0:14

Welcome to a special episode of

0:16

Acts of the Blood God and

0:18

Independent RPG Podcast. I'm your host,

0:20

Kat Bailey. Joining me, Nadia Oxford.

0:23

Hello, Kat. Welcome to the great

0:25

Blood God recording surge where the

0:27

days and hours just don't matter

0:29

anymore. And

0:32

Eric Van Allen. At some

0:34

point, the barrier between mic and

0:36

person falls apart and I just

0:38

become podcast. I am audio made

0:41

manifest now. It sounds like a Cino bite.

0:44

Mm hmm. It's great. My skin falls away.

0:46

I've become one with the cube of pot.

0:49

You're forced to recite like sponsorships

0:53

into infinity and your skin falls

0:55

off at the same time. That sounds pretty bad, actually.

0:58

Dick pills. Yes.

1:04

Oh, hey, Lisa Batras. Yes,

1:11

we're here to talk about the year that was

1:13

2023 in RPGs. It was a historically great year

1:20

in many, many regards, but

1:22

also a very complicated year.

1:24

We're here to unpack a lot of

1:26

that. Talk about some of our favorite

1:29

RPGs and also crown our

1:32

favorite RPG of the year, the acts of

1:34

the blood God 2023 RPG

1:37

of the year. That has a nice ring to it.

1:39

It does. I think we do this

1:41

differently every single year after

1:44

like seven years of

1:47

recording, eight years of recording this show.

1:49

You would think that I

1:51

would figure something out. No,

1:53

we're not figuring shit out. We're

1:56

figuring out shit. Yeah, I think

1:58

we've done we have done. RPG

2:00

of the Year like recap. And

2:03

I think we've done it differently every single time. So

2:05

we don't really have a format, we're keeping it casual.

2:08

As always, if you enjoy the show, please leave

2:10

us a review on the podcast, your choice. And

2:13

you can follow me on Twitter at the underscore Kappa

2:16

not is at Nadia Oxford and Eric is

2:18

at CMOSI. We are

2:20

on Patreon at patreon.com/blood dot

2:22

pod. This episode is

2:24

going to be free, but the

2:27

actual Game of the Year Roundtable,

2:30

in which we will be joined by some

2:32

unconfirmed guests. Thank

2:35

you, Eric. Thanks, Eric is nodding

2:39

will be that will be

2:41

a special that will be available to

2:44

our patrons. So go check that

2:46

that's where we'll just sit and five and talk about all

2:48

of the games, all of the

2:50

games that came out. This is about the

2:52

RPGs. This is why you're

2:54

ostensibly listening to

2:56

the to the shows. I think if

3:00

you are shopping for

3:02

a family, maybe

3:04

I think this episode comes out on December

3:07

25. Actually, if

3:13

you want to do Boxing Day sales, shop

3:15

dot blood dot pod.com, where

3:17

we have tons of merch, it's very cold. There's a

3:19

cool hoodie for acts of the blood God among other

3:21

things. So go and check that out.

3:24

I'm actually I really like our merch. Maybe

3:26

maybe get a cool mug and fill it

3:28

up with the coffee and

3:30

have a little warm up. And of

3:33

course, subscribe to us. Upon

3:36

the release of this episode, we will be

3:38

just a few days away from doing our

3:40

Pantheon of the Blood God first one of

3:43

the year, starting with Xenoblade

3:45

Chronicles. So please

3:48

look forward to that. Okay,

3:51

let's tie it's time now to talk about

3:53

the year in RPGs that was 2023. And

3:56

the question that I have for

3:59

you to So when was

4:01

the last time we had a year this

4:03

good for RPGs?

4:06

I would venture to say that the last time we

4:08

had a year this stacked was 2017. I

4:13

wouldn't even go. I would say like this

4:15

stacked got it reminds me of the golden

4:17

days of the PlayStation where you had more

4:19

RPGs than you can possibly play and all

4:21

of them are really good. Yeah,

4:24

my first thought was 2017. I

4:26

think 2017 was just a good year for games

4:29

in general, but I think for RPGs

4:31

specifically, it hasn't been this stacked in

4:33

a while. 2020 was another one that

4:36

came to mind, but that was really only because we got Pathfinder,

4:39

FS7 Remake, Wasteland 3, a bunch of

4:42

like 13 Sentinels and stuff like that

4:44

all kind of mixed around in their

4:46

Hades. But I think in

4:48

general, 2023 is the best we've

4:50

had it in a long time for like

4:53

big RPG releases. Yeah,

4:55

2017, 2015, when I think of 2017, I think Persona 5. Yeah,

5:03

that's right. Near Automata, if

5:06

you want to say, what

5:08

was it Breath of the Wild came out that year

5:10

if you want to call it an RPG. Generally

5:13

we call 2017 a generally vintage

5:15

year. Maybe

5:20

another year was 2015, which is when we got

5:22

Witcher 3. I mentally

5:24

compare 2023 to 2015 because of Baldur's

5:26

Gate 3 and Witcher 3. I

5:33

put them in the same bucket for whatever reason, mostly

5:37

because Witcher 3 I think

5:39

really made a CD project

5:42

and IMO Baldur's

5:45

Gate 3, even though Larian had arrived and

5:47

CD project had already arrived to

5:49

some extent. I

5:52

think that those Baldur's

5:55

Gate 3 and Witcher

5:58

3 brought those games. brought

6:00

those studios truly into

6:02

the mainstream. Larian

6:05

is within gaming circles a

6:08

household name now. Yeah,

6:11

there are different games that do that

6:13

for every studio, right? Because like you

6:15

said, Larian kind of had divinity, which

6:17

put them on the map. And then

6:20

Baldur's Gate 3, which put them on everybody's

6:22

mind. And now whatever Larian does next is

6:24

going to be absolutely huge. Same thing for,

6:26

I think of FromSoft sometimes actually.

6:28

And I think this one's also arguable in terms

6:30

of whether it was Dark Souls or Elden Ring

6:33

that did that because Dark Souls certainly put them

6:36

on the broader gaming consensus map.

6:38

But Elden Ring was a hit

6:40

unlike anything I think they'd really had

6:42

before. It was a

6:44

hit that was of a different magnitude. And

6:46

I think it was the same kind of

6:48

magnitude we saw from Baldur's Gate

6:51

3. And so it is really exciting to

6:53

see studios have these big years where they've

6:55

been doing a thing, they've been doing it

6:57

well. And then it just does

7:00

so well, hits so right, hits

7:02

the right time, catches the right

7:04

fire. TikTok loves it.

7:06

It just spreads everywhere.

7:11

And now they're one

7:13

of the larger names and most

7:16

well known names now in games

7:18

alongside the likes of your EAs

7:20

and things like that. Yeah, as

7:22

someone who does not computer game very often

7:24

is like kind of getting caught up on

7:27

Western RPGs because of that. Games

7:29

like Elden Ring and Baldur's Gate 3, those are the

7:31

ones that really felt like they reached far

7:34

enough into the quote unquote mainstream that I said, okay,

7:36

I think this is in a

7:38

I'm in a position to give this a try.

7:40

And I think, you know, since it's so popular,

7:42

if I need help, they'll be

7:44

like a million people who tell me what

7:46

to do and just ask a question and

7:49

write it has the answer without fail. So

7:51

yeah, now that the internet is that much

7:53

more connected and consoles and computers are that

7:56

much more fused, like the aforementioned podcast monster

7:58

we mentioned earlier, that's about

10:00

had this big reorganization in August where

10:02

they said they were slimming

10:04

down to matching more

10:06

like agile. It was a very buzzwordy

10:08

thing. That was very, very bad the

10:10

way they worded that. I literally

10:12

just went to go back search

10:14

and look up layoffs that happened

10:16

this year. And it was

10:19

just pages full of Google

10:21

search results of different ones over and

10:23

over again. It really

10:25

can't be understated how many layoffs

10:27

there were across the entire industry

10:31

this year. We mentioned

10:33

media sites. Obviously, Waypoint was shut down

10:35

and Remap started up in its place.

10:38

But there were layoffs at a lot of different

10:40

gaming sites too. My own site was not immune

10:42

to this. And

10:46

it sucks because number

10:49

one, the devs are the ones who

10:51

make the games that make

10:53

all this happen. And

10:55

number two, these outlets, these places are

10:57

not to put ourselves on too high

11:00

of a pedestal here, but we are

11:03

the apparatus for us to critique and

11:05

ultimately laud and applaud the things that

11:07

are made and to celebrate to talk

11:09

about them, to share that with more

11:11

people. And as

11:13

these things disappear, what

11:16

is left is kind of

11:18

what my ultimate question has continued to be when

11:20

the people that make them and the people that

11:22

comment on them and the people that bring

11:25

things to this industry about the games that

11:27

we love, when those

11:29

chairs start to disappear from the musical

11:31

chairs game, what's

11:33

left at the end of the

11:35

day? And I don't know what

11:37

it is. So maybe a lot of

11:39

indies. And this was a good year for

11:42

indies too. I think this will probably we'll

11:44

talk about it some here and probably even

11:46

more in another pod that we have coming

11:48

up about hidden gems of the year. But

11:51

this was a very good year for indie

11:53

games and indie RPGs too. And

11:57

that at least makes me somewhat hopeful. I

12:00

think the thing that disappoints me as ever:

12:02

losing. A lot of

12:04

veterans with the. A lot of

12:06

skills. A. Lot it takes

12:08

time. To. Learn how to make these games

12:11

and I don't blame a lot of people. Better.

12:14

A long time in are very

12:16

skilled designers. For. Saying you know

12:18

what? I don't even know. Games: I I

12:20

can go and. Make. So much more

12:22

money with so much more stress. In.

12:24

Other industries. And the.

12:27

Seems that the case for. The

12:30

media as well. It's been an. Outrageously

12:33

hard here for the media, especially

12:35

because of I'm. A

12:37

I and everything that's been

12:40

happening with last sites we

12:42

lost Way Point. I'm

12:45

among others we've had. Serious.

12:48

Lay offs and you know, of course

12:50

we all have a lot of friends.

12:52

I'm in those spaces as well. I'm

12:54

really glad to see sites like Aftermath

12:56

and Such kind of rising from the

12:59

ashes a little bit worse, certainly in

13:01

an era And an we talked about

13:03

this on the show before. Were

13:06

On! The. You

13:08

know you gotta go start your own thing

13:10

in some way las and go straight to

13:12

the people of if you can. I

13:15

have to admit I will never work

13:17

for a company. Again after us gamer

13:19

it is burned me too badly and

13:21

I said you can't trust anyone There

13:23

is no jobs. To carry like zero Zip?

13:25

Not up. And. It's not

13:27

even like you'll get like fired in a dignified

13:30

way. you're gonna get laid off of the most

13:32

like. Awful way possible, the

13:34

most awful email telling you you don't say

13:36

and or whatever happened with Bioware which is

13:38

just absolutely. Abhorrent. So.

13:42

Yeah. There's just not a lot of dignity and

13:44

work anymore. in general. I find this is a

13:47

shame to them to be that way. I

13:49

agree. Ah well. Not.

13:51

To be like a total bummer. Ah, What

13:54

else does twenty twenty three mean?

13:57

A T All. Nadia,

14:00

I mean have to just kind of. Not.

14:02

Only does I get like the game I

14:04

was anticipating which isn't Zelda shares the kingdom

14:07

and it was even better than I anticipated.

14:09

But also, you have that quintessential surprise that

14:11

you had no idea you gonna like that

14:13

much. Which for me was. His borders gate.

14:15

Three and are so just. It's so

14:18

rare to have a year where there

14:20

are too light kind of. Industry/life

14:23

changing. Games. Like.

14:26

One. At one half of the year and yeah than the other

14:28

half. the as a thank you the as very. Convenient. Ah

14:31

yeah, I just. I always has

14:33

something to play and I still have so much

14:35

to play so it's just been. I've.

14:37

Been entertained as Wonder Thing as A for this year

14:40

I've been very entertained. I never found myself Board of

14:42

the video games he had are on tap. The

14:46

I said this some point

14:48

recently that are. The. Reason

14:50

why I want developers to get

14:52

better recognition from different places like

14:55

the game Words is because this

14:57

year was pretty bad for me

14:59

and Games got me through a

15:01

lot of bad of shutouts to

15:04

Boulders gave three. Honestly, I. I.

15:06

It was my most anticipated coming into the

15:08

year off of the early access and stuff

15:10

had I been pretty much says holding off

15:12

on playing it for a long time because

15:14

I played a bunch of. The. Act

15:17

One early access and didn't want to

15:19

know me more, didn't want to delve

15:21

too deep ends are. Playing.

15:23

That and basically just a

15:26

he's for days on end.

15:28

Blasting through was. Delightful.

15:31

And so many ways sandwiches of the kingdom I

15:34

I must have play Blake. Forty

15:36

to eighty hours of ah to

15:39

the Kingdom in about the span

15:41

of a we get a house

15:43

ah, just constantly playing and obviously

15:45

writing for for work and stuff

15:47

like that. But. The.

15:49

games are incredible this year and the games

15:51

are made by by studios they'd been building

15:53

these things for years you know yeah father's

15:55

gave three didn't happen in a vacuum block

15:57

bothers gave three happened because larry and me

16:00

did the original Sin 1 and 2 before it.

16:02

And Tears of the Kingdom didn't happen to

16:04

Vacuum. Breath of the Wild came before it.

16:07

Skyward Sword came before it. It

16:10

was another confirmation that the industry

16:13

rewards studios that are

16:15

allowed to build and are allowed to iterate. And

16:19

I think another interesting thing I've noticed this

16:21

year is that maybe

16:23

y'all can engage my take on

16:25

this. And this isn't fully

16:28

RPG. It's a little RPG and I'll explain

16:30

how. I

16:32

feel like the industry at large is starting to reject

16:35

live service games. Do you think so? I

16:38

do. I think we're just at saturation. Like

16:40

if you didn't get in early enough. I mean

16:42

that is part of it. Saturation is

16:44

absolutely part of it to be clear. And

16:46

to be clear, I don't mean just all

16:48

blanket live service games. I mean some of

16:51

the more transparent live

16:53

service games because

16:55

I look at things like there have

16:57

been so many extraction shooters

17:00

that have popped up and disappeared in the span of

17:02

2023. There have been so many. Here's

17:05

this new game that I

17:08

don't know. Here's an Ubisoft live service

17:10

game. And then six months

17:12

later Ubisoft live service game is no more.

17:17

And that might be an Ubisoft problem.

17:19

But I found

17:22

it really interesting that even some live service

17:24

games have struggled to

17:26

keep going and to keep up with

17:28

their pace. And that in

17:31

its place a lot of like the trends that you look

17:33

at the games that are big right now that it feels

17:35

like other studios are starting to

17:37

look at are the single player games. And

17:39

so I'm curious now to see if there

17:42

is suddenly a big shift back to trying

17:44

to make a prestige

17:47

single player game again. Because for the longest

17:49

time it's been everybody make a battle royale

17:51

and then everybody make an extraction shooter. I

17:55

feel bad for any studio that gets told hey go make

17:57

a Baldur's Gate 3. And

18:00

make it quicker. Yeah. Yeah. And

18:03

better. And there are, to be clear,

18:05

there's not a dash of live service games happening.

18:07

There are certain games that are probably going to

18:09

withstand it, but they're ones that, like Cat said,

18:11

got in early, established themselves, got

18:13

their awkward first steps

18:16

out of the way early on, so

18:18

to speak. You're your Final Fantasy XIV's

18:20

and your Destiny II's and things like

18:22

that. But

18:24

it kind of feels like the cutoff point has

18:26

happened at this point. I think

18:29

it's because live service games, if you

18:31

screw them up, that's a very expensive

18:33

screw up. And what are you going

18:35

to do to keep the servers online for a game

18:37

that nobody plays? So I would hope that devs

18:39

will learn quickly, like, oh, crap, OK,

18:42

this isn't flying anymore. I guess that's the end of

18:44

that. But as

18:46

I've said, I've done a lot

18:48

of consultation this year and talked

18:50

to developers, and especially in

18:53

Asia, and a lot of them seem to realize, OK,

18:55

the West has a very

18:57

different opinion on live service and free

18:59

to play games than Asia does. So it

19:02

could just starting to be to really

19:04

kind of flip over. Or as you said, Eric,

19:06

they won't disappear, but they will definitely

19:09

die down. Kind of like the way

19:11

free to play mobile games are getting shut down left and

19:14

right here. I mean, even

19:16

the games that are still going for

19:18

live service or gotcha or something like

19:20

that are starting to imitate the prestige

19:22

games more than they're imitating

19:25

their own live service games like Honkai

19:27

Star Rail, which we'll probably talk about a little bit

19:29

in this podcast, because I do think it's a genuinely

19:32

pretty good game, is

19:35

a turn based RPG. It is a turn

19:37

based RPG with gotcha elements and it's

19:39

framed like a turn based RPG.

19:41

It's structured like one. It does

19:43

all the things that turn based

19:45

RPG does. It just also has

19:48

gotcha stuff bolted onto it. Same

19:51

with a lot of the the closed alpha

19:53

or whatever stuff that has been floating around

19:55

for Zemler Zone Zero, which is coming out

19:57

in 2024 and is one that I'm actually

19:59

really looking for. The to looks like

20:01

a full line action rpg. That.

20:04

Is also a gotcha game. By

20:06

it I mean oil or hoy

20:09

over his has gotten pretty good

20:11

with Jensen Impact and on kind

20:13

of them less at taking a

20:15

format taking a game tape. And.

20:18

Building the live service parts on to

20:20

it, but still having something of substance

20:22

below. I think that's why they have

20:25

largely outlasted many other gods against the

20:27

Guy. I'm gonna be real. I.

20:29

Don't know how long ever

20:31

Crisis is A or have

20:34

of multiple other Square Enix

20:36

mobile games have a already

20:38

fallen. Ah. I guess as

20:40

to the first soldier, I think that the

20:42

except for free to play games are just

20:44

making more money than ever. It's

20:46

games against an impact and whom guys

20:49

are rail. But.

20:51

As really hard a muscle incest base because

20:53

if you're playing again like that, you're putting

20:55

a lot of hours into it to build

20:57

a character and you know, have assigned Branch

20:59

out. Ah yes,

21:01

I agree that our current

21:03

environment definitely favors. Established

21:07

franchises. And.

21:09

As it is hard to. It

21:12

if you try to create something new. best

21:14

of luck to you. I. Mean it

21:16

was out as Amazon at a

21:18

game like New World. And

21:21

people came flooding into that. And.

21:24

I think there's a real hunger. For.

21:27

Something. New something. Interesting.

21:31

Because. So many of these. Established

21:34

live service games are

21:36

known quantities and in

21:38

some ways quite boring

21:40

people. Have a plane of people. Them

21:43

playing World of Warcraft for twenty years. They're

21:45

really hungry for a new Mm of

21:47

Rpg like and mom and how they're

21:49

hiding it or now they're playing it

21:51

in a while. Classic season of the

21:53

every hour know. visit another they can

21:56

reboot. Wow people hold you over act

21:58

which is pretty cool. So

22:01

I don't know. I do

22:03

think that's. A There is.

22:06

I don't want paint in broad strokes. But.

22:09

I. Think. That There's a generation

22:11

of gamers coming up who have been

22:13

playing live service games older life, Him.

22:16

And. I mean

22:18

I read a story at I read

22:20

something on twitter recently about pin someone

22:23

saying. Yeah, my kid doesn't

22:25

want games. Them on Roebuck's. Yeah

22:28

now. I. Like kids are

22:30

older, have grown up spending

22:32

virtual currency so. One

22:34

way or another. like service games are

22:37

just some boy unavoidable part of the

22:39

young. The.

22:41

Video. Game landscape. but when they

22:44

die, they die hard. I.

22:46

Guess this is this isn't a

22:49

terrible time to pivot into talking

22:51

about shutting out Rpgs. Are

22:54

shut out one day. Maybe you wouldn't expect.

22:57

I sort of think the Ago for doesn't

22:59

get the desert respect it deserves. It can. I

23:01

got there. He did net. I

23:03

don't think I got buried actually. I think adam.

23:05

Was very her and way it is

23:08

very successful for like a month. Icy.

23:12

And. Then season one came out

23:14

and season one was there are

23:16

traverse So rains or not because.

23:19

It was quite unbalanced with some the

23:21

classes and the grind was very. Apparent

23:23

fans were very happy unhappy a lot

23:25

of them bounce just in time for

23:28

a boulder escape. three. But

23:32

at the same time. When.

23:34

We are playing it especially. The main

23:36

story mode. It was. Very

23:39

fun. It was of really well

23:41

done Diablo game. And I was

23:43

just complaining of complaining. Before the show

23:45

about Monster hunter rise not having

23:47

cross say. I love that

23:50

I can play my. Diablo

23:52

for on my Pc. Ah

23:54

my friends can play on the Ps Five

23:56

or whatever and I we can like jump

23:58

on and play couch co op. Like it

24:00

all feels very seamless. Uh,

24:03

it moves at a really nice

24:05

pace that I find the

24:07

return to the more Gothic horror, oh, very

24:10

welcome after Diablo three. And

24:13

I, and

24:16

even the live service component got

24:20

considerably better in season two. Like

24:23

the developers kind of did everything

24:25

right in terms of hearing fan

24:27

feedback and addressing it. I

24:30

don't think Diablo four was even nominated for best

24:32

RPG this year. I don't think so. No. And

24:35

I think that's a huge oversight. I

24:37

think it's absolutely one of the best RPGs of the

24:39

year, not, not the game of the year, but one of

24:42

the best RPGs for sure. I'm

24:44

really looking forward to the expansion. I

24:46

think the interesting thing about Diablo four is

24:49

that it's, it felt like

24:51

it got caught up in something that is

24:53

a more modern thing for us.

24:55

And it's that like, when

24:57

you have a game that is a live service game,

24:59

you have a game that is being constantly updated. It

25:02

is now under intense

25:05

scrutiny by everyone. It has to have content.

25:07

It has to have content now, and it

25:09

has to have content tomorrow. And it has

25:12

to be playable by people who play games

25:14

for eight hours a day. And they're going

25:16

to play your game for eight hours a

25:18

day, five days a week. Cause

25:20

their job is streaming and their job is content

25:22

creation. And they're going to find things to talk

25:25

about because that is how they make money. And

25:29

I do genuinely feel, I realize the irony

25:31

of this as a podcaster saying

25:34

this, but I do

25:36

feel like that sort of looking

25:39

at games has shifted the

25:42

discussion around games forever. Now,

25:44

if one person

25:46

of moderate stature says,

25:50

Oh, I'm getting bored of Diablo four, then it

25:53

becomes a news beat for the day. It

25:55

becomes a thing that we all talk about.

25:57

It becomes The Big Controversy. How

25:59

is. The you're going to

26:01

address this and. I.

26:04

Don't think it's a bad thing that. People.

26:06

Can. You. Know point out. oh

26:09

I played to the into this game,

26:11

hit the and got bored, walked away.

26:13

It's the way that it gets turn

26:15

into something that we have to talk

26:17

about of time, something we have to

26:19

stress and an Impala about and it

26:22

just becomes a lot and it puts

26:24

really. Difficult.

26:26

Expectations I think on anybody making

26:28

alive service game in twenty twenty

26:30

three and be odds is that

26:32

now they have to deal with

26:34

a community that is hyper fixated

26:36

on their game and is going

26:38

to look for everything they can

26:40

to do content wise is going

26:42

to always be scrutinizing and. Possibly.

26:45

Scrutinizing to a degree that really, I

26:48

don't think anyone could expect again to

26:50

live up to that many people looking

26:52

for all these different things. And one

26:54

game, maybe fourteen glues of even fourteen

26:57

had. it's fair share of critics this

26:59

year for the way that it roll

27:01

out. A lot of it's patch stuff.

27:03

so lame. it's. It. Is

27:05

tough out there. Annoyance Ice I empathize lot

27:07

with people who work on the other for

27:09

who had said to deal with a lot

27:12

of that because. They've. Got expansions

27:14

the Pi: if they've got a lot

27:16

of stuff in the pipe and they're

27:18

working under conditions that are at best.

27:20

Ah, on a good day? Fine essence,

27:23

ah but otherwise over the last year

27:25

that is a blizzard as we know

27:27

from reports and everything has not been

27:29

the easiest place to work at. And

27:32

so I. I have a lot

27:34

of empathy for the folks have had to to

27:36

go through my that soon as crowd the other

27:38

end with the game Diablo for so yeah. Yeah,

27:41

he says something the other day Eric

27:43

about how like the game awards don't

27:45

look back heel of forward in our

27:47

what's next, what's next Lucky, tell us

27:49

now. It's all about like giving everyone

27:52

kind of juicy tidbits rant about on

27:54

you tube and it's. Not

27:56

exactly. The. right time as

27:58

you to have they wanted industry that's

28:01

better to work in because

28:03

yeah as you say like you

28:05

know we have content for games but it

28:08

can't you can't snap our fingers and and

28:10

deliver it you gotta wait gotta learn how

28:13

to wait again patience

28:15

is a

28:18

virtue you

28:21

hear that that's

28:28

the awkward silence of a family dinner after

28:31

you just got caught vaping most

28:34

face contain high levels of nicotine and

28:37

disappointment brought

28:41

to you by the real cost and the FDA

28:44

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embrace all your holiday traditions Kroger

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fresh for everyone what

29:15

do you Eric throw out a game I

29:19

think before we talk about anything else

29:24

we got to talk about it Nadia we

29:26

got to discuss the game we got to

29:28

discuss the boy we got to discuss octopath

29:30

travelers I

29:33

didn't inject soon enough and we'll go like

29:35

starfield no no I

29:37

will dunk on starfield later

29:39

look at my poor children

29:42

alone I think in the

29:44

controversial the misunderstood the huddled

29:47

RPGs yearning to be free come

29:50

over here starfield come over here Diablo

29:52

4 it's okay they can't hurt you finally

29:54

someone is standing up for Diablo

29:57

4 made by Activision Blizzard

32:00

of the scale for me. And

32:02

some of the high points in that game

32:04

are just fantastic. But two

32:07

things I really do want to shout out about Octopath 2.

32:10

Number one is the score. The score

32:12

is absolutely incredible. It should

32:14

have been a best music nominee hands down.

32:16

Some of the music in that game is

32:19

just all timer music. It

32:21

is so fantastic. Not just the theme. I know I've talked

32:23

a lot about how much I love the main theme of

32:25

Octopath and how much I like that we have a new

32:28

RPG theme that is instantly

32:30

recognizable and memorable. But

32:32

some of the boss music, especially near the end

32:34

of the game when you're facing some of the

32:36

final bosses is so good. It's so excellent. I

32:40

also want to shout

32:42

out just the this

32:44

is going to be hard to describe, but like the way

32:46

that the path interactions work with the world. It

32:49

is a subtle thing that Octopath

32:51

2 does so, so well, because

32:53

you have basically this giant set

32:55

of verbs that you can do

32:57

and you have essentially twice as

33:00

many as you did before because

33:02

you have the day and night actions. And

33:05

then you also kind of have two extra

33:07

time periods that add like little nuances if

33:10

you wait long enough. But the

33:13

way you can use those to solve quests

33:15

to come up with interesting ideas about how

33:17

to get around people, about how to get

33:19

things from people, about how to get information

33:21

about people. Think

33:23

back to this is going to be like a mild spoiler for how

33:26

to get a hidden endgame

33:28

weapon for Octopath. I

33:30

don't think you would find it naturally because it's

33:32

pretty hard to find, but if you

33:34

don't want to hear this, just skip ahead like a minute

33:36

or so. Later

33:39

in the game, as part of Partitio's

33:41

arc, I think you can find this

33:44

house that collects books about various

33:46

things. That's kind of how they peel you off about

33:48

the endgame items

33:50

and bosses and stuff are hidden. And

33:53

one of them talks about a boy

33:55

in a town up north. And so if

33:58

you go up there, you have to... You

34:00

have to literally just look for a child

34:03

that's acting weird. And you can start talking to the

34:05

children and they'll be like, yeah, yeah, we're all hanging

34:07

out, but it's kind of weird that one kid over

34:09

there is kind of different. So you kind of talk

34:11

to him and he's not really saying much, but you

34:14

can inspect him and he's got like weird

34:16

stuff on him. Like

34:19

the teddy bear, that's not spelled teddy

34:21

bear, but with like alternating caps. Yeah,

34:23

yeah, alternating caps letters. And

34:25

so you have to actually pay attention to

34:27

the book, read the book and remember and

34:29

talk to the kids and

34:31

see that, oh, they always see the

34:33

kid like standing out overlooking

34:36

the cliff at like sunrise or

34:38

something. So you have to literally go and wait

34:41

for him to show up and

34:43

then interact with him specifically with

34:45

Temenos, I think, and

34:48

beat him with Temenos' path action, which by

34:50

the way is one of the hardest encounters

34:52

for that Temenos path action in the game

34:54

where you have to break somebody before they

34:57

defeat you. They have to torture

34:59

a kid basically. Yeah, yeah, you have to interrogate

35:01

the kid. And the

35:04

monster inside the kid is real messed up,

35:06

is arguably one of the hardest enemies I've

35:08

fought in that game. And I had to

35:10

literally kit Temenos out specifically to fight this

35:12

enemy because it's

35:15

a one-on-one fight. And then

35:17

you finally defeat it and

35:19

you get the Sun Shadow Staff,

35:21

which is the super special, like

35:24

extra powerful cursed item for

35:26

that class in the game. All

35:28

of that happens because you

35:30

paid attention to things in the world and

35:32

you thought about how to use your path

35:34

actions and you used your path actions to

35:37

discover information, to uncover

35:39

items, see

35:41

their descriptions and then acquire

35:44

them using those path

35:46

actions. And Octopath

35:48

does this everywhere to

35:50

a degree that I think is

35:52

honestly kind of mind boggling that

35:55

so many different quests can respond

35:58

to the way that you interact with the world. to

38:00

an RPG, just absolutely taking everything

38:02

that came before and building

38:05

up on it in such an effective way

38:07

while still honestly keeping so much

38:09

of the charm that made the original work. The combat

38:11

system is still fantastic. Oh, I love combat. But

38:14

they found ways to make combat so much

38:16

more interesting because with the latent powers and

38:18

the secret classes all work together in harmony,

38:21

create these really, really cool synergies in this

38:23

game where you can do

38:25

some really cool turn setups and

38:27

do tons of damage but also

38:29

have these characters that feel really

38:31

potent because you found that,

38:33

oh, Partishio with this secret class that

38:35

lets him cast single target spells across

38:38

the entire party, suddenly now he

38:40

can do these things like have everybody rest

38:42

for, you know, four boosts and that's just

38:44

an instant mass heal and things like that.

38:46

Merchant is kind of OP in this game.

38:48

I love it. It's

38:51

yeah, even just the merchant being able to

38:53

find different mercenaries around the world and then

38:55

defeat them and now you can hire them

38:57

and send them at enemies to attack them

38:59

and I know from

39:01

the show Jesse Vitale was playing Octopath

39:04

2 to the credits recently

39:06

and was constantly using the merchant's ability

39:08

to hire this one army where you

39:10

literally just send an army at the

39:13

head of me to attack them.

39:16

And it rules. It's it's so cool.

39:19

I think one of my favorite parts in

39:22

Octopath 2 was I just I

39:24

was finishing the game. I was near the

39:26

very end of the game and I was

39:28

walking around near Hikari's home

39:31

city in Koo and

39:33

I walked outside and there was

39:35

this little like arena

39:37

kind of this square platform like

39:39

the cell games arena. The

39:42

first thing I thought of what I saw was the cell

39:44

games because I have two marine

39:46

cells. But I went over there and there

39:48

was a guy standing up there and

39:51

it said like poorly skilled student or something like

39:54

that and he wanted to duel Hikari and so

39:56

he used Hikari's path action to fight him and

39:58

I beat him. beat him up and it was

40:00

super easy. I was way over level to this

40:02

point. He was so low level. And

40:05

when I came back later, he was now

40:07

like moderately skilled student. And I was

40:10

like, I see what you're

40:12

doing Octopath two. And

40:14

you can keep fighting him and you will beat

40:16

him, but then he will get back up and

40:19

be stronger for it. And so you can

40:21

keep going back. And I'm

40:24

betting, I've not fully done that line to

40:26

see how far it goes or looked it

40:29

up or anything. But I would hazard a

40:31

guess that there's some really good abilities for

40:33

Hikari hidden behind that. And that's just a

40:36

thing in the world that you can go do. And there's

40:38

a lot of that. Speaking of cell

40:40

games, that's like a saying. You

40:43

hit him. That's go-koo. And I

40:45

get up again. And

40:47

I don't see for saying. Yeah, I love

40:49

Octopath Traveler too. I think it is a

40:51

highlight of the year. And honestly, something

40:54

that I really hope Square Enix took

40:56

note of because it's

41:00

something they should continue investing in

41:02

is that team, those

41:04

ideas, that kind of RPG.

41:06

Cause I think it balances out a lot

41:09

of what we saw the rest of from

41:11

them this year, obviously, Forspoken Final Fantasy 16,

41:13

like big prestige, triple-A

41:16

games, and you can have varying opinions

41:18

on all those, but Octopath

41:20

two feels much closer to their roots in

41:22

a way that is exciting and not close

41:25

to their roots in a bad way, like

41:27

Portopia, the AI. I

41:32

want my grandma the whole recipe for napalm. Oh,

41:35

Portopia. My

41:40

grandma just singing a song called What is

41:42

the Increase for Napalm? The

41:46

whole AI component has been, it's

41:48

made this year weird. It's still

41:50

feel like everything's been really unhinged

41:53

this year overall. I feel like Web

41:55

3.0, wherever the hell

41:57

we are, just as much as Tech Bro is doing

41:59

things we've... that

44:01

person could theoretically prove that they are not

44:03

AI, but it wouldn't be true AI. And

44:08

so it's the whole idea that like

44:10

you can imitate certain responses to clear

44:13

certain ideas and tests, but you're still

44:15

not creating sentient thought, you're just writing

44:17

something that knows how to answer your

44:19

question right. And that's

44:21

kind of where we're at right now

44:23

is we're creating systems that know how

44:25

to answer a question correctly. And oftentimes

44:27

still get that wrong, as you noted with

44:29

your my grandma's favorite

44:32

recipe for Nate. But

44:35

to stay on

44:37

a positive topic, Nadia, what

44:39

was one of your takeaways from this year? I

44:42

just want to give a shout out because I don't think anyone

44:44

else will except for Kat. I forgot that

44:47

Fire Emblem Engage

44:49

came out this year. I completely forgot.

44:52

And I loved it. I really enjoy

44:54

I think that was the Fire Emblem game I enjoyed

44:56

most like, I know the story isn't

44:59

as good as Three Houses, I understand why they'd

45:01

want to go back to Three Houses for the

45:03

lovey dovey sort of thing that's extremely popular with

45:05

a game like Fire Emblem. But the

45:07

fact that just kind of took this game and said

45:09

like, Hey, here's kind of like a celebration of this

45:12

franchise and they that was a really good celebration. I

45:14

really enjoyed it. And I'm excited to see what's next

45:16

Fire Emblem. Me too. Fire

45:18

Emblem Engage is one of my favorite games of

45:21

the year. And I guess this is where I

45:23

get to climb up on my soapbox and

45:26

talk about it a little bit. The

45:28

thing that, gosh, it's

45:30

been a while since I finished it.

45:32

So admittedly, my memory

45:34

is a little bit hazy. But

45:38

the I thought

45:41

it got a lot right about the

45:44

actual tactical gameplay component. I

45:48

don't think I'm saying anything particularly new

45:50

by saying that for

45:52

as much as I liked Three Houses, I thought

45:55

the actual gameplay the actual

45:57

maps were pretty poor. And

46:02

that dampened the experience for

46:04

me a little bit. I would like to go

46:06

back because I think there's

46:08

a lot of other stuff that makes it really

46:10

special. I think

46:12

the thing that I really like

46:14

about Fire Emblem Engage is the

46:16

intricacy of the tactical

46:19

experience. And Fire

46:22

Emblem at its heart has always been,

46:24

okay, so there's

46:26

tactics RPGs and there's strategy RPGs.

46:28

I would call Final

46:30

Fantasy Tactics, despite its name, a

46:32

strategy RPG because you're strategizing

46:35

at a high level about

46:37

what your characters are doing,

46:39

right? You're thinking, what is the

46:41

build that I want to create for this

46:43

character so that they're totally

46:46

broken? And yes, there's

46:48

terrain, but usually the terrain is

46:50

pretty basic and it's more like

46:53

some characters line up from across one another and

46:55

then they beat each other up. Because

46:58

Fire Emblem has always been more at its

47:01

best, almost like

47:03

a proper RPG, but a

47:07

turn-based grid kind of situation. You're

47:09

exploring castles, you're

47:11

finding treasure. There

47:13

are sub-objectives to

47:15

do. And I

47:18

thought Fire Emblem Engage did

47:20

that really, really well, actually.

47:24

I loved the graphics. It's

47:27

a beautiful game on the Nintendo Switch,

47:29

especially on OLED. Gorgeous.

47:31

I couldn't believe how good it looked. And

47:33

it felt like every

47:36

level was an interesting

47:38

challenge. There was a lot

47:41

of, even if

47:43

they weren't very deep, they were at least interesting

47:46

to look at most of the time. And

47:49

they were really fun to

47:51

customize. I thought

47:53

the 3D hub was really

47:56

well done and fun to

47:58

explore. I actually like the school

48:01

and three houses that much. I'm just going to

48:03

put it, put that out there. I found

48:05

it a little basic. I

48:08

like the characters a lot more than the school itself,

48:10

like the actual environment. And I got a little old

48:13

after a while just

48:16

chilling in these grounds and going through the

48:18

same routines over and over

48:20

again where I felt like I spent

48:22

tons of time thinking about how

48:24

I was going to grow my characters. And as I got to know

48:26

all of the systems and dig deeper into

48:28

the things that I wanted to do, I was going to

48:30

deeper and deeper and deeper into it. I realized that actually

48:32

Fire Emblem Engage is a

48:34

really special and really well done

48:37

tactics RPG. And I understand why

48:39

a lot of people

48:41

weren't able to get into

48:43

it because yeah, it's a

48:45

very straightforward story about the

48:47

evil is happening. Evil

48:50

things happening, everyone. Let's do this. Yeah,

48:53

I barely remember the story.

48:55

I mean, there's some twists in

48:57

there, you know, when it comes to the

49:00

main character, they actually explained the aqua

49:02

fresh hair. They do. They do. I

49:04

love aqua fresh hair. I

49:08

liked girl divine dragon. It

49:12

sort of annoys me that Fire

49:14

Emblem not only

49:16

has fallen out of the discourse, but that people go,

49:18

well, it's not three houses, so I don't like it

49:21

because Engage,

49:24

I'm so grateful it exists. I'm

49:27

so grateful that Intelligent Systems made it and

49:29

it feels counter

49:32

to the momentum of

49:34

the series. So that makes it feel

49:36

even more special that it exists.

49:39

And I'm

49:41

excited for another three houses style

49:44

Fire Emblem. I think that that's pretty

49:46

much inevitable. I just

49:48

hope that they find a way to

49:51

combine the best of Engage and three

49:53

houses into one truly momentous. Tactics

49:56

RPG. That's my wish and launch it with the Switch too.

50:00

Yeah, let's go. Let's go, Nintendo. Fire Emblem's are

50:02

a dime a dozen these days. Intelligent

50:04

Systems seems to do well with

50:06

them, but they're really well done. Did

50:09

Koi Tecmo work on this one? I

50:11

think Koi Tecmo does some really cool stuff. No, Koi

50:13

Tecmo worked on Three Houses. But

50:15

I think Koi... I'm looking.

50:17

No, it's Koi Tecmo worked on Three

50:20

Houses. Yeah, that was

50:22

the big one. But

50:24

this was more of a love letter to the series.

50:27

In so many ways. Oh my god. I love

50:30

the actual... Koi Tecmo did also

50:32

collaborate on this one, by the way. I

50:34

love the engaged characters. I love getting...

50:36

So do I. All of

50:38

the engaged characters. I loved playing their maps.

50:41

Yeah. That's like, oh,

50:43

let's go back to this particular

50:45

Fire Emblem and do this tribute map.

50:48

And they were really hard, but really fun.

50:52

Yeah. It's

50:55

a delight to play an RPG that

50:57

keeps surprising you after hours and

51:00

hours and hours. Oh, no, never mind.

51:02

Never mind. I recant my earlier statement. That

51:04

was a mystery. Koi Tecmo... No,

51:06

you're fired. Yeah. Sorry.

51:08

Sorry, Eric. I'll stop interrupting.

51:12

Point being, Fire Emblem engaged good.

51:15

Yes, I agree. Yeah. I

51:17

want to go back and give it a second chance. I feel like

51:19

I was harsh to judge the first time around. My

51:23

ultimate takeaway, which I think I'm still going to have when

51:25

I go back to it, is that if

51:27

they were able to do an All-Stars Fire Emblem, I would

51:30

rather they just do an All-Stars

51:32

Fire Emblem and kind of cut out

51:34

the middleman of, here's a bunch of

51:36

other characters to insert into the story

51:39

and just have it be about, oh,

51:42

we've got Marth and we've got Krom and

51:45

we've got all your favorite characters showing

51:47

up to help fight this weird, different

51:50

evil spirit. Instead, they've also got this traditional

51:52

Fire Emblem story with the spirit stuff laid

51:55

on top of it. I don't know that

51:57

that works super well for me. Did

51:59

they get married? to the spirits. Yeah, they get hits

52:01

through spirits. So

52:03

that was kind of my one gripe. And

52:06

then otherwise, I just wasn't the

52:08

story was imbibing with me, but I was

52:10

really, really enjoying the combat of that game. So I

52:12

feel like at some point, I'll probably go back to

52:15

it maybe over the holiday break. You

52:18

should I think he would like it. Not

52:21

throw something out. I may

52:23

as well go ahead and talk about I'm

52:25

trying to think you want to

52:27

talk about big game or a smaller game or doesn't

52:30

matter. I love

52:34

the hell out of tears of the kingdom. Like I

52:36

love ball to three. But tears

52:38

of the kingdom was the game that I just

52:40

kind of put my nose down to and realize

52:42

I cannot go back to life until I finish

52:44

this game. And I swear to God I got

52:46

300 hours easy on that.

52:48

And I mapped out the depths. Because

52:52

my first impression of the depth is like

52:54

going down to this dark horrible

52:56

place that's quite un-Zelda like, at

52:59

least you know, for modern Zelda. And

53:01

the first thing that comes at me

53:04

are two glowing moblins on skeleton horses

53:06

screaming and swinging their weapons. And they

53:09

touched me and I'm poisoned with some weird stuff

53:11

going on. And that was just like, holy

53:13

shit, this is it. This is like such

53:16

a not Zelda experience. But I absolutely love

53:18

it. And eventually my goal

53:20

became okay, this underground is terrible and scary.

53:23

I'm gonna conquer it and see

53:25

what I can find because some

53:27

people weren't really down with the story of the

53:29

kingdom. I loved it. I love Oh, I

53:31

loved it. I love the storytelling. I just

53:34

love right. I love that Nintendo they always

53:36

have plausible dot deniability on their side. So

53:38

it's like, yeah, the

53:40

Hylians are half whatever,

53:42

you know, human things and half dragon

53:45

goats. Like this dragon goat came down

53:47

from heaven and married

53:49

this perfectly normal looking woman. And

53:52

that's, that's your race everyone,

53:54

I suppose. And yeah, so everyone's

53:57

Excuse the term if you're listening, if you have a child

53:59

listening. Even just twenty

54:01

years for second undesa, The Highlands all

54:03

dog fuckers. About

54:05

as. We'd. All with an attendance.

54:07

Also the company I gives like shoot asses.

54:09

Their characters are puts like Luigi with a

54:11

dog are you know it's kind of visible

54:14

has passed ever lose their shit but and

54:16

a can always say Barbie. Hello I am

54:18

having things start. I still have

54:20

with periods. Didn't have the

54:22

courage to. Say to easy. I knew

54:24

my. Soup. The Goethe

54:26

Sex. This away

54:28

that services I would have a building

54:31

wouldn't and started at how Cooler but

54:33

Zaps and then somehow I don't know.

54:35

I feel like I blacked out and

54:37

will go back. Wall of eg. with

54:40

a huge dong themselves lucy with zone

54:42

banner signs. And I'm like we can only say

54:44

hate and tender. You're being awful and dirty and like

54:46

than a hilarious and and ten a closet can always

54:48

they will. Work. Family Company. Legless.

54:50

You're the one seeing this humongous Aslan

54:53

dwindle. Not as. To.

54:56

Why? there's the kinda video the Interval

54:58

right to Richard Viguerie Get on. The

55:00

first time, I dove into the depths,

55:02

I'd. Be. It was just. Unlike.

55:06

Anything. I had seen in that

55:08

game as and I think it is

55:10

funny in retrospect how much they were

55:12

emphasizing the sky islands would have feel.

55:14

way islands are probably the least interesting

55:16

of the three zones that you have.

55:19

for me. I. Mostly went up

55:21

there just to do either quest stuff

55:23

or I because I didn't feel like

55:25

fast travelling to a point. I just

55:27

want to drop down from the sky

55:29

on it. but otherwise vertical. Blake.

55:32

i i spend so much time

55:34

and the deaths and just exploring

55:36

that area i think the first

55:38

summer front abbas rifai down there

55:40

was just incredible ends on inspiring

55:42

no way that i hadn't felt

55:44

in a game and some time

55:47

i it it's got such as

55:49

sense of scale with that as

55:51

i said guy was missing from

55:53

the above ground because they literally

55:55

do that invert thing where the

55:57

mountains above her cabins gas and

55:59

play style And so you get

56:01

these really different kinds

56:03

of vantage points and views and

56:05

areas that you don't normally get

56:08

in the above ground. It's a

56:10

different kind of expanse

56:13

too. You know, when you're out in the open world

56:15

and you're looking on a mountain, it's kind of open

56:17

all around you, but there's something like

56:20

almost imposing about the depths and

56:22

how vast and

56:25

empty they are, the like inky

56:27

void that eats up everything around

56:29

you and having to throw little

56:31

lights out to see ahead. It's

56:34

just so good. People

56:36

who say that, oh, Zelda, it's just

56:39

DLC. I'm going to hurricane kick you

56:41

in the face. Oh my God.

56:43

Because that is just- Please do, Nadia.

56:45

That's cool. It's so not

56:47

true. You have Hyrule as a basic

56:49

ground, but all the shrines and palaces

56:51

where you want to call them dungeons

56:53

are different. You have the depths below

56:56

that, which nobody knew about until it

56:58

came out. And then you have the heights above you,

57:00

which are, you know, everyone was like, oh, this is

57:02

going to be the kind of parallel Zelda map. And

57:04

it really wasn't. It's still fun. Like there's

57:06

still cool stuff up there, but it was really the depths that

57:09

made me say, okay, I'm going to

57:11

build in this game. I would build

57:13

these little cars, the big wheels

57:16

and the headlights so

57:18

I could drive and get ahead

57:21

and get stuck usually. But

57:23

you improve your vehicles

57:25

to kind of explore that really rough terrain. And

57:28

there was a YouTuber, I won't name

57:31

names, saying, oh, you know, the

57:33

building is so tacked on. They

57:36

just give you what you need right there. And it's

57:38

just there like, you know, it's so obvious what you're supposed

57:40

to do. But that's not the point. Yes, the materials

57:42

are there, but it's

57:45

like, okay, I'm exploring this canyon because of course

57:47

Hyrule has that big canyon that I always love

57:49

to kind of tool around in. You

57:52

Know, again, I Built a really cool little little

57:54

car that went really fast. And You know, I'm

57:56

not an engineer, I'm not the kind of person

57:59

who. You know, absolutely

58:01

must solve every mechanical puzzle on earth,

58:03

but I just always found myself compelled

58:05

to do with game. Was.

58:07

And wasn't asking of me outwardly. Yeah.

58:10

I'd I look at that game and

58:13

wannabes do with the tools A gave

58:15

you an it's breadth of the wild

58:17

already felt incredible. Right moves? You had

58:20

these these tools like Magni says and

58:22

and the cryo and the bombs that

58:24

could really. When. Used in

58:27

concert. make you feel you are doing things

58:29

you weren't supposed to be able to do

58:31

in a Zelda game. Ah us And then

58:33

here's the Kingdom gave you that on. Every

58:36

single level the Ultra hands the

58:38

our com combination sell for you.

58:40

combine things into your weapons make

58:42

different kinds of affects. The The

58:44

A sense like a sense is

58:47

honestly a pretty underrated one. don't

58:49

you think about it? Can have

58:51

nots to do ah and any

58:53

use it and really cool ways

58:55

and. I. On.

58:58

Top of that you have the party mechanic

59:00

which I feel doesn't get talked about a

59:02

lot Me because it's like considered pseudo

59:04

spoilers or whatever. but we're pretty far out

59:06

from Zelda this point that I feel like

59:09

it's it's somewhat fair game to say that

59:11

being able to have a clinical party around

59:13

you and go around with these these allies

59:16

that can say with you. Is.

59:18

So cool and so interesting.

59:20

And yes, There's. There's so

59:22

much in this game and and again

59:24

he wants out of in a world

59:27

where it feels like it's lived in

59:29

in you're interacting with it. I got

59:31

so last for days just doing the

59:33

attain village quests, in the newspaper quests,

59:36

an olive leaf, the regional stuff that

59:38

is so interesting and and fascinating in

59:40

this game and then it has such

59:42

an interesting vibe that. Can. Pivot

59:44

so fast from oh we're doing fun

59:46

stuff at had a know village with

59:48

the mayoral election and then on walk

59:50

into the field and all my god

59:53

there's hands com it out of the

59:55

grab the hell is going on a

59:57

story and and and like it's I.

59:59

I. I really do think that game is

1:00:01

something special and something incredible. And

1:00:05

I almost feel like personally, I let it get

1:00:07

washed away in the year because I had such

1:00:10

a concentrated time of playing it. But then every

1:00:12

time I've been on a plane this year, I

1:00:14

just managed to break out my switch and play

1:00:16

some Tears of the Kingdom and remind myself of

1:00:18

how good that game is. Even

1:00:20

just go back and explore. I've rolled credits

1:00:22

hours ago and I still just want to

1:00:24

go back and, like you

1:00:26

said, map the depths out, finish

1:00:29

a bunch of side quests. I still have Lingering

1:00:31

Around, build more onto my

1:00:33

house. The house building is so interesting

1:00:35

because of the ultra hand stuff. So bad

1:00:37

at the house building. Something about my brain

1:00:39

does not wrap around it. It's

1:00:42

really incredible. Great

1:00:45

idea. Yes. And I think it's actually a tribute to,

1:00:47

I could be wrong about this, but I think Japan

1:00:49

has some kind of modular house craze in the 70s

1:00:51

where it was like, you can take your house apart and put it

1:00:53

back together. And of course, it didn't work and died, but I

1:00:56

love the idea. I love Tears of the

1:00:58

Kingdom. It's my

1:01:01

game of the year personally. And

1:01:03

I think that, well,

1:01:06

let's see. I think that

1:01:09

it was a very new experience to

1:01:11

me. I mean,

1:01:14

I didn't grow up playing Minecraft and

1:01:17

such, so I'm not really used to

1:01:19

the whole free

1:01:21

form, figure things out,

1:01:23

build based on

1:01:25

the environment, however you want. But

1:01:28

the sheer creativity on display

1:01:30

was really impressive

1:01:33

to me. And I

1:01:35

love the exploration and the world felt so

1:01:37

dense by comparison. And then from an RPG

1:01:39

standpoint, I think I've said that the depths

1:01:43

really do feel like a

1:01:45

proper Moria level dungeon crawl.

1:01:47

It's scary going down there. It's a lot

1:01:49

of fun. And I

1:01:51

beat the, there's some great reveals in

1:01:53

there. And I just

1:01:57

rolled credits about a week ago. I

1:02:00

really I was like wow what

1:02:02

a game total banger Definitely

1:02:05

a banger. Yeah 100% As

1:02:08

you say Eric is one of those games where if you open it up

1:02:10

It's like Dragon Quest builders to you're gonna be lost forever.

1:02:13

So don't do it unless you want to play

1:02:15

a really great game You sucker. I I

1:02:19

I love going into the sky in that game It's

1:02:23

so yeah When you got up

1:02:25

into the air and you're looking down at Hyrule

1:02:27

spreading out over you it's a it's

1:02:30

a no-man's-sky effect for

1:02:32

sure and I That

1:02:37

is really compelling to me because it

1:02:39

feels like the world is really connected

1:02:41

it feels like a real world That

1:02:44

I'm exploring it makes actually

1:02:46

no, sorry No,

1:02:48

go ahead. I Remember doing

1:02:50

that launching thing like first of all what

1:02:52

an improvement over climbing those stupid towers There

1:02:54

are some people are saying oh the Ubisoft

1:02:56

towers are back No, they're really not Ubisoft

1:02:59

towers because he's just gonna express

1:03:01

right up there The

1:03:03

animation he does where he just kind of

1:03:05

captures the world and you know It goes

1:03:07

back to a Sheikah slate and he puts

1:03:10

out dad at the same time I never skipped that animation and

1:03:12

actually when I saw it for what I knew was gonna be

1:03:14

the last time because I Finally revealed the

1:03:16

the last corner of the map I was actually pretty

1:03:18

sad because there were some instances where I

1:03:20

was shot up into the air and it was like sunset and

1:03:23

I was wearing like some of the glowy armor and it

1:03:25

would just look such an incredible effect for What

1:03:28

is honestly an aging system like this

1:03:30

game plays? I don't know what model this

1:03:32

soft did to really break down the switch the way

1:03:34

they have but they are by far though the

1:03:37

Wizards of This generation

1:03:39

getting the most out of that shit

1:03:41

for sure. And yeah, I

1:03:43

also think another note here that was

1:03:45

surprising for me is It's

1:03:48

not always the best story game

1:03:51

but it delivers some of its

1:03:53

story beats in some really powerful

1:03:55

ways I think I could

1:03:58

probably go deeper and really pick apart

1:04:00

story stuff that I like and don't like

1:04:02

in this game to varying degrees. But

1:04:05

I think the way that they deliver

1:04:07

story at certain moments in this

1:04:09

game is really powerful. Even

1:04:11

just the intro of the game is really,

1:04:14

really exceptional. I think

1:04:17

it was really cool even to have

1:04:19

it be that moment of, oh, we

1:04:21

are playing the section from the trailer,

1:04:23

the original trailer. And

1:04:27

then there are moments that happen later in

1:04:29

the game that play off of the world

1:04:31

reveals and

1:04:34

encourage you to go explore, to

1:04:36

learn more. I

1:04:41

played Breath of the Wild again leading

1:04:43

up to Tears of the Kingdom

1:04:45

coming out. And if I played it again,

1:04:47

I didn't play the story campaign. I just went back

1:04:49

and cleared off a bunch of side quests I never

1:04:51

did the first time around. And

1:04:54

seeing how Nintendo managed

1:04:56

to take so many of those

1:04:58

places and those ideas and still

1:05:00

incorporate them into the

1:05:02

sequel and do interesting things with

1:05:05

them and answer some

1:05:07

of their own unanswered questions from that

1:05:09

time was really, really, really cool. I

1:05:12

think they did an incredible job of making

1:05:15

it feel like this

1:05:18

world had more stories to tell all along

1:05:20

rather than feeling like they were trying to

1:05:22

get more stories out of the world. Right.

1:05:26

You're right. That's a good

1:05:28

point. And hey, Zelda and

1:05:30

Link, official couple, all you

1:05:32

Z-Link shippers can celebrate. And

1:05:35

Link and Sidon shippers are still suffering. Sidon

1:05:38

married off. You hate to see it. It's

1:05:41

hard out here. Oh, come on. They're definitely

1:05:43

a polycule. I mean, you

1:05:45

saw that statue they had. There's an understanding.

1:05:48

Yeah, there's an understanding. It's literally

1:05:50

a statue, a testament of wealth. You know how royal families are. There's

1:05:53

an understanding. I

1:05:57

guess we should also talk about the other... game

1:06:00

of the year not that we haven't been

1:06:02

talking about it for Like

1:06:05

six months now. I'll

1:06:07

just do the mea culpa right now Eric.

1:06:09

You were right Yeah, I

1:06:11

was yeah, I was I called

1:06:13

it. He said it was a disco

1:06:15

Elysium situation with Baldur's Gate 3 and

1:06:18

you're right I

1:06:20

can't even I can't even night.

1:06:23

Let's keep the Baldur's Gate 3 conversation

1:06:25

short Is there anything more to

1:06:27

say about this game seriously still in act

1:06:29

three? So I

1:06:31

would yeah spoilers are

1:06:33

always avoided appreciated to

1:06:35

be avoided I have no idea what

1:06:38

I just said there. Sorry. I I don't need to talk

1:06:40

spoilers to talk about this game as

1:06:43

As folks who have listened to the pod know I have been looking forward

1:06:45

to this game for a while I

1:06:48

was already a fan of Larian I Had

1:06:52

dabbled in divinity original sin and really respected them

1:06:54

and enjoyed them But never really clicked with them

1:06:56

all the way to finish it to finish a

1:06:58

run But this

1:07:00

seems like the right combination

1:07:02

of things the right mixture of

1:07:05

Larian's ability

1:07:07

for mechanical complexity

1:07:09

and interesting writing to

1:07:12

combine with production

1:07:14

values that could give them these gorgeous

1:07:17

mocapped cutscenes and more

1:07:20

bio wary almost Dragon Age

1:07:22

origins style conversation dialogues

1:07:24

instead of the the topped out isometric stuff

1:07:27

that we're used to and The

1:07:30

combination speaks for itself this is honestly a game

1:07:32

that sometimes terrifies me as a critic because I

1:07:34

want to be able to Speak

1:07:37

about it in a way that I feel like matches

1:07:39

up to what the game is and yes That's

1:07:41

like this this game is a Generational

1:07:45

game. This is a pillar

1:07:48

that I think we're going to be referencing back Years

1:07:51

from now it is Yeah,

1:07:54

it is absolutely incredible Really

1:07:57

just rode the wave of D&D

1:07:59

and caps captured it in a way that

1:08:01

I don't think many other studios could have managed.

1:08:04

I think the writing is incredible. Great. Shout

1:08:06

out to every single one of the voice actors

1:08:08

who also invoked for this stuff. The

1:08:11

party is honestly one of the best RPG parties

1:08:13

that I think we've seen in a long, long

1:08:15

time. Oh, all-timer. At least since

1:08:18

the heyday of Mass Effect. We should really do

1:08:21

Pantheon RPG parties. It's

1:08:23

probably like one of

1:08:25

the first RPGs that really made me

1:08:27

just laugh uproariously at times, like Karlak.

1:08:30

And even for the small... The thing I loved

1:08:32

is how you had these little jokes hidden away

1:08:34

that were really behind really good crit rolls,

1:08:37

like the portrait

1:08:39

in the creche of the

1:08:42

lieutenant who has a stick up her ass.

1:08:45

And if you roll a 20 on her portrait, you

1:08:47

can vandalize it with

1:08:50

a mustache and glasses.

1:08:52

And this poor youth, the

1:08:54

Yankee youth, is like, oh my gosh, she's gonna kill

1:08:57

us all. And he's desperately trying to clean it

1:09:00

until you kill him. It's

1:09:02

honestly just such a big

1:09:04

game, because you mentioned that and I never even

1:09:07

ran into that situation when I was in the

1:09:09

mountain path. Yeah. And even if you ran

1:09:11

into it, you had to roll some crazy ass

1:09:13

number to face the portrait without

1:09:15

anyone noticing you. And I did, just by

1:09:17

luck. It's the game

1:09:20

that yes ands everything. It

1:09:23

does so well. I mean, it

1:09:25

doesn't perfectly replicate the idea of

1:09:27

sitting down at a table with

1:09:29

the DM, right? No virtual game

1:09:31

can yet, but it

1:09:33

does create... The activity is really strong. Yeah,

1:09:36

it does create this incredible moment

1:09:38

of peeling

1:09:40

that away just enough for you to

1:09:42

really get lost in this

1:09:44

world. And I think the

1:09:47

pacing is incredible. We've talked before about

1:09:49

how good the intro is, the intro

1:09:51

to Baldur's Gate III is, I think,

1:09:54

what most RPGs should be. It just immediately gets

1:09:56

you into the action, gives you a reason to

1:09:58

go forward and then let you loose on the

1:10:00

world. The

1:10:04

goblin camp is an all time dungeon. The

1:10:06

Goblet of Sharr is an all time dungeon.

1:10:08

All time? Like it's... See,

1:10:11

a whole opening area is an all

1:10:13

time tutorial area. Right up there with

1:10:15

White Orchard. Yeah, yeah.

1:10:17

It's honestly just incredible how this

1:10:20

feels like it is going to

1:10:22

be a work that

1:10:24

is looked back upon, dissected,

1:10:27

written about, made video essays about years

1:10:29

from now. We're going to be talking

1:10:31

about this game years from now. And

1:10:34

it's really exciting to feel that so

1:10:36

assuredly in the moment that this is

1:10:39

the game that captures the moment and

1:10:41

really just sets a bar for CRPGs

1:10:44

moving forward in a really exciting way. And

1:10:46

I can't wait to see what

1:10:49

people continue to do with it. I mean,

1:10:52

we're still getting updates somehow. We're still

1:10:54

getting patches. We're still getting more. And

1:10:57

I just feel like it

1:11:00

has ignited this new fervor that

1:11:02

we haven't seen in this space since the

1:11:04

heyday of Bioware. So yeah. What

1:11:08

more can you say? This is exactly the game

1:11:10

that I've wanted to play for years

1:11:12

and years. And I'm still playing today. I'm on

1:11:14

my, I think I have

1:11:17

two campaigns running at the moment, soon to be

1:11:19

three, because I have a multiplayer

1:11:22

session with some friends. I have another multiplayer

1:11:24

session that's going to start soon. And I'm

1:11:26

still working on my Darkerage playthrough right now

1:11:28

and just still finding so much new and

1:11:30

interesting to love in this game. Yeah.

1:11:33

I mean, what else does there say about Baldur's

1:11:35

Gate 3 that we haven't already said? Go check

1:11:37

out our multiple episodes about

1:11:39

it. I mean, I'm sure that we'll be still talking

1:11:42

about it for a while

1:11:45

to come. A lot

1:11:47

more to talk about,

1:11:50

honestly. I don't know. I

1:11:52

feel like at this point, we're just like,

1:11:54

let's just throw out the big RPGs that

1:11:56

we want to talk about. Can

1:11:59

I talk about that? about Starfield. Is that

1:12:01

okay? Yeah, I guess about Starfield. The

1:12:06

resident Starfield defender has logged in.

1:12:11

I haven't really had an RPG like Starfield

1:12:13

before. And I don't like it when people

1:12:15

say it's just a Bethesda RPG, because I

1:12:18

don't think it's like that at all. In

1:12:20

fact, I think I would like it more

1:12:22

if it were a Bethesda RPG. But

1:12:25

because it's missing the continuous open world,

1:12:27

like it feels very different. I

1:12:31

think that its biggest mistake is that it doesn't

1:12:33

have a campfire scene and it never really figured

1:12:35

out how to make the ship feel lived in.

1:12:37

I think that if you had a

1:12:40

campfire component when you're fast traveling,

1:12:42

it would have made

1:12:44

it feel less artificial. Having said that,

1:12:48

I love that it's a proper Star

1:12:50

Trek RPG, maybe more so even than

1:12:52

Mass Effect was. Mass Effect felt like

1:12:56

Star Wars to me in some ways.

1:12:58

It was thoughtful. Don't

1:13:00

get me wrong in the way that it approached things.

1:13:02

But I loved

1:13:04

Starfield's respect

1:13:07

and love for literary

1:13:09

sci fi traditions and

1:13:13

exploration. Worlds

1:13:16

could be genuinely beautiful. It was a

1:13:18

real mood to leave your ship and

1:13:21

look out over the horizon on this

1:13:23

planet. It was

1:13:26

really cool, actually. And

1:13:28

as I got deeper and deeper

1:13:30

into the actual story and the

1:13:33

actual game, I

1:13:35

really enjoyed how it played

1:13:37

with concepts like the

1:13:40

multiverse and how

1:13:42

it handled its new game

1:13:44

plus playthrough. And

1:13:47

I liked the ethos of

1:13:50

the main characters being explorers into

1:13:53

the unknown. I like that a

1:13:55

lot of the side quests are Star Trek episodes

1:13:58

of the week. Like,

1:14:01

well, what's going on on this planet? What

1:14:03

a crazy planet of the hats. Spoiler

1:14:06

alert, and fast forward like five

1:14:08

seconds if you don't want to hear this one. I

1:14:10

love that you can get Amelia freaking air hard on

1:14:13

your crew. I mean, come on. She

1:14:15

wasn't eaten by crabs? No. It's

1:14:17

like damn. Well, technically it's a

1:14:19

clone. But you

1:14:22

get a clone of Amelia air hard on your

1:14:24

crew flying your ship. Dang.

1:14:26

What's more Star Trek than that? I

1:14:29

ask you. And

1:14:33

I had a really good time just

1:14:35

tinkering with my ship. The ship stuff

1:14:37

was really cool. I really like my ship. I

1:14:40

feel I love walking out

1:14:42

of it and looking walking around it and

1:14:44

looking at it and looking at its interior

1:14:47

and things like that. I like the

1:14:49

outpost components. I

1:14:51

just Eric Nadia. I'm

1:14:54

not asking you to love Starfield, but I

1:14:56

am asking people to

1:15:00

not completely write it up. Write

1:15:02

it off. No, I understand why you like it.

1:15:04

You're not the only one. There are people out there who like

1:15:06

it. Oh, yeah. It has a

1:15:08

kind of a dedicated cult fan base now.

1:15:10

I would even say. I

1:15:14

don't like it. I

1:15:16

didn't get to play it. I can't say one or the other. Yeah.

1:15:21

By coming to someone who despite

1:15:23

the level at which I've dunked on Bethesda

1:15:25

RPGs in the past, I do like them

1:15:28

for specific reasons. And I think Starfield falls

1:15:30

short of that even. They

1:15:33

should have put that in this game. That's like

1:15:35

the one take away I always have when I look

1:15:38

at Starfield or when I play Starfield is you

1:15:41

got to either have shooting that feels really, really good

1:15:44

or you've got to have that in

1:15:46

there. And having neither

1:15:49

honestly is really

1:15:52

just make so much of what you do in that game

1:15:54

because so much of what you do in that game is

1:15:56

cheap things and not. feel

1:16:00

great. And I think the planets thing

1:16:02

is the most obvious thing you can point out that

1:16:04

like, this was a

1:16:08

bold thing they attempted that did not pay

1:16:10

off. Having all those different

1:16:12

planets when so many of them are just empty.

1:16:15

And I get it like spaces empty and

1:16:18

all that but we're playing a video game.

1:16:20

Can you please give me some

1:16:22

planets that aren't all

1:16:25

empty? And

1:16:29

I yeah, is

1:16:32

there a world in which modding saves this game

1:16:34

and makes it the game that I would find

1:16:36

interesting potentially? But I think there's just so much

1:16:38

in this game that even buries

1:16:40

up what I do like about it that

1:16:42

I just can't get on board with it.

1:16:44

So I'm sorry, I'm the negative

1:16:46

one on this one. I

1:16:49

think that there has a lot of

1:16:52

really great quests. And

1:16:55

the actual environments are pretty

1:16:58

compelling. And

1:17:00

I think, especially

1:17:02

as you get deeper and deeper into it,

1:17:04

it's depth and its details

1:17:08

really reveal it. And I don't

1:17:10

even know that I don't even think you need mods

1:17:12

to save this game. Yes,

1:17:15

there are quality of life mods that I

1:17:17

definitely recommend you install like the inventory mod.

1:17:19

I don't think it's inventory is

1:17:21

well done at all. But

1:17:24

I think that at its

1:17:26

core, what it does

1:17:28

really well, I think

1:17:32

helps to elevate it. And I like

1:17:36

I like what Bethesda was trying to

1:17:40

accomplish with this RPG. And

1:17:43

I think that I don't think

1:17:45

of mods necessarily in terms

1:17:47

of saving a game, I think of

1:17:49

mods in terms of elevating

1:17:51

a game. I don't think of

1:17:54

Skyrim being like, well,

1:17:57

you know, I don't see it as a negative.

1:17:59

that Skyrim needed a mod culture. I

1:18:03

think that it's a positive. I

1:18:06

think that the mod culture that

1:18:08

Skyrim created is incredible. Second

1:18:10

to none. Amazing.

1:18:13

Last night we were talking about Starfield actually, and I

1:18:16

was reflecting on how amazing it was that

1:18:18

we got a huge amount of mods in

1:18:20

like five minutes and my housemate Ryan was

1:18:22

like, well, you know, there's a small

1:18:24

island nations worth of Skyrim modders out

1:18:27

there who know the tool set incredibly

1:18:29

well, and can just

1:18:31

come right in and right in that engine. And

1:18:34

I was like, no, that's true. That's

1:18:36

really cool. It's a very flexible engine.

1:18:39

And in the years to come, I think

1:18:42

that the community aspect will

1:18:44

make, uh, Starfield really

1:18:46

special and make people, make me want to

1:18:48

keep coming back and make people want to keep wanting to

1:18:51

come back. And I'm excited to see, uh, the

1:18:54

expansions and how they build

1:18:56

on this game. And

1:18:59

in, in that respect, um,

1:19:02

I don't think that, I don't think that aspect

1:19:04

should be discounted. Honestly.

1:19:07

I think that, um, when

1:19:10

a game can draw in a community who

1:19:14

collaborate on it. That's

1:19:17

not something you get in every game. And

1:19:20

I think Bethesda does it better than most.

1:19:23

Eric's sitting here looking pensive. I

1:19:27

Skyrim didn't need mods to save it. Didn't have

1:19:29

to have mods to save it because Skyrim was

1:19:32

already a major bestseller on Xbox 360. So

1:19:35

I like Skyrim was on

1:19:37

a billion different platforms besides

1:19:39

PC and some of those mods eventually made

1:19:41

their way in there through the ultimate edition

1:19:43

and things like that. But I

1:19:45

think my issue with Starfield is just that I

1:19:49

don't know that there's. Enough

1:19:51

there to work with that mods

1:19:53

would have to go a significant

1:19:55

length to create something

1:19:58

interesting in the first place. the

1:20:00

settlement building is

1:20:03

honestly like not even

1:20:05

something interesting in the first place. Okay,

1:20:10

so so right now you've got these giant

1:20:12

planets and they're filled with nothing mods

1:20:15

can add things for you

1:20:17

to put there but what are those things going

1:20:19

to do that will make you actually engage with

1:20:21

this game in a different way because right now

1:20:23

the core loop of starfield every time I've booted

1:20:25

it up and played it is

1:20:27

I pick up a quest I use

1:20:29

the fast travel menu to go to a different

1:20:31

planet because I definitely don't want to use that

1:20:34

there's no point in using the ship which is

1:20:36

one of the biggest problems in starfield is that

1:20:38

the ship feels incredibly superfluous to the entire experience

1:20:41

and I fast travel to

1:20:43

the location and then I either shoot somebody

1:20:45

or talk to somebody and then come back

1:20:47

and that is like it's just

1:20:49

a lot of fast travel and

1:20:52

loading screens and in the worst

1:20:54

scenarios walking across a giant empty

1:20:56

planet with nothing in between there's

1:20:58

no quests to pick up while

1:21:00

you're going from point A to point B there's

1:21:02

no interesting things popping

1:21:05

off you're not getting sidetracked or lost

1:21:07

the way you would in other Bethesda

1:21:09

RPGs and your fallouts or your elder

1:21:11

scrolls you're just kind of

1:21:13

going places and I think

1:21:16

that is what I when I talk about how vast and

1:21:19

empty this game is that's what

1:21:21

sticks out to me is that every time I

1:21:23

have a quest in this game I'm

1:21:25

not getting sidetracked on the way there because

1:21:28

the distance is

1:21:30

so empty between the two especially if

1:21:32

you're going to one of these many

1:21:35

many planets to go do the quest and

1:21:38

can mods do something about that they can

1:21:40

find ways to insert you know enemy encounters

1:21:43

that pop up on empty planets more often

1:21:45

or something like that but is

1:21:47

adding more shooting to this game going to be

1:21:50

really what makes it more interesting I

1:21:52

don't think so I think you

1:21:54

underestimate how far mods

1:21:56

can actually go to change

1:21:58

things I mean, certainly take a

1:22:01

look at, for example,

1:22:03

the survival mechanics and

1:22:05

things like that, that Skyrim

1:22:08

ends up layering in. Even

1:22:10

now, there's a starfield mod that

1:22:15

really dramatically changes the AI and

1:22:18

the way that the enemies interact

1:22:21

with you and things

1:22:23

like that and work together. That's

1:22:26

honestly the tip of the

1:22:28

iceberg because there's still

1:22:30

modding tools have yet to come out. There's

1:22:35

way more that the

1:22:37

modding community can do with

1:22:39

this, certainly when it comes to Outposts,

1:22:42

certainly when it comes to the

1:22:44

actual starship. That's not true. Outposts

1:22:48

are very good for getting materials

1:22:52

to help build your ship and everything. There

1:22:55

are hubs that you put down if you

1:22:57

want to interact with a system that doesn't

1:23:00

ultimately benefit you because the ship building is

1:23:02

kind of superfluous because again, you're not really

1:23:04

doing anything with the ship. You do need

1:23:06

the ship to be able to get

1:23:09

further into the game, get much

1:23:11

deeper into the game and there are certain quests

1:23:14

that are space battle focused. Yes, those

1:23:16

you do need a better ship for.

1:23:19

Can I disagree? Can

1:23:21

I finish? Of

1:23:23

course, if you want to engage with

1:23:26

the piracy aspect of the

1:23:28

game and running contraband and whatever in

1:23:31

the Elite Dangerous kind of like model,

1:23:35

there are like shielded cargo holds

1:23:37

that you can make and

1:23:40

you can upgrade your skillset in

1:23:43

order to get enemies to surrender.

1:23:48

Boarding a ship is actually pretty fun and

1:23:51

like stealing ships and selling them. That's

1:23:54

an interesting component that

1:23:57

I think is worth exploring. Going

1:24:00

forward. Yes. Do

1:24:02

I wish that they had done more with the

1:24:04

ship? Absolutely. Is it

1:24:07

superfluous? I don't I don't agree

1:24:09

with that actually the

1:24:12

the point that hit me where I realized that

1:24:14

I was just done with shipbuilding in star field

1:24:16

was when I Wanted

1:24:18

to jump from one planet to another and

1:24:20

it was like your drive isn't powerful enough

1:24:22

to Make that distance

1:24:25

and I was like, okay So I'm gonna have to like

1:24:27

think about how I want to do this or maybe upgrade

1:24:29

my my ship a little bit more Or

1:24:31

route around a fuel station or something It

1:24:34

was like no you just have like you need to go 12 pits

1:24:36

and you can only go eight So

1:24:39

go eight and then go four it

1:24:42

just made my one-stop trip a two-stop

1:24:44

trip Because that's

1:24:47

how the system works in this game for some

1:24:49

reason fuel is honestly like unnecessary. It just means

1:24:51

you make fewer like

1:24:54

stops along the way I

1:24:58

Just in an outpost you brought them

1:25:00

up earlier and sure like they they

1:25:02

make resources that then go into shipbuilding

1:25:04

But compare that to follow

1:25:07

your settlements Also, you

1:25:09

can build landing pads Where

1:25:11

you can land your ship on where you

1:25:13

can up where you get access to the

1:25:17

full array of basic ship building parts, which

1:25:19

means you don't have to Travel

1:25:21

around the galaxy. For example, you

1:25:23

can get cool little robots

1:25:26

That are hanging out and I don't

1:25:29

I think that sometimes settlement building can

1:25:31

be fun for the sake of settlement

1:25:33

building But that is

1:25:37

there a point to Animal Cross's Animal

1:25:39

Crossings town? No, it's just yeah, be there

1:25:42

There's so much more of a point to Animal Crossings

1:25:48

But it's fun to be there because you put

1:25:50

down a house and someone moves in and they

1:25:53

bring their own vibe to the town And they're

1:25:55

now they're hanging around there. They're talking and I'm

1:25:57

putting my crew there and I know and I've

1:25:59

done The thrilling crew of

1:26:01

Starfield, the exciting characters we all

1:26:03

know and love and remember. I

1:26:06

can decorate the outpost. I've carved

1:26:08

the piece out in the galaxy

1:26:12

and I have a waypoint.

1:26:16

It creates, it takes in materials

1:26:19

that frequently can be very hard

1:26:21

to find. There is a strategic aspect to

1:26:23

it and it helps you, can

1:26:25

help you get up to the very top

1:26:29

level. And I'm just saying that speaking

1:26:31

as somebody who enjoys

1:26:33

shipbuilding for the sake of

1:26:35

it. Shipbuilding is great. It is

1:26:37

a worthy goal

1:26:39

to try and

1:26:41

build the absolute best ship possible.

1:26:45

So I think

1:26:47

that's great. And honestly, I don't, I

1:26:49

can't think of a game really where I've

1:26:51

had this kind of shipbuilding. No

1:26:54

man's sky. It's

1:26:56

kind of different though. You buy the

1:26:58

ships for the most part. No, you

1:27:00

can edit ships in no man's sky

1:27:03

as well. Okay. And

1:27:05

like, I

1:27:08

don't know. I'm

1:27:12

just trying to get that up to my RPG

1:27:14

remake. That was good. I'm not

1:27:16

even, okay. We're not going anywhere

1:27:19

with this conversation. I just, I-

1:27:22

Matt likes it. Eric doesn't.

1:27:24

Yeah, pretty much. Just

1:27:26

respected for what it does well is all

1:27:28

I'm asking. It might be a mod that

1:27:30

lets you edit no man's sky ships by

1:27:33

the way. So check that. And

1:27:35

I do think that the ship editing is really cool. I

1:27:40

think about the world and I

1:27:42

know how I feel about Skyrim

1:27:44

and I still think that

1:27:46

the world of Skyrim is really cool

1:27:48

to be in and to be around

1:27:50

and they get it. Like,

1:27:53

Reese's Pieces, you all these different things to

1:27:55

do along the way and Starfield does not.

1:27:58

It is so much of- going

1:28:00

to a place and just

1:28:03

running across vast expanses of nothing

1:28:05

and doing your thing and then

1:28:07

running back and then

1:28:09

fast traveling. It's so much. I spent so

1:28:11

much time in that game fast traveling, even

1:28:13

from like an hour in that

1:28:17

I just think it falls short of what

1:28:20

Bethesda is good at. And that

1:28:23

bums me out personally. Yeah,

1:28:25

you're not wrong. But let's talk about Mario

1:28:27

RPG. Yeah, please. Let's

1:28:30

talk about Mario RPG. I want to hear about Mario

1:28:32

RPG from y'all because I have not played it yet.

1:28:34

And why should I play Mario RPG? I can't

1:28:37

remember. Have you played like the first,

1:28:39

the initial Mario RPG? Not played in the

1:28:41

only Mario RPGs I've played are like the

1:28:44

handheld ones, the Mario and Luigi games. Oh,

1:28:47

then this is definitely like a must play. And number

1:28:49

one is short. Take you barely

1:28:51

any time at all. It's very cute. RPG

1:28:54

chock full of really charming characters.

1:28:56

Fantastic graphics. Fantastic soundtrack. Like this

1:28:58

is the other Shima Maru at

1:29:01

her best. And I

1:29:03

can't see you just not loving the game. Like I

1:29:05

could really see you getting into it like you like

1:29:08

Mario, right? Like this is

1:29:10

the game that kind of gave the

1:29:12

Nintendo characters their personalities that Nintendo

1:29:14

kind of kept some of it like this

1:29:16

is like the first instance think of like Bowser

1:29:18

being the way he is portrayed these days. You'd

1:29:22

like it. There's nothing I can say for that except it's again,

1:29:25

it's short. They really beefed out the battle

1:29:27

system to make it interesting because again, this

1:29:29

was the progenitor of the kind of action.

1:29:33

Hit based, you know, time to hit

1:29:35

based battle system. So they've

1:29:37

up that in really impressive ways for

1:29:39

just they've done a lot of tweaking

1:29:41

and rebalancing and everything

1:29:44

just to make the game

1:29:46

more modern. And so

1:29:48

I could it doesn't feel like a remake. It

1:29:50

feels like, you know, okay, this is an RPG that belongs

1:29:52

in the here and the now except it still has the

1:29:55

characters personalities of the first game. It

1:29:58

still has those story beats. It still has. like,

1:30:00

you know, that battle system,

1:30:02

albeit extremely improved with things like,

1:30:04

you know, attacks that hit everyone

1:30:06

and some redone translations as well

1:30:09

that were necessary because the other script

1:30:11

was truncated because of character limits.

1:30:14

Yeah, um, it was definitely one

1:30:16

of my surprise games of this year, because I didn't tend

1:30:18

to like really play it. I love Mario, but I played

1:30:20

it as death or so I thought that I got a

1:30:22

code and I'm like, Oh, you know what,

1:30:24

this is a this is really awesome. So good

1:30:26

job, Nintendo on that one. I hope this means

1:30:29

that between this and Paper

1:30:31

Mario, get a revival

1:30:33

going now that Alpha Dreams dead unfortunately,

1:30:35

and after making some incredible Mario

1:30:38

based RPGs. So let's see what

1:30:40

happens. But yeah, it's one of

1:30:42

my best of this year, just for very

1:30:44

simple fun reasons, very, very good palette cleanser.

1:30:46

If you're playing something really heavy duty right

1:30:48

now. palette cleanser.

1:30:50

Yeah, I really like that it's a super

1:30:53

well done remake by

1:30:55

Nintendo. Like they sorry,

1:30:59

who did who actually worked on this game?

1:31:01

It was somebody who worked on Dragon

1:31:03

Quest. Oh, was it

1:31:05

shoot? They worked on the Dragon Quest five

1:31:08

like, yeah, things like that.

1:31:10

Not totally. They're really good. They do

1:31:12

great work. I want those ports

1:31:14

on switch by the way, but they kind of

1:31:16

went above and beyond with the the

1:31:19

super moves, how they refined

1:31:21

the timing system. It's

1:31:24

actually rather pretty. Very

1:31:27

pretty. Tose. Thanks, Andrew. No, it's not

1:31:29

Tose. Is it not Tose? Now I'm gonna have

1:31:31

to look. This makes

1:31:34

for great radio talking about our piazza.

1:31:36

Our piazza. That's the one. Oh, is

1:31:38

it our piazza? Yeah. I forgot that.

1:31:41

No, it's just as I say, it was above and beyond.

1:31:44

And then kind of be doing that a lot lately,

1:31:46

like they have a Metroid remake, which was just I

1:31:48

think that was this year, Metroid Prime, where,

1:31:50

hey, everyone here's this Metroid Prime remake. Holy

1:31:53

crap, this is really good. So

1:31:55

because nothing really bums me out more

1:31:57

than cynical remakes. You get a lot of

1:32:00

those two like just the oh hey

1:32:02

we upgraded it we upscaled the graphics

1:32:04

and didn't improve another like anything at

1:32:06

all other than that those

1:32:09

except in certain situations those just bum me out

1:32:11

a lot I got I got nothing

1:32:13

to add to Mario RPG I haven't played it yet but

1:32:15

it's definitely like one that's that's top of mine for me

1:32:18

going into the next year yeah because

1:32:20

it just it does just feel like a

1:32:22

classic that people have always talked about and

1:32:24

I'm glad it finally got a

1:32:27

treatment like this you know it's cool also

1:32:29

has great postgame content

1:32:32

those boss fights are not a joke they

1:32:35

are pretty good and pretty

1:32:37

typical and of course you have Q-Lux good

1:32:40

old Final Fantasy 4 boss just kind of hanging

1:32:43

out except he's not a Final Fantasy 4 boss

1:32:45

he's made up but you get to hear Yoko

1:32:47

Shimomura's interpretation of the Final Fantasy 4 boss theme

1:32:50

which is also in Final Fantasy 14 now it's

1:32:52

a really busy year for Final Fantasy 4 I

1:32:56

feel like we've fallen a little bit into let's

1:32:59

remember some games territory I give

1:33:02

a shout out because that came out so late same

1:33:04

as I can request monsters jokers by the way like I'm

1:33:06

glad you highlighted it cuz I don't think I even put

1:33:08

it on this list I realize oh

1:33:10

crap it's on a list and I love the game I there

1:33:13

is one more major game I think we

1:33:15

should talk about I mean there's so many

1:33:17

major games to talk about in

1:33:20

general I mean that Evan

1:33:22

Lottie called this the

1:33:24

year of the RPG yeah yeah

1:33:28

like there are other games to talk about like

1:33:31

Final Fantasy 16 we haven't touched on yeah

1:33:33

and we haven't talked

1:33:36

about Phantom Liberty honestly

1:33:38

true best ongoing game

1:33:41

right that's how you do it these days you fuck

1:33:43

up your game and you just fix it and it's

1:33:46

like hard to touch on and honestly

1:33:48

the elephant in

1:33:50

the room is what a weird effing

1:33:52

year this this

1:33:54

year got off to a weird effing start

1:33:57

like the vibes were all wrong because of

1:33:59

Hogwarts legacy Oh yeah. Let's start

1:34:01

like... If you want to call that an RPG, yeah. It's

1:34:05

something. It

1:34:07

has RPG elements, I

1:34:10

suppose. And

1:34:13

it was okay. And

1:34:17

like ultimately forgotten, but it caused

1:34:20

so many weird feelings and so

1:34:22

much weird discourse and

1:34:25

it really probably

1:34:27

kind of set things up in

1:34:30

a strange way for the year to come,

1:34:34

I feel. Because we've gotten to the end of

1:34:36

it and I kind of look

1:34:38

back on not just this year in

1:34:40

general, but also in

1:34:42

my life and went, oh, what the heck happened? I

1:34:46

feel a little battle weary to be honest with

1:34:48

you. I do. I

1:34:50

feel beaten down. I had a bad year, unfortunately. I'm

1:34:53

sorry. I'm sorry, Nadia. I'm sorry,

1:34:55

Eric. Well, that's why I like

1:34:57

the show because you can really see your energy. It

1:35:00

helps. Yeah, that is nice. I've

1:35:03

had a lot of things happen to me

1:35:05

on a personal

1:35:07

level. There's a

1:35:09

lot of unexpected and weird things to

1:35:12

navigate for sure. And

1:35:17

also a lot of traveling. I've

1:35:19

been doing a lot of that too. Yeah, and I'll be traveling again

1:35:21

in January. New York will kill me again. Maybe

1:35:26

instead of talking about Final

1:35:29

Fantasy 16 just in particular,

1:35:31

we can talk about Square

1:35:33

Enix as a whole this year.

1:35:36

It's a strange place. Because

1:35:39

they did put out quite a few games this

1:35:42

year. Some of them include DQ

1:35:45

Monsters, Dark Prince, which

1:35:48

just came out. So it's not going to be

1:35:50

on anyone's best of list. But it's really fun

1:35:53

if you like Dragon Quest Monsters, which I do.

1:35:56

They got the FF Pixel remaster onto

1:35:58

Nintendo Switch. Those are

1:36:00

great. I played them. It was actually quite a bit better than the

1:36:03

Steam version, I would say. You got a lot more

1:36:05

features and stuff, yeah, for sure. The

1:36:07

Switch, like we wanted it on the Switch. You got on

1:36:09

the Switch and it's a great, great version of

1:36:11

the game. Do we get a rhythm? It was

1:36:14

also great. Thea Rhythm was great, yeah.

1:36:17

And they released a little game that you may have

1:36:19

heard of called Forspoken. Remember Forspoken? Poor

1:36:21

Forspoken. I do feel kind of

1:36:23

bad for it. It has its

1:36:25

defenders. I know it has its

1:36:27

defenders. I think it has its defenders in terms of they're

1:36:30

saying it's not as bad as you think it is. It's

1:36:34

not like Gollum. It's not

1:36:36

Redfall. And

1:36:39

even Redfall got like updates that have

1:36:42

supposedly made it better.

1:36:44

I forgot that Redfall. I

1:36:46

had to review that game. Look,

1:36:50

we all take them sometimes, but it's.

1:36:55

Forspoken is really interesting to me because it does,

1:36:57

I think, symbolize

1:37:00

a lot of what Square Enix

1:37:02

has been dealing with these past few years. It

1:37:04

was a project that was kind of long in

1:37:06

development from Luminous that ultimately

1:37:08

led to, you know, Luminous had

1:37:10

some weird shuffling around

1:37:13

and reintegration back into Square

1:37:15

Enix that seemed unclear. But

1:37:18

largely, like, it kind of

1:37:20

seems like they're like, OK, Luminous is just

1:37:22

getting folded back in. Like it's getting where

1:37:24

we're reorganizing all of this. And

1:37:29

by all accounts, Forspoken was just it

1:37:32

was a seven out of ten. As a lot

1:37:34

of people came away from that game being like,

1:37:36

yep, that was that was fine. That was OK.

1:37:39

And Square has

1:37:41

had a lot of weird stuff this year.

1:37:44

I feel like the the

1:37:46

big prestige games for them were

1:37:49

kind of interesting. I like Final Fantasy

1:37:51

16 quite a bit. I also understand

1:37:53

why people don't like Final Fantasy 16,

1:37:56

and I fully understand why they don't.

1:38:00

And I think even look at stuff like

1:38:02

octopath octopath was a huge hit They

1:38:05

had some successes with stuff like I've heard

1:38:07

little goody two shoes one of their publishing

1:38:09

efforts was actually pretty good Yeah,

1:38:15

it was it was not even them making it

1:38:17

was them publishing something from an indie developer which

1:38:20

they do on occasion and I heard some

1:38:22

good things about it, but I Still

1:38:25

feel like we we come to the end of the year

1:38:27

every year and go Wow Square Enix Kind

1:38:30

of weird, huh? They didn't blunderbuss this

1:38:32

year. That was that was interesting. No

1:38:35

blunderbuss This is just

1:38:37

emblematic of Square Enix e3

1:38:40

Final Fantasy 16 is coming out They're

1:38:44

doing one big final push We're

1:38:47

in the middle of a very busy month in June

1:38:49

Street Fighter Final Fantasy 16 I

1:38:53

Remember at Summer Games fest by the way e3

1:38:59

Canceled again, we broke that. All right. Yeah,

1:39:01

we broke that news and then we broke

1:39:04

IGN calm I

1:39:06

think Trump got indicted that same day and he's

1:39:08

being canceled and Trump being indicted versus the news

1:39:13

Everything it was crazy. Yeah, it was fun. I don't think

1:39:16

I've ever seen that much That

1:39:19

many eyeballs on one story on IGN comm so full

1:39:24

credit to read Valentine and

1:39:29

I helped a little bit to to make that

1:39:32

story happen. It was a lot of fun. But But

1:39:34

anyway Summer Games fest They

1:39:37

had the whole crew there They

1:39:40

had Yoshi P doing the interview circuit.

1:39:42

I remember him coming to the IGN office and

1:39:44

walking past me He's a good guy He's

1:39:48

a cool dude. I got a good multiple

1:39:51

interview beats They

1:39:53

did a whole Show

1:39:56

during e3 like he was

1:39:59

doing a Q&A and they were

1:40:01

playing music and they were just trying to make

1:40:03

it feel as big as possible. And

1:40:06

then here comes Nomura just...

1:40:10

I'm gonna reveal some Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

1:40:12

stuff right now. They couldn't clear

1:40:14

the decks. Nope. Couldn't clear

1:40:16

the decks for XVI. Here's

1:40:18

Nomura and all of them and that crew

1:40:21

just coming in and being like, here's some

1:40:23

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth trailer right here, right

1:40:25

in the middle of the FF XVI height.

1:40:29

Let's just deflate that balloon ever so

1:40:31

slightly. And yeah,

1:40:33

that's just Square Enix to me. There's no

1:40:35

rhyme or reason to their actual marketing beats.

1:40:38

It's crazy. No, as I've said many times,

1:40:40

there are three kids in a trench coat. They're

1:40:42

interesting to follow, that's for sure. Frustrating,

1:40:45

but interestingly. This was also the year that

1:40:47

we got the reveal for Dawn Trail. And

1:40:50

I was at the... Yeah, a big one. The

1:40:53

event with Typhoid Furry. Fan

1:40:55

Fest. Fan Fest, yeah. That was a great

1:40:57

show. I love it. I got to see

1:40:59

the Primals live. That's all I really want out of life.

1:41:01

They were great. We had a

1:41:04

lot of fun as a podcast this year. We did,

1:41:06

yeah. We did, yeah. We

1:41:08

all got to hang out there and you

1:41:11

went to Fan Fest and we... You

1:41:13

went to Fan Fest while we were doing

1:41:15

our charity. The charity, yeah. And I was gonna

1:41:17

turn in by then. And you did the big check-in. I was gonna turn in by

1:41:19

then. The thing that was cool

1:41:21

on the shows, on the actual...

1:41:23

The thing that was cool

1:41:25

on the actual Discord were

1:41:28

the number of people who actually

1:41:30

went to Fan Fest and then all of the conversations that were

1:41:32

happening during the reveal. We got together and we had a great

1:41:34

meeting. We had a little chat. We had

1:41:36

a little fun filling Final Fantasy XIV community and

1:41:38

I think all credit to you and Vic for

1:41:40

building it. Oh, especially Vic. Yeah. Yeah.

1:41:45

But yeah, we had a great gathering at Fan

1:41:47

Fest. Everyone just kind of sitting in Raza Han

1:41:49

on the carpet and just talking to each other.

1:41:52

Shout out to all of you. You're all great. We

1:41:55

have a great little community going. And in New Year, I will join. New Year,

1:41:57

I do resolve to join. more

1:42:00

of the games. I think the map nights with those

1:42:02

map nights are fun. I

1:42:04

really want to do map nights. Blue Mage, I'm not interested in it

1:42:06

yet, but yeah, map nights for sure. I

1:42:08

will not be playing this

1:42:11

game, but I am excited that

1:42:13

you're all excited. And it's not

1:42:15

because I don't want to, it's just I don't

1:42:17

have a thousand hours to give to this game,

1:42:20

seriously. Everyone has, I think has

1:42:22

that one, we were talking about online games and

1:42:24

like, you know, service games. I

1:42:26

think everyone has time for that one that

1:42:28

they really dedicate their life to, whether it's

1:42:30

Warcraft or Final Fantasy 14 or Genshin,

1:42:33

something like that. Like I can totally understand

1:42:36

if someone's like, oh, I can't play FF14 because I'm

1:42:38

playing WoW. It's like, yeah,

1:42:40

I get that. Yeah, that train left the station

1:42:42

a little bit. And now

1:42:44

it just feels like there are how many

1:42:46

games and there are how long? Yeah,

1:42:49

I think you'll be surprised though at how fast

1:42:51

you can get through 14. Like

1:42:54

it took me six months and granted

1:42:56

some of that was like COVID, no way. It

1:42:59

just took a half a year. Yeah.

1:43:02

But you know how you start that you started on day

1:43:04

one and then you do day two and then you do

1:43:06

day three. It's like

1:43:08

exercising or eating healthy. You just got to

1:43:10

like, I want to exercise

1:43:13

and eat healthy and play other

1:43:15

video games too. Yeah, yeah. I

1:43:17

only have so much time in

1:43:19

my life. I realistically,

1:43:21

I beat my life. I

1:43:24

beat multiple pretty big RPGs

1:43:26

this year, like tens of

1:43:28

hours. I

1:43:30

beat Starfield. I'm about to beat Starfield.

1:43:33

I'm about to beat Starfield. I beat Tears

1:43:35

of the Kingdom. I beat

1:43:37

Baldur's Gate 3 and

1:43:40

I beat Fire Emblem Engage and all of

1:43:42

those were between 60 and 100 hours a

1:43:44

pop. I put way more

1:43:46

than 100 hours into Baldur's Gate 3. Oh,

1:43:49

I think I could easily have put 300 into

1:43:52

Baldur's and Zelda both individually.

1:43:55

Yeah, it was just kind

1:43:57

of a crazy year for really.

1:44:00

almost too much but Final

1:44:03

Fantasy 16 weird game

1:44:05

came out came out and it got

1:44:11

good reviews and

1:44:14

it was very much an action game

1:44:17

and like to the point that had an arcade

1:44:19

mode like literally an arcade mode has

1:44:22

a weird feelings about one

1:44:25

of the initial quest the main quest line

1:44:27

that I played to start with I had

1:44:29

weird feelings about that about

1:44:31

that character she was cool

1:44:34

but I don't think the story really

1:44:36

did right by her necessarily

1:44:38

Oh Benedicta yeah

1:44:41

that's kind of a universal

1:44:43

criticism is that that storyline

1:44:45

kind of got tossed out

1:44:47

the window real fast love

1:44:49

that story and

1:44:51

then I would twirl awesome Ben

1:44:54

star awesome I

1:44:56

felt compelled enough to want to keep playing

1:44:59

just some other games kind of got in my way cuz

1:45:01

it's a very yeah summer I want

1:45:03

to Baldur's Gate 3 showed up I mean heck

1:45:06

it was in months once Baldur's

1:45:08

Gate 3 ate two months of my

1:45:10

life just

1:45:12

me basically playing that and going I have to finish

1:45:15

this game I have to finish this game I have

1:45:17

to finish this game 16 just

1:45:20

got just fell between the cracks I'm

1:45:22

sorry to say I I

1:45:24

kind of make it a bit to try and beat as many

1:45:27

final fantasies as I can and I guess that's maybe

1:45:29

my reason to actually get into 14

1:45:31

aside from the fact that it would be helpful for my

1:45:33

job but 16 might

1:45:38

have to wait a little bit before I

1:45:40

really sit down and yeah same with me

1:45:42

I have to admit I think it's

1:45:44

fine it was just such a

1:45:46

busy here's the thing about this year as incredible

1:45:48

as it is we don't need this many RPGs

1:45:50

at once we can absolutely spread

1:45:52

this out and make like so much it

1:45:55

was really good for acts of the

1:45:58

blood God a lot of people a lot of interest in

1:46:00

the show throughout the year. Oh,

1:46:02

I can always make up discourse though. Right now

1:46:04

my cat's killing something. Pretty great

1:46:07

when the single biggest game of the

1:46:09

year is an RPG and you get

1:46:11

to talk about it a lot on

1:46:13

this show. Yeah. And

1:46:16

I mean, our Baldur's Gate three episode by all

1:46:18

accounts was one of our largest episodes of the year.

1:46:21

Um, it was huge. Uh,

1:46:24

16 is, I think it's a really interesting game.

1:46:28

I, I don't know that I love all

1:46:30

the things about it, but I really do love

1:46:32

its combat system. Uh,

1:46:34

I think like I was trying to view it

1:46:37

when I was writing about it and considering it,

1:46:39

even now I try to view it in isolation

1:46:41

as much as possible because I think

1:46:44

it is. A really

1:46:46

good combat system. I think the

1:46:48

stance switching is really fun. I think some of

1:46:50

the fights in that game are fantastic. Uh,

1:46:53

I do actually like the story a lot. Uh,

1:46:55

especially cause like a brother story is always

1:46:57

going to hit hard for me as, as a

1:47:00

brother. Uh, and so

1:47:02

having that sort of theme, like, like it

1:47:04

was almost very full metal in a way

1:47:06

of like having just brotherhood be the center

1:47:08

of it. And I really, really liked that.

1:47:11

Um, it, it does throw

1:47:13

certain characters kind of by the wayside after it's

1:47:16

done with their story arcs and that bummed me

1:47:18

out, but, uh, I

1:47:20

think overall it was a very memorable game

1:47:22

with some really, really incredible, oh my gosh,

1:47:25

just like I am playing

1:47:27

on a PS five moments of, uh,

1:47:30

of, I can't believe they're doing this,

1:47:32

the, the things they're creating, the things

1:47:34

I'm playing right now are just fantastic,

1:47:36

uh, beautiful, beautiful set pieces. Uh,

1:47:40

so I think it does live up to Final

1:47:42

Fantasy in that way. And I think the whole

1:47:44

argument about like, Oh, what is, what is the

1:47:46

Final Fantasy at the end of the day is

1:47:48

very weird. Cause I've already started to see the

1:47:50

15 revision train start. And I know, I know

1:47:53

the cycle that we go through. And like,

1:47:55

I liked 15 back in the day. I

1:47:58

liked 15 back in the day too. I think. 15 had

1:48:00

a lot of great ideas. I loved the camping

1:48:02

and the open world stuff and like building up

1:48:05

the XP and stuff. Well you want to talk

1:48:07

about MTS open worlds Eric.

1:48:09

Yeah, but they they came up with that

1:48:11

cool camping system where you have to like

1:48:14

make your XP. Yeah, nothing to do

1:48:16

in that game except I don't know. I

1:48:18

think it was interesting that like I was driving on

1:48:21

it on a road and then like in

1:48:23

a culvert I spot like a Midgar Zolom.

1:48:25

I'm like, I'm gonna kill that thing and

1:48:27

it's a road trip where giant snakes are

1:48:29

beside you. And they were smart enough to see

1:48:31

that big open world and say we should give

1:48:33

you a car so you can traverse this in

1:48:35

a more expedient way. That is the weird thing.

1:48:38

It's like being on a train because the

1:48:40

car drove itself kind of. Exactly.

1:48:42

You were stuck on the road.

1:48:45

But you had like you could the genius

1:48:47

thing they did. Because the road is safe but if you want to get

1:48:49

good stuff you got to go into the wilderness. Got to go off the

1:48:51

road. Yeah. And also you can buy music

1:48:53

from like, you know, the gas stations

1:48:56

and like figure. Maybe I am on a

1:48:58

Final Fantasy 15 revision train after all. Oh no.

1:49:00

So you're blasting the Jenova theme while just kind

1:49:02

of driving down the road. It's a good feeling. I haven't

1:49:04

gone on a road trip in many years. So

1:49:06

it's just really cool about what I mean. I

1:49:09

liked playing a head on the way and

1:49:11

a Terrace theme and

1:49:14

the Final Fantasy 7 overworld

1:49:16

theme while driving around. That was very

1:49:19

very nice and I loved what's

1:49:23

the name of the kid with the camera in that

1:49:25

game? Prompto. Prompto. It's

1:49:28

weird that he has a Metal Gear Solid

1:49:30

DLC but whatever. When

1:49:33

he goes...

1:49:38

He all made up a chocobo song. I played it in

1:49:41

Japanese. When Ignis is like I've got a recipe. I've

1:49:43

come up with a recipe. Weird

1:49:46

game. I love it. I feel

1:49:48

like it was like the first game that we actually started

1:49:50

to make it clear that it's

1:49:53

okay to have softer heroes. It's okay to have,

1:49:55

you know, romance that's a little bit,

1:49:57

you know, I don't want to say gay but very

1:49:59

gay. And just

1:50:02

it was kind of the beginning of the end of the

1:50:04

always beefy bulked up or on the

1:50:06

hero sort of things like we're prominent

1:50:08

in the era of 360. Well,

1:50:12

it paved the way for our

1:50:14

our himbo hero Clive is his

1:50:17

massive pectorals. Well,

1:50:20

sorry, Final Fantasy 16. We'll talk about

1:50:22

you in about eight years. This is

1:50:24

the Final Fantasy 15 revision train. Yeah,

1:50:27

no 16 is really I'm actually kind of

1:50:29

excited to play some of the DLC later

1:50:31

today because I'm curious to see what it

1:50:33

looks like. But I

1:50:36

do think that was very much a

1:50:38

Final Fantasy that they made to try and appeal

1:50:41

to the masses. I do think it worked. Like

1:50:43

I've seen a lot of people that normally don't

1:50:45

play Final Fantasy be like, Oh, I really love

1:50:47

Final Fantasy 16 and not like it's my game

1:50:50

of the year or anything. But a lot of

1:50:52

people walking away from 16 who

1:50:54

normally don't play those games who are like, that

1:50:57

was pretty good. I had a good time doing that. I think

1:50:59

it's a lot of folks

1:51:01

that probably listen to this podcast or us

1:51:03

in the room for more like, this isn't

1:51:05

this isn't Final Fantasy. This, this is an