Speaker 1: Ah ah.
Speaker 2: Of you.
Speaker 1: Okay man, what what's so funny? You've got fun Factor
Speaker 1: Two old gamers reviewing old video game magazine reviews. I'm
Speaker 1: Ty Shelter, He's Aiden Moher, and we're two professional writers
Speaker 1: who grew up loving the video games and video game
Speaker 1: magazines of the nineteen eighties, nineteen nineties, and two thousands.
Speaker 1: Every episode we take a critical look back on the
Speaker 1: games media that, for better and for worse, inspired us
Speaker 1: to do what we do. First, go to funfactor pod
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Speaker 1: Leave us a rating review on iTunes, Spotify, or or
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Speaker 1: us spread the word shut us out on blue Sky,
Speaker 1: at funfactor pod dot com and everywhere else at fun
Speaker 1: Factor Pod. Oh boy, Ty, I've been waiting for this moment.
Speaker 3: On today's episode, we're gonna discuss another one of the
Speaker 3: most beloved games of.
Speaker 1: All time, another one, another one. Can you believe it?
Speaker 3: We've done Halo. I've got another Doom episode cooking for
Speaker 3: the future. You know, can't have too many of those.
Speaker 3: We can never have too many Doom episodes. And of course,
Speaker 3: we covered a bunch of personal favorites last season, like
Speaker 3: Krono Trigger and Carnage Heart. Carnage Heart with issue one
Speaker 3: to five a game Former, which is still in January
Speaker 3: two thousand and two, we have not left the very
Speaker 3: first month of this of this new season's timeframe. We're
Speaker 3: finally covering a game I love to talk about and
Speaker 3: very publicly dislike against public sentiment, It's.
Speaker 1: Final Fantasy X. We'll get my thoughts on. We'll get
Speaker 1: to my thoughts and on soon. Yeah, yeah, I intend to.
Speaker 1: And two's a whole different thing.
Speaker 3: I wanted to ask Ty, like, what are some popular
Speaker 3: games that just didn't work for you personally?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's funny because, like we've said, part of my
Speaker 1: whole thing, my fascination with critique and games media, especially
Speaker 1: at this time, is discovering my own taste, discovering taste
Speaker 1: as a concept, you know, like what is objectively good
Speaker 1: and what is like what I like and what I
Speaker 1: don't like? Right, So I there, you know, I didn't
Speaker 1: buy games that I didn't think I would, at least
Speaker 1: like if not love and I figured that out. But
Speaker 1: there were a lot of popular games around this time
Speaker 1: and game franchises we've talked about before, and I don't
Speaker 1: want to linger too more long on the ones I've
Speaker 1: already talked about a lot, but like you know, Virtue
Speaker 1: a fighter for me, where the hook is like realism, ye,
Speaker 1: but the graphics couldn't be less realistic, you know, like
Speaker 1: just graphically it was just so is to look at,
Speaker 1: and the designs weren't interesting to me, and like they're like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, theoretically there's all this like depth and realism,
Speaker 1: but like yeah, okay, too normal looking people trying to
Speaker 1: do like real judo moves on each other. It's just
Speaker 1: like that's not a video game to me, even if
Speaker 1: it was perfectly realistic or photo realistic, which the new
Speaker 1: leaked Virtual Fighter video like wow, yeah that looks great,
Speaker 1: Bease are a little more interesting, but like for me,
Speaker 1: I just this is just no same thing. I think
Speaker 1: fighting games must be hit or miss for me, because
Speaker 1: I was thinking about this and Teken was another one
Speaker 1: where I was like, okay, so this looks repellent. It's
Speaker 1: two D fighting with three D graphics. The camera, especially
Speaker 1: tech in one, where like the camera angle would just
Speaker 1: like swing around and smash cut from angle to angle.
Speaker 1: You know, you're playing all of a sudden the cameras
Speaker 1: just from another angle. I'm like, okay, that looks dramatic
Speaker 1: in a fighting movie, but like, I can't play this
Speaker 1: game this way. So I detested Techon. I know lots
Speaker 1: of people love Tecan, but like.
Speaker 3: To me, I just Techan is one of the few
Speaker 3: fighting franchises that I like enjoyed quite a bit.
Speaker 1: On the PlayStation.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, but probably for the exact opposite reasons. A
Speaker 3: lot of people, like you're liked it or disliked it,
Speaker 3: Like I liked that it was kind of mashy and
Speaker 3: chaotic and like.
Speaker 1: Sure but sure yeah, And I'll say I still haven't
Speaker 1: given Dragon Quest a real shot, oh because I just
Speaker 1: can't get away from you know, and as much as
Speaker 1: I like to be oh, like, I like gameplay, you know,
Speaker 1: like back at this time. This was the big thing
Speaker 1: gameplay like interactivity, like that's the real thing is you know,
Speaker 1: the focus on graphics is yeah, is too. But like
Speaker 1: also like I want to be inspired to play a game.
Speaker 1: I want to spend time in the world. I want
Speaker 1: to find the character it's interesting and intriguing. And like
Speaker 1: Dragon Quest, maybe I got spoiled by starting with Chrono Trigger,
Speaker 1: but like you know, because that was like really my
Speaker 1: introduction too JRPGs. Like I look at Dragon Quest, and
Speaker 1: every dragon Quest ever makes me just go wow, this
Speaker 1: looks like shitty Chrono Trigger, Like it just looks like
Speaker 1: like like like you know, here's all these characters, you know,
Speaker 1: minakes and stuff, and they put out the oh people
Speaker 1: like oh that's my boy discount Goku and like the
Speaker 1: oh my girls discount Goku.
Speaker 3: It was They're designed by Toria No I know, like
Speaker 3: like right, well, and that's I think that's why I
Speaker 3: like I like Chrono Trigger because so many of the
Speaker 3: designs are like Okay, Toriyama gave us the starting point
Speaker 3: and then we built on it, versus like Okay, this
Speaker 3: is just Toriyama doing this Toriyama thing, and like all
Speaker 3: non dragon Balls, like I like I love dragon Ball,
Speaker 3: but like a lot of non Dragonball Toriama stuff is
Speaker 3: sometimes like, you know, it's wildly hit or missed for me,
Speaker 3: whether it's like, oh, this is just Toriyama cranking out
Speaker 3: his thing and all the Dragon Quest character designs, like
Speaker 3: just like it just doesn't look compelling to me, so
Speaker 3: I'm I should give.
Speaker 1: It a fair shot. Two things.
Speaker 3: One great Chrono Trigger anecdote. If you've read my book
Speaker 3: Fight Magic Items, you probably know it. But a curator
Speaker 3: Yama famously did the character design and like created like
Speaker 3: visual design for Chrono Trigger, but all he provided for
Speaker 3: the characters was them from the front, So he only
Speaker 3: drew them from the front, did not draw like three
Speaker 3: sixties of their back or their sides, and so the
Speaker 3: pixel artists had to like basically make it up based
Speaker 3: on his his designs from the front. And my understanding is,
Speaker 3: like we've seen all the key art from Chrono Trigger,
Speaker 3: the art that's on the cover, like the concept epic
Speaker 3: ye flying through, you know, the speeding up for the
Speaker 3: time warp. I I think all that concept art is
Speaker 3: all Toriyama actually did for Chrono Trigger, and then everything
Speaker 3: else was the pixel artists and stuff following up. Second
Speaker 3: of all, tie, everything that you like most about Chrono
Speaker 3: Trigger is its dragon Quest DNA. That makes sense and
Speaker 3: so like if you like like the characters and the
Speaker 3: story beats and the structure and all of that is
Speaker 3: so dragon Quest that a lot of people call Chrono
Speaker 3: Trigger the best Final Fantasy game. To me, it feels
Speaker 3: more like a dragon Quest game than it does a
Speaker 3: Final Fantasy game. If I had to split hairs.
Speaker 1: So give it a shot.
Speaker 3: We can talk off air about some of the good
Speaker 3: starting points eight eleven five if you have access to it.
Speaker 1: Oh, very good. Interesting. Interesting.
Speaker 3: Another game series for me, which I almost chose for
Speaker 3: this episode actually is Grand Theft Auto. I actually played
Speaker 3: more of the first two games. Did you know there's
Speaker 3: a Grand Theft Auto one and two? Ty I missed
Speaker 3: out on the PS two entries. Like a friend had
Speaker 3: Vice City, I think one of my brother's friends and
Speaker 3: would bring it over, So.
Speaker 1: I like dabbled it a little, but didn't play it
Speaker 1: too much.
Speaker 3: I just liked my RPGs, and that's what I was
Speaker 3: playing when I finally decided to give the series a shot.
Speaker 1: With GTA four, I just couldn't really get.
Speaker 3: Past the ludo narrative dissonance of the story about an
Speaker 3: immigrant seeking a new life in America to escape the
Speaker 3: violence in his home country, who then just immediately goes
Speaker 3: on this like sociopathic crime spree. And so there was
Speaker 3: this like divergence between the gameplay, which was classic grand
Speaker 3: theft auto and story beats. They were so far apart
Speaker 3: in those terms. That was just sort of the end
Speaker 3: of the series for me. I just never really.
Speaker 1: Could get past that dissonance.
Speaker 3: And I just can get fun sandbox experiences in a
Speaker 3: lot of other ways, in a lot of other games,
Speaker 3: And so it's just, you know, if I want zany
Speaker 3: samdbox experience, I can play goat Simulators three or one whatever,
Speaker 3: and it's ridiculous, and I spend forty five minutes and
Speaker 3: then get bored of the sandbox gameplay and move on
Speaker 3: without the tension, the bad tension, the bad friction of
Speaker 3: that narrative dissonance.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and for me, you know, we've talked about this
Speaker 1: a little bit before. My dad mom split when I
Speaker 1: was one, and my dad very quickly remarried and converted
Speaker 1: to born again evangelicalism. So every other like once a
Speaker 1: week and then every other weekend like go over for
Speaker 1: dinner on week once a week, and then I'd spent
Speaker 1: every other weekend with them, and so I was getting
Speaker 1: the stereotypical eighties nineties evangelical parenting experience half you know,
Speaker 1: twenty percent of the time. And then I would come
Speaker 1: back home to my mom, who's a lapsed Catholic, dabbling
Speaker 1: in uh, you know, wu wu stuff, yoga, astrology, the taro,
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff, and so like I'm getting
Speaker 1: like like whiplash, and then so trying to find my
Speaker 1: own moral compass, Like you know, Vice City. My best
Speaker 1: friend met in college had Vice City and we were
Speaker 1: roommates for both in and out of college for a
Speaker 1: couple of years. So you play Vice City and it'd
Speaker 1: be this mix of like, oh, wow, that's so cool
Speaker 1: and like, oh I don't like that. Yeah, okay, I
Speaker 1: do like that, but I feel really guilty about it,
Speaker 1: you know, Like it's this like like constant tension between like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is exactly what I want to do. No, that's
Speaker 1: actually GROSSA Oh that's do I think that's gross? Or
Speaker 1: is that my stepmom and dad like in my head
Speaker 1: telling me it's you know, and so like, uh four,
Speaker 1: I didn't really like five. I didn't play until the Pandemic,
Speaker 1: which I think I've brought up before. You had your
Speaker 1: multiplayer like multiplayer, yeah, yeah, doing the the pists the
Speaker 1: I keep wanting to say Cabo San Lucas because that's
Speaker 1: what it's it's based off of, right, it's but it's
Speaker 1: an island like that drug Kingpin and you got to
Speaker 1: go and do your heist team and like that was
Speaker 1: an incredibly fun experience. And then even outside of those
Speaker 1: heist missions, some of the sandbox stuff was wild. Did
Speaker 1: I tell the story about the Big Inferno? I think
Speaker 1: I've heard it maybe off air before, but I don't
Speaker 1: think you've ever told it on the show. Okay, so
Speaker 1: real quick, we're doing these these heist missions, right, and
Speaker 1: the idea is you have to go do a bunch
Speaker 1: of missions in the city to get like body armor
Speaker 1: or weapons or whatever. And there's multiple different ways you
Speaker 1: can crash this drug Kingpin's island, up to and including
Speaker 1: using a Russian submarine bought off surplus. Once you buy that,
Speaker 1: you can sneak in and swim in through the sewer grade. Right,
Speaker 1: So it's super cool, but you have to do these
Speaker 1: prep missions and the more prep missions you do, the
Speaker 1: easier the actual run is. And so we were doing
Speaker 1: one of the prep missions and we had a helicopter
Speaker 1: park our helicopter. We go inside, we shoot up these guys,
Speaker 1: We take their guns and you know, bullet bests, and
Speaker 1: we come out and everything is on fire. Everything is
Speaker 1: on fire, just total conflagration, like two blocks, all the
Speaker 1: cars are on fire, our helicopter is on fire. Well,
Speaker 1: I should say, while we're in the mission, all of
Speaker 1: our quest markers disappear and I'm like, what is going on?
Speaker 1: And then we come outside and everything's on fire, and
Speaker 1: we're like so we start walking around. We're on you know,
Speaker 1: Mike around live Chat, like I'm over here, like our
Speaker 1: helicopters destroyed, all these cars are destroyed. A couple other
Speaker 1: people are walking around, you know, We're like what happened?
Speaker 1: And we slowly pieced together that two that a commercial
Speaker 1: airliner and a private plane. Oh no, all NPCs, yeah, right,
Speaker 1: like just in the world collided in mid air above
Speaker 1: our heads, landed on the streets, blew up all of
Speaker 1: everybody's stuff, including our helicopter, which is a required thing
Speaker 1: to run from thing to thing, and like boom, our
Speaker 1: quest failed because our helicopter got destroyed. Yeah, while you
Speaker 1: like doing something completely different, Yeah, yeah, and so does
Speaker 1: the emergent Sandbox gameplay. The world lost track of two
Speaker 1: planes and they just collided together, and like unbelievable, just
Speaker 1: the fact there's so many levels of like emergent things happening.
Speaker 1: We were all just like, I can't even be bad.
Speaker 1: That's incredible and so still years later, years later, So
Speaker 1: and like that, like you say that sort.
Speaker 3: Of emergent gameplay of like the gameplay is, the story is,
Speaker 3: the narrative is really compelling, Like I do really like
Speaker 3: that and I enjoy it and stuff like Fallout three,
Speaker 3: Like I have so many fun stories that happened because
Speaker 3: of just like the way you know, the gameplay unfolded, right,
Speaker 3: and that's unique to like my experience, and that's cool.
Speaker 3: But GTA was just never doing that for me. I
Speaker 3: also think it's interesting that specifically it took multiplayer for
Speaker 3: you to find your sort of fit with that series,
Speaker 3: Like I've found myself just drifting away from a lot
Speaker 3: of the major like non Nintendo Triple A releases these
Speaker 3: days in favor of smaller titles, any games, like I'm
Speaker 3: playing Yoshi. Right now, I'm playing Mina the Hollower. But
Speaker 3: you know, I got caught up in the Blueprints hype
Speaker 3: last year. That was a big hyped up and.
Speaker 1: We're doing it now. It's swollen four of the five
Speaker 1: of us now, yes, every time I played Blueprints, we
Speaker 1: have to have four of us.
Speaker 3: And it's so good. So you know, I'm not immune
Speaker 3: to hype. But like something like Pragmata and Marathon just
Speaker 3: have completely passed me by. And like, for you, multiplayer
Speaker 3: was the key that unlocked Grand Theft Auto, but I've
Speaker 3: just found it so hard to get into like any
Speaker 3: multiplayer focused games. Like my friends were really into hell
Speaker 3: Divers too, and I played a little bit with them,
Speaker 3: but just the time commitment of being there reliably and
Speaker 3: stuff is just so so tricky.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I want to play something like Marathon, and Andrew and
Speaker 3: Chat is saying, like Marathon has a free.
Speaker 1: Week coming up from June second to June ninth.
Speaker 3: That's cool, Like I'll probably give it a shot because
Speaker 3: it looks cool, but it's just like my schedule just
Speaker 3: doesn't really allow for those multiplayer games. So stuff like MMOs,
Speaker 3: I like, Wow, I like Funanci fourteen but I can play.
Speaker 1: Those on my schedule the way I play them. Yes,
Speaker 1: never got into like graide groups and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: guilds because I'm just it's just too hard for me
Speaker 1: to like chunk out parts of my life that other
Speaker 1: people are kind of relying on me for. That's what
Speaker 1: my kids do exactly, and you know, your whole season.
Speaker 1: You know, we got we had kids early, but our
Speaker 1: youngest graduates from high school tomorrow. So that is incredible
Speaker 1: that that brings graduate of schedule stuff. Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: They're they're crushing it. They're going to state fourth third
Speaker 1: generation Michigan State on my wife's side, fourth generation Michigan
Speaker 1: State on my side. Spartans. I went Spartans. That's hey, yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's that's it's pretty cool. But then also, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like the season of your life where like you
Speaker 1: can't do stuff because of kids. It's like, all right, cool,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have from when i'm you know, forty five,
Speaker 1: forty six, forty seven up through dead, like have raid groups. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: I think about that because my kids are quite a
Speaker 1: bit younger than yours. My illness isn't even close to
Speaker 1: graduating high school and I do think, like I look
Speaker 1: at you know, my parents and my in laws, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, okay, Like we will get back to
Speaker 1: a point where I can like go do stuff with
Speaker 1: my wife, just the two of us, and like, you know,
Speaker 1: where I can have time where like you know, every
Speaker 1: Tuesday and Thursday I spend time. Maybe it's playing magic
Speaker 1: cards with my friends, or maybe it's getting into like
Speaker 1: a multiplayer game more seriously, but you know for sure,
Speaker 1: and then off it's worth it. Like family life is awesome,
Speaker 1: but it is like does make it hard? Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then when your kids get older, you're doing stuff together.
Speaker 1: You're playing prints.
Speaker 3: Together, you know, wather and that sort of. Yes, that's
Speaker 3: my raid group, right like it is playing with my kids.
Speaker 3: They're like they're my my friend group for multiplayer games,
Speaker 3: playing Mario Kart, or we're playing Animal Crossing, or even
Speaker 3: just sitting down like hanging out while they're playing Tomodachi
Speaker 3: Life and they're showing me their island and all that
Speaker 3: kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it is still there, just in a
Speaker 1: different way. I suppose. All right, well, folks, we could
Speaker 1: go on like this forever, but we have an issue
Speaker 1: to look at. We have a review to do. It
Speaker 1: is time to open the cover and get started. If
Speaker 1: you're not already a member of fun Factor Ultra watching
Speaker 1: us stream this session live in the chat, getting ad
Speaker 1: free episodes, hang tight through this break. When we come back,
Speaker 1: we will flip through which is here? Is it? Game
Speaker 1: in Former number one oh five from January two thousand
Speaker 1: and two. Game in Former number one oh five from
Speaker 1: January two thousand and two, and they're really the final fantasy.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to fun Factor, where two old gamers review
Speaker 1: old video game magazine reviews. Of course we want you
Speaker 1: to review us. Do we get a full five point
Speaker 1: zero in fun Factor? Leave us a review on Apple
Speaker 1: Podcasts and we'll read the best, funniest, kindest, and most
Speaker 1: entertaining ones on the air. All Bright Aiden, What is
Speaker 1: the deal with Game Informer?
Speaker 3: All right, so Game Informer as we know it was popularized.
Speaker 3: I guess it started life as like a newsletter for
Speaker 3: Game Stop or Babbage's I don't I don't know.
Speaker 1: The American fun coland brands fun co Land.
Speaker 3: Yeah you know, but uh, Progressing is just one of
Speaker 3: the most important iconic gaming mags ever. And now they're
Speaker 3: like an indie operation which is really cool. You know,
Speaker 3: a lot of respect for that. And they've been around
Speaker 3: forever as well, which is the other import thing, Like,
Speaker 3: unlike the other magazines that have like come and gone
Speaker 3: and reached a peak like EGM but then disappeared, like
Speaker 3: Game Informer has just been around forever and so they've
Speaker 3: covered everything. This issue number one oh five from January
Speaker 3: two thousand and two has had on the cover, which
Speaker 3: I think is pretty cool. This issue has a page
Speaker 3: count of one hundred and twenty six, which is starting
Speaker 3: to catch up with what this era looks like. In
Speaker 3: the mid nineties, Game Informer was kind of slim when
Speaker 3: you had three hundred plus page count and stuff like EGM.
Speaker 3: But this issue, you know, at one hundred and twenty six,
Speaker 3: with like feature editorial, lots of reviews, quite a few ads,
Speaker 3: feels pretty matched up with its contemporaries. Number of games
Speaker 3: reviewed in this issue fifty six Jesus.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, Yeah, that's a lot, a lot.
Speaker 3: Number of systems reviewed for is even higher, like a
Speaker 3: zillion because there's a Breakout review on page one hundred
Speaker 3: and seventy one and seventeen and they list it as
Speaker 3: a multi platform game and Breakout has been on pretty
Speaker 3: much every console of all time. But otherwise, more realistically,
Speaker 3: it's eleven. So we have PC, Dreamcast, GameCube, PlayStation two,
Speaker 3: game Boy Advance, Xbox, PlayStation one, SNS Apple two, E
Speaker 3: Sega CD, and Genesis. Wow, a lot of reviews, a
Speaker 3: lot of systems.
Speaker 1: So they've got a retro I mean, I'm assuming we'll
Speaker 1: get there, but yeah, like that's that's fascinating. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: they have a section at the back which is like
Speaker 1: retro coverage and then retro reviews, and that's where we
Speaker 1: get the not the PlayStation but the SNS Apple two,
Speaker 1: E Sega CD and Genesis reviews and the breakout review
Speaker 1: of course.
Speaker 3: But yeah, a lot of reviews. Looking at the masthead,
Speaker 3: which starts on page seventeen.
Speaker 1: Jason Wft and Chat, I just wanted to say so,
Speaker 1: I worked at Gamestat from twenty six to twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: and I remember Gaming four as the quote magazine they
Speaker 1: give you to try to justify the monthly discount subscription. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and yeah, we talked about that. I think our first
Speaker 1: Game Informer issue or I'm sorry, I did it. I
Speaker 1: did it. Our first Game in Former episode was the
Speaker 1: one with the Carnage Heart review. I think in season one, yes,
Speaker 1: episode fourteen, and it was the same thing where it
Speaker 1: was like, you know, I kind of missed the peak
Speaker 1: Game Informer, like yeah, like mid twenty tens, late twenty tens,
Speaker 1: early twenty twenties, Oh, this is the best magazine going.
Speaker 1: And everybody's like, oh, Game Informer the goat the best magazine,
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, that was like the thing
Speaker 1: they just tried to sell you at the game store
Speaker 1: when you're buying games. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So yeah, then that was always my impression because I
Speaker 3: couldn't really it was hard to get it in Canada,
Speaker 3: like you got it was at eb games sometimes, but
Speaker 3: it wasn't what I had access to, and so I
Speaker 3: just thought of it as you know, basically like promo
Speaker 3: pr which I kind of was. But looking back, I
Speaker 3: think we've both been surprised that the content is actually
Speaker 3: really strong, especially the like non critical stuff like there's
Speaker 3: we'll get to it, but there's like a fantastic feature
Speaker 3: on here in Obasak Gucci in this issue.
Speaker 1: That stuff was always really good.
Speaker 3: Nice, Okay, So on page seventeen, we've got the masthead.
Speaker 1: We'll get to it for in a second. Because I
Speaker 1: don't want to spoil what's coming up in the flip.
Speaker 3: But we've got the mass heead kicking off with publisher
Speaker 3: Kathy Preston, Games Media Hall of Famer Andy McNamara as
Speaker 3: the Eice, who we've previously.
Speaker 1: Mentioned on episodes.
Speaker 3: Right under Andy, We've got editors Andrew Reiner, Matt Hegelson,
Speaker 3: Christian Broger, Justin Leeper, Matthew Cato, and John Storm. Then
Speaker 3: there's the mascot Arthur, who's a dog, I guess, Art
Speaker 3: director Thomas Bleston, production director Curtis fun and production assistant
Speaker 3: Rachel Gillies round out the Masthead. It's pretty small considering
Speaker 3: like the number of reviews in this issue, and really
Speaker 3: the reviewers are Andy Reiner, Matt Christian, Justin and Cato,
Speaker 3: So like small review crew, small overall Masthead for like
Speaker 3: a pretty content rich magazine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and if I'm remembering from the first one we did,
Speaker 1: basically from like ninety five on, there's like no turnover
Speaker 1: at this magazine. Yeah, it's like, you know, if the
Speaker 1: short tenured people were there for like fourteen years, you know,
Speaker 1: it's the same real tight nucleus of people almost start
Speaker 1: to finish once again. My once an episode lament about
Speaker 1: how we got into games media at the wrong time time. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: but as we flip I think we're ready for the
Speaker 1: flip through. Yeah, you're ready flip through.
Speaker 3: So on the cover, we've got a pretty striking image
Speaker 3: and like pretty striking cover, I would say, feet a
Speaker 3: bunch of the recognizable like key art portraits from Final
Speaker 3: Fantasy ten. So these are the character portraits you see
Speaker 3: everywhere but the remix and like you know, like photoshopped
Speaker 3: or whatever into a way that puts Titus, you know,
Speaker 3: front and center.
Speaker 1: Feeling is pretty bold.
Speaker 3: It's low on text, just hyping up all the Final
Speaker 3: Fantasy ten coverage, including quote, complete strategy guide with weapons,
Speaker 3: sum locations, first review, interviews with development team, and a
Speaker 3: look at its place in history.
Speaker 1: Pretty cool. My girl Ricu is consigned to a depressingly
Speaker 1: tiny portion of this. Yeah yeah, talking before this is
Speaker 1: Game Informer. I should go back and look at the
Speaker 1: kind of the spread of covers because they didn't have
Speaker 1: a big in house art team, so their covers tended
Speaker 1: to range from wildly strong to pretty weak. Yeah, based
Speaker 1: on how strong the art they were using. Because it's
Speaker 1: usually official assets or something that was commissioned or whatever
Speaker 1: from from the PI team, so they usually are pretty
Speaker 1: good at laying out graphics provided by somebody else. Yes
Speaker 1: is a perfect example. And notably they're not using in
Speaker 1: game artwork here, you.
Speaker 3: Know, which which helps, I think. But it's also funny
Speaker 3: because you can see like you know, glow effect on
Speaker 3: Oron or on Oran and Tiitus his hair, so you
Speaker 3: know that they were like clipping this out of like
Speaker 3: larger art right. They weren't handling like transparent PNGs, so
Speaker 3: they had some rough edges that they had to like,
Speaker 3: you know, mask which you know I do all the
Speaker 3: time I do for our YouTube thumbnails. Get those rough
Speaker 3: edges and see put a border around.
Speaker 1: It and they go away.
Speaker 3: But all in all, I would say it's a pretty
Speaker 3: striking cover. Tucked right above the game for Um, tucked
Speaker 3: right above the magazine's title quite easily lost, which would
Speaker 3: be like the big feature for most issues of other
Speaker 3: magazines is a tagline for the quote tenth Annual Video
Speaker 3: Game Awards, which are not the Killies. This is game
Speaker 3: in four long running video game.
Speaker 1: Awards, which we will get to later.
Speaker 3: It's all like, you know, exceptionally clean owing I think
Speaker 3: likely to its corporate ties, not needing to compete against
Speaker 3: other gaming mags on the grocery store shelves, you know,
Speaker 3: So they weren't trying to cram everything on the cover
Speaker 3: and say, hey, we're the most important of these magazines
Speaker 3: by us, not the other ones. And that's always been
Speaker 3: Game Informers thing as they've gotten older, and now now
Speaker 3: that they're indie, their covers are super clean, even though
Speaker 3: they are in books, you know, bookstore bookshelves. They don't
Speaker 3: have that Ebie games or game stop tie anymore where
Speaker 3: they're being handed out with like edge cards or whatever.
Speaker 3: But they've still gone with that super clean look with
Speaker 3: like beautiful art. And I would say that cover art
Speaker 3: is like a strength of current Game Informer issues as
Speaker 3: like an ongoing magazine that still exists. And of course
Speaker 3: their cover stories are always big news.
Speaker 1: They always get big exclusives, Yes they do.
Speaker 3: And so that was like I think access was what
Speaker 3: Game Informer did best, and we're seeing that here. You know,
Speaker 3: they're just like we got fun wenesay t we got
Speaker 3: everything you want, buy us.
Speaker 1: Pick us up. But let's get through the actual flip through.
Speaker 3: Now we're gonna make a very brief stop on pages
Speaker 3: five and six to appreciate you boy, Connecticut again as always,
Speaker 3: and then we're gonna skip right past that.
Speaker 1: Wait, oh god, I'll go back on. I want to
Speaker 1: know because I kind of keep this up on my side. Also,
Speaker 1: one last note on the ridiculous of the Connecticut h
Speaker 1: note that all of the speed lines are in one
Speaker 1: direction and none of the wheels. Oh yeah, going direction
Speaker 1: like we're not really yeah, like you wouldn't like there's
Speaker 1: no hope of rolling in that notion. That figured very funny. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's a good poll. That's that's good time. I did
Speaker 1: not notice that this isn't even possible, even sort of
Speaker 1: even in the fiction where this is something possible and cool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just terrible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if those speed lines are going in that direction,
Speaker 3: she is not. She's she's having a tough, tough.
Speaker 1: Sliding on her knee.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, Okay, skipping pass Connecticut, we have the greatest
Speaker 3: three D fighter of all time, in her Life three as.
Speaker 1: Pronounced by Xbox Official Magazine. Yes, that's right, Exam, shout
Speaker 1: out to ox M. Here we have the masthead that
Speaker 1: I skipped reading earlier on page eighteen. We have the
Speaker 1: editors Forum, which is you know, we have Andy McNamara's
Speaker 1: editorial as I see, but several of the other editors,
Speaker 1: Ryan or Matt Christian Justin Cato all also get sort
Speaker 1: of a little blog style editorial area, yeah, to write
Speaker 1: whatever they want to write about. And I think that's
Speaker 1: a pretty cute and good.
Speaker 3: Idea, something I would love to have seen other magazines do.
Speaker 1: Whenever I meet one of my thousands of fans out
Speaker 1: in public, they usually start our conversation with one question,
Speaker 1: aren't you that guy from ER? Great? Thank you Matt
Speaker 1: the original gamer excellent, good stuff. There are two Matts
Speaker 1: that must be Matt Hegelson. Which guy from R does
Speaker 1: he look like? I don't know er.
Speaker 3: But in any case, and it's nice too, because you
Speaker 3: know Cato's is like referring to his call him from
Speaker 3: the month previous and stuff. So just a cool little
Speaker 3: idea to give each editors sort of editorial space to
Speaker 3: talk about whatever they want, the same way that an
Speaker 3: eic usually does. Andy mcmarra says, like, you know, in
Speaker 3: his editorial he talks about getting hate mail, which was interesting,
Speaker 3: and so he uses to talk about the GameCube.
Speaker 1: But we are going to carry on.
Speaker 3: To page in my script, it says page twelve. What
Speaker 3: we have already past page twelve, so it must be
Speaker 3: page twenty two. Let's see here we go. Yes, page
Speaker 3: we have early aughts mainstay Jason Biggs playing PlayStation two,
Speaker 3: and I swear to god ty this is the exact
Speaker 3: same photo we saw in a previous episode.
Speaker 1: This is also just.
Speaker 3: Another reminder of how hard they were trying to link
Speaker 3: video games to celebrity culture in the early aughts. But like,
Speaker 3: besides Biggs, David Spade, Monica Geller, and her husband David Arquette.
Speaker 3: I think that cas her Eye, but he's not a celebrity.
Speaker 3: He's like, he's like, he's the Sony guy. I don't
Speaker 3: know who any of these people are.
Speaker 1: Oh, well, Alicia Keys, which is Alicia Keys, was.
Speaker 3: A pretty good get for like a Sony PS two
Speaker 3: anniversary party. But she's also not even there to play
Speaker 3: video Um she's performing.
Speaker 1: Calling these a list stars a bit of a stretch
Speaker 1: relatively relatively yeah, like again from by video game party standards. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just like the American Pie cast. Like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's just fine and it's funny how much they wanted
Speaker 1: to like Friend of the Show pandemoniums Digital Pictures, Yes,
Speaker 1: retrospective which eight and a half hours that you absolutely
Speaker 1: should make time for incredible stuff. The way that Digital
Speaker 1: Pictures was edging around Hollywood and interfacing with Hollywood and
Speaker 1: getting all these you know, fascinating stuff.
Speaker 3: Try hard, right, like to move into that picture moving
Speaker 3: picture space, I guess movies rather than like kind of
Speaker 3: being their own thing. And I think it's good that
Speaker 3: we've gotten away from that. You know, we have lots
Speaker 3: of celebrity voice actors you know, likednesses, but I'm glad.
Speaker 1: That we got gone away from that area.
Speaker 3: Page twenty six features some letter art of Captain America
Speaker 3: that would make Rob Leifel proud. More notably, however, it's
Speaker 3: from I believe the first person I actually recognized from
Speaker 3: the letter section of.
Speaker 1: One of these magazines.
Speaker 3: All Tassi, who sent this in is a Forbes games
Speaker 3: journalist with many reviews listed on Open Critics. Whoo, yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm assuming it's the same polastic but uh but yeah,
Speaker 3: pretty pretty neat to actually recognize a name in and
Speaker 3: amongst all of this.
Speaker 1: Okay, can we see the Cano versus PaRappa? Oh? Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: here we go, I can that's fantastic. Here we go,
Speaker 1: look at that. That's pretty good. That is in like
Speaker 1: Simpsons style style. I guess, yeah, it's a pretty good
Speaker 1: Simpsons stuff. It's pretty good.
Speaker 2: I know, yeah.
Speaker 1: I like the big hole, like the three D hole
Speaker 1: in his chest and stuff. It's like pretty slick, pretty slick,
Speaker 1: some other good. I don't not sure what that one is.
Speaker 1: An Italian to bring a spear to an X fight.
Speaker 1: I don't remember any spear carrying Italians in a case.
Speaker 3: Always let yeah, I always love the The envelope art
Speaker 3: and Paul Tassi being in there was in interesting. We
Speaker 3: are going to keep going to page thirty for GI News,
Speaker 3: which I assume stands for gastro Intestinal News.
Speaker 1: First to step on your joke from the script. It
Speaker 1: got me. Oh my gosh, that's great. Uh.
Speaker 3: It's one of the pictures here. This is about the Xboxing.
Speaker 1: Game cube Blanche.
Speaker 3: One photo here has Bill Gates slumming it with the normies,
Speaker 3: presumably holding back some diarrhea or something. We have Minnesota's
Speaker 3: first Xbox owner, Jim Heitke, who definitely looks like he's
Speaker 3: holding back some squirts. Oh yeah, and a GameStop employee
Speaker 3: so nauseous their hair has turned Xbox green.
Speaker 1: A lot of GI news, a lot of gastro intestinal
Speaker 1: news in this issue. Yes, then later here he really
Speaker 1: this looks like this guy definitely camped out for thirty six.
Speaker 1: Oh oh yeah, this is our thirty seven.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: He's in rough shape man. Yeah, and his reward for
Speaker 1: that is an Xbox.
Speaker 3: He did get Halo, one of the great There's some
Speaker 3: like subversive advertising.
Speaker 1: I missed this when I was writing my script. But
Speaker 1: if we zoom in down the air, what do we have?
Speaker 1: What do we have? David Former? Oh? Nice, like recursive advertising.
Speaker 1: It's cool. It's fun to watch coverage of the Xbox
Speaker 1: and GameCube launch. They have a little, you know, interview
Speaker 1: with Bill Gates, though I don't know if it's an
Speaker 1: actual interview. Yeah, it's an interview with.
Speaker 3: Bill Gates, and then talk about Microsoft pushes PlayStation three
Speaker 3: and a rendering of the PlayStation three, which is quite
Speaker 3: funny looking on page thirty two in the middle of
Speaker 3: this orange bar with a baby beside it, we have
Speaker 3: Developer Top five with Victor Ireland. Oh, it seems like
Speaker 3: a list of the least Victor Ireland games of all time.
Speaker 3: Known for working designs and RPGs like ARC's Lad on
Speaker 3: the opposite page here as an ad Lunar and all
Speaker 3: of that. Victor Ireland lists top ten is SSX, Devil
Speaker 3: May Cry, Twisted Metal Black Ego and Clinoa too, which
Speaker 3: just not what I would have expected from Victor Ireland.
Speaker 1: Hey, I mean they're bangers. Twisted Metal Black is The
Speaker 1: rest are good.
Speaker 3: The rest are absolutely good. But page thirty six we
Speaker 3: have news of SNK shutting down, which is weird because
Speaker 3: SNK is famously still around and the subject of much
Speaker 3: controversy these days. They were, of course, there were acquisitions
Speaker 3: and all sorts of weird stuff that have happened since,
Speaker 3: but it is interesting to go black and look at
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: Here's a quote here.
Speaker 3: It says, quote it is with deepest grief that in
Speaker 3: the autumn of two thousand and one SNK will close
Speaker 3: the company history in its business. We'd like to take
Speaker 3: this as an opportunity to thank each and every one
Speaker 3: of you if you're continuous and helping assistance rendered to
Speaker 3: SNK since its incorporation in Japan and July nineteen seventy eight,
Speaker 3: s and K still around outlived pretty much every gaming
Speaker 3: mag except a game Informer here yeah, page forty where
Speaker 3: kind of passed the new section, and this kicks off
Speaker 3: a terrific, beautiful retrospective of Final Fantasy and Hero Nobu's
Speaker 3: Sokka Gucci's work, which like, honestly I would love to
Speaker 3: spend a whole episode just looking at this. These first
Speaker 3: two pages, there's a nice, you know, nice cover art
Speaker 3: there with you know, box art.
Speaker 1: Of Saka Gucci's games.
Speaker 3: And then as we move on, we have like a
Speaker 3: developer interview that's sort of editorialized with okay, you know,
Speaker 3: looking at Final Fantasy, but you know ten, the development
Speaker 3: of Fanensi ten, I suppose, but it has you know,
Speaker 3: director Yoshi no Kase, artist Tetsuya Nomura, and it just
Speaker 3: kind of looks at fan ten's development and tries to
Speaker 3: tell that story. It's it's pretty short, but it's it's
Speaker 3: full of good stuff, and the screenshots as well.
Speaker 1: Are looking really slick.
Speaker 3: So just a nicely laid out feature area looking at
Speaker 3: Fan Fantasy ten, which links into of course, this issue's
Speaker 3: big review.
Speaker 1: Pretty wild, how strong it would still be to get
Speaker 1: a sit down with you to say no more yeah
Speaker 1: about history of Final Fantasy. Yeah, now right? How relevant
Speaker 1: that would still be Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean I I've done interviews with the Fun Fantasy team,
Speaker 3: but they're definitely focused on whatever game they're putting out now. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and so like, yes, you would get access for Fanoanzi ten,
Speaker 3: but getting like the ability to ask questions about the
Speaker 3: series pass and contextualizing stuff and not talking directly about
Speaker 3: like marketable Final Fantasy ten aspects would be really hard.
Speaker 1: I think I've read multiple people talk about yeah today,
Speaker 1: like if you want to talk to hear In Nobu
Speaker 1: Saka Gucci, yeah, you get one non whatever moble game
Speaker 1: he's working on. Question Chris Kohler, who is like longtime
Speaker 1: games journalists for Wired and Kotaku, like friend of retronauts,
Speaker 1: like like he has access and he's covered games for
Speaker 1: a long time and now he works for Digital Eclipse.
Speaker 1: He wrote a book for.
Speaker 3: Boss Fight Books about Final Fanci five, and like all
Speaker 3: of his Hero and Obu Saka Gucci quotes like directly
Speaker 3: Final Fancy five come from like uh interview he hosted
Speaker 3: on like on stage where he basically just like he
Speaker 3: was talking to Saka Guji about something and then just
Speaker 3: started peppering him with like specific Financi history and Financi
Speaker 3: five questions, and that was the only way he could
Speaker 3: get sak Gucci on record about these older games, because
Speaker 3: a lot of it is so kind of gate kept
Speaker 3: by pr and stuff nowadays.
Speaker 2: Man h.
Speaker 3: So you know, pretty cool little spot. And you're also getting,
Speaker 3: like with Catase and Noma, you're getting such a strong
Speaker 3: look into the people who sort of took over Final
Speaker 3: Fantasy because Sakagucci of course left not long after this
Speaker 3: when the Spirits Within crashed, And so you know, you're
Speaker 3: getting to see the people who took Fan Fantasy ten
Speaker 3: and move the series forward, which we'll get to in
Speaker 3: a little bit.
Speaker 1: Page forty four.
Speaker 3: We have the other big feature, which is their quote
Speaker 3: games of two thousand and one not top games, not
Speaker 3: best games.
Speaker 1: These are games. There are games of two thousand and one.
Speaker 1: Presumably this top ten represents a ranked hierarchical scale of
Speaker 1: the best games of the year.
Speaker 3: We have Star Wars Rogue leader for the game, Cuban
Speaker 3: number ten, Halo shockingly low at number nine, barely a
Speaker 3: game of two thousand and one, barely a game of
Speaker 3: two thousand and one, which is pretty wild. Number eight
Speaker 3: Legend Zelda, Oracle of Ages. Heck yeah, good game, better
Speaker 3: than Halo, better than probably is better. I don't love
Speaker 3: the capcom Zelda's on game Boy Color, but it's pretty good.
Speaker 1: It's pretty good.
Speaker 3: Number seven Devin Way Cry, number six, Max Pain, Number
Speaker 3: five Twisted Metal Black, which again like for me, Twisted
Speaker 3: Metal Blacks one on this list, and I'm like, I
Speaker 3: don't know if that age great at number five, not
Speaker 3: to say, you know, I don't even know if it's
Speaker 3: holds up well, but it's not, you know, Devil Way Cry, Halo,
Speaker 3: Max Pain, Like, these are games that like really kind.
Speaker 1: Of stand out in the history of this period. We
Speaker 1: have number four Grand Turismo three A spec which is
Speaker 1: a great game, one of the best of the series.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so, like you know, Twisted Metal Black is up
Speaker 3: against some heavy hitters. The top three Tony Hawk prosk
Speaker 3: three one and two are of my favorites, but you
Speaker 3: know three is great as well. Number two Grand Theft
Speaker 3: Auto three, one of the biggest games of all time,
Speaker 3: best sleeper game of the year, Advance Wars fabulous, pick
Speaker 3: love it. Number one Metal Your Solid two Sons of Liberty,
Speaker 3: which I like it because like Metal Your Solid two,
Speaker 3: Like you know, as we discussed in the episode it
Speaker 3: was divisive because of you know, it's big rug poll
Speaker 3: and what it did for the series and stuff. But
Speaker 3: I think it holds up really well. And I think
Speaker 3: that of all the games on this list, to me,
Speaker 3: it's the best outside of maybe maybe Halo is is
Speaker 3: number one in hindsight, but and you know with the
Speaker 3: caveat that, I'm not big on Grand Theft Auto R.
Speaker 1: Do you think of this list? Tie, Yeah, no, it's good.
Speaker 1: It's also I meant to check exactly when Vice City
Speaker 1: was released, yeah, because to me, Vice City was just
Speaker 1: the way more culturally, Like GTA three was a big hit,
Speaker 1: no question, but Vice Cities when it kind of became
Speaker 1: that was the sensation. Yeah, you know, the Miami Vice vibes,
Speaker 1: the soundtrack, Raleiota, all that stuff was like that was huge. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then again GT three A was gigantic. I think
Speaker 1: it was even a packing game. They made a separate
Speaker 1: PS two bundle, right, yeah, GTA three and so like
Speaker 1: I'm not GTA three, Grand Turismo three A spec yeah
Speaker 1: GT three three as yeah, yeah there go, so like,
Speaker 1: don't don't look down on that as one as a
Speaker 1: huge one in history as well. But also it's very
Speaker 1: funny getting this like Oscars Vibes where it's like, oh, yes,
Speaker 1: the Best Picture of the Year was released in New
Speaker 1: York and LA on December fourteenth, and uh, you normals
Speaker 1: can go see it now in the middle of February,
Speaker 1: you know, like, okay, right, totally whatever.
Speaker 2: It's good.
Speaker 1: The Games of two thousand and one where all these
Speaker 1: games that came out before Christmas. Yeah, pretty pretty packed
Speaker 1: for sure, Blunder of the Year, Xbox Controller, like it's
Speaker 1: wild and even then, you know, like they were covering
Speaker 1: the Xbox launch. In this episode, after the Top ten,
Speaker 1: which is full of bangers, we have a ton of
Speaker 1: previews and ads for some like incredibly mid Games, TI Reckless, Yagger,
Speaker 1: Spider Man, the movie Air Blade. There's Yagger, Malice Cat's.
Speaker 3: Tail cat being spelled with the K tails being spelled
Speaker 3: T A L E. So like double pons.
Speaker 1: Okay, is this Jaeger like Chuck Yeger? I bet that's
Speaker 1: what it's. That's I don't even know who Chuck Yagger is.
Speaker 1: So I use a famous American test pilot. He was
Speaker 1: the first guy to break the speed of sound. Okay,
Speaker 1: I guess, so I like, which is real dumb because
Speaker 1: I was like nineteen sixty four. Yeah, oh yeah, space
Speaker 1: like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is tie in the future, just a little
Speaker 2: bit off. Chuck Yeger broke the sound barrier in nineteen
Speaker 2: forty seven in the Bell X one, which memory serves
Speaker 2: was basically a rocket with wings dropped from a glider
Speaker 2: plane and then sh yeah. Jeger flew a lot of
Speaker 2: other experimental test flights for the National Advisory Committee for
Speaker 2: Aeronautics MECCA, which later became NASA. He essentually promoted up
Speaker 2: to Brigadier General et cetera, et cetera. Great man of history.
Speaker 2: Chuck Yeger, yeehaw, whip crack.
Speaker 3: You kind of see how you have like you know,
Speaker 3: you would have had boomer execs kind of like drawn
Speaker 3: to stories like that, right, whereas like now twenty years later,
Speaker 3: I you know, we have all these debates about like
Speaker 3: who's this game for, why is it referencing this or
Speaker 3: that or whatever. It's like, well, because a bunch of
Speaker 3: millennials are making it in gen X are the ones that
Speaker 3: are approving it. So it's interesting to see sort of
Speaker 3: that those generational like stories persevering. We've got Command and Conquer,
Speaker 3: Renegade Blood Omen two.
Speaker 1: Finally a banger in Silent Build two Restless Dreams, but
Speaker 1: it also gets a small preview.
Speaker 3: So, like, the thing that really stands out to me
Speaker 3: is that with all the like all time classics we're
Speaker 3: released and reviewed in this period, like Halo, like Metal Gear, Solitude,
Speaker 3: like Grand Theft, Auto three, like ten, the future release schedule,
Speaker 3: at least according to this issue is like pretty pretty soft. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And I feel like we had some I feel like
Speaker 3: we had some better previews in other magazines because this
Speaker 3: is our fourth January two thousand.
Speaker 1: And two we're looking at. And I know Reckless was
Speaker 1: in Xbox Official Magazine, but they also had and here's
Speaker 1: Xbox Official Magazine, right, They had a bunch of other
Speaker 1: exclusive previews and stuff. They had the fighting game that
Speaker 1: didn't have a game part yet for the characters and vibes.
Speaker 1: They had the was It Enclave, the one with the
Speaker 1: ten ADP graphics. You know, they had like a bunch
Speaker 1: of stuff in their previews that this doesn't have. And
Speaker 1: also is Andy McNamara's noted up front of the letter
Speaker 1: from the editor, they didn't have a GameCube DevKit that
Speaker 1: could play third party games, so they weren't they don't
Speaker 1: have any GameCube coverage either, so that kind of put
Speaker 1: them way behind on some of these previews, which makes interestingly,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure it's still wasn't like hey, mega massive,
Speaker 1: gigantic Christmas season and then nothing after is not that surprising,
Speaker 1: But also it looks worse in this magazine than any
Speaker 1: of the other issues we've looked at.
Speaker 3: You sort of in that like dead zone because E
Speaker 3: three was, you know, like in that announcement period sort
Speaker 3: of in the late spring, we were starting to get
Speaker 3: into that cyclical like area where they were starting to
Speaker 3: control messaging a little bit more. I think I'd be
Speaker 3: curious and then to look at some of the Christmas
Speaker 3: issues like we'll get there later in the season, like
Speaker 3: from later in this year, like yes, what were some
Speaker 3: of the big releases this year.
Speaker 1: That weren't kind of covered here? Okay, Well, no matter
Speaker 1: how great or not the writing is in these classic
Speaker 1: game magazines, our favorite writing to read is yours. We
Speaker 1: come back from this ad break, we will read your
Speaker 1: reviews of our reviews of classic video game magazine reviews
Speaker 1: break here on fun Factor. We've got mailed. As promised,
Speaker 1: we always review the best one. Funny is kindness and
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Speaker 1: Bonus points if you say who your favorite host is
Speaker 1: and why, Double bonus points if it's aiden. Of course,
Speaker 1: we also look at your YouTube comments. We try to
Speaker 1: reply as quickly as we can because we love the
Speaker 1: interaction that you guys always have great comments. Jason Wfde
Speaker 1: is always there chatting it up in the YouTube comments
Speaker 1: as well, which we super appreciate. Aidan, we have a
Speaker 1: review five stars on Apple podcast from Georgie Boys Acts.
Speaker 1: Title is a retro podcast that's different in all the
Speaker 1: right ways, magnificent. We love it for all of the
Speaker 1: gaming schmucks who rush to their local newstand or mailbox
Speaker 1: to read their beloved gaming rags. This show is for you.
Speaker 1: There is a ton of passion and a lot of
Speaker 1: expertise here from folks who are doing it for the
Speaker 1: love of the game, and one hundred x better than
Speaker 1: any slop fueled vintage post being fed to you by
Speaker 1: the algorithm. Not bad.
Speaker 3: Love it, I love it, and just shout out for
Speaker 3: Georgie and Press Pause Radio which Georgie hosts fabulous podcast
Speaker 3: looking at and covering video games. Also great streams on Twitch,
Speaker 3: and Georgie has one of the most impressive retro setups
Speaker 3: I've ever seen. I was looking at some pictures and
Speaker 3: it's like.
Speaker 1: You know, I've got a pretty good setup.
Speaker 3: I got nothing on Georgie impressive stuff. So having readers
Speaker 3: like Georgie and friends of the show like Georgie writing
Speaker 3: those reviews is like it.
Speaker 1: Honestly means the world. It makes my day and my week.
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Speaker 1: Georgie Boys Act. Check out Georgie's podcast again, leave rating,
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Speaker 1: We love to do it. We want to do it
Speaker 1: for as many of you as we can. It is
Speaker 1: time to review. Game informers review of Wait, which one
Speaker 1: are we doing? Final Fantasy ten?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: I was like we did the big preview walk through
Speaker 1: interview thing and that I was like, wait, this is
Speaker 1: Final Fantasy ten. Okay, Final Fantasy t review format go.
Speaker 3: Up front Gaming Former seems to use a pretty straightforward
Speaker 3: review system.
Speaker 1: There are six reviewers. They have a ten point scale,
Speaker 1: but it's actually it uses quarter marks.
Speaker 3: So like ten point two five to ten point five,
Speaker 3: so it's actually like, I think a forty point scale.
Speaker 3: Most games have a primary reviewer rating the game on
Speaker 3: that ten point scale with quarter points. Ten is Perfection,
Speaker 3: one of the best games of all time. Nine is
Speaker 3: worth owning. Eight Steve worth drop off.
Speaker 1: Steep drop off for sure, for sure, eight is worth playing,
Speaker 1: seven is worth renting, and six is limited appeal It
Speaker 1: is worth renting.
Speaker 3: I kind of like this though, I'd like being like, yeah,
Speaker 3: play this, but like, don't invest too much money into it.
Speaker 1: It's worth your time and not your money. Even below though,
Speaker 1: is just is garbage quote unquote garbage. So really it's
Speaker 1: a six point scale. Ten nine, eight, seven, six, five
Speaker 1: and below, but it has quarter.
Speaker 3: Points, so it's really like twenty four point scale. Our
Speaker 3: twenty point scale. Is it like ten with quarter points? Ten, three,
Speaker 3: six with quarter points, five and below has quarter points
Speaker 3: but they don't matter.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Math's not my thing. It's weird, it's complex.
Speaker 1: Don't do this. People don't do this. Don't do this.
Speaker 3: Games receive either a full length review, which is what
Speaker 3: we'll look at with ten, accompanied by a score, small
Speaker 3: scoreless breakout capsule comments for quote, concept, graphics, sound, playability, entertainment,
Speaker 3: and replay value, and then another scored second opinion capsule review.
Speaker 3: So in some ways, very similar to like what we
Speaker 3: were seeing in game players in the late ninety where
Speaker 3: you had a main reviewer, you had a second opinion,
Speaker 3: you had some like specific metrics, and then an overall score.
Speaker 3: The difference being there's no weighted scoring happening between the playability, entertainment,
Speaker 3: replay value stuff and the main review score. It's just
Speaker 3: one number. It's there's a lot going on here.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I mean cool. This is pretty standard with
Speaker 1: the bullet points and pulling out graphics, sound whatever. I
Speaker 1: like that they haven't done it into a, well, these
Speaker 1: all score, these facets all have to be scored individually,
Speaker 1: and then we have some extremely Matthew math way to
Speaker 1: pile that up into a true objective overall score, because
Speaker 1: as we've talked about a lot of times, there are
Speaker 1: some very clear examples where that is not what's actually happening.
Speaker 1: They're giving it a score and then reverse engineering. But yeah,
Speaker 1: like you say, the six point basically five star six
Speaker 1: star scale, perfection worth owning, worth playing, worth renting, limited appeal,
Speaker 1: and garbage, and then the other the whole bottom half
Speaker 1: of the scale is just for decoration. In a sense,
Speaker 1: it makes a sense that it's probably you know, the
Speaker 1: most accurate way of describing the metacritic. Yeah, Like, I
Speaker 1: all know what a ten is, we all know what
Speaker 1: a nine is, we all know what eight is, we
Speaker 1: all know what a seven is. I still think for me,
Speaker 1: the eight is worth playing. I would give any eight
Speaker 1: a worth buying, right, Like to me, like, even for
Speaker 1: doing this scale, the stop the drop off from ten
Speaker 1: is Perfection one of the best games of all time
Speaker 1: to nine is yeah, this is worth the money if
Speaker 1: you pay for it. Like that seems like a gigantic
Speaker 1: drop off to me. And I'm gonna bet that they
Speaker 1: don't stick that close to that actual scale, just like
Speaker 1: last month's Xbox Official magazine and.
Speaker 3: Like even like the way to describe a nine quote.
Speaker 3: Fans of the genre should definitely enjoy this game, but
Speaker 3: even those who don't normally like this type of game
Speaker 3: may find.
Speaker 1: Themselves getting hooked. For me, that like describes a seven. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like it's good.
Speaker 3: Going to appeal to people who love this genre, but
Speaker 3: it's weird enough that it might appeal to people outside
Speaker 3: of that.
Speaker 1: Like, so.
Speaker 3: You know, I think they try to add a lot
Speaker 3: of words to like this numerical scale that just muddies
Speaker 3: the water.
Speaker 1: A little bit more. Yeah, yeah, let's get onto the
Speaker 1: review fouan ten.
Speaker 3: It's right here on the opposite page the cover, I
Speaker 3: guess of the review section Fanansi ten. It has the
Speaker 3: iconic key art of Titus and Una in the Pond,
Speaker 3: which is one of the like great moments in fan
Speaker 3: Fantasy ten. But even as somebody who doesn't love Fananasa
Speaker 3: ten one of the great moments I think in kind
Speaker 3: of video game narrative history. It also lists and announces
Speaker 3: the game in a month Fananzi ten says quote with
Speaker 3: an undying devotion to changing the way people perceive role
Speaker 3: playing games. Squaresoft has completely altered the status quote for
Speaker 3: rbg's in Foal Fantasy ten from spoken dialogue to combat innovations.
Speaker 3: Nothing can prepare you for the adventure ahead. Fan Fantasy
Speaker 3: ten is a landmark release in one of Square's finest.
Speaker 1: Titles to date.
Speaker 3: No byline on that, but presumably written by either whoever
Speaker 3: edits the review section or the reviewer themselves. And here
Speaker 3: we go, fo when is he ten? So we have
Speaker 3: a main review written by Ryner. It's on the left
Speaker 3: hand page. It's a full like textual review. It's pretty chunky,
Speaker 3: I'd say, probably like two hundred and fifty three hundred words,
Speaker 3: bordered by some great screenshots from the game, including cutscene
Speaker 3: stuff but also gameplay stuff.
Speaker 1: Looks really good.
Speaker 3: On the opposite page we have a lot more screenshots,
Speaker 3: some key art of Kamari, like a poll quote, and
Speaker 3: then on the far right column we have the bottom
Speaker 3: line score, which was a nine point seventy five out
Speaker 3: of ten, putting it firmly in the worth buying category,
Speaker 3: but not in the best games of all time category.
Speaker 3: And then we have the pull out like capsule section
Speaker 3: with concept so it says quote the first talkie in
Speaker 3: the series, featuring hours of spoken dialogue, realistic motion captured animation,
Speaker 3: and highly detailed CG cutscenes graphics nothing short of a
Speaker 3: visual tour to force. Sound arguably nobu Uimatsu's best soundtrack
Speaker 3: to date. It is excellent playability. The refined combat system
Speaker 3: allows players to rotate party members, level up summons, and
Speaker 3: customize weapons. Entertainment is the quest is as linear as
Speaker 3: they come, which I'm glad to see them. Like mention,
Speaker 3: yet additional story material, bonus battles, and hidden weapons can
Speaker 3: be obtained through through side quests. The replay values listed
Speaker 3: as moderately high. And then we have a second opinion.
Speaker 1: Score from Justin which is also a nine point seven five.
Speaker 1: Before we really dig into this review, though, let's put
Speaker 1: a pause on things for a second because I want
Speaker 1: to skip ahead. So this is nine point seventy five.
Speaker 1: This is almost a perfect score from game and former. Yes,
Speaker 1: I want to skip ahead to page eighty eight to
Speaker 1: look at what the opposite looks like. We have a
Speaker 1: one star review, a one out of ten review here
Speaker 1: forv oh P, released by Ubisoft on the PlayStation. Can
Speaker 1: you read this one out of ten review from Matt
Speaker 1: for me time?
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: Sure. If there were such a thing as game developer fraternities,
Speaker 1: i'd suspect VIP was the product of a rush week
Speaker 1: prank at the Ubisoft campus. Like the show it's based on,
Speaker 1: the game is so indescribably bad that it's almost good
Speaker 1: in its own weird way. Actually it's not. It's not.
Speaker 1: In fact, it's absolutely horrible. It looks worse than Pam's
Speaker 1: new boyfriend kid Rock after a bottle of Jack Daniels.
Speaker 1: Imagine Parapa meets Shrek fairy Tale, freaked down in high heels,
Speaker 1: and then start running. Perhaps someday you'll find the Citagarage
Speaker 1: shield for fifty cents. If you do, I'd pick it
Speaker 1: up as a cheap reminder of just how bad games
Speaker 1: can be.
Speaker 3: Vicious yikes, Parapa catching some strays? Was this a rhythm game?
Speaker 3: I barely know what VIP is. It was like a
Speaker 3: Charlie's Angel type like show with Pamela Anderson, right, I think, yeah,
Speaker 3: I assume that's why she's mentioned. I think that's her
Speaker 3: in the picture.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't really remember the show, but Parapa catch strays
Speaker 3: is like that's not fair. But in any case, yeah,
Speaker 3: I would say correct me if I'm wrong, Ti or Chat.
Speaker 3: A one out of ten is like as rare as
Speaker 3: a as a ten out of ten and maybe had
Speaker 3: probably rare.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah right, Like especially when they're like anything five
Speaker 1: or below is garbage. This a one, Yeah, Like that's terrible,
Speaker 1: Like that's bad.
Speaker 3: Like when you go to like the lowest of the low,
Speaker 3: like we have Twisted Metal Small Brawl here, it got
Speaker 3: a three? What else do we have track on the Xbox,
Speaker 3: which of course was compared favorably in one of the
Speaker 3: previous episodes we did. They were like, hey, this was
Speaker 3: all World munch Is Odyssey, and they're like, this doesn't
Speaker 3: look as good as Shrek. It got a two out
Speaker 3: of ten. Let's see if we have any other like
Speaker 3: super low scores here.
Speaker 1: We don't want to. That's more using the whole scale
Speaker 1: than yeah.
Speaker 3: Right, And that's what I wanted wanted to look at,
Speaker 3: is like they have the scale and it's so reductive
Speaker 3: in the way that it looks at like sub five scores,
Speaker 3: but then it actually uses some of the full scale
Speaker 3: as well, which is weird, just very strange all around.
Speaker 3: It's a Soldier of Fortune Gold got a four, Stunt
Speaker 3: GP got a four, Jeremy mc grath's Supercross World got
Speaker 3: a four, Mummy Returns got two point five, So like
Speaker 3: they're using that scale under five but then lumping it
Speaker 3: all into something so like it what really is the
Speaker 3: difference between a two point five and a four?
Speaker 1: Interesting? Also a quick shout out to the podcast Behind
Speaker 1: the Bastards. All of it's great, but they're like multi
Speaker 1: part episode on the guy behind Soldier of Fortune magazine Peak.
Speaker 1: It's so good. That's very very funny. Love it.
Speaker 3: Get back to the review itself, page seventy four. Reiner
Speaker 3: is the lead reviewer on this with his textual review
Speaker 3: like taking up the first whole page, like I said,
Speaker 3: and it is pretty beefy, Like I think it's pretty
Speaker 3: solid in terms of the way that it doesn't just
Speaker 3: give a rundown of like, oh, here's how you play
Speaker 3: the game, or it's not even really like a Buyer's
Speaker 3: Guard review, which I.
Speaker 1: Like a lot. Can you read his opening statement for
Speaker 1: me kay. With each passing Final Fantasy release, Squaresoft continues
Speaker 1: to improve upon perfection, not only setting a new standard
Speaker 1: for role playing games, but for video games as a whole.
Speaker 1: Without question, Final Fantasy ten is Sakagucci's most ambitious project yet,
Speaker 1: and as a radical departure from the formula we've become
Speaker 1: accustomed to tapping into every facet of the PlayStation two architecture,
Speaker 1: the development team has completely revolutionized every aspect within the storytelling.
Speaker 1: This may sound trivial in the grand scheme of things,
Speaker 1: but it's the biggest change the series has ever made.
Speaker 1: Before we get to my thoughts on this, because I
Speaker 1: have some what's your experience with FO ten time? Yeah,
Speaker 1: played it, mostly loved it. I was terrified of the
Speaker 1: voice acting it was. It was fine, It was pretty
Speaker 1: good For those of you who don't know, I haven't
Speaker 1: done true professional video work for games, but I actually
Speaker 1: have been involved in radio, especially since I was a
Speaker 1: little kid. My mom worked in advertising, and so hey,
Speaker 1: I was a little kid who could read with inflections,
Speaker 1: so I got to do a bunch of local radio ads.
Speaker 1: I was the Gladstone's Carpet kid here in Lansing, Michigan
Speaker 1: for a while. That was pretty rad. So like, I
Speaker 1: have a little experience with that, and one of my
Speaker 1: best friends in high school growing up. Dave Beeson is
Speaker 1: actually a professional voiceover actor and coach, so like, again
Speaker 1: have a little experience with us, and so it was like, hey,
Speaker 1: this was pretty darn good. You're also involved in theater
Speaker 1: as well. Yes, so like but but my friend Dave
Speaker 1: at the time when this came out, recognized Orn's voice
Speaker 1: actor just from dialogue, like he ca like he listened.
Speaker 1: He's like, oh, that's so and so. Oh did you
Speaker 1: know he played so and so? Like what you know
Speaker 1: that's the same No, way, that's the same guy. And
Speaker 1: we like looked it up and it was he knew it,
Speaker 1: knew I was right, Oh, okay, all right, so this
Speaker 1: is this is pretty good. And I'll say I too,
Speaker 1: spent the first like ten or twelve hours of the
Speaker 1: game just okay, like but like when do I get
Speaker 1: to like the overworld, Like when do I get to
Speaker 1: like pick where I'm going? What do you when? When
Speaker 1: am I going to get you know? And it wasn't
Speaker 1: until the very end of the game where it was like, okay, cool,
Speaker 1: here's the airship.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Wow, I mean you still only get like nodes on
Speaker 1: our list too, Yeah, you don't get free travel. So
Speaker 1: it it was like far, Like I was like waiting
Speaker 1: for it, and then it wasn't happening, and I was
Speaker 1: really thrown by, Oh wait, this whole thing is just linear, right,
Speaker 1: It's just okay. But then it was. It was really good.
Speaker 1: The story was really good. The graphics were incredible, the
Speaker 1: music was incredible, the acting was good. And I, being
Speaker 1: a sports ball guy, loved blitz Ball. I love blitz baugh.
Speaker 1: Lots of people hated blitz ball. I love blitz Ball.
Speaker 1: It wasn't perfect by a long shot, but like, it
Speaker 1: was fun and intriguing enough that like, I really liked it,
Speaker 1: and it games like the Captain Subasa series, which was
Speaker 1: probably at least a significant piece of the inspiration for it,
Speaker 1: has evolved into today we're a lot more familiar with
Speaker 1: the idea of a sports game that's arkadie and you
Speaker 1: have like battle anime moves and you know that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. So I think if you readd sport the
Speaker 1: blitz Ball today, even as like a standalone thing, I
Speaker 1: think it could go crazy. My big problem with ten
Speaker 1: was that I'm an I don't want to say I'm
Speaker 1: a dumb dumb. I'm a little bit of a dumb
Speaker 1: dumb In that sometimes I'm you know, even when I'm
Speaker 1: reading books, I get really wrapped up emotionally in the
Speaker 1: beat to beat moments, and I can miss you know,
Speaker 1: I'm often not thinking of it structurally, and especially when
Speaker 1: I was younger, right Like I'm older, I've been more
Speaker 1: involved in like publishing and stuff and story you know,
Speaker 1: story crafting, story writing and critique and that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: So I'm a little bit better at being more analytical
Speaker 1: when I consume stories like this. But I I was
Speaker 1: really thrown by the game's ending. Some of the sign
Speaker 1: posting of what was going on. I missed and or
Speaker 1: went huh and then forgot, you know, or like filed
Speaker 1: away as like what I so that ending. I really
Speaker 1: did not find it satisfying or good at all. And also,
Speaker 1: I'll hedge this in a second. My friend Dave beat
Speaker 1: it and then said, oh yeah, you kind of there's
Speaker 1: a good ending. You kind of got the bad ending.
Speaker 1: You have the one hundred percent to get the good ending.
Speaker 1: And every time I tell that anecdote, people come jumping
Speaker 1: at me and go, oh no, no, no, no, you're wrong.
Speaker 1: You're thinking of Final Fantasy ten too, And I'm like,
Speaker 1: uh no, no, no, no, this was before ten two was released.
Speaker 1: This is when ten was brand new and we played it.
Speaker 1: I don't know where he got that idea or what.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but like I spent that was theerra
Speaker 1: right of like right, yeah apart, so like think yeah,
Speaker 1: so I was, oh, you got to like get the
Speaker 1: strategy guide one hundred percent. And I don't even know
Speaker 1: if that's true or not, because at the time I
Speaker 1: was kind of like, hey, that's blowney right like, and
Speaker 1: I was so pet I hate the idea of you
Speaker 1: got to buy the strategy guide to play the game
Speaker 1: and have a good experience. Yeah, so that made me furious.
Speaker 1: It made me not want to revisit it, which I
Speaker 1: still really haven't. Yeah, and shading into ten too, I
Speaker 1: bought ten two played through the intro sequence, which I
Speaker 1: was like, well, this was not what I was expecting
Speaker 1: at all. But you know, now that I think about it,
Speaker 1: if a bunch of teenagers saved the world, yeah, what
Speaker 1: would they do. They'd become teen celebrities, which are what
Speaker 1: pops the I mean, I guess okay, I was. I
Speaker 1: was fine with that. The next thing that happens is
Speaker 1: the all bed come up out of the ocean speaking
Speaker 1: all BED and it's untranslated and you have to go
Speaker 1: find all the Allbed dictionaries again. And that is when
Speaker 1: I rage quit, took the disc out of the PS
Speaker 1: two and never played it again and still haven't because
Speaker 1: I was just like, no, I cannot deal with strategy
Speaker 1: Guide collectith on nonsense like this being front and center
Speaker 1: over exploration and story and role playing.
Speaker 3: So ultimately, after mention like two of your three party members,
Speaker 3: one of them is just straight up all bad and
Speaker 3: the other one is like half all BED, so like
Speaker 3: you should just going to be that Yeah, yeah, you
Speaker 3: can just speak that language.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I was just like yeah, Like I was like,
Speaker 1: I did this already. I did this already. I think
Speaker 1: I got like twenty four out of twenty six or something,
Speaker 1: and I first played three of ten and I was like,
Speaker 1: this is insane, this is ridiculous. I'm not doing this again.
Speaker 1: But overall, I thought ten was a fantastic push forward
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways. Presentation was incredible. I thought
Speaker 1: the story really worked, and honestly it even though I
Speaker 1: hated the ending at the time, I bet if I
Speaker 1: replayed it I would appreciate it a little bit more. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think even though it wasn't the story wasn't
Speaker 1: what I wanted out of the game, I think it
Speaker 1: held a lot more true character wise start to finish
Speaker 1: than something like seven or eight, right, where the characters
Speaker 1: are true to themselves, the core conflicts of the story
Speaker 1: set up at the beginning carry all the way through,
Speaker 1: in contrast to something like Chrono Cross, which would have
Speaker 1: been you know, contemporary, like a year before, two years before,
Speaker 1: where it's like, you know, Kid shows up as like,
Speaker 1: all right, we're radical dreamers and then radical Dreamers are
Speaker 1: not mentioned again the entire game, right, like that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff, where you know, this is a cohesive start
Speaker 1: to finish plot. Yeah, character a lot in this game,
Speaker 1: like they're kind of tied inextricably. Yes, And I would
Speaker 1: say that nine does it as well, but seven is
Speaker 1: like does it to a degree, right, Like Cloud and
Speaker 1: his relationships form the core of the story. But but you're, yeah,
Speaker 1: I see it. So there's there's plenty of moments in
Speaker 1: seven where you're like, I don't really understand what's going on.
Speaker 1: This is not the same Cloud that was talking two
Speaker 1: hours ago, you know, and this and like that's that
Speaker 1: itself was part of the story, but even knowing that,
Speaker 1: it still doesn't feel coherent start to finish in the
Speaker 1: same way that ten does. Yeah, totally. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I've talked about FO ten a lot, and like I,
Speaker 3: as somebody with a background in like criticism, uh, specifically
Speaker 3: with books and narrative, like, I do think about the
Speaker 3: structural elements of the game a lot, and I do
Speaker 3: like the ending because of that. But I think that
Speaker 3: Fan Fansi ten, especially at its beginning, has so many
Speaker 3: structural issues that undermine what's going on that I think
Speaker 3: it's interesting that you sort of like blame blindness to
Speaker 3: structural issues as like one of the reasons you have
Speaker 3: issue with the game despite liking a lot of it,
Speaker 3: Whereas for me, I'm like, oh no, the structural issues
Speaker 3: are the reason why the game.
Speaker 1: Doesn't work very well. But in any case, I want
Speaker 1: to get back to what Ryiner said in the beginning
Speaker 1: of his review, because I think, and this is going
Speaker 1: to sound weird as somebody who doesn't really care for
Speaker 1: Fan Fancy ten, I think he's very superlative, but objectively
Speaker 1: he's pretty accurate in what he says. Fan Fantasy ten
Speaker 1: was Saku Gucci's most ambitious project. It did change the
Speaker 1: series fundamentally, and it tapped into PlayStation two's potential from
Speaker 1: like a presentation standpoint. But and this is like where
Speaker 1: I usually get myself into trouble when discussing fan fanacy ten.
Speaker 1: I think most those elements actually hurt the series long term,
Speaker 1: and I think that the series benefited from creative constraints.
Speaker 1: I think the move into like a higher fidelity virtual
Speaker 1: medium took away from sort of the emergent gameplay that
Speaker 1: we talked about earlier, where like you being in the
Speaker 1: game in the world is a big part of the
Speaker 1: story too. Hey, this is sort.
Speaker 3: Of like a linear long movie that you can play,
Speaker 3: but playing is really.
Speaker 1: Just going from cut scene to cut to scene to
Speaker 1: cut scene to cut scene, and that is what Foalancy
Speaker 1: thirteen is heavily criticized for being a hallway simulator. It's
Speaker 1: all there in Fouanci ten, though, like all the things
Speaker 1: that are I think at issue with like modern final
Speaker 1: fantasies started here with ten, and so like when Ryaner
Speaker 1: says all of those things, like yeah, it was ambitious,
Speaker 1: Like Sakagucci did always want to make movies, and this
Speaker 1: was his kind of first step towards that, but it's
Speaker 1: also when we got into this higher fidelity area that
Speaker 1: started causing series delays with future Final Fantasy games, and
Speaker 1: then Sakagucci leaving after this when he made a lot
Speaker 1: of these dramatic presentational and structural changes to the series,
Speaker 1: then left the remaining team with this idea that they
Speaker 1: had to like reinvent the wheel over and over and
Speaker 1: over again with every new game, which was not the
Speaker 1: case with Early Final Fantasy. Right like Early Final Fantasy
Speaker 1: was iterative and they'd make changes within structures that already worked.
Speaker 3: Right ATB was introduced in Final Fantasy four, and it
Speaker 3: stuck with the series through Final Fancy nine because it worked.
Speaker 1: It was great.
Speaker 3: They changed the level up or the character building mechanics
Speaker 3: within that. Foosi six changed the structure of the game,
Speaker 3: but kept ATB. FINANSI seven introduced more like linear storytelling
Speaker 3: to a degree, but you know had the material system
Speaker 3: which offered a lot of customization. You know, they were
Speaker 3: recognizable from one another, But Fantanaci ten being so different,
Speaker 3: I think created this impression that it needed to be
Speaker 3: so different to be a Final Fantasy, and I think
Speaker 3: that that comes into a weakness of the later games
Speaker 3: that have led to some of these major delays, and like,
Speaker 3: I love games that have come after Fan Fansi ten.
Speaker 3: I love fan Fansi twelve. It's fabulous. I even have
Speaker 3: a soft spot for fan Fantasy fifteen, which is very flawed.
Speaker 3: But I think that long term the series would have
Speaker 3: been better off if it hadn't felt like it had
Speaker 3: to chase Fowanzi ten, if it had recognized fan Fansi
Speaker 3: ten as like one version of Final Fantasy and that
Speaker 3: fan Fanasy can be anything else. And I think that
Speaker 3: we're also seeing the RPG scene with stuff like Claib's
Speaker 3: You're going back and looking at some of that early
Speaker 3: like not even early, but like late nineties RPG games
Speaker 3: play and being like, oh, hey, this wasn't like a compromise.
Speaker 1: This was a good piece of game design, and that's
Speaker 1: worth exploring more.
Speaker 3: It doesn't like we don't have to throw out the
Speaker 3: past to make something great for the future. And I
Speaker 3: think that all started with Famasi ten.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. And during the Final Fantasy eight retrospective
Speaker 1: post show with Lord Drew by, very good friend of
Speaker 1: the show, one of the friendliest friends of the show. Yes,
Speaker 1: really helped me appreciate how a little bit the Squaresoft
Speaker 1: at this point saka Gucci and those you know, this
Speaker 1: started in the eighties. Here we are in two thousand
Speaker 1: and one, two thousand and two, and they've been building
Speaker 1: on what they started twenty years ago, right, fifteen years ago, yeah,
Speaker 1: and iterating on this in a lot of ways. And
Speaker 1: then then their audience has been playing too, right. So
Speaker 1: for me, like the first YARPG I played was Chrono Trigger,
Speaker 1: which in some ways is like the apex of the
Speaker 1: sixteen bit JRPG form right, So I'm just getting into
Speaker 1: this stuff, and I'm getting into this stuff as soon
Speaker 1: as the creators and mainstream audience are like, hey, it's
Speaker 1: time for something new. We're kind of bored with these formulas, right,
Speaker 1: And so like the the magicite stuff in six led
Speaker 1: to the material stuff in seven, a lot of the
Speaker 1: similar things. Right, eight, they're like, we need to totally
Speaker 1: break this.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Nine is kind of back to basics in some ways,
Speaker 1: but changes some other stuff. You know, some of these
Speaker 1: other you know, non mainline final Fantasy games. You know,
Speaker 1: Cronocrosses combat system is brilliant and a big departure, right,
Speaker 1: So they're like, how do we change this up? How
Speaker 1: do we make this more realistic, less realistic, more magic,
Speaker 1: less magic, more character action, more you know, abstract like
Speaker 1: they're trying different stuff and ten system is built into
Speaker 1: this more movie like system, right, this more like we're
Speaker 1: going in this direction of you're controlling characters and then
Speaker 1: they're doing stuff and you're seeing and it looks like
Speaker 1: a movie, right, And we're heading towards the final Fantasy
Speaker 1: seven remake series to an extent sixteen too, right, So
Speaker 1: like that's like a cool creative decision by this team,
Speaker 1: many of many core members which are still involved in
Speaker 1: either the remake series or the mainline development. So like
Speaker 1: I get that, but also, like you say, there's lots
Speaker 1: of other indies and people who grew up our age,
Speaker 1: our generation are a little above or below, going, hey,
Speaker 1: here are these forgotten evolutionary paths here, let's iterate on.
Speaker 1: Let's go back to late sixteen bit, early thirty two bit,
Speaker 1: and you know, let's build from there, not in this way.
Speaker 1: That's that's movie like an action like and you know
Speaker 1: that's valid too, right, So and let's I'm going to
Speaker 1: read a little bit from Rhynan's review here My only
Speaker 1: complaint has to do with the structure of the quest.
Speaker 1: The Final Fantasy games are traditionally linear, but this one
Speaker 1: redefines the term. You cannot backtrack until later in the game,
Speaker 1: and overworld has been completely removed. You simply move from
Speaker 1: location to location via a cursor on a map. I
Speaker 1: don't know about you, but I always enjoyed having the
Speaker 1: freedom to leisurely move about the world, perhaps on the
Speaker 1: back of a chocobo. You can't do this anymore. Every
Speaker 1: environment is completely sectioned off from the others. Sadly, you
Speaker 1: don't even get to take control of the airship. And
Speaker 1: even the last sentence of their reviews, even if you
Speaker 1: don't approve of all the changes Squaresoft has installed, I'm
Speaker 1: sure you're sure you'll agree. Final Fantasy ten is a
Speaker 1: breakthrough release, a visionary tale, and a masterpiece for the ages.
Speaker 1: And for me, like, I don't want to be like
Speaker 1: a Star Wars person, like you don't even get to
Speaker 1: take control of the airship, you know, but like that
Speaker 1: rush of yo, we got the airship, let's go, and
Speaker 1: like the music, Oh this is the airship music. Oh
Speaker 1: it's good. It's like it's a big part of the series,
Speaker 1: and it's a big part of that final fantasy, like
Speaker 1: this is the fantasy, this is the thing. Oh it's
Speaker 1: it's on. Now it's popped off. You really get the
Speaker 1: whole world at your fingertips, right, you really have you know,
Speaker 1: the world has opened up for you, you know, and
Speaker 1: you get that moment when you leave the first town.
Speaker 1: A lot of times you go into the overworld, you
Speaker 1: see the map, you're like, oh, man, like, look at
Speaker 1: all these possibilities, right, and like, even though you're moving
Speaker 1: through the world of ten, the possibilities are opening up
Speaker 1: in front of you and they're cool. You you can
Speaker 1: only think about what am I going to get shown next?
Speaker 1: Not where can I go next? Or what can I
Speaker 1: do next? And so like that's that is definitely a
Speaker 1: lessening of that sense of fantasy and adventure for me.
Speaker 3: There's like a lot less agency within the game than
Speaker 3: what you've come to expect from the series. And they
Speaker 3: tried to like compensate for the linear story by having
Speaker 3: the battle system where you can like swap characters in
Speaker 3: and out. They all have strains like walk as strong
Speaker 3: against fine enemies, you know, oron can cut through like
Speaker 3: armored enemies. But even that becomes linear because every battle
Speaker 3: enemy configuration has an optimal strategy for how to address
Speaker 3: it and like which order to bring your characters in,
Speaker 3: which skills to use that even like like because I
Speaker 3: recently played through Financi ten again like last year on
Speaker 3: the Switch, and it's like even combat boss battles are fun,
Speaker 3: but combat in the overworld becomes just as linear as
Speaker 3: the regular game. There's no agency, there's the best way
Speaker 3: to do this, and you can't take out flying enemies
Speaker 3: with anyone except Waka, so you have to bring him in.
Speaker 1: There's not like builds.
Speaker 3: And I think Final Fantasy seven and it's kind of
Speaker 3: touch on what I think you're saying the Followanzi seven remake.
Speaker 3: I think it's so successful that series because it understands
Speaker 3: like the emotional resonance that Final Fantasy has had with players,
Speaker 3: and it realizes that like not like nostalgia bait wise,
Speaker 3: but like leaving mid Guar, which has very like leaving Midguar,
Speaker 3: which is very like closed and claustrop phobic, it retain
Speaker 3: that sense of like you step out of calm in
Speaker 3: Rebirth and you get this big open field that feels
Speaker 3: endlessly explorable, and that was so compelling, and they did
Speaker 3: it in a new way with new tech. It's not
Speaker 3: a world map in the same way, but it gives
Speaker 3: you that same feeling that's so compelling. And I think
Speaker 3: that the other thing worth noting is Famac ten came
Speaker 3: out in two thousand and one. Financi seven came out
Speaker 3: in two or nineteen ninety seven, Yeah, four years. You know,
Speaker 3: Final FanTac nine came out less than a year before ten,
Speaker 3: and so when you have a condensed right release schedule
Speaker 3: like that, like that's insane, right, Yeah, yeah, sure, there's
Speaker 3: probably like from between ninety seven and two thousand and two,
Speaker 3: there was only.
Speaker 1: One year that did not have a mainline Final Fantasy release.
Speaker 3: Ninety seven had Fonantasy seven, ninety eight had no Final
Speaker 3: Fantasy eight came out in ninety nine. Nine in two
Speaker 3: thousand and ten had Follansi ten or sorry, two thousand
Speaker 3: and one had Followanci ten, two thousand and two had
Speaker 3: Final Fantasy eleven. When you have that condensed release schedule
Speaker 3: and Followanci ten comes out and does something very different
Speaker 3: Because seven eight nine on the PlayStation were very similar.
Speaker 3: They had different like character mechanics, but otherwise very very
Speaker 3: similar in structure, in gameplay.
Speaker 1: And expectations.
Speaker 3: Ten was a big change from all of that. So
Speaker 3: it was eleven, but when you get them basically every year,
Speaker 3: having something that's a little different like ten probably would
Speaker 3: have felt I would have appreciated it more if we
Speaker 3: had gotten eleven a year later and it was a
Speaker 3: regular Final Fantasy game, or even you know, in two
Speaker 3: thousand and three we had gotten a regular Final Fantasy game.
Speaker 3: But you actually had to wait at this point now
Speaker 3: five years for the next mainline single player Final Fancy,
Speaker 3: which was twelve, which was also.
Speaker 1: Very you know different. Worked for me, didn't work for
Speaker 1: a lot of people, and all of a sudden you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I waited all this time, and this is weird and
Speaker 1: not what I expected. Right, Yeah, finan Fantasys sixteen came
Speaker 1: out three years ago, so there's already been more of
Speaker 1: a gap, you know, between Final Fantasy sixteen and now
Speaker 1: than there was between Fooanzi eight and Finz ten, and
Speaker 1: so like, you know, when you get into this release schedule,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, we have to blow everybody's minds.
Speaker 3: We're going to like create something new. Final Fantasy reinvents
Speaker 3: itself with every with every iteration, like you don't have
Speaker 3: access to like a strong base of players. And Final
Speaker 3: Fantasy is struggling to reach younger players because it doesn't
Speaker 3: have an identity. It doesn't have kids who grew up
Speaker 3: like with it as part of the childhood because it's
Speaker 3: so long between releases, Like Fansis fifteen came out twenty sixteen,
Speaker 3: seven years after thirteen, So like every seven years, a
Speaker 3: new Final Fantasy comes out, and so a kid, a
Speaker 3: teenager might play one Final Fantasy before the age of fifteen,
Speaker 3: which is wild, right, And so then the idea that
Speaker 3: they even care that you're rebuilding the identity of the
Speaker 3: series between games is like such a fallacy.
Speaker 1: Give them something really good.
Speaker 3: It's what Dragon Quest does, right, And like Dragon Quests,
Speaker 3: I get it, it's ceiling in North America on sales
Speaker 3: is lower, but like it knows its identity and it
Speaker 3: has huge gaps between releases now, but you know what
Speaker 3: you're getting with Phonaz twelve or drag Quest twelve when
Speaker 3: it comes out in twenty twenty eight or whenever at
Speaker 3: this point. And I think that like Final Fantasy got
Speaker 3: into this period of success during the PlayStation that kind
Speaker 3: of gave it too much confidence that it could do
Speaker 3: whatever it wanted or whatever it needed to. Final Fantasy
Speaker 3: ten being so different and such a big success kind
Speaker 3: of feeding into this idea of like, oh okay, we
Speaker 3: can like you know, we have this responsibility now to
Speaker 3: reinvent ourselves and it's going to work every time. But
Speaker 3: when thirteen and fifteen and even twelve and sixteen, like,
Speaker 3: there has not been a beloved Final Fantasy since ten.
Speaker 3: You know, there there have been ones that people like
Speaker 3: uh following preven is like passionately defended by people like me,
Speaker 3: but there aren't like universally loved Final fantasies. Ten was
Speaker 3: the last one, and and ten is when they started
Speaker 3: changing up the formula every time. And so what you know,
Speaker 3: Ryan are saying that that's a straint that like this
Speaker 3: is pursuing Sakaguci's ambitions.
Speaker 1: Zacagucci left after this game.
Speaker 3: But he wraps up, and this is what I wanted
Speaker 3: to talk about too, is Ryaner wraps up his review
Speaker 3: saying even if you don't approve, and sir, I should
Speaker 3: go back and say, this is part of the reason
Speaker 3: I think this is a strong review f ten for
Speaker 3: the time because he book ends his superlative opening with
Speaker 3: like this contrast to close out the review, so quote,
Speaker 3: even if you don't approve of all the changes that
Speaker 3: Squaresoft has installed, I'm sure you'll agree that Final Fantasy
Speaker 3: ten is a break through release, a visionary tale, and
Speaker 3: a masterpiece for the ages. Again, I think this is
Speaker 3: a spot on read of the game. It changes a lot,
Speaker 3: and that does not work for a lot of people.
Speaker 3: It doesn't work for me, and I've been you know,
Speaker 3: very open about why that is on Blue Sky and
Speaker 3: on other podcasts and stuff. But it is beloved and
Speaker 3: it did introduce a lot of people to the genre,
Speaker 3: to the series as the first game. Everything that came
Speaker 3: after it, though, was has been so fuddled up that
Speaker 3: I think they just like lost momentum and they needed
Speaker 3: to recognize that, like, hey, we could do this like
Speaker 3: fast release schedule and make a lot like changes to
Speaker 3: the series on the PlayStation because our development time was
Speaker 3: you know, quite a bit shorter. But like when you're
Speaker 3: releasing games every seven years, you need a stronger identity.
Speaker 3: And I think that they missed. Squares Off missed that
Speaker 3: and miss seeing that when ten was such a big
Speaker 3: success and then they launched into an MMO.
Speaker 1: You've got to be You've got to be each you know,
Speaker 1: And well this is the trap of the Triple A
Speaker 1: five six, seven year dev cycle, yeah, which is like
Speaker 1: each new Elder Scrolls game has to be so much
Speaker 1: mind bow blowingly better than the last and better than
Speaker 1: anything else on the market, right, But like, but does
Speaker 1: it so? Like because like, what are the biggest color?
Speaker 1: It is the same game every year. Kids just play
Speaker 1: Fortnite and Rodblocks they play literally play the same game
Speaker 1: all the time.
Speaker 3: And so like the idea of having to reinvent yourself
Speaker 3: or one up yourself rather than building iteratively on it
Speaker 3: on yourself, I think it's just so such a disingenuous,
Speaker 3: like capitalist idea. I you know, I've been playing the
Speaker 3: Life Is Strange games and so I played Reunion, which
Speaker 3: came out this year, and it was sort of like
Speaker 3: the wrap up conclusion to the trilogy with Max and
Speaker 3: and Chloe, And it was kind of panned by a
Speaker 3: lot of people because it reuses so many assets from
Speaker 3: Double Exposure, which came out a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1: But for me, I was like, this is good, Like
Speaker 1: reuse stuff, build stuff, and use it multiple times. Yes,
Speaker 1: Street Fighter did it right, Like they weren't redoing their
Speaker 1: backgrounds with every like new release, right, not until you
Speaker 1: got a big major release like reuse this stuff. Final
Speaker 1: Fancy seven Remake Trilogy is what it is because they
Speaker 1: keep the team around and they're leaning on the work
Speaker 1: they've already done, and so they were able to release
Speaker 1: Rebirth in like four years and it's been fabulous, right,
Speaker 1: And so you know, we look at where Final Fantasy
Speaker 1: has had a beloved sort of almost unanimously universally loved game,
Speaker 1: and that's the seven remake, right.
Speaker 3: It's not devisive the way sixteen or fifteen or thirteen were.
Speaker 3: Final Fancy fourteen is also beloved as a mainline release,
Speaker 3: but it's an MMO and it literally has done the
Speaker 3: same thing the whole time.
Speaker 1: Well actually that's I guess that's another story, but that
Speaker 1: is a story, yeah, because they did completely redo fourteen,
Speaker 1: but the successful version of fourteen is just the same thing,
Speaker 1: and it builds off what I'll was already there, and
Speaker 1: I just think we see I'm glad. Ryaner pointed out, like, hey,
Speaker 1: this game changes a lot that might not be for you,
Speaker 1: but it is going to have a big impact and
Speaker 1: that's exactly what ten did, which I think is good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I will say I do think that there is some
Speaker 1: of that reinvention. Like you said, it was iterative from
Speaker 1: one to two, from two to three to three to
Speaker 1: four to four to five, and it was. But it's
Speaker 1: they also, you know, tried to push the envelope, tried
Speaker 1: to push boundaries, you know, in the specific areas, though
Speaker 1: in specific areas it never changed everything at once, right right, well,
Speaker 1: And I think that's also the hardware is limiting too,
Speaker 1: right where you're like, okay, the nes how many times
Speaker 1: can you go back to the well and push boundaries sns? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you go back to the well, push boundaries. Right now
Speaker 1: You're like, well, now I've got streaming video, and now
Speaker 1: I've got streaming audio, and now I've got Internet, you know,
Speaker 1: like what can I do? The possibilities become gigantic and
Speaker 1: so then and that's where the creative restraints are so
Speaker 1: important for this series exactly exactly so I think I
Speaker 1: think for me, and like you say, I mean a
Speaker 1: lot of Zelda has mastered this, you know, uh operat
Speaker 1: of Time to Majora's Mask, Breath of the Wildest Tears
Speaker 1: of the Kingdom. Nintendo has been doing this. Hey, yeah, cool,
Speaker 1: let's take these assets and now that we have the assets,
Speaker 1: let's rebuild a new game, new mechanics on top of it.
Speaker 1: So that all makes sense to me. And obviously I
Speaker 1: think you can't go me bringing up this this epic
Speaker 1: triple a dev tent pole like seven eight year time.
Speaker 1: I don't think you can do that. I don't think
Speaker 1: that's sustainable. I don't think it's possible to you know, again,
Speaker 1: because the starfield, right, you can't start eight or nine
Speaker 1: years out and go We're gonna be revolutionarily ahead of
Speaker 1: the game in every single way right now. Okay, well
Speaker 1: ten years, ten years later, it's going to catch up
Speaker 1: with you or like, stuff that you thought was unbelievably
Speaker 1: revolutionary will be old news to ten years, or some
Speaker 1: of it will say, you know, it's going to be
Speaker 1: all over the place. You can't project out that far,
Speaker 1: you can't take that long. You can't keep an audience
Speaker 1: waiting that long. And yeah, I would love if we
Speaker 1: were on Final Fantasy twenty five at this point and
Speaker 1: everybody has their favorites, you know, and it's not just okay,
Speaker 1: what's your favorite? Is is it? Six? Seven, eight or nine, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, and then you know, if you want to
Speaker 1: get really saucy, you can say four or five, right,
Speaker 1: like you know, like your best right. Yeah. So that's
Speaker 1: where I'm saying, like it would be cool, and then
Speaker 1: each one can play towards different audiences being play with
Speaker 1: different stuff. So like I would love to live in
Speaker 1: a world where it's still more like that. Maybe that's
Speaker 1: where we're going. Yeah, and maybe fourteen, you know, And
Speaker 1: I think for us, the price of investing in fourteen
Speaker 1: because there's so many great stories and so many things
Speaker 1: in Final Fantasy lore and Final Fantasy moments that fourteen
Speaker 1: officionados are like, you guys are missing out on all
Speaker 1: the best Final Fantasy of the last decade because you
Speaker 1: haven't been playing fourteen. It's like, all right, cool, well,
Speaker 1: I just need to sink four hundred hours into it
Speaker 1: to get none of it happens in the main story
Speaker 1: quest also, which is like yeah, like yeah, yea yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: So like it's that's the thing where it's like they've
Speaker 1: siloed off a bunch of that stuff in that online world,
Speaker 1: and then like if it has a persistent younger fan base,
Speaker 1: it's in fourteen and how many of them are going
Speaker 1: and playing the mainline stuff, I don't know. So it's
Speaker 1: they're they're in an odd situation and I wish they
Speaker 1: would get to you more it or if stuffing get.
Speaker 3: And like, it's not like Square doesn't do it. Octopath
Speaker 3: is hugely successful. It doesn't sell like and I from
Speaker 3: squares perspective, it only sells a million copies or whatever, like,
Speaker 3: still huge numbers, but it doesn't sell fifteen million like
Speaker 3: Falomanzi sixteen does. And so from a you know, monetary perspective,
Speaker 3: I know, Folowanzi fifteen like hugely problematic development cycle took
Speaker 3: forever to come out, right what seven years right between
Speaker 3: thirteen and fifteen, But it also made back its costs
Speaker 3: on a first day of sales, and so like from
Speaker 3: a business perspective, that's a success for the people who
Speaker 3: hold the pursonring at Squaresoft, even if it's the wrong
Speaker 3: lesson to take. You know, we see a lot of
Speaker 3: this iterative stuff at Square, which works really well. You know,
Speaker 3: life is strange as a Square game, right like, yes,
Speaker 3: and that's my recent example of iterative sort of like
Speaker 3: game development Octopath as well, like they do it, and
Speaker 3: I think that Final Fantasy's original strength when it was
Speaker 3: like when it was at its peak, was because of
Speaker 3: iterative design, not because of reinventing itself. And now we
Speaker 3: get into this place where every Final Fantasy has its
Speaker 3: own creative team and like lead visionary. You know the
Speaker 3: guy responsible for follan Fantasy fourteen's huge success, right Yoship,
Speaker 3: He led Phone Fantsay sixteen, and it didn't do anything
Speaker 3: that fan Fancay fourteen does well. And you get into
Speaker 3: that like Star Wars sequel trilogy issue, where you have
Speaker 3: a different vision at the top for every movie or
Speaker 3: every game, and then it just never cohesive and it
Speaker 3: doesn't feel like there's a through line of like this
Speaker 3: is what makes this a Final Fantasy. And I think
Speaker 3: that's just really problematic. And it all, in my opinion,
Speaker 3: started here in Folanzi ten, and I think bryaner Like
Speaker 3: does a good job of recognizing what the game does well,
Speaker 3: but also where some of its divisive elements, like the linearity.
Speaker 1: Really come into play. Yeah, so what do we think
Speaker 1: and actually should we talk about Justin's second opinion? I
Speaker 1: think we should since it's there, you know, do review
Speaker 1: the review and then not talk about this the second
Speaker 1: opinion here. It's from Justin. I was skeptical at the
Speaker 1: thought of another Final Fantasy. I've played on the US
Speaker 1: released games and they've all rocked the house, but my
Speaker 1: enthusiasm has been waning. Silly me. That's fascinating to me
Speaker 1: that after nine, you're a viewer at a major gaming magazine,
Speaker 1: you're like, maybe they don't need to make another Final Fantasy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like nine fell that flat for you? Wow, Okay, but
Speaker 1: I guess he said they've all rocked the house. But
Speaker 1: my enthusiasm has been waiting, Like I've seen this enough.
Speaker 1: This is kind of what I was hinting at before, too, Right, Like,
Speaker 1: if you're thirty eight, when Final Fantasy nine comes out
Speaker 1: and then they're okay, cool, here's ten, you're like, Hey,
Speaker 1: maybe I don't want another variation on this formula, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: this could be the greatest Final Fantasy, if not RPG,
Speaker 1: of all time. For once a game in the genre
Speaker 1: has a truly unique setup, no experience, and no weapon
Speaker 1: stats may seem sacriligious at first, but f F ten's
Speaker 1: sphere good and weapon customization put them to shame. Storytelling
Speaker 1: is vastly improved with the wealth of speech past, tense voiceovers,
Speaker 1: and shockingly superb cut scenes. However, things were a bit
Speaker 1: too linear. With apologies to DA three, I must say
Speaker 1: f F ten has some of the hottest women in
Speaker 1: video games. Parenthetically pathetic, but it must be said close
Speaker 1: for emphesis. Unlike writer, I find it refreshing that Titus
Speaker 1: is not the typical hero. It makes them that much
Speaker 1: more real. No other game will bring role playing to
Speaker 1: the masses like Final Fantasy ten pick it up, whoever
Speaker 1: you are justin also nine point seventy five. I it
Speaker 1: just kind of stupidly endearing to me. It's like, look,
Speaker 1: I know this is pathetic for me to say, I
Speaker 1: have to say it anyway. He calls himself out on it,
Speaker 1: like and so, but but overall like yeah, cool, Like hey,
Speaker 1: this totally blew away the old formula and I love that.
Speaker 1: Ye's great and so like, okay, that that's cool. But
Speaker 1: the thing is here, the other No other game will
Speaker 1: bring role playing to the masses like Final Fantasy X.
Speaker 1: But this is something that's been itching in the back
Speaker 1: of my mind. Like part of the problem with the
Speaker 1: linearity is you this is the least role playing that
Speaker 1: you get to do. You're not tightest. Titus is tightest
Speaker 1: because he's talking and there's his voice. You're not Waka,
Speaker 1: you're not Lulu, You're you're not any of these characters
Speaker 1: because they're all talking, right, and you're watching it, so
Speaker 1: the role playing, and you don't get as many choices
Speaker 1: to like how are you playing these characters? Right, and
Speaker 1: some of the things that people talk about with like
Speaker 1: Red Dead two, where you're like, yeah, cool, I have
Speaker 1: this unbelievable amount of agency and freedom and nonlinearity and
Speaker 1: I can do whatever, and then I get in a
Speaker 1: cut scene, Oh and here's some guy who is not
Speaker 1: acting or talking or making choices like I've been making.
Speaker 3: As aresp my criticism GTA four, right, Like that's what
Speaker 3: I had to do. I didn't have agency in the
Speaker 3: world because I had to play through missions in a
Speaker 3: certain way that didn't match what I thought the character
Speaker 3: should be. Yes, And I think, like the thing that
Speaker 3: frustrates me about especially like Justin's second opinion, but also
Speaker 3: in Reiner's review as well, is they keep criticizing it
Speaker 3: for being linear narratively and structurally, but then like Justin's
Speaker 3: like Glazing the Sphere Grid, which is super linear, right,
Speaker 3: Like and weapon customization is like pretty simple, it's not. Yeah,
Speaker 3: like Fonanzi nine had the same thing where you kind
Speaker 3: of like it's not the same aim, but you like
Speaker 3: combine weapons and items to like make new items. But
Speaker 3: like weapon customization in ten doesn't really have a huge impact.
Speaker 3: And then the sphere Gorid is linear until you get
Speaker 3: into there's the international edition that creates nonlinear sphere grid,
Speaker 3: so everybody's like Camari. They start at the middle and
Speaker 3: you could make Titus of Black Mage and you could
Speaker 3: make or On like a White Mage and stuff like that,
Speaker 3: which is cool, but that's not.
Speaker 1: The game they're reviewing here.
Speaker 3: The same thing happened with twelve that it had the
Speaker 3: license board and it was quite linear in the original release,
Speaker 3: and then the international release had like nonlinear almost like
Speaker 3: a job system, and it got way better.
Speaker 1: So like you can't say.
Speaker 3: The stories to linear, but I love the sphere grid
Speaker 3: when the sphere grid is essentially super linear too until
Speaker 3: the very end, when you can like hop around and
Speaker 3: customize a little bit, or you build super inefficiently and
Speaker 3: try to get your characters into like different classes early,
Speaker 3: but like that's just gonna hobble you in the game,
Speaker 3: you're not. You can't really do that. It's not realistic,
Speaker 3: and so like you can't have both. You can't say
Speaker 3: it's too linear in the story, but then kind of
Speaker 3: glaze a system that of character building that's just as
Speaker 3: linear as anything else.
Speaker 1: All right, should we review it? Let's do it. What
Speaker 1: do you think, Ty? What do you give? Reiner and
Speaker 1: Justin's review of Final Fantasy X. Yeah, we'll got a
Speaker 1: two page spread, eases up the whole two pages, A
Speaker 1: bunch of great screenshots, and it's kind of a mix
Speaker 1: of like iconic moments. I think they're well framed and
Speaker 1: well cropped, well selected. Right, you get a taste of
Speaker 1: most of the characters, some of the big monster design
Speaker 1: is super super cool. And then the text is not
Speaker 1: a ton of text, but it's really well written. It
Speaker 1: covers all the bases, and I think it properly frames
Speaker 1: the game in the history of the franchise and acknowledges
Speaker 1: what people might want in the expectations, acknowledges where it
Speaker 1: varies from that, and then goes hey, like, but whether
Speaker 1: this is to your taste or is not, it's undeniably
Speaker 1: just an incredible achievement in terms of development and production
Speaker 1: and putting the money on the screen, right, And I
Speaker 1: think that's right. And the second opinion, like, I agree
Speaker 1: with it less in terms of oh do I think
Speaker 1: it's it's in line with my taste, but it is
Speaker 1: I think it all it's a more emotional and more
Speaker 1: it's a useful second opinion, right, because it's it's probably
Speaker 1: less thoughtful, more emotional and I think reflective of what
Speaker 1: a lot of more casual and I'm trying I'm literally
Speaker 1: not using that as a derogatory term, but like what
Speaker 1: it's like, this brings role playing to the masses. You know,
Speaker 1: if you weren't already on board or you're younger, and
Speaker 1: you're like, what's Final Fantasy about? Right, Like a Final
Speaker 1: Fantasy seven broke RPGs out to the masses. Final Fantasy
Speaker 1: ten was just simply a mega triple A game with
Speaker 1: all of the anticipation and then bam, it blasted everything
Speaker 1: out of the water. So it's like, you know, nine,
Speaker 1: I love nine. It may be my favorite of the series,
Speaker 1: but also it slow rolls you at the beginning. You
Speaker 1: know you're not getting the big gosh, wow, oh man,
Speaker 1: I'm playing the hottest PlayStation two game. Of the year,
Speaker 1: you know, like and ten does ten gives you? This
Speaker 1: is a Triple A game, This is a major revolutionary title.
Speaker 1: It's doing things nothing's ever done. Yeah, and you're gonna
Speaker 1: be like Jah on the floor the whole time, even
Speaker 1: if you don't like digging into systems and numbers, and
Speaker 1: you don't enjoy wandering around on a map, and you
Speaker 1: don't get that same rush of role playing and fantasy
Speaker 1: that that nerds like, every person who likes video games
Speaker 1: will like this for the most part. Yeah, So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna give this review. We've been scoring high lately, we have. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think this is partly partly due to how
Speaker 1: magazines have grown up since nineteen ninety five. We're in
Speaker 1: two thousand and two. Right, there's a lot less you know,
Speaker 1: amateurist writing. There's a lot less you know, one reviewer
Speaker 1: going off on a tangent. Especially for Triple A releases
Speaker 1: like this, We're getting a lot more panels, We're getting
Speaker 1: a lot more thoughtful and a lot more considered. And
Speaker 1: also these magazines are also explicitly or not more behold
Speaker 1: in two corporate interests.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Right, there's more money in the magazines. There's more advertising
Speaker 1: in the magazines. There are either official ties or unofficial
Speaker 1: ties to the retail sales of the game, and they're
Speaker 1: more a part of the pr apparatus than they were
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety five. Right, So, like there's a certain
Speaker 1: minimum standard that's got to be held, and this holds it.
Speaker 1: So I'm probably gonna give this eight point seventy five
Speaker 1: blitz balls out of ten, eight points seven five bliss
Speaker 1: balls out of ten. I think I think I'm coming
Speaker 1: in just a little bit lower than you, admitting.
Speaker 3: Though that that's because of also like subjective reasons for that.
Speaker 3: I think that I like that Ryaner recognizes some of
Speaker 3: the changes that have been you know, that in hindsight,
Speaker 3: were negatives for the series. But I do think that
Speaker 3: he did so in a way that recognized, you know,
Speaker 3: also with hindsight, the impact that this game would have
Speaker 3: on players and new players. Like I recognize that I'm
Speaker 3: the outlier in my opinion here, but I also you know,
Speaker 3: I feel like, without necessarily, I feel like, without necessarily
Speaker 3: questioning why the game needed to change its formula so
Speaker 3: much and how and why that might have been to
Speaker 3: appeal to casual users, I would have liked to have
Speaker 3: seen maybe a little bit more of like hey why
Speaker 3: did they do this? Not just like a value witch
Speaker 3: of like hey this changed a lot and.
Speaker 1: It's really cool. But it's all very subjective. I get that.
Speaker 3: So I'm gonna come in I think a little bit
Speaker 3: lower than you just with a straight eight out of
Speaker 3: eight blitz balls out of ten, I think, I'll be honest.
Speaker 3: Justin's like second opinion brings it probably down a little
Speaker 3: bit because I think there's just some contradictory stuff in there.
Speaker 3: I think Ryaner is a little more spot on, and
Speaker 3: like I said, I agree with him, especially objectively, even.
Speaker 1: If not subjectively in how he shared the game. Yeah. Sure,
Speaker 1: and I would like it'd be cool if we had
Speaker 1: a little more text also for some of these, especially
Speaker 1: for a cover review. Yeah, we've seen other magazines at
Speaker 1: this time are giving three pages. Yeah you know, or
Speaker 1: there's no strategy your tips, which again.
Speaker 3: Is sorry, there is strategy though, and so like if
Speaker 3: we continue on, there's a huge strategy guide.
Speaker 1: Oh oh okay, okay, right, so like like a that
Speaker 1: makes sense, yeah, going through like basically the whole game
Speaker 1: as well. Geez, so like Gigantic and that's where that
Speaker 1: access comes from like I'm not even saying I like
Speaker 1: I don't even say I like that. That's not even
Speaker 1: necessarily a positive for me, but it is something I
Speaker 1: was just noting, Like, yeah, if you're doing a cover review,
Speaker 1: other magazines at this point are giving even more than
Speaker 1: a two page spread, and they are going through page
Speaker 1: that they used for just key RT Oh it's just
Speaker 1: the Heart and the Month Game of the Month award.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, so and like just I think that what's
Speaker 3: interesting too is, like I talk about context and wanting
Speaker 3: to understand context here. They did do that feature on
Speaker 3: the game with the hero and Obuzaka Gucci stuff with
Speaker 3: the development team interview, but they just didn't like link
Speaker 3: it all together. And that probably comes back to the
Speaker 3: fact that, like at the end of the day, Game
Speaker 3: Informer was trying to sell video games, right their parent
Speaker 3: company one of them to sell video games. I don't
Speaker 3: think the staff writers weren't necessarily doing that, but that
Speaker 3: was all the purpose was not necessarily to provide like
Speaker 3: high level cultural criticism.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean by this era, that's probably changed a
Speaker 1: little bit or is changing, right, but it's yeah, it's
Speaker 1: something that's always in the back of your mind. Yeah,
Speaker 1: totally all right. That is our review of Game Informers
Speaker 1: review of Final Fantasy ten. Did we get it right?
Speaker 1: Leave a review review, Leave our review a review at
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, posted as a comment on YouTube, and we
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Speaker 1: and pass the show around to all your friends. Look,
Speaker 1: it's third grade and we're on the playground. Shout us
Speaker 1: out on blue Sky at Funfactor pod dot com, everywhere
Speaker 1: else at fun Factor Pod Special. Thanks as always to
Speaker 1: Millennium Felk for all our amazing original music. Check out
Speaker 1: his work and it's incredible Windows ninety five website at
Speaker 1: Millennium fa lck dot com. Unlike these old magazines, you
Speaker 1: won't have to wait a whole month for your next installment.
Speaker 1: We drop new episodes every two weeks, So go to
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Speaker 1: Just like our friends joined us today in check and
Speaker 1: members talking with us, adding comments and we, you know,
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Speaker 4: Well I went to the wrong magazine. What happened? That
Speaker 4: wasn't that wasn't helpful? Oh my gosh, one second, no,
Speaker 4: it just crashed.
Speaker 1: Oh dear. Every like reader has its own like problem
Speaker 1: especial quicks, specially delightful exactly. Uh So, like this one
Speaker 1: that I use is called yak Reader. It's fabulous, except
Speaker 1: it will let me change magazines like I don't want
Speaker 1: to like if I'm in the middle of a magazine
Speaker 1: in the reader, like I don't want to go to
Speaker 1: the previous issue. Guys like yeah, the last one I tried.
Speaker 1: It'll scroll to the next one in your collection. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it's built for comic book like the actual comic
Speaker 1: reader format, right, yeah, And so it's like scrolling is
Speaker 1: if I quick like zip the scroll wheel, which I
Speaker 1: like to use on my track, and it just zips
Speaker 1: past the last patient onto the next essue like whoaha, no, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: back back back back back, back, back back back. Uh.
Speaker 1: And that's the same. This yak reader is fabulous, it's
Speaker 1: so good. Uh, but it is also made for manga
Speaker 1: and comics, not magazines. And so yeah, like, so we
Speaker 1: I did it again? Stop doing that okay. Ah, it's
Speaker 1: like when I click on the edges, I try to
Speaker 1: turn that off to Okay, I will stop using my
Speaker 1: mouse for to share this, Okay, at least it's not
Speaker 1: crashing my.
Speaker 3: Riverside stream like last time. Okay, so screen share, yes,
Speaker 3: and then I will just so ty, you will have
Speaker 3: to remove my my clickies. I gotta I've got a
Speaker 3: clickie keyboard, but I'll try to click.
Speaker 1: And then talk. Cool. Okay, there we go, it's back.
Speaker 1: Hey hey, okay, so click in the middle. So where
Speaker 1: were we? Uh some metroid art that's not very metroidy
Speaker 1: ah yeah, some more and I don't recognize and.
Speaker 3: Uh, next up is the review, so we're done with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we actually do. I'll do a throw. We actually
Speaker 1: do have a review to read, so, uh I can
Speaker 1: I can throw to break and then we can do
Speaker 1: the read the review. Yeah, sure, like an Apple podcast
Speaker 1: review of us? Oh nice? Okay, cool?
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 1: Cool? I think I think ten for me. Sure. With
Speaker 1: each fiddlesticks, I was reading it from your script at first.
Speaker 1: Then I wanted to make sure because there's yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a missing and improve. It just improved, and I was like,
Speaker 1: hold on, is that. Oh yeah. I did try to
Speaker 1: go through and clean it up because it was kind
Speaker 1: of worries, and then I went ahead and like, okay,
Speaker 1: now I tried to blow it up in the reader
Speaker 1: and I a screw myself. Okay,