Episode 196: Genshin Impact - Well Dressed Light Yagami

[00:00:11] Welcome to Gaming Together, A Cooperative Podcast. I'm your host Phillip and I'm here with my co-op partner, Nave. Each pod we play through a cooperative experience, then relate to the listener if this game is a crème de la crème of co-op or something better off playing solo. And, dear listeners at home, this is going to be a bit different episode than we usually do, because Zencaster has apparently changed their plans. So, now we are no longer probably going to be using them going forward, because we're not about to drop like $240 a year on that type of service.

[00:00:42] But, welcome in Nave, I have dragged him away from spending time playing his games and forcing him to do the pod tonight. Hey Nave, what's poppin'? Uh, not shit. I was just, you know, we were partying, having a good time, and then I looked down and you were like, today! Yeah, I know. It's just with my night show schedule, this was like the only night working out, because I think you have a rock show lined up tomorrow. You're going to see Lacuna Coil?

[00:01:09] No, Killswitch and Gage, and they have Kubla Khan, and Fit for a King. So, Killswitch and Gage, who gives a fuck? Dude, these other two bands... What? You're not bad. ...are nuts, dude, man. Like, Killswitch and Gage is like, pretty okay metalcore. It's basically a ballroom dance, compared to... Dude, Kubla Khan is nuts, dude. And Fit for a King is pretty good too, but...

[00:01:38] The show actually sold out, and I took too long to buy tickets, but whenever I went to go buy tickets, it was like, they opened up the balcony. So, I was like, alright, well I guess I'm going to do the balcony. This is the first time... I've been to this venue probably about like 40 times, and this is the first time I've ever been on the balcony. So, and if you buy a balcony ticket, you can obviously go out and like, hang out in the pit as well. So...

[00:02:08] Wait, you would go out there and consort with the lower class? See, that's exactly how I'm going to feel, dude. Because honestly, there's got... there is their own bar up at the balcony, and there's obviously nowhere near as insane of a line, because you're not down there with the peasants. So I'm like, maybe I will just hang out in the balcony the whole time, just drinking. You know, anytime I imagine a balcony seat too, I always think about an Abraham Lincoln box. It's like my go-to balcony idea.

[00:02:36] I mean, probably I will get assassinated in some way. And then the guy will jump off of the stage yelling, uh... I forgot what he sees the day. Seize the day. Yeah. Carpe diem. Which, we are a video game podcast, and we're going to be talking about Genshin Impact. But before we get there, Nave, I see you have a headliner listed in your games. Uh, I mean, before that, we'll talk about what I've been playing while I've been drinking. Oh, yeah?

[00:03:06] Yeah, because I've been playing this game quite a bit again, and it's Rainbow Six Siege. Just... I don't know, man. This game is difficult, but it is so addicting. Like, you haven't played Rainbow Six Siege since we talked about it, yeah? No, it's been, you know, years. I don't know what's going on, but... There is still an insanely dedicated fanbase for this game. I have been... Kind of wobbling in and out. But...

[00:03:34] It's the same exact type of people... That play this game, and it's really hard to describe. But... I kind of am inside of this group. You know what I mean? Like, even whenever I'm, like, randomly joining a group and just not doing terrific... I am, like, within the... Like, the... The socioeconomic... Not economic. That's not what I want. The... What is it called? I can't... I don't know what I'm trying to say. I'm in this fucking group.

[00:04:05] And... I have this weird lingo that I... I don't know. It's hard to describe, you know what I mean? Like, when I play Call of Duty, I have no connection. And whenever I play Battlefield, I have no connection. When I play Halo, even though I played Halo for so long and for so... I've played every game all the time. I have no real connection. But whenever I play Rainbow Six Siege, there is just a... Vocabulary. You know what I mean? Yeah, definitely.

[00:04:34] But... It just connects me immediately to them. And... It's very, very fun. There's so many people that I've played with over the years. I've played Siege since it came out. And... It just always feels the same. Every single time I come back. I'll leave for, like, six or seven months, and then I'll come back. And even though I don't know what the fuck the new champions are doing... I just... I just fit right back in like a glove. You know?

[00:05:01] I think that's why games like World of Warcraft have lasted so long, too. Is that... That is the feeling that every player has. When they come back. It's like, oh, I may be an expansion behind. But then they just slide right... Slide right back in. Like it was no change. Yeah, the problem is I can't headshot people no more. I mean, that's just reflex skills. You know, you'll get those fine-tuned skills back after a little bit. Dude, there was this... There were these people. I joined LFG. And they were like...

[00:05:31] Dude, I love playing CapCan. And they're like... Great. Because CapCan is like the worst character in the whole game. Not the worst. He's terrible. But like... Everyone hates him. Like he's the team though. Basically. And so... I start putting my CapCan traps everywhere. He basically puts like a C4 trap on a door. Right? And when you walk through the door, you blow up. It doesn't kill you. It just hurts. But I was putting them in weird places. And they're like... Dude, I thought you were a fucking professional CapCan player. And I was like... I swear to God. Like so the thing was is that... You could...

[00:06:00] Wherever you're aiming, that's where you put the CapCan trap. So if you put it down an ankle length... Or ankle height, I mean... That's where the CapCan trap goes. But I would put it around thigh height. And people were like... What the fuck? Everyone's gonna fucking see that shit. And I'm like... No. Listen. Everyone's looking for the ankle height CapCan trap. Because that's where CapCan always puts the trap. They always put it down where your feet are supposed to be. But... They're never looking thigh height. So...

[00:06:29] I was trying to explain this to them. And then... As we were playing the game... Somebody ran up and died. Like right in front of a camera. Like to a CapCan trap that was thigh height. And you know what I mean? It's like... It's just so funny. Because it's so stupid. That... It becomes smart. You know what I mean? And I don't know too many games where you can actually implement these stupid strategies. Where like...

[00:06:58] Everyone's expecting me to do this. But... Actually... I'm gonna do this really dumb thing. And then... They just fall for it. Because they're never expecting that. I mean that's the basis of any troll build in League of Legends. You know? It's like... Oh I'm gonna build... I don't know... Attack speed Nami or something like that. Something ridiculous that they never expect. They just get bubbled and then... Attack speeded down by a rage blade wiggles lantern or something. Yeah. I miss League of Legends. I think. It's still there.

[00:07:29] Maybe people are still playing it. I don't know. Siege is kind of the same thing though. You know? I mean it's not... It's nowhere near as like intricate. But... Like you can really do like stupid shit. I don't know. I feel like Siege is pretty intricate with it's fully 3D environment. Like I mean like League is 3D. But it's 3D as in we all walk on... In a... I don't know. On one map. Might as well just be 2D. Yeah. Also... That beeping in the background is my baby monitor.

[00:07:58] Because my baby is very floppy while he sleeps. And the alarm lets me know that he's flopping. In case you hear it. Important. Important information. I don't think I heard it. I thought you were... I... When you said the beeping in the background I was like... Oh shit is my fire alarm doing the thing? A beep. The occasional beep. No. But uh... I've been playing Yakuza Hawaii. Pirate in Hawaii. And it's fucking awesome. Holy shit.

[00:08:25] It's been ruining every single game I've been playing in the... The periphery. The only... I mean the primary reason that I've been playing Rainbow Six Siege is because... Uh... I started playing it randomly. Probably like a couple of weeks ago. And now like people who used to play with me are starting to invite me. And now I'm like people who I played a couple weeks ago. Like when I first met. There's this girl Kayla. Like it's just like... There's a lot of like fun people that I'm just randomly like... You know...

[00:08:54] It kind of feels good to start playing Siege again. But again... The reason why I started like appearing offline on Xbox... Is because people who play Rainbow Six Siege are relentless. And if you join... If you make a party... Or if you join a party... And it's not invite only... They're gonna join and they're gonna ask you to play Siege. They're gonna fucking bully you. They're gonna like make you feel bad. So it's like... It's so interesting the Siege player base. Because... The LFG community is insane dude. Like...

[00:09:24] Like 1200 people looking for groups. I don't know any other game that's kind of like that. I mean... That's literally the description that I've heard from my daughter. Where she's like... I have to appear offline when I play Fortnite. Otherwise... A thousand people will just instantly join my lobby... And try to get me to play a game with them. It makes sense dude. Like I... I have to hide from them. It's... It's a... It's a... It's a Zoomers game man. Like...

[00:09:53] There's a lot of like children that fucking play this game. A lot of the LFGs I'll join. In Siege? I'll be the only person... Yes. A lot of the LFGs in Siege I'll join. I'll... I'll be the only person... That isn't like... 18. Or 17. And it is just a bizarre feeling. Right? You figure they should be playing Call of Duty or Fortnite. What are they doing on Siege? I don't... Siege is just that game now. Siege is another one. Just another one. It's like when people... When me and you...

[00:10:23] We would play Halo... We'd play Battlefield... Or we'd play Call of Duty. And now it's like... Call of Duty... Siege... And Fortnite. Right? But where's Valorant? Where is Valorant? It's in there as well. Valor... To be completely honest... I never ran into too many kids in Valorant. But... Maybe that was just like... I didn't play it too much. I played so much Siege... That I know there's a ton of kids playing this game. It's awkward. There are a lot of... Whenever you go into the LFGs...

[00:10:52] There is a hashtag that is just like... Kids only. Or like... Only kids. Like... No adults. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like... That shit exists. Like they're just kids looking for other kids and shit. I mean usually they're playing like... Casual games though. But... I don't know. I'm talking about Yakuza in Hawaii though. I've only... I'm on Chapter 2. I've seen a lot of people talking about... Chapter 2 being insanely long. Because a lot of the...

[00:11:19] Side shit gets dumped into that right away. And so I'm kind of preparing for that mentally. Because I'm already taking kind of a really long time to play it. But I'm really happy. I'm so happy actually. This game is just... Dude, these... These LFG games are just my shit. And... I don't think I'm ever going to run into one of these games that just disappoints me. Something about being a pirate... With the Majima who has an eyepatch...

[00:11:50] It's... And he's doing constant fourth wall breaks. Where he's just like... Hey, you might want to take a piss break. If you haven't already. I'm like... Yeah, you're right. Maybe I should. I don't know. I fucking love this game. Already. And I'm barely really even scratching the surface. Do you feel like it's developing any of your Japanese skills? A little bit. I'm definitely hearing things that I'm studying. Like I hear Itsumo.

[00:12:20] And I was like... Yeah. Oh. Hanani? Namae. And I'm like... I know. They're talking about names. Like... Literally. Okay, hold on. Actually. This is serious. Serious business. They go into this fucking room. And there's this pot in the middle of the room. And... They say some shit. And... I'm playing with Hana. Hana is watching me play. And Hana is like... Oh, look curry. Yummy. And I'm like...

[00:12:50] What do you mean? They didn't say... Kare. And I'm like... Um... I'm listening to... Like I'm literally listening. And they're talking and whatever. They didn't say kare. Which is curry in Japanese. And then... As they continue on... Eventually... It comes back to the food. And then... They do say kare. And I'm like... I wish I understood Japanese. So that I could like... Understand what the fuck is happening. Because they didn't talk about the... I...

[00:13:19] There's no... They didn't say it was curry before. Hmm. I don't know what the fuck they said. But... Eventually they... They bring up that it's curry. It... Does this make sense? I feel like I'm going crazy. Because I'm like... Trying so hard to understand what the fuck is being said whenever I'm listening to it. No. A lot of the time I'm not even like... Really looking at the words that they're saying. I'm just kind of like... Really trying to figure out what the fuck they're saying. No. That kind of happens to me too. Especially with...

[00:13:49] Like anime too. Because I'll be watching... And whenever I'm watching like... Something on my Steam Deck or whatever. I can like... Roll it back. And then highlight the words. To see what they actually like... You know... Translate out to. And there'll be points where it's like... I'll try just listening through it. And then I'll go back... And... Actually check each individual word. To make sure I... Heard what I heard. Yeah. I mean a lot of it is just kind of...

[00:14:18] Why is there so many words? And why are they so hard to understand? Even though you think... It feels like you know so much. At this point probably. Right? I don't think I know anything. That's the issue. But compared to... I don't know. Like a month ago. You're probably like... Man I know so much more than I did back then. Oh no. Absolutely. I'm literally watching Freerun. And... I'm re-watching Freerun. I'm like episode 8 or 9. And like... I'm hearing...

[00:14:47] Random words. And that... Like I'm not even looking at the screen. Like I'm going out of my way. Because I'm watching it with Hannah. And I'm like looking down. Kind of just chilling. Trying not to read the subs. And I'm listening. I'm not even looking at the screen. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. I don't even see what the fuck's happening on the screen. And then I'll hear words. Where I just hear like you know... Something something you know. Eat them all. Something something. And I'm like... Oh it's... They always do something. I know that. You know what I mean? Like...

[00:15:17] Something so they ate it. I'm like... Oh they're fucking eating food. Something about eating food. I don't know. There's a famous like theory or like effect in the learning community for language or whatever. It's like... A word won't exist until you learn it through study. And then all of a sudden you see it in every piece of media you've ever encountered. And it's like this word has been used constantly every time I watch this show. But I couldn't understand that it even existed before I studied it.

[00:15:48] Now there's weird stuff like that. Like eat some or whatever. It's like... That meant nothing to you before. But then you learned it through Duolingo or whatever. And now you're like... I can always know this word now. Yeah. Like hey... You know... I understand that your Japanese language learning has come to like a halt. Not a halt but like you know... A plateau. A plateau. Yeah that's it. That's what he said. And so he was like... I want to just like have a conversation with you.

[00:16:18] I dare you. I will give you $100 if you don't understand this. And then he would just be like you know... Suimisen. And I'm just like... Another one. You know what I mean? It's like impossible to not understand the things. You know what I mean? Yeah. And it's like... That just feels so good. Randomly. Because I feel like... Even though I've only been a few months in. I'm already at that point where I'm like... Not that I'm like...

[00:16:46] Ahead of like people who study Japanese. But like you always get to a point repeatedly. Where you're like... I don't know if I'm learning anymore. Like something's happening. Like I don't feel like I'm progressing like I used to. It's especially terrible at the very beginning. Because you have the hiragana and the katakana. And it's like... You have so... It's like so obvious you're making progress. And then like... And then what? You're like...

[00:17:16] Okay, I guess I'm just gonna do vocab. And just like... Figure shit out. I don't know. I have like sticky notes. And I have sticky notes all over my fucking apartment. You know what I mean? Yeah, you did the labeling. Yeah, I'm labeling shit, you know? Like fucking... Gomi Bako over there. And shit. Trash? Trash box? Oh. Yeah, there it is. Yeah, I need one. Trash. You know? And that makes me angry. Because Gomi Bako is half hiragana, half katakana. Yeah. Why?

[00:17:46] Classic. Why? Eraser is the same way. And then I was like... Oh, eraser... Because I realized that erasers the same way. And I was like... Oh, it's like Gomi something something... It's something something Gomi. But it's not Gomi. Like Gomi Katsu or something? Gomi. It's like Gomi. I mean something Gomi or something. I can't remember. It's not Gomi. It's not the same as Trashcan. Okay. Because I had to... I fucked it all up. It doesn't matter. Yeah, Gomi is just like Gomu.

[00:18:13] That word actually comes up a lot in teasing Master Takage's song because they're always in class. Oh, did I lose you? I've been going up there and just... Being isolated and playing my Japanese like fucking... You know, I'm doing Duolingo. I'm doing Anki, you know, at the bar like a weirdo. Oh, yeah. And I didn't realize that I became a character in their like story. You're Yakuza side story.

[00:18:43] So I went up there and I'm like doing my fucking thing. And this person I'd never seen before shows up and she's like, oh, you know, what do you want? And I'm like, yeah, give me a yingling, I guess. And then she's like, can I get a ID? And I was like, yeah, sure. This is weird. It's kind of weird giving my ID. And as I'm giving it to her, she's looking at it and she's putting it in the computer. The regular bar lady who I guess is like training this girl that took my ID was like, holy shit.

[00:19:12] Did she ID you? And I was like, yeah. Yeah. And literally, she's like, this is the Japanese person I was talking about. And I was like, oh, my God. Oh, no, you're infamous. I'm a person. Well, I mean, like what else is going on, honestly? But it's like because every time I go in there, the same people are at the bar on the other side. And I sit at the same spot. So it's like, I've like become part of this place. You know what I mean? Yeah, you're regular.

[00:19:42] I always sit at the same place and I always order the same shit. And the same people are on the opposite side of the bar every time I see them, you know? I don't know. It's weird. I don't know. It's kind of sweet. But it is weird. And then I sit there and I like fucking do my Anki. And I'm like, God damn it. I knew this one. I knew Shimaku did. Yeah. You're like, try again. I'll see you in another day. Anyway, Yakuza. Yakuza. Good.

[00:20:12] Good game. All right. Into games I've been playing unless you have anything else. Nah, dude. All right. So I've been plowing through some games. I don't know if I mentioned last week or not, but I finished Ninja Gaiden 2 Black. Game good though. So. S tier. Very good game. Maybe you need to play it. S tier. Yeah. Have you played any of the Ninja Gaiden games? I've played Ninja Gaiden 1 and it scared me off because it's hard. Yeah.

[00:20:41] On the 360 one? Is that the 360 one or whatever? No. Ninja Gaiden 1 is on the original Xbox. What was the 360 one then? 2. The one you played. No way. Yes. Ninja Gaiden 2 is Xbox 360. Ninja Gaiden 1 is Xbox original. I'm out of fact checking this. Because I was also scared away by whichever one was on 360. It's that one! Ninja Gaiden 2! There's only, there's only a- There's three of them. Wait, hold on.

[00:21:23] There's three of them? And, you know, I'm like, oh, I could always play this game in Japanese. You know? Good experience. Uh, Ninja Gaiden appears to be what a- Like if you asked a, I don't know, like a nine year old boy to describe a ninja story to you, that would be Ninja Gaiden, which is so funny. I have to go piss, but 2 is on the 360. Yes. I was right. And then also 3 is also on the 360. I have no idea what the difference is. I gotta go pee. Okay. We'll pause.

[00:21:53] No, you know, I have a piece to talk! Okay. Fine. Uh, Ninja Gaiden? Real good. I recommend everybody go try it out. Uh, if you're unfamiliar, I actually did some research to figure out the naming convention because I was very confused because apparently there's Ninja Gaiden 1 and 2 that came out and they were really hard and people didn't like them. Or no, they were popular, but they scared off a lot of the audience because of how hard they were.

[00:22:18] So they came out with Ninja Gaiden 1 and 2 Sigma, which is an easier version that reduced the amount of enemies, but increase the overall health they have and also reduce their projectile spam because the, even in, you know, the Sigma version or whatever, they still throw a lot of projectiles that then stun lock you. Very annoying. And then they did a graphic update of, I don't know if they did it for 1 as well, but 2, they

[00:22:46] did the black version, which is a graphical overhaul of Sigma. Uh, I think in Sigma they also included a bunch of dismemberment, which wasn't the original game. And so you can fight enemies after you like cut their arms off and stuff. Very cool. Uh, so if you want to play them all, you have 1, 2, and 3, 1 and 2 Sigma, 2 black, and, uh, and 3 is just 3. There's no remake of that one. Good game. I definitely recommend it. Very silly.

[00:23:12] Uh, Japanese is a little bit hard because everyone seems to talk in, uh, oldest Japanese and they all have really gravelly demon voices. Makes them a little hard to understand. Big recommends. I've been really considering when I'm cause I'm again, like I said, I'm watching free run for like the fourth time. I've been really considering just turning the subtitles off. I mean, just sit and do it, you know, but this is the problem is that I just don't have the vocab. I don't have the vocab. I really don't.

[00:23:42] Well, another thing people talk about is, uh, I don't know if you've been in the learning dogma circles or whatever is comprehensible input. Well, it's like if I watched the show, I would know what they were doing. Yeah. That's from memory. Yeah. That's the problem. I don't want it to be. You know what I mean? So I feel like I'm doing a little bit better if I'm just like seeing the words and like listening and then going, Oh, I heard a word and see it in the, there's something

[00:24:11] about hearing the word and not seeing it in the subtitle or seeing the subtitle and not hearing the word. You know what I mean? Uh, no. You lost me on that one. Okay. So you hear the word like shiroi, right? Yeah. And like, okay, something's white, but then you don't see it in the subtitle.

[00:24:34] And you're like, what I heard the word or you hear, or you like see like, uh, so a word that you know, like, uh, uh, uh, a kite, a kite like red. And then you see that or like you hear it and then you don't see it written anywhere. And you're like, why I heard it. Are you talking about in Japanese subtitles or in English subtitles? In both.

[00:25:02] Well, in English subtitles and then in Japanese, like the voiceover, whenever you hear something in Japanese and then it's not in the subtitles or you see something in the subtitles. It's not in the Japanese. I mean, that's probably just them doing the localization part. Well, what I'm saying is that like, I'm at that point where I'm like, I'm seeing or hearing like I'll hear something and I'm like, well, that's kind of interesting. I wonder what the fuck was said, but there's no way for me to even know because I only

[00:25:29] know like 1% of the words being said. You know what I mean? I had this issue whenever I tried to rewatch, um, the League of Legends show, or it was called Valorant maybe, but the subtitles are based off of the English like voices. So if you try to watch it with like Japanese voices and Japanese subtitles, they do not match up. And I find that makes you really angry because it's like you're, if you're Japanese, I guess you're supposed to watch it with English vocals and then Japanese subtitles.

[00:25:59] They don't expect you to watch it. Japanese, Japanese. Um, uh, the new Yakuza game, by the way, uh, pirate in Hawaii has Japanese text. Yeah. You don't have to like fuck with anything. I saw that off the bat and I appreciate that because if we go into one of the other games I've been playing, uh, nine persons, nine, nine doors, nine, whatever, nine, nine,

[00:26:28] nine, nine hours. Uh, that game, the versions are different based on language. So it's like I installed on my steam deck, the Japanese version to play it in Japanese. But then I tried to install my PC and it installed the English version on it by default. And so I started up and it's like no save found. And I'm like, where's my save game? Turns out I just didn't have a save for the English version. So I just switched versions and then I was fine. So that makes me wonder, I don't know.

[00:26:57] It's annoying because it's like so many games, you know, have a Japanese version, but it just seems hard to find or it's a completely different version of the game. For instance, like kingdom hearts three, I have the disc for that. So it installs from the disc. Even if my console set on Japan or whatever, that game will install in English and there's no option to change it. Very annoying. I want to play Japanese Mickey Mouse. But, uh, before I get into nine, nine, nine, because I feel you want to talk more about that.

[00:27:27] Uh, I want to mention steam more steam world dig, which, uh, are you familiar with the steam world series? Yeah. I played the first and the second one to agree. I played a lot more of the first one because it was on the Vita and I was a Vita evangelist. I played a lot of Vita games. It feels like a Vita game. I mean, I played it on steam deck and, uh, so it's very simple. Uh, great in handheld. Good game. Uh, I'd rate it eight here blew right through it in like, I don't know, six hours or something.

[00:27:55] So it's pretty short, but it was just really solid. You know, like there's nothing bad about it. Really? It makes me feel like, um, we got like halfway through the game, a little over halfway through, I imagine I must've just quit. I probably could have beaten this game pretty easily too. I didn't quit because I didn't like it. I just did other things, you know? Yeah. It's, um, like, I don't know if you just think about like Terraria mining and that's the whole game.

[00:28:23] You just mine, get resources, go back, buy upgrades so you can mine deeper. And that is the whole game. Yeah. It's nice. There's a, there's a world version of this game. That's more like a city management. Sam. It's like steam world build instead of dig. Yeah. I think it's build. Yeah. You're right. Yeah. There's a whole franchise with these games. I like it.

[00:28:52] You know, I think it's one of those, uh, like kind of indie indie gyms of like the second generation, like after your Isaacs and your, uh, I don't know what was the insides or whatever. I think there's like the next generation. Gems. Gems. Oh yeah. True. In the, in the game. So definitely recommend the steam world games, or at least the first one. I'm just started with the second one because I got both of them in like a humble bundle for a dollar, you know? Let's see. Did I, I don't care.

[00:29:20] Did I talk about Sonic lost world last time? I think I did D tier. If I didn't, it belongs there. I think I did. I think we talked about it. I don't know if you ranked it or anything. I think you're just bitching about it. Yeah. Games trash, but not. No, you definitely talked about it because you told me about the, uh, worlds that were like, Oh yeah. They're all just floating. I don't know where it's sunshine or whatever. Earlier today, I watched like a 20 minute video on the recompilation of Sonic unleashed

[00:29:50] for PC. The efforts going into that. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting stuff. The video is okay. I'm just more interested in, uh, the game preservation side of it, which is funny. RIP PlayStation three. Dude, they were roasting it too. They were like the PlayStation three versions, like unplayable. They had to remove a loading screen animation because it took longer to load the animation than it did to just load the next level.

[00:30:20] Like the little mini loading screens, like in Skyrim, when you can rotate the model around like, God, it's, that's embarrassing. But yeah, nine persons, nine hours, nine doors. This is my first visual novel to finish in Japanese. And I'm very proud. It took me, I think 22 hours to get through the story. And I didn't finish one ending though. One of the bad endings that would have been probably an extra 30 minutes if I did.

[00:30:47] But Dave, uh, I would not recommend this for your first visual novel. I, yeah, I imagine the fucking mystery shit. Dude. At the end, I, I had to start looking at guides because the amount of math they expect you to do in this game, it was getting very annoying. I would assume that like maybe a good visual novel for my first one would be like, I don't know, a romance one, you know, maybe.

[00:31:17] I mean, if you look one where like nothing is really happening. Right. You mean like a slice of life type thing? Yeah. Like, like, like it's just a normal day in the life of a person. As they go throughout that lives. Let's see here is the spicy bun, spicy bun shop. I'm trying to pull this up.

[00:31:43] I was going to link you the, um, JPDB, the Japanese database. Uh, the thing that I use to like track how close I am to, you know, learning how many, like what percentage I'm at. Like we're like teasing master Takagi-san or whatever. Like how far in am I? Here is a list of, I don't know, like the most difficult. Oh, it's overly difficult. Oh, you can reverse it. Here. I'll link this to you. So you can take a look. I'm looking. Boop.

[00:32:13] But these, it'll show like all the visual novels and their difficulty. So you might look in that and see which ones like rated low difficulty. And maybe you could find one, uh, more, more interesting to you. Yeah. This nine visual novel is like dominating. Oh, here. Uh, go up there and click the difficulty reverse one or whatever. So you can see the easy ones. I'm literally looking in the, uh, yeah, you're looking at the hardest ones right now. Oh yeah.

[00:32:41] Not all of them have artwork, but, uh, I mean, this can be a way for you to find, like, some of these are rated three out of a hundred as far as difficulty. There is, I'm seeing the same title over and over again. That's pretty cool. Well, it's probably a whole series of just like, I don't know the same game. And these are visual novels. Yeah. These are all visual novels. Uh, some of them have links to where you can buy them as well. Uh, dear listeners at home, if you're looking for a place to start studying Japanese,

[00:33:11] uh, JPDB is not a bad choice. It really won't teach you any grammar, but yeah, but you will get, um, a lot of vocab and kanji. Yeah. I don't think grammar is that important. I wonder if nine persons, nine doors is in here. It is not. Bummer. So they don't have everything. No, the really rare sentences that I'm able to fucking extrapolate. I feel really good whenever I do. Yeah.

[00:33:38] But, uh, I did not understand everything in nine persons, nine doors, but I think part of it, they did cliffhanger it. So I kind of understood like the reveal of the end, but they left it open for the sequel, which it is paired with in the steam release. So I'm probably gonna work on that next. It's like a virtuous reward or something like that. Yeah. Virtues last reward or. Yep. So I'm going to work on that. This is a top of a tier game though.

[00:34:04] Would be us if it had less annoying puzzles because some of them started to feel like the witness as well, where I'm like flipping tiles and they're like all flipping at the same time. And each tile has a number on it. And I'm like, I just don't have the mental capacity for this. You're just in pain. Dude. And it's so funny because if you back out or reset the puzzle, your main character will give you a tip in Japanese too. He's like, Oh, you know what? And I'm like, I don't understand enough of the nuance to really enjoy the tip.

[00:34:32] It's more like I just have to solve the numbers. And I'm like, I know I need to solve the numbers. Yeah. Good game though. The only other thing is I'm playing dot hack link collection. I think maybe, which is the second dot hack series that was released back on PS2. I think they bundled all four of the games together on steam and I picked it up for like, I think like 29 bucks or something ridiculously cheap for four games.

[00:35:02] And I am loving it. And I feel like I'm understanding so much stuff. And the best part about it is there are points where you like go out of the game in the game. To the game like internet in it, like in a grand theft auto, you can go on the internet or whatever. And you can go and read like fake message boards about people in the game and read messages. And you're always getting like text messages from your friends.

[00:35:30] So that feels like more and more practice. I'm enjoying it a lot. Have you played any of the, the hack dot hack games? Absolutely not. Dude. Are you familiar with the series? No, but I, it made me like it, it activated like a creative bone in me. Like I understood the premise, but it was like, I never watched it. I don't know why. Probably I was scared of anime. Oh yeah.

[00:35:57] Like back in the day there was like dot hack sign and dot hack. Uh, I don't remember what the second series was called, but it's all about basically people playing an online MMO. Code Lyoko. Code Lyoko. Yeah. And, uh, things kind of emerge in the game. Like there's a character that, you know, can't log out or maybe he's just an AI creation or he's just always in the game.

[00:36:21] And you start to see like game bugs that are, uh, melting people's brains because it's all VR headset that they're wearing. It's like the original, um, sword art online or whatever. Uh, big recommend for the old series. I never finished the old ones. I don't want to go back and rewatch it in Japanese, but I cannot find a copy of this. Just subtitles in Japanese anywhere. So I might just have to watch it without subtitles. Good game though. Next up, uh, that goes right into our what did a buy section.

[00:36:51] Dave, did you buy anything? I bought like a dragon, uh, pirate Yakuza in Hawaii. Very nice. Yeah. Playing the goddamn shit of it, man. Loving that goddamn game. We're running around. We got a tiger named Goro. Goro. It's amazing. What does Goro mean? Uh, Goro means about like, it's about like the, about around this time.

[00:37:20] Like, you know, this time. Oh yeah. Yeah. But, uh, Goro Majima is the name of the main character. And so it's just a funny, it's a funny joke because the main character Goro Majima has amnesia, but the tiger is named Goro. What I thought, uh, was thinking of Goro Goro, which, uh, means to sleep or to lounge. Like if someone asked you like what you did yesterday, you'd be like, Oh, Goro Goro.

[00:37:50] Like I just rolled around in bed. Uh, that kind of feels good. That kind of feels like appropriate. It's one of those onomatopoeia words. All right. With that, let's thank our patrons. Jose Martinez, Berserker This, Mr. Quang, Nsane Cracker, Nick and Knight. Thanks for all your support. Here at Gaming Together, we work hard to provide excellent co-op content for you, the listener. If you have the means, please consider supporting us on Patreon, especially if we need to find a replacement for Zencaster. And it takes exorbitant rates.

[00:38:22] And with that name, let's take a quick break and then we can help some assholes online. Music plays. Boom, boom, boom, boom. You know, uh, Did you see five people during the Patreon part? I think so. I think I said them all. If I missed you, I'm sorry. I don't remember. Let's see. Oh, I guess we're back. Nave, it's time for us to go online and find some assholes in need. Do you have someone on the list that you want to help?

[00:38:52] Well, fuck, 49. Sure. All right. This seems good. Let's take a look. This looks like a main account. I'm not gonna lie. Uh, Sky Inuzuka? With a name like that. Yeah. Something about dogs. A lot of dogs. A lot of pictures of dogs. Also, they may have lymphoma. That's good, right? No, it's bad. Am I a horrible owner for not doing chemo?

[00:39:21] Oh, Jesus. Chemo with a dog? No, chemo with a cat. She doesn't really have teeth anymore from previous dentals years ago. Jesus. The dog is cute though. Yeah, the dog is very cute. Cat's gone. I assume. This is from six months ago. All right. Well, from Sky Inuzuka. Am I the asshole?

[00:39:47] Or asking my husband to leave me alone for spoiling a new game? Labeled not the asshole from the group, but let's see. Hi everyone. I, 25 female, have been playing Baldur's Gate 3 for the first time by myself completely blind. My husband, 26 male, is also playing the game during a solo run of his own.

[00:40:14] I kind of feel like deja vu. Anyway. We typically sit in Discord call together while we play as he asks for me to screen share the gameplay since he is a bit ahead of me. For context, my husband does not care about spoilers in any sort of media and it's been a disagreement between us. I prefer to go into things blind. It makes me feel more immersed and excited as I play or watch.

[00:40:44] He, on the other hand, doesn't get affected by spoilers and will usually go and look things up after he makes a decision or sees something. He is just an entirely different person in that regard. And that's okay. I'm having insane deja vu right now. But doing things differently like this has caused us issues in the past. We could be watching a show and he would drop small spoilers here and there.

[00:41:11] While annoying me, it wasn't enough to ruin my enjoyment. But I definitely wasn't happy as I told him that I don't want any spoilers. If I would like a hint, I will ask. He always apologizes. But it never changes how it makes me feel disrespected when it happens. Dude, I'm having insane deja vu right now. You are this guy? I think we've done this before. No, I think we've done this exact one before.

[00:41:42] Do you think so? Like, I think this is one of the first ones we ever did. Actually. You know, really, really old one. Yeah, this does seem really familiar. Anyway. And it's been happening quite a bit with our Baldur's Gate Nights. It's enough for me to remind him of my wishes and he stops. But it happens almost every time we play. Tonight was even worse though. I'm making progress through my game and reached a certain point.

[00:42:12] He said he was excited to see. I'm making conversation telling him I will be switching between my members of my party and moving people around to exchange things up. Then he dropped a big story bomb on me, which was the reward for the next mission. He was so excited to see me do. Well, I understand. I remember now. This is a different one. Yes. Is it different one?

[00:42:39] Yeah, because our last one that was a Baldur's Gate was a very similar scenario. But instead, it was about the husband who already played the crap out of the game for like 200 hours. And then he was watching the wife play through it and basically like trying to play the game for her, like make decisions a certain way and didn't like how she was playing the game because she did everything. Meanwhile, he had already played the game. Oh, we have not done this one. Slightly different. Yeah, this is slightly different. Once again, another husband issue, though.

[00:43:10] I was seeing so many echoes, dude. Holy shit. Okay. Well, I understand. The second he's just excited, I immediately changed my mood. I'm discouraged, disinterested, and a bit hurt that he's not respecting my wishes. He said sorry and got silent after I told him to remind him constantly about my no-spoiler wishes. After sitting in silence for about five minutes, I saved my game and left the call, also turning my game off.

[00:43:38] He came into the room and apologized, but he also has a habit of making excuses for himself and why he did it. He did correct himself, but at this point I really wanted space. I told him I wanted time alone and to not speak with him for a bit because of feeling disrespected, but he insisted on being around me, even asking if he could fix it.

[00:44:04] I told him we may have to play the game separately since he can't help but spoil it, and I asked him to leave again since I felt overwhelmed. Am I the asshole for making space between us over a game? I feel guilty for my reaction, and I want to continue to share my experiences with him, but I don't want to risk ruining the game for myself. Thank you. Okay.

[00:44:33] So, uh, the crux of the matter is, like she said, she wants to be around the husband, but he won't stop spoiling the game. Yeah, it's crazy. It's insane that this is so, it's almost like 89, 90, 91% similar to a, am I the asshole that we already did, but it actually really is different. Yeah, it is.

[00:44:57] Because they're playing it together, whereas the other one, it was just the wife playing alone and he was watching because he just really wanted her to play it. Yeah. Because he liked it so much. So, just right off the bat, I think we gotta say this lady is not the asshole for wanting to play the game how she wanted to play it. Yeah, probably. Especially because it's like, ah, it's difficult.

[00:45:19] You are trying to experience this game and be immersed, and it's difficult to do that whenever somebody is like over your shoulder, like doing a thing. I, I, okay, I already talked about how I was watching, um, but uh, I'm watching Freedom with Hannah and um, it's really difficult for me to not like spoil things right out the gate.

[00:45:40] But, like, the primary thing is that I'm like insanely excited and engaged with like this entire like situation that I'm like watching something with someone. Um, and, I kind of understand that, I don't know, immediate like feeling where you wanna like bring somebody into the thing that you really love, but you have to be self-aware, you know?

[00:46:09] Yeah, I definitely think the husband's the asshole and he's not self-aware in this point. Uh, as a, obviously I think he's in the wrong here. Even though I know he's probably doing it because he's super excited, like you said. Do we have an idea of how they can fix this? Fix it? I mean, like just talk. No, stop, you can't use that for real. It's difficult, man. It really is like the, it's all. And the husband needs to admit that he's the asshole here. And, uh, yeah, go from there.

[00:46:40] I don't even think the, the husband's too much of an asshole, but like they do need to just talk. It's like not a big deal. Like just, hey man, like you're ruining the things that I like. Please, just. Please stop. Yeah, I don't think there's anything more. This one's actually pretty cut and dry. You're gonna move on to the next one? Me? What do you mean? No, I mean, I'll, I have the next one ready. But I don't think there's anything else to say on this matter.

[00:47:11] Oh. Okay. I thought you said, do I want to make the next one? I was like, oh shit. No. And, but, uh, while, while I was in research or whatever, I found another one specifically about Genshin. I linked it in our discord. If you want to take a look at it. Okay. Okay. This is from a burner account. So, am I the asshole for going to my grandma's funeral in my Sakaramuchi cosplay?

[00:47:40] Uh, for reference, uh, you might look up what Sark, Sarkamuchi looks like, but he seems to be a blue haired boy with a fancy like rice farmer hat. And, uh, I don't know. He's wearing like shorts and a fancy shirt type thing. Yeah. He exists. Yep. I, 15 non-binary, recently had to deal with the passing of my grandma, 80 female.

[00:48:08] It was obviously heartbreaking as any major loss in a family would be. I am autistic. It feels really weird. Uh, the 80 female grandma. Dude, I thought so too. Like, like if he was going to drop like 80 non-binary or something. I am autistic and I use my special interest to cope with difficult times. One of the biggest ones is the character Sakamuchi from Genshin Impact.

[00:48:34] He's been my biggest coping tool, especially since he also experiences loss in his family. So thinking about him and indulging myself in stuff relating to him helps me. Okay. Last week was my grandma's funeral. I have my Sakamuchi cosplay and I couldn't see myself being able to deal with the funeral in any clothes other than my comfortable clothes, a.k.a. my cosplay. So I went in costume for my own sanity.

[00:49:01] That ended up with a lot of dirty looks from my family. It just seems like a fucking excuse just saying so I went in for my own sanity. Like it just seems like you're like saying. No, he's saying that he couldn't stomach it if he wasn't dressed like this. Why are you laughing at him? This is a struggle moment. Hold on. Let's get more details. Yeah.

[00:49:28] And after the funeral, my grandfather called me angrily and excuse me or accuse me of not taking the passing of my grandmother seriously. And I disrespected her and her ceremony for showing up in such a flamboyant costume. I explained to him that I just wouldn't have been able to handle the funeral wearing anything else because of my issues. He said that was bullshit. And I was just making excuses. Harsh grandpa.

[00:49:56] I really imagine like showing up to your grandma's funeral like a Super Mario costume. Yeah. Well, it's funny because this guy looks like it almost looks more like a fancy sombrero. You're right. Just imagine a guy walking in wearing the shortest of shorts. All right. I don't know if I was the asshole or not.

[00:50:24] My dad refuses to say anything about the situation. So I decided to come here. Reddit, am I the asshole? There's a slight. He says ETA. I mean, edit, I guess. I don't know. Since people aren't understanding my autism, I am diagnosed as level three or severely autistic. A lot of people in the comments seem to not understand. Okay. All right. He was labeled as an asshole.

[00:50:54] Yeah, they instantly labeled this guy an asshole. He did not stand a chance. Yeah. I. I'm just thinking about my funeral and somebody shows up in a Genshin Impact cosplay. I feel like you. I just can't think about. I can't think about that at all, dude. It literally scrambles my fucking brain. Yeah.

[00:51:22] I can't think about somebody showing up in a Genshin Impact cosplay to my funeral. There's no way you can make this slide. Like any, any costume would not work. Like, why didn't you just. Would you be upset in heaven if I showed up to your funeral and I was. I looked like Yoshi. It depends on how I died. Probably. I put an egg.

[00:51:51] I put an egg. This is an open casket funeral. Yeah. I can see you. I can see you there. And I put an egg. And then you make a Yoshi sound. Brom. Brom. Brom. Brom. Brom. And so Yoshi sound here. But yeah, there's no way you can swing this. I'm sorry, my dude. I don't know exactly how you feel, but it might have been better off if you just did not go. Yeah.

[00:52:20] Just show up, show up in a t-shirt. Like anything else, dude. Don't wear cosplay to a fucking funeral. Are you serious? It doesn't make sense. I mean, there's probably better cosplays you could have done too that might have landed better. Like if you did like a Zorro or something, because at least he wears black. Or. Yeah, do a cosplay of somebody who's wearing a suit. Dude, that's what I was thinking. Like who can we swing?

[00:52:47] Like what edgy anime character that lost his family or something like light Yagami. Light? Dude, I mean we thought of light as well. Holy shit, that's crazy. He's a sharp dressed boy. He's never looked slackin'. Yeah, dude. He's in a university and everything. Yeah. Like there's plenty of edgy characters you could wear that would fit better at a funeral. That's crazy. It's fucking. I'm looking at him, dude. It's like.

[00:53:17] I don't know, maybe a black butler character. Did he really have the rice hat? I got to assume he had the rice hat. That's like, that's like most of the fucking outfit. So I mean. It's all hat. Dude, when I typed it in, I typed just this guy's name and then images. And if you scroll like three scroll wheels down, it is just gay porn. Are you surprised? Something's happening. No, I'm not surprised at all.

[00:53:47] But I mean. That's what he showed up as in the fucking funeral. That's what I'm trying to. I'm trying to bring that to the listener, you know? Yeah. Okay. So this guy's an asshole. We're all in agreement. How can we fix this though? Now that his dad will not talk about the situation. His grandpa. What? Just tell him to get a different cosplay. Well, I mean, it's too late now. Well, yeah. But he's got to make amends at this point. Um.

[00:54:17] Do your cosplay really good on Instagram. Like get that. Get that. Get those people who are like looking for. Do a dance, you know? Do a do an Instagram dance. But like by the grave. I don't know what that means. But, um, you know, I mean like the grandma's grave. Yeah. Yeah. Like the spider man. That was a flash or whatever. It's a flash. Some people really like the story to go along with their viral dance video, you know?

[00:54:47] Yeah. And then you just have texts like grandpa called me out of my bullshit for wearing my cosplay to this funeral. But it's just me being me or something. Yeah. You know, grandpa didn't grandpa didn't think I could be a DPS and then just do the dance. Make sure you wonder how meta this character is. Like, is he, uh, is he effective? Yeah. Is this a good character? Is this someone that people actually care about? I don't feel like it is because I feel like there'd be a lot more art. Hmm.

[00:55:15] I'm trying to think of like, who's a fan of a D list League of Legends character? Like Zach? Is he D list? Is Zach a D list character? I don't, I really don't know. I'm trying to think like, I really don't like, okay, this is a weird poll, but I think Twisted Fate is D tier, but he's got a lot of style. I feel like Twisted Fate is like nothing going for him though, right? Yeah. Because his kit, his kit is so like not great.

[00:55:46] Why would you play Twisted Fate? He has a lot of people that do what he does better. Why would you play Twisted Fate? Unless you were playing ARAM. That's the only reason why you play Twisted Fate. I mean, his ult is cool. But it also doesn't get kills or anything. It's just a health game. His ult should like root people or something. Like, his ult should do something else. Like, it's crazy.

[00:56:08] No, it's a team playing thing or whatever where it's like, I think it's supposed to be like, part of the gamble is that he's just going all in on somebody. So he just teleports into somebody and then just hopes for the best. It just is a bizarre thing. It reveals everyone. It reveals everyone. And then he can teleport somewhere. Yeah, so they know that he's coming. If you were coordinating with your team, you already knew where the person you were teleporting to was.

[00:56:37] And if you do activate your ability, that makes everyone get revealed. Then what happens then? Because like, well, the other thing is, it's also a bluff because people don't know who he's teleporting to. It just shows everyone on the map. And now it's like, what's he going to do? You think it too hard. No, I'm too hard. No one ever thinks that far. Dude, wait, no.

[00:57:00] The second you pop up, you're like, is there a chance like a tiny 1% chance that a Twisted Fate tries to all in me right now when I'm in the middle of the bush taking red? That does suck whenever you're like doing a specific thing. And then a Twisted Fate. I don't want to think about it because Leo Legend makes me angry. The better version of it is the stupid, either Warwick's thing or what's the cat?

[00:57:28] Ren, Ren, Ren, Ren, Ren, Ren, Ren, Ren, Ren, there we go. Ren, Ren, Ren, Ren, Ren, Ren, there we go. Yeah, where he has his little kitty pounce thing where you're like, oh, I can be pounced right now. And that would suck when you know he's hunting or whatever. Yeah. It's Twisted Fate is the worst version of Rengar. I mean, I do agree. I think that covers our assholes. Are you ready to take a quick break and then we can hit the meat? Yup. The music plays. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

[00:57:57] You know, we didn't do Japanese Corner, but we kind of did it throughout the other bits. Is there any thing you want to throw in Japanese Corner before we hit the meat? A specific thing. This is good for the post break. In the post office, people are getting pissed off about people wearing headphones and stuff. And so, like the safety people specifically. Yeah. And you can be ambushed by safety people at any time.

[00:58:26] And so I had my phone sitting in a little thing and I was listening to Yu Yu Nihongo podcast, right? Yeah. Yu Yu Nihongo podcast, whatever. Yeah. That's it. That shit was going on. And so I needed a signature for a certified meal. I went up to the door, knocked on the door, sit there for like five minutes, nothing. I go back, start writing the slip. And so a lady comes out.

[00:58:57] It's a Japanese lady. Oh man. Did you hear with the Ohio? No, I didn't hear anything. So she comes out and she starts walking towards me. She's like, oh no, you know, like waving me. Like, I want the paper thing. I'm like, okay. And so I grab her mail and then I throw away the thing and I start to get out and walk towards her. And she's like looking around like, what the fuck? You know what I mean? She hears my podcast playing. She's like literally like swinging her whole body around.

[00:59:25] Where the fuck is this fucking Japanese coming from? And so I give her the fucking thing. And as she's like signing the thing and she's, she realizes that the Japanese is coming from my truck. And then she starts talking to me in Japanese. Oh no. Now's your chance, Nave. Let me know you hit him with a, a, a, skoshy, Nihongo or whatever. Legit.

[00:59:50] So it was so embarrassing, but I, I was like, I was like, I, I waved my hands, you know, cause I, she's not speaking English at all to me. And so I'm like, I waved my hands. I do the pinch and I'm like, you know, Nihongo pinch. Like, I don't know much. I was like Nihongo. And then I pointed out myself and I was like, Gakse. Oh, Dave is so cringe. But go on. It's so cringe.

[01:00:16] And, but she was just like, Oh, she started talking to me again. I have no idea what the fuck she's saying. That's so great. And I just kind of smile and nod my head. And she's just like touches my arm. And then she grabs my mail and walks off dude. But I'm like, I did it. I did it. Like I conveyed. My first native interaction. Like a, like a, like a cat man, but I conveyed. You communicated.

[01:00:46] That's what language is for. Dude. It felt insane. It actually felt insane. Because it's like, I know that I was 1% successful in that interaction, but it was still like, they definitely understood what the fuck was happening. Right? Well, I mean, it could have gone worse. Like, it's not like you crit failed and you're just like, Shin-e. Or something. Oh, my. Oh, Shinderu. You know what I mean?

[01:01:15] Or hit him with a, what's the Naruto one? Oh, God. I forgot what Naruto. Dr. Bayou. Believe it. How do you say believe it in, uh. In Japanese. He doesn't say that in, uh, the Japanese version. Oh. He has a different catchphrase. It was the whole thing that I was just talking about earlier is that how the fucking words don't match up to the fucking thing I'm hearing. Yeah, that's real good though. Yeah. It was scary. I'm proud of your name. Because it, it really felt like, oh my God, this is it.

[01:01:45] I'm gonna fuck it up. And then I didn't fuck it up. I really didn't fuck it up. I really, I was like, Nihongo Gakusei. Yeah, that's enough. And then she was like, oh, okay. Okay. You know, it's crazy. Feels good. Yeah. I mean, that tops everything I was gonna say in Japanese Karmu. I was just like, I watched more anime and I finished Takage-san. Like, I've been thinking. Because we already talked about, we already talked about out of the bar, like, looking at Anki and shit.

[01:02:14] Which you know though, you made that ladies day because like, instantly she's gonna go to whoever her family is a bro and like, you won't believe what's going on with the mailman. And so you're now a character in her life too. In her main character story. I literally, I didn't understand. I really am a character up there at that fucking, uh, the SMBs. Because they, the lady was literally like, oh, this is the Japanese guy. Like, she, like, this is the guy learning Japanese. This is like, this is the Japanese.

[01:02:43] Because I don't even think they understand that I'm learning Japanese. I'm like, I think they saw me on my phone and there was a Japanese character and they're like, oh, this guy understands every Japanese word ever. Probably. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I, there's no way for them to know. At all. Because they just see me sitting here looking at my phone and there's Japanese words on my phone. I mean, true. Like, I've had that at work too, where I was just like, doing my like, practice reading at work.

[01:03:12] And it's just literally a full text page of just Japanese. And I'm slowly going down it like barely, you know, one sentence every like 30 seconds as I, I struggle to go through. And someone walks by and is like, wow, you can actually read Japanese. And I'm like, I wouldn't call this reading. I call it like, trying to squeeze the tiniest bit of information out of all these words that I should know. But yeah, I guess I can read Japanese. Dude, no fucking shit.

[01:03:42] It's like, I, when I, I just don't know so many words in the middle of like so many sentences, like so many sentences I'm like being presented. And like, beginner Japanese stuff. And I'm like, I can vaguely understand what you're saying. Because I, I know one word. And then I know like the tense in which the verb is happening at the back.

[01:04:10] And then I know, like, you said Watashi at the beginning. So I'm like, okay, so it's something about, you know what I mean? Yeah. It's so weird. Because like when you see a no in there, when I see like the Watashi or something, you're like, oh, specifically, it's something of theirs. This is perfect. No, it is. Or it's like when you see, oh, and it's like, oh my God, the action is happening to whatever that was before it. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's like, oh God, I can fucking figure it out a little bit.

[01:04:40] Decoded. So stupid. Yeah. Yeah. Japanese sucks. It's so fun though. Like it's so hard to not just want to do everything Japanese, which I guess I can go straight into our game of the week. Because I was really excited to play this because this game has a huge popularity across the world, including Japan. And it features full Japanese voices despite being, is this game Chinese? Do we do the break before this? Yeah, we do the break.

[01:05:10] So we're back. And we're talking about Genshin Impact. But Genshin Impact is a gacha action RPG. It does not have a Steam page, but it has a epic page. And it was released in 2021. And it says, embark on a journey across Tavat to find your lost sibling and seek answers from the seven, the gods of each element. Explore this wondrous world.

[01:05:39] Join forces with a diverse range of characters and unravel the countless mysteries that Tavat holds dot dot dot. That's a nothing description. But that's what you do in the game, I guess. Nothing. Nothing. Dude. Okay. So history preconceptions of the game or whatever. I knew this game was super popular. I kept seeing the ads for it. All the characters are everywhere.

[01:06:05] I originally think I tried playing on my phone and I'm like, wow, this is impressive for a phone game. But then I just didn't stick around with it and then cut to a little bit later. I was like, oh, this game is full Japanese. So I started playing in Japanese like two years ago. And funny enough, that's when we were in the Christian arc. And so I was trying to listen to Christian while I was playing this.

[01:06:29] But the iPhone version does not let you play podcast while in the game like it like takes priority. So I wasn't able to listen to podcasts while I played in the game is just so boring when you're not actually doing anything, just walking around that. I could not stay in the game.

[01:06:49] And funny enough, Nave, that happened again whenever you were doing it for this podcast, because I think I played for eight hours, but it was the longest eight hours of my life. I found like a little bit. That's my history preconceptions, but quick review taste. I found this game incredibly boring. Yeah, I didn't know anything about this game except anime girls. And China.

[01:07:17] And so that was my history preconceptions. I didn't know too much about like what this game was, how to play it or what I did. I didn't know if it was a mobile game or what. It is a mobile game, but it's also released on console and it's also like a hundred gigs. Yeah, it's really big. It was originally on like maybe PS4. Maybe you could play there as well. So it was like mobile PS4 and then PC.

[01:07:43] But this game is basically a breath of the wild knockoff. But with gotcha mechanics mixed in. So did I? Okay. I think I played about eight hours. I'm sorry. That was disconnected for a second. Hello? Hmm. Okay. So to get into the discussion points. I guess we can talk about the gameplay first. The combat is all about applying elemental buffs on critters when you're fighting them.

[01:08:13] Yeah. I don't know if you did one of the trials where it's like, hey, a new character is coming out. You can get a free trial playing with them. Did you do any of those? Yeah, there's a bunch of those actually. A lot of the main story is like not even just new characters. It'll do it for like characters you already have. Yeah. Like I had one for the, there's like this witch that does electric, electric attacks. And I had one for her, but even though I already had her for a while. Yeah.

[01:08:43] So it gets you to see what they're like at a full power because it automatically levels you up to level 80 while you're doing it. It's like, hey, this is how badass you can be. Yeah. It's supposed to be like the. I didn't know that. The in-game version of them. So like the, the witch lady, I just, I already had like a bunch of things that could just instantly level people up. And I just did it instantly because I was like, this witch lady is probably somebody that I want to have.

[01:09:08] You know, you'd say that, but are they a five star character or whatever? Because there's different rarities of characters. I have no idea. So some characters are just inherently better because they are a percentage like lower on the gotcha pools to try to get you to pay to win, I guess. But I don't think there's any major paywalls in this game unless you're trying to do like

[01:09:32] the in-game stuff when you need to be a whale with infinite damage to actually beat those harder challenges. But of course, I didn't make that point because this game feels such a slog. It's probably really fun for people who don't play video games, you know? Okay, so I mean, that's like an interesting point. So I'm playing the dot hack link games or whatever, which are PS2 games, port of the PC or whatever. And I feel like I was having more fun playing those, even though I had never played those

[01:10:02] games before. And they're like PS2 games. The combat, very similar to Genshin actually. Like it's very close just without the elemental effects. I don't know, like it. It feels like a game that's great for someone that's never played games before. Like you said. Yeah. Like if this is your first, I don't know, like Japanese character RPG looking anime game, you're probably going to love it.

[01:10:30] Like, wow, look at all these characters. There's so much color. The graphics are actually really nice. It's like being in a vibrant cartoon world. There's little critters. They hop around. There's lots of flashy effects. The game looks good. The children love it. Character models look all right. Some of the characters are actually like really well designed to like one of the first characters they give you. I think it's Amber, the fire archer. She sucks. What?

[01:10:58] She was always on my team with the rabbit thing that she throws when she throws out a mini version of her. That's like a rabbit that distracts enemies and explodes. I fucking did a gacha pull and got a better fire person right away. The problem with her is that she like the only element that she ever does is like her pull back drawstring. Oh, yeah. For the fire blast thing attack. But like you can any literally any other fire person.

[01:11:27] I bet probably does any all their shit faster like instantly. Oh, yeah, like they actually want to proc the fire. Yeah. Okay. This is good. True. I assume this and she's like the base tier. She's not going to stand a chance compared to the later champs. Yeah, probably just got lucky or something. I don't know. No, because I also got lucky. I feel that or they just give you some big stuff at the beginning, but also got like a

[01:11:56] super rainbow special girl that turns into like a giant raccoon or something. I should I was I was going to copy and paste my characters in here, but I forgot to. Oh, yeah. Gracie as well. So I had a little I had a little like infant girl that turned into a raccoon. There's a couple of them like that. I think they're like ninja children or something. I assume they're children and they all like do like raccoon magic.

[01:12:26] I think it's probably a race. The problem is that like I think I talked about this last week where it's like there's something about like having a small person have a large weapon and I just like it. Oh, yeah. I love that. So there's something about that. And so like I was playing that character often just because it's fun.

[01:12:47] Like I think and also I had like they have like a big it was a what is that wet? You know, the Japanese weapon where it's like a big club. Oh, the baseball bat with spikes on it. Yeah, spikes. Yeah, I love that one. Classic. Yeah. So that's what I had for her because I had two people who had great weapons. I had another girl.

[01:13:13] Um, so she so the small the the child was like my earth elemental and then I think I had this like is that the one that like rolls like Sonic the Hedgehog for her special? No. Okay. Her the girls but the the special for the one I had was, um, well, what the fuck happened? I can't remember. It wasn't that though. It was okay. Because I had one of the Ninja Tanuki kids and they rolled as like their special and they were really fast.

[01:13:42] And I have that one in it also used a great weapon. That was earth flavored. Oh, no, she did like a spinny attack. Oh, okay. Like a kind of a like a Garen anything. Yeah, a Garen. So I guess we can talk about the characters at this point. Uh, I like the characters, but I feel like they don't. They're not specific enough because in my gacha pools, I got like three witches that all seem to do the same thing and I could not tell them apart.

[01:14:08] That's kind of interesting because I also had three gacha pools. And besides that little girl that I got, uh, the other two were just dudes. Just guys. Yeah. And I was like, wow, nobody ever wants the guys and these gacha pools. And I got two of them. That was incredible. And so I just never fucking, I had no idea what the fuck they do. Yeah. I don't know. There are the different types.

[01:14:36] You have your, uh, your raccoon children, ninjas. You have your witches. You have your just guys. These seem to be the archetypes because there is like 200 something characters. Like, let me look how many there actually is. Yeah. I think there's a lot of them in Genshin. Uh, that's not helpful. So there's currently 95 playable characters with three about to be released, but there are

[01:15:03] only a couple of five star characters. Looks like there's around like five of them and five stars are the like legendary characters that are 1% pools, of course. And I find that very annoying because that was how it wasn't like Dragon Ball legends where it was almost like, of course there were types or whatever. There was like 40 different Goku's, but there was only like two Goku's that were actually good.

[01:15:29] The rest of the Goku's were like, you know, middle Goku or whatever during the, the cell saga. And he's like, not that great. He's dead. Yeah. When he was supposed to be dead at that point. I, I, I got, we got a fucking message. Riverside. Yeah. It's from a Jono. He's suggesting we go to Riverside to record. I said, I'm Dern. No. Oh, Navy. Were you able to understand that a Nichijou comic I sent you by the way? Nichijou? Hold on. Let me look. Scroll up one second.

[01:16:00] Uh, Goro, Goro, Goro, Goro Chico, Li, Li, De, De, Ma. What are you reading? I'm reading the left part. Okay. Am I insane? This is broccoli. Broccoli. Is that what I said? Bro, dog. Oh. Oh, he said. Oh, she. Oh, the she is like. That's a little she. Little she. It's a fucking. It's a fucking. It's a.

[01:16:30] Bro, dog. She. Oh, I understand now. It makes sense now that I fucking know this tiny she. Tiny Sue. Oh, dog. Bro, dog. Goodie. Broccoli. So stupid, dude. No, I can see what we're looking at. Dear listeners at home.

[01:16:55] It's a three panel comic of a girl holding a piece of broccoli towards another girl that's walking away. And the girl looks angrily at the broccoli in her hand, puts it back in her bag and says, uh, it's not broccoli. And I mean, if it really matters, we can get into the context. She's trying to figure out why the other girl is angry with her. And she thinks it's because the other day when they were eating lunch, uh, the girl ate the other girl's broccoli.

[01:17:24] And, uh, she thought that was why she's angry at her. The funny thing is, is that like I went straight for the, the, the, the Katakana. I, I didn't even look at like anything else. I didn't look at the context of the first. Like if I feel like I looked around, I would have immediately been like, it's probably the only thing that they're holding. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:17:48] Well, which, uh, this game, uh, I don't know if it's being made by Chinese developers or whatever, but they are heavy on the kanji use in Genshin impact. Oh, did you play it in Japanese? Any, I did have the Japanese, uh, text on for a little while. Uh, and then I got stuck. I didn't know what the fuck I was supposed to be doing. And then, so I just switched it to English. And then I was like, okay, I forgot to switch it back. Yeah.

[01:18:17] Uh, I feel like the languages of the game is not hard, except they love to like repeat. Like the, the same material or whatever. Like, Oh, you know, we're all focused on dealing with, uh, one of the seven gods of the wind or whatever. And we talk about that for like ever in each conversation just feels so annoying because the premise of course is that you get like lost on an island. You need to find your sister or your brother. I don't know which character you chose, but you pick one of the genders.

[01:18:47] So you got to find your sister and she's lost somewhere on this island and you need the help of the seven gods of dude or whatever. So you just start meeting basically anime protagonist characters throughout this MMO style area and do different things. I guess, I guess, I guess, or whatever. Like in my time, I hung out with some treasure hunters. I got my flying license. Like, this game feels so slow.

[01:19:16] Oh, I did want to point, I put a picture in there. Uh, Knave, if you look, one of the dogs in the main town looks just like my dog. What? Where? Scroll in the notes. Oh, in the notes? Yeah. Oh, right there. I see it. Yep. So I appreciated that. Have you seen Luna? Uh, not more. Not much. She sucks, dude. She doesn't look like any dogs in Genshin. She's giant.

[01:19:45] She's giant and, um, I don't know. Do you know what an Australian Kelpie is? Is that what Bluey is? Probably not. Let me look it up. Stupid ass dog. It's just giant. Oh, yes. And like in my way all the time. A Kelpie is a shape-shifting water spirit from Scottish folklore. Lives in locks and rivers. It looks like a horse mermaid. I, I feel like I probably do have a fucking weird water spirit in my house.

[01:20:14] Oh, but an Australian Kelpie is a sheep dog. You know what's crazy is that every day I come home, my bed is pushed like 11 inches away from the wall. And I fix it every day. I think so. Would she just like push behind it to get under it or something?

[01:20:38] So, not only is she pushing my bed away, but she also like grabs every pillow on my bed and my blanket and she shoves it into the corner, the top left corner of my bed. And she lays there. And then she pushes the bed away in that position. And I, that's the only way it makes sense. Right?

[01:21:00] Because, it, like, dude, I come home and my pillows are underneath my bed. And then she, she, she bites them and puts them. And it's not even just that. Sometimes she will grab a sock and bring it into the middle of the living room. And I would just have a random sock in my living room. For no reason. I think she's just messing with you.

[01:21:30] Dude, she's, she's, she's staring at me right now. Hmm. I see. All right. Back to Genshin though. Nave, do you have any major me points you want to hit? Because, uh, I found it really hard to play this game.

[01:21:45] I kind of liked this game to a weird degree because it's like so simple and brainless that even so, so people who listen to this show a lot, um, they probably remember our Far Cry 6 episode where I was like super like anti everything that I have to say about Far Cry 6. It's a plus of this game.

[01:22:12] But at the same time, this game is brainless because they want you to spend money on their Genshin Impact battle pass thing. Right? Probably. I don't know if there's battle passes, but there's definitely a membership that you can buy that then gives you like weekly credits or something. Well, yeah, there's, there's a thing that, that gives you daily credits. Daily? Oh God.

[01:22:40] If you miss a day, then you don't get the credits. Right? Yeah. So if you want the maximum amount of money, you have to sign in every single day. Also, I found the conversion system weird, by the way, like to get your wishes because I'm playing in Japanese. I didn't fully understand. It's like you need to buy wishes. There are different color wishes. There's like blue and pink.

[01:23:04] And then you can buy those using like wish fragments or stones or something. But these are different than prismatic wishes or something, which is like a rainbow wish that can only be used on like the premiums premium type things. And it's like when you buy things, you buy them in the wish tokens or something. I don't know.

[01:23:26] I found the just getting a new character part was hard for me, but I was also not familiar with all the lingo and it was in another language. Yeah, I don't know. It's not like super hard, but like it is a gacha game. So you're just going to get random people. Not even people. Sometimes you just get gear, which is worse than your current year as a level 14, which doesn't make sense. If you get if you do 10 rolls and you guarantee you get to get a person. How are you?

[01:23:56] There's like a pity mechanic. Yeah, it tells you like as you're buying. So it's like. You can you can do one roll or you can do 10 rolls, and then it's like if you do 10 rolls, you're definitely getting a four star character minimum. And of course, you need duplicate of characters to level them up to different like tears. I don't know. I'm kind of burned out from gacha games after playing the Star Wars gacha, the Dragon Ball gacha.

[01:24:26] The Pokemon gacha game. It's very interesting from you because it's like I this is my only gacha game and I was already like, damn, you know, at some point I was like running around just like, damn, dude. Like, I don't know. Damn, like you want to keep playing or damn like this is bad. It's not even like damn like this is bad. It's like damn like this is it, huh? This is the whole game.

[01:24:53] You know, like I'm sure people like this, but. Because there's so much more map I could have explored and I could have, but like. Which you listen to them. We did not play co-op because it requires you to get a level 14 and I don't or 17 or something. I don't know. I didn't make it 16. 16. OK, I'm like 14. And I was like, I cannot stomach this game anymore. Like I started up yesterday and played for 10 minutes and then turned it off.

[01:25:22] So I'm level 16 for two days. And I. I tried to join. Four people. Whenever I first joined 16 or when I first got to 16 and they all denied me. Yeah. And then the very next day I tried to join two more people and they denied me. Oh, and so do you think it's because you're a low level scrub? No, because they were like my same level.

[01:25:51] There may be like one or two levels higher. She can see that. So why do you think they denied you then? Hmm. They didn't want to make fun. I don't know. I genuinely don't know. I think they already had like a group in mind. Right. Maybe this game is funner with friends, but all you do is gear up. To take on harder challenges, which, you know, sounds pretty standard for online MMOs.

[01:26:20] That's the whole core principle of Elder Scrolls Online. And I actually like that game. But something about this game was just not hitting for me. I'm trying to figure out exactly what it was. I also really hate Paimon. I don't know if you felt that. No, I kind of like Paimon. Paimon is like a fairy that follows you around and helps you.

[01:26:50] I think the funniest thing about it is that like you can continuously be like, I'm going to eat this. And that was like a joke that kept happening. That was like emergency food. And like, I don't know. Kind of dumb. Yeah, it's silly. Kind of silly. A stranger to danger takes it in her stride. Saw a beast called Blubber in the nation of water.

[01:27:21] In order, sword in one. It's basically the voice of the main character because you are a non-talking protag. So anytime you need to actually talk to a character, Paimon would talk for you. But you would like select dialogue options and they would respond to you, but you wouldn't actually talk, of course. Yeah. Oh, and everybody calls you like traveler, I think would be like a translation for it. Yeah.

[01:27:50] Instead of your name, even though your name does appear in the text. I mean, that's just normal for games like that. Yeah. All right. Do you have any other major meat points to raise? I mean, the combat is like not bad. No, it's not bad at all. Decent. Yeah. Each character usually has like that attack and ability and then their ultimate, which did you have like with the ultimates?

[01:28:17] You could tell which characters had a bit more polish thrown on them because some would just alt and it would just be like a big fireball came out or something and the others would alt and it would do like a full zoom in animation effect as like something really big went off. Do you have any of those characters? You didn't? Oh, man. It's like, I don't know if you play like TFT, like the base characters when you kill someone

[01:28:47] and just blows them up. But if you have like a nice skin like Yasuo or something like that, it does like a whole animation where your character like kills off the other TFT general or tactician. Yeah. I just, I think I just had a bunch of random ass characters. A lot of the people that I got from the gacha, I didn't actually use. I just kept using the depot people. Oh yeah. Yeah.

[01:29:14] Well, I figure you might have seen him during the trials when you were trying out one of the new characters. But if we don't have any more meat points, we can head right into final words. Maybe I'll take these first final words. This game is going to be a recommend for me. If you have nothing else to play and you really want, I don't know, an anime art style type game because it is free. It is nearly 100 gigs though. So I don't know, respect the storage space. And after a little bit of time, you can't even play with your friends.

[01:29:43] But I just think there's so many better games out there. Like especially if you want a Japanese style RPG game, even if it's not turn based, you can just go play. I don't know, the .hack link series. It's like 20 something dollars on Steam. You get four games. Very similar experience. I don't really, I have, I guess this is a very soft recommend, but I will be swiftly deleting this and probably not play it again. What about you, Nave? How do you feel about this game?

[01:30:13] It's very interesting because like, this is kind of the epitome of games that I don't enjoy. With these open world kind of like wander around, do the kind of thing, have busy work, kind of almost never ending style type of games. I kind of do. It's difficult because this game is free. And we always have this problem, right? Yeah. We do a lot of game pass, a lot of free.

[01:30:45] I would recommend this game for somebody who wants to try and try it out. You know, like there's, it's this anime coded open world, Breath of the Wild style game. But as far as somebody who has my kind of tastes, it's not a recommend at all. And I think this is something that I need to kind of like tap into, right? A lot of people are like, they listen to reviewers for the reviewers taste.

[01:31:14] And I kind of feel hesitant whenever I talk about game pass games or I talk about free games. I feel hesitant to not recommend these games because they're so easily accessible. As far as my personal tastes are concerned, absolutely not. This is awful. You mean you're not going to suggest this to the friend group? After you guys get done playing some commander, you're like, hey guys, what if we all jumped on Genshin together? Pull out your phones.

[01:31:45] No, absolutely not. No Genshin at all. Not for me. Have you looked at the other games in the same vein? Like, I think it's like a Honkai Impact. Is there the other one? Honkai Star Rail and um... Or Honkai Star Rail. Yeah, they're slightly different genres, I think, is the whole thing. But um... I don't know. Let's see, I was looking into it. Honkai... Oh, you're right. There's two of them.

[01:32:13] There's Star Rail and Impact 3rd. And I'm guessing Impact is just like... This is just like a sci-fi version of Genshin. It's kind of what it looks like. And it looks like the Star Rail one is like a turn-based. Like kind of like the other gacha games that are really popular that are just like semi-autobattler turn-based type thing. But they're also made by the same people. I don't know. I...

[01:32:42] I love like anime. What's up? It's like the same style of anime girl. Oh yeah, the exact same art style. I wouldn't be surprised if there's like crossovers between the two of them. Even though they're developed by the same people. Alright, so uh... For the general population, we both kind of recommended. And uh... For anyone with similar taste to us, we did not recommend it. I think it's pretty fair. And with that, Nave, what are we playing next week? Um... I don't know. Yeah, I'll have to figure something out. And uh...

[01:33:12] Dear listeners, I don't know if we mentioned it, but uh... We actually gave up on Zencaster. Uh... Because their price change. I don't think we explicitly said. So the editing for this one seems a bit off. That's what's different. We're having to use some kind of a... Hack job to make it go together. So thank you for sticking with us throughout this point though. Uh... I know it's been a long episode. We... It's very late. Has it been a long episode? We don't have a timer. Like we usually do. Uh... We're at one hour and 43 minutes.

[01:33:42] This is a normal length episode then. It's been a normal length time, dear listener. And thanks for joining us. Maybe next time we can all make a wish for... Anime just guys to join us and fight some slimes. See ya. I'll have to hear something.