0:10

Welcome to another episode of Axe of

0:12

the Blood God and Independent RPG Podcast.

0:14

I'm your host Kat Bailey joined as

0:17

always by Nadia Oxford. Hello Kat,

0:19

we have snow on the ground for the first time in

0:21

the year. Hooray. Yeah,

0:24

it makes me think of Charlie Brown's Christmas. Now

0:26

I'll be talking like the Charlie Brown teacher at

0:28

any moment now. It's more like the Star Fox

0:31

characters. Wait,

0:36

Woody Woodpecker? And that voice is

0:38

Eric Van Allen, my equally lovely

0:41

co-host. There's

0:52

no snow here. There can't be snow here again. We'll

0:54

all die. We need snow to not come

0:56

here. I'll have

0:59

a talk with snow. Yes.

1:03

I was just gonna say

1:05

there was a news release from like ERCOT

1:07

recently that was like, well, if it snows

1:09

in Texas again, we

1:11

might be all screwed. That's just how it's going.

1:13

And I was like, cool, great. Oops. We

1:16

didn't see this planet change thing coming. Eric, you're from Wisconsin.

1:18

Teach them how to not have pipes

1:20

burst. It's not

1:22

it. Well, OK, pipes bursting are actually a problem

1:24

down here, but it's also just

1:27

the power grid just decides to stop

1:29

working. And for some reason, Texas decided

1:31

to not let other

1:33

people help us in times of

1:35

need because Texas, I still don't

1:37

understand why our grid

1:39

is built the way it is. Shout outs

1:42

to ERCOT. Pretty

1:46

amazing. Well, this week on

1:48

Acts of the Blood God, we have

1:50

a lot to discuss, including we're going

1:52

to have a special guest for our

1:55

main segment. It's Matthew

1:57

Salisbury, generous supporter of Acts of

1:59

the Blood God. God who's going to join us

2:01

to talk about Darkest Dungeon 1 and 2. We

2:03

already recorded the segment, talked

2:06

a little bit of Suikoden 2. We also talked

2:08

about Final Fantasy. There

2:11

was a little distant worlds mention.

2:13

It's a great conversation that

2:15

is coming up really soon. We'll

2:18

also be talking about the Baldur's Gate

2:20

3 epilogue, the Fallout TV show trailer,

2:22

and of course we'll be doing

2:24

a quick little preview of the game

2:26

awards. That is all coming up in

2:29

this episode, but first if you

2:31

enjoy the show please leave us a review

2:33

on the podcast of your choice. We had

2:36

an incredible year. Our podcaster Rap just came

2:38

in for Spotify and we're

2:40

like 67% up on listenership

2:42

this year which is amazing. That's

2:44

so cool. We've been doing really

2:47

well and it's all thanks to

2:49

you. Thank you so much our

2:52

dear loyal listeners. You

2:55

can follow me on Twitter at the underscore Kabot and

2:57

I's at Nadia Oxford and Eric is at Cmoosy though.

2:59

For as long as that platform is gonna last

3:01

I think the GTA 6 trailer might finally finish

3:03

it off, God willing. We

3:06

shall see. That'd be

3:08

the funniest shit in the universe.

3:11

Look we got Kissinger dying night

3:13

on Twitter. That's all we actually wanted. That's

3:16

all we actually needed. That was the swan

3:18

song. Anytime I think of Kissinger I think

3:20

of the glasses in the toilet and it's like I know he's

3:22

a monster but just like I feel like

3:24

remembering him for glasses in a toilet is so

3:26

much funnier and more degrading than remembering him for

3:28

war crimes even. He's

3:31

dead. cooper

3:37

No one must know I dropped my glasses in the

3:39

toilet. If

3:42

you enjoy the show we

3:44

have tons of merch at

3:47

shop.bloodgodpod.com including new t-shirts, a

3:49

new Nadia's Nostalgia

3:51

Pit t-shirt, a warm

3:53

hoodie for people since

3:55

it's the wintertime and it snows in

3:58

places I guess and Also,

4:00

if you missed the year two pins

4:02

the first time around they're available in

4:04

the shop right now You can buy

4:06

one and we will ship it to

4:09

you And of course we have all

4:11

of our other merch including our lovely acts

4:13

of the blood God mugs. I love mine

4:16

It's incredible. We got a couple of those in

4:19

there and there may be more soon

4:22

Stay tuned. I shopped up blood God pod

4:25

Com great gifts for the holidays and

4:28

finally we're on patreon at patreon.com Slash

4:30

blood God pod or if you support the

4:32

pod at just one dollar a month you'll

4:35

get access to the show ad free and

4:38

you'll get access to our discord and you'll

4:41

get to vote in The

4:43

pantheon poll which just wrapped

4:45

up Eric. Who is the

4:48

winner of our? Community

4:51

chosen games Can

4:53

I count down the games that were in this because

4:55

for those who were not listening? We

4:57

did something different this month with the pantheon

5:00

This was cats great idea

5:02

that we have the

5:05

list of the community the holidays We

5:08

have the listeners So normally when we put

5:10

a pantheon pullout we kind of curate a

5:12

selection of games based around a theme or

5:14

an idea We put four games

5:16

out and everyone votes on them And we said what if

5:18

this time the listeners vote on what games

5:20

are in the poll and then on the poll

5:22

itself a little Double vote there both hands on

5:24

the wheel The

5:27

entire the whole all

5:30

the nominations open nominations any game that cleared

5:32

like got three nominations got through to the

5:34

final poll There were 67 unique games Including

5:38

well, it would have been 70 if not

5:40

three of those games were ones that we've

5:42

already done pantheon Entry

5:45

fun. So some of y'all need to catch

5:47

back up on the backlog 67

5:52

games tons of votes the

5:54

ones that got Three nominations

5:56

or more made it through to the final poll. We're

5:59

gonna count up At the

6:01

bottom, I'm sorry, y'all. Golden Sun, the Lost Age,

6:03

only got 2% of the vote. Very,

6:06

very sorry. Lost

6:09

Odyssey and Trails in the Sky, second chapter

6:11

both took in 6%. Okay,

6:14

it's doing okay. It's doing all right. Mother

6:17

3 came in at 10%. I'm

6:20

a little surprised by that. I'm surprised Mother 3 has

6:22

not made it through a poll yet. At

6:25

15% a piece, we have 13 Sentinel, Dagus

6:28

Rim, and Dragon Age Origins. At

6:31

23%, Final Fantasy X2. And

6:35

then our winner at 24% of

6:37

the vote, Xenoblade Chronicles.

6:40

Yeah. That is our Pantheon game for this next month.

6:42

Yeah, y'all got good taste. I

6:46

already got the Dunban shirtless in the chat

6:48

there. Way to go. I

6:50

love you community. I kinda wanted to

6:52

play Final Fantasy X2. I

6:54

was looking for the girl power, but- We'll get to that,

6:57

I think. I think it's not

6:59

too far away. How many times can

7:01

13 Sentinels get voted down? I love

7:03

that they had such a strong drive,

7:05

and then again, loses. It'll keep coming

7:07

back, all right? It keeps coming back. It's

7:09

a saying, every time it's beaten down, it comes back stronger. You're

7:11

going to play this game. At

7:14

this point, it's such a meme that this is gonna lose

7:16

in the Pantheon then. And honestly, it

7:18

shouldn't... We

7:20

have a soft rule that we don't do

7:22

games that came out. A

7:25

game that has to have come out for five years to

7:28

really have Pantheon consideration. No, I'm not

7:31

consistent on this point. I

7:33

kinda came up with it after our Yakuza

7:35

like a dragon. Oh, Unicorn Overlord, I forgot

7:37

those words existed. Thank you for getting into

7:39

that one. Two years from now,

7:41

13 Sentinels will make it

7:43

in. I agree, okay. On this date,

7:46

let's mark it. Mark it

7:48

two years from now. Did that game seriously

7:50

came out in 2020? 2020, yep. That's

7:54

another I think that was another COVID game for me. And

7:57

our next Pantheon episode is coming out

7:59

this week. And we are going

8:01

to be doing Dragon Quest Builders 2 and

8:04

we got a great lineup. Who do we bring in

8:06

Nadia? We

8:08

have John Cartwright providing everything

8:11

goes right and everyone you

8:13

know has every other Everyone has

8:15

their schedules together. Let's just say and

8:17

this is a surprise Brandon Jones Aka

8:20

the great the game trailers of voice guy

8:23

now who here's the thing I've

8:25

been playing Dragon Quest Builders 2 spoilers for the

8:27

tavern I suppose and I was just saying on

8:29

Twitter all man this game is so great. We

8:31

need Dragon Quest Builders 3 spoilers

8:33

alert you might get in the pantheon just just from

8:36

that out there and Eric

8:39

Retweeted it and Brandon Jones

8:41

like oh, yeah, man. That's amazing It's like

8:43

I'm trying to get Brandon senpai to notice

8:45

me for like my entire online existence and

8:48

like Eric Are you friends with Brandon Jones

8:50

like oh, yeah, kinda Why

8:52

don't we just invite him on the episode? Okay, okay

8:55

I'm gonna embarrass. I'm gonna embarrass Brandon

8:57

a little bit When when

9:00

young we Eric was starting out in

9:02

the industry, I went to like a

9:04

call of duty Events and

9:07

I didn't know anyone there because when

9:09

I started in the industry like I

9:11

was from ground zero And I also

9:13

had not followed Games journalism.

9:15

I didn't know like a lot of the

9:17

personalities and the websites But I didn't know

9:19

like names and faces because I was never

9:21

really into games media. Yeah that way So

9:26

I go to this event and I'm just

9:28

kind of like I've got my little you know

9:30

It's it's lunchtime and I've got my little meal

9:32

and I'm looking for a place to sit down

9:35

One of the people I met turned out to

9:38

be Brandon Jones nice person in the world And

9:41

then every time since I've

9:43

seen him at events and stuff. I'm like, oh, how's

9:45

it going stuff? And yeah, here's later. They're like, oh

9:48

he's the games trailer guy and stuff like that He

9:50

was just a really nice dude that I met at

9:52

an event and yeah You

9:54

did exactly the right thing creating the games writing by the

9:57

way, just like you go out there and network

9:59

meet people Say hi. Yeah, because I

10:01

don't want to eat lunch by myself at the

10:03

call of duty event. Oh, that would be weird,

10:05

man. Yeah, no, no, it was a

10:07

good time. So, yeah, no, I was really happy that

10:09

we managed to get schedules synced up because I think

10:11

that's going to be a really fun crossover

10:14

of people. It'll be you, me, John,

10:17

and Brandon. Everything goes right, hopefully.

10:20

And we'll just talk about Dragon Quest

10:22

Builders, too. I'm very excited for this.

10:24

Oh, me too. Me too. Oh,

10:27

I love Dragon Quest Builders. I'm

10:29

looking forward to it. Please look forward to it, everybody. Please

10:32

look forward to it. That'll be out this Wednesday.

10:36

Okay, now it's time for our

10:38

main segment, Darkest Dungeon 1 and

10:41

2 with Matthew Salisbury. Don't go away.

10:50

You hear that? That's

10:58

the awkward silence of a family dinner after

11:00

you just got caught vaping. Most

11:04

vapes contain high levels of nicotine and

11:07

disappointment. Brought

11:10

to you by the Real Cost and the FDA. Now

11:14

we're joined by special guest, Matthew

11:16

Salisbury, generous supporter of Acts of

11:18

the Blood God, who is joining

11:20

us now to talk to

11:22

us about Darkest Dungeon 1 and 2. Welcome

11:25

to the pod, Matthew. Hi.

11:29

Pleasure to be here. First time, long time. Great

11:32

to have you. First time, long time. I like that.

11:34

That gets to the point. Gravity is wit.

11:36

How long have you been listening to the show out of curiosity?

11:40

I feel like I

11:42

definitely was here at the beginning of

11:44

when you started the Patreon, and I

11:47

found it

11:49

through Retroknots. It

11:51

had to be the Valkyrie Profile podcast. I think I heard

11:54

you on it, Kat. Yeah, you

11:56

probably heard Kat on that one. And

11:58

I distinctly remember... like you you

12:00

drop this like factoid in there and I'm

12:02

like mm-hmm I'm checking out this podcast it

12:05

was it was

12:07

something about the voice of Ash was one

12:09

of the characters in Valkyrie profile and I

12:11

was like yes I know that fact and

12:15

then I started watching your podcast

12:18

I love that that brought you to this show well

12:22

welcome thank you for joining us we

12:25

really appreciate having you tell us a

12:27

little bit about your favorite

12:29

RPGs in general and kind of

12:31

your history with the genre in

12:35

general I I kind of

12:37

love all RPGs at least all turn-based

12:39

RPGs and I also

12:42

I've I've been playing them since I

12:45

remember playing Final Fantasy one getting like a

12:47

Nintendo power in the mail and being like

12:50

I want this game and yeah and

12:52

I think that kind of unlocked the type

12:55

of RPGs I like which are kind of more

12:58

on the difficult side that you really got

13:00

to like grind through and I don't know

13:03

like how

13:05

I could find a more frustrating style of

13:07

you know game to play then

13:09

I like up to two RPGs

13:12

so there's that I

13:14

generally I feel like

13:16

I played almost everything for

13:19

SNES and

13:22

PlayStation with a small caveat of for

13:24

whatever reason Dragon Quest just fell through

13:26

the cracks for me like not not

13:29

that I didn't play I'd never played it and

13:31

it just never last on Dragon Quest like

13:34

did you try it in unlike it or you just

13:36

found that it just slipped you by because PlayStation Dragon

13:38

Quest was kind of a Final Fantasy definitely

13:41

ruled that era we'll just say that yeah

13:43

I think I think it was more that that limited

13:46

you know limited resources I was in

13:48

high school when PlayStation was out so

13:50

it was like do you go

13:52

with what you know or do you try you know

13:55

something else and your your

13:58

limited funds are on the line.

14:02

But I definitely feel like that's one I'll come back

14:04

to, but I'll probably be on the shame pile for

14:07

a while. The

14:09

old shame pile. We

14:12

all know what the having a big shame pile

14:14

is like. It's like, have you ever seen an

14:16

episode of The Simpsons where Skinner's buried under the

14:18

newspaper? That's the same pile. Dribble

14:22

the basketball. Dribble the basketball, eat the

14:24

preserves. Then break that record.

14:26

What a fun game. Yeah. Matt,

14:28

yeah, go ahead. Sorry. Oh,

14:31

I was asking, what's your history with the genre? What's your

14:33

favorite RPG? Oh,

14:43

my favorite RPG. Oh,

14:45

that's, that's pretty difficult. I

14:48

really, I love the Sukkoten franchise.

14:52

I played them all. I, I like

14:54

them all. Even the bad ones, which really

14:56

like, I think solidifies how

14:58

much I like it. Yeah,

15:00

for sure. Is this like, if you

15:02

like the bad games, it's probably one of

15:05

your favorite. I gave up after two. So

15:07

you're more genuine than I am.

15:10

Yeah. Also, I mean, the staples,

15:12

Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger, those

15:14

are, you know, just top tier

15:16

phenomenal. I

15:19

really enjoy Final Fantasy IX as well. Like I

15:21

just have like a, that's like my soft spot

15:23

game where I'm like, I like

15:25

this way more than I would have thought

15:27

if you just pitched me the idea. I

15:31

also like to actually, oh, I'm sorry, I

15:33

didn't mean to interrupt there, but something I actually noticed about Final

15:35

Fantasy IX lately is I feel

15:38

like I've been listening to the soundtrack a

15:40

lot lately. And I think that Uematsu, like

15:43

that is the soundtrack he had the most

15:45

fun with. Like something about

15:47

that soundtrack just feels so effortless. And

15:49

the way it ascended from Final Fantasy

15:51

VII, which has a great soundtrack, but

15:54

definitely doesn't sound as genuine, like as

15:56

very midi sounding. Eight, of course, was

15:58

like kind of in between weird. progressive

16:00

rock thing, no offense cat.

16:02

And nine was just him just doing

16:04

everything with every instrument the PlayStation could

16:07

offer. So yeah, I thought that was

16:09

interesting. But what about Final Fantasy X?

16:12

He had one thing at the door by 10. Oh,

16:15

PlayStation, okay, okay, okay. Yeah, just the way he

16:17

ascended. All right, okay. Oh, 10, hey,

16:19

I got love for 10. I,

16:22

it's, I just, what

16:25

surprised me is I didn't wanna, I didn't

16:27

do any of the side content. I just kind of blasted

16:29

through it and I was like, oh, I. It's

16:32

all end game side content, right? It all

16:34

like takes place at the very end of

16:36

the game. It's like very hardcore, like grind

16:38

focused side content for sure. Right,

16:40

yeah, like I didn't do Omega or

16:43

fight Nemesis or whatever, I just, I

16:45

just, just didn't latch on. But

16:48

what you're saying about the FF9

16:50

soundtrack is, yeah, I totally

16:52

agree. I feel like they, he

16:55

reused the theme a lot,

16:57

the main theme throughout the

16:59

game and it made

17:01

it really cohesive overall. The melodies of

17:03

life theme. Oh, melodies of life, I

17:06

just like my heart every time I hear it. That

17:08

and the overall theme, like just, I love

17:10

that theme. Loki, melodies of life,

17:12

one of my favorite Final

17:14

Fantasy songs, period. Yeah, same.

17:19

Do you guys ever hear the

17:21

distant worlds, the orchestral

17:23

CD? Oh, yeah. Oh,

17:25

yeah. I've gone to a

17:27

couple of those in Washington and

17:31

I've fought in all the CDs and they have

17:33

a really good rendition of. They do, yeah. I've

17:35

been to the concerts whenever they come to Toronto. I

17:38

really want them to come back. They're on tour right now and I'm waiting

17:40

for an announcement. Come

17:42

on. Yeah. So

17:45

Matthew, you wanted to talk

17:47

about Darkest Dungeon. Yes. And

17:50

another RPG that's near and dear

17:52

to my heart. So

17:54

I'm curious. I guess

17:56

my first question is, what do you think of Darkest

17:59

Dungeon 2? Yeah, are you a fan?

18:02

Well, yes, I am a fan and

18:04

I also I feel like I

18:06

got kind of Sold early

18:09

some through some weird quirk

18:11

loving darkest dungeon My buddy

18:13

somehow knows the I think one of the

18:16

head creators and I got a really early

18:18

access Wow Cool, like like

18:20

yeah, it was like oh I have to I

18:22

have to sign an NDA and everything like Like

18:25

this is really early access like we

18:28

need to get you on the show more you're

18:30

inside source in the darkest dungeon Yes

18:34

It's a trip to play games that have

18:36

you played games in that early of access

18:38

there. I have really yes Yes,

18:40

I have for like consultations and stuff

18:42

for sure Yeah, there's something

18:44

aren't they? Yeah Yeah Well, cuz like

18:47

you're leaving because notes that it's like

18:49

sound like madness like the carts

18:51

acting funny Check. Yeah this

18:53

scene or check this area

18:55

of why is it slowing down randomly? Mine

18:59

like flying in the air Like

19:02

I go I don't think this

19:04

is as intended like you

19:06

haven't lived until you've clipped through the overworld You

19:09

can avoid a lot of stuff that way though.

19:12

Yeah Sorry,

19:14

there was a time I was previewing a game God

19:16

cat You know you won't remember this but you actually

19:18

sent me to preview as an Assassin's Creed game for

19:20

game Pro In Montreal

19:23

and Ubisoft I bet I did It

19:27

was Assassin's Creed something it was the one where he got the

19:29

hook I'm gonna run brotherhood or something rather

19:31

it was one of the it was a side one and Yeah,

19:34

I was playing and the developers like kind of sitting

19:36

beside me watching me play and all of a sudden

19:38

This is army of Templars Springs

19:41

up from the ground like from dragons teeth

19:43

There's like you just and the guy beside

19:45

me just like oh shit and he takes his

19:47

notebook. He's her I Thought

19:50

the instantaneous Templars like

19:53

the Roman dragon teeth soldiers are pretty pretty

19:55

pretty fun. Who doesn't love

19:57

instantaneous Templars? Yeah

20:00

Well, yeah. That's my band

20:02

name now. Yeah, I think yeah,

20:05

I was like there has to be

20:07

a joke in there somewhere but I couldn't. But

20:12

to answer your question, I put

20:14

I think I'm at 130 hours

20:16

in Darkest Engine 2. Wow.

20:19

Okay. Live up to the

20:21

original. No,

20:23

but it is like I

20:27

really love like

20:29

a game that like

20:31

teach you have to pay like

20:33

I don't know what else to call it. It keeps

20:36

saying obtuse, but like trains you to play it, you

20:38

know, and I

20:40

just really like that the

20:43

some of the abilities seem awful and then you

20:45

get like a cool trinket and you're like, wait,

20:48

what if this and like the game

20:50

wants you. The game wants you to

20:53

exploit every resource in it to beat

20:55

these bosses. And

20:57

I feel like when you beat like one of

20:59

the have you beaten any of the bosses in

21:01

Darkest Engine 2? I have not

21:04

actually. Well, I

21:06

found that a lot of people get really tripped

21:08

up on the second one. And

21:10

when you beat that annoying

21:13

of a boss, I feel like it's

21:15

magnitudes better than when you beat like

21:17

a boss you've never seen before in

21:19

another RPG and you're like, oh,

21:21

I'll just try random spells. Oh, that

21:24

worked. Okay. Oh, I beat him. Okay. Cool.

21:27

Like that's there's a certain amount

21:29

of satisfaction. But when you beat them, when

21:32

you like bully beat down like a really

21:34

mean boss, it's like

21:38

there's like an extra like you walk

21:40

around with your like shoulders, you know,

21:43

like, like, you're like, you want

21:45

to tell like a random person in the store like, you

21:47

know what I did today? And

21:52

they're like, get away from me. Let

22:02

me tell you about the second boss

22:04

in Darkest Dungeon 2. Security,

22:06

help! Help? Can

22:10

I tell you the good word about the Insanity Meter

22:12

in Darkest Dungeon? Man,

22:14

this is a software drug mart. The

22:18

trick is, you have to hit the back

22:20

row of the boss. They're like, yeah, I

22:22

don't know. Darkest

22:25

Dungeon 2, very different,

22:27

as we already mentioned, from the

22:29

original. So the original was more

22:31

of a, there's a hub area,

22:34

and then there's some dungeons. Dark,

22:37

very dark dungeons, actually. Quite dark, I

22:39

guess. And you have

22:41

a party of characters who wander into your town.

22:44

And some are better than others, for sure.

22:47

And you can steadily build them up over

22:49

time, level them up, get new skills for them.

22:51

You have to grind a lot

22:54

to get good skills for them. And

22:56

you're repeatedly going down into the dungeon. And

23:00

the thing is, with these dungeon crawls,

23:03

they can go wrong at any

23:05

time. One of the compelling

23:07

moments, certainly in the original game, was

23:09

that you may be in a moment where suddenly

23:12

things turn against you, and

23:14

your sanity meters, which was a very fresh

23:16

concept, I think, at the time, can start

23:18

getting way too high. And

23:21

once one of your characters breaks sanity, they'll

23:23

start doing bad things, like moving

23:25

randomly in the rows, or

23:28

deciding that they're not going to do things, or

23:31

literally attacking one of your other

23:33

characters. Yeah. There

23:35

is actually, that's actually funny, because

23:38

there is something exactly like that

23:40

in Dragon Quest XI, except the

23:42

opposite is supposed to be funny.

23:44

And it is hilarious. It's

23:47

a condition called shypox, and it's just the concept

23:49

is your character gets so shy that they flood

23:51

whatever they're supposed to be doing. And

23:53

sometimes they'll dance, sometimes they'll just run away,

23:56

sometimes they'll just do something completely crazy. Sometimes

23:58

I think they can attack. yet confused

24:00

enough. But yeah, I just love that you

24:02

have the juxtaposition between comedy and utter insanity,

24:04

but the same effects. That's

24:07

me at parties, by the way. That's

24:11

like the coolest thing about Darkest Dungeon 1 to me

24:13

is that it was a management

24:15

game. It was like the player is

24:18

managing all these different characters that come

24:20

into town. They have their own vices

24:22

that you have to deal with. I

24:25

love the idea of you have this

24:27

town full of all these drinking halls

24:29

and brothels and stuff like that. You

24:31

have these terrible, depressed warriors coming out

24:34

of the dungeon. They're like, oh, we just

24:36

fought horrors and insanities and Fred died in

24:38

there. You're like, okay, good. Well, go gamble

24:40

for a bit and then I'm sending you

24:43

back down into the dungeon. It

24:48

was almost

24:51

funny in how depressing

24:53

and oppressing it was,

24:56

like how dark everything was. But

24:59

the management aspect is what really made me

25:01

like the first Darkest Dungeon because I love

25:03

games like that or games like XCOM, Enemy

25:05

Unknown, where you have units that you get

25:07

really attached to, but are also supposed to

25:09

theoretically be expendable. And you have to make

25:11

those really hard choices at some point where

25:14

it's like, do I want to

25:16

let this run go? Do

25:18

I let this unit go? Or oh,

25:20

I just lost this character who's been

25:22

like the cornerstone of my

25:24

party that I was going deeper and

25:26

deeper in the dungeon with. And that's like a really

25:28

tangible physical loss. And I don't know that I had

25:31

that when I was playing Darkest Dungeon 2. I've only

25:33

played like some press demos and stuff like that here

25:35

and there over the years. But

25:37

every time I played it, it felt very

25:39

similar to other rogue lights that are more

25:41

common nowadays. And I didn't have that like

25:44

attachment to the units. And I'm wondering, Matthew,

25:46

like, do you still feel like you have

25:48

attachments units in Darkest Dungeon 2? I

25:52

actually feel more attached to

25:54

the Darkest Dungeon 2 units

25:56

because they're the same character

25:59

in that. Like that's like one

26:01

of the changes. They're not, um, they're not

26:03

new every time. So you

26:05

actually kind of learn their, their history. And

26:07

as you learn their history, you get more

26:09

abilities, but I do

26:11

love the resource management access access aspect

26:14

that you were talking about in darkest engine one

26:16

is like kind of

26:18

treating them as disposable, even though they're

26:20

like your beloved party. But

26:24

yeah, there, uh, I think

26:26

that game kind of helps the first one kind of helps

26:28

you, um, make these tough decisions when

26:31

you look at the achievements. Like there's one where

26:33

you send a group of level ones into the

26:35

darkest dungeon. And I think that kind of trains

26:37

you like, Oh, it's okay if they die. Yeah.

26:42

They were born to die. Yeah. They

26:44

came here to die. I did

26:46

the same thing in both darkest dungeon and excom,

26:48

which my rule was you didn't get a custom

26:50

name until you survived one mission because I wasn't

26:52

just going to like spend time on grandmothers

26:55

didn't name their babies until they were

26:57

like seven years old. I'm not going

26:59

to get attached to them yet. They

27:02

haven't even lived through a mission yet.

27:04

Like, you get out there and sin

27:06

Ricky and then you earn an upgrade

27:09

from the red shirt, like that's,

27:12

that's how you do it for your service. Yeah.

27:14

Uh, no, so that's, that's how I managed by

27:17

Xcom and my darkest dungeon, which, uh, you know,

27:19

hire me to coach your football teams or whatever,

27:21

I guess. You don't

27:23

have a name until you score a goal. You're just

27:25

like, Hey, fat kid, Hey, four eyes. Run

27:28

down the field. Well, well,

27:31

another fun aspect that I thought too

27:33

was, um, you, when, when your

27:35

run goes really bad, um, I would just

27:38

start chasing achievements. Like you can try to

27:40

get your people killed by a wall

27:43

collapsing. So, or

27:46

like by, uh, um, like,

27:48

yeah, I think it was stepping on a trap

27:50

and you're like, okay, well, this run's basically over.

27:53

Let's see. Let's see if I can, uh,

27:55

get rid of the, something back from

27:58

it. Yeah. And it's actually. Oregon

28:00

Trail from hell! Yeah.

28:04

Yeah. It's

28:07

the Darkest Dungeon 2 equivalent

28:09

of naming all of the party members after

28:11

people you disliked in school. And then

28:13

seeing if you can get them to get cholera or

28:16

something. The first time I ever

28:18

laughed hard on Elf had something on the internet

28:20

to wake up my husband was actually

28:22

something that Sharky, Solid Sharky wrote way

28:25

way back in the day. It was just a review of Oregon

28:27

Trail. And this was

28:29

back when no one did this shit. And he just kind

28:31

of did this let's play of him. And

28:35

the characters names were Jesus and Mega Man and

28:37

Skeletor. So it would be like Mega Man dies

28:39

just in theory. Yeah.

28:42

That was how the West was

28:44

found. Skeletor. And

28:47

it was so funny. The

28:49

best part was that it would save

28:51

the gravestone in the original game. So

28:53

if you passed by it you'd be

28:56

like hey. There was someone

28:58

in our school. I totally agree with that.

29:00

Sorry Matt. Yeah. Someone in our school wrote

29:02

like you know on some

29:06

gravestone in the game like fuck so and so. It

29:08

was like one of the teachers. And I

29:11

actually witnessed some kid playing the game and that

29:13

gravestone popped up and she started to cry because

29:16

she thought she was going to get in trouble.

29:18

Why can't they use Oregon Trail? I can't

29:20

tell you. Well

29:22

Canadians did Westward Expansion too. You

29:24

weren't exactly exempt. Well no

29:26

but not through Oregon. True.

29:29

You did not have Oregon

29:31

through no fault of your own. The

29:35

thing that struck me about Dark Extension too when

29:37

I first played it was it

29:39

was very disorienting to me because it was so

29:41

different. Which isn't a bad

29:43

thing per se in a sequel. I

29:45

mean it's not a bad thing to change

29:49

up the formula and such. But in

29:52

going from more of a management sim

29:54

as Eric was saying to sort

29:57

of a rogue light. and

30:00

you're heading toward the mountain and everything, mentally,

30:03

it took a lot of adjustment

30:06

and as a consequence, it

30:08

didn't grab me quite as hard right

30:10

from the outset and it seemed like it

30:13

didn't grab a lot of people. Someone

30:15

has put like 100, well more than 100 hours into

30:20

it, can you talk to me, Matthew, about

30:22

some of the things that it does right, but

30:25

also some of the things it does wrong? Yeah,

30:28

I definitely think it's similar to

30:31

a more traditional rogue-like, or

30:33

is that rogue-like? Rogue-light?

30:36

Yeah, light, yeah. Somebody

30:39

at work recently said, what is the

30:41

difference between a rogue-light and

30:43

a rogue-like? And I was

30:45

like, well, rogue-likes are turn-based

30:47

and they have an identification

30:49

game and starvation and

30:52

are hard permadeath and

30:54

rogue-lights are more, frequently

30:57

more action-based, frequently

31:00

more forgiving. Some sort of permanent progression,

31:02

that sort of thing. Yeah, I've been

31:04

training for this moment for years. All

31:06

right, so the Berlin interpretation of what

31:09

a rogue game is. Oh boy, here

31:11

we go. I'm

31:13

not even joking. So rogue-like has

31:15

legitimately been in contention for

31:17

ages because there are people who

31:19

were like, you're only a rogue-like, if

31:22

you look like the game rogue, you

31:24

have to basically be almost

31:26

mud levels of like, it's

31:29

turn-based. If it's not as,

31:31

it's not a rogue-like. It's non-modal,

31:33

it has emerging gameplay, it

31:35

has permadeath, randomized dungeons, resource

31:38

management, on and

31:40

on and on and on. And yeah,

31:42

there are different levels of this, but

31:44

I think broadly the difference

31:47

between rogue-like and rogue-light is

31:49

that a rogue-light has progression,

31:51

permanent progression systems, whereas a

31:53

rogue-like will be more sheer

31:56

in the wanderer, that sort of thing where you have

31:58

to make do with what you have. in

32:00

the world you do not get extra

32:03

help from outside mystery dungeon yeah rogue

32:06

yes yeah sorry go ahead Matthew oh

32:09

so yeah so

32:11

I I think with

32:13

that explanation it

32:16

kind of lends to

32:18

why you would play something like darkest engine

32:21

too is that you're you're buying in at

32:23

first that it's that style of a game

32:25

that it's not a management sim yeah or

32:28

not management sim but less

32:31

a resource management based

32:33

but you could be misled if you

32:35

only played darkest dungeon one but once

32:38

you kind of buy into that there

32:42

are the frustrating elements that come along

32:44

with it like that you could get

32:46

all the way to the mountain after

32:48

like a long slog and then through

32:51

like a series of like

32:54

like weird circumstances like your

32:57

key player dies and that's

32:59

definitely frustrating but but

33:02

I think how

33:04

you accrue this many hours is this

33:06

is kind of like a oh I

33:09

play this while I'm like streaming TV

33:11

on my other monitor or listening to

33:13

a podcast so it's it's

33:15

not like I'm like completely locked

33:17

in playing 120 hour game it's

33:20

like oh hey I think I can do a

33:22

run and I want to try the I think

33:24

it's orphan this time yeah and

33:26

I need to fulfill her backstory

33:29

anyways so at worst I'll either

33:31

you know I'll

33:33

either beat the boss or I'll fulfill her

33:35

backstory or I'll just you know I'll

33:38

have a better understanding of this character and just like

33:40

each run just kind of like

33:42

really it's

33:44

only like a one or two hour experience

33:47

but I just you know find myself

33:49

playing it more more and more when I'm

33:51

doing well and then just

33:53

not so often when I'm doing

33:55

poorly but I would say I'm at the tipping point you

33:57

know when you get into a game where you go I

33:59

think I'm near the end. I think I could wrap this

34:01

up if I had a long weekend kind of thing. Yeah.

34:04

So I don't think there's much more to do

34:06

in the game when you have

34:08

as many hours as I do.

34:10

So like, yeah, so it's, it's pretty much

34:13

winding down at that point. Interesting.

34:17

Yeah, Darkest Dungeon, the thing

34:19

that would always throw me about the original game was

34:22

I would play, I put a lot of hours into it.

34:25

And I would have very

34:27

deliberately set up parties and

34:30

everything would be like this intricate winding watch.

34:32

And I would know exactly which characters I

34:34

need to bring into which dungeons because that's

34:36

one of the main things is party comps.

34:39

One of my absolute favorite thing in any

34:41

RPG is figuring out party comps. And,

34:45

but then I would go away for a little bit and I've

34:47

come back and read, who are these people? What's

34:50

going on? And then I would bring a party down

34:52

to a dungeon and they would all die. And that's

34:55

like hours down the drain. And I'd

34:57

be like, Oh, no. And

34:59

of course, and of course you

35:01

have to do every one of them multiple times because

35:03

you're fighting multiple iterations of the same

35:05

boss. And then at a certain point,

35:08

you're like, Okay, I can't do this

35:10

anymore. And certainly

35:12

not enough to get all the

35:14

way to the darkest dungeon, unfortunately.

35:16

So is the repetition

35:19

as strong and darkest dungeon to

35:21

Matthew? No, I

35:23

think one is they fix that

35:25

part. Oh, wait. Oh,

35:29

no, I think I misunderstood. Like

35:31

darkest dungeon two is definitely more

35:33

repetitive and repetitive. That's impressive. That's

35:36

impressive. Yeah, I feel

35:38

like darkest dungeon one, there's a little

35:40

bit by comparison, more

35:45

flexibility, if you can believe it or not,

35:47

because I

35:49

actually beat darkest dungeon one that was my

35:51

quarantine game three years ago, as I was

35:53

like, Oh, I finally have time to play

35:55

this. So there's a lighthearted quarantine game, you

35:57

know, we're all trapped inside and we'll play.

36:00

something enjoyable. I go well

36:02

you can't I go yeah

36:05

I want to I want to the plague is

36:08

plague doctors here we go everyone else is playing

36:11

Animal Crossing you know what I did I covered

36:13

the dungeon I was curious about this cuz like

36:15

what you were saying

36:18

I went back to my file yesterday

36:21

and I was like what was I doing last

36:23

in this game I was like this

36:26

is in an I have no idea what's

36:28

going on anymore is similar when you guys

36:30

went back to Animal Crossing during it was

36:33

a scared to go back to my Animal Crossing town

36:35

because my husband my husband has been upkeeping

36:37

it every day but if

36:39

I go back to my house is gonna

36:41

just be cockroach galore and I'm gonna freak

36:44

out so I went back I went back to the

36:46

first time in one

36:49

year and eight months over Thanksgiving I was

36:52

just like I miss my town

36:54

how they all doing and I

36:56

walked around my island just

36:58

staring around going oh my god

37:00

how did I do all of

37:03

this this is the most

37:05

elaborate crazy thing I've ever made I'm

37:08

never gonna be able to play Animal Crossing

37:10

again I can never make an island this

37:12

good again you're intimidating just you doing the

37:14

could a depressed person make this but it's

37:16

your Animal Crossing pretty

37:19

much I had

37:21

a similar experience where I was like I could never do

37:23

this again I had an absurd

37:25

amount of money in darkest engine like

37:27

hundreds of thousands of gold I was

37:30

like I dominated

37:32

this game somehow like I beat

37:34

every boss every side quest and

37:37

I just I was like what

37:40

I must have had just I must have

37:42

just dug in and gotten to some fugue state where

37:44

I was just like like

37:47

playing that game but yeah

37:50

that's how I felt too I was like I

37:53

could never repeat this performance ever again like I

37:56

think we were all in a fugue state in 2020 It

38:00

was that kind of year. But

38:03

we've had an incredible year for

38:06

RPGs. Dark Extension 2 came

38:08

out quite early this year, and

38:10

unfortunately, it's flown under the radar. Should

38:13

it be flying under the radar? Should people finally give

38:15

this one a shot, Matthew? I

38:18

think it's worth a shot, but

38:20

also, I don't know if it's at the

38:22

state where it's like a little less expensive,

38:24

like where, like Steam sale kind

38:26

of thing. Also, I think

38:28

with Darkest Dungeon 2, like what finally

38:30

got me to Darkest Dungeon 1 was

38:33

all the content was out, right? So

38:35

I got to kind of dive in,

38:37

and I got to play like this

38:39

really polished game

38:41

with all sorts of extra content. But

38:44

we're at like the beginning stage of Darkest

38:46

Dungeon 2. The first DLC just came out.

38:49

Yeah, was that binding? Is it

38:51

binding? Binding Blade. Yeah, and I

38:53

think... The Binding Blade. Yeah, it's

38:55

a funny name. That is interesting.

38:58

Nintendo like knocking on their door like, hey. Nintendo

39:01

was like, what? Nintendo

39:03

Ninja. But

39:07

for example, when I played Darkest Dungeon 1,

39:10

I had like all the

39:12

content. So I had all these characters

39:14

that I think helped make that game

39:17

more playable too, because one

39:19

of my like amazing comps in the first game

39:22

required. I

39:25

think I ended up going to the Crimson

39:27

Court or whatever, and that got me

39:29

all sorts of, you know, crazy

39:32

artifacts and stuff. So when I

39:34

went to the Darkest Dungeon, I

39:36

was a lot stronger and was

39:38

able to beat it. And I think right

39:41

now with Darkest Dungeon 2, there's no... If

39:46

you get all the trinkets

39:49

unlocked and whatever, like for

39:51

now, if you can't figure out the right combination

39:54

to play, you know, to

39:56

get to the bosses and beat the game, you're

39:58

in this position where it's like, like, oh, well,

40:00

I guess I just don't get it. But

40:03

if more DLC comes out, maybe

40:06

there'll be a character that really makes

40:10

sense to you or clears up

40:12

a really difficult

40:15

part of the game for you. So I think

40:19

maybe people can wait a little bit

40:21

longer, because this year has pretty amazing

40:23

RPGs. But just have this floating around

40:25

on your wish list, on Steam or

40:28

whatever. And when the price is right,

40:30

then I think, yeah, give it a shot. All

40:33

right. I definitely will. And

40:36

one thing I will say

40:38

about the developers of this game is

40:41

that when they put

40:43

out DLC, they is surprisingly involved DLC.

40:45

The Crimson Court that you mentioned was

40:48

very different from the core Darkest Dungeon

40:50

games, but it added a lot to

40:53

the base game. And they also did a really good job

40:56

of addressing fan feedback and such. And

40:59

so Darkest Dungeon 2 may be a game

41:01

that's significantly better in,

41:03

say, 2024 than it was in 2023. So

41:07

I look forward to coming back to it.

41:09

Matthew, thank you so much for coming on the

41:11

show. Is there anything else you want to highlight?

41:14

And where can we find you?

41:17

I'm not very findable, but I guess you can find me

41:19

out. Well, I mean, as

41:21

in, I don't actually have any

41:24

social media or anything. So congratulations. Oh

41:26

my god. I have a

41:28

quick, funny anecdote about that. I decided eight

41:30

years ago, social media was too

41:32

toxic. I have no idea how it

41:34

could possibly have been any worse, but

41:36

I'm told it is. You're

41:39

ahead of the game. Years

41:41

ago was a paradise. Take it back to Eden.

41:44

But that's the thing, right? I was like, maybe

41:46

they just put more tires on the tire

41:48

fire, from an

41:51

outside perspective. Keep that baby

41:53

burning. But yeah,

41:56

so you can find me at Matt

41:58

as Matthew Salisbury on the Discord. I guess

42:00

you'll probably see me playing probably darkest engine too.

42:02

It's like I don't know. I guess you could

42:04

shoot me a message I don't I don't mind

42:07

and then the only other thing I want to say

42:09

too is I love the art of our

42:12

convention just throwing that up there

42:14

is it's like I kind of like how like

42:16

harsh and I don't know if

42:18

Funny's the right word, but like it's like there's

42:20

there's like a humor to it where you're like,

42:22

oh man I don't

42:24

know if humor is the right word, but it's like there's just sort

42:26

of like this dark like I

42:29

don't know dark but fun feel to

42:31

that dark. We haven't even talked about

42:33

the the narrator who's incredible. Oh, yes,

42:35

absolutely Oh top tier. Yeah

42:38

for sure. I love having a narrator. I

42:40

love having a commentator for your battles

42:44

savage blow It's

42:46

like oh man, what

42:48

was what I was trying to remember

42:50

one of them too it was like Oh

42:54

It escapes me But yeah, there's some there's

42:56

some that like are perfectly aligned with what

42:58

you do and just you can't

43:01

help but laugh Yeah,

43:03

okay But

43:05

yeah, other than that Yeah, just

43:08

thank you. I really appreciate it

43:10

and the opportunity. It's fun. I

43:13

and yeah, if I Kind

43:16

of just wanted to throw it out there that

43:18

a part of the reason why I did this is I just

43:20

go Oh, I kind of just want to be more active in

43:23

my life, you know, and it's like, oh

43:25

I listen to this podcast I want to

43:27

support it It's like oh this sounds like

43:29

a fun opportunity to like do something and

43:31

I know that's sort of like privileged

43:33

because it's definitely expensive but like

43:36

it Like you could just like

43:38

I I ended up just canceling a couple

43:40

subscriptions and just making sure to save a

43:42

little bit And it ended up just being

43:44

like a really cool You

43:47

know thing I could do and I I think it's

43:49

just feel like I don't

43:51

know I feel more engaged with like

43:53

Like this for living like this for

43:55

living right for picking us over those

43:58

other shows that aren't as good Yeah,

44:00

yeah. Oh, well, I technically did do an

44:03

episode of Retro Knots, too. So I guess

44:05

you could check that out. Cool.

44:08

Yeah, but I mean, but actually the blood got

44:10

first. Let's go. Take

44:13

that, Jeremy Parrish. Yeah. All

44:16

right. Well, anyways, thank you very

44:18

much. It was great having you. Thank you so much

44:20

for your support. Thank you. All right. That was our

44:22

conversation with Matthew. Thank you so much for coming on

44:24

the show and thank you so much for

44:26

your generous support. That was a lot of fun. It's

44:29

time now for a series of random

44:31

encounters. The

44:36

GTA 6 trailer drops on

44:39

Tuesday and what may be one of

44:41

the biggest events in several years for

44:44

video games and as I

44:46

already mentioned may finally kill Twitter dead,

44:48

God willing. Cyberpunk 2077's 2.1

44:52

patch is on the way and it will include

44:54

a Metro system at

44:57

long last. Along with a

44:59

host of other improvements. If

45:01

you've been hoping for a Final Fantasy Tactics remaster,

45:03

well, it's not happening or it's not

45:05

planned according to Yasumi Matsuno. So maybe

45:08

we'll get a remake instead? Question mark?

45:10

We shall see. Yeah, there you go.

45:12

Hey, what's he not saying right between

45:14

the lines? Semantics. Bethesda

45:19

responded to Starfield reviews and an

45:22

amusing series of messages that made

45:24

their way around the internet. Go

45:27

check out ign.com. It's an interesting

45:29

trend actually, especially in the indie

45:31

space to actually respond to reviews

45:34

because sometimes you can actually flip a mixed

45:36

or negative review to positive. You just don't

45:38

see it happening in the AAA space very

45:40

much. You

45:43

know, I'm a Starfield defender at this point. So

45:45

what can I say? I'm just trying to give

45:47

them the benefit of the doubt. And

45:50

finally, Dragon's Dogma 2 will be

45:52

Capcom's first $70

45:55

game when it launches next year.

45:57

Worth every dollar. Yeah.

46:00

Most likely. God, that's going to be $100 in the Canada. Easy. Time

46:04

now for some boss battles. First

46:06

up, Baldur's Gate 3

46:09

dropped another huge patch. This

46:12

one contained an

46:14

interactive epilogue in which you

46:16

can say goodbye

46:18

to everybody for

46:21

your adventure, including Scratch.

46:24

No, you have to keep Scratch. Scratch

46:26

can't go away. What about the Elbear?

46:31

I don't know about that one. I think I

46:33

told you I never got Scratch into my party. I feel

46:35

kind of embarrassed about that. Oh, okay.

46:37

You shouldn't miss Scratch, but you should miss

46:39

the Elbear cub because you only get the

46:41

Elbear cub if you kill its mother. I

46:43

couldn't kill the mom. But then

46:46

it loves you. I got the mom

46:48

down to like five hit points and

46:50

I realized, I was like, but

46:53

the baby, I'm going to make the baby

46:55

an orphan. But when you... I can't, I

46:57

can't do it. Here's the thing. When you

46:59

get the Elbear cub, I forget what they

47:02

say, but they do kind of infer that

47:04

you actually save them in a way by

47:06

rescuing them, even though their mom was... I

47:09

don't remember, but they do see

47:11

and Scratch become the best of friends. And

47:14

there's a scene where like the

47:18

Elbear cub wakes up from a nightmare and Scratch is like

47:20

the one who settles him down. The

47:22

thing with the Elbear cub is either way, he

47:24

gets kidnapped by the goblins and winds up in

47:26

their camps. So you may as well save him

47:28

because someone kills his mom. Someone

47:31

does. Someone kills Bambi's mom. I

47:35

think I have a save file that's literally,

47:37

I just have to hit the final boss

47:39

once and I win. So I'm

47:44

kind of hopeful that I can just

47:46

go straight into the new epilogue and

47:48

see everything. I would love to do

47:50

that. Also, also, apparently you

47:53

get even more extended Karlaak time, which

47:55

is great. They didn't die, you know,

47:57

do other things. Yeah,

48:03

I had a save file that's directly

48:06

at the final thing you do in the game,

48:08

like the last time you have your hands on

48:10

the controls. So I booted that

48:12

up. I haven't played all of the epilogue yet

48:14

because it's kind of framed like the... If

48:18

you've done the Grove stuff in Act 1 and it

48:20

kind of ends with a party, depending

48:23

on which side you choose, at that party.

48:28

It's set up the same way where you're at camp and you can

48:30

kind of go around and talk to people. One

48:32

thing that people were very excited for, which

48:34

I wrote about over on destructoid.com, is that

48:37

they canonized Bing Bong the Imp.

48:41

Oh, Bing Bong. In the

48:43

post-launch of Baldur's Gate 3, all of

48:45

the voice actors did a D&D tabletop

48:47

session as their own

48:50

characters. It's very, very fun. You should watch it

48:52

on the High Rollers D&D channel if you have not.

48:55

During that session, Jennifer

48:58

English, who plays Shadowheart, decided

49:01

to adopt Bing Bong the Imp

49:03

from one of the local shops.

49:05

It became a very funny joke

49:07

and the epilogue actually canonizes

49:10

Bing Bong as part of their journey, which

49:12

is very, very fun. I

49:15

am still on Episode 3.

49:19

I got a little bit overwhelmed when I got into the city,

49:21

so I took a break to play Dragon Quest Pilgrims 2. I

49:23

will be going back, absolutely. It is overwhelming.

49:26

How far are you into Act 3 at this

49:28

point? Did you actually get into the city yet?

49:31

I am in the city. Things are shaking, so

49:33

I'm assuming that if I get a- Did you

49:35

do the crowning thing? Yes.

49:38

So you did all that. Okay,

49:41

yes, I did all that. I talked to Gorbash

49:43

and he's like, we could be friends. I'm like,

49:45

whatever, I'll just kind of keep you on the back pocket for

49:47

now. Gorbash? Whatever his

49:49

name is. Good old Gorbash. Gortesh.

49:52

Gortesh, yeah. He's such a

49:54

dork, though. I don't care if I get his name wrong. He

49:56

looks like he's someone stepped on his face. That

50:00

is so it. He sucks, but in like a

50:02

really fun way. He really does. He is a

50:04

dirtbag, but like a really good dirtbag. I can't

50:07

wait for you to get skinned. I hate

50:09

that chick who's the flare. She's

50:11

so boring. I'm sorry. No,

50:13

Oren's so good. Oh my. How

50:15

typical. It's like Yandere. Do you like

50:17

Harley Quinn, but she's a demon? Cool.

50:20

There you go. No. No.

50:23

The boring Harley Quinn? No. Harley

50:25

Quinn was with the top. Harley Quinn is just

50:27

upset. Okay, this is not the same. It's not

50:29

the same thing. It's not the same thing. No.

50:32

But yeah, I'm just not a fan of her. That might

50:34

change. That's fine for now. She's very boring. I was like,

50:37

oh boy, here's a skinned person in the morning. Nani,

50:39

who's your favorite companion right now? Ah,

50:42

geez. That's a hard one, but I

50:45

would say Shadowheart. Don't

50:47

spoil anything, dude. No, no,

50:49

I'm just asking. I'm curious because of where you're

50:51

at, like who your favorite companion is right now.

50:54

I've slept with Shadowheart and I slept with

50:56

the druid guy. I asked Shadowheart. Oh,

50:58

I know. I know. Yeah. Yeah.

51:04

I was like, okay. She knows what's up. I'm still, the most

51:06

devastating moment in 2023 was when

51:08

Karlaq friendzoned me and I still

51:10

haven't adequately recovered. Oh,

51:12

Kat. Kat. Kat. Yeah.

51:15

How does this keep happening to you? Like

51:18

Fire Emblem 3 Houses, you messed up

51:20

the Edelgard route. Now Baldur's Gate 3,

51:22

you messed up the Karlaq romance. I

51:24

murdered my girl. Kat,

51:27

do we got to do like some Riz? Some

51:29

Riz school? Do we got to take you to

51:31

Riz University? What's

51:34

happening here? I don't know

51:36

if I met Bing Bong yet, but does he say

51:38

like, hey, fuck your life, Bing Bong? Oh,

51:40

no, no, Bing Bong is not like in the game

51:43

in the game. They just mention him later. Okay.

51:46

Hey, fuck your life, Bing Bong.

51:49

Nadia, spookymanBR said Karlaq is TA

51:51

2.0. Yeah,

51:54

pretty much. Long

51:56

time listeners. Long time listeners of

51:59

Axle Blood God will know. that I broke Chie's

52:01

heart and frankly I still haven't recovered from

52:03

that either. It's like the hat trick. Yeah,

52:06

well you know what, in Persona 5 I

52:08

couldn't get anyone because I wasn't clean enough

52:10

for Makoto and I

52:14

didn't get my charisma up which means I didn't

52:16

go to the bath house. You were really low on that

52:18

high. I was fishing because

52:20

the fishing in that game is actually pretty good and then

52:22

it's like oh shit right, I'm on a timer and the

52:24

game ended. Every

52:27

time I try to play a Persona game without

52:29

a guide I start getting major FOMO thinking I'm

52:32

not doing what I need to be able to get actual

52:35

social links. God damn it, I'm missing content.

52:38

Yeah but the fishing was good. When I played Royal

52:40

I hooked up with the doctor and she was just

52:42

like we gotta put it, stop to this. Oh

52:45

now we're putting a stop to this, okay. Teacher

52:48

says hi. On

52:51

Saturday we got our

52:53

first trailer for the Fallout TV

52:56

show coming from Prime Video. During

52:59

the pre-show we streamed it live and

53:01

watched it together with

53:03

the Stars of Destiny. And

53:06

I have to say this show

53:08

was not really on my radar

53:10

but now it kind of is. It

53:13

looks beautiful. I

53:15

think they really captured the scope

53:17

and the beauty of the

53:19

wasteland. I think one of

53:21

the showrunners of Westworld might be involved. Yeah

53:23

that was an accredited show. Nolan. I

53:26

don't think Westworld was a good show

53:28

but I do think that it did

53:30

have some great cinematography and great

53:32

different landscapes so I can see why they went in

53:35

that general direction. And

53:38

Fallout's kind of a weird one

53:40

to adapt into a live action

53:42

series. I think that

53:44

in the worst of times it can

53:46

look really corny but this looks pretty

53:48

good actually. The thing

53:51

I like about it, this is going to sound

53:53

silly, but the fact that the jumpsuits are so

53:56

unapologetically blue and yellow, like

53:59

usually when someone has this kind of content and

54:01

it's from a game and they're like, oh, we're going to tone that down

54:03

because it's silly. And they just didn't

54:05

like they stand out real bright, which is stupid when it

54:08

comes to predators, but that's not the

54:10

direct response. That's the case. Yeah. That's,

54:13

I think that's actually important because they're jumpsuits.

54:15

They're just designed for people to be wearing

54:17

inside of a vault, right? Like they're not

54:19

designed to be camo out in the world. And

54:21

so that like disconnect is actually pretty interesting. I

54:23

like it. For the world. And

54:26

I saw a lot of things I like in that trailer.

54:29

Walton Goggins is someone I'm always going to be

54:31

like interested in seeing in a movie or

54:34

a show or anything. I

54:37

like that it looks like they're doing some vault

54:40

stuff, some kind of downfall of a vault type

54:42

things. I, the beginning

54:44

of the game is very predictable. Like

54:46

fallout three type, oh, you're leaving the

54:49

vault snow. Like I, there

54:51

was always kind of, I'm not wild

54:53

about that. The one thing that made me

54:55

nervous seeing

54:57

the brotherhood of steel because

55:00

I think the brotherhood of steel

55:02

is a very tricky faction to do,

55:04

right? I think some games do that

55:07

faction very well. And I think, I

55:09

think other games don't do that faction

55:11

very well. And the fact that Bethesda

55:14

is working on this, I don't really

55:16

like Bethesda's take on the brotherhood of

55:18

steel as this sort of like, they're

55:20

the super gung ho paladins keeping order.

55:23

Like I like more of the

55:25

obsidian interplay takes on the brotherhood of

55:27

steel. And so I'm

55:29

not as keen on that if it's just

55:31

going to be like power suit. Yeah. And

55:34

yeah, I want that to maybe explore like

55:36

why the brotherhood of steel is

55:39

a force, but is not like a de facto force

55:41

is not just a bunch of good guy paladins rolling

55:43

out in their power suit armor. We'll

55:46

see if that happens. Brotherhood of steel is

55:48

an interesting one because in Fallout 4 they were

55:50

definitely not good. They

55:53

were religious fanatics. I

55:56

would call them an antagonist faction in that

55:59

one. blew up that vertebrate real good

56:01

and I felt perfectly good fine about

56:03

that. Um, I

56:06

don't think that fallout has always

56:08

had a great handle on the

56:11

brotherhood of steel. So I agree that this

56:13

is a good opportunity. Um,

56:15

there's a part of me that's a little like,

56:17

eh, that is based on Bethesda's vision

56:19

of fallout as opposed to the more,

56:22

the classical version of it. And then

56:25

the nineties interplay fallout slash

56:27

fallout new Vegas. But

56:30

you know, we get some actual, you

56:32

know, creatives involved who

56:34

seem really strong, so maybe we'll, we'll

56:38

have something good. And, um, at

56:40

a minimum, they got the vibes, right? They

56:42

sure, they sure did. I kind of

56:44

hope they include a rad, a rad storm in

56:46

there. I love the rad storms are the creepiest

56:49

thing in the series. I

56:51

liked a lot of scenes, the big

56:53

bugs and the mutated bear and stuff

56:55

like that. I like seeing some of

56:57

the, you know, marks of nuclear fallout

56:59

in a fallout game. I know that sounds

57:01

funny to say, but, uh,

57:03

that is kind of what I want to see. And

57:06

they got some good acting on there.

57:08

Uh, the lead actress is from yellow

57:10

jackets. I believe she was the, one

57:12

of the characters in yellow jackets. Uh,

57:16

I just got to say the follow TV show

57:18

better be gay. Unlike

57:23

main fallout. Can you,

57:25

all right. What can you, can you

57:27

get girls in my barely remember the

57:30

romances of fallout to be fair. So,

57:32

but that's the, doesn't do romances very

57:34

well. I think I remember in

57:37

three, you could sleep with a sex

57:39

worker, but I, okay. It's all

57:41

I remember. All right. Nova. I

57:43

think her name was, can you

57:45

romance the super mutant? Can

57:48

you romance the ghouls? That's

57:50

what I'm talking about. Had a follow up

57:52

forehead, better characters. I should add than a

57:54

starfield did just

57:56

by virtue of having Valentine.

58:00

Nick Valentine though, he's so great.

58:02

Yeah, yeah, I really enjoyed him

58:06

Finally a game awards are this

58:08

week. They'll be on our number

58:10

seven Please

58:12

be prepared for the RPG category

58:14

to be announced in perfunctory way

58:16

and the best RPG is Baldur's Gate 3 moving

58:19

on with our lives Obviously

58:21

the main dramas right now Will

58:24

it be Baldur's Gate 3 or will it be

58:26

the Legend of Zelda? Cheers to the kingdom or

58:28

will it be Alan Wake 2 you

58:31

would think those would be the main the

58:34

main contenders For

58:36

game of the year and the other piece of discourse

58:41

The other piece of discourse is is Dave

58:44

the Diver and Indy Yeah,

58:46

god. No it's been a

58:49

that's been a whole discussion and I

58:52

guess Jeff Keeley's response was basically that

58:54

Jeff that Dave the Diver looks like

58:56

an Indy So it's got Indy vibes.

58:58

So therefore it is an Indy We

59:02

all need to have a conversation about

59:04

Indies. Okay, it's like a leprechaun. Therefore.

59:06

I am a leprechaun The term Indy

59:08

was coined in a

59:10

time when video games were very different Back

59:12

when there were box releases

59:15

and then they were kind of

59:17

small digital releases created by often

59:19

solo creators And you still

59:21

had like Xbox's summer of

59:23

arcade and things like that. Yeah

59:26

Cape story well,

59:28

yeah now so called indie studios

59:30

are multi-million

59:32

budget dollar budgets and

59:34

they have Very large

59:36

groups of people. It's just that maybe they're not

59:40

going for a particular Triple-a

59:42

aesthetic so to speak or

59:45

they're not going for the truly wild Technology,

59:48

but even Larry in the studios is

59:50

technically an Indy So

59:53

to speak it's just that You

59:56

have your triple-a you have

59:58

your more mid-day here double A

1:00:00

games. And then you have your

1:00:03

genuine, we made this using

1:00:05

some assets we bought from the Unity store.

1:00:07

And it actually blew up and we're kind

1:00:10

of shocked. Vampire Survivors is an indie. Yeah,

1:00:13

I think the most annoying part for me, and

1:00:16

here's where I will give Jeff

1:00:18

like a little bit of leeway before I then

1:00:20

like repack it on. Is

1:00:23

that he did point out that

1:00:25

like the jury votes on this. And so

1:00:27

this is not just like Jeff Keeley. This

1:00:30

is where I as a games media person,

1:00:32

I'm going to call out the collective. What

1:00:35

is happening every year? I did

1:00:37

not vote on the game awards. My outlet does not

1:00:39

vote on the game awards. It's like my colleagues, are

1:00:41

you all making these brain dead decisions? It

1:00:44

is broadly on a lot

1:00:46

of people and not just Jeff Keeley. However, on

1:00:49

the game awards website, only list mint

1:00:52

rocket as the developer and did not

1:00:54

list next on as the publisher, which

1:00:56

is like, that's cheating next on like

1:00:58

they're under next on like

1:01:01

it's it's so not indie. There.

1:01:04

Sorry, sorry, game journalist, I'll take it back. So so

1:01:07

yeah, you know, I give an inch and then take

1:01:09

it all back. But

1:01:12

my my broader point is that I think

1:01:14

the bummer here is that you see a

1:01:16

lot of great games, then

1:01:19

not get spotlight because

1:01:21

there's someone

1:01:23

someone put this very eloquently. And so I'm going to like,

1:01:26

badly summarize their idea here. But it

1:01:28

was that if Dave

1:01:30

the diver is not an

1:01:32

indie, but it was put in indie because

1:01:34

it has indie vibes, then we don't think

1:01:36

that games that look like that can compete

1:01:39

in other categories. So like, we think Dave

1:01:41

the diver is a great game. But we

1:01:43

don't think it could compete in a best

1:01:45

action adventure or action or

1:01:47

something like that. That's a relation. Oh,

1:01:51

the sim strat. Look, we can get Len

1:01:53

on here. It was it that is its

1:01:55

own tire fire, its own localized condensed tire

1:01:58

fire. I start playing. at the other night

1:02:00

I was digging it. It's pretty cool. And

1:02:02

like Dave the Diver, yeah, it seems like a

1:02:04

good game overall. I've heard a lot of really

1:02:06

good things about it. But I think if number

1:02:08

one, that game doesn't compete in other categories, then

1:02:10

why are we nominating it for anything in the

1:02:12

first place? And number two, it's

1:02:15

not an indie. And there are a lot

1:02:17

of indies that were actually pretty good this

1:02:19

year. You had Pizza Tower, you had Slay

1:02:21

the Princess, like there were very good games

1:02:23

either did not get nominations or only got

1:02:25

nominations in very specific categories. You could go

1:02:27

to the... Stars and Time. Yeah,

1:02:29

in Stars and Time, even Sea of Stars. But Sea

1:02:32

of Stars in the indie category, I know it was

1:02:34

in one other category, it was in the indie category.

1:02:36

I think it was in the indie category. That

1:02:39

is a great example of like... Back to Check

1:02:41

Time. Yeah, I know, right? Let

1:02:44

Eric get really far into his rant and then start

1:02:46

saying wrong things. I'm

1:02:50

pulling up the nominees right now. But that's...

1:02:53

It's a frustrating thing because every

1:02:56

year we see some games get weirdly categorized, right?

1:02:58

And I get why Sea Fu somehow ends up

1:03:00

in best fighting game, even though it should not

1:03:02

be in best fighting game. That's hilarious. It was

1:03:04

in a best fighting game. Amazing.

1:03:07

I love game awards. But

1:03:10

I think with indie, it's

1:03:12

especially frustrating because it's a

1:03:14

category that, by the way, Sea of Stars

1:03:16

is in best indie alongside Viewfinder. Viewfinder. I

1:03:19

think Viewfinder or Cacoon should win. It's

1:03:23

a great example, isn't that like by one person? No,

1:03:27

it's by a team. It's also

1:03:29

published by Team17. Oh,

1:03:32

right. But still, it's great game. But

1:03:34

somebody suggested the Indie Spirit Award. But

1:03:37

I don't know. I do think,

1:03:40

by the way, that Pizza Tower not being

1:03:42

nominated for an indie, but Dave the Diver

1:03:44

getting it is kind of wild. Yeah, so

1:03:46

Pizza Tower is in best debut indie along

1:03:48

with Venba, which is another really good breakout

1:03:50

indie from this year. And

1:03:53

even then, you could argue that things like Thirsty Suiters

1:03:55

and stuff like that could be up for these awards

1:03:57

and are not in here. Maybe they just missed. The

1:04:00

deadline or weren't in front of enough eyes at the right

1:04:02

time who's to say but Um,

1:04:05

I will just say that I think

1:04:07

that video game discourse has declined mightily

1:04:10

in the past few years Especially

1:04:12

as a lot of

1:04:14

really great sites like waypoint have died

1:04:17

and a lot of really great writers

1:04:19

have migrated away I miss av club

1:04:22

I'm a savy club too. Thank god.

1:04:24

We have sites like aftermath and Remap

1:04:27

and all that great. Yeah, which is

1:04:29

great to see uh as kind of picking

1:04:32

up the torch so to speak but overall

1:04:36

as uh media companies have been

1:04:38

slashed I I do think that

1:04:40

the commentary around video games are

1:04:42

a lot less thoughtful And

1:04:44

that's how you get dave the diver being nominated for

1:04:46

a fest in even if it is a really good

1:04:49

game That's how you wrap it around It

1:04:51

was very jarring because i'm sure like this

1:04:53

is probably true for y'all cat But like

1:04:55

we were having gaudy talks at the time

1:04:57

and we were putting together a best indies

1:04:59

of the year list and

1:05:02

ours looks substantially different

1:05:05

from this and I think it

1:05:07

was just a case of Number

1:05:09

one. It's it's a bummer that these games

1:05:11

are not getting more Uh

1:05:14

time more attention. There's there's some really

1:05:17

great indies that came out this year

1:05:19

that just deserved more Uh,

1:05:22

we were cutting games from our indies list even

1:05:25

as we were putting together our nominations and trying to whittle it

1:05:27

down to how many we needed and Yeah,

1:05:31

there's there's there's places doing commentary and doing

1:05:33

stuff like that So just go find and

1:05:35

support them because that's really a whole you

1:05:37

can ask in this crazy media world So

1:05:39

we all get mad about the game wars

1:05:41

the game wars is just e3.

1:05:44

It's just an excuse to do trailers The

1:05:46

real awards are the game developers choice awards

1:05:49

and the baftas And if

1:05:51

you go and look at the games that

1:05:53

are nominated during the game developers choice awards

1:05:55

consistently They're totally different from

1:05:57

the game awards. It's actually jarring And

1:06:00

that is where you get a much better

1:06:02

sense. I will always think of like

1:06:05

2018 was the year that RDR2 basically swept the

1:06:07

awards, but

1:06:11

then over at the Game Developers

1:06:14

Choice Awards. What

1:06:17

was the game that was really good and

1:06:19

you're an insurance adjuster and you're exploring the

1:06:21

ship? That kind of thing.

1:06:24

Oh, Overden? Oh, Overden. Overden basically

1:06:26

swept the awards at the Game Developers Choice

1:06:28

Awards that year. RDR2

1:06:30

was great too though. They're both good. They're

1:06:33

both good. Yes, but I

1:06:35

think Overden was a fantastic achievement

1:06:37

that was like not even really

1:06:39

acknowledged at all, as I recall

1:06:41

at the Game Awards. So,

1:06:43

2018 by the way, banger year.

1:06:48

Good year. It was a pretty good year. But

1:06:50

2018 was quite impressive as well.

1:06:53

All right, we're rolling up to the tavern. Let's

1:06:56

just chill out, talk a little bit about

1:06:58

what we have been playing. And

1:07:00

I'll start with I picked up Final

1:07:02

Fantasy 5 over the holidays again, and

1:07:05

it took me a bit to remember what exactly

1:07:07

I was doing. I was at the end

1:07:10

of World 1 and

1:07:13

I am now further than I've ever

1:07:15

gotten in Final Fantasy 5. And

1:07:17

I feel very excited. I'm

1:07:20

definitely leaning into all of the power

1:07:22

strategies. I've been building up my Blue Mages.

1:07:25

I've been, I fought

1:07:27

quite a hard boss at

1:07:29

the end of World 1. It's this

1:07:31

dragon that keeps changing

1:07:34

its elements and

1:07:37

has thousands of hit

1:07:39

points. And so if you don't lean

1:07:41

into the power strategies, it's a really,

1:07:44

really, really hard boss fight.

1:07:47

There is a boss fight very

1:07:49

similar to that in Final Fantasy 6 at

1:07:51

the top of Kefka's Tower. It's an optional

1:07:53

fight, but it's a nightmare if you have no

1:07:56

idea what you're doing, which I didn't when I was like 14.

1:08:00

and playing this RPG, like my first really serious

1:08:02

RPG for the first time in a long time.

1:08:05

And so the trick apparently was to cast Resorca

1:08:07

on him or something, he'll just attack you because

1:08:10

your attacks are locked, you only have magic and

1:08:12

I had no idea like, and then he would cast

1:08:14

Ultima at the end and wipe you out and I had

1:08:17

no idea that life 3 would save you. Man,

1:08:19

what a frustrating boss that was. Sorry, Kat, I just had

1:08:21

a flashback. Yeah, you

1:08:24

have to just keep hitting him and he'll change

1:08:26

elements as you're fighting and you don't

1:08:28

have any signal as to when he's

1:08:30

changing the element, but then he'll

1:08:33

die and he'll come back and he'll hit you

1:08:35

with whole party killing

1:08:37

attacks. So thankfully I

1:08:39

had thousand needles and I just kept, and

1:08:41

I had two blue mages and I

1:08:43

just kept pouring thousand needles into them

1:08:46

and I had a strong enough, Galif

1:08:49

and Bartz were strong enough

1:08:51

that they were able to withstand it. Final

1:08:55

Fantasy V is a very silly game, it's

1:08:57

a very silly story, but it's

1:09:00

also heartwarming, it's a

1:09:02

warm cup of kind of cozy tea

1:09:05

in terms of an RPG and I

1:09:07

am really enjoying the job system

1:09:13

overall and the music, oh, music is

1:09:15

so good in this one.

1:09:17

So I'm glad to pick it up, I'm

1:09:19

finally doing it everybody. I'm beating Final Fantasy

1:09:22

V over the holidays, that's my project, it's

1:09:24

good. Congratulations. Thank you. So

1:09:26

I'm on to World 2 now. I

1:09:32

also want to comment very

1:09:34

briefly on Reapop putting the

1:09:36

Eurogamer family up for sale.

1:09:39

We all used to work

1:09:41

for Reapop as part of

1:09:43

US Gamer and I

1:09:45

just have to say, speaking personally,

1:09:48

everybody from the Eurogamer and RPS,

1:09:50

VG247, Digital Foundry, Friend of the

1:09:54

Show, John Lineman, they all deserve

1:09:56

a lot better than what they

1:09:58

got on Reapop. Reapop

1:10:00

only ever wanted the events

1:10:03

business from that side. And

1:10:05

the media sites were treated as a throw

1:10:08

in. And the thing that I

1:10:10

really valued about working for Reapop, or not

1:10:12

Reapop, sorry, for Gamer Network specifically was

1:10:14

that it felt like a family business.

1:10:17

The owner of the site, of the sites

1:10:19

Rupert Lohman used to have holiday parties in

1:10:21

his garden. His parents were literally the accounts

1:10:23

managers, there's a real fan of family atmosphere,

1:10:26

but they were very canny about

1:10:28

how they actually did business over

1:10:30

there. And I respected that. But

1:10:33

then I felt a pang of dread

1:10:35

when Reapop bought them. And unfortunately, that

1:10:37

came to fruition. The pandemic

1:10:40

wreaked havoc on the events business.

1:10:43

Yeah, good time. And that

1:10:45

was a large part of why US Gamer ended

1:10:47

up dying was that they need to cut their

1:10:49

losses and we were expensive. And so they cut

1:10:52

us. And I just

1:10:54

have to say that Eurogamer

1:10:56

is a foundational site, it's

1:10:58

been around a long time, it's a

1:11:00

legacy site. Yes. And they

1:11:03

just deserve a lot better than they're getting.

1:11:05

RPS deserves a lot better than they're getting.

1:11:07

They do great work over there, Fiji 24

1:11:09

seven, all of them. It almost feels

1:11:11

like this is like the last cluster

1:11:13

of like you were saying how bad game

1:11:16

discourses these days. And it's like, this is

1:11:18

almost like the last cluster of really great

1:11:20

game discourse that could potentially go down the

1:11:22

toilet. And it's the great writers

1:11:24

in gaming have come from Eurogamer

1:11:26

people like Sam and Parkin and

1:11:28

such, they came from there. Some

1:11:32

of the best reporting in the business

1:11:34

came from Eurogamer. And it

1:11:36

would just be a real loss. I hope

1:11:38

that whoever buys them treats them right. I

1:11:40

have great fear that it's gonna end up

1:11:42

becoming I don't know goodbye, I'm gonna stay

1:11:44

an age who would who would treat them

1:11:46

right, unfortunately, but also want to give a

1:11:48

shout out to game industry, which, you know, I has been

1:11:51

around forever. She is up and

1:11:53

coming. Brendan Sinclair's. He's great. Yeah,

1:11:55

Toronto. We talk all the time. He's cool.

1:11:57

Yeah. But it's when I was just like, even

1:11:59

like a fledgling writer, I could always count

1:12:01

on Game of the Street to have good

1:12:03

sources and to have good stories and almost

1:12:06

never like point you wrong. That's

1:12:08

going to be gone, potentially like just

1:12:12

G.I. biz, when I was between

1:12:14

USG closing and joining

1:12:17

Destructoid, G.I. biz was

1:12:19

like kind enough to let me

1:12:21

come on as basically a contract writer. And I did

1:12:23

some like news writing for them just to kind of

1:12:26

keep the bills moving out

1:12:28

the door. And

1:12:31

I cannot emphasize enough how

1:12:34

excellent that team is, how much

1:12:36

I learned from them. They're experts at what they

1:12:38

do. They're so good. They're, in my

1:12:41

opinion, the best biz site around.

1:12:43

They do incredible work. They're

1:12:46

smart, they're understanding, they do

1:12:48

really, really, really good work.

1:12:50

And like

1:12:53

Kat was saying, Eurogamer is a pillar. It

1:12:55

is the one that when new writers are

1:12:57

talking to me, they're like, Who should I

1:12:59

look to for for news and stuff like

1:13:01

that? Like Eurogamer is one of my go

1:13:03

tos. I will always trust Eurogamer. And

1:13:06

RPS has a huge history

1:13:08

in online publishing and writing

1:13:10

about niche interest games, like we were

1:13:13

just talking about some of my favorite

1:13:15

early games writing was the

1:13:17

essays on Pathologic and Solium and Fernum

1:13:19

and stuff like that from RPS.

1:13:22

And it's it

1:13:25

is frustrating that we're seeing media constrict like this,

1:13:28

because even outside the games industry, you have things

1:13:30

like Jezebel, getting just

1:13:33

dumpster and now apparently coming back.

1:13:35

Being saved by Pace? But unclear? Who knew

1:13:37

that Pace was the history? Who knew that

1:13:39

Pace were the heroes that we needed? Who

1:13:42

knew that Pace had that cash sitting around?

1:13:44

Who knew? But

1:13:48

it it does feel

1:13:50

like a game of musical chairs where the

1:13:53

chairs are getting yanked out one by one.

1:13:55

And it's it's frustrating because you don't know

1:13:57

what the future looks like as the internet

1:13:59

continues to expand. band in very strange

1:14:03

and worrisome

1:14:05

ways. And it's been a

1:14:07

weird year. Now is the time of

1:14:09

monsters. I do hope the best

1:14:11

for every single one of those writers, because they

1:14:14

are good writers, they're good creators. They do

1:14:16

good work in the arenas that they work in.

1:14:18

Tom Phillips, good friend of mine. One

1:14:20

of my friends. Yeah. So I hope they

1:14:23

find something, whatever it is, whether it's under

1:14:25

a new parent company or on

1:14:27

their own, as so many of us

1:14:29

seem to have to be doing these

1:14:32

days at places like Remap and Aftermath

1:14:34

and stuff like that, but best

1:14:36

of luck and support the creators you

1:14:38

like. We're very thankful that people support

1:14:40

us here at BloodGod. Yeah.

1:14:43

Thank you. I mean, RPS, when

1:14:45

BloodGod went independent, RPS did a

1:14:48

very nice write up about

1:14:50

Axl BloodGod, which still shows up if

1:14:52

you Google search it, which

1:14:55

I'm sure did a lot for SEO.

1:14:57

Thank you, RPS. All

1:14:59

right, Eric, you're going to go see, you, you

1:15:01

saw a movie that I'm going to be going to

1:15:03

see tomorrow, so no spoilers, but

1:15:06

Godzilla minus one, which has

1:15:08

been getting a lot, a

1:15:10

lot of great word of mouth. And

1:15:13

I thought the trailer, it

1:15:15

looks lit. It looks so good.

1:15:18

I haven't talked much about this on the

1:15:20

pod, but, uh, I grew up watching not

1:15:22

just Mystery Science Theater and a lot of

1:15:24

the related stuff, but also because of that,

1:15:26

a lot of the early Godzillas, Godzilla,

1:15:29

Gamora, Mothra, Rodan, King Ghira, Mecha,

1:15:32

Godzilla, like get everybody in there.

1:15:34

I've seen a bunch of those

1:15:36

over the years since I can

1:15:38

remember as far back as I can remember.

1:15:42

Um, I've always loved the original Godzilla very much.

1:15:44

I like a lot of the in between Godzillas.

1:15:46

Uh, some of them are a little bit more

1:15:48

goofy, some of them a little bit more serious,

1:15:50

but they always have different things that appeal to

1:15:52

me. I'd kind of fallen off it

1:15:54

for a bit because the Western Godzillas were not great. Uh,

1:15:57

you didn't like that. That's a 2000. But

1:16:00

it's 98 or 2000. It was whichever

1:16:03

whichever one that was I just think they

1:16:05

remember because working a really terrible job and was

1:16:07

that stupid Yokiro Taco Bell thing with a stupid

1:16:10

dog and It was a chihuahua and it I

1:16:12

was working that pet shop and when they kept

1:16:14

so we were trying to sell chihuahuas And it

1:16:16

was really awful. Sorry Eric go ahead

1:16:19

No, but I I kind of

1:16:21

got pulled back into it with Shin Godzilla, which I

1:16:23

think is a similar story I know one Shin

1:16:25

Godzilla was excellent. I think it was a really

1:16:28

Fascinating take on the Godzilla story and

1:16:31

also on the monster itself. You should

1:16:33

absolutely watch it It's

1:16:36

a canonical great film I

1:16:39

know people would say I'm gonna say

1:16:41

that Godzilla minus one is on the same tier.

1:16:43

Yeah It's the best gods

1:16:45

that one of the best Godzilla's for sure. It

1:16:47

is frankly excellent without saying too much I think

1:16:49

the thing that surprised me about it was number

1:16:51

one. It's a really good kaiju movie it nails

1:16:53

all the kaiju stuff that you want to see

1:16:55

but Also,

1:16:58

it's a really good human story

1:17:01

it really deals with a lot of

1:17:03

like it's it's broadly set in like

1:17:05

post-world war two Japan and really wrestles

1:17:08

with that setting and that that

1:17:11

that story that fodder that Everything

1:17:14

that those characters are going through a lot

1:17:16

of the characters are Veterans

1:17:18

who survived the war and they really

1:17:20

grapple with that and I think it's

1:17:23

incredibly well done. So so well done

1:17:26

It's one of the Godzilla movies that best Embodies

1:17:29

the fact that like Godzilla is an

1:17:31

idea. Godzilla is this thing It's

1:17:33

not you know Some Godzilla movies like Godzilla's

1:17:36

our pal and he's hanging out and he's

1:17:38

fighting monsters with us and I love those

1:17:40

I do I genuinely love all the funny

1:17:42

bits where he's like riding on his tail

1:17:44

going yeah where uh,

1:17:46

ultra man has the The

1:17:49

beetle guy and like a pin lock and

1:17:51

then Godzilla gets on a tail

1:17:53

slide and kicks him like it's great uh,

1:17:56

but As fun

1:17:58

as those are a ridiculous Godzilla, a

1:18:00

lot of like the really more serious Godzillas

1:18:03

are about Godzilla as

1:18:05

a force, Godzilla as this

1:18:07

response. The same way that Gundam is very

1:18:09

much a response to a lot of the

1:18:11

things that happened in Japan in post-World War

1:18:13

II Japan, so

1:18:16

is Godzilla, even more so. And

1:18:18

so I really think that

1:18:20

this movie understands that, nails that, incredible

1:18:23

performances, really incredible,

1:18:25

I think both costuming and set design. I think

1:18:27

that is honestly some of the best parts of

1:18:29

the movie is both the costuming and the set

1:18:31

design. And the way it uses

1:18:33

that to tell its story is very,

1:18:36

very interesting. But also

1:18:38

this version of Godzilla is very fun

1:18:40

to watch. I think they did

1:18:42

some great stuff with the design

1:18:44

of Godzilla this time around that I

1:18:46

really, really appreciated. So I loved

1:18:49

it. I had a great time. Cannot

1:18:51

recommend it enough. I was

1:18:53

gonna, I've played other games this

1:18:55

week. I finished P5 Tactica. It's fine.

1:18:59

Can read my review. I think the story

1:19:01

is good, but I was a little, I

1:19:03

think we just need to be done with

1:19:05

Persona 5 at this point. I think we

1:19:07

can move on from Persona 5. At this

1:19:09

point, we've had enough P5 games. I want

1:19:11

to start Star Ocean's second story that's like

1:19:13

next up. But the thing that I

1:19:15

was going to pose to y'all is, why

1:19:18

do we not have a Godzilla RPG yet? Where's

1:19:20

our Godzilla RPG? That's actually, so

1:19:22

do you play as Godzilla or

1:19:25

is there Godzilla? And

1:19:27

you're just having to survive in this

1:19:29

world in which Godzilla is bringing the

1:19:31

wrath of the ancients upon Tokyo. I

1:19:35

think a King of the Monsters

1:19:37

approach where you have Godzilla, but

1:19:39

you also bring in your King

1:19:41

Kong, your Rodan, your Mothra, and

1:19:43

you're taking on some of the more

1:19:46

dangerous enemies, your King Ghidoras. Who's

1:19:49

the Armadillo? Oh,

1:19:51

the Armadillo from Godzilla. I'm

1:19:55

looking it up. I can picture who

1:19:57

you're talking about. And and

1:19:59

Gary. Angurius. Yeah, I

1:20:01

like it. Yes. Yeah, he's he's um,

1:20:03

I forgot what kind of dinosaur that's

1:20:05

called But he's like a specific kind

1:20:07

of dinosaur. That's angliosaurus angliosaurus.

1:20:10

Thank you. That makes sense I

1:20:12

was like, it's not stegosaurus. That's not right But

1:20:17

yeah, I think that would make a

1:20:19

lot of sense you make a little

1:20:21

like kaiju RPG and okay We have

1:20:23

someone posting a date kaiju day.

1:20:25

Oh, yeah Have basically all

1:20:27

of the kaiju monsters, but you're putting them into

1:20:29

a giant party. Ooh and Mike

1:20:34

Mike versus the world in chat says Godzilla

1:20:36

tactics and that's not bad. I'd play that

1:20:38

that's not a bad idea I think the

1:20:40

thing that stands out to me is that in a

1:20:42

really good Godzilla film There's a

1:20:45

sort of wrath of God aspect

1:20:47

where Godzilla is so terrifying It

1:20:50

does a great job of conveying the sheer terror

1:20:52

of this almost godlike

1:20:55

being Tromping through

1:20:57

the mount for example

1:20:59

when Godzilla does the atomic blast

1:21:01

in Shin Godzilla So

1:21:04

cool, right? I mean it's meant to evoke

1:21:06

the frightening terrifying power

1:21:08

of You

1:21:12

know an atomic bomb or that kind of thing The

1:21:15

atomic era is always tied in tightly with

1:21:17

Godzilla So I think you'd want to capture

1:21:20

that in an RPG,

1:21:22

but I'm excited to see Godzilla

1:21:24

minus one tomorrow I'm sure I'll

1:21:26

share some yeah Yeah,

1:21:28

it's wonderful. You should absolutely see it's my favorite

1:21:30

movie of the year and

1:21:32

Nadia Mario RPG How's

1:21:35

it going? Oh, I finished it. I don't

1:21:37

know the first game. I'm gonna do It

1:21:40

was actually look at you finishing games I'm

1:21:44

really surprised at how just how good it was like

1:21:46

my RPG has never been like I always liked it

1:21:48

But I played it a lot as a kid and

1:21:50

I was felt like okay. I need to play it

1:21:53

again I'm good, but then I decided

1:21:55

okay. I'll start the remake. I'm sure it's fun

1:21:57

and the way they adjusted it just

1:21:59

so that it can appeal to old people like

1:22:01

me and newcomers and make it more exciting.

1:22:03

The battle system, like they just

1:22:06

did some really good stuff. They have some great polished

1:22:08

visuals. The cinemas are all like really

1:22:10

cute and fun. And the

1:22:13

music is fantastic. The postgame content

1:22:15

with the about the revised boss

1:22:17

battles is actually very challenging. The

1:22:20

ability to swap in your characters now on

1:22:22

the fly. I think that makes a big

1:22:24

difference in the game because

1:22:26

I don't feel like I have to stick to like,

1:22:28

you know, I don't feel like I

1:22:30

have to choose between okay, healing or buffs

1:22:33

or whatever,

1:22:35

especially because in the it's

1:22:38

important in the post game

1:22:40

battles because dear God, the bosses love their

1:22:42

status effect attacks. And I find in my

1:22:44

RPG, they all have their status effect attacks.

1:22:46

But yeah, I actually actually

1:22:49

very loudly, hardly recommended if

1:22:51

you're any kind of Mario RPG fan, or even

1:22:53

if they like kind of going for the first

1:22:55

time and kind of seeing where the

1:22:57

progenitor was of all these like ideas

1:23:00

like blocking and timed

1:23:02

attacks. It's a great

1:23:04

game to pick up. It's pretty short, which is

1:23:07

nice to hear in this day and age. Perfect,

1:23:10

perfect handheld Switch game. Unlike

1:23:12

unfortunately, I'm also playing steam world build, which

1:23:15

is a fantastic game. It's like a

1:23:17

Sim City steam bot game

1:23:19

like you know how the steam steam

1:23:21

world games can experiment with different with

1:23:23

different genres. Like you have

1:23:26

the RPG you have the tactics game,

1:23:28

which is of course, amazing. This is

1:23:30

the Sim City game,

1:23:32

if you know what I mean. And it's

1:23:34

really great is really involved. The problem is,

1:23:36

it's really small. I can't see

1:23:38

a darn thing on the switch. So I'm

1:23:41

gonna have to play it. Okay, that happens. Yeah,

1:23:44

and there's been I'm not the only one. There's been a lot

1:23:46

of complaints, unfortunately, that people who can't see the text even on

1:23:48

the screen. So that's a little disappointing

1:23:50

because you thunder full and

1:23:52

steam world games like they usually do fantastic

1:23:54

work image reform, as they used to be

1:23:56

known. So hopefully they'll fix that. But in

1:23:58

the meantime, like I'm just gonna have to play it on

1:24:01

my TV.

1:24:03

And I also got Dragon Quest

1:24:06

Monsters Dark Prince, so I'm looking

1:24:09

forward to starting that. All

1:24:11

right. That's it for

1:24:13

the cavern. Nadia, take

1:24:16

us home. I

1:24:24

just pointed out my idea how to grow. Oh, okay. See,

1:24:27

I was going to say something else, but

1:24:30

the Fallout talk just reminded me

1:24:32

of the time, not that long ago, Kat. Do

1:24:34

you remember sending me to, where

1:24:36

was it, the Greenbrier to preview

1:24:38

Fallout 76? I do, yes.

1:24:41

Yeah. They were just like,

1:24:43

hey, everyone, we have this event that's going on at this

1:24:45

nuclear vault that just like, lift up my hand like, me,

1:24:48

me, me, me, me, me, me, because I just love that

1:24:50

kind of history and shit. So yeah, we had the

1:24:53

tour of the Greenbrier of the

1:24:55

vault, and they're just like, oh man, this is so

1:24:57

freaking cool. And what was funny is

1:25:00

that you were mentioning before the

1:25:02

show how Fallout really nailed its

1:25:04

music, like that fifties, forties, whatever

1:25:07

you, what would you call it? I don't know,

1:25:09

but that wartime music and boomer era

1:25:11

music. And so we had

1:25:13

a party in this vault,

1:25:16

and Greenbrier is a

1:25:19

popular destination for people who want to

1:25:21

tour this area, because basically, as you

1:25:23

know, it was a, or don't know,

1:25:26

it was a secret nuclear bunker that was meant to

1:25:28

hide government officials in

1:25:31

a time of nuclear crisis. So

1:25:33

now it's open to tours. And so

1:25:35

we're having our party in the vault, like

1:25:37

a themes like, you know, vault day party

1:25:39

where, you know, we're opening the vault, hooray.

1:25:42

And they're playing all that music. And

1:25:44

there's this tour group of very

1:25:47

old people kind of coming through, and

1:25:49

they're hearing this music that they grew up to.

1:25:51

And they're looking in and probably seeing

1:25:53

all these punk ass, asshole game journalists

1:25:55

running around and like playing skeeball, because he

1:25:57

had skeeball there for some reason. I

1:26:01

could hear them and they were just so confused.

1:26:03

They have no idea why we're listening to their

1:26:05

music and as a then and Talking to this

1:26:07

huge Fallout boy in a costume.

1:26:09

What's his name? Uh, Pitbull

1:26:12

boy. Yeah so

1:26:14

that was pretty funny and honestly

1:26:16

that is the picture

1:26:19

the oldest whitest tour spot in

1:26:22

The world and that is the greenbrier like you

1:26:25

go in there and they're like, would you like

1:26:27

a glass of champagne or peach tea? It's like

1:26:29

oh dang. It was still fascinating.

1:26:31

Absolutely I just loved the history of the

1:26:33

place and yeah But the the old people

1:26:36

strolling by and literally being like, you know,

1:26:38

just stumped by the nostalgia of it all

1:26:40

it was pretty funny I like the contrast. I

1:26:42

think that was actually a little bit of a nook Nadia

1:26:45

it was oh my god. I know was he

1:26:47

nook Wow I feel pretty

1:26:49

even a ski ball even though I mentioned ski ball.

1:26:51

Heck. Yeah And

1:26:53

that's it for this episode of acts of

1:26:55

the blog I'm gonna end it before Nadia can

1:26:57

steer us into the pit It's

1:27:02

gonna happen it's a threat Thank

1:27:05

you Sorry,

1:27:07

I was gonna say that's the trip where sprinklers turned on me

1:27:09

and a golf course It's

1:27:11

alright Still

1:27:14

no kid Jason. Yeah. Yeah, I wanted to

1:27:16

see the stars So I went down on the field because

1:27:18

I don't get to see the stars in the city So

1:27:20

I went out in the middle of the field like the

1:27:22

golf course like oh man, it's beautiful and the the

1:27:25

sprinkler turned on I said, oh shit. I Was

1:27:28

terrified someone's gonna find like see me like

1:27:30

we carried like what are you doing in the middle? Literally,

1:27:34

we're just pulling the wheel towards

1:27:36

the And

1:27:47

then the security guards came And

1:27:50

that's how I got in jail They

1:27:54

lost me in the vault I've

1:27:58

been your host, Kat Bailey. Thank you Thank

1:28:00

you to Nadia and Eric and to

1:28:02

Matthew for joining us. We are heading

1:28:04

now into the Acts of the Blood

1:28:06

God post show where we'll be talking

1:28:08

for a bit longer

1:28:11

with the Stars of Destiny. And this

1:28:13

week we're joined by Anthrax Bees, Azixa,

1:28:15

Harvest Lunatic, JB, Cal-L,

1:28:18

Mangoalt, Mike vs.

1:28:20

World, MxBecca, SpookyManBR, Spyrus, and

1:28:22

Stargazer. Thank you so much for your

1:28:25

generous support. If you enjoy the show, go

1:28:27

check out our merch. Merch

1:28:29

merch merch— Marchantizing?

1:28:33

The holiday period is here and if you

1:28:35

want to grace your loved ones with Acts of

1:28:37

the Blood God merchandise. Hey, we've got a couple

1:28:39

mugs… We've got pins… We've

1:28:42

got buttons. Which—I love.

1:28:44

I love the buttons and

1:28:47

some amazing t-shirts and hoodies, including

1:28:50

a brand-new, Nadia nostalgia

1:28:52

pit t-shirt. Can you use your friends with

1:28:54

it, too. Give them the merchandise from the show—what the

1:28:56

hell is this? Well, this is pretty metal. I think

1:28:58

you've been lined up. Just give it

1:29:00

to the metal fan in your life. Acts of the

1:29:02

Blood God, let's go! Yeah, dude. Yeah.

1:29:06

What's your Spotify? Why are they talking? Where's

1:29:08

the death metal? Where

1:29:11

is the death metal? That's the question

1:29:13

that I'm asking myself all

1:29:15

the time. We'll be back next

1:29:17

week, as always, to talk more about the genre

1:29:19

we love. But until then, from Nadia, Eric, and

1:29:22

myself, thanks for listening.