Welcome everyone to another episode of the day. It's Good Gamescast. Amy helst
rod Ak is then joining me. Today we have Ryan. How are you
sir? What's up? How are we doing? Hopefully everyone's having night a
good one. Is it a Sunday night we're recording here? Yeah, it's
a Sunday night, and it is a Sunday night where we're recording. But
yeah, doing okay. I can't complain. Just getting things ready for a
thing I'll talk about a little bit later in the podcast, but yeah,
going all right, can't complain. Oh same here, also joined by Drew
Staffer. How are you, sir? I'm okay. Just another day,
another another day trying to play video games. True. I feel like that's
that's our goal every day, right, just trying to play some video games,
trying to play a game, a video game. I've played quite a
few video games. I've been I've been putting in a lot of work trying
to knock out these games, which is really funny. Like I was talking
to somebody earlier today actually about like backlogs and stuff, and I was like,
this year, I had a goal in mind for this year, like
I wanted to beat more games. Than I did last year, right,
Like that is like I think I'm trying to trend on and I sat down
and thought about it, and I was like, I'm doing it. And
I was very surprised by that, and I was like, I've played a
lot this year, and that's really fucking cool. Nice Now, obviously,
like that's time I took away from other things I could be doing, so
like the other areas of my life and hobbies that have been like you know,
de leveling on the side. But it's it's it's cool, it's cool.
I'm doing what I ultimately enjoy. So it was just a cool,
like mid year check in at me, just like looking back and I was
like, whoa one this year is really fucking cool for video games. In
two I played a lot of them. That's very cool. Yeah, I
can't beat that, can't beat that. I'm also kind of recovering from a
cold, so I maybe like cough here or there. I'm going to try
my best to mute when when that happens, but just be aware that that
might come out of nowhere and destroy people's ears. But yeah, with that
being said, let's get into video games. I want to hear from Ryan
about what you have been up to. Oh, let's see what have I
been up to? Obviously, the Nigue Grind continues. Such a near event
that's going on. Yeah, basically, I think I got all the stuff
I needed is including the you know, costume Gotcha thing for to be,
which was definitely a funny story in itself that we discussed. Uh yeah,
man, Nique's costume Gotcha is like one of the worst things I've seen in
a mobile game in quite some time. It's pretty odd. Don't even play
that game, and I agree, yeah, it's pretty awful. But considering
that was the only way to get this costume and that it's a collabin who
knows when it will ever return never come back? Yeah, well that's how
they Yeah, that's it. They know exactly what they're doing. That is
exactly how they get you. And I'm like, well, I really don't
have a choice in this matter. If I really want this costume, I'm
gonna have to do this. And sure enough, that's uh what I did.
But yeah, I've been doing that. It's weird though, because like
I've done so many polls and like I only pulled to B once and yeah
it is was, Yeah, it was. It was heartbreaking. No,
it is not not my banner at all. But luckily I had enough golden
tickets so to where I could get uh to B and A two with the
gold tickets at least. And then I was just like, well, I'll
just keep pulling if need be, and uh you know, if I get
another one, great, If not, oh well it is what it is.
But like it's also good that I'm pulling these now because like they're one
year anniversary. Things going to be coming up roll soon. Yeah, And
that's also probably when they're gonna be releasing the uh like the new version of
uh of a Rappie, which is going to be the Red Hood or yeah,
red Hood variant of her, so that when she has like the red
hair. Yeah. So like I just got to that part in the story
where like she did that and I was like, oh, you got some
fucking super saying as shit happening right now? Yeah yeah right, yeah,
so like that, so you learn more about that if you progress through the
very generic and boss story. You know, it surprised me at points,
like there are specific moments so far yeah yeah that I'm like, this is
really good, but also it gets diminished the moment like a character like Neon
comes on screen, I'm just like, girl, your entire asses out and
I'm just completely taken out of whatever context is happening right now. Yeah,
like the designs clash with like what's going on, and I'm just like this
takes me out of it completely. But I will say, like there's some
story bits in here that I'm like, oh, this is actually really good
or really touching, so that there's something there. Yeah, and it's it's
funny too because like even like when you see like the animated parts everything,
it's just like you tell, like they put budget into it, and so
like, yeah, the animation stuff is really cool. Yeah, but like
but yeah, you're right some of the like when you see certain like you
know, the live two D animations come up and how some of those things
are just kind of like wait, why but why this is a really touching
scene and then acid titties in the face just like yeah, a little clashing
here, Yeah I get it. But yeah, but yeah, so I've
been I've been still doing that. And they also announced like there's still be
like another banner thing comings into before before the one year anniversary thing. Yeah,
they're gonna have like four new characters drop. It's so which is one
that is very much a rob character, the blonde that was on the left.
I was let go, I need I need this character. Yeah.
So like it's funny too because like the first character that they're showing in this
that's going to be like part of like the main banner pole that was actually
like a redo of the character that was gonna be original originally. So like
I'm gonna I'm gonna put the tweet of the character that is gonna be in
this first banner, and then I'm gonna show the original design that uh that
the character was originally gonna be. So that's the one right there, and
then this was yep, and then this was the original design to left.
Yeah, complete overhaul, right, that is a complete difference. Yeah,
And I kind of liked the original design better, and I think it's because
it kind of gave me Wagner vibes from it's very Wagner. Yeah. But
I do also kind of go with the one on the life. Yeah.
I like the Kate. Yeah, like like like there's nothing wrong with the
new redesigned they did. I just prefer the I just like if you asked
me between two, I just preferred the other one. Yeah. Yeah,
but yeah, so they're going to have that before you know, I guess
the one year thing. So but yeah, that's still a game. I've
been definitely you know, logging in and doing the dailies four and stuff like
that while you know, you know, just passing the time and things like
that here. But there are a couple other games I have been playing,
well, I let me phrase that I started up. I haven't had a
chance to really go back to them yet though, because obviously I've been getting
things ready for other stuff, so I really haven't been able to dedicate two
us Tide to it. But there are two games that I did finally start
up that I've had on the back burner for a little bit, and then
I was like, oh wait a minute, I have game Pass. Let
me take a look at game Pass. Oh these games are still here.
Cool, I'm gonna start these. One of those being Signalis, Yes,
and boy, I know we talked about that, talked about this game before,
but like actually booting it up a planet and it's just like, oh,
yes, this is definitely the old school, like Resident Evil, like
you know, Parasites. Yeah, yeah, and like I just it just
fit hit that like retro nostalgia of like the tank controls, and it's just
like I I never was a big fan of these, but for some reason
I missed these. Yeah. It's you can tell the developers they're like have
a deep passion for that specific like time period of horror games because it like
it takes the best of like all of those games. Yeah, tank controls
are not me thing, Like it's very off putting for a lot of people,
but like that game feels good. It does in some way, right,
Like they took this control scheme that like most people wouldn't like and it's
just I don't know, they just smoothed it out and made it feel actually
pretty good. Yeah, and it's actually like, you know, it's cool
that like you can run at like the full two fortyps and everything too.
Like it's like you can tell, like it just looks and feels like incredibly
good. And it's just like everything about that game like was hitting like hitting
home for like you know those old fields that I had for like the older
Resident Evil games and things like that. Yeah, and you know it's even
like the look of it where it's kind of like the blocky graphics and everything,
like it just hits home with everything. It's like, ah, I
grew up with the Yeah, so I definitely been enjoying that. I kind
of want to go back and like soon to play more of it and everything.
Because I spent like the first two hours playing it. I just got
the elevator to work. So I've been doing like going to like the different
floors and stuff like that, and it's like I'm still trying to figure out
like what exactly is going on, like how all this, you know,
transpire the way it did. And so like it's been pretty fun to kind
of go through and play that and everything. The other game I started up
and I think it's a game that you finished recently see as Stars. Yes,
and I'm going to talk about that. Yeah, that game is.
Either of you spoil that game for me, I will kill you. Yeah,
I'm just I'm just I'm just saying that that game is as I'm only
a couple of hours in, but the way I've been playing it, like
the way I've been playing it and like how I've been feeling about the game,
anything that might be my game of the Year for this year. I
would believe it. It's it's it is just like soundtracks awesome. I love
the battle system that they have with it, Like I don't want my favorite
battle system period. Yea, yeah, it's it's really good. It's really
good. It gives you a lot of flexibility on like how you want to
how you want to play it for like a turn based RPG. Yeah,
I I it's it's very very charming, probably one of the most charming games
I played in a while. And like it said, I I got to
I went through maybe like the first two hours. I'm about ready to get
to the uh fourth part of it. I want to say, Like I
said, I'm trying to choose my words carefully because I like my life and
I don't want Drew killing. Yeah, that's why. That's why I'm choosing
my words carefully. I'm just saying, like, you need to fell finish
up You're You're You're trails game there so you can start playing you know,
actually actually five game you know. So, But yeah, that's been that's
that's been an experience. That's been a lot of fun. Yeah, I've
that's definitely a game I want to get back into soon after after I'm done.
With like all the other things I got going on and everything. I'll
also tell you it's it's a relatively short game too, like that I heard
it's got a pretty good like time hour to it and everything, which is
just like, yes, I'm a fan of that. Like if you if
you don't get like so caught up in like a lot of the side stuff,
you can roll credits in like twenty hours, and that is okay with
me. Yeah, so I'm definitely gonna be I'm definitely gonna be h like
I said back on that after I'm done with everything else for sure. Still
been hitting up the Rhythm games from time to time too, to kill some
time, like if I'm trying to go to sleep or something, you know,
DJ Max trying to unlock all that stuff and everything. It's like gonna
unlock its new pack with stuff and then uh, I'm also counting down the
days to the Project Diva Hot to Name Me Ku collab with Mused. Finally.
I almost sought Mused Dash earlier today. It was in my cart I
was actually I was gonna so the bit was gonna be that I was actually
going to play it. I was gonna buy it, and I was gonna
play it today and bring that to the table and be like yo. I
finally did it because the Queen herself called me up and was like, you
need to play this game because I hots and Nameku is in it, and
I'm like, dam I got I gotta play it. I remember the action
when I sent you the tweet about the collab and You're like, that's it.
They got me. It's it's over. It's over from for me.
Bro's like, it's it's done as soon as it drops. The only thing,
the only reason why I did not pull the trigger. Actually I paused
because apparently they're like changing the structure of the DLC. Yeah, it's a
bit. It's kind of weird how they're doing it because originally, like the
pace. It's funny because like the base game itself was like three bucks,
right, it's three dollars, and then and then they have the DLC pack
and it's titled Just as Planned and it's an extra thirty bucks because it's like
everything else that is with the game and everything. But the cool thing with
that was a lot of the collapse and a lot of the things they just
added on were always just free updates. If you bought the just as planned.
Everything was done is free, and like that was a cool thing about
it. I think they change it now to where there's going to be certain
collabs that you are going to have to pay extra. Four Like the Project
Diva pack is going to be is going to be extra. You are going
to have to pay for that. But even then, like the pack for
that itself is like ten bucks. It's not it's not expensive at all.
Like dj Max's like updates whenever they do that and everything, those things always
range from like fifteen to twenty. So yeah, like so it's not like
it's not like it's a like a like a big thing. And I kind
of to be honest, like I kind of expected that eventually there were going
to be some packs that were going to be released that you would have to
pay for. It makes sense, like like you knew it was I knew
it was going to happen. Yeah, Like you can't just keep doing free
content, like because they're like four years in at this point, yeah,
right, and at this point they've probably sold the game to everybody that is
interested in buying the game, right, So like every collab you're seeing diminishing
returns and it's like they have to start making money at some point, right,
you know, so like you're already getting an insane amount of content for
the Justice Land DLC, Like an absolute insane I don't think it does any
harm for them to be like, hey, we need to make some funds
at this stage of the game. Well, like it makes sense to me.
Yeah, let's just say. It's also like you know, if they
depending on like what they purchased with like who knows how much they had to
pay to get to get the miku. Yeah. Yeah, so like I
like, I totally get it, Like I understand why they had to make
that change absolutely, but yeah, it's a when they announced there were certain
things there were changing with it, of course, there was some backlash about
it, and so yeah, so they did revamp it a little, revamp
it a little bit. But I'm just like, listen, like they put
out so much free stuff and so many different collapse that they had to begin
with, like with Toho and DJ Max and even Narc Knights and things like
that. Like they did a lot of different labs with that too, And
if they want to add bigger collabs to the game and get more people to
purchase it, you know, then yeah, they're going to have to you
know, spend some money in turn, like hoping people buy more stuff from
them to get more collabs, because like essentially they want to expand out even
more to doing some of the other things like maybe like you know, if
they want to try to reach out to like do some other collabs and everything,
and they have to pay for it. You know, it's just in
a sense, it's kind of having to support it. It's it's a business
at the end of the day, you know, and like the developers need
to make money, one so they can do more collabs, but also too
so they can live. Yeah, not too Like you know, it's they've
already proven that they're they're willing to put in a lot of work into this
game, and it all seems worth it, right, So it's not like
it's it's some shady developer that's like trying to nickel and dime you So,
like I feel like the good will is already there and like spending more for
them doesn't seem like big deal to me. Yeah, I know, they're
they're going to discontinue the Justice Plan DLC in October. Yeah, but they're
replacing it with like a mused plus package instead. And I think the idea
is that anybody that purchased Justice Planned prior to that, which I'll end up
doing, you get a discount on all the future DLC. Yeah right,
so it's kind of like an early buy in bonus. Right. It's kind
of like grant, which is cool, man, And yeah, like for
like, hey, we know you bought this and everything, and we know
you did the Justice Plan, but you know, hey, in turn,
here's going to be discounted stuff for you. Yeah. It's like a thank
you for the support, right, which is super cool. Yeah. So
so yeah, that's That's pretty much like everything that I've really been doing as
far as like gaming stuff is concerned. I still boot up Eternal Returnament once
in a while hoping that, Yeah, I turned it on, so I
was like, maybe solo it's back now. No, it's not. It's
not back, man. I was going to ask you. I almost sent
you a message when I saw pop up, because it was like, really,
it was like two or three o'clock in the morning or something, right,
right, turn on any time return let me back. Yeah. I
was like, I was like, well, because there was an update that
was ready for it too, and I was just like, you know what,
I already downloaded this update. Let me just hope and wish and no,
is it only trios an option? It's trios. It's only trios only
trio. Really, you and I can't even do all anymore. It's only
trios day. Well, the game stay is dead for me for another you
know how long. Yeah, And it's funny because like they change that stuff
around a few months ago and everything, and like they still haven't activated it
back, which is just I don't know, it just feels weird to me.
It probably speaks more to the population on a yeah, because I get
I get the idea why they had to get rid of solos and duos,
right, because like there was a huge issue already with like que times,
right, and you're splitting the player base into three different cues, and their
most popular que was always trios. Yeah, so you take the hit on
like some of the solo players that aren't going to touch trios, but like
there's a good size of them that are like that would still play regardless,
So you just trying to funnel everybody into one que. So this way you
help out on the queue times and stuff. Yeah, I mean I believe
you know, yeah, I mean I get it to believe me, but
I mean I don't play well with others. That's why I play solos.
So yeah, no, I understand. I'm right there with you, like
I'm in the waiting room too, So like it's just unfortunate, you know.
I wanted to be that. Hey, I lost because I messed up.
I don't want to lose because of other team stuff. So that's just
me. Sounds like Pokemon Unite. Yeah, so that was the beauty of
the game. It was like, oh, that's finally one of these where
it's just like I can Solo Cube and just like play when I feel like,
you know, yeah, it's gone, especially like if I wanted to
like try to lab like playing like different character art types and stuff like that.
Yeah thing, but yeah, that's still profound sadness. No no solo
yet for Eternal Return, which makes you sad. Let's see. I that's
pretty much it. Oh. I also have been playing a Holo here stuff
still here and there too. Yeah that game. That game is like just
good fun to just like kill time with ad So yeah, I'm still trying
to beat that new stage that they put into that stage is freaking hard.
It's like I haven't had like I would get to like the tail end of
it, and then I just get obliterated and I'm just like what just happened?
So dang, yeah, like I not even get like the special collapse
and everything too, and it's like it's like you thought, like that's cute
and then just getting pliterated. Yeah exactly, just like all right, I
gotta level up some other things they're I guess. So, but it's like
I said, it's a fun game that just kind of, like I said,
just killed time with whenever, like I'm not quite tired yet, but
like I'm getting like it's just trying to make myself go sleep. Yeah.
Yeah, it's a it's a short commitment to, right, So it's just
like it's easy to just like turn it on and like all right, let
me just kind of like tire up the eyes real quick with like a thirty
minute game real quick. Yeah exactly. Yeah, Yeah that's that's how Vampires
five This was for me too. So it's like and that's the same game,
just hollow Hollow live on top of it. Yeah, I totally get
you. Yep. So that's kind of that's kind of how I have feel
with everything as far as the games I've been playing. Like I said,
I've been spending a lot of time though getting ready for this uh Kirby Con
event that is going to be happening in thirteen days from now. It's uh,
it's gonna be It's gonna be interesting because I've been in a like group
chat with the the people that are putting on the eventor everything created a group
chat for like all the vendors. So I got to ask questions if I
got anything, and and like they're just you know, basically like answering as
many questions they can. And someone brought up asking like how many people are
expected, because like one of them is like a like a drink vendor that's
going to be there, and they wanted to make sure they had like enough
supplies for drinks and everything. And they they were like, oh, we're
expecting over a thousand people. And I'm like, oh, that's a lot.
Sounds like a lot. September thirtieth Saturday down in Gainesville. Oh that
will be den dates from from my mom's birthday day. Yeah, it's h
but it's like it's it's kind of like like a literally just like a buffet
of like all these different things that's going to be happening. Like there's gonna
be like music concerts that's gonna be going on. There's gonna be like some
different shows that are gonna be going on, and like it's also an eighteen
and over show, which means I get to sell the ludes. So like
it's there's a lot of different things that's gonna be going on with this thing.
So like I am curious to see how this is gonna play out.
I'm very curious too. Like I've done like eighteen plus events that are at
other conventions, right, so like anime Xto has like eighteen plus events or
dragon Corn or whatever, but I've never done like a solely folk's like one
day eighteen plus event. I don't know what this is. Yeah, you
know. And then on top of the fact that they're doing like concerts and
other shows and stuff, I'm just like, what is happening. I've never
even heard of Kirby Con until you brought it to my attention, But it's
a been a thing that it's been going on and growing apparently. Yeah,
I mean, because they do it. They do it in South Florida,
like that's where it's based out of. It was like in South Florida,
and then they're doing this one in Gainesville and then they're doing another one that's
in Atlanta. So yeah, they're explaining it out and yeah, so I'm
also very curious to see, like what is this. I've seen snippets,
I've seen photos, I've seen videos, and I'm like, okay, me
a lot. I am. I am trying to prepare myself as much as
I can because I have a feeling that things are going to get weird.
This is going to be the burlesque show just extram That's okay, That's pretty
much what I'm gathering. Mmmm so but yeah, uh good times should be
interesting to say the least. So, but that's for sure. That's all
I've done. That's pretty much everything that I have to offer as far as
contributing to the podcast, as far as what games I played and stuff.
Cool, I love that. Uh truthfu, Yes, what have you been
up to? Well, I haven't played. I have been playing video games.
I've actually been playing NonStop video games. Like yeah, I mean,
I'm this is the fastest I've ever like gotten close to beating a Trails game.
I think it's true. It's true. I agree like it. It
hasn't even been a month. I actually went and looked to see what my
start date was, and it was a yeah, three weeks. Yeah okay,
yeah, but lover, yeah sorry in August twenty three. Now,
granted, I wasn't like fully committed right then and there because we were at
that stupid difficulty and I decided to grind the casino for twenty hours. So
I decided to follow suit with you to not do that, And looking back,
good decision, good decision, right, good decision. The further I
got in that game, I'm just like, though, this great decision.
Yeah. No, the further you get, you realize, like, man,
could you imagine doing this on a piss, Like even when you get
to the point where I'm like you can make the od builds and stuff like
that, You're just like this would not have been fun regardless, Like this
was? No? No, is it especially? Is it just a different
Is it just the difficulties like that miserable or just like yes, so A
bit difficulty is essentially the same as nightmare difficulty, which is difficulty that wrong
and I typically play on it's a new difficulty, except HP, attack and
speed values are like multiplying my phone. So you run up to scenarios where
like you take your turn and then the enemy has like five turns before they
before you get your next one. Oh, I've had fights where like I
happen to set up like a reflect buff on me, so this way damage
gets directed back to the enemy and just like I'm sitting there for twenty turns
before I get to act again. That it's that sounds terrible. And then
also note like most scenarios you're dying in like two hits, so like if
you do get hit, it's over. That sounds awful. It is the
it's awful. Why why would you subject yourself to that? I mean,
we don't we didn't know that. I don't yet. We didn't know that
because like they did in the previous games. Is that what you're saying that
this is a difficulty, this is the first Yeah, and in the prologue
conversation with who decides In the prologue, most of the most of that difficulty
is doable. There's like one or two fights where you're like, oh,
okay, I could see where this this would be annoying. But then like
you get to a boss fight and like the boss fights manageable and you're like,
Okay, I think I can handle this difficulty. And then you get
like a little bit farther and you're like, oh no, that that sounds
that sounds miserable. So I was to be like from Seven Deadly Sins and
be like who decided that, Like in an RPG, specifically a turn based
RPG, normal battles are not to they really shouldn't be difficult, in my
opinion, because normal battles aren't. They're not there to be difficulty. Help
you level up at everything, yeah yeah, And then then they give the
player some sort of something to interact with that isn't like necessarily challenge because like,
because RPGs are long, you don't want to like throw everything at the
player to where you're getting from like story point A, the story point B
is miserable, and like that's the problem with this difficulty is that even normal
fights were just like if I don't like do this perfectly, I will die
and that's not fun. So eventually I just got a little point, I
know, you know, I just tone it. Now there's specifically one fight,
and it's very funny because like the difference in difficulty between the fight on
ABYSS and Nightmare is hilarious. It's so funny, like there's a moment like
so uh that fight, I turned the difficulty down, like I was the
first to get to that get to the fight, and this was like Windrew
was still kind of preparing to play and all that, and this is where
I was like, no, I'm not doing it anymore. When I shifted
it down to Nightmare difficulty, it I thought I accidentally shifted it to like
easy, like it is just like a cakewalk. And I was like,
what is the difference here? Like that is what? That is a disparaging
difference, insane, Like I had to double take the difficulty setting that I
said it on because I was like, this can't be it. Noh,
granted, it's really just that fight. It is, like that's what makes
it really funny because it is in particular that it feels that way, and
like fights later are like challenging enough, but that went just felt like you
are steamrolling it and it's like I can't what is this? Yeah? And
I mean, I'll be perfectly honest. The trails games have never really had
a super hard difficulty, Like there are far few in between, like some
some difficult boss fights that are pretty memorable. There's one in particular that I
think of in this game, Like even turning Down a Nightmare, there was
one boss fight where I was like what, But like, I don't know,
there becomes a point with with difficulty and turn based RPGs, and it's
like it's such a hard balance to really meet and I don't don't know if
there's ever really been a good JRPG, like turn based JRPG that has done
that. I think like Bravely Default is one that I really consider like one
of those games that the game challenges you to break its system, and then
once you break its system, it just throws fights at you. They're like,
Okay, you better broken the system, otherwise you're gonna die. I
think the key is making sure that your mechanic still works and that the player
can still interact with it and like exploit it to like the best degree that
you can. Right, So, like there's I think there's a slightly different
conversation for like inflating numbers. I think that just makes things tedious. But
like when you have a battle system that can accommodate higher difficulties and you can
play around it. That that's the sweet spot because like even like S and
T games for example, like playing those on hard or whatever, it's like
you're taking more damage, so you have to think about your moves more carefully,
but you're still interacting with like the weakness system to give yourself different like
more turns or whatever, or the gay enemy turns, or make sure your
equipment is prepared for this fight specifically, Like you're interacting with the game systems
in a way to where like that difficulty is you can mitigate it, right
Octopac Traveler, if that had like a higher difficulty, that would be a
pretty good one too. I feel because of the break system and everything too,
like that doesn't get broken if you would were theoretically put it up,
you know what I mean. So, like with Trails, the mechanics at
play here are just broken, you know, Like there is a break mechanic
in this game as well, Like when you get the enemies like Stamina Gage
or whatever all the way down, they're going to a brake status. They
take more damage. Blah blah blah. That's supposed to be your opportunity to
like take your turn and push your like offense. And when you're on a
best difficulty because of how the speed stat works and everything like that, it's
like you break them, they immediately recover instantly, and it's like I didn't
even get to like engage with this, you know. So that is like
one fail point of like this difficulty, you know. Yeah, And I
imagine this difficulty was designed after the fact of like, hey, let's just
throw this in, because it definitely is just an inflated numbers team. In
my opinion, it is that being said, I mean, the trails battle
system is never I'll be perfectly honest. I think prior to Cold Steel they
had a better battle system. I was gonna say that, actually, I
think I think Sky and Zero and al like had better, more interesting systems
than than everything happened. Yes, not just the not just like the battle
system, but like they're the ordnance system was also a lot more interesting and
fun to interact with than it is in Cold Steel, which I mean that's
fine because after this game we're moving on to a whole new battle system.
I'm curious about it. I am too, I am to do you know
anything about it. I mean, I know you switch, you can switch
between active in turn base. Yeah, I'm very curious about that. I'm
not sure how that's going to feel. So I'm curious about it. Wait,
which game is that's Cora? I don't know what? Probably yeah,
yeah, well well is an old game? Yeah yeah, right right.
The next game after rever he is that has a new battle system. It
will probably be called Trails of Shadow or would make sense that would be a
direct translation? Yeah, oh would it pretty much? Yeah, Curl is
black black, But I mean, if you were to localize that shadow sounds
right. I don't know if you want to release your a game called Trails
of Black like that, I would get in great enjoyment out of it,
but I don't know if we're running into it over again unreal black. So
I was planning today to talk about Reverie, but that was under the assumption
that I was going to beat the game. Unfortunately, I'm like right there,
and like I've been playing this game like mad, like just trying to
push forward as much as I can, and I just I really wanted to
have it beat by this recording, and we just didn't make it. I'm
at the final dungeon. I'm pretty sure I don't know where you go from
this. The finale, like tapter is, it is long because they throw
a lot of stuff at you in terms of like here are things you can
you can do, Like you can't just progress through the story like not and
forget about the rest or whatever. But like if you're the type of person
that, like I want to like check off all the box is, there's
a lot of boxes to check in the finale, there are there are,
and that's like an additional like twelve hours. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
And I'm sure what you did is you beat the game first and then went
back and did some of that stuff. So what I did, actually I
did all of it up to aside from a lot of the day dreams I
to unlock at that stage, like I did, I did some that caught
my eye, and then I was like, Okay, I want to close
this out. I will come back for this, because it was at that
stage of just like I'm ready to see where this goes, like I really
want to know where the story wraps up, and I just couldn't contain myself
anymore, and I was like I'm just back for the day dreams, so
that that's what I did see. I want to do that, but I
have this condition where just like I have to finish as everything before I get
it, I get it, like I do that add in every RPG,
I have to do everything I can before I fight. That's why it annoys
me that games have like post games after the final boss now, like side
quests and stuff that you can only do after the final boss. I'm like,
no, the final boss. That's should be finally. That's why it's
called final Boss for a reason, not final Boss. And then oh hey
there's extra stuff now, right. So uh, I hope you're okay with
this round because I was hoping to have a Reverie discussion with you on recording
and we save that for next recording once I've done. We can't because I
do have things I want to say about Reverie. Look do it and bad
mostly good, mostly good. Yeah, I will, I will, I
have mostly good YEA. I will say this. We we are back up
from Cold Steel. We are back up, stocks rising rising. I need
to see where the story ends, but we're back up, and actually,
I will say Reverie does take some of the points from Cold Steel In fact,
one of the day dreams I've just watched involving a character named Lecter that
I like took some of the events of Cold Steel and kind of paated them
in a different light that I was like, this makes me appreciate Cold Steel
a little bit more. Yeah, to would agree. Yeah, I think
they pull it. They pull it some threads some of the more interesting threads
of Cold Steel, right, because we always talked about like Cold Steal has
some interesting ideas, but like we didn't like the execution of the direction that
they went, but there's like some interesting threads there, and like this game
pulls from like quite a few of those interesting angles and threads. And I'm
like, Okay, I'm glad you explored this. But we'll discuss all of
that next recording, because like I really want to have this like on the
plate of Hey, we're done, and Rob and I are on the same
age about like the story. I mean, if they may end up being
a spoiler cast, I was gonna say, we might, we might as
well just do a separate spoiler cast for it and just go two hours or
trials. Yeah, that's fair. Well, we'll figure it out. We'll
see what other than Reverie. I have been on the side. I recently
obtained the analog pocket. That's a good device. Whatnot the analog pocket.
So what it is is, it's basically are you familiar with what a mystery
is, Ryan, I mean you talked about that on the podcast before.
Yeah, So a Mister is an FGPA or FPGA emulator where basically it's a
device is able to emulate hardware. So you those think it's like a game
Boy just about Yeah. So basically what it is is the analog pockets portable
Mystery. It's not as powerful as the Mister. Uh, it does not
play things like PlayStation And actually it was really cool as I found out they
got in sixty four running on Mister recently. Yeah, that's really really cool.
Uh. FPGA like tech is crazy to me, especially like how fast
they're developing it, because every time somebody talks about, well can we develop
this for Mister, and somebody's like, nah, noah, it's impossible,
it's just not within the capabilities of Mister, and then like two months later
it's on there like it's it's just a it's a time thing, like it's
gonna happen. Yeah, Like everybody's like, no, you'll never get PlayStation
on the Mister and Boom PlayStations on the Mystery. So for like nine games,
I'll never get in sixty four and the Mister Bowman sixty four is on
the mis game So I had the Analog of Pocket pre ordered it like back
sometime last year. I think, and I gotta say, this is a
really cool device. Not only like is it just an f FPGA device,
but it also is just an actual game Boy. It will play my actual
game Boy, game Boy Color and game Boy Advanced cartridges. I think that's
really fucking cool because like I hate every other like handheld system for whatever reason,
Like the game Boy Advance is like the perfect ergonomic factor for me,
but it's not backlet, and I tried making my own backlet game Boy and
it doesn't feel right because like it just doesn't fit well. And like the
game Boy Advanced sp is like way too small for my hands. Like the
Analog Pocket, despite being a little weird at first, it just it fits
my hand as like a portable to ice perfect. And not not only that,
like it's it gives me access to like playing my game Boy games like
in a comfortable way, I now have access to like a NES and Super
Nintendo and Second Genesis and like, let me just look at my cores,
real quick, Negos in there, Yeah, neogos in there, Turbographics,
Tribographic CD. I currently have game Boy Game War Color, game Boy Advance,
a NES, s NES Genesis, and Turbographic CD, and like these
games play flawlessly. Twenty five years I've been asking for like a fully functional
portable version of Super Mario RPG, and I finally have it on the years
being remade on Switch, but whatever, it's here, and like I've been
playing through games like and it's literally like I'm playing on the console, like
I played through all I'm megam an X. It feels great. I've been
really trying to test the special chip games from S and es, like the
games that had special chips on the cartridge, in order to like actually play
like I've been playing Yoshi's Island a lot on and you know, I've just
been playing occasionally, like before I go to bed or something like that,
just un till I go through a level or two, and like it runs
flawlessly. This device is such an amazing like little package, and the battery
life is insane. I haven't charged it yet since I got it. Yeah
here it's here. Yeah now Brant, and I'm at five percent, so
like we're finally there. But I've had it for at least like three weeks.
When was that hurricane supposed to hit? That was about three weeks ago
too, Yeah, so I've had it since then, and like it.
I haven't charged it since. And this thing like runs amazing. Hell yeah,
it's been like I've been flirting with this thing for I feel like ever
and like personally for me, like the use case isn't quite there. Like
I have plenty of devices where I like I can throw emulator on and I'm
fine with it. You know, steam deck works great for that. I
do that on there and a few other little knick knacks around here. But
there's something about like that form factor of the ndomlog plocket that it's really it's
really it's really nice, like I always hear about it. I've been here
about this thing forever in like I'm like, man, I like I just
don't want just to have it, you know, I get it. I
get it, and like in the screen is super Chris. The speakers sound
really good. I will say like the shoulder buttons took a little because the
first game I played on this was Mega man X, because I was like,
all right, I don't know a lot these shoulder buttons. I need
to play a game that forces me to use these shoulder buttons a lot.
And because I used dash on my r buttons in Mega man X, I
was like, that's going to force me to interact with these shoulder buttons a
fuck ton. And like I didn't like it at first, and then like
as I was getting further along in the game and like I was getting used
to it, I'm like, Okay, this is fine. Yeah, I
just had to kind of break it in a little bit. Yeah, pretty
much. But like it's such an amazing little device. I love it,
And like all you need is a Micro's D card and you're pretty much good
to go. And it's a USBC charger. It comes with its own cord.
You gotta buy a brick, which I mean bricks are down a dozen
these days. Yeah, and it fits in your pocket with Like That's why
I wanted it, is because I constantly complained about how we are in the
age of like portable consoles, but like they're handheld but they're not really portable
in my eyes, They're not pocket size. They're not like I cannot put
try as I might my switch or my steam dick in my pocket. Like
to me, a handheld device is something that I can get on a bus
if I have like a fifteen minute bus ride from like in front of my
house to like the grocery store or something like that. Maybe just like I'm
saying, I'm I am the king, I am the King of cargo pants,
and it's still like too fucking big for me. It came to your
growing up, didn't you. I mean, yeah, yeah, I need
to get like so whatever that have a huge Yeah, I remember the get
goes. I remember did you guys ever see the super Boy? Yes?
Yes, okay, because I remember wanting those, Like when I first heard
around it was a portable Superintendent. I was like, bro, this is
it. This is what I want. And then I fucking saw it,
and like I first saw it in an ad where like some it's the super
Boy in like a gene pocket and it just looks so fucking stupid, and
I'm like, oh no, that doesn't favorite pocket at all. So I'm
glad if I have this, because this fits in my pocket, my pocket.
It's perfect. Nice. But and you know, I've been playing some
tight, you know games on it. May man X. I could go
on about that game, how much I love that game. Probably one of
the best two D platformers ever made. Actually, that reminds me of another
game I can talk about that I recently played. I'll get to that.
But mayman X is mag man X is probably, in my opinion, the
best two D platform The game is incredible, excellent level design, excellent boss
designs. I never get tired of that game. I know that game by
heart, back to front, Like, I love that game so much.
Really glad that I can have it and play it anywhere in the world.
Now. Yoshi's Island is another game that you know, I grew up a
plane is excellent two D platformer. What I like about Yoshi's Island, I
will say this, Yoshi's Island is a game that since we're of the conversation
with difficulty, Yoshi's Island is a game that lets you choose your own difficulty
as you play the game. And I really appreciate it because the game itself
isn't necessarily that hard, right, It's it's definitely a platformer made for lower
skill levels, but like the level scoring system is there to like give you
a greater challenge should you want it, which I think is really cool.
So like it's it's it's kind of like Kirby in that sense, where Kirby
games also have like this sort of choose your own difficulty way of going about
it, where you can go into the game and like you can just play
the game of the game itself is pretty easy, but like once you start
wanting to like get everything there is in the game, the game gets harder
because now you have to go off a beaten path, or a game challenges
you with more like with trickier platforming challenges. To get like a collectible,
you need to get the perfect score on said level or something like that.
And I really appreciate my performers that do that because then like everybody can play
that game and then everybody can talk about that game, you know, And
so I wish I wish four games did that. In today's day and age,
I feel like there isn't like a sort of either games are like designed
with difficulty in mind of like we want to make this hard, like in
in Your Soul's Dain or something like that, where games are just like,
well, we just want you to enjoy the story, so here you go.
There's that middle ground's kind of gone, you know, it's it's there.
But yeah, I know what you mean. I I like seeing that
stuff in games, right, Yeah, and it's we're not where we should
be in that regard. I agree with you on that, but that's seeing
a lot of pocket and playing. Are talking about maga an ex REMADMI.
Are you saying played thirty xx? What's up thirty xx? Yeah, thirty
xx. The MegaMan X roguelike, Yes, I have. It's interesting.
I don't dislike it, but like, the first thing that I noticed when
I played it is that it looks like Mega man X, but it doesn't
feel like Mega MANX, And like that immediately just forced me to have like
a recoil sort of like reaction to it where I'm like, this looks like
something I really like, but it doesn't feel like getting Therefore, I don't
like that. Yeah, your brain is switching to like, oh, this
this should be this should be Mega man X, but it's not. Yes,
yes, And it's little things like the way you wall jump in the
game, like when you wall jump in Mega man X, there's like a
bit of resistance. Like this is why MegaMan X like the best game ever
and like why it's perfectly designed because it's thought of sucking everything. But like
when you jump off of a wall in Mega man X, there's like a
little bit of like resistance on like your jump, and like it feels like
you're kicking off of a wall and doing we're like in thirty x X,
Like it almost feels like a flash game so to speak, Like yeah,
you're doing a wall jump, but like there's no like physics or anything behind
it. You're kind of just like going up a wall and it just doesn't
feel as good. So and it's it's like things like I like hit stops
and feel as good in the game. And I mean like it's a rogue
light, so like yeah, I get it, but like you look like
something I love, but you're just a cheap imitation. Oh no, man,
not the cheap imitation. I don't know. And like it being a
rogue light also like kind of means like the like MegaMan, the Mega man
X games that I enjoy, I love because like their level design is really
cool. Drew said he's playing great value of Mega Man's exactly. I mean,
it's it's it's Mega man X at home, bro, That's what it
is. It's not it's not Doctor Pepper, it's Doctor Thunder, Jesus Christ
and so like, because it's a rogue light game. Like the level design
is not as complex because it's not design of becaus designed for you to like
run through as you're doing on and doing all at him? Is it randomly
generated? I think? So? Okay, gotcha. Yeah, so in
that case too, like you start kind of seeing the seams to the levels
as well, right, like he's this this block is clearly used here.
I know this room blah blah blah. Yeah, yeah, it stitched together.
So I mean that's all right, but I'm really feeling it. Also,
the zero character looks really lame in my opinion, The Zero character like
almost look like Zero, like straight up. Okay, it's been it's been
a while since since I looked at it, but I was like, I
remember looking at that game, and I was like, these are clearly not
Mega men and not Zero. I mean, I'm like, okay, he
he looks like Proto Man e XC in my opinion. Okay, or like
if you zero and got rid of his hair, and I think that's why
it looks bad. Okay, okay, but anyway, I digrass. I'm
sure there are people that like that game and find that game fun, and
I don't want to ran their parade. But the game's an imposter who said
I give us crash. It's great value, great value, make a man,
great value, make a man. You can't beat rains Man. Ray
Man X is good game. Anyway, ixt your favorite in the X series,
it's weird. I have this weird love for Mega Man X three because
growing up it was the first game that had zero playable and I've always loved
zero. So you would think like X three or X four would be my
favorite, but like X three does have like some issues in terms of like
I don't think the boss designs are is cool. I don't think the songs
are this. But I guess I would say, yeah, Mega Man X
is my favorite X game, despite like me really liking all of them.
I will always go back to Mega Man X and being like, yeah,
I know everything about this game, and like I will always have like the
dumbest grin on my face. Plane that game nice, that's cool? Oh
yeah, I think it'll be X four for me. But yeah, X
is good. Yeah, X four is really like, don't get me wrong,
X four is really fucking good. There was several, like several nights
where me and my friend, like I would spend the night over at my
friend's place because he had a PlayStation. We would rent X four and we
would trying to we would try to beat it. So like, I get
it. I'll have several hours longed away an X four. That game is
also incredible. Yeah, but I don't know. Just everything about X is
like the perfect package. I I think making me an next damn near a
perfect game. It's not a perfect game. Oh yeah, all right,
that's a good answer. I like that. I'm that's all he gots.
That was good, that's good. Touched on a lot of things. Then
it's all he's got. He had a lot. Uh what is on my
plate? So I uh to touch back earlier. I did finish the f
Stars Drew, You're not gonna kill me. I'm not gonna spoil the game
for you. I would at some point like to talk openly about that game,
so I highly I hope you get to it soon. I would like
to talk about it while it's like freshest in my mind because my memory is
awful no longer it takes to talk about things. It escapes me. But
I will say, like, at a high level, right, that game
is my favorite RPG that I've played this year. Now saying that, I
will say because like my other favorite RPG is Octopat Traveler too, right,
Like coming off of that high is really fucking good, I will say,
like I like the story of Octopat Traveler two more right, I think I
think that's a better written game overall, but I like but the rest of
the game, I like, see if Stars more I think it is it
is insanely charming. Like uh, like Ryan said earlier, in the way
like that a lot of other games haven't like captured or at least like big
budget like release titles have captured. Like the sprites are so expressive in a
way that like I can only describe as like when I think back to like
the first time I played like Chroma Trigger and you go into like the Centennial
Fair or whatever, and just like seeing like the characters like dancing or like
emoting really really well, right like in this like a dumb smile on my
face as I see the characters doing these things, like it evokes that like
perfect if I'm mad, if I'm yeah. So I've only played the demo,
the demo that was released time earlier this year, like March or April
or whatever, and like that was my experience based on like the two hours
that you get to play there, because the game evokes like, in my
opinion, three of my favorite RPG series or RPGs of Chroma Trigger, Super
Mario RPG, and Golden Sun, all of which have like this the special
unique charm that I haven't really seen a JRPG capture. And I think the
best way I can say that the kind of like sort of expresses that idea
is when I play rpg these nowadays, I realized that the games are just
hallways with monsters in there, and you travel from point A to point B.
Now that isn't to say that Chrono Trigger and Golden Sun and Super MARIOPG
are not bad, but those games felt far less like that when you're actively
playing it. There's something about those games and see If Stars as well that
you're kind of just like in it and like that game like really enraptures you.
Well because it's so charming. I don't know if that made any sense,
No, it makes sense. I don't know if I agree necessarily of
like the game stopped feeling like their hallways and that that maybe it's just me
because like the way that I play games, and I'm just break them down
to my head, like I can just see the scenes and that's just always
going to be there for me. But it's definitely like what plays into it
more for me is like the color palettes that are used. It is a
very bright and colorful game, right it is. Again, it is like
the way that the characters are emoting and expressing themselves is just like it's not
afraid to be goofy, right in a lot of ways that like games and
RPGs these days just like are kind of scared to do it. It is
weird at times, Like you think about the party members you get in like
chrona trigger, right, you get a frog with a sword, right,
Like that is excuse me that that is like weird, right, But it's
so cool looking, you know what I mean? And you get like that
same feeling out of party members you get in like Sea of Stars and stuff
like that, and every character has like a unique flare about them, like
from the way that they're running or the way that they're doing attacks, Like
every character is truly unique, and like there's a whimsical nature to it that's
just like it's something that can only be described out of the games that you
mentioned, right that, like other games don't really give you. I do
find myself getting caught up in the world and just like loving everything about it.
Like the music hits a very specific era as well. That does it's
really fucking cool. Like you could tell me this game came out in nineteen
ninety six and I would be like, yes, it did. Like it's
it fits so perfectly in that very specific era that it is wild to me
in a way that like a lot of these other games that like on the
surface are like, yeah, this is a sprite game, this is cool,
but it's still like a twenty twenty three game, Like this is very
much a nineteen ninety six game, and like the best way as possible,
and that that is such a hard thing to capture. The battle system I
mentioned earlier, it is my favorite battle system I think period right now.
It's really fucking cool that like it has the break system of like an Octopass
traveler, But it's only when enemies are like casting abilities, right, So
it's not something that like you can constantly break them, like you're going to
be forced to like take attacks out of enemies or sometimes like multiple enemies are
preparing attacks at once and you're like you have to come to that decision of
like which one am I going to break? Like what's the brake order here?
And can I even break them all? Right? Which one am I
going to take on the chin? So like there's a priority system you have
to kind of like think about when you look at the monsters that are popping
up on the screen. The timed hit nature of it is really good too,
Like every not every ability, I will I will say most abilities have
like a timing thing to them, and they're for the most part, like
all different and unique, and it may it's a pretty huge difference, especially
like on defense, but it's also done in a way where it doesn't feel
punishing if you can't get it right. Well, well let me not say
not punishing, but like for people that have trouble timing things, you can
still complete this game, like they're still like you can use your items to
heal yourself and blah blah blah and all these other ways to like stay in
the fight. But if you are good at that timing stuff, then like
you're going to get a lot out of this. And there is also like
a relic system in the place where like you find these items to like customize
the difficulty to your liking, which I think is very cool. So like
you can tighten that up and make this experience like way more like challenging,
like these time hits have to fucking matter or I Am going to die,
And I think that stuff is very cool as well. So we talked about
you talked about difficulty and customizing it a little earlier, and like this game
does that, and I think like future runs of this game, like a
new game plus run of this game that I am thinking about doing when I
get some time, it is going to be like really fucking cool. There's
quite a few like fun little mini games in here too. Again, like
the game is not afraid to be goofy when when it needs to be.
I was very I wasn't sure what to expect out of the story. And
again I'm not going to go into spoilers or anything like that, but I
was very surprised at like the angle that they went with, and once I
understood like what they were doing, I was like, I'm I'm kind of
on board for this. I don't think it hits one hundred percent everywhere,
but I think it hits where it needs to and that really fucking and it's
really cool. And I was emotional several times throughout this game, both like
for like sad reasons and also for like happy reasons, and it's just like
you took me through the whole fucking range of emotions throughout this journey. So
yeah, that that's kind of all I can say without like digging too too
deep. Maybe we're dying, well, yeah, right and dying. Maybe
we'll be able to do a store the Cast one of these days for it.
I'm very curious to see how how you like a certain character, Drew.
I've been having to look back and forth with with a few of my
friends, and I think there's like a there's a little contention point around a
character here. I want to see where you fall on it. This is
Joe of the Adrian. He was mentioning it is one that he does not
like, and it's it's very very interesting. The conversations I have around it.
Ah, so yeah, that that's CFTRS. I think that game is
excellent. I highly recommend everybody go play. It is on game Pass if
you if you have that service, you can go go play it there.
If not, I think it's like thirty bucks or something like that. A
physical version of the game comes out next year if you want to wait on
a physical version of it. And and yeah there is for anybody that's played
The Messenger. There are like nods to that game in here as well,
which I find very interesting and also makes me want to go back. Is
it the same developer or something? Yes, yes, same developer in the
same world. It's the same universe. So See Stars is technically a prequel.
Okay, Messenger, I'm still playing the game. I'm still playing the
game right then, yeah, right, And it's it's something that's not it's
not like you have to play The Messenger to understand See If or vice versa.
Right that there there is a through line between these games, but it
is not like super important. But it's very cool. It's one of those
if you know, you're just like I see and it's it's really cool.
How how they how they did that. There's future DLC that's coming out for
it that goes into that link between the games a little more in more detail,
which I'm very very curious to see how that goes. But it did
leave me wanting to like replay through the Messenger with like some new context in
my head and see how it plays out. H So, yeah, that
that's sef Stars. It's two hundred percent that game. So I went out
of my way to get all the achievements. Like I love that game that
much. I am missing one achievement which requires me to do a new game
plus not a full run, but I do have to, like, uh,
I have to fight ten bosses with a specific like difficulty setting on basically,
and it's it's it's a thing that you don't want to lock until like
later in the game. So it's like you might as well just do on
a postgame run. So I'm gonna do that at some point. It's probably
gonna run me an additional like four or five hours to get the achievement to
do all those bosses. But for the most part, if you want to
do everything, it's I finished it in forty hours. That is me going
at a casual pace. I was not like rushing through the game. If
you just want to like mainline it. It is like twenty to twenty five,
so it is not like a huge time investment for an RPG. But
there's also a lot of content in there if you want to do it,
which that was also a thing I was very surprised at because I know they're
gunning for like a shorter game, but as I was playing through it,
I'm like, there's a lot of quests in here, there's a lot of
collectibles in here. There's a lot of stuff packed into this little video game,
and it never felt I never felt like my time was wasted. I
had a smile on my face the entire time. It's every fight was always
kept me engaged. So yeah, the fantastic game. Can't can't sing enough
praises for it. I So I'm playing Ever Crisis, the Final Fans seven
mobile game. Oh yeah, that officially dropped earlier during recording he downloaded it.
Now. You have approximately eleven days to get the swimsuit outfits for the
summer outfit. I should say they have lifeguard Tifa and they have a nice
swimsuit for Earth that I think is very cute. Right thirteen has a Hawaiian
jacket, which I think is or yeah yeah, which is very very cute.
That's fantastic. And Cloud looks like he's just came out of Kingdom Hearts,
which is also very funny. They should have given them a seke quay.
Every Crisis is a cool little package. It's a cool package that is
like suffering from Square and X Mobile game syndrome. So like anybody that's played
a Square and X Mobile game will know like how heavy they try to push
my coel transactions and it is like all over this video game. There's like
four different like battle passes that you can buy if you want to. There's
like a weekly pass that you can buy, two different weekly passes you can
buy every time you clear like a chapter or two. There's like a limited
time like offer that pops up that's just like, hey, what if you
spend ten dollars to get like these materials? And if it is so funny
looking at it, and I'm just like, can y'all stop? But the
game itself is cool. I do really like the visual style of it.
It has like these Chibu chibi characters sprites that are re enacting the events of
Final Fantasy seven Crisis Core as well as like news story from the First Soldier,
which was the Battle Royale game that they tried to do that that got
shut down, but was supposed to be a game that was centered around learning
about the beginnings of Soldier and getting more into like Shinra's history, right,
So there was some lower bits that was supposed to be really good with that
game had that game actually taken off. But they they've given that stuff like
a second chance at life through this game, which I think is pretty cool
to try to salvage some of that stuff. So going through the story bits
for like FF seven has been like kind of like a nostalgia trip. It's
it, it looks great. I really wish they did like a full just
FF seven remake in this style, you know, like o g F seven,
because it looks in and mats like so well. Rewatching the Crisis Core
content in this style as well has been a treat. And the new characters
they added for the First Soldier the original characters, I think they SQUANNX did
those characters dirty with the marketing, so you have I believe the characters names
are It's Glenn, it's Matt and Lucia. I think her name is Damn.
They getting basic ass names. They're basic ass names. And the funny
thing is like they're they're basic as names. And then when you look at
the official artwork for them as well, they're just like basic like shinra officer
outfits as well, and you're just like, who the fuck are these jokerstic
like like they look like they're just like you know how when when you play
a mobile game, this use like the rares, the srs and the SSRs
and the rare so are just like trash like throwaway character, Like they look
like they're just rare throwaway trash characters. Right. But the funny it is,
when you do the first chapter for them, one of the first things
that happens, like they get into a plane crash because they're set out on
a mission to try and find a new location to install make or reactors,
right, and this is like one of their first big missions as a team.
Glenn, who's like the leader of this group, is like the first
time he's being put in charge as a leader. He's a very goofy character,
like very much a Jodan protagonist style character, which he's actually he's actually
pretty good. They get into a plane crash. They crash on this like
island or whatever, and one of the first things they do is they change
other their uniforms into something more like, uh, something better basically, right,
like something that makes them look like an actual character. And I'm like,
why doesn't the character art artwork that they promote these carts with reflect this
look, right, it will be far more interesting, right, So,
Like Glenn has like this big red, like poofy jacket basically like look at
like an anime protagonist, like this giant ass metal site that he that he
has. Lucia has like a really cool like purple top that she has on,
and stuff like that. Matt's in like a camel military gear, Like
it looks way more interesting than just like standards soldier uniform a you know,
like daan, y'all did this catch is dirty? And the more that I
play in that chapter, I really do like those characters. They're they're a
very goofy bunch, but overall, like I'm enjoying the game for the most
part. Again, like the micro transaction stuff is like a little, uh,
a little annoying. I think they're their costume Gotcha is not as bad
as Niqus, but it is quite awful in its own right. I was
gonna say, like, you found something worse than Nique. I want to
hear this. There's nothing worse than There is nothing worse than Niques. But
this is like as close if a line as you could probably get. At
least you have a chance of getting them on the first roll. If you
want Nika, you have to get it at least five rolls in before they
give you the opportunity to try and get Yeah. Yeah, But how it
works here is you have the summer banner going on right now, Right,
there's two banners, and each banner has two characters. So I'll use Tifas
as an example because that's the first one that started. So you have Lifeguard
Tifa and you have Hawaiian Red. Right, every banner has like a stamp
card that goes with it. Okay, when you do a ten roll on
the banner to try and get like the character weapons, you get a stamp.
Collect enough stamps, you get the costume. All right, you get
the pick which costume you get first? Right, so you can set the
order basically, and how it works is like you get six stamps, you're
guaranteed the weapon, and then if you get six more stamps, you get
the costume. So you can set whether or not you red stuff first or
you want teefa stuff first. Okay, you only get stamps for ten rolls.
Single rolls do not count at all. That's when they get you,
all right, So you have to do ten rolls, and then you have
another gutche that plays out where it rolls a dice on how many stamps you
get per ten poll. Right, so if you're lucky, you can roll
the dice and get twelve stamps on the first roll and then get your cost
him. Right, that is like a point five percent chance. You're probably
not kidding that. On average you're probably getting like two, right, But
sometimes you'll get one. You'll just get one stamp and you're like, well,
funk I didn't go anywhere, And then next role you get two,
and then you're like okay, and then you're back to get them like one.
You're like fuck this. So yeah, you can see how that gets
awful pretty quickly, right, But again, you have the chance at least
to get it in one or two rolls if you're good, Unlike Nika where
you have to go at least five, So it's a it's a goofy system.
It's not great. They're overlapping banners very quickly, right, so like
you had Tifa's banner started I think like a week ago, no, two
weeks ago actually, and it runs until the twenty eighth, and then halfway
through that banner, so starting like this past week, they were like,
hey, now we're throwing in Earth and Cloud on the second banner and you're
like, I didn't even have a chance to recover the gems. I just
spent, you know, and they're like, ha ha, we don't care,
open up the wallet, son of a bitch. And then that's right
off the heels of them doing like Samurai Cloud like, which was a banner
right before that. So it's like there's no breathing room between these banner changes.
And if that's a sign of like what they're going to do in the
future, which I mean this again, this is a Square Next mobile game.
This is to be expected. That's pretty whack in my you know,
at least give players a chance to like build up some resources between the stuff,
not buy it buy it right now right the second but it's It's cool
though. If you do get the costumes, they do come with like passive
buffs for characters, but they're not like game breaking or anything like that,
so it's not like a real necessity or anything. It's more important to get
the weapons because weapons gives you new abilities, new active abilities to use in
battle. That makes sense. I mean, I have tifas and I'm halfway
through error, so I understand. And you can also, uh, they
also have the Transmarck feature, right, so like you can use one outfit
and then just have the visual style of another, right if you just want
the benefits of it, And that works for both costumes as well as your
weapons as well. So if you have a weapon skin that you really like
and you have it in your inventory, you can just skin that over whatever
you're actually using, which I think that is very cool. I think every
game should have that option of just like at least giving you an appearance of
what you like, you know, So that's a cool thing. I think
the attacks and everything, like the animation and actual battles is really good.
I like the way all the limit breaks and stuff work looks and animates.
So I'm conflicted on it ultimately, right, because I think the mobile game
part of it is pretty egregious at times, but you also don't have to
interact with that side of it that much. And if you want to just
like go through the story parts of it, which I think is very good,
then you're you're kind of just free to do. So it's not very
hard to do all the content or get enough levels to do the little content.
So yeah, I also think it's very cool that they give you all
the characters up front, so you're not never rolling for characters, so you
can just make a party of whoever you want and just run through the content.
So I think that's pretty cool. So that's that's Ever Crisis. I
look forward to more content for that game because I know it's gonna touch on
Before Crisis, which was the Turks game at some point, and they said
they want to go through like the entire compilation of Fence at seven. So
seeing some of the other stuff done in this way, they're probably gonna touch
on Advent Children, and I'm sure they're gonna do darger Servius might be very
cool to see. Uh Lastly, I think lastly, yeah, yeah,
I don't have to go into too much other stuff. I did start Starfield
today. I'm like an hour and a half into it. Not too much
to say on that front. I'm just I'm not big, but that's the
games person like they're there RPGs in particular, So I'm not a Fallout guy.
I don't really do the Elders scrolls very often, like I I historically,
I've never finished Skyrim. I've watched people finished that game. I've only
done like one storyline through it, which was like the University, I think,
and I was like, Okay, I'm done. That's what I've touched
me basically, right, Like I get my fill out of their games and
then I'm like, cool, I'm moving on. I never feel compelled to
like finish them. Like I started, like Fallout New Vegas. I played
like probably like ten hours of that game, and I was like, I
got my fill and then I watched my friend play through all of it.
Right. Fallout four was very similar to that. I played a bunch of
Moro Winds, but like never finished Moro wind and I expect Starfield to be
very much the same. And it's a game that largely I would have ignored
if there wasn't like a lot of talk about it. Like it is considered
to be like one of the bigger releases this year, so like my brain
tells me, hey, you should at least like look at this thing.
So that's kind of what I'm doing. I hear that there's some cool narrative
stuff to it that like it's really what's driving me here that like the gameplay
and the narrative like do a cool thing together. And I'm always a sucker
when like gameplay affects gameplay like directly is involved with like the narrative, right.
It's it's something that like only video games can do when telling a story.
So you think about like Yoko Taro games and stuff like that, and
not to say, like this game is like goes in those spaces like Yoko
Taro and his wild imagination and gameplay philosophy. But I hear it does cool
things in that vein, you know, and I want to see that.
So we'll see if I get that far in. If not, you know,
I'll probably put in like ten fifteen hours and then watch a play through
and see see what's up. But I'll say, like the first hour,
I'm pretty like all right about it. I think the gun play so far
is pretty good, right, So at least that part is is engaging enough.
It's way more men you driven in terms of like traveling between planets,
So it's not a what's what's the other? No, it's not a no
Man's sky where you're just like really taking off from one planet and like flying
to another. It's more like you take off on a planet, you get
to fly around like the area of that planet, like this part of the
Solar System or whatever, and then you like hyper jump to another location and
then you can fly around another planet and then just like menu yourself like and
zone into that planet if you want to. So it's not like this big,
huge open area is just like more like smaller self contained areas, which
I found interesting because I felt like the game was like hyping itself to almost
be a No Man Sky kind of game, and it's not that at all.
It's not bad, and I think like the ship combat stuff is actually
pretty good. But it's not as open world in that way that I thought
it was going to be. But the planet seemed pretty large there there there.
It's open in that regard, so there's a lot to explore once you're
in the planets and stuff. It's just more of the space exploration is like
not what I thought it was going to be, so I'll have more impressions
on that. It is one of those games where I hear it takes a
long time to get going, right. So, like when people are like,
you know, develop that Starfield does really get good until the post gamely
stayed in saying oh really, A lot of people tell me, like a
lot of people tell me that narrative picks up like after ten ish hours,
which I mean coming off of like trails games and RPGs, I'm like,
okay, sure, I'll put in the hours here. Here's uh, here's
what the quote is from Pete Hines. Starfield doesn't really get going until you
finish the main quest. Nice good quote there, So I will not be
invested by time to the game, right, I mean with Bethesta games,
there is there's like a couple of things I expect with bethest game. Yes,
I expect them to be about game mass at the very beginning, giving
me great pleasure out of the Twitter clips that I will see. Did did
Bethesta do Dragon Age or is that no? That's that's by the way,
Yeah, okay, because I'm trying to think of like the spinning like in
large Head, and I think that's dragon age. I've ever shown you that
Clips in fact had some buggy stuff to it, but that's also biaware,
Like yeah, yeah, that's okay, okay, I'll find that club for
you later on. But that's the games are known for being buggy. Yes
they are. Yeah, I had several bugs and they're always a joy to
watch on Twitter clips. I am genuinely interested in Field. However, I
don't have time to play that game, understandable. It's a big commitment.
Yeah, I mean that's the thing about you know, games, they typically
are a big commitment. But like the big as as, I have a
friend who has played pretty much all of their releases and they're like, I'll
probably play it. I probably won't beat it, but I'll have fun with
what I've played. Yeah, yeah, that's I think that's like me for
these games right where it's like I'm gonna play it, I'm gonna have fun
for a you know, eight to ten hours or whatever, and then like
I'm good. You know. That's like I personally ever beat fall Out three.
It's pretty much how I did it, Like I made a run on
ten Penny Tour and fallow Out three and where like I literally killed everybody in
there because I actually shot the guy at the channel, so I fight my
way back down and like that will always stick with me. It's like one
of my most fun moments in gaming. And I was like, all right,
I never beat that game, but fall three does like occupy a space
with my brain. I think about that game. Yeah, and that's cool.
There's nothing wrong with that. I mean, so I did with elden
Ring. I never ever beat that game, but yeah, I fell out
of that and that was sitting or anything. Yeah, video games can exist
for you that way. You know, you don't have to finish everything.
As long as you get some some sort of entertainment out of it, then
I think it did its job on that Pete Hines quote. I think especially
for Betta games in general. Yeah, but as the games, a lot
of like the things people tend to latch onto isn't even like the main scenario
stuff. It's usually a lot of the side content and the side stories in
those games, just like other things you're getting into. So when he says
something like that, I'm like, yeah, that probably bly tracks because most
people are probably going to like blitz through the main campaign or whatever, or
if not blitz through it, it's more of like the side adventures rather than
the main campaign that people are getting into. Sure, so I could I
could see that in some way for those games. Yeah, that makes sense.
It is a funny quote though, it's pretty funny. It's quite funny.
But yeah, so well we'll see. The character creator in that game
is actually pretty good too. There are a couple of black people hair files
in there that I'm like, all right, y'all did a little bit of
homework. Yeah, y'all get like a be from me. They try,
you know, yeah, yeah, they tried more than other places. Yeah,
yeah, you could a solid B for me, maybe B plan.
No, that's a blid solid B. I like how you had to like
regree, like like I hadn't think about it for me because, like I
remember, I was cycling through the like the dread options, and they have
two dread options, and I was like, okay, that's more than most
games. That's two more than most games. Yea, And they looked pretty
good. It's just they weren't long enough, was like A, And I
was like, y'all have good short dread options, like one's a very messy
look, and then the other one's like tied back, and then you have
like the shaved sides, And I was like, this looks good. I
mean, y'all are y'all are scared to do long options though? I mean,
it could be two thousand and four Rob early, it could be,
it could be absolutely, it is absolutely either two thousand four Rob or two
thousand twelve Rob. Both of those Robs had short dreads. Yeah, uh
so that that's gonna be my role play. This is young Rob in space.
This is this is before the time skip, but before the time skip
exactly future before time skip arc. Yes. When you're creating you a character,
you get to choose like a bunch of different background options, which like
changes some stuff around in the game in like gameplay, Like there's there's different
gameplay actions as well as some narrative stuff that can change based on the background
you choose. So like, for example, there's one where you are I
think you're called a cyber runner. I think it is where you're like a
person that is good at like picking locks and stuff like that. You're like
a cyber terrorist basically, Okay, And I think that's the one that puts
like a bounty on your head or something like that. One of these options
puts like a bounty on your head, so you're more prone to be ambushed
by like bounty hunters, you know, So that could like change your game
play up a little bit more. Right. There's one that I find very
funny. That's like you have like a good relationship with like your parents,
so like for some reason, you're constantly like sending money back to your folks,
right, like every week that passes by or whatever, like you send
two percent of your money back to your your family. And there's like a
whole storyline around your family if you choose that option. And I think I
heard one person who was playing it was like, yeah, then all of
a sudden, my family, like my mom and dad showed up on like
my spaceship or whatever, and now they're just like with me at all times,
and it's kind of annoying. And I was like, yeah, that's
what parents do. That's yeah, it's all right. So I'm like,
Oh, these these things actually like have some effect on the overall gameplay,
and I think that that's kind of cool. So I wonder, like I
wonder how the combination of those things. You get to pick three different background
choices, So I wonder like how the combination of choices will play out for
different people. Like I'm very curious to see like different people's impressions based off
what they picked and how different of an experience that is for people. It's
interesting they got creative that way though. Yeah. Yeah, you get to
like really get into like the role play aspect of it, right, And
then they also give you like different passive abilities too, so like those one
that I pick that gives me better better abilities with with firearms instead of melee
weapons, and you know you get into that stuff too. So yeah,
sorry, Field, it's pretty all right so far. Well, we'll see
how far I get into it. But I think that's all I want to
talk about this week. Wait, no, one, last quick thing,
quick thing, quickly. The demo for the demo for Stars and two remake
is out on all platforms. I did, but I played on PC.
Yes, they're doing a Stars and two remake that comes out in a couple
of weeks. Now remember second November second, Okay, so we have a
little over a month. That's cool. That gives me time. They it's
more of like almost that HDTV style, but just like way more like turned
up to like a fifteen Uh. It's I was taken aback by how pretty
this game is in motion, like in in not the trailers do not do
that game justice, and those trailers are already very pretty. It's really good,
y'all. I was bln on Switch. I'm curious. I didn't even
think to try it on Switch, but I mean the demos out, so
I might as well try it and say, I imagine it's probably locked at
like thirty FPS or something like that. Shout out, and I'm gool.
Now. The options in that game is really cool. It's it's kind of
what you want a remaster remake to be because it does honor a lot of
like the original release as well. So like you can pick between three different
art styles in the game, right, do you want the original, do
you want the PSP version of the game artwork? Or do you want the
new artwork? Right? Same thing with and I thought this was actually insane,
Well not this part, but you can also do the same thing with
the music as well, though s t. You can pick original, you
can pick new, and go through whichever go is to you. Like the
best you can have it, but they did it with the voiceovers as well,
right, So you can have the PSP voice overs if you want,
or you can have the new rerecorded lines, right. And I know for
the Japanese version they went out of their way to get the original vas.
I don't know if the English is the same. I think it is,
but I'm not entirely sure. What's crazy, though, is that you can
do it on a character by character basis, right, So, like I'm
playing through it and I kind of don't like new Claude's voice. I'm playing
another Japanese It's it's a little more softer in the newer recording, and it
just like sounds weird to me. So like I switched it over to the
PSP version and I'm like, this sounds better to me. But I'm keeping
the other characters for their new recording. And that is such a wild option
to have in this game. I think it's very cool they didn't have to
do that. I appreciate it now that I'm like fiddling around with it,
But yeah, I wanted to highlight that. I don't know if it's feasible
for like every game to do that, right, that does seem like quite
a bit of work, and I'm pretty sure that depends on how like they
recorded the lines and how it's programmed and all that. But it would be
very cool if like people take notice of that and like start to implement stuff
like that into their remaster's remix, because I think the more of like the
original title you have, you give you should give the players a chance to
like at least play the original on top of what's new, you know,
like try to have like this complete package of a game, like this should
be the definitive version of a game, and the closer you can get to
that, the better. And I think this game, at least in like
the audio and like some of the artwork respects gets you there. Right,
You can't do anything about like the actual like end game visuals. Right,
it's not going to give you supposedly it runs at thirty added tests, it
lies Okay, okay, I'll stick to pieces. I'll get it on PlayStation.
But yeah, that that game is great. It feels great. I'm
very much looking forward to it. It is a demo like like some of
the other Square US releases, actually where your your save data carries over to
the main game. They I find it really funny because like they whenever games
do this right, they usually let you play the demo for like as long
as you want, right, this one is a time demo. They're giving
you three hours, and there's a whole bunch of other ways that they like
limit you so that you don't like power level yourself before the game is out.
So it's like they're like, once you hit your your level capped,
like your money capped. You're like you can't do certain things after like you
finish the main scenario for the demo. It's so funny the list of like
they put on you. So they do that or I was like, yeah,
you get three hours of play, but once you get everything you can.
Once you get everything, you might as well not play this anymore.
Like don't try to fucking grind this shit out before the game comes out,
because it's not gonna work. I mean, I guess that kind of makes
sense. Yeah, it just made me laugh seeing it. I was like,
dude, that's really funny. Boot up the game your level one hundred
and you're like, hey, listen, I played that demo. I played
that demo for like ninety nine hours, Like I'm reading it I got,
Yeah, say I go check that out. If you got time time to
speed run these first five levels, let's go. But yeah, that's it.
I'm going to try to focus on what's next on my play is.
I'm focusing on Live A Live like I did start that. Me and Drew
had this arrangement. I was like, I'm going to move Live Live up
on my list. In return, you have to play I Fire Rush.
So I await you one day playing that game. I started to Live Live.
I started with the Prehistoric era. My boy Pogo, he's trying to
get those prehistoric cheeks. I understand. I look forward to playing more of
that game. So some thing's never change. Listen, man, prehistoric or
not. That's it. I'm hopping back into Armored Corps six. I hope
to have that game finished by the next recording, or at least like one
or two of the endings by that, because I know there there's three different
endings, three different routes for that game. So I'm gonna try my best
there. And then I'm hopping back into Baldin's Gate three because I put that
on hold while I finish all these other RPGs and stuff. So I'm hopping
back in there, and I hope to have that finished in a relatively quick
fashion. But that is a long game, so who knows. We do
have no Yoda coming up as well, so hopefully I choose day out.
It is Tuesday, maybe I can knocks up the out before. I mean,
I gotta, I gotta, I gotta wait for my copy to arrive,
so oh great, that buys me more time because I'm gonna start Winter
starting so well, and then I have to look. I actually haven't looked
into this because it came to my mind that both Zero and Al were better
on Switch than they were on PlayStation. So I'm wondering if that's maybe the
case, or they were better on Switch than PlayStation really for Zero on AL.
Yeah, remember how the PlayStation versions didn't have like all the the upgrades,
So that's right, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right, You're
right, You're right. I forgot about that. M I bet now it
is going to be the same. It seems to be a record. Mean,
so I may just go to game Stop on Tuesday and buying an you
let me know what you do. That will inform me on what I do.
Well, I mean, I still got to play the Messenger before see
stars happens and unlock multiplayer in Armory Corps. I mean, I gotta beat
Reverie first. Sounds like you can do so much. You got some work.
It's not like I haven't been trying. You know what my playtime is
currently in Reverie. I was gonna guess one six day, hundred forty granted
twenty of those hours is from the casinos. What's really like hundred twenty tracks?
Tracks? That's in less than a month. Those casinos will get yeah
big. But anyway, let's get out of here. It is almost midnight.
I got I got video games to play? Uh? Right, Rob,
where can people find you? And all the cool things that you did?
Uh? Let's see how where do I want to point people? I
just Twitter RB draws. That's where I post all my art account stuff and
like all my artwork and anything. So like, it's been a while since
I've done anything though, because I've been kind of, like like I said,
focused on getting things ready for the Herby Con show that's at the end
of the month and anything. So I really haven't had a chance to start
anything new, although I am trying to start something new I'm trying to get
myself to get something going. But yeah, just the other things are kind
of take a priority right now. But yeah, that's pretty much where you
can find me RB draws, That's where you can follow me at. If
you would like being Strew stiffer, how about you find me on You can
find me on Twitter at JSB totally Drew. I don't know what I've been
tweeting lately. I hate the word causality. That was my last tweet,
remove causality from all anime and RPGs. Bro Anime and Jared Gess just made
mehave that word. I see that word and my eyes roll so far back
into my head. I love that. I love to hate that. Uh.
You can find me on on Twitter though due to uh some some issues
with the causality uh it is now called so you can find me on X
and our Heroes. It saved us from this X nightmare and return it to
Twitter at zenos ka z and os uk e where I have been retweeting just
a lot of artwork, a lot of good artwork. So yeah, I
did. I did tweet just recently earlier today actually that I'm trying to get
into more manga lately. There's been a lot of not new releases, but
there's been a lot of stuff that's been crossing my timeline lately that seemed very
interesting. And I'm very bad about like reading manga and sitting down to do
that, but there's been a lot of a lot of stuff I've seen that
are just like completed series, not ongoing, that seemed very interesting. So
I'm gonna try to make it a point to like read more, hopefully like
a volume every couple of days of something. I don't know how, I
don't know how well i'll do that, like if I'll stick to that as
hard as I can, but you know, I'm gonna try. At the
very least, I've been trying to watch more anime. I've been trying to
play more games, and now I'm trying to throw manga into the mix and
get more into that as well. So if I have any cool impressions,
I'll throw them up on there. And with that, thank you guys for
listening, Thank you as for being here. We will talk to you guys
in two week, probably three actually, because we have Bio Taku and then
we have Carby Khan, and it depends on how we feel after coming back
from that, so we'll we'll keep you posted. But the next episode is
gonna be very fun because I think we're gonna have both Chase and Cats on
the next one. So that's going to be a wild ride for sure.
That's gonna be that's gonna cause a causality of all kinds of Let's talk to
you next time by later, Ah