Nestalgia Bytes 022 - Sweet Home

Hey everybody, it's Mike from Nostalgia, and before this bonus episode begins, I wanted to, one, warn you that this episode's pretty scary, and that's why it's coming out on Halloween. Another thing is that this episode isn't really a true bonus episode. You'll notice the weird numbering that it's not a number one of something or a special. This is a...

Nostalgia Bites episode. And if you're not familiar with Nostalgia Bites, that is our Patreon-only feed where we play Famicom games and sometimes some other unique Nintendo-adjacent... properties and what we do on that is we look at them and evaluate them the same way we do on the main feed here, but we don't put them on an Essential Games list. It's a little more relaxed, and it's a little more fun. It's only monthly, but that's just one of the many upgrades you get with our Patreon.

subscription in addition to that you get access to our discord which has tons of other members that you can chat with it you get access to um the thank you page on our website and i wouldn't dismiss the idea of maybe If you're liking this episode, subscribing even just for the month to check out some more of these. And if you like those, maybe you'll stick around even longer.

So while my tone right now isn't too scary, a reminder that this episode of Nostalgia Bites, which is all about the video game Sweet Home, is a little intense. Sweet Home. The frescoes are coming from inside the house. and happy halloween everybody uh this actually this episode might as well just post it on halloween right i guess i'm making that decision now even though we're recording yeah right

Is that a rule? Is that like a hard and fast rule that you can't say Happy Halloween to people on like October 30th? It's a faux pas. Right, but if you're throwing a Halloween party, like a Halloween work party. And you only go into the office on Tuesdays. And you threw it the Tuesday of Halloween, which is unfortunately this year on a Tuesday. So forget that example.

I'm just saying you can only say happy Halloween. I would say season's greetings. Even a little after. I can say it before or even a little after. Just like you say happy New Year's on the 2nd. Or you say Merry Christmas on the 23rd. That works. Right. Now, Happy Halloween is not something you could say on November 1st, though. We all agree with that. I agree. Yeah, I think to say it on November 1st, you would need there to be some late Halloween party or something. I mean...

We can get back into the, like, 12.01 Halloween night. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, but I didn't say 12.01. I said November 1st. November 1st. Clear guidelines. So it's Halloween. It's Halloween. It's 8 o'clock. Four hours later, clock strikes midnight, you can no longer say happy Halloween because it's technically November 1st? No, you should absolutely be saying happy Halloween if it's midnight on Halloween. Yeah, 100%. But that's not midnight. You should be counting down.

and saying it all at once. Midnight on Halloween is the first moment of Halloween. Then when it gets midnight again, that's the first moment of Norma first, but we still consider it Halloween.

True. Anyway, to make this episode fun again, for Halloween, just real fast before we talk about our spooky game, which is kind of fun that we're playing a spooky game for Nostalgia Bites for everybody, and hopefully that you all played. um this halloween season as well because i think it's a it's a really fun game we'll get into it first just any other spooky games you play around this time or have played around this time that make you think of halloween i mean i'm currently

for the first time playing through the Resident Evil 3 remake, which I've just had on my PlayStation 5 hard drive since I got it. So I was just like, eh, now sounds about... the right time and you know it's good not as good as the resident evil 2 remake but it's it's still good uh i haven't played a ton of spooky games but uh one in the last few years i

I started playing a little bit with I'm on Observation Duty. I think I've mentioned it on the podcast before. There's a series of them, and they can be kind of creepy. They're good little fun little games. I think it was last year I played Resident Evil 7 for the first time because it went to Game Pass or something like that. And it came out around Halloween time for Game Pass.

So I checked that out, and I confirmed that those first-person Resident Evil games are maybe a little too scary for me. Yeah, that's like a half hour. I can play those for like a half hour at a time. Yeah, I couldn't quite handle the stress, and I did get beyond... um you know the introduction part which is handled really well but also like

Kind of challenging if you're not familiar with those types of games. But I got as far as like the part where the woman starts chasing you around the main part of the house. And I was like, nah, I'm good actually. Thank you very much. It's funny because...

Even going into Sweet Home now, I... heard a lot about this game being like actually scary and everything and whether it is or not we'll get into but that did make me just a little uneasy there's a difference between somebody like me who likes watching scary movies because it's a movie but like the interactive part of the video game makes it scary I remember even just that Slenderman game that kind of was hot in the early 2010s

That game's not even a good video game, but just because it's a scary concept and if you play it with headphones on in the dark, you're just going to give yourself the spooky feels more than anything else would have.

Yeah, basically with horror games, there's really no media experience like a horror game. And because of that, I generally either need somebody to watch me play. uh hand off the controller with someone or someone at least needs to be in the house you know like i i can't really do it i can't really play a lot of these horror games alone and when i do it's for a short amount of time

I don't know if this really had the same effect, but we'll get into stuff like that. Sean, what was the Silent Hills game demo? P.T.? E.T., yeah. P.T., P.T. Playable teaser, yes. That's funny. Yeah, PT was a game that I never got to experience before the demo got taken down or whatever. But, you know, I was interested in that. So I pulled up even just a YouTube video of a guy doing the playthrough.

And even that was scary. So that's kind of says something about just like video game environment too, that like, maybe there's something about just it all being, uh, not. tailor targeted to the person or whatever because again I was watching somebody else's playthrough but just that like more things that are unpredictable can happen in a video game unlike this movie where it won't ever go wrong unless it's one of those

Right. Joe, any thoughts on scary video games otherwise? Yeah, I mean, like, I haven't played a ton, but I think it's the same thing where it's like you're watching a movie and you're watching it happen.

But you're playing a video game and it's sort of happening to you. And I think there's also some interesting psychology about... playing like a a vr video game that's a horror game because like it there yeah i don't think your brain really separates at all that like it's not real even if you consciously are like somewhere

Somewhere in you, you're still experiencing what it would feel like if it was happening to you. I think each level of interactivity gets you one step closer to feeling like what this scary thing would really be like.

Sean, you're our VR guy. Are there any really scary VR horror games? Well, Half-Life Alyx isn't really a horror game, but Half-Life goes... to horror adjacent places pretty often um and certain parts of that game are like i need to take i just need to take the headset off because it was getting too intense when you got like headcrab zombies coming at you

And then there's also Phasmophobia, which was the sort of social game of the hour. I want to say like maybe 2021. And that is like a ghost hunting game. that I played in VR and it, it kind of softened the blow because I was also talking to the friends I was playing with, but it's, it's pretty intense. Nice. Yeah.

And so to rewind the clock now and not look ahead anymore, we're going to go back to 1989 with Sweet Home, an RPG. developed and published by Capcom. 1989's interesting because usually on these Bytes episodes, we wind up skipping ahead of where we currently are in the NES library. And this time we're going back.

And we're seeing a game that does a lot of things that no other game that we have played either for the main podcast or for the Bytes episodes has done yet. So the year was surprising to me to find out it actually came out earlier than where we are. And Sweet Home is not just a video game. There was a Japanese film of the same name. And the story is mostly the same. It's five filmmakers exploring an old mansion. They are...

trying to find those frescoes that are hidden in there and then of course uncover a larger plot. I can't say that the plots are exactly one-to-one and everything. Did any of us watch the movie? Well, yeah, that's what I'd like to know too, but I doubt any of us watch the movie, but more follow up on that. Like now having played the game, are you at all interested in watching the movie? I watched the movie first.

Oh wow, you did go. You did watch the movie. I did watch the movie. What'd you think? I thought it was alright. It's definitely a B movie. And it... Like it definitely, I've, I've watched some like Japanese horror movies in the past and it definitely, there are definitely some shared threads between them and just the style of scares that are given.

There's some good effects in it. I think there's also a bunch of problems in just the general visual storytelling. One big thing that I have is I couldn't tell the geography of the location at all. like what the building even like felt like because it's so dark it's a very dark movie but not dark in a spooky way but dark in a I can't really tell what I'm looking at way yeah and

But I thought, like, you know, the characters, the events, the themes, the big, like, origin of the horror was cool. How it relates to the game is kind of funny, but... Yeah, so nobody else watched it. No, but, you know, so my question is that, is it, like, a proper, like, grown-up horror? movie or cause like the game gives me vibes more of like a stranger things esque like fun adventure horror it's like proper horror yeah this is like they're like

I can put we can put a spoiler tag in front of this and I can talk about it. But the the themes of the why this house is haunted are like adult horror. Got it. Yes. Okay. And also, because I saw some YouTube videos on it, I just couldn't get a copy of Sweet Home or find a copy. I did see that a lot of the more graphic... imagery uh that's referred to in the nes game as like wow this is really scary even today because of like the imagery i did see that that also happens in the movie too oh yeah

for a few, you know, a few of the iconic shots, I guess you could say. There's some very over-the-top, like, gore scenes. Right, right. Yeah. But real quick... Do a lot of chairs fall on them? A quick side note, though. Whatever you found on YouTube, that is most likely the best version you're going to get. And it'll never be taken down because of like copyright stuff. So it is fine to watch that on YouTube. It's the full movie. Just go look it up. Oh, OK.

Good to know. And then also it's worth mentioning that Sweet Home in video game canon is remembered today as the inspiration behind Resident Evil. And that is really why it's... uh even known about amongst uh this western audience uh although i guess like that's interesting about every bytes game right is we should kind of look up like well why does why do people translate these games like what makes them pick out those out of the thousands

that um haven't been translated and so sweet home it's not just like speculation of like oh well capcom made resident evil and they made sweet home so sweet home was the inspiration it's like it's deliberately said and of course um

shares the same creator for both. And so just to dive into that a little bit rather than just keep revisiting the topic throughout, here are my notes on... kind of the development process so when development began for Resident Evil in 1993 I felt like that was really early that sounds early for Resident Evil, but I didn't check when the actual game came out. It must have been like... I think it was 96. 96 was what I was thinking too. Possibly like late 95 or something for Japanese, I guess.

It was actually intended to be a straight remake of Sweet Home. And the only reason why that didn't pan out was because of the, you know, the licensing behind that. They were basically like said. you know you can't use sweet home as a thing because it's a film and everything like create a new franchise around it and it resident evil similar to the uh uh

the battle system in Sweet Home. That's why Resident Evil was going to be a first-person FPS kind of game. And then the perspective was changed because they took... inspiration from uh the rest of Sweet Home's game and decided to do the uh kind of third person roam it's not over the shoulder you get to see them in like the entirety of the room it's no different really than how Sweet Home presents the game I suppose

Both games are set, the very first Resident Evil at least, are set inside of a mansion with a rather intricate layout. The story is told using kind of what you find. uh around not necessarily through cut scenes and stuff although there are cut scenes in both there are even cut scenes in this nes game and there are multiple endings um depending on uh you know what you did in the game

More importantly than all that though, they both have that door animation. That kind of, that's like, that's the seal the deal, right? I mean, that door animation is like, it was so funny seeing it here in Sweet Home. Because I barely play those Resident Evil games and I know about that door. It really is just a genius piece of visual storytelling. You can really just... When I was playing...

Resident Evil 1 on PlayStation when I was a kid and seeing that door animation happen like there was actual dread that crept up my spine And I can kind of see it here, too, because it's actually a pretty well rendered door animation. And while I don't attribute the same like.

Just anxiety to this game as a Resident Evil game like I can definitely see a young me in the late 80s feeling that So rather than explain the game and talk about the systems and everything, I think the most unique approach, the one that definitely would catch any player off guard for Sweet Home.

is just the way it throws you into the world. It has this sort of, we'll call it a cut scene at the beginning of the game where you see five characters about to enter this mansion. And then the game starts and you find out you're playing as all five of these characters and they're all have like one particular item that requires them to be around and you can.

explore with them in teams of two or three uh at a time and kind of do the scooby-doo like you guys go this way we'll go this way like let's split up or you can say like no we should never split up like we're all just gonna keep switching back and forth on these teams moving together throughout the rooms but wow like

this is i mean forget about the rest of the game for a second like just the ability to play as five characters at once and switch off in teams and have each person have like a job just feels like a major uh like Super Nintendo style game that we are getting here on the NES. Yeah, I, that was the first thing that jumped up to me. It felt like such a leap in, I guess not necessarily tech.

but just like we've complexity innovation yeah complexity like that uh to do it that way and uh and i loved the i love the scooby-doo analogy because that's what i felt like in this game i mean not exactly scooby-doo but like that sort of like Yes, it's scary, but it's like kind of adventure too, you know? The whole thing gave me like Scooby-Doo slash board game vibes because of the managing your party, managing your items, things like that. It's just a...

We haven't played anything like this remotely, in my opinion. Yeah, this game, especially compared to just a JRPG, because this is basically the bones of a JRPG. with a horror game sort of draped on top of it here. Even the other games that we've played and from what I've gathered from like peeking here and there will play, this is just so...

There's so much going on. There are so many interesting decisions to make. Like, oh, how am I going to split my party up? Am I going to try and cover more ground? Or am I going to try and keep them close together? When do I switch between them? uh when i get into a battle will i try and group everyone together or will i try and just sort of like have them go on their own some more

Uh, how am I going to do inventory management? Inventory management is so important in this game. Uh, it's, it's pretty wild. Like how many things you're juggling here. Yeah. And again, we're not just talking about a party system like you might see in the later Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy games. This is you are all of these characters. There is no leading person.

Any of these five characters is allowed to die. And then, crazy enough, their dead body stays where it is for the remainder of your playthrough. And we'll talk about how they kind of... And both cop out on that and solve that issue because there's obviously a reason why each of these characters has a unique item. But as awesome as this system is and how cool it is to be all five characters.

Because it's on the NES, you do get caught up in a lot of menuing. And I think that that is probably also at the time that you're finding out how cool this... NES game is at the very beginning, you're also realizing that it might not be for you if you're someone who doesn't enjoy this kind of management system and constantly switching between team parties and, you know.

kind of keeping track of where and what everybody is up to. That is not my personal knock on the game, but it is worth discussing that you're spending as much time kind of... thinking about what you're doing as doing yeah as and as you go like i do think at the beginning i was a lot more like okay i gotta move this guy out of the way move these people here move this but like as i went and kind of like

learned the characters and also developed them. Like, okay, this guy's just always going to carry this, and I'm making this guy stronger, and this girl's going to do this, whatever. I do feel like over time... It got much more intuitive. Even the menuing, it all got much more. I kind of forgot I was doing that. It did feel a lot more natural as I familiarized myself with the game.

Yeah, I think why I don't have a problem with how cumbersome the game is here, and that is a huge issue for me in other RPGs that we've played, is just because this game...

Even though you're kind of scattered around and doing one thing here one thing there It feels so much more focused than those games prior like in in a typical RPG that we played so far like everything is just sort of all that you really focus on is the systems because there isn't too much of a plot to go by and just sort of like i guess i'm gonna wander over here to this town and here

like you have a goal and that is just survive this mansion and everyone has something unique to them so you want to keep them around and so you're thinking less about like well i wish i didn't have to look at something and then

And then swap it on my inventory. There's no pickup button like I wish that was a thing like you're not so much focused on those issues because The holistic view is I don't I'm again I'm rambling but I don't think you're rambling it's it's it's just that you know like you're saying like both of you have said it's something that might irritate you at first but once you learn the system you just agree with it I just think it's interesting that

uh at the very beginning of the game the very first thing you control is both five characters at once and the trade-off of controlling five characters so you're kind of greeted with the best and worst all at once right from the beginning of the game you have I wouldn't say you have everything you need. Obviously, there's a reason why you're exploring this mansion, but you're basically exposed to all the different systems from the beginning. And that's true. It can be overwhelming.

to try and learn all of this all at once. Yeah. I, I, I mean, I agree with that too. I do feel like it, it, it may be, it's doled out. Like when you actually need to learn it all is doled out. somewhat nicely but I admittedly did have like it took it took a while to like get some things down like there was a while in this game where I was like not I just hadn't figured out the team part there was a while where I was literally like one character at a time

And then I was like, oh my god, I can build teams, and that makes this game so much easier. I did have to look up how to pick up items. Yeah. But, yeah, because you've got to move them into your inventory. You've got to go to the empty space in your inventory and click Move. Granted, also, we are playing what I'm assuming is a fan translation or, like, a non-official translation, right? Absolutely. So, like, that also could have affected it.

But the way I see it, as far as the cumbersomeness overall, I know that's not necessarily what we're talking about at the beginning, but throughout the game, more backing up to Sean's point a little bit, the reason that I see that it didn't bother me as much as it has in other games is because...

So many other games like this that are JRPGs like this are like really focused on the JRPG combat and like being what I consider a JRPG. Like, you know, like turn-based combat with strategy and stuff. That's almost... It's almost de-emphasized in this game. The combat is much more simple, and I think that the actual picking up items, finding things, taking pictures of things, these things that would be secondary necessities in the other game where you'd be like...

Why is it so complicated? I just want to get back to the core gameplay. That is the core gameplay. Yeah, the action is on the overworld here. Yeah, and it feels like an escape room with random encounters rather than a JRPG with puzzles. Sweet Home as a game, even from the beginning, is a game that I don't want to say gives the finger to players, but is very happy to let you make mistakes and either start over or realize that like.

You didn't do a section properly. I think that that is actually for the benefit here. I'm not actually sure because I didn't beat the game exactly how long it is, but it feels like the kind of thing that like... You learn trial by error, and I don't think you can really screw yourself up other than running into too much of the turn-based combat because, again, maybe the reason why those are de-emphasized is because...

turn-based combat is kind of crucial because healing is so hard to come by in this game. The whole game really is like a it's a war of attrition and you're going to get you can save everywhere.

in this game and that's really important because like the game is trying to fuck you over and over yeah um and every time you run into like one of those weird like quick time events where like oh this chair is flying at you for some reason um that that three damage probably isn't gonna mean a lot right now but like over time you're probably going to like oh wish you didn't get into so many random battles or like have dodged the correct way because

Yeah, you're going to get a lot more health when you level up, but just getting into these battles over and over, it takes a lot from you. Yeah, and the important thing for anyone who hasn't played it to remember there is that it's not only that healing is hard, it's that death is permanent for these characters. There's no revive. If you lose all your health, you've got to move on without them or go to an earlier save.

And when we talk about playing with a guide on the main show or here, usually what we're referring to is like, don't do that because you're basically playing somebody else's game, especially with RPGs, right? Like you're not experiencing things. And I think.

here it's not even that kind of argument like forget about the you know this game does have a pretty interesting plot if you're following along uh with the optional notes and stuff like that but forget about like spoilers and things like that

I feel like this is a game that justifies like save states more than using somebody's guide, right? Like it's okay to be cautious of like, all right, well, I've been playing for 45 minutes and I don't really feel like having one of my characters die. So I'll make a save state. But it's a whole other thing to be like, okay, can the guy just tell me what room to go into? Like, that's a weird thing to do here. Like, I would strongly recommend not doing that because half the fun of this game.

is exploring this mansion right exploring these rooms and kind of being like oh well i wonder how i i wonder what i do in this room once i get in there right like not every room is just like enter the room fight a monster

move to the next room, get an item. Each room feels like its own kind of, at the very least, has a puzzle that you have to solve to get an item or to progress the story. Yeah, especially because... combat like we were saying combat is not the main emphasis so like like yes it can be fun in in some ways but it's like yeah the fun of the game is figuring it out like you know if you if you are going to go by a guy that you know

more power to you but I do feel like you might just be better off watching a video of it you know like because granted not saying I didn't look anything up there were a couple things I did have to look up I got stuck a few times um but you know I think use your discretion and and like don't

This isn't a game like a lot of NES games have been for us where it's like you really need to just be reading a guide or you're never going to figure it out. It's designed mostly so you can figure out what to do next. It's intuitive and it's very satisfying in that way. Yeah, the puzzles in this game, like, they're not the two extremes. Like, they're not the ones that you just need to...

Completely go to just brute forcing and just like I'm gonna check under every square and see what's here and They're not also like baby puzzles where you just like, Oh, you have to flip this switch. And then you'd go into the next room. Like they, they're, they're simple enough and well communicated enough that you could still, that you can do it.

but they're still like hidden enough that it still feels like you actually did something like one where, uh, a few rooms away, uh, from like a mini hub room.

There's a note that's like oh this this object is Under a table in a room with a small beast and if you remember in this room that you were in there was a mouse that wasn't an enemy running around and there was a table so you just keep checking under that table and you'll find the object you're looking for and it's not like that isn't genius game design but it's still it's still good it's still like

It's still satisfying in a way. Yeah, and another one that was like that for me was there were two statues, one holding a spear, one not holding a spear. They're far away from each other, but one of the notes said, like, the spear. is like some some clue the spear is what opens up the passage or whatever yeah realize after a while you can take the spear put it on the other one and a passage opens up you know like yeah not not hard not like

baby, easy, and it's doable, but it feels satisfying. You feel like you did something. I mean, I feel like I keep throwing the term escape room around, but it felt like an escape room. You don't need to be a genius, but you do have to think to do them.

For the five characters, one has a camera, another a lighter, a medical kit, a lock pick, and a vacuum. The vacuum thing is very funny, but it's also used right away. It's funny.

So the vacuum, it's so weird. So there is a vacuum in the movie, and it is used once. Does he use it to restore old paintings? It is a vacuum with bristles, and it's... pulling like dirt and crap off of the off of the fresco so yes oh it really it really is done just ruin it yeah and it's weird because i've been trying to think of an analogy of like

You know that one time in that one movie where they just used like a sock for something? Well, now we're going to base like a video game off that sock. It's so goofy, but yes, it's from the movie.

That's really funny. And what's funny about each of these characters is that the cameraman, the medic, they're not necessarily... uh built out like that in terms of stats though there's not like the the person with the medical kit is the white mage healer you know of your party or whatever it's a it's just that they have that particular item so on and so forth for each of them

So my question as a follow up, and maybe it didn't even matter, maybe because it's just like all these people are just like, I need more party members to survive this mansion. But are the five party members unique enough for your liking? I didn't think so at first.

But I did grow to kind of appreciate the style that they were going for, where it's like, yeah, they each have their one ability. Because, all right, to get into a tiny bit more micro of how... a lot of this works is like you have each character has an inventory they have a set item that that will always be with them no matter what then they have two empty spaces for other items and then they have a weapon space

so those two empty spaces like you're switching things in and out a lot because like you have to drop things and pick things up you got to use something else and you every person can only be holding two things So it's nice to know that their like main item is always with them. Yeah. It's, it's, it's kind of like that part was like nice to be like, okay, you can pick up a key, but that's going to waste an inventory spot. But as long as Emmy.

in the English translation is alive you can always be like where's Emmy I can get her here and I can open this door and that turned out to be enough over time because also the way that you're splitting up so much is really organically making like I'm sure that all three of us had very different power leveled characters for each character you know like you you're leveling them up at very different paces because of that or you know

Now I'm just kind of going off on a bunch of different things, but, like, if you are underleveled and you have to run into an enemy with, like, a couple people, you can call in the middle of that battle, like, your stronger person. So, like, maybe that's not the... the manufactured difference between those characters, but it does organically happen on top of those manufactured differences. So I really grew to appreciate it. I think it was, I think that they had enough.

different between them yes one because of the because of the unique item that's really the only big difference I guess the only reason I felt that there was in independent uh character to each of them is because like oh yeah that's kazoo from the movie and that's oh that's emmy from the movie but i i had like a set team because of those those unique uh capabilities

That aren't entirely unique because you can find like replacement items if that person dies, but still Like I needed Emmy and I needed a Kiko I needed Kazoo like that was my like that was my spearhead and then the other two would just sort of trail behind in case I needed their item um but it you know playing that way you sort of have that relationship with these characters that doesn't matter if it's uh

a 2023 release or if it's a 1989 release like you will form that relationship if you like the game enough so i don't know i felt like they there was enough going on Yeah, especially from a role playing standpoint that you can build them out, as Joe mentioned, to like our parties did look different. Like, you know, that that probably does enough for me. It doesn't really matter that we don't have like clearly defined.

uh rpg trope styles like i was saying like where the medic would be your healer like that that's fine in my pov and then to touch upon what sean mentioned about if they die You could find a similar item, you know, like nearby and everything. That was kind of something that gave me pause for a second because I think the idea of anyone can die and the game goes on is really cool.

Especially because it feels like at the beginning, like you use the vacuum cleaner to vacuum up that glass. And it's like, well, what would I do if my vacuum cleaner guy died? Right? Like, how would we get by in this mansion? And obviously, I'm using the most extreme example. Obviously, it'd be worse if you lost the medic kit, right? Yeah. But the point being, it would be amazing if they could come up with a game.

That, okay, well, you lost the cameraman, so now you can no longer find out what those frescoes are saying, right? Because you can't take the picture, but you could still get on with the game. like that would be kind of cool but the game kind of says like no we're not ready to go like all in on this yet and so we're gonna like leave a camera around if that guy dies and i feel like

I don't know. I still think it works. No, of course it still works. Because now it's taking up inventory, right? Yeah, you're losing an inventory spot and you're losing a health pool. And so... You're right. I agree with you that it would be cool if they had the forethought to put alternate pathways to solve this. Maybe they did and I just didn't play enough.

But we'll just go with that they only have like the one critical route. That would have been cooler, but I'll take the inventory being clogged up and... More opportunities for other people to die. Yeah, it's true that if one dies, it makes it more likely others are going to die because now less people are fighting off the enemies.

And I saw it the opposite of you, Mike, in that sense, maybe because just like the order that I like figured things out. But I did the opposite of give me pause where I was like, oh, that's really cool. When I finally realized like.

the broom replaces the vacuum and the you know like the matches replace the lighter the pills replace the med kit you know things like this where it's like first of all you got to find those things and be carrying them with you all the time uh and like something like the pills are They're kind of hidden. But I imagine that they are one-time use, and then you've got to find more. But what I appreciated about it, because before that, when I realized death was permanent in this game...

i was like that's really cool but because the game is built on these things it's like are they just like soft locking you out like is it possible to soft lock like okay if you lose this guy and you need him to get through the next puzzle you're screwed and i was like oh like they thought of that

and they figured it out they just made it so if you lose this guy now doing his role is going to be a lot more challenging take a lot more work and take everybody to like try and like you feel the absence of that character by being like Yeah, by being like, yeah, Akiko's dead, we have to find pills now because she doesn't have the med kit anymore or whatever. I thought it was really cool that way. I do think that there's also something cool about the idea of like...

having alternate ways to play the game, but I appreciated what they did for this. An argument against my own argument, if that's even allowed. is that like so what happens when they die they just have like a death grip on their camera then you can't take it off them like i could understand maybe for the camera like nobody else knew how to operate it but hopefully everybody else knows how to use the vacuum

Yeah, I actually didn't even think about how it's like, yeah, you can just take their stuff. Maybe it's disrespectful. Come on, man. He's not even cold yet. You're going to take his lighter?

That's funny. Okay, so we've been talking a lot about the combat in different ways, and I don't want to talk about necessarily how it is as a turn-based fighting thing. I want to ask a weird question instead because it was something that surprised me. And then I was like, oh, maybe this was just expected. But were you guys even expecting combat in the game? Like when you get to the first random encounter, was that weird to you too?

Absolutely. Because I don't know how long it took you to get to that encounter, but, like, I was playing for a while in that first room where, I don't know, are there no random encounters in, like, the first two rooms, first area? Or maybe, like, it was a while. That might be the case, yeah. Yeah, it was a while before, so I was like, wow, this game is so robust. And then I ran into a random encounter, and I was like, oh my god, what doesn't this game have? There's battles too?

I mean, I have seen enough, like... I've read up on this game before. I've never played it before. But I knew enough to know that there was, like... old-school RPG-style battles. And I thought that was just hilarious. And it is kind of what I thought, that they're not all that crazy. There's not too much going into them. There's a rudimentary magic system with prayer, and otherwise it's just attacking and using items. But the call system that we talked about prior...

where you can then call your other team over to help. That's completely unique to me. I don't think I've ever seen that before. Yeah. one team can be in battle in real time as you are the other team trying to get to them before the enemy attacks again. Has that ever happened even in modern games?

I don't think there's been a party system like this before, so probably... I mean, maybe more modern, yes, but in this era, maybe. I'm talking out of my ass, but I'm guessing no. Yeah, I mean, like, just... for clarity of what we're talking about, you're in a random Final Fantasy-esque encounter, or maybe more like Dragon Quest encounter, where you're seeing the enemy. You're in an encounter like that. You can call.

You'll switch back to the overworld to your other characters that aren't there. You have to, like, run through the house to find them. But if the enemy attacks... that that first party while you're still running it'll just cut back to that battle yeah your other people haven't gotten to you yet it's cool if you get to that in time it just suddenly adds you to yeah it's like very it feels like

movie. It's really neat. The one thing that I will complain about the battle system, or not even just the battle system itself, but how battles work. Random battles, fine. I'm used to them. from all those years playing Final Fantasy games. But then there's also monsters roaming around that can cause a battle to happen, especially bats. And I think...

Having random encounters in the same room that there are like encounters that will just run into you physically like I think that's a little too much and That did annoy me in the places where that did happen

Yeah, with the bats particularly, it was annoying, because the bats are just other, like, low-level enemies anyways. Yeah. Like, I get it a little more in, like, later rooms where you got, like, the giant suits of armor, because they feel a little more like, they're not bosses, but they feel like...

bigger deals than most of the random encounters so it's like you really feel like you got to avoid them the bats it was just like okay i'm just gonna sit here and clear out these bats so i don't have to worry about them it was probably a little bit of a chore to get through The prey system, which I guess is a little bit like the game's magic system in a weird way, what I like about that more than even just the ability to prey off enemies or whatever is the...

uh the kind of like in combat different way of dealing with combat that the prey system provides it reminded me almost of like undertale how like now all of a sudden instead of doing like turn-based fighting i've got to like go uh i'm like in a little platforming thing and i gotta jump over the heart you guys know what i'm talking about yeah you gotta like time yeah you gotta time the prey to get the maximum meter thing and it's like that's so much better than just like

pressing the pray button and it just being like you prayed a nine you know like what does that mean you know you also know what it means because like it's you then have less pray to use later Yes, absolutely. Well, you only have so much faith. You only have so much prey, and you do get more prey as the game goes along.

But you have to be smart with it. Like you don't want to pray away the bats. Praying is clearly, you know, the action and the system is faith, right? Like you're... you're gaining uh you're gaining and you're losing faith throughout the game and so you have to gain it back and then that allows you to continue to pray um and then the actual enemies you know are worth talking about for a second too because Even just the maggots that you fight up against or the mad dog or...

you know, the bats or whatever, they all have nice, like, actual animations to actually get to them. Much different than their, if it warrants it, if they have an in-game appearance. Their actual, like, enemy animation is way cooler in the turn-based combat section. So any thoughts on any particular enemies? The worms was another one. Yeah, the wall. I was going to ask Sean if there was a wall with a face in the movie. I don't.

think so. Were any of these enemies from the movie? The zombie that's just a torso was from the movie. Okay.

Except the zombie with the torso is actually one of the characters that you're playing as in this game in the movie. So that was kind of weird. And that's the... only one i really recognize aside from like you know the main boss the the end boss which i didn't play through but i watched is the actual like ghost from the movie okay there are no uh while there are no like uh suits of armor that you fight there is a giant uh like axe cleaver that uh

That is featured in the movie as well. It's a weird movie. Just a real quick backtrack to the prayer thing. I was going to ask you guys, do you guys ever have problems with the prey system? I played this game for a while. I played three hours of this game two weeks ago. And then last night, I played another few hours. And two weeks ago...

I feel like the pray thing worked perfectly when I needed to attack someone. And last night, it never worked once. Every time I would pray, it would just be like, you used this many prayer points, and no damage would be done. There was no more message or anything.

I wasn't sure, did I just get to enemies that are too powerful for the prayer? Or am I doing something different two weeks ago that was making it work? I don't know why, but it got to the point where yesterday, we were just like, I guess we just...

shouldn't use prey anymore because it's just and I was playing with a friend of mine and we were both we both swear that we're doing exactly the same thing as last time maybe just on different enemies now but like we tried it a lot of times on many different enemies and it didn't do anything I'm not entirely sure.

Yeah, I don't think I have a quick answer for you here just because it's not something I ran into, so I wouldn't even know how to troubleshoot it. Yeah, we tried looking it up too. We tried looking it up and we saw like, oh, only this type of enemy. And we just tried it on so many different types of enemies and it didn't work in any of them. So, I don't know. It's also, like, hard to look things out about this game because... Help, Google. Pray not working. Yeah.

Joe, you talked about how when the combat introduced, you were like, what can't this game do? But I do think it also knows what not to do a lot of the times, and that helps as well. I don't know. I definitely got the vibe. that at one point there was going to be some kind of first-person labyrinth towards the end, similar to that detective game we played a while back, Sean. Joe, I don't think you were on that episode, but you might have played that game.

That was a game that was like, wow, it was so much fun, really having a good time, and then all of a sudden the end was just a first-person labyrinth maze thing that was just not fun to explore at all. No, it was terrible.

yep i i couldn't have i could see that happening in this game and yet capcom masters that they are they knew not to do something like that they knew not to like switch genres entirely at any point like the game surprises you with what it can do but then also shows most of its hand early on and then just kind of builds on that yeah yeah it definitely it's and it knows like what it it knows what its systems are and like i feel like it knows not to just like

ever just dismiss those. The fun of the game is controlling these two parties and managing them and everything. So I feel like if it did just go to first person and you're just like one perspective and suddenly all that... wouldn't really matter anymore. Or that it would, it would do away with all of the management and then just become like, uh, just all about battles. Like, yeah. Yeah. But an example maybe of like,

An area where they didn't show restraint was like, you know, hey, we can do it. So we should was probably those quick time events because it's fine as like a. Not even just a one off thing, but maybe like specific to a room kind of thing.

However, when chandeliers and chairs just come at you all the time, and it's not so frequent that it's annoying or whatever, but it's more frequent than I would have liked it to be. I just thought that this is a weird thing that is mostly based on luck because...

The way the quick time event works is it shows you a chandelier, says it's coming, it's falling down, and then you just have to choose a direction to go in. It's completely random. It's completely random, so it's like, I really can't afford to be taking this damage. Or you can pray. That's true. That's true. But like you said, Sean, praying is not something you want to just use all the time because you will run out. Now, the chandelier thing makes sense to me.

Because they're suspended from the ceiling. Totally get it. I also believe, based on everything I've seen in this house, that there are ghosts in this house and that they would be able to either throw or be those chairs possessed or whatever. But it bothers me that these chairs are coming at you so hard. And meanwhile, tables are not or like other things and other furniture in the house is not. Yeah, it took me a while to like even.

even consider that like oh i guess a ghost is throwing the chair but i was like are the chairs hanging from the ceiling too and they fall like i don't understand and it's weird because i don't think i don't think that this ever happens in the movie that's just completely made up for the game

Which is also weird because I think that the same people that made the movie had a huge input on the game. So these were their decisions. Yes, but I do believe that they were... they were given liberties with the game script because Fujiwara, the guy who made this game, Resident Evil, and Ghosts and Goblins, pretty cool dude, he was allowed to be on the film set.

to gather inspiration for the game because they had to make the game around the same time that the movie was. Ah yes, the vacuum. Yeah. Right, that the movie was being made. So maybe that does explain the vacuum. Oh, 100%. You know, but also I think it explains like, you know, probably a lot of other things too that we just, we personally won't know without a...

Fujiwara interview, right? You need that kind of thing of like, well, that one day I was on the film set, I saw this, this, and this, and that became major parts of the game for me. That's funny. The idea that he just like... had to work with whatever he saw he didn't really know so he was like yeah vacuum that's got to be a big i saw it on set it's got to be a big part of it it must be

And meanwhile, that wasn't even the vacuum in the film. That was just somebody cleaning up the set. Somebody made a mess. Can I ask you guys a dumb question? I don't know if I'll have the answer, but yeah, go for it. The candle... that you use before you turn the generator on. You gotta, you know, put a candle on one of your allies and use it to light everything up. The waxy. Yeah, the waxy. It was trans...

Tell me about the waxy. Why are you calling it the waxy? Because it looks like it says waxy, but it's just wax and then a weird symbol for a candle. Okay, yeah. So my point is that for... The longest time we were like, yeah, the waxy, the waxy, whatever. And then like my buddy was like, you do know, right? And I was like, what? He's like, it's not waxy. He thought we were both just messing around. I really thought it just said waxy because the candle.

Looks like an eye. So I was like, oh, it's like a terrible translation. And they're calling it a candle. That took me a really long time to realize that. Oh, yeah. I called it the waxy in my head. Yeah. Like I knew it was supposed to be a candle. I was like, oh, they must have just gotten like the word for wax and the word for candle mixed up.

in the translation or something. Like, I don't know. That was your question? That was my question. Well, it kind of became that question. I preempted the question. Yeah, because of Sean. My question was going to be, what was that called? What did you guys think it was called? So sorry. Definitely would have been Candle for me. Did you read it as Wax Candle or did you read it as W-A-X-I?

I did read it as W-A-X-I, but I didn't say waxy out loud, you know, if that makes sense. I didn't say it out loud either, Mike. No, no, but you know what? Did you know that the candle icon was a candle icon and not the letter I? Yes, but I don't know. Maybe that's my memory lying to me. Maybe the first time I thought it was an eye and then I realized it was a candle once I used it. There is more than one candle. I like the idea of like...

Sean playing by himself, and then just the only thing he says out loud is Waxy. He says everything that they say on screen. Any text he's forced to read aloud. No, what I meant is that I never said, like, until when he said Waxy, I didn't know what he was talking about because I didn't. pronounce it you know like I didn't read it and say like waxy I just like read it and moved on with my life

This might have been the most in the weeds we've gotten. You're welcome. To get us out of the weeds for a second, the inventory management, we've talked about it throughout other sections and everything. I just wanted to also mention that that is a huge part of the Resident Evil game. It also, you know, you see it here for sure. I don't know. The one thing I really like about this more than anything in terms of.

You know, like whether it's cumbersome or whether you have to constantly keep switching out items. I just like the realistic part of this. Like in a game that is rather...

It can be rather scary or silly or haunted or whatever. The fact that characters can really only hold two things and something in their hand is kind of nice. It's a good touch from the Metal Gear games where Snake has... has like 36 uh you know weapons on him it's like uh i mean i could i could make up a reason for it in my head thankfully i don't have to and it's kind of funny too that um you know the last

original mainline resident evil game that i played was for and like it already jumped the shark at that point which was leon has this giant briefcase that he could put rocket launcher in next to all of his herbs and several machine guns but it's you know he's carrying that briefcase around so even this series has gotten away from that

This is this series equivalent of turning off permadeath in Fire Emblem games. But what's nice about it is that, like, because at first you do... look at it at least I look at it I'm like oh great like a tiny inventory I'm gonna have to be dropping and picking things up all the time and you are you that's what like that's like half the game is like swapping out items but it's like the game is designed around that like that's part of the game design and that makes it not annoying.

Yes, if you had to manage a hundred things, this would suck because you could only hold two, right? But this isn't Stardew Valley. You're not trying to do a farm. On the opposite of that, if you're playing Final Fantasy and you can only hold two items, that would suck too.

because the game's not designed to have this is like a small area where you're going to remember where you put items and you got to like think am I going to need this am I going to need that you know it's like that's part of the strategy it's also freeing though in a way and I'm not trying to just

I'm not saying they even thought about this, but this is more of a me thing. I don't like having all these things and saving them. It doesn't feel good at the end of a game. And that's why I'm one of the few people who likes... the weapon durability in breath of the wild because it's freeing to no longer have to use that sword like i'm so glad i can move on and get over with it it's the same thing here it's like

cool, so I don't have to hold on to all this stuff. Like, I should just use it right now because I'm in danger right now. Who cares about later? It's like baseball, you know? I always say in doubleheaders, the manager's always playing for both games, and it's like, it doesn't really matter. You have to play the game that you're playing right now. You've got to win this one. Who cares if you save the guy to win the game later? You're in this game. That's beautiful. I'm very mad. I appreciate it.

I'm really sorry about the Mets, Mike. Thank you. That also, I agree with this whole freeing thing, because I remember in my most recent playthrough for Final Fantasy VII, I had just, like, unlocked... A cool looking sword.

for cloud and i'm like hell yeah i finally get to use this sword again for the first time since like five or six years ago and then i just like got the next one that was stronger i'm like guess i'm never using that sword again because i've got the more important one right now so it If they all just sort of broke and then I can go back and use that one, that'd be great. And that's why all games should have Resident Evil's inventory mechanic. I don't think...

Joe's going to agree that far. And I don't even know if I would necessarily. How about no inventory whatsoever? Can't even hold stuff. Guy's got no pockets. How about no character? No game? no game that's my mom's favorite yeah uh all right where am i going from here oh yeah finally okay there's a good point all right the unsettling stuff in the game all right uh this is something i teased up at the top and we'll get into it now

There's an idea that this is still a scary game. Like, oh, on the NES, this actually scared me. And Joe's saying Scooby-Doo stuff already. So I'm going to say that we probably aren't actually... talking about the same level of Silent Hill or Resident Evil when it comes to Sweet Home. It's more of a... There's definitely unsettling moments. The only one I can think of graphically...

was that skeleton that still has some meat on those bones. You know what I'm talking about? The one that's like, why did you abandon me? It's like... That skeleton in particular is unsettling just because I don't like the idea that skeletons still have like their muscle tissue around. Which would be true, right? Technically, they would be decomposing and still maybe have some of that stuff. It's still a little weird that he only has it in certain areas of his chest and face. Anyway.

The real unsettling stuff is the plot, though. And so I think it's kind of that time where we get into spoiler territory. So if you have not played this game or have not been in it, just know that from here on out, we're going to talk as if we always revealed. uh the stuff in this game so you don't have to necessarily just say the ending out loud but just in terms of plot right uh what did you guys think um i like the the the mystery that it was setting up and everything like

Again, I keep saying escape room, but you find these pictures, you're seeing these journal entries, not really written on the painting of different dates of what's going on. It felt like a mystery, and that was cool. Like Scooby-Doo. So, um, I might just ask you guys to tell the, to explain to me the ending that you know, or at least not the ending, not the ending, but the story that you know, like of, of what's causing this haunting.

Because I, again, I know the movie's explanation, and I don't quite remember every difference here. Sure. What was it? Again, I didn't beat the game, but obviously as the note taker, I have to look this stuff up. And so essentially... The character Mamiya, I don't know if I'm saying that right, but that's the evil spirit that's haunting this whole thing. Her two-year-old son.

had fallen into the house's incinerator and was burned alive. And Mamiya attempted to basically thinking that the spirit of the two-year-old son was still in the house.

was bringing children uh into the house and killing them so that he could have forever playmates essentially yeah and then she committed suicide shortly after and now um uh her ghost in in like a twist of fate thing since ghosts are real in this universe it's not her son's ghost who's been stuck in the mansion she is stuck in the mansion and uh that's when um you know like

You guys. Enter all the five of you who have to try to defeat her and escape the mansion. Yeah, so that's pretty much the long and short of it in the movie. There's also... Like, that fresco that you keep coming across in each room that has one with, like, the girl and she's got the weird stuff on her head. Like, that is...

That is, like, the main fresco that they find and are cleaning with a vacuum. But then, like, as they... As they're, like, cleaning up more and seeing more of the wall, like, it gets...

Darker and darker and there is like a dead baby like on the wall and like that's just something I wasn't expecting was really just how Dark the the subject matter got not just like the campy horror effects but really just like oh this is about like dead kids and it's really not something that you really see too much in horror because we'd like to draw lines and what's like acceptable to be horrored upon

And it just might not be all that tasteful for a lot of audiences. And so that's why I'm pretty sure this didn't get a Western release. But also, yeah, I... I'm just surprised that that actually all came out in the game, considering some of the other changes that were made. Now, from the story, from as far as you had gotten, Sean, was it, like, how...

How did it parallel to the movie? Honestly, for a while while I'm playing this game, I'm like, I know hardly anything about this story. There's a lot more character moments. Like, uh, Kazu, um, is, like, a very meek, uh, producer. Um, and his daughter is Emi. And Emi... as like the closest to a child in this story actually gets taken away by the ghost and is like, she's being taken to the, uh,

It's not the incinerator in the, in the movie. It's just the furnace. Like apparently that she was cleaning the furnace and the baby was in there and then she turned on the furnace and then she, you know, burned up. But, um, and like, uh, not a Kiku. But the other girl, she's like the talent for this documentary about the frescoes. And she gets like possessed and ends up digging up the corpse of the baby. It's all very.

It's all pretty strange, but I think that like the game the game definitely gamified a lot of these Like character not moments, but just just those descriptors In an interesting way, I guess. I think as goofy as it sounds at times, it kind of works out.

And so I feel like, you know, as far as a introduction to Sweet Home goes, we've covered all the systems and everything. Just to finish up for the Halloween portion of anything. Were you ever spooked in the actual video game? Did you have any legitimate like spooky moments or an image that just like, you know, kind of stayed with you?

No. Not spooked. I think I was off-put when you enter a dark room and then somebody's... talking to you it's like you're not supposed to be here and then it just like actively shoots you out the door against the far wall in the previous room and i guess i just wasn't expecting that to happen or that that violent of an action to be displayed like on the overworld because it's otherwise the overworld is otherwise kind of

There's not a lot of actual action happening. All that's happening in text boxes. So actually seeing that animation happen, I was taken aback by. I wouldn't say it was scary, but it was like an ooh. Okay, last. Oh, sorry, Joe. Go ahead. No, I was going to say, like, I don't know if I was, yeah, I was ever spooked. Like, again, outside of the incredible dark, like, plot lines there.

This felt more like a Stranger Things to me rather than a real scary thing as far as the monsters coming at you, the things that were supposed to be spooks were kind of like, oh, cool, look at that. But the one thing that was a little eerie to me is the frescoes. Is there just something weird about seeing something like this in an 8-bit pixelized form? Because you're just not expecting this sort of piece of interpretive art.

It's not, like, spooky, but it is, like, oh, well, it does give you this sense of gravity that, like, you don't get in most other games where you're, like, maybe this is, like, a more serious story, you know? Yeah, I agree. And my final thought here, again, these are just things I put in the notes, so don't attack me personally. Is Sweet Home good?

Because it's an NES Famicom game. Is it good because you're not expecting the console to be able to be capable of these kinds of things? Or is it beyond that? Personally, I'd say it's beyond that. I like just the concept of exploring with these different characters that have different items and abilities. I think you could make this a board game and it would be good.

I think that there are things that I forgive because it's an NES Famicom game. But I think, like, largely overall, I think that it would hold up, you know, I think you could put it on my phone today. and there's not too much where I would be like, hey, aren't we past this already? Like, haven't we improved yet? Maybe a couple things, but yeah, I do think it's good. Yeah, going into this, like, I could...

be honest and say the only reason I'm interested in this game at all is because it is the precursor to a series that I really enjoy. So I was expecting it to just be goofy and campy and dumb and... terrible to play um but it's cool because it's got the door animation and it's got the zombie that turns its head kind of like in the beginning of of resident evil 1 um and

I would just wash my hands of it. But like the actual mechanics that this game has are, are unique even to this day in the way that it handles like a party and especially, um, party in this setting. And I think just because of how it handles that, it sort of transcends just the Famicom NES paradigm. that we always have to contend with when we're talking about like the essential games list. I think this is just a unique game in general.

Yeah, and I agree with you guys. I think, again, the systems that it laid down are the intriguing part. The question, maybe I didn't word it as appropriately, but I do think, not for Sweet Home, but for other things, this question does have some merit of like...

How many times does just the history or platform have some weight on something? Because I'm thinking about even just... n64 games that are probably considered essential games for that system but aren't necessarily like good anymore heck that probably even happens for like

PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 games that got like amazing 90 out of 100 reviews on Metacritic. But if you were to play them even just a couple years later now, it's like, but we've gotten better than that. But yes, it's not because... It's an NES game with more that makes Sweet Home good. It's because of what that more actually is. It's not just like...

oh, well, it's an 8-bit game that did things that we didn't see again until PlayStation 1. It's like, that's not what's cool about it. What's cool about it is what those things that it did actually do. And so I really feel like... All three of us are saying that even though we don't have an essential games list, Sweet Home is definitely one that we would recommend to everyone on the Discord. Am I right? Absolutely.

And I said everyone on the Discord, but there are people who are on Patreon who are not on the Discord, and so I'm going to recommend it to you folks as well. That said, we don't bite, so feel free to come join us on the Discord. This is a bites episode. Oh, that's so funny. We do bite. Especially on Halloween. Of course we bite. I want to suck your blood. Yeah, we all became vampires in that Castlevania 2 episode, right? I don't know what you're talking about.

And so, yeah, next month, we kind of just go back. uh to normal and we're gonna play a dodgeball game for november because uh there was no game based on a really dark horror japanese movie yeah well there was also no turkey video game that i could find so there was no thanksgiving theme to lean into so uh no the dodgeball game looks sick though so at least it has that going for it at least we're going to continue the trend of great um games that didn't come over here i love it

I just want to back up real quick to recommending it to people. I'm going to let the recency bias wear off before I solidify this statement. Maybe I'll beat the game first, too.

I think if we put this on the Essential Games list, it would be one of my favorite Essential Games so far. This is one of my favorite games we've played for nostalgia. I think it's really, really cool. I'd love to hear that. I'll agree with that. And I'll also just say... like just you know if you do go to youtube and and watch the movie which again i do recommend just just think about the there are these people using a vacuum on a painting

And then just think that there is a step-by-step through line throughout the ages, all the way to on the PS5, Leon Kennedy is dropkicking a Spanish monk. And that is an unbroken chain.