Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Part 2) w/ Aaron from SuperPod Saga

[00:00:10] Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of the Pre-Order Bonus Podcast. You're joined as always by myself, Cameron Warren, Jacob Price and special guests on today's show, Aaron from the SuperPod Saga. Aaron, how are you doing? I'm doing pretty good, man. I'm cold, but I'm good.

[00:00:38] Aaron, the JRPG master has joined us today for super specialized discussion on Clair Obscur expedition. How do you say 33 in French? Somebody, cue me in. I just got back from France. I should know this. I know three is trois. Trois de Trois. Un, deux, quatre. That's four. We're getting closer. We counted to four.

[00:01:07] No French people make fun. We apologize. If the Europeans are on here, please don't get upset. French listeners, we apologize even though you've already left the room. You have left the show and you're offended. Well, Aaron, how are you doing? What's going on? How's SuperPod Saga? What have you been playing lately? It's all going pretty well, man. I've been playing a bunch of, I got the Castlevania Dominus collection. Been playing that a little bit.

[00:01:32] Order of Ecclesia was making me mad, so I bounced right off of that and skipped to a different game, Portrait of Ruin. That's really good. And yeah, been doing pretty good. How are you guys? We're doing good. We're bouncing off games left and right. Well, Jake's not. I'm, you know, bouncing off every game pretty much. I have a little problem. It's called Elden Ring Night Reign.

[00:01:58] And it's making it difficult for me to play other games right now. So, yeah, I'm definitely invested at Elden Ring Night Ring. Although that is, it's, yeah, I need this weekend, Jake, you and me. I need some help. I'm there. I still haven't been the first boss. Are you playing Night Ring, Aaron, at all? No?

[00:02:23] No, but a bunch of my friends are, so maybe I should. I don't know. I can't. I still want to play more Nubby's Number Factory because Jerry was like, no, you stop playing that for Claire Obscure. And I was like, okay. And I'm getting like... What did you just say? Nubby's what? Nubby's Number Factory. It's like a pachinko deck building roguelike. Nubby's Number Factory. Yeah, dude. Is this real? It's a real game. It's on Steam. It's got this like...

[00:02:52] Oh my gosh. How do I explain it? Like early 2000s, like janky website feel to it because everything is like... Yeah, it's like a Flash game. Yeah. Or like games.com. Yeah, coolmathgames.org or something. It's really, really cool. Dude, they need to bring back those Flash game sites still exist. I think Flash died, right? Maybe. Maybe. Is that when you, in high school, when you're on like the homeroom Mac? Yeah.

[00:03:21] You need to type in like coolgames.net. Or Adventure Quest. I put a lot of time into Adventure Quest. Adventure Quest. Audience, go... Checks. Yeah, go look it up. I remember there being some like... Checks Quest. Oh! Yeah, Checks Quest. I remember playing some tower defense game. I couldn't even... It may have just been called tower defense, to be honest. It, but it was like its own web domain and that was it. Which is just one game. It's just tower defense.

[00:03:51] I'm like pretty confident it was like... Tower defense TM. And it now makes royal... It makes licensing royalties on every tower defense game ever created. Oh, damn. Oh, missed opportunity. Yeah, missed opportunity. Shit. They probably didn't get the copyright on that. Yeah, Elden Ring, Night Reign. Yeah, I've been... I've been gone. So, we missed last week. We did not do an episode.

[00:04:21] I was in France and England. Journeying through the country of France. Happened to be there. Short story. Happened to be there on last Saturday night, which was the European Champions League final. That was amazing. And Paris Saint Germain happened to be... Happened to make it to the final. And so, the eight blocks surrounding the Arc de Triomphe...

[00:04:50] Arc de Triomphe... Were completely blocked off. And our hotel was four blocks in. So, we had to basically haul our crap to the hotel. Then coming back that night, they blocked off like another two blocks and they had armed... Like armored police cars and policemen out. Turns out because they had that night at like 1am had massive riots in Paris, like a block from my hotel.

[00:05:19] So, the tear gas from... I love this. The tear gas that the police were shooting into the thousands of rioters in the streets of Paris tripped the fire alarm in our hotel room at like 1am. So... Oh no. I had a true French cultural experience to cap off my trip. Oh, and you were so prepared for this episode too, man. Hell yeah. Yes. Absolutely. The Arc de Triomphe.

[00:05:50] And... Yes. This is very timely because today we're talking about Claire Obscure Expedition. You can't say it like that anymore. You've been to France. Claire Obscure Expedition... I still don't know. Let me figure out 33 and I'll come back to that. Like the bit from Family Guy where they're listening to like Persian radio and it's like 103.8. It's totally not the same thing. I'm sorry, everybody.

[00:06:20] Persia and France are not the same thing. They're not the same thing. Persa. I used to have a... My person who cut my hair when I was in college is from Iran. Fun fact. And she would say, I'm from Persia. Oh. Nice. She's a very nice woman. Very cool. A little bit of Cameron deep cut lore in there. I don't know why that was super random. Sorry if that was... I went to Walmart for haircuts. I didn't have anything as exotic as that.

[00:06:50] Damn. Dude, does Walmart cut hair? Yeah. Because I'd be interested in that. Do they not have Walmart haircutting places down where you are? Not that I've seen it. Wait a second. Where do you live? I'm in Iowa. See, this is why the Midwest is underrated. Dang, bro. Because you could go grocery shopping, you could pick up your Switch too, and you could get a haircut all in the same place. Dude, we have subways in ours. You have a freaking salon? Yeah. I mean, we also have like... Do they have the eye doctor in Walmart's in your area too? We have that. Yeah. They do have that. That's a universal.

[00:07:20] Okay. So, hop on down to Iowa if you want to get your haircut at a Walmart. Pretty sweet. I don't do it anymore, but they used to. Haircut at Walmart, man. That's awesome. That's awesome. That's cool. We have a... I haven't been there in like 20 years. I'm not sure. Rollback haircuts. Rollback. Today only. Is there a Black Friday haircut? It's like a dollar. Oh, I hope. That'd be cool.

[00:07:49] Cut it all off. One dollar. Cut it all off. One dollar. People waiting in line, shoving each other in. One dollar cannot guarantee quality. No refunds. Did they do the shampoo at the Walmart salon? No, on Black Friday. Yeah. You gotta pay extra for that. No, I haven't been to like a Walmart salon in so many years. I assume they wash your hair. It'd be wild if they didn't. I guess it's Walmart though. They're probably using their like... What's the Walmart brand? Equate?

[00:08:19] They're using crappy Equate shampoo in your hair. So, it's just like... It turns to straw. Easier to cut that way. You know what? Equate is the shampoo of America. Okay? So... That's true. Wow, so many truths being spoken here. How many Equate products... So many truths. Oh, fuck. All right. Well, ladies and gentlemen, we...

[00:08:46] So, we brought Aaron in not to talk about Equate, although we could have a large podcast on Equate products. That's actually the next podcast. Um... Note that down for our special topics, Jake. How does Equate... What's the Equate product? Who's the studio... Video game studio who most closely equates with... Equates with... Equates to Equate? Equates to Equate? I would say whoever does like any mobile game. That's who does Equate.

[00:09:15] I can't think of the name of... It's like... What's the Farm... Farmville? Farmville 39? Oh! Zynga? Zynga? Is that...? Bazinga. Um... No, what's Zynga? What's the company... No, Zynga does Farmville. I'm... I'm confirming on the internet right now. Zynga with a Y. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's the Equate of the video games industry. Wait, this is Farmville 2. Let's take that, Zynga.

[00:09:43] There's no way there's only two Farmvilles. Anyway. I'm pretty sure Farmville... Is there a Farmville 2? Farmville 2 is what it just pulled up on the Google. Dude, that's a billion dollar franchise. We don't really give enough credence to Farmville. We need to really talk about Farmville all the way up. That's the next episode. We'll feature a 20 minute segment on Farmville every episode from here on out. The greatest indie game... Wait, the greatest indie game. Is it considered indie?

[00:10:13] Let me just quickly go through... There's a few games that we just don't really recognize, okay? In this highbrow artisanal video game podcast that we host. Okay? It's... It's... Brawl Stars. Okay? Brawl Stars. Roblox. Here you go. All right. Monopoly Go. Whoop-shoo. Whoop-shoo. And then Clash of Clans.

[00:10:41] Not nearly enough discussion. Those games are... They're monsters. That's like the biggest games in the games industry. There's gotta be podcasts that like exclusively cover that, right? I'm assuming. I bet. There has to be... I don't think so because the people who play those games like don't talk about them. They just... They're just on their phones and they just... There's just billions of people playing them and they don't need to discuss it. Clash of Clans. I bet there are podcasts. There's a Clash of Clans podcast. Is there really? Oh, man. What are you talking about on the Clash of Clans podcast? Clash of Clans!

[00:11:11] What are you talking about? What are you talking about? Clash of Clans. It's like... Is there like... Is there a deep intellectual conversation around Clash of Clans? Like... It's a five hour episode arguing over balancing in the game. Probably. Okay. All right. It's like... It's like the 49 year old mom who has like 9,000 hours. You know what? Under... Underappreciated or maybe underrepresented gaming demographic would be moms in the 40s playing mobile games. Oh my God. Because let me tell ya. 100%. Let me tell ya. There's... There are many of them.

[00:11:41] And they're gaming. There's millions. There's a lot of Clash of Clans podcasts actually. But why? Why am I not surprised there's a lot of Clash of Clans podcasts? Well we were about to jump ship but I guess we're just gonna keep doing what we do. Yeah. No. It's oversaturated. Let's... Continue with the less cool stuff. Ladies and gentlemen, let's get right into a real video game. Oh. Shots fired. A real video game. Claire Expedition... Claire... Claire... Okay. Sorry.

[00:12:11] Yeah I am. Claire Obscure Expedition 33. Nice. I can't do the 33. That's hard. Jake, how are we gonna break it down? First we're gonna talk about Clash of Clans for another 20 minutes and then we're gonna get into the category on narrative in which we discuss what kind of goes on in this game. Folks, between the three of us we have varying degrees of completion so this is kind of how it's gonna go.

[00:12:35] We're gonna talk into act 3 but we will not discuss the very very end of the game. So, yeah, a lot... That means most of the game is fair game when we're talking about narrative here. We're gonna talk about all sorts of things. Fair game. Next up the game design. Game of the year. Sorry.

[00:12:59] Next we'll talk about the game design in which we make comparisons to Clash of Clans for the next 20 minutes and then we start talking about the actual RPG mechanics and battle system. Turn-based combat in Clare Obscure Expedition 33. And then finally we'll talk about impact on the industry here. I mean obviously this game hasn't been out for that long but it has made quite a big splash I would say.

[00:13:22] Whether that's on social media, just different articles coming out about it and a lot of different opinions about what it means in the industry at this point to have Clare Obscure Expedition 33 be a success. So we will kind of let loose as we talk about kind of the state of Clare Obscure at this point in the video games industry. So we'll start off with the narrative. The narrative, Clare Obscure Expedition 33.

[00:13:51] This is a story of a lot of people dying. Yeah. Yeah. So basically there's this ethereal, is it a witch? Is it like a god? I'm not even sure. The paintress. And every year, tell me if I'm getting details wrong.

[00:14:20] Every year the paintress paints a new number and I think it counts down, right? I don't know what it counts. What was the first number? Do we know? From 100 because we have the journals, right? So from countdowns from 100. So then the paintress will like paint away and like, you know, paint away the people. I don't know how they do it or kill them or whatever. Anyway, they die. They disappear.

[00:14:49] They get materialized off the planet. Oh yeah. The gommage. The gommage. The gommage. The gommage. And the world, I think, has also been like messed up by the paintress. I don't know all the exact details. I can Google them later. It doesn't really explain it. That's the thing. It doesn't explain it. I think it explains it in like later chapters, which we may or may not spoil. Jake, you're probably the only one who's reached far enough to understand how the paintress reshaped the world.

[00:15:19] I mean, it is, it is relatively bonkers because you get at the end of each act, you get a lot of questions answered, but then you get a lot more questions added. I would say that this game narratively, like there are really cool moments of characterization, like lots of great characters. And they, as you do like the relationship, like conversations with people and eventually do their relationship quest, like really cool things happen and you learn a lot about the individuals.

[00:15:48] And the world itself, I just feel like is almost like a, I don't know, an implosion of narrative where like all these pieces are happening. And it's really difficult to see how they fall into place. I think even after you've beaten the game, like in terms of what the world is now, I think like the straight, like the story that's being told.

[00:16:12] I mean, it's interesting because I feel like universally the prologue has been highly praised because it just like sets the stakes extremely quickly. You're emotionally invested in what's going on. You kind of understand that the gommage is like this really big and intense event that people have created an entire like cultural event around because it is so deeply impacted and permeated their lives.

[00:16:35] And so that story of like the gommage and how the paintress like figures into all that, I think that story is well told with great characters. But I felt like by the time I finished it, because the game gets super meta narrative. I'm like, hold on a second. What exactly is metaphor here and what exactly isn't that kind of gets really tricky to handle. But like the story itself and the characters, I mean, I, I love them just like everybody else.

[00:17:02] I think Aaron, how does the story stack up as the JRPG connoisseur connoisseur? It's, I, not having reached the end of, I've got a ton of questions left unanswered, but so far it's really interesting. Like it's, it's fun to piece together certain things.

[00:17:27] Cause like, it seems like as the number gets lower, like the number that she paints, as the number gets lower, they're like the people's life expectancies are also like cut down by that amount. And that's, and that's weird and cool. It all reminds me a lot of kind of like Final Fantasy 10 a little bit where like each year there's like a pilgrimage to go do whatever and take down the bad dude. But it's, it's definitely really, really like wildly different from Final Fantasy 10.

[00:17:56] Uh, I, I, I think I, I looked up a guide to see just how close I was to beating the game. And I'm so close and I think I might actually have to just bite the bullet and just go finish this game. So I understand just what the hell is happening. Cause I, there's yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We'll get more into the story later, but it's fucking insane. It's, it's awesome. Yeah. I, I agree with you. I love that. We said it's like pretty weird.

[00:18:21] Like the whole concept of like these numbers ticking down, like, I don't know, to me that feels super fresh. Like I hadn't thought about something like this, but like, I don't know. I just love how everybody responds to that in the game. Like it's wild. So you meet like in the prologue, Gustav is, they're going to this event where the gomage is about to take a place and everybody who just turns 33 is going to be disappeared. You know, taken out of existence.

[00:18:52] We're going to be Thanos. Yes. And, uh, so you're there as Gustav and you meet up with your like ex Sophia and she's about to turn 33. And you come to realize that Gustav wanted to have kids, but she didn't. And because bringing kids into this world, I mean, their life expectancy, like you said, Aaron is like, it gets lower and lower.

[00:19:18] And so they keep making reference to this in the game at like six years old, you take on an apprenticeship, um, to like carry on whatever, you know, some sort of job or task or cultural thing within like Lumiere, the city, which is very much based off of Paris. And I don't know, I just think that like that setting the stage made like really good stakes for the game where it's just like, dude, we're actually literally running out of life.

[00:19:45] Like 33 is actually not that old. And people used to live well into their eighties. Like that is something that is still like in the collective memory. And what do you do if you have like, they're talking about pairing off people like 18 to have kids. And it's like, well, you may only have 10 years with your children. And like, dude, as a parent, I was like, dude, they're just digging a dagger deeper and deeper into my chest. Like these are thoughts that keep me up at night.

[00:20:14] Like what happens if this thing or this family member disappears or, you know, is killed. And so I think for that, like, I don't know, man, it really got me. It got me good. I think the inevitability of loss, you feel that like really powerfully through, especially through that like prologue sequence, like how everyone's just like resided to it's all going to end. Yeah.

[00:20:41] Like very soon, including up into like Gustav in the beginning, basically expressing like, hey, this whole expedition thing, like this is kind of a shame. Like we get this is basically just like a ritual, right? Like it's not actually going to do anything. And that's like depressing. So you don't, you don't really start the game with a lot of hope that, you know, it's not, it's not your traditional, like, hey, we're going to go save the world.

[00:21:10] And we have the hope to save the world. It's more like, hey, we have this idea that maybe somehow we're just going to kind of keep going and kind of see what happens. But we don't really think we can save the world. But it's like, maybe we could. And that I that like, that was a really interesting theme or kind of element of the story that that came through for me was they held on.

[00:21:39] And they basically held on to hope, knowing that they were most likely going to fail. And they I think they did a really good job of portraying that in the story, like really powerfully, which kind of goes against your standard. It's very clear that the heroes are going to win somehow, where in this game, they actually make you believe that maybe you won't and maybe the story will be turned into something else.

[00:22:04] And because you don't really know what the you don't really understand all the complexities of the world, they don't spend a lot of time world building, especially in the beginning, they just kind of drop you in. And it's like all this weird stuff is happening. And you're just trying to piece together as you go. But more and more questions continue to come up, even as Jake, as you already said, as they get answered.

[00:22:33] Yeah, it's so, so bleak. Like, yeah, like other I'm struggling to think of any other game that isn't like Dark Souls that kind of starts you off with such a dark, like grim theme. For the whole game. Because yeah, like there's the gamage and then maybe kind of a spoiler, but like right as soon as the expedition starts, like kabam, you know, people are just axed. Yeah, it's like Omaha Beach.

[00:23:02] Holy shit. Yeah, people are just annihilated, like right at the very beginning. And it's like, oh, well, okay. Which I visited, by the way. Sorry. Like the entire game is just this, this struggle to survive against like any normal encounter, which like other RPGs, like to bring up Final Fantasy again, like you're just scooting right along. Just, just walking on through at a leisurely pace.

[00:23:27] But in this game, like you, every, every single encounter is just this struggle to live. Yeah, that, so that scene, right? When you actually exit the prologue and we could talk about this because we gave a spoiler warning up front, but that scene where just like you arrive on the continent, right? Because you're at Lumiere, which is like this separated island city, whatever. And then you cross to the continent, you get there.

[00:23:53] The first thing the expedition sees is somebody with, with gray hair and they freak out. They're like, oh my gosh, an old person. Like if, if the game hadn't set like such a like bleak tone already, I kind of would have been like, what? Like kind of a tone shift there, but they want to ask questions and they're like, oh my gosh, like this is somebody that might have answers. Let's talk to them. And then suddenly this guy just starts killing people left and right. Just like annihilating them.

[00:24:20] Like easy, dropping bombs, just absolutely kills everybody. And Gustav, the character that you're playing as like barely escapes. And then they just like really hammer it in. Like there's this moment where he's like contemplating just ending his life. He's like, this was a failure. This is a waste of time. I have no chance here. And then somebody intervenes, right?

[00:24:44] I, uh, Lunae, I think one of the first companions you pick up intervenes is like, no, like even we got to try, we got to keep going. And so she inspires him to continue. And I just got to say, like, it was really emotional and it was touching, but also like, I almost kind of, I think I was borderline, like feeling almost a little icky just to go like about how freaking bleak this start was despite it, like being pretty unique.

[00:25:11] I was like, okay, this is interesting because I have no idea how these people are going to come back from this. And I'm like, where this game is willing to tread some really dark waters. If they're like showing Gustav here, contemplating ending his life. Um, and so the game obviously picks up, it changes. And from that, but for me, I was like, dang, like we are sailing into dark waters. Speaking of Omaha beach, I'm going to connect it back.

[00:25:41] It's speaking of Omaha beach. You know, we like to think about, I think this, this is a really good, I just kind of had this thought. Now, this is a really good reflection of how a soldier feels about war, like when they're in it.

[00:25:57] Right. And there's been films and books like describing this, right? Like we war is, is described in history books and, and, you know, many movies and such as like, you know, especially righteous wars, like, you know, Americans fighting world war two, like this righteous pursuit of, you know, fighting for freedom.

[00:26:18] And they're going to go over to Europe and kill Hitler. When at the end of the day, like when they're in it, it's really just about the guy next to you. You're just trying to like save the guy next to you. That's all you care about. It's just like, you're, you're just your brothers in arms, right? That's it. You're not, you don't care. You don't, you're not trying to win for the general. You're not trying to save the world. You just, you're just basically have resided the fact you're probably going to die. You're just fighting for the guy next year.

[00:26:48] And I think Claire up scared a super good job communicating that feeling right. Of like, well, this isn't going to work. Like we're going to die, but I got to hang in there for, for this other person, you know, who's who's by my side. So that was a pretty, I think very stark and kind of accurate reflection, but yes, also super bleak. So this isn't a game that like, if you're feeling down, don't play this. Yeah.

[00:27:16] It's not going to bring you up. It definitely doesn't bring you up. Almost like the, like the last of us of RPGs kind of. Yeah. Yeah. Last of us is talk about depression.

[00:27:31] And what was, what was their big saying in clear up? It's like for those who come after and like, as you're going through, you're finding all of these like other, like the, the, the previous expeditions that have just been annihilated and like turned to stone or goop or whatever they are. Yeah. Yeah. And they're like, Oh, they managed to put up hooks for you to climb on. They're the, the hook climbing expedition. And then they're just, there's just, there's just countless bodies of these expeditions.

[00:27:59] Yeah. The giant, the Ferris wheel expedition. I was like, that doesn't make sense, but that's cool. Yeah. Yeah. It's not. Yeah. I liked that. I loved it, man. When Gustav says that for those who come after, just like, that was one of his like battle cries when he would use like an ability, like in a battle.

[00:28:16] I was like, yeah, dude, because this game, like we, we talked about this at length, right? It starts like neck deep in despair, but as there's some turning point act one where it comes kind of back to this, the like fantastical adventurous tone in most RPGs. And I'm, I'm glad that it did right for one. And it got lighthearted and there are these jokes, but at the same time, it becomes like you're treading.

[00:28:44] I don't know. For me, this game really became something about like tradition and just like carrying on in heritage in a way where it's like you inherit a lot from what people like generations before you have done. And so what do you do to kind of recognize that, but also what do you do to pay that forward? I think that became a really big theme for me, especially with Gustav, right?

[00:29:09] And this becomes Gustav's thing as you kind of go through act one, you collect Lunay and then you collect a Mael, right? And that becomes like your initial squad. And what you learn is that Mael is actually 16. She doesn't have to be in this expedition. All these, the, I think everybody else in the expedition is like at least 30, if not all 32.

[00:29:30] And, and she is actually from what I understand, like Gustav's ward. So Mael was orphaned. Yeah. And so Gustav and his sister took in Mael. And there's even this one really touching moment at the end of act one where she's like, I don't know if you were my father or my brother, but you were both to me, you know? Oh, I already spoiled it.

[00:29:54] But like, and it's just, so that's the relationship that you have there as you go forward. And so, yeah, I think especially act one with Gustav for me was just like, okay, like, man, there are some days that you just want to give up. There's some days that like, I think to myself, you know what, if I lived solitary in a cabin for the next few years, I think I could do pretty well for myself and not like worry about anything else. But then you're like, no, I need to be stronger than that.

[00:30:21] You know, I need to be braver than that and stick around for the people who depend on me. And so I liked how that played out by the end of act one. Should we do spoilers, Jake? I feel like this is a game where we should maybe spoil. I say we spoil the end of act one and act two, but no endings. Okay. Damn. Yeah. So in the beginning in the Omaha beef scene, that's it now, folks. The D-Day scene. Yeah.

[00:30:50] So they land on the beach. I mean, it is, it's a good, you know, it's okay. They get like eviscerated. Everyone gets killed. It's total disaster. And then, but then you see that it's another person, right? It's not a monster. And he's much older. And that person is Andy Serkis. Let's call him. So Andy Serkis shows up. He's like an old man.

[00:31:20] And you're like, oh, wait a minute. Old man shouldn't exist. Cause you know, cause the old men should be dead. And then anyway, he kills everybody. Shows up again in act one. And then he, you have a one V one with a Gustav and this dude. And then Ben star shows up from final fantasy 16. What's the guy's name in final fantasy 16? Clive. Clive shows up.

[00:31:50] Oh, it's a crossover with final fantasy. He's, he's actually in the game. No, but no. Yeah. And then Gustav gets killed. And that explains why a skill tree is so small. Yeah. Cause the whole of that. The whole of that's what I'm like, why is this guy's skill tree so small? Even though I couldn't like fill it out. Cause I didn't grind enough. I was like, oh, that's interesting. His skill tree is like way smaller than the rest of these guys.

[00:32:19] That should have been a foreshadowing, I guess. Now, you know, I never even really used Gustav all that much. Once you got a CL or I forgot how to pronounce her name. I just was like, see ya. Yeah. Honestly, most of act one, same. I call it just like, this is maybe insensitive, but just like my girl power squad. Cause they had like crazy powerful. Yeah. The power puff girls. Maybe. I don't know. Just like crazy powerful attacks. Pretty much.

[00:32:49] I use actually use Gustav a lot. So when I lost him, I was like, dang bro. I lost. But yeah, it introduces this interesting aspect of, and the main piece of that is this new dude who shows up. He says during that act one scene where he kills Gustav, he's like, I'm actually doing you guys a favor. Like it's for the best. And so then that introduces like this new, oh, okay. Why does he think that? Right.

[00:33:18] He's a, he's a villain who obviously believes in something that we don't like fully comprehend. And then the Ben Stark guy shows up. What's that guy's name, Jake? Clive? You guys know the name so well. Oh, damn. I thought it was Clive. Is it Clive? It's Verso. Is that the one you're talking about? We're talking about, oh God. Verso. I mean, we are talking about Clive. Yes, sir. We're talking about Verso. Fuck. Ben Starr is the voice actor for Clive and also plays this guy, but Verso, it shows up and then you're like, oh wait.

[00:33:44] So there's actually like people who are in this world that are not part of the expedition. So that introduces like this new wrinkle. And then Jake, back to your point again, brings up all these additional questions of like what the F is going on. Right. I was, I kind of got that spoiled for me. I don't know about you guys. Did you guys know that was, feel like that was going to happen? Was it like foreshadowed? I was unspoiled. I don't recall.

[00:34:13] No spoilers. I was also unspoiled. I didn't see it coming. And then the old dad, not old dad, old dude have this like obsession with Miel kind of early in the beginning too. Or not in the beginning, but like at the end of act one or whatever, he was just like eyeballing her or no, maybe I'm thinking of act two. No, no. You can cut this out if you want to. This happens at the end of act one as well. Like they, they start introducing really random characters.

[00:34:39] You, you see this girl who looks very much like Miel, who is like black and white and has like a severely burned face and a mask. And she's silent. And she's like somehow connected like mentally with Miel. And so honestly, I did not foresee like Gustav dying. But when act one happened and Renoir, like he comes there and he kills the party or he takes

[00:35:08] down the party and then Gustav like protects Miel from him. And Verso enters a picture and you have like this basically Dark Link version of Miel. I was like, oh, yeah, this game's actually not about Gustav. This game's about Miel. Like that, it became really clear to me at that point that I was like, okay, that was in for me because I didn't see it coming and I didn't have it spoiled. I was like, okay, that's a cool bait and switch. Right. Because it's a pretty powerful bait and switch. Cause I think they do.

[00:35:38] They don't, I think they don't really, they make you feel like this guy is the main dude. Like you're going to be playing this game. Like that was my feeling when I was playing. I was like, oh, this guy's cool. It's, it's Charlie Cox, right? It's like this, you know, big voice actors. You're like, oh, he's definitely going to be in a full game. Right. Like, and then he just dies and you're like, okay. And he stays dead. Then you get Ben star. Like, is he dead? Oh, he's dead.

[00:36:08] He's dead. I never saw him again. Cause I haven't finished the game. I never saw him again. I feel like he's going to come back. You know what? Maybe there's some secret ending, but maybe there's not. Okay. Three, two, one spoilers. Does he come back to life? Three, two, one. I never saw him ever again. Yeah. Okay. Dang. It'll be like final fantasy 10 to where you have to do every single mission and a hundred complete the game. And then you see his ghost for like a second or something.

[00:36:39] Aaron, you finished act two then, right? Yeah. Or no, no, I'm close to it. Yeah. Yeah. You're close to that. But okay. So that's the act one kind of crazy, crazy spoiler, which that's, it's pretty wild to Jake's point. That kind of changes the dynamic a lot. There's like a lot of cool stuff happening in this, but Jake spoil act two for us. This is okay. Right? We're talking. Yes. Okay. So please act two. Verso kind of takes charge in a way. Like he becomes a leader.

[00:37:09] People are like, dude, we don't, we don't really trust you at all. But I feel like they kind of follow his lead because he knows this world way better than anybody else. He's actually a former expeditioner. He is from expedition zero. So one of the first expeditions to set out. Yeah, I know a big deal. And essentially he's like, okay, I've tried. But he's young somehow. He's young somehow. Right? Yeah.

[00:37:37] If it, if it started at a hundred, how does zero come first? It doesn't zero usually come before one. No, this doesn't matter. It's soft. It's software. So you start with zero and no, sorry. Actually, that would be in reverse. So that doesn't make sense. It makes sense. Trust me. Aaron, you're so close to seeing all the, the end of act two cut scenes.

[00:38:04] I know it's Sirene or Sirene. I don't know how you say it. Sirene. It's just, you know, maybe I don't want to get spoiled. Now you're intrigued. Let's talk a little bit about act two. Yeah. You can spoil, spoil what you think is important for this conversation. I mean, act two, I think changes tonally again. Right. I don't think, I mean, it's the middle act, so it's not as strong as act one or two or act one or three. I mean, but essentially they, they follow Verso through the world.

[00:38:32] Verso's like, I've tried to take down the paintress before I failed, but you guys seem pretty tough. And so he's like, the way that we do that is we have to forge essentially a weapon that will break the barrier. That's protecting the paintress that prevents expeditions to reach her. And so he says, there are two axons that we need to destroy that will kind of give us the energy or material. I don't know here. It's just feels way more traditional RPG.

[00:38:57] We need to get the items to forge the thing, to do the thing, to get to the boss, you know? Which I don't think is a bad thing. I think it helps quite a lot with pacing of this story because it's like, okay, up until this point, it's been like, you know, we're just slamming our head into a wall, failing and failing and failing over and over again. But now it feels like... Yeah. Now you feel like, oh, this guy kind of knows. He knows like...

[00:39:28] That was my impression of it. At least it's like, oh, okay. You've actually got some hope now because you've got someone who actually knows how to get this done. So it feels like maybe that's actually where it's going to go. Yeah, like he's got a plan. He knows what to do. And so that's what you're doing. You go to the two different axons. You take them down. You forge the parts, which turns into a very dope sword that Maial gets to use. I actually used it for a huge portion of the game as soon as I got it.

[00:39:55] And then you break down the barrier to go to the monolith. The monolith is this massive dungeon. And you know what shocked me? This is mild spoilers, but we've already said that we're going to talk up through this. You actually fight the paintress. Like for real. No. You said you do or you don't? At the end of act two? What?

[00:40:24] This episode is actually Jake just pitching to people who haven't finished the game yet. Like, dude, you guys should finish the game. Sorry, guys. We should have finished the game. We wanted to talk about it and we felt like we were running out of time, to be honest. But so I'll leave it there because I don't want to talk about like the act two cut scenes.

[00:40:44] Because what I will say is this, is that the game goes in a direction that I was really not expecting to kind of tee up act three. It becomes Animal Crossing. Yes. So, yeah. But you actually fight the paintress for real at the end of act two, which is very cool. I won't say any more than that. I'll just say that that fight and the consequences of that fight are just, they're pretty unexpected.

[00:41:14] But act two compared to act one and three feels like the most traditional RPG by far. Like in terms of story, the different areas that you go to, like how the characters like come to know each other and how they build relationships. It feels very much like a common ground. Like there's a lot of common ground with other games. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:41:42] Whenever you got a campfire and you have those little like conversations between characters, those were always kind of fun. And when you have Mayel writing in Gustav's, what is it, his journal for his students or whatever. His apprentices. I don't remember. Yeah. Apprentices. God, that's the word I couldn't think of. Yeah. That shit's always fun to listen to.

[00:42:09] And I had something else right on my brain, but I forgot what I was going to say. Continue. What was I going to say? No, I want to make the transition to an Aaron. I actually want to start with you talking about mechanics. I mean, I played a lot of RPGs, but I think you played by far the most RPGs. What was your impression of this combat system? Like, what did, did you, did you like it? What did you not like about it?

[00:42:38] Did you feel like it? I think that the, the word on the streets as it were, is that this feels like some kind of revolutionary step forward for like JRPGs or some, it's, it's like a big deal, right? It's like people are talking about it. Like it's a big deal. Do you think it's a big deal? Like, do you think this is, what do you think about it? I think it kind of is.

[00:43:05] It's, it's not often that you see a lot of people talking this highly of a turn-based game. Because I feel like not too long ago, turn-based RPGs were like, people were just like, like, just kill them. They're dead. They're on life support. Turn-based RPGs are obsolete or whatever. Uh, but then games like Dragon Quest XI come along and revive them.

[00:43:29] And then, and then Claire Obscure for sure with how fucking popular this game is and how easily accessible it is on like every platform. And, uh, and it's not too long. So many, many more people are able to like jump right into the game, play all the way through it. Like it's, I feel like it's really gotten a lot of people back on board with turn-based combat, which is great. Cause no, it's not fucking dead.

[00:43:54] There's way more depth to the combat than there ever is in like action-based combat, which I mean, to be honest, action-based combat. To a guy that really enjoys like Bayonetta and shit, it's just like dodge, slash, slash, dodge, slash, slash, dodge. And that's pretty much all there is to action-based combat. Yeah, pretty much.

[00:44:18] But in like turn-based combat, there's, there's so much planning and you have to like build your characters in certain ways. And there, there's just so much you can do, man. Like the, the combat system itself is really fucking cool because like it's this ultimate like combination or matchup of different mechanics from different games, which feels like really familiar, but super unique.

[00:44:45] Like you've got the, the timed hits, you've got the Picto system, you've got the, um, uh, what you call the like gradient counters and, or, uh, gradient counters and attacks and stuff like that. It all, like it all feels familiar. Like you've done this before, but it's so flashy and wrapped up in this pretty new package that it feels like it's not trying to copy every other RPG. Like it's doing its own thing.

[00:45:13] And that's pretty much, there's just, there's so much to the combat and character building. Like one of my favorite things is, um, uh, you can, it's like, there's, uh, like a Picto or Lumina where you can set a character to go first. And you can have like Lunay do a fire attack to all enemies and then CL go next and apply Fortel and damage to all enemies.

[00:45:39] And then you have Maiel hop in and just sweep up the whole goddamn thing in virtuoso stance. And yeah, yeah. I'm going to be talking all day. I can tell that you're, you're playing this game a lot smarter than I am. Cause I just hit the attack buttons, but for some reason, for some reason, and maybe it's just the inclusion because right at the end of the day, like if you boil this down,

[00:46:06] it is pretty much like final fantasy turn-based combat, right? Like a final fantasy 10 or like a final fantasy night, like it's very similar to that, but they just included these action game elements of Perry, Dodge, and a couple of different kinds of Perry, a couple of double, a couple of different kinds of Dodge.

[00:46:29] Um, and then like a Perry and integrate it deeply into the game where like to beat the bosses, like you really have, and we talked about this in our preview episode that we did to be the bosses. Like you really have to get good at the pairing and dodging and blocking.

[00:46:46] So not only do you have to do what, what you just talked about and work the systems part of it, work the turn-based combat part of it, the mismatch, the matching up of skills and the synergies between the different characters, but also be really good at blocking and pairing and reading patterns.

[00:47:08] And so it introduces like these two elements and mashes them together in this way that for some reason, I think that made the people who usually come out and say, well, action game, like I don't like turn-based. Like I want action for some reason. I think that element turned those people over and we're like, Oh no, like, I don't care. This is, this is awesome. Like those people fell in love with it. Yeah. It, yeah.

[00:47:33] With, with how many different ways you can, you can like react to a, to an enemy's attack. Cause there's, yeah, there, there's like fucking three counters. There's a jump. There's all sorts of stuff you can do. It, it really feels like, uh, I think like the closest type of fusion we'll ever get to like action-based combat and turn-based and like, yeah, it, it feels good to master that shit.

[00:47:58] Like once you, like it might take you maybe like three or four tries to beat a boss, maybe even more than that. But once you do learn their attacks and, and you are not their, you learn their patterns and you built this like unstoppable strategy to, to whittle down their health. And then you finally do beat them. It feels so fucking good. It feels good. Yeah, it is. So it is incredible. I love the combat system in this game.

[00:48:25] It is a lot of moving parts, um, which is wild. Like Aaron, you mentioned the Pictos and then you have the Luminas like in addition to the Pictos. And so just brief, brief explanation of this. Each character can equip three different Pictos. And essentially these are passive, um, like modifiers to how you attack or defend. And they come with like, uh, just a raw stat boost.

[00:48:51] Like you'll get plus 200 health, maybe like plus 30 defense on one Picto. Now, if you battle enough with a Picto, you can master it. And so it's passive trait. So let's say there's like a defensive Picto. It has health stats. It has defense stats, but it also is like, it gives you plus one AP, like action point on a perfect dodge.

[00:49:13] So that plus one action point on a perfect dodge becomes a Lumina that you can assign to different players based on how many like Lumina points that they have. And this essentially becomes kind of like, let's say a character has 50 Lumina points. You can assign a bunch of different Pictos or excuse me, Lumina Picto traits. And they're going to have values between like one and 15, I think, Luminas. And so you can kind of fill in all the way up to 50 or whatever number it is, what you want to do.

[00:49:42] So it took me a long time to figure out one, how to access the Lumina menu. It took me way too long to figure that out. But also like you have that. And in addition to skills that require action points to use. And what blows my mind is that each individual character has its own entirely unique battle like skill system.

[00:50:08] Oh, like like, yeah, like Lunay, like you can accumulate stains. And then based on what stains you have accumulated, they will provide extra bonuses to some of her skills. Or like Myel has a stance system. She could be stanceless, defensive, offensive or virtuoso. And depending on what stance she's in, it's actually going to change passively, like how much damage she deals and how much damage she receives.

[00:50:34] But also it can tee her up for some incredibly overpowered attacks. Right. But like the thing that blows my mind is like, dude, you could have had one of these systems for every character. And the game still would have been good. But instead, there's a total of six different characters. We're counting Gustav in here. Right. And they all play differently. And so it is like information overload.

[00:51:02] I don't know how, but the game made it, at least for me, that I was able to figure it out to the point where I was like, OK. Like, I love it, for example, where I'm so in tune with the game's mechanics that I think ahead beyond two turns. And if I'm playing a turn-based game, this is like the test for me. If I'm playing a turn-based game and I'm going to pinch against a boss and I set my controller down to like sit there and think through a bunch of strategies.

[00:51:32] Give it one of these. You're like, yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, like maniacal fingers together. Right. I'm sitting there thinking on the couch. Which, that to me is like, OK, the game got me, dude. They got me super invested in this battle system if I'm sitting here and I'm thinking about it. And so, I don't know. This game, I think, at first was super overwhelming. It does a pretty good job of easing you into things. But once you're in tune with it, like, man, it feels incredible to pull off some of the things that you can do.

[00:52:02] Oh, my God. And then when you get Monoco, his whole thing is basically, listeners, if anybody here has played Final Fantasy VI, he's just Yao or whatever the wolf kid's name is. I forgot his name. But yeah, you beat a monster. There's certain monsters. You beat them. He learns a skill. And that's kind of cool. But even with him, I still ended up using CL, Lunay, and Maiel.

[00:52:29] They're just, they're unbeatable when you get the right, like, the right package set up, the right strategy put together. Yeah. And I like, I really like that the game, it's not one of those games where you can just use the same strategy over and over and over throughout the whole game. Like, you have to really adapt to each boss. And the game, thankfully, gives you enough, I think it's recoats. And that's where you can, like, redo their skill points.

[00:52:59] The game gives you enough of those to, like, you don't usually need to reset all of their skills to put together a new strategy for a boss. But on the off chance that you do, the game is just constantly shoveling them at you. Like, hey, dog, need to redo? Okay, here you go. Have at it. Try it again. And that's really, really cool. I think I accumulated, like, 15 to 20 of those. And then I started using them a ton in Act 3. I was like, you know what?

[00:53:28] I've got this game figured out. And then in addition to skill points, you have weapon scaling. Like, dude, this game has so many systems. That, too. So I ended up, like, when I was in late game and I picked up a weapon, I was like, you know what? I've got, like, 15 to 20 of these recoats. I'm just going to totally retool this player around this one weapon. And whatever the weapon's passive abilities is or are. And then with its scaling, and I'm going to try it out.

[00:53:57] And so I was able to, like, I'm glad you brought this up. I think I had my main squad of, like, four that I rotated through. And I probably shifted their stats two or three times each in the late game to, like, optimize what I could do with them. And honestly, it kind of made the final boss a little easy. I won't lie. Because I was able to get... Dude, I min-maxed it.

[00:54:24] And, like, my L and CL were just, like, freaking, I don't know, outrageously powerful. 9999 damage every show. Like, CL for sure. Yeah, just the boss didn't stand a chance. My power pump girls were too strong. I'll say unpopular opinion. I think the weapon scaling was a bridge too far. I think they didn't need it. Like, it was just too much? Actually, yeah, I think it was too much. I think you would have been...

[00:54:52] I mean, I know, I realize people like having all... They already had enough mechanically to make it super interesting and to have, like, your builds and all that. But I think having all the different weapons just adds another layer of complexity that I think for me was, like, a little bit too far. Because I'm already figuring out, like, how to use the abilities and which skills to pick.

[00:55:14] I think I would have preferred the more traditional Final Fantasy route of, like, basically discovering the next powerful weapon when you reach, like, a new stage of the game. That's kind of how the Final Fantasy games work, right? Like, you arrive at a town and you basically will have one new weapon available for each character. It's a little more boring, but I think I would have preferred that because I'm dumb and don't want to manage too many mechanics. But, no, I mean...

[00:55:42] It does throw way too many weapons at you all the time. It's constantly throwing new weapons at you. That does get really overwhelming. Yeah, I just... I get stressed out of it. Like, you mentioned, right? Like, okay, I have all these items that I'm gathering to respec my character. I'm constantly getting barraged with new weapons. So, for me, it's paralyzing because I go, okay, I just got a new weapon. It scales with these stats.

[00:56:10] So, like, do I actually use it and redo the stats? But I'm kind of doing fine. And it's, like, that whole min-max conversation. It's, like, some people will dig that hardcore and be constantly, you know, constantly spinning the wheel to, like, figure out new setups. For me, it was, like, a little bit too much. Referring to... Boulder's Gate 3. Sorry. Every episode. Every episode.

[00:56:41] Boulder's Gate 3 has also insane build complexity. But I think does an insane variety of things. But I don't know. I think I... For some reason, it does my head wrapped around it a little easier than the weapon scale. I didn't like feeling like I have to redo my character. And I just... I felt like that was a little bit... A little bit too much. I don't, like... Picking the stats and then, like...

[00:57:11] The game basically telling you if you really want to do this right, You need to... You need to re-roll the stats on your guy frequently to really get it to sing. And I... I just didn't want to have to do that. Anyway. That was just me, though. Could be unpopular opinion. Yeah. I don't think it's... I didn't do... Holy shit. I didn't respect very many... I think I only respect maybe one time... Or one or two times, sorry.

[00:57:40] Against, like, the Sirenate. Because she's weak to ice. The game does give you, like... Some skills that, like... Your character can use to make a boss or an enemy weak to whatever... The hell element you want. Like... Like, Myel has the one that makes an enemy weak to fire for three turns. Yeah. Like, that's cool. But... Yeah. At the same time, it's like... Shit. I kind of don't want to waste that one turn using that. When I could just, you know...

[00:58:09] Not use fire and then do something else. And then... Yeah. Man, it... Do you feel like... I got what you're saying. Do you feel like... Do you feel like the game made you do that? Or did you feel like... At the end, it was more like... I did some optional content before doing the final boss. And the optional content rewarded me with incredible weapons. And I was like, well... This weapon is way better than what I'm using. So I'm going to respec two of it. Gotcha. I would say, though, like... Yeah, that's... No, I would say, though, like, early game, though...

[00:58:39] It's tough because... You're really going off of your character's skills. To know, like, what their class or role is. And I would say that the game is pretty open. In that, like, Looney, for example, can work really well as, like, a healer and support. But also, she can do a ton of, like, poise damage. And that's what she ended up being for me. Was somebody who would heal on occasion. But was mostly just doing...

[00:59:08] In this game, it's called break. And so... There's room for them to change. CL, for example, is another one who gets this ability where... She could cash in all of her foretell cards on an enemy. To increase, like, team health. Like, healing. Yeah. And so... Oh, Dark Harvest. Yeah. I use that one a ton. And so... But, like, early game, it's kind of like, wait a second. How do I use these characters?

[00:59:37] Oh, is Looney's support? Is she the team heal? So should I put all of my stats into this? And so I definitely felt like somewhere, probably at the beginning of Act 2, I think, where I was just like, I hope that my stat distribution is good. I hope it makes sense. It makes sense for who I think these characters are. And so I've put a ton in here. But it wasn't until... And this happens super late in the game, obviously.

[01:00:03] It wasn't until I found a weapon with really good scaling or with, like, really good passive abilities. Where I was like, okay, I've played with this character for 20 hours. I know how this character works. And I know that that weapon works with this character and my play style of the character. Oh. So it just happened. That reminds me. I would just say it just happened a little too late. But when all that stuff finally clicked, yeah, my team became a little too powerful.

[01:00:33] I remember what I was going to say. So in BG3, because it's based on D&D, you pick your stat distributions at the beginning, at the start. And then based on, like, the feats you pick, you make slight adjustments to stats. That... I was able to just wrap my head around that, like, way better. Because... Whereas in Cleric's Obscure, because you're constantly... When you go to the flagpole and you're like, okay, I've got three more stats to spend. At a certain point, I'm just like, all right, whatever. Might, blah, blah.

[01:01:03] I'm just, like, randomly assigning them. And I just have this randomized... Yeah. And I'm just doing... So... And that's probably because I'm just not smart enough to understand this. Well, I don't know. I think early game, you have really no guidance. Like... Yeah. And that's the thing. I just... I didn't feel like... Okay, the game's not telling me an obvious distribution. And I don't really want to sit there and pick through these early game weapons or mid-game weapons that I have at this point.

[01:01:33] But anyway. Yeah. There's one thing I want to... Last thing I have to say about game design. And I want this to be the one thing that all RPGs like this carry forward. And it is to send in the reserve team. Like... Send in reserve. Dude, I freaking love this. Golden Sun, The Lost Age, does that too. Wait, what? Oh, okay. Yeah. Oh! The JRPG knowledge comes to bite you, Jake. This is good news.

[01:02:03] I knew that. That's the only one. That's the only one? Well, I'm probably playing that one now. I think. Dude, I love this feature because it... I guess like narratively, if you have like a crew... Like I'm thinking Octopath Traveler 2. Like you got this massive crew. And like the team wipes. And you're like... You guys in the back aren't gonna... I mean... Aren't you guys just... Like fighters too. But... So I just love this, right? You have... Essentially you're only working with a squad at any point. You have three on the field at any time.

[01:02:33] And if all three of those go down, you can choose to send in the reserve team. Which is the last two. And I love this because it's like the last stand of Expedition 33. Oh, I forgot it said that. Yeah. That is really fucking cool. It's super cool. I love it. And then I kid you not. Like it added for me like a ton of hype moments. Because I had a few bosses, for example. Where I was like... I got the boss down to like one tenth of health. Yeah, that's true. The team wipes me. That's true.

[01:03:00] And then I can send in the reserve team to just like finish the job. Dude, that to me was... Yeah, pure hype. It was like all adrenaline. I'm a huge, huge fan of that feature. Yeah. When you're perfectly landing those parries with your one final team member, that feels pretty good. And then you survive and you just barely kill him. That's pretty much how I beat every boss.

[01:03:25] And then you get the Expedition 33 like makes a counterattack and it's just like Monoco with like 30 health left is doing this counterattack. That happened to me actually quite a lot. Yeah. Well, this is a transition into impact on the industry that I think...

[01:03:45] It feels shocking to me that nobody else really has combined these elements. I think... Is it fair to say... Do you guys think that Claire Obscure is... I'm not going to say like the best ever or revolutionary. But evolutionary... Is it the most evolutionary...

[01:04:16] JRPG style game... That's come out in the last several years, right? Because I think I'm shocked that... How come... Now Square Enix kind of did this with Final Fantasy 7 Remake, right? Final Fantasy 7 Remake is not turn-based though. So I think it departs from that category. But it does have a super cool combat system that's like sort of a semi-turn-based...

[01:04:40] Slowed down action combat where it still has like a lot of turn-based elements and strategic choices in it. I'm just shocked. How come Square Enix or one of these big JRPG powerhouses didn't... Hasn't done this meld of like these different mechanics from different styles of games... To kind of elevate the JRPG combat system where... As we mentioned... It feels like this is the first turn-based game in a while...

[01:05:10] That people are not bringing up turn-based as a negative. In fact, they're praising it, right? Like people are excited about this game. They're thrilled about this game. The fact that it's turn-based is not even being brought up as... Not even being brought up and if it is brought up, it's only as a positive. Yeah. Dude, I... It's like... Earlier when I was talking about how Dragon Quest XI kind of... Kind of like revived turn-based combat.

[01:05:40] Let alone Dragon Quest as a series. Dragon Quest, even back then, it was just a plain Jane turn-based RPG. Not a whole lot new to it. But I think Claire Obscure... It adds so much to turn-based combat that just makes sense. Because there really isn't anywhere else that you can go with turn-based combat. That it hasn't already gone.

[01:06:07] Because there's games like, say, Shadow Hearts that does this weird ring system that can get really annoying. Claire Obscure, I think, it takes the best parts of some of the best... Or sorry, some of the best mechanics of different battle systems. And makes it so responsive and intuitive. And it all just kind of makes sense put together. Like, it'd be one thing if it was like...

[01:06:36] If they put all these pieces together and it ends up like WarioWare or some shit. Where you're doing quick actions here and there just for, you know, whatever. Like, it's all... Oh, what's the word for it? It's all like... Like, uniform. It's all melded together. Like, meshed together so perfectly. And it just all makes sense. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah. I hope that makes sense. Yeah, absolutely does.

[01:07:06] It's synergy. Somehow they took all these kind of elements from different games. Dark Souls weapon scaling. You know, parrying and dodging from, you know, a bunch of games. And then Final Fantasy and every other JRPG, right? Persona with the shooting. I mean, they really just... You know, the greatest artists steal. You know what I mean? Um... So... It's...

[01:07:36] It's... But no, I mean... It... Yeah, it absolutely makes sense. It's just shocking to me that no one else has done this. Yeah. And I think Square Enix, the big conversation has been like, well, Square Enix came out when Final Fantasy XVI came out and said, like, nobody wants turn-based. Which is such a shame. Honestly, it's such a shame. I recently played through Final Fantasy IV, and I'm finally getting back into Final Fantasy VI. Hell yeah. And I'm like, dude, no, these games actually hold up super well. Like, this turn-based combat holds up really well.

[01:08:05] I'm actually playing Chrono Trigger right now. Hell yeah. Double hell yeah. And that's the thing with turn-based combat, just to chime in on that. That's the thing with turn-based combat, is even old games hold up. Turn-based combat is like... It's evergreen. Yeah. Really? It's... Yeah. It's... What's the word? It's... Oh my gosh. Practical effects in movies. Yeah.

[01:08:33] Turn-based combat is like the practical effects of video games, where, you know, if you have a lot of CGI, it doesn't age well, because... It ages out. The CGI tech gets so much better over the years, whereas turn-based, to your point, it's kind of evergreen, right? It's like practical effects. Turn-based combat is the equivalent of the animatronics T-Rex in Jurassic Park. That's what I just heard. Heard it here first. But no, you can... It's so much easier. You go back to an old...

[01:09:03] As they say, old game, old. Right? But when you go back to an old game, and it has turn-based combat, it's more... I think you can play it and still... And not... If it's an action game, I think it's admittedly going to be a little bit harder to chew on. I think it is harder. Especially if you don't have the nostalgia. I mean, and listen to our previous episode where we talked about Golden Sun. Like, Golden Sun, I think, holds up. Final Fantasy 4 holds up. Chrono Trigger, to me, does not feel like a 30-year-old game.

[01:09:32] Like, I'm actually really shocked. Still feels... At how good Chrono Trigger feels to play. Yeah. I don't know. It's just kind of funny because turn-based is, I feel like, one of the oldest genres of video games, and it never will die. And it never has died. Right? I think it's just maybe fallen out of focus when it comes to the mainstream and maybe where the biggest dollars are being spent.

[01:09:58] Which, I think, Cameron, you're a great example with Final Fantasy 16 and what Square Enix did there. And I think, honestly, I mean, these are former... The game director of Claire Obscure is a former Ubisoft dev, and I think he said something along the lines of, this game would have taken 20 years to make at Ubisoft. And I think that's kind of what it comes down to, is that this game on paper looks way too convoluted.

[01:10:23] And it looks way too risky, I think, to somebody who, like, at a AAA company. They're like, I don't know, man. You tell me there are Pictos and a Lumina system? You tell me you have 50 different available weapons per character, and there's weapon scaling? Like, the list goes on and on. I mean, we've just talked about the list here, like, of all the mechanics just in combat alone. The absolutely insane platforming that's in this game for some of those challenges, for example.

[01:10:53] Like, I just... You just know that some of that stuff would have been nixed, and I just feel like it needed... This game would only have been able to be created outside of the mainstream, in part because turn-based isn't currently in the mainstream. Despite, like, I guess... I don't know. I guess maybe the Persona series and Metaphor are still not... Like, Metaphor is really close to breaking the mainstream, but didn't quite in comparison

[01:11:22] to, like, other massive games? Maybe I'm wrong there. I'm just kind of spitballing here, like... I don't know. Are we at a moment? I mean, in terms of, like... In terms of, like, RPGs, JRPGs, and how they sell... I mean, I think this game is... And that's another apples and oranges discussion, right? Yeah, it might be.

[01:11:46] Square Enix would have considered this probably, like, a mediocre release or a flop. Because it's critically panned, but Square Enix wants every game they make to be, you know, to sell, like, 10 million copies. So, I don't know that that game did this. Maybe it did. They recently announced that they sold 3.3 million units, and that is outside of players on Game Pass. Holy shit! Yeah.

[01:12:16] And that's for... Yeah, so that's incredible for... For indie. Really, any game. That's probably, like, a mediocre launch for Square Enix because their expectations are ridiculous. Which is, yeah, that's bonkers, but... Yeah. But, no, I think this is... This is... Impact on the industry. This probably marks some sort of... I mean, I hate to be, like, hyperbolic like this, but...

[01:12:43] This probably marks some sort of golden age of double-A... Of double-A games, again, probably. Hell yeah. I just think... Yeah, I... You know, I usually don't like to make those hyperbolic statements, but I think this might be a marker, and I think because this game did so well, it's going to allow other games

[01:13:10] of this ilk, of this style, to get a lot more attention, which is going to raise all boats right in this space. So... You guys agree or disagree? Aaron? Big agree. We... I certainly hope we start seeing... Because there's so... There's so, so much packed into this tiny 30 to, like, 35, maybe 40 hour package.

[01:13:35] And it's priced so much lower than a modern triple-A game. Like, fuck, you had... There was that Ubisoft-made pirate ship game that was supposed to be the first quadruple-A game. They spent fucking billions of dollars on that, and it flopped. It just... Quadruple-A. Just a soft, wet plop on the floor. But clear, obscure, like... No, people... I don't know. It's not... No.

[01:14:05] Hopefully, yeah. Holy shit. What I'm trying to say is that, yeah, bring back these double-A games. Bring back turn-based. Turn-based is not obsolete. I don't think it ever will be. I think it's... I mean, this is... That's the thing with double-A, too, is, like, I hesitate to even call this double-A. Yeah. Because it looks so good. Like, it's so pretty. Because this could have easily been made by a triple-A studio.

[01:14:34] That's the crazy part about it. Quadruple-A. Quadruple-A. That's the crazy part about it. And I think that's... That also could be a problem, right? Has this game set some sort of standard that can't be reached again? So then... I... It does mark some golden age, but then it's like, well, you weren't as good as Claire... You know what I mean? I mean, maybe... I'm actually feeling more optimistic than that. I think... Okay.

[01:15:01] I think between, like, Metaphor Re-Fantasio, which did get a lot of attention, and, like, Claire Obscure... And, Aaron, I think you're totally right bringing up, like, Dragon Age 11, right? This, to me, makes me think that maybe people are going to be interested in, like, the Dragon Quest 1 and 2 remake. Like, thinking, like, you know what? There's actually a ton of games like this. And, like, Octopath Traveler 2 comes to mind.

[01:15:28] And, like, these turn-based, like, really long RPG games are around. And I think people might just start kind of digging around, like, oh, this game only came out four years ago. It looks pretty good. Oh, wow. It got really good reviews. How come I haven't heard of this game? So I think that Claire Obscure is going to invite people to try other games from this genre. But, man, Aaron, I think you bring up two excellent points. It's the price of this game and the length of this game.

[01:15:55] Because I think the length of, like, JRPGs in particular tends to be, I think, the number one turnoff from playing one. Oh, you tell me it's going to... Like, Persona and Metaphor? Yeah. Oh, you tell me it's... It's too much. You tell me it's going to take 60 hours to beat this game? I don't have that kind of time. I can't do that, right? Or whatever it is. But you tell people that, like, I just looked at my stats over here. I did some extra content. And I came in at 34 hours. Like... That's beautiful. That's perfect. It's beautiful.

[01:16:23] So I think that for this game to not, I guess, dissuade... What am I trying to say? Let me put this a little more cleanly. I think if you release games like Claire Obscure that are hovering around that 30-hour mark and their price point is lower than games that are now launching at $70 or $80, I think we absolutely could be in a golden age of, like, AA RPGs. Yeah.

[01:16:53] I think regardless of your price point and regardless of your size of studio, I think every game should be targeting around 30 hours. Like, just in terms of scoping... I mean, they'd have such a major scoping problem in the video game industry right now, right? Where every game is taking seven years to make and cost $300 million. It's like, dude, you got to cut. You got to cut the fat. Like, cut that thing in half. You talking about Grand Theft Auto 6 right now? Oh, shit.

[01:17:22] Well, that's a totally... That's a different animal. Grand Theft Auto 6 doesn't even factor into the... It's kind of... It's similar to, like, the Fortnite conversation. It's essentially... It's its own entity. Right. It doesn't even, like... It's like an outlier. It doesn't have to follow the rules. It doesn't have to follow the rules. And I think companies who want to try and mimic, as evidenced by the race for live service and to make every new live service thing successful,

[01:17:54] it's a losing battle. So, you need to just accept defeat and cut your game in half so that you can actually deliver a product into the market on time that's not broken, that your dev team doesn't have to crunch on. It doesn't cost $300 million. Do not send in the reserve team. Please put less bloat in games. God damn it. That's one of the main reasons I have never beaten a Persona game

[01:18:23] and probably won't play Metaphor because there's too much fucking bloat. I'm not... I don't have the goddamn time to put 90 hours into a game. Are you kidding me? Dude, here's the thing. Here's the thing that... How much of a difference does it make if Metaphor was half the length that it is now? Man, as someone who beat... It was 30 hours. I'd totally play it. Dude, as somebody who beat Metaphor, if that game...

[01:18:52] So, it took me like 65... No, 70 hours. Like, would it sell less copies? It took me 70 hours to beat. It took you... That's insane. I honestly think Metaphor could have been an incredible 50-hour game even. Like, it was like the last 15-20 hours of that game. I was like, we're still going. When some of the most exciting stuff had already kind of taken place. I don't know. That's the thing is like...

[01:19:21] I mean... There's always exceptions to the rules so I shouldn't like do any whataboutism here. There's exceptions to the rule. Yeah, for sure. But yeah, I think you had cut 15-20 hours out of Metaphor. You would have gotten more people to play it and more people to beat it. It's probably a better game. Yeah, man. Like... Like, uh... Not to get us too far off topic, but like horror games specifically, they're usually like maybe 15... Sorry, 10, 15, 20-hour experiences and they sell for like 60 bucks. Like full price.

[01:19:50] But they make up for it with having hella replay value with new... Yeah. ...new skins and costumes and what have you. New weapons to unlock. Do the same thing with RPGs. Like this... Cram them down to like... What? 40, 50, 60 hours. Add new game plus. Carry over all your shit. Bam. Yeah. Cut it down. No more 100-hour games. God damn it. It's not easy. And that is why Chrono Trigger is amazing. I mean, I haven't beat it yet. Right?

[01:20:19] But I know that it's only like a 25, 30-hour game max. The new game plus. The exception to the rule is obviously BG3, which I... How did I not see this coming? I put like 160 hours into that game and I barely put 20 hours into most games. But they can't all be BG3. You know, they can't all be BG3. Can't you be like a sentient loaf of bread

[01:20:49] in that game or something wonky? Probably. I love the stupid, goofy shit people come up with in that game. It's so cool. The stuff you can do in there. No, you can't, but you can do a lot of crap. I usually never do the crap and play it super... I always think I'm going to do the crap and then I play it like as straight-laced as possible. I actually think that's common. I'm just boring. I think that's pretty common in games that people are like, oh, I'm going to be edgy. Yeah, no one can actually... There's a small percentage. That's the thing with games like that

[01:21:17] that have like 1 billion permutations of dialogue trees. It's like 10% of players who are even going to see like 80% of the tree. Because most people are going to pick the same options. But I digress. Ladies and gentlemen, this has been our conversation on... What game are we talking about? Metaphor Refandome. Clear Obscure Expedition. Equate. Clear Obscure Expedition 33. You heard it here first.

[01:21:46] This is the beginning of a golden age of AA video games. And probably this is going to get... This is going to get that turn-based game that some lead developer at some studio has been pitching to their leadership for a long time. This is going to be the game that gets that executive team to say, yep, green light. So I think we can look forward over the next several years to a lot more turn-based video games, which is a great thing.

[01:22:18] But with that, we very much appreciate you listening. We appreciate Aaron for joining us on the podcast today. Aaron, where can people find you? SuperpodSaga.com. Everything's all there. All of our episodes and socials. And there's a cool about page on there if you want to read about us a little bit more. And links to your favorite players and all that stuff. But no, I appreciate you for having me on. Good finger guns.

[01:22:47] SuperpodSaga.com. We'll put the link to that in the podcast description. You can join the conversation on Discord. Pre-order bonus podcast Discord channel. Link to that. Invite link to that is in the description. Come join the conversation. Today, I live reacted to the Sony State of Play. Posted my random thoughts on the reveal of Bloodborne 2. And Hollow Knight's Silksong. You can also, if you want to support us, two things you can do.

[01:23:17] Either one, you don't want to pay for anything. Totally fine. Go write a review on your podcast platform of choice. Helps people find the show. If not, you can go to Patreon.com slash Pre-ordercast. You can get a bunch more stuff from us. You can get extended editions of our regular episodes. You get special topics episodes. Jake, who plays literally nine games a week. He's like a living meme of juggling plates. He's playing every indie game that's ever been made. Oh my gosh.

[01:23:46] It feels like it. Very brave. And he's talking about him on Patreon only. So you got to check that out. We appreciate you very, very much. Thank you so much for listening. Have a great night. Have a great night.