FNGC Reviews: Clair Obscur Expedition 33 (ft. Rick Firestone of Pixel Project Radio)

[00:00:01] Here we go, here we go. Sarah Yelvington, Sarah Yelvington. My name is Nick Ficori. I'm the host of the Friday Night Gamecast. So I just want to, can I record a couple of, can I just ask you a couple of questions about Expedition 33? I have nothing that will be received well to say. Okay, so first question is why do you hate France? I have no personal issues with France.

[00:00:25] Okay, second question. We had a short conversation about why you believe that the Expedition 33 original soundtrack is actually a very bad soundtrack. Could you, do you care to expand on that a little bit? It's very grating on the ears. The harmonies, I don't know, are harmonizing. The soprano is definitely soprano-ing. Not that she doesn't have a lovely voice, she does, but it's a lot at like 7 in the fucking morning.

[00:00:51] Okay, so a lot of critics, music critics and video game critics alike have praised the original soundtrack by Laurie and Testard's ability to fuse multiple genres in one. What would you say to those critics? I would say that I'm not a fucking music critic and I'm allowed to have my own opinions. Thank you, Sarah. We'll get back to you on what everybody else thinks. Okay, great. Thank you. We'll continue to be the villain of this podcast, apparently. Stop Sarah 2025, is that where we're at?

[00:01:17] Stop Sarah 2025, everybody. You heard it here first in the Friday Night Gamecast.

[00:02:02] Welcome back, everyone. You're joining us for another FNGC review, where we look at one game and take a deep dive into all its moving parts. I'm your host, Nick, and this week we're welcoming two guests on the show today. The first is a returning cast member and he's the host of Pixel Project Radio and a consummate Garfield cart aficionado. Welcome back, Rick Firestone. How are you doing, Rick? Nick, Will, it's good to see you fellas again. Glad to be here. Thank you for inviting me back. I'm very excited to talk about this game today.

[00:02:34] I'm incredibly excited to do this with you, Rick. So thank you for joining us. And as always, in most of our reviews, we're joined once again by the guy who cannot stop playing Marvel Rivals, Will. Will, how are you doing? Oh, the most of the reviews is painful. Also, the two guests. Oof, I've been downgraded to guests. No longer co-host. Just guests in the show. All of that, all of that. But no, it's great to be here. Super excited to talk about this one.

[00:02:58] Look, as they say, JRPGs are back, baby. They're back. Even if they're made in France. Even if they're made in France. And that's right. If you guessed it from the title of the show and what Will had indicated earlier, this week we are reviewing Claire Obscure Expedition 33. To get into it off of the top, Claire Obscure was developed by Sandfall Interactive and published by Kepler Interactive. The directorial helm was Guillermo Bruch and composed by Lorien Testard.

[00:03:28] This released on April 24th, 2025, earlier this year. I did not jump into it that early on. The way that we're going to treat this episode for our FNGC review of Expedition 33. For the first half of the show, we're going to go ahead and talk about the key mechanics and what makes this world work. The story premise without as many spoilers as you can get. And then we're just going to talk about the normal things we talk about in our spoiler free section.

[00:03:54] The second half of the show, we're going to talk about the themes and core plot points of the narrative. So anybody who hasn't finished the game yet, don't worry. We will go ahead and give you a notice before we get into our spoiler inclusive conversation. And then we'll go ahead and move forward from there. So without further ado, I'd like to go ahead and jump into this review of Expedition 33. First and foremost, I wanted to start with our history with JRPGs as a genre. Rick is our guest for the show.

[00:04:20] Could you briefly just go over with us what your histories are with JRPGs? Yeah, sure. JRPGs are the genre that I've been playing the longest. Whenever I was a kid, I did have a Sega Saturn first, but once I picked up a PlayStation 1, Final Fantasy was one of the first things that I played. Final Fantasy 9 was a game that I played a ton as a kid, 7, Legend of Dragoon, and then into the PS2 with 10 and Kingdom Hearts and obviously Pokemon.

[00:04:50] But JRPGs have been my favorite genre since I was a kid. Easily the genre I have the most time put into as well. And for me, I am a chronic JRPG enjoyer, also chronic non-finisher. So I've touched a little bit of most JRPGs. Legend of Dragoon, one of my favorites of all time. Of course, once again, didn't beat it. However, I had a blast playing the hell out of the demo back in the day. I did a little bit of Final Fantasy 10.

[00:05:18] I got far enough to start getting some of the ultimate weapons, but didn't quite finish that off. But plenty of friends who swing sing the praises of that game. And I've kind of picked up the ending from just talking to them. Even something a little bit more modern, you know, not quite with the turn-based style, but like those more recent Final Fantasies. Or even, you know, the more modern turn-based style, like Metaphor, for example, that we just had last year, which was an incredible game. Had a chance to play some of that demo. Really loved it. It is still on my list to get into.

[00:05:46] But just in general, the barrier for entry for me normally comes from looking at it, understanding that it's like a 100-hour plus at a minimum for most times. And I'm just like, mm, I got other things I need to sink 100-plus hours into, like Horizon Forbidden West for some reason. So yeah, like I said, just... But every time I touch them though, you can see their quality. You can see the fun that's in there. And I just appreciate too, kind of like how Rick was saying,

[00:06:14] a lot of the folks around our age in those kind of like, you know, 30s, 40s, even going into the 50s, we just have such like childhood nostalgia for that kind of game because of how prevalent it was and just how many quality turn-based games came out around that time. That is always something that I see it come out new nowadays. And I'm just like, all right, that's cool. At least look at it, check it out, have a little bit of fun with it. Yeah, my histories with JRPGs isn't any different from either of yours. Of course, the first touchstone would be Pokemon.

[00:06:42] I would say the thing that really sold the idea of JRPGs to me as a genre, as a whole, was Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2. My exposure, I never really finished Kingdom Hearts 1 and then Kingdom Hearts 2, of course, is something that's like solidified as a game that's in my core memory. And really getting into like the nitty-gritty and like discovering the history of JRPGs and how influential they are to the gaming space didn't really start until I did start, you know, Friday Night Gamecast and, you know, doing the back dive into, you know, all of the earlier Final Fantasy games,

[00:07:12] but then jumping into the Yakuza Like a Dragon series, of course, you know, becoming, you know, one of my more recent favorites. Of course, my love for Persona, like these are also more recent entries. I gotta thank Rick because obviously he invited me on the show to do an episode one of Xenosaga, which introduced my love for the Xeno series. I have aspirations to get to Xenogears and Xenoblade Chronicles eventually to kind of jump off the deep end on that one.

[00:07:39] And then, but other than that, I do have, it is some of the older, more Xbox 360, PS2 era of JRPGs is a bit of a blind spot. But the more recent titles haven't had me more into JRPGs as a genre, especially when you consider everything from Atlas that they've come out with in the Persona and Metaphor series. So all of that being said, I do want to ask you to set the tone for the show. William, I'd like to ask you first, what is your overall thoughts and opinion of Expedition 33?

[00:08:09] As we go through this episode, I wanted to be very, very clear since it's going to come out over the course of this next hour, two hours, 10 hours, depending on how long it takes it to get done. Uh, the love I have for this game borders on hyperbole, if not full on swan dives into it. I am not burying any leads. Right. It's the kind of thing where I knew when I saw at the Xbox showcase, I think it was the Xbox showcase couple. Yeah, it was like last year. Yeah, exactly. It's sometime like earlier last year or so.

[00:08:39] I looked at it once again, saw it was a turn based game, saw how beautiful it was, saw just the kind of work that was happening with the actual battle system. And I was like, all right, well, this sounds exciting. It's an active battle system. I don't just sit there, press a button, wait, press a button, wait, press a button, wait. I'm either defending myself if I'm being attacked. I'm attacking and doing extra damage by doing those kinds of QTEs, which I've ever since God of War always been a fan of QTEs to some degree. So I was already pretty much on for it. But I didn't realize how much I was going to love this game.

[00:09:09] Having it come out, getting the chance to jump into it directly off Game Pass by just being the easy peasy. All right, if I like this, then maybe I'll buy it in a bigger value or maybe buy it on PlayStation or something. But start here on Xbox. I don't know, it's super, super just absorbing, I think is the word for me. Like I jumped in, I immediately fell in love with the world. I immediately fell in love with the characters. And it just drug me completely from A to Z, did everything as much as I could throughout the entirety of the game.

[00:09:37] Grinded all the way to 99, which even a game like Pokemon that I used to love back in the day, normally felt like a slog or a bore. But it's just super exciting playing this game. And we're going to get into more of the pieces as far as characters and the story and everything else too. But it all comes together in such a wonderfully made package that it's utterly astonishing that this is the company's first game. So once again, I know it borders on hyperbole. I'm probably blowing a lot of smoke up the game itself.

[00:10:05] However, I want everyone that's listening here to know that if you are on the fence and you're listening to this podcast, I give you permission to stop said podcast and go play this game to the full and then come back to us. Because you love us and you want to hear us talk about it. And we want to hear you talk about it. Rick, where are you at with this? I'm feeling pretty similarly to Will. I wanted to wait to think about my comprehensive thoughts after I first beat it.

[00:10:33] I wanted to give it a bit of a debriefing period. At the time that we're recording, it's been just over a month since I beat the game. I did jump in day one and I beat it in a couple of weeks. And now I'm about to the end of act one in my new game plus playthrough. And I know that scores, I think, are ultimately not always useful or meaningful.

[00:11:04] However, as a shorthand, I would easily call this a 10 out of 10 for me. I think this game is stupendous in many ways. It takes influence from the classic era of JRPGs, from the SNES to the PS1, and pays homage to them in a really beautiful way and a meaningful way.

[00:11:28] And that coming from a fresh developer that has its own visual language and narrative language made this a real treat to go through. It's also really mature in what it's trying to say and how it goes about saying it. It's just a treat overall. It's a really stupendous game. An easy 10 out of 10 for me. An easy recommend.

[00:11:55] I think this is going to be talked about for years to come. I think this will be a classic of this generation. Agreed. Yeah, 100% agreed. I think that I can only echo everything the both of you have already said. For me, this game is as close to a perfect game as you can get in terms of my taste profile, what I enjoy, the depth, the maturity, the visual style.

[00:12:19] I think that Expedition 33 really takes everything that I've loved from every other JRPG that I've ever experienced and really every other game that I've experienced. And it kind of provides it into one neat package. And I think that this game is going to be remembered for years. And this game will influence so many games to come after it.

[00:12:40] And I think that, like you said, Rick, just to piggyback off of your ideas, I think that it understands JRPGs as a genre very deeply. And the homage that they show throughout the game is just it shines through and it shows how much love and care. And it really belies how much of a focused vision the small team had in order to create this game. Obviously, like Will said, this being a debut title, this is an incredible endeavor. And it's going to be crazy to see how. Yeah. How can they follow up on this?

[00:13:10] But yeah, overall, Expedition 33, just to let everybody know, we all love it. So this is kind of where we're at within the show. And we kind of want to get into it and explain why this is so good. So jumping in into some of the core mechanics of the game, I'd like to go ahead and talk about just the story premise to set up this story of the world of Expedition 33 to our listeners. So this takes place in a dark fantasy bell epoch setting.

[00:13:37] Every year for the past 67 years, the people of an isolated island called Lumiere have suffered from an event called the gommage, where an entity known as the paintress paints an ever decreasing number and all of the humans with an age equal to that or above disappear. Every year after the gommage, Lumiere sends an expedition of volunteers to head onto the mainland of the continent in an effort to slay the paintress before she can paint the next number.

[00:14:07] Expedition 33 is the last expedition to be sent out and is the expedition that we find ourselves at the beginning of the game. The game starts off and you're playing as Gustav, who is a scientist slash inventor that has volunteered for Expedition 33.

[00:14:22] And he's also the person who is known for creating a device known as a Lumina converter, which allows expeditioners to utilize these powers called pictos and Lumina in order to take the power from enemies throughout this world called Nevrons and use them against them in their fight against the paintress. So the idea is that Gustav and the rest of the expedition team, they leave Lumiere, they go to the main continent and things go south in a bad way without spoiling anything.

[00:14:53] Traumatized Gustav has to join up with a scant few expeditioners that have survived an event in order to go forward and solve the mystery of the world and ultimately defeat the paintress. So starting off, this is a really strong story premise. I think that act one in the very beginning of like the tutorial section of the show, I think, you know, to recount a little bit of what happens, you're met with Mael and Gustav in the very first scene.

[00:15:19] And you're given like the tutorialization of how this is how combat works. This is how you go. And immediately we're in Lumiere. We see the two colored tree. We were introduced to the idea of Gamache. I wanted to ask the both of you just really quick before we proceed. How did that? How did the intro of this game really hit you? For me, the intro was just an incredible step into this world as a whole. I mean, we've between the two of us and of course you, dear listener, I'm sure hundreds if not thousands of games under our belts.

[00:15:47] So we've probably seen everything under the sun, whether it be in media res, you fall right in the middle of a war and you learn how to fight there. You have a slow ramp up. We can even take it all the way back to what Assassin's Creed 2 where you're literally born as Ezio and you have to sit there and press buttons to move your hands and legs. So we've kind of run the gambit when it comes to intros to a video game. But starting off where, I don't know, the nature and it just gets you going immediately in this game of how somber everything feels.

[00:16:16] You know, we're going to talk about the music because of course the music besides just the classic, you know, it's a character in itself. The music is just gorgeous. So I definitely want to save some time for that. But just starting off with the music, you're hearing that in the background as you're seeing all of these red and white petals kind of sprinkle all over the world. You're playing through as Gustav and then you're running to Mayel immediately. So you start having that kind of conversation about what's going on today and what's so important about what's happening in Lumiere at this time.

[00:16:45] And it just really starts to, in my opinion, sink in very, very quickly that you need to start feeling for these characters, that they have something that's going on. Not just important to them themselves, but to the world as a whole. You see the entire crowd of people of chit-chatting, which you can talk to a surprising amount, especially some of those more like little secret side people you can talk to, like guy in the trash can. Oh yeah. Or the couple in the bedroom, you know, having one little last fling before the gommage happens.

[00:17:13] So I think it's just a great way to get you introduced to the world, to the stakes of the world, most importantly, just because of what happens towards the end of this initial prologue. But I feel like it gut punches a lot of people if you weren't already aware of it through trailers or videos or something like that. And then as you even said, Nick, some of the combat. It does this throughout the game as well, which I really love.

[00:17:36] And it's not the first to do it, but it's definitely one that does it well, where they introduce combat rules and things that you'll constantly do through, you know, kind of in quote unquote real life material. So for example, you come across a painter. Where the painter's like, hey, you and your lady there, you look like you're looking really great. I'd love to see y'all kind of dance. And then I can paint this dance as it's going to do something where it gives me a little bit of motivation to get a nice dance on.

[00:18:03] So you have to sit there and dodge attacks from the other character as you would in the game later on, where you're, you know, hitting the B button or circle, depending on if you're on the PlayStation or Xbox. Sorry, PC people, I don't know your button. So nothing against you, but being able to tie that together with, you know, your dodges and your parries later on is another thing that it tutorializes very easily and very succinctly. Um, in my opinion, I don't know. It's, it's very much a masterclass of, all right, here's a nice clean intro.

[00:18:31] I think this is something that you can show off in a intro to video games to be like, look, this is a clean cut 15 to 20 minutes. If the person's kind of buzzing through, they learn everything they need to learn. They get the world building, they get the gameplay style, boom, set them on their journey. Yeah, I agree with a lot of that. The world building especially is something that I think is quite nice. That's what I look for in JRPGs. That's part of why, I mean, that's why I love the Xeno series so much is because that that's part of their design philosophy.

[00:18:59] Of course, uh, Takahashi does it through maps. He's, he's on record as saying, but, um, you get a sense that the world exists, whether you, the player are there or not. Um, this whole intro is really fantastic. It, it highlights immediately. Yes, the world, the world building and the character relations, but it highlights the through line of grief and loss and acceptance that will be throughout the entire game, as well as the importance of color.

[00:19:29] Um, Will, you had picked up on a somber tone. It's interesting. It's that somber tone that comes from celebrations of loss. You know, I, I grew up, um, in a family that was Catholic quote unquote, because the whole community was Catholic. Right. Um, and a lot of times when folks would die, uh, there would be like a get together at the church where everybody would make food. And it was like a mini celebration to sort of put salve on the wound of the loss.

[00:19:58] And it's that sort of, uh, it's that sort of celebratory tinged with somber underneath that you can't help but ask yourself, should I be enjoying this right now? Uh, while you, you're coming to grips with, you know, what you have maybe lost and, and understanding that grieving is going to occur.

[00:20:24] That's kind of this whole opening, you know, they're celebrating this gamage that's about to take place annually, uh, on this day and they know what's going to come. Um, so they make one last celebration, but that sorrowful tinge is across everybody you talk to. Um, especially because you are playing as a character that I'm sure Nick will introduce shortly is directly involved with what's about to happen.

[00:20:50] Is that, you know, that's not exactly a way to cover up what I meant, but, um, yeah, I, I think it's terrific. This is a really effective opening. I, I took my time and it took me, I think 45 minutes to get through this opening area. Um, it's great.

[00:21:39] Like you said, the world building, the color design, this, the contrast of the, the grief and the sorrow. I mean, even in the characters opening lines, um, you know, where you see Gustav futilely throwing the rock at the monolith and mile walks up to him. And the camera pans down to the single rose or the single flower that he had picked out, um, for Sophie, who is the character that Gustav has a relationship with in the beginning.

[00:22:07] And she says, don't you think it's better to give someone flowers while they're still alive, while they still have a life to live? If you're going to give somebody flowers, you should probably do it before they wither and die. And to which he replies, do you mean the flowers or Sophie? Yeah, that's exactly. Yeah. And so we're immediately met with the contrasting thing. Thank you, Rick. You, you definitely backed me up. It's an important line in the game. It clearly sets up what this, how this game thinks about loss. Yeah.

[00:22:37] Yeah. And it immediately kind of balances out. You have this dark humor that Gustav is employing in order to try and sublimate his grief, uh, with the reality of mile looking at him kind of expectantly. Um, and then later on, we, we have this really beautiful scene of Gustav going down and obviously you're, you're brought through the open world. You have the, the combat tutorialization with mile on the bridge.

[00:23:01] You meet Sophie and immediately, I don't know what either of you both did, but I played most of the tutorial as Sophie, as soon as she became a playable character. Um, the first time you can do that. And that is a function of this game for listeners who haven't played yet. Um, as you're going throughout the open world and you're building the expedition, you're building your party. Um, when you are in most of the traversal mechanisms, you can push down on, uh, R3 in order to stick down in order to change between the different characters.

[00:23:31] So you can swap out as Gustav, Mael, or whoever is in the party at any given time. Um, but it is interesting. I, I, I love just like the, yeah, the, the somber nature of this, the gommage that is impending, but the celebratory aspect of Lumiere. Like these people are so resilient. These people, they, they still like are working and operating and living in the face of all of the grief and sorrow that they're, they've lived with for so many years. And this is how you start the game. This is the beginning of the game.

[00:24:00] These aren't really spoilers, stuff that you probably could pick up in maybe some trailers or just the first, as you said, 30 to 45 minutes of the game. Um, but as we move forward, of course, the ending of it ends in the gommage and you see the paintress put her hand on the monolith in the number goes down from 34 to 33. Sofi who in the game is 34 vanishes in front of Gustav. And this sets up the events of him getting ready that evening to go off on the expedition.

[00:24:29] Um, so kind of just the, again, we'll, we'll move away from the story premise and the setup. That's, that's where we take it. That's where I wanted to just take a minute to sit in the intro of this game, because I feel like it is such an important aspect of how this is meant to be played, how this game is meant to be understood. Um, and it's really incredible. This is not a game where you can skip cut scenes and really take as much away from it at all. The narrative is it's a very narrative heavy game.

[00:24:54] Um, but essentially to get more focused into swinging into discussing the gameplay of expedition 33 kind of, it is complicated because it changes so many perspectives in terms of how you interact with it. It is very much akin to a lot of the more recent JRPGs. Um, they kind of blend between open world and open zone. Uh, most of the environments that you're playing in are dungeons for lack of a better word, very linear levels that have a start and end point.

[00:25:23] Um, and then it zooms out into an overworld where you as the player can run around kind of like in Mario, um, and choose where you want to go. Mario 64 specifically where you would jump into a painting. I don't know if either of you ever noticed that there is a hidden secret in there's a manner in the game. That uses as like the hub world that you can use to traverse into different sections of the overworld inside the manner. There is a painting that you can jump into. Did you, did you notice that at all?

[00:25:53] No, I don't think I did. That's yeah. It's a one where it has camera with the exact painting itself, but it's like the only one that's at ground level. Yeah. So if you're just playing around and hopping to it, you hop through, you get some little fun little secret. Yeah. There's a couple of different secrets in the manner. Um, so it's, it's a really nice place to check out. It's one of those things where as you're running through the different hub areas and like, well, not hub, but the spokes, I should say. You got your hub and spoke, um, your spoke areas. Very often there'll be a door to the manner in there somewhere for you to find, and then you can find another door to open up.

[00:26:22] So that by the time you get to the end of the game, the entire manner is kind of open to you to explore and run around it. Yeah. I think it's so interesting. You can tell a lot about a person and their tastes by the examples they give. Um, you just said super Mario 64 and then the next section combat, you mentioned turn-based and you give three examples. Um, and it's, it's funny to me that, and, and you're even saying diorama and I'm like, this is, this is final fantasy, man. Like this. It is.

[00:26:53] And this is part of how they pay such great homage to those early JRPGs. They give you a world map that you can explore and that is set up in a diorama style, uh, that a lot of current, you know, Nick, um, excuse me, not Nick. Will, you had mentioned metaphor. That's something that metaphor did not do. It took more of a final fantasy 10 approach where you get your airship and you can go to different locales and that gives different strengths too. Like they can do more locations.

[00:27:20] Um, but expedition 33 even does a little trick with that where there are some locations on the world map that you can go to just by exploring. And it's not a new dungeon and it's not a new town. It's just a set piece, like a singular scene. Um, even the camera is fixed like a singular scene, like, like a diorama. Um, it's very cool. It's, it feels so chrono trigger and final fantasy six to me. Yep. Not super Mario 64.

[00:27:47] I love those spots you mentioned as well there too, just cause that's not very often where you find different, uh, musical pieces where you get records that you can then play back at your camp. Yeah. That you get the chance to stop it later on. Yeah. Man, I just love sitting there and can't just like playing records over and over again. Yeah. Almost exclusively. That's what you find in those, huh? Yep. Yeah.

[00:28:06] I just, I think part of the thing that I find so lovely about just traversal, the overworld, the environmental design as a whole is just like this juxtaposition between the fantastical and surreal elements of those primary zones. The spokes as we'll would call it versus this like mismatched scale of the diorama that you're, you're, uh, running around in the world.

[00:28:27] Like clearly like your character and the never ons that you see in the open world are so mismatched in terms of scale and size of like where you are and what you're doing. Uh, it rents this, it like lends the surrealism to what's going on. And even as I was playing it for my, I mean, I'm, I'm in my second playthrough now. I'm just very, very beginning.

[00:28:47] I haven't even finished the, uh, first like section of the first act, um, in my second playthrough, but in my first playthrough, I started like questioning like reality as I was going through this game. And I think as a listener, you'll have to keep that in the top of your mind until we get later on into this episode and start just, you know, discussing like what this means and kind of just understanding the surreal nature. Um, one character that I did want to talk about because we're not going full blown into all of the characters of this game, uh, until we get into the spoiler section of the show.

[00:29:17] But one character who is very significant that we do need to discuss is SGA because he serves as the primary traversal mechanism of expedition 33. Um, he has three different modes as you, uh, unlock different powers. You have to collect rocks in the world in order for SGA to acquire more powers for him to, uh, help you move about the world in the beginning. He can just run you, you mount him in the overworld and he can run around. Um, you get another rock and he can swim and eventually he can fly.

[00:29:47] Um, in act three, he's flying in. It's crazy to me how much the canvas and how much the world actually opened up once you could fly throughout the world. I was initially questioning like, uh, is, is this flat kind of surface this overworld? Is this going to be it? And as soon as he had that last ability towards, you know, in once he unlocks that in this game, uh, that was like, I was just like, there's so much here that I haven't discovered.

[00:30:16] And I just loved how many different pockets. And it's something that consistently surprised me about this game is how much they have hidden on layer upon layer of what you can access in this world and traversing like that. Yeah. Again, it's like the classic moments in final fantasy one or six, uh, when you get your airship and then the whole world map is open to you. It's exciting. I'm glad that modern JRPGs are doing that. Yep. It makes me want to actually jump into six because I started playing six on my switch and I need to play the, uh,

[00:30:46] pixel remaster and really see what that's all about. And before we get too far away, since you brought up the best boy 2025, we got to talk about SGA since, you know, we're not going to be getting too, too crazy as far as just characters and things. I need a nice 10 minute segment for, for SGA by himself. Okay. This is one of those characters. Honestly, earlier this year, we had Rove who was one of my little homies in monster hunter wilds. And I thought, okay, here he is. Here's the greatest guy. He's got a little wizard hat.

[00:31:15] He talks in riddles. He's a fun little Linux. I thought he was going to be the best character, you know, side character, goof character in video games in 2025 until this lovable marshmallow, big, goofy French boy popped up on my screen and stole my heart and did not let go the entire game.

[00:31:36] This is, I don't know, one of those fun characters that I guarantee you, whenever you get the chance to like write someone like this, the writer, whoever created this character and kind of did all their dialogue, they just wear a huge smile on their face every time they got to write some new lines. He is just such a joy to behold every time you come across him in the game. And then since he is your mode of transportation, you get to hear him and see him almost constantly throughout the game as you're actually exploring over the world. And his little goofy fun lines.

[00:32:04] I don't know if any of y'all noticed either during the times when you get the flying ability. If you're ever up there, just like hanging out and not moving while flying, he'll strike a little Superman pose where he puts one arm out and just like stops for a second and then brings it back in. No, it's the little things. That's my classic line, the little things TM. And that's something that SGA really just brings to the world as a whole. So, you know, you mentioned before, Rick, as far as the game just being a treat and a joy.

[00:32:29] For me, one of the major parts of that is having SGA in the world and in the story itself. Just a treat, a sweet little boy that I want to wrap my arms around and never let go. Yeah, I admit I was a little cynical about it at first. I at first I thought it might be like uwu bait. You know what I mean? Oh, no. Yeah. Like trying to bait that, you know, fandom that likes the uwu characters into saying, you know, oh, we love this guy. We love this game.

[00:32:57] And I don't really have a way to quantify this, but that wasn't the case. I do like SGA quite a bit. There's more to him than just being uwu bait, even if maybe he is. But no, he's great. I really liked him. Yeah. You find out later on, once you progress through the story, and this is something that I discussed with the gentleman on the game duopod when we discussed this game over there,

[00:33:23] that eventually when you unlock the relationship system and you can have relationships with different characters, you start learning about SGA's relationship and his history with some of the characters, which makes his presence so much more dynamic and so much more realized and lived in. And, you know, sometimes you just got to go for a swim swim and have fun. Swim swim. Let's go. A little bit of woo, a little bit of we. Exactly. Exactly.

[00:33:50] Let's go ahead and jump into the combat system. Arguably one of the defining core characteristics of the Expedition 33 experience and honestly one of my favorite combat systems of all time. It's one of the reasons among many that makes this game clearly my personal game of the year contender for 2025. This is a turn-based battle system like a persona, like a Yakuza Pokemon, even as Rick said, a Final Fantasy.

[00:34:20] Early Final Fantasy. It's so funny that you list those three. I mean, first of all. But it's not even Final Fantasy. This, to me, like this combat, and I don't mean to step in front of you, but it's sort of a synthesis between Will, Legend of Dragoon, Super Mario RPG, and as much as I hate to say it, Dark Souls. It's kind of a synthesis between all of those. Legend of Dragoon, you know, I've been begging for the addition system to make a comeback in JRPGs for so long.

[00:34:49] And this isn't quite that. Not quite. But it's close. And it's still really cool. The dodging and parrying feels so much more intuitive than in Super Mario RPG, especially if you're playing on the SNES. I still can't really get the hang of that on that. The remake made it easier. But, and then, you know, Dark Souls. There are many things in this game that are inspired by FromSoft. But the importance of parrying and dodging, too. I mean, that's, you know, undeniable.

[00:35:19] The whole thing. I'm pretty sure the director, the combat designer, came out on record and said that the parrying system is inspired directly from Sekiro, which I think is one of the more recent, and one of the more favorites, obviously, game of the year 2019, if I'm not mistaken. It's my favorite FromSoft game. And that's not saying much because I haven't played very many of them. You play Demon's Souls, man. I mean, you put your hand in there. Yeah.

[00:35:44] So, obviously, as you can surmise, this is a very straightforward battle system. You have your party members who are in the party, and you have three character loadouts on a team. So, whenever you are in the open world, you're running around, but when you get in a combat scenario with a Nevron, eventually three characters will walk onto the screen, and each of them have six slots of combat skills that they can use in any given combat scenario.

[00:36:12] One of the things that I think makes this game beautiful and what makes just the idea of playing it, and I'd love to hear more comparisons in terms of, like, what is this like in Legend of Dragoon, Final Fantasy, what have you. But I just think that all of the characters are so unique, from Gustav's ranged with his pistol slash support class to Lunay's mage abilities. I feel like CL and Mayel fill this role of DPS.

[00:36:39] Later on, you unlock a character named Minoko, who acts clearly as a blue mage, which is an archetype that has been JRPGs for a while. This is new to me. I feel like that's not something that I've been particularly aware of. I probably engaged with that archetype of a subclass in other games. I just didn't realize it, but Minoko is presented here as being very unique. But yeah, I wanted to ask, who are our initial favorites, and how did maybe our team loadouts change over time?

[00:37:07] Without getting too, I guess, spoiler-y, I mean, starting off very strong, I loved Gustav. I loved how he fought. He gets this move called Overcharge, which becomes very, very handy. Or I should say starts with, not gets. But it's very, very handy, especially throughout the first act when you have a couple of enemies. There's another function I don't think we quite talked on, so like the break meter. So you can build status on an enemy that will eventually let you kind of break their posture effectively.

[00:37:37] Very much like, once again, kind of a Sekiro style, where it doesn't quite make it so that they're not blocking or anything. But it can, one, skip their turn if they're broken, which is always nice. No turn equals no damage. But also, as they're broken, you potentially have the opportunity to do more damage to them after that. So it's one of those kind of snowballs rolling downhill, where once you get a break going, you can really just start whittling down like a boss, some of your stronger type of enemies that you fight later on in the game.

[00:38:03] Or in particular, you come across some mimes who you really just cannot beat unless you break them. I specifically had to make sure that Gustav was in my party quite a few times after coming across a mime and be like, whoop, here's my break, guy. Hope you stay alive long enough to actually get this off. But I love Gustav. Loved a lot of his fighting and his work. It's funny, too, we talked a little bit about as far as with the Persona series being with this Persona series.

[00:38:29] I'm sure it was not the first, but one of the first for me that I saw, you know, you have your actions, you're attacking, you can pick your items, or you can also just shoot a guy. So the fact that this is brought into that as well, where, you know, you have those kind of different options in your standard JRPG turn-based game, but you can also just potentially shoot a gun. Or in other people's ways, you just shoot like an energy blast from your hands. Then that's also a really nice way to set up with a lot of your Pictos and your Illumina

[00:38:57] and just build some really crazy-looking setups with that kind of shoot function, which is another fun thing that Gustav has. But really, Gustav, I feel like Maelle was really a mainstay for me once she got into the party. She's an example of a character that I think more turn-based games need, where, as me, I'm a young man, quote-unquote. When I played Pokemon back in the day, it would be like, oh, do you want to put roar or growl on a character?

[00:39:26] I'm like, those don't do any damage. Why would I ever pick those? Let me just hit them harder. I don't have to worry about status effects. But having a character like Maelle, where part of her whole kit is going through different modes. You have, like, your defensive mode, your offensive mode, and then her premier mode, which is the virtuose mode, which effectively gives her 200% damage on any move that she does. Of course, the trick being you cannot stay in any mode for more than one turn, so you're really just shifting back and forth between them based on what moves you're doing.

[00:39:55] However, the best way for her to get into virtuose mode, at least very early on, is a quick strike attack that does damage. However, if the opponent's on fire, it automatically puts her into virtuose. So it makes sense for you to carry that, even if you don't care about status effects, because you need someone else to do said status effect, potentially Lunay, or I think Gustav also has a fire-ish attack later on that you can unlock.

[00:40:21] In order to get Maelle into that super strong virtuose mode to then do more damage. So it's almost like the game is kind of leading you with a carrot on how to more effectively play it, versus someone like me, you know, 20 years ago, 10 years ago, that would just be like, I don't care, hit harder, bigger bonk stick. So no, they do a really good job. But Maelle was big. Gustav was big. Lunay really dropped off for me about middle of the game,

[00:40:49] but she was still a really fun character. And then a couple of other characters that we'll talk about later, I ended up just really keeping in my party at the very end, including Minoko, because I love him and how he gets that blue mage ability to turn into different enemies that you come across by stealing their feet. I thought that was very fun. Yeah, I will. First, so the breaking system reminds me a lot of Final Fantasy XIII as well. A battle system that is really underrated.

[00:41:19] A game that is overhated too. But that battle system is really cool. It introduced the stagger mechanic. And it works very similarly to breaking. I'm with you. Maelle is one of my favorites. A stance fighter, you know, kind of like fighting games, honestly. My current build with her is she has a weapon that you can get somewhat early on that lets you start in virtuose stance. I have one attack move that lets you stay in virtuose stance. And then I have a buff move that lets you stay in whatever stance you're currently in

[00:41:49] and gives you extra AP points. So she's just right now a damage and break maniac. She's my favorite, my beloved. I love her. I didn't... Minoko was another one. Minoko during my first playthrough was far and away my strongest. Like it was not even close. Really? Yeah, just dealing Buku damage. It was insane.

[00:42:13] I have him on this playthrough as a glass cannon to just throw in some wackiness into the mix. He's wild. And he might be my favorite character. I'm not sure. I mean, it's tough to say that over Maelle or even Verso, but Maelle mainly. But Minoko is fantastic. My first time around, I wasn't wild on CL. Even though in the meta, she's kind of the one that can break the game the easiest, especially on first times around.

[00:42:42] I'm doing more with her this time. One thing that's interesting to me with the classes here is they're not necessarily your typical JRPG archetypes. Debuffing is really not emphasized very highly in this game like it is in some others. Buffing even is a little less emphasized. It's really the builds are based around how quickly you can break that damage algorithm

[00:43:09] and do the most damage as quickly as possible. That's kind of what this game wants you to do. At least it seems to me that way. You do have like Minoko is kind of the archetypical blue mage. But, you know, you don't have a white mage. You don't really have a fighter or a monk. It's not like that. But I think they do it extremely well, especially when you combine it with the Pictos and the Luminos, Luminas. It's really fun.

[00:43:39] I'm a big fan. I like this combat a whole, whole lot. Yeah, I think that I'm right there with you. In terms of like the characters that I really, really enjoyed using, of course, Gustav, I actually moved out of my party as soon as I assembled three or more. I kind of ran with the- Charlie's Angels is crazy. No, no, no, no. I mean, well, kind of. But I ran with Mael, Ciel, and Lune as soon as I unlocked each of those characters.

[00:44:05] And they have, especially prior towards the events, the latter events of Act 2 and Act 3, they have a really, really good synergy to them in terms of how each of their play styles complement each other, particularly with Lune's Stain ability, which is so unique. Again, I was going to ask you, Rick, obviously with your history, have you seen anything like that where a mage utilizes like a color-based ability that enhances their, I guess, follow-up

[00:44:35] actions for other skills that make them more powerful? Is that a returning feature from somewhere? Yes. Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh! and Magic. Like that's- Lune and Ciel remind me of trading card games and deck builders. Yeah. Yeah, definitely, definitely deck builders. I completely get that. Particularly with Ciel, how her Twilight damage form, how you have to, in order to use her in the way that she's meant to be used, you have to kind of think two or three steps ahead.

[00:45:02] Okay, I'm going to use this ability now in order to add enough Fortell to a Nevron and then switch over into Twilight mode. So I'm doing that extra damage the same way with Mael going into Virtuoso's stance. So yeah, I really, really love that. Eventually, as you go on off course, my party switched up pretty drastically, particularly to do a lot of the endgame boss fights and do a lot of that. There's a lot of that.

[00:45:28] And there's something that I did kind of want to touch on and something that we have glossed over a little bit to this point is how important the parrying and dodging system is to this game as a whole. I think that this leads in also to a discussion on the Nevrons and how versatile and how varied the enemy variety in this game. Almost each biome that you go to, it shares some similar Nevrons that will cross over, but almost when you're going throughout this game, you're introduced to one or two new enemies

[00:45:58] that you've never met before. And I really, really like that about this game. And so what that turns into is not only are you figuring out what is the best way to use my character's abilities, the abilities system, which is pretty complex on its face, and what is the best way to use them against this new enemy I haven't seen before? So not only are you actively solving that combat puzzle of like, how can I do, as Rick said,

[00:46:23] the most damage as possible, but how can I learn this enemy's movesets to know when I can parry? Because something that we haven't touched on is that we have an AP system. And in using, they're essentially the consumable energy that your characters are using that you have to spend in order to use varying movesets. And some movesets consume more AP than others. This is pretty classic. This is a pretty part for the course.

[00:46:48] But parrying each time, especially once you unlock different energizing pictos or luminas, whenever you're parrying, it can generate more AP every time an enemy hits you and you make a successful parry. And so that's another reason why this gets so important the later on you get in this game, because there are times where you're fighting enemies, not even in late game bosses, where you're getting hit anywhere from six to eight times in a single enemy turn.

[00:47:15] And so learning those abilities, learning the rhythm, it's almost like I almost liken a lot of the combat in this game to understanding like rhythm games and parrying at the right time and listening for those audible cues to go into that. I'm curious, did this frustrate either of you at all? Did you enjoy kind of engaging with that system? It's definitely both as far as the frustration and then also enjoying it. Rick mentioned it before with Dark Souls.

[00:47:43] That's the big thing people talk about those Souls games, the FromSoft games, is that you get that sense of accomplishment and you feel happy after suffering through, right? Suffering is the whole point. And then you win and you feel good. You get that dopamine rush. That happens very often, specifically with a lot of the endgame bosses, where sometimes you just feel like you're beating your head against the wall. Learning for some of these bosses towards the end of the game almost doesn't exist.

[00:48:11] It could be potentially an hour before you see more than one or two moves because one mistake can potentially be death for the entire party. So sections like that is when it gets a little bit more frustrating. And then even from the other side, as far as frustrating, you can, and it's almost encouraged to build your team as all glass cannons. Like there's not really a huge upside to being incredibly defensive late in the game because then you're not doing enough damage to really make the fights end quickly, right?

[00:48:40] Like in most games, the bad guys have more health than you. So you want to hit them harder than they hit you. That's just how it works. Yeah. So really, as you're playing through towards the end of the game, you want to be a glass cannon, which means any kind of mistake can equal instant death. But there's also plenty of other little Picto and Luminae that you can do that effectively make it so you might not even have to play the game, quote unquote, as intended. Things like death bomb, auto death, breaking death can make just really interesting setups for

[00:49:09] your team, but depending on how much difficulty you want to add for yourself or not can make things incredibly trivial. You get to the very end of the game, you're fighting a super hard enemy. Your characters come in, die immediately, put the enemies in breaking. They immediately come back to life. Your teammates do. And then everybody's super charged with nine AP. So then you hit them with the hardest move in the game that deletes them in one hit. And a lot of the times it's like, I feel like I earned getting to that point. So it wasn't that bad.

[00:49:39] But if you're somebody who likes to struggle towards the end of a fight and parry the final boss of the game 397 times to feel like you've earned it, obviously that's not the way you kind of want to go down. So it's definitely maybe my, not only gripe, because once again, love the game, but it's not perfect. But one of my bigger gripes about the game is that the combat system feels great in act one and act two. And depending on how much you kind of level yourself or want to cheat the game in general, it can really just be busted by act three.

[00:50:08] So then it kind of makes a lot of what you did in the first two parts of the game trivial. But all in all, the game is good. I love rather the combat, I should say, is good. I love the AP system that we talked about specifically because one of my problems with like metaphor and other games that has an MP system is that you're using these moves that the game asks you to do. And then you may get to the point where you have no MP even going into a fight versus in expedition, you might start off with anywhere from five to nine AP every time you start and

[00:50:37] you don't have to worry about trying to like drink a flask in between fights, which is nice. It's way more forgiving. You mentioned the auto death that reminded me I have a setup right now that I really like where somebody has auto death. So they start the battle immediately. They die. That automatically damages and stacks burns onto the enemy and gives everybody in the party plus three AP and then everybody else has rush on. So like they're starting already with seven AP plus three and they're going first.

[00:51:05] Like, yeah, you do have to revive somebody and use a turn that but everybody's starting off with like nine on everything. Rush powerful. It's it's really fun. Particularly if you have lunate's revive ability, then you get you get more figured out. Um, no, I in terms of parrying, I honestly forget that dodge exists most of the time until like I'm forced to use it. Like I'm channeling Daigo Umehara in everything. I'm I'm going for parries constantly.

[00:51:34] I only really dodge if I have to. And, you know, for I agree with you will at the end with how long and cinematic some of the boss fights are. It can be really tedious to have to try and learn that, especially if you're constantly getting wiped and having to reload. That can be a bit much, uh, but especially in act one and two, it feels really, really good. Um, big, big fan. Parry or die.

[00:52:00] Also shout out to Rick for the, uh, Evo moment 37 reference. That was a good one right there. I like it. I like it. I had to look that up. I didn't know who Daigo Umehara was. That's on me. That's on me. Um, yeah, I think that this game is it. Once you understand the system, it's interesting. One thing that I would say to players and something that I would characterize this game as a whole is that if you move it down to story, this game is approachable for everyone. I think anybody can play this game and something that is interesting.

[00:52:29] You talk about the difference between parrying and dodging. I think as a player who prides myself in the ability to do parries and pull off parries in this game, I am like the both of you. I did not use dodge whatsoever. However, I did hear and did kind of like characterize this and think about this in my mind that when you are playing on higher difficulties, dodge is a really useful mechanism because what it does is it opens up the window that allows you to avoid damage. Um, it opens up the window.

[00:52:58] So, so if you are facing a new enemy as you frequently are in this game, if it is your first playthrough, uh, one of the things that you can do in order to stay in the fight in order to avoid taking damage is dodge. If you feel like you don't have that parry timing down perfectly and it serves as a setup. So maybe you could go a couple more rounds, seeing how the enemies animations plays out, how that timing and how that audio cues work with their actual attack mechanism and, and then eventually move on to parrying.

[00:53:28] I just think that I come from the school of hard knocks and I would rather just get killed, uh, the first time and learn how to do the parry as opposed to giving myself that buffer window. Cause I just, I can't cuff my cut myself any slack in that regard. Um, death before dishonor, death before dishonor, but that is not to say that this game's combat system, while it can be difficult, isn't approachable to people who do want to play on story mode. And that's something that I just want to make very clear to those who are on the fence thinking about, Oh, like people are making Sekiro comparisons.

[00:53:57] I'm terrible at these games. It's not, it's not that hard. It's, it's kind of, it leans towards that. And also it's worth mentioning no disrespect to the souls community, but the trick of all souls games is that the attacks take a little longer than you expect. That's the trick. Once you realize that, then it's like, Oh, okay, I can get the rhythm down way quicker. It's the same here. Like windups or the attacks are either going to be very obvious as to when they're going

[00:54:23] to hit you or the windup takes a little longer and you just got to be patient. But that's literally it. Um, there's, there's one where you fight, uh, these humanoid looking characters called gesturals, uh, in like a fight club style thing. And the end quote unquote boss, uh, fakes you out with like a fake punch. And then he waits and I laughed out loud. That was so good. Oh yeah. It got me so many times through the right arm out. And I was like, the second I fell for it, I just looked at my screen like, Oh no, are

[00:54:53] you talking about one of the merchants? Are you talking about the leader? There's a couple of different ones, but at the, uh, when you're in the like fight club and the back of the area. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Julian big head. Yeah. That's right. He hits you with the uppercut. The uppercut's so vicious too. Can we talk about some of the character like deaths, like your, your playable character death? Sure. Sometimes when the, the hits like link up to you actually dying, it looks very like UFC. Like I had too many times that Gustav gets like his head snapped back by an uppercut

[00:55:20] and I'm just like, Oh, that brings up a good point though. If you, uh, if you get faked out with a punch and you dodge or parry, you can keep doing it. Like if you miss it the first time and the windup takes long enough, you can still die. There's some fight like an act where like I was just matching, mashing dodge and it worked. I dodged like five times. And then on dodge six, it was like, yeah, dodge. Finally did it. Yeah. Yeah. No penalty. Especially some of those jumping like dodges. The jumping dodges gives you a lot more leeway because they take forever.

[00:55:48] I would say that later in the game, when you're fighting enemies like the lamplighter, um, if you miss a parry, you're kind of cooked in terms of making, making that window for him. It's sometimes it can work. So I've been, I have been pleasantly surprised at a couple of times. It's just that characters, whenever you do that parry animation, they have like a few frames where they have to reset their stance. And if you're not finished with that frame completely, you can't, you can't parry again.

[00:56:16] So it kind of like, it's a delicate timing process for sure. Um, still very fun. I think that we covered everything in terms of just like the overall combat mechanism. Obviously, um, something mentioned is that there's, there's a lot of elemental attacks in here that we didn't really touch on. I think that's really something if you're delving into more of the Lunay's mage style, but, um, there are different characters that are more or less susceptible to certain elemental attacks as well that you can stack on people. Um, and we did talk-

[00:56:45] It's nice that they're not really necessary though. Like, yeah, I think the big thing for me is fire is important because it does that damage over time and you can stack, at least from what I've seen, almost infinite number of fire stacks. So then you can have somebody with, you know, 300 stacks of fire that takes a big chunk of their life when they start back up. But things like ice to slow someone down. I mean, by the time that really gets important, all your characters have rush. So it doesn't really matter. Electricity. I don't even recall if that does anything outside of just additional damage.

[00:57:14] If something is weak to electricity. Yeah. So not a, not a whole lot that you need to do with some of your elements. If anything, the element system is for at least me from what I recall when I was playing was more of a hindrance because you get used to using one element really, really well until an enemy you fight absorbs that element, which means that instead of you doing damage to them, you're actually healing them. So you can get to the end of the game where you're doing, you know, thousands and thousands of hits of damage. Your first two characters almost have someone dead.

[00:57:42] Then your character comes in with a earth attack, hits the enemy, and then they're full health again. I'm like, oh, I appreciated that. I mean, I, I remember that was one of my bigger complaints on Final Fantasy 16's battle system is that elemental attacks were meaningless. They all did damage. None of them. It didn't matter, you know? Right. And I'm not the first to say that. I think I might've said that here. Yeah. I think you did. Yeah. I stand by. Will wasn't with us, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But still. Yep. No, for sure. That's something that does make this game unique.

[00:58:12] We talked about, we, we, we've kind of, we've brushed over and also kind of dug into the Lumina and Pikto system. Kind of just as a, as a recap and an overview. Pikto's are different. Pikto's are different buffs and skills that you can pick up in the overworld that affect your player characters build style overall. And there's something that you have to master. They're essentially skills that your character has to master in order for you to apply that Pikto in the form of Lumina to any other character.

[00:58:42] Um, one of the unique traits about the Pikto's is the fact that it will apply certain buffs like speed defense. Um, what have you, you know, more greater health on a character. Um, uh, in addition to actually giving them an additional ability that affects their play style and their build. Um, and again, uh, the Lumina, the Pikto is kind of that, that whole package and Lumina is just the skill.

[00:59:09] Uh, but it is important as you go throughout this game to make sure that you're checking every nook and cranny of the overworld in order to pick up those different, uh, Pikto's throughout the overworld and then master those in order to kind of create that larger loadout will you talked about, you know, the machine gun verso build, you talked about those late game builds. Um, and Rick, I think you've also glossed over a little bit of how you have some of your characters set up, especially for the second playthrough, um, for new players or listeners

[00:59:37] out there, is there any recommendations, um, that either of you would want to make in terms of how people should think about the Lumina and Pikto system when setting up their characters for starting out? Uh, for me, before getting into some more of the specifics, I did want to just say, as far as with the system, I also really appreciated the world building aspect ahead in there too. They even talk about the beginning of the game with Pikto's that they're already a part of the world. And that's something that people are acknowledging.

[01:00:03] Uh, but Gustav having that Lumina converter is kind of what differentiates your expedition team versus everybody else. You know, instead of someone having, let's just say three Pikto's like normal, and then that's what they kind of switch on and off and deal with. Your team can potentially have hundreds of Pikto's as long as they have enough Lumina to fill the slots for that. So that kind of gives an example of why your expedition is so strong in like OP compared to the ones of the past, right?

[01:00:30] It's not just a kind of boom, you're the main character. So you're really strong. It's like, oh, you have this cutting edge tech from Gustav that allows you to become, you know, almost a God by the end of the game. When it comes to what I'd recommend for new players, especially, uh, the big thing is one, whenever you get a new Pikto, just throw it on a character, win three fights, even if you have to go back and fight like three little BS enemies. Um, because having those, especially towards the end of the game, just already unlocked and

[01:00:58] ready to go is really, really important when it comes to building all of those super late game, whether it be a one hit kill build or a, I will never die. No matter how times you, how many times you hit me build things like that. Um, and then you can go out of your way. A lot of the times, if you just explored normally, you'll find these really good Pikto's by fighting some of the chromatic Nevrons. So they're like mini boss enemies. They're just the normal Nevrons that you'll find, but they have chromatic in front of their

[01:01:26] name, which means that they are a little bit hardier. They potentially have some different moves or variations of the current moves that they have. And then normally they'll look a little bit different, but still, once you get the chance to fight them, beat them, those are really special Pikto's you'll pick up things like a cheater, which allows you to go two times in a row, which especially towards the end of the game is just incredible. The fact that you could potentially hit an enemy six times between your three party members before they get to move once, um, really no beating that second chance where if you

[01:01:55] do get a chance to get hit or rather you do get hit, you mess up, you're able to stand back up immediately versus having to waste a turn or spend some AP on reviving somebody. Things like that can really just make the game, not even just easier, uh, but give you the opportunity to want to either learn some more moves or get in the last, you know, chunk of hit to an enemy. Once again, kind of doing the dark souls comparison, there's nothing cooler in this game than getting to like the very end of a enemy's health bar.

[01:02:25] Your team gets wiped out and then one of your teammates has second chance on. So they pop back up at the end and then they have a move in there that also lets them immediately have their turn upon reviving, which means then you get to do your big hit to take out the enemy kind of like at the jaws of defeat. Um, it always feels pretty sweet to end on that way. I just to tag it, um, and keeping it brief, I w I would echo what will said also keep in mind.

[01:02:52] I think that the builds aren't really a requirement to do most of the game. Like you can get away with a lot of the game without thinking about just adding stuff and not necessarily thinking about, well, how does this synergize with this? And how am I going to get Monoco to synergize with Verso to synergize? You can, but you don't really need to for the vast majority of the game, which is something that I think is important to say because of how overwhelming and cluttered the UI and how

[01:03:20] the Pictos and Lumina system works can be. It's a lot.

[01:04:34] I like to go ahead and jump into talking about the last piece of our spoiler free section of the show. And that is a focus on the visuals and the music of this game. So arguably, I think that the visual, both of these aspects, both the visualization and the score of Expedition 33 are the highlights. They're the thing that really sells this game, makes it a fantastical world that I feel like I can escape into.

[01:05:00] Um, and it, and it creates this suspended disbelief that I can just live and operate in this world. I think they both kind of work together seamlessly. Um, I don't know particularly how to describe the visual design. It's incredibly unique. I think it's, it is, it blends this idea of being a, um, modern, you know, photorealistic, uh, you know, action, you know, third person action game with this idea of just surrealist,

[01:05:29] um, painting styles and, you know, in, in, you know, from, from the broken 16th century era of, of painting. I think that one of the things about this game is so beautiful. It's like the use of color. Um, obviously I think you mentioned that earlier, Rick, and then obviously like I can close my eyes and picture the sky boxes, the fractured, um, pieces of this world floating in the air. Uh, this is very similar to, uh, other games that I've played recently, whether that is

[01:05:56] Final Fantasy seven rebirth or, uh, metaphor re Fantasio and in very different ways, very different. Each of them all having their own distinct art styles. But I think just like the fantastical nature of how split apart and disjointed this world that we're living in is, um, There's a little Tim Burton in there too. Yeah. I feel that. Yeah. I like that. I really liked that. I never really even thought about that before you just said it right now, but I immediately just pick up on that. I love that. I do.

[01:06:25] The moment, the Eiffel tower, the distorted Eiffel tower, how there's just, uh, landscape and rubble floating everywhere. And then for some reason, the gross tete or gross tet like, yeah, that just makes me think of Tim Burton. I don't know why. The very first Perry boss. I think it's cause it's, it's chaotic. It's chaotic evil and, uh, not, not fun to fight against, but no, that's, it's great.

[01:06:50] I, uh, I really, really liked that something that you mentioned, Rick, um, that you, uh, from what I sounds like, you didn't particularly care for the UI design of the Picto and Lumina system. I actually thought that the overall UI aesthetic in the design of like the menus in this game was pretty well done. It is overwhelming. It took some getting used to, but I really did enjoy it. It was very reminiscent of how Atlas does handle its menus. I don't know. Do you, do you agree with that? It's not that I don't like it.

[01:07:20] I think it's annoying that you have to go into one menu and press L three to get to the luminas. Um, otherwise I just think it's just a lot, like there's a lot of information. It's overwhelming. Um, and I, I don't see why you can't sort the Pictos by either like alphabetical order or the level. I, I don't get why you can't just do that. Yep. There's a couple that you can, um, I know there's like little, and I think it was X on X-Box.

[01:07:46] So it must've been maybe square on PlayStation, but yeah, you can sort it by like level, um, alphabetical. I think there's maybe one or two. You can sort it by active, whether or not it's active or not. Oh, okay. Yeah. And if you have a favorited, those are the luminas. I don't know if you can sort the Pictos in that same way, or if that sort mechanism carries over to each of the menus. Cause they are separate menus. As Rick said, it's a small thing. And the main thing is, is it's just a lot. You're getting them constant. Yeah.

[01:08:16] And it took me, and again, it, I will say as much as I did like it, it took me a long time to realize where the wardrobe button was in order to change the different outfits on, uh, varying characters, which is very fun. That's something that we didn't mention yet. You can pick up different outfits for, uh, the various characters in this game, which is, is really nice. Um, I did want to kind of touch on something. I think the environmental storytelling is a really big deal in this game.

[01:08:41] And it is something that I feel like they deploy, um, excellently in a lot of different parts. And it also lends to similar to Rick's dark souls comparison. I'm playing through Elden ring right now. Uh, and you learn a lot about like what happened in that world based on what you see throughout the landscape. And I think that's something that is very similar and something that, uh, Sandfall clearly

[01:09:06] adopted in expedition 33 top of mind comes from like the forgotten battlefield or even Minoko station. Uh, and these are in enhanced not only by what you say to other NPCs that are in the overworld, but by the journal entries that you pick up. Um, and you can even, it goes from like the twisting spires to the bodies littering the ground to giant massive swords. The sword is coming out of the ground is pure, you know, souls born like at its core. Right. Um, but I thought that was very beautiful.

[01:09:36] I didn't know if either of you really, um, felt any sort of sort of way about that. Well, yeah, they did a really good job as far as making sure that when you're walking into these different areas, like forgotten battlefield, I think it's huge too. We are just like the bigger weapons kind of littered gives me, uh, the kingdom hearts, you know, key blade war vibes, where it's just weapons sticking out of the ground. And I'm just like, Oh, this is kind of hype. Uh, so no, it's, it's, it's a good amount of storytelling. Love the, the showing not telling. And of course you can go read if you want to get that telling, but I think you can get

[01:10:06] through a lot of the areas of the game and see where the fracture happened. You know, they talk about the fracture, they bring it up. If you don't do any of your own research, you can kind of still see, all right, this is clearly where this part of the world split off from this section. And especially as you're flying around with, um, SGA later on, and you can kind of see from that top down view, just how everything is kind of distorted and shifted and broken up. Um, just being able to see what sandfall did with the overall environment aside from

[01:10:32] just throwing, you know, skeletons slash, uh, the, the dead expedition folks. I always found that horrific though. Whenever you walk into a new area and it's like, Oh, here's hundreds of expeditioners just, uh, dead on the ground here. And now I have to fight this guy, Duelist, which is a Duelist day, Duelist. I call him the Duelist. Yeah. Yeah. One of my favorite, uh, bosses to fight in the game with just an impeccable soundtrack. Um, so no, it was always a blast just kind of seeing what new little crazy areas they would throw at us.

[01:11:01] And having all of those dead expedition members around too really strengthens the through line of loss throughout the whole thing. Yeah. That's at the center of everything you're doing. You're finding your dead comrades. You're picking up their dead journals. You're taking their pictos and luminas that they had. The loss is at the center of it all. Yeah. It lends gravity to it as well. Even if, even if the game decides to give you a journal entry where it's like kind of funny how they died.

[01:11:26] It's the fact that they died in the extent of trying to further, you know, as a Gustav's tag tagline is for those who come after, right? Uh, all of these characters are trying to pave the way, um, in order to help the people of Lumiere eventually overcome, uh, this great blight that's on the world that they're experiencing. Uh, I will say that something that obviously bleeds through, of course, is the idea that this

[01:11:52] world that you're in, um, there is a lot of comparisons it to be, it being a canvas to it being a painting from the abilities that you have to the skills that you pick up, uh, of course, even to the small tiny details of the gesturals being paint brushes and each gestural being an individual different type of paint brush that you use in a painting overall. It's, it's actually quite beautiful and brilliant the way that they tie that theme of this being a painting all together. It's, it's, it's nice. I did enjoy that.

[01:12:22] Yeah. Cause I wasn't too, well, not wasn't, but I'm not that big of an artist and I have like, you know, the figures. I don't know if people have that are listening, they may have some in their home or at least been aware of some, like the gestural figures where you can actually move the little wooden things around to get a pose that you want to draw or sketch, what have you. So I'm sure if you were already of that minded, you would see a gestural and say, oh, look, that kind of makes sense. Uh, versus me who had to find it later on, on like a subreddit where people were saying, yeah, these are just different gesturals and different heights and sizes for poses.

[01:12:51] And then as you mentioned with the paintbrush heads, like they all have different little paintbrush heads. Um, so it, it really just, as you play the game and you get closer and closer to the end and you're getting those kinds of twists and turns. Uh, it's the thing that when Rick's saying that he's doing the new game plus, I feel like the game almost begs you to do like an immediate playthrough afterwards while it's still fairly fresh so that you can kind of see with, you know, your third eye open now. I'm like, oh, that's what was happening. Oh, that's what they're talking about. That's what they're doing.

[01:13:19] Uh, just makes things a lot more fun for you to go in after the fact, kind of with that knowing, um, eye. Yeah. The replayability of this game is, is insane. Something that I am really excited to talk to you both about is the score is the sound design, the music, um, of this game overall. I personally think that Lorient to star the composer for expedition 33 put together what is arguably one of my favorite OSTs of all time. Full stop.

[01:13:48] I love the way that this game sounds from the music to the open world, you know, EDM styled like, you know, I, I think that every environment in every biome that you are in as you're playing throughout this game has a musical and accompaniment that matches the theme just so distinctly. And obviously the more iconic songs that you are experiencing, whether it's that super, um,

[01:14:15] emotional or impactful moments of this game, or if it's during a boss fight, like, I think they knocked it out of the park. And I listened to a composer review the OST of listening to like three or four of like the, uh, foundational, like tracks that make this game stand out. And something that they said is that this composition in like the actual, the helmet, the versatile, the versatile nature of how the soundtrack was put together strikes him

[01:14:44] as the fact that either sandfall had an insanely large budget, or this is the product of a work where so many different artists came together as one. And they said, Hey, here's this idea. Let's accomplish this because not all the time. Do you get the ability to have both of those happen hand in hand? Something that I compare this game to whether it's the music or just everything in general is one punch man.

[01:15:10] The director of one punch man, um, has a very steep, you know, he, he has an extensive backlog. He is responsible for full metal alchemist brotherhood. And when he went to one punch man, he realized that they didn't necessarily have the budget to pull off the vision of what Yusuke Murata converted one's manga into, but he had the connections throughout the industry of like all of the anime greats of the time in order to create

[01:15:37] that first season one punch man, which is like hallmark or like one of the all time greats. If anybody does watch anime out there and that's kind of like what I liken this to, it seems that Lorien to start it out is either so well known in the French classical music community that he was able to pull on every single thread to put this together. Um, or they just had an insane budget. I don't know. What do you think, Rick? Am I onto something here?

[01:16:02] I don't know that I'm the best person to ask, but also, um, I'm pretty sure I saw something somewhere online that like Lorien's friend just played the saxophone part for Minoco's theme and you know, then he wrote the piece around that. Um, so I'm not, I'm not really sure about the logistics of it. Uh, there's an interview with Lorien and one of the directors, I think on YouTube. Um, I didn't listen to it all yet.

[01:16:30] Uh, it's one of those things where like the microphone quality is like good, but not great. And their English, uh, has a heavy accent naturally. So it was like, you know, I can't just listen to this on my cell phone. It doesn't like, it's not pleasant to do. Um, sure. I really like, I mean, I like the soundtrack a lot. I, I do think overall the non like orchestral stuff, like thinking of the lo-fi stuff in the hanging waters or, or Minoco's theme.

[01:16:59] I think those are generally stronger than the classical things. Not to say that the classical stuff is bad. Really? It's not. Um, I just think that it's, it's stronger. I, I think it's really varied. Um, in that interview, he mentions like, he wasn't thinking about like, you know, versus character or like how this relates to this. He was like, I just wrote it track by track, you know? Um, interesting. Which shed some baggage in some ways. Uh, no, I, I think it's really strong. I think it's a really, really good, varied soundtrack. It's got a lot of character in it.

[01:17:28] Um, that's, that's not to say that I, I don't want to come off as like not liking the classical quote unquote stuff, the string orchestral stuff. It is good. And there's, there's some choices that the performers make like, uh, in the ending scenes. I think it might be a viola playing, maybe a cello. I'm not a hundred percent sure. Um, but the way that they're using the bow, uh, closer to the bridge and without a ton of

[01:17:53] pressure to get a sort of scratching sound effect, uh, I think elevates what the character of the music is saying. Um, it's very good, you know, and, and what it's gotten me thinking about too, um, as somebody that is classically trained is how phenomenally unaware I think we are of how many talented people there are that exist in the world.

[01:18:18] Um, I, I think the gatekeeping of knowledge is a separate conversation, but, um, it's astounding that, you know, they just found this guy from SoundCloud. He posted in an indie music discord server and that's how they found him. You know, um, it's, it's amazing how talented people are and how phenomenally, uh, and, and

[01:18:42] how important it is to have those chances to show that, uh, it's, it's great. I'm rooting for him. I hope this wins so many awards for sound design and not just music too, like voice acting, uh, and just the battle sounds and everything. I hope this wins so many awards. It deserves it. I'm excited for the, the clear, obscure sweep. I can't wait for all the memes that it's going to be a really good gaming year for sure.

[01:19:08] But just going right off that Rick, I agree with you a hundred percent with Laurie and especially to getting the people those chances. The fact that he was found on SoundCloud, just posting out, he's no, he's doing work, put his nose to the grindstone, posted in the indie game forum. Uh, and then the team was like, Hey, let's bring him on in. Ended up doing 154 tracks over five years for the game is just incredible. Uh, so shout out to all you SoundCloud rappers out there. Look, you have your chance. Just keep on working and it might work out for you.

[01:19:37] Don't say that to them. I don't think, I don't think they deserve that. Not, not the rappers. They're fine. But I, uh, yeah, man, just things like the Monoco. Like I always go back to that Monoco theme just because it's so like the second it hits you, the wow, wow, wow. Oh man. Like it, it just grabbed me from like the start and like other people online that I saw. It's that big band. The first time you get into them. It's the big band brass. You love the big band. It's a little arrangement that I like, just don't expect after listening to like Elise

[01:20:05] Duport-Porsier, like sing her, like just hauntingly beautiful harmonic melodies. And then all of a sudden you're with Monoco and you're like, all right, am I about to dance right now? What are we doing? I'm hoping Charlie from the eighth big band gets his hands on some of these tracks. Oh, that'd be incredible. Yes, sir. Oh man. But no, yeah, just the musical whiplash in a good way. I think it's really good. Just giving all those different kinds of distinct vocals and the different styles that flow throughout this game. The music, I mean, I could talk about the music all up and down, but it's just incredible.

[01:20:35] And once again, just like Rick was saying, hopefully he gets a whole handful of awards. I want to see my man walking around with a bunch of Grammys. That'd be incredible to see, right? Yeah. Talking about voices too there at the end, Rick, I know we don't think we have quite have the voices here on the doc, but I definitely wanted to make sure that we get a special shout out to a lot of our voice actors here. I'm going to name off a few, obviously, but not everyone just because I don't have the time or the list here for them.

[01:21:04] But folks like Jennifer English, Charlie Cox doing a great job as Gustav. Like I love seeing that for the first time because I'm a huge Daredevil fan. So being able to see him not just kind of get typecast with something, but do some really good work as well. Of course, Jennifer English going on her generational run of voices, you know, doing the Baldur's Gate, was she a Shadowheart, right? From Baldur's Gate? Yes. Jennifer English. So just listen, I think she is well on her way to becoming another icon, if not already

[01:21:32] of voice actors out here in the gaming industry. So incredible job from her. Kirstie Ryder with Lunay and then Shala Nix with CL. Once again, just characters that you love so much, not just from their writing, but how they're portrayed and how the voice actors are really giving depth to the writing that's already there, especially with CL. Not getting in, I guess, too many spoilers just in case people want to go experience it.

[01:21:57] And please, please go experience these relationships for yourselves as you get to talk to people in camp. I recommend stopping every hour and a half or so, going making a camp and then getting the chance to chat to somebody if possible. CL just has one of the most beautiful, heartbreaking, just like, I don't know, not quite even tear jerking because it's like her maturity and her understanding of her situation and how she's

[01:22:23] going about life and trying to forge her own path past her adversities that she's had over the course of her time in Lumiere is incredible to me. I think she's probably my top two, top three strongest characters in the game, which is saying a lot because this is a game just full of fantastic characters. Andy Serkis doing a great job. So he's got a future in Hollywood or gaming. You know what I mean? He's, he's got something ahead of him. Look, if your game doesn't have Andy Serkis in it, come on, we don't want to talk about it. Go ahead and throw the boy in everything.

[01:22:53] He needs to be in a little something. No, we gotta, we gotta save him. We gotta save him for some things. See it. And then of course, you know, the, the King here, the Mr. Like the, what's the, the Nolan North step up, uh, the Troy Baker step up. I think he's next on the list here. Mr. Ben Starr. He's going to pop up in everything. So I don't know. It's one of those things. I can't quite place his voice exactly. I kind of know when he's there. Um, but it's one of those things where I feel like he brings across the gravitas to a character,

[01:23:21] not just his voice to where I'm like, Oh, is that, that little Ben Starr action going on here? Getting a little spicy up in here. So he did a great job. And then finally, uh, my, you know, one of my favorite characters here, Minoko with Rich Keeble. I'm not too familiar with Rich and Mr. Keeble's other work. He's done a lot of anime work. So yeah, he's, he's, he's well known in the industry. So no, when you have, yeah, Minoko's voice outside of his theme, obviously, when you have him like talking to your characters and just the, the slapstick nature of what he speaks,

[01:23:50] but it's very matter of fact how he does it. Um, and it's, it's, it's incredible. I think the entire VA cast just really knocked it out the park when it comes to the material that they had. It's very rare. And of course, fantastic when you have the writing and the voice actors just really on the same page when it comes to these characters and making them pop off of, you know, the screen pop off of the page. Um, so I just want to definitely make sure that everybody gets their flowers in that regard. Yeah, definitely.

[01:24:18] I think that, uh, I, it just speaks to, um, how well the directors and the writers did with getting these incredible actors in the room together. Um, this is a lot of games in, in many different situations are, and it does depend on a case by case basis and who the, each of the actors are, but there are plenty of games out there where people have to record remotely in different booths. That's something that we saw as a result of COVID for a long time.

[01:24:46] Um, this is very clearly a game where they had the budget and they had the narrative designer and the vocal director, uh, be able to bring everyone and be in the room together and actually act out those scenes. I was recently listening to an interview that Elle Fanning did of someone who like, didn't really understand games. And she was talking about her work with Kojima, um, and how acting intensive, uh, doing a lot of these modern titles actually is for people who are screen actors.

[01:25:15] And I think it's something that is why it translates. Like I personally didn't expect Charlie Cox to be as competent in the, you know, vocal booth as he actually is in this game, even though I do think he's a great actor and of himself. I just wasn't sure if that was going to carry through as Gustav. And it absolutely did. Um, it's very, very clear to see how well he did in those situations. And, um, yeah, I, I can only say everything echo what Will had in terms of the sentiments of how much I love this cast and the crew and how much it sold the game for me.

[01:25:47] Okay. So that is going to be the end of our spoiler free conversation on expedition 33. We're going to go ahead and cap it off there. Um, we're going to go ahead and take a quick music break. And when we come back, we're going to be discussing the spoiler inclusive discussion of themes in the plot points of expedition 33. So if you haven't finished expedition 33 yet, and you've made it this far with us, thank you for listening.

[01:26:12] This is the Friday night game cast, and we hope to see you back here again soon for everyone else who has finished the game and understands all the story points and want to hear us gloss over what happened here, uh, welcome. And we're going to see you on the other side.

[01:27:02] We'll see you on the other side. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[01:27:33] Welcome back everybody to the spoiler section of the Friday night game cast expedition 33 review. Uh, I wanted to start this conversation off. this is going to be more of a freeform conversation. I think that I just want to bounce ideas off of these two distinguished gentlemen that have joined me for this podcast today and talk about some of

[01:28:00] the themes that are presented in this game. I think that this is the expectation and understanding that everyone who has made it to this point in the podcast has finished the show. So welcome. I wanted to talk about just off the top, you know, the core idea of light and darkness that is presented in Expedition 33. It's in the name, Clair Obscure, as it translates to

[01:28:23] French and Chiara Scuro, which is the use of the contrast between light and shadow to create a sense of volume, depth, and three-dimensionality in two-dimensional art. Rick, so we got the chance to talk about pentiment on your show. And one of the ideas of pentiment or, you know, or one of the themes of pentiment is what lies beneath, right? Pentiment is the name from pentimento. It's about

[01:28:49] the picture that is underneath the picture that was painted in classical 15th century Renaissance portraiture. And I think that this is something that kind of is borrowed or it is kind of carries over into the idea of what Expedition 33 is as a game and the contrast of the Delessandra family and the light and the darkness that is within each of those characters. And how brilliantly that kind of like

[01:29:15] plays out in and of itself. I don't think that it's like, I think one of the things about Clair Obscure is that like these, this contrast between light and dark isn't a core theme of what the writers and the directors were trying to drive home in this game, but it's something that really does enhance and it brings to life each of the characters in this game and understanding the ambiguous and three-dimensional

[01:29:40] aspect of each of the cast members and each of the, of the members of the Delessandra family specifically. Hmm. I don't know that I'm convinced that that oppositional forces is not at the core of this game. Um, especially now that we're in the spoiler section, of course, especially looking at the ending. Um, this, this entire game, I think has oppositional forces, the oppositional forces of

[01:30:07] life at its core, you know, life and death loss and acceptance and Verso and miles entire arcs are representative of two ways to opposing ways of how human beings can handle grief and loss. Uh, and, and I think it's quite clear that that is a core idea that they're playing with and exploring,

[01:30:31] not to say that there is a right and wrong. I think that is a really reductive way of thinking about it. Um, which drives me mad looking at, uh, Reddit and Facebook comments and stuff like that. Um, it's not, it's not right or wrong. Um, I think if anything, the preferences to what choice you choose in the end says more about you as the interpreter than it does about anything else, um, you know,

[01:30:56] if, if we're assuming that interpretation is a co-creation with the author, which is something that I believe, then, you know, I think that holds true. But no, I, I think the idea of opposing forces of life, um, love and loss, what it means to be alive versus what it means to accept death. I think that is at the core of this. Hmm. I agree with that. I, I kind of, I see it as an interpretation of how our

[01:31:24] grief plays out. I think that grief and how grief manifests itself in each of the individual characters throughout this game creates this push and pull, um, in each of them. And I think that it's represented in, in a lot of different ways. And I think that it's something that I have later on down here in, in the idea of the oppositional forces, kind of, as you, as you said, Rick, I, something

[01:31:50] that I was thinking about in relation to the characters of the story and the choices that they make. Um, as I started wondering, is it, is it important that we understand the grief that each of our loved ones experience, or is it more important that we respect how they experienced the grief? And are those two ideas mutually exclusive? And as an example to that, I think Renoir is, who

[01:32:19] obviously is a very tragic, tragic antagonist of this game. He's painted as an antagonist. He's not really the antagonist of the game. Obviously, once we come to understand his purpose in the world and trying to get a lean out of the canvas, but the idea of like what he is doing is that he wants to, he, he wants to, he doesn't want to give his family space to experience grief

[01:32:43] on their own terms. He wants to move that process forward and at a, at a, at a rate that neither Mayel or Aline are ready for. And I'm curious as to like what this says about how, how he understands the grief that each of them experience. And again, you know, applying a moral justification on whether or not it's right or wrong, he did what he did. But is this something that

[01:33:11] they're asking us to understand? It's like, it's particularly with Mayel's ending. Um, this does not give her any resolution. It doesn't give her, I mean, she might think it is, or maybe she's fooling herself into believing it's giving her a sense of resolution or solace, but it's not. And it's at the sake of everyone else in the world, including her family in Verso or the painted version of Verso that is. That's a lot. I'm curious what you think about that. Yeah. It's, it's one of those things where

[01:33:39] because it's so subjective, it's, it's hard to say exactly what the game is trying to get to you, which I think is important. It's nice that it's, it's not quite saying everything's gray. So it's up to you, but it's more, as we initially said, the kind of top of this, you know, says more about you as far as what you choose and what you pick and what you go to believe in, which is, I think all great pieces of art, not just games, but all great pieces of art give you that room for subjectivity

[01:34:04] to breathe. Especially when it comes to something like you're looking at the three act structure, the classic three act structure. And each time there is that kind of clear obscure that, that separation of once again, light and dark, not good and evil, but just opposing viewpoints of like you have Gustav and maybe the paintress, or you can even say fate at act one, as far as what's happening. With an act two, you find out that it's more of that opposition between Renoir and Aline and the

[01:34:29] paintress. And then you get that final opposition of Mayel and Verso and kind of what you decide to choose there at the end. Talking specifically about Renoir and his family or the Desondres family and, you know, kind of what they want to choose. I feel like in looking from his eyes, because you kind of have to, it's hard to do it objectively, not being a part of the family, but looking from Renoir's eyes, it's like, I've gave them enough time. And then now it's physically causing them

[01:34:59] pain, not just emotionally, but now it's physically causing them pain. And I can't lose another family member. So you see why he's doing what he's doing, as you mentioned, not quite an antagonist, but definitely the foil or what he's the antagonist to our protagonist as Mayel, but he's not a bad guy, quote unquote, he's just doing what he believes is right. So it's, it's another one of those things that makes the story so strong for me is just because everyone has their own viewpoints.

[01:35:24] No one's quite wrong. But I do think when you look at the ending side by side, one kind of gives you, as you said, more of a resolution, or at least the beginning of a resolution versus the other. I think that's a prescriptive way of looking at it. I mean, I'm thinking that when I'm hearing you both talk, although I don't disagree. I want to pull a Jordan Peterson and be like, well, what do you mean by

[01:35:48] respect a little bit? Because like, I, one, I think saying that one ending versus ending delivers more resolution presupposes the idea that there is a proper way to grieve. Unfortunately, I've been reading a lot about grief lately and loss kind of obsessively. And the one thing that I've learned is that there is no one way to grieve. It's just, it's too dependent on who

[01:36:16] the person is. The Kubler-Ross model of grief that we all know, the five stages of grief, was controversial whenever it first came out. And it's largely looked at as not clinically accepted. It's colloquially fine, you know, to talk about with people as a shorthand for understanding. But I think the people that are really, which is not you two, the people that are really adamant that Verso's ending is the right one presuppose that that model is true and is applicable across

[01:36:44] all stages. They're saying, well, Mael or Alicia, or however we're referring to her, is stuck in denial. You know, she's not accepting what's happened. Verso is accepting it. He wants to move on. Renoir wants to accept it. When in reality, I think it's a little more nuanced than that. And precisely is why this game is so successful at what it tries to do. Let's take a look at Mael or Alicia's situation. She lost her brother mourning. She lost her family. Her parents mourning Verso

[01:37:12] are taking attention away from her. Her sister, Clea, is extraordinarily curt and rude to her as a way of showing that she resents Mael because it's implied that Mael might have had a hand in the fire and may have helped caused it in the first place. Mael herself, or Alicia, whatever, lost her voice and is now disfigured, disabled. She's scarred. She lost who she was. Mael, in some ways,

[01:37:40] has lost so much and is grieving in so many ways for so many things, her brother, her family, herself, that I think it's entirely understandable that the mind buckles and crumbles under that pressure in such a way that it's disfigured to the point, which is perhaps the wrong word to say. I don't

[01:38:03] mean to be dismissive or crude about the disfigurement that Mael suffers. The mind sort of becomes altered in a way into a state to which it can never return to its normalcy. And because of that, I think it's understandable that Mael is thinking in such a way that like, I just want to live a life in which I'm not a shell of myself. I think that's what she says in her ending. I just don't want to be a shell.

[01:38:32] In here, I can be a person. You know, I can, I'm not a shell of somebody where my life is irreplaceably ruined. I can understand it. I'm not, I don't think it's right. And I don't think Versa's ending is right either. I think it shows two ways in which people can go through the grieving process. Now, of course, I think there is a specific use of symbolism with how the paint is peeling on Mael's face and in her ending that maybe shows the creator's thoughts behind this, that when Mael is staying

[01:39:01] and sort of shielding herself from herself in here to keep herself alive metaphorically, metaphysically in here by staying within the painting, she begins to peel, which will eventually claim her. It's so the lore is set up. It will eventually take her life. Perhaps that's the creator saying, maybe this isn't the right way to grieve. Maybe we should think about it more in terms of moving towards acceptance. But I do think considering all of that, I apologize for

[01:39:28] going off so long and really I did not explain any of that as well as I had hoped. I think that it, the writing demonstrates a more nuanced and mature picture of grief more, that is more than Mael is in denial or Verso's ending gives the right resolution. Verso's ending certainly makes us feel

[01:39:54] good as the audience, but is that the point? Well, that's the thing is that I think that's funny you say that. Verso's ending hurt almost more than Mael's ending. That being said, Mael's ending being horrific. And something that struck me about Mael's ending is how unkind it is and how deeply upsetting it is that she would choose to do this to a representation of her brother,

[01:40:21] the person whose loss she is mourning, who she does feel guilt and responsibility towards. I think that obviously, and you see that pain on Verso's face, you hear the pain in his voice when he's begging for her to finally let him end his life after a hundred years of reliving these issues. Excellent performance by Ben Starr, by the way. Yeah. Yeah. This does, I hate to be that guy, but it presupposes what it means to be conscious.

[01:40:48] Are these paintings, these artificial lives, do we consider them conscious? Do they have, yeah, that's a really big question. Do they have qualia, phenomenal consciousness as psychology deems it? Do they have that? We can't say, and I'm not, I'm not saying that I don't agree with it. I'm just saying it's a discussion point that should be highlighted. Well, and it's, it's something too, that again, the loss that we feel as the audience member

[01:41:13] through as a proxy for Myel slash Alicia is seeing the loss of Lunay, CL, Monoco, and Esquie at the very end. Obviously they have this like, you know, the scene where she sees them standing, you know, at the edge of the gates of their lawn as she's, you know, basically mourning over, over Verso's grave. Yeah, that looks, that looks good. Uh, I, and I think that something that

[01:41:43] really kind of makes me think about like something, and I, and I have it in my notes here is the idea of each of these characters and they, they have, the D'Alessandro family has been likened to the Greek pantheon, right? Gods of creation that care nothing of how their actions impact the beings and the things that they've created. And I think it kind of, if we're going to take a more

[01:42:08] meta analytical approach to it, it kind of brings to mind the idea, like the, the position in the place of the artist and the audience in the art that they create. Do artists buy, for example, the D'Alessandro family have a responsibility to maintain the integrity and maintain, I hate to

[01:42:29] say value, but maintain just the authenticity of the art that they've created. Because, and the reason why I asked that is you see each of these characters, each of these family members enter into this world of art that Verso created through the canvas and change it in a way that is irrevocable. I mean, literally in the world, they call it the fracture because it's not just a fracture in

[01:42:57] the world. It's a fracture of this family, not just because of the loss that they've experienced and the grief that they're experiencing over the loss of Verso, but because of the fracturing that they have amongst themselves and how that impacts the world that they're in. Yeah. I think about, I think about how when, when a, when a creator, when a writer, when an artist of any sorts create

[01:43:25] something and how that can be interpreted by the audience, what is their responsibility after that art has been created to upholding the authenticity of that art and what that means to people. And I think, and it makes me think about like, what is our, what is our responsibility as the audience, the consumers of this piece of art actually mean? Yeah. And that's what the always fall back of like artists objective. I mean, obviously it's depends on who you're asking, who you're telling, if the artist really cares that

[01:43:55] much or not. Very many artists I would imagine are fairly comfortable throwing their art out there and then having the audience make their own assumptions. At least I feel like this game at the very least does that as well. Does it give you a couple of little pokes and prods along the way? Sure. But the, the big part of why it's so good to me is because at the end of the day, it's so hard when you're playing a game and it says you get to make a choice because we all feel like in the back of our minds, there's a Canon ending. And if I'm not making the Canon ending,

[01:44:22] then what I did kind of doesn't matter. But this game does not feel that way. It's very much like the artist Sandfall. They're saying, we put this out into the world. You get to now make a decision. And that decision is your Canon. You have shaped this world yourself very much like a painter or, you know, the paintress, um, the DeSondre family in general. And now you get to be the one. Yeah. You're kind of going down a path that they made, but you made your mark. You left your mark on

[01:44:49] this canvas, whether it be to destroy it or to continue it to whatever end it may be. Um, and I feel like that's why so many people, I imagine ourselves here included walk away from it with, you know, that sadness, that pain, depending on the anger, um, on which ending you chose, because like you yourself had a hand in this, you know, you very much made that decision to go down that way, um, to see how their story kind of wraps up for the family and what becomes of them.

[01:45:20] Precisely so it's, uh, it's an aided, uh, co-creation there. They're Sandfall is allowing us as the audience to co-create the story with them. And I agree. Neither ending is canon or they both are either, either, or it's either neither. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Something that I think is really interesting when we talk about, uh, of course, and it's interesting that you kind of, you bring this up in, in thinking about and interpreting others, people's interpretations

[01:45:49] of how this ends. Um, I, I really, I mean, of course, enjoy the way that they've told this story and the way that they give the player so much agency as they go throughout the story. Something that kind of really stuck out to me that I thought I'd like to just kind of mull over with the both of you is the idea of Aline being painted as this more tragic figure, uh, versus Renoir. It's like that duality. Again, we go back to the chiaroscuro of both of these characters where Aline, by the time

[01:46:17] you make it through everything that the party goes through in acts one and two, or, you know, towards the end of act two, you finally make it to the paintress and it is just this tragic fight similar to, you know, fighting the nameless king at the end of, um, you know, dark souls one, right? Like this is, this is a scene where you're fighting a woman who is a shell of her former self. She's almost

[01:46:44] hollowed out by her grief and her grief is impacted. And of course she chooses this act at the end of the boss fight that you have with a paintress to heal your party members and to, to give them some type of kindness to show them some kind of warmth, which is something that took me back. I have never seen that be done in a video game up until this point. Um, or if I have, I just don't remember it being as

[01:47:09] significant or being as purposeful as this. And I thought it was really interesting when we kind of pan back and we look at the events in real time of what actually happened, Aline painted the verso that comes to join our party. That is not the true verso, the true verso. The last piece of his soul is the little boy that it's painting at the very end. And it is the, the being that verso tries to

[01:47:35] kill at the end of it to, in order to stop everything that's happening to end what's happening in this canvas. Uh, Aline created that version of verso who is, and she took away his ability to die. Aline created the version of Alicia who is, is this alternate, this, this blank, uh, this monochromatic version of Alicia who's disfigured and scarred, but has the consciousness and memories of Alicia in the

[01:48:02] real world or my L in this case. And she has to live in this world where she has no voice. She has no agency, but she wants to escape clearly. And then she makes Alicia suffer because of the guilt or because of the hatred that Aline has for blaming her for verso's death. It's like, my point is that I'm driving it is that there are all of these things where it's like, we see what we see depicted

[01:48:29] by the point we come across Aline in the game is a very different representation of like the actions that she made up until this point. And of course, in the world that we're living in, this happens over so much time, but I don't really see Aline anymore as this actual tragic figure that, uh, the developers kind of lead us to believe she is. Well, of course it's that idea of perspective, right? That's

[01:48:53] something that, you know, a lot of other media and games and literature plays with. Um, and, and I think it's important to keep that in mind too, in the present day that oftentimes, I want to be careful of how I word this, uh, so as to not be taken out of context, but I think a lot of the times it is enticing and beguiling to make black and white monochromatic decisions when we do not have the

[01:49:23] perspective on a whole situation. I'm not, I'm not going to bother arguing against the what abouts that would, would come about in like the Twitter replies. We were all adults. We know what I mean and what I don't. Um, but you know, you could say the same thing about mile. I mean, miles ending, once we get the perspective, it's not such a horrible, selfish thing, or maybe it is depending, but, but I mean, you need that perspective to have that. I also, I just want to say, Nick,

[01:49:53] you've taken wonderful notes here. Um, I think a lot about this quote that's attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson that says, I don't remember the story, the books I've read in, um, shoot, what is it? I don't remember the books I've read any more than the meals that I've had, but in the same way they've made me. And I think about that because like, I, it's been a month since I played this game and I'm thinking like, I don't remember a lot of the intricacies of the, of the lore and the stories.

[01:50:21] Like I remember the big swaths and the big ideas and how it made me feel. Uh, but like, but a lot of this lore stuff, you're saying stuff and I'm like, oh yeah, that, that is how that went. Oh yeah, that is how that went. Uh, so I apologize if I can't respond to every point. Not at all. You know, that's why I really love the fact that this isn't just like a beat by beat of the story, but it's more of the, the themes, you know, the ideas, the motifs that the story pulls.

[01:50:48] Cause that's the most important thing. The story, in my opinion is very well written and it's great, but it's more so than just pretty words or more so than just twists and turns. It's more of, okay, you set down the game, you set your controller down. What's rattling around in your head at one in the morning when you're like, I can't sleep because I'm still thinking about X, Y, and Z. And that's what really pulls this game together for me. Um, just a big question, kind of stepping a little bit back since we kind of started like a little bit towards the end there, especially was,

[01:51:17] um, maybe as, as an example of this whole artist and what responsibility they may have and how you're kind of feeling, how did you both feel in that act two twist when you found out from the story that this is a painted world that, you know, it's quote unquote, not real, that it was made by someone else who's very much in the real world or was before he passed away in the fire to jump in. Yeah. I,

[01:51:42] I think that kind of the way that I think about those types of reveals, I typically don't like them in games media in general, um, unless it is earned. And I think that similar to, um, Christopher Nolan's inception, the world of expedition 33, the canvas that we're in, if you pay close enough attention

[01:52:07] earns this idea of you are not actually in reality. And I think that if you, for people who are experienced in consuming this kind of media, they would be able to pick up on this idea of things aren't as they say they are. And one of the things that I think that they pulled off brilliantly is that they answered questions with more questions as you proceed through the first two acts of this game. And it isn't until the very end where they finally have the ability

[01:52:33] to make all of the pieces fit, not understanding the significance of the, uh, monochromatic painted version of Alicia versus my L being in the same world at the same time and seeing the duality of each of the different D'Alessandra family as they're, you know, experiencing the grief that they're experiencing is really, really important. But I think that like the idea of that this not being

[01:52:58] the real world is fine to me because it doesn't are, it already doesn't feel like the real world. And furthermore, I think one of the reasons why I love the idea of there is a world beyond this one is the fact that it's, this is setting up, you know, clearly, you know, a sequelizing like, yeah, or, or exceed essentially expanding the idea of what it would mean for an expedition sequel or a Claire Obscursky sequel to take place. Whether it is a spinoff and something that, uh,

[01:53:26] Will and I have discussed off the air is a Clea spinoff. If we were to go see in the next game, what does her war with the writers actually look like? And what does that mean to the overall like game? What if we were to go out because for everything that we know, this is Verso's one and only painting that he ever painted because he was more, uh, he was more interested in making music. He wanted to be a piano player. And that's something that we see kind of displayed very

[01:53:51] brilliantly at the end of this game. But, uh, what if we were to go into one of, uh, Alicia's earlier paintings and kind of do that? I think, Will, you had mentioned something about going into, uh, one of, uh, uh, Aline or, uh, Renoir's earlier paintings when Aline had to come save him and have him realize, Hey, we cannot escape the reality of the world that we live in because painting comes at a cost and it, the cost is, is drastic.

[01:54:20] Yeah. Cause we're going to know if, if, did it kind of shift your mode, kind of like how Nick was saying there where he felt like things were already kind of off. So it made sense when it wasn't revealed to be real and it didn't hurt as much, I guess, or it didn't, I'm not to put too many words in your mouth, Nick, but it kind of made it feel like, all right, this world is fake and I'm okay with that. Um, I don't know if that was something that I asked or I picked up from it just because I was already so invested in the characters by then and felt so real to me that when it was like, Oh,

[01:54:46] this world is, you know, quote unquote fake, it's not real. It's almost like a, it's like, it doesn't matter. I'm like, it's, it's, it's real to me. Like it's kind of that classic line from Yelena in like the MCU. I'm like, well, it's real to me. It's real to somebody. So it's one of those, like now we have this whole setup for the very ending where it's like, all right, are you going to wipe the canvas full of real people or are you going to try to bring those people back after

[01:55:12] they've been unfairly gommaged for the last however many years? Yeah. Metaphor ReFontasio asked if fantasy can be as powerful as reality and Claire Obscure had to come along and answer it for them. It's actually, yes. The answer to that question is yes. I, I do get suspicious, uh, towards story and insulted at worst towards stories that pull the, it was all a dream trick. Um, I think it's, I, I think

[01:55:39] it's earned here. I mean, because one, it's an exploration of how expression through the arts, how, how artistic expression can help soothe and guide the grieving process for one. Uh, and for two on a replay, this game, it becomes clear that this game is so intensely focused that there's not really any extraneous things that they leave in that isn't directly tied to either the theme or the lore,

[01:56:09] literally everything down to the hairstyle and the clothes that the characters use can be diegetically explained. And I think that makes those two things combined together, the focus and the overall metaphor of how expression can aid in grief. I don't think it's even a question of whether it's earned. Um, you know, I, they do everything, they do everything that they can to ensure that it's

[01:56:38] earned. Um, rightfully so, because so many other stories, uh, with maybe more juvenile writers don't, you know, uh, I, I've never actually watched this series, but there was like a popular TV series in like the nineties that like pulled the whole, like it was all took place in like a dream or like in a snow globe or something. And it spawned like a whole theory. You don't know what I'm talking about. I don't, I don't know either. It's, it's like some theory where like every, uh, it turned out that

[01:57:05] something was a dream and like there was a repeating actor from another series and like it tied several shows altogether. It's like this popular theory. Um, but I've never seen any of the shows involved in it. So like, I don't know. I wonder if it was like a twilight zone type situation. I know there's an episode like that with twilight. Star Trek does something similar. It's something like cheers and Frasier or something or like wild something like that. I don't know. I mean, we got to tie the Sopranos show in there somewhere, right? Where he's got that dream.

[01:57:36] But, uh, for sure. I think that again, this is, this has been a great conversation in terms of why it's so important, um, to understand that there is, there's just a multiplicity of ambiguousness that you can apply to each of these characters. And that I think similar to what you were driving at and something that does drive you crazy, Rick, is that it's, it's easy to come to

[01:58:01] assumptions that it easy. It is very easy to blame or cast blame or judgment upon each of those characters. Um, but it's not so easy to see it from the perspectives that they offer. And I think that's something that is very, very powerful. Um, and really, really well done in this game is offering the perspectives of each of these, these members of the family. Did either of you have any final thoughts in terms of what we've discussed so far, um, in this game?

[01:58:32] Especially just thinking about, yeah, it's a big question. We just got into some really big philosophical, uh, bags with each other. But yeah, I think the big thing is, um, one, we've talked up and down about the gameplay, the story, the overall bones and mechanics of the game as a video game, incredibly sound, uh, very well put together. This could have easily been just a A to Z kind of story game and gameplay wise. It probably would have been like an, you know,

[01:58:58] eight high seven, very easy to play, easy to pick up, could have easily gotten a sequel. But it's the fact that Sandfall, the writing team there really, in my opinion, went above and beyond. They gave you a super strong story. They gave you a stacked VA cast to tell that story well. And then they weren't afraid to give the players the ability to interpret it for themselves. You know, they took a really big swing in my opinion, cause it's super easy to say, this is the game.

[01:59:26] This is the ending. They could have had Verso turn on you at the end as he lies to you throughout the game. And then you as Mael kill him. And then you had the Mael ending and people probably would have accepted that. Um, but the fact that you get to have Verso, which you honestly like take over in act two, we didn't, we didn't quite get into that, but you kind of take over him as the main character in act two. So you get to see his side and what he's doing while also having

[01:59:52] Mael as like a duo antagonist. So it's interesting that it leads you through the game that way to then give you the choice to pick either one at the end, painting them against each other. Um, but the fact that they took a big swing allowed you to make that decision for yourselves to end the game as a co-creator of said game and said story, and then take that experience online potentially, or to your friends in real life, what have you, and have discussions like this,

[02:00:18] not just I pick my side and it's right. You picked your side and it's wrong. Uh, the fact that you can have nuanced discussions and have your reasonings for them. And I'm sure people can write up dissertations on why this is either good or bad or why both are bad or why both are good, um, is just a true Testament to the fact that storytelling and video games, um, is an art form. It's something that you have to work on. You have to trust people that are playing

[02:00:44] to pick up on their own experiences. Um, so just once again, bravo to Sanfall. They, they gave us, as we kind of said at the very, very top of the hour, a 10 out of 10, a masterpiece, not that it's perfect, but that it's important. And I think that's what all 10 out of 10s really give us, especially in the gaming space. I, I agree. I think what makes this different from something like metaphor that I like quite a bit, don't get me wrong. Um, is that it's grounded

[02:01:12] in a shared human experience and talks about it in a unique and exciting way while still holding onto that idea that, you know, much like many human experiences, there's no right or wrong. Um, being a person is a messy, messy thing. And how do we cope with things like loss and grief? It's,

[02:01:39] it's tough. Whereas something like metaphor takes a, um, it takes a well-known, maybe not well-known takes a very, um, well-used premise of, you know, the good in the hearts of people will overcome the evil in the world. You know, um, it's, it's an easier thing to do. Uh, I think Claire Obscure

[02:02:04] does so, does so much to honor the idea of presenting a human experience like grief in a way that many games don't. And I think that's part of what makes it so special. Um, and that it, it gives, it allows room for conversations like these to exist, um, where

[02:02:28] the important thing isn't what happened, you know, the important thing isn't, you know, uh, how did the Nevrons come to be or, you know, uh, how exactly did the fire start? It's fine to talk about and it's fine to explore, but the more important thing is taking a step back and talking about the implications behind what the story is saying. You know, I, I think there's nothing wrong with talking about, you know, how did the Nevrons come to be or, you know, uh, what was

[02:02:56] it like in Expedition 69 where everybody was naked or was that Expedition 60? One of them. There's nothing wrong with that, but to me, there's a sense of standing too close to the Monet painting. So you're just seeing like dots. And if you take a step or two back, you start to see the full picture. Um, and while there's value in seeing how the dots line up and, you know, how the brush size is, whatever, whatever, the larger picture is more holistic and

[02:03:24] almost more important to me, I think. Um, and I got to commend Nick too. Nick took a lot of notes here, um, that we didn't talk about. Nick, I, you said that you were looking to wind up the show. So forgive me if I'm like speaking out of turn and you were planning to get through a lot of this, but Nick took a lot of, uh, extra notes, um, that we didn't even get to, which again, I think is a testament to this game, to how many, um, meaningful conversations it can, that how many meaningful conversations can spin out of it in a way that doesn't feel forced or,

[02:03:54] uh, you know, superfluous. That's important. And again, that's another check in the box of Claire Obscure. Yeah. I think that Claire Obscure, as, as I said at the top of the show, being as close to a perfect game of my taste profile, like I put it up in there with a pantheon of greats, like I would, um, a signalis or like I would a, uh, a disco Elysium, like this game, it speaks to you

[02:04:25] in, in, in so many levels. And there's, there's times where you can look at what is presented to you. And then there's times that you can sit there and think about it. And I think like, again, this has been said about a few different games that we've reviewed on the show and games that I've talked about on other people's shows is that sometimes you take more away from the discussion of a piece of work like expedition 33 than you do with actually engaging with it in real time. Yeah. It's that delight. Yeah. It's that delightful process of being able to think about these

[02:04:53] characters and think about how these, these fictional representations of actual people, actual humans have impacted you in your life and how art informs you in the way that you're living. Um, and I think that that is something that Claire Obscure pulls off so well. It makes me think about death. It makes me think about loss, how I have grieved people in my life that I've lost and how I interpret loss. And it's something that I think it's really important in terms of getting people

[02:05:22] from point A to point B to, to really truly thinking about some of the, the themes in the meta commentary that actually takes place in this game. And they pulled it off brilliantly. So I just want to, you know, really, really commend the writers and the directorial team and just sandfall interactive as a whole for pulling off this, this excellent piece of art here, but that is going to be it for the show today. So I want to thank you both for joining me again.

[02:05:49] Uh, this has been a fantastic episode and thank you to all of our listeners who've made it with us this far. If you've enjoyed our content and you want to support us further, please feel free to leave us a rating or review on your podcasting platform of choice. We'd love to hear from anybody in the community. So feel free to reach out to us, Rick. I want to give you another big thank you and an opportunity to plug your show. What's going on with pixel project radio?

[02:06:14] Sure. Um, so pixel project radio, it's the show that I run. Um, it is a video game analysis show much like this. Um, I don't know when exactly this is coming out, but, uh, shortly after or as this comes out, maybe, uh, you'll see Nick and will again, back on my show, uh, for a couple episodes on a little game called death stranding, tiny game, which little tiny game, which I think

[02:06:41] will be very interesting. Um, I, I'm not sure what my relationship with that game is at this time, but, uh, we are also going to do a couple of episodes on Claire obscure, uh, later on in the year. Um, one of Nick's favorite games, signalis, uh, is coming up. And, uh, if you wanted to check out more of Nick and will, they were both on the show in the past on a game called Hades, uh, really, really terrific game. Uh, and I had a lot of fun talking about that with you too. Uh, you can find

[02:07:09] us, you know, wherever you get your podcasts and you can find us all over social media on the blue skies, uh, Instagram, Tik TOK, and YouTube. So you can check it out if you'd like, uh, Nick and will are both over there as well. And thank you both for having me back. This was a lot of fun. Uh, and I'm glad that I got to talk about this game with you too. Thank you so much, Eric. It was a blast. Yeah, this is always fun. And will, if people out there has had listened to the show and then they want

[02:07:37] to get together with you to spill some ink, where can they find you? Be able to find me on blue sky. That'd be Kingzozotai.bsky.social. Or you could find me on the, the other place as well. That'll be at real Kingzozotai. That's R E A L K I N G C O S O T A I. Fantastic. Well, thank you both again. And with that, everyone, please, I'd like to ask you to please keep gaming, take it easy,

[02:08:05] and we'll see you next Friday night. Deuces. нец.neez .neez

[02:08:46] .neez. where our sin takes place how does it come to us eternal

[02:09:27] in the descent to the yellow horizon distant peignons ensemble the colors of tomorrow

[02:09:49] the dark obscures infinite each path trace the road of a life