JSB Causality

Welcome everyone to another episode of the day. It's Good Gamescast. Amy helst rod Ak is then joining me. Today we have Ryan. How are you sir? What's up? How are we doing? Hopefully everyone's having night a good one. Is it a Sunday night we're recording here? Yeah, it's a Sunday night, and it is a Sunday night where we're recording. But yeah, doing okay. I can't complain. Just getting things ready for a thing I'll talk about a little bit later in the podcast, but yeah,

going all right, can't complain. Oh same here, also joined by Drew Staffer. How are you, sir? I'm okay. Just another day, another another day trying to play video games. True. I feel like that's that's our goal every day, right, just trying to play some video games, trying to play a game, a video game. I've played quite a few video games. I've been I've been putting in a lot of work trying

to knock out these games, which is really funny. Like I was talking to somebody earlier today actually about like backlogs and stuff, and I was like, this year, I had a goal in mind for this year, like I wanted to beat more games. Than I did last year, right, Like that is like I think I'm trying to trend on and I sat down and thought about it, and I was like, I'm doing it. And I was very surprised by that, and I was like, I've played a

lot this year, and that's really fucking cool. Nice Now, obviously, like that's time I took away from other things I could be doing, so like the other areas of my life and hobbies that have been like you know, de leveling on the side. But it's it's it's cool, it's cool. I'm doing what I ultimately enjoy. So it was just a cool, like mid year check in at me, just like looking back and I was like, whoa one this year is really fucking cool for video games. In

two I played a lot of them. That's very cool. Yeah, I can't beat that, can't beat that. I'm also kind of recovering from a cold, so I maybe like cough here or there. I'm going to try my best to mute when when that happens, but just be aware that that might come out of nowhere and destroy people's ears. But yeah, with that being said, let's get into video games. I want to hear from Ryan about what you have been up to. Oh, let's see what have I

been up to? Obviously, the Nigue Grind continues. Such a near event that's going on. Yeah, basically, I think I got all the stuff I needed is including the you know, costume Gotcha thing for to be, which was definitely a funny story in itself that we discussed. Uh yeah, man, Nique's costume Gotcha is like one of the worst things I've seen in a mobile game in quite some time. It's pretty odd. Don't even play

that game, and I agree, yeah, it's pretty awful. But considering that was the only way to get this costume and that it's a collabin who knows when it will ever return never come back? Yeah, well that's how they Yeah, that's it. They know exactly what they're doing. That is exactly how they get you. And I'm like, well, I really don't have a choice in this matter. If I really want this costume, I'm gonna have to do this. And sure enough, that's uh what I did.

But yeah, I've been doing that. It's weird though, because like I've done so many polls and like I only pulled to B once and yeah it is was, Yeah, it was. It was heartbreaking. No, it is not not my banner at all. But luckily I had enough golden tickets so to where I could get uh to B and A two with the gold tickets at least. And then I was just like, well, I'll just keep pulling if need be, and uh you know, if I get another one, great, If not, oh well it is what it is.

But like it's also good that I'm pulling these now because like they're one year anniversary. Things going to be coming up roll soon. Yeah, And that's also probably when they're gonna be releasing the uh like the new version of uh of a Rappie, which is going to be the Red Hood or yeah, red Hood variant of her, so that when she has like the red hair. Yeah. So like I just got to that part in the story where like she did that and I was like, oh, you got some

fucking super saying as shit happening right now? Yeah yeah right, yeah, so like that, so you learn more about that if you progress through the very generic and boss story. You know, it surprised me at points, like there are specific moments so far yeah yeah that I'm like, this is really good, but also it gets diminished the moment like a character like Neon comes on screen, I'm just like, girl, your entire asses out and

I'm just completely taken out of whatever context is happening right now. Yeah, like the designs clash with like what's going on, and I'm just like this takes me out of it completely. But I will say, like there's some story bits in here that I'm like, oh, this is actually really good

or really touching, so that there's something there. Yeah, and it's it's funny too because like even like when you see like the animated parts everything, it's just like you tell, like they put budget into it, and so

like, yeah, the animation stuff is really cool. Yeah, but like but yeah, you're right some of the like when you see certain like you know, the live two D animations come up and how some of those things are just kind of like wait, why but why this is a really touching scene and then acid titties in the face just like yeah, a little clashing here, Yeah I get it. But yeah, but yeah, so I've been I've been still doing that. And they also announced like there's still be

like another banner thing comings into before before the one year anniversary thing. Yeah, they're gonna have like four new characters drop. It's so which is one that is very much a rob character, the blonde that was on the left. I was let go, I need I need this character. Yeah. So like it's funny too because like the first character that they're showing in this that's going to be like part of like the main banner pole that was actually

like a redo of the character that was gonna be original originally. So like I'm gonna I'm gonna put the tweet of the character that is gonna be in this first banner, and then I'm gonna show the original design that uh that the character was originally gonna be. So that's the one right there, and then this was yep, and then this was the original design to left.

Yeah, complete overhaul, right, that is a complete difference. Yeah, And I kind of liked the original design better, and I think it's because it kind of gave me Wagner vibes from it's very Wagner. Yeah. But I do also kind of go with the one on the life. Yeah. I like the Kate. Yeah, like like like there's nothing wrong with the new redesigned they did. I just prefer the I just like if you asked

me between two, I just preferred the other one. Yeah. Yeah, but yeah, so they're going to have that before you know, I guess the one year thing. So but yeah, that's still a game. I've been definitely you know, logging in and doing the dailies four and stuff like that while you know, you know, just passing the time and things like that here. But there are a couple other games I have been playing,

well, I let me phrase that I started up. I haven't had a chance to really go back to them yet though, because obviously I've been getting things ready for other stuff, so I really haven't been able to dedicate two us Tide to it. But there are two games that I did finally start up that I've had on the back burner for a little bit, and then I was like, oh wait a minute, I have game Pass. Let me take a look at game Pass. Oh these games are still here.

Cool, I'm gonna start these. One of those being Signalis, Yes, and boy, I know we talked about that, talked about this game before, but like actually booting it up a planet and it's just like, oh, yes, this is definitely the old school, like Resident Evil, like you know, Parasites. Yeah, yeah, and like I just it just fit hit that like retro nostalgia of like the tank controls, and it's just like I I never was a big fan of these, but for some reason

I missed these. Yeah. It's you can tell the developers they're like have a deep passion for that specific like time period of horror games because it like it takes the best of like all of those games. Yeah, tank controls are not me thing, Like it's very off putting for a lot of people, but like that game feels good. It does in some way, right, Like they took this control scheme that like most people wouldn't like and it's just I don't know, they just smoothed it out and made it feel actually

pretty good. Yeah, and it's actually like, you know, it's cool that like you can run at like the full two fortyps and everything too. Like it's like you can tell, like it just looks and feels like incredibly good. And it's just like everything about that game like was hitting like hitting home for like you know those old fields that I had for like the older

Resident Evil games and things like that. Yeah, and you know it's even like the look of it where it's kind of like the blocky graphics and everything, like it just hits home with everything. It's like, ah, I grew up with the Yeah, so I definitely been enjoying that. I kind of want to go back and like soon to play more of it and everything. Because I spent like the first two hours playing it. I just got

the elevator to work. So I've been doing like going to like the different floors and stuff like that, and it's like I'm still trying to figure out like what exactly is going on, like how all this, you know, transpire the way it did. And so like it's been pretty fun to kind of go through and play that and everything. The other game I started up and I think it's a game that you finished recently see as Stars. Yes, and I'm going to talk about that. Yeah, that game is.

Either of you spoil that game for me, I will kill you. Yeah, I'm just I'm just I'm just saying that that game is as I'm only a couple of hours in, but the way I've been playing it, like the way I've been playing it and like how I've been feeling about the game, anything that might be my game of the Year for this year. I would believe it. It's it's it is just like soundtracks awesome. I love the battle system that they have with it, Like I don't want my favorite

battle system period. Yea, yeah, it's it's really good. It's really good. It gives you a lot of flexibility on like how you want to how you want to play it for like a turn based RPG. Yeah, I I it's it's very very charming, probably one of the most charming games I played in a while. And like it said, I I got to I went through maybe like the first two hours. I'm about ready to get

to the uh fourth part of it. I want to say, Like I said, I'm trying to choose my words carefully because I like my life and I don't want Drew killing. Yeah, that's why. That's why I'm choosing my words carefully. I'm just saying, like, you need to fell finish up You're You're You're trails game there so you can start playing you know, actually actually five game you know. So, But yeah, that's been that's

that's been an experience. That's been a lot of fun. Yeah, I've that's definitely a game I want to get back into soon after after I'm done. With like all the other things I got going on and everything. I'll also tell you it's it's a relatively short game too, like that I heard it's got a pretty good like time hour to it and everything, which is

just like, yes, I'm a fan of that. Like if you if you don't get like so caught up in like a lot of the side stuff, you can roll credits in like twenty hours, and that is okay with me. Yeah, so I'm definitely gonna be I'm definitely gonna be h like I said back on that after I'm done with everything else for sure. Still been hitting up the Rhythm games from time to time too, to kill some time, like if I'm trying to go to sleep or something, you know,

DJ Max trying to unlock all that stuff and everything. It's like gonna unlock its new pack with stuff and then uh, I'm also counting down the days to the Project Diva Hot to Name Me Ku collab with Mused. Finally. I almost sought Mused Dash earlier today. It was in my cart I was actually I was gonna so the bit was gonna be that I was actually going to play it. I was gonna buy it, and I was gonna

play it today and bring that to the table and be like yo. I finally did it because the Queen herself called me up and was like, you need to play this game because I hots and Nameku is in it, and I'm like, dam I got I gotta play it. I remember the action when I sent you the tweet about the collab and You're like, that's it. They got me. It's it's over. It's over from for me. Bro's like, it's it's done as soon as it drops. The only thing,

the only reason why I did not pull the trigger. Actually I paused because apparently they're like changing the structure of the DLC. Yeah, it's a bit. It's kind of weird how they're doing it because originally, like the pace. It's funny because like the base game itself was like three bucks, right, it's three dollars, and then and then they have the DLC pack and it's titled Just as Planned and it's an extra thirty bucks because it's like

everything else that is with the game and everything. But the cool thing with that was a lot of the collapse and a lot of the things they just added on were always just free updates. If you bought the just as planned. Everything was done is free, and like that was a cool thing about it. I think they change it now to where there's going to be certain collabs that you are going to have to pay extra. Four Like the Project Diva pack is going to be is going to be extra. You are going

to have to pay for that. But even then, like the pack for that itself is like ten bucks. It's not it's not expensive at all. Like dj Max's like updates whenever they do that and everything, those things always range from like fifteen to twenty. So yeah, like so it's not like it's not like it's a like a like a big thing. And I kind of to be honest, like I kind of expected that eventually there were going to be some packs that were going to be released that you would have to

pay for. It makes sense, like like you knew it was I knew

it was going to happen. Yeah, Like you can't just keep doing free content, like because they're like four years in at this point, yeah, right, and at this point they've probably sold the game to everybody that is interested in buying the game, right, So like every collab you're seeing diminishing returns and it's like they have to start making money at some point, right, you know, so like you're already getting an insane amount of content for

the Justice Land DLC, Like an absolute insane I don't think it does any harm for them to be like, hey, we need to make some funds at this stage of the game. Well, like it makes sense to me. Yeah, let's just say. It's also like you know, if they depending on like what they purchased with like who knows how much they had to

pay to get to get the miku. Yeah. Yeah, so like I like, I totally get it, Like I understand why they had to make that change absolutely, but yeah, it's a when they announced there were certain things there were changing with it, of course, there was some backlash about it, and so yeah, so they did revamp it a little, revamp

it a little bit. But I'm just like, listen, like they put out so much free stuff and so many different collapse that they had to begin with, like with Toho and DJ Max and even Narc Knights and things like

that. Like they did a lot of different labs with that too, And if they want to add bigger collabs to the game and get more people to purchase it, you know, then yeah, they're going to have to you know, spend some money in turn, like hoping people buy more stuff from them to get more collabs, because like essentially they want to expand out even more to doing some of the other things like maybe like you know, if they want to try to reach out to like do some other collabs and everything,

and they have to pay for it. You know, it's just in a sense, it's kind of having to support it. It's it's a business at the end of the day, you know, and like the developers need to make money, one so they can do more collabs, but also too

so they can live. Yeah, not too Like you know, it's they've already proven that they're they're willing to put in a lot of work into this game, and it all seems worth it, right, So it's not like it's it's some shady developer that's like trying to nickel and dime you So, like I feel like the good will is already there and like spending more for them doesn't seem like big deal to me. Yeah, I know, they're they're going to discontinue the Justice Plan DLC in October. Yeah, but they're

replacing it with like a mused plus package instead. And I think the idea is that anybody that purchased Justice Planned prior to that, which I'll end up doing, you get a discount on all the future DLC. Yeah right, so it's kind of like an early buy in bonus. Right. It's kind of like grant, which is cool, man, And yeah, like for like, hey, we know you bought this and everything, and we know you did the Justice Plan, but you know, hey, in turn,

here's going to be discounted stuff for you. Yeah. It's like a thank you for the support, right, which is super cool. Yeah. So so yeah, that's That's pretty much like everything that I've really been doing as far as like gaming stuff is concerned. I still boot up Eternal Returnament once in a while hoping that, Yeah, I turned it on, so I was like, maybe solo it's back now. No, it's not. It's

not back, man. I was going to ask you. I almost sent you a message when I saw pop up, because it was like, really, it was like two or three o'clock in the morning or something, right, right, turn on any time return let me back. Yeah. I was like, I was like, well, because there was an update that was ready for it too, and I was just like, you know what, I already downloaded this update. Let me just hope and wish and no, is it only trios an option? It's trios. It's only trios only

trio. Really, you and I can't even do all anymore. It's only trios day. Well, the game stay is dead for me for another you know how long. Yeah, And it's funny because like they change that stuff around a few months ago and everything, and like they still haven't activated it back, which is just I don't know, it just feels weird to me.

It probably speaks more to the population on a yeah, because I get I get the idea why they had to get rid of solos and duos, right, because like there was a huge issue already with like que times, right, and you're splitting the player base into three different cues, and their most popular que was always trios. Yeah, so you take the hit on like some of the solo players that aren't going to touch trios, but like there's a good size of them that are like that would still play regardless,

So you just trying to funnel everybody into one que. So this way you help out on the queue times and stuff. Yeah, I mean I believe you know, yeah, I mean I get it to believe me, but I mean I don't play well with others. That's why I play solos. So yeah, no, I understand. I'm right there with you, like I'm in the waiting room too, So like it's just unfortunate, you know. I wanted to be that. Hey, I lost because I messed up. I don't want to lose because of other team stuff. So that's just

me. Sounds like Pokemon Unite. Yeah, so that was the beauty of the game. It was like, oh, that's finally one of these where it's just like I can Solo Cube and just like play when I feel like, you know, yeah, it's gone, especially like if I wanted to like try to lab like playing like different character art types and stuff like that. Yeah thing, but yeah, that's still profound sadness. No no solo yet for Eternal Return, which makes you sad. Let's see. I that's

pretty much it. Oh. I also have been playing a Holo here stuff still here and there too. Yeah that game. That game is like just good fun to just like kill time with ad So yeah, I'm still trying to beat that new stage that they put into that stage is freaking hard. It's like I haven't had like I would get to like the tail end of it, and then I just get obliterated and I'm just like what just happened?

So dang, yeah, like I not even get like the special collapse and everything too, and it's like it's like you thought, like that's cute and then just getting pliterated. Yeah exactly, just like all right, I gotta level up some other things they're I guess. So, but it's like I said, it's a fun game that just kind of, like I said, just killed time with whenever, like I'm not quite tired yet, but like I'm getting like it's just trying to make myself go sleep. Yeah.

Yeah, it's a it's a short commitment to, right, So it's just like it's easy to just like turn it on and like all right, let me just kind of like tire up the eyes real quick with like a thirty minute game real quick. Yeah exactly. Yeah, Yeah that's that's how Vampires five This was for me too. So it's like and that's the same game, just hollow Hollow live on top of it. Yeah, I totally get you. Yep. So that's kind of that's kind of how I have feel

with everything as far as the games I've been playing. Like I said, I've been spending a lot of time though getting ready for this uh Kirby Con event that is going to be happening in thirteen days from now. It's uh, it's gonna be It's gonna be interesting because I've been in a like group chat with the the people that are putting on the eventor everything created a group

chat for like all the vendors. So I got to ask questions if I got anything, and and like they're just you know, basically like answering as many questions they can. And someone brought up asking like how many people are expected, because like one of them is like a like a drink vendor that's going to be there, and they wanted to make sure they had like enough supplies for drinks and everything. And they they were like, oh, we're expecting over a thousand people. And I'm like, oh, that's a lot.

Sounds like a lot. September thirtieth Saturday down in Gainesville. Oh that will be den dates from from my mom's birthday day. Yeah, it's h but it's like it's it's kind of like like a literally just like a buffet of like all these different things that's going to be happening. Like there's gonna be like music concerts that's gonna be going on. There's gonna be like some different shows that are gonna be going on, and like it's also an eighteen

and over show, which means I get to sell the ludes. So like it's there's a lot of different things that's gonna be going on with this thing. So like I am curious to see how this is gonna play out. I'm very curious too. Like I've done like eighteen plus events that are at other conventions, right, so like anime Xto has like eighteen plus events or dragon Corn or whatever, but I've never done like a solely folk's like one day eighteen plus event. I don't know what this is. Yeah, you

know. And then on top of the fact that they're doing like concerts and other shows and stuff, I'm just like, what is happening. I've never even heard of Kirby Con until you brought it to my attention, But it's a been a thing that it's been going on and growing apparently. Yeah, I mean, because they do it. They do it in South Florida, like that's where it's based out of. It was like in South Florida, and then they're doing this one in Gainesville and then they're doing another one that's

in Atlanta. So yeah, they're explaining it out and yeah, so I'm also very curious to see, like what is this. I've seen snippets, I've seen photos, I've seen videos, and I'm like, okay, me a lot. I am. I am trying to prepare myself as much as I can because I have a feeling that things are going to get weird. This is going to be the burlesque show just extram That's okay, That's pretty much what I'm gathering. Mmmm so but yeah, uh good times should be

interesting to say the least. So, but that's for sure. That's all I've done. That's pretty much everything that I have to offer as far as contributing to the podcast, as far as what games I played and stuff. Cool, I love that. Uh truthfu, Yes, what have you been up to? Well, I haven't played. I have been playing video games. I've actually been playing NonStop video games. Like yeah, I mean, I'm this is the fastest I've ever like gotten close to beating a Trails game.

I think it's true. It's true. I agree like it. It hasn't even been a month. I actually went and looked to see what my start date was, and it was a yeah, three weeks. Yeah okay, yeah, but lover, yeah sorry in August twenty three. Now, granted, I wasn't like fully committed right then and there because we were at that stupid difficulty and I decided to grind the casino for twenty hours. So I decided to follow suit with you to not do that, And looking back,

good decision, good decision, right, good decision. The further I got in that game, I'm just like, though, this great decision. Yeah. No, the further you get, you realize, like, man, could you imagine doing this on a piss, Like even when you get to the point where I'm like you can make the od builds and stuff like that, You're just like this would not have been fun regardless, Like this

was? No? No, is it especially? Is it just a different Is it just the difficulties like that miserable or just like yes, so A bit difficulty is essentially the same as nightmare difficulty, which is difficulty that wrong and I typically play on it's a new difficulty, except HP, attack and speed values are like multiplying my phone. So you run up to scenarios where like you take your turn and then the enemy has like five turns before they

before you get your next one. Oh, I've had fights where like I happen to set up like a reflect buff on me, so this way damage gets directed back to the enemy and just like I'm sitting there for twenty turns before I get to act again. That it's that sounds terrible. And then also note like most scenarios you're dying in like two hits, so like if you do get hit, it's over. That sounds awful. It is the it's awful. Why why would you subject yourself to that? I mean,

we don't we didn't know that. I don't yet. We didn't know that because like they did in the previous games. Is that what you're saying that this is a difficulty, this is the first Yeah, and in the prologue conversation with who decides In the prologue, most of the most of that difficulty is doable. There's like one or two fights where you're like, oh, okay, I could see where this this would be annoying. But then like you get to a boss fight and like the boss fights manageable and you're like,

Okay, I think I can handle this difficulty. And then you get like a little bit farther and you're like, oh no, that that sounds that sounds miserable. So I was to be like from Seven Deadly Sins and be like who decided that, Like in an RPG, specifically a turn based RPG, normal battles are not to they really shouldn't be difficult, in my

opinion, because normal battles aren't. They're not there to be difficulty. Help you level up at everything, yeah yeah, And then then they give the player some sort of something to interact with that isn't like necessarily challenge because like, because RPGs are long, you don't want to like throw everything at the player to where you're getting from like story point A, the story point B is miserable, and like that's the problem with this difficulty is that even normal

fights were just like if I don't like do this perfectly, I will die and that's not fun. So eventually I just got a little point, I know, you know, I just tone it. Now there's specifically one fight, and it's very funny because like the difference in difficulty between the fight on

ABYSS and Nightmare is hilarious. It's so funny, like there's a moment like so uh that fight, I turned the difficulty down, like I was the first to get to that get to the fight, and this was like Windrew was still kind of preparing to play and all that, and this is where I was like, no, I'm not doing it anymore. When I shifted it down to Nightmare difficulty, it I thought I accidentally shifted it to like easy, like it is just like a cakewalk. And I was like,

what is the difference here? Like that is what? That is a disparaging difference, insane, Like I had to double take the difficulty setting that I said it on because I was like, this can't be it. Noh, granted, it's really just that fight. It is, like that's what makes it really funny because it is in particular that it feels that way, and like fights later are like challenging enough, but that went just felt like you are steamrolling it and it's like I can't what is this? Yeah? And

I mean, I'll be perfectly honest. The trails games have never really had a super hard difficulty, Like there are far few in between, like some

some difficult boss fights that are pretty memorable. There's one in particular that I think of in this game, Like even turning Down a Nightmare, there was one boss fight where I was like what, But like, I don't know, there becomes a point with with difficulty and turn based RPGs, and it's like it's such a hard balance to really meet and I don't don't know if there's ever really been a good JRPG, like turn based JRPG that has done

that. I think like Bravely Default is one that I really consider like one of those games that the game challenges you to break its system, and then once you break its system, it just throws fights at you. They're like, Okay, you better broken the system, otherwise you're gonna die. I think the key is making sure that your mechanic still works and that the player can still interact with it and like exploit it to like the best degree that

you can. Right, So, like there's I think there's a slightly different conversation for like inflating numbers. I think that just makes things tedious. But like when you have a battle system that can accommodate higher difficulties and you can

play around it. That that's the sweet spot because like even like S and T games for example, like playing those on hard or whatever, it's like you're taking more damage, so you have to think about your moves more carefully, but you're still interacting with like the weakness system to give yourself different like more turns or whatever, or the gay enemy turns, or make sure your equipment is prepared for this fight specifically, Like you're interacting with the game systems

in a way to where like that difficulty is you can mitigate it, right Octopac Traveler, if that had like a higher difficulty, that would be a pretty good one too. I feel because of the break system and everything too, like that doesn't get broken if you would were theoretically put it up, you know what I mean. So, like with Trails, the mechanics at play here are just broken, you know, Like there is a break mechanic in this game as well, Like when you get the enemies like Stamina Gage

or whatever all the way down, they're going to a brake status. They take more damage. Blah blah blah. That's supposed to be your opportunity to like take your turn and push your like offense. And when you're on a best difficulty because of how the speed stat works and everything like that, it's like you break them, they immediately recover instantly, and it's like I didn't even get to like engage with this, you know. So that is like

one fail point of like this difficulty, you know. Yeah, And I imagine this difficulty was designed after the fact of like, hey, let's just throw this in, because it definitely is just an inflated numbers team. In my opinion, it is that being said, I mean, the trails battle system is never I'll be perfectly honest. I think prior to Cold Steel they had a better battle system. I was gonna say that, actually, I think I think Sky and Zero and al like had better, more interesting systems

than than everything happened. Yes, not just the not just like the battle system, but like they're the ordnance system was also a lot more interesting and fun to interact with than it is in Cold Steel, which I mean that's fine because after this game we're moving on to a whole new battle system. I'm curious about it. I am too, I am to do you know anything about it. I mean, I know you switch, you can switch between active in turn base. Yeah, I'm very curious about that. I'm

not sure how that's going to feel. So I'm curious about it. Wait, which game is that's Cora? I don't know what? Probably yeah, yeah, well well is an old game? Yeah yeah, right right. The next game after rever he is that has a new battle system. It will probably be called Trails of Shadow or would make sense that would be a direct translation? Yeah, oh would it pretty much? Yeah, Curl is black black, But I mean, if you were to localize that shadow sounds

right. I don't know if you want to release your a game called Trails of Black like that, I would get in great enjoyment out of it, but I don't know if we're running into it over again unreal black. So I was planning today to talk about Reverie, but that was under the assumption that I was going to beat the game. Unfortunately, I'm like right there, and like I've been playing this game like mad, like just trying to push forward as much as I can, and I just I really wanted to

have it beat by this recording, and we just didn't make it. I'm at the final dungeon. I'm pretty sure I don't know where you go from this. The finale, like tapter is, it is long because they throw a lot of stuff at you in terms of like here are things you can you can do, Like you can't just progress through the story like not and

forget about the rest or whatever. But like if you're the type of person that, like I want to like check off all the box is, there's a lot of boxes to check in the finale, there are there are, and that's like an additional like twelve hours. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I'm sure what you did is you beat the game first and then went

back and did some of that stuff. So what I did, actually I did all of it up to aside from a lot of the day dreams I to unlock at that stage, like I did, I did some that caught my eye, and then I was like, Okay, I want to close this out. I will come back for this, because it was at that stage of just like I'm ready to see where this goes, like I really want to know where the story wraps up, and I just couldn't contain myself anymore, and I was like I'm just back for the day dreams, so

that that's what I did see. I want to do that, but I have this condition where just like I have to finish as everything before I get it, I get it, like I do that add in every RPG, I have to do everything I can before I fight. That's why it annoys me that games have like post games after the final boss now, like side quests and stuff that you can only do after the final boss. I'm like, no, the final boss. That's should be finally. That's why it's

called final Boss for a reason, not final Boss. And then oh hey there's extra stuff now, right. So uh, I hope you're okay with this round because I was hoping to have a Reverie discussion with you on recording and we save that for next recording once I've done. We can't because I do have things I want to say about Reverie. Look do it and bad mostly good, mostly good. Yeah, I will, I will, I have mostly good YEA. I will say this. We we are back up

from Cold Steel. We are back up, stocks rising rising. I need to see where the story ends, but we're back up, and actually, I will say Reverie does take some of the points from Cold Steel In fact, one of the day dreams I've just watched involving a character named Lecter that I like took some of the events of Cold Steel and kind of paated them in a different light that I was like, this makes me appreciate Cold Steel a little bit more. Yeah, to would agree. Yeah, I think

they pull it. They pull it some threads some of the more interesting threads of Cold Steel, right, because we always talked about like Cold Steal has some interesting ideas, but like we didn't like the execution of the direction that they went, but there's like some interesting threads there, and like this game pulls from like quite a few of those interesting angles and threads. And I'm

like, Okay, I'm glad you explored this. But we'll discuss all of that next recording, because like I really want to have this like on the plate of Hey, we're done, and Rob and I are on the same age about like the story. I mean, if they may end up being a spoiler cast, I was gonna say, we might, we might as well just do a separate spoiler cast for it and just go two hours or trials. Yeah, that's fair. Well, we'll figure it out. We'll

see what other than Reverie. I have been on the side. I recently obtained the analog pocket. That's a good device. Whatnot the analog pocket. So what it is is, it's basically are you familiar with what a mystery is, Ryan, I mean you talked about that on the podcast before. Yeah, So a Mister is an FGPA or FPGA emulator where basically it's a device is able to emulate hardware. So you those think it's like a game Boy just about Yeah. So basically what it is is the analog pockets portable

Mystery. It's not as powerful as the Mister. Uh, it does not play things like PlayStation And actually it was really cool as I found out they got in sixty four running on Mister recently. Yeah, that's really really cool.

Uh. FPGA like tech is crazy to me, especially like how fast they're developing it, because every time somebody talks about, well can we develop this for Mister, and somebody's like, nah, noah, it's impossible, it's just not within the capabilities of Mister, and then like two months later it's on there like it's it's just a it's a time thing, like it's gonna happen. Yeah, Like everybody's like, no, you'll never get PlayStation

on the Mister and Boom PlayStations on the Mystery. So for like nine games, I'll never get in sixty four and the Mister Bowman sixty four is on the mis game So I had the Analog of Pocket pre ordered it like back sometime last year. I think, and I gotta say, this is a really cool device. Not only like is it just an f FPGA device, but it also is just an actual game Boy. It will play my actual

game Boy, game Boy Color and game Boy Advanced cartridges. I think that's really fucking cool because like I hate every other like handheld system for whatever reason, Like the game Boy Advance is like the perfect ergonomic factor for me, but it's not backlet, and I tried making my own backlet game Boy and it doesn't feel right because like it just doesn't fit well. And like the

game Boy Advanced sp is like way too small for my hands. Like the Analog Pocket, despite being a little weird at first, it just it fits my hand as like a portable to ice perfect. And not not only that, like it's it gives me access to like playing my game Boy games like in a comfortable way, I now have access to like a NES and Super Nintendo and Second Genesis and like, let me just look at my cores, real quick, Negos in there, Yeah, neogos in there, Turbographics,

Tribographic CD. I currently have game Boy Game War Color, game Boy Advance, a NES, s NES Genesis, and Turbographic CD, and like these games play flawlessly. Twenty five years I've been asking for like a fully functional portable version of Super Mario RPG, and I finally have it on the years being remade on Switch, but whatever, it's here, and like I've been playing through games like and it's literally like I'm playing on the console, like

I played through all I'm megam an X. It feels great. I've been really trying to test the special chip games from S and es, like the games that had special chips on the cartridge, in order to like actually play like I've been playing Yoshi's Island a lot on and you know, I've just been playing occasionally, like before I go to bed or something like that, just un till I go through a level or two, and like it runs flawlessly. This device is such an amazing like little package, and the battery

life is insane. I haven't charged it yet since I got it. Yeah here it's here. Yeah now Brant, and I'm at five percent, so like we're finally there. But I've had it for at least like three weeks. When was that hurricane supposed to hit? That was about three weeks ago too, Yeah, so I've had it since then, and like it. I haven't charged it since. And this thing like runs amazing. Hell yeah, it's been like I've been flirting with this thing for I feel like ever

and like personally for me, like the use case isn't quite there. Like I have plenty of devices where I like I can throw emulator on and I'm fine with it. You know, steam deck works great for that. I do that on there and a few other little knick knacks around here. But there's something about like that form factor of the ndomlog plocket that it's really it's really it's really nice, like I always hear about it. I've been here about this thing forever in like I'm like, man, I like I just

don't want just to have it, you know, I get it. I get it, and like in the screen is super Chris. The speakers sound really good. I will say like the shoulder buttons took a little because the first game I played on this was Mega man X, because I was like, all right, I don't know a lot these shoulder buttons. I need to play a game that forces me to use these shoulder buttons a lot.

And because I used dash on my r buttons in Mega man X, I was like, that's going to force me to interact with these shoulder buttons a fuck ton. And like I didn't like it at first, and then like as I was getting further along in the game and like I was getting used to it, I'm like, Okay, this is fine. Yeah, I just had to kind of break it in a little bit. Yeah, pretty much. But like it's such an amazing little device. I love it, And like all you need is a Micro's D card and you're pretty much good

to go. And it's a USBC charger. It comes with its own cord. You gotta buy a brick, which I mean bricks are down a dozen these days. Yeah, and it fits in your pocket with Like That's why I wanted it, is because I constantly complained about how we are in the age of like portable consoles, but like they're handheld but they're not really portable in my eyes, They're not pocket size. They're not like I cannot put

try as I might my switch or my steam dick in my pocket. Like to me, a handheld device is something that I can get on a bus if I have like a fifteen minute bus ride from like in front of my house to like the grocery store or something like that. Maybe just like I'm saying, I'm I am the king, I am the King of cargo pants, and it's still like too fucking big for me. It came to your growing up, didn't you. I mean, yeah, yeah, I need to get like so whatever that have a huge Yeah, I remember the get

goes. I remember did you guys ever see the super Boy? Yes? Yes, okay, because I remember wanting those, Like when I first heard around it was a portable Superintendent. I was like, bro, this is it. This is what I want. And then I fucking saw it, and like I first saw it in an ad where like some it's the super Boy in like a gene pocket and it just looks so fucking stupid, and

I'm like, oh no, that doesn't favorite pocket at all. So I'm glad if I have this, because this fits in my pocket, my pocket. It's perfect. Nice. But and you know, I've been playing some tight, you know games on it. May man X. I could go on about that game, how much I love that game. Probably one of the best two D platformers ever made. Actually, that reminds me of another game I can talk about that I recently played. I'll get to that.

But mayman X is mag man X is probably, in my opinion, the best two D platform The game is incredible, excellent level design, excellent boss designs. I never get tired of that game. I know that game by heart, back to front, Like, I love that game so much. Really glad that I can have it and play it anywhere in the world. Now. Yoshi's Island is another game that you know, I grew up a

plane is excellent two D platformer. What I like about Yoshi's Island, I will say this, Yoshi's Island is a game that since we're of the conversation with difficulty, Yoshi's Island is a game that lets you choose your own difficulty

as you play the game. And I really appreciate it because the game itself isn't necessarily that hard, right, It's it's definitely a platformer made for lower skill levels, but like the level scoring system is there to like give you a greater challenge should you want it, which I think is really cool.

So like it's it's it's kind of like Kirby in that sense, where Kirby games also have like this sort of choose your own difficulty way of going about it, where you can go into the game and like you can just play the game of the game itself is pretty easy, but like once you start wanting to like get everything there is in the game, the game gets harder because now you have to go off a beaten path, or a game challenges

you with more like with trickier platforming challenges. To get like a collectible, you need to get the perfect score on said level or something like that. And I really appreciate my performers that do that because then like everybody can play that game and then everybody can talk about that game, you know, And

so I wish I wish four games did that. In today's day and age, I feel like there isn't like a sort of either games are like designed with difficulty in mind of like we want to make this hard, like in in Your Soul's Dain or something like that, where games are just like, well, we just want you to enjoy the story, so here you go. There's that middle ground's kind of gone, you know, it's it's there.

But yeah, I know what you mean. I I like seeing that stuff in games, right, Yeah, and it's we're not where we should be in that regard. I agree with you on that, but that's seeing a lot of pocket and playing. Are talking about maga an ex REMADMI. Are you saying played thirty xx? What's up thirty xx? Yeah, thirty xx. The MegaMan X roguelike, Yes, I have. It's interesting.

I don't dislike it, but like, the first thing that I noticed when I played it is that it looks like Mega man X, but it doesn't feel like Mega MANX, And like that immediately just forced me to have like a recoil sort of like reaction to it where I'm like, this looks like something I really like, but it doesn't feel like getting Therefore, I don't like that. Yeah, your brain is switching to like, oh, this

this should be this should be Mega man X, but it's not. Yes, yes, And it's little things like the way you wall jump in the game, like when you wall jump in Mega man X, there's like a bit of resistance. Like this is why MegaMan X like the best game ever

and like why it's perfectly designed because it's thought of sucking everything. But like when you jump off of a wall in Mega man X, there's like a little bit of like resistance on like your jump, and like it feels like you're kicking off of a wall and doing we're like in thirty x X, Like it almost feels like a flash game so to speak, Like yeah, you're doing a wall jump, but like there's no like physics or anything behind it. You're kind of just like going up a wall and it just doesn't

feel as good. So and it's it's like things like I like hit stops and feel as good in the game. And I mean like it's a rogue light, so like yeah, I get it, but like you look like something I love, but you're just a cheap imitation. Oh no, man, not the cheap imitation. I don't know. And like it being a rogue light also like kind of means like the like MegaMan, the Mega man X games that I enjoy, I love because like their level design is really

cool. Drew said he's playing great value of Mega Man's exactly. I mean, it's it's it's Mega man X at home, bro, That's what it is. It's not it's not Doctor Pepper, it's Doctor Thunder, Jesus Christ and so like, because it's a rogue light game. Like the level design is not as complex because it's not design of becaus designed for you to like run through as you're doing on and doing all at him? Is it randomly

generated? I think? So? Okay, gotcha. Yeah, so in that case too, like you start kind of seeing the seams to the levels as well, right, like he's this this block is clearly used here. I know this room blah blah blah. Yeah, yeah, it stitched together. So I mean that's all right, but I'm really feeling it. Also, the zero character looks really lame in my opinion, The Zero character like

almost look like Zero, like straight up. Okay, it's been it's been a while since since I looked at it, but I was like, I remember looking at that game, and I was like, these are clearly not Mega men and not Zero. I mean, I'm like, okay, he he looks like Proto Man e XC in my opinion. Okay, or like if you zero and got rid of his hair, and I think that's why it looks bad. Okay, okay, but anyway, I digrass. I'm sure there are people that like that game and find that game fun, and

I don't want to ran their parade. But the game's an imposter who said I give us crash. It's great value, great value, make a man, great value, make a man. You can't beat rains Man. Ray Man X is good game. Anyway, ixt your favorite in the X series, it's weird. I have this weird love for Mega Man X three because growing up it was the first game that had zero playable and I've always loved

zero. So you would think like X three or X four would be my favorite, but like X three does have like some issues in terms of like I don't think the boss designs are is cool. I don't think the songs are this. But I guess I would say, yeah, Mega Man X is my favorite X game, despite like me really liking all of them. I will always go back to Mega Man X and being like, yeah, I know everything about this game, and like I will always have like the

dumbest grin on my face. Plane that game nice, that's cool? Oh yeah, I think it'll be X four for me. But yeah, X is good. Yeah, X four is really like, don't get me wrong, X four is really fucking good. There was several, like several nights where me and my friend, like I would spend the night over at my friend's place because he had a PlayStation. We would rent X four and we would trying to we would try to beat it. So like, I get it. I'll have several hours longed away an X four. That game is

also incredible. Yeah, but I don't know. Just everything about X is like the perfect package. I I think making me an next damn near a perfect game. It's not a perfect game. Oh yeah, all right, that's a good answer. I like that. I'm that's all he gots. That was good, that's good. Touched on a lot of things. Then it's all he's got. He had a lot. Uh what is on my plate? So I uh to touch back earlier. I did finish the f Stars Drew, You're not gonna kill me. I'm not gonna spoil the game

for you. I would at some point like to talk openly about that game, so I highly I hope you get to it soon. I would like to talk about it while it's like freshest in my mind because my memory is awful no longer it takes to talk about things. It escapes me. But I will say, like, at a high level, right, that game

is my favorite RPG that I've played this year. Now saying that, I will say because like my other favorite RPG is Octopat Traveler too, right, Like coming off of that high is really fucking good, I will say, like I like the story of Octopat Traveler two more right, I think I think that's a better written game overall, but I like but the rest of the game, I like, see if Stars more I think it is it

is insanely charming. Like uh, like Ryan said earlier, in the way like that a lot of other games haven't like captured or at least like big

budget like release titles have captured. Like the sprites are so expressive in a way that like I can only describe as like when I think back to like the first time I played like Chroma Trigger and you go into like the Centennial Fair or whatever, and just like seeing like the characters like dancing or like emoting really really well, right like in this like a dumb smile on my face as I see the characters doing these things, like it evokes that like

perfect if I'm mad, if I'm yeah. So I've only played the demo, the demo that was released time earlier this year, like March or April or whatever, and like that was my experience based on like the two hours that you get to play there, because the game evokes like, in my opinion, three of my favorite RPG series or RPGs of Chroma Trigger, Super Mario RPG, and Golden Sun, all of which have like this the special

unique charm that I haven't really seen a JRPG capture. And I think the best way I can say that the kind of like sort of expresses that idea is when I play rpg these nowadays, I realized that the games are just hallways with monsters in there, and you travel from point A to point B. Now that isn't to say that Chrono Trigger and Golden Sun and Super MARIOPG are not bad, but those games felt far less like that when you're actively

playing it. There's something about those games and see If Stars as well that you're kind of just like in it and like that game like really enraptures you. Well because it's so charming. I don't know if that made any sense,

No, it makes sense. I don't know if I agree necessarily of like the game stopped feeling like their hallways and that that maybe it's just me because like the way that I play games, and I'm just break them down to my head, like I can just see the scenes and that's just always going to be there for me. But it's definitely like what plays into it more for me is like the color palettes that are used. It is a

very bright and colorful game, right it is. Again, it is like the way that the characters are emoting and expressing themselves is just like it's not afraid to be goofy, right in a lot of ways that like games and RPGs these days just like are kind of scared to do it. It is weird at times, Like you think about the party members you get in like chrona trigger, right, you get a frog with a sword, right, Like that is excuse me that that is like weird, right, But it's

so cool looking, you know what I mean? And you get like that same feeling out of party members you get in like Sea of Stars and stuff like that, and every character has like a unique flare about them, like from the way that they're running or the way that they're doing attacks, Like every character is truly unique, and like there's a whimsical nature to it that's just like it's something that can only be described out of the games that you

mentioned, right that, like other games don't really give you. I do find myself getting caught up in the world and just like loving everything about it. Like the music hits a very specific era as well. That does it's really fucking cool. Like you could tell me this game came out in nineteen

ninety six and I would be like, yes, it did. Like it's it fits so perfectly in that very specific era that it is wild to me in a way that like a lot of these other games that like on the surface are like, yeah, this is a sprite game, this is cool, but it's still like a twenty twenty three game, Like this is very much a nineteen ninety six game, and like the best way as possible,

and that that is such a hard thing to capture. The battle system I mentioned earlier, it is my favorite battle system I think period right now.

It's really fucking cool that like it has the break system of like an Octopass traveler, But it's only when enemies are like casting abilities, right, So it's not something that like you can constantly break them, like you're going to be forced to like take attacks out of enemies or sometimes like multiple enemies are preparing attacks at once and you're like you have to come to that decision of like which one am I going to break? Like what's the brake order here?

And can I even break them all? Right? Which one am I going to take on the chin? So like there's a priority system you have to kind of like think about when you look at the monsters that are popping

up on the screen. The timed hit nature of it is really good too, Like every not every ability, I will I will say most abilities have like a timing thing to them, and they're for the most part, like all different and unique, and it may it's a pretty huge difference, especially like on defense, but it's also done in a way where it doesn't feel

punishing if you can't get it right. Well, well let me not say not punishing, but like for people that have trouble timing things, you can still complete this game, like they're still like you can use your items to heal yourself and blah blah blah and all these other ways to like stay in the fight. But if you are good at that timing stuff, then like you're going to get a lot out of this. And there is also like a relic system in the place where like you find these items to like customize

the difficulty to your liking, which I think is very cool. So like you can tighten that up and make this experience like way more like challenging, like these time hits have to fucking matter or I Am going to die, And I think that stuff is very cool as well. So we talked about you talked about difficulty and customizing it a little earlier, and like this game does that, and I think like future runs of this game, like a new game plus run of this game that I am thinking about doing when I

get some time, it is going to be like really fucking cool. There's quite a few like fun little mini games in here too. Again, like the game is not afraid to be goofy when when it needs to be. I was very I wasn't sure what to expect out of the story. And again I'm not going to go into spoilers or anything like that, but I was very surprised at like the angle that they went with, and once I understood like what they were doing, I was like, I'm I'm kind of

on board for this. I don't think it hits one hundred percent everywhere, but I think it hits where it needs to and that really fucking and it's really cool. And I was emotional several times throughout this game, both like for like sad reasons and also for like happy reasons, and it's just like you took me through the whole fucking range of emotions throughout this journey. So yeah, that that's kind of all I can say without like digging too too

deep. Maybe we're dying, well, yeah, right and dying. Maybe we'll be able to do a store the Cast one of these days for it. I'm very curious to see how how you like a certain character, Drew. I've been having to look back and forth with with a few of my friends, and I think there's like a there's a little contention point around a character here. I want to see where you fall on it. This is Joe of the Adrian. He was mentioning it is one that he does not

like, and it's it's very very interesting. The conversations I have around it. Ah, so yeah, that that's CFTRS. I think that game is excellent. I highly recommend everybody go play. It is on game Pass if you if you have that service, you can go go play it there. If not, I think it's like thirty bucks or something like that. A physical version of the game comes out next year if you want to wait on a physical version of it. And and yeah there is for anybody that's played

The Messenger. There are like nods to that game in here as well, which I find very interesting and also makes me want to go back. Is it the same developer or something? Yes, yes, same developer in the same world. It's the same universe. So See Stars is technically a prequel. Okay, Messenger, I'm still playing the game. I'm still playing the game right then, yeah, right, And it's it's something that's not it's not like you have to play The Messenger to understand See If or vice versa.

Right that there there is a through line between these games, but it is not like super important. But it's very cool. It's one of those if you know, you're just like I see and it's it's really cool. How how they how they did that. There's future DLC that's coming out for it that goes into that link between the games a little more in more detail, which I'm very very curious to see how that goes. But it did leave me wanting to like replay through the Messenger with like some new context in

my head and see how it plays out. H So, yeah, that that's sef Stars. It's two hundred percent that game. So I went out of my way to get all the achievements. Like I love that game that much. I am missing one achievement which requires me to do a new game plus not a full run, but I do have to, like, uh, I have to fight ten bosses with a specific like difficulty setting on basically, and it's it's it's a thing that you don't want to lock until like

later in the game. So it's like you might as well just do on a postgame run. So I'm gonna do that at some point. It's probably gonna run me an additional like four or five hours to get the achievement to do all those bosses. But for the most part, if you want to do everything, it's I finished it in forty hours. That is me going at a casual pace. I was not like rushing through the game. If you just want to like mainline it. It is like twenty to twenty five,

so it is not like a huge time investment for an RPG. But there's also a lot of content in there if you want to do it, which that was also a thing I was very surprised at because I know they're gunning for like a shorter game, but as I was playing through it, I'm like, there's a lot of quests in here, there's a lot of collectibles in here. There's a lot of stuff packed into this little video game, and it never felt I never felt like my time was wasted. I

had a smile on my face the entire time. It's every fight was always kept me engaged. So yeah, the fantastic game. Can't can't sing enough praises for it. I So I'm playing Ever Crisis, the Final Fans seven mobile game. Oh yeah, that officially dropped earlier during recording he downloaded it. Now. You have approximately eleven days to get the swimsuit outfits for the summer outfit. I should say they have lifeguard Tifa and they have a nice

swimsuit for Earth that I think is very cute. Right thirteen has a Hawaiian jacket, which I think is or yeah yeah, which is very very cute. That's fantastic. And Cloud looks like he's just came out of Kingdom Hearts, which is also very funny. They should have given them a seke quay. Every Crisis is a cool little package. It's a cool package that is

like suffering from Square and X Mobile game syndrome. So like anybody that's played a Square and X Mobile game will know like how heavy they try to push my coel transactions and it is like all over this video game. There's like four different like battle passes that you can buy if you want to. There's like a weekly pass that you can buy, two different weekly passes you can

buy every time you clear like a chapter or two. There's like a limited time like offer that pops up that's just like, hey, what if you spend ten dollars to get like these materials? And if it is so funny looking at it, and I'm just like, can y'all stop? But the game itself is cool. I do really like the visual style of it.

It has like these Chibu chibi characters sprites that are re enacting the events of Final Fantasy seven Crisis Core as well as like news story from the First Soldier, which was the Battle Royale game that they tried to do that that got shut down, but was supposed to be a game that was centered around learning about the beginnings of Soldier and getting more into like Shinra's history, right, So there was some lower bits that was supposed to be really good with that

game had that game actually taken off. But they they've given that stuff like a second chance at life through this game, which I think is pretty cool to try to salvage some of that stuff. So going through the story bits for like FF seven has been like kind of like a nostalgia trip. It's it, it looks great. I really wish they did like a full just FF seven remake in this style, you know, like o g F seven, because it looks in and mats like so well. Rewatching the Crisis Core

content in this style as well has been a treat. And the new characters they added for the First Soldier the original characters, I think they SQUANNX did those characters dirty with the marketing, so you have I believe the characters names are It's Glenn, it's Matt and Lucia. I think her name is Damn. They getting basic ass names. They're basic ass names. And the funny

thing is like they're they're basic as names. And then when you look at the official artwork for them as well, they're just like basic like shinra officer outfits as well, and you're just like, who the fuck are these jokerstic like like they look like they're just like you know how when when you play a mobile game, this use like the rares, the srs and the SSRs and the rare so are just like trash like throwaway character, Like they look

like they're just rare throwaway trash characters. Right. But the funny it is, when you do the first chapter for them, one of the first things that happens, like they get into a plane crash because they're set out on a mission to try and find a new location to install make or reactors, right, and this is like one of their first big missions as a team. Glenn, who's like the leader of this group, is like the first

time he's being put in charge as a leader. He's a very goofy character, like very much a Jodan protagonist style character, which he's actually he's actually pretty good. They get into a plane crash. They crash on this like island or whatever, and one of the first things they do is they change other their uniforms into something more like, uh, something better basically, right,

like something that makes them look like an actual character. And I'm like, why doesn't the character art artwork that they promote these carts with reflect this look, right, it will be far more interesting, right, So, Like Glenn has like this big red, like poofy jacket basically like look at like an anime protagonist, like this giant ass metal site that he that he has. Lucia has like a really cool like purple top that she has on,

and stuff like that. Matt's in like a camel military gear, Like it looks way more interesting than just like standards soldier uniform a you know, like daan, y'all did this catch is dirty? And the more that I play in that chapter, I really do like those characters. They're they're a very goofy bunch, but overall, like I'm enjoying the game for the most part. Again, like the micro transaction stuff is like a little, uh, a little annoying. I think they're their costume Gotcha is not as bad

as Niqus, but it is quite awful in its own right. I was gonna say, like, you found something worse than Nique. I want to hear this. There's nothing worse than There is nothing worse than Niques. But this is like as close if a line as you could probably get. At least you have a chance of getting them on the first roll. If you want Nika, you have to get it at least five rolls in before they

give you the opportunity to try and get Yeah. Yeah, But how it works here is you have the summer banner going on right now, Right, there's two banners, and each banner has two characters. So I'll use Tifas as an example because that's the first one that started. So you have Lifeguard Tifa and you have Hawaiian Red. Right, every banner has like a stamp card that goes with it. Okay, when you do a ten roll on the banner to try and get like the character weapons, you get a stamp.

Collect enough stamps, you get the costume. All right, you get the pick which costume you get first? Right, so you can set the order basically, and how it works is like you get six stamps, you're guaranteed the weapon, and then if you get six more stamps, you get the costume. So you can set whether or not you red stuff first or you want teefa stuff first. Okay, you only get stamps for ten rolls.

Single rolls do not count at all. That's when they get you, all right, So you have to do ten rolls, and then you have another gutche that plays out where it rolls a dice on how many stamps you get per ten poll. Right, so if you're lucky, you can roll the dice and get twelve stamps on the first roll and then get your cost him. Right, that is like a point five percent chance. You're probably not kidding that. On average you're probably getting like two, right, But

sometimes you'll get one. You'll just get one stamp and you're like, well, funk I didn't go anywhere, And then next role you get two, and then you're like okay, and then you're back to get them like one. You're like fuck this. So yeah, you can see how that gets awful pretty quickly, right, But again, you have the chance at least to get it in one or two rolls if you're good, Unlike Nika where you have to go at least five, So it's a it's a goofy system.

It's not great. They're overlapping banners very quickly, right, so like you had Tifa's banner started I think like a week ago, no, two weeks ago actually, and it runs until the twenty eighth, and then halfway through that banner, so starting like this past week, they were like, hey, now we're throwing in Earth and Cloud on the second banner and you're like, I didn't even have a chance to recover the gems. I just spent, you know, and they're like, ha ha, we don't care,

open up the wallet, son of a bitch. And then that's right off the heels of them doing like Samurai Cloud like, which was a banner right before that. So it's like there's no breathing room between these banner changes. And if that's a sign of like what they're going to do in the future, which I mean this again, this is a Square Next mobile game.

This is to be expected. That's pretty whack in my you know, at least give players a chance to like build up some resources between the stuff, not buy it buy it right now right the second but it's It's cool though. If you do get the costumes, they do come with like passive buffs for characters, but they're not like game breaking or anything like that,

so it's not like a real necessity or anything. It's more important to get the weapons because weapons gives you new abilities, new active abilities to use in battle. That makes sense. I mean, I have tifas and I'm halfway through error, so I understand. And you can also, uh, they also have the Transmarck feature, right, so like you can use one outfit and then just have the visual style of another, right if you just want the benefits of it, And that works for both costumes as well as your

weapons as well. So if you have a weapon skin that you really like and you have it in your inventory, you can just skin that over whatever you're actually using, which I think that is very cool. I think every game should have that option of just like at least giving you an appearance of what you like, you know, So that's a cool thing. I think the attacks and everything, like the animation and actual battles is really good. I like the way all the limit breaks and stuff work looks and animates.

So I'm conflicted on it ultimately, right, because I think the mobile game part of it is pretty egregious at times, but you also don't have to interact with that side of it that much. And if you want to just like go through the story parts of it, which I think is very good, then you're you're kind of just free to do. So it's not very hard to do all the content or get enough levels to do the little content.

So yeah, I also think it's very cool that they give you all the characters up front, so you're not never rolling for characters, so you can just make a party of whoever you want and just run through the content. So I think that's pretty cool. So that's that's Ever Crisis. I look forward to more content for that game because I know it's gonna touch on Before Crisis, which was the Turks game at some point, and they said

they want to go through like the entire compilation of Fence at seven. So seeing some of the other stuff done in this way, they're probably gonna touch on Advent Children, and I'm sure they're gonna do darger Servius might be very cool to see. Uh Lastly, I think lastly, yeah, yeah, I don't have to go into too much other stuff. I did start Starfield today. I'm like an hour and a half into it. Not too much

to say on that front. I'm just I'm not big, but that's the games person like they're there RPGs in particular, So I'm not a Fallout guy. I don't really do the Elders scrolls very often, like I I historically, I've never finished Skyrim. I've watched people finished that game. I've only done like one storyline through it, which was like the University, I think, and I was like, Okay, I'm done. That's what I've touched me basically, right, Like I get my fill out of their games and

then I'm like, cool, I'm moving on. I never feel compelled to like finish them. Like I started, like Fallout New Vegas. I played like probably like ten hours of that game, and I was like, I got my fill and then I watched my friend play through all of it. Right. Fallout four was very similar to that. I played a bunch of Moro Winds, but like never finished Moro wind and I expect Starfield to be very much the same. And it's a game that largely I would have ignored

if there wasn't like a lot of talk about it. Like it is considered to be like one of the bigger releases this year, so like my brain tells me, hey, you should at least like look at this thing. So that's kind of what I'm doing. I hear that there's some cool narrative stuff to it that like it's really what's driving me here that like the gameplay

and the narrative like do a cool thing together. And I'm always a sucker when like gameplay affects gameplay like directly is involved with like the narrative, right. It's it's something that like only video games can do when telling a story. So you think about like Yoko Taro games and stuff like that, and not to say, like this game is like goes in those spaces like Yoko

Taro and his wild imagination and gameplay philosophy. But I hear it does cool things in that vein, you know, and I want to see that. So we'll see if I get that far in. If not, you know, I'll probably put in like ten fifteen hours and then watch a play through and see see what's up. But I'll say, like the first hour, I'm pretty like all right about it. I think the gun play so far is pretty good, right, So at least that part is is engaging enough.

It's way more men you driven in terms of like traveling between planets, So it's not a what's what's the other? No, it's not a no Man's sky where you're just like really taking off from one planet and like flying to another. It's more like you take off on a planet, you get to fly around like the area of that planet, like this part of the Solar System or whatever, and then you like hyper jump to another location and then you can fly around another planet and then just like menu yourself like and

zone into that planet if you want to. So it's not like this big, huge open area is just like more like smaller self contained areas, which I found interesting because I felt like the game was like hyping itself to almost be a No Man Sky kind of game, and it's not that at all. It's not bad, and I think like the ship combat stuff is actually pretty good. But it's not as open world in that way that I thought it was going to be. But the planet seemed pretty large there there there.

It's open in that regard, so there's a lot to explore once you're in the planets and stuff. It's just more of the space exploration is like not what I thought it was going to be, so I'll have more impressions on that. It is one of those games where I hear it takes a

long time to get going, right. So, like when people are like, you know, develop that Starfield does really get good until the post gamely stayed in saying oh really, A lot of people tell me, like a lot of people tell me that narrative picks up like after ten ish hours, which I mean coming off of like trails games and RPGs, I'm like, okay, sure, I'll put in the hours here. Here's uh, here's what the quote is from Pete Hines. Starfield doesn't really get going until you

finish the main quest. Nice good quote there, So I will not be invested by time to the game, right, I mean with Bethesta games, there is there's like a couple of things I expect with bethest game. Yes, I expect them to be about game mass at the very beginning, giving me great pleasure out of the Twitter clips that I will see. Did did Bethesta do Dragon Age or is that no? That's that's by the way, Yeah, okay, because I'm trying to think of like the spinning like in

large Head, and I think that's dragon age. I've ever shown you that Clips in fact had some buggy stuff to it, but that's also biaware, Like yeah, yeah, that's okay, okay, I'll find that club for you later on. But that's the games are known for being buggy. Yes they are. Yeah, I had several bugs and they're always a joy to watch on Twitter clips. I am genuinely interested in Field. However, I don't have time to play that game, understandable. It's a big commitment.

Yeah, I mean that's the thing about you know, games, they typically are a big commitment. But like the big as as, I have a friend who has played pretty much all of their releases and they're like, I'll probably play it. I probably won't beat it, but I'll have fun with what I've played. Yeah, yeah, that's I think that's like me for these games right where it's like I'm gonna play it, I'm gonna have fun for a you know, eight to ten hours or whatever, and then like

I'm good. You know. That's like I personally ever beat fall Out three. It's pretty much how I did it, Like I made a run on ten Penny Tour and fallow Out three and where like I literally killed everybody in there because I actually shot the guy at the channel, so I fight my way back down and like that will always stick with me. It's like one of my most fun moments in gaming. And I was like, all right, I never beat that game, but fall three does like occupy a space

with my brain. I think about that game. Yeah, and that's cool. There's nothing wrong with that. I mean, so I did with elden Ring. I never ever beat that game, but yeah, I fell out of that and that was sitting or anything. Yeah, video games can exist for you that way. You know, you don't have to finish everything. As long as you get some some sort of entertainment out of it, then I think it did its job on that Pete Hines quote. I think especially

for Betta games in general. Yeah, but as the games, a lot of like the things people tend to latch onto isn't even like the main scenario stuff. It's usually a lot of the side content and the side stories in

those games, just like other things you're getting into. So when he says something like that, I'm like, yeah, that probably bly tracks because most people are probably going to like blitz through the main campaign or whatever, or if not blitz through it, it's more of like the side adventures rather than the main campaign that people are getting into. Sure, so I could I could see that in some way for those games. Yeah, that makes sense.

It is a funny quote though, it's pretty funny. It's quite funny. But yeah, so well we'll see. The character creator in that game is actually pretty good too. There are a couple of black people hair files in there that I'm like, all right, y'all did a little bit of homework. Yeah, y'all get like a be from me. They try, you know, yeah, yeah, they tried more than other places. Yeah, yeah, you could a solid B for me, maybe B plan.

No, that's a blid solid B. I like how you had to like regree, like like I hadn't think about it for me because, like I remember, I was cycling through the like the dread options, and they have two dread options, and I was like, okay, that's more than most games. That's two more than most games. Yea, And they looked pretty

good. It's just they weren't long enough, was like A, And I was like, y'all have good short dread options, like one's a very messy look, and then the other one's like tied back, and then you have like the shaved sides, And I was like, this looks good. I mean, y'all are y'all are scared to do long options though? I mean, it could be two thousand and four Rob early, it could be, it could be absolutely, it is absolutely either two thousand four Rob or two

thousand twelve Rob. Both of those Robs had short dreads. Yeah, uh so that that's gonna be my role play. This is young Rob in space. This is this is before the time skip, but before the time skip

exactly future before time skip arc. Yes. When you're creating you a character, you get to choose like a bunch of different background options, which like changes some stuff around in the game in like gameplay, Like there's there's different gameplay actions as well as some narrative stuff that can change based on the background you choose. So like, for example, there's one where you are I think you're called a cyber runner. I think it is where you're like a

person that is good at like picking locks and stuff like that. You're like a cyber terrorist basically, Okay, And I think that's the one that puts like a bounty on your head or something like that. One of these options puts like a bounty on your head, so you're more prone to be ambushed by like bounty hunters, you know, So that could like change your game play up a little bit more. Right. There's one that I find very

funny. That's like you have like a good relationship with like your parents, so like for some reason, you're constantly like sending money back to your folks, right, like every week that passes by or whatever, like you send two percent of your money back to your your family. And there's like a

whole storyline around your family if you choose that option. And I think I heard one person who was playing it was like, yeah, then all of a sudden, my family, like my mom and dad showed up on like my spaceship or whatever, and now they're just like with me at all times, and it's kind of annoying. And I was like, yeah, that's what parents do. That's yeah, it's all right. So I'm like, Oh, these these things actually like have some effect on the overall gameplay,

and I think that that's kind of cool. So I wonder, like I wonder how the combination of those things. You get to pick three different background choices, So I wonder like how the combination of choices will play out for different people. Like I'm very curious to see like different people's impressions based off what they picked and how different of an experience that is for people. It's

interesting they got creative that way though. Yeah. Yeah, you get to like really get into like the role play aspect of it, right, And then they also give you like different passive abilities too, so like those one that I pick that gives me better better abilities with with firearms instead of melee weapons, and you know you get into that stuff too. So yeah, sorry, Field, it's pretty all right so far. Well, we'll see how far I get into it. But I think that's all I want to

talk about this week. Wait, no, one, last quick thing, quick thing, quickly. The demo for the demo for Stars and two remake is out on all platforms. I did, but I played on PC. Yes, they're doing a Stars and two remake that comes out in a couple of weeks. Now remember second November second, Okay, so we have a

little over a month. That's cool. That gives me time. They it's more of like almost that HDTV style, but just like way more like turned up to like a fifteen Uh. It's I was taken aback by how pretty this game is in motion, like in in not the trailers do not do that game justice, and those trailers are already very pretty. It's really good,

y'all. I was bln on Switch. I'm curious. I didn't even think to try it on Switch, but I mean the demos out, so I might as well try it and say, I imagine it's probably locked at like thirty FPS or something like that. Shout out, and I'm gool. Now. The options in that game is really cool. It's it's kind of what you want a remaster remake to be because it does honor a lot of

like the original release as well. So like you can pick between three different art styles in the game, right, do you want the original, do you want the PSP version of the game artwork? Or do you want the new artwork? Right? Same thing with and I thought this was actually insane, Well not this part, but you can also do the same thing with the music as well, though s t. You can pick original, you

can pick new, and go through whichever go is to you. Like the best you can have it, but they did it with the voiceovers as well, right, So you can have the PSP voice overs if you want, or you can have the new rerecorded lines, right. And I know for the Japanese version they went out of their way to get the original vas. I don't know if the English is the same. I think it is,

but I'm not entirely sure. What's crazy, though, is that you can do it on a character by character basis, right, So, like I'm playing through it and I kind of don't like new Claude's voice. I'm playing another Japanese It's it's a little more softer in the newer recording, and it just like sounds weird to me. So like I switched it over to the PSP version and I'm like, this sounds better to me. But I'm keeping the other characters for their new recording. And that is such a wild option

to have in this game. I think it's very cool they didn't have to do that. I appreciate it now that I'm like fiddling around with it, But yeah, I wanted to highlight that. I don't know if it's feasible for like every game to do that, right, that does seem like quite a bit of work, and I'm pretty sure that depends on how like they

recorded the lines and how it's programmed and all that. But it would be very cool if like people take notice of that and like start to implement stuff like that into their remaster's remix, because I think the more of like the original title you have, you give you should give the players a chance to like at least play the original on top of what's new, you know, like try to have like this complete package of a game, like this should

be the definitive version of a game, and the closer you can get to that, the better. And I think this game, at least in like the audio and like some of the artwork respects gets you there. Right, You can't do anything about like the actual like end game visuals. Right, it's not going to give you supposedly it runs at thirty added tests, it lies Okay, okay, I'll stick to pieces. I'll get it on PlayStation.

But yeah, that that game is great. It feels great. I'm very much looking forward to it. It is a demo like like some of the other Square US releases, actually where your your save data carries over to the main game. They I find it really funny because like they whenever games do this right, they usually let you play the demo for like as long

as you want, right, this one is a time demo. They're giving you three hours, and there's a whole bunch of other ways that they like limit you so that you don't like power level yourself before the game is out. So it's like they're like, once you hit your your level capped, like your money capped. You're like you can't do certain things after like you finish the main scenario for the demo. It's so funny the list of like

they put on you. So they do that or I was like, yeah, you get three hours of play, but once you get everything you can. Once you get everything, you might as well not play this anymore. Like don't try to fucking grind this shit out before the game comes out, because it's not gonna work. I mean, I guess that kind of makes sense. Yeah, it just made me laugh seeing it. I was like, dude, that's really funny. Boot up the game your level one hundred

and you're like, hey, listen, I played that demo. I played that demo for like ninety nine hours, Like I'm reading it I got, Yeah, say I go check that out. If you got time time to speed run these first five levels, let's go. But yeah, that's it. I'm going to try to focus on what's next on my play is. I'm focusing on Live A Live like I did start that. Me and Drew had this arrangement. I was like, I'm going to move Live Live up on my list. In return, you have to play I Fire Rush.

So I await you one day playing that game. I started to Live Live. I started with the Prehistoric era. My boy Pogo, he's trying to get those prehistoric cheeks. I understand. I look forward to playing more of that game. So some thing's never change. Listen, man, prehistoric or not. That's it. I'm hopping back into Armored Corps six. I hope to have that game finished by the next recording, or at least like one or two of the endings by that, because I know there there's three different

endings, three different routes for that game. So I'm gonna try my best there. And then I'm hopping back into Baldin's Gate three because I put that on hold while I finish all these other RPGs and stuff. So I'm hopping back in there, and I hope to have that finished in a relatively quick fashion. But that is a long game, so who knows. We do have no Yoda coming up as well, so hopefully I choose day out.

It is Tuesday, maybe I can knocks up the out before. I mean, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta wait for my copy to arrive, so oh great, that buys me more time because I'm gonna start Winter starting so well, and then I have to look. I actually haven't looked into this because it came to my mind that both Zero and Al were better on Switch than they were on PlayStation. So I'm wondering if that's maybe the case, or they were better on Switch than PlayStation really for Zero on AL.

Yeah, remember how the PlayStation versions didn't have like all the the upgrades, So that's right, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right, You're right, You're right. I forgot about that. M I bet now it is going to be the same. It seems to be a record. Mean, so I may just go to game Stop on Tuesday and buying an you let me know what you do. That will inform me on what I do. Well, I mean, I still got to play the Messenger before see

stars happens and unlock multiplayer in Armory Corps. I mean, I gotta beat Reverie first. Sounds like you can do so much. You got some work. It's not like I haven't been trying. You know what my playtime is currently in Reverie. I was gonna guess one six day, hundred forty granted twenty of those hours is from the casinos. What's really like hundred twenty tracks? Tracks? That's in less than a month. Those casinos will get yeah big. But anyway, let's get out of here. It is almost midnight.

I got I got video games to play? Uh? Right, Rob, where can people find you? And all the cool things that you did? Uh? Let's see how where do I want to point people? I just Twitter RB draws. That's where I post all my art account stuff and like all my artwork and anything. So like, it's been a while since I've done anything though, because I've been kind of, like like I said, focused on getting things ready for the Herby Con show that's at the end

of the month and anything. So I really haven't had a chance to start anything new, although I am trying to start something new I'm trying to get myself to get something going. But yeah, just the other things are kind of take a priority right now. But yeah, that's pretty much where you can find me RB draws, That's where you can follow me at. If you would like being Strew stiffer, how about you find me on You can find me on Twitter at JSB totally Drew. I don't know what I've been

tweeting lately. I hate the word causality. That was my last tweet, remove causality from all anime and RPGs. Bro Anime and Jared Gess just made mehave that word. I see that word and my eyes roll so far back into my head. I love that. I love to hate that. Uh. You can find me on on Twitter though due to uh some some issues with the causality uh it is now called so you can find me on X

and our Heroes. It saved us from this X nightmare and return it to Twitter at zenos ka z and os uk e where I have been retweeting just a lot of artwork, a lot of good artwork. So yeah, I did. I did tweet just recently earlier today actually that I'm trying to get into more manga lately. There's been a lot of not new releases, but there's been a lot of stuff that's been crossing my timeline lately that seemed very

interesting. And I'm very bad about like reading manga and sitting down to do that, but there's been a lot of a lot of stuff I've seen that are just like completed series, not ongoing, that seemed very interesting. So I'm gonna try to make it a point to like read more, hopefully like a volume every couple of days of something. I don't know how, I don't know how well i'll do that, like if I'll stick to that as hard as I can, but you know, I'm gonna try. At the

very least, I've been trying to watch more anime. I've been trying to play more games, and now I'm trying to throw manga into the mix and get more into that as well. So if I have any cool impressions, I'll throw them up on there. And with that, thank you guys for listening, Thank you as for being here. We will talk to you guys in two week, probably three actually, because we have Bio Taku and then we have Carby Khan, and it depends on how we feel after coming back

from that, so we'll we'll keep you posted. But the next episode is gonna be very fun because I think we're gonna have both Chase and Cats on the next one. So that's going to be a wild ride for sure. That's gonna be that's gonna cause a causality of all kinds of Let's talk to you next time by later, Ah