Speaker 1: Hey, Ty, who do you think would win in a
Speaker 1: fight between Cloud Strife and Mickey Mouse? Oh, uh, Cloud Strife?
Speaker 1: You think so? Isn't he a bit of a chicken wuss? Wait,
Speaker 1: isn't that the other game? I think that's the other game.
Speaker 1: All games are the same now. We mash them all together. Oh, okay. Okay.
Speaker 2: So then, wait, which one is the one with the tail?
Speaker 2: Oh wait, I guess they all have tails now. You've
Speaker 2: got Fun Factor, two old gamers reviewing old video game
Speaker 2: magazine reviews. I'm Ty Schalter, he's Aidan Moher, and we
Speaker 2: are two professional writers who grew up loving the video
Speaker 2: games and video game magazines of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s.
Speaker 2: Every episode, we take a critical look back on the
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Speaker 1: Okay, Ty, last episode we spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: talking about movie tie-ins and how they were kind of
Speaker 1: like dragging down the games industry around this time in
Speaker 1: sort of the early aughts. We're in October 2002 at
Speaker 1: this point. But as we also pointed out on the episode,
Speaker 1: there were a lot of really great media crossovers and
Speaker 1: tie-ins throughout games history, even if they weren't necessarily all
Speaker 1: happening online. in the early aughts. Nowadays, we have great
Speaker 1: stuff like 007, First Light, Indiana Jones, the Spider-Man games.
Speaker 1: We have tie-ins that aren't even movie related. Like we
Speaker 1: were just on the Discord talking about Guardians of the
Speaker 1: Galaxy and how the game is supposed to be fantastic.
Speaker 1: And it's not even based off the movie version, which
Speaker 1: are also really good. So today I want to talk
Speaker 1: about like one of the best media tie-ins of all time.
Speaker 1: But we're going to save that for the review. Before that,
Speaker 1: I want to know what are some of your favorite
Speaker 1: media tie-ins?
Speaker 2: If we just go across the whole timeframe of video
Speaker 2: games ever, there's so many, and I've mentioned a few
Speaker 2: of them before. I really liked the Batman for the
Speaker 2: original Game Boy. X-Men, was it Children of the Atom?
Speaker 2: I think that was a Genesis game that my best
Speaker 2: friend had. We played that a bunch. And again, comic books,
Speaker 2: we were super into X-Men at the time. So having
Speaker 2: any kind of comic.
Speaker 1: Book thing, it was weird because it's like we were already.
Speaker 2: Like, any mention of video games and normal people media
Speaker 2: was like, wow, like video games, people are respecting video games,
Speaker 2: but then getting into comic books in like, you know, 90, 91, 92, 93,
Speaker 2: it was like, wow, comic books are being legitimized by
Speaker 2: video game adaptations. Um, uh, maximum carnage. I know I've
Speaker 2: mentioned before, uh, the super Nintendo game that again was
Speaker 2: more awesome than like good, uh, Actually, it was fine,
Speaker 2: but it was like 11 of 10 presentation, like four
Speaker 2: or five, 10 execution, you know. And you already mentioned
Speaker 2: the Spider-Man games, you know, with PlayStation. Now you jump
Speaker 2: way forward ahead. I've been trying to think of ones
Speaker 2: in the middle that, you know, that kind of scratched
Speaker 2: that itch of this is a fun game to play
Speaker 2: and it's a property that I like, or it's just
Speaker 2: a property that I like. I think the first Jurassic
Speaker 2: Park platformer was pretty good. Um, again, for Sega systems
Speaker 2: that I did not own, but had friends who had,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: The Super Nintendo Jurassic Park game was one of my favorites.
Speaker 2: Uh, that was very good first person stuff. But again,
Speaker 2: for that matter, the Disney Aladdin and Lion King ones,
Speaker 2: especially Aladdin.
Speaker 1: Lion King was a little sauce. It was a little hard. Aladdin.
Speaker 1: Aladdin was fantastic on Super Nintendo. Lion King cheated. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But yeah, for sure. For sure.
Speaker 2: Um, and I'm sure I will think of one as
Speaker 2: soon as I toss it back to you.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to toss it back to you. I
Speaker 1: think like one of the high watermarks for a media
Speaker 1: crossover was, um, X-Men versus street fighter in the arcades. Like, Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm not even a big fighting game fan, but like
Speaker 1: we played the crap out of that and seeing obviously
Speaker 1: street fighter, we were used to it, but seeing like
Speaker 1: Spider-Man and juggernaut Wolverine, like rendered at that level of
Speaker 1: detail in a fighting game was wild. Um, and like
Speaker 1: the way it worked perfectly was crazy, you know, like
Speaker 1: the way they were able to take the superheroes, put
Speaker 1: them in a game with, you know, like street fighter
Speaker 1: characters and make it all mesh together and not make
Speaker 1: it feel like, uh, you know, some were stronger than
Speaker 1: the other, like balancing all of that out worked really well.
Speaker 1: And then of course it's bond into like Capcom versus
Speaker 1: Marvel and all that kind of stuff. Uh, which was
Speaker 1: cool from that, but that like mushy middle, uh, place
Speaker 1: like actually right around this generation i suppose uh on
Speaker 1: the gamecube i really like the adaptation of the hobbit
Speaker 1: um i don't know if you ever played it i
Speaker 1: don't even know again i don't know if it's good
Speaker 1: but it was one of the first times like obviously
Speaker 1: the movies were huge right now right but this was
Speaker 1: not based on the movie so this was like an
Speaker 1: adaptation of the book The Hobbit because the Hobbit movies
Speaker 1: hadn't come out yet. And so it was one of
Speaker 1: the first times that I could remember outside of the
Speaker 1: Lord of the Rings game on Super Nintendo, which I
Speaker 1: talked about last episode. But having like a book adapted
Speaker 1: into a video game, visualized into this video game with
Speaker 1: a lot of personality and character, exploring the settings in
Speaker 1: video games. And I had the same feeling when I
Speaker 1: played Lord of the Rings online a number of years ago.
Speaker 1: And I didn't play it, you know, for that long.
Speaker 1: But I started a Hobbit. and exploring the Shire was
Speaker 1: so cool. Um, and so getting to kind of like
Speaker 1: put myself into those worlds that had already always existed
Speaker 1: in my head was, was a lot of fun. Um,
Speaker 1: and then there were a lot, like just lots of
Speaker 1: like weird pool, like mascot platformers in the 16 bit era,
Speaker 1: like cool spot. Uh, like it's seven up platformer. That
Speaker 1: was actually good, you know, based on a Darren Hupke
Speaker 1: put a yo no aid. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Oh,
Speaker 1: Sneak King. It was also mentioned in chat, which is wild,
Speaker 1: the Burger King games. But I think like one..
Speaker 2: Actually, I wanted to shout out the Star Wars, the
Speaker 2: N64 Star Wars Shadow of the Empire.
Speaker 1: For sure.
Speaker 2: Probably had the first real, you're the snow speeder and
Speaker 2: you take down the AT-AT.
Speaker 1: That really felt good.
Speaker 2: Um, they marketed it very heavily, you know, it was
Speaker 2: sort of like they built that level and went, Hey, look,
Speaker 2: all the rest of.
Speaker 1: This is great. Star Wars is interesting because it's almost
Speaker 1: like it it's grown so big. It's like a, it
Speaker 1: is a media empire in and of itself. It's not
Speaker 1: just movies anymore. Right. But back then it was now books. Uh,
Speaker 1: and like the, uh, pod racer on the 64 was
Speaker 1: also really impressive. Uh, can use a Ram kit to, um,
Speaker 1: have high res mode and stuff or like extra frames
Speaker 1: per second. It's like, digital foundry stuff like DLSS like in,
Speaker 1: you know, 1999 or whatever. Um, which was cool. Uh,
Speaker 1: so star Wars is a, is a good pull. There's
Speaker 1: so many interesting, uh, star wars games out.
Speaker 2: There darren says uh in the chat shadows was cool
Speaker 2: because they made it an event out of it without
Speaker 2: a movie and that was genuinely very cool but it
Speaker 2: was also kind of funny because they're pulling from the
Speaker 2: you know the novels the eu stuff right so it
Speaker 2: was like the back of the box was like now
Speaker 2: you can be dash rendar and i'm like great okay
Speaker 2: cool but it legitimately did you know it was and
Speaker 2: i mean and then like with star wars again there
Speaker 2: were the um What, Jedi Outcast?
Speaker 1: Is that? No, that's the new one. What are the
Speaker 1: Jedi Academy games or whatever? The first-person games on the PC.
Speaker 1: Sort of in the post-Doom quake world, there were some
Speaker 1: great first-person Star Wars games. But again, these are all old,
Speaker 1: and it is sort of during this mushy middle where
Speaker 1: I think I start to have trouble thinking of media
Speaker 1: tie-in games that I really like.
Speaker 2: Right, because just the fact that there is a video
Speaker 2: game adaptation itself... isn't good enough to get you exactly.
Speaker 2: And of course, as we've, as we've read these reviewers,
Speaker 2: if you're paying any attention to games media, these reviewers
Speaker 2: were absolutely vicious to movie tie-ins because they were often terrible. Uh,
Speaker 2: but now you have this, just being able to play
Speaker 2: star Wars as a video game itself, doesn't sell a
Speaker 2: video game. Just being able to play an IP as
Speaker 2: a video game, doesn't sell it.
Speaker 1: It had to be good. And, um, We also are
Speaker 1: now two, three generations. This is still Spider-Man.
Speaker 2: It's so funny because there are so many Spider-Man games.
Speaker 2: And it wasn't until the Sony Spider-Man for PS4 that
Speaker 2: web swinging actually felt good. I think I had the
Speaker 2: Dreamcast Spider-Man one where they just went, look, the doctor,
Speaker 2: whoever has put a whole bunch of. Poison fog around
Speaker 2: the city. And that's why we're just going to draw
Speaker 2: the top 10 stories of every skyscraper in New York.
Speaker 2: And it's not because we don't have a polygon.
Speaker 1: To render the cars and the people walking around down below.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: And I was like, this feels terrible. This looks terrible.
Speaker 1: They're trying it, but they're not there yeah uh and
Speaker 1: i mean that's also i think the way i look
Speaker 1: back at this era as well outside of like the
Speaker 1: gamecube i feel like nintendo kind of knew what they
Speaker 1: were doing with the gamecube but it was such a
Speaker 1: like we had jumped to 3d with the playstation figured
Speaker 1: out a lot there but the playstation 2 is when
Speaker 1: we went started to go like full polygonal right like
Speaker 1: most playstation games were A mixture, a blending of the
Speaker 1: two outside of like Vagrant Story, Panzer Dragoon, Sega and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. And so the PlayStation 2, I think
Speaker 1: also like, I don't know, they just, I just don't
Speaker 1: think it necessarily, I think in some ways like, it
Speaker 1: bit off more than it could chew in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways. And so making something like a Spider-Man game
Speaker 1: is like, oh, you probably should have made a Spider-Man
Speaker 1: game like you would make it on the PlayStation, but
Speaker 1: just not, just better. Rather than being like, hey, we
Speaker 1: have all this power, now we can make New York.
Speaker 1: Before we..
Speaker 2: By the way, we are being corrected.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Extremely uh violently in chat that the spider-man 2 uh
Speaker 2: movie tie-in on ps2 xbox gamecube felt fantastic looked fantastic
Speaker 2: so try that one many many stands for that.
Speaker 1: That's cool i didn't play that one but um before
Speaker 1: we kind of move on to i just want to
Speaker 1: shout out um the fact that there were also like
Speaker 1: random um book tie-in games that were kind of range
Speaker 1: from good to not great at all but like there
Speaker 1: was a disc world point and click adventure uh which
Speaker 1: i've never played oh yeah but apparently it's very hard
Speaker 1: there was a wheel of time game it's crazy hard.
Speaker 2: I played a ton of this world in fact um
Speaker 2: my friends my friends trolled me very hard because i
Speaker 2: showed them i'm like this is so cool i had
Speaker 2: never i had never read the books but i'd heard
Speaker 2: about them and i got it and it was like
Speaker 2: it was very funny it was like all so much
Speaker 2: eric heidel Doing the voicing of Rincewind. And it was
Speaker 2: really fun. The writing was fantastic. It's really pretty.
Speaker 1: Tons of cool stuff.
Speaker 2: And then also. Almost all of the puzzles are outrageously obscure.
Speaker 2: Many of them rely on. Inside jokes from the books.
Speaker 2: That you're supposed to know.
Speaker 1: That I didn't.
Speaker 2: And I never got out of act one. And then
Speaker 2: my friends trolled me.
Speaker 1: By getting.
Speaker 2: Printing off a walkthrough from GameFAQs. And like, they knew
Speaker 2: I was coming over. So I came downstairs and they're like,
Speaker 2: like the act three screen.
Speaker 1: Oh no, no. I'm like, what are you guys doing?
Speaker 2: And they're like, cause I loaned them my copy and
Speaker 2: they're like, oh yeah, no, this is, this game's really easy.
Speaker 1: I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about? I
Speaker 1: was so upset.
Speaker 2: And then, uh, it was like the next time I
Speaker 2: came over, I saw someone had left the walkthrough on
Speaker 2: like a bookshelf or something.
Speaker 1: I'm like, jerks. Yeah. That's so good. I love it. Um,
Speaker 1: then there's like, the other way where games, like you
Speaker 1: were saying, comic books being legitimized by games and then
Speaker 1: games being legitimized by other medium, like in other mediums,
Speaker 1: because we have like the God of War TV show
Speaker 1: coming out. We have stuff like The Last of Us,
Speaker 1: which from what I understand, at least the first season
Speaker 1: was really good. One of the cool ones in Japan,
Speaker 1: you get a lot of like media tie-in stuff, but
Speaker 1: the Suikoden series, there's like a stage play of Suikoden
Speaker 1: 2 that has like been, produced in Japan, which is
Speaker 1: just amazing, uh, to me, but I think, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the game we're going to talk about today, which is
Speaker 1: kingdom hearts is kind of like the media tie-in game
Speaker 1: that I can think of because it didn't try to
Speaker 1: copy its source material. It came out and tried to
Speaker 1: do something new, which just brings it into that upper tier,
Speaker 1: especially because it's good. At least the first two are
Speaker 1: very good. The rest are like, your mileage may vary.
Speaker 1: But the concept of making an RPG combining Disney and
Speaker 1: Final Fantasy is just like, that should not have worked, Ty. No.
Speaker 1: Should not have worked. No, it shouldn't have. And rules.
Speaker 1: How does it get off the ground? Who pitches it?
Speaker 1: Who greenlights it? Who says yes?
Speaker 2: How do we get both of these companies at this juncture?
Speaker 1: Not just both of these companies, but Disney. Like, yes,
Speaker 1: that's crazy. And I feel like there must be like
Speaker 1: Square must have like they convinced Nintendo to give them Mario. Right.
Speaker 1: And like if they're like, who are the two most
Speaker 1: protective like IP protective companies on the planet is Nintendo
Speaker 1: and Disney. So they're like, hey, we got Mario. See
Speaker 1: if we can get Disney.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Which is which is pretty fun. But we will get
Speaker 1: to Kingdom Hearts later because, you know. I think that
Speaker 1: it's easy to get mired in all the mistakes and
Speaker 1: all the bad tie in stuff that go both ways.
Speaker 1: Like there are bad TV adaptations and movies like video
Speaker 1: game movies were like a laughing stock. uh, for ever, right?
Speaker 1: Like there's so many bad resident evil movies. They even
Speaker 1: cover one in this issue. Um, and talk about it.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: Um, just like in the rumors section, but like the
Speaker 1: new Zach Kreger resident evil movie, it looks so good.
Speaker 1: And again, because it's taking ideas from the series and
Speaker 1: it's creating something new out of them. Right. Um, by
Speaker 1: the way, that's really important. How to do the wrong
Speaker 1: way of this.
Speaker 2: Go watch just void burgers, two and a half hour
Speaker 2: movie on, um, The Silent Hill 2 movie.
Speaker 1: Because it's terrible.
Speaker 2: She does a brilliant job deconstructing every single little thing
Speaker 2: they got wrong, which was almost everything. And adaptation backwards
Speaker 2: and forwards from video game to movie, movie to video game, right? Like,
Speaker 2: so much of it right now, especially for audiences in
Speaker 2: a post-MCU world, Minecraft world, right, is like, oh, make
Speaker 2: sure thing appears on screen and the audience goes..
Speaker 1: I recognize thing. And like, that's good. Like, no, that's
Speaker 1: not good.
Speaker 2: If it's doesn't have any, if it doesn't hit the
Speaker 2: same way, if it doesn't, if it's not motivated the
Speaker 2: same way, if it doesn't mean what it means in
Speaker 2: the game, in.
Speaker 1: The original property, right?
Speaker 2: Like to actually adapt something means you actually have to
Speaker 2: have a sense of what the thing is and why
Speaker 2: the scenes and characters and iconography and, and whatever are
Speaker 2: in there and what they mean.
Speaker 1: You can't make an adaptation that's just trying to get
Speaker 1: the Leonardo DiCaprio pointing gif over and over. Because that's
Speaker 1: what the second Mario movie especially does. And all it
Speaker 1: wants you to do is be like, hey, hey, look, look, look, look, look.
Speaker 1: And it's just not very satisfying. But that kind of
Speaker 1: has the MCU, the Marvel Universe stuff. And what you're
Speaker 1: describing has also led us to this place where there's
Speaker 1: the Fortnite-ification of everything. Where you can... You know, nowadays
Speaker 1: you can play as Meghan Markle and James Bond Jr.
Speaker 1: just by like coughing up some V-Bucks or whatever. And
Speaker 1: it's like every niche is covered. And I don't necessarily
Speaker 1: feel like that's a healthy place for media to go, period.
Speaker 1: Whether it's games or movies or anything. And I do
Speaker 1: think the MCU stuff is probably like the genesis of that.
Speaker 1: Like they put out that. absurd watch list for the
Speaker 1: new doomsday dude yeah movie is like 15 movies long
Speaker 1: and it's just like.
Speaker 2: No some of them are no shows like whole oh
Speaker 2: yeah watch like seasons one through three of like.
Speaker 1: What yeah no yeah and like an old x-men movie
Speaker 1: that like was bad and it's like man no thanks
Speaker 1: uh but what do you see where do you see
Speaker 1: this going like the future media tie-ins in the game
Speaker 1: space not just adaptations to video games but the other
Speaker 1: way around as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's fascinating because obviously I think the Minecraft movie,
Speaker 2: everybody's going to look at Minecraft, everybody's going to look
Speaker 2: at Roblox, right? When you look at, you know, as
Speaker 2: alphas age into teenagers with their own consumption habits and
Speaker 2: preferences and getting some walking around money, like we're just
Speaker 2: starting to. Grasp the concept that Z-ers are college kids.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Right. Like, Hey, there are like Z's who are adults.
Speaker 1: In fact, all three of my Z-ers are legal adults.
Speaker 1: Now the youngest goes.
Speaker 2: Off to college in like five days.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Um, so like they have disposable income, they have
Speaker 1: their own space. I mean, my alpha gen kid, like
Speaker 1: my eldest is going to be able to drive in
Speaker 1: a couple of years. Like, you know, it's like it happens.
Speaker 2: It's also funny seeing the internet sort of bend towards,
Speaker 2: you know, people are going, Oh, you zoomers love like
Speaker 2: your six, seven and your skibbity toilet.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, no, that's alpha stuff. Yeah. And they
Speaker 1: don't like it anymore. It's like, no, yeah. And those
Speaker 1: are old examples, right? Yeah, exactly. But like, it's just
Speaker 1: funny how, like how fast it moves through younger generations.
Speaker 1: But I mean, like as millennials, we've been blamed for everything, right?
Speaker 1: Like true. Everybody blamed millennials for everything. And it's like, man, like,
Speaker 1: do you know that millennials are like, 38 years old
Speaker 1: and have like kids.
Speaker 2: Now like yeah i i so what i'm kind of
Speaker 2: bringing that back around to is so what is what
Speaker 2: are their habits and expectations right like what when they're
Speaker 2: as they're getting into the upper high schoolers in a
Speaker 2: couple three years right just putting oh this is thing
Speaker 2: that you recognize on screen is that going to be
Speaker 2: enough for them Are they going to want that or
Speaker 2: are they going to want to do something completely different?
Speaker 2: You know, back groups, I think, is a really interesting case.
Speaker 2: What they're going to do with Resident Evil is a
Speaker 2: really interesting case. How much are they going to want
Speaker 2: to see just this is the thing that I know
Speaker 2: put in another medium? And how much are they going
Speaker 2: to want to see it transformed into something unique and
Speaker 2: cool and building off of it? I hope, obviously, it's
Speaker 2: the latter because that's what I think is cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And like, I mean, my kids play Minecraft. Uh,
Speaker 1: Roblox is a hardcore game. no in our house uh
Speaker 1: but their friends play a lot of it but the
Speaker 1: other thing too is like something like roblox is kids
Speaker 1: have an attachment to the games of the worlds that
Speaker 1: have been created within roblox but like you can't make
Speaker 1: a roblox movie that's going to hit on all those
Speaker 1: touchstones for all the kids the way you can um
Speaker 1: with Minecraft. Like I love the Minecraft movie because it
Speaker 1: did not take itself seriously, but like, I mean, I
Speaker 1: feel like, you know, maybe the daily wire tries to
Speaker 1: make a Roblox show. Um, but like, how do you
Speaker 1: do it and how do you reach into those cultural
Speaker 1: touchstones for kids that are just playing these forever games? Right.
Speaker 1: Like what does a fortnight movie look like? Because fortnight
Speaker 1: is just a bunch of like, it's like a tight
Speaker 1: gameplay loop wrapped around a visual package of like memes.
Speaker 1: um and so how do you make a movie out
Speaker 1: of that that's not just like a bunch of memes
Speaker 1: um it's tricky but i don't know uh so my
Speaker 1: eldest is super into the amazing digital circus and that
Speaker 1: got put in fortnight which means there's a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of like every emote uh there's a youtuber that did
Speaker 1: like every emote but like with the amazing digital circus
Speaker 1: characters that were in there and like oh okay so
Speaker 1: like this is just oh like an hour and a
Speaker 1: half Of literally just playing emote, emote, emote, emote, emote,
Speaker 1: because there's so much, right?
Speaker 2: So it's like they had to animate so much of it.
Speaker 2: And then also it's like they clearly parameterized some stuff
Speaker 2: and sometimes it makes sense and sometimes it doesn't. Like
Speaker 2: the character Jax has eyes that do like kind of
Speaker 2: wild things. And sometimes, so instead of like, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm guessing it's like small, medium, large, like eye.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: It does like, so the eye geometry will just like
Speaker 2: completely freak out four times in a row.
Speaker 1: Right. in the middle of an expression for no apparent reason.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Or like on a more normal humanoid character that way,
Speaker 2: you know? So it's like, it's just really interesting to
Speaker 2: see as they try and pull things in and out
Speaker 2: of Fortnite, pull it in and out of Roblox, out
Speaker 2: of Minecraft, these IP platforms, you know, like sometimes that's
Speaker 2: cool transformative. Sometimes it's terrible transformative. And yeah, I, I
Speaker 2: just hope, I just feel like just being able to
Speaker 2: recognize the thing, just being able to name references and,
Speaker 2: just rattling off a hundred different things from a hundred
Speaker 2: different things.
Speaker 1: And, and.
Speaker 2: If you did your homework ahead of time, you're a smarter,
Speaker 2: better person who had a better time at.
Speaker 1: The movie or whatever. It's like, yeah, that that's.
Speaker 2: Not the direction of travel for transformative or adaptive works.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And like how much we are going quite long
Speaker 1: on this, but like, it makes me think of ready
Speaker 1: player one.
Speaker 2: I just was thinking that as I was saying it,
Speaker 2: I just was thinking it.
Speaker 1: Which like, I didn't really care for because it was
Speaker 1: just like nostalgia hit over nostalgia hit. And when they worked,
Speaker 1: it was fun for me. And when I didn't have
Speaker 1: any emotional attachment, like, I don't know what lady Hawk is,
Speaker 1: but it comes up in that book a ton. And
Speaker 1: so I was like, I'm clearly missing like a huge
Speaker 1: emotional beat in this movie or in this book. Uh,
Speaker 1: but I do wonder about how much as well, this
Speaker 1: all ties into like nostalgia, like post COVID nostalgia, uh,
Speaker 1: for a lot of people. Um, adults like we're seeing
Speaker 1: a revival of so many things from millennial like youth
Speaker 1: because they want to get to our kids through us
Speaker 1: and our nostalgia but then it's also like there i
Speaker 1: think there's so much pent up like desire for the
Speaker 1: stability that we remember from old media that i think
Speaker 1: drives a lot of this like crossover stuff and why
Speaker 1: something like you know fortnight can bring in all these
Speaker 1: characters and it's kind of silly but it works but
Speaker 1: like you know then bringing this back around the kingdom hearts,
Speaker 1: like you can see how you, you can find narrative
Speaker 1: conceits to bring final fantasy and Disney together. And it
Speaker 1: doesn't sound like it'll work, but you have people who
Speaker 1: are creative and driven and they can make it work
Speaker 1: in a, in a, you know, in a shared media space.
Speaker 1: But again, we will get to kingdom hearts later on
Speaker 1: when we get to the review, because I have many
Speaker 1: more thoughts on that. Can't wait.
Speaker 2: All right, well, it is time to open the cover
Speaker 2: and get into this issue. Finally, if you are not
Speaker 2: already a member of Fun Factor Ultra, getting ad-free episodes,
Speaker 2: just hang tight through the break. When we come back,
Speaker 2: we will flip through PSM 63 and its review of
Speaker 2: Kingdom Hearts right here on Fun Factor. Welcome back to
Speaker 2: Fun Factor, where two old gamers review old video game
Speaker 2: magazine reviews. Of course, we want you to review us.
Speaker 1: To get a full 5.0 in Fun Factor, leave.
Speaker 2: Us a review on Apple Podcasts, and we will read
Speaker 2: the best, funniest, kindest, and most entertaining ones on the air.
Speaker 2: And what is the deal with PSM?
Speaker 1: I think we're pretty familiar with PSM at this point.
Speaker 1: We are familiar with PSM's deal. You know, it's, quote unquote,
Speaker 1: the 100% independent PlayStation 2 magazine by this point. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's very little, if no coverage of the original PlayStation
Speaker 1: now by like the end of 2002. Uh, today we're
Speaker 1: going to look at, uh, number 63 from October, 2002. Cool. Uh,
Speaker 1: I was tempted to stay in January, 2002. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: I kept pulling me, pulling me through to the future.
Speaker 1: So we are in October. Uh, this issue has 132
Speaker 1: pages with 15 different titles. games reviewed for one system.
Speaker 1: PlayStation 2. 132 pages was a bit beefier than I
Speaker 1: was expecting for PSM because it's always been a fairly
Speaker 1: slim magazine. Yes. With just 15 reviews as well, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of room for other content. The reviews are
Speaker 1: pretty big, but 15's not many. Unfortunately, that content is
Speaker 1: mostly ads. Ty, out of 132 pages, 76.5 of them
Speaker 1: are ads. 76.5. That's 58% of the magazine that you
Speaker 1: just paid $ 4. 99 for at the grocery store, or I
Speaker 1: paid $ 6. 99 for in Canada. That's a lot. A lot
Speaker 1: of ads. It's a lot of ads.
Speaker 2: And I believe, I think this is almost exactly the
Speaker 2: same number of pages as the last magazine we looked at,
Speaker 2: Edge 113, I think it was, that had 130 pages
Speaker 2: with zero ads.
Speaker 1: Zero ads. Zero ads.
Speaker 2: An enormous amount of like 10 point font text eight
Speaker 2: point font text like it was so much writing so
Speaker 2: much content we needed two hours to even.
Speaker 1: Flip through it all still had to skip stuff and we.
Speaker 2: Still had to skip a bunch of stuff we could
Speaker 2: have gone very long on so yeah over three oh
Speaker 2: my gosh 58 of the magazine being ads at 132
Speaker 2: pages that's a lot.
Speaker 1: That's crazy okay but let's get into it here. The
Speaker 1: editorial like bio page, um, is right near the front
Speaker 1: of the magazine here. Uh, and so it kicks off with,
Speaker 1: of course, a letter from the editor, Chris Slate, who, uh,
Speaker 1: any fun factor listeners should be very familiar with at
Speaker 1: this point. Um, Chris Slate was around the industry for
Speaker 1: a long time through the nineties doing game players and stuff. Uh,
Speaker 1: Correct me if I'm wrong, but he moved on to
Speaker 1: Nintendo Power at some point, and I believe still works
Speaker 1: for Nintendo. Yes. And then in the Mastead, we have
Speaker 1: editor Stephen Frosty Frost, who we have talked about previously,
Speaker 1: and who, when we did PSM last time, found our episode,
Speaker 1: I think. Yes, that's right. Yes, that's right. That was fun.
Speaker 1: Which was fun. Randy Nelson, who has gone on to
Speaker 1: do quite a few other editorial video game projects. journalist stuff.
Speaker 1: Eric Bratcher, who I'll get back to in a second.
Speaker 1: Bill Donahue, the one and only Bill Donahue, who likes PolishPope.com
Speaker 1: and selling CDs, which sounds very Bill Donahue-esque. Is that
Speaker 1: Polish Pope? I'm afraid to Google it to find out.
Speaker 2: If it's Polish Pope, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It could go either way. I saw Polish Pope, which..
Speaker 2: If Bill Donahue is polishing his pope, I don't want
Speaker 2: to know about it.
Speaker 1: Exactly. Dan Fitzpatrick was the art director and Gary Lee
Speaker 1: was the associate art director. So two art directors out of, what,
Speaker 1: six editors. I was pretty familiar with a lot of
Speaker 1: these names, but Eric Bratcher stood out to me. So
Speaker 1: I pulled my best tie shulker and I started digging.
Speaker 1: digging around and found a bit on Bratcher and he
Speaker 1: left Future, PSM's publisher, around 2011 to help found GamesRadar
Speaker 1: as the founding editor-in-chief. GamesRadar Plus is somewhere I've written
Speaker 1: a couple times for as a freelance writer and I
Speaker 1: love it. It's always been one of the best places
Speaker 1: to write for and it's cool to see that he
Speaker 1: kind of went on to that. But he was there
Speaker 1: for six years or so before leaving for freelance consulting
Speaker 1: where he's worked on a whole bunch of boring stuff
Speaker 1: that I know about from my day job, like SWAT analyses. Oh, sure. Sure.
Speaker 1: And quote the occasional 300 page how to guide. Uh,
Speaker 1: he has done a lot of game work, freelance consulting
Speaker 1: work in the video game industry, but obviously a lot
Speaker 1: of just like copywriting and stuff yeah uh like that
Speaker 1: uh but but pretty good pretty good uh little career
Speaker 1: path there for a decade or so.
Speaker 2: For prayer yeah a lot of the haircuts here are
Speaker 2: standing out eric's got the classic butt cut yeah from
Speaker 2: the late 90s still hanging on back a little bit
Speaker 2: still hanging on yeah unfortunately bill donahue is close cropped
Speaker 2: and clean shaven which is not what we are used
Speaker 2: to from the game players days and dan patrick has
Speaker 2: kind of a like a hang up friends hangover like
Speaker 2: the ross a little bit here you know so it's
Speaker 2: yeah this is very interesting transitory period for for men's.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah not a great not a great time for
Speaker 1: hair for sure no uh i will not post pictures
Speaker 1: of my hair in 2002 Uh, the actual masthead is
Speaker 1: all the way back on page 128 at the end
Speaker 1: of the magazine. I'm not going to skip all the
Speaker 1: way back there because it just lists, uh, three contributing editors. Okay.
Speaker 1: Dan Ager, Jeremy, Jeremy Dunham, and Thomas Layton. But I
Speaker 1: couldn't help notice though, that on the masthead page, you
Speaker 1: can see future us's slogan, uh, Which at the time was, quote,
Speaker 1: media with passion. Which, in my experience, Ty, translates to
Speaker 1: media without budget.
Speaker 2: Which probably explains all the ads. Yeah, no, that makes sense, actually.
Speaker 2: That does make a little bit of sense. Or it's
Speaker 2: at least being allocated in different directions, I'm sure.
Speaker 1: CEO bonuses. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, because, you know, NextGen has just closed... But also
Speaker 2: the websites are taking off.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Because like imagine like the IGN is happening. Like, so
Speaker 2: I feel like some of the money is being pulled
Speaker 2: in some different directions and some of the talent and
Speaker 2: staff is being pulled in different directions.
Speaker 1: Right. Because we've now got official Xbox magazine where Mike
Speaker 1: Salmon is. Right.
Speaker 2: You know, so it's like they've closed a few magazines.
Speaker 2: They've opened a few others, opened, launched a few others.
Speaker 2: They're really pushing forward into the digital media space, which
Speaker 2: of course is fantastic. where they're going to end up
Speaker 2: with IGN.com being the last thing left that you could
Speaker 2: trace the breadcrumbs back to. This is what this huge
Speaker 2: video game publishing giant of the mid to late 90s
Speaker 2: and early to mid 2000s went.
Speaker 1: That's the remaining DNA of that place.
Speaker 2: Okay, so we could talk about the beginning, future, and
Speaker 2: past of Future US for quite a long time.
Speaker 1: I think it's time for the flip through. Okay, so
Speaker 1: like I said, today we're looking at PSM number 63.
Speaker 1: We're covering the review of Kingdom Hearts, but Ty, can
Speaker 1: you kick us off with a little word picture of
Speaker 1: the cover? Because Kingdom Hearts just gets a little slice
Speaker 1: of the pie here. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So, PSM.
Speaker 2: Huge letters at the top. America's best PS2 magazine. It boasts,
Speaker 2: which is a funny boast, 100% independent PlayStation 2 magazine.
Speaker 1: And we have on the cover this couple... A very stylish.
Speaker 2: Black man and woman with lavender suit, slightly pinker dress,
Speaker 2: holding a martini. Guy's got a big, huge chain on
Speaker 2: under his like, this is kind of like Italian gangster
Speaker 2: slash Yakuza, like wide lapel suit coat with a much
Speaker 2: wider lapel open collar shirt. black shirt over at grand theft.
Speaker 1: Miami vice is where i was going but yeah i
Speaker 1: mean that is it's vice city it's miami vice right
Speaker 1: but like it's a little more because like don johnson
Speaker 1: right like he was wearing no.
Speaker 2: Collar shirts a lot of times under the light suits
Speaker 2: true you know uh so like this wide lapel is
Speaker 2: actually a little bit more 70s than 80s but hey
Speaker 2: it is what it is like this this is if
Speaker 2: you look at pics of my like grandpa and his
Speaker 2: my great uncle his brother You know, this is the
Speaker 2: kind of stuff the Italian men were rocking in the
Speaker 2: mid to.
Speaker 1: Late 70s as well.
Speaker 2: But yeah, all the pink, pink and black.
Speaker 1: Very cool. Very Vice City. I think this holds up
Speaker 1: really well. I think it's a fabulous cover. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is going to be art that they probably got
Speaker 1: from Rockstar, right? Like it's key art from the game.
Speaker 1: We'll see it again, I believe, in the feature. But it's,
Speaker 1: you know, for the amount of text on here, for
Speaker 1: the amount of like... you know, other screenshots and all
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. The like bold, like face on,
Speaker 1: like staring you in the eyes, uh, layout is really good.
Speaker 1: And the way that they tie the pink of her, um,
Speaker 1: dress into the like decks, the sub heads for all
Speaker 1: of the different areas. Like it just looks slick. It's cool.
Speaker 1: Really cool. What I think really stands out here to
Speaker 1: me is like, we have kingdom hearts and vice city
Speaker 1: and like, who knew? Like, 25 years later, however, however
Speaker 1: long this has been 24 years, like we'd be finally
Speaker 1: getting like long awaited sequels to both of these series. Right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Wildly topical. Um, like kingdom hearts, like we were like,
Speaker 1: we're waiting on kingdom hearts for now in vice city.
Speaker 1: There's been how many since vice city, like four or five. Right.
Speaker 1: And now we're waiting on six. So it's like 24 years.
Speaker 1: And in both series, there's been like two mainline sequels.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And we're about to get the new ones, which is
Speaker 1: just kind of interesting synchronicity to me. Yeah. Even Final
Speaker 1: Fantasy XI, we're still only up to 16, right? Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's still only been five since this point. But yeah,
Speaker 1: pretty sweet cover. There's some fun little things. Under the
Speaker 1: PSM logo, it says unofficial, unbiased, and unrivaled. um i
Speaker 1: do like too that like the subhead for the vice
Speaker 1: city uh feature says quote over 20 smoking screens uh
Speaker 1: and i you know like pre-internet like you needed to
Speaker 1: get this kind of stuff right and we're seeing a
Speaker 1: lot of um leaks for grand theft auto 6 happening
Speaker 1: there's supposed to be an official reveal coming out very
Speaker 1: soon on netflix or something stupid like that uh but
Speaker 1: you know back then we were eager for anything and
Speaker 1: like 20 screens let alone like a long gameplay video.
Speaker 1: You would never get that, right? Like you were just
Speaker 1: using screens and how big, like we got 20 screenshots of,
Speaker 1: of Grand Theft Auto is, is pretty great. Uh, and
Speaker 1: then there's also a little teaser in the bottom corner, but,
Speaker 1: or then the bottom strip that, that calls out, uh,
Speaker 1: bone chilling screens of Silent Hill 3, uh, but then
Speaker 1: Square's secret RPG in Metal Gear 3, uh, which we'll
Speaker 1: get to in a little bit, but, uh, the fact
Speaker 1: that they were like hyping up Unlimited Saga, uh, makes
Speaker 1: me happy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, we're going to start
Speaker 1: the flip through on the very first page because I
Speaker 1: love this ad, Ty. On the right hand side, we
Speaker 1: have a completely black page and in bold, all caps,
Speaker 1: sans serif, it says PlayStation 2. Now online. And on
Speaker 1: the left, the big, like, hit you over the head
Speaker 1: image is like a wall plate for like a phone
Speaker 1: outlet plugin. But it has four outlets and they're shaped
Speaker 1: like the PlayStation... The PlayStation... The face buttons? Buttons. The
Speaker 1: face buttons. Triangle, circle, X, and square. Sorry, cross and square.
Speaker 1: And I don't know. Do you think that's Photoshopped? Or
Speaker 1: do you think they actually made something?
Speaker 2: No, it's definitely Photoshopped. Because you can see with the triangle,
Speaker 2: the circle, and the square. That's the same image I'm
Speaker 2: almost positive of.
Speaker 1: No, but like... No, it's... No way. It's different. Because
Speaker 1: look at how narrow... And close the ones in the
Speaker 1: circle compared to the square. But maybe in any case,
Speaker 1: if it's Photoshop, I'm quite impressed by how they did
Speaker 1: the X. But yeah, the X is incredible. The fabricate.
Speaker 2: That's the other thing is making that X plug would
Speaker 2: be so unbelievably difficult. I bet it's, I bet this
Speaker 2: plate is so good to plug in. I bet the
Speaker 2: wall plate is physical. And then they probably just edited it.
Speaker 2: the yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: That makes sense that makes sense for sure but it
Speaker 1: looks good like in this era of like ai slop
Speaker 1: like this is so.
Speaker 2: Clean and also good as i'm thinking about it notice
Speaker 2: that the triangle circle and square have the fins going
Speaker 2: like the the void is going up in right because
Speaker 2: i think that's what the end of the male connectors
Speaker 2: going into the wall looked like but the X, the cross,
Speaker 2: has the upraised pins that would connect into that. So
Speaker 2: that's actually, I think that's a tell there, is that
Speaker 2: they're looking to end on at one of the modem
Speaker 2: connectors of mail.
Speaker 1: Anyway, sorry, this is way too much. We could spend
Speaker 1: the whole episode looking at this, but it's fabulous. It's cool.
Speaker 1: It's really cool. If you're listening to the episode, pop
Speaker 1: on YouTube, just check out this section because it's a
Speaker 1: very cool ad. It looks really slick. Uh, so I, I,
Speaker 1: I did just have to stop there. I don't like
Speaker 1: to spend too much time on ads. Uh, but this
Speaker 1: one's pretty cool. Yeah. Uh, then we have like follow up.
Speaker 1: The next page, uh, is a huge ad for the
Speaker 1: PlayStation two modem. Uh, talking all about like, you know,
Speaker 1: the network adapter and getting online, showing off games, auto modalista, um,
Speaker 1: Tony Hawk pro skater for so calm twisted metal. Um,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about fine when I see 11. later,
Speaker 1: but like just really selling the PlayStation as an online console.
Speaker 1: So the table of contents starts here on page six
Speaker 1: and it's like the opposite of what we saw in
Speaker 1: edge last episode time. It's like very busy, very colorful,
Speaker 1: tons of content, lots of screenshots, lots of art. Um,
Speaker 1: it's a little much, frankly, like it's, it's kinda like
Speaker 1: there's no room to breathe.
Speaker 2: Yeah it's it is bold it is you know it's
Speaker 2: graphical i think i think it works but it is
Speaker 2: definitely a little bit counter to the here's a picture
Speaker 2: of a thing here's a page number they all have
Speaker 2: subtitles and and explanation this is ratchet and clank this
Speaker 2: is silent hill 3 this is tony hawk 4 tony's.
Speaker 1: Back in a second.
Speaker 2: There's some explanation. It is busy, but I'm guessing this
Speaker 2: works better at full publication size in your hand.
Speaker 1: You know what? That's fair.
Speaker 2: But it is definitely not going for what some of
Speaker 2: the other magazines we've recently looked.
Speaker 1: At are going for. I think what ultimately makes it
Speaker 1: work is that on the left side, side of the
Speaker 1: second page is just like a black sidebar with like
Speaker 1: a pretty conservatively laid out table of contents with all
Speaker 1: the information. So like, yeah, the pullouts are all chaotic,
Speaker 1: but if you really want to find something fast, like
Speaker 1: you'll find it there in that sidebar. Uh, we're going
Speaker 1: to move on to page 10 because this is the
Speaker 1: start of PSN monitor this, the new section, uh, which
Speaker 1: has a, again, a huge feature on the PlayStation twos
Speaker 1: online capabilities. Um, really impressive stuff. Very like word dense,
Speaker 1: lots of writing on was what one screenshot, like a
Speaker 1: graphic that takes up a third of the page. And
Speaker 1: that's about it. Um, I know that you were a
Speaker 1: Dreamcast guy. Uh, so online was kind of old news
Speaker 1: to you by this point, but did you do online
Speaker 1: gaming on the PlayStation too? I, I actually don't. Let
Speaker 1: me rephrase that.
Speaker 2: I did, but it was not. It was not much.
Speaker 2: I probably did a little bit of Madden, maybe Need
Speaker 2: for Speed 2 Underground, but it was like not like
Speaker 2: the games just weren't there. It was a separate adapter
Speaker 2: you had to buy at.
Speaker 1: First.
Speaker 2: And yeah, just not enough games took advantage.
Speaker 1: Of it in a way that I was excited about.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I bought Final Fantasy 11, which I believe is
Speaker 1: the only way to get the network adapter, right? You
Speaker 1: had to buy Final Fantasy 11 and it came with
Speaker 1: a hard drive and the network adapter. So I bought that.
Speaker 1: I played it a fair bit and we'll actually get
Speaker 1: to Final Fantasy 11 in a little bit. But other
Speaker 1: than that, like I had the capabilities, but I never
Speaker 1: really did any online gaming on PlayStation. I had the,
Speaker 1: my computer for that kind of stuff, right? Like we've
Speaker 1: talked about how I was playing Doom, like Deathmatch over
Speaker 1: dial-up modem, like when I was a little kid. So
Speaker 1: like by this point, like, because I had grown up
Speaker 1: with computers online, wasn't really a novel to me. It
Speaker 1: was cool that consoles were going online. Um, but like
Speaker 1: the big draw of the X-Box was online stuff. And
Speaker 1: that had very little appeal to me. Um, I do
Speaker 1: like that. They are talking about how there's no web
Speaker 1: browser on the PlayStation two because, uh, the Dreamcast, you
Speaker 1: could get a web browser, actually own it, uh, somewhere
Speaker 1: it's over to my left in a drawer. I bought
Speaker 1: it recently. Um, but I do think like, you know,
Speaker 1: understanding that the web was more than just playing games
Speaker 1: was important. And so not having like a browser was
Speaker 1: a bit of a, bit of a dud, but really like,
Speaker 1: I think people were buying PlayStation play games or as
Speaker 1: a DVD player. It was a great DVD. That was, yes,
Speaker 1: yes it was. And that was the thing.
Speaker 2: It's like you, the web browser, the, the, The experience
Speaker 2: on that was terrible, right? Yeah, I guess that's true.
Speaker 2: It was very cool to have. It was not very
Speaker 2: cool to use. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you could plug a keyboard and mouse
Speaker 1: into your PlayStation 2, maybe that. Use the I.O. on
Speaker 1: the front. But on the right-hand side of this page,
Speaker 1: we also have the news feed, which is sort of like,
Speaker 1: you know, capsule style little news beats, uh, where it
Speaker 1: does talk about, uh, the resident evil sequel movie, um,
Speaker 1: which is pretty funny to Raider too. So it is
Speaker 1: talking about movie, uh, adaptations of video games. Uh, then
Speaker 1: we have square teases at kingdom hearts too. So kingdom
Speaker 1: hearts is being reviewed here. Yeah. And of course, like
Speaker 1: we're only just getting to kingdom hearts for next year.
Speaker 1: but already they're talking about, like, teases of Kingdom Hearts 2, but, like,
Speaker 1: if you read it, it's actually just some speculation on
Speaker 1: the first game's ending, which is, like, feels like it's
Speaker 1: kind of grasping a little bit. Yeah, it is. You know, obviously,
Speaker 1: now we can look back. We did get Kingdom Hearts 2.
Speaker 1: We know that, you know, like, it turned into this big, sprawling,
Speaker 1: crazy thing. So, like, yeah, the ending probably was enough
Speaker 1: to go off of, but I don't think necessarily that, like,
Speaker 1: the way they're reporting this as like news, um, is,
Speaker 1: is kind of weird. Um, but Hey, what can you
Speaker 1: do when you're only covering one console?
Speaker 2: You kind of have to like, you gotta make it.
Speaker 1: You kind of have to put in the, you know,
Speaker 1: what you've got. Uh, newsfeed continues on the, the next
Speaker 1: page with, uh, pharmacy 11 begins PC beta testing, Canada busts,
Speaker 1: mod chip seller. Uh, Sony says audios to pocket station
Speaker 1: and so on. But here we have first look at squares, uh,
Speaker 1: next rpg and it's unlimited saga which is more like
Speaker 1: a weird board game than a rpg uh yeah but
Speaker 1: i just i i it just makes me laugh because
Speaker 1: like just like people coming into sega frontier after playing
Speaker 1: fileman c7 and just desperate for something like that like
Speaker 1: square does the exact same thing and follows up fileman
Speaker 1: c10 with unlimited saga and you have this whole new
Speaker 1: generation of people who have just discovered rpgs and square
Speaker 1: and they're like i need the next fileman c10 And
Speaker 1: then it's unlimited saga, which is so good. Or just
Speaker 1: below that, uh, PS one remakes of the first two
Speaker 1: games coming out on the PlayStation one, which is really
Speaker 1: funny as well. Um, but fun times in, uh, in
Speaker 1: PlayStation land at this point, again, like you need to
Speaker 1: like fill the pages with news somehow. Right.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But we are gonna, uh, Skip ahead again past
Speaker 1: some of these rumors like Metal Gear Solid 3 in
Speaker 1: 2003 and the PlayStation 3 taking shape. We're going to
Speaker 1: skip ahead to page 20. Not to look at PSM's
Speaker 1: most wanted games, but Ty, can you read PSM's top
Speaker 1: five favorites? theater movies in october 2002 for me yeah
Speaker 1: i did put it in.
Speaker 2: The script if you yeah you did i was i
Speaker 2: was pulling this up but now i'm glad i did
Speaker 2: so let me go in reverse order number five jackass
Speaker 2: the movie uh again topical because i just saw jackass
Speaker 2: last and best in the theaters it wasn't the best
Speaker 2: one but it definitely was the last one uh number
Speaker 2: four ring the the ring The.
Speaker 1: Ring, I guess, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this remake of the popular Japanese thriller, A
Speaker 2: Woman Naomi Watts is Marked for Death After Watching a
Speaker 2: Disturbing Videotape.
Speaker 1: That's wild that that was 2002. I know. That does
Speaker 1: not feel like that was that long ago. Three, Ghost Ship.
Speaker 2: A salvaged crew discovers a missing ship from the 1950s
Speaker 2: harboring a demon with a hankering for some good old-fashioned killing.
Speaker 1: I do not remember this. I have no recollection of
Speaker 1: that movie at all. I've never heard of this.
Speaker 2: Number two, Red Dragon. Sir Anthony Hopkins reprises his role
Speaker 2: as Dr.
Speaker 1: Hannibal Lecter. Yes, I do remember that one. And then
Speaker 1: their top pick, the tuxedo.
Speaker 2: Lots of hilarious butt kicking is assured when a limo driver,
Speaker 2: played by Jackie Chan, unwittingly finds himself fighting evil with
Speaker 2: a special FBI tuxedo equipped with crazy gadgets.
Speaker 1: Is that like the most 2002 movie? Ever. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1: I love that it's like a magic tuxedo that turns
Speaker 1: you into James Bond. Like, that's a legit good concept.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And also, especially slots into the, you know, Jim Carrey. Okay,
Speaker 1: we have a physical comedian.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So, let's... Yeah, it's like the mask, but with a tuxedo. Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2: The mask, but the tuxedo is a perfect way to
Speaker 2: sell this. And yeah, it's also very fun that this.
Speaker 1: Gamers, as we talked about before..
Speaker 2: I'm a media critic and commentarian i can definitely talk
Speaker 2: about whatever.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah here's the movies we cannot wait to see
Speaker 3: and it's uh jackass the ring a horror movie nobody's
Speaker 3: ever heard of red dragon which is like oscar worthy.
Speaker 2: At that but number one is whatever the new jackie
Speaker 2: chan one yeah like great perfect which is like yeah.
Speaker 1: So glad we have exactly what people would have been
Speaker 1: thinking in 2002 so i was pretty happy pretty happy
Speaker 1: to see that yeah that was a pretty fabulous list
Speaker 1: but we are going to carry on because there's a
Speaker 1: lot of pages a lot of ads to get through
Speaker 1: uh reviews here start uh on page 26 so we're
Speaker 1: gonna scroll past that real fast uh to page 46
Speaker 1: where previews start um oh okay it kicks off with
Speaker 1: a big preview uh like a two-page spread of metal
Speaker 1: gear solid 2 substance which was like a remaster a
Speaker 1: re-release of metal gear solid 2 but with skateboarding in it,
Speaker 1: which is cool. Uh, no, this was also when they
Speaker 1: ported it over to X box, I think, and added
Speaker 1: some like improvements, VR missions. There is a skateboarding mini
Speaker 1: game for some reason. Um, but it was an interesting
Speaker 1: example of like a game that was, you know, big
Speaker 1: and well-received kind of like getting a re-release, like a
Speaker 1: beefed up re-release on the same console only like a
Speaker 1: year later or something like that. Yeah. Uh, Which is interesting.
Speaker 1: But we're going to skip past Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4.
Speaker 1: This is about when the series started to really fall off.
Speaker 1: But then we start to see why the PlayStation, I think,
Speaker 1: still started to work. How did I not know about
Speaker 1: 3D Rygar? I'm losing my mind.
Speaker 2: Really?
Speaker 1: What? No.
Speaker 2: Yeah, dude. Really?
Speaker 1: Yeah. You don't remember this? No. I think it's okay.
Speaker 1: I didn't play the original.
Speaker 2: I was aware of it, so I didn't look out
Speaker 2: for this, but I missed that they made a PS2 Rygar.
Speaker 1: That's so funny there you go hey breaking news ps2
Speaker 1: rygar uh there's silent hill 3 which you know uh
Speaker 1: is pretty yeah but i think we're starting to see
Speaker 1: why the playstation and how the playstation 2 is starting
Speaker 1: to like really solidify itself as like you know all
Speaker 1: it's like Set its course to become the best-selling console
Speaker 1: of all time because it has these games from Metal
Speaker 1: Gear Solid 2 to Silent Hill 3, Tony Hawk's. These
Speaker 1: are games that appeal to so many different people, right? Yes.
Speaker 1: We have Marvel vs. Capcom 2 right there.
Speaker 2: That's what I was going to bring up. You were
Speaker 2: talking about that. We played that on Senior Skip Day.
Speaker 2: Me and my friends crossed the border to Windsor on
Speaker 2: Senior Skip Day. And we found what then passed for Chinatown?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: East asian block of one street in windsor and there
Speaker 2: was an arcade and they had marvel versus capcom 2
Speaker 2: with uh like a stand-up disconnected like like control deck
Speaker 2: on a podium with surround sound and we were like
Speaker 2: oh my god we spent so many quarters playing oh
Speaker 2: it was incredible canadian incredible so that was like correct
Speaker 2: basically free right yeah yeah exactly exactly um but yeah
Speaker 2: i mean like page 56 we just have like a
Speaker 2: preview of just oh you know just ratchet and clank
Speaker 2: like a series that would become huge right yes on
Speaker 2: playstation was really playstation 2 was really starting to cook
Speaker 2: and again not by trying to copy what it'd become
Speaker 2: before but by like iterating on strong.
Speaker 1: Ideas and and doing new things with them in new
Speaker 1: spaces um you have a lot of ads for your
Speaker 1: sports games but i wanted to stop for a second
Speaker 1: on wild arms 3 because like man that's a good
Speaker 1: looking game uh on page 64 we have a full
Speaker 1: page preview of wild arms 3 uh which it just
Speaker 1: looks good and like yeah it looks good like it's
Speaker 1: a it's a beautiful game but i'm not really sure
Speaker 1: why it wasn't on my radar like at this time
Speaker 1: i love the original wild arms uh this obviously looks
Speaker 1: really good in previews and so like i don't know
Speaker 1: why it slipped past me i own a copy of
Speaker 1: it i've owned a copy of it forever but.
Speaker 2: Like yeah the opening sentence of the preview is sony's
Speaker 2: wild arms rpg series is nothing if not chronically underrated
Speaker 2: i think maybe it was just the like the like
Speaker 2: tactics ask like you know like i don't know it
Speaker 2: always like reviews and previews always sold it as hey
Speaker 2: wait this isn't like a regular square soft rpg and
Speaker 2: so maybe that just made me filter it out as
Speaker 2: okay well then this isn't The thing that I'm looking for.
Speaker 1: I don't know. And like, I do think that while
Speaker 1: I'm sort of lost its way by trying to come
Speaker 1: up with all these weird, uh, we're actually kind of,
Speaker 1: this is actually topical to something else we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about in a minute, but while I'm sort of
Speaker 1: lost its way by trying to like, come up with
Speaker 1: all these weird battle systems. And that did sort of
Speaker 1: start in three. And I think if it had stayed
Speaker 1: the course as like a fairly straightforward RPG combat, but
Speaker 1: then like the real meat of the game was in
Speaker 1: the puzzle solving tools, uh, and dungeons. Uh, it could
Speaker 1: have been, could have been pretty neat. Uh, but in
Speaker 1: any case, beautiful game. Um, we have Blood Rain 2, which, um, is,
Speaker 1: is Blood Rain. Oh no, Blood Rain 1. Uh, yeah.
Speaker 1: EverQuest Online Adventures, Shinobi, which we talked about last week.
Speaker 1: I do want to skip past a lot of these
Speaker 1: previous stuff. Uh, Haven, I'd love to talk about Haven.
Speaker 1: I haven't played it, but it looks cool because on
Speaker 1: page 78, we have the first big feature. Um, of
Speaker 1: this issue.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Which is, uh, probably the reason I wasn't head over
Speaker 1: heels for wild arms three. And that was found on
Speaker 1: C11 coming into PlayStation two with the hard drive, with
Speaker 1: the modem, like we talked about earlier. It's like, it's
Speaker 1: a juicy feature. It's like text heavy. It's four pages.
Speaker 1: It talks a little bit about the different, you know, the, uh,
Speaker 1: character creation, like the, uh, character races you could choose.
Speaker 1: It has beautiful, like screenshots of the world. Um, And
Speaker 1: it just, it looks really good. And, uh, it was
Speaker 1: a big deal when Final Fantasy 11, cause nine, 10
Speaker 1: and 11 were announced at the same time. Right. And
Speaker 1: so we'd gotten nine and it was very like throwback
Speaker 1: entry on the PlayStation. Then we got 10, which is
Speaker 1: very different. And then 11 as this like online game.
Speaker 1: And I'm still like, I'm still cheese that it was
Speaker 1: called Final Fantasy 11 all these years later. Um, but
Speaker 1: you know, an MMO, a Final Fantasy MMO coming out
Speaker 1: was a big deal. Um, especially as PlayStation sort of
Speaker 1: pushed back against Xbox live and Microsoft's upcoming dominance of
Speaker 1: the online space. Uh, so I bought it, but I think,
Speaker 1: like I said, it wasn't very solo friendly, Uh, after
Speaker 1: a point. So like early, fairly early in the game,
Speaker 1: like maybe level 11, I was at some beach and
Speaker 1: I just could not play anymore. Uh, so I, you know,
Speaker 1: I did, I did quit, but like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: these screenshots still look so good to me. Um, and
Speaker 1: the game's still going strong. Like if it's hard to believe,
Speaker 1: but they're launching a free trial this September where you
Speaker 1: can like play a ton of the game for free
Speaker 1: in 2026, like this year. And I, I kind of
Speaker 1: want to get back into it. Yeah, no, for sure.
Speaker 1: I'm sad that I missed out on this.
Speaker 2: And, you know, 14 is its whole other own thing.
Speaker 2: But 11 is something I'd like to at least experience.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I mean, with the free trial, maybe we
Speaker 1: do a little fun factor. That'd be fun. Streaming. Fun factor.
Speaker 1: You know, we all join up for a month or
Speaker 1: whatever and see what we can do. Because, like, I
Speaker 1: really enjoyed my time with it. My understanding is it's
Speaker 1: now much, much more fun. solo friendly, maybe not as
Speaker 1: much as 14, but at least something that like you
Speaker 1: can fire up on your own if your friends aren't
Speaker 1: around and at least make some progress. Uh, the next
Speaker 1: big feature after the final fancy one is on page
Speaker 1: 90 and it's on vice city. And so again, here
Speaker 1: we have that kind of classic vice city key art
Speaker 1: that we were talking about on the cover. Um, says
Speaker 1: it's twice as big, beautiful and brutal as GTA three. Okay.
Speaker 1: This preview, I just want to say it's also very chunky,
Speaker 1: but it's very much more like illustration and screenshot driven
Speaker 1: than the Final Fantasy XI one was. Hey, hey, hey,
Speaker 1: just a second.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So she's not wearing a dress. She's wearing a bikini.
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1: She's wearing a bikini. Also, go back to the cover. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's way, way, way, way back. I know I always
Speaker 1: accidentally go back to the next page and stuff, but
Speaker 1: I can do this. Wait, that wasn't it. That was
Speaker 1: an ad there. I just did this. Nope. Nope. Keep going. Okay.
Speaker 1: What is that white box hiding? That's like the subscription info. Right.
Speaker 1: So yeah. Yeah. So they edited this. They definitely did
Speaker 1: that on purpose.
Speaker 2: On purpose to make it look like she's wearing a
Speaker 2: dress when she's clearly wearing a bikini.
Speaker 1: That's very funny to me. Funny. Keep parents from being like,
Speaker 1: what is this? Yeah. How did this get put in
Speaker 1: our mailbox? They trick these two dumb dads. Uh-huh. We
Speaker 1: just fully, but yeah, that's so funny to me. That's,
Speaker 1: that's pretty funny. But I mean, of course that's trying
Speaker 1: to convince parents of that generation, like, or that era
Speaker 1: to like buy any sort of GTA related stuff was
Speaker 1: probably a hard sell. Um, You know, as we've kind
Speaker 1: of discussed previously, I'm not a big GTA guy. I
Speaker 1: don't care about Grand Theft Auto six coming out in
Speaker 1: a few weeks. Like I just can't bring myself to care. Um,
Speaker 1: I didn't really care about vice city too much either.
Speaker 1: We had a friend who owned it and brought it
Speaker 1: over to our house and we played it for an
Speaker 1: afternoon and you know, it's chaotic and it's silly. Um,
Speaker 1: but you know, the vibes in vice city are pretty
Speaker 1: strong and it feels to me like it's the game
Speaker 1: that was like, because it took three and it, it
Speaker 1: created such a like stronger atmosphere, like being set in Florida, um,
Speaker 1: the colors and the lighting and the music style. Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: all of that just are like really, really worked. Um,
Speaker 1: And I think that that part of it makes it
Speaker 1: the one that to me feels the most like complete
Speaker 1: and compelling of all the GTA games. Like four was just,
Speaker 1: I don't even remember four. No. Yeah. Four was in
Speaker 1: New York. Five was back in LA and then six
Speaker 1: is back in Florida. And it's like, I don't know.
Speaker 1: None of the other ones really kind of hit that
Speaker 1: vibe of like, I mean, I don't, Florida is just chaotic.
Speaker 1: Maybe it just works for me. Uh, but, um, I
Speaker 1: know you got into GTA multiplayer with your buddies. Yes.
Speaker 1: Play the earlier games.
Speaker 2: Like what's your experience with it? Um, vice city, I
Speaker 2: didn't have any experience until vice city. And then my
Speaker 2: best friend, uh, in college and, and post college, he
Speaker 2: got it. And so I was over at his apartment
Speaker 2: all the time.
Speaker 1: We played it.
Speaker 2: Mostly he played it while I watched, cause that's all
Speaker 2: you need, you know, Yeah. It was not really that,
Speaker 2: you know, I played it a little bit, but yeah,
Speaker 2: I wasn't good at it because I hadn't played it.
Speaker 2: So most of the time he was just doing crazy
Speaker 2: stuff and we were just laughing and laughing.
Speaker 1: Right. Um, and so, yeah, vibes were great.
Speaker 2: It wasn't really Yoda doing the voice lines. Um, so that's,
Speaker 2: you know, he's a gangster movie guy. Right. So all
Speaker 2: of that stuff was on point and it was, it
Speaker 2: was a little bit of the, the hiddenness, like.
Speaker 1: Some of the stuff was like, Oh, this is so awesome.
Speaker 1: And so this is, Oh, this is so gross.
Speaker 2: Uh, you know, and, and, but the, you know, running
Speaker 2: from the cops and doing some of that stuff, some
Speaker 2: of the cut scenes and stuff were really cool. Some
Speaker 2: of the voice acting was good. And like you said,
Speaker 2: just the vibes are immaculate. Just like, you know, driving
Speaker 2: down the beach, you know, down a road next to
Speaker 2: the beach, the palm trees and like everybody wants to
Speaker 2: rule the world comes on and you're like, yo, this
Speaker 2: is like, this is incredible.
Speaker 1: This is so cool. But like, I think like, like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, like I can get that from other games.
Speaker 1: I'm playing Forza Horizon 6 right now.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 1: You get the same thing. You're driving through Shibuya at
Speaker 1: night and the vibes are over the top and the
Speaker 1: music's good, but I don't have to like beat up
Speaker 1: some sex workers to like progress the story. Like some
Speaker 1: of the leaked GTA six footage, I watched a bit
Speaker 1: of it and just like scrubbed through randomly. And it
Speaker 1: was straight up. The like main character was beating up
Speaker 1: some homeless women under a bridge. And I was like, I,
Speaker 1: I just don't get, I don't, I don't see the appeal. Like,
Speaker 1: if I want to drive and experience vibes at this time, I,
Speaker 1: you know, play something else. I guess, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Driver, or I would play, uh, burnout paradise, like on
Speaker 1: the next generation of consoles and stuff. It just never
Speaker 1: really like, I remember playing Driver and being like, oh,
Speaker 1: this game would be so sweet if you could also
Speaker 1: get out of your car. And then they made it
Speaker 1: and it was Grand Theft Auto. And I was like, oh, okay.
Speaker 1: And maybe I don't like committing crimes outside of my car. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I'll say, I think, you know, they've learned a ton
Speaker 2: of stuff with Five Online and that whole sandbox world.
Speaker 2: But like a lot of people, the satirical over-the-topness of
Speaker 2: like sort of South Park level skewering American culture and
Speaker 2: its excesses.
Speaker 1: It's like it'd be made by like British developers, I
Speaker 1: think is important, you know, for that reason. But yeah.
Speaker 1: But like, what do you do with that? Right.
Speaker 2: And this is, here's another thing with like long dev cycles, right.
Speaker 2: Where you're like, okay, if this comes out when Joe
Speaker 2: Biden is president.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Making fun of Trump.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: That's a completely different vibe. That's it coming out now.
Speaker 2: Like, what are you going to make fun of? What
Speaker 2: is going to sound over the top? What is going
Speaker 2: to be ridiculous?
Speaker 1: Vice City was coming out right in the middle of
Speaker 1: the Bush Jr. years too, right? Yeah, uh-huh. Post 9-11.
Speaker 1: And it's like, I don't know. I guess that's probably
Speaker 1: part of it. As a Canadian, I don't really want
Speaker 1: to partake in excesses of US culture, even if it
Speaker 1: is satire right now. I'm kind of... kind of annoyed
Speaker 1: with you guys, like as a nation, right?
Speaker 2: The only thing that compels me about six is telling
Speaker 2: of a love story. You know, that it's like, it's
Speaker 2: these two criminals, it's this man and this woman.
Speaker 1: I know, but like GTA four was like an immigrant
Speaker 1: story of a guy who was gonna come to America
Speaker 1: to find a new life, like get away from the
Speaker 1: violence in his home, his home country. Right. So he
Speaker 1: immigrates to New York city. And then, like, the second mission,
Speaker 1: you have to, like, start shooting people.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Like, that narrative, that ludonarrative dissonance is just so strong. So, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: is it a love story? Sure. But is it really?
Speaker 1: Or is that just sort of, like, the wedge that
Speaker 1: gets you into this, like, larger narrative?
Speaker 2: I don't know, but I cannot wait to hear other
Speaker 2: people play it and podcast about it to find out.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? I'd rather jam Q-tips in
Speaker 1: my ears until, like, start bleeding. I love hearing smart
Speaker 1: people analyze this stuff. I'm very curious. You know, I
Speaker 1: want to know Gita Jackson's take. I want to know
Speaker 1: Janet Garcia's take.
Speaker 2: I want to know, you know, like I, I, I
Speaker 2: don't need to play this myself unless people go, you've
Speaker 2: got to go out and play this, you know, smart
Speaker 2: people I respect are like, this is interesting.
Speaker 1: This is fun. This is cool.
Speaker 2: You know, then maybe, but who, or maybe, you know, the,
Speaker 2: the group chat is like, Hey, let's, let's, let's reassemble
Speaker 2: the crew.
Speaker 1: Let's do some of these heist missions, you know, the online.
Speaker 2: You know what?
Speaker 1: And my problem probably was I never played GTA in
Speaker 1: a like social environment. Besides that one time a friend
Speaker 1: brought over Vice City. Right. So like, I don't have
Speaker 1: any of those. Like I have moments of playing Goldeneye and,
Speaker 1: like laughing our asses off and stuff like that. Right. Like, yeah.
Speaker 2: And a lot of the driving experience that with, you know,
Speaker 2: vehicle races, cars and planes where it's like, they literally,
Speaker 2: here's a gigantic, like 3d hamster maze. And if you
Speaker 2: go fast enough, it doesn't matter. You know, you'll, you'll
Speaker 2: overcome gravity. So you're doing all these weird, like rollercoaster loops.
Speaker 1: They have sort of like.
Speaker 2: quasi-Rocket League soccer and baseball games. So you're doing drifts
Speaker 2: to hit the balls. So it's like, we're not even
Speaker 2: playing Grand Theft Auto. We're playing some funny car game
Speaker 2: and just laughing our butts off, which.
Speaker 1: Is a different thing. Yeah, totally. Yeah, yeah. Interesting. I mean,
Speaker 1: sandbox games are kind of what you make of them, right? 100%.
Speaker 1: But after the features, we've got the ubiquitous... Cheats and
Speaker 1: tips section. We're going to move on. We're going to
Speaker 1: skip past this just like you and I would have
Speaker 1: skipped past it in 2002. And as we just wrap
Speaker 1: things up here with a reader mail on page 120,
Speaker 1: I just want to point out that we're still posting
Speaker 1: contact information for children in 2002. We've got a bunch
Speaker 1: of email addresses for like 13 and 15 year olds,
Speaker 1: which is just crazy. to me. Uh, but that being said,
Speaker 1: I do kind of want to see if I see
Speaker 1: his email address still works at icy Sephiroth at real juggalos.com
Speaker 1: because his list of favorite games is pretty sick. He
Speaker 1: lists all final fantasies, lunar one and two Kronos cross
Speaker 1: slash trigger and, um, anything that doesn't suck. Well, there
Speaker 1: you go. The games, uh, Uh, so I will be
Speaker 1: seen if I see Sephiroth, uh, can be contacted via, uh, email.
Speaker 1: And of course he is of an appropriate age.
Speaker 2: Now he would be 49 or something like that.
Speaker 1: Is that right?
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: 39. Yeah. 39. So Tara Kim, age 12 girls are
Speaker 1: gamers too. That's her quote. That's right. Um, okay. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Let's just move on, uh, here. FF9, FF10, the Spyro
Speaker 2: series in Tekken 3.
Speaker 1: Yeah there was the rpgs it shouldn't innovate thing that
Speaker 1: i wanted you to read but i think we're just
Speaker 1: kind of running out we're getting getting tight on time
Speaker 1: yes we um so ty there's there are other letters
Speaker 1: on this in this letter section that i i want
Speaker 1: you to read i had it in the script for
Speaker 1: you to read we're running a little tight on time
Speaker 1: there's there's a guy named caleb uh who says rpg
Speaker 1: shouldn't innovate uh and i kind of think caleb was
Speaker 1: on to something but that's an Well, we can email
Speaker 1: him at pineapple.boy at msn.com and see if he still
Speaker 1: thinks so. I might. Because I don't think his response
Speaker 1: was not very, the response he got from Eric was
Speaker 1: not very kind. But I do think Caleb was sort
Speaker 1: of seeing what RPGs were, what was happening to RPGs
Speaker 1: at that time. But let's get to the review here
Speaker 1: because we're an hour into this episode and Kingdom Hearts
Speaker 1: provides a lot. Of ammunition. It sure does. For hot takes.
Speaker 1: Sure does.
Speaker 2: So our favorite writing to read is not the writing
Speaker 2: in these magazines.
Speaker 1: It is yours.
Speaker 2: When we come back from this break, we will read
Speaker 2: your reviews of our reviews of Classic Video Game Magazine reviews.
Speaker 2: We will answer any questions that our awesome Discord community
Speaker 2: asked us ahead of time. If you want access to that,
Speaker 2: just go to funfactorpod.com. Go to socials and then Discord.
Speaker 2: You jump right into the Discord. And if you are
Speaker 2: a Fun Factor Ultra member..
Speaker 1: You can get into.
Speaker 2: The Ultra Lounge, the swanky extra members-only channel, and ask
Speaker 2: us some questions there as well. Anyway, let's do the
Speaker 2: thing that we do right here on Fun Factory. We've
Speaker 2: got mail. As promised, we always review best, funniest, kindest,
Speaker 2: and most entertaining five-star Apple podcast reviews on the air.
Speaker 2: Bonus points if you say who your favorite host is
Speaker 2: and why. Double bonus points if it is Aiden. We
Speaker 2: actually didn't have new.
Speaker 1: Reviews, right? No, but we do have some reader mail.
Speaker 1: We do.
Speaker 2: From the Discord.
Speaker 1: So all true members are able to submit reader questions
Speaker 1: per episode. So we're going to read a couple of
Speaker 1: those today. The first is from Jason WFD. And he asks, Ty...
Speaker 1: If you could go back in time and play one
Speaker 1: game for the first time again, which would it be? Ah, yeah.
Speaker 2: I was trying not to just jump right in and
Speaker 2: say Chrono Trigger for the time travel joke. Actually, if
Speaker 2: you've got one right at the time, I've been thinking
Speaker 2: about this and I don't have it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you go for it. My first thought was like,
Speaker 1: what's my favorite game? Chrono Trigger, for sure. But like,
Speaker 1: I enjoy replaying Chrono Trigger so much. Yeah. Uh, then
Speaker 1: I'm not the same person I was when I played
Speaker 1: it for the first time. And I think I, I
Speaker 1: think my experience playing it for the first time was,
Speaker 1: was perfect. It was great. I wouldn't change that. What I,
Speaker 1: so for me, the answer is, is not my favorite
Speaker 1: game ever, but like what games sort of like blew
Speaker 1: my mind the most or like changed the way I
Speaker 1: think about video games the most. Uh, and I would
Speaker 1: probably say the outer wilds. Um, okay. Yeah, sure, sure, sure, sure.
Speaker 1: Because I just think that's a magical game and it
Speaker 1: is one of my favorite games of all time. But
Speaker 1: the way that it has like it's world built out
Speaker 1: and the way the narratives is baked into the environments
Speaker 1: and the nonlinear storytelling. Like I've just never played anything
Speaker 1: else like that. And I don't know that like it's
Speaker 1: not like Stardew Valley where there's been a million clones
Speaker 1: and some of them are just as good. Like I
Speaker 1: just Outer Wilds is so unique. that if I could
Speaker 1: go back and play it again for the first time
Speaker 1: without any of my knowledge, I think that would be pretty,
Speaker 1: pretty tempting to say no to because gathering knowledge and
Speaker 1: gathering experience is the game. Um, right. And it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: So forgetting it would make the experience just as good
Speaker 1: as the first time, I think.
Speaker 2: Blueprints then immediately comes to mind as well, now that.
Speaker 1: You say that. Good choice. Thank you. Good choice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: very similar ideas between the two. So yeah, Blueprints, which
Speaker 1: you are still not done beating up. How am I
Speaker 1: still not done? Did you figure out what the still is? Yes,
Speaker 1: I did. Yes. Yes. Oh, you did. Yeah. And we
Speaker 1: did that whole, we did that.
Speaker 2: Oh, you did.
Speaker 1: Okay. Okay. Okay.
Speaker 2: But it was, I could not believe how much more
Speaker 2: there was. I was genuinely stunned.
Speaker 1: Okay. Sounds like you're done.
Speaker 2: Done.
Speaker 1: Follow-up question from Lord Druby. If you could go back
Speaker 1: in time and unplay a game, which.
Speaker 2: Would be why? So it's one we have mentioned. I
Speaker 2: have mentioned on a previous episode. It is Ephemeral Fantasia
Speaker 2: for the PS2. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Hot dog shit. That game. And it's like, it's such
Speaker 1: a bait and switch too. Can you use the guitar?
Speaker 1: Is that a game you can use the guitar? Yes.
Speaker 2: It's an anime style JRPG where the main character self
Speaker 2: insert guy is a bard who attacks with his sword guitar.
Speaker 2: And it works with the guitar hero controller. So there's
Speaker 2: actually like story moments where you have to like perform
Speaker 2: the So you have to perform a song for somebody or,
Speaker 2: you know, perform a song at a festival or whatever.
Speaker 1: And like, you know, oh, okay, cool.
Speaker 2: You can get high, good, low rankings or whatever. And
Speaker 2: that means something.
Speaker 1: Okay, great. The game sucks. It sucks to play. The
Speaker 1: writing sucks. It's sexist. It's idiotic.
Speaker 2: It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't say anything. It's
Speaker 2: like basically one screen per screen game. top down ish
Speaker 2: and then if you advance off screen then there's like
Speaker 2: three seconds of loading time to load the next screen
Speaker 2: so if you like are trying to run through town
Speaker 2: you like run from edge to edge now loading now
Speaker 2: loading okay run from edge to edge now loading now
Speaker 2: i mean it's it's just this side of unplayable and
Speaker 2: the fact that so many of the things conceptually Design.
Speaker 1: Wise were right up my alley.
Speaker 2: And then it was such an absolute kick in the
Speaker 2: nuts from start to finish.
Speaker 1: That was one, like even as an RPG starved, like
Speaker 1: fan looking for any RPG to play that I still skipped.
Speaker 1: Cause even at the time it was not well looked upon. Um,
Speaker 1: this one for me, if I could go back and
Speaker 1: unplay a game, it would be Xenoblade Chronicles two. I
Speaker 1: just like anything else I could have done with that
Speaker 1: 50 hours of my life would have like, been a
Speaker 1: major improvement i just i dislike that game i like
Speaker 1: xenoblade chronicles one xenoblade chronicles three is pretty good two
Speaker 1: i just i just hate everything about it besides the
Speaker 1: like environment design okay there's beautiful environment design and there's
Speaker 1: one character i like i can't remember her name first
Speaker 1: ursula bridget something like that uh i just yeah everything
Speaker 1: about that game is just awful um and the fact
Speaker 1: that it ends with like a 12 year old getting
Speaker 1: a harem of like big breasted women. Like it's just weird,
Speaker 1: weird game.
Speaker 2: I was going to say, you said environment design and
Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, I've heard things about the environment.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, uh, yeah. I like anything, man. Like I,
Speaker 1: if I could have repainted my house or something instead,
Speaker 1: like I don't want to paint it all my ceilings.
Speaker 1: Like man, anything I could have done would have been
Speaker 1: felt like a better use of my time than, than
Speaker 1: playing Xenoblade Chronicles two.
Speaker 2: Looks like we had some synchronicity with our last reader
Speaker 2: question here.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh, Zerathion asks, what's your favorite movie show, et cetera,
Speaker 1: tie in game of the fun factor season two era
Speaker 1: of games, which we covered pretty extensively in the first, uh, yes,
Speaker 1: we did.
Speaker 2: And I actually play station two games, 2002. Here we go.
Speaker 2: Let me, let me, uh, uh, You're trying to get
Speaker 2: some specifics going?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm just like, you know, jog the memory. There's
Speaker 2: got to be something that I'm not thinking. I should
Speaker 2: have done that to begin with, right? Because you sit
Speaker 2: there and you go, oh yeah, I remember this probably.
Speaker 2: And then you sit here and you're like, Gitaroo Man.
Speaker 2: I forgot Gitaroo Man existed. Like there has to be
Speaker 2: something I'm missing that.
Speaker 1: I played that I liked.
Speaker 2: And unfortunately we can't count All of the quote-unquote adaptations
Speaker 2: or tie-in games of sports leagues.
Speaker 1: No, yeah. Yeah, let's see. Okay, because I said The
Speaker 1: Hobbit from this era, which I do really like.
Speaker 2: There's the 2002 Spider-Man that people wear.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Spider-Man. Does Boom Blox count? No, that was Wii.
Speaker 1: It was like Steven Spielberg. Yes, it was. Yes, it was.
Speaker 1: And that was the Wii. Yeah, let's see.
Speaker 2: Oh, the Mobile Suit Gundam Federation vs.
Speaker 3: Zeon.
Speaker 2: I don't think that was good, and I also didn't
Speaker 2: watch any Gundam until this year.
Speaker 1: Right, so yeah, that can't really count. Oh man, Warcraft
Speaker 1: 3 came out this year? It's a good year. Yes,
Speaker 1: it was. Yeah, there really aren't a lot of good
Speaker 1: tie-in games. Hey, Jedi Outcasts. Jedi Knight 2, Jedi Outcast.
Speaker 1: Jedi Knight is the one you were thinking of earlier. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the one I was thinking of earlier. And so, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: Jedi Outcast was a good one. That's a good tie-in
Speaker 1: game from that period. Disney's Stitch, I guess. There's really
Speaker 1: not a lot of good tie-in games at this point.
Speaker 1: Cabela's Big Game Hunter. I did play that in the arcade. Okay, sure.
Speaker 2: Because sometimes you're, like, having beers and you're like, I
Speaker 2: will play every game in this arcade.
Speaker 1: That has a bar in it. Yeah, I mean... Yeah.
Speaker 1: Or vice versa. Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire came out in Japan.
Speaker 1: It's like a media tie-in because it's like a whole medium.
Speaker 1: Sort of. Kingdom Hearts 2. I mean, like, we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about Kingdom Hearts 2. Like, that's the big one.
Speaker 1: But yeah, like, there's not.
Speaker 2: Was the minority report game any good? I can't imagine
Speaker 2: it was.
Speaker 1: Is the minority report game any good, Ty? No, it's
Speaker 1: not going to be good. You know where there were
Speaker 1: probably some, you know where there were some good tie-in games?
Speaker 1: tie huh game boy advance oh that's true we talked
Speaker 1: about that before yeah so let's let's take a look
Speaker 1: here okay this letter is taking longer than i uh
Speaker 1: had anticipated but sorry yeah lowest rated there is a
Speaker 1: tie-in game uh the gravity games uh tie-in game got
Speaker 1: a 24 metascore gravity game tie-in game the.
Speaker 2: Gravity it's i think uh again it's a sports league
Speaker 2: i guess technically i think it was a competitor to
Speaker 2: x games uh a bmx you know it's basically just
Speaker 2: like bmx.
Speaker 1: Oh biking okay that doesn't sound like up my alley
Speaker 1: okay 2002 astro boy omega factor 2003 on game boy
Speaker 1: that's a fabulous game that's that that'll be a pick
Speaker 1: for me for sure uh very good treasure like action
Speaker 1: platformer uh excellent game uh the max pain game on
Speaker 1: game boy advance was pretty good it's not a tie-in
Speaker 1: but it's a tie-in to the console versions if that
Speaker 1: counts nice try yeah oh uh the simpsons hit and
Speaker 1: run that was that's oh yeah that's a good one
Speaker 1: yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: I'll take that one i'll take that one for sure
Speaker 2: okay all right we have been having five stars out
Speaker 2: of five stars worth of fun today folks if you
Speaker 2: have to go leave a rating or review so we
Speaker 2: can read them and talk about them and praise you
Speaker 2: for them and thank you for them here in this
Speaker 2: segment our letters section In the meantime, we absolutely have
Speaker 2: to get to the point of the whole thing where
Speaker 2: we review the review. Sit tight through this ad break.
Speaker 2: If you are not already a Fun Factor Ultra member,
Speaker 2: in which case, use that time to go to funfactorpod.com
Speaker 2: and join with the big fat sign up widget and everything.
Speaker 1: And in the meantime, we will be back right here
Speaker 1: on Fun Factors.
Speaker 2: We are back here on fun factor, having a ton
Speaker 2: of fun and running way too long as we always do.
Speaker 2: That's because there's so much great stuff in these magazines.
Speaker 2: So many great questions and interaction with you guys in
Speaker 2: the audience. We really appreciate it. Please help us spread
Speaker 2: the word. Please help us grow. Please help us get
Speaker 2: this show in more eyes and ears. In the meantime, Aiden,
Speaker 2: it's time has come. We have got to review the review. Okay.
Speaker 1: So PSM reviews, uh, the review format, pretty typical 10
Speaker 1: point scale of ranging from classic and outstanding at the
Speaker 1: top of the scale to awful and quote, why? Uh,
Speaker 1: and then they award their game of the month, to
Speaker 1: the like highest scoring title or presumably whichever of those
Speaker 1: they they wanted to like the most if there's a
Speaker 1: tie in this issue in this issue is it's Need
Speaker 1: for Speed Hot Pursuit 2 the reviews are pretty like
Speaker 1: typically like text heavy they come with bylines which is
Speaker 1: nice Um, and even the shortest of the reviews get a,
Speaker 1: like a third of a page. So we don't have
Speaker 1: capsule reviews. We've got like full reviews essentially for every game,
Speaker 1: all 15 of them. Uh, some of them have different
Speaker 1: random like sidebars, a how it stacks up sidebar where
Speaker 1: it kind of shows you where it ranks against similar games. Uh,
Speaker 1: and then a sidebar called final score, which is where
Speaker 1: they give their numerical score, uh, and like a single
Speaker 1: sentence wrap up. Pretty straightforward. Nothing fancy. No weighted averages.
Speaker 1: Nothing gnarly. Just 1 through 10. I like it. Yeah, straightforward.
Speaker 1: It is the thing that you want. Yeah. Today's review
Speaker 1: is from Frosty, Stephen Frost. And we're, like I said,
Speaker 1: doing Kingdom Hearts. This series has blown up big time
Speaker 1: since its release. Right? Yeah. In 2002, in this issue,
Speaker 1: it only received a bronze medal from PSM. And as
Speaker 1: we're about to see, like, uh, Stephen Frost's review sort
Speaker 1: of like digs into the idea that like, Hey, there's
Speaker 1: some cool ideas here, but I don't know if it's
Speaker 1: going to be enough to like really find an audience,
Speaker 1: which is interesting. Um, it stacks up in the little,
Speaker 1: how it stacks up sidebar against, uh, Baldur's gate dark Alliance,
Speaker 1: which got an eight out of 10. Forever Kingdom, 6
Speaker 1: out of 10. Wizardry Forsaken Land, 6 out of 10.
Speaker 1: And Dark Cloud, which is a 6 out of 10.
Speaker 1: So that kind of shows you where it was sort
Speaker 1: of like being lined up against, right? They weren't looking
Speaker 1: at this and being like, hey, this is the next
Speaker 1: Final Fantasy for Square. Right. They were putting it alongside.
Speaker 1: You know, some of those games are pretty good. Dark
Speaker 1: Cloud's interesting, but kind of janky. Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance
Speaker 1: is a legit good game. But those are like, you know,
Speaker 1: They are 8 out of 10s, right? They are sort
Speaker 1: of like that second tier, that A tier, not S tier,
Speaker 1: which I think is interesting. What is your experience with
Speaker 1: Kingdom Hearts TIE? Were you excited for it at the time?
Speaker 1: Have you played it since? Do you know all the
Speaker 1: members of Organization XIII or whatever they're called?
Speaker 2: I wish I had listened to Stephen Frost's advice.
Speaker 1: I'm skipping to the end a little bit here.
Speaker 2: Where he says, however, there are bound to be many
Speaker 2: of you who simply look over this game because it's
Speaker 2: kiddie looking.
Speaker 1: Don't.
Speaker 2: There's more to this game than meets the eye. And unfortunately,
Speaker 2: at the time, it's 2002.
Speaker 1: I was born in 1981.
Speaker 2: I was in college. I had built my own gaming PC,
Speaker 2: so I was really getting into PC gaming. As we
Speaker 2: talked about, I was on a super fast dorm network
Speaker 2: connected directly to Michigan State's internet backbone. So, like, Kingdom Hearts,
Speaker 2: Final Fantasy, but, like, not Final Fantasy characters. It's, like,
Speaker 2: Final Fantasy-esque kiddie characters mixed up with Disney characters. Like,
Speaker 2: it was so weird and so bizarre, especially at the
Speaker 2: time that it even came out. I just couldn't imagine
Speaker 2: that it was good.
Speaker 1: I was sure. Because keep in mind, also, Square had.
Speaker 2: This long history of, oh, no. Western gamers don't get
Speaker 2: Final Fantasy.
Speaker 1: They're not going to understand.
Speaker 2: We need to make Final Fantasy for kids, you know,
Speaker 2: and we'd get the Final Fantasy Mystic Quest or the
Speaker 2: Final Fantasy, you know, these games that were like super,
Speaker 2: super cut down versions of the JRPG experience. And so
Speaker 2: I was just like, between this being marketed to kids
Speaker 2: and to Disney, and I just can't imagine it's that good.
Speaker 2: And so I didn't touch it. And then I didn't
Speaker 2: want to touch the sequel that came out as they.
Speaker 1: Hinted pretty quickly. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I just didn't find it compelling. So I didn't,
Speaker 2: I didn't play one or two. And then there was
Speaker 2: this giant long delay.
Speaker 1: Squaresoft style before three. And so I did.
Speaker 2: So all of my experience with Kingdom Hearts came through
Speaker 2: Waypoint Radio's sub podcast, Lore Reasons with Natalie Watson, where
Speaker 2: she did not play the games and she simply watched
Speaker 2: all of the cut scenes in order on YouTube and
Speaker 2: then attempted to reconstruct the entire complete story of each
Speaker 2: game's narrative through just the cut scenes while multiple other
Speaker 2: cast members, team members, podcast members put in their feedback
Speaker 2: based on not having past played the games, but not
Speaker 2: recently replayed the games.
Speaker 1: So they have to argue and..
Speaker 2: And it's this unbelievable deep dive, this gigantic journey, this
Speaker 2: whole thing where they try and figure out and reconstruct
Speaker 2: all of the lore and all of the story and everything.
Speaker 2: And it's truly still worth a listen. It's several episodes,
Speaker 2: all four or five hours long.
Speaker 1: It's crazy. Surely you've read the Google Doc. Our Google Doc?
Speaker 1: The script? No, the Google Doc. I will put it
Speaker 1: in the show notes. There is a Google Doc that
Speaker 1: attempts to make sense of the Kingdom Hearts story, and
Speaker 1: it's like, so long and so confusing and I love
Speaker 1: it so much. Um, and I've always like my dream.
Speaker 1: So like here, uh, is our once per episode mentioned
Speaker 1: a retrograde amnesia, but I would love for them to
Speaker 1: do like just kingdom hearts three, uh, not one and two,
Speaker 1: just three or something like that, or a spinoff, uh,
Speaker 1: because they also do a fabulous, uh, wrap up episode
Speaker 1: every season when they're done a game and they sit
Speaker 1: down with their, with their partners and And try to
Speaker 1: explain the plots of these games. So they have an
Speaker 1: episode called Explaining Xenogears to Normal People. And it's them
Speaker 1: with their spouses trying to explain the Xenogears plot. It
Speaker 1: would be fabulous with Kingdom Hearts. That would be, what
Speaker 1: an experience. Especially if you just like, didn't have the
Speaker 1: context of the first two games. Because the first game's
Speaker 1: pretty normal, right? Like, plot wise. It goes off the
Speaker 1: rails later. But I did play Kingdom Hearts when it
Speaker 1: came out. And I guess like me being just a
Speaker 1: couple of years younger than you might have helped. Because
Speaker 1: I still like, was pretty into Disney movies at that time.
Speaker 1: I loved Lilo and Stitch, which came out this year.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah. And so like, I was still, and
Speaker 1: you know what, I've, and I've always just liked cartoons
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. So that wasn't a turnoff for me.
Speaker 1: That was like a thing that I was kind of into.
Speaker 1: And I had a little brother who's like five years
Speaker 1: younger than me, who in hindsight became the big Kingdom
Speaker 1: Hearts fan in our family. And so that connection to
Speaker 1: my brother, like made it like an obvious pickup. Um,
Speaker 1: and I was curious too, because there were Final Fantasy
Speaker 1: characters and I was like, Hey, yeah, clouds in this,
Speaker 1: like squalls in this, Aerith is in this. Like, that
Speaker 1: seems pretty sick. The concept, of course, like, should never
Speaker 1: have worked. But it, for whatever reason, it did. And
Speaker 1: the fact that it was, like, compelling and interesting and
Speaker 1: not just, like, a Disney RPG was, like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: it kind of, like, captured my attention pretty early and
Speaker 1: I was pretty excited about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I want to clarify just real quick. I
Speaker 2: also loved Lilo and Sedge.
Speaker 1: I thought it was a great movie.
Speaker 2: I watched it with my then-girlfriend, now-wife. Had a great time.
Speaker 1: Just a couple years before the New Year's Eve.
Speaker 2: From 1999 to 2000, I went to Disney World with my.
Speaker 1: Girlfriend, now-wife, and her family. But you probably weren't playing
Speaker 1: Disney in the dorms. Right. And that's the thing.
Speaker 2: I was just pulling in enough different directions where I
Speaker 2: wasn't going to drop whatever else I wanted to play
Speaker 2: for this, even though I was sort of curious. But
Speaker 2: I didn't see enough like people losing their minds over
Speaker 2: this is so good. You got to go play it.
Speaker 2: And then I missed out on being a lot of
Speaker 2: formative experiences for people just a couple, three, four years
Speaker 2: younger than me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I do think that like couple of years difference
Speaker 1: in our age probably had a huge, huge impact there.
Speaker 1: Can you read the opening of Frosty's review for me?
Speaker 1: I have it in the script for you.
Speaker 2: In a marriage that one could hardly dream of, two
Speaker 2: entertainment giants have come together and created a rather unique
Speaker 2: sort of offspring. Kingdom Hearts is that bouncing baby boy
Speaker 2: that you weren't quite expecting, but that you're certainly happy
Speaker 2: to see.
Speaker 1: So like we've been talking about how like Kingdom Hearts
Speaker 1: is weird, right? Like, yeah, like, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I need a Matt Leone oral history of Kingdom Hearts
Speaker 1: and like how that came together. Who pitched it? Like
Speaker 1: all of that stuff. Like I still, I don't get
Speaker 1: how that happened. Um, and I've often like on previous
Speaker 1: episodes docked points when I review the review from critics
Speaker 1: who weren't really able to like see the future impact
Speaker 1: of a game. Um, but I don't even think I
Speaker 1: can do that here to Frosty because he kind of
Speaker 1: like hedges a little bit and says like, Hey, like,
Speaker 1: I think this is interesting, but I just, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure that it can find that audience, but he almost
Speaker 1: recognizes that if it could, it could be big and interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Um, yeah.
Speaker 1: You know, nobody knew how to evaluate kingdom hearts at
Speaker 1: the time. Right. And I, I think that like Frosty
Speaker 1: not being able to, tell that it was going to
Speaker 1: spawn into this hugely popular series over two and a
Speaker 1: half decades, you know, that continues to work and have
Speaker 1: a huge fan base, like because Tetsuya and nomura like
Speaker 1: somehow keeps convincing disney to like give up its characters
Speaker 1: for his fever dream like there was no way you
Speaker 1: could have anticipated that would come out of kingdom hearts
Speaker 1: and so i think like in the second paragraph he
Speaker 1: starts to dig into you know some of the actual game, uh, gameplay,
Speaker 1: the combat. And he does say it, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of suffers from like constant battles, which is fair. Um,
Speaker 1: I think that the idea and that the experience of
Speaker 1: getting to like explore some of these Disney worlds was cool.
Speaker 1: Combat was okay, but not great. Um, but the way
Speaker 1: it mixed sort of like real time and turn-based stuff was,
Speaker 1: was cool. Uh, and so he kind of touches on,
Speaker 1: you know, like the fact that, you know, combat is, uh,
Speaker 1: kind of a necessary in the game, I think. Um,
Speaker 1: but then he rightfully in the third paragraph starts calling
Speaker 1: out the game's awful camera. The camera is so bad.
Speaker 1: And it's the number one reason I've never actually replayed
Speaker 1: kingdom hearts. Um, because cameras during that era were just so,
Speaker 1: so bad. And I'm glad to see him being like, Hey,
Speaker 1: like it kind of suffers like here. He says like quote,
Speaker 1: kingdom heart suffers a bit from the problem of constant battles. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: its inherent design reduces the monotony a lot and then
Speaker 1: goes into how the camera is, quote, one of the
Speaker 1: worst camera systems in an RPG ever. I think both
Speaker 1: of those are pretty solid reads on the gameplay aspects
Speaker 1: of Kingdom Hearts. It is tough.
Speaker 2: That's one of the things that like going back to
Speaker 2: some of these classic series is ones and twos and
Speaker 2: you go, oh, right. They didn't know how to do
Speaker 2: this yet. In terms of 3d actions, right?
Speaker 1: Your, your path, find it.
Speaker 2: You've got the camera fighting with the camera. How does
Speaker 2: combat work? Do you have lock on? Do you not
Speaker 2: have lock on? Is there, are your actions, uh, relative
Speaker 2: or absolute, right? Are your inputs relative to the map
Speaker 2: or relative to your character or relative to your POV?
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, Oh yeah, we're.
Speaker 2: Using a shoulder buttons to move the camera while we like, huh?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: So like, it doesn't surprise me that this comes up
Speaker 2: as a huge issue. Um, and uh it's it's unfortunate
Speaker 2: that this is one of those that's stricken with that.
Speaker 1: Yeah and like you know we've talked we talked about
Speaker 1: last episode with shinobi that like you see this in
Speaker 1: this uh review here there's a big screenshot of cerberus
Speaker 1: which is one of the bosses from the game like
Speaker 1: big bosses in particular especially when he had like the
Speaker 1: four by three screen ratio of like crt tube tvs
Speaker 1: like there just was not much of a viewport and
Speaker 1: so like big boss is in particular, or like swarms
Speaker 1: of enemies, like you would often get in kingdom hearts,
Speaker 1: I think exacerbated like bad camera angles. And that's why
Speaker 1: the best games of this era, I think still had
Speaker 1: fixed cameras. Like Final Fantasy 10 uses a fixed camera
Speaker 1: and it's great. It works really well. Right. Um, Frosty
Speaker 1: wraps up this review by saying, and you've read a
Speaker 1: little bit of this already, but, uh, he says, quote,
Speaker 1: there's just something cool about seeing all the Disney characters.
Speaker 1: I'm just not sure that a majority of RPG fans
Speaker 1: out there are going to go for it. Many should
Speaker 1: find it nostalgic and enjoyable. However, there are bound to
Speaker 1: be many of you who simply look over this game
Speaker 1: because it's kiddy looking.
Speaker 3: Don't.
Speaker 1: There's more to this game than meets the eye. Get
Speaker 1: past your cheesy childhood memories and give Donald and Goofy
Speaker 1: another chance. Odds are, they'll win you over once again.
Speaker 1: What I find really interesting about this review is that
Speaker 1: It doesn't mention Final Fantasy at all.
Speaker 2: That's a good point.
Speaker 1: Like it doesn't, I don't even, does it even like,
Speaker 1: I don't even think it says the words Final Fantasy. No,
Speaker 1: it doesn't. Like that blending of the two was what
Speaker 1: was so weird and strange, right? This wasn't just a
Speaker 1: Disney RPG. Like the fact that there's a crossover makes
Speaker 1: this so unique and it's so strange not to see
Speaker 1: any mention of that here. Not even in the screenshots.
Speaker 1: So like, was there some weird embargo? I don't know.
Speaker 2: And this is kind of also why I, I think
Speaker 2: it's actually a good choice if you're trying to set
Speaker 2: up Kingdom Hearts as Kingdom Hearts and not as a
Speaker 2: Final Fantasy game.
Speaker 1: This isn't a marketing thing. No, no, no. I know.
Speaker 2: I understand. I think, I guess I should say if
Speaker 2: you're trying to review or evaluate Kingdom Hearts as its
Speaker 2: own thing, because that was one of the other things
Speaker 2: was like, it's being marketed as this is Final Fantasy
Speaker 2: meets Disney.
Speaker 1: But all the main.
Speaker 2: Characters are new OG characters that look more at home
Speaker 2: in a Disney universe than in Final Fantasy, Zippers and
Speaker 2: Belts Nomura style. Aside, this art of Sora here, especially
Speaker 2: with the gigantic clown shoes.
Speaker 1: Those clown shoes are far more Mickey Mouse than they
Speaker 1: are Final Fantasy.
Speaker 2: 100%.
Speaker 1: This is what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: So this looks more like a Disney RPG than Final
Speaker 2: Fantasy meets anything. And then it's the Keyblade that isn't
Speaker 2: a sword. And even though it's got the little Mickey
Speaker 2: charm on a chain that makes it look kind of
Speaker 2: like squalls.
Speaker 1: But, you know, it just..
Speaker 2: It looks like a Disney RPG by the makers of
Speaker 2: final fantasy more than it looks like a final fantasy
Speaker 2: RPG with Disney characters in it. And that probably also
Speaker 2: helped push me over the edge towards like, no, I
Speaker 2: don't need to run.
Speaker 1: And that's why I'm like, you know, he's talking here
Speaker 1: about like, Hey, don't let it, you know, look, it's kitty. Look,
Speaker 1: push you away. But then like, why don't we have
Speaker 1: pictures of the final fantasy stuff? Like that can make
Speaker 1: it look less kitty and show sort of some of
Speaker 1: that like other side of the game. Cause the game
Speaker 1: can get pretty dark. Like there's stuff where like Mickey's
Speaker 1: fighting stuff and it's like, it's pretty cool. It's not like,
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's just weird to like, I, and like,
Speaker 1: it makes me suspect there was some embargo stuff going
Speaker 1: on with this review to the point where like they
Speaker 1: weren't able to like show off the final fantasy stuff
Speaker 1: or whatever. Um, and I, but I'm not, I'm not
Speaker 1: really sure what's going on there. Cause I think it
Speaker 1: would have helped a lot, um, to be able to
Speaker 1: be like, Hey, like, you know, in the marketing, you
Speaker 1: might see a lot of Disney stuff, but like, you know,
Speaker 1: this is a game where this happens and that happens.
Speaker 1: And like, you know, there's like punished squall or cloud
Speaker 1: and is like Vincent outfit or whatever.
Speaker 2: I think that can you go to Aiden in the
Speaker 2: magazine page one 10 for me?
Speaker 1: One 10. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I saw this while we're doing the flip through and
Speaker 2: this is, this is really interesting to me.
Speaker 1: Um, we'll have a more complete guide to kingdom hearts
Speaker 1: next year.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So here we've got Waka going, what do you
Speaker 2: want out of life? To see rare sights, to broaden
Speaker 2: my horizons, to be strong. It says talk is not cheap.
Speaker 2: The seemingly inconsequential questions Selfie, Waka, and Titus ask you
Speaker 2: in the very beginning may in fact be the most
Speaker 2: important part of the whole game. Your answers will determine
Speaker 2: how often you gain levels of experience over the course
Speaker 2: of the game. Choose the top answer each time for
Speaker 2: faster leveling or the bottom answer for slower progressions.
Speaker 1: And, like, that's fascinating. I didn't even know that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That's funny.
Speaker 2: Like, what a cool thing. And to hide that kind
Speaker 2: of mechanical thing inside these, like, storytelling questions, right? That's
Speaker 2: very Square and where Square will go. And some of
Speaker 2: the stuff they talk about about this being, like, a
Speaker 2: 3D action RPG in terms of combat, right? It's not turn-based.
Speaker 2: It's not active time battle.
Speaker 1: It's action, right?
Speaker 2: So, like, this is actually presaging the direction... mainline final
Speaker 2: fantasy games will go way back here in 2002 absolutely
Speaker 2: um so this.
Speaker 1: Is 16's battle system was had a lot of similarities
Speaker 1: with kingdom hearts.
Speaker 2: Yeah so this page this is in the cheat section
Speaker 2: right this page in the cheat section is so much
Speaker 2: more intriguing to me as a final fantasy player exactly
Speaker 2: than the entire review right exactly exactly so um yeah
Speaker 2: But then up in the top, the caption for that
Speaker 2: screenshot is, quote, we'll have a more complete guide to
Speaker 2: Kingdom Hearts next issue. So I wonder if they were
Speaker 2: saving a blowout for the next issue or something. Maybe.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's weird. It's weird to have WACA. Final
Speaker 1: Fantasy X was big right now. It was a system
Speaker 1: seller for the PS2. So why don't you have WACA
Speaker 1: in the review? Why aren't you talking about what's the
Speaker 1: integration of the Final Fantasy stuff like as it meets
Speaker 1: the Disney stuff? Is there... you know, like anachronistic like
Speaker 1: energy or does it work really well? Like what's the
Speaker 1: role of the final fancy character?
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: The fact that it doesn't have like any like of
Speaker 1: that in the review is very strange to me. I agree.
Speaker 1: I agree.
Speaker 2: I would love to hear more about it. And then
Speaker 2: we're in, we are getting into the genre Kings era now, right?
Speaker 2: Where it's like, there's three RPG series and one of
Speaker 2: them is final fantasy. And we've got 11 coming out,
Speaker 2: which is, You have to buy, you have to have,
Speaker 2: like we talk about, it's coming with its whole own add-on.
Speaker 2: It's an online thing. It's its whole own thing. You
Speaker 2: have to have a credit card number to play it
Speaker 2: and a subscription. So if you're like, well, I love
Speaker 2: Final Fantasy X. What's the next RPG? Oh, it's by
Speaker 2: these people or similar to this.
Speaker 1: Okay, here it is.
Speaker 2: It's Kingdom Hearts, but we don't get any of that.
Speaker 2: And that is both interesting and it comes across as
Speaker 2: a failing if there isn't some specific reason for it.
Speaker 1: And because they, in this same issue, are... putting up
Speaker 1: unlimited saga as like square's next rpg like yes it's
Speaker 1: taken quote it's taken what seems like an eternity but
Speaker 1: square has finally announced a new rpg for ps2 and
Speaker 1: it's not final fantasy instead it's the latest chapter in
Speaker 1: the rpg giant saga series like so they're positioning it
Speaker 1: as a Final Fantasy, like, hey, if you want more
Speaker 1: Final Fantasy, you know, quote, here at the end, quote,
Speaker 1: we wouldn't be surprised to see it here before next summer.
Speaker 1: Square definitely needs something to fill its RPG void before
Speaker 1: the yet unscheduled Final Fantasy XI comes out. But Kingdom
Speaker 1: Hearts is reviewed in this issue. But Kingdom Hearts is
Speaker 1: in this issue and they don't even mention Final Fantasy.
Speaker 1: It's weird. It's very strange.
Speaker 2: It's strange.
Speaker 1: But let's wrap up here. Yeah. Ty, can you imagine
Speaker 1: if they made, if Square made an RPG, like a
Speaker 1: modern RPG where Clive from Final Fantasy 16 and Noctis
Speaker 1: from Final Fantasy 15 teamed up with Bandit and Lucky's
Speaker 1: dad from Bluey? Like, that's the equivalent here. Yeah, no, 100%.
Speaker 1: Isn't that wild? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it worked? And
Speaker 1: it was good? That's incredible. That'd be crazy.
Speaker 2: It's an achievement.
Speaker 1: It's an achievement. That'd be crazy. Um, What do you think?
Speaker 1: What do you think? Where do we land on this?
Speaker 2: I'm so torn because for a one page review, uh,
Speaker 2: it's laid out. Well, we got a lot of screenshots.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Um, good captions. We've got the one piece of, of key,
Speaker 2: literally key, her, her key blade character art here in
Speaker 2: the middle of Sora. Um, And then I do love this,
Speaker 2: how it stacks up against other competitors, you know, with
Speaker 2: the score. I love that edition from PSM. The text
Speaker 2: is brief, but good. We only get a little under
Speaker 2: a half page of text. And even then it's, it's,
Speaker 2: we're written around a couple of screenshots and pullouts, you know,
Speaker 2: and there's not, I think it's a well-written review and
Speaker 2: the score eight makes sense. May not be squares best RPG,
Speaker 2: but it definitely has some of the best voice acting
Speaker 2: and characters ever. Action-based fighting is definitely welcome as well.
Speaker 1: But again, all of this really.
Speaker 2: Good stuff kind of leads up to the big gaping, okay,
Speaker 2: well then why didn't this get the treatment and coverage
Speaker 2: that a mainline Squaresoft.
Speaker 1: RPG should get?
Speaker 2: How come we don't have more of the Final Fantasy
Speaker 2: stuff included in this review if you are trying to
Speaker 2: pitch it? Because we've read this before where reviewers are going, hey,
Speaker 2: I mean, even with Squaresoft RPGs specifically, Chrono Trigger, right?
Speaker 2: Final Fantasy VI, right? We've seen this same publishing company,
Speaker 2: some of these same people involved go, you might not
Speaker 2: like RPGs. You might think you don't like RPGs. Play
Speaker 2: this RPG, right? So we've seen reviewers go out and say,
Speaker 2: This game is worth your time. If you like, if
Speaker 2: you do like games sort of like this, play this game. And,
Speaker 2: and Frost literally wraps this up by making that plea
Speaker 2: and going, don't dismiss this because it's a Disney thing.
Speaker 2: Don't dismiss this because it looks kiddy and cartoony, but
Speaker 2: then doesn't include anything that might actually compel me to
Speaker 2: do that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 1: I just, I don't get that. Like I, I can't
Speaker 1: square that circle. Hey. Oh, hey, hey, hey.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we might need to ask Frosty about this
Speaker 2: a little bit. So unfortunately, I'm pending some sort of
Speaker 2: explanation of why this is the direction he took for
Speaker 2: the review and then didn't include any of the things
Speaker 2: that would actually sell me on that idea. We don't
Speaker 2: even have halves in here. I kind of want to
Speaker 2: give this a six and a half.
Speaker 1: Six and a half.
Speaker 2: Six and a half Keyblades out of ten.
Speaker 1: Six and a half Keyblades out of ten. I think
Speaker 1: that's reasonable, and I think for the same reasons, I'm
Speaker 1: going to give it probably a little lower than you.
Speaker 1: In a vacuum, I think it's a pretty good review.
Speaker 1: It's well-written. Like you said, the layout looks really good.
Speaker 1: At the time, it probably would have made sense to me,
Speaker 1: but in hindsight and knowing what I know about Kingdom
Speaker 1: Hearts and knowing what I know about the rest of
Speaker 1: the magazine... uh i just feel like the omission of
Speaker 1: final fantasy is just mind-boggling to me and so i
Speaker 1: would go i'd probably go down to a five um
Speaker 1: in a vacuum probably an eight i think it's a
Speaker 1: pretty decent review otherwise but like yeah with context i
Speaker 1: gotta bring that down to a five um i don't
Speaker 1: think you can be like hey man take this game
Speaker 1: seriously it's not just like kiddie like cartoony stuff like
Speaker 1: please like give it a chance and then not put
Speaker 1: any of the stuff that like makes it really compelling
Speaker 1: in there it's just uh i just can't yeah i
Speaker 1: can't wrap those two ideas together.
Speaker 2: Yeah me neither me neither okay all right that is
Speaker 2: our review of psm's review of kingdom hearts one to
Speaker 2: be clear did we get it right leave our review
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Speaker 1: Can you hold tight for a sec just while I
Speaker 1: share my screen sure um yeah that way I'm not
Speaker 1: looking like a doofus trying to share my.
Speaker 4: Screen you can make that jump good girl yeah totally
Speaker 4: we can flip segue to the flip yeah we can.
Speaker 1: Sorry just skipping ahead in my script here um you
Speaker 1: know Maybe we'll get to that later, actually. OK. One second.
Speaker 1: So the. I don't I guess that's true. Vice City. So, OK.
Speaker 1: I think, though. I was going to get you to
Speaker 1: read a letter here, but I think we'll just move on. OK. So, yeah.
Speaker 1: Let me see if I had anything after that.
Speaker 2: But, yeah, one game for the first time again.
Speaker 1: All right, back. I can't believe we forgot X versus Sever. Well,
Speaker 1: we've already discussed that, and neither of us played it. So,
Speaker 1: you know. I have since played it. Sure, sure, sure. Okay.
Speaker 1: All right. There, there. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, I wish I had.
Speaker 1: Game Boy Advance games. There's got to be some good ones.
Speaker 1: Asterix and Oblix. Is that the crazy 3D one? Oh,
Speaker 1: the comic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? Yeah, there's some good
Speaker 1: ones here. Okay. Let's see what else. This is great.
Speaker 1: This is great audio.
Speaker 2: Everybody.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is. No, it isn't.