Hey, what's up, losers? HiT's your motherfucking boy? Come to you
alive from the Bay Area of Games Wide after Dark is back with me.
I know I've been out for a while, but I am Michael Higham.
I guess I am hosting this week with my good friends Jehan Luke Sipki,
Hey, how do you do? And Jacob Decker. I think you should
make an alternate leading animation that's like three minutes long, so when you're not
on this episode, you just play it and then everyone silently waiting for randomly
generated countdown for you never know. It could be it could be ten seconds,
it could be thirty seconds. Like keep you know what I'm saying.
Oh man, it's I do eventually want to make like a cool custom intro
animation which is just dust off the lobby one. H It's funny. I
had like a couple of ideas and one of them was a lobby idea,
and I was like, oh, I can't just bring it, just bring
that back. It's been I feel like the statutes of limitations are up on
reusing assets that we had what seven years ago at this point, bring that
back. But though with the Rocket League car jumping over. It's like San
Francisco. That shit was sick man. No, no, no, here's
what you do. You get a CRT, you play that intro on the
CRT and film it. Whoa, then that becomes the intro too after dark.
Whoa, that's crazy. See what I'm saying. That was also an
idea. I had no idea involving using a CRT and having it like you
zoom in and then it like into into reel and then it would like zoom
into. I was I was trying to think of all these tricks would be
like, well you look at us on the CRT and then it zooms in
and then it's us actually live. Well you put way more thought. The
old one, the old one. Ah, you know what time it is?
It is? This is the episode? What two? Is it?
One o'clock? Four four? It is? It is always wine o'clock.
I'm scared about how how much I need wine, But it's games one after
two oh four. We I'm back. I've been. I went out to
fan Fest a couple of weeks ago and then I got sick, and then
I missed the episode before that just because I was like very busy. So
it feels good. To finally be back. He didn't get COVID though,
right do. I'm built different. I never had Rona before. You see
that thing going around yesterday? What thing going around? Okay, we new
Rona just dropped. Someone made like a like a like a cute little comic
talking about how they got Rona at fan fest. Oh, and we're like,
yeah, I was feeling ill, and but I still went the first
day and then I realized I had COVID and then I went home and they
were like, aren't I great? And everyone's like, no, no,
really not. And they made a comic. They made a whole ass like
ten page comic about it was real weird. Everyone's like, that's BIZ.
Didn't have to do this. Did they not reveal that they had COVID till
the end? Because that's like bearing the lead quite a bit there. I'd
say, no, they revealed they had COVID right away, But why did
you make this? It was very weird anyway, Yeah, Well, we
are feeling greats over here at the Game Spot offices. There's plenty of talk
about this week because you know, you know what time it is, man
Balder's gate threes popping. We're gonna talk about a little bit about evil.
We'll talk a little bit about fan Fest Balder's Gate three o'clock, way right
at Baldins Gate, three pm. You know what I'm saying here on Pacific
time, I twitched, dot TV, Slash Game, spot watch US Live,
but we also are on audio on pause pop podcast podcast services such as
Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Damn, I'm rusty Dong. I'm gonna keep a
rill with you. But let's start talking about video games, man, Like,
well, listen, Balls Game three is probably the I know y'all talked
a little bit about it last week, but I don't listen to the show,
so like, I actually do listen to the show. But I think
that we've had enough time with it to the point where we can start to
explore a lot of the deeper elements, I suppose, and some of our
some of our experiences, because it feels like everyone on my timeline, on
very social platforms as such as the platform formerly known as Twitter, everyone's having
very different experiences. And I think that's part of the larian RPG DNA,
you know, have being so rooted in D and D with that that sweet
nice D and D license, so it's fascinating to see how all the different
people who are playing this game, what they're getting out of their quest lines,
how they're building their party, their interactions with the different characters throughout the
party, and yeah, everyone's been playing it. Man, it is the
hottest game on the block. It is absolutely one of the best games of
the year. Oh look at that sweet zoom. Hey this listen. This
is the reason why I should be watching the video version. Man, Like
I appreciate y'all listen to the audio. D Look it is Chrispy clean boy
right here. Actually, but yeah, Balder's Gate three, it's taken the
world by storm. And I kind of I almost I want to say I
predict who I predicted course of Balder's Gate three is gonna be huge. But
based off of Larian's history with Divinity Original Sin two, it doesn't surprise me
that people have taken a liking to it on this scale. It's kind of
it still is impressive, even though it's like, oh, yeah, Larian's
they're gonna kill it. Of course, and through the early access program they
had for Bald's Gate three, the evidence was there. It kind of feels
like they're their fallout three moment. You know what I mean by that is
like, all right, let me explain. You're gonna have to have to
riel me in with that. Think about this, okay, So so,
uh like Bethesda, you know, beloved studio be making RPGs for their own
franchise forever you know, had its fans. Uh Oblivion that's the one that
like really pops off right. Yeah, Divinity two that was the one that
really popped off right. And then they're like, and now we're gonna make
the third entry in the beloved classic RPG series and then that game is gonna
blow the fuck up fall three for uh Bethesda, for Obsidian. Yeah.
So not not in terms of sorry for Larry Obsidian wow, uh yeah,
anyway, obsiding uhoul to make the Bouldersgate four collapse continue the pattern of Obsidian
then makes the next thing and it's way better than anyone else's. But I
met more in terms of not necessarily like structure, because you know, Fallow
three kind of let's say, dumbed down some of the mechanics of Classic Fallout,
where I feel like, if anything, this is like enhancing and even
it's always enriching. You know, uh what Boulderstgate used to be. But
I meant more in terms of like studio trajectory of like this is like their
their breakout moment. Sure, you know, we're like, oh, look
at all this attention Larry and suddenly getting in the same way that Fault three
kind of did that for. Yeah, it's definitely launched them into like a
critical mass kind of Yeah, exactly where Yeah, I mean Diny Divinity Originals
into was nothing to scoff out, of course. I mean if Sweet ten
out of ten on GameSpot back in twenty seventeen, baby, but this is
the one where I think they're they're reaching audiences they wouldn't have reached otherwise because
of the official D and D license of course. But also Balder's Gate is
a massively, massively influential franchise that hasn't been around in what twenty years,
the super renowned to Like I've never played a Balder's Gate game until three,
but like that was always the game. I'd hear people talk about everything that
came between the mass effect and everyone like, oh, but you gotta play
Balder's Gate or public. Yeah, but Balder's Gate it's for boomers. Yeah,
that's how as a kid, I was like, I'm not playing that
shit now. I should probably go back and play it, But at the
time, i'm I don't think you need to, because Jacob Decker, you
are still and I you've told me from the oh you know, the reports
that you gave me is that you're still an Act one seventy hours. In
seventy hours in still an Act one. It's a couple seventy hours to beat
the game, that's what they said. A couple of caveats here, I
would say about twelve of those hours from early access, so you can wipe
that clean, all right, Okay, we're down fifty eight down to fifty
eight, but then that is split across like six different campaigns. Oh,
so you can kind of like I would say, the most I've played on
one campaign is twenty hours, okay, day, and I am still in
Act one and all those although I think, i'm I think, I'm like,
technically I could go to Act two. I think whenever I want.
I imagine you just travel through the mountain pass or go through some of the
other areas and then it begins Act two. Don't know, I think that's
how it works, but I haven't done that yet, because there's just so
much interesting stuff in that first area I want to see, and apparently you
can still go back to that first area, so I should probably just move
on. Yeah, it's not like thing's gonna be like, oh, this
is the point of real return. Yeah, the message kind of makes it
seemed that way, Like you go there, and it's like, don't go
unless you are ready. Enemies will be tough for here, And I was
like, oh, okay, I'm backing out. I'm not going there yet,
So I think you could probably get to act too much sooner. But
I've been taking my sweet time. I said this this morning, but I
think this might be one of my favorite games of all. Obviously I need
aficiate, and I'm super curious to see how they managed to wrap up all
these desparate threads, including the threads that I've like cut off and thrown in
a fire and like are just gone. Like, I don't know how they're
gonna wrap things up in some of these more interesting ways. But as it
is now, I'm like constantly blown away by this game. The things I've
been doing, the reactions to different quests I've done, the different builds i've
come up with the different situations I've found myself in the way I've been able
to talk my way out of certain things, but also just kind of be
like, you know what, fuck it, I just want to kill this
thing. Yeah, there's just so much flexibility to what is here. And
I've heard that Act two is even bigger than Act one, and I'm just
like, oh my god, I'm gonna be playing this game for a very
very long time, and it does the thought of it doesn't exhaust me.
I yes, yeah, you know, like I'm looking forward to Starfield.
I think I'm gonna play Starfield a long time, but the thought of that
game exhausts me already. Right, Like thousands of planets in late game you
get your spaceship customization or whatever, and I'm like, that sounds cool,
but I feel like there's gonna be a lot of those moments in Starfield,
and I'm like, Okay, let's just hurry this along. But this I'm
in it like every step of the way. To be fair, I probably
shouldn't compare bathers Gate and Starfield very different RPGs, but I don't know,
man, I just want That's all I want to do. I'm just gonna
keep playing balls Gate. We should and this podcast really a second damn.
I mean you said you think you've had multiple different campaigns, Like what are
you seeing differently through those different You're just like making different choices. You're just
like trying to see which build sticks with you and then like, Okay,
this is the one, I'm going to take it to Act two or whatever.
Okay, It's it's a bit of both. I have I've tried.
I've never done a repeat class so far. I think I've done John Luke
and I the first one we started, I think I was doing a Warlock.
I started a Barbarian with a friend, which which has been a lot
of fun. I'm purpabed how much I'm enjoying Barbarian really like Fighter is well,
been playing a good amount of Fighter. The one I'm furthest on is
Sorcer, which I'm having a great time with because of metamagic and you can
kind of adjust how you want to cast spells for some interesting, interesting outcomes.
And then plus I'm using wild magic there, which means every time I
call something wacky happens, and sometimes it's great, like sometimes I get to
teleport after each spell I casts, and I'm like, fuck, yeah,
this is awesome. Other times I put a just a field of thorns underneath
me and my entire party, and I'm like, well, we're just flux
for the next But yeah, I like, I find all the classes I've
picked to feel really deep and satisfying and and and I want to see each
of them through a lot of the narrative decisions that I come up to like
seem vastly different, Like some very surprising things happen, like Carlac, one
of my favorite party members. You get. I was playing with a friend
of mine and I go over and he's holding Carlac's head. She's in a
cut scene he killed her and I was like, how did you do that?
Why did you do that? And he was like, well, I'm
a paladin and I wanted to side with the Paladins who are hunting her,
So now she's dead. And I was like, all right, I'm not
continuing this campaign. And then we restarted, and that's that's a whole chunk
of the game that just doesn't just disappear. This and like in like Carlac
even like it, so she you can also just piss her off if you
treat the druids poorly, the druids and teeth things poorly in Emerald Grove,
and then you can be there. And I don't think she'll join you,
at least in the moment, John you shouldmight join you later, but that
can also lead you to the killer, and like that happens with everything,
I mean, the Dark Urge we're talking about last week. Or you can
just bite Gale's hand off and then he disappears, like I don't know what
happens to him. I really hope he shows up without a hand, because
I think that would be amazing. So I have his hand in my inventory
still and I'm just holding on to it, like have you. I'll give
it back to him if I run into him. I tried to talk to
talk with the dead with his hand, because apparently you don't need the person,
you just need a body part. But Mike bugged when I tried it.
I put it on the ground because I was like, oh, I've
I've gained the system. I want to figure out what I do here,
and then the hand disappeared. Okay, I gotta try it and see if
that works. But I'd be curious to try that. But that's the other
thing. Like you could think you've like ruined a quest line and then you're
like, oh wait, I have that medallion that amulet you get at the
beginning that lets you talk to the dead, and you put it on and
then you talk to the character and then they're like, you can ask them
five questions or whatever and they'll continue that quest line, which I maybe kind
of cheating because it's like, Okay, I killed the guy, but I
can still talk to them. But I still think that's cool because that exists
in the world and that's a thing. And you can also just talk to
like a bunch of people who are dead. Yeah, and if you kill
that person and then try to talk to them, they won't talk to you
because you killed them. That's crazy, man. Yeah. The I think
if you're not familiar with D and D, I think people could easily underestimate
just how flexible and how fluid this game is built, because you know,
you think of this maybe might be a stupid comparison, but you think of
Tears of the Kingdom's building mechanics, where it's just like fluid and anything you
can come up with, as long as it works, you can get away
with it and the game doesn't care. It's like applying that concept to a
one hundred hour RPG campaign. Like you can do almost anything if you can
think of it, and the systems are so reactive and so fluid to what
you're doing with it that it's it really does feel like you're creating your own
kind of D and D journey through this game. It's uh yeah, And
you know, if you followed Larion's development cycle too, you realize you will
know how much they are, how hard they've been working on it, and
just how much care they've put into it, because like this, a thing
like this doesn't get pulled off. And like again, like you said,
there's there's bugs and there's like, of course problems up, but that's what
happens. Happens when you have like tens of thousands of permutations in an RPG
campaign. But I think the way they've pulled it off, from what we've
seen so far, is nothing short of amazing. But but John, you've
been you've been playing too, well, what kind of kinds of things are
you seeing in your campaign? Admittedly I haven't played as much because everyone I
haven't played seventy hours. I haven't played okay, good, we'll talk about
it. But I was at Eve over the weekend that's on that mad fomo
watching everyone talk about it, and I was like, well I had mad
FuMO watching Evo was a loser list, Yeah, pretty much. It felt
good that I was like I was playing Bathers Gating on my second screen.
I was like watching Evo and Ship so it's like, ah damn yeah man,
dig he was like wild, like coming back and then just like checking
the because we have like a slack channel where everyone's like talking about it and
then like it's just it's just like fifty pages long now and Aaron and Max
are just like talking about like how you can create you can make sati charges.
Have you heard about this? So in the game you can get like
little satchel bags and they're like you can throw the bags so you can fill
that bag up with like explosives and like all like potions and all this stuff.
Throw the bag, the bag will break and all the potions will be
on the floor. You just shoot one and it causes his like chain ration
explosion. And Max showed me this footage where he did like one hundred and
sixty damage. Yeah, and like completely nuked an enemy and also like almost
crashed his game course Max would do that shit. The funny thing is Aaron's
the one you figured it now, Oh damn, because he's like, how
can I get battlefield? Yeah, he's taking his battlefield mentality to this game,
which I think it is great. It's so much fun to see you
though, right, And it's cool to see both of them, Like talking
to both of them, they're like, yeah, well I really wasn't sure
about this game. It wasn't on my radar. And they're like, I'm
so into this, like they're they're loving it, and I'm just like,
yeah, Like it's you know, seeing the the r the CRPG sickos winning
out here, right, because it's like, I don't know, like I've
I've loved games like this since I don't know, like Dragon A Georgians and
games like Hours just like man, like I love games like this, So
it's it's so cool to see it thriving. Yeah, I don't know.
I mean, I'm still still really early and I'm kind of bouncing between my
character and then I'm also like making a character with I gotta play through Georgia.
We're seeing through and that one's like we're going really slow because I'm kind
of like trying to really like take the time to intro mechanicster because like,
damn, it is a DUNS game, a lot to go through inmidating for
sure, intimidating for sure. But uh yeah, I think I'm trying to
currently figure out who I'm gonna ron. I was gonna ask you, like,
who are you trying to smash? Though? No, man, there's
so many options. I mean, I think Carlac is. Uh, she
she's hot. I like her a lot. Shadow Hearts cool, although apparently
she's like mad racist is uh Eric van Allen who treated Yeah, the conflict
in my head I can fix her or can she fix me? And it
was it was Shadow Hearts like this is how I've been feeling, been torn
between the two. But also apparently Shadow Hearts really easy to smash. No,
I found I found lizel is the easiest to smash really yeah, because
because she did get did you get the role when you try to smash her?
I don't know. This was in a co op character, so I
was being egg done by other people be like do it apparently, but she
like threatens to kill you and then you can be like, are you coming
on to me? And then she'd be like, maybe I am. And
then then and then like a couple of nights later, she like takes you
from your bed and then either she dominates you or you dominate. You have
to roll to see who's the top and who's the bottom, which is incredible
this game. You don't see it, but you see a lot surprising.
Oh yeah, they got dog choices. Yeah, and some some some some
illicit, some melicit graphics that you can see as game No. Bers G
three is mad horny too, like it is. It is wild how much
it people are ready to plow. Oh yeah, shit, they're bald HER's
gate. I barely know her a game. Man, You you practiced this
before? Did I tried in I'm just really happy for all my my Dragon
Age fans out there who've been waiting for full or they've been thirsty for years,
you know what I'm saying. Uh yeah, that's that's that's part of
the role playing aspect of this game. Man. Like, I think it
is also a wild seeing how everyone is approaching romance in this game, because
it is it is a very dynamic sort of system where like I mean,
everything in this game is like super way more dynamic than you what you see
from like other I guess big name RPGs, sure, and it's no slight
against them. It's just the nature of Balder's Gate three in D and D
is so uh it's so dense and fluid in that way. But that how
seeing how that plays out in Romance is also kind of wild too. I
do wish there was maybe I guess I haven't done all the romance stuff,
so I don't know, but like Lazelle in particular, there was like there
was no slow burn. It was just like zero to one hundred, and
like even Shadow Hearts to some extent, was all of a sudden, like
we're dating now, and I'm like, okay, are we? When did
this happen? Yeah? Man, Like especially because like I'm still an Act
one and I feel like in Massive it's like they save that stuff for the
third third, the third act, and this it's like, oh shit,
we're we're getting steam now. They we have to level it up by the
end. Yeah, there's gotta be I don't know, there's gotta be some
insertion. I want to see some insertion. And in Act three, you
know, what's like the bare romance comes in. Look up a guide on
that one. If you're interested in you're interested in that. I think we
do explicitly happen. We do, Yes, yeah, we do so for
I mean, I ain't going to judge, you know what I'm saying.
What else about? Oh, hey, Nola for Hysterian No, oh,
I like him and yeah, yeah, I let him bite me. Hey,
there you go. That's I might romance in my my solo play through
because I'm that's from the Dark Urge and he's down with, you know,
my violent tendencies. Yeah, he wants. I feel like we're best buds.
That's up. Probably probably smash hell yeah. Oh man. But Ball's
Gate three. It seems like this is it's gonna be one of those games
that folks are gonna be talking about for a very very long time, just
because of the nature of the game, for sure, but also it is
an absolute banger from everything else I have heard, and I like, listen,
I barely I barely touched the game, you know, I said.
I spent like two hours streaming over the discord with the homies and I was
like, okay, so Warlock Sorcerer, No I'm gonna go Bart. Bart
seems really dope, but I'm gonna go Warlock. I really liked that Eldritch
Blast and I created my character and I was like, I'm just creating the
same character I do for every other game. Yeah yeah, And I'm like,
but I love my character. She always looks like she's extremely sad,
like something about her eyeballs are very shiny, and she looks always like perplexed,
And I'm like, oh, what's wrong? Everything okay, it's really
concerned all the time. And I didn't mean. I didn't mean to make
her like that, but some sort of accidental reflection on I guess yo.
I was like, I'm I was like, oh, she looks like one
of my friends. I do think for folks who've never played D and D
before, I do recommend making a couple saves and like listing out different classes,
different races, see which one you like the most, rather than making
one and sticking with it. Like, even if you're not someone who likes
to restart and do that kind of stuff, I would like, maybe do
the tutorial and like the first couple encounters with a class, and if you're
not one hundred percent feeling it, just restart, try something else, or
or get the guy at the beginning who lets you change classes, or get
him soon. Yeah, there's that. You can get him like pretty early
if you want, and then it just cost one hundred gold, which isn't
that hard to get, and then you could just like say before that,
yeah, respect and you can just like mess around that way. But if
you do that, you don't get starting equipment for those classes, that is
true, but it's not great equipment anyway, so you'll probably find better stuff
pretty quickly. Yeah. Anything else on balls Gate three at the moments,
man, I've got a lot of videos up on it, sure, Yeah,
guides what you've done a lot of those, right, Yeah. We
did a class guide X things you should do for ten things you should do
first or something combat guide. Uh. Max is working on things you didn't
know. It's kind of in the vein of a sort of a Zelda style,
Yeah, which will be a banger, I'm sure. Uh, I've
I've there's lots of cool stuff that he's already figured out, multi classing if
that's something that interests you, working on that right now, there's a lot
there. I got to get to act two, so we can do stuff
to do an act too, because I think that's gonna be pretty big,
especially if that is Balder's Gate proper that you go to, because it seems
big at least when I went to the preview, they like, give us
a little two or Balder's Gate, and there's just every corner. It seems
like there's something like and once you're solving a you're solving a murder with like
some flying elephant man, and then all of a sudden you're at a circus
ripping off people working there. It's hell. Seems like there's a lot.
I'm super excited to continue. That's also robbery. Oh hey anything, anything
is possible in the world of D and D and Balder's Gate three apparently,
and Dave Duet also did a lore recap for Balder's Gate one and two,
which I watched when I was fucking blazed, so my bad, I don't
remember much. I watched it sober, and I was like, I have
no idea what I was talking about. Highly recommend that because I heard from
someone that when you get to Balder's Gate, like it actually starts to introduce
some like characters and stuff from those past games that becomes so you're you'll experience
will be more enriched if you're familiar with them. So good use of that
word again, you know rich. There you go. Yeah, So that's
a sweet little twenty twenty minute video. Lets you go check out on YouTube
dot com, Slage game Spot. You know the vibes man and all the
other content that we have now and will have in the near future on Balder's
Gate three. But there's, like I said, we're gonna be talking about
that game for months, probably months and months and months. But I think
the event of this month, the physical event that we were all hyped about,
what I mean most of us were hyped about, is EVO Evolution Championship
Series twenty twenty three, the premier fighting game tournament of the year. Jean
Luke, Veasy, Vegas. Jean Luke, you went to it? I
was so. I was so heated. First off, I should have been
at Evil Man. I went in twenty nineteen, twenty twenty two, and
I have said on record that EVO is the most fun I ever have at
like an annual gaming Yeah, Like I love the E three's in the summer
game Fest, the paxes and shit. But EVO is so special and I'm
so glad that you've Like Jean Luke and I have been playing fighting games together.
Yeah, here again Spot for many many years, but you'd never gone.
I've never gone, and I'm so happy you got to see banger of
a first year to go to experiencing such a banger of an evil, right,
yeah, man, dude, it ruled. I totally agree. Like
we're I'm just like, yeah, I think I think that's maybe my favorite
to go to. I think it's because everyone's there for like a shared purpose,
you know, like they all had there's a there's a reason why they're
all here is because we all love fighting games, and so it's it's a
good like everyone was just so nice and welcoming. It was a very pleasant
event to be on. They did a really good job with like the show
floor and put it on. It was cool. So uh yeah, I
went there with Georgia, which was fun, and ran into one Ben Janka
who was there as well, which was great. We both entered into street
Fighter six. Oh really, I didn't know that. Yes, I immediately
lost right, Uh yeah, I went oh two, first round, I
got perfected by a guy. Uh he was he was running JP and I
was like, oh you get Yeah. I was like, yeah, I'm
absolutely screwed. But it was cool. It was like, I mean I
didn't really care because I was like, I knew that was gonna happen.
I was there for the experience, like you got to. It's what it
was like to get ready for pools. Yeah, to like kind of break
that seal and be like all right, let's cool. So you know,
I definitely like feeling that itch of like okay, but what if I like
and then go to like a like a like a smaller thing or something.
Locals? Yeah, maybe win a local or well not win a local,
but when win a match. Yeah, that's very especially here in the Bay
Area. The scene is very strong here. Yeah seriously. But yeah,
I mean like while you're there, you're just like, man, I want
to play more fucking fighting games, which is weirdly difficult to do if you're
not prepared because like everyone's there specifically for the tournament. So like there was
a lot of like, man, I want to Oh, man, look
there's like Marl Verus Capcom three. I want to play that. And I'm
like, oh, I don't got any way to do that though I didn't
like bring my you know, PlayStation. I gotta keep that thing on you
man. Yeah. Yeah, so I'm kind of like thinking about, like,
oh maybe next year I'll like try and bring some extra stuff so I
can actually pack the snackbot play games. Yeah, I bring my box.
Yeah, they do have. It's so in like the middle they have where
everyone has the pools like Saturday. Yeah, well on Saturday that those tables
start to not get used because they kind of like branch out more into just
like oh now it's just winner finals and there's less people, and so by
the end of it, there's just a bunch of empty tables with like PlayStations
there that if you want to, you could just go up and start playing.
You just need to burn your stick. So yeah, I think next
year I'll try and do that. Uh. But yeah, let's see,
I got to walk around the artist alley. Cool things artists alley at EVO
is different. Yeah, it's uh, I mean it reminded me a lot
of the artists ally at a Crunchy Roll and that's just hell horning. Oh
sure, yeah, you know, definitely saw a couple of the same artists
there as well. But yeah, artist. How was cool? I bought
a couple of things from that. Bought about a nice translucent case for my
snack box. Snack box booth checked out a couple of cool finals. I
gotta see that that one blind gamer who was playing Street fightery six. I
don't know if you saw that that was going around. Yeah, I forget
his name, but there's a guy who was playing the game blind and I
got to like watch that on in on stage, and that was really cool
got to watch. So for finals, we watched Dragon Ball Fighters caught that,
which is good. The problem with that game uh long. It's so
long, and it's the same problem with Marl versus Capcom three, where it's
like you're kind of just waiting. It's the interesting part is just who's going
to get that first hit? Yeah, and then it's like and now you're
just gonna watch them juggle for the next of course, like thirty seconds and
then like and each individual hit maybe doesn't quite feel as impactful because it does
so little because it's about like those really long like commos and damners scaling versus
something like a tech and we're like one hit in Tech and you're like,
oh, this whole match is completely changed now, right or something, So
I find those inherently less interesting to watch. Also, this year the year
of mirror matches in Grand Finals. It's crazy, right, dude matches.
Yeah, Dragon Ball had a mirror match, MK had a mirror match.
Uh uh no, I don't think there was any mirrors in Street Veter didn't
have a mirror match, but uh Marvel did, obviously Marvel. That's the
thing about Marvel. I'm glad they brought it back, but I'm also like,
yeah, the meta has not changed, guys. Like it's just like,
heyy I got let me, let me hit you with something. What
if my party was zero donte virtual zero? Yeah, dote virtual zero is
just like that's just the meta. It's like there's some games that the player
base has just like downloaded totals and just like this is how you play the
game. Otherwise, what are you doing here? Yeah? Yeah, I
think I inherently also, just like I personally find it more interesting when somebody
picks a player that or picks a character that isn't just like the obvious meta
choice. Like yeah, like seeing Blanca, seeing Mena use Blanca again,
it was like hell, yeah, let's go well, that was the thing
that was interesting about Street Fighters specifically was that it kind of wasn't fully clear
who was going to be who is like the meta pick, Like I think
the two closest was like JP and Ken, That's what most people were running.
But there were no JP players in the top six at all, and
sworn there was one JP player there one, I think there was one,
maybe one, but I for Street Fighter, I only caught oh maybe the
first round was JP, but no, but like JP had like I think
the highest amount of like people playing and overall winners, like the winners like
ninety six or something like that. As someone broke that down. So I
thought it was interesting that there wasn't actually much JP in the finals. It
was like a good mix of characters, which I think it speaks to like
how well made that game is. Yeah, like that game is in a
good state. It speaks to like the finals, because god damn, I
don't think there's ever been a set of finals that beautiful, fucking good,
like every match banger, And I really think it's partly like obviously all those
players are like, you know, a top form, but I do think
part of it is because like that game isn't a place where it's like anyone
can like turn it around, like, so it doesn't it doesn't feel one
sided in the way that maybe some other games have kind of settled into.
Yeah, there's like the push and pull of a match. Like there's some
games where you because like, oh, this match is over, like you
can before it's like someone gets one combo off, it's all right, well,
we know how the rest of this match is gonna goe. But Tree
Fighter six has a really good I mean presentation wise, it's it's very fun
to watch. But also I think the dynamics of that of the actual combat
system in that game make it so that players have a way to like they
have a lot of tools that they use. And we talked about this when
Tree Fighter six was coming out and we had got hands on with it,
is that there's so much at your dispose well that you know, you never
feel like if if you figure out the game, if you're good enough,
there's a way out of sticky situations with your character. And I think that
you saw that a lot, especially just in the Grand finals alone between Anger
Bird and Mena, and there's like incredible players too. Seriously, Yeah,
the story of Anger Bird coming up through FDC and Meno who's been he's been
making a splash at other tournaments too, the top three Fight six players right
off the bat, and also shouts out to hall folks in DR. You
know, okay Loka Mena's out there representing DR. And it's it's really cool
to see like all these different countries come to the come to the plate too,
because I think Street Fighter and techn are both kind of one of the
two of the games. I mean they're the most popular games, sure,
but I think the diversity you see in the countries that are represented in Top
sixes and like top twe fours and Shade, it's like, oh wow,
this is uh it makes for some really exciting storylines and you get to know
about people who you just never see otherwise because they don't go to like locals
or like any of the most many of them can't make it to US based
tournaments, so we never necessarily hear about them, and uh so it's you
get stories like that like arcelan Ash back in twenty nineteen when he first came
onto the scene was like a huge deal and he'd been treating it, treating
training in Pukstan for a long ass time, one of the best players in
that region, and then he shows up and now he's the four time techn
Evo champion and what a legacy. Yeah, good lord, oh man,
Techen's great. I love that I got to see arslan ash win it again.
That's beautiful. So was I was the smash scene. Smash scene non
existent, although, man, dude, so I did catch the Guilty ger
Strive finals, which were good. The winner was Leffen, who if you're
all familiar with, and uh yeah, not the biggest fan of Leffen.
I mean I think he's I think he's very skilled. He's extremely good.
It's very good. I will not deny his skill, but yeah, I
was kind of yeah, yeah. The audience was pretty pretty whelmed about it.
He was. He was getting a lot of I don't know if you
could hear it, but if you watched it, but he was getting a
lot of booze whatever. He would come out like people were. If you
were not a big left left and fans, let's just say, yeah,
I was voting for my girl Humi show. Yeah we showed up again.
She took fourth, but I was like, ah ya, still still represent
She still made it to the top. Yeah, watching it was watching it.
We show last year was yeah, fucking amazing. Yeah, she went
with a soul bad guy this year and said she was Happy Chaos. She
want to as Happy Chaos last year. Yeah, yeah, well I respect
that. She intentionally said I'm going to play just soul and try and like
play the whole tournament as a soul and see how farc again she got a
top four. She got a top four and like left and I mean he
won with Happy Chaos because happy Chaos is the meta pick and it's like yeah,
man, you know of course, Like so I felt more like,
I don't know, like she was there to challenge herself, where Leffon's just
like I just want to win. Well, you played to win the game.
The games, Yeah yeah, yeah exactly. You can't really blame for
that, but yeah, that was that was good too. I'll just say
that, like it really does hit different like being in the actual crowd,
you know, like because because you get I don't know, it's like it's
like watching it, it's the same with like a sports game, right where
it's just like you get that crowd energy about it. There was so many
like dumb jokes like the big sponsor for EVA was brought by Ripole, and
every time they would cut to commercial break, it would always start with a
Chipotle ad. And then it just became this like in joke in the audience
where every time the Chipotle ad came up, the audience would start cheering for
it and be like, yeah, Chripole, and like every and then it
just became like progressively more intense as the night went on, and by the
end, like the audience suggests freaking the fuck out for Chipotle marketing for your
Yes, the worst part about it there was no god damn Chapole anywhere near
that event. It's probably a good thing it fucking worked because I was like,
damn man, I didn't really want to go for some Chipotle and they
didn't have any. So you know what I got yesterday when I came back
because I need some goddamn How was it? Well? Yeah, that's crazy,
though, Yeah, I'm glad you got to experience it, dude.
Yeah, this is cool man. Yeah, it's beautiful to like, yeah,
like the all the arcade set ups they have there. Last year,
I know, I talked about playing DDR for like half the day. Yeah,
yeah, they had a bunch of arcades and I mentioned you earlier,
but they had Project L there. Yeah, they had like a proper booth
like you know, kind of like packsy three style where you could wait in
line. I went to that line and was like, I worked for game
Spot. They let you up front. Uh yeah, no, no,
I just I was like that Project I don't want to wait in line.
Uh so uh. But then I found out that Riot actually snuck Project L
on a couple of Viewlicks arcade cabs and snuck it in the retro area and
didn't tell anyone, and then we found out about him. We're like,
yeah, we got to get over there when everyone finds out, and eventually
everyone did. But yeah, I gotta play a round of that. It's
really really cool. I mean I didn't get to play enough to like really
get the grasps on on it. Fully. I was trying to look up
like the Moveless beforehand because they had a little QR code, but the service
was so shit that it wouldn't load. And I'm just like, damn,
I don't know any of the moves. Fuck fuck hit Corpus circle and punch
Coru circle and kicks. See what happens. H yeah, pretty much.
But it was fully set up to do like the two v two like assist
mode style play, which is kind of like the big gimmick of that game,
and that seems really cool. Like there's like multiple ways you can like
set up the assists, Like they're like, oh, do you want to
do like freestyle or like two exascists And I was like, oh, okay,
like how do these work? And Yeah, there's like a lot of
really rad potential around that game, especially like I would be really one.
I just like really want to play more of it. And I'm like,
oh, this could be like a good one, like me and Georgia played
together or something, because we can both kind of I feel like we're contributing
and we're playing with each other as opposed to playing like against each other or
next to each other. But also I'm just really excited to see what like
a proper EVO tournament for look like, like are they gonna have like a
proper doubles tournament? That'd be pretty sick. There's a lot of potential there,
So I'm that game's that came shaping up to be pretty good sick.
I'm excited. I wish I could play more, but man, yeah,
they haven't even announced, they haven't really Windows. Yeah, it doesn't.
I still call it project for I'm just like, hey, hey, right,
if you want to just send over like the build game Spot, Yeah,
yeah, but just let's fuck around with it. Yeah cool. Yeah,
I mean, well, next I don't think it's going to be ready
for next Evoo. But next EVO is going to be sick, because again
we're gonna see Street Fight or six. Of course Tech and eight should be
is. I would bet my life on Tech and eight being out by then
as well. So Teching is gonna get a new revitalization. Under Night in
Birth sis Less is gonna be out early next year as well, might Spot
to take multi Blood Spot. Multi Blood is still my favorite fighter right now,
by the way, and I love fucking I love so into the Multi
Blood Top six. But under Night is for sure going to make a comeback
onto the main stage next year, and goddamn right I'm gonna be there as
well. So yeah, I'm I'm excited for for next year. It's gonna
be sick, and I'm sure a project that will be further along, if
not playable for well, even if it's playable this year, but like it's
gonna be in a more playable state next year as well. So EVO is
going to fighting games. Man, that's just they've been I had every intention
of watching EVO this year. Now that I'm into Street Fight or six,
you've been playing in both both. This weekend is Worlds, which is the
Pokemon Championship, which I know if you guys have ever watched competitive Pokemon,
but it is, yeah, pretty intense, like it is. It is
good stuff. Probably not as exciting as EVO or like Street Fighter because it's
not it's not as fast paced, but like sure seeing the way these players
like outsmart each other is absolutely wild. Yeah, and you're you're someone who's
like you're deep in the competitive pugmon scene too, right, So I mean,
I don't know if I'm that deep, but I like there's definitely an
understanding you need, I guess to kind of I wouldn't do it. Like
with fighting games, it's easier to fall to some extent, like I don't
want to. But like when I watch a fighting game, I can be
like, Okay, whoever's punching more is gonna win? Right With Pokemon,
like that's still kind of the same thing, but there's a lot of moves
that I imagine need to experience. I would I would definitely want to wash
that with like you or Callie or or Callie would be the better because I
would like you guys would understand like, oh, like they picked this character
and like with this move set because it's like a good counter for this like
stuff that I just like wouldn't fully grasp in like understand like the mind games
that are happening. Yeah. Yeah. The interesting thing too about at least
this year or this set of competitive Pokemon is that they've added a bunch of
new Pokemon, which they normally don't do until there's DLC, and like there
hasn't really been a tournament with I think it's registration D or variation D or
whatever, so like people don't really know what you're gonna bring normally in this,
like you know, after the games are out for a year, it's
like, Okay, people are gonna bring this Pokemon, this Pokemon, this
Pokemon, this Pokemon. But because there's all these new Pokemon that no one
has really like tested in a in a competitive setting, at least professionally,
there's like a lot of room to shake things up. That sounds exciting.
So yeah, that's this weekend. That will be what I'm watching. Yeah,
and along alongside Bald Skate. But I do want to get more into
Evo and because like I've watched Smash Bros. Competitively and like I'm like half
in, half out on Smash Bros. A lot of it has to do
was just the drama of Smash Bros. So stupid, like and the players
something about them, Yes, some of some of the players are great,
but then some of them there's always like there's something underneath. Yeah, there's
always it's always something like I feel like every time I go on YouTube there's
a Smash player apologizing for something they get. It's like, you, like,
how is it this hard? Just I don't know anyway, Yeah,
so I have trouble like getting into Smash Bros. That way. I find
Pokemon a lot more welcoming. Yes, And I mean I can't speak on
EVO and Street Fight in particulars I didn't go, but it seems like what
if you do what you've described, the energy feels a lot more positive for
a thousand percent. Yeah, that was a very drama free event. I
would say I feel like generally like people aren't immature, and if you are,
I think you will be it's like ostracizing yourself totally. Like the and
there's like there there is drama. Of course there is stuff, but I
think it's like there's a way it works. There's a certain amount of drama
that's acceptable. And then it gets to a point where it's like, okay,
at a smash player, like one punched another smash player in the face
a company because he was mad that he lost, and it's like, yeah,
there, the FDC had its moment. Sure, we're like I forget
when it was. It was like five or so many years ago, where
like they kind of the off Scott too much. Yeah, and they were
kind of like, all right, clean this ship up, and they did.
And I think it's on a good state now. Yeah, And it's
it's some I think a lot of it has been I guess like self imposed
by the community too. It's kind of like everyone keeps each other in check
and a way totally everyone has Like there's there's like there is drama, but
I think it's it's very respectful. But also just like the display of sportsmanship
is so high. I think like when even at the highest level, like
when Mena and Angry Bird were like there's like something happened where they could controller
disconnected, yeah, which should have meant a disqualification or like they should have
like I mean generally, if especially if it happens in the middle of a
match at like calls a lot of problems. But Anger just like, no,
no, no, it's all good. It's all good because it's been
as controller or disconnected and he's like, no, no, we're gonna like
we'll take care of it. There's like gentlemen's agreement, okay. And I
think and when that when that was over, they were like hugging each other
and like Anger Bird was like in tears because like this is the one of
the probably the biggest moment is life. And then Mena, who's like a
reigning champion, just like, hey, bro, you earn that shit,
man, there's so much love and I don't want to like there's of course
there's always gonna be problems within the community, but I think at the higher
level, these kinds of moments set the example for what the FDC should be.
Yea, and also part of that, like I mean as as a
as a viewer from home. I could tell how Evil's being a little bit
more corporatized under the ownership of Sony. Have you got to tell you about
Uh yeah, but every TV there was that Sony PlayStations. Yeah. But
I'm like that's they in a way. It's kind of like that's the concession
you make, right, They're they're keeping this thing alive. They're supporting it
in a way that has the FDC hadn't been supported in previous years, and
so it's like they're giving them the equipment they're they're they're putting like yeah,
the Chola ads whatever. But like that's well, I hope that's funneling money
into the effort, into the into the FGC a lit more. I mean,
I could talk about like how much players earnings are for these tournaments and
how that's like extremely low and that should be better. That's a whole different
conversation, but I think generally that you see, like the the FGC is
just it's it's a nice place to be. Yeah. Like even last year
when I was watching the Multi Blood finals, do sitting next to me.
I didn't I don't know who he was. He pulled out he had a
tall boy. He had a fucking steals. Yeah. It was like drink
this shit. And he had like the little the bottles of like t heal
and shit and just like the ones you get to the liquor store, like
the little shot bottles. And I was like, damn dog, where'd you
get that? Did you get that in here? It's like oh no,
no, I brought it in from the inside, like oh shit. And
he's like, hey, you want you want some? And I was like,
oh yeah, I'm down. He's like here. He gave me like
two shot bottles and I was like, thank you. Can I can?
I like can I like venmo? Venmo? You like five bucks or something
like no, no, no, here we take care of each other man.
And he dapped me up and I never saw him again. And I
was like, that's my fucking boy. That's the kind of energy I should
bring next to it is like I should show up, like put my feet
up, pat like a whiskey ball and be like hey, yeah I got
you, and then ye shots before our match. Yeah, And it's like
I'll probably never see that guy in my life ever again, but I will
always remember that moment. Yeah, Yeah, that's kind of yeah, that's
kind of energy you get. I think, yeah, I think it's because
like the FEC from the ground up, like that community is like there for
the love of the game, like where we're like other esports scenes, I
feel like pop up from the more corporate like you know, like money signs.
How can this be monetized? Yes, like and that's the that's a
foundation for which a lot of those scenes are built, whereas the FGC is
like it's it's a grassroots effort and then like like like own and operated by
PlayStation now, but that grassroots is still very much alive and there I feel
I would I feel extremely confident that if like you know, say like EVO
and Plow for some reason, Sony like dump the whole thing, like the
money ain't here, uh, that community would scraunch together like any either two
in like a months, like they would make that legally distinct even Yeah,
like it would it would continue in some form because like those people are there
for summer games fights. Yes, yeah, Jeff Kee no no, no,
no, that's how you fall down that rabbit hole again. But yeah,
I am, I'm glad you got to experience that. Yeah, you
get a crew going next year. Oh my god, Yes, please,
I know you want to go. I know Max wants to go Agains.
Yeah, it's different again in that front and row seats for the finals.
Managed it feels good. I got a couple of games to talk about before
we head off. But Jake, did you want to deserve? Did you
want to talk about Pokemon? I know you mentioned a little bit about the
Pokemon Deal city that got revealed at the Pokemon Presents this week. Yeah,
I guess I don't have a whole lot to say. There's a lot of
stuff that I feel like we kind of already knew about. I do like
Dipplin Applin's new break it down for me, I didn't want Okay, so
you know that there's two DLC's coming. Part of one story, which is
the story of Area zero or something like that. The first one takes place
in a new region, and the second one takes place in a new school
exchange student and the other school, and basically that seems very like Safari Zone
battle Tower esque vibe. For the second one, well, the first one
seems more like a new region you can explore with. Both have like a
hundred new Pokemon or something you can catch. Probably somewhere along there. This
first one. The thing that most interests me is that they've added Mochi to
the game, and you can do I don't know, I think some mini
game to get mochi, and the Mochi lets you reset a Pokemon stats with
just one, which is something that people have wanted for a very long time.
I guess there have been ways to do that. However, this seems
like it would be the easiest. Like, for instance, right now,
say I take my mountain now Skarata or whatever through the campaign, and then
I'm like, actually, I don't like how the ev spread on this.
I'd have to give like a hundred berries of a specific kind in order to
reset its stats. But with this, it seems like there's one item that
you give to it and then I'll just reset its stats from there, and
then you can also get mochis that increase specific stats, which I think is
good. Pokemon games have, like I feel like probably Sword and Shield were
the first one where they kind of like pulled that screen back a little bit
and made it a little easier, and I feel like they're slowly getting easier
and easier, which I think is good because I feel like the biggest barrier
to entry with like high level Pokemon play is always just those hidden stats and
trying to figure out how I can level up this Pokemon the way I want
to, and how can I do that without fucking this pokemon up, Because
in previous times, if you messed up the stats on a Pokemon, you
just be screwed to start over breed again. So that excites me. It
seems like it's going to be easier in that sense. But then I mean
just from a a more or casual level, like the new area seems really
cool. Uh, they're adding some good pokemon. I think this one we're
finally getting Melodic and Phoebus, which are too great pokemon. And then there's
some new evolutions. Like I said Dipplin, I think the second one has
an evolution for Drollodon, which is good because Dralodon is is a dragon steel,
which is like the only dragon counter to Ferry, which is which is
big there. But Drawdon didn't feel like he it lived up to its potential,
So hoping that'll happen. But yeah, I also story wise, apparently
all this connects back into Area zero and once you've finished both DLC segments apparently
it all ends at area zero. So I'm really curious to see how they
tie this up because I mean, we talk the story is pretty good in
Scarlett and like surprisingly good and it's amazing, and there's a lot of questions
that are left unanswered, particularly with the Paradox Pokemon, and it seems like
the DLC is heading in a direction where it's going to answer those questions.
Now, I don't get my hopes up because Pokemon doesn't always I don't want
to say they don't care about story, but a lot of times they're not
as concerned with wrapping up those loose ends. Sometimes they'll set so I don't
know if it'll be a satisfying ending, but I'm at least happy that they're
continuing to explore that. And they're adding more Paradox Pokemon too. Oh hell
yeah, the paradox that should tripped me up. Man. Well, the
ones they're adding are wild, Like there's the I don't know if you saw
it, but there's the paradox Raiku with a really long neck. It looks
like a giraffe, but it's an electric voice tall neck. Yeah, it's
yeah, it looks like a tall neck from Horizon, and then I think
the other one's like one of the Gen five or six Legendary Dogs or something
like that. I don't know. I heard that people were disappointed there was
no Gen five remaking out son. Was that something you were affecting? No,
Okay, people, A lot of people. People have the dumbest expectations
for these for Pokemon presents. Yeah, I mean, to be fair,
like Pokemon has had a history of like I feel like there's a while where
like they're putting out like a Pokemon game every year. Did they did that
for like ten years straight? I think they took a break in like twenty
thirteen or something, and they've they're still doing it. I mean, they
put out two last year. I don't think they're gonna put out one this
year. I think it's just gonna be DLC focused at least, like like,
yeah, if you look at the State of Uh was the most recent
one's called I remember, you know, I'm like, I think could probably
take a little longer on their deb cycle. You know, game Freak is
only such a company, such a big company. Yeah, it seems like
I think this year we're just going to get the DLC. I think next
year. Uh, we'll probably are they get a remaker A New Legends game
is my bad. I think I prefer New Legends over a remake of I
would it's I mean, I like Black and White, but also I would
want them to I did not play the four remakes Diamond and Pearl. They
didn't look very They were pretty disappointing because they didn't take an account any of
the stuff in Platinum, which, like Platinum, is one of the best
Pokemon games. Diamond and Pearl, I think you're kind of middling, but
Platinum is excellent, and they left a lot of that out, and I
imagine, like I'm sure there were plenty of complications as to why they left
that out, and I'm sure it wasn't necessarily nefarious, but that has been
a sort of standard with remakes in the past, as they sort they've been
like the ultimate addition, ultimate addition that incorporates you know everything and more you
know. But I think it's okay if they take a break from these sort
of games. I would be super excited for a New Legends rsist. I
also am probably in the minority, but I would really like a Pokemon Let's
go to that takes place in Joe two. I was surprised they never did
that because I feel like that wasn't that like really successful. Yeahs, I
mean, I don't think it sold as much as a mainline Pokemon game Pokemon
games due, but I think it sold pretty damn well. And I think
Gent two would be great to get that treatment because that is a fan favorite.
I feel like the remakes for those are still really good, but there's
a lot of Saul silver Man excellent Heart Gold, but I think there's a
lot of like modern changes that you can like really tighten that up, and
then I think with let's go as mechanics, I think it would really work.
Yeah, but I don't know if we'd ever get that. I think
I think we'll definitely get another Legends game at some point. I think it'll
be I don't know, I don't even want to guess which region it will
take place in. But I don't think we're gonna get a remake of Black
and White for a very long time. Damn. Yeah, I think they'd
be I think it would be sooner that they'd revisit Gen two than they would
do Gen five, because that was one of the lowest selling Pokemon games.
It was also one of the biggest risks they took, I would say,
because there were no returning Pokemon on that was like a fresh start. They
tried to make a little more serious in tone. Obviously it's Pokemons, it's
not like dark or gritty. They also animated every Pokemon in that game,
yeah, which was crazy, Like do you know I was watching a video
it's like talking about that where like that was like the first time where they
animated all the sprites and like how much work that took and you're like,
oh, okay, well, like it would have been a foundation for future
games. And then they went three D right after that, so they did
all that work for one set of games. It's like, I know,
they did Black and White two, so they got like a little more use
out of it. But still I was like, God, damn Pokemon,
like like that's it's a little unsustainable, like a from a development standpoint,
like Jesus Christ, that's Pokemon though, Yeah, that's Pokemon. That was
Pokemon, Pokemon Presents, that's what's up. Yeah. I was a little
bummed we didn't see the cards because they announced that. Yeah, that like
fancy set. I want that and I don't back on my card game.
Bullshit, there you are. Yeah, you cracking packs, dude. The
Magic the Gathering, I know, I know we still open. And I
was like and I was like, I'm not going to get back in the
Magic. I'm just gonna do it for this Lord of the Rings, gonna
be self contained. And then they were like, hey, this magic other
World's thing is doing so well. How about this fallout Magic the Gathering?
And I'm like, and then what was the Final Gathering? Yah, I
need my ID, my holographic tief of cards. Let's go. That's how
they're gonna get me again. Yeah, came into the office. He was
like, Hey, if we don't use that box, I'll buy it from
its crazy. Yeah. The TCG is a it is a it's a hell
of a it's a hell of a drug. Yeah, it really really is.
Man Like, those things are built off of you wanting to crack them,
put them packs and get those cards. But real life R and G,
real life loot box. Yes, Michael, what are you playing?
Uh, let's see, let's go through some things real quick. Lords of
the Fallen. Oh that game that they rename or they named it after the
exact same name of the first game that came out nine years ago. Wait,
wasn't it, Like it was Lords the Fallen two, and then it
was The Lords of the Fallen, Well, the Lords of the Fallen,
Lords of the Fallen. Yeah, I actually got to play it. I
played about two three hours of it with creative director. He came through the
office and I played an early build of it. The game's coming out in
October, so it's not like it's a super early state, but as sure
as a Dark Souls game, and he played that original one. I played
a little bit of it, and I was like, I don't think I
was I wasn't really a Souls person at the time. I only played like
half of one at the time, and I was like, what is this
Lord's the Fallen thing? And I didn't really I didn't really dig it.
But at the same time, we really get what Souls Born was at the
time. Yeah, I didn't really like it at the time because to me,
it was it felt it was very early. I think it was like
one of the one of the first, like I guess sort of Souls like,
Yeah, it was one of the first, like Souls like, so
that's kind of like what I mentioned in my previews, like that game came
out of time when the that trend was just starting. But this new Lords
Have Fallen is rebuilt from the ground up. It has it is nothing like
the first game. It is they basically said, you know, we're gonna
scrap that entire idea of that first game and rebuild what I guess what we
wanted to do all along. And there's like connections with Lauren, so there's
still like if it's system makes sense, but the same thing. It's it's
more of like, yeah, do over a reboot, and it is really
well made. I will say that I think the after my time was like
it's hard. It's like I imagine myself and this isn't like a dig at
the developers or anything, because this is what they want to do. This
is their vision and they're executing on it really really well, I think.
But it's like this is legally distinct Dark Souls, yeah, and the same
legally distinct yeah, And you know, it's just it's their interpretation of it.
I think it's the most direct interpretation of Dark Souls where you have like
you have things like the Surge, which is a sci fi take on it,
or you have Ashen, which is like a more like indie low poly
take on it or whatever. So all and Remnant, it was like,
oh, well, what if we made a shooter. So they have all
these different branches of games that are taking a lot of the Dark Souls ethos,
but Lord's Fallen Bay says like, now we're just gonna like we're gonna
do it. Yeah, and they'd have this cool thing where they have like
parallel worlds, like alternate dimensions that exist in parallel that you can swap between
it anytime, or we'll not swap between any time, but there's a dynamic
in which you can go to like the world of the Undead, which is
the same map but different ration clang rift apart. Yeah, oh fuck that
damn. I should have mentioned that, And I pretty I compared it to
like how cool because like in the medium the medium Yeah, oh yeah,
I don't like the medium, but I think the way that that same idea
of like, okay, well, there's two versions of the same world that
exist in parallel, and there's literally know like this, there's no like load
time between the two, and part of the gameplay dynamic is how you navigate
between those two worlds like alternate paths open, different enemies exist in there,
like I can't move into the secret area or I can't move forward unless I
go into that alternate dimension. But there's risks involved. So I think that's
a cool like twist on the formula. Do you need an SSD? I
don't know. I played it on I played it on one of their PCs,
which I assume had an SSD, but I don't know if there's any
system requirements quite yet. I mag you can play on a hard hard disk
drive. But there was probably gonna be like kind of a joke because I
remember at the new Gym this this generation you need an SSD to flip between
these, and then ratchean Clink came to PC and you don't need an usual
Foundry did do it where they took a proper PS four like pro hard drive
and that ship and tried to run it on it could not do it.
So they were they were a lot, they were they were lying. Yeah,
and like the whole the whole point of like games like this is like
the they have to be seamless, seamless, because that's that's the whole core
concept. So yeah, it does, it does that. But I mean
I started, like the CREATI director, he like used the dev code and
like kind of like did like a no clip thing where we were like walk
through the entire cool world and start to see like different areas just to see
what it was like. And it is like, oh, yeah, this
is like a dark fantasy where everything is like dead and decrepit. So and
if someone showed this to me and it said nothing about it and I didn't
know anything about it to be like yeah, yeah, I was like,
is this dark Souls. But but I think to their credit, I think
the comment system is is really really good because I think they have at least
just I did like two different boss fights, and I think they understand what
makes Souls game Souls games fun and good and not like frustrating. But at
the same time, it's one of those things where I did at least what
I ran into. I didn't feel like there was any cheap tricks, so
at least there's that. And but yeah, I'm like, oh, Okay,
this is impressive what they've been able to do, like replicating that vibe
in that formula. But again, I only play like two three hours.
I liked what I saw of it. I don't know, like, and
I say this is my preview that I don't know if I'm in the mood
for that, because honestly, elden Ring was exhausting, amazing game one hundred
hours. I'm like, I don't think I want to play a game like
this for another like two or three years. Yeah, I know what you
mean. Like, I'm kind of exhausted. And when I saw how expansive
and how big Lords of the Fallen is, I'm like, damn, this
is sick. Check back with me and maybe two three years when I'm in
the right mindset. It's kind of like if like a Zelda Breath of the
Wild or like a Two's of the Kingdom clone came out next year, I'd
be like, yeah, I'm good. Yeah, And like it's this game
isn't open world, it's not as like big and sprawling as an elden Ring,
but it's just like it's this. It's a similar like pacing, it's
a similar like level of effort that takes to engage with that game in an
in an earnest way, I think some of the some of the RPG stuff,
the builds, the way you can build your character is really neat and
really smart. That it's not like, oh, I pick a class and
that's why I'm going to be It's you know, it is kind of that
that CRPG style where it's like you have a starting set of stats and starting
gear, but honestly you can mix and match and do whatever you want with
your character build and create some wild shit. So we have to check that
out. I have a written review on game spot right now. Whoa no
written preview preview on GameSpot dot com, and there should be a video version
which will be up probably during the weekend. I'm gonna leave a comment.
This is a great review. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
It's my favorite comment. Ah time. Yeah, but yeah, Lords have
Fallen and I went to FanFest, so we also went to Vegas. Yea,
yeah, I went to Vegas. That's why I wasn't at EVOS because
I was in Vegas the week before Ships in the Night I don't yeah,
cross paths, but there was each other cross Yeah. All the cowboys were
leaving, all the smelly fighting games that goes came through. No, but
so I was at I was at a fan fest in Vegas the week before
EVA And let me tell you something I will not I will. You'll never
catch me in Vegas more than four or five days because it's holy shit.
Oh yeah, god, what a what a what a place? That is
also one hundred and ten degrees outside every fucking day at night. It's not
on a walk outside you don't need to. Yeah, everything costs so much.
Yeah, Vegas, man. But yeah, I was a fan fest.
It was, I mean, it was, it was. It wasn't
it's it's I mean, it's not like a convention per se or a tournament.
Well, there was a tournament though. The PvP in Final Fantasy fourteen
has come a long way for sure, and I was getting hype off of
the PvP matches the tournament. That was pretty fucking sick. Okay, how
big is fan fast How many people usually go to that? I don't know,
I can I don't know if I could put a number on it,
but it is that that was a pretty big convention hall and that ship was
fucking packed. Yeah. It's also two fan fest right, there's like a
Japanese one. There's one in Europe, there's one in Japan, there's one
in North three. Yeah, wow, there's three, and it is it
is massive. And this is the first physical one they've done in North America
since twenty eighteen, so there's like an extra like fervor to be at fan
Fest, and it's it was very from the logistical standpoint, is a very
messy event, especially when it comes like eighty A compliance lines, just like
the way things are organized, So there's definitely a lot to improve there.
But overall, the I think it was it was one of those moments where
I looked around and was like, Yeah, nothing comes close to Final Fantasy
fourteen in terms of like a single game that can garner a community like this
with such with such passion, I guess. And I was there for for
mostly for fun and like being in the audience to watch the new expand trailer
dropped Dawn trail like that thing had not leaked. There was no word.
I was kind of I was if you, I'm like, wait, are
they going to show the next expansion? I hope they do, like,
but I haven't really gotten inkling one way or the other. And they went
deep. They showed a two minute two minute trailer teaser and then yohp spent
like an hour talking about all kinds of new ship that's going to be in.
I was like, fuck, yes, dude, multiple multiple dies.
Yeah, that was the big new reveal. Oh yes, man, Yeah,
there's a lot of There's a lots of and like it. There's little
things like that where people getting hyped about very specific things that only you would
get hyped about if you play Final Fantasy fourteen. And to see that,
like I always see it online and I see it in the game all the
time, but like to see it in person for reals is like it was.
It was beautiful, like people costs playing some of the booths and little
games that they had set up around the convention floor. And honestly, it's
also a it's like a celebration of the music of Final Fantasy because the first
night is the Piano const that has like full piano renditions of a bunch of
songs and singers coming on to sing the vocals for those songs as well.
Second I is the Primals concert, And like for me, I've been to
a lot of punk and metal shows in my life, so going to the
Primal's concert was fucking amazing. I don't know what others may have expected,
but because it's very fucking loud and like and it's I imagine some people weren't
prepared for that. Yeah, but I absolutely I can't believe. I got
to see The Primals live, which is the band lead led by the localization
director Coachie Fox and the composer Macioshi Silken. So like seeing them on stage
play as a actual rock band is like I always see it online, but
this is like fucking sick. This is a band I would come out and
pay lots of money see, which I did, and it's like, oh
yeah, Codi Fox, that's the localization director for Final Fantasy fourteen and sixteen,
and oh yeah, Silken is like probably one of the greatest composers in
the modern era for video games. And they're just like a bunch of dudes
fucking around playing amazing music live on stage as a band. That it's yeah,
and it's amazing. And then I went to the orchestra concert and cried
my eyes out on night three and it's like, there's no game that would
be able to pull this off at all, not even close. And it
reminded me of like just how special Final Face supportsiness. Yeah, and it
was it was great. I met so many people as well a lot of
oofies showed up, so I got to got the chill with them. I
met some of my favorite streamers, some of the folks that I've collabbed with
on like podcasts and guest videos, and like people I've rated with for a
long time that i've and like people that I worked with at fan Bite that
I didn't like, freelancers and other folks that I just never met in real
life before. It was holy shit, dude, Like this is the one
place where I was there to be around people I just never got to see
and Vnfest was perfect for that. Man. So yeah, I would love
to do it again. I'm glad I've got if that's the only fan fest
I get to go to. Man, it was amazing, and I'm It's
one of those things where I always watched from home and like can't what it
would it would be like to be there, and I finally got to experience
that beautiful, beautiful, beautiful stuff. So yeah, suporteen man throughout it's
the greatest game of all time. Who knew? Were happy for you?
Thank you, thank you. I got so fucking hype, man, it
was. It was amazing, But yeah, it's cool. I can't wait
for don trail. There was a lot of a lot of things I'm keeping
my eye on about that. It's it's a munch of bullshit that y'all need
and don't need to know about until the time comes. It was. It
was funny having you there. And then Ben was on vacation, so there
was like no one at Game Spot who's like paying attention to Final Fantasy at
all. Was the one who was like, hey, guys, they announced
the new expansion and I put that in GS news and they're like, oh,
thanks, cool cool. Yeah. I was like, damn Warriors,
y'all. I was. I was like on that Friday of the real I
was like in slack, like, yo, okay, this this isn't that.
They announced the Xbox version. Fucking finally you're all Thebox version, Yeah,
Xbox Team, Yeah, it's coming out. Spencer, Yeah, Phil
Spencer showed up. He did. Yeah. It was Yoshida, the president,
the new president of Screens and Phil Spencer showed up. PlayStation finally let
him do it. Yep, they let him go. So Jim Ryan had
to let go of fourteen. What shirt was Phil wearing? What was he
wearing? Oh yeah, but what was the shirt? I wonder if it
was like there was like blue Dragon or something like wow, damn, that's
crazy. But yeah, I was there to see that live and I was
like, hit up slack, like, yo, these are details, like
da da, this is what's important news to do this. So I was
like, never really turned off the work brain just because it's like I didn't
do I didn't do that with you. They had all sorts of announcements.
I was like, I ain't saying someone else can do this Ninja Turtles and
street Fighter, someone else can get that. Yeah, uh that's that's that's
what I did. So, yeah, that's that on that damn. Yeah,
let's get out of here another. I know what the fuck do?
It feels like fucking Vegas, Vegas booty hole out here. Anyway. This
has been another swell episode of game spot After Dark. Thank you all for
yacht listen. You know what time it is, Twitch out TV, Slash
Games out three pm Pacific time on Thursdays, watch us live bullshitting around you
know what I'm saying, and hit us up on those podcast services I had
mentioned, Apple Podcast, Spotify, leave the leave them reviews. You know.
You know what to do, y'all know what it is. Let's see,
y'all should check out all like all those bathers gay videos that Jake had
mentioned. Peep that ship. It's the hottest game on the block right now,
and a new episode or a premier of a new series called Get Good.
So if you if you're missing Tam and Lucy right now, go watch
that thing where Tam shows Lucy the waves of street Fighters six. Yeah,
it's very good. If you were watched Devo and thought to yourself, oh
man, should I get in a street fighter? Is it possible getting a
street fighter? This video will answer that question listen, which is yes,
we got the answers. We have the answers for you. But yeah,
that's that's what's going on over here at game Spot, and where can the
folks find you? Jean Luke, I don't want to promote any social media
accounts. I know, I don't. I don't. I thought it really
hard about I'm like, I don't know if I want to do that.
I don't want to do that anymore. No, I was thinking about that
because this is a little inside baseball. But like on all our videos,
we have like our social media accounts, and like I thought about changing into
my title instead. I was thinking about, like we we should like officially
redo that because now it's like it's like not to win it. I don't
know if we want to do that. Adn't do that anymore, Like,
I don't know, So it like doesn't help anyway, you know, it
really doesn't. People don't watch a video on YouTube and be like I gotta
follow that guy. Yeah, yeah, I mean I guess I can kind
of if you want to reach out to someone, but yeah, I don't
know. You could just google your name and they'll they'll find that stuff.
I don't know, Man, hit me up. I'm street Fighter. I
think my friend codes. Yeah, I think my accounts like Stardust Crusader or
something like that. So go at Man forty two. I've been trying to
not use that one for a while. It's stole on xbox THLL. Once
I find a good name to change it, all right, I'll take it.
Well, Jake, where where do you? Where do the folks?
Where do you want to find? Where do you want folks to find you?
We don't want folks, right, that's right, Leave me alone.
Yeah, I got I got a lot of boulder skate to play. Last
thing I need to find on me. Oh man, you can find me
all them out bullshit at High and Michael on Instagram, da that's crazy or
brazy Asian on Blue Sky want cat pis, send me cat pictures and I
will send you heart emojis every fucking time. But anyway, that's been a
gay Spot after Dark. Thank you all so much for watching live if you
did that, and thank you all for listening through your through your ear holes,
and we will see you again here in order to find us here again
Spot after Dark baby peace by see trip by