[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, but the execution is very, very bad. And the thing that I was going to say is there's certain parts of characters that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That probably wasn't correct, but there's, there's things that happen in that ending that I think is, it does a lot of damage to the characters that are in there. Um, I described it as like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One or two of the characters have very important moments in towards, towards the part of the story that is the ending of this game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The new format and the new conceit for the story, because of the way it's done, it undermines those characters in a very significant way. Having said that, it's not because like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's because there's not a finality to the story in the same way there was in the original, right? Like they need, they need this to keep going for one more game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, and things are done and things are like, uh, scripted in a way that it feels like, oh, you, you're changing things here, but not necessarily for the right reasons. You're changing it because you need a conceit to work. And that's the issue I have with it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's the right thing. That's the right way to approach it. Like don't think about it. Cause I do understand what's happening with that parallel story.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Most people are gonna, like, play this game and be like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What's going on? Why did this happen? Why did that happen? Why, who is, why is this person important even? But it's like, oh, it's purely because all the pieces were there, but I am pretty certain some pieces got ripped out and the stuff that remains is a kind of like hodgepodge things tied together.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The, the game, like Square Enix set themselves up to both succeed in an interesting way and fail in a familiar way in this game, because this game takes part, takes, is a remake of the stretch of the game that I would argue is the


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The weakest part of the original narratively, like it, it, it replicates the original really, really well in that it makes you do a bunch of shit that is completely pointless frivolous and has little to no bearing. And I talk when I talk to other people, but I'm like, it's, it's.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a remnant of an era where gameplay came first and then was


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The whole like, um, the, uh, parade, the, the, uh, coral stuff where you're trapped in the prison.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then other things that happen going forward where it's like, Oh, you've just now I've got 20 hours of just nonsense in between.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which is like, they also needed to come up with something to go there. Because like, you can't have this chunk of the game just be completely narrative-less. So they used the kind of like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I think it's more frustrating because you want that payoff to be better and quicker.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I do think a lot about Aerith in this game because I also really loved her in the previous game. And uhm, I'm trying, I like, in this game I felt a little more annoyed by her. Like the performance is great and like she's, there's something about her though that I find a little bit


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes, they're pushing her on you. She's also, she has this like smug knowingness about her, where she knows more than everyone else does and like it really manifests in her personality. But then also the game does feel like it's pushing Aerith upon you. Even to the point where this is one of the things I disliked about that final chapter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you make decisions, I made specific decisions that would put me, my interpersonal relationships with her on a different standing than I would with someone else like Tifa. But the game forces you into a, a kind of specific dynamic with her at the end, where when I got there,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She is a bit of like, she's a bit of a drama queen. Not drama queen, but she's like, she knows things and she's like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes, I got cut. Here's my stomach to show you. And you're like, hell yeaah, baby.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I feel like I am so surprised there haven't been certain organizations that we know love to get up in our arms about stuff. Literally in my mentions that organization. The moment they figure it out, that is gonna be a massive like drama.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it's, it's undeniably a great game, like a good game, I would say at the very least. I think like my main issues where they are.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Mainly that, that story element of it. And I think the pacing is not great at all. My issue that I put in my review is like, I love distractions. I don't love it when distractions aren't


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's why it is, it's like there's this extended period of the game where it's like, this is the game. The distraction is the game. And that's a problem as you start to reach the end of the game, which is where Lucy is now, where in any other game,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If it didn't have that middle chunk of forcing you to do a bunch of random side shit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It probably wouldn't have been much of an issue like finishing it up now. But the problem is the impact of all the chapters before it where you've been chasing, you know, red herrings and just like slowly making your way across this world and getting the most incremental narrative like steps forward.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That is now how coming to like, it's, it's like fruition in these final moments where you desperately want the payoff. You want to know where, what is going on. And you're like, fuck, I've got to do, now I've got to throw these boxes. And now I've got to, even when you get to the, the forgotten capital, there's some stuff in there that I was like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You have not done this mechanic ever. Like you, why are you doing this? Like why, why are you doing this? Like this is a format. Yeah, the split where it's like you've never done this before. You haven't done this in remake or most of rebirth as far as I know. Why did you do this now? And it's clearly because they were like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, like I enjoyed parts of it. I like it in concept. I like, I love the idea of, I always wanted the summons to be more important again.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's what this game does. I feel like it's really clever narratively that they like these basically are nuclear weapons that the kingdoms have very clever. I liked a lot of the performances. Um, obviously our boy Ben is very, very good as Clive. So that is, that is good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I feel like the rest of it is, I find it to be very forgettable.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it is, it is the Advent Children of the video games. Like they needed a thing to, they needed a Final Fantasy thing to appeal to a broader group of people, a broader demographic. That's what Advent Children, or like Spirits Within was, right? Like it was, it was a movie that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I feel like more, more, it's more evident in mechanics, if you know what I mean, because it's quite alarming how much of what is fundamentally Final Fantasy is just to make 16 what it is. Like there's no real.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Designed it to be like streamlined and as smooth and frictionless as possible in terms of how you engage with it. It's, it's almost, I would describe it as a one button mode version of like a Bayonetta style game where it's like, you can just palm the controller and chances are you'll win and be fine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And like that works for them, but I think for people like us who are like more into like the nitty gritty stuff, it's like after an hour, you're like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The other thing is like, the format and the design core and the


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The other thing that I've seen more people talk about it now and I keep bringing it up is like Final Fantasy does this thing where it does like these really sad tragic scenes and then it will go into a baton and everyone's like, I'll show you what I can do. And you're like, oh for fuck's sake. You're like, you were crying a minute.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I described it in my review as this is, it's not like an action game. It's a puzzle game now. And that's why I felt like the best example of that is they now have, and they've never done this before as far as I know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Basically speed up how quickly your ATP bar works. It's like, oh, those two things have turned this game into what is effectively a high speed puzzle game. And it's so cool.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Can we talk about somebody that keeps composure? Like, he's, he's got a very, like, way of shaming. He's doing his best, man. He's doing his best. And it just maintained. He does. I was worried, though. I was almost like, he can just get, like, murdered up there. Like, what the hell?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh hey everybody, welcome to Friends Per Second. This is a podcast, a bi-weekly, fortnightly podcast where a bunch of people gather to talk about video games, new stuff, old stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And yeah, I'm Jake Baldino. I haven't hosted in a while. Uh, I'm a little rusty, but this is episode 28. Yes. Uh, pardon my dust, my setup. I'm slowly still moving and it's going to sound better and look better soon, but thank you for bearing with me. I'm also joined, of course.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So we started the episode talking about the Gamescom debacle. Gamescom opening night live was the first big live stream event kicking off Gamescom, the big game convention in Germany, where Jeff Keighley does some new announcements and stuff like that, and some joker rushes the stage.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, good presentation all around. He set the, he set the, you know, he set the mood. He said, hey, this isn't crazy. It's updates on existing games. And, uh, for me, the one highlight was, um, just one right off the top of my head was Black Myth Wukong. Nice to see that game is still out there. Uh, visually it still looks really cool.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, we got a lot more, like, presentation stuff. It looks crazy. Also, I'm like, is the monkey hot? Am I allowed to say that? That's like a new realization.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The other one was, it was like stealth, it had stealth, it had crazy like open world shit, like combat, like, cause they went dark for a while, right? It's been a long time since we've heard something about this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, that's like, here's smoke. Here's this person. Here's that person. Like, all right, cool. I'm in. Uh, for me, the other thing, like call of duty modern warfare three was, I'm just.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alan Wake was cool. Alan Wake also like, we know it looks cool, uh, but the new showing and the focusing on Alan and the live action stuff, just like remedy, really like flexing their remedy was nice.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That has fun implications. They should get weird with Sonic. Kinda like how they're getting really weird with Super Mario Wonder. Like, just give Sonic the infinity stones, basically.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I'd say four, four bills out of five, especially cause like, again, expectations were set. I get like some people, like I was watching, uh, Kinda Funny's reactions earlier and Snow Mike Mike was saying that he didn't want something that like, like two hours of our time where it could have been a blog post. And I get a lot of people think that way, but also like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, uh, moving on briefly, let's talk about some re-releases. They're in the discourse right now. There's, there's two things going on. There's the Metal Gear Solid Legacy, uh, sorry, Metal Gear Solid Master Collection, and then, uh, released this week is the, is Red Dead Redemption.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Basically there's nothing to it. It's Red Dead Redemption has been ported.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At least it's like, the way I look at it, like, the price, like, ugh, at least it's on platforms for some people and they didn't screw it up. They did use another, like, outsourced company to do this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But from what I play, they don't seem messed up at all. And it actually runs pretty good on Switch, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But that was like just a bare bones simple re-release where we have the Metal Gear Solid Master Collection, uh, which people have raised concerns over after like there was a preview event.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, people like influencers, press talked about it and it has been now confirmed the resolutions and stuff. It's targeting 1080, 60,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Except on Switch, where it's gonna be 30. And a lot of people are unhappy about that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, they're already splitting it up, right? The, the, the master collection only is Metal Gear Solid 1, 2, 3, and a bunch of random goodies around that. So, the original Game Boy games. It doesn't have 4, so, and like, the intention, it's been teased, it's kind of been like rumored, like, that there is going to be a master collection volume 2.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So it's already split up into two. So it's already kind of like a, a consumer, a money play, you know?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I'm kind of like already partially checked out in terms of this one package preserving the integrity of Metal Gear for future platforms because


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, it's, it's a, it's not a complete package and then there's, there's weird stuff in it. So I got to check it out. Granted, it was running on Switch and it wasn't final, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It doesn't seem like they're really doing too much which like again it's like how far do you want them to go change things tweak things uhm, where metal gear solid 2 and 3 are the blue point.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But again, like some people want these games now, if they're gonna pay for them again, they want them at like blistering 4k.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, for me, my bigger concern was Metal Gear Solid 1.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, because it could get a little something, and I've also just experienced that game so many times on PC through different community mods and different versions that are pretty fucking good, uh, with not too much tweaking. And Metal Gear Solid 1 that I saw


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was pretty rough looking. Uhm, it just kinda, like I saw seams.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was just kind of like whatever, like it kind of just felt like, here you go, here's some backgrounds for it, you know, for the four by three. And that's it. And that's a bummer because I think that that game deserves love and care. I don't need it to be remade, uh, but I would love it to be slightly more accessible for, you know, newer generations.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well I think- It's really interesting. Go ahead, Yorick. No, no, no, you go ahead, please.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was just gonna say it's interesting with this one though and like why I'm so like all over the place with it is because the rest of the stuff they did do with this collection is actually really good. Where, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Red Dead Redemption, we're talking about how it's charging $50 and it's just, here's the game again, we didn't touch a thing, pay us again.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This Metal Gear Collection does have a lot of cool shit for nerds. Uhm, it has like all these menus where you can access all this stuff, so you can access Metal Gear Solid 1, you can access Metal Gear Solid Integral, you can access Special Missions, VR Missions, all the different languages within those.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a lot there, and it's like, holy shit, this is really, this is really cool. Especially for people who aren't like me, who have like four copies of all of them in their closet. Like, that's cool, so it's like, they're almost there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's, that's why I get more jazzed about like video game history foundation and like other organizations that do stuff like that because I do have this weird feeling more and more where it just kind of is like this endless vicious cycle.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We have the consumer side of like re-releases and ports and remasters and definitive collections where you know you'll you'll get it and then you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 10 years from now, what's the platform going to be? We're going to, are we going to want that thing again and hope that a company once again will do the right due diligence and properly port it to the next thing? It's just this like Ouroboros like snakehead thing forever. So it's, it's tiring, you know? So I, I do like just knowing that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Proper OG files are there, people are doing the right things with them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I want to highlight that in between though, like, uh, Gerard, what's the, what's the name of the company that did, uh, the Lion King and Aladdin?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then that still once again falls into what I said, where it's like this endless cycle. It's like, oh, well that's great. But then what's the next codec? Like when, you know, PlayStation 4, the architecture is one thing, but then like, you know, what the PS seven, what the architecture is going to be totally different. Like, so it's just this endless thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We'll see where the future, the future goes. But, uh, thank you for letting me talk about Metal Gear Solid, guys. Thank you. Always. Always a pleasure. Always.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's right. Uh, so Caleb asks, uh, I have recently gotten my partner into gaming and we have been having a blast playing couch co-op together. So far we have beaten the Overcooked games, It Takes Two and Cuphead. What co-op games would you recommend we tackle next? And what is your favorite couch co-op memory? Good question.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You guys are going to play the game, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, for me, it was always beat-em-ups as a kid, definitely, so I would recommend like newer stuff like Shredder's Revenge, uh, Streets of Rage 4, but uh, for me, I really liked Mortal Kombat, Shaolin Monks, I played that cooperatively, I remember, I believe.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But more recently, and I've said this before, if you watch my videos, I'm sorry if I'm like a broken record, but Hazelight Studios, like their games just really get me excited.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, way out is probably one of my better recent co-op gaming memories where my friend and Andrew, uh, my friend Andrew and I.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like just crush it in a day at like the game ranks office. I was like, you want to like play this game with me? We should. That'd be fun. We used to do this all the time as kids. We haven't done this in like 10, 15 years. You want to just like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] First, they're really well paced, they always change up the mechanics and stuff like that, and they encourage you to work together in a little bit more interesting ways. You might have to actually speak to the person next to you while you're playing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, not in super creative ways, like nobody keep talking and everybody, whatever it's called, I'm totally, uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like some people dunk on those games, especially a way out because it's goofy, but I, I, I love it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is a, this is a tough one. Uh, Charles Martinet, the voice of Mario himself since Super Mario 64.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, has announced he is stepping away from the role, and like a kind of joint announcement between him and Nintendo.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, they announced that he is stepping back as the voice of Mario, but will be in a new role as Mario Ambassador.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Traveling the world and sharing the joy of Mario with fans, which is very nice.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't even know where to start with this. This is crazy, especially because I feel like a lot of people out there have been talking about this like he died. And he did not. Yea true. He did.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It did. And then a lot of people were sharing their favorite memories, like of him and like, you know, what he's done. And, uh, that's, that's good, but he's still, he's still alive. He's still out there and I love him. He's still with us.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To see what else he'll cook up. Apparently there's an announcement video coming between him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And some Nintendo higher up so I'm curious to see what that is. What do you guys see for Charles now?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's the vibe I get. Interesting. Because he did show up everywhere. You'd see him at small conventions, big conventions, and I assume that was mostly like as him, not as like a Nintendo collaboration.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So now, do you think you'd see more of him going with like a, being on a Nintendo bus, so to speak?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Decision. Who was it ultimately? What is it? Is it Charles deciding to finally wind it back? Hang out?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's interesting because he seems like he still has so much in him and so much to give. And we know his voice isn't in Super Mario Wonder. People had kind of speculated that Mario sounded ever so slightly different in that trailer, and now it confirms that that is not him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, we know that Nintendo is continuing with the same vibe, so it wasn't like they were like, you know, we need a creative refresh. No, it's still yippee, wah-ha, woo-hoo, so long, Gay Bowser. Like, it's still that, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I just, I just wonder what the idea is, like I hope maybe it was just him being like, I need my, cause he's also not doing just Mario, I mean he's, he's Wario, he's Luigi, Waluigi, like he's busy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think this is like one of the first big video game versions of what we experience in other areas of pop culture, right? Like everybody loves movies, everybody knows pop culture, everybody like sees movies with that guy in it all the time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But movies and things have been going on for so long, our parents have been watching Star Wars, we're watching Star Wars, we're seeing like, like I just watched the new Mission Impossible and it was the first time, I was like, wow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Their mortality is staring you in the face and like you process your whole span of life. So it's like we have that, like we get hit with that with movies and music all the time. We don't realize it. Like Bob Dylan's like 98 years old, but we don't really have video game versions of that very often. And I think this is like the first like big mainstream wake up call that like times do should change.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm grateful. Definitely. I mean, he set the tone for modern Mario and what it's like and it's nice. It's comforting. It's cool. People go to it for a reason. People eat it up and also showing that sometimes there's beauty in simplicity.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It never got crazy. He never had long, you know, he never had like a soliloquy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, like, prove it first, instead of having him come out like Tony Stark and Iron Man 2. Like, just, no, just, voice first, go from there. Well, let's get him on the pod. Charles, I mean.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, next up we got another user question. Uh, we've had some hot ones. So this is from Jacob.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who says, on Lucy's other podcast, she committed to besting five games from her backlog this year. Breath of the Wild, Outer Wilds, Metroid Prime, Ayaka's a game, Metal Gear Solid 3. So, inspired by Lucy's quest, are there any games that you want to beat from your backlog in 2023? Hoo boy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, I hate to say it, uhm, but my backlog tends to be, just because, specifically with uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and also looking at my schedule, I know I'm not going to get to see of stars right away. So I'm planning that for like a nice holiday, fun time, like sit on a.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Beach or log cabin and play that on my steam deck or something. And I'm really looking forward to that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, that's kind of what I do for my backlog is, uhm, like the question really involved like backlog advice, but here we go. Uhm, I embrace the fact that like there are too many games in this world that I like and I want to play and I want to have time for. There's not enough time in this world.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I kind of embrace the fact that like, I'm just not gonna get to shit. And I just go where my heart...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My, my heart tells me specifically in vibes, like I know that sounds silly, but with what I said with Sea of Stars where it's like, oh, I can picture a time and a place when I can play that game. And I kind of strive for that. I don't put too much pressure on it to like freak me out or anything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I strive to get to that point where I can sit down with like a hot cup of hot cocoa and play that game. And I, I kind of leapfrog that way in between big gaming seasons and big releases and stuff. Does that make sense?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, next let's run down some stuff this week that's been releasing. First is Wayfinder, which of course we spoke about the game a lot last week. Ralph, how's the launch going?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a shame. Uh, we also have releasing this week Shadow Gambit, The Cursed Crew, which I haven't played, but just shout out to a viewer of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My videos, listener of this podcast who I met and had a conversation with in real life, who specifically mentioned this game to me, and I hadn't heard of it, and I wrote it down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I'm looking forward to playing it. Also, uh, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the asymmetrical multiplayer game released this week. Uh, friend of the show, horror YouTuber Guy Jimmy Champagne says it's cool, and he likes horror movies, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Take that, uh, also we have bomb rush cyberpunk, uh, cyber, cyber, bleh, I always mess this up. Bomb rush cyberpunk. Have either of you guys gotten a jump into this? I downloaded it. I'm ready for it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's dropping, which, uh, if you're watching this, it's probably out or reviews are out. Uhm, and see if stars on the 29th. Uh, Gerard, do you have plans to make a video on that?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, well, uh, in terms of things played, Immortals of Avium.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, Ralph, you and I both played it, put out videos. I have another video in the works about it on my channel too. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I didn't, I didn't watch your video, but like I've, I've hung out with you enough now that like, I can kind of just, we're probably on the same page. It's just like a adventure. It's like a popcorn adventure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't want to say turn my brain off, because that's not really the right phrase for this, but uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I like a, it's kind of almost what I wanted the combat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] From Ghostwire Tokyo to be, where I just wanted to blow shit up with my hands.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so this is made from a team that has worked on Call of Duty games and stuff like that. And it's very much got a little bit of, uh, like Call of Duty campaign energy where it's cinematic, it's paced, there's set pieces, crazy shit happens, the cutscene graphics are like over the top.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's also new IP. This game addresses a lot of people's complaints. Why are they just making sequels? Why are they just remaking things? Why do, why is every game always online? Why do they have microtransactions? This is just a game. Is it flaws? Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Whatever, but the moment to moment stuff with the characters and the general core bit of the story, you wanna, you wanna see through, you know?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's back and forth, especially because it's rated M, at least there's some F-bombs that actually land, I think. There's a pretty good drinking scene, like a drunk friend scene.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Some people out there will only drive a Corvette or a Cadillac or a Mercedes, a high end Mercedes, but there are so many other cars on the road that work and they get you to where you need to go.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, Immortals is fun. I like the combat. I actually like was surprised how much I like the skill tree because it's just a regular old skill tree where everything I was like excited to actually dump a point into. I was like, oh, I need more armor. Oh, I needed another blink dash. But I will say that's my, that's one of my big complaints with the combat is


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I like blasting, I like, I thought the feedback was mostly pretty good on a controller, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I actually wish it played more like Doom or like Hexen, like this game needs a bunny hop and it needs a more generous dash. Like it's a little more grounded than it needs to be.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so it's a game, don't write it off, uh, if you don't like that humor, if that turns you off, fine dude, but yeah. This is an Immortals fan podcast now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I like that, like I'm glad it actually sounds like it's as cool as it looks.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're, they're trying really hard to get me into this stuff because I like, I like Space Marine. I'm excited for Space Marine too and Bolt Gun was really awesome. So I'm starting to have an idea of like what's going on a little bit. Yep.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm more of an Animorphs guy, but that's fine. Fair, it's very fair.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, I got to preview a game called Signy. Uh, this is a kind of a shmup, a shoot-em-up, if you will. Uh, it doesn't have a release date yet and it's, it was still very much a work in progress, but it's, uh, Konami published. It's essentially from a smaller indie studio from Scotland.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Konami game, if you think about Konami's like classic legacy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, before they pissed everybody off.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, shmup where you're not just shooting what's in front of you and dodging hordes of small ships. Uh, you can also simultaneously aim and fire at things on the ground.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, the plane because it's like two dimensional, but you're looking down at a ground that's also like 3d. So it's complicated, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's cool because it's like, it's got that shmup crazy style, but you're also constantly managing and filling your shields on one trigger.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, or powering up your weapons on another trigger to get access to higher firepower, different rates, rockets, and it's very fast and twitchy, so you're just constantly doing that. You're like ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, so it seems like it's pretty cool. It's just a couple of levels and it's all about just like tight.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Crazy challenging with like a boss at the end. It's got an orchestral score. It's like very over the top.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and like graphically, it's, it's surprisingly awesome. And like there are like cutscenes where like the little girl on her ship flies in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And she looks out the window and then she flies down and then you're a small ship and it's right into the level. Really cool.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, yeaah, I can't, I can't like call final judgement on it, but just like, you know, playing it for a good...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 45 minutes or so, it just seemed cool, especially if you like those types of games. I know they're for an acquired taste, but if you're listening, you might be that taste. So it wasn't on my radar at all, so that's why I just wanted to mention it. Again, no release date, but it's Cygni, it's like C-Y-G-N-I.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We'll see how it goes again, it's still, it's still got some ways to go, so no final judgement on it yet, but it's got some, it's got some cool ideas to it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where the cops will pull you over. It was like revolutionary. We were so excited. Uh, it had a really great score that still holds up to this day for the most part. Uh, and it actually tried to tell like a good, interesting story. It was incredibly challenging though. Shooting was rough.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, there was that race car mission, that infamous race car mission that was like near impossible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but it was cool, because it was different. It wasn't...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Grand Theft Auto, it wasn't, you know, it was, it was something, and like, it eventually made its way to some consoles, and, uh, that's how I got my hands on it and finished it, because I never finished the PC version.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, yeah, it's cool. I like that game. It really felt like it loved those mafia movies and did it justice.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What a weird special game. I remember being like excited, like the marketing was cool too, like just like the Bobby Darin song, what Beyond the Sea was like the whole thing. Oh yeah, sure. The cinematic trailer that they would put on TV was crazy because it was like this guy had bees coming out of his hand and like a big


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I liked it. Uh, I didn't think it was like a revolution. Like some people are like, it's so underrated, it's incredible. I just played it and I was like, cool, more Bioshock.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I also really like the book. I think I've said this on the podcast before, but there's a book that's kind of just details backstory before the fall of rapture and it's cool.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, this is the end of the show. Podcast. We're here. Whether you're watching on YouTube, on Skill-Up's channel, or you're listening on the various podcast platforms, thank you very much for being here, for choosing us to yap about games. You had a lot of choices, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Thank you. Uh, if you want to send us questions, which we love answering, contact at friendspersecond.com. Be a user. Join the club.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm on Instagram and Twitter at Jake Baldino, my YouTube channel, Jake Baldino. Gerard, where can the people find you?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well thank you guys for being here. Thank you for listening. Maybe next time I'll be out of this, uh, hostage video looking situation. I love it, I love it. On the video version. But regardless, tie your shoes and go to bed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, well it's not my child's bedroom. My mum didn't move here until I was 20-something, like early 20s. Uhm, this was, uh, yeaah, she moved in with my, with my stepdad. And so I got the attic room. And when I moved to America, all of my gaming stuff is in here. So like, behind me, there's a,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I've got my record player, again, a twat. Uhm, yeaah. And you'll notice that I sound a little...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hang on, we'll, we'll try and get them in this episode of the podcast. So, hi everyone, I'm here with these two schmucks on this week's episode.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, big week in gaming this week because the game awards, uh, nominations have been announced. Some piss has been boiled. Which is a phrase.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Jeff has been getting a lot of flack for not addressing the kind of state of the industry, uhm, or the layoffs, like even God, even this week, you know, Congregate, Amazon, Humble.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was nominated for the best community support. That team's been basically...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, I mean, I think, I think there's a way to do it where you are not, I dunno, I think, I think celebrating people's hard work is a way of kind of addressing it in a way that is in line with an award show.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, making sure that people got, uhm, recognition because, you know, devs pour their lives into projects for years at a time and then to get unceremoniously


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And like I say, not bang on about it, not to be performative, but I think, you know, the heart and soul of gaming is to celebrate gaming. And I think that's a way to do it, that kind of...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that was obviously one of the big, uh, pieces of discourse. Uh, I think the other one, I'm not trying to frame it as discourse because I think generally this is a very interesting conversation when it comes to the categories themselves. In particular, one that got a lot of attention.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because Dave the Diver was nominated, but Baldur's Gate was not.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I wonder if there are better terms, well I don't think there are because at the same time, from the outside looking in, like, we as...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's gotta sting for Todd. For sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Seven Rebirth got nominated for like, uh, most anticipated. So it's like, yeah, it just kinda feels weird about 16. Shout out to Benstar, though.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, did you see? He tweeted out Jeff Peely, which I thought was very good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What did Dead Space get then? Dead Space got audio, which I think it should absolutely walk away with to be honest. Uhm, yeaah, Dead Space only got audio. Dead Island got action, yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we're back, uh, from the interview, and we're gonna go with a user question. So if you have any, make sure to send it to contact at friendspersecond.com, uh, and we will read them out on the show and answer. So this one is from Trey Duncan.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know, it'd be cool to see that stuff come back. That was very... of a time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Did you see the uhm, there was a trailer, or like a thing that went round for uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh yea, you do, you sent a picture of it on your, on the beach. How is it? Cause I don't have it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Something happens and he is, doesn't matter how many times he's tried to leave the Yakuza life behind, just when he thinks he's out, they bring him back in. Except this time, uh, there's a bunch of like little tweaks to Yakuza stuff. He's got gadgets, so he basically has.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I still think everyone should just play Zero, because Zero is my favorite.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You get the new moves, the heat actions and even the gadgets and stuff. I just kind of find myself like button mashing my way through it and it isn't feel...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As, it's not as tactical, it's not as, I feel like I'm kind of chancing my way through every encounter instead of actually spending time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just all the, all the, uh, the props in the world. And I think this is something that Zach Gage and his team do really well across all their apps. It's not an app yet, it's just like a website, but it works really well on mobile, really tactile, really...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like an archaic puzzle thing, it just feels like this nice little experience that you're gonna have. That feels, that sounds weird to say, but as a puzzle enjoyer, Pozmo is great.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Worse than even the worst, like we'd seen bad reviews, the bad reviews did not prepare us for how bad that movie was. I'm so excited to see what he does next with this. It's so rare to see this amount of money and this much effort to put into something so bad. I cannot wait, I'll legit wait.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's the R version. Okay, why did you just make that the first time around? My man, he's like, I even saw a tweet today that was like, oh, we recorded separate lines of dialogue that you could really tell were just for the R version. It's like, what, you, you drop F bombs? Like, wow, that's super edgy, man. You're really at the cutting edge of cinema right there. Like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, listen, let's talk about that, right? Okay, so first of all, I agree with you. And in fact, my, my Zach Snyder opinions are so wild that I like the Watchmen movie. I know, I know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah. I think everyone's like, you didn't understand the source material. I'm like, well, I've read the source material. I think it's like, not that far off. Like, it's a spin, sure, but it's not that far off.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I noticed that when he said this Batman stuff, everyone's like, that's it. I'm done with Zack Snyder. It's finished. It's over. And all he said is that Batman should kill people, right? This is when he was on Joe Rogan and he's like, it should be okay for Batman to kill people sometimes, right? And then Batman people lost their shit. Is this true? Is this all correct?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But like, okay, but to be fair though, in his defense, if there was a rendition of Batman where he kills people, that's kind of interesting. There are, and like we just saw in Suicide Squad, where like Batman goes nuts and starts killing people, and it was basically the only part, good part of that entire video game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, exactly. So I think Zack Snyder kinda has a point in the sense that if you did have a Batman thing where he was killing people,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know man, this is one time where I will defend Zack Snyder. Even though he just put out one of the worst films I'd seen in a long long time in Rebel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was gonna say, the word is not replace, the word is upgrade.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Did you take a steam deck? Do your steam deck or switch with you?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know, yeah. It was like, it was very much like what you expect for award ceremonies in this year. Like who would you expect would win what? And it's like, yeah, you kind of can guess it all the way through and you'd probably be, probably be largely correct.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, I think, no, I think he's, um, the target that, I've only watched episode one, but looking at his face, he's the target that they're tracing who's, uh, escaped from the enclave. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, that's like the picture that I saw in episode one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, because I've only watched the first episode and it's all set in the vault. But it's just such a beautiful recreation of what a vault would look and feel like. You know, there were certain sets just like they had a shot of a hallway, an empty hallway at once at one point.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's just got all these like steel girders and rivets and the colored paint and it just looks so perfect, you know, uhm, or when they're showing like the power armor on the rack, you know, when, when the first time they see that and you're like, damn, yeah, that's exactly the rack, man. You've got the angle right and everything. Like just so many things where you could just tell how much


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Love they had poured into what they were trying to create. And I think that is so core to this because it's clear that the people who made this really respected the source material.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But you can't just respect source material. You also need to have, like, imagination. And know what to do with it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, like I think Rings of Power's a perfect example of that, cause I do suspect the people that made that show had a lot of reverence for the source material.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I also believe they had absolutely no imagination whatsoever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But that's, it's sort of like, and I think at the other end, so at the other end of the spectrum of like, if you-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Have a lot of imagination, but don't respect the source material, you get Halo. And at that point it's like, they just


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That point about like being a bit, being serious and being funny, like I think Lucy, the character, like she's so well constructed because she has this kind of comedic quality she can switch to in a moment, while also she knows how to like actually


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, she has this kind of chipper, well at least in the first episode, she's got this chipper buoyancy where she's like, okey dokey, but at the same time, like, she will kill you if she needs to and she understands that that is like, not a joke and you know what I mean?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Character stuff is, feels very real. Her performance is great. Walton Goggins' performance always is flawless. I don't know the, uhm, Brotherhood of Steel actor's name, but he's crushing it already. Just like, the whole cast I just think is, is just spot on. So, for me personally though, what I found really interesting about it was that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It really made me feel Fallout like never before, because, uh, it made me realize that, cause I, you know, played 3, 4, 76, whatever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, those games, they're really goofy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You really like, it's trying to be serious and it is like for sure. Absolutely. Like it's serious content. There are serious moments, serious things happen, but ultimately it's such a.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For the first time, imagining what it would be like to be in a vault and have to live that life. And I imagine what it would be like to have some raiders come in and like, fuck up your shit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And like, you'll then thrust into this wasteland and what it would feel like to actually, you know, have to step out into that world for the first time. You're like, I've, we've stepped through vaults ourselves out of vaults so many times now, but I've never really felt what it would be like to do that until I watched this TV show and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For me, that makes it quite an interesting like companion piece to something like The Last of Us, where the show didn't really make me feel anything


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The game didn't make me feel, except for like Billstown, the episode where they just like completely wrote a whole new script and they just add a whole new chapter, right? But The Last of Us already did its job to get me to feel things and like tell an amazing story in an amazing way. And the TV show just kind of told it again, but in a slightly different way. It didn't feel as essential.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Whereas this, I'm like, wow, okay, you've really opened up a whole new level of connection to the Fallout franchise that I never thought was possible before. Like I really care about this world a lot more now because of this TV show. Um, and yeah, I don't know. I just think that's a really, I didn't expect that to have that response to it for sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know that I'm gonna have that much of a deeper connection to it if you do it again. There's every- and there's every risk that you just kind of like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't think he's, I don't think he can do old Kratos as a TV show these days. Like, unless it was like, I don't know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In Borderlands, that's right. The Fly Gants are well actually over again in Borderlands maybe. But it makes sense because obviously the super hero thing is winding down. It's Plato. Like it is. It's already kind of down, you know what I mean?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He is talking about it, man, and there's no way that Marvel's not gonna take him up on that offer. So, like, it's definitely gonna happen. Uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So yeah, like it's winding down and studios, they want safe IP and what's safer than massive video games. Like for real, at this point, what is safer than a massive video game that's already sold 20 million units has massive brand recognition, has it, it's just, it's an easy layup. So it makes sense that anything with an audience is going to get an adaptation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're like, I even saw dredge this week is getting an adaptation of indie game dredge. And that's cool. I like that a lot. But I mean, I suspect that's being done not because of brand association, but because the person really liked dredge and could see a concept in there that's worth it. But they're doing a toe jam and Earl adaptation. You know what I mean? Like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, look, obviously games, big established games that, you know,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That popped off are gonna get adaptations and that's cool. I'm less interested in a God of War adaptation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because it's already just done its job for me. The video game medium has already accomplished much of what a television show or a movie could already do. I'm much more interested in things where there's an idea or a concept that could be more fleshed out by an adaptation because there's just something


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There, that you can build upon, like, I don't know, like, Hades, is Hades getting a, Hades is getting its show, isn't it?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I dunno, I think there's- I heard something about that. Anyway, regardless, but that's a good example, right? Because you've got this game that's got these incredible, like, characters in this way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you bring that out, you've got a cool concept there, and I'm really interested to see what you could do with that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, I, I, I agree with that. I mean, I definitely enjoyed it. I was really happy with that movie. It's just a fun little intro to the character.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I like that. But I mean, I don't know how much, how much risk you want to take with Mario. That's the other thing. I did see a lot of that commentary where it's like, they didn't take enough risks with this. It's like, it's Mario, bro. Like what do you want? Exactly right. I literally bought the 4K Blu-ray for that old Mario. Do you have this? Do you have this yet? I've got the 4K Blu-ray. I thought about buying it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, I mean for me, personally, thinking about Fallout, you know, separate from the show, what I think about now is just like, what a shame it is that there's


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's just no Fallout coming any time soon in terms of the game. It's such a shame. And we've been saying this forever as well. Like when I say we, I mean like the collective people who play video games, it's kind of like, Bethesda Game Studios own this IP. It's their game for sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They are going to be working on Elder Scrolls for like the next five to six years. And then after that, they need to enter, you know, pre-production phase for, you know, the next game that they want to work on, which they say is probably going to be Fallout, but we're going to be waiting like a decade at best.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Give this IP to another studio, let them make something with it, and it would be, it would be cool. Like there's, it just, it's such a waste to see it sit with this one studio for so long. You know what I mean? Yeah, like I don't need, I don't need something.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's not, probably not gonna happen with Obsidian. In Exile would have been my pick personally, but now they're working on Clockwork Revolution, I think In Exile would have made an absolutely banging Fallout 5 game. Oh yeah. Which is probably why Bethesda didn't want them to do it. Um, so, but like, I mean, I just, yeah, for real, I think


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Microsoft, there's a big opportunity here. People love this franchise. It still remains unique to this day, you know, other than Wasteland from In Exile, ironically enough, which is probably the closest thing I could think of to it in terms of like style and setting and tone or whatever else. It still remains unique and there's a huge demand for that type of game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, like existing technology and the fact that it's a fan, like an enthusiast led project rather than a dedicated team of hundreds of people working full time for multiple years who can obviously accomplish so much more.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But cool show though. Definitely recommend it. It's on Amazon Prime. You probably have Amazon Prime already cause you get it with your Amazon subscription or whatever. You guys have ads right over there when you watch it you get ads during it unless you pay for some extra bullshit. We don't have that in Australia yet. We still have that ad free thing for the base price. God that would piss me off so much.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. God, that would have pissed me off so much if I was watching something on a streaming service that I paid for monthly and then I also got ads in the middle of it, like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Jake, I struggle with many parts of my life, including feeding myself properly and, you know, making sure I get good nutritious meals. It takes a long time to do this stuff. Have you got a solution for me, Jake? What do you got?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh man. So, and you, have you had this as well, Lucy? Cause yea, have you had it?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Jake, personally, much like yourself, I travel a lot. I find myself in other places. What happens with my like schedule deliveries and what have you where, you know, rocks up at my door and I'm not there?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, uh, I'm, I'm sold. Uh, Lucy, do you have any information on how I might sign up to such a fantastic service?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is that, like, my friends or family can tell me something, like, really important that really matters. Like, hey, you know, like, I don't know, this person is graduating from high school on this date. Don't miss it. It's a big deal. And I'm like, all right, sure, I'll be there. And then like 30 seconds later, I'll remember that. But then,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] News platforms like every day, marking up news, anything that I think was interesting would go into like this OneNote document that would be built over the space of a week and kind of like


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I mean, it's just, just constantly just staying on top of all of this stuff, but yeah, for me personally, it's never ever felt like work. Like I just, I do this naturally. It's just whenever I have a spare second, I'm like, what's on the subreddits and what's going on on Twitter and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know, I just, it's just, I'm just weirdly wired to do that all the time and so uhm, keeping track of it then is much less difficult because it's just, it's constantly in my head so, yeaah. That's it really. No, definitely nothing more sophisticated than


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can't handle LinkedIn, right? Cause every time I go on there, it just feels so, like makes my skin crawl to like read these people and the things they write about.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Being on LinkedIn for any more than a few minutes, cause I, I know it, I think the word cringe is kind of cringe at this point, but I dive cringe every time I load into LinkedIn. I just, oh, I do this as I read some of the posts.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, time to talk about one of our favourite sponsors, AG1. I mean, they've been supporting this podcast for a while now. We really appreciate their support.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And uh, we really appreciate their product. We all use it personally since they start, they reached out to us a while ago. I hadn't drunk it before then, but started drinking it regularly after that. And as I've said multiple times, it's really nice to start your day knowing that you're doing something good. AG1 is full of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Really nutritious supplements that basically are good for your gut, good for your overall health. Uhm, it's, you know, a very quick and easy drink that tastes nice. Slam it down and you know that at the start of your day you've actually done something good for your body. Uhm, yeaah, it's just a really nice part of my routine at this point that I really appreciate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, we've got a special deal going here at Friends Per Second. You can try AG1 and get a free one-year supply of Vitamin D3 plus K2 and five free AG1 travel packs with your first subscription at www.drinkag1.com forward slash friends. That's www.drinkag1.com forward slash friends. Check it out and thank you to AG1 for sponsoring the video.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I am very disappointed to have missed that interview. Uh, the reason I was not there by the way is because of time zones, because Lucy is in the UK, Jake is in New York.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm in Sydney, and so therefore the only time where we could have actually all done this would have been 3am Sydney time. And as excited as I am to, would have been to chat to Abu, I also need to be asleep at 3am, it's very important. So I'm bummed that I missed it, and yeah, that's it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the thing is, I've never really liked him that much. I've always like seen little bits and I'm like, ah, I get his, I think I see his stick, shtick. I get it, you know, but it's not really my vibe. But now having seen that and then seeing the collection and seeing everything, I'm like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Maybe I was totally wrong about Conan and this man's actually a genius and I have now spent, I've now missed one of the best comedy careers of all time because I just slept on how talented he was. Like I really am feeling that at this point after seeing


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All of the clips, all of the love, everyone gushing, and obviously hot ones, which was just like so incredible, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Me too. I would never have watched that before, but now I'm like, you know what? I'm tuning in for that. I think that's going to be, that's going to be fun. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Much respect to the man. Even when it was all going down with Leno back in the day, even back then, and I wasn't a huge, um, Conan fan, but even I was like, you know what? Fuck Jay Leno, man. This is bullshit. You know what I mean? Like I had no horse in that race whatsoever, but even I thought Leno was a dick, you know? So, well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, I wanna see you do Kojima, man. Come on now. Oh my god. What is the wish, what is the tier list for Hot One game develop, like, video game industry people?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right? Like very like, they've got like, like Jeff Keighley, for example, has this like persona presence thing. And then the Hot Ones format naturally breaks that down because they're like so panicked by the spice.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That I think is where you'd get good stuff, you know what I mean? So I would love to see Jeff Keighley, yea. Someone with a lot of like control and presence and whatever, but then cause their defenses are weakened by the spice.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, this is a huge spin-off thing that he would, that would absolutely crush. So Sean, if you're listening, um, and you steal this idea, we will come for you. We will.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That seems like a very destructive thing to do, but by the way, did they get like approval to do this for-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I wonder what it's actually like to eat something that spicy. I've never experienced that. Like I've been to India and I've had some very spicy food that absolutely put me on my ass. And I was like damn man.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I hadn't beat it before, yeah. So uhm, I mean look, my review's up on the channel, so I won't talk too much about it because I already spent like 40 minutes talking about it in the video, but-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, cool, cool, cool. Alright, so, so, Dragon's Dogma is such a weird game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's nothing that really prepares you, nothing in the discourse I think accurately prepares you for what it's like to actually play it. And I really think the initial batch of reviews and discourse was very off base, uh, because all I really read was like effusive praise in the reviews, like, this is incredible and blah, blah, blah. And like there was some stuff about performance and there was stuff about like monetization, which, you know, they're, they're fair call, that's absolutely. But I really think they missed a lot of the,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There are parts of it which are very underbaked, like the itemization system. You can basically just kind of do away with it altogether.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, all the crafting stuff is basically useless. The enemy variety is extremely limited. The difficulty model completely breaks down the back end because the game does not scale and it doesn't give you new enemies to contend with. Uhm, there's, NPC behavior is totally broken in the cities where like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're not meant to be able to stealth through certain sections, but you have to stealth through certain sections because if you get spotted you get in trouble, but you can just walk past the guards and they don't give a fuck and then it's just like, it's fine, that just doesn't work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, you can just rob NPCs blind, like you can steal from their stores, whatever, which is not really broken in the sense that the game is obviously designed that way for you to just be able to pilfer their coin sack from behind the cash register kind of thing, but it feels goofy when you do that. There's just a lot of aspects of this game that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] are not finished, and that are weird, and that's like, well hang on, what's going on here?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's theories that Dragosoma was actually pushed out before it was ready to hit like a quarterly earnings target for Capcom. There's nothing confirmed about that. Developers have said nothing, but it's a running theory.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think it might be true, except for the fact that, and I didn't play Dragon's Dogma 1,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Many people said the same, had the same criticisms about Dragon's Armour 1 with the game feeling fundamentally unfinished in many aspects. So this is kind of just consistent with that, you know what I mean?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can't immediately assume that Capcom pushed it out when it was ready, when you've got that other game, which is so similar to it, in it's shortcomings.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The weird thing is, and I did that review and everyone's like, dude, how are you recommending this? It's just a laundry list of things that suck. And I'm like, well, that's just how it works with video games sometimes. Like sometimes you can look at a game that has a list of problems.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You come away from it being like, I still enjoy that game despite all of those issues. And yeaah, this is absolutely one of those times where


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It sounds like every game should be able to do this, but the majority of open world games cannot do this, you know? I mean, even stuff like Horizon Forbidden West and Zero Dawn or whatever, they've got these massive expansive open worlds full of things to do, but journeying through the space does not actually feel like a journey. It's, you know, it's just moving from place to place. So, yeah, I mean, I think


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a very, as I said, it's a fascinating game. I really, I do recommend it. I genuinely do. But you really need to go in eyes open to all of its many shortcomings. So do you guys actually, so Lucy, you played a bit of this, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because I think it's fundamentally more interesting to talk about and explore as an idea than Final Fantasy. Because I think Final Fantasy is extraordinary.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because it's so massive and polished and there's so many things to it, right? It's almost like, there's definitely some things to talk about, but really what is over-awing about that game is its scale and its, its polish and just how many crazy ideas they cram into it, right? But exploration of its ideas is less interesting, one, because you would have seen a lot of its systems already in Remake.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And two, because not really doing much that's new, really. I mean, it's just kind of like a really cool story and a really cool world and lots of stuff. But Drag's Dogma is weird, man. It's a weird game. And I would love to hear your thoughts on that, like a video on your channel, exploring that in more detail because, um, it's, it's such a unique, did you play one?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, I think uhm, no that's it, exactly right. And I said in my review that it's, it's a more, it's a more interesting game to talk about than it is to play. Because there's a template there for a fucking incredible, like, masterpiece game. If you really built this out and did all the thing, if you fully realised its potential,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It is an all-timer. It absolutely is. Uh, and even Dragon's Dogma fans will agree with you on that. Like even people who love this video game will be like, oh yeah, I love it, but there's so much wrong with it. And it's got so much potential that's left on the table. And if they added this, this, and this, it'd be the greatest thing ever. And yeah, they're right. And I reckon it's, I actually really liked the Dragon's Dogma to the Dragon's Dogma community, by the way, because very often,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You meet gaming communities that are quite-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I dunno, like insecure or sensitive about their games and they won't hear criticism of them. They're like, no, no, no, no, it's actually really good. You don't understand. Even if you have positive things to say about it, if you also have criticisms, they're like, no, no, no, those criticisms are invalid.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, man. It's a, it's a cool game for many reasons. Community, the nature of it, it's unrealized potential, it's weird development story, you know, how it came to be and whatever. It's a, yeah, it's cool. It's cool. And I really hope Campcom do a three.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And actually commit to like, you know, fixing all of its issues and actually realizing that potential. They've got something big here, man. They really do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I wonder how much, what kind of resources they'd be willing to commit to a third. Because the rumour is that they committed significantly less resources to these projects than other major Capcom projects.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know, I just, I wonder, it does seem like a long odds bet. Dragazong still feels like not a very sure thing. Uhm, so I don't know if that will ever happen, but we'll see.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's Dragon's Dogwoman. That's it. And other than that, I just keep playing bilateral. I'm just still going with that. I'm very determined to like just unlock all the decks, unlock all the things. It's incredible. Like it's just, it's perfect.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To be fair though, I really truly do believe that this would be a better game on mobile.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, lucky for you. I know, they're doing the port. If they do a straight port of it without any monetization bullshit or whatever, it's just a straight port that you paid like 8 bucks for or something, it would be the perfect phone game. That sounds dangerous. Like, it's so... It is, like, yeah, absolutely. For sure, for sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, definitely I think it is a tall, it's a, very much Prince of Perj was in my head as I was playing it because it gets, that gets so much right. And this is naturally going to invite comparisons because they're both 2D Metroidvanias that sort of feel quite similar in their control schemes and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's a whole separate podcast. That's a whole separate podcast, but oh my god, X-Men 97 episode 5. Fuck me. Holy shit. Unbelievable. What the hell is going on over there? Like what happened to create this? This is


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There, there's the, you know, the original voice of Rogue is in there and you're like, you know, you're seeing like, you know, you have all these feelings about Gambit that you don't really have across most of the other, like, certainly in the movies. The movies have only ever like had Gambit once. It wasn't Chatty Tatum, was he? No, it was uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's, it's so fascinating to watch, because I think stuff for adults.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, I was, cause I was, some of the scenes in this show do so much work within the space of like 90 seconds. The number of like, things that it exposes, emotions that it deals with, backstories and new story beats, because it has to move at the pace of a Saturday morning cartoon, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's what they are, it's a 30 minute thing and it's just boom boom boom boom boom.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As we watch things as adults, we don't, that's not how things for adults are written. Things for adults take a long time, and that's fine by the way, like that's what we expect, cause it reflects real life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But this is essentially the kind of like the pace of a 30 second of a Saturday morning cartoon combined with the thematics of something for adults. And I've never quite experienced this. I mean, look, I don't watch a lot of anime. I'm not, I've watched anime over the years. Don't get me wrong. I'm like not completely.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know if that medium does this sort of stuff more regularly, but certainly like animation that I consume, have consumed over my life has not done it quite the same as this in this way. Uh, it's, yeah, I've never felt, watched something that felt like a straight up Saturday morning cartoon that was made for, clearly made for adults.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I would say though that with that, cause there's also, cause there's A and B plot in this, right? There's your A plot stuff that's like absolutely banging. And then there's your B plot stuff, which kicks in. You're like, yeah, I don't know about this one. Like the Jubilee episode. Like, yeah, come on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was, it was playful or whatever, but I also think in a similar way that this is clearly a Saturday morning cartoon made for adults, and I almost feel like, well,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know that there should be those, those filler episodes of those B plot stuff, because it's like, well,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's not what we're really that interested, but you're right. The flip side to that is that it, that is a really interesting, playful episode that has entire sequences that are made to look like a video game and a really good looking, well made, proper video game, you know? And so I like, you're right. There's that experimentation. There's some creativity that bubbles through. There's something different to break it up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Jake's watched the whole thing, and so he's at a totally different place of being able to talk about Fallout than we are, because I've watched one episode, you know? And I don't know, like, it's just, I think, you know, that- I miss more cooler moments.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Anyway, that wasn't, I wasn't even planning on making that my thing, but we're running out of time now, but I was just going to say I find the whole MKBHD, um, humane AI thing so fascinating because if anyone hasn't caught up on this, basically,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. And so, but people in the tech world are like upset about that because they're like, oh, it's so terrible that he would use his platform to destroy this startup. And the start, the humane are like, whatever happened to being optimistic about the future of thing? Well, it's like, well, you don't really get to say that when you're charging $700 for a product that is shit and $20 a month. Like fuck off. So I just think it's a really fascinating. I really looked at that whole situation thinking, man, imagine if tech reviewers


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We get products that don't work all the fucking time. That's standard for us. We literally celebrate when a game comes out and it works as intended. That is how different our worlds are when it comes to this stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and I just thought that was a very interesting parallel between those two things. So uhm, as we were, as we were recording actually, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a lot of accusations that he's like killed this $200 million startup with one video and it's like, bro, if your product can't withstand one video from one tech reviewer, then your product was never going to survive as it is, man.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, there's like, there's gonna be phones that are not as good as other phones, and there's gonna be a laptop that has an overheating issue, and there's gonna be all that sort of stuff, but you're talking about something that fundamentally, at its most basic level, does not do any of the things that are promised in the way that it's promised, and the way that it's been advertised, and it has all these kind of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Fake trailers that are very selective with what it puts in versus what it doesn't. Yeah. And uhm, yeah man, it's crazy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, right now we're allowed to say that we're reviewing Stellablade.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So reviewing that and review is going to go up on embargo next week. And that's really it for me. I'm just sort of like focused on that. I'm going to get that out and oh, no rest for the week is the other one. I'm so excited. I'm so excited.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that looks, um, very cool. So definitely plan to get on top of that as well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And yeah, that's, that's all there is really. It's, it's, it's a nice quiet period. Nothing too nuts going on right now. Nice easy stretch leading into the Summer Games Fest in June. So yeah, just kicking back a little bit and enjoying, enjoying life for a change as opposed to just working all the time. Good change of pace.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh wow, uhm, I say the first game, the first game I actually fell in love with probably has to be Sonic the Hedgehog on the Mega Drive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's just really cool and fighting, you know, Dr. Robotnik and it was great. Um, yeah, I would say it's stopped. My love for games started there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, my dad introduced me to games. He kind of, he was, he was the type of parent where, you know, he, he bought me, he bought me the, the Mega Drive or, you know, the Sega and, and rather than necessarily listening to people who would say like, games are bad for you. He was actually like, oh no, this is something that really, it means something to my son. So, and he enjoys it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm just gonna support that, which I, you know, till this day I'm, I'm forever thankful for. Uhm, but yeaah, I'd say that, but I'd say like really truly the,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The real love or the, the sense of uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pure, like, enjoyment and fascination of games as a medium was Kingdom Hearts. That's where it came alive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I'd say there's something about Kingdom Hearts as...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know, it hit me at a time, I think I was, I was young and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The emotional journey that I went through with the character and the connection that I had.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Really made me rea- like f- realize just the power of the game medium as a whole.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that I would say was, you know, where I, where the, the, the true love for video games began. Uhm, I'd say.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So again, you know, acting really, you know, I always say like I got into acting through games in the sense that I fell in love with the storytelling of what games could do. And I really wanted to play these characters. I wanted to be these characters, did drama at school and sort of lent into that. And then.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I remember when I, when it came to the realization that I could essentially go to drama school or learn how to be an actor, you know, get an agent and all this sort of stuff. I remember saying like, if I don't get in the first time round, uhm, I'm just gonna go join the army.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because I genuinely had no sense of- it wasn't like no sense of direction, I just-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I, you know, my mom and dad really wanted me to kind of, you know, they were like very much looking into the idea of me either being like a lawyer or a doctor or something, you know, like a, like a good job. Classic. And yeah. And, um, but I, you know, none of that really like inspired me and,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But there was something about acting which I really enjoyed. This idea of jumping into different perspectives and playing through them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so I was, you know, kind of gave myself this weird ultimatum of like, yeah, just going to go for drama school and see what happened. And I was very fortunate to have actually been, you know, to be accepted.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, both secret game lovers, but never actually, uh, never actually spoke about video games until after the fact that we were on this job on, on Jamestown, but that's another story. But like, but yeah, it was, um,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was really kind of got into acting that way. And that's when I started, you know, falling in love with film and really enjoying the medium and enjoying theatre.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But again, I was always playing games, always playing games, uh, throughout, you know, from then on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It just made me, it made me realise that you could have a career in games. Which is silly when I say it, because like, I think like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At the time, I didn't realize that there were, I didn't really think that there were people behind these things. You know what I mean? Like you, I always imagined that you'd put a disc in like, you know, the PS2 and you know, Magic Gremlins made this, the images appear on your screen. Like I had no idea it was people behind.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Put faces to the development of a franchise that I, I, I adored, right? The Assassin's Creed franchise, like I, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I remember, I can still remember the first time of playing Assassin's Creed 1 and the feeling that it brought to me when I realised, when you realise essentially it isn't just, you know, set in the past, it's like also in, you know, the modern day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I think yeah, it was, it was kind of crazy to then talk to all these developers who were all passionate about games. They spoke, you know, as artists, they saw the game medium as an art. And I think that really inspired me to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Almost, it was the seed, it was definitely the seed of, of realizing like, oh, you can actually...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Have a career in this. And I do say this, you know, as well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think if I knew that I could have a career in games before I was an actor, I probably would have jumped straight into games. 100%. Wow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know for a fact that if I knew you could actually have a career in making games, making these things that I enjoyed and loved so much, man, I would have gone in on it and I would have probably had, you know, the


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's like, it's a production studio or like a production house, right? It was just surgeon studios. And the idea really behind it was to create, you know, I was,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Again, I'm, I'm very much of the, I'm the type of person where I just start something and see if it works and hope then praise that it works and having no idea how to do something. So I like was like, you know, I was like, I'm going to start a studio. Um, and the studio is going to represent this idea of telling stories that respect the medium in which it's going to be told in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's going to be a great place to work with friends. You know, I want to involve my friends that are going to come in and, and, you know, tell stories with me and, you know, we're going to either make films or, or make plays or even make video games.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Again, no idea how to do most of that stuff, but I knew, like, this was the way that I wanted to go. I had an idea of what it took and entailed to make a film, for example, or even doing a play, but not a video game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I didn't really know what that first project was going to be for us because again, I was, you know, I thought like, uh, maybe it could be, you know, a, um,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like a lot of, a lot of the projects that I had done previously or like kind of worked on, it wasn't necessarily for me, it was giving my, my friends the opportunity to have their voice heard. So all the short films that we've done and the features as well that we've done were all to,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, you know, I was still sort of dealing with my, you know, my father having passed away after having graduated and still kind of having this conversation with myself and him to a degree of like wanting him to see what I've kind of created and built and you know, where I've got to now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was only until like this moment when I was in South Africa, I was filming Raised by Wolves and I had, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was playing Ori and the Blind Forest at the time on the Switch.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it was the waterfall sequence. And this, this sequence was a pain in the ass, man. And it was, it was really hard. And when I completed it, that feeling


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'd, I'd never, I hadn't felt that feeling for such a long time. And even though I've been playing games all, you know, for a long time, right? You kind of, you kind of go through them and go past them and you're kind of like, yeah, that was a good experience or whatever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's when it clicked that I had to make a game. That I had to be, you know, the first piece of work that we would do internally.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And yeah, it's, it's very surreal how it, you know, if it wasn't for Assassin's Creed Origins, I would never realize that was a thing. And if it wasn't for me, you know, again,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Working on like, on a TV show, a massive TV show at the time, and you know, in South Africa, but playing The Blind Forest, I wouldn't have come to the idea of making Tales of Kinsera's out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] First, it started with the experience that I wanted to share and the story that I wanted to tell.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, it was, you know, for me, it started with, okay, I want to make a game about grief. I want to make an experience that kind of explores the journey of grief and what that means.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My, you know, my personal story or my personal journey was very much, it felt like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I felt very, you know, I was looking at that. I was like, okay, I felt very isolated. I felt very confused, very lost. I wasn't prepared, even though I knew it was coming. It, it was, it was everything. It was a mess. It was chaotic, but very isolating and very lonely. And so,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's the experience that I want to kind of share because I know that other people probably go through the same thing of, you know, within grief. Cause even though we're all going to experience it, be it either through


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Depict that journey in the, in the best way possible. And it just made sense to put it in the genre of a metroidvania. Because a metroidvania is exactly like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, you're thrown into a world you have no idea about. You have to get comfortable with it. It's got all the tools in order to kind of deal with it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Those tools are there to help you go through the journey, and the longer you spend time in it, the more comfortable you get in it. And that's exactly what a Metroidvania is. It's got all these little secret crooks and elements that, uhm, that reveal themselves over time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But like, but there is a sense of like, again, as I say, like, you know, I really wanted to create a space and create, you know, with every story that I tell, I want there to be reason.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Behind everything, you know, even if it is just to make something really fun and cool, like dive into that a bit more, you know, because I think you can get so much from


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] From these genres and from these spaces, you know, and the, and the feelings of what these, what these games can bring.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, like I look back at the story of like Kingdom Hearts, for example, and it's, you know, Sora's just trying to find his friends and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's the fact that he will literally go from planet to planet to find his friends.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's pretty, that's a lot man. It's not like, you know what I mean? It's not like trying to find them in the city or like trying to find them in a town. It's like, I am literally going to traverse the universe.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In order to find where my friends are to bring them back home. And that's, that to me is powerful. And that's what I really wanted to do with, um, you know, with, with Tales of Kinsera's out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I would say essentially like, I mean, again, the thing is, it's like we're a small team, right? So the decisions we had to make were really important.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because a team of 30 can't pivot, for example, on an idea, which it's going to be very costly and it's going to drain time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So when we did, when we decided to approach elements of design and elements of making these things, we really wanted to reflect that element of like, okay, how do we depict grief here in the most honest and truthful way and lace that within the design? So for example, mass switching.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The mask switching really comes from the inspiration of the amount of masks that we wear in day-to-day life and how also, how


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Essentially, uh, especially when you're, when you're going through a traumatic experience, you can't necessarily wear your trauma at work. You have to wear a professional face in the same way that even at home you have to wear a, you know, a personal face. Really, truly, you can only take the mask off that you have really in your own, in your own space and comfort, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so for me, what was really important was not only to reflect in, in the Bantu culture of the idea of the sun and the moon reflecting, you know, life and death, but also the fact that having this mask that you can switch on the fly is exactly how fast we switch our masks when we're talking to people. So if my mum was to call me right now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The, the, my tone of voice in my mask would be very different because it's my mother that I am talking to you. And I think like that was something that I really wanted to reflect with this, this idea that we have, we wear these different masks in order to, uhm, face the obstacles that we are presented with.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, you know, even like things like, for example, the, uh, health pickups or like elements to kind of increase your health, you know, you always got to have something that increases your max health, the survivability, like, you know, to survive the treacherous, you know, sort of enemies that you're going to be facing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For me, it was too, it's too simple or too easy to just give it to a player to just find and pick up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We had to kind of look into this idea of a reflection, this idea of sitting under a baobab tree where in, again, Bantu culture or, you know, it's, it's seen as a way of connecting with the spirits of the ancestors or just essentially, you know, reflecting upon oneself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And for me, what I found is, as soon as I started talking about my grief, started talking about my journey, uhm, openly,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I almost could feel the years I was adding onto my life instead of harbouring this, you know, this, this guilt. And so every moment that Zao actually opens up and talks to the god of death, Kalunga, and essentially, or sometimes he doesn't even say anything at all. He's increasing his, his rate of survival, essentially.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's so, you know, so those are elements that we've really wanted to tie in and link again, all about that journey of grief that you go through.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's not like as if, you know, once this game is out, I'm gonna be healed.