Tetracast 438: Next up, Deep Down

Hello everyone. To another episode of the Tetracast, RPG Sites weekly podcast. I'm your host, Brian Vitale. Joining me, we have Josh Torres. Adam Votelli. Hello? Hey folks! Mikhail Manani. And welcome back, Hayes Madsen. Yep, so this is Hayes' I believe third time on the podcast. He was uh on the podcast a couple of times last week, uh to cover games like Assassin's Creed and Outer Worlds two. Sorry, last year. Thank you, Adam.

Brain going slower than my mouth. Uh last year. Uh Chow is not here. Uh he was just feeling under the weather, so he's taking the week off.

Uh so yeah the reason why we have Hayes on the podcast this week is because our first, you know, uh point of point of course for for this week's episode. is to talk about the uh did it release technically today like the embargo lift and release just you know within podcast Of Yeah, yesterday at the time of recording of Pragmata, the embargo release uh lifted a few days before formal release.

So Hayes covered Pragmata for us for the site, wrote up a review up on RPGsite.net. So he's going to lead the discussion on thoughts on that game. I know others like James and Mikhail and a little bit of Josh have also been playing it. So we'll have a back and forth about that.

And then we've got a full slate of other games that we're gonna talk about this week. We're gonna talk about uh Mongo Star Dive a little bit, potentially Dosa Divas. Uh I might tag a tiny bit about Gothic, the original. I'll tell you why in a moment.

But without further ado, we're gonna talk about Pragmata. So I'm just gonna hand it off to Hayes just to start the discussion to talk about his review, his thoughts, his impressions, and we'll go from there in terms of, you know, what James and others have thought. touching on that game as well. So just tea us up, Hayes, about what Pregmon is, what your thoughts were, and how you came to write a review for us on RPG site.

Yeah, for sure. Mm-hmm. Um First off like general thoughts is that I really like it, uh and I feel quite similar about Pragmata as to how I felt about Exoprimal and Kunitsugami. Uh it follows in that legacy of like Capcom's really experimental new IP.

Um and if you know, if for anyone who's not familiar, the the gist is essentially like you play as Hugh, who is this systems engineer who's sent to the moon to figure out what's going on with this rogue AI uh on like a lunar facility in the near future and uh stuff hits the fan, obviously, and you meet this um girl named Diana who's essentially Like a a uh an AI construct. uh who can hack into the different systems of the lunar base.

And the the really like unique element of Pragmata, as I'm sure most people have seen, is that combat system where You're mixing like traditional third person shooter mechanics with this hacking mini game, uh where It's I guess it's hard to explain over audio, but like You know, you have a grid that pops up when you aim at enemies and you use the D pad to like navigate through that grid and activate different nodes. The baseball is not the D pad. Yeah. Oh face buttons, yeah. You're right. Yeah.

so that you can open up enemies and then do more damage to them. So it's like this juggling act where you're doing normal, traditional, third person shooter stuff, using weapons and dodging and all that, but also doing this hacking minigame at the same time. And that's really like What drives the game in my mind, uh, what really makes it something special is that that combat system feels great from the start. but it does some really fun things in advancing.

There's really unique weapons that it gives you, it adds different nodes that you can add onto the hacking minigame, has like really good enemy variety, and I think my biggest fear going into Pragmata was that That gimmicky kind of combat system might not carry through the whole experience. Absolutely prove me wrong. Like it is fantastic. And I

think the other element that makes Pragmata really special is that relationship between Hugh and Diana. And you know, the the overall narrative, as I'm sure a lot of people have seen in reviews, is not It's simple. It's it's intentionally simple. It's not striving to be this really complex. character study kind of story. Th there's kind of beauty in that simplicity, I think.

Focuses in on this relationship with Hugh and Diana and takes a really surprisingly hardline stance on like the positivity of a documentary. Like that that is real really an element that surprised me. You learn very early on that he was adopted and that becomes a big recurring theme.

And just this kind of like budding relationship with him and Diana and there's been a lot of discussion of like the sad dad game and everything and This is a game where, like, theoretically, you know, you have a found family story where Hugh is acting as a father figure to Diana and It's a s it's a dad story where like the best way I've seen other people say it is like a dad that likes his kids.

Uh and that is kind of refreshing, which is kind of odd to say, but you know, so many of the dad stories and video games. Darker it's about you know this this Uh antagonistic relationship almost. Pragmata is just like it has this optimism to it. The the way I described it in my review is it feels almost like Pixar S. Where it has this really unique setting and this really unique idea and this just like layer of optimism to everything.

Uh and that's kinda like that's that's the overall gist that I can give. Yeah, I agree I agree with you a lot of the in terms of like um general takeaways, like but I'm sure you checked it out last uh last year's S G F and that was first playable uh over there. Like me, Adam and James got to test it out too and we're like, wow, there's really something to this grid system but like you I think many people

shared that same fear, like will it get repetitive? And I think one of the ways that like I I'm still fairly early on in the final release, like I'm about to get to the end of the second level, but one of the early things that makes you see the potential in of the system already as like you're introduced to this big enemy and it has like a since it's a big enemy it has a fairly expansive grid to hack through but

Th uh there's like a a a defensive system that it has on its face where it has like four red blocks on it that like uh impossible and and to to set up contacts for people like Your your weapons do very little damage unless you like hack a uh a thing to leave them in an open state. And then once they're in an open state you can get like real critical damage in there to take their life bars.

Down fairly quickly, but this big enemy starts pulling up like actual like shields where you can't hack it, so you have to physically shoot at those first before you can start that hacking minigame and as you're shooting those separate blocks off it actually opens up like that portion of the grid in real time.

um as you're inter interacting with the w with both the hacking and the shooting, like almost in an asynchronous, to make it so you can do what you need to do to it, which is like, oh that's a really neat way to visualize

uh this this system and and the way that like you start you know getting upgrades and the uh putting debuffs on enemies through that hacking mini game is like really cool and also Well, I I wonder if I if the story will go more into this direction, but as it's I just like it's fresh in my mind.

There's like, you know, fairly early on in the story, as you mentioned, when you're going get into the lunar uh base and it has like a lot of like very sci-fi elements to it uh o obviously, but one of the things that really stuck out to me about the the world setting it's trying to tell is this lunafilament. that they uh emphasize and how it's it's basically a a g uh a big 3D printer that is

You can you can basically replace like any material like almost instantly. So like when you're in that beginning cutscene, some parts of the space station or facility are starting starting to wear and tear and get thrown off. So they don't even bother to like get that debris and try to get it on. It's like the the three D printer what is instead of the Just print new things. Yeah.

print new things instantaneously. They're like and they they they mentioned before Hughes, you know, buddies kinda get uh gut get murked at at the very opening uh parts of that game. Um that it's cheaper for them to just instantly

uh replace it with this 3D printer. Sure it's like it's less durable and a little bit cheaper, but because of the the time and efficiency, you just instantly replace it. And then so who cares about like the durability if you can just like instantly replace it. And then I I just recently came across this log in in the game where this is um scientist talking with his wife um

of Japanese descent and uh this the and this the conversation goes into like, oh, you know, about this certain wood in Japan that can like withstand over a thousand years, you know, like it's like very durable, very reliable. It got me thinking, I'm like, I wonder if the story

We'll start going to this it not I I I don't expect to be the main focus of the game, obviously it's the main focus between Hugh and Diana. But I wonder if it's there's something within the scientific context in that game that's like speaking to like this um conversation between like uh cheap but easily replaceable versus like durable but maybe more costly or more difficult to get but it's more reliable. I'm like I w I I kinda hope that the as I Read more logs in that game that it starts.

Yeah, opening a conversation like that's like, oh that's a really interesting thing to think about. Interesting thing that the game itself doesn't explicitly say, but there was like a conversation about it like a few weeks ago that um They designed certain areas and assets in the game to feel like it was AI-generated, even though it was like actually like handcraft.

Like they explicitly did that to kind of try and like hit like hit that vibe, considering that most of the stuff in this um environ in this environment has been crafted by like the AI, like computer IDIS. Which I think is interesting. Yeah, it's going to go for it, please. It's cool because you know like Like you said, that main narrative is really focused on Hugh and Diana, but the the data logs that you get, and you know, you can pick up dozens and dozens of little data logs that you can

audio logs essentially and that's kind of where it starts diving into a little more of like the thematic meat of it. And like you said, it does touch on like you know element of cheap manufacturing. Like and that's a that's you know, that's a real world issue too, where we Have cheap manufacturing that foregoes quality for mass-producing things. Um, and there's an element of, you know, you'll see people talk about there is an element of um

using AI to streamline things and how that removes the humanity from the process. And I'm not gonna say that this is a game that like really heavily tackles Gen AI or anything. But there is an element of that, of like the importance of of the human element to to creating things, even like manufacturing, like how that human element is still important.

I think the other thing that it that's a That three D printing kind of theme does for the game is Adds a really kind of like nice diversity to the locations that you're It's like you might think, you know, you're on the moon, so you're you're gonna be doing a lot of moon walking kind of thing, the very same science facility kind of thing. Because you have this 3D printing element.

It allows Capcom to kind of like have a lot of fun with environmental design. So you have one section that's like themed after Times Square in New York. And then you have one that's themed after like a really You know, dense forest. And so you have these very different environments that you're going through that are really refreshing for this kind of sci-fi game, especially like one set in space.

Yeah, IRB really, really digged the level design this early on in the game'cause it it's like even though it's like fairly linear in how you progress, it's just actually like stages that you're progressing through, which is like, you know, pretty nice and refreshing, all these considered in today's landscape. But like there's a lot of verticality to the movement and to the level design that I really enjoy because

You even though you're you have a linear path, you're it's still open enough to explore and like find like, you know, upgrade materials and uh hidden stashes and stuff like that. And the Even the structural design is like non uniform, like that Times Square location that

mentioned like because like it it doesn't it's it doesn't conform to like structure as we know it because sometimes like entire like interiors could be like on it on it on its like side so like, you know, the dinner table and the chairs are like on the wall instead because of the way that like Things happening in this facility, the way that the lunafilament um interacts with things, like it kind of just messes with the structure and like how. With how gravity's supposed to work. Doesn't really

seems to apply apply to like what the environment is like uh showing. It's like, oh it's like I'm out navigating this like building and then like these things that expect to be on the ground are like not not on the ground, like on the ceiling, on the roof. Okay, this is kinda weird, great. Yeah, placed with perspective a lot in really fun ways and kind of like almost procedural generation idea, but like something messed up halfway through the procedural generation idea. Yeah, yeah.

Mikhail, you've been touching on the the scheme as well, right? Yeah, I Like you know you mentioned the embargo and how it was like a few days earlier but There's like a bit more to that story. So uh Capcom started doing this a bit uh like I think it was a f maybe for Monster Hunter stories three was the first time I noticed it where uh Actually before that, you know when Monster Hunter Rise came to PC they did this thing where you couldn't uh

do like compare different platforms until like either launch day or like close to launch. It was separate from the review thing. And they've started doing this for a lot of games. So with Pragmata What happened is uh the review embargo specifically said you can't compare different GPUs, you can't compare different platforms and stuff. So

I had to like figure out how to do my coverage because like I I was gonna handle the platform comparison first, right? But I decided to take it in another angle. The the most important port from my perspective was the switch to version because It's like a new Capcom big game coming there day one. So I decided to focus on that for when Hayes review went up.

So uh the switch two version is it's like it has the capcom, like what they've been doing for a long time. They just leave the frame rate uncapped. Uh and this is like they did this with Monster Hunter Stories 2 on Switch 1, and that led to it being a fantastic experience on Switch 2. But I'm not really fond of or not like not happy with them. doing the same thing here because I don't want them to release Switch three games on Switch two. So

Uh essentially the Switch 2 version, when you play docked, it's it's pretty good, I'd say, all things considered. Uh but handheld is like a mess. Like I wouldn't even recommend it for handheld play.

And if you're one of the people who has like a switch two and any other platform and you're gonna play it on your T V mainly, why would you even play it on the Switch Two in the first place? So that was my compar like that was my takeaway from the first article I did. Uh So the second thing I did the whole platform comparison thing and now that I have a PS five pro I also include that and I think Pragmata is one of the biggest upgrades from like PS five and Xbox to PS five pro because

I don't know if, I think Hayes played it on base PS5, right? Yeah, I did, yeah. Did you play it in the quality mode or in the performance mode? I did performance because I usually do performance. I mean I I've fiddled around with quality a bit, but I typically focus on performance mode. Okay, so the uh the quality mode basically is it feels like it's made for people who have VRR displays.

Because it's like always under 60, but it's not all it's not a locked 60. So like I can understand even I would have done performance mode because it it felt perfect when I played it. But the PS5 Pro version is like a massive upgrade. Like even in uh even in the high framerate mode which has a 120 FPS target, it's obviously like another uncapped thing.

But that looked dramatically better than the PS5 version. And then the the default quality mode, it literally looked like uh it looked like a I was playing a cross gen game on PS5 for the first time. It was a massive upgrade. And the be beyond just the technical stuff, my favorite thing about the PS five version is the dual sense features. Like it has

the haptics when you're moving the the hacking cursor using the face buttons. It has adaptive triggers for the guns. It even has the light bar, which uh Like Josh wasn't a fan of on the PS4 controller, but on PS5 controller it's really good. And it has gyro support, which is well implemented. So I appreciate that.

So like my takeaway in the end was like while it may be obvious to some people that oh yeah the most powerful console handles it better, but uh I think the difference is notable enough. So like if you're if you're curious about how it is, like I have a lot of comparison images over there. And uh it's a bit like

It's a bit weird that Capcom just left the frame rate uncapped on Switch two because if they had given a thirty FPS cap option, I would have just said, Yeah, play it on Switch Two. It's a good portable experience. But right now If you want a stable frame rate, you have to play it on a PC handheld. And the Steam Deck doesn't have DLSS. It has FSR. And FSR doesn't look as good. So you're getting a slightly blurrier image. But it feels better to play.

Or if you play it on Switch 2, you get slightly better visuals, but it just does not feel good at all. And I've seen a lot of people say that, oh, VRR makes it good on Switch 2, but I it absolutely is not working at all or not working correctly. From what I can tell. Like I did slow motion capture this to check. It just does not look or feel good handheld at all on switch two.

But uh as for the game itself, I'm happy to eat crow on that because I kept thinking it'll be uh it'll be one of those games which people just hype up and it just doesn't end up doing anything for me. The demo was like a good taste of it being a good game, but I think now that I've played like a I'd say about like four or five hours of the full game, like in one save, besides like testing it like one thousand times on platforms. I think it's really good. Uh very happy with it and

Uh the stage structure is probably my favorite aspect of it because it just like I can just do a stage or parts of a stage, take a break and do something else. So I'm very happy with that.

Yeah, I guess to provide context on when you mentioned me about the controllers because i i'm playing it on pc and i use the dual shock four for pc some people don't remember the the the the way that the light bars work on dual shock for the dual shock pretty different because dual shock five you have to keep applying at the touchpad on it

for your light. While Dual Shock 4, like the light bar was like this like kind of big s sort of triangle uh by the U like the by the mini US USB port at the front of it. So like it can like be pretty uh distracting if like if it if it's like growing pretty like a pretty bright color and it's like you're playing in front of a PC monitor. So you'll see it in your PCs on your PC screen. Sitting pretty close to it.

Were you able to disable it using like D S four windows or something? I believe that has some option for it. I just decided to do the the the manual method or just putting duct tape over it. I don't care. Oh I'm not I'm I'm not I'm not above that. We call that an engineering solution. That's right.

Yes. Yeah. Um but yeah, like when you're playing Pragmata on on it a bright white light twenty four seven and and then like at the beginning it's just like you just see that little blurry white thing on your screen I'm like Could change colors during the hacking on the I don't think so. I I I didn't get that far to to before I just like covered it up. I just did like within the first twenty minutes of the game.

I need the s**t out of the way Like aside from like the gameplay and the story that we've mentioned, like I also really like the the home base shelter um aspect of the game because As you're progressing through stages, there's like checkpoints that uh Mikhail alluded to where you can get like a fast travel point back to your home base and then you can just fast travel back to that checkpoint when you're ready to set out again. This is where you

Uh deal with stuff like its upgrades, go to the shop and get a little bit of a little bit of a little stuffed upgrade your character, whether it's like hey, I wanna have this weapon available to me when I when I'm about to set out again.

you have to like unlock that feature to like equip that gun because like guns and weaponry in this game are fairly limited and like they're not they're not persistent in terms of like once you run out of bullets it's say four bullets on like the shotgun equivalent you kinda just toss it. You don't you don't like reload, you know there's like no no refillable am ammo for them. You just find another one in the stage. We get the ambo or it'll swap it out of your other um power weapon.

Yeah, like all the things. Yeah. Yeah. This home base thing is really cool because um this is also where you get a lot of like small time interactions with Diana, so like you g you can chit chat with her about stuff to kinda learn more about both of these characters and also throughout the The levels sometimes you'll find these things called like RE. Um I forgot the exact what the what it stu stood for. Read earth memory. Yes, thank you. And these are just like

real things that you would find in the in the road, like it's a basketball, a slide, globe, etcetera. And you can give these to Diana and like and that that'll like uh I populate your home base when you like kinda re Um recreate these things and then we're going to do that.

to decorate your home base and Diana um interacts with them and that like the the kind of paint a picture of like Diana's personality like yes she's a kid and definitely acts like a kid but she has she is an android or robot so she has that intelligence and processes process Like a robot logistically, so like what are the first times you what are the first moments you see

with Diana when she's like hank hacking for the first time. She goes like one zero one one one zero zero zero like just speaking binary and like uh saying that out loud is really funny but like sh she it does that you know that's classic sci-fi trip of like a robot trying to understand human behavior and conditions why people would engage in such activities. So when you're trying to tell Robot, like, you know

Why this globe is such a wonderful thing, she kind of ponders about it. It's like, I don't I don't really get it, you know, but as she's messing around to the globe. You know, um you you she's like pointing out like oh there's there's Venezuela, there's Denmark, etcetera and the and just fixing things like there's no like it's funny hearing that from like, you know, someone that looks like a kid, that acts like a kid, but like, you know, in the real world that

Ver like no no kid would ever be able to like distinguish these places when when they're looking at a globe for the first time because they have to you know human condition. They're not a robot, they don't know they don't know all the locations where they are immediately. Yeah, I hadn't thought to mention this before and like obviously won't spoil anything, but like If people are wondering, like there is a reason why this Android is designed as a kid. Like there is a narrative reason for that.

It's not just like this random thing. Mm-hmm. Interested to learn more. Find find out. And also like one of the the the the coolest things, and this is alluded to in the demo, the sketchbook demo, like when you completed that demo, you'd see like certain like hand drawn things by Diana when you completed that demo. There's also s someone in the marketing as well.

Uh eventually like you know, when you're getting these um REMs and these and you do certain things to get these uh cabin coins, eventually when you speak enough of Diana

Collect those cabin coins. She'll actually show you like new hand-drawn artwork that like she's she's illustrated. It does look like you know a child drew it. It's like, oh that's really endearing and really cool that there's multiple of these that you can earn and like kind of see like that's how they can You tape'em up around the base like like you would put'em on the fridge if it was your actual kid. So cool.

And and then you also get uh uh like a new character in that shelter called Cabin that you unlock early on and he seems cool too. I like Cabin. He's probably like the best weird little guy of the year so far. He's basically like a computer tower with legs.

just as like, I mean, Booting it for the first time, like it it is that like ho uh classic like you know, old school PC boot up of like black screen white text like sc scrolling down when he's booting up for the first time very It's um I I also really dig the sound design of the game, like the overall OST and like the sound design of like how certain effects

sound especially like throughout the hacking and when you're and also when like you go to the title screen for the first time first before you even get to like the main menu you have like this soothing melodic a thing that says, Hey, press start and then when you press start to get to the main menu, the title screen, it'll start going to that do do do do do do do do do do do like almost like a sun deep sci fi pivot to that uh sound which is really Striking to me.

Yeah. And you you mentioned progression. I think like the progression is surprisingly good in this game too and kind of ties into the whole system where it's like You're constantly upgrading things and constantly it really lets you lean into what you want, like which specific weapons you want to improve or Like I I you have three different categories that you can improve of like base stats of

Use health, your weapon damage, and your hacking. And so like I completely maximized hacking first before I almost hit anything for health and weapons. 'Cause I th I thought the hacking was really cool. Yeah. It really lets you lean into what you want. I think that's the crux of what I really like about Progmod is how well every little element works together and it it all just feels There's an intentionality to everything. It all kinda like clicks together nicely.

Yeah, I'm really surprised that like it like it gives you like it it doesn't really skimp on like the upgrade tools. Like you as as long as you're willing to explore a little to that level, you're constantly getting like, you know, have enough resources to like get you upgraded. throughout it so on like you I invested mostly on like the pistol uh first to maximize damage and like uh uh and the bullet capacity and all that stuff and then the hacking next after that.

And also I also for the other currency I wanted to get better mobility options so I invested in thrusters and dash dodge mechanics. That feels really good when it's a great colour. And um and the but either way, like you've like you said, it's up to you on what you want to focus on. So I've really found like that playstyle of like hey I have I'm more mobile during encounters and I also uh invested in like the shotgun equivalent and

the grenade launcher equivalent that like you that makes enemies fall to the ground. And like those have been like my go tos for right now and I wonder if it's gonna uh I can't wait to see like, you know, other options later on. It just it feels nice that like I don't have to really feel like I uh like uh the game is like very scarce with its resource. Um how often it uh gives you resources. Like, no, it's fairly it's fairly generous about it.

you explore a little and so that's why I'm more confident in investing those in things I want to play around with now rather than like saving it up hoping that like I'll find the thing that's to me. It's the last thing to mention too is like I didn't expect this game to be one that had like

A pretty robust postgame s content selection. But it actually does. Like you finish the main story and you get this whole like post game side quest called like mysterious signal it gives you a it gives you like stronger versions of bosses to go back and fight and then the Challen like extra challenge missions, uh with some like neat rewards too at the end and it

It's the kind of thing where you know, main story is like twelve to fourteen hours ish. You could probably spend another four or five on post game content too, which was a nice surprise.

How come has been really good about that? Like they they're like same thing with like Resident Evil Recvi. I mean, like there was really good incentives to go back and continue playing that game after you finished it once because that the resource shocked for modifiers and there's like trophies you can get to kinda optimize the way that you play through that game with a more upgraded arsenal uh through that and harder difficulty mode to compo

put you up to that power la or make making it so like even though you have like new tools to play around with, like the game is still gonna make uh ensure that like it's still challenged. Cap Capcom has been really good about Ga a game after the game's done.

I wanna go back to what uh Hayes started with both here and in the review, because I just really do appreciate and agree with Hayes on this, that, you know, Capcom has maybe the best like wealth of franchise and IP under them that they work with and have, you know, across a variety of genres with, you know, Street Fighter and Monster Hunter and Mega Man and

um, Resident Evil and all this stuff, but they you know, Pragmata's been in the works for a while, but even uh with some of the other games that um Hayes mentioned, like Exoprimal and Kinitsugami, the fact that they still spend time, money, people, effort on like new ideas, not just like IP, but also like mechanically, um, in terms of like what type of game this is and like Um new characters, new setting, no no established canon or anything like that, just something brand new.

you know, I d I don't know how well Pragmana's gonna be do like uh in terms of sales or whatever and I don't know what their expectations are, but the fact that they kind of go through the all this effort to try something new and uh inventive

I really appreciate them for that. They're not just stuck in their like, you know, rut of let's just churn out all of our franchises and you know while m well Capcom also does, you know, like multimedia approaches to things like Monster Hunter and Resident Evil. Um Or whatever, the fact that they're also including in their kind of variety of output something like this, I really do appreciate it. Appreciate that. Yeah and I think like

Progmata is something that genuinely feels new. Like that hacking shooting combination is genuine genuinely unlike anything else I've played. I think that's really interesting. And like like you said, I felt the same way about like Exoprog. 'Cause the way that game did like cooperative PvP shooting was was really fascinating. Uh and I appreciate willingness to experiment. Yeah, absolutely. You know what, uh I think uh

I feel like there's a something not a lot of people have picked up on. It's like the they've taken that Yakuza Club Maharaja mini game and put it into that's what Pragmada's hacking game is literally. In the end. And it's it's fantastic for me because when I first played Yakuza Zero I had like forty hours just in that mini game. So like when I saw it in the demo, I was like, wow, f someone's finally done something like that again.

Yeah, just clear I'm not trying to say like this has never, ever, ever been done before, it's brand new and whatever, but you know that's a little bit. No, no, I didn't mean it that way. I just I just meant like yeah. I feel like at any time someone says like, Wow, this is inventive or new, some, you know, devil's advocate somewhere is gonna be like, Nuh uh that was done first over here and it's like, Okay, I know it's not literally

brand new, like no one's ever even thought of this before. But just the fact that Capcom's taking like, you know, something a little bit different, putting their own twist on it. Um, it's not just a carbon copy of something that's been done before. not like Resident Evil, it's not like Monster Hunter. It's, you know, not just a third-person shooter. It's just kind of an interesting combination. Um and that goes for both mechanics still.

character settings, it's the fact that they're doing something like this. Like I think that's extremely, extremely interesting and cool. It I think it's a a really big design accompl game design accomplishment and what this game does because when you think about it, like when this game is first unveiled.

Four to five years ago, like this game was in development health for a while until we re-emerged. And like thinking about like how many times they had to re iterate and reiterate on like the on this game in general because

You you think about like how it turned out, it's like, man, you i i if you think about like how game development generally works, it's wonder how many times they had to reinvent the wheel And behind the scenes of development to kinda get to where they are now.'Cause this must have been Uh this uh the a nightmare to create.

This is one that like when interviews eventually come out six months, twelve months down the road on like development process gonna be fascinating to see how it came together and like how many times they rebooted it or whatever it might be, you know. Sometimes with these long in depth games, sometimes you kind of get a feeling where

either they at some point just decide, whatever, we gotta push it over the finish line. We just have to get it out there and maybe to its detriment. I'm just speaking kind of vaguely here. Um But in this case, this game, you know, it was kind of the butt of jokes for a while there in terms of like, Oh, pragmata's delayed again, this game is in hell or whatever. Like no way this is gonna be anything good. Um some people might say that. But the fact that they uh It's not the deep down now.

Yeah, deep down, that website is still up. Or at least it was last time I checked. Uh it's I don't know if it's ever been officially cancelled. We'll just see that like it'll just show up at Summer Game Fest or something. I'm joking. But anyways, the fact that that Capcom just

you know, took they took their medicine or wh whatever analogy you want to use. They c they put this game, they gave it the time that they that it needed. And maybe like Hayes said, maybe we'll learn about some of the things that were like in the initial, you know, like prototype and maybe concepts that they had but maybe didn't work or had to change, then like how did it become the game that it ended up being today? It'll be cool to see.

We just have to hope that also that the developers like um that Capcom had like expectations that are, you know, reasonable and manageable.'Cause sometimes you see like other studios try new IPs and either they never s they never make it to release because They don't think they're gonna get, you know, an unreasonable return on it, usually from like some of the bigger Western studios, but in all it's all over the place.

Or I think of um recent stories and it's not all analogous, but like the Kazan team is as far as I know, more or less disbanded dis despite that game having decent, seemingly commercial and critical success. But like like it maybe didn't set the world on fire, but it was just unfortunate to see like, oh, I guess that team doesn't get a second crack out it. Like what a bummer.

Cidus Hope Pragmata doesn't, you know, sell I don't underneath unreasonable expectations and therefore it no longer it doesn't is not seen as success success. Yeah, it would suck if it would suck if Capcom decided, Oh, that wasn't worthwhile, let's never do that again or whatever. Like, you know, it was a pro it was a it was a mistake to be experimental,'cause I don't think it is. I think we're not going to be able to

There's there's one thing that uh tells me that Capcom had a bit of confidence in Pragmata more than a few other games that you know, like Hayes brought up Exoprimal and Kunitsukami, both games I really like. In fact Uh Exoprimal I I remember people com comparing it to Babylon's Fall, a game which I have the Platinum Trophy of which I'll never stop bringing up. But yeah, Exoprimal was pretty amazing in how

You had the PvP aspect and then it ended up being in this massive over-the-top PvE thing, which had like unlike anything I had played before. But then both of those games, Kunitsugami and Extra Primal, were in Game Pass day one. So that tells me that either Microsoft made them a good enough offer or Capcom wanted to get some financial backing for that. But with Pragmata, they didn't bother doing that. It's just a near full price game, premium game, no no bullshit.

No microtransactions or anything. You just buy it, you get the complete thing. Even the deluxe pack which they're selling is all just cosmetic nonsense. You don't need it. And it's just one DLC thing, so I think it just shows that they were a bit more confident. Like they probably towards the end of development when they had like tests or whatever going on and impressions.

Signs were pointing to a to a positive reception and it's kind of shown because I don't think anyone dislikes anything about it. Everyone I know who's played it is just like enjoying it a lot. And some people have already finished it in like two days since launch, so yeah. It's interesting to look at like you know Pokemon was in development a long time and we obviously know like triple A games have have way too long of development cycles, but like

Capcom has been brin pretty good in terms of scheduling their releases. Like this year alone you have Resident Evil Requiem and Monster Hunter Stories three and Pragmata and we still have Oni Musha which is scheduled for later this year. And there's actually a Mega Man collection in there also. Yeah yeah, Mega Man collection too. And it's just kind of amazing that we have all of these things within the span of six months of each other.

Mm-hmm. It seems like Capcom and Nintendo are the group are the publishers that I can think of off the top of my head that really keep that good cadence and are very like strictly. Like on the Switch One era for sure, I feel like right now it's a bit iffy. Like they did release uh Pokopia and Tomodachi Life but then like I don't know it The the the vibe I'm getting is that people are not happy with the cadence of Switch 2 releases compared to Switch 1.

And that's probably like unrealistic expectations because twenty seventeen was like a year you're never gonna see from Nintendo ever again. They had like banger after banger every single month. And now you just have like games getting more expensive and they're padding it with like the you know, like the ten or twenty dollar upgrades for existing games. So uh I'd say Nintendo in the Switch One era for sure now Mm. It remains to be seen. That's fair.

But the cadence of releases is good'cause you look at like Square Enix, right, when they have that span of all those new items. the worst example. Think of if Square Enix had scheduled it better, like something like Harvest Stella might have been able to get more traction. really become something if it had room to breathe, you know?

Yeah, it's like in like of all those games that they released in twenty twenty two, you can actually look at like the Steam numbers and tell that, oh no, if they had given it a bit more time to breathe, if they'd given it a bit more marketing, if they'd had it not just be on Switch and PC so that there could be more organic discussion about the game that wasn't just limited to

people that play that only play on uh Nintendo consoles and people that only play on PC. I I that game should have been a much bigger success for them. And it and it wasn't the game itself that was the limiting facts. And they didn't even release the like I'll never let this go. They never released the soundtrack on CD and they regen locked the digital soundtrack. Like I'll just never let that go. Like and it's such an amazing soundtrack. Yeah.

I I keep remembering that. I hate it so fucking much. I keep seeing more and more people come around on Harvestella. I haven't played it yet. Okay, yeah. I have two random kind of comments to bring up, well square and ex related. One, like we just passed the four year anniversary of Kingdom Hearts 4 announcement. Yeah. Like it's been four years since they announced it. Um, and that's obviously like a big budget, you know biggest project possible that you could get from Square Enix almost.

But also I'm still just kinda dumbfounded, like Bravely Default came out. It was a Switch two exclusive, like the remaster I mean. Then it just kinda s shadow dropped on PC and Xbox and it's still not on PlayStation. It's just kinda like This should be like Why is this? even like a c why is this still a thing? Like it that you just have these like staggered release and even when it does come out for other platforms, yeah. It's like it's still not available on PlayStation. Still not available.

Like even even if like Bravely Default is the exception, the fact that they've said that they were gonna stop that shit means that because it keeps happening, nobody's gonna believe you. I don't know, it's weird. in me. Uh that someone really put it into perspective and it made me go like it kind of made my eyes wide for like a split second. The since the announc that announcement of Kingdom Hearts for, Falcom has started the Calvard arc.

And almost like like what three games still cover our arc within that time frame of it getting announced. I'm like fuck. Uh so also somewhat uh somewhat related. Um I've actually been I actually started playing the Tales of Bazaria remaster and like this is only like two Tales games ago, so it still in a way feels recent, but like oh yeah, this was

Nine years ago, when this came out, there's been two Tales games in nine years. I mean, besides like some mobile entries or whatever, but just like So like if you're like a teenager now. Like, I would not be surprised if we have there's a bunch of teenage ta uh trails fans because you get to play a new game every year or whatever, right? Like where we could when we were younger, like with Tales or Final Fantasy, like when had a game like every other year at least.

Um there's been some discussions about um I know we're kind of gone on a different tangent here, but there's been some discussions about like people don't get as maybe attached to franchises because they take like six years for a new entry. Um so you get like Two entries in your childhood and that's it, which is a bit different. But trails doesn't do that.

When I was doing that um piece last year of Stubroba Wars, um like uh the Chronicling almost like, you know, the original generation series, but like when I when I started looking at like the cadence, like the the release years of like those games, they were new Super Robot Wars games releasing like yearly for two decades up until like the PS3 generation. You're like every year there was always a new game for that for like twenty to twenty-five years. What the fuck man?

It's crazy too,'cause Tales of Arise was like far and away the most successful Tales game of all time. Like not even close. You look at like uh look at everything Sega's done with Persona since Persona five blew up. And And I am co Kinda dropped the ball in doing anything with Hails after its most successful entry. Atlas has been doing really funny things with Persona though very very recently with their whole merch drop on Yeah.

Well to kind of just loop this back to the original discussion of Pragmata, I think we heard, you know, m Hayes' kind of well, I'll say full thoughts, but of course the written thoughts as well are on the written review up on the site at RPGsite.net. So uh go ahead and check that that out and give it a read.

I do want to show also shout out the I also I also want to shout out too I I'm playing it on uh English voiceovers. The English VA is really good, but what really sold me on it when someone uh pointed it out before I uh before release, the voice actor of Malice from Xenoblade. Voices Hugh in this game. Oh really? Bye. Ha ha. Yeah, it's real and then like once I once someone uh pointed that out, I was like, Oh fuck, you can hear it That's pretty good.

See Diana's voice actress in a Xenoblade game too. Yeah, I think she's like a n a a nopon, I believe. Um one of the nopon characters was also yeah. So it's basically just a Xenoblade game. How is Diana's voice actress?'Cause young young like girls in English are sometimes depending on the voice actress, I they're I think they're gonna be iffy for me. She's pretty good. Great. Awesome. Yeah. Nails it. That's natural. Yeah.

Perfect, perfect, cool. Yeah, it seems like, you know, uh children characters are hard to nail, you know, in general. So sometimes like uh like they they turn they turn me off uh when they're not done well, but when they're when they're done really well they can be very endearing. So good to hear that it's on that side. I know she's a robot, but yeah. We also do have uh Mikhail's like he spoke to it here, but his uh performance uh comparison for Pragmana is also uh a feature up on the site.

Okay, with that, uh we have three other games listed here that we're gonna touch in on before going into like articles, features, and news. Um, in no real particular order here. This one I just kind of threw in here because I figure this week is a good week to talk about it, why not? Um and and Adam can speak to this a little bit because he's been watching me play it. Uh over the last week uh I had finished up uh I c I still can't play Starfield'cause my my progression is still. Soft.

Locked before we started recording. I'm like they they still haven't patched it and I'm not gonna console trickery around it. So I'm just gonna I'm just gonna put that down until they fix it. If they ever fix it. I played the Metroid games. Um J uh Dread and Beyond just to catch up on those. And then I I was thinking, I was like, what what should I play next? Is there anything productive I can play uh in terms of the podcast, in terms of the site?

And i this summer in Adam, right, June, uh I believe the Gothic one remake is slated to come out. And I feel I I am currently slated to review it, but I'd never played the original, so I decided to play the original Gothic. Uh Two thousand one RPG from Piranabytes, uh PC only at the time, though uh we'll talk about that a little bit. Which

Yeah, let me just interrupt real quick. Like Gothic is one of those games that like you hear especially from like European developers, a lot of people making games now. they're calling it like this is gothic inspired or a gothic like or, you know, my favorite RPG when I was growing up was Gothic.

And like it's a really beloved kind of like European RPG and I had I was like vaguely familiar with like okay, I've you know, I've seen some videos, I know a little bit about it, but never I've never played it myself either. So like this is definitely something like maybe academically, but also just because it seems enjoyable. Um

for from a game for a game from that era. Like something that I think is just worthwhile to actually like been watching Brian play through it. Like there are a lot of things inspired by this game to kind of go back to the source. I think that's kind of a cool little like, you know project to go through to just play it.

And shout out to the Gog Preservation Program because I bought it on Steam. I tried to play it and it would not load. Apparently there's certain Steam Workshop things that if you click the right buttons in the right order, you can make it work.

But I was just like, I wonder if the if the Gog version works out s out of the box. And it does. So good good shout out to Gog. It has like all like the the cause this has like a this game has like a fan following for the last 25 years. It came out in 2001. Um so it has like

custom patchers and you know allows allows the game to work in a sixty four bit environment with more than you know a gig of RAM, things like that. Uh so it works out of the box on Gog. Good good shout out to them. So that's where I've been Succeeding in their mission statement.

Yeah. And there's other things you can do. Like there's tons of mods available, but I'm just basically playing it out of the box with like mods that are just to help it run, basically. Allow it to alt tab and work in a window. Um Is Gothic. I'm about twenty hours in. I'm in like chapter four of six. So I haven't completed it, but I've played enough to like really get a feel for it, I think. Um and is is Gothic a good game? Like is this a game that I'd say like

Yes, RPG fans should play this. It's what it's one of those things that's a that's a difficult question to answer without like couching it in a lot of caveats. I really don't think it is. But not in like a way that I'm disappointed. But I think it really is just kind of an age thing where a lot of things it feels kind of like a prototype of a game. A very f a very inventive prototype, a very a prototype that I can see why it's um

been listed as kind of like the go to, like, we're gonna compare our game to Gothic because why not? Or or Morrowind or whatever like that. Um that's so to tee it up just very quickly, um The the game takes place in basically a s penal colony, a slave colony. Um there's a there's a kingdom that you are given a very, very basic, very high level

uh very pixelated like intro cinematic for that's at war and as part of the war effort they need to mine this magic ore to use in their weaponry. Like ore is literally like the currency of the game. So anyone who has been convicted of like a crime gets thrown into this penal colony, which is basically uh a bunch of outcasts inside like a magic dome, like a barrier that they cannot escape. There are multiple camps in this place. Um, everyone here is a former, you know.

Criminal or slave, or I guess former criminal, current slave. And then your character who's like a nameless hero is thrown in, and you're basically like presumed innocent, but you're stuck here anyway. They don't care that you're innocent. Like you're here, so you might as well be, you know, you might as well be here.

Um the game is set up very gamey, if if that makes sense. Like it's it it doesn't really shoot for realism. There are three camps and you are chosen you are basically directed to pick one of them. And the camps are very like very straightforwardly straightforwardly named. There's the old camp, there's the new camp.

And then there's the sect camp, S-E-C-T, and those are like the people that are more like um spiritual or or magical. And you have to choose them. Uh and all these camps are full of like bad people. There's no like protagonist or antagonist among them. Like they're very they're all very hierarchical hierarchical. They're all very like

um, almost fascist. Like they're they're not good people. Uh they they they really like their their stratified societies. They really value, you know, strength and ability. Also, every character in this game, basically every character in this game is an adult man, an adult white man. There are no people of color, there are no children, and any women in the game are shown as either like uh, you know,

slaves or or concubines basically or like prostitutes. So on that front, very much a Early two thousands. And I'm not and I'm not saying that as an excuse. It's really quite sad. It's it's Definitely a pretty big blemish on the game. I haven't gotten to the very end, so maybe I'll be surprised, but it's something I hope the remake can do better. That's something they can they can for sure uh tweak from. But definitely an area of improvement, uh like an avenue for improvement.

Yeah, so uh the game has a very uh open ended structure in terms of like UI in terms of progression. Like uh you do have like a character screen. Uh but your your stats are pretty your stats are pretty basic. You have like strength, which is how you use weapons, like martial weapons. You have dexterity, which is how you use bows or crossbows, and then you have mana, which you use for spells.

And a lot of this surprise was I've played Elex, which is one of Piranabytes last games before they unfortunately went under in 2025. Also Uh draws heavily from Gothic, which was their first game. In terms of in in Elect there were like the the um the barbarian group and there were like the technical group and things like that. In Gothic, it's all more of a medieval fantasy, so there's a little bit less there's no there it's all low tech.

The old camp is basically like the Brotherhood of Steel. Uh the new camp is more uh I guess kind of more like the Enclave to use some points of comparison. Uh They're they're both basically very like power or war driven societies in in their own ways. And then the sect camp is like They're they're ending up they end up being like a driving force for the story because this is gonna sound really dumb and I don't know how to explain it in a way that it doesn't make it sound asinine or very silly.

But there there's there's like herbs in this game that they smoke and then whenever they smoke it, they go and see visions from what they believe is their god called the sleeper. And this ends up being like a a central figure of the game is who is the sleeper, what is he driving them to do. Um, and also everyone wants to try to get out of this barrier in erected by the kingdom, this barrier that keeps them like shackled to this colony.

And when I played Drova, I didn't realize that in Drova, it's a very similar setup where there's basically like a magic dome. that you can't escape it'cause if you do, you'll instantly die. And it's like, oh, that literally is lifted straight from Gothic. Not even like reinterpreted. That's basically one for one kind of what it is. If you if you go to the edge of the map, a lightning bolt hits you and you're dead. Like that's basically what it is. Um

The uh the gameplay is very rudimentary. This is not a game you play for for engaging gameplay. Uh it's It's an action RPG, which kind of surprised me. I thought it'd be more like turn based or at least real time with pause, but it's completely real time. Uh if you wield your weapon, um And then you hold the control button'cause uh it does have controller support now'cause of the switch version and things like that, but I'm playing it on the PC where

Uh it's not Gothic One classic, it's Gothic One and it doesn't have the controller support baked in natively. I'm sure you can make it work, but I'm w with a keyboard. And as you hold control, you basically stance up with your weapon and pressing uh, you know, W A S and D.

Pressing W makes you swing it forward. Pressing A makes you swing it left. Pressing S makes you like block him. Pressing D makes you swing at right. And there's a few other things you can do, but it's very clunky. It's it's not good. I'm sure it was fine at the time and it's fine now, like it's workable. But it it's not good. It definitely another product of its time. Um

So I tried to answer the question as I played this. Like why was this so in why was this so inspiring to a lot of people? Like what what what is there about this game to take away from it? And I think there's kind of two things. One, the world space is actually pretty small. This is not a game that

focuses on um quantity of like destinations or tasks or or or requests. It's maybe maybe the anti Crimson Desert. I don't know. Um I haven't played Crimson Desert Smooth. That's not fair. But what happened I heard that's what Pragmata was, the anti Crimson Desert. Someone said that I mean, I'm not... Whoever made that thumbnail wasn't joking, I don't think.

Well, let let me actually put some meat behind that so it's not just a dumb statement. What I mean by that is that the world space is pretty small. Like in ch this game is divided into chapters and in chapter one, you will you will explore eighty to ninety percent of the world space, like the the main camps in the center.

There's a camp on the left of the screen, there's a camp on the right of the of the map, there's like the orcs, which are to the I believe the south, and then there's like goblins to the and I might begin some of the directions wrong, but what happens is is as as you progress through the quest. The world space changes. At first slightly and then less slightly. I won't I wouldn't say majorly. I think they were like technically limited at the time.

And you could argue that they were just trying to preserve the world space because of resource management. They don't have to create many multiple environments. They can just they have a cast of NPCs, probably like Forty named characters in total, about fifteen of them being really important.

And they can, you know, they each have quests for you. They can they uh, you know, in each chapter they can move them around. So you'll be like, Oh, it's Lester. I first met him at the sect camp, but now he's helping me at the at the tower fort, you know, sort of thing. And he's got a new quest for me this chapter. Um, and there's a little bit of persistence from chapter to chapter, of course, like which can't you join and things like that.

So I kinda like the idea of a game that reuses his world space like that and uses story Progression to Mark the progression of time. And then if

a c a developer is clever enough to really have some persistence based on like your choices or the outcomes of events or things like that. Uh I think that that is a that is an idea or an archetype that I think could be forever enduring or implemented in many different ways. So that's one thing I look at Like instead of some game worlds where you kinda like visit an area, then you like complete it. Complete it, check it off the list, and then you move to the next one. This game's not built.

Age Origin or sorry, uh I guess Dragon Age, but like Dragon Age or uh even like Xenoblade one, where you just kinda go from region to region. And of course that's fine too. Like there's nothing wrong with that style, but I think Gothic style is a certain style that maybe Western RPGs have kind of gotten away from. It's been more like, let's just make the map bigger and put more stuff in it and make the map even bigger and put more stuff in it.

And just say, No, just try making the map smaller and then still then put more stuff in it and you know, you'll have to you'll have to do that slightly differently, but I think it cre can create a different style or different feeling of game.

Uh certain areas where Gothic comes up short is that even though you pick a camp at the beginning, apparently after and I I realize this because I played chapters two, three, and four, even though like at the beginning it's like you gotta pick a s you gotta pick a camp and you can't you can't go back on your choice. After you

Do the story pretty much is the same regardless of what who you picked. And that could just be a limitation at the time. It was the first game. I don't know if it's realized better in the sequels or anything like that. So um that's something where I think if you were to make the game quote unquote bigger, that's something you could do is just make that initial faction choice more meaningful.

Like don't be afraid to lock the player out of you chose this group, therefore you can't do this questline, or if you chose this group, therefore these people will always be hostile to you. Like I think more games should be not afraid to like inconvenience the player in small ways.

As long as the game is scoped so that you, you know, it's not a hundred hours, and then you can you can re you can replay it and then you can pick the other option to see what you missed or, you know, whatever. Give some meaning to that. Uh I also do think that it's just kind of a clever tool set in terms of like what you're allowed to do. Um Like for instance, there was there was one part of the uh as a true RPG in terms of like having choice or consequence, not in terms of like

Either be violent or be peaceful. Like that's kind of like the most binary way to do it. But there's one part where I had to get a crystal that was up on a high ledge that I couldn't reach. And the two ways that I found you could get it are either you help a guy out, you you give him like a deed to an abandoned fort so that he can like make it his home, and then he teaches you telekinesis, and then you can use that on the crystal to levitate it towards you.

Or you can just put points into acrobatics. And then drink a speed potion and then just jump really far. And then you can get there anyway. Without using telekinesis. And the quest doesn't tell you to do either of those things. The quest log is a little bit more minimal. There's no waypointing. There's no um

The the maps that you get are diegetic, like you can't pull up a map unless you buy a map, and then when you pull it up, your character has to actually take it out of their inventory and look at it. It's not um it's not just a UI element, it's a game element, if that makes sense. And then like if you're doing a quest where someone has to mark on your map where to find something.

They'll say, like, hey, I'll give you another map. So you have to go to your inventory and select that map to actually see what they gave you. So I I I like the the little bit of like lived-in feeling of that. Um so Uh basically now with now that gothic, I'm su I'm probably gonna finish it this weekend. Now with that behind me, I'll have a little bit more um

Of a framework to understand. Like I know when the remake back in like 2019, wasn't it? Like it was like five years ago, six years ago at this point when it first did its like initial playable test. Yeah, I know people didn't like the initial demo. Yeah. I'm not sh I'm not entirely sure why. I didn't have the context.

Yeah, so I'm basically I I would have hated the whole reason I'm doing this is I would have hated to go into Gothic remake and been like, I don't know what this game's like. I don't know why people are comparing like basically I didn't want to come from a place of ignorance. So Now, hopefully I can say like, oh, they did this different and it's better. They did this different and it's worse. Oh, they kept the spirit of the game here. Oh, they lost the spirit of the game here. And we'll see.

It is probably also worth mentioning that you're playing just the Gothic as it was on PC, right? I mean, packaged up by DOG, right? KHQ Nordic has actually has, even just as of this week, been like porting those games, like the clo the Gothic gothic classic collection to like like Switch and PS five and a few other things. Um so

Yeah, let's let's touch on that just so we don't have to revisit it like later in an awkward manner'cause it's I think we can touch this real quick. So Gothic one and two and Mikhail interrupt me if I get this wrong. Gothic one and two are already available on Switch one. Like over the last couple of years they've released.

Um they've announced that Gothic Classic, Gothic 2 Classic, Gothic 3 Classic, the Classic is the tagline that they're giving to the console versions, are releasing for PlayStation 4 and 5 and Xbox. Uh Gothic one is coming to those platforms in July, uh Gothic two in September, and Gothic three in November. They've also confirmed that Gothic Three is coming to Switch 2.

It's not like, as far as I can tell, completely confirmed that if it's going to come to switch switch to at the same time as the other platforms, but I I think it's a decently safe guess, at least the same time window. So yeah, by the end of the year, all three games will be available on consoles. Go ahead, Mikhail.

I think what happened is also they when they had their T HQ showcase a few months ago, that's when they announced that they're bringing the three games to PlayStation and Xbox. But they didn't say anything about Switch two or Switch One at that time. There was speculation that Gothic Three would be coming to Switch One.

What's happened since then is when they announced the dates for the PlayStation versions, uh they didn't confirm retail releases or anything, they just announced the dates and the price and uh retailers put up listings based on the distribution channels. Uh, like THQ Nordics, Plyon, and Coach Media, like they're all counted as the same thing. Their distribution network is massive so.

Retailers put up listings whenever games get announced and when the trilogy went up, uh VGP which is a retailer in Canada an online one, they put up a listing for even Gothic Three on Switch too. And at that point, this was not announced by THQ or by anyone basically. And I think what what happened is this.

Like prompted them to confirm that yes it is coming to switch too, but they didn't give a date or anything or a price. So they just wanted to get ahead of the leak if they could in some way with the marketing. So that's they they did not announce any date or anything, it's just like come in a switch two.

And uh no information on whether Gothic one and two are getting switched to enhancements or anything. So it's kind of a bizarre thing. Like uh I haven't played Gothic Three. Uh my only experience with the franchise is literally Gothic One Classic and Gothic Two Classic on Switch when I was just like testing backward compatibility stuff. Uh I have the games on Steam but I believe they don't have controller support or something like that, so I just never bothered doing it. But uh

The when you when you spoke about the Gog version, I think I'm gonna like give that a look to see because Gog is usually good about adding controller support to games that don't have them as well. So Uh I just like it's a little annoying that uh this seemingly is gonna be the same as when uh like not in RPG but when the Stalker trilogy came to consoles. The PC versions never got controller support or any of the modern features until like much, much later.

So we don't know if Gothic Classic is gonna come to PC in any way, but it would be good to have controller support for the classic games on PC for those who don't wanna play the remake. Because uh the remake I believe is gonna be like way more demanding. So There's a good chance it won't even run for a lot of people if it's an Unreal Engine five. So yeah, that's that's like a it's a confusing rollout, I'd say. Like they should just confirm it's coming to everything at the same time.

Yeah, and it's just too bad that, you know, THQ owns the IP now and piranobytes is dead. Like it's just like oh It's it's kinda like two sides of a coin here. Like one, I'm glad that they are taking, you know, an early two thousands RPG that as you said is kind of is dated in a few ways, but making it available that You can buy it like on a modern console. Like it's available. Not every game gets that luxury.

Um, so I applaud them for that. But on the other hand, it's like, yeah, the team Piranabytes was just was closed. Like they no longer exist. So it's out of their hands. It's kind of yeah, it's kinda sad. And I've heard that Gothic two is by far the whole the high water mark. I've heard like everything since then was like trying to recapture that magic and never never succeeded. So

I'm excited to see if Gothic One remake succeeds if if they continue. And then apparently Gothic 2 has like a really popular total conversion mod called Arcolos. A R C H O L O S that is like overwhelmingly positive, 3,000 reviews on Steam, like released six years ago. So like I don't know if I'm gonna replay the whole Pranabytes, you know, cat uh catalog, but something I'm keeping in the back of my mind that these games have been

followed for so many years by so many f passionate fans that there's like a whole modding society out there for like total conversions and updates and added stuff and all that stuff. So yeah.

Uh the next game we have listed here, which is a pretty big departure, is a game that uh I think Anne was talking about on the podcast. I forget if that was a podcast or about um uh or just another Discord call that wasn't being recorded. But uh the game is Mongol Stardive. Which uh Adam you had uh you had the oh, you were talking to the developer about it. Yeah, I had an interview at GDC, yeah, with Net Marvel.

That's what it was. Yeah. And then so you covered the the details there with the interview um with the with the um with the executive there, but this week Josh has done the uh has done the the The Josh thing? Well the respon the the responsibility of of getting in there and playing some Mongol Stardive. So the hands on feedback for uh for this game. Um Yeah, um, because I'm...

a totally broken person. I try I usually like to dig in and um you know, the if a new uh free to play game is coming out. G give it a whirl and see what it's about. So Mongo Starvive is like a game I don't know if I was really that interested in, but Um but I it was on it's a nice departure in the sense that like I treated like a a single player RPG just like Oh.

in terms of like I'm not spending anything on it. Um and it and it's a fairly linear game in terms of like just progressing through it. It's not open world. It's very reminiscent of like, you know, PS2 era RPGs where it's like it's like They're all the there's zones that are all fairly limited. The map design is, you know, it's it's fairly straightforward. Some, you know, some dead ends in the path for like treasure chests and sometimes the occasional puzzle uh or whatever.

But it I guess for people who don't know, Mongo Star Dive is a new free-to-play RPG with the gacha system from NetNar Marble. Uh people in that space who who hear NetBarble and hear should probably hear like red flags in their head.

Um uh because Net Marble is a fairly um let's say they they don't have the greatest reputation in this space because they they are known for pretty heavy monetization and very um freebies uh to incentivize its player base to spend um And it and the and the and and their the games that they release tend to have a very grindy progression in terms of like how you're building up your characters um throughout The and so in this game, you know, it it's kind of like um

a comedic RPG in the sense that like you have these two main characters and I I swear to God that the main the main uh dude's uh character's name is Cloud and then them the main female's name is Verna. These are the first two characters you'd meet uh in the game. And they're sorta like I I don't know, like th th they're kind of both generic characters in the sense like, yeah, they go around and kinda help other uh people when they can, but it's like the

the the main character focus kind of switches in between each story chapter in the game, like story episodes. So like I think like in episode two, like the really the main character in that is um Was it I think it's Esther. Uh Esther is the the one for episode two and she's like the banner featured character. She's like uh a former commander who now r works as a maid, but she's the she has still like a like that quick draw samurai style with her broom.

in it. And so she has this whole you know, um, conflict within her village that they needed to go take care of and the overall story premise is like there are there's like these ominous dark seeds that are corrupting creatures and people throughout the land. So you as Cloud and Verna are like kind of going from locale to locale trying to figure out the source of this like whole corruption and you know obviously there was like a d uh A secret antagonistic faction.

So where does the black hole cat um come into play? The black hole cat the black hole cat is uh at the very beginning of the game, you meet this uh black hole cat after rescuing Cloud from almost getting cooked, like literally cooked in a pot. And so you you don't know the origins of the of this black hole cat like its default names in the annivers. You can cut you can um rename it to whatever you want. And this black hole cat is um

It what it does is like it's a it's uh it's a special creature that can suck up creatures and poop them out as monsterlings. So like they suck up the creature and and and then they and then they come out of its butt like Almost like a gachapon little p pellet. Um and and you can like equip those as like accessories to your character. To that. So that's what Nanners allows you to do.

Um and like the whole cutscene direction in it is very much like almost a Saturday morning cartoon where like body animations and expressions are like very They're more animated than what you would see in other games within this space. They're it's very expressive like how uh characters move in cutscenes. It's not always like that, but for some main story cutscenes it's like that. Th there's definitely parts of like the

The overall package where it doesn't where it's definitely not to the up to that quality. Like for example the the limited time launch event that focuses on Esther because she's the main banner character's like a she has like story uh event story episodes that are basically just like unvoiced character interactions of like just two models like emoting to each other and without any voices and it's like it's very um cheap in comparison to that

more uh more expressive, uh obviously more expensive um presentation of storytelling in that regard. But I I've just been treating it as like it's a very It's a very mindless game to play that's like it's easy to just kinda pour some, you know, forty five minutes to an hour into it to do some progression. It's very by the books, hey You can go progress some main story quest or some a side quests that are easily marked. Like everything around like the this game it's like very

So when I when I was speaking to the uh director, like I don't have a whole lot of context for this, so but maybe you can uh add some insight. Um he said that this game is meant to be more like casual compared to like contemporary. D d do you think that's the case? I think in terms of like just the general tone of it is w a more casual st it doesn't what I like about it in terms of like vanilla Uh presenting its story and characters.

It's not filled with like a lot of like heavy terminology that like a lot of like other free to play games like to do, like as they have their own world building and whole settings so you have to establish oh what does you know biblu mean in this world and we have like the

the hypervisor extraordinaire, what the hell does that? Wha what is that? You know, and just just some some other games will have like random terminology for them and that like ingrained into the road setting all this. It's like we're just kinda we have very generic fantasy uh settings on uh an orc is an orc, a goblin is a goblin. And then eventually like like in chapter four like I you get to like the more Asian inspired like uh land, you have yoke uh there.

And In terms of like just general tone and general uh presentation, it's like it I guess casual is like it's not like it's not like you're dealing with Some ancient evil and you're the chosen. Um it's definitely not that. It's like these characters are going around and in a m a very carefree, um, l less serious tone.

Um, just helping people out and having some funny moments along the way. Like there's like this uh nurse that you meet that like likes to spread like, you know the to to to the ca um Like stun her enemies, she like spreads like an aroma around. Oh, yeah. I know some of these I see some people I see s I see some people playing like Honkai Star Rail or Genshin or whatever and they're like getting really deep into, you know

party building and character, you know, like party composition and things like that, you know, really deep into the mechanics and the nuts and bolts of things. Can you do that here?

Yeah yeah, you definitely can because well yeah, yes you can but right now it's good lessons the launch roster is fairly limited. Like there's only you know a a certain few teams that you can really make but so in terms of like combat mechanics you have uh party of uh of up to three characters Um, and how combat basically works, it's all in real time and it's very character switching focused.

where you have a a basic attack string for a character and you have a special skill uh that like after you use them it uh goes on a cooldown and you have an ultimate skill that uh charges up. And then when you switch them out, a character will c w will come in with like their their switch-in attack.

And you can do have the same options. When that when that care when that previous character is exiting that you switched out of, they'll remain on the field for like a few seconds to kinda do their own like exit attack string and then swap out. Um Not necessarily mindless, but it because each character does have different mechanics working for them. For example, my my team right now is Flare is this um

Uh twin tailed uh r redhead, the Sundare archetype, um that y has like a fire staff that spews out fireballs. Her special skill summons a dragon that uh does like a flame breath, and her ultimate skill Yeah. Um uh uh some is like another dragon that like flies in like for a few seconds and like kinda rams into the enemy and stuff like that. She's really good at building up like this stagger bar. Um

Um in it. So you kind of fire off her skills, switch her out, and let's say my next character is this um like almost like a A bard? Um or she has like a vi like uh I don't know it's a violin, not a violin, it's like a It's like a Korean instrument. They said it in my interview, I forget what they called it.

forget what they called it, yeah. Jin won, I believe, is her name. And she is and she she comes in while Flair is kinda doing some attacks She can do she can attack at range with her with her instrument and then um and do like uh her Her mechanic is like she's

She's building up like passive like music notes through her basic attack strings and she can fire off like a few skills that do damage, but her main thing is the support, so when you switch her out with like a full musical note, she'll provide actual like buffs for the next character. Especially if they're like a win character. So let's say my third character is Esther. Um and she's like that feature limited character that has like is a DPS focus.

She gets the buffs from Jinwan and her thing is that her basic attack string isn't that great. It's kind of clumsy, but it has a nice ender of like the quick draw style. But she has access to a better basic attack string when she uses her special skill first, which is like a AoE around her that confuses enemies within that field as well. And as long as she's in that field, she can do like this up enhanced basic attack string, like a lot of quick draws.

um super powerful can attack at range two uh on that and so you have this cycle of like uh of these characters switching in and out in in tandem. Um

And then uh with with Flare, the first character, the fire character in the chain, really building up that stagger bar a lot. So when that stagger bar is filled up, um you can call in Meanners, that black hole cat, to kinda incapacitate the enemy so you like kind of bind them up for a few seconds and all your characters are out on the field after they're binded up and attacking uh constantly so you have so you have a lot you're dishing out like a lot of DPS during that time.

uh in that in that whole thing. So in terms of like what you're doing, like the The the basic flow of combat is very It it it's very mindless in terms of like once you have your attack rotation down, you don't really have to think about what you're doing. The only thing you have to really look out for is like there are some attacks that have uh orange Oh.

indicator on them and that means hey press the dodge button to do like a dodge counter. So once once you do that you'll you'll kinda da dodge up to them and hit them in the counter. And uh that that will stagger them and interrupt them. There are some attacks that are red marked, that means you really have to like you have to manually get out of the way for them with that dodge. Um

You do have like stamina, but it's only used for the dodge um as well. Um and it it kind of just all flows together. And so of course I just gave what example of one team you know, other teams have different characters with their own uh different mechanics. that have like the same flow of like, hey, one character is a damage dealer, one character is really good at building up stagger bar, one character's really good at like, you know, uh providing support for the team.

Um and and each character has like a class like assassins, destroyers, fighters and supports. So assassins are really good during that burst window DPS. Destroyers are really good for the stagger bar. And they There's all different elements to them as well that don't really come into play until like more mid to end gamey bosses that have elemental weaknesses.

Because in those modes, it's like you're at the timer, you have to beat the spots before the timer ends. So you do increased damage with that elemental uh when hitting them with an elemental weakness. So you're you're not as time constrained. And also the weird part about these Buses is they there are times when they're like charging up an attack and like you know like during boss fights and other uh action games.

Um you have to like uh hit the boss so uh uh so many times to interrupt them from tr uh doing this attack. In this game you do have that, but for those bosses you can the you can only hit them with their elemental weakness. dura uh to to uh dec decrease that gauge. So like say there's like this enemy that has like a wind weakness and is about to like fire off an attack uh in in this mode If you have a team that has no win characters, there's no way at all.

Interrupt that attack. It's still beatable, but you kinda you're gonna have to eat whatever mechanic that is because you didn't bring a character that uh corresponds to that uh wind v. Uh and so forth. So I don't know exactly what they meant like casual, but it turns out like mechanical p complexity to the combat, I would say it's I don't know. I mean it's

It's it's I like how responsive and reactive it is, but when I say it's like the most complex, not really. No, but it but it does look flashy, it has a nice flow to it, it's enjoyable, and then the whole thing with this game is like there's a random chance

s the monsters that you beat on the field will leave like an like a hologram of them, which are like kinda shows that you can capture them. And it's not like Pokemon where you throw out a Pokeball and like there's a chance for them to not get captured. It's just like It it's more on the hey when you when you're beating up these mobs and there's like a twenty five percent

above their head. It just means there's a 25% chance that they'll leave their like their hologram on there and then you just have to press X on them and it'll suck up any and all uh monsters who left their holograms up. And there there's this whole monster ling mechanic where you can combine monster lings and get stat buffs from them, um, to equip under your character like accessories. There are there's like this link chain system where

some special monster lings you can actually summon them on the field um by doing certain actions. So like say I get the link chain for this like pufferfish. Um monster. Like whenever I uh activate a skill it ha it can show up and like um do its attack and provide additional damage. as well, but you're not actively like summoning them. They just kinda happen on their own. As you're as you're uh doing a fight. Uh and stuff. Um Are you using any of the male characters?

I am the rare not. No. No. No, no. ご視聴ありがとうございました I d I did I did re-roll a few times because I'm broken like this, but But eventually like after my fourth reroll I got two SSR characters.

uh on my beginning roles it was like one lightning arrow chick and one and and then ophelia which is like the ice swordswoman. So those are my starting two SSR. Then I uh so and then how the Gatcha system works is kind of weird because uh you have like this these twenty beginning roles out of discount and it's kinda your stand like hit that's like it's very like

you know, beginner friendly, like you can get an SSR character very fast from the like a s the game gives you in your mailbox when you uh log in for the first time. Um you boot it up for the first time, you'll get like these twenty rolls, you spend them on this beginner banner, and you'll get a random five star standard character after twenty rolls. So it's like, hey, they're giving you basically a five star for free.

Um you can also get a five-star character like within those 20 uh beginning roles as well. That and that won't that won't reset that, you know, um thing. So I got two SSR characters out of that. Then after that the you have another standard banner that opens up where you'll you can get an SSR of your choice. You select the character that you want. Amen.

And then uh you'll it's guaranteed uh to you within 50 rolls. So you can just like play the game, earn those rolls, uh, because the a lot of things you do in this game you'll you'll gain currency um for rolling and stuff like that. So, um at first I wanted like the the the character with the instrument, the support character. But I got her early.

That that didn't reset the fifty the guaranteed fifty. So I got her early like within the first twenty rolls of that banner. So I then I switched up uh that selectable character to flare, which is like the the destroyer character. So I got her within that fifty, and then the the banner character Esther, I kinda had to like roll like. Sixty times. But this was all within playing. I didn't spend a cent, but once again there's like me being really lucky.

with it too. But there's not like a thumbs up for this game. It's like it's like you're it's the nature of the beast within these games. Um, I d like I said, I'm just treating it like a normal single player RPG versus like it's a fairly you know Easy game to progress, everything is l marked out like in terms of like where s uh side quest and PCs are and if you need to know where to go, you can just press like the L3 on a controller and it'll show you exactly the path you need to go.

to uh get to vary this whether it's like gathering a component or where an enemy mob is and the game has like a very versatile fast travel system with warp points as you're progressing so like You never have to walk too far to get to where you need to go. It's like, hey, you need to beat up this mob, do you wanna go here? Yeah, let's fast travel there. So you fast travel to like a war point that's like maybe like five steps out of like uh uh out of its range to start that fight and

And i and it's just got very it's a very comfort food uh RPG to progress in. It's not it's like this all within the progr like normal progression of the game.

You know, as you progress through the game very much see like where this game really uh gets grindy later on and whether you wanna stick with it or not to to through that grind is obviously up layers because you're gonna have to Start, you know, eventually that story will run out and you start getting to end game and it's like, okay, here's end game, you have to optimize your characters.

What do I need to do? I need to gather these materials to upgrade my characters, but there's a stamina system to do to do those upgrade stages and they only hand out so much. stamina within a t uh within a certain time frame. Um, you know, I uh they they uh of course they uh they front load you with a lot of stamina early on, but then once that's expended, you are either

Um, you know, you have to consume resources to fill up that stamina, and whether you want to do that or not, or just wait it out, is up to you. Um You know, l like I said, it's it's it's got it's it's net marble, so

It's gonna be pretty stingy up front. Like it pr I I don't under how stingy they're gonna be as time goes on. Obviously within the honeymoon phase, they're gonna shower people with like, you know, oh we have to do maintenance here. Oh sorry we did maintenance. Here's like A certain amount of currency that you can uh use to roll or um here's our launch celebrations, here's like a free ten roll, you know, and then you know once that that's dried up then

And of course, you know, this game is has a lot of like microtransactions uh shops, like like, you know, tabs of shops that like, hey if you wanna do this you have to use uh real money for it. There's like uh There's like a VIP system in terms of like if you want access to the shop you have to pay us like this VIP pass to get access to this shop that has like goodies. So like there's a whole shop that's like you know pay paywalls.

uh in there there's battle uh there's a battle pass uh in there there's uh and then there's like the and there's like the monthly sub like all the other games do and then you have the uh Yeah, I'm like the FOMO.

Um, hey for forty-eight hours only you rolled the y you got lucky and rolled the banner featured limited banner character. Okay, if you if you pay us forty bucks in the uh with uh in the next forty eight hours, you can get like uh more roles and uh an other upgrade currency to gotta get a head start on uh upgrading this character early. And all that sort of shit. Uh on top of like

When I interviewed the director, uh, or th really the CEO of the company, uh, even without me really like insinuating it, he promised me this is not gambling. Do you agree? Uh all of these game of course all of these games are I'm thinking. I just thought that was kinda funny. Like I I th I was just sort of asking, you know, like how does this game work in terms of m banners and gotcha? He's like, It's not gambling Like, I didn't say that, but

Yeah. I mean it it does have that like in terms of like the the the one thing this and the upcoming Neverness to Everness game are trying to do is get away from that fifty fifty thing like in like in um other Hoyo uh Hyo Hoyo games and and in Wuthering Waves.

When you are rolling on a featured limited character, there's this thing called the fifty fifty in the in those games where if you hit a five star, there's a fifty percent chance when you first get that five star in and that banner whether it's gonna be That featured limited character or or someone else that you didn't want uh from that character. That's what's called the fifty Um and they all deal with it differently on like how the banner switches up, like whether they carry over or not.

fifty fifty progress interest like if you if you miss that fifty fifty the first time, if you get an another SSR again, it's guaranteed to be that feature limited character. That's why when people say I lost a fifty fifty, that means their first five star from that banner they didn't get.

was featured. So in Mongil and Neverness to Everness, they're getting rid of the fifty fifty and they're featured limited banner characters. Whenever you roll the five star on them, it's always gonna be guaranteed to be that character. Um And so it gets rid of the fifty-fifty altogether, which is nice on paper and like don't get me wrong, that's pre preferable. But it there's always that lingering set that are like, okay, what's the catch? What are you doing to like offset?

are saying maybe they're gonna skip on like the pool economy that they're giving the care of players for free. as a consequence of like no longer having that fifty fifty'cause it's now more easily obtainable to get that featured character in lesser roles because people won't be able to lose the fifty fifty. anymore and maybe feel you know the urge to spend to get more currency and roll more immediately in that regard. Um

Yeah, it's like but in terms of like just like I said, Mongo Mongo Starr is a co like a perfectly fine game. It's average. I don't really have any strong dislikes. I don't have any strong likes about the game. I think it's It's a it's a very comfort food RPG. I was but as as always in these games, I always tell people, hey

Treat it like as a normal game, don't spend money on it. It's free to try. They're definitely trying to incentivize Spend money of course, but just i if you if you feel still s if you still feel strongly about it, like say After a month and a half to two months out and you want to, you know, justify it to like support the developers for paying them back for like the fun that you got out of game, you know, to perfectly fine. But don't don't go into the mentality.

Take it easy, you know? So it's it's it's a totally serviceable I I think So it's no star. Mm-hmm. And I guess I'll try neverest to Everness when that comes. I think I think I have higher hopes for Neverest to Everness for the Mond Guild, but exactly that's because Uh like I just didn't really have any I I wasn't even play uh planning it to Triad Mongil until like I kinda looked into it further. I think I think the the large appeal of the game for me is that

At the very least not a big open world like all the other games that are coming out now these days. This is just very straightforward linear zones. It's very fast to travel um to to travel throughout that you have to like explore this big open world to get to where you See the did you see the thing I pinged you about for Never Nest to Evanna?

Oh yeah, they have like some collaborations, like some music collaborations and stuff and like a Yeah, I don't know, they just posted that as like Persona 5 music and there's a Porsche car or whatever. Yeah. So it's it's funny that's happening and like Wathering Waves is also doing a lot of couple collaborations with like music as well stuff. So I don't know. That's the in thing now, I guess. Um try there there's also this really fun th two funny changes as well.

Uh first funny there was like an emergency maintenance very shortly after Mom Gul came out, and part of that maintenance was to adjust the animations of a characters and a cutscene because I I d we've definitely talked about on this podcast, but are you guys familiar with that uh gesture with like the pinched fingers? And it's Syrians are paranoid on this. Okay.

So yeah, there's these characters like that like like you like mingled like you know in a cutscene. I didn't think much about it until like someone freeze-framed it. And like, you know It would be natural for them to have their their fingers in the position, like you know, like if they're like kind of like mingling each other. But of course, cer f certain players and that I I assume target player base because oh net marble is based in Corey, I believe.

Um you know, they had issues with that, so they had to issue an emergency maintenance to fix that up and had to give compensation for that immediately. Cause you know the these characters doing the I guess by happenstance their their hand gestures were resembled the pinch fingers. So that was silly, but you know...

That's just what it is now, I guess, within the within this Um and the second the second thing is the As you're playing the game there's a it there's this really obnoxious thing that always reminds you that you're playing a live service game.

Where at the top right corner you have like you know, like when you go to like the home screen of like any of these games, you'll have like a banner tab that shows like, you know, here's the featured banner, here's like the featured like it's like basically like

uh rectangular banner tabs that like that scroll across that shows like here's what's happening, here's the featured uh banner and whatnot. They had As you're running around in this game, you always have that banner thing always at the top right corner when you're just like normally playing outside of like combat when you're just like walk running around from place to place always remind you that like hey there's like

It it's like first it's like guide and then the other one's like here's the current ongoing event. That's going on. Uh just it's annoying. But and especially because like the the logos for these things was like was fulling out that whole rectangular thing and one of them is like bright green. So it's like okay, it's a little annoying.

So one of the the er m somewhat early fixes to that was to not get rid of it, which a lot of people was asking, Hey please get rid of this or let me hide it. Instead of doing that they just made it so they're like They just ha they're just like um transparent PNGs now, so they just see the logo. But they didn't get rid of it. So it's just like, Okay, what what are we doing? So it that there's and there's also certain features on the mobile version that's not on the PC version in terms of like

On the mobile version, you can actually have it auto-run to like get to the destinations. You can just press and like tap on like a GPS icon on the mobile version, and the game will the care will auto-run for you towards like the destination that you have set them. You know, kinda handy. Like sure why not? But no, all the all the movement on the PC version has to be manual. There's no way to auto-run to a destination. And one feature I wish they ported over from the mobile to PC version was

In the mobile version, you can just hold the attack button so the characters would always just keep on attacking. You just have to hold it. You don't have to tap. Um but that feature is only available on the mobile version and not the PCU version. PC version you have to manually type tap the attack button. Uh, you know, and it's not not not the craziest thing in the world, but like if you there's an option to like hold it but only in one version, why don't you just make the pictures universal?

This sounds like a job for a turbocontroller or a or a function key on your keyboard. That's what I think. Yeah. That's that's kind of done. the lowdown on Moncle Star by like I I've put more hours into it I think I did. I d I guess I just wanna see the main story through the main story available right now. I think I have like one chapter left. I've done I just kind of Episode four and I think there's like episode five is the last one.

So I have to do like side quest and then do episode five and then maybe I'm done. Somewhat dressed appropriately for that fantasy setting. Um But then you get to like the the next regions like sorta emblematic of like Chinese um structure and architecture and whatnot there. That's certainly It's like knock knock one or whatever. I'm sorry for that.

In my interview they were talking about a region called Surah which is Korean inspired and I just wanted to make sure you weren't getting like mm Chinese and Korean mixed up. In my in my life. I I I r I really apologize if I'm getting that mixed up. I'm pretty sure the Korean area is S-U-R-A.

Different place. Okay. Yeah. And um and they start introducing like the like the main and like some of the main antagonist faction in and these main antagonist factions look like they're from another game. They have like sci fi suits, like but it's like a like a pink body tight suit girl. on it and the other one is like has like a the sci-fi headset like headwear on her. Um and like they just look like they look like from a completely different game. So like when it first sound like what

What the fuck is happening? It's like it's like it was like enough to like kinda get like take you out of the setting of like, what are we doing? So like it it was a really funny um seeing them for the first time there. Which I'm sure they're gonna be banner characters as well, uh, down the It's okay. I mean, like I said, just if you if you're able to push through the the upfront modetization and you know reminding you like

And the last game that we have listed here for this week, in a surprisingly packed week, uh this is a game that released I think earlier in the month. It's Dosa Divas. Uh Mikhail, you put this on the list of something you wanted to speak to. So i it's from the developers of Thirsty Suitors and Dosa Divas is this uh Linear JRPG or like turn-based RPG which is inspired by Octopath and Bravely Defaults Combat.

But it has this a whole food theme throughout. So the progression uh re li revolves around food, the narrative revolves around food, even the battles you use food quite a bit and all the attacks are themed after food. So You're basically uh controlling these two sisters and their mech who who are trying to take down their other sister who's basically given up on cooking and gone into this world where everything is like uh.

Yeah. Yes like uh not not like post apocalyptic but this like dystopian world where no one actually cooks food anymore, everyone just has like tasteless paste to get the nutrients and stuff and everyone gets just gets everything delivered. No one actually puts love into their food anymore. So it has this like this family or like family cozy vibe thing in the beginning.

And uh it it's a like I wasn't sure what to expect when I played it because I did the demo before I interviewed Aka who's the the main like the producer, director, designer at Outer Loop and like I've now played the full game twice. So it's I wasn't sure what to expect in its structure because Thirsty Suitors is a game which they kind of like blended in five or six different genres together and it didn't fully pay out and it felt a bit different. Jang.

But not in too bad a way. But for this one they've I think they've been more focused and stuff. So like I did not feel like my time was being wasted at all. I I finished the game the first time in about nine hours. And aside from one bug where I got stuck and had to reload or save, everything felt like properly polished. And uh they also have this very good uh so like I'll just

Go across the structure. So you begin uh where you get introduced to the antagonist who's your other sister and she basically wants the future to be controlled by her food company, which is called Lena Works, and you want to make everyone realize that home cooked food is actually the way forward and you're also trying to look for your parents.

And this journey takes you. You start in this place called Buroth Village, which is like a play on Broth. And like they have this throughout the game. Like you have Uh, one of the attacks is called a walkerang, where you use uh an actual walk and you like hit it back and forth as you take down enemies and stuff. So And also uh it's worth worth mentioning that your uh mech is like a food truck mech.

the mech uh yeah, I actually I should be clear about that. The mech is called goddess and uh displays like a mythical element in the story. But yeah, it's a food truck and They've also gotten this uh so for people who don't know that in in like India and Pakistan and stuff around here, uh you have uh all the trucks where like the

People who use like trucks and like drive them all over the country, they have this thing called Horn OK please which is like painted over the truck. It's a specific phrase and like they all have this colourful design. So what they did for this is because the mech is a food truck they also got that horn okay pre's written over there. And

As you progress through the game, you unlock more skins, and they've tried to keep that authentic as well. So you have like I think I unlocked like 10 skins by the end, and all of them had like a different variation of this. And some of them are themed after like like there's a Gundam themed skin also, which is really nice. But yeah, you your main party is one fighter, one tank, and one mage essentially. And uh you

Basically walk around each of the locations. There are three main locations. You have to help some of the NPCs over there. Most of them just ask you for like different dosas or different food. So you have to go around beat up the Lina works goons who are trying to get you to not come after her.

Yeah. As you do this, you discover more ingredients, you find more recipes, and this is what this is like another element where they've gotten from different uh sorry, they've taken different elements from other RPGs where the cooking is a series of

mini games and this is randomized so like you can have one where you have to like keep mashing A on a specific pattern or the other one where you have to like move the left analog stick to keep the cursor in a specific location. So you have this where you choose the Ingredients for making the dosa and depending on how you've d done the mini games, your dosa, you'll either be rewarded with more of it or you'll get a better dosa, which gives you like better healing or whatever.

So as you do this in combat, you take down goons, you also level up. And as you level up over here, they have like different systems put into it where you level up the location or the village and you level up yourself as well. And as you As you help people in the village and you do side quests or you just like clean up the village, you can like destroy posters and stuff.

You unlock more skill, so you're incentivized to actually help the people in the village beyond just grinding for yourself to level up because that's how you get more skills.

And what I didn't realise when I finished the first location is uh and there's like a really cool boss fight which they've posted about on social quite a bit. But uh what I didn't realise is they're they have like three different upgrade systems with skills and all and I was actually impressed with how none of it felt like it was padding.

Everything I was doing in the game slowly contributed to getting me stronger, unlocking more skills and even giving me this uh giving me abilities where I could go back to previous locations and take down posters or enemies which I couldn't reach before. So I was quite impressed with this, although you can't visit previous locations until like maybe two-thirds into the main story. So

Uh the other thing I wanted to touch on is they also have fishing thrown into it because like apparently you have to have fishing in an RPG now. So they have a fishing minigame, they have a cooking mini game, they have like a bit of exploration, they have like hidden chests all around. But the main theme is basically food and like how you're trying to like reunite your family. But there's also this element of uh one of your party members, Amani, she's uh she's sick.

So basically you they remind you like on and off that you know like I'm not feeling well and stuff like that. So that that is one of the major things which I wasn't happy with how they handle it. Because when you finish the story, there's one specific uh plot point which I felt was kind of rushed. And that's the only aspect of the game I came away from, a bit annoyed. Uh I'm not usually one to like

you know, like let one small story be ruined the whole experience. But I feel like this was kind of poorly handled where you've built up to a a moment for like three locations, lot of characters l leveling up your mech, leveling up your character and all

And suddenly one point just felt like it was rushed towards the end. So I don't know. I hope this is something they can like patch or something because they've already been patching it quite a bit since uh the demo released. And uh The final thing I want to talk about with Dosa Divas is the music.

Uh so while the game itself pulls from like, you know, South India, you have dosas which are from here and stuff like that. And then they also have elements from JRPGs. With the music, what they did is uh Ramsey, the composer, He took elements of like instruments you'd hear over here locally, but also with like electronic or synth and metal. But instead of just being like uh, you know, a hybrid or whatever of these two things.

It blends into the thing. So you have this like a drum called the Dhole over here. So what he did is for a boss battle, it starts out with the traditional sound, but then it moves into the synth version and And I really like the transition over there. Like I haven't heard uh Indian instruments transitioning into like electronica like that ever before. Like obviously there's genre blends and all, but I feel like this transition is really, really nice, how he handled it in the boss fights.

And uh I think the I don't know if the demo is still available. There's this bad trend I've noticed on Steam where indie devs will have a demo available for two months or whatever, but they'll delist it the moment the game goes up. Let me just check if the demo is there. Yeah, the demo is still there. So I think if you're if you're into if you're interested in playing like a short, narrative focused, turn based RPG and you like food, this is worth checking out. The demo is it's like a good

Slice of the game, they let you play quite a bit. So I really, really enjoyed. I've been listening to the music quite a bit since the soundtrack dropped on Steam when it released. So really, really enjoyed. Yeah, shouldn't uh I have this wish listed as well as people of note. There's so many I have replaced uh that also recently came out that I have wish listed. A lot of games are coming out and just like no frickin' time to get around to them but I hope I I hope I do. Later on.

One thing though, like I was surprised that a game like this with a lot of hand drawn art and like a very colourful aesthetic with like two D things When I booted it up on my ultra wide monitor, it actually had full ultra wide support for like the whole game. So that was like pretty impressive. So yeah. It's a very good PC port also. So like whenever you get whenever you get around to it, it'll be like really good on PC, like no complaints.

Yeah, like uh ultravine support is still kinda you know, hit hid and missed these days, so it's nice to see whenever people uh actually supported at launch natively. Uh like I I'm thinking also like another uh other games like on my wishes like Homer Hume and like Un Unbeatable I believe it's called. Like at least Late last year. Yeah, you were smart about that. I saw so many people praise Unbeatable and I bought it and I've not even booted it up so like you're smart.

Yeah, it's a i I I I I know it had to get patched, like there was that like my friend definitely was like wait on patches over this one, but I don't know where what state it is in now. But I think it's probably at a better better state. Yeah, I remember. Yeah.

Yeah, I remember when Unbeatable dropped. I had a mutual who had some mild criticism of it on Blue Sky and then got like kind of like subtweeted for being critical of an indie game's design decisions and that kind of just rubbed me the wrong way and I haven't p haven't tried it.'Cause it's like it's I don't know man. That's a bit weird. I see.

Okay, well um as a as I discussed Bright earlier, I'm gonna step out for now. Uh hop hopefully my like uh my my throat has been through the ringer uh this week. Hopefully it wasn't too bad, but I'm gonna step out for now. You guys enjoy the rest of the pod. Nope. Thanks, Josh. Yeah, and that basically like we had a kind of a front loaded podcast today in our games we've been playing section. And yeah, like

April and m like s so far in late March were surprisingly like packed for for releases. So cool that we got a chance to look in at Dosa Divas and other games on my list. games like Esoteric Ebb and People of Note. So you know, when we find time, we'll get to those.

Uh yeah, for for news, not a ton here, but we'll I figured we'd go through them and there's a few interesting uh nuggets. Uh I think before we go to news, just like the article, just one small thing I want to talk about. You just added that to the outline. No okay, that's fine. Okay. Uh one component enough. I made a change though. I made a change. Okay. Hades two uh released just in this last week for um PlayStation and and um I was the other one. Xbox.

Yeah, so Hades two, I had a chance to play uh the PS five and Xbox version. So I revisited all the prior versions as well. Pretty fantastic conversion by them. Like it's just like four K one twenty, it feels flawless and stuff. So If you haven't gotten Hades yet, not only do they have new ports, but they also did a major patch.

which uh like I I expected them to do some sort of patch because like you know every time there's a new release you do something but they literally added a new game mode. So if you've actually beaten Hades Before on Switch and PC, like boot up the game, there's like a shitload more waiting for you. So I think this is like one of those places where if you hadn't played it yet, now is the best time to get into it. So yeah, if you're curious how it compares, uh my comparison.

And I also did a like a massive update of my uh switch to handheld boost mode feature. Like I added like I think fifteen or sixteen games. I tested in that. So I'm still maintaining that. Probably like I I was hoping to do a an update each week, but it takes a lot of time. So I'm gonna be doing that every month. So if you're curious about Switch One games like

I tested all random stuff, Centennial Case, Saga, Scarlet Grace Ambitions and a lot of stuff. So give that a read if you're if you play on Switch too, because there are a lot of RPGs which are still switch one only. So yeah, that the big update I just pushed out for that RP. Yeah, and uh w there's even a trailer for the some of the new voice acting, uh for some of that new content that they they dropped with those versions.

Yeah. And uh also just a programming note, uh Hayes also did need to step out uh as we go into the news section. So uh thank you to of course Josh and Hayes for leading the talk to Pragmata, which led off the podcast.

All right. I really had no idea which headline to list like first here. So I just I just led with this one because there's really not a lot to talk about on it. Uh Sony has announced a new uh video game-related uh adaptation for their for their movie studios. Uh, they are working on a Bloodborne animated. So I know for a lot of people they're really excited about this. For some people they don't care'cause it's not blood.

Do we have any strong opinions on this? I d I kinda don't, but I'm just curious where we stand on a bloodboard movie. I... I... I... You know why I posted it. I literally just care about it. So I could post that Sony has announced the new Bloodborne as the headline. And that's all. I don't care about it beyond that. Yeah. It could be good. Like I mean, uh that I hope it's good. That's all I can really say.

Yeah, we don't really have any other details. I did not watch the uh what event was this? Um sorry. It it wasn't a good one. Yeah, it it was one of they had some other announcements like a hell dye was two thing also, but yeah, like it uh it's just because bloodborne, that's why I posted it. Yeah, but like n as far as I can tell, and please correct me if I'm missing something, no of obviously no trailer, but no like talent, no director, no like Jack Septi is producing it and it's at Sony.

I think that's a good thing. That's all we know. Yeah, that's all that's all that's been said about it. And it's an R rated animated thing. That's all. Interesting that it's becoming a trend now for uh content creators to now like produce video game film adaptations. I mean'cause Iron One was was Well man, wasn't it like mostly just Markiplier that did that one? Yeah. That's who that's the uh the Yeah, he was f he funded it and I actually uh spoke to the composer about Iron Long.

Fund it, direct it, edit it, and he was like the one main act. Like there was more than one. He wasn't the only actor, but he was like the main actor. I actually saw it it was pretty decent. So

And then the other one I put up here is kind of like a major headline is because just this is a headline I um Just would not expect to see. Uh I I I figured this was gonna be like a long, you know, n a pie in the sky sort of thing. All right. Uh Xenosaga Pied Piper. If you don't know what that is, it is a mobile phone game from like the feature phone era, like pre iPhone. Uh two th early two thousands where um

Japanese video game studios release games for their feature phones that would tie into their, you know, their console series at the times. And these would almost invariably never get localized because uh the phones that we had couldn't support them. There was no like global market like iPhone and Android have now. So uh a lot of these, like what was the Final Fantasy one that followed the Turks uh before crisis? That was another one from that same era.

Uh but anyways, the bearing the lead here, uh G mode is bringing Xenosaga Pied Piper and uh Nameco Chronicle, a game that I know less about, admittedly.

Do switch in Steam. And Pied Piper is an interesting game because it is a prequel to the Xenosaga trilogy, which is a trilogy of RPGs from uh you know on the PlayStation 2. Uh that The way that was framed is that in Xenosaga three the story events on fair uh are on are delivered in a way that presumes that you have knowledge of Pied Piper when anyone playing that game in English

So they're like, what's the deal with between Ziggy and Voyager and how is uh Kanan or I think it's his name uh like related to this? Like I feel like I'm missing something. It's like yep, you're missing a whole prequel that explained half of this. Yeah, Xenosaga three just basically assumes you know. You played that.

So yeah, this is a prequel at Star Ziggy, who um uh he's a human at this uh and during the prequel, but he's like a I forget the name of the I forget the in game n term for it in Xenosaga, but uh he's uh he's a android. Um, or I guess cyborg is the more correct term, uh, in in the trilogy. So, uh coming to PC and Steam, uh Now, I don't know if we really got much in like other details about uh like the release cadence for these. Um

I'm trying to dig to the Steam page to see it. Like it's it's still gonna just be in Japanese, though I'm sure, you know, now that's on Steam that opens the door for like fan patches and all all sorts of things. And I'm sure if you dig far enough, like that's probably something that's already available, but this will just make it a little bit more like uh conducive for people who wanna who wanna play that game. But I don't know, something that I never thought that I would ever see uh

I thought that was kind of a bygone era that it was just gonna be like a loss to the annals of history, but it'll be playable in a modern format. Uh

Alright, in terms of other uh uh headlines this week, so there was uh there was an event that I wasn't familiar with, Adam, I'm not sure if you were, uh called the Galaxies Showcase. Like a s like I'm not exactly sure who puts this together, but they've had two or three showcases at this point. Um Showcasing both like indie games but also like big publishers, like they've partnered with

Studio like Konami and Nameco and Focus Entertainment, like like not not all just indie titles. So we had a few we had a few uh trailers and updates from the from a Galaxy Spring showcase twenty twenty six. And there are a few other small showcases like GameStars Find Your Next Game. So we a lot of trailers here that we'll just kind of quickly rattle through as we close out this podcast. Yeah, I'm actually not sure like who Galaxies is like affiliated with.

I went to their I went to their website. to see like if I could find and basically they have like you know if you're a content creator and you've got a platform on Twitch and YouTube, you know, you can become a like a co a co streamer, like you can like uh

get in that space and actually get like involved in that. But in terms of like how they're getting, you know, what through what vehicle they're getting the publishers on board, I'm not sure. But still some pretty cool updates uh out of them in the RPG space, hence why we're talking about'em today. But outside of those showcases, a few other trailers, um

We have uh a new Final Fantasy XIV patch coming up uh on April twenty-eighth, at least the first part of it. This is the Final Fantasy XIV patch seven point five uh trail to the heavens. Uh James, you're the best person equipped to speak to what you guys are expecting out of um 7.5. Um so it's going to be the last major patch of Dawn Trail, obviously. We are Quickly approaching uh expansion season, like new expansion. Like uh next week we will know what that expansion is.

I don't know if I'll be on the podcast next week because uh fanfest is Friday and Saturday. There isn't anything on the schedule that necessitates me to be there. Like during the podcast, but there might be another obligation I have to do, so I mean you don't you you don't gotta like, you know, take enjoy fan fest. Like No, no, no, I mean, my meaning is that... Yeah.

Yeah, true. But it it's it's a little bit different because this time it's in Anaheim. It's like a fifteen, twenty-minute drive for me. So it's not as big of a deal as when it was in Vegas when it's like, okay, it would be on shitty hotel wifi and all that. Yeah calling in from your phone.

Yeah, so Um, getting the last bit well, the first half of the last bit of MS uh main scenario quests, we're getting the dungeon, we're getting the trial, then later in the patch cycle, we're getting the new ultimate raid.

We well also at I at the launch of 7.5 at the end of the month we're also getting the final alliance raid in the alliance raid series But later on in the patch cycle we'll be getting the ultimate raid we're gonna be getting the second half of Occult Crescent We're going to be getting uh um PvP updates, we're going to be getting a an as of yet un like

Undailed. It's announced but not detailed what exactly it is like gold saucer update. So I'm assuming it's going to be some sort of collaboration again. And the reason they're being cool is it's going to be at FanFest. Uh and then there's uh

other things like relk weapons and stuff. But uh the most interesting thing about this live letter isn't even necessarily to do a seven point five, but there's been a number of pretty radical system changes that they've started adding to the game in terms of glamour and in terms of dyes, and they've explicitly said that um

Starting with seven point five and moving into eight point oh, that they are deliberately going to re examine and completely change how some aspects of the game work and they're not just going to like Stick to tradition as they have done in the past. So we don't know what eight point zero is gonna be, but they're both Talking the talk and walking the walk in terms of uh okay, they're actually trying to make some pretty massive changes.

Like even for for content that for most people doesn't matter. Like they haven't fully detailed what the new ultimate rate is. But in previous uh expansions and in previous ultimate raids there was a roughly accepted cadence where it would be a main scenario, then the raid series. Well um then main scenario, raid series or well no raid series, main scenario and back back and forth, back and forth going through the They changed things up a little bit with the last Ultimate, uh Futures Rebritten.

But most people kind of assume the reason why they did that is that it wouldn't have made sense to do a Stormblood main scenario ultimate since Stormblood's main thing is uh Xenos. And it would have made a lot more sense to just uh wait until Endwalker to have like a Xenos Ultimate so you can incorporate the stuff that Xenos does in Endwalker.

So they did the Shadowbringers raid, uh like ultimate first and people were assuming that the next one was gonna be the Shatterbr uh Bringers main scenario, but instead The tease has made it clear that is absolutely not what they're doing, and instead they're doing something to do with Kefka. Which makes some sense because um Top which was the Omega Protocol which was the Stormblood raid ultimate raid Only really focused on Omega, so like the last two fights of that of that raid series.

And the thing with the Omega Raid series is that it was a big like kind of um self-referential cause you had stuff like uh references to Final Fantasy V, references to Final Fantasy Six References to all these ever Final Fantasies. So we don't know if uh the Kevka teaser means it's going to be like a bunch of old Final Fantasy bosses and it's gonna be like a kind of uh

Who's who of uh Final Fantasy final uh bosses in an ultimate raid, or if it's going to be Kefka and the Warring Triad? Because the Warring Triad does exist in Final Fantasy XIV, but it's not tied to Kefka. So

It's just very different. It's very different. So combine that with the dye changes and the stuff that they're changing with the glamour dresser and the fact they've said that they're also going to be changing the way that um totems work for extreme trials to get mounts and also how the relic weapons work and they've explicitly said that With the next expansion forward that are going to change how those work entirely.

It's like it's a very exciting time to be a 14 fan because especially since Dawn Trail was a little bit disappointing. Does seem like the team is trying to Go back to basics and rethink a lot of core aspects of the game, and it makes me excited to see exactly where that is headed.

Yeah, and it's It like whenever you're playing a long-running game, whenever like those nuts and bolts are looked at in terms of changing fundamental parameters always can be kind of scary, but you know Hopefully in service of the greater good.

Uh in in Guild Wars they recently just did like a big DPS nerf across the board, across all classes, because power creep had basically be made it unwieldy. And that of course, you know, made a lot of players upset, but it was it was kind of in service of trying to rebalance the game and tweak up tweak a bunch of things and

they make make a lot of similar changes. So it's something that I wish more long running games did more of more often. And it's it takes a lot of bravery in order to do that. So it'd be really interesting to see what gets formally announced. I really hope, I really hope if if they're if they're serious about retooling a bunch of these old systems, the number one thing they need to change is how level sync works. Because there's two problems. First off they need to make it so that

Players get access to to their full rotation or more of their rotation earlier because there's so many classes in the game right now that don't get full access to rotation until like halfway through level 70. Which means if you're someone new Playing the game for the first time, you're not actually going to know how to play your class until you're like over 200 hours into the game. Which is wild.

don't have access to like your talents or skills that you would actually use until until that high level. Yeah. Yeah. And then it also makes it like leveling up any additional jobs even more of a pain in the ass because it's like, okay. They don't have a full rotation, so you're going to be bored out of your mind if you're used to playing jobs that have a full rotation at max level. It's like not every job is super bad about this. Some are better better than others, but

This has been a problem for the last couple of expansions. It's it's been a problem ever since I started playing the game effectively in Shadowbringer. So If they are going back to uh readjust stuff like some core elements of the game, I think level sync is the number one thing they should fix. Especially since I did uh two years ago check out um World of Warcraft and finding out how they handled Level Sync really made me upset with how Final Fantasy XIV kinda doesn't.

For context, the way that WoW handles it is that they nerf your potencies of your abilities and they kind of normalize how much damage you're doing in dungeons or like older content, but you still have access to your full kit. Because you're still essentially that same like max level, but

Your potencies are adjusted instead of like losing access to your shit. 14, when they level sync you, it's like no no no, you only have access to the abilities you would have at this level, even if it would be fucking miserable.

And there's some people for the longest time that have said, Oh well thou make all these uh this old content pointless or well it'll make it like trivial and it's like Old content already is trivial because You have like new food, you have like the way that the level sync works still doesn't really fully account for the fact that you're just going to have better gear.

It if if shit's already trivial, just make it so that it's not going to be annoying if you're trying to help your friend that's still in the realm reborn get through the content that you're only pressing effectively three, maybe four buttons at a time. I think I I noticed this level sync thing uh because I was playing Realm Reborn and Heavenswood like quite a bit later than everyone else I used to play with.

So it seemed like they they force you into level sync just for like maybe I think in Realm Reborn story it was like four encounters totally. So like if you're even you know if you pay for a level boost yourself, like they sell those boosts.

You can basically just overpower and one hit kill everything, but suddenly they'll be like, Oh no, no, no, you can't do that over here. Suddenly you have to actually pay attention. And I I've been I've been playing Diablo Four recently. I feel like that also handles it better. Because whatever the level of anyone is they will

Like scale the enemies like on the fly so that they will still have some sort of challenge. Even though like they're high level and you're not high level, so everyone will still feel like they are contributing. I think FF 14 does not do that. It does not, yeah. But yeah, I do think that there is uh A bunch of things that the team should be looking at.

And considering how open they've been about, oh no, there's a bunch of like spaghetti code for years and the fact that they're slowly getting to stuff that absolutely would have been under that spaghetti code Makes me hopeful that the idea that Dawn Trail was a safe expansion outside of the graphical update was specifically to buy themselves time for the next expansion.

Cause if that ends up being the case, then I think people are going to be a lot more forgiving of at some of Dawn Trail's issues. It it's always a bit rough talking about the uh main scenario for Dawn Trail because there's very real issues.

But a lot of the people that talk about that are most annoyingly talking about it are uh transphobic because of uh Wokalamat's uh voice actress is trans. So it's i i it it's tough to talk around because even if there are very real issues with it, you don't want to elevate those talking points and whatnot, so Yeah, no, uh there's we run into that I won't say frequently, but it's not uncommon where it's just like where where criticism comes from is important.

Like, whenever we rate a game poorly, it's we try to substantiate it in ways that explain where we're coming from and not because of an agenda against an actor or a writer or a theme that we disagree with, and things like that. And so when you're trying to say like I criticize it for this reason, but not for not for something like the who like how the voice actor identifies, of course, that's not, you know, something we're factoring in. So I get where you're coming from completely.

But yeah, next week. Less than a week until uh the keynote, like next Friday, we'll know what the uh next expansion is, we'll know where we're going and they've even said that they're purposefully revealing more about the expansion early this time to the point where they're basically going to spoil a major part of 7.5, which is interesting.

Because pe like the Yoshi P's outright said that that people are gonna be like, You're showing this now when seven point five isn't even out yet? So I'm I'm excited to see what that means.

Uh one other trailer, this is one that like locked in a release date of something we were very interested in. Um the Trails in the Sky, the second um sorry, Trails in the Sky second chapter. We knew that it was coming out in the fall. We were pretty much gonna guess September. We got an official date from uh Falcom and Gung Ho. It'll be launching on September 17th. Alongside the release date, we got a release date trailer, as well as um a recap of some of the English voice actors.

It's actually worth noting that a couple of characters are recasts. Oh, go into that. I didn't catch that. George Weissman is now Liam O'Brien. And which is kind of a pull'cause Leon O'Brien is like a veteran voice actor, like not a newcomer or upcoming voice, like been a lot of stuff. Uh was voiced by David Lodge originally.

Now that voice maybe sort of works because that character kinda like changes character between the two games sort of still. I mean I'm not I'm not saying it's ideal, but um he was voiced by David Lodge in in first chapter, now Liam O'Brien in second chapter. Uh makes me wonder if he's gonna pull out like some of his uh like uh Lezard Ballet voice. I mean Liam O'Brien is Liam O'Brien, but he's done like kind of these villain types before, so I think in some way it's suitable.

Um, but also uh Lor Leonhart or Lawrence or whoever, you know, that character, was voiced by Travis Willingham in first chapter and is now voiced by Stephen Fu. Um, in second chapter. Which Stephen Fu like I think he was the voice of like the trials uh not trials, um visions of mana main character.

Which is like a very different voice. I'm not very familiar with this actor, so I'm not sure like do they fit this character? I don't know. But it's kind of unfortunate. Like I'd rather, you know, there be consistency in the voices. But there's a couple of recasts, and that is what it is, I guess. For the English dub. Mm. Oh good. Yeah, good job. Yeah, so uh they announced this at like I believe it was probably towards the night US time.

And it was like around the afternoon my time, so I was just like randomly online and I see notification trails in the sky, second chapter release date. And I was like uh I posted about it as soon as I could because like

Breaking news for us or whatever. And then I went to because I was waiting for the pre orders to go live because in Japan you can't actually take pre orders for a game until you have a release date. This is apparently some rule they have over there. And uh I was hoping they put up the collector's edition so they did uh and I went to Amazon Japan and I was like let me order it as soon as I can before they change the shipping so that they don't ship outside Japan because that happens quite a bit.

So I ordered it and as soon as I ordered it I got a call saying, Did you use your like d verification call from the bank? And I was like, Why did they call me for an order which is like months away? And then I saw the fine print on the page that like this is an order, once you've ordered it you cannot cancel it. So it was like one of those things. So like I'm locked in now for Trails in the Sky, second chapter on PS five. So yeah, that was like super funny because

The collector's edition which uh like there was a lot of drama with the first game's collectors edition because it was limited run games. Like Chow got it I think last week or something like

We've joked about second chapter coming out before the collectors edition for the first one releases, but at least Limited Run Games wasn't that bad about it. So yeah, they put up the pre orders in Japan and the other thing of note that they've not confirmed for the West is Uh the console only pre-orders in Japan include an HD remaster of Trails in the Sky first chapter, like Trails in the Sky FC essentially.

Which I assume is gonna be the PSPHD thing they did on PS three. They're gonna port it over. So that is available as a pre-order bonus, not for Steam, just for PlayStation Switch two and Switch One. So I thought that was pretty notable because uh Clouded Leopard Entertainment has confirmed it's gonna be included in the Asia version. But uh what do you think? Like are we gonna get this through Exeed later on as a paid thing? Is it never gonna come over or what's happening?

I don't know. I think it would be I think it would be awkward because which translation would they use? Because Falcom owns the Xe translation, so they could technically use the Xe translation But if I were Gung Ho, I would maybe not want to have those two directly comparable easily. I I see that but like Uh

It's just bizarre that like Gung Ho was the one that revealed the existence of a season pass for Trails in the Sky second chapter. Like we obviously knew it was gonna happen when they did it for the first one. But they put that up before there was any information here and now you have a pre order bonus here, but we don't know what's the pre order bonus for the West yet. So

It's just bizarre that like what should have been like a slam dunk release where everyone is happy, they're just like either not revealing stuff in time and then they messed up some editions again in the West. So like it's just annoying that this keeps happening. And Mikhail, you were gonna head off uh at this point? Yeah, I'm... The middle of the night for you. Yeah. So Do it. Have a good night. Thank you. All right.

Yeah, st still a number of headlines here, but a lot of these are trailers, which on this podcast we'll kind of just have to touch on and move on. So at the Galaxy Spring Showcase, we did get an announcement of Kataria Fables 2. Um This is a a follow-up to Katari Fables, which released I believe in uh twenty twenty one. Kind of like uh one of those initial farming sim action RPG hybrids. Uh uh from the c from that era. It sold pretty well the first one, so it's not surprising to see that they um

Followed up with a sequel. There's multiple playable characters. Otherwise I don't I can't really speak to it directly'cause I've never played the original. Yeah, it's like they say it's a direct they say it's a direct sequel, but it stars a new set of characters. So like Yeah. You know, it's in the same continuity but you're playing as different, you know, people. And they're it's all they're all animals, by the way. So if we haven't said that.

They're all anthropomorphic. Um and the there's like two main characters that each play uh slightly differently. Um Alice Skylar and Dusty Tufkin are Um those are definitely animal names. Well at least the second one. Mm-hmm. And the and they uh it does support like local and online co-op between the two.

characters oh yeah because it's like you play as the two characters sort of simultaneously or you know you toggle between the two so you can either play it you know by yourself kind of switching between the two characters or just play and go up Mm-hmm. A few other games that had a look in at the Galaxy Spring showcase. Uh the start out on like online game, uh Echoes of Einecrad basically got a new trailer.

Uh honestly I don't know the game well enough to like dive into what's shown here, but it was explicitly a gameplay trailer, so uh primarily looking at the game from that perspective. I don't really care about SC SAO. In fact I think its SAO is pretty bad overall. But um I I I kinda get what they're going for here. Like the game title is just called Echoes of Eincrad.

I and I've seen people like get confused about this, like, wait, what is that? Like, oh, it's the SAO game because it it doesn't actually say sort out online in the title. And you know, the whole I think the premise of the game is that it's like you are a character or a person who's playing this MMO kind of caught up in this in the SAO premise where you're like stuck in the game.

So you're like you're just some other person in the game and yeah, you might see or meet, you know, Kirito or Asuna or whatever. Um, since you're you're you're like someone else in that world. So it's like I guess that's kind of the framing they're going for, which I maybe that's why they didn't put SAO in the title. Um but that's I that's the idea anyways. Is like you're also just caught up in that press.

A couple of the other indie games that showed up at this uh showcase. Um the action rpg platformer Second Stone got a new trailer. This was first shown off, I think, earlier this year. Um it's from uh I think Polish studio? Finish. Finish. Uh and it's it's a they call it an like an RPG platformer hybrid. They they when the window was announced. Their their inspirations were explicitly listed as games like Zelda, Jack and Dexter, and also Bloodborne. So There you go.

Um so we got a new uh a new look in um during the event. Uh, Forever is another game that was shown at the at the um uh galaxy showcase. Uh it's coming into early access on May 6th. This is like an online multiplayer game where it's like you and three friends. I think it's three friends. It showed us four characters. Uh

kind of have like a mini RPG world to explore that has like a big crafting component as well. So it's it's class based. It talks about how in early access it'll have um so much content compared to the plan full release. in terms of you know weapons and and regions and things like that. So it seems like if you have a couple of friends and you kinda want like a a kind of a goofy look at uh s like a fantasy setting, looks like it could be a pretty fun time. There was also an event called uh

One second. Game stars find your next game. I think the only thing we pulled out of it is another trailer for Shadow of the Road. Uh this is from uh another Angle Games. It's one of the first games being published by Owlcat, other than their own titles, of course. Uh, Shadow of the Road, we've talked about a few times on the podcast as kind of like an alternate history, 19th century Japan um turn-based RPG.

And I will say that the more I see of this game, the more I'm interested in it in terms of it reminds me a lot of how like Wasteland, uh at least Wasteland 3, was set up. In terms of like it's got that isometric perspective, apparently it stars two characters. So I have that's very wasteland three to me, where you pick a pair of characters to kind of like create as your protagonist. But you do get other characters along uh with your party. It's this new trailer from the uh Game Star.

event shows like more dialogue and more like actual like RPG kind of mechanics and the the voiceover for the trailer talks about how that impacts the story. So it really st it's really starting to feel like it's coming together. So this is a game the more I see of it, the more I'm kind of excited for it. There's also been a lot of games I feel like set in this era of Japan recently, kinda like the uh eighteen hundreds, uh Meiji Restoration. Like obviously uh it's kind of a very um

There's a lot of stories to pull in from from that area of Japan, so I'm not surprised. But there's recently a you know, you saw it in Rise of the Ronin in Neo3, uh in that one Yakuza game for a couple of years ago. Like it's i it's a fun era to to revisit. I don't wanna be too cynical, but one thing that kind of like I can't like shake completely from this game is that it's like

Um, I think like Russian or Cyprus developers like making like a feudal Japan game. I'm just kinda like You know That's a good point. How authentic is this? You know, or is it just kinda like your wishful thinking, you know, like Japan cool type thing? I don't know. Yeah, what if samurais and robots? Like, isn't that neat? Yeah, but Yeah. It makes me think of like Bioware making Jade Empire, which is like a bunch of white Canadians making a Chinese mythology RPG, and you're just like, hmm.

Yeah. Not that Jade Empire is terrible, but it's just kinda like something to keep in mind. Yeah.

Uh we also got another just another very quick Alcat update. Um of course they are working on both DLC for Rogue Trader as well as the upcoming Warhammer 40k Dark Heresy. And they recently just revealed new companions for both of those games. Um I love Alcat companions. Uh I think they're some of the best in the business in terms of not being like too archetypal or too stereotype.

But I will say like individual character drops really don't do a ton for me. But uh I do I do think that the cast of Rogue Trader is pretty fun for that setting. And I'm in interest I'm excited to eventually revisit that game to see all the new characters they added in all the DLCs. So yeah, the the Rogue Trader character is one they're adding with the third DLC infinite Muzeon. Muzeon? I don't know, Warhammer. I don't know how that's pronounced. But yeah, um working hard on both those games.

Uh a couple small updates. Grand Blue Fantasy Relink, the upcoming endless Ragnarok kind of re-release of that game, is getting an open beta test uh next week.

Um Adventures of Elliot is another game that we have circled on our calendar for uh for later this year. Um Adam, you just kinda compiled kind of a big Square Enix newsletter dump for some of the things they detailed on that. This is not the first one we've seen for Ventures Adventures of Elliot. Um is there any any big key takeaways here here? I have a correction that I for for myself. So like Okay.

Adventures of Elliot is a time travel game. Um, there's four different eras that they're talking about, and I even mentioned we've previously had like overviews of two of them. There's two more to go. Well, here's the third one now, which is the age of magic. Now I kind of assumed last time, like, oh, there's like

your present time, then there's past, future, and then like prehistory or whatever, right? Um I was wrong. You actually start in present time. You go back to the past and it's like desolate era. I forget what it's called. I don't have the name in front of me, but it's like ruined past. And then you go further back in the past to the age of magic, um, it's not in the future. I I made that assumption last time.

And that brings up and they actually explicitly say this in this uh media kit here is, you know, you go back to the age of magic, which is uh further back in the past, which is kinda like a utopia, everything's great, you know, tied a society, but you know like what comes next, like, okay, something's gonna go wrong here and this society's gonna fail.

So that's kind of like on the back of your mind as you're exploring this era. This age the age of magic. And then the next um age is even further back in the past, um, which I assume will be the May media kit before the release in June. Um So yeah, it's a time travel game. It's got you know the HD Tut D style and the uh action RPG you know gameplay. This update also introduces like phase magic training, which um it looks like that's just kind of a fancy

kind of setting for um mini games. There's like some like point collecting or time trial type things that you can do. So it'll be kind of interesting how that's how that all fits in to the game. No. So basically the present is the furthest everything is back. Yeah, you're going back and back into so like the premise of the game is like the princess of the present has like a disease or some sort of affliction.

And like that's the original goal is to try to like solve that, but I'm assuming it becomes something greater and it somehow involves time going back in the past and seeing the era of things and I'm assuming that all all, you know, coalesce into some big conflict, but Um so yeah, that's generally seemed to be what you're going for.

All right. Uh the we have the weekly sales update. Crimson Desert has sold um over five million copies. Surprised. Uh just a couple release dates. Um, there's a game called Mem uh Memolith Forsaken by Light is releasing uh Oh wait, on April 2nd, like sorry, April 27th. I'm my my note was wrong. Releasing on April 27th.

Uh so this is a a PC game that's been in early access since 2023. So just real cool to see, even though it took three years. Um well not really three years, two and a half years, um that game is going to be seeing full release by the end of the month. It's a South Korean like uh strategy kind of based RPG. It's got like it has like a pretty intricate and detailed UI and kind of a fun pixel art art style.

And then uh Dragon Quest Smash Grow. This is like their the relatively recently announced um new Dragon Quest mobile title. Uh it's gonna get its formal launch uh April um April twentieth here in the West, April twenty first in the uh in Japan. So new drawing. A roguelike battler. Seems kind of it seems strange. Like this Dragon Quest of all things and they had a beta last year and some people played it and they're like, Yep, it's pretty strange.

I mean I'm sure the game is fine, it just it it just doesn't feel like something you'd expect from like the Dragon Quest series. I never really hear anything about the Dragon Quest mobile offerings, like Dragon Quest tact and there was a few other ones. Like Square Enix offerings or other offerings, like you I you I tend to hear about them good or bad, but Dragon Quest ones I just I never seem to like idea like what the reception is for those games. But yeah, Smash Grow uh in just a couple days.

And that's it for this podcast. It was kind of fun to have another podcast. I guess it's not on the dock, but something that I thought that was actually pretty interesting. Um, like relative, you know, in a small way, interesting. So there's gonna be another PlayStation Plus like catalog update next week, I think on April twenty first. Um Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered is being added, which is, you know, whatever. But also one of the games being added is Wild Arms 4.

Um, which is interesting. So, like Wildarms, there's like s five number titles in the series. There's a remake, there's a spin-off. Um, Wild Arms one and two had been on like They're PlayStation One games, they were on like the PS3 PSN, um, and then they eventually made it way they made it made their way to the PS4 PSN.

Wild Arms three also was. Now all of those games were like, I believe Sony published or at least Sony Partner published even back then, so that wasn't too surprising. Wild Arms four Interestingly, has like the fun fact that it was the very first game published in North America by XE. It's the very first XC game is a Wild Arms 4. Um Oh that's that's fun trivia. Yeah, back in two thousand six. It was shortly before um Shadow Hearts uh Dawn of the the New World one, whatever that's called.

The third Shadow Arts, Shadow Hearts 3. Something of the New World? I forget. Um, that came out like a couple months later also from Xeed. I'd correct you, but I I don't know what it is. It's something wrong something wrong. I'm gonna look this up. Let's look it up. We gotta get it right. Yeah, Shadow Horts. Bye. From the New World.

Is it just from the New World? Yeah, from the New World. I'm like something of the New World. Just from the New World. Okay. Which I think is actually a perfectly okay game. It's pretty much a clone of two with different characters. Uh two is better, but I think three is fine. Anyways, uh so it's kind of interesting because it's like oh I guess

Uh did does Xeed have any input under this property at all anymore? Like that was so long ago. It was obviously just like a partner thing way back when um does Sony have control over this franchise? Uh this is the very first time Wild Arms 4 has been available So in terms of just like a preservation aspect, it's like, hey, this is a place you can buy it that's not just a PS2 just sitting somewhere. Um, it'll have trophies.

Uh, for the first time. Um, it's like, well, what about Wild Arms 5? Uh, and what about the other ones? It's just kind of an interesting, like unexpected. inclusion in their library that you'll be able to buy and play it. And I don't think, you know, we expected that.

Yeah, I guess I didn't add it'cause a lot of times uh when I see those headlines about what's adding to catalogs, I'm like, Yeah, you know, that's good to cover in news, but it's early podcast material. But no, that's good that definitely is podcast material, so I'm glad you uh glad you you added that. Yeah, Wild Arms Four is kind of it has ترجمة نانسي قنقر It's probably one of the weaker Wild Arms games, like overall, but it has some good it has some both good ideas and also just like

like weird things that help it stand apart. There's a cutscene in the game where a character like jumps up in the air, propels himself with like shotguns or guns, and he like punches a missile. I'm not kidding, he just punches a missile, because why not? Um, but there's also like an interesting mechanic in the game where uh you're going through these dungeons and there's random encounters.

And then like if you solve like in each of the locations in the game, there's like an optional puzzle you can solve in that area. And if you solve that puzzle in that area, then you are given for that area like a toggle to turn off encounters or not, to turn on or off encounters. But I thought it was just kind of like a cool idea. Like the first time you get to a the first time you get to a zone, you have to deal with random encounters, old school style. It's just they're there.

It is what it is. But once as soon as you like find a puzzle, there's that incentive to figure that out, then you can turn them off.

Which is kinda like I think that's I still think that's a pretty interesting concept where it's like you can't just turn'em off and off off and on whenever you want. That's too lenient. But we're not gonna have you force you to do the random encounters all the time. But you have to have this extra incentive to go out of your way to find a puzzle so you can then turn them on.

I don't know. I thought that was kind of interesting and haven't seen many other games do that. Um but yeah, it's it's kind of a weird inclusion that I will probably play. Uh it's that I didn't expect this to be available, but now it will be. You've been having a good job.

All right, to wrap this up, uh go ahead and give Hayes' Pragmata review uh a look through uh up on the site, rpgsite.net. Uh you should bookmark our website and comment on your favorite posts. Uh join our Discord, discord.gg slash rpg site.

Um find us on social media. Just search for our RPG space site. You should be able to find us. Uh whenever you listen to us, give us a like, give us a little rating, whether it's YouTube or uh whatever podcast service we'd like to see those. Uh we'll be back next week with another episode of the Tetracast. I we might be able to talk about

Diablo, I'm not sure. RPG is twenty twenty six. Let's I'd have to check. Oh yeah, you should bookmark Adam's RPG list. Uh you know, it's it's forever bookmarked at the top of our the homepage now, so you can get to it. Uh let's see. Yeah, uh Valorborn. I've seen people excited about that entering early access. Um Diablo's not Diablo's not out. Until the week after. So I don't know when that embargo

I'll have to double check when the um, yeah, when the uh when the embargo is. So yeah, we'll see. We'll play it by ear. But until you hear from us next time, stay safe, take care. I'll talk to y'all later.