fantasy game this year. Well, I guess the original Final Fantasy had the original chaos. But still, this is a character named Chaos.

There's all sorts of weird, hilarious stuff in there. Again, weird plot twists, people becoming gods, people turning out to be gods. angels or demons or whatever else. It's just crazy sci-fi nonsense. Sci-fi plus religious aspects as well. Yes. Very evangelian, but you've never seen that, so. I have not, no. It's fine. You might like it. That's really what I'm learning from this. So we've gone from Xeno Gears to Zeno Saga. And the Zenof Saga is, is that still about large robots? Are those still a part of the story? It's more hard sci-fi because you're

in space. There are robots. You're not piloting giant mechs anymore like you were in Zeno Gears. Zeno Gears mostly took place on one planet. This takes place like all across like your, your main base is your spaceship and you're traveling around to different places and stuff. So no. But they are loosely connected. And there are a lot of like spiritual themes. One thing I didn't mention is that there's a lot of like Judaic mythology in these games. So like there's this, there's this concept in the first game called the Zohar, which is like this, it's a Hebrew word, but it's basically in the mythos of these games, it's like this all-encompassing power. You touch it and you like ascend. And that carries on to Zeno Saga too, along with a bunch of other stuff. One thing

that I got a kick out of as a kid that I bet, very few people actually know is that a lot of the cities and towns and nations in Zeno Gears are named after Hebrew months. There's like a city called Av, a city called Kislav, a city called Nissan. And these are all Hebrew months, which is like something that I've been very few people picked up on. But those of you who spoke Hebrew could realize that. But anyway, yeah, a lot of, again, a lot of just like weird religion, mythology, just a lot of really super interesting themes. And yeah, it almost felt like sacrilegious at the time.

Like a lot of, this was, by the way, the Xenogers, when that came out in 1998, it wasn't too far after the time when, like, Nintendo was censoring games. And like, you couldn't put the word God in a game. You couldn't even have alcohol in a game. So this game comes out and it is really pushing boundaries. They're like naked characters in the game. There's a lot of stuff in there that is like you really would not see in games in the 90s a lot, which was also pretty cool for the time.

Yeah, this really does sound Evangelion inspired. Yeah. Extremely, extremely. I think that if I had, if I ever watched in Evangelion, I would probably just see tons and tons of parallels. But yeah, again, so Zetasaga, so the three games came out. I think they're all pretty strong. some have better parts than others. The combat system changed over time

and some parts were a little sluggish. The games are way too bloated. There's like way too much filler, way too much dungeon padding. But still, strong games all around. Then something else happens. So, Monolith Soft, Takahashi, the way the story goes is that

Takahashi had this vision in his head of people fighting on the top of God's bodies. And he also wanted to like build rebuild morale at his company after Zinus saga, like, kind of tanked. Nobody bought Zeno Saga, so he wanted to reveal morale. And he comes up with this idea that turns into Zeno Blade Chronicles, which is probably the game that you guys are a lot more familiar with than these older ones. So Zeno Blade Chronicles comes up for the Wii in 2010. There's a whole massive controversy because it's not planned for the U.S., and so people

have to really fight for it to actually come out here. And eventually, after a lot of fan petitioning and just pushing, they get Nintendo to kind of be grubes. Ragingly release it here, which is funny because then it turns into like a massive success and becomes one of Nintendo's like Temple franchises now. What was the reasoning there? Or was there any stated reasoning for it not coming out in the U.S. originally? Yeah. Well, so it's 2010. The Wii is kind of on its way out.

So a little bit of context here. The Wii mania was like 07, 08. That's when everybody and their grandmothers were buying whys. But even at the peak of that, software sales and attach. traits on the Wii were never really that strong because it was such a casual audience-focused device. Not a lot of people were buying it and like going and playing the new Ubisoft game or even the new Nintendo game. Even like the Zelda games weren't doing quite that well in comparison to how many machines were actually out there. Like the Wii Sports to Xenoblade pipeline just wasn't fully

perfected yet. Not quite there. Yeah, exactly. That's so surprising. And so something like Zinoblade, which is like massive, massive localization costs because it's so text heavy. And also, like, wouldn't be able to come out for another year or two, at which point Nintendo would have already been, like, focusing on its next console, the Wii U. It didn't really make business sense for them, but they made it work. And then I think what wound up happening is that Nintendo of Europe wound up localizing it anyway, so they wound up, like, handling most of the costs, and Nintendo of America just got a free ride.

So it worked out nicely for Reggie, Fisomey and Crewe. But yeah, and then it turned out, I don't know if it really sold gangbusters on the Wii, but it's certainly sold enough to justify continued games. And then we have like a whole bunch of sequels. So, model is soft, which eventually is bought by Nintendo, by the way, I should say, I don't remember exactly when that is. I'll look at them in a sec. But so they have, they release, they release Xnoblade Chronicles X.

And then that's in 2015 for the Wii U. Then Xenoblade Chronicles 2 in 2017 for the Switch. and now ZenoBlade Chronicles 3 in 2022 for the Switch. So Monolith, by the way, was bought by Nintendo in 2007. So it's as Zeno Blade 1 was being developed. So my opinions on these games are pretty, I guess, divergent with the mainstream. A lot of people like these games, I really do not. They're very grindy.

They're very MMO-like in that a lot of the combat is just kind of watching things unfold and or trying to get in positions, but still doing auto attacks and then occasionally waiting for your timers to go up. It's very MMO-ish. Like you're waiting for timers and hitting those timers while your character just wax a sword and an enemy.

They're full of like tedious, menial side quests and a lot of slow-paced stuff. Maddie, you would hate them. I guarantee you you will never want to play these games. But people love them. Maybe if they were in anime, because I know this new one has a whole lot lot of visual novel aspects in it to put it mildly, or at least so I hear, there's a lot of

talking about. Well, we'll get to the new one. I want to talk about the new one in a second, but the first one, so just to give my brief impressions, and I don't know if either of you have played around with either of these, but the first one, I played a lot of, kind of liked it. At that point, so, rewinding a second, one of the reasons that there was so much fervor for bringing Xenoblade to the States back before it was officially announced for localization here. And I believe there was an organization called Operation Rainfall. That was like the big petition group. I remember this. You remember Operation Rainfall. Yes. Wow. So, so one of the reasons is that it was kind of, it was critically acclaimed. It was seen as like this masterpiece, this JRP revolution. Like,

people literally in reviews would call it a revolution for JRP's. And so playing it with that lens, I was very disappointed. It was just like, this is just a fucking like, single player MMO. But then, but I still enjoyed it and the music was amazing. It like looks great. There's a lot of cool stuff to it despite like these terrible characters and voices and a lot of, a lot of nuts alike, including Shulk, the main character. But then ZenoBlade 2 is like legitimately one of the worst games I've ever played.

But a lot of people love it. And that, that has baffled me a little bit. So wait, do you mean X or Xeno Blaine 2? No, no, two. I mean two. Zeno Blade 2. X I never played actually. Okay, interesting.

It's just in there. It's X. It's got an X on it because Jason hasn't played it. X is actually, that's more robots. They had a robot too. It's kind of like a sci-fi, more sci-fi spin-off. But again, I haven't played that one. Got it.

But two, I reviewed that for Kataku and it's like legit. I reread my review before in preparation for this episode. I really did not like it. And rereading that review just like brought back memories. I was like, oh yeah, God, this game was a mess. My goodness. So we'll have to, we'll link to your review. you in the show notes so people can read it. I remember

when you reviewed it because you angered quite a few people. But to zoom out a little bit on these games and to maybe ask a few questions that people might be wondering, for starters, are these games all sequels to one another? Are they set in the same universe? Do they share characters? How connected are they? Yeah, I think

it's a spoiler to say, but I guess it's a spoiler to say what, but the answer is yes. So my understanding, my understanding is that there's some like twisty stuff at the end of two that links into one in certain ways. So obviously I won't say why. That's my understanding. So if you were to play two, for example, you would automatically be spoiling the end of one for yourself, perhaps without realizing you were. I don't know the specifics, but not till the end. I mean, if you start to right now, you can play for

100 hours and have no, no links to one because like the characters are totally different. There's nothing connecting it to one from the outset at least. That's what I'm asking. So they're maybe some things revealed, but the general experience of each game is a discrete experience. Yes, I think so. I don't know about three, and I don't know how three times into one and two. The sense I've gotten is that it does, but yeah, that's, that's my, my understanding here is limited. And I should say, I've never finished any of these games. They're like, these are 100-hour, 100-hour games. I remember I reviewed the first one and I had, or I reviewed the second one, actually, and people were slamming me for not finishing the game. I was like, I played 50 hours of

this game, literally, like, look at my timer on my switch, 50 hours. If you make me play any more of this, like, I'm going to jump off the Tabin Zee Bridge. Yeah, like the review will become more negative if you play more. Yeah, exactly. So why is that the request? So another question, and this is based on not having played Xenobledad Chronicles 2, but having seen it, ZenoBlade Chronicles 2 is the one with all of, it's like the really horny one, right? Oh, is this the vagina bones one? Is that what that's from? No, that's something different. Zeno Blade 2 Zina Blade 2. It's the one where the swords come to life

and they're like Hot Girls, right? It's the swords, yeah, the sword turned into Hot Girls. It's very anime. It's very, like, tropey. There are tons of anime tropes. Yeah, I'm thinking of Tokyo Mirage sessions. My bad. Right.

Yeah, it's, and I feel like two of the weapon women from that game have become, are they in Smash? Are they're like, they've become, like, characters, like Nintendo's stable characters. Yep. So that's, like, the enduring legacy. of Xenoblade 2, this game that you dislike. It does seem to have at least, in that it had

really horny character designs. Like, the characters are still around, right? They are. Yeah, and like I said, I mean, I was an anomaly. A lot of people like this game. I think I'm Metacritic. It's still in the 80s right now. A lot of people, like, gave it critically acclaimed reviews.

And remember, this is a series. Again, this is a series that I just, I don't think I've ever just quite understood because the first game, people call this masterpiece, this revolution for JRP's. And that still blows my mind. Like, I just don't understand it. Because to me, I've been looking at all these games being like,

please be even a fraction of as good as Xenogers was, but none of them are, sadly. Sadly. And that's the lens in which I've been looking at these games is this guy who, I think his best work is sadly behind him. So can we get into that a little? Yeah. Yeah.

Tees out what it is exactly that you don't like. Because you've played so many JRPGs, and clearly a lot of people who love JRP. RPGs love these games. So what is it that they like that you don't, or what is it that you're looking for that you're not getting from these games? Yeah, I'm not sure.

I've given this a lot of thought. I think that there's like, that people who like JRP's, I think can be divided into a few different camps. And I think one of those camps is people like... Taxonomy, taxonomy! Yeah. Well, I didn't, okay, I didn't write this down.

I didn't make a big category list. But I do think, I think one of those camps is people who like the horniness and who like horny anime women and that really gets them off and I think those people have a lot to like out of Zenobley Chronicles 2 that's never really been my thing but and I've like kind of had to begrudgingly

accept sometimes that even in some of my favorite JARPGs there's some fan service as it's called to stuff like that but that's one group another group is I think people who just like the TDM and don't mind the monotony of of just like doing endless filler side quests and just like watching lists and we've talked about this before about the appeal of filling checklists and watching numbers go up and all that stuff

and for me I need a little bit more illusion than these games offer for that stuff but for me it's it's also for me is just that like the characters aren't as good the story isn't as good the voice acting is atrocious the the writing is not nearly as good it just doesn't snap quite as much it doesn't it's not as cohesive it's not it just feels like i mean especially in xenoblade two's case that game is such a mess of systems it's like you'll you'll you'll still be you'll you're unlocking new systems five 10 hours into the game and none of them are really necessary like it's just all this redundancy that it's just added for the sake of like making the game feel more complex and more driven by numbers and items and stuff but it doesn't work it just it all feels like a mess where you have to god there was

one where you have to jump through all these hoops just to get like basic items or just to do basic crafting stuff. It's really just such a waste of time. And that's the other thing is I appreciate, I don't appreciate it when games waste my time. I've said this before quite a few times and there's some JRPGs that do that worse than others and Zena Blade is especially egregious when it comes to that. So having played a little bit of Xenoblade Chronicles 3, I read the Polygon review of it, which is a lovely, really well-written review I thought, and very popular. positive, very into the game and says the story is really cool. I'll say that just from the, you know, hour or so that I've played of it,

my total, you know, noob to this series' impressions are, well, I have a few impressions, I guess. The setup of this game is pretty cool, the narrative setup. It's a lot of it, it's a lot of tropes that I've seen in games like this before. It kind of reminds me of Scarlet Nexus, that game from last year, where you're kind of child soldiers who are part of this totalitarian government, You're created in a test tube. Evangelian vibes, if you will. Sure, I guess.

I mean, it's certainly an older trope than just that game. I was just recently playing that game. And they even kind of, your characters kind of dress similarly to Scarlet Nexus here in these all black kind of combat suits. They're all very young and like they look like anime characters. And the premise is basically that there's this endless war going on between two sides and the armies fighting the war are all just grown in test tubes. and then you live 10 years as a soldier and then you're just retired.

And you basically, you know, you die at some point in battle. And the way the war is fought is that the soldiers are killed and then their life force is harvested in real time on the battlefield by these huge machines. And, you know, it's pretty gruesome. I really was kind of, I was struck by the brutality and intensity of the narrative set up. I was kind of drawn in. It was more, just more intense than I was expecting. And, well, just on, I. On that point, the first, like, half hour of this game is already so much more engaging than either the first two games.

Like, the first two games are super tropey. Like, Xenoblake 2 opens with you just, like, running around and doing a bunch of fetch quests and then, like, meeting your horny lady sword. Zena Blade 1 opens up with you doing a bunch of fetch quests in your small, quiet village that is attacked by evil menacing robots and then your dad dies. So, like, it's, it's the first two games just open with them. nothing but tropes. And the third game is like this interesting plot. I mean, that idea of like you are all the, you are this group of child soldiers who lives for 10 years. That is already more enticing to me at least than anything I've seen in the other Zanamoid games. Yeah. And I thought, and just well introduced. I mean, it's kind of, it's cutting between

a couple different sequences. You're on the battlefield. You're fighting. You're seeing the horrors of war. You're also cutting back to this training sequence that's very Enders game as these brutal sort of test tube children all wage war games against one another. and you get a sense of all the different characters and your own group, and you can see the way that the party works, like there's like a kind of tank guy with a shield, and there's the healer, and there's your player. Like, you really, it's cool.

I think it's like an effective, it was a more, it felt at least narratively, a lot faster-paced than I was expecting, even though I was kind of just watching a lot of cutscenes and wasn't playing a lot. And then, so the other thing I noticed playing this game was, um, there, the combat is interesting. It was not what I was expecting, because I'd never played one of these games

before. It is a lot of MMO style auto combat. There's a timing element to it, and I can see how it probably gets a lot more complex as you go, and you get more into it. But yeah, it wasn't, it's not the kind of combat that I usually go to games for, though I could see how someone might like just, it's kind of really low requirement in general, especially if you're just grinding, and because it's on Switch, you can just turn the volume down and watch TV and just walk around killing things,

and that's probably kind of fun. And the last thing I will say that I notice is you would probably want to turn the volume down because they repeat lines of dialogue constantly in this game. And I remember that being a complaint from the earlier ones, but I was really struck by it. The minute I started playing, it was just this same like three lines of dialogue over and over and over again in combat. The kind of combat barks were very repetitive.

Yeah, it's insufferable. Kirk, to that to your previous point, the point before last, I think that if this game is anything like the last, two, it actually becomes extremely high effort and high intensity to the point where if you're not mastering the combat, it can be a real pain in the ass, and the bosses are all bullet sponges, and in fact

the beginning of Xenoblate 3, you fight this boss, who you're just like, you have to really wait a solid five minutes for it to go down. And the fact that the first boss in the game is itself a bullet sponge does not bode well for the rest of the combat in this game. That's the thing

that worries me most. Do you think it could be a case of a game where the story is really cool and you can just kick it down to easy and kind of blast through it and just get the story? Maybe, maybe. I don't know. I'll reserve judgment until I've had more time to play this game and I will give it more of a chance. I like JRPGs. I want them to succeed.

I want this series to be good. I want to enjoy one of these games. I just haven't really yet, unfortunately. And yeah, it's too bad. But man, Zeno Gertz, what a game. God, I keep thinking about the music in that game and the different, the way that it cuts, but the different cinematic techniques it uses.

It's such a brilliant, brilliant video game. I just don't know what happened. Don't know what happened. This is a dangerous question, but do you feel like Xenogers holds up if someone were to play it now? Please don't make me. Mani, what have you said?

What are you doing? I do want to know, though, what Jason thinks. I'm holding up my flashing reds alert. Stop saying. It holds. Okay, so a couple of things. So the text moves really slowly, so you have to play it with an emulator, like, period.

You need fast forward to get through the text, because the text is just like, it will drive you insane how slowly it moves and you can't toggle it to move faster. But, hey, 1998. I think it holds up well, despite some finicky stuff with, like, the isometric angles and, like, having to do jumping puzzles once in a while and that sort of weird stuff.

It does not hold up well if you are not a JRP fan, and you just struggled your way through Swaykoden, too. And, like, this is a game that's 80 hours long. I mean, part of what I'm asking, though, I mean, I'm asking on behalf of the listener, because I know they're not all like me, and some of them might be thinking, well, what about Sino Gears? And also, how's the translation?

Because that was one of my quibbles with Sweene Kodon. Yeah, it's pretty solid. There's some weird stuff, but it actually works because it's very consistent, and it's pretty coherent for the most part. It's just like, like, you'll notice some strange quirks to it, but they work for the most part. Like, one of the quirks is that there are a lot of just like, there's a lot of terminology thrown at you, a lot of proper nouns and stuff. And oftentimes they're surrounded by these, like, brackets to indicate that they're proper nouns.

And so it just kind of, you have to get used to the way that it's depicted. But once you get a hang of it, I mean, it's kind of like opening up a dense, like, sci-fi or fantasy novel where you have to really, like, commit to it. I think it's held up pretty well. The music is certainly held up. I think the story holds up. I think most of it holds up. It's just that you have to be willing to go through a ton of dungeons with random encounters, invisible random encounters and turn-based combat. And like, Maddie, you should not subject yourself to that.

Oh, it's not for me. Of course not. I'm more just imagining just a version of Jason who would get that story that you liked. but in a more playable package, basically, in the modern day. Because it sounds like what you liked was the story, not necessarily all the other hangups. Well, no, no, no. In that game, I like everything. I like the comment.

I like the story. I like the way that it's, there's a lot of interesting stuff. You upgrade your gears over time and like you buy parts for them and stuff and you can customize them in certain ways. You have to like deal with like, there's a lot of interesting systems in that game that just because they're built behind more of a traditional turn-based combat than like the MMO-style combat, which is just like turn-based combat, I think is so much better than like MMO-style Xenobl-blade combat. There's a lot more interesting strategy and just like more decisions,

more interesting decisions you can make. You also have this huge cast of characters that are all super interesting characters and each has the way that the story unfolds. You got like a good amount of time that you spend with each of the characters and each of them has their own storyline that is surprisingly nuanced and complicated and developed. And it's kind of like the opposite of Sukoden 2 in that sense. And that by the end of it, you really get to know. Yeah.

Well, well, even, no, more, it's more in depth. The characters go more, are a lot deeper than FF6. And you can definitely see some of the lineage there,

um, in terms of it being an ensemble party because it is very much an ensemble party. But yeah, there's just like a lot of good stuff to that game. I'll have to meet to it. And I think it does hold up well. It's just like, It's a big commitment.

That's what I would say. It's a big time commitment. But all these games are. And I think that like people, people are curious about the series. I don't know. I'm hoping to give Zeno Blade 3 a chance and stick with it. But yeah, I wish Zeno Gears was like playable on the Switch and like a remaster version. That'd be pretty cool.

I think you should just watch Avalian. That's my take on all of this. I think it'll really scratch your edge. Like I'm not kidding. I actually do think you should watch it. Yeah. I know you're not a huge anime fan, but if you're going to watch one, anime. Yeah. It kind of seems like that's the one.

How do I watch it? On Netflix. Are there like a billion different versions? It's on Netflix. It's on Netflix. No. No. I just watch it. I just go to Netflix and I take it in Avaynavna. Yeah, you go to Netflix.com and then you put in J. Shreyer, whatever your email is. And then your password, which we all know is we code into forever with a four. With the four is a number. Yeah. And then check out, check out Amagelian. It's pretty cool. It's a cool anime. Weird ending. I won't spoil it. okay okay okay um but yeah i mean i do think that like to be fair to give some credit to the xenoblade series i think if you stick with them you're rewarded with some like really interesting themes and story stuff story beats um i think for me the characters have just been so insufferable that i've

had a hard time sticking with them but i think they do explore some interesting ideas but yeah shulk in the first game and then wrecks in the second game are just such terrible main characters that it's really hard to like get a get a lot of commitment to them as opposed to some of the other the characters in zeno gears or even zeno saga zenosaga cosmos is a pretty badass main character and well she really she's she's one of the main characters the scientist who uh who like works with her is also the main character um also a series that has had pretty strong pretty good strong female protagonists over the years i would say that's one another strength of zeno gears is that has a really good um female kind and a starring co-star alongside the guy, the main guy you play us.

But anyway, so that's the Zeno series. That's what the deal is with them. Maddie, now that you've listened to this explanation, now do you have a deeper understanding of all things, Zeno? I do. Finally. Now I know. I don't have to play any of them.

Excellent. It feels great. All right. Let's take a break and then we will be back with one more thing. Hey there. Quick favor to ask. Will you help us out? by taking a five-minute survey at maximum fund.org slash survey. As you know, most of the support for MaxFund comes directly from folks like you, but many of our shows and our network also rely on limited

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There's something for everyone on our podcast, Baby Geniuses. Hosted by us, two horny adult idiots. Hang out with us as we try and fail to retain any knowledge at all. Every other week on Maximum Fun. And we are back. Kirk, Maddie, it is time for one more thing. Kirk, you played the cat game. Take us away. I did. I've, you know, as I mentioned, been just sort of lying down for the past week. and that's a pretty good time to play video games,

specifically on my Steam deck. And one of the games that I've been playing is Stray, a game that everyone was talking about a couple of weeks ago, and I just played and wanted to say that I think is really cool. I haven't quite finished it yet, but I'm pretty far in it, and it's a neat game. Have either of you played Stray? Not yet.

I would like to. No interest. I have interest. I believe it was zero interest. how Jason described it to us when we first mentioned it. I just don't like cats. Sorry to all you cat people out there. Maddie, however, just judging by Maddie's Instagram,

I'm going to say that Maddie does like cats. I'm getting over this bombshell where Jason doesn't like cats. Also, the look of horror on Maddie's face right now tells me that she likes cats. I don't know how to react to this at all. I'm just a dog person. I love dogs. I love dogs and cats. I refuse to claim a personage in that battle.

But regardless, I haven't played stray yet. been actually playing something else for work that maybe talk about in a couple weeks, but I would like to play it. Go on. So yeah, I am a dog person as well. I've never actually owned a cat, though I had cats, I guess my family had cats growing up, but I like cats. They're cool. And I like this game. I think it's got a really amazing cat in it. That's the thing that's the most remarkable about it. So Stray is made by a studio called Blue 12, a small indie studio. It's out on PlayStation platforms and Windows. You play as a cat, an orange. tabby, just a normal ass cat in a sort of not normal setting.

It first just looks like you're kind of exploring caves or I guess through the sewers with your cat friends and then you take a wrong step and you fall. And then it turns out you're actually in a, well, it's unclear, but what appears to be a post-human world, if not post-apocalyptic, post-human, there are no humans around. And you're in this kind of buried city full of robots and you befriend one robot that, it lets you talk to the other robots, and then you kind of go on an adventure to try to get back to the surface, and you also just learn a lot about what happened in this world.

You learn some things, and some things I think are left mysterious. So it's basically just an adventure game. I mean, you're mostly just platforming and trying to solve puzzles. There's some light combat. There's some sort of some chase sequences where these weird little things chase you around. But mostly you're just being a cat, and that's really the game's greatest strength. I think it's remarkable how realistic this cat moves.

It really jumps up onto things, just like a cat does. It kind of pours itself around the environment, this cat, in a way that's just very believable. And it's been the most remarkable thing about the game to me is just how, you know, you're in control of the cat, but you can't, like, you can't just jump around and do a lot of, you know, weird, goofy-looking stuff. Like, the cat is pretty, you don't have total control at all times. Like the jumps are prompts. You'll look up at a table and you'll see the jump button up here on it. And then you press and the cat perfectly jumps onto the table. So it's not like the cat always looks very elegant and graceful in that way that cats do.

But they just give you a lot of fun environmental prompts. You'll walk up to a rug and you can then press the triggers on the rug and the cat will kind of need the rug and do the, you know, cat needing thing. Or you can sort of snuggle up with robots or go to sleep with them, which is all very charming. And yeah, I just, you know, I don't have a ton of deep thoughts on it. It's not really that kind of game. But I'm impressed by it. I think it's like it's really beautiful looking and so well animated and well conceived. It just feels like it didn't really bite off more than it can chew.

At least the amount that I've played. I gather I don't have a lot left. I think it's only like five hours long. And I just like this kind of game. Like it almost feels like a play dead game, like a limbo or inside, even though it's not as gnarly and weird as those. It has that same feeling. of just being very compact and tidy, and it was kept within the scope that they apparently decided on for it, and just a small team making a game that's not big, but works well and

accomplishes what it sets out to do, and I think that's really cool. So, yeah, I really dig it. Nice. Yeah. Stray. Sounds cool. I think you'll like it, Maddie, just because I know how much you like cats. Yeah, I think I'll like it, too. Maddie, what's your own more thing? So mine is a movie, which is an adaptation of the Stephen King, that I made my one more thing a few weeks back, a book called Misery, which I believe came out in 87, and I watched the movie, which came out in 1990. And the reason I did that was because I got invited to guest on our favorite podcast, Just King Things, talk about misery. So the way they do, their episodes, is that the books are the free episodes, and you have to pay for the bonus

episodes where they talk about the movie adaptations of the books. And every now and And then they'll put an episode like that in the feed. I think Kirk's guest episode did eventually get released as a public episode. I think it did. Yeah. I went on to talk about the stand miniseries from the 90s. Great app if you want to be saved. It was very fun. So I'm not sure if it'll be available.

But I recommend not only listening but also supporting Just King Things because it's a great show. It was super cool to talk about misery, weird book. The movie is much funnier than I had remembered. Kathy Bates is in question. Kathy Bates, anytime you see Kathy Bates. I think it's, well, we talked about it a lot on the episode, but apparently they had a whole lot of trouble finding a leading man who was, it's James Kahn, who ends up playing the role of the Stephen King's self-insert character

who gets kidnapped by his crazed super fan, Annie Wilkes, played by Kathy Bates, who won an Oscar for her performance in the movie. The recently recently departed James Con. Yes, yes, yeah. This is a, he's performing well at what is some odd, direction in this movie to make it a bit funnier than you would expect. But when you hear the director is Rob Reiner of when Harry Met Sally at all, that might click into place for you. So not very many people wanted to direct this movie and not very men wanted to be the lead actor in it because it's

such a passive role and such a like woman dominated movie, which is really sad to hear. And I got to talk to Cameron and Michael about that on their show and, you know, sexism in the late 80s and early 90s. and I'm really glad this movie still happened, even though it kind of holds back on making Annie Wilkes as terrifying and weird and inhuman as she is in the novel. In the movie, she's actually more of a person, although she's still also terrifying in other ways. And that's interesting to see.

So I guess I recommend the book and the movie, but definitely the movie. It's fun. And it's not, maybe not as scary as you would think it was. It's weird. Do you think the reason for that is that, is that Kathy Bates just imbibes her with humanity because you're watching a person give a performance

as opposed to the book where you're getting like her inner monologue more, and it's this kind of more tortured mental picture. I think it's also because just because a human being is playing the role that person wants to imbue some motivation to a character's action. So they can't just be purely monstrous without that being alienating to the viewer. And Kathy Bates talked about how she had like researched, you know, people who had been murderers and what drives them to do that and it sort of incorporated that into her role and thinking about like, oh, maybe this character experienced abuse of some kind. And that's what led her to be

this kind of person. And so some of it is writing, some of it is directing, some of it is Kathy Bates' performance just imbueing this character with more humanity than she has in the book where she's just straight up scary. And it's much more of a straight horror novel. But I do think the other piece of it is that James Kahn in the movie just always seems a little sly and like he's always won up on Annie Wilkes, which in the book, the author character is constantly, like, in trouble and it's terrifying. And he's, like, not making it at all. And in the movie, James Con just kind of seems a little badass. That's also because James Con was a little bit badass. So, yeah, it's, it's, I still recommend it though. And I definitely recommend Just King Things. Pretty good podcast. I.M.

Sure is. Cool. Misery. My one more thing is another JRP that just came out to switch called live a live. I think that's how you pronounce it. Live Alive. Live Alive. Live Alive. Live alive. I don't know. I think it's called Live a live live. So this is a game. This is a fascinating game. This is a Switch remake of a Super Nintendo game that only came out in Japan. So this 2020 version is the only way to officially play it in English. You could download it and play like a fan translation patch based on the ROM, which I actually did dabble with a little bit back in the day, like 20 years ago or so, but this is the first official way to play it. And the remake is done in the style of like Octopeth Traveler and Triangle Strategy that kind of what Square is calling, Squarionics is calling HD2D, which is this beautiful looking, just kind of like modern classic approach to game graphics, which is gorgeous. And the game looks absolutely phenomenal as a result. So this game is

friggin' weird, you guys. It's really fascinating. So this is, game, I don't know if you know this, this is actually a predecessor to Chrono Trigger, kind of like how Xenogers is supposed to be a sequel to Chrono Trigger. This is kind of like a predecessor to it. And you can see kind of some of the recurring themes that would then go on to be in Chrono Trigger. So the premise is this. You, when you start off, you can pick between seven different characters. And each of those characters has their own little kind of vignette or short story or a JRP campaign, whatever the case may be. And so these span a whole bunch of different time zones.

There's the prehistoric character. There's the sci-fi robot. There's the Wild West character. There's the ninja shinobi dude in Imperial Edo, Japan. There's a martial artist. Also, there's seven different, totally wildly different characters. And each of them has their own little story that plays out. And so you can play them in any order and you pick them and you play through them.

And they all kind of have this fundamental, this kind of base. line gameplay that is this grid-based turn-based combat mechanic, but they all unfold very differently. One of them barely has any combat because it's all this kind of like alien-style horror story on a spaceship. This is the sci-fi one and like you're, it's a bird or mystery slash horror slash like being chased by an alien. Sounds pretty cool. It does. It's very, very Kirk. Another one is very maddy because it's just like a kind of a take on street fighter in that you don't even have to move around. You just kind of pick these different battles because you play

as this guy who wants to be the best wrestler in the world. And so he fights all these different wrestlers in this kind of like very, very much an ape on Street Fighter to the point where it's the same stage selection. It's the same like... And it's like 2D. They even have the same

like messages like the way in Street Fighter they'll have these little messages. The little victory messages and stuff. It says like, this guy's from Japan. This guy's from America. And it has like, yeah, the victory message. Yeah, exactly that. And so that's interesting. The prehistoric one, nobody knows English because they haven't learned languages yet.

So they all speak through kind of like emotes and stuff. And so these are all just weird different campaigns and they're all pretty weird. I really have enjoyed playing them. I've played through them all now. I've played a, spend a bunch of time with this game. And I've really enjoyed it. There's a certain amount of tedium that you have to expect here because it is a JRP from the 90s. And unfortunately, there is some like some backtrack.

some tedious, like, unnecessary combat. But anyway, then once you beat them all, you get this new campaign that's like another crazy campaign, and I won't spoil exactly what it is, but basically it has a plot twist that just kind of like ties everything together. And then once you beat that, you go on to a final campaign where you can put all of the seven party members or all the eight party members, whatever it is, together. And you can form a party with them and you carry on any items and, weapons and stuff you got in the first time you played as them and then you you make this

uber jrpg party and then you explore this brand new world that's like full of sidequist and secrets and stuff and uh adds a whole bunch of more time to the game but they made the stupidest possible design decision which is that like after most of the game uh in fact all seven of the short stories not a single one of them has invisible random encounters they all just have their own kind of weird systems but usually you see the enemies on screen if there are going to be enemies the final campaign and then the end of the game is totally invisible random encounters which fucking sucks. It's the worst. So it has added to the whole level of TDM by exponentially and really soured me on the end of the game, unfortunately.

But aside from that, it's really a weird experience and just a cool game overall. It's really weird. Weird that it came out today. Weird that they remade it. Weird that they released it in the U.S. for the first time ever. Just everything about it is very weird. And there's a lot of just like weird dialogue, a lot of like stuff you wouldn't expect to see from a Nintendo game, foul mouth stuff, fart jokes, like just weird shit. It's just such a strange experience.

Very, very weird game. Interesting. I have a code for this, so maybe I'll check it out. You should. You should check out the sci-fi campaign because that one seems up reality. But there's some other weird shit too. Like the Wild West campaign is all set in this one kind of stereotypical Wild West campaign. town and you start off you're a gunslinger and you walk into a saloon and there's tension and then

these outlaws come in and the premise is these outlaws are coming and you have eight days to set traps all across the town for the outlaws to run into and depending on how well you do you have this one big battle at the end of the campaign and you can either whittle down all of the NPCs if you set enough traps or only whittle down some of them or have to fight all of them at once for a super tough battle. So what you accomplish in the trap portion sets up how difficult the actual fight is. Yeah,

just a weird game. So is it possible to set up a fake town using the movie set from the movie that you're on to trick them all into going over there? And you go just full on blazing saddles and you set up a fake town. That was a beans cast callback for members. It's a bonus episode. But anyway, yeah, live-a-live. It's just a weird game.

If you want to experience something just super bizarre and unlike most games that you'll play, and if you're willing to look past some of the TDM or just kind of grind your way through it. Pretty cool. I recommend it. It's worth checking out. Cool. And a fun historical artifact.

Anyway, that is it for this week's episode. Another reminder, we will have the Marvel Beanscast. The July Beanscast is going to be hitting in early August. So this Friday. And then we will also have an August beans cast at the end of August. So stay tuned for that one too. Thank you. If you're wondering, how do I get these beancasts?

You just go to Maximumfund.org. Sign up today. Yep. Cheers. Mattie. I'll see you both next week. All right. See you next time.

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 clickpods and 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.