Box Fox | The Big Deal

[00:00:00] Hey everybody, it's your boy Dre off the top here. Once again, begging you to like and rate the show, whatever you listen on, especially Apple podcasts. It really helps a small show like ours a lot. If you listen on Spotify, rate us there, leave us a comment.

[00:00:15] If you listen on Google podcasts, you can't do that anymore. So don't do that there. But you know, if our show was on YouTube now, for some reason, I thought it was a good idea to just export it there. So if you listen there, for some reason, leave us a comment there too. We would really appreciate it. Let's start the show.

[00:00:32] Welcome to Video Game Land. Welcome to Fine Time.

[00:00:41] Hello, party people. It's your boy Dre. It is the fine. It is the time. Steve, do you remember why I started saying hello party people? I've said it since episode one, right?

[00:01:10] I think it was because you wanted everyone to feel welcome to listen to our show and not have any barriers or gatekeeping in any way.

[00:01:19] I would never gatekeep anything, Kevin, except Castlevania.

[00:01:23] No, I think it's because you got swagger like a motherfucker other than when we talk about Castlevania.

[00:01:28] Okay, that's the only time I don't. All right, fine.

[00:01:31] And then you're just a douche.

[00:01:33] Then I am just a big old douche who won't rap over the show. The show theme song.

[00:01:41] Steve committed if we get 300 listens on this show that he will rap over it.

[00:01:46] What? How does that work?

[00:01:49] White guys can rap. What are you talking about?

[00:01:52] White guys can rap, but has a white guy named Steve ever been able to rap?

[00:01:58] I don't think I get to be the first.

[00:02:01] Well, if you got someone's got to break the mold, okay, break that color barrier. You got to break right into this industry. White Steve.

[00:02:10] Pushing boundaries here on fine time.

[00:02:12] I don't know about that one, you guys.

[00:02:19] All right. I guess I guess we'll leave that. We'll leave that be for now.

[00:02:23] And I guess we can talk about video games.

[00:02:25] Me and Kevin played a little thing called Animal Well.

[00:02:42] All right, Kevin, let's get started on this man.

[00:02:48] It's been a weird couple of weeks since this game came out.

[00:02:50] It kind of came out at the beginning of our cycle.

[00:02:53] So it's I think it has literally been two weeks since it came out and it's been all the rage on the interwebs, hasn't it?

[00:03:00] Yeah. And it's had time to ruminate.

[00:03:03] Yeah, it definitely has.

[00:03:05] So I want to start by reading some reviews.

[00:03:08] We don't typically do this on this type of show, but I want to just so I think it'll just set the table for what we're dealing with here.

[00:03:18] OK, so I'm just going to quote from various publications and people.

[00:03:23] Here's what PC Gamer had to say about Animal Well.

[00:03:25] And I quote, anyone who falls into this well won't want to leave it anytime soon.

[00:03:31] Animal Well is a Metroidvania milestone.

[00:03:36] OK, Games Radar says, and I quote, Animal Well is stubbornly traditional in keeping you in the dark as you embark on your adventure.

[00:03:44] But that's firmly to its credit as you unravel the mystery sprinkled around its map, while the sense that nothing is quite as it seems never lets up.

[00:03:53] This is an endlessly inventive Metroidvania with unfathomable depth.

[00:04:00] PC Gamer says a sleep destroying puzzle Metroidvania of baffling depth.

[00:04:06] Animal Well may go down in history as one of the genres best.

[00:04:11] God is a geek says Animal Well is a Metroidvania that stands out at a crowded marketplace thanks to a lack of combat and some seriously creative power ups.

[00:04:22] I think you see where this is going, Kevin, but I'm going to read one more.

[00:04:26] And it was a tweet from Jason Schreier.

[00:04:28] And this will be the final one.

[00:04:29] I'm going to say Animal Well is an all time classic, a cross between Metroid and Outer Wilds full of delightful secrets and a joy to play.

[00:04:38] I've been obsessing for the last few weeks in a discord with other critics trying to unravel all of its mysteries.

[00:04:44] You must check it out.

[00:04:48] Lot of M words in there.

[00:04:51] And I think you know what I want to say next.

[00:04:54] Do you want to just say it for me?

[00:04:57] Because I think I think you know me by now.

[00:04:59] I think you should say it.

[00:05:01] I think I think you need to say it.

[00:05:03] I y'all this is not a Metroidvania and I look, I understand I made an entire episode about how I hate that word right and how it's a misused how it doesn't mean anything right.

[00:05:16] But even the way most people apply the word.

[00:05:20] This doesn't qualify.

[00:05:21] Animal Well does not qualify Kevin.

[00:05:24] I absolutely agree.

[00:05:27] I can see where you can draw those parallels obviously, but this is a very different experience than playing the games you would put in that M word the bucket there.

[00:05:37] You know there's that element of getting new abilities and revisiting areas.

[00:05:41] This is this is a puzzle game at its core.

[00:05:44] Absolutely.

[00:05:45] Yeah, I would think so.

[00:05:46] I would absolutely say so.

[00:05:48] It's an adventure game.

[00:05:49] It's an adventure game to its core.

[00:05:53] I because you know me.

[00:05:55] I always prefer the term action adventure.

[00:05:57] There's not really this is not an action game, I guess right?

[00:06:01] Although I think it kind of should be and I'll get to that later.

[00:06:04] But like as as constructed, I'm not even going to do the thing where I always do.

[00:06:10] It's like what does this have to do with metrating or Castlevania, which the answer is always nothing, which is why I hate the term.

[00:06:16] But like even if we're just going to go with the esoteric idea of whatever people think that thing means, this ain't it.

[00:06:24] Maybe that's just me anyway.

[00:06:26] Sorry, I had to start there because I was just reading the glowing praise and I just I guess maybe I should say up front.

[00:06:34] I think this game is pretty good.

[00:06:36] I definitely wouldn't put it nearly as high as those publications that Kevin.

[00:06:42] Yeah, and I think I think that is a good place to start because you know if we want to talk about expectations going into this, this really wasn't on my radar.

[00:06:51] I remember seeing it pop up a few times.

[00:06:53] I kind of knew this as the like, you know, the game that I always think of video game.

[00:06:58] Donkey is just this guy that like, you know, he puts put sky all the trains in Skyrim or whatever.

[00:07:03] It's kind of like cheap, easy humor.

[00:07:05] So always to me, this was just like, oh, this is the video game donkey game.

[00:07:08] And I don't know.

[00:07:09] I don't give a shit about video game donkey.

[00:07:11] It wasn't, you know, I didn't have anything against this game.

[00:07:15] But all of a sudden within the span of like 24 hours, you know, I've seen all of this praise not only from these outlets, but just from like the people of the internet were ranting and raving about this.

[00:07:28] And yeah, the M word was popping up over and over and over.

[00:07:32] So I did have a distorted view of what I was going into with this.

[00:07:36] This game had a lot going against it from the outset for me, you know, because like it has said indie game pixel art style, which I got sick of like over 10 years ago.

[00:07:48] But here it is right.

[00:07:49] And it's done very well.

[00:07:51] But still, here it is.

[00:07:53] It's being described as the word I don't like.

[00:07:56] But I did play animal well because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

[00:08:00] I wanted to see like, is this a Hades or a sea of stars or another game that gets like all this praise indie game that I'm like, it's fine.

[00:08:11] You know, that's usually how I feel about those games.

[00:08:13] And I think animal well is better than those games that I mentioned.

[00:08:16] But also it was free on PlayStation plus royale with cheese.

[00:08:19] I was just going to buy it on steam or whatever.

[00:08:21] But then I saw it was on there.

[00:08:22] I'm like, sure.

[00:08:23] What?

[00:08:23] There's no there's no barrier now for zero dollars.

[00:08:27] So I may as well play it.

[00:08:28] I wish somebody would have tipped me off because I wasn't planning on buying this at all either.

[00:08:32] But I had that 24 hours of ranting and raving.

[00:08:35] I didn't know it was on PlayStation plus.

[00:08:36] So I just bought it on Switch and then like four hours afterwards, Andre's like, yeah, I'm playing this.

[00:08:42] It was on news free on PlayStation plus.

[00:08:44] Why not?

[00:08:44] Yeah.

[00:08:46] Whoopsie.

[00:08:48] I agree with what you said earlier.

[00:08:51] It's an adventure game and it's a puzzle game.

[00:08:53] It's a puzzle adventure almost like I never know how to say the name of this game.

[00:08:58] But it's like VVVV like a bunch of these.

[00:09:01] Right.

[00:09:01] I feel like it's a game like that.

[00:09:03] Right.

[00:09:04] I don't know if you played that game, but I haven't played it.

[00:09:06] No.

[00:09:07] OK, yeah, I feel like it's a good because that's like a single screen kind of like a big map that you explore and you do like various things like jump on the ceiling and walk on it or do all this sort of stuff to get to new areas.

[00:09:19] And it's like a short adventure game like that where you just kind of explore it till you get to the end.

[00:09:24] And it's not really an action game and it doesn't treat itself like one.

[00:09:28] And but I feel like Animal World does again, I'll get to that later.

[00:09:32] Does kind of treat itself like one.

[00:09:34] You want to start with that art style though in the graphics because I think they're pretty remarkable, especially and I want to start here.

[00:09:41] Yeah, it has that like very old like Apple to look and look at has like very dark like backgrounds with black and like, you know, you're literally in a well.

[00:09:50] I mean, who knows where you are really?

[00:09:53] But like.

[00:09:55] The advantage to that art style is that it gives it that right creepy tone because you just have like the white outlines of stuff and then like real time lighting on top of it to add atmosphere.

[00:10:06] But then everything else is black, which I think looks cool because like, you know how like sometimes like the crudeness of like old time graphics, Lynn, like it almost feels like not uncanny valley.

[00:10:17] That's not the right term, but like it gives you that sort of fear, like because like it's so polygonal and weird looking in like Resident Evil or Alone in the Dark, like it gives it some sort of like fear factor that it may not.

[00:10:30] Do you understand what I mean?

[00:10:31] Like that's kind of a weird thing to describe, but I do think that's kind of true about Animal World as well.

[00:10:37] I guess when I am not poo pooing art style, I think it I think it fits this game well, and I don't think it's derivative.

[00:10:45] I think it's got its own look.

[00:10:46] It's very like neon soaked.

[00:10:48] It's very heavy on reflections, you know, and I do.

[00:10:52] I really like like there's a lot of things in the world that are like interactive that don't actually like impact the gameplay right?

[00:11:01] You jump through the vines and they just kind of like lazily swish around and like, you know, it's got a lot of like nice effects, so it felt good in that way.

[00:11:09] I feel especially when you're talking about how it's got like these colors and then everything is like dark in the background that kind of limited the like they would.

[00:11:19] They want to have each each of these areas within the game as being kind of their own, like unique, distinct vibe.

[00:11:26] And I think it lost a lot of that because in my head, you know, I would kind of go like this is primarily the blue area.

[00:11:32] This is the like primarily green area.

[00:11:35] And even even in what we'll get into, like the animal motif, there wasn't like a really like strong consistency of like this is the dog area necessarily.

[00:11:45] So it kind of like the world together kind of like it just felt a little bit like.

[00:11:52] Messy and not, you know, I knew that they wanted me to treat these as distinct areas, but it was it was a little bit hard to think of them that way, which is not a huge deal.

[00:12:01] But I think just a little bit more like character in the backgrounds of the of those specific locations would have done it some good.

[00:12:10] But it would also be hard not to make it too busy.

[00:12:14] Yeah, I know exactly what you mean, because as you were saying that it's like.

[00:12:20] Because, you know, there's like a area with like an ostrich, right?

[00:12:23] Sort of like a boss, if you will, this game doesn't really have strict bosses, but it's as close as it comes to having one.

[00:12:29] And like it doesn't look like a bird cage area or like, you know, you think you'd be swinging on a bunch of bird cages or like here.

[00:12:37] This looks like, you know, some sort of weird avian aviary.

[00:12:43] What do you call that? The zoo where you have like the bunch of birds aviary.

[00:12:47] Yeah, yeah. Like you think it would like kind of look like that or something like that, but it doesn't.

[00:12:52] It just kind of looks like any other place again, which is fine.

[00:12:55] But I didn't get the strict color coding that you're talking about.

[00:12:58] I never really felt like this is a green area and the blue area or something like that.

[00:13:02] I definitely didn't feel that way.

[00:13:04] Yeah, they blended together a lot because none of them, except for the very final area where you end the game.

[00:13:10] That one had a distinct, you know, and for like, I don't want to get into spoiler territory,

[00:13:15] but there are like some reasons that it was very distinct.

[00:13:18] But it felt a lot more cohesive than everything that came before it.

[00:13:23] I can agree. I can agree with that, but I did not feel like the areas before that felt

[00:13:31] almost that in cohesive, which is not a word that cannot be a word.

[00:13:34] So whatever the opposite of cohesive is, it didn't feel that way.

[00:13:39] Do you think they felt like distinct from each other, though? Mostly, mostly.

[00:13:43] If I if you if if you were to show me a random screenshot of the game,

[00:13:47] I would be able to like, oh, that's over here on the map.

[00:13:50] Like it's in the upper left or whatever.

[00:13:52] Like, I think I would be able to do that. Right.

[00:13:55] So I think it's distinct enough. OK.

[00:13:57] However, and I know this will probably sound sacrilege to a lot of people, but

[00:14:04] I think Animal Well would have benefited from like some real graphics.

[00:14:08] Like if it looked like Ori in the Blind Forest or something like that.

[00:14:12] Maybe not that bright and colorful.

[00:14:13] But I'm saying that like that fidelity of graphics.

[00:14:17] I really think would have made this game look beautiful

[00:14:20] because this is not a bad looking game.

[00:14:22] God, I love the animation on like especially like the big animals.

[00:14:25] You know that one room where you go, you're going,

[00:14:27] you're traveling across a ceiling and there's like these two big

[00:14:29] like storks like pecking at the water or something like that.

[00:14:32] Those are animated like crazy. Right.

[00:14:34] Imagine if that looked like again, not like necessarily

[00:14:39] or his art style, but something more like involved.

[00:14:42] Look again, I'm sure this is made by like one or two people.

[00:14:46] He did what he did.

[00:14:47] So whatever, that's fine.

[00:14:49] At the same time, I can't help but think that it's chosen art style

[00:14:54] and done out of necessity probably does hold it back a little bit.

[00:14:58] Yeah, I don't disagree with you.

[00:15:01] I don't I.

[00:15:03] You know what I think?

[00:15:04] Why don't we move?

[00:15:05] We'll skip ahead a little ways here, and I think you should talk about

[00:15:08] the lack of context, because I think this is this is all like part

[00:15:12] of the same conversation when you talk about like,

[00:15:15] you know, like graphical fidelity and like how much

[00:15:20] how much you can relate to this game.

[00:15:22] Maybe let's talk about that because

[00:15:26] and this is probably my biggest problem with the game.

[00:15:29] OK, so I'll lay it out for anyone who hasn't played.

[00:15:33] Here's how the game begins.

[00:15:35] It's a black screen and there's like four flames

[00:15:38] and the flames disappear one by one.

[00:15:39] Boop, boop, boop, boop.

[00:15:41] Then it shows a dank cave area and then like your little blob character wakes up.

[00:15:47] That's it.

[00:15:48] You're playing the game now.

[00:15:49] You're a little brown blob with eyes and feet.

[00:15:54] I have no idea why you're a blob.

[00:15:57] Why are you?

[00:15:58] Why is this a player character?

[00:16:00] Is it like a piece of rabbit poop like the little rabbit pellets?

[00:16:03] I have no idea.

[00:16:04] It's very weird, and it's not necessarily weird in a good way

[00:16:09] because there's no dialogue or any text in Animal Well to read,

[00:16:12] to give you any context, which is fine.

[00:16:14] I don't need that right because this game is doing,

[00:16:17] you know, the environment is the story kind of thing,

[00:16:20] which is completely fine.

[00:16:21] I love games like that.

[00:16:23] But can I at least know why the fuck I'm a blob?

[00:16:26] Because like there's no other blob people or anything like that.

[00:16:30] There's only other animals.

[00:16:32] Again, I'm always the guy who says games should tell us less,

[00:16:36] but maybe Animal Well is too low context.

[00:16:40] And I really hope the answer is I need to find every hidden little thing

[00:16:43] in the game to find out why I'm a blob, because if I shouldn't have to

[00:16:47] 100 percent the game for basic game context.

[00:16:50] Yeah. So like, yeah.

[00:16:52] So like basically, Kevin, that's like my biggest problem with the game.

[00:16:56] Yeah. And I found it when I was reading through your notes,

[00:16:58] I found it really interesting that you articulated that,

[00:17:02] because as far as that lack of context, that didn't actively bothered me.

[00:17:07] And I wouldn't have even thought about what you were talking about

[00:17:11] as far as you're a blob.

[00:17:12] You don't know why you're a blob.

[00:17:13] You don't know what kind of blob you are.

[00:17:15] But when you said it, I it resonated with me

[00:17:18] and I can appreciate where you're coming from.

[00:17:21] And so now to switch gears a little bit,

[00:17:23] I because because we're forced into like using the M word

[00:17:27] in the segment, whether you like it or not.

[00:17:29] Oh, yeah. We've said it a million times.

[00:17:30] And also, I'm too lazy to go back and edit every instance of it.

[00:17:33] So we are saying the M word today.

[00:17:39] So and you know what?

[00:17:40] I have to talk about Hall and I 100 percent when I think about that word

[00:17:44] that does fit in that bucket for for me.

[00:17:47] And that game also gives you very limited context.

[00:17:51] That game also has like some similar similarities

[00:17:54] as far as like the color palette and even the environments.

[00:17:58] But without that context, I still felt like that world

[00:18:02] was a lot more fleshed out.

[00:18:04] And as a result, I felt a personal connection there,

[00:18:08] you know, between both both the character that you play as

[00:18:12] and the entire world, like almost as its own character.

[00:18:16] Whereas this game, I didn't have that and I didn't I didn't realize it

[00:18:20] as I played it, but it did feel like it was like keeping me at arm's

[00:18:23] length as far as how I felt about it, that it couldn't, you know,

[00:18:27] it couldn't like I couldn't I couldn't like stop and be like,

[00:18:30] oh, this is a Kevin game.

[00:18:31] I did enjoy this game.

[00:18:32] I liked this game.

[00:18:34] You know, I wouldn't have wanted to play it for a lot longer than I did.

[00:18:37] I think that is why to some degree,

[00:18:40] because I didn't have that personal connection because it felt like

[00:18:44] kind of alien the entire way through.

[00:18:46] So it wasn't it wasn't necessarily an issue for me,

[00:18:49] but that certainly wasn't drawing me in further.

[00:18:52] Yeah, because like as much as I'm kind of lukewarm on Hollow Knight,

[00:18:56] that character looks like he belongs in the world and there's other enemies

[00:19:00] and other things in the world that makes it seem like, OK, he's this thing.

[00:19:04] And there's other things like him.

[00:19:06] I don't have to know what that thing is.

[00:19:08] But like, you know what?

[00:19:10] Honestly, Animal Well, you should have just been a person.

[00:19:13] You should have been a kid.

[00:19:14] You should have spent a little kid.

[00:19:17] Right, because that would have given you all the context in the world.

[00:19:20] Keep everything else exactly the same.

[00:19:22] Your little kid in the animal. Well,

[00:19:27] what do you think about that?

[00:19:28] No, I mean, that probably would have helped.

[00:19:31] There would have been some like relation there where you can even.

[00:19:34] Yeah, I think by having your character as a kid and now you know,

[00:19:37] you have like a mechanism to at least like kind of like

[00:19:41] tell your own story in your mind.

[00:19:43] So that definitely would have brought it part of the way there.

[00:19:45] I still do think that, you know, when we go back to talking about

[00:19:49] like the environments and the simplicity of the graphics,

[00:19:52] you know, that that was also participating when I talk about

[00:19:55] like keeping me at arm's length.

[00:19:58] But but yeah, I think you're right.

[00:19:59] I think if you would have had a character that you could at least

[00:20:01] identify what it is and make assumptions about like,

[00:20:05] you know, why it's there or what it's feeling that that would have

[00:20:08] that would have played a big part in just like having a relationship

[00:20:12] with the game.

[00:20:26] I mentioned how this game has like not really bosses,

[00:20:30] but you do have like larger encounters, shall we say.

[00:20:33] And I don't want to spoil what they are, but I loved those.

[00:20:38] I wish I could talk about a particular one,

[00:20:40] but I really don't want to spoil it for the audience.

[00:20:42] But let's just say I loved every encounter like that.

[00:20:45] Can we just leave it that way?

[00:20:47] I was probably the most exciting thing about the game.

[00:20:50] Super agree.

[00:20:51] And you already did mention the ostrich.

[00:20:53] I won't like that anymore.

[00:20:55] That was easily my favorite part of the entire game.

[00:20:58] And that and that, like as far as the game having character,

[00:21:00] because I think that added a lot like the animal motif period

[00:21:06] kind of walks like this good fine line between it being like fun,

[00:21:10] but also like a little.

[00:21:14] What's the word I'm looking for?

[00:21:15] Like, like kind of like mystical.

[00:21:18] Maybe. OK, right.

[00:21:19] It's got like or like in in some cases dangerous, right?

[00:21:22] Like the ostrich, I kind of freaked out when I hit that point.

[00:21:25] But it's also like goofy and really like cool and interesting

[00:21:29] and just kind of like lights your imagination up a little bit.

[00:21:32] It sure does. It's really, really cool.

[00:21:35] Was that the first such encounter that you found in the game

[00:21:39] or was it a different one that you found first?

[00:21:41] That was the first.

[00:21:42] Yeah, that was the first one that was like,

[00:21:44] you know, where you really had to like interact with.

[00:21:47] OK, you know, and use it as like an environmental puzzle.

[00:21:50] OK, well, I just want to tell you, I'll bleep it out for the audience

[00:21:54] because I don't want to spoil.

[00:21:55] Fine time.

[00:21:57] That was the first one that I found and it freaked me the fuck.

[00:22:00] It was like, holy shit.

[00:22:02] You know what I mean? To figure. Yeah.

[00:22:03] So it was. Yeah.

[00:22:05] The second best part of the game, if not like co with those encounters,

[00:22:10] is like the creatures and like general architecture of animal.

[00:22:14] Well, like the backgrounds and just like the details

[00:22:17] that the world does give you, because we just talked about

[00:22:20] the contextless part, that contextual parts are crazy good

[00:22:25] because animal well certainly lives up to its title,

[00:22:28] because like the first thing you notice is that like animal statues

[00:22:32] are everywhere, almost like monuments.

[00:22:35] Like think of like the alien architecture and like the icons

[00:22:39] that you might see in like a Metroid or something like particularly

[00:22:42] Metroid Prime, where you have like these very these things

[00:22:44] that look like particularly like Mayan civilization

[00:22:48] ruins only like in space or whatever.

[00:22:50] Like that's what animal well feels like, but on a totally different scale.

[00:22:54] I love that you saw like these like I forget where they are,

[00:22:57] but like these twin mouse statues, they're kind of facing each other.

[00:23:01] You know what I mean?

[00:23:01] You could almost imagine that being some sort of like Chozo thing, right?

[00:23:04] But it's like animals.

[00:23:06] And I think that's a great comparison.

[00:23:09] Yeah, I love that stuff like the deer statues, pit bulls,

[00:23:13] all that type of shit.

[00:23:14] Mm hmm. And that definitely it exceeded my expectations a lot in that sense,

[00:23:19] because just being told that the like the generalized theme is animals,

[00:23:25] like I am very much would assuming that's not going to do anything for me.

[00:23:29] Right. Just like overall animals is the aesthetic and that's, you know,

[00:23:34] they handled that like incredibly smartly.

[00:23:37] Yeah, it's it's so good.

[00:23:40] They really again, they live up to their name

[00:23:42] because all the live animals, too.

[00:23:44] You know, you see all of them, all the small stuff to like little worms and flies.

[00:23:49] And then like lots of animals will run away from you.

[00:23:51] You see like a I don't know, a squirrel or rabbit or something.

[00:23:54] It'll just kind of run away.

[00:23:55] It's like, huh?

[00:23:56] That's kind of weird, right?

[00:23:57] Looking at you in the cave and like slowly backing out as you get closer.

[00:24:02] Yeah. And then there's like big animals, bigger animals.

[00:24:06] I think I don't know how much I want to say about these.

[00:24:10] I'll just say one and I won't give any more context to it.

[00:24:14] There's like a room with a kangaroo.

[00:24:16] I'll just say that you're that one.

[00:24:18] That was like, holy shit, you know?

[00:24:20] So there's like kind of freak out moments.

[00:24:23] People who I was talking to in another discord who were playing the game along

[00:24:26] like we were kind of playing the game at the same time,

[00:24:28] kind of almost felt like this was like a secret horror game

[00:24:32] a little bit sometimes with the way it really like tried to play on like fears

[00:24:37] and like kind of gotcha moments.

[00:24:39] And it is interesting because when you get to those large animals,

[00:24:43] like the very first time there's this immediate,

[00:24:46] the immediate like, is this a danger or is this not a danger?

[00:24:50] And if it is a danger, like you usually have no idea how it's going,

[00:24:54] like how you're going to need to react to it,

[00:24:57] because just the like design of those characters does not necessarily

[00:25:01] give a lot of clues about how they're going to,

[00:25:04] you know, how they're going to move or how they're going to like come at you.

[00:25:08] Right. If I do almost like in real life, like imagine again,

[00:25:12] if you were a kid and you were just stuck down here, you don't really

[00:25:16] you wouldn't really have any mind for like what's dangerous or what's not

[00:25:19] great until you find out the hard way.

[00:25:22] So that is a real thing.

[00:25:23] But all that kind of stuff with the sometimes like live animals

[00:25:27] are in the background to it like that room where there's just like

[00:25:30] a couple of capybaras just like chilling back there.

[00:25:32] They're like animated. It's great.

[00:25:34] You know, that stuff is so good.

[00:25:37] One thing that I agree with the reviews completely on, though,

[00:25:41] is that the exploration and the puzzle solving are absolutely top notch

[00:25:46] because again, we're talking about these like big encounters.

[00:25:51] You can have those encounters at any time.

[00:25:53] The game doesn't funnel you towards, OK, go to this part of the map

[00:25:56] and go to that part of the map.

[00:25:57] You can pretty much go wherever you want and go to those encounters

[00:26:01] and find out. So different people will get to different ones

[00:26:05] at different times.

[00:26:06] And it's very fully realized again for like, I don't know anything

[00:26:10] about the guy who made this, but it's clear that he spent a very long time

[00:26:14] making this map like work and making all the puzzle solving feel exactly right.

[00:26:19] I don't know about you, Kevin, but there was nothing frustrating for me.

[00:26:22] There wasn't like anything where I'm like, fuck, I just can't figure this out.

[00:26:26] Or like this doesn't this puzzle doesn't make any sense.

[00:26:28] If there was anything like that for you, tell me about it.

[00:26:30] But I definitely didn't have a moment like that.

[00:26:33] There there was one point it's later in the game.

[00:26:36] I mean, I'll try to explain it without spoiling it.

[00:26:39] So early in the game, you have a unique item

[00:26:42] that you need to do something with.

[00:26:45] And then later in the game, they tell you

[00:26:49] it's told that you need a similar item.

[00:26:52] But it like and maybe maybe this was just me not connecting the dots.

[00:26:58] This and this is the only thing I even felt like I got stuck on.

[00:27:00] But I wound up looking this up because I was getting very frustrated about it.

[00:27:04] And you needed like because I was very under the impression

[00:27:08] that you needed to get another one of those items to interact with that,

[00:27:12] that pedestal that you need to put it on, where you actually have to go back

[00:27:15] to the original one in a different part, like a different area.

[00:27:20] I know what you're talking about and take it back there.

[00:27:23] So I said I spent probably an hour cycling between like,

[00:27:28] you know, primarily like six rooms and then going through an exit

[00:27:32] and like getting back to those six rooms over and over.

[00:27:34] Like where the fuck is this thing?

[00:27:36] Until I until I looked it up and was told you have to go back

[00:27:39] and get the original one, which I didn't feel.

[00:27:42] I mean, I think it would be it was very easy to not pick that up.

[00:27:46] And that wasn't necessarily intuitive.

[00:27:49] But I mean, you know, if I I also can see how you would see that

[00:27:53] and be like, OK, you know, I haven't seen that.

[00:27:55] I'm just going to go get the original one.

[00:27:57] I didn't realize that you even could pick the original one back up

[00:27:59] after you put it there.

[00:28:01] I didn't realize that either.

[00:28:03] However, what tipped me off is that when I got to the place

[00:28:06] where you're supposed to put that original one, it was the same item

[00:28:09] name as the thing that you put in there.

[00:28:11] So I'm like, oh, I have to go get that one.

[00:28:14] So that's how I figured it out.

[00:28:15] Oh, that's what I have to do.

[00:28:17] Yeah, I just assumed there was another one of those items

[00:28:20] with another one of those names, because in my mind,

[00:28:22] I had used the last one like as a consumable.

[00:28:25] Gotcha. OK, I understand.

[00:28:28] Yeah, that I can understand that.

[00:28:31] But yeah, I did.

[00:28:32] I definitely didn't get stuck on that, nor did I get stuck on anything else.

[00:28:36] And I think that's

[00:28:38] really great about this game again, to make sure that everything is very

[00:28:42] communicated to the player that way.

[00:28:44] And it's very easy for a game like this to be too esoteric, too

[00:28:48] out there to like space thinking like, how was I supposed to figure that out?

[00:28:53] You know, like Resident Evil puzzles or something.

[00:28:55] You have to put on your Resident Evil brain and figure that shit out,

[00:28:59] which, you know, sometimes works and sometimes doesn't.

[00:29:02] But I think it does work in Animal Well.

[00:29:05] It's also not to say that those puzzles are like every it's very unique, right?

[00:29:09] This isn't a bunch of puzzles that are like derivative

[00:29:12] of things that we've seen before in other games.

[00:29:14] Like I really, you know, I felt like they the the puzzles

[00:29:17] and the way they like proposed them to you was was, you know, unique

[00:29:22] to this game and and like very like custom tailored.

[00:29:25] So it's also, you know, you're not going to just like sleepwalk

[00:29:29] your way through this.

[00:29:29] You have to be engaged and thinking about it.

[00:29:33] Yeah. Then it's it's great that way.

[00:29:35] I love when a game can draw you into its

[00:29:39] into its world in the sense, not just literally like the world of the game,

[00:29:42] but into its type of thinking as well. Right.

[00:29:46] So I guess to end it off, I do have a couple smaller.

[00:29:51] I don't know if they're smaller grapes, but they're grapes nonetheless.

[00:29:55] I feel like there should have been some type of minimal action element

[00:30:01] to the game, and I only say this because

[00:30:05] there are things that can attack you like dogs or something like that.

[00:30:09] And I'm not saying your little blobs have a gun.

[00:30:10] You should be able to shoot the dogs or whatever.

[00:30:12] I'm just saying that, like, there are a lot of things

[00:30:15] that do attack you and you have no recourse.

[00:30:19] You can get away from them, but at some point it just feels a little too like,

[00:30:24] OK, I have to run away from everything.

[00:30:26] I can't fight back against anything.

[00:30:29] OK, fine.

[00:30:31] You know, and especially since like

[00:30:33] there's a lot of stuff in this game that can like kill you in one hit.

[00:30:38] There's a lot of insta kills in this game, which isn't really a problem

[00:30:41] since you just respond at the last place that you saved at

[00:30:44] and so really not too far away.

[00:30:45] You don't lose any progress or anything.

[00:30:48] But if there's a part that you can't figure out and you die like 10 times

[00:30:51] to it, it's like, well, I'm just trudging over this area again,

[00:30:55] like 10 times in a row.

[00:30:56] There's nothing here to fight back at me.

[00:30:58] So I'm just kind of like walking back to the place.

[00:31:02] Does that make any sense?

[00:31:03] It's kind of long winded, but I think it felt a little boring

[00:31:06] sometimes to like just keep walking over the same area.

[00:31:11] I guess as far as your point about having like recourse to the enemies,

[00:31:17] I do disagree with that because I think the way I looked at,

[00:31:21] you know, you use the dog for an example, right?

[00:31:23] Because the the dog.

[00:31:27] I don't OK, maybe this is like incredibly light spoilers.

[00:31:31] I think this is fine to say, right.

[00:31:32] You get the frisbee, right?

[00:31:34] And so before you have the frisbee, you need to like tease the dog

[00:31:38] by going underneath of the area it is it's in and like trick it into

[00:31:42] like going over to like the side you don't need to jump up

[00:31:46] and then get it to stay there.

[00:31:47] And then when you get the frisbee like that's that's the way you stop

[00:31:51] the dog by like distracting it with the frisbee.

[00:31:53] And these are very much like structured as puzzles.

[00:31:56] And I think I think to have it, you know, if you had like something to

[00:32:01] like attack the dog with necessarily would be counter

[00:32:07] intuitive to it being structured as a puzzle.

[00:32:10] So I yeah, I don't feel that way.

[00:32:12] I think I don't think that there should be any.

[00:32:16] Anymore action in this, because I do not think of this as an action adventure.

[00:32:20] I don't think that was like the mission statement of the game

[00:32:23] to have action built in in the way that you're describing it.

[00:32:27] OK, I can totally respect that.

[00:32:29] I just I guess maybe I just wanted something else to do

[00:32:34] than to just walk back there and hop and bop exactly the same way

[00:32:37] I did just to try the same thing again and die and then walk over it again,

[00:32:41] because at least if there was some action, like if you die in a Castlevania,

[00:32:44] still have some zombies to chop up.

[00:32:46] You saw some ax armors to contend with and kill or something like that.

[00:32:49] There's like a little bit of something going on.

[00:32:52] You know what I mean?

[00:32:52] In this game, there's not really a whole lot going on

[00:32:54] if you already explored the place.

[00:32:56] So I mean, I think you could always go to because it is so open ended.

[00:33:00] If you're you know, you can go to other areas.

[00:33:02] And the thing that's interesting about the items that you collect along the way

[00:33:05] is like they can be used in a lot of different ways.

[00:33:08] So likely if you backtracked, went to another area, got a different item,

[00:33:13] that item probably has a role to play in what you're trying to do potentially.

[00:33:16] Anyways, it does.

[00:33:18] Yeah, because there's definitely stuff obviously

[00:33:21] that you can't reach yet that you can reach once you get certain stuff

[00:33:25] that's earlier in the earlier, quote unquote, in the game. Right.

[00:33:29] So yeah, OK, I'll I'll I'll take that.

[00:33:33] I'm not going to fight too hard on that one.

[00:33:35] What I will dig in my heels about, though,

[00:33:39] is the fact that this game has like no music.

[00:33:42] I'm sorry, adventure games need music.

[00:33:45] That's just how I feel.

[00:33:46] You need it.

[00:33:47] You can't just and it doesn't even have like the atmospheric like,

[00:33:51] you know, a few creepy strings in the stuff.

[00:33:53] I usually say, well, that's not music.

[00:33:55] I mean, this game is like silent most of the time,

[00:33:58] just like atmospheric chirps and like what some crickets and like, OK,

[00:34:03] occasionally you have some rooms with some sound.

[00:34:05] And occasionally when you get to like some see some larger animals,

[00:34:09] you will have like a scary song.

[00:34:11] But that's kind of it. And.

[00:34:14] Man, it sucks.

[00:34:16] Yeah, OK, so you agree.

[00:34:19] You actually agree with 100 percent.

[00:34:21] Yeah. And it's interesting because as when we talk about music,

[00:34:23] you're always the one that will like pick out the music

[00:34:26] as being like really noteworthy for one reason or another.

[00:34:29] And as far as video games go, I'm much more likely to just like,

[00:34:32] you know, feel like the music fits the bill.

[00:34:34] It's not near as often that I like, you know,

[00:34:37] pick something out is like really notable to me.

[00:34:40] But not having any music like it really stuck out to me

[00:34:45] and it stuck out early on and I was cognizant of it the entire play through.

[00:34:49] And I think to going back to when I was talking about these areas,

[00:34:52] not having like distinctive vibes to them,

[00:34:56] that played a huge role in that.

[00:34:58] I felt like not having music was very limiting.

[00:35:01] It gave this game less character overall,

[00:35:03] and it gave the sub areas of this game less distinction

[00:35:07] and like almost even just like less incentive to like keep going

[00:35:11] because there's you know, you're not feeling like

[00:35:13] you're not feeling gloomy and you're not feeling like intimidated

[00:35:17] and you're not bebopping around.

[00:35:18] It's just nothing. Yeah.

[00:35:21] So it's I'm glad you agree with that.

[00:35:23] I thought maybe you'd feel either ambivalent or whatever.

[00:35:26] So, OK, yeah, I have a partner. I gave this game a B.

[00:35:29] I gave it a I usually give the games a score when I put when I post in my

[00:35:33] hey, I beat a game on Blue Sky.

[00:35:35] I gave it a B if it had music, any music at all.

[00:35:37] I would have given it a B plus easy.

[00:35:40] It would have raised it a whole whole thing.

[00:35:42] So no music, no plus.

[00:35:46] I think I pretty much tapped you got anything else

[00:35:49] before we stopped talking about the animal. Well,

[00:35:52] I thought it was interesting.

[00:35:54] We started this out by saying, you know, this has been out

[00:35:56] for like two weeks and we've had some time to sit on it.

[00:35:59] And if we would have I finished this game, I think five days ago.

[00:36:03] And if we would have recorded that day, I think I would have been harder on it.

[00:36:07] I think as I was playing it, I was a little bit more like I didn't.

[00:36:11] I didn't often like it.

[00:36:14] I hate to say this because I feel like it's much too hard on the game,

[00:36:17] but it did sometimes feel like a chore to play it.

[00:36:19] I mean, you know, if we weren't doing a podcast,

[00:36:22] there's a chance that I would have just like left this and not finished it.

[00:36:26] But having those five days after and having some time to ruminate on it,

[00:36:31] I've appreciated it more.

[00:36:33] And I found myself like randomly thinking about it

[00:36:38] more than than I would have expected playing through it.

[00:36:41] And in retrospect, I didn't give it enough respect as I was playing

[00:36:45] through it. And I think specifically a lot of the, you know,

[00:36:49] I talked about the like grass swishing around and just just,

[00:36:54] you know, like the reflections in the water.

[00:36:55] So like aesthetically that did make an impact on me and and the

[00:37:00] power ups you use that you pick up throughout the game,

[00:37:03] I thought were really unique and interesting.

[00:37:05] And I find I really I love when you use the yo-yo

[00:37:08] and it can like creep down gaps and it like you kind of have its life

[00:37:12] of its own. It'll get spinning in one way or another.

[00:37:14] But you got to throw it right.

[00:37:15] Sort of like sneak down the gap and like hit the button at like

[00:37:18] the perfect length of the string, stuff like that.

[00:37:20] Like that's really fucking cool.

[00:37:23] So, yeah, I do.

[00:37:24] I get why people are super into this game.

[00:37:26] This is not a game that I would want to go back in 100 percent,

[00:37:29] because from what I've heard, there's like another 15 hours

[00:37:32] that you can milk out of this if you want.

[00:37:34] And there's like substantial content behind it.

[00:37:37] But I rolled the credits.

[00:37:38] I'm happy with my experience.

[00:37:39] And I think that was a good way to play it.

[00:37:41] Me too. I roll credits and I was like, OK, I'm good.

[00:37:44] I don't really need to see anything else.

[00:37:45] Yeah, this game did occupy my mind the couple of days

[00:37:49] that I was playing it because I played it the night it came out.

[00:37:53] And then the next day when I was taking a shower,

[00:37:55] literally I was in the shower and the puzzle you were talking about

[00:37:59] with the frisbee, the solution came to me.

[00:38:01] I was like, oh, wait, what if I try that?

[00:38:04] Right. And that's how I thought about it.

[00:38:05] I was like, OK, you know, and usually, you know,

[00:38:08] bad games don't occupy my mind, you know?

[00:38:10] So like this is a really good game.

[00:38:11] I know I had a lot of criticism criticism here.

[00:38:14] I don't want to sound like I don't like it because I really, really did.

[00:38:17] But I think with a few key things,

[00:38:19] it could have been like an A game and not a B.

[00:38:22] I think so.

[00:38:23] There's a lot of really enjoyable aha moments like that.

[00:38:27] For sure.

[00:38:30] OK, where Steve?

[00:38:31] Where did Steve go?

[00:38:33] See, he was here, right?

[00:38:34] He did the intro with us.

[00:38:37] Maybe he needed to shave his head fresh.

[00:38:39] OK, I'll go find him.

[00:38:41] He's probably shaving his head.

[00:38:42] OK, hold on.

[00:39:18] Whoa, was that boy?

[00:39:21] Not a not a real enthusiastic response

[00:39:25] to our 40 minute animal well discussion.

[00:39:29] I have no strong feelings towards animal world, one animal world,

[00:39:33] animal well, one way or the other.

[00:39:36] Mostly because I didn't get to play.

[00:39:39] I love the idea that he's got PSTD so hard

[00:39:42] that he's inserting world into games that don't have it in there.

[00:39:48] Yeah. Well, hey, that one wonder well,

[00:39:52] that one wonder well, he's about to have his big therapy session

[00:39:56] because, well, as promised, since he lost all his money

[00:40:00] and went to the negative on our place, your bets,

[00:40:03] he had to play Balan Wonderworld to get what was at five five hundred

[00:40:07] fine time dollars. I don't know what we decided on what I was.

[00:40:10] Hondo five hundo.

[00:40:12] And so I will link to the episode if you question me on that.

[00:40:16] I'm really not going to take like

[00:40:21] I need proof of like fake money.

[00:40:23] I mean, like Jesus Christ, like I don't I mean, like fine.

[00:40:26] I don't care. Five thousand fine time dollars.

[00:40:29] I don't know.

[00:40:29] Whatever you like, Kevin.

[00:40:32] Wait, wait, wait.

[00:40:33] I didn't lock in my answer yet.

[00:40:34] Might need some more confirmation.

[00:40:38] Oh, boy.

[00:40:40] Do not insert.

[00:40:41] I didn't lock in my answer yet as my middle name.

[00:40:46] That is his middle name.

[00:40:48] OK, Steve, tell us about Balan Wonderworld.

[00:40:52] You played the entire thing and I want to hear all about it.

[00:40:55] And I'm going to interrupt you a lot with questions.

[00:40:58] Just just before you even start, because I need to know for context

[00:41:02] before you start talking about about this.

[00:41:04] How long did this take you?

[00:41:06] The PlayStation five app says it took me eight hours.

[00:41:10] OK, it felt like so much longer than that.

[00:41:13] I was afraid you were going to tell me this is like a 25 hour game.

[00:41:18] It could have been a 2500 hour game, you know?

[00:41:22] Time is just so fucked up in

[00:41:25] COVID times and it's even more fucked up in and Balan Wonderworld.

[00:41:30] Oh, man.

[00:41:32] But hey, yeah, like you all just said, I played

[00:41:35] and finished the Balan Wonderworld game.

[00:41:37] And in case you've only seen this game for chum change

[00:41:40] or you've only heard us use it as a punch line on the show.

[00:41:45] Let's let's give you a quick refresher.

[00:41:48] Former Sonic team talent,

[00:41:50] Eugene Naka bailed from Sega after Sonic 2006 sucked ass

[00:41:54] and then he made his own studio probe.

[00:41:56] And then what probe did is its own show, really.

[00:41:59] But in the end, it was just really knock there.

[00:42:03] At the time, he was hired to work at Square Enix.

[00:42:06] Yes, that's Square Enix to work on this game,

[00:42:09] Balan Wonderworld with our zest.

[00:42:11] We've already done the new story where he got arrested for insider

[00:42:15] trading betting on a Dragon Quest mobile game he learned about

[00:42:18] while making the Balan Wonderworld game.

[00:42:20] But is it really that bad as we're making it out to be?

[00:42:24] No, you guys, it is so much worse.

[00:42:27] I'm I'm surprised that it's actually I

[00:42:31] I actually expect you to come on here and be like, hey, you know, it sucks,

[00:42:35] but it's not really that bad.

[00:42:36] The fact that it really was that bad and more is surprising.

[00:42:40] I want to ask you a question, though.

[00:42:41] This is my first interruption.

[00:42:43] Is there a titular Balan?

[00:42:45] Is there someone named Balin?

[00:42:47] Balin is in fact the weirdo guy in the white hat

[00:42:51] that looks like Knight's cousin that they don't invite to things anymore.

[00:42:54] OK, so his name is Bal.

[00:42:56] See, I would just call him Balin no matter what,

[00:42:58] because that's how we roll around here.

[00:42:59] But his name is actually Bal.

[00:43:01] I would have to, but he is in fact the Balan of Balan Wonderworld.

[00:43:05] And that's how the game starts.

[00:43:08] You don't play as Balin, you get to play as a nameless child

[00:43:11] that you get to pick between boy or girl with four different skin tones.

[00:43:16] The kid starts off being real sad in the park for reasons.

[00:43:20] I don't know if he wants to dance.

[00:43:22] I don't. There's remarkably little dialogue in this game.

[00:43:26] It makes Super Princess Peach look like fine art, really.

[00:43:30] Oh, man.

[00:43:31] He ends up going to this dilapidated house

[00:43:34] with magic mirrors where Balin, with all the energy of a single guy

[00:43:38] with an unmarked white van, whisks him away to his wonder world

[00:43:43] to the Isle of Thames that serves as a hub,

[00:43:45] presumably to show them that it can in fact get much worse.

[00:43:49] Let me introduce you to some other schmucks I kidnapped.

[00:43:55] So there's just like a bunch of kids here

[00:43:57] that he just whisked away to this island.

[00:43:59] Oh, not not not not just children.

[00:44:02] Just just people having a real rough time of it.

[00:44:07] OK, so he goes out in the world and finds people who are sad or something.

[00:44:12] And then like that's what I could piece together, but

[00:44:16] wants to make them suffer more so they appreciate their shitty lives.

[00:44:20] Is that the idea?

[00:44:22] Let's figure this out together because you end up on the Isle of Thames.

[00:44:26] Tim is like a little fuzzball.

[00:44:28] I think they were trying to go after Chow's, but

[00:44:31] all they do is make stock cutesy noises and you're not even Chow noises,

[00:44:36] not even Chow noises.

[00:44:38] Boy. And you and you walk through a doorway marked one

[00:44:41] and you get treated to a sweeping view.

[00:44:43] I'm being generous of a level called the man who rages against the storm.

[00:44:51] You get really chipper, if not incredibly,

[00:44:53] the null music playing and so many dancing furries,

[00:44:58] like a lot of dancing furries.

[00:45:00] And this game, there's going to be a lot of dancing guys in suits for no reason.

[00:45:06] They trick you into thinking that they're going to teach you how to play the game

[00:45:09] like one walks through a mirror and pops out another one.

[00:45:12] Oh, OK, they're going to give you hints on how to play the game.

[00:45:15] Guys, that is the first and last time

[00:45:18] this game tries to help you out in any meaningful way.

[00:45:21] They don't even serve a purpose from a narrative standpoint.

[00:45:24] You just have a lot of fursuits just dancing and disappearing when you get close.

[00:45:29] Like imagine playing Super Mario 64.

[00:45:31] You've got toads and pink bob-ombs just disappearing as soon as you found them.

[00:45:37] This wasn't a hardware limitation, right?

[00:45:39] You were playing graphics on PlayStation five, right?

[00:45:43] Just to be clear for everyone at home,

[00:45:44] I was playing graphics on PlayStation five. Believe me.

[00:45:50] Oh, man, this sounds

[00:45:52] this was an artistic choice to have dancing furries

[00:45:57] that may or may not have been there, just disappear as soon as you get too close.

[00:46:02] Well, I am glad you played the quote unquote best version.

[00:46:05] If you had to deal with like the switch version or something,

[00:46:07] I think you should have got a thousand fine time dollars or whatever.

[00:46:11] Does it even really matter at that point?

[00:46:13] Yes. Go play the demo of the switch version.

[00:46:16] It is incredible.

[00:46:18] I can't do that anymore.

[00:46:21] It really does make it.

[00:46:23] Trust me, it is night and day, believe it or not,

[00:46:26] no matter how bad the this game is.

[00:46:29] So, yeah, the levels in the game, I guess, are all extrapolations of,

[00:46:34] you know, what all these people are having a bad time about.

[00:46:37] Like you have the farmer and a famine after a storm.

[00:46:40] So you have this weird looking farm with

[00:46:43] oversized hay bales and pitchforks and things.

[00:46:46] But is that why the stage is called the man who rages against the storm?

[00:46:50] Because he's mad about a storm that happened, I guess.

[00:46:54] There's no dialogue.

[00:46:55] There's very there's cutscenes that appear at the end.

[00:46:58] The boss themes where they do a Bollywood dance number at the end of each one.

[00:47:02] But other ones aren't even that.

[00:47:05] I get it. A farmer is experiencing a famine.

[00:47:07] That's bad.

[00:47:08] But then you run into other ones like there's a girl

[00:47:11] who's misunderstood for liking bugs.

[00:47:12] So you end up in the woods and then you have a lady who likes birds.

[00:47:17] But she's also in the woods and there's a chandelier

[00:47:21] for some reason, a chandelier in the woods.

[00:47:26] I think it's supposed to be the jungle, but it ends up looking like the woods anyway.

[00:47:30] Where's the chandelier hanging from a tree?

[00:47:36] I can't believe I'm going to say the.

[00:47:37] Sons. Yeah, where else?

[00:47:39] I can't believe I'm going to say this sentence, because it might be

[00:47:41] the first and last time I ever say this in my life.

[00:47:43] That's not how chandeliers work.

[00:47:46] Yeah, I know.

[00:47:50] What in the world?

[00:47:51] So they're not very good at theming.

[00:47:53] I think the only one they got right was water.

[00:47:55] And that's for a girl who swims with a dolphin and based on cut scenes.

[00:48:00] I guess she accidentally said the dolphin N word to this dolphin

[00:48:03] and it became angrier than an orca at a yacht party.

[00:48:09] I was talking about this with the Poke Pals the other night,

[00:48:12] and then it's like, oh, yeah, the dolphin.

[00:48:14] And she the Square Enix still has this video up.

[00:48:17] We're going to have to post this because they have this.

[00:48:21] They have this video of this cut scene.

[00:48:24] Oh, my God.

[00:48:25] Where there's an angry dolphin getting mad at a girl.

[00:48:29] What did she say to the eyeball? Yeah, the dolphin.

[00:48:31] OK, let's should we do that?

[00:48:33] Should we try to think of like what a dolphin slur would be?

[00:48:36] Let's call a dolphin a finner or something.

[00:48:38] I would. What kind of dolphin slur be bottle nose bitch?

[00:48:44] OK, but enough to get red demon eyes.

[00:48:48] It is a slur.

[00:48:49] That's just like that's just like calling somebody like, you know,

[00:48:52] that's that's derogatory, but I don't think that's OK.

[00:48:56] Yeah, I think thinner was close.

[00:48:58] I don't know. We'll think of something.

[00:48:59] I'm sorry. Go on, Steve.

[00:49:01] So I guess to talk a little bit more generally,

[00:49:03] it didn't really matter what we picked our character to look like,

[00:49:06] because we are also joining the costume character crusade

[00:49:10] to use different abilities to traverse levels.

[00:49:13] You get slots for three different outfits,

[00:49:16] and each outfit is incredibly

[00:49:19] hyper focused on doing one thing.

[00:49:22] And I know we're not super favorable towards

[00:49:25] Badger Kazooie or Donkey Kong 64 on this show, but

[00:49:30] every outfit does whatever the fuck it does with one button.

[00:49:36] And I am sure Nako thought he was being the slyest guy around with this.

[00:49:41] But I really do mean that all of the face buttons

[00:49:45] and along with L2 and R2 will do

[00:49:48] whatever action is assigned to whatever you're wearing.

[00:49:53] That is insane.

[00:49:54] That is crazy.

[00:49:56] And I know what you're all thinking at home, Steve.

[00:49:59] That's fucking impossible.

[00:50:00] There is no fucking way they made a 3D platformer

[00:50:03] without a dedicated jump button.

[00:50:07] Guys, they made a 3D platformer.

[00:50:10] We're not everything you wear does not have a jump command.

[00:50:15] Like I get it, right?

[00:50:16] He was probably going for Sonic on Genesis because A, B and C

[00:50:20] only do is jump, right?

[00:50:22] But that's you cannot do that.

[00:50:26] You have to have the game designed for that, right?

[00:50:28] And there's all and Sonic can do a lot of different moves

[00:50:31] and so can Knuckles or whatever and Tails can fly.

[00:50:34] It doesn't seem like you can do anything in this game except jump

[00:50:37] or use the fursuit or whatever you got.

[00:50:40] And when you when you say you have to have the game design to do that,

[00:50:43] I feel like it's like intrinsically implied that that

[00:50:47] like 100% includes 2D.

[00:50:50] Yeah.

[00:50:52] I don't see how that works in a 3D space.

[00:50:54] Well, I guess, Steve, it doesn't.

[00:50:57] Well, don't worry about it, you guys, because while some do jump,

[00:51:01] they just happen to have abilities that activate when it feels like it.

[00:51:05] The game's words, not mine.

[00:51:08] What? It says that.

[00:51:10] Like you, this is the invisibility suit.

[00:51:14] It turns you invisible when it feels like it.

[00:51:17] OK, you're saying the literal text in the game says

[00:51:20] it turns you invisible when it feels like it. Yes.

[00:51:24] Now, is there is there any like invisible gates

[00:51:28] in the world that's like triggering that or is it does it feel like

[00:51:31] it's truly random?

[00:51:32] I am sure there is something, but what you want it to turn on,

[00:51:35] it never does.

[00:51:37] When you feel like you want to slip by enemies in that particular level,

[00:51:41] like the way they want you to, it does not trigger on.

[00:51:45] When it feels like it.

[00:51:47] I mean, not only that, I just like I feel like I could tell

[00:51:51] like my seven year old daughter about this and she'd be like,

[00:51:53] that's a bad idea.

[00:51:54] That is not a good way to design a video game.

[00:51:57] Like it's it's truly baffling.

[00:52:01] You should also mention that

[00:52:03] you don't permanently unlock these outfits there in little

[00:52:07] boxes that you have to unlock with keys.

[00:52:10] So if you get hit with something, which is going to happen a lot

[00:52:14] because, you know, who made this game?

[00:52:17] You're going to lose a copy of that outfit and hopefully

[00:52:20] you have another one or you're backtracking to what might be

[00:52:23] if you needed that outfit to keep going in this in this level.

[00:52:27] So the outfits just spot on the same spot.

[00:52:29] And if you lose it, you just have to go back there and get it.

[00:52:32] You could hoard them and go back to a checkpoint and load them on,

[00:52:35] because if you get if you have three and you get a fourth,

[00:52:38] it's going to go in your pile of outfits to pick up to swap through later.

[00:52:43] But oh, my God, it's very headache inducing.

[00:52:46] So why don't we take a little break and play a game?

[00:52:49] It's the one time we're going to play this.

[00:52:51] It's called Balan costume or Mega Man X maverick.

[00:52:55] I'm going to name a whole bunch of

[00:52:58] Balan Wonderwall costumes, and you're going to tell me

[00:53:00] if they're real or just Mega Man X mavericks.

[00:53:03] OK, here we go. I got music.

[00:53:05] I got music. Hold on.

[00:53:14] We got X Ray Ape, Tornado Wolf,

[00:53:17] Fox Fox, Lick Shot Lizard,

[00:53:20] Pounding Duck, Inky Blaster,

[00:53:23] Jill Tiger and Arrow Acrobat.

[00:53:28] Arrow the Acrobat.

[00:53:32] OK, I'll tell you this, if there's actually an arrow

[00:53:35] acrobat in the in the game, that's like the worst

[00:53:38] reference to anything ever in the history of the world.

[00:53:42] Yeah, trick question, guys.

[00:53:43] These are all Ballad Wonderworld outfits.

[00:53:45] And yes, there was Arrow Acrobat and he's a little bat.

[00:53:49] And you know what Arrow Acrobat does?

[00:53:51] He does the Sonic homing shot thing, but much suckier.

[00:53:55] There's no way Arrow Acrobat.

[00:53:59] Why would anyone reference that?

[00:54:01] I am sure Sunsoft's lawyers looked at that and were like,

[00:54:05] Oh, my God, guys do better.

[00:54:08] This isn't even worth it.

[00:54:09] Did you say box? Fox Box Fox.

[00:54:12] What is Box Fox do?

[00:54:14] Well, Box Fox changes into an invincible box

[00:54:18] when it feels like it.

[00:54:21] And what does the box do?

[00:54:22] It literally just sits there until you can move again.

[00:54:25] It's like a clang from Dragon Quest.

[00:54:27] Do you turn into a box that can't be affected

[00:54:30] or do anything to anything around you for a few seconds at a time?

[00:54:34] There's no way that's a reference to Fox Box, right?

[00:54:37] Like the block of cartoons like in the 90s, Fox Box.

[00:54:40] There's no way.

[00:54:43] I don't know. We have Arrow Acrobat.

[00:54:46] Like what?

[00:54:47] I think all bets are off at this point.

[00:54:49] I look, I don't know, because we're supposed to use these suits

[00:54:54] to go through linear levels.

[00:54:56] There's two and a boss for each broken person we meet.

[00:55:00] Easy enough, right?

[00:55:01] We put on the suits, we finish the levels, we fight the bosses.

[00:55:04] We're done.

[00:55:05] No, we also have to find the gold balance statues along the way.

[00:55:10] And these are going to act as our stars or our jiggies

[00:55:13] or whatever we want to call them to open more levels as we go along.

[00:55:17] And wouldn't you know it,

[00:55:18] you can't get them all on the first run with what's available

[00:55:21] a good chunk of the time.

[00:55:22] So you need to start taking mental notes

[00:55:25] of what might be keeping you out of reach and coming back later

[00:55:28] if you might have something to solve it later.

[00:55:31] Maybe, maybe.

[00:55:33] So you're saying you need to get a suit from another level

[00:55:37] to get whatever you need to get in that level

[00:55:39] because that level doesn't have that suit.

[00:55:42] A good chunk of the time, yes.

[00:55:44] Oh, my God.

[00:55:45] Now, statues are the only thing that lets you progress

[00:55:49] further along the game.

[00:55:50] There's other outfit blocks that contain incredibly basic

[00:55:54] and unsatisfactory sports mini games like you ever play a bowling game

[00:55:58] where it didn't sound like you were knocking pins over

[00:56:00] because that's what this game does.

[00:56:03] There's bowling.

[00:56:04] There's there's like a bowling game and a baseball game.

[00:56:09] And it just puts you in a little sports outfit and you play a quick mini game.

[00:56:14] And then I guess it gives you little Tim Jules to feed to your Tim's

[00:56:18] on the Isle of Tims that I didn't do.

[00:56:20] And because why would I?

[00:56:22] And then you get stuck, sticks you back in the game.

[00:56:26] So what do you do in the baseball game?

[00:56:28] Does it just show up?

[00:56:29] You just hit a few balls and then like, is it like a timing game?

[00:56:32] Is it like a hit the hit the ball, do good, then the game resumes.

[00:56:38] Are you on like a baseball field or something?

[00:56:41] You're just wherever the hell you are.

[00:56:42] And that one pitches to you and you got to hit hats.

[00:56:49] Is Babylon the bad guy?

[00:56:50] Just tell me, do you have to kill Ballon?

[00:56:52] Do you get to kill Ballon?

[00:56:54] Sadly, no.

[00:56:55] Oh, why?

[00:56:59] I mean, you do collect hats around the world that let you play.

[00:57:03] Ballon's bout, where I guess you sort of play as

[00:57:07] cute where you play as Ballon through QTE events,

[00:57:10] while our zest interpretation of a big band plays.

[00:57:14] And it's useless because all he does is like, OK, line

[00:57:18] one picture of Ballon against the real Ballon and oh, that counts.

[00:57:22] Push the button some more and he's going to laugh a bunch.

[00:57:25] And then again, if that thing like led to a statue, OK,

[00:57:29] but none of these things lead to statues.

[00:57:31] So fuck it.

[00:57:33] Even I remember, I remember that from the demo and I was so confused

[00:57:38] because they did, because it doesn't give you any indication

[00:57:41] that it wants you to press the button when the pictures line up.

[00:57:43] They don't even tell you to do that.

[00:57:45] So it's just like, I guess I'm supposed to press something.

[00:57:48] Yeah, I think they tell you a little better in the main game.

[00:57:51] But guys, even Yuka Laili has meandering is that God sometimes made sure

[00:57:56] everything was some degree separated from you getting pages.

[00:57:59] Ballon just pads hell shit out for the hell of it.

[00:58:03] And I have no idea why they needed to do that when the game is so poorly

[00:58:07] programmed, it pads itself out.

[00:58:10] The further along the game you go, the more insistent on not having a camera

[00:58:13] view that lets you see the player the game gets is

[00:58:17] not to mention all the other little things like switching between outfits,

[00:58:21] like between the three outfits takes two seconds for each swap.

[00:58:25] Remember, I am playing on PlayStation five, so that's not it.

[00:58:29] And there's more than 70 outfits for you to find over the course of the game.

[00:58:33] And it is already tedious to have to hoard outfits of overlapping abilities

[00:58:38] that you have to trudge back to checkpoints to select.

[00:58:41] That's already annoying.

[00:58:42] But then to have to flip between them on the fly

[00:58:44] while you're expected to platform or fight things is the worst.

[00:58:48] Like, could you imagine playing Banjo Kazooie

[00:58:50] and you have to walk up the bottles every time you wanted

[00:58:53] to fly or punch something?

[00:58:55] Oh, boy. That's what this game is.

[00:58:57] My head hurts thinking about it.

[00:58:59] Yeah, I know. And that's why we're going to go right to the end.

[00:59:02] We've run through these levels.

[00:59:04] You beat the bosses a lot of the times more than once, because like I said,

[00:59:08] they they don't just make it helpful for you to find the statues.

[00:59:12] You make the hubs open more doors.

[00:59:14] You ride the train to nowhere.

[00:59:15] It just rides in a loop and just makes more numbers appear on the island.

[00:59:19] But now, you know, we're at the end.

[00:59:22] It's time to fight the end boss.

[00:59:24] Balan's brother, Lance.

[00:59:26] I'm assuming that's his name, because when I beat him,

[00:59:29] I got a trophy that says defeated Lance.

[00:59:31] So I'm like, OK, I guess that's his name.

[00:59:33] Oh, boy.

[00:59:35] And Lance looks like our zest beat the Internet to hot anime

[00:59:39] Balan OC do not steal.

[00:59:43] We're led to believe that he's been kind of making these things happen

[00:59:47] over the course of the game, but really, because

[00:59:50] all of these chapters kind of ended with Balan, like

[00:59:54] watching people like, you know, feel better about themselves

[00:59:57] and then winking at the camera like, yeah, I did this shit the whole time.

[01:00:02] Well, he's someone who kidnapped him in the first place.

[01:00:04] I feel like Balan is a bad guy.

[01:00:06] I know. But you know what?

[01:00:09] This game is so bad that, you know what?

[01:00:11] Since beating Lance gets me the fuck out of this,

[01:00:14] you show up with three offensively minded outfits.

[01:00:17] Remember, not all the outfits are going to help you fight things.

[01:00:20] You wait for timing the smack of three times

[01:00:23] and then, oh, no, it's time for the second form.

[01:00:26] And he's too powerful.

[01:00:27] You guys, what do we do?

[01:00:31] Well, all the people you've been helping out along the way

[01:00:35] lend a hand, hooray for the power of friendship.

[01:00:38] The power of friendship.

[01:00:40] Yes, guys, the 3D action platformer has a scripted boss fight.

[01:00:45] And now you have to use outfits provided by the people you helped.

[01:00:49] That's wonderful, except there's at least one dud in each trio that they hand you.

[01:00:55] And I can't dwell on this anymore.

[01:00:57] So eventually you do kill them.

[01:01:00] Everyone hugs and dances a bit more and they go home.

[01:01:04] And then Balan also reveals himself to be cute anime boy under the hat.

[01:01:09] You feel better about shit.

[01:01:10] You do some dances. The end.

[01:01:13] So you actually see Balan unmasked, if you will.

[01:01:17] He takes off his hat or something.

[01:01:18] Yep. Wow.

[01:01:20] You get to see the Balan.

[01:01:23] I'll send it to you, but you don't want to see it.

[01:01:27] I need more closure than that, though.

[01:01:30] Is there not some sort of like Balan doesn't make clear his intent

[01:01:33] for kidnapping these people or was there some sort of method

[01:01:37] behind the madness of introducing them to this pain to better their lives?

[01:01:44] No.

[01:01:51] I feel like uncomfortable just hearing about it.

[01:01:54] I mean, like I said, I think the one guy with a real problem was the farmer.

[01:01:58] Everyone else that is kind of petty.

[01:02:00] There's a former chess champion who's losing and he gets better

[01:02:04] by helping another kid learn how to play chess.

[01:02:07] I'm like, come on guys.

[01:02:08] Most of these people don't have real problems.

[01:02:13] Okay. I want to ask you one more thing before you wrap up.

[01:02:17] You showed us a few videos as you were playing of the CG sequences

[01:02:21] of like song and dance numbers.

[01:02:24] Why was that happening?

[01:02:26] Where did they, can you give us more context for those?

[01:02:28] Were those like, I'll do my best, but so you beat the boss

[01:02:34] that's like the manifestation of everyone's hurt or whatever it is.

[01:02:39] Anime.

[01:02:40] Yeah. And then they come down all twinkly as you saw.

[01:02:45] And then the dance number starts and you, and you dance with all the

[01:02:48] furry suits that appear throughout the level.

[01:02:52] And then it wraps up and then it's time to do more ball and wonder, wonder shit.

[01:02:59] So that happens after every boss, you get a song, a dance number after each one.

[01:03:03] Yeah. All 12.

[01:03:06] That's a lot of no wonder this game probably cost a lot, huh?

[01:03:09] Even though I mean, considering how like low rented is in other spaces,

[01:03:14] that's not cheap to do.

[01:03:17] Yeah, I think it all went to dancing furry suits.

[01:03:20] Man.

[01:03:23] Just insane.

[01:03:27] Are you balloned out?

[01:03:28] You got anything else for us before we...

[01:03:31] Guys, I think this might be the worst modern day game I've ever played.

[01:03:35] I bought a cheap disc of this because I wasn't going to

[01:03:38] let my PlayStation account be associated with bow and wonder world.

[01:03:43] And it's going to go in the bin with other god awful games I own.

[01:03:47] The GameStop website says I can get $4 and trade in for this game.

[01:03:51] And that's already more than I thought I could get, but no,

[01:03:54] that would mean someone else could buy this game.

[01:03:57] I know I'm just a drop in the bucket, but if me hoarding

[01:04:00] this disc prevents one other person from playing it, I've done a service.

[01:04:04] You sure have.

[01:04:05] I feel like you've done the world of service by actually

[01:04:07] playing ball and wonder world front to back and living to tell the tale.

[01:04:12] Yeah, and I think you could get some credit from us too, because honestly,

[01:04:16] if I ran out of place your bets money and I had ballon foisted upon me,

[01:04:20] I would have been bitching and bitching and bitching the whole time.

[01:04:25] I guarantee we would have multiple conversations where I said,

[01:04:28] I'm not playing place your bets anymore.

[01:04:30] You two fucking fighting out amongst yourselves.

[01:04:32] I'm not.

[01:04:33] I can't.

[01:04:34] I mean, I can't find time to play the games I want to play,

[01:04:37] let alone trudge through that shit for eight hours.

[01:04:40] Well, full disclosure, I did bitch about it.

[01:04:42] Frequently on the.

[01:04:45] You did do some bitching, but you know, Kevin, Kevin has a knack for the bitch.

[01:04:50] And I feel like it would be a lot.

[01:04:52] You took it like a man.

[01:04:53] Yeah, you did it.

[01:04:55] Thanks, you guys.

[01:04:57] Now your wallet is full of 500 fine time dollars.

[01:05:00] I'll take it hard earned.

[01:05:02] All right.

[01:05:03] Now don't don't make any crazy bets just because it's going to give you

[01:05:07] Mother three for this June direct.

[01:05:09] Don't already know.

[01:05:11] Yeah, I should.

[01:05:12] I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to get some juicy.

[01:05:14] That's just going to make him he won't.

[01:05:16] He won't be able to say no to.

[01:05:17] Yeah, but you got it.

[01:05:19] You got me last time.

[01:05:20] I don't forget when I put like 300 dollars on or something like that.

[01:05:23] But I you got me last time.

[01:05:24] I was like, I can't resist.

[01:05:26] OK, you know what?

[01:05:27] We played a pretty good game.

[01:05:29] Me and Kevin, you played a bad game.

[01:05:31] I think we should all rinse it off in the shower.

[01:05:34] What do you say?

[01:05:36] It's time to hit the showers.

[01:06:17] All right, we're back.

[01:06:18] Nothing like a hot shower, huh, Steve?

[01:06:21] There is no water hot enough to wash away my sins, Andre.

[01:06:28] Did you just take like a crying game shower or something?

[01:06:32] I will neither confirm nor deny that's what happened.

[01:06:36] I don't think kids know what a crying game shower is anymore.

[01:06:39] Do they?

[01:06:39] That's not a it's not a thing.

[01:06:41] I'm sprinkling a little baby powder on post shower here, Steve.

[01:06:45] If you want to come over, I'll give you a little sprinkle.

[01:06:46] I'll make you feel better.

[01:06:48] Rain check on that one.

[01:06:49] You know, turn around.

[01:06:54] Flip them over like when you do it to a baby.

[01:06:56] Just get up.

[01:06:58] Spread them, Steve.

[01:06:59] Yes, try.

[01:07:02] Submit.

[01:07:04] OK, Kevin's been telling us he has like a surprise thing he wants to do

[01:07:08] and he wanted to do it during when we usually do big questions.

[01:07:11] So tell us what this thing is.

[01:07:13] I have no idea what you got.

[01:07:15] Specifically, I wanted to do it this show.

[01:07:17] It's very timely.

[01:07:19] Do you guys remember what you were doing on March 2nd, 2023?

[01:07:26] I'll take that as a no, nor did I.

[01:07:29] But I had a reminder a few days ago.

[01:07:32] So to let you guys in on a little secret, Andre,

[01:07:34] can you please play the clip that I've pre-prepared?

[01:07:41] I know Kevin brought it up earlier, but I'm very curious now

[01:07:44] looking at the numbers all on a list.

[01:07:47] How Tears of the Kingdom is going to do against

[01:07:50] Breath of the Wild's six-year-ish head start on 29 million?

[01:07:56] What, like, do you think it'll get there?

[01:07:58] It's tough, right?

[01:07:59] With late generation.

[01:08:01] Well, we don't know what the end of the generation is actually for Switch,

[01:08:04] but you know what I mean.

[01:08:06] I don't know.

[01:08:07] This could come out the gate, gangbusters.

[01:08:09] I really don't know.

[01:08:10] Should we put out guesses right now and then in a year when this comes up,

[01:08:14] we can revisit this?

[01:08:16] Yeah. Okay. Okay. This time.

[01:08:18] Okay. Well, okay.

[01:08:20] Let's just say May 2024 then.

[01:08:22] How much will it sold in a year's time?

[01:08:24] Do you want to do that?

[01:08:25] Yeah. Okay.

[01:08:26] Let's do that.

[01:08:27] I'll say it will sell 17 million.

[01:08:30] What about you, Steve?

[01:08:33] I'll be bullish-ish and say 21 million.

[01:08:37] Okay.

[01:08:38] I was going to say 25,

[01:08:40] and now I feel like I'm being overly ambitious.

[01:08:43] No, I mean, I think I'm lowballing.

[01:08:46] Although if we were doing like prices rights rules,

[01:08:49] I should do like $1 more than what Steve said, but I won't do that.

[01:08:54] I'll say 25 million.

[01:08:56] In the meantime here,

[01:08:57] I'm going to set a reminder in my phone for May 2024 for us to revisit this.

[01:09:03] Or I'll just see it show up on my phone.

[01:09:05] I'll like, what does that even mean?

[01:09:07] Yeah. It's like Zelda,

[01:09:09] Zelda 2024 sales.

[01:09:12] It's like what?

[01:09:16] And that is exactly what happened.

[01:09:18] It just said, it just said March 22, March 2nd, 2023,

[01:09:23] Zelda sales figures.

[01:09:24] And it took me like five fucking minutes to figure out what I was even looking for

[01:09:30] and to even go back in the show list.

[01:09:32] I was like, did we record a show on March 2nd?

[01:09:34] And sure enough, we did.

[01:09:36] So here we are now.

[01:09:39] Obviously I have looked up what the sales figures are.

[01:09:41] I don't know how recently you guys have looked at sales data.

[01:09:44] If you haven't memorized, but I'm going to give you both the opportunity.

[01:09:48] Andre said 17 Steve said 21.

[01:09:51] Do you guys want to readjust those those guesses before we reveal?

[01:09:55] I feel like I'm wrong already.

[01:09:57] I'll stick with the 17 because I don't really know what I would raise it to.

[01:10:01] But if I had to guess, I don't think it's much more than that.

[01:10:05] I think Steve is probably closer with the 22.

[01:10:10] By the way, good on you.

[01:10:11] I didn't even remember that we did this.

[01:10:13] So I'm glad you set a reminder because I this was out of my head.

[01:10:17] That was the only reason I remember.

[01:10:20] I would have said I was going to set a reminder and then got distracted and then

[01:10:24] never set the reminder.

[01:10:25] So yeah, good for you, Kevin.

[01:10:27] I'm keeping my guess where it is too, just because I wouldn't know where to put it either.

[01:10:32] Steve said 21 million and as of end of March, so obviously we're going to be a little off,

[01:10:39] but Tears of the Kingdom was at 20.61 million.

[01:10:42] Wow.

[01:10:43] So we're probably sitting at like a right nice square.

[01:10:47] 21 million right now.

[01:10:48] So good on you, Steve.

[01:10:49] Nice.

[01:10:51] Got it.

[01:10:51] Yeah.

[01:10:52] Nailed it.

[01:10:52] Yeah, that's amazing.

[01:10:53] Well again, good on you for remembering and look, we weren't too far off that.

[01:10:57] That would be wild if we dug back in our old shows sometimes to be like, man,

[01:11:00] did we I said that, huh?

[01:11:03] That would be.

[01:11:03] Oh, I do.

[01:11:04] I'm sure there's been other things too, where we were like arguing about

[01:11:07] something that would happen in a year and you know, it's just in the ether now.

[01:11:12] Yeah.

[01:11:12] We need a super fan, a curator to be like, hey, you guys said this on February 2022

[01:11:20] or something like this.

[01:11:21] Sounds like you just decide yourself to write the fine time wiki, Mr.

[01:11:26] Oh my God.

[01:11:27] If we ever had anyone dedicated enough to write a fine time wiki, that would be incredible.

[01:11:32] All right.

[01:11:32] Well, I'm glad one of us was very close to correct and we weren't embarrassed.

[01:11:39] It's sold like 6 million copies or some shit, which would have been impossible.

[01:11:46] Okay.

[01:11:47] So, Andre, you might remember last time Square Enix wasn't having a good time

[01:11:53] and they really weren't having a good time because

[01:11:56] really licking their wounds a bit after our last show,

[01:12:00] they got a bit more specific about their future plans.

[01:12:04] Namely for HD titles,

[01:12:06] Square Enix will aggressively pursue a multi-platform strategy that includes

[01:12:11] Nintendo platforms, plural PlayStation, Xbox and PCs.

[01:12:18] Guys, ignoring how imminent the super switch probably is

[01:12:23] and to do a, you know, the nerd thing of,

[01:12:27] yeah, most of the Square Enix library is already multi-platform.

[01:12:32] I got to also ask, is this really it for the timed console exclusives from them?

[01:12:40] Will all three Xbox players looking for mainline Final Fantasy finally be happy?

[01:12:47] No, I do not think so.

[01:12:49] In a word, no, I do not think multi-platform is the issue here

[01:12:55] because let's do the math.

[01:12:57] Okay.

[01:12:57] Let's just think about this this way.

[01:12:59] Let's say Final Fantasy 16 sold 3 million copies on PS5.

[01:13:04] Okay, let's say that's the number.

[01:13:06] Now let's say that it came out on PS5 and Xbox.

[01:13:11] Do you really think either of you think that number 3 million sales would go that much higher?

[01:13:18] Because I'm not sure that it would.

[01:13:21] I think they're thinking like, well, we sold 3 million on PS5.

[01:13:25] If it's on Xbox, we can double that.

[01:13:27] If it's on PC, we can have much more.

[01:13:29] If it's on Nintendo Switch, you will.

[01:13:31] I don't think it works that way.

[01:13:32] I just think X amount of people are interested in a game and that's it.

[01:13:37] I'm not saying that they wouldn't have sold more.

[01:13:39] I'm just saying that like, I don't know, you guys following what I'm saying here?

[01:13:43] Like, okay.

[01:13:44] Yeah, maybe like people who have like an Xbox Series X,

[01:13:47] maybe they bought a PS5 to play Final Fantasy 16.

[01:13:51] I'm sure other people did too, but I think a lot of people are also just like,

[01:13:55] oh, well, I'm not really interested in that anyway.

[01:13:57] So yeah, no, I think.

[01:14:01] Yeah, well, I don't I would, I guess if we're using that 3 million figure,

[01:14:06] I would assume, you know, if we're talking about Xbox and PC,

[01:14:09] it would have been definitely a bit more than that.

[01:14:12] PC is a different ball game.

[01:14:13] I think PC you could like double your sales.

[01:14:15] Maybe maybe.

[01:14:17] Yeah.

[01:14:19] I also, yeah, I don't know.

[01:14:20] So I guess too, when we're talking about their AAA games, like, you know,

[01:14:26] Final Fantasy 16, I'm sure was somewhat of a system seller in some cases,

[01:14:32] but I don't think like, I don't think there was that many people running out buying

[01:14:36] consoles to because Final Fantasy 16 was coming out.

[01:14:40] And I don't think there's a lot of other Square Enix games

[01:14:43] that people are running out and buying consoles for either.

[01:14:47] Um, yeah, I'm not saying it was like a huge system seller, right?

[01:14:51] Like people went out and bought PS5 to play like Hogwarts Legacy because,

[01:14:55] you know, like they obviously, you know, if we're if they're going out there

[01:15:00] and it's not on PS4, Xbox one or whatever release, it wasn't when it came out.

[01:15:04] Right.

[01:15:05] Then it's like, and it's not on Switch.

[01:15:07] Okay, we got to get this new system and people were buying PS5 for that, not Xboxes.

[01:15:12] I think that's why I'm saying what I'm saying.

[01:15:14] Yeah, maybe Final Fantasy 16 doesn't have that panache.

[01:15:18] But I think honestly, what this comes down to, Steve, is like,

[01:15:24] these games are just kind of selling what they normally sell

[01:15:28] and Square Enix spent way, way too much money making them.

[01:15:33] I think you nailed it because

[01:15:37] for all fantasy 16, you might remember, let's just started with that slower burn

[01:15:41] that they weren't too happy with.

[01:15:43] At first, it did increase over time, but 16 was not an in-house project.

[01:15:48] They had to phone in platinum for those all those icon battles.

[01:15:53] And I'm not going to pretend I know how much Sony chucked at them for exclusivity,

[01:15:58] but platinum doesn't work for free.

[01:16:03] And I'm imagining Square's just feeling the burn of how much video games fucking cost to make.

[01:16:09] Yeah, and like we talk a lot, maybe not necessarily on this show, but in general,

[01:16:16] in the gaming space, we talk about how games take so long to make nowadays.

[01:16:22] And we have these very, very long dev cycles.

[01:16:25] The reason why Final Fantasy 7 Remake series is coming out as fast as they are, quote unquote,

[01:16:33] fast is because they are just making them for now like PlayStation and now just PS5.

[01:16:38] If they had to make them for other systems tack on like at least two years.

[01:16:43] So that's kind of it too.

[01:16:45] We keep saying like, oh, we want shorter dev cycles.

[01:16:48] You can't do that if you're making everything for everything.

[01:16:51] So you can't have it both ways.

[01:16:54] I think I want to bring this in the direction of Nintendo a little bit here too,

[01:16:59] because I find that interesting.

[01:17:02] They specifically named Nintendo platforms.

[01:17:05] What does that imply for a Switch successor?

[01:17:07] I think from the rumors we've heard, it's all but certain this is another handheld device.

[01:17:13] But how viable do we think that AAA games are going to be on that platform?

[01:17:19] Like if Final Fantasy 16 was coming out at the same time as the Switch successor,

[01:17:26] you know, obviously it's going to be a big jump up from the Switch.

[01:17:29] But I don't know if I'm confident it's really going to be a viable option for these

[01:17:34] graphical powerhouse games that they're specifying.

[01:17:39] I said this before on the show.

[01:17:42] I think the Switch 2 will basically be an Xbox Series S handheld.

[01:17:49] I think it's going to cost like 400 bucks.

[01:17:51] And I think it's going to be pretty powerful.

[01:17:55] I could be wrong about this, but I think enough time has gone by.

[01:17:58] What?

[01:17:59] It's been four years since those systems came out a little longer.

[01:18:02] I think you can maybe try to squeeze something pretty equivalent to that into a handheld.

[01:18:07] I think it's going to be more powerful than a Steam Deck.

[01:18:10] Am I wrong?

[01:18:10] Is that crazy, Steve?

[01:18:13] I don't think it's too crazy.

[01:18:14] No, I think Square's got to lean look at Nintendo a little bit because they've

[01:18:19] been enjoying some pretty good sales on that system.

[01:18:23] And I think Nintendo realizes they've got it up their game a bit too, because the other day they

[01:18:30] announced acquiring Shiver Entertainment.

[01:18:32] That doesn't sound like a big deal, but they're the ones that sort of made

[01:18:35] Mortal One Combat and Hogwarts Legacy sort of work on Switch.

[01:18:40] So I think they're really trying to get all the people that know how to make more with

[01:18:44] less around to really make this show.

[01:18:48] I think they're all talking to each other right now.

[01:18:53] They all got to make this work.

[01:18:56] Yeah, I think people think Nintendo just lives in the sky and they just make what

[01:19:00] they make and whatever.

[01:19:01] They listen to developers.

[01:19:04] I feel like the Wii's RAM got doubled because Capcom told them to.

[01:19:09] Very famously, the Xbox 360's RAM got doubled because whoever makes Gears of War

[01:19:15] told them to.

[01:19:16] I think a lot of that was oblivion as well.

[01:19:18] Oblivion needed to double the RAM.

[01:19:21] It was kind of, I mean, just Jesus Christ.

[01:19:23] Can you imagine a system with 128 instead of 256?

[01:19:26] I mean, the PS3's 512 feels like light years, you know, comparatively.

[01:19:33] And I do think Switch 2, it has to be that powerful.

[01:19:39] I don't think you can enter the market the way they like just duct taping two current

[01:19:45] switches together like they did for Wii or something like that.

[01:19:48] You've got to get this is one instance where Nintendo has to play the game a little bit.

[01:19:53] And if they don't, I hope you're right.

[01:19:56] Yeah, like I go ahead.

[01:20:00] I would love to see that.

[01:20:01] I think especially from a consumer perspective, I would love to see Nintendo like,

[01:20:05] you know, put out a $400 device.

[01:20:08] I think they're scared of that number.

[01:20:10] And that's just not been traditionally the path that they've walked.

[01:20:13] But I think they're in like if they've ever been in a position

[01:20:17] where they could do that and have people like jump on it now is the time.

[01:20:21] So I also, I mean, I also wonder too, right?

[01:20:25] When we keep talking about these like ever inflating development costs,

[01:20:30] you know, there's got to be like some thought of like,

[01:20:32] you know, to some degree, like lowering the bar or just like not the bar is

[01:20:38] and maybe this is counterintuitive to the switch point, but maybe lowering the bar,

[01:20:42] not as far as like graphical fidelity or like what it can do,

[01:20:46] but maybe even just like purely like the amount of content.

[01:20:50] You know what I mean?

[01:20:51] Just just like reducing these costs and maybe that kind of plays into like,

[01:20:55] you know, the Switch successor being obviously it's going to be less powerful

[01:20:59] than like PS5 Series X.

[01:21:01] Yeah.

[01:21:03] As of this recording, Hellblade 2 came out yesterday.

[01:21:08] And that's like a five hour super cinematic game.

[01:21:13] It's basically like a tech demo game where it has like a bunch of story

[01:21:16] and you kind of fight sometimes, which is fine.

[01:21:18] Like, you know, there's there is room for those type of games,

[01:21:21] but like like you were saying about lowering like the content.

[01:21:25] Yeah, not everything has to be Final Fantasy 7 rebirth at the same time.

[01:21:29] Like maybe we don't we shouldn't spend like years and years making Hellblade 2 either.

[01:21:35] That doesn't feel that feels like too far the other way.

[01:21:38] At the same time.

[01:21:39] Yeah, I think I agree.

[01:21:39] And I said this during our rebirth spoiler episode at the end.

[01:21:44] It was like I would be okay if they went back to like a more linear style like remake.

[01:21:49] I wouldn't I don't sure they would do that because you know,

[01:21:52] you have to have the high when you probably going to fly around and do this

[01:21:55] and that like you don't want to take that away from the player.

[01:21:57] At the same time, we had our big adventure, right?

[01:22:00] Not every game needs to be like that.

[01:22:02] And as much as I loved rebirth, I don't need that again, necessarily.

[01:22:07] Right.

[01:22:08] So I think I, you know, just kind of a tangent.

[01:22:11] I think I do agree with that in general.

[01:22:13] We can we can get to a place where we just don't have to stuff everything into one game.

[01:22:20] One more big question we got.

[01:22:23] So in a chat with comic book, the website comic book,

[01:22:28] Marvel Studios head of TV streaming and animation,

[01:22:31] Brad Winderbaum says that they're bringing back the Marvel television banner.

[01:22:36] This was previously used for like shows like Agents of Shield on ABC or like

[01:22:41] the Netflix like Daredevil show and shit like that.

[01:22:44] But now that the shows are going to return to Disney Plus,

[01:22:48] they're going to use that Marvel television banner to convey to viewers

[01:22:51] that they can in fact, quote, jump in anywhere, end quote,

[01:22:56] without watching every movie and show,

[01:22:59] which is a complaint that he recognizes a lot of people have made recently.

[01:23:03] And Winderbaum says, and I quote,

[01:23:05] we want to make sure that Marvel stays an open door for people to come in and explore

[01:23:11] on the heels of end game.

[01:23:13] I think there was maybe a little bit of obligation to watch

[01:23:16] absolutely everything in order to understand it.

[01:23:19] And he continues part of the rebranding of Marvel Studios,

[01:23:24] Marvel television, Marvel animation, even Marvel Spotlight is to,

[01:23:28] I think, try to sell the audience.

[01:23:31] You can jump in anywhere.

[01:23:32] They're interconnected, but they're not.

[01:23:35] You don't have to watch a to enjoy B.

[01:23:37] You can just follow your bliss.

[01:23:40] End quote.

[01:23:42] Let's start here.

[01:23:44] He says they're interconnected, but they're not.

[01:23:47] You can't say that dog.

[01:23:49] It can't be both at the same time.

[01:23:52] You can say it's not important that they, you know, yeah,

[01:23:55] the you know how it is sometimes it's like, oh, I do.

[01:23:57] I need to play the original Metroid and Metroid to play Super Metroid.

[01:24:01] No, you don't.

[01:24:03] You'll get some stuff out of it if you do, but no, you don't.

[01:24:06] So maybe that's what he's trying to say.

[01:24:07] Like they're interconnected, but that's what he's trying to say.

[01:24:11] OK, I hope so.

[01:24:12] That better be what he's trying to say.

[01:24:14] That's how I took it.

[01:24:15] OK, because that struck me as like, all right.

[01:24:18] Also, like, I think he's full of shit because again, this is the past now.

[01:24:25] But I just watched like Doctor Strange 2 and I didn't see the Marvels,

[01:24:31] but like you're fucked if you didn't watch one division.

[01:24:34] And guess what?

[01:24:35] I didn't watch one division.

[01:24:36] I had no idea what the entire villains arc was about in Doctor Strange 2.

[01:24:40] Multiverse of Madness, I think it's called.

[01:24:42] I had no clue.

[01:24:44] Like, and that's what I knew.

[01:24:45] I said this last year when we talked about the Marvels is like,

[01:24:48] that's what I knew.

[01:24:49] Oh, no, they really did it.

[01:24:51] I really do have to fucking watch everything on Disney Plus now to get.

[01:24:55] I can't just go to the movies anymore.

[01:24:57] I can't.

[01:24:58] So if he's really trying to like dial that down, then fine.

[01:25:02] But the thing is, I think he's wrong because you really didn't have to watch

[01:25:09] everything to watch Infinity War and Endgame.

[01:25:11] You absolutely did not have to.

[01:25:13] You can just watch those movies and that's it.

[01:25:16] I know it's a lot of characters and it's not going on,

[01:25:18] but you can just watch those.

[01:25:19] And it seems like the upcoming Deadpool and Wolverine,

[01:25:23] which I am very much looking forward to, is a direct response to all this anyway.

[01:25:27] So maybe they are really getting back on track,

[01:25:29] but please don't tell me those other shows don't matter when they really do.

[01:25:34] That is really obnoxious.

[01:25:37] I'm very much on the outside looking in.

[01:25:39] I've said over and over, I'm not a Marvel guy.

[01:25:43] I'm not really a superhero guy.

[01:25:45] But I have to wonder if the interconnection is really the primary problem here anyways.

[01:25:53] And we'll go on to talk about him talking about it like diluting focus and attention.

[01:25:59] Now, I don't think that's even...

[01:26:02] To me, I just feel like it's been cheapened because of the massive volume of content.

[01:26:08] I can't specifically articulate it more than that.

[01:26:11] It's just kind of like when everything is special, nothing is special.

[01:26:15] And I think that's how a lot of people feel about it.

[01:26:18] I don't think it's too interconnected.

[01:26:21] I don't think that there's too much to choose from.

[01:26:23] They've just really cheapened the Marvel movies, TV shows as a whole is how I feel.

[01:26:32] Again, from the outside looking in, is there an element of that?

[01:26:36] Yeah, you are correct.

[01:26:38] Because Star Wars had a mythology because there was three movies.

[01:26:43] You know what I mean?

[01:26:44] And then there were six movies.

[01:26:45] Okay, cool, right?

[01:26:47] And then there was nine movies.

[01:26:48] Fine.

[01:26:49] But then when you get to Disney Plus, and you start shitting out...

[01:26:53] I can't even keep up with those.

[01:26:54] I think I read a lot of those, Steve, last year when we were talking about the Marvels, right?

[01:26:59] I feel like I read off a lot of them.

[01:27:01] Like we're on season four of Mandalorian.

[01:27:05] I didn't even recognize half the shows on there.

[01:27:08] No one can.

[01:27:09] It's impossible.

[01:27:10] You just can't.

[01:27:12] So do you agree with Kevin?

[01:27:13] Do we have like...

[01:27:14] Is it like things don't feel special or is it really just a content deluge?

[01:27:19] Yeah, I think it's just both.

[01:27:21] I mean, how much can you really...

[01:27:24] We talked about this last year.

[01:27:25] How much time can you really expect the public to be invested in anything you're doing?

[01:27:30] Last summer, I think when you saw the movie and like...

[01:27:35] You can't have everyone do homework.

[01:27:38] Why should we?

[01:27:39] Why should we have to?

[01:27:41] You're not giving anyone a reason.

[01:27:42] There's too much of it and it's not worth watching.

[01:27:45] I think they're also assuming that like...

[01:27:49] Again, maybe this is just me.

[01:27:51] They're assuming that I'm going to remember everything that I saw

[01:27:55] in Doctor Strange or Shang-Chi or whatever, right?

[01:27:58] Wakanda Forever.

[01:28:00] I'm not.

[01:28:00] They're movies.

[01:28:01] I watch them and then I move on.

[01:28:02] I'm not saying I forget about everything.

[01:28:04] That's why you take notes.

[01:28:08] Oh, remember that one little scene in...

[01:28:11] It's a notebook test, Andre.

[01:28:13] Well, they actually did do that.

[01:28:15] Of all the millions of fucking things that happened in Endgame,

[01:28:18] there was one scene where Loki snatches a crystal or something and then he peaces out.

[01:28:24] He goes to a portal.

[01:28:25] He's gone for the rest of the movie.

[01:28:27] That little piece of shit scene is like the entire basis for the Loki TV show,

[01:28:33] apparently on Disney+, which I've never watched.

[01:28:36] But that one little thing that happens is like...

[01:28:40] I'm supposed to remember that.

[01:28:42] Yeah, I remember that that happened now that you mention it.

[01:28:45] But we're talking about Avengers Endgame here with 40 fucking characters and whatever.

[01:28:51] What do you want me to do?

[01:28:53] That's the type of shit where I'm like,

[01:28:54] okay, what do you want from me as a viewer?

[01:28:58] Every time we talk about Marvel stuff,

[01:29:00] I'm always so glad that I don't give a shit about it.

[01:29:04] There's so many reasons to not.

[01:29:07] Look, I don't want it to sound like I'm a Marvel super fan.

[01:29:09] That I'm not.

[01:29:10] I just like to go watch those movies and that's it.

[01:29:14] I watch them.

[01:29:14] I think they're fun for the most part.

[01:29:16] There's very few bad ones for me and I move on.

[01:29:18] That's why I go to them so often because for me,

[01:29:21] they were almost always a guaranteed good time.

[01:29:24] But do you feel now like you have trepidation about that because of these reasons?

[01:29:29] About feeling like you're going to go sit in the theater and spend the money

[01:29:32] and get the popcorn and feel like you don't know what's going on or

[01:29:35] you've just watched fucking four Marvel movies in the last few months and it's just too much.

[01:29:39] You didn't buy any of the Cliff Notes, so of course he feels that way.

[01:29:43] Yes.

[01:29:43] Who buys Cliff Notes?

[01:29:45] Do kids buy Cliff Notes?

[01:29:46] No, it's fucking chat GPT, right?

[01:29:48] Yeah, I guess.

[01:29:52] No, I don't feel that way but that's why I'm so excited for Deadpool and Wolverine

[01:29:56] because it's not going to be...

[01:29:57] I could just go there and watch them say fuck and cut up people and then that's it.

[01:30:02] That's kind of why I'm excited for it.

[01:30:04] I don't have to fucking know anything and that's exactly what I want.

[01:30:11] All right, you guys want to play a game before we get out of here?

[01:30:15] It's a game we haven't played in a really long time.

[01:30:19] I know what game it is.

[01:30:19] I want to play it.

[01:30:20] You want to say it for the people?

[01:30:23] Jav titles real or fake?

[01:30:25] Did your ass just say Jav?

[01:30:27] Go home, Kevin!

[01:30:29] Did you just vocalize Jav?

[01:30:30] Are you serious?

[01:30:31] I thought we... I know it's Jav but I'm sure we've said it as Jav before.

[01:30:36] Is that not a...

[01:30:37] I never pronounced them as a word.

[01:30:40] I... You know what?

[01:30:41] I think...

[01:30:42] Get your audio recording ass and find that somewhere.

[01:30:45] No, we can say that.

[01:30:48] Japanese adult video titles real or fake?

[01:30:52] Much less enthusiasm.

[01:30:53] In case you haven't heard this, we haven't done this in a really long time.

[01:30:56] We take... Well, we used to take quotes from the Jav.Text account on Twitter

[01:31:04] but that is no longer on Twitter because Elon sucks and the API stuff.

[01:31:09] But they're back on Blue Sky and so I took a bunch from Blue Sky

[01:31:13] and these are real Japanese adult video titles unless I made them up.

[01:31:18] So I'm going to read one and then the guys will guess whether they are real or fake.

[01:31:32] Ah, I'm glad to be back in the saddle, the sexy saddle for this.

[01:31:37] Easy there.

[01:31:38] All right, here's the first one.

[01:31:42] These boys and girls are just friends but they're about to take on the slut experience.

[01:31:49] Real or fake?

[01:31:51] I think that's fake.

[01:31:53] I think you're getting out of the gate fake.

[01:31:55] Okay, the slut experience.

[01:31:58] Do you think the slut experience is fake, Steve?

[01:32:00] I think it's real.

[01:32:01] Oh, you think it's real?

[01:32:03] Well, you're right, it is real.

[01:32:05] Maybe you should watch that one, Kevin.

[01:32:07] You can take on the slut experience as well.

[01:32:10] Get a t-shirt on the other side.

[01:32:13] All right, next one.

[01:32:15] Coed Wrestling Camp.

[01:32:17] The winner triumphs over the cocks.

[01:32:21] Real or fake?

[01:32:27] This sounds real so I'm going with it.

[01:32:29] Okay.

[01:32:31] I also think fake on this one.

[01:32:33] Okay, fake.

[01:32:34] It is fake.

[01:32:35] I made that up.

[01:32:36] Okay, before we move on, I have to ask,

[01:32:38] do we think cocks makes it into Japanese vernacular?

[01:32:41] Because I don't know that...

[01:32:43] They have an equivalent for cock, yeah.

[01:32:47] Would it be translated as cocks though?

[01:32:49] Yes, it is always translated.

[01:32:50] Or sometimes dick if you want to be, but yeah, they have a word like that.

[01:32:54] An equivalent, it's, yeah.

[01:32:56] I know enough Japanese to know that much at least.

[01:33:00] That was day one of Japanese lessons.

[01:33:03] All right, next one.

[01:33:06] She has three holes but only one will to live.

[01:33:11] She said real or fake.

[01:33:18] That is the most shocking one to date.

[01:33:21] Yeah, that's why I think it's real.

[01:33:23] I think it's real too.

[01:33:24] That is sassy.

[01:33:25] My friend Ben who loves this segment made it up for me.

[01:33:31] It is fake.

[01:33:35] Good job, Ben.

[01:33:36] That is art.

[01:33:39] All right, let's try this one.

[01:33:44] A girl who just came back from having sex with 10,000 men in LA

[01:33:48] has decided that she likes anal better.

[01:33:52] Real or fake?

[01:33:56] 10,000.

[01:33:58] She just decided.

[01:34:00] Damn.

[01:34:01] Fake.

[01:34:02] That's gotta be real.

[01:34:04] It is real, Kevin.

[01:34:07] I mean once you hit 10,000, like you got to open up your options.

[01:34:11] Those aren't even real cocks.

[01:34:13] They don't have real cocks.

[01:34:14] Look, she just really, really wanted to make sure.

[01:34:18] Okay.

[01:34:20] She had to get to 10,000.

[01:34:21] She really needed to know.

[01:34:22] 9,500 is like, probably but another 500 and I'll know.

[01:34:29] Okay, let's try this one out.

[01:34:34] Everything in this bakery has this couple's sex juice.

[01:34:39] Real or fake?

[01:34:42] Real.

[01:34:43] Real.

[01:34:44] Okay.

[01:34:48] I'm gonna say fake.

[01:34:49] I feel like it, yeah, I'm gonna say fake.

[01:34:52] That sounds like it would violate health code violations.

[01:34:57] I don't think any of these movies are worried about that.

[01:35:00] But okay, you're right.

[01:35:03] It's fake.

[01:35:04] That is a fake one.

[01:35:06] All right.

[01:35:08] Let's try this one.

[01:35:10] My dad's lover is my big tits private tutor.

[01:35:13] He's committing adultery and cream pie sex behind my mom's back

[01:35:17] and smiling like a jackass while showing off his rock hard cock.

[01:35:23] Real or fake?

[01:35:25] Boy, if you made that up, good on you.

[01:35:27] I think that's real.

[01:35:28] Yeah, that's real.

[01:35:30] That's absolutely that's 100% real.

[01:35:32] Can you say it one more time?

[01:35:34] There was so much content I couldn't even digest it.

[01:35:37] Okay, my dad's lover is my big tits private tutor.

[01:35:41] He's committing adultery and cream pie sex behind my mom's back

[01:35:44] and smiling like a jackass while showing off his rock hard cock.

[01:35:52] I want that on DVD.

[01:35:56] Can you fit that on the spine?

[01:35:57] I mean, like, yeah, no, no, no.

[01:36:00] It's got to have two lines of text for sure.

[01:36:05] Okay, let's try this one.

[01:36:08] Don't let me go alone.

[01:36:10] Everyone is invited to the piss party.

[01:36:16] Kevin keeps Kevin keeps looking at me during these like he's very disappointed.

[01:36:20] Like if you made that up, if you made that up, you are a sicko.

[01:36:24] No, no, no, no.

[01:36:25] No, no, no.

[01:36:26] You are mad respect if you made those up.

[01:36:28] No, this one's fake.

[01:36:29] This one's fake?

[01:36:29] That one's real.

[01:36:30] I think that one's also real.

[01:36:32] Well, thank you for believing in me, Kevin, but it is fake.

[01:36:36] I made that one.

[01:36:38] I made up the piss party.

[01:36:40] Okay, geez, you got me.

[01:36:43] I had a feeling you might have created the piss party.

[01:36:47] Piss party creations.

[01:36:48] And you didn't invite me to it.

[01:36:49] That's fine.

[01:36:50] I'm not a fan anyway.

[01:36:51] Okay, how about this one?

[01:36:55] Shit just got real.

[01:36:56] Five hours of the best of filthy dirty shit.

[01:37:04] Real or fake?

[01:37:07] If this one's fake, you have to go on a list.

[01:37:09] So I'm going to say real.

[01:37:10] Okay.

[01:37:11] No, I mean the like blurring requirements.

[01:37:15] I think they don't allow that one to be real.

[01:37:18] I think that's fake.

[01:37:20] That one is real.

[01:37:21] 100%.

[01:37:22] Yeah, that's a real one.

[01:37:24] Man, you got to buy that one on the black market in Tokyo.

[01:37:29] They sold that one at the Saro Z game store.

[01:37:34] That one is not a Japanese 7-Eleven.

[01:37:36] I know that.

[01:37:38] All right, that was fun.

[01:37:39] I feel we took a shower during this, but now I feel filthy again.

[01:37:43] So maybe I should go take another one so we can get out of here.

[01:37:46] We're getting back to our roots.

[01:37:47] Yeah, we're getting back to our roots.

[01:37:48] We had to do JV titles.

[01:37:50] It's been a while.

[01:37:51] JV titles.

[01:37:53] And I was quietly keeping score.

[01:37:55] Kevin won.

[01:37:56] And just as a reminder, Kevin loves his wife and children very much.

[01:38:02] Not so much that he...

[01:38:03] I in fact am not going to buy that one on DVD.

[01:38:06] On that note, we can get out of here because where are we going to go from that?

[01:38:10] Check the description of this podcast to find our names on social media.

[01:38:14] Check us out on Twitter at FindTime Podcasts.

[01:38:16] And we'll see you next time.

[01:38:16] Bye.