Final Fantasy XVI Spoilercast

You are listening to Video Games to the Max. Hello, and welcome to a special edition of Video Games to the Max. We are talking all things final Fantasy sixteen. We're doing a spoiler cast here that the description didn't gets you already, and thankfully I am not hearing myself to do this. Of course, we have the host of the Chapter Select pod here on the network and Fantasy aficionado himself, mister Randysville. Right were you supposed to play Fantasy

sixteen before we did this part? Hope? Yeah, I'll be right back. Yeah, I guess go watch it, Fitz, so you can come back to this like lit hours. Yeah hours, We'll see you. And of course we also have the host of the duo since podcasts and part of GNM, Andrew Roschol. How are you man, how's it going? I'm excited so of course appreciate, uh, glad that you are able to be on And of course the you did the review for Outer Haven, it's just

a Scott, how are you good? Great? I'm actually really happy to talk about it as spoiler wise, because I always feel like, all like, when you talk about it publicly, you can't go into spoilers, so it's just like very vague, like it's not bad, batter, it's really good here, and it's just like I can't explain why. Yeah, I

hate that too. You get to the point where you're like, okay, as whether you whether you reviewed it or whether you just kind of finished it as just as playing it, and you're kind of like, okay, cool, but now I can't talk to anybody about this. It's like it's it's it's cool to be able to have like a where we we go deep dive into the plot and all this stuff, and that's what we're gonna try to do here. So this is your We're not gonna do it like right away,

but just go ahead and tell you spoiler warning. I'm not gonna do this again. So if somebody says a spoiler in the middle of talking about something else, don't get upset. I just warned you. If you have not played the game, or you have not finished the game, you might want to go do that and then you can come back and watch this or

listen to it later on audio or whatever you want to do. So one time, one last time, spoiler warning for everything that is in Final Fantasy sixteen, and because this game is so story focused, and I think we can all agree that the story is probably the biggest reason to play this game. You definitely want to make sure that you've gotten as far as you want to get in this game where you start listening to people talk about further parts

of it. So I'm gonna go to you, Randy. You know you and I have been talking offline about this since the game came out, But like, what is your feeling on the game, Like, if you had to give it a rating out of ten, what is that for you? And what does it compare it to like the other five fantasies. Man, this game really is hard to rate because if I rated it in the first half of this game, I absolutely love my experience. The second half of the game, I enjoyed it, but not as much as the first half.

It really felt like two different games. It felt like these over the top battles in the first half and then really diving into your side characters. And some of the side characters are great, but there's so much of it that it just felt like all of the momentum of the story really halts. I also really felt like I love the intro to Ultima and I wanted to see where he went, and then it went in a direction I really didn't want it to, and it just became kind of generic. So I give

it an eight out of ten. I still absolutely loved this game. I would probably put it in my top third maybe if all fantasies, if I'd had to go through and rank all of them, would take a while to remember that I thought of the rest of these things. But I love the combat. I know it was a lot. It was a departure of most Final Fantasy games, but I thought they nailed it. I do think they could have went a little bit farther with it and just completely gotten rid of

the RBG elements because they became just nonsense. Yeah, and I didn't care. I don't think I loved at the menu longer than thirty seconds at a time. I just went, this one was better, Okay, I have a new one, move on it. Yeah, And so they I think they were trying to hold on to some RPG stuff that didn't need to. But overall, I absolutely love my experience, even if it kind of fell

off a little bit. Yeah, I think we can all agree with that RBG stuff that maybe if they would have just went into the direction of this is an action game and that's what this is. We wouldn't have that issue where it's like, Okay, we're trying to put some RPG elements in, but where are the rest of them that probably should be in here too? Andrew like, what did you think about the game? What would you rate it? Where did you put it on your your echelon of file fantasies.

Yeah, I'm pretty similar to right there where Randy is. We're definitely upper third. Definitely, I think it's my it's my top five. But yeah, there was not that much thinking when it comes to like equipment like um for example, like I would see like there's an accessor to increases magic. I'm like, like magic fairly does anything at all, Like it's almost pointless to use, Like even the elemental types don't really matter. You can use

fire on fire and it doesn't really change anything. So like I wish there was a little more thought, Like I wish I would have felt the need to like, oh, like I'm finding this kind of nymy, let me switch to this icon for like this elemental like you know, typing or whatever, and like it really does not matter at all to the point where I'm like, I don't even know why even different elements, but I guess it just you know, to help break up visually the different colors you know,

on the wheel and stuff and all that. But yeah, I mean I love the story. I think the story is really great. I kind of see where Randy's coming from. Where the first half of the game is very much like games of Game of Thrones where it's very political national these nations, these armies, and like the second half of the game it just becomes like a very like a you're the chosen one. Yeah right, we're Final Fantasy. You have to fight God pretty much, right, Yeah, yeah,

like you can't. We can't avoid that trope, right, And it's pretty much that point, right, Like I mean, you're you're really finding like the creator right of your world and stuff, so it gets it doesn't get the top stuff. But like I don't I don't mind that too much because again, like like Scott said, like that's always been Final Fantasy, like pretty much every fantasy I can think of, Like halfway through, he's like the big aha moment, So it's kind of par for the course. But

I wish I'm forgetting too. The combat mechanics and stuff, but I wish there was a little more need for switching up the different combos and stuff, like the different abilities. I was kind of just and you can tell, like they have like the MMO like pedigree from like Fasting fourteen because you're just waiting for the cool downs on like all your abilities, just waiting for the

cool down to like cycle through to the next thing. And I think the beginning until you get your third icon, like I think the beginning of the game feels very slow, like combat wise, you're kind of just tapping the same combinations until you get to like when you finally get the fourth one and you can only carry three, that's when things start to get more interesting in terms of like a actual like gameplay, mechanics and stuff. But the story,

I love. The voice actor is amazing, the cinematics are amazing, The Kaiju boss battles are amazing. So, like, I'm still more positive than I am negative, So it's definitely a I would probably I'm closer to like a eight point five to nine. I know I've said a lot of negative things, but like those negative things still don't aren't enough to hamper all

the positives in my opinion. Yeah, And I think that's kind of the thing that since the beginning of the cycle and discourse about this game has been how much of the negatives can you tolerate to make your you know, what you think about the game as awesome or whatever, because for some people they just they couldn't and it's not this great game that everybody was happy enough to

be in. For some it's just like that stuff didn't matter. All this other stuff is so much better, So you know, I loved it in the end or whatever. So Scott, you actually have a review out there for people to read on the Outer Haven, so like you have your thoughts collected, I guess in that way. But like what what I guess is your like rating for people that haven't read it, and where do you put it on your Echelona final fantasies there? So mine is definitely at the higher

tier of final fantasies. I do have my review. I gave it a four point five out of five or like a nine out of ten, And my thoughts are not just with the mechanics but also just the visuals. Final Fantasy sixteen is a beautiful game. All of the like textures they have all the character models, the way the animations work. It is very like Polish and a very good production of everything that Final Fantasy has to offer. I

really enjoyed the story. I do admit it definitely turns into Final Fantasy problem esques on the second half of the game, once you get into the ultimate stuff, because in the first half, it's basically you're following Sid doing Sid stuff, and that starf is great because Sid is great and Clive and Sid are fantastic together. And then the second half you're no longer with Sid, and things start to focus more on a lot of other characters, and it

starts being less about the main characters more about the side characters. And honestly that I'm fine with that. A lot of the great side characters that we got were pretty good. Gab was amazing. We got more moments with the jail, We got more moments with the cast that we generally don't really care as much about because it's not said right, and so I really do appreciate

that they gave us those moments. I really do appreciate that they let Clive kind of grow and be a better person, as well as let him kind of get out of his shell to have to become the hero that Venicilia Vasilthia needs its needed bath words. So overall, I love this game. Um. I think Final Fantasy sixteen is well worth its praise. But it does have its issues, which most issues have of mainly being Final Fantasy issues itself. I think it was Richard Hogan some other folks that are like they put

keenom Heart's nonsense sense of this game. You nonsense is actually it's been Final Fantasy nonsense for a while. Man, That's where this game game from. So you know, that doesn't really bother me because I expected that at some point it was going to turn into a Final Fantasy game. I didn't think that they were going to be able to keep up the Game of Thrones stuff the entire game. It's just they had already copied so much of Game of

Thrones that like, what are you going to do? Copy the entire movie and everything last two seasons? I mean even they still took stuff from the last the last season two Like so some of that Muhammad fight, it's straight out of the last season. I mean, so like it's just and that and that's fine, Like that's actually what made this game intriguing is that they were able to take that as a concept and you know, transcribe it to

Final Fantasy and make it its kind of own dark fantasy thing. And I loved it for that, and I love the story all the way through. I kind of get where you're going, Randy, because my issue is that if they would have divvied up the side quests a bit more, the problem is when you get to the end of the game, Yeah, it's just like, oh, yo, here's like fifteen psycquests and then oh wait,

now you got to fight the icon. Oh there's like thirty psy quests here, and oh, do all of these before you get to the end of Origin, because then once you do it, it won't really mean that much because you're really beat the game. So it's like, yo, here's like

four or five hours of you just doing the cyquests. So you know, that's that's the issue is like a lot of the story, which is not just the story itself, it's also in the psy quests, and you have to do these cy quests to get the most out of the story and get a lot of the stuff that's told at the beginning of the game, like the bear stuff and the things with all the other side characters, and I can see where Randy's Randy's point is that it kind of drags everything down to

a hole where it's like, oh, Okay, I gotta get through this and then I can get through that, and it's like, yeah, we kind of could have messed this in a little bit better on that front. But everything else about it, like the combat is it's not perfect. There's a lot of things missing. For me, the elemental stuff not being there is so jarring, like trying to hit a bomb with fire and it does nothing, and I'm just like, yo, he's supposed to be like resisting

and getting bigger and he's not doing that. And it's beard if not just straight up healing from yeah, exactly. And it's just like I'm hitting an ice thing with ice and like it's just like no big deal, and I'm

just like this is so weird. So I agree with you also that like we have the elemental, so we didn't put in elemental you know, weaknesses or anything like that, which I kind of get because then they would have had to make it to where you can switch to any icon at any point, and then it kind of makes the point of having loadouts moved, so

I don't know. They also could have made it where you save loadouts, so that yeah, having the cycle back to which I don't know why they never did that, because if you want us to mess around with the icons, it'd be a lot easier if you let us actually save loadouts so I could just switch between, like like I pas thirteen we have like the loaded like your Paradi and the twelve had the Gambit thing that you could save and all that. Like it's it's that's something they could add as DLC also or

in a patch. But yeah, I get I'm giving the game of nine out of ten. For the most part, everything about it is great and for me, like what is actually puts it above a lot of the fin fins, which, to be fair, some of them it's unfair because they were on the Super Nintendo. Yeah, like we're all just talking crap about the game, like that's still a nine though, right as much as because we're gonna talk about all the great things about the game and its crap when

you get into the hang of it. Yeah, that's true, that's true. But go with like going to the Garuda, going back to e freed, going back to Phoenix stuff, and it's just like this is so much fun, Like grab people, do AoE attacks, push them away, go but into them, attack them, go out, grab them again, and do everything all over again. Even the dodging and pairing is fun too,

because just like watching him do that. I never got tired of watching him do that slide every time I dodged, and then I freaking hit him with something else. Like that's great, especially how satisfied you feel when you're one hit from death and you're like dodging machine here when I kill them, like awesome. Yeah, So there's there's a lot of great things about this game. We're not just talking about negatives here, so let's let's get into that.

Let's talk about like some favorite things from the game. Like, I guess I'm not going to include Clive here because Clive is obviously the main character. The whole game is about Clive. Um, We're gonna get into Clive in the second when we talk about the story, because again it's all about him. So like, what is your I guess, if you excluding Clive, what is your other favorite character? Um? Of all the characters that I guess, get some kind of screen time in this game. Shit was

so good. I mean, it made his death that much better. I mean, because that was one, Like, that's the best sin out of all the Final Fantasies. If we're ranking this game on all the other Final fantasies, I think this is the best sin. M absolutely, And I can even argue there's two sins in the game. Yes, true, right the second sin. I also, I also loved Gav. I thought it was a great character. I'm blanking on the uncle's name, but myrie,

thank you great is just fantastic. That whole scene is great, and I think part of the reason why I felt like the story fell off is because all of the side characters and the enemies that I fell in love with or just loved to hate all died and the last couple just didn't hit. But like Dion and his whole family drama, which by the way, Clive's mom needed a much worse death than what she got, and I felt so I felt cheated by the whole section. But that I mean, you talk about

Game of Thrones, The whole Dion thing was great. I loved Hugo. I thought Hugo went through a crazy arc and I absolutely loved him. We don't get better addictive very much, but she was a great character too. And then you just get left with the Odin guy, who was very generic and boring. Like I said, when I first got you get introduced Ultimate

and he's like trying to figure out the human spirit and stuff. I was like, Oh, he's gonna go into these different things, and then the entire second thing is like nope, we're leading you along this path this whole time. It's like, well, then what were you doing? You try to take over client at the beginning, and now he's like, no, I can't take over your body until you get all of the you know, the crystals. This was all part of the play. No, no,

let's not do this, And that's what I felt. It's like we got rid of Hugo, and we we got rid of the don stuff and then it was literally just crystal crystal, crystal crystal, and it was like, but the crystal moments, what happened to all this cool stuff? And I

think that was my favorite. It's just some of those enemies at the beginning and really diving into like their issues and you know, they what makes a good villains as a professional wrestling fan, what makes a good bad guy or a good heal and wrestling is you know, you disagree with the reasoning, but the reasoning kind of makes sense a little bit, and then you hate them even more because they kind of makes sense. And I think at least

with Benedicta and Hugo and Dion, their issues made sense. Or makes a good bad guy is just someone everyone can hate, like clives some moment. Yeah, if only we had more moments to actually, you know, beat the crap out of her for what he deserved, rather than it just being a cut, giant cut scene. She took her life. It was so sad. I wanted more. I wanted Joshua to just beat the crap out of her, right, especially when I think because I don't think Joshua Joshua

was too good, I don't think he would have actually done it. You know, I would have likely somebody, just anyone was trying to yeah, exactly one other quick, I mean, trying to avoid the negative, but there's one more negative I have to hit with the story. They built up Turgo, and Turgo was a good boy and fantastic and then all of a sudden he became this crazy dog and they're like, all right, let's figure out what was going on. You figure it out. He never does it

again, No, he doesn't. He does it in the thought on the side, they just don't make a big deal about it when he does it. I wanted more to I wanted Turgle to continue to go insane like that was another moment when he went super Dog was one of my favorite moments. It was like, all right, turtles even better than I expected. And they had a really good explanation for it too. And then it's like, oh wait, so he doesn't evolve again, Like that's it, and I

agree with you, Randy, there wasn't. It was a certain point where like I moved the camera over and then I noticed that he actually changes, but they don't. They don't really make it. It's just like, oh, okay, I guess the battle gets too big. And then he eventually just like okay, I'm gonna be super dog now or whatever. He's like the wolf or something. He's basically ghosts, but you know, um, Andrew is there. I guess we we talked about most of the big character,

but like, it's there's another character you wanted to mention. I mean, I just I adored Adon. I love this character like how he's just like like when we were first introduced to him, it's like when Odin takes the field like that little skirmers they have, and he just kind of just leaves his tent, transforms into this big ass dragon. There's a couple like passes and then just comes back. It's like, Okay, that's enough,

like like like like it's yeah. It's kind of funny though, because like you get the sense that like all these nations have like WMDs or something with like their icons and like okay, like well Odin's out there, like I gotta show up now. It's like okay, Oden's retreating, Like I want

to retreat too. So it's like it's only kind of like for moral it seems like sometimes, but like I just love the whole like because when you enterest when you see him, you're like, Okay, I don't have to fight all these icons and I'm probably gonna have to take their abilities like forcefully, right, And I mean you do end up fighting him, but it's not like he's not like an actual villain, like he is very much a sympathetic like he's like very chivalrous, like he's only wants his talent to not

die exactly right exactly, and like I was like, okay, I kind of I kind of dig this guy. But the whole, like like when he meets up you see these he meets up with Joshua, and Joshua was

kind of explaining him to what's going on. He's like like all right, I'm in, and it's like, oh, like let's go, like all right, we got somebody else on, we got another like icon another dominant on our side kind of thing, and just the whole like his progression of like hating you know, obviously going after his step mom and accidentally killing his dad, I was like tragic and everything, and he just like flips out.

But I like how he's like the one guy who like he's just like a powerhouse as Bahama, and he's like he sticks you know, to your side, like by your side to the very end, and then like I

love that. There's like a very touchy moment towards the end where he's talking to like his attendant, the guy who's like he secretly has like a relationship with, and then Joshua says something about like um, like oh, like he knows he's not going to see him again or something like he knows he's not coming back from this and just like his whole like, I'll lead us there so you guys can save your strength and then like we'll just have this

big old giant Kaiju battle things. He's just a really badass character and I liked how he just when we first introduced to him, and I'm like, oh, he's gonna be like another like Hugo or Benedictine. It's like now like he was like a complete like like not all dominants are like not all dominance are vengeful exactly, Yeah, Scott, any any other ones who want

to mention there. I really did like Jill a lot, Mum. I do think that a lot of what Jill strength does is kind of sad that they focus it on like one arc of one of the crystals, and then she's pretty much put to the sideline most of the time after that. But I do like the moments we did get with Jill Um. Poor goal was was best dog. Yeah, the only consistent party member throughout the whole game.

Yeah, yeah, which is why he's the only one you can control in any regard the other ones kind of just do what they want, which is one reason I can't wait for this to be on PC when they do have mods, because I'm absolutely getting a party control modest. Yeah, I mean yeah. The thing with Jill is like I kind of get the what people were saying about, Oh man, she's kind of not a lot of the women characters kind of get thrown to the side in this game, and

I kind of understand that. In a way. Jill, I feel like, even though she's not always present, she is there for Clive, is like a person to talk to, and like you see their relationship grow. It's actually one of the I felt like, at least as a love story. It's a sweet love story, as in, like you see it from when they're young too now and they have that consistent care for each other.

Even at the end when you see the ending, the way she reacts is just like it makes you feel more for Clive in that moment, and so I felt like by the end that relationship works. Yeah, maybe it's not the most bombastic and the most in your face like un or whatever, but yeah, we don't get the death sceams like we did in Final Fantasy seven

or ten. Yeah, um, and and I think, like you you touched on it that Gab was also like Justab was great like him and thought he was gonna die in the first half and then he shows up and he's just like amazing. It's like never mind. Yeah, I wish like that's

buddy. I wish he was like an actual like party member, Like I wish you had you have like you retroduced all these different characters, and it's like it would have been cool, like if you're like, oh, you're going to side quiz like choose someone to go with you or something, be basically yeah, like like the one quest where you can choose someone to go with you. Wish I was like all the side quests, right, Yeah, it was understand what the mechanics would have been. How difficult that would

have been to do. Where I understand the main quest, like why you can't have circuit, but like, if you're going to have quests at the end of the game where you can basically make Joshua and Jill permanent party members, why can't you do that at other points of the game. Also, like it's just kind of weird that that you have that but you can't do

it throughout the game. I get the point if you didn't really want to have a party, but it's like even if you have them there and you let give us the choice of pick who you want and oh maybe you can mess with what he wears or I don't know about the equipment because that necessarily doesn't really matter in this game that much, but it has ye, yes, yeah, you get to see the sword that Clive chooses, but that's a right. Here's here's a pallete changed from a sword you saw like three

swords. Yeah. I think it's even more funny with like the strongest sword in the last half of the game is just the first sword remodeled in a different color. Yeah, it's like the better defender. Oh that's right. Yeah yeah, and then the was it grab Garmer tag or something like that. I think it's like the best one, right, Yeah, that's like the ultimate weapon from for this game besides Ultimate the ultimate one in Fantasy Mode.

Yeah. Yeah, So what was y'all's favorite icon to use? What is your You would say it's like your your main actually just because Walton got rid of it because it was only range. Well, I think using Bohammad for the charge up for like mega flare, like yeah, yeah, if you get a perfect dodge, it instantly like fills up the meter so that you can just do like passive damage. And then the the other one is the impulse thing that sends out these little orbits that kind of just yeah,

and then of course the giggle flare and you just charge call yeah. People all talk about Game at Thrones. This this game has even more to do with like Dragon Ball Z than at the very end, you know, like when you're at the very at the very end of the game when you and Ultim are going through all the icon abilities and basically he uses bigga flair use mega flare is basically just mashed the button too, like like push through Brandy.

What was Your Mine was more a combination of Shiva and Ramu because I thought they really worked well together. Like Shiva would bring them all in and then Rama would just do some kind of a area attack, and that was my favorite with every kind of bob I would pass like all right, Shiva pull everyone in, and then I just did this big attack and then have all of the enemies are at half damage and then you just kind of go to town. So I think it was basically those two in boham it were

the three that I stuck with. Once I got those three, that's all I always using, Scott, what was your alrighty? So my first one that I always began or kept with was usually the Phoenix, just because I liked tavy the ability to just teleport to people whenever I need to closed distance. The one that would always do the most damage for me, though, was actually Odin because you could just spam the crap at his intent sun on. It stops everyone in their tracks for a set period of time and you

could just keep doing more damage on them. So I just loved spamming the crap out of that when I could. That saved me a lot of the

times when I do bigger fights. And then I did it initially, but when I went to Final fantasylod I switched out for the Titan because I noticed that dodging doesn't always work as well in the Final Fantasy mode, but blocking does fantastic, and being able to parry also is very nice when you like you do everything just at the right time and you just she used like the raging fists, ability to parry like an attack at the right time and then

you just hurt. You just basically get rid of their stagger bar and they're staggered for a bit. So that that's my main three that I was working with. Yeah, by the end, I was just using if. I was using if it, uh, Garuda and Bahammad, like I would open. I always have the exact same routine for every group of enemies, where it was like, Okay, there's a lot of enemies near by, I'll do like a little spinning like flame thing that kind of sucks them in a

little bit. And then if it's just like one enemy, I'll just do like the wing smack thing where like just a smash. It's usually it's like a one hit koll like on a regular enemy or whatever, like the second part of the attack kills the enemy. But uh, and then I would just like if it's like a big enemy or whatever, I would just search to garut us, I can do the uh, the little the quick talent thing, and then yeah, if you get the sagar bar halfway down,

you do the thing where you pull them down. It's like that whole thing scorpion. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was like a half staggered kind of thing. And by that point, I usually have like the you know L three R three ready to the limit break something prime yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, when you I can't remember the turn, but yeah, it's like the limit break thing basically, and just like I just go handle the ching ching ching is the story everything. So like I

had like a like a routine. We're like, okay, clearly this this, this, this and this, and then we'll cycle back to the beginning and just keep it going. I used the Phoenix, Ramu and Bahamad for most of the game. I loved using Phoenix to be able to you have the flames of rebirth where you can heal yourself yeah in a bad moment. And then I love switching between I love that the rising Flames one where you just basically do like a big ass uppercut that takes off like half their health

or the old health, and it's just like an awesome movie. You can pull out of nowhere and just oh he turned around right from my face, bamn, and you can see him like, knock him out. That's great. And uh, I love doing Ramu to both the pile driver move where you're doing the area air attack like Randy does. And then I love doing the big old where you just like slam it down and take out like one dude completely, and then the course the special one is even more awesome because

it just takes out like half their stagger bar or the health bar. And then of course Bahama it's all his mood set is awesome because you can just I love using that impulse constantly because it kills their stagger things so quick. Yeah, and then any moment that you need to take out a bunch of enemies and it's perfect for that because it I use the everything like you're saying. But then there's times where like they're not all in a nice little rose

so when you start turning around, he doesn't. He doesn't really grab people here, You're kind of having to like really twist and turn that thing. So whatever he doesn't grab them, Bahama will just take out the rest with

the impulse things. So I love because like by the end of like when you have like the big like when you're finding like, um, I'm pretty sure yeah, when you're finding like the Behemoth, like you're in terms of the end of the game, the big ass Behemoth, Like I'm just like stalling letting megaflare refill, and it also like, just send the Impulse.

I'm like, i can't afford to stop to attacks. I'm just gonna say impulse and Impulse will do like it's you know, let's do this a little or whatever, and it's like, okay, the bars full, all right, let's just hit him with a big ass beam while we still can kind of thing like that was pretty much just like I was just how Niky Bosses was with behamed by the end, I think one of my favorite things and it never got old, even though you play this game for like fifty hours.

Is getting to a stagger on a big enemy and you have set it up perfectly where you have everything is refilled at the right time, and you just catch all of them and you just like, let's see how high this number could get. And by the time you've used them all and your limit break, some of them have come back. You're like, you sucked, dude, here we go your staggers still not fix. All right, let's

do it again round two, And every time it just felt satisfying. It's like, all right, and even when you do the ultimates, it thoughts them, so you can even do it when they're not stag and they will stop them in their tracks right there, and you still can whoop them after that, which is yeah, it's even I love doing that the exact same thing. I would wait until everybody everything's filled up, then I'd hit the limit break and then I would do the stagger part and just unload everything.

And it's so satisfying. It doesn't matter how many times you do it. Another thing that's, you know, is fantastic about this game is, obviously, you know, we talked about it, the icon battles, and I think, like I've heard you know, you you listen to people, you watch people, you go on and write it. Everybody's thoughts, Like what was your favorite icon fight of the all the ones in the game. Actually, my favorite one actually was It was Bahammad at first, and then it

was the Odin fight. What I really liked about the Odin one was the moment where you break his sword and then you use the sword against his like horse or whatever, like you do the skin like reverse it on him or whatever, and then he like he's like you dare or something like that. I was like, yeah, I dare whole that was like probably the hard

Honestly, I found that fight to be harder than Ultimu himself. Like yeah, so like I mean it kind of helps the games like kind of kind of holds your hand where like if you die, like you just start like at the previous checkpoint with all your items refilled. So like it's it's not it's almost impossible to like lose, like completely lose. I mean it is possible if you don't try hard enough, I guess, but like you,

I don't even not gonna try. So there was like a part where I was like stuck for three rounds because I could just not I just couldn't get to the next like cut scene checkpoint to like trigger like okay, like this is gonna be the next checkpoint where like it was when he's wearing like the full armor, right he's like you're fighting barnabus on grat on the floor and

you're like on a statue I think or something. But like I just he it was just like so combo heavy that was really hard for me to nail all like the like went to dodge, went to jump because like like different animations have different like links or attack animations have different like lengths and stuff. So like I was stuck there for about two or three like deaths until I finally figured it out and I was finally able to get to like the next

portion of the battle. So that was the one where I actually felt like I had to try the hardest because like you're going into the fight and it's like he's already like bested you twice. Like I mean there were story parts, but like he's already best in you twice, so like you know, this guy's like the legit, the real deal and just the whole like it's just like sword on sword, like his whole thing is like like his element is darkness or whatever, but like he really just has a big ass sword

kind of thing. So it just feels like, I don't know, it's like a really bad like just one on one kind of like the Slatner fight you have earlier in the game, like with the silver haired guy like the commander of his Guard, where it's just a good yeah yeah, we has like the armors just a biggest sword fight. It was like it was just kind of like that again. So that was although going into space with Muhammad was badass, I think the the Odin fight just felt way more like hided

for me, like way more more tension. Yeah, I'm with Andrew. I think Bahamas was probably my favorite, but it was the Titan fight that made me just go, what is this game? Because there was like thirteen different stages to that fight, and every single one of them was completely different, and everyone felt like, all right, this is it, and it's

like now now you have to run across his arms. All right, now you're going through his body and if you take forever, then I guess Titan absolutely gigantic because that fight could take a bit while you're falling through the ground

and then you get more and then you're doing this and that. I'm like, that was really the the fight where I went, I don't know what this game is an Yeah, that that fight is something else, Like I think everybody that kind of has gone when they go through that fight, it's like, holy crap. Wow. But it also feels like it takes forever because there's parts where it's like, oh my god, I'm doing the same like three movements constantly you can try to avoid his attacks and then going into

mind and whatever. Um. I would say that, like it's amazing too. They've had other games where you play as a summon. It's like ten and stuff like that, but it's actually super fun to play as E Free and and also to know that his name is he Free and not if it right, I call him for it forever and then like Free, I'm like,

oh you say the eye like that? Okay, yeah, that's he's like come to me like, uh, actually really like the fight where you're fighting yourself Okay, oh yeah, Like that's actually yes, that one's like

really good. And it's like not only the story part right where because he's accepting the fact that like also like you have to accept the fact that you're this dominant now, and um, you do kind of do the Kingdom Hearts like anti Sooro thing where you fight yourself and then you fight E Free and then you know, you fight yourself and you free again, and it's like, wow, this feels epic. It feels awesome. And then you go back to the you know, it's like, man, can I do that

again? Yeah? I mean none of the icon fights are are bad. They're all great. Um. It kind of feels kind of sad that like Garuda doesn't get this like big epic one. I feel like hers feels the most I guess ordinary compared to the other ones, but yeah, man, they're all scott which one mine was probably gonna be Bahamas. My favorite um

Titan though, was the one that I had to record. I recorded myself for the Outer Haven and then had to throw out the thing because I left the stupid controller microphone on, so you have the stupid echo going on, as well as in some of the fight areas where it was a little more hard where I was actually having a little struggles with, especially like when you're fighting him in like the little room and he's constantly just throwing spikes from the

ground and from the sky all over you and you just have to keep dodging and weaving without dying. It's a great fight, but holy crap, it was intense. There's like three moments in that fight where I thought like, Okay, we're done, and I was like, no, I think that My favorite fight is still probably a Behammed, just because of just it shows you the scale of everything that's going on, so well, you're in space, yes, and then it really feels like it turned through it a completely

different game because you're like just basically like a spaceship or whatever. What I like about that fight though, with Bohammad is. I like, how like he keeps ratching up kind of like like moham goes like Super Sayan and Super Sian too, and then like Super Sayan where it's like Mega Flare, Giga Flare, Tara Flare, Like we're just going through all the Flair tiers and stuff. It's like like by the time like you're the last pem, he's

like all golden. It kind of reminds of the last Vohamat you get in Fancy seven because you get like the different types of Bohammets. It's like, now we're in space. Just like how like in that Summit I seven like that one, like he's literally firing from space. I'm like okay, like there's like that's a that's a nod. That's like a Final Fantasy seven not right. Yeah, yeah, they get to Zeta Flair. Then I was thinking about Donald Duck the whole time. No one is as strong as Donald

Duck in the Final Fair. I mean, another awesome thing about this game is the music. God Yeah, obviously um and all of the fights had their own theme, and then you know you had the different boss battle themes than obviously the other music. That's in the game, Like, do you have a favorite piece of music that when it came on you're like, yeah, I'm going, I'm ready, you know, let's do this. I mean, obviously, what is it to find? The Flame one is the

one you hear the most. That one's great. I love the Phoenix one. I forget what the actual title of that song is, but the the opera stuff that goes on during that song is just fantastic. I actually listened to it before we started. It was one of the few that that I was listening to. I remember, like during the final fight, I absolutely loved that song, just because it felt like it was a mix of a lot of the ones that we've had. But going back actually listening to it,

it wasn't this epic. Maybe it was just because the final fight was going on and I was like, all right, this is just it. But yeah, I think the Phoenix theme is is my favorite song out of here. But the soundtrack is fantastic. There's the opening notes of the regular like battle thing we're just finding like regular mobs. It's like so reminiscent of Pall Fantasy eight, where the like the very beginnings, like that was this

extra Phomacy eight. But my favorite check in it's shudn't say it's my theory because I don't remember the name, but it's uh the background music that it plays when you're when you're in that one forest section early on. Um, you can go back to it later on obviously they're like, yeah, it has this really cool, like just mellow sound to it. I really like

it's just very distinct from the rest of the game. Um. But yeah, I think that that track, I don't know what's called it someone that plays when you remember you're in that forest, when when you Sid first takes you out to that forest and you fight that big like rolling blizzard thing. Yeah, the background music that plays there is really nice. And uh yeah, like um, like Randy said, the course of the Phoenix thing.

I think those are the two ones that really stuck out because I was going to the forest a lot for like side plays and stuff, but when you fight the griffin and all that. So I really liked the four I don't know what's called. I just called it forrest theme, but it's really true. My favorite one is actually probably Sid's theme the hide Hideaway. Yeah, I didn't think like I I guess I think it's because of Reef doing the

game again and hearing some of the themes in my head. I didn't recognize just how much actually like Sid's theme until Sid shows up for the first time, and it's just like, how's it going? After he saves you from all the humongous people at Lightning and then his theme comes on, It's just like, this is such a good song. How come I couldn't remember at all because he's not here in the second half. Well, you still hear

it when you go to the Hideaway every day. Yeah, but that made me want to fit and be in the Hideaway because that song is I agree with you, it's actually so good that it works. Um, I guess it's the main boss team. There's like two or three that are sort of like they keep changing depending on you're fighting. The one that plays when you do the hunts. For me, like every time I came on, I'm like, okay, let's go. I'm ready to kill whatever this thing is

like, and it's so good. I can hear it on repeat a bunch of times, and I think it's gonna wind up being like one of the battle themes that stand. You know, I know you can probably rank those with all the other I think it's it stands up there with with some of the better ones of all the pop fantasy stuff. Do you guys have a favorite hunt that? I don't know if everybody's like done? Me and Randy both did all of them, Like I only did like three or four?

How can you live with yourself? I was rushing my playtime, thank you very well? Okay, people, how need me down to right stuff? And I was like, I want to play the game. Both there's one there's a reason why I did it like the second half of this game because holy goddamn quests exclamation marks, And two there's a reason why I will never beat the Witch or three if you throw exclamation marks and question marks on my screen, I have to complete them. The shame goes with the hunts.

And that's why I was like, oh, I just I want to finish this game. But but there's seventeen question marks still over here, and three of them could be good. I can't remember that, I will say, but most of the side quests felt very much fetch QUESTI yeah, very mmmo. We know where that came from. Inspiration from go pick up the sand for me? Was just like, you know what, that's the main quest

too. It was when you're building the ship or whatever. It really mad at me because I'd be skipping dialogue and it's like, what do you do? It's like, this is like literally when when your main character goes why am I doing this? Or you go up to somebody you shouldn't be doing this. You're you're the leaders, Like, I know I shouldn't be doing this, but I am because no one else is stepping up here. Thank you. No attack the two things that you need mean to attack and I'll

move on. But no, all the the str rank hunts, I thought, we're all pretty good. I like that there was a big variety of the different kind of animals that you fought. I really enjoyed the fact that they went, hey, it's it's it's in this area kind of I go find yeah, and then you look through the map to try to find it. And it was really the only reason to explore, Like the only thing that made expiration rewarding was finding at the end of the time that you'd be

there is oh there's a hunt. Okay, cool, let's say And honestly, I mean, I I've I've flipped them crap for not doing the hunts. You don't have to do them, because yeah, what do you get for most of them? Three of the same item. I have five hundred of already and I don't use so yeah, but you like some more? Why right? No, but I'd like a meteor I Oh, well, I can't help you with that. Yeah, give you that. That's the one you got to go buy at the store, and they only have like

one of and so I was so annoyed. I like, I needed like three more meteorites for one of like the best weapons in the end game. And it's just like, where do I get meteorites? I don't know. One of the side quests, which one I think I liked? Um, the drag Dragon is like one of the last ones you get. It's called like the Ruined we Awakening or something in the hunt board it That dude is

no joke. You really should be close for like level fifty when you fight him, because it's he spamsy with ship and then he all of a sudden, he's just like he's not like the other dragons that you fight in the game, Like he has different attacks that are all like you know, Firebase and he gets to the point where he just like does all three at the same time, and I'm just like, what the hell is it? Something like I'm trying not to die. I remember fighting him the first time.

I don't think I would. I was probably like low forties or whatever, and I'm like, all right, this is going great. And then I died. I'm like, I had two thirds of my health left. So yeah, move just happened here. Just the screen went insane and I was bad. Yeah, okay, I will come back to this later, and this not for me, as I am not ready for you, sir, But yeah, I remember that that was good. Yeah. There's the big behemoth that you fight also in one those is uh pretty great too. I

mean there are like all variations of people that you find. There's actually two, there's two of them. Wow, there's one that a quest and then there's another one that's like the big, big behemoth. Yeah. So yeah, so like that kind of leads me into getting you know, let's get into I guess this. Oh. We forgot to mention one character, which is probably the most well done of the female characters mid mid Awesome. Her act for one, the voice actress is awesome because I love her accent.

She's definitely not mid and she has like one of the best moments where it does feel like you have a party where she's like it's the first time you have the airship or whatever, and she's like ordering all of you guys like Okay, everybody get in the line, and then they all have to like that yeah, And I'm just like, man, we should have more moments like this where it feels like they're all battling together. And I'm like, I always said the leader when he had med who could have been a leader

does? Yeah? You know what's funny about that is, uh, as you guys mentioned that right now, I didn't realize how much of a cast of side characters there was until the very end of the game where you see them all like lined up in front of you and it's like, oh, shoot, like there really is a lot of side characters and pull up this game. That's not just Clive. Yeah. Yeah, but I didn't really.

I just I it just hit me when you see them all like lined up for like the last farewell before the final fighting, and like it's like, oh shoot, like they like they just kind of just because you only see them like one at a time and like scattered throughout the whole story. And again, like everybody lined up in front of me, and it's like, oh, that's right, you have you know, Karen and Goots and Byron and Mid and the Tombs, and like I was like, oh,

shoot, Like it's actually a big cast of characters. It's just like you just don't spend that much time with them individually. It seems like like you don't really get to know I guess, I guess if you do the side question if you do at the ends. Yeah again, Andrew side quest at the very end, Andrew that I knew there were so many side characters when

there were seventeen question marks. There are too many side characters in there that doesn't include Martha at her in and then the guy that was at the desert place his stuff, and yeah, the one to move board, the one I'm glad that I did do, was the one that gets you Ambrosia back, the Chokabo back, because yes, I couldn't imagine doing the whole rest of the game without especially because there's understand yeah, somebody understand why Clive has

to like do a jog and then gradually then he has to turn a porter, which stops him again. No, I lost the moment because doesn't have the dedicated panics going on here or like, oh, you can't use Ambrosia here. I'm like, oh, come on, man, that's a yeah, even Ambrosia. It gets a nice story at the end. Hey, that's so cool. Though, it's like a it's a silver Chokable with an eyepash. I'm like, yeah, that's that's a hard ass choko bo. I mean, she didn't go through the Phoenix Gate thing. It's like it's

like everyone's like solid stink or something or something. Yeah, why can't we see his character arcs? That's that's DLC. Honestly, I wish they do have DLC for the other characters. Well, they said they weren't gonna do DLC, right, but then they said, we're like rexam, we are. We're re examining if we should or not because now we're successful. We didn't think it's going to be as successful apparently, right right, that's how

Square Phoenix works. We're not planning on DLC. Strangers of Paradise. Oh crap, people bought the game. Never mind, We're we have three DLC packs. On the way. Don't worry, you get a couple of million more out of these people's right. Yeah, well we'll get into that too, and a little bit like what we think the DLC will be. But like getting into I guess the story. I mean, obviously it's based around

Clive. He's your main character. It starts with him and Joshua, and then I think one of the themes that I love the most of this game is how he Clive is always Joshua shield from beginning to end. Even when he is Clive and he is the main guy, he still cares so much for his brother that it's important to him that Joshua lives on, even though

you know he's supposed to be the god here or whatever. Like, I love that they kept that consistent throughout the game, and from the moment you see them together, you feel that moment for them, which obviously gets heightened when you think he's dead, to the rest of the time where they find each other and you have all these big moments with them, and it's like, that's so rewarding to me, is that the Joshua and Clive relationship in

this game. But I love the flashbacks that they had between the two where you kind of see because obviously the mom absolutely hates Clive because he wasn't granted all the Phoenix powers, so he what a horrible human being he is. And I'm gonna move on to Joshua and stuff, But just seeing how Clive accepted his role and was like, no, that's fine. I was always going to protect my little brother, but now I have a reason too even more, and this is my role, and I'm going to make sure he's

the best Phoenix that he could be. And just kind of as they reunite and that that bond regrows, you kind of then get to go back and see just how close they were as kids and thought I thought those two and and their brotherhood was was told really well. Love. I love how later on like, um, Joshua obviously you know he comes back and they now there's like two fire dominance and then like when the team up du like it's

just it feels like if you played King Harts. It feels like when you get Ricou back with Sore at the end of Harts Too, where it's like it's like, all right, we got both the boys back. They both are like super Saan, Yeah, you got back, like let's do this, let's do this, like just like when they do when they combine into like that improved like if you like whatever with the wings. I was like, oh, this is like again, this is like it's like the fusion

dance for dragon Like, let's not do the King the Marsing. I missed the dragon ball Z stuff. That's like whenever you think like okay, like the game can't get more like crazy than it keeps getting crazy, and I'm just like I love this, man, I love this. That that's I think for me, what makes this game stand out the most is the presentation just absolutely nails everything and perhaps maybe scoring and it has to start thinking about

maybe the English feel is a little bit more important than the Japanese. I don't know, but like they just got such perfect voiceover for most of their main casts. They did record the English version first, right I heard yeah, yeah, is matched to the English version exactly, Yes, But it's not even the list thing. It's like the way that most of the conversations are not stilted unless you go into like the very low end side quest where

it's like literally literally tell you can you help feed these people? Sure? Yeah, But like all the main story stuff is so well done. It feels natural. It feels that they're talking to each other. It's not like somebody standing there England. And then there's like a ten second pause and then so you're saying, yeah, would you say ready, I didn't hear you. Oh. Some of the side quests made me feel like the game we're gonna stand on our mark and we're just gonna stare into space and say our

line with the least amount of emotion possible. All right, now go yeah. Now that's not just the side quest, that's also their main the game. I will not tolerate this, spith as the slander. Alright, you're right, they like Bethesda jink. Yeah. I love the Bethesda games. I loved Oblivion. I love Fallout four and three and New Vegas, which I mean obviously that's Obsidian, but still same regard. But they do have their issues. That is one of their big ones. Actually, there was

I had zero glitchers in this game. It was Yeah, it was really polished, like there was very minimal clipping and if at all, what a different simation. But you can have like a whole year toolish the game. Yeah, they did a lot with polishing the game, and they're like, yeah, the game's done already, but we want to make sure that it's

perfect, and that that makes a huge difference. Um, you know, you touched on a rainy But like, I do think that the Ultimate from where it starts to where it ends, like the way they reveal all of these things and they're kind of pushing you through it. Maybe the way that he says that at the end, it's kind of like, oh, yeah, I was trying to get you to do that. But like, what do y'all think about I guess how they built up the big bad? Do

you think he was a good big bad in the ends? Like Ultima's fine, yeah, but I also think that it suffers a lot from the same regard as a like Final Fantasy twelve is where the ideology and the and like the characters are a lot more interesting, and then when they do finally pull out the reason why this one character has been acting so weird is than just

like it feels almost like a cop out at times. But Ultima was a better version of that than Twelves, but it still had that same issue of it being the all like the stuff surrounding the character's interesting, but the character themselves as the villain is kind of just yeah, ultimome's the reason. He's just like, oh, we just wanted to make our own planet that magic existed, because magic seems to just destroy every planet it's on. Yeah.

I agree with Scott too, where obviously twelve was one of my favorite ones, and the whole thing with Vain. Vain, who's like the main attachons, is way more interesting before you find out he's being manipulated by the Vanat And at that point it's like it's like, oh, man, like you were way more intriguing before I found out you're just the puppet kind of thing. You had a reason. I thought that was going to be interesting, but it turns out no, just God told me so, Yeah, exactly,

exactly. Yeah, I do agree with that. It's Ultima makes as much sense as time compression all that crap makes sense. And found Fantasy eight where I'm just kind of like like what people yeah, like okay, sure,

why not? I mean like I feel like I think Barnabas kind of muddies that a little bit too, where he comes in here and it's like like he knows you have to take his icon to fulfill the whole thing that Ultima wants him to do, but he's still like putting up a fight, and it's like like aren't you getting aren't you like contradicting yourself getting in the way of this prophecy thing, But like, yeah, you know what I mean, Like there's some things that towards the end of the game where because

I saw some tweets about this too, where people were saying, like, the first two thirds of the game story wise are solid, and then it kind of just does the final fantasy thing where it kind of just can't really nail the story landing. It just becomes like you were like you know, like like like Randy said, like you're destroying the crystals because I wanted YouTube. It's like like what no, like Sid wanted us to do in the first place. And I'm like, you know what I mean, Like it's

how did you do the rest? And like, I don't know, It's just it you have to ask yourself, like why would Ultimate want to interfere with you destroying the crystals if that's what she wanted to from the get go to do, right, Yeah, I don't know if they just could not come up with an ending, But you guys brought up two great points and final Fascy history with eight and twelve, where Final Fasty for the entire time was like, oh, here's your big bad the whole time, just kidding,

here's your real bad bad. Yeah, Ultima was always the big bad. I was waiting because I would agree with you guys, this final fight was okay. I was like, all right, well, this is just a setup to whatever was really controlling Ultimate that we've never seen before. No, it was just Ultimate. But like Andrew said, it was the entire first half with Ultimate, which I loved, was like I need to weaken you and I need to make you feel weak and have no hope, and

that was his whole thing. Is like, oh wait, okay, so I didn't understand this about the human being, So now I have to defeat this, and now I have to make you weak this way. And then at the end it's like, Nope, Barnabass is going to make you stronger and you have to be in your ultimate form for he to for him to be able to take it over. No, that's not what you were saying

this whole time. Yeah, so it just kind of flipped itself on its head, and I was like, I was really excited to kind of see where things were going and seeing different spoiler casters are out and the different theories of it. Was Barnabyss who sent Benedict's head, Yeah, definitely was barnamous continue building all that kind of stuff up and really sing humanity to its edge.

Was like this, this is like it was built so fantastically and in the end it was like, no, all of this happened because I wanted it to. No, didn't stop it just at one point go, you know what, I've done everything I can. You're just a pest and now I'm just gonna kill you because you're I can't do this anymore. Not No, this was all part of my master plan written by your brother in his book that we saw. Yeah, I like that. I thought that was

cool. I kind of like the ending. I like, yeah, like the post credit scene was built up in one of the side quests by the way, Yeah, I heard about that the case people are confused, Yes there was. There was built up for that, like after credit scene if you did the side quest near the end, but it was one of like the twenty of them, so if you yeah, yeah, exactly you have to know which one of the twenty you have to do before. I don't know how close we are to any of this, but I would be remissed

to neglect this part. I love. I like the idea of of how deep the lore is in the background of the game. Yeah, yeah, what's her name? I think it's not Vivian. There you go. She kind of has this whole like the Games of Thrones interests moving like okay, yeah, yeah, the arrows showing you like, oh, like Barton of Us, like he's not from here, he came from some other continent. He conquered this continent, and like he brought he revived this religion that like

went out of style like years ago. Like I love like the background stuff and the like the active time lower stuff that you just push the button and like here's how all these characters are connected. And then here's the timeline if you want to get more in depth with it of like who's the like who

kills who and kind of stuff. Like I love how how they thought about that to make it where it's not just like when you get a time, like when you get time, here's the glossary or an index like way over here kind of and it's not even just characters or the way different groups have been handled items and stuff like there weres parts fere I'm like, what is the second moon? Yeah, you click the button and it tells you about it, or yeah, when they got handcuffs, I'm like, how does

this work? You click it? And they have For the longest time, I thought there was like a red smudge on my screen. I was like, what is But then I was like, no, no, it only shows up when the moon shows up. Like Okay, it's not smudge,

that's like the star or something. Really, it's like, yeah, when you find it in the in the like the little lord thingy, and it tells you like, oh, it has a name, and here's like its relationship, like not just like in position, but like also also like here's a lower reason, like why these people think that this moon has this name

or represents this thing. I was like, Oh, that's so cool that you do that, and and like you shaid it with Vivian and and the way she was showing you how the different battles worked, and and her map was kind of showing me the blight, which I guess we haven't talked about because it was just it was such a side thing. They were like, oh, the blight's coming over what is it? It was a good playing

the number ending story. But and I another thing that kind of rubbed me the wrong way a little bit was what you just brought up where she's like, well, Barnamiss was over here and we really what I loved is she didn't know much about him because he was on this island and nobody could get over there. And then you get over there, it's like, well, we know nothing about him because his entire army's dead and yeah, and he really rules nothing over here, so that's why nothing's happening from him. But

but yeah, I love that. It's just you just at any point you could just it was a very lived in world and you could it was maybe have an explanation for why Gil is called Gil the currency, like yeah, it's founded by this banker named something Gillian. Like that's cool because like that's the thing from across like Chocobo's and Google is like the money is always Gil. It's always Gail. I don't know why, but it's always Gail. And like, oh, here's an actual reason why it's called Gil. And

like that is so cool. I love like those extra details that are not necessary, but like we're just gonna put them there. Anyways. Well, I started doing was before like a big scene you can actually do the actil

woman. It gives you context for like what you're about to watch. So it's like it's a wonderful tool for in so many ways of just being able to tell you, oh, these are the things that you're about to like see, and then you kind of know what they are, and then when they talk about them, you don't feel like you'd be like what are they talking about? Like you actually knows so active time more for every JRPG from here on out. Yes, now, yeah, that definitely needs to be

in there. I would kind of cheat a little bit with it, where like someone would show up and like I would immediately like tell me who they are before they introduce themselves, like I would try to read up ahead. No, and then also, like the thing with Vivian is it tells you like how they all know each other, Right, there's that part of Okay, this person's relationship started here, and this is how they know each other. And then this is like there's so much for you to learn if you

want to and it's not read fifty volumes of text. It's there for you and explained, which is way better than a lot of other fantacy to do it where it's like, yeah, we have encyclopedias here for you. Yeah, I don't want to real. A lot of you guys ever played Star Ocean in three, But Star Ocean three has that where it's like thick, thick, like just a wall of text. Yeah. Everything, It's like, this is cool. Bit man, it's just a wall of text.

Like it's like not, yeah, it's not giving me any kind of people read in video games. No, I mean you mentioned it. The blight is really it's sort of like a just this is why we're having to do the things we do because all this stuff is gonna get die anyway, like you know, and and oh, well the crystals are the way we're gonna end the blight or whatever. So I guess it kind of gives them a context as to why they need to eventually destroy the crystals, so it exists

for reason in a way. And uh, also so you can have the night King hordes happened that Cassic or that too. Um yeah, man, there's there's really just a lot of it's actually fascinating, Like I watched this thing of like how many Game of Thrones things they took like literally took from

there and put into this game, and it's it's cool that. Another thing we haven't really talked about is is how bearers are basically slaves and how horrible yea half a humanity is, Like I forget that town that's by the ocean that has some of those that my maid turned into stone and Daddy won't buy me enough one and then you're like, holy craft, that's a person like wow, or the dad that wants you to go save his son and then when you do, he's like, no, you were supposed to die for

their table. It's like, oh man, some of these people are just horrible. No. And then just the way that they like insult you, it's just like my god, wow, they do not. And then people complain that they wanted, you know, people of color to be in those positions. I mean, what would you be thinking right now if that was that and you're hearing that and then you're seeing that, like I think that would hit you more, but not in a good way, you know.

So we had a whole area just middle Eastern people. That's all the people we need with with the cliche music of like yeah, yeah, I mean it doesn't help that they all have like turbans and like, yeah, Middle

Eastern. I mean, I guess that's the closest to them geographically, So maybe, But I feel like if you play through most of the psy quests, they do a really good I was explaining the stuff with the bears and and all of that, Like I feel like that kind of gets lost if you don't do the psy quest, like, because yeah, that is difference of when you're Clive talking to people in the first half of the game versus the second half of the game, because they all like you're a Bearer in

the first half and the second half they don't. Yeah, I'm just gonna just cover that up, skelp my face off for a second. They still acknowledge it, but now it's like, Okay, you're sid. So it's sort of like yeah, but like seeing the way that they like that one, well it's a main quest, but like you see more of it too when you do the psych quest, of like the way they die and like what they have to go through and all that. Just because they were born

with the Crystal Magical Hours. Yeah, it's like wow, it really gives you a unique look on like Okay, this is like this is kind of hitting you there. Like they really do a good job of having those moments with with that where it's like, oh, this is a dark fantasy and this is getting real dark, like you know. And then there's like the echoes of Fall Fantasy seven in there too, where like they have the crystal shards and they kind of use them kind of like material almost where like you

just make magic. But then also like you're just like it's also draining you know, the blight and all that is like the source of like the Eighth or whatever they call it. It's like a point to like the Mother Crystal. So it's like you're bombing like these like Maco Reactor crystal things like throughout the entire game. And I'm like like there's like a there's a lot of shades of like fan Fasy seven in there. Yeah, a lot of cloud could turn into you know, a giant if free to go destroy the castle

planting bombs. Dude, isn't there a point where Ultima literally has one wing? Right? Yeah? The big wing pops out on one show. I'm like, yep, it definitely has a lot of love letter sent callbacks to Final Fantasies. That was another thing I was gonna bring up. I don't know how you can say this is not a Final Fantasy game. There are more references in this game to other Final Fantasies that I can never remember any other Final Fantasies having. I mean, most of the game is about freaking

crystals and summons. I mean, how do you get more Final Fantasy than that? Like the fact that people are still mad that fin Fassy sixteen is not a turn based rpg. We haven't had one in like twenty years. Yeah, ten was the last one that was turn based, and that was a long thirteen Max. But that's because of like a mixture of like ATB and Okay, that's fair. Yeah, and I try to block thirteen thirteen. Thirteen was trying to do too much with its battle system, and I

made a lot of people not like it. Yeah, well, not to mention, there's my favorite. Final Fantasies has the best music in the series of my opinion. The problem with thirteen is there's so much time where you don't actually get to fully explore with the bottlesystem can be be because they split up the party to wait to wait till Grand Paul until you can explore.

But that's like on chapter ten of thirteen. Yeah, so you have nine chapters where everyone's just like it's just a hallway sent me a later every final fantasies A hallways sent me a later game. The reason I don't like thirteen, I don't care about the Hallway. I just never got into any of those characters. But did you, guys ever feel like you wish the game was open world or did you like the open zone out with how slow they

make you walk? Right? Okay, that makes it the way you don't do that with a few exceptions, like where the game blocks you from going to back to other places. I do like how you are free to kind of just like go back into this place for whatever reason. I did like

that. I did like how it's like compartmentalized, like that way where you know these different sections and then like you can trigger new like um, not safe points, I guess, but yeah, I guess knew, like little spots like once you travel and now you'll find another one of those like tower the White tower thingies or whatever. I did like, I thought it was nice. It was a nice kind of compromise of you know, singular like here's your main quest, but also like go ahead and explore a round.

That's why I didn't care that it was open zone or open world. I'm fast traveling wherever I need to go anyway, so if it's connected by roadways or just one giant open world, I don't care. I'm skipping to where I need to get. Transverse trasversal was good, Like I mean, it's not gonna be like a Spider Man level of I just want to be Spider Man and go somewhere. I don't think they could have done it like even in like Final Tannasee fifteen, when you basically had to do everything via the

car. It wasn't that actually wound up not being fun after a while. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it gave me moments where I could listen to Final Fantasy thirteen music. But I feel like they made the world bigger on purpose to stret out have the same like three lines of dialogue every five

seconds exactly. I think they by the end when you do all like the cyclists, there's a lot of the world that like stretches out where when you do the little mini map, a lot of it can be connected just connected to and you can traverse that without having to do the you know, fast travel or whatever you want to. So like it does end up feeling like these zones keep getting bigger and bigger than more you do explore. So,

like Andrew said, I think they did a great compromise in that. And also like there's there's so many damn open world games now, Like not every game needs to be open world. That's just how many check mark checkpoints there would be if this was open world. Yeah, I think there'd be way more question marks, like the fifty of them. Um, is there anything

from the story that you guys want to touch on or like? Also, there's one kind of thing that I wish they did a little bit differently, and that would be introducing Joshua as alive a little later on in the story. They introduce you to Joshua being alive like almost immediately after you go into the time Skoo, and it's just kind of like cool, Like it's kind of a shocker, but then you don't like even see him at all until he shows up again, and then you're like oh wait, he's back.

I forgot. Yeah. I didn't wish that they showed him a little later so that that little like part didn't just jump at you, or if like even that jump itself could have been when they introduced him as being alive, because it kind of just felt like almost unnecessary because I kept trying to imagine when he's going to be showing up, like is this going to be important? Is this going to be important? Is this going to be important?

For like hours on end until he finally shows up again. I did like forever the air of mystery they kind of give Joshua when you do see him again for the first time after so much time has passed, and he kind of has like like this like organization, thirteen thing going on and everything, but then like he also has like it makes sense because so much like I don't know thirteen or whatever years that passed, but like he has like this

mastery of like as the Phoenix, like he's like wait, like all mystical and crap, like okay, this is cool. Like he's like he was like a little whimpy little kid and now like like I'm grown a grown as man kind in prisons. Ultimately, in his chest, Like whoa, Like

this guy's been he's been hitting the books since last time. Yeah, Like that moment with Clive is actually like really cool because like shows that he's not this weak kid that he's you know, oh, I'm gonna do something to protect my brother now, but now I gotta you know, he this leads to his even worse sickness than he gets later on. Yeah, you know what it reminds me of, actually, Scott, it reminds me of how Mickey is so elusive throughout Kingdom Hearts too. We're like he's you're always just

missing him. We're like, you know, no, because look like remember when they go to uh, I don't know what the town is called, but's the sad place, the sands, the desert town, and like he like leaves through the window, he goes out through the second floor window, and then like Clive just barely misses him. Ye, always just like a little bit further behind. And like this feels like it feels like when you're when you see Mickey in the background Kendo Mars two, where he's kind of

you know, just always somewhere. Yeah, or even like the beginning moments of when Soros trying to find uh goofy and Donald the kingom hearts one like districts like always over here, he's over here. It's over here, he's over here, he's over here, until they literally fall atop with each other and yeah, yeah, I mean anything else for you guys that you felt like we really should touch on? Do you think what do you think?

DLG couldn't even be well, I guess before that, like did you guys like the end, do you like when like when Joshua slaps Clive or actually,

yeah, yeah, wanted to fight with you. Yeah. I like how he's like he's like it's for like it's it's for the better good or whatever, and he's like like, man, you better be right about this, Like yeah, I do like though, like because I kind of thought I kind of felt that too, where I'm like, damn, like you're taking away her powers, like I know, for I know, for Jill, she just she's more as a curse than as a blessing kind of thing.

Like she's like there's like trauma associated with it. But I just thought like like damn, like you're really taking away the one thing that makes her very useful as a party member, like and claiming it for yourself. So then when Joshua was like, like you took you right, He's yeah, he's just like just like Deck someone like like thank you, Joshua, thank you. Yeah. I always felt like he also did it because I think he kind of also had a thing for Jill. But you know, I

mean they all three of them grew up together. Yeah, I think about anything about that way. Maybe no I did. I did like that as well, Like, and then the interesting thing of like they can still use their powers even after Clive takes them. Yeah, apparently I get into like emotional moments, their powers can still Yeah. Yeah, like Benedicta, it literally can still basically she still has the icon inside her, right, I

guess I don't know what does are each time? Right? Each time like oh you've taken a fragmin or similar or something right like not the whole thing, you're taking like a part a bit. Yeah, So what did you What did y'all think about the ending? Do you feel like this is definitive right, like Clive's dead, Like there's not gonna be a Clive came back. I hope he does say it? Would they do stick with the death but there's also I mean, if you look at like Twitter, there's so

many random crep theories going on him. How that like the death is super vague or he won't actually be dead and if they did this, they're just pulling another Final Fantasy fifteen. Yeah, I mean it seems rather clear that he does he uses the last bit of his life to save Joshua or which is how he writes the book or whatever, and so yeah, I just I feel like that kind of tells you he's he's gone. You did y'all like that decision? Did you feel like he needed to live? Or I

mean I don't think it. I think at least Dion should have had something

to do at the end. But yeah, yeah, that would be one of the criticisms I have at the ending is that Dion, Joshua, and Clive all fight, but Dion's the only one who doesn't get a moment right well, he gets that moment where he like kind of says, this is my last one to kind of give you all that that last bit that you need to get ready or you know, But yeah, he doesn't have this like one oh my god, remember me kind He just falls, right, he just falls in like, yeah, if we don't see a body,

and I mean Clive turned to stone, but somebody can find a soft potion and Ben fix probably this, right, Like it's it's like the whole Ariosphoenix down thing, right, So yeah, what what do you guys think? You know? Because there's multiple theories? Right, there's the talk of the one summon that's not in this game. Did they make allusions to Leviathan the

Loss or whatever? Um? Is it gonna just be prequel stuff? I mean, yeah, I wasntly the only way you could have Leviathan was go do a prequel stuff and maybe the start of the blight, But then I don't know how you would even wrap that up. But yeah, I don't know. I don't think I'm kind of with Square. I don't know if this really needs DALC. Yeah, I think it was kind of an open and shut game, and I wouldn't to have one with Leviathan. Yeah, but I get that, But I think what if I would want from deals?

He would probably be similar to how Final Fantasy fifteen did. It's DLC, where I had different episodes showing what characters were doing in between moments where we weren't there with them that be like we had Jills moments or SIDS moments or even Gabs moments where they're doing stuff where episode Joshua would be cool. Yeah, like what was Joshua doing for those twenty years? Because yeah,

yeah, like what's Jill's like? We get the actual backstory with Jill, what happened with that priest or whatever the heck and all that stuff like that would be interesting. Just please guarantee me that we're actually gonna get to completion. Don't get to like three forts the way through and then go, oh

it's canceled, not getting the rest of it. I mean, the thing that suthing about pomp Has fifteen was that that's how they were going to tell you the whole story, whereas at least this game you get the whole story. This Yeah, don't have to worry about needing it, but I wouldn't say I would not want it. Yeah, we don't have anybody who disappears and comes back blind or something. Yeah, we have moment. Do you

have anything like calm that wise that you'd want to see them? I guess do in the DLC maybe differently effects status weaknesses are PG elements or just get rid of all of them. Yeah, well, if they did do a le viling thing one, that would be like a whole other set of ability. So yeah, yeah, that would be interesting. I would think that it would have to be more than just Leviathan, unless they're just gonna do that so that you can use Leviathan powers in the main game, But that

would kind of seem kind of arbitrary at that point. Like, yeah, I think if they're really gonna do it, it's gonna be something so almost like an expansion. It's not gonna be yeah, I mean, I don't know, because the main character dies, right, so that wah. Yeah, But they could do something like um like which we call it, like some of those games that add like like we have something actually to do right

before the game tells you like this is the point of no return. It could be something like like elder Ring had, like the expansion word it's like here's an arena kind of thing. It could even just be like a call of sem thing or like a boss rush or like something trivial like that. I don't know. Yeah, it reminds like the DLC of Mass Effect three of that happens like at the Citadel and stuff. That's right before the ending

of the actual game. Because yeah, that game. That's another controversial topic. Yeah, that game's a whole another Can we don't mean that spoiler cast today? Um? Yeah, it's anything that like you guys would want. So there's nothing in the cont Like, I don't think they're going to be adding in RPG. It's possible. I guess that they they could add that stuff in, but I don't know. I feel like that would then lead to people being like, why can't we just have this of the whole game?

Yeah, you know, it's like a lot of work. I think. Do you think there's a possibility for them to do more with Fantasy sixteen like another game or I don't know if they have enough for like sixteen Dash two? No, I don't think No. I don't think so either. I'm over the dashes her. I do want to see this combat system used again, so I do too. This was a really fun combat system. I'd definitely like to see it mastered and basically more evolved. So where do

you think we wind up with A Well, I don't know. We can't really tell because it's always different, But Final Fantasy eighteen is gonna be Yoshida's MMO with action RPG elements rather than he can make magic matter again. Yeah. Yeah, magic was like a gun in this game. It's like, yeah, there for you. Because you can't get close to the person, you just shoot him. Yeah, it did work well. Any any I guess any lasting things you want to say about sixteen, Like where do you

think sixteen is gonna Let's let's go forward. I guess a little bit like by the time seventeen is coming out, do you think we're still gonna think this fondly of sixteen? Or probably too distracted by hopefully part two? In Part three of Final Fantasy seven remake, I totally forget the sixteen never existed

out. I feel like, damn. I feel like every Final Fantasy game goes through that period where it's like for some reason, like it's like popular to hate on, Like I feel like every one of them goes through that. I feel like this one will probably will have it's gonna be the people who are very upset about it not being like Final Fantasy enough. I think we're gonna be like the louder, loudest detractors from in the future. But

like it's hard to know because it's just so fresh. But I think, like for myself, like I's in my top five top six series, So I think it's gonna be regarded as like the one with the best voice actor, the one with yeah it's the best, like hey for us, Ben Star, there you go. Yeah, it's gonna be. It's gonna be

like I think many people's like favorites going forward. And I don't know if it's just because of the big moments or I mean, there's parts of the story that we'll stick with me. But I will remember a lot of different things that happened in sixteen for years to come. And I can't tell you three things that happened in Found Fantasy fifteen. And when I played Foul Fantasy fifteen, I enjoyed it, but I can't remember anything from it. And

partially maybe I'm just getting goddamn old and I'm forgetting everything. But with sixteen, at least they have the moments that they're gonna kind of stick with you. Fifteen it was just kind of an experience and it was just I will say one thing everyone should at least remember fifteen is the Lefiathan fight. I was about to say that I was about to say that that is in Fight Leathan fight and in the Big Beheman fight, they all got trumped by sixteen

sixteen fights, I do agree are better the icon versus icons. Yeah, jus yet, but I will say Leliathan fight was something that always stuck with meybe of just like the scenery and the set pieces and everything with Final Fantasy fifteen, and I still think it's probably the best fight of that game. I can't remember the name, but that city you go to, like with the waterfalls and everything, yeah, oh yes, yeah, yeah, I don't remember the name, and I know I think that says a lot that

we don't remember the name. I think for me one of the lasting impressions of this game is I think it's doing exactly what they wanted to do. I have at least four friends that do not play Final Fantasy games at all that are playing this game right now and enjoying it, and I think that that will be one of the things that people will think about what this game

is. This could be the game that gets so many people into Final Fantasy as a series, because it is so different from the other games what it's doing. That for our friend Tucker, who he was like all in now, He's all yeah, he's a pill. Now it's gonna do this, and then the seventeen will come out and it will master all this stuff and the story will go even crazier, and then eighteen will go you know what. We want to go back to our roots, go back to turn based

RP. Like fin Fantasy nine was like, we're going back to like our nes s nes Days. We're going back to the at b gage, We're going back to fantasy. Screw the sci fi nonsense. Well, this one want to do that, Like it's like medieval right, It's like not really, Yeah, yeah, we kind of did that here. Yeah, you went back to to those days. She's a good experience, that's for sure. Yeah. I mean so like, hopefully if you're listening to this you

enjoyed. I mean, if you if you're hate watching I don't know, hey watching every spoiler cast about five Fantasy sixteen, good job with your life. Yeah really, but hopefully you've enjoyed this game. Like, do you guys think this will be I guess just looking at this year in general, it's almoudy have been a ridiculous year. Do you think this will be like a game still in the Game of the Year conversation nominee, A nominee for sure. I don't think I don't think it will be as much of a

contender. Yeah, yeah, I think that's not because the Final Fantasy sixteen itself, as much as this year is just absolutely stacked. Yeah, and we're not even done with the year yet. We're halfway through the year. Yeah, we're not. We just now Starfield Spider Man, and we already have games that could probably be better than all of them, or Super Mario, Wonder, Balder's Gay three Year. You know, there's like a bunch

of of games that are still coming. I feel bad for you, yeah really, um, but yeah, you're gonna talking about all these games. I'm just ready for moving out too. There you go. If you want, I really need to get back into streaming. You need to watch me and my kids play that game and the amount of yelling. You would think we need therapy playing this game. But we love it. That's me,

that's all. It's like unpacking, right, but like in reverse. Right, boy, it's like overcooked, but you're moving instead of ye yeah, you're you're throwing things out windows and making sure chickens getting a moving van and okay, and it feels the levels later gets so insane. It's great. Hopefully they fixed against it feels a little bit too floaty for me compared to like Overcooked, Like sometimes I'm just like moving around and the thing goes everywhere

and it's like, what the hell is? Kind of the point is the game is there to piss you off. That's me and playing Overcooked with my my daughter and my mom that don't play console games. That less. I was me yelling like yo put it. But yes, regardless of all that stuff, Hopefully enjoy our spoilercast today. If you did. There was a regular stof videogamest to the Max each week. Sometimes we have guests like all of these guys here. Hopefully we can add them all again at some points

and have new guests as well. Those subscribe Video Games to the Max on audio podcasts wherever those are at on YouTube, subscribe W two network you get us, and then other things as well, including the ridless folks that always

do tremendous video movie reviews. They've done Barbie already, that did Oppenheimer's, so you're looking for reviews for those and yeah, like, hopefully you enjoy Finey sixteen and you can let us know your thoughts in the comments of wherever you watch this or listen to it later and yeah, this is gonna be Uh, there's more stuff coming throughout the year, so maybe we'll have another spoilercast for another game that you enjoy. So until then, still that everybody bite