[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's not realistic. It's not the way it is, but I think what it has done is it's made me really again.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, put it this way. I started this process in this game with this question in mind of like, you know, what would I sacrifice or what would I give to bring my dad back? Right? And I didn't have the answer. I really didn't. I was like, you know, what would I do? I would, you know, would I,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Would I sacrifice all my work just to spend that one, you know, one day with him again or and it was, it was a tough one and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I guess the one thing that has really kind of come out of it all is like I look at


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, the journey that I've, I've, I've gone on in regards to the work that I've done as an actor, uhm, the family that I now have, you know, even my daughter. And...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I, I just realized like, this stuff wouldn't have happened if he hadn't had passed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, because that's just the way, that's just the path in which we've kind of walked on in life. And I think this game has really sort of helped me see that a bit clearer in regards to like you, it's, it's, it's not necessarily accepting it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because there is an element of accepting that, you know, his past. I think I accepted that a while back. I think it's the acceptance of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, my feelings are valid, essentially. Or my thoughts are valid. Which wouldn't have happened, I think, in regards to like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If it wasn't for this game in regards to really realizing that actually it's okay to not be okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's totally cool, and that's fine. And actually being vulnerable, there's a superpower in that. There's a sense of like actually me being open and honest to you, and you know, bearing all for you. You, you, you then can't hurt me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because I've got nothing to hide, you know, because I know the truth and you know the truth. And that's kind of, and that's, that's what I've learned from this whole thing. You know, it's almost like it's, it's really, it's made me realize, and even the team as well, it's made us all realize like, actually, if you, if you're just honest and true from the get-go,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, no matter what anyone says or what anyone thinks, and you know, no matter how you're feeling, as long as it's honest and coming from a truthful place, kind of immortal, man.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On, on a, on a practical level I've learned a lot of lessons, and I think actually funnily enough my ignorance to it all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because if I wasn't so ignorant to the realities of what it means to make a game,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Don't go through the distress of what it means to make this. But, you know, the...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The beauty of this whole process and actually getting to a point now where we are, you know, shipping a game. It's a, it's a full game. It's, it's what it is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Again, what I realized is, the only way we could have got here, and the only way we would have gotten here is...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is if, you know, is by being honest and truthful and just being driven by this, this, this, this sense of wanting to tell an authentic story.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think if we were, you know, trying to make a quick buck or, or catch that sort of, um, the, the, what's the word?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The sort of, the zeitgeist in a way. I think this, this, the project would have been dead in the water. I think truly like it's, it was, it was driven by passion. Pure passion and pure wanting to, to make something that...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It allowed us to weather the storms of, of...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The games industry as a whole and the kind of unpredictable nature of it, you know, hiring is a, is a...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, at the time, I mean, we were a remote studio, so we were always going to be remote, but you're...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The communication factor was always a thing of like, right, we're going to have to wrestle with this, you know, making sure that EA are happy with the deliverables that we're giving. Like there was all these factors that, you know, we had to go through.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Again, you just had to trust that it was all gonna come to fruition.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The best, the best way I can describe this process has been like, you know, have you ever been to like a water park where, um, there's like the, the, the, the whirlpool slide and like everyone from outside is like, you've got one person here and one person there and you're all kind of going around this whirlpool slide and you're just swirling around and at the end you all go through the


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Finally, you all come to the middle and you're like, ah, this is the thing that we want to give.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So as an actor, you know, really the, the job, it's not simple, but there's a simple technique that you can just practice and do that will make sure that you're doing your job right, which is just listening. It's like you listen to the other person, you, you receive the dialogue and then you react.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's all it is. You got to just listen and react. And that was something that I really took on board.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Being a leader, you know, I knew that I wasn't going to have all the answers. Yeah, I had a vision. I had an idea and I had a night, you know, a feeling of what I wanted to kind of conjure. But ultimately.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm not going to know the, you know, the best way of depicting that through level design. I have to trust my designers to do that. I'm not going to necessarily know the right art style to kind of depict it. I have an idea and an inspiration of what I want it to feel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My artists are going to know better in regards to how to really visually, uh, convey that. So listening was a big thing and what you, what I've realized, especially when you're working with people like Ridley Scott or even, you know, even within House of the Dragon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The best people are the greatest listeners. You know, Ridley has a team around him who he essentially says, I want to convey this. The team give him ideas and he's like, cool, actually that's a greater idea. I'm going to go with that. And it begins, you begin conjuring this thing. You realize essentially like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A company is a company of people, it isn't just one person.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, me being creative director, really that title essentially is all about me being like, okay,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is my vision. This is the idea. And this is kind of me saying yes or no to something, right? Because it kind of works with the vision or not. And ultimately, you know, I'm not going to choose.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My idea which might be worse than someone else's idea which is much stronger. As long as it depicts the element of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The, the truth aspect of things and the kind of the simplicity of, of, of,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When it comes to storytelling and good storytelling at that, you need to just tell a good human story. You know, if I was to remove the dragons from House of the Dragons,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's still gonna be a very good show, because it isn't about the dragons. It's about the relationships and the communication between people. The same thing with Game of Thrones. It started getting epic and all the wars and all these kind of houses were fighting, but


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's really about the people. And I think like that's essentially really at the...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A lot of people can resonate with this idea of trying to be responsible for kids and having no idea about it, you know? And so that to me was, you know, what also is really key in regards to building.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The stories that we want to tell, it's like what is the human truth in this and how do we respect it as much as possible?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like it's, yeah, it's well in, all well and good that the game is set in, you know, Bantam myth and legends. But ultimately, you know, you could, you could put this in Norse and you could put this in Greek myth, or you could put this in a modern day age. What the most important factor here is about, it's about this kid who's learning what it means to be in a world without his father. That's the core thing. That's the core aspect. So everything else is almost a bonus, you know?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm ha- I'm happiest doing that stuff, you know? Uhm, I grew up, you know, reading Discworld and, and sort of, uhm, in the Star Wars worlds and, you know, all those universes and stuff. So, to have the opportunity of, of,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of creating and conjuring my own is, is really exciting. So yeah, man, like I've got.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All sorts of plans with the Tauza Kenzera sort of universe that I want to see to fruition. Again, ultimately, all coming from the place of where it feels.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But again, you just have no idea, you know, and I remember starting this studio and telling the team, like, look, if we've only got one chance of making a game,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like let's, let's go big with it and let's, you know, really just throw everything we can at it because


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You just, again, you just never know. You really never know. I had, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was a big lesson I learned actually when I was uhm, while I was acting at drama school by a teacher who told me, and I'll always carry this with me like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Those are the two people you want to reach out to, right? You want to, you know, hit that first person who's come into this thing wanting to be convinced or wanting to know like, what is theatre or, or, or what is a film? And you want to almost be like, hey, this is cool. Go and see other cool stuff out there. Cause it's, and get them hooked on it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But you also want to take into consideration that person who this might be the last time they see something like this due to either be a tragedy or anything that might befall them, you know, and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's, it's so important to, to give you a role in something with that, with that mentality in mind. Cause then everyone in the middle also gets something really, really cool, you know? But so for us, it was really like, okay, I am going to


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I come to EA with this huge universe, this Tales of Kinsera kind of idea of where I wanted to be and, but it's really truly at its core, it's about this human journey because


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Otherwise, if I turned around and was like, uh, maybe we just want to make like, you know, a cool version of ping pong, I wouldn't be doing myself a service.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, follow the heart, and look, obviously, you know, elements will change, like that's part of gamedev. The beauty of gamedev is that it will evolve and change over time, but as long as you've got that core there, man, like, again, as I say, you're flying.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I, I really, there's a few, okay, there's the, the one, so cause I'm replaying it again now for like, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Funnily enough, for like the billionth time. Yeaah. Uhm, but the one thing that is always fun for me is are the combat trials. I love the combat trials.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I love them. And like the combat trials are like the music and the, and the, you know, oh man, it's just so epic and so good. And the more abilities you unlock and the more things you can do, like, you know, the skill tree being, you know, there's an ability there called seize, which essentially allows you to,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's so fun. And so, and these are again, these are elements of that I really.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like it was important again, not to just focus on the story and tell it, you know, otherwise I should have just made a film, right? The thing is, it's like, this is a game and you have to respect that medium. So it has to feel kinetic fun and like, you know, and that's essentially what we wanted to do. And so yeah, like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As much as, you know, as I kind of hop on about the story and how, you know, kind of honest it is and meaningful it is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The real thing to take away is like, it's not that the Journey of Grief just influenced the story, it influenced everything. Like, even the combat aspect and the fluidity and the feeling of the chaos, the franticness is


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, for me, the best, you know, the way it resembles kind of grief in the sense that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, one of the things that kind of stood out for me was after my father had died, the world just continued to spin.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, days were still going. The world didn't stop. Time didn't stop. Things just kept moving and you had to keep moving with it. It's like a train that just keeps you like, oh, he's passed. Boom. You have to keep going now. You have to sort the paperwork. You have to, you know, talk to your friends here, do your work. Like the, like life just goes on and that's essentially


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, something that I wanted to capture with the combat, with the traversal, this feeling of constant movement, this feeling of, it, it, it almost...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's almost this agency of a sense that you can stop and you can play slowly, but you can also play fast. The options are there. The agency is there. What is your beat? What beat are you going to find in order to kind of go through this journey yourself? So yeah, man, like that, that's what I would say. It's that feeling of,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Everything is influenced for it. That's, and that's what I quite enjoy doing. And I quite enjoy finding in the game is, you know, especially when I look at the combat trials, those are a test of like, how are you going to get over this obstacle?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, you can cheese an enemy from the corner and just use the blue, you know, the, the sun mask or the, sorry, the, uh, the moon mask and kind of shoot them from afar. Or you can get up in personal with them with the sun mask and get there, or you could use them both or, you know, there's, there's a, or you could dash all the time or you could just play this risk reward. Like that's what I enjoy about it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, definitely, and as I, you know, one of the things as well that I just do want, sort of like, I always say this with people to take away, like, I'm an actor who had no idea how to make games, no idea, like literally nothing, and I'm here now, and it's like, so it's just,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Take that as some form of inspiration to be like, if you really want to do something, you can do it, man.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What's up? I'm ready. I'm here. I'm, I, I missed you guys. It's been a while.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How dare you. Yeah, we raised four hundred and fifty thousand dollars for direct relief. Amazing! Holy shit! Through a charity event we do called, uh, the Runaway Guys Coliseum with a bunch of content creators in a hotel for like three or four days and it was madness. It was crazy, but it was really awesome.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, so March 27th, which is about a week and some change, like 7-8 days from now when this airs, the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U eShop will be closed forever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ripperino. Ripperino. So, you're doing something buckwild. You've been working on this for a while. Yes. So, uh, Gamers of the Internet. Hello, welcome. Here we go. Uh, I...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Did something very stupid. And my video actually is live right now that you can go and watch after the podcast or watch later, whatever you need, whenever you gotta do. Uh, I purchased literally every single Nintendo Wii U and 3DS game on the digital eShops. Uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it was a nightmare. It took me almost a full year to make this video.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Lots of money, lots of, of chaos, uh, to give you guys an idea, at the time that I started working on the video, some titles came and went. New games were released on the eShop in the middle of my video, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Roughly speaking, there's 866 Wii U games and 1547 3DS games, and that includes DLC, uh, it includes Virtual Console clones from both consoles, um, as well as DSiWare for, uh, for 3DS folks.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The whole point of the video is that, uh, at the end, uh, I-I'm gonna end up donating, uh, both my console and 3DS at the end of my career to the Video Game History Foundation to preserve it. So there's gonna be a physical backup, essentially, uh, that my account is tied to that, uh, the Video Game History Foundation group can have.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm furious. It's a, it was a nightmare. Uh, all of the problems I ran into all the, every single issue. Uh, if you, if you love like our data is beautiful.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like this video is for you. This is a deep dive into the psyche of someone who was like, I have an idea. And as the video goes on, it's like, this was the stupidest thing I ever came up with.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Please do, uh, RIP, RIP-a-rooney eShop.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Fun fact for you guys at home, uhm, if you were like, hey, I wanted to spend, uh, several thousand dollars at once on the eShop, Nintendo won't let you. There is an invisible cap of about 1500 bucks that if you hit in a day, Nintendo shadow bans you for 48 hours from redeeming any, any cards.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They wanted to protect your backlog. I was scared because every, every three days I was locked out of my account which basically made this progress, this progress so elongated.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'll tell you what, uh, never this ever again. This was a fun thing. Uh, I'm not doing PS3 or 360 eShop. If that stuff closes, it closes. I'm sorry. It's too much money. I tried.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think that's actually a great starting point. If you don't want me jumping in Joe, um, because here's the thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I have not played Destiny for many years. I am very far removed from this. All of my excitement, hype and news comes directly from Ralph. Ralph is like the conduit for all of us. Terrible news source for Destiny by the way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, uh, obviously, uh, light falls here. You, you, you put your blood sweat and tears for the team. Um,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm a new player. I'm jumping in for the first time. It seems a little overwhelming or, or maybe I just, I'm not really sure if like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The, the, uh, level of, of, uh, things I have to download in terms of my head to understand. Do you think that with, with Lightfall that it's a little unwelcoming for new players and, uh, and how much effort do you and the team kind of put into onboarding new players when you think about major updates or expansions?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That sounds great for a guy like me because I am very checklist oriented. Sorry Ralph, take it away.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Joe, forgive my ignorance. Uh, and maybe this is like a too, too far into the weeds or too much into the hood.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Do you, and maybe it's just, it's more of a game design question as opposed to like a bungee destiny question. Do you guys purposely design things to be tested by players going like, Hey, we know this needs feedback, but let's put something out there just to see and test the waters.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In a sense where like no one knows who you are.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was going to comment, uh, as now start looking in again, it kind of feels like you guys are building bridges and resurfacing and rebuilding those bridges as you're building the bridge. It's almost like you kind of have to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At this point, you know, spanning the time you guys worked on the games, it's gotta be pretty straightforward or rather streamlined for you guys as a team to build it out effectively.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I play a little game called Dance Dance Revolution.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I try and go for as long as I can, but I usually go for about 20 to 30 minutes. Um, and uh, what I've been doing is I actually modded my cabinet to have a PC next to it so I can stream on Twitch and DDR fans will like donate bits and choose the song and the difficulty. And so I'll try and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Use that as my self-motivated challenge.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I did it a lot before I joined G4 and then I got G4 and that time went away but I'm slowly working my way back into it. That's a cool way to do it. That's really cool.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was the one thing about WeFit I didn't like, because WeFit was like, it's a board, and if you just step on it, that counts as like, doing the activity, but- WeFit was a judgy little bitch. It sure was. It absolutely was.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a weird Jake that the minute that you brought up that the merchant was back, my immediate, cause full disclosure, I didn't get a code. I've been begging Capcom every day. I usually get a code for Capcom games early and they've just been stonewalling me this whole time. But when you brought up the merchant, I don't know if you noticed, I just took off


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I like didn't want to hear it, but like I, you know what I mean? Cause I love the merchant so much. So I was like, Oh, I don't want to, I don't want to spoil it. But yeah, he's still cool. He's still cool. I can confirm that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I want to say it's a port, but it's also, I'd say it's more like a remix of the game of the same name for the Nintendo Wii from back in the day. This was very much a more similar style to


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The original, uh, Dreamland series, like, you know, the one for the Gameboy, um, Nightmare in Dreamland, just the, the gameplay is very familiar if you've played the original Kirby games. There was a while where the Kirby games started to get a little more party-centric and, and different types of minigames. This kind of combines both.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, you can play as, as the four homies of Kirby. You got Kirby, Waddle Dee, Meta Knight, and, uh, King Dedede.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, yeah, I mean, I don't know if you got, if any of you played the original game, but, uhm, the base game essentially is a one for one copy of the original. Uhm, but they added a ton of extra content in the game, from extra minigames to, uhm, a whole new, like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Epilogue with Magolor who is the villain of the game in the end. I don't know if it's a spoiler, but it-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The character, the evil guy in the game tricks Kirby into helping him as an ally. Uhm, so sorry, you had at least a decade to play this game everyone, I'm sorry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the very complicated Kirby vs. God video game. Uhm, and, and they added a bunch of, there's like a, there is a, like a theme park.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, that, that Mayor Magolor operates in, it's a different Magolor character, and it has a bunch of minigames from, uh, the, one of the anniversaries of Kirby.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they've even updated some mini games to have online functionality. Um, like Samurai Kirby is in the game with a Samurai 100 mode. So you can take a little BR mini game that you can do once a day. Um, yeah, there's, uh, lots to do in this, in this game. If you are a true completionist.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, this game does not skimp out and it's very difficult to complete. I know that everyone always kind of touts Kirby games as easy and, and for kind of for babies. Uh, if you're a completionist, this game is not easy. There is a huge difficulty curve as you get towards the end of the game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, there's like 120 achievements in, in just the Magolor, Mayor Magolor Merryland alone. Uhm, and then of course there's the epilogue where you play as a kind of a power down villain that has to gain his power back. Uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, there's like a boss arena mode and a true boss arena mode and they, there's a ton of content in here. If you're a Kirby fan, uh, I would, I'd recommend checking it out. It, it has a lot in it. If you've played the first, if you've played the original game, I don't think you're going to be missing too much.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, and, and of course it's Kirby, which means that for the most part, if you're playing with at least another person, the game is relatively easy, but it does have a difficulty spike when you're trying to round those achievements and,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, beating true arena battle mode and I did a whole freaking video on it and it was extensive. It took a lot out of me. I thought, hey, I can knock this game out in like two days. I was wrong. It, it, it, it took almost a whole week for me to do it. And, uh, yeah, it's a fun time. Very, very fun.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was gonna ask, is it kinda like, uh, Brothers the Tale of Two Sons in that way of like, it's, it, in terms of like, one controller, like, you know, you described the controlling both them in the, in the sticks, like. Yes. Cause I, I get the vibe that, and maybe this is wrong, cause this is a platinum produced game, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It feels like platinum went to an indie studio, even though platinum is an indie studio, and was like, here is our IP, take care of it, here are the rules, and continue. That's kind of the vibe that I got from the trailer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It looks, I'm looking at the trailer right now, which is probably...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who ever made the trailer for Dredge? Master class in learning how to tease a game without ruining the surprise. Like, everything you just said I picked up on the trailer alone. It looks very exciting. As someone who hates fishing in games, what makes it kind of stand out versus like a mechanic in like Final Fantasy 15 if you will?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think it's called, I think I've even heard the name, I think it's Theatrhythm Final Barline. It is. Just encompassing Final Fantasy. Yep.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is the best of the rhythm games, uh, hands down. It's the most mechanically clean. Uh, this is, I think this is the third or fourth one in the franchise so far.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, if you like Final Fantasy, and you love Final Fantasy music, and you love Final Fantasy-adjacent music, such as Advent Children, Crisis Core, uhm, uh, uh, is it Live Alive?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Final Fantasy franchise, but really a lot of the RPG franchises that Square Enix owns, uhm, and they're refusing it into this game, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is a game that I'm, I'm not trying to complete for any content. This is what I call a for me game where when I want to get away from work, I just sit down and play it. And I started playing it on Sunday.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, it's been, what, like three days now, and I can't put it down. It's just really, really fun. This is my first theater rhythm game. I've played the other ones casually, but this is the first one that I've been like, okay, I'm gonna do it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a whole robust RPG system that I didn't know existed before that's really cool. Uhm, you play through essentially the plot of each game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and through music. So it's, you know, that's cool. Yeah. So, you know, if you're playing Final Fantasy 6, for instance, you play the opening of Gnarsh with, with Terra's theme and you know, they have these little cool art style stuff. And then the next thing is Locke's theme, cause that's when Locke and Terra meet and I'm a huge Final Fantasy nerd, as you can tell. So yeah, so there's a,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, if you like crisis core, there's a lot of, they tell a story of crisis core. They do without spoiling it. So if you haven't played it, you're not sitting there going like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's no cutscenes. There's not a lot of narrative elements. It's just you have your four party members running around, um, either in a moving stage or in a battle sequence and, uh, you're playing your favorite tracks from, from all over Final Fantasy and Scrainy's history. And, uh, there's just this insanely robust element of,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Paying attention to what your characters are equipped with, whether it's like, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or you can beat this challenge caveat, the secondary objective. And for the most part, they're pretty easy, but they get really tough and it's fascinating.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How faithful they've been to all of the games. Cause obviously this is their third or fourth take at the theaterrhythm aspect of it. Uh, but there's a ton of content. I think I'm like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Probably put in about 25 hours into it so far in the last couple days and I can't put it down. It's, it's really fun. If you don't like Final Fantasy music or screenings music, uh, in general, it might not be the game for you. Uh, but Nobu Matsu is like the best.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With the track, so it's like, oh, Destidia's in here, and the remixes they did for Destidia are in here, and uh, they call it the Final Fantasy 13 series, because 13-2 and 13-3 are in there, and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, uh, Chocobo Mystery Dungeon and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles. Like, they re- they really feels like they're pulling from the bottom of, of, of the barrel. And more importantly, like, it's- the game's been out for a couple weeks now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And like today, they just dropped a bunch of new DLC, if you bought the season pass, with new characters and, and, and more, more music, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're actively updating this bad boy, and it's only been a couple of weeks, and it's the most well-reviewed out of the franchise so far. Uhm, it runs great on pretty much everything, whether you have it on Switch, Steam Deck, or PlayStation 5, or 4 rather.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I, I can't get enough of it. It's super fun. Uh, and uh, there's a bunch of cool little mini emotes too. You can play with friends. You can, you can like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Share a controller with a homie and you can go, hey, I'll take these two notes and you take these two notes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The thing I'll, the last thing I'll say about it, one of the things I love about this versus something like a dance dance revolution or a guitar hero is that your button placement really matters in those games. Like you have to make sure that if you're, you know, your, your fingers on the green and on the red and the orange and the yellow and the blue, uhm, in this game, any button counts.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And there are moments where you'll see a prompt come up that kind of puts you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On your toes, right? Like you'll see if it's a moving stage, it'll be like a line that you use the analog stick.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you press the button and then you have to listen to the rhythm of the music and kind of go this way. Or you'll see like, uh, a orange arrow and that'll point in the direction. So you know, okay, uh, I need to use the analog stick to flick the control stick in that direction. Uh, it's a little different than your average.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you can imagine that when you're playing on supreme mode, when you're hitting hundreds of notes in a song, it's like fascinating to look at. If you want to see cool stuff, look up supreme mode playthroughs of songs on this game and you'll just sit there and ask yourself, what did I just watch?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It'll blow your mind. But yea, highly recommend if you like Final Fantasy and screen enix music.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ith, when you said the name, Ith was like about to say, wow, today?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Him trying to do an American accent is always so funny because you can hear him trying his best to fight a dialect that's otherwise disagreeing with him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you are, this is specifically for you gamer with a capital G, TM out there that have not played final fantasy seven. You've heard everyone say I should play a final fantasy seven and you haven't taken the plunge. You're nervous about it because the remake is out and there's crisis core and adventure, blah, blah, blah, blah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you're trying to get your feet wet and you're nervous that you're not going to like it, play Final Fantasy VI first.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a, it's a much more digestible story. It's basically a little bit of a cleaner take on like, you know, the empire taking over the world with magical kind of stuff spread throughout it. And it makes you care about the characters as a collective.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, I highly recommend it. Uh, the pixel remasters are pretty dang good. Uh, and I think they're only playable on Steam right now, but supposedly they're coming to Switch and PlayStation in the future, based off of the leak at the end of last year when it was on the screen extort for like two minutes. But, yeah. That's me. That's a good answer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ooh, boy. All right everyone. This was a, this was a pretty crazy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Crazy of a time, uh, this, this, this week in gaming, if you will. Uh, I'll go first. Uh, there's so many tiles to pick from. I'm picking the obscure one though, cause you guys know me. I love to get weird. Bushido Blade for the PlayStation 1 came out March 14th, 1997. Does anyone in this chat know?


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[Assistant] Okay Lucy, imagine a fighting game where you have no health bar.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's two characters and when you go to attack each other, uh, it's realistic in the essence of if you have a sword and you attack their left arm, their left arm


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, Square Enix fighting game. It came up, it came up in, in that time and then never again. I would love to see it come back. Uh, highly recommended if you can get your hands on it. It's very fun. Very easy. Just pick it up and button go boom.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Last but not least, Gerard. You'll find me buying every single Wii U and 3DS game over at youtube.com slash that one video gamer or just search the completionist on all your favorite platforms. You'll find my dumb fat bearded face there. He sounds tired and broke.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The double hair flick was brilliant. It was.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To get you a puppet for your birthday, like what was the thought process that went into that sort of gift?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think that'll be very cool. And then we can all have our own puppets and we just converse that way for 30 minutes. So I will say. Patreon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, just you can make an occupational health and safety claim.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now you have, is peanut, is peanut all confused by the puppet? Is peanut like the cat? She's fine. She's fine with the puppet effect. She's like, oh great, another roommate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, let's get some puppets, people. We'll do a puppet show at, uh, PAX one time. It'll be a panel. It'll be the PAX puppet panel featuring the friends per second. We're charging admission now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You guys, I listened to the last episode. It was all the better for my absence.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, absolutely crushed it. And, uh, yeah, I, I, I was really nice because it's the first episode that I missed and it was really nice just listening to the podcast without...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As opposed to like, you're always listening back to your like, you're like, should I have said that? You're proofreading. And I was like, oh, I'm just going to listen to this and really enjoyed you guys chatting. And it was really fun and really enjoyed the interview with, uh, with, um, Sven Vinky, correct? That's his name. I always mispronounce it. I'm like, it's Sven.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Winky or something, I just get it wrong every time I say it. But uhm, yeaah, he was a really awesome guest and, uh, like just so interesting to hear his insights into Baldur's Gate and all that sort of shit. So yeaah, it was really nice being able to do that while I was traveling. Have you guys in my ear.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This time man, come on now, it's fun.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's like, it's like, it's like the one with the, it's that famous tweet where it's like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, you know, you could say, oh, I like, this Twitter is the only app where people just take what you say out of context. You could say, oh, I like pancakes. And then someone else would say, oh, what? So you hate waffles? No, bitch. That's a whole other sentence. I mean, it's like that tweet. You haven't seen that tweet?


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[Assistant] So, I'm, like, my Steam thing says that I'm 22 hours in, and I've just hit


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I've just hit the first goblin area.


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[Assistant] I am taking it so slow, like I am just...


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[Assistant] Every single nook and cranny, every single opportunity, every...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I think that's like, ah, cause I feel like we're still operating at this part of the conversation at the very top level. But I actually have like a lot of thoughts about that specific thing about trusting the dice roll and how that works in this game versus something like Disco Elysium.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But other than that, you can actually just, if you fail every single dice roll in that game, you'll still go through that game and it will still be wonderful, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Versus this being a more classic CRPG and a D&D game, it's a very different equation when like you're walking along through a cave and your perception checks fail and all of a sudden you walk through 10 different mines and then you're like, wow, I guess I'm dead. I have to reload now. And it's kind of like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's the part where the dice roll doesn't quite work in as well as it should, but then other people would be like, no, that's exactly how it should work. Cause that's the end of your story. And then you just have to reload it. It's kind of like, well,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What if there was some other way? I don't know. And again, I don't have definitive like, here's how it should be with this. I just know that I am definitely reloading saves and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I wonder how they could have avoided that in certain instances.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But definitely sometimes I'm like, uh, that really was annoying, wasn't it? Oh well, guess I'll reload my game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I feel like a lot of the agency has just taken, yeah, a lot of the agency has just taken away from me unexpectedly or unfairly. And, uh, it just produces some like frustrating outcomes and then you just have to reload. And it's not a big deal to reload because you can reload at any time. You just hit the F8 key, boom.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You straight back in, no delays whatsoever. It's fine. But I always just think about it from that game perspective.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That design perspective where it's like, well, how could they have avoided this? And I don't think they could have in the world of D&D.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, because that's just how that works. But certainly Disco Elysium with the way it's built managed to find a way where you didn't need to do that, if that makes sense.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, no, I think, I think I'm still learning all of those things. And I think part of the.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What's so incredible about this game is just how many of those things there are. I think when we think about discovery in games, we talk about like, oh, what's over there on the horizon? Like, oh, I found a new bandit camp I can clear out. That's cool. Or I discovered this NPC who can give me a quest. That's discovery, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this is a whole other dimension of discovery where we're actually discovering what the game systems are capable of.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it also is the highest rated game of the year, Tears of the Kingdom. Uh, whereas so much of what made that game special was discovering


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What you could do with the game system, because you see them and then you're like, oh cool, that's fun, I can, I can build a...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, you know, a little car and then fast forward like, you know, three weeks of Tik Tok later, you have people building functional metal gears like that, that they can steer and walk around it and all this sort of shit. Right. So yeah, it's, I think it's just so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ah, well, they also had the, like, recently, that Dark Alliance game, the really bad one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That is crazy. From a game design perspective as well, the fact that they built this in this way and that this works.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Doing this on its own, single player would have already been such a head fuck. And then for them to have been like, nah, we're going to make it co-op as well. It's just like, what? Calm down. Just relax. You know what I mean?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I, I, I couldn't play this game co-op because I just take so long to do anything. The person I'm playing with, they're like, Ralph, would you just fucking sell the sword to the vendor? It's fine. You don't need it. You know, I'm like, but we'll need it. I don't know. Let me think about it for another five minutes. Um, the other thing for me, it's really interesting. No, go on. No, sorry. Go ahead.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, I was just reflecting on Gerard's question, like how much does this relate to the nostalgia of what Baldur's Gate was back in the day? I, I really don't think it is that big a deal because I just think it's such a legacy franchise at this point. I don't think anyone is really holding, I dunno, like I, I, I,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If this game sucked, I don't think it would be selling. That's obviously, what I mean is that like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't think the brand cash is so strong that this was just gonna sell buttloads of copies because, oh, it's got Baldur's Gate label on it, right? Right. I think it was because it's a really phenomenal game. That's why it's selling. And the fact that it happens to be a Baldur's Gate game is almost rather incidental when it comes to stuff like the history of the franchise.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The fact that it's a Dungeons and Dragons game I think does matter and it's certainly mattered to me a lot personally as someone who doesn't


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, but, but I think for me personally, cause I don't do any Deer, uh, Dozen Dragons, I am like listening to the narrator.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All of the experiences that I have on the road and the little things that pop up, I'm like, oh, so this must be what it feels like when people do Dungeons and Dragons and there's a DM who's put all this work into writing this campaign and, you know, and talking you through the different events and the different circumstances and breaks this way or that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I love feeling like I'm in the palm of a DM's hand while I play through this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because I don't get to get that anywhere else and I've never really had it before, but I'm getting it here and that is so cool and fun. And I just think every little, and this is what I think is so critical to it, it's like it's charm, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think that when we play video games, like even like The Witcher for example, which has really good well written side quests, they still feel like side quests in video games that are written for video games.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's not, doesn't feel like that. They feel like these little crafted scenarios that someone has sat down and written out in a DM's voice and a DM's approach to


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, scenario design and the way that you go through them and the way you're talked through them and the way you have to roll dice to, like it just, it feels like such a fundamentally different experience rather than just your average side quest, which is kind of like, oh, I need you to go and kill the thing for me, uh, go and kill five of the things actually, and I'll give you a sword. It's...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This game will also ask you to go and kill something and it'll give you a sword in return, but it feels so much more lovingly crafted in the telling and the way that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They ask you is also more interactive because it usually involves some dice rolls. It's just such an, so much more interesting to be given a quest like that in this game than it is in almost any other RPG that I've played.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and I really do think that comes down to that kind of like DM touch, like that feeling of being in the DMs.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I feel like, just to interject briefly on your point, which is kind of like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, two to three different acts in a different game, if you know what I mean.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's so, as I'm hearing all this exposition from these characters and their quests are being updated, I'm like, damn man, we've still got like another, you know, 60 or 70 hours of game to go. Are you going to have stuff to say to me at the end, if you're saying this much to me now?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I'm pretty sure they will have stuff to say to me at the end, cause it just feels like that kind of game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can tell they're just not holding anything back. Like they're just giving you so much so quickly, uh, because yeah, they've really gone to town on the writing and these characters are so vivid as well. Every single one of them, I wish all of them were in my party. I hate that I have to choose. It pisses me off that I have to leave any of them at camp.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because all of them are cool so far. And again, how many RPGs or any RPG I play, I'm like, yeah, you can stay back at camp. Yeah, I don't really like you either. You're fine. You come with me though, right? Here, I'm just like, everyone has to come with me. Only four people. What the fuck? This is a scam. How do we increase party size? You know?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, I love, I just love everyone I meet. I really do. They feel so well written. The voice acting is top tier. My god. It's so good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's such a dramatic flair to their delivery as well, that they haven't gone for a gritty kind of like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A more gritty, dark take on D&D where everyone's kind of like mumbling into the mic and it's like, you know, bat fleck kind of, no it's not. It's literally like, oh hello! Yes, I am! And it's just, every character has this flair, you know? Every single one. A starian is great. Tim Curry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Absolutely. He's amazing. And that's another thing that I love about it. It's just got that, um, shameless, dramatic flair, oozing from it at all times. And it's just so unashamed about that. I just, I really love it. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What sucks about this game? What's bad about this game? Uh, inventory management sucks? I had a bit of slowdown.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I actually have tried the control. I will admit, yes, I do. I have, it's very impressive. The way that they've managed to squeeze it all into the control is like crazy. But at the same time, I love being able to just pan across a map and move and all that sort of shit. But uh, yeah, the camera stuff can be quite funky sometimes depending on what you're doing and whatever else, but it's such a minor gripe. It's like whatever man, you know? Um, yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think as well, because I played the originals back in the day, 1 and 2, and they were definitely some of the most like formative games for me. Baldur's Gate 2 in particular, uhm, I definitely would not be the nerd I am today without like, without Baldur's Gate 2 for sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, but back then I was very happy to sit and read a video game for hundreds of hours. And what I mean by that is you had to just sit there and read those games because the story was told entirely through text and you would sit there and read it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And later on, or more recently I should say, I've tried to play stuff like Pillars of Eternity, and I can't do it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it bums me out because I'm like, I really want to love this thing, but my brain just doesn't have the attention span that it used to, to be able to sit there and read through text for 120 hours or 150 hours or however long POE is, right? Not POE, sorry. Yeah, pillars of shame.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I'd feel like the fact that all of this is voiced and it has these cinematic, the cinematic presentation of like a Bioware game, you know, like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Mass Effect or Dragon Age or whatever. That is so crucial to bringing this to the mainstream. Because I think the fundamentals of this are quite similar to what they used to be in the past. I think that a lot of the systems are more flexible than they used to be.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, in terms of what you can do with the landscape and with your items and how you can interact with things. Like that's more sophisticated and flexible than it was back in the day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the fact that you can hear these people, these characters talk and the fact that you can see their faces in this way, this is what I think brings the CRPG into the modern era in a way that no other CRPG has been able to do to this point. Uh, and that's what's gotten me over the line with it. Because if this was just 120 hours of text,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I wish that I could. I wish my brain worked that way to this day, but it just doesn't. Uh, and I love that that modernization has occurred.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, and that's no indictment on POE on Pills of Eternity because I didn't play enough of it to be really able to say how well written it is or not. I just know that I tried to play it and my brain was like, no, don't do this. Stop. Go back on Twitter or something is terrible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So yeah, I just think, uh, this game caters to my more modern attention span and, um, it's, it's, it's working for me big time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's totally fair. And I hear a lot, I think a lot of people agree with you and a lot of people also say stuff like, look, I liked it, but it was just too similar to breath of the wild. Or they say they didn't like it because it was too similar to breath of the wild. Uh, and in terms of just a straight up innovative title. Yeah. I mean,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I uhm, apparently, like I've seen some commentary on this and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's been, this is pretty common and it's not like other people can't use the same mechanics. It's just they can't be one to one copies of them. I don't exactly know how it all works. I think the whole world of copywriting mechanics in video games is fucking garbage and all of it should be deleted. There should be no such thing as that. Um, but you know, it is what it is. It's like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Copywriting a camera technique in a movie or something, you know what I mean? Right. It's just stupid. But anyway. Anyway. Lawyer's gonna lawyer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It is cool. It is really nice in a sort of meta way to experience.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You could, cause you knew what people were going through when you were watching the discourse unfold and you could be like, ah, everyone's going to get up to this boss very soon. Can't wait for that. And sure enough, the discourse hits and you're like, ah, there it is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, I think similarly with the fact that we're all going through border gate together right now and we all have all these stories to share about like the Greece.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The greasy shove, for example, as our major strategy for getting through. And, uh, you know, the fact that I basically rolled a paladin who's kind of recreation of the paladin I used to have, you know, like 20 years ago when I played the original game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and I tried to create a character that was as close to the original character portrait as I could manage.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And just all those things are just super cool. And, um, yeah, it's nice.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When we as like a gaming community, it's a weird word, not really the right word, but like as gamers or whatever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can go through and experience stuff like this all at once. It's fun. I like that a lot. I agree.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So yea, for me personally, uh, I've had, like, I've had an interesting year.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In terms of all this stuff and like, you know, what I'm, what I'm liking and not like, cause


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There has been a lot of remakes and remasters and I think they've allowed me to connect with games that I hadn't in the past. Like for example, like a dragon ishion is a good example. Uh, that never came to, that never came to the West. Uh, and so the fact that it did was cool and everyone got to experience it for the first time in the West.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For me personally, that was like the first RGG game that I really clicked with because I played Lost Judgement and did not like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and then I was like, all right, well, maybe I don't like RGG games. But then I was like, no, I, I do. I must. There's just, it has all the things that I like. And then, so I was like, no, I'm going to try again. And, uh, I just absolutely loved Like A Dragonition. I thought it was just.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Feeling like I have that connection to RGG games now that I didn't have before because of Isshin and I'm really keen to like dive into more of the series in the future.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, I really liked Jedi Survivor, uhm, a lot, in fact, except for all of its technical bullshit. Uh, I think it was just a really cool, like same with the first game, just they really understand Star Wars super well, Respawn, and they know how to spin up a great Star Wars yarn.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I was just all in on that, you know, and I'm really glad they're making a third game, reportedly. Is that like confirmed? Have they said that publicly they're working on a third one? I think they've publicly said they want it to be a trilogy. Yeah, that's right. They did say that. You're right.


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[Assistant] Yeah, so, but like everyone knows they'll make a third. That's, they're hiring for it and whatever. Like it's not, not like a secret or whatever. But, uh, yeah, I really liked that. And, um, yeah, Resident Evil 4? So I played Resident Evil 4 back in the day and it just never really clicked with me back then either. I'm not exactly sure why, but here,


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[Assistant] I was just like, damn man, this is incredible. Like Resident Evil 4 remake, cause I've always, I've always considered myself a Resident Evil 2 guy. I'm like, nah, Resident Evil 2 is the best man, can't top it.


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[Assistant] Uhm, but now I think Resident Evil 4 is the best Resident Evil I've played, like, for Remake, and it's also sold me on the third person perspective, because I actually thought the shift to first person


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[Assistant] Was an upgrade and I still think it's good now, but four was so good in terms of how Leon controlled and all of it. And I was just like, nah man, you can't go back from this. It's, it's just too good now. Um, that game really, really, really blew me away. And I, I dunno, I guess I felt for it.


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[Assistant] What people felt for the original all those years ago, which, you know, for whatever reason, I just never experienced that.


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[Assistant] Uh, and then obviously Tears of the Kingdom, which we've already talked about, which is, uh, pretty special. And I was playing Day of the Diver, and I love it. It's great. Hi-Fi Rush was fantastic. Uhm, yeaah. So it's been a really, uh, great, great year. And...


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[Assistant] You know, Baldur's Gate is definitely proving to be with every passing hour, more and more exceptional.


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[Assistant] Yeah, and uhm, if it can maintain this and continue to deliver new surprises and new characters and new stories, and it can just continue to just surprise me and with its flexibility and what it's capable of, then, yeah, I dunno, I dunno. I'd always said this, I'd long said there's no way anything's top in Tears of the Kingdom this year.


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[Assistant] Maybe this does for me personally. You know, maybe it does. And there's also Starfield, but I don't know. I don't know. We'll see how Starfield goes. Uh, it's too early to judge.


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[Assistant] No one knows what Starfield is. Only one person from, has played it, the guy at IGN, and only one person is allowed to talk about it, Todd. So we have no idea otherwise. We're just like, yeah, I guess it's coming. So I'm hopeful that that's really great, but I just, we just don't know at this point because, um, we haven't, we haven't seen, haven't seen it in the flesh.


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[Assistant] Yeah, so we interviewed, uh, Joe and Steve Matarera. And, uh, Joe is the creative director in the game and a comic book artist from like back in the day when I used to collect comics. And, uh, his brother Steve is the game director on a game called Wayfinder, which is coming out very soon. It's actually being published by Digital Extreme, people who do Warframe.


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[Assistant] Uh, and it's like a free to play action MMO kind of thing. I played the beta very briefly and I liked it.


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[Assistant] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So really talented studio who are just like pushing into some new space had some really interesting stuff to say about like the MMO genre, their plans, live service. Uh, so yeah, let's kick over to them now and see how it went.


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[Assistant] All right. Hello and welcome to the interview block. Very excited about this one actually. We're joined today by Joe and Steve Matarera.


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[Assistant] Do it. I got it. That's right. Two in a row. I was really scared that I was, cause I actually pronounced, I pronounced that name very differently in my head and it's always been incorrect over the years. And it's a name that it's funny enough, a name that I've had in my head for a while because I used to collect comics back in the day and I collected your X-Men run.


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[Assistant] Back in the day, Joe, and I actually have like a foil uncanny 350, you know the one with the gambit on the cover?


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[Assistant] And it's like one of my favorite things ever. I like loved your run. I just think your art has been amazing ever since they dot because, uh, let's say, yeah, I just wanted to say first of all, it's cool to meet you for that.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I would love that. I would love that. It's, it's, yeah, it's, yeah, that would be amazing. Uh, but we do, we will, we will talk about Wayfinder. That's definitely why, uh, we've got you on today. Uh, before that though, I kind of want to talk a little bit about Airship Syndicate because obviously you, um,


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[Assistant] You worked at Vigil and you co-created Darksiders and Steve you were, cause you guys are brothers, and you were working at Vigil as well on Darksiders 1, correct?


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[Assistant] So you guys did Battle Chasers, obviously. You did Darksiders Genesis, um, returning to that franchise. Yeah. What was that like to, just briefly, what was it like to return to that franchise and how do you feel that that all went? Cause that was a kind of spin-off, offshoot title, sort of within the broader Darksiders canon. Yeah. How did that all go?


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[Assistant] Well actually, I think, cause I think a lot of people who are watching this probably aren't super familiar with what Wayfinder is, so I'm gonna, maybe Steve, if you could just give us like the elevator pitch and the very brief kind of primer on, on what it actually is.


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[Assistant] That's awesome. That's very, no, that's, that's great. So I mean, just the way you describe it, like char, it's character driven, you obtain these new characters, you craft these new characters, I think is what you said.


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[Assistant] I understand that you are journeying through an open world.


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[Assistant] But a lot of the gameplay is going to be within these procedurally created dungeons.


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[Assistant] Uh, you are going to collect weapons and


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[Assistant] That you've been making changes to make it less like Warframe. Was it a lot more like Warframe at the beginning and it stepped away from that? Like how would you differentiate these two things right now?


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[Assistant] So like, it sounds like a lot. What I mean by that is that like, cause there's certain early access launches that happen and you're like, eh, there's like a little bit here and we're just, we're just, we're just getting this thing set up and you come back in a few months time, you know?


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[Assistant] Would you say that like this is, you could just start playing this and you can spend a lot of time in it? Like it's, is it the intention from right now for this to be like your daily driver or is it a case of no, this is just the foundations we're building?


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[Assistant] Yeah, well there will always be players that do, and then there's like everybody else I guess who's just a bit more chilled with it, so.


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[Assistant] Like just, just coming back to something you said earlier, because I think at the beginning of the chat, you sort of said like, oh, we made a joke, you guys were making a joke before we started recording, which is that like all the big dreams are in year three, right? That's where all the big shit is coming, right? And it's, it was clearly a joke, but you were sort of talking about when we did start recording, the idea that


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[Assistant] You're sort of slowly working towards this being like a MMO. Like is that, that's kind of what you said, right? That's, that's the goal.


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[Assistant] Yeah, like that's actually a good question because you say like we've got years to do this. And, um, obviously the live service space right now, it's a pretty tough business, at least from the outside looking in. I'm not sure if you in game dev land see it very differently, but certainly we see a narrative of like, there's a lot of these live services.


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[Assistant] A lot of them are demanding our time and money with battle passes and this and that.


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[Assistant] A lot of them get spun up and then, you know, six to 12 months later, they get decommissioned. Like just this week, Gundam Evolution got, you know, was announced as getting deleted in November or whatever.


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[Assistant] I swear like every month there's a new live service that gets announced, you know, it's, it's going offline. So I know that's a, it's a, it's a bit of a downer question, but I think it's an important one to put to, you know.


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[Assistant] But I mean like, I just feel like how do you guys, when you see that going on around you, like how do you process that and what do you see in that landscape and like, how does that make you feel?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, uh, I mean, just, uh, rounding out, I guess, just some of the details and logistics and what have you. So, Wayfinders is common to PC for, is, uh, consoles as well as just a PC early access.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Got it, got it, got it. Nice, nice. What about uhm, mobile? Is there a mobile port planned at some point down the road? Dunno.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, no, question marks. Three shrugs. Yeah, right. Okay, cool.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and it is going to be a fully free to play game. Uhm, eh, but during the early access period, you have to buy in by way of a founders pack, correct? And there are different tiers of founders packs giving you different things. Uhm, and what's the basic, cheapest founders pack? What's the minimum people are going to have to spend to be able to play this week?


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[Assistant] Well, uhm, yeah, I mean, I'm really looking forward to it personally. As I said, I played one of the betas very briefly a little while ago because, as I said, schedules didn't line up, but I really wanted to boot it up and I booted it up. And can I just say quickly, the art is amazing. Like the visual design you guys have landed at is just like,


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[Assistant] Uhm, and yeaah, I'm really keen to get my hands on it. Uhm, so uhm, thank you so much for being here today. Uhm, you know, it's really awesome for you to make the time. We know how busy it is for you guys. We're just about to ship.


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[Assistant] Um, so we really appreciate you taking the time to be here with us today. And, um, just want to say a huge, you know, good luck and, uh, definitely cheering for you and, and hopefully we'll have you back on in year three.


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[Assistant] I actually really like it. I, cause first of all, I don't know that we have this in Australia or like you probably can import it or whatever, but it's like, can you guys buy this on the shelves in the States?


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[Assistant] We, I don't think we have it in Australia on shelves. Like I'm sure you can just like order it online or whatever. Never had it before. Had it.


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[Assistant] I love it. I'm addicted to it. In particular, because they have a grape flavor. Now, one thing that we don't have in Australia is grape flavored things. Like we don't do this. Like you guys do this, right? You have grape flavored drinks. Is that real? You don't have grape. Grape. Grape. What do you think I said?


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[Assistant] No, grape. We don't have like grape flavored stuff. And so, and I love that flavor for some weird reason. And so the fact that I get to have this now is I'm like, yeah, cool. I'm, I'm down. So I'm just going to keep importing liquid ivy at this point because that's it. That's how I get my grape, my grape hit now outside of, you know, the old vino.


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[Assistant] Like, realistically, how many people, do you think it would sell big numbers in F-Zero games?


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[Assistant] Well, like that's cool, but at the same time, I'm sure, and I, in fact, I think Miyamoto himself has talked about the fact that Pikmin is never designed to kind of pop off. It's never designed to be a big sort of game.


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[Assistant] Fascinating. What? Obama is a Falcon main in Smash apparently, so, you know. That's, that's, that's, that's something worth mentioning, right? Ah, yes. Yes.


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[Assistant] Yeah, that would be nice to bring that back. That was such a nice aesthetic, wasn't it? I don't know. Was it a nice aesthetic? Man, I remember it being really nice. But, uh, yeah, man. But blastcoats really was my jam back in the day. I love that shit. It was like, it was so hard. God, it was so tough.


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[Assistant] Well they don't want to obviously. Maybe a crossover in Sea of Thieves. Sea of Thieves Blast Corps. How does that work? I don't know. We'll see.


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[Assistant] I had only one question as a bit of a kick off. Yes. Because one thing you told me or you told us in the chat was that this is not a short game.


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[Assistant] I guess my question is, at the top, like, does this have enough legs to sustain like 60 plus hours?


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[Assistant] Yeah, I think that sounds so awesome. The truth is I would actually love to check that out if I knew that it wasn't as long as it was because there's so many big games that are coming at the moment.


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[Assistant] Um, but I mean, yeah, I just, I really liked the sound of that. I think that sounds super awesome. I would love to check it out.


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[Assistant] But I just know that I don't have time for that at the moment, which is really bumming me out. Cause it just sounds like I really- And I don't even like wrestling!


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[Assistant] Like I just don't, but even that sounds really awesome to me, you know?


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[Assistant] I feel like even then my backlog is still going to be massive. Like, cause there's just so many big gains this year, you know? And, um, you know, I don't know. It's a bummer. But I hope it does well. I hope it, uh, I hope it launches well. I hope so too.


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[Assistant] I have, but only in the preview block. And then I wanted to review, cause I did a preview where I played through one of the zones. And I spent a good sort of like three plus hours in that, you know, and I really cleared out everything, did all the things, the boss, whatever.


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[Assistant] And I walked away from it being like, okay cool, I can see how that has some good foundations, and if you can build on that, that could be a pretty cool game.


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[Assistant] I didn't get the chance to review it because I was on vacation. The review code came through when I was on holiday and so Austin did the review and that will be up by the time on my channel by the time this video goes up.


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[Assistant] He did not like this game, uh, and he doesn't have many kind words for it, for all the reasons that you have said.


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[Assistant] Everything basically one to one, I guess for him.


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[Assistant] The way he described it to me, just a lot of those things like camera issues or sloppy combat or the poor story, they kind of just hit him harder to the point where they all piled up and he was like, nah I'm out.


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[Assistant] It's not the worst game, it's not offensively bad, it's just he was really looking for the things that would hook him and they weren't there and some of the fundamentals the game just couldn't get right. But what I was really surprised about is he finished it in like nine hours.


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[Assistant] And this really looks like a game that is about 20 plus hours long. And you know, I thought when I played through the preview block that one biome


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[Assistant] You know, three hours long. I'm like, okay, surely there's a good, you know, five, six, seven other biomes available. Uh, the game is going to offer a lot more diversity in terms of open world tasks. Uh, you know, the game will sort of bloom after this point.


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[Assistant] But no, there are only three biomes. They all actually kinda look the same.


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[Assistant] And in terms of their structure, they don't really change from biome to biome. They have the same sorts of, you know, open world activities and it just kind of feels like.


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[Assistant] It just kind of goes on and then it's over in, you know, nine or 10 hours. And I'm really, I was like really surprised when he told me this because he played through it all and I'm like, Oh, I'm sure he'll have a good time with this. That'll be fun. And when he told me this, I'm like, what?


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[Assistant] What happened? Cause like deck 13, like you said Jake, they're really cool. And the surge was awesome and full of all these interesting ideas. It was such an innovative product.


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[Assistant] I wonder if this- I wonder if this had like a much grander ambition.


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[Assistant] And they were going through the development cycle and then eventually for some reason they just had to kind of like pull up.


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[Assistant] And then be like, well, what can we ship? And it seems smaller and less ambitious and less interesting than what they've previously done. And I just, again, I wonder what the behind the scenes of this game is. Cause it just seems so odd for a studio to put out something as good and as ambitious and as interesting as The Surge 2 and then


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Take what seems like massive steps back. And by the way, the reviews for this are out. Uh, it's sitting at like 68 or 67 on open critic.


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[Assistant] Uh, it's getting, it's getting between five and seven out of 10 across the board. No one is really writing home about this one saying, Hey, you got to play this. Everyone's just like, look, it's fine-ish.


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[Assistant] And the Surge, not everyone loved the Surge, but a lot of people really liked the Surge. And, you know, it just had a certain X factor that you could really, that could get its hooks into you, you know? And this just doesn't seem like it's got that, which is a real shame. So...


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[Assistant] Yeah, it does feel like game pass kind of material. You know, again, as you've said, Jake, it's a stacked year. It's hard to recommend even a discount price. It does feel like it will eventually arrive on game pass and it probably feels like that's going to be the best way to experience it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not really, to be honest. Cause yeah, I mean, I was playing Dave the Diver. I booted up a little bit of Atlas Fallen to see how it ran on the Rogue ally and it didn't run super well. So I didn't stop that. I stopped that.


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[Assistant] Uh, and then I got home and I just played a lot of Baldur's Gate and a lot of Marvel Snap, actually. While I traveled, I played Marvel Snap so much that I hit max level for the first time ever. And so that's just a thing that I've done now.


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[Assistant] Um, as a bit of a test run as well, just to like, okay, let's really put this to its paces and really see what it can do.


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[Assistant] No, it's not, it's not. And I guess this is what all these guys, the hardware manufacturers are. This is why Steam made the decision that it made with regards to its capped power output.


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[Assistant] Uhm, 15 watt, I think it is. And they just, they said it there and they're like, this is what we can do. And it was the right call. And it's the same with the switch. I forget what the switch is capped at, but they captured a certain amount and they're like, this is what we can commit to in terms of getting the battery life correct.


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[Assistant] I mean, the flip side to that, the rogue ally is you can lower the power and you can run it as low as 10 watts. It's just that everything runs really shit then, right? So, but you can also set it to 15 and you know, it will then perform similar to the steam deck, but it's kind of like you're also having to, if you're going to do that,


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[Assistant] But then again, it's like you have to jump through so many hoops if you want to do Battle.net or stuff on Epic Games or whatever. So there are trade-offs either way, but I think I come back to what I said earlier, which is that


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[Assistant] I think overall the Steam Deck is the best option if you are looking for a handheld. It's the simplest, it's the best balance in terms of battery life and off you go. But if you're a real enthusiast who knows exactly what you're doing and does, and don't mind like, fucking around with stuff.


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[Assistant] Then the ROG Ally is I think a better option, um, because you just have that flexibility to make it more powerful and to put more on it more easily. So, um, but yeah, I took it with me and I was, I was happy with it for what I was, the way I was using it. I just wish that it did have more battery life as well.


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[Assistant] I'm gonna, excuse me, cause there's a, a, uhm, what do you call it? A lawnmower outside my window right now. So you keep going and I'm going to mute my mic and that's what's happening.


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[Assistant] Okay, I'll be really quick. It's No Man's Sky. Seven years ago, No Man's Sky came out and everyone hated that game. And Sean Murray was on The Tonight Show with, what's his name? The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and he'd said all this shit that he shouldn't have said. And then he spent seven years trying to make up for it and he has, and it's a really good game now. So that's No Man's Sky, seven years ago, baby. Good, good on you Sean and the team. Hell yea.


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[Assistant] Uh, I believe, I don't, actually I don't know if I have pictures because I wasn't really taking pictures. You destroy the evidence. During that work from home period. But there are definitely episodes of kind of funny that you'll see me with a beard and I definitely look like a different person because that's before I even grew my hair out more.


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[Assistant] And so like, I had a buzz cut with a beard, cause I really wanted to try- I wanted to try to look like the rapper Common.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Average height, above average guy. The average height in America? Actually...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hello, I'm still trying to, I'm trying to maintain my record as the non-main cast member who's been on the show the most. That's true.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've been pretty good. Uh, I'm also coming back from my own little mini vacation. I was just hanging out in Seattle for the weekend, visiting some family, which is really fun. And then, um, this week I'm headed to LA for a bachelorette party at Disney, which should be a really good time. And so yeah, I'm doing a lot of traveling.


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[Assistant] Tomorrow night. Okay. The party itself is happening like later in the week. I'm just getting to LA early. And so I'm going to be there for a little bit.


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[Assistant] Uhm, but yeaah, like it's gonna be a nice time just hanging out. Uhm, I really love LA as a city. I have a lot of friends in LA. Uhm, weirdly enough, I probably have more friends in LA than I actually do in San Francisco where I live. And so...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm gonna try and make time to hang out with a lot of them and yea, like aside from that, I've just been chilling. Not many games coming out, like aside from Final Fantasy 16, but I got to review that and so I've already finished it. And so now I'm just like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, looking for things to play, playing some Street Fighter 6, getting in those ranked matches and having a good time.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I think for me I see it as almost like a chicken and the egg sort of thing, where Gollum was...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it finally comes out and it ends up being what a lot of us expected, which is not a great game and so bad that yeah, it becomes big meme material. And when I saw this new story, the thing that stuck out to me was learning that, um, the studio, uh, Daedalic Studio or Daedalic Entertainment, they do a lot of publishing and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, opening up their Wikipedia page, you go through their catalog and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I look through the games that they developed, and of course the latest one was Lord of the Rings Golem in 2023, but before that in 2020, they developed a game called A Year of Rain. Two years before that, they developed a game called State of Mind. Before that, The Long Journey Home, and the list goes on of


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[Assistant] You imagine that Lord of the Rings Golem was a wake up call that made them go, ah shoot.


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[Assistant] We should maybe not do this if this is gonna be the outcome, right? Like this, this game was so bad that it put such a bad spotlight on us. Meanwhile, we're doing all this other stuff and like, I could see, I could see the case for them, um, seeing the bad reception of Lord of the Rings Golem and going, hey, let's not


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let this ruin what we're good at. Let's not let this, uhm, tarnish our reputation for when it even comes to publishing games as well. Let's just stick to that and, you know,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just do that. I think another part of this story that's really interesting is that apparently they're working on another Lord of the Rings game that got cancelled as well alongside this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If it was gone too, then maybe good. Maybe good that that doesn't come out. But yea, it's such a wild story when you just look at Daedalic Studio, or Daedalic Entertainment and not knowing who they were and them doing this and now being like, ah shoot, we should redefine who we are as a company in this case. Yea.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I have a lot of thoughts on this. Did you guys happen to see the fiscal year end call that Embracer did a few weeks ago? No.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Apparently that night before they gave their presentation, yea, a multi-billion dollar deal fell through that was going to define the future of their company. Like they described it as like a groundbreaking, this is


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's humongous for us as an Embracer Group. And so that fell through.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think when you look at their language about Lord of the Rings through that lens, it starts to make sense a little bit because, you know, the way you make money in this industry is by...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Going after IP that is repeatable, that you can like expand and, you know, everybody's trying to do this, right? Nintendo's the king of this when you look, when you look at Mario and there's a billion different kinds of Mario games.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, like I think, you know, expanding your IP in that way is how you define success a lot, a lot of the time, but Embrace Group is this company that...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Came out of nowhere, right? Came from the grave of the original THQ and then grew and then started buying all these double A studios that, you know, like the studios that they buy are very


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, like it's aimed at quantity as opposed to quality and it is them going after as many studios and games as they can so that they can like hopefully make it all work out in the end and seeing them lose out on this big deal I think was them finally like tripping over and going


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh snap, like now we're in trouble because this one thing fell through and now all the dominoes are falling for them. So they look at Lord of the Rings as maybe they're saving grace or maybe they're even their last grasp of-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I have a little bit of a thought experiment with this, with this, uhm, idea, cause I've been going back and forth on our show over on Kinda Funny about, uhm, the Indiana Jones video game, uhm, that's being worked on by MachineGames. Oh, MachineGames, yeaah. Yes. Yeaah. And, there's an argument that we have going around, and I'm willing to accept that I'm the crazy person here. Sure.


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[Assistant] I am, I'm not really that excited for Indiana Jones, the video game, and we have, like we have this discussion of


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[Assistant] Is Indiana Jones as an IP, right? Is like, is the Indiana Jones video game going to sell gangbusters because it's Indiana Jones?


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[Assistant] Or are we just putting all of our, our eggs in this basket because that's just like, we're used to franchise stuff or big IP stuff being the standard if you want to push a new thing. Like my argument was, um, has been that like,


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[Assistant] If machine games put out a brand new IP that was a 9 out of 10 game, I think it would do just as good as a new Indiana Jones video game coming from machine games. That's also a 9 out of 10. But am I crazy for thinking


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[Assistant] Like does Indiana Jones, which fr- like, you know, I like Indiana Jones, but like Indiana Jones, the last great Indiana Jones product was what, maybe the third movie that came out, what, over 35 years ago, 40 years ago? I've lost track of time at this point.


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[Assistant] And so, like, I think I'm just looking at the power of IP, and that IP in particular, right? Like, is Indiana Jones still hot? Because it's loosely talking about, yeah, this new movie isn't performing. Granted, like, the new movie is not spectacular, right? Like, I think it's fine, but it's not, you know, blowing people's minds.


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[Assistant] Is a- is an Indiana Jones video game gonna come out and do, like,


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[Assistant] Spider-Man numbers or like Star Wars numbers or is it just another video game?


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[Assistant] Starfield is right there, and those are two big ol' RPGs, and I think Starfield is gonna be the one that has way more name recognition on that platform, and that more people are gonna show up for, and so...


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[Assistant] PlayStation version coming out early September. I think both of those are smart dates. And if you can wait until the Starfield hype is over and then release on Xbox, I think that might be even the stronger move for you. And so, I don't think, like, as much of a bummer as hearing the news of it not coming to Xbox immediately because of the Xbox Series S might sound on, uh, at the front of it, I think it's a net positive, uh, just based on the fact that


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[Assistant] Like what we saw for Tears of the Kingdom, where it's people showing off really unique things that happen to them while playing their game. Like, I think Star, from the way that they talked about Starfield in that Xbox showcase and the way that


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[Assistant] Phil Spencer and, like, people who, like, have been showing up on, uhm, the Giant Bomb cast, for example, or the Giant Bomb couch, for example, right? Like, Phil's saying that he's been playing this game since last, uh, last fall, and, like, you know, him being like, yo, it loves up.


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[Assistant] That game better have some staying power. Like I, I better be playing that game for 80 hours and finding new content constantly dude. And so yeah, that's going to hopefully take up a lot of our time.


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[Assistant] Oh, I really loved it. Yeah, like for me, the...


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[Assistant] Parts that hit about the game really hit, uhm, and for me that was the story, that was the cinematics, that was the lore and world building and how big the world feels, but how they're able to tell a really focused story within that. I thought they were able to manage that.


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[Assistant] It's done like fairly, it's done in a way that's like, damn, y'all really went for it in some places, right? Like some of those side quests where they are showing how they're treating some of the characters based on their class is like, dude.


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[Assistant] Man, this is dark, this is real, like I can't believe you're taking it there. And they really do take it there, and that was something that really impressed me coming out of a, uh, out of Square Enix and out of a JRPG and out of Final Fantasy in particular.


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[Assistant] Uhm, that I thought was cool. Clive is a character I fell in love with. Uhm, and I, again, like, I was not expecting that going into the game. You know, I saw the trailers, I thought he was just gonna be, you know, a tough Final Fantasy dude with...


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[Assistant] But once they start adding in more elements, it actually grows to be able to, uh, uh, allow you to feel like you can really own the way in which you approach the combat. And that I really appreciate it as well. Like I, I, I, like I have some things here and there, and I think a lot of people have the same thing where, you know, I think the side quests could be,


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[Assistant] Uhm, a bit repetitive, especially when it is. Go over here.


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[Assistant] Fight thing. Talk to person. I'll go over here. Get the thing. Fight the thing. And like, it's very much structured in a way that feels repetitive. Uhm, and then also, uh, yeaah, like RPG wise, right? Like, it's that tough thing when you're reviewing and talking about a game where


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[Assistant] For me, I have to review the game that they gave me, and I can't review, like, what the game isn't. I gotta review what it is. And so, like, Final Fantasy XVI for me isn't...


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[Assistant] An RPG, really? Like, it has RPG elements, but, you know, I look at God of War, the recent ones, it's more of an RPG than even Final Fantasy 16, right? Like, it is so RPG-like, and I know that's not gonna speak to everybody, uhm, it spoke to me in this Final Fantasy game, but,


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[Assistant] I wouldn't want them to do this again for Final Fantasy 17. Like I'd like them to go back to more, um, like heavy, deep RPG mechanics as opposed to being way more character action-y. But I think for what they did here, it worked and I had a lot of fun with it.