Castle Super Beast - CSB 269: WWG1WGBBL

Starting point is 00:00:00 ["Sailor Moon Theme"] Right. So I'm a simple man. You're a simple man, Willie. Why are you a simple man? Well, no, why is not important. How are you a simple man, Willy. Why are you a simple man? Well, no, why is not important. How are you a simple man? I see some unexpected witch abs coming my way and nosebleeds start happening.

Starting point is 00:00:55 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. I was already talking about how Hades originally had just gorgeous, nonstop fucking, originally had just gorgeous non-stop fucking, just oozing simps left and right all over their character designs because they're gods and goddesses and that makes sense. These are the great gods and or pantheon. They're supposed to be attractive. And five minutes into Hades too and they're just fucking hitting you with Hecate and Nemesis and I'm like, you know, man. Yeah, Hecate in particular has the bonus of being voiced by Amelia Tyler, who you may

Starting point is 00:01:35 recognize as the narrator of Baldur's Gate 3. And it has the, I have a genuine feeling that we're going to be hearing, cause she's doing like cool, sexy sexy British lady voice. I have a strong suspicion we're gonna be hearing a lot of Amelia Tyler over the next couple of years. I mean, it's fun to go talk to Dad and watch him shit on you in Hades originally, and every time you roll back through,

Starting point is 00:02:01 he's got some frowning disapproval for you. But to just replace that with roundabout over to this Rosa with abs ass boss witch bitch lady. I'm like, yes, absolutely please, let's go. I'm down for that to be the regular thing And then you get your Dusa too, which is just a little little spookies jumpscare mansion character Yeah, like Dora Dora the so we're talking about Hades too by the way. Hades too. Hades too. Yeah I'm curious because I know your deal and your deal is some some

Starting point is 00:02:44 Long redheaded pigtails show up and an eyebrow is raised. When's the last time you got hit with nosebleed action right on stream? In game. Oh man, I don't know. Honestly? Honestly? Have you met Doom in Hades 2 yet? No, no, not yet.

Starting point is 00:03:09 Moros, Moros or Moros in Hades 2 shows up on screen with no shirt and I just like yelled out like Yo, I'm gonna suck that dude's dick! Like, it's like upsetting. It's very upsetting. I haven't seen yet. Let me just pull the.

Starting point is 00:03:37 Oh man, yeah okay. I can imagine, I mean seeing some of the old faves coming back around, it's like how did you know, I can imagine I mean seeing some of the the the old faves coming back around It's like how did you take? What's this? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I saw yeah. I saw him. I saw him. I saw him. Yeah No, that's the so it's it's the you got the long haired like beautiful man But then you've got the antlers And instead of just doing the thing where the antlers stick out and the hair drops, you've got the hair flowing like a veil hanging from the

Starting point is 00:04:11 antlers for that extra level of je ne sais quoi. Absolutely. No, I was straight up, I'm like, how are you going to take a naked lady and somehow improve on that? She's already naked. There think it's really funny that Aphrodite is like more naked because her pose is like more open. She's more, exactly. You took the Ares eye strip and then you gave her the shield and the spear and you're like, yeah, yeah. If you, by being, by having a little bit of like

Starting point is 00:04:44 just an eye thing and a couple things in your hands, you're now even more naked, right? It's the difference between wearing nothing and wearing something that is like framing the action. Okay, so before we talk about Hades 2, I have to ask you, where are you at in Hades 2? I just did one quick session. I just wanted to touch the surface because I know that I still have to work on my Hades

Starting point is 00:05:11 1 runs, which I have been doing. Oh no, I meant in proximity, like level structure. Yeah, so what happened was I beat Hecate? Yeah. Hecate? I'm trying to get to it. Who is way easier than Meg was. I took maybe two or three out of her, I forget.

Starting point is 00:05:33 I think it was two. But Hecate? Hecate. Okay. And yeah, and basically stopped right after that point. Okay. So, a lot of the stuff that I want to talk about, Hades Suit, is structural, but I don't know where you fall on spoiler stuff. I want to talk about the nature of the second boss and third area and whatnot.

Starting point is 00:06:00 And I don't know where we've fallen on this. Okay. And I don't know where we've fallen on this. Okay, so I like, like you start the game and I walked up and looked at a picture that is like humongous, what are you gonna do level spoiler? And that's like fair, I know what I walked into, I booted up the second game and I was destined to encounter something like that. So yeah, yeah, oh the painting of the family, yeah. It says there's a picture that there's a button that says brood and you brood and stare at a photo and that photo is big,

Starting point is 00:06:31 big old Hades one, you know, spoilers for the multi. I was, I was playing it and somebody said, Hey man, should I play Hades one before, before I play Hades two? And I was like, I don't know, they're like different games. And then I was like, I did a second stream of it and was halfway through and started to encounter some shit that I was like, boy, you should fucking play Hades 1 before playing this game. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's what I spent some time doing actually, I'm working on getting through that. So what I would say is, I mean, look, I've decided a long time ago that I'm, especially after the amount of shit

Starting point is 00:07:12 I've gotten about how mean spoilers and stuff, many, a couple years back, I decided, I'm like, all right, I give up, so I'm just not gonna, you know. I wanna be polite, but I also wanna describe, like compare and contrast. So what I would say is, if, what I also want to describe, like compare and contrast. So what I would say is, what I prefer is, without going into the specifics of plot details,

Starting point is 00:07:30 if you're talking about mechanics of the second boss. I want to talk about one boss, and I want to talk about the mechanical layout of the game's structure. Absolutely, go for it. Okay, so you saw this. I'm sure you saw this when you started and it's the most interesting thing you can possibly see when you start the game is that right next to the spot where you can go down to

Starting point is 00:07:54 start your run, there's a fucking staircase that says go up. Go up, yeah, and I tried and it said nah. And it says nah, right? So I go, okay, so we'll go down. And when you go down, you are doing a four act level structure, just like Hades won. One down, one down, one down, one down, which will find a fight with Kronos. And then you beat Kronos and then you loop around

Starting point is 00:08:21 and then you unlock darkness, which is heat, from the first game to do your bonus runs. Going down is the same structure. It's pretty much exactly the same with one major difference. It feels that the areas they added this time around are direct counterpoints to the problems people had with Hades ones areas And what problems would those be?

Starting point is 00:08:49 so Esfadel's lava was pretty annoying as like a as a yeah, yeah feature right um and Elysium was I hated Elysium. I hated Elysium so goddamn much. Where the armored guys would then pop out with the goddamn armored eyeballs. So there's a similar enemy type that you kill them and they pop out an eyeball, but the eyeball's just a bomb. It doesn't regenerate.

Starting point is 00:09:22 And shielded enemies are rare. Oh, those fuckers suck. They're very, very rare. And the Temple of Sticks in the Hades one was really small and not super interesting to me. Asvedal and Tartarus were my favorite zones, which sucks, because they're the first two. So they've gone the other way.

Starting point is 00:09:50 Are you talking about Erebus? No, no, I'm talking, in Hades I, the Temple of the Styx, where you fought the rats in the Satyrs. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right, yes. It was super, super, super fucking small, and it was just like tiny, tiny little rooms. Yeah, a little challenge room to get the stuff to Cerberus. The areas in Hades too seem like direct counters to that.

Starting point is 00:10:14 So like a really good example is, do you remember getting hit by the pillars in Tartarus because you weren't paying attention, you were hitting a guy and then the pillar would drop the rocks on top of you? Yeah or like one of the like stage hazards. Yeah. So now, so a lot of the colors are inverted also. So like, we went from like red as the primary color to like green as the primary color with like purple as an accent for Erebus.

Starting point is 00:10:40 Okay. But regardless, now the trees are the new columns, but the trees always explode outwards. So you attack a tree and it pops outwards like an explosion instead of throwing enemies into it. Like the columns. Mad Fientist It's interesting to note the things like the lava being annoying and the shielded enemies and the ghosts and stuff because I'm like.

Starting point is 00:11:06 I fucking hate Elysium so much man. So those things were annoying, but like I just kind of internalized them as like, yeah because the game's hard, right? Like I just kind of like, I just got so used to like, you're gonna need to find a different solution for this type of enemy with your build, otherwise too bad, you know?

Starting point is 00:11:22 And even lava, it's like, okay, dash off of it whenever it starts to flash white. And it's such a, I took all of that to be, yeah, this game is trying to be fucking hard. I also internalized that the same way. And I'm like, well that's how you make a game like this hard. Well no, they've actually done it in a totally different way in Hades too.

Starting point is 00:11:44 So the second area is an ocean. It's a water area and it is filled with a shit ton of stage hazards and enemies that can live in the water but you can't go onto the water. Like it's the opposite of the lava. Right, like enemies are like not quite unreachable but they're like hydras all over the place as like a regular enemy.

Starting point is 00:12:05 But the third area... Sorry, what's that? No, I was wondering because I was... But the falling pillars for a second, I was curious about like... The ones that you drop on the enemies, are they there when you use them against the enemy? But the stuff in Elysium that hits you is the spears, the arrows, and the lasers that shoot at you, the traps, yeah. So the third area is wide open space.

Starting point is 00:12:33 Like it is a big field. Like it's still a discrete room, but it is like 10 times larger than the rooms you usually deal with. And it's combined doors. So you'll go up to like a door choice and instead of being like heart or boon, it'll be heart, money and Aphrodite boon or Poseidon boon magic upgrade money. And you're getting all of the above.

Starting point is 00:13:06 Yeah, and you get all of them. Oh, wow. Because the area is massive. Okay. And you have to traverse it and find where the upgrades are. And then when you click on them, a bunch of shit swarms on you.

Starting point is 00:13:18 It feels like the opposite. Okay, because you see, like, with a one, whenever there was a big room, which Elysium had some large rooms, it didn't matter because you see like with a one whenever there was a big room which Elysium had some large rooms, it didn't matter because you could just stand in spot and kill everything that was coming at you and then afterwards dash to the end of the hallway that you didn't have to traverse. There's like a room in particular that has a large open field by the front door, two

Starting point is 00:13:42 big bridges and then an open area at the back. And if you just stand right in the front door, everything comes bridges, and then an open area at the back. And if you just stand right in the front door, everything comes and spawns on you and you just kill it there anyway. Yeah. In the third area in Hades 2, there is... It's enormous. It's like five screens stacked on top of each other.

Starting point is 00:14:00 And you're like exploring around to find the upgrades before leaving. It's really, really interesting. The fourth area, which would replace the Temple of Sticks, so the Temple of Sticks was like you have to find the sack to get past it and then leave, but you had to decide whether or not you wanted to keep going and get all the upgrades. In Hades in, uh, the Hades too, they've made that really simple. There's two doors. One is straight to the boss and the other is you want an upgrade.

Starting point is 00:14:35 And at the end of that area, it'll go, do you want to go straight to the boss or you want to get an upgrade? And that happens over and over and over and over. It's like, do you feel like you could beat the boss right now? No? Another challenge room for you. Boss room challenge, boss room challenge. And you choose until you want, you can keep going. Yeah. Okay. Chronos is way harder than Hades was. Way harder than Hades was. I beat him, but I had a completely fucked build that would just heal me constantly the whole time. He's way harder.

Starting point is 00:15:18 So I mean, the assumption is, of course, is that this is a challenge meant for people who are coming off of the first game's challenges, right? Plus multiple heat levels. So it's not quite finished, but I think it actually has to do with going up. So the trick about going up is there's an entire like Hades three is is going up. What? is going up. What? So going up is not like a one-off boss fight or something like that it's a completely separate level structure. Oh fuck. With its own unique bosses and rules. And progression. Yeah so when you get to the, when you go up top onto the surface, you get into like a gigantic city that acts like Temple of the Sticks, and it basically says you can

Starting point is 00:16:13 have five of these rooms, and there's like ten different rooms, before progressing onwards. And so you have to pick, like, okay. I have all these upgrades to choose from Which ones do I actually want to do? Interesting okay, and then there's a second level on top and Then I can't beat the boss up there. I can't they're so fucking strong But the top isn't finished They're so fucking strong, but the top isn't finished. Yeah. So there's gonna be eight levels probably eventually.

Starting point is 00:16:49 There are currently six. So that's, so I'm very okay just like lightly scraping a little bit here and there being, knowing how early access is gonna go with this and knowing that, you know, going all in is gonna to I'm going to hit that wall and or lose my save. So I'm going to try to just see if I can play this. I'm going to see if I can treat this game a little differently, right? Like it's good enough that as soon as I'm done with my with Hades one, I'm going to want to go hard on two. But I know that leads me to the same wall every time.

Starting point is 00:17:26 So I'm just gonna have to ignore it for a while. I beat Kronos on the bottom, and that was brutal, and can't even come close to the boss on the top. Interesting. Like, not, like, I, like I was a child like just absolutely stopped me Um, and I believe the eventual progression Is you're going to be going? ping-ponging between the two Because uh you get tons like you get way more like mechanical

Starting point is 00:18:00 Upgrades from the from the cauldron this time around So like you'll get everything from the ability to grow food To get bats to show up to help you navigate enemies Navigate areas did all sorts of zany shit. So so far everything in the cauldron seems to be pretty useful Something I have to say I I I hated about the first one is how many pages of the contractor were just cosmetic. It was astonishing. And like astonishing. It was it was this and I kind of I realized there's okay there's one point that got useful where one of the fates achievements was spend get the

Starting point is 00:18:43 contractors to do up to 30 jobs. So I'm like, the cheapest quick jobs will be easy for getting that out. But there were still pages and pages of completely meaningless, minor cosmetic things. And like some of the significant ones were worked in to that list. And it was just a weird way to do it. Like why not have two completely separate, you know? Right now there's no cosmetics that I can find, really, and every upgrade is some kind of mechanical change. It's I want aspects for my weapons, or I want to unlock a new thing on the training room, or I want the ability to not instantly die when I go to the surface, or I want to unlock animal companions.

Starting point is 00:19:32 Have you so far gotten to a point where you have, I guess, as much as you had with Zagreus by the end of 1? No, because the Arcana system is different. So there's the two. You unlock the cards and unlocking the cards is your abilities. But then you have to unlock the grasp, which is how many of those abilities you can actually run at once. I don't know what the cap is on Grasp.

Starting point is 00:20:07 I have 24, which is enough to unlock, equip like eight cards. Do you enjoy mechanical obtuseness? When the end goal is like for here, for example, the point of the Grasp is you can pick and choose between some Strong abilities but balance it out so that the strongest can't be all shoved into your build You're gonna have to balance some weak some strong or a smaller amount of stronger things Do you like yeah, like it's cuz I feel like some board games when I've talked about like the more complex ones some people like really enjoy that and lean into it when you have multiple aspects

Starting point is 00:20:48 of that to figure out. I personally don't, so with Grasp and with the expanding of the board and stuff, I kind of, it doesn't have to be as simple as the mirror, which is an on-off switch, and then dump into the stat. I like how the cards unfold and you pick where to go next on that. That's cool. But it took me a fucking minute to grasp what grasp was. It was a little too...

Starting point is 00:21:14 It's how many slots you got. I'm being told that it caps at 30, which means you can't run every card on there. And not only can you not run every card? I don't know how many you unlocked during your time, but there's zero cost cards That's where I that's where I had that's where I got confused Interesting mm-hmm But you have to unlock the requirement which in the case that I had was you must have an activated card of 1.2.3.4.5 and 5 all active at which point the zero cost card can be Activated but you still have a cost of purchasing it before that separate from the activation requirement

Starting point is 00:22:01 Mm-hmm. So The also some of those zero costs are mutually exclusive. So like there's one of the zero costs that is like gives you six percent dodge naturally. You're like, oh that's nice. And the way that you have that is to not have more than, oh god what, not have more than, oh god, not have more than one, sorry, more than two overlapping costs. So like, you can't have two fives. Okay, yeah, okay. Sorry, three of a kind.

Starting point is 00:22:38 You can't have three of a kind. So each of these zero cost cards is going to have. Oh, sorry, I have it backwards. You have to have three of a kind. So You have to have three ones or three twos. So each of these zero cost cards is going to have its purchase cost and then its activation cost. Yeah, but they don't cost grasp. But not spending... Yes. So here's the thing though. Okay, yeah, right. Here's the fun one. There's a different zero cost card, which increases the likelihood of duo boons, which is really good, and that one is you can't have more than two of each.

Starting point is 00:23:13 So you can't have those two cards simultaneously. So you have to choose between dodge and duo boons, and you have to figure out how they go. Right. So I'm seeing this is a woolly problem. And if this is a woolly problem, then I guess it is. Then I guess I have. Because this is like, I just, you can make the most interesting parts of this, which

Starting point is 00:23:33 is like, fit your points into your small thing, your groove, your thought cabinet, whatever you want to call it. You can do that. But it's these extra, like, there's a lot going on with what we just described There that is like not all it's not explained it that well right out right now I got my handle on it around five or six So I would say like hey look at an ability. Do you like that ability slotted in?

Starting point is 00:23:59 Always go for grasp because building more slots is expensive and just You see an ability that you always want grasp because building more slots is expensive. And just, do you see an ability that you always want? Get it and keep it in there. So there's an ability in that deck called the Unseen. And the Unseen gives you two magic points a second forever with no requirements Mm-hmm that thing is never coming off my character Okay means you can use as much magic as you fucking want Well, the thing is is that what I'm still getting used to is well

Starting point is 00:24:35 How valuable magic even is to begin with right because that's a new thing the game now has a cost behind doing charged attacks Which is your spending mana? Yeah, So you refill the full bar per room. But once it's gone, if you don't have anything on your build that replenishes it, then too bad, right? So that's where I'm like, oh, hold on a minute. Does that mean because these are limited in cost that charge attacks are now amazing compared to what they used to be? They're really good.

Starting point is 00:25:02 Yeah. Right? And so that's what I'm learning about. And then secondly, like, and that's like, I can take it or leave it either way, that's fine. I'm not in love with that, but I definitely ignored, in Hades 1, I really ignored casting with the orbs, and call I would use sometimes when I had a good one, but there's a lot of times I wasn't thinking about it.

Starting point is 00:25:22 So they know that. They know lots of people ignored call because call took forever to charge. Yeah. Right? So in Hades 2, right next to the unseen is another ability that fills your call with the equivalent of three MP a second forever.

Starting point is 00:25:41 Okay, okay, okay. So I run both of those, which means I can cast as much magic as I want, and my meter is building in the background anyway, so I use my call all the time. OK. So because as far as I feel, like, jury's out on the mana bar. It seems like it can be pretty useful,

Starting point is 00:25:59 but depending on if you don't get a regen for it, then that might be bad for your run if you get unlucky. I'm going to stop you right now. I'm going to stop you right now for a second because the mana bar is super interesting because I was like, why would you ever not have the regenerate mana? Why would you ever not have the ability to use magic as much as I want? There are some boons that activate when your mana is at zero? Oh yeah, there was one that was like when you're below 30, this will happen, we saw.

Starting point is 00:26:30 I saw- Yeah, Zeus will hit you with lightning. Yeah, there's something I didn't choose, but it said when you're low mana, good, right? There was one that was when your mana is not at full, you get 30% extra damage on everything, right? So there are literally cases for high and low mana. All of that, again, I'll have to see and play more

Starting point is 00:26:50 to see whether or not that feels like it's worth it or not. What's immediately incredible, and I fucking love, is sprinting and the idea that you can attach new boons to sprinting. That was so good. So Aphrodite's not a boon. She's not in the game. Aphrodite's incredible dash move is not there. Also, Milinoey can't double dash. She just can't. Like Zag could. I was like, I'm like, Hermes is going to show up and drop one of them? No? I meant Athena.

Starting point is 00:27:26 What did I say? You said Aphrodite who is naked and super in the game. Athena is not in the game. Or at least, I haven't found her. Her reflective dash isn't there. Okay, yeah, shield dash. And Milenaway, her dash is slower than Zag's, but it is fully invincible as soon as you hit the button.

Starting point is 00:27:48 But so like I mean, you remember getting Hermes like extra dashes and you'd have like four dashes triple triple dash. You'd be like, so I'm like, how good can the fucking sprint abilities be? They're they're the best. Crazy. Yeah. Yeah. So I got Poseidon sprint, which is just a wave of water rushes out from you. And it's like, oh, this is a better version of like, because yeah, you could do like dash things with like dash and get done like in Hades one Demeter had the frost cloud that would shoot out or whatever. Now you're just killing small enemies by sprinting into them and running in circles.

Starting point is 00:28:29 So the Zeus one fires off four lightning bolts a second as you run past enemies. And if you have the Zeus status effect, it just starts to proc on everything. But the craziest one that I have found is Hestia's dash ability is run making because Hestia's sprint ability just deletes enemy projectiles near your character. Oh yeah, I got that one. I got that in a run. Yes, the fire. And then you see that first mid-boss that just kind of like drops in and you have to run in a circle around it.

Starting point is 00:29:11 It just dies. They, you did, all of the projectiles go away. Incredible. Super duper good. Yeah. So one of the things that happened in Hades 1, you would get like certain abilities that like build up a dot or whatever and they would

Starting point is 00:29:26 just last forever. For Zeus and for Hestia and for the bosses that build up stacks if you have the status or stack building one you can then unlock a boon that caches out the stack. So like, Castia has one where if you hit 300 scorch, it just pops. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that Darkest Dungeon shit, where you can build up bleed, burn, and blight, and then you have an ability that says take all of the four turns of that damage right now. I love that.

Starting point is 00:30:03 Also, so like, was like a little annoyed because like I really liked Ares. I thought Ares's boons were fucking incredible and I love them. The spinning blades? No, the doom, the doom effect. Doom stuff. Okay. Yeah. And I was like, oh no, that's gone. No, it's not. It's not gone. They just incorporated some of the old gods into existing ones. So Zeus's shocked status is Ares's doom, sorry, his blitz status is Ares's doom. It's like, hey, you put a thunder cloud over somebody's head with an attack or something and then when they take a hundred something damage, the lightning bolt hits them for 120 damage.

Starting point is 00:30:45 Okay. Some of those dot abilities, I definitely didn't lean into. Doom, I didn't go for much because the ones that I preferred were like, because either like that or like charm had its uses as well sometimes, the drunken one was okay, but it felt like the most useful were things like shock, where it was like when they attack they take damage clear Obvious right the freeze it slows them down But like some of some of the others were just like this is a poison But the rates that the poison drops at are gonna be a little bit confusing compared to oh man the other colored poison

Starting point is 00:31:22 That there was like three of them that were just poison at different rates, you know? That reminds me that Demeter has been inverted from the way that she used to work. So Demeter used to build up stacks of freeze until somebody got frozen in place. Now it's you hit someone and they freeze on hit number one. And then there's a cool down for when it can

Starting point is 00:31:46 proc again. Before they move, okay. Okay. Yeah, there was, because Demeter had the, like, they start, they turn a little bit blue, you know, and then like, yeah, they start to get a little bit slower, a little bit slower. The game seems to offer a lot more fucking busted shit right away. The one run that I won, the one run that I won, yeah, the run that I beat Kronos, Apollo and Hestia gave me a duo boon that made the run like, un- because it was if I don't use attack and like

Starting point is 00:32:29 special and cast are okay but if I don't hit the attack button for one second I heal I think it's three or four HP a second until my health is full that's incredible but when you get that boon it removes a hundred life off you So I went from I went from 200 to 100 So when I was beating I was fighting Kronos, and he would hit me I would just start to run around Yep until I healed up completely incredible Apollo was what's theme of attack again? Was it? Area. Apollo makes your moves bigger.

Starting point is 00:33:11 Okay. Like way bigger. Also extra damage. Because it was light, right? It was. Yeah. Yeah, okay, because I didn't, I got a couple off of him, but I haven't. So like one of Apollo's is like your cast on the floor

Starting point is 00:33:23 gets bigger and bigger and bigger the whole time. Has casting been improved at all or like? Cast is so much better. So Hades' yeah Hades' Zag's cast was a projectile and it had a couple of effects but the best thing you could ever do is get the upgrade that made it so that when your cast was stuck in someone, they took more damage. Yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 00:33:50 So you go, cast, cast, cast and beat on them and then they will fall out. There were some fringe casts that were really good. I think there was one where your cast sitting on the floor with like pulse damage and stuff like that. Yeah. Because I just... Cast is now get off me. Ah, okay.

Starting point is 00:34:10 There we go. So when you drop that circle, it's impassable to enemies. Okay. Because I remember the charged cast had the big circle and then the hands would go up and do some pop damage. Yeah, it hurts anybody inside. Yeah. charged cast had the big circle and then the hands would go up and do some damage. Yeah. But that my main problem is by the time you're getting to the end of Hades one, like your, a typical example of a run winning build I would have would be one where it was like,

Starting point is 00:34:38 okay, on dash, I'm creating an Ares spiral blade and I'm also doing like I have three dashes and they're all my I have the spear it's been hammered into the the dash attack now hits like three times right and then like that'll be buffed up for major explosive damage lightning whatever you call it and so your whole goal is to dash and slash in circles around whatever you're trying to kill and then as soon as it does Something threatening get away and then get back in I don't have time to stand there and go And throw the diamonds at you and lodge them in it just never made sense for the DPS I could optimize so you know with the best abilities The cast always gave you like a 10% damage boost if they were inside.

Starting point is 00:35:27 Demeter's cast was really good because they became little turrets that would just attack people. Right, okay. Yeah, a typical winning run strategy that I had in Hades 1 was the first thing I wanted to do was get anyone who did a status effect on my attack, and then the second thing that I wanted to do was get anyone who did a status effect on my attack and Then the second thing that I wanted to do was get anybody who did a status effect on my dash

Starting point is 00:35:50 So you could get like the 40% extra damage for somebody who had two statuses on them and then just go from there that What do you call it that? Upgrade still exists in Hades 2 or you do extra damage if somebody has two statuses on them. But statuses themselves are rarer. Ah, okay. It's not as guaranteed that you're going to get two different statuses by the end of your run. Another really good use for cast, well, so, okay,

Starting point is 00:36:26 I have to still go spend my Titan Blood to unlock it, but the aspect of the bow and arrow that was load the cast into your arrow. That's the best bow and arrow, by the way. That makes perfect, like that is what I'm talking about. Let me use it like that, you know. Because the cast effects still proc inside on the regular attack. That's incredible. Yeah. So, the Milleniaways cast lets you do a lot of

Starting point is 00:36:55 really fun stuff. So just like the sprint, because it's now a big area denial, it gets to do all sorts of silly shit. So, Apollo's makes your cast so huge that enemies often get trapped against the wall and can't move at all. Hestia's cast just constantly, Hestia and Zeus's casts can just constantly proc their effects over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over

Starting point is 00:37:28 and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and

Starting point is 00:37:36 over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and and over and over and over because she's the goddess of marriage. And her cast lasts for like 15 to 20 seconds and is super huge. Like it blocks a massive area

Starting point is 00:37:53 and what it does is it does random amounts of damage to enemies spawning into the fight. Random? Yeah, between 1 and 999. Oh, okay. So the idea with Hera is to have cast on the floor permanently and enemies that spawn in on wave 2, 3, and 4 can sometimes just explode and die or almost die. It's great. So when you're talking about the expanded-

Starting point is 00:38:24 Oh, that's a different thing? Oh, my mistake. Oh. It's flat. That's Madea's moon from the surface, is it? Oh, sorry. I forgot there was an upgrade. God, there's so many fucking characters in it now.

Starting point is 00:38:41 I mean, there always was. It's hard to keep track. In fact, the only thing that seems to be missing is the chapter titles where they're a little like, you know, Hades talking shit to you with the whatever this chapter you're in is. There's also a thing that happens is when you die, Melina Way will be like, get out of my head, but she's referencing dialogue that doesn't exist. Huh, interesting. Because sometimes Cronus will talk shit when you die.

Starting point is 00:39:06 Oh, that's okay. Yeah. What's cool, I do like that the concept of dying is actually like, stop, time, rewind. Fuck. Did I hit the soft reset, please? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Quick save state. No, so I guess when you're thinking of the I guess the giant area with Apollo or so,

Starting point is 00:39:27 is it comparable to you know Thanatos has this big fucking death circle. Yeah, okay, that type of shit. Interesting. There is so much like structural interest here. So like I did pretty well on my first couple of runs. Like I think I got to Oceania's like on I don't know what it was like run three maybe. And did you meet Eris when you got there? I don't think so. So if you do well enough like and start to burn through you run into Oh, I did on run one? Cool. Woo. So,

Starting point is 00:40:12 when you do well enough on your first run, the game is like, I'm going to stop you. You mentioned the limiter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's hilarious because it's going to stop you like the ability to speed run the game on the first try is basically Going to revolve down to like one no hit runs Yeah, I have like massively different quality runs based on the weapon. I'm using like it's crazy the difference between Like I've pretty much like used the the fists the spear bow and arrow You know rail gun. Yeah, it was my favorite but like

Starting point is 00:40:52 For a while. I was like I want the shield to work, but I just Like I'm having a hard time with it I what what what recently is working for me is like the ability to The the aspect of the shield that lets you have a spinning blade out the whole time. That was my favorite. That one's good. That's good, cause I'm like,

Starting point is 00:41:10 all right, let's find a way to buff that special so that it'll keep doing damage. But yeah, I just never really went back to the sword. There's a couple weapons that I'm just like, I don't know that I'm gonna come back to this. So with these new sets of weapons now, do like it's it's a similar thing to that so um The game is really far along and it's really impressive and then you go through the full weapon list and you're like Some of these weapons, not 100% there. So the staff is a really good basic,

Starting point is 00:41:53 generalized, like melee weapon, like Zagsword. The knives are directly replacing the fists. Got the knives, yeah. The knives are directly replacing the fists. Got the knives, yeah. The torch is the third one, and they are terrible. And I don't just mean like, not strong. I mean, they feel like shit to use. Everything about the weapons concept, so that is you throw little fireballs constantly,

Starting point is 00:42:29 and if you hold the button for long enough, eventually you start throwing stronger fireballs that use mana, and the movement and the timing, it feels like shit. It feels really bad. I foresee the torches getting significantly reworked. The way it feels like shit. It feels really bad. I Forsee the the torch is getting like significantly reworked. Okay Then you get the axe and the axe is like the best weapon across both games

Starting point is 00:43:02 Yeah, I'm that's what I'm hoping for. I'm hoping for big limited big number The swing once is so fucking awesome So did you ever unlock Excalibur for Zagreus's sword is that the fourth aspect? It's the final aspect of the sword one that's okay So the axe is to is just is a starious's combo from fucking the the Elysium boss fight. Just left. Oh, the big, the big, uh, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the big one, yeah.

Starting point is 00:43:35 And when you hold it, you get a spin similar to the spear. Okay. And hitting, hitting triangle or Y blocks shit in front of you. It's a full shield until the cast goes off, like the magic, and then it becomes like this massive like power geyser down the road. Does it do the hysteria, the tracking overhead flying swing at the end too? Yes. Oh wow. Wow. OK. Sick. Sick.

Starting point is 00:44:06 It's awesome. It does so much goddamn damage. It is so slow. It is so fucking slow. It's crazy. That's great. I have no problem with that. Yep.

Starting point is 00:44:14 And then the last weapon that's currently available is the Skull, which is a grenade launcher. The special on the rail gun so the no the skull is Zagreus is cast turn into a weapon Because you fire the skull and there's a big explosion and then you have to pick the skull back up like Has the little simp the little? Circle go around it and it comes back to you. The skull is crazy, crazy, crazy good. The difference is it's your primary weapon instead of your cast. I had the skull and I had it so that, what was it?

Starting point is 00:45:05 When you leave the skull on the ground, like and don't pick it up, every two seconds it pops a little burst of Hestia Squash. Okay, okay, you can find ways to make leaving it down useful, great, that sounds cool. I was fighting the second, I think the second mini boss, and I was just throwing, no it was the third mini boss. I was throwing the skulls down and leaving them there on top of the enemy.

Starting point is 00:45:32 And the scorch on that fucking mini boss hit like 1900. And then I just waited until the fucking boss died. Yeah, so I've noticed that there are times when I can take out like a so for example I was saying like I was not meshing with the shield that much because well, there are times where he's gonna be like, okay, you can do the charging star or But I'm like I probably based on what I've gotten for a couple of my builds We'll do more damage by just dashing and doing a dash tack again in circles around the enemy at which point if I'm doing that I might as well pick something else with a better dash tack whatever. But then you get like a Daedalus hammer upgrade that's like when you do the charging star

Starting point is 00:46:13 you do 400% damage on anything armored and it's like well now we have a build. I got specials on two different occasions that were, your special does 80% damage to armor. Now we're talking, yes. I don't care what the weapon is. Armor is just like not in this run at all. I will, yes, I will take anything that can do an armor deletion and build my whole game around that. Awesome. Okay. And I guess too as well, the other thing that effects runs greatly is your accessory, the rings, right? And stuff.

Starting point is 00:46:54 They're better than they were because it used to be like, I don't know if you've you actually got to use one of the rings. No. So I got I got some no wait. No, that's not true. I gave a boot I gave a nectar to a hekate and she gave me Something okay. So like I mean the the the boon ring specifically, okay, cuz that's like half of the total accessories is like Nemesis sorry, sorry. It was nemesis and it was whatever you killed get killed by you have a nemesis system against that That's that one. Oh good. That one is great if you're making it to Kronos

Starting point is 00:47:33 That's awesome actual nemesis system The I mean the boon rings which is like half of all of the the talismans was like Zeus's thing and and Poseidon's thing so they were pretty I liked them in the first game because you could be like, I very much would like to start this run with a rare Zeus boon, right? But the way that it works now is that the first time you get a boon, it will be the appropriate god that you picked. And as you upgrade them, you get the ability to choose one of the boons you're looking

Starting point is 00:48:04 at and upgrade its rarity. So like I'm guaranteed going to get Zeus. But if they're all blue, I can go to the one that I really want and make it purple. Okay, nice. And like now I'm sure I'm getting a good start. You're getting the line you're looking for, yeah. Can you do that to pull in gods that only show up later in other areas? So for example-

Starting point is 00:48:31 No, because you only get the item from gifting them the nectar. But like at that point, but can you bring them earlier into the zones? For example, like Hermes, you only get Hermes after- Oh yeah, no, once you meet Hermes, he'll just show up right at the beginning. And you do your eyecatch. You can only get Hera after going to the surface, but once you've met her,

Starting point is 00:48:54 she'll just start showing up all over the place. Oh god. Sick, sick, sick, sick. So Nemesis is really interesting, not from a story perspective. She's very interesting from a story perspective in that she's and are in dere She's just awful She's just really mean so I've only encountered her being kind of mean to you for the from the lines we've had

Starting point is 00:49:18 and She was one of the aspects of the sword right and in yeah, she has has agrius's nemesis aspect in her hand. Yeah She's awful She is like a massive hater, okay? She hasn't been so she hasn't been irredeemably mean in my so far She's just ready. She's been a hater. Yeah, so get ready for this She replaces Thanatos as encounter to run into on the field Right fuck. Yes, unlike Thanatos. She has a wide variety of things that she can do So one of the things she can do is she's like I'll give you money if you let me hit you

Starting point is 00:50:03 And you have to survive the hit. Toxic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, the other one is she'll steal the room's upgrade and only give it back to you if you can do enough damage in one hit. Wow. She'll fight you to, you'll get to a room and she'll she'll say okay whoever gets You know whoever kills the most enemies in this room gets a hundred gold

Starting point is 00:50:31 But she'll take a hundred gold from you if you lose Okay, so mechanically she is a variety of hater ass hates So this isn't even this isn't even the best part because this is the part that will make you like actually strongly dislike this character. After all of these, you can run into her in a battle room. You can run into her at Karen's shop. If you do the little thing, she goes, here's your gold. If you wait like two seconds for her to leave, she'll pick any door she wants and take it. She has stolen Daedalus hammers out of the shop in front of me. Wait, if you don't act first, she takes it. She shops and walks

Starting point is 00:51:21 through a door. Yeah. And you cannot follow. So she she has steal she has stolen boons. Like, you know, you'll have like a Aphrodite boon door and like a money door, and she'll take the boon door. And now it's taken. And you can't follow. And she'll buy shit out of Karen's shop. Oh, damn, damn, damn.

Starting point is 00:51:41 Okay, okay, okay. So like she took a hammer out of my run. That's amazing. And I was like, oh my fucking God, you asshole. Oh fuck, that's good, that's good. Cause Thanatos was like legitimately chill once the bickering stopped. Yeah, it was only benefits when they had children.

Starting point is 00:52:01 It was business, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow, okay, what an interesting wrench to throw into the works there. only benefits when they actually do. There's business. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Okay. What an interesting wrench to throw into the works there. Yeah. She'll even take Chaos Gates. Whoa. And you deny you the ability. Wow. It sounds like a PVP system, you know, almost introduced in that way. Yeah. Oh, she's awful. She's terrible. She's great. She's loose. It's really interesting to run in her because it's like it's just a dice roll and a problem.

Starting point is 00:52:33 I can fix her, but why would I want to? She doesn't want to be fixed. There is nothing to fix. Fuck that. Also, like she's the avatar of antagonistic hatred, so it makes sense that everything she does annoys you and causes problems. Nemesis, yes, correct. Interesting, interesting. Okay, okay. Yeah, no, the game's great. It's definitely not done. There is more stuff in it right now than Hades has right now. And Ulysses is your Achilles too, right?

Starting point is 00:53:07 Odysseus. Yeah, the Roman guy. Yes, right. I only correct because they literally just say his name all the time. They do. They do. Because I said that earlier because in school we read the Iliad, and I remember, and I remember Ulysses and we watched it and went into that. So I have that first and foremost in the front of my brain. And then afterwards, it was like, oh, by the way, there's also Odysseus, the other name

Starting point is 00:53:34 that was the reference made in the Greek version of things. But yes, because of how I learned it in school, Ulysses comes to my brain first. Have you seen Kronos? No. Okay, so Kronos shows up like super early. Like he'll talk to, he starts to talk to you all the time from like run three or four onwards. Like when you get to that first little pit stop, he's often like right there to talk shit at you on your way up. Because you don't get to talk to Hades in

Starting point is 00:54:07 the in the hall. And he also represents a form of mechanical like structural change in that he only did this to me once. But he can teleport you to the wrong zone. He teleported me to Asphodel, which is not otherwise in the game. Wait, what? Yeah. Oh, God. Oh no. Are the implications that Hades 1 is right over there? Yeah, they even talk about how you have to figure out how to get around the Hades 1 areas.

Starting point is 00:54:57 Oh fuck. That's nuts. And also, I'm going to send you a picture of him because he looks great. There's a lot of details to Cronus' design that are not what I expected, but I absolutely love it. So are you familiar with the bullshit that the Greeks told the Egyptians when the Greeks started running Egypt with Ptolemy and all that shit? Probably not.

Starting point is 00:55:24 So they told them, yeah, by the way, our gods are the same gods as your gods. We just know them by different names. And then they did like a mythological transubstantiation of like, oh, it's actually the same religion. Oh, like Constantine did. Yeah. So when you get to Kronos in Hades 2, and he's Egyptian because he's the father of the Greek pantheon, and he's got Anupis fucking wings. Interesting. Okay. See, I was wondering, I guess, because I'm remembering how chaos looked

Starting point is 00:56:04 in Hades 1, and I was like, are they going because I was, I'm remembering how Chaos looked in Hades 1, and I was like, are they going to split the difference between how Chaos looks so different from the gods, you know? Artistically. They do, again, by the way, Chaos looks different. Awesome. Here, let me pull it up. Chaos looks a lot, some people don't like chaos's new design personally I fucking

Starting point is 00:56:26 love chaos's new design so I felt I felt that would Zeus Zeus's new artwork is not as good as his old artwork was unfortunately here here is new chaos Oh My god, all right, all right, all right, all right, and chaos is all right That's enough. That's enough. That's enough. Fuck that looks so sick. Oh So I knew you'd like it all right, right all right all right all right well I will get there god damn what a glorious um The game has no ending currently And the top side doesn't have some of its levels and the wet there's a miss Missing the white gold suit

Starting point is 00:57:23 There's a weapon that's missing There's only three aspects right now the the you know that final aspect that turns it into a completely different weapon The four years is not there yet. You know that it's it's not done There's a lot here. I beat chaos And I got to the boss on the top side and then I'm like I'm gonna stop because I know the weapons are gonna get reworks. What's a really cool detail, Nemesis isn't the only person walking around with Hades 1 weapons. Oh interesting. Like the adamant rail is a boss fight now? Um,

Starting point is 00:58:09 yeah, so I mean, again, we're seeing seeing like some of the characters that were just in aspect form, like, yeah, like mentioned, like, again, heckity, right? Not heckity. Um, no, fire. No, no fire. The fire goddess fire grandma. Hestia Hestia was one of the rails Aspects. Oh, I forgot. Yes. She was yeah aspect of Hestia was the third Of those, you know, so it is interesting kind of seeing those come out but um

Starting point is 00:58:37 What is your I guess like save progress stopping point if anything, like do you just have go hard and then restart? You don't mind. Oh What do you just have go hard and then restart? You don't mind? Oh, what do you, no, I beat Kronos and uninstalled the game. Okay, because what I'm saying is yeah, like with early access and all that that's gonna happen over time, how do you feel about like- Yeah, I saw every level, unlocked every weapon,

Starting point is 00:59:01 beat Kronos once and went, okay, there is a lot of work remaining here to do. I got my taste of everything that's in it right now, but I because I got to the point where I'm supposed to start running like heat runs. Yeah. Right? And I don't want to start running heat runs when the game is not finished. Okay, so your limit is like run one and then unlock all like major branch of weapons. Yeah, I got to try out a bunch of the aspects. Fair enough. I unlocked there's a challenge mode hidden in the game. So like chaos will give you a fucking set of conditions like beat

Starting point is 00:59:47 this area with this weapon under these conditions to get you a different kind of upgrade material. There's all sorts of shit. But I really don't feel like fire the current final boss of the top level and hitting a come back later mm-hmm and when you beat Kronos the first time you get like an early access splash screen that's like hey man wow I hope you're enjoying Hades it's not done no it's not it's not done can't find Zagreus in the game. Sure. Can't find him. Sure. I am torn between what I want. I either want a boss. Playable or fightable. I want them to pull their whole

Starting point is 01:00:40 thing in or I want the God of blood to give me a boon. Like I want like when Artemis showed up and was standing on the field I was like, hey, you're here, right? That's awesome. So as long as he can get an in-game model standing there, like, what's up? That'd be very cool. But we'll have to see. Of course, you know, Hades 1, there was updates that like, yeah, like the Knicks update, like

Starting point is 01:01:14 I said, was one that introduced that entire character who was not there at all earlier on. There's massive changes that come down the line. So playing too much too soon is going to backfire. There's massive changes that come down the line. So playing too much too soon is gonna is gonna backfire. There's a There's one character. So every now and then you run into a character and their art is not the placeholder But it's also not finished. So it's like a rough sketch like talking to you But like the saddest one is the one of the NPCs in one of the areas is

Starting point is 01:01:46 Narcissus and they have placeholder art so you don't know what he looks like they know they need time to work it not he Narcissus has to be 10 runs and no Narcissus needs to be the most perfect artwork it has to be like some next level yeah but it is really funny that the guy doing Narcissus' voice is doing a Nicolas Cage impression. Okay, sure. Yeah, Karen has been placeholder art for so long and then finally got a full character only to drop back to placeholder art now. It's super weird. I mean the indication clearly is like we're not recycling any art right?

Starting point is 01:02:30 No no it's all brand new. Like some of them I don't prefer as much as the other ones. I saw some people don't like Artemis's quite as much. Um it okay Artemis is a slight downgrade, but it's so slight. It's not a big deal. Poseidon is an upgrade for sure. Yeah, I knew Poseidon. Looks incredible.

Starting point is 01:02:52 It just, Zeus, the problem is actually, again, he looks, some of his body looks unshaded in some areas. And yeah, anyway, that's the one where it's the most clear. But for the rest, I'd where it's the most clear, but for the rest I'd say it's mostly a clear upgrade. All right, yeah, no, fucking. Yeah, no, the game is like a very significant improvement, but it's not done and,

Starting point is 01:03:18 oh man, unlock those torches. I wanna hear how you feel about those torches, cause they are shit yeah again it depends on on I'm gonna have to put a hit the brakes at some point and I'll when I feel it I'll just stop so I don't know where that's gonna be right now um uh shit I was just gonna say something oh yeah one other thing about it that is a minor little gripe but eh I'll say the theme remix is great, but man do I miss that little bass, right? So much of Hades 1's soundtrack had the little just bass, you know, like running through Asphodel, just slap it in, you know, and then you have the deep hit on the title screen and now it's a lot more like high drum pitched and like it doesn't have that low hit to it, you know,

Starting point is 01:04:12 I wish it did. But anyway, the synth is fine. We'll hear what the rest of it sounds like. There's a, there's a, Kronos' theme is the Hades theme, just straight up, but with tons of synth and electronic on it. Okay. Which I interpret to mean he's the god of time. Why would his musical style necessarily even fit the game that he is in? Okay. I really like it, but yeah.

Starting point is 01:04:43 For me, my biggest takeaway of Hades 2 is, oh thank God, I don't have to play Elysium anymore. I really don't like that zone a lot. Okay. Again, I just got used to the game being like, fuck you, it's hard, that's it, deal. And get a, kind of like any other roguelike, get a build that's broken and this shouldn't be a problem. You know? I also think there's a balancing pass thing going on

Starting point is 01:05:12 with Hades, sorry, Hades 2, because some of the bosses have crazy amounts of HP. The third boss in particular has a fucking stupid amounts of HP. Like has way more than Kronos. I'm like, why? There are times when it feels like when you're fighting. Like when you're fighting the Elysium, the Minotaur and the duo. Oh, Asterius and Theseus. Theseus, yeah.

Starting point is 01:05:57 And the... is it Theseus? Yeah, it's Theseus. Anyway, there are times when it feels like like they take forever to kill like sometimes they melt and sometimes they don't and I think there's there's there are times when the screen pollution of shit that you're dropping and blowing up is so large and Obscures the fact that they're shielded You know and they're like that they are they're alternating between like being invulnerable in some states or so But some of those fights took a really long time. And other times they melt and I don't know what determines that.

Starting point is 01:06:31 So I'm complaining about Elysium because of all the shield guys. And then I get to the boss, which is Theseus and Asterius. And it's like, oh great, I'm so fucking happy that I have to bait out Theseus' attacks every time to hit him because he's got the fucking shield up like damn near permanently. Oh, I have not encountered, like God, I can't even think of one shielded enemy in the Hades 2 off the top of my fucking head. Like that whole idea behind the roster just sucks so much shit. So like what ended up melting shielded dudes in one of the runs I did was

Starting point is 01:07:15 Daedalus hammer on the rail to get the grenade launch mortar for triple fire. So it's like, but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but yeah you splashed down behind them and they melt you know but again it's just like hope you get the right hope you get a good build, you know Anyway, yeah Hades fucking incredible. It's great It's good game. Hey, can I take a minute? I gotta go bathroom beer, babe. All right So yeah a couple things this week The what'll I start with so hey, okay caught up to x-men 97 oh my god it's so good it's it's insane how consistently tight this fucking show is uh yeah but I thought we were suffering from superhero fatigue. So that's episode 9 to date it is where we're at. Oh boy, it's just, and the thing is too is we're also at a point where each of the episodes after 5 has been like, you know, like, just, okay, here's how everything's going to change, here's how we're moving forward, and it's getting that density of the old shows back. We're like

Starting point is 01:08:28 a million things per episode. You know, in some cases, the title of the episode is like two things, right? There will be like, I think it was a Motendo slash death life part one, you know, and you're like, okay, we're just, we're condensing. We're doing a double episode here. Right? Storm is, and Forge are off having their own adventure. Completely different adventure. Right. Gold Team is having its adventure, like we've just, just everyone's doing their own thing,

Starting point is 01:08:58 and as that splits up, it gets more and more dense, but each one is really, really solid. And yeah, they just, you know, as of episode nine have built up to like something that it just surpasses anything that this show we've like the the the bar they set out to accomplish was just like, OK, do what do what the old show was, bring the nostalgia back and make it enjoyable. You're now clearing that bar and just having amazing action, amazing writing, amazing moments. I don't know if Morph is supposed to be able to act and be as strong as Hulk by turning into Hulk as a lookalike. I don't know if he's that kind of shapeshifter,

Starting point is 01:09:45 but it doesn't matter because that's where we're at now. This is the morph that is actually turning into and then moving like Quicksilver because yeah. Wow, I can do all sorts of stupid shit. Right, it's not like, I mean again, there's mystique level shapeshifting, but here we've just got someone who's here to make the action scenes fun by having strikers jumping in

Starting point is 01:10:07 It's great. Who cares what the rules are there? um I was not expecting To get So like oh, how do I fucking talk about this? Looking into the camera and saying the meme? Yeah. Yeah. I was not expecting... We looked at the camera and we said the meme.

Starting point is 01:10:29 Spoilers for episode 9 of X-Men 97 if you don't want to listen. Not nine, eight. Nine is the last one I watched. Okay, no, no. Are we talking about... Okay, I'm gonna talk about the ending of episode 8 of the fucking X-Men show where that blonde lady...

Starting point is 01:10:52 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right, right, okay, yes. 8 is where that happens, 9 is the latest, yes. Yeah. I was not expecting to have a non-mutant character make the case for Magneto in such a definitive slam dunk way. God damn it. Like we like they might as well have like framed it with the text around,

Starting point is 01:11:18 you know, the handing out t-shirts. Magneto was right like god damn dude also, also it like we the whole time I have this I've already I've known and and remembered just how I'm like I kind of really never cared or gave any fucks about the M. Kron crystal or the space adventures of Lelandra and Charles I'm glad the Fucking so stupid. It's always been super dumb, right? It's always been, oh god, right? We're going to space. And, like, it's not that space Marvel, like, has to be like that, but for a long time, it just, you're like, oh, who's this fucking... Oh, I hate that shit.

Starting point is 01:12:04 So much of space Marvel was just... It was lame back then. So seeing it now, I'm like, okay, fucking Gladiator, sure, you're Superman-ing your way through. That's great. There's Cyclops' dad hanging out doing his bit. And then all the Shi'ar and stuff. I always was like, man, fuck these...

Starting point is 01:12:21 Exactly, fuck these space birds. I don't give a fuck about them and their shit is so stupid. So now when we have to cut back to them and to see what Xavier's up to, and it's just like, oh god, he looks so bad standing around and these dumb people going, I am now the emperor of space. And you're like, yeah, you don't give a fuck anymore. Obviously, it's the worst possible footage of you not only abandoning everyone on earth but also hanging out with these stupid ugly

Starting point is 01:12:49 B-plot characters and it's like yeah no but the stakes are high shut up who cares boo I do I do appreciate that we get a X-Men classic of, hey Charles, what's going out? Ahhhhh! Ahhhhh! My mind! Just, I mean, I'm being blasted by psychic shit! Ah, fuck!

Starting point is 01:13:17 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Um, and there is a little thing of like, when I see Kree around them, like, ah, it's the Kree, you know, and then that means there's scrolls around somewhere and Etc. Also I There was a time when I was out on comics as a kid and then I came back in When I started to have what is what I started when I was working and I got some money and I was like Oh, I can go buy a comic every now and then.

Starting point is 01:13:46 I can just go buy a comic, I don't have to. Because I was relying on my aunt to send a bunch of comics from her bookstore back in the day. That stopped, you know, and then, yeah, when I was a teenager again, I got some money, I started buying them. And when I started buying again, it was right around the time that they introduced Bastion.

Starting point is 01:14:04 And I remember being like, yo, a human sentinel, what the fuck, what's going on? And I remember him getting introduced and getting into the, and then like, yeah, him and Nimrod and that whole cat plot right around the time when, I think like, God, it's like, it's when a lot of the stuff got rebooted, I mean, I want to say like, it's like, it's when a lot of the stuff got rebooted. I want to say like mid-aughts. Anyway, though, I just kind of was like, oh, wow, that was, by the time I then stopped reading, I kind of thought Bastion was like a somewhat obscure villain.

Starting point is 01:14:40 I didn't know that it was going to be a major arc necessarily. I mean, I had never heard of him prior to this. So seeing it there, I was like, oh shit, he's getting worked into the story? That's a pull. I showed up just in time for him. Only to see that it's like, oh no wait, this was a quite significant thing. That yeah, like the whole master mold sentinel storyline leads up to this, you know, infiltrator character and then thus you have

Starting point is 01:15:05 these humanoids and all that all that shit they're running. They did it in like a solid two episodes or so. But that's a fun thing to see revisited. He's from 97. Okay, yeah. So that was that was an interesting poll, sinister showing up and then being a proper old, like literally like calling himself an old villain, you know. There's a line in there that's so great. It's like, ah, you old guys have been trying to get these X-Men since 1992. Yeah. Terrible at it. And the way you failed is like everything you failed at doing is what we've learned from on what not to do, you know? Also whereas the original X-Men series like had to just kind of show you a spider hand

Starting point is 01:15:53 off screen or hint at a little shield somewhere, now you actually get full on, yo, there's Spider-Man, there's Cap, he's actually talking to Rogue. We're just, we're fully embracing it. Because yeah, I mean, it's all MCU now, so we can do that. Yeah, also the, I like that like moments that would otherwise be a new issue reveal of a character with a new costume, it just goes down like a Super Saiyan moment.

Starting point is 01:16:24 Storm just explodes to the next level and comes back her hair is unshaved I'm like what? I'm in a new outfit. I'm in a new- shut the fuck up. That's not a weather power Shut up. It's new super saiyan storm. She's back She's upgraded the upgrade comes with the costume change deal with it. You know great It's great Jubilee go shopping and then puts on her new tights sure but then rogue is like yeah I'm gonna put this gambit jacket on and I'm gonna put the fucking green shoot shit on and that's what it is you know Magneto has his moment going back to the old as well but

Starting point is 01:16:56 they have they just have these like canonical like moments of like no the costume switch has occurred we're doing it now you know it's a new look you know like like Wolverines like I'm gonna put the fucking the old shit back on you know and brown and yellow and then they even throw it at cable it's like what you expect black leather you're like ah so yeah it's just a really fun solid amazing fucking half an hour, man. Quality shit. And I have to say before we continue, my favorite X-Man is Nightcrawler.

Starting point is 01:17:34 So when X2 came out, I fucking ruined my pants. But animated Nightcrawler has not gotten like what I thought is The the coverage he deserved Because his shit is so dynamic and so fucking crazy looking and I got everything that I fucking wanted I got every single fucking thing that I wanted POV Banffing Yeah, yes that now I was really curious to see what they were gonna make that look like because I've talked about it before There's been other a comics where they've shown you like Essentially what Banffing turns into is an alternate reality. That's smaller pocket mirror of the current one and

Starting point is 01:18:20 That's how he can get from point A to point B. Yeah, it's it's, it's why, because I always like the thing, he's not instantly teleporting, he's disappearing to like two seconds later, he's now in a different place. And he's getting there a little bit faster, yeah, because it just, it compresses the space, you know. But that was also where it was like, and thus he can also take you there and let you go and leave you there, which he does to Apocalypse at one point. And then there's a whole thing of like, okay, I can still use my power to bam, but every time I do Apocalypse for two seconds, it's going to be like, ah! And then

Starting point is 01:18:58 you got to jump scare back to reality. You know? So yeah, that is interesting. There's a real great moment. So, Wolverine and Nightcrawler are fighting a bunch of regular-ass civilians who have been techno-ified, and they're slicing through their fucking brains and decapitating them and cutting them to pieces. but hey, don't worry. You can see their parachutes They're putting themselves back together. Oh, yeah All gonna be fine. Okay, you but like but the way the show is doing it though like also like the fact that like rogue drops fucking trash and like They give it a second. They don't do the instant like oh no

Starting point is 01:19:46 And then we flip they actually have a minute of her being like yeah fuck you right and everyone's like Hit the ground you hear it right and then you and then like no night colors like yo is this what we're doing now And everyone has a moment to go. Oh, how do we feel about that? What the fuck you know Wolverine's like yeah about it trash will bring the fuck? You know, Wolverine's like, yeah. I don't know if I feel okay about it. Trask is a fucking asshole. Of course, right? And Wolverine's like, I'm down.

Starting point is 01:20:09 But, and you know, and there's a little moment of it getting to settle in before you flip it up to the, oh shit, we gotta fight, don't worry. Your hands are actually clean, you know, don't worry about it. But it lasted longer than you would expect given the cartoon nature of that, you know? Like did you actually kill somebody?

Starting point is 01:20:26 No, no you didn't. But if you have at least 10 seconds to stop and watch everyone react to it, that's really good. I'm a big fan of all the stupid silly shit they've been doing. So like in particular, what brings to mind is like, so you the Captain America is there and Rogue talks to him and they have an argument and Rogue's fucking end of that argument is to take his shield and just throw it as hard as she can in a random direction.

Starting point is 01:20:58 Yeah, well, fuck you. Go get your keys you're drunk Yeah, no that is that is absolutely solid No, I I do I do appreciate that and again like As I was saying like Xavier coming back and he just he looks so bad given what he was just up to and what he's got to say now and you know, and like and you're like, you know, the whole like bit about, you know, fuck like magnet you trusted him you trusted the wrong person with the team and it's like, yeah, but, but did you though, because your argument is looking pretty flimsy right now, man. Okay, you know, one, he was doing it. Like Magneto before the shit in Genosha happened, like Magneto was actually doing a really good job, like keeping it together. And then, you know, fucking, fucking mutant Holocaust happened and then he's like shut up Charles Yeah, you're dumb so stupid and

Starting point is 01:22:15 And on that like this and it's also one of those things to her like they're like Zooming in on the numbers on his fucking arm You know while they're while she's going on about on on that monologue You know like they're they're like leaning heavily into that. They're all like I mentioned before about the fact that the writer you know like With with with five like the fact that there's a the yeah the fact that he knew somebody that it was the pulse You know shooting that happened and stuff like that. There's a moment where um Xavier goes. Oh how very Rudyard Kipling of you.

Starting point is 01:22:48 You know, I was like, oh yeah, yeah, okay. You know, he imagined he had a burden, you know, there was an imaginary one or whatever, but it was just like, oh shit, yeah, okay, you're going in. You're going in, you're- Hey, why'd Bastion like hang up Magneto with no pants What was up with that I mean Did you I mean Magneto, you know, he saw maybe he saw what rogue saw

Starting point is 01:23:17 You know Maybe maybe he saw what Magneto sees when he decides to give himself a sleeveless fucking low Maybe he saw what Magneto sees when he decides to give himself a sleeveless fucking low showing you my chest out. I could go through every episode and be like, nearly every interaction has some kind of detail that is character informing and interesting. And I think about the ending of the final episode as of currently airing, which I'm going to talk about in five seconds They're fighting Magneto so he can reverse The fucking horrible magnetic damage he did

Starting point is 01:23:51 And Wolverine's like no, I'm gonna cut him. I'm just gonna fucking kill him enough of this shit But Electricity ever again if you kill this man and the reason why psych shot and Interrupted the takeover moment was because we need to reverse the polarity damage, dude Yeah, and thus we're fast-forwarding right to So when when Logan gets the the the Adamantium ripped out we get bone Wolverine. Yeah, and then That so that I also I feel like that worked right into an

Starting point is 01:24:30 Apocalypse arc as well like back in the day But I guess I don't know what we're they're gonna go with this I am early. I really have one gigantic complaint about the the finale of the episode because of the last episode because it's it's overwhelming of me asking like huh that's weird why they do it like that and then I go oh so the drama can happen right and it's like okay Cyclops is a one-to-one natural counter to Mr. Sinister. Just like the I-Beams just fuck his shit all up.

Starting point is 01:25:10 Don't send him to fight Mr. Sinister. Okay? Gene already lost to him and got kidnapped? And Cable is like a weird freak. You fight, you send them to fight Mr. Sinister. Tecto-organic virus already in place also mentally traumatized by the entire Madeline Pryor bit. Alright we're gonna go fight Magneto.

Starting point is 01:25:32 Are any of you made entirely out of metal? Alright yeah you. So that's that I mean in the comics too that's always been kind of the case you know and like he just but he just he there's a whole lot that Magneto can but doesn't do on a regular basis. Like they really should have just like swapped the fucking teams and it would have gone way better. I mean I think like the moment you kind of have that like I can rip the iron out of your blood thing you're like oh well then what are we even doing here?

Starting point is 01:26:06 I can kill on command is what you're looking at. You know, again, there's a whole lot of what Magneto can and can't do that we futz around with. I mean, there's a comic book problem of like, well, control of magnetism is control of electricity, which is like, magneto should be at the point at you and just turn your brain off. This is where we get into the whole Iceman bit. Like I said, what is control of, what is heat? What is ice?

Starting point is 01:26:37 It's absence of heat. What is heat? It's energy manipulation. What is that? It's fucking Bobby being an S-class mutant when like takes over, you know So yeah, no not everybody can be Franklin Richards You can just if you break down what they're actually doing to its its fundamental atomic ability, you know But yeah, okay, so I guess like from this we're heading towards onslaught

Starting point is 01:27:02 I guess so that means we're heading towards Marvel versus Capcom. One. We're there. Hell yeah. We're at Marvel versus Capcom, man. They say, they look at the camera and they obviously, you get the children of the atom, you get the line, you know?

Starting point is 01:27:16 Like, ah! So that's rad as shit. Astro at M's hanging out. Yeah, no, it's just, it's it's it's perfect. It is a fucking amazing slam dunk top to bottom Yeah, and I guess um Well, but it's like it's there's we're doing arcs that have been covered and stuff that like in like the Claremont run

Starting point is 01:27:43 and so on that have been fast-forward through. But there's new guy is like a like a unknown factor in all of this right? Ricardo? Oh, the guy they fired? No, the no, no, no, I mean the Jubile's boyfriend. Oh, right. Sunspot. Is that his name? Oh, am I? Oh, never mind. Okay. I think he's, yeah, I think that's Sunspot. Okay, never mind. I'm completely wrong on that. Roberto. Yeah, so they did, did they announce that there's another season? Oh yeah, there's a second season coming. Already? Right, we said that last time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool.

Starting point is 01:28:25 Yeah, that's coming. All right. So beyond that, oh, yeah. OK, so when I stopped off at a comic shop, I saw a little book. And I've been always you know, always curious because Vagabond has been in the news and because there's a talk that they might resume in a way has been considering it, you know, we might see and so on. I saw a little book

Starting point is 01:28:54 on the shelf that's Miyamoto Musashi's book of five rings now in manga edition. And this is just like an actual, someone took the actual book that Musashi wrote and adapted it to the most simple, basic animu-ass, I mean manga, like such a tonal departure from everything. It's what the kids understand. Like if you just, yeah, it's the totaltle Publishing Manga Edition of Miyamoto Musashi's Book of Five Rings, and oh my god, if I can get across how much this artwork does not carry anywhere the gravity or the type of shit that you get from Vagabond. But I'm just curious to go through it.

Starting point is 01:29:44 And it's hilarious because it's just taking... There's books of Vagabond that meditate on a single concept of what it means, what the fuck we're doing with the sword, why we even use it, what it means to be invincible under the sun, who cares about that, what are we doing in our lives. He will sit and stare at the sky and stress horribly over that. Also that last fight fucked up my leg and I'll never walk the same again and that for every remaining page of this book will continue to be a problem. Eh, that's life sometimes, right? And here they'll just like simplify that shit as, oh

Starting point is 01:30:23 you, you were gonna fight me with your sword, but I surprised you by not using a sword and I shoved you and then you fell and went, oh, I've learned a lesson. I need to be like a rock. Let's summarize all this like thought. So you bought Miyamoto Musashi for babies. It's not even for dummies. It's like- No, I said for babies. I mean, the pop-up book version might be... You can simplify some of these lessons if you needed to.

Starting point is 01:30:55 The problem here is that they're simplifying and also squeezing them through the lens of TV tropes. You know? And you're going through your TV tropes dot org filter. It is just yeah, it's just it's hilarious to see the same source material interpreted in a completely different way and be so like, uncompelling. And anything interesting about it is just like evaporated from the from that It really makes me and I've also like read a bit more about just like I'm like, oh, yeah What was the actual book of five rings about a little bit and how did some of those things play out from? where they stopped in the in the original vagabond and I mean it really just cements that like the thing that I love that means the most to me is like this

Starting point is 01:31:44 version that the odd that I love that means the most to me is this version that Inoue wrote fictional accounts and all. The fact that it's not a true to life, fully accurate version. He has his own telling of it. There's characters that didn't exist and struggles that didn't exist and things like that. But it's just that's the version that I care about. I don't even really care about the Wikipedia entry of his life and where it goes after this and what comes.

Starting point is 01:32:10 I wanna see what happens to this character because of the way that he was written. This is one of these instances where I'm like, oh, this fictional account of things is better than any other version, including real life accounting of how things went down. It's incredibly fascinating. And I also feel like, um, I understand based on how vagabond plays out, like where a lot of his struggle with continuing goes,

Starting point is 01:32:38 because it feels like, uh, pushing forward in the timeline almost requires your character to unlearn lessons that he's learned. You know, it's really interesting. Just figure out how to how to handle that. And I'm curious to see, you know, if he's actually going to if he actually chooses to continue what that's going to be like. But, you know, we thought there's moments that I've talked about in the past where the... Oh, yeah, this is actually perfect. There's moments where a character in the sequel of something just unlearns everything that

Starting point is 01:33:14 they learned, all their character development, just to push the story forward. And yeah, to make that happen in a story like this would be tragic. Now there is a place where that does happen, and I've talked about it before, and that place is Gundam Seed. Oh no. Why did you do this? I was held- I saw other people talking about watching that movie and they were like, wow, Gundam

Starting point is 01:33:43 Seed fucking kicks ass. I had a great time at that movie I was held at gunpoint by Josh Josh basically held me at gunpoint and said we're going to watch this movie That's essentially how it went. Well. I've met Josh you bigger than Josh, you could easily overpower him. You didn't have a gun. I was held at gunpoint through text message. Did he just say, just do it, pussy, enough times, and then you were like fine?

Starting point is 01:34:18 It basically amounted to that. Also I dodged it anyway because I had shit going on. And then he's like, so I said, no fuck. He's like, hey, whatever dates thing going Gundam Seed, Destiny, not Destiny, Gundam Seed freedom movie showing in theaters one night only. 18 years later, you in? And I'm just like, fucking offing ourselves, jumping off the highest building in the city. You in? We doing this? We doing, you know? And then I originally like fucking escaped it.

Starting point is 01:34:52 And then it's like, no wait, there's a second screening for the subtitle version. You can catch it on a different night. You got, it was just like, I already bought the tickets. You're fucking going, it's going, ah. All right. For the bit, for the content, I don't know. You can just not, man.

Starting point is 01:35:08 You can, and you know what, most of the time I do. You're the one that goes to the Emoji Movie, you're the one that seeks out. Yeah, but I, there's like, I get enjoyment after watching Trash. I know you, you're just like, the way you talk about Gundam Seed, it's like it stabbed you. I just, I had to, I definitely felt like, I'm like, okay, if we're doing this, then I need to know. I guess I need to know. If it was a new entire franchise, a new entire series, go fuck yourself, but sit inside a

Starting point is 01:35:37 movie theater for two hours. Fucking fine, let's do this. Here's what it is. Actually, it is a proper sequel to the series 18 years later and They there is something you have to respect here the decision to make this sequel is There is not an ounce or a moment where they waver with any regret whatsoever. It is the most Gundam Seed shit ever. Which means if you love Seed, if you're into it, if you get hype on that, it's giving

Starting point is 01:36:14 you all of that and then some. It is taking the essence of what the original was. It's taking all of your Jesus Kira Yamato moments. It's taking your, my girlfriend is the president, is the strongest ever, she's the best, it's taking our, who cares about your weapons, my philosophy is, everybody should stop though, and if I cry hard enough, we can make the war go away.

Starting point is 01:36:39 It's taking teenagers ruling the world and the galaxy and those things, and just pushing them to the fucking nth degree it is it is hyper concentrating a lot of that um the uh I will say that this hey look robots look pretty it's a it's a movie made in the current year We've gotten up. There's a budget. They've gotten some pretty robots flying around doing cool shit, so there's that

Starting point is 01:37:03 They've gotten some pretty robots flying around doing cool shit. So there's that. But it is it is a hilarious exercise where you're like, OK, the whole deal with Gundam Seed is you've got your you know, Kira, the guy. OK, well, right. I'm going to stop here for context. Sure, sure, sure, sure. The only thing I have ever seen of Gundam Seed in my entire life is the clip of the kid named Kira crying like a freak. That's it. I don't think I've even seen what

Starting point is 01:37:37 the robot looks like. Okay. All right. Well, to upset a lot of people and summarize the gist of seed is they're trying to remake the original, but they're doing so in a way with a much worse writing and art style and decision making everything is just full of like not just relatable wartime teenage angst, but like horrible characters making horrible shitty teenage decisions in the most annoying ways possible and then those decisions have like fucking power behind them so um yes wow cool robot laser shoots overhead anyway anyway so all the main deal is that you've got you've got your main character and he's got and he's Jesus Christ on the cross and okay, yeah, and and he's got his perfect hot girlfriend and They are they they they they rule they they're the anytime war breaks out for any reason No, everybody should stop fighting though. I'm the best. I hit the win button and then we just, we make the fighting go away. These two existing is like,

Starting point is 01:38:51 they're a power fucking, they're a son, right? So when a new conflict has to arise in this world, what you have to do is create a new cast of characters that exist exclusively to break everybody up with their partners and to break these people up and to cuck them. Okay, yeah, got it. So if we can have a brand new cast of these characters

Starting point is 01:39:17 with a perfect blonde boy that shows up and he was born, like test tube born, to cuck the main character. Right? And because it, because him and the super, the girlfriend are destined to be together and they're destined to rule and all that. And it's in the genes, it's in the DNA, right?

Starting point is 01:39:42 And so main character has to go through the like, oh no, like, I walked in at the wrong moment of this conversation, I heard the wrong thing and oh no, what if she doesn't like me though? Oh, and then she has to have the won't. And then the oh, just talk now run away. So breakup drama has to occur, except the breakup drama that would otherwise occur in grade 7 here has catastrophic nuclear fallout that involves like entire cities being wiped out and nukes going off and people getting pasted into dirt and and Such because that's that's the stakes you have

Starting point is 01:40:19 Brand new characters as well that exists to brand new characters as well that exist to again just to kind of soon soon around and get in between and like while this new like blonde guy is kind of pulling Jesus away from his girlfriend and cucking you got a new girl over here That's trying to pull him away and be like no come with me though. You know and It is just like the further apart these two characters can get away from each other the more the universe can be thrown into turmoil You know so these two characters can get away from each other the more the universe can be thrown into turmoil, you know, so When they snap when that rubber band snaps and they come flying back together The power of their love is so literal and strong and real that like it doesn't matter

Starting point is 01:40:57 What makes sense anymore? We have like we have moments where they get their new suit with the new power-ups and the girl is like floating in space like cosmos and You're like we're still in the world of Gundam, but we were Wait is this is this Universal Century or is this its own thing? It's it's it's it's its own. It's its own thing it's not you see it's its own thing and and Where you get to your yeah you get to your moment where like your cosmos gets

Starting point is 01:41:28 into the cockpit with Jesus Christ and then sits in his lap and they're next to each other. And then the power of love just proceeds to just shoot in all directions in ways that makes no sense. It's again, they're just quadrupling down on everything they love. And there's even a moment where he goes, I want to use, I have to, do I have permission to use the strongest, craziest weapon ever? Like it's so strong, I need to get permission. And then I have to ask permission from the president of the universe. And then the president of the universe is my girlfriend who's sitting in my lap right

Starting point is 01:42:00 here and the contract pops up and she goes, I agree, signed. And she signs it and then they unlock the ability. And then they just do a fucking reality slicing judgment. It's like a conflict of interest. It's just, you know, it's just, it's so pure. It's so pure and in being like, yeah, man, shut the fuck up. Power of love. It's all about Jesus and Cosmos, the couple doing it. And then they do it.

Starting point is 01:42:30 And we get to see some characters along the way where you're like, if you had positive memories of them, you'd be like, hey, there they are. But if you if you if you don't, then you're like, oh, God, I forgot about that fucker. You know, a whole lots of that. Um, you know, and that's really it. And then the cucker gets reversed. The cucking gets turned back on the cucky. There's a nice little crying scene, so Kira gets to cry again.

Starting point is 01:42:57 That was fun. I don't like the things that you're saying. He gets punched and, you know, that goes down in the way that you'd hope. Shin is there. He does his bit. And yeah, no, there's a little girl villain that's also there too that feels like they're going for... I don't suppose you ever watched the Gundam Wing movie, did you?

Starting point is 01:43:19 Yeah, you're thinking of Mara Mera. Mara Mera Barton. You remember Mara Mera? So they do Mara Mera Barton again. They do the... Really? Yeah, they kind of do This is good as it was the last time it Good yes Good you say yeah, they're doing they're doing they're doing the it's it's the it's Marimera Barton, but she's old actually

Starting point is 01:43:41 She's the child in the with the older brain. I'm sorry? She's actually old, but she's in a child's body. All right, I'm out. I'm done. I'm gone. I'm leaving. I'll continue to sit here and look at the camera, but I'm out.

Starting point is 01:43:57 Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Hey, man. Hey, look, cool guy gets gets a fucking Hayakushiki style golden suit does the cool thing the power levels don't make sense. It doesn't matter He does a cool thing. He takes the full beam point blanket that it shut up. It's fine We don't don't worry about the the myth dragon age Wow robot yeah, yeah, and and Yeah, no, yeah, no. And yeah, no.

Starting point is 01:44:28 And then again, in the end, everybody stops, shut up. Conflict is not like politics happen, but they're not real because the whole point of the politics going wrong and the things that are the parties upsetting each other are really just they're like held down underneath the this guy's trying to cut this dude and trying to pull. I mean, really, like you have to see like when he walks in the room, like like the girlfriend's eyes like change colors and she gets mind warped to another reality where like the tuxedo mask realm essentially occurs. It really is that. People like this.

Starting point is 01:45:11 Yeah, yeah. If it's the first Gundam you've ever seen, if it's the one that you watched on TV at the right years, at the right age, it's the coolest shit ever. I also just, and this is another thing too, I take heat on this, but I've never liked that, this art style in particular. I know it's great. I've been watching little clips here and there I don't think it looks very good. I've always yeah, I've always hated the art style I know it was in a better show scryed used it as well But I've just I've never I've never been down with with the anyway And and you know, you just you get the quadruple down

Starting point is 01:45:44 We we have no regrets for the show we made in the past. We have no regrets of anything. And this is obviously the most popular insane moneymaker, especially in Japan, for a reason. So, yeah, we're we're we're going all in on exactly what we did before. It makes you feel whatever you felt about Gundam magnified. That it just shoots you further in whatever direction you already were in. The only thing I'm surprised by if anything is that it took 18 years to do this considering it's the number one most popular series for them.

Starting point is 01:46:18 It is? Seed is insanely popular. In Japan it's humongous. The only person I've ever talked to about Gundam seed is you. Ever. Yeah, it's insanely popular in Japan. Do I just have better friends with better taste? I mean look man, anyone who's out there that is, I've aggressively heard people angry at me every time I talk about Gundam for my Gundam opinions. And if there's anyone out there that goes that hard into it that we know, you're not

Starting point is 01:46:57 going to run into the average person on the street that's going to sit you down and talk about, extol the virtues of UC and tell you, oh, how about that 8th MS team though? I don't know. Like, you might get a couple chats here and there, but I don't know how many people are going in on multiple series, you know, as someone who has seen, I've seen a bunch of them. I'm not going to sit here and pretend I've seen out like the entire timeline. So, you know. Wow, cool robot. Yeah, my opinion is as invalid as

Starting point is 01:47:26 it is when I talk about it, like anything else, like I don't know, Kamen Rider or whatever. It's like, yes, have I have I seen shows that equal hundreds of episodes of multiple series that are over 52 episodes long? Yeah, yeah, sure. Bro, I put myself on Kamen Rider because I watched Kabuto first. And then every time I would would start I'm like, why aren't they as cool as Kabuto? Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of really cool ones. But regardless, it's always a weird feeling to kind of get through like literally like hundreds of hours of a franchise and then be like, damn, your opinion is shit.

Starting point is 01:48:06 It doesn't matter. You've barely seen it because you haven't gone through the thousands of hours. So I'm like, okay, I guess. I've been trying to get to like a new mindset over the past couple of years in general. And this is a really good example. Let's talk about fandom, right? It's like, hey, this person only watched one of the shows, but there's actually 52 different fucking Doctor Who's or whatever, and then they start complaining about this thing at

Starting point is 01:48:38 Doctor Who. Well, you don't even know, and it's like, is this useful? Is this whole version of the argument useful to anybody right is it's like well you haven't spent the requisite 280 hours look I can give you my opinions on Kabuto Oh's double fucking uh uh Gaim um you know like there's there's a couple of things I can go into that, you know, each of those you got to, again, you got to sit down and do your 52 episodes. They're quite long. But like, regardless, I'm like, and that's what I'll give my opinions on. But

Starting point is 01:49:16 yeah, no, I can say that sitting down, watched a new Seed movie, and guess what? Stargazer is still out there, and I highly recommend, if anyone wants to check out the world of Gundam Seed, watch Stargazer. It's like 15 minutes long, and it's really good. Three episodes, probably total 45 or so. They're just like, yo, all that shit over there, don't worry about it. Let's make the double heliscope. I saw somebody in the chat just say that I'm going to form my opinion of FF14 based on

Starting point is 01:49:51 A Realm Reborn and I'm routinely amazed that people fight against that interpretation because A Realm Reborn is a full game that you have to play to get to the later stuff. If you're 25 hours into that game and you're like, I fucking hate this. Like who the fuck am I to tell you like, hey, yeah, by the way, you don't get to hate it. Now, no, now here's the thing. What is valid is there's a lot of current, there's a lot of current good Gundam that I have not caught up on that it's like, yeah, absolutely. If I'm here going like, no, I haven't gone through,

Starting point is 01:50:25 I haven't caught up with unicorn. I haven't caught up with, you know, other stuff that's come which from Mercury, and some of the other stuff that's going on. And it's like, yeah, I'm not going to comment on that because I'm literally out. It's been fucking years, you know. But this, this sheet shit is just, it's, it's... it's incredible. It really is fascinating to still come back all this time later and find it exactly the way you left it. Oh hey, let me ask you. Is war bad in Gundam Seed? You know what? War is bad. Okay, well at least they got that one.

Starting point is 01:51:02 But... But what? at least they got that one. But but but but your but your girlfriend cheating on you is worse. I mean like maybe on like a personal level but like and like every time she does like planets die. Oh shut up. Okay. No no no no. But nukes get fired off. If our relationship is on the rocks, at least a city is going down. And you get to watch as the baby stroller gets evaporated. Because it's Gundam. We're still doing that. So yeah, it's...

Starting point is 01:51:44 There you go. They're doing it. And there's no regrets, no ragrets, no hesitations. And you have to respect something about that. You really do. Like, imagine if... I don't know, man. Even if they did have ragrets, do you think they'd just be like, hey, we're gonna make a sequel to Gundam Seed 18 years later, and we're gonna make it good this time? We made it bad on purpose before, but now we're gonna make it good this time. We made it bad on purpose

Starting point is 01:52:05 before but now we're gonna make it good. I don't know if anybody thinks that way. But imagine if like David Cage came out with like Beyond 2 the Nomad prophecy, right? Like and just went in Detroit and just like went all in, you know and like leaned as hard as possible into every single one of those things He does that every game but like there's that thing where like the the the the the second person at Quantic Dream is like Putting writers around him to soften the blow each time so that you can get better and better things. For example Connor and His buddy are like the most entertaining part of Detroit and like these things where there's more writers.

Starting point is 01:52:48 Yeah, that's because they actively fought him. So that's but there's the interviews talking about like containing David Cage-isms and finding other people to put other shit in there to make it, you know, to make it better for posterity. So it's just yeah, it's like, what if you untethered all of that and you just had him go full power again? Anyways, anyways, good stuff. I highly recommend everybody.

Starting point is 01:53:16 Is it? Yeah, yeah, go pay for his ticket and go watch it. Go do it. No, I'm not gonna, no, no, I'm not going to do that. Okay. Well, something else. You can't make me. Have you heard of the Polymega?

Starting point is 01:53:36 No. Okay. I got a Polymega. A Polymega is a device. It's a console. You plug it into your HDMI slot and it has a CD slot on the front. And if you put a PlayStation 1 disc into it, it will play that disc. And then...

Starting point is 01:54:02 Okay? If you put a Sega Saturn game into the front, it will play that disc. And then okay, if you put a Sega Saturn game into the front, it will play that disk. And if you put a Neo Geo CD or a Sega CD into that slot, it will play that disk. It's you have your own that you're putting in, you can also copy a copy of it onto the hard drive. But it's like it runs it there. It also has physical modules that have a Super Nintendo cartridge slot on top that you slide into place. And you can put a Nintendo cartridge slot, a Super Nintendo, a Sega Genesis, Master System, 32X,

Starting point is 01:54:41 TurboGrafx, MSX, any cartridge really, all into the slot and then play the cartridge. And there's a little opening on the front side where you can plug in the controller of that console if you have an original controller or it comes with one of its own, which are pretty decent controllers and wireless ones at that for each of those consoles. And I believe they have an N64 one that's coming out as well. How does this have all of these in the same fucking box? It appears that they have the module that runs the hardware and if you use your own disc that you have your own cartridge you you can you will play it. Okay. And that's, that's how that

Starting point is 01:55:31 goes. It also has a bunch of the which we call it freeware games that people have made for like freeware games that people have made for like, Nestbox development and things like that. So, but yeah, it just, and it just like, it's like, it's got all these different things. So you can, so I just kind of, I grabbed one of those and I was like, let's see how this handles a bunch of my Super Nintendo cartridges that I have. And you pop it in and I'm like, oh yeah, there you go.

Starting point is 01:55:59 It works. It works. And then when you copy stuff over, you know, it rips and yeah, it rips, you know your cartridge or it rips your um Your disk or so and like all of that seemed to work. The only thing that's pretty crazy. Yeah, the only thing I noted Was that the the SNES games had input lag? I noticed like about a half second input lag on that and apparently like Googling it this was something that used to be worse and it cut down and I think they're

Starting point is 01:56:30 trying to deal with that or fix that or something but like so the SNES games have that, that felt bad. I was playing like mech and I was like ehh. How high in the generations does it go? But well just to say when I played the other consoles I didn't, there was no, eh. But then I... How high in the generations does it go? But well, just to say, when I played the other consoles, I didn't... There was no input lag. So NES, Genesis, all the way up through to PS1, everything else was fine and felt as it should. SNES was the only thing that felt...

Starting point is 01:56:59 If you had told me it went up to the PS2, I would be looking at it right now. Yeah, no, it goes up to PS1. So Nest, Nest, Genesis, TurboGrafx, MSX, 32X, Sega CD, Neo Geo CD, Saturn, PS1, and 64. And yeah, I mean, at the very least, like I know, so I have a Dreamcast, for example, that was like modded to have an HDMI out so that it can just be easier to run on, you know, any capture devices or modern TVs and stuff. Like that's one of the main benefits, is just having something that can run on an HDMI. But what's really nice is the fact that it's also like

Starting point is 01:57:35 got the original controller slot, so you play the original controller with your original cartridge, or you can plug in a USB controller from whatever and just run the controller you want or The included ones which are again pretty decent wireless controllers shaped like every any given console generation. So yeah I'm gonna give it some more testing, you know, see how things run on it. But like so far It's it's been pretty good. And I guess I also, I kind of discovered as well,

Starting point is 01:58:05 like I had a couple of NES cartridges that were, like I guess damaged in some ways, because I didn't, because I was trying to run like, I had a Legend of Kage that like boots up, but doesn't show anything. And I had to blow and do all the heat and all that and get it going. And for some of them it worked

Starting point is 01:58:21 and for some it didn't, unfortunately. So, you know, if you happen to still have kept your physical collection of games around at all of old shit, I did. This is a great way to simplify using that. Oh yeah. Who makes this? Polymega. I think it's just called...

Starting point is 01:58:43 Oh, okay. Yeah, it just appeared out of... It's Polymega. I think it's just called... Oh, okay. It just appeared out of... It's Polymega. Okay. I gave you all the information I have... I see. Okay, yeah. ...about what it is and how it works. But it is interesting though, because I like...

Starting point is 01:58:58 While it's running and on, you can hot swap the cartridge slot, you know, and put in your Genesis one or put in your Your turbo graphics, which I mean, I guess you know, I don't know who has any physicals of those but no But I stuck in some Saturn stuff and ran it and I was like, oh, yeah, you know the Saturn side, you know played through that and Everything everything Saturn and ps1 was one was quite solid. So just warning about the Super Nintendo games having some input lag that apparently, again, is there, they got it better, but it's still not perfect. But everything is good.

Starting point is 01:59:38 Did you see this item and go, I need to get this before the company is shut down? item and go I need to get this before the company is shut down. Yeah, so basically Austin had one and like I saw that and he like was just showing me the whole setup and I was like, yeah, I'm a just I'm a just order me one of these. It'll be there maybe when I get back home. Pretty much because for capture purposes. Yeah, it's a big deal. There's a ton exactly and I have a ton of Legacy media stuff like again. I have my old cartridges. I have my old discs that You know I took to get that going it sucks. It have to jump through a lot of hoops

Starting point is 02:00:19 not to mention some of the fun stuff that I got like I Got like a Star Fox 2 kind of like RomHack cartridge. I got like a Mother 3 RomHack cartridge and some fun stuff that was like homebrewed that I always kind of wanted to give a shot to. So yeah, pretty sick. Shout outs to that. And then in addition to that, something else as well I've been thinking about.

Starting point is 02:00:49 And yeah, also Austin had the, he had the, so Rock Band, no Guitar Hero came to Fortnite the other day. And they, there's a new guitar that got released called like the Riff Master or something like that that is like a USB guitar that can play, you know, you can do like, there's a PlayStation or there's an Xbox version or it plugs into your PC, et cetera, and I was like, you know, fuck it, it's been long enough.

Starting point is 02:01:19 I'm down for some plastic instruments in my life. Right. So I ordered me a Riffmaster and I'm like, let me just play, I want to play some rock band. And so I went and got Rock Band 4, which is the one that, the last one that came out in 2016 or so. And yeah, I knew getting,

Starting point is 02:01:41 I knew I was prepared for the fact that like, I've done, over the years there's always been these updates where it's like, hey, your music library from the first game, if you don't transfer it over by this date or get your license to export. You get fucked. Da da da, and I did it, I kept up with it for a while and I eventually, I'm like, I give up, I gave up.

Starting point is 02:01:59 So I lost that giant collection of songs that I had going back to Rock Band 1. But they were on Xbox anyway. They just drove that shit right into the dirt, didn't they? But yeah, and I know about Clone Hero as well and stuff. I don't know about Clone Hero. Oh well, that's the PC game where people put their own songs in. Oh fuck yeah. But I'm just like, yep, it's been a solid decade or so.

Starting point is 02:02:28 I've always felt that there would be a time when I would want to come back to these, you know, but the plastic instrument graveyard in my house was growing deep. It was bad at one point. I remember that. Yeah, it was pretty bad, plus the drums, plus everything else. And then on top of that, it got to that level where like, you know, when Kotick was like, everyone's getting tired of instruments, let's run this into the ground and release like three Guitar Hero games in like two years or some crazy shit. It got really rough, you

Starting point is 02:02:59 know, it was it like we're talking a lot about Microsoft and Activision and all their fucking stupid decisions but like, I don't think there was anything as like actively malicious that I've ever seen in my whole time looking at video games as Kodak going, we have to get everything we can out of this market and then destroy it so that no one else can ever have it. Right. While Harmonix was like, we need to preserve and delicately drop little flower buds to grow. What the fuck you mean they're scorching the earth? Right? They were trying so hard and they were also like fighting against also the whole licensing thing because Epic was when they bought them out and stuff, they were kind of saying, oh, well, if you want to use online services, you got to sign up for an Epic account.

Starting point is 02:03:50 If you want to buy music or whatever, you got to go through all these hoops and shit. They were trying really hard to preserve the plastic instrument life cycle. And yeah, Kodak was like, no, let's squeeze all the blood we can from this stone. I just saw somebody in the chat point out like what what what you did and what I did happened to like a huge proportion of people where, hey, I have like 200 songs for rock band on my Xbox account. But I don't have Xbox now. I have a PlayStation. Yep. And I forget if it was from from either two to 3 or 3 to 4, there was a point where they let

Starting point is 02:04:27 you go to their harmonics website, export your licenses, and then put it on your account so that you can import them somewhere else when you buy the new game. And anyway, that date passed and ended, so there's a whole section on the story where you can go to now where you just can't get any of the old songs. That sucks. on the store where you can go to now where you just you can't get any of the old songs and that sucks The also really funny that I point out that I don't have an Xbox because I have forgotten that the prop next to me is an Xbox It's a prop it's a prop for the podcast listeners, I'd like to explain something somebody on the Somebody in my chat the other day asked me why I keep this fucking Xbox Series X next

Starting point is 02:05:08 to me like permanently and which I described like it is doing more as a physical prop for my show than it ever did for me as a console. Might collect a little less dust where it is right there. Genuinely, yes. It holds up the headphones. Might collect a little less dust where it is right there. Genuinely, yes. It holds up the headphones. Oh man. Yeah, so anyway, I booted up Rock Band 4, which was like 13 bucks or so.

Starting point is 02:05:38 And it was just like, let me just fucking, let me just play again, you know? And yeah, the new guitar, it is nice that like, I don't know what generation it was that introduced the ability to physically fold it on itself. But it Oh, I didn't know about that. That's yeah. So if I can just for a second, you get it in three pieces, right? And it actually, when you want to transport it, you can hit a little switch here and then fold the neck down so that it's easier to transport. Oh my God, that would've made a big difference.

Starting point is 02:06:18 You can also take the edge off as well so that it just becomes a very portable thing for storage. Great. Awesome. I wish I had been like that 10 years ago. I sure do. I sure do.

Starting point is 02:06:37 But everything else is there and it's a fun thing to return to. And like, goddamn, do I miss some of those songs? And I'm enjoying going back to, you know, Reptilia and Dragon Force and all these classics. You know, I'm like, oh, man, it's fucking it's that one Fallout boy song, you know, that we used to play and FCP remix, all this wild shit. But it's funny to go back to it and also be greeted with just a store that is crumbling under one, the fact that you need an account to sign in to browse it, and two, the weight of the amount of music available on it. It cannot handle normal usage. It's also like crumbling under the future of time because you know everything on the

Starting point is 02:07:29 fucking thing is like one bad day away from not existing. It's crazy. As you browse through the little store picking up your albums, you can feel the walls crumbling around you. Sometimes you search for something and it doesn't pop up. I was searching, I'm like, you got any Bancomarrow in there? You got any, you got even rat, even the rats slip? No? All right. And I'm searching and sometimes it'll pop up and then other times it won't. You type in YY to get me my YYZ and it doesn't work the first two times,

Starting point is 02:08:02 but it works the third time. And so I'm just like, OK, grab it when it works. But man, it is falling apart. But yeah, and then you you. But I'm just like, I still I would like to have this at least for this generation now, because there's another thing to where I'm like, you know, like Guitar Hero and Rock Band and even the spin off games. Like I got into Guitar Hero, Beatles and all that, like that got me into some music that I did not know about.

Starting point is 02:08:31 That exposed me to a bunch of shit I didn't know, bands I didn't know. You know, I had some friends that got me into some stuff, but for the most part, like I learned a lot from that. There was, yeah, again, that was the most direct exposure I had to a bunch of Beatles that I hadn't heard at all. And so I want to be able to keep that, I don't know, preserve it, have the ability to do

Starting point is 02:08:55 so again in the future. And I'm not like gonna go, I'm like, yeah, I don't wanna go out and grab the full drum set and grab the second guitar or now you can do up to four microphones and even a keytar and stuff. I don't, I don't feel like I need all that, but I did keep the microphone from Rock Band and that still works because it's just a USB microphone. And at least the guitar here is nice. And I maybe might get a second one just so, you know, two player might be possible or so, but I want to be able to, you know, for posterity sake, preserve the ability to discover

Starting point is 02:09:25 music and, and play it in this really fun way because yeah, it's a really awesome thing to like start playing a song that you don't know. But the challenge of playing it is how you like learn it. And then you get to really like the song from that, you know, and then you might even go look at the rest of the what the band has to you know to their to their names so I know this is probably gonna be horribly dated when as much time from this to from Guitar Hero 1 passes again but like if at all I can keep at least one plastic guitar in my house from now on as opposed to getting rid of them all.

Starting point is 02:10:06 That's the goal. I feel like guitar games are going to fulfill the same role as light gun games in 10 years where someone will imagine, hey, did you ever play Guitar Hero? And you're going to go, yeah, I did. Well, hold on let me I think I think I still have the The the the guitar right? I found one. Oh, it's a little finicky. It's a little the one buttons a little finicky But yeah, like the way that like somebody would talk about house of the dead. Yeah. Yeah But then you but then you but you might just hear, you know someone playing like fucking maps and then your brain is gonna go maps

Starting point is 02:10:46 maps Maps maps maps maps already now Will be more than you know all that shit um I'm an evil man, but I'm also into also into cats also into cats you know all that stupid shit the fucking paramour songs that were so fun to play like I just I'm like yeah like bring me all of those back again man those are good times so I'm gonna I'm gonna okay, whatever never inside jokes from when We all we used to play rock band back in the day a million years ago million million years ago

Starting point is 02:11:33 Yeah, and and you demonstrated your your pretty solid vocal ability. It's okay much to everyone's surprise. It was like, oh shit That's got some pipes Well, I talk enough. I would hope so. So yeah, yeah, back on the Rock Band. That's also a funny one too, where I'm like, I'm... There is... This is a big old return to an old game and there is no... You cannot LP in any way, shape, or form anything like this. You just enjoy that to yourself. No, that shit is...

Starting point is 02:12:05 You know, you can clone hero it, I guess, but yeah. Also, holy shit, man, going back and trying to hit expert on anything. Get the fuck out. Oh, Jesus. I'm like, I was feeling good about myself for some songs. I'm like, okay, I'm handling sweet child of mine You know on on the heart or so Let me let me let me let me crawl up to let me crawl up to fucking Dragonforce and see what no fuck fuck you shut the fuck. No, no, you're no Don't do it. You asshole Through the fire and the flames, gives no fucks.

Starting point is 02:12:47 Anyway, that's pretty much me. So yeah, this week, gonna be short of course, because we're starting a little late, but I'm gonna get in some... You know what? It's been bumped so much recently recently but like I really do intend this time to play some DNF dual monk we're gonna do that we're gonna do how many times you've bumped it it's been like three times now oh three when I bumped something three times that's when people start to fucking yell at me that

Starting point is 02:13:19 I'm gonna cancel it and they're they're usually right it's just it there's always something that comes up but we're gonna we're gonna jump in, do some Yakuza. And then- Oh, Jesus. I'm so sorry, everyone. And then next week, there's also Combo Breaker that's coming up. So Reggie and I are gonna be at that.

Starting point is 02:13:39 Got to go remind myself how to press a button. And- Do you? to go remind myself how to how to press a button and do you yeah yeah but like we're pretty much taken off and that's like I think the day right before or right after like Akuma comes out too as well so we'll see what the ruling is on whether he's allowed in the tournament or not but that might be some ridiculous how he's gonna be allowed in it he's like, no, no, like, to ban Akuma from a big tournament, oh yeah, it's not fair. Well, shut up, you fucking haters. If it's the day before, dude, no, no.

Starting point is 02:14:13 Shut up. If it's the day, listen, yes, bloodsport and chaos, chaos, do it for the memes, lol, et cetera, but the day before, it's extremely understandable if they're like, you can't avoid the patch changes to the characters overall but the character themselves being like banned for the tournament. No, no. Okay, I'm gonna bring in different trains of thought here.

Starting point is 02:14:39 The first one is fuck off, Akuma's cool. I wanna see the cool shit. Absolutely, yeah, okay, right. But the second thing, as you correctly described, the characters are all gonna get patched anyway, so there is already no way to protect people's training and experience from the reality of change. So you're gonna let some changes in, but not the one that

Starting point is 02:15:07 spectators would be the most excited to see. It depends. Like if the you can't get away from the actual version update changes or so that that that's completely unavoidable based on the updates. And that makes sense. If the idea is like mitigating it by going, OK, but maybe give it a second for the character I get it I can understand it's like given if the nature of the the Tournament is one where there's like a whole lot of official like points that are standing to make if it's part of a circuit

Starting point is 02:15:37 That affects your your ability to compete in the big finals or whatever the case is Yeah, all that tournament player shit that you don't want to hear me say, I get, I understand that perspective as why a character coming out the night before is considered fucking nuts and we should probably, you know, go the other way. Okay, so I'm on the opinion that- But I understand the unhyped, like, practical is not the fun thing or whatever. But I also get, I think he might be allowed though. I think that might be allowed though. I think

Starting point is 02:16:05 it's my, I think that's the thing is I think they asked, there was a poll and I think it might be the case that he is going to be allowed anyway. So this might be a non-conversation regardless. I think that if they didn't want Akuma to be playable at Comma Breaker, right? And they were like, that's not fair. People didn't have any time to play against Akuma. They should take the steps to unplug every console from internet and wifi and play the non-balance change versions because that's the version everybody practiced on, right? Well, so I mean, what would actually happen is they would be like, you play the version,

Starting point is 02:16:42 but you just don't pick that character. That's the half step that seems like... That's like way worse than either extreme. Damage mitigation is what it is, right? And then there's the other thing, of course, which is like what if you walk in the day of and there's a brand new character that day? Like what if the update happens on the exact Friday or so and you just walk in it's like really If you think about it This is the fair like letting Akuma in with like one day of practice is actually the fairest thing that could ever happen

Starting point is 02:17:13 Yeah Anyway, I'm fully aware that Capcom Pro Tour should take place on the day of the next Street Fighter games release I'm fully aware. I don't even let them play it first. Yes, no, we've established clearly that the further you are from caring about the thing, the funnier it is to watch it go nuts. Like just, who cares? You're not there. No, actually, I'm gonna pull it back for a second.

Starting point is 02:17:42 I'm gonna pull back my own like brain and hyperbole for a second. These are spectator events. Therefore, I believe that spectators should be in prime consideration with competitors as secondary consideration. That's always my go-to is that the idea of the spectators who are either supporting it monetarily or with views should be the primary concern. If it's a tournament that is not being broadcast and is actually just private and it's entirely supported by buy-ins, then I should shut the fuck up and they can do whatever nonsense they want.

Starting point is 02:18:26 But if there's any form of advertisement that is supporting the tournament via Spectator, then the Spectator's experience is primary. Absolutely. That makes perfect sense and that's probably why a lot of the decisions go the way they go, especially how things about like all training mode and costumes over the years and stuff. Every time that's come out and it's been shitty, they've they've erred towards what spectators would want to see that makes that was the training mode. debacle and so exactly. Exactly. The thing is though, debacle kerfuffle kerfuffle kerfuffle like we kind of overst we both overshot it

Starting point is 02:19:06 but Of course, this is assuming a clean there is an opinion of the spectator that is always going to be This is what we want to see versus the the difference of the competitor where it's not always that clean division, right? Furthermore if we're talking about extremes if spectators were to say no one should be allowed to pick a character, everything should be random, so this is what the spectators want, that's an exchange. That'd be awesome! But we don't actually, there's an obvious limitation to... Well, the best player would still win.

Starting point is 02:19:36 Et cetera. So there's an obvious limitation to the philosophy, the idea that, yes, the consideration for the spectator is in prime importance here. There's a point where if that goes into a realm that is there's a there's a clear cutoff point for what's considered stupid, that they don't that they that we will not acknowledge we're not going to go there. Right? If there's a spectator rule for any other thing that makes no fucking sense there's like, okay, well regardless we who cares? We're not gonna go down that road, right? The tournament is is is

Starting point is 02:20:09 Gonna then have the player considerations Secondary as they may be still secondary. I I think the like I feel pretty strongly about this but at the same time like I don't I don't think anyone's going to threaten that tournament with day two Akuma with the low health. I think that that character specifically is going to get stopped. It's not even that, dude. It's not even that.

Starting point is 02:20:37 It's what happens a lot of the time. It's whenever there's examples of day two character busted, has an invincible, unstoppable thing that's not balanced, not properly addressed that can then legally be used to like, you know. I see. You know what? Here's the thing. I think that's great because it's really embarrassing to Capcom.

Starting point is 02:20:58 It is very embarrassing. I think if they put out Akuma and Akuma's actually like massively fucked, Brand new fucked up shit. Like combo breaker, that they deserve that knock on the chin. Right, it's not even the like, oh, do you have the knowledge check from this morning or whatever the case? There's things where there'll be something wrong with the character that needs immediate addressing, you know? And it's like, yeah, guess what? That Rizar, the Rashid tornado, that's tournament legal. Too bad, fuck you. You got to just, you know, you just's like, yeah, guess what? That Yzhar, the Rashid Tornado, that's tournament legal.

Starting point is 02:21:26 Too bad, fuck you. You gotta just, you know, you just have to sit there and hold that because they made a mistake in the release of the character. So yeah, anyway. All right, and now I'm gonna get my last one in so that I can get this weird little thing out of my chest. And also during top eight they should release

Starting point is 02:21:45 tigers into the arena and tell them to keep playing if that's what the spectators want that's what the spectator should get Tigers probably wouldn't even do anything I'm just thinking like they probably would just like try and leave ah man it's like make no mistake like I have again I'm super down to talk about all the changes that fucking should be implemented in soccer because I am as far away from giving a fuck about soccer as possible. You know it's hilarious when you're way over here and you and like you go back to live in your life you're like wait they're doing and like you go back to live in your life. You're like, wait, they're doing what? Ah, that's crazy.

Starting point is 02:22:26 Wait, the whole tournament fell apart because like there's a game breaking freezing bug that you could do with modern Akuma. Ah, that's great. Anyway, back to 80s to like, you know, yeah. Anyways, so that's what's going down. Oh, and I just to touch on it briefly. The FF16 DLC 2 Rising Tide

Starting point is 02:22:55 finished that off and there's some really cool shit in that. I talked about the new ability from last time you get the gun and stuff. Yeah, pretty much just going into the final fights there. You get a really sick fight on foot against... I really feel like it's a Souls ass knight type character. There's a bunch of knights that are Final Fantasy knights, but this dude in particular has big Souls energy to him. You know, if the From ass looking fucking dude just frostin' around and shit, doing big old swinging animations that look like foul dance, incredible.

Starting point is 02:23:32 He slow walks up to you, it's- Oh, right, there you, okay, thank you, thank you. Whole lot of fun. And then after that you fight Leviathan and you have a really sick ass Leviathan, like it's like that, it's almost like the, I was talking about how Omega went last time. you fight Leviathan and you have a really sick ass, it's almost like the, I was talking about how Omega went last time, it's on that level, but you're doing it as ifrit,

Starting point is 02:23:52 and because you're doing it as ifrit, you can't do as much, you're not, and there's that like, ah, Omega felt more fun, I loved Omega, not just because of the amazing music and everything, but just Clive on foot can do more and is faster and you have more at your disposal and you have more freedom to it. And like, there is something to like,

Starting point is 02:24:13 this is the like, controlling Ifrit in FF16 is the best I'm controlling a Kaiju has ever felt in a game, right? Like, I don't know that, like, we talked about how Bayonetta 3 sucks at that. It feels like a momentum stopper. I don't know that like like we talked about how Bayonetta three sucks at that. It feels like a momentum stopper I don't know that anyone else is doing cooler feeling. I'm controlling the Kaiju at a giant scale But there's an inherent thing with but that is going to feel kind of slow and clunky because of the size of the scale

Starting point is 02:24:38 It's a big master fight and it's rad but it man on foot. You can just go, you know I'm watching this fight against the viathan with it for it, and I'm like this looks like the g-warrior fight Okay, 40 okay It looks just like it What I would love as a as a as a compromise of sorts I would love if you had a game where you were controlling big kaiju monster fight, fuck you, but it was still fast and you had as many things going with your move kit.

Starting point is 02:25:16 Yeah, so I have to say, like, FF16 has a minor issue and they understand it Where the the icon fights are more spectacle because like you're describing Clive is the one with the real move set That's it and if it is the one that has a simplified move set for spectacle purposes but I feel like it it hurts the game in some ways like Titan had like seven faces and they were all a joke some ways like Titan had like seven faces and they were all a joke compared to the fight you had on foot against Hugo. Right, right, right. And the thing is, is trust me, I understand the counterpoint. Shut up. It's cool though. I get it. It's a very powerful counterpoint, but it's not going to make it worse if if Rick could move faster, do more and feel comparable so that when you

Starting point is 02:26:09 jump into him, it doesn't feel like you're playing Clive with the hand with weights on it should feel like weights are coming off for these amazing spectacle moments, you know. So yeah, it can and it and there was there was some struggle I had to with some of the DPS race moments where you have to stop the waterfall or the tidal wave in time. I had a much cleaner, funner time with Thon Omega just going through my moveset and then picking the icons I liked and cycling through it, you know? So it was really good, but it definitely is not as good as

Starting point is 02:26:46 Thing of the Fallen. Anyway, DLC one. Not Rise of the Fallen. What's it called? Echoes of the Fallen. Echoes of the Fallen. Echoes of the Fallen is a better, is the better of the two. And it's just, this is the best Kaijuing you're doing out there

Starting point is 02:27:05 But it's I inferior to Clive I'm so weirded out by the order that they put these DLCs in because Leviathan gives you a new move set and Yeah, Omega is the end. It literally means the end. It would have been it would have been better to do it in reverse to get that hit. But you also unlock Bloody Palace. And Bloody Palace comes with a a secret, actually. Spoilers if you don't want to know about the Bloody Palace thing. Right before you walk into it you get access to a brand new icon as well oh yeah a second icon really yeah can can i can i know what it is ultima oh gives you icon to use and Okay, it's a better version of Bahamut

Starting point is 02:28:10 It's really cool Bahamut's like the second strongest in the whole game It's a Bahamut that you can go on the offensive with you know It's really good Because Bahamut involved a lot of floating and dodging. And this is a floating and dodging, but also going in, you know? Incredible. So and that you get at the finish line too. So you're like, ah, here's a little last last second icon for you. Now go do Bloody Palace with it and then beat the game or so. So there's actually two new icons in the DLC, not one. And it has insanely strong abilities as well. One of its basic things does like stupid stagger

Starting point is 02:28:54 and just melts. And you know what too? The Bloody Palace is kind of interesting because there's a whole layout to it where between rooms you can customize equipment and buffs. It has its own currency and unlock system within itself that is more than just bloody palacing and it also incorporates the style meter from arcade mode. Why the fuck wasn't that in the game by default? Yeah, yeah. I don't understand. It's in this one. So, yeah, no, that's a fun little surprise you get for Rising Tide, I would say. Omega is

Starting point is 02:29:35 overall just like the best part of this post-release DLC stuff, but two surprise icons to use and then a whole other mode is dope as fuck so all right that's me okay before I get in my week that took a lot longer than I expected I'm gonna take a quick five minutes all right BRB let's take a quick word from our sponsors. I love our sponsors. This week Castle Superbeast is sponsored by Shopify. Hey Shopify. Cha-ching is the sound of a sail when you make it on Shopify. And Shopify, what is Shopify?

Starting point is 02:30:24 That's the global commerce platform that's here to help you with every stage of your business. So the example that comes to mind every time that I bring up is the fact that, hey, we started a podcast, we started Let's Playing, we know how to upload videos to YouTube, and I even figured out how to plug a microphone that looks fancier than a stupid USB thing

Starting point is 02:30:49 that makes it sound terrible into a fancy mixer that makes it sound good. Remember how crazy that was when we plugged in the newer mics and everyone was like, what the fuck, what is? Oh, it was bananas. People were like, I hate it, I hate your voices. Go back to the old garbled

Starting point is 02:31:06 USB voices. I don't want to hear them clearly. It was weird. And all of that took it took years and a lot of time before I figured out how to like be like, Hey guys, we could improve our sound quality or we can improve our video quality, etc. It was wild, it was wild. But all that to say that when it comes to things like, oh, we're going to make some t-shirts, we're going to make a little sticker or pins or stuff like that, no idea how to figure that stuff out or where to start. And that's what Shopify is for. So they're a global commerce platform that you can start integrating onto your business

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Starting point is 02:34:10 I'm all over the place. So I'm still trying to handle my current form. I want my current form to be my final form. I don't wanna find out there's more more freezes waiting inside to come out. If I mess up, there will be a wooly after the current wooly that blows back up again and that's bad. So I'm currently trying to keep my smaller healthier shape and Doing so while also not fussing too much over

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Starting point is 02:36:14 first box plus 20% off your next month while your subscription is active. Thank you, Factor. Thanks, Factor. All right. What's up have you been following the ebony Riddler's assault on drink I mean yeah yeah I this is like escalated to know absurd degree. It's a de-escalation. I hate it's a deep I heard people telling me that there's videos out there of Drake fucking a dog I don't think this thing is de-escalated for so so there's there's that thing where apparently yeah

Starting point is 02:36:59 Academics was on stream and got sent something and he's like what the fuck I gotta find out I got to figure out what to do with this this I just hate this at the epilogue part where like people that are like people that have don't want to insert themselves clout chasers weirdos people that are just you know in some cases you know the thing is is this type of dude the the Black Riddler Black Riddler not totally right alongside this exact thing What is he trying to say just It's crazy this do you want to be some kind of character you want to be woo

Starting point is 02:37:42 And you want to do your creepy filming weird shit, just say what you're trying to fucking say. I hate this, like, I'm gonna be a character and create an ARG shit. Solve the riddle! It's, I, fuck it, it's just, now it's time to turn the spotlight on me, and I'm gonna enjoy being in the spotlight, you know?

Starting point is 02:38:00 Like, he is part of the thing, he has the stuff! He has the shit, yes! But I hate everything about what they're doing and how he's doing it and how he's dancing around and being all weird and fucking like cryptic and if you have something to say, if you have an accusation to make, if you have some shit then fucking say it. Playing this I wanna slowly bleed out and get internet fucking attention. Alright fucking calm down Batman, alright? Jesus. It's just, it's so fucking like ugh, the clout chase moment, you know?

Starting point is 02:38:28 The thing where now that the thing has happened, I can turn the spotlight on me and hold it for as long as possible. If I just say what I wanna say, then that's gonna mean the story's over. So let me just keep it up and say these weird things and fucking stretch it the fuck off, man. Say what you're gonna say

Starting point is 02:38:45 or don't this is dumb fucking clout chase shit I hate it and it might be who knows you might be the person might just be like fucked up I don't know if they're just like crazy look at a guy get out a barrel of his stuff going solve my riddles three and get mad because it's just it's the thing that happens after the thing has occurred and other people have to get in there now and start, you know, start trying to get what they can from like it's just again, the the in the wake of the moment, the clout chase, the attention, the fucking time to time to turn it into some crypto weird fucking, you know, I'm going to leave clues and I'm going to move the camera around in a horror film kind of way. And like, yeah, like, and

Starting point is 02:39:33 try to make this shit a movie. I'm going to imply that Drake beat up a guy in a wheelchair. And I'm like, did he fight a guy in a wheelchair? Right. And let's start turning those conspiracy screws and getting into like all the fucking, the weird flavor of how you go about this shit, right? I feel like if anyone has anything serious to say that does it in this manner, if this is your way of revealing something important or something that's happened, I immediately fucking like discredit what you have to say until otherwise. Like it's ridiculous. I have to totally disagree with you. Writing

Starting point is 02:40:06 a poem to music is just as ridiculous of a way to say something mean about somebody as going on social media and doing a little ARG Blair Witch thing. But the thing is, the parties involved have had that moment and then when other people try to attach onto it in this way, it just looks like you're trying to you're trying to redirect the attention. That's all I see. It obviously is that. It's so fucking. Oh, I got it.

Starting point is 02:40:42 It's so sad to just be like, now me, guys! It's my turn! Are you looking at me? I'm gonna continue it! Are you looking at me? You know? Especially if you've got some shit that you could just fucking save and just say it. Ugh!

Starting point is 02:40:57 Anyway. Person that is involved also wants some of the thing because they don't have, like, a rap label or whatever. Oh man. Like the shit like the other part where it's like, oh yeah, dude came out and was like yeah Drake's people reached out and they paid me 150k just to give them some bullshit or whatever. And then I lied.

Starting point is 02:41:19 And then I lied. That's really funny. And that's straight to the point, right? It's like oh what's something else that's involved? Oh yeah, when they were trying to dig up shit for family matters, they like they have no they had nothing really So they came to talk to whoever they could and they like they offered me like tons of cash So I was like, yeah, I'll take it and then I just made up some bullshit. That wasn't real You know, that's a great that's great. That's awesome

Starting point is 02:41:41 Well, I don't understand the line in the sand here between the theatricality of music and the theatricality of social media. I don't understand what your dividing line is here because we are talking about two guys who made a bunch of songs and music videos about how much they dislike each other. They would just be theatrical as shit. about how much they dislike each other. Which is theatrical as shit! It certainly is, but at the very least, people came in invested in the fact that these are two artists that had careers that were something before that, as opposed to somebody who's creating it now and saying, now you need to- So what, you can already be famous to get in on this? But to do all I get the concept of getting in on it is already the part that I find fucking

Starting point is 02:42:26 like it's like it's trying to try to rush the stage. You know this is if you have but this guy has stuff to rush the stage with so that I we don't know what the fuck the the the bit is if like did you know that he take that photo and send it he started out with this like I have all the shit and it seems like it's someone that worked for the hotel or something, but you know, and so he has the film of the moments. It appears to be a hotel security guy. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Starting point is 02:42:52 But that's essentially just it. It's like, it is the like, the multi-year decade long build-up of all this shit between two people that rolled up to this thing. Yes, it's theatrical, but it also is at the very least, there is a reason why people are invested from the jump until it hits that point versus somebody who's just like, I'm a mysterious person and I'm going to be fucking, it's just the definition of some cloud chasing bullshit. the definition of some cloud chasing bullshit, you know, and it also reminds me a lot of like the people who are

Starting point is 02:43:28 Down that insane ass. Why shouldn't the guy who has this stuff and sent the photo to kendrick Get to cloud chase Then just say it why we play in args We play in a RG's Going out to the fuck go out to your phone and pick up dial this this toll-free number and get in here And then maybe we'll find another like a little clues and oh my god some hotel security guard Pretending he's a fucking Batman villain while Shaky Cammy is as funny as fuck. It's so cringe. It's so fucking lame. How can you possibly say that's not funny?

Starting point is 02:44:12 It's funny in how fucking lame it is. Sure. Oi. It's like a guy with a Naruto shirt on trying to do hand signs in the back like The bid the bid is weak we can do we can it's a again if you want funny Funny is the straight is just the straight up like oh what what else because I'm sure there's other things that we're gonna find Out or whatever, you know fast-forwarding But like I said the other example of the Something coming out this week was like yeah

Starting point is 02:44:45 Did you know that Drake fucking burnt cash on done trying to dig up dirt and got nothing people lied that just do just said Yeah, that shit was hilarious. It took him two seconds to say then he did and that was that yeah The other one that was the other one was played straight is the CBC trying to investigate the shooting discovered like a Drake shell company Like he has a fake security company that he's using for whatever reason. That a lot of that goes into... Yeah, apparently that had nothing to do with Kendrick and was more with the gang. No, it's just like because a security guard got shot outside his house, so the CBC started

Starting point is 02:45:19 to investigate the security company that Drake said he belonged to and discovered that it was a completely fake company that didn't exist. Right. But no, just in terms of the stuff pertaining to the shooting that occurred or so, people were saying that it connects to weekends. Yeah, totally unrelated. Is it like the weekend or something? I don't know.

Starting point is 02:45:41 Because there was a shooting that happened at his, involved with his employees on some days prior and stuff but Yeah, anyway, just like that's that's it. That's it You know, you hate black Riddler. I don't I don't understand It's trying so hard and it's trying hard in the same way. Do you know about you know what the voice is? Do you know about med beds? No, do you know about okay, you know about like that Q anon shit, right? We're getting familiar. Okay

Starting point is 02:46:15 So where we go when we go all right and then the next level of that when you have nowhere to go because your brain Has hit the walls is you go into med beds Which are these things that are going to cure cancer and they're going to do everything. But the way you drip feed to the people that are believing that med beds are going to exist and they're going to heal you, but you can only access them in the sixth dimension. That's the only time they become available. They're hanging out with Calatica, the sun game or board game whatever the fuck catalika right there. We're hanging out in the same space

Starting point is 02:46:49 Anyway, there's a way that those types of fucking grifters talk Which is exactly what this black riddler shit is which is the like the chase the clues right typing like you Look at the dates look at the numbers it gets into this realm of like Look at the dates look at the numbers it gets into this realm of like Insane stupid bullshit that targets people that are conspiracy minded that pisses me the fuck off. I hate that shit I'm sorry. I'm starting to understand what's happening here We both we we think that we don't understand each other, but we do Actually just fundamentally disagree because yeah, I know exactly what you mean Hilarious, oh my god. Those people are the fucking worst. Well, you have to remember

Starting point is 02:47:36 like I Have gotten into conversations with strangers or they will just tell me about how the aliens gave them superpowers for hours! For hours! I can't get enough! Yeah, so no, we're now listening to Draconon. Yeah, fuck it! Fuck it! Yeah, hit me with it! Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh, WWG1 WWG BBL.

Starting point is 02:48:11 Like, like, so we were, me and Paige listened to a BBL Drizzy remix and Paige asks me, but did he get a BBL though? And I went, who cares? I don't care if he actually got plastic surgery. The song is hilarious. Right, right, right. I, yeah, man, it's but just when you get into that, that that conspiracy raise the eyebrow shit, you know, especially because there's people in real life that I deal with that. There are people that I talk to in real life. There's, there's, there's, we got some,

Starting point is 02:48:56 we got some believers, you know, in the, in the family sometimes. Some BBL believers? We got some believers in the family that I talk to sometimes, and it's just a little like, man, man, this sucks, man. This fucking sucks that you think that just because somebody filmed themselves spouting off some bullshit in a black and white film and they tilt the camera to make it look like they're talking over here and saying

Starting point is 02:49:23 that's what they don't want you to know, and you put a little bit of dramatic music behind it, you can't, you can't, your brain is like, oh my God, it has to be real. No, that rules. You're trying to shut them down right now. That's some rules. Talking about those types of people are awesome. You just, like no defenses whatsoever against like-

Starting point is 02:49:39 Fuck yeah, I'm getting a download from space, brother. No defenses against real life being like edited to be like a conspiracy video, you know? Ugh, anyway. Like, bro, the, the, the, the CBC, so the CBC News Report describing how Drake, Jungle Lion Security had a fake, it's a fake company, right?

Starting point is 02:50:00 It doesn't really have any, even any employees, right? It must be a tax shelter or something, right? The video that I saw on TikTok that stitched the CBC News Report was a girl watching it with her hand over her mouth going, oh my God, Drake faked the shooting? But why? Like that was their take away from it. Right, right, right, right. Man. And then in the comments like no you idiot Drake obviously shot the mole.

Starting point is 02:50:35 Duh. And just complete sanity. And now we just go and we go and we go and we go. We take off from here. We go yeah who knows. And it yeah, yeah It's it's just it's that that like that fucking oh That just that bottom feeding pathetic ass. Just I'm gonna

Starting point is 02:50:58 Stretch this shit out like oh hey man people gotta make a living And apparently Drake fucked with his money. So yeah apparently apparently apparently, you know Anyways, that's that's that's that's the energy. I just it fucking repulses me dude When I anytime I see that in real life in any way shape or form It's just like yo if you have some shit to say say it if you're trying to play this game If you have some shit to say, say it. If you're trying to play this game, you're fucking, you're not serious. This is, you're an absolute clown.

Starting point is 02:51:29 And you love your little fucking spotlight and top hat. Yeah, don't you think clowns are funny? You want your top hat and fucking cane, you know? Yeah. It's like, anyway. It's the, cause it's the thing where like, you know, like, oh, Q disappears, but since someone else comes along and pretends to be Q, you know, and that's like really funny.

Starting point is 02:51:54 And it's like, oh, well, I'm just going to do this. And you just, it's that just like, I get just, just the feeling they get as they're, as they're clicking upload on their cryptic shit. Just that self-masturbatory... Ugh! Oh yeah, it's funny, man. Don't you think that's funny? It's so funny!

Starting point is 02:52:13 It's so sad. It's so fucking sad, dude. It's hilariously sad. Oh yeah, no, no! We're not actually in disagreement on this. It's just our emotional responses are on the opposite ends of the spectrum Try to make an ARG It's gonna just it's gonna fucking oh

Starting point is 02:52:33 Where there is none anyways yes, that is what's going on that is that's what's happening all right? Tell me I love this shit. Tell me about Marvel Rivals. Alright, well first of all. Are you allowed to? Let's be really clear. Are you allowed to? Let's find out if I can tell you, if I can talk to you about Marvel Rivals.

Starting point is 02:53:01 So Myeld, a person who's in my streams quite often, sent me an alpha code. He applied via numerous emails and he got two alpha codes for Marvel Rivals. So my entrance into the Marvel Rivals alpha closed plate of whatever the fuck is from from a alpha test code with no restrictions and I didn't sign anything. Okay. So I occasionally on my stream I talk about we don't really talk about it so much over here but like we do sponsored streams and we do like we get codes and like there's a wide CAS, there's a huge variation of. I think I know what you're gonna say.

Starting point is 02:53:49 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of like specificity and requirements, right? So sometimes they will send you a code in the opening email and go here. And I I'm like I've never even talked to you I don't I don't even know who you are. That's like the farthest extreme then there's like hey Do you want one and you know, yeah, and they go here and then there's like every variation of that up to like like I'll talk to people a devolver and like can I got one like here and

Starting point is 02:54:24 like, like I'll talk to people, a devolver and like, can I get one right here? And if they send it to you early, they sign you like, and you'll sign like a NDA or something that says like, don't stream it before such and such a date. And then there's a sponsored stream and the sponsored stream. We'll have like conditions of like, please don't talk about really crazy shit or don't do drugs on camera and you know, whatever. Right. And then this Marvel rivals alpha Alpha request code comes in, and the first red flag is that it's called

Starting point is 02:54:50 a commitment requirement. Oh no, it's called a commitment proposal. I said to you, what's it called? Commitment form. You, what, yeah, commitment. Commitment form. And it's an agreement of your commitment to Marvel rivals Oh wait, you didn't sign anything, right? Okay. I didn't say anything. Yeah, so therefore this can go

Starting point is 02:55:14 Remember guys, this is really important This is really important Like you're not bound by an agreement that you didn't sign by seeing the agreement. You're not bound by anything in it. Right. Okay. So I thought because there's a thing too when you're talking about just getting the code or whatever outright from in the emails.

Starting point is 02:55:37 There's a thing where sometimes without saying or asking or writing any of that, there will be a time where we will be like, hey, so I'm going to talk about this game that I played. It was hashtag sponsored. Therefore, use your own judgment accordingly as you're hearing about my sponsored opinions on whatever the, you know. And there's other times where it's just, where it's been like, yes, this podcast is sponsored by Fallout 76. Anyway, in the news, holy shit, Fallout 76, right? And that'll happen too. And sometimes they have non-disparagement, but the non-disparagement clauses in those

Starting point is 02:56:14 are written fairly clearly. It's like, hey, don't take this sponsorship if you're planning to just shit all over the game for two hours. How about that? Which is like, okay, that's fairly reasonable. And then there's these terms. So Marvel Rivals comes down, and I'm not going to go through the whole thing because, well, I mean somebody else probably put it up there, but the long and short of it is that in the

Starting point is 02:56:36 Marvel Rivals thing, it's like, hey, under anti-disparagement, it includes, please don't have a negative subjective review of the game and there's no dates on the for how long for how long are you allowed times? There's not a single there's not a single time based number anywhere on the agreement, which means it would be forever. Please don't say anything bad about this game for the rest of your life You can't oh god, it's got so much shit in it. It's also got like Please don't disparage any of the properties in Marvel rivals so that would conceivably include like talking shit about spider-man Right, right, right, And then at the very bottom they're like, hey listen Also, there's legal liability. So if we decide

Starting point is 02:57:36 That you injured Marvel's brand you agree to be financially responsible for restitution of those damages as decided by us. Which is not the usual if you break this clause then we can walk and not work with you anymore and go our separate ways. Yeah 99% of the time the thing is like hey did you like 99% of the time even for a sponsored thing it goes hey did you break this agreement then we're all going to walk away and we're not going to pay you because you didn't do the thing we wanted you to do. And we're probably not gonna work with you again.

Starting point is 02:58:07 Yeah, we'll never work for you. This one is like, listen, never talk bad about the game or any more of our products, but also it's forever and if we think you hurt our feelings, then maybe we'll sue you a little bit. Don't make disparaging comparisons to competitors. It's particularly wild in this instance when the game itself looks so much like its competitors

Starting point is 02:58:35 down to the fonts. It's like inviting so much comparison of all games. Like if it was something brand new and original in every possible way, that'd be one thing. But they know exactly what they're doing. Hey, I want to point out to a gentleman in the chat saying, Pat, definitely misread it. No, I did not. It's very clear. And everyone is in general agreement of the weirdness behind this contract.

Starting point is 02:58:59 So here's the fun part. So the way that you got this was that you would join the Marvel Rivals Discord and then they would see if you're a content creator and they put you in a special little channel. And then they'd be like, hey, we're going to send out these contracts. So they start to send them out and something starts to happen that I've never seen in a creator Discord. Like I'm part of the Capcom creator discord. I think you are also wooly.

Starting point is 02:59:27 Um, and, um, like everyone in the content creator check starts going, I don't know if I'm going to sign this. Are you guys reading this? And some people like, not yet. Why? Like, I don't know. This seems, oh, this seems like a lot. So I, yeah, I, so I joined when it, when it was announced and then I filled out the initial, like, yeah, I want

Starting point is 02:59:51 to try out the alpha. And then when the second round of like fill out this info stuff came in is when I was out of town. So I just missed that and didn't end up going any further into it. Yeah. There was a fucking... There was... So one of the things I don't think anyone's mentioned is that part of the requirements

Starting point is 03:00:10 is that you had to fulfill like a Marvel branding guide. And the Marvel branding guide is two full pages of the way the logo has to look on the page and how you can't have any... You can't have any, you can't have. So, Wooly, people watching the video version of the podcast and can see Wooly's screen, one of the requirements was no visible non Marvel brands on screen. I just, I got that shit for Whatever I forgot which we got one of those for one stream and I was like never again This is just not worth it. It's just not worth it. I can't deal with that level of headache

Starting point is 03:00:54 On pulling out the the ruler and screen capping the the logo on stream Yeah, and so yeah, don't don't sign that But also so the alpha if you just get in not... No restrictions of any kind. Then it's whatever, you can just... So here's like kind of a bummer. So this is one of those things where smaller content creators are being used as free advertising. So we're all kind of advertising when we play in LP games, but this is actually like reach

Starting point is 03:01:30 out to smaller content creators and have them be like a free advertising team because they can't disagree or they can't talk shit if they want access. And the stupidest part about all this is that we're talking about it and how scummy it looks. Game's pretty good. Looked like it would be, that's what got my interest. It's got tons of juice. It looks and sounds fantastic and the way that the characters all interact is super interesting and having like Spider-Man have like web swing which is like like feels like Spider-Man 2's Spider-Man level of distance like when Spider-Man wants to leave he is just gone so so no

Starting point is 03:02:18 need to unleash the list of disparaging phrases. Foverwatch. Bootleg Overwatch. Mid AF. It's in closed alpha. It is not done. There's stuff that needs some work. Some of the sound is not perfect. It's hard to tell the difference between certain people shooting this and some of the acceleration and the aiming is not perfect and this and that and the characters aren't perfectly bad. But like, it's a really strong closed alpha and I had a really good experience playing it. So if somebody asks, not familiar with the lore, what the fuck is juice? Woolly? Juice is a term that was used. I mean, there was a GDC talk about it, but essentially, it's that little bit of extra flavor that you could put into your game

Starting point is 03:03:08 to make it feel good when you do something. So there's a whole log talk about watching someone make pong, and pong is just knocking the balls back and forth, but adding that little impact, adding that little extra animation, the little bounce that wobbles, the little animation that starts a little slow

Starting point is 03:03:23 and then speeds up, and you can add and add and add to it make a game full of things that make your brain go when you see it it's we call that juice but yeah no the the games got plenty of juice it feels good it looks good it sounds mostly good I got into matches no problem the connection was stable it didn't fall apart the I like the art style the juice is not sauce sauce sauce is different sauce is different sauce is free is open-ended freeform ability to do a lot with your character and express

Starting point is 03:03:55 yourself in a way that is wildly open-ended and like massively the potential is huge so yeah it's this a massive bummer because like the game's cool and I'm I'm still looking forward to the game But I I'm not going to be working with Nettie's on this in the future Probably I like money But it's like if game good you could think you could just leave it alone Right, and it's like I think it looks like we're just you're aping your your your overwatch But if game fun with character do cool things people would have been just like yeah fine

Starting point is 03:04:35 Absolutely bootleg overwatch Absolutely Just but but it's got it's got tony man in it. Um, and I I like to play as Tony Man so there you go. All you have to do is leave it alone. Now somebody said they're walking it back on Twitter. I want to be really clear. I did see that. Unless they send you a new contract that invalidates the old contract, it doesn't matter if they walk it back on Twitter

Starting point is 03:05:08 You're still bound by the thing you sound whatever whatever public-facing tweeter or so is not the thing you sign So this is net ease so that means there's gonna be a horrendous like Micro thing coming so I can tell you what the micro thing is I can tell you what it is you ready because it's already in the game okay um part of their balancing idea there's a little symbol a little like yellow like hexagon thing on top of some of the characters and you click on Hulk and it's like, for this week, Hulk has 15% more defense. Or you'll click on Rocket and it'll be like, Rocket currently has 20% more attack power. It's not just cosmetic?

Starting point is 03:05:57 And these will rotate around. Ehhhh! Eww! So what's gonna be- That's fucking gross! I hate that! it's gonna be fucking gross It's gonna be free play it's gonna be free to play and you're gonna buy characters and This week the character is stronger than next week So if you want to be at the top of the leaderboard, you're just gonna have to get every character. Oh

Starting point is 03:06:27 of the leaderboard you're just gonna have to get every character. Oh so there's no stand the version the game is always in some weird fucking state of non-stop oh my god why like yeah you just can't leave it alone I was fully expecting, you know, I was fully expecting the deepest cuts from old Marvel comic levels pulls, but for exorbitant amounts of money, you know? Oh, I mean, Jeff, the land shark is apparently going to be in there. I don't even know who that is. I can't even, I can't even begin, but like that's I'm, I'm preparing, you know, for the idea of like, yeah, you want your special,

Starting point is 03:07:09 well, or not even the deepest cuts, just like, hey, you want your Weapon X Wolverine skin? Shell out money for it, you know? You want your Grey Hulk or your Red Hulk? There's like a cowboy rocket. Oh man, it's a buff that's yeah okay so that's Marvel rivals it's cool but it remains to be seen if it stays cool who'd you play as everybody Everybody at least once. Okay There's money that Hulk is Diva

Starting point is 03:07:51 So like Hulk starts as banner But you have your alt right away and turn into Hulk okay, and then when you when you get killed you turn back into banner and Then you have to get killed again. Right. Okay. But if you get your alt as Hulk, you get to turn into monster Hulk, which is the shit headed Hulk that causes problems. And you can do the grab and throw that he does to Loki in Avengers and it kills people. The slam.

Starting point is 03:08:23 Okay. Man. And it kills people the slam Man so this is not that this is okay So here's the problem is it's like this is gonna be forever plagued by there's a good game here Just leave it alone, and they won't leave it alone. Yeah, probably yeah, absolutely You know like if you if it was all ignorable like yeah shit's whack forget it Then it is what it is like Loki is like one of the most interesting support characters I've ever seen because Loki puts little visions of himself that shoot, right? And he places them.

Starting point is 03:08:56 Mirage. Yeah, little mirages. But he can place a ton of them. I think it's like five or six. And he could just teleport to any of them at any time and switch positions. So like Loki is everywhere on the map and he could just be the real Loki at any time. It's really interesting. Do the clones require a line of sight?

Starting point is 03:09:18 No. Well, yeah, they do. No, wait, with Loki? No, no, they don't. He could teleport to anybody. Oh, wow. Okay. No, wait with Loki? No, no, they don't. He teleport to anybody. Oh wow. Okay How's the doctor strange? Weird he's a he's like a flying tank

Starting point is 03:09:32 But his main thing is that his all one of his abilities is he makes the big portal and the portal works both ways And you can fire projectiles through it It's awesome Because yeah, I guess I was wondering if you would be, was it Zenyatta? Zen-Dia? No, no. Zen-Dia the robot? No, Zen- Is that your character?

Starting point is 03:10:01 No, no, no, no. Yes, Zen's the entire. Zenyatta, Zenyatta. But it's more, what you're describing sounds, I guess, is that more Symmetra or so? Well, he shoots, he shoots a projectile and then has to cash out with like a burst or else he like pops basically. He goes into like a poison state. Okay. and I'm sure seeing your character third person doing cool shit must be really cool too yeah yeah hell yeah yeah yeah yeah that's that's the meddling will continue

Starting point is 03:10:37 oh probably I definitely I foresee them thank you Nettie's I foresee them cooking a lot of frogs in a pot slowly with that game. But they've got the IP, so they can do it. It's the one people like. People like that IP. Let's see, what else do I play? I started playing Stellar Blade, notable recipient of petitions about censored goon clothing, some of which I've unlocked. You unplugged your Ethernet cable and stayed offline so that it wouldn't get patched, right?

Starting point is 03:11:16 So you know what's really funny about the people doing that? Is that the game's 1.0 release on disc without the patch has like really fucked up parry timing. Oh And it makes the game like way way worse No, no Also, it's extra stupid because the very first costume in the game is the character completely head-to-toe naked just completely naked But it makes the game harder. It's like a hard mode. Because you have no protection.

Starting point is 03:11:49 Yeah. So I'm just going to get the goon shit out of the way. Yeah. On two of the outfits that she's wearing like a bra underneath it, a slutty dress or whatever. The characters got a fucking skin tight latex Cardi B looking music video shit or like a fucking bunny costume and tits and ass and gooning all over. Shifting up jiggles. The censorship is so ridiculous.

Starting point is 03:12:20 It's so fucking stupid. The physics engine fully in check. Also of specific note, despite the look of the characters being super sexy, the actual content of the game is so sexless and sterile. Like none of the characters have any chemistry with each other. There is. There's nothing like it's like a lot of that's in regards to the terrible English voice acting. I thought the game was being translated badly until Gene, Gene Park, friend of the show, remarked that the dialogue also makes no sense in Korean. It actually is just written really badly and characters are talking to each other like It feels like the room Okay, are they like characters are in the room with big asses

Starting point is 03:13:31 I have not seen a single other character besides the titular big ass. Yeah They are there Eve. She's an angel. Are there others are there other jiggles occurring? Or are okay are other characters and if you want to really have your head spin, there's Adam, he's a man, and there's also Lily, she's a lady, and all of them, they're all 3D modeled, they all look like they're from different games. They legitimately look like their proportions and style look like they are from completely different games. It is so weird.

Starting point is 03:14:16 It is strange. Soterios Is Adam greased up and jiggling too? Adam No. Adam is Nathan Drake if he was Chinese. You remember that? Here's your photo if you're black or Chinese guy? No. Oh, you don't remember that?

Starting point is 03:14:34 Okay. Well, anyway, somebody threw a fucking filter on Nathan Drake. Okay. And that's who Adam is. And Lily is small and cute and has a weirdly giant head and a facial design that doesn't mix with the rest of the game. It's so goddamn weird. The story is complete nonsense. Like me sitting there going, I don't know what these people are talking about. Characters are teleporting into dialogue cutscenes and then teleporting away when their lines

Starting point is 03:15:16 are done. It is a jank ass fucking PS2 game in its story and narrative presentation. But, it actually plays really well and is a really solid Sekiro-like. Am I off? I'm looking at Lily, like maybe it's just a bit of some parts of the costume, but aren't there Kingdom Hearts characters that look kind of like this? Yeah, she looks like Kairi. Right, or stuff like that, right?

Starting point is 03:15:50 Yeah. Okay, okay. That's what I'm seeing here. Yeah, so it's a really good Sekiro-like with solid gameplay and interesting ideas and good feel and a good difficulty curve and great graphics. Gene, when I started my stream, said, imagine Nier Automata with a way worse story and way better gameplay. It really feels like just putting your foot on the scales and just pushing it down towards

Starting point is 03:16:24 gameplay. So yeah, the Sekiro comparison that you mentioned before too. So I, looking at this, thought it was going to be all near, but I guess a significant portion of that is also Sekiro-like in the Venn diagram overlap. I mean, you fucking, you parryry things they have a posture bar posture bar Okay, like like so the rhythm of combat is yes going in like that. Yeah, okay Yeah, so and the enemy designs are all really really interesting. They're all like nightmarish flesh beasts

Starting point is 03:16:58 But yeah, no, it's it's a it's a fucking PS2 game kicked into the future terrible story I It's a fucking PS2 game kicked into the future. Terrible story. Awful story. So I can't tell, that's why I'm like, I can't tell if like, is Yoko Taro just really humble or is Yoko Taro currently gooning? Yeah, I don't know.

Starting point is 03:17:19 Cause it could be that too. He could just be, we caught him in the middle of it. Oh, also the people who did Nier's music are doing the music for Stellar Blade. Well, wow. So it sounds just like Nier. Jesus. And the intro of the game is the start of Nier. And the first area is a destroyed city that looks like the Nier city.

Starting point is 03:17:44 Okay. And I'm looking at Tachi. It's not subtle. It's not subtle. Yeah, Tachi could just be a King of Fighters maximum impact character, really. Sure. Okay. But yeah, no, it's a really cool game.

Starting point is 03:18:01 It's extremely weird. The story is very bad I'm probably gonna keep playing it The wide variety of outfits to dress up your even Can you can you Are you dressing up and doing hairstyle changing and full on top to bottom makeover? I have done the side quest to change my hair, but I did not turn it in yet. I think the funniest thing about all the censorship thing is that the single best costumes I've found in the entire game have the girl covered up from chin to foot.

Starting point is 03:18:43 Like ankle to neck. So I that's the thing is after playing the other shift up game that is Nico and my take being give me the grunts in their big old body armor and shit because like they have that they look way cooler. I would not be surprised if some of the cosmetics in this that I am gravitating towards is similarly techie and like, you know, somewhat covered. If you can find me some body armor with the abs out, we're good. That's a roll. I don't think she has much that has her stomach showing. I'm seeing a couple people taking a moral stand because they'll get it later when it's uncensored and I can't

Starting point is 03:19:30 It don't It's so tiring It's so tiring Like go go ahead and put your your your name and video on the petition, please Thank you. I saw somebody break down the podcast where we made fun of that and they paraphrased the whole thing as you look like your opinion is a really mean thing to say. Yeah, yeah, I Is a mean thing to say but it's also really funny I Mean didn't you just threaten to suck some dude's dick like an hour ago?

Starting point is 03:20:22 You threatened to suck a dick I didn't threaten nobody I surmised You know yeah I mean I punch mom when I was telling her about how fucking sick Hades too is um she was like oh wait like I saw something about that wasn't that something where there was like a character who there people got mad because her face is too masculine or some shit and I'm like what? I didn't hear about that and she's like yeah there's this whole thing and I'm like the naked woman that's just super naked? What are we talking about? A bunch of freaks removed her cheekbones and put lipstick on her because they decided that Aphrodite in Hades to

Starting point is 03:21:10 All right, all right, I don't know these these these these people just keep getting more and more ridiculous and We have hit we have hit the the status in which like I've actually seen takes of having sex with women is actually secretly gay so So I've caught that All the way around Piv is gay dude, man. Come on. Yeah, man The straightest thing to do is to fuck another man. Absolutely, do it. It's the only way. I just, uh, I don't know, I don't understand. As someone who can, who can absolutely just,

Starting point is 03:21:52 I trust me, I can appreciate... anyway. I, yeah. Alright. It's just so tiring. And let's see, what else do I do? I've been playing FF7 Rebirth. Have you been playing FF7 Rebirth at all? According to the Square Enix news this week, I have not. Oh, okay, yeah. Boy, that game's fucking gigantic.

Starting point is 03:22:24 Okay, okay, okay, okay. I've been catching wind of a couple people that are saying too big. I've, if, if, cause I heard at least two or three other people say that like they kind of took a break cause it's really too much. So I've done 11 streams and I've made it about about I made it to the Golden Saucer and did all the Golden Saucer minigames only to be told by a majority of my audience that I am literally not even halfway through the game. A spirit breaker.

Starting point is 03:23:01 Yeah. Yeah. A spirit breaker. Yep. So I took like a five week break because of various circumstances in the trip. That's probably too big. So my FF14 buddies, they pretty much all played FF7 Rebirth and like I saw almost every single one describe at, I got to the second to last and last area and just completely stopped doing all side content entirely. Just like and these are people who play an MMO.

Starting point is 03:23:37 Man. OK. Wow. And it's like there's some, there's a lot in the side content, at least from remake that is like, you know, might lead you to something cool, you might get a sub in, you might get a fucking fun little piece of lore, you know, here and there and stuff like, huh. Like you don't, it's weird that I'm catching that. You don't have

Starting point is 03:24:04 to do all the side content. Like I had a talk to, I was talking to my chat yesterday during Stellar Blade and I'm like listen, as somebody who has, must do all the side content before moving onward disease, I feel like it is genuinely like kind of unfair to look at a game like, oh damn it it's taking so long, oh I hate it, like then don't do the side shit! So yeah there's FF7 Rebirth, the shit you get out of side quests is so minimal to your overall character strength and requirements it's not necessary. There's a point you can absolutely get to where if you do it and you're like, my enjoyment

Starting point is 03:24:47 of this game is going down by trying to scrape all of these, you do have to make a call sometimes and be like, yeah, no, fuck this. The only problem is what if that one you're choosing to not do is the one that has the cool little sick thing at the end. Luckily enough, Wooly, someone in the chat says, but you don't know which side quests have stuff in them. Which one's worth it? Guess what? You do know there's an entire type of side quest

Starting point is 03:25:14 called proto relic side quests. That's the ones that have the stuff in them. That's the one. Hold that thought. That's strange that just my camera has gone off. Hold that thought. You are frozen in the stop time. Let's see if we can see what's going on. Why do I keep stopping in the frozen time? Oh it's on your end! Because I turned off the camera and uh... Huh?

Starting point is 03:25:43 Okay, BRB. Alright, there we go. So yeah, you really don't have to do most of the side content if you don't want to. In fact, you don't have to do any of it. And what are the good ones called, you said? Proto-Relics. Okay. There's also Queen's Blood, which is the card game, which you can completely ignore. Yes.

Starting point is 03:26:07 And then some side quests are associated with party members. Well, Queensblood is good though, right? What's that? Oh, it's great. Card game good, yeah. And if you want to have a certain party member for the date at the Gold Saucer, then do their side quests that is associated with them. You don't have to do any of the VR battle missions or anything like that.

Starting point is 03:26:32 It's like, the game is really well tuned. If you do all the side content, you're like 10% stronger than you would be otherwise. But in like, I can get that. If you're playing it the same way you played a remake where you could just do it all and then move on to the main, it didn't exhaust you. It was like, you know, remake was big, but it felt like things- This is like five times the size of remake.

Starting point is 03:26:56 That's it, like it didn't feel as if you were like, like hitting any, I know there's no point in remake where I was like getting super frustrated at it. Yeah Yeah, no like it's it's a strange complaint considering like they're splitting ff7 up into three games And so like you kind of want to make sure that that feels fair And this is like one of the largest RPGs I've ever played So like yeah, no, no, I don't feel, I don't feel like you're fucking me on this one.

Starting point is 03:27:30 Even if you just beelined everything, it would still be a fairly large RPG. I was gonna say, it's not downtime, right? It's not like you're wasting time for like traveling or other things where there's not much going on. No, no, you're just bang, bang, bang, bang, bam. Mm-hmm, mm-hmmhmm mm-hmm mm-hmm okay uh yeah no and the other thing is that the gameplay is actually a lot of fun like so I don't mind doing all of it yeah it's it's

Starting point is 03:27:56 great I think that game is fantastic I'll get back to you in two years when I finish it. Oh, you know what? There is something I want to talk about. If you capped up with FF7 Remake, you would probably assume that there would be a gameplay switch-up that happens periodically in FF7 Rebirth, where you would maybe play as a different character for certain lengths of time, and oh my fucking god do they drip feed the shit out of you with that. I cannot believe how little of that there is. Really? I have played the game for close to 40 hours and done maybe half an hour of playing as a different character.

Starting point is 03:29:01 Huh. Yeah, I thought that would be pretty fucking friendly they swap back and have you like watch one cutscene and go we're done here you're like what really it feels like the Laguna less. It's it's really it's zany as **** You know what? Actually, I won't ask. I was gonna say like, what? Yeah, never mind. Well, I'll see. Yeah, you know what? You don't ask me that question. I won't tell you an answer. There you go. Um uh there's also here and there but the main thing I wanna talk about, I played uh more backlog uh two

Starting point is 03:29:44 weeks ago. It didn't talk about it. There were like 15 games I played. I'm not going to talk about 14 of them. But I am going to talk about a visual novel, which is like a terrible pick for the rotate a wheel and play the game for an hour format, which is thus incredible that I played Paranorma-Sight, Seven Mysteries of Honjo, and accidentally played it for nearly three hours. Now that's a fucking title.

Starting point is 03:30:23 One of the worst titles I have ever encountered. Terrible. Hormisite, wow. So art looks cool. It does look cool. It also has, it's a visual novel, but it's, it's still like, it pops really well. Yeah. it's still like it pops really well. The auto speed is the perfect auto speed for reading. It assumes you are reading all of it out loud and it's just perfectly timed. I really like

Starting point is 03:30:56 the dialogue. I really liked reading the dialogue. It also has sections in which like you're standing somewhere and you have to do a 360 and you have control of your character that way and can do that kind of thing look around and click on things. It looks like Hotel Duskman is standing in 999. A little bit. Of note is the game's core mechanic premise which is the Seven Mysteries of Honjo or some neighborhood down in Tokyo and there's a lot of cursed and haunted shit and you're hanging out with a friend of yours whom you accidentally kill with your stand powers as it manifests. It's called a curse.

Starting point is 03:31:44 They've given you by a cursed item. It's a stand power. And you embark on a journey to kill enough people with your stand in order to bring them back to life. And along the way you will encounter other cursed people who are other stand users and so on and so forth. But this is a visual novel so you are text battling. You are text battling and the way that ends up working is that these are massively, massively

Starting point is 03:32:19 busted abilities. So the ability that the character gets within the first half hour is the ability to instantly kill anyone who walks away from them. And so when you are talking to people and having dialogue, you are trying to keep that on the down low while simultaneously trying to convince them to literally just walk away from you for one second. And you are running into other people who have shit that is just as busted while you're scrounging around Tokyo learning about old fashioned, what's it called? What are those monsters? Yokais. And ensuing mysteries. It's written really well.

Starting point is 03:33:02 It's really exciting. It has a bunch of cool tricks associated with it being a video game that I don't want to talk about at all because they're big brain moments. Oh, this is a Sqenix game. Yep. And it says developer Sqenix as well. Yep.

Starting point is 03:33:21 So I've never heard of it until somebody recommended it to me. I mean this feels like it would be one of those like murdered soul suspects style. Kinda like out of nowhere things but doesn't say yeah. It's great. Okay. It's fucking great. Oh man, of course you gotta have your Sadako style, like ghost girl, long black hair, white

Starting point is 03:33:48 gown. Mmhmm. But, yeah, no, it's stellar. I don't know where it's going. I don't know how long it is. But it's great. That's all. It's almost 13 sentinels-y in which that's all I wanna say because it does cool shit

Starting point is 03:34:04 with its narrative. Okay. Yeah, it looks like a DS game, man. That's what it is. It looks like... Maybe a Vita game. That era of DS fucking... all of that. 100%.

Starting point is 03:34:19 100%. Interesting. Okay. That's it for Pat. If you want to check out more of my stupid show you can go down to twitch.tv slash Pat stares at it's mostly ff7 rebirth this week I gotta I gotta hang out with Gus and Karel prison and get some money by chocobo racing just like the olden days Man incest Thursday morning, however

Starting point is 03:34:48 Yoshi P has decided that the fucking live letter for ff14 that will feature the new job trailer is Gonna air at 4 a.m. Pacific So come on down to twitch.tv slash Pat Stairs at 3.30am Pacific. So we can watch the job live letter. Aw, dude, just watch the replay, man. No. Do you know? Wooly, that ruins the pop, because here's what happens.

Starting point is 03:35:32 Here's genuinely what happens with that kind of thing. You go, okay, I'll watch the replay, or I'll just watch the trailer later. And then before you can even get to it, you'll be hit with messages or visuals on wherever you have to go to watch it. That's like, new thing and like all of the actual presentation will be ruined. I guess I just do it. I mean, we're different people.

Starting point is 03:36:02 Makoto could be announced in trailer form for SF6 at 3 a.m. and I ain't doing that. I don't know, Woolly. I saw you get up and walk to a store to buy a PS5 within 30 minutes of the SF5, sorry, PS4, within 30 minutes of SF5 being announced for the fuckin' PlayStation. Oh, yeah!

Starting point is 03:36:22 But that's very, that's me getting something personally for my own shit to do That's not streaming. That's not getting on camera and going that's very different about Content creation no actually no it is the same Because whether or not I stream it I'm getting up at 330 to watch this fucking thing okay regardless of what? Okay, so there's no way so you're not gonna gonna happen so you might as well hit so I might as well try oh yeah okay I get it I get it I get it fair enough fair enough there's a for me there's a humongous difference and if I stream it my wife will think I'm less stupid mm-hmm no it's I it's not that I hate content.

Starting point is 03:37:06 Call me J. Cole. I cherish my peace. I cherish my peace, y'all. That's it, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Also of note for next week's podcast, this week my mother-in-law is visiting, which means... so we're talking to Paige's mom on the phone and I'm like, I can't wait to hear crazy stories about when Paige was a little kid. And she busted out one of the funniest stories I've ever heard in my entire life about raising

Starting point is 03:37:41 Paige as a child that had both of us like crying, laughing and just like, you know when you look over at somebody because they're talking to their parent and like, have they never told you this? And they're like, I've never heard this story once. It's just like, just that really good shit. Was there an immediate like reach out to stop the story as it was coming? No, she wanted to hear that story too. Okay, okay. Because then because it could go either way, right? There's the there's the, ah, no. Here's what happens, right? Because we have a baby now. Once you have the baby, all the really crazy baby stories that your parents were holding on to just start to spill out of them. Right, right, right. You got to put a little bit of mustard in the bottle, you see.

Starting point is 03:38:35 It's wild. This is slightly different. It's wild how like your mom will just lie about what pregnancy was like Like I talked to my mom and she'd tell me ah, you know, this was pregnant and she always said oh, I loved being pregnant It was the best time of my life. But then once Paige got pregnant Here come the real shit of like oh, yeah No My feet hurt so bad every day and I was vomiting constantly and it was probably the hardest experience I've ever had in my life, blah, blah, blah.

Starting point is 03:39:11 So I think we talked about it a bit before, but something I learned was from Punch Mom's friend when she was pregnant. She was describing how she finds herself having a hard time remembering some of the shit she went through and it turns out there's an actual phenomena of you are your body actually makes you forget the worst of it so that you don't like feel traumatized to not do it again like it's crazy. I was having a conversation with Paige about this she's like you know what that was, I felt really connected to the baby. And it was like, you know, it wasn't that hard. And like, Paige, you were walking with a cane and you had diabetes. What do you

Starting point is 03:39:55 mean it wasn't that hard? And she went, ah, I'm watching her start to do it already. Yeah. Your body gaslights you into thinking it wasn't that bad as a defense mechanism. It's unbelievable. And she's like, she remembers and like Punch Mom was talking with her friend and she's like, I have the texts of all of that. She's like, yeah, but I just want to think back on it because her friend got pregnant a second time. And so as she's going into the second one, she's oh yeah no it wasn't that bad I guess you know she's

Starting point is 03:40:28 ready to go for it and it's just it's crazy to see how quickly it does that you know man it's like like gaslighting yourself it's crazy that's real shit. Alright, so I'll have mother-in-law updates next week. Those will probably be pretty good. KKK. Alright, yeah, we had big old weeks, so we had a lot. Let's skip right to the news. Hey, if you work for Square Enix, you're fired! Fucking... Hey, this is, I guess, the third time that it's like, hey, that could have been me. That could have been, it's just, yeah. So, Squeedix, layoffs, US, Europe, as a part of a massive restructuring,

Starting point is 03:41:15 they took an investor's call, and what's going on? FF16 sales fell short of expectations. FF7 rebirth sales fell short of expectations. FF7 rebirth sales fell short of expectations. FoamStars fell short of expectations. Remaining confident. Yeah, FoamStars fell short of expect- really, did it? Turns out. Confident that 16 can achieve its original 18-month sales plan.

Starting point is 03:41:40 Sales of rebirth and FoamStars aren't necessarily that bad, but reorganization and restructuring across the board. And one of the biggest takeaways is, oh yeah, well Dragon Quest is still under development. Investors sell a bunch of shares, concerns about the pipelines, yadda yadda, stuff over the next few years is dicey. So massive commitment to multi-platform, big policy change. The exclusivity is pretty much dead with everything they're going to work on going forward. And yeah, they're going to be just treating PlayStation, Xbox, PC, Nintendo platforms

Starting point is 03:42:24 as evenly as possible for releases because I guess whatever the exclusivity they're getting paid was just not worth it. Everything fell short of its mark, apparently. So you're fired. It's also screwed up because once again, hey, do you live in America? Out the door by the end of the day. Hey, do you live in Europe? I guess you'll get fired in a little bit. We'll talk about it. Do you live in Japan? No fire. No fire for you.

Starting point is 03:42:52 Protections. Yep. Do we have numbers? I don't know if we have numbers on the amount of people that have been let off, but we, yeah, it's primarily US and UK based staff. Usually when this happens, I guess by next week, we'll probably know exactly how many people are affected. But yeah, that's, it's just, hey, it's the same story again, another week. Again. Oh, fun.

Starting point is 03:43:30 So I didn't want to talk about this until I got confirmation from a second news source, but the Microsoft's also offering buyouts to a bunch of developers at their other internal studios. Oh, okay. So if they don't hit the numbers on those buyouts, more layoffs coming. Big fan of like immediately after last week's episode two,

Starting point is 03:43:54 that was when we got the like, damn, we need more games like Hi-Fi Rush. Like fucking. I think that is like the ultimate proof that Hi-Fi Rush was supposed to die. Like they wrote that company off like before that game even came out. I retweeted a good tweet from, I want to say it's Mazio Dorchide. I'm sure I'm saying that wrong, but things that will no longer keep you safe in this industry.

Starting point is 03:44:33 A good game, a profitable game, a viral game, a big publisher, a small publisher, a big team, a small team, a rich parent company, an ethical parent company experience long hours Sacrifice like it just doesn't nothing nothing nothing matters. It doesn't matter All the things that would have been like all well, maybe that Being a c-suite exec however, that's a different story Okay, there's um there's a different story. Okay.

Starting point is 03:45:05 So there's a fucking, people are diving deep on Matt Booty right now, and of note is the Double Fine documentary that came out, where there's a part of it where Matt Booty is explaining to Double Fine employees how they need to stop moonlighting and having ideas that aren't owned by the company, and everyone just looks like they're going to kill themselves.

Starting point is 03:45:30 Yeah, I've mentioned before talking to people on dev teams that have had conversations with their supervisors that have just been like, this is completely insane obviously, but because it's the policy, whatever you got to do, just make sure I don't see or hear it and that'll be all. We'll just never have this conversation again and we're fine. So, um, it also came out or reminded people that, uh, Microsoft passed on GTA 3 way back in the day. Oh, really? Yeah, they passed.

Starting point is 03:46:11 So they passed on GTA 3, RE4. As an exclusive. Yeah. Spider-Man, Genshin Impact, and thus all subsequent Chinese phone stuff. Um. Oh my God, oh my god So like they like the past on Baldur's Gate 3 2 they passed on motion controls for the Wii on motion controls for the Wii. How were they winning the 360 era? How did that actually... I mean, we know how, but like- The PS3 was incredibly hard to develop for.

Starting point is 03:46:55 Yeah, no. We know how and then the price point and then the et cetera, but it's like, yeah, there was no way they were going to hold onto that. you in retrospect. It's fucking crazy. Oh my god I saw somebody point out that if the warranty hadn't got extended on the red ring They would have exited the the fucking generation then Could you imagine if they had not extended the warranty for red ring Everyone's everyone's console would have ever played Xbox ever again. All your, fuck you, yeah. Mid-generation.

Starting point is 03:47:30 So, I gotta leave in a second to feed the dog, but I'll be back, obviously. But before I do, I want to point out that these guys are balancing their budget on a 90-day schedule. I want to point out that like, so these guys are balancing their budget on like a 90 day schedule. Like, oh, arcane and Hi-Fi rush, we're going to start new games and that costs money. Cut it. Double Fine and Obsidian are going to ship games and then want to start new games. Like, like they can only do this like five more times and then they will have like fired every studio. Oh Ninja Theory's fucking dead in like a month.

Starting point is 03:48:09 I was just gonna say dude Hellblade, I legit, I do- You mean the game they're not advertising just like Hi-Fi Rush? I really liked Hellblade. I really, I want Hellblade 2 and man like it's crazy it's it's absolutely like you can't like next Tuesday yes coming out this Tuesday yeah Yeah, okay. So I saw somebody surmise that their idea is to buy up a lot of video game companies and close them down so that there's no more games and that gets them the money. I don't know.

Starting point is 03:49:02 Dude, after I learned about that fucking Embracer Tech of the sacrificial lamb that you can slaughter and put all your sins on and make God kill like, like, like that one, I didn't know that was tech. That was that's and that's and that's news to me. All right. All right. I'll be right here. BRB. All right. The only way to not get fired by working in the games industry is to stop working in the games industry.

Starting point is 03:49:29 Yes. Or if you get lucky and you made something cool, it might not get taken away from you and stolen. You might, if you get lucky, get it back. We reported a couple months ago, maybe weeks, Adult Swim games were shutting down and there goes all the Adult Swim games. Goodbye. Fuck you.

Starting point is 03:49:57 There was a lot of confusion as to what was going to happen there. Well, some good news. It seems that in Warner Brothers shutting it down, they've reached out to all the creators and the devs of the games and they're returning control to the original developers. So games like Duck Game and anything else that was published under Adult Swim is just going to go right back to the devs and they'll be able to, I guess, do whatever they want, you know, re-upload or resell or do whatever.

Starting point is 03:50:27 So, like, it's so fucked because somebody in the chat said, oh, finally some good news. This isn't good news. Woo the bare minimum. This is, this is like neutral non-news. But because it's so fucked lately, I guess it is like hooray They didn't steal all the work from the people that made the things and then destroy them forever It's like me salty like it's like me going outside and be like, thank goodness I didn't get hit by lightning today and you go but what that you're not supposed to I'm like

Starting point is 03:51:01 Yeah, well a lot of people in my neighborhood get hit by lightning like a lot But what? You're not supposed to. I'm like, yeah, well, a lot of people in my neighborhood get hit by lightning. Like a lot. Yeah. Well, it turns out that you signed a deal that forced you to wear a fucking antenna on your head. Oh, I shouldn't have signed that.

Starting point is 03:51:16 Shouldn't have signed that. Yeah. So, great. That's nice. That's a whole lot of games that... I mean, yeah. so Duck Game, Samurai Zero was under them as well, I want to say, and a whole list of shit. So as all the Warner Brothers shut down and Fallout occurs, just destroying a bunch of

Starting point is 03:51:43 indie devs' ability to fucking own their work for no reason would have just been the most callous nonsense regardless. So that's cool. And it's great to see, it's great when perhaps you can say it's an unforeseen issue is then corrected like Helldivers 2. You know, Sony did pull back and say, hey, hey, hold on. They pulled, they pulled back and they said, hey guys, we heard you. We heard what we saw and we're going to make it so that it is not mandatory to sign in to PSN anymore.

Starting point is 03:52:28 So good news everyone. Everyone good news. Okay, so what if I live in the hundred and eighty countries that are... Sorry, hundred and seventy seven countries that are... I can't play Hailedivers. Can I play it again? Oh, fuck yourself yourself Eat shit fuck you So bad go cry so sad not only Did they not roll that back they added three more countries? so that lists turn it so there was so because Because there was a hundred and seventy seven countries that also were that were blocked in the initial list but 180 were blocking Ghost of Tsushima that was a

Starting point is 03:53:11 Steam issue so Steam's initial rollout was supposed to be the 180 so they automatically updated it to include the extra three. Yeah so what we do is we actually say you don't have to sign up for PSN anymore but all those other countries where you could have bought the game we just say you don't have to sign up for PSN anymore But all those other countries where you could have bought the game. We just said you can't buy it there anymore I don't understand so like The same thing from last week, which is only 9% of super earth can actually play the game Yes, in fact, we've that's correct Like but what about all the people that yet? We don't care

Starting point is 03:53:42 We literally do not care. We will simply make it so that it is not available for sale in those territories. I've seen something this week that I really don't like. And so I'm not sure if you're aware but a game called Animal Well came out this week. And apparently it's fantastic. Apparently it's stellar. I haven't played it myself, but apparently everyone I've seen who's played it has been raving about it. And it's done by Dunkey, you know the YouTuber Dunkey? His publishing company.

Starting point is 03:54:11 That's the first game. Okay, I heard about that because yeah, he announces making his own small publishing thing. Yeah, yeah yeah yeah so so you cut yourself off but you actually started to say the phrase oh donkey made that game no I didn't no no no I knew he was a publisher right I was sorry I thought you were you're saying that but this week when we've been talking about how fucked up Microsoft is as the publisher and Sony now I have seen just a

Starting point is 03:54:47 Cavalcade of shit on social media like oh, that's that game. Donkey made. Oh, yeah. No, that's like no He saw a good one and he published it with money In fact didn't make it we just talked last week about how there's a that the the post that was like Here are the platforms that tell you who the publisher and developer are here are the platforms where they hide the developer and don't list them So you just see the publisher It's like he absolutely deserves credit for off of seemingly picking a diamond out of the rough and picking a good one to Publish it but the man didn't make it. That's

Starting point is 03:55:25 not what publishers do. Yeah. Oh, that, yeah. Somebody points out the IGN quote about Warren Spector is incredible, which is Warren Spector says, you know, games are a team effort. I don't think you can assign responsibility to any one person." And then it goes, Warren Spector, creator of Deus Ex. Oh, that tasty morsel. Oh, that's delicious.

Starting point is 03:55:58 That's really, really, really good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that's delicious. That's really, really, really good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, OK, OK. Yeah, no, it is quite like, it's something that's interesting. Because I feel like I've never thought about that. But it's definitely something I noticed where, yeah, you'll go to like the, when you're browsing like the Wii

Starting point is 03:56:24 shop or so, and it'll just be like, here's this game, Square Enix. And you're like, and who? Just don't, shut up, Square, shut up. Don't worry about it. Okay, so there's a minor update from the CEO of Helldivers. Besides the, yeah, we want the game to be playable everywhere, this sucks. No, there's that this is still mostly that but he actually Explains why more countries were added to the ban

Starting point is 03:56:52 It's actually steams fault, that's what I said that I I'm sorry. Yes, they were supposed to make it 180 countries like they did for I'm sorry. Okay. I thought it was something new. So yeah, it sucks. It's stupid. It's just the ultimate like, oh never mind we're... Now remember the campaign that was like, alright Helldivers, it's time to reverse those downvotes. Oh, put them back.

Starting point is 03:57:28 Like the flag is rising and there's no, no, shove it back in. Shove the flag back in. Okay. No, no, no, no, no. Pull it out again. Pull it out. Rise the flag. Oh, God.

Starting point is 03:57:38 Where are we going with this flag, man? Half mass, half mass. Open the gates, close the gates. Open the gates a little bit. It's so stupid to just actually be like we're sorry you got mad at us for fucking over everyone who paid money for the games. The servers in those countries will still have be up and people who are playing will still be able to play there because you bought it and you played, but anyone else, fuck you, because yeah, PSN too important.

Starting point is 03:58:08 You know, it's so fucking stupid, because I was like, hey man, I really don't wanna play Helldivers anymore, this is a bummer, and then they fixed it. I was like, oh man, this makes me feel really good about Helldivers, and now I'm right back to like, yeah, I don't think I'm ever gonna play Helldivers ever again.

Starting point is 03:58:22 I just, I can't believe the level of like you Really just don't care about the income that you can make from 180 countries on planet Earth like that's that's so Insane to me in this time when we're talking about it's more closing more important that I get my way I like we're talking about the shutdowns, the fire rings, the closings, all the decision making. It's like the entire planet, you're actually quadrupling down now and going, yeah, it's just that important to get number of subscriptions going up. And part of the push to PC, the whole I suspect that one of the reasons they started to put games out on PC

Starting point is 03:59:27 has nothing to do with selling games. It's just to increase the number of PSN members. So we theorized when we saw the Death Stranding and Horizon coming to PC just in time for the updates or the sequels or whatever as a as a like, oh, this is a way of advertising the new version of the game coming out. Right. Yeah. And also PC versions can take a while. Sure. But it just you would then therefore assume that if you're going to maximize the game's availability, you're trying to recoup as much as you can on a port to make more money, right? Like, is that not what we're trying to do?

Starting point is 04:00:13 The general gist of the idea of like, make an account for this has been, so we saw for EA, we saw for Ubisoft, we saw for everybody, which is like, hey, they have to make an EA account that is an EA account that is an Origin account on Steam to play our games. And if they already have an Origin account, then that means they're more likely to go to Origin and buy games there. And I think we have seen conclusively for every attempt on this idea that that doesn't work at all and results in nothing.

Starting point is 04:00:45 And the only thing that helps is the quarter that you institute that, so signups for your service go up a little bit. Yep, yep, yep, yep, exactly, exactly, yes. There is a period of time where the metric of signups to the service is worth more than a sale of the game. It is worth-

Starting point is 04:01:11 It's maybe they're going to buy a PlayStation and then buy other games on PlayStation 5, right? And a full on, full price purchase of the game means less than you signing up with your email onto this account for this. Yeah, absolutely. It's the only way to make it make sense. There's no other way where you're like, you're throwing away everyone that wants to play

Starting point is 04:01:32 these games in these places for- You know, this is a bit back to Microsoft, but it's all kind of connected. Microsoft bought Bethesda and Activision Blizzard for maybe a combined total of $80 billion. Now people can point out that the net revenue of Candy Crush is like a billion dollars a year and the net revenue of Call of Duty can be like two. But I don't think there's enough money in the games business for Microsoft to make that money back because look at like Grand Theft Auto 5.

Starting point is 04:02:11 Grand Theft Auto 5 has made like, I don't know, what is it, like 10 billion, 9 billion over like a Grand Theft Auto 5 level success that took place entirely in one year, every year for ten years. See, like it doesn't, that money doesn't exist. Like remember when it was like, you know, we talked about our, like the old days of like the Capcom tests and the things where it was like, you know, we talk about the old days of like the Capcom tests and the things where it's like, hey, this Devil May Cry sold more than any other in the franchise previously ever. It eclipsed to the last one by double.

Starting point is 04:02:54 Fell short of expectations, failure. Oh, Square says they fell. We talked about that before. That's what I'm saying, yeah. They won't tell us what their expectations are. Right? They won't tell us what they are. So Right? They won't tell us what they are. So now we're in this world where you're like, okay,

Starting point is 04:03:08 what are these ethereal nonsense numbers that they're holding up for each of these games? And you're like, are we actually living in a world where they're opening up a fucking chart and they're looking at like goals for each of these games and going, you know what, Fortnite beat us. That's a failure. You know what?

Starting point is 04:03:27 Oh, I mean, I'm pretty sure I spoke to one Woolly Madden long time ago. Oh, what did he have to say? He had to say, I'm like, Woolly, what the fuck is going on with Tomb Raider? Why are they adding multiplayer to this shit? Why are they spending so much money on this marketing? And he told me, well, you see, Pat, if we add $10 million of marketing and we add whatever the fuck the multiplayer costs, we can multiply that amount by some imaginary fucking number. And at the end, it equals how much money we're gonna make we're gonna make that much because we put this much and now you can multiply it it's

Starting point is 04:04:12 like and I said that seems fucking stupid Wooly and you went yeah it's like it's like balotro you just get the Joker maltt-up and then malt-up, malt-up. And also, where is Microsoft going to get these $5 billion a year games when they're closing all their studios? So that's, I mean, you said it at the beginning and I was like, we're no longer, we don't know what those goals were. We don't know what those numbers are. Do you remember Phil Spencer like two years ago talking about how cool it would be to

Starting point is 04:04:51 buy a Nintendo? Do you remember that? Oh, vaguely, vaguely. He was like, oh, you know, it'd be hard for them to see that the best future is with us on our hardware. The Nintendo that made more money than they ever have in their entire lifetime with just the Switch. So here's what I see happening. So I described the Microsoft situation as Microsoft is trying to buy itself out of the

Starting point is 04:05:20 problem of not being able to buy themselves out of their problems by buying themselves out of a problem. I have a very, my idea, they are going to close down Double Fine and Obsidian. And when they do that, they're going to buy another developer. They're going to try and buy Capcom or Konami or some other fucking large-ish Japanese developer and that's going to save them. I wonder if we even hear about moves like that. Attempts at that, I wonder if we even hear about that. I have spoken to someone that told me

Starting point is 04:06:05 that they tried to talk to Capcom and Square Enix a couple years ago. Yes, absolutely, not even remotely surprising. But they were politely pushed out of the office. Yes, absolutely, no, yeah. Full on Balmer Suck My Balls era, you know? But I don't expect that to make the front page news when that shit goes down. Hilariously so.

Starting point is 04:06:35 Yeah. Yeah. You know what? Watch them try and buy Sega. Watch that. Man. It's so wild when we were in that era when I was there and it was like, oh man, the Japanese game industry is struggling right now, the West is taking over.

Starting point is 04:06:51 Hell, that era's done. And it's just like- They had their fucking shot and they blew it. But just like, part of that is also just by virtue of like, well the current industry in Japan is not being fired at record rates because there's protections against that that are stopping this from happening. Yeah, I don't think we've ever gone into it on the podcast, but like, you know what? Microsoft's biggest problem, bigger than all of this, bigger than all of this, is their

Starting point is 04:07:16 refusal to hire people full-time. Microsoft will only put contractors on projects for the majority of roles. So like Halo, Halo Infinite was mostly staffed by a rotating set of 18 month long contract workers, which is why parts of that game came out so fucked up. I think Square Enix talked about how back on the Xbox. No, it wasn't square. It was a Hino nobu Sakaguchi for miss Walker Said he had to create a fake shell company so that he would be allowed to hire extra staff on lost Odyssey Yes, I remember that I remember that back then. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they had a number that they were not allowed and it was it doesn't matter How inefficient it doesn't matter if it matter if the numbers don't make sense.

Starting point is 04:08:06 There is a hard cap on the number of staff you can have. Because it's a weird management style that went into Xbox from Microsoft. From years ago. But like, these are not, like software development, I don't know much about it, but I kinda get how you might be able to have contract workers for the grunt shit.

Starting point is 04:08:22 But like artistic endeavor shit? You can't just...fuck oh my god. Yeah I've some word I remember that article got dug up recently and was about the specific Lost Odyssey case and like the hoops they had to jump through. Awesome! Alright great good stuff we got an email send it to castlesuper at gmail.com. That's castle super beast at gmail.com Well, hey, there's there's two there's give me more news. Give me one more news. Okay, there's two more news two cool things are happening one there is a a

Starting point is 04:08:57 third strike Celebration manga that's coming out. That's cool. Yeah being it's just it's Street Fighter 3 third strike 25th anniversary celebration manga that's coming out. That's cool. Yeah, being, it's Street Fighter III, Third Strike 25th Anniversary Celebration Manga. You can go check out Motoki Yoshihara's Twitter to see a couple of sketches and what's going on with that. But he's an artist that's been working on, well he did some work for Capcom for Senkoku Basara, and he's done a ton of work for them

Starting point is 04:09:21 for Japanese tournaments like Cooperation Cup and stuff. He's done a bunch of artwork for Third Strike for the last fucking 20 years and has been- Is that cover art Sean getting his fucking shit rocked? He's been a beast. Yeah, Sean getting his shit rocked and a whole lot. He's been doing Third Strike art for years so it looks like an actual project is going down and the dude's- I think he had a quote that's just just like no matter how hard I try. I can't stop drawing third strike Sounds like fuck. Yeah, that's great. That's cool. Please look forward to it

Starting point is 04:09:56 Yeah, I put a link there and it's in the description as well and also hey yo Nick Cage is gonna be spider-man noir in a live action TV series Sure, he seems cool. He's gonna be Spider-Man Noir in a live action TV series. I like Nick Cage. Sure. He seems cool. He's gonna be buried in a pyramid. I remember reading Spider-Man Noir and I remember liking it, but I don't remember anything that specifically happened outside of, oh man, the noir aesthetic is cool. Yeah, that's good because they don't need to, yeah.

Starting point is 04:10:21 Which is the energy they brought into Spider verse, which is a hundred percent it It's just yeah, like ah, look at him being all noir and he's got a grappling hook. Yeah So we'll see what the fuck that is Wive live-action a grappling hook. It's it's whatever. Well, you know And yeah, that's it. All right, send a letter to castle super beast mill at gmail.com Yeah, that's it. All right, send a letter to castlesuperbeastmail.com. Or don't. Okay.

Starting point is 04:10:50 Let's see, we got one coming in here from... Oh yeah, Dracula's coming to Dead by Daylight. Oh yeah. Dracula from Castlevania. I sawlight. Oh, yeah. Dracula from Castlevania. I saw it. Specifically. It's so weird because Dracula's free. You don't have to use the Castlevania one.

Starting point is 04:11:13 But that's the one that can say all the memes and can do the cool moves that you know. Does that mean you're going to get to fucking pick up a cross and a whip and do wild shit as one of the escapees. Okay. There's one coming in from Tim and Spokane who says, Dear Bait Godwouli and Ping Master Pat, your talk about pinging systems in League of Legends recently and how it isn't nearly as bad for toxicity as chat had me laughing because of an issue League had not too long ago.

Starting point is 04:11:48 League reworked their pinging system and added more options so that people wouldn't need to type as much, but they included a ping called Bait, either for planning a bait or warning your team about one. The design of the ping icon was such that it was a fishing hook, but the way the hook curved around made it look similar to the rope of a hanging noose. You gotta be fucking kidding me. Combine this with the loud noises that pings make on your team and you've suddenly got a new loud in-game element that tells your teammates to go hang themselves, which is

Starting point is 04:12:17 what the ping quickly became used for before it was outright removed from the game for what devs called unacceptable usage. Can you think of any changes that a dev team has made in the past with the intent being used for something else in a similar way? That's just pretty good. To get to that level of creativity, yeah, okay. So I haven't played so I couldn't tell you

Starting point is 04:12:42 but I remember there being something about spitting in wow Right there was a there was a spit emote and then people got and then they got rid of it and like I heard They're like people were like abusing it for and stuff But then there were also people were using it to like spit on paid mounts or something. Mm-hmm. Yeah, they were Ff 14 PvP you can only select from like five or six like pre-made messages Like they just they like the only way to communicate at all is to be like good job or they're coming this way But People just spam nice job

Starting point is 04:13:23 When people fuck up. Yeah Good yeah, nice job. Good job. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In 14, you can write, you can put like markers down for positions, like if you need to move around, so like a little football field. So you can write down one, two, three, four, and A, B, C, D, right? So you have eight. But turns out, if you put D, oneBA4 it looks like you wrote dickbag. Dickbag, yeah. So people would save that and then place it inside dungeons on enemies or players they didn't like. Dickbag.

Starting point is 04:14:04 That's still there. That's not going anywhere. Doesn't Fortnite also just remove emotes like every two seconds because they always become something terrible? I feel like I've heard about multiple waves of introduction. They had the whipping one that went to the Fortnite with the Martin Luther King. Yep, yep that was one of them but I just I feel like there's always perpetually some sort of Fortnite banning emotes going on. Yeah, probably.

Starting point is 04:14:29 Okay, great. Wonderful. And let's take one from Davo who says, Dear Lords of Castle Superbeast. What's up, man? Are you ever willing to give gyro aiming a genuine shot? It's been getting a lot more support outside Nintendo console games because people realize it's flat out better than analog stick aiming. PS Fortnite, Helldivers 2 and COD have gyro on PlayStation and PC.

Starting point is 04:14:50 Yeah, I'm bad at it. I don't mind. I'm down. If the game incorporates it in a way where it's intended, I grew to appreciate some of it with Splatoon, but that's a unique use case for the game and the way you shoot it in that game, covering know, covering ground and such. I'm not opposed to it if it's implemented in a way that doesn't annoy me, I guess, but the onus is on the game to do that, you know, subtle... I'm awful at it. Awful.

Starting point is 04:15:19 Can't hit the broad side of a fucking barn with it. Did Returnal have any of that? I don't think so. No. I guess Returnal was just the other DualSense stuff that was going on with it. But wasn't there something to movement with the controller? There was something about Returnal that was like, oh shit, this has actually done well. I forget what, but something about it. Anyway.

Starting point is 04:15:46 Yeah. All right. It just, it needs to be properly implemented in the game, but I've seen evidence of it working. Splatoon has proven that. It doesn't work in everything. Every single time I run into a game that has it, I give it a shot and then die instantly because I'm horrible, horrible at it. And I don't know how you're supposed to improve at it because I just wildly overshot everything. And the other thing is that when I'm moving, my camera starts to go everywhere. Because I don't sit perfectly still.

Starting point is 04:16:15 Haptic feedback on the triggers, that's what it was. The half charge, full charge bits, yes, that was cool. There are times I've switched the keyboard and PlayStation controller over to the gyro typing. That's been faster for me, but, you know, that's the main use case. Yeah, that'll do. Alright. Okay, bye everybody. Don't get fired.

Starting point is 04:16:33 Pfft. Try not to get fired, Rex. Don't get struck by lightning, guys. Yeah, don't do it. Thanks for watching!

Castle Super Beast - CSB 269: WWG1WGBBL

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