0:35

Welcome! Hello

0:41

and thank you for joining us on this 84Play

0:44

podcast, your one

0:46

and only stop for all things Japan,

0:49

games, and Japanese games. I am

0:51

your host,

0:52

Gabriel. Five time,

0:55

five time, five time, five

0:57

time, five time De Leon,

1:00

your regular host, Mark Gaming and Jesus McDonald.

1:03

I

1:04

think he's in America. I actually think

1:06

he has work. This is not

1:08

one of those, I'm not feeling well guys, I'm wet,

1:11

and I had to bike here, so I'm a little

1:13

uncomfortable. Wow, throwing him under the bus.

1:18

Thank you. And

1:21

your other, how

1:23

would you, how would we phrase John?

1:25

Mr. John Riccardi? Mr. John

1:27

TV. The other mainstay, the

1:29

other pillar of the 84Play

1:32

podcast. He also is

1:35

unable to be here today, but that's okay.

1:38

The show goes on because I am joined

1:40

by three wonderful people who

1:42

I would love nothing more than

1:44

to discuss the previous happenings

1:47

that have gone on, that's the same thing

1:49

twice, the happenings that have gone on

1:52

since our last show, starting with Tina

1:57

Kujibow Carter. Hey,

2:00

hi. Hi,

2:03

not that deep cut. Simpsons.

2:07

Yeah, that's a that's a hell of a deep cut reference

2:09

and I'm choosing to believe that

2:12

you're not referring to me

2:14

as a kuji bow because

2:16

some people might find that kind of mean that

2:19

might be kind of rude. Well, as long

2:21

as no one qualms.

2:23

We're okay. That's another deep cut. It's

2:25

a Seinfeld reference. So

2:28

I already know this

2:30

because Gabe and I talked about it earlier. It's

2:32

because I did the

2:35

Final Fantasy 16, Kombini

2:38

lottery, which is called Ichiban

2:40

Kuji. And I did I

2:43

did it five times and I got three

2:46

B prizes. So that's

2:48

pretty good. I don't

2:50

remember what their letters were, but they were like,

2:52

okay, prizes. One

2:54

of them is like a clear art

2:57

display thing. Viewers

2:59

of the video version of our podcast can

3:02

see it. It's behind me on my office

3:04

wall.

3:06

And I don't even actually remember what the other

3:08

prize that I got was. So that's how exciting

3:10

it was. What was like the ultimate

3:12

prize? Like what's the best thing you could win? The

3:15

best prize is like a

3:17

quite large figurine of I'm

3:20

pretty sure it was Shiva. I didn't look too closely

3:22

because I never anticipate that I'm going to actually win

3:24

the best prize. Of course. Someday

3:27

if I ever pull the A, I'll be like, damn,

3:30

what did I get? Because I won't be prepared

3:32

for that moment.

3:33

We already talked about how like what happens

3:35

a lot of times with these Kuji's is somebody

3:38

with like a ton of money just rolls up.

3:41

It's like, here's $10,000. I'm buying

3:43

all of the tickets and they just resell

3:45

everything.

3:47

Oh, yeah, we talked about it fairly

3:49

recently because the Zelda one sold out in

3:51

like hours of

3:54

it becoming available. It was gone almost immediately.

3:57

And then, of course, on like Medukari, immediately

3:59

people are selling.

3:59

like the full set for a couple

4:02

of hundred bucks or whatever. Yeah, really takes

4:04

some of the magic out of it. Unless you're a

4:06

real Jake Kasdell who got in on his

4:08

first and only try the Zelda

4:11

A prize. He

4:13

cashed in on like a decade's worth of luck on

4:15

that one event. I don't know if that's worth it. That's

4:19

Jake. That is just Jake.

4:23

You've already heard him speak up before. Ladies

4:26

and gentlemen, please welcome back Roy

4:29

Grimace Blakely. Roy. No,

4:33

man. No. I forgot

4:35

to give you that nickname. Because of course

4:37

I was scouring your Twitter trying to come up with a nickname

4:39

and I'm like what is Grimace and why is it in

4:42

two of his tweets like I know what the joke is about.

4:44

So what is this Grimace? Wait, you didn't know what it

4:46

was until today? No. Gabe, you're not terminally

4:49

online enough. I'm sorry. You got to

4:51

work on that. I think I'm winning. That sounds like

4:53

I'm winning. Roy, please educate

4:55

me.

4:56

So there was a- I just honestly made your nickname

4:58

something for my benefit. Sure.

5:01

So recently

5:04

in America, McDonald's

5:06

America was celebrating Grimace's birthday

5:10

with a Grimace milkshake,

5:13

a purple milkshake. And

5:16

there was a trend where TikTokers

5:19

would go and they would buy the drink

5:21

and they'd be like, hey guys, today I'm going to try the Grimace

5:23

shake. Just want to say happy birthday

5:25

Grimace. Yeah, okay, let's give it a shot. And then they

5:28

would take a sip and they'd be like, oh, it's pretty

5:30

good. And then they would smash cut to them

5:32

like

5:33

passed out shirtless. It's

5:35

nighttime. They're under a tree, drooling

5:37

purple. The

5:40

basic joke being that

5:42

something mysterious happens when you consume

5:44

the Grimace shake. And

5:47

seeing people's imagination for

5:50

what kind of dark fucked up shit

5:53

would happen, it entertained

5:55

me to no ends. I have not been that entertained

5:57

by an internet meme in a long time.

8:00

specific GameCube because it was 800 yen

8:05

at my local book off and

8:08

then yes I've had multiple people tell me like

8:10

oh you have a spice orange GameCube oh like oh

8:12

I didn't realize like

8:14

something people were interested no joke

8:17

this is the equivalent to like me walking into your

8:19

dorm room and seeing the aggro crag

8:21

trophy from Nickelodeon

8:24

just hanging on your bureau and just

8:26

be like

8:27

what you you're on Nickelodeon guts

8:29

that's a spice orange GameCube they

8:31

only sold the controller here in America so like

8:34

it's it's it's a weird analogy but

8:36

I like it one is one is earned through accomplishment

8:39

the other is you know

8:45

I stand by what I said is that

8:47

is that why the orange one is special because it wasn't available

8:50

everywhere yeah did not come out in the

8:52

US we have the black silver and

8:54

indigo I don't know what colors Canada got oh

8:58

I see

9:00

interesting I don't know what colors we got either my

9:02

my GameCube was acquired from

9:04

blockbuster video

9:06

I purchased an old rental

9:09

unit

9:10

which meant I got like the cool like

9:12

hard plastic suitcase thing so

9:15

that was pretty awesome and it came with two controllers and

9:17

one was the like standard

9:20

indigo and one was the orange one so I didn't

9:22

realize

9:22

yeah that the orange was like

9:24

a special

9:27

get I forget if the silver or

9:29

black one came out later but that

9:31

orange never came here maybe I'm just gonna go to my local

9:34

secondhand store and just grab one so I too

9:37

can have a piece of the aggro crag oh

9:39

they're not that many more man no

9:43

like what are we talking 2,000 oh I mean I haven't

9:45

looked in a while I don't have exact

9:48

numbers for you but everything's

9:51

more expensive than it was like six years ago

9:53

and I bought that that's fair enough

9:55

JP also your other nickname

9:58

here which will use to start segueing into

10:00

the games we have here. Real quick, we are

10:02

remote today because no one has keys

10:04

to the new office. So

10:09

those are with the people

10:11

that you normally hear on this A4 Play podcast.

10:15

So bear with us. Hope it

10:17

sounds great. But JP, your proper nickname

10:20

for this is JP Fangin and

10:22

Bangin Wentz. Let's go.

10:25

There's a reason for that. I

10:28

mean, I know the reason for Fangin. I don't know the reason for

10:30

Bangin, but I mean, I'm sure you'll explain.

10:34

Aside from it rhyming.

10:36

Oh, okay.

10:39

Yes. All roads lead to the PC Engine,

10:41

as you know. Yes, JP. And

10:44

I wouldn't have it any other way.

10:46

Does this mean I get to have a PC Engine corner?

10:49

Hell yeah. That's what the people want.

10:53

I think it needs a jingle, honestly. What

10:56

do I got here? Oh, no. Why

10:58

would you?

11:03

That's your PSO-sponsored PC

11:05

Engine corner. Is

11:08

that using the correct sounds there,

11:10

JP? That didn't sound like the correct

11:14

biddage of sounds. I mean, clearly he just

11:16

reached over and pressed a random button.

11:24

I think we were all waiting for him to press another

11:26

button and then he decided not to. Carry

11:28

on. PC Engine corner begins. Would

11:32

you like lasers? Well,

11:35

I mean, the only reason I'm ever going to appear on the show is if I get my PC Engine corner,

11:37

of course. It's

11:39

written in his contract. If anybody's

11:42

been checking my Twitter, which I'm sure nobody does because

11:44

I don't tweet anyway, you

11:46

would see that I've been playing an RPG

11:49

called Fang of Alnum, hence the Fangin and

11:51

Bangin nickname,

11:53

I assume, recently. And

11:56

I have just been dying to talk about it. And, of course, the only

11:58

person who has been on the show is JP.

11:59

normally will listen to me talk about peace and just

12:02

my wife who is now an expert because

12:04

she's very nice But

12:09

man This

12:11

this game I can can I just get right into

12:13

it like dude. Do you care? Okay? So

12:17

there's this RPG that came out in 1994

12:19

So to set the stage a little bit 1994. This

12:22

is the year that mother to or earthbound

12:25

And Final Fantasy 6 would have

12:27

come out just to give you a little bit of

12:30

context What was coming out at the time?

12:32

This is also the very very end of the PC

12:34

Engine era The PC Engine

12:36

came out in 1987

12:38

And then it had like several iterations to kind

12:40

of keep it on life support as long

12:42

as possible because NEC didn't have any other Competitive

12:45

game consoles and then it

12:47

eventually died you in like the mid 90s So anyways,

12:49

this is like very end of the life cycle

12:52

of this console Not a whole lot of people are buying

12:54

games for it anymore

12:55

There's this RPG

12:57

called Fang of Alum Produced

13:00

by a company called right stuff that

13:02

I'm Matt. I know None

13:04

of you are going to understand anything. I'm talking about

13:06

or care, but I'm sure somebody I'm sure somebody

13:09

The audience is going to I'm gonna make sure all

13:11

three of you care by the time

13:14

We don't care

13:16

if there's one thing that is like genuinely

13:19

enjoyable in Like

13:22

the whole span of human existence.

13:24

It's listening to another person talk about

13:27

something. They really really fucking like

13:29

It doesn't matter

13:31

if I understand what you're talking about because

13:33

it's fun to hear people talk about stuff that they

13:35

really care about Absolutely, and

13:38

it's secure. I can't find a Wikipedia

13:40

page on it. So JP you are our

13:42

Wikipedia So this this game

13:45

is a complete enigma and this is some

13:47

of what I love about it Like it there's a

13:49

lot about it the game itself There's

13:51

a lot to love but the story behind this

13:53

game is I think even more interesting. There's

13:55

so little information out there I did a bunch

13:58

of research even before this episode. I mean

13:59

I was going to anyway because I just wanted to learn

14:02

more about the game.

14:03

Not even necessarily for the podcast specifically.

14:05

I'm not even sure where to begin. Well,

14:07

I'll start. Okay, so the company Write Stuff, which I mentioned

14:09

before, is the developer and the publisher of this game.

14:12

They were originally part of another company

14:14

that most people outside of Japan, and even

14:16

in Japan wouldn't know, called GLODIA.

14:18

They're basically known for this 1989 RPG

14:21

called Emerald Dragon

14:24

that came out for PCs and was ported to a bunch

14:26

of consoles and stuff. In

14:28

Japan, for gamers who were playing

14:30

back in the late 80s, early 90s, that

14:32

was a pretty well-known name. The Emerald

14:35

Dragon RPG.

14:37

So that was a

14:40

pretty well-loved game

14:42

that sold quite well, was ported to

14:44

a bunch of different platforms. The

14:47

team that worked on that basically started

14:49

their own studio,

14:50

and as a part of this new studio, they

14:52

created this game called Fang of Alnum. One

14:55

of the really fascinating points behind this

14:57

game is that the guy

14:59

responsible for it

15:01

was the character designer for

15:04

that game Emerald Dragon. That was kind of the thing to put

15:06

him on the map. Before that, he was completely

15:08

unknown. Hilariously,

15:11

in hindsight anyway, not only

15:13

is he the character designer for this

15:15

game Fang of Alnum, I also went through

15:17

the staff role and checked everything

15:19

he is credited for. He is

15:21

credited as,

15:24

like I said, character designer,

15:27

overall concept planner,

15:29

director, scenario writer,

15:32

map design planner, enemy design

15:35

planner, screen effect design

15:37

planner, system designer, character

15:40

concept planner, cutscene editor,

15:43

game jacket artist,

15:45

and he sang

15:47

some of the music. Oh my

15:49

god! Oh,

15:53

that's more than Kojima likes

15:55

to like, sing in his games.

15:58

Seriously, in the One of the

16:00

funny things about this is it's very

16:03

hard to find this information. Even the

16:05

fact that he sang some of the music, I only

16:07

found out because I purchased a copy of

16:10

the rearranged original soundtrack

16:12

CD.

16:13

And in the booklet

16:15

that came with the CD, he is credited

16:18

as singing one of the songs. And

16:22

I still can't confirm anywhere. I'm

16:24

fairly certain he sang all of them,

16:26

but he's not credited as the singer for the other

16:28

songs. He's credited

16:31

as the group name, whatever

16:33

the band was that was created

16:35

for this. And there was no information

16:38

anywhere about this group. Oh

16:39

my god, do you think that due to

16:41

some kind of contractual whatevers,

16:43

he couldn't be credited as the

16:46

singer for those songs? So he just made up a band

16:48

to get credited as instead? Conspiracy

16:51

theory. Yeah, I've been trying to figure this out. I

16:54

don't know if there's anything valuable

16:57

enough related to this game for

16:59

it to be some sort of contractual dispute

17:01

or anything.

17:03

I kind of suspect that maybe

17:06

at the time,

17:07

because he wasn't the only vocalist,

17:09

there were some harmonies in those songs. Maybe

17:12

he didn't want to credit only himself, so he credited

17:14

the entire group

17:15

as kind of a show of modesty. And

17:18

then after the fact, he never spoke about it

17:20

because

17:23

the quality of his singing is not fantastic. Anyways,

17:28

I've been trying to figure it out. And I sent a link

17:31

to the three of you before we started recording without

17:33

explaining anything about it.

17:35

That was him. That was him singing. Just

17:37

so you know. He

17:38

didn't sound bad. He sounded pretty good. I

17:41

think it's a shame.

17:43

Yeah, exactly. It's a shame because today,

17:46

if we were to do the same exact thing,

17:48

there

17:49

are so many really easy to use tools

17:51

to just kind of nudge your pitch in

17:54

the right direction a little

17:55

bit. I'm sure it would have sounded

17:57

just fine, would have sounded fantastic.

17:59

But this was 1994 and

18:02

I am sure this game had a tiny

18:05

budget for

18:06

so many reasons. I was going to say this

18:08

guy also was responsible for apparently

18:10

like 600% of the development of the

18:12

rest of the game. No, and

18:14

jackets. I should say that

18:16

all of those different things he's credited

18:18

for that I listed, except for two, he shared

18:21

with other people.

18:22

So the only two things

18:24

he did completely by himself were the overall

18:26

concept planning and directing.

18:29

Everything else

18:31

he had, he probably had a significant

18:33

role in, but maybe not quite as much as

18:35

you would expect just to hear all of that listed.

18:38

All of us. So

18:40

anyways,

18:41

this game, I did a little

18:43

bit more research into it. I looked into some

18:45

of the PC Engine magazines that existed at the

18:47

time to see just what people thought about

18:50

it before and after it came out. And I

18:52

will say there's nothing about it after

18:54

release because all the PC Engine magazines

18:56

pretty much died

18:57

by the time the game came out. So

19:00

I couldn't find any reviews

19:02

from the time. There's probably some Famitsu stuff I wasn't able

19:05

to

19:05

dig up before the podcast. But

19:08

I will say that before it came out, a lot

19:10

of people were really looking forward to it.

19:12

And there was like a demo that had

19:14

released, not

19:16

like a modern demo, but people were able to go

19:19

to their office for certain event to play

19:21

ahead of time. I don't know if it was just press people or whatever.

19:24

There was a lot of hype around it in this very

19:26

limited end of life PC

19:29

Engine fan base.

19:30

Did they know PC Engine's days

19:32

were numbered at this point? Was it like writing

19:35

on the wall? Yeah, I

19:37

think it.

19:38

I'm pretty sure it was at this point. At this point

19:41

in the PC Engine lifecycle, the Super Famicom

19:43

had been out for several years and was the

19:45

dominant gaming platform, like

19:48

an enormous margin.

19:50

Really at this point,

19:52

funny enough, the PC Engine started as like

19:54

the pro Famicom, the pro

19:56

NES, because there was nothing

19:59

better at the time.

19:59

than the NES when the PC Engine released.

20:02

So it was kind of like the real capital

20:05

G gamers would get a PC Engine. And then over

20:07

a few years, it totally,

20:09

that was flipped on its head. And the PC

20:11

Engine became the like,

20:13

the destination for Otaku, who

20:16

are just really into anime girls.

20:18

Okay. Cause it was, man,

20:21

I'm really getting into the weeds, but. We're

20:24

all like sitting here, like nodding along like, yes, yes,

20:27

tell us more. Okay, so it's 1994. This

20:29

is also the year the PlayStation one came out, right?

20:32

In Japan anyway.

20:34

Okay. I was like, no. So

20:37

the only other major CD

20:39

console at the time

20:41

was the Mega Drive with the CD

20:43

add-on. The Mega Drive did not sell

20:45

well in Japan and the CD add-on sold

20:47

even worse. So basically if you wanted to make a

20:49

CD game, your only option was the

20:52

PC Engine, which was this

20:53

otherwise piece of 1987,

20:55

like old ass hardware.

20:58

On top of that, even when the

21:00

PlayStation one did come out and you had an alternative

21:03

to produce CD games, which were

21:05

cheaper to press, you know, much cheaper to press than cartridges,

21:10

NEC

21:11

was so lax in their

21:13

restrictions on what sort of games you could make.

21:16

Like Nintendo and Sony,

21:19

basically all the big players had lots of really strict

21:21

rules

21:22

about what sorts of games you can make, what sort of quality

21:24

level you had to uphold.

21:26

And then also, you know,

21:28

like adult content restrictions.

21:30

Oh yeah. I think Mortal Kombat in America

21:32

is the easy one, changing the blood to spit for

21:35

the- Exactly. Yeah. That sort of thing.

21:37

NEC had like the absolute

21:40

bare minimum restrictions on all

21:42

of this. So any company that

21:44

just wanted to like barf out a game could

21:47

just do it on the PC Engine if they wanted to

21:49

because like NEC wouldn't care. Anyways,

21:52

that's the context. That's the

21:54

context in which this came out. So at this point, yes, the

21:57

PC Engine, people kind of knew where it

21:59

was going.

23:56

And

24:00

you can still talk to them like you can hear their dialogue

24:03

so that they were clearly intended to still be there

24:05

But for some reason they're just not anymore

24:08

That's the innocuous stuff The

24:10

rest just gets worse and worse to the extent that you

24:12

need a

24:13

you need a fan written guide to even beat the

24:15

game Uh because otherwise

24:17

there's so many bugs Uh so many

24:20

ways to completely just screw your

24:22

save file

24:23

that it's nearly impossible to finish

24:25

if you don't know ahead of time

24:27

And I I printed out a full guide

24:29

that someone on the japanese web space

24:31

wrote up like 15 years ago or something Where

24:34

every chapter they have a section that lists

24:37

all of the bugs you need to watch out for and what

24:39

you need to do To avoid them

24:41

Uh, it's it's hilarious. There's like

24:43

some of it isn't even programming bugs. It's just

24:46

The something wrong with

24:48

the planning of the game itself Like there's a point

24:51

where a character tells you you need to go east,

24:53

but you actually need to go west

24:55

Oh, no, uh, and it's it's a voiced

24:58

line too Oh no

25:00

Off of that so translation that one There's

25:04

another instance really late in the game Uh

25:06

where if you reach a certain

25:09

level

25:10

Which you are likely to reach if you're playing the

25:12

game normally at that point

25:13

One of the most useful spells you have

25:16

with one of your characters is overwritten

25:18

By the spell that allows

25:20

you to leave a dungeon Oh,

25:22

you know, there's most rpgs have something like that,

25:25

right where you can just teleport out

25:26

On top of

25:29

that you already have that spell so you

25:31

it's replaced with a second copy of the same

25:33

spell Uh, the same

25:35

character has is it like an mp system

25:38

or is it like the dnd style two or three

25:40

casts? Then you got uh the rest. It's

25:42

mp. It's mp. It's actually a little different. Um,

25:45

and that's one of the things I do like About it, uh that

25:47

I would like to talk about briefly is it has some

25:50

really interesting mechanics including the mp We're

25:52

not at trial

25:54

jp I

25:59

just have so much I want to say

25:59

man. There's so many. Okay.

26:02

All right. So let me just

26:04

explain. Let me just explain

26:06

a couple more bugs because they get they get really

26:09

hilarious. So the title

26:11

of the game is Fang of Alnum, right? Yep.

26:14

So guess what weapon you get toward

26:16

the end of the game?

26:17

Some sort of dagger called Fang or

26:19

Alnum.

26:20

You say you get a dagger called the Fang of Alnum.

26:24

Excuse me. That's exactly the titular

26:26

Fang of Alnum. When you get that weapon.

26:31

So I am actually going to avoid major

26:33

story spoilers on the very, very slim

26:35

chance anybody listening is going to play this game because

26:38

I think the story is actually quite good. It has

26:40

like some really excellent moments. But but this

26:42

Fang of Alnum when you pick it up,

26:44

it overwrites whatever weapon you happen

26:46

to be holding, which in any other RPG

26:48

would probably be fine because at this point, once you get the

26:50

titular weapon, like that's the ultimate weapon. You don't

26:52

need whatever you had before.

26:54

The problem is, while its stats

26:56

are all extremely good, it never hits.

26:59

Oh my God.

27:02

Like it's useless. It's a completely useless

27:04

weapon because it just will not hit enemies.

27:08

Like, okay, so this is making this is reminding

27:10

me of

27:12

when I played Earthbound. So I'd never played this

27:14

game before. I played it a couple years ago for the first time. Right.

27:17

And

27:17

very, very like

27:19

kind of I'm going to keep it as vague as possible because there

27:21

are people listening to this who haven't played this game yet.

27:24

But there's a part of the game

27:26

where you get locked into kind of like

27:29

a not like alternate universe

27:31

or anything, but like you're in a specific environment

27:33

and you can't just leave at will you have

27:35

to play through that area before

27:37

you can go to the next thing. And

27:39

you are limited to the

27:41

equipment that you had

27:44

equipped at the time that you enter

27:46

that area. My

27:48

dumbass doesn't read item

27:51

descriptions well enough apparently, because

27:53

I had equipped this weapon that I

27:56

guess has like really, really strong attack,

27:58

but misses more on often than not. I

28:02

couldn't change it. And

28:05

oh man, the struggle that that

28:07

that I had going through that section with this fucking

28:10

item equipped, I'm like, God damn it.

28:11

But you know, I couldn't go back and change it or anything. So I just had

28:13

to deal with it. So you're saying that this

28:16

was that except people

28:18

can't, like, that was my own fault.

28:21

People can't get out of it is what you're saying. Yeah,

28:23

it's that but worse.

28:25

So like in the guide that I used, whoever

28:28

wrote it suggested that you keep a useless

28:30

weapon on hand. And you equip

28:32

that right before you get to the scene where you

28:34

get the ultimate weapon and then you immediately unequip

28:37

it and replace it with whatever you were actually using.

28:39

Oh,

28:40

man. It gets

28:42

even better. One of the most powerful

28:45

and useful attack spells in the game just

28:47

freezes the game. It

28:49

just now that you use

28:51

this OP shit get out of here. I like

28:53

it.

28:54

If you use it, and it is one of your

28:56

characters, it is literally the first spell in

28:58

their list to if you ever

29:00

use it, the game is just frozen and you

29:02

have to start over from your last save point.

29:05

I like it.

29:07

And then sometimes if you go the wrong way, the

29:09

game will also just freeze or like break

29:11

your save data. Oh, my

29:14

goodness. It's since you have your safety

29:16

to get broken. No, I was following the guide

29:18

very closely. Thankfully. But I

29:21

mean, it's really, it's really awful. It

29:23

is

29:24

incredible that they even shipped the

29:26

game in that state, to be quite honest.

29:30

I'm seeing I'm seeing here. There was like,

29:32

was it it was a can't there was also

29:35

canceled for the SNES. Yes,

29:37

there was supposed to be a port for the SNES. And that was

29:39

that was canceled.

29:41

It's really it's kind of a tragic story

29:43

to be honest, because it's very clear that they put a lot

29:45

of effort into this game, especially the guy who

29:48

really had a lot of stock in it. Yeah,

29:50

the story is very good. The art is very good.

29:52

The music is very good. Even

29:54

the basic mechanics are are good.

29:57

It's just such a completely buggy

29:59

mess.

29:59

that it's unplayable, like,

30:01

unless you know, like, it's

30:04

a great example of why QA is

30:06

fucking important.

30:07

Yeah. I mean, I'm

30:09

sure they got most of the way through development

30:11

and then they just ran out of money. Or

30:14

they were like, play stations out. Like,

30:16

we're on this old ass 1987 hardware, like we need to

30:20

ship this or nobody's gonna buy it. And

30:22

they just they just didn't finish debugging it. I'm I'm

30:24

guessing that's what happened. But

30:27

sorry, go ahead.

30:28

I was just gonna say, can you can you tell us a little

30:30

bit about the story? Like, I like the history lesson.

30:32

I like the bug rundown, but I kind of want

30:34

to know what the game actually is. So

30:38

without getting into spoilers, the

30:40

it's a fantasy RPG. The

30:43

main theme is racism.

30:45

So you play as there are in this

30:48

this fantasy world in which you exist the

30:50

it's mostly inhabited by humans.

30:52

But outside of like the main human settlements,

30:55

there are these beast people, they're

30:57

all designed after the 12 zodiac

30:59

animals. So each is like their own tribe, and they're

31:01

kind of scattered around. And these beast people,

31:04

they look just like humans, but they

31:06

can transform into whatever their zodiac

31:08

animal is. They're

31:09

like, just horribly,

31:12

horribly discriminated against by humans.

31:15

And you play as these beast people

31:17

up to 12 of them throughout the story.

31:19

And so though most of the story

31:22

is kind of reflecting just common

31:24

themes from human history of just

31:27

different discriminated people groups. And

31:29

it's actually I think for the most part, especially

31:32

for 1994, some of it probably wouldn't hold up as

31:34

well now the game were produced in

31:37

you 2023. But for 1994, I think it's quite poignant

31:40

as a

31:41

number of really, really hard hitting

31:43

moments that

31:46

I think especially because the voice act it mostly

31:48

voice acted and it's voice acted quite well.

31:51

It really makes you think it

31:53

doesn't have a super deep theme

31:56

at the end, like that tries

31:58

to explain how

31:59

to deal with racism, really.

32:03

But I think it does do a pretty good job of making you

32:05

confront really difficult issues. There

32:07

are even moments where, to

32:09

start, what would happen in most games, where you meet

32:11

a character who is extremely

32:13

racist and discriminatory towards you,

32:16

then you overcome some sort of issue

32:18

with them, and they open up to you. And

32:21

then you develop a positive relationship with them.

32:23

But then this game

32:25

will make something else that's totally out of your

32:27

control occur that completely

32:29

reverses the situation. They go back to hating you

32:31

again. But it's actually done very well. And

32:33

it's something I've not seen in this sort of game before,

32:36

really, even this sort of media very often.

32:38

So humans discriminate against the

32:41

Zodiac people.

32:44

What are the relationships like between the different

32:46

Zodiac

32:48

groups? Do they all know each other? Are

32:52

they related in any way? They

32:54

get into that a little bit as well. They're all,

32:57

for the most part, pretty isolated. And

33:00

one of the themes of the game is them realizing

33:02

that they need to be united, basically. They need

33:05

to reconcile their

33:07

differences with each other.

33:09

The scale gets pretty grand. And

33:11

there are actually some, I think, excellent

33:13

plot twists toward the end

33:15

that I don't really want to spoil. And the off chance anybody's

33:18

interested in playing them. Sure. But

33:20

I mean, even for just

33:23

the story and the music alone, I think this

33:25

game is worth experiencing in some form. Sorry,

33:28

I have another question about the Zodiac people. Yes.

33:31

Can, let's say I'm a rat person and

33:34

you're a human, do you know immediately

33:36

from some tell on my body that I am a rat

33:38

person? Or can I hide in human society

33:40

and surprise motherfucker I'm a rat person?

33:43

Oh, shit.

33:45

Oh, shit. They don't get into

33:47

that in the game itself. But they never

33:49

pose it as a possibility. Nobody ever attempts

33:51

to hide. So I do know

33:53

that,

33:54

at least in some of the scenes, you can tell

33:56

that some of the Beast people have very visible

33:59

fangs.

33:59

like just larger

34:01

canines than normal.

34:03

So I think in the setting, yeah,

34:05

your humans are easily

34:08

able to tell. I don't know what that tell is,

34:10

but it exists. At

34:13

least as a... Maybe they'll

34:15

address that in the HD remake coming 2025. So

34:18

I don't... Oh no. No, no,

34:21

no. That's not happening. That's not happening.

34:23

But it's funny you say that. After this

34:26

game came out, they ported it to the PlayStation,

34:29

but

34:29

as an adventure game, like a first person

34:32

visual novel style adventure game. And

34:35

I haven't been able

34:37

to find enough information on this to figure out exactly

34:40

why this is. But my assumption is it

34:42

would have been too expensive to port the actual

34:45

RPG style game to PlayStation for their limited

34:47

budget. Or just fix

34:49

it.

34:50

And that too, also debug it,

34:53

like port a completely broken game. So

34:55

they just, they took all of the voice acting.

34:58

And then they drew up

35:00

some unfortunately very, very bad looking

35:02

backgrounds.

35:04

And just basically

35:06

just ported everything over as is. It's

35:09

really bad. It's unfortunately like almost

35:11

even worse than the RPG

35:13

original because they didn't change anything.

35:16

And the overall presentation is just extremely

35:18

awful. But the reason that they

35:20

did release this PlayStation port in the first place is there

35:22

is actually a sequel.

35:24

There is a full on PlayStation one RPG

35:27

sequel to this game called Wings of

35:29

Alnum.

35:30

That came out a couple years later. And it

35:32

was basically this company writes stuffs like

35:35

swan song. It was like, we are

35:37

making

35:39

this game because it

35:41

needs to sell or we go out of business.

35:44

And unfortunately, it did not

35:46

sell. And they went out of

35:49

business immediately after that game

35:51

released. So it's

35:53

the

35:54

whole story is very tragic

35:56

because there's like, the core of this

35:58

game is very good.

35:59

And it's really worth people experiencing.

36:02

And it's just so sad that everything

36:05

surrounding it occurred in the way it did. Even

36:08

the guy who the director who

36:10

did all that artwork, he totally he disappeared

36:12

from video games. He

36:14

he directed the sequel to this game. And

36:16

then he never made another game again.

36:19

He he went back to just doing illustration work.

36:21

And even that he hasn't done anything major. I

36:23

looked into his background to see what he was up to.

36:26

And I mean, he's just been doing basically

36:29

contract illustration work for a couple

36:31

of big companies. Nothing significant. It's

36:33

a bummer. Yeah. She can't start him.

36:36

She can't. You might be on Kickstarter. We

36:38

don't know. Get him on the show. What's

36:40

popular in Japan? Is Patreon popular in Japan?

36:43

I actually don't know. Uh,

36:45

yeah, I don't know. There's YouTube chat. Don't

36:47

let me know.

36:49

Getting money for stuff before you do stuff

36:51

is like

36:52

super big here yet. Yeah. OK.

36:56

Fair enough. Thank you, JP.

36:59

Please, please. Somebody, somebody

37:02

play this game. I know it's not going

37:04

to be you three. I'm happy enough just being

37:06

able to tell you about it. Someone, someone listening, please play

37:08

this game. It's

37:09

worth it. Well, it's also it's also kind

37:11

of interesting. And I'm going to maybe segue

37:14

here.

37:15

It's taught me if you'd like. But

37:17

it's interesting that half the stuff you just described

37:19

could

37:20

easily kind of apply to Final Fantasy 16.

37:22

I was going, Tina. I

37:26

think everyone was thinking it right. The whole

37:28

idea that like,

37:29

you know, your protagonist is someone who gets

37:32

discriminated against and you have to

37:34

engage with an environment that thinks you're garbage.

37:37

Yeah, Roy. So you actually listed

37:40

that you played the demo. Yes.

37:43

Did you end up buying the game

37:45

at all or for a or just stuck to

37:47

the the first two or three hours?

37:49

I just did the demo. I was like. I

37:53

thought it was fine. I mean, like I

37:55

I

37:58

like it pretty pretty immediately.

37:59

I was like, okay, this is just Game

38:02

of Thrones fanfiction. Somebody took a bunch

38:04

of the different characters and they're like, here's Ned

38:06

Stark, but he's married to Cersei

38:08

now. Oh, shit. And

38:13

instead of dying this way, he dies this

38:15

way. So,

38:18

I don't know, like, I

38:19

do think that the story

38:22

was compelling. Like, it definitely pulled me through, like I

38:24

wanted to know more. But there were some just small

38:26

things that to me, like,

38:29

is enough where I'm like, I don't know if I really want to put the time

38:31

in just yet. Sure. My name's

38:34

not going to be rude. It

38:36

does not come off as a Roy game, if that

38:38

makes sense. Okay, yeah.

38:41

Yeah, I mean, I don't feel insulted because, I

38:43

mean, it obviously didn't, like, totally

38:46

resonate with me. But

38:47

the one thing

38:50

that I feel slightly justified

38:53

in is, and you'll have to, excuse

38:55

me, I don't remember all the Game of Thrones parody characters

38:58

names, but when

39:00

it's the flashback of main

39:04

character Jon Snow, and

39:06

when main character

39:09

Jon Snow, he's got these two younglings

39:12

that are following him around,

39:15

the brother and the sister.

39:18

They really endear

39:20

you to this brother. They're like, he's like,

39:22

oh, good job, brother. You

39:24

fight that man. You do a really good job. Oh,

39:27

I don't feel well. And

39:30

it's like, all right, they really want

39:32

you to like this kid. Meanwhile, there's

39:34

the sister.

39:36

She does almost nothing. I was like,

39:38

when are they going to sell me on this sister?

39:40

There's got to be something here. There's

39:42

a scene where she cries and prays for you. That was

39:44

it. That

39:45

was like the most they tried.

39:47

And so I remember thinking, like, either they do

39:49

something cool with this character, or this

39:51

is a huge missed opportunity.

39:54

And I have since learned that they never do really anything

39:56

much with that character. Really?

39:59

I've seen some,

40:01

there was a Kotaku article that came out. I didn't

40:03

read it for spoiler reasons, but it was

40:05

basically saying she was kind of a nothing

40:08

character.

40:08

That's a bummer, because I-

40:12

Tina is a resident. Oh, go ahead, go

40:14

ahead. So the

40:16

other thing about the game,

40:18

I'm gonna get a little woke here, but I didn't feel like there

40:20

were any cool gals. It was

40:22

like, crying,

40:25

praying gals, or evil conspiring

40:27

gals, was pretty much all that there was.

40:30

Part of what I like about Final Fantasies is,

40:33

here's your cast of eight cool-ass

40:36

people from different backgrounds, with

40:38

weird clothes and weird weapons, and you wanna get to know

40:40

them.

40:41

This game's a little too much like,

40:43

guy with leather and a sword, guy

40:45

with leather and an axe, a girl

40:47

with a sword.

40:50

I see.

40:51

Tina, I'm sorry to rant. I'm

40:53

a more girl archetype, Tina. You're 20 hours

40:56

in, you told me. I'm only like two hours in. I've

40:59

been playing some other things, which we probably won't get into,

41:01

but is it true, Tina? There are not many cool

41:03

gals, besides

41:07

scheming gal and praying gal. I

41:10

don't really feel like I'm qualified to comment

41:12

on that yet, only because I think I am still pretty

41:14

early on in stuff.

41:16

I

41:19

feel like the story has only just opened up

41:21

for me. At 20 hours? I'm

41:24

doing every single side quest available at all times.

41:28

I've heard the side quests are really different.

41:31

Well, okay, so I

41:34

haven't played a Final Fantasy since 10, so

41:37

I'm not looking at this as comparing

41:40

it to other Final Fantasy games. Realistically,

41:42

I don't know shit about Final Fantasy. I'm just playing it as

41:44

a video game.

41:45

Sure. The way

41:47

it's set up is pretty

41:50

segmented. There's story

41:53

section, and then you finish that story section,

41:55

and then it's like, there's a couple of side quests available

41:58

to you, and then you can go.

41:59

just go straight to the next story section if you want

42:02

to, or you can fuck around and do the side quests,

42:04

which I again,

42:06

I'm still early, I think

42:09

so none of them have been especially compelling

42:12

but I kind of get the sense that it's going to be one

42:14

of those things where a Lot

42:17

of the world building happens through the

42:19

side quests So if you

42:21

do the side quests, you're gonna learn a lot more

42:23

about the people around you and how the world

42:25

works And if you don't do the side quests, you

42:28

know You're not gonna miss out

42:29

on the major stuff, but

42:32

it might give you more context for what's happening

42:34

later Are you making

42:36

a good use of the action active lore? Trigger

42:40

good question. Uh

42:41

No Because

42:44

in theory I was really into the idea.

42:47

I thought it was cool. Yeah

42:49

Um in practice, I found

42:51

that I don't really like it for two

42:53

reasons reason number one

42:55

Which I guess you know They tell you this right

42:57

when they introduced the feature but it includes

43:00

only things that pertain to what is happening right

43:02

now Mm-hmm.

43:04

So if I if I think to myself,

43:07

oh shit, what was

43:08

what was the deal with that one that one Empire?

43:11

You know over there that I don't remember exactly what

43:13

their thing was I can't just go into

43:15

a menu and read about them again I have

43:17

to physically go to a location where

43:19

there is a nice old man with a giant pile of books He

43:22

will tell me everything I want to know but

43:24

I can't look that stuff up on the fly

43:26

and point number two that I don't like

43:29

is those

43:31

information Flirt

43:34

packets that they give you in it

43:36

do get actively updated as the story

43:38

progresses, which is nice So, you know it when you first

43:40

meet a character it says

43:42

Weird guy in in

43:44

leather and then after you get to know him

43:47

It's nice guy in leather who

43:49

has a dog or something, you

43:51

know,

43:52

so it keeps it up to date But I have

43:54

found that in reading those I found out

43:56

more than I wanted to know at that

43:58

point. It's like not to the

44:00

point of spoilers, but like, it

44:03

would tell me stuff about someone's relationship

44:05

with someone else that I would have otherwise

44:07

not known about. And that's

44:10

stuff that if I find out

44:12

about it later, okay,

44:14

cool. But you know, if I'm not really

44:17

supposed to know about that yet as

44:19

Clive, then I don't really want to know. Yeah,

44:22

I'm with you on that. I'm glad I have

44:24

been ignoring the active time lore.

44:26

I think that's actually what it's called, active time lore,

44:29

explicitly because like a lot of the cutscenes

44:32

are presented so well.

44:34

And I'm just gonna say it, guys, Clive

44:36

is dreamy. So many people

44:39

in this game are hot. He

44:41

has that like sad sack, but

44:43

really masculine like feature

44:45

set in his eyes where

44:47

it's just like, you're sad and I want

44:49

to hug you because you're so darn cool.

44:53

And like, yeah,

44:56

that's yeah, it's really

44:59

good hair. Really good hair. I

45:02

don't want to touch it, but

45:05

yeah, it's the cutscene.

45:07

We're here for me. Roy, you already have

45:09

wonderful hair. Wonderful straight

45:13

hair. Us curly hair folks can't do anything

45:15

with it except keep it short. But

45:18

just the

45:20

cutscenes and Tina's further along than

45:22

me. Like, yeah, there are definitely like, oh, go

45:24

talk to this person to unlock blacksmithing

45:26

sort of air quotes cutscenes. But like

45:29

when they go in,

45:31

they are really good at presenting the story

45:33

in those really nice cutscenes and stuff. Even like

45:37

semi, semi important cutscenes

45:39

are well animated. Tina,

45:42

I have to ask to

45:44

pet the dog. Oh, I'll be

45:47

if if you're a person

45:49

who played this game and you didn't get the achievement

45:51

for petting torval five times immediately

45:54

as soon as the option was available to you. I don't

45:57

know how to relate to you. Okay,

45:59

so we have a problem. because

46:01

I'm starting to sour.

46:04

I'm starting to sour on petting the

46:06

pets in the games and

46:09

I only pet the dog because I got achievement from it

46:11

or trophy or whatever. I'd much

46:13

rather not have some poor developer to lose

46:15

their weekend trying to get petting to work

46:18

for this dog and or pet or whatever

46:21

and have them do something else. I'm

46:23

not I don't need petting. I'm

46:26

okay without it. It's not required

46:28

in any way, right? It doesn't like it's

46:30

purely optional. It's the best way to interact with this dog

46:33

who regularly puts his life at risk

46:35

for you. You phrase it like that. Yeah,

46:37

I sound like a jerk. I mean, you

46:39

said it, not me. I

46:42

do know what you mean, though, ever since there was that Twitter

46:44

account that's like, can you pet the dog that

46:47

like it's become like a thing where it's like it does

46:49

very much become a thing. Yeah.

46:52

And like there's some poor like agile

46:55

board and some game developers like, oh, we

46:58

got to pet the dog now. Okay.

47:00

All right. How many points is this?

47:02

I think that the people

47:04

responsible for that part of the game probably

47:07

like kind of enjoy it, though. It's not the same as like

47:09

you're making the face ripoff

47:11

animation like Last of Us or something.

47:14

You know, it's a little more enjoyable to

47:16

make a little more low

47:18

key. Yes. But I've said my piece,

47:20

Tina. Do

47:21

you have any other thoughts on

47:24

I mean, so far, I'm enjoying it very much.

47:26

I haven't played as much as

47:29

I would have liked to,

47:31

because I find that it's difficult

47:34

to sit down and play without

47:37

knowing that I'm going to be able to commit

47:39

several hours to it at a time.

47:41

Like I don't feel comfy sitting

47:43

down after work on a weekday like, all right, I'm

47:45

going to play a little bit of this game because I know

47:47

that that's not how it's going to go. I'm going

47:49

to get sucked in and play

47:51

for like way more hours than I need to. Yeah. Versus

47:55

I'm still going to tears of the kingdom pretty much every

47:57

day,

47:58

because it's super.

47:59

easy to sit down and be like,

48:02

what's that over there? And just

48:04

like, look at some shit for a

48:07

while. And realistically, I do end

48:09

up playing for several hours. But

48:11

it's the, the asking you to

48:13

though, it's the barrier of entry, right?

48:15

Like knowing you're sitting down for a

48:18

minimum of several hours is

48:20

a bit harder to do.

48:21

Then I'll just think around for a little bit

48:24

and accidentally staying for several hours.

48:26

Yeah. But what

48:28

you you talked about last time we talked about it

48:30

with the, the,

48:33

what are they the rings of something or

48:35

like the, the timely accessories? Accessibility

48:39

accessories. Yeah. Yeah, the accessories that help you

48:41

with different functions.

48:43

As soon as Torgo became available

48:45

to me, I immediately equipped that one.

48:47

And I haven't removed it since. Yeah.

48:50

Because you expect me to be actively dodging

48:52

and trying to do combos and all this stuff and

48:55

also tell my dog what to do. It's not

48:57

happening.

48:58

Yeah. No, I'm with you on that. They

49:00

actually, well,

49:02

maybe I would now they released an update today, actually,

49:04

that adds a couple more control types,

49:07

including switching R1 and circle

49:10

on a PlayStation. So that would be your Dodge

49:12

and Phoenix

49:14

icon dash special thing. Oh, it's

49:17

a little bit more, at least in my brain, that's like,

49:19

oh yeah, that's how games work.

49:21

But still, like I turned on

49:23

the Torval, auto Torval, just

49:25

name your, your, your dog companion,

49:28

because I don't know when to use him otherwise.

49:30

Like, okay, I'm hurt. Let me heal.

49:32

I know when to do that. But like, when do I have him attack?

49:35

When do I have him do the launcher? I don't know. So

49:37

having the auto thing and having Clyde shout,

49:40

uh,

49:41

you know, sick him Torval and amigo.

49:44

Okay. So that's when he's doing it is actually helping

49:46

me for when I finally get an accessory that I'm willing

49:48

to replace it with. Cause I'll have observed.

49:51

See, I, I dislike

49:53

everything about that because he just

49:55

doesn't shut the fuck up. Every

49:58

single fight that I have now it is.

49:59

constantly, you know what to

50:02

do, boy. Get him. You

50:04

know what to do, boy. You know what to do,

50:06

boy. Constantly. And I'm like,

50:08

can I just turn off the

50:11

voices for this? Because obviously the game

50:13

is using him very effectively

50:16

because I've literally told

50:18

the game, please do this part for me so I don't

50:20

have to.

50:21

Maybe that's the trick. But having the sounds

50:23

going on constantly is so irritating

50:26

because I want to be using

50:29

some of those sounds that he's making as

50:32

indicators of what inputs I have put

50:34

in have gone through. Yeah. You

50:37

know, if I if I'm putting in an attack and he

50:39

says a thing, I'm like, yes, the attack that I wanted to do went

50:41

through.

50:42

But he's just constantly talking to the dog that

50:44

I'm not in control of. It's

50:48

like playing Kingdom Hearts and you want to hear

50:50

Sora say, come on, because that's your cue

50:52

to do the next ability. And then his

50:55

auto goofy goes goofy. And you

50:57

just go instead. I 100 percent

51:00

get you, Tina.

51:01

That made sense in my head, Roy. I don't know why you're fighting.

51:04

I don't I don't remember

51:06

there being any audio cues like that in Kingdom Hearts,

51:08

but whatever. I don't know.

51:11

A lot of parks in combat. Speaking

51:13

of lots of barking.

51:16

I'm going to round you up for this

51:18

as well. Even though you said you only watched

51:20

it, but the Pikmin 4 demo.

51:23

Yeah.

51:24

Yeah, that was a good segue.

51:26

Came out since last. Say it for yourself,

51:29

man. Who else is gonna? The

51:33

listener. I don't hear that unless you tweet

51:35

at me. We'll get into that later. Pikmin

51:39

4 demo came out. It is another of

51:41

I'm starting to really like this. This is a trend I

51:43

am liking, gang. The trend

51:45

of the demo is actually the first two

51:47

hours or so of a video game.

51:50

And that is what the Pikmin 4 demo is

51:52

because, man, there is

51:55

a lot of text you have to match

51:57

your way through. True.

51:59

in that freaking war demo that I'm super

52:02

glad I would not have to do. I

52:05

know I've complained about this before on

52:07

this podcast, but I have to do it again because

52:09

Japan has made another game where

52:12

when you approach a thing that instinctively

52:15

as a video gamer, you're like, I know what I got to do

52:17

here. It's freezes gameplay,

52:19

pop up message about picking up

52:21

sticks.

52:22

Press X next to sticks to pick up sticks.

52:24

They go into your inventory. You can use sticks for

52:26

various things like. I

52:29

know.

52:29

There's plenty

52:32

of that. And you're

52:34

right. In these first two hours, there is a lot

52:36

of picking up sticks. Yes.

52:39

It's just a, you know,

52:41

because the sad thing is

52:44

that we out of Japan, we also got

52:46

the Dark Souls one tutorial, the ultimate

52:48

of all tutorials ever completely optional,

52:50

but informative tells you everything you need to know. Yes.

52:54

And I just don't know why there isn't some

52:56

middle ground between the best thing ever and the worst thing

52:58

ever. Uh,

53:00

it is a mystery. One thing that I could point

53:02

out as a possible, uh,

53:05

influence on this, uh,

53:07

Pikmin is definitely

53:10

going to be getting played by children who don't

53:13

know how video games work yet. Absolutely.

53:15

And I'm not saying that's a good reason. You really

53:17

think that kids are reading all that text too? They're like, oh great,

53:19

but I'm paragraph. I

53:22

love reading on the weekend. No,

53:25

like I'm not saying that that is justification

53:28

for it, but that could be part of the

53:30

reason for it, you know? Probably. Yeah. I

53:33

think it's a strong reason. This is, you know, pick

53:36

the three blocks, they come out and it was good. In fairness,

53:39

the same issue plagued Elden Ring,

53:41

a game for adults like us. That's true. Wait,

53:44

you mean people weren't buying Elden Ring for their first

53:46

graders? Sadly not. I

53:48

mean, better than Fortnite. Fair. I

53:51

can't think of that as fair. Elden Ring

53:54

was like the only game last year that people

53:56

who I talk with that aren't into video

53:58

games were asking me about. They're

54:00

like you play video games too much, right? What's that

54:02

Elden ring about? And I was like, that's you're hearing

54:04

about it So they do need

54:06

those pop-up texts because that's that's also

54:08

who was playing Elden ring I have her Zelda which

54:11

those same group of people said did

54:13

not have a lot of that stuff So I don't

54:15

know what to do anymore. Let's talk about the pigment

54:17

for demo

54:20

There is a dog in it I didn't play

54:22

the whole thing through I did

54:24

like the first 10 minutes maybe okay So

54:28

I am NOT informed so I look forward to hearing

54:30

what you guys have to say about it But

54:33

I did notice emu like

54:35

the the first two seconds that they give you control

54:38

They're like I wonder if I can smash those pots

54:40

over there So I'm like alright and then I go to smash

54:42

the pots and then right in front of the pots he says

54:45

smash the pots and then I smash

54:47

the pots and Before

54:50

my like animation of smashing the pots

54:53

is finished. It goes into

54:55

a like I Hesitate

54:58

these were cut scene necessarily a

55:01

scripted scene of my dog

55:03

smashing through the pots and I'm like, I just

55:05

did that leave me alone

55:06

Like let me keep playing please

55:08

like I don't I don't need you to say hooray We

55:11

successfully smashed through the pots you

55:14

might I didn't last very long. I'm afraid So,

55:17

let's say these are just fake numbers. Let's say

55:20

the demo is two hours That is

55:22

maybe an hour and 20 minutes

55:24

of the demo Yes. All right

55:27

run a couple

55:28

You how to play the game aside.

55:31

Yes, how was it? Okay I'm

55:34

in I was super hesitant

55:36

They were doing a lot of things and they were

55:38

advertising a lot of stuff in the in the trailers

55:41

leading up to this Oh, and I was like, mmm, that's

55:44

not why I come to Pikmin per

55:46

se Yeah, that sounds good. And I

55:48

don't really like the design of the new ice Pikmin

55:50

I kind of like it when all the Pikmin look like

55:52

a red and blue ant thing

55:54

and You know, so I

55:56

don't like rock Pikmin either so

56:00

I'm like, I don't know. I

56:02

maybe I'll give it a shot and

56:05

the gameplay is there

56:08

and I am really like, I got into

56:10

a really good rhythm. Once I got the, like the

56:12

last half hour of the demo where it's like, okay, now play

56:14

the game and just sort of explore

56:17

that opening area, I was like, yeah,

56:19

Pikmin is great guys. Cause like

56:21

with the dog, you have,

56:23

when you, when the dog gets big, which happens

56:27

a little bit after the demo starts, now

56:30

you can ride the dog and now all the Pikmin ride

56:32

the dog. So now you don't have to deal with Pikmin

56:34

straggling behind. Uh,

56:36

and then if you don't notice or you don't

56:39

remember where you left them, they die because

56:41

at the end of the day, that's what happens. So

56:43

like that solves that problem jumping kind

56:46

of cool. I like it a lot.

56:47

And like the way

56:50

that they built the progression for, I forget

56:52

the dog's name. I keep wanting to say Pucci. Cause

56:55

it looks like it is Pucci. No,

56:57

it's oat Chi. Oh, it's oat. Oh, they

57:00

just left it. Oat. Chi. Yeah, they just left. Yeah.

57:02

Interesting. Yeah. That was another thing I noticed.

57:04

There's some things where it's like,

57:06

it's clearly this is going to make no sense to

57:08

Westerners when they just left it. And there's

57:10

other things where they got creative. Like

57:12

there's one point where you pick up a plant. That's

57:14

like,

57:15

it's a play on the name garlic in Japanese. Obviously

57:18

I don't know what it is, but so

57:20

they gave it some, some clever

57:22

kind of.

57:23

Cram together two words of garlic and something else,

57:26

but yeah, they just left. They just left oat Chi.

57:28

Yeah. Uh, and it, I

57:32

think once you get past those initial tutorial

57:34

stuff, this is, this is

57:36

going to be a solid Pikmin

57:38

title. So I think,

57:41

yeah, go ahead. I, I agree

57:43

with you. Um, but man, even

57:45

like as a big Pikmin fan, the

57:47

first 90 minutes or so of that demo is, is

57:50

really hard to get through. I'm going

57:52

to tell everyone outsource it to your friends.

57:54

If you just want to play. I

57:57

mean, it's, I do.

57:59

I do kind of get it like it does

58:02

feel like this is the first Pikmin game in

58:04

the series that's been designed to be a

58:06

long-lasting larger experience because

58:09

Pikmin one you can beat easily

58:11

in like six to eight hours or something

58:14

and like

58:15

It takes you two hours to learn how to play

58:17

Pikmin four Like in two

58:19

hours you could get through like a third of all

58:21

of Pikmin one

58:23

And then Pikmin two while

58:25

very long is a lot of reused

58:27

and like randomly generated content It's not like

58:29

much more complicated. It's just like Pikmin

58:32

one, but lots of it.

58:34

Yes

58:35

And then Pikmin three is similarly short

58:38

Short. Yeah, Pikmin one. So

58:41

Pikmin three is one of those games where it's like wait. Oh, this is the final.

58:43

Oh, okay I didn't realize we're here. All right, cool.

58:46

Like I thought I was good at this game. No,

58:48

it's just short

58:49

Yeah, yeah, but I I like that

58:51

that's what I like about

58:53

Pikmin one and three because they

58:55

are kind of not

58:56

not arcade style experiences

59:00

In that they are like a sit-down and you play

59:02

for 30 minutes at a time at an arcade But it's

59:04

a you you shoot for a high score

59:07

Yes It's something that you just you play for like

59:09

a day or two you beat it and then you put it down you come Back

59:11

to it later and you just play through it from beginning

59:13

to end again

59:15

And I I thought four was

59:17

going to be that so when I played the demo and I realized

59:19

very quickly that it was not Going to be I was a little disappointed

59:22

But I do agree that once you do eventually get

59:24

through the slog that is the tutorial

59:26

and you have everything you need to actually Play

59:29

I think

59:30

they have the materials there they need

59:32

for a longer lasting

59:35

Pikmin experience. Yes, that will be fun

59:38

The puzzles they have in that first area are

59:40

actually very

59:42

Enjoyable is the way I will phrase it like they're

59:44

not super hard to solve But we're like you

59:47

do it's not that you feel smart. It's just like I

59:49

bet you want me to do this Yeah.

59:52

All right, this is cool and the

59:56

They did my okay, so I

59:58

didn't know how I initially felt about the fact that there's

1:00:00

no overarching time limit because remember

1:00:02

in Pikmin 1, you would die

1:00:05

after 30 days.

1:00:06

Pikmin 2, you had a time limit to pay off your

1:00:08

debt. Pikmin 3, you had to make sure you had enough resources

1:00:11

to go to the next day. Pikmin 4

1:00:13

doesn't have that.

1:00:15

It's just next day and

1:00:17

that actually feels

1:00:19

great. I can't

1:00:22

believe you're surprised by that. Just

1:00:24

hearing you describe if you don't

1:00:26

complete your objective in 30 days, you die.

1:00:28

You have to pay

1:00:30

back debt. You have to survive

1:00:33

to the net. That is stressful as fuck

1:00:35

and that doesn't sound like a fun time to

1:00:37

me. It sounds like a

1:00:38

different time. My tastes in

1:00:40

games were different. I also discovered

1:00:42

Star Wars that year. Pikmin 1 and 2, I

1:00:45

will get to. Go ahead, JP. I

1:00:50

don't think the removal of the time limit

1:00:52

changes anything really. Pikmin 1

1:00:54

is the only game in the series where that overarching

1:00:56

time limit actually matters. That game

1:00:58

is so short and it's designed around you beating

1:01:00

it in just a couple of play sessions. Pikmin 2 has a fake

1:01:04

limit that

1:01:06

never actually ends your game.

1:01:08

You can just keep going and

1:01:10

eventually you'll start getting the same reused

1:01:12

NPC dialogue that basically is telling

1:01:15

you you're taking forever. But

1:01:17

it never actually ends. Pikmin 3,

1:01:19

they're so generous with the fruit that you

1:01:22

need to collect to extend your time limit

1:01:24

that you effectively don't have a limit either.

1:01:26

It's basically like they just did away

1:01:28

with the veneer that was the time limit that

1:01:31

they had already gotten rid of. Sure,

1:01:32

why not? The

1:01:37

other thing I really like, and this

1:01:39

is why I was hesitant about the addition of the reintroduction

1:01:43

of the cave segments, they

1:01:45

have this awesome feature where they're like, hey,

1:01:47

do you want this preload out of Pikmin? We know

1:01:50

what you're going to need. And you don't have

1:01:52

to go, I don't know what's in this cave. Do I

1:01:54

bring purple Pikmin with me? I

1:01:57

don't know if there's going to be something really big. How

1:01:59

many water Pikmin?

1:01:59

Should I bring it's just now you're gonna want 20 water We're

1:02:02

gonna give you five yellows and you should probably take

1:02:04

about 30 fire. I'm just like, yeah,

1:02:06

let's do this Thank you. I don't

1:02:08

know optional to look at that. Like can you can

1:02:10

you opt to just not look at all and not get that

1:02:12

hint? Uh, you can

1:02:14

politely take its recommendation and

1:02:17

adjust the numbers as you see fit, but

1:02:19

it will always pop up

1:02:20

Hey, we think you should take 20 red Pikmin and 10 That

1:02:23

kind of stinks so you yeah in blind.

1:02:25

No, no, and I don't want to go in blind

1:02:28

having played Pikmin too I don't want to go in blind anymore.

1:02:31

If you want that you should just play too Because

1:02:35

that's what that's all Pikmin too is So

1:02:38

like

1:02:38

yeah, like obviously I don't I don't know what

1:02:40

I'm talking about here So, you know, you know

1:02:42

the entire salt shaker with everything that I'm saying

1:02:44

here

1:02:45

But like not giving people that option

1:02:47

seems kind

1:02:48

of silly Yeah, like so

1:02:50

like the for context the point of these things

1:02:52

is they're almost like dungeons

1:02:54

Each dungeon has like a completion level where it's

1:02:56

like once you take all the junk out of there

1:02:58

you get a hundred percent completion Yeah So

1:03:00

like it

1:03:01

sounds like it'd be tough to not

1:03:03

get a hundred percent completion every time if they're

1:03:05

just like here's what you need Here you're

1:03:07

all sick

1:03:08

in the demo Yes, but but I

1:03:11

presume because like in the demo the

1:03:14

blue Pikmin onion is Reachable

1:03:17

but you can't actually unlock

1:03:19

it

1:03:20

So all the dungeons in the immediate area

1:03:22

don't have anything that require blue Pikmin It

1:03:25

is entirely possible that once you get

1:03:27

past

1:03:29

the next area There's gonna be dungeons where it's like

1:03:31

actually

1:03:32

you don't have any blue

1:03:34

Pikmin so Anybody

1:03:37

I don't know if it will tell you or not I

1:03:39

actually don't think it will because there was one that had

1:03:42

required ice Pikmin that you get in

1:03:44

there in the dungeon To

1:03:46

complete it and it didn't say you should bring ice Pikmin

1:03:49

So I imagine the difficulty is gonna

1:03:51

scale up because in Pikmin to towards

1:03:54

the end some of those Dungeons were

1:03:56

very difficult

1:03:57

I mean, that's not an easy game And

1:04:01

so I imagine this is going to be the same way, but

1:04:03

it is you know I didn't think about it because

1:04:05

having played Pikmin 2 I don't want that experience

1:04:07

anymore I want them to tell me what I need But

1:04:10

for people who haven't played Pikmin 2 yeah,

1:04:12

it would be nice to have the option to turn that off How

1:04:14

did you go play Pikmin 2? Hey

1:04:17

Pikmin 2 you played on Switch? I You

1:04:20

can and I actually would

1:04:22

like to issue a massive mea copa to

1:04:25

everyone on this podcast

1:04:27

This is what I'm getting older now. I'm getting

1:04:30

more mature I Incorrectly

1:04:33

and vehemently declared that Pikmin 1

1:04:35

was not

1:04:37

on earth, and that's why I liked

1:04:39

it

1:04:40

I had a conversation with my younger

1:04:42

brother who very Stoically

1:04:44

went you realize Pikmin 2

1:04:47

is on the same planet And

1:04:49

it has the things you're complaining about and I

1:04:55

Yes, you are correct. I

1:04:58

am I'm wrong, so I'm gonna take this on

1:05:00

the chin and Say

1:05:02

you know what I got no leg to stand

1:05:05

on now And I will drop that

1:05:07

conversation point from now on when talking about picnic

1:05:09

picnic Pikmin Tina

1:05:13

I'm down feel free to kick me because you of

1:05:16

all you were probably the most zealous of Europe.

1:05:19

You're a freaking idiot When we would

1:05:21

chat about this before it just seems like

1:05:23

a weird thing to be so like Why

1:05:28

are you like trying so hard to make it not

1:05:30

be and that's what someone who literally

1:05:33

has not played these games like I've

1:05:36

seen like two minutes of each of them.

1:05:38

That's not true. I've seen like like

1:05:40

a couple hours of the first one This is the whole

1:05:42

thing. Maybe I've told this story before I rented the

1:05:44

first one I

1:05:46

Accidentally went into the water

1:05:48

and murdered them all because I didn't know they couldn't

1:05:50

swim and that was when I was like, oh, yeah I'm

1:05:53

not

1:05:53

for me and I never played

1:05:55

it again So that's my background

1:05:59

anyway Yeah, it just seems like a weird thing to be so

1:06:01

like fixated on. I just liked the

1:06:04

idea of a planet that just, a

1:06:06

planet with a civilization on it that wasn't

1:06:08

Earth and the potential of

1:06:10

that. But like, why would that

1:06:12

be exciting if it was so similar

1:06:14

to ours? Like, didn't you want

1:06:16

it to be different? What if

1:06:18

they have more skin? What if it's just a planet

1:06:20

of chess? Tina, what is the Star Wars

1:06:23

universe? I don't think the well of Pikmin

1:06:25

Lore goes particularly deep. No.

1:06:29

And like, this one straight up, it's in the trailer. It

1:06:31

has a Game Boy Advance SP. Do any

1:06:33

of you guys remember the name, what they called it? It was

1:06:35

like monumental, like stone monument

1:06:37

to something. Is there? That's another fun thing. Oh yeah.

1:06:40

The naming for the things you pick up is really

1:06:42

clever. I enjoyed reading those. It's

1:06:45

very clever in Japanese as well.

1:06:47

They're all from the perspective of you who

1:06:49

is this alien that doesn't actually understand any of these

1:06:51

things. Sarah

1:06:53

would lean over and show me every time she got a new set

1:06:56

and I would read through them and enjoy them. Yeah.

1:06:58

Nice. Yeah. Are you two going to play

1:07:00

this, Tina and Roy? I

1:07:02

mean, you didn't play it at all, Roy. I

1:07:05

probably won't. Sarah will get it, I think. Okay.

1:07:07

So you might be able to watch some of it. Yeah.

1:07:10

I mean, she's got the, I don't know what you call it,

1:07:12

the switch where you can't dock it. So

1:07:14

that makes it a little harder to watch.

1:07:17

Pink, what color? Yellow, pink. Yellow. Of course.

1:07:19

Yeah. It's good. Yellow. Pikachu, yellow. It is. All

1:07:22

right. I'm probably

1:07:24

going to sit down and play through the demo

1:07:26

on like a weekend sometime, but I don't see myself

1:07:28

buying this game.

1:07:30

If I were going to

1:07:33

get a Pikmin game, honestly, I

1:07:35

would probably get Pikmin 1. Two. And just

1:07:37

play that one.

1:07:38

That's the one

1:07:40

I would play as well if I were in your shoes. I

1:07:44

would start her at two just because I think it's better Pikmin 1. I'd

1:07:46

hard disagree. Ooh. That's

1:07:51

fine. We're allowed to disagree here. I think

1:07:53

Tina's the type that would want to start at the beginning.

1:07:56

Yeah. Like that's, that's the device.

1:08:00

bike it. I'm nodding. I'm nodding.

1:08:02

That's absolutely true. Bear. Pikmin

1:08:05

one is a fun to stand alone experience that

1:08:07

you can try. If you don't like it, you don't

1:08:09

even have to finish it. I mean, you'll be out however

1:08:12

much money you paid for it, of course, but you

1:08:14

don't even have to finish it if you don't like it. But if you do,

1:08:16

it's only going to take you like

1:08:18

less than 10 hours, I think even

1:08:20

if you take your time. My this is

1:08:22

fully a personal thing. But like my biggest problem

1:08:24

with Pikmin is that they are so

1:08:26

cute.

1:08:28

And they die so frequently. Yeah,

1:08:30

I have my my

1:08:33

Nintendo calendar. I have my Nintendo calendar

1:08:35

every year. And every time

1:08:37

that the picture wouldn't you know it

1:08:40

this year's calendar July right now

1:08:42

is Pikmin.

1:08:43

Every single time it's a picture of the little

1:08:45

fucks getting eaten alive.

1:08:46

I

1:08:50

can't stand it like this little guy is he's

1:08:52

inside this monster's mouth. You can

1:08:55

see his little eye like oh no, the sweet the

1:08:57

sweet clutches of death have come for me. And there's

1:08:59

like a little yellow guy on the bottom getting stomped

1:09:02

on.

1:09:03

And like I'm supposed to actively

1:09:06

throw these sweet little creatures into

1:09:10

victory like the clutches of death.

1:09:12

Absolutely not a whole song about it.

1:09:15

I know because I listen

1:09:17

to a lot of YouTube playlists and they include

1:09:19

that song and it breaks my heart.

1:09:22

And I just there's something about it

1:09:24

that I just can't like get past how

1:09:26

cute they are and how much they die and I just I

1:09:28

can't do it.

1:09:29

I think I think you're not alone in this because with

1:09:32

the I don't know if anybody noticed this but the trailer

1:09:34

for Pikmin four if you watch it. You

1:09:37

would not know that Pikmin ever die.

1:09:39

They can pick

1:09:42

things up. They can ride on ochi.

1:09:45

Like it's all just the good moments. And

1:09:47

then like Sarah pointed this out

1:09:49

but there's a moment when they throw then

1:09:51

the Pikmin on the enemy and

1:09:54

just as he turns around and you know he's about to fucking

1:09:57

lay waste in this Pikmin.

1:09:59

There have

1:10:02

been, like I've seen on Twitter,

1:10:04

these like, you know, Gen

1:10:07

Z Twitch people who have never played Pikmin

1:10:09

before. And they're finding out

1:10:11

in

1:10:12

real time that these

1:10:14

things die and they die pretty. I

1:10:16

just recently saw a gameplay clip

1:10:19

of someone playing the Pikmin

1:10:22

one that just got released, right?

1:10:25

They had like to the letter

1:10:27

exactly my experience with

1:10:30

Pikmin one when I was like 11 years old

1:10:33

or some shit because they picked

1:10:35

up, they had their little team of red and

1:10:37

yellow Pikmin and they walked into the river and

1:10:39

they were like, Oh, look how cute they're swimming.

1:10:42

They're playing in the water. And then all

1:10:44

their little souls flowed away. Like wait,

1:10:47

there should have been a pop up. Water.

1:10:51

Water is you can't breathe water. This

1:10:56

is what happens when they remove the pop ups, right?

1:10:59

Yeah, I must have read like a Nintendo

1:11:02

power or something because I knew that going in. I

1:11:04

will say, Tina, you probably won't like it because

1:11:06

each

1:11:06

time. So I lost to Pikmin

1:11:09

and each time they died in the demo,

1:11:11

someone popped up and said, Oh, no,

1:11:14

you lost one. I

1:11:19

give myself enough guilt. I don't

1:11:21

need other people making me feel worse.

1:11:25

Oh, are you sure? Man,

1:11:27

we're going to go to the news

1:11:29

soon. We can make that we can make it weird.

1:11:32

We haven't heard what Roy's been playing, have we? I

1:11:34

was going to. So, Roy, we

1:11:37

got some time left. Here's anything you want

1:11:39

to talk about before we go to the news. We're

1:11:42

happy to have you here. I'm real quick. What

1:11:44

happened with Apex, man? I was hoping to have an apex chicken.

1:11:47

Yeah, it's funny. I was telling JP,

1:11:49

but like with Apex, I go through

1:11:51

very hot and cold periods. I

1:11:55

yeah,

1:11:57

you know, when I'm into

1:11:59

it, I'm super.

1:11:59

into it and that's all I want to play and like

1:12:02

I get I get my reflexes up real good

1:12:04

and then I burn out and then stop

1:12:07

come back to it have to learn it all over again it's like yeah

1:12:09

okay

1:12:10

I mean I'm in the cool phase right now so I couldn't

1:12:12

tell you much about it

1:12:13

don't worry about what what have you been playing

1:12:15

what do you want to talk about real quick so

1:12:18

like I

1:12:19

may have mentioned this before but I every

1:12:21

weekend I like play games with some friends back home

1:12:24

and one of the games we started because

1:12:26

we always try to find like a multiplayer game

1:12:29

with survival elements and

1:12:32

base building it's

1:12:33

like a fucking great way to just kill like

1:12:35

a weekend or a portion of a weekend anyway our

1:12:38

latest what is this game called grounded which

1:12:42

yeah I mean I guess it's been out for

1:12:44

like almost a year or something but those

1:12:46

who don't know it's it's basically

1:12:48

like that movie honey I shrunk

1:12:50

the kids the

1:12:52

so

1:12:54

like you play as like a team that was

1:12:56

shrunk down to you know microscopic

1:12:59

and you're in a backyard and you run around and

1:13:02

you can cut down grass and build houses

1:13:04

out of it and there's bugs

1:13:06

which are of course massive and

1:13:09

are they cute some

1:13:11

of them are cute

1:13:14

like the low end of the spectrum you've got

1:13:16

like weevils weevils are pretty cute they

1:13:19

all make the sound effects are great in this game

1:13:21

like the weevils make like kind of like a little like

1:13:23

they're just out for a

1:13:26

walk have it like they're in their they're in

1:13:28

their lane having fun kind of noise ladybugs

1:13:31

also make a very soothing kind of I don't

1:13:33

even I can't replicate it but they almost

1:13:36

sound like nurturing somehow and

1:13:38

like they're like they're definitely

1:13:40

they come across as friendly all

1:13:42

the way up to the point where like

1:13:43

you've got wolf spiders which are horrifying

1:13:46

the noises they make are terrifying

1:13:49

and all it's all it's like kind of like monster hunter

1:13:52

in that you kill any of these these insects that I've

1:13:54

mentioned just about most of the bigger ones

1:13:56

you get parts from them you can craft

1:13:58

weapons and armor

1:13:59

which make you stronger so you can take

1:14:02

on bigger and better ones and repeat the process. And

1:14:04

like the

1:14:05

ceiling is pretty high. Like

1:14:07

I'm I've the strongest

1:14:10

enemy that we've killed and made armor from is like

1:14:12

an ant lion.

1:14:13

But I

1:14:16

get the feeling that there are bigger and nastier

1:14:19

creatures out there. And the way

1:14:21

that the map

1:14:24

is broken up is really good because

1:14:27

because it is a

1:14:29

like a

1:14:30

classic suburban backyard, there

1:14:33

are lots of obstacles that depending

1:14:35

on where you are in the game, there's just no way you can navigate

1:14:37

them. Like you have to come back later with like

1:14:40

a tool that will let you like an advanced

1:14:42

level of an axe where now you can chop down a thing

1:14:44

and now you can like

1:14:45

gain access to this other part of the map. And

1:14:48

that's kind of how the story is revealed,

1:14:50

which

1:14:52

you know who I am about like for these kinds of

1:14:54

games. Like I just want to run and hit bugs.

1:14:56

Like I don't want a whole lot of story, but

1:14:58

I.

1:14:59

Yeah. Has

1:15:03

this group considered Diablo or is that

1:15:06

to action?

1:15:07

Like I said, I don't know much about

1:15:09

Diablo, but like our big thing is like we like survival

1:15:12

elements. I like the the

1:15:14

struggle of needing to stay hydrated and fed

1:15:16

and like, oh, I've got a wound. I've got a clean and stuff

1:15:18

like that. Like

1:15:20

Diablo seems like it's just man in man out. I

1:15:22

don't know. Well, you

1:15:24

can. What have I told you? The health bubble

1:15:27

is an abstraction of starvation

1:15:30

and water or sounds like you just want

1:15:32

separate meters. I'm not. I'm just. I don't know.

1:15:35

So yeah, Roy would rather play grounded. I'd

1:15:38

yeah. Another that's

1:15:40

on game pass, right? Right. Like I think probably

1:15:43

so this is one of those games that I knew nothing about until

1:15:45

like there was a

1:15:47

a weekend on Steam where they're like, hey, you can

1:15:50

play this game for free. Yeah. And we were getting a

1:15:52

little sick of we were

1:15:53

we were playing before this. I

1:15:55

think I may have talked about it, this submarine game

1:15:57

where it's like, yeah.

1:15:59

have to,

1:16:00

everybody has to pilot a submarine with

1:16:02

different, like everybody. Yeah.

1:16:04

And we got a little sick of that because we just kept getting

1:16:06

our submarine kept imploding too soon, I know, but.

1:16:09

Um,

1:16:13

so problems bleeding into gaming.

1:16:16

Yeah. So, so we tried to ground it and, and

1:16:18

yeah, it caught us. I had to turn all

1:16:21

the talking off though, because that

1:16:23

because they're teens and

1:16:25

I think they tried to take like the stranger

1:16:27

things, like kind of vibe

1:16:30

and like inject it into this. So

1:16:32

the teens are always talking. You can be on

1:16:34

the opposite side of the map

1:16:36

and like somebody will see an aphid and they'll be

1:16:38

like, whoa, an aphid cool.

1:16:40

And like,

1:16:41

what if the aphid is cool?

1:16:44

After the hundredth aphid, it's not cool. I'm

1:16:48

not going to think that well, cool.

1:16:51

I find it interesting that Roy, your

1:16:53

friend group chooses to play things that

1:16:55

like just hearing about them stresses me out.

1:16:58

Like just

1:17:00

listening to what you need to do makes

1:17:03

me just be like, Oh man, I can't

1:17:05

deal with all that. I guess

1:17:08

we enjoy like putting

1:17:10

our minds together and overcoming something

1:17:12

that seems impossible and like, that's

1:17:14

a really good feeling.

1:17:16

And then I think we all kind of individually

1:17:19

bring, we

1:17:20

make up for each other's shortcomings. Like there's

1:17:22

one of our group, he's always hungry.

1:17:25

He always like is just a

1:17:27

sliver of health, but

1:17:30

he's the best at coming up with strategies for killing,

1:17:33

like killing enemies creatively. And

1:17:36

I love making food and like keeping people fed.

1:17:38

So I just like follow him around. I'm like, here you go. Here you go. Here's

1:17:40

a canteen filled with water.

1:17:41

This is like the most fucking sweet

1:17:44

wholesome thing.

1:17:46

And I don't mean that remotely in like any

1:17:48

condescending way. Like, no,

1:17:49

I don't take it that way. As a person who does not

1:17:52

like playing video games with other people.

1:17:54

This is a thing I have never experienced,

1:17:57

you know?

1:17:58

Yeah,

1:18:00

I like to be on a team. Oh,

1:18:03

yeah. You know, there are a lot of good

1:18:05

games that are good at creating that. I

1:18:07

think it's like, you know, we play Apex and I

1:18:09

don't know about you, Gabe, but whenever I play, I'm just

1:18:11

playing with two randos that I'm not talking to. And it's

1:18:14

like, no, really. Like immediately.

1:18:16

And you're like, yep, OK. Yeah,

1:18:19

it's

1:18:20

if there was a game that could figure out how to kind

1:18:22

of create that

1:18:23

communication and like camaraderie, that

1:18:26

would be something. Yeah.

1:18:29

And if they did, I still wouldn't play it. Well,

1:18:35

we're actually doing great on time. So

1:18:37

why don't we have a quick news segment here?

1:18:40

Once I find the button as I

1:18:43

feverishly scroll to the

1:18:45

news. News.

1:18:49

News. News.

1:18:53

Still doing that. It's a blast from the past. Damn,

1:18:56

it's the classic version. We haven't heard that

1:18:58

one in a while. Yeah. We're

1:19:02

going to we're actually hitting up on time.

1:19:04

So we've kind of cherry picked a

1:19:06

few stories that we want to get off our chests. Rest

1:19:08

assured, there are a lot of things that happened

1:19:11

that we would talk about, but we're just going to pick.

1:19:13

I will guide us through this first.

1:19:17

I don't know why, but some

1:19:19

people thought something happened with Charles Martin

1:19:22

and is not the voice of Mario in

1:19:25

Super Mario Wonder.

1:19:27

My general thought on this

1:19:29

is, oh, it sounds like they got him in the booth again. Cool.

1:19:32

Like it's Charles Martin, a

1:19:34

just someone. OK, could

1:19:36

you could you add a little bit more?

1:19:40

Ha ha. And so

1:19:42

he did. JP

1:19:45

had a comment here saying I'll get down.

1:19:47

I'll get to the bottom of this in

1:19:50

the prep sheet. JP, have you discovered anything?

1:19:52

I have no facts. I have only conjecture.

1:19:55

You didn't you didn't time travel

1:19:57

to when the game comes out and check the credits. what

1:20:00

the truth is? Not yet. Bam.

1:20:04

All right. I

1:20:06

did look into it, though, actually, a little bit.

1:20:09

And

1:20:09

I am pretty sure. I don't think this

1:20:12

really even matters too much in

1:20:14

general. But

1:20:15

yeah, I'm pretty sure it's him.

1:20:18

I will say, though, I don't know if Tina

1:20:20

and Roy, you guys watched the Nintendo Direct

1:20:22

where they

1:20:23

announced it from Mario Wonder.

1:20:25

I will say that I also

1:20:27

thought he sounded different than usual.

1:20:30

Yeah. Like immediately. I was watching the Japanese

1:20:32

Direct. I don't know if the American

1:20:34

Direct had less voice acting in it or

1:20:36

what. But it did sound a little bit different from the

1:20:38

Mario I'm used to hearing, but not different enough

1:20:40

that I suspected it was somebody else. And there's

1:20:42

also there's no reason

1:20:44

for Nintendo to change voice actors at this

1:20:47

point. They're not going to get Chris Pratt.

1:20:51

Could you imagine? I think I did.

1:20:53

Mario Wonder starring Chris

1:20:55

Pratt. I could see that as Pratt as

1:20:57

a like, yeah, this is my like retirement. This is

1:20:59

my Vegas in my into

1:21:02

my 50s, 60s things. Mario

1:21:04

residency. Yeah, it's his residency.

1:21:07

But this to me seems like remember in middle school, you would

1:21:10

all speculate about silly stuff pertaining

1:21:13

to video games. And you have that one friend

1:21:15

that just spouted nonsense all the

1:21:17

time. And y'all would just shut

1:21:19

him down. It's like, shut up, Blake. We

1:21:21

don't care. Of course,

1:21:24

that's what this is just on

1:21:26

Twitter. And that's how it picked up steam.

1:21:29

Blake

1:21:30

was like, oh, it's probably not Trolls Martinet.

1:21:32

And then rather than all of us say, shut up and

1:21:35

eat your cheeseburger provided

1:21:37

by the school.

1:21:39

I'm not a bully. Why are

1:21:41

you guys looking at me? I can't relate to like almost anything

1:21:43

in this story. It just is what

1:21:45

I want to do. You guys had schools

1:21:47

with cheeseburgers? What the fuck? Yeah, they

1:21:49

weren't good. They were good

1:21:51

cheeseburgers. They were like

1:21:53

an attempt at cheeseburgers. Mario

1:21:56

Under looks pretty weird. That'll be a fun

1:21:58

game. Yes. our next

1:22:00

story here. This is big for me. It looks

1:22:04

like after maybe a month of

1:22:06

I don't think this can be done, the

1:22:08

developer behind the PlayStation VR driver

1:22:10

for Steam

1:22:12

has made massive, massive progress

1:22:15

on the PlayStation VR 2 to the

1:22:17

point where he's like, yeah, actually, I think I can do

1:22:19

this. Just give me all the time I

1:22:21

need. Previously, he was like, actually,

1:22:24

this is impossible. I don't think it can be done,

1:22:26

but let me poke at it. Fast

1:22:28

forward what that came out in February, like

1:22:31

four months later, and he's like, it's hard,

1:22:33

but I think it's doable. To the point

1:22:35

where... Sorry, why do we care about this? Is

1:22:37

this... I

1:22:40

am ready

1:22:41

for... Go ahead.

1:22:44

Is this some people could play PS VR 2

1:22:46

games on their computer? All the way

1:22:49

around. So you can use your PS VR 2

1:22:51

on your computer, which

1:22:53

makes it

1:22:55

one of the more affordable.

1:22:58

Look, I'm ready to leave this reality and

1:23:01

experience a different plane. I thought all

1:23:03

of this

1:23:03

stuff had failed on a

1:23:06

grand level

1:23:15

that

1:23:16

it just seems to me like

1:23:18

nobody would care about. I'm

1:23:20

invested in its success. Up

1:23:23

next here,

1:23:25

maybe you do have an opinion on this, Roy. Not 24, 48

1:23:28

hours after

1:23:30

I said on this show last time that

1:23:33

the Metal Gear Solid 2, volume 2 collection,

1:23:36

apologies, would not have

1:23:38

Metal Gear Solid 4.

1:23:40

Rumor pops up, hey, it's gonna have Metal

1:23:43

Gear Solid 4, guys.

1:23:46

That to me is really exciting because

1:23:49

that game is orphaned, as mentioned

1:23:51

before, on the PlayStation 3. It needs

1:23:56

free MGS4.

1:23:58

Here's Solid Snake Curse. free for

1:24:00

so that's the one

1:24:02

that's it's trapped on the PlayStation 3 like

1:24:04

the only way you can play it is on the PlayStation 3

1:24:07

with the PlayStation 3 disc yes PlayStation

1:24:09

now as well I think if they still

1:24:12

have that I don't know or whatever whatever it is

1:24:14

uh

1:24:16

yes JP you said you had thoughts yeah

1:24:18

it's about time I mean seriously I know

1:24:21

a lot of people poo poo on Metal Gear Solid 4

1:24:23

uh and I mean as a game it is

1:24:25

kind of lacking in you know many many

1:24:27

ways but I think it it's it deserves

1:24:30

to be playable in some form it

1:24:33

really does and it is a shame that it has been stuck

1:24:35

on PS3 for so long it is it

1:24:38

is that conclusion right like five

1:24:40

does not

1:24:41

you know it doesn't tie the bows it doesn't

1:24:44

dot the i's cross the t's and all that

1:24:46

stuff that's funny like maybe

1:24:48

um I didn't play it at the time when I was

1:24:51

enough on the internet that I didn't know what the consensus

1:24:54

was but

1:24:54

I remember finishing that game and being like damn

1:24:57

dude crawled through a microwave and

1:25:00

after just waiting a dude on top of a robot

1:25:02

like I don't know I thought it was pretty epic that's

1:25:05

I thought it was

1:25:07

good a lot of people don't

1:25:09

like that game I think over time

1:25:12

and I don't know what the uh

1:25:14

general aged well but

1:25:17

I still think it's a good game and worth playing

1:25:19

like okay I think that's one of those games

1:25:22

that like depending on how involved you were

1:25:24

with it when you act when it actually came out it

1:25:26

can really like your your impression of it

1:25:28

can really be affected by the people around you because I

1:25:31

I have not played any Metal Gear anything

1:25:33

but

1:25:34

I was working at EB games when

1:25:36

that game came out and I just remember

1:25:39

because you know people love to to tell

1:25:41

you everything they think about every game in the

1:25:43

store and you you know you can't

1:25:45

leave

1:25:46

and

1:25:49

I heard a lot of people talking about

1:25:51

you know this is supposed to be a video

1:25:53

game not a movie I guess

1:25:56

three hours of movies let

1:25:58

me let me fucking shoot some stuff

1:25:59

stuff. And then I'd be like,

1:26:01

have you tried Call of Duty? Like

1:26:04

people like that one. I haven't played that one either.

1:26:06

But you know, how about you make me remember

1:26:08

there were several scenes of a child

1:26:10

making an egg like they

1:26:13

were like that happened a lot. Straight

1:26:17

up. And it was the best egg in video gaming.

1:26:19

It actually might be FMV or

1:26:22

actual real footage. I don't quite remember. I think

1:26:24

it is

1:26:25

the the I would

1:26:27

not recommend you play Metal Gear Solid 4

1:26:30

unless you like like I would say, oh,

1:26:32

you're interested in four. Well, you should go play one.

1:26:35

And if you like that, you should go play two. And

1:26:37

if you like for is what you're saying, I think

1:26:40

you have to I think you miss out

1:26:42

on too much if you just go into four because

1:26:44

you don't see also just the evolution of

1:26:46

that style of game, right? Like Metal Gear Solid

1:26:48

one for the PlayStation

1:26:50

kind of rudimentary with its cut scenes, very blocky

1:26:52

and rigid in its movements. And you see that evolve.

1:26:55

And if you enjoy that

1:26:57

by the time you're playing and going through three, you're going

1:26:59

to have a great time with four. If

1:27:02

you don't, you're going to bounce off at two. And

1:27:05

OK, sounds like you're saying is everybody

1:27:08

needs to play everything included in the

1:27:10

first collection before they're allowed

1:27:12

to play. No, you don't have to play the

1:27:14

MSX games or

1:27:17

Snakes Reven. Almost do. Almost.

1:27:21

You almost do read the Wikipedia articles. I

1:27:23

mean,

1:27:24

it makes sense for many

1:27:27

reasons that Metal Gear Solid 4 has

1:27:29

not been rereleased the same way many of the

1:27:31

other games have been, because I mean, for the

1:27:33

hardware limitations, of course, obviously it was

1:27:35

a PS3 game and it relied very heavily on

1:27:38

how the PS3 was built, the PS3

1:27:40

architecture. But on top of that, also the story, the

1:27:42

story is already just a whole

1:27:45

pile of nonsense.

1:27:46

Oh, yeah.

1:27:47

Like the Metal Gear Solid 4 story

1:27:50

is not good, but

1:27:52

it is still enjoyable if you're like

1:27:54

in a very specific brain space.

1:27:56

It definitely likes its moments, whether

1:27:58

or not it has earned those.

1:27:59

moments, Roy saying earlier

1:28:02

that he crawls through a microwave, like,

1:28:04

even in context, that's

1:28:06

amazing.

1:28:07

That's the thing. Metal Gear Solid 4

1:28:10

has excellent moments, but

1:28:12

it does not have a good story. Like,

1:28:14

the whole ending to Metal Gear Solid 4, without

1:28:17

explaining any of it or spoiling any of it, that is one

1:28:19

of my favorite ending sequences, like the

1:28:21

entire last two hours or so, to basically

1:28:23

any video game. Basically

1:28:25

just off vibes. Yes.

1:28:28

And I would say for anyone who hasn't played,

1:28:31

like, you should know the time between

1:28:35

the last time you make an input to

1:28:37

your controller and you can make

1:28:39

another input on your controller is

1:28:42

about 90 something minutes at the

1:28:44

end of that. It is straight up the final

1:28:46

sequence ending

1:28:49

is like 90 plus minutes. I believe

1:28:51

if you factor in credits might be a little shorter.

1:28:53

And like, I hear that and I'm like, yes!

1:28:58

You know, that also explains why I'm a little, I'm

1:29:00

not so cool or so hot on

1:29:02

Metal Gear Solid 5, which is kind of the over

1:29:04

correction of that. But

1:29:07

I mean, at the very least, I hope it

1:29:10

comes, you know, maybe on

1:29:12

maybe it's a Switch 2 title, you

1:29:15

know, rumored to be as strong as the PS4

1:29:17

that can play Metal Gear Solid 4. And

1:29:23

I guess we'll just move on to the last story. And

1:29:25

it's another it's another gabber. It's another one

1:29:28

I care about. If

1:29:29

anyone has something you can look at the

1:29:31

dock and add after this. But not

1:29:34

in Japan, even Japan happened. Evo

1:29:37

fighting game evolution tournament is

1:29:39

coming up soon. And Street Fighter 6 has

1:29:42

broken registration

1:29:45

records by at least

1:29:47

three times if I'm not mistaken

1:29:51

here. And it's an all time record

1:29:53

for Evo. Street Fighter 6, even

1:29:56

though after Graham told me to go home and be a family

1:29:58

man and I haven't touched it.

1:29:59

true story. I'm

1:30:02

still having a great time just watching

1:30:04

the game and seeing

1:30:06

on all the tournaments and stuff. It's going to be a

1:30:08

great time. I'm really excited for Evo. Mark's

1:30:10

not here to tell me to not talk about Evo, so

1:30:12

I got to talk about Evo. I

1:30:15

think it is exciting that the game is so young that

1:30:17

there probably isn't like a meta yet where everybody's

1:30:19

going to be playing the same character or something. Yeah.

1:30:21

And they just announced that

1:30:24

Rashid, the first of the DLC

1:30:26

player characters coming in the next year,

1:30:28

will

1:30:29

be available at the end of July. So he'll

1:30:31

probably be banned for Evo or not.

1:30:33

It's kind of crazy. If like

1:30:36

two or three weeks before Evo, you can have this

1:30:38

untested character in.

1:30:40

Generally speaking, though, those characters tend to be banned.

1:30:43

And with that- Wait, wait, wait. Genuine question. Why would

1:30:45

they ban a new character?

1:30:48

We don't know how it's

1:30:51

balanced. It could just be that a character

1:30:53

is genuinely too good.

1:30:55

Oh, I see. I was

1:30:57

thinking about it like, well, you know, if someone

1:30:59

wants to play with a character that they haven't had a lot of practice

1:31:01

with, that's their own problem. That's a difference. But

1:31:04

I had not considered balancing ICICICIC.

1:31:05

Yeah. The characters

1:31:07

you pay for are often a little broken. Depends

1:31:10

on the game, but yeah, they like to, some

1:31:12

devs like to make them a little overtuned is

1:31:15

the phrase and then just sort of dial it back once

1:31:17

they get more data.

1:31:18

I'm trying to get

1:31:21

another time. And with that, is there anything

1:31:24

else? People from this in this

1:31:26

chart, this list of news headlines

1:31:29

that you would like additional context for? If

1:31:32

not, as I continue to stretch,

1:31:35

I think that will be it. I'm

1:31:38

not getting any reactions. And

1:31:41

with that, I think we'll call it here.

1:31:43

Thank you for joining

1:31:46

listeners on this very special

1:31:48

8-4 Guy Den, as I guess

1:31:50

what we'll call it.

1:31:52

Maybe that's the outro

1:31:54

music. This Mark

1:31:57

and Johnless, who should be here next

1:31:59

show.

1:32:00

And well at least John will be

1:32:03

and we should be back in person

1:32:05

again after that we'll have keys Sorted

1:32:08

and and whatnot

1:32:10

But until then, you know tell

1:32:13

a friend Share

1:32:15

some info get get get on that Totally

1:32:19

existing patreon website, you

1:32:21

know the link you know the link

1:32:25

And until then I'm gonna

1:32:28

throw it over to myself To

1:32:30

tell them where they can where they can find me

1:32:32

and

1:32:33

the rest of y'all

1:32:35

You could find the show at eight

1:32:37

dash four dot JP our

1:32:39

second home giant bomb calm

1:32:42

We got a thread on recetera Road

1:32:45

tools as

1:32:47

for you

1:32:49

Feel free to leave a

1:32:51

comment. Nope.

1:32:52

You gotta be on recetera Tina You got to know if

1:32:55

you know, you know if you know, you know

1:32:58

I Anything I did Did

1:33:01

it not I'm looking at my way forms it I said

1:33:03

something that made sense to some people

1:33:07

Leave five star reviews on Apple podcasts

1:33:10

or Spotify or wherever you like to hear

1:33:12

the show

1:33:14

And then finally you can follow the show

1:33:16

on Twitter. Hey for play I'm

1:33:19

gonna ask you guys to just give me a handle

1:33:21

and the service. I know there's a lot

1:33:24

of people There's a link threads came

1:33:26

out this morning. We're recording on Thursday We

1:33:30

got Mastodon is still

1:33:32

a thing some some And

1:33:39

after this I'm going to literally beg them

1:33:42

for the blue sky invite they know

1:33:44

who they are but you could find me

1:33:46

on Twitter at

1:33:49

Gabriel de Leon Tina

1:33:53

Where and where can they find

1:33:55

you Tina butts with two T's

1:33:57

and is he that's on Twitter Yeah,

1:34:01

okay JP Where

1:34:03

can they find you in on what platform are

1:34:05

you choosing? I'm a I'm still

1:34:07

at JP engine with an underscore on Twitter Although

1:34:10

as soon as I can get in a blue sky you

1:34:12

can find me there with probably a brand new

1:34:15

Top 100 PC Engine game thread.

1:34:17

Ah

1:34:18

That's how we'll know it's authentic.

1:34:20

Yeah, we don't need a verified from JP.

1:34:22

We just need thread of the top

1:34:25

of top one of PC Engine games Roy

1:34:27

Platform and handle where can they find

1:34:30

you?

1:34:30

I'm Kota Wari both

1:34:33

on Twitter and blue sky and I

1:34:36

got codes. I can give you guys codes Hook

1:34:40

me up. Well, we'll do this after the

1:34:42

show and thank you

1:34:44

Dear listeners if you stuck it out here

1:34:47

for This special

1:34:50

let's hope one off a four-play

1:34:52

podcast Podcast We

1:34:54

appreciate it

1:34:56

and we hope to uh,

1:34:58

well, you know leave some feedback, you know, was

1:35:00

I too loud? Was I too mean?

1:35:04

Did I let JP go on too long? More

1:35:09

Roy You

1:35:11

know just you got a bunch of ways

1:35:13

to let the show know so with

1:35:16

that who Would

1:35:19

like to take us out.

1:35:20

Did you know there's a vest deal, too?

1:35:23

Oh

1:35:52

You You

1:36:30

You So

1:36:33

the fourth step is really important as well And

1:36:35

that is to enter the hot dog properly

1:36:38

on a 45 to 60 degree angle Open

1:36:41

your mouth wide so you don't hit the hot dog

1:36:43

on your teeth on the side of the mouth open wide

1:36:45

at a 45 degree Angle and act

1:36:48

just as this

1:36:53

So the fifth and the final step the step that you've

1:36:55

been waiting for and that is the bite When

1:36:58

you bite make sure you bite with the canines

1:37:00

and cut that skin really well So

1:37:02

you can explode the juices

1:37:03

in your mouth