And You Will Feel My Flames of Fate | The Big Deal

[00:00:04] Step into Video Game Land Welcome to Hello, party people. It's your boy Dre, and I am here with my boy Steve.

[00:00:33] It is good to be here, a guest on this show, Andre. Thank you for joining me, Steve. I'm so glad you're a very frequent guest to fine time. Well, you know how it is, you know, when you're desperate for work. What is that? What do I mean? Huh? Who said that? Nobody said that. Kevin is not here to be jealous at me calling Steve my boy because very last minute he had to ditch again.

[00:00:59] But don't worry, he's not in any trouble. He's not like, you know, in the hospital dying or something like that. It's just, you know, sometimes family duty calls. But the reason why I'm telling you guys this is because we have never had to scramble this much last minute to put a show together when someone's been out. So we're just we're apologizing up front. I'm apologizing on behalf of my guest, Steve, too.

[00:01:26] Like this may be a little bit of a mess sometimes, but bear with us today, please. Fine time. Ninety nine had to be scrapped and restarted development at the last second. No, I'm just kidding. Oh, my God. You can't tell people the numbers. Oh, they see the numbers. I don't think they can. They can see the number of episodes on their podcast feed.

[00:01:52] And I don't know, man, there's a lot of other stuff in there. We also had weeks where all we did was talk about cinematic platformers or, you know, dark side by two. Anyway, yeah, we're just apologies for any rough spots today. That's all. You know, we try to keep it real with you guys so that that's what's going on. We were going to come on here and talk Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, but we didn't really want to do that.

[00:02:21] Without Kevin, all three of us played that game. So we're going to hold that off until a later date. What I am going to talk about, though, and I guess I'll go first this time. Actually, you know what? Usually I say the name and then I play a little sounder. I'm not going to do that this time. I want I want the name to come later. So I'm going to play the sounder right now. How's that, Steve? I'm switching it up.

[00:02:50] What's the fucking game? I can't figure out. I don't stress anymore. Oh, my God. OK, chill, chill. Have a chill pill. Do we still have those? I know it's not the 90s, but wasn't that just wasn't that just, you know, backdoor talk for crack or whatever? I thought you were going to say Xanax or something. I don't know. OK, I don't know. No, I don't. I don't think. No, I think take that's like a California.

[00:03:20] Take a chill pill, bro. Like that type of shit. Yeah, we had weirdos in New York say that for a time, too. We didn't really it never landed quite as well. That made that out there, too. Well, that's what was always funny about the turtles, right? Because it was like they're from New York and they have those accents. But then they had all the radical tubular cowabunda shit, you know, so it was it was weird.

[00:03:44] Well, you know, you'd have you'd have the adults who learned how to be hip from tapes, you know, that taught you how to be hip with the children. And they would tell you to take a chill pill and be like, what the hell are you talking about, lady? This is 1997. I haven't taken a chill pill in years, please. OK, so let's get into the game since you're so anxious. OK, Steve.

[00:04:07] So some time ago, I don't know, a couple of months ago, I would say I turned on pinball FX on my PlayStation five video game console for the first time in a long time, because that pinball feeling never really leaves you, Steve. You know, I know you like pinball, too. Maybe not as much as me, but, you know, sometimes you just get in the mood and nothing else will do. Pinball is nice. Yeah. Yeah. So I just I had that craving.

[00:04:34] So I turn on pinball FX and I notice there's a trio of new tables, not new tables necessarily. I'll get into more about that in a second. But new tables from Bethesda IPs. I'll get to what those are in a second, but I click on the DLC for the Bethesda trio and I notice the first line says this purchase also entitles you to the pinball M version of the DLC. And I was like, oh, shit, that's right.

[00:05:05] Do you remember that? You remember me covering pinball M a few years ago, right? Or no? Not super well. Maybe quickly reiterate for me. OK, yeah. Well, I mean, I was going to reiterate for the audience anyway. So now you are the audience, too. So for those who don't remember, pinball M is an alternate packaging of pinball FX that has an ESRB rating of mature.

[00:05:34] So because pinball FX is rated teen, which is fine because, you know, you can get a lot of stuff in there now. But pinball M means that you can do stuff like Duke Nukem or Chucky or Dead by Daylight while actually getting to be true to those IPs and not under a teen rating. You get to go full. That's right. Remember that? OK, yeah. So and it was a really cool proposition. So, you know, I had fun playing that.

[00:06:02] So, yeah, the three Bethesda IPs in this package in pinball FX were Doom, like modern Doom, like 2016. Right. Fallout and Skyrim, specifically Skyrim, not like Elder Scrolls or something. And then I was like, OK, like, why the hell would I play this on pinball FX when I could just play this uncensored on pinball M? Right. So I shut down the pinball FX.

[00:06:27] I load up pinball M and it starts updating because, of course, it's been a while since I played it. And this is when I discover that pinball M is no longer called pinball M. It is now pinball FX midnight. Oh, that's hot. Yeah. I don't know when they made that change, but yeah, it is. Pinball M is now pinball FX midnight.

[00:06:53] I don't know if it's dedicated or sad that we're going to have those kinds of IP for both midnight and for babies. Well, I want to play the Doom pinball machine. Doink, doink, doink, doink, doink. No, honey, you can't play that. You can't play that midnight. It's got the end. You know, you see the guy with the chainsaw has just got like the cover on there. So it's like. Yeah.

[00:07:23] So, yeah, you're right. Pinball FX midnight makes it sound a lot sexier than it actually is. But yeah. Pinball FX after dark or something. Yeah. But yeah. Yeah. Pinball FX midnight. It is. So, OK, let's start with that Bethesda trio. OK, so of course I went for Doom first because I wanted to see how they might go out all out on Doom. Right.

[00:07:48] So you can choose hurt me plenty or nightmare before you start, which is very interesting. I don't think I've ever had a pinball table ask me my difficulty level before I started. But here we are. But hey, I guess that's the kind of thing you can do when you're doing video pinball. Right. So I launched the ball with my bloody chainsaw that access the plunger. Right.

[00:08:11] Just zoom and into the vicinity of a fully animated cyber demon that's occupying like the better half of like the top right play field, you know, and he's like really animated. And you know what? That's always the fun of pinball FX. Right. Because you get these really fantastical touches from what is ostensibly a quote unquote like real pinball table because it looks and acts like a real one for the most part.

[00:08:41] You know, this isn't like full on video pinball like your devil's crusher. What are the what are the recent indie Xeno tilt or like devil's tilt or, you know, those. Yeah. Yeah. It's not like that where it's just like here is a flat thing on a you know, you're playing video pinball crazy pinball. This is a fully model 3D rendered ass like pinball table like it's real. You know, it's like sitting in a room and stuff before you hit start to play or whatever. And it's like with the back glass and everything.

[00:09:11] And it has like that typical dot matrix orange display and everything that shows your score and all the, you know, little animations and stuff and all those kind of touches, which is great. It's trying to make it as authentic as possible while also having fantastic touches. Like I said, you have a full animated cyber demon up there and then you have like tricks with the ball itself.

[00:09:38] Like the ball does warp sometimes like you do in doom. You go into a warp and you go somewhere else or there's a part. There's like a thing where the ball can go into lava and it'll come out like superheated. So you have this like molten ball of lava that you're hitting around for a while until it cools off. And I think shit like that is really fun. It's like you're getting the best of both worlds. I'm getting because like I have no problem with video pinball. I love stuff. I particularly love Xenotilt. I like Devil's Tilt a lot. Xenotilt is even better.

[00:10:08] I don't know if you played the sequel yet, but I didn't get to. No. Yeah, it's so much. It's so good. So much better. I like stuff like that, but I also really crave real pinball. But this gives you just a couple of fantastic touches, too, where it's just it just feels great to play and it just looks great, too. So it just again, best of both worlds. I think that's what's great about pinball FX or in this case, pinball FX midnight. The thing is, though, the doom pin doesn't do a whole lot for me.

[00:10:38] It's OK, but for one reason or another, I'm not really feeling it. It's really hard to describe why pins hit for you or not, as you could probably imagine. I like this one. I don't really like this one. Right. It's it's kind of tough to describe without getting really into the weeds on it, which I'm not going to bore everyone with today. But what I did like a lot more than doom was the fallout pen because it's like really small and compact. And there's a super mutant just talking shit to you the whole time.

[00:11:07] Like that's kind of the whole premise of the pen. It's like you are the vault dweller against this one super mutant. All the all the various like bonuses and modes you can get to trigger on that table revolve around that, which is a lot of fun. It's really fun when a super mutants just you little puny human. Where did you go? I'm going to shoot you now. And he's like shooting the literal table, you know, and it could like zap your ball and shit. It's fun.

[00:11:35] We need we need more games to taunt the player. We don't do that so much anymore. Yeah, we need more taunting, more taunting in video games, if you ask me. Yeah, missed opportunities anyway. Yeah, but the Skyrim pen is pretty good, too. It's also kind of compact and some fun like dragon flybys who I assume is still voiced by Charles Martinet. You know, just just blazing fire on the on the field of play and stuff. And it's it's good stuff.

[00:12:04] Here's the problem. None of these pins are doing anything particularly salacious and worthy of being in pinball FX midnight. Outside of like a couple things in Doom, like I said, there's like the bloody chainsaw or whatever that launches. You have the cyber demon shoot and shit. The content is pretty tame on these Bethesda pins across the board. So why are they here?

[00:12:33] Well, originally, these Bethesda pins were made for pinball FX three, which is like many, many years ago, like before the current version known rebooted as pinball FX. Right. That where they started over in Unreal Engine five and stuff. So these pins are really old. And as you may remember, pinball FX three was rated E 10.

[00:12:54] And as you probably know, this caused problems when they started getting real pins from like Williams and Midway and stuff because they had to cut cigars out of fishtails. So they had to like, you know, yeah, this means they couldn't even do stuff like bright of pin bot or the Elvira pins. They didn't even touch them because it's like, what are we what are we going to do? Our package is already rated E 10. We can't do anything about it. That's also partially why they made pinball FX and rebooted it.

[00:13:23] So you give you rated teen and then they can have that stuff right with no more, no more edits. But when you try to port pins over that weren't originally made with a mature rating in mind, it can come off as pretty goddamn tame compared to the rest of the offerings here. Because like I said, if you remember last time I covered Duke Nukem, the thing and Chucky and like that, which went full out with the gore and like the movie quotes from Chucky and the thing and stuff.

[00:13:53] And well, you know what those movies say, right? So and that that's in the pen and that's why it was fun. The the Bethesda tables were just not made with that in mind. So, yeah, I'm sure they added more stuff to Doom that they could have gotten away with in the E 10 package years and years ago, obviously, but not really very. I'm not feeling the midnight, Steve, from these.

[00:14:18] So these there's no difference between playing this in the midnight package and playing this in an FX. I don't know. I guess I could if I had more time, I would have researched that I could have played it in pinball FX. I'm not sure. I would imagine there is less gore if you played it in basic bitch pinball FX and Doom anyway, because like I said, that's chainsaw is pretty bloody and the cyber demons doing stuff and it's pretty gross looking like it is in the game.

[00:14:45] Maybe you could get away with that in a teen rating and a package overall where, OK, it's just one table that does that. It's not a huge deal. I don't know. But I if this were if this were in pinball FX proper with no edits, I wouldn't be surprised. I'll put it that way. And to me, that kind of defeats the purpose of pinball FX midnight. Yeah, that's man. Maybe this isn't so hot after all. Oh, don't worry.

[00:15:14] I'll I'll get you hot in a second. OK, I'm going to get you hot right now because. No, I'm not in the mood anymore. Oh, I'm going to get your ass in the mood because here's the good news. There are a couple new pins here and they are great and they're very worthy of pinball FX midnight. One of them is called Camp Bloodbrook, which as far as I know, it's not based off of any license, but it certainly is your classic 80s slasher movie motif.

[00:15:42] That isn't actually a movie, but it sure acts like it is one. And it's a great one. It's really cool. There's all sorts of you know what I like in pinball when it's based off of all sorts of zippy lanes. There's just like seven or eight of them. You just zip through a whole bunch of them. If anyone out there or Steve, you know, the pen medieval madness, a classic. OK, it's kind of like that.

[00:16:08] Maybe not quite as good as that, because I mean, quite honestly, this is just my snobbery. I don't think any video pinball can be quite as well designed as those 80s and 90s pens. But I mean, yeah, I mean, look, I'm not expecting that either from pinball FX midnight. But look, this is really good, though. The fact that I'm even making a remote comparison to something like medieval madness shows you that this is legit, you know, and it's just this girl. And it's the whole they have a little talking piece before it starts.

[00:16:35] Oh, I just wanted to go to camp with my friends like any normal teenager. But then this guy showed up, you know, like that they're playing it up. It's again, it's an 80s slasher motif. OK, maybe I'm a little hot again. OK, see, I told you it gets you a little hot. But here's this might get you hotter, depending on how much you care about this. The other new one that's great is the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I don't think I have to explain that to anybody.

[00:17:05] I think that's as famous as horror movies get. But did they do it? Oh, they do. They do everything. It's great. It's perfect for pinball FX midnight. Your ball can hit against this like bag of unidentified flesh as it like tries to zip through the lanes and it makes that, you know, that terrible sound. The side bumpers near the flippers give off these like really gratuitous sprays of blood for no particular reason other than just it's fun, you know?

[00:17:33] And like everything has these like squishy and squelchy sounds to it when you hit every bumper, when you hit every everything. And it's very it sounds gross. I love it. There's all sorts of clips, too, from the movies. OK, stay here. I'll go check. And like stuff like that. Or, dude, are you OK? And stuff like maybe not, dude, because I don't know when this came out, the 70s. But, you know, stuff like that. I don't know. Did they say dude in the 70s? Sure. I think I feel like they did. OK, so I'm not sure.

[00:18:03] I'm just trying to think of like my 70s movie knowledge and I'm not sure. I feel like we start hearing dude in the 80s, but we definitely heard it more in the 80s. Maybe it's like a California thing in the 70s and then I'm like kind of spread. I don't know. Well, the origins of dude is probably the Wild West. No, right. So that's why I say California. That's why I say California. And then like, you know, spread spread east.

[00:18:25] But yeah, there's even like a giant chainsaw, obviously, because it's a Texas Chainsaw Massacre that will like kill like, quote unquote, kill your ball. If you if you get in the way with it, it'll like literally and like slice your ball and like blood goes everywhere because you're bald and bleed. Apparently it's so silly. You know, it's so it's so ridiculous. But that's why it's fun. It's so over the top, bloody and disgusting and fun. And that's exactly what I want from pinball FX midnight.

[00:18:55] You know. It's also kind of tough, too. It's a real tough pen. You ever play Star Trek The Next Generation? You ever play that? It's been a minute, but yeah. OK, that shit's hard. Yeah. Yeah, that's a notorious notoriously hard pen. It's like as hard as that. It's tough. So it's yeah. Anyone out there who has ever played that pen, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Yeah. But I don't know. That's about all I really got to say about pinball effects. But not.

[00:19:24] I had, you know, a couple the Bethesda stuff was kind of disappointing. Not to midnight. But the other two plate I played were good. There's a system shock table that I did not buy that I have not tried yet. And I want to try that, too. I hope. Yeah, that could be, you know, that's a good rated mature series. That could be fun. I would imagine. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. So I'll definitely give that a shot, too. Hopefully it's based off of like the visually based off of like the 20.

[00:19:54] What is a 2023 2024 version? Yeah. That would be great. But yeah, I would imagine that's what I would imagine. That's when it came around anyway. So it probably is. So, yeah, enough about pinball for me. So that's that's what I got. Pinball FX. Did I bring you back to getting hot? Mostly. Yeah. Okay. Well, we'll take a shower later. Maybe.

[00:20:35] Guys, I know you've been listening. Well, I'm assuming if you're listening, you've been listening. I've been playing the shitty games. And then I finally put my foot down and said, no more shitty games for the time being. I'm going to play something else. For right now. And then, yeah, for the time being until the next time. And then I looked at the calendar like, oh, Yoshi. Yoshi's mysterious book is the other week. And then Andre got mad at me for not reading the calendar right for him.

[00:21:05] Because it snuck up on my ass. I was like, wait a second. It's coming out like now. What are you talking about? It snuck up on my ass too. All right. But that didn't stop me from in the meantime, having already started and finishing days before. Or a medium-ish game called Star Ocean First Departure R.

[00:21:33] I've been sitting on this one for a while now. It's been going on sale fairly recently too. And that's, Andre's like, oh, I like this game. So I guess I'm already hearing his mind meld going, oh, I guess that's four bad games in a row. So I look, yeah, it's known. I do not like Star Ocean. I've tried a bunch of them and I just cannot. I just cannot get into them. I just can't.

[00:22:01] But, you know, a lot of people like them. But you know what? This is absolutely counting as my cleanser from these other games. And the short answer is it's a B. This first entry is a B for me overall. But I should probably give a primer for some people on what the hell is a Star Ocean. Because the original was published by Enix in 1996 when members of Wolf Team weren't thrilled with how Tales of Fantasia development was going.

[00:22:29] So then they formed Tri-Ace with the goal of making their own Tales of Fantasia with Blackjack and hookers. And forget the hookers and the blackjack. No, really. That's what they did. And that's what First Departure and First Departure are. For Super Nintendo. Yes, they did that for Super Nintendo. But then we have First Departure and First Departure are. They made revisions of the first game for international audiences for the first time. We didn't get the Super Famicom version.

[00:22:58] But I could have sworn there was a PS1 port. But no, there was no PS1 port. They skipped right to the PSP. You learn a lot of things doing research for fine time. Fine time. Fine time. Fine time. Let me just hit the button. Fine time. So what are we doing in Star Ocean? Well, you're Erotic, a kitty sword guy who lives on Planet Roke with kitty white mage Millie because it's 1996. And then that's the date. You're both Cat Man and Cat Woman?

[00:23:27] I thought they were monkeys, but I think they're really supposed to be cats. Like human evolution things. Okay. Not quite there yet. Is it like Dragon Ball Z where there's just random pig people and dog people? No, these people are all this thing on this planet. And you're working for your local security adventure guild thing until your planet's infested with a disease that turns people into stone.

[00:23:56] And Rogue hasn't invented gold needles yet. So it's pretty hopeless until the cast from Not Star Trek arrives to colonize. I mean, help the situation. But oh man, the situation's real fucked because all the sci-fi doodads can't help because patient zero for whatever's causing this thing just vanished 300 years ago. So you gotta hop through Not Stargate to start the game for reals an hour or so in so you can hunt down this fucker for a vaccine.

[00:24:26] Additional JRPG shenanigans ensue when you pair off with the sci-fi brawler lady and you lose the white mage in the time hole. It's not complicated, I swear. That's a lot. I mean, I remember when I first tried Star Ocean 3 for PS2, a lot happened in the eight hours that I tried to choke down and I was just like, nah, I think I'm good. So what are we really doing?

[00:24:53] We're doing Tales of the Sci-Fi, but on Super Nintendo, but on the PSP, but on the Nintendo Switch. I mean, not exactly. I mean, I know Andre keeps expressing his distaste and I'm not recalling why at the moment. Can you express why in particular real quick? I don't like Star Ocean. Yeah. Well, I've never played this particular first game, obviously, because it never came here until this version you're talking about.

[00:25:19] But all the other ones I've tried, I just don't like the characters. They're either mad boring, like Star Ocean 2 legitimately made me fall asleep. That might be the first game that ever made me completely conk out. Star Ocean 3, they were just obnoxious. I couldn't stand those people. They were so annoying. Star Ocean 4, same thing. Do you remember a couple years ago when we tried Star Ocean 6 or whatever it's called for PS5 demo? Remember we tried that? Yeah.

[00:25:48] And I was like, I'm not really into these people either. I know it's just a demo, but it's usually the characters for me with Star Ocean. I just don't like them. Okay, so I'm way off base because I'm sitting here going through this game and I'm coming up to the same conclusion that with discourse that popped up around Kirby Airwriters. Star Ocean is a sickos game.

[00:26:14] We're not just going around town to town solving the locals problems, buying new shit and moving on to the next thing. There's a small laundry list of skills that you pull skill points into as you level up and you're going to utilize as much of them fuckers as you can. Not only to get the most out of the game, just to have any hope of finishing it at all.

[00:26:37] And it's okay because it's not terribly stingy with the level ups and it's going to give you a decent amount of stat points to fling at shit. But as long as you're not running away, I mean, what are you, a bitch? But your basic shit. The only games where I'm a bitch is Megaten. Otherwise, I'll stick it out. Yeah. I mean, as long as you're smacking books around, you're fine.

[00:27:02] But your basic shopping trips and stuff you pick out in caves or whatever, they'll get you around. But you are not going to finish Star Ocean this way. And this game does not guide you through anything at all. There's no tutorials or nothing. I'm presuming the manual it came with might have given you the gist of things. But if you're playing Star Ocean First Departure today, and hey, you might be. It keeps going on sale.

[00:27:30] It was recently on sale the other week for $10. It might be sitting on a SD card or drive of yours right now. I mean, if that's the case for you, you are going to need some of the robust guides that sickos that have come before us have already written out to teach you things like how things like smithy and expressory, expressory, accessory crafting really fucking work.

[00:27:56] Because it's not just a matter of jam points in the thing and make numbers go up because that makes you good. It's a thing to figure out who's really supposed to have the things and who you give the things to. And if you really want money to invest in the finer parts of these things, you better have boned up on your mineralogy, herbology, archaeology, religion. What's that? Oh, my God.

[00:28:26] OK, well, so here's I thought this whole time that this was like a modern remake of Star Ocean. So this is just a straight up port. It's a port. They like upgrade the art and things and for the character portraits. And I think, well, I'm assuming it runs better than the Super Nintendo version.

[00:28:47] But so is it like a you know how like Square did like Romancing Saga two and three kind of like straight up Super Nintendo ports, but a bit enhances it like that or. I think it's it doesn't you know, they're they're touched up. Yes. OK. OK, there's a bit more going on to it than that. But for all intents and purposes, this is just Star Ocean one with more going on under the hood.

[00:29:13] I guess the reason why I ask it, because I guess I'm just surprised they would release this onto the people this way. Look, I'm for this. You know me. I don't I don't like the sanding off the rough edges of RPGs, especially. Well, I don't like it in any game, but I especially don't like it in RPGs. You know that I've came on the show and bitched about that plenty. So I'm surprised they didn't like Dragon Quest seven reimagined this game or something. You know, maybe not with the graphics, but with the systems.

[00:29:43] But they didn't. No. Wow. I mean, they didn't even redo it from the PSP revision. So and I would imagine this port is kind of based off of their work on PSP already. So, yeah, that's first departure. This is first departure are who? Oh, no. Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah. Interesting. Anyway, I'm sorry. Go on. And, you know, I did all that.

[00:30:10] I everyone became an expert in many, many things over the course of the game. And I know for a fact there's shit I missed. It's just the way the game's built. There's eight party slots. I ended the game on seven. I know there's someone that could have went in there. I know there's someone that could have went in there. The smithing guide in particular had a few someones that could have went in there.

[00:30:30] So I know there's I'm sure there were different choices I was supposed to make in places or I'm sure I was supposed to wander all the way back to bumfuck somewhere to find someone for no discernible reason. And a long time ago, I might have game fact. Why the hell I have this girl's ocarina? And if she wasn't going to organically show up again. But today I'm okay with someone more dedicated telling me how bad I am at star ocean. I mean, this was a silly time overall, really.

[00:31:00] I mean, the Star Trek captain learns magic. I mean, space magic or whatever the game calls it off screen because of his dead wife and white mage ladies like, oh, you should like feel the thing is that the stars are like, okay. And he's like learns all the magic off screen before we were, you know, the poor. Okay, fine. He's the black mage now. Fine. Sure. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. The ghost of his dead wife encourages him to learn space magic.

[00:31:27] No, we just find out that he's like more in tune with shit because of his den. He's like more open to learning things because his wife's dead. Okay. Okay. Star ocean is fucked up. Everybody. Can you can you tell? Well, I mean, we get a lot of weird line reads from this to like video or rain. Because, you know, this this is tales adjacent.

[00:31:53] So we're going to just stop shit real long and do a weird animation for a spell. So that's what you did. That was the whole point of tales of Fantasia. So, you know, I think what I'm really getting at is that I'm not sure why this was called star ocean. The secondary protagonist journeyed across space and they called that the star ocean. And sometimes when the brawler lady dies, she others out. I can see the star ocean.

[00:32:23] Like it's one of our favorite memes being passed around. You know, you know, the ones. Oh, yeah. So I'm not. So I'm not saying that I hated this at all. Like I said, B rating overall. But I guess I expected more space faring in a game called star ocean. And we ended up in a thing in a space station for a few minutes. Maybe in another entry, we do more star ocean. Well, I was going to say in star ocean three, you start in space. You were on a spaceship.

[00:32:54] Okay. So I think I think later maybe I don't know. Maybe they decided to put the stars and star ocean later on. They had a grand plan. I don't remember how it manifests in star ocean two because like I said, it was too fucking boring. I don't remember. I got second departure are over here. I'll find out. There's a second. Oh, is that the HD two fake ass HD two D one, right? Not HD two D poured you. Yeah, that looked cool, but I was like, nah, you fooled me. Fooled me twice. Shame on me.

[00:33:24] Right. So I'll do it eventually. Go ahead and look, you know, I played that star ocean two like over 20 years ago. I was like 19, 20 years old. So, I mean, I don't know. Maybe I'd feel better about it now. Who knows? Right. It did look cool enough to tip me, but I was also like, no, you remember how that game made you feel. It made you feel sleepy. Like I said, this was more about the sicko times in the menus.

[00:33:53] Like, yeah, look at this. Look at this shit. I'm making out of out of rocks and swords. Uh huh. Oh, yeah. We'll see. Like, I already feel sicko enough when I'm doing like S and T five demon fusing and like using. Okay. Should I buff his decks like two more points so I can get the edge over? You know what I mean? Like that's already sicko enough for me. Right. Doing doing that kind of stuff, let alone like star ocean. I don't know. Yeah.

[00:34:21] It's probably never going to be for me, but I'll just have to keep fairing these stars alone. Okay. Well, look, we didn't get to last week because he wasn't here. I got you hot with pinball effects of midnight. I, I begrudgingly asking you, do you want to take a shower? A cool one. Okay.

[00:34:48] I mean, it is kind of cool here because it is raining, but you know, I'll compromise. Okay, fine. Cool shower coming right up.

[00:35:44] You know, I would insist that we share a towel just to rub it in Kevin's face, literally. But, you know, I have my, I brought my own towel, so I guess we could just each use our own. And we can hang it on the rack and save it for another time. Yes, we can. Because we're not freaks. So, all right. Big question time. We have a few big questions. Well, ordinarily, yes, but I have some potentially upsetting news that's breaking now.

[00:36:14] Okay. Lay it on me. There's a very upcoming Nintendo Switch Online Nintendo Classics update coming real soon. June 4th. Donkey Kong 64 is coming to Nintendo 64 Nintendo Classics. Hide your ass. That's it. That's, that's, that's the whole update. You know how they do.

[00:36:44] You can't. Usually they try to bury the shitty games with like something else. This is just like nakedly Donkey Kong 64. As if anyone wants that. There's a bunch of sickos that want Donkey Kong 64. Yeah. And they're fucked up. I told you people last year that this is not going to be what you want after playing Bonanza. And now you can all find out. Yeah. Oof. Fuck Bonanza. You don't even need Bonanza to know this is a piece of shit.

[00:37:14] Whatever, man. I'm a, this is not, I don't even think it's that bad, but I mean, this is not it kids. Oh, it's look, you know, I'm a hater of this genre and Donkey Kong 64 is like perfectly designed in a lab to specifically piss me off. I understand that. It's no Earthworm Jim 3D, but it'll piss you off enough. Oh, Earthworm Jim 3. I'd much rather play Earthworm Jim 3D. I'd much rather play that. Oh, them's fighting words. I'd rather. Okay.

[00:37:43] I know I keep using this as our low water benchmark, but like tonic trouble or Donkey Kong 64. Donkey Kong 64. See, I would say that just by like the smallest bit, the small, just because of, just because of the music, essentially not the accursed Donkey Kong rap, but like the music in the actual game. Grant Kirk always brought it off. Yeah. Yeah. So I would say it just for that, but probably just as miserable to play. All right.

[00:38:14] Let's get to these questions. I guess this isn't much of a question, but Steve, this morning as of this recording, so I guess yesterday morning when this will air that Dragon Quest, I guess it's not a direct update. Every year they have the Dragon Quest update broadcast on Dragon Quest Day. It's always today because I know you don't like to recognize anniversaries and things,

[00:38:41] but I think in there they love to recognize the day that they unleash Dragon Quest upon the world. And this is the 40th anniversary of Dragon Quest, you guys. Yes, it is. Certainly 40, 40 years of Dragon Quest, but not necessarily here because we had Dragon Warrior in what, 89, 90. But yeah, in Japan, definitely 40th anniversary.

[00:39:05] And so they have this presentation today, this 10 minute presentation where they finally showed us Dragon Quest 12, the flames of fate, but not really because they admitted that the production of that game hit a number of problems in development and they restarted development completely. They completely abandoned that version of the game that they announced years and years ago now.

[00:39:34] So that is now lost the time. And what they did show us is what they are doing now, which is Dragon Quest 12 beyond dreams. And they said they also admitted, Steve, that this is not the game that was before in terms of tone and scope, which means we talked about it for years now that the darker tone Dragon Quest or whatever Yuji Horii said back then, that is no longer on the table.

[00:40:03] Judging by this trailer, that is clearly not on the table anymore. This is because this just looks like we're furthering the ideas of 11. So, Steve, what did you think? I got to tell you, I think this is what needed to happen because it might have been the last Dragon Quest presentation or a Nintendo Direct. We saw Yuji Horii showing off Dragon Quest 1 and 2 HD 2D, hugging his emotional support

[00:40:30] slime, promising us, but probably more himself, that Dragon Quest was going to keep going. I swear. We're all going to love it. La la la la la la. It was sad. It really was. It was. I felt bad for him. All his friends are dead. And I made a dumb joke about this at the time that I felt, I feel bad about now that

[00:40:55] Dragon Quest is in this bizarre transitional period and we need to let them play around in there. Especially since this is the guy that's been supervising most things Dragon Quest from the start. Even at the end of the trailer, he's like, what, what, what's in the dream? Not something dark and scary, but something hopeful and bright. Hopefully, I think we need to let this cook. And, you know, he's been at this the whole time.

[00:41:24] I'm sure he's been really looking at this one particularly close. I mean, I'm sure he also put his stamp on that hover cycle thing we saw early on. I wonder why I brought that up just now. Anyway, I don't know. When do you think this is coming out? 2028 at the earliest, right? The very earliest. Yeah, I saw a bunch of people thinking next year. I'm like, no, not 2020. This 28, man.

[00:41:51] If they restarted and we're just now seeing the footage look good. Obviously not blowing my socks off or anything, but honestly, when does Dragon Quest ever do that? So drag Dragon Quest is a game you play to experience. It's not something we watched the trailer for for that. Right. But also, you know, I remember seeing Dragon Quest 8 for the first time being like, whoa, because that was the first real 3D one. Right.

[00:42:20] And then they really nailed the look and everything. And Dragon Quest 8 is an amazing game. But this just kind of looks like we're like I said, we're furthering 11 in a way that's good because 11 was fucking awesome. So. I'm into it. Yeah, I can't wait. It's just been a weird couple of years with that because they announced 12 back in our previous and previous creative endeavor. I'm like, oh, man.

[00:42:49] Yeah, yeah, it's been a while. But here's also the thing that I thought was interesting that he said specifically this will feature character designs by Akira Toriyama and music by Koichi Sugiyama. So he made sure to say, hey, they're no longer here, but they are here, which means that like I would imagine.

[00:43:13] They are probably repurposing the character designs wherever that dark edgy game is and touching them up to be because I can't imagine they look like this before. Exactly right. One hundred percent. There's no way. Oh, there's that sleepy looking hero, which I'm sure might have been more before, but now he's probably like, I'm tired. They don't let me sleep now. Yeah. Yeah. Every.

[00:43:40] And then there's that literal dragon warrior character that also probably feels like also would be like, I'm a dragon warrior. But, you know, I'm sure we'll hear about him in the future. That would have been fucking amazing if our English script said, or I am the dragon warrior. I am the dragon warrior three, the seed of salvation.

[00:44:07] And you will feel my flames of fate. Love it. Print it. Oh, my God. No, I I thought it was great that he said that because he knows that's what people are wondering. Hey, does this include contributions from before they died? And he said he I mean, what was I think I don't remember if it was that particular dragon

[00:44:35] quest one and two HG2D thing where he said, I'm putting my own a dragon was 12 and making sure I do good on the last contributions from Toriyama son and whatever. Right. He said that. Right. But that doesn't necessarily mean he didn't really say anything about Tsugiyama's music. So I guess the music is there. I don't know what this means for an eventual dragon quest 13 if there was ever going to be one.

[00:45:01] But I mean, look, we know there's going to be one Square Enix. The company is going to demand that that will happen. Yuji Hori or not. Right. But Dragon Quest isn't over. It can't be over because they already announced the new Dragon Quest monsters. That's coming. That's probably going to be before it's 12 comes out. That'll probably be next year. Are you into Dragon Quest monsters? I've never really. I have the Dark Prince sitting there. I need to play it.

[00:45:30] It's just never really been my thing, I guess. I don't know. And then, you know, I guess other people could play 11 S on switch to. Oh, right. 11 S on switch. But I wonder if that's just the PS4 version exactly. Because remember how they backported that to PS4 eventually at 60? And like. I don't know. I'd buy an upgrade, but they're not doing that.

[00:46:00] Yeah. Squeenix doesn't do that. So they did a handful for like Romance and Saga 2 remake and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. But I'm a bit surprised they didn't do that for this since they came out so long ago and a bunch of us have it. There's a Switch 2 version of Romance and Saga 2, the Seven Fallen or whatever. Yeah. I bought it on fire sale at Best Buy after they announced it. Oh, so you don't have to fucking suffer anymore. That's great.

[00:46:30] I played that shit obviously on Steam and Steam Deck. And like, yeah, that shit was. I mean, look, that game is not a looker. I mean, don't get me wrong. It's not about the graphics necessarily, but it should run well. And now it now it will. I mean, if I'm playing 11 again, it's going to be it would be in 2D. So I'm really not super concerned. Right. Not. Oh, by the way, do you like how they when they showed all the Dragon Quest before showing

[00:46:55] 12, they showed both the 3DS version and the actual version of 11, which is kind of funny. I don't know what the number is, but they had to sell a boatload of the 3DS version in Japan. Yeah. Yeah. Probably not here, but certainly in Japan. It didn't come out here, so they couldn't. Oh, that's right. Because we had to get that content in in S. We didn't see any of that until S. Yeah, you're right. You're right.

[00:47:25] I'm I'm interested. I would like to sit there and watch that again, that trailer and analyze it a bit in my noggin. But yeah, I've beyond dreams. I do like that subtitle. It's not very Dragon Quest. Usually it's the something of the something, something, something right. And the something that's usually how that's usually very verbose. But this is not. Maybe they'll verb it out somewhere before 2028. I think they're sticking to it.

[00:47:54] I think this is it. Yeah, probably. At least in English. It may change a bit in Japanese, but beyond dreams, it's nice and nice and concise. So, yeah. All right. Looking forward to it. I'm glad the game is alive now in a different form. Guess what, everybody? The Steam decks are back in stock in the online store. As of today, when we're recording this. Yay.

[00:48:21] And they got a fat price increase. Boo. In particular, the 512 gig OLED has gone from 549 to 789. Oof. And the 1 terabyte OLED has gone from 649 to 949. Oh, Lord. Andre, these aren't terribly competitive prices.

[00:48:47] How do we feel about the Gabe Cube coming out in a reasonable fashion or price point? Or the purported Steam Deck 2? This. This is a disaster. This is disaster pricing. This price currently makes the Steam Deck the worst value proposition in video games. Straight up.

[00:49:15] Like, I talked about the PS5 being a bad proposition value after its price hike. What is it? Six. 630 now. I said, I'm not paying that. I'm not paying $630 for a six-year-old system. For the power of the PS5. I'm certainly not paying $789 for the power of barely a PS4 Pro. I get that it's portable. I don't give a fuck. It's not worth that.

[00:49:41] For the record, as I'm sure most people listen to the show know, I do have that 512 gig OLED. And I did pay $549 a couple years ago. And that was worth it. It's still worth it. And if it's still that price, go for it. Even though it's more expensive than Switch 2 by now $50 and it's significantly less powerful, the fact that you can play pretty much any game on Steam on it kind of makes up for that. And it has other features that Switch 2 can't do. So, okay, yeah.

[00:50:10] It's not very powerful, but whatever. Now, Steve, it doesn't matter. For $789, fuck the one terabyte for $949. That's just completely out of question. Fuck that. Yeah. But the $789, almost $800 for what you're getting here is absurd when you can buy. Well, no, it's not even yet. I was going to say when you could buy a Switch 2 for $500, it's still $450. It's not going to be $500 until September.

[00:50:42] So I have no idea. And the Switch 2 is like several times more powerful than a Steam deck. It's no contest. So I have no idea why anyone would get this. Even if you are enthusiasts like us, it's such a terrible value now. No way. I would be looking at a fucking ROG ally now before I'd look at this. Just spend like $50, $100 more and get something actually really powerful if you want something like that. We all know what I did.

[00:51:10] After Christmas, I was online and I happened to catch Best Buy doing for Plus members cheaper by comparison. Legion goes. I'm like, fuck it. I'll get this for $400. And so I did. But that's not everybody. And I'm glad I did because look at these fucking prices. Yeah. And I bet what you have. Again, I don't know exactly. I bet it's just as powerful as Steam Deck, if not more. I would bet it's more for sure. It's on par.

[00:51:43] No. Not even the $789. Fuck this. Yeah, man. Look, do you – at what point do we have to start saying this is corporate greed? Where does it end, right? Because I would say on fine time, we've been fairly – I don't want to say sympathetic to companies, but we've been understanding. We understand the stakes.

[00:52:12] We understand what's happening with tariffs, especially in this country. And we understand a lot of things, right? What's been happening in the world, which is driving prices up, the AI data centers, all the bullshit, right? At some point, though, where do we have to start saying these companies are just being insanely greedy? Do you feel that way? Because I know some people do, but I'm not sure that I'm there yet because we can see all the things that led to this point.

[00:52:40] We know why the price is going up, but this much? It's this much where I'm taking umbrage because $300 to the 1 terabyte is – It's hard to hide behind parts are expensive. That's not all parts. Especially very old parts, which aren't very powerful parts at this point. They never were in the first place.

[00:53:10] When Steam Deck came out, it was never like a powerhouse. It was never supposed to be, right? But now, it certainly isn't. And you're going to tell me, like, is someone out there just wants to play what's out there right now? Octopath Traveler Zero or Dispatch or anything, right? In the last couple years, it's not like, you know, some AAA monstrosity that none of these systems would be able to run anyway.

[00:53:37] Why the hell would I ever suggest anyone get a Steam Deck? You could just play all those games at Switch 2 and they run great and there's just no need to do anything else now. And there's that $500 bundle that comes with a game right now. Yeah. Sure does, man. And you can play actual Nintendo games on it. Like, so, again, I get that nothing has the library of Steam, but at some point, the price just doesn't – makes that not matter.

[00:54:07] And I think we're at that point. I would never – like, the last two years, I mean, you've heard me on this show. I couldn't stop singing the praises of Steam Deck. I would suggest it to anybody. Yeah, it's not the most powerful thing, but the value proposition for that thing was great. Now it is not great. And it's not just not great. It's so far out of line that I would never suggest it to anybody.

[00:54:31] Hey, you kept talking to me about it enough to have me look at it on occasion, but to the point where I have my Legion go now. But it's like, no, not at this price. As for GabeCube, I don't know what that means. I was kind of hopeful, like, when they announced that thing. Well, people thought it would be, like, console price. I'm like, no, it's not. It's going to be expensive. It's going to be at the very, very, very least $800.

[00:55:02] Now I'm looking at that thing. It's like, we're looking at $1,200 to start. And nobody's going to pay that. Do you think they'll be the first over $1,000 console? Even though they're really a PC. If we want to consider it a console, yeah, for sure. There's no way it's under $1,000. I don't think it's close to $1,000. And that's if they have the balls to even keep going with it for now. You think they'll actually keep moving ahead with it?

[00:55:28] Because they never really committed on a timeline for that. They could just sit on the idea until prices come down of stuff. They could. But I don't know. I don't know who's buying a $1,200. I don't know who's buying an $800 GameCube. I could see the market for it, though. I mean, it's not you or me, but I could see it. Right? I could see how that would be a device that would be very valuable.

[00:55:58] Especially since considering the power that was in that thing to be purported. I was like, okay, yeah. I see that. As of right now, I don't see shit. We are in a place that is unimaginable. Even as the last few years, this entire generation, we've been seeing the prices of every piece of hardware just keep going up and never coming down. This one is the worst yet.

[00:56:27] This is worse than any Xbox price hike. This is the worst one. Well, Andre, surely the Steam sales make up for it. I'm just kidding. This is all. I mean, to be fucking real with you, they kind of do. But that still doesn't put $789 in my pocket if I didn't already have one. Right? I still have to be able to afford the goddamn thing. I already bought one with a tax return a few years ago. A tax return.

[00:56:56] That's the kind of money I'm dealing with. Right? I can't just drop $800 goddamn dollars like that. Most of us can't. It's I know that's like a hard concept for some people to be like, we have to make these are financial purchases that we have to think about. Yeah. I mean, you know, Steve, I'm trying to buy an e-scooter right now. That shit's fucking expensive because I'm fat and I have to get a good one, which means I have to spend about this kind of Steam Deck.

[00:57:26] Now Steam Deck money to get one. I'm not spending that on a handheld video game console. Yeah, not to be this person, but maybe you should hurry up before they think about putting AI and then increasing the prices of those. For fucking real. Jesus Christ. That's depressing. Oh, well, sorry, Steam Deck. You're just not worth it anymore. Okay, Steve.

[00:57:54] On May 25th, Epic revealed a trailer for an upgraded version of Rocket League. They're doing new graphics, kind of like how they've done for Fortnite and stuff over the years. Right? They showed new Rocket League. It has grass. Ooh, wow. And they revealed at the end of the trailer that it's running on Unreal Engine 6.

[00:58:21] And the crowd went wild. Literally, the crowd went wild at this epic event. Everyone's like, yeah, just like cheering when they saw a six. And it's just like, Steve, what the fuck? Okay. What the fuck? Dating the show a little bit. I feel like it wasn't terribly long ago that you and Kevin were giving me shit for not being impressed by the Unreal 5 presentation.

[00:58:52] Where Keanu, everyone's favorite star from Constantine, showing us around Unreal 5. Because you kept treating it like a game. And we kept saying it's not a game. Okay, okay, okay. Okay. Reasons aside, I feel like that wasn't terribly long ago. No, it was not. It was like five years ago. And we're already talking about Unreal Engine 6. I mean, okay. Like, that's not crazy.

[00:59:20] I don't think the amount of time is crazy, right? What is crazy is that nobody feels like, okay, there's been some really great looking Unreal Engine 5 games, right? Don't get me wrong. It's just that, you know what I'll do? And because I'm looking at it right now. Full disclosure. I watched the trailer again before we started doing this segment. I still have the window up with the YouTube comments. Let me just read you the comments. Okay? Let me tell you how people are feeling right now. First comment.

[00:59:49] The next generation of unoptimized games is here. Fire emoji, fire emoji. This announcement sounds more like a threat, TBH. Damn, PowerPoint is going to have some competition now. The cars are shinier now. Time to make room for 150 gig Rocket League on my drive.

[01:00:16] I'm going to go from 500 FPS to 60. Six times the unoptimization. Can't wait for half the textures to not load with increased pop-in. Actual definition of insanity. The game is running decent here because they're using a 7090 with two terabytes of RAM. So on and so forth. Okay? Like, you get the point.

[01:00:47] Nobody's excited about this. You know how this, dude, when Unreal Engine 5, you remember. I mean, despite how you felt about the Matrix demo or whatever. It was like, people were like, oh, shit. And we all saw it because it looked great. It looks so much better than what we were doing. It's like, oh, my God. And I feel like we got in there. Like, if you look at, I don't know if you played Silent Hill 2 remake or anything recent that uses it. But like, holy shit, man.

[01:01:14] Games are, when games use UE5 and they really pour it on, it's as good as it's promised to be. But not a lot of games do that. And the overhead just seems not worth it sometimes to a lot of people, as you can tell from those comments. So I'm not saying I feel exactly like those people. At the same time, Steve, maybe Rocket League isn't necessarily the game you want to show off. Like, maybe they should have showed something. I don't know.

[01:01:42] Rocket League isn't really built for, like, showing off that type of shit. Epic pinball. Pinball. That would have actually been better. I was thinking about that the whole time we were talking about pinball FX. I'm like, man, I haven't played. I bought that on GOG, but I haven't played that in forever. I mean, get to it. I'm sure it's still hope you don't have to use DOS box or something. If it's like the other ones, I'm sure they slapped it on or whatever.

[01:02:12] Yeah, I mean, like, I don't know what else to say other than that. I think the people said it for us. It's this feels it feels weird because we are in such a weird fucking spot with video game graphics where people simultaneously don't want to try. Here's the thing. I'm not one of those people who feels like graphics have peaked. We can't do any better. We're only having incremental changes and shit.

[01:02:35] I'm like, I don't necessarily feel that way because games come out all the time and blow us away and there's still room to do really cool shit. But the innovation level right now is so low where we don't get to do that cool shit. We only get an Astro Bot every so often. We only get like a Donkey Kong Bonanza every so often. Like we don't get to see games do cool shit too often because we still want to do the same ass things we've been doing for 15 years until we stop doing that stuff and start thinking differently with the technology.

[01:03:05] We're not going to get anywhere. So but that's that's another discussion. I guess what I'm trying to say is I don't hate the idea of Unreal Engine 6 on its face. I just don't trust today's developers to do anything cool with it. So it may as well not exist. No, you're right. It's just my own perception. It's I was skewed too. And then look, I'm getting old and I guess I do confuse diminishing returns on graphics with everyone being lazy too.

[01:03:36] I'm just I'm an old man that way. To clarify, I'm not saying there's not diminishing returns. I'm just saying that like it's not as dire as people make it out to be. I think there it wouldn't feel that way nearly as much as if we still did cool shit with graphics. But we're not interested in doing cool shit with graphics. So that's that's how I feel. Diminishing returns are real. How much is that? I wonder how much of that is really on the unreals of the world.

[01:04:06] I mean, it doesn't feel great when like it feels like every Unreal Engine 5 game, every other one is like fighting against you, because even when it's a game that goes for a performance like Marvel Rivals uses UE5. Right. And that's 120 FPS game on PS5. And it hits that target most of the time, unless you're doing one of those crazy like 18 V18 modes or something where it's like, OK, yeah, of course, it's going to dip because that's not what the game is built for. It's just funny fuck off time.

[01:04:36] But the regular game doesn't really dip too often. And like it's optimized for frame rate, but not a lot of games do that. And that's Netties who makes that game. Right. So they have like tons of people to throw out that problem. If you're like an indie, I don't see why you would ever even bother trying to use like Unreal Engine 5. It just seems insane to me.

[01:04:59] I mean, and like games that are coming out soon, like Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part 3, whatever it's going to be called, like that's still using UE4. Because like if they try to use UE5, you're going to you're going to add like so much more to the development time. They can't. They have to keep that shit going. Yeah, I remember that being a point of contention for Rebirth, how they have to stick with four. They have to. They don't have a choice now. So I don't know, man. We're in a weird spot with graphics.

[01:05:29] This this Unreal Engine 6 announcement would feel better in a different time. But the times right now for that kind of stuff is a bit dire. I hate to say it. All right, Steve, I know you have a game for me in a second, but I want to ask you a question first. I don't know if you'll remember what I'm talking about. I wish Kevin were here, too, because I know I brought it up in front of both of you. But do you remember?

[01:05:57] I want to say it was damn near four years ago, so it's probably really early in our show's life. There was a commercial. There was a PlayStation commercial, and it showed a bunch of games that weren't out yet. And one of the games they showed nobody recognized. It was a young woman, a young blonde white woman in like a cave or something. She was talking and everyone's like, that's Nathan Drake's daughter or something. Do you remember that?

[01:06:29] But did we did we ever find out what that game was, who that character was? I don't remember a commercial, but I remember the shots for that floating around for a time. Yeah, no, it was from a commercial. It was from a PlayStation commercial on TV, and the first clip they showed was from whatever game that was. I remember the assumption was it being an Uncharted, but I don't remember that ever being anything. Yeah, I don't think that ever became.

[01:06:58] Nothing became of that, right? You played all the Uncharteds. I think you would have told us. Definitely. Yeah. So, like, no, I don't. I mean, I believe at the end of I'm sorry if I'm spoiling Uncharted for everybody. I believe at the end of Uncharted 4, we find out she's pregnant or he just has a daughter or something like that. Or maybe she's really young in that game. I don't remember. And like, I think the idea is that her's grown up. But that was all speculation. We have no idea what that game was.

[01:07:27] Must have been a really early glimpse in development. And probably why I'd say probably why we don't do that so much anymore. But here we are in 2022 doing that. I mean, it was also like, I'm sure at this point, so everyone else at Sony realized, hey, this Jim Ryan guy has got to go. So they probably forgot about whatever that was. If that ever became anything, I could be talking out of my ass and we figured out what that was years ago.

[01:07:57] And I just never heard of it. I'm sure we'll be corrected tomorrow. Yes. Someone someone out there. If you know what the fuck we're talking about right now, let us know. OK, Steve, lay the game on me. All right, Andre. We haven't played a certain game called Pokemon real or fake in a while. OK. What game are we playing today? Then we're playing. It's it's Pokemon real or fake.

[01:08:26] Oh, OK. All right. And man, I'm looking over all of these and oh, fuck, Andre. I messed up. These are all real Pokemon. The game's over. Oh, shit. We got to wrap up the show. Well, thanks for listening. Now, I'm just I'm just fucking. I'm just fucking with you. OK, thank you. You know why? Because it's been 10 years. Pokemon Sun and Moon and that came out in that time.

[01:08:54] And they introduced a thing called Ultra Beasts. Oh, they popped out of the these dimensional holes and they were loosely based off of Ken Sugimori's some of his rejected designs and blah, blah, blah. Anyway, I have a mixture of these and real Pokemon. And you got to tell me which are which. OK, is this OK? So obviously, I don't know shit about the series.

[01:09:20] Is this the reason why I see like Charizard that's like really fucking big sometimes because it's like an Ultra Beast or is that something else? Oh, that's a mega evolution. Mega evolution. Yes. That is not an Ultra Beast. That is not an Ultra Beast. So an Ultra Beast is like an entirely different Pokemon. It's not based off of like a existing. It is not based on an existing Pokemon. OK. OK. Got it. All right. I'm there. So here we are today, Andre.

[01:09:51] All the Pokemon are real today. But you got to tell me whether this one would be an Ultra Beast or just a basic bitch Pokemon. Oh, OK. I think. OK. Well, I'm not sure I can do that, but I'll try. Based on their names alone. OK. Lay it on me. Our first one is Buzzwole. Buzzswole.

[01:10:18] See, this is where I get in trouble, right? Because I want it to be real. These are all Pokemon. I want it to be. I understand. It's just that like I want it to be an Ultra Beast. I would love to be like, oh, no. Buzzswole is like terrorizing the landscape. You know, I'm going to go with my gut. I know it always gets me in trouble on this game. I'm going to say Ultra Beast. Buzzswole. Buzzswole is an Ultra Beast.

[01:10:48] He's a big, big buff mosquito thing. Big buff mosquito thing. Like it. OK, cool. All right. Turn on a good foot. Get on the good foot. Next one we got is Rillaboom. Gorillaboom? Rillaboom. Rillaboom. Man. See, all of them sound like Ultra Beast to me because the names are ridiculous. I feel like I'm going to be leaning heavily Ultra Beast. Rillaboom.

[01:11:18] Would it be cheating if I had you describe the Pokemon to me? Yeah, it might. Yeah, probably. OK, so don't. Yeah, I'm going to say Ultra Beast. Rillaboom. I feel it. Final answer. Gorillaboom's not an Ultra Beast. You know, I. Man. Man. Are you sure? Are you sure he's on an Ultra Beast? He sounds like one. No, he's just a really big grass gorilla with a drum. Grass gorilla. Yeah.

[01:11:49] That's all. Like grass type or like. Yeah. But does he look like foresty or something or. Yeah, he's kind of foresty. OK. All right. Next one. Faramosa. Faramosa. Faramosa. This sounds like some shitty little fucking plant Pokemon that looks like a sprout with two eyeballs or something. Faramosa. I don't think that can be an Ultra Beast.

[01:12:18] I'm not buying it. I'm going to say regular basic bitch Pokemon. Faramosa. Faramosa is an Ultra Beast. Whoa. What happened? Yeah. Some kind of weird. Not. I think it's a weird kind of bug thing that popped through. OK. I don't know, man. Fine. Sure. I guess. Next one. Naga natal.

[01:12:49] Naga natal. I'm knowing. I know I'm doing a thing because of Naga, but it just sounds like some shitty little snake. The snake Pokemon are never cool. It's just like our box just has a funny face, right? Like it's just like, hey, I'm a snake. I look friendly. You know, I'm sorry for being a Gen one or but, you know, that's all I really know.

[01:13:16] You know, nah, you don't deserve Naga natal. You don't deserve to be an ultra. I'm going to say basic bitch Pokemon. He's not very significant, but he's technically an ultra beast. What? How? We've been trying to figure that one out for a while. He's not very significant. So what? It's just like a regular size or the ultra beasts are big, right? Mostly big, but he still comes in through the dimensional hole.

[01:13:45] So he counts. I think there should be a size requirement to be an ultra beast. Yeah, you would think so, but that's not they come through the space hole. This is bullshit, man. This would be like if you like if your parents went on a on a vacation to Zaire and you were born in Zaire while your mom was pregnant.

[01:14:13] That's like saying you're African because you were born there and then you came back to the United. Like, come on, please. I don't know if we should be making that comparison. I can make that comparison. Okay, I'll I can say it. Okay. We all know you're allowed to say it, but I'm not allowed to. Okay, fine. Let's move on. Let's move on to the next one. We'll move on to circuitry. Circuitry.

[01:14:43] That's fake. Okay, that's not the game we're playing. Zerk is just so fucking stupid. You know what? I'm going to say ultra beast because it's going to piss me off if it's an ultra beast. So I'm just going to say it ahead of time. Ultra beast. Circuitry is an ultra beast. I mean, fucking really circuitry. It's a big wiry tree. So, yes, it'll fit all the. Oh, circuitry.

[01:15:14] Okay. I should have had you spell it. Well, I don't know. Sometimes I do that, but. Okay. Yeah. Okay, cool. Fine. Circuitry. You can. I'm sure you meet the size requirement because you're a tree. I'm sure you're not a subwoo doo doo or whatever the fuck that thing is called. Anyway. That's not even right, right? I'm sure anyone who plays Pokemon thinks I'm fucking stupid as hell, including you. Okay. All right. Next one. This is why Andre is not on the Pokepals. Cosmoium.

[01:15:46] Cosmoium. Cosmoium. Cosmoium. Hmm. I don't have any particular feeling about this one. I don't know. Can you tell me the type that it is? Psychic. Psychic? Psychic makes me want to say ultra beast, right? But obviously there's plenty of psychic Pokemon that are not, right? So that doesn't mean anything.

[01:16:15] That'd be like if Psyduck were an ultra beast or something. I'm like, that's fucking stupid. Psyduck is psychic, right? It's not just a name. Psyduck is water. Just water? Somehow. But his name is Psyduck. I know. And he does psychic things. What the fuck? This is fucking. This. This. Fuck the series. I'm going to say. I'm going to say. Fuck you and your 30 years.

[01:16:45] I'm going to say. Basic ass Pokemon. He is a basic bitch Pokemon. All right. I was just. I had no real feeling about that. That was just a coin flip for me. All right. Next one. Celestia. Celestia. Yes. Obviously, the name Celestial makes me think ultra beast. Celestia. Or.

[01:17:12] But it also could be one of those plant ass bitches like. That look like a fucking DeviantArt. Like. What is that? Gardevoir. Gardevoir. Gardevoir, which is a psychic fairy. Psychic fairy. Jesus. Aren't they in Pokken? I think that's why I know them. Yes. Yeah. That's how I know them. See, I know little Pokemans. Pokemans. Just a tiny bit.

[01:17:42] From smash and Pokken. Say the name again. I'm sorry. Celestial. Celestila. Celestila. I'm going to say ultra beast. Ultra beast. All right. I'm not doing too bad. That ain't bad. Okay. Next one. I'm going to roll. Cartana. Cartana. Cartana. Cartana. Cartana.

[01:18:11] Cartana. Cartana. Cartana. I. Again, I'm not getting a good feeling from this one either way. I'm going to say basic bitch Pokemon. It's an ultra beast. Okay. I mean, what does it look like? It's the smallest one, but it also cuts things up into tiny pieces. Ooh. That sounds violent. What?

[01:18:38] There's a, I forgot what it says when it's slow. When you slow down the Japanese audio, it's like, but it was something, man, I should. I didn't have enough time to research all that in advance. Sorry. No, it's fine. But it's just like, I'm just thinking like, you know, Cartana cuts poly world into pieces. Poly world fainted or something. Yeah. Not, not, not in the children's show. Oh man. All right. Next one. How many more do we have left? Four.

[01:19:09] Give me two more. Victini. Victini. Okay. That's a name I've heard before. I just don't know if it's an ultra beast. I've heard that before. I'm going to say basic bitch Pokemon. Basic bitch Pokemon. Okay. Yeah. I, I figured as much just because it's a name I heard and I was like, that doesn't mean I couldn't have heard of the ultra beast, but yeah, I feel okay about that. Okay. One more. One more.

[01:19:40] Guzzlord. Guzzlord. Guzzlord. Can you tell me the type? I forget offhand, but I think we're dark poison. Dark poison. Sounds kind of ultra beastie. I feel like Guzzlord, maybe because of the name Lord might be large in stature. Fuck it. I'm going to say ultra beast. Guzzlord's an ultra beast. Holy shit.

[01:20:09] I did kind of not too bad. Right? That wasn't too bad. Oh, that was, you stumbled a little bit at the beginning, but you did all right. Yeah. All right. I'll take it. I'll take it. I'm a Pokemon, Pokemon master, Pokemon master sex. Do people still play that game? Oh, I don't know. What's the last time you turn on master sex? At least a phone ago. If you can measure the time in phones, then it's been a while.

[01:20:39] All right. I think that's it. Thanks guys for joining us. Sorry for the last minute scrambling. Hopefully it wasn't too chaotic of a listen or weird of a listen, but hey, sometimes you got to do what you got to do. Thanks for sticking with us. We will be back. Um, not necessarily for a big deal, but in a couple of weeks, we'll be back to do that whole summer games fest, uh, state of play Microsoft and whatever else pops up. We'll do the big three. Plus, I don't know.

[01:21:07] Uh, usually we take a peek at day of the dev, Steve. Sometimes we, you know, we'd like to round up all the shows. It's one of the shows that got to rustle up all them shows, all them shows. What, what, you know, whip sound. Um, and I don't know. We, it seems you guys like listening to our peanut gallery takes on the shows and we really like doing them. That's one of my favorite things we do on this show is when we cover Nintendo directs or whatever. Right.

[01:21:34] Um, so yeah, we're just going to be doing a bunch of that and then we'll be back to the regular big deal, you know, after that. Right. But Hey, thanks for joining us for this makeshift one. Check the description of this podcast to find our names on social media and we'll see you next time. Bye. We'll see you next time on, on, on, on fine time.