Today's episode contains spoilers for the action packed fifth episode of The Acolyte and some spoilers for the new Elden Ring DLC Shadow of the ur Tree. You were warned.
Hello, my name is Jason Concepcion and on Rosday Night and welcome back the x Ray Vision, the podcast where we dive deep in your favorite shows, movies, comics and pop culture.
Coming to you from my Heart, where we're bringing you to to to action packed episodes every Tuesday Thursday.
In today's episode, in the previously on, it's a surprisingly big DC Newsday. Yeah, we're going to talk about an unexpected announcement from HBO and the James Gunn of Verse with the Lanterns series.
Get Green lim and coming soon to Amazon Prime.
It's the unbelievably good looking Batman Cape Crusader trailer, which just dropped this morning. In the l it's The Acolyte episode five that will get people talking.
Are they gonna stop complaining? We don't know, but we loved it. Cheat Code elderm.
Ring's new DLC Shadow of the Tree. We're gonna be bringing in a correspondent for that one. And in Who's Who, our favorite jaw dropping moment in gaming, which actually I think I probably know which one me and Jason are both gonna pick.
But first previously on.
First Up. In what I would classify as a very surprising announcement, I did not see this coming, HBO has announced that they have Green Lid punintended a new DC show Lanterns live action series under the ages of James
Gunn and Peter Saffran. Eight episodes covering your favorite favorite Interglaca space police officers, the Green Lantern Force, and this will be show run by Chris Mundy, who gave you a true detective Night Country and Ozark and ep Heed by a former CIA agent and comic book writer Tom King and Damon Linlaw. Yes your thoughts.
I was not expecting this to happen.
I'm interested that they're basically leaning into the space cops part of it, because that's kind of something we just joke about with the Green Lanterns. It's not necessarily a pitch for a TV show, but I love John Stewart. This is going to be how and John Stewart, and the idea is that they kind of have to come down to Earth to solve a mystery about a murder. In the American Heartland.
I don't know I would.
When I look for a green landin show, I'm looking for something cosmic, something weird.
I want to see aliens.
So this isn't necessarily the pitch I would have picked up, but I'm interested. I'm very happy to see that James Gunn is kind of directly taking from some comic book stuff here, that is, with the inclusion of having Tom King on.
As an EP So, yeah, it's interesting. I will keep my eyes peeled for this one.
Yeah, I mean, a true detective influenced Lantern series. You have my attention quite interested, and I do wonder if tonally this will be in the same kind of mode that we can kind of expect from the Penguin series having.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true.
It's going to be that kind of thing because.
The Penguin series does look really good and that leans into that kind of mob crime aesthetic.
So having another show.
That kind of takes a different look at crime in the DC universe, this more being a true detective style, kind of actually supernatural grounded greed. That could be interesting. Actually, I like that.
I like that thought process.
Next up, the trailer for Caped Crusader, the new series for Matt Reeves, JJ Abrams and Warner Brothers animation has dropped and folks were excited.
I'm gonna say it looks great. And also, can I just say something, David Zavlav, my friend, my pal, my old mate. I need to tell you something, sir. I feel like you are going to regret.
Not putting this on Max. After the absolute massive success of X.
Men ninety seven, I feel like there is a bigger hunger than ever for animated storytelling in the superhero world.
And you know what, I just I hope that.
Whatever money Amazon Prime paid you, and I'm sure it is a lot, I just think this one should have been on Max. I think it would have been a huge Max release. I think it would have added press. I would have loved to see it, But you know what, I'm just happy it existed. Jamie Chung Harley Quinn looks cool. I didn't realize it was gonna be like a cool forties.
Noir set in the era of.
Batman, kind of just emerging and the Gotham Police trying to stop him. We get to see some really cool villains here. I also love that they went for the old school, Golden age long ear Batman's shoe and the kind of like almost like pathetic shoes, his little kind of like goblin shoes.
Yeah. I just thought it looked so good.
I was excited for it, but I didn't really know the premis because there's been so little talked about. But it looked stunning and I can't wait.
Also featured in the series Christina Ricci, Selena Kyle, and Diedrich Barter as Harvey Dan.
Yes, and this is our first time hearing Hamish Linklater's Batman, and it sounds very good. He's very great result and very serious and he's ready to stop some criming Gotham.
I will say, what do you think the strategy is behind the Amazon release? I do wonder if you know Sony has I think wisely navigated the streaming era and now the post kind of streaming era by saying, we're just going to create content for other people and sell that content. We're just going to create stuff that can run anywhere that people will want to watch. You do wonder if this is like a pivot from the Warner Brothers Discovery. Okay, We're we're never going to compete with
Netflix on subscribers. Let's become a producer of content that people want.
I think that is absolutely a large part of their current and moving forward plans, because if you look now, you can go on chewbe like a free ad supported service, and you can see The Batman. You can go on Netflix and you can see pretty much every Warner Brothers movie. Warner Brothers is no longer worried about having all their exclusive content on Max, which now encompasses so much more discovery programming and stuff.
I think that this is a way for David's.
As love to get rid of that debt and make this money, and I'm very interested about where we go from here. This is also the second Batman animated project that they've put on Amazon Prime after I think it was called like Merry Little Batman Christmas or something, and it was like really cute and it was about Damian Wayne trying to be a hero at Christmas, and it was very weird, super experimental animation, and again something that I feel like could have been quite a boon to Max.
But I understand that Amazon probably paid them a lot of money for this, and if it means it's going to get an incredible release, then why not, you know, if it's gonna if this is gonna actually get pushed and promoted, the cost is incredible. I think there's so many other people in this role in this show, like Adam pointed out, like Mini Driver, McKenna grace read Scott. We just don't know who they're playing yet McKenna Grace. I mean, that's a good Carrie Kelly or Stephanie Brown or something.
I'd love to see that. But yeah, I'm very interested. But I do think you're right.
I think that's what Warner Brothers is doing now that they're happy to have their content elsewhere.
Next up, we get our first look at David corn Sweat in his Clark Kent get up, as studio pictures from the new Superman movie have begun to emerge. We also see Rachel Brosnahan as as Lois Lane. This is not too much to dig into, but let's talk about what I'm seeing.
Let's talk about Clark Kent's hair.
It's quite bushy, and I think it's I'm you know, I When I think Clark Kent, I usually think a kind of a fifties kind of like slicked back, slicked back, low pompadour kind of thing, and this is more of a you know, a mop.
Yeah, it's like a cuition.
I was surprised a cool youngster's haircut, which I found interesting but also could be an interesting twist on why don't people recognize Superman when he's Superman. Well, maybe he's not wearing glasses and he's got his hair slick back. Also another cool thing that we saw from this these set photos which leaked are the Eddie Gatheggi Mister Terrific, which is like directly adapting that really famous Alex Ross painting with the fair play on the arms and the mask.
It looks great.
Was that was probably the thing I was most excited about, because I think that's a character who hasn't necessarily got on his shine, even though I will say shout out to the CW and Echo Kellam who played him on The Seed, because that was actually a pretty cool take. But I'm excited to see a more classic take in this series.
There's some other set photos that have come out I think just today since since these more official kind of set photos have dropped, that appeared to show Superman being taken into custody by the military and also Rick Flagg Senior and engineer. Oh, this is quite interesting.
That would kind of lean into our theory of like, you know, the the Authority are essentially going to be like a kind of a government superhero body and they already exist, and the question is is Superman did he predate them or is he a young hero coming up who's not working under the guise of the government and they want to kind of control him. I'm very interested. So it does seem like it will be a Superman versus the Authority situation.
Coming up next' stepping out of the air lock and talking about the Acolyte Episode five.
Yeah, it's it.
We're in the airlock, look at us, and now we're stepping out of it into the forests of Kofar where things are. They're not going well for the Jedi, those smartly dressed golden robe Jedies, well they got force flung by the mysterious Master.
At the end of the last episode.
He absolutely just rocked their ship like boom into a tree, rocked the shit like it was bad.
And we join Osha who awakens next.
To the body, well very close to the body of a dead Jedi, the first of many we will see in this episode.
Yeah, sadly the.
First of many. It's not going well for the Jedi. If we were doing a scorecard, they would be losing. And interestingly, in the strange of red remnants of the masked Force users' powers now it seems like was this a tree or some kind of naturally occurring dust around here, But whatever happened, there's kind of this strange giant Force
handprint left from where he flung those aforementioned Jedis. And as the sound of lightsabers rings through the forest, very exciting for those who have been complaining there's not enough lightsabers in this show. There's bad news for Osha because the mask Man has his buff arms out and is just absolutely cooking the Jedi. And this episode does feel specifically targeted at those viewers who feel like there wasn't enough lightsaber action in the show, because it is lightsaber Battle o'clock.
It is a just an entire episode that is a lightsaber s smaga's.
Board of fantastic lightsaber work. There was a very famous quote, I believe in the lead up to the show coming out where somebody said, oh, we want to do better fights than you know, the prequels. We want to have a fight that's as good as the darth More lightsaber fight.
And I have to say that is a high bar, but I think we do get that in this episode.
We do get it.
And the camera work is great, the choreography is wonderful. You really feel the swings, yeah, like particularly from Man. We'll get to this, but when Jeckie gets in the mix, oh man, she is swinging for the fight. She's swinging to take the Stranger's head off.
She's taking that head off.
And I think something that we get here that's really cool is we get multiple Jedi fighting at one time, which I think we haven't gotten to see a lot of. And I think for a lot of people, like when they were talking about the prequels and kind of the fights that were in the prequels, especially the later prequels, there was this promise of these epic Jedi versus you know, dark side fights that never necessarily came.
And here you get them.
Because you get them Jecky Saul, the Stranger. We're really getting some good stuff. And interestingly, we see that Zipper Face aka the Stranger, aka the mass Master, aka someone else that we will reveal later has found a way to disrupt lightsabers.
Now, I was watching this very interesting.
Yeah, I was watching this with my incredible friend Jewels, which was very funny because he is like a Star Wars, especially High Republic kind of mastermind. But he pointed out that that's kind of like the nameless in the High Republic books. They have a way of basically disrupting lightsabers.
But as some of our discord users pointed out, which I think is probably what we're seeing here, it looks like his armor is made of something like cortosis, which is this kind of brittle awe which on contact would cause lightsabers to kind of short out, and we see that in the books.
So it says I'm sad, Yeah, because he's able to use his helmet to this direct disruptor the lightsaber blade and.
It kind of instantly stops it from working, and his kind of Soul fights Zipper Face and we get some of that really good action, and it's really nice because we get to see the light reflecting back. We get the blue light on Soul and the red light on Zipper Face, and it looks very dramatic. You're just trying to wrangle Osha back to the ship. He's like, it's me.
I'm a cop.
My boss gave me an order.
You got to get back to the ship, Babe, I can't go back, and she's like, we gotta can't leave our friends behind.
That's fucked up, and.
They kind of continue this little argument as the showdown between Soul and Zipper Face ramps up, and this is you know, we get this great line that I think all of us love, and Soul says, you carry a Jedi weapon, but you are no Jedi. We love it when someone says, but you are no Jedi. That's like an iconic Star Wars moment. And the Latimer seriously says, you don't remember me now, Jason, Big question bomb bom So.
In our discord, there has been a lot of discussion about does he mean because they met in the apocryphy a few days ago, or because they have a deeper pass connection that we're going to explore, Like which one do you think deeper past?
I think so too.
It's too heavy, it's too heavy.
And also he's still wearing the mask at that point, so why would Saul remember him?
Whatever thing is motivating Chimeer the Stranger against the Jets. Sorry, Stranger against the Jedi feels too personal and furthermore soul. This entire series has appeared to be holding something back.
Yeah he is.
I think there's more we also learn here, which I love that Sol the zipper face sorry is rocking essentially a magneto helmet which stops the Jedi being able to get into his head and Jedi mind control him. I think this is very interesting because whatever happened to the Stranger, we got some interesting lines earlier this season where where Kaimer was in the apocrphy and he said, don't Jedi mind wipe me Anna.
That's kind of been like a recurring theme here.
We saw the Witches getting into the Jedi's heads, but there seems to be this fear of what the Jedi can do if they get into your mind. So let's hold on to that and think about it. And Jeckie fans rejoice again our favorite She's back.
And guess what, she's badass, the little real badass. Like, not only is she just a.
Little half feeling joy to the whole, sweet innocent babe, but she is a badass from the moment she steps
on the scene. This episode, there is this great handtam fighting sequence with May that's super extended, and every time I thought it would finish, it continued, and interestingly, narratively, the pair are very equally matched with similar handtam fighting styles, which I think adds fuel to the proverbial fire that the man behind the mask is or at one point was, a Jedi, which is what Vnestra suspected because she was like May has been trained by a Jedi, and seeing
how equally matched May is with Jeckie, who is currently a Padawan, that seems to support that theory. Deep in the forest, Jeorde's trying to get Osha back to the ship. Still, I don't know how far this ship is, but I feel like they parked it too far away, and pauses to give a little insight into zipper faces powers. He can get inside my head and stay there again those
Jedi mind wipes. That Jedi's getting into your head. Osha points out that is something we saw the Witches do to torbin Irp to that man, and so is Zipper Face a.
Student of the witches? Is he one of them? Like we're gonna find out soon.
I think that he is like another child like Ocean I think that's what witches. I think, so we didn't see that they kept hidden. Maybe they kept him because he was a boy.
Wowow, that's really good. I didn't think about that.
Yeah, like he's a boy or he's you know, maybe because there was just one so it was all dark side potentially. Anyway, zipper Face shows up and him and Jackie battle it out in Ironically, in a show full of fantastic action, this is some of the best action. We unbelievable, we get doubles, Jeckie's breaking out the double sabers.
She is completely on her shit, like on fire doing great Soul comes to Jecki's rescue when it starts to look a little bit dicey and uh smashes zipper Face's helmet, revealing they're not so surprising true dunt dun dune, that it was crime here behind the mask the whole time, which we were wrong, but were not so listen not alone.
I think I think the show wanted us to know. I think the show had fun.
Playing a drunken master trope, playing the surprise he's he was right beside you all a long trope, and they even kind of have a little meta moment here where he forced drags May.
And he says, you really didn't know it was me, even deep down.
And I just want to say congrats to Leslie Hedlund, congrats to Manny Jacinto, because this is probably the sexiest Sith of all time. There's always been a Sith fandom, a thirst for the darkness and the dark side. You know, the kids who would always rather be be hanging out with Anakin even though he would have killed them. But whatever as so as whatever was lost in surprise was gained in hotness, I would say he's climbing up the ranks of the hot Sith lords, most hot Sith lords ever.
You know, he didn't kill any babies as far as we know, like Anakin, so Kaimer is very hot. Sorry haters, And just like our Sol and Jackie are like clearly distracted by the sexiness of the new Sith because boom, he just kills Jackie. Like Jackie sees his face and she's like, you're so sexy, I can't fight back anymore.
And also he stabbed her like three very specific places, like which I think is interesting in a triangle pattern, because my lovely friend Jewels, we were screaming, we couldn't believe Jackie was dead, and Jews was like, maybe she survived because.
She's feeling and we don't know where her organs are.
But I was like, I feel like if that's the case, he specifically was going for the organs.
I mean, it was like long lung, heart cool. It was crazy that it was actually much more graphic than I was expecting for a Disney Plus Star Wars show.
I do feel like they kind of kept that hidden in a really nice way because some of the other shows, like Echo, they've kind of hyped up like this is dark, this is scary.
There's gonna be violence.
But in this show, we've been it's a bit a bit more of a YA vibe, younger protagonists, this kind of slow burn mystery. But this episode the Jedi get got there is like a Jedi massacre. We and and sadly, Jecki is not the only fan faith character who dies, because almost immediately, guess who else gets killed?
You listen, we did predict that Jord would visit the Lord, and you were correct. I was sadly correct. He gets his X snap snap in another what I think was quite a brutal kill for a Disney Plus television program m HM, but yeah, I am saddened. I'm saddened by the losses of Solon, by the losses of Jeckie and you.
I would rather yeah, I mean, at this point, I know Soul's been up to some stuff, so I'm like, I think we gotta I would rather like he took the lightsaber chopped here than either of these two kids who are just trying their best to keep up with their master. And you know, they kind of get squashed like insects, which is very ironic because that will soon come back on Climate as Osha comes up with a
very smart plan using insects. But before we get there, Kimer tries to spread some descent by revealing that Osha shouldn't trust Saul after all he's done to interesting.
I feel like that will come into play.
Saul almost chops Kimer's head off because I think he is like so fucking stressed about getting exposed. Osha stops him, and Soul says his mind is twisted by darkness, and Climate bites back with what's one of like the Codus lines in.
Sith history, and he says, I've accepted my darkness. What have you done with yours. So good, so good.
Here's the problem. I mean, we were talking about this before we turn off the mics. Here's another issue with the dark Light dichotomy and the Jedi's monopolization of the force in general. Don't you also have to have the best method of wielding the force?
Right?
You're getting washed by this guy. He's taken out half a dozen Jedi and the peak of that powers at the peak and their powers, all of them concentrating on they can't take him down. Now, the helmet gave him a magneto like advantage. You're right, where the Jedi couldn't maybe use the parts of the Force they relate with that are stronger than a dark Side users. Yeah, but I mean it's kind of you know, it's kind of bad for the brand.
If it's bad for the brand.
Man, if you guys monopolize the force and you're also like not as good as one force dark force wielder, Ye, who's dunking on all of you?
Especially because this guy is like not it doesn't at least as far as we know, is not some like well trained guy like this.
He even feels very rough.
So asked him, like, what do you want like what's the purpose of this And he's like, I just want to use my powers without being told I shouldn't exist, which is what you guys do constantly, and he does. We get that huge moment here where he says, you know, I have no name, but you know, you Jedi would probably call me a sith But even in that moment, we don't even really know if he is like deeply ingrained in Sith lore, or if he has a Sith master, or if he just knows that at one point that
is what the Jedi would have called it. User very interesting. Uh Ohsha interrupts this little mental showdown between Chimer and Soul by sweeping up the latter with those very useful bugs from the last episode people sept it to light.
People said, why didn't more of those bugs attack the Jedi. Why were those bugs introduced?
Well guess what they were foreshadowing bugs, and now those bugs are being used to sweep Chimeer up bum. She pops her little pip on his back and they're attracted to the light and he gets swept up into the trees and OSHA's like, who feel like he said some quite important stuff there about me.
Not trust shouldn't trust you.
You've done this stuff to me, And as usual, Soul's like, I'll tell you the truth when we get on the ship, which I have to say at this point, this man has delayed the truth so much that I feel like he's definitely hiding something. As much as I was originally a soul apologist, I am now on the side of Soul being extremely suss.
Well, guess what.
They're gonna have to talk about it a lot later anyway, because May stun Soul.
And tries to celebrate this reunion that she's been fighting for.
Like, as far as we can tell, the reason made it all of this, why she wanted to kill the Jedi is because she thought her sister had died.
Yeah, May, maybe she.
Was gonna you know, there's been some theories that she was maybe gonna try and do a deal that once she killed the Jedi, they could try and bring.
Back her sister or some kind of dark Side magic.
But you know what, she didn't have to do any of that because OSHA's alive, and Osha should be happy about this too. No, still Jedi pilled or as May puts it, they brainwashed you. Interesting, we will come back to that, and as Basil appears, foreshadowing the fact that he will probably be the one to solve the episode's final gambit that they set up, May and Osha have a fight. May wins, May takes OSHA's clothes, gives herself an impressive lightsaber haircut.
Really good, really good. She's just very clean, no burnt ends.
I was.
I was impressed, and also as well, like that seems like so dangerous and just reckless, like you could have chopped your whole head off with that, but you know what, gave yourself a great haircut and tricked Saul into taking her back to.
The ship with so you don't smell the brunt hair.
I'm saying, like there must have been something with the old parent traps switch through.
On your e again, millennial millennial TV writers really loved that movie.
It's happening. We leave the episode with solemn may Or, as our discord is calling her focha, which I.
Right, it's good headed onto the Jedi ship alone and Kaimer did not get chomped by those bugs. He returns back and very sexily covers up Ocea with a little blanket while staying and.
We see that sister. Yeah, we sat. We see Ocean's tattoo, confirming.
That May did take her clothes and take her body. Anna and Kimer kind of states with such incredible beings, he's saying some saucy it's like putting her on very tenderly for someone who's supposedly so evil. Maybe he thinks he's found his new acolyte to study underneath him. So big questions at the end of this episode. Now she's finally been rejected by her sister, Will May kill Soul because he is the last Jedi she needs to kill. Will Soul confessed to May thinking she's Osher. Does Soul
already know he has the wrong twinning custody? He has been kind of eager to get May, so maybe he's okay with this Will Will Soul saw his sweaty wig out because he was absolutely unraveling by the end of the episode.
So, Jason, how did this episode land with you?
I was amazed? I thought this was a great episode. Who doesn't want to light super Fight? I was again shocked at the inability of the Jedis to grapple with Kaimer. I was I found myself wondering if Kimeer hasn't been driving made to the dark side all along, you know, because I think those really swift bursts of anger that we saw in the Bottle episode, I do wonder if, like Palpatine, he hasn't been nurturing this kind of angry side in May for a long time, since they were kids.
I can't wait to see what the confrontation is going to be back on Coruscant. I am fully expecting after the bad guys are defeated or whatever the outcome is for Saul to be like for Ocean to say, Okay, so what you know, what are you talking about? Like what happened? Like what are you referring to? And then saw the go I'll tell you in a second to go to the bathroom. Let me just clean up and just find some other reason and to not talk about it right now. But yeah, I think that I think
that crime here has been brainwashing people. I think there's a possibility that Saul actually doesn't quite remember what happened because either the Jedi or Chymeer were messing with his memory.
Yeah, it does seem like that, like he has some kind of block on that. I'm very interested. I think I had been of the mindset, though it would have been cheeky and probably have annoyed people. I was of the mindset that this episode might not continue what we saw last episode at all, and would instead give us this kind of ration and perspective of what happened on Brendock from a different point of view, which of course is one of.
Star Wars's favorite things to do. I think that might be what our episode six is now.
I think we might get to see it from Kimer's point of view, from May's point of view. When May said the Jedi of brainwashed you, they turned you against me, I was immediately kind of taken back, And we were talking this in the discord last night when we were watching the episode, but a lot of people were kind of saying, well, why is May so evil? Like why did they write this little kid to be like, I'm gonna kill you I'm and then immediately sets fire to
the house. Like that seems a bit on the nose. That seems like it didn't really happen, or that's not natural. And I do wonder if perhaps the Jedi implanted that memory in OSHA's head and actually it was much more complex, or that didn't really happen at all, and they just wanted to take Osha because she was so powerful. And I'm I'm interested to see so I think we could
see that next episode. I'm excited to see more. I actually am so impressed by how they made man Manny Jacinto did a performance here that is so charming and weird and good and kind of iconic that I don't even think it matters that the Kime review wasn't a surprise, Like the fact that they still managed to make it cool is I think really impressive.
Yeah. There's a really fun piece on this episode in Entertainment Weekly in which a showrunner, Lindsay heedlind says that they weren't going for like a big shocking surprise. They were obviously enough Easter eggs, yeah, and breadcrumbs sprinkled in there to do it, but she just wanted to have an impact beyond like the mystery. They weren't going for that type of bigness, and it did. They really succeeded.
They really succeeded in there is There's some great quotes from Manny Sinto in there, talking about how he's just excited because he hasn't been able to talk about what his role, yeah is for the last two years, and now he's finally able to talk about it.
I yeah, there's been some there's been some really funny.
That was a clip of an interview he did at the junkt where he says, like, I just really love getting to be like the man behind the mosque, and then he changes it and he's like, you know, like Anakin Skywalker, like that would be my dream role. Because he did, and he saves it really well, but you can tell.
In that moment he kind of like slipped out of it. So it's fun to see that. But I mean, wow, what a performance. I'm very excited for him. This is a totally cool, new kind of realm for him, and he smashed it quickly.
Any predictions, I do predict that the Witches were wiped out by the Jedi.
I do I predict that that was a rogue.
Splinter group of Jedi and they were not approved by the higher Jedi powers. I think Vnestra is actually going to be I think next week she's going to be detective, working to find out what happened, though I will say she also could be the person who knows and is trying to cover it up, because she did say to Saul, why didn't you tell me then that there was a chance this poor girl could have survived about May, which makes me think that the Jedi were in on it.
I think we're going to get another perspective from Brendoc.
I'm excited to see whatever skeped the idea of Jedi's mind wiping people, putting things into people's heads. I'm definitely excited to see that. I'm also interested to see who trained Kimer, because I think that's gonna be Was it a Jedi, was it a Sith. Also, he said he wants an acolyte to study with. I was kind of talking about this before we turn the mics on, but that to me sounds like he wants an acolyte because he wants to kill his master in.
The sick Rule of two kind of way.
Obviously, we don't have that many episodes to keep exploring, but I'm hoping that the later episodes are longer because I do want to spend more time in this world and I am really enjoying the story they're telling.
I think we're gonna find out that all of the Jedi kil Knaka, you know, the late kil Knaka Rip's Torbin. I think that they all were had their memories messed with in some former fashion. I think the way that Kimer says, you don't remember me is I think it's a loaded question. I think he knows that they don't remember him. I think he's trying to say, don't you think they've been messing with your mind?
Yeah?
Because they did say yeah, And he says to him, I sent something familiar, So there's something there, but we just don't know what it is.
And I think that they were to your point, I think they were sent to wipe out like stray Force users.
M M.
Maybe didn't comport with the way the Jedi see the Force should be wielded. And I think in order to protect them from what they have to do, they then have those memories.
Of course, because a Jedi is not supposed to kill. Oh that's very good.
Almost like a little Jedi suicide squad that they sent out whose mind is messed with. Wow, that's really good. I'm excited to potentially see that outcome.
Up next, we welcome our elden Ring. Corresponded Eric, we're back. We're back in elden Ring. Shadow of the Urd Tree, The long awaited elden Ring DLC is here for all you. Sado massacrests you can't get enough of dying eight hundred dives in a row.
Oh, I include.
Myself in that statement, and here it to walk us through it and talk about their experiences in the DLC so far as.
Super producer Aaron, Hello, I'm excited to join you guys.
Oh.
It's so nice to have you here with your voice, because you're always here with us, but it's nice to be able to chat to you about elden Ring.
Huge excitement for this DLC. Several New York Times pieces dropped you know coming up to it. One review, another a review of like the hype and the influencer fueled hype, including Kay Senat's like recent multi week run through the game? How are you finding it?
Well? To set it straight, I loved the first game, so I'm coming from a biased player, and I'm loving this potentially even more than I love the first one. It hits everything that I loved about the first one and just improves upon it. So there are I've had a number of like, I have no idea how far into it I am. I think one of the great things with Drumsoft games, like you don't. It's not like collect the seven crystals. Okay, I have six of them.
I know I'm almost done. It's just like maybe ring two bells and then something is going to happen further on, so you never know. I did this morning face off against the boss Mesmer, who is like in all the promo material, and uh By, my partner came into the room and was watching me.
I was like, you watch this.
I'm going I'm about to face this boss and I walk in. We watched the cinematic. It's incredible. He absolutely rocks my shit in like thirty seconds and she goes.
One hit, two hit.
It was like two combos and she she just goes, he's better than you and left the room. I'm like, that's where I am right now.
Okay, Okay, that's good because as someone who I have yet to get into the Eldent Tree life, I have too many video games in my life already, and I know this one will consume me. Something I've been seeing is, you know, the bosses are even harder. I saw that people are like complaining that too hard, which is so fucking funny to me because also like dude, that's just every game. That's the point of every game.
The bosses are hard.
You have to fight up but okay, Eric, on like a scale of like one to ten, like how hard is it to how many times are you having to fight a boss?
Do you think before you before you beat them?
So I've had some that in the DEALC so far, some that I've beat within two or three times. I don't think.
There have been a couple of.
Smaller like world bosses that are like like roaming the environment that I've beat the first try. Mesmer, for instance, I think I've faced six or seven times and I never did more than a third of his life, so like, I mean, this will be and I've seen and then I look online and people are like, Mesmer was so easy, Like this other one that I beat first try was
so much harder, and so I don't know. That's one of the things that I think is so great about this game is that the bosses are incredibly difficult, but you kind of can have a different experience with them than anyone else. And other than maybe one or two in the base game, you or and I haven't finished the DEALC, so there might be more, but you can
kind of beat anything with any strategy. You don't have the field like you're locked into one move set or one weapon, So I really enjoy that you can like figure them out, you can like magic them out, you can dodge, you can try and block encounter and stuff, and you can still beat the bosses thus far. Yes, yeah, and like I have. So one of the main things with the DLC is you have to have beaten two relatively late game bosses in the main game before you
can actually access it. Which ones you have to beat Mogue the Lord of Blood and Radon who Radon has gotta.
Jason Summer is So don't expect the hair I'm talking about anything else, Baby, it's happening.
And so, like, you can go in to the DLC with a fairly leveled up character already because you had to have beat taken out these two late game bosses, and so you probably already have some play style set up for that character, whether you're like I am a strength user and I'm using a big sword or a big huge axe, or like I'm a dex user and so I have really quick weapons, and so you can still probably get away with whatever your plan was originally in the DLC, I've only done it with one character
so far, so I've only been playing on a strength build, which is typically not my usual play style, but I have just enjoyed it a lot. I found a weapon right away that was perfect for me, and I just have been going with that.
I love that also.
Okay, So another thing that I've I read that I thought was so incredible and I was prepping for this episode is like people who reviewed the DLC, they were saying their review game plays were like thirty or forty hours long. So this is an unbelievable amount of content, like essentially for some games, an entirely new game. So could you talk a little bit about how expansive it feels, and like whether that kind of comes across in what you've played.
So far so early on in interviews, Miyazaki, the creator of like the head of from Soft. He's been in charge of Dark Souls one and three and Bloodborne and elden Ring. He said that the map was about the same size as Limb Grave, which is the very first area you enter in the main day. Yeah, pretty big, but not huge. I think everyone pretty much the consensus online is that it is much larger than that, and it's not just one floor. Basically, it's like a vertical world,
which means it's big. And I mean, you know, I am slow at these games. Some people I know like can just roll through it. I'm not that fast. It's given me a lot of time so far.
Let's close with this. Give us your top three tips for the new players who are looking to take on elden Ring and then eventually the elden Ring Shadow of the Old Tree DLC.
So my first one is to play online. You can play either connected on line or not. And the great thing about playing online is you see messages that other players have left. Some of them are very helpful and some of them are not helpful. And you have a limited vocablist you can use, so you can't write anything you want. But there's a lot of funny things written. But the best thing that I think is new in elden Ring because it wasn't. It wasn't in Dark Souls
as far as I remember. But so you can rate other people's messages and you rate them good or bad, but no one gets to see how the voting has gone on them except for the person who wrote it. But you see how many ratings there are, so if something's really popular, that's usually a good sign. But the best thing is if you write a message and someone rates it, you get a heal, like just instantaneously, you get healed.
So that's awesome.
Yes, And I've had multiple times when I've been fighting a boss, I'm not doing well, I'm going to die, someone raids my message and I'm healed and I survive like the next hit and I beat the bos.
Oh my god, I love that. That is like so cool. I didn't know that was a part of it all.
I've only really heard of stuff like that and like death stranding because I know you could like build bridges.
And leave stuff for like other players. Well yeah, yeah, it's really cool.
So that's my first thing is to play online, and my second would be to take advantage of the open world. So unlike every other Soul is Born, which is a little more on rails, this one, you could find a boss and be like I'm not ready, I'm gonna go do stuff, and you go do other stuff. You can mess around all you want in whatever world you're in and then come back to the boss later and that
lets you. Especially that first couple bosses. If you're new to Souls Born games, they're gonna be tough and allowing yourself to go level up and like just get used to your weapon and like how to dodge and fight, I think is one hundred percent like way to do it.
Jason was saying, like, basically just grinding out against like low level MPCs who are who are foes and not even bosses is like a really good way to kind.
Of up your Yeah, and then my third one is really get excited for that first time. So one of the gimmicks of souls borns is you carry your currency, your experience all as one, and when you die, you drop all of it, kind of like sonic when you drop your card.
Yes, this is extremely extremely stressful.
Everything it stays in the spot where you died, so you can go pick it up. However, if you die again, you lose everything that dropped, so you.
Pick it up before you die.
Before you pick it up.
Yes, so my advice is look forward and be excited for the first time. That happens when you die a second time without saving all your experience, because it sucks, and then you're just like all right, well, I got nothing to lose. Now, so we're just like, God, we lost forty thousand souls, you know whatever, who cares?
Just move on.
So that would be my third piece is embrace the difficulty and how much it's going to punish you, and just it's once you do that and you're like okay with the fact that you're gonna have a hard time, it's so fun.
It's love that.
Yeah, well Erin, we can't wait to have you back to Yeah, I can't wait to get into it.
It's just, oh, I'm going to have.
So much getting my ass kick, but I'm ready to get back into the world. Thank you so much.
Yeah, thank you.
I'm great.
They are ed. Yeah, I'm excited Jason to hear some more stories about you starting it up. There's there's a character in the beginning that is a nice little reference to topics we cover.
Oh excited, I'm excited.
We like to end the show with a variety of fast moving segments. Today it's Who's Who. We're going to be talking about our favorite jaw drop moment in gaming? Is what's your favorite jar dropping moment in gaming?
Oh my god, Well, I fear that we may have the same one, but I think about it all the time.
I still talk about it.
This is a game that is, you know, almost twenty years old at this point if you look at the original release date in Japan, and for me, it is still Shadow of the Colossus great. I think that this game is one of the first games I really remember being impacted by the narrative.
I was a big platform gamer as a kid.
That was really my favorite way to play games, so
I often wasn't playing deeply narratively heavy games. But this game where you realize after you've you know, played as Wonder and you're defeating the colossuses and you're doing the thing that you're supposed to do when you're a hero in a game which is killed the monsters, and then you realize that actually you are the villain of the game, and the monsters need to survive, and actually the colossuses are like part and parcel with nature, and you have
been doing this terrible thing. I think is still just one of the best choices in gaming ever and I think still one of the most influential games.
Like to completely agree.
To reveal that moment, and to have a game where you're essentially playing as an unreliable narrator who makes the discovery as the game goes along.
I think is still up there with one of the best shocks of all time.
I had a couple of things that immediately came to mind. One is finding out Samus is a woman in the yeah, which was a big deal that had been spoiled for me by other kids, but it was a big one. There is the last, the twist in the first Last of Us game who where you know you just go on a killing spree as Joel.
But I think I'm gonna go.
With the original BioShock game, which is the problematic narrative that made you really think about some really juicy moral choices throughout the game. But spoiler for those of you
who haven't played the first a BioShock game. But you get to the end and you realize that you have been under the hypnotically controlled suggestion of the bad guy, the true villain Frank Fontaine, who has been using this post hypnotic suggestion of the of the phrase would you kindly in order to make you do things against find out that you actually don't did not have any free will for they of this game, And it's a it was I remember at the time it being pretty mind blowing.
I just was like, wait, what.
That's my uh right now? That is my favorite jaw dropping moment in gaming.
A great pics.
Coming up in a mini episode of X ray Vision which drops tomorrow. Capsule to revisit the Lisa and al gaib and Dune Part two and next year of course use the one.
Dude Bob Old.
Bob watch what was it? Don't don't sat.
Watch tomorrow and next week more Housing the Dragon, more accolade. That's it for this episode for listening. X ray Vision is hosted by Jason Concepcion and Rosie Knight and is a production of iHeart Podcasts. Our executive producers are Joelle Smith and Aaron Kaufman. Our supervising producer is a booze Afar. Our producers are Carmen Laurent and Mia Taylor. Our theme song is by Brian and Basquez.
Special thanks to Soul Rubin and Chris Lord. Kenny Goodman and Heidi are Discord moderator