Hello and welcome to Into the Aether. It's a low key video game podcast. My name is Brendon

Bigley and I'm team Edward. Are you team Edward or team Jacob?

What the heck? I wasn't prepared for that. I don't know if I've seen enough Twilight

to have a strong opinion. I've only seen the first two films. I'm Stephen Hilger, by the

way.

That's as much as I've seen also.

Oh, really?

Yeah. I read the first book when it came out and I saw the first movie and I hadn't seen

anything else besides that, except when I was working at a movie theater. I was working

a movie theater when the last one came out. And I remember I was I was a projectionist

like at the midnight screening of the last movie. And I just like at a certain point

in the night, I peeked out the little window from the projection booth just to like make

sure the movie was playing all right. And I saw Michael Sheen just rip a guy's head

off. And I was like, should I watch these movies?

Yeah, I gotta say I really loved my time in theaters in 2007 or whenever it came out watching

New Moon. I love the cast. I had a great time. The cast is amazing. Yeah. If you made me

choose I would say Team Edward. Yeah. I think Team Jacob. I don't want to speak on behalf

of Team Jacob, but I think Jacob himself is a little bit Dean adjacent if we're doing

Gilmore Girls comparisons. A little bit controlling and manipulative in a way. We're like he's

positioned as the nice guy, but it's like the bad boy is actually nicer. Yeah. You know

I mean? Yeah, I can't get over. So sorry to totally deviate from the course, but I just

I watched New Moon last night for the first time. I've ever seen it. Um, and I just can't

get over the fact that all of the werewolves just hang out in jorts at all times. Like

they're in like the cold, dreary, foggy woods, only wearing jorts. And anytime they transform

into werewolves, you just see the jorts rip off. Like they just like fly into a million

pieces as they turn into wolves. And one of the funniest shots in the movie goes totally

unremarked upon, but there's this moment when Bella goes to visit all the werewolves and

they immediately like kind of get at odds with one another and they all transform simultaneously.

And it's supposed to be the shot, this like intense shot of all the werewolves kind of

squaring off, but the ground is just littered with shredded Jordans.

That's amazing.

I couldn't get over it. It's like the movie is so unaware of how funny it is.

Yeah, it's hilarious. I also think it's a tragedy about how poorly Bella's dad is treated in every film.

Yeah.

At least the first two.

Charlie.

I've always felt bad for her dad.

Yeah.

And also the like random human boy that likes Bella. Like, is there any team, what is it, Mike or something? Is there any team Mike out there?

Yeah.

Team Mike is exactly one person and it's Mike.

It's just like, why is this happening to me?

Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Anyway, I'm enjoying my time watching the Twilight movies for the first time.

They're fun. I think there's a huge place for movies like that.

I think so, too. Yeah. Yeah. I'm having a good time.

Well, thinking about video games, talking about video games. Yeah.

Oh, I do want to shout out.

We released our Animal Crossing bonus and thank you to everybody who listened to it.

Just wanted to shout out that that came out because that came out

and then the next day we released a normal episode.

Yeah, it's back to back.

But yeah, our new Leaf bonus is out and that game continues to be good.

I've checked in a couple of times since we've recorded that episode.

Yeah, it's lovely. It's been great returning to that. And thank you again to our friend Will for making the music.

It was so good.

Yeah, really incredible.

That music is awesome. And we got a lot of positive feedback with that music. So shout out to Will.

Thanks Will.

Great job. So do you want to talk about new video games, Stephen? How do you feel about that?

New video games?

Yeah, 2023 video games.

We're not beholden to 2007 this episode?

I don't think so.

Okay. I'll keep my Wii copy of Marvel Ultimate Alliance in my desk drawer then.

Okay, well, you should bust that out sometime though.

You've been playing Season.

I've been playing Season: A Letter to the Future. It's a new game out on the PlayStation

5 and I believe PC as well. Before I even get into what the game is, if I like it or

not, spoilers, I just want to mention, I think kind of the elephant in the room about Season

is there was a lot of reporting a couple of years ago about the studio, Scavenger Studio,

that the CEO and founder of the company was just like an abusive and bad dude, which was

really unfortunate. And the people who worked at that studio went through a lot of emotional

trauma that I think like nobody should have to go through while making a video game, obviously.

Yeah. And it really put a damper, I think, on the work that they were making, which I think

everybody resonated with immediately. They showed it off during a PlayStation event at some point,

and everyone was like, "That looks like it's going to be the shit when it comes out." And

And then all this reporting hit.

Kind of unfortunately, I think

there's not been a lot of follow up

reporting. I don't think we know a

lot of what has happened since then.

What we do know, though, is that

that person who was responsible for

that kind of stuff has left the

company since I think has remained

on in some respects

for like not even hands

on work. But as far as we

know, that person is no longer

working the company.

And the company itself has also

issued a couple of statements

saying, like, hey, we are actively

looking into this. We are actively

trying to fix this.

And it's been kind of vocal on their

website, at least in blog posts that I've seen in trying to write the ship, which I

think is good. It's as good as you can hope for. You know, I think in a lot of cases,

you hear about these kinds of stories. And then, you know, a game like season goes on

played forever because everyone's like, I don't really want to support that because

of what happened there. But in this case, I feel like the studio has kind of done all

the right things. It sounds like and I hope that that's the case. But I think as with

all things, you dear listener, everyone individually kind of needs to make up their own minds a

about how comfortable they feel doing this.

And in my case, specifically, my thought was

there's a lot of people at the studio

putting their heart and soul

into making a really beautiful video game,

and I want to support that.

- Yeah, it's unfortunate how often we have to

have this kind of conversation.

I think there are so many games,

and this kind of behavior and these kind of events

are unfortunately an industry-wide reality.

So I think on one hand, it's good that we're

getting more exposure and hearing about it when it happens,

but it's just very disheartening,

It also kind of complicates like, you know, do I get this? Am I,

am I condoning this indirectly by getting it? You know,

so that's going to vary by individual. I don't,

I don't think there's a clear right answer there. Yeah, totally. So yeah,

every everyone needs to kind of make up their own mind about it,

but I do think it's unfortunate that there are like reporters out there whose

entire beat is reporting on this kind of stuff because it's so prevalent,

you know, like that, that speaks to, uh, the, the gash in the industry.

I think that this has left and continues to leave that having been said,

I have been playing season a letter to the future on my PlayStation five, and it is early

contender for Game of the Year easily. Nice. It is stunned. I can't I can't overstate how

beautiful this game is, but specifically also how like my shit this game is, which is kind

of the big thing is like, I don't know. I don't know if I would recommend this to everybody.

I wish I could I wish this was one of those situations where like I could speak into this

microphone and say I think everyone should play this because I do, but I know not everyone

resonate with it the same way that I am, I think, unfortunately. But the crux of this game,

if you know nothing about it, is you play as a character who lives in a world that seems adjacent

to ours, but has a totally different history. It feels a lot like our world, but has a different

history that's condensed pretty dramatically. So you're living in the year like 770 something,

if I'm not mistaken. And every like 30 or 40 years, there's a shift like a pretty big shift

in the eras of this world, and they're referred to as seasons.

So there was like a season of war right before the season that you live in,

where there were just 10 years of an unending war that just seemed like

it was well, like it was never going to stop.

And it kind of like dramatically changed the landscape of society

and culture in that world.

Before that were the golden years.

Before that was the era of industrialization.

Before that, they don't know because that history has been lost to time.

And you, as the protagonist of this game,

get essentially a prophecy from your best friend in the town that you live in that's

like this season is going to end soon, very soon. And no one knows what that means because

sometimes seasons end and it's good and better and makes things better. And sometimes seasons

end and then you have a 10 year long war that is a nightmare.

Right. What season does it start in?

It doesn't have a name yet. The season that you're in.

Oh, okay. So it's kind of ambiguous. Got it.

Yes. From what I can tell, it seems like seasons are named after they've ended. You know, when

people look back in retrospect and say, like, you know, kind of the way we do now, honestly,

like, nobody knows when we're living right now. But, you know, eventually we're going

to look back and think about it the way we do, like the 80s or the 90s or the 70s, you

know, things like that. Like we think of the early 2000s as Twilight era, you know?

Or I think we're starting to get like a hazy outline of the 2010s and we're all like, "Ugh!"

That was the hit song in 2013. Yikes!

Yeah, so your character interestingly the game begins with you deciding to set off with a

Field recorder like like a microphone attached to a tape deck and a camera and your job is going to be to record

What society is like in this season before it ends so you can take all of these recordings all these photos and your sketchbook

and your notebook

and deposit them all in this like kind of collective societal library that everyone that everyone maintains.

So researchers thousands of years in the future can hypothetically look back on all this stuff and get an understanding of what the season was like.

And I think like pretty immediately the game sets itself up in my eyes as kind of entering this pantheon of what I'm kind of considering to be like art house games in a way.

I feel like that we're in this era right now where there are people who are experimenting

so much with the form and imbuing a lot of it with like, I would say like really kind

of thematically dense storytelling and experimenting with the ways in which we interact with virtual

worlds. And there are a couple of games that come to mind here. One of the ones that really

hits me when I think about season is Jet the Far Shore. Yeah, which is a game that I should

be perfectly honest, like didn't love love, but was enamored by right when it came out.

I thought I thought it was like a really stunning experience. And when you first start watching

it, sorry, yeah, start watching that opening cutscene in Jet and start experiencing and

moving your way through the world, it almost feels like you're watching like a sci fi version

of Dr. Zhivago or something like it feels like old arthouse cinema in a way. Or I guess

in that case, blockbuster cinema, but it was still very artsy. And season feels the same

way. You start you start the game hearing about all of this from the perspective of

somebody in the future who is reading the notebook, and then it goes back in time and

you see the protagonist and she and her mom are performing this ritual to create a little

crystal that she's going to wear around her neck that will prevent her from getting any

diseases of the mind, which are apparently like really prevalent in this world. Diseases

of the mind are such that there's one that's called like time dilation disorder, where

you perceive time going at a different speed as everybody else, or things like seeing too

many memories of other people's past lives instead of your own like lived perspective

right now. There are a bunch of different like ailments kind of floating around this world.

And you and your mom create this crystal to prevent you from getting hit with any of these

while you're outside of the safety of the village that you grew up in. And the way you go about this

is by finding objects of sentimental value around the house that have these memories tied to them

and depositing them into this like cauldron essentially to distill them down into this

crystal. But every time you do that, it erases the memory from your head. So you know, you no longer

have the memory, no longer know what that object was, that it was that it even existed or like

where it came from. And it's this really harrowing, brutal scene of you and your mom,

like losing these memories that you have of like grandparents and friends and like experiences that

you had as a kid. It's really tough. And I was like, Oh my God, is this all the game is? It's

just going to be like, that reminds me of a, in, I was a teenage ex-colonist, the main,

It's mostly a visual novel, but the main gameplay is like a deck builder.

Yeah.

And whenever you choose to rest, you can forget one of your cards, but they're all

memories.

So it's like first steps or first words or whatever.

It's not quite as harrowing of like losing like, like concrete memories, but it kind

of represents like growing up and like, what are your, like, what are, what are

sort of the thoughts and feelings that are like on your mind right now?

It's like a 14 year old or a 17 year old or whatever.

Yeah, until you decide to throw out all of your new memories and you beat that game with

your baby dick.

Sup YouTube, this is my baby run of I was a teenage ex-colonist.

We're gonna join the military and just have our first steps.

Google gaga.

Ew.

Scary.

So that's the way the game opens and what they tell you as soon as you walk out the

front door and start on your quest is that nobody has ever left your village as long

as it's existed, essentially. And they teach you how the game works by having you go around

and use the field recorder to record certain things in the village and take some pictures.

And the way this works is as you record things and take photos of things, and as you start

to pick up objects and kind of like sketch them in your notebook and stuff, you're given

actually like blank pages of a notebook and it'll say like, you know, my home village,

and then you'll have a collection of all of the objects, all the photos you've taken all

the objects you've held all the recordings you've done, and you grab them and place them

in the notebook and you're like actually creating like the scrapbook of where you are. And the way

you progress through the game is by getting enough things in a specific space to fill up those two

pages of the notebook. And then at that point, the protagonist is like, cool, I feel like I've

captured this place. Now I can move on to the next one. And that's how the game works. For a while,

you make your way around this village. And then as you leave the village, it's obviously very sad

because nobody's ever left. And she's like, I probably will never be able to come back here.

But you get a bike and you start making your way through the world, the actual world itself.

And surprise, surprise, there are people who live outside of this village.

And a lot of the game ends up being like talking to these people about their culture and their

society and where they're from, what their hopes and dreams are, what's going on. The part that

I'm in now almost feels weirdly enough like that bit in The Last of Us Part Two, where it's like an

open world for a little bit. A lot of the game up until this point has been, you know, discreet areas

where it's like, okay, I'm in the village. Now I'm in the valley outside of the village,

specifically just like making my way through all of these old cranes that seem like they're from

the era of industrialization and stuff. And where I'm at now is this place called Tseng Valley,

which was known as kind of a, I would almost say like an Ellis Island kind of vibe, in a way,

which is like the Statue of Liberty in New York City. But where a lot of people who were traveling

to and fro would essentially like stop here and be like, Oh, wait, this place is actually

like a place where I could set up and have roots. And it's been that way since the year

like 300 since like before people even have like recorded history what was going on. They

just know that this place, Sang Valley has been around for a long time. And the first

person you meet is this guy who is a member of a group called the Gray Hands, which is

trying to be like a new kind of like political ideology, like a new kind of political group.

And their whole spiel is that they are trying to be like completely, I would say like member

and community led.

So it's, I wouldn't really consider it to be like any kind of authoritarian government,

despite, you know, their outfits very much looking like it.

They're very much like, if you join the gray hands, you get to decide what your job is.

Like you tell us what you want to do.

How do you want to help society?

Do you want to be your own boss?

That's like essentially the vibe of the gray hands, which is fascinating.

But also, you know, while you're like, oh, maybe they're fine because they look a little

troubling, but like maybe they're okay because there's propaganda all over the place and

stuff like it seems kind of shitty and shady, but like maybe it's okay.

Simultaneously, this guy is like, yeah, we're gonna blow up the dam at the top of the same

valley and flood the whole place in like three days.

So we've been evacuating everybody for the past like couple months, and I can't let you

in here.

And then you're like, oh, but I'm trying to record everything.

I'm trying to like capture what this season was like before it ended.

And he's like, Oh, in that case, you should go down.

You know, you have three days.

So like, you know, obviously don't be here in three days when we blow the damn up.

But you should go down and record what Sang Valley was like before it's like washed away

in a flood, essentially.

And you make your way down there.

And there are like still people there like packing and like trying to come to terms with

the fact that their home is about to get flooded out.

And a lot of the game at this point, at least this is where I'm at now is about exploring

Sang Valley, which is this like huge area with a bunch of different discreet areas.

There's like a little farmland that you can go and talk to the person who lives at the

farm. And she, the whole thing is that everyone who's leaving the same valley is moving into

this large apartment complex at the top of a mountain somewhere elsewhere. And this woman

who owns this farm has been essentially recreating the exact layout and dimensions of her apartment

and trying to figure out how she's going to be able to like store all of her sentimental

objects and and like how she's gonna live with her son in a place so small when she's

used to a place that's, you know, wide open and underneath the open sky. And it's really

tough. It's really tough to talk to these people and be like, Oh yeah, I'm gonna lose

my home. I'm gonna lose my like culture. Like I grew up in Sang Valley, etc, etc. And you're

just making your way around this space, learning about it before it gets wiped away forever.

And I think one of the interesting things about the game is that a lot of it is just

going around taking photos, talking to people, recording things and putting them in your

notebook. And every once in a while, they'll add pages to the notebook that are like figure

out what the greyhands are up to, like what is their vibe? Or why are they flooding Sang

Valley or you find like a dig site and there's a, there's a spot that's like, okay, figure

out what the dig site is. You need to go around and find like documents and record things

and take photos of things and put them in the scrapbook. And when you're done with it,

the protagonist will be like, okay, here's what I think is going on. And in those ways,

there's a bit of like a sort of a detective element to this as well. Yeah. Yeah. And,

and in doing so, it really opens you up to, to understanding more about the world because

the world is so similar to ours and so different simultaneously. You know, the idea of this

like kind of like fantasy adjacent malady of the mind that is potentially floating around.

You find out that Sang Valley is specifically known for having these crystals underneath

it, which seem to be the like compressed memories of everybody who has lived there in the past.

And that by itself is kind of like infecting people with different maladies as well. Like

the fact that they're living so close to this concentration of other people's memories and

emotions is like starting to get to other people. And it's it's a it's a fascinating

world and I can't overstate how beautiful it is, and how much I love just riding the

bike around. One of my favorite things, honestly, like maybe the best use of the dualsense controller

I've seen so far is almost like death stranding adjacent. But whenever you're on the bike,

you have to press the right trigger and the left trigger to pedal the right and left pedal.

And in doing so you get like the feedback of you actually needing to ride this bike.

And it just feels fantastic. But also, the game is so beautiful. And it's so much about

the aesthetic beauty and the the audio side of it as well, that that being the focus not

only of like the game's design, but also the game's mechanics means that they really needed

to lock it in. They absolutely did. So what you're left with on top of all that is like,

what is the game exploring thematically? And it's so I mean, it's tackling a lot of ideas,

But specifically, like the loss of culture and the and the need to record and understand

the past. And how you're supposed to balance that with, you know, trying to build a better

future for yourself while also keeping the past in check is really, really interesting.

And I think obviously, you know, as a lot of people say, like it's, it resonates a lot

right now, I think specifically, but also just kind of stands on its own as a really

beautiful and very human story. I can't I can't overstate how much I love this game.

I think it's remarkable.

- I feel my wallet grow lighter

the more you talk about it.

It sounds wonderful.

And I think photography in general

is a really great mechanic to center a game around.

And we still haven't seen a ton.

I think of new Pokemon Snap as a good example,

but also Alba and Umuranki Generation.

All those games I think are exploring photography

in interesting ways.

And it sounds like this game is not only

exploring photography, but what is the role

the historian and like, yeah, just, just based on what you're sharing, the first kind of

thesis that came to mind is like, does one have to erase their individuality to like

document history without affecting it? Yeah. That actually comes up a lot. You know, like

how, how neutral are you in this? Yeah. I just, I just had a, an experience, uh, in

the game where I was talking to this little kid whose father passed away. He was one of

the researchers in Sang Valley and his father passed away from studying these crystals.

And you're given this moment, you're recording everything that this kid is saying, and you're

given this moment where the game gives you the option to either keep to yourself or express

to this kid the experience of you losing your own father at a certain point. And I sat there

with that decision for a really long time before deciding exactly what you were just

saying that capturing as much information as possible, you know, I think it's important

to inject as much personality from every angle you possibly can, whether that be like actually

personally or externally through other people. It's important to capture as much as you possibly

can from every possible perspective from every person. And in that moment, it was like the

act of withholding this information for yourself instead of sharing it with the future. I think

in some ways, you know, while while sentimental and beautiful, it could be a little bit selfish

if the goal is to tell future generations what it was like to live right now, you know,

Right. And that was like, that was like a weirdly difficult decision to make. It was

weird to sit there and be like, you know, I'm, I feel a certain way about sharing this

information that technically isn't even mine because I'm playing as this protagonist, you

know, like this protagonist is a proxy for me hypothetically, but they also have their

own lived experience and they feel weird about sharing it. And I'm given the option to force

them to share it anyway. And that's, that was tough. Uh, but that, that does come up

a lot. I didn't even mention this, but the writing is like stunning in this game. The

writing is like absolutely beautiful. It's a beautiful game. It's a beautiful game. I

have so much more to say about it, but I kind of don't want to for fear of spoiling because

exploring and understanding is like so much the crux of it. And one of the interesting

things is that because nobody's ever left your village, the protagonist also doesn't

know what's out there, which I think is very cool. You know, like the discovery of other

people even out in the world is kind of surprising in some cases because she's like, Oh, I thought

that every place outside of here was dangerous. Yeah, it's great. I think I think you would

love it. I think most people would love it. It's just like, I know that because it is

a pretty slow contemplative meditative game, that means it's not going to be for everybody.

But if anything that I've said resonates with you, I highly recommend checking it out. It's

also like $30. I think it's like, Oh, nice. Yeah. I mean, I think it's like, I know the

feeling where you find something that like really is like, Oh, like this is such an important

work of art, but it may not be for everybody. But like, I think in some ways that's important

to think sometimes the games that I'm not talking about accessibility, like that should

be a standard. I'm talking just about like specifically what is your taste and not everything

can appeal to everyone and the games that are like trying to actually appeal to everybody

feel like they were made in a lab, you know, where it's like so I know I know you're speaking

more generally, but I actually do think there's there's a lot of confidence and being like

this game may not be like everyone's favorite, but the people who like it, it's going to

mean a lot to them. Yes, the lead designer of neon whites and something similar where

I think in making Donut County, which was, believe it or not, the previous game they

worked on. They were like, that game was kind of made to like have mass appeal. Right. And

Neon White was made like, this is like specifically something I really want to make. And I know

it's going to like really speak to maybe a smaller group of people. So I think I think

there's power in both. Yeah. Yeah. I think so too. Yeah. Yeah. And in making something

that speaks only to you really that that means you're putting a lot more of your own personal

spin on something. And the more you do that, the less it's going to be like anything else,

right? Exactly. Which I think is really beautiful. But yeah, I think this game is astounding.

I'm I think like four or five hours in from what I know, it's like close to 10 hours total.

Okay, so I'm still in saying Valley, I have no idea if like maybe the rest of the game

takes place in saying Valley, I imagine not, I imagine there's gonna be more after that.

But it's one of those things where like, I can't help but poke at every single edge and

see every single thing that this game has to offer because I'm so enamored by its world.

I'm so interested in it. Like I'm out here trying to figure out like, okay, is this like

a post apocalypse game where like, you know, what happened pre year 300 was our civilization

right now? You know, is this like another another take on like, what happens to Earth,

you know, a million years from now or something? Or is this actually just another, you know,

another alternate planet somewhere where humanity still exists or something? There's no way

of knowing or maybe there will be eventually. But I think the mystery of the space itself

is interesting and the lens that they're using to talk about the human experience and the

importance of documenting and capturing and retaining culture is really beautiful.

Yeah.

I love it.

Yeah, I'm very excited to play it. And also I think like just as a video game podcast

host hearing $30 12 hours long, I'm like the rest of us doesn't even matter. That just

sounds great. I just want more of that.

good. I think I think that's the other important. You've sold me on it like

spiritually and critically, but like the lizard part of my brain is like oh

yeah, it's thirty dollars. It's like ten hours and it's real dog shit.

Even if you got two out of three and two out of three and five would still

get it. I'm like yeah, I don't care. I'll get twelve hours of dog shit

anyway. Somehow I'd rather just know it's coming. Yeah,

That's season a letter to the future. I'm loving it. I don't know if it works on Steam Deck

I feel like it would probably be pretty good on Steam Deck as I

Based on what you're saying though

I think this is like a TV game for lack of a better phrase

It sounds like it's something you want on like the best display possible with the best sound possible

Yeah

One of the things that I go back and forth on is the aspect ratio is presented in like cinema format

I think it's I forget what that format is

I think it's like 10 by 7 or something like that

But you have these like really big black bars on the top and bottom at all times

Which lends itself again more to a TV setting and I feel like if you're playing it on the Steam Deck

I feel like you'd be pretty upset that like you're already small screen is getting shrunk down

Yeah, I think is it is it a ps5 exclusive for

That's cool, but I would you know if you have a ps5 I would recommend the ps5 version. Yeah

Great, I'm gonna get it after we finish. Maybe we'll talk about it again. I would love to I would love to talk about this

game more. Um, yeah. As, as you've played it more. Yeah. I've heard, I've heard great

things and I, I'm excited cause I remember the initial trailer was like, it was one of

those cuphead moments where everyone's like, what was that? More of that please. Yeah.

Just by the look alone. Yeah. I think, um, I don't know. I, I spend a lot of time in

the game just like kind of standing in one place and just kind of like taking it in,

uh, which I think is the sign of really killer world building, you know? Absolutely. Absolutely.

when I'm just sitting there listening to like a frog

next to a river, you know?

- Yeah.

- It's like, oh, okay, cool.

Video games can be this.

- Extremely different energy, but I did,

when we were leading up to our God of War bonus

back in last September, I also played a bunch

of like other big PlayStation Studios games.

- Oh yeah.

- And I forgot that Uncharted 4,

despite being very like Indiana Jones-esque,

like does have a lot of restraint in some moments

Like they do let you just like enjoy the view sometimes.

- Yeah.

- And I think that that's like,

kind of the secret ingredient of the better Uncharted games

is like, just let me like not jump into the next scene.

Yeah, I just want to like enjoy this landscape

you've created.

- Yeah, I think just in general, for me at least,

all good fiction storytelling involves downtime.

I think downtime is so important to connect readers

or players or whatever, watchers with the world

and the characters, you know?

Absolutely. I love downtime and anything. It was one of my big gripes. I think with with the Harry Potter books

Even when I read them pre everything obviously it's happening now

But like even when I read them I was like I just want more time of like they're not being a big bad trying to

End the world like I just want so much to know what it's like to just hang out

That's why a new moon is the perfect film you get ten minutes of Bella sitting in a chair and the camera rotating around her

to like Tom York

Yeah, it's great. Yeah. Yeah

Tom. Okay. Tom's work wrote a song for that movie. Bonnie bear and St. Vincent

teamed up to write a song for that movie and Death Cab for Cutie wrote a

song for that movie. Yeah, it's someone knew what era two thousands we're

gonna be and we're like, can we bottle this for new moon? Yeah. Can we just

get like everything? Yeah, they did a great job. That soundtrack was amazing.

I could not believe I could not believe when I was like, is this a Tom York

song I've never heard in this movie of all places.

I think the two films with the most surprisingly good soundtracks are, believe it or not, Twilight

and Digimon. Both of those soundtracks are like, talk about also like being a crystal

of a decade. Yeah. So I was like, can we like condense Ska into powder form? And that's

what the Digimon soundtrack is.

I almost on a whim picked up Digimon Survive the other day. And then I was like, oh, I'm

already playing Persona. I should really.

- Yeah, I feel like, I don't know why,

'cause neither of us are big Digimon fans.

Like, I like it, it's never been like my thing.

- I loved the movie when I was a kid,

but I didn't enjoy the games or the TV show very much.

- I actually, like, it didn't make my list,

but I did have fun with the weird DS Digimon game.

It was surprisingly good.

- Oh yeah, yeah, it was fine.

- But I'm sure there's gonna be like,

I think Cyber Sleuth is the one people talk about.

Like, one day I'll check that out and bring it to the show.

I did actually play a bunch of that on the Vita.

I shouldn't say I didn't like the games.

I did like that one when I played it.

- Yeah, that one seems to be like the one--

- And I think that's on the Switch now also, right?

- I think it's also on PS4.

It's pretty widely available.

So one day we'll talk about,

I don't know any other names, I'm sorry.

(laughing)

- I'm gonna say Goromon is one of them.

- Yeah, I was like, what is a fun one

I can pull out of my hat?

And I'm like, I actually know nothing about them.

I don't have any Fuegoco equivalent here.

This is nothing.

- That sounds like a rich vein for us to tap into one day.

Yeah. Anyway, do you want to take a break and move on to the next season of our show?

I would love to do that.

All right. Awesome. Hope it's a good one.

The Witch.

Season of the New Moon.

Bye bye.

Bye bye.

Let's go Mario. I'm playing Mario to

actually like literally Mario to the last levels, the last levels. I'll talk about this. Why not?

I started playing Mario. I won't say too much about it because we might have some plans,

but I've been playing. I've been playing Mario for some reason on video for our YouTube channel.

I don't know why, like I literally was just sitting there looking at every every console.

I have every game I own and I was like, I really want to do some kind of video for the

YouTube channel because I hadn't done anything yet since.

Yeah.

Honestly, I think since like November when we were preparing for the game of the year

stuff, I had just like stopped making video because it's a busy season for us.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was like I really didn't have time for anything else.

But now I'm like, oh, I have time now.

It's January.

You know, we're like in the doldrums of winter.

Like I have all this free time, which I make videos about.

And the hardest I laughed to myself was just thinking like, wouldn't it be funny if I played

Mario?

I don't know if anyone else thinks it's as funny as I do, but every time I sit down and start making a Mario video,

I think it's like peak comedy. I think it's so funny.

You named it "What is Super Mario Brothers?"

Yeah.

As if any... because you have a lot of... on our YouTube, you've made a lot of like "What is X?"

It's a great series and you play games that are maybe like new and need kind of a pitch.

And it's like the game that needs a pitch the least is Mario.

And I think it's as funny as you think it is.

I've also really enjoyed them. They've been kind of a akin to your Steamworld dig series

where it's like just sort of like little like trials and shovel night. Yes, yes, yes. I'm

sorry. Shovel Knight dig. Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's weirdly fun. I somebody commented

somebody like crystallized. I think why I'm having so much fun doing it in the comments.

I said something to the effect of like it's nice to watch somebody who's not a god play

Super Mario Brothers. I was like, yeah, when was the last time you watched a video of somebody

just like playing normally without using like warp zones and without being a computer or

computer adjacent, you know?

Yeah. What's the name of like the whole there's a whole sub genre of Mario that's like specifically

like impossible versions of it.

Kaizo, Kaizo Mario.

Yeah, right. So I feel like they're mostly like that kind of content.

Yeah, which I feel like I'm kind of getting into now. So I for those of you haven't seen

it on our YouTube channel, I did four episodes of the first Super Mario Brothers because

I couldn't beat World 8. It took me forever. And now I'm doing the Lost Levels, which is

the Mario game that came out the year after the original that they didn't release outside

of Japan because they were like, this might be too hard for like a worldwide audience.

And that game is very difficult. It's like Kaizo Jason. I feel like that game is the

reason that the Kaizo Mario thing. Absolutely. Absolutely. Because of Lost Levels. And it

introduces all these things that like never come back, like all of these mechanics and

things that are like so demanding and so difficult, like poison mushrooms and stuff at the exact

moment that you think you're going to get a regular much things like that. I mean, it's

like nonsensical Hammer Brothers fucking everywhere. That game is wild. It's the first time it

was it released in the US for the first time via Super Mario All Stars. Yeah, like the

first. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Which is how I've been playing it. I've been playing it on the

Switch, the Nintendo Switch Online Super Nintendo collection. Yeah, I'm playing Super Mario

All-Stars, which is interestingly not the version that includes Super Mario World.

It's just like the original Super Mario All-Stars.

Yeah, but they have Super Mario World separately, obviously.

But I don't I don't know if my plan is to play all of them in release order, but that's

kind of what I'm trending on doing at the moment.

Until I can, like, think of something else I'd rather make videos about.

But for now, I feel pretty obligated to finish Lost Levels.

Yeah, I've always gone back and forth about Mario 3 and Super Mario World.

I feel like are always kind of neck and neck in terms of like, which I think the Super

Mario world takes it for me because there's something like kind of slippery about like,

like every level feels like an ice level in Mario 3, but it's also an incredible game.

And it feels like it's cool to see Mario reach that point on the NES and then like

where it goes on Super Nintendo and after that it's kind of amazing.

Yeah.

And the Super Mario All-Stars recreations of those first few games are beautiful.

Really pretty.

my first video game ever, which I guess technically was my sister's because as I mentioned before,

like I was born and my family already had an NES. And I feel like the Super Nintendo was Super

Nintendo and N64 were for kind of for both of us. Yeah. Gamecube was the first one where I was like,

this is for Steven. This is mine. Season of Steven. 2001 baby. Twilight's almost here.

But the first Mario we had was the Duck Hunt Super Mario Brothers combo, which was sick.

But I'm so used to the Mario All-Stars versions of them that when I've gone back and played,

like I have Mario 3 on the 3DS. Whenever I go back to the NES versions, I'm like, "Oh

man, why isn't the background fun? Where's the painting of Bowser?" I love the Super

Nintendo remakes of them.

They're beautiful and it's nice to have them all in one collection. Specifically, one of

of the things I was shouting out in one of the more recent videos I did. I don't even

know if it's out yet, but it was something to the effect of like, it's actually nice

to have started with the Super Mario All-Stars collection because you can get used to the

physics that they use for like all of those games in those recreations, because it's kind

of just like a recreation of all those games in the same engine. So you're not getting

any like slight tweaks or differences between any of them, which is kind of nice. So like

once you once you learn the arc of Mario's jump, you're set.

Unlike Mario 3D All-Stars where it's like the minute you're used to the parkour of 64

then they give you a big water gun.

Yeah, it's like how do you feel about shaking the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller?

I really enjoyed having all those games on Switch and I enjoyed our bonus about them.

But it's a bummer that that was like a temporary release.

And just comparing it to like the original All-Stars, it's just night and day.

You can feel the love and the celebration of Super Mario All-Stars.

Yeah. 3D All-Stars feels like not on the same level. Yeah. I don't use this phrase very

frequently, but it felt so much like a cash grab. Like it felt so much like, let's do

everything we possibly can to make as much money as we possibly can very, very, very

quickly. I mean, down to like the bad emulation of Mario 64 and stuff. It's like really upsetting.

Yeah. And I thankfully the like, I think the N64 stuff in general is a bit of a roll of

the dice on Switch, but thankfully this Super Nintendo,

if you subscribe to Nintendo Online,

the Super Nintendo collection is pretty great.

- Yeah, it's awesome.

- We talk about game preservation a lot,

and I'm glad there's a way to play all these games,

like Super Metroid, Super Mario World.

It's all wonderful.

- They just added Goldeneye to the N64 one recently.

- I can't, I just, look, I wanna die on my Perfect Dark

kill, but Perfect Dark made Goldeneye obsolete

in the early 2000s.

- Yeah, this has been, honestly, when Goldeneye

was announced to be coming to the Switch Online and also to Xbox Game Pass. I was just like

a whole new era of people with rose tinted glasses sitting down to play GoldenEye and

they're so excited to recapture some kind of like lost youth moment. And they're gonna

be so disappointed. Like I remember having that experience in high school at a certain

point when I went over to my friend's house with a huge group of friends and he was like,

guess what I have GoldenEye and four N64 controllers and we were like, Oh my god, let's recapture

our youth and we all sat down to play, we're like, this game is not very good.

Yeah, it was a great moment in time.

And I'm glad we all have that memory.

And like, how dare they show the truth to everyone?

You should have let all these people live, continue living a lie.

Yeah. And thinking about GoldenEye is at all fun.

You know what this sounds like now that we're saying it?

This is the one time that you and I are against game preservation.

Yeah, it's like they should not have brought GoldenEye to the future.

Get rid of GoldenEye.

Buy a copy and throw it into the ocean.

(laughter)

- We should all be playing Nightfire instead.

Nightfire is what Goldeneye wants to be.

- I have childhood memories of like showing up

to hangouts with Perfect Dark and people being like,

"Why didn't you bring Goldeneye?"

I'm like, "Because Goldeneye sucks.

"Perfect Dark is better.

"You could be an alien named Elvis.

"What else do you want?"

Anyway.

- So Marvel Snap, huh?

- So Marvel Snap, speaking of showing up to hangouts

and game preservation.

Marvel Snap has dropped

the ability to battle friends,

which I'll be honest.

I, you know, I've really enjoyed

Marvel Snap.

I think it has exceeded everyone's

expectations for a free-to-play

Marvel inspired card game on mobile.

Like I think it's genuinely

one of the best designed collectible

card games out there right now.

So much fun, despite the issues

with some of the monetization

and some of the ways progression flows

and some of the more questionable aspects of that design,

I do think it's clear that people

that actually work on the game really care about it

and are really loving updating it

and making sure that it's not a fad,

but it's a game that people can play

for a long period of time.

That's all great.

But I was starting to feel like maybe,

I was like, should I uninstall it?

Did I have my time with it already?

Is it over for me?

Is it joining Goldeneye in the seas of yesteryear?

In the seas of don't preserve this?

(laughing)

And then they introduced battling friends

and honestly, my friend Chris and I did a few battles

and we played through, we did the best two out of three

for each of our decks.

And then started sending each other ideas

and I'm like, oh fuck, I am fully back.

This is so much fun.

I think adding this feature was really important

because I think the fact that the only way to play

was ranked play, I think was kind of rubbing

some people the wrong way.

And like, I've never really cared about rank,

but it's hard not to sort of feel like shitty

about yourself on an unconscious level

when you just see like numbers going down

where you're just trying to have,

like I don't really, I'm not super competitive

with this game, like I don't really care,

but like there definitely needs to be a place

to at least experiment with new decks.

'Cause like when I make a new deck

and I wanna try it out, I like know I'm gonna go down

like three or five ranks just because like, yeah, I'm going to be testing it out. So you

feel like you're incentivized to not try new decks or at least you were before. Yeah, you're

right. That while ranked was the only thing that exists existed because so frequently

it would be like, oh, I'm making a new deck and then I would go look at my rank and it

would be like 59, you know? Yeah. Oh, I'm so close to 60. Okay, well, I'm not going

to try this deck out then until I hit or so thoroughly drop down past past 59, you know?

- Yeah, so basically how it works is

you can either choose to host or join a game.

And if you choose to host, it will send you a code

to send to somebody else.

And they type in that code and you'll go right into a match.

And the way it handles betting cubes,

which in ranked play is how your rank goes up or down.

It's sort of like poker.

It starts off as two, but if you're feeling confident,

you can raise the stakes.

The way it works with a friendly match

is you both have a health bar

And you can bet more and that will do more damage

to the person that loses the match.

So once the health is down, if you just do one-to-one,

you can get in 10 or so matches.

My math might be a little bit wrong,

but it's a good amount.

It goes down pretty slowly, but if you bet more,

if you bet eight, most of your health bar is gone.

- Yeah, right.

- But I've mostly just been doing two out of three

because I think that usually when you have three matches,

you wanna try out one of your other decks

and see how that does.

So it's just been really fun.

- I would love the option to switch decks in between hands.

- Yeah, I think they should add that.

But I think adding this feature

is definitely gonna keep the game alive for me

because with any era I've been in

where I've been into a collectible card game,

I like making decks and playing with friends

more than anything else.

- Yeah, same.

- When I was into magic, that's what I did.

And the minute, you know, I got into magic

my senior year of college,

and the minute I was faced with the reality

of just being a guy who plays magic

without a household of people who also play.

I'm like, I don't know if I feel incentivized enough

to keep doing this.

Like, I know I have other friends who still play,

but I'm just like, I feel like I can either like,

make this something I do forever or drop it now.

- Yeah, right.

- And you know, I do miss it.

And I think Marvel Snap is a nice way for me to like,

have that without spending as much money and time on it.

- Yeah.

- And I also got, speaking of Twilight,

I got the vampire mom variant of Jubilee,

which has inspired a whole new deck.

So I'm very excited about that.

That's great. Yeah. Yeah. Now that I'm post pools one, two, and three,

and I'm kind of like in this,

in this new era of collecting cards in a different way. Um,

I have gotten a couple of the like higher tier card unlocks recently.

I just got she Hulk who is unreal on real car.

I got super scroll who feels similarly frightening. Yes. Super scroll.

So silly. Yeah. Marvel snap is great. I,

I'm hoping that they release like a totally unranked mode eventually.

That's kind of my, I like that.

- Was that announced?

They said something like that, right?

Or did I imagine that?

- That might be true.

- Yeah.

- I probably shouldn't say anything else.

I don't know.

I don't know what's been announced, what hasn't.

- But yeah, I really like Super Scroll's smile

for some reason.

It does, his facial expression on that card

looks like whoever just played him is currently smiling.

It's like, you're fucked.

Very mischievous.

- Yeah, specifically, literally right now, today,

the day that we're recording this,

the hot location is one that doubles your ongoing powers.

And Super Scroll's thing is that he steals

all the ongoing powers from every card on the board.

- Every enemy card, yeah.

- So if you play him in that zone,

he's gonna be destructive.

(laughing)

- But he's fun, and I'm really impressed

with their commitment to making every card's ability

sort of match the vibe of the character.

- Totally, yeah.

- And Super Scroll is a character that either

you won't know is there 'cause you won't play him,

or is like the determining factor secret weapon.

Which from what I know about Skrulls,

their whole thing is they're kind of like shapeshifters

and they can pretend to be other people.

And that's exactly what they are.

That's the threat level in the comics as well.

Which is a lot of fun, I really like that.

- Yeah, they've been really smart about that stuff.

- Yeah. - Yeah.

Marvel Snap.

- It makes me think about if other things had a snap,

what certain characters would play as.

I've had fun just sort of imagining that.

Yeah, I'm wondering, I don't know if this is even in the car. I didn't mean to. Um,

it is even in the cards, but I could see a world in which, you know, the Walt Disney

company, like the larger Walt Disney company is like, okay, second dinner, you did a great

job with Marvel. Do it for star Wars, you know,

I want to make a kit Fisto deck. Okay, wait now. Now we're talking. What's kit Fisto's

power. He shows up in the second lane and then disappears.

(laughing)

- Oh, poor Kit.

Yeah, my deck is Ben Quaternero's Kit Fisto Uncle Owen.

(laughing)

The Death Star.

(laughing)

- Snoke.

- The cast of Rogue One.

- Yeah. - Yeah, Snoke.

God.

This is my lights out deck.

Just all the characters that have fallen.

It's morbid.

- Supreme Leader Snoke.

- It played in the same lane as Kylo Ren

splits into two cards.

- That's not a bad idea, kind of Arn and Zola-esque.

But yeah, I mean, I think going back to Marvel Snap,

I think that it's clear,

what I know about the development of the game,

like it wasn't originally Marvel,

like they just made this card game,

and it worked, and then Marvel acquired it later.

And I think that really shows,

I think it's not about,

this game is fundamentally is fun to play,

and it works, and the Marvel of it all is the flavor of it.

Like it doesn't have to be that to work.

- Yeah. - Which is cool.

- Yeah, it's good.

I would recommend it.

(laughing)

- We should play sometime.

Now though, my brand has been poisoned

because now, every now and then,

I'll just text one of my friends, "Duel?"

(laughing)

And that's like my new energy, I guess.

- Yeah, I've been playing the battle mode

with some of my coworkers, which has been really fun.

I think, we'll see.

I'm trying to set up an internal Marvel tournament.

- Oh, nice. - With like the people

Marvel games and the people at second dinner and stuff. I think that'd be really fun.

Anyway, that's right, dear listener. It's time to pivot. Play the pivot song, AJ.

I can't wait to hear what the pivot song is. We're talking Age of Empires 2.

- Age of Empires 2.

- With the ball, da-bang, da-bang,

tiki-tiki-tiki, so the boogie,

well, I'm chopped, the boogie.

- Got it in one.

We're talking Age of Empires 2, definitive edition.

Which I actually, I don't really have that much

to say about, if I'm being totally honest,

I just wanted to do a bit.

Age of Empires 2, a game for the personal computer

that came out, I think, in the early 2000s,

if I'm not mistaken.

Did you play any of the Age of Empires games?

- I feel like these were the games my friends had,

which sounds like a shitty backhand compliment,

I feel like I was really into civilization.

- Yeah.

- And I got the Age of Empires kick

just like hanging out with friends.

I remember really liking Age of Mythology.

- Yeah, Age of Mythology is sick.

- There was actually a Star Wars one.

There's like a Star Wars reskin of Age of Empires

that was also a lot of fun.

- Interesting, I didn't know that.

- I remember I made like dozens of Wookiees

and was unstoppable.

- Wow. - Yeah.

- I wanna know about this, hang on.

- I wonder if George saw that and he was like,

like we gotta do this in Revenge of the Sith.

Stevens onto something we hacked his data Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds. What year

is that? That must have been like the late 90s. That was it was 2001. Yeah. Okay. Yes.

Around around there. So that was like that was right when Phantom Menace is coming out.

Oh my God. Or Attack of the Clones. Yeah. Isn't it sick? This is still available on

PC. I wonder if it runs on Steam Deck. Hold on. We got to find out. We can't leave the

dear listener. They don't need to Google Proton DB. What's it called again? Star Wars Galactic

Battlegrounds. Okay, I have I have done the research I googled or I proton DB'd

Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds. It is considered gold on the Steam Deck. Hell

yeah. So it works just fine with some minor tweaks. Yeah, it looks like it runs

at really tiny resolutions and you need to download a mod to get it to run on

the Steam Deck screen. But when you do, it works. So there you go. That's really

exciting. Um, you're welcome. Anyway. Yeah. I'm glad you brought up civilization. I feel

like that's the closest analog to the age of X video game series. But what I would,

what I would say about the difference between the two, if you ever played civilization,

which I feel like is a much more popular franchise than the age of whatever games, but civilization,

I feel like is very macro, right? It's like looking at, you know, the entire world or

continents or like entire like entire civilizations, believe it or not.

Age of Empires is more about like the boots on the ground,

like actual people setting up and building.

It's kind of like Starcraft or Warcraft three or Warcraft two, where it's like

it's more it's an RTS game, right?

Rather than like a turn based strategy game.

So like the game always begins with you and like a couple of villagers

like setting up your town center and then building like a barracks and a farm,

you know, so you have like a soldier and a way of having of getting food. And then eventually

over the course of time, obviously you make your town bigger and bigger and bigger. You make your

way through the different ages, the different seasons, if you will. Wow. As you get into like

industrialization and things like that. It's very similar to civilization in that way, but it's

always told from the perspective of like individuals in the societies that you're building.

Instead of being like, I built this whole town. Now I'm going to build a trade route to this town.

Now I'm going to talk as a world leader to another world leader. It's more just like,

"No, I'm going to get a huge army. I'm going to command all of them to go, you know, fuck up this

one specific watchtower." Things like that. Yeah. Anyway, I really liked Age of Empires 2

when it first came out. I played it a lot way back when and then got Age of Mythology, I remember,

for Christmas one year and that was like all I did for like three days. Like I love Age of

Mythology. I think that that is probably the best game in that franchise. But interestingly enough,

they've remade Age of Empires 2 from the ground up and released it. They released it a while ago on

PC. But now it's also on console through Game Pass, which is cool, because I think they

also made an Age of Empires four, like they made they made a new one. Oh, that's available

on PC as well. But I just was curious, like pure nostalgia to check out Age of Empires

two, and it works really well on console. And that's really all I have to say about

it. Like it's on Game Pass, go check it out. If you're interested in games like that, go

through the tutorial is very silly. The story that they're trying to tell through the tutorial

is like, I don't know, it's like camp adjacent. So check that out. But uh, yeah, Age of Empires

2, definitive edition.

Did you find that it sort of reinforced your like love of the series or was it more to

sort of like fun to revisit?

It was more sort of fun to revisit. I think if they do the same kind of thing with mythology,

I will be super into it. Like I, as much as I like Age of Empires 2, the one that I always

think about is mythology. And that's the one that I would prefer, I think, if they were

ever to go revisit it. I'm actually, I'm more curious to check out 4 now. And I wonder if

that runs on Steam Deck. I'll check that out. Yeah, it's cool to hear that it worked well

on consoles. I feel like RTS has traditionally always been a little bit hard to bring over

to console. I remember my friend, my friend Ryan, I'll give you a shout out if you're

listening. He had only played StarCraft on N64. And I was like, I don't want to say you

did the wrong thing, but like you don't know what you're missing. It's actually really,

I mean, weirdly enough, Starcraft on N64 is pretty rare and pretty expensive.

And it's like easily the worst way to play Starcraft, but it's like kind of wild that it exists.

Just seeing the Taron Marine on a N64 cartridge is wild.

Yeah. It's kind of like some of the Orange Box stuff in a way.

Like, yeah, TF2.

Playing TF2 on Xbox 360, even in 2009, was depressing.

It was like me and four people waiting in a lobby for 20 minutes and then being like,

"Ew, it's the same people again."

Yeah.

I was a really, really, really big fan of the original Call of Duty.

I used to play it a lot on PC and they eventually ported it to Xbox 360 and it was similarly

like so disappointing to load it up and be like, "Wow, a really easy, approachable way

for everyone to play the first Call of Duty.

I bet everyone's going to love it."

Now that Call of Duty is a huge major franchise and there was like never anybody playing it.

So sad.

It was still cool to have the orange box on Xbox though cuz you had portal and half-life 2 as well

But yeah, I still have to get to yeah all these years later Stephen. Do you want to take one more break?

Yeah, one more season one more. Yeah, one more season left in me. I think that sounds good to me. Okay. Goodbye. Bye. Bye

Brendan we're back nice. I got another new game for you. Although this one's a little retro as well. Okay

It's a game called 8-bit adventures - this is actually also available for a lot of things

It's on ps5 switch ps4 Xbox one. I'm playing on the Steam Deck and on Steam

It's a it's a question mark for the Steam Deck, but it plays just fine

okay, so I've been enjoying it on the Steam Deck and basically it is a

purposely retro

JRPG that came out really recently like a few days ago. Yeah time of this recording. Yeah, it's really recent

You sent me a trailer and said this looks cool and I agreed and I got it.

And I have...

Oh wow, this is available on everything.

Yeah.

I'm like five-ish hours in, I would say.

And I think it's really great and I think it deserves way more attention than it's getting.

Obviously, there's some positive buzz around it, but I was excited to bring it to the show

because I think it's sort of synonymous with a lot of different conversations we've had.

I think we're at a time where making a game

that is a purposely retro RPG is not a bad idea,

but it's a really uphill battle to be noticed.

Because not only is that just a super popular genre of game,

for lack of a better word for it, in the indie scene,

but Square Enix themselves are also making

purposely retro RPGs of their own.

So not only are you competing against other indie developers,

but you're also working against Square themselves.

Like, this is not a situation where it's like,

oh, Nintendo used to make these kind of games,

but now they don't, so I will.

It's like, no, everyone on Earth is making these games.

And it doesn't have to be a competition,

but I just think, you know, we mentioned this too

with like Metroidvanias, with Souls-like mechanics.

It's like, it's just harder to stand out.

And I like using whatever power we have in the ether.

I like, you know, being able to bring attention

to some smaller games if we're able to do so.

- Yeah.

- So 8-Bit Adventures 2 is really interesting.

And I think I've made a lot of comparisons in my head

to Chained Echoes, which is another purposely retro RPG

that came out at the very end of last year,

but kind of everyone's counting it

as a this year game immediately.

I'm still pretty early on in Chained Echoes,

but I think it's interesting to see why, in my opinion,

Chained Echoes and 8-Bit Adventures 2

are working way better than say something like Lost Sphere, in my opinion.

And I think a lot of that boils down to like Chain Decos and 8-Bit Adventures 2 are both

pulling from a lot of stuff.

You know, I think like in the first hour of Chain Decos, like you can see like eight different

games and same with 8-Bit Adventures 2.

The main difference though, which I think is really interesting, and I think this is

not a better or worse scenario, but I think it's kind of like central to the identity

of both games and what they're doing uniquely.

Chain Deco's to me, and maybe this is not entirely accurate because I've only played

like the prologue, but already Chain Deco's, in my opinion, seems interested in deconstructing

and challenging tropes of those types of games.

Like it's really seeking to kind of challenge convention while also like existing within

those conventions.

8-Bit Adventures 2 just fucking loves conventions.

It's just like so pumped to be doing these things.

And because of that, it's just really charming and really earnest.

And I think it's also doing those types of things well.

So to kind of give you more context of what it is, I saw a pitch of it on, I think it

was a Reddit thread where someone who worked on the game was like plugging it and saying

what it was pulling from.

And they said the combat was inspired by Final Fantasy X, Mother 3, and Chrono Trigger, which

I would say I'm seeing that, but honestly, I'm getting a lot, and maybe because I just

played it, but I'm getting a lot of Final Fantasy V. Like, it feels very akin to V in

spirit, because it's kind of purposely simple, but it's really well done within that simplicity.

So the pitch of the game overall, like the setting of it is in this like JRPG fantasy

world and it begins with sort of like a Symphony of the Night opening where you play as like

a higher level overpowered character who's like a very kind of Dragon Quest chosen one

hero and they just kind of show you like, okay, here's like what combat is going to

eventually look like.

And the way combat works, the game itself kind of looks like a Game Boy Color game.

And then when you're in combat, you can definitely see the Mother or Dragon Quest influence because

all the characters have boxes on the bottom where there's a little sprite of their head

and what they're doing.

And then the enemy, you get a first-person view of the enemy and they're much more detailed.

And honestly, the artwork for the enemies is really stunning.

It's really cool.

And it really does a great job, I don't know, I guess adding stakes to what feels more like

a tongue-in-cheek, light-hearted adventure.

you're in battle and you see these enemies, very similar to what Mother is doing.

I was just about to say, I'm on their website right now, I'm looking at some screenshots

of it and it looks like they kind of took the Mother influence of having, you know,

whatever enemy you're fighting, big and in the middle of the screen.

Exactly.

And then have the sprites of all of your party members just kind of like hanging out on the

bottom.

Yeah, and the combat is turn-based and it's simple but it's really well done.

So you see the turn order, which is great, and basically every character seemingly has

a set class. I'm not sure if you can experiment, but so far I have two party members and every

character has a set ability that they can do cost free. And then they also learn like,

special attacks that use like mana equivalent. So the main character, Charlie, is this kid who his

ability that he can use cost free is attacking two enemies or attacking one enemy twice, but at half

the damage, but he also has a special ability where he does that but at full damage, but

it costs MP basically.

And then eventually there's also like an Omega ability where everyone has like a limit break

they can do, but there seems to be one shared meter.

So like when you have that meter full, you choose which character you want to use their

special ability.

So I think Charlie's special ability is he can attack all enemies and lower their defense.

And the other character I have, who I named Lucy, her ability is doing damage and blindness

and poison to one single enemy all at once.

So it's really very familiar stuff, but I think it's really well done, and I think it's

elevated by how good the music is.

Soundtrack to this game is incredible, and how good the enemy illustrations are, and

also just how modern the game feels.

Because in addition to stuff like seeing the turn order and doing a good job tutorializing

the combat. The game also has no random encounters, so all the enemies are visible on the map,

which is what Chrono Trigger does, and it's a pretty established convention at this point.

It's not as common as you would want it to be. But in addition to that, when you find

a save point at the end of a dungeon, you can choose to revive the enemies if you want

to grind more. So like, it gives you the best of both worlds.

Oh, that's a great idea.

Right? I think the trade-off of not having random encounters is like, it's harder to

to level up if you need to.

So the save points at the end of a dungeon

will give you that ability to revive enemies

and they'll also give you advice on the upcoming boss.

So the save point talks and they'll be like,

oh, well, for this fight, you wanna pay attention

to when you wanna defend and I'd recommend

looking for this item that was in the dungeon

you just completed.

Which I think is just a really nice addition

and it's nice that it's optional

if you don't wanna have that much information,

But like, I think it prevents some of the points of tension

in older games like this, where like,

you just don't know if something's gonna happen

and then suddenly you're like team wiped because of it.

I think there's a lot of really great design.

You can tell the people who made this

like really, really know and love these types of games

and they're really being selective

at like what they want to bring forward.

And I have to say that the writing

is really surprisingly good.

Not that I expected it to be bad,

but I think when you hear,

I think the title of it, for me, for unfair reasons,

I just thought it was gonna be more simple

or maybe more like meta in some ways.

But it's honestly like all the characters

are really endearing and it's a really funny script.

And the only thing about it where I'm like

a little bit on the fence is like

there's something undertale-y happening here.

And I'm not sure how big that is,

but like the way the plot kicks off is

you have that opening where you play

as like the ultra powerful character

And then there's like a weird glitch

and there's this creepy kid that asks,

do you wanna play with me?

And then it cuts out.

And then it goes to Charlie, who's in this school

and he's taking a recent history test

where it just sort of recaps like who the heroes

of 8-Bit Adventures 1 were.

- Oh, okay, yeah.

- And it's honestly a really fun introduction

to those characters, but you get to name them.

So I named them, there's a knight, a thief and a mage.

And I named them like knockoff versions

Final Fantasy characters names. So it's Clyde, Lucy and Fela. Which honestly, it works perfectly.

What's really fun is that Charlie is like the 17 year old kid who's like very headstrong

and wants to leave this kingdom and see the world. And he like idolizes these three heroes.

And it honestly works. You don't really need to know what happened in 8-Bit Adventures

1. And I honestly think it works better not knowing that because I just like the idea

"Okay, in this world, there are these three famous heroes

"that already saved the world."

- It reminds me of "Moon" a little bit.

- Yeah, definitely.

But in the history test, it was like,

"These three heroes were chosen by an entity

"named the Computer to save the world from this threat."

And there's lingering mentions of the Computer,

and there's actually, eventually,

Lucy is your first party mate,

and you sneak on a pirate ship together,

which reminded me of "FF5,"

And you can ask her to recount the events of 8-Bit Adventures 1 to you.

And she does that.

And when you see the computer, it like literally has Flowey's face.

Like it has that like smiley face.

Oh.

So I'm like, it's, it doesn't, like, I can see it adding to the story and I'm

excited to see what elements that is.

But like, that was the one kind of reference where I'm like, this is a

little bit too one-to-one for me.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Having kind of like a meta character, like literally be, like, I know it's

just a smiley face, like Undertale doesn't own that, but like, it really is like exactly

Flowey's face.

Yeah.

Um, so I'm like a little bit nervous about how much that's going to play into it, but

I'm also impressed at how much of the story so far is just like straight up doing the

fantasy stuff and basically Charlie trying to get the original gang back together and

seeing the world by extension.

But like it's, it's really charming and it really does the classic stuff well.

And I think it's cool to see a game like this and Shandecos kind of exist side by side.

Not that Shandecos is like dismissing that history, but it's trying to to really challenge

convention and see what else is possible.

And I think 8-Bit Adventures 2 is trying to see like what what was left behind that is

worth bringing back and maybe doing it a more modern way.

So I would highly recommend it.

I think it's a lot of fun.

I'm really impressed by it.

Yeah, it sounds really good.

I picked it up.

noting actually it's only available on PC at the moment. So also Steam Deck.

But apparently the ports to literally every other console are coming sometime towards

the end of the year. That might explain why there's not as much

buzz as I assumed there would be. I imagine when it comes to all the consoles, there will

be more word of mouth. Yeah, we can be early risers in this case.

Yeah it looks great. I really honestly just looking at the screenshots on the website,

I was really impressed by how much information they're able to convey on the screen, given

the like, obviously very purposeful, paired back art direction, because it has to like

fit the kind of like Game Boy Color aesthetic, even like the way that they're able to display

the turn order, I think looks really like remarkably clean, right? cleaner than some

games that are like, you know, fully featured triple A huge things, which is also some really

fun sequences like when they introduce all the heroes in the first game there are these

dramatic panels and then when they introduce the thief they're like that's kind of dismissive

to call like one of the heroes of time a thief and then they cross out thief and write like

hero and then her sprite like winks at the camera like this stuff like that is a lot

of fun.

That's great.

There's also some like Mother 3 or like Earthbound style NPC interactions like on the boat you

can talk to these two NPCs that are at a table and they're like dude we're on a date right

now. Like, why do you have to constantly talk to everybody? You're ruining our big shot

here. And then there's another guy who's like, you know, I really miss being a pirate. Like

being a sailor is cool. It's like more ethical, but I really miss saying things like "Yar

har" and "Yo ho" and he's like, do you want to just fire a cannon with me? So like, I

think the writing is really fun and really clever. And I'm just hoping it doesn't get

too meta. Because I think that like, I like the fact that there's something going on with

the computer. It's mysterious and it's interesting, but I don't want that to like completely obliterate

what they're doing this genuinely well with the fantasy of it all.

Yeah, not not to, I guess, relitigate a conversation from last week, but it sounds a little bit

like if it goes down that route, it could be kind of similar to the first spoken situation

where it's like, no, you actually just like made a cool world here. Yeah, right. And I

just want to live in it and you don't need to undercut it. It doesn't need to be, you

know, that wild, um, yeah, that, that'd be very interesting. I mean, I, I think I'd be

along for the ride if they tried it, you know, because obviously there are like ways to make

that compelling and good and execute it well, but I appreciate that you're already enjoying

where it's at, even though it's like playing into stereotypes.

Yeah. And I think at the very least, like if that overtakes it, like I trust that the

character interactions will still be there, you know? And I mean, the cast right now is

just two. I'm really excited to see who else joins the party. Um, there are some like childhood

friends. And that's the thing too, like Charlie is like in some ways kind of a typical like

shonen-esque protagonist, like a headstrong, you know, young man. But like he has some

really interesting relationships with other people like immediately. Like he has this

friend Emma who's like sort of the more pragmatic of the two and she's like a better student.

He's constantly failing his classes because he just wants to like go be an adventurer.

And he trains with like the head guard who like you can tell the captain like really

admires this kid's tenacity, but he also has to be the disciplinarian. And with Lucy, the thief,

one of the heroes, he really looks up to her and can tell she's nervous about something.

So there's already some... It's not super nuanced, but I just think there's more going on than there

would be in one of the games this is based on. You know what I mean? Other than Chrono Trigger.

I think like, like FF5 has like more than you expect narratively, but like it is very

much more interested in you having like a fun time.

This game I think is more interested in like giving these characters a little bit more

depth than they would be given in maybe like one of these retro games.

Yeah, that's great.

I love that.

It's cool.

Yeah, I'm excited to check it out.

You and I both have homework this week.

We both have homework.

The season of 8-bit.

The season of homework.

Yeah.

Oh, also, I guess worth noting, I haven't played 8-bit adventures one.

It seems like from the reviews I've read, you don't really have to.

Like there are some Easter eggs and of course, like they are, you know, the heroes of the

first one are in this game.

It seems like, I mean, the first one came out and I think 2015 and clearly had like

less of a production budget.

Like it looks more like an NES game.

So I think you could probably jump into this one with no issues.

Maybe one day I'll go back and see how the first one was, but it seems like too is like

their, their dream fully realized.

Yeah.

Cool.

Yeah.

excited about it.

It's a good time.

Yeah.

You got anything else?

No, that's it.

I've had a little less time for games this week because I'm simultaneously preparing

for our Ocarina bonus, Ocarina of Time I should say, as well as our 3DS episode.

So I've been like trying to chip away at my backlog there in addition to some life stuff

happening.

So nothing too much more.

There's a lot that I'm looking forward to playing, which I'm excited about.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Same here.

I mean, I've been pretty inundated with all the other stuff that we're doing and also

just playing a lot of Persona 4 still. I mean, I'm always down to do a catch up on Persona

4 Golden. Yeah, maybe maybe when I get further in, because I feel like I'm building out the

party right now, which is great. Yeah. Well, in that case, I guess we should wrap up then.

Yeah, I guess so. You know, the drill. First of all, thank you so much for listening into

the cast that online is your hub for everything places to rate and review the show like Apple

podcast or Spotify. Also links to our YouTube and Twitch. We've been streaming a little

bit more. I finally returned to my maddening run in the Golden Deer in Three Houses. So

that will like appear occasionally and you've been doing your Mario playthroughs, which

has been fun. That sounded like an insult. I didn't mean it. You've been doing your little

Mario videos. So that's all there. If you want to support us on Patreon, that would

be incredible if you're able to. And like we said, we have our 3DS episode upcoming

for that. I also think the rumors of a Nintendo Direct happening, I imagine we'll do something

for that on the Patreon or maybe for everyone, but expect something on that if it's like

eventful.

My guess totally out of totally, you know, just a shot in the dark is that we will know

when the Nintendo direct is going to happen by the time this episode comes out. That's

I think that's fair. Yeah, me, my, my, my, I don't know. I think I think by if we're

recording this Sunday, February 5th, I think by Monday or Tuesday, there will be like a

and I directed the end of the week or next week. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And then everyone

be like dude, Silksong and then it's gonna be like no, it's a wrestling game.

I'm looking forward to WWE Smackdown remake.

Yeah, just bring it but it's all shaded this time.

Well thank you so much for listening.

My name is Brendon Bigley.

You can find me on the internet period.

I'm Stephen Hilger.

You can find me during the season of New Moon.

Yeah, Team Edward.

Team Edward.

Are you also Team Edward?

I didn't ask you.

Oh yeah, very much.

Yeah.

I'll be watching all the wrestling.

Thank you, Edward.

Thank you, Edward.

Goodbye.

Bye, bye.

TWG, the worst garbage dot online.

Bye.

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