Castle Super Beast - CSB 275: I Don't Believe in Plants

Episode Date: June 25, 2024

Download for Mobile | Podcast Preview | Full Timestamps Miyazaki Lied: Shadow of The Erdtree First Impressions  FF7 Rebirth, and the Rebuild of Evangelion Problem Marvel Lives! That Nintendo Direct Was a Banger APM Doesn't Matter And Other Huge Misconceptions Watch live: twitch.tv/castlesuperbeast Go to http://shopify.com/superbeast to sign up for a $1-per-month trial period. MARVEL vs. CAPCOM Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics! 7 legendary games, all in one Super Heroic collection Nintendo Direct June 2024 The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom launches for Nintendo Switch on Sept. 26. Mario & Luigi: Brothership launches on Nintendo Switch Nov. 7. DRAGON QUEST III HD-2D Remake DRAGON QUEST I & II HD-2D Remake Super Mario Party Jamboree Donkey Kong Country Returns HD swings onto Nintendo Switch Jan. 16, 2025 Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, a new entry in the Metroid Prime series, is coming to Nintendo Switch in 2025 Apparently some people are finding the Elden Ring DLC so difficult that you can turn it into a business Embracer rolls out new AI policy to 'massively enhance game development' Slay the Princess dev tells players to pirate the game instead of just watching playthroughs My Hero Academia is ending in five chapters, as per the newest Jump PRESS showcase. Hollow Knight: Silksong is "not in dev hell," says tester who finds fan cynicism "disheartening" but agrees developer Team Cherry "should be better" at communicating according to playtester and semi-regular Team Cherry correspondent Graig  

["Sailor Moon Theme"] Hey, welcome to the podcast. How many hours in that DLC so far? Oh, let's do a math Nine nine Two 20 Okay, okay. Yeah, and size the limb grave my fucking ass surface barely scratched oh No, I've I'm getting in there. Okay. Oh, I'm getting the fuck in there

so The one of the interesting things is that we're back to the difficulty discussion once again And a soul shadow of the earth tree by the way shadow of the earth tree. We're talking about the Elden Ring DLC We're everyone's talking about the Elden Ring DLC. Everyone's talking about, oh it's so hard, whatever. Like the game just resets you back down to like basically how strong you felt when you started the game. So you still have your levels and all that but...

You still have the ability to equip your gear and your spells. But the DLC scaling is with new items that are these ashes that make you 8% stronger per ash the 5 to 10 something something in there I heard I heard something like that which is significant that's pretty big point is is that you can get up to 20 upgrades so at 20 upgrades at even 5% is literally double. Yeah, and you also get a second thing that's supposed to deal with your summons and your buddies, your ashes.

Yeah, your buddies. Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. I mean, I was looking at the amount of souls it would take to get another level anyways, and I was like, oh yeah, this is going to like I'm you know way too fucking thick for that so so what are you at like 180 or 200? 180 yeah okay you're gonna get levels in this DLC okay there are I'm I'm I'm fighting bosses that are dropping like 2 to 300k it is it is interesting though to see something like walk around and the first couple of grunts

are like one, two hit drops. They are jokes. And then go into the first little, you know, downstairs boss zone and fight a non-joke. Fight an extreme non-joke. Right away, yeah. So you're like, okay, just so you know, you're right, the dudes you punched to walk into this room melted when you looked at them and the dude in the room feels like, yeah, come back in a little bit.

I feel like that's there specifically to fuck with you, because all of those Shadow guys, when you start the DLC, are just like nearly one or two hits. And then there's that Chakram freak that jumps down at you right away, and then there's that Wolverine dude in the forest, and then the guy in the jail which are all extremely forreal. I mean it is cool just I guess seeing like a Dexie spinny fucker coming at you and you're like take one swing okay I'm gonna need a couple of these to drop you so they're basically like yeah they've laid it out so that it's like there is a wide range of players and levels They have to challenge with this

It's not an enviable task to try and figure out how to make it work for everyone of all builds As far as I've been going through it. It seems to work pretty well mmm, I did um, I Mean I thought that fucker in the first jail work pretty well. I did. I mean, I thought that fucker in the first jail. Yeah, like I took a took a crack at that. And I was like, okay, you're at the end of the day, you're still just like a player character build, you know, so we've you know, you know how to deal with a lot of those in terms of behavior wise. But the fucking cannon from the dude in the hallway

at Hogwarts is right there to just let you know, like yeah, no, that's a one shot. There's a couple of one shots here. I think I took like a handful of cracks at it and I can see him like okay, I can probably Offstream like take some time with this even though it's gonna be a like get hit thrice and die It was where I was at versus swing at him You know for the better part of

Five ten minutes and then he'll drink at one point five, ten minutes and then he'll drink at one point. So one of the things that I found really interesting, so I've been like flying through the DLC, which like everyone has been complaining about the difficulty. The difficulty of the Shadow of the Earth Tree DLC is higher than Elden Ring. It is statistically anyway post-Halig tree onwards. It's as if this was just the next batch of levels. But there is a trick to it, like a legitimate trick to flying through this really fast. And that is to purge yourself of the nonsense, get good idea and start cheating. So like I went in with a bunch of different types of weapon against the the the armored knight guy that we're talking about in the little jail to the left. Yeah. And I had the final boss greatsword, you know, the one that is wave of gold.

The big thing that knocks him down. Interesting. It knocks him down every time. Interesting. OK, so fucking. Huh. So I mean, I was I was I'm going to I was going to pop this up on the on the footage when I get back to it. But I after the stream attempts of going at it, was like, yeah, getting getting, you know, three shot it or two shot it or so. I just went back in after the fact took a second and gave it another three attempts and got

it no problem. Yeah, just realizing where the swing problem where like the pattern is on the swing. And then I used I have the Talisman that makes my jump attacks hurt more better And I couldn't get any staggers or like crumples on him ever. I don't think that's gonna happen with him But I got a like a interruption on his whatever combo he's doing with a jump attack You know a jump heavy and I was like, okay great I'll just use those and back the fuck off with blood, you know, and that was kind of all it needed to be.

Yeah, absolutely. I see it. No, no, no ashes to be called in that fight for sure. No. And like later on, I fought like a very classic from software boss, you know, a spinning swordsman kind of character. Right. I went in in with the biggest weapon I could handle, all my dragon fucking breath spells, the NPC that helps you in the fight for free, and my spirit ash, and just stomp on them. Cheat harder than you could ever cheat it. It's cheating you. I can I see that Like they're there like the the whole like don't use summons. That's so stupid There are only two new types of upgrades in this fucking DLC and one of them is for your summits

I was gonna say that I have proven Myself to myself on these ulcerated tree fucks. I'm done. I'm very, very done. Well, Wully, I know. I have some good news for you. I have some legitimately good news for you about those ulcerated tree fucks.

You have proven yourself, and you know exactly how to handle them, which is great, because you're gonna have to handle at least three more. Is it? Like, is it just because of the lore implication of that enemy that they show up as often or is it actually Like we know and we're fucking with you. I Can't tell because it's also a poison swamp So the fact that it's in a poison swamp makes me think you're fucking with me

So the fact that it's in a poison swap makes me think you're fucking with me It could go either way on that there is obviously like a lore implication And the other thing is that it's a cut enemy from Dark Souls 3 that was supposed to be like a really big deal in that game Cuz like I'm never gonna look at the the tree guardians for example and be like oh not another one cuz I'm like I get It they sit at the base of a fucking tree, right? They're a very dedicated boss fight for a dedicated space. And when you take them out you get a specific mechanic of the orbs, you know, for your for your physics.

And it makes sense why that exists in the world in the lore. But the ulcerated fucks have no rhyme or reason. They just pop up wherever they want to. They're shitbags in all locations at all times. And whether they're spewing yellow or fucking pink or whatever the fuck, it's the same shit every time. And it's just like, there was a wall that the first one presented as your first major dungeon enemy and, you know, to be like oh shit oh fuck plus the the animation on it is really like wild and impressive because it's so hard

to understand what you're looking at and then 18 of them later you're like I'm just my brain is off right now you know so yeah I don't know what the deal is like if you're good if I'm hearing about all the reskins. Why not reskin that? Harder another one and another way do something god damn it So in terms of in terms of enemy variety yeah, you run into at least I fought two ulcerated tree beasts No archery avatars There's a lot of new enemies here. There's a ton. Okay, so people are exaggerating the recycling. I mean, there's a couple that are recycling. There's a really good example. There's a couple

of standard dragon types around, but they have a different damage type and they're being put into weird situations. When you fought the Ice Dragon or the Magic Dragon or whatever in Elden Ring proper, it was like, I'm going to go into the lake or field or whatever and I'm just going to fucking throw down in the middle of this. In the DLC, there are extenuating circumstances to the areas that you're fighting them in. Okay. Around the time of Altus Plateau, I started getting a bit tired of them draggos. And I think like, it was like, yeah, I'm you know It didn't overstates welcome as hard as the tree spirit, but I started to feel it a little bit there

And then admittedly like placid you sacks fucking rock that shit hard and brought it back. I'm incredibly so well, you know But I just the regular standard dragon type of your rainbow variety was Overstaying its welcome. I think they they did a so there is a Area in this game that has like a lot of dragons in it And I think they really nailed the specific amounts of which types in that there is like one cap of which types in that there is like one. OK. OK. OK. And you're like, oh, it's one of those. Let's let's do this again.

Yeah, I mean, it would be anyway. I mean, I know that this is also what comes with the idea that you're getting 60 plus hours of DLC, which is a it's a new video game. Right. There's just, there's no, the only reason you would call it not a full video game is because it happens to be a FromSoft game and they're doing this size of shit, but by any other metric in any other circumstance, this is a whole new thing, right? So I'm flying through it, I did 20 hours and like, you know, hither and thither off stream to like find some scatter tree fragments that I missed kind of thing. And I easily have at least 15 more and I haven't

gotten stuck on anything yet. Like I think the longest boss I took to fight was an hour and a half. So if I was getting stuck here and there, or exploring things a little less conscientiously, yeah, no, there's a real ass video game here. What's your approach to build in terms of, to the build you're running in terms of like, I guess, just fun versus optimized versus new shit. Well, so here, so this is actually, man, this is the most interesting thing about the way I played it so far. So I went and leveled my character up to 50 in every stat because I wanted to pick up

every single item off the ground and use it. Gotcha. Okay. I wanted, so 50 is below the soft cap for all of them so it's not broken. But if I see an intelligence weapon, I want to be able to pick it up and use it. If I see a faith weapon, I want to pick it up and use it, etc. Yeah. Okay. And I originally put myself on- I'm very far from that. Yeah. Not that far if you keep playing the DLC actually. You get a lot of souls. Ruins. Sorry, I keep doing it. Special DLC runes. Yeah. Yeah. But originally I was like,

as I got DLC items, I just directly replaced every single thing in my kit with exclusively DLC items. Okay. And I was like, I'm going to beat this using only items found in the DLC. And then that was shown to me that that is not viable. Okay. That is not viable. I mean- The stuff you're getting in the DLC is in some cases really powerful But it is not to be a wholesale replacement for your gear in the main game like if I had enough Arcane then sure I try to run a little aki build and see what this cool poison hand thing is about you know

But if I if I have to go do a full-on sit and respect for it go egg up then like man Maybe there are larval tears hiding around in the DLC as well. Yeah I've got I've got a I'd say for me. It's like I got it immediately like the the Possibility of this being a main kit replacement for me to go sit and spec, you know Yeah, so I don't end up having to respec. I just put it on. And that's what's leading me to the realization of that.

The DLC is numerically hard enough that it will mandate you switching up at least something about the way you're encountering the game. So by the time I got to the end of Elden Ring, I had like talismans that stayed on my bar for like 50 hours. Yeah, same. That had just not come off because they're like, they're just too good. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Especially once you start, because the thing is too is like, yeah, I'm remembering going back to this as I'm like, wait, what does each button

do again? And like going through that whole like remembering how to play because I'm looking at I'm like Oh literally a game has not been touched since like two years ago exactly almost to the day, right? and There's yeah There's a bunch of talismans and a bunch of consumables and like again We think about the talk about perfumes and cracked, you know this and that and whatever where it's like Okay, this is the one that works and this is the one that bang for your buck Even though the description says raises your HP a little bit

This is the one that I that helped push it all the way through and hit great and so on. Yeah So like no reason to switch that up That has changed That has changed very strongly. So what I had back, way back, was I had Alexander Shard for the weapon arts, I had the one that let you cast a Rattigan's Icon to cast spells faster, I had the turtle head for extra stamina, etc. And maybe like the jar for extra equipment, right? I'm pulling these off to equip fucking fire resistance talismans. Really? Okay. Because the main thing that the DLC has and the way that the stats work

in the DLC in Elden Ring is that you can't get enough health. Like, the difference at this stage of the game is are you dying in one or two or three hits? And getting that third hit, oh, that's a big deal. That's a really big deal. So yeah, I fought a boss that I actually put on a goddamn fire resistance talisman just to cut it a little because I was getting hit by a flame attack that was doing 90% of my health from full okay and it was like oh fuck yeah I guess I guess like you got to pick a weakest link of the

set and be willing to rotate that out I only picked picked up the, there was like a poison resistance one for getting down to the fucking swamp at the bottom of that first legacy dungeon. And it was like, yeah, that's some good resistance over there, that's nice, but what do I need this for, to run around this air room for two seconds? I'm good. You know, like, that's kinda pointless pointless So I haven't seen the wall yet

Did you beat up that big old furnace bitch? I took a swing at the furnace feet and I saw the life bar not move and I went all right all right Here's here's what I'm gonna do your life a favor Because that thing's health bar lies It's it is a inconsistent health bar. The damage you do to its feet is minuscule, but if you stagger it three times, it'll tip over, and then you can do a critical for like 60% of its life.

It lies. Because it looks unassailable. That's the classic, well the classic FromSoft test is you swing at the foot and look at what happens to the life Bar and then go yeah, no, maybe late So I got that first one at like plus three or something like that. It takes a little while And that I actually want to talk to you about the item that that thing drops because that thing is

It drops the it drops a crystal tear for your physic and what it does is that crystal tear makes it so that if you block an attack within 30 something maybe 20 frames of it striking you. It will do no damage and it will do no stamina damage. And your guard counter will be like like 50 percent stronger. Here's the part that really matters. shit. The buff lasts for five minutes. Hahaha. Woo, alright.

Okay. Well, target acquired. So I was pulling out like a fucking Uchi, right? Like a Katana and fighting bosses. Like it was Sekiro. Okay, okay. I mean, I'm still skating and punching, you know. Oh, yeah. And, you know, full like full disclosure, I know from that trailer that some other kind of punches are coming and I'm waiting around to see what those look like. I can I can point you to a spot on your map if you like

to just go to it. If you know what, let me give it one more. And if I don to just go to it. You know what? Let me give it one more and if I don't find them like tomorrow. Yeah, I'll just draw you a little map. Literally. Because that's the move. Hey, I have that weapon?

It's good too. It's even better than you think because you can put it on your left hand and it still has the whole move set. Beautiful. Yeah. Because what I have, I have is a Fire Sestis on my left and Frost on my right, both doing bleed so there's a Freeze Freeze Pop to the combo. So that tier really says a lot about the way that the DLC wants to be tackled.

New solutions to new problems. I got completely dominated by a couple of the mini bosses, and then I threw that thing on and it was just like perfect block, perfect perfect end of their combo guard counter for 20% of their life do it again staggered critical hit like Sekiro yeah yeah and some bosses are totally annihilated by the by this thing no stamina loss elemental weaknesses or it seemed to be much stronger on bosses bosses do a lot of elemental damage, etc. The game wants you to cheese it. My build doesn't really have blocking, right?

At the moment. But yeah, this is putting that on, I suppose. I'd have to figure out... Well, I guess if I switch to two-hand incestus and then... Yeah, if you two-handed it, you might have a block. Yeah. Yeah, because right now I have my left button, it becomes a two-hand. That being said, the dedicated martial arts gloves, if you double-hand them, your L1 does

turn into a block. Yeah, yeah, you do a little... It's the shittiest block ever. But with the crystal tier that makes it a perfect block. Yeah, yeah, you do. It's the shittiest block ever. But with the crystal tier that makes it a perfect block. Mechanically. Yeah. Okay. And I did, you know, I caught, I caught wind as well. That's like, oh, you know, like the, um, uh, uh, bloodhound step and all these things have been a nerfed and stuff. And I'm like, I don't, I don't really care about that. I just, the bloodhound step nerf was still like oh no it went from being the best

defensive move in the game to Still being the best defense. Okay in the game. Yeah, I'm like I Regardless it feels cool to do like I don't even care if it loses Like half that involvement or if it just becomes a role that like I'm like I it really I enjoy it It makes me feel good and it's fun to do. I want movement like that. Yeah. Nerfs tend to be fairly minimal, but all the nerfs they did to the game are all PVP nerfs.

I imagine that's priority. Yeah. Yeah. Which is kind of who gives a shit. Yeah. So, you know that feeling when you enter into an area in like a Elden Ring or maybe any Souls game, you go, you look at the area and you're like, I need to run exterior collisions. I'm so lost. And then like you go down a path and then it branches. And then you go down a path and it branches again and you immediately start to be just like, ah, ah, fuck. Panic. Yep. That happened. Brutally at the end of my last stream.

Where'd you get to anyway? So I got to the Legacy Dungeon that is the first place where it's like, Mickey, walk through here. Go get his- Oh, Beloret. Right, and yeah, and so I took a couple of lefts and rights and I was like, okay, you get a hallway. There's some fuckers on the left,

some fuckers on the right. Pick one, go that way, and then you go up a staircase and now you have three ways to go. you know? And then you kind of, it branches and branches, and then by the point I got to, I was like, I see a path on some roofs I'm ignoring, and then I see a second path on some roofs I'm ignoring again. And I actually up unlocked a full shortcut at the, under the poison area, and then got lost as to where it led where I was and then fucking wasted my time doing a teleport. I was like, Oh, God damn it.

You know, so Bella rats are really good example. Everybody goes there first. It's a, it's a map is that that shortcut pornography has been added to the open world now also. So do you remember how you could just ride around Stormvale? Just just that is now like the norm for everywhere and like half of the zones feel Objectively hidden like like

Behind a cave through a dungeon shop for river type shit No, cuz shop a river you just went to an elevator. Yeah. No, I'm thinking more like... Ash Lake. Kay. Behind multiple invisible walls. Kay, kay, kay, yeah. Cross some branches and shit, right, okay. Like just huge, huge portions of this DLC

are just outright hidden. And it's awesome. Like you always feel like you stumbled on like a brand new place you're not supposed to be at. And judging by the enemy scaling that you're running into, you sometimes get the feeling that no, you really actually aren't supposed to be here at all. So like I went to the farthest southeast part of the map

I could go and was having a lot of trouble. And then Gene was in the chat and was like, yeah, I only came down here when I was plus 16 What are you at? I'm like I'm plus five Okay, but but you can do it you can do it if you try hard enough interesting yeah, I I have you seen or picked up any I guess like of the new weapons or spells that feel like this

is a 100% direct replacement for something in the base game and or just superior entirely? Well, I'll tell you what, the big Katana moveset, the great Katana moveset is absolutely incredible and you can get a great Katana out in the open world. It's just sitting on a body. it's not in a dungeon or anything it's just like out and about. Washing pole type shit? Yeah but it's but it's heavier and it's it's the monster hunter longsword moveset. Okay. It's it's like the exact monster hunter longsword combo like overhead stab up slice overhead Okay

That shit is that invalidates all the other katanas It does so much bleed enemies pop on hit number two Cool okay, it's it's awesome. There's some new dragon spells that are pretty good Cool, okay. It's awesome. There's some new dragon spells that are pretty good Some side grades on some shields A lot of the new armor is incredible, but that's mainly cosmetic for me The main thing that I'm getting is like talismans that are super interesting So there's a talisman that I found that just gives you like a minute long buff if you get a critical hit

How cool? Okay. Yeah There's a talisman that I found that increases your attack power when your summon dies Nice yeah, that's fun stuff. That's the like the kind of shit that that I mean, I was talking about when like 16 added It's it's interesting stuff in its DLC. That's like, yeah, fun ways to rearrange how you play and stuff like that. I like that, that's dope. It's also- Oh, sorry, I stopped so you could... Ah, damn it, our timing is so perfect.

It's nice to be back as well in the rhythm of like, ooh, there's a butterfly. What kind of butterfly is this? Huh, that's interesting. All, ooh, there's a butterfly. What kind of butterfly is this? Huh, that's interesting. All the other Imperians had a butterfly. Now this is the fourth kind. That must imply that if the others that came from the self-cest all were Imperian level

and they got their own and then were all in the, you know, in the school of thought that Melena, Melena is in that camp too, then ooh, maybe the Mreshmur and just getting into this little like, yeah, like put a piece in things a little bit together here and there. And it's a fun little type of lore scrape that, you know, no other game I play really like has this type of little thing that I enjoy.

I like these little scrapes and putting it together. The first thing you walk into this new world and it's like, what is it trying to tell you right away? Graves fucking everywhere. More than anything else, overwhelmingly they're like Mesmers War has- Is successful. Like the amount of casualties though guys, no for real this time actually. Casual berserk trees just hanging out. Not like the one where you're like, oh, remember that one? That was when you got up to the area in Caria?

Like, no, no, no, no. This is a thing, you know I have I Have learned so that there's way more story in this than there is in the base game So the base game What the fuck does that mean? Do you you're talking about like per capita though, right like Density of reveal per capita. Not surely in its entirety. That's an insane statement to make. I mean story instead of lore.

So in Elden Ring, base game Elden Ring, the narrative is, hey, shit's fucked, you need to become the new guy. Go beat up all the other applicants for your job, and you can become the Elden Lord, right? And then it's where are they, what is their deal, what's the history of the location that we're at, etc. Yeah. Right? Like, how does the Golden Order work? But you... Where did the Golden Order come from? And some of those things you spend a lot of time with Ranny talking and peacing and bippin'

and boppin'. But the DLC has a lot more of a forward moving plot. Ah, okay, okay, okay, okay. Not just getting there and investigating the thing that already happened. Well, when you do investigate the thing that already happened, the thing that already happened directly relates to the core question,

which is what is Mickeleh doing here? Right, okay, okay. Right, like in Elden Ring, your goal was really simple. In the DLC, it is what is Mickela doing? Mm-hmm. Like literally, and then all the little pieces are building up towards what are they actually up to? Mm-hmm.

And why? So it's a lot more forward. I see what you mean. There's more lore. Okay, you remember when you got the Elden Stars incantation in Elden Ring? And it mentions that the Elden Beast is a fucking space alien? Yeah. And you're like, ohhhhh! That has happened like ten times in the DLC so far.

Yeah, there's a feeling. So what you're describing kind of makes me think of like how there's a feeling I would say with probably perhaps with the exception of Bloodborne, but even then not too far off in Souls and Demons and DS where like you're walking behind a series of like you know crime scenes essentially and like the thing the final thing hasn't happened yet you're about to get there just before right yeah you're joining in on the third season episode 24

right they're at the they're at the 85% to 90% mark of whatever's going on, and you get there, and you might catch the last 10 to 15% of this journey. But for the most part, most of it has already happened, and you're getting there as the bodies are rotting. Here, for what Mikala's up to, you get there within a day of Mickela's arrival. Okay. And shit is active. Cool.

Like the other guys that you run into also kind of just got there. Interesting. And the definitely read a lot of the, you know those little ghosts that took a little more time? Yeah, they're way more important here. Definitely talk to them. I mean, they're very important in general, I would say. A lot of them give you context that no one else does in a base game too. Did you get the storeroom key in Bellerat? Yes.

Did you talk to the lady? Found her. Did you remember what her name was? She was, was it aggravated or? Because I thought she looked like a finger reader, but she looked like a, you know. And she's talking about the wanton strumpet. Yeah, but she's, right. You assume she's bitching about America, right? And she's but she's a horn. Um, what is it horn horn sent horn sent finger reader looking lady? Yeah. Okay Her name is Empyrean Grand Am

Okay, her name is like the grandma of the Empyreans Which is like wait, what is an Empyrean again? Oh, it's the people who can ascend to godhood? And she's the grandma? And she hates America? And that's where they all came from. And you're talking to her and she like you run into like an entire society of people with horns where horns are like holy? Yes. Oh, I froze again. Awesome.

Yeah. All right. Horns are holy. And like you think back to horns back in the base game, and you're like, oh, it's a horrible curse! Shove that fucking shit in the bottom of the basement, in the sewers, in the toilet, flush that horn fuck down the toilet. Yeah, and you get here and you're like, oh wait, no, getting horns is actually like a total, normal thing.

In fact, it's awesome. It's part of this old religion. Yes, and if you shave off some horns that you could use as currency, like damn, you're blessed and you're high society. You're highfalutin with your big horns. Look how cool you are. It's exactly.

Oh, it's like, oh, this is the crucible society that existed before the Erd Tree. Before the Erd Tree, 100%. Yeah, for sure. A million percent. Post Erd Tree, it was like, let's exterminate them. Right. And so here's the thing, right? With that, yeah. So immediately, I was putting that together because you get the fact that it's a horned society... Oh, God. Okay, hold on. Let me fix this fucking thing. Hold on. BR. I'm gonna just keep it live and I'm doing a dance You can't see it though. I cannot. All right. I'm gonna I'm gonna do one of these can't see live fixes. All right, hold on Hello, this is the stops time

This is this is the pure time. This is the pure... The pure wooly moment. Give it a minute. Anything is possible within the wooly moment. Hold on. And there we are. Aw, I'm still invisible though.

Uh... Alright, I see you I don't see me I'm sad There we are okay So yeah every area you go to has some big Revelation about how things actually work yes And and so what I saw right off the bat was like, okay You see horns and you know that horns were all exactly the the the the Obans the the ill Miss the Miss begotten's the fuck those things right and then everything about pre-urtury society also involves

multiple forms of Not just the older tree but different forms of death and so the little birds that are perched up inside of that just the older tree, but different forms of death. And so the little birds that are perched up inside of that first, the legacy dungeon, are spitting ghost flame at you. And ghost flame is absolutely how you got rid of bodies beforehand as well. So it's- Tibia mariners, you know. Where you get there and like, so one of the things that's actually not clear in Elden Ring is that the destruction of the Golden Order has like wrecked the way physics works in Elden Ring.

Like people don't die, right? Yeah, you have to use the tree. That's the whole deal. The whole thing's fucked up. And then you find out like, oh, there were actually like multiple different societies that all dealt with all of these problems in a totally different way, but you only see the little bits and pieces that have managed to stay here. And you get to the Lands of Shadow and it's like, oh no, that's where all that shit is

from! That's where ghost flame is just the way to deal with dead! Like they had, even like, life and death coming through the antlers like there's a million little you know bits and pieces where you're like yeah all these cultures have their own way of dealing with it and then the Golden Order was like let's do it and like our way you let's do it our way and program it into a sigil that we can then fuck with you know um the interesting thing too of course also in that same room is a beast head that is horned and like the beast looks like Siraj or Malekath. It

looks like one of those, you know, loyal, gonna get a whole put this on your shoulder to calm down type beasts, you know? So and again, and it's all horned up. So like we'll have to like, I don't know what the implications are there, but it's a dead one. So yeah, this is definitely pre-Erd society. And then the amount of fucking hatred she has as well makes perfect sense given that you're like, yeah, you showed up and there are so many bodies that the graves themselves are ghost graves and lining every cover, every inch of that field. You know? Every every cover every inch of that field, you know, did you like get to the you know That little tower right when you start right in front of you. Yeah, the did you get to that thing?

I got up on the tower And did you read what was at the top? So we're talking about the suppressing pillar right I opened up a treasure chest and I got something in that chest Okay, and you were way up above on the gravesite plains Overlooking the fire fucker and the starting point Everyone in the chat is saying name. Maybe not then okay. I walked up. I walked up some scaffolds less scaffolding Oh, you're talking about the scorched settlement

Yes, yes, yes, that's what okay. No. I'm talking about like a like a like a Washington Monument style Okay, you should go to that okay. Yeah, there's there's some documentation up there of Particular note okay, yeah to note to the game's narrative. And it's also fun too taking a look at things like the, you know, besides like the Mikella symbol or, you know, the gesture which you're seeing the symbols of which is like that's your sigil. There's the actual straight up, like looks like a cross, but then the arc hanging over,

which was on one of the daggers you picked up as well. And so seeing like what some of these things, these symbols mean and well, and you're seeing them all over the map too. So I'm thinking like, well, if we know what Miquela's sigil looks like, I'm like, I wouldn't be surprised if that's fucking Mesmers or something like that. I don't know. We'll have to see.

Those marks of Michaela, or I forget what they're called exactly, but Michaela's crosses. They're great because graces are nice and they have the wisps and so you're unlikely to miss them. But the crosses are way better at like, there's probably an NPC here. There's maybe two, go talk to them. Not every time, but the spot that you see this is probably really important so you should look at it. And just the absolute, like, okay, a bunch of NPCs I'm gonna meet, you know,

in the same energy that you're like, which one of these Hades hot gods is gonna have vocal fry? Which one of these sad downtrodden fuckers is gonna be all, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, voice actor again. Back again. It's nice to see him back. There's also a bunch of Crestfallen dudes sitting around that I'm looking at. Like, oh are you the DS2 type where you will not be at all concerned unless someone swings at you first? And some of them seem to be that

way, but maybe not all. Also night time exploration I haven't even really done yet but the fact that all of this also has a time of day like multiplier on top of it is fucking ugh. So night time exploration has two factors. One is there are things you can only find at night. There are little glowing graves that will denote hidden larval tears. Oh boy. Just out and about. The second of which is something that's really funny and it took me a little bit to understand what was happening. Nighttime in the Lands of Shadow are way darker than in the Lands Between because

they're not being lit up by a gigantic 10,000 foot tall gold tree. Nighttime is actually extremely difficult to navigate sometimes because it's pretty dark. Yeah, okay. And that lantern ain't amazing. It's not the best. Yeah, you know, intentionally so, but okay. Yeah. Yeah, so I overall I really like what they're doing with this DLC. It's smaller than the base game. It's maybe 30-40% of the content of the base game.

And the zones are much smaller, but there's more unique stuff in them, and there's way more zones than I thought there were going to be. There are like... One, okay, hold on. One, two, three, four, five, there's at least 10 different sounds. Okay. Yeah, I'm also remembering as I'm booting this up too, I'm like, oh, there are so many subsystems I just completely ignored because I just didn't want to get into them.

Using cooking pots, for example, I'm example. I'm not, I don't throw these consumables. I know you can prep them and go into battle, but they're consumable. That's really funny that you mentioned that because I also didn't. Then there is one instance instance in which the game is like, shut up, make an item with the crafting system. It is the only way to beat this encounter. Okay. The livers that they introduce here are like, oh, those are some pretty strong looking livers, you know? I get that. But yeah, I mean, it's similar to, again, the perfumes and the the Baldekin blessings. And then I think the, yeah, that little boon that you have to go get from Fia and stuff, you know, it's like, oh, yeah, what was the deal? This is a one-off,

and you can get it, but you have to go back and get it like rice. I mean, the best consumable in the entire game is the crab. I don't know if you got boiled crabs. It's the only one I would ever think to use. I remember boiled crab being great, but I forget why. It's 20% physical damage reduction and it costs 50 runes and it lasts for a minute. Okay. So like you can you can just buy 700 of the fucking things. Awesome. And I'm probably going to go back and go get some crab. I'm actually, you know what I was doing this morning? I didn't, I didn't do the sewers in the base game because I don't

care about anything like that. Um, and then I was like, you know what? I really want that fingerprint shield from the basement of the sewers. Wait, you didn't, you didn't do the sewers at all? So remember, this is my PC file that I recreated. So on my PC file, I just beelined all the sacred tears, all the golden seeds, all the bosses that I needed their gear for, et cetera. So I just skipped over the sewers the second time around.

Etc. So I just skipped over the the sewers the second time around but now this morning my I really Desperately need that big shield that does like 80% damage reduction on all the elements cuz There's a lot of there's a lot of fucking fire damage going around on this DLC Yeah, there's a lot they telegraph it. Yeah, okay Okay, but yeah, so like there's two new dungeon types like you know those graystone catacombs that we Was trying to remember the fucking catacomb gargoyles. Yes, so um that I have there are those graystone catacombs are are here. I have done three of them. They are Super complicated can you feel the template as you're playing it? No

Because I found three of the other small scale dungeons. There have been two other types which are completely different There have been two other types which are completely different. Because like you can almost feel the intern that had catacomb duty on the base game. Like today you've got to get two or three catacombs done. I have done click room, click room, click room, drop, you know. I have done three gray dungeons, three blue dungeons, and three red dungeons. The different types are all very distinct now in what they're asking you to actually do. Is there a fucking cat statue waiting at the end?

No. No, in fact, the bosses at the end of the of the catacombs are all bespoke super cool bosses. Lovely, lovely, cuz yeah again the thought is is it's a weird feeling to imagine like okay you can pay for a shorter version of a game with a lot more unique encounters or a fuller longer game but you're gonna have these like god damn it. It's that thing again Yeah, so there's a lot less of that in in the DLC. It's a lot. It's a lot more varied stuff more often It is smaller in terms of scope

But you're seeing newer weirder shit more often. I think it's better designed than the base game. I don't think I know for scale purposes. Yeah, the base game has a scalar. Yeah, I know for scale purposes like seeing Rayo Lucaria at the end of that giant valley was awesome. I hate riding around in Leirnia from the bottom of Leirnia to the top sucks. Like I don't like it. It didn't even bug me that much. It's just, but like a lot of it. It'll definitely bug you on replay. Okay. Yeah, it really is in these moments of like pure template when you hit those, you hit those fucking catacombs or you hit those you know beasts and like the moments of like all right we know there was nothing here so let's just

click here and generate you know almost an automatic content like I'm like yeah that's the filler moments that really like when I think back on them are like, not interesting at all. Cool. All right, that's dope. That's dope. Also the map in the the map lies. It lies really hard. I mean, this has always been the case. The map has never this lies way harder than before. Okay, because the first version of the map you get

is like super zoomed in and only one layer. So I'll give you an example. So you know how in Elden Ring's base game, you'll get your map and what you'll see is there'll be a little line that's like, this is playable area. And then there will be a little line that's like, this is playable area. And then there will be like a ravine in between two spots. And you're like, well, that's environmental.

That's not actually real map. Yeah. Right. Or there'll be an impassable structure or whatever. And then when you go underground, you switch it to the underground map. What if there was no underground map, but you still just went down there as often as you did? Oh yeah, yeah.

I think I know. So I hit a cliff and I looked at it and I was like, that just doesn't look like a cliff. This doesn't look like a death cliff. This looks like content. Looks like just far enough that I would have fall damage and die. Yeah, yeah. I absolutely had that moment of squinting, looking at what was sure death and second guessing it though.

The other thing is- Shout outs to those moments where you fall to your death and then your corpse lands on the bottom of the fucking world box, but then you see some shit running around in the camera in the background in any Souls game, ah! You know, you drop to the bottom of Sen's fortress and a couple of snake fuckers walk by and you're like, what do you mean? There's a part of the west side of the map

that you're at a really high elevation and you look down and you're looking at the beach, like where it meets the water and it's so far Down that you can tell that it's way below the elevation you started the game at Like it's a full layer underneath the primary map Fucking lies at one point There's a spot on the map that have two graces that are actually their icons are overlapping with each other, but they're like multiple kilometers apart in height.

In distance. Yeah. Oh shit. Yeah, this is not a Metroid Prime map. You can't fucking... But yeah, all the parts of the map that like look like, oh, artist's rendition of an impassable terrain are not. They're all playable area here. With one exception, where it's really obvious that it's for flourish. Yeah, no, it's great.

It's smaller, it's more diverse, it's better. it's weirder, it's much weirder. I haven't been to the Shadowkeep, the big legacy dungeon, the biggest one, because it's really intimidating. From the ground, you can tell that it's about as physically large as Lain Del. But on the map, you can see that it has at least three entrances and exits to different zones. Yeah. And I got a key that said it opened up a district inside the Shadowkeep. Yeah. And I got a key that said it opened up a district inside the Shadowkeep. And I'm just like, oh, that's... Apparently it is like the single largest dungeon slash level that From Software has ever made.

And it looks the part. So that's the background of all this is also like, let's see what current FromSoft's like take on what they could improve off of Elden Ring is, you know, in the same way that all their previous DLC has, you know, done that. And then let's see what their current take on, of course, your, your,

your badass set piece, you know, moments that occur, you know, what do you do here? And then, how much closer are we to Miyazaki's dream game if we are not currently there? Because... Where the DLC feels like a full step forward. He said that Elden Ring is almost the game of his dreams, but it's still not there yet. The NPC quest lines are actually a lot clearer this time. Like their locations are more obvious and their goals are more clear. I have a You can hold it that's fine, that's okay, I'll be enjoying we'll talk about it next time they

They they go they go out of their way to do a bunch of weird shit in this DLC Okay, and more than more than the base game it feels like you could just miss out Okay on 50% oh shit or more like just Just miss it okay because I Have one tooth at least like three or four times. I have found ways into new zones via extremely Nonsensical directions

Okay, like You know the best example is remember in the base game Jumping down some well in the middle of town landed you in the sewers and the sewers was this massive place. There's like five of that. I'm just like I wonder if I can get through this this weird jump oh no yeah yeah yeah okay I will say too as well that like my brain is a little conditioned to whenever I see a Invader styled enemy it does I tend to go like Okay, this might be a little lazy, right? you kind of just made a little NPC and equipped him with stuff and and and

Put the instead of a full again like bespoke Well, it's only lazy if you don't like the stuff you pick up off their fucking body But one there's that and two if they're talking and saying stuff and it's happening, I'm like, okay, no, wait, hold on. This feels like a little bit more. So I ran into that spear dude in the dungeon. Queeline. Yeah, he was talking shit and everything.

And I'm like, okay, I like this to feel like an encounter because there's definitely a big difference between when that happens in music plays and there's again lines of plot and lore related shit coming at you, versus getting to fucking whatever the bottom of Poison Shit Zone and demons and then just like out of the distance in the fog, a red fucker just comes running up to you Unceremoniously and just starts swinging. You know like you fucking kill you. It's like yeah I like it to be integrated however possible. So cool more of that I

Think it's I think it is very very good. I think it is definitely a good game and I... I think anybody complaining about difficulty just needs to cheese it harder, like much harder. So, you know, it's funny because I was having a conversation with a neighbor actually about like, yeah, all the new Elden Ring DLC is out and stuff. It's like, ah, but it's so hard. And I about like, yeah, all the new Elden Ring DLC is out and stuff. It's like, ah, but it's so hard.

And I was like, yeah, it's true. These games, they can like fuck you up. And there's always a like, can you surpass the previous level of the hardest thing because everyone gets more and more skilled and more and more used to what we put at them. So both for Millennia was a lot harder than, And Millennia and MOGUE 2 are asking a lot of you compared to what they was asked in the past. But now that people have learned that, how can we do this again and keep remixing it? I think as long as Summons and Ashes are available, it's still on the player. And if you really want to get it done right, well then you can just

purchase one of these game carries which are available because there are businesses setting up shop to carry you through Elden Ring to get your save file ready to enter or to just boss carry you if needed. See, it doesn't even make any sense because like in an MMO context which is where these people are from you it has a social aspect it has a Hey, Discord 24 7 available It says right there on the bullet list. It's it's like look at me. I did it

I didn't really do it, but you know people think you did right for Call of Duty or League It's about getting through those Shitty awful elos where like the game just feels like shit to play blah blah blah, but with this it's like So that what So that you can what? not play it and just Yeah, just know that you didn't I don't get like it's so that you can participate in the moment The zeitgeist is happening now and lest we forget that this is a game that is

So like Elden Ring DLC coming out is the most out there Broadcasted fucking everyone's back people who have not played a game all year. Oh, yeah, that's a boot their shit up You know we're talking about and everyone's back. People who have not played a game all year are coming back to boot their shit up. You know, we're talking about the fucking spoilers left and right that are flying through everywhere. Like it's just, it's the most casual shit's coming back through. So you're in a really weird place with the spoiler

where I'm pretty sure I figured out who the final boss is, but I don't want to be proven right until I walk through the door. Nope, doesn't matter. And so I'm like dodging being told I'm right or wrong. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, no, for sure. But all this to say is that this is a moment where it's a piece of DLC for an extremely popular game,

not just to hardcore but casual players as well, which opens up an audience door that is way more wide than usual therefore a lot more people that are around that give a fuck about just feeling like they're in the moment because they're everyone else's so yeah let me pay for you to carry me through this game and feel good about my save file and seeing the cutscene or whatever the fuck now I didn't really read the item description that doesn't matter how crazy was that one fight though against the thing that I watched? Here's the part that's really strange like this, right?

Which is, okay, let's say you're paying for ultimate clears in 14, right? There are guides on how to do the ultimate clears. So if somebody asks like, oh, how'd you find this part? You can literally just go read up and go I thought Light amalgam was a really tough mechanic because I had whatever right but when you're like, oh Man, I had the hardest time against Stormbeast, but I did it. Oh really what well, how'd you do it? Oh Yeah Storm Beast, but I did it. Oh really? What? Well, how'd you do it? Uh, Yeah, but I don't know if that conversation even goes that far

I think it just goes as far as well in the zeitgeist it does because it's like oh what bullshit did you use? To defeat the Dancing Lion or whatever and again, and it's not every game It's only the ones that hit that, like no one's paying for or asking, I mean they might be, but realistically, not to this level, you're not seeing people paying for armored core clears from people. You know what I mean? Like that is, this is something that would happen

with whatever is the premier, extremely hard thing. Yeah. So. Oh, you know what? You get your trophy. You get your Steam achievement. There's Chevos. Yeah, no I did it. I totally did it. Hey man,

always remember, fucking, I tell the story about that kid that ran his business for 20 bucks. He'll take your Gauntlet Legends arcade character and max level that shit. He'll get him to level 20 and he'll load in your password and just have your character maxed out ready to go. So you can just go into the arcade, pop in a quarter,

load in the character and then just breeze through the game and then walk away having put your dollar in the machine. That's it. That's all you're getting yeah and maybe what's funny about this whole conversation is millennia used to be the heart high watermark for Elden Ring that crystal tear that allows you to parry turns her encounter into a joke oh wow wow okay? Because she remembers she staggers really easily mm-hmm, so you put the guard counter up item and then you put the crystal tear on that improves your guard counters and She hits you and at the end of the combo you guard counter her and you hit her for way more than she healed

And you didn't take any damage and staggers. That's great It's it's really funny You didn't take any damage and she staggers. That's great. It's really funny. I mean, in addition to the PVP implications of getting carried too, there's also a bullet point on that list of things advertised, which is cookie cutter builds, which I found- Cookie cutter builds. Particularly hilarious, it's like,

hey, we will give you a cookie cutter build with all the best weapons and armor Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know anyways, it's it's That shit's that's gonna be profitable for at least six to eight weeks I am Super excited to talk to you about the story stuff that's going on in this in this expansion but There's stuff there's there there's lots of stuff and I went and I and I properly refreshed myself to before the the redive just to

You know put it all back together I think probably one of the reasons that I'm doing a little better than some of the other people I know streaming it is that I was actually playing through the whole game up to get the file ready like three weeks ago. Like I essentially re-beat most if not all of Elden Ring in like the last month right before it. Whereas you said you picked it up two years ago, like hadn't touched it. Yeah, and then I just said I went refreshed on lore.

But the main thing too is like, besides just like the basis of everything happening and recognizing patterns and stuff, I also really like when I want to be able to catch things that were loose threads in previous, in the base game that come back around because it's like, oh, is that a blue dancer? You know what I mean? Like, oh, is that a fucking, like little things that went nowhere. I want to see there. Miquella is a giant loose thread, obviously, but... It's the only one we didn't get.

But beyond that, there's like just little things about, you know, like, oh, the introduction of, yeah, well, no, I mean, the blue dancer character, for example. Like, you don't really know much about what that is, but you got enough of a baseline of like okay cool guy wore this taught the foul down waterfowl dance, you know Little things like that are like what is this land of reeds? Just straight up the the setting in Sekiro I mean, but like is it actually just Hanging out over there. Yeah, and the greater will could have shot a fucking alien over at that Sekiro Japan But instead decided on yeah, I think

They're answering a lot more details about things that I thought were going to be just left completely like oh Who could that be and then you run into it? You're like no That's what that was the whole time the thing that you thought was mysterious yeah here it is look at it god if if we if there's one like just albanoric fucking alien looking motherfucker walking around somewhere in Sekiro under under rubble somewhere maybe yeah yeah anyways anyways also I like those Spirit Eels. You look over at Twitch chat right now, you're gonna see a lot of those, those hugging.

Yep. Those guys are cool. And of course, lastly, I'm waiting to see the Grimm in all of this too, lest we forget. I'm sure George had his bit planned out as well. Well, I think I've seen some okay I mean, I'm pegging self-sessed big Big on did you do you know there's that little lake net to the east of Bellerat on?

The map not really no okay, because there's okay. There's a thing. I know there's a bridge I there's a bridge. I looked at on the map that said hey one Mickey two Mickey three Mickey there Yeah, I know I mean the did you get to the little village? That's just to the north under that bridge really okay? Oh, I want to talk to you about that stuff. All right next time next time next time oh There's more stuff that I'm like Oh, I want to talk to people about it in this DLC than there was for like the whole of Elden Ring. Interesting. Like there's just so many little interesting little pieces that are just so fucking weird.

It gets, hey man, it gets way weirder than I thought it was going to get. Okay. It's real strange in parts You know right off the mat meeting a dude that's like oh, I'm mogus mogus advisor And I'm like did you did you advise mo because I think you should adopt your boy? Yeah there's There's something about that specific exact thing. It comes up. Oh man. It literally comes up and you go, oh!

Okay. Okay. Alright. Let's leave it there quick break BRB bye already so the Crips and the Bloods are friends now yes I mean I think I think what happens is United a yes colors time like hey tied tied bandannas colors tied Right, that's actually there's a symbol for that and there's a couple of moments in history where those those occur on small scales I think what happens is is Kendrick takes the opportunity to Use the only thing that can make like hating your enemy and, and, you know, holding down your block, holding down your set, your corner, you need a larger hatred to unite everybody.

And with the Juneteenth pop out, you know, he managed to, yeah, unite everybody under a larger banner of hatred to just dance on stage to the funeral pyre of Drake. And it's pretty nuts because at the same time, I mean, what probably, what likely happens is you don't really see an end to the struggles and the problems, but you do get a reset, you know, so that like probably things that were in the heat of retaliatory moments, things that were happening like, well, literally the entirety of Good Kid Mad City is like the story of how a dumb non thing turns into a massive beef that gets people killed.

You have that just going back to a zero and now it's going to, so when shit starts again, it'll start at a perhaps slower pace than it would have the second before that happened. You buy a little bit of time on the clock, I suppose. Wild. What a fucking crazy thing to do for Kendrick to get up and do not like us six times in a row. Like, you have to understand, like performing your diss tracks and beef, like the beef records, like live is not usually ever a thing. That's not usually even put out officially. Things like that are often just like mixtapes put out unofficially. Singles thrown out into the ether.

Yeah. So it's already weird to live in a world where it's like, oh, here it is on Spotify. You know what I mean? Like it's in the proper channels available that you get. It's unusual to sort of see that. But yeah, not only that, but here's the fucking, here's the concert. After a month of silence or so, like, all right, we're gonna do it, and we're gonna do it with the most, in like, yeah, just the full West Coast behind him, like, like, yeah, just the full West Coast behind him, just being like, absolutely 100%.

Like, stop this dude out. Like, so I think that there's a real like poetry to this. And that is that, so, you know, accusations one, you touch kids. That's fiery. That's fun to put in a song. Incendiary. Right? Two, you use your blackness illegitimately and it's gross and you're a colonizer and you steal black culture for your own means. Oh. Oh. Right? Concerts on Juneteenth, by the way. Then and you steal black culture for your own means. Ooh, oh, right? But then there's- Concerts on Juneteenth, by the way.

Then there's the last one, which is by far the deepest and meanest, which is, hey man, nobody likes you, actually. Like, you know how you have all your friends? They're all fake and they don't like you, and all those celebrities and actors and athletes that you hang out with, they don don't like you and all those celebrities and actors and and athletes that you hang out with they don't really like you at all in fact they dislike you

and sorry folks didn't mean to bump the mic um and having this enormous party where everyone who don't like each other yeah like let alone Bloods and Crips, but everybody from all walks of life just be like, we don't like you. We're having a party and there's a sign that says no Drake's allowed on it. No Homer's Club, I mean it's there. It's so fucking mean.

And it can be, unlike the rest of it, you can just get a bunch of people together and prove it. Look, look at all these people that don't like you. People that really don't like you. People that were referenced as well in the, in the things as like being like, you know, part of his crew and stuff. I mean, YG and school boy Q and like, a bunch of people that are all just like, yeah, you're like, there's like very clear through line. And you know what? The,

the thing is there's definitely a bunch of people that were in the back that were like I don't want to be on camera for this You know I was there's probably you know There's a bunch of dudes at the back that are just like they haven't they're just they're partying it up And they're like yeah, I like you know we'll just keep the cameras over there, but over here behind the scenes Yeah, fuck that dude. Yeah, I was watching a gentleman sick talk this morning He is an expert on the Bloods and the Crips and the gang lifestyle And he got up a massive whiteboard and it was like I saw representatives from the following

15 groups On the stage Let let alone physically present the NBA LeBron James himself like yeah wild wild and kind of kind of nuts, you know, but uh Yeah, well suicide not just on the table What one Delilah is career suicide? I I would have I'd be gone I want everyone to know that if it became a national holiday to yell at me and then tell me that I suck I would be have been long gone by now. Oh my God. Yeah. Also that song is so bad that when you go to the YouTube link for it, the whole

comment section is like this is AI. This is a trick. This is an AI trick on us. There's no way this is a real song. I mean, I think it's still strategic in the sense that even if you flop back out, you still got to show some signs of life, right? And each flop, each little, each of, they all, you have to do them until eventually you're like, and we're back and I can still tour and sell out a stadium. And it is what it is. I don't think that when everyone doesn't like you and that you suck and that you're a bad musician and that you

touch kids. I don't think bringing out the shittiest thing anyone's ever heard was maybe the best move. But as a career, like trying to hold an empire together thing, it's like you have to do something. You can't just, you can't stay in the rubble and let it bury you forever. Like there's gonna be some move at some point to just show that you're like, I'm not that shook, right? Because yes, everyone has decided they know how that ended and you have to keep up the bravado.

You know, the whole like, ah, good exercise, nice working out my pen, light work, you know, that whole thing, you just gotta kinda keep that going. And your banner becomes, look, I still make money. I make money. I make so much money though. And that you, no one can say, Hey, you make, you do make a lot of money. That's true. No one can say you do have a lot of money, but we're talking about a group of people that all make a lot of money. So money ceases to be a currency. Instead, respect becomes the currency du jour. Nah, man, I make too much money to be touching currency instead respect becomes the currency du jour

No, man, I make too much money to be touching kids. That's crazy. I mean that's nuts Yeah, no you so you run you got to run the diss record by the homies, you run it by the crew, you know, check in with people. Perhaps a lawyer, just to check on the way out, you know, maybe get a lawyer, you know, on the, just to overlook, just to look over the 16 bars and see if they've got the input I think you know I think what you're describing is really smart and I think it's one of the reasons why Kendrick was able to put out so many songs so quickly is that I assume

Mr. Aubrey Drake, whatever his name is had a lawyer present to be like, is this okay to say in a song? And I think Kendrick was like, I'm just going to put whatever the fuck I want in my song and if he wants to fight me on it, he can fight me on it later. Because like defamation's wild. In the States, you have to prove that you knowingly knew it was false when you said it. That means Drake would have to go to court and be like, I can prove that he didn't know that at the time, and how the fuck can you prove that? But a lot of states have updated their laws too

because of drill rap, specifically, because drill rap is like, the body is buried at the end of 555 Sugar Lane. That is where I put the body. You will find two to the back of the head and one to the chest. It's insane that it's to that point. And so there's a lot of like,

can we submit two to the back of the head, the remix as evidence? Perhaps we can, should we be able to consider this? two to the back of the head, the remix, as evidence. Perhaps, perhaps we can, should we be able to consider this, you know, while we're in trial, you know? Also, there's the part where if you sued a guy over his rap lyrics calling you an asshole, then you look like the biggest bitch that's ever existed in the history of the world.

There's the streets, there's the streets part of it, but of course, you know, we can never forget Boondocks, play it for the jury, play it for the jury, play it for the jury, play it for the jury. Just in the court just, aww. Anyways, that was quite a trip. Yeah, yeah, quite a trip. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It is interesting and we'll see what happens next

and by performing it and performing that shit live and having the full album there, like, yeah, it is true, you are seeing more activity out of him than usual, but Drake is gonna have to come back with something else and there's gonna have to be a slow just yeah keep keep the machine going we got it we got some buses to got some tour buses to go we have a lot of employees of you know OVO and you know we got to keep this thing moving so don't be surprised. Anyway, and look, you can survive. How long being

super hated in this industry? Like, you know, like, fuck out of here. Like what? It depends. It depends on the individual. Some people, oh man, the hatred, it just powers them up. Other people, people who are desperate for approval, oh, oh no, that's the bad combination. Yeah, I mean, like, it's wild to think about just how you can just kind of power through it. Chris Brown still has a career, you know. That's crazy. Yeah. Does it like, that's- Like I was scrolling and I saw people like just on TikTok like, oh oh the new Chris Brown album

I'm like what that why you? And this dude's around. Yeah, very around and this is not just a career, but with a tattoo of Rihanna's face Beat up on that is a power move though. That is that is pretty crazy. I mean I Mean if you're committing to chaotic evil like you can respect the audacity I don't think you should have done that but that is pretty wild. Oh, yeah. No just in case anyone didn't know You can go look and see one of his tattoos looks like a weird face but people have kind of put it together

with the shot of Rihanna all beat up, and they're like, oh, pretty sure that's what that is supposed to be, because the bruises and the shapes and the things kind of line up, and yeah. So just in case you didn't think that was a thing, yeah, fucking Behelit level, you know, with that. So anyway, he's still around, you know.

You can power through all kinds of shit. It's incredible. I mean, the, and not to mention, like, I mean, there's that side of it, and then there's the like, mention like there's that side of it and then there's the like you can get around with touching kids in this kind of industry for a very long time before any of that shit has any kind of consequence. That is true. That can linger bro. That is true. You know? So, yeah. But anyway, you know, or you might lose your access to Windsor Castle, actually. You might no longer be a duke.

You might have your duke ship revoked, but you're still good. You're still taking care of it. Darn. You'll be fine. All right. What's going on? Did I talk about beating FF7 last week? Darn. You'll be fine. Alright, what's going on? Did I talk about beating FF7 last week?

No, just the bloat. So, I beat FF7, rebirth. End's really strong. End's really, really, really strong. Nice. It has one of those final sequences that's like two hours long and you're just pumping your fist the whole time because every new phase or every new Twist is just like ah

Uh, and then I beat it and saw the ending i'm like that's really interesting. Um, this is not as good as ff7 remake. Ah, okay um And uh, I think I think the most disappointing thing about it is that I can talk about the issues that it has without going into a spoiler cast. Interesting. Because there are some interesting stuff that occurs, but do you remember when they did Final Fantasy 7 Remake and they're like, it'd be really boring if we just remade the same game beat for beat? Like we have to do something different?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they were right. Um, because like, um, this is a way, way cleaner remake of the events of Final Fantasy 7 than FF7 Remake was. Um, it's actually, it's actually kind of boring that it is so, so not different. Okay, it, it, it, it departs less than you expected it to. Way less. Do you remember the unknown journey continues, anything could happen?

Yeah. Not really. Like mostly the same, actually. My thought there is that if you did completely go off, then people who are like, but I wanted to see the remade version of Cosmo Canyon are going to be like, why would you kind of imply that and then take that away from me to go to Bosmo Banyan? Yeah, so I totally get that 100%.

But it wants to do it both ways. It wants to be, oh, it's crazy. What's happening with the plot? Oh, it's weird. But it's not nearly weird enough. Like not even close. Okay. And it wants to be like, oh, it's exactly the way you remember it.

But it's not exact enough because every time it's about to be exact they add a little bit of the weird stuff. I expected the I expect every location to be seen because that's what people who want the remake of their brains to like to read what people want to relive the experience in a modern context want to see all of the places they know revisited and updated. Oh, I'm not talking about the locations. And I think the events occurring at the locations are the things that canon will change, while any new locations will have to be added instead of replacing, you know? Like a lot of how Shinra Tower played out in the end of R1, you know? Mm-hmm. So, okay, so like the whole, let me put it this way, the whole of FF7 Remake, there was

like a mystery and there was like what's going on, what could happen. That's just not here. It's just not. It's very front-loaded and back-loaded. It's very book-ended by the new stuff. I think it's to its massive detriment. Okay. Yeah, I guess I'm curious, but we'll see. For example, if you were to tell me, let's say we just carbon copied and put FF7R1 again as like a reference point here. Like if we were to be like, all right, so plate drops and then we actually just never

go to Shinra Tower at all. I'd be like, oh, what? Okay. Okay, uh... I guess, you know, but then you're sort of getting into 3.33 territory and Then the argument about you know, what exactly would have been better arises because it's like okay, so Are you I mean new things are good new things are interesting when they're good But yeah, if it does new shit and it's not good and you're like, oh, I actually really don't like that Then that's bad, you know and so 3.33 is something where I'm like

hypothetically the the the major diversion from What was expected? I'm okay with but like like, if what fills in what I wanted just feels shitty and lame, then I'm gonna hate that. So, part of the issue is the bloat in regards to this. Your boutique story moments are actually really far apart and then they by and large end up just being complete retreads of the exact same scenes you saw in the original. There is a minor spoiler that I'm considering sending to you for context, but I don't think

I will. Um, I'd prefer not. Yeah. But, um, you repeatedly run into a situation in which you're like, Oh, we're, we're switching over to the new stuff. And then it ends within like two minutes. Like actually two minutes. And you're like.

I think I can infer. Yeah, okay. And you're like, okay, well now we're gonna go back to 16 hours of Costa del Sol and hanging out with Johnny and all that stuff. And you're like, when am I gonna get back to the new stuff? This is another, kind of like we're just talking about how Elden Ring DLC has to handle all types of players

and builds and satisfy everybody. Like, FF7, not R1, but R2 has a similarly, really tall order. Totally, I think they did this in really tall order. Totally, I think they did this in a strange order. I think if FF7 Remake was mostly on the level but with a couple bits of weirdness, and then this game blew it, yeah, basically just copied the whole template from the game.

1.0, 2.0. And then each game onward became weirder yeah that would be one thing but right now the first game is way weirder than the second one which makes the second one feel much less interesting I say the second one is more of a nostalgia trip than it is its own thing it because I can I can see one being an experience where, for example, Punch Mom, playing through that, and then going back to the old the first game, going back to the original,

original FF7. It was like, oh, you can kind of see, like, okay, this is the original experience for the most part. And if you're somebody who's like, I actually don't want or care about any of the new stuff, I just want a remake of the original thing and I want it pretty much untouched. You can't avoid new shit, but you're getting enough of your itch scratched that you can be like, all right, fine. And then there's fucking plot ghosts, you know? Yeah.

And if you're a new audience member, then you're able to just take it at face value. You can take this one a lot more at face value than remake, which, like, I'm very torn, because now, because I'm way into all the weird time ghost shit, I love that shit, I love it. After finishing Rebirth, I'm like, they should have just made them straight up remakes because Me being disappointed. They couldn't go farther is actually way worse That just didn't pay me being disappointed that it's just a one-to-one remake

Okay, yeah, so trying to because yeah, they have to solve they have to make it work for everybody. Trying to solve all audiences. Interesting. Like it's really interesting because like when I beat Remake, I had, my audience was pretty split on the Remakeness of it as to whether or not they hated it or were down for the new stuff it was it felt pretty 50-50 it doesn't feel 50-50 anymore feels like 60 or 70-30 where it's just like they should have done more this is really weird to hear in contrast to the previous points about the bloat in some of those areas with side quests and Chadley based stuff.

Because then you kind of go like, what it like, you're like, oh, if you just take the amount of time and then if you redistribute some of these, redistribute it, you could probably get a full accurate like amount of like remake happening have a Stop point and then a brand new bunch of shit Backended if you wanted to for example like a literal Walk into the light for the new content moment that just kept you know what you know You know Susie in the chat just hey Susie that'd be Susie the Sphere Hunter fan a fan and friend of the show She summed it up perfectly at the end of remake

It says the unknown journey continues and then the next part is 95% faithful to the original game And again because it because it kind of has to be for right for everybody, but Perhaps the the result should be 95% of that with all the extra thrown in versus 100% and then we take it to 135% with some shit that's like, what? It runs into a different problem because I feel like the promise the first game made to me was broken

and therefore I'm not taking the promise the second game is making to me in its ending very seriously as a result. Because the second game ends with, oh what could happen? And I'm like, I think I actually know exactly what's going to happen and it's not that interesting. I see. OK. OK. Yeah. Would you have preferred or could it have played out like, does that make any sense? What if there was a full accurate remake

and now there's a link? Go to the dark world and here's all the new weird shit with completely different things going on and a different playable character and all that. Having it's... That would have been really nice. That would have been nice. I'm about to say something that's gonna come off

really inflammatory, so I don't want people to take the examples I'm using as the level of quality, I want to just get to the core of the emotion. You almost never preface, that's crazy. This is gonna come off much more inflammatory, but I just want that taste of that paper-specific feeling. I do the prefacing, this is nuts, okay. When I was playing Final Fantasy VII Remake, I was

on board and I felt like I was watching Evangelion Rebuild, right? To the point where they even specifically referenced that they had just watched the Rebuild movies and they really liked them, right? When I'm playing through FF7 Rebirth and I expected it to be different but it was actually the same exact thing again, I felt like I was watching The Force Awakens. Where I was like excited for a totally different thing and then it ended up being the exact same fucking thing again. Now FF7 Rebirth is much better than The Force Awakens. But the energy of what you're getting at.

But the energy of like, oh, it really is the same again. Oh, okay. Okay. I'll have to see. As a result, I'm not really excited for the third game at all. Oh wow. Oh That's a huge negative then this is this is a very like odd considering overall You're saying like you're like you said there's a lot of cool shit that was happening. Oh, yeah Absolutely, but to deflate the excitement is the ultimate negative

Well, cuz here's the thing. The most interesting things that happened to me in Final Fantasy 7 happened in the first two thirds. Like in general, like in the original game. Like I think the trip from Midgar to Nibelheim is way more interesting than Rocket Town to North Cave. And chasing after the huge materia and all that stuff. What value does the actual accurate remake with nothing added to it have for you?

If it was that, enormously. But it's not that. If this was a Resident Evil remake and it was a one-to-one perfect encapsulation of all your favorite bits plus improvements plus improvements plus so I would be judging it differently but getting me excited only to disappoint me is way worse than meeting my expectations because it's falling short of either of the two directions it could have gone in.

And you wanted full throttle one way or the other. You didn't want it to be the other way. Yeah, the other thing is that I spoke to some people and I was chatting with Chad afterwards where the ending is like, it's confusing. It's a little confusing. It's not that confusing. I think I get the sentiment there. I think a scaled a project of this fucking size scale

and importance and magnitude for what it is and all that shit creates such a bloat that there's just like going full in one direction or the other on the on the slider right full remake full new shit and like it's always going to land in the middle because They're going to watch you're totally right. I would have loved for it to land in the middle, but it didn't it landed at 95% 5% 95% 5% I see just enough to annoy you when you want it to be the same But not enough to excite you when you want it to be different. I see I see I mean, I'll tell you what like walking out of that theater and going wait a minute was the ocean red

Yeah, what the way what's happening here? Was like, ah, that's interesting, you know? And I mean, of course, we've seen that trick a couple times since, so nowadays you're like, ah. I know what they're doing here. But a lot of the crazy shit starts happening at the 90% mark, right? In FF7R1. I guess you're pretty much setting up the exact same thing for 3 then. A feeling of 90% accuracy, but

perhaps... It seems that way, with a little twist here or there. The other thing, and this is actually... This is totally different from all that. It doesn't help. So the final boss sequence is incredible. It's bombastic, it's incredible, it's exciting. As you do. The whole gang is there, everybody works to... It's incredible. exciting as you do the whole gang is there everybody works to it's it's incredible but the game you remember okay do you remember an ff7 remake when you got to the end of Shinra tower and you'd started to do the lab stuff and

the game just got really bad I didn't like that didn Hojo's land. I didn't bother me that much. I didn't. I didn't. That didn't bother me that much. Okay, well get ready for a much, much worse thing to happen and it'd be exactly the same where Shenron Manor is awful. Okay, like so bad. So while the pacing, while the pacing did drop compared to what I was expecting it to be at that point in time, I also kind of wanted an excuse to use my fully unlocked

abilities and just use the combat system more. Totally. Before hitting the credits. So I wanted more fights actually. Absolutely. The Shinra manner thing is really, really, really bad. And then the final dungeon took me like five and a half, no, more like four and a half hours. It's like twice as long as it probably should be. It's super long. Like you get to a part where you're like, I beat it. And then it goes, no, you're halfway. You go, ugh, no, you're halfway. And you go, ugh.

I don't want to. Okay. I don't wanna. Can I just, can I get to the thing that I'm here for? No. Do more puzzles with, do more spin the platform puzzles. Like, I really don't want to, actually. I don't want to do I don't want to anymore okay that's not combat no no there's there's a weird amount of like here we

invented a new mechanic for puzzles in the dungeons when you get to the end of the game that are all really terrible okay but yeah, I came off that really disappointed. And I didn't even, man, I didn't even do all of the last batch of side quests. That would have been another 15 hours for me to get to the end and, and... Right, you switched to mainlining, yeah. Right. I spoke to Gene. I spent 90 plus hours on that game. Didn't do all the side stuff, right? And it was like well spoke to G he did 36 hours Jean be lined the whole thing for review

And I bet you anything that he had a way better experience with that came than I did Just literally skip everything. Hmm. I bet you the pacing fucking rules if you do that Yeah, I think I'm gonna think I'm gonna again land somewhere in between splitting the difference there Okay Oh one last thing It forces certain characters in your in your party for certain boss fights That's rough if you don't like some of the characters in your party from a battle perspective

Okay, like there's there's there's a character in that party that I really don't like to play as and they're like you will fight multiple boss fights as this character mandatorily You're like fuck I really don't want to okay well you have to Okay Anything else of note Not a whole lot, I don't think so. Oh! I just wanted to share a cute baby moment. So the baby's wandering around and getting into all sorts of trouble. And he has blessed us with a particular baby idiom, or sorry, not idiom, a quirk that is great.

Every time he picks up something that he's not supposed to have, he goes, oh, oh, for like five full fucking seconds, like every time. So like picks up like a piece of cat fur off the floor, you're timed, he's gonna try and eat it, right? But first, oh, oh, and's gonna try and eat it right, but first And you hear that you're like

He's got something he's not supposed. He's gonna try to eat it Yeah, it's like is that the process of like am I supposed to have this is anyone gonna try to stop me And the answer is yes. Yeah, yes, I'm going to stop you So from the other room, you can hear did it. It is a dead end. And it ended at a dead end. And you got to get there before it did. This is really important. Not from the other room.

I'm not he's not unattended on the floor in a different room. OK, OK, OK. From turning your head to look out the window for one second. Right. okay. From behind you, you can hear the music playing. Yeah. Yes, all right. Like talking to the dog and asking him if he needs to go outside and then you hear from two feet behind you, oh, oh, oh, and you're like, got a piece of dog food. I don't know how he did that. Must have fallen off the dog. Okay, nope. No, that's not for you. He's got the charger for my phone! Yeah. I mean that is a useful, that is a useful noise. That will come in handy.

Yeah, it's great. It's the best. I love it. Big tells. Big startup tells. Good. What's the week looking like I the week is looking like I asked people do you guys we even want to see any m bison and the only person that was said yes was heaf knof and I know he's got ulterior fucking motives so the so tomorrow and the day after are Erd Tree, big Erd Tree. And then on Thursday I am off. And then on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday is gonna be Dawn

Trail until I beat it. That's the Final Fantasy XIV Dawn Trail trail why even put days there just just say well because it looks nice when you make a Twitter post with the schedule and it's just a bunch of it in a row just delete the border between the days and just make one giant I don't think I can do that but I'm bison will live on on my show during the queue When I sit down to stream dawn trail and it tells me that I have to wait for 45 minutes Until I can get in that's when m bison will live

Okay That's over at twitch.tv slash Pat stares at all righty you know what actually let's quick work from our sponsors and then I love sponsors oh get into my stuff week, the podcast is sponsored by Shopify. Chitching is the sound of a sale. If you're using one of them old school cat registers, which my dad had one of those and it was like, like, what why? Where what storefront? Are you going to type into a thing and have it actually go... That's crazy. People were using...

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no matter what stage you're in. Shopify.com slash SuperBeast. Thank you, Shopify. Thanks Shopify. All right, so first things first for me Next week I am going to be in Greece. Oh my god What kind of grease? Just gonna roll it all up and then start wrestling oil wrestling Oh pa Oh, Yeah, no, not quite. No, I'm getting in there. I will be traveling to Eleniki.

I'm going to get my practice speaking like Eleniki actually rather. What little I can remember. I took a class in college. It was a million years ago. But I'm going to be over there. If you are in Greece in the Athens area and would like to meet up and hang out and maybe get some games of Tekken or something, it turns out there's going to be a Tekken World Tour Dojo event happening the day I land, which is is Sunday June 30th so

It's the gamers lounge hype festival is what it's called and Yeah, I'm gonna tweet this out as well, but it's going to be yes Sunday June 30th in But I'll sky and mu Athena 10553 in Greece. So I'll be hanging out there. I know there's an entrance as well. So if you want to meet up out front, we can do that. And then anybody who wants to come in and get some games, you can get a ticket and then we're going to head over and see what the Greek Tekken scene is like. Also, thanks to some folks, I got some suggestions about

some good places to go eat and check stuff out as well. But yeah, that's going to be in Athens on Sunday. So beyond that, no podcast next week. And yeah, as far as this last week went, right, so it talked about some Punch Planet, or rather Elden Ring. Beyond that, Punch Planet went back to that for a bit. That was the cool synth wave fighting game that is, it just got a big balance update and that's still coming along. Not at 1.0, you know, yet. And I can, it's because it's still got two characters Not at 1.0, you know, yet. And it's because it's still got two characters I think they're working on. So they're still probably waiting for that full roster to release it on consoles and across everything. There's probably going to be a big full launch at some point on everything.

But for anyone keeping a tracker or tabs on that game, it's pretty cool. There's a lot of new systems in place and it's still just a very, it's visually awesome. The gameplay is very simple and it's very just like, yeah, this is just Street Fighter and then we're building off of that in a lot of ways. It's a very just traditional and good fighting game, you know?

Kind of reminds me of like a little bit of KI in some ways, in just sort of, or at least in terms of just some of the basis of how you, some of the ways some of the characters work in terms of like the amount of moves and options they have. There's a lot of things that are grounded and combos and stuff can get wild and nuts, but for the most part you're looking at a game that almost is basically filling in the spot that City of the Wolves does, like a Street Fighter-like in rhythm and intensity. So that's cool. And yeah, I went back to Tekken 8 for a little bit just to be able to touch buttons, not embarrass myself too hard.

And yeah, those games are, I mean, just the pinnacle of great, you feel comfortable with your character, that's cool. You have no idea what you're fighting against or what anybody else is going to be doing. Because good luck, they have too many things for you to memorize. Every single round. I'm just going to do what I'm going to do. I'm just going to hit my buttons. Yeah. And you can get away with it until you can't. And once they start doing shit to you and I'm like, oh, okay, which way am I? Okay. When do I have to stop blocking? Okay, wait. Do I have my buttons? Let me try to sidestep here? Nope, can't sidestep, okay.

And there's these little moments of just like, oh man, defense in Tekken is always like, oh, it's a rude reminder. It's a rude, crude, cruel reminder of like, not playing this hurts more than not playing other fighters because at the end of the day, the kit you're going to have to deal with in a Street Fighter game is, you know, maybe like eight normals

and a couple of specials, you know, three, four specials you can deal with. And Tekken is just going to be like a bunch of shit, a bunch of stance-based shit, a bunch of shit that changes when they're in heat. And sometimes the solutions are not just like, is this low? Is this high? Is it a mid or is it a throw break? Is it one or two? It's do you have to sidestep left or sidestep right? You got to be concerned about that stuff. And then of course, something that is getting relevant as well as like, there are moments where

it's it's better for you to block by letting go of the stick because Tekken has neutral blocking. If you don't touch the stick, it has neutral blocking. It'll block for you as long as it's high or mid. Then there's times where it's actually better to do that so that you get right into the next stick position you want to be in. It's crazy. Wake up options when you're on the ground, you know, like the

level of like, you don't really think about it because you're like, oh, in Tekken, you just kind of get up and, you know, a bunch of different ways. But you're like, there's roll it. There's like getting up on the spot, back, front, left, right, up with a kick, you know, up with the handspring. There's like fucking it's crazy. I think there's like nine or so like main things

and each one has a call out. Oh, Tekken. I really like it, but I just, I feel, it just, it reminds me like, yeah bro, you don't play me. You're gonna feel this every time you fight a character that's in your face blowing you up and you're like, is it my turn? It's not your turn yet. Maybe it's not still not your turn. Good

stuff with that. I was gonna I was gonna give a little fallout update, but just watch the second episode and still keeping a keen eye on our on our ghoul friend and I'm not sure what the what the Jork report had to say but as of episode two I mean spoiler alert for episode two he shot a dog and then healed it Yeah, and that's about that's about that's where we're at so far. Oh fuck. Okay. Look the dark reports probably gonna assume That you've watched all eight episodes. Yeah. Yeah, we're gonna have to get uh You know it's funny cuz mean page like pages working very hard on her report And she's worried. It's she's taking too long long and then I'm sitting here I'm like you know what I mean Woolie's shit Woolie's only on the second goddamn

episode Christ she has ages to get it ready for you I suppose you know but I also like I will say that I also never immediately knew I'm like there's no way like we know the number one thing every audience hates in all test screenings is I also never immediately knew, I'm like, there's no way. We know the number one thing every audience hates in all test screenings is a shot dog. With a bullet, you cannot upset an audience any further than shooting a fucking dog or stabbing it for that matter. Well luckily they fixed that dog at the end of the episode.

Yeah, I'm like, until the credits roll, I just don't buy that this dog is not gonna be fine, you know, which it totally is. And it's, and yeah, that is the rule of thumb in all media. Unless your name is Araki, in which case, go fuck yourself. You bet your ass I'm gonna stomp that dog out. I do not give a shit. We need to establish our villain one way or another.

Or Yakuza, for that matter. Anyways. Are there any dogs? No, there aren't. I can't remember ever fighting a dog in Yakuza, ever. No, but there's a puppy that gets kicked in a side quest. And then- Oh, and the main quest of one. Okay.

And then the puppy- One of the first objectives ever is quote, save the puppy, end quote. And Kiryu just watches as the puppy kickers run away and like goes up to the guy that like got beat up beforehand and is like, hey, you're a good dude. I bet those kids are sad that their dad didn't get them dragon quests. Anyways, yeah. So not much to it. That'll be it.

So if you're at the Gamers Lounge Hype Festival in Athens, come hang out. And beyond that, this week some Elden Ring and some Yakuza Tuesday and Wednesday and then that's gonna be all because I got to get ready for for travel so yeah come tune in hang out should be good a wooly versus on twitch and on YouTube all right in the news um hey I gave my take on twitter on this immediately but yeah

yeah we're hot taken now? marvel is free marvel is free and at long last that campaign from forever ago coming to fruition. And like I said, my favorite part is that this Marvel vs. Capcom collection rolls out the red carpet for the fan-made Ultimate Marvel 3 Community Edition and Marvel Infinite and Beyond, because it's every versus game,

minus Tatsunoko of course, every Marvel versus game in one collection up to two. So, and that's gonna get everything except Xbox, which there's rumors that Microsoft is not allowed to have Marvel games or X-Men characters. Yeah, because they're exciting. There's some weird rumors about that. Why don't you have Marvel games, X-Bob?

I don't know how real, I don't know the veracity of that or not, but regardless. Yeah, so it's great just to have a collection for people that allow these games to be played on future platforms for everybody. Just the ability to preserve it. That's my main thing with it. And if you have it on PC, then that's going to last extra long compared to the console versions. Now...

You know, a long time ago, Wully, you said, we're talking about Capcom, this is like eight, nine years ago, we were talking about Smash Brothers and the roster that Smash Brothers has, and that we were describing, we're talking about Capcom All-Stars, and you were talking about that Capcom has the most amount of beloved characters, they're second only to Nintendo. Like it is astonishing. And I'm sitting here and like Capcom just gets like a win every two or three years where they go, hey, do you guys like Capcom games?

You wanna buy them again? Yeah, here you go, dumbasses! And we go, whoo! And we're right to do so. But like, there's so much that Capcom could just put out. I mean, for one, it's not like we don't have to subscribe to like a you know, Capcom online shop where they've been selling them back to you for like every generation forever now, admittedly. where they've been selling them back to you for every generation forever now, admittedly. But the main thing is to just, really,

it's like to get it on PC officially, get it with rollback, get it in some form that will allow people however many years from now to still be able to play these games. And it's awesome to be able to do that in this context. I'm glad that that is there. And it also is positive signs about, hey, Marvel is signing the papers and, you know, down with the idea of putting out at least older games right now. The there's always an asterisk with these things and I have to like I really hope that this time they're

minimizing the amount of like emulation based issues that can get in the way of this being a fully received product because essentially the last collection had some lag issues that like the versions were fine because they're running just the arcade thing. There's not it's not a weird port. It's not a weird edited version or update or anything. It's just the arcade thing running. It even has dip switches and the boot screen and the press insert coin like all of that

is there right. You see the Q sound logo you know in cases, so you know that's legit. But if there's any input lag getting in the way of your of your game, if it's subpar to I mean, not just like CRT testing, but if there's anything with playing online as well, that might create an issue, people will just be like, nah, I'm not running it right. And so the in particular, a lot of people that play retro stuff were like, yeah, I'm not going to play VSAV on this Capcom collection because it's runs

better on Fightcade. St players are like, I'm still going to just run it on Fightcade. And like if this version creates any kind of like reason for people who are really into these games to not use it, then that sucks because it's like, well, now you're preserving it and making it so that it's good, so that people who are interested in these can come and check them out,

but you're also then not fixing the problem where the people that are the most into these old games are gonna give a fuck about this new release if they look at it and go, yeah, that's cool, I don't care, I'm still just gonna stick with this one, you know? Physical copies existing, all of that shit. like the I wish that these releases could come out and be Good enough for people to run tournaments on and for everyone to not have any of these issues I'm really excited for everyone to find out

Just how much more love there is in Marvel vs. Capcom than there is in the world vs. Capcom 2 I mean love there is in Marvel vs. Capcom than there is in Marvel vs. Capcom 2. I mean... But it's... It's... Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. You know, a little bit of that CVS1 vs. CVS2 thing as well. I think CVS1 to CVS2 is even worse.

It's... But you need a little bit of both because the sauce requires some love, initially, and then AHHHHHHHHH throw it all out there, see what sticks. Okay, take that Morrigan sprite and slide it backwards and forwards. We've only got four others. Okay that's fine. Create an entire character out of bone-claw Wolverine. Just paint bucket fill his claws to be a little more yellow.

Done. Right? The level of bullshit that Marvel 2 is based on. It's the most Mugen it's ever been. Marvel 2 feels like a pirate video game. Absolutely. Like a pirate video game. It, it, absolutely. Like, I mean, even like, like, so Capcom fighting evolution slash fighting jam was just, it was that feeling with less content and not fun to play.

Yeah. Infant, whereas Marvel 2 is fucking just borked and jacked to all high heaven, but there's so much happening that you can find some fun shit. And even though the characters have... You're like, wait, what do you mean you only have four buttons? You have to double tap to get your mediums? What the fuck? What are you doing? It's so weird at the time.

It's so weird. You know? But it's like, yeah, who cares? There's... Everyone's here and there's three assist types for everybody. Go nuts, you will never learn every matchup It's just it's batch it no semblance of attempting anything fair balanced or I mean whatsoever I would really like it if

After this collection they decided to do The ultimate Marvel 3 and give it the net code that Infinite has so that people can play Marvel 3 with that good internet. That would be nice. That would be nice. But I continue to be extraordinarily excited for Marvel 3 with Nero and Cyclops and Rashid and Yuri. But you have to be able to play it against other people. and Cyclops and Rashid and Yuri.

But you have to be able to play it against other people. Yeah, yeah. So I'm not sure how the netcode tests have worked, but there is a possibility that if you're both running identical builds and you select the same things, I'm not sure if it actually, if online works or not. I don't know if it has to be parsec. I'd have to hear from, I guess, like Wistful Hopes or something about whether or not that's going to be the case. But as far as I know, there's always parsec as a bottom line if nothing allows it to connect. But if you can connect, it'd be super dope. So is this opening up the door for goddamn Marvel 4?

It doesn't seem like Capcom's interested in giving us Marvel versus Capcom anytime soon. It feels as if that's been a like, any minute now, come on guys. And then they're like, nah. So you're like, all right, I guess not. And the dream of Capcom versus SNK is now fully dead because Terry and Meyer just coming into Street Fighter. But I also think that that represents the fact that they were... So the news about Capcom versus SNK back in the day was both studios grew up...

The staff were all friends with each other because they're the two fucking modelists or well, that word doesn't apply. Anyway, the pillars of fighting games, they knew each other, they worked together. People from one studio would go work at the other, they're all friends. Those people all left the companies and didn't recognize each other anymore, didn't really know the staff at each place. So Capcom and SNK during the 09 and forward years were kind of like not really that they didn't know each other that well. And it seems as if like that bridge has been built again.

So if anything, negotiations and discussions about possible collaboration can happen now, whereas like it kind of wasn't in the set after Street Fighter IV brought fighting games back, you know. With Marvel, it's possible. It's possible. But I feel like it would be really hard to make the game real good because of Marvel. I think that like there's a high likelihood that an infinite type situation

might occur again, where you're like, God damn it. You had the chance to, you know, not have all these mistakes, but then like the roster influence and the budget limitations and the rush and the fact that, you know, they probably want to fit it into their, you know, Marvel game release cycle in some way instead of giving it its own fucking space and time to breathe. There's a lot that will ruin it there. Disney involved with a lot of it. You know, like, I just, I don't know that, like, it can happen with a lot of it. You know, like I just, I don't know that like it can happen with a hands-off approach given how everything Marvel runs

is now, you know, so, I don't know, man. I'm still kind of in a place where I would love a Capcom versus Capcom instead, you know, but there is a real fucking hype that exists when people are like, ah shit, it's Cyclops and Ryu, daffin' it up. Let's go, boy, let's go. But you in there, though. But you in there, you know? Every one of the, like, Dipod doing it and retweeted as well, like, every version of that handshake getting updated because the original sterile Marvel versus Capcom, or X-Men versus Street Fighter with the, hello, yes, how do you do? Are you? Yes, Cyclops, nice to meet you, Scott, hello.

And then now the energy is just like, what it do, baby? You know, I love that shit. So yeah, I know that the the X-Men and like every character from the the Marvel as a whole has like a lot of just fun fucking cultural value But I just feel Disney is gonna fuck up any new project that could come out in this series. I don't have the faith They should do it though this series. I don't have the faith. They should do it though. Like, I agree with every single thing that you just said. And my gut still says, they should do it though, it would be cool. Because you know, like, you just, you might get this thing that's like, well why not make it have like this ongoing roster that's like, you know, whatever the run of the most recent comic or whatever

the latest movie is, we can just push those characters to the forefront. You know what, you're completely right. They should have signed this deal this week and then they should say, hey, what's really hot out of Marvel right now? Oh-Men 97 cool let's put those characters into a Capcom fighting game great done but also you get like no time or money to make it proper and give them at least $4 you know yeah I'm about to say something let's call it fuck as fuck. Let's call in Dimps. Let's call an aiding. Let's call in Namco Let's call it. You know what I mean? Just get get some homies on the job to make this thing look or play Like it should and let's be real too. Like I think they should do a good job

Yeah, yeah But take it to surpass three, right? Is what the expectations are. Marvel 4 needs to surpass three. Okay, here you go. You ready? You ready for this? Super duper ultimate Marvel 3.

Just throw 10 more characters in there. Just throw 12 more in. Yeah. Just throw twelve more in. Yeah, fuck it. Do it. Kill the community edition. Just fuck that shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't hate it.

I don't hate it at all. Roll back, run it. That's fine. Fucking put out Marvel Infinite Plus One. Literally call it Infinite Plus One. And put that filter that person's working on in there and you're done I don't hate it at all like you know the prospect of just that playable now with some new shit sure put out X-Men

children of the atom 2 fuck it Super Heroes 2 would have always have been an exciting one in particular. Yeah. But I think the game that would be like the best chance of being really good and hype would be one that is not tethered to whatever Disney's trying to do there. I imagine Tatsunoko was like, I don't fucking know. I imagine Tatsunoko was like,

yeah, here's Yaderman and Karas, do some shit. I don't know. I don't see them floating too heavily over that game and being too overly concerned about it. But either way, this collection is going to be here and that's dope. That's dope. It's got a bunch of shit in there. Yeah.

So obviously that involves X-Men Children of the Atom, which if you have only seen the Marvel versus Capcom games as of like MVC 1 or 2, go back and play Children of the Atom. It's good! Not only is it good, but you also will get to appreciate the full quality of those sprites because they have way more frames of animation. Everything is way more detailed and lively than the versions you got over the years. As they added more and more to- I think the stupidest thing is that X-Men Children of the Atom is the best looking out

of all of those games. Yeah, it's crazy. As they added more and more characters and more to these games, they had to reduce the fidelity of the character sprites and stuff. Wolverine is such a great example of like go look at his idle animation And it's a lot of nice is incredible. He's kind of in Marvel 2 and stuff He's just kind of like they're like that with the claws and children of the atom. He's He's got the full jig going and he's moving around like it's crazy

Everyone looks so detailed like even Cyclops who just kind of stands there with his chest out right in All the later games, it's just like a almost like a two or three frame standing and breathing pose. And like X-Men Children of the Atom, the chest expands and the full breathe is there. All of that stuff. It's so incredible. I forgot. I'm watching footage of it now. I forgot you jumped between different stages. Yeah. You had stage transitions. You had things where in Marvel superheroes, when

Hulk does the ground wave and stuff, he actually picked up a tile of the stage you were on and threw it at you. It wasn't just generic rocks, right? Like you would. It looked great. There's a lot of stuff. You had a Schumacherath boneyard stage that kind of scrolled infinitely.

It was this wild, like, you know, Lion King ass elephant graveyard that just was this experimental, super long, insane stage, you know. There's a lot to those games that's wild and different. And in the arcade version specifically, you get the weird half game that is Marvel versus Street Fighter, because it was X-Men Street Fighter, and then Marvel Street Fighter, and then Marvel Capcom. So Marvel versus Street Fighter is like, yeah, a weird one of like the Marvel versus, like essentially, you know, before they added Mega Man and Captain Commando and Strider and stuff, they kind of just had the cast of Street Fighter and then like All the Marvel superheroes characters and then like Norimaro

Which is this Japanese comedian who got a full playable character for some reason That like has a weird bag of like goofball. He's basically like an animaniac kind of character, you know And cyber Akuma, you know, with the full-on robot arm and like Kanoi and all that wild shit. So it's just, yeah, it's a weird, crazy history to go back to and see all that stuff. And of course, you can trace the purest friendship that is Peter Parker and Morrigan from day one. Always hanging out on the box arts, always posing together in the... They're friends! Yeah, posing together in the endings and then win quotes like, hope MJ doesn't mind me

getting back home later tonight. Haha! Yeah, wholesome. wholesome pure friendship their friends absolutely like Isabelle and doom guy It's good nothing unto what happened in there Also also the wildness of this collection being announced in a Nintendo Direct of all places Yeah, it's not where I fucking expected that That Nintendo Direct was great, by the way. That was a crazy one. Mm-hmm. Like, I talked about, like, you know,

I, there were some folks, and we had the discussion last week of like, oh man, a lot of those shows burnt out and jaded, cynical fucks that we are, yada yada. Why even watch them? And then I watched that Nintendo Direct, I'm like, oh no, it was the shows that were bad actually that Nintendo Direct was super exciting. I mean at the same time what are the fucking odds you're going to get Metroid Prime 4 news like you know that's one of those bingo fucking-

Apparently more likely than Silksong news! Of course that's one of those bingo card cross lists that like You would have fucking won on because Metroid Prime 4 was also the game that was like no news Restarted development, you know, is it dead? Is it not etc? I mean there was some silk silk song news if you technically count Yeah, it's where some guy says it's not in development hell in the same year that Elden Ring's DLC comes out. By the way, Elden Ring and Silksong were announced in the same year. So Hollow Knight Silksong, according to a semi-regular Team Cherry correspondence and playtester named Greg. He said, it's not in dev hell. It's disheartening

that, you know, things feel this way because fans have gotten pretty cynical about things and, you know, and such, but he's agrees that Team Cherry should be better about communicating with everybody. So apparently this person has been known to say other things in the past that have not been untruths in regards to Hollow Knight. Here's where I'm at with that. I'm going to just give this guy the benefit of the doubt and that he believes what he's saying. Right? He is of the genuine belief that the game is not in DevHell. He's not on Team Cherry. Right. But to which I say like why should I believe that? You've brought us nothing. Just your opinion. There's no meat to this, bro. Just trust me.

What he says is quote unquote, every software every software dev cycle ever set internal dates, miss them all the time. Normal part of software dev. That's not true! You don't hear about them because they don't announce them to the public. Normal for every dev cycle.

That's not true! I mean, well, so it's true to the extent that this does happen all the time. What is not regular is the amount of them that have been blown by and the, again, the length of time. This type of- It is not- No, what he's describing does occur, but it just doesn't occur for this length of time.

Hold on. When I say it's not true, when he says every dev does this, it's totally normal. It is not normal for a dev to miss every internal deadline and then not say anything about it ever. Like, Metroid got re-revealed and has a release date, or at least a quarter, I forget which. Fucking Nintendo, the company that won't tell you what team is working on their games, came out and said, yeah, we restarted the entirety

of development because we weren't happy with it. I think the point of what he's saying is Nothing unexpected and surprising out of left field is occurring behind the scenes It's just classic game not ready yet being late and missing all their deadlines I don't so like if that was the, there would be more than actually literally nothing. And communication is fucking dog shit, right? If you, and yeah, if there were nukes and, you know, absolute landmines going off

inside the development that has led to things like massive restarting of areas, scrapping of progress, huge changes, huge major things that have led to, you know, asset redesign or whatever the case is, reopening up the design itself, then that is all stuff that, you know, if you did communicate, people would still hate that shit, but you would understand where and what's going on and why, and we speculate as to maybe someone has health issues or whatever.

Tester here is saying nothing wild like that, just shit is missing its deadlines and continuously doing so. Which, if anything- I think the funniest thing is that that is dev hell. Yeah, well, that's the thing. It's a benign thing that is like folks are not able to hit their deadlines and this is still some example where you need a producer and or person, the type of person that we hate existing in most cases,

you need that person here to go, I don't care, you have to hit this. It doesn't matter if something has to come out. It still is missing that. You know what's a really good example is Elden Ring. So Elden Ring took forever. We had a whole talk about Elden Ring, about where the hell is Elden Ring. Took forever. And then they were making changes to that game up until the fucking day before it came out.

And then a couple of months after it came out, they put out a patch that was like, hey, by the way, here's how you can see NPCs on the map. And it was like, oh, this was obviously supposed to be the day one patch. But at some point, someone said we have a release date, fuck you, put it out, it's good Oh, this was obviously supposed to be like the day one patch. Yeah. Right? But at some point someone said we have a release date. Fuck you. Put it out. It's good enough.

And they were right. No one is there at Team Cherry to do that. No one is there to be like, no, do you know what? Don't add that next area. Actually. Don't do it. I mean, I don't think anyone can argue with, you know, like the idea that it's like, yeah, there's a it's crazy that no one's talking. And that I don't think anyone can really wrap their head around why that's the case. Because here he feels

comfortable saying that much like, yeah, they should communicate more. Don't know why they don't. So, like, Sulk Song will probably release, and I bet you it is going to be extremely good. And people will say that we... Oh, I'm gone. All right. Yeah. So that's what does happen is if you wait a second and then eventually... There you go. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. And then... So that's so strange. What did you

Do to get back in the call? So that time I didn't manually close it. I just waited for it to do the auto kick and then it kicked so weird Like I was saying is that oh and I'm back too. Yeah weird I bet silk song come out and it'll be very good and people will say that well Oh, you forgot about all that stuff. They were right to not do it. Who cares? I will I will carry that resentment in my heart Even if I have the best time with silk song, I will carry that annoyance and resentment in my heart

And will therefore not get excited for their next project. This fuck. Christ, I'm not even excited about Soul Song right now. Well, I was gonna say, I mean, Ghost Song came out, right? Yeah, dude. Fully? 2022? Yeah, it's out? Yeah, dude. Fully? 2022? Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

That just fizzled in its entirety. Oh yeah, no it was one of the the Kickstarter darlings it was right there at the beginning. They got my money. You know, they got my money. But yeah, that that affected me and my interest massively. Not that it was any, again, there's no shortage of things to play. But hey, you know what you can stay excited for? Beyond Good and Evil 2 is totally still in development. Promise. Big promise. Yeah, there's some ports of one coming and some other stuff. I mean, I didn't even really

throw that on there, like, to be honest. It's like, yeah. Oh, no, I wouldn't have if it wasn't funny right now to be like, yeah. Guides? Yeah, we're still doing it. Promise. Zelda from the top rope with the chair. Yeah, Legend of Zelda echoes of wisdom And looks like after People pretty much have put out there was there was there was a time would like I think it was like pre Lincoln Where everyone was like designing the like what if Zelda was the protagonist of a Zelda game thing?

And like yeah, okay officially here is that whole discussion was so weird because it would be just exactly the same was just like Link's hair would be like an inch longer And look exactly the same So the the hope would that would be that gameplay style could be interesting and different and in this case it seems to be like Yeah cloning and making objects and stuff That's all fine. And I'm sure there'll be a lot of mechanics that'll be fun to it. I enjoyed, you know, Link Between Worlds and some of the stuff that was put out in this the Toy Box kind of art style here. There's a little thing, I have no problem with the Toy Box art style. I do wish for Zelda being playable in the

first game, it would have not been that. I would have preferred like, yeah, any of the other art styles, I think it would have been cool to get, to fully appreciate like, you know, just a Zelda based game. But again, I'm not, it's not a huge deal at all. It's just a slight little thing. I'm well aware that there's all sorts of brand logo nonsense that goes into this, but this should be called The Legend of Link. Yeah, I mean, Zelda II was called Link, right?

Yeah. And again, I doesn't have to. I'm not necessarily saying it had to be like a dark, serious, badass toilet. No, I can go with with Wind Waker on that. I can go with any of the more stylized cartoonish Zelda designs to as well. I just think that like the toy box style is like it's kind of like, oh, well, if you kind of already know what's what what this is and you're kind

Of like revisiting something and you're taking an artistic approach to it That works as well, but it would have been cool for this to be like Instead of feeling like kind of like a half step with a new Zelda game, but now it's Zelda's protagonist It would have been cool for it to like fully be like hey We're doing a whole new thing that is giving a Zelda playable game the amount of respect it deserves with a brand new art style and a whole new maybe even musical side to it. Maybe the art direction and the music and a lot of the elements will play, even the HUD, finding ways to make it all really Zelda identified would have been a really cool step

to take instead of a modification of what we kind of got. But that's that's been a first person shooter and should have played like heretic. But that's asking for that's what I think they're willing to do. You know, I remember heretic that game fucking rules. Yeah. No, I know. I know. I know that it's that that's not within the scope of what they're trying to make.

I'm not. I'm not. I know that it's that that's not within the scope of what they're trying to make. I'm not I'm not I'm aware That's a whole other thing, but it would have been cool That's it it's not a you don't have to justify it you think it would be cool so they should have done it You need to fucking expand out your fucking truth out to the world. I don't know why that's weird I don't know why that's a weird thing, you know, but alright. What is Rad is fucking how about that brother ship? That looks really cool. Mario and Luigi. I think that's a really unfortunate name.

Yeah, cuz you know that goes where it's gonna go. You can't really stop it. They're going for the friendship pun, but it is what it is. And yeah, this is also, I was curious about it, and like, yeah, this is the first Mario and Luigi game that's not being developed by Alpha Dream. Oh, really? Yeah, because they shut down a couple of years ago. Pre-COVID, I wanna say.

But they are, Nintendo's not saying who or what studio, so it seems like it's just maybe internal, but they're saying some of the original devs of Superstar Saga and those series from Alpha Dream are working on it, but they're not saying who's making it right now. Well, those games are incredible, so hopefully this is just as good. Bowser's Inside Story is like low-key one of the best DS games. Hmm. I just I just hate It sucks that Nintendo's so like I don't worry about the developer. It's a Nintendo game. Shut up He says no tendo on the fucking when you when you go to their store and you go to the shops and stuff And they're just like whoa who made the Nintendo made it endo Nintendo fucking made it some Mario game

Who the fuck you think made it? Oh god, just... Can we big up a studio guys? No? Yeah. So, that's all we know for now. But looks cool. Looks like fun stuff's happening.

Big old co-op antics, or not co-op, both characters like playing off dual tech antics. I love that. Just more dual tech moments, setting it up and dunking it down. Looks cool. This is the fucking franchise that combined with Luigi's Mansion told us that Luigi is just constantly pissing and shitting his fucking pants and he's a total bitch. And the two, Mario and Luigi, both mid-tier as heroes, however, when they're standing together they can defeat Sephiroth, is apparently. Also, they sound like what Italians sound like when they talk. Like it's real. They

must have gotten like a specialist or like a translator. They took the opportunity to replace Charles Martinet with actual Italians. Is that what you're saying? They cook her the pizza. And yeah, so they dropped a new Zelda, they dropped Brother Ship, they dropped Metroid Prime 4 Beyond. It's got that dude from fucking hunters as the fucking villain Silas I think his name was. Hunters. That's That's crazy Hey Looks great music sounds cool sounds like a Metroid Prime music Can't wait

hope That you don't need to do too much or any gyroing. Let's let's. You're so fun. Let's let's cross fingers for no gyro. But beyond that, yeah, that's a Metroid Prime game. That's that's, you know, nothing, nothing, nothing to say about that, except glad it's here. And and there's also a, between that and Dread existing,

it's like, oh shit, actually both Metroids exist. Yeah. What the fuck? Where, what timeline have we entered? Where like, Metroid is not double dead. Yeah. That is crazy. Donkey Kong Country Returns HD.

It doesn't look as good as I thought it would. It looks like, like more washed out. Maybe I'm crazy. I remember that the original was really popped. Yeah, I'm not sure. Again, I think I just watched y'all play in it. But I don't I never went back through it myself. Um, yeah, that was a thing. Um, and it seems like as well, like I guess following in the footsteps of return to dreamland, right? Like this is another like, Oh, let's go grab a Wii exclusive and free it.

You know? So I don't know what other Wii exclusives are still trapped, but hopefully, hopefully they're no good trend. I don't mind that. I was kind of expecting that final Xenoblade game. What was it called? The one that doesn't actually link into the others. Chronicles X? Chronicles X? Yeah, I was expecting that I was surprised to not see it Dragon quest one two three HD 2d remakes that was a really good way to announce that I really loved how they showed off three and

Then they panned back and they're like and one and two though also kind of like the the from Front Mission. Yeah. For they're just like, hey, we're remaking Front Mission, and the other one, and the other one. Oh, did you hear about Front Mission 2 coming out? Did it drop already?

Oh, yeah, it came out months ago. Are you confused as to why no one ever mentioned it to you? Yeah. Because it had a machine translated dialogue and it was complete nonsense and unplayable. Cutting the fucking cord. It was a new translation which meant they just threw it into Google Translate. God damn it. God damn it. Just grab the Excel sheet. Just fucking... fuck. That sucks. Ugh.

And the worst part is that you know that there's like, super accurate fan re-translations that are out there that like... Oh, we can't use those. That'd be free. Yeah, but it's almost like, yo, that's where you're almost... Oh, I'm being told that the AI is also completely broken. Awesome. That's great. Fuck. That's super. Okay. Okay. You're just fix this shit before you get to three, please. Please for the love of god. Well, there's already an existing English translation for three. Just don't fucking. Just put three out there and just let me kick up the frame rate and resolution

and don't change anything else. Don't up the frame rate and resolution and don't change anything else. Don't fuck it up, man. Like, just don't do anything. Get all this stupid shit out of the way before you get to three. That sucks. Okay. Speaking of localization, you know what is getting localized properly?

Fucking Ace Attorney Investigations 2. Fuck yeah. All that edge worth. All the edge. Dude. Get your worth. So I only played the first Ace Attorney Investigations because it was in English. It's incredible.

It's fantastic. And 2 is apparently up there for the best of those games in the series. And it just never came out. Hmm. So, okay. What is it that I'm seeing when it looks like you're side scrolling? You are. Okay. So you're, there's actually like walking around and not. So in the investigation sections in your typical Phoenix Wright game, you're in first person and you just go from screen to screen in a Saturni investigations. you can move

your little edge worth around you're still screen locked but you walk around the crime scene oh it's the same thing it's just a different view okay okay okay gotcha I was like are you fucking jumping over like you know like jumping over no bicycles and landing on people's heads and collect gathering the evidence? The bummer here is that this came out alongside Apollo Justice, and Apollo Justice is not that good. It's like fine. But the investigations games, which are the spin-offs are excellent but they didn't sell as well as Hall of Justice because that one is the one that's just like the old games.

That's such a shame because I'm like from the outside it always is like, oh that kid looks cool. He looks like the little Nero, you know, trying to do it. His cases just don't have the juice. And then the two Edgeworths that he's got which are those brothers Yeah, they look so sick. So I do I know I'm like, ah man design wise like That's a bummer that's a bummer I love the way he looks and I love the way they look New Mario Party jamboree I love the way they look. New Mario Party jamboree. Just fucking keep throwing more boards in there.

It's a platform. Every time I see Mario Party and I think about how much I don't care about Mario Party, I think about someone putting up Nintendo Switch sales figures and Call of Duty next to them. It's like maybe if we spend $400 billion, we can sell as well as the 11th best Mario Party game. I would not be surprised if at some point, if they haven't already tried this, like with the whole 99 series going, with fucking Tetris 99, Zelda 99, F-Zero 99, etc.

Mario Party 99, where you just get 25 people all on one team. Or you can make a board with 99 people running around on it Or you know which is the like or you can do the like all giant group of people controlling one thing But I'm surprised we haven't gotten some kind of crazy version of that This has doing that well this has 20 players right yeah, yeah, no no is it not enough for you I know no no I'm talking I'm riffing off of the fact that yes they announced the 20 player version of it and I was like oh man they did 99 player fucking battle royale versions of the other crazy things you know yeah absolute madness and then yeah I don't

know if there's anything else there that caught your attention, but you know, they're getting stray. Yeah, Cat Games is a good game. That's cool. That Memories in Orbit thing looked like a cool little stylish platform thing. Man, I don't remember that. Luigi's Mansion 2 HD, you know, that's fine. Darkest Dungeon 2, shout outs to that.

But the Darkest Dungeon 1 mode for that come out, yeah. I don't think so. No, no, it didn't. Which it's not exactly, but it's it's it basically minima- yeah, but it minimizes carting around so. Yeah, so that's it okay beyond that The dev of slay the princess tells players to Pirate the game instead of just watching playthroughs. That's baller. That's baller. That's far. It's crazy shit and awesome as hell Yeah, and the the sentiment is based on the fact that

so a markiplier started a playthrough of it and Black tabby games the official accounts basically came out to say yeah It's cool And he's playthrough is awesome for folks that are tuning in to watch Markiplier Slay the Princess. If you haven't played it on your own yet, the best viewing experience will be if you watch it after you play it. It's wildly reactive to your choices.

Every playthrough is very personalized. You should watch the Markiplier Let's Play. The first episode was really good. But there's a summer sale now. If you want to wait for a discount, pirate it first. If you can't afford the game in general, pirate it. No skin off our back. You can always buy a copy later if you think it was worth your money. And then watch Mr. Plier. So the idea there of being like, yeah, experience it yourself so that you can get the full reactive journey there and then check out the Let's Play after which, yeah, that makes perfect sense.

And I think that's dope. Some games are really like, I do feel like, yeah, you are going to rob yourself of your experience of something that reactive to your choices and going through the narrative journey in that I Fully agree with that. That's a that's a pretty Cool thing of them to say plus I'm reminded of one Hakita Who spoke about who tweeted out at some point before that? Supporting these if you, but culture shouldn't exist

only for those who can't afford it. Ultra Kill wouldn't exist if I hadn't had easy access to movies, music, and games growing up. If you don't have money, you can support via word of mouth. And this was in response to somebody putting out a video going, I love pirating indie games. So. Yeah, they're doing so.

So people who do that out of spite, I'm of the belief they probably don't actually even buy the game they're talking about. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no You know the looking to get big gold because you get paid on on rage Twitter, of course But you know the response though was fucking ace by Hikito So I mean if I had not pirated Yakuza one, I would not have been able to save Yakuza 5 Like come on like come on you know what if I told you that that first copy of metal wolf chaos that we were shown yeah the very first one yeah that James showed me

was on that jank fucking xbox yeah yeah what if only to save the game later that's why that's that's crazy no um but yeah seriously people if you don't know about something how can you care about it mm-hmm like that that's it And you know I I do You know emphasize as well like it if you think shit is like then absolutely support What is what would you know you want to support? I think um I? when shit like blood-borne cart comes out and is like turned into nightmare cart and

Goes through all of that journey to release and it still is a free fucking awesome little project like go please absolutely donate you know like keep that shit going that's awesome deserves a CD CD project read is like you know that's a company that's making your big blockbuster super games and it's like they used to broadcast the fucking piracy tapes over the radio for I forget I'm not super familiar with those old ones but I think was like the Amiga or the Magnavox or whichever one you could just record the radio on a cassette tape and plug it in your fucking system yeah they were just broadcasting shit over Polish public

radio. The piracy to doing it for real pipeline is huge. Now, I should note, of course, as well, the Princess Dev also did delete these tweets after the fact. Somebody from the company probably yelled at them. And I think not every game developer is going to share these sentiments and not everyone is going to look at this the same way. RubySoft always tells you that if you pirated a game you actually burned money in their vault by magic.

But even among indies, not everyone, not every game dev feels the same way about that. I respect that. That's fine. But I do think that what they're saying here has a sound logic to it that makes sense given what they made and how they made it themselves. You know what? It's actually pretty interesting because I'm seeing people mention that Crunchyroll used to be a piracy site.

And it was a good piracy site that then went legit and was a good legit site. And then they decided that they really wanted to get back and really push people back to piracy by becoming a much worse legit site. Right. And there's a bunch of things that have a similar kind of story. But yes, that is the summary. It's okay to want to be paid for your work. Oh, absolutely.

I don't want to put energy out there implying that this isn't the way it's for everybody. Everyone should always receive fair compensation from their work. However, if you're working in an artistic medium and you're dealing with people who will never interact with your work monetarily ever because they're either broke or are literally children, you're not losing out when they interact with your work. Or are in a country where they're not allowed. Where they're not allowed, yeah. Which is most of the case.

I mean if you want to get real crazy about this conversation, let's not even talk about how many pieces of art, digital art or digital videos you have watched on YouTube or seen on the internet that were made with less than legitimate versions of Adobe or Sony Vegas or what have you. That's's expensive! If you can, if you're a student and you have access to a student version of some shit, you know, you're gonna see people hanging out in the college working on those computers rendering shit out, but uh...

Man, you know who had the best racket? The photocopier kids in college. They just post up at the photocopier and like bring me your textbooks. Oh, oh, copy doctor. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. I mean, I don't know if she's still around, but like there was an individual known as the copy doctor in Montreal and like she'd meet you on a park bench and just get you a full photocopied version of whatever fucking textbook the school was or your university was trying to run a scan for that year. Because the level of bullshit with those things is like, not only like before they had, they

had these like return your textbooks or sell them back to the bookstore kind of programs. But like, there was a system of straight up publishing a new version almost every two years with extremely minor changes that meant nothing. And they would still be like, yeah, fuck you spend $80 on this book. It was insane. It's such a scam. I remember when they started putting in like text codes to get like, oh, to get the latter half of this chapter. QR or fucking- Whatever.

And then the response to that was just like to not do that at all and ask those questions in class and then get the smart kids' notes. Yeah. So enter the fucking hero that was the copy doctor, just saving there It was it's such a fucking if I pay tuition to go to higher education than the fucking books should be free It's so fucking ridiculous. They're mandatory costs And not to write it and even the like like buying them used and selling it back for the next year student thing was just like The used cost was insane already. Like it just nothing about it made any sense, you know.

I remember on Rate My Teachers, I think that's what it was called. There were some teachers that would get low marks because they would go, no, we're teaching according to the new textbook. It has to be this year's textbook. Exactly, exactly, exactly. Because I wrote it.

And it's like, well, if you wrote the textbook, why do I need the textbook? I have classes with you. You're the textbook. Why should I buy the textbook? And of course, I'm talking from fucking 20 years ago, so I don't know what the digital equivalent now is of selling you a PDF or whatever but I'm sure they found a way to transition their fucking scum business over to the digital realm.

Anyways speaking of rolling out your scum business,, the latest updates from Embracer Group. Embracer Group rolls out a new AI policy to massively enhance game development. Company claims that shunning AI models will lead to it being outrun by its competitors. So. You don't make anything. Nothing, I mean, not much to that type of headline or story except just like

Embracer races to be the most To just to make people as upset as they possibly can in one calendar year the race of the bottom continues and in one calendar year, the race to the bottom continues. And it's just not, again, like you're like, yeah, the same decisions, the same minds that made all the decisions that led them to where they are can look here and think this is the right move to make now. Actually, yes. Why not? This is we got here based on this, these minds. Why wouldn't they continue down this path, you know? Especially given that all of these things that have exploded and gotten lit on fire

have been 100% just, yeah, investment-based responses, swerving off the road. Everything they've done has all been based on, like when we talked about the response to investors, response to trying to beat the market. Of course, you need to throw words out there. You need to, you know, GameShark needs to rename itself to AI Shark and stuff, because if you use those letters, people who have cash in hand that they're looking to burn are going to show up. So this is the type of press release to just get people who are searching for the letters a.i to invest in to show up. It's, it's not much

more than that. So, um, there's two things that bring to mind when I think about AI and game development, the first of which is that there's a new horrible AI trend, particularly on TikTok, where they're using the AI video machines to finish classic memes or interrupt classic memes. So you'll see like the little girl standing in front of that burning building, but now it's a video and it pans and oh wow there's firefighters everywhere, and they're all like The heavens I am air of course soup not they of course that like and like some of the people going like wow AI

They've something I put up a video of the flash like oh my god soon We'll have AI movies, and it's like the shittiest looking thing I've ever seen. It looks terrible, like genuinely awful. It will never be of commercial use, ever. No, no, no. I guarantee you. You see, that's the thing is right now. I think I think

Someone is jerking off at the idea of like coming up with the one that's gonna pull the wool over everyone's eyes Yeah, that they won't know until the last second and go ha ha you too late. You already praised it Good luck. You're looking at like a science that is designed to fuck with a core human reaction, which is the uncanny valley. It's very powerful. But the reason why I said- Defend the fingers of the background people, etc. But it's coming.

Make no mistake, what I just described is absolutely coming. So that's already happened. It happened back in the 60s and 70s, but it wasn't AI. I remember watching a little bit of a documentary about old Disney film, about the style of animation back in the day, and the idea of the tracing for some of those old Disney movies came up. So you're familiar that some of the events in some of those old Disney movies came up. So you're familiar that some of the events in some of the old Disney. Dancing animals, Peter Pan.

Yeah, not Peter Pan, Robin Hood. And then they were traced. Like there's stuff that's in like, I think Cinderella that's in the Jungle Book and shit like that, right? And like some Cinderella Snow White stuff, they're literally traced off of old Disney prints. And one of the animators that was, so I'm seeing so many people in the chat go, no, rotoscoping, I'm not talking about rotoscoping on top of real footage.

Rotoscoping is animation on top of live action footage. I'm talking about literally going to an older Disney movie and tracing over the existing animation and just changing the characters. Yeah, rotoscoping is Linklater or Yuri and the Ice. It's very different. This animator is talking about the suits come down and they go, we want you to trace over this, this, and this and we'll save a bunch of money and He responds with that's not going to save any money at all and they go no no no

Just recycle it. Just use it again. It'll save money and he describes in detail That getting the trace right is that getting the trace right is actually way harder than just animating the whole thing from scratch. And it actually took way longer to reuse the old animation than it would have to have had the team just draw new shit entirely. And the suits got super pissed, and then that stopped happening.

Because they were just convinced. They were absolutely convinced that if we just reuse the old shit, it'll go way faster and it'll be way cheaper. And that's what we're seeing with AI. Anybody who does AI generated shit has to go and course correct it because it comes out all fucked up and you have to fix it. The only things that it's useful for in terms of image generation is the texture shit like for FF9 and Resident Evil 2 where you have like a low def image and you just need to clean it up a bit and then you go in afterwards and manually fix all that shit. Moguri mod and etc. Yeah. No, that's essentially, that's it. So yeah, they're describing these implementations

of generative and predictive. Oh, that's not generative, my mistake. That's inferential. See, this is complicated. Okay, because there's generative, there's predictive. You know what sucks is that the behavior of your dudes in a video game. Is neither of those things.

And Google being able to tell you what to search for and four different types of coding an image on the screen are all called AI and they're all completely different technologies. Okay, if you want to talk about like that, the CPU in a fighting game or in a Souls game being smarter and harder to fight, that's just behavior trees, right?

That's that like you. No, man, that's artificial intelligence. Right, you're talking, so AI in that context is exactly, that doesn't apply to the same thing anymore. You gotta use the right terminology now because, yeah, and generative is again, compiling a bunch of shit and trying to pull it all together into one of the images, et cetera.

Predictive being based on past input, trying to anticipate a new thing. But for behavior in, yeah, behavior trees is probably gonna need to be the word that we use for that stuff if you're talking about computer that will try to fucking shut you down and bully you in the corner, et cetera. But you can't use the words anymore. I mean, well, CPU always meant something else to you, to be fair.

Anyway, good job, Embracer. Keep it up. Good stuff. Good job, guys. Will Embracer, keep it up, good stuff. Good job guys. Will Embracer ever put out even one game? I mean, the goal is to just keep using the buzzwords to generate outside interest. You don't actually have to,

if you just keep generating that interest, you can just, you can fly on that. You can watch the numbers go up based on the other guys you pulled in. It doesn't matter what you put out and if you do or where those licenses go, what the IPs are up to or why. None of that actually matters. Vibes, bro.

Hmm, I don't know about the vibes. I don't like vibes. I don't like them at all. Embrace your dude just being like, I'm not fucking leaving. I'm not fucking leaving! Yeah! Now, I haven't seen Wolf of Wall Street, but I still remember people coming out after watching that and being like man that guy's so cool. Like isn't that movie about how that guy fucking sucks? It's the worst. It's such a good movie. He's such an asshole. It's incredible But yes, no, but that no

But if you do if you are looking to rise and grind if you do believe that six to twelve builds the Empire Right if you're trying to get on that sigma grind set then yes He does appeal to you You know? Yeah. Just add it to the list of fucking posters on a guy's wall that you need to leave his apartment right now. It's fucking Scarface, fucking American Psycho, and fucking Wolf of Wall Street. Scarface, I mean like this guy, yeah, the Scarface to hip hop pipeline.

Scarface is only, it's only a red flag in the context. The Scarface to Hip Hop pipeline is fucking wild. That's been there for a long ass time. Because, you know, everyone fancies themselves a hustler. Dude, Tyler Durden's so cool. Um... Yeah, and that's, the Patrick Bateman one is like pretty, but like Tyler Durden was up there but like Patrick Bateman is probably the peak of just like, yeah.

Wow, you really didn't get this shit at all. Unironically based Patrick Bateman, yeah. Go read the book version and see if you still feel that way, mind you. They don't know how to read well If you do know how to read And you've been keeping up with my hero academia. Apparently it's ending in five chapters Apparently I've heard that it's been dragging for multiple years, huh? All I want to know if they approach anything

like resembling the the promise of the intro of like this is the story of how I became the greatest hero bit. Like did they actually, does it actually, do they, you know, do they actually get there? Oh my god, I just saw someone say great ninja war 2.0. Okay. Because the thing is, is that like even the last few people I knew that were keeping up are no longer keeping up. So I don't know anybody that's still keeping up. That's great. Oh man. Isn't that like, I feel like that's one of the best metrics for caring

about something is, Hey, is Naruto Steve still reading Naruto? No What a bummer man, what a bummer yeah, well anyway I Mean hey, whatever Do you please await? I mean hey, whatever. Please await Academia Boruto, you know or whatever comes next. Oh, it's gonna happen. I mean when you consider the fact that like a lot of For the longest while like if you have a hit fucking Shonen Jump

Book you are now a team of people that are employed book, you are now a team of people that are employed indefinitely until you decide to do something stupid like, I don't know, end the story. But why would you do that? Why would you end your job? Would you want a satisfying conclusion to your job? And I want to do a new thing. Yeah, well, my new thing is called the rent. How about that? There's a new rent every month.

Shut up. It's one of those things like first of all, not everyone can be Oda or Toriyama, right? Just like, nah, we're just gonna keep going. Fuck it. But one of the things that I forget the Hunter Hunter guy's name, but every time we talk about anime or manga that go on forever, I always think about Hunter Hunter because he starts multiple new manga inside Togashi. He starts new manga inside Hunter Hunter and it's really like insanely obvious where he's like, I don't want to keep going on that type of manga anymore. I want to play. I want to write Yu-Gi-Oh for a couple of years. I want to write the Dark Tournament again.

It's really funny. Like, oh, it's still Hunter Hunter, look, it's gone and Killua. Well, yeah, look. Man, this Samurai-based violence is getting to me. You know what's cool? Basketball. Yeah. Or... It is.

Or you can just M mirror, you know, but Hey Anyway, I I I I'm curious to see if Anytime a manga ends after an incredibly long time I'm always curious to see if it can stick a landing, you know, are you familiar with toga? Toga she is in hunter hunter Like as a character no Really yeah, and and it's easy plays like a neat

That lives in his room playing video games all day. That's just filled with trash and garbage order And he's like in dirty clothes, and he's like in dirty clothes and he's like disgusting and and then I saw a picture of him in his room and it's like yeah. Interesting. In no way is in Vagabond in his face likeness in in the form of a monk That that basically like farts and goes yo Musashi. What the fuck are you doing, bro? Just smacks him every once in a while

Yeah Interesting hey, you know I have an incredibly stupid question that I somehow have never asked you even once When you're talking about vagabond asked you even once when you're talking about Vagabond. Like, so Vagabond is the the fictional retelling of Musashi and all that, right? Based on the Book of Five Rings. Right, okay. And then it ended prematurely because of his health and happiness and all that, right? And stuff like that, yeah. But like, that shit happened, so it really, you didn't need an ending. you just go read up what happened on Wikipedia. You can't no you can go read the book of five rings and then you can also read one of the accounts that this

this material is based on to find out about the rest of Masashi's life and everything that left off from where Kokura started. You can go do that, yes, but it's not so much the events as it is how they're told in that series. And basically, I reading the bullet points, I don't really, that doesn't mean as much as like the way he tells it. This is one of the largest, most strong examples to me of like, it's the journey, not the destination. Like Vagabond is the definition of that to me. The only thing I can think of that it reminds me of is I had rewatched Epo because it's awesome. And then I was like, you know what? I should

get to watching Epo. I started reading Epo because it's great. And then I hit this moment where I'm like, hey, internet, see boxing again? No. And I would just ask that every like two years until I stopped and then just gave up on reading EPO. And like someone in the chat says, no, all right. Oh, fucking fuck it. Don't care. Yeah.

Fuck it. Don't care. Yeah. I mean, again, it all depends on what you're drawn to and what you're looking for. Yeah, anyway, I don't know if this is the platform to get into it necessarily, but. This is your platform to get into it necessarily, but... This is your platform to get into anything. Yes, it is to say that...

What's really awesome about Vagabond is these moments that everything slows down and you just go inside the characters mind and their thought process says, you know, they stare at a fucking bug sitting on a log, you know, or they stare at the sky and they go into these moments of just like considering things in context in life and, you know, and these massive moments of introspection that might not necessarily be conveyed in a documentary or a full telling or in bullet form of these characters' lives and stuff like that.

I mean, now it's your turn. It's up to you to look at that bug now, because the manga won't continue. I mean, he said he's interested. We'll see. We'll see. We'll see. But again, I mean, I got extremely hype for the insanely... You want to talk about pumping the brakes, the last arc that happens before that manga ends.

Spoilers for Vagabond if you're ever been if you're ever interested in tuning into it like the dude stops fighting and becomes a farmer and it just heavily focuses on the like the concept of how to grow life out of the ground in a fucking pestilent famine ass wasteland setting and they just spend an exhaustive amount of time on those minute details and that all, you know, reflecting on the type of person he's been up to that point and the difficulty of doing something like this versus what he usually does. And it's the it's completely the opposite of cutting down a hundred dudes and being a cool guy. But God is it fucking awesome and meaningful and like yeah that's the type of thing where I'm like I love how long they spent on that and how they got going.

The conclusions that were drawn from that type of massive detour. Yeah man creating live fucking rules it's good. It's good stuff. Because you're like ah there was nothing. And now there's something. And now there's something. And now there's something. Now there's something. And now there's something. Yeah, anyway, so.

It's good. I like it. We have a plant in the house. It's a new plant. I'm wondering how long it's going to last. Speaking of new life. Are you using any? I'm not using shit. cuz you can cheat now like

there's like apps and stuff you can use to be like hey now you should go water it Pat doesn't believe in plants well you're lucky that plants believe in you because that's what you're fucking breathing idiot yeah all, I'll update the podcast when I have to throw the plant away Sick Let's take some letters Hey, if you want to send in a letter First of all type it in your email and then send it to castle superbeast mail at gmail.com That's castle superbeast mail at gmail.com that's castle super beast mail at gmail.com

By the way if you're listening to the podcast live on Monday June 24th Check out peach live the stream at 6 p.m. Pacific. There's gonna be What we what the fuck did she called a short jork? I? Don't know what that means We got a short one all right. Yeah, what that means yeah? We short jork in today as opposed to the long jorks which are much more dedicated She's going through like she's doing some streams where she goes through like the research process and bro. There's a lot process and bro there's a lot. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Um. Getting a PhD in Jorkology. Alright. Here's one coming in from Chris who says Dear Witcher Pat and Wild Hunt Woolly,

Pat's talk about excess side content in seven remake dilutes the good experience vividly. It reminds me of how, it reminds me of my thoughts on Witcher 3. I think Witcher 3 is a great game, but I also think that you could improve it by actually removing some of the content.

The game has multiple tiers of quest complexity from the main story, quests down to the same e-bandit camps and monster nests, treasure chests, etc. Even quests with multiple rungs down from this hierarchy, you've got a single village with two to three voiced characters and are very solid. Unfortunately, there are infinitely too many copies of the very bottom of the hierarchy. I made the effort to clear every question mark on the first map and the south half of the second map

and gave up the instant I saw the third map. Witcher 3, if Witcher 3 had shrunk the maps down by 25%, dropped several dozen of the bottom tier map icons, the average quality of experience would rise with no additional development assets. French fries, fewer French fries during a meal of multiple different tiers of quality food." So I feel qualified to talk about this as I actually completed

everything in Witcher 3. I got every single question mark, including all the ones in the ocean, for those of you who know. It's something, my save file is something like 220, 230 hours, something absurd. So I agree, there is definitely tiers up and down of quality. Like you have your bespoke story stuff, then you have your side quests that lead into that, then you have your side quests that are one rung down, and then you have kill contracts, monster stuff, open world stuff, etc. Right? I think that Witcher 3 is actually significantly better about its side content than FF7 Rebirth is. The generic open world content is just out there. You don't have to talk to Chadley to get through it.

You just find the fucking named tough monster and fight it. Right? You don't have to- Do you have to report it back to the person? Yeah, you don't have to do whatever. As for the side quests themselves that are like proper side quests like, hey, I think my husband got eaten by a fucking werewolf or shit like that. They are a lot closer in quality to the main boutique quests than Seven's is.

The difference between the two quests about sneaking in to see the Bloody Baron and dealing with the baby, and the quest about the fake witcher or the cat witcher or the werewolf in that town. The difference between those is like a 10 and like an 8. Right? Like it's all using the same basic system and they all have the same kind of writing hooks and style and the voice acting and presentation is generally similar, right? The difference between the fucking set piece prestige content in Seven and your average side quest is fucking a full console generation apart. Voiced full cutscenes, unique. Voiced full motion, active cutscenes with the most

bombastic camera and high-value music and I need you to pull this chicken crate. Text only, hello. Yeah. Like FF16 is actually a pretty good example of the difference between the two. Oh, yeah Right where it's like And just like oh yeah some side quests as you walk into the room fade to black and begin a cutscene Yeah, I think that your average side quest of notable person to be spoken to on the map in Witcher 3 is Generally very good to excellent. Like I would say they range from like seven to nine. And it feels very consistent. Like when you go from random ass side quests to main story thing, you don't get like whiplash

at the difference in feel between the two of them. So it's much tighter than FF7R2 today in discussion, but would you agree with what this Chris is saying here that like it would have been, it still would be tighter if the bottom rung quality ones were chaffed out and... Well, the bottom rung quality ones that he's referring to are a huge proportion of them are crafting materials or monster parts or what have you. I did all of them, but even I am like, no, you don't need even one one-hundredth of that for you. Those exist so that there's always something for you to actually grab when you're going

over the map so that you can build new potions or upgrade your gear. Like they're not intended to be sought out and all gone through. They're intended to be something interesting on the way to get to somewhere. Has there ever been an RPG where, like, someone was like, oh yeah, go clear out those goblins in the cave, and or go kill some slimes, and like, the clear out the goblins quest turned out to be fucking ridiculously awesome big deal content,

as opposed to the- Yeah, it's called Baldur's Gate 3. Oh yeah? Okay. Okay. You just described Baldur's Gate 3. Oh, yeah, okay Okay You just described Baldur's Gate 3 to a T. Okay, great right right right right specifically even down to the goblins Because go get me some goblin ears the classic And that kind of makes me want to replay Witcher 3 That's a good game.

Let me tell you. Alright, DSG says, hey Woolies Per Minute and Microskills, watching a trailer for a new RTS game in one of the many events said, unlike other RTS games, this one doesn't focus on APM. And I'm reminded of how damaging the perception of needing high APM has been for RTS titles, despite being more of a skill for pros that have mastered the game. And other skills are more important to learn. And that online, most people you'll play against don't have high APM, and that

strategy can trump APM even if one player has twice the APM. Actions per minute is what that means, by the way. What are other damaging misconceptions you've faced with genres when trying to convince others to give them a chance, or that you've had about a genre that you haven't tried much of? Bro, I can't do the combo trials and Street Fighter I should just give up the combos are the biggest like thing that makes people think you have to do them and that they're a Detriment if you can't and because so much of what you're looking at at any given moment

Is somebody doing a combo to someone else the thought that this is the thing I must be doing might scare somebody away that actually doesn't realize you don't need to do combos actually. Yeah, like learning good combos is the difference between like platinum and diamond, whereas most players, you know what, learning how to defend yourself from a tick throw would actually result in a way bigger skill improvement than learning an optimized combo. I mean combos are how you win in fighting games? No.

No. No. Fundamentals are how you win. And the thing that that more or less breaks down into is like if you can't, a lot of the times combos scale off in damage because the longer and fancier they get, it's still meant to not be the round winning decision. If the best thing you can do after you block a Shoryuken is just throw the guy, then just throw the guy, right? Yeah, do it.

The most important part about that was that you blocked the Shoryuken because you thought it might happen. So it's more like if you just, the fundamental thing is essentially just learning how to be like, oh, like I think he might throw a fireball right now. Let me jump over it, you know, or, or let me wait. Let me not press anything right now. Let me see what if he does something that I can punish him for, you know, oh, he's going to, he's about to die. His life is real

low. He's got level three. he's probably gonna do a wake up to level three, let me see if he does it. Wake up level three, ah, I blocked it, awesome. Now let me just hit him with whatever I've got. And it doesn't have to be a big combo, but those decisions are what matter more. So I would say so, that's a big perception. They're super fun to do and once you get better at the game,

learning how to do them will add a lot of fun and value to your experience. But in terms of just thinking you must do them right away, that's a misperception. Ridiculous. That scares people away and it shouldn't. It's one of those things that happens in 14. Optimizing your rotation is nice. Don't die. Not dying is the biggest source of loss of damage of all you can possibly go with. Yeah, you could have squeaked out one

more attack, but you're dead now. And you'll never be able to make up that time loss ever. Not being there is worse than being there and doing poorly. And being slightly worse. I would say I have my perception on the other side from, of FPS games is I feel like if I can't trace properly and or like get good at instant like hitscan, you know, accuracy and things like that, that that's going to that's detrimental to my ability to play a lot of

first person shooters, I think. It depends, of course, if you're PvE versus PvP. If I'm talking about Doom, that's a very different story compared to like an Overwatch type situation. But Overwatch in teams is where I kind of learned like, oh fuck, like me doing aiming practice and stuff and all these little tracing exercises and things. It was like, I didn't even know about the skills I didn't have going into this and that shit was intimidating. Definitely. I forgot what that website was that lets you like, it's just a training room environment, but it lets you set it to emulate any FPS and it'll feel and follow the you know the relative rules and

Controls and stuff of like given you know if you're playing overwatch or counter-strike or whatever and then learn to Trace a moving object while you're moving and all that shit, you know Trying to think of anything else this aim labs Yeah, any any like a lot of the as a general like I mean we mentioned FPS and fighting games but just like thinking that in order to succeed at any level requires a Extremely high level of expertise out the gate is self-defeating and ridiculous Learning learning baby steps is actually more important than the big super good steps. I totally agree with the email as well. I think RTS and APM is probably the worst. That killed me off of playing StarCraft 2 way back in the day. Because I would watch day nine shit and then I would watch how to get good at Starcraft

and it would just be light years beyond what I was capable of doing. That's so funny because my Starcraft experience was just story mode and then versus against my neighbor and the kids I went to church with and my cousin and brother, you know? Like, we just played amongst each other and so I never had any concept of online, high level play skills, anything. It was just, what can I do to beat fucking Hardy? You know what I mean? Like, how can I stop his shit with my Protoss?

Okay, cool, he's doing this, I'm gonna do that. And like, everyone just kind of Winging it No pressure in that situation whatsoever just basement play. Yeah All right last one it would be nice to see more RTS games that were fucking more chill Like you know like you know, like, you know what? I disagree with it now and for fighting games is different, but I understand why Capcom was like, no, slower Street Fighter is better. It's chiller and more relaxed. Sounds exciting. I mean, I learned, I learned how much, I mean, I talked to Benny times about my whole Warcraft 3 experience and getting overwhelmed,

but I also learned that I really enjoyed turn-based strategies a good bit more because of the fact that they were turn-based and they gave me a chance to kind of, you know, chess piece play as opposed to pressure play, you know? And it's the feeling I get. The things I didn't like about active time battle, but I do prefer about just a regular turn-based thing is like, I like being able to, you know, plan my turn a lot more. And then finding out about the... So yeah, like Hybrid Heaven taught me that, you know, and then Advance Wars and those games.

And I was like, oh, I enjoy this a lot more actually than when it's real time, you know. All right, let's take one more. What do you got? Ian says, hey, Willie and Pat, like Willie, I recently picked up a Polymega. I was at my wife's parents' house, recently started dumping her old Sega Genesis collection

onto it. She had a copy of Ronald McDonald's Treasure Land Adventure. When I popped it in, I saw it was developed by Treasure, makers of noteworthy titles such as Gunstar Heroes and Radiant Silvergun. I had to actually play it, and the game's pretty good. Actually a decent platformer. Can you think of any high profile or all-star developers that made great licensed games that absolutely didn't deserve to be good at all? So, this is a question.

Those Aladdin games are pretty good. Yeah, I mean, there's a list, right? There's a list that we've talked about pretty much forever with the... In the industry, I feel. GoldenEye is the peak of that king of the hill Golden eyes one of the greatest like why was that man? They should have made a golden eye king of the hill I'm an awesome That you know and to that extent and 64 with and WCW versus NWO all the way through to Def Jam like

Licensed things that just like oh the the aki engine did all the heavy lifting awesome Oh, man, you know what game should have sucked ass fucking escape from butcher Bay Chronicles of Riddick Yeah, man that movie was terrible. Mm-hmm Ducktales is a very fit is a big one right Alien I said that Mad Max game was pretty good to Mad Max Yeah, just unexpected quality in the license title like Like these are ones that have a, huh, no kidding, really? That shit was good. And you know, this one's more divisive, but I'll say like, while it's lower than the standard of a typical Platinum game,

the era that was TMNT, Quoraora and Transformers with Platinum is like, those are still fun ass fucking action games, you know, by comparison to other things that are not those. They're right of shit to fucking combo and dodge and launch and do all that fun stuff. And it's just when you get down to the rest of what's happening in a lot of them in their code in those cases, it's like not much of a package for you, pretty not great. But I enjoyed the combat in a couple of those. The, yeah, I feel like there was more on the N64

Uh, yeah. I want to I feel like there was more on the N64 that just kind of. Unexpectedly worked out. Anyway. Wasn't there also like. Like there's stuff like Power Rangers Battle for the Grid where you're just like, wait, why? You're like, oh, you just you got a bunch of like, FGC heads to come in here and make it work.

Okay, sick, right? Marvel on a budget. That's good stuff. Spider-Man with the swinging. Nobody expected that to be the fucking game changer, but it was Cool Man damn it. I'm thinking about going back to Witcher 3 that comes great That games really great. I bet it aged really good too.

I can see Geralt in the thought bubble next to your head right now actually. He doesn't like portals. Alright that'll do. Alright, you have fun everybody. Bye bye. Later. All right, that'll do all right you have fun everybody, but bye later You