Let us unravel the mystery of Shakespearean demises with our animal friends. This time we're checking in with disc 2, genociding the Croaker Tribe, solving arcane riddles to put rocks in holes, discovering ancient murals, falling through other holes, getting crushed by the ceiling, measuring water levels, suffering the tragedy of Hammer, glitching out, viewing clone violence, being logic and using logic as a logic lord, pissing off the Fake Net, elevating slumbering ships, meeting at dawn, and a...
Jul 20, 2020•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 43
Let us join together as we unravel the mystery of interdimensional chair sitting. On this episode we're getting deposited in dungeons, meeting Shopkeeper Johnny, eating death, replacing fuses to open lock A, solving arcane puzzles to open lock B, enjoying the sound of steam bolt locks, acquiring god technology, fighting teen girl squads, watching their Gears combine into one larger Gear, hitting our rivals with psychoanalysis, conspiring to kill Cain with Cain, wishing we could actually see Rams...
Jul 13, 2020•1 hr 11 min•Season 1Ep. 42
If only you didn't exist. This time we're continuing to dream, imposing a total sentence of ten years, reacquiring Knight of Fire, shattering Ramsus' absolute confidence, launching nanoparticles into the atmosphere, battling Solarian super weapons, realizing government buildings are ships and robots, mutating into abnormal forms, eating god's apostles, subverting the Gazel, constructing monsters with organic compounds, cinematically merging Elly and Sophia, watching anime for the first time in s...
Jul 06, 2020•1 hr 4 min•Season 1Ep. 41
Please insert Disc 2. This time we're literally and virtually sitting in chairs, unpacking our own existence, spending quality time painting our partners, exploring our interiority through our reclaimed souls, loving the same soul across epochs of time, exploring the duality of dreaming, waking up naked, forgetting our names, worrying our comatose girlfriend might forget us, controlling Id with a System, debating the path of fate, listening to Mitsuda music from different games, telling women th...
Jun 29, 2020•1 hr 11 min•Season 1Ep. 40
Let's go, Fei. In this episode we're acting on Emperor Cain's directions, concluding managers are no longer needed, denying mental health issues exist, selecting Ramsus as our favorite tool, realizing we're our own subordinate, registering as tenants in the room of cowardice, using our girlfriend as brain armor, defining The Coward and The Bully, encasing dangerous friends in carbonite, participating in apologetic group therapy, dismissing logic lords, downgrading to Steel Giant, and reading Gra...
Jun 22, 2020•1 hr 19 min•Season 1Ep. 39
Chris didn't know Tears for Fears is a real band. On this episode we're telling Ramsus we're in different situations, putting four people in our party, realizing Emeralda is the original Bayonetta, meeting all of our friends again twice, declining to use our Jugend training, fighting Grahf in person, bungling a sacrifice play, replacing death with the next dimension, unmasking the Executioner, blowing up a bridge, and sorting out intense identity issues. You had no time to say goodbye but, don't...
Jun 15, 2020•56 min•Season 1Ep. 38
God has given us a right to rule over the universe. This time we're identifying our assholes, getting imprisoned in a CRT Danger Room, suffering betrayal, citing Arch Angels, arking artifacts, enduring an MRI, awakening some other inner-selves, reading three books a day, discovering the urobolus ring, nursing an obsession with our 500 year old girlfriend, defining damn it, fighting for a place where we can belong, going on drug benders, and blinging our sword. Now is not the time to contemplate ...
Jun 08, 2020•56 min•Season 1Ep. 37
We're opening our minds and drinking the purest form of nutrition; people. This time we're getting sucked up in a dust chute, destroying ventilation infrastructure, gluttonously gobbling up idle foodstuffs, hacking another computer, eating Soylent in real life, manufacturing memory cubes, liberating mutated prisoners, murdering mutated prisoners, challenging the Bloody Bros, missing with magic, learning facts from holograms, and asking Citan questions he doesn't like. This is reality. Let's go. ...
Jun 01, 2020•1 hr 8 min•Season 1Ep. 36
This is better than Doc's bathtub! In these two chapters, we're loving raw sewage, wrecking security cubes, walking into wealthy Solarian's houses with poop-stained clothes, predicting soylent, telling our girlfriend her mom is hot, putting a shower in our rooms, getting a psycho rod from the maid, hacking our father's computer, desiring a trash chute, reporting our daughter as a burglar, punching out windows, walking out on our girlfriend, @$&%$#!, and evading death squads. Every time my da...
May 25, 2020•50 min•Season 1Ep. 35
We're entering Solaris to beat up all the fascists, kill their leaders, and save the world. Our discussion and activities include wondering why Krelian let Emeralda go, denying the compulsion to adopt Maria, worrying about Hammer time, getting in shipping containers, realizing most of the fictional Solarian hellscape is 2020's actual hellscape, escaping with Samson, removing Samson from the physical plane, engaging The Chewbacca Defense, Entrenstrolling, either killing or returning to Mother God...
May 18, 2020•1 hr 7 min•Season 1Ep. 34
How do you do? This time we're concluding Drunk Elevator Guy is an assigned position, breaking the Fake Net, obtaining underwater gear for our Gears, getting physically wrecked by Mermen, getting mentally wrecked by Rattan, substituting wings for arms, meeting Kim (who is Fei), revealing Solaris from the ether, having moments in the sky, and choosing our own path. You will be hurt. They will also be hurt. If you take their side I'll kill you without a doubt, even from the back. 00:39 - Intro 02:...
May 11, 2020•58 min•Season 1Ep. 33
Here's the results and announcement show we recorded as we revealed the results to ourselves, recorded on May 4. Thanks to everyone who participated! We are looking forward to the conclusion of Season 1 (which will take 55 episodes to completely cover Xenogears) and a new beginning with Season 2! What game will we cover? Listen to find out!
May 05, 2020•10 min
Calm down, your pants are too loud. In this episode, we're worrying Chu-Chu might be out of unique dialogue, witnessing the effect of monarchy's dissolution on the local non-playable populace, eating fish out of an aquarium, fantasy equipping Ramsus' speedo, decimating Elements, appreciating Kelvana's professionalism, missing incredibly important laser shots, solving imaginary union disputes, not knowing where Solaris is, extracting data from nanomachines, and spreading panic to Etrenank. Once y...
May 04, 2020•1 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 32
And now, for something completely different. Released in North America on May 1st 1999, R4: Ridge Racer Type-4 closed a generation—and a millennium—with character and class. Namco’s signature racing series, once defined by its garish spectacle and manic energy, finally relaxed into a state of confident sophistication. This podcast is a complete retrospective on R4: Ridge Racer Type-4 written and narrated by Eric Layman.
May 01, 2020•1 hr 10 min
A boss battle and a plot device; let's go. We're missing glowing red buttons, observing Grahf's technology and Gate technology, noting Shakhan is a jerk and a punk, not getting it up, blessing up our Big Boy, min-maxing Elly and destroying god, crashing our PlayStation Classic, creating a republic, having sex out of sects, cultivating dread, tolerating Rico's bad ideas, de-committing from Chu-Chu, and trashing Ramsus' trash-ass. Margie's not in this chapter. 00:57 - Intro 03:14 - Ambush at the H...
Apr 27, 2020•51 min•Season 1Ep. 31
You're really acting absent-minded chu-day. This time we're listening to half the soundtrack, "burning ass" back to the Yggdrasil, committing to Chu-Chu, fighting on a stage set, collecting our thoughts on a bridge, not robbing an abandoned store, exploring an actual spaceship, using our ancestral eyes to open sacred doors, lamenting the mausoleum's whack-ass dungeon, deathblowing each other, bonding pilots with robots, flying saucers, suggesting clergymen should commit suicide, and controlling ...
Apr 20, 2020•1 hr 25 min•Season 1Ep. 30
Unification increases power. This time we're listening to forest music in an air shaft, thinking Maria's combat prowess might be underdeveloped, hopping windmills, conjuring alternative Big Joe truths, listening to villains reveal critical plot machinations, regretting Rico, dealing with our machine father, speculating Billy's infatuation with Boondock Saints, riding Gears instead of piloting Gears, witnessing fantastic animal transformations, practicing telepathy with children, running like Nar...
Apr 13, 2020•1 hr 7 min•Season 1Ep. 29
Let's not imagine things. It's not good for your heart. What's real is spilling beverages on podcast equipment, identifying 2018 lyrics in a 1998 song, appreciating Bart carrying plot points across time, squirting, collecting different shaded rocks, encountering Shevat's assemblage of ragtag rebels, parlaying with Chu-Chu's, turning yesterday’s tears into tomorrow's smiles, receiving all of the lore at Shevat Palace, blending our fake religion with Xenogears' real legends, getting gaslit by Yui,...
Apr 06, 2020•1 hr 21 min•Season 1Ep. 28
We've lost our porpoise. On this episode, we're realizing the places we feared as children aren't to be feared as an adult, admiring Krelian's headgear, going over Chu-Chu composition theories, confronting the horror of 1998 physics systems, falling into dank pools, jumping over wreckage, speculating tower origins, obliterating Ramsus' weak ass (again), riding through Traffic Jams, meeting a young anime girl with pilot goggles, recognizing a familiar large Gear, and experiencing two SOL-900 sequ...
Mar 30, 2020•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 27
Good day. This bonus podcast is a fun one-off episode as well as a way for Eric to rationalize doing nothing else for two weeks. Podcasting about things is now a release equal to writing about things. This won’t replace any scheduled pods, it’s just a thing we’re doing. For fun. This podcast is intended for those who already have a familiarity with Persona 5 and will likely be incomprehensible if you have not played Persona 5. Check out Eric's review on digitalchumps.com. It’s an answer to the q...
Mar 27, 2020•1 hr 5 min
Are you strong? This time we're dealing with the implications of Citan as party leader, finding Zeal in Xenogears, developing some suspicious Dan suspicions, meeting Id and wondering gosh what the heck is an Id, watching heroes come out of the rafters, LOOKING AT STONE'S FACE OR LACK THEREOF, clarifying a "fake awakening," questioning Grahf's motivations, doing bong rips with Citan, desiring a Jessie manga, laughing at Stone self-identify as an incel, noting the absurdity of suicide Gears, and o...
Mar 23, 2020•1 hr 6 min•Season 1Ep. 26
Oh god. We're missing our dead friends, determining the info line on Chu-Chu, keeping pictures of our house in our house, numbing our fear of Reapers with booze, ratioing/radioing Grahf with Miang, spending a lot of time in hallways and staircases, computing some math problems, watching nanomachine colonies assume human form, organizing the hierarchy of conspirators, figuring out what "yoke" means, and meeting some new Elements. Religion can only be used for wrongdoing. Drunks love to fight. It'...
Mar 16, 2020•1 hr 10 min•Season 1Ep. 25
Burning Desire, Burning Souls, Burning Rangers. It's been exposed. We spend our time stealing our father's gun, realizing you can't have separation of church and state if the church is also the state, uncovering Solaris' global meddling, watching dying people cough up blood and plot, shattering faith, enduring Bond villain soliloquies, watching Bishop Stone overdo it, and sitting through escalations of lore and plot devices. Current Xenogears toilet count: 2. 00:43 - Intro 02:50 - Yggdraslin' ar...
Mar 09, 2020•45 min•Season 1Ep. 24
Retrograde Amnesia is a comprehensive discussion show where we re-live a classic JRPG -- chapter by chapter, beat by beat. We delve into the story, dialogue, game mechanics, music, influences, and themes. Through these conversations, we re-experience our lost memories of treasured classics and discover why these stories have become so precious to us and so many others. Season 1 covers Xenogears (1998).
Mar 06, 2020•6 min
Thank you, my good man. As we board the Transport ship, we're speculating the nature of father and son ethical considerations, telling our garbage sons to quit their bullshit jobs, embracing for sex acts with blood relatives, identifying Bishop Stone as Billy's Citan, pinpointing silence as an indicator of wisdom, selling our bodies to perverts, laughing at Bart's Sideshow Bob-ass running animation, explaining the holy man violence paradox, busting down doors at full speed, and making our monste...
Mar 02, 2020•50 min•Season 1Ep. 23
It's happened. We've come to value the meaningful and the meaningless information relinquished by Xenogears' localization. We're also justifying Margie as a manager, wondering why machines are gendered, watching the Ripper digest and disappear party members, identifying Ether Doubler acquisition methods, uncovering some ulterior motives at Etone H.Q., questioning Hammer's retention, referring to our biological father as "that man," expanding our nationalistic beef awareness, discovering mystery ...
Feb 24, 2020•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 22
Ramsus attacks in this chapter, but so does Dominia. And so does Jessie, but only with his words and only at Bart. We're also questioning the ethical responsibility of GameSharks, admiring pirate and salvager bonds of sea and fire, expressing rage with quick camera cuts, missing every mother fucking X attack, noting the time/space error by the Yggdrasil's depth charges, not paying attention to Ramsus' Mirror Stance, conjuring an NPC Doctor Academy FanFic, jerkin' off with Bart, outlining Nisan s...
Feb 17, 2020•50 min•Season 1Ep. 21
It's true; Xenogears and Xeno-adjacent podcast may be our own dark cruel destiny. This time we're dissecting idioms, unlocking abilities through the power of narrative, expressing surprise at some casual abduction, picturing "Malibu Bart," remembering Hammer is on this blasted ship, fantasizing over non-erotic Old Maison fan art, determining the current villain tier list, continuing our adoration of portrait-less doctors, and dabbling in some hypno-programming. You shouldn't play pranks in an un...
Feb 10, 2020•57 min•Season 1Ep. 20
We. Are men. Of the sea. Or at least we try to be. Between the shards of these emotions we're discovering men who love to drink, clarifying the way to say words, debating more origin species of demi-humans, talking through the safety of combining inebriation and work assignments, learning a new card game, seeing what happens when antagonists are consumed by rage, and recognizing that treasure and people are both treasures. We don't know if the Captain is dosing his crew but we do know that you s...
Feb 03, 2020•53 min•Season 1Ep. 19
Life is a movie that flashes back between floating platforms and floating ships. Between these dire circumstances we're evaluating Fei's exclusive friendship with portrait characters, sorting out the Ministry's latest AOL keywords, noting Bart and Rico's mutual admiration, learning some Gear aesthetic choices, watching Fei's miserable attempts to fish with his bare hands, accepting more Shevat revelations, and trying to find common ground in Fei and Elly's mutually assured destruction. Citan isn...
Jan 27, 2020•49 min•Season 1Ep. 18
