Castle Super Beast - CSB 256: Sephy-Sama Octoslashed Cloud With The Yaoi Paddle (feat. Gene Park)

Episode Date: February 13, 2024

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Music and Look who it is Hello, hey, Jean. How you doing, man? Strip club Jesus back again Back again. What is up? What is up? How's going guys good good? Glad to have my brain is so fried. I'm looking at your cam and I'm like Gene collared his fucking chair with yellow paint To make sure we knew where to look you you I mean I I was wondering how quickly you would like reach and grab

For anything and like okay the speck of yellow behind him has been the introduction point. All right I know where to point my eyes now. I knew where to sit down I was like where where where where do I where do I podcast I I don't I don't know oh I Covered my chair so I removed the covering and I was like that's where I sit down I have to say this is one of those discourse moments where this is exactly what I mean when I say I peep in I See what's going on and I'm like I want nothing to do with this. I want zero of my brain dedicated to this come on It's the least interesting thing in the world to me. I'm out fucking it's So dumb in the world

People are so mad about like the least obtrusive thing in the world. This is um god This is deus ex human revolutions outlines and piss Filter all over again. It's like the same argument! Yeah, sure. I mean look, you call it cowardice if you want, I just my brain wants nothing. Nothing to do with it. Yeah, so so all right, FF7. So I was like, yeah, what what like where did this all start? Let's trace it. Yeah, well, I mean Jean look obviously. It keeps starting over and over again. It's like a loop, right? Yeah, spiral. So, you know like, yeah, where did this all start? Let's trace it. Yeah, well, I mean, Jean, look, obviously. It keeps starting over and over again. It's like a loop, right? Yeah.

A spiral. So, you know, like, I thought we'd be bursting at the seams to jump into like a dragon, you know, discussion with you. But we got a detour over the fucking legibility town over here. So yes, FF7 Rebirth dropped its demo. And in it, there's yellow painted rocks which you climb on and

we have now like three yellow painted rocks, man And we have now reignited the lazy game design discourse from when the RE4 remake dropped with yellow paint on the barrels and dude legibility for gamers And then now we yes and now we go back, then we find every example of like, it's just like, no, it never used to be this way, versus look how obvious and dumb it always used to be, and then, no, what about accessibility, versus, no, but people are, it's just, ugh. It's the same thing over and over again.

Like, we've, I'm sure we've had this conversation on the podcast before. To eternity, absolutely, yes. We have. Yeah. I think that FF7 does represent something fun, which is like the start and end of the argument within its own, like, singular screenshot. Because like, FF7 in 97 was so

Allegable you could hit the select button and it would put glowing triangles on the fucking screen to be like This is the part where you can leave the room. This is the only Interactable item in the background. I mean this was also an era in which like they went to putting layers to give the effective Depth to the screen because the game right before that was fucking FF6, you know? So that was their first crack at like figuring out what camera angles might look like. I literally never did 3D before ever. Yeah, I feel like the no, the one of the one of the nice,

you know, nails in the in the in the wall here is high-five rush with its arrow level when you're When you're going through the the volcano and there's arrows guiding you and then you see like it actually is used as a point in the game where you see them all stacked up in the fucking Dumpster later Well, you are playing you're playing Half-Life 2 right now. I am playing Half-Life 2. Half-Life 2 and Portal are like the source of this massive amount of consumer level game design

knowledge because of their commentary modes, which are stellar. And I went through all of those games with all of their commentary modes and every fucking level there is like a 10 minute dialogue that's like so we couldn't get the player to fucking look at something. We had to put a guy in a ledge, shoot you until you died. We had to remove this path from the right because dudes would go in circles all over

and over and with Portal because the areas were all like white walls The only solution they could come up with for most of the game was to just put fucking graffiti that has a big arrow That goes look here. Yeah. Yeah, and so and something that comes up a lot is that so when I was in QA obviously the time was spent You know mostly there would be times where you're assigned to do play testing as a part of the department and you'd give feedback on things if they felt they were not clear or so.

There were also play tests where they'd bring the public in to do that. Oh no, not the public. And that was more so like marketing would handle a lot of that. We would do a bit of play testing where we'd come in and kind of observe and check out what was going on for the most part, but

it was it was The the results would all would come in, you know or let more or less like partially from public playtesting partially from our departments as well Who from people who are familiar with the game and yes and almost every Circumstance there's always a legibility pass that goes over these levels of things that are like, oh, this was meant to be obvious But it was not obvious enough. What else can we do to it? um, and I think what's what's kind of goofy is just the part where it's like yes Everything can be made more Integrated and it can't anything can be made like better any anything can be

Anything can be made like better. Anything can be designed. Yeah, you can have a spoke solution to every problem. To be a more elegant way to do things. But it cannot be understated how much people run into a wall and don't understand where to go and why these things have come out the way they have and why this idea of the God light has existed pretty much again, ever since 3D started being a thing in video games.

I think it's like the color. Like I saw people talking about it because like we had those like Tomb Raider fucking like, you know, those completely unnatural gray walls and we have like highlighted fucking tape or like mirrors edges runner vision, right? But as soon as it becomes like caution yellow, everyone starts to lose their fucking mind. I mean, I think if it was any bright color, the point would still be like,

no, you're making me feel stupid for doing this. But yeah, that obviously stands out on the environment stronger than others, as is intended. I will say that like, there is, if you're gonna steel man the argument, which is a term I like, which is like the office. Steel man? Steel man, so a straw man in an argument is,

as you know, is I'm gonna create a weak version of what you're trying to say, and attack it, because it's a straw man, it's easy to defeat. Right, right, yeah, yeah, yeah. So a steel man is I'm going to make the strongest possible version of my opponent's argument and discuss that because I have good faith that you believe in what you're saying.

Oh, that's like a sweet, almost naive way to do something because we assume everyone's being all nice and happy you know No, it's more like it's more like to say that if I think you're arguing in good faith I'm going to give you a charitable interpretation and then discuss Based on that because I'm actually trying to find a solution to what we're talking about okay So if you were to to steal man it there is the one thing I can say about the idea of the the painting such as if you create a rule in games, you then have a hard time breaking

that later on if you have to climb things later that are not highlighted in the same way. And I'm reminded recently of playing through Mass Effect 2 where or 3 where there's only for the first time ever in the DLC a moment where you have to shoot the glass of a window to crack it open during the DLC. And it's like nowhere else in the game are you shooting through glass. That's a rule that you have internalized.

Don't shoot windows, it's pointless in this game. But here it asks you to do that, right? That's the one thing that you can say is like, potentially an issue is if you have to then allow climbing later and you don't use yellow, but you can still use, again, like things in the world, the, again, lighting, camera angles, legibility can come in many different shapes and forms. The worst part about this course is, I retweeted the guy Dave Oshry who...

Yeah, it was Dave that kicked it up again. Yeah, yeah, well, I mean he just pointed it out and I retweeted it and I wasn't talking about the fucking yellow paint at all. I was talking about... I was complaining about clamoring. I'm tired of clamoring in games kind of, you know, because you do that for like 12 hours and got a war rack and rock. Like you're just climbing and shimming on ledges. You're shimming all over like uncharted.

Like it's all, it's, and I get it. It's all from Prince of Persian on another world. That part with the Treyas where you have to climb for like a fucking hour is like the reason I have, I will never replay that game Yeah Whoa, the wall yet. Yeah, you had to climb the wall and then and then and then that shit has out top right But it just took forever and I'm just like oh my god, dude Like and then why is Kratos?

Why is why are Kratos and cloud clamoring when we know Kratos can can can leap over an entire Titan? It's something if we're see what Cloud can do. This box that the concept artist drew for the shot. You know what is interesting too is like in this particular instance in the exact same game FF7 Rebirth, right before the ledges occur, you have the pathway leading up to them and the entire grounds to the mountain and you're introduced to the parkour system or where you can just hold the button down and just run into things and leap over stuff. Rebirth is a strand type game. Yeah, yeah and and and using that I kind of was like

oh well let me just do what I like to do which is like go in all the other directions from the one that's intended initially. And in doing so, well, one, hit a bunch of things that looked like they should be jumpable, but they turned out to not be. And then two, hit a bunch of slowdown walls where it's like you're sprinting, and then here you hit a field of,

now I can only walk slowly. And it's almost meant to be like, hey, stop exploring that much, get back on the main path. If you really wanna keep going, you can walk until you're past a certain threshold on the ground and go back to sprinting. But there is a speed bump on both sides of the lane, aggressively placed for the entire lead-up to Mount Nibble.

So you know, Stephart has something to say, you gotta listen, you know? I love it. I love, but yeah, I'm just, I was just mad about the clamoring because I'm just like, why I'm, I'm just, it takes so long. Um, I, like, is it hiding loading? I don't know. I don't know. You know, I thought it was back in the day, like the squeeze through was like, oh,

they're putting a load in screen here But then we got the the power of the PlayStation 5's SSD And we and we still got the the squeeze throughs which to me says it's like Where I'm you remember Gears of War had that fucking something cools happen hit the button look at it fucking look at it stare at it yeah, it feels to me like we went through two generations of that and that wasn't enough to actually make people look at it. So they're saying like, no, we're gonna put you

in a fucking fake little baby cutscene where you squeeze through a little thing in the wall and then we'll have the pan out so that we can force you to look at it. And why are you making hand motions? What what do you what do you know? I'm just excited because as you talk about the Gears of War lock and look right? Yeah, um, I mean we I We just played Mass Effect 1 and the lock and look occurred and Reggie missed

and Reggie mist, what should I call it, taking off. Sovereign, leaving. Sovereign, mist sovereign taking off with the lock that was there. Yeah, it's not enough. It's not strong enough. It happened. I watched it happen in front of me. You know, in the year of our Lord, like 2022 or whatever, like, you know, that's super real.

That's an absolute, really real thing. Half-Life 2 is still confusing, you know, that's super real. That's an absolutely real thing Half-Life 2 is still confusing, you know Half-Life 2 can still be I can I can still get lost in Half-Life 2 Oh, oh, yeah, I'm playing it now. I'm your loss right now. Aren't you? Yeah? Well, that's it I'm getting turned around in a couple places, but I'm also like I'm saying okay those are the wood panels you have to break it is there um and I am immediately also seeing a lot of folks that are like, this is crazy because I inherently know where to go, but then I'm realizing that I don't know

what it's like to look at this game with fresh eyes because of how much I know with the back of my hand. It's been decades. You know, and it's like, yeah, actually, you are learning a lot of where to navigate for the first time, and in some cases, like when I got, when you first meet in Ravenholm, the priest,

he's talking to you and then you see him on the roof on the other side and you jump across. And then there's a moment where you have to kind of jump down from the roof onto like this little landing. But because you just jumped up on the roof, I kind of thought I was gonna stay on that area for a minute. And so yeah, I kind of like walked around a little bit and it was one of those like,

no, obviously look over the edge. And it's like, ah, when the whole world is open to you. Yeah, no, no, no. It's all about forced looking. And it's like, it's the real life equivalent of like, someone will like come to your house and stop you from playing like drunk lawn darts because some people out there Can't safely and responsibly throw gigantic metal darts in the air while they're wasted

So you can't yeah, he with giant fucking death drop spikes on them I had the exact same thing recently in armored course six where in in two or three of the cave levels, I'm navigating internal inside and there's a point where you go in to hit the objective and then you exit and then you're supposed to proceed further into the level. But the objective marker is not... It's a moment where the objective isn't there. So in this particular case, I remember, I think it was like I had to drop way below

the cliff level where I was at, but it was not safe to do so on all the other areas, but there was one area where there was a safe drop, but like I just, I didn't pan over the cliff to look at it, you know? I think the clamber, like as annoying as it is, Gene, I'm thinking back to playing Armored Core 6 and other games in which I am actively trying,

you know, I'm gonna try and see everything cool that's happening because I'm broadcasting it. And I think back to when characters go, holy shit, look at that. And they say that and the game has framed me so that I'm looking in the correct direction. And when somebody goes, hey, look at that and they say that and the game has framed me so that I'm looking in the correct direction And when somebody goes hey look at that I start to fucking spin the camera As far as I can because I assume I'm not looking at it

And I miss it! Because I'm looking for it when I was already looking at it We just G and this is why this is why PT is is one of the most effective scariest games of all time because there's a fucking radio that's saying look behind you. Yeah, I said look behind you and then you look behind you and then you're fucked. We, Gene, we just talked about this a couple weeks ago when, when you're having the fucking worm battle in Armored Core 6, and you get that moment of the buildup and you know it's about to go down

and the sound design is all there, and the silence and then the I won't miss. And I'm like, I'm spinning around like please, where do I have to look? Don't miss the moment. And I luckily had it in frame and it's set up in such a way where I think we found that afterwards

the worm will always pop up at least where you're initially at looking. It'll pop up in that frame in front of you once it goes underground. So that's brilliantly designed to maximize your chances. But if you're panicking. And they do it three times. They do it three times, but there's such a panicked moment

of oh no, I'm gonna miss the cool moment. I don't know where they want me to look. And it's like, if it's not obvious right away, you're just like sweating. But yeah, the game saved my ass in that fight. It was great. That was me during the Placidus X fight or whatever, however we've been practicing.

Right, right, yes. Yeah. When it's like doing the nuclear bomb attacks or like the combo attacks or whatever. And I just like stopped playing because I'm just like trying to like look at him, you know? Yes. And not getting the right camera angle in the Plistidius X fight is also bad

because it's such a cinematic fight, you know? And like, yeah, obviously Elden Ring and FromSoft Games are like, no, you better be looking otherwise, you're just gonna miss it. But it has those amazing, yes. But it has those amazing like, oh, the concept art is happening right now, and you have to be standing in the right place

to get the full spread, the Gamera drop, you know? Like if you don't get it, you don't get it, but it's awesome if you do maybe come around and get it the next time. I have to say, I feel- Yeah, in Sekiro, the ninjas are just gonna drop out of the sky with no warning, there's no big There's no visual Ninja that's about to slam to your face or not

Sekiro Like I feel for for game design people who like will probably look at playtesters or look at like somebody's stream And I know for a fact that woolly and I have both have the exact same situation, and Paige has had that situation, and Reggie's had that situation, where you go into a room and there's only one thing to do in the room, and you spend like 10 minutes turning the camera in just such a way that the only thing in the room that matters never actually comes into frame even once. And go, I guess there's nothing in here and leave. And the viewers are going nuts.

Anybody who worked on that is losing their fucking mind. It's just you can only experience something new once for the first time, you know, after that, your your brain knows exactly what the map is and where to go and what to do, but twists and turns and corners, and holding your hand versus having a sense of discovery. Right? Yeah, it's a tricky balance, but you don't have to.

But you should definitely err on the side of like letting the player not fucking completely miss those moments and or like do things that are like like the the ac6 fight Like friendly towards you having the most cinematic experience possible um on that note Uh ff7 rebirth if I could if we're talking about that does yeah, I guess we're talking about it does a fucking fantastic job with that through like in every other way, I guess we're talking about it does a fucking fantastic job with that through like in every other way I mean the the It's still I said I think I said it about remake, but it's the best seamless music transitions in the game

It's I don't think the industry I've made to my experience has had better Just the background music into the the the transition, yeah, into combat, out of combat, and then into a new room where we're gonna start hinting at the Sephiroth theme, or we're gonna start hinting at one of the other themes of Intrigue or the Hojo layer theme, all that shit, is just phasing in and out in such a magnificent way. And like, it's not just in and out of battle.

It's also like in and out of like, your walk, like there's a moment where you open up the doors and walk towards like the top view of Mount Nibble. And like you get like a nice like vista view and like it's waits for you to walk up there to drop the theme out to a more quiet subdued version, you know? unbelievable Going through the demo is like there was a point when I was streaming it where I had this like sad

realization in my chest of like What the fuck is the point of ff16? of like, what the fuck is the point of FF16? Cause FF16 was supposed to be the action game, final fantasy game, and I'm doing fucking Sephiroth and cloud fucking air combos and team attacks and shit. And I'm like, this is a lot faster and a lot more action fucking packed than 16

was even at the end. Yeah, I think I think 16 existing is them continuing what they do, which is trying out a couple different battle systems and seeing what works what sticks, you know, think you know 1312 and 10 are wildly 13 invented the stagger system, so we'll give it a little golf clap. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Yeah, and then whatever 17 becomes, you know, can choose to balance however much of the action you get in 16 with perhaps some of the more traditional elements wherever they want to

pull them. But 7 also has a secondary job of being reminiscent of the old game while also playing like Advent Children. And that's a unique goal compared to the other FFs, you know? It is. It's a better goal. It's sick, it's super sick. It's better. It's just what it is. It fucking rules, man.

It plays awesome. I'm like, even the very limited like tutorial baby version of All the skills and air comms you get it feels so fucking great. I'm Just a sucker for double and triple text like I like create Karo trigger Everybody is Karo trigger could it created something inside of me That's here forever and it's just the character team up moment, and then the triple if you can do it.

And I hope we get, but we haven't seen anything. But when P5 Royal introduced, like, God man, teamwork in the fight. Teamwork in the fight feels great. Everything needs to do that. Everything, all the time. Make that happen. That desire unlocked for me as soon as I saw

the American SNES cover of Chrono Trigger. Yes! Right! Yes! It was the wrong character! I was like, that is the sickest shit I've ever seen. We get to do that in the video game. That's a sick cover. It looks even cooler than the Japanese version somehow. Like, very cool. Yeah, and like, you're actually reminding me that that wasn't't it wasn't just in the game. It was the advertising on the cover of that's what this is about.

Party members are going to fight like to like together together. You are in midair slashing the monster and your party member is lighting your sword on fire. What else is doing that? I was really happy because you play intergrade and intergrade is like an entire DLC devoted to like two characters that play like a human dual tech Because you hit the button and they just become one person. Oh, I'm thinking like man I really hope this means we're gonna get a bunch of stupid dual techs and in the next one And now we got Aerith fucking throwing on Barrett sunglasses and feral stance Tifa and Arith fucking throwing on Barrett sunglasses and feral stance Tifa and all this stupid shit And and not just not you have not only do you have dual techs in regular combat?

But you've got dual tech limit breaks, you know You've got the the and then like the effects you get are different. So you get yeah, you have the the zero MP, you know fucking Clouds Fee Whatever such a puppy. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Sometimes it'll give you like like an extra ATP meter.

So you have three ATP meters instead. It's the Fujos have never had a better time than playing this demo. Incredible. Incredible. It's so out of control. Like like Cloud practically goes, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, It's funny because okay, so I mentioned so punch mom. She would be watching this punch mom just finished ff7 right and Is oj ff7 oj ff7 and yeah, and she and she played remake one right right um, but has not seen any of the ACBC DC

Lo You know rebirth rebirth of what was it called the? you know, rebirth of, what was it called? The, um, Compilation. Compilation. Compilation of FF7. She is not, most people have it. Yeah, right.

Hasn't seen any of that. So, to her it was like the old game, straight into this wild remake world of super hyper realism and details. And like in going over that and then playing the demo for rebirth, I kind of realized I was like, oh, if you don't have any of the

compilation in your brain or even Kingdom Hearts in your brain, like you have no idea where this insane fucking pairing energy comes from. Yeah, when did they become lovers? When did that happen? Right? And I'm like, and so I think the pinpoint, and I might be wrong, but I think the pinpoint is Advent Children, right? That energy is where that version of Sephiroth gets created. And like, if you don't have that, it's very like, is this what they were getting at in the game I just played? And it's like, no, really, they weren't.

He was kind of a silent mystery and a weirdo but and then the ideas like hey I'm gonna stop you for a second there so I went over it and I was talking with people and and went and got to the conclusion that in original FF7 outside of the flashback you never talked to Sephiroth even once in the entire game there are literally no lines of dialogue between him and any other character ever in the entire game. In real time. Okay, because I remember I saw someone mentioning that he never addresses the party, but I thought he addresses Cloud.

Never. Never. Interesting. Not like the last second. That's all the Genova livestream, whatever, in his head or whatever. Yeah, okay, okay. So I guess we're to assume he was just thinking about Cloud's butt like the whole time.

And it's like, what is the moment of that that matters? Because the whole time, if anything, you'd like him and Zach are having their little like, oh, you're a little underling and you're getting up in your ways and oh, say your prayers to your sword, yadda yadda, bit. But the actual connection that forms is based on him just getting stabbed that time.

Dude, the first time they speak. He gets stabbed and he's like, oh, you made me bleed? I fucking need you inside of me, bro. Do it again like you did with the Buster sword, please. The first time they speak after seven years is the ending of Advent children. God. Yeah. God. And then I forgot that there is a good parallel between guts and griffith in that relationship

between the idea that cloud was the one that bested Sephiroth and then Sephiroth can't let that go. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. True. true, true. And then again, well, you know what? It's like, okay, you penetrated me, but then I penetrated you, so. And now we're gonna penetrate each other back and forth. We both got to, you know, and this time though, you rejected mine and you swung me away. So what the fuck?

The next time I break up with somebody, I will tell her, I will never be in God one of the worst last things you could ever say to someone Yeah, I'm just I'm thinking about the demo and I'm thinking about your describing of how punch mom went through it and So I'm gonna talk about ff7 the game is 27 years old and when I talk about FF7 Remake 2 Rebirth, I'm gonna talk about FF7. And it is fascinating to see something pretending to be something old and wink at you in every single shot.

and wink at you in every single shot. Like the framing of Cloud in every single scene and every line of dialogue and every single person that talks to him always has a very careful framing of who else is in the shot or who else is not in the shot or the dialogue is just kind of off and doesn't really make any fucking sense? Or quite literally, there's computer glitching occurring. Yeah.

Remember that part in the flashback memory when the animus started glitching out? I do. That was cute though because as I was watching it and as I was going, it was a lot less clear in the original, but here now with the context of the past and also like a good camera angle, we can see like the exact moments that the fabrication wouldn't make any sense

if it continued even one second further in the cutscene. And then we go, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, that the fabrication wouldn't make any sense if it continued even one second further in the cutscene. And then we go, ah, skip, ah, skip. There are still like things that I go, so when you're standing outside with Tifa as the staircase moment is happening inside, right? In theory, you shouldn't know what's going on inside,

but we're going in anyway because video games, you know? Okay, so there is like a really, really great detail. So Crisis Core happened, right? So I'm not even gonna assume that people are familiar with Crisis Core because that game is weird and kind of bad But in the Nibbleheim storyline if we're talking unreliable narrators you would then ask Where the fuck is Genesis? Why isn't he was there?

But cloud didn't physically see him with his eyes at any point So he's not in the flashback. And that's why we, and we're playing through an unreliable narrator, the most unreliable narrator section. And there you go. What is cool, though, is playing through that scene, where, yeah, and yes, Gact is, they

did reuse his voice lines for the reunion so it's not anyway um before we tie that yeah so play watching through the the the ride to nibbleheim and stuff what was cool yeah punch mom who like a lot of the time she doesn't pick up on subtle things and stuff like there's a couple times we'll be like oh did you catch them like oh wait what and then we'll go back but she was like in watching the the truck scene where clouds like oh You guys like like full of energy do it getting it out of a system all that you know She's like oh clouds acting different. I was like yeah. Yeah. It is isn't he okay?

You know it's like yeah, you're catching that right so that's clear And it's made and it's made much more obvious in that scene because you have like the facial expressions, the details, all the other things coming through, you know? Oh, this is before she played OGFF7, right? No, no, no, this is after, but like now watching remake and the rebirth cutscene. Okay. There is so much going on. She would know why Cloud is acting like that.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, right. And it's also like in the story so far, there's like, it's actually being way more obvious about every, it's just telling you straight up. It's like nudging you with your fucking elbow. Just like, ah, ah. It's more than a nudge. The story so far straight up tells you

defeating Sephiroth at the end of remake breaks open the timeline for infinite possibility Whatever it just says it right um But yeah, so that that was a good detail something though that I am kind of bummed about is I have a strong memory of in the original ff7 the the truck stops, you get out, and a fight sequence occurs, it's you, and it's cloud. It's Sefroth and cloud, and a dragon is in the way. And it's a giant fucking real green dragon, the most fantasy thing ever.

And it does zero damage to him, and he fucking one-shots it, you know? And that being replaced with a couple of two with two like little monsters for this for this Like ah, I was hoping you get it I was hoping it would be a dragon because that that did such a strong power level Well, that gets moved to like the fucking materia defender freak At the end. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it becomes a boss battle. I guess whatever Also, it's that scene in the OG

Yeah, well that you want to talk about like because that was the first time in the OG that we see sephiroth power level And the important thing with that moment is that you don't control sephiroth even though he's in your party He just goes ahead and just one shots the dragon and you're just like I didn't even touch anything You're right, you know so like that like conveys like Sephiroth's power without even like saying anything Yeah, so like it did feel I did feel when I started it I was like oh, I'm playing several that's cool And then I was like oh, but like now I'm now I'm Sephiroth and now I don't feel now I'm not now it's not stinking. We're not stinking put skin anymore. You know, yes Did that cuz like I get it I get it like I think it's cool

But you know, but to be fair the mode the first time you get to control him after you're on that on that road battle The thing dies in one second and you don't get a chance to look at his his mechanics. That's true It's you press one button it melts and the fight is over Oh, that's true. It's an if you press one button, it melts and the fight is over. You know, so I'm like, yeah, that's the only thing he is going to rip, you know, with the mods that the Sephiroth mods that are going to come out. Oh, yeah. Oh, boy.

Oh, my God. Yeah. So that is that is one little bit there, right? There's so much going on in that truck scene that made me like just so happy. The voice acting decisions they made for the characters in that that truck scene that made me like just so happy. The voice acting decisions they made for the characters in that tiny scene are so fucking perfect. They've got Cloud's voice actor doing an impression of a different actor and we have that actor in the scene pretending to do an impression of clouds actor is that what was happening cloud

He was pretend he was doing a voice for the guy for the guard. Oh wow That's why you hear Zach's voice out of the guard saying Oh, I want to talk about a girl friend because that's exactly out of what he's sitting crisis score Wow, okay Did you also notice? You're going approaching the house, approaching your mom's house during the, the Nibbleheim fire. As you're going mom, mom, right? There's the NPC subtitles on the side and it says

serviceman, service agent, mom. And it pops up as one of them and not and even though it says cloud Kiss subtitle at the box at the bottom Yeah, so you have your own memory and you're you're retelling your memory But you somewhere deep down inside know that that's not right and both subtitles pop up with conflicting fucking title speakers I mean, I'm doing some Alan Wicks. They're doing some Alan Wicks shit here, it's cool security officer security officer real nice work on that yeah Rebirth ain't out. I haven't played it, but I remember there was this big discussion one remake came out of like do I?

absolutely need To play or have known everything that happened in FF 7 to play FF 7 remake and the answer is No like like long up inflection have known everything that happened in FF7 to play, FF7 Remake, and the answer is no? Like long up inflection, I can only imagine, especially after that fucking trailer they showed us in that fucking state of play, that parts of Rebirth are going to be incomprehensible without like a wide spectrum of knowledge on these games

coming out. Yeah. I would absolutely imagine that anyone who played Remake that's like the new audience that never went that wasn't around for a seven original plays Remake as their first introduction to the series, and then perhaps plays this demo, I can imagine someone there going, okay, hold on, what the fuck? I need to go back and at least watch a video or something.

I think my favorite version of this discussion was me going like, rebirth is like season seven of the FF7 TV show. Cause it went FF7, then it went Advent Children, then it went before crisis, then it went crisis core, then it went dirge. And then we got remake and rebirth, right? And I saw someone respond to me like, dude, if I need to know about dirge of Cerberus to understand anything and fucking rebirth, I'm going to be so mad.

And I'm like, dude, you were fighting dirge of Cerberus boss. You didn't know Yeah, you'd even know it because because you weren't familiar with the game literally. Oh god. Yeah Yeah, um Fuck I there's there was a particular pull I just thought of in The Lost. Yeah. Are we gonna hang out with Lucrezia and fucking Cyberbully her for being the dumbest idiot that ever fucking existed in any game? Oh, I hate that bitch.

Oh. Well, did you see her, Gene? Did you see her in Crisis Core? She is like the dumbest. I forgot. Everyone was so dumb in Crisis Core? She is like the dumbest. I forgot everyone was so dumb in Crisis Core though. So I don't remember. Oh, man, she's like it's tricked into giving birth to Satan. But it's easy to trick her.

Oh, fucking yeah. That then of course the state of play where rushes back. It's fun. Oh my God. Oh, see, baby. And it's fun. Oh my God. O.C. baby. Yeah. O.C. He's going to be the main playable character of the third game. Um.

He kills. He finally gets it again. Sephiroth. I was going to die at the end and then Roche is going to step up and be like, I'm Zach. It's the. At the end and then Roche is gonna step up and be like I'm Zach Behind in the background and him up front like giving the middle finger grabbing a ball going Fuck um

Project R. Okay Roche. So is it just me or is did I miss maybe this is a thing? Zangin Yeah, is he has he always been supposed to give off a sabon vibe is that yeah, okay? Yeah, I completely didn't that was that was lost on me to the ages because I'm a new player of ff6 But yeah, he's the guy man. I'm a big yeah,. Yeah, immediately I was like, oh, there's a monk. But I'm like, oh my god, it's fucking Sabbath. Like, Jesus Christ. Like, he also exists in this game to show everyone at home just how easy it would be for a big, strong man

to completely encircle Cloud's waste with your hands? Mmm. Couldn't believe it. Couldn't believe it! So we were talking about what the third game's going to be called because they've already used Reunion for Crisis Core, and it has to start with an R, so yes, FF7, Roshmake. Yeah, there it is. Oh, fuck. Yeah Fuck that goober's back I think it's gonna be called reprise. That's all that's good

But I find a seventy seven that's good. That's reprise reprise is also a song on one of their fucking CDs And oh and so was rebirth. So that's why I'm like, okay They're gonna use that word next wait, um I had a thought in my brain and it's gone like what if they just call it reloaded The worst possible once they just said what if they fucked off and just called it resurrection and yeah yeah revelations just all the hakiest ones yeah like revengeance is too obvious right so it has to be like revelations or you know Yeah, but but again, they've completely used up reunion so I Can't fucking believe

They blew reunion on the crisis core release. Mm-hmm. It would have been the perfect one I would have I was so fucking adamant the third game was gonna be called reunion until I saw that So fucking adamant the third game was gonna be called reunion until I saw that yeah I think from developer because I've been like doing like deep dive yet like developer really like it like reads now Because I usually never do this but now I am It feels like they called it reunion reunion because they want to signal to the audience that reunion Is part of like the crisis core game was is now part of the remake trilogy. Yeah. And it might it might be like the actual people to remake important.

With rap rap. So the soldier G is vital. Sodias may never be forgotten. Yeah. Yeah, I think the story of Angelo and Genesis might be very, very important. Man, I want I want fancy flashback cutscenes about fucking, oh God, what are they called? Dumb apples.

Dumb apples, yeah. In the Benara region. I will always say that there's something cold and harsh to be remembered about the original way that Zach's death plays out, just cliff sides. It's like, un-bastated. Super. Yeah, and there's something just brutal and grit

about that in particular, but it becoming the moment that it does, does make it cool, you know? And in particular, you get the breaking of the fucking slot that adds a lot to it. I still remember when we first, because to be clear, for anybody who doesn't know the gene lore, I first played Final Fantasy VII completely in Japanese, so I didn't know what the fuck was going on throughout the entire game. And I min-maxed it, I got nice of the round, everything without understanding what the

hell was going on in the story Or what was happening? But when I got to the part and I saw the photograph of Zach and it was like a black haired cloud I was like who the hell is that? A black haired cloud? That's insanely confusing. I was so confused and I was like so intrigued and that's that's when I started to like start learning Japanese more I was like oh, I should probably figure out what's actually happening in the story

just late in the game. I'll have more to talk about it in a second or near the end of this because Paige and I watched Advent Children yesterday. But it's really nice that Crisis Core and Before Crisis and AC has all this insane, cringe, embarrassing, stupid shit, and they've made no attempt to distance themselves from it at all. There's no attempt to even imply that, yeah,

no, the dumb Apple thing didn't happen, or Zach's goofy fucking behavior was actually played up for Crisis Core. Like, and the weird, latent, homoeroticism from Advent Children is not only here, it's like on steroids. I like it. We so in after beating the demo yesterday, we watched the last order.

Right. Just the only thing in completion to no longer be canon. Huh. Is that is always a non-canon? OK, it is not because I have this crisis. Corpore replaces it. It does. It does directly replace it. But it is interesting watching it and then like you get your cut to like the turks lining up. And it's like, alright, there's the turks we know and then a bunch of fucking before crisis assholes

with their extra design standing around being like giving out their one line of personality, you know? And they're just like, oh man, I never learned about the rest of those turks. standing around being like giving out their one line of personality and owners like oh man I never learned about the rest of those Turks who are you who the fuck were they you know they were cool for that one wallpaper. You're probably fine. Oh man yeah like it's like it's such a clear mode of like okay Rino and Rude and there's Elena and then all these others with with hairstyles and personalities going and me and me don't forget about that one I just played OGFF7 and I still can't get over how they re-imagine or rebranded the Turks

as like these funny happy goofy guys. Dude they're fucking scum! Yeah when Sung fucking slaps erith on the helicopter when she's like no your little daughter is okay slap no you I'm gonna slap your face erith shut the fuck up nah we're cool we wear suits someone has to take the burden and we choose to be those people also also the plate and kills like a million people and then they try to turn him into a goofy dude. First of all, it says thousands. Thousands.

And second, someone had to do it, right? Let the responsibility fall on us. Let our hands be stained, even though it's just to frame avalanche. Like, fuck you. Like, yeah, no, it's exactly that. And then later, too, when you're watching Last Order, and it's like, they're like, oh, do we capture Zack dead or alive? It's like, try to bring him alive if you can. But no, it's all the soldiers and grunts that are like, fuck the orders, we want to kill them and drag his body in ah

But if trader man, but if the Turks were it were in charge they would have brought Zach in alive you see bullshit But they sure do look sharp in those goddamn Cool Rena with the leanin looks great and yeah, yeah, I don't look fucking Yeah, um I Reno with the Lose. Elena looks great. Look fucking. Yeah, um I They're the first Yakuza. They're the first Yakuza as far as I'm concerned engaged. Oh, yeah Yeah, I think I see it I was not familiar with what Yakuza were like as a trope, you know before that point first so for sure at least doesn't experience

That's yeah, very us. Yeah, very good Totally the the shin rez I bought see right, huh? And yeah, okay the way Reno like wears his suits Yes, because with like the open top because if they were all like because we know what like Italian mob mobster You know coding which is just yeah suits and ties and hats and stuff Yeah, I just covered heads of toe on fucking spaghetti But then yeah everything would look a lot more especially that like again like God Good fellows or Godfather-esque, you know, but yeah, Reno is specifically giving off a yak is a five

Patriarch or the Shinra clan exactly um I'm I I Didn't find a yakuza roof for Shinra introduction would be so sick though man. They should have just done that for Rufus Just Rufus like the only person who gets it Rufus is also stylish as fuck. I'm Sold so cool god damn what a piece of shit, but he's so dripped out and he's got the coin You're like you're like you're so evil. You're the worst, but also Well, your dad was worse to be fair, but you want to use him in guilty-gear strive, you know, that's what's up

Mm-hmm. Yeah, Rufus getting like glowed up like that in remake was so weird because I remember it was like one of the best fights in The whole game and he's yeah, you see he's got the coin and it's at the top of the fucking tower It's so cool, and I'm like man. This is the one time Probably we're ever gonna fight this guy Like Jesus Christ like this feels like something I would want to do two more times. Yeah Yeah They what what how many times we fight fight a Minochi? Once! What, just that one?

Just that one? Just that one? Just the one? Just the one? That's crazy. That's crazy. Um, I, I, I thought it was a, um, yeah, just, it's pretty cool walking around Nibbleheim and like the, the crowd following wherever Sephiroth is and again just being like like introduced to

the idol you don't have to talk to strangers bit you just walk up to people and they kind of go oh hey cloud or they're having their own like fucking four bowls of soup in big sandwiches seconds and ruin your dinner I missed I missed the piano I couldn't find it. I think Tifa's room. Dude, I fucking missed it. It's where her pennies are. Underwear. So I thought it was because there's a piano when you walk into the manner and I thought it was that one. But that piano is actually busted up and fucked because you know, you want to he went on the rampage. Yeah. So there's something really psycho about the new context of like

I am telling you guys a story. So then Tifa, I went into your room and I started going through your closet and she gives you the chance to go, really? And then they give you a dialogue prompt, but you go, yeah, yeah, no, I totally look through your stuff. Yeah, yes, they should have painted the piano yellow, I suppose, yeah. Yes, they should have painted the piano yellow, I suppose. Yeah

Yeah The Yeah, and then there was the other bit was with it with her teacher It's like oh, yes, and one of my my great students Tifa and you're and you're gonna like it really her Almost like didn't think she added in her and she's like hey what what the fuck loud like ah anyway moving on You were just the girl next door. Um, yeah, no, that's a that's a nice taste. What's a bit odd though is there because they're like you beat this chapter and then when the full game comes out, you won't have to play it again. You can skip past it.

Yeah, I'm not going to do that. Right. And not only that, but like it's like, but the version of the game we're playing is giving you materia every two seconds because it's a demo. And you're picking up all kinds of materials not going to carry forward out of a fucking flashback. Exactly. No. So but it's just like that is not the same final version you're going to play. You know, that's a yeah because cloud cloud in Nibbleheim is level 40. You don't start as level 40 and no man re-birth. I think they said it was like 15 or something 20 Yeah, whatever the hell you probably left mid-gar ad in the original in the original that yeah

Yeah, that's what they said and that's true is that when I left mincar in og I was like oh level 15 level 17 so well, yeah, I guess well like yeah Yeah, you're enough you're in a flashback so should gameplay fucking drop you back to you know a previous version of well Also, I don't mean to put too too much of a point on it, but also the flashback we're playing through didn't happen So nothing how the fuck this materia Right, right, right, right? I mean the only true thing was that he probably did sniffed Tifa's panties. Yeah, probably.

It's a sharpest memory, you know. Zach was doing this shit and I had to go get her orthopedic underwear for reasons. Yeah. Um, the new pause screen is interesting. Uh, do you know where they are? FF15, baby? Temple of the Ancients. Oh, where are they?

Yeah, they're standing in the fucking temple of the ancient in the pause screen. Right there. With the black material behind you as you're going through the fucking material system. Fucking like and I'm like the moment I saw you see that you're like Oh, you're gonna be able to pan around to the party and see and get a better look at it and like yeah The time of day changes and you're and like one Sephiroth joins, you know I was go I went into time and try and see how much of a good look you could get at it. Yeah, that's fucking, that's super cool. I like that.

That shit is great. Big excitement, big excitement for that Final Fantasy 7. Oh my god, dude, when the state of play, like the first words out of the state of play's mouth is cloud. You need to bring me the black material. I'm like, oh, you're you're saying too much already. So, yeah, I don't even want to hear the words black material yet. You know, I don't know if we want to talk about that trailer like now or at all. I mean, rest assured, you can just say that it is aggressively spoiler full and and that as as as we knew. And I did say the day before that I was like, yeah

I think I'm at that point where I just want hands-on. I don't want to keep watching promo material I uh, but then it was doing that thing where I'm like this probably has a lot of spoilers in it You know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna frame by frame this fucking shit Okay as fast as I can and then I sent Gene a fucking screenshot of something I pulled out of the trailer and it's like I can't believe they had the audacity to put that shit in the trailer. I had the moment in midstream where I was like I don't want to be watching this anymore but I'm already here and I decided you know we're like okay people wanted to do more

of these, so let's do it, but yes. You have the reverse of Paige's power. So Paige was here, we were watching some Sony, I forget what it was, and as soon as she gets up and leaves, all the cool shit that everyone was waiting for happens. You have the opposite.

If I hear, hey, Will's watching today's press conference? Oh, there's gonna be spoilers all over that fucking shit So if you hadn't watched it that cut of the trailer would have been fine It would have been fine. Yeah, yeah, it's all gameplay stuff And again people know me and how I don't want to tune in for these things anyway But I'm like I can't just like it would be the weirdest thing to just walk in the middle of that That's just the nubby nuts or fucking go offline, but I'm like I can't just like it would be the weirdest thing to just walk in the middle of that That's the nubby nuts or fucking go offline, but fortunately

My my Logan power has already started and I yeah, yes Oh, that's good. So and and like a whole like most of what occurred is already gone My fucking my James howling is killing the brain over over I barely well say there's only one thing I really want to talk about in that trailer because I think it's really brave I think they made some really like dramatic and and heroic brave decisions in that FF7 trailer because in the in the part where Tifa and Aerith walk out to show Red 13 their new beachwear, he stumbles over his words,

because Square agrees that Red thinks human women are hot. And that is a brave stance. That is, they're so real for that. So, you know, when we had the original Red 13 moment That is they were they're so real for that so so You know when we had the original red 13 moment of red plus Tifa for the fucking Hojo Purposes that was just the jab and then now that Hojo is no longer around We see that actually red would have been yeah, right red was like, okay, well. Where, where, where's my fate? Where, where, yes, so be it, right?

Where the, where the, where the, the fan fiction writers on this one? What's going on? Um, oh God. White woman in dog warding, stop it. It's everybody needs to chill. Relax, ramifications. Stop needs to chill. Relax. Rammification stops for the internet at large. Stop.

You know the worst part is it's the same people that it ever was, but now they've been energized. Yeah, I'm shocked at how passionate the shipping conversation has happened. Someone just... People are just like... All right, look, so they hurt you. Did they say something that hurt you in your mind? Someone just said Red Rocket 13. We're moving on. We're moving on. Oh, no.

We're done. We're done. As bad as I would have expected. We're moving on. No, that's that. No, no, we're we're. Hey, we're moving on. Yeah, I don't know if anything else Comes to mind, but just yeah good shit on that demo did what it's supposed to and

They're gonna have a bigger demo, which is weird. Yeah, Junon update, right? So Interesting that it's like like ff16 demo had the second part for the combat, you know Just right afterwards and here it's like, oh, it'll be a patch and you'll come back to it. That might serve better in a case that like, it gives you a reason to reboot and remember, you know, it's like another, it's another advertisement in its update coming down the line.

Well, I feel like it's, it's, cause they wanna have the demo that's the start of the game and they go, you can carry it forward Whoa, but for people that aren't totally sold and they're like yeah But what's it gonna be like later in the game? They can actually play Like what the core majority of most of the game is gonna be like Yeah, but no really enjoyed that and just reminded me of like yeah, I fucking I'm super hyped on these games man man. Like for all the bullshit, it's great.

No, and I do know as well when the first, yeah, when it opened up and you see Sephiroth there, and I've said a couple times, I'm like, yep, we know, we've kind of blown the wad, and I had like a sigh, but it's like, there's people talking about that. Yeah, but it's like, look, man, it's still awesome. And we're like, it's doing a great job. And I'm very excited for where this is going. I know that that wad is blown and I know why it's blown in that way.

And that it's OK. It's not at all like it's it's an aspect of the story that just like what I said about Zach, you know, like I understand that you can go two ways with this. You can have Zack die in a, it's cold, it's brutal, and that makes it hurt all the more. And then you can have the one where it's like long, it's drawn out, it's heroic, and it's Zack looking at Cloud and going, hey, in your moment of PTSD,

you should become mean right now. Right? Like, you wanna be, you should become mean right now. Right? Like, you want to be... It is weird that he kind of just said that to him verbatim. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey! Be me! No, no, no, no, no, it's okay. Be me, though. Right?

And you're like, oh, this is a completely different version of this memory. You have to try and succeed in all my hopes and dreams, including getting with my girl. You got it. Yeah, I know you have your own and I know your childhood friends, but enough of that shit, you got a job to do. Get in there, bro, and think of me when you're getting in there. I'll be standing in the doorway. He probably is.

I'm standing in the doorway. You know I'm there. I'm leaning up against that church door. What's up? And that is a different version a different emotion, but I think they're I think they both they're both good I like I like if you don't want to play it in the like the brutal Brevity's the soul of wit harsh way Then you can you can do this more melodramatic version, but it's still it's the lens, you know I feel the same about what they're doing with Sephiroth

Yeah, so One of the reasons I brought up because I saw people talking about that and I actually I don't have the Response, but I do agree with you. We'll eat and I actually understand exactly How you got there and if I've seven you don't interact with Sephiroth damn near at all So every time you see him, it's like whoa shit There he is. Sephiroth. It's vicious. Fight him until the end of the game. Right. And then Kingdom Hearts happened and we went into the era

at Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts, too, and Advent Children and Crisis Corps and all this shit. And I feel like we went into the era of Sephiroth over saturation. If I may, mystery. If I may mystery. If I may for you and I in particular, I would also throw in a chapter there called the club spaces. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm not sure what it's about. My Sefi. What's that? In college, we went to the club spaces where the comic anime, sci-fi and various clubs were all shared. And that's where I think we both experienced in real life

Sefi Bishi baby like energy, some are great. Sashamaru, Samma and Sefi Samma and all of that in real life for the first time going, what is is this the same character? I want to point out before we continue any further That I have a specific person in my mind and she was really nice Sure, but this shit sure No, I know I know and I know you know we know but this energy was brought up and it's like I don't remember The part where Octo slash was performed with a Yaoi paddle. I don't Wally. I don't remember that I'm sorry what I play the FF rebirth pad like almost said the FF rebirth paddle

Well from what I played of the FF 7 rebirth fucking Square Enix remembers birth fucking square in X remembers that moment so that's the thing right because there is right there that energy then got vindicated because advent children was not out yet like those girls are super right so right they made it happen the Fuji energy was super cannon man it's never been one scene in trailer where where suffrages grabs cloud and just like ASMR's in his ears you know. Yeah hold him tight and he's like oh man he licks an earlobe after he got penetrated by Cloud. Just gets all up in there. And the elevator when you're going down like the lighting makes it look particularly fucking stalker-ish as he's just

staring at you as you're going down, you know. Anyway. Okay. I've been really been holding on to P. I gotta use the bathroom. Yeah, that's great. I'll go P also. BRB. Okay. We're back. How was your piss, man? It was pretty good. I'm glad. Yeah. I did think, however, that the viewer needed a little bit more help identifying what to look at on the screen

Just to make sure that they know you know you start you start you get your handhold down below and then you move it up to the next You got to know where to jump, you know It's very important. I Don't have any yellow shirts. God damn it. I was hoping all right. Well anyways, I might just wear a yellow shirt to dice Sam Lake had a really really funny tweet where he's at the Helsinki Airport and It's a pretty Sam Lake had a really really funny tweet where he's at the Helsinki Airport And there was a guy in front of him at the at the at the airline check-in And he had a big ass yellow backpack and Sam Lake was like well, I guess I gotta follow this NBC

People the people watching this like what where did Pat go? Sitting here like considering like altering my cameras, color settings to like wash out the whole shot. But then I will be able to fix it. So no, no, thanks. I'm Asian too. So I'm just like yellow at times of people. Well, that's why I have so many followers.

Well, I mean shit, dude, if you if you want to bring race into it, you know, without the- Oh, shh, Wally, shut up. Three, three. I'm three. I'm two or three. Without the yellow, I just disappear completely, I suppose. That's what Mortal Kombat knows the rules. Boon and Tobias have been doing it for years.

Why do you think we got to be- All right. All right. You know, I have to say the yellow is really working for you, Willie. It seems it seems like I could just put you in any old fighting game just something something about it, you know, something about it. It's really working. I just I just suddenly know how to play Tekken. I don't know where it came from. Can you throw bombs? Oh, God, the meme of black people just inherently knowing how to play tech and tech and base. Yeah Yeah, take in and base because because the joke is that taken is a rhythm game God

All right, Gene, what have you been up to? I'm actually headed to the dice summit tomorrow. This is a I'm actually headed to the dice summit tomorrow. This is a Conference convention type deal in Vegas. So fresh after the Super Bowl Might hang out with our good friend Susie the sphere hunter who says yeah, I texted me and says that you're both scamps Oh, thank you. She delivers And a bunch of other people hopefully see some see Sam Lake Delivers and a bunch of other people hopefully see since he's Sam Lake Phil Spencer might be there. Oh

Man, I want to talk to Phil Spencer so bad right now Give it a minute. So I might see him. I might see him there. Who knows, you know, actually, you know what? I don't want to talk to Phil Spencer. I want to look at Phil Spencer right now I just want to look at his face and See how he's doing. I mean he might be because so that the expert this is not the news section, but the Xbox Business update is gonna be on Thursday, and I'm good. He if he's there. I'm gonna see his face when that business update That's gonna be crazy. Just just oh you mean that live reaction That everyone's gonna listen to? Yeah. Man.

Just get up real close behind and whisper, Sega's hardware division sends their regards. In this trying time, you know cool cool and Yeah, I've been playing a ton of like a dragon infinite wealth well another game I can't really talk about but you know fair enough. I mean, yeah, that's clear, but yeah, I guess I supposed to brass tacks Like a dragon Y'all goddamn good y'all of So what's the what's your what's your point how far you in my pet I had Lee because I because I need to know where he's at I just got to Dodonko Island okay and I had to call for the night

because baby needed me which was the fucking face. So it represented this perfect encapsulated moment of people who have maybe played a bunch of Yakuza or like a Dragon games, but maybe not seven or maybe not eight. So Wuli, you would fall directly into this. So Kiryu always had something really specific. And then that was, there was the serious crime drama dimension Mm-hmm, and then there was what you know everyone has a different name for the side the side

dimension like and they would not meet mm-hmm like here you didn't talk about pocket racer or Fighting a giant octopus. It's the manga chapter. When you're dealing with Tojo shit. It's the Dead Serious manga chapter and then the four coma that you read afterwards and the goofy hijinks in the four coma, you know, it's a different reality. So. Yeah.

It was a little bit there in seven, but it's full force in eight in which that line, that division no longer exists in any way and you're you're on your way to a location and curie will just chime in and be like yeah I fought a giant squid once it's crazy and everyone's arguing about like whether or not doing a girl's nails is like making a goddamn fucking Gundam model kit Which is really that's pretty good. That's great actor who plays nonba

played Hideaki ono in a TV show and Now nonba is more like Hideaki ono in eight Okay, okay, okay, okay. So one, first of all, so yeah, I know that I'm coming in uncaught up and late to this franchise in general and all this, but I know there's a lot that you guys have been going hard and there's lots of great shit to talk about.

So while giving folks a perhaps a light spoiler warning for the new game, don't worry too much about me and this stuff, that's okay, just go for what you want to talk about. I'm not going to talk about anything of a spoiler in nature. OK. Well, you know, I know where I'm at, so I'm fine with that. We can talk about cancer if you want. It's OK. No, no. Well, I just. We have we have we have cancer representation on the podcast now.

And and and that's not something that a lot of people get to say. So I that to be fair, yes, this is true. cancer representation on a podcast now. And that's not something that a lot of people are gonna say. I think that, to be fair, yes, this is true. But on what you just said, Pat, for me it looks as if, but the impression I got was Ichiban comes in, he's taking over the franchise and it makes a clean break and we go into this wild, weird world

where things are fucking like dragon quest rules, right? And we're just gonna go crazy with that. And if you're like a Kiryu fan and you know what that is, like you're like, okay, that was this chapter of the game. But like, I don't know if there's another example in media where like there's a break and we switch modes, but then the old character comes into the new mode and joins in on the goofy shit. I think and that's that wild wacky energy as well. the old character comes into the new mode and joins in on the goofy shit. I think, and that's that wild, wacky energy as well.

I think the way that I would explain it is that the way that it had been portrayed is that like Dojima Noriyu, like the dragon of Dojima, the hero of the Tojo was gonna be joining your party, but he didn't. It was Kiryu, the guy who blew 20 years of his life at Pocket Racer, who joins your party. Like that guy is the one hanging out with you,

not the mythical fucking hero. The player character. Folks are saying JoJo part four, but I don't know if that fits it because Jotaro walks up and joins the four, but I don't know if that fits it because Jotaro walks up and joins the crew, but he's still Jotaro No, and he's and he's he's end of starr start as crusaders Jotaro and that energy persists You know like fucking rats. They don't they don't turn him into like like like he's he's just as fucking busted powerful You know and it's six same things so so like the example that I want to use is like

Curious with you at least in the early game curious with you pretty much all the time And you know you're doing you're trying to find your mom and you're you know, you're going through various organizations And oh man, there's criminals here. Wow. We got to have serious criminal discussions But they've made the decision to take like Kosaka becoming the Sujiman master, you know, searching far and wide to be the greatest there ever was, and Kosaka diving into the depths of the abandoned, like, development project that has floors

that change the layout and is inhabited by ghosts and demons as mandatory parts of the main story that can't be avoided. There's no, like when you're dealing with like, When you're dealing with Dwight, the leader of the Barracudas and he's evil and he's voiced and he's he's voiced by Enacted by Danny Trejo and it's very serious

You in the old games you'd be like okay now time to go how to train your dominatrix and ha ha we go on a wacky adventure But like because you chose to do that. Yeah, you can mentally separate those. Yeah those events are like one day to the next and Can't be separated That's what they did They went to the magic dungeon in the middle of town in which you have to deal with a robot To sell you things a Robot that tells you hey, dude. I'm sorry. I can't help you more because I have the battery life of a game gear. Have you ever heard of the 1991 Sega Corporation handheld device, the game gear?

It had incredible titles, such as this and this, but unfortunately failed in the market due to its battery life. Well, that's my problem, anyway. And it's all just mashed in! Containment breach has occurred and the side quest dimension is now canon reality like I just arrived in Dondoka Island Dondoka Island is mandatory. Yeah dude you get kidnapped by fucking muppets from Japanese TV. Okay and go to Dondoka Island. Yeah just just Ichiban. Everyone else is not there. And like, like I was playing it, I was streaming it, and I saw people losing their minds

because they were either like, are those the fucking monsters from that Killers music video? Or are those the grand blue gotcha characters? And the answer is yes, they they are they are nightmarish freak muppet creatures one of which is the jet is probably the inspiration for the don't hug me I'm scared red guy because he looks like a nightmare okay they kidnap you and they go you have to help us clean up our shit whole island and save it from pirates And that's just part of the core plot and we've moved past the vTubers at this point oh

Long past from from earlier in the game. Okay. All right. Yeah, the vTubers was it in was the inciting incident right right right vTubers in the dust yeah okay got a vTuber hanging out at our bar yeah okay okay mm-hmm it's it's it's wild the the the distinct like the the the shenanigans are everywhere they They permutate everything. It's fucking funny. Yeah. So, Gene, I guess, like, you know, haven't gotten the full experience down here. I mean, is it just one to one with your childhood? Or...

No, well, so I did a stream, and Pat graciously rated me afterwards too, so that helped. But I did a stream talking about, you know, just basically what they did. And like, like, Willie, I remember you talking about, you know, like, as you're walking to Camerocha and the first person and you feel like you're just right back on vacation, right? And that's what, that's exactly what this is, you know, like when I'm back in Honolulu and I'm just like, oh, I'm just back in 2013, 2012, when T-Pain was popular and T-Pain's in this game too. Just walking around and I was like, oh, this is where I used to buy cocaine from the Honolulu

Harbor. Wild. Wild. Which is, which is, what's crazy about the Honolulu Harbor. It's wild. Wild. Which is, what's crazy about the Honolulu Harbor where you can buy drugs, IRL, is that when you go there, the level of enemies there are fairly high level. Because you know how you can do that. Oh, Seth, were you, um, you fight that YouTuber?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh dude, that area is way stronger. Yeah, that area is way stronger. Because they know. IRL. That's where the beast, that area is way stronger! Because they know... That's where the beast... That's where the beast roams, you know? Damn, damn, okay. So like, you know how when you beat the game,

you're like probably you have to be like level 6 or 7 here, right? Like the level characters there are like level 50 characters. I like end game shit. I like to imagine that in addition to getting just... Cause you know, like multiple game studios have set their teams to locations to, you know, film, record textures, get all the work. So hey, when I see those in Italy, we can get Florence as accurate as possible. Right.

Getting the texture of Honolulu and Hawaii in general is one thing. But now we got to talk to some people and ask them to draw up the agro zones on the map. Yeah, yeah, which areas are redder than others? I think it's like bananas because we've had like I think it's like we're up to like 17 different games, right? And they took place in Tokyo and they took place in Osaka and they took place in Hiroshima and and you know, all these different locations. And you're like, wow, they really nailed it. And it's like well

Yeah, it's the country that they live in and like they can hop on a train and go to these locations It's not a big deal. So like yeah, no if they try really hard they can do it But to hear Jean describe. Oh, yeah, dude. That's the store my mom used to work at or oh, yeah That's where the 24-hour gym is and no that the tough enemies are at the drug spot Like they got it dead on perfect accurate in a country. They don't live in in a language. Most of those devs don't speak Holy shit I I interviewed him I did an article last week and one one quote that I didn't include in the article is

I did an article last week and one quote that I didn't include in the article is What I asked them about you know when you went to Hawaii? It's very interesting that you put pick certain areas that were like really really dangerous And they're like well because we thought when we went there we thought they looked a little shady And I was like yes those places are You you read the area correctly, you know, yeah, so so Hawaii does have a you know a large Japanese population That's there. I imagine like like like Pat you finished the barracuda So you went through like the the mall Yeah, that that whole area is like like like the red light district of Honolulu where it's like that's where that's where the strip club is

And that's where the strip club is and that's where the strip club is in the game too. Totally like the shabby spot, you know? That area is where I used to go to this place called the Boom Boom Room. And the Boom Boom Room was an unmarked room that you could not be allowed unless you had one, a password and the security camera is able to identify you. And then you go in there and it's just wild shit going on in there. But yeah, so they identify where

the boom boom room is, you know, somehow. Oh, and of course, Jean knows all these things. There's something even from like a game perspective, but knowing that these are like amalgamations of real locations that I don't, I don't know how they were possibly able to grab this they must have had some incredible guides from the natives because in Yakuza one you go to the shady homeless encampment which leads you to the underground shady casino fucking thing for rich people where all the crazy shit goes down in Y Yakuza 8, sorry, in Like a Dragon 8,

you go to a similarly shady place of real Hawaii so that you can go into the underground place where all the rich people do all their rich shit, and it looks the same, and it is the same, but it also is, is the same. It is the same, but it also is the same. Like they magnetized to a place in the real world which would imitate their existing use of the real world

in a different country. Yeah. Like, oh, this is where the underground casino would be taking place in Japan. So this would be where it is in Hawaii, I guess. So they're just taking the yakuza tropes and applying it to Hawaii, which is like very interesting. So it has a really nice feeling of like, yeah, you know what? It's pretty much the same everywhere.

Yeah, like it. Yeah, we're all different, but. Because I was always playing and I was like, am I going to fight the governor of Hawaii? And that's the last boss. Fuck it, me. this is so cool. You know? So like, yeah, no, in seeing to that, like again,

so Hawaii has a large Japanese population, I kinda wonder if they're going to continue the trend of picking other settings and moving out. It's like, do you go to like Japan Town LA as a possible thing you can build out and make super accurate because there's a like a sizeable population that you can and then continue further adventures get get on get on land in America or Do you go the other way and go to like Korea? You know like how do you how do you build this out? They made

Cuz like they make the region and then they use that region. So we're gonna go back to Hawaii for at least two more games. A little bit longer. And after that, Shrizil, fuck, Bad Cooper. Yeah, there's a lot of places, there's a lot of places with a sizable population, you could figure that out. Oh man. Oh, the game's incredible.

It's also like inscrutable. Like we're talking about FF7 rebirth and I'm like, this is probably fucking confusing if you didn't play the original. Man, they're trading on like decades of assuming you know what's going on with Kiryu. Just last bit on the location thing. I would like to imagine everyone around

the world is holding up signs at Sega going roast us. Come to our country and roast us. It's like on Reddit the roast me fucking just like that for like, yo please please fly out here and just wreck our shit. I want to see what a rare Montreal Sugemon looks like. And they also talk about like the homelessness issues and how like people, Pat, how far are you into story? To don't go. So I've gotten to the part where they're walking around complaining about the rent.

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, that part. But like, where in the actual main story are you? Oh, we're, uh, I'm waiting for, I'm waiting for the gang to finish editing our YouTube video. Oh, oh, oh, that's fucking right, because that's why you're on the Donkai Island in the first place. Right, yeah, because, you know, editing a Smash viral YouTube video is really hard, as we all know. Yeah, yeah, because you really, really, the game goes to great length to explain to the viewer, to the player that it's really, really difficult to make a really, really good viral YouTube video. So it's gonna take a few days.

So that's why Ichiban fucks off to Animal Crossing, the Animal Crossing minigame for like several days. To be fair, on the homeless bit, like the entirety of what I played of the beginning of the last one game Was all about the various angles of homelessness. Yeah Yeah, what starting from you yourself to then the camp like that's the that's the whole chapter the entirety of what I played So I'm not surprised to hear that Yeah, and then Hawaii just happens to have the highest like homeless or like one of the highest It's up there now. just happens to have the highest, like, homeless, or like one of the highest. It's up there now. It used to be the highest, uh, the homeless per capita in the world, or at least in America.

And then you start hanging out with some, some do-gooder, like, you know, uh, uh, charity types and they're just like, yeah, no, the homeless is crazy out here because the rent is fucked up. And they quote, like, real rent numbers. And Ichi goes like, bro numbers and itchy goes like bro that'd be like 300 grand and yeah holy fuck how can anyone make it in America? This is written like three years ago.

Damn. I don't suppose at any point you have to go to a hospital. No. Okay, okay, cause that's a chapter in and of itself. See you guys, you do go to a hospital earlier, but yeah, all right Yeah, well, I mean, QT is sick so God, you know, yeah, and imagine that imagine that like secret agent health care Oh the spider-man spider-man package is that what's yeah, he didn't keep the fucking spider-man yeah it is just for that game it's just for guidance for sure that he was gonna like have that as like a selectable job I'm I'm shocked that it was that it's not

like a job or like just part of his his default job or whatever no no iron curio suit with the fucking extra extra gadgets coming out. Boo. Yeah, Infinite Wealth is incredible. I can't, I can't, and like, like I knew it was incredible, but I had the same experience like back when I was like a child, like pirating Yakuza 1, where I didn't know anything about Japan. I'm like, is Japan really like this? I don't know.

In Silver in Hawaii, I've never been to Hawaii, right? You haven't met the character Bryce in Infinite Walth yet, right? I have absolutely met that dude. OK, the leader of Polycona, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. That dude is apparently hilarious in Japanese because he speaks like incredibly awful English. Dude, yeah, they totally fuck him up in the Japanese first because he's a white guy. Yeah, he's supposed to be able to speak English.

Yeah, yeah, he's a white guy in Hawaii who is the leader of a church. And but he speaks like his Japanese voice sounds like a Japanese guy. Like he sounds like a fucking samurai. And then when he speaks English, like, he sounds like a second year Japanese student who's trying to like, and with a really squeaky high voice, it's crazy. I don't understand what they were doing. Like squeaky high voice? It's a high voice.

Because his English voice is like a deep baritone. Yeah, yeah, because he sounds like a deep white guy, you know? But they use the same Japanese voice actor for him to say the English and his broken English and it's I don't understand It's they totally fucked him up in her in it in the Japanese dub I don't understand what they were doing there do anyways. Do you meet or hang out with any? Polynesian like Pacific Islander people like like native Hawaiians Yeah, you do. Oh, yeah Yeah, and then the the fucking podcast

Have you been listening to the podcast in this game? Not yet. No. Oh, yeah, dude It is actually like really really well researched and well scripted like they it's a white guy That's that's that's a host of the podcast, but he acknowledges that he's white He calls himself howly which is the Hawaiian version the Hawaii word for white Okay, and so he knows like yeah, I'm just another white guy with a podcast But you know I got my buddy here Pee Pee here and he was in Japan and then like he's a local guy and he sounds exactly local He's saying like like local slang like the kind and everything that Like they totally got on a point and then the end of the dumb because I did listen to the English dub too a lot of the local Polynesian

Hawaiian characters are they sound like their voice by local guys because those are local voices you know so I haven't listened to that podcast yet but I feel like I absolutely need to because I was informed that they take shots at Shenmue in that podcast. Oh yeah. They describe running into a guy who keeps asking them for sailors in the year 2023. Okay. So like, yeah, no, perhaps the game of lucky hit.

That's good. Shenmue is canonical to the wider like a dragging universe and he didn't get anywhere. He's never before. He never solved the problem. No. As he got away. Sixteen parts. Another 48 year old Japanese guy wandering the world,

but then we just never found one day. The whole night. That's great. That's great. No idea what that girl was it was doing back there in that village, too What was her name? I forgot. Oh, okay. I went to college. I owe you because that's the first Chinese girl team But I'm playing Tekken also looking for a stupid mirror God oh man, I Completely missed Shenmue and I feel like I should not even bother

I completely missed Shenmue and I feel like I should not even bother Your yeah, it's been you've played you again. You're you've played its replacement You're more than my replacement Speaking of replacement There was one thing that like like I it's supposed to be a cool Easter egg But instead it cut me here Where you unlock the action hero job in like a dragon and your fucking skills are all virtual fighter combos God damn it that's cool. That's cool. Is he actually doing fucking Akira elbows?

Like the first one you unlock is like flash kicks, which is like Eileen's like spinning kicks Like what a weird choice So, you know, I recently we talked about the like the switch from FF to like the 16 character action direction things are going in. And we talked about how the Yakuza has now turned, yeah, like a dragon, goofy franchise has taken over completely. Does anyone that's a fan of the whole series and the main lines and everything

like actually miss the serious main line quests or is it fair to say everyone is thumbs up on the goofy shit is now the whole point? Oh, I think I haven't seen anybody complain about that. I know. Seems like that's- I thought you were gonna say, does anybody miss the action games? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no itch, no question. But like at the same time, like it's pretty clear from like the way they put out judgment that like there's gonna be the next game They announced is gonna be a fucking action game

Mm-hmm. Okay There's gonna ping pong between the two and that'll that'll be I have no I'm I'm not like a huge fan of mini games But like I spent 20 hours on the dongle island Get making sure that it got to a Firestar resort. I did not play Dundonco Island during the review period because as soon as it started, I think Pat was discovering that shit is fucking deep. Yeah, there's a lot.

It's a whole different game system. It's its own game. It like loads you in with different engine. Like that's how seriously they take it. The cameras pull back, your controls are different. All the menus are their own bespoke menus that have different functions. Yeah, Ichiban just controls completely differently. Like the way you run and the way like he moves around is like just different. The way he can do at the real-time attacks

And there's a net button and and a fishing button. It's it's it's bananas. It feels like It's not or at least I don't think it is but it feels like Sega had a Fucking animal crossing game that they were working on and the like of dragon devs just went to their office and stole it and just shamped it in. Yeah, because it's really, really... So I have a five star resort. I have a five star Dundalka Island and I upload it on the internet

so you can actually visit it if you somehow find me for some reason. But you haven't started getting guests on your island, right? No, no, no. Pat, yeah. So eventually Dondoka Island starts because it starts this animal crossing and it eventually becomes the Sims

where people start visiting your island and you're starting to build the island to tailor it to their tastes. So that's why my Dondoka Island has a pop area which is a center area and that one has like the Japanese temple and like the photo booths and like the coffee stands and everything that and that's where I put like all the

the hostess girls and the virtual girls and the girls there and the kids there and then I have a sleazy I'm strip club Jesus, so I have a sleazy area. It's called sleazy because there's a sleazy I have a sleazy area. It's called sleazy because there's a sleazy Mechanic that that that will attract to be attracted to sleazy guests like Majima for example So that's why like the north-west area of my island is now just like sleaze corner where that's where the love motel and the host's clubs and Like the bars and the karaoke bars and everything at that and it even has fucking alleyways and everything too But like and then there's like there's the far right corner where there's this is like the retirement area There's there's like a spa and a jacuzzi outside and that's where I put all the old people See that's the thing is and so look I'm seeing like oh, it's still a serious. Yeah, cuz the story will be like

That's still a part of this but what but what jeans just describing you guys said is a mandatory section of To like you are stuck in there A regular game you fucking can't you know you want to talk about yellow paint They kidnap you and put you in the minigame and won't let you leave the minigame for a really long time Because they're like you're gonna fucking try have fun asshole. You're gonna try it with the suji mom thing yeah, yeah, barely man and like man talked about suji mon suji mon is super in-depth It's like half the depth of a full Pokemon game Just jam jumped in there.

Forcing you to have a sense of humor. We fucking worked hard on this play it asshole. There's a gacha system in game for high ranked Suji Mon. You're hoping you're going to get like a SSR Suji Mon. And here's the thing, Pat, the Suji Mon system Integrates with the the Dundon go Island system Because you eventually get a Dundon go farm And it becomes fucking power world and then you start assigning your Suji Mon to different tasks including building And then you work them in the fucking

And then you work them in the fucking fields. Oh my God. And they're growing tomatoes and basils and vegetables and all these delicious wheats and grains. Yeah. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha I haven't streamed infinite wealth as much as I wanted and in my late-night time after the baby and the wife I've gone to sleep and been playing persona 3 reload and I described how like I actually haven't played as much Infinite wealth like off stream as I normally would normally with these games. I just devour like new new mini game I locked 100% it by the by the next day and I'm having trouble like getting to it But I go back to persona

So two things one they're like the same game for different audiences. It's there. The fact that the Sega put them out right next to each other is hilarious. But persona is like extraordinarily structured because of the day system. It's like, hey, you know, what do you what's the what's the best thing to do? I'll hang out with Chihiro, hey, what's the best thing to do? I'll hang out with Chihiro. Oh, what's the best thing to do? I'll go to the arcade and up my courage.

Whereas infinite wealth drops you on the most bloated map I've ever seen. Like you unlock, there's conversations you can just chill with your buddies and be like, hey, hey, Tommy, what kind of comics you like?, hey, Tommy, what do you think? How do you, what kind of comics you like? Or, or, hey Chitose, what would you do?

Do you like fucking looking at housing real estate websites? And those are all over. That's every party member just all over the fucking map. And then you go up to them and you talk to them and it goes cool. And it fills in your best friend bingo card and you're trying to get lines of friendship for your fucking bingo so that you can go get your drink links and they're just S-links they're literally exactly as fucking same as S-links down to like the the choices of things you'll pick and the the fact that it unlocks follow-up attacks in battle, it's a lot, there's a lot.

It's a lot, it's very intimidating. It's a big fucking game. The persona with adults that we've asked for, except the adults are being way more childish than anything happening in a persona game. Well, incredible. Like you say that, but like the, I was talking with my chat about it,

but like I spoke to, so there's a guy in your, your team called Eric, Eric Tomasawa. And, uh, he's the cab driver. And you do his drink link one where he talks about the circumstances in which he ended up breaking up with his girlfriend. And it's the best S link that there has ever been. And it's his first one because it that there has ever been and it's his first one Because it's like the saddest and most true-to-life Situation I've ever heard

And it's just like right out of the park the first one BAM So like the other all goofy weirdos, but they have adult problems, but there's there's like it's it's It's like occasionally persona can come off a little trite because it's adults writing for teenagers Whereas here it's like 40-ish year-old adults writing for the problems that 40-ish adults would have and I'm turning 38 and I have a baby and why and I'm just like oh Fantastic Okay

well if There is any other things on like a dragon before we switch it up. No, okay, cool other things on Like a Dragon before we switch it up? No. OK. Cool. Yeah. Still limited on what I could talk about.

There's one aspect of Hawaii that's in this game that I could tell a really, really funny story, but it might be related to spoilers that Penn hasn't gone to yet. OK. Yeah. All right. Well, I mean, I guess with that, this is where we'd be like,

oh, and if you want to follow more more Jean be sure to head on over to Goddamn newspaper and pick or and or pick up a newspaper. Yes, please but yeah I think I think mainstream journalists are just wait has been have been way too proud I'm inspired by the influencers of today. Please subscribe to the Washington Post Pay pay pay buddy to subscribe to our our company, please subscribe to The Washington Post. Pay pay pay pay money to subscribe to to to our our company. Please and support your board. There you go. Yeah, because you you never hear reporters saying hey, please subscribe to my newspaper. You've never heard that before, right?

Dude, the newspaper is like the face of the world's information. Why would you need to advertise a pillar of the world? Please like, comment, and subscribe to The Washington Post. Oh, wow. Yeah, we are in the future. Okay, well, I'll jump in there if you don't mind. A couple things I got through last week So yeah rebirth Definitely a big one up top the other thing was I finished off sacred and terrible air the Book taking place within the same universe as disco Elysium by Robert Kervitz got to yeah the the the the conclusion of that setting and

Boy, I've said it before and I'll say again, this is one of those, this is a book that certainly is like after the read, you might, you have to go back and reread and digest a little bit more to take in everything that happened and I felt that heavily towards the conclusion of this. But at the very least, if someone is interested

in diving into a short story taking place in the disco world and you want to get like an audiobook to listen to kind of thing, yeah, we've now completed that for posterity's sake. So feel free to enjoy in four episodes, the full reading. Curvitz is a goddamn fucking master wordsmith and his ability to just, you know, manipulate the tapestry of language to make his points is amazing. It is incredible. Um, there are moments that are like just all the best moments of the narrator going in, in disco, like that type of style occurring in this

where there's a character that is like just navigating through the pale, walking with the ghost of the spirit of communism, like just describing how the revolution went down and what true belief in communism is. And like this entire, that entire segment is just a wild, like, let's look at every belief structure in the same way that you do in disco and just like rip it open.

And the ones you believe in the hardest are the ones that we have the most to say about. It is what's fucking awesome with the by the time you end this book is that I'm using I'm using disco. It's its own thing, but I'm using disco a lot as a reference point for like the if you enjoyed that type of flavor and that type of you know, the wit and the insight that that comes from from that game. And this kind of follows that flavor. Disco examines fascism, communism, ultra-liberal and moralism as the political alignments that you can kind of fall into, right? And you have different thoughts that come together.

I feel like sacred and terrible air examines the fifth and final political alignment, nihilism. And it gets- Dude, I love that one. It gets touched on a little in disco. In this, it's a full dive into what if we go hard into the, like what would come from the thought cabinet of internalizing nihilism? And it is wild.

It is extreme and it is, and to be quite honest, the answer is yet the end of the world. You know, it is a fascinating way to break down the effects of what all these thoughts have on the world that they're in and in this case, how easily you can follow that through. And not the fun, ha ha, it's cool to hate the world nihilism. I mean, like, what is the point of anything, Nile?

Like, it shows you the gradual transition because you can take steps from, you know, kind of believing in like, this is the way things ought to be. And then this is the way things are. And, and then this is the way things are, and then if the world doesn't want the way, the doesn't want to become what it ought to be. And in this case, like literally the spirit of communism has a moment of like, yeah,

if the world doesn't want communism, then why should it even exist, you know? And it goes, it really examines it in a way that brings apart. It describes how the setting comes to be. And it explores the pale as well. If you thought the pale was interesting in Disco Elysium and if you wanted to like go down how and why that works and what the setting is and like the nature of its. It's like it's mysteries, but you know,

it doesn't give you full answers, but it leaves implications and ways that the pale can be the things that the things that it does, it basically goes into it, right? It is the sacred and terrible air. That is the pale. That on its own is like the best parts of this book. And, you know, in the foreground of that is the characters trying to solve the mystery and your prototype Harry style detective person, um, bumbling through with some other friends that are also fucked up trying to figure out what happened to these missing girls, you know. It is a, yeah, it is a real, it is a real, like, I guess it is a mature ass subject matter.

It is full of the worst versions of trauma and things like sexual abuse come up. So full warning on all of that. And, you know, the, the, yeah, the effects of just the effects of the worst versions of like fascism on society and things like that get explored. It has these particularly like just there's real damage you take from moments where Like it's like I'm there's a there's a moment where you kind of are following the thoughts of this character who is I I've described before just like a literal Nazi monster child molester type character that's up front in that book, you know and and described as you know the one of the first leads that they go down to solving this mystery. And like, it's not much, but it's just like there's a footnote that like as things escalate

and go further into the future, there's a point where like a documentary, like a movie is made about that character. And the director is shocked and aghast at the idea that the audience that he should the audience that ended up loving his movie were not getting his sarcastic and obvious framing of the absurdity of the sky's beliefs and they were actually looking at it as a reinforcing awesome dude that was full of truth and What he got incoherent towards the end of his life It's because he was spitting so much truth that his own brain couldn't handle it. What a fucking noble hero. You know, this guy was this insane child molesting fascist, you know, and it's like

Oh, no, but I thought it would be obvious with my directing style and commentary. Why didn't they know? What do you know? He's not supposed to be based guys stop calling him based You know, and you're just like oh Oh this fucking oh, this is brutal Feel like Breaking Bad is like a very pop culture Example of like you can't write a charismatic piece of shit Because people will just Gravitate towards them and be like yeah, man

will just gravitate towards them and be like, yeah man, fucking scholar trying to stop him from selling drugs and killing people, what the fuck? Dude, like it's almost as if that moment could have had a prompt in the corner going, would you like to know more? It is Starship Troopers, absolutely, absolutely happening. And that's like one of the side notes, you know. So yeah, I really if you if you have

Any interest in especially knowing that we're never going back to that setting again like that that shit's fucking done and dusted and in the most disco way possible as we know the legal bullshit that's that's happening with Zahom if you do ever want to dive a little bit further into the world, into the world, into the thoughts, into the pale, and come out the other side like a little more shaken, but also informed, I would definitely recommend it. Sacred and terrible air in particular. And yeah, no, the episodes are going to be up. You can check them out on Wally Versus. And Josh, my friend who made the reader, that basically allows you to go through the game in the... To go through the

book in the same style as the Disco Elysium visual novel text. I believe he's going to release that as well on its own. You'll have to go get your own PDF of the book, but you put that in place and then, this is a text reader that'll just let you read in Disco Elysium style and pop up the artwork as well. That was a lot of fun. Finished off the Tekken 8 story and

Yeah, how long is the story mode? Oh, it's like maybe three and a half maybe four. Yeah Dragonball yeah, it goes a little longer than I expected. Yeah, it's it's it's it's Mortal Kombat size Yeah, when I think about it, right? Yeah, yeah, and it's you know We're doing the we're doing the like, you know post MK9 storytelling like mechanic of like You know cutscene and then playable segment and such And it works and in this case, it's really really hype. It's a whole lot of fun it is it definitely spends the time like I said like dragging gin through the mud for his bullshit and There's a little bit of like you have to accept at some point that it's like,

yeah, but essentially it's like, it's whether or not you accept it, look, he's still the main character. So what do you want us to do, right? If you kind of just go, all right, what are we literally supposed to do? We're not just gonna, they could have shoved him over there

and went, this is now the Reyna show, but they didn't do that, you know? So it is, let's follow through on the Mishima story and what's left of, you know, the Azazel bits and Kazuya and all that. And it's pretty hype. The conclusion that does some really fun shit that if you're a fan of the old Tekken games from way back when it has a lot of awesome moments of gameplay and music and all things coming together to reference that shit.

Pretty wild build up. Also insane over the top, literally we're going to space nonsense, but I mean look, you just killed off Azazel. What the fuck else is? Of course, space is gonna happen, shut up. So yeah, one of the more fun and hype attempts at the fighting game storyline mode, I think it would be, I still prefer modes

where you go to different characters for a chapter. I still think so. I was about to ask, do you cycle around the cast? Only for a little bit. You do, but for like water two matches at a time while they are either in a tournament bracket or Shao Yu has to like protect Jin from like a bunch of Jax or whatever.

There's also a like look. Those are the exact two moments that I was thinking, just thinking over it now. Yes, yes. There's also the tech and force mode I described, right? Where you kind of are fighting off the crowd and stuff, but that those aren't real fights in the in a sense, you know, but it really is no, it's like

you're playing 80% gin throughout the whole thing. I and I yeah, I would like I think those games and the story isn't fighting game modes are better suited if you jump around a bit, even if you're not focused on, even if you still have to focus on Jin having someone else's perspective while there's more things for them to do as well is just more compelling. You don't necessarily have to stick to the one, you know?

Well, I mean, the main thing that pops into my mind is, what if you fucking hate playing as Jin? That's it, too bad. You have to like Jin, or you have to care about playing as him, or you give it a shot, be willing to. They do make use, however, of the idea of like, he's like fighting with the Devil Gene and you know, refusing or choosing to accept and all that.

And so the whole unlearning of his style and the different conflicting things within his style come up in gameplay. So your certain moves are sealed at certain points in time or like styles will switch according to what's happening. So the narrative does then lead itself back into like what he's doing in a gameplay perspective. And you know, again, that builds up in a really fun way. But you're also left with a couple of unanswered questions for sure. And one of them obviously is like, Raina gets introduced, but doesn't get enough play to be a major player.

And considering how awesome and kinda like, you think she's gonna play a bigger role than she does, but then she ends up not, which is to be fair, I thought she was. But it often happens with fighting game characters that that's a case, right? Where the new character comes in, you think they're gonna play a bigger role

and then they end up not. And I think it's almost like a little bit of an option select where it's like Oh, if they don't like her too much, then it's not a big deal But if they do then we can we can do stuff afterwards, you know And I remember I think Harada did an interview where he said he didn't think that she would be that popular You know like they were surprised with the response to Reyna being as high as it was

You know like they were surprised with the response to Raina being as high as it was I was just cool as hell man Yeah, cuz they they thought that as Usena would be the big fan favorite and that that would be you know the leading leading the the you know the fan affection charts so to speak but Raina came and just kind of took all that over and everyone was like this is a fucking winner from top to bottom so Yeah, they give her such a big moment in the story too. And that's when I was like, oh, it's just gonna be the rena show now. And it doesn't.

Not quite. But I was like, and then when I saw that, I was like, I get why she's popular now because that's a really hype moment. It is, it is. But I do think as well, it's the ability to go, and if she was a huge flop and everyone hated her, we're not over committed. You get it?

It gives them just popular that she gets to be the main character next time or the main villain next time or you know, whatever you So we get to yeah, we we we get to like put a little breadcrumb if we'd like to so yeah, there you go That's pretty much that Played a little bit more Half-Life 2 met the Eli Vance, and that like, yeah, I do like the, took a little break, met some characters, hung out with Alex a little more,

and took in some lore before then getting dropped back into Ravenholm, you know. It's the best level getting dropped back into Ravenholm. You know, and the best level experience Ravenholm now. Wow. What a fucking change of pace. And what a different thing. You get the gravity gun and that's a fun little toy you're going to play with. And then like two seconds later, it's like, and here's some buzz saws on the wall. Have fun. And you're like, oh, dead space. I see what you're doing, dead space.

Yeah, I think that the gravity gun and those buzz saws and all that in an era that predates the yellow paint was great because like they throw a bunch of enemies at you and you have to use that shit to defend yourself. There's no other option. You don't have shit. And you get just enough clearance in some hallways to wait long enough to line the shot up and get maximum crowd kill, you know?

A Tetris. Yeah, yeah, that was pretty great. Grigory, you're trying to get a read on what the fuck this dude's about. And that's a nice little buildup. And the payoff, of course, is when you're on foot with him, he's like, oh, he's awesome, that's a nice little build up and the payoff of course is when you're on foot with him, he's like, oh, he's awesome, he's doing it. His whole, I'm insane, this is my congregation bit.

It's like, yeah, but he has a point. They're head-crabbed humans and they have lost their way. Like, this is not their fault. So he loves it a little too much, but he has ultimately a point in that, like, yeah, that's, it's not their fault, you know, so he's great. He's like the better version of Bill from The Last of Us. Yeah, okay, yeah. Yeah, Bill, I definitely thought of Bill Town when I got there for sure.

Although this time around. And I like Bill, don't get me wrong, but I but father father Gregorio is just just so much fun He's a lot of fun and at the same time. I'm like, yeah, but apparently I'm a VA as Bill. No shit. That's crazy What the fuck? I'm also really wild incredible. That's crazy. What are the chances that guy? Yeah, and I'm in the process of discovering, though, I go, you make a turn and go inside of a sewer and find out that the Vortigaunts

are basically worshiping me and Gordon the free man. And you're like, oh, speaking of religion, yeah, you left an impact on Zen, huh? Last time around boy So that that you know, we'll see we'll see where that goes, but I did switch things up a little bit as I was playing with the keyboard before I had a You know the little mini keyboard like for your like it's like a half keyboard Yeah, like an MMO keyboard exactly I got I got one of those a while ago

and I only used like once or twice before. So this is the time I'm giving it a proper shot for this. And it's going great. That's a lot easier to manipulate, to put in place with the couch setup I have. I just put it on half the cube and it's not like balancing a keyboard or anything like that. Because again, cube setup,

you do have to have the right height for your lap and everything to work. This little thing is a, yeah, it's like a numpad effectively with a couple extra buttons and you have enough to get all your directions on it. And then your thumb is resting on a D-pad slash analog stick. And that's great because you could just tilt in each direction to pick one of the weapon wheel things to get right away. So, you know, getting the access to whatever weapon you need right away or in one or two clicks tops is great. Have I guess this is where I'm curious.

The default system in this game is to have little folder tabs for each category of weapon, cycle down to it and then pull that one up with a confirmation. Does anyone prefer that? Because it seems like it's just universally slower than cycling immediately to the category you want. I'll be honest, I almost never ever use like quick switch or like last weapon and almost anything even though it would be better. Okay. Came here. A wheel, a wheel that shows up like ultra kill style or you know, other more modern

games. I kind of get with that like you see all of it, you go straight to the one. But the idea of like all of it being sectioned off that way and requiring an extra step of confirmation just feels like needlessly. I don't care for the confirm. I want everything to just rapid cycle and sound like shit as I know exactly how far I want to scroll it. Huh. Okay. So you so for people, I guess looking at the response here, like if you want to go like three three switch to the second automatic and then click to confirm and then the gun comes out, you know, it just is like, I'm like, oh, that just feels so much slower than like, you know, going

straight to it. But all right, it is a million years old. My like heart, my like gut is thinking about like day of defeat and it's like, I know exactly how much I wanna scroll this wheel to get to my fucking grenade. And then I wanna throw my grenade on the floor and then I wanna mash E as hard as I can to pick it up and throw it. And then I wanna scroll exactly how much I think I want

to get past my pistol back to my rifle. And I want it to go. And that's a lot of it. And that's just based on the memory of it being that way when you first did it, right? Like, yeah. So if time stops, you know, if this is metal gear or an ultra kill slowdown where you're going through the guns to pick and you're, you know, you're not dealing with like what's going on outside at the same time, by all means, I have no, like I'm down with that. But in a situation where I think everything's active and their threat is still prompt

Still act hap coming at you Yeah, that extra confirmation step. I'm just like no no good for me personally. I actually prefer the the console Controller radio wheel time slow down big. Yes That's great. Let's me do more complicated stuff with my limited brain. Yeah, doom Yes, that's great. Let's me do more complicated stuff with my limited brain. Yeah, doom, et cetera, agreed, completely agreed. I like that. I'm not going to fight anybody who says,

fuck that slow down shit, it's for babies. I want it to be hard. I love slow down. If you don't want that, I'm not sure. I get it, want it hard or valid, but in that instance, I don't want extra confirmation, you know. Horizon Zero Dawn also does a slow down thing and does it really well too. Yeah, because you roll and then during your roll you start switching weapons and by the

time you're back up, you're good. Super cool, yeah. Yeah, I mean, and anyway, we've, we've gone over like the, the, the feeling of like style switching with, with Dante versus like, um, what weapon cycling, gun cycling and sword cycling, like there's a lot going on and, um, man, that would be the next step for Dante, right? Like fuck it. Here's 10 weapons.

You're going to need a weapon wheel. But I mean the, well they already have the- They'll make my weapon wheel broke my brain just now in ways that I did not expect. I'm just gonna fuck. But you have to pick something to be like, what do you want to be on an instant switch? And in this case, D-pad for styles, that's your priority.

So. Yeah, cause it's extra. I would not want to have to cycle through styles to get to the one I wanted that would feel terrible. Yeah, cuz there was a game in which you had to do that It was DMC for and that's why switching to dark slayer sucked shit. You had to double tap to get to it The other bit here is we're back on foot for a little bit and then time to hit the roadster so fuck yeah get that car for four hours off the boat onto the vehicle like man half-life two loves driving and boating around fuck walking says this game uh the roadster is not as bad on the motion sickness as

the boat is but you know i'm playing, trying to be a lot more cautious about how we're doing that. But I do love the in the middle of that, you get your rocket launcher. And that's a really fun weapon to use the fire and then correct to. Yeah, the way you paint targets in that game. We're so cool. Love that. Don't fire directly at it. It's going to shoot those rockets down. Try to find to find a weird side angle actually and then lead up to it

dude when when they showed that on a E3 demo trailer I was I couldn't fucking believe what I was seeing I was like what the fuck I saw it shit like I was at E3 and so saw it half-life too live. I was like, what the fuck am I looking at right now? This is insane. Yeah, and that the fucking future Future that's what that's that's what I saw, you know and the feeling of getting these weapons and like they get you get them so quickly like you get the shotgun you use it for like the end of Ravenholm and then like right after that you're picking up the the soldiers automatic and And then like right after that, you're picking up the soldiers automatic.

And you're using that for a little bit and then right into the rocket launcher and then right into the sniper crossbow, which I just picked up. And that's that's pretty much where I'm at, which is really, really slow. It's a style, but fucking it's cool. It's it's a sniper rifle, but it's not going to be free. That you have to be patient. call your distance and your fall off There's a drop rate to it. You know that I do I do like that because yeah, I can a if you got a fucking most in Nagant or You know like a Kramer type shit or whatever that would fucking erase the challenge from just a PSG one. It'd be crazy to just stand back and delete the stages.

Yeah. So no, this is a it's a sniper, but there's caveats to it. But yeah, I did enjoy that fun little middle of the game there. So yeah, going to pick back up with that this week. And last little bit, Under Night in Birth 2, Sis Salas. It'll never be said with a straight face. I can't, it cracks me every time now. It'll never be said.

Fucking awesome fighting game, really good. The biggest downside right now is just there's no cross play and I hate that that has to come up because You know, I was like, okay, let me get ready to play this on console and then I was like Hey guys, what are you guys playing on and most people were like on PC and I was like, okay fuck. All right. Well shit You know so but that aside Just reminder awesome features such as boot straight to training mode Absolute DGEN options available.

Oh, my mess for a second. Yeah, I mean, but let's just cut out the middleman. We know what we want here, right? We want to get right to practice and load up ranked matches. Let's play. The game definitely has a reputation that is clear like this is a system that if you're a fan of fighting games and if you're a fan of anime games in particular, this is as deep as you're getting. This is like really, really, there's a lot to keep track of.

It's heady. And if you want to play optimally thinking about the grid, the Vorpal system, chain-shifting, all these different systems in place. There's more than enough to dive into for you. And if you want to use the tutorials, they'll teach you everything. They'll go super advanced. They'll teach you about option selects and wild tactics and things that like top players are using to get to fucking grand finals. But with all of that being there, the skill ceiling is as high as ever, but the floor is also as low as ever.

What if I just want to hit buttons? Every character can go ABC Special, Super, or do a lot of ABC launch. You got a very basic system that allows you to pick a character you don't know how to use and do combos with them fairly easily. Just get the basis of like what their main two or three special moves are, you know, all quarter circle motions. Inputs are very simple. There's a, you know, there's an auto combo as well on like pressing jab, jab, jab, you

know. So, yeah, even like this, the the I just want to hit buttons version of the game is like very present and and You can do so and like not think twice about all of that crazy grid shit happening at the bottom But if you do ever go into that that grid shit is it's it's it's so much and it's so cool But it's just overwhelming for me But but I do I do like fucking respect it because there's some great plays you can make that are like, we're fighting on the stage

doing our normal back and forth, but the second game we're playing is off, is over here. And like, it's almost as if like, you know how they talk about like the whole, my issue with the world ends with you originally was like the passing of the puck and stuff, passing of the puck. God, right?

We've commiserated on the passing of the puck. So here it's less about, it's not that there's a puck pass happening, but it's more like, imagine if the second screen game was happening and your party members were fighting, but when they had moments that you should sync up with them in the main game, it's like now's the time to do it, right? So in other words, like it's not that we're switching control over to the second section and you're playing a second game and then you go back to the main combat in World of Tent with you.

It's there's a second thing happening and like there's moments of like you, we have the advantage, let's press it. And you can, and you start playing in a way that capitalizes on the secondary things. I hear what you're saying. What you're saying is that past the puck is okay. What a fighting game does it?

No, I'm not saying that. That's exactly what you're saying. I'm saying that this is, it's a much more passive past the puck where it's you can ignore it entirely You can make it a you can just you can be you can see when there's times to Capitalize versus times to be more defensive and it's just and it's just a secondary thing that you can choose to pay attention to or not And that's a lot of it's a lot of fun lot of fun and how they use it as well. So yeah. And the game's name is called Under Night Invert

to Brekitt, Cis, Colon, Celeste. Cis, Colon, Celeste. Yes, exactly. Cis, Colon, Celeste. I was like, what the fuck are we acronyming this into? Because is it? I was like, are we calling it Unisys? No, we're not calling it Unisys.

Are we calling it Unib2SC? No, we're not calling it unisys. Are we calling it uni B2 SC? No, we're not calling it that. What are we going and like, yeah, so it's UNI2 seems to be uni2. Yes, however, yeah, yeah. Okay. But then my auto correct turns that into unit two and just shows me ASCA. So that's fine. That's fine. But never a bad thing. But yes, exactly. Great game. Great game.

Very cool. So all of that over on Willie versus. And yeah, check the schedule on Twitter. I'm going to have some more announcements about what we're doing this week when we come back. So that's it. I need five minutes. I need to coffee up.

I will be back shortly. Can we take a small break? Burb. Alright, hey. Let's take a quick word from our sponsors. I love our sponsors. Thank you sponsors. This week, Castle Super Beast is sponsored by... Cha-ching Shopify. That's the Sanji here when you make a sale on Shopify. And if you are like us and you are not equipped with the mercantile skill on your character sheet. You know, you're putting all your stats into- Oh! Oh!

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and you'll get two years worth of blades Free with your razor. Just make sure to add them to your cart. That's 100 free blades when you head to HEN S-H-A-V-I-N-G Dot com slash SuperBeast and use the code SuperBeast Thank you, Henson Chaffee. Thank you, Henson. Thank you Okay, uh, so yeah Pat All right, so I've been rebirth like a dragon. What else is going on? So what with rebirth on its way? I decided that so I don't know if you remember this bully

But I had like a Evangelion watching order way back in the day in which every time some kind of new a Evangelion watching order way back in the day in which every time some kind of new Evangelion thing would come out My watch order was to rewatch the whole fucking series in a row Before the new thing the new thing every single time. Yes, which became like wildly impractical as the third and fourth movies were coming out so that's probably not gonna happen for the FF7 rebirth, but I was like, you know, I never watched Advent Children complete. And I said that out loud to which my darling wife Paige

also knows Peach Deliva said, you know, I've never seen Advent Children. And I went, you've never seen it, huh? And then she clarified not like she had never sat down to watch the movie. She had literally never seen even a piece of Advent Children. Wow. Hmm. Um, what's pages FF seven? She played it in 1998 or 99.

And that was that. Yeah. And that was that. Yeah. Okay. Just the normal way to do it. Yeah. So a full like a normal person. Yeah. Like a normal, like a normal same person. Yeah. And I said, oh, this is going to be grand. So. So on occasion, Paige and I will watch movies and she will become totally flabbergasted

by nonsense or a confusing plot that I'll be like, so what did you think of the movie? And she'll just look at me and go, buh, and go, what happened? So instead I asked her while we were watching and if she needed me to pause it, to write down her emotional state at the time, which I have then grabbed and brought here

for the opinion of somebody who didn't watch Advent Children on a goddamn computer monitor in their club space in 2005, going, whoa, the cloud is there. No, somebody who watched Advent Children like a regular movie that someone would watch. The way that we all watch it that way. In the stupidest way possible, dude.

We all stole off Lime Wire. Like a goon squad, you know, this is just, yeah, all on L online wire, right? I know my experience was After seeing that trailer and seeing the bike shot and going oh my god the bike shot It was waiting in line at The night that I think the Wii was coming out while in Burlington and somebody had it on their

like little screen and it was like that. Or God, it's been so long, but some wild fucking experience like that while the Wii was dropping in front of a game spot or a Walmart in Burlington. Yeah. So what's in complete even? I don't even know. It's complete. I also never seen complete either. So I'm really excited to hear what you think. Complete has more scenes. I'll give you guys my secondary complete review second.

But before that, I'd like to go through pages stream of consciousness of somebody who she never saw the trailer, didn't follow it, totally new. So the first thing on this list is who is wearing blanky? Do you remember Rufus just coming out with a little blanky? Oh. He's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like,

he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, in white. Yeah. Second up is this is so gray. My eyes are hungry for color. Pat will not let me escape to my mind palace. So woolly Jean, you ever watch a movie with a friend

of yours or your girl and they get up to go to the bathroom or do a chore and you go, Hey, hey, you want me to pause it? And they go, No, no, no, it it's fine and then they come back and you paused it and sat there in silence the whole time and then they give you that fucking look that fucking look as I told you not to fucking pause it okay this is beautifully animated especially for 2005 which it is And now we're getting into parts of the plot that I completely forgot Sephiroth gives AIDS to every orphan. Yes. That's Geostigma. Yes Mm-hmm, and I didn't catch it at the time

But they call it Sephiroth's memetic legacy. So Sephiroth gives all the orphans AIDS via memes. Why is everyone flying? Tifa makes that twink cry. What? No explanation for Marlene escaping the three Twinks, but she does want to play games on Vincent's phone. Vincent is Wolverine and he is cool. See how cool he is.

Please play his game that comes out next year. Okay, now to be fair, it's like two Twinks and a half Zaddy, right? You know I mean There's like like yes, you can say yes, Kadaj and fucking Yazoo yeah, yes, ooh. Yeah, but laws Law yeah, he's he's a little twunkey mm-hmm

But they rep they represent though the different aspects of they represent time ghosts Then oh it is it is you should have seen the look on her face when I told them that they were technically ghost boss fights and remake told them that they were technically ghost boss fights and remake. But it's more but it's more direct because this one's all obsessed with mommy and mother and this one is the next. The hatred. The next line on this list is mother. Yeah. Yeah.

One more than the others, right? Yeah. What the hell is going on? Yo Denzel sucks But buy this phone though. Did you buy did you buy the phone wait wait I? Am white knuckling this bloody Mary. I hate Pat Who who is that? Bahamut gigantic ass

The gang is back together and Barrett has been attacked by the X-Files, Mellon and Vampire. I like these explosions. Cloud defeats Bahamut by leaping through his attack like a lucky sperm penetrating an ovum. That's, that's, I'm, that is so accurate. Okay. I hate that. That's that's I've that is so accurate. Okay. That she's she's right. Okay. That is a description.

Does this the energy create like a spherical or yeah. And then he plops in breaks through it. It goes like a little bloop. There you go. It actually does look like that. Everyone is so poor. They cannot afford to wear colors, but they all have nice phones See but at the but that was peak in the middle of the era where the more gray the more real

Yes, it was The I'm gonna read this verbatim the last 45 minutes is just two barbies Smashing against each other as hard and a fast as I can Why did yeah, why did the cast leave cloud did they just call the head twink Sephiroth's larva? They do God this shit is so gay. Aerith's ghost calls every wretch in Midgar on the phone. And then the finale of the movie is cloud pours sewer water into a child's eyes. It comes from the life stream.

No, it comes from the dirt, man. It comes from deep within the Earth's memory. So she wrote all these while we were watching the movie. And then after the movie, I'm like, what do you think? And she just kind of like glared at me, dumbfounded. think and she just kind of like glared at me dumbfounded So okay, I think of advent children complete not did you tell her that that's also the best fun of Venice movie ever made Not even one mention of the what about when Tifa hits the wall and then you see the big fucking

The wall is up Yeah, the wall joke wall joke. So here's my Review of Advent Children complete they had like a half hour of new footage Because the original story is like a confusing fucking mess that doesn't make any goddamn sense And they're like, you know what we should add scenes about what is geostigma? And we should add scenes about how Denzel met Cloud and all that. Um, and it makes the fucked up, confusing narrative slightly, slightly less confusing, but it fucks the pacing of the movie up so bad, because all of the new scenes are the setup. So it used to be 45 minutes of convoluted bullshit and then a 45 minute action sequence.

It is now an hour and 20 minutes of bullshit and a 45 minute action sequence. Complete is way worse. Oh, with extra context. Way worse than the original cut. Oh, no. Oh. Oh.

Does complete add the fucking bike shot back? Bikes? No, no, it does not. Never does. I'm not going to let it go. I'll never let it go. Yeah, it'll never be your memory. It'll never be a memory.

It won't And like I'm watching I'm watching this fucking movie and I'm watching the moment that the time ghosts show up in advent children at the end and that's it for all the disappears to go bug us in remake and I'm like this is fucking shlock. I cannot believe they use this as the fucking jumping off point for this new trilogy of games because Advent Children is fucking terrible. And that's a game that Square Enix has been trying to make for the last 20 years. Yeah, but then there's the highway moment and you hear the music. And that's a game that's been trying to make for the last 20 years. Yeah. But then there's the highway moment and you hear the... The music's super good.

And then you see Rena when rude as the last ones on the highway. And they're dressed in suits so they're kind of cool. They're morally gray. Oh my god. No dude, the movie is super cool. Violently gray. The movie is like... Like outside of it's like animation. It is actually a really ugly film

Terrible yeah, I remember when just about everyone in in again club space fucking Whatever like everyone from that anime club Yeah, like the the bike having all the swords And then the swords all being part of omni slash cool We're all that mattered that was peak fiction peak animation and the story wrap it up. We're done Yeah, we should have focused on more like more than we did was dilly-dally shilly-shally Terrible I forgot that that's where dilly-dally shilly-Dally, Shelley-Shelly. Terrible. I forgot that that's where Dilly-Dally, Shelley-Shelly comes from. And I've been fucking quoting that to regular people for years.

Oh, just like K set out, I was like, Ah, Dilly-Dally, Shelley-Shelly. And it's like, did you... I've just been... I quoted that to politicians. Like, why am I quoting? So you regular people did you watch the dub then right not the oh, yeah, oh, yeah, okay, yeah, which by the way 0000 terrible

Cuz the subtitled version I remember also in the subs they tried to do a lot of the Yeah, the catchy like accent and everybody had their little bits. The dub of Advent Children is peak bad English anime dubbing because they're looping every single mouth flap and it's a fucking mess. And I look at that and I go, this is why Kingdom Hearts two invented a new fucking voice technology for lip flaps for Square innings because this shit is a mess Also Advent Children cloud means you don't get a Scarf one-wing cloud from the answer one anymore. He directly replaces that one. I

But I bought the model that the toy of the bike in the It was a cool toy Cool, they're very nice phones. Oh, yeah, there it is. Yeah, you've got it there again Yeah, the buster sword breaks into all the different swords, but yeah, no, I was I was really excited because Afterwards page was like what the fuck why did we watch that? I'm like wasn't that fun? She told me it was good. I good like no I told you it was fun that is different so did she not have fun at least I think she had fun writing down these thoughts and looking over them later and just going sure did yeah

fuck should Advent children have been like an art book and a collection of music videos? Oh man. Like this makes me feel like maybe I was way too hard on DERGE of Cerberus, which is a strange take away because at least DERGE of Cerberus had like stuff in it that wasn't Barbie dolls going Yeah, I I never even went through Durg like that's yeah I mean that's that's why like at the end of remake like they just like put that they just

Forced the Advent Children fight into remake at the end. Yeah, cause they wanted to do it over. Yeah, because they know how much we loved smashing our Barbies together. So now we gotta actually do it in the video game. But that's different, right? Cause when I'm holding the Barbie, I feel Barbie agency. I always felt like the impression I got was that dirge could be worse or better depending on how much you fucking need and love edgy boy with his big red cool scarf in the moonlight in your

life. If you need and love Vincent and his design is the best and hottest thing ever, then dirge is fine. I mean, I could use some more. Yeah. And we like there is we have a mutual friend who is like Vincent Stan, therefore dirge is great. And that's all there is to it. More screen time for Vincent is is automatically a win. I thought I when FF7 preview stuff was coming on, you saw see this shit in the magazine. I was like, why is why is this why is this guy not the main character? I thought Vincent should have been the main you know what you know, that's why a character

Cuz like there's something Paige forgot to write down on here But I remember her like exclaiming it is when we have a full-body shot of Vincent and Advent's children She burst out laughing going what the fuck are those shoes? Weird ass gold pointy elf B. Yeah, he's got golden clown shoes on, right? Yeah, but yeah, that's why I played Ders like all those years. I've never played Ders since like the one time I played it all those years ago. I was like, that game was cool. because yeah, I wanted more Vincent my life It's also really funny during the the big Muhammad fight how like Vincent gets this wildly disproportionate amount of cool action shots

And you're like and he's got the the three barreled gun and like the whole thing reads like dude Oh, I wish I wish there was a game where I could play as Vincent. Woo! And like sure enough, there's one next year. I mean he's definitely like main character coded in his design. Like he always says- I don't know if he's main character coded. The man, Vincent Valentine is a guy you fucking dig out of a fucking cuck grave.

In design, in design. I mean, I mean the way he looks aesthetically, and back in the day everyone was like, he's the best cool looking character ever. And like, yeah, cause look, they have turned clouded to that for Kingdom Hearts I. You know? When I saw Devil May Cry, I was like,

ooh, why are you here at Vincent Valentine? Oh man. That was exactly my reaction when I first heard about Devil May Cry. I was like, sick. I mean, my brain at that time was firmly just like, yo, humanoid typhoon, right? The, the, uh... Oh, Vash too.

Vash, obviously. I also thought Vash as well. With the mouth cut off, you know, and then the wind blowing with the cloak. It's, yeah, it's all there. I also thought he was very bash coded to yeah, obviously I mean that that's why like it's no surprise that ff 16 Ended up playing like don't make right because I was when I was playing don't make right I was like this is or like when I saw adventuril or no, I was like this is just don't make a don't make cry game Well, it's awesome. Yeah, you know like I think it speaks volumes that like given the

ability or possibility of revisiting Kedash laws in Yazoo in remake, they instead decided- I mean we killed them again as ghosts! But we just made color monsters! We just made floating nebulous color monsters and left it alone! So like the, at least like the team or whatever you want to call it, whoever's responsible for this still loves Advent Children,

because I noticed doing this, that the braver that Cloud has in the flashback, where he does the gigantic jump up and comes down one handed, that might as well just be ripped from the animation files of Advent Children. Like, it's exactly the same down to the timing. Yeah, so when I was, after we, like, you know,

went through the demo and watched Last Order, I was kind of describing about, yeah, how Advent Children was the first time we got introduced to this modern-looking glow- up for FF7 characters. And we just kind of are getting around to an era, an era now where advent children's playable. That's basically what this represents, you know? Man, OK, OK, I I'm so curious to re experience that. But I also fucking trash, but I also- Oh, it's fucking trash, dude!

But I also don't want to, because I love the memory I have from that fucking, that entire era, like that crystalline, just perfect encapsulated, like, oh, like not a fun, right? Fun was the word. It's not good, but fun is how I want to remember it forever. The best thing we got.

I was going to watch it too and I have it on DVD and now I'm like way less interested because I'm not sure I'm ready for a worse version of Advent Shoulder. Dude, it's way worse. That's like front loaded with the more boring stuff. Like it is way worse. I was genuinely fucking shocked because we was sitting there for almost 80 minutes before like the big melee in the middle of town. That's a whole movie is worth of like oh, the cloud, the Geostigma, the children, the or you're hanging out with the orphans are you? Oh, the word, the word Geostigma and that like, I feel like I

remember the trailer more. Anyway, whatever. I'm just I think because I remember what in Japanese where the word Geostigma was said like 80 times and then Denzel going, I want to see cloud. And then I don't know why Denzel exists in that story like it feels like he's the character to like look at the ff7 cast with new eyes but who the fuck it's watching this ff7 sequel who going I don't know who cloud and Tifa are

also Tifa's eyes are the wrong color in that fucking movie they're brown she's got regular brown eyes what movie what are they supposed to be they're Also Tifa's eyes are the wrong color in that fucking movie. They're brown No regular brown eyes. What movie what are they supposed to be? They're supposed to be red Okay, I yeah, I don't know the cycle or second. Yeah, uh was Are Are they like red red like yeah, dude, they're red. They're red fuck. Yeah, it was the og art. They're like they're like red red red like yeah, dude. They're red. They're ready. Fuck. Yeah. It was the og art They're like they're like Ruby red Okay Red eyes. Yeah, there you go. You school T5 color red eyes. Okay. There you go. Yeah, they're super red

Cuz her gloves are red Was that the phone was the phone they were selling the phone that you could play before Crisis on at the time? Was that the one? Yes it was. It was, right? Yeah dude. And it had the pre-packed fanfare, da da da da da da da da, ringtone on it.

That thing plays in dead silence for like, I wanna say like 30 seconds. It's not, but it's like 10 seconds. Okay, in my memory it lasted way too long. It's not but it's like it's not like 10 seconds. Okay, it my memory It lasted it gets way too long play you're like oh man that is oh imagine if I had a cool phone that played that ringtone oh I know and then the same I feel like that was the first thing to like ever introduce me to the to the idea of cool ringtones You know Yeah, I just had guilty gear ringtones for like fucking 15 years.

And this was all before the iPhone too. So it's all flip phones and everything. And like that other type of flip phone that would like just like slide up. A little click. Yeah, click and slide. Yeah. So cool. Yeah, you know, play for three reload. You know what? Flip phones were better. They were way cooler They were way cooler and more stylish and had better colors It felt better. I had a whole like trick of like like taking them out and I've like flipped them and like a big Yeah, yeah, and now now that skill is just completely useless. Yeah now. I have my brick my head that shows me anime and pornography I

Mean I Like I don't I didn't I only got a flip phone like real late for a little bit if for me It was all of the the click-and-slide one where it yeah did it you know the two-layer One yeah, and this is in Japan had like really we advanced phones back then like when the iPhone came out I remember I was like well, so what if it does video and photos and can I play before crisis on it? That's like Japan eyes all this crazy shit going on and and and yeah, and I'm like, oh, okay. Well, I get what the iPhone but still God

All right, what else do I got? Persona 3 reloads fantastic. Like a dragon if an wealth is fantastic. Advent Children is not fantastic. You know what? I have a weird story that happened today and that's going to be the end of my week. So, I'll do my streams and Paige will come over and she'll do her streams or we'll do a stream together and this morning my mom called me and my mom called me and said hi Pat how are you doing blah blah blah right pleasantries. So we were watching your show the other night and we heard you you and Paige were talking about the pie argument again. Gene I'm not sure if you're familiar with this or Wally I'm

not sure if you remember this. Floor pie? What's that? Floor pie. So my mom and I had an argument every single week for like 15 years because she would get a pie from the store and the only people who wanted pies were me, my mom and my brother and she would cut it into fours and my brother every week for like 10 years would go that's bullshit. How come you get two pieces of pie and she's like well you know one third of a pie is too much for you kids and they're like well who's gonna eat the fourth piece she's like well you know one third of a pie is too much for you kids and they're like well who's gonna eat the fourth piece she's like well we'll figure that out later and then mom would always have the fourth piece at a later time and we argued and argued and argued about this for decades and when Paige met my mom

we my mom and I got into the argument again about who should have gotten that fourth piece of pie. And she eventually just admitted, well, you know what, I was your mother and I bought that pie. So. Okay, so that was my pie. So we told that story on stream like a week or two ago and we're laughing about it, cause it's so silly. My mom calls me up on the fucking phone this morning.

I mean like, hey, so me and your father watch your stream and I saw you guys talking about the pie and I just want to let you know that that was my pie. How's the baby? That's what I'm saying, why you bringing up old shit? Yeah. You bringing up old shit. Like I want to go back to Montreal

and just eat a whole fucking blueberry pie in front of her and then throw the crumbs at the floor and this is the part where you'd say like Pat's mom stole my pie and then create a bit that follows you for a decade no according to mom Pat's mom stole her own pie because she bought that pie and it was her pie seal. Yeah, yeah. No, you see the thing, like the wild part about that entire bit, which is, of course it's logical to just cut in three,

you could do that, but you could also say, no, I want more, I bought it. You can just say that. That was the breaking point. That was always the thing, my brother and I, it's like one of the only things we agreed on in our whole childhood, is like just admit you want the fourth piece.

She's like, no, no, no, just a third of a pie is way too much for kids. You can't have too much sugar. It's the energy. It's all in the energy. Dude, every week for like 15 years. And then like every, like half the time I'd go hang out my mom and if we see Do you want a little snackie cake? But yeah mom? I would love a little snackie cake

You're we gonna so we're gonna split it into threes and she'd be like oh no no We're not doing this again like I will every day until either of us are both in the ground Incredible it yeah, I think that's it the principle of denial So you know what I'm gonna do with my boy cuz I got a boy and we'll have sweets in the house And we'll have a pie and right now there's me page and the boy. So that's three Right, so we'll have to cut it into fours And the boy is gonna be like well what about the fourth piece of pie and I'll tell him some bullshit.

That's for our neighbor or the dog. Keep the lie going, you say. Yes, let's not take the opportunity to use some truth here and correct the timeline. What would you prefer that I just eat both pieces of pie right in front of the child and be a terrible example or should I just eat it at night after he's gone to bed and just lie? Oh, the shame stuff.

The shame stuff. Yes, right, in the closet. Absolutely. Yeah. That's the other place for this to go. God. This is a real intergenerational trauma And then and then and then he suspects that you're having that extra piece, but never gets to confirm it and then

That little until oh, oh, he's paranoid out. Yeah We're 50 and I'm in the home and the lady calls them and we like hey hey pet junior red-handed and mouthed your father keeps and be like, hey, hey, Pat Jr. Red-headed and mouthed. Your father keeps disappearing and we can't find him. And in his dementia, he keeps stealing pies from the cafeteria and saying, my pie. It's a pat that comes a pie sealer now. That's a lure.

Pat, Gene, you know what's wild is, you know the whole the monkey ladder experiment where if the monkey touches the ladder, all the, they all get sprayed with water. And then after a while, there's no more ladder than all the monkeys get replaced, but they all remember to attack the monkey who gets them all sprayed.

That thing, I like the people who are currently listening and watching to this, I bet like the majority are not even, don't even remember the original story of the whole, Willie stole my pie. It was like, I bet you with them, it has just echoed into its own thing and the original story is gone from existence. Hold on, I wanna hold on for a second

because I wasn't there, right? I wasn't there. I was not involved in the story, but I did know you at the time. And I'm not sure I remember it correctly either because in my mind, you were with a friend at a bus stop. Yes. And you had a he had a pie to bring somewhere. And then you shared it. Right, because it couldn't go somewhere. It wasn't pie appropriate. And then it was like you ate too much of it. You stole my pie. Literally not even close. Not at all.

There was a McDonald's bag with different pies in there. And there was an apple flavor and a berry flavor left and we both wanted the apple and over the berry. So we did a rock, paper, scissors over it and I won. So what I won, I took the apple. And that was it. And then you physically over I won I took the apple and that was it physically overpowered him and took the pie I took the apple because I won the rock paper scissors and he took the berry one and that was the story and that I stole the liar willies to my pie I want a rock paper scissors fair and square and took an apple pie out of the bag because I won. That's literally the end. This is why Sephiroth needs to inject memetic memories.

We need Woolly's memetic memories. It's insane. Woolly's the most realistic mom. It's the most insane thing, one of the most insane thing that's ever happened to me over the course of decades of simply playing a game of Farron Square Rock, Paper, Scissors, rightfully earning a pie and eating that.

Now we've got children's books with you with the blueberry shit all over your fucking It's a bad shit. It's completely bad shit I mean to be lied to gas lit fucking warped around into the again the flanderized ghost in front of you for decades I want a fucking Farad Square a fucking Farad Square That's what it was that's all it ever was great. I never heard that before I don't think it's ever been corrected Over nothing

Completely nothing. Oh that cloth made my chest itchy. Oh But you know what the truth is not as funny so it's not nearly as funny never it never is Yeah, well It's it's all about the myth You know I actually know I used to work for the guy who created eBay Pierre Amity are and then the myth was that his wife was looking for a pez dispenser and she couldn't find it online So he was like why don't I build a website where people can just sell random shit and then call it eBay and I asked him I was like is that true? He was like no, it's not true. No, but it's a good story. It is okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah No, in the end the deep irony is that you are all the liars

Yeah Everyone else you are all the liars. We're feeling our truth. We're living our truth. We gotta live your truth. You do have to live your truth. Tell me that my truth is wrong. You do. You do. It's true. It's true.

It's true that you have to live your truth. Now I'm just thinking about like a Zach livestream like flash bike, like back to this McDonald's bag with a apple and blueberry pie God yeah, and I like And Tifa's like no you didn't cloud you never even played rock paper scissors for that pie Cloud go forward and eat the pie for both of us Bring me the pie cloud All right What's going on?

There's a couple of things. Xbox is either completely fine or in the process of over here. Now, finally, one of the other. I mean, so there is that we were wondering and what the speculation was going to be, because it's like, is Xbox going to just become a software only company Are they going to?

Echo the the karma of Sega and just pull out of the hardware business According to an internal message from Phil Spencer He told employees that they would continue to work with hardware and that they're not pulling out of hardware. But there's gonna be an announcement next week with a strategy that involves multiple kinds of devices. So I would like either of you to stop me if there's any part in which what I say is incorrect or a wild speculation.

But late last, early last week we talked about the joke about maybe Starfield would be coming to the PS5 or whatnot and then discussions and rumors and leaks and whatnot about maybe a large proportion of Xbox games would be coming to the PS5 and Then you know this would represent a change in business for Microsoft and what this could have meant for the company yada yada yada and Microsoft and what this could have meant for the company yada yada yada and Whether or not any of that is true actually seems to be beyond the point because Phil Spencer responded and said hey We're gonna talk about Xbox stuff business business Xbox stuff next week

and we went okay and what is what ensued is a week of And we went, okay. And what is what ensued is a week of absolutely insane speculation and panic sales from retailers and everybody losing their mind and Xbox going, yeah, no, we'll talk about it next week. We'll talk, we'll talk about it. It's, it's, uh, it's, uh, it's gonna be next week. And now we're at today in which we find out that it's going to be a podcast the day after Valentine's Day, which is an incredibly strange way to talk about any real news

with a console. It's not a video, it's not a picture, it's a podcast, what? And again it's like at the end of the week and so rampant speculation continues. Even the news that you you bring up, Woolly Willie about Phil Spencer says internally guys we're not gonna stop making consoles is in this weird feeling of like the way that I it hit me is him walking into a building telling people I'm definitely not going to lay you off and then leaving unprompted The internal going on the internal damage control memo In other words Hmm, it's like like the I've been laughing about it all morning people going like why is it feel like Xbox is going to lay me off?

Why is why is Phil Spencer waiting until the day after Valentine's to break up with us? I mean, it definitely does feel that there is, it feels as if anybody was down for a multi-platform, or a platform agnostic future, they would lead the charge on that, but that's only because you're doing so from the losing position, right? Yeah Yeah, I

Like I have been saying for years I expected that like game pass would just be the only bright and shining star that could save them Game passes like but it seems that is not the case every purse every part of internal Documentation or speak about game passes like man. We can't make this run forever. Don't make no money But whatever I talked to somebody that plays or uses their Xbox regularly That's the one thing they talk about. That's the only feature. I heard thing that makes them anti money Is where like you know the people I know that are like oh, yeah, gay past great So you know like still just renting shit out and using it that way instead of

Spending more on on the purchases, you know like that restaurant that I go down to down the street for games That looks for games the the fake restaurant that doesn't exist that I invented for this example The restaurant that all the food there is overpriced and it doesn't have as good of a selection, but I am a dollar for a beer. So I go down there and just get wasted and leave and I don't know, the owner doesn't seem very happy with the arrangement, but I just go down there for drinks. Buy any of the food? The thing they have margins on? Fuck that, get out of my face. There's also something especially tactical about how when we were younger, exclusivity meant this is the only place

you can play this game. Like for real. Yeah, but now it means if Epic is paying for this, Steam cannot get it. We don't care what you do anywhere else. If PlayStation is playing, is paying for this, you cannot put it on Xbox. I don't want it to go to a direct competitor.

Competitor denial. It's not about exclusivity. It's about competitor denial. It's wild. FF7's big trailer, the one with all the spoilers in it, it had a very strange marker on the edge which said console exclusivity. And then the date was like in May

It's like Man they're like the square is like please let's sell this shit to PC like right away And I mean and again it you know it's coming it's just wet and how long is it? Yeah, you know coming, it's just how long is it going to be, you know? Yeah, so we'll find out later this week, I guess. I'm excited for that podcast. But speaking of rumors and responding to that. We continue before we continue. I was talking to Page about this and I'm like, if the phrase

we are deeply committed appears within the first 30 seconds of that fucking podcast podcast that company is fucking Man I mean it does suck that like you know and many people I pointed this out that Xbox is Constantly on the back for it. They constantly have to explain themselves, you know Yeah, the thing is is that again, I there's two ways to look at it, right? There's the one way which is like, you had this coming, you fucked up, you had the lead, you dropped it for stupid reasons.

What was that dipshit's name, Don Matrick? Don Matrick. Holy fuck. I fucked one. You know. Terrible. You dropped the ball and again, the Sega bit coming back from a way way way when You know and this is a this is this is reaping what you're selling But the other way to look at this too is a world where Sony's the only console that is I mean Nintendo's doing its own thing

I don't want that either, but that's it competition's good Competition is good. You sure playstation Sam would have a great time with that, but I'm not a PlayStation Sam is loving a world where the whole or everybody Is governed by PlayStation then Sony'll be back on their fucking bullshit And then we can experience every product to the maximum To its maximum potential using the power of the PlayStation maximum To its maximum potential using the power of the PlayStation

I don't remember but that's the way he described it when games that were already out elsewhere came to PlayStation later He's like yeah, but it wasn't worth playing before now now that it's available on the PlayStation It can use the maximum potential of the console to Anyway, oh yeah people are pointing out Sony's already back on their bullshit with anime Is that in here? That's right? That's right. Yeah, what's going down? So they a crunchy crunchy roll slash Sony sorry Sony bought crunchy roll and then no wait one of them Fucking Sony owns crunchy roll and killed at Funimation and now all your Funimation shit is dead And if you're if you're forever copies of Funimation and now all your Funimation shit is dead and if you're if you're forever copies of Funimation shit don't exist on Crunchyroll then get

fucked they're dead sick and also we're doubling the fucking price so competition is good it is good to have these things to keep each other in line to fucking yeah I mean the ps3 was more expensive than the ps5 yeah yeah 699 was now yeah which is crazy he's the old snake with the gut in his mouth at 699 flashing on the screen never forget if you want to talk about like anime and it's like oh man it sucks that there's no competition for anime. Well, there's probably some other competition somewhere, especially a very cost effective competition,

which anime will always have to compete with. But, uh, I mean, that'll fix that. And we'll go back to the old status quo. You ever tried buying a Japanese blur anime blu-ray? You ever tried buying a Japanese anime blu-ray? I started the process once and then went, what the fuck am I doing? That's so far right. I started to load the website and start adding things to my cart

and then was like, what the fuck am I doing? You have to stop and look at your mouse, like, what? Like, actually, what is happening? Oh, fuck. Correct. Speaking of rumors and consoles, the rumors are coming in, in this case, from Universal Nintendo, which is a site, a Brazilian site that previously accurately reported on some Nintendo direct announcements beforehand and some other stuff. So they've been considered reliable with this, saying that, yeah, hey, guess what? The Switch 2 is like one of the worst kept secrets ever,

and the list of details they have now are talking about how it'll have A, backwards compatibility. No shit. No shit. For both physical and digital and Notably you can get switch one games to perform better with the added processing power of switch to so I feel like Incredible this is the kind of rumor That like this is a very badly kept secret like you're right. Wally like we have been hearing bits and pieces from this from all sorts of places for a long time But even if it wasn't this is like the most obvious fucking thing in the whole world. Like it's a fork on conclusion. It's also we can quickly confirm because next they also a part of this leak was that there will be a direct next week and hardware reveal

next month. So they're probably getting this information as they're getting access to trailers, footage, translation things, whatever's happening, you know, to ramp up the announcement, as well as a Pokemon presentation. I feel like... And that's why a lot of people think the Xbox business update podcast on Thursday is trying to probably Nintendo Direct or they're going to announce high-five rush for the Nintendo Switch.

That makes sense. They did see the shirts. They did extract the Switch. They extracted the Switch shirts and the Xbox shirts and the Sony shirts as well. You know, it's kind of sad because I like my switch, but I don't play that that often. And it's nice, like the big announcement of like, ah, there could be a switch to relatively soon and it would play switch games better. My brain goes, that's great because there's a lot of switch games that I'd like to play at even a marginally

better frame rate because holy fucking shit. There's a bunch of shit that came out on that platform that could barely go My switch has started vibrating and buzzing While running normally it just makes a hum like a loud hard drive and it's and you hear it spinning quite a bit it's Weirdly and then it turns off your hands and that's gonna be cool. Yeah, it might. It's weird. It's like louder than any other computer or device in my... It kind of sounds like a Dreamcast used to.

You know what I feel like is like a really good example of my personal view of the Switch right now? It's at my house instead of in my office. I see, yeah. It's not hooked up to any of this shit next to me for capture. Nope, not necessary. Is that the fan freaking the fuck out?

Yeah, it could be. You gotta clean it out. Okay, I've just kept it docked for the last fucking three years Oh, I haven't turned my switch on since I stopped playing high-roll calamity. What was what the fuck is the game? They need a remedy no being at three you finished being in three Oh, I did but I mean there's a Zelda game that came out that everybody tears of the kingdom Oh tears of the kingdom. Oh, that's right brain wants a tears of the calamity, but that's wrong

Tears of the Kingdom. Oh, that's right. My brain wants to say tears of the calamity, but that's wrong. Being in a three running well, I can't wait. That'd be nice. I mean, shit, I was playing tears of the kingdom and then I tried to emulate tears of the kingdom and I suck shit at emulation now and I got frustrated and like, I'll come back to this one. The fucking switch to comes out. Yeah. I'd take a fucking smoother running. It got everything.

Metroid Dread. Everything. You know? I think like they should, if they announce a Switch 2 in the near future, they should show the Mousseau game, Age of Calamity as like the poster child for like, look it's running like a regular video game. Or the Saber-Aid showdown trailer, right?

Like those were the two fucking most criminal ones. Yeah, I mean, even if the announcement was, if it was as simple as like, oh, it will now run the way it would, it used to run docked, but undocked, you know, or whatever. And docked, it'll run a little better even. Yes. I do know that the new one does have the Ethernet thing.

So like that is pre-solved Anyway, so that's the rumor going down And yeah a couple other small things, but let's just get through them How about how about fucking Ed? Ah, you mean Yamazaki light? Shaaah! Mashiba with the fucking splicker going Street Fighter 6 Ed trailer has dropped and man, he looks so fucking cool. He looks great. He looks so good

I'm really happy Going back over and kind of getting doing the frame by frame on it to break down what's happening It's real. I'm so happy that they kind of are like, okay, we're before we introduced the character and it was just a bit of a going more wild. We weren't, it's almost like they weren't too sure what to play up with this character between the whole shadow loo thing and boxer thing. You know, the young commander is what, what are we going to do the boxing thing?

Do the boxing thing. And now they're like, no this is ball rock son This is ball rock son, and this is a fucking boxer and maybe a little magic But that's that's mainly mainly boxing, but the magic is used to amplify the boxing. That's what it is right? So exactly so we go With like the kicks are now completely replaced no kicking to be done It's all footwork and flickers, you know, and he's got the the three different flickers, Yamazaki style.

The whole bit with him gameplay wise is he used to play like a modern character in Street Fighter V. So now they've made it so that modern still works the way it would have. But as a classic character, he gets a Hadoken motion. It's for most of his moves. I'm really glad because I actually fucking hated how Ed controlled in Street Fighter 5. I couldn't stand it. I didn't mind it I got used to it. It did allow you to do moves faster so he couldn't be as good initially but then they buffed him a lot later. But like the fact- Dude, I'm frustrated he's not a charge character. Well, so by the fact that the character has instant instant access to their moves means that like you can

It can be too strong if they're as good as moves that require time to charge more, you know to react to so that that's No, he looks way better than he did in SF5. Holy shit. Yeah. Yeah, the classic costume looks fantastic as well. It looks like he's sickly. It looks like he's probably dying of, you know, like again, like psychocancer or whatever's happening. Something's kicking in, you know. But the whole bit with him just kind of fully embracing

the boxer style. And so now all of his movements are like footwork, sliding in, doing shit that I personally, I'm just massively baited towards. He's got the kill shot break and kill shot chaser moves. And again, like anytime someone does a bob or a weave, I'm all about that. I anytime someone does a Bob or Andorra weave, I'm all about that.

And the, uh, yeah. And they just, they kind of took all the old moves as well and, and gave him the proper glow up. So now he's got the, um, his super level one is like the flicker combo that he does. It's kind of just like, he jumps into the screen a little bit, like Kimberly, you know, like breaking the line of combat and then jumping back out. Uh, Liz level two is the orb. You're on borrowed time. Tosses it out and then you get all those mix ups.

But his fucking level three is so nuts, dude, like hits you, uses the snatch ropes to turn you into a punching bag and then just works you like an everlasting. It's so fucking nuts. And then the wind poses. He just drops a psycho nuke behind him, you know, and has little shades of turning evil and stuff. It's like, yeah, Balrog son, please.

I love it. I'm glad that, you know, for the most part, I'm seeing a turnaround. People are excited for Ed finally with the improvements they've made. And I've seen the one thing kind of be that like the like like Ed's existence decreases the likelihood of Dudley's existence. And it's like, man. Come on. Absolutely does.

He's a pure boxer now. Sure. But like what the fuck is wrong with new shit? New cool shit? Why would like like, ah, you know, I don't. He's not new either. I don't see that, I don't see that as a, oh, okay, sorry.

No, not new, he's a returning character, but like newer generation, you know, like, and I still think there's no reason that Dudley couldn't show up if they wanted to do that. They can make anyone return. You know when we season two, he'd be like season three or season four. It seems possible, yeah. Yeah, it seems possible

The the bit though, I guess is kind of like there's returning favorites and then like, you know Who do you who do you want to see with a little bit of time on them? You know and of course going counter to all this new stuff is the trailer background stage where you have Seth's lair the fallen stage with the arm of the the the layer of the four Kings all dilapidated and you get a fucking Red hat on the chair and a body inside of a regen chamber right behind it. So I don't know what that could be Like they brought fucking bison back. I'd be sigma Must return so that X can fight Sigma. It's that we want Sigma again. We're doing it. Well, here he comes.

Yeah. The the the the good spiritual successor bit is is not going to carry forward for everybody. But, you know, I mean, we're definitely gonna see by the end of this move, this roster, like a couple of them. We're gonna have at least two of those heavenly kings. You know who should fucking be a DLC character for Street Fighter 6?

Hey, Hachi Mishima. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha the perfect timing for that. Yeah, they're they're they're definitely going to grab at least two of those four. But hey, I do appreciate as well. The like there was a Reggie was like, oh, give him the Alex treatment. Give no trailer. Character just dropped out of nowhere and then disrespected by sticking Akuma at the end. You know, and it's like, no, he gets his own. It's good. When Akuma drops, it'll be time and they know he's the last one. So there's no like they've been so far. Like each of these characters has been in the four DLCs has been great, like the Rashid,

Aki, you know, Ed and then like I'm sure Akuma is going to be fucking, you know, I have a place for you. Five six and quite a bit. But the day that Akuma drops will be the day that I go back to Street Fighter Six. Everyone like they know they know that's the character you're going to sell back to people for sure. And there's no way Akuma is not going to be sick. It's just a question of are they going to make it like is he going to be like Akuma or is he going to have all the only fucking crazy kage shit?

Like it's just going to go nuts. The synthesis of all those variations. Yeah, something's dropping and the timing would make sense for Evo as well. Right. That would be the place to get everybody excited with, um, yeah, and dropping now and then summer summer for that Yay, I'm I it's everything I wanted for that character and I never expected him to return at all So oh, I thought he was fucking dead Hmm. I I mean given the reaction and overall, like again, like the mixed response and, you know,

like people didn't hate him as much as like Luke. Oh, there's a fun moment about that today. I don't know if you saw it. I saw. So yeah, Alex was talking to Maximilian on his stream. And he's like, yeah, you you know he wasn't received it a well initially as I was auditioning and Max was like yeah I know I remember that you know people weren't ready for it for what he represents and Alex is like

yeah I saw your streams Max I remember I remember bro I was there Max is like my face. Hold on, hold on. The, uh, Andrea the Giant, not Gif. Hold on, wait. The call out was great. No, Street Fighter V Luke looked like shit, man. Street Fighter VI is a huge improvement. But the biggest part of it is Alex Lee is so charming. Absolutely. He like turned it around.

Absolutely helped with that But the the you know the bad or mixed reaction turning into a winner. Yeah, yeah We've seen we've seen that happen now twice with this. I have it's not even dislike. I have seen zero Discussion about Falk Yeah, yeah, give it a second. Give it a second. Give it a second. Uh, uh, Kira's character. Make your brain reach for it. Fuck. The, yes, the, The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, Oh, please She's done completely deleted from from memory, right?

It's wild and that's she came out. That's another new character that came out that is from that entire thing Neo shadow Lou era, etc And it's not a but like Ed was like, I don't like this guy or whatever. There's no mention of folk She's deleted from the fucking she she's been memory-hold. You know? So that's a worse, that's a fate worse than the mixed response. You know? It's like Finn from Miles Morales.

I just- The bad guy from the Miles Morales game, no one gives a shit about her too. Yeah, and as I said to me, sorry Spider-man 2 has it has a has a what happened before like wrap up and like it does not mention the bad guy of miles morale Oh at all Just like she was just shows up as I went through some challenges to you know The game just continues. I'm just like what the fuck? So miles prowler and we're here

That's it. Yeah, got it No, the The as I brought up or I need to know the questions that are burning in everyone's minds Mike like what happened to Questions that are burning in everyone's minds Mike like what happened to Baba Mualimu the monkey who joined the intelligent monkey that joined neo-shadaloo Ed's group neo-shadaloo are basically traveling the world saving people from The the remnants of shadow Lou and the things that are happening and it consists of Ed Falk, some weird bearded guy with a triangle, like facial hair shape and a hyper intelligent monkey in a shadow Lou uniform called Baba Mualimu.

So here's the fun part, Wally. We're now at the part of Street Fighter Nonsense that I'll be honest, you could have just made that up. I can't check it. I can't call you out on it. Uh-huh. It might be com- might as well be something you just invented. Or it could be completely real. I have no fucking idea. So I saw people refer to it in a like a way like Neo Umbrella.

Is that a similar thing of like- Oh. It's good this time we're gonna use the name but it's to do good things and blue umbrella blue umbrella yeah okay okay yeah blue umbrella is a good one neo umbrella bad so I think it's still bad yeah I will say this right important distinction to check if you're looking but Ed With the chain he's got the jacket open the the young commander coat with the jacket open

He's got a chain on his neck. It is not a shadow loo logo around his neck It's an owl with wings. It's not the skull with wings. It's a different thing It's just it's the same shape and it evokes the same energy But it's actually a different logo Okay. Yeah, anyway That dropped and then I in a complete fucking surprise to me

Knuckles is getting a six episode series. Idris Elba is like, I'm doing my spin off. If you want me to voice this character, give me my own shit. They really should have named that series and knuckles and knuckles. Yeah. Missed opportunity. Massive. Yeah, nice missed opportunity

I mean well, I mean the great thing is that like we're gonna get a sonic 3 movie and A knuckles TV does that mean we're gonna get see like Maria shot in the face I Mean you might You might at the very least the implication of hedgehog to human romance might be reignited The implication of hedgehog to human romance might be reignited Oh fuck yeah, cuz we are getting we yes shadow is happening for reals But I don't I did not see a spin-off happening, but I guess it's like hey It's been successful and people have been enjoying them. So let's do more and it seems from the trailer as if like,

Sonic is in it for perhaps like maybe the first episode or something. There's no James Marsden, but there is the like, Marsden-like co-pilot that he drives with or whatever. So awkward human associate for Knuckles in the same way that Sonic gets his own so Funny lights I kick you I just watched Maria in Sonic X just get shot up

They they gotta have the gall they gotta have the fucking guts to put fucking shadow in space in the tube and to put fucking shadow in space in the tube and have a goddamn guy with a fucking machine gun just shoot this little girl. Oh man, come on Sonic, have some balls. I do wanna see, oh god, what was it called? Doom? The fucking tentacle vet villain that's specific to Shadow that floats around and tells him to do crimes. Oh, the one that's like all sad after you beat a sage?

It's the, it's the, What the fuck is that thing called? Black Doom, Black Doom, Black Doom is floating around. Yeah, Black Doom is pick up the gun, Shadow. Rob that liquor store, Shadow. want bring me the black material shadow. I want I want Sonic three to be inexplicably R rated. And then they put out a completely normal trailer. Fuck it.

Yeah. Okay. All right. Ah Fuck it Yeah, okay. All right people getting wild the I don't when does the movie drop? Ah later later from now Where is this from? Okay, too many people are quoted now hit the second tower shadow. Where is that from? What are you guys quoting? I think it's about 9-11. What the, no, but like multiple people are saying it. So it must have come from somewhere.

Okay, so I'm gonna, I don't know. I don't know, but I will say that when we're talking about Sonic the Hedgehog, the conversation in the fucking collective unconscious that is the chat window can go anywhere. Anywhere. Terrifying. I saw one and I was like, what? And then like four people that said the same thing and I'm like, okay, no, somewhere there's

a there's a deep dank horrible meme. Anyway, a little bit of that and hey, a public service announcement, if you ever wanted to believe in Dong Dong forever, Dong Dong Never Die Judgment Day is now available. The updated version of the game with new moves, new shit. I think it was fan updated, I don I think it was fan updated I don't think it was official. I still can't believe it, but there is a new dong dong never die called judgment day that you may go look up Truly truly forever Yeah, okay, did you read Kojima talking about fizz int. I did not. How that came to be.

I did. What do you got? So he basically did an interview, he sat down I believe with GameSpot and was discussing how making the new IP. So he wanted to challenge himself, he said he made Death Stranding to create a new franchise and making a second part to that will allow that to be a series that can become its own thing. He had more ideas, so he wanted to make OD.

And I think like it seems clear that that's the remnant of PT, unfulfilled, that makes sense. And so, but yeah, that was eight years. PT on unfulfilled that makes sense and so But yeah, that was eight years And so like from Correction, this is not game spot. This is on his YouTube channel Hideo tube. Excuse me. Thank you my mistake Hideo tube Hideo tube web series. Yes

And so which is this guy fucking doing enough shit yes no there's also a documentary coming out about him a bit the mind of Kojima or so we all do media and podcasts and videos and shit like that and it's like how do you like make a video game and movie video game and an OD video game with Jordan Peele and in a podcast and Because I had to clean the dog's feet because he got into the mud The answer is that you spread yourself so thin that eventually you just drive around on a golf cart into the studio Pick up Darth Maul and Darth Talon and go their friends and then drive away. And that was your job for the day. Just, you know, continue to guide the hand

over the universe you've created in a fucking golf cart. Making everyone productive stop and have to fucking stand at attention. Yeah, so basically he was describing how during the pandemic, he got sick and he said, I turned 60 last year, I'm going to turn 70 in 10 years. I hope to never retire. And when he got so sick that like he even had to undergo like hospitalization and stuff, he kind of thought that he should change his priorities

a bit and so from everyone asking him to like make something like a metal gear or to do that, to do what he's known for, again, he wanted to do other ideas but it seems like he decided to think back on that particular route and he wanted to make something that is the culmination of all his work. So, Fizz Int is, uh, the type of game that is like basically everything that he's been building towards and he wants it to be, um, so movie-like that if your mom walks in and sees you playing the game, she'll think you're watching

a movie. I mean, and so that already happens now. Yeah, but the camera clues you in unless you're in a cutscene in a lot of cases, right? Like, could you move and movies is so fucking intense. This man is lying on what he believes to maybe be his fucking deathbed. And he bolts out of sickness going, Melchior wasn't, it wasn't enough like a movie. So when I talk about it the way we did last week, and then everyone's like, no you got it wrong, well he loves video games,

you don't understand, it's like no no, you got it wrong. Well, he loves video games. You don't understand. It's like, no, no, no, he does, but he cannot let go. He cannot let go the specter of Hollywood and everything. He needs it to be more movie like no matter what, he loves video games and he will push it, but he will always, always, always need as much Hollywood in his shit as possible. And like the goal is always

again I want your mom to mistake what you're doing for watching a movie it's so he won't let it go that's here's that's it I don't get and I'm sure I'm seeing people in the chat say it I'm sure you guys believe it as well like Death Stranding is like already there I, I think the first movie he made was Metal Gear Solid 4. Mm-hmm. Still has the whole record for the longest cut scene of all time. Of all games? Yeah.

Yeah, of all games. Still the longest cut scene of all time in the Guinness Book of World Records. How long was it? The 91 minutes or something. Okay. Is that where Mama tells you the bullshit? The Europe section? I think it's either the ending or

a revolver going with the finger guns. Oh, okay. I think it's actually the ending though. Man, it is, yeah, 90 minutes is a film. Multiple. You're watching multiple films as you play that game Yeah, fucking nuts. That's one sequence and MGS for but his his words from his mouth From the horses mouth specifically say the culmination of all his work is the movie that is also like the video game

We're right back here. We never left we never let. You know that sounds like to me like more than anything He wants to make a game that has no interface Hmm use I mean like that concept has been Explored in a lot of different cases, you know the interface that is implied with your Isaac's backpack or you know Your your shadow the Coloss holding the sword up and bits. Dustranding has no UI, you know? Sounds like a game that would have some good use of some yellow paint.

Oh, man. I mean, that's the great thing about Dustranding, is like just fucking go wherever. Deliver that shit. I can climb it. Oh not this one Fuck god damn it. Okay. I have something on that that I forgot to um But yeah, no, there's a We're gonna we're gonna chase this dragon forever

But, yeah, no, there's a, we're gonna chase this dragon forever. And then that's fine, as long as it's fun and entertaining and all that shit. But I'm not surprised at his comments, because I watched the documentary Connecting Worlds to the Tribeca. Oh, yes, okay. Yeah. So I actually went to the Tribeca Film Festival last summer in New York City to watch in person this movie. And I was invited by Kojima. And after the movie, I could talk about the movie too, but after the movie,

everyone started cracking up when the announcer came on and says, and now for a special discussion with Hideo Kojima and Jeff Keely. And this was like, this is like three days after summer game fest and and like the entire like theater just started laughing and they're like he's already here yeah just keep that dude in a fucking suitcase and travel around with them like what the hell just like a little Pokemon you know just care it's astral chain they have the fucking bracelet and they're just linked It's their tech attack. Yeah, it's our tech attack. Yeah, gotta time it together, you know

Yeah Okay, and then and then Disney and everyone and even Jeff Keely case that promoted his movie as like you peer into the mind of Kojima's creator process No, this is a this is a death stranding documentary Yeah, this is the making of death. So I just make every I saw ever made on any of those games has always been peer into the mind of the genius cojumbo And I saw that it's just here's how he made death stranding and here's how much work Here's how hard he worked at it. Well, I was I saw the poster and I was like They're not gonna get access to Konami's offices or the ability to sign off on any of that shit, that's gone. No.

You have to be there. It's all gone. I remember the Metal Gear Solid 2 documentary which had the part where they stand up and go, yeah, this shit has to ship, you're the snake, so you guys aren't allowed to go home anymore. Get fucking cots to sleep under your desks, losers. So there's a scene in this, but the interesting thing about this documentary is that it does show what work is like in Kojima productions a little bit. And there's one scene in particular where Kojima forces the entire

company into it, into the company theater and makes them watch a movie that he wants them to watch. Oh my God, of course, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's a whole company trip. Like, you know how like it's all employee town hall and they're like, oh no, are we gonna get laid off? Or oh, is there a business update?

No, Kojima Hideo wants us to watch a movie today. So that's what we're doing today. I feel like, like Kojima is walking around the office speaking English as if he were Bumblebee from Transformers, only speaking in movie titles exclusively. I don't know. And then you see the faces of other employees like walking in and you're like,

oh, the fucking dish shit again, you know? If I remember correctly too though, that makes perfect sense because it lines right up with the snake eater bit where everyone on the team had to submit a bonus feature or hidden extra to that game, which is why it's jam-packed full of so many little omake bits, is because adding your own little fun bit was mandatory or something to that effect. I remember back in the day, everyone on the team had to come up with something extra and fun to stick in it.

Thank you for stalling for time because you allowed me to remember what I was going to say earlier. I saw after we talked about Kojima last time, Pat, with the announcement of Fizzant and everything with the trailer and Death's Rending 2. Yeah, I want to say there was a thread or so someone to popped up or somewhere. They're like, every time I hear these guys talk about Kojima, I can't tell if they like him or not. Like, like, are they even fans or are they just shitting on it in from, you know, as somebody who like is making fun of it in a David Cage as well. Dude, it's both and it's like no, it is admiration. We're it is marks

It is lifelong admiration for everything this dude does we're just Adoration leads to complaints because we love it so much We could just shit all over it because we know all the little tiny details We know we're so we're so hyper aware of his bullshit Because we love we love what he does so much that you can see his bullshit inside of it go ah I know that I know when you're I know what you're up to I know exactly what you were thinking there you son of a bitch I'm in every single time that's why it keeps coming back up yeah make no

mistake man the documentary also does show him playing desk like like the other day his assistant Should I tweeted him playing like that's training to like he was about to play it because like that's that's his session Well, so so when there is like a workable bill then they give it to him And he will just play it and he'll take copious notes and be like I don't like the way this grass looks over here or the way this sounds over here or the way this looks over here So he'll just be like like like so yeah talking about like pulling apart the bullshit He'll do that to his own game Yeah, but like it's every little single detail and it's like oh my god

Do it like I could see this like like this guy is like such a huge micromanager. You know, it's crazy Which is why it's even wilder to think of just like four Which is why it's even wilder to think of just like four massive fucking or three massive fucking game projects at the same time Exactly alongside two film projects now the guy seems to be the type of person who's like like Invigorated by the ability to put his thoughts down on paper and see it happen And or watch a movie And or watch a movie. Yeah. Oh, watch a movie and then immediately go back to his script and start erasing and rewriting

so that I watched a movie called. Oh, God, what the fuck was the thing? What is he called? Cliff goes. Anomalysa. I watched a um, Anomalysa. I watched a movie called Anomalysa and in it there was a reference to a, a bullshit Hollywood reference to, um, I think like a, a translation that said like a Japanese goddess of war or something. It was some, some bullshit.

But anyway, he watched this movie, came out in like 2016 or something super recent, and then basically you went back and put the title, Anomalysa, inside of the Death Stranding script, because hey guys, remember that movie? No! Did you watch it though? No, did you like it?

No! Ha ha ha ha! Oh! Literally walks out of the theater and then pulls up the script and just starts retyping anyways I mean, that's what he did when he when he discovered low roar He was just at a vinyl shop in in Iceland. He was like, oh this fucking these guys seem cool get in

This guy seemed cool. They're just in my game now Yeah, rest in peace low roar. Oh Did they did they break up the singer? Oh, actually, it was basically just him but he died. Oh Yeah, damn very very sad super young and like it sucks because like Death Stranding was like his big break. Oh Damn and like he was just like he was starting to do shows and it's like damn You know, he's he's like our age, just a little younger than me. Sucks.

Yeah, because you would look forward to more of that style of track for two as well. It's part of the game's identity at this point. Damn. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it'd be great to hear more low roar if there was more music and just put it in there, but still.

Like imagine if he wrote music for a video game, you know. Oh, instead of just being licensed after the fact. Yeah, yeah, imagine the synergy if he was actually writing a game like a song for Death Stranding 2, you know. And it's like it actually matched with like Junkler and everything, you know. Fuckin' Junkler. That'd be sick. I love that. I love that, that, that Troy, could you my Troy Baker rolls are the only Troy Baker rolls that no one like has an issue with? Like it's cool.

Cause could you my user Troy Baker in ways that no one else does? Yeah. I mean, in it to you, to go full Joker in like this day and age. No, that is not full Joker. That is the Jongler. To go full Jongler in this day and age with the character becoming what it has in pop culture and in society to use that word. It's like, damn, okay, you're just doing it.

You're actually making a fun, like you're going full on with it. I don't think anyone else would have the balls to, you're just doing it. You're actually making a fun like you're going full-on with it I don't think anyone else would have the balls to you know Especially after being like golden skull man, you know, which is a completely different style of character completely Yeah, he was like Egyptian to hear like like a pharaoh type like vibe to it, too Right, which again with the fucking ha and the car and oh my god Fucking ha on the car with you. Egyptian, no, but it's the Egyptian reference, so it's gotta make sense, you know? Yeah.

All right. You know we're gonna see some stupid Egyptian shit in the Mexico desert. I'm waiting for a good- Because did you know Egypt also has desert? It's true. We could be in Egypt, Egypt stranding. It'd be fun.

Did you know that there's a beach in Egypt? I did. I did know there's a beach in Egypt. There's a red sea. It could look really nice. My favorite shot in the fucking Death Stranding 2 trailer is the one where you're looking at the moon and it looks like you're on the moon.

Oh yeah, right? Is that strange? It's so sick. It's like only Kojima is like, look at the moon and also you're on the moon at the same time and the moon is bigger than it's ever been before. Maybe because that moon is the beach. Never forget that feeling of like, again, I don't know what's happening. This makes no sense.

But five floating figures in the distance ominously is the raddest shit you've ever seen in your life that hits so hard. It hits so. I don't know what it is, but fuck. You know, and it's it's thinking it's thinking, it's designing video games with like paintings in mind, right? That would be a painting. You're like, I don't know what the fuck that is,

but damn is it imposing. It's that type of thought process brought to his storyteller. So in my 2019 interview, that's pinned on my Twitter, so you can go check it out. But I actually asked Kojima, I was like, why do you write stories that are cryptic and hard to understand? And he says, it's entertainment.

It's fun. That's it. That's it. I'm like, that's, he was like smiling. And I was like, yeah, that's, I can't, I can't argue with you. The more you got to reach for it, the more fun you have. Yeah. that's it Like basically

But but do you like it though? Yeah, yeah, I'm like yeah, I I I love it I enjoyed this journey of bullshit fucking part of me wishes that the answer was something like I watched 13 monkeys too many times like I watched 13 monkeys too many times. But, ah, no, the fact that it's good is a much better answer. Okay, so Phil, consider if you would a world where he came out on stage and says, I've got a new game for you guys and I've been working on it and I know it's not Metal Gear or like, you know, Nettle Near, it's a game about carrying packages to people and building roads to drive on. And by doing that, it's a post-apocalyptic,

but I wanted to make a post-apocalyptic game where you had to deliver things to people and rebuild roads. And it was just straightforward in its announcement, straightforward in its world and everything, and there was none of the shit that we freak out about was there. Yeah, it was like fucking SnowRunner, but Kojima. That wouldn't be it. That wouldn't be nothing, right? That would have been a fucking snooze. We would have stopped talking about that immediately.

It would not be entertainment. No. It would be a press conference. It would be a press release. It would be a bullet point. It's not entertainment Exactly starring Norman Reedus. There's no funky fetus attached to his body It's just a star and he's oh, yeah It's the celebrity game and it's about being a delivery man got it and it's like it's it's it's everything that we can't find that We obsess over here

That is what we keep coming back to while we're still talking about this game and why there's a next one, you know That yeah, because like look because the trailer was incredible because like it was it was exactly like what it used to be in the early 2000s where we're astounded We don't know what the fuck's gonna happen next and then you but you compare that to like announcements of like for you know And I hate to pick on suicide squad, you know, but suicide squad You're like check out the Suicide Squad Squad. And these are all the characters and these are all the blah, blah, blah. And this is it's part of the Arkham universe.

And then, and then, you know, like that kind of presentation versus John Glurr and baby cyborg samurai, you know. Yeah. And at some point, a package will get delivered, but I don't know if we're going to see that in the trailer at any point. You know, we might see like road traversal and, oh cool, there's new ways to get around, but like the actual main point,

carrying shit and dropping it off, like yeah, you know, that's there too. Fucking look at this weird Thunderbirds puppet. Hey man, I need to get more fucking underwear to Conan O'Brien in his pit. Oh God, yeah, yeah. I actually never found Jeff Keely in the game until like two months ago.

Oh yeah. I never looked. Oh, wasn't he invisible? He was like one of the first ones. He's one of the first ones, but he's fairly miscible. But then I actually started playing the director's cut and then he's kind of on the way to like the director's cut like area.

So I was like, oh, that's where he's been this whole fucking time. Okay Yeah, I don't I don't fully remember Oh, he's hidden in the first map. I see okay. All right. Let's take some hidden. Yeah, he's a little tucked away Let's take some letters. All right. If you want to send in a letter send it to castle super beast mail gmail.com That's castle super beast mail gmail.com All right, we got one by the way coming in from munch. Oh, we got a nice spice fan out here The letters in coming in from munch Dear castle super beast men

recently a winning GT car at the 24 hours of Daytona big endurance race was revealed to have what can only be described as a sexy bauzzette sticker inside the driver's cockpit as well as a sticker of Shinobu from Demon Slayer on the rear bumper. Got it. Since it costs a lot of money to go endurance racing and somebody had to not only pony up for this but approve the stickers, my question is, what are you most excited to see people with weebish persuasions do with their money? I'm hyped for a spacecraft that's plastered with Kyba Corp branding. Yeah, I think my hopes and dreams are with Mason Madden and his continued bringing of power levels into wrestling

because anime is and always has been wrestling and just opening it up and acknowledging that, ripping the portal open and showing everybody how anime is wrestling and vice versa is the best. There needs to be more of that and it needs to catch on. I think- Uh-uh. Mmm. Mmm. There needs to be more of that and it needs to catch on. I think... Hmm... Hmm... I think my favorite thing that I'm looking forward to, to rich people doing with their money, if their massive weebs,

is discovering that I play a lot of Japanese games on my channel, and then taking some of that money and giving it to me. For me, I'm trying to be that person in the mainstream media. Who's Wibish, right? So, I mean, that's why, like, when I ran the brand accounts for The Washington Post, which thank God I don't anymore, but, like, I was experimenting with the whole, like, cringy, like, you know, jokey, like, ooh, jokey brand account, woo-hoo-hoo, you know, because I was, like, part of that whole like beginning wave of Brand accounts that started doing that and I often like reference like Evangelion or or or

You know, whatever outdated anime I might I might talk about but yeah, that's definitely what I was trying to do. Yeah Um, I think though it's best when it comes from unexpected sources, you know when what's great Oh, what's great is that I found a reddit where that's full of People who love flags, right and then they saw me on CBS and they're like what the fuck flag is this? Right behind me. Oh And then some more heroes and then someone was like Santa to destroy more heroes Santa destroy. All right. Yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I got this place that ever was Yeah destroy. All right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, this place that ever was. Yeah. Um, yeah. No, I love I love when it comes from unexpected sources and just kind of takes

over like, uh, uh, what was, yeah, was it, uh, the jets? I think the New York jets walked up, pulled up to the locker room in full a catsky gear, just walked in with the fucking so stupid stupid like the full robes walked out, you know like just rolling through and you know basically everything that Israel it is Anya Does in UFC, you know where he's doing Rock Lee poses He's doing tons of like anime references and he has the fucking arrow pole the one two Three on his on his

wind pose, you know, bringing all that energy when you don't expect it is this fucking awesome. I love that shit. It's tough though. You know, as someone who's been around a lot of rich people, like, like, I feel like a lot of these people are are will always be out of touch though, you know, well, they're totally isolated from literally the entirety of the real experience. Exactly. I mean, they're exactly they're just living a different human experience. So like it's so that's why it's wild when like Barack Obama is like a Spider-Man fan. But that's it. That's that's that's that's the limit of it. He likes Spider-Man, the most popular fictional character that's ever made. I do. And then we have, and then that's a credit. Do you remember when Bill Gates got interviewed in like fucking 2005 about the Xbox and they looked at him and they say, hey, Bill,

you're making a video game thing now, right? Who's your favorite video game character? And he's blurted out Master Chief. Like Halo 1 was the only game that had come out. Master Chief was just some fucking army man, that's like Actually, I'm a big fan of solitaire is making I love mind sweeper mind sweeper is the best character in video games really Yeah, I Mean we're a long way away from like Robin Williams kicking in with fucking script about going nuts in the Arctic.

And he's like, I want to fucking scene where I talk about these neon Genesis Evangelion figures. What's that movie? 24-hour photo? I think. Yeah, 24-hour photo. That movie's nuts. I mean, he named his daughter Zelda. Yeah, that is yeah Yeah, yeah, also, but also like she's great too so but also if you if you you know you do it You do it the right way and it's like oh Henry Cavill is gonna work on your thing It's because he's fucking adores the source material. You know, it's great

Cavill recently put out a quote that like I feel it's real and it's part of the It's part of the press cycle, but I believe it when he says like Being the producer there the executive producer or whatever it is on the Warhammer 40k universe in Hollywood is the most privileged I have ever felt And it's like you were fucking Superman. Superman. Yeah, yeah. He believes it. He believes it. That's where he's at.

It's Vin Diesel playing Yu-Gi-Oh. It's just... Oh, and then of course, yeah, as someone in the chat just remember, there's the interview with Robert Pattinson and where he just Geeks out. I don't know if you guys saw this by the way that when he just geeks out over Having fallen in love with erith and Tifa and Zoe Kravitz. This is during the Batman

Prestor Zoe Kravitz was like next to him like questioning like Questioning his his adulthood or whatever What a man. That's Edwardullen, hero to all moody teenagers. I mean, he's so deep in the FF7 trenches that when he explains the Aerith, he says Aerith or Aerith, depending on the version that you played. Fuck dude, I would not have even mentioned that dude. I really like Robert Pattison, I remember seeing an interview

or a description of him being cast as Batman and the director and the production company fucking shitting on him all day Because they were like Robert you have to fucking work out. You're playing Batman. He's like I don't want to work out That's perfect Bruce perfect perfect Yeah, and then of course shout outs Jamie Lee Curtis who you interviewers like, oh you, you're a fan of Street Fighter. Okay, Ryu or Ken? Kenny. She's like, bitch, Kenny! What the fuck are you talking about?

You know, rolling through Evo? Like get the fuck out of here with your basic bitch shit. Yeah. with your basic bitch shit. Yeah. I have to say Jamie Lee Curtis, like coming out of the woodwork to be like, I would like to be in one piece. And furthermore, I would like to play the role of an incredibly old woman.

Like that's not the kind of casting you see Hollywood actors like shooting for. Sick. All right. And let's see, we got one here. Dear Patton Willie, something has always bugged me about Lost Odyssey. Oh perfect timing. Gene's here for this. I know you're a fellow enjoyer. The Thousand Years of Dreams content is a great addition to the game but it doesn't quite mesh with the rest of the writing.

It sure doesn't. The stories were written by Kiyoshi Shigematsu, a novelist who didn't work on games. As great as they are, I never got the sense that the kind I was playing felt the same as the ones that had these experiences. Are there other examples of game content or media where something comes from an industry outsider that doesn't mesh with the rest of it, but it elevates it all the same. I can't describe something from an industry. Elevates it all the same.

Outsider, but I can think of the time where I felt this exact feeling. Playing Final Fantasy XIV, there are different writers for different quest lines and you can fucking feel it. It's really, really obvious when you get one writer or the next, because you go into like the alchemist quest line in Heaven's Word or the Dark Knight quest line and you're like, oh, this is the person who wrote Shadowbringers and Endwalker. And then you go into whoever wrote

the fucking Paladin quest line and you're like, I don't know, I hope they fired this fucking idiot because this is terrible Um, I think catamari is a really good feel example of an outsider making a game because initially you're like, okay Someone who's trying to pitch the concept of let's say analog sticks just came into existence You might be like, oh, yeah, let's make a game that mainly focuses on this or so. But like everything else happening or that you're doing in that game is just, it's based on the idea as games as toys, not as a normal progression based, you know what I mean? It's such a weird thing where it's like,

why are these objects in where the places they are? And it's like, oh, just for the sense of scale. It's fun. It's literally it. It's just a vibe. It's all about a vibe. I feel like that's a thing that makes those games stand out and are great and I fucking love it for it I don't know I would say another example, but I don't know that it elevates not an elevator per se but it's like in terms of the dissonance of things any time a character in a game has like It's supposed to be like weak or struggling but they have like a massive body count on

weak or struggling, but they have like a massive body count on the amount of people they're taking like Tomb Raider reboot as you're going through the game as Lara who's like struggling and you know, not a fighter, just an archaeologist, but you have killed 40 people like three hours in or so. I killed them. But you're still in cutscene, meant to feel as if it's a struggle. It's a barely crawling But you're practically styling on entire platoons of dudes, you know Anyway, yeah, that comes to mind. It's a good question. I can't think of anything right now. Yeah Cool I'm gonna fucking piss my pants. Yeah. Yeah, let's let's wrap that up Jean as always a

Pleasure, thank you so much. I'm glad to piss my pants. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's wrap that up. Gene, as always, a pleasure, thank you so much. Anybody glad to see you again. Yeah. Yeah, thanks for having me back. I'm glad to be back in the castle again for the third time. Absolutely. Anything you want to let people know about or look forward to? No, just follow my adventures in Dice Summit in Vegas.

I will have a cool interview with someone that I've been wanting to meet for a long time and that's about it. Follow me on geneparktwitch.tv slash genepark2. Look forward to things that can't be talked about yet. That's right. Yeah, look forward to my review of a game that I can't talk about yet. Right on. I'm sure you can guess what it is. We're gonna be, yeah, over on the Willyolly Versus, we're going to be, I'll post a schedule,

but yeah, some more Half-Life and going to pop back in some armored core this week. I want to play that. I feel like getting back to it. So come check us out.BGM