It's a Laptop!! | The Big Deal

[00:00:00] Hey, it's your boy Dre Off The Top here to once again beg you, ask you, plead with you to give us a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listen to Fine Time. Please do that. Also give us a review. It could just be a sentence. Hey guys, love the show. You know, stuff like that helps out a small show like ours a lot. So we would appreciate it if you could. We would love you for it. Let's start the show.

[00:00:27] Step into video game land. Welcome to...

[00:00:51] Hello, party people. It's your boy Dre. Hello, party peoples. It's... Man, I don't like this. Can I start over? Should I start over, Kevin? I think you're kind of locked in at this point. Steve, can I start over, please? Okay, but only just the one time. No, we've already talked. That can't go to waste.

[00:01:18] We just started. We're not too far in. He could start over just the one time. See, now I don't know. Now that I have the power to start, now that I have permission, I don't know if I should take it. This has been a great show so far. You know what, Kevin? You're right. This has been an excellent show, these 45 seconds. Steve, I think we should keep it. I changed my mind. Hey, you know, permission to do something doesn't mean you should, right? You know, show's on. Yep. All right. Fine.

[00:01:48] Oh, boy. Want to talk video games? I mean, that's always good. That is what our show is. Allegedly. Allegedly about video games. Should I go first again? I don't know. Yeah, you should. Should I? All right. Fine. Fine. You talked me into it. We got a simmer to what I'm doing. So, yeah, you go first. Okay. I'll talk about a real video game that I actually like, but I'm going to kind of bitch about anyway.

[00:02:17] And that video game is Shin Megami Tensei V Vengeance. So, usually we get on here and we talk about what we are currently playing. But this time, I actually want to talk about something I played last year in Shin Megami Tensei V Vengeance.

[00:02:46] The updated version of Shin Megami Tensei V that came out on Switch in 2021, Steve? Late 2021? Never heard of it. Thank you. We didn't do a whole post-game show on it or anything. Nah. No, no, no. We didn't like it a ton, no. Definitely not one of my top five favorite Switch games of all time. Not at all. But, yeah, that's how I feel about the original SMT5 on Switch.

[00:03:12] And I don't want to cover all the same shit we already talked about, like the battle system and world building. And, you know, we already did that. So, I want to take a different perspective here. Because, across the board, I think everyone is saying SMT5 Vengeance is a better version of the original. And I'm not sure I necessarily agree. I don't think it's a worse version of the original.

[00:03:41] I just think Vengeance has its own pros and cons. And that's the angle I want to talk about today. I want to go through those pros and cons. So, obviously, the entire reason, besides the new story, the entire reason I was interested in SMT5 Vengeance is because it was coming to all systems this time. And not just Switch. Which means it's going to improve, Steve, the one big thing we talked about in that post-game show, performance.

[00:04:12] Because that game was not performing. It tried to be 30 frames a second. I think it very rarely got there. Steve, maybe indoors? Maybe? Oh, on occasion. Sometimes. Maybe. Once in a while. Right? But on the whole, nah. It just wasn't happening. Especially cutscenes sometimes would just slideshow into the teens. It was embarrassing.

[00:04:38] And for me, a frame rate horror to still give that game an A++++ shows you how much I love that game. Right? If I'm going to overlook something like that. So, yeah. This game is on everything. PS4, PS5, PC, etc. Breaking news, everybody. The PS5 can run a Switch game at 60 frames a second. And I'm glad to tell everyone this. So, when you first boot Vengeance, you have a choice.

[00:05:05] You can play the game as originally told on Switch, the original story. Or you can play the new alternate story. And I think most people will tell you the new story is better. And this is one thing that I'm not so sure on. Because a lot of people consider the story one of the, I guess, shittier points of the original Switch game. Is that, oh, it's not really that good. Or, like, you know, you just kind of go here to there and that's it.

[00:05:31] But that's kind of what I like about Shin Megami Tensei V originally. It's not a cutscene heavy character driven kind of game. Steve, it's an exploration and dungeon game. That's what we like these for. I was going to say, the only other one I played so thoroughly was 4. And that was also more about dungeon explorer. You find the demons. Go to the next point. We're not really here for the story game. I know you didn't like that one as much.

[00:05:58] But, I mean, I feel like that's what Shin Megami Tensei is. Me too. But, again, it's something people complained about. People who I don't really think are the target audience for these games. But, you know, hey, what can I say? But, I don't know. To me, it's like a dungeon crawler. If you wouldn't expect something like Etrian Odyssey to have, like, a great character driven story, I would say that you shouldn't expect it from Shin Megami Tensei either. But, you know, that's just my opinion.

[00:06:27] And, okay, Vengeance's new story does have some more characterization and stuff. And I'm not going to spoil. But, it's like I said, pros and cons. There are some stuff that's handled better in this one and some stuff that's worse. Steve, I'll give you an example, of course, without spoiling. You know the school situation with the girl being bullied? That's all I can say. I feel like that plays out better in the original. Oh. I think so. In my opinion. I see. I'll play it eventually. Okay.

[00:06:57] That's all I'm going to say. And, obviously, I'm not going to tell you what. But, you know what I'm talking about. So, you'll see it when you get there. So, here's the thing also. In the new story, you can have a couple of, like, permanent characters in your party. Human characters that you can use in place of the typical demons that you would normally gather up. Which, obviously, you can still do.

[00:07:20] But, if you don't really feel like doing that that much, it's like, hey, here are some humans you can just have in the party as permanent people. And, they'll just kind of level with you. Not sure how I feel about that. I got to say. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Actually, you tell me. You've played the original. You love the original. You haven't played this yet. Me telling you that. What does that make you think of? How does that make you feel? I don't know. It just makes me feel like they were ashamed of Shin Megami Tensei V, in a way.

[00:07:48] If we're going to just make it like another RPG where we're just handing you other bozos to hang out with. I mean, okay. Again, going back to 4 and 4 Apocalypse. They give you, like, occasional. I'll call them the token humans. They sometimes, like, slapped them in the background when the story called for it. They acted on their own and they did whatever. And then they left. They fucked off when it was time for them to fuck off. Mm-hmm. Like, hear what you're telling me. It sounds like they were...

[00:08:15] That Atlas is ashamed of the Shin Megami Tensei V game. And they thought you might be, too. So, again, here's some assholes for you to hang out with if you want that. I don't like that on you telling me that level, anyway. Okay. And that's kind of how I feel. And look, I guess you could just, like, not use them. I guess. But, like, I don't know, man. I feel like if they're there... And here's the problem, too.

[00:08:43] And this might be sort of a lessening difficulty thing. They're busted as fuck. Especially this one girl. Of course they are. They're so busted. She has, like... Her ice powers are insane. Like, it's crazy. It's way beyond any demon you could pick up at those times in the games. So, it's like... Okay. It's okay. Again, it's still Shin Megami Tensei. It's not an automatic win button. You still have to play the game. But, man, does she have some powerful shit.

[00:09:13] So, it's like, what am I going to do? Just, like, not engage with the games just so I can make it harder for... I never liked that kind of, like, choose-your-own-difficulty where it's like, I can't do something to make it a challenge. I don't like that. So, I didn't do that. Also, I've already played the game. So, I'm not here for a challenge. I just kind of want to see the new shit. So, I've been using them, but... I know, but it's like... Yeah. I'm glad you agree with me on that.

[00:09:41] So, here's the thing that I actually think is not good about this game. And it's the only thing that I think I can say, okay, this markedly actually is worse than the original story. So, Shin Megami Tensei is pretty good about presenting the world to you as it is. You know what I mean? You explore. You meet people. You meet good people. You meet bad people. Morally ambiguous people. And then you get to make choices based on how you feel about them.

[00:10:11] And SMT5 Vengeance still lets you do that, but it feels a lot less special because of the additional characters that tag along with you because they always have some shit to say about it. You know, one person might be like, oh no, how could the angels do this? I thought they were good. And then the other person's like, well, not all angels are good and not all demons are bad. Tsk, tsk, right? And it's like, I don't need this explained to me, right?

[00:10:37] Like, I don't need that from my NPC overpowered companions. I can just experience a game and I can feel how I feel. I don't need to be told that every second. You know what I mean? Is that like in a way that they think the player is too stupid to understand what's going on? Does it come off like that? That's kind of what it feels like, Steve. Yeah. Okay.

[00:10:57] I think we found the second thing I'm not liking at face value that you're telling me here, because another thing I've been enjoying in my brief jumps into these games is, you know, you make the responses and then you kind of got to let these things lie for a while. And then eventually it all comes to a boiling point later on when we finally hit the stride. And then it's like, well, well, well, if it isn't the consequences of my own actions, and then we got to deal with the rest of the game. I mean, like that shit's great. But here, if everyone's going to be like, oh, no, why'd you say that?

[00:11:26] Make that choice for? Oh, how terrible. Terrible. They're not that judgmental about it, but they do definitely want to like talk it through every time. And I'm like, no, I don't. I don't need to talk about this. I really don't. Steve, here's one thing you will like, because this is something we went back and forth on on our postgame show. And it's about saving or rather the use of save points and the way they're scattered around the landscape. And I said, I like that.

[00:11:54] It's that way that you can't save anywhere you want because the traversal is the point. I'm trying my best to get to this new place. Oh, shit. I'm out of resources. I should retreat or. Oh, man, I'm going to go for it. If I die, I die. You can make those kind of choices. All that's gone because SMT five vengeance does the thing that you wanted. You can save anywhere you want. So, I mean, I, I would have settled for an interrupt save, but okay, let's overcorrect. Oh, okay.

[00:12:24] So you, so you actually aren't with this. I thought you'd be like, fuck. Yeah, buddy. I mean, I get why four did it because it was on, it was on 3ds and I get why five didn't do it, but it's like, come on. Switch is a portable console. You could have threw us a little bone here. I don't know. It was, it was, it was very jarring. I don't know. Yeah. So look, it doesn't ruin the game as I suppose that it might in our postgame show. Okay.

[00:12:52] I'm not gonna, I'm not going to sit here and say, you know, this, this is trash now because you can save anywhere. However, it does take something away. It does. I can't deny that it does. So again, I say it all the time, quote unquote, accessibility or quality of life is not always in service of the game, but you know, Hey, that's, that's something we talk about a lot here. So I won't, I won't do it again this time. I promise. I never, okay.

[00:13:20] I need to correct one of my sins from that postgame show. I did not talk about the music at all. I completely forgot. But, and I'm not going to go on too long here, but like, all I can really say is that it's fucking excellent. It's incredible. It's one of the best Megaton soundtracks of all time. Vengeance adds a number of new tracks, Steve, that are just as good as the originals, if not better. It's excellent stuff. Excellent stuff.

[00:13:46] Do we get to listen to it or do our new companions just talk over it the whole time? Oh no, they don't talk over. There's so many, you, you thought this game had too many battle themes before they added even more. These crazy motherfuckers. That's okay. We can always use another battle theme. I haven't heard one from you. There's, there's more than one new one. Trust me. And they're, and they're great. If you have never played SMP five, definitely pick up this vengeance version. Absolutely get it.

[00:14:15] It is still an A plus game. I just am one of those people who thought the original was like perfect. So any of these changes feel not necessary to me or even somewhat detrimental, but that doesn't change how I feel about the game. It is still one of the best RPGs you can play. I was going to say this generation, but now I guess we're in the next, um, crossing some generations here with SMT five. And I'm glad now that it's on every system, it's getting more recognition and the sales

[00:14:44] have bore that out. So yeah, SMT five vengeance, absolute two thumbs up for me, even though I have a few quibbles. So if you buy this, which of those two versions do you play on this version? You can pick one. You can pick which one, but which, which do you, which you recommend, I guess is what I'm, oh, um, man, that's tough. See, here's the thing.

[00:15:11] I genuinely think there's value in playing both, but this is a long ass game. So I don't, I don't want to sit here and say, Hey, you need to play this game for 160 hours to, you know, new game. Plus has been generous in Shimei Gumi Tensei land. Has it? In my experience with four anyway, but, uh, and I meant to do a play five again, but then they announced vengeance. So yeah, I was gonna, I was kind of on the same, on the same train as you that was like,

[00:15:41] Oh wait, now we're playing this. They let you carry a lot of shit back. And I'm like, usually a second playthrough isn't as harrowing if you wanted to find other endings. Look, I was just going to play the game regardless. The new story is just, is kind of frosting on the cake to me. I just wanted to play the game at a frame rate that wasn't trash. So like, Hey, I, I was going to get this version no matter what, even if it didn't have any new stuff. Fine time.

[00:16:21] Guys. It's no secret that 2025 kind of sucks so far, you know, in terms of game news and, uh, you know, in general, the other week they said it was, someone said it was illegal to boycott Tesla. Like what I like, I'm feeling my brain dying a little more every day, you know? So I'm figuring if I'm going to keep playing current video games on this show, I should

[00:16:46] at least play something educational and, uh, Carmen San Diego 2025. Is that the name of the game? Carmen San Diego 2025. No, it's just called Carmen San Diego. Oh, you know how most of these games like ask a question about where she is or what she's doing. This one just says Carmen San Diego. Oh, so we're not even doing where in the world is. Oh yeah. So why don't we get into that?

[00:17:15] Because I know Kevin's Canadian and might not entirely be sure because he was a little, he either checked himself out or was like, nope, I'm out of here. When I was talking about it in the group chat. Well, maybe, maybe in 2025 in Canada is Carmen San Diego is considered to be in, in America. Yeah. Maybe she's in, maybe she's in the fucking Gulf of America. I don't know. Yeah. Look, I know some people are a bit younger than us. So let's ask what, let's answer. What was Carmen San Diego?

[00:17:44] Because there's only flickers now in cartoons and one-off games that no one's heard of. Like, did you know there was a GameCube game? No. Oh, I did not either. I didn't until I was like looking into this recently, but you know, in the eighties and nineties, Carmen San Diego was a series of edutainment games where you needed to help out the police squad, Acme, track down the titular Carmen San Diego and her vile thugs who are very adept at stealing landmarks. You know how shredder steals the statue of Liberty? That's amateur hour.

[00:18:14] Carmen San Diego and vile would steal the entire empire state building and leave you a small scrap of paper and the included almanac to figure out where the hell it all went. And, you know, as dumb as that sounds, it was a juggernaut here in the U S when Broderbund put it out, you know, where in the world and where in the USA and everything else. Yeah. Prince of Persia right on Buggling Bay, neat stuff. But did those have a game show on PBS featuring beloved character actress Lynn Thigpen as the

[00:18:44] chief? No, that's how I, that's how I know Carmen San Diego was that TV show really before I even played any of those games. I watched that show on PBS like every day. Yeah. I think a lot of us did down here. And I mean, she kept playing that role when they moved the game, the CD ROM. But again, after that, it kind of wandered off into the wilderness, like all the other Broderbund stuff after Kevin's neighbor, Mr. Wonderful, Kevin O'Leary bought them out.

[00:19:13] And I really don't want to go down that road right now because it makes me upset. Hey, sorry. I didn't mean to bring up something that you brought up yourself to make you make you upset. Look, I look, look, Kevin has even evil billionaires. Kevin Canada has evil billionaires, too, is all I'm saying. Okay. Okay. I'll take your word for it. So what is Carmen San Diego 2025 doing then?

[00:19:40] It's supposed to be a game celebrating the 40th anniversary of the original Where in the World, you know, released for computers at the time. I'm playing it included on my Netflix subscription because, you know, that's what I do sometimes now on my tablet. But it's available on all major platforms for 30 bucks with a deluxe version for $60. And yeah, I'm looking through this on the switch to shop to see what the hell is in the deluxe version.

[00:20:08] And other than art, I can't tell you what's making this deluxe. There's no way they're making a great start. Hold on. Hold on. There's no way they're making you pay $30 for like some art. There's just no way. Oh, was anybody without a Netflix subscription playing this at all? I sincerely hope not because.

[00:20:35] Look, let's talk about how the original worked, because I think it had a very satisfying gameplay loop. We'll go back to my Empire State Building example. You know, just for the sake of explanation. We found a scrap of paper. It had some numbers with a pound sign on it. OK, we could deduce that the crook went to Europe. Then we asked someone nearby. They give me a weird clue about a wig talking about wooden shoes. OK, we're going to Holland. So there we go. We go there.

[00:21:02] We see some more shady shit done by vile thugs, which means we're on the right track. We get more clues. We repeat the cycle. Check profiles against the database and get a warrant because Acme believes in due process. You know, unlike the real cops. And eventually we arrest that person. Good job. Now keep doing that until we actually find Carmen Sandiego. Except wait a second. Wait a second. So you are not the titular Carmen Sandiego? In the original games? No.

[00:21:31] But here in 2025, you are the titular Carmen Sandiego. All right. And she's quit being a part of her own criminal organization, apparently, because she's helping a lady that's clearly a stand in for Thigpen's Jeep. Rest in peace. She's been gone forever now. Oh, yeah. Over 20 years, huh? Yeah. To catch criminals who are clearly trying to be vile, but without the skill or ambition.

[00:22:01] Like, Carmen Sandiego stole monuments and American artifacts and things. Here, we're stealing Mexico's Wi-Fi and Spain's supercomputer. But also, the real Acme is also still trying to catch Carmen Sandiego, but not really. Hold. Stop. Stop. Stop saying words. I know. Stop. I need to know stuff. Okay? Please.

[00:22:25] Are you telling me that one of the cases involves someone stealing Mexico's Wi-Fi and you have to get the Wi-Fi back? Yes. How do you get? How do they just put the Wi-Fi in a bag with, like, the Wi-Fi symbol on it instead of a money sign? And they just ran away with the Wi-Fi? They made up some more bull...

[00:22:51] I think they, like, tried to spin it off as they knocked the satellite off course, but it's just as stupid. They might as well have put the Wi-Fi in a sack. What in the world? I wish they put the Wi-Fi in a sack. It would have been on... It would have been on brand with the original games. Okay. Number two. I need to read... I'm looking at Steam right now. I'm going to read you the contents of this $30 DLC.

[00:23:19] It includes 40th Anniversary Caper, Where in the World? Cosmetic Skin, Classic Carmen Outfit. Cosmetic Skin, Motorcycle Carmen Outfit. Digital Official Soundtrack, Digital Official Artbook. The End. That's what you get for doubling your price of the game. You get one level and some skins. Okay. Well, those skins are included in the Netflix version because after playing for a bit, I did get the tan suit. What?

[00:23:50] I almost said what in the world, but that would just be too on the nose for what we're talking about here. Jesus Christ. Okay. I'm sorry. So what happened in Spain now? Spain had a satellite mishap? They have a supercomputer. It's a real thing. I forgot the name of it, but apparently they stole the whole thing. That they might have stuffed into an entire sack, but they don't show you. I wish they did. They did because I think they spend too much time trying to make this a real video game on

[00:24:19] top of being a half-assed reimagining of the original game. Because you go visit locations and Carmen needs to do things like use her grappling hook and QTEs or fly a hang glider and half-assed sequences or sneak up on people to pickpocket them in a grab-ass mini game, among other things. And none of these are bad. Like, they all function, but none of them are fun. But you get experience points.

[00:24:49] And why is there experience points in Carmen San Diego? What do they do? Do you level? Okay. So you level up Carmen San Diego. Then what happens? She gets plus five detective, like magnifying glass or something? Or like what? What happens? No, the experience points are for you because you thought you were going to just solve or not solve cases by accident and then move on like a normal video game. No, because in addition to the main story, which is called A Campaign Most Vile, you get it?

[00:25:18] Because it's a campaign. The game forces you to play the side cases, including where in the world what you found is apparently DLC. But there's like other ones too that make numbers go up. But it doesn't matter because it's all a shallow husk of what we all used to know and love. You go to locations and solve crimes, except they couldn't get that right either. Because whether it's the campaign or these little side shits, all these things just feel,

[00:25:47] you know, it's pointless. The facts such as they are, if they feel stapled on in the original, they gave you a whole ass book for reference here. I'm getting clues that say they went to a country with stars on the flag. They give you three choices. I already feel like that's infantilizing today. Like, come on, like, give me the whole world to look at. The whole point of these games before was to make kids look at something like a something

[00:26:13] like an encyclopedia or something like that to like look up stuff and find information and use it in the game. So it's not bad enough that I have these only three choices, but I'm getting very low res images of the flags that I can't see the finer details are that. Oh, I can't tell whether you actually have stars on your flag or not. But on a game series that's supposed to help teach me things, all I'm learning is why all this shit died out.

[00:26:41] The CD-ROM version didn't have all max, but they certainly leveraged the shit out of real photos to, you know, have and things to look at. They included that shit, you know, in the game. I don't know. I think this game is reaching too much to do too many different things. Last year, me and Andre applauded MEO, the smiling man for being the best damn Famicom detective club game it could be in the 2020s. And a lot of that had to do with remembering what that meant. Carmen Sandiego is the exact opposite of that. It's trying to be everything and it's just nothing.

[00:27:13] You've, okay. First of all, I understand your anger. Let's chill down. Let's take a chill pill. Do we still say that? Chill pill? Is that a thing? I think we can because we're old. Okay. Take a Dr. Mario chill pill. And number two, I actually don't understand what the, is this still like a point and click game? Because you're talking about hang gliding and pickpocketing and stuff. Like sometimes it's that. And then sometimes it's the half ass point and click thing where you're literally point and clicking.

[00:27:43] Well, not really because she's like walking around. And sometimes we look at a landmark and it's like, oh, here's a statue. This never comes up again. And then, uh, so was it? So is it like miles edgeworth or something? Or is it like, no, sort of no kind of. It's bullshit is what it is. Well, we confirmed this is indeed a video game. Is it a video game? It runs on my tablet. So it's technically a video game.

[00:28:12] I don't know. So we'll ask one more hypothetical question. Is there any reason to bother with Carmen San Diego? I mean, if you're listening to me, no, but in long, it gets even sadder. I got enough experience points that I got her tan coat from the original release of the DOS version or whatever. She had that in before it became red. Like someone knew that this probably should have been something. And guys, this something isn't even done yet.

[00:28:41] I'm on what's supposed to be the last chapter of the campaign. And it says coming soon. Oh boy. As of recording time, no one knows where the hell this is. I've been checking this every night just to make sure. Is this only for the Netflix? There's no way that they charge people $60 for the deluxe version on Switch and they get told it's the end is coming soon. Is there? As far as I can tell, no one knows when this is coming. Oh boy.

[00:29:11] I mean, I think it was supposed to come out the other week, but that is obviously not the case. That's insane. So imagine we got to map four of a vow and it's like coming soon. What in the world is going on? Where in the world is Carmen San Diego, bitches? We all got telltaled here and no one was told this anywhere. Like when you buy a telltale, well, back when they still existed, like we knew that we'd be getting episodes drip fed.

[00:29:39] But here it's like no one said anything about this. Here you're buying a video game and it's not done yet. I was very tempted to put the coming soon screen on my games done thread because, hey, look at what you assholes are doing. But somebody needs to be the adult around here. So I'm going to keep doing a stakeout every few days until it is out. But don't fucking bother, especially when the original games are very, very well archived.

[00:30:07] Even there's even a bunch of good versions. Well, not good, but, you know, you know, there's files of where North Dakota is Carmen San Diego. If you're that sick of a puppy, that is not a real game. That is not a fucking real game. It is. No way in the world. It is. No, Steve. I didn't make it. Also, how do you know this much about Carmen San Diego? I didn't know you were like a Carmen San Diego super freak. Okay.

[00:30:36] We had it on the school computer and I borrowed it from the library a bunch. And well, I didn't play North Dakota, but I was looking through the versions that were available to archive. And where in North Dakota is Carmen San Diego is a real game that they made. Pro. Pro. I need to get back to this release thing for a second. So they, but none of the, the first sections of the game, those weren't drip fed, right?

[00:31:02] This all came out as one experience and only the very end said coming soon. This wasn't like periodically released and you played it later in the schedule. It's only been out for a month. I couldn't imagine what you'd really be drip feeding. Oh man. This is fucking crazy. Crazy. If this was, if this was a video game, anybody cared about, this would be a big deal. Where in North Dakota is Carmen San Diego is a 1989 educational video game.

[00:31:30] It is the fourth game in the Carmen San Diego video game series after world in 85 USA in 86 and Europe in 88. I think her school had Europe. I think that's the one we had back in the day. Anyway, yo man. What? North Dakota was the sequel to all of Europe. Yeah. Now we're just going to North Dakota. I am sure someone at Brunerbund lives in North Dakota and that's how that happened. You don't see how else that would happen.

[00:32:00] I've read about this on, on other series. There was like the Yukon trail in Canada, which is similar to the Oregon trail. And there was also like, um, I'm trying to remember the, there was a cross, there was cross country USA and then there was a cross country Canada and there was all these other things. And I've read before about like, like specific governments funding these edutainment companies to make versions of these games. And I almost guarantee that's what happened. And I bet you some North Dakota education board said, you know, we'll give you guys a $20,000

[00:32:30] grant to retrofit this game for our stupid ass kids in North Dakota. That's exactly what happened. Because if you look on wiki here and you look at developers, it says Brunerbund co-developed with North Dakota database committee, whoever the fuck that is. So that is exactly what happened. I am sure that's a much better game than this. Also, you could have alleviated this entire thing up front. Maybe you did. And I forgot, caught up in your whirlwind and I didn't hear it.

[00:32:59] This, this thing was developed by Game Loft. Oh yeah. I knew I was in for some shit, but I'm like, well, I do a podcast with my friends every other week.

[00:33:10] So Kevin, I want to ask you one question, one random question out of the blue that I, is it something about my legs? No, it's not about your legs.

[00:33:39] I want to ask you how much do you like playing volleyball in the Nintendo switch game arms from 2017? Oh, I don't, I didn't want to start with the volleyball, but if you're forcing my hand, it's not that good. It's not, it's, it's, it's like it's in the lower half of the like bonus games. And I really think that you guys, before I played arms, both these guys like, oh, make sure you try volleyball. Make sure you try volleyball.

[00:34:08] It's, it's pretty fucking janky. Like the problem is when it gets like to the top of the net, if the other person hits it, like there's no reaction time. If it's coming at you, it does like a straight downwards trajectory and explodes like right in your court. I don't know. It's not well balanced. It's not well thought out. What, what, what is the fucking appeal to arms volleyball? Please enlighten me. Steve, if I can't, I mean, I don't know what else to say to this guy.

[00:34:37] I don't know. Kevin's been fairly on arms every time he comes in the chat about it. And I don't understand why. Well, maybe you can tell us why. I'm sorry. I wanted you to talk about volleyball first. I didn't want to wait the whole segment. I, I needed to know where I wanted to berate you in front of the audience right away. Go ahead. Talk about playing arms of the year of our Lord 2025. I never had anything against arms. I've always thought like, like, I like the aesthetic of it and the tone of it.

[00:35:05] And I've, yeah, I never had anything against it in concept. I just kind of always assumed ever since the switch presentation, this kind of looks like a one trick pony thing. And I wasn't, I wasn't necessarily skeptical about it not actually working. In practice. And it does work when you, you know, punch with a joy con, the punch goes forward. And if you tilt the joy con side to side, you move. And if you punch and then you kind of like divert your arm, the punch curves.

[00:35:32] So it does what they said it would do. I just don't think the concept was that good to begin with. And I was right. I wish I could talk about this for like 15 minutes, but there's not very much to say about. Andrew likes to yell at me for saying this. And I'll let him yell at me for saying this again. You could play with the regular controller. No one will yell at you for playing with the regular controller. But what, what, what is like that? 100% negates any like point to playing arms to me.

[00:36:02] Me too. Also, it controls better with the joy con. It just does. It's better than the pro controller. I don't know. When I'm playing, when I was doing the, when they had the events back when those were still on. Oh God, that was forever ago. And I know, right. When they did, when they did the arms weekends or whatever those were with characters and everything else. Like, okay, I can only do, I can only throw my arm, my, my real arm so many times. Okay. I need to play with a controller now.

[00:36:30] Well, you should be like that very handsome, very chiseled man in the, in the presentational video. Yeah. Because he, he wasn't getting tired at all. You know what? My arms did get sore. Like my son and I would play for like, you know, after like 20 minutes, I'd be like, okay, my, my arms are getting a little bit sore, but I never stooped so low as to use a controller. Steven, that seems completely invalid. Okay. I'll ask you about the other one. Did you like basketball at least?

[00:37:00] Basketball was the best of the mini games, basketball. And then the target one where the targets are like moving between targets targets fun. Yeah. Targets a lot of fun. Because if you're really going to come on here and say, you know what? Literally dunking my opponent and the ball in the basket kind of sucked. Steve. I think I was going to have to book the next flight to Canada. Yeah. I mean, it was, it was, it was interesting. And it also just seemed like it was a mechanically sounder idea. The basketball there's, there's kind of like, you know, different ways to shoot the ball

[00:37:29] or dunk the ball or whatever. It was a lot less one dimensional than volleyball. Okay. I mean, I don't know. I didn't, I, yeah, I, I did not spend like a ton of time playing this. I played with my son the whole time we played. Um, we did all the levels. We tried out every character. We tried every mini game. And at that point I was like, okay, I have no more desire to experience arms again in my life for what it's worth. My son loved that game.

[00:37:59] He, he was like going on and on. They should have more games where you use the motion controls like this. I really hope switch two has a sequel to arms. He was all about it. He thought it was fucking awesome. He has a lot more energy than me too, to be fair. So, you know, I guess that's, that's got to validate it for something, but I'm not, I'm not, I'm not shitting on arms. I think that's what you're, you're proving right now. Why they made the game. They made it like kids are going to love this type of shit. You know what I mean? Like, I think for us, we see this kind of shallow and I agree with a lot of your criticisms.

[00:38:27] I didn't play arms that long either. I really enjoyed it, but it was also like, okay, I'm not going to like sit here and just play this for hours. I can't, it's, it's kind of, I don't want to say one note, but maybe just feels a bit one dimensional at times. Once you kind of play it, you play it. Who's your favorite character though? That's what I want to know. Um, the, the really like the, actually, no, you know what? The robot with the dog, the robot with the dog was my, a lot of people like that.

[00:38:56] I was a mummy. It was a mummy man. Master mummy. Master mummy. Yeah. Yeah, me too. Maybe, uh, what would it do? I think twin Teleth is the name. Twin Teleth. She could like make the cut too. Oh yeah. For sure. Oh God. It's God. Oh, twin Tel. Do you remember when they first showed twin Tel? The internet went a little crazy. Yeah. The internet had a very healthy reaction to twin Tel. I don't know.

[00:39:25] I'm not, I'm not above signing up for that. Hey, me either. I mean, I said she should have been in smash. Not a what's her name, but Hey, what do I know? Right. All I'm really doing is like, Oh, sorry. Go ahead. I was just going to say, all I'm really hearing is we're not inviting Kevin to talk about two arms with us in the post game show sometime next year. No, I don't want to play two arms to switch with you. Sorry. Yeah. I, once I found out you can, you can rent switch games from the library, which is where this and one, two switch came from.

[00:39:55] These are like the perfect games to go back. Cause I want to like experience them for the switch mythology, but I do, I do not want to spend money on these. And I'm glad, I guess for both of them that I didn't actually spend money on them. I think. I don't, I definitely don't regret my $60. I think I got $60 worth of fun out of it. And like I said, the online lobbies were a lot of fun. I like how you just get in there and they start matching you up and you start doing random things. I, I wish more games had a lobby system like that.

[00:40:23] I wish smash ultimate had something like that. I love that type of shit, but smash ultimate doesn't have like, they would need to have stuff like break the targets again and stuff, which they don't have. So yeah, but no, I, I loved that aspect of it. It was considered that way. It's just the game, which is kind of okay. I have a question for you guys about arms because then I probably just didn't play enough to like really wrap my mind around this, but do you guys think the, the fighting itself

[00:40:50] is relatively well-rounded because kind of what I found, like if you do the double punch, you can do the grab, right? And if you get close enough and you get into a position where you can do the grab, it's not really defensible. You can't like cross your arms and block that. And so to me, I think, and for like both, both my son and I, it pretty quickly devolved into like, you know, kind of jab, try and get close in. And then the ultimate thing is just like smash both your arms together, try and do the grab.

[00:41:17] And, and, and that's what I think, think really, I wish that there was the, you know, it had said, okay, this is the grab. There is a way to counter the grab. However, if you're countering the grab, you leave yourself open to jabs. You should be able to tech the throw and you can't. I think that's the thing. Like you can, you can see it coming and yeah, you can kind of like punch their arms out of the way, I guess, or you can just dodge it, but you're not always going to be ready for that. You know?

[00:41:44] And the dodging isn't quite nimble enough to avoid that. Like, even if you see it coming, I, I didn't think. Certainly not as master mummy. Well, that's the risk you're running, right? If you see the throw coming and that's always going to be the two green arms coming at you, you can punch that. And if you're not ready for that, oh, well, you're getting tossed. It's too powerful to me. I think I agree with you, Kevin. It's a little too, it's too safe and you can't really punish it back.

[00:42:10] Like if they whiff the throw, their arms are just going to snap back and you're just shooting your fists at each other at again. That's the thing. Like if you whiff a throw in any other fighting game, you can kind of, it's, it's punishable or, you know, you're left open when you do it right here. It's like, what's the incentive to not spam it? Yeah. There's no incentive to not spam it. Like if you're, I don't know the fact that you have to look for it that much is kind of crazy. Yeah. I didn't necessarily care for that aspect of the game either.

[00:42:38] I think if there was going to be a sequel for arms, which I do not think there ever will be, but if there was, it needs to the, it needs to be mechanically better thought out. Yeah. That's, that's it. Arms was very army. Arms is very army man. That, that quote should go on. Do you remember when Nintendo had for like three days, they had like reviews you could leave

[00:43:05] on Nintendo.com, like under the games, like you could actually like leave reviews. And then they said, it's like, oh, we're not doing that anymore. And then they never explained why. And it never came back. That's what you should have done for arms. Arms is very army. It's what you should have wrote. 2.4 hours played. Child 107 hours played. Arms is very army. He, he did. He took my joy cons and played it in his room on his switch light with the joy cons

[00:43:34] paired to the switch light. So that's gotta, that's gotta be a good endorsement. Oh yeah, that has to be. That's definitely, uh, I mean, that's who it was made for. That's the target audience. I think that's what it is. Kevin, this just wasn't made for us. This is literally made for our children, which is fine. It just doesn't have the depth that we might like from any sort of one-on-one competitive fighting game. I guess it's not really a fighting game traditionally, but you know what I mean? You guys know what a fighting game, officiant audio efficient auto.

[00:44:02] I am so absolutely I've got high expectations. He's, he's played street fighter to the world warrior for 15 minutes. I'm super. I got beaten by my daughter when she was four multiple times. Oh, that's right. I remember that. Actually. I remember you telling us about that. I was, I was putting it in this forum publicly as like a, to, to write off as a joke. I didn't need you to throw me down to the bus and be like, oh, I remember that actually happened. Yeah. I was there. I was over here.

[00:44:35] All right. I guess that's about it. We talked about all our games. We'll be back with some news. Maybe it's driving time.

[00:45:16] All right. We're back. And I kind of have an impromptu question here. Just, I guess, before we get to any little news tidbits that we have, it is now two weeks as we record this. We are two weeks out from the switch to direct. How are you guys feeling? Let's do a vibe check on this because I'm feeling kind of, I don't know if nervous is the right word. I'm not expecting to be blown away.

[00:45:46] I think this is just going to be like, okay, we're not going to be blown away by the hardware, right? It's just switch, but it's bigger and it has some new joy cons, whatever. Right. And it does a mouse thing. Cool. Right. I don't need the gimmicks. I know people love Nintendo gimmicks. I don't need that. I'm just wondering what the software we saw a glimpse of what I guess was a new Mario Kart in that teaser, but it sure just looked like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. We know it's not, but like, I don't know. Right.

[00:46:16] There's a reason why they haven't made a Mario Kart in 10 years. It's probably because it's like, well, what are we going to do? So I'm just kind of worried. Like if we just have, here's a new Mario Kart, here's a new, here's Pikmin 5. Is that exciting? I don't know, man. I'm not expecting to be blown away by the software that they show us. And I hate that. I feel that way. Anyone else feeling that way? I'm very confident. We're going to see Metroid prime four and that's exciting.

[00:46:44] We know it's exciting, but that's still really exciting. That is exciting. But I mean, it's something we also have known about for. As our resident Nintendo nerd among Nintendo nerds, hearing what Nintendo is going to put out for a Nintendo switch to is going to be the exciting news for me. So in that way, I'm kind of feeling the opposite way. If anything, I'm antsy for, okay, we all know Metroid four is coming. I want to see the rest.

[00:47:14] Come on. Just, just, just show me whatever else you got. I think we're going to see some, like some of the quirky arms one, two switch type things, you know, maybe a little bit more geared towards casuals, but those things are still really interesting to see. They are interesting to see. And I, I definitely want to see those. I want to see what stupid game Nintendo puts together with the joy con mouse or whatever. Like I, I want to see that right. Where you guide your joy con mouse through some maze or something like that real on, like on

[00:47:43] a table or something like that. Like, I want to see that shit too. Right. Steve smiling at me right now. You know, you play that shit. Don't, no, don't front. Maybe it'll be included in the software because that seems to be what we do now. Oh, I don't know. We'll see. Yeah. You know, lands too. Yeah. The joy con two pack or whatever. What are they going to call them? Like switch to joy joy con two is actually doesn't sound bad. I know it's stupid, but so it's switched to.

[00:48:11] So, I mean, they need to differentiate it somehow, but they can't sell joy con and they can't call joy con deluxe. Right. So it's got to be joy con two. And it's got to be clear that that it's only for switch to those fuckers aren't fitting into the switch one, but it's just like, I don't know. We had dual shock four before we had dual sense. Right. So like, yeah, that just, you know, just keep up into the number, I guess. What are they going to do for PS six? Does that make it dual sense two?

[00:48:40] I wonder if they just go back to dual shock, dual shock six. I think technically it would be the dual shock five on the PlayStation six. Right. See, that's the thing we're trying to be. We can't have the dual sense two on the PlayStation six either. It sounds weird. But yeah, I don't know, man. I'm worried about the software and maybe it's just because like we hadn't seen again. I don't need like a tears of the kingdom every year or something like that. At the same time, like we haven't even heard a sniff of like what's been coming out.

[00:49:10] And the fact that this Zelda came out so late means that there's definitely not going to be one of those. Do we think, do we think breath of the wild remastered is going to be a thing? Yes. Absolutely. Steve? If not out the gate, like in a few months. Yeah. Afterward. Yeah. I think it would be again. Nintendo has a history of doing tech demo stuff that they don't actually release. You guys remember that Yoshi story thing for Game Boy Advance when they first showed GBA? They showed like a level. Yeah. Do you guys remember?

[00:49:40] They showed like a prototype of Yoshi story running on it. Yeah. I think it was in the dev kit too, but. Yeah. So people could figure that out. But. And it never became a real port or any game or anything, but it was definitely like, here's proof of concept. Maybe that's what the breath of the wild thing is, but it's also like the same thing of like Sony, like when they were first showing PS5 behind closed doors and they were showing Spider-Man, you know, when you could, you could instantly, you know, fast travel anywhere

[00:50:07] and the world was running like this and it was at 4k and we were just like, what the fuck? Right. But then they actually released that version of the game. I feel like the same thing's going to happen for breath of the wild for sure. There's no reason why not. Do you know what I am? And I, and I, I'm not just saying this facetiously and, and hold me back. So I don't turn this into a rant of American hatred. But I am genuinely really curious to see how pricing in Canada is going to stack up against

[00:50:36] American pricing because I, there, there's a lot of question about, you know, I don't know if, if product can be technically sold directly from Nintendo of Japan to Nintendo of Canada, there is a Nintendo of Canada, but traditionally MSRP is always directly tied to what the North American price is based on exchange rate. And, um, obviously the whole tariff discussion comes into effect at that point. Yeah. I remember shit over a year ago, guys, I was saying when they first,

[00:51:06] had that, when was that games comp thing? When they first had that breath of the wild thing behind closed doors is that 2023. I said right then and there, this system is going to be 400 bucks at least base starting. And you guys are like, eh, I don't know. I'm like, nah, it's 400 bucks. Now with these tariffs in place, that doesn't, obviously that's not far fetched anymore. But I guess what I'm trying to say is even before that, I thought it was going to be 400 now.

[00:51:33] Oh boy, Steve, you looking to shell out for four 50 for a switch to, I mean. I would. My, my, uh, it's not a secret that the, my launch day switches actually hold it up pretty well to this point, despite how well loved it is. But, uh, the battery life sucks now and I'd sooner upgrade to a new system than get an OLED. I gotta say. Same.

[00:52:02] Um, it's kind of like the, for me, the Vita situation where it's like, I bought all my, pretty much all my PSP games digitally and like almost all of them carried over. So it's like, okay, even if Vita sucks, I have a deluxe ass PSP to play these games on still because my PSP had broken. So I was like, okay, at least I have that. That's my switch. I can't even fucking, I've been wanting to beat Etrian Odyssey two for months and I can't because I cannot take that thing off the dock.

[00:52:29] And if I'm playing games on the TV, it's not going to be that it's going to be Dicey Warriors origins or some other shit. Right. So like I, I'm in a holding pattern with that game because I have no battery life on that thing. Um, Kevin has an OLED though. So maybe you're, you're obviously not hurting in this regard. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, uh, battery life is fine, but I think I'm, I'm still very excited. I do. I think, I think 450 us is, is out of the question though.

[00:52:57] I don't think I, like, I just can't, I, I think they start like making cuts to features before they start looking at 450 us. Will this be the first time because of this, will this be the first time that Nintendo will actually sell their hardware at flat or a loss that by going 400, which I don't think they will, but the, but that will lead into their profits. I don't think they're going to take it out on us because they're smarter than that.

[00:53:24] I hope, but I can, I, I just can't see them going. Here's 500 for a switch too. That's just a terrible value proposition. What do you, okay. What do you guys think the MSRP will be? 399 99 us dollars. 400 sounds safe. I mean, I would love 350, but it's going to be 400. 300. It's, I don't see 350, unfortunately. Yeah. I'm, I'm with you guys.

[00:53:52] Um, did you guys think that switch would be 300 in 2017? Cause I did. That's exactly what I thought it would be. Yeah. That would have been about the right spot based on what I saw at the time. I can't, I can't remember that far back to be honest. I don't know what I thought. Cause like some people, Steve, I'm sure you remember the chatter. Some people were saying 250 and I'm like, there's no way it's going to be less than Wii U. They're not going to do that. It's going to be 300 bucks. And sure enough.

[00:54:19] I remember people complaining about the accessory prices, but, uh, we, we, we, we resolved that over time too. Yeah. Just by having everything else become expensive too. But, uh, but also like joy cons are a lot of tech. It's not like a cheap piece of machinery. You know, there's a lot in there. So I get why it's expensive and there's two of them. Like, I understand. I know it's a lot, but like, I never sat there, but like, okay, that's like, not worth it. It has to be worth it. This is what the system is. So.

[00:54:49] I have a question. PS5 brought back the idea of a pack in game. Is there any chance that we get a pack in game with switch to? Unless it's what Steve said, like pack in a weird little mouse game. I don't necessarily see it. Clubhouse games, mouse edition. Oh, what can you do with clubhouse games with a mouse now? That'd be, that'd be fun. Well, you make solitaire, obviously that's already in the real one, but you know,

[00:55:19] there's things. Oh, that's a question. I wonder if they could update switch one games to use a mouse. Well, if I could play backgammon and just like click on stuff. The original switch already has quietly had mouse support a while ago. So I think the answer is yes. Yeah. That's like a real mouse. We're talking about a Nintendo because these, these kids nowadays are going to think Nintendo invented the mouse because Nintendo invents everything. Right. You mean they didn't.

[00:55:48] Oh, okay. Do you remember, do you remember back in the N64 days when Miyamoto was talking about the analog stick on the N64? He was saying it's so accurate. You won't even need a mouse. You remember that? That was like tagline, but it's, it's something he said for sure. And it's like, dog, I don't really think it worked that now. It was accurate. Obviously it was all the accuracy we hadn't felt on a home console before. Nintendo invented the analog stick, by the way, they invented analog control.

[00:56:18] Don't you know? Um, but yeah, like it, it definitely wasn't a mouse, Steve. No. And didn't the N64 get a mouse anyway? Did, did 64 DD get a mouse? That would be the only reason. That'd be the only thing I could. Yeah. I think, yeah, that would have been it. Right. For Mario, for Mario artist. Yeah. Mario, Mario paint too. Was it called Mario artist? Wasn't it called like Mario, not Mario artist studio or like.

[00:56:49] I remember magazines calling it Mario artist. Who knows what it was called by the time it came out. You should know. I'm asking you on the air. Yeah, I should know. Okay. You should know everything. Look, I still have machinations of playing Civ 7 on my Switch 2 with a mouse on the table. Okay. Instead of at the computer. Folks, he has a new computer with a fucking 4060 in it and he's going to play a Switch 2 version on his stupid Joy-Con with a mouse just because it can be a mouse now.

[00:57:19] I just want you guys to know that. Okay. Well, you know what? I don't feel comfortable moving my computer to place to place. Switch 2? I would. Especially with that kickstand. It's a laptop. It is a laptop. It is a laptop that is expressly what it is designed to do. Okay. But I paid a lot for this laptop and I got a lot of shit hooked up to this laptop. Wait, why am I reasoning this out with you?

[00:58:02] All right, guys. The day after we recorded the last time, we got some Pokemon presents and another Pokemon presents presentation. That's what they keep calling these because it's Pokemon Day in February and that's when they do the first one of these every year. Whenever you say presents, I feel like we should have like, should I play some music? You want to play it up a little bit? Give me now time for Pokemon presents or something like that. No time for Pokemon presents.

[00:58:36] So we'll skip the rigmarole where they update every, the way they tell you what's going on in the games, especially since Kevin quit TCG pocket on me to play real card games. I see how it is. It's fine. He, he, he, you got ditched so fast too. It was real money on the pretend card game, but it's fine. I'm, it's fine. I could still, I could still talk to Vin about it. On the pocket. Maybe that's what ruined it for me. Yeah. Okay. Fine.

[00:59:07] So, so whatever the real announcements of this thing, Pokemon champions. It's an app for switching mobile. That's all battles all the time releasing later this year. Or, you know, it's probably going to be a spiritual successor, a stadium, Coliseum battle revolution, those games where it's, you know, battles, lots of battles, but it's also clearly providing a official solution to a problem that we've had for a while.

[00:59:35] Now, since, uh, games have been moved to switch, namely how all Pokemon haven't been officially moving forward in games. We could stick them all in home, like for now, but they all aren't going to be in every game and we can't just fight whoever with whoever all the time. Like, okay, here's one centralized app and you can pit everybody against each other. All you want.

[00:59:58] But there's been bizarre online solutions to this and me and the poke pals pretty much agree that those people are all weirdos. They're all, they're all fucking weirdos over there. So this is the right idea. Trust us on this one. Yeah, I think it's the right idea, but, uh, Andre seemed to have a different opinion. I just don't think this is an exciting, like, I don't know. Is it like this sucks? Like, I'm sorry.

[01:00:26] I'm sure this is cool to Pokemon fans, right? Like, oh, he gets a fight. Like, but like who actually has cared about like a battle revolution or Coliseum or whatever. If you're not like hella into Pokemon, those games, those games don't mean anything to you otherwise. So it's like the goddamn Pokemon presents isn't trying to appeal to me. Yeah. Yeah. Come on. Get me in there. Give me the fuck. You got, I bought poke in. I have that on a game card. Maybe that's the one I should have licked.

[01:00:55] But like, damn, come on. Throw me a bone here. Again, I'm not being one of those people who are like, they're going to put Pokemon blue and yellow and green and silver and gold and stuff on Nintendo switch online all at once. Like, I can't stand those people. Those people exist to piss themselves off. Right. But like, come on. This was the thing. Pokemon champions. Boy, I can't. I can't wait. Well, for one, that's explicitly for us, too. We have a different theory on how that's going to happen.

[01:01:24] But another time. But moving along, we finally, finally got to see real Pokemon legends. ZA footage, gameplay. Andre likes to call it Pokemon. Zah. Well, Kevin called it Pokemon. Zah. So I followed suit. It looks like it's going to be a sequel to X and Y and not a prequel, even though we're calling it legends. Anyway, we're making Lumio City for everybody. Andre might remember Lumios from Smash Brothers.

[01:01:54] Maybe. Nope. Yeah, I figured, but I thought I'd try. We're making Lumio City for everybody. But does everybody include Kevin? And does the Switch family of systems include a Switch 2 SKU to be announced in a month? Please, God, I hope so. Kevin, is this going to be for you? I've been kind of dreading this conversation because I hate to be and I really do hate to be this guy because I don't think this is a cool take.

[01:02:22] And I really liked Gen 2 as a kid, but I could not really get into this without like a good dose of Gen 1 Pokemon. And I think that was kind of the like problem with the TCG game, too. Right. They did the new expansion and it's all like, I don't know these fucking Pokemon. I know that's a shitty lame take, but that's that's just how I feel. On top of that, I did not like how this trailer is like everything is an urban setting. I really liked exploring Anarcheus.

[01:02:51] I really liked that game, but I'm just not getting the same vibe from this at all. I was I was relatively optimistic to see this. I thought this was definitely a maybe play, but I probably can't see it happening. Wow. He is just he has just dropped all the I mean, not playing the card game anymore. He is just like, Jesus. You know what? That's OK.

[01:03:15] OK, probably early next year, based on the timing, me and the Poké pals will come and give you our Pokemon Legends ZA takes because we're always here for the mainline Pokermans. And, you know, Legends Arcus was an early show favorite of ours.

[01:03:34] But, you know, it would be nice if this one fucking time, even though they never do this, if we had a Switch 2 version of the game, because I'm remembering even black and white and black and white to how nice it would have been to have three DS versions. And they didn't do that. It would be nice if this time they all got their fucking shit together and did that. I'm not betting on it. They're not going to do that. It would be nice if they did.

[01:04:00] But did they like talk about that at all or give any indication that it's not planned or anything? Well, they're not. Well, they're keeping all of that stuff kind of to themselves for now. But, you know, but Kevin, you bring up city and city landscapes. I think when they inevitably get to Pokemon Legends, you know, which is the fifth set of games, which we somehow skipped. And I'm confident we're going to do sometime in Switch 2 times. They're going to need to do both things.

[01:04:30] We're going to do urban sprawl and running out in the wilderness because there's just too much of that to ignore. And then when they do that, I'm going to expect you back here with a slightly more positive attitude. Did you think the urban setting looked cool? Did you find that like engaging? Yes. I mean, you've never played a game that was just in one city? You've never played Arkham City, Kevin?

[01:04:58] I just I mean, for this game, it just seems like the like, I don't know. Would you have liked playing a vowed if it was all in one fucking city? Like, I don't know. You play you play Grand Theft Auto games and those are all in one fucking city. Well, generally, no, that's not even true. They're included in what could generally be called one fucking city. One fucking city. Okay. I know Apple won't let us call this show one fucking city, but I really would like to.

[01:05:27] I really want to. I'll have to think of something else. Yeah, I can't get behind this take, Kevin. The thing being in one city that we actually get to see this time, unlike the lip service we got in XY, is actually intriguing to me. But it's fine. You don't have to be included in this outing. It's fine. Okay. I think he just went completely nuclear and Pokemon. Like, maybe he should play Pokemon real or fake now. I think he would get bamboozled.

[01:05:57] He knows too many of them now. I can't be doing that. All right. So, after 20 years of being dead, Acclaim is back. Hooray. Right? Yay. Well, they're back kind of because the name was picked up by Jeff Jarrett, the guy who made Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion. I'm sure I'm sure to that indie game.

[01:06:26] He's the head of that studio who made that graffiti studio. So, he picked up the Acclaim name with the initial goal of, quote, to support developers and reignite classic franchises. End quote. I mean, guys, what classic franchises does Acclaim actually have? They did a bunch of licensed games. I mean, like, that's a thing.

[01:06:52] Are they really going to get back here and be like, oh, yeah, we're going to make American Gladiators again. Actually, that was LJN, wasn't it? Never mind. Yeah. The only thing we can think of is Turok, right? But that is now just Nightdive doing ports. I mean, I'm sure Nightdive doesn't own the IP, or do they?

[01:07:10] But, like, even just stuff like Iggy's Wrecking Balls or Extreme G, like the stuff that's on Nintendo 64, Nintendo Switch Online, those are published by other people now who just picked up the IP. So, it's like, what are they doing here? Why are we reviving Acclaim, Steve? Okay, because we do shows about the Nintendo Switch Online app games catalogs, I gave, I'm inclined to give all these catalogs a good looking through.

[01:07:40] And I looked through Acclaims, and like, and besides the N64 examples you mentioned, you know, Acclaim was in, other than crap, was usually in the business of publishing other things on a temporary basis back in the day. And I got some bad news for everybody. This Acclaim isn't going to have access to Mortal Kombat and NBA Jam on Super Nintendo.

[01:08:07] So, while I appreciate that the smaller guys need a source of funding, I mean, that's what Humble Games does or did for a time. But maybe Acclaim isn't the better to rally behind for that. I don't understand, Kevin. I mean, did you grow up being, were you an Acclaim head growing up? Did you have the Acclaim scene?

[01:08:29] When you talked about licensed games, I've always like firmly had Acclaim in my mind associated with Super Nintendo games that you would rent from the local game store, right? The Simpsons, the Addams Family. That's like exactly what I think of when I think about Acclaim. But I don't, I do not think about Acclaim in 2025 either. So, but when I try and think of something, I think about the category of games that wouldn't have been good enough to buy.

[01:09:00] As a Simpsons fan, I still blame Acclaim for standing in the way of preventing real home ports for the Simpsons arcade game and not just bullshit ones for MS-DOS and computers. Do you really, would you have really wanted a Simpsons arcade port for Super Nintendo? That would have been god awful. All it had to do is, okay, Turtles in Time on Super Nintendo was good. Yeah, but Konami did that though themselves. Like if Acclaim picked it up.

[01:09:29] Oh, if it was by Acclaim? No, that would be terrible. But that's what I'm saying. They stood in the way of that. If Konami made the Simpsons arcade game, that's why it wasn't on these systems. Man, it's just, I just, it's, I don't get it. Like, it's like you guys said, this has never been a brand that's been synonymous with quality. It's like whenever you saw that logo, or at least I did, you just like took a deep breath and it's like, all right, here we go, motherfuckers.

[01:09:59] Like, whatever, whatever you're going to play now, right? Like, what is this going to be like? I did kind of like Turok, I guess. Right, but like that was the Iguana Entertainment logo to me. Not even, the Acclaim was kind of an innocent bystander. But yeah, we remember Acclaim, but we do not remember Acclaim fondly. Like, there's a big difference. So I just don't get the point of this, but what do I know?

[01:10:28] It's not like someone out there is buying like Psygnosis or Sony Image Soft or something, right? Like a logo that used to instill you with confidence. The Acclaim did not. I don't, no one could afford that fucking owl. Come on. That's. I know, it's iconic. I know. But that owl is priceless. It is a historical artifact. I bet it's just Sony's, right? It's in some Sony vault, some digital vault. They just don't use ever.

[01:10:58] Yeah. I wish we could have, that our Shadow of the Beast episode could have been 45 minutes if we just talked about the Psygnosis owl the whole time. I really wish we would have. You know, foresight and all that. All right, Steve. Steve has been teasing a hidden topic to us that we don't know about, and I want him to hit us with it right now. I want to know what this is, finally. Okay.

[01:11:24] Well, we all established how excited we are for Switch 2 things, or not excited, or whatever. And I maintain that excitement. But what I'm not excited about right now is actually going to buy one. Hmm. Now, here's the problem. It's a very personal problem right now, because I haven't had independent game stores out here in forever.

[01:11:51] And a good chunk of the GameStops here in the past month have shut down. The nearest one is a 30-minute drive away. Okay. So, after Switch 2 Direct comes up in a few weeks, I don't know how I'm going to buy this thing. I need you guys to tell me it's going to be okay to order this thing online or something, because I am freaking the fuck out just a little bit in that regard. Why wouldn't it be okay to order it online? What's the big deal? I don't know.

[01:12:21] To me... Okay. I have improved slightly in buying digital things. For lack of a better term, live service, things like Splatoon or Monster Hunter or even mainline Pokemon, where it's like, okay, I'm going to play these more often. I will buy these digitally. I don't need a game card for those. Like, I'm getting better at that. But it's like, I don't know. Buying a video game system feels like something I need to go and do. And I don't feel like I want...

[01:12:50] I feel like I'm not ready to trust the post office with that yet. I need you people to talk me down from this leg. No, I hear you, because I think... I mean, when you're talking about buying it digitally, it probably goes to Amazon as the first choice. And Amazon is very good here with next day delivery. But I have had video games that I've ordered on Amazon not show up on release date. And I do... I do... I will be so fucking pissed if I'm like...

[01:13:17] If the Switch 2 comes out on a Friday and I don't get mine until Monday. I will be bitching and crying all fucking weekend. Me too. Thankfully, that hasn't happened to me. I'm trying to think of the times I... Well, yeah, I ordered PS4 and PS5 from Amazon, actually. So I've been through this twice with that. And they got here on release day. No problems. I feel like I've done something else too. I didn't do Switch. Actually, I did sort of, because I initially got mine from Amazon.

[01:13:46] And then a couple hours later, I waited in the line at GameStop and I pre-ordered one there as well. And then I gave that Amazon one to my friend. I just changed the address. I sent it to him. And so that worked out. So I think what we need to do, though, as a show, we need to band together here. We need to get as many pre-orders as we can. Because inevitably, I'm assuming all three of us will not be able to get one. Because that's just how it's going to go.

[01:14:14] So if one of us gets two of them, you pass one off or whatever, I think is what we have to do. So what I'm trying to say is, Steve, it'll be fine. We're all going to try our best. We're all going to try to cover each other's asses here. And we will get the Switch, too. I have confidence in us. But they have said over and over for the last couple years that we do not, or maybe not a couple years, but it's been a thing where they've said stock is not going to be an issue.

[01:14:43] We're going to make sure there is plenty of stock for the next system when it comes out. They've been talking about that long before they even made the announcement that we'll talk about the successor before the end of the fiscal year. They were talking about stock at that point. Yes. And you know what, though? I kind of believe them. Only because they started making LCD screens for Switch 2 two years ago.

[01:15:11] So, like, that shit has been in wild, wild high production for a long time, Steve. So, come on. Have confidence here. I get it. I understand you want to go to a store. I'm lucky enough to live in a town with two GameStops. I feel like I'll go there if I need to. But, like, honestly, I think we'll be fine online this time. Okay.

[01:15:39] Yeah, this is causing a whole other moral issue for me because we literally are boycotting buying anything from American companies. So, now I've got to consider, like, also. And we have to get two of them. My kid has, like, over $550 saved up specifically for a Switch 2. Yeah. We will try our best. I know a lot of people. We like to do these things. I don't think I want your guys' dirty-ass fucking American Switches. I want a nice, clean Canadian one. All right, dickhead. You know what? Okay, now I'm going to rat your ass out. Okay.

[01:16:08] I'm going to tell you. Okay. When we, on our previous creative endeavor, I actually did. I got one from Walmart and I had the PS5. I had a pre-order from Walmart and a pre-order from Amazon. I took the Amazon one. I didn't know what to do with the Walmart one. I offered it up to fucking everybody, including this guy who just slandered me. He's like, eh, I don't know if I really want a PS5. Oh, so I'm like, okay, I'm going to let the pre-order go because no one's taking it. Are you last chance? Nah, whatever.

[01:16:36] Three months later, this dude wants a PS5. Not even three months later. And I'm like, bro, you could have had. I had one in hand to send you. All I had to do was change the address. Okay. Now everyone knows your private chain. I entirely forgot about this. Yeah. Well, I didn't. Okay. It didn't take me very long to find one when I decided that it was time though. Mm-hmm. But you are correct. That was before your guys' fucking dickhead country started trying to ruin our economy.

[01:17:06] We didn't. Steve, what are we going to do? How many times can we tell them we didn't vote for this? Paint you all with the same brush. You can paint us all from the same brush, but do I really have to bring up that America doesn't manufacture? The Switch 2? He doesn't care. I know, but I don't want to buy it from Walmart. I don't want to buy it from Best Buy. I don't want to buy it from fucking Amazon. I'm trying to. I mean. The Amico, if it existed, would be an American system.

[01:17:37] Oh, no. That's a Canadian system. It doesn't matter. That could be manufactured in Zimbabwe. That is a very Canadian system through and through. All right. I know you guys love my shitty takes, and I got. A real shit one for you today. Oh, boy. Rubbing my hands. I got a hot food take, and I want to talk to you guys about ketchup.

[01:18:07] Let me preface this. I am not the fucking weirdo that puts ketchup on everything. I do not put ketchup on steak. I am very restrictive with my ketchup use. For the most part, it's like burgers, hot dogs. I will not eat Kraft dinner if it has even touched ketchup. I don't like it. People do that? Oh, no. Oh, yeah. That's a thing here. People fucking smother their Kraft dinner and ketchup, and it makes me gag. It's disgusting. No, thank you.

[01:18:35] The nastier part of food Twitter likes to share that, and I'm like, uh. No, thanks. But. And everybody who, because this is something that I eat in public, and everybody who's ever heard about it gives me shit for it. I'm telling you, it's fucking good. You know what ketchup is so good on? A pizza sub. A pizza submarine sandwich with ketchup on it is the shit. Hmm. Okay. Okay. Okay.

[01:19:05] I think this is still disgusting, right? In my head. However, that's not nearly as bad as I thought you might say. I thought you were going to say. I don't know what I thought you were going to say, to be quite honest. I thought you were going to say, like, you know, shrimp fried rice or something like that and put ketchup on it or something. But, like, nah, I just. I'm not. Okay. So, like, Steve, how do you feel about ketchup? I don't really like ketchup. I almost never use it. If it's on a burger, like, if I go to McDonald's, I'm not going to say no ketchup. I'll eat the ketchup.

[01:19:33] But I'm never going to add ketchup to anything. It's basically my feeling on it. Ketchup is a sometimes condiment. Okay. What do you use it on? We'll put it on the side of fries. The occasional burger. We're definitely not putting it on hot dogs in New York. And we're really not putting it anywhere near a pizza. Look at those. Why ketchup on pizza? Yeah. I've seen people do that. That is just disgusting. That's fucked.

[01:20:00] The pizza sub sounds pizza adjacent, Kevin. And that's why I'm kind of sitting here going. Yeah. I would. I would never. I would never even. I hadn't. I had never in my life considered the concept of pairing ketchup with real pizza. I look, we put things on things. I understand. We all have our things where we put some condiment on something where it's like, but honestly, a pizza sub, Kevin, it sounds like something in Earthbound where it's like they put, oh,

[01:20:30] he put ketchup on the rice. It was really bad. And then you get like less HP. 5 HP was recovered. Yeah. Next time you guys have a pizza sub, would you try a bite with ketchup and then report back and just tell me? I don't think I could bring myself to try it. I don't think you're missing out. I would be exiled from the state for even considering it. I would have to be eating it out. Take your sub to the bathroom and do it in there.

[01:20:59] I have standards, Kevin. I would be eating it in the outhouse next to the bathroom. Come on. Well, I, well, what I was going to say, I don't have ketchup at home. So I, I would have to do this while eating the pizza sub out. Number two, I'm not taking the pizza sub in the bathroom at the place where I'm getting it and like taking my whole food into the bathroom. We don't need fucking our subs in the bathroom. I'll take my drink. I'll take my drink to the urinal or something. If I'm leaving or something, I'll take my soda cup. If I'm eating somewhere.

[01:21:29] Okay. I'm sipping on it. Whatever. No big deal. Take this up to the bathroom. Cause that's a nice place to eat. I'm just saying, so you can try the ketchup bite without shame. I would rather shame myself and put like, if I'm going, I'm already feeling the shame by putting this on the pizza sub. I think I will just eat it that way. But in public, I think people will just have to see it. I'll put a little side, a little squirt of ketchup just on the side. No one's really seeing what I'm, you know, you will.

[01:21:55] Well, I mean, no, I'm just saying if that's what I was going to do, I, that's how I would sneak it. I mean, at that point, what's the difference between like, it's, it's not, people might just think it's marinara from that different distance. I'm just telling you guys, if you fucking tried it, it would introduce something good in your lives. But if you don't want to expand your minds, then don't. You know? Okay. Here's, here's my, here's my food take. And this is more just admonishing the public. Cause that's what I like to do.

[01:22:25] Here's, here's my thing. Shut up about your crispy food. I don't care how crispy something is. I don't care about your crispy. Oh, my fries. I gotta be extra crispy or I am only going to eat this chicken. If it's so crispy, fuck off, grow up, eat your fucking food and shut up. Okay. I don't care. Like, you know how like people are like, oh, I want to, I don't like my fries in the McDonald's bag. Cause then they'll get soggy when I get home. Grow, get over yourself. Who do you think you are? Yeah.

[01:22:55] They're hot fries in a bag. What do you think is going to happen? They're going to stay crispy. No. And it doesn't matter. Like I get texture matters to food, but like your shit doesn't have to be super duper crispy all the time for you to eat it. Who cares? Like get, grow the fuck up, man. I don't care how crunchy your fries are there. That's my bad food. I think that's a bad take. Like, okay. While I like crispy food.

[01:23:21] I mean, I, I think this is one of those situations where I'm glad I don't see these people on the internet because I'd be just sitting there going, what the hell are you talking about? Yeah. But I mean, go ahead. In the fry example, you're telling, you're telling me that you are going to enjoy your McDonald's fries equally from the time when you are served them to 40 minutes later after they have been sitting in the bag, getting soggy, because I get that. I, I do.

[01:23:49] I don't really want to eat those soggy ass fries. It's not about. I don't need to grow up. At that. Yeah. Well, yes, you need to grow up. Okay. Don't put ketchup on your pizza sub for one, but like number two. Yeah. I don't like, it's fine. It's at that point. It's not about crispy. It's about cold. I don't want to eat cold fries, but if they're soggy and they're still warm, it's fucking fine. They taste, they taste exactly as good. Fried chicken as is as good crispy or not crispy. It is. There is no difference. It's fried chicken.

[01:24:19] Why would anyone ever complain about that? Get over yourself. Okay. This isn't my hot take, but if the chicken was good when it was hard, I don't know. I don't mind a room temp fried chicken. That's that. This isn't my take, by the way. I'm like, I don't mind if I got it from the grocery store from Popeye's and I still have a piece there. I'll, I'll just grab it and eat it. It's good. Me too. And we would take that shit. That's like, that's like beach. We go to the beach or something and grabbing something on the way to get, we would often go

[01:24:47] get a KFC bucket and just, just eat it. Yeah. So the chicken, but, but fries to me are, you gotta eat this shit now because the lot, like you just said, the longer you're waiting there, it's diminishing returns anyway on them fries. Of course. I, again, I don't want them cold, but if they've been in the, if they, if they've been in a bag for 10 minutes, I saw that a bit. Oh, fucking well. They're great. I'm going to have an hour later. You throw them in the microwave. That's as good. No, I would never.

[01:25:16] I don't think reading fries, the best you can do sometimes is like put them in the oven, depending on the fry. So they have to be kind of like thick cut fries. You can't do like shoestrings. I don't even like shoestring fries to begin with, but like those are just not reheatable. Maybe a thicker cut fry, like a crinkle cut or a steak fry. My favorite fry. Yeah, sure. Throw them in the oven. Maybe they can kind of resuscitate them somewhat. But again, that's about temperature. Not necessarily about, oh, it gotta, it gotta be crispy or else I ain't eating it. Shut up.

[01:25:45] I don't care. All right. There. That's my, that's my bad food take. Man, my, my, my take feels almost tamed by consideration, but fuck it. We're hitting a cookout season soon. Cookouts and barbecues. And these people make me feel ashamed for it. I'm not going to feel shame for it anymore. Coleslaw is a quality side. No. It's good. It's good. It's good.

[01:26:14] It's got, it's got some vegetables that we're covering and, you know, other things that don't make it taste like vegetables and it sells your stomach so you can eat more shit. Coleslaw is good. I'm sick of pretending it's not. Just like a New York pride kind of thing or. I'm assuming that's what it is at this point, because it's not just you two. I feel like the suit. As soon as I leave the Northeast, everyone starts hating coleslaw. Is everyone's cabbage just nasty? The second we leave New York. I love cabbage.

[01:26:42] I just, I, man here. Okay. Well, here's my bias. And I'm sure both of you know this. I hate mayo. Therefore, I really don't like mayo based, whether it's coleslaw or potato salad, whatever. It's like, it's got to be very, very perfect for me to eat it. And with that said, Steve, one time in San Francisco, while I was visiting then, I did have a coleslaw that I liked. It was that we had it at the pier. It was really good. I had some seafood. It was, it wasn't your typical coleslaw.

[01:27:11] It was, it was, it had something in it. I couldn't tell you what it was. It's been so long, but it was good. So I guess there is coleslaws that I can eat. 99% of them probably not. But yeah. So for the most part, if someone offered me coleslaw, I'm like, nah, no thanks. I think KFC hasn't had good coleslaw in years. So if you, if that was your baseline. No, no, no, no, no. Yeah. I think that's what it is. I hadn't really thought about the mayonnaise component.

[01:27:37] I'm not as much of a mayonnaise hater as you, but I'm pretty selective about mayonnaise and just taking a shredded vegetable and covering it in mayonnaise is, is definitely unappealing. Yeah. On the surface. I mean, we know it's not just mayonnaise, but still it's just, that's kind of the main. It's very mayonnaise-y. I like potato salad and there is mayonnaise in potato salad, but there's. There's a very like strong difference between the, as much, it's less mayonnaise-y. Yeah. Let me tell you, my mom spoiled me.

[01:28:06] So whenever people were coming over, she was making her potato salad. She would make all the components before she put the mayonnaise and everything on. She would scoop me out some. So it was just like all the stuff, you know, potatoes, all, whatever you put, whatever you put in potato salad that I could eat. And then she'd dress up the rest of it for everybody. So I'd eat my little potato salad without mayo. That's how. That's how weird I was about it. Your mom always sounds so sweet when you bring her up. I know, right?

[01:28:33] She made me, she made me my own little scooped out potato salad when she was making it. Right. So how do you feel about German potato salad? Oh, is that the olive oil kind or. Olive oil and mustard usually. Yeah, that's fine. That's fine. It's not like my super duper favorite or anything, but yeah, I'll eat that. Maybe they should serve the coleslaw less crispy. Yeah. I don't want that crunchy ass cabbage. Well, the mayo will make sure that's not the case. I'll tell you that much. I don't think I've ever had soggy coleslaw.

[01:29:02] Well, I was going to say like, how much of a coleslaw freak are you? Like, will you eat KFC coleslaw or nah, or just. Not anymore. Popeyes has an okay coleslaw, but that's dropped off too since COVID. I'm going to give you a hot take within the hot take because I've seen this in a few southern states. Don't put fucking raisins in it. Oh, that's terrible. Yeah. Any mayo based salad with raisins can get fucked. I've seen people do that with potato salad as well.

[01:29:31] No, thank you. No, don't be doing that. No, thanks. I do. Well, I don't like raisins in general, and that's, you know, that's a whole, that's a whole take within a take within a take about oatmeal raisin cookies. But I like raisins separate from themselves, but I don't like it in things. Me too. I don't want that. That's what I should have clarified. Yeah. I like them by themselves. I don't want raisins in stuff. But like little boxes, little sun made raisins. Yeah.

[01:30:00] I'll snack them. Not even like, like some like squares with raisins sometimes. Nah. What about tarts? Tarts with raisins is pretty good. Uh, I guess. I don't know. There was this meme that floated around for a time and it's sugar sold around a lot. Oatmeal raisin cookies gave me trust issues. Yeah. That's me. That's basically it because we were all kids.

[01:30:26] We've all had that moment where kids, we, we saw the plate of oatmeal raisin cookies, thought it was chocolate chip. And we're like, no. And after that. Well, we'll see. Okay. See, that's my problem. The reason why I have trust issues is because they don't call them oatmeal raisin anymore. They're just oatmeal cookies. The raisin is now implied because before you could buy oatmeal cookies, which didn't have raisins and then oatmeal raisin cookies. Now everything is just oatmeal cookies and you can't find any without raisins.

[01:30:56] When I was younger, there were bakeries that would give you a oatmeal chip with nuts in them and they were so fucking good. Oh, that sounds incredible. They were, but they don't exist anymore because of what you just said. It's just implied that the raisins are there. That's enough food talk. So here's what we're going to do to end the show. So on the other side of this break, me and Kevin are going to have avowed spoiler hours. We're going to talk.

[01:31:26] We played the entire game, both of us, and we're going to talk about all the choices we made and, you know, all the stuff up to and including the ending. So if you do not want to be spoiled on avowed, this is the end of the show for you. We'll catch you next time on fine time. Just tune out right now. Okay. But if you're going to continue with us and hear our avowed spoiler hours discussion, it will happen on the other side of this music. We'll be right back.

[01:32:34] All right. We are now in spoiler territory for avowed. Kevin, how do you feel? We have reached the end. We have reached the God. We have reached the garden. I was pretty sad. It was done. I felt like I had a wholesome experience, but I could have went for and I didn't rush through it, but I didn't try and, you know, the closer I got to the end, the more I was like, I got to try and soak out some more side quests and like, you know, nail out some more chicks.

[01:33:01] I don't want it to be done, but I could have went for another like 10 hours of like, you know, good meaty content in there. I don't think it was too short, but I could have done with longer. Really? See, I felt like it was a perfect length. It's not that I was getting tired of it, but by the end I was like, I was kind of like, okay, I hope this is it. And it was, you know, like I, it was the perfect length for me. Yeah. It's very, very rarely that I ever say I wish something would have been longer.

[01:33:29] I'm, I'm almost always wishing things would have been a little bit shorter. Yeah. That, that is surprising to hear you say that. Okay. I've been dying to know this the whole time. So this happens in the first map, the Dawn Treader quest, the one where you go, you're investigating some people who have disappeared into some, some cave. And then you find out it's about something entirely fucking different because this weirdo with a robe and I was even human. I don't know what was going on with that guy.

[01:33:57] He killed those people to put their souls into this machine. And so he wants to give this machine sentience and he killed these people to do it. So let's start there. Did you kill that wizard, weirdo wizard guy? Cause I definitely did. I did kill him. I don't think you're even, I don't think you're accentuating how weird he is enough. He had like pervert energy. Oh yeah. He, he did something to those bodies before he extracted those souls.

[01:34:25] I mean, yeah, that guy gave me the, he gave me the creeps. Yeah. He did something. He did something. So also here's, what's also crazy about this. So after you take care of the wizard guy, the God in your head, whose name is Sopadol. You don't really know that yet, but at the, now we know their name is Sopadol. They want to take over that robot so they can have a body. And I was like, fuck no, I don't trust you. So I destroyed the robot.

[01:34:56] I was like, I'm not having any of this. None of this needs to happen. What did you do? I let Sopadol take the robot. And I think this is what we talked to when we first talked about this. I said, I was, I was like, at this point, I w I really thought I'm like, okay, this voice in my head is up to no good. It's super shifty. I don't like it. But I thought the interesting thing to do was just like appease it at every turn. And this is kind of where that started. I was like, yeah, you want a body fucking here you go. So what happened? What, what, what, what,

[01:35:25] went on when they, um, she, yeah, she takes, takes the body. It like shows it animating. And I, you get a, I'm trying to, there's like multiple things and I don't, maybe you didn't get any of these. Um, but based on some choices you are given like magic powers. And I think that one is the, like life gain one where you can like replenish you and your, um, like your helper characters life to a certain degree. And so she like gives you that power. So you, did you get any of those powers?

[01:35:54] I got that power, but not through there. I got it from a completely different way. Oh, yeah. Interesting. I did get that. How did you get it? Cause I'm pretty sure that's how I got that one, but I might be fucked up on that. I got it from another quest. I got it from like, cause you know how sometimes there's a quest where you can kind of get quote unquote close to stop at all. And you kind of have this long conversation with them and they tell you their history of like being, I don't know, through the centuries or whatever.

[01:36:20] It's like, you find out like they're responsible for killing these people because you know, this or that was coming, you know, the whole, the whole bit. I don't have to tell you the whole story, but I got it through one of those. I didn't get it from that. Oh, okay. I'm pretty sure that's where I got it from. I also, it's super interesting. You just called a Sopadol a him. I always thought Sopadol was a her. They, well, I don't know. They refer to themselves as we, but I don't think, I think the, I think the characters

[01:36:49] in the game refer to it as they or them pronouns, I think, but I, I don't know. I mean, I don't think it really has a gender, but. Right. Yeah. It's just interesting that like you made that association and I made it totally different. Right. I, I usually, I usually say they, but you know, whatever. I don't, I don't know what, what, what a, what is a God's gender anyway at that rate. Right. Like fuck who knows. Right. But I, yeah, but I thought, I thought that was, but Sopadol always says we, you know,

[01:37:18] referring to themselves, which is also another. Yeah. So I don't know, but I guess you could, I don't know, but I think that's intentional, right? You can hear masculine and feminine tones in Sopadol's voice, obviously, which is, which is interesting, you know? Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, that's, so I destroyed the robot because I did, obviously I didn't trust them, but as the game went on and you start to get a better grasp of the situation, you start

[01:37:47] to sympathize with Sopadol a bit more. At least I did. And I wasn't really expecting that. Did that happen to you too? Or the whole time you were just kind of like, well, fuck this weirdo, but I'm just going to do. I mean, I don't think ever like completely, I think the more the story went on, like you could tell, you could tell that Sopadol's intentions were, were like not purposefully malicious, I think.

[01:38:13] And I kind of like, I kind of didn't, I wanted Sopadol to be like the end boss. I wanted Sopadol to be, you know, like this fucking horrible, terrible thing that's infiltrated your mind where I've just like ruthlessly supported them throughout the entire story. That doesn't happen. But can you not, if you choose to kill Sopadol at the end, can you do that? Can you like, see, I wonder if you can fight them.

[01:38:40] I wonder if you fight them instead of load when, you know what I mean? I, yeah. Okay. I guess maybe I should back up. Did you choose to save Sopadol or did you choose to be like, no, fuck you? Of course. Yeah. I chose to save Sopadol. I was pro Sopadol the entire playthrough for consistency. Okay. So we chose the same thing. I wonder if, cause you can choose not to. So I wonder if you actually quote unquote fight Sopadol or if you just sort of sever

[01:39:08] some sort of like, you know, some address and then that's it. Now, do you think the moral choice was to save Sopadol or was it supposed to, what was it like as black and white where it was like supposed to be the moral choice? Yeah. Because I think it's a realization I had as the game was wrapping up. Like, cause you have that, you have that conversation with a non-Drew and Solus Keep were the, what are, what are their, what is their kind called?

[01:39:37] The, the little people. The dwarves? Yeah. The dwarves, whatever. Yeah. I don't know what they're called in the game. I think, I think they call dwarves in the game. Are they dwarves? Okay. Um, you have that conversation with them down there where it's like Sopadol's evil because they did this and that. You have that conversation with Wotoka in the garden. Right. And then you have the realization that Jyana's parents were essentially killed by one of Sopadol's sort of freak accidents sort of, right? That that's the reason they returned the trees.

[01:40:04] So all this stuff was stacking up and I realized the entire game was essentially about faith. It's testing your faith against Sopadol. Like basically against like God, like it's almost like in real life. Like you, like if you were to go to church and you believed in God or something like that, do you believe in God or not? I think is kind of like the main crux of the game where everything is placed against them. You know, you see them destroy civilizations and everyone who taught, most of the

[01:40:33] people you talk to want you to kill them. Right. If you have the chance and you have to be the sole voice of reason to say, no, I'm going to save them against basically everyone's wishes. And which is what I did. And I think that's great. That's like a great way to play the story. I think because like, it's so easy to get caught up and it's like, no, you see the things they've done in the past. No, fuck the hell. No. Right. You can't be allowed to exist. Right. And I wouldn't blame any player for taking it that way.

[01:41:02] So it's interesting that we did the same thing in that regard. Although you did this, like you said, you did decide for the beginning that you were going to do that. But this is probably the time for me to be transparent when you're talking about the conversation with Wodika. I definitely probably by the time I was in act four, I was still reading the dialogue as I went through. I very, very much was like very quickly running through everything, making a snap decision.

[01:41:31] What is like, what is what Sop it all wants and, and very unengaged from the story at this point. So I don't, I think I probably took less. I definitely took much less away from the story than you did. Now, I also don't think that like decreased my enjoyment of the game at all. I just wasn't really there for the story at that point. You made reference to the conversation of with, with the, the glowing stone. Yeah.

[01:42:00] Yeah. I don't remember the name when you, when you brought that up before I had to Google who that was, cause I didn't even remember the name. So that's, I was fairly disengaged from the story at that point. You had made up the basic. So what you're saying is you had basically made up your mind. I'm going to save Sop it all. I don't care what these motherfuckers say. I am just, this is my mission and I am just going to do that. Was that basically it? And you just didn't care about anything else. It was that. And I, I, I think I just had, didn't, I wasn't that engaged in the storytelling of the

[01:42:30] game. I loved the game. I loved the exploration. I love the questing. I love the equipment and the upgrading. I just didn't really care about the story that much to the point. And this is a little bit embarrassing to admit, but this is what happened when you get to the very end right before the final battle, you kind of like convene with all of the leaders that you had met with throughout the story. And then you're making a decision about how to proceed forward.

[01:42:57] Now at a certain point, I was just like, I said, okay, yeah, I'm going to go to we're going to choose this option. And everybody was like, well, what the fuck? Why are we doing that? Are you sure? That's horrible. And I was like, oh, I didn't realize that's what, that's not what you want. So I moved to the next selection and made that one. And they're like, oh, okay, cool. Now. What, what, what selections were they? What did you, what did you pick?

[01:43:22] I don't, I don't even remember like the entire context of, of what was going on in those discussions at that point. So I'm saying I'm even talking about like, what are we, what? That, that, you know what? I felt the same way. So you asked, um, about the, at the end of map three, you have to decide if you want to destroy those ruins. Um, or, and, and I knew, um, load wind was like saying yet destroy them.

[01:43:51] And everybody else was saying, no, don't destroy them. I made that decision based on an entirely different reason. When I was down there, I didn't realize that near the end of that you, you're at a certain point where it just wants you to leave and the enemies will respawn endlessly. So I spent like 20 minutes fucking fighting those enemies. And until I realized I'm like, oh, okay. Like I, I cannot beat these. Um, I just, I need to, and I remembered hearing them be like, we need to get out of here. But I was like, okay, well let's kill the enemies and we'll get out.

[01:44:22] No, how about just leave? So by the time I got out there, like, do you want to destroy the ruins? And I was like, I'm not fucking fighting any more of those things. Let's destroy them. Um, and that was the reasoning for destroying the ruins. Not, not in support of Ludwin at all. Well, I did the opposite thing, which I mean, some people might argue with as well, which is sever the Adra and it will cut off the life force of some people in the land, but the

[01:44:51] dream thralls will go away forever, which Kai had a really, really big shit fit with me about. He was really pissed that I did this. I get it. It's where he's from, but like, bro, we can't just like, it's not even, it's not even about like, cause like, you know, the, the, the wizard lady was trying to make it about, no, you're destroying history or whatever. And I'm like, I don't fucking care about that. I just want to do the thing that will stop the problem and that will stop the problem. I don't know what else I'm supposed to do here.

[01:45:21] You're at, you know, of course that's what all Obsidian games are really good at. That they're making you pick something between really shitty choices. You know, both those choices are terrible, but you have to pick something. And so I picked, I'd rather stop the problem than what, what, what can I say? Right. Um, and that's those kinds of choices again, like there are other games, especially, um, outer worlds. It's you get to do those things. And I think about is even better at that.

[01:45:51] So I did, I did want to add just while we're on story choices. Um, what, what, what, what I did find really interesting, the dwarf that wanted to destroy the keep when you get to the bottom of it, what did you do there? Cause I killed that guy. I also killed that guy because you can't see. Cause it almost feels in a way, it almost feels like the previous choice, like destroy it, but like, like he was going off of like nothing. He was just saying, we're going to destroy this keep and this is going to work.

[01:46:20] And I'm like, we don't actually know that based on distrust of the, the female leader. Right. Exactly. Whereas like the address suffering, the address thing was like, this will work. This will 100% stop the problem. You know, that was like, what are you talking about, bro? Like we can't, we can't just do this based off of your vibes, you know? So, uh, yeah, I, I killed him. Could you have, could you have got through that section with not have killing him, but

[01:46:48] still, but still not allowing him to destroy the keep? Do you think? I don't know that. I don't know. I don't know. Cause he didn't have a whole lot of speech checks. Well, cause like here's, cause like, here's the thing at the end of the game, when you're talking to load win, if you have really high speech checks, you can like talk her out of that shit, but I just didn't have it. Oh, so I fought her. Well, cause like, if you notice there's like tele things that are like, if you have 15

[01:47:14] constitution, you can say this, or like, if you have 16 might and it's like, I don't fucking have that. But do you think that just ends the game where it's just like, it probably does because okay. Um, spoiler within a spoiler alert for anyone who hasn't played new Vegas. Sorry. It's been 15 years. You can speech check Caesar out of ever, you can out of ever fighting him. If your speech is a hundred, if you're whatever's a hundred, you can talk his ass down and then you win the game and you get all the experience points for fighting him.

[01:47:44] You level up in everything and the game's over. So you can do that. New Vegas anticlimactic, right? But like hardly anyone would be able to do that. You know, like you have to have your stats in such a way. And whereas like, and I'm sure you could do that to load on as well, where you could just kind of talk her down and that's it. But again, that goes back to faith, right? She had faith in Wodaka and you're using that against her. Right.

[01:48:09] So like, yeah, I just think like the central, I just never saw that the central theme of the game would be faith. You know, that's just very unusual in a video game, I think. So overall though, I would give this game a B plus. I wanted to give it like an A minus, but I think like, I don't know. I think I really enjoyed it, but it's just kind of exactly what you think it is, which is not at all bad. And it's probably one of the better ones to ever do it.

[01:48:36] At the same time, it is quite derivative from games that came before it. Again, not in a bad way, which is why it's a B plus, but I can't give it like some sort of tip top grade. I really, really, really enjoyed my time with avowed though. Yeah. I don't know. I, I get where it is a derivative for sure. I just had like the entire, I played the game. I think I landed about 43 hours and the whole time I was like cognizant of the fact that I

[01:49:04] am having so much fun playing this. I was like actively felt that enjoyment and, and like, Ooh, I thought about even bringing this up and, and we'll, we'll finish this conversation at a later date. Um, I started playing, um, the rest of final fantasy seven rebirth after great game. There there's so many like excellent, excellent things about that game, but I don't have that same feeling.

[01:49:30] And I think it's hard for me, like not to directly contrast these when playing them back to back, because there are points of that game that feel like it's like work to play. You have to like put into it to get out of it. And I never felt that way about, about it's like just 100% like getting out of it. It's not like, because it's super easy or it holds your hand. It's just like, it seemed so all killer, no filler to me. Okay.

[01:49:59] I mean, obviously, Hey, don't, I definitely don't agree, but I understand what you mean. I do get that. I definitely never felt like rebirth was ever work though. That's, that's for sure. Um, I gotta ask you though, the fact that like, whenever they, whenever Lodwin took off her mask and she's basically Skeletor, it's like, yeah, dude, we saw your like fire eyes. Like, well, yeah, like your eyes are literally flames. Like, I don't know what I now look, I wasn't expecting her to be a skeleton at the same time.

[01:50:29] I definitely didn't expect her to look human. So I mean, yeah, just like a, like a normal ass human just with flame eyes. Yeah. I don't think so. Right. Like, come on. Like. So, okay. With that, what did you think about that final battle? Because I, I thought that was a little bit of a lame way to end the game. And I, I think most, I thought, okay. So when you're in the garden, you fight those like giant triangle head things.

[01:50:56] And I just thought those fights were more interesting, right? They do the, they, every so often they do the laser eye thing. And then they fucking blow you back and you get staggered. I mean, with, with Lodwin, it just seemed like it was, there was like four stages of it. Like you kill her and then she regenerates her health. And then she's a little bit more aggressive and you kill her and she regents her health. And like that, that cycle happens, but there was nothing. I don't know. I felt it was a little, little vanilla for a final boss.

[01:51:26] Yes. However, I would extend that to say, like, I don't think any boss battle in this game is particularly great. It's just like, I don't think like open world combat games like this have great boss battles. I just think that's kind of what they are. It's always a weakness of the genre and avowed is no different. I am. I'm trying to think of any boss battle. That's actually been super cool in a game like this. And I don't think I have an example.

[01:51:52] I don't think they needed to make it like, I think it would be really hard to make it like mechanically unique, but I also think just like flavor wise, they could have made it like much more of a spectacle than just like you're in the town square, like fighting her over and over and over. Sure. Sure. I mean, I just don't know what else you can do because the game has to come down to either that you fight Loden or you fight Sopadol. Well, maybe that's it, right?

[01:52:19] Maybe if you fight Sopadol, if you fight them, will that gives you like a big giant boss battle? Because I was very surprised when I saw their appearance, like with the big head and the weird like disconnected. Like, I mean, I guess it's just a form of something. It's not necessarily they have to look like something. But like that was very surprising. You know, I. Okay. It's interesting. And maybe it may be. Maybe I'm fucked.

[01:52:47] I'm sure that the point when she like gets the head and everything was when you let her take over the robot. No, because I saw that shit too. So. I'm sure that's like the, I thought that was the first time I seen it. I saw that, but I didn't know. Okay. The first time I saw that form, I think it was like near the end of the second map or something like that. I don't think I saw that form like right away. So are you telling me you saw that form when you did, when you let them do the robot thing?

[01:53:18] I think, I think I did. I, that's sure how I remembered it until you talked about seeing it. Now I'm questioning myself. But like, yeah, I, I, I definitely didn't let them do that. So. I wanted to ask you about the garden because when we first talked about this, you said, I really want to see like you go to heaven at the end or something like really splashy, a unique place. The garden is definitely unique. Did you get what you wanted out of that? Yes, I did. I, that was cool.

[01:53:46] That was very otherworldly and weird. It wasn't like, you know, as it wasn't absolutely insane. It wasn't a shimmy gummy tensei game or something like that. But I mean, it definitely, it scratched my itch. I got what I wanted from that for sure. However, what I did not get, I think the other thing I wanted to happen is that I wanted to see like cooler dungeons and I wanted to see like some more inventive stuff. I didn't really get that.

[01:54:10] The only thing that I got that I thought was really cool was that one tower where you have to disarm a bunch of traps going up, a bunch of arrow traps. And like, you know what I mean? That was cool. That was, that wasn't even a main story thing. I don't think though, because I'm pretty sure I just stumbled across it. That was in the, in the desert map. Right. And you'd like go just fall down the tower and yeah. If you like find the progressive notes as the guy laid the trap or whatever. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:54:40] I did think the, the one, the one that you destroy the ruins, right? You go down there and there, you know, you're talking to the spirits and they're like, you have three challenges or whatever. I thought that was pretty unique and interesting. That was cool. That was cool. Yeah. So like, that's what I'm trying to say. None of these are bad or like they were never boring or anything, but they never got, they never had like the level design ingenuity that I think that I wanted from that, you know, which is again, that's fine. It doesn't have to be. What do you think it was missing?

[01:55:11] I think they weren't. I didn't feel like I was really traveling like deep into a place. I think that's always the fun part, whether it's like a, even like an old JRPG, like an eight or 16 bit, like dragon quest or something where it's like, you're descending down into this dungeon. You're like four floors deep. Oh, it's really dangerous. Can I even get back out? Do I even have an escape? You know, like that kind of thing, where it's like, I feel that when I played like an elder scrolls or a fallout or something, you're exploring this big building or something like that.

[01:55:40] Or in, in, in elder scrolls, you're going through these large catacombs and these huge caves or whatever. And it's like, oh shit, I'm really deep in this shit. This is crazy. You know, I never felt that way while playing a vow. And I think that's kind of key to making you feel the dungeon to me. What about the snow one where you, where you go and then all of a sudden it's like wintry. And yeah, that was cool. You know, you like lose the map and that one felt pretty like desolate. That was cool.

[01:56:10] That was cool, but it didn't, I don't know. It never gave me that feel. And again, it doesn't have to have that feel. It doesn't have to do exactly the thing that I want, but those are the kinds of dungeons I really enjoy. And just a vow didn't have that. So that's okay. By the way, I looked it up. I, I spoiled it for us since we didn't know you don't fight sop at all. If you choose, you just kind of end them. You sever their address or whatever, just like you did in the, at the end of the third map. And that's it. So it's not, you have some big boss fight against them.

[01:56:39] But so obviously if you do that, you don't fight load when. Does it seem like, do you think that's meant to be like the bad ending? Cause to me that seems like it should be the bad ending. Um, it didn't seem like that. It does seem like, I mean, I'm sure like the end plays out differently where it's like, cause you know how the end where it's like, you know, the, the forces are coming from your country or whatever. So it's like, you can have Sopadol be like, Hey, can you ward them off? Or can you make a storm or can, I don't know something. She, they help out somehow. Right.

[01:57:09] Where it's like, maybe that stuff plays out a bit differently at the end. But other than that. Yeah. You go to the town and you and Lodwin get married. Yeah. You just kiss, you kiss those chattering teeth. Those, those God of war, like button tapping mini game for sex. Yes. Oh my God. Nevermind. I'm not going to get into it. I can't even imagine. Nevermind. Um, yeah. Great game of out.

[01:57:38] I would love to play another one of these. Hey, we might. If outer worlds two comes out anytime this year, I really fucking hope this has DLC. Ooh, would it? Hmm. I, I don't know. I could see it. I mean, it's, they like push back the release a very long ways. Like not because it wasn't done, but it seemed like because they thought pushing it back was more of an opportune release timing. So I don't know.

[01:58:05] I wonder how much more work got done on it in the interim. Yeah, I do wonder, but DLC, I don't know. We may not, not every game. Does, I don't know. Like, uh, the aforementioned final fantasy seven rebirth definitely doesn't have DLC because they're moving. They're making that third game like now, you know, whereas like the first game, they had that UFI DLC. Right. So, and they're not doing that this time. So they can, the outer worlds have DLC. Do you know? Yes. It did. It wasn't like huge.

[01:58:33] It wasn't like a fallout for far Harbor or anything like that. It's something gargantuan like that, but it definitely did have it. So. So I would love something just small, even just a couple of side, little side stories. Yeah. If they, if they added content within the existing maps, I would be pretty happy to go back to that. For sure. Um, any, anything else, anything else on a valid before we, uh, get out of here?

[01:58:59] The only other thing I thought it was a weird decision that when, when you beat load win and it like shows you what happened, it plays the giant fucking, you know, story slides, which I did not pay that much attention to. Um, and then you reload your save. If you saved at that point when the city is under attack, it's like that, that's there, there's no like, you know, do you want to continue your game? And like, just like, you just have to like load an earlier save. And I thought that was a weird decision to make.

[01:59:28] I don't think it's the kind of game where you can just kind of walk around and do whatever and bask what you want to bask in the solace of your, your choice or whatever. If you, well, no, no, not even necessarily, but if they could have just like discounted, that's what happened. And then like, okay, do you want to go back to the world the way it was? So you can like, keep doing the side missions. I mean, if you only maintained one save the entire fucking time, I think you would be fucked there.

[01:59:53] I don't, unless there's like some menu option when you're outside of the city while it's under attack to be able to say like, I want to go back to the world the way it was before. Um, I, you know, I don't know. Well, I mean, I do give you that warning before you go into the garden. There's no coming back from this. So yeah, they do say that much, but usually though, that seems like it's like, okay, you're going to be in this place for like three hours and you're not going to have fast travel.

[02:00:21] That doesn't necessarily mean like the game is, you cannot go back and do any of the side shit ever. I always take that to me in a permanent, just, just like what you said, there's no going back at all. But you know, I, I don't, I don't really play games. If I really want to see that shit again, I would just play the game again on a, not even necessarily new game plus or something, because like the way I played, I was like I said, it was like a straight up wizard. I would love to play. I would love to try it. Like I didn't use a sword at all or whatever. Like I would like to try it. Right.

[02:00:50] So I don't know. It'd be fun. I do a gun run full gun run. Yeah, I know I was full wizard run, full sword run, full, full gun run. Okay. That was a, that was a great game. I'm glad we both enjoyed it a lot. We're not sitting here arguing about, about it or some shit. I love to argue on fine time, but this is one game where I'm like, I'm glad to just bask in the glory. This is the avowed was really good, really, really good stuff. Okay.

[02:01:20] That's it. See you next time on fine time. Check the description of this podcast to find our names on social media and bye.