[Music] hey everyone your host Nick here and you're listening to the official podcast of Fourplay network.com first I want to remind you that we are a fully independent podcast quite literally just a group of friends who have met once a week since 2008 to talk about video games if you like our show the best thing you can do for us is Be Active in our community I recommend Discord you can subscribe to our show leave us a review on your preferred podcast service or if you're so inclined bless us w
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n this show so with that said thank you for listening let's get [Music] started all right hey everyone welcome to four player podcast it's episode 786 it is March 5th 2024 I'm your host this evening Nick Henderson joined as always by the illustrious Brad Simons hello Nolan headstrom hey how's it going everybody and Christopher Davis good evening and uh I can as you know as you can probably imagine we along with the rest of the Video Game World have been you know steeped in Final Fantasy talk um
in our Discord [ __ ] idea playing a lot of it I know Nolan I I do apologize I know you said you have not started yet so I'm not trying to like rub salt in the wound or anything you have been playing a lot of yoza though so you you know that's good yeah I'm I'm I'm trying to get out of the habit of picking up the newest game that I really want to play while I'm in the middle of one I'm really enjoying because that's why I didn't for example Spider-Man 2 never finished it not because I didn't enj
oy it it's just because something else came out T took my attention away and I never went back so I'm trying to stop that now and I'm like I'm gonna finish Yakuza and then I'll do Final Fantasy that is an admirable effort I am trying to get better at that myself even though I say that at at the same time as I'm juggling three games right now U so I can't really say I'm doing very good at it but I I appreciate the effort um but uh in a little bit we're going to get to it we're going to we're goin
g to talk a lot about Final Fantasy 7 rebirth because it has kind of Taken uh over the Video Game World and uh there's a lot lot to cover there it's one of the most beloved it's a remake of one of the most beloved games ever made right so we'll get there in a minute but before that uh I just wanted to see what's going on how's everybody doing anything exciting no no anybody else watch Dune no no I wait what do you mean wait what is what is I I didn't like the first one I did I nobody prepared me
for this on the podcast so I'm a little flabbergasted I'm GNA be honest uh I don't even know if I should touch that one with a 10- foot pole I didn't watch the first one so I didn't watch the second one any particular reason why you didn't watch the first one uh because I couldn't get out to a movie theater and I kind of really only wanted to watch it in a movie theater problem go I was just say so you're never going to watch the movie because you can't watch it in a movie theater I mean you it
did come back out in a movie theater yeah before the sequel came out just FYI no I don't know I mean there's other movies I've kind of done that with honestly okay yeah I mean I I hate to say it like this because it I don't mean for I don't mean for this to sound as conceited as I think it's going to uh if you would if you would like to come over and watch it in my my theater room with the with the big with the speakers and the whatnot that ain't a [ __ ] movie theater Nick no no but it it will
like shake the walls a little bit which is kind of kind of what you go to Dune for right I'm not like unhappy with my setup or anything I just want to watch Dune on like I wanted to watch Dune at like the [ __ ] IMAX or whatever not you had so many chances you had so many chances I mean he's got two children watch movies I do always forget about the children um Chris Davis do you do you have I mean it was more that uh my wife had zero interest in it and like it would literally have been just yo
u know I mean I watch watch it which it was okay it feels to me the the the problem with filming Dune historically has been you know no one can think they can actually be actually done like it feels like they took a 10hour movie and trimmed it down to four hours and four hours I mean it feels like 4 hours the length of it and okay that's what she said cut out a lot of exciting [ __ ] why do you own that you didn't watch it in a theater no I see this okay so he has this weird thing about buying t
hings that he that's what I was gonna say before you interrupted me but before we get to that strange life choice um maybe you would have liked it more if you saw it in a theater it I had this fear that like that is certainly the kind of movie that I would only really appreciate if I saw it in a movie theater after the [ __ ] IMAX you know I don't get to the movie much anymore like a that experience right and now you watched it at home after buying it of course and you thought it was mid and now
here's what here's what I will say because I have seen other people say they thought the first dune was mid and having rewat because I rewatched it right before going to see part two and I will say I had kind of forgot I especially now that I've seen the second one the first movie especially feels like an enormous prologue to what the actual story is which is what they which is what Dune 2 is I mean and I know I've read the book I read the book after watching the first movie and I do realize th
at the first movie covers about half of the first of that first book um but all of the good [ __ ] all of the really exciting truly awesome [ __ ] in Dune happens in the second half and I think the same can be said of the movie um but but you know that's that's neither here nor there I saw it I thought it was pretty damn good although I M Max Fury Road I adore that movie I feel like if I watch that at home for the first and only time I'd be like this is okay I think you're weird I'm gonna be hon
est I think you're I think it's kind of weird well once again Nick I will also say that you do have your theater set up so it is definitely different from watching on a television I watched The Dark Knight like on my like just my regular TV in my living room you saw that theaters probably IMAX without a doubt oh yeah yeah oh yeah yeah oh are you saying you saying because it's like the first time watching first time the first time you're experiencing it okay yeah yeah yeah that's true so people i
n chat uh over at twitch.tv/ warplayer podcast are talking about like going to the movies and stuff like that um and you know movie experiences I'm not going to lie it's been a while since I've been to the theaters but I really do miss it um I I some of the best times of my life U not saying anything negative against my wife or the Great life I have now but when I was in Community College um and um my watches vibrated I thought she was like texting me how would you say how dare you she's listeni
ng now when you know uh Community College I literally was still living at home I would go to class in the morning I'd have like an 8 AM my classes were from like 8 AM to 11: and I was done for the day and I would always go straight from Community College to the theater and get like you like 11:00 a.m. showing of something and no one was ever there was like the best time of like my life was just going by myself like literally I think I probably saw like 20 25 movies in that you know have time spa
n I honestly I think maybe four times there was someone else in the theater and it was like the best time just being able to go by myself in a theater dude I think I became a film snob because of doing the same thing but like at the Indie theater in Doby Mall i' watched so much M yeah I'd watched so much [ __ ] there that's also where I played a bunch of tech and that and other places on the track man and there's only really two movies that I want to go see this year for sure in the theater two
this whole year okay this whole year yeah there's nothing really that's grabbing me so far and one of them is Godzilla versus Kong or godilla X Kong okay and what's the other one legal obligation I mean the other one is Ghostbusters okay I got my Ghostbusters tickets oh I'm excited um no I mean I have no affinity for [ __ ] playing the Apes like I'm not okay wow why hold hold on roll that back a second have you not seen the the new Trilogy I've seen the first two movies I dropped off after that
first two of the Remake Trilogy or like first two Planet of the Apes films from like back in the day no I've seen a couple of the original uh not answering my question seen any of the remixes the the one in San Francisco and the the post-apocalyptic one like okay those two so you've seen you've seen Rise of the Planet of the Abes and Dawn of the Planet of the Abes or I don't like that name correct War of the Planet of the Apes the third one dude those movies are so [ __ ] good they're very good
so I mean here's the thing this new one this new one I'm going to go see purely because it's kind of addition to those movies even though it's not it is not the same director so I'm not I don't have I don't think it's an automatic winner um but like the the only other two movies I'm kind of interested in at this point right now is the new alien film and the the new Beetle Juice ah yeah I keep forgetting about Beetle they're they're doing a new Beetle Juice they not doing it's done film Michel th
e [ __ ] the goog there's no Traer there's no trailer yet but it stars Jenna Ortega as Winona Ryder's daughter of course and wiona Rider's in there and winon writers in there yeah and and I would not watch it if she wasn't um but yeah I mean dude I think there's a lot of stuff coming I mean what who I mean Gladiator 2 I'm looking at a list of [ __ ] coming crazy the crazy thing about Gladiator 2 is that it is it is the same direct like it's it's uh why am I it's is that really Scott yeah it is a
it is a really Scott sequel like not just some like cat I mean call Gladiator too I feel like it's that's it just feels wrong I don't know if they've given it anything Gladiator 2 I don't know if they've given it an official title yet other than it's the next Gladiator film that could that could change here's a hot take uh speaking of uh you know hot bankable actress in the leading role or whatever the [ __ ] you know this Mad Max furiosa movie I feel like the whole reason because they pitched
that years ago or people were asking for it like AG like when they when Fury Ro first dropped they're like [ __ ] do a furiosa movie right but I feel like the reason for that Charlie ston was so [ __ ] badass in that movie right that's why they wanted it so to make one of these movies and not even have her as the character it's likea Taylor Joy that's what I'm saying like one job and it was to like take that character the character from that movie that we liked and make that into a movie it's no
t like the concept of her character that was cool it was her that was cool okay you're I don't disagree with you I don't disagree with you but I will also say this I think this movie still has plenty of potential to be ausman of itself I'm not saying it doesn't I guess I'm just it's a little it's a little bit of a bum it's a little bummer because yeah Charlie stone is [ __ ] awesome in that movie but I also like Ana Taylor joy and I think she has a potential to do some pretty cool stuff and it i
s a prequel but I guess they they probably made it a prequel when they found out they didn't have Charlie's Throne of course so um but anyways that's you know that's neither here nor there we could talk about movies for the rest of the show if if [ __ ] suck isn't it dude it it's Tim Burton and Michael Keaton I don't I don't know why do you assume that I don't know I don't know if it's accurate or not or if it's just somebody making it all up but have y'all seen all the [ __ ] with like the Star
Wars like ads baked into the movie from um or Peru or something like that yeah Chilean something yeah yeah with a beer like in the I I don't know if those are real or not like if they first off if they actually did that that's [ __ ] amazing but that being said whoever's actually been uh creating these it definitely has some Talent though because it looks legit but yeah it's pretty funny if you haven't seen him no yeah it's it's it's pretty good stuff um Sur sucky I don't know what that Meme is
yet I need to look that out you haven't seen it no cesa Crystal no yeah dude look at up there's some pretty there's some pretty funny ones yeah it's pretty good did we talk too long about movies I mean not we literally only that's the show everybody we literally only have Final Fantasy 7 rebirth in the doc tonight so like we can do whatever the [ __ ] we want we haven't even talked about fancy critic yet but let's be real does anything interesting happen in fantasy critic Brad take it away yeah
of course there's always [ __ ] like popping up I mean first of all final fantasy's like holding strong Nicholas I mean that's a big W also holding strong is [ __ ] batro I I keep looking at like it's gonna go down it's gonna go down and then I check and like the the last three reviews that I saw last time I looked up were all like 10 out of 10 10 out of 10 10 out of 10 and like I was was expecting like oh maybe it's getting some five star out of five star reviews no they're just tens and I'm l
ike oh my God but then you play the game and you're like yeah sure sure but [ __ ] you in your double points it shouldn't be in 92 how dare you I hate it I hate it so much oh I didn't I didn't realize still in 93 yeah I picked up a game I picked up a game um wa one second you the Final Fantasy is still what still lame and stupid and if you like it you're stupid if you think it's the best game since stupid 93 I heard someone call Final Fantasy 10 Final Fantasy X recently and it just like what the
[ __ ] are they doing what are you doing that's you can't do that you can't read a Roman num hey you laugh but there's probably plenty of of people who who who don't I picked up a satisfactory 1.0 you did you did brave brave okay here's the thing I thought about it I thought I thought about is it gonna come out no no no they've no they announced like in a in with with much fanfare uh that one0 is coming out this year yeah although it did say they say they said it's coming out later this year so
I still wasn't I wasn't entirely my whole list is later this year like I none of my games are coming out until like forever so here's the thing I feel like maybe more so than like non early like I feel like Early Access games when they say coming later this year they are maybe less inclined to be really on top of like an delay announcements you know what I mean like you no but this is not the kind of game that so like they they had a video where they did like this big road map thing and we're l
ike you know 1.0 it's a big deal for us this year and then they showed like the road map for like afterwards and this is a game that's been in Early Access for a very long time this is not the kind of game that's gonna be like you know they're gonna be you know rushing it out the door and it's gon to be coming in hot and it's gonna be all buggy and disastrous and [ __ ] this game has had a lot of major updates over the years which is one of the reasons I picked it up is because a lot of people p
lay it and they already know that they really like it I mean that's sort of what why Early Access can be pretty potent uh I thought about I thought about bidding on it but I I ALS I weighed that against whether or not I wanted to risk having to use like a super drop or something on it later I was like I felt like maybe I'll just wait um also I think if you had watched the video I did you'd be Happ I mean I didn't watch the video but I did read a couple articles about their road map and whatnot y
eah and I did check out their Twitter account and they seem pretty they seem pretty focused on on hitting that on that Target so I'm not too worried about that I'm actually like much have much more more concern over some of the other stuff that I drafted because it's all like you know I I I went riskier in terms of like is this actually gonna come out I don't know but if it comes out it's gonna hit so has been speaking of risk and Early Access I do think it's maybe worth mentioning uh this is Ch
ris Davis related no rest for the wicked's been getting lots of preview coverage and they've talked more about Early Access and whatnot and we still have not we have not been given a definitive road map so we don't really know when it's coming out but I don't think we can necessarily 100% rule it out coming out of Early Access this year yeah think I think it's going to be close it's launching in Early Access in April in April yeah but who who who would who would take that bet though I mean I kno
w I'm saying the odds are low I'm not arguing that it was a it's it's a risk it's not a risk or something I'm saying it's still if it comes out this year it's it's a huge risk but but I don't think it's I don't think it's necessarily completely out of out of the realm of possibility that it comes out of Early Access this year Outlast trials which also came out this week had a had a fairly short Early Access R it's not entirely unheard of um so did he I think Ed did drop a game home World home wo
rld he dropped heo he dropped home World 3 but that was a couple weeks ago also I feel I feel bad because Ed did drop that not quite understanding how the drop rules work so he used his one unconditional drop on that um but that was use it on everyone's like thinking's going to be pretty dire honestly yeah um but anyways that's anything else fantasy related I yeah so uh Brothers a tale two sons the Remake evidently came out last week and I had no idea it happened um that got somebody was was tha
t on your list yeah he he drafted that he bid on that after the draft right I think so yeah yeah yeah it's at a 81 which is pretty much kind of what I expected that game to max out at so I it maybe it's just all the Final Fantasy talk happening right now but like that game came out I didn't hear a single I was like what that game [ __ ] about it it was a terrible time to release that unfortunately a terrible time to release it maybe kind of a weird decision in general to remake in the first plac
e I don't know um also uh so we've got unicorn Overlord this Friday MH mhm does that have reviews yet no no it does not it's going to do well though oh sure eight hours of it I played I'd say like 85 Plus yeah good okay I'm aiming for 95 uh and then okay so here's here's the thing so rise the Ronin um previews that are based on like the first three hours of the game are going live now um but as we're recording this I mean they went live today are they okay okay pause for a second are they [ __ ]
stupid are they stupid not only is it a tragically bad idea to release rise of the run the same day as Dragon's Dogma 2 but to release the your preview embargo the same day that the preview embargo for Dragon's Dogma 2 lifted which was also today is the dumbest [ __ ] by the way glowing [ __ ] previews for Dragon's Dogma too of course yep look at publishing rise of the Ronin they are part of this decision poor decisions to to do this they're sending this game to die Brad Sony's not made any bad
decisions lately have they well I they all make terrible [ __ ] decisions my God but this is especially egregious um I I think they're committed to this the overlap the overlap in in like audiences do not do that I can't think of a single person and I know a lot of people who are interested in like rise of the Ronin right because team ninja makes these kinds of games and they're good but like Dragon's Dogma I feel like this building to something like I think that's gonna be really huge I think
I think Dragon's Dogma is GNA blow up not like quite like Elden ring or like Monster Hunter world but like it's definitely gonna like knock it out of the park compared to the first one I think it's going to be pretty damn big it sounds like it's going to yes and no one I mean there gonna it it's gonna it's gonna bury it's gonna bury yeah rise of the Ronin um I think that game's gonna have a lot of technical issues although I dragon's Dore probably will as well I don't know I think they see I thi
nk they seem committed also I mean because it's on people's lists and and there's people talking about it um true also there is an Xbox event tomorrow and I've heard some people like wondering if maybe they're going to drop a Dragon's Dogma 2 demo announcement tomorrow they might they might Dragon Dogma 2 demo I mean it's just really interesting news that dropped in the past couple hours about that event tomorrow which is it looks like based on retailers going live in Japan that there is a full
port of all three stalker games coming to console oh yeah yeah yeah I saw that I saw that which is weird CU those games have never been on Console have they no they've never yeah yeah so but the question is record that but is this I mean is this are these going to be ports from some other Studio that has no I mean I guess they kind of have to be at this point there's no way GSC did this yeah B there's no way the studio making stalker 2 which is also having to contend with a an actual war is is a
lso somehow developing these ports of these games which you know again different team than what the ones that actually made that original game so I think it's all going to kind of hinge upon who's making those ports but that's neither here nor there I'll be really interested to see tomorrow like you said like we said Microsoft Event it's like 30 minutes and there should be that they're preparing to drop some stuff um other than that I you know I don't really know we'll see a song Trailer hey hey
my wife is like super my wife is like has picked this year of all years to like go balls deep on Hollow night she is like she texted me today I was oh I texted her I was like hey how's it going how's your day going and she she's back and she's she texts me back and she was like day's going all right but I'm thinking about holl night I was like it's got her it's [ __ ] got her she's got like 30 hours into holl night at this point and she started it like sometime last week um so I got I got to ki
nd of like fill her in on because she's she hasn't really been paying much attention to Har Knight so I got to fill her as like Welcome to Hell which is now with with the rest of us waiting for silk song which we've been contending with now for like 5 years and you're probably going to get lucky and they're going to announce it this year like as like an actual date and you you're going to feel like the weight was nothing um so that's a little disconcerting but whatever like I'm glad she's playin
g do not for any gaming news event that happens over the next year don't look for silt song to beat there because you're building up your anticipation and you're just going to end up being disappointed that's it's not there just let it be a pleasant surprise that pops up it won't be though nobody no every Everybody every single I even told this to Robin I was like every single like gaming event where they're going to have announcements for something every time it's like this is the one this is i
t and every time we're let down but you're not going to be able to stop people you can't stop people that Xbox event where they did the trailer was the worst thing they could possibly do to their audience it was pretty bad uh just I felt I was like I was hanging out in the living room the other day and she's like oh who are these what who are these guys and I was like who where who and she cuz she's playing on the switch and she's like these like mantis people and I was like oh she made it to th
e to the Mantis Kings or whatever they're called right and I just remember how [ __ ] how [ __ ] much I hated that boss and uh after about 10 minutes she's like oh done I was like what I was like you are you're you are really good at video games I feel Nick crawled to Robin walk yeah exactly yeah but uh yeah the Mantis Lords thank you Prince I forgot what the their official name was and she was she was like in shock when she like walked into the next area and suddenly all those mantis enemies th
at she's been like contending with for the entire time were like suddenly bowing to her I was like that game's pretty good that game is really [ __ ] good you could say it's one of the best games ever made you could say that I don't think many people would would would argue with that um um well critics upon initial release maybe would with their Indie tax [ __ ] uh here I mean here's the question Brad let's just say hypothetically speaking Castlevania Symphony of the Night didn't exist and then
it came out in the year 2023 made by the same made by Konami it's it's do we do we still call that an indie game do you think that do you think if Symphony the Knight came out it would get it would pay the Indie tax because of the kind of game that it is or do you think people would recognize it as one of the best games made Prince of Persia just came up would you say that paid the Indie tax I don't think so I think it scored really well I think it scored really well I think it appropriately you
think it's appropriately I heard some people say it's like one of the best of the entire genre now I mean finished it I did yeah what do you think I mean I I feel like I've played enough of those of these those style of games at this point that I don't necessarily know if I'm comfortable calling it one of the best in the I mean it's certainly it's like one of the best feeling games and I guess the way that A Game's like that can feel to control is important is pretty [ __ ] important so yeah it
carried it flows very very well um yeah but there's a lot of there are some aspects of that game too where I was just kind of like stories kind of me stories kind of meh and uh you know let me tell you the story in Symphony of the night's kind of me it is it is it is I'm the question still stands would Symphony of the Night pay the Indie tax it released today I think it paid it back then in fact it was back then here's the problem with that games here's the problem with that logic is none of we
would not have a concept of a Metro Vania if syy of the night came out today you know what I'm saying like that's that's the problem is you know so many games came out of that and we have this concept of what we think as a Metroid at least inania so if that came out today even though it isn't Indie I think it would be so revolutionary um that it would still get a lot of Praise because obviously it's a little clunky you know break it felt reolution honestly I think it would I think it would beca
use it took a long running like respected Series right in the Castlevania game and it did this thing that like like we turned it into this this Castlevania game now there's the whole [ __ ] castle and it's just it's a met it's like a it's like Metroid like I we you didn't see that happen to like franchisees much right where they like took took a formula and like blew it up into like this thing that's like completely different so it felt revolutionary at the time now it it would just be another o
ne of those right I mean it's also really like kind of weird and janky too back then I mean obviously it's what are we talking about here I don't know like I said I that Mandalorian game by respawn got canceled what yeah what the [ __ ] uh I heard it was they were very excited about what they were making there so just [ __ ] I heard a really good theory and I don't even think it's a theory I think that once a major company like uh Microsoft right I think maybe they were one of the first major ga
me companies at the start of the year that said oh we're laying off like a thousand people or whatever the [ __ ] right I think once that happens all these other companies are like oh dude we got to get in now right because like once these articles about it being a trend now it's like well we could just get away with it we're just part of the trend so let's jump on all these layoffs I me it's always people's minds right these companies like like uh it's about doing it pressure right from investo
rs are like like what how are you going to like make up the these losses and and you know so so everyone kind of like jumps on at the same time because you know now that's when you get away with it the first one's the hardest right some like PR for these companies the first somebody's got to step off the cliff first and then everybody else can just follow behind yeah the same thing was happening last year with after the pandemic with the tech sector like every company was deciding oh well we can
't keep these employees on we might as well just for a stock price go ahead and just lay them off you know while we're just kind of like randomly throwing out headlines that caught our eye did y'all see Warner Brothers today oh God Warner Brothers correct me if I'm wrong but Warner Brothers is the publisher of Suicide Squad kill the Justice League mhm Warner Brothers said the future for Warner Brothers is live service games they are doubling down on live service games and they're talking about t
urning all of their major franchises into live service games that includes Harry Potter Mortal Kombat um uh help me out uh like anything under the sun they potentially want to do they Rings Lord of the Ring they have a so much big IP and after the disast launch and reception of Suicide Squad kill the Justice League they decided they were just going to [ __ ] double down on that I don't like this timeline I [ __ ] hate this timeline specifically they are saying was it just like a [ __ ] you from
like the guy in charge you know like I don't give a [ __ ] that you pissed about about suicide squad this is our future [ __ ] you know I kind of hope there's like cuz you know they they they have to they're they have to deal with investors right so I'm hoping investors can give them push back and be like what are you talking about this other game that you just that you've convinced us to help fund over the past like seven or eight years just flopped tremendously what what are you doing no the i
nvestors don't give a [ __ ] they're just in it for their for the dollar well I know but like they to they're also looking at Hell divers right and saying dang I know but like or po world right or uh you know it's true that it was a flop but there's it live service games are also still the ones that are like you know being these breakout hits you know I can see it for something like Mortal Kombat it's kind of a bummer because like you know I'm sitting here you know Hogwarts Legacy is one of the
biggest selling games last year and I was like it's a very flawed game but like if they made if they made a sequel it could improve tremendously and now they're just going to turn it into a games of the service game along with like Lord of the Rings and just to be specific about the terminology they were using they were saying they're going to reframe around freeto playay in Mobile so that does not help that does not make feel it does not help I'm just saying that like that's a big difference ye
ah that is a big difference there also with live games like the big popular ones right now are hellblade or Hell divers 2 and power world but those are popular at launch like the thing with a live service game is that you got to have it be profitable 6 12 18 24 months down the road and like there's no guarantee with most servers games like that you know what the pivot to Mobile tells me it I think it is like telling the The Suicide Squad flop means that so Warner Brothers is like you know big IP
right license licensed games right it's their licenses but but for a very long time like back in the day they were like you know these console games slightly lower budget didn't get great scores people kind of bought them but they didn't set the world on fire and then when like mobile phones became a big thing you saw a lot of the licensed games just become like mobile games and you stopped seeing like big budget licens games on consoles and I think more recently probably because of like the MC
U boom and stuff you started seeing a lot of that stuff come back to consoles and go away from like the mobile [ __ ] I mean the mobile [ __ ] never really went away but something tells me it always did pretty okay right but now with a huge flop like suicide side Squad to me that tells R of the brothers this was a mistake let's get back to mobile with this licensed [ __ ] right you know where we don't have to spend a lot of money making the game we don't have to spend a lot of time making the ga
me you can have like a Marvel snap you know be a phenomenon for a few months and make a [ __ ] ton of money or whatever I I think the plan is like it's like pump and dump [ __ ] it's like how many can we put out and eventually one of them will be a hit and at the end of the day it's a it's a numbers game eventually they'll put out one that makes them enough money that all the other ones are irrelevant that they lost a [ __ ] ton of money on because this one makes up for the rest of them that's w
hat like Niantic did right after Pokemon go it's like let's just keep making all these like Pokemon go lik a single one has been successful not not well not nothing like Pokemon go I think the Monster Hunter one's like pretty popular but but I'm saying like it's like they were just looking for that another Golden Goose and they were like they could throw out as many of them as they could because you know only one of them really had to hit right yeah I mean so it's lower risk the mobile arena is
much lower risk with high payout potentially so I get it I I think only you're gonna see like another big budget one of these out of Warner Brothers the I think the only big budget one we're going to see that is a single player experience is going to be Wonder Woman other than that like from the back catalog of all the studios WB owns like well that's probably because it's already in development and they're just going to finish it out the way you know they started that's a maybe though man that
IP [ __ ] dire right I bet when they when they started like in the concept phase or whatever they green green lit the project Wonder Woman maybe it was just that first movie was out right and and that was like hot [ __ ] right and since then the second movie came out and everyone was kind of like and the whole like promise of maybe the DC Universe becoming thing something that people cared about really kind of you know I mean they're they're rebooting they're rebooting the entire DC Universe now
and I and what the [ __ ] does that mean they've been literally doing that it seemingly like with every movie for the past decade no literally J they hired James gun who did uh Guardians of the Galaxy to reboot and REM map the entire universe like didn't a new Aquaman movie just come out no they yeah and that was that's the last one in that franchise that is the final that is the final uh DC movie set in the in the Zack Snider universe and James gun is is actually started filming Superman this
week like the first Superman movie in this new universe I feel like you could have told me that article five years ago and I feel like they read that five years ago what the [ __ ] no I mean they've they made that announcement like a year and a half two years ago and they he's been talking about the plans to like that to do all this and how they're handling everything this new DC [ __ ] over the past couple years that seems like it's you don't like suicide BL beet Blue Beetle suicide dude Su tha
t Suicide Squad movie was directed by James Gunn and that is the movie that got him the gig that is the movie that know but I'm saying like I feel like there's been DC movies that have been coming out for the past couple years that seem like they're not related to these ja Zack SN game movies at all no you're right you're right there's been new Batman and [ __ ] like and he listen listen I know you don't really give a [ __ ] about all this so I don't even want to necessarily go into like the log
istics of this but like he do that I'm just I'm saying you're not like you're not super invested in the DC Universe you're probably I feel like you're just gonna kind of shrug it off anyways but like when this whole announcement was made James gun was answering questions talking about his plan which movies he's making the different so like you know how they talk about Marvel in terms of uh uh sagas or what what what's the term they use in Marvel or the Star Wars if you will no listen listen I me
an like they call phases right they he's talked about the different phases and they they asked like so what about the Batman which is which was you know with the the Batman with uh God I cannot [ __ ] think today that that is that is an that is an alternate universe that is Jer that is not connected to his DC like he had there there's going to be a new Batman for that universe that is completely separate from Robert same with that walking Phoenix Joker [ __ ] right yes walking Phoenix that's kin
d what I'm talking about I feel like there's been so much of this stuff in recent years so to to to say like there's a yet another phase it's like okay buddy youan like that what I'm saying is prior to this announcement where they hired James gun they literally hired James gun to come on and treat it like Kevin feige did Marvel because before that they didn't have a road map they just they were just like shooting [ __ ] off the firing from the hip trying to like course correct after things that
didn't work with Zack Snider's universe and it was just a huge [ __ ] mess so they said we're we're we're after this Aquaman movie comes out we're scrapping everything and James gun is starting a new timeline with a new cast a new everything and we're gonna take it from there that is their plan here thing Nick and I know I'm the pessimist I feel like you're drinking the Kool-Aid a little bit I feel like every every new one of these try to expl DC movies I think I feel like it's always the potent
ial for like the stard of some something new if one of these [ __ ] James gun like movies comes out and it's just like it sucks or something they'll just be like ah [ __ ] it we're gonna start a new universe in a couple years again you know I feel like this has been happening you know what I mean remember the mummy The Mummy when they announced like the Dark Universe yes yeah it's like like don't stop it until one of these movies comes out and people actually care and it actually makes a couple
billion dollars [ __ ] stop it look listen I I'm trying to quote unquote drink the Kool-Aid I'm just trying to because you clearly weren't familiar with with with with this announcement this plan I was just trying to bring you up to speed with what what's happening I'm not saying it's going to be successful or not but I certainly have a lot more faith in James gun as far as making superhero movies than I ever did with Zack Snyder so but I don't think it's only been them two but okay well no but
like he is directing the new Superman movie and that cast looks pretty legit and I've likeed whatever sorry go ahead noan I have thoughts and comments um I saw obviously I don't no one here has see Madam Webb correct no maybe Nick did okay and so that's fine uh obviously we've all heard it's not very good um but I saw some comment that uh Dakota Johnson made and apparently this whole thing obviously is a cluster but you know obviously it seems like she just as a person is pretty like just straig
htforward um but she she apparently making some comment about how she kind of knew it wasn't going to be good and she do like the direction the industry is going because um it seems more and more every day committees uh are kind of taking over what's good what's the thing you know what's this committee yeah um there there's um there's an episode uh of Barry I know if anyone has seen Barry and I want to say it's season 4 maybe it was season three I can't remember where one of the characters um is
trying to you know get it make make it in the industry and so they have a pilot pilot super successful it's like a 98 in Rotten Tomatoes they're making that a big deal blah blah blah all this stuff they're so excited um they go and they refresh Netflix or whatever and it's gone and they're like where is it like what the [ __ ] going on they go to the studio and they're like oh put it through the committee through like this algorithm said it was GNA do good so we're cutting it they're like what
the [ __ ] you talking about people love it and they're like ah but the algorithm the the stats on it it you know it's not it's not good or whatever blah blah blah and and that's what honestly and obviously they're making that as a observational reference for the industry but just like more and more so people lately have been you know these movies that are built off a community like so many people uh it just doesn't go very well you know it's when there is a single director or a couple Direct th
at's fine but like a core staff of people and artists that make a you know a passion project it comes out good and people can see and it doesn't pass that sniff test when you have something that was you know it feels like they spent a 100 hours you know debating on the shades of red for their Cape um because you know what's the most pleasing for people or whatever um and I just I happen to see something that and I have not validated this it's just an article I saw on this thing called the intern
et but someone had put up all of the Arkham games uh Gotham night suicide scy what whatever and it was like Batman Arkham Asylum there were two writers on that game uh Arkham City had three writers Origins had five writers Arkham Knights had seven writers Gotham Knights had 14 writers two of which were from sweet baby Inc which is that like Outsourcing firm that you can Outsource like like writers to help you with your story or whatever Suicide Squad killed it Suicide Squad had 26 writers on tha
t game half of which were from sweet baby Inc and so it's like one of those things where it's like what the like it just you know it's just when when you spread things that thin and when so many people have their hands in it like what the [ __ ] is going on man yeah yeah too many cooks in the kitchen for sure um wild didn't know that that's why I don't believe James gun can do look and I'm not saying look I'm not again I'm not saying in support of James gun or or or likewise who who the [ __ ] k
nows how this is going to turn out all I know is that I liked the Guardians of the Galaxy movies and I liked Suicide Squad that thir one too right didn't that one I never watched it wasn't that kind of mid no I think a lot of people really like that the third what the third Guardians of the Galaxy movie I could be wrong but I think that one the Third was pretty good yeah I liked it watch it I mean yeah all three of those I think I think are are are pretty well received should watch it damn maybe
you should um anyways before I want to at least talk a little bit about rebirth before we cut to break because I know we're like 45 minutes into this episode and we haven't said a damn thing about rebirth um so what are unless y'all have any objections why don't we just why don't we jump in there Guardians of the Galaxy has a 94% audience score for like an MCU movie I feel like that's pretty strong right I mean it's certainly not these days these days yes it's it's it is not it is not as consis
tent as it once was that is correct um watch Brad are you are you ready to talk about rebirth yeah let's do it let's do it I don't even know where to start with this I um it's a big game start with the birth of I don't know where do we start yeah 1997 1990 with relas Final Fantasy I guess for starters it is worth mentioning that Final Fantasy 7 is is one of like one of the most beloved RPGs ever made uh you know depending on who you ask and and they obviously a cultural phenomenon a cultural phe
nomenon and we've been and leading up to the part one of the Remake obviously nobody really knew what to expect um from this remake and obviously they're splitting it into multiple Parts but rebirth um I by the way I did replay I did finish playing that intermission DLC which was you know pretty good with yui uh it it sort of fizzled out like they didn't finish it yeah it certainly felt like it mean like almost it was almost like why do they even bother putting so much effort into like the Mater
ia and like the systems and stuff white hair the white spiky hair you know uh son son the guy with the white spiky hair who the [ __ ] was that in intermission yeah I don't know who you're talking about unless you're talking about SE well that's the kind of impression he left on you Nick did you just play that yeah I don't remember are you I think you're thinking of a character not say sonan again who did not have I don't know who you're talking about I don't know who you're talking about litera
lly have no idea Nero apparently Oh you mean the the Kingdom Hearts looking dude white spiky hair I mean I'm GNA be honest I didn't notice his hair color so um hair color the guy in all the the guy wrapped up in all the bondage belts and [ __ ] uh that L very much like looked like a Kingdom Hearts character yeah that was kind of strange character from durge of cus that is the problem with oh my God this is the [ __ ] they could have kept it just like they could have stayed pure but it had to be
like seon three of the Mandalorian or whatever the [ __ ] it couldn't just be season one of the Mandalorian it had to they they just have to ruin they have to bring everybody in extended Universe in the cartoons and everything and that's what they're doing with Final Fantasy and they didn't have to remake was a smart idea it was obious sounds like old man yelling at son or whatever I mean their approach to Final Fantasy with that first game had a lot of promise we all got a little like uneasy at
the at the beginning at the end right because like uh someone someone whip no more back into your cage stop it stop it you have a cool idea here stop it and I feel like they just wanted to get their we got to get some durge of Cerberus characters in there and Crisis Core characters and I feel like they're gonna ruin it they had such a cool idea and they're gonna look and I'm so scared I'm so scared we are not here obviously we this is going to be our first time talking about rebirth as a game s
o none of us have finished the game um and I'm sure these conversations will come later right now I want to talk about what we have played what we do now know about this game which as you mentioned earlier during the fantasy critics segment has been very positively received uh yeah but you know those course mean nothing what the what Brad you got take the real the real conversation in terms of like the wider scope is going to come like three months from now when everyone decides if they still lo
ve it or they hate it with a passion now which happens to every Final Fantasy when 16 came out everyone was playing like d this [ __ ] is crazy and then like a month later everyone was like that was dog [ __ ] I don't think everyone was that crazy when 16 came out I think they were like hey this seems pretty good I don't think anyone was ever like that ins but the but the reviews were like really high like also look look look look I I'm also a little concerned that maybe my negativity is kind of
bleeding in here a little bit because there are a lot of people who really enjoyed 16 and I don't blame them look look I mean of course but like it's the kind of thing where you ask around and everyone historically speaking I think Final Fantasy games have have gotten they have aged well like there are people you know remember all the people the [ __ ] people talk about Final Fantasy 13 you talk to people who are who are consider themselves Final Fantasy fans now and you ask them about Final Fa
ntasy 13 a lot of them are really positive about it I I don't think there's there look I don't think there's a lot of games in the Final Fantasy series as a whole that have been looked at in a very negative light for a extended period of time I think I think Mo most games are I got you and and and part one of remake has been out for two years now that's the one that has held up right that's the one that I feel like you know your comments about side quest or whatever the [ __ ] aside like general
ly people are have were high on that game when it released and they stayed high on it didn't have the sort of backlash that 13 had and 15 had and 16 had and all this other Square Enix [ __ ] that has come out in the past decade or two at this point has had like remake stay like dude Good Vibes we feel good about this we're excited for the next one and all I'm saying is that and I noticed other people noticing it and saying it as well is they they see the scores but they look around they're like
dude dude like people are kind of like complaining about this [ __ ] game which in in in a way that I did not hear them complaining about roomi you know it's it's well are we here to talk about those people's opinions of the game or here talk about our own we could talk about our own and let me tell you it don't it's not 93 okay it's fun though can we just remove fantasy critic from this entire conversation we're not even talking about fantasy critic we're talking about it feels like it man not
talking about fans and critic we're talking about like how fans and critics feel about this series which is a very complicated thing this is series with a lot of baggage and a lot of like expectations and I I just want to point out that prior to the release of this game I expressed maybe some I don't know if I'm convinced or I'm not entirely sure if this is going to be great and you like talked to me you you basically said I was crazy look at this I told you that that was a fantasy CR uh decisio
n and I [ __ ] broke it down like [ __ ] formula as to why this thing is going to score a 93 basically and it did but we're not talking about that I'm talking about the way people feel about this game I'm talking about when you when I said I wasn't entirely sure not fantasy critic related at all I was like I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the direction of Final Fantasy as a Series has gone and I not therefore I I don't necessarily feel super hyped about this we were talking about hype and
you and this was like right after they showed that they did the uh they released the demo and they showed that you know 20 minute presentation all kinds of [ __ ] there's so much variety and you told me that I was crazy because look at this footage this looks amazing and that's and now that hold on Nick yellow lines though come on man yeah no that's pretty dog [ __ ] like like like the this experience has been something that has had really high highs and really low lows and I haven't seen a lot
of the stuff that was in that footage because you know I'm playing a map game I mean an Ubisoft check check mark game right now this is one thing this okay listen listen this is one thing I kind of wanted to talk about a little bit because I I knew no no no I knew the whole because Brad's inevitably bringing up the map game thing right and he's saying it with such negative fervor I and and what's the map game thing I'm sorry he's talking he's comparing it to a Ubisoft game where it's a map and y
ou like and you find all the icons on the lots of different kinds of icons going to the different here's this type of Icon go here to do this type of site Quest that sort of and and I I I think and while that's a fair criticism I I do there are games are are are designed and tailored towards people with like very like different personalities when it comes to game because like you talk about that and that is the [ __ ] that I just happily spent my entire weekend doing and I love to you didn't let
me finish I'm having a good time with that stuff like I think it's it's so so the this is a complicated game and and everyone wants us to say I [ __ ] hate this game I [ __ ] love this game and shut the [ __ ] up if it's not love or hate because we don't want to have to think you know but truth is this is very by the way complicated like I know didn't say you were saying it um I think it's a comp I have a lot of complicated feelings about this game of course I think we all do and like that the
so I think at the same time I believe that this open world [ __ ] is like feels like 10 years old you know and like and like but the same time I think it's really addictive and I think it's pretty fun to because at the same time a modern one of those is like a bloated 150 hour experience if you try to do everything but this game it feels more manageable because it's like a decade old right there's a lot of [ __ ] but there's not like so much [ __ ] that it's like unreasonable right like 100 peri
ng an area is actually fairly manageable I mean the game is still probably going to take you 80 hours but it's not going to take you 200 hours like like a current day Ubisoft game right it is not hard to complete a region it's like maybe several hours I spent 10 hours this weekend for example I I played the game for about 12 hours over the weekend and I spent 10 of those hours almost entirely doing the O quote unquote open World stuff in that first major region in the grasslands can can I ask a
question yes because I'm a little lost please do it seems like Brad is complaining about about this but saying he likes it at the same time yeah crazy complexity well I'm I'm confused CU it seems like hold on hold on well yeah but it seems like you're talking about how oh the the map is it's Ubisoft the map is littered with icons and go here and do this and and and blah blah blah and all this stuff and me the only game I'm currently playing is a game called Yakuza and that is exactly what yaka i
s Yakuza is and the crazy thing about it is is in Yakuza the icons don't even disappear appear because a lot of them are like sujiman trainers and as soon as you fight them five minutes later that trainer pops back up again so it's not even like you're getting that feeling and don't get me wrong the whole point is so you can battle them begin to get more experience whatever that's fine but like I'm saying the whole point is it's not even like you're cleaning up the map because there's still [ __
] there and so that's why I was saying I'm a little confused because it seems like you're complaining about that yet in one of the games you love the most has it as well okay it's interesting you bring up Yakuza right because Yakuza has to me I've always considered like a pretty series that I love but they've also had so many games to kind of refine that and it still has issues but like they've got like this series used to be [ __ ] like a chore to play because of a lot they were really bad at
those things at first to me this feels like and it I guess it is their first attempt at like this open world thing right so so it's like super it's it's fun and compelling like an open world game can be and addictive like an OP World game can be but you run into so many weird little roadblocks of like dude this is your first time doing this [ __ ] and and like this is why and this is why and this is why and it's like it's crazy right so so there's so much friction like uncomfortable awkward fric
tion at the same time you're playing this game that feels like the most expensive game ever made and and it's it's wonderful right because I mean again it's it's can I I think like really wrote side quest can end in like really awesome little character moments and it and it makes me want to always do them because I really love these characters and they're doing re a really good job at creating these little character moments and to me it's like okay what I just did was pretty like whatever and wr
iting the chocoo there was sort of Jank because I don't know it's the first time they ever did something like this but you know what it was worth it because I had a cool little moment with Tifa and that was awesome and that's why I love remake and that's why I'm probably gonna end up loving this it's complicated to kind of expand on that because I do you're absolutely right when you say this feels like maybe a 10-year-old open world game because it very much does and as someone who plays a lot o
f a 10y yes as someone who feel who plays a lot of open World Games in fact I would say it's one of my favorite quote unquote genres or types of video games I love open world games I'm playing this and of course in my head I'm I'm I'm making all kinds of like random connections or or or comparisons to games that I think are much smoother experiences uh much more organic open world experiences but what I think is kind of helping push me through these areas and kind of forgive some of these these
the the janky the awkwardness I suppose cuz you're right it is it is awkward slowness let me tell you something in this game are so [ __ ] unexplainably slow God having sit listen having to sit and listen to Chadley talk before I can even move my character is the most obnoxious thing in the world take the worst character from rebirth that they introduced and then make the entire game if you were not doing literally the main quest anything else in the game Chadley is like front and center this mi
ght as well be called Final Fantasy 7 remake part two chadly because everything everything in the open world is chadly related every time Cloud pulls out that [ __ ] device to look at Chadley I want to scream it's insane so it's fun and I I love having a moment with let me tell you the ays intifa Friendship is like one of the best I prefer it when you called it The Sisterhood the the [ __ ] Sisterhood that relationship best character relationships I've ever seen in a video game I adore it and bu
t the game says well if you want to play this big open world game you gotta [ __ ] spend all like you know way way way more time looking at chadli and listening to chadli and it's [ __ ] insane it's insane they could have easily not brought that character back and no one would have been sad but they made a whole game about Chadley what so [ __ ] so let me let me let me let me get this in so my problem is I I do I'm fine with the open world activities that happen my problem is the balance of this
jrpg having this lopsided deal of all these random activities versus side quests like narrative content to do every so every large area you go to because there are segmented areas every one of them you go to there's like 20 or so activities to do but there's maybe like three or four side quests at most and they end up being either a go to this area and kill this monster or B go pick up this item and bring it back guys guys this is [ __ ] exactly what I said about remake and what I hated about i
t and y'all talk to me like I'm [ __ ] crazy this is the problem is that this is for better or worse this is the direct continuation in gameplay design and ideas and everything from remake yeah but in segment area but the difference is there was very little of it it was it felt so very op now there's more and like and like the linear story was the driving force of that first game so so so to think that like a mid side quest which also did lead to cool character moments in that last game absolute
ly absolutely but like like they seemed like it seemed like something that was kind of hard to complain about in my opinion but in this one the whole promise of like all the [ __ ] to do in this world it is like blown up so much bigger so like it is more of like a um well judging the side quest does feel like kind of judging the game a little bit more okay but listen I want I want to cut to a break here in a second but it's uneven it is it's an uneven game but here and here's what I'll say Messy
as as maybe a thought before we cut the break we'll talk about it more when we come back but the thing the Saving Grace the thing that I think makes all of these complaints that we've already voiced here an easier pill to swallow and and and why it has not stopped me from it I have not felt the same level of frustration I did playing uh uh 16 or or 15 or any of that stuff is because it's interwoven with so much and I this is going to have a negative connotation and I'm sorry it's interwoven wit
h so much brilliant Nostalgia that I mean the Nostalgia carries a lot especially the soundtrack honestly just like like when I first stepped foot into calm I was like I had a thought and I tweeted this I had a thought that I haven't had while playing a Final Fantasy game since probably 10 or maybe 12 and that was holy [ __ ] I would like I would love to live here this this is just delightful like this is so beautiful and charming and Whimsical I love it and I haven't felt way about a Final Fanta
sy game in so long it's not just Nostalgia but like this game is getting a lot of mileage out of like silly light-hearted moments and a and where F 16 could not right so like little random felt felt like you're wasting my [ __ ] time like like the biggest thing in the world is happening and this stuffff feels like stupid but in this game it's like well that was a fun silly moment because this is a fun silly game and I'm here for it right uh like in cm the best part was the [ __ ] queen Blood lad
y who had a wall of boxes around her and then that was insane it was insane these kinds of little moments um shout out we do need to go to break because I do have more complaints about like systems and stuff right oh we're gonna talk about that for sure I what I also love about remake and this one and and and and the promise of like they it's a remake of an existing game right and there's lots of weird little things in that existing game and you know if you look in the first last game you could
think of like the Hell House how they blew that up into like some crazy thing but in this one they took some of like the weird characters that you get into like random battles right outside of midgar which are these like Bandit like biker characters I don't know if you like if you even remember them but they were just like weird little Random Encounters that you would have like any other like enemy encounter and they just seem so like why biker Bandits here they turn those characters into like t
his whole like side quest storyline they blew it up insane because it is befitting of characters that look like that like like it's insane that they were there in the first place so if they're going to be in this game because it's a remake then we got to make some insane [ __ ] and they did and they went all in on insane [ __ ] and I love that I think the I think the expectation going into this especially before we got part one was that you can't possibly remake this one to one so like there's g
oing to be a lot of stuff on The Cutting Room floor right of course but like surprisingly there's not nearly as much as we thought like a lot of the stuff has just been retooled or repositioned or just reframed in in a new way but like every little every little piece every little detail that you kind of like loved or even if it was just like casually was like oh I appreciate that from the first game has somehow found its way in here in like unexpected ways and that is kind of promise of this of
of this project and and I think so far from what I've played they're pulling that off but okay let's take a break when we come back there's still there's still good and bad to talk about with rebirth um so we'll carry this conversation further when we come back on the other side if you're watching us live on Twitch or YouTube I forgot to mention that guys again this is our second week streaming on YouTube If you prefer watching on YouTube check us out there we're we're live right now um so just
keep that I don't know how long we're going to do this but if you want to see us keep streaming on YouTube maybe uh prioritize watching us there for a little bit but anyways we'll be back in just a couple minutes to talk more about Final Fantasy 7 reir so if you're watching don't go anywhere uh we'll be [Music] back all right hey everyone welcome back to the show let's we're as I said at the start of the show the doc tonight the docket is Final Fantasy 7 rebirth and we started the conversation i
n the last segment so let's just press right on okay the chocoo look dude the chocoo in 15 and 16 did not feel this [ __ ] Jank you could jump you could Glide in the last game it was like Smooth they figured some [ __ ] out they like unfigured it out for this game all of a sudden who who whoa W are clunky now and I don't understand and where is the jump hey hey I'm GNA be honest I did not see that coming because I've actually felt pretty good about it's okay I mean you could be look we're all ha
ving the honeymoon period I I like things too it's fine not deny you played all of 16 that [ __ ] you could jump you can glide it was smooth here it's like dude this thing is I feel like it's barely hanging on it's just going to fly off into the [ __ ] stretch osphere at any moment like it's like it's like awkwardly like animating over rocks and [ __ ] and it's like this [ __ ] feels hacked in it feels hacked in but like I'm saying it wasn't like this in 16 and 15 like this almost feels like a l
ate edition like I don't understand some of the Jank in this game okay I don't even know how to respond to that because like the choco has been one of my favorite Parts about this game up until this point it's fast it's it feels very responsive and and it makes getting around the world easy I mean the first Final Fantasy game in which I've actually given a [ __ ] about the chocoo well the chocoo does things now which is cool right it's picking up [ __ ] you're doing its weird little like I'm gon
na smell for [ __ ] in the environment and we're gonna find it which again really slow and clunky but it's neat that's the clunky part for me is when I'm trying to like be very precise about where I Peck to like dig stuff up you have to be positioned just right so that when you hit the the button hit his his nose goes down right over where the thing is is showing up and that's super clunky but like can do a lot you telling me this chocobo's got a loose pecker the Chocobo it it moves fast in a st
raight line and it can do a lot and you use it a lot more but like it feels janky in a way that those last two I haven't asked I haven't asked you yet I know love to be able to jump and glide I know more or less where Chris Davis is because I I talked to him while I was streaming last night Brad I don't even know how much this game you've played I'm in the junon region I okay so so you and I are kind of in the same spot and Chris Davis is a couple chapters ahead of us um I'm not far into the jun
an region so you at least found you at least found the black Chocobo which can climb walls which I will say very slowly yeah here here's what I'll say is that's another we were talking a little bit last segment about how like even little tiny aspects or or things that you kind of would have expected it just not be in the remake find their way in here like they're clearly already setting up in some way shape or form the chocobos with the different abilities when you like I don't know if they're g
oing to go like the full like they're going to do the breeding thing where you can breed like a gold choco or anything probably not but like the fact that I I now I'm riding a black Chocobo and I can suddenly climb walls that I couldn't before I think is is is pretty cool and it's a it's an OM it's a throwback the implementation is weird and awkward if if chobo breeding is going to be in this series it's going to be in the next game I don't think it'll be in this one at this point what I mean wh
o knows um but let's you know let's let's combat we talking about combat yeah let's talk about I mean combat obviously is a huge part of any Final Fantasy game and it was a big part it was really good in the last game it was really good in the last one and and I and and to be fair before I know because I know where this conversation is going to go because I have I Echo a lot of the same feelings that I know Brad has I do think the combat in this game is still very good the problem is and it's co
ol how much how different the characters are and I really like how red feels and like you know some of the newer stuff is cool you know it's fast it's fenetic I I like fighting things you know I get some RPGs I dread getting into combat this is not one of them I want to fight things and that's a good sign right um I think they had [ __ ] that worked and they [ __ ] with it and I don't understand why they they either [ __ ] with it or they layered like in an effort to I feel I feel like in an eff
ort to make this game not feel like just I like I think they wanted because the whole cons the whole conceit of we're going to remake this game in three parts which is essentially what this is it's going to be a Trilogy of games right I think they wanted each game to feel like it has its own systems like it's not all just like like that's just sort of a jrpg thing though right like does the Yakuza games do where they change systems just to change them sometimes and and one of the things that I r
eally would compliment remake on right is I think remake is a really successful game and I really really like it and it's because of the character stuff I talked about it's because of you know the music of course the combat system was really good but also the systems that backed up that combat system were I think really smart and you know always had clunky UI stuff and Lord knows this one does too in menus but but but like in that first game one of the cool things that remake did that the origin
al Final Fantasy 7 did not do is that they added like these skill trees to each weapon right to where you could go in and upgrade different weapons and by the time and as you were upgrading the weapons you realize that there is like a build here it there's like there's like a concept for this weapon this weapon is always going to be relevant in this game but this is the weapon I use if I want to lean more like towards magic spells or this is g to going to be the weapon I use when I lean more tow
ards this thing or that thing right they had identities each weapon had an identity and it was a smart idea and it was a new idea to remake and they and and rebirth they threw that in the [ __ ] trash and it's just gone and now they have this simplified system that is just confusing people because their UI is a mess right like you go to weapon upgrades in the menu and there's no upgrading of weapons to do it all it's insane it took me seven hours to figure out how to configure my party like I ha
ve to go to this very obscure menu called com there's an option there is an option for party there's a party option like what you have to comat settings to edit your party yes in the weapon upgrade system menu you don't upgrade any weapons you never upgrade your weapons it took me a long time to realize there is no agency in the upgrading of weapons you can choose like a skill or whatever that goes on that weapon it maybe another one later but it's not like but the crazy part is you select you k
now how in the last game in some of these games you can select like an auto option like dude I don't want to like spend time in menus I'm just going to do prioritize attack and you could do that in the weapon system in the last game and in the DLC and it it'll level it up for you you have that option in this game but there's no actual skill tree that anywhere that's leveling up it's just picking the one skill that you can equip on a weapon for you it's insane that's not leveling up anything auto
matically I don't even know if yall realize that it's not doing anything except taking another Choice away from you a single choice of what to put on your weapon it's actually crazy which by the way you can't even swap that out in the weapon upgrade you have to be on the Materia menu which is [ __ ] insane because it's not even a Materia don't get me started on folios what the [ __ ] dude I I still have no idea what's going on with the phos i have been 100 pering areas in this game I've played a
lot of it and I still have no idea what's going on with some of this [ __ ] because the UI is a mess and they and they made it weird and they made it different just to make it weird and different and it's frustrating because at the same time certain aspects of the menu are Snappy are beautiful I love the way like you they change between the characters as you're like swapping the characters is like wow this is great this is it's actually like pretty fast and responsive and beauti it's like wow r
ight but then you this is the one of the things that always bothers me I don't know if it bothers other people when you're like there's so many times in the game where you press pause and you can't actually pull up your menu and even when you're talking to like little NPCs in the world and you just saying [ __ ] and and you're getting like Quest rewards like oh you got a new [ __ ] material like oh I want to go into the menu to see what that material does and they're like nope it's just a pause
screen you're like this is just an NPC in the world not an elaborate cut scene I can't go to my menu I'm like all right so I'm going to stop talking to this NPC surely I'm ready to bring up my menu and I hit pause again still can't bring up the menu I really want to go into my menu I'm thinking about all this stuff you know surely I my menu still not you gotta wait you gota [ __ ] wait you have no idea when I can actually pull up that menu and I I pressed the button like half a dozen times just
wanting to go to my menu finally it's okay so maybe some text up up up top of the screen dissipated now you can go into your [ __ ] menu I swear to God it drives me insane and I'm a menu guy right I like to be in menus and for me to not to know when I can actually go into my menu is driving me insane now look look look look I agree with everything that you're saying here I've had the exact same frustrations and I too I'm glad I'm actually glad I feel a little bit Vindicated because I'm I I was I
thought I was dumb for a little bit I'm being very confused but the folios thing um a mess it's it's it's a huge mess I don't really know what's going on um what and I'm still like fum I feel like I shouldn't be fumbling around in the menus this much after after 15 hours gameplay I want to stress and I want you to continue that thought as someone who played like eight hours of of unicorn overload recently which has which is a strategy RPG with lots and lots of systems and menus and complexity t
hat [ __ ] was smart intuitive welld designed I was never confused I'm a menu guy I like complex RPGs this is a mess and it's not like a normal kind of mess it is weirdly messy I I 100% agree and it's it's I 100% agree and I think it's honestly I think it's going to be one of the few things I end up looking back at when it's all said and done and going that is an area where this game really needed a lot of extra work because you know everything around it I think I I think this is a I think this
game is a because I I I know we're being I it sounds like we're being very negative right now I feel I have to say that a lot but again thisit's been pinned up and now we're getting it out we're getting it out and what's up I was gonna say I think the problem Square Enix has with this remake Series so far is that they prioritize animation over every single other aspect of the game oh yeah like 100% what Brad was just saying about the the pause menues like you you have to wait until player agency
is return you from a conversation from a cinematic from anything that's happening any animation that could possibly be happening yeah Chadley like it just it doesn't make sense that I can't just go into a menu I can't just do XYZ like conversations are so inconsistent in this game because some of them that have specific camera angles will allow you to skip dialogue whereas others will not let you skip the dialogue because those characters wave their arms or they turn around like it doesn't skip
what needs to be skipped and it slows it down and it's so annoying look look I'm I'm I'm while we're we're we're sitting over here kind of roasting this game and I'm seeing people I love this game so far I'm seeing some people in chat assuming that look no nobody here is saying this game is bad or it's not a great game I think this is a phenomenal game it's Charming as [ __ ] it's funny as [ __ ] did you not hear the part where I said like the aith and a AIS and Tifa relationship is like one of
the best I've seen in a video game is that not like a a nice Grand statement you know like I love that stuff I love how silly this game is and awkward and weird this game is and and its character moments I adore that stuff like I said the [ __ ] Queen's blood which is a fun fun game big big uh triple Triad energy no fantas card game I can already tell that when I I'm going to like once I've kind of like done a lot of the stuff and it's like time to like explore the world and clean up if you wil
l like I'm going to spend I'm G to spend a lot of time with Queen's blood uh very very cool game queen Blood the problem is is that Square Enix comes up with great like card-based or thing mini games like that so often and they never capitalize it if they do not capitalize and come out with like a actual Queens blood game like this year that's dud that is throwing away millions of dollars it does be honest I would settle just for like the ability to play this isue though I would settle for this
just having like a mo like a separate mode where you can just like play online against other people like without even knowing much about it besides I've heard a couple people tell me I'm going to enjoy it my fear would be it's it's a a gwin thing where a lot of the fun comes from doing it in the Final Fantasy 7 space and if you were to take it out of that and just have it on your phone or something it's not as be lot of math good yeah well well so like I played a [ __ ] ton of gwent when I was p
laying Witcher but I never really got into the Standalone game and it's like one of those things where like in the context I [ __ ] loved it but like I don't think it I I said I've not played Queen's blood so I'm not sure but I think I think in the context of this game and playing in the world I think I think I think you're gonna get k out wish I could do it more though like it's weird that I want to find more players of this but there like in there's only like a handful in that whole first regi
on right yeah yeah I feel like in triple Triad there was a lot more maybe I'm misremembering there's a lot more people to like play triple Triad with maybe maybe I am Mis what was the what was the game called what was the card game called in eight that's still to this day triple Tri so was it called Nine no one remembers that no one played that one I thought it was Triple Trad and nine as well no that's eight I can look it up I got my guide over here oh wait no I have to Lo into the [ __ ] play
online website thank you J hit tetras that's right I don't know why in my head I was thinking it was also triple Triad um yeah dude I mean with I am having fun with the game I even I I'm getting addicted to the open World stuff especially because you know I want to like level up my Materia I want to get the new materal that like Chadley has you want Power your summons yeah yeah yeah I wanna I want to do all that stuff because I feel like you know the game can be challenging and I want to power u
p my team right because it feels good the progression feels good the material system has always like been a strong one of the stronger like progression systems in any Final Fantasy and I want to do that stuff but they I sometimes I'm out in the world doing some like [ __ ] you know picking up some resources or just looking for [ __ ] with my chocoo and I'm like I also just want to get to like those really memorable like story moments with these characters that I know are coming but feel like lik
e forever away because of the pace I'm playing this game so I'm a little at odds I do think that first area was like manageable to like 100% but if they get much more or bigger than that I feel like it's gonna start I think there's also something to be said about like that like that first time you go out into the grasslands and you're like oh my God this beautiful and I'm just kind of like my Jaws on the ground like it's kind of hard to like the my instinct was like oh my God I want to go do eve
rything and I just and then I just go out there I start doing it but I feel like my I'm assuming that like as the game goes on I'll get more and more comfortable with like I'll return here later to do all this stuff like I will I will Circle back around one of my problems though is that like some of the these quests that I did and maybe it was just the actual side quest had cool little character moments that I wouldn't have wanted to miss and I feel like I'm gonna have a hard time figuring out w
hich ones are worth doing and which ones are not worth doing but maybe it was just sort of like the green Quest where I had those little moments you know like where where um you know like like like that bartender like makes the drink that was like tifa's drink from right like like a cool little moment like that I'm like well if I didn't do this Quest I would have not that little moment I don't want to miss moments like that so do I just have to do all this side [ __ ] I don't know that's far you
do from my experience yeah I wish I knew I wish I knew which ones I could pass on well to to to Chris Davis's Point earlier I do feel like there is a clear distinction between side quests and and like open world activities I don't feel like there's a ton of side quests like there not like there's four or five in the grasslands I feel like and then everything else is just inside junan that looks to be I played I'm about to enter my fourth region now it seems to be like three or four side quests
per area and that just I don't know the the problem I'm I'm okay with that the the problem I have is that in addition to that number just not being anywhere near what I think it should be I think you should have like I don't know eight or nine like double that number per region quality over quantity dude quality the quantity is in there for the world activities with Chadley thead the problem I'm running into is that it feels like Square Enix miscalculated with this in providing filler content cu
z let me tell you I cannot believe how many mini games that they put into this game like Beyond just what they put in the original remake like in this like if feels like every 90 minutes to 2 hours is a [ __ ] new mini game that they throw at you most of them are pretty mandatory you actually have to do them like it's there's a lot of Final Fantasy 7 though I feel like it's famous for that yeah 7 the original had like maybe four mini games total no no no no no no the original final F 7 had like
dozens of little one-off things and not all of them like took much time but there's like weird little one off like you're only going to do this once game they're filled with them for example when I went to record footage I so like I texted yall earlier because I was like I'm going to capture footage for this and then about 30 minutes later I was like guys I somebody else needs to capture footage because I need to eat dinner and I'm this is not working for me and what happened was I boot up the g
ame and like time to capture like 30 40 minutes of footage right I walk I take a few steps and I end up meeting a person I talk to him and he's like oh go over here you got to catch this this Chocobo I was like well of course I want to run around the world on the chocoo right so I have to go catch Bella which involves the whole like distracting the bird by throwing the Rocks but then you have to like flip these switches and you have to like walk really slowly behind this really slow moving mine
cart for and you have to go in this giant Loop and it takes [ __ ] forever I was like this is be the most boring footage in the world like we we could be over here raving about this game or it would have been the perfect footage for this conversation oh my God no dude I was I was raging I was like this is the dumbest [ __ ] I've ever seen and this is the kind of [ __ ] that made me mad in remake like this is the this is the kind of thing it doesn't happen very often but when it happens oh man I'
m just like I don't want to be doing this this is bad again not a ton of stuff like that but I just it just happened to like weasel its way into my footage real quick what the [ __ ] are they thinking yeah know it's when you get past the side quests and side activities that you do in this game like when the narrative hits it [ __ ] hits it it hits [ __ ] hard five minutes of this game just had me on the edge of my [ __ ] seat the first what the first five minutes does Z stuff at the you're talki
ng at the very very start yeah when they introduced playable Zach that was but what's happening narratively speaking there is fascinating to me they're trying to do I mean that's mostly like sort of like events from the first game right no like like like the very first moments of the Zach stuff at the very very beginning was more just like kind of how right like that stuff was basically like the end of the last game look they're doing something they're setting up something very specific I'm sure
with that first in fact and I don't want to talk about this cuz it's like starting to get into spoiler territory I'm sure but like the first five to 10 minutes of this game still to me 15 hours in make no sense and I I think that's the point uh because it doesn't it doesn't if unless you were not paying attention that first five to 10 minutes does not connect to anything else that's happened thus far since that moment in this game I'm I they're going to circle they're going to circle back aroun
d to that later and it's probably going to make a lot of sense but that's neither here nor there yeah real quick thing was at the end of the of remake we're not talking about Zach carry and Cloud there's other stuff that yeah I I want to point out real quick uh drunken merch it brings up something I should have mentioned earlier squix made a [ __ ] ra Wave Race clone in this game and it's awesome and I don't think you'll ever play it again it's absurd but that's the thing there was a little dolp
hin meaning game in junon in the original Final Fantasy 7 like like people it was yeah it was like a little oneoff moment and it it's it's not deep it's not complex it doesn't last that long but I'm saying the original Final Fantasy 7 was like this which is why that stuff is in this game and blown up out and blown up but like constantly in the original game you were doing these little one-off things and they're crazy like like uh I mean there's so many like like like even even like at the very s
tart of Final Fantasy 7 where your party member has to like time a button press together right that's just a weird little one-off mini game where you have to time it right or the door doesn't open constantly that game was doing stuff like that and I think that's why this game these games these remakes are going buck wild with that [ __ ] which is hilarious it's one of the things that makes these games so charming and it's what makes these this remake true to the original in a lot of ways now rea
l quick one thing we haven't really talked about um much we I mean we've we've touched on combat which I do think is excellent and a lot of fun um there's a couple things that I've kind of so one of the things that I think is and I don't remember EX exactly how it worked in in remake so some of this stuff might have changed but like one of the new things they introduced in the combat here is called Synergy attacks or Synergy abilities and they kind of introduce it a little bit in intermission th
at DLC that very different intermission though very different but they kind of build on that here so it's and the idea is that you swap between the characters and you can build up their ATB gauges and then you can execute an ability every time you execute an ability it adds a charge ability a Synergy charge to them it's like little dots or whatever and once you have three of those on two characters if you have a folio that has given you one of those Synergy abilities you can trigger a special Sy
nergy attack between those two characters so I can have like three different Synergy abilities one between cloud and Barrett one between cloud and Tifa one between Tifa and a and if you can build up three charges on each one you can trigger one of those abilities and then they some really cool elaborate thing and it's [ __ ] awesome great problem is it's I mean it's in theory really cool system I like it a lot my problem is up until this point at least and outside of Boss Battles nothing ever su
rvives long enough to build up any of those [ __ ] charges I kill everything before I almost have like no dude seriously you have to you have to execute six abilities before you can use a Synergy ability yes by the time you use six abilities you've destroyed almost anything who are you using by the way you just using I'm I'm primarily rolling with cloud aith and Tio because well I mean I mean come on I mean that's not true for like boss fights right no that's what I said outside of boss fights b
oss fights boss outside of boss fights or inside of boss fights totally different story I'm using like three or four Synergy abilities per battle but in regular comat boss fights and hard no they are they are but but they are are they are so cool it'd be nice to see them more often and it also a lot of times too it comes down to do I want to use my limit break or do I want to try and build up a Synergy ability because you're certainly not going to really be able to do both same thing with summon
s like summons are only almost ever going to come out during uh like bigger bigger battles which I guess well no no so that's not how summons work summons work I know how they work I know how they work I'm just saying you're almost never going like I'm never going to have a reason to or I'm never going to unlock the ability to summon okay a summon before I end up killing everything anyways well like I've triggered the thing the the meter that starts building up and you have to wait for the meter
to build up before you can actually summon the creature well for for the for the listener what I'm saying is that the the trigger for a summon sequence to start for that meter to start is when you stagger an enemy and that can happen actually quite often yeah no staggering is different thing and I also like to that there's a lot of like I'm constantly using the accessibility to like research enemies because it'll tell you not just weaknesses and resistances it'll tell you like to stagger this o
ne you might need to inflict a uh like uh you know like a uh an ailment on them or something and that'll that'll that'll pressure them and then make it easier stagger them I mean I believe it or not me that's what I've been doing so I actually like scan almost every enemy and then look at what the strategy is to stagger them because that'll lead me to more SC every enemy because Chad you know I feel like a sign of a good RPG is is how much I'm like looking there's a lot here let me look up some
stuff I need opinions right you know what do people think about different kinds of material I love reading people's thoughts on systems and whatnot right one of the things I love about RPGs even though it's not and and um I found out about this one like enemy skill ability from the enemy skill Materia that's like crazy and it looks so rad but the the only way to get it is to like assess like everything in that first region basically and then you unlock it with chadly so I've been that's the only
reason I've been using assess because I don't give a [ __ ] about enemy weaknesses I'll just keep trying spells until I hit it and then I'll go from there right I don't need I'm not gonna waste time assessing um but look but that ability seems [ __ ] crazy um where where every time your ATB far bar like fills up a notch like it sends out like a electric shock wave and like that's cool yeah and there's like a lot of ways to like charge your bar like quickly and it sounds [ __ ] cool I'm still tr
ying look I guess and here I guess what I'm trying to get at here is I think this combat system is amazing I think it is I think out of like all of the like I think out of like all the like action oriented Final Fantasy games that have come out so 15 16 and now REM seven remake I think this is by far the best my problem is there's there's so many it's it's a little sloppy in that I think not a lot of the concepts are fully there's really awesome ideas in there but like sometimes in practice it's
like like AIS I'm if I'm playing AIS I'm still gonna eat [ __ ] like even though they've given her like this ability to like teleport out of the way it's just way too [ __ ] slow you're just GNA eat [ __ ] so it's like I mean the AI is like so bad at charging at there is a Materia you can put on on your your your other party members that you don't use as often to automatically get them to trigger abilities to build their at or to build their their ability charges so you can trigger the Synergy
stuff more and like it means like they'll like they barely ever [ __ ] even when you have that on them they almost never you have to use Synergy abilities and I don't mean like the specials I mean like the Synergy attacks to build their ATB faster because when you do an attack with them like the one where like Cloud flings Tifa up into the air I play a lot of Tifa that's a that's a Synergy ability which you have to use regular ability energy SK ability or whatever like like like those those um w
ill build the ATB bar for both people so and because you can kind of do those whenever you want sort of which is weird um you know that's kind of like helps it build quicker but I don't know it it's still like I think this you're right this is the best of the action combat of all these recent fun but like but like they're also a little like like that's also sort of like damning with faint praise a little bit because I'd still say it like doesn't compare to like say the best of like a TS of actio
n RPG battle system right I mean listen I I didn't quite finish that thought entirely because I think it is the best they've done there are so many cool ideas there's so much room for experimentation for differentiation like I might play totally different than Brad might play play I might use totally different Materia I might be focused on Synergy I might be focusing on trying to trigger summons staggering like there's so many cool ideas at play here but because there's so many ideas like it's i
t's hard to kind of like get good at any one of them you know what I mean like you some people will I mean once you get to Hard Mode you're gonna have to get good at some of these systems but you're probably also gonna have to lean towards more of like the overpowered [ __ ] and leave some of it doesn't feel always the most balanced honestly right cuz sometimes I switch back to cloud and I'm like why am I not just always playing Cloud this seems like this this [ __ ] seems like [ __ ] I'm I'm ov
er here doing overtime with Tifa and I could probably just like clean up with Cloud I I felt that when I switch to red too red seems really powerful in this really good but but it's cool I it's awesome because I love these characters and I love the way they implemented the characters and how they feel so different and how Barrett feels like [ __ ] Barrett and that's [ __ ] rad they nailed that right and I mean that's that's true magic I I there's one aspect of the combat that we did not mention
in that in this in this new comat system because it's open world and you have such a large party everyone in your party is is engaged in the combat it's not just you and your two companion characters now so like if you have like Barrett on outside your party like he's at a range and he'll get some shots in every now and then or red might come in and swipe at an enemy or something like that like hly Haven noticed it haven't noticed never i' I've noticed it specifically especially in boss fights l
ike having the entire team engage in that combat makes me appreciate these characters so much more and makes me want to like swap them in and out more often to experience what they could possibly do now now that I've updated their folios updated their Materia and things like that I mean their folios leveling [ __ ] up in that menu is like a nightmare I love like menus and respecing characters like I told you I was respecing characters right before the final fight in balers Gate 3 I'm terrified t
o accidentally hit the Respec in the folio menu because it's so slow and clunky like leveling all that [ __ ] up I'm terrified of hitting that button don't do it bre don't do it um there's no point also like this amount of agency you have is just a joke in that menu it's stupid it is the cium from Final Fantasy 13 but worse one of these days I'm going to go back and replay 13 I've been don't you about I've been thinking about it but I want to make I want to make I want to make these Life Choices
just wait for the remaster Trilogy that they're going to do eventually Nick it's gonna happen Okay that you liked 13 you have memories of that they won't go I mean honest quite honestly I I well Lightning Returns is my favorite but just the just the vanilla 13 sounds sounds kind of nice anyways let's uh we can move on here in a second I don't even know where we're going yeah we can we we could wrap this show up um for Nolan's sake the music's really [ __ ] good oh this is the so much is like No
stalgia related like I don't know like what does Malia think about this music you know what is someone who doesn't care about Final Fantasy 7 or really video game music is she listening to this and going wow this this is an amazing ter I think this I think the final I mean of course little it's kind of hard to take this you know at face value or objectively here but like I I think this the the F the original soundtrack was amazing I think what they've done here is I think it transcends video gam
es I think this is an incredible reimagining of that soundtrack I mean obviously it works the it works the best I think in context of what you're of of playing the game I suppose but like it it's the music is just it's good I think it's objectively good I don't think you can def well of course so much so much video game music is objectively good you can't it is impossible to divorce yourself from the Nostalgia of this of these tracks so why but why do we have to then why do I have you don't have
to which is why I'm beating the drum as well this is an amazing soundtrack it is incredible I think I think it I think you deal with the some of the horrors of the awkward slowness in this game like like is doing the dumbest [ __ ] you just listen to the music and everything will be all right the the soundtrack for this game is nine discs and it costs more than the video game dude they they said this before during that presentation they were like the soundtrack has 400 plus tracks yeah that's p
robably a bit [ __ ] much though right at some point it's like oh okay buddy nine discs you know it's nice but like you know what you know what I think doesn't get enough respect that the [ __ ] Advanced Wars like re like the new tracks for the advance Wars remake [ __ ] ripped so hard like this is it's great it's [ __ ] great but it is relying more on Nostalgia than anything well that's not fair it's [ __ ] great I just think I just think people like fate this thing so hard and it's like there'
s just a lot of AG it's aggressive fellatio on the soundtrack yes I I completely forgot to mention this um but I want to close on this real quick just one final criticism the summons that you get in this game you have to earn them by a going to uh world events to do a little mini game to to get data on them don't even call that you do not like you do not actually like find the summons out in the world you have to go into chadley's combat simulator to fight them to get their material it's weird n
o don't do that bad video game design no no no they really they really went all in they really went all in on Chadley and I'm not entirely sure why understand why it's VR like they really should have just been things in the world I don't get it I don't get it especially that broad a world hey but here's but yeah [ __ ] chadly here's what here's what I will say even though you don't find the summons out in the world there are some really cool optional I don't I say quote unquote boss fights again
st like really cool monsters that are out in the world I mean they for Chadley they for Chadley um but like I fought a quac cotle which I hadn't really thought about since like Final Fantasy and it was a cool [ __ ] fight yeah and it's just it's out in the world it's like there there's there's some cool there's some cool stuff I am a little I'm on the same I'm in the same boat as you chrisis I think the summons being relegated to Chadley especially considering I think the summons this is the bes
t attempt at this is the best execution of summons in a Final Fantasy game since maybe 12 whoa whoa whoa whoa and I'm also excluding for what this is a controversial thing I don't like I mean you're saying like the way they're implemented in combat yes dude 15 was a joke 16 but 15 like had like an ER of like epicness to it that this game certainly doesn't have um like just the presence of the summons in combat I don't care about the presence here's the thing here's the thing from the very from t
he earliest days of me being a final fantasy fan my favorite part of Final Fantasy has always been summons and using summons in battle Final Fantasy 7 8 9 10 all brilliantly executed in my opinion as far as H having them be a part of your team a part of your strategy in battle and then you hit and I you know I even I left 12 I probably should have mentioned 12 but then you hit and then we got to the the PS3 Xbox 360 generation with Final Fantasy 13 and every game since then excluding for I don't
I can't speak to 14 but the the single player Final Fantasy games since 13 have all failed at making summons a major component 16 was all about summons the the story was all about summons but using summons in battle boss fights were wild the boss fights were wild but that's not what I care about I care about making them part of my team making them part of my combat strategy and that just I feel when when they're out on the field I don't even know where they are I'm just so focused on my little
combos you can once you summon them you can issue them commands if you if you if they if they stay around if you don't finish The Battle Before Their bar runs out they use their signature attack they're there like it's they feel like they're part of the of the battle the combat experience which I just have not felt since probably 12 and I'm even not even I don't even remember a lot about how they worked with 12 which is weird because I replayed that game fairly recently I think you might be righ
t but I also still not impressed by them like it's still like Pals in comparison to to like 10 or maybe even 12 where they're on the battlefield or maybe even like I think they sub pound mates from infinite wealth which by the way they're no longer just animations like Yakuza 7 they're in on the battlefield now doing their cool attacks mates Final Fantasy rebirth summons I'm just saying I think it's cool [ __ ] that I can I can trigger them in combat some them you get the cool animation they com
e out on the battlef problem they share the same ATB as everything else and like when a summons Adam all desperately trying to like heal and [ __ ] I'm not saying it's perfect like I'm not saying it's perfect and and ALS and and to kind of like go back to the Chadley thing if you find all the things out in the world that are associated you find the Intel related to that summon every time you find it it makes your summon stronger or if you haven't earned that summon through chadley's VR thing yet
cuz when you like I went to go fight Titan for the first time I hadn't found any of the intel on him just [ __ ] wiped the floor with me yeah the more you find more Intel you find out in the world he gets weaker and weaker so that when you actually do go fight him you can beat him easier yeah and then and then when once you do have him it makes him stronger so like that I thought that was kind of a cool push and pull kind of situation here but like and it's it's not a situation in which you can
force yourself to level beyond that that that fight cuz that fight is scaled to whatever level you're at so you have to you are incentivized to go and find that Intel to provide you the option of lowering the difficulty of that boss right yeah but then I did that and it felt way too easy it's also it's stupid why is it a VR fight is there a lore reason I'm not I don't I think it's dumb I think that part's dumb I'm saying there should also be an incentive to actually do those fights at Harder di
fficulties like give us a reward for doing so personal challenge I um all I'll say is I I I Gotta Give I got to give this game credit for again not a perfect summoning system but it is I think it has made the the biggest strides towards getting back to the roots of what Mak summons so special to me in Final Fantasy um and 16 I don't know I'm I'm no I'm no fan of 16 but like I played 80 summons that's the game I played 80 hours of 16 the summons in the story cool as [ __ ] but those were also lik
e gameplay not like you controlled them and stuff like it was crazy right I guess I just that's like the thing of that game that actually was impressive well then maybe let's go ahead and chalk that up as another reason why I was disappointed in 16 because it did not gel with me I don't know we need to that's that's yeah we need to close this out I mean I think there's also nostalgia in these like summon designs right yeah yeah of course yeah if is really good hey let's you're fighting like what
ever I mean 6 that was the coolest parts of 16 whatever dude I don't I don't know what to [ __ ] tell you I was disappointed by 16 in a lot of ways and summons was just another one of them and again the the story moments in 16 [ __ ] amazing outside of that didn't do anything for me yeah true true I mean like imagine fighting Titan in 16 versus fighting Titan in a VR that Chadley tells you to do like the world of difference is that's why I'm kind of pushing back a little bit on this cuz that no
no no you know what you know what it is too like you fight Titan in 16 remember that fight that was a [ __ ] iconic fight right then you summon Titan in battle and it's like the dumbest [ __ ] it's just like he's like just a little bit bigger than you and it just it's just I don't know maybe that was the problem may I I guess I'm just not blown away by the summons here as all I'm saying mostly I'm more concerned about doing my own sh I'm like I do the summon just CU like the thing pops up but li
ke I feel like I don't even need them you know it's like just get out of here dude is that crazy cuz like the stuff you do is so crazy in combat you know i' I'd rather do my limit it's a lot going on in combat it's easy for anything to kind of Li looks so good that's the thing the animations and stuff look so good and it's it's like beautiful and it's like expensive it's expensive you know you know what's not expensive the four player minute let's wrap this [ __ ] show up with the four player mi
nute uh and I'm going to let I'm going to let Nolan since he's had to endure uh such such a long Final Fantasy conversation endure I know I know you're a big Final Fantasy fan so thank you for I hope you do get a chance to play it not too dis future um but let's anyways let's start with you Nolan what's what's your final thought for the week uh yeah so my four player minute Starts Now um still playing Yakuza um still doing dondoka Island I actually just hit uh a five-star Island uh so obviously
I'm not done done uh but I what I ended up doing after our last conversation on the show was I did take a break from the island went back to the actual story did a few story missions but the main focus was going around the city and finding new residents to come back to the island uh so I can make more money um and so I'm still doing that but still enjoying it um definitely a lot of fun uh I did start playing ballot batro however you want to pronounce it um we're never going to see no one again y
ou will you will um definitely uh yeah have we talked about that on the show like with like footage and stuff we did yeah we we did you were okay that was a show I missed I guess let me tell you D Nolan now I've been playing a lot of BL I know you've been playing I don't know how much you've been playing I've been playing it's a problem his poop breaks are now twice as long if fan gamer sold packs with like Jokers uhhuh oh and like some of them could be like hologram polychrome or whatever foil
dude I would L about Pokemon cards The Joker design so good like the Joker designs are so good I love the way this game looks give me all the polychrome Jokers holy [ __ ] give me some negative Jokers oh negative polychrome Joker oh I'd spend so much money it's sorry I haven't felt this way since since remember the decals and let it die the remember the glossy like decals that you unlock and let it die that was the last time I felt this passionate about I want a physical version of all of these
right now sorry batro it's good no you're good you're good um but yeah um that I mean that's really it for me I'm just obviously living life trying to get by UM playing games when I can nothing nothing too much crazy on the horizon doing everything that's all you can do are you excited for Dragon's Dogma oh of course obviously one of my one of my favorite games of all time definitely looking forward to that one the only thing I'll bring up is is fond memories have been unlocked with our Final Fa
ntasy 7 talks and I know I definitely have talked better on the show and I was trying to find it over there on my shelf but I can't I think I can't remember if I kept it I think I did because a it's valueless and B it's just a a ument to my my naivity when I was younger uh but when when I was young OB this is no no no no no this is like you know pre like YouTube uh believe it or not for some of our listeners pre-youtube um you know pre any kind of streaming thing really um and you know I had Fin
al Fantasy 7 I loved it and I wanted like more um and then you know I was kind of like searching probably on like Yahoo um because Google wasn't really a thing um and I was trying to find some like information on Final Fantasy 7 you probably found some forms or something but I found like oh Final Fantasy 7 movie I oh [ __ ] what the [ __ ] Final Fantasy 7 has a movie like I couldn't find anything on it and I bought it on eBay I can't remember I think like 15 bucks or something like that and all
it was was like four DVDs of like someone playing Final Fantasy 7 from beginning to end the original let's play dog yeah like an OG let's play that I pa 15 bucks for yeah VHS sh that's true just a just a dumb kid like I said I'm pretty sure I still have it I think maybe I just it's boxed up somewhere like I said what am I supposed to do with it it's worthless I can't give it away even um but yeah so it's just that us talking about Final Fantasy 7 made me unlock that memory again that's fascinati
ng Konami Abol f for the re-release of mle called three back in the day for subsistence as part of one of the bonus DVD things you get in the limited edition included that exact thing a DV just a 90 minute 2our thing of gameplay and cinematics as mgs3 the movie like an official thing it was that's so [ __ ] weird I want to compliment fin7 oh Shinu did it too I forgot that m one of the most wonderful things about the original Final Fantasy 7 is when you just saw Materia in the environment yeah it
's true and it's like oh my God what is that Materia like like when you see the purple Materia in arth's garden and you're like oh my God what is that Materia it's still has that effect when I see Materia in the world in this game I'm like oh my God what Materia is in this blue is it GNA be all Materia you know still have that I I'm glad that transferred over that's one of the little details man that's one of the little details in fact anything that's color colored purple in that game is somethi
ng valuable to go for yeah that's not necessarily true I'm not gonna equip Vitality up no but like weapons why would you not equip Vitality up sorry stupid uh Chris Davis why don't you go next fck you Nick yeah you're going last today [ __ ] I'm just kidding I'm going I always go last yeah welcome to my world my four player minute um this is Final Fantasy 7 remake is going to be a 100 hour game easily for me at this point based on where I'm going I am very excited what they're doing with the nar
rative I know I was bitching and moaning about a bunch of little nit little nitpicks in the our Impressions but really I'm really loving this game I as a one game at a time guy I am so so very glad that I blazed through infinite wealth as fast as I could but that number for my personal satisfaction ended up being 97 hours like but infinite wealth just blew right through it a quick easy 97 hours oh my God infinite wealth is a guaranteed top CER this year like that the last hour of that game is so
satisfying and that ending is exactly what I wanted from this game so [ __ ] good will not go into spoilers for Brad or Nolan at all but [ __ ] man [ __ ] me right make certain that y'all finish that game this year oh yeah maybe I won't maybe I won't finish my 12th Yakuza game [ __ ] you Chris Davis I mean just like it's like the second half of that game is all about like Nostalgia and like setting up a character for a careful I'm not to say careful when you were introduced to in Yakuza 6 you [
__ ] I don't need to play six other Yakuza games in order to appreciate a character saying you do it was just funny that was called like kiru's like farewell his final game I didn't know that at the time it wasn't so it wasn't you did know because it marketing no I did not we were all scaming it at you well then IAD your turn BR I ignore you half the time anyway um I mean it's hey you got to if you want to stay sane working for this website the other thing is that unicord Overlord is Friday and
I really want to play that and there's no way I'm getting done with remake this month I don't think like and the dark side play two games at once this you're making like a weekend you're a crazy person no I will not no there's no way not from where I'm at with how many hour I have put in 35 hours since remake launched in playing it okay like there's no way not from where I'm at not from the pace in which I'm going this is so depressing I'm gonna be playing unicorn Overlord on my switch dude you
know this my PS5 this is so depressing I took a three-day weekend and impromptu I took like a mental health day on Friday I was like hey I'll just you know mental health day rebirth comes out tomorrow perfect 3-day week weend 12 hours I got 12 hours of rebirth in and I felt really good about that I was like oh 12 hours I got 12 hours it's nice what is the moral of the story the moral of the story is I don't have enough [ __ ] time 12 hour the story is I need a [ __ ] social life to get me away
from gaming this is the problem it wasn't even it wasn't even about so I didn't do anything outside of like I didn't I didn't do anything social this weekend what did you were you doing I wouldn't saw Dune I wouldn't saw Dune on Friday night so there's that but other than thatly you got blinded multiple times by it I mean here's the yeah yeah that movie goes back and forth between dark dark dimly lit inside areas to the desert in like and I was it was like 10 o'clock at night too so I was alread
y starting to get kind of sleepy and I was like oh god um well my kids were sick so we didn't do [ __ ] this week I played a lot of Final Fantasy I don't have kids I don't have kids I did almost nothing socially I did 12 hours of Final Fantasy was pretty proud of that but that clearly uh I don't know oh shut up Nick you play many games dude I you know what it is you couldn't do more than 12 hours because it was a Japanese game if it was a western game you would have done 30 hours that's not true
because if that was the case I'd be I would have played a lot more pacific drive at this point but I'm still sitting at about eight hours on Pacific drive also by the way that game is really hard to play um at night sitting in bed on a steam deck because it's actually rather frightening uh unexpectedly so I get like I I I jumped and made a little like noise and I was in bed and Robin was already like fast asleep and she like like rolled over like what's wrong and I was like uh nothing I I shoul
dn't be playing this in bed this is a bad idea uh that game's that game's pretty good though by the way sorry this is not my four player minute Brad you take it away I got nothing I don't know nothing well I talk a little bit about how hyped I am for Dragon Dogma 2 there was a big previe embargo that lifted uh uh I mean if you know who Austin Walker is you know he's a big Dragon Dogma fan and also just like one of the you know he's just really good at talking about video gam he's a real one so s
o and there's like kind of a hourong video where he just kind of shows some of the footage because he went and played it he know he's not even like in games media anymore um but people know his passion for Dragon's Dogma so he got invited to play dragon's dog was still anyways anyways it was it was like a really cool like like some of the stuff he was saying dude this is gonna be a real one y'all it's gonna be a real one but but it's also gonna be prickly like like they're doing stuff that games
don't do because it m it makes like Gamers like uncomfortable and not in like a way that like you know like a Souls game is like hard right like oh this is really hard some people are just not going to be able to play this no they're doing [ __ ] like like timed side quests like if if if you're gonna if you're gonna like dilly dally like if someone comes up to you and said dude like this person's in danger and you don't like make an effort to like do that right away prepare for an expedition an
d like go towards it to like solve that Quest you're gonna get there and it's going to be like a dead body and that's crazy no one's doing [ __ ] like that anymore like like and if you look into like the way they they do handle like nighttime and like camping and stuff and resources and it is like they are making a game that is trying to be different in a lot of the ways like the first one was right but now they're really kind of like they're they're they're going all in right in a way that othe
r like franchises like like Elder Scrolls will start to like streamline line and we're g to make it more mainstream we don't want to be in menu I mean you know menus are bad you know you know like they're going in a direction that doesn't care about appealing to the mainstream and to me I think that's why something like a like the souls games really caught on because I think people really like grabbed on to the fact that this was different this is different it it's not it's not like all these ot
her games that are that just want me to get to the end so I can buy the DLC so I can buy the sequels so I can buy the expansion pack you know like this is a game that just wants to be its own thing and if people don't click with it that's fine but the people who do really appreciate that design I I feel like dragas dog but is doing that in so many cool ways and just one little thing aside is that your pawns can have like different roles and I know that they talked about like oh this one is like
a translator so like if you go into like the Elven region like he will translate the Elvish to you because you won't be able to understand it otherwise and Austin was talking about some of the other things that these pawns can do and one of them is like an inventory management guy who will like handle Inventory management for you and he will like spread out your inventory to between you and all your ponds to keep everybody's weights low from being over encumbered he will balance it out he'll B h
e'll basically you know treat your party as mules but he'll do it for you like equipment mes cool like like there's little things like that that's so [ __ ] cool I can't wait there's so much to say on this like this game I want to fight Nick when he says this this could this could probably end up being like a low 70s like that first game Nick you have no idea like even if it does get low score saying [ __ ] like that like I some like I somehow don't know what I'm talking about I haven't been loo
king at some of the same preview stuff I know that game is probably going to be good I'm just saying it's probably it can't say probably going to be good what you can say going other in the same breath shut the [ __ ] up the wild Elden ring Brad shut the [ __ ] up if I said this if I said the exact same thing that you just said about any video game that wasn't Dragon's Dogma 2 you would tell me I need to check myself at the door that I need to lower my [ __ ] expectations that [ __ ] about spefi
c drive or something maybe but this is Dragon St dud show some respect look I have no desire to watch to want this game to fail but every time I hear Brad talk like this I want it to get like a 75 I don't that's crazy that's just that's in spite of myself because I want the game I want the game to be [ __ ] amazing this because it's Japanese there it is no I mean I whatever it's fine you played that first one you liked it you finished it dude I am just as I okay I'm not I am I'm way talk about i
t you're like who wants to spite a game or spite someone you have started your year our years of working together has started to rub off on me you've turned me into a little bit a little bit of a cynic okay so like yeah but games you're choosing to be cynical about are like tears of the kingdom and Final Fantasy 7 remake and stuff it's like was I cynical about tears the [Music] kingdom that [ __ ] was out and you were like I don't know about this one y'all you quote for quote word for word quote
and I quote Nick I don't know about this tears of the Kingdom game y'all I don't know ver [ __ ] ver two point number two I I don't feel like I feel like it's kind of weird for you to be harping on me when like the part the only part only thing only negative thing I've ever said about tears of the kingdom and it's not even a negative it was just that maybe I was a little Bumm that it was the same map like I already said Verbatim what you said whatever whatever uh I think being my top in my top
five games of of the year is is more than enough praise for tears of the kingdom come on man come on stop saying that you're spitting on its grave [ __ ] off okay uh I'll I'll keep this [ __ ] short I'll just uh I don't even know where to I don't even we've talked so much about rebirth I think it's I think it's kind of magical even though it has a lot of problems it's it's it's a great game I'm having a lot of fun I'm still trying to uh find time for some Pacific drive cuz I think that game is u
h is really really well done and I think it's being obviously overshadowed by a lot of big stuff coming out right now um it has it it strikes it strikes a tone it it it captures A vibe that is just so uniquely suited to that genre of game and it's just it's so well done and it's so addicting like once you start it's hard to stop but um like I went on an expedition the other day and let's just say I went into the Expedition and my car was perfect it was it was every all the P all the panels all t
he tires all the stuff on it was just Crystal was clear was armored I was ready I was like I feel good about this fast forward about 30 minutes later and I'm barreling towards that beam of light that's going to take me back to the garage and I hit a rock and I go flying through the air and I get the achievement for going through the beam in midair because it doesn't happen very often I get air and I come crashing into the garage it cuz it teleports you back to the garage I come crashing in the c
ar like hits the ground it's like bouncing all over the place one of my tires flies off the car and I come like sliding into the garage and the whole thing is like falling apart and I was like but I made it and that's just such a unique feeling uh and I love it man I [ __ ] love it it's Al it's just also incredibly stressful try it myself honestly it's such it's it's a cool if you like if you like survival games I I it's one it's one of those things if you've played one and you enjoy it this is
this is another good one check it out um and with that that's our show uh this week thank you guys so much for tuning in thank you for all those who watched Us on YouTube tonight thank you all those who watch on Twitch we appreciate it if you want us to keep streaming on YouTube you got to let us know so leave us comments on YouTube pop into our disc and the feedback Channel let us know what you think ring the bell or whatever the hell they say if you like our Channel and you want us to keep doi
ng it on YouTube ring smash the Bell whatever the [ __ ] it is Nolan's shaking his head at me I'm like an old man ring the bell or whatever the [ __ ] it's called Uh you need to do that um but yeah guys if you're not on our Discord please join us there at discord.gg player we'll be back next Tuesday with another episode and of course we got some big stuff coming out this month between rise of the Ronin and Dragons Dogma 2 among bunch of other little things and there's a lot to talk about in the
coming weeks so we hope you'll join us for another episode but in the meantime be good to each other play video games good night bye [Music] night [Music]
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You guys were a part of my childhood. Thanks for the memories.
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