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1:48

AXERPGADVENTURE50 Welcome

2:04

to another episode of Acts of the

2:06

Blood God and Independent RPG Podcast. I'm

2:08

your host, Kat Bailey, joining me as

2:11

always. My lovely co-host, Nadia Oxford.

2:13

Hello, Kat. I'm excited that we're

2:16

all seeing, that everyone is seeing this live,

2:18

like Hello World. You can all see how I

2:20

meant to get a haircut before I did this, but I

2:22

couldn't be asked in the last minute. So I'm sorry, I

2:24

look like a combination, like the love child between Doc

2:27

Brown and the grizzly bear. Also

2:30

joining me is Eric Van Allen. Hi.

2:33

If I look stressed during the

2:35

show, it's because I'm running a

2:37

live stream because we are live

2:39

streaming now. So please, uh, the

2:42

panic that happens back here. Yes.

2:44

I bullied Eric into basically taking

2:46

this podcast onto Twitch because over

2:48

the past two years, we've

2:51

been streaming live for our Stars of

2:53

Destiny and it's been going so

2:55

well. We've been having so much fun. We were

2:57

like, why don't we take this onto Twitch

3:00

so that everybody can see us on a

3:02

regular basis? Unfortunately, that means that Eric now

3:04

has to juggle like 20 different

3:06

things in addition to being a host and a

3:08

producer and all that jazz, but

3:10

you're doing great, Eric. I'm doing great. You're

3:12

young, you're energetic. Kat

3:15

really said what Eric needs this year is more stress.

3:17

You know, it's the last year was too normal for

3:20

Eric. Eat

3:23

it up. And we are

3:25

going to kick off our 2024 first real podcast of 2024 with 10

3:27

big questions and

3:33

predictions for 2024 in

3:36

RPGs. And we'll be talking about things like

3:38

the switch to and final fantasy 14 and

3:41

Pokemon and Dragon age, red wolf and all

3:43

of that. So please look forward

3:45

to it. But before we get to that

3:47

point, first, a little bit

3:49

of housekeeping. If you enjoy the show, please

3:51

leave a review on the podcatcher

3:53

of your choice. Subscribe

3:55

to us on Twitch at twitch.tv slash

3:57

blog pod. We are planning to do a live stream of the We're

4:00

planning to expand our

4:02

presence here significantly. We're

4:04

also going to be putting up VODs

4:06

of these episodes over on YouTube. That's

4:09

also Blood God Pod. And

4:12

we got a lot of just general plans. We're going to

4:14

be streaming and that kind of thing. We're going

4:16

to bully Eric into finally finishing Chrono

4:18

Trigger, right Eric? We're

4:20

going to finish Chrono Trigger and then we're

4:22

going to move on to Final Fantasy VI,

4:25

another game that I need to finally finish

4:27

and play for the sake of content. So

4:30

we've got plenty of classics lined up. Don't worry.

4:32

There's plenty of old games I'm going to be

4:34

playing on here. And

4:37

speaking of Twitch, this

4:39

afternoon, there is going

4:42

to be the Final Fantasy XIV

4:44

Fan Fest that is happening in

4:46

Tokyo. And

4:49

there's going to be a keynote from Naoki

4:51

Yoshida and all of that. And we're doing

4:53

a takeover. Charlie and Dropouts are going to

4:55

be co-streaming everything

4:58

and talking about it and everything. So

5:00

come here to twitch.tv slash bloodgodpod.

5:02

If you don't see it, you

5:05

can watch the VOD and all that. But

5:07

that'll be a lot of fun. And we're going to be

5:09

doing giveaways. Victor is going to be running it. So

5:13

look forward to that around 4.30 p.m.

5:15

Pacific on

5:18

twitch.tv slash bloodgodpod. Another

5:22

piece of New Year's business, Pantheon

5:25

of the Blood Gods. That's

5:28

our Patreon over at patreon.com/bloodgodpod.

5:31

Pantheon of the Blood God is the monthly

5:33

series that we do where we look at

5:35

a classic RPG and determine whether it deserves

5:37

to be an RPG pantheon. Well, guess

5:39

what? Normally you

5:42

would need to be in the $10 tier to be

5:44

able to access those episodes and the

5:47

back catalog. But now you

5:49

can go over to our Patreon page in the

5:52

shop and you can download

5:55

any episodes you want from 2021 and 2022. 2

6:00

a la carte. Just

6:02

go get the episode that you want. And there's a lot of

6:04

good ones in there. So

6:07

go check out the full

6:09

list. Unfortunately, the actual names

6:11

of the games that are in there

6:13

are totally escaping me. There's the Lufia

6:15

2 episode that we did. That

6:17

was a fun one. TAYLOR

6:20

Which one was the Shadow Madness

6:22

one? That was Lunar. TANYA

6:24

Shadow Madness. Oh my gosh. Wasn't that a TAYLOR

6:27

I think that was the Lunar one where we

6:29

got Shadow Madness. In

6:31

which case, that is definitely one to go back

6:34

and listen to. Honestly, any Agnello

6:37

Pantheon is usually just a

6:39

beautiful train wreck. TAYLOR Also,

6:42

Nadia's muted, I think. TANYA

6:45

I thought Nadia's in. NADIA Sorry, yeah, that was me. I

6:48

was just saying that Agnello and I, whenever there's

6:50

an episode where we're together, there's just complete chaos.

6:53

TAYLOR Yes. So there's a lot of good ones. In

6:55

our first two years of the

6:58

Pantheon, so go check

7:01

that out at patreon.com/bloodgodpod.

7:04

And finally, if you're joining us for the

7:06

first time on Twitch, we do have

7:08

a merch store, shop.bloodgodpod.com, where you

7:10

can get cool merch like this,

7:12

this cool mug, this cool shirt

7:15

that I'm wearing, and that cool hoodie

7:17

that Eric is wearing. Lots of merch.

7:20

Go check it out. Okay, that's

7:22

it for all of our housekeeping. Now

7:24

it's time to get into the main

7:26

segment, 10 big questions

7:28

that we have for 2024. And I

7:32

guess we'll start with the big one. Will

7:36

the Nintendo Switch 2 be

7:38

out in 2024? And what do we think the price

7:40

point is going to be? Nadia? NADIA

7:44

Oh, that's a good one. We are certainly

7:46

getting an announcement this year. But whether or not

7:48

it comes out, if it does come out, we're

7:50

looking at the end of the year, probably the

7:53

holiday time. As

7:55

for a price, gosh, what

7:57

was the Switch at launch again? which

8:00

one's like 350, I think. I

8:03

could see 400. That's my best

8:05

guess. That's us. Oh, that's gonna sting when it

8:07

comes to Canada. A certain

8:09

total was predicting $400 and it was

8:11

going to be out in

8:13

2024. A lot of

8:15

rumors circulating around Jason Shrier,

8:17

I believe predicted a second

8:20

screen capability. It's sort

8:22

of hard to imagine that. Eric

8:24

was joking about a clamshell but don't

8:27

have a clap. Nintendo. I want a

8:29

clamshell. I want clamshells. So

8:32

like, I think a clamshell would be

8:34

really nice because this recently

8:36

I've decided that I'm just going to get into

8:38

the business of bringing the 3DS back in the

8:41

year 2024. That's just

8:43

a new thing I try to

8:45

do. Yep. Mostly because I've

8:47

been playing radiant historian. That's a wonderful game. But it's,

8:52

I forgot just how much I liked

8:54

the 3DS as a device, both for

8:56

the clamshell. It fits really nice in

8:58

your pocket, but also the general

9:01

like apps and stuff that it has.

9:03

It has the camera stuff. It has

9:05

the social things like street passing. And

9:07

I think more than anything, I kind

9:09

of want to see that in a

9:11

Switch successor. See more of Nintendo's

9:14

weird kind of pseudo social

9:16

app stuff. Because the Switch

9:18

is honestly pretty bare bones

9:20

in that regard. It doesn't

9:22

have a ton there. Yeah. And

9:25

I would love to see more of

9:27

Nintendo doing its weirder

9:29

sort of thing. Like I want to street pass

9:32

people again. I want to like hold my Switch

9:34

up and use the camera. If it has

9:36

a camera would be nice. Does the current, I

9:38

don't think the current Switch has a camera, right?

9:41

No, it does not. No, we need to

9:43

put a camera on this bad boy. Like,

9:45

come on. Does it need a camera? Yeah,

9:47

it does. For what? For hipsters. For pictures.

9:50

Why? Put a camera on the

9:52

Joy-Con. Come on. No, put a camera on the

9:54

Joy-Con. I mean, it has like a sensor on

9:56

it, right? The Joy-Con. I don't think it's gonna

9:58

have Joy-Cons. I

10:00

think Nintendo's done with that business. But

10:03

that would be a little, it would

10:05

be a little sad though, right? Because if they

10:07

take the Joy Cons away, then that removes

10:10

the key part of Nintendo's legacy, which

10:12

is motion control. But

10:15

I do think that this is a more

10:17

conservative Nintendo now. I think that they're not

10:19

going to be, they're not going to rock

10:21

the boat. And Nintendo's been on

10:23

the record of saying that they don't want to make the

10:25

same mistakes that they made with the Wii U, of

10:28

which there were many. Yeah, no.

10:31

But the Joy Cons, in this day and age

10:33

especially, they know how to make Joy Cons that

10:35

do haptic feedback without having drift

10:37

be a problem. Because it wasn't just my

10:39

Switch that drifts, it's also my PlayStation 5

10:41

controller. Like that's unusual now. There's

10:43

two? Damn haptics here. Yeah, it

10:45

drifts like a mother. My

10:47

right stick started drifting on my PS5

10:50

over there recently and I was really bummed about

10:52

it. Yeah. Because I've

10:54

now bought like two dual senses and

10:56

those are not cheap. No. It's

10:59

expensive as a game at least. I'm

11:01

nearing the point where I might have spent more

11:04

money on new dual sense controllers than I've spent

11:06

on new PlayStation 5 games. I think

11:08

it's the same. That's a

11:10

stark reality to come to. But I

11:13

think the Joy Cons sticks if only because

11:16

like a given, I do not think this changes.

11:18

I will be baffled if this changes. Switch

11:21

2 will still be a like knock

11:23

or carry it portable console. It has

11:25

to be. Like I cannot see that

11:27

changing. And I think if you're

11:29

doing that, then having the Joy

11:31

Cons as a way to kind of dock and

11:34

then play on the couch is really important because

11:36

otherwise you have to start thinking about, well, do

11:38

they pack in a controller? Otherwise, like a separate

11:40

controller. They still want that probably

11:43

ability to play it wirelessly because nobody does

11:45

a corded controller anymore. I think the Joy

11:47

Cons stick, but maybe in a way that

11:49

is they've got better Joy Cons

11:51

now. Certainly they have to be aware of the

11:53

fact that the Joy Cons were

11:55

a problem, a capital P problem. as

12:00

we're streaming on Twitch, we're having more

12:02

faces that we don't normally see over

12:04

on the Discord. Welcome

12:06

to all of you. One of them is the experienced

12:08

share of Alameda, my

12:11

retroshore. Go check them out.

12:13

They're awesome. And

12:15

they said that they really hope that the

12:17

Joy-Cons are greatly improved. I

12:20

agree. There are folks in the

12:22

chat who are saying that they've gone

12:25

through three or four dual sense controllers,

12:27

no lie. That's the

12:29

goal. Try playing Baldur's Gate 3

12:31

with a drifting controller. It's not a lot of

12:34

fun. No,

12:36

I don't imagine it is. I haven't experienced

12:38

drift on my PS5, but also I played

12:41

my PS5 for

12:43

all of 25 hours last year. So I haven't been

12:46

going as hard with it

12:48

as my other platforms. When

12:51

your controller drifts in Baldur's Gate 3, does that mean like it lands

12:53

on a 20 and then it kind of like

12:55

drifts over and lands on a one? It's

12:58

only. No, what was happening was like you're

13:00

trying to select something. Like, oh, you're trying

13:02

to select, I don't know, your

13:04

character and your controller says, nope, it just starts

13:06

taking a trip somewhere. You select the wrong thing

13:08

and fuck everything up. Oh, I shouldn't swear. Sorry.

13:11

This is live. There are children in the room,

13:13

I think. Well,

13:16

next question. Oh, and we all

13:18

think that this is coming out in 2024, right? I

13:21

think so. Maybe very early 2025. But

13:23

I think 2024 is the most likely scenario. Okay,

13:27

question two. If the switch is out

13:29

in 2024, will it have an RPG as a launch title? That's

13:35

a good question. And what would it be? I

13:39

mean, are we saying it would be just to

13:41

clarify for the rules, would it be a, does

13:44

it have to be a brand new RPG or can it

13:46

be a port of another RPG? That's what I want to

13:48

know. Can it be, it's just an RPG. Okay.

13:51

Any RPG. Will there be an RPG in

13:53

the launch lineup? I think

13:55

if not in the launch lineup, then in the

13:57

early launch year, I think that they're going to

14:00

an unfucked version of Pokemon Scarlet

14:03

and Moon and add to it

14:05

and say, here everyone, here's the new Pokemon.

14:07

And what's so funny? It's true. No,

14:10

I'm just picturing Pokemon Scarlet and

14:13

Violet unfucked. Unfelic'd. All

14:18

right, gamefreaky, owe me money. That's a class idea.

14:22

One of the folks in the chat was

14:24

suggesting a B-Baldersgate 3 with a Switch-specific

14:27

character, Mario. Oh

14:30

my God. Mario, the

14:32

dark path or whatever it's called, that'd be great. Could

14:34

you imagine the dark urge, Mario? Dark

14:37

urge. Mario waking up,

14:39

covered in blood. Mario,

14:43

the puppet don't like this. What did I

14:45

do? Oh no! Luigi!

14:49

Oh no, Luigi! Mario, you're the same

14:51

banana's name. Oh. Laysell's

14:53

walking over like, Why is Luigi

14:55

over there and over there? But

15:06

I think for RPG predictions, if

15:08

I may make a bold, bold

15:11

prediction, a real like Babe Ruth

15:13

pointing to the stands prediction here.

15:17

I think if it lands within the right window, a Visions

15:21

of Mana port could happen

15:23

on Switch too. That's extremely likely. Because

15:25

Charles Amano was on Switch and

15:29

you've already kind of got, I think,

15:31

Mana and Nintendo, that just makes sense.

15:34

And then Visions of Mana, I don't think has a

15:36

release window even, it's just like a 2024 game right

15:38

now. Yeah, just 2020. That

15:41

seems like a pretty natural game. I mean,

15:43

you're gonna have stuff like a Nihon Valkom.

15:46

I would hope that a Switch is backwards

15:48

compatible so that it can play some of

15:50

the stuff like, that it could play

15:52

this year, like Ys X and things like that. Yeah, Ys X

15:54

will be on there. I

15:57

really do think that a... Visions

16:00

of Mana on Switch 2

16:02

would just be fantastic and

16:04

be a really good like one of those launch

16:06

window. I know Octopath Traveler was 2018 I

16:09

think like it was not launch window but

16:11

it was like within it's within the start

16:13

of Switch for me and something like that

16:15

having an RPG that people can really latch

16:17

onto on the Switch makes a lot of

16:19

sense. Yeah.

16:21

My Hail Mary pick is

16:24

Mario Plus Rabbids on Switch 2. I think

16:26

that will be ported

16:28

over because Ubisoft

16:30

has to make money on that game somehow.

16:33

It's such a good game. It's

16:35

so good. I wanted to play it.

16:38

I just didn't have time but anything that's

16:40

Valkyr Chronicles, I'm good. That's

16:43

good stuff right there. Yeah. Yeah.

16:47

Like Sparks of Hope, it didn't even make my cut for, well

16:49

it might have made my cover game of the year list. I have

16:51

to go back and check but it

16:53

was a game that I think I've

16:55

thought about more frequently than other games from

16:57

the year came out and it was a

16:59

really really strong update to King of the

17:01

Battle and I do think that crossover works

17:04

particularly well and gives

17:06

Nintendo a game that's like here's something

17:08

that older audiences might enjoy but it's

17:10

still like family friendly. It's still fun.

17:13

I think people see the Rabbids and they're like, oh they're

17:15

like minions. But the Rabbids are actually

17:18

pretty funny. I am now a Rabbids defender. I

17:20

hate this about myself but it's true. Eric,

17:23

do you remember the meme where somebody would

17:26

be like getting smarter and smarter until they're

17:28

a god? Yeah. So

17:30

the Blood God version of this meme

17:32

is somebody saying Xenoblade

17:35

Chronicles X remake

17:37

for Switch 2 but

17:39

then the god tier is Xeno

17:41

Saga remake for Switch 2. No.

17:45

That'd be something else. We need

17:47

to remaster Jesus Christ and Mary

17:49

Magdalene for the Switch 2. I

17:54

would like a new RPG like Octopath Traveler

17:56

because I think that we spend so

17:58

much time going in circles. talking about

18:00

old games. Octopath Traveler

18:02

was a great surprise. I think that it

18:05

was one of the early

18:07

reels from the Nintendo Switch

18:09

way back in 2016 or

18:11

2017. And

18:13

it ended up being just a nice new

18:16

RPG for the generation even though it was a

18:18

throwback. So I would like something like that.

18:22

I do think that we're going to get another Fire Emblem this year.

18:25

And I think that's going to be everything. Yeah, I think that's a given. I

18:27

do think it was mentioned in chat

18:29

that the genealogy of the Holy War

18:32

would be just a fantastic get. It

18:34

would be the right thing, a good

18:36

remake. Path of Radiance is also one

18:38

that I think a lot of people want to see remade

18:40

at some point. It's still, I wouldn't have

18:43

said it feels too soon, but we're getting a P3 reload

18:45

remake this year and

18:47

that's even sooner. So like, or

18:49

it's like roughly the same window. And it's on Switch, right?

18:53

No, P3 remade, P3 reload is not coming

18:55

to Switch. I looked this up the other

18:57

day actually. I also thought it

18:59

was coming to Switch. But it's launching on PC so I can

19:01

play it on my Steam Deck. Exactly.

19:04

Which I will be doing. That's actually,

19:07

that's on my list. That's my early bucket list. Minofsky

19:10

hits it with the Twitch chat. Shocking

19:13

everyone, Fantasian console exclusive release

19:15

on Steam. Oh

19:17

my god, that would be amazing. That poor game.

19:21

It deserves so much better. Next

19:24

question, question three. Will there

19:27

be a major acquisition and who will

19:29

it be? Eric.

19:32

Let me consider. Who

19:35

do I think is in

19:37

a place that they'll get bought? I

19:40

have an answer for you. You

19:43

go first. I'm thinking because I have a few ideas.

19:46

I think that Ubisoft

19:49

will be acquired in

19:52

2024 because I think Ubisoft

19:55

has been a little bit of a

19:57

disaster class over the past year or

19:59

so. Yeah, they are sort

20:01

of desperate to be acquired I think And

20:05

they're not doing great at this moment

20:07

in time and they have a lot

20:09

of valuable franchises

20:12

that would make them a Frankly

20:14

a very good get for a competent publisher.

20:17

So I could see

20:19

Ubisoft also EA is Definitely

20:21

positioning itself to spin off

20:24

its games It's

20:26

classical game side like respawn and

20:29

Bioware and games like that So

20:32

I could definitely see a situation in which

20:34

they get gobbled up in

20:36

his predictions for 2024 Jason

20:38

Schreier expected consolidation

20:40

to continue and I can see

20:43

that the question is who will

20:45

be doing the consolidating because Xbox

20:50

You know, they might have I think they're want

20:52

to keep growing But they might have a little

20:54

fatigue after the Activision Blizzard and Sony seems to

20:56

be and they're sort of

20:58

at a crossroads at the moment They're going through a

21:01

leadership change There's a

21:03

lot of questions about their pursuit

21:05

of games as a service So,

21:08

you know who's going to be? Aggressive.

21:11

Embracer is a disaster just a

21:13

mega disaster at the moment.

21:15

Yeah, I don't actually know who would be doing the

21:17

acquiring Oh Embracer like I

21:19

was gonna say one of the easy answers

21:22

here would be that Embracer starts to fire

21:24

sale a bunch of its studios because I

21:26

feel like that's already just a given to

21:28

some degree That it

21:31

will happen Because

21:33

we're already seeing huge playoffs and there's a lot

21:35

of big properties caught up in that and I

21:37

will not be Surprised to just see like the

21:39

Embracer yard sale happened this year That

21:44

being it sucks I really hate it

21:47

Because there's a lot of good stuff that got wrapped up in it and

21:50

Like the the time splitters crew for

21:52

example and all that like it's it's

21:54

a shame to see but I think

21:58

you bring up an interesting point with EA

22:00

and that was kind of where I was leaning because I

22:02

don't know if I expect like

22:04

a whole to like all

22:06

of Electronic Arts to suddenly get acquired by

22:09

somebody, but it does make me

22:11

wonder, okay, Electronic Arts has Bioware, has Respawn,

22:13

has, I don't know if Petroglyph is officially

22:15

under them or if they just contract with

22:17

them a lot, I'd have to double check

22:20

that, but that's

22:22

what I kind of see is the same

22:24

way that Square Enix kind of sold off

22:26

Autos Montreal and Crystal Dynamics and things like

22:28

that to kind of slim down its overall

22:30

portfolio because of the cost

22:32

of AAA production. I wouldn't be surprised to see

22:34

some of the publishers that have like several

22:37

big AAA studios under their

22:39

banner maybe start to

22:41

lower that amount and look for people

22:43

who want to purchase a

22:45

AAA studio. And

22:48

I do think that Bioware feels

22:51

like one that could be that. I

22:54

think Respawn has a little bit too much going

22:56

for it with Electronic Arts, but Bioware is kind

22:58

of in a funky place which I imagine we'll

23:00

talk about at some point in these 10 questions.

23:02

And yeah,

23:05

that's maybe like my real reach, but one

23:07

that I look at and I go like,

23:10

if EA was going to sell a studio, maybe

23:13

that's on the table. How

23:16

about you, Nadia? I

23:18

don't have as much of a big opinion

23:20

on this one because you guys are really

23:22

more up to date with the news of

23:24

who's eating whom. But I feel like there's

23:27

something to be said for Microsoft wanting to

23:29

continue its power grab. And of

23:31

course, I'm not going to go after any more AAA

23:33

studios at this point, but I could see it gobbling

23:35

up some more indies. And I

23:37

don't really have any major opinions on who it might be, but

23:40

I don't know, maybe you guys can have

23:42

an idea. What about like a

23:44

way forward? I mean like

23:47

I'm thinking of studios that

23:49

kind of produce a lot of AA

23:53

or is Team Cherry

23:55

owned by anyone right now? I know,

23:57

so I think more studios. I

24:00

think more of those independent studios

24:02

will shut down rather than actually being acquired.

24:05

Do you think anybody would be

24:07

able to buy Team Cherry? Do you think they even want to be

24:09

acquired? See,

24:11

that's the thing is maybe Team Cherry is a

24:13

bad example because Team Cherry is probably like even

24:15

with how long it's taken for Silksong to come

24:17

out, like once Silksong comes

24:20

out, they will reap rewards.

24:24

And once you sell, you're not

24:26

reaping as much there. And granted, that means there's

24:28

less precarity on the flip side of it when

24:30

they start working on whatever is after Silksong or

24:32

whatever they want to do next. But

24:35

that's the balancing act you have to play

24:37

in this magical world of trying to fund

24:39

a video game. And

24:42

maybe not Team Cherry, but something

24:44

of that scale. I

24:46

look at studios like I think it

24:49

was Hoppo Games does Risk

24:51

of Rain and stuff like that where studios

24:54

that could just use a little bit more stability

24:57

that have sought that

24:59

stability elsewhere. We're

25:02

going to do a little bit of a lightning round now.

25:06

So first one, will there be a

25:08

Pokemon this year? I

25:10

want to say no. I'm

25:13

still sticking to my Unfucked Violet

25:16

and Scarlet prediction. I

25:20

don't think they've ever done anything like that, by the way. I

25:23

feel like Pokemon Stars was such

25:25

a weird thing that was like

25:27

a big, clean legend. It was never a thing. It

25:29

never happened. Pokemon Stars was not real life.

25:32

No. Pokemon

25:37

Stars was not a real thing. Ultra

25:39

Sun and Ultra Moon. Pokemon

25:42

Stars is my new website. Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon on the 3DS.

25:45

And traditionally, Pokemon Company has

25:47

stuck to older platforms,

25:49

so I would expect them to stick with

25:51

the Switch rather than go into the Switch

25:53

too. But

26:00

I can't play them in the age of games like

26:02

post Xenoblade Chronicles 3. Like

26:05

you can't give me like Pokemon

26:07

doing these Five Nights at Freddy's jump scares while you're

26:09

having a picnic. I just can't handle it. A.

26:13

Kalana Howland wants to know if a Legends game

26:16

would be possible. Yes, I suppose. That's

26:18

what I think is going to happen. Yeah. Yes.

26:22

Absolutely. The greatest crossover. What

26:24

region? What region?

26:27

I mean, I would rather that. You

26:32

don't want a black and white remake? Not really.

26:35

I'm over it. Not unless... Okay,

26:38

first of all, if they do a

26:40

black and white remake, I sure hope

26:42

they don't make it as put

26:44

it in unity like they did with the Brilliant

26:47

Diamond and Shining Pearl. And

26:49

I don't like Scarlet and Violet, so I don't want

26:51

it in that engine. So either

26:53

way, it's just kind of a shrug.

26:57

If the Raven here has a great idea,

26:59

new Pokemon conquest. Let's go. That

27:01

was so much fun. There we go. So much

27:03

fun. Let me pitch you on two things. Number

27:05

one, Pokemon Legends in

27:08

the Johto region. Sure. Which I

27:10

think would be really sick. I think for

27:12

general lore reasons, that'd be a pretty fun

27:14

way to handle it. I agree. Number

27:19

two, a black and white

27:21

remake in the style of

27:23

Octopath Traveler. Instead of going

27:25

3D, they go HD2D because black and

27:27

white has some great sprite work, some

27:30

really great sprite work. And I think

27:32

you touch that up and you build

27:34

that up and give us a good

27:36

sprite based Pokemon again. I

27:39

miss the sprite based Pokemon. I could yell with sprite base Pokemon. Don't

27:41

play with my heart like that, my friend. Don't

27:43

play with my heart. I don't even like the

27:45

HD2D style and I would buy that in a

27:47

second. Exactly. I'm telling

27:49

you. By the way, our

27:52

pantheon of Pokemon black and white are

27:54

among the backlog, the a la carte.

27:56

Oh, that's right. Yeah, we did that.

27:59

That we did. with uh marit uh

28:02

marit and sorry marit marit i had

28:04

a friend named marit in high school

28:06

marit uh yeah go check that out

28:08

uh okay next will we finally

28:11

see dragon age red wolf and or

28:13

the new mass effect no to the

28:15

new mass effect that is still years

28:17

away yes to dragon age red wolf

28:19

imo i

28:21

think so i or at least we're going to

28:23

hear about what's going on hopefully it's good news yeah

28:26

i i think we are i mean

28:29

my my bold prediction is that dread wolf

28:31

is coming out this year fall and in

28:34

like the holiday window yeah i definitely because

28:36

it's out this year i

28:38

think the weirder thing is that we really

28:41

haven't seen dread wolf yet we've

28:43

seen like weird concept stuff and all

28:45

that but no just

28:47

sit down here's like 20 minutes of dragon

28:49

age dread wolf and i'm very very curious

28:51

to see what that looks like and

28:54

i think we'll probably see that this summer

28:56

if i had to hazard a guess but

28:58

uh as far as new mass effect yeah

29:00

like that's years away um that's

29:03

like maybe even elder

29:05

scroll six territory yeah uh

29:08

and let me tell you if

29:10

you like final fantasy 16 you'll

29:12

love dragon age dread wolf probably i yeah

29:16

it's going to continue to lean into

29:18

the action yeah i think which is

29:20

which is a mistake i but

29:23

but what what can you do like it's not a

29:25

lot of people will say well balder's gate three came out so

29:28

bio where chill i know it just

29:30

goes to show how misbegotten that fast

29:33

i i know that but it just

29:35

shows how misbegotten bio where its overall

29:38

direction has been as you traced trends

29:40

over the past 10 years i like

29:42

that word good job good job tracing

29:45

god of war which came out in 2018 uh

29:49

six years later okay i

29:53

i think the the thing with bio

29:55

where is you're right there there is

29:57

a degree of wanting to veer more

30:00

into the action RPG. Like you saw that

30:02

with Dragon Age, especially going from origins to two

30:04

and the Inquisition tried to like kind of find

30:06

somewhere that was happy in the middle. And

30:09

I think works. I think it's fine. I weirdly,

30:11

I think Dragon Age feels more

30:14

Diablo-y than it does classic

30:16

Baldur's Gate or anything like that at this

30:19

point. But I

30:23

think the difficult part is also that Bioware has

30:25

been under a lot of pressure, a lot of

30:28

issues at EA that have been reported

30:30

on and publicly talked about. There's

30:32

been turnover at that studio and it's

30:35

really difficult to make. It's already very difficult to

30:37

make a very big RPG. It's, I

30:39

imagine, even harder to make a big RPG

30:41

when you are facing the sorts of industry

30:43

issues that the industry writ large and EA

30:45

and Bioware have been facing over the last

30:47

couple of years. So part

30:50

of me just feels like Dreadwolf is they

30:53

need to just get it out. They need to

30:55

put it out there. But uh, I

30:57

hope it's good. I have hopes. I

30:59

do have hopes. I think it's a really

31:02

cool setting that they're going into. People have

31:04

wanted to see Tevinter for a long time

31:06

and I'm personally very excited to see Tevinter

31:08

as a main location. And I think there's

31:10

cool stories that you could tell there. I'm

31:13

just fascinated to know how they end up doing

31:15

that because yeah. Yeah,

31:18

that's it. Yeah. This

31:21

comment from Hugo the third ties

31:23

into our next question where

31:25

they said they think Skyrim is going to be on

31:27

a Switch 2 as a day one RPG. Of course.

31:30

It's inevitable. It's like putting

31:32

Doom on anything these days to make sure it can run

31:35

like okay, put it on this pregnancy test. All right. Put

31:37

it on Switch 2. Put

31:39

it on your fridge. Put it on your

31:41

fridge. Goddamn. What an AG11. We

31:44

already threw out Fire Emblem. We already

31:46

threw out black Pokemon Black and White.

31:48

Do we think any other remakes or

31:50

remasters of big classics? I

31:53

kind of ask what's left? What

31:56

are the big RPG classics that need

31:58

to be remastered because they're Too

32:00

hard to get we cut really

32:03

the q3 still on the way and sweet.

32:05

Yeah, I was gonna say those two are

32:07

in the hopper We're getting those we're getting

32:09

those but any unannounced. That's the question. We

32:11

have a lot of skies of Arcadia in

32:13

the chat. Yeah Xenogears

32:18

yeah, that's a good one too. I Experienced

32:21

share. I like you. I respect

32:23

you. I'm gonna say this after

32:25

having played so much grown-up trigger on Stream

32:28

here. I don't think they need to

32:30

remake chrono trigger. I think a real chrono trigger is

32:32

a real good I I'm worried what

32:34

they would do to it if they tried to I

32:36

think it Extends don't I

32:38

don't trials of mana is don't

32:41

trials of mana. It's a good game though The

32:45

3d version it's it's different but it's good

32:47

But it doesn't need don't do that to chrono trigger

32:50

Just don't trigger needs to be accessible and it's

32:52

not if you make an accessible to put it

32:54

on the switch It's not got but a trigger is on

32:56

PC some PC. Yeah, I'm not playing on

32:58

PC. I want to okay Okay, experience share says

33:00

I agree it stands the test of time.

33:02

I just expect they will remake it. That's

33:04

fair If you're like, they will see the

33:06

dollar signs in their eyes. I that's

33:09

very totally very touching baby. I gotcha They've

33:12

been remarkably restrained over the years and

33:14

actually trying to ruin this game I

33:17

do think that we can close with the

33:19

steam version if you remember that I

33:21

think study Final Fantasy 9 Remake

33:23

or remaster will be announced this I

33:25

think that's yeah, that's gonna happen which

33:28

is okay. Why not? Just

33:30

a run faster time to tip in the PlayStation.

33:33

Yeah, I feel the same

33:35

way about a tactics remaster I mean, yeah,

33:37

we're gonna talk about in video leaks stuff

33:39

at this point But I feel like square

33:41

has been teed up for a tactics remaster

33:43

for a while tactics sugar reborn was pretty

33:45

good I liked it. So I

33:47

would like to see tactics get the

33:49

nice treatment I like minosky the

33:52

cut of minosky's jib when they say they

33:54

want an infinite space remake. I Would

33:58

play the heck out of that to

36:00

be bad. I do think Dawn

36:02

Trail is going to be less,

36:06

whatever you want to call it, cinematic. Like it's going

36:08

to be less, it's not going to be on the

36:10

scale that Endwalker was because it has

36:13

to downshift. It has to move back

36:15

and kind of recess because where the

36:17

world was left at the end of

36:19

Endwalker, there's still a lot of potential.

36:21

So there's literally a part in Endwalker,

36:23

I'm not saying details, but a

36:25

character like turns to the camera and is

36:27

like, there's still much of this world you've

36:30

yet to see and starts listing off

36:32

things that are like, oh, here's all our, it's

36:34

like in Final Fantasy 16. Yeah, it's like

36:38

in Final Fantasy 16 when they were

36:40

like, and Leviathan the Lost, who mysteriously

36:42

does not appear in this video game.

36:44

And it's like, okay, that's the DLC.

36:46

That was 14 being like, here's

36:49

what's coming. And there's

36:52

still a lot for them to do. Does

36:54

Dawn Trail feel like the anime beach episode of

36:57

the Simmo to anybody else? Yeah, yeah.

36:59

A little bit. Honestly, and I'm down for that.

37:01

Are you, the thing that 14 fans

37:03

want is the anime beach episode. We,

37:05

we thrive on the anime beach episode.

37:08

I think that just the

37:10

nature of Dawn Trail's release as well as

37:12

like, don't forget Endwalker came out during the

37:14

pandemic. Everyone was out of their mind to

37:16

begin with. And also, wow, was

37:19

just like, Hey, everyone, we suck. We're dismantling everything

37:21

that's great about this game. And people said, okay,

37:23

well, screw you. I've got the FF 14. So

37:26

yeah, I just, you

37:29

can sense in the trailers and whatnot. And they're making

37:31

it quite clear, like, hey, this

37:33

is not going to be as a, this is

37:36

probably not going to be an emotionally devastating journey

37:38

with shadow bringers was which Endwalker was. So they

37:40

got to set it back as Eric said, and

37:42

say, okay, we're starting from zero. But here's what

37:44

makes it interesting to me. Of course,

37:47

this is being recorded the day before, like the day of

37:49

the last trailers reveal.

37:52

But for now, right now, the second we have

37:54

no idea what this what this trailer this expansion

37:56

is all about. We don't know who the

37:58

bad guy is other than okay, we're playing King Solomon to

38:00

these lizard guys. So after

38:03

that, who knows? And the thing is, like,

38:05

if you go back to our predictions episode

38:07

for Endwalker, Victor, who

38:09

is the king of Final Fantasy XIV lore,

38:11

made all these predictions, made a ton of

38:14

sense. None of them,

38:16

absolutely none of them came true. So

38:18

this team can really surprise you. You

38:20

know, it's like Homer with the shirt. He can still surprise you. Natia,

38:23

I hate to say, but we might be

38:25

the bad guys this time around because we

38:27

are, we

38:29

the warriors of light are interfering in

38:31

a foreign election. I know.

38:33

We're all kind of colonialists. We

38:35

will just do that. Because we were asked

38:38

to be there. I'm sorry. There comes

38:40

a point where you have to say. Okay.

38:42

Natia. I'm sorry. Is it like? No,

38:44

it's okay. They invited us in.

38:47

It's okay. One of the parties asked us

38:49

to interfere in the election. Okay. Well,

38:52

I don't know how you supposed to have a game otherwise. I don't

38:55

understand. No, no. I'm making a joke

38:57

about how like... I mean, Final Fantasy 14 too is

38:59

credit. Don't forget, like I thought they did a

39:01

great job with Savneer, which is a South Asian.

39:03

I don't think it would be insensitive, but it

39:05

that way. I don't... God,

39:08

I hope they won't be. I don't want to handle Final

39:10

Fantasy 14. We

39:12

got enough going on in terms of like stuff

39:15

that gets noisy. That's a

39:17

thing. Like it's probably going to be okay. All

39:20

right. Some bigger questions for y'all. How

39:24

will this year stack up to 2023?

39:28

I don't think it will be, but I hope that it's

39:30

a lot from a game release

39:32

standpoint. I don't think it can possibly hope to

39:34

match 2023. From

39:36

a vibe standpoint, God, I hope

39:38

that 2024 is a lot more

39:41

positive than 2023. I

39:43

don't think it will be. I think it's just

39:45

going to be just as bad or worse actually.

39:49

I think it's going to be a quieter year. I hope

39:51

it's a quieter year. We don't need 2023s all the time. We

39:55

have 2023 at home. I

39:58

want shorter games made by like... with

40:00

less staffing paid more, and I'm not joking. Yeah,

40:03

I kind of vibe with that. Just the,

40:06

I'm hoping, and

40:08

this is a turnaround point for

40:10

the industry in terms of labor. People

40:13

are very, very angry about last year,

40:15

and they're still angry. So I

40:18

am looking forward to a lot of unionization,

40:21

hoping for a lot of unionization. I

40:26

hate to remind those of us in the U.S. that

40:28

2024 is a presidential election year, so

40:32

we're already just really teed up for sheer

40:34

trade. The vibes are gonna be great. Yeah.

40:38

Yeah. I'm

40:40

forward to that. Yeah, I'm hopeful

40:42

about the vibes just because of how bad

40:44

2023 was, but

40:47

as far as the games, so

40:50

the industry, I'm hoping, will have

40:53

a good year because, like

40:55

we were saying, there's trends of unionization,

40:57

there's trends of labor being more, like

41:01

something that the broader gaming conscious is

41:03

becoming more aware of, and it's

41:06

not just that devs want to engage

41:08

with those conversations, it's that gamers, that

41:10

people who just followed the hobby are

41:13

caring about that stuff, and that's important. And I

41:15

think we're seeing more of that, and

41:17

I think that indicates good things for those movements

41:19

going forward, and I hope for and support those

41:21

movements. But as far

41:25

as games go, it feels like there's

41:27

a giant dotted line, like outline where

41:29

it's like, switch to here. And

41:32

that's kind of, because

41:34

we were talking about this the other day in a

41:36

Discord I'm in where it's like, we

41:40

know that Q1 is just packed, and it feels like

41:42

Q1 was all the games that couldn't fit into 2023

41:44

are now in Q1 2024, and

41:49

then there's just a big blank gap

41:51

after that. There's a giant question mark

41:54

of what comes next after that. And

41:57

that could be pretty big, it could

41:59

be pretty exciting. exciting, but as

42:01

we've pointed out, a lot of the big

42:04

publishers, or at least Sony and Microsoft, do

42:06

feel like they're in kind of a strange

42:08

in-between place right now. Yeah.

42:10

So... I think Xbox is going

42:12

to have a big year, actually. I

42:15

know we say that every year, but they're

42:17

probably... They're finally putting out

42:19

Kelblade, among other things. Everything's coming

42:21

up Microsoft. About to come out this

42:24

year. The Outer Worlds

42:26

2 could come out this year. And

42:28

I think that just from

42:31

an RPG standpoint, it could actually be pretty strong

42:33

because of Dragon Age Red Wolf, if it's good.

42:36

And then I have a lot of optimism about

42:38

Unicorn Overlord and... Unicorn

42:40

Overlord, yeah. Let's go.

42:42

And Metaphor Refuntaggio and, frankly, Final

42:45

Fantasy VII Rebirth. Oh,

42:47

and FM14's coming to Xbox. And

42:49

Dontreo. Mm-hmm. So

42:51

those are some killer releases right

42:54

there. So I do actually

42:56

have some optimism about the releases. And then, of

42:58

course, the Switch 2, if Nintendo doesn't F it

43:01

up. You should get some good

43:03

ones there. 50-50 on that. Some

43:05

good ones there too. So I think 2024... I

43:09

mean, it may be hard to match up to

43:11

just how good 2023 is, but don't

43:13

sleep on this year. I think it could

43:15

be a big one. All right. Definitely a year

43:18

for RPGs. Transitional year, maybe.

43:21

Any predictions for the RPG of

43:23

the year from Axle

43:25

the Blood God? Mm-hmm. That's

43:28

hard to say. I'm just gonna... I'm gonna say

43:30

Metaphor. I think Metaphor is gonna be it. I

43:33

am preemptively giving it to Unicorn Overlord, because,

43:37

like, vanilla-ware always just nails whatever

43:39

they're trying to do. I...

43:44

This is a really bold one. I

43:46

don't think it's gonna come true, but I just wanna say

43:48

it because I wanna manifest it into the world. I

43:52

wanna say it in 100 Heroes to really nail the

43:54

landing, because that has been a long time coming and

43:57

is a thing that people have wanted for a very

43:59

long time. this revival of

44:01

Suikoden, and I would love

44:03

to see that team just land.

44:06

I think that is a

44:08

longer shot than Octobath Traveler 2 was last

44:11

year. It is an even longer shot for

44:13

Aiden to be the best RPG in a

44:15

year with Rebirth and Metaphor

44:17

and potentially Dreadwolf and potentially a bunch

44:19

of other games. We'll

44:22

talk about soon, like a Dragon Infinite Wealth. I

44:27

want Aiden to be good. I hope for all the

44:30

Suikodens that goes to Aoden is good. I

44:33

really loved Chronicles Rising, so I'm hoping.

44:35

You did love that one. I

44:37

did. I think the character designs were

44:39

really charming. Yeah, I

44:41

actually have a lot of faith in Aiden.

44:43

I like that it's very much

44:46

in the style of Suikoden 2 and I feel

44:48

like they, these people know how

44:50

to make a freaking Suikoden game. Yeah. So

44:53

I think that it's a big sleeper,

44:55

actually. So if you love classic

44:58

games, classic console games

45:00

developed in Japan, I think

45:02

you could do much worse than Metaphor and

45:05

Aiden Chronicles 100 Heroes. Okay.

45:09

And finally, what's

45:12

your big prediction for 2024? The

45:16

big one. The big one. A

45:21

bigger one that we have said already in this podcast.

45:23

We've been making a lot of big predictions. Yeah. I

45:27

feel like my black and white remake theory is

45:29

one of my big, just, I

45:32

don't think it'll happen, but I really want it

45:34

to happen prediction. So I would

45:36

put that, or I just say, you know, I

45:40

feel like we know Switch 2 is coming out this year. It's

45:42

like the worst. But

45:45

we've been saying this every year. We've

45:47

been saying this for like, when I

45:49

was working for US Gamer under Cad

45:52

Bailey, I remember we

45:55

had a conversation very early on where you and I

45:57

were like, okay, we got to be on that Switch

45:59

2. pro beat. We got to be on that

46:01

switch to beat because it's happening.

46:04

It's popping. It feels like we're coming

46:06

up on the switch pro and then

46:08

I mean we got switch OLED but

46:11

um... I think the plague kind of

46:13

ruined all that though. Oh for

46:15

sure, for sure. But... 2020 was

46:17

going to be a big year. It

46:20

kind of was in a way. It was. Yeah. Theoretically.

46:23

Theoretically. Yeah, I think that's maybe

46:25

my big prediction is just Nintendo

46:27

has a fantastic giant year equivalent

46:29

to its 2017. That'd be really

46:31

exciting to see. Do

46:36

you want my pessimistic prediction or

46:38

my optimistic prediction? Do you want me to bring the mood

46:40

down or do you want me to bring the mood up?

46:44

Let's start with a down and go with an up. All

46:47

right. I think that this is going

46:49

to be one of the grimmest years on record for the

46:51

games industry. I think that PS5 and

46:53

Xbox is going to slow down considerably.

46:56

I think the layouts are going to

46:58

continue. I think we're going to get

47:00

some really heart-wrenching shutdowns both in the

47:02

media and in the games

47:04

industry space. And the

47:06

trends that we saw from last year

47:09

are going to continue and accelerate because

47:11

everybody's realizing that the current

47:13

industry model as it

47:15

is just is not that sustainable unless

47:17

you get a mega hit. And

47:20

a lot of live service games, Jason

47:22

Schreier was predicting that we're going to see

47:24

a lot of follow-up from live service games.

47:27

They're all trying to get a piece of the pie with Fortnite

47:29

and such. I don't see it.

47:31

I think we've hit saturation for a lot of

47:33

these games unless you're making a really good MMO

47:35

which is really hard to do.

47:38

So I think that we're going

47:40

to see the funding is drying up.

47:43

There's a huge, huge amount of

47:45

funding in 2020, 2021.

47:48

That funding is drying up. People are

47:50

a lot more pessimistic these days. And

47:53

when the funding dries up, studios start to

47:55

shut down. So I don't want

47:59

it to be better. than that. I don't want

48:01

to be a pessimist, but I do think that's going

48:03

to be kind of grim this year. What's

48:07

your good prediction? I

48:09

think the Switch 2 will be awesome and a

48:11

smash hit. And people, it's going to be the

48:13

holiday sensation of 2024. And

48:15

you're not going to be able to get one. So

48:17

preorder one fast. Preorder fast is

48:19

right. I predict Switch

48:22

2 with a Final

48:24

Fantasy compilation for the first

48:26

two games and the UFEE

48:28

download stuff. Like

48:31

as a launch title, I think that's going to be pretty

48:34

big. That's just my pie in the

48:37

sky theory, though. I do

48:39

see like you, Kat, a reckoning for

48:41

live service games. There's just not

48:44

only are there like too many, you have the

48:46

Honkai Star really have Genshin Impact. What's the name

48:48

of the company that does that? Again, me. Holyovers.

48:50

Holyovers. You have the Holyovers. They're putting

48:52

another one out. Yeah, Zendler

48:55

Zone Zero, which looks pretty sick. So

48:57

they're like the water lilies of the

48:59

live service games where if you want to

49:02

try to get a good free meaty game

49:04

into you, like good luck. At this point,

49:06

I couldn't even see Squaresoft getting something in

49:08

there unless they worked really hard at it.

49:10

Squaresoft's cash cow right now is FF14. But

49:14

that's different. That's a service that

49:16

people pay for. That's a subscription.

49:18

So that's on another level.

49:20

But you have that. You have the Holyovers.

49:22

You have everything on mobile

49:24

just kind of falling apart as well. So that's

49:26

definitely going to be more of a reckoning going

49:28

on. Got to kind of, I don't want to

49:31

say Queenhouse, but there's going to be a lot

49:33

of fallout. I regret

49:35

to inform you that I did get back into

49:37

Honkai Star rail over the break. Oh, no. They

49:41

added a mean scientist lady

49:44

who is is bad. And

49:47

that that that brought me back in.

49:50

They said we have the doctor

49:52

from P5 in this game. Oh,

49:55

no. Okay, cool. Yeah,

49:57

I'll roll for that. And I did

49:59

get that. So yeah, I Can't

50:02

stop that honk guys another bad game as

50:05

I said before a very off-topic question here

50:07

Eric Did you meet Athena in Final Fantasy

50:09

14? Athena

50:11

in Final Fantasy 14 if

50:13

you have about it, and you didn't please do I

50:16

think I did no please do okay Yes,

50:20

okay. I When

50:22

it comes to live service games, I think that

50:25

the extractions shooters face there is

50:28

pretty full I think Suicide Squad

50:30

is It's gonna

50:32

be kind of a mess because they were

50:34

trying to do a live service game and

50:36

they pivoted it awkwardly into the single-player open-world

50:40

RPG Nonsense.

50:43

I'm sorry to everybody who's working really

50:45

hard to make that game serviceable But

50:47

it's really emblematic of just kind

50:50

of how messy it is for people who are trying to

50:52

do a destiny And then realize that

50:54

you couldn't really do a destiny. I Know

50:58

destiny is not an extraction shooter I

51:01

will say that There

51:03

is a hunger that I've observed

51:06

for a new MMORPG That's

51:09

good and it every

51:11

time a game like new world comes

51:13

out and It's just flooded

51:15

with people who are excited to play something because

51:17

they've been playing Final Fantasy 14 for a decade

51:19

and World

51:23

of Warcraft for two decades I

51:26

do think there are people who want a

51:28

new MMORPG and there's a space for that But

51:31

those games are hard to make I Have

51:35

good news number one Anecdotally

51:37

some friends of the pod have been getting

51:39

really into World of Warcraft season of discovery

51:41

and will not stop telling me about how

51:43

Good it is. I refuse to

51:46

play World of Warcraft because I think that

51:48

game looks bad. It's just me I don't

51:50

think it objectively looks bad. I think for

51:52

me personally. I don't like the way World

51:54

of Warcraft looks But

51:56

but never do Blue

52:00

Protocol is coming out this year, I think, right? Or it's

52:02

planned to come out this year. It's kind of like in

52:04

the 2024 talks. Yeah, and

52:07

it's also a, I think it's Bandai Namco.

52:09

It looks more like a Genshin competitor, right?

52:13

It's an MMO. It has like

52:15

MMO trappings. It definitely looks like it's also trying

52:17

to catch some of the Genshin

52:20

crowd that might want a more MMO style

52:22

game than what Genshin is, which is

52:24

actually a pretty solitary experience for

52:26

the most part. Same

52:28

with Honkai. So

52:30

people who want that sort of shared world

52:33

might want something more like that. But I

52:36

could see Blue Protocol doing okay. I could see

52:38

it picking up some folks, especially

52:40

people who are like, I've wanted a Tails MMO.

52:43

It kind of looks like a Tails MMO, so.

52:45

It has to be good. I

52:47

don't have a lot of faith in Amazon. Bandai

52:49

Namco's okay, but I guess

52:51

we'll see. All right, that's

52:53

our 10 questions for 2024. Do

52:56

you have predictions? Do you have questions? Send

52:58

me an email at cat at

53:00

blog.pod.com or follow us on

53:03

twitter.com/blog.pod. Send us a DM.

53:07

We wanna hear from you. All right, that's

53:10

it. It's time now for a series

53:12

of random encounters. Can

53:21

I just start talking? Yeah, we don't

53:23

have music for this part yet. Eric did not include the

53:25

music yet for this part. Okay. Look,

53:29

we're doing pretty good for the

53:31

live stream. We're doing pretty good. We're

53:33

doing great. But we don't

53:35

have random encounters yet. We're working on that one. If

53:38

you're an athlete, you know the greatest motivator

53:40

of all is the fear of letting your

53:42

teammates down. After all, a team

53:44

is only as good as its weakest link. So

53:47

you owe it to those wearing the same jersey as

53:49

you to be your best every time you step on

53:51

the field. That's why there's no vape

53:53

in team. When you vape,

53:56

you can expose your lungs to toxic

53:58

chemicals that can damage your lungs. suit.

58:00

So we do need to start doing this podcast

58:02

from a hot tub. Tavis I'm excited to

58:04

announce that the background

58:06

you see is a green screen. I've actually been

58:08

in a hot tub this whole time. Dr. Angela

58:11

Brintliff Whoa, clothes and everything. Dr.

58:13

Jane Goodall Phantom Liberty has

58:15

sold 5 million units in

58:18

2023 alone. That's pretty impressive.

58:20

CD Projekt is also

58:22

not interested in being acquired.

58:24

So take that one off your bingo card.

58:27

And Square Enix put out their beginning

58:30

of the year message

58:32

to fans. And guess what? They're going

58:35

to be aggressive about AI. So

58:37

if you really enjoyed the Portopia experiment, get

58:39

ready for more of that. Dr. Angela Brintliff

58:41

Can't wait to talk about Napalm in Final

58:44

Fantasy 14. Tavis I enjoyed

58:46

it, but not in the way they wanted me to. Not

58:49

in the way the developers intended. Dr. Jane

58:52

Goodall And finally, Like a Dragon

58:54

Infinite Wealth previews dropped over the

58:56

past week. Everybody seems very positive

58:59

on this one. Over on

59:01

ign.com, which is my day job,

59:03

they called it, in many ways,

59:05

Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth is

59:07

a watershed moment for the franchise.

59:09

Quite likely a final send off

59:12

for the cancer stricken underworld legend

59:14

Kiryu in the official induction

59:17

ceremony for Casca, his Kiryu

59:19

successor in the series. Moving forward,

59:21

a lot of positive buzz for this one. And

59:23

Eric, you got to play it. When did Kiryu

59:26

get cancer? What kind of cancer does he have?

59:28

So, to my

59:31

understanding is, okay, number one, hi, I played

59:33

Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth. I played it

59:35

in October. I have had to keep this

59:38

quiet for months now. Oh, that's been a

59:40

while. In October? Yeah,

59:42

yeah, it was a while. It was a

59:44

while. But I'm not going to get too

59:46

into like the background of all that. But

59:48

yeah, I've had to sit on this for a

59:50

while now. So

59:53

the Kiryu thing was revealed in

59:55

one of the reveal trailers for Like a Dragon

59:58

Infinite Wealth that was like a 10 minute Story

1:00:00

trailers on dame of they Did where

1:00:02

they just reveal that yes Cure You

1:00:04

has been diagnosed with some form of

1:00:07

of cancer and I'm like a big

1:00:09

part of the story of like a

1:00:11

Dragon infinite Wealth Ah the sections I

1:00:13

played they can have broken up into

1:00:16

pieces where he played for different slices

1:00:18

of this game we played come in

1:00:20

early section of walking around Honolulu because

1:00:22

this is in Hawaii I really like

1:00:24

a big part of this is away

1:00:27

ah that was with eg by and

1:00:29

to the. New. Characters I'd Tommy Zola i

1:00:31

think his name is and urged to

1:00:33

say and then a Cure You as

1:00:35

my party and then we did it

1:00:37

later. Section: that was where Cure You

1:00:39

was the party lead and I had

1:00:41

a song he from the Geo Mutual

1:00:44

if you remember from yeah because the

1:00:46

like a dragon she is a party

1:00:48

member now Seat is part of the

1:00:50

crew which I'm sure a lot of

1:00:52

people are very happy about myself. Included

1:00:54

a number was there and psycho is

1:00:56

there such on as well. And.

1:00:59

So. Is. The. Later.

1:01:01

On we did some done Joko island stuff

1:01:04

which is like animal Crossing it's their new

1:01:06

big mini game right? Throwing out is always

1:01:08

has a big mini game you your cabaret

1:01:10

though it wasn't like animal crossing you're building

1:01:12

A punishment is is this is animal crossing

1:01:14

in though I cannot believe it all I

1:01:16

promise we will go more in depth of

1:01:18

all these for the last thing I did

1:01:20

is i fought the judge shark or they

1:01:22

had a safe ah we get is hop

1:01:24

and by the giants are to easy and

1:01:26

the trailers Eric, I'll and. I've

1:01:28

never finished a yeah because again, the

1:01:30

furthest I've ever gotten his. Yakuza.

1:01:33

Like a dragon. And and and

1:01:35

I finally got bored when I die when

1:01:37

I had to fight the wrecking ball three

1:01:39

times and it was such a boring site

1:01:41

that I just found. Stop It Forever as.

1:01:43

Much. As I loved it. I. Really liked

1:01:45

a lot about that game. But.

1:01:47

The wrecking ball was a bridge

1:01:49

too far. Eric said this

1:01:51

be the first. Yeah. Because

1:01:53

again, or like a dragon game that

1:01:55

I actually tried to finish. Okay

1:01:58

here's where I feel very tore

1:02:01

him because. Part. of me

1:02:03

is like. I want

1:02:05

everyone to have the experience that I

1:02:07

am going to have with this game

1:02:09

where I i myself have not played

1:02:12

every single Yakuza game but. I.

1:02:14

Am at least familiar with the story and

1:02:16

I've played a lot of the major installments

1:02:18

like Six Or Zero and Wine I and

1:02:20

Seven I. It's kind of the middle games

1:02:22

or I fell off a little bit, but.

1:02:26

At the same time, that is a

1:02:28

lot of video game to ask anybody

1:02:30

to play. and it's kind of like

1:02:32

when people really all I want to

1:02:34

played me Node trails the gold sea

1:02:36

or whatever and know will you really

1:02:38

need to play every single game that

1:02:40

comes before it? Would you like two

1:02:42

hundred hours of your life ends? Even

1:02:44

though Yakuza games are shorter, I recognize

1:02:46

that that is a. Big ask

1:02:49

if anybody. So the controversial thing

1:02:51

I'm going to say is if

1:02:53

you want at least a good

1:02:55

experience with this game that feels

1:02:57

like you have that built in

1:02:59

similarity with the media. Playing.

1:03:01

Seven Release. Finishing Seven out is not

1:03:03

a bad idea. That being said, I

1:03:06

don't know. There's a charm to every single

1:03:08

yakuza game that even though it builds on

1:03:11

itself and builds it's world and has cameos,

1:03:13

I do also think that you can kind

1:03:15

of hop in with most yakuza as and

1:03:17

still have a good time and then go

1:03:19

fill the blanks elsewhere as you deem fit.

1:03:22

Ah the Zero was the proof of

1:03:24

that were Zero was a preschool that

1:03:26

was made after a bunch of yakuza

1:03:28

games came out and was kind of

1:03:30

filling in in early gap and to

1:03:33

use life and his relationship with the

1:03:35

Schiavo and how he met Ah Goro

1:03:37

and all that Ah and so. I.

1:03:40

Just. I I'm.

1:03:42

Torn. I. Think if you

1:03:44

are really just like I'm only going to

1:03:46

play one game. You. Could

1:03:48

just jump in and play infinite wealth and have

1:03:51

a good time. You might. You. Might

1:03:53

see some cameos and characters will be

1:03:55

like oh and it ends normally a

1:03:57

yak the player my billie go This

1:03:59

is. A sub story that relates back

1:04:01

to the sub story from previous games. That's so

1:04:03

fun, whereas you might be a little bit lost

1:04:05

otherwise. But I

1:04:07

don't know, these games are just universally

1:04:09

fun and enjoyable as standalone games. And

1:04:13

I would be very interested to hear if somebody

1:04:15

jumped in with eight and had a good time.

1:04:19

So. Nadia. Yeah.

1:04:21

This is a reference that's for you. Oh,

1:04:24

boy. The first ever, the first Redwall

1:04:26

book I ever read was Matt Tameo.

1:04:29

Yes. Which was the end

1:04:31

of a trilogy. And

1:04:33

first of all, yes, heavily

1:04:35

references the events in Redwall. And

1:04:38

I really enjoyed it, actually.

1:04:42

And when I went back to Redwall, it

1:04:44

was sort of like going back

1:04:47

to a prequel. And I enjoyed how these

1:04:49

characters got there. So it's

1:04:51

not a huge deal for me to

1:04:53

step to jump into a later edition

1:04:56

of a game, because it can be really interesting

1:04:58

to kind of question how

1:05:00

a character got to the point that they

1:05:02

got to or if they're mentioning

1:05:04

events that happened in previous

1:05:06

works. What's your curiosity? So

1:05:09

it actually started. I started with Mossflower.

1:05:11

Same thing happened to me. That's

1:05:13

the prequel. The first Narnia

1:05:15

book I read was The Last Battle. And

1:05:18

maybe want to go back. Oh,

1:05:20

my gosh. Wow. And as a Jew, the ending

1:05:22

confused me in hell. But I was like, oh,

1:05:24

that's a really cool book. I like this. Revelation.

1:05:27

What's that? Book of

1:05:29

Revelations, yeah. What's Hell's Revelation? But

1:05:32

no, I loved it. And I went back and I read

1:05:34

The Lion and the Witch and the Wardrobe and just kind

1:05:36

of bounced everywhere after that. Is it going to be

1:05:38

on PC? Yes. Yeah,

1:05:41

it's on PC. And

1:05:43

I think it's even cross-gen with the

1:05:45

last gen of consoles still, too, which

1:05:47

is pretty impressive. If it's on PC,

1:05:50

I will get it there and I'll play it on my Steam Deck. That

1:05:53

does seem like a pretty good way of playing that. I

1:05:56

think Yakuza Like a Dragon played pretty well on the

1:05:58

Steam Deck. I heard people. Enjoyed playing

1:06:00

it there. So I think that can

1:06:02

easily handle a game like Yakuza. I I

1:06:06

think that it could be actually a pretty good

1:06:08

steam deck game just by the virtue of the

1:06:10

term based nature of the game and doing

1:06:13

a lot of random nonsense like going to the

1:06:15

island and such and It's

1:06:17

not as I can have

1:06:20

I can watch the

1:06:22

cutscenes But not be

1:06:24

feel like I'm locked into playing this

1:06:27

game all the time and such,

1:06:29

but right The

1:06:32

thing is it's coming out really soon, right? It's

1:06:34

coming up this month question mark end of this

1:06:36

month. Yeah, okay The

1:06:38

question is could I squeeze in like

1:06:41

a dragon? before

1:06:44

Final Fantasy 7 rebirth which will become a priority

1:06:46

once it comes out for me. No.

1:06:48

Yeah, you could probably I imagine It

1:06:51

seems like it it it's a

1:06:53

pretty big game But Yakuza

1:06:55

games are always very big in the sense that

1:06:57

they have a lot of side content versus

1:07:00

like I Don't

1:07:02

know. It's if you wanted to just main

1:07:04

pass this you could probably get it done

1:07:06

before rebirth comes out Maybe

1:07:08

if you wanted to get it done and reload

1:07:11

done before rebirth comes out. That's a different story,

1:07:13

but oh boy Yeah,

1:07:15

and that's not even mentioning like Granblue relink and some

1:07:17

of the other games that are kind of coming out

1:07:19

in the interim there so But

1:07:22

no, there's a lot of stuff to do I

1:07:25

really want to finish persona 3 reload as well

1:07:27

But I sort of feel like I need to

1:07:29

pick a game commit to it so

1:07:31

that I don't end up in a situation where I Don't

1:07:35

finish games. So we'll see what

1:07:37

ends up happening Eric

1:07:39

you also put down radiance Astoria. So hold

1:07:42

on. I want to talk more about if

1:07:44

I want I want to talk

1:07:46

about What we haven't even talked about infinite wealth yet. I

1:07:48

haven't talked about the game at all Wait, are we not

1:07:50

talking about infinite wealth for like 10 minutes just now No,

1:07:54

we were talking about whether you should play yakuza Okay,

1:07:59

tell me more about infinite wealth, Eric. Yeah.

1:08:02

So the whole idea is that Ichiban is

1:08:04

going to Hawaii to search for his mother,

1:08:06

which was like a big plot point from,

1:08:08

or it was

1:08:10

a large plot point from Yakuza, like a

1:08:12

dragon. Um, the,

1:08:15

the whole idea is that he goes there, Kiryu beats

1:08:17

up with him, and we kind of end up with

1:08:20

this dual protagonist, like split party story, uh, where

1:08:22

they eventually split off and kind of do their own

1:08:24

things takes place after the great

1:08:27

dissolution that happened in Yakuza, like a dragon

1:08:29

where the, all of the

1:08:31

Yakuza are disbanding across Japan.

1:08:34

And, uh, there's,

1:08:37

there's kind of still some, it's weird.

1:08:39

I compared it to fast five in

1:08:41

my preview because it's still

1:08:44

a game that is about crime and

1:08:46

is about the underworld and dudes

1:08:49

doing crime, but also it

1:08:51

is pivoting much

1:08:53

harder into its characters and

1:08:55

it's kind of universe that it

1:08:57

is created in a way that I find very interesting.

1:08:59

You know, the fast and the furious crew start out

1:09:01

as a bunch of street racers

1:09:03

robbing cars on the highway or robbing trucks

1:09:05

on the highway and by like

1:09:07

fast five or even fast six, they

1:09:09

become, okay, now we're just this crew

1:09:11

of like espionage agents that are doing

1:09:13

these like mission impossible

1:09:16

moments. Um, but,

1:09:20

uh, as far as the actual gameplay goes, it

1:09:22

is still a turn based RPG. They've made some

1:09:24

really, really nice quality of life changes. Uh, you

1:09:26

can now move on your turn. Remember

1:09:29

how that was the most annoying thing in Yakuza,

1:09:31

like a dragon that you just kind of had

1:09:33

to shuffle. Um,

1:09:35

so I need the battles of

1:09:38

like a dragon to go 10 to 15% faster

1:09:40

because Yakuza, like

1:09:45

a dragon, it got to be a

1:09:48

drag running, running into enemies on the street. I

1:09:51

have great news for you, Kat. Oh, thank you. Not

1:09:53

only, not only is there a battle

1:09:56

speed toggle, uh, which I found in the settings

1:09:58

menu, uh, But

1:10:00

there's also a system that I didn't get to

1:10:03

check out in the demo, but they've talked about

1:10:05

a few times where you can like auto

1:10:08

win a battle and you'll get less XP

1:10:10

for it, but you'll still get the same

1:10:12

items and like stuff you would have gotten

1:10:14

from it. So basically, if you

1:10:16

run into a battle against someone who is significantly

1:10:18

lower level than you, you just say like, I

1:10:20

win this dude, and you

1:10:23

walk away from it, and you might get like a

1:10:25

little bit less progression from it. But

1:10:27

if they're low level, that doesn't even really matter

1:10:29

that much. I

1:10:31

think that's like a happy medium. That's a

1:10:33

happy place to find there because the

1:10:36

actual turn based combat is still very much because

1:10:39

like a dragon combat, you're kind of picking

1:10:41

your options. It feels very dragon questy in

1:10:44

the way that it's obviously going for Dragon

1:10:47

Quest vibes. And

1:10:50

the cool thing is that they're adding a bunch of new jobs.

1:10:53

Usually they tie into Hawaii. So I got a

1:10:55

surfer job for Ichiban where he had a surfboard

1:10:58

and he was doing these crazy like wave

1:11:00

attacks and things like that that were really

1:11:03

fun. All the characters are still all the

1:11:05

enemies you fight are still these weird dudes,

1:11:07

weird little guys doing weird little guy things.

1:11:09

Just weird little guys. Yeah,

1:11:12

yeah, little freakos. I

1:11:15

love it. It's fantastic. Hey, RGG Studio,

1:11:17

don't gender lock the jobs this time.

1:11:21

Let Casca be an idol. I'm

1:11:24

curious to see how much there is because

1:11:27

I imagine there's still probably some gender locking

1:11:29

in this game, but I haven't

1:11:31

seen anything yet that is gender lock.

1:11:33

So I'm curious whether that does

1:11:35

happen. But yeah,

1:11:38

I'm trying to think of other stuff. The

1:11:41

Kiryu thing seems like it's going to be

1:11:43

a massive emotional tearjerker because the whole

1:11:46

segment that we played was him basically

1:11:48

filling out a bucket list of

1:11:51

stuff he wants to do before he croaks.

1:11:54

Yeah, I do. Oh my

1:11:56

god, this is a rom-com. The

1:12:00

whole idea is that you can go back

1:12:02

to all these different places from Yuckas of

1:12:04

the Past and kind of see Kiryu's past

1:12:07

and he'll think like, oh yeah, this

1:12:09

is where I had that super sick fight or this is where

1:12:11

I met Haruka for the first time or something like that. And

1:12:14

he'll kind of like reflect on it and think back

1:12:16

on it. And that's really emotional and really, really cool.

1:12:20

So the story seems like it's definitely going

1:12:22

interesting places, but Dondoko Island,

1:12:24

which is their animal crossing, seems like it

1:12:26

is just going to consume everyone's lives. It

1:12:29

is bonkers how

1:12:31

big this mini game is.

1:12:34

The cabaret club stuff in the past and all

1:12:36

that has been pretty robust and obviously it's notorious

1:12:38

for being this thing that, oh, I went into

1:12:40

Yuckas to play a beat-em-up and I ended up

1:12:43

playing a management game for like 30 hours. But

1:12:47

Dondoko Island, which is their animal

1:12:49

crossing, has you basically

1:12:52

washing up on an island that was supposed to

1:12:54

be a resort and is now filled with trash

1:12:56

and pirates and you have to beat up the

1:12:58

pirates and then clear out the trash to build

1:13:00

a resort. And so I

1:13:03

spent just, it

1:13:05

was a long amount of time, but it felt like it went by

1:13:07

in a flash where I was just clearing out areas

1:13:10

and then building things. I built a toilet. I

1:13:12

built an outdoor toilet. I don't know why I

1:13:14

keep building toilets. You keep building these weird toilets,

1:13:16

like just for context people. He was telling us

1:13:18

in the, what was it, the Pantheon

1:13:20

about how you built one toilet on

1:13:23

top of a hill. The Dragon Quest Builders toilet

1:13:25

on a hill. It was very important. Everyone had

1:13:27

to use at the same time. Everyone had to go up

1:13:29

the hill. So everyone had to watch you as you were

1:13:32

going up the hill to use the one toilet. This

1:13:35

time I decided that

1:13:37

my resort had a toilet

1:13:39

for nervous pooers to get

1:13:41

over their fears. So basically you

1:13:43

go to the island and there's this

1:13:46

resplendent toilet with like a beautiful sign

1:13:48

next to it and a bus stop

1:13:50

overhang and like some

1:13:53

art nearby, some statues

1:13:55

and things like that to kind of

1:13:57

create a vibe. And then you just

1:13:59

go. And you're a one with nature

1:14:01

and you have gone to the Dondoko Island

1:14:03

toilet. Uh,

1:14:06

I, so

1:14:09

it's a whole island building thing. It feels very

1:14:11

Animal Crossing in that you can just kind of

1:14:13

pick up blueprints and use resources to make things

1:14:15

that you can then put down in the world

1:14:17

and kind of decorate your island with it

1:14:20

seems like from trailers they put out. I didn't

1:14:22

get to see this mechanic personally because we didn't

1:14:24

get that much time with it, but people will

1:14:26

eventually come to your island and you'll have to

1:14:28

like provide different things for them to satisfy their

1:14:30

needs and all that kind of stuff. You can

1:14:32

give them gifts and it's

1:14:34

just like a giant Island

1:14:36

resort sim that feels like a mix of

1:14:38

Animal Crossing and maybe like a little bit

1:14:40

of roller coaster tycoon where you are just

1:14:42

building a resort Island

1:14:45

on this trash heap. And I

1:14:48

am going to lose hours of my life

1:14:50

to this. I'm going to disappear into this.

1:14:53

Uh, I can't wait for that. And then on

1:14:55

top of that, there's all the other like typical

1:14:57

things you would expect of a Yakuza a there's

1:15:00

shogi and other random games you

1:15:02

can play like darts. There's

1:15:04

a Tinder thing that you can do where you

1:15:06

could just swipe on the apps. Uh,

1:15:09

there's a photo rally where

1:15:11

you can take photos of a mascot around town and

1:15:13

he's this weird mascot dude who'll just like pose up

1:15:15

and you have to like find him and shoot a

1:15:17

picture of him and all that. Uh, this

1:15:20

feels like the biggest game

1:15:22

that RGG has made like

1:15:25

an intimidatingly large video

1:15:27

game. Uh, so

1:15:31

get excited if you just want a lot more Yakuza,

1:15:33

even though we've had a lot of Yakuza in the

1:15:35

last year, but yeah, we've

1:15:38

had how many we had like a dragon

1:15:40

E-Sheen last year. Then we got man who erased

1:15:42

his name and now we're getting like

1:15:45

a dragon guys. Eight.

1:15:47

It's crazy. It's a lot. Lance

1:15:50

points out Lance Hart in the

1:15:52

chat. Uh, brings up Sujiman. Uh,

1:15:55

yes, Sujiman are back in. I got to see

1:15:57

some of that in the preview. They

1:16:00

have like raids, you know how Pokemon with

1:16:02

Sword and Shield started doing like raids on

1:16:04

the overworld? Yeah. They're like

1:16:06

Sujemon things like that that you

1:16:08

can just run into on the overworld to do

1:16:11

Sujemon battles and I was like is this is

1:16:13

this like Pokemon? Did they just use the Pokemon

1:16:15

mechanic for their Sujemon, their knockoff like degenerate

1:16:18

Pokemon? Why not? They're

1:16:20

already going down that path. It's like everything

1:16:22

about it is big. Everything

1:16:26

about it is so much more expanded

1:16:28

than the previous game that I am

1:16:31

just very impressed with

1:16:33

what I saw in the preview.

1:16:37

Both storytelling wise, graphics wise it

1:16:39

looks great. I forget what

1:16:41

like systems we were playing on but it

1:16:43

looks really really good in the preview. The

1:16:47

open world is gigantic. Like Hawaii

1:16:50

is huge. You actually need a segue to

1:16:52

get around on it because it's

1:16:54

that big and it's got

1:16:56

so many mini games. I even mentioned the

1:16:59

crazy taxi stuff that's in there where you

1:17:01

do food delivery like rub hub delivery as

1:17:03

a crazy taxi bicycle driver and all that

1:17:05

kind of stuff. It's

1:17:07

bonkers. I cannot

1:17:10

express enough that like Infinite Wealth really seems like

1:17:12

it's stacking up to be the largest game yet.

1:17:15

I'm just really curious now if it lands all

1:17:17

of the emotional highs that it's aiming for. Yeah.

1:17:21

Well, you got me. I'll play it.

1:17:23

I'm gonna play this one. I'm gonna play

1:17:25

it on my steam deck. It seems like

1:17:27

the kind of game that's gonna

1:17:29

end up sucking me in. Maybe

1:17:31

finally I will finish a Yakuza game. Big prediction

1:17:33

for 2024. Cat finishes a

1:17:36

Yakuza game and then maybe that'll motivate me

1:17:38

to play Yakuza 0 finally. I

1:17:41

was playing an RPG to begin my

1:17:43

year. A big one. Just

1:17:45

Dance. Alright.

1:17:48

Yeah, that's a... Gotta

1:17:50

dance. Pretty fun fitness game. To

1:17:52

defeat the monsters. But

1:17:55

my big holiday project actually has been to finish

1:17:57

Final Fantasy 5 and I think I'm actually gonna

1:22:00

You can do it. Raw, raw, raw.

1:22:02

Rescue time. How about you, Nadia? What were you

1:22:04

playing over the holidays? First of all, people were wondering what I was looking at.

1:22:07

I live on the 15th floor and there's been

1:22:09

like a mafia fight between the crows, the pigeons,

1:22:11

and the hawks. So when

1:22:14

I see that happen, I have to look because

1:22:16

it's really cool. But otherwise,

1:22:18

yeah, actually one game I have been playing,

1:22:20

one I played a lot of over the

1:22:22

holiday was Dragon Quest Builders 2. It

1:22:25

really sucked me in for the Pantheon. And

1:22:27

I got around to just building

1:22:30

this big city on

1:22:32

my island. I felt like

1:22:34

a railroad and everything. I

1:22:37

forgot that you could recruit monsters and they

1:22:39

can help you around the island. I recruited

1:22:41

a saber cat, so that was like me

1:22:43

zooming around the island, jumping really high. It's

1:22:47

just a really fun, fantastic game. And it makes

1:22:50

me so heartbroken that there's just no whisper of

1:22:52

Dragon Quest Builders 3 yet.

1:22:54

And more recently, I have

1:22:56

been playing Steamworld Build, which

1:22:59

if you recall, is a game I downloaded

1:23:01

on the Switch and couldn't see a damn thing. So

1:23:04

I got it on

1:23:06

a PlayStation 5, I think is what I'm playing it on right now.

1:23:09

And there is no way anyone is playing that

1:23:11

game on a small screen. There is so much

1:23:13

going on. Otherwise, other than

1:23:15

the visual issues, I really like it.

1:23:17

It's an extremely, extremely charming game in

1:23:19

that Steam... If you like the Steamworld

1:23:22

setting, you will like this. Also,

1:23:24

I really, really think that the minor

1:23:26

Steambots that work underground in this

1:23:29

game are references to the serverbots from Mega

1:23:31

Man Legends. I think that's great. But

1:23:34

yeah, my only complaint is that it's kind

1:23:36

of repetitive, like you're doing the same thing

1:23:38

on the same three maps, just

1:23:40

with different situations going on. So

1:23:43

I think I'm getting close to the ending. I

1:23:45

generally really enjoy it, but I am looking forward

1:23:48

to the next Steamworld Dig. I want to... Steamworld

1:23:50

Dig 2 is just one of

1:23:52

my favorite action games of all time. And it has such

1:23:54

a great... Such great story

1:23:56

twists, storytelling. I'm looking forward to

1:23:58

seeing why that... It's one of the great techs. That's

1:24:00

also a good game for the switch on

1:24:02

like build Steam

1:24:05

world. Yeah, that's a that's a great one. Heist.

1:24:08

All right. That's it for the tavern. And

1:24:13

now Nadia, take us home. I

1:24:35

couldn't decide if my first live recording

1:24:38

thing should be like a pit or a nook. I'm going

1:24:40

to try with the nook and see where that goes. But

1:24:42

I know it's going to turn to a pit. So, brace

1:24:44

yourself. Nadia, I

1:24:46

know you. You'll be

1:24:49

like, this is a nook. And then we'll go, well, that

1:24:51

was kind of a nook. You'll grab the wheel. Let

1:24:55

me drive you into a pit right now. I

1:24:58

was this involved you guys to because I was thinking

1:25:00

like, what is the first piece of

1:25:03

game advice that you got not

1:25:05

from the playground, but from online.

1:25:07

And I was thinking randomly

1:25:09

for some reason about, you know, just the

1:25:11

hints have gotten over the years with games and how we used

1:25:14

to pass around in the playground like everyone else. But

1:25:16

then there came a time when we got a Commodore 64

1:25:18

from some burnt out worker. My

1:25:21

dad knew, I guess, and we

1:25:23

had a copy of Hitchhiker's

1:25:25

Guide to the Galaxy, which is a text based

1:25:28

game where you're going through the story by Douglas

1:25:30

Adams. And I just came really enthralled with it,

1:25:32

even though I had no idea what the Hitchhiker's

1:25:34

Guide to the Galaxy was. I was still kind

1:25:36

of young. We got

1:25:38

stuck. My brother and I were both playing. And we got

1:25:41

stuck very early in the game where Ford

1:25:43

is telling Arthur, hey, your house

1:25:45

is going to be wrecked by the Vogons. And

1:25:49

there was a certain trigger word you had to say, which

1:25:51

was like you had to ask Ford, what about my home?

1:25:54

If you didn't and you waited too long, the

1:25:56

Vogons would destroy Earth and that was the end

1:25:58

of everything. So I Said to my brother, how

1:26:00

did it happen? get past was part was going

1:26:02

on and when he did was he had a

1:26:04

Bbs or he was ana Bbs the ask. People

1:26:06

there hey how to get part passes, part

1:26:08

the game. And only goes of This is what

1:26:11

you have to say. So. That.

1:26:13

Is really interesting to make. My first like

1:26:15

kinda wasn't from a wasn't from the internet

1:26:18

as early as from Bbs on the commoners

1:26:20

the before which to be honest was it

1:26:22

was still or the that time are saying

1:26:24

that I was really alive in the in

1:26:26

the golden. Age of the Commodore Sixty four. Ah,

1:26:29

But. Then I thought of the. First

1:26:32

time I thought internet cartoon pornography.

1:26:34

And that was when someone printed out a

1:26:36

picture impasse around science class. So that's how

1:26:38

my early. Experience. Of

1:26:41

Internet Community became a pit.

1:26:43

By telling you that I saw a picture

1:26:45

of a line in jasmine thing pass around

1:26:47

Rothys science class has said oh so this

1:26:49

is what the answer is all about. How

1:26:51

that was a as quick. As

1:26:54

we've just been banned from Twitch

1:26:56

and sorry Sam. My

1:26:58

first piece of game advice. Was

1:27:01

so in nineteen ninety Four

1:27:03

I think we bought returned

1:27:05

to sort. As.

1:27:07

My entire family was playing and

1:27:09

if you're not familiar with returned

1:27:11

to sort it's a others it's

1:27:13

an Rpg was on our producer

1:27:15

in adventure game he and it

1:27:17

was a. Multi media style game

1:27:20

as compared to the text based

1:27:22

version. Of the eighties. And. So you

1:27:24

have people talking as you Now the huge.

1:27:26

Deal in the early nineties was

1:27:28

people talking but we got stuck

1:27:30

on the booze miller. A.

1:27:32

Puzzle. Where. You have this

1:27:34

guy sitting there and going you op some

1:27:37

rye course he do and then he for

1:27:39

a few a glass of right hands it's

1:27:41

you and my entire family. My mom,

1:27:43

me, my my dad, my sister was on old

1:27:45

enough to be playing this game at that time.

1:27:48

Were. Stuck on this puzzle. so

1:27:51

my solution was to murder. Booze

1:27:53

Miller: Yeah, I'm leader. And

1:27:55

he falls down. And. If

1:27:58

he kills somebody. It'll go. the past

1:28:00

victory is now blocked and you'll have somebody show up

1:28:02

and take all of your items but I would just

1:28:04

throw all of my items away

1:28:06

so that he couldn't

1:28:09

take them away. And

1:28:11

then when he died, a trap

1:28:13

door opened. So I went down and

1:28:15

I saw a locked door. I was like,

1:28:17

what do I do now? Well,

1:28:19

it turns out what you got to do is you got

1:28:22

to get booze very drunk by learning

1:28:24

various toasts and then keep pouring

1:28:26

the right plant.

1:28:29

And he'll eventually give you his keys

1:28:31

and then he'll get so drunk he'll fall over and

1:28:33

then you can go down and open the door.

1:28:36

And we only found that out because

1:28:38

I finally found a guide somewhere

1:28:40

on the internet in like

1:28:43

1995 and figured it out. So

1:28:45

that was my big first big

1:28:47

game hell moment. How about you? That's

1:28:49

pretty cool. My I

1:28:51

imagine everyone in my generation is familiar

1:28:54

with the tall tales and legends that

1:28:56

you would tell about Pokemon in the

1:28:58

chat. The

1:29:00

playground was not the chat. What's

1:29:05

up chat? I say as I walk out of the playground.

1:29:08

No, it's like the playground

1:29:10

rumors about Pokemon and you know, use strength to

1:29:12

move the truck. Yeah, that's what I was saying

1:29:14

to give you. But legitimately, I specifically

1:29:17

remember everybody teaching each other how to do the

1:29:19

missing no rare candy trick going up and down

1:29:21

to the bar islands. That

1:29:23

was like sacred text

1:29:25

of that era that passed around from

1:29:28

school to school. And that

1:29:30

was definitely like the first time I remember everybody

1:29:32

talking about a game in terms of like, how

1:29:34

do I do this thing? And then I was

1:29:37

also the one that had to I

1:29:39

had to beat it and then I beat it for several

1:29:41

other people in jack to there's the

1:29:43

mission where you have to drive from I think

1:29:46

it's from the like bad

1:29:48

guy hideout place to the garage in like two

1:29:50

minutes or something like that or three minutes. And

1:29:53

I was the only one who could beat that.

1:29:55

And so I after I finally conquered it, I

1:29:57

beat it for everybody else. Awesome.

1:30:00

So you remember the golden age of Pika Blue,

1:30:02

don't you? Pika Blue.

1:30:04

Yep. I remember, was

1:30:06

it Venus toys? Yeah.

1:30:09

The rumored one that was like a blast

1:30:11

toys, but it had a Venusaur flower

1:30:14

on its back or whatever. And it was

1:30:16

like, oh, you can mix the starter Pokemon

1:30:18

or whatever. Yeah,

1:30:22

everything about all the secret Pokemon.

1:30:25

I don't know why, but like when I was when

1:30:27

Super Mario World came out, it

1:30:29

was really very much just like all rumor based

1:30:31

because there was nothing in terms of information other than

1:30:33

like magazines. And even those are kind of a little

1:30:35

more sparse in Canada, I think. But

1:30:37

someone told me for some reason that in Super Mario

1:30:40

World, she insists is called Super Mario Brothers 4 and

1:30:42

was not the same thing. Super Mario World, he said

1:30:44

that Mario could take his clothes off. And like the

1:30:48

object of the game was to find Mario's

1:30:50

clothes, which had been stolen by Koopa. It

1:30:52

was a weird thing to say, but he

1:30:55

was very adamant about Mario being naked

1:30:57

for the next game. And it was for the NES,

1:31:00

not the Super NES. There

1:31:02

were a lot of secrets and rumors

1:31:04

that were being passed around by game

1:31:07

magazines. I took the Shang-Lang secret

1:31:09

that BGM, the April Fool's,

1:31:11

BGM secretly or seriously

1:31:14

because they had screenshots. Yeah,

1:31:17

it was really, really fake

1:31:19

a screenshot. Really good.

1:31:23

I mean, it was in a magazine. It wasn't exactly

1:31:25

like you could just get on Photoshop in

1:31:28

the early 90s. So seeing

1:31:30

a very plausible looking Street

1:31:32

Fighter character throwing M

1:31:34

Bison out and being somebody that you

1:31:37

could acquire made total sense

1:31:39

to me. So I totally bought into

1:31:41

the Shang-Lang EGM April Fool's

1:31:44

joke, which in many was very, very good. It

1:31:47

was a very good, I think it was Photoshop looking at like 3.0,

1:31:50

like not exactly very early days, very

1:31:52

archaic. And was it like I knew

1:31:54

what Photoshop was, it wasn't exactly early, easily

1:31:57

accessible at that time. So fair play to

1:31:59

you. The an artist for be able. To

1:32:01

do it. Still famous for a reason. They really did

1:32:03

for a lot of people. They did. And

1:32:06

that's it for this week's episode of Axe

1:32:08

to Blow. Got our first twenty twenty four

1:32:11

in our first ever a live show. Incredibly.

1:32:13

Went off relatively like ahead. I'm still

1:32:15

waiting for something horrible. To. Go

1:32:17

wrong. but we did great! The.

1:32:20

Had a lot of amazing people in

1:32:22

the chat. Chat was very lively. Had

1:32:24

a great time! Thank you so much for joining us!

1:32:26

Really doing this every. Single. Saturday

1:32:28

going forward. If you want to

1:32:30

support the podcast patriot are com/plug

1:32:32

I pod real get access to

1:32:34

tons of bonus content and hey,

1:32:36

we're about to go hang out

1:32:39

with our stars of destiny for

1:32:41

the post show. right? After this.

1:32:43

And. With finance a. Special thanks to

1:32:45

Anthrax! Visas Excel Flashback: Twenty

1:32:48

twelve teeth. And. L Abby of the

1:32:50

Moon I saw her. In the chat Thank

1:32:52

you So much force for in the podcast you.

1:32:55

As well we'll be in the post.

1:32:57

So over and the says cord. Insists.

1:33:00

A half second to hang out with

1:33:02

you all a fifth longer. Oh, and.

1:33:04

By the way, the Pantheon of the

1:33:06

Blood Odd for a January. Has.

1:33:08

Been announced. It. Will be

1:33:10

Final Fantasy Nine. that's our monthly game

1:33:12

club. Go check that on

1:33:15

the discord which can access for just

1:33:17

one dollar a month and a we

1:33:19

just release our most recent pansy an

1:33:21

episode which was a what What was

1:33:23

that Nadia. As you normally chronic illness

1:33:25

know zero live rock or something, you don't

1:33:27

try to hide the most useless oriental you

1:33:29

boat builder sumo know Xena Way chronicles and

1:33:31

we had a special guest at Them Fi

1:33:34

network and as Paulson are old friends and

1:33:36

had a agree I was nice to see

1:33:38

him against and to have been a while.

1:33:40

Free. Time haven't done. just remember

1:33:43

of for thirty pm pacific we're

1:33:45

going to be doing are sorely

1:33:47

and dropouts take over here on

1:33:49

twitch. Such Tv less forgot. I

1:33:52

know this. Join us. And

1:33:55

way I've been your host cafe early. Thank

1:33:57

you so much for joining us. Will be

1:33:59

back. next week to talk more about the

1:34:01

Domery Loaf of Pernodia. Eric, myself,

1:34:04

thanks for listening. I have you, Vincen.

1:34:26

Let us pray that our next battle goes

1:34:28

as well.