Sonic Crosswords | The Big Deal

[00:00:00] Hey, it's your boy Dre off the top here. I am once again asking, like Bernie Sanders, rate us, review us, wherever you listen, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, go to superpodnetwork.com and leave us comments on our shit. Leave comments on everybody's shit. We're just fun guys, you know? We're just out here having a good time, talking to the microphones. We deserve some five stars. We deserve some comments. I deserve it. Kevin, do you deserve it? I feel like we all do.

[00:00:26] Yeah, I think we all deserve it. I think that if somebody hits somebody else's car, instead of pretending to write down your insurance information, tell them to listen to Fine Time and leave it on their windshield. Absolutely, Steve. I don't think you should commit insurance fraud, but I do think we deserve some five star reviews. All right. Well, you heard it from us, everybody. Five star reviews for Fine Time. Let's start the show. I think we're worth insurance fraud.

[00:00:57] Yeah, but you can't say that. I think people should purposefully cause accidents in parking lots for us. I'm totally leaving this in. Step into video game land. Welcome to Fine Time.

[00:01:44] Hello, party people. It's your boy, Dre. Oh, baby. Steve. Video games, am I right? Oh, yeah. Video games. That's the one with the paddle, right? Absolutely, Kevin. Oh, baby. Oh, baby. Do it again. We're back. As we always say, we will be every week. Sorry about that. But we're just so consistent. We can't help but be here. Yeah, we have video games to talk about for sure.

[00:02:14] Do I? Let's just get right into it. Who wants to go first? I don't even talk about it. I guess I could go for it. I always feel like a gopher, so. Should we have a little spinner? I feel like we should have like a little thing, like spin the fake ass wheel of like who goes first. That's too much pressure. I want to go last this week. Yes, on our audio format, Steve. Theater of the mind. Jesus Christ. Why do you think I have all these sound effects? Where do you think?

[00:02:43] You don't have one that goes tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. We don't. We do have the 45 second timer that scares Kevin. I'm sure Kevin hears that hip hop beat in his sleep. When I ask him a question that he can't quite, you know, I bet he still is trying to think of the names of Assassin's Creed games. I have PTSD flashbacks from that timer.

[00:03:08] Hey, Kevin, name all the games that you've played on the show that you hate in 45 seconds. It's I'm not, I'm not, I'm not even playing along with this bit. Come on. It's not funny. Come on. It's funny. All the games that I've played on the show that I hated. Yes. Hmm. Did you hate when I gave you a Capcom title or Sega? Did you hate that? Oh, sorry. I thought you meant like video games. I talked about.

[00:03:35] No, I liked, I think I've done like reasonably well with the, the arcade guessing games. Yeah, you did. All right. You know, it was no, it was literally just the fucking name of the Nintendo, like the first party GameCube games, because I know, I know that. And I fucking froze up and I felt like an idiot. And I, I, I upset thinking about it. Even turn that fucking music off. Okay. The timer's almost over there. You know, it was really funny about that.

[00:04:04] How many did he get? Zero. You know, it was really funny about that bit. Is that like over that time over timer, you were like, this is bullshit. You said. It made me laugh. I'm sweating. Just thinking about it again. Enough talking about fine time. I'll talk about Romancing Saga 2. Revenge of the seven.

[00:04:36] Oh boy. Guys. I didn't mean to be wrapped up in a game like this, but 75 hours later, here I am on the other side of Romancing Saga 2. That ever happened to you, Steve? You just start playing something a little bit and you're like, oh, oh fuck. I guess I'm playing an entire JRPG. Oops. It hasn't been that way for a JRPG for a while, but yes, I know the feeling where, oh, I guess we're playing the whole game now. Yeah. I just, I was just going to play a little.

[00:05:04] I haven't, I put down Dynasty Warriors origins for this game. That's how hooked I was. I haven't played that game in like probably since we talked about it two weeks ago. Was this, was this because you just wound up playing through the whole thing or did you also get super invested into a bunch of side shit you didn't really need to do? No, it's, it's not that kind of game. In fact, I'll explain. Let's, let's start at the beginning because basically I want to pitch this game to the public because I think it's a ton of fun.

[00:05:33] I think Romancing Saga 2 Revenge of the Seven is a great game. If you are just a general JRPG sicko, Steve, you should just buy this game. They absolutely get it. No doubt. If you're someone who is more choosy about this genre, Kevin, then maybe I can convince you to give this game a shot. By the way, there is a demo on any platform you want to play it on. You can play the prologue and the progress carries over to the full game. So if you're really curious, you can do that.

[00:06:02] The prologue sounds fun. And I've got to say for me, what makes me choosy about this genre is the amount of time that I have to put into like finishing each thing. So 75 hours immediately has me put off. Of course. I understand. That's not foreshadowing something we're doing soon. Anyway. No, we'd never play games that long. Anyway, let's start at the beginning. So Romancing Saga 2 was originally released in December 1993 in Japan for Super Famicom.

[00:06:32] It's one of those games, one of those classic Squaresoft games that, you know, one of the many that didn't make it over here in that era that we've all heard about. The entire Romancing Saga trilogy for SNES. None of those came here originally. But in 2011, there was a mobile port of Romancing Saga 2 for Japan, and that mobile port was then brought to consoles in the US at the end of 2017 for Switch.

[00:07:00] And well, I got it for Switch, but for a lot of systems. And I played that version and I loved it. And so I think it was on a Nintendo Direct, Steve. They announced this remake and I was like, oh, fuck. Yeah, I recognized it by the battle theme, the classic battle theme first. I was like, oh, wait, I know that song. And it was exactly that. I was like, OK, sure. I guess I'm playing this game again now in remake form. And it's one of the more interesting remakes I played in a while.

[00:07:30] So I guess it's a fair question to ask why Romancing Saga 2 would be getting the remake treatment compared to like the tons of I mean, why not Chrono Trigger? Someone might say, or why not this or why not that? And someone is me. He's talking about me. I say it like every other week. Some people out there who I will not name Steve say those kinds of things. And there's a couple of reasons, I think.

[00:07:56] First of all, the original Romancing Saga 2 was kind of a big deal in Japan. It sold a million and a half copies there. That's a lot for the time and for the country, for like a single country. And it's also just different in the fact that like Romancing Saga 2 is not your typical like 16 bit RPG, like a Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, where it's like here are your party and here are these characters and here are this big epic story where you travel the world or whatever and shit like that.

[00:08:25] But Romancing Saga 2 is a non-linear game in which you can like explore the world at your leisure. So basically the setup is the reason why the game is called Revenge of the Seven is that there were seven heroes long ago. They got banished to some other realm and they got pissed off and now they want revenge. Literally the Revenge of the Seven. Right? So what you're doing is you're going around the world trying to find these seven heroes and defeating them. But you can find those heroes in pretty much any order that you want.

[00:08:52] You go to where you want to go from your castle. You're the emperor, by the way. You're not just some dude. You're the emperor of this kingdom and you're going out and kicking ass. It's kind of great, honestly. Absolutely. So yeah, and you go out there into the world. You expand your kingdom's reach and facilities and et cetera, you know, as kingdoms are wont to do. And there are also sort of quote unquote real world effects for what you do out there. You can choose to help these people.

[00:09:22] You can choose to help these people. And depending on what you do, that can affect who's aligned to you, who's not aligned to you, what kind of classes you can have, what you can unlock. Because if you help these kind of people, oh, they'll be loyal to the empire. You can have these lancers or these beastmen or whatever, right? So it's very open-ended. You can make these cool choices in the game that kind of affect the world. And again, this is an SNES game. This isn't Mass Effect or something like that where you're doing like these seismic, you know, relationships and stuff like that.

[00:09:52] But for the time period, it was super cool and forward thinking. And it's still cool now, just carrying those ideas forward. So yeah, that's kind of the setup of the game, you know. But it also holds up in the sense that there's tons of different locations out there and towns. There's a ton of them, right? Think about, I don't know, Secret of Mana. How many towns are there in Secret of Mana? Maybe 10 and a couple of them are kind of cookie cutter. This is like you're going all over the place.

[00:10:20] So yeah, maybe like for SNES game of I don't know what megabits this was. Yeah, maybe they're more cookie cutter. But you get to see a lot of locations, right? And you get to see a lot of locations in this remake as well. It's just cool. You really get that sense of discovery and travel, which is obviously important in a game like this.

[00:10:42] I would say that maybe the best comp I have to Romancing Saga 2 is possibly an Octopath game because that's also kind of open-ended. You do the thing that you want to do. And there's no doubt that Octopath owes some of its design to the Romancing Saga trilogy. But Octopath's open-endedness comes from its eight characters. Literally, you follow their stories along and then the game happens around that.

[00:11:11] Romancing Saga 2 doesn't have characters at all. You have your initial king or whatever, and then the characters around you are just like guys. Oh, you need a heavy infantry. You need a ranger. You need a black mage. It's not a black mage. I forget what they're called, right? They're just like people. So that's the drawback to it. No characters, but you get all the world stuff. But here's why that lack of characterization is okay. Romancing Saga 2 is a game about generations.

[00:11:42] So like after you beat one of the seven heroes, there's a time skip of anywhere from like 75 to like 250 years. And then you appoint a new emperor, and that emperor, through some sort of magic, inherits all the stuff from the old emperor. So that's how the game works. Through the power of RPG, you get to have these generations. So that's also cool.

[00:12:08] So, you know, stuff that didn't happen in one generation may happen in the next one. That's like, oh, you know, these people, I didn't help them. So now that race is dead or something like that. But also, you kind of have to suspend your disbelief a little bit, right? Because it's like I remember there was a part where there was like a there was a guy in the ship and he's like, oh, we could really use someone with maritime experience. Right. Which my emperor did not have. So five generations fucking later, I come back to this guy.

[00:12:38] I'm finally a guy who has maritime experience, and he's just sitting there waiting for me like 1200 years later. I'm like, I don't fucking think so. Like, I mean, come on. You're just sitting here waiting for me. Oh, you're finally here. Let's go do that thing. I mean, come on. Well, they were doing NPC saga where they were passing down the legacy of, look, we really need you to wait around for a guy with maritime experience. It would be a waste of time for you to study it on your own.

[00:13:08] But if you wait around long enough, he's going to come around. We just have to believe there's a family that he's going to come around. Yeah. And Doc, man, the 14th generation of them was just sitting there waiting for me. It has been foretold. Literally throughout generations. Regardless of that, though, and to hear this explained, it sounds like there's still a lot going on under the hood for a Super Nintendo era game.

[00:13:36] I mean, given, you know, if you would like explain ActRaiser, I would, you know, without knowing what it was, I would probably say the same thing. But at face value, it seems like there's a lot of complex systems going on here. Yeah, there is. And I hope I explained them okay without bumbling over myself too much. But yeah, it's just a super interesting game in that regard, man. It's just so much fun. And you guys know I value exploration more than anything. That's why I love Dragon Quest. That's why I love Dragon Quest 3, the remake that I played so much.

[00:14:05] That's just what you get to do. I'll spare you all the intricacies of the battle system because I'll be here all day. But just know it's really great fun with a ton of skills you can learn. It's one of those games where you don't have character levels, but you just level up the stuff that you use. So you use swords a lot, you level up the sword skill and you get those skills and you get better at using swords. You use magic a lot, you level up that. You take a lot of damage, you get more HP.

[00:14:34] I would describe it as Final Fantasy 2, but good. Maybe the best way I can say it. So how do they handle enemies then? Because when you were talking about it being nonlinear, I just kind of assumed that they just scale power balance with enemies. But if it's all kind of based on your equipment or your specific skills you're using, it would be hard to scale with enemies in that way.

[00:15:03] Every time there's a time skip, every time you go to a new generation, the entire world levels up. Oh, that makes sense. So you can kind of grind it out if you want to. If something's giving you trouble, you can go grind it out and then beat this one of the seven heroes that was giving you trouble. But then as you go to the next generation, everything will be leveled up again. So you just kind of need to repeat that process over and over since there's no character levels. And yeah, it works out really well.

[00:15:31] It's a really balanced game, but it's tough. Romancing Saga 2 is fucking hard. Like, Steve, I wouldn't put it like SMT hard. It's hard, though. And here's why the game is tough. And this is what makes it really fun. You have a limited amount of times you can die in battle. Every time you die, you lose a life point. And if you run out of life points, that's it. That character is dead, like forever. Steve's making a face.

[00:15:59] No, I remember this from Final Fantasy Legend 1, which was a Saga game, actually, because I remember that. I played that on Game Boy forever ago. I remember that being bullshit back then. Yeah. And if they run out of life points, you got to go back and get like you can get a new character from the bar or whatever you like stock your characters from. But it's not going to be as good as the guy you had. Nope.

[00:16:24] You know, so it's just like you have to kind of like get their skills up again or whatever and have them learn some new stuff. So, yeah, basically battles rely around. Just don't let their HP fall to zero. That means you have to be really cautious. Like it's because like if there's a guy like about to die, they have very little HP and you know the enemy is going to attack next turn. You got to heal up.

[00:16:49] You can't take the risk that he's going to attack someone else because you can't lose that life point. You know, so that's what the whole game relies around. And yeah, it makes for a really fun and really tense battle system. Just excellent stuff. The graphics in Romancing Saga 2 are not graphics on PlayStation 5. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't even call them graphics on PlayStation 4. This literally looks like a remake for Xbox 360 and PS3.

[00:17:19] Like it is really, really low budget. But you know what? It's charming. It works. The character designs are really good and like the dungeons are simple, but they have like the right texture work and like charm to them. So, yeah, it is not a looker by any means. It looks like it came out 15 years ago. But overall, I think it's a nice looking game artistically, but this is not Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth or some other square remake. Okay, so like keep your expectations in check.

[00:17:49] I want to talk about Kenji Ito real quick, the composer of Romancing Saga 2, and he came back and redid his own music for this remake. And you can tell, I think he is one of the most undersung composers in video game history. No shit. I, people are going to, I don't care. I think he is just as important to that like 90 square soft sound as Nobuo Uematsu. And he gets none of the credit. He did, he did Final Fantasy Adventure, a.k.a. The first mana game.

[00:18:18] He's, he did, I think the Saga game you were just talking about, Steve, along with Uematsu. Right? Like as well as all three of these Romancing Saga games, he is an excellent, excellent composer. And I really wish maybe a game like this can give him some more credit because goddamn, it was great music then on Super Nintendo. And it's great music now.

[00:18:40] You can even turn it to the SNES version if you want and listen to it and hear how good that shit is like back then. And it's like, oh, he's just updating the same thing because he barely needed to do anything. I'll shut the hell up about this game. I want to say one last thing, though. I did beat the game last night and I had one of those classic RPG things happen to me during the last boss. Okay, so here's the scenario.

[00:19:07] All my guys are on low health, but my ultimate attack, a.k.a. My let's just call the limit break for sake of for sake of ease here. My limit break is up. The boss is low health as well. I don't have time to heal my guys. Really? I can maybe heal one or two of them and that's it. I feel like my best chance to win is to just pop my limit break and hope I kill the boss. So I pop it.

[00:19:35] The boss survives with a pixel of fucking health in that bar. A pixel. Oh, my God. Okay, that's it. I tried my best. That was it. So I'm just sitting there praying. Okay, here we go. One guy wipes. Two guys wipe. Everybody wipes. Except except my main character survives with 28 HP left out of like 1300. He's still alive somehow.

[00:20:04] Oh, my fucking God. I have one chance. I have one attack. One attack. That's all I got. I don't have time to heal. Even if I heal, they're going to take five turns the next turn. They're going to hit me five times. I'm not going to survive. I have one attack. I find the most damaging thing in my arsenal. I use it. The boss dies. I beat the game. Wow. I don't have to do that again.

[00:20:33] Jesus Christ. I was on edge of my seat just listening to that. I was just I was praying after like there was two attacks left on the while the boss was doing their ultimate. I was like, oh, shit. Is he going to survive? Because one attack he evaded. It was like, oh, my fucking God. He is 28 HP. Holy shit. Ah, and I was like, yeah, I did it. Thank you. Thank you for listening to my story. God that turned out because that would have been fucking soul crushing if your attack missed and he killed you with just that little sliver of health.

[00:21:03] You know, that's one good thing about this game. Attacks very rarely miss. You have to have blind or some other effect, like some sort of status effect for you to miss, which is good for a game that's hard. You don't want a whole lot of misses. I'm looking at you, Shining Force. I swear to God, half my attacks missed in the original Shining Force. Holy fuck, Steve. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah, I do. You want me to I'll piss you off some more.

[00:21:28] You've intrigued me on this game, but I think I really just want to turn on the revamped Super Nintendo version I already have on Switch and maybe not buy this one just yet. That's no, you should play that. It's a great game. I mean, this does sound very intriguing. I'm just like looking at everything. I'm like, man, maybe I just want to try that one first, though. Absolutely. Since I already got it. Do that.

[00:21:57] Kevin, did I convince you to try Romancing Saga 2? Did I convince you to try the free the prologue? Yeah, sure. The whole thing sounds intriguing. This sounds like a good, cool game. I just am very hesitant to like ever pick up anything that's over 60 hours. I'm often hesitant to pick up anything that's over 30 hours because those are I already have a poor track record with a lot of games starting them and not finishing them. And the longer they get, the more likely that is to happen.

[00:22:26] I totally get it. This is not. This is a long ass JRPG ass JRPG. I totally get you. But try the prologue and see what you think. Or shit, do what Steve is doing. Play the ass and yes version. I'm sure you can get it for cheap. Like if you just want to play like a version of it. It is routinely on sale. Yeah, routinely on sale. Definitely do that. I hope they remake Romancing Saga 3 because they also released the ass and yes version of that here. I did not like that game at all.

[00:22:54] So I hope sometime they remake that one and maybe they can put it in a format that I will enjoy. But yeah, Romancing Saga 2 Revenge of the Seven. Two thumbs up from me, your boy Dre.

[00:23:25] All right, kids. It's been about a year. Remember about a year ago, Kevin's out and I decided to have weeb hours and I started talking about Atelier games for some reason. You sure did. You're going to talk about another one? Well, I love you guys so much.

[00:23:47] Valentine's Day is in a few days and I figured up we should wrap up this Arlen train wreck and talk about Atelier Meruru, the apprentice of Arlen Deluxe with Kevin here today. Okay. I just, you know, you always sound, I'm like, I always ask you, do you even like these games?

[00:24:14] You're like, yeah, but here's these 53 things I don't like about them. Just for a brief recap, I got this particular set from Stealth 401k online. He was doing a giveaway with Tecmo Koei back during COVID. I'm like, okay, I got these now. And that's why I started playing this as my first foray into this giant, giant franchise.

[00:24:40] No matter how many better, better games are in this franchise that Vin keeps banging on the glass going, Steve, there's better games you can play. Don't play these ones. Don't do it, Steve. No. But you're doing it. You're doing it. You're pressing the big red button. Yeah. It's the last one of these though. So we're, we're Princess Meruru of Arles, a small kingdom tucked away in Arlen where we've

[00:25:08] been goofing off this whole time with the other two games and we're about to unite with the whole of Arlen and none of that really matters. You're, you're a girl who does alchemy just like the other ones. You do this by running around the map of the countryside to gather ingredients and schmushen them together in your cauldron in a rudimentary crafting system to make stuff that advances the plot such as it is.

[00:25:34] The resentment is, is like in undertone every, every word you're speaking. And you know what? I know, but here it really did start out promising enough. It really did because they actually try to give you some degree of motivation. Like, okay. They try to make it a bit of a coming of age story. Look, we're merging with the Republic. You're good. You should be coming of age soon. You should try to be more mature.

[00:26:03] It'd be great if we could build our kingdom into something greater. And if you could do alchemy along the way, that'd be great. That's, that's great. That's, that's already much more than Rorona is dumb and Totori is traumatized. This is already more story than that. I do remember you being pissed at Rorona's dumbness. And the story from there just spins out into sheer nonsense.

[00:26:29] You're essentially interning with Totori from the last game while doing kingdom building projects as set up by your butler. Totally not ripping off Sebastian from Black Butler who remembers anime from 2010. Not me for sure. And certainly. Yeah. How are we doing there, Andre? How's your back? How's your back doing? Pretty good. Haven't had a flare up this year yet. I've had quite a few from shoveling.

[00:26:57] But, you know, good news on the former, as we've been over, Totori is easily the smartest of these three protagonists. You know, whether it's her or Rorona, we definitely picked the smartest one to, you know, learn alchemy from. But, you know, I keep picking on Rorona and you know how I keep saying she's about as smart as a small child is best? Well, a few hours in, she just suddenly appears in your workshop as a small child. Thanks to offscreen alchemy shenanigans.

[00:27:28] They don't even wait, wait, wait, wait, wait a second. So they don't even explain it? She's just a kid now? They explain it as her teacher being like, look, I made a potion of youth because I'm pushing 40. And I made Verona drink it. So now she's like eight. What? Well, first of all, we all know 40 is old age in anime. You just cannot be. No, it's not allowed, especially in Atelier world.

[00:27:58] But no, good luck solving this problem on top of everything else. And I mean, no, really good luck solving that on top of these other problems, because like the other games, they give you three in-game years to prove to your king dad that you are good at alchemy by doing his job at developing the kingdom while doing alchemy. And another two after passing those first three to achieve additional in-game goals like restoring Verona. Maybe if you're good enough.

[00:28:27] Something I've largely glazed on from the other two games are these slice of life cut scenes that will just play when certain conditions are met or are not met whenever you're in town and you're changing screens, which happens a lot. Like, say, I just want to go to town and pick up some more jobs. Like, it'll just start playing a scene. Okay, great. Now I'll just go to the thing and pick up. Oh, now another one's going to play. Oh, now another one's going to play. What did I want to do again? I just wanted to buy some fucking shit from the Smith.

[00:28:55] Now four more scenes have started to play. I lost 15 minutes and now I've lost some track of my fucking life. Are they like Xenoblade heart to hearts or something? No, those were actually nice. These are just nonsense. Okay. And some of them are actually necessary to solve the game as I found out. Oh, no. Oh, my God. Yeah.

[00:29:24] This is an incredibly long winded way of saying I still somehow got a bad ending despite fixing the country. How did you manage that? I smushed everything into the pots. I built up a wall. I fixed a diamond mine. I fixed however many other problems. I driven out monsters. We built farmland. You know, things my dad should have been doing the whole time.

[00:29:50] But somehow I still ended up with a bad ending because there's like however many other things I didn't do in the other two years. But speaking of how bad this game is broken, no one play tested this version. I think on Switch because I've generously characterized these games. This particular trilogy of games as graphics on Dreamcast 2. But the big hint that this game is particularly broken should have been the run.

[00:30:20] She technically has one that you can toggle on and off, but it's really just a more jittery, faster version of her wind wind of her weird spindly jog that she has. Because it's like, what's going on? So it's like the same animation. She's just moving faster. Yeah. And it already looks weird in the first place because of the art style. So it's like. Okay. I got coffee. Okay. You know what it is? Okay.

[00:30:48] Without even seeing it, because I felt this in games too. Do you feel like she's going to run out of breath because you're making her run? Do you feel like you're actually stressing her out? Maybe if she actually breathed, but that's the other thing. It's like moving. It's like dragging a doll around from place to place. Oh my God. Okay. And then around year three, which again, remember a crucial point because at some point they're going to be like, okay, this is how well you did with the alchemy soon.

[00:31:18] While engaging with merchants, the menu started getting fucked up. Like it started like tiling the things I wanted to look at. And okay. It's like stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff. Like, hello. Screens starting to get inverted. I have footage of this. I'll post. I managed to get some video. The sounds insane. So like what? Did resetting the game fix it? Or like. Thankfully, a quick reload of the save was good enough for this.

[00:31:47] But I mean, this is the kind of bullshit that I expected from 90s Natsume, not 2010s Gust, a Tecmo Koei joint. I think there's a reason why Ven told you not to play these. And yes, Andre, in case we haven't put this together yet, frame rates are still just a suggestion. Yeah. I mean, you are. Look, I understand you're playing on switch here, but like. I think they were just a suggestion.

[00:32:15] This feels like they were just a suggestion back when these were made, too. Yeah. Then I said the target 60 and whatever happens happens on any given system. That's just how they've always operated. So. Vin insists there is much better games in this series, and I'm inclined to trust him here because, as I mentioned, most of the game, there is a very satisfying, an oddly satisfying loop of sourcing things. However way you do that, and then making things to do that.

[00:32:44] But these three games felt unfinished. This last one, I'm trying to figure out how to get the real endings of the game, like any one of the real endings they want me to find, including restoring Verona back to her actual age, such as it is. And the hoops they want you to jump through by triggering certain scenes and fighting certain guys at a certain time is like, how would you figure this out? I. You can't. I would never. Yeah.

[00:33:13] I feel like it's one of those kind of games where they just expect you to look at a guide and that's it. All three of these games felt unfinished and they sold these to people three times. They, they, they did on PlayStation on Vita and then again on switch. And I don't know. I guess what I'm really getting at is that this isn't really the end of my Atelier stories. Despite all this, I got, I think I got Risa lying around somewhere. Isn't there a Risa two?

[00:33:42] Oh, they made it to three. That's the one with her giant. That's the, that's the one where the perspective is weird and they make fun of her giant thighs because it's like got the two guys looking at that. She's sitting weird on the cover. So what? So they're making fun of her for being thick. Two C's. It's just a weird perspective on the cover. But anyway, you need to show me this for, for research. Okay. I need to see these thighs. Obviously.

[00:34:24] All right. You guys have been busy with your super long and complex, uh, RPGs. So, you know, I'm going to be a, a palette cleanser here. I have started playing one, two switch. And so I've been waiting to play this since around October with all of the switch to hype. Um, I've been feeling a little bit nostalgic for the switch launch. Um, but I also wasn't going to pay full price for one, two switch.

[00:34:51] Um, so I ordered it, it in from the library and I've been waiting since like, yeah, October, November, um, for it to get shipped through the library system. And it finally showed up. Um, so I just had a few observations. The, I I'm trying to figure out, and maybe you guys can help me with this, the menus and aesthetics to this are very unique to this game, but there's still this, this consistent theming with quote unquote casual Nintendo games.

[00:35:21] And it's kind of culminated, um, in this era and I can't quite put my finger on it. I can, I can feel like we sports in here and I can feel like DS clubhouse games in here. And I don't really, the, the, the menus are not the same. They're not using like the same font, but there's, there's something to one, two switch that's, that's invoking that. Did you guys know what this is? I think I understand what you mean. And in fact, well, okay.

[00:35:49] So do you remember back in the day they had the R and D divisions, R and D one, two, three, and four. I think R and D one was intelligent systems, Steve. Yep. And R and D two was like sort of the main, like the Miyamoto group and R and D three was the hardware guys. They mainly made the hardware, but they were also making a couple of games here and there. I think they made star tropics for instance. I think they made punch out right. Every, every so often they would make a game. And I think Nintendo still works that way.

[00:36:19] The people who make the hardware will also, Hey, here's a game idea. I feel like that's how stuff like we sports and one to switch. And let's say, I think what's it called on three DS pilot wings resort. I feel like those are all like kind of cut from the same cloth. Am I, would you say pilot wings is in there? Cause I would. Oh yeah. I guess that has a very similar interface on the menu. I kind of feel like it is.

[00:36:46] So yeah, I think like when hardware people, Kevin make a video game, it just tends to come out that way at Nintendo. Yeah. It's good. It's got, it's got like a certain vibe. And again, I, it's, it's really hard to articulate exactly what it is. I can't, you know, take specific menus or aesthetics or anything and point to it, but this has, has it. And I almost wasn't expecting that. Um, in hindsight, I don't think history has given this game. It's proper due.

[00:37:14] Um, you know, I think a lot of people kind of like wrote this off as like, you know, a throwaway casual launch title. Um, but I also don't, I don't regret borrowing this and not buying for it. Um, we played this as a family and we, we, we haven't played all of the games. We've played the bulk of the ones that are in there. Um, and we had like some outrageously funny moments. It was a lot of, you know, it just kind of gives you the, the vehicle to like make your own fun.

[00:37:40] That isn't directly like, you know, the, the game is the catalyst, but it's not like giving you that experience. You kind of do that with the group you play with, but I also don't think it's got the legs that I would want to revisit this over and over. I think those moments are, you know, after the first few times that you've like laughed about when you milk the cow and you get the one where the milk like really fucking flies out of there. You know, that's going to be fun only so many times. Right. Um, but I do, I, yeah, I, I think man, maybe it's just me.

[00:38:09] I kind of like wrote this off. I didn't even consider buying one, two switch when it came out and I've just kind of, yeah, I've always thought of it kind of as a throwaway title. Um, and, and it's more than that. I think that's kind of what I think of Steve. When I think of the one, two switch, like all the FMVs, I think of the cow milking guy when the overalls, I think of, I don't know why that's like the first like FMV image that comes to mind. Um, did you got, I gotta ask Kevin, cause this is the most fun game on one, two switch. Did you play fake draw?

[00:38:39] I've been talking about fake draw for years. No, we just did the, like the right, the regular, like quick draw game, man, you gotta play fake draw. That's the fun. That's the fun one. Cause they say other F words, LOL F words before they say fire. Oh, okay. So it's like fear. Freak. File. Sometimes he'll say file, which will fuck me up. Right. So it's not fire file. So, you know, like, yeah. And then you have to wait to hear fire.

[00:39:09] Then you fire. It's just a great variation. What's already fun. So, right. Well, we still got this for a couple of weeks and the kids absolutely loved it every day. I think we played this the night before last. And then the rest of that night, they kept asking, can we play it again? Yesterday. Can we play it? We had shit going on. I didn't have time today. I said tomorrow we'll play one, two switch again, but they loved it. So that's a, that's a good sign. That's how this game sold 3 million copies. Everyone's shocked. It's like, Oh, how did this game keep selling? Well, cause people like it, man. It got around.

[00:39:39] I couldn't justify buying it being a single person, but I get it for you having children. The presentation is also really, really good. I wasn't knowing that they have like the real people video clips baked into the game itself. That's not just a marketing thing. They do the demos. I kind of expected that to be cheesier than it is. And it is cheesy, but it's like cheesy in a self-aware way. Um, on Andre brought up the, the cow milking guy.

[00:40:06] And like, when you first click on that, he like, there's a still image of them and he said it and just the way he's smiling. I don't know. There's something about it where he's like, he's like, I know this outfit is ridiculous, but I'm about to milk the fuck out of this cow. No, he's the star of the show. I'm telling you, he's, he's it. He gets it. Yeah. I don't know. They, they make it, they make it fun. It's, it doesn't come off as this, like, you know, this is awkward that they've hired these actors to like sit here and act this shit out.

[00:40:35] So did you, did you play the, um, the sandwich one where you have to eat the sandwich? I got it. Yeah. That was one of the favorites period. Um, the, the sandwich was a lot of fun. You know what we really liked? And actually, again, you speak of clubhouse games, cause this was on DS clubhouse games is something very similar where you have to like shake up the pop and then pass it around and you can feel like the HD and it, it really feels like it's sizzling. Um, yeah, the, the like tension.

[00:41:05] And then as soon as the pop would, would blow, everybody is like fucking screaming as if there's real pop, like getting everywhere. Steve, wasn't that a Mario party game? Wasn't that like you shake it a little, then you pass it like to the, there was something I feel like on Wii, that was a thing, right? With the Wiimote, like the, I don't know. I could be wrong. You definitely had one where you would go and you had to like pump the balloon and you could only pump it so much until the balloon popped. Is that what you're thinking of? And you pass it to the next person. Okay.

[00:41:34] I'm only going to pump it three times and then, yeah, I'm going to, yeah. Anyway, but yeah, see, that's fun little games like that. I get that. There's not a, I suppose this game isn't set up for it, but maybe there could have been like some sort of Wario where esque, like tie it together where you do a bunch of games or something like that. Or I don't, I don't know, but. Well, I guess they tried to take it into the next level with everybody. One, two switch. Maybe I should rent that from the library next and see how that goes.

[00:42:02] I bet that's no, I bet that game fucking sucks. Oh, I don't know. Like one, two switches got on sale so often. Everybody, one, two switches like been $10 for a while now. Like Nintendo never does that. I got it for five. Oh, he has that. Well, maybe, maybe you guys can review it together. Oh, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not opening it. That would just encourage it. That's a show piece. All right.

[00:42:31] I'm going to just allow me to indulge myself. I'm going to talk about something that's not a video game. I know this is a video game podcast, but just. No, we've never done that before on Fine Time. Never. I want to talk about the new Magic the Gathering set because I went to my first pre-release event myself over the weekend last weekend. And I had a lot of fun with it despite losing the two out of two rounds that I played. What was the age range there? Like what kind of people showed up?

[00:43:00] So I didn't see, I played against one of the guys that I would say was the youngest guy and he was probably like maybe like 1920. But there were people there that were like super gray for sure. I would say I was right about median age in there. So it wasn't, it wasn't to me. Oh, you know, playing with a bunch of 16 year olds for sure. I'm not surprised to hear that because Magic's been around so long where, you know, it's, you know, hey, I'm starting to get gray. So yeah, for sure.

[00:43:30] Um, the first guy I played against, and this was just a really cool experience. So you open up six packs when you do the pre-release and you build a 40 card deck out of these six packs out of whatever colors you can kind of craft something out of. He, on round four, he dropped the number one chase card of the set. The, the big card that you want when you're opening booster packs and he played it on the first round he could play it on.

[00:43:58] Um, I actually started out that wrong, that round extremely strong. And then as soon as that happened, everything completely went to shit. Um, but it was super cool to even just see that card out immediately. Not only that, so that guy came in first, he got three packs to take home and there, there's literally, there's two chase cards in the set more or less. And in his other, other three packs, he got the other one as well. So fucking, you know, massive luck to that guy for sure. Lucky day, lucky day for him. Yeah.

[00:44:28] But that was, that was just even cool to see and kind of be part of the experience for that. So, um, that, that was fun. Um, the set itself has been fairly divisive amongst, uh, magic, the gathering fans. And for the reason that the set is based around like a multi-plane car race, a grand prix. Um, and a lot of the hardcore fans kind of get their neck hairs bristled anytime that magic like deviates slightly from traditional high fantasy. Um, I just don't get this.

[00:44:57] And I'm not saying at all that, that the theming of magic is beyond criticism. And there's definitely, you know, sets or some of the universes beyond stuff. Um, there's a fucking, I'm not joking about this. There is a SpongeBob secret layer set that's going to drop sometime this year. Right. So, you know, I get it, but I also, I really feel like if they strictly adhere to dragons and elves with every single release, that's gonna, that's gonna cause these sets to feel very samey.

[00:45:25] And, and late last year they came out with the foundation set, which is, is kind of meant to be like in rotation for the next five years. And it's very like traditional magic, the gathering. So now is the time for them to kind of like, you know, branch out. And I think this, this one really sticks the landing because, and what I keep identifying with it, it really has this like Saturday morning cartoon vibe to it. And I really, really like that. Um, art wise that my favorite card of the set, there's this one called gas guzzler.

[00:45:55] And this looks like Ben Stiller in Zoolander, like hunched over drinking fuel from a barrel in like a darkly lit alley with like, like, um, trees and shit all over it or something. What the fuck? Um, yeah, I don't know. Just a lot of the art feels like kind of punk rock gas guzzler. Isn't like the only winner. I really, I don't know. It's just got like a, it's, it's varied throughout the set, but it also does kind of have like cohesive theming.

[00:46:23] I mean, we also have like a number of dinosaurs, uh, in the set. So there's not a real consistent theme, but, um, mechanics wise, the set is mostly good. So, you know, be around, um, being centered around a race, obviously vehicles were going to be a thing in this set. And then they also do mounts, um, which I won't bore you with kind of explaining the nuance of, um, but there's, you know, so that kind of lends them.

[00:46:49] They get, they have lots of creatures that can pilot the vehicles and saddle mounts for, you know, higher than their power level stuff like that. Um, cycling, if you know what that is, that's very common throughout this set. Um, and, and I like that mechanic because it kind of gives you the ability to like put in cards that can be good and big in some circumstances, but if you don't need them, you can still cycle them and make use out of them.

[00:47:12] Um, and then they have this mechanic called speed, um, which I won't get into the nuance of that either, but I have, I'm 3d printed Mario party dice and using the Mario party dice for the speed is just the absolute best. So he was very proud of these dice. Everybody, he showed us them and everything. He made them over the holiday. It was very, and you should be, they're really good looking Mario party dice. Yeah. I should, I should, I should. Yeah. And I had to put a lot of work into even the 3d modeling to make these, I should take a picture of all the different colors and all.

[00:47:41] Maybe I'll stick it on blue sky after. Um, the only my holdup about the mechanics is with a lot of the vehicles, especially the commons and uncommons, they don't really have a power and toughness advantage over a similar mana cost creature.

[00:47:58] So you have to, you have to use a creature to pilot them, but they're, they're still just not that much more powerful than if you would have used, you know, you know, if you use a 2, 2, um, creature to pilot a 5, 5 vehicle that costs 5, uh, mana, you might as well just like put a 5, 5 creature out. Um, so that, that maybe doesn't quite stick the landing as much. Um, overall, I do think this set is going to be remembered more fondly than it's kind of being looked at.

[00:48:25] I go, you know, if you go on Reddit on the magic, the gathering community, it seems like there are a lot of people are kind of down on it at launch, but I feel like it's gonna, it's going to persist as one of the better sets. And the next set is a Tarkir set, um, which is, is going to be much more back to like traditional high fantasy magic, the gathering. So I think, I think this worked out well, timing wise. I think you're right. You do have to have that variety. Magic's been around for over 30 years. You can't just like, you know what I mean?

[00:48:52] You really can't just keep doing the same thing. You can't. And those sets are, they still definitely come out with that stuff. That's a little bit closer to like what core magic originally was. So, you know, if you don't like the set, that's fine. Not everybody needs to like all of these sets, but I'm also glad that they do them. I don't, I don't, I'm not even opposed to them doing like the SpongeBob secret layer thing. You know, I don't, I don't, that that's not something that personally interests me. It's interesting that it's a thing, but if you don't like it, you don't have to buy it.

[00:49:21] Oh, that's what I was going to say next. Cause it feels like these people have an obligation to just, oh, I got to get every set. It's like, you really don't. Right. Like, I mean, just don't, just don't get it. If you really don't like it that much, Steve. There, there's six sets coming out this year. So if you skip this one, you'll be okay. You're saying that now, but then Sandy Cheeks is going to take over the meta. And then what then? I'm definitely not a level where I'm worrying too much about the metal. We mostly play like kitchen table magic around here.

[00:49:51] So it's okay. The kitchen table magic. That's definitely a thing. Actually, my, my wife really likes magic, which is great because she is not interested in like, does not care about video games or really any other nerdy shit, but she just likes playing magic. So it works out well for me. That's cool. As I've always said, I've known plenty of people who've been in magic over the years. I have just never, I've just never got it, tried it. So yeah.

[00:50:19] Well, I blame this on Steve because we used to be really into magic. And then once Steve started playing Pokemon, I started playing Pokemon and got hooked on opening packs. And at a certain point I was like, man, I think I would, I would probably, I just want to be opening magic packs now, which now we're doing again. I accept no responsibility. I mean, no, you have to respond to these allegations. I am. I am responding. I'm accepting no responsibility. I was having fun. I'm still having fun.

[00:50:48] Just opening pretend packs every day. Kevin's the one that's spinning out into an addiction. That's, that's up to. Jesus Christ. The accusations. My God, Kevin. The accusations. He's probably got a point. There's been, there's been more packs getting opened around here than there has been for many years. So, oh my God. Okay. You know what? Should we get in the shower? I mean, we do have the state of play coming up.

[00:51:17] I feel like we should be fresh as a daisy before, before we talk about this presentation. What do you say? Hell yes. Steve. Okay. Wait, nevermind. Steve. Let me tighten your nuts. All right, Steve. Thank you. Let's get in the shower. Let me tighten your nuts. We'll be right back. It's time to hit the showers. We'll be right back.

[00:52:30] Whew. That was good. I don't know how to snap a towel anymore. Can I try? You should know how to get a good towel snap. I can't do it anymore, though. Your wrists are getting old. Yeah, it must be. They don't make towels as good as they used to either. I think that's the other problem. What? Did you guys blame your age on towels? Can't snap these towels like you used to. Like I used to could.

[00:53:01] Listen to this guy. All right. When did towels go downhill? Like 2007 or something? Or give me a time. I'd say 2003, like most things started to go downhill. Yeah. Oh, my God. This is not a fine time. The great towel crash of 03. Jesus Christ. Ever since the New York blackout, right? Like in the East Coast blackouts, the towels are never the same.

[00:53:31] Nah. We've never recovered as a society since. Okay. I know. Y'all are the center of the world. I get it. Let's talk about the state of play that happened today. Well, today, as of this recording, a few hours before recording, we didn't have dick for big questions. We were going to fake it for you guys because we always do. Right. But then state of play was announced on Tuesday. And I was like, oh, shit. We have a thing. And it wasn't.

[00:53:59] I mean, look, we always try to rate these before we start talking about them. I mean, we always grade on a curve, right? Because they're not Nintendo directs. In fact, I wouldn't even call them Xbox showcases. I always feel like those are routinely better than state of plays. But this is all right. There was a few tidbits, right? Kevin's not convinced. I would say this was in the. Well, I never think the state of plays are great. I would say that this one was in the top 50%. Let's put it that way.

[00:54:29] It was better than the half of them, Steve. Right. I mean, I'd say it was in the top 70% at least. Wow. That's worse in the top 70. You have to say in the top 30 to make it better. Oh, top 30. You know what? I've been busy. Hey, welcome to fine time, Steve. How you doing? You know what? I don't. I didn't do good in math. You know, that's why. We take our percentages real fucking serious.

[00:54:58] And you need to shape up on the percentages around here. Yes. Like one of those UK video game magazines. Remember, they always used to give percentages for scores instead of like one to 10 or something. It was like 93%. I always thought that was weird. It's like, it's not a test. Are you just like, where do we? I don't know. Maybe that extra nuance. I guess. You ever actually read those reviews, though? It always sounded like they were never talking about the game.

[00:55:27] It was always like this, this crumpet was stale. And my co-worker's girlfriend didn't want to fuck me. And oh, I guess this game was okay. They are brutal reviews. They are something. I forget what game I was researching recently from the 90s. And I saw Richard Ledbetter's review. Yes, that Richard Ledbetter from Digital Foundry on reviewing some game from the mid 90s. I'm like, whoa.

[00:55:55] Like he was in this. That's why he's such a mercenary on fucking Digital Foundry. He doesn't give a fuck. He came from this era of UK magazines. He doesn't care. Anyway, yeah. State of play. I thought it was pretty good for what it is. I wasn't expecting much. And well, I got one big surprise we'll get to. I guess we could just recap the things that we thought were interesting. Steve, tell us about Monster Hunter Wilds, the movie coming to theater soon.

[00:56:24] Yeah, the game's not really done by all accounts. I don't really just mean in the way that, oh, they're going to keep doling out monsters until it's about time for the next one. I mean, the game is not done yet. I feel like no one actually likes the game that's been being doled out in the betas, but it's coming out real fucking soon. You guys got to get it out for that fiscal year from the recent round of previews that went out the other day.

[00:56:48] It seems like they dramatically improve the performance on PS5, which is really great news because before it was trash. Apparently, going back to as far as even like TGS, it was it was still bad. So, yeah, I guess there's that. So it'll run well on your PlayStation 5 video game system, Steve. Yeah, maybe maybe not yet, though. Maybe I'll just wait for a sale for 35 US dollars.

[00:57:19] You waiting for a sale for Monster Hunter? What's wrong with you? I have a lot to play and things to consider this year. I thought you were a real Monster Hunter boy, though, like through and through. Yeah, I can be, but there's things on the budget and real life concerns. Kevin, birthday, right? Birthday, April? What do you think? Birthday? And you know what? We might hit a sale before April, too. Yeah, we might get our first sale. Smart. I know he's going to bitch if I get it on Steam.

[00:57:47] If I give it to him on Steam, he's going to be mad because I know he wants to play it on the TV. So let's just guys, I can hear you whispering. Quiet. We're talking about you. I hear you whispering on the air. Shut up. Shut up. We got to talk quieter. He can fucking hear us. We'll talk. We'll talk later. And I listen to these on my own time. So anyway, Shinobi Art of Vengeance. I still don't like it.

[00:58:14] I did not like this when they showed it at the Game Awards two Game Awards ago, and I still don't like it now. Life bars and multiple hits to kill stuff is not Shinobi. Sorry. And I also still don't like that very zoomed out perspective. Makes the sprites look small and dinky. I feel like Shinobi, I forget the character's name, is supposed to be like not imposing. It's not supposed to be China Warrior, but it's supposed to be bigger than this. This just looks like the Messenger 2. I don't like it.

[00:58:45] I think it looks a little better than the Messenger 2. I think it looks a lot better than what they showed the other year, but, you know, cautiously optimistic. We'll see. I like how we just made the Messenger 2 a real video game. Guys, leave the Messenger 2 alone. Yeah. Whenever that comes out. Andre, explain to me why Sonic Racing crosswords. I almost said it. Cross Worlds is a good game.

[00:59:15] I don't know if it's a good game, but I can tell you it looks fucking incredible. They learned exactly where they went wrong with Sonic Team Racing. You guys remember that boring ass fucking game they put out like five years ago? Everyone's like, this just looks like Sonic Racing Transform, but worse. And guess what? It was Sonic Racing Transform, but worse. It took away the transformations. Now you're just driving around these boring tracks. It was like Trackmania with none of the pizzazz, which is stupid because it's Sonic. It should be all about pizzazz, right?

[00:59:44] This looked cool as shit. It's clear that they're going back to the multi-vehicle racing of Sonic Transform. You can even see some of those old courses in this trailer when they're driving through the portals, Kevin. Now we know why it's called Crossworld. They're literally driving through different worlds as you're racing. That's crazy. Yeah. They've got the Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart SSD thing going on. Yeah. It looks super sweet. Oh my God. Yeah. So you're into it. What's your problem, Steve? Yeah. I liked it. Yeah. I don't know.

[01:00:13] Why is Sonic driving a car? I know it's like the most boring take to have, but I can't do it. I can't do this. Were you just like, I don't know. Did you see Sonic Drift for Game Gear back in the day? You're like, this is stupid, mom. No, no. I didn't see Sonic Drift for Game Gear back in the day because I had a Game Boy like a normal child. Are you just, you are. Tell us all about why you want Like a Dragon Pirate Yakuza. Why don't you tell us about that?

[01:00:43] Maybe something you'll actually like. Don't you want that game? Because I still need to play a Yakuza. And one of these years, I will get to play one. Speaking of things that will get played, they did show off Ishiban's holiday content coming for Dave the Diver. I started that game last year thinking, oh man, I'm going to breeze right through this. It's going to be fun because they stuck on some Godzilla content that there was a limited time to download. And man, this is going to be good. I'll talk about it on the show.

[01:01:12] So guys, I don't think I'm ever finishing Dave the Diver because they just keep adding shit on there for me to play. And now they're adding on a whole other content pack coming this fall here. So what's the moral of this story? Don't like video games. Just don't like video games. This is not a fine time right now, Kevin. I think his attitude needs to improve. Don't like video games. He just said. You know what?

[01:01:38] I think he wants to actually talk about Dave the Diver on the show because I've heard you bring up Dave the Diver like four or five times in passing on five time. I think you need to just let your guard down and get it all out. Hey, I am proud to place your bets. How many hours do you think I have put in this game so far? Oh boy. I'm going to say 23 hours, Kevin. Oh, the way he's talking. I bet you it's more like 55.

[01:02:09] Oh, no. 23. 42. Oh, okay. So says the PlayStation app. So, wow. Kevin was a lot closer. Damn. I didn't know it was like that. It is kind of like that when you get into everything the game is and maybe I'll someday talk about it. So wait a second. You didn't want to talk about like a dragon at all. You want to talk about fucking Dave the Diver. I said someday I'll talk about you. I'll go say when I play one. Oh, my fucking God.

[01:02:39] That's what I was getting at. He's got it. He's got it like complex about Dave the Diver. Well, I know. Well, okay. Maybe we can tell Monster Hunter Wild to fuck off and really for your birthday, I'll get you WWE 2K25 so we can bash some heads together online. How about that? What the hell was with that trailer? Did everyone just play Street Fighter 6 last year and they figured, oh, yeah, everyone just wants to walk around a hub in between fights? We do because it's fucking badass. Okay. Okay.

[01:03:08] It was badass in the demo. But I mean, is that what we're going to do in every fighting adjacent game from now on? I hope so. That shit's so cool. I love it. I don't know. It just felt bad here. Why would it feel bad? It's a perfect vehicle for it. A game where you presumably make your own wrestler like you always do and show off your fucking freak online. I mean, I guess we'll listen to you talk about it this summer.

[01:03:35] I do kind of get where Steve is coming from in the sense that Street Fighter is meant to be a fictional universe and WWE is like fat, sweaty guys in real life that are just outside. Like the fucking local town hall where they're holding the WWE event. I don't know. It's a little different. Yeah, you're being real fat guys. You fucking walk across the street and like go have a slice at Papa John's in the hub? Yes.

[01:04:04] God, I hope so. That would be incredible. Also, I hope you will update it to a PS5 by now because did you all notice the small text at the bottom? Not in the PS4 version. Oh, that's embarrassing. That's actually really embarrassing. Yikes. Well, I mean, honestly, Capcom could have stood to do that with Street Fighter 6 because if you've seen the Battle Hub on PS4, yikes. Yikes. Do not look at World Tour on PS4.

[01:04:34] Oh my God. Okay, we got it. We got to move on from WWE because I want to get to my all time favorite part of the show today. Borderlands 4 and not at all because I want to talk about Borderlands 4 because I want to talk about Randy Pitchford. He literally said, I'll feed you baby bird to the other presenter. What the fuck was going on? I don't know.

[01:05:01] And also, how stinky did Randy look in that? He looked fucking greasier than usual. Patrick said he looked like he was on a meth binge. So, I mean, maybe so. Yeah, I don't know. I can see it. Something was going on there. And he usually looks greasy, but it was XL greasy today. Definitely. I love Borderlands. You guys know this. I'm here for it. They got me.

[01:05:27] And I love that all the marketing for Borderlands 4 is basically them just being like, hey, you know exactly what this is. And here's when it's coming out. Okay, bye. Like, that's what they've been doing the whole time. Like, here's Borderlands. That's it. They're not trying to sell you. Here are these badass characters. Here are these cool guys. You already we already know that shit. Just just give us the game. Although they did say they're doing a Borderlands Direct coming up here. So. Oh, boy. Okay.

[01:05:56] Oh, speaking of like shit like that, there is a Sonic Cross Worlds. I'm going to say Crosswords myself. Beta, like a closed beta test coming up like on the 21st or something like that. I tried to sign up for it, but the URL didn't work. So I guess I'll try again after the show or something. But yeah, maybe all three of us can get on get on that for next show. That would be fucking amazing if we could all somehow. I get into these shit sometimes and I always want to get you guys on.

[01:06:23] I understand it's hard with our schedules to all get us to sync up. But like when I got that Suicide Squad closed beta, I really want to get us all on it to shoot some play that stupid shit. Well, now we can all just play it included with our Royale subscriptions because we all got it for free last month. I'm surprised it took that long. Honestly, is it for spoken finally on there after you lost your money? Yes. It only took me like another eight months. Okay. Or whatever.

[01:06:53] I thought for sure that was happening. I was with you. If Kevin had given that to me, I would have bet on it. Split fiction. I guess that's made by the what's his name? It takes two guy. 2021 game of the year at the Game Awards. It takes two. Yeah. Did you know that it won awards? Oh boy. It did. I feel like this is what happened when that's what you solely focus on because this was clearly made by a focus group. The whole thing felt like it was drawn by committee.

[01:07:20] Like, do you see the two of them on the screen and how the two of them have to do things? That's what we got. It's two. There's two of them. I feel like the guy just has a thing and that's like the kind of game he makes and that's it. I just, I don't know. There are two of them. I mean, for better or worse. Two? How many? There are two on the screen. Okay. Do the things with the two. The two? The two and the two and the two. I got it. All right. Tell me one more time. How many? I forgot. There's two. Okay. Got it.

[01:07:50] Directive 8020 looked cool. I didn't even know it was a Dark Pictures anthology thing. Are we getting to the point? Like, we're going to have to be like Dark Pictures anthology series on Fine Time when? Is that Dark Pictures anthology? I just saw it made by, from the Until Dawn, whatever. It said Dark Pictures. Okay. I'm here for that.

[01:08:13] I mean, it looked really good, but you know, I'm usually disappointed when I get really excited for something, I feel like. So we'll see. You're just trying to play it cool so the game doesn't let you down? I mean, I have this tentatively as my Be Good, for the love of God, Please Be Good award for the show. Like, I really want this to be good, but we'll see. I think it's coming out October.

[01:08:40] We'll see if I'm jonesing for it still by then. You probably, I mean, I don't know. I thought it looked cool, and I'm usually not into these. We really should look into playing all those, though. So the Midnight Walk looked fucking rad. I feel like we saw this not too long ago, maybe Game Awards or something, where it's like, oh, this looks kind of cool. I think at the last State of Play this was on. Last State of Play.

[01:09:05] It was part of their, and they didn't do it this time, the VR section. Well, they just said, like, this game is also coming to VR. They just had it in the, you know, almost like Cliff Notes. But that's not really what I mean. But yeah. Oh, God. A game like that in VR? No, thank you. Good God. That kind of stop motion creepiness? No, thanks. I would just think it wouldn't work due to its stuttering too much.

[01:09:34] Well, if the motion, the head motion has to be smooth, right? Like South of Midnight. And the animation animation could be however. Shit, they looked like that fucking. What's that thing I made fun of in Willow, Steve? Remember at the end? I made fun of that fucking. Oh, the dragon. No, not the dragon. It was at the end. It was like some sort of mechanical, like, thing. And Willow had to stab it with a. The titular Willow had to. You know what I mean. Yeah, I do, but I'm not remembering what they called it right now.

[01:10:04] No, not the shitty, like, Puff the Magic Dragon. That was a totally different shitty prop. That should have been CG, even though it was 1988. Okay. Then they showed something called Warriors Abyss. Oh, my God. It's Warriors Orochi, except a roguelike. It's a top-down, beat-em-up roguelike. Oh, my God. It's out right now. What the fuck? What even the fuck? That's what makes this day to play great.

[01:10:33] I got a shadow drop of fucking Warriors Abyss. Jesus Christ. Like, and I have to record the stupid show and then edit the stupid show and then post the stupid show. And I can't fucking go play Warriors Abyss, Steve. Andre, this isn't a very fine time right now. You know what? You're right. You're absolutely right. Okay. I'm sorry, everybody. This isn't a stupid show. I love fine time. But right now it's stupid, Kevin. I want to go play Warriors Abyss.

[01:11:01] I want you to play it too, because they claimed that there are 16 billion battle styles. And I want to know how accurate that is. So I expect, I expect they actually, they were careful to not say that the presenter lady was just like, there are tons of different battle techniques or whatever. But on the screen, they showed 16 billion battle styles. Okay. I expect that Andre only found two or three in the time he got to play.

[01:11:27] I used Zhang Fei a couple of times and I died and he was very happy on my game over screen as I showed everybody. I don't know why he's very cheerful about it. Well, Zhang Fei is a cheerful guy. I understand. But dude, it says game over. Like, please, you know, have a little sympathy for me. Anyway, I played a little bit of it, but a half an hour before getting on the air here and it's fun. The difficulty feels a little lopsided right now.

[01:11:54] The rooms are kind of easy, but the bosses are probably really hard. I don't know. Maybe I just need to get good, bro. But like, I don't know. So far, so good. I'm intrigued. I'm going to play a lot more of it. That's my very, very early impressions of it. But the balance seems a little and but we'll see how it develops, you know, as I unlock more stuff, right? Maybe it's one of those kinds of games. But so far, so good. I'll probably talk about it more at a later date. Onuma Shitu is coming out May 23rd. Happy birthday to me a few days late.

[01:12:24] Do you guys care about this? Because I've been they put out Odimusha port in like what? January 19th. Steve, it's been six fucking years. I got it when it was five bucks and I'm still sitting on that. One day I'll play that, too. It's a it's a Resident Evil game. You can beat it in six, eight hours flat. I'm sure. Kevin, have you ever been on any Musha guy? Never, right? No, no. And so I wasn't. And but I do have to comment.

[01:12:51] I realize this is not a full from the ground remake, but they could have put in a little bit of effort and cleaned up those PS2 ass faces. Blast. Come on. I think the PS2 ass faces are kind of part of the charm. I think you kind of have to have those PS2. Well, I don't know. Everyone bitches about like the PS3 and four remakes of Final Fantasy 10 and 10, too, because they actually did clean up the PS2 ass faces. I don't mind them, but some people think they're like the worst. So I don't know.

[01:13:19] I think when you clean up the PS2 ass faces, you can get a little dicey. I think those have some charm when you're playing a PS2 game, but I don't know. This basically is a PS2 game. If you're like porting this. Well, I get it. I don't know. It's not working for me. I don't. Oh, well, never mind. You don't really do the tank control era of anything, right? Like you don't really. Yeah. So never mind. I guess you wouldn't really care for this. I'm definitely here for this. This is the worst Onimusha game.

[01:13:49] Onimusha 2, but it's still good. It's still really good. So I am looking forward to it. So after that, they showed Onimusha Way of the Sword, the new one coming out next year. So about a week and a half ago, right, guys? There was a Capcom showcase where the director of Onimusha Way of the Sword was talking about the action of the game. And in not so many words, it sounded like to me he was saying, hey, this is not a Souls game.

[01:14:19] So calm down, everybody. Right? Because he literally said, we're not trying to make an impossibly difficult game. We want to have cool sword battles and let people experience the action, etc. Right? So, Steve, I took that to mean, all right, this is not Woe Long. But then you look at the footage and maybe I was hitting the Copium too hard because, boy, that looked pretty fucking Souls-y. And I don't like it. It looked slow.

[01:14:48] It looked plodding. And worst of all, it looked boring. It did not look exciting at all. It looked like they were trying to do these super choreographed sword action moves and parries and stuff. But it looked like it was happening in slow motion. Like, it looks super stiff and bad. Like, this is now not a game I'm excited to play. I'm sure I'll put on the clown makeup anyway and give it a look. But, like, as of right now, this ain't it. What do you got? Like, I guess Kevin doesn't really have any frame of reference for this.

[01:15:17] But, Steve, like, what? Did that look good to you? Because it did not look good to me. I don't know how great it looks, but I also don't think it's super far. Well, I think it's pretty far along, but I think you have some time yet. I think they're going to show it off some more, right? Isn't it not coming out until next year? Yeah, I hope it doesn't get out until December 2026. I hope they have as much time as possible to, like, really, really work on this. I do get what you're saying.

[01:15:44] It does look Souls-y, the combat, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. They showed Metal Gear Solid Delta, and they showed the release date of August 28th, which was rumored. And we found this out a few days ago, and some people thought that might be the release date of Switch 2, which I was going to be like, nah, they're not waiting to August to release this shit. But here it is in a state of play. So now we know already, Steve. You're the Metal Gear Solid 3-like around here, so. You say that like there's only three of us. Like, everyone has three.

[01:16:13] There's you, Trey, and who else? Maybe Aaron likes it. Okay, but look, speaking of things that are further along, this looks a lot better than when Microsoft showed it off however long ago. But I have a feeling I'm still going to be upset when I finally play it. But just like you, I'm going to put on my clown suit and give it a try. Because I have to.

[01:16:44] I don't know. Why do you have misgivings about this? I thought it looked like shit when they first showed it off. It's looking a lot better now. I think so, too. But I think so, too. But because I feel like Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater is, you know, just one of the greatest put-together games ever made. You know, that they'll fuck this up and it won't feel right. And I'm sure it'll be fine. Snake vs. Monkey Mode is back. People like that. It's Snake vs. Bomberman in the Xbox version. Oh, really? Okay.

[01:17:15] I mean, I'm a little jealous about that. I don't know what I mean. I'm sure it'll be okay. And I'm overreacting. At least I hope that's what's going on. I guess. I obviously am not the market for this. Just like how I'm not in the market for Lies of P. Overture, a game that I'm just convinced was always a prank on me in particular. We're going to make a game and call it Lies of P. for the English-speaking audience. Lies of P. Get it? His name is P.

[01:17:44] His name is P. P. I don't know why. Say it one more time. I want to echo you out. P. Yeah, I don't know why you're always surprised by the success and popularity of this game. I understand we all tried it when they released that demo of a summer games fest like a couple years ago. And we just don't like these kind of games, man. I think we just have to accept that this is just us being old or something. No, just this one in particular.

[01:18:14] Just Lies of P. P. Like, what kind of name is that? You could have spent a few more minutes on that. I like it, honestly. That's why I insisted we all try that demo because I was like, this actually looks cool. I'm not expecting to really like it, but aesthetically and like, I don't know. I think it is cool. I just wish it were a different game. That's all. But, you know, what can I say? I thought Dreams of Another, the pixel junk game looked fucking crazy.

[01:18:42] That looks so cool. It did. We're shooting the guns and all the pixels are forming together. I don't know. It doesn't seem like you guys were as enthousive about this as I was. I thought it looked cool as fuck. I thought it looked great. I didn't find anything offensive about it. But I genuinely thought when we first seen this, that this was this looked like something related to the game Dreams, like the media molecule game Dreams. Because of that aesthetic, it really does have that aesthetic.

[01:19:12] And then all of a sudden the title started and said Dreams of Another. And I was like, this was fucking made in dreams. I don't think that's actually what's going on here. But I genuinely thought that for a minute there. I was like, this is like Dreams DLC with an actual game baked onto it. A PS4 would melt into the ground if it tried to do something like that. I mean, like, look at how many things were happening. There's no way. Andre, Dreams of Another looks great. It looks PS5 as fuck, you know?

[01:19:43] And I kind of want to play it. You know what I don't want to play? Days Gone Remastered. What the fuck was that? They just slapped this in there like, hey, guys. Just give us $10 more if you got this sitting in your catalog. And we all know you do because we just gave this to you however many times. Come on. You know what I think happened? I think they got the message now that Jim Ryan's out.

[01:20:07] I think they got the message that people do not want these trumped up PS4 remasters treated as big shit. Like they did with The Last of Us Part 1 or whatever. We don't want that shit. Or Spider-Man Remastered. If we just don't like present it to us, it's like, here's this new thing you can play. How about fuck off? Like, you know? And so I think that's after Jim Ryan left. You notice how they very, very quietly snuck out Horizons. You're a Dawn Remastered. Right? They announced in a state of play.

[01:20:35] We all knew it was happening because it had leaked months ago. And now the same thing is happening with Days Gone Remastered. Where they're just kind of putting this stuff out. Hopefully nobody notices too hard. I was going to say, I'm in a fairly unique spot too. Because everyone encouraged me to play Horizon Zero Dawn. Days Gone, you guys, and no one else gives a fuck about it. Like, hey, you got it sitting in your catalog. No one cares. Just let it sit there.

[01:21:02] Wasn't there a thing where the, I don't know if he was the director, but one of the main guys from this game was like super salty and outspoken that in the first place it didn't get, you know, like Sony didn't pimp it out enough. I wonder if he's like, maybe we'll hear from him again after this is getting stuck in the footnotes. He was also mad that the Days Gone guy was an astrobot when it's like, you should fucking be so lucky. Oh, yeah. You should be so fucking lucky to be an astrobot. You should be glad anyone fucking remembered your ass.

[01:21:32] To be honest. I mean, what an asshole. Anyway. Yeah, fuck that guy. I mean, well, in a way he was in a game that won game of the year. So maybe, okay. Abiotic factor. I don't. Do you guys even remember seeing this? I, it looked like a survival game, like an online survival game that was on PC in like 2007 or something.

[01:21:56] This was the, this was like, I think this is the ugliest game I've ever seen make it to like a mainstream presentation like this. It literally looks like a $2 steam asset asset flip. Like, and it's not like, you know, even like as ugly as I think something like Roblox is like, that's got like kind of a unified look at least to it. This just looked like, like genuine ass. Yeah. It did not look good. That's probably why they're giving it to us day one on premium.

[01:22:26] The, the other game they showed us on their blueprints looks fine. I'll probably get that, but this I'm not going to touch. I mean, I just, even if like it kind of, if you're going to give something away for free, it should still be of like a certain caliber to be part of that service. And I didn't think this even looked like it was good enough for that. But I, I think that if you're going to be on their service day one on PlayStation premium, I think you kind of have to pimp it no matter what it is. I think that's just part of the deal.

[01:22:56] Okay. We'll let you have our game when we're not going to charge anybody for it, but you have to put us in a state of play. It was probably part of the deal. They probably don't know why Sony would have wanted this. I don't know. Maybe just because like, like I said, it's like an online multiplayer survival thing. Like those are kind of big business these days, or at least popular. So I get it. It, it would be, I mean, you would think that they would want one that looks better though.

[01:23:25] I think you're, you're right. Okay. They ended the show with a little thing called Sorrows, which is a new game by house Mark. Steve, this just looks like return all two. Yeah. I think returnals still my favorite PS five game. I haven't finished final fantasy rebirth yet. Don't at me. And, uh, very rude of house Mark to reveal their new thing without gameplay since I didn't finish returnal yet. How dare they? Well, we already know what the gameplay is. It's returnal.

[01:23:55] So you don't really have to see it the way he described it. It sounds exactly like returnal. Yeah. Kevin has not played returnal, right? Not. Um, I, did we get return? I played it for a little bit. I think we got it for free at some point, didn't we? Oh yeah, we did. I don't think I, yeah, I didn't pay for it, but I played it for a couple hours. It gets fucking hard after not too long. And then I was like, okay, that's, that's good for me. I feel as Steve, you have again, something you've brought up on the show multiple times.

[01:24:24] I think not finishing returnal weighs heavily on your conscience. And I think you should buckle down and do it. So you don't have to live with that monkey on your back anymore. Oh, is that all I have to do? Yep. All you have to do is beat returnal. That's it. That's all I gotta do. Just, just. You have it in you. I know it. You can. You know what? You'll come back. You'll come back to it someday and you'll, you'll ace that shit. It was like how I finally beat Ninja Gaiden on Wii virtual console. I feel like you people just putting me on now, but okay. Fine.

[01:24:52] I'm just saying, I don't want you to wait till PS seven where we have PS five virtual console. Yes. That's exactly what it's going to be called. And we're still recording and you're still going back being like, oh, well, you know, I never did finish returnal, but gosh darn it. I'm going to be 55 fucking years old. You're going to be return. I want, I want us to have PS five virtual console and you to say loud and proud. Remember when I fucking beat the shit out of returnal back in 2025, you guys. Yep.

[01:25:20] Oh, when I do it, if I do it, you're, you're all going to know about it. Believe me. Take, take a five minute video on, on the PlayStation so we can see the entire like boss battle and everything. I want to see the entire glory. Um, yeah. Anyway, that was a, that was an interesting thing to end on. A lot of people had like bloodborne copium as they always do with the state of play. Cause oh, the 10th anniversary is coming up and people are saying shit. And I'm like, y'all ain't getting shit.

[01:25:46] And you know it, you know, you know what I saw and I was like not happening for a second final fantasy tactics. Oh, see, that's been rumored for forever. I'm like, guys, we all know it's probably in existence, but they're not putting in a, they're not putting it in one of these. They did. Well, I don't know. I don't think it would be too crazy to have it in a state of play. Honestly. Yeah.

[01:26:10] But the longer this one went on, the, the, the, the more the odds just kept dropping that we were seeing final fantasy tactics. Okay. Sure. But like, you know, I don't know. I don't think there's a, I think it's weird that we live in a world where we have tactics ogre reborn and we don't have final fantasy tactics, final fancy tic-tacs. So we should definitely know nobody likes that final fantasy tic-tacs. That sounds like a joke.

[01:26:40] Someone made in 1998 and everyone loved it. And then we left it behind. You ever saw the literal, like the meme, like with the actual like tic-tac thing that says final fantasy tic-tacs. Like. No. Oh, that was a, well, nevermind. We'll hook you up with that meme. I'm sure I'll love it in 2025. 2025. You are, you are just, man, Kevin, he is. All right. You guys.

[01:27:07] Look, look, look, when they announced it for switch to, you can post it on the fine time account and then you can be like, remember when? And then I'll be like, let's, let's, let's go have a quick shower and you guys can wash away all of your resentment that I'm here. We're going to have another shower. We already had one. We've done that. No, we did that. We've done that before. This isn't a new thing. You've suggested it before. The water bill's getting kind of high.

[01:27:34] It's okay for you to say two showers and then I say it and then that I'm a pervert? No. I wasn't suggesting you're a pervert. I'm just saying I'm not even dried up from the first one, but fine. I'll get back in. That's fine. We can go. I'm good with it. Well, I don't know if you're, if you're not dried off from the first one, that sounds like a better reason to do it again. Not a worse reason, but okay. All right. Let's go, Steve. Let me tighten your nuts. Thank you. Thank you. Wait till I get in the shower though. Okay. Jesus Christ. Let me tighten your nuts. Okay. Already.

[01:28:04] We'll be right back. It's time to hit the showers. We'll be right back.

[01:28:52] All right. Jeez. Okay. Finally, at that session, I definitely learned how to snap the towel again. I got it back. It took me a few tries. I guess it's just been so long since I tried a good towel snapping, you know? Sorry about your ass, Steve. Whatever you say, Andre. Will you play along one time on for you? Have a fine time with us one fucking time. Once. I mean, I would if you call that a towel snap. I mean, geez. Oh, my God.

[01:29:19] He's the old towel snap decider over here. My fucking Lord, Kevin. More like a towel. Yeah, I've got some red marks on my ass. I think my wife is going to have some questions. She knows what happens down here. I mean, I don't think there's any. She's going to take one look at me and be like, oh, Andre got his towel snapping back, I see. I've been trying for years. Oh, boy. Okay. Okay.

[01:29:48] We haven't played this segment in a while, but we're going to play it today. It's something we like to call Fuck, I Was Wrong. Do we have a sound effect for this? Let's play Fuck, I Was Wrong. Andrew, I feel like we've used that sound effect for a lot of things now. Be quiet. You cannot tell the people that. Okay, geez.

[01:30:18] We've only got so much of a budget on fine time. Yeah. We only have so many sound effects. We have plenty of songs, but only so many sound effects. Okay. I'm, this is easily the most wrong I've ever been about something. I want Kevin to go first because I'm just, I'm legitimately embarrassed about mine. I can't believe I got this this wrong. Okay. So, yeah. I think you should go first, Kevin. I think, I think I was very wrong about mine too.

[01:30:46] I'm, I'm not too embarrassed about it, but because, and I think it's forgivable, but it was a bit wrong. I really thought that Xbox was going to make a comeback this generation, not a like exceeding PlayStation comeback. But I thought I did sure did not think things were going to be near as dreary as they were during the Xbox one era. Um, that's, I, I bought a series X, not at launch, but not, you know, within the first

[01:31:13] year thinking that, I mean, I, I actually, I remember years, a couple of years ago on the show, speaking about how good I think Phil Spencer is for Xbox. And I think I'm pivoting on that. I still like Phil Spencer as a personality. Um, but I think all of us can agree, like this is, this has not been a good generation for them. And I, I don't think anybody is, I don't think anybody that's really into games is like absolutely

[01:31:40] floored with like what they're like, all of the focus they're putting on game pass. Um, there's been a few games of Xbox exclusives that I've played this generation that have been quite good. Um, but I mean, in retrospect, if I knew how this generation was going to go, I would have saved my money and not bought the console. Um, but I, I, it just, it just seems that we're so like, we've seen it time and time again, where a company comes out, they have a real shitty generation and they turn it around.

[01:32:10] They learn a lesson from it. They do something majorly different. Now, Microsoft did do something quite different just, you know, with the like extreme focus on game pass, but they have, they have not turned it around. They have had two like consistently poor generations, I would say. So I was wrong about that. What made you think leading up to series X that it was going to be different? Did you see, did you think like Halo infinite looked super cool or did you think like whether

[01:32:38] it's software or just like anything about it? Would you just think like, Oh, they learned their lesson? Like, cause I didn't necessarily feel that way. A big thing was for years at that point before the series X came out, they had really been putting a focus on acquiring developers and like how they really seemed like they were intent on having like good, big, cool exclusives. And it seemed for a while, like that was going to be a thing.

[01:33:07] And there was going to be all of a sudden this year that there was going to be this grand payoff. I thought it was going to be the first year of the series X. And then I thought it was going to be the second year of the series X. And it just never came. I mean, even stuff like perfect dark, like that, you know, we knew about that before the series X and it was like hyped up. Like it was going to be this really big, cool thing. And it's not even out yet. And nobody cares anymore. Fable. Like where the fuck is like, how many years have we seen? Like just like kind of cut scenes that look kind of like, you know, they're interesting,

[01:33:35] but what, like, does anybody have a fucking clue? Like what fable is actually going to be? I feel like that game should have been out two years ago. I don't know. I mean, again, it's not like there's not been anything, even fucking Starfield. I mean, to be honest, like I would have, I, you know, I would, I expected in the time leading up to Starfield that that was going to be really good. I played Starfield for like six or seven hours.

[01:34:01] Once I got to the point where you can actually like explore space, I was like, oh, this is what this is. You know, I mean, it's not, it's not like this terrible experience, but it sure wasn't this like, you know, they keep, they keep seeming like they're going to like get their footing and it just never happens. And I've really lost faith that it is going to happen. I don't know. Well, this also doesn't count the, the red fall or the, you know, like other stuff that

[01:34:28] happened that was just like, oh man, I mean, red fall was so bad. They had to have an emergency fucking Xbox conference about it. Right. Like about the future of Xbox. You remember that? That was just like, what the hell is happening, man? Yeah. So even it's wow. Avowed is coming out in, in what, like another little over a week, I think.

[01:34:52] Um, and I think that was, I think, I think for, I think if you pay for the special edition, you get early access this week, but I don't think the actual launches until like late next week, I believe. Okay. Um, and I think that looks really good. And, and I, I, I do, I expect that's going to review well. I expect that I'm going to like it. Um, I I'm really looking forward to that game. Um, sneak behind the curtain. We're all going to, we're all going to play it next week for, uh, on, on the show.

[01:35:20] So we will, we will all play about or attempt to on this new computer. Okay. So let's say that comes out and it's a resounding success. It gets nineties across the board. Um, you know, people really like it. Does that, does that like, is there enough to like steer the ship of Xbox from like the years and years of them being like, Hey, play sea of thieves. They need to pull a, they need to pull a switch.

[01:35:49] They need to cut bait on this generation early and get out there first. I think if they're going to have any chance, I think they need to pull like, okay, we understand this isn't going well. They should be already be talking about the next system. We should like know about it. And we should be like, this is coming out. Absolute opposite. Because right now they're like, this is an Xbox and this is an Xbox. Everything is an Xbox. There's no, there's like zero fucking value in being like, we're going to like come out with, you know, new next true next gen hardware.

[01:36:19] You know, why, why, why should we even care about that when they're constantly shoving down our throat that we can like get just as good of an experience by streaming to our fucking, you know, Samsung TV. We bought this year. I know this is fairly anecdotal, but I've been reading around online and I've noticed in the one right by us, actually, that targets have already been removing a lot of Xbox things from stores. And I don't think they're going to be terribly inclined to put them back.

[01:36:44] Like, are you, are you saying that like the Xbox section is completely gone and you don't think they could ever like reclaim that space or. Like there's, they went from here's an empty space where the Xboxes were. And then that got filled in by either more electronics or other things like that. That shit's gone. Okay. How many, how many series S's do you guys think they sold last year?

[01:37:12] I know that they're very wishy-washy about like being upfront with sales figures, but like, man, I. A few million, I would guess three to 5 million. I would say 5 million is feels generous, right? I think that feels quite generous. Yeah. Because it's true. It feels that like any, I don't know. See, like, I think it just proves that like this, this model doesn't work. We fuck it. I'll just say it.

[01:37:40] We used to do a show with a guy where I'd argue with him back and forth about like, Hey, this series S thing is a bad idea, you know? And he'd say like, well, you know, if someone doesn't care, they can play Xbox games on this. And I'm like, people are just going to go for the, for the, for the actual good thing. It's okay. We've seen this time and time again. Look at Wii U. Nobody went for like the, the shitty one. Like they, everyone got the black one with like the more space, right?

[01:38:09] Like nobody would even touch the other one. Right? Like that, that happens all the fucking time. You can't just release. Here's the shitty one. And here's the good one. Everyone's going to get the good one. So like, like that just doesn't work. I don't think it was just such a bad idea from the jump. I, you know, it's real. I knew they were in big time trouble this entire generation when they started hanging their hat on hell blade to a game that only has so much of an audience and isn't going to be a major seller.

[01:38:38] It's just going to be, it's going to be critically acclaimed. Right. And it should be, but like, this isn't going to be the thing that sets your fucking sales on fire. It's hell blade too. And they started pimping that shit. Like it was big shit. I'm like, it's a sequel to hell blade. What are we talking about here? You know, it would be like if, if, if Nintendo comes out here six weeks from now and starts hanging their hats on Pikmin five, it's like, what are you guys doing? Like, that's not, that's not it. You know?

[01:39:07] And I don't, to be clear, I don't want to come across as I'm saying like, oh, there's nothing to play on Xbox. There definitely is. And I think if, if Xbox was the only thing I had, you know, I could definitely find stuff I would like on game pass. But the thing is, you know, they just like Xbox is not producing the things that I really, really want to play. Right. You know, it seems like those things are primarily coming to Nintendo and PlayStation.

[01:39:33] Like, you know, so it's not that they have nothing, but they don't, they certainly don't have what it takes to like move the needle to pull ahead in like any meaning, not, not even pull ahead of PlayStation, just pull ahead of where they're at in any meaningful way. I think the market's big enough to support three consoles being successful. I feel like that was definitely the case in like we 360 PS3 people say PS3, like bottom. I mean, it did fine. It did fine enough.

[01:40:02] It's not like it did completely like shit here. You know what I mean? Obviously did better in Europe and Asia, but like here. Yeah. 360 was king, but it's not like nobody had a PS3. It doesn't feel like anybody fucking has an Xbox. You know, it's, it's, I think it's wild. I don't know if you guys remember, this was maybe a couple of years ago, Phil Spencer. And I think we talked about this on the show. Phil Spencer did an interview with somebody and he specifically said he was like last generation

[01:40:30] was the worst generation to lose because that was the generation that everybody built up their digital library. And therefore, you know, kind of like bought into this allegiance towards a brand, because this is where we've got all of our games that are going from generation to generation. And I think specifically because of that point he made, they rapidly flipped and they're like now we, so this is why we need to buy into game pass so heavily. We need to tell people, Hey, you know, you owned those games over here, but you just pay

[01:41:00] and you get access to every, all of our best stuff on game pass. And I think like, you know, that's just not, I think that's, that's not what like, you know, the, the hardcore fans really want. They want to own that stuff. Um, you know, and I don't think it's so that that's a big part of the problem too. You don't have like the most premium exclusives. And you also like there's, there's like just sitting there running like a high end console

[01:41:29] and just paying like month to month access to those games. There's just something about that, that, that doesn't feel good. So I think all of those things together have kind of created a perfect storm of shit. I think that's like what they don't understand. It's like, so what they're playing the game. That's what's so wrong about that. This is an Xbox campaign. Cause it's like, no man, people want Xbox, you know, like they don't want like Xbox games. That doesn't mean anything.

[01:41:55] If without like the console and everything else, it has to be the whole thing. And, and game passes position around games, which they don't have. That's the shitty part too. It's not like they have this fable game or these other killer, like fucking, when is that gears game coming out? Who knows? Halo who, what even is halo anymore? Right? Like, I mean, even just going back to their flagship franchises, who the fuck knows? Um, grant for so seven, eight for, so for lunch.

[01:42:25] Right. So like, I, I don't know what they, what they have right now. And that's the thing, right? He can say that all he wants about, Oh, digital library, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And now I know this is like a fake scenario, obviously, but smash six appears on Xbox. It's an Xbox exclusive. Guess what console? Everyone's going to buy a fucking Xbox. You have the games. People will buy the console.

[01:42:50] It's so fucking simple and they don't seem to understand that or just not willing to understand that. It's, it's really frustrating actually, because I just hate the way he talks about this. Cause it's like, I get it. Software is what sells and that's what makes money, but you still have to sell. You have to have everything else. It can't just be that. And game pass is proving that that can't work. I think there's a big flaw in the, everything is an Xbox thing too, because periodically

[01:43:16] every, you know, three or six months I'll try streaming to my phone and just see how it is. And it definitely has improved by leaps and bounds in the last few years. And it does work for some things. I can, I can sit and play Skyrim for 20 minutes or half an hour on my phone with a Bluetooth controller and it works well enough to play, but it doesn't feel good. You know, there's, there's absolutely zero reason for me to like decide to do that unless I'm really, really into something.

[01:43:46] And it's like a kind of game that really does not depend on, you know, quick interaction and, and I'm away for the weekend. You know, those, those instances are very few and far between. And, and again, I'm not saying it doesn't work. I think there, there is somewhat of a place for game streaming, but to be like, you know, we are Xbox, we are one of the big game companies. And this is like a primary thing for us as a big misstep. I think. I mean, that's why, like, I just think we're not there yet.

[01:44:16] That's why PlayStation portal hasn't exactly set the world on fire. Not that I ever thought it would, but you know, Hey Steve, what's up? Feeling good. Oh, I mean, I'm trying, but you know, everything's an Xbox. I mean, I'm staring at all my Xboxes, you know, I thought this was really going to, going to open up Steve into like, cause I know Steve likes to dig into Microsoft once in a while, but now I feel like I've just depressed him by telling him everything is an Xbox.

[01:44:46] Yeah. The Xboxes are closing around me, Kevin. They're closing in. Okay. Well, shit. That was a good fuck. I was wrong. I didn't, I didn't actually know you felt that way about the generation. Now I don't. Okay. I'm just going to have to rip off this bandaid. I'm so embarrassed about this. I'm legit embarrassed about my fuck. I was wrong.

[01:45:09] So last fall, I think it was from a state of play or a Nintendo direct Konami shadow dropped the Castlevania Dominus collection, which is the three DS games. Dawn of sorrow, order of Ecclesia and portrait of ruin. Not in that order, but that's not the order that came out, but those are the three. And I want to say three, four months before that, Kevin, you got on here, you played saw on sorrow for the first time.

[01:45:36] And despite your stupid assertions about the seals, and we're not even going to get into that. Oh, I was hoping that's what you were going to claim to be wrong about. No, the, you're a, you, you, you claimed that aria of sorrow. You liked more, not just the seals, but just, you know, whatever, whatever, whatever things she said about the game. And I went to bat against you because I was like, Donna sorrow is my, not just my like better than aria sorrow. It's my favorite Castlevania game. Period. Period.

[01:46:06] If someone asked me what my favorite Castlevania game has always been my answer for last 20 years. So I played Donna sorrow for the first time since that time. And by the way, the animated intro is still bad-ass where he does the seal with his arm. That is so fucking cool. I don't really care what you say. That's so rad, but Kevin, I have to get down on my knees and apologize. Don of sorrow is not better than aria of sorrow. Not only is aria sorrow better.

[01:46:36] Donna sorrow is not. I wouldn't say it's better than circle the moon, a game. I also really love what I've played a portrait of ruin so far. I would say portrait of ruin is also better. I think Donna sorrow is not nearly as good as I remembered it being at that time. And this shocks the hell out of me. I cannot believe it because I was so, again, I had only played it when it came out and just that time.

[01:47:05] But like, I never thought like something I played as an adult. We have this thing all the time, right? As kids, we play games as a kid. We love it. Plays an adult. Oh my God, that sucks. What was I thinking? Well, I wasn't thinking I was seven years old. That's why I liked it. I never thought something I would, I played when I was, you know, 23 years old, a fully formed adult would also like, I'd come back to it and be like, wait a second. This isn't, this isn't what I remembered it being.

[01:47:33] So what knocked it, what knocked it down a peg for you? It's just, here's the thing. It's a really, really good game. Obviously all these Game Boy Advance and DS games are right. Like there's not a battle except Harmony of Dissonance. Harmony of Pissinance, as I like to say that game fucking sucks. But the other five are great. And Andonisaurus is really good too. It's just, it doesn't have it. It does not have the level design spark. It definitely doesn't have the music. I think I was so drawn by Dracula's Tears.

[01:48:02] Dracula's Tears is still my favorite Castlevania song. That has not changed. That is better than I remembered it. But the boss battles are really good too still. But the moment to moment exploration of the castle is just not there. Sure. It's just not as good as Circle. It's not as good as Aria. It's definitely not as good as Portrait. In fact, Portrait might actually like so far from what I played might actually rise. But here's the thing. I also had the same thing happen to me when I played the Game Boy Advance collection.

[01:48:32] Because remember Circle of the Moo was my favorite. Then I played them all again. I was like, wait, Aria is better. Aria is actually way better than I gave it credit for. So it's not just me knocking. I don't think I'm necessarily knocking down Dawn of Sorrow too much. I just think my opinion of Aria has risen so much in recent years. Where it's just like, now that I go back and play Dawn, it's like, yeah, I was wrong. Fuck. I cannot believe I'm wrong about this.

[01:49:00] And I argued with you so vehemently too in that episode. Because I was so sure of my feelings on that. But I was wrong. I have to admit it. I think this is fantastic. I am so happy right now. I'm just smiling ear to ear. I know. I think subconsciously, you don't want to go too far and give me too much credit. But I bet you there was a certain point when you were drawing seals and you were like, is this really? Did this need to be here? No, probably not. I love the seals.

[01:49:30] I love the concept. I love the intro. I'm sorry. I still like the seals. I do. I will never give that up. Okay? Did you? Okay. There was that one boss that I bitched about. It's probably about halfway through the game where you fall down like a massive, like fucking five screens worth of a pit. Did you think that boss was a fucking asshole? Did you get where I was coming from with that one? No. I did not understand that at all. No, that boss was totally fine. I still can't agree with you on that.

[01:50:01] Yeah, Kevin, get good. Oh, man. It's just, yeah, I can't. I knew you would like this one just because I, it's something I was so, like I said, I was so fucking strident about too. You know how I get it. I'm like, no, not a sorrow. You know, I just can't believe myself right now. Wish I wouldn't have participated in this and we would have renamed the segment as a one off. Fuck, Kevin was right.

[01:50:31] Oh, man. Yeah. So I think shit. And honestly, I don't know. Unless order of Ecclesia like falls somehow in my, in my ranking as I get to it. Donna sorrow might actually be like fifth best. Now, like next to harmony. And well, a harmony of distance doesn't even count. That game just fucking sucks. But out of the ones that are good. Donna sorrow might be my least favorite one when it's all said and done. And I can not believe I'm saying that. Cannot believe it. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:51:00] I still, I still think it was a great game. I just, I do too. I definitely think Aria was far above it. And I see, that's the thing. That's where I won't. That's where I will disagree with you still. I don't think it's far above it. I think when I think when it comes to ranking these games, I think we're, they're pretty close. Right. In my opinion. I, I, but yeah, I wouldn't say far, far above, but definitely above. I will. I will go with you there.

[01:51:27] Aria's castle had a lot more character and whimsy to it. Yeah. Oh God. The, they didn't even have the fucking Donna sorrow. Didn't even have the maids have their fucking weird voice clips or creepy voice clips. Oh, remember that shit. I love that. See, Aria's like Don doesn't have stuff like that. There's all sorts of little things. I don't want to review the whole game, but like, yeah, there's lots of little things like that too. Dracula's tears though. Yeah.

[01:51:55] The 3d backgrounds that they were pushing the DS on. Yeah. Those are still great. Visually. It's great. I still like the anime ass style art style more than Aria sorrow. I still will say that too, but just purely as a game. Nah, Aria sorrow is better. Fuck. I was wrong. I'll take it. Fuck. Kevin was right. Steve saved me. Do you even have anything to take the heat off me right now? I need to play these again. The advances and the DS vanias again.

[01:52:25] It's been some time. Right. But do you have like a fuck? I was there. You have you been wrong about anything recently? I'm working through a fuck. I was wrong now. So maybe we can work through it some more together. Okay. I've had some inside baseball time. I've had some technical difficulties fairly recently. And Andre, because I'm stupid with compoopers, had to help me shop for a new compooper.

[01:52:51] So this is the second show I'm doing with new computer. You're welcome. Thank you, Andre. And I keep getting, you know, those, those, uh, oh, you know, not too secret, uh, voices in the back of my head, mostly from Andre going, Hey, go to steam and check out the games. Hey, there's that three month trial on game pass. Look at that shit up. Check that shit out. Look at all this other free shit. We could just, just play some games on that thing.

[01:53:21] Just put that. Okay, fine. I, I, I redeemed my game pass thing because everything is an Xbox now. Yeah. I'm bringing it a full circle. Everything is an Xbox, including my new laptop. And I, because I had to preload of out it's because we're going to try and do in the next show. Oh, I can't play about yet. Yes. I'll try something else. I, I, I downloaded a day of the tentacle remastered and I'm sitting there playing a game on my computer

[01:53:50] for the first time in forever. And I'm sitting here going for the first time. He was like, Oh, maybe this isn't so bad after years and years of being, no, I'm not playing games on my PC anymore. And I'm still not sure how entirely comfortable I am with this. So with, you know, it just, just in general, like, Oh man. And then now that's another thing with games I can play sometimes.

[01:54:20] I mean, I don't think I'm going to ask this to run crisis, but you know, with the computer I got, um, I got some free thing from Intel where it was like, here are all your free games you can have. And like, almost all of them are free to play. And I'm like, what are you guys doing? These aren't games you're giving me. But then one game that I actually did redeem from the Epic game store was the crisis remastered trilogy. That's the one thing they gave me. That was like a paid game.

[01:54:48] So maybe I can see how this laptop can run crisis in the year of our Lord 2025. And I'm just sitting here going PC game is all right. I mean, everything's an Xbox. The Xbox app is just telling me, Hey, you played a game there. Here's some points. Maybe you come back soon and we'll give you some more points. How about that? How about that, buddy? I told you you're playing games on the personal computer.

[01:55:17] I mean, maybe when I have some time, Steve will talk about games on his computer. We'll see. When are you getting Tokyo extreme racer in early access? So I have something to talk about it. We'll see. You know, you know, I friended you on steam. I can gift you shit. Right. And I can see if you played it or not. So I'm just saying I'm going to be an asshole about this.

[01:55:46] Oh, I know. Me too. In the other direction. I'm just saying you need to play something more high spec than day of the fucking tentacle. That's all. Try. Try something. And didn't we just say we're going to all play a vow? And I feel like that's going to put everything through its paces. Try something right now. Try that. Try that. A monster hunter wilds, a benchmark or something, or try, you know, see how it goes. But I just got the computer under. I don't want it to die on me. If mine didn't die, yours isn't going to die.

[01:56:16] Better turn on that frame generation, though, because you ain't getting 60 without it. I can't even. Oh, the benchmark is really what a heavy game. Anyway, is that it? All the fuck I was wrong. Yeah. Did you play anything else besides day of the tentacle? Not yet. Steve, you need to be out here. I'm not saying you need to play cyberpunk 2077 with like ray tracing fully maxed out. But, you know, maybe you should try something. I was trying something.

[01:56:43] I'm like, man, baby steps, Andre. Okay. It's kind of a big deal that I'm on here. With my computer playing a game and not doing a podcast or trying to make another project work. Just let him ease in with day of the tentacle. Okay. Okay. Ease the tentacles in. Isn't that what that game is called from that guy who made ape out baby steps? Remember like the chubby guy? Yeah. Like step by step. Yeah. Is that out?

[01:57:12] No, I don't think it's out yet. Okay. Okay. Maybe you can try that on your personal computer. Yeah, maybe. All right. Okay. I'm glad I got this off my chest. I've been thinking about it since I played Donald Sorrow. And I really, I was like, he's going to love this shit. So yeah, I'm like, I had to, I had to, I know it's the best day of your life. All right. All right. Well, that's about it. We have came. We have saw, we have conquered.

[01:57:42] Thanks for joining us. Check the description of this podcast to find our links on social media and we will see you next time. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.