Latest / Respec: Video Game Ramblings / FF14 fanfest recap, even more layoffs, and why Palworld is secretly a cookie clicker game | Respec Ramblings

Transcript

FF14 fanfest recap, even more layoffs, and why Palworld is secretly a cookie clicker game | Respec Ramblings · Respec: Video Game Ramblings

• 0:03
  It is the end of July, the heatwave is back,
• 0:06
  and the planet is on fire as well as the industry
• 0:08
  being on fire. But that doesn't stop us. It's
• 0:11
  time for this week's edition of the Respec Ramblings
• 0:13
  podcast with me, Alex Donaldson, with no Tom
• 0:17
  Ori, with Dave Breen and James Colizio and Mikhail
• 0:21
  Madnani. We've got some pretty interesting topics
• 0:24
  this week, and it's not all grim. It's not all
• 0:26
  about the world being on fire. But first of all,
• 0:29
  how are you guys doing? Breen, it's good to have
• 0:31
  you back. I'm feeling good. I'm feeling good.
• 0:33
  Every day I live in fear, and that's mainly because
• 0:36
  I have my PS5 Pro in vertical mode. Well, speaking
• 0:41
  of PS5 Pros in vertical mode, Mikhail is back
• 0:44
  once again, represented this time by... Is it
• 0:47
  an Amiibo? Is it the Amiibo Bayonetta? Yes, it
• 0:49
  is. How are you doing? I think last time I had
• 0:53
  the Bayonetta one for the Patreon exclusive,
• 0:56
  so I was like, let me use it now and I'll figure
• 0:58
  out what to do for the Patreon thing later. yeah
• 1:02
  i actually had a one piece i had a one piece
• 1:05
  statue which i could have used but i couldn't
• 1:08
  set that up in time i'll save it for when brains
• 1:10
  convinces me next time can't believe you came
• 1:14
  on with brains and didn't use the one piece drop
• 1:16
  the one piece uh merch hey ho james how you doing
• 1:21
  doing pretty good last week uh i was up uh way
• 1:25
  too late this time you guys got me up at like
• 1:27
  uh 9 a .m got my coffee everything Yeah, we are.
• 1:31
  We are recording rather than on a Friday morning.
• 1:33
  We're recording on a Thursday night, which is
• 1:35
  great because it means I will hopefully wake
• 1:37
  up tomorrow and this is already edited and I
• 1:38
  haven't got to rush to do it. But it also means
• 1:42
  that you get to do it at a reasonable time. I
• 1:43
  meant to, I planned to go and crack a beer for
• 1:46
  this, but then it was such a rush getting ready
• 1:49
  for it that I didn't even have time to crack
• 1:51
  a beer. And if I don't have to, if I fail to
• 1:53
  crack a beer, then I'm definitely busy. Obviously,
• 1:56
  Mr. Ori is not with us this week. He has sent
• 1:58
  us all a message. He's on his holidays with his
• 2:02
  family and he wanted you all to know for an update
• 2:06
  on what he's doing that this is about an hour
• 2:09
  ago at the time of recording. He just bought
• 2:11
  his son his second £6 .30 Starbucks iced drink
• 2:15
  of the day and that he's very deeply unhappy
• 2:19
  about that fact. £6 .30 for... Is he still going
• 2:24
  to be editor -in -chief after paying Starbucks
• 2:26
  twice for, like, that dog -shit -looking coffee?
• 2:30
  He's going to be even more desperate, as we all
• 2:35
  should be, for people to back us on Patreon and
• 2:37
  support us in order to fund his son's Starbucks.
• 2:42
  Starbucks addiction. £6 .30, though. It is bonkers.
• 2:48
  It makes me sick. Could literally buy an Amiibo
• 2:51
  for that much. What a scam. I don't think that's
• 2:54
  true. No. Well, Amiibos now, because they've
• 2:56
  decided to make them bigger, haven't they, in
• 2:59
  a lot of cases. So like the, was it the Mario
• 3:01
  Galaxy ones that were massive? And I'm guessing
• 3:03
  that's going to be the norm now. And don't get
• 3:05
  me wrong. They were impressive. They were really
• 3:07
  nice. How much were the Kirby Air Riders ones?
• 3:11
  I know that those ones were special. Those were
• 3:12
  really expensive. I want to say those were 25.
• 3:15
  I want to say those were 24 pounds. Those were
• 3:17
  like 40 US. Yeah, they were 40 US. it must just
• 3:21
  mean like the street fighter ones just no one
• 3:23
  gave a shit about them so you could buy them
• 3:25
  for like nothing so that like that made me sad
• 3:28
  because if they'd sold well we maybe would have
• 3:31
  got you know um a whole street fighter range
• 3:35
  but then again you know um i quite like the uh
• 3:40
  what's the what's the brand of figure that do
• 3:44
  the street fighter that did the street fighter
• 3:46
  6 collector's edition figures It's like quite
• 3:49
  a known. Is it Kotobukiya? Don't think. They
• 3:54
  do good stuff. I don't know if it was them though.
• 3:56
  They do do good stuff. I'm looking it up. This
• 4:00
  is the exciting lookup action that people crave.
• 4:05
  It was Pop -Up Parade. It was Pop -Up Parade.
• 4:07
  Pop -Up Parade, that's it. And they do good stuff
• 4:08
  as well. Yeah. That's the one I got, the One
• 4:10
  Piece thing I got, I think is one of those. Yeah.
• 4:14
  Yeah, they've slowly. Was that or? Uma Musume.
• 4:17
  One of them is Pop -Up Parade. One of them is
• 4:19
  Kotobukiya. I have, like, somewhere at home.
• 4:22
  So, yeah. Well, they've slowly been working through.
• 4:25
  So, obviously, that Street Fighter came with
• 4:27
  Kimberly and Luke. Was it Kimberly and Jamie?
• 4:33
  No, it was Kimberly and Luke, wasn't it? But
• 4:35
  then, since then, they've released SF6, Churn,
• 4:37
  Jamie, Jury. So, they're sort of slowly working
• 4:42
  through the cast with those. But they aren't
• 4:43
  cheap. They are, like, 50 quid a pop, which is...
• 4:46
  quite expensive um but hey ho anyway let's actually
• 4:53
  kick off our proper topics for this week um so
• 4:57
  first up let's start with some bad shitty news
• 5:00
  it sort of uh ties back into podcast stuff discussed
• 5:04
  on previous weeks which is that this week uh
• 5:06
  double fine the lovely tim shaver headed developer
• 5:11
  uh that had been up until very recently owned
• 5:14
  by xbox has made 23 people redundant, let 23
• 5:18
  people go this week. Sort of further fallout
• 5:23
  from the Xbox thing. We said this at the time
• 5:27
  I talked about on the podcast a few weeks ago,
• 5:30
  how the landing that studios like Double Fine
• 5:33
  and Compulsion were getting was a hard landing.
• 5:35
  So although Microsoft let them go independent
• 5:38
  and let them go with, you know, gave them a bundle
• 5:42
  of cash and said, here you go. Good luck out
• 5:45
  in the wide world. The statement that Double
• 5:48
  Fine have made, you know, it's the usual stuff.
• 5:52
  It's a very personal one, I think, just because
• 5:55
  the nature of a small studio. They said, quote,
• 5:59
  only the survival of our studio would ever make
• 6:01
  us consider such a painful action. Our transition
• 6:05
  to becoming an independent company also means
• 6:07
  becoming a size that we can sustain, unquote.
• 6:12
  That sort of sucks. I don't know if there's much
• 6:15
  else to say. I don't know if anyone has anything
• 6:16
  to add. I wanted to note that, you know, it's
• 6:20
  continued. I think it shows how even in this
• 6:25
  world where, you know, we can argue that Microsoft,
• 6:28
  if they had to get rid of studios, did the right
• 6:30
  thing, so to speak, by letting studios go. But
• 6:34
  I think what this shows us for the rest of going
• 6:37
  forward is even those studios that are sold or
• 6:40
  that are set free, the path is not going to be
• 6:44
  necessarily simple for them. And I hope we don't,
• 6:49
  but it wouldn't surprise me if we saw a bit more
• 6:51
  of this. Yeah, absolutely. I can't say that I've
• 6:55
  ever been the biggest fan of Double Fine's games,
• 6:57
  but I 100 % understand why they have the fanbase
• 7:00
  they do. Especially if I'd encountered Psychonauts
• 7:04
  at the right time, near a release, instead of
• 7:06
  years later. I would have been right there with
• 7:10
  them and this would be heartbreaking to me, but
• 7:12
  I am really hopeful that they can make it out
• 7:15
  of this. But the state of the industry, it's
• 7:18
  the worst possible time for all of this because
• 7:20
  investment is down across the board. The likelihood
• 7:24
  that they can just like get another publisher
• 7:26
  to like fund the next game, it's not that easy.
• 7:29
  Especially when their last two games have like
• 7:32
  completely and utterly bombed by all measures.
• 7:35
  I don't know because... i don't know there's
• 7:39
  a limit on on how much i can say potentially
• 7:41
  but what all i would like getting too specific
• 7:44
  but all i would say is i i know how much kiln
• 7:48
  costs to make like probably it wouldn't have
• 7:53
  had to have done very much at all to make its
• 7:55
  money back and that's sort of the that's sort
• 7:57
  of the the gap right in this thinking sometimes
• 8:00
  is that you don't need to necessarily make loads
• 8:08
  and loads and loads and loads of sales if you're
• 8:10
  making games that are scoped to, you know, you
• 8:15
  scope a game to have a small budget and you sell
• 8:17
  a small amount of copies and you make a small
• 8:20
  profit, right? The problem is, is that only made
• 8:23
  sense for Microsoft when Microsoft was this game
• 8:25
  pass -driven portfolio business about having
• 8:27
  lots of different games. And, you know, you had
• 8:31
  small games because if a game like, you know,
• 8:34
  keln got someone to subscribe and got them to
• 8:36
  stay there then you know it would have been that
• 8:40
  that's worth the money but now they're focusing
• 8:42
  on big games so a game like keln in the studio
• 8:45
  like double fine doesn't really make sense anymore
• 8:47
  but i guess where we've sort of got lost a little
• 8:50
  bit is if you go back 15 years or whatever to
• 8:52
  when we had xbox live arcade is the big thing
• 8:54
  and you had summer of arcade and stuff like that
• 8:56
  yes you've got games like grade that did do mega
• 8:59
  millions and millions of sales on those services
• 9:03
  that made a load of money but a game like kiln
• 9:06
  the amount of users that it's got through the
• 9:09
  door would have been considered a success in
• 9:10
  those days on that sort of metric so it's a bit
• 9:14
  strange really on that front where you know they
• 9:18
  are a successful studio and i think they have
• 9:19
  a future making money but like green says it's
• 9:23
  a terrible time in terms of the optics in terms
• 9:26
  of being out on your own I mean, God, if I was
• 9:29
  them, right? But then it's a tangle of, it's
• 9:31
  a mess tangle of rights, but I would really like
• 9:34
  try to figure out, is there a way we can remaster
• 9:37
  Brutal Legend? I don't know who, like Double
• 9:39
  Fine got to exit Xbox with the ownership of their
• 9:42
  games and their IP, but Brutal Legend was an
• 9:45
  EA game back in the day. So I don't know if that
• 9:47
  traveled to Microsoft with them and thereby left
• 9:51
  with them, or if that is still coming up in other
• 9:53
  people. And then even if you sort that out, you've
• 9:55
  got to do all the. all the likeness and music
• 9:58
  rights and stuff to make that game work. But
• 10:00
  it just feels like that could be the slam dunk
• 10:03
  where could you go and sell that to a 2K or someone
• 10:06
  to publish? You would think so. You know, outpouring
• 10:11
  of love for Ozzy, you know, in light of last
• 10:15
  year and stuff, but I don't know. On the Steam
• 10:19
  page, Brutal Legend is listed as being published
• 10:21
  by Double Fine Productions. Yeah, so hopefully,
• 10:25
  that could be a rallying point, but the problem
• 10:27
  is you need money. You need money to rally around
• 10:30
  a game. That's probably the most expensive game
• 10:32
  they ever made, right? I think I'd share the
• 10:35
  same sentiment for something like Psychonauts
• 10:37
  that I'm into before, because obviously the fan
• 10:39
  base there is massive, and Psychonauts 1, I don't
• 10:42
  think... Not to mention Psychonauts 2, it was
• 10:46
  crowdfunded, but the whole reason that game had...
• 10:48
  boss fights the whole reason that game was as
• 10:50
  good as it is is because they ended up getting
• 10:53
  that money from the acquisition in order to essentially
• 10:55
  fully flesh out that game so that's like i don't
• 11:00
  know if kickstarter stuff is still doable because
• 11:02
  like they used to rely on that quite a bit right
• 11:04
  like early on funding in some form fig right
• 11:08
  i don't think yeah whatever it is anymore yeah
• 11:10
  but i just don't think there's there's enough
• 11:13
  money going around for Kickstarters to be as
• 11:15
  successful as they were before. Like, you remember
• 11:17
  when Obsidian and, like, you had Chris Avalon
• 11:20
  who was, like, the stretch goal on most of these
• 11:21
  projects and all. Like, I just don't see that
• 11:24
  happening anymore because people are just, they
• 11:26
  don't have the money to fund these projects like
• 11:28
  they did before. You know, like, you had $200
• 11:31
  get your name in the game and all that. Like,
• 11:33
  that bloodstain, like, stinks of Kickstarter
• 11:35
  stuff when you play the game because of that.
• 11:38
  But I just don't see that happening anymore.
• 11:40
  Well, Fig was mentioned. That was dissolved in
• 11:44
  2023. So that's been gone for three years. And
• 11:46
  it does feel like, you know, it's about part
• 11:48
  of the reason why when we launched this website,
• 11:50
  we've got a patron component where we love for
• 11:52
  people to support us and work with us directly.
• 11:54
  But the website is free to read. 90 % of the
• 11:58
  content we do is free to read because people
• 12:00
  don't have as much money in their back pocket.
• 12:02
  And how you can tell that the Kickstarter stuff
• 12:04
  is getting tighter is... I'm noticing the board
• 12:08
  game industry, Kickstarter's starting to feel
• 12:11
  a little bit less. And half that industry is
• 12:14
  running on Kickstarter now. Everything from the
• 12:15
  Alderman board games with a license to tiny little
• 12:18
  startup stuff is all Kickstarted. Yeah, I don't
• 12:22
  know. I mean, just to add on to this story, Xbox
• 12:27
  in general, it's not a pretty picture at the
• 12:29
  minute. They've obviously had Microsoft's various
• 12:31
  financial reports come out over the last week.
• 12:35
  Xbox revenue is just absolutely screwed. They're
• 12:38
  terrible results. So content revenue was down
• 12:41
  10 % in the last quarter, in the last three months.
• 12:43
  Hardware revenue was down 13 % in the last quarter,
• 12:47
  in the last three months. I was trying to crunch
• 12:48
  some numbers and it certainly looks to me like
• 12:50
  they've sold less than a million units of Xbox
• 12:52
  hardware in the last year, which if that's true,
• 12:55
  that is horrendous. However, they are sort of
• 13:00
  spitting out the, you know, so Asha Sharma, the
• 13:02
  Xbox CEO said, quote, In fiscal year 26, over
• 13:06
  200 million new players came to Xbox and our
• 13:08
  games, but our business did not grow with our
• 13:11
  audience. We need to close that gap by investing
• 13:13
  in what players value. That will take time, but
• 13:16
  we expect to return to growth by the end of fiscal
• 13:18
  year 27, unquote. And the Microsoft big cheese,
• 13:21
  the CEO, Satya Nadella, talked about how it was
• 13:25
  part of the reset and they expected this. This
• 13:28
  isn't an unexpected loss, but it's pretty brutal.
• 13:33
  And so you've got, inside of xbox these grim
• 13:36
  results someone who is xbox and it's not like
• 13:39
  they've escaped that unscathed um pretty rubbish
• 13:43
  yeah it's bad out there huh 1 million xboxes
• 13:49
  we're going back to the wii u era that's what
• 13:51
  i like yeah yeah i don't think it's quite the
• 13:54
  same now but i remember like a few years ago
• 13:57
  when microsoft's like xbox sales really started
• 14:00
  plummeting i did the math and like from the numbers
• 14:04
  that we had there was a point in time where meta
• 14:07
  was selling more quest headsets and microsoft
• 14:09
  was selling xbox series consoles that's not good
• 14:13
  so does this include the the the wrong xbox ally
• 14:17
  at all or is that completely that that that is
• 14:21
  so i'm sure there is some component of that in
• 14:24
  there in the sense that um Microsoft, I'm guessing,
• 14:28
  are getting some sort of licensing kick on the
• 14:30
  back end of every one of those sold, but they
• 14:32
  are Asus devices, so they wouldn't be in these
• 14:35
  reports, no. Whenever I hear reports like this,
• 14:42
  I have such an issue with, like, what was it,
• 14:45
  200 million new players? Was that? Yeah. Where?
• 14:49
  Who? I mean, I'd love to see the metrics, and
• 14:52
  I think most of those is probably going to be
• 14:54
  like... for the Horizon 6 players. Yeah, it's
• 14:58
  King, it's King Mobile. And Minecraft on mobile,
• 15:01
  like for sure Minecraft on mobile and stuff.
• 15:03
  And of course, we've all heard about the recent
• 15:06
  issues of like Halo and just getting an account
• 15:09
  to run it on any platform that is an Xbox or
• 15:12
  Microsoft store, you know? Yeah. I had to link
• 15:15
  my Xbox account to my Steam ID on PC and then
• 15:19
  again on Steam Deck. Yeah, I had to do that.
• 15:22
  It's the same ID. I had to do that on two different
• 15:24
  Steam decks, like, one by one. It, for some reason,
• 15:26
  couldn't understand that it was just... And Forza
• 15:29
  does it well. I don't know why that happened
• 15:30
  over here, but... I don't know. Did you notice
• 15:32
  the cross -save isn't actually, like, saving
• 15:35
  your exact position? It just counts what you
• 15:38
  unlocked in the campaign or something. Yeah,
• 15:39
  so it was like... It was like when I... I'd played
• 15:42
  it, like, a couple of hours on PC and then booted
• 15:45
  it up on Steam Deck. And the Steam Deck was like,
• 15:46
  start a new game. or you could chapter select
• 15:49
  from the missions I'd already played. So it knew
• 15:52
  I'd played those missions, but it didn't give
• 15:54
  me like a save. It was so strange. That is the
• 15:57
  same sort of, I guess we could call it poor man's
• 16:00
  cross save as Hitman and 007. It's exactly the
• 16:05
  same where, in fact, 007, I remember this may
• 16:10
  be, I don't know, this may have been because
• 16:12
  it was pre -release review code, but I played
• 16:14
  it, finished it on PC. and then booted on xbox
• 16:19
  and my io cross save worked but i didn't even
• 16:22
  have chapter select what i had was all like the
• 16:25
  feats i'd accomplished and stuff like that but
• 16:27
  if i what but if i on xbox i needed to replay
• 16:30
  the whole game from the start which is no i think
• 16:33
  that might have been a pre -release thing because
• 16:36
  when i tried it on when i tried it it put me
• 16:39
  in the uh in the chapter one part where i was
• 16:41
  so it let me continue That might have been a
• 16:44
  pre -release thing. But yeah, Hitman is definitely
• 16:46
  a weird one. But I love it in Hitman. It's definitely
• 16:51
  what got me to play it more. I don't think any
• 16:53
  of them are as good as Ubisoft. Ubisoft literally
• 16:56
  puts you at the exact same position you're in.
• 16:59
  And it does it all seamlessly. But then Ubisoft
• 17:01
  has all that dogshit launcher on PC, which I
• 17:04
  never want to use again. For the longest time,
• 17:08
  Ubisoft's launcher literally would not work on
• 17:11
  my desktop. It just would constantly crash the
• 17:13
  moment it would launch. And I kept reinstalling
• 17:16
  and it didn't work. Eventually, I got it working.
• 17:18
  But that's the whole reason why I still haven't
• 17:20
  finished Prince of Persia, that Metroidvania
• 17:22
  one, because it just wouldn't work. While we're
• 17:26
  moaning about a Ubisoft launcher, I've got one
• 17:29
  too. Why not? This was many, many years ago with
• 17:32
  the original Black Flag. And it launched a little
• 17:36
  bit later on PC than it did on consoles. I got
• 17:40
  the PC review code much, much later. I was playing
• 17:44
  it on my laptop. I had it installed. I feel like
• 17:46
  I had it still installed for like six months
• 17:48
  after the game came out. You know, I've still
• 17:50
  got it there just in case I want to have another
• 17:52
  go. And then suddenly it was like removed from
• 17:54
  my Ubisoft account. And I messaged Ubisoft, like
• 17:58
  customer support or whatever. I was like, yo,
• 17:59
  why? And they're like, this is a stolen game
• 18:03
  code. You have stolen this game or someone stole
• 18:06
  it and gave it to you. You know, like one of
• 18:09
  those credit card scams, except I got it from
• 18:11
  PR. Not exactly sure what was happening there.
• 18:14
  But the thing that pissed me off the most, though,
• 18:17
  was that you needed the Ubisoft launcher to uninstall
• 18:20
  the game. But because the game wasn't in my account,
• 18:22
  I couldn't uninstall the game anymore. Mate,
• 18:27
  I was going mad. At least they didn't threaten
• 18:29
  to like IP ban you or account ban you or something.
• 18:31
  But also that is terrible that they essentially
• 18:33
  locked you. So hang on, what did you do? Did
• 18:35
  you go back to PR? Yes, I didn't go back to PR.
• 18:39
  It was literally just customer support because
• 18:41
  it was like months later and I didn't care that
• 18:44
  much. I think it was like the only game I had
• 18:45
  on the account, honestly. But yeah, I couldn't
• 18:49
  actually install the game that they didn't want
• 18:50
  me to play anymore. That's crazy. You do occasionally
• 18:54
  get review code, revoked i guess yeah that happens
• 18:58
  from time to time steam has a whole interface
• 19:00
  that pops up and says this has been taken away
• 19:03
  you get weird situations like 007 um io sent
• 19:07
  out a pre -release code and then they revoked
• 19:11
  that and on launch day sent yeah and yeah i'd
• 19:14
  say that's the more common thing i'd say that
• 19:16
  well usually they don't care right yeah yeah
• 19:17
  usually they just let you leave leave it i'd
• 19:19
  say like i've gotten like hundreds of codes over
• 19:21
  the years and i think i've only had like a handful
• 19:23
  be revoked like later down the line it's like
• 19:26
  it does happen but it's like a very like uncommon
• 19:29
  circumstance for sure yeah yeah yeah and like
• 19:32
  to be fair usually you're given a heads up or
• 19:35
  like you said there's a specific message for
• 19:37
  it uh but in this case it was just like i don't
• 19:40
  know some they the pr or someone down the line
• 19:42
  assumed that it was stolen from pr or stolen
• 19:44
  allotment or something i don't exactly know how
• 19:47
  that happened i mean i got the code from my editor
• 19:50
  and i don't think he would have bought it just
• 19:52
  for the sake of it Yeah. Got it off eBay. Yeah.
• 19:55
  Well, I think usually sometimes it's just like
• 19:57
  the right hand is not talking to the left hand.
• 20:01
  That doesn't surprise me if Ubisoft. Ubisoft
• 20:05
  can be one of the companies that I would say
• 20:06
  probably comes off a little bit more erratic
• 20:10
  on things like that as well, I guess. Anyway,
• 20:13
  so that's the latest update in all the Microsoft
• 20:16
  stuff. Obviously, we wish the very best to the
• 20:18
  people who have left. Double Fine in finding
• 20:21
  something new and the very best two. Those that
• 20:23
  remain at Double Fine trying to figure out what
• 20:25
  the path forward is onto something which I think
• 20:29
  is a bit more positive. We had the latest Final
• 20:33
  Fantasy XIV FanFest event, the European one,
• 20:37
  over the last week, last weekend. So, James,
• 20:43
  you're a big XIV player. There was more of the
• 20:46
  new expansion showing off. I know there was a
• 20:48
  collector's edition with a statue, new areas.
• 20:51
  They said the new class was Bastion, which looked
• 20:53
  like a tanky, shieldy class to me. We actually
• 20:55
  know both the new classes. We don't know the
• 20:58
  name for the second one, but there was a character
• 21:01
  in the extended teaser trailer that used some
• 21:05
  sort of like a falconer class. They have like
• 21:08
  a bird and whatnot. And then during a later like
• 21:12
  panel, they played some sound effects and they
• 21:14
  said, oh, this is from the other new class. And
• 21:17
  it was like a bird screech. And it's like, OK,
• 21:19
  I see. Because they didn't say that was a new
• 21:22
  class directly. But we now know that we have
• 21:26
  the new tank class Bastion, which is two gun
• 21:29
  shields. You can switch between using them to
• 21:31
  like. propel you forward to kind of slash at
• 21:33
  the enemy with these like claws on the ends of
• 21:35
  the shields or you can turn them over and like
• 21:37
  have a bit of range to action there uh we we
• 21:42
  saw some footage but we don't know how it actually
• 21:44
  plays we just saw like the animations uh but
• 21:47
  it's a tank uh that's actually my question for
• 21:51
  you because i haven't played in three expansions
• 21:56
  what was the last expansion you played um Stormblood
• 22:00
  or Shadowbringers? I kind of remember the Shadowbringers.
• 22:03
  Shadowbringers. Yeah, that was like three expansions
• 22:05
  ago. God, fuck. But this is what I was getting
• 22:08
  at. It's like when you go, yeah, it's a tank.
• 22:10
  Like part of, I think, why I started to ebb off
• 22:14
  XIV. I mean, one was the, look, all the respect
• 22:18
  in the world to people who love their MMOs. but
• 22:23
  i did my time in the mines i was one of the people
• 22:25
  with thousands of hours on 11 back in the day
• 22:27
  i also played quite a lot of 1 .0 as awful it
• 22:31
  wasn't actually awful it was just a mess it was
• 22:33
  good ideas in there to be clear when i say oh
• 22:36
  it's a tank we know how it plays that might not
• 22:38
  actually be true because of like the evolved
• 22:40
  mode stuff and how they're adding way more job
• 22:43
  identity we just haven't seen that's what i wanted
• 22:45
  to get at yeah that's what i wanted to get at
• 22:47
  when a game has run this long and it's like yeah
• 22:49
  we've got five different tanks four different
• 22:50
  healers six different like melee dps three different
• 22:54
  uh like uh four different four magic dps or whatever
• 22:59
  sumner black mage red mage does it start to feel
• 23:04
  victim answer yeah does it start to feel um i
• 23:09
  don't know do you still get the same buzz of
• 23:11
  excitement for a new class that you would have
• 23:13
  got well expansions ago well funnily enough i
• 23:16
  am actually pretty excited for bastion because
• 23:18
  i am a tank main And it's like, I am excited
• 23:21
  to see what they do with it, especially with
• 23:23
  the evolved mode stuff. And I tank at a very
• 23:25
  high level. I do week one Savage raid Prague,
• 23:30
  which means that like the moment that those raids
• 23:33
  drop, I'm going through them on the first weekly
• 23:36
  lockout, trying to clear everything. And that
• 23:40
  means like 30, 40 hours week one, just sitting,
• 23:43
  raiding with a group. It is the hardest content
• 23:47
  in the game. So I'm very excited to see what
• 23:51
  the evolved mode changes and the new classes
• 23:53
  bring to that dynamic. Obviously, we now know
• 23:57
  what that 8 -Man Raid series is about. It is
• 24:00
  a collaboration with Final Fantasy VII Remake
• 24:03
  series. Now, how that's going to tie into everything,
• 24:07
  we don't know, but a lot of the... 7 remake team
• 24:10
  is directly working with creative studio 3 to
• 24:14
  implement it so i'm curious to see what that
• 24:16
  means i mean yeah i mean like i'm just okay let
• 24:22
  me let me because you're a current player i'm
• 24:25
  a former 14 player and i was always bigger on
• 24:29
  i was never as big on 14 as i was on on 11 um
• 24:32
  but my feeling is that well they had i think
• 24:39
  it's not just a feeling i think it's fair to
• 24:41
  say they had the marvel problem right if they
• 24:42
  had their end game moment everyone got really
• 24:47
  hyped then they did a big exhale and then they
• 24:50
  really struggled to get people back through the
• 24:52
  door afterwards so we actually do have player
• 24:55
  census uh data for like 14 and i think it's not
• 25:00
  so much that because people did return for dawn
• 25:02
  trail the problem is is that like dawn trail
• 25:05
  did not really land and the player numbers absolutely
• 25:08
  plummeted after that first initial patch we've
• 25:11
  seen a rebound we've seen rebound ever since
• 25:14
  like uh fan the the north american fan fest and
• 25:17
  more people are actually coming back to the game
• 25:19
  especially now like it It happens every expansion.
• 25:23
  You're going to have your most players beginning
• 25:25
  the expansion going to have a dip. Then once
• 25:26
  people want to get caught up, you start having
• 25:29
  people come back. There's all the patch content
• 25:31
  that's dropped. Beatmasters in a few weeks. We
• 25:34
  have both halves of a cold crescent. So I am
• 25:37
  curious to see what the player numbers will be
• 25:39
  for Evercold at launch. And I mean, if I were
• 25:42
  scoring X, I would be concerned too. But as someone
• 25:45
  that does look into those player numbers, I'm
• 25:47
  not concerned yet, is what I'd say. I guess what
• 25:50
  I'm needling at a little bit is like, even certainly
• 25:54
  since they had their first phase finale, every
• 26:01
  FanFest has been the same story. But this one
• 26:04
  was the first one where I, as someone who's vaguely
• 26:09
  on the outside in the sense that, I barely realized
• 26:13
  it was happening. I realized it was happening
• 26:15
  when I looked at the front page of my own website
• 26:17
  and went, oh, like it feels like it's getting
• 26:20
  out of containment, Lex, I guess. Well, to be
• 26:22
  fair, like really when people talk about FanFest,
• 26:25
  obviously you have the European FanFest, you
• 26:28
  have the Tokyo FanFest. When people talk about
• 26:30
  FanFest, they're usually going to, there's going
• 26:33
  to be the most buzz about North American FanFest,
• 26:35
  which was. Dude, I'm in Europe. I'm in Europe.
• 26:38
  So I'll talk about it from this perspective,
• 26:39
  right? Of like, even like in the European games
• 26:42
  media space, I wasn't getting the, the, the,
• 26:48
  the, the secondhand buzz from my media friends
• 26:52
  who were covering it, who were going out. I didn't,
• 26:54
  you know, I just feel like what I feel like is
• 26:58
  Dave hit. the same stealing that WoW hit at about
• 27:03
  the same point in WoW's lifetime. And WoW's still
• 27:06
  got a healthy player base, but obviously... Well,
• 27:08
  no, no, no. Here's one thing I want to mention.
• 27:10
  Do you actually know when WoW had the highest
• 27:13
  number of players subscribed? It was quite recently,
• 27:16
  wasn't it? It was Cataclysm or whatever it's
• 27:18
  called. No, it was the War of Fen. Oh, the recent
• 27:21
  one, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So it's like just because
• 27:24
  they had a dip now doesn't mean they can't get
• 27:26
  those players back. And I think that XIV has
• 27:29
  cemented itself as a mainstay game for the people
• 27:32
  that play it, that it's a part of their life.
• 27:35
  Yeah, they might put it away for a bit, but people
• 27:37
  are more than willing to come back as WoW has
• 27:39
  shown us. Was Warcraft Classic available when
• 27:43
  they peaked in players? Yes, it was coincided
• 27:46
  with Warcraft Classic and also the return of
• 27:49
  the Chinese servers. i did play a little bit
• 27:52
  of warcraft classic because uh activision threw
• 27:54
  me some game time and i was like i i burnt out
• 27:58
  and uh burning crusade so that was a while ago
• 28:01
  yeah that's that's a long time ago i'm getting
• 28:04
  old man this is the other thing i'm just too
• 28:07
  old for the mmo grind now i've got kids man like
• 28:10
  you know i i can't i can't be it's it's it's
• 28:12
  tough enough trying to stay good at street fighter
• 28:14
  um like you know and and even then not really
• 28:18
  very successful at that these days um but yeah
• 28:21
  i'm just watching it from a distance i'm just
• 28:24
  like um i look at it and i'm a bit like oh if
• 28:29
  i was them you probably if you're yashida you're
• 28:31
  probably trying to think about what the next
• 28:33
  mmo looks like now yeah to say well it's not
• 28:36
  to say 14 is going to be dead in five years but
• 28:37
  it's to say maybe there's not to discount the
• 28:41
  reason why i said that that people are looking
• 28:44
  at north american fan fest for the excitement
• 28:46
  is because that's when the expansion drops that's
• 28:48
  when we get most of the info and it's like so
• 28:51
  yeah there is some new announcements at european
• 28:55
  fan fest but the biggest announcement was here
• 28:57
  is exactly what the middle tier difficulty for
• 29:01
  the new eight -man raid is here we now know the
• 29:04
  theme it is a collaboration with ff7 here's the
• 29:08
  name and the identity of one of the new jobs.
• 29:12
  Here is the identity, roughly, of the other new
• 29:15
  job. That was it. We already knew the expansion
• 29:17
  was heading in. Does it not depend on what you're
• 29:20
  excited about, though? Because I saw the North
• 29:22
  American FanFest and I was like, okay, they've
• 29:24
  announced the theme of the expansion. There's
• 29:26
  a CG trailer. I mean, I used to go to these things,
• 29:28
  right? And my impression was always the one that
• 29:31
  ran first was the one where you sort of, yes,
• 29:34
  you got the splashy announcement of... here's
• 29:37
  the new expansion but actually the meat and potatoes
• 29:40
  then like usually the way I remember it when
• 29:43
  I was going for like I mean Heavensward and stuff
• 29:45
  like that was the last one was the most exciting
• 29:49
  one because you sort of got you got to finally
• 29:52
  understand it's sort of like right it's sort
• 29:55
  of like to draw an analogy when they announce
• 29:58
  a new season of Street Fighter characters the
• 30:01
  announcement of that tifa is going to be in the
• 30:04
  game i don't disagree with that it's exciting
• 30:06
  but the more exciting thing is seeing how she's
• 30:08
  implemented and learning about the mechanics
• 30:10
  and all that sort of stuff i don't even necessarily
• 30:11
  disagree with you but even in that situation
• 30:14
  the european fan fest is the middle child so
• 30:16
  yes yeah yeah yeah i will say one thing though
• 30:19
  like the only reason i watched the fan fest is
• 30:22
  because i was expecting the switch to launch
• 30:24
  date and that to happen and it did happen And
• 30:28
  I watched that and I just put up another post
• 30:29
  and I was like, okay, I'm done. I'm going back
• 30:31
  to playing Cyberpunk. So if there was no switch
• 30:34
  to like announcement expected, I would not have
• 30:37
  watched it. I would have just waited for like
• 30:38
  them to send like a media blast or whatever.
• 30:41
  But then I am nowhere near the end of Dawn Trail
• 30:44
  to care about what's happening with Evercold
• 30:46
  or anything. I'm just salivating at more ports
• 30:49
  to test right now with 14. I don't really care
• 30:52
  about the new jobs right now. I almost considered
• 30:54
  downloading that Switch 2 version to test it
• 30:57
  out. Then I was like, what the fuck am I thinking
• 30:58
  about? I'm not going to pay that extra sub. I
• 31:00
  have a PC gaming handheld. I'm not going to pay
• 31:03
  another $8 a month just to play 14 on a Switch
• 31:08
  2. You need it on everything. Otherwise, you're
• 31:11
  weak. You won't survive the winter if you don't
• 31:13
  have it on every screen. That's just how it is.
• 31:17
  That's how it is for you. That's how it is for
• 31:19
  you. Anyway, yeah. So the FFXIV FanFest, we will
• 31:23
  see. When's the Japanese one, James? It's next
• 31:27
  month, I think, right? Or is it September? I
• 31:30
  actually don't know. One second. It doesn't matter.
• 31:33
  They dated this expansion. I'm being careful
• 31:34
  what I say because I know when it's going to
• 31:36
  be. September almost is next month. Yeah. All
• 31:42
  right. I think it's like right before the patch.
• 31:46
  Okay, they haven't announced the release yet.
• 31:48
  Well, they've announced the release, but I do
• 31:50
  want to say something else. That 117 GB is more
• 31:54
  like more of an issue than eight bucks a month
• 31:57
  right now, given Switch 2. So people have been
• 32:00
  making jokes about how XIV broke the glass with
• 32:04
  the VII Raiden. It's like, I think it's the opposite.
• 32:06
  I wouldn't be shocked if they have like a pack
• 32:09
  -in with FFVII Revelations where it's like, here,
• 32:12
  get a mount or a minion for Final Fantasy XIV
• 32:15
  with your purchase. I think there is a world...
• 32:19
  I think there is a new regime. There's a new
• 32:22
  broom at Square with the new CEO. And I think
• 32:25
  this wouldn't have probably happened under the
• 32:27
  previous regime. There's a lot of... The way
• 32:31
  Square Enix has been for a long time is a bit
• 32:34
  like a family with a lot of the bickering and
• 32:38
  things that come with being a family, a lot of
• 32:39
  the rivalry between various development houses,
• 32:43
  the sort of like siblings that are all competing
• 32:46
  to be the best. Some of them get along better
• 32:49
  than others, which is why you see certain people
• 32:51
  gravitate together. But it's good that it's happening.
• 32:58
  Hamaguchi is, I think, the golden guy at Square
• 33:01
  right now. And he's sort of definitely helping
• 33:04
  people to bridge lots of gaps. And it's exciting.
• 33:10
  I think for me. And this is my deeply unpopular
• 33:17
  opinion, but it's like my interest in FFXIV precipitously
• 33:24
  goes down the more they mine of a Final Fantasy
• 33:28
  stuff. To the point where even when they were
• 33:31
  doing A Realm Reborn and they were like, here's
• 33:32
  Magitek armor in the CG trailer. I was like,
• 33:36
  do we have to do this? But that's because one
• 33:40
  of the reasons I loved XI is XI was just like...
• 33:42
  yeah we have the broad things as all final fantasy
• 33:44
  games do but 11 was as much its own final fantasy
• 33:48
  game as any other final fantasy game and i'm
• 33:50
  not saying 14 isn't that because it obviously
• 33:52
  is that but it's also fully embraced this we're
• 33:56
  the final fantasy theme park thing which i know
• 33:58
  that like um sakaguchi and people love many people
• 34:02
  love um but for me it doesn't really do it for
• 34:05
  me in quite the same way and so when i see you
• 34:10
  know the collaborations I just sort of go could
• 34:12
  they not just do could you know I would rather
• 34:15
  they did another really cool thing with some
• 34:18
  existing Final Fantasy iconography like I loved
• 34:20
  what they did with Alexander with the raids they
• 34:24
  did around that dungeon and stuff like that's
• 34:27
  a really good use of a classic piece of Final
• 34:29
  Fantasy iconography and I'm just sort of like
• 34:31
  like I'm the biggest nine person in the world
• 34:33
  and when they did all this nine stuff and they
• 34:35
  had this they had that boss that sort of you
• 34:39
  know resembled beatrix in the most in the most
• 34:42
  vague way and then they're playing rose of may
• 34:45
  and i'm just like just fucking do something else
• 34:49
  yeah i will say like i understand why they're
• 34:52
  doing the ff7 uh like collaboration and it's
• 34:56
  probably the right decision from a business standpoint
• 34:59
  but uh i really liked the raid series for dawn
• 35:03
  trail was an entirely original thing yeah and
• 35:07
  it's like A lot of people really, really liked
• 35:10
  the Arcadian in Dawn Trail. I'd say it was probably
• 35:12
  the most beloved content in Dawn Trail, not just
• 35:15
  from a fight perspective, but just from an overall
• 35:17
  framing and everything. I think it's an attitude
• 35:22
  thing. My favorite Final Fantasy is the one that's
• 35:26
  full of callbacks to all the others. It's 9.
• 35:28
  But the thing about the way 9 uses its callbacks
• 35:32
  is... it's it's largely in in vague ways well
• 35:36
  you get really obvious stuff like you know after
• 35:38
  alexandria is destroyed you get the the flower
• 35:41
  girl in the rubble and she's she's fallen in
• 35:44
  fallen in love with the seventh of steiner's
• 35:46
  knights and you go but for me like the the whole
• 35:51
  here's a thing you know here's a thing you know
• 35:54
  jingle jangle keys jingle jangle keys i'm just
• 35:57
  sort of like final fantasy is is at its best
• 36:00
  when it takes existing iconography and goes here's
• 36:03
  a completely new way of thinking about that and
• 36:06
  if you made but if you made final fantasy 9 today
• 36:09
  it wouldn't be NPC called Flower Girl and Seventh
• 36:15
  Night, they would literally, they'd put her in
• 36:17
  Herob's outfit. You know, that's what they would
• 36:19
  do, right? And so that's where I'm like, anyway,
• 36:22
  I digress. I think it's, you know, it appeals
• 36:25
  to a great many people and I get it, but it's
• 36:28
  one of the things in the end that sort of drove
• 36:29
  me off a little bit. It's like, I don't want
• 36:31
  to be in a Final Fantasy theme park that is shoving
• 36:34
  things from other games in my face all the time.
• 36:36
  I want to be in a theme park that is evocative
• 36:38
  of Final Fantasy and makes me feel those feelings.
• 36:41
  in a slightly more clever way. I don't know.
• 36:44
  Maybe I'll go back at some point. I probably
• 36:46
  should. I have one question for you on Final
• 36:49
  Fantasy XIV, Alex. How long until it becomes
• 36:53
  the MCU of Final Fantasy in a way that Dissidia
• 36:57
  never could? I don't think they'll quite ever
• 37:00
  do that because it's one of the funny things
• 37:02
  about all those tie -ins is they've had an absolute
• 37:05
  commitment to making them all canon some way
• 37:08
  within the XIV universe, which is admirable.
• 37:11
  in itself. But, you know, I think it looks like
• 37:16
  that new Dissidia mobile game is not doing well.
• 37:20
  There's another one? Yeah, where they're like
• 37:23
  normal people in real world Shibuya. Because
• 37:29
  certain people at Square are obsessed with Shibuya,
• 37:32
  even though Shibuya isn't even really that cool
• 37:34
  anymore. But, and they're like, you know, so
• 37:38
  they're in street clothes and then they're transforming
• 37:40
  into their video game versions of themselves
• 37:42
  to fight beats and stuff. That's on mobile. And
• 37:45
  it's, is that out, out or just in like beta?
• 37:48
  I can't remember. I think it's out, out. I think
• 37:50
  it's out, out. But I don't think it's done particularly
• 37:57
  well. I don't know. Who knows? So yeah, it came
• 38:01
  out in March, but it goes to show that you. didn't
• 38:05
  even know about that bridge didn't i know that's
• 38:08
  been out four months didn't they am i crazy did
• 38:12
  they stop development on ever crisis or is that
• 38:14
  still going yeah ever crisis is finished yeah
• 38:16
  okay did they wait wait when you say it's finished
• 38:19
  they're finished but is it finished end of service
• 38:22
  was announced they've stopped taking real money
• 38:25
  uh but there's still some content runoff i think
• 38:28
  that they need to do um did they just release
• 38:31
  that as like a premium game please Is that possible?
• 38:34
  I don't think it's worth it. That one's a bit
• 38:39
  more complicated, but their path right now is
• 38:41
  to Octopath Zero, Final Fantasy Resonance. They
• 38:46
  take those mobile games and they hack them to
• 38:49
  pieces and then Frankenstein them back together
• 38:52
  as a single player game. We know it's going to
• 38:55
  happen in a year. It's got to happen in a year.
• 38:57
  When they announced Resonance, it was incredible
• 38:58
  because they announced Resonance and they literally
• 39:00
  didn't mention in the press release. the words
• 39:04
  um brave exfius yeah they were just like yeah
• 39:08
  it's it's it's the first hd 2d final fantasy
• 39:11
  game they didn't lead with we've done this port
• 39:15
  of this beloved mobile game because they want
• 39:16
  people to think it's an old it's not even a port
• 39:18
  because it's like a complete ground up like re
• 39:20
  reimagining really because well it's it's i don't
• 39:23
  know it how it's it's sort of rebuild like you're
• 39:27
  gonna recognize encounters story beats and stuff
• 39:31
  wholesale like you know it's it's sort of so
• 39:35
  it's more it's it's it's weird it's not a remake
• 39:38
  it's not a remaster it's something else well
• 39:40
  it is a remake though because you take a look
• 39:42
  at screenshots of brave xps and then you look
• 39:44
  at resonance it's very obviously not the same
• 39:46
  game so it's like it's a remake of sorts we just
• 39:49
  don't know it's yeah it's a weird it's a weird
• 39:51
  thing but i could see them doing it for forever
• 39:55
  crisis but equally the thing that i keep thinking
• 39:58
  is like once you finish part three of once you
• 40:01
  finish revelation you could very, very easily
• 40:05
  then take all the assets from that and pump out,
• 40:09
  probably in 18, 24 months, a one -to -one remake
• 40:13
  of FF7, build the turn -based combat system,
• 40:17
  and then literally photograph... the worlds from
• 40:22
  from rebirth from set angles or maybe you just
• 40:25
  let people walk through them normally but take
• 40:27
  out all the new stuff basically and restore the
• 40:30
  old original story and do that as a single game
• 40:32
  so that's one way you could do a remake of ff7
• 40:34
  but the like a faithful remake but the other
• 40:39
  way you could do it is you could just rebuild
• 40:42
  like rip ever crisis to pieces and do it again
• 40:46
  and then and paste it all back together because
• 40:48
  ever crisis has all those assets it's got the
• 40:50
  entire story of ff7 retail i think they'll have
• 40:53
  to do something with it because that is currently
• 40:56
  the only way to experience like before crisis
• 40:58
  dirge etc etc so yeah well while we were talking
• 41:04
  i decided to look on the google play store for
• 41:06
  that decidia game and i saw like four mobile
• 41:08
  final fantasy games i've never heard of before
• 41:10
  so was it dimensions dimensions 2 Yeah. What
• 41:16
  the fuck? What the fuck is Dimensions 1? Did
• 41:19
  I forget that? That came out really long ago.
• 41:21
  Dimensions 1 was like this premium thing which
• 41:24
  they made exclusively for mobile. They didn't
• 41:26
  port that anywhere. And then they did 2. I forgot
• 41:28
  what happened with 2. I didn't play much of it.
• 41:30
  I have it. I bought it to try it out. Let me
• 41:32
  check myself. Oh my god. One second. You remember
• 41:35
  when FFXIII was happening and they did this random
• 41:39
  trailer? I don't remember which XIII game it
• 41:41
  was. They did this pixel art retelling. No, no,
• 41:44
  no. They did this trailer for Final Fantasy 13.
• 41:47
  I think it was Lightning Returns where they did
• 41:48
  a summary of the events of 13 and 13 -2 in a
• 41:52
  pixel art style. And they had this chiptune version
• 41:56
  of the battle theme and all. And I remember when
• 41:57
  I saw that back in the day, I was like, I wish
• 42:00
  the whole game looked like this instead of what
• 42:02
  they did. And that was before I actually realized
• 42:04
  how good 13 is technically. But yeah, I just
• 42:07
  remember that right now when you were talking
• 42:08
  about these remakes and stuff. I don't know,
• 42:11
  like, I thought at one point they just do pixel
• 42:14
  remasters or, like, pixel demakes of, like, 7,
• 42:16
  8, 9 or something. Like, they have so many of
• 42:19
  these quote -unquote engines and, you know, like,
• 42:22
  character models and stuff. It just feels like,
• 42:24
  I don't know. But then, like, I literally had
• 42:26
  to create a Ubisoft chart when I was talking
• 42:28
  about Final Fantasy X features across platforms.
• 42:31
  So, like, that's Square Enix for you. Well, even
• 42:34
  pixel remasters, right? They don't have any of
• 42:36
  the content from GBA versions, which in my opinion
• 42:39
  is a travesty. I mean, it's just travesty is
• 42:42
  a bit strong, but it's a great shame. But just
• 42:44
  for God's sake, put out a definitive, unless
• 42:46
  there's a legal problem, like the legal problem
• 42:48
  with Sonic 3 with Michael Jackson, like which
• 42:51
  stopped Sonic Origins from being that. Just put
• 42:54
  out the definitive version of your games. Like
• 42:56
  for God's sake. Anyway, because it's not like
• 42:59
  you're even trying to sell someone the GBA version.
• 43:01
  There's no way to buy it. And then in the case
• 43:04
  on PC where they did have some versions that
• 43:07
  had the GBA content in, I think, for like FF4
• 43:09
  maybe, those horrible versions with the hideous
• 43:13
  sprites, they delisted those. So there's no way
• 43:18
  to play that content other than going and spending
• 43:20
  £200 on a FF6 GBA cart, which is also insanely
• 43:24
  overpriced. Or you can buy the PSP version, which
• 43:26
  has less worse sprites and has all the content,
• 43:30
  which I guess is still the defended version of
• 43:32
  Final Fantasy 4 is that PSP, the complete collection.
• 43:34
  Yeah, but there's no version of Final Fantasy.
• 43:37
  It doesn't have the after years. It does. Oh,
• 43:40
  it does? Yeah. Why would you want it? But there's
• 43:43
  no PSP version of 6 or whatever. Anyway, I digress.
• 43:46
  That's enough Final Fantasy chat. Brains, you
• 43:49
  reviewed Power World over for our friends on
• 43:53
  VGC. Tell us a little bit about the game that
• 43:58
  Pokemon tried to destroy. Legally distinct is
• 44:03
  how I'm describing it. I think that's good. I
• 44:06
  will, however, say that I just don't remember
• 44:09
  any of their names. I had to type a bunch of
• 44:13
  them out many, many times. I didn't remember
• 44:15
  any of their names. Where do you even get started
• 44:20
  with this? I guess you start with the fact that
• 44:23
  it's a survival crafting game. It's not as much
• 44:25
  a Pokemon game as it is an Ark Survival Evolved
• 44:27
  or a Forest or Sons of the Forest or... What
• 44:32
  was the games from last year? Enshrouded? There
• 44:36
  was a bunch. There's a lot of those games. Yeah.
• 44:39
  They are the Steam Flavor of the Month game genre.
• 44:43
  Oh, Rust. We got about that one. And there's
• 44:47
  so very many of them and they all start off with
• 44:50
  you collecting sticks and rocks for a very, very
• 44:53
  long period of time before putting those things
• 44:55
  together to make collecting sticks and rocks
• 44:58
  easier and faster so you can collect better sticks
• 45:00
  and better rocks. I actually think it's pretty
• 45:05
  good for what it is. I've said it before and
• 45:09
  I'll say it again. The gameplay of a survival
• 45:11
  crafting game to me feels a lot like Cookie Clicker
• 45:14
  because as I say, you're gathering sticks and
• 45:16
  rocks to build things to make gathering sticks
• 45:18
  and rocks easier better faster that's just that's
• 45:21
  just cookie clicker you click the cookie so you
• 45:23
  can get the double cookie cookie multiplier you
• 45:25
  know um and so i don't think that's very entertaining
• 45:28
  i actually think it's very very boring and it's
• 45:30
  very very i think it's bad however the pal world's
• 45:34
  uh genius mechanic here is having the pals to
• 45:37
  be at your base to click those cookies for you
• 45:40
  and they all can click cookies in their own different
• 45:42
  ways so when you get a pal open in the wild and
• 45:46
  you collect them you can say hey this one's better
• 45:48
  at this mechanic and this one's really fast at
• 45:50
  riding and therefore i'll craft this thing and
• 45:52
  instead of being in a pokemon game and just collecting
• 45:56
  pokemon to fill in your pokedex or even in legends
• 45:59
  archaeus where you collect multiple of a creature
• 46:01
  to like get all of its details um in this it's
• 46:05
  not just a checklist it feels like these creatures
• 46:09
  have an actual purpose and actual use i actually
• 46:11
  think that improves both the survival crafting
• 46:13
  gameplay and i think it improves the monster
• 46:16
  collecting gameplay because personally when i
• 46:18
  play pokemon i know i'm not going to catch them
• 46:21
  all i'm not going to pester my friends for trades
• 46:23
  i'm just i'm just not i'm just not in the mood
• 46:25
  for it so i'll only actually capture the pokemon
• 46:27
  i think either look cool or i actually want to
• 46:29
  use in battle i don't care about the checklist
• 46:31
  in this game i don't care about the checklist
• 46:34
  but there's other uses so i find myself engaging
• 46:36
  with that mechanic more so I wanted to get that
• 46:39
  out of the way. I think this is very, very smart.
• 46:41
  I don't think any other game has done it quite
• 46:42
  like this. And if any game is going to learn
• 46:45
  something from Power World, it has to be that.
• 46:48
  Having said that, it's a boring game and it's
• 46:50
  really ugly. And those are my shoes. You know,
• 46:55
  I was doing this the other day because I wrote
• 46:57
  my review on BGC and I was looking at the first
• 46:59
  trailers for Palworld. And those first trailers,
• 47:02
  they said themselves it wasn't a real game at
• 47:04
  the time. It was essentially just throwing assets
• 47:05
  onto a screen to make it look like a game was
• 47:07
  happening, you know? Fair enough for a first
• 47:10
  trailer. I'm not going to argue with that. But
• 47:11
  it was done in Unity and it was using their Craftopia
• 47:13
  assets. And Craftopia is a stylized, cel -shaded
• 47:19
  -ish game. It's got style. It has style. And
• 47:24
  they've said before they had to get the game
• 47:26
  onto Unreal Engine. They got a modeler and a
• 47:28
  rigger, and he was amazing, but he could only
• 47:30
  use Unreal. They transferred the whole thing
• 47:32
  onto Unreal Engine. It was early on in the project,
• 47:34
  so it was fine. But the game doesn't look as
• 47:37
  good as those early trailers. And the devil is
• 47:41
  in the details. It's in the fact that you've
• 47:43
  got these really cute, again, sort of cel -shaded
• 47:45
  -ish creatures, which really pop in the environment
• 47:48
  and are really bright. And there's this semi
• 47:50
  -realistic feel to the world. Even the trees,
• 47:54
  I went really up close to a tree and I could
• 47:56
  see it was like angular, like 16 sided. And it
• 47:59
  just looked like a photo of tree bark somewhere
• 48:01
  taken. And it's not, it's not ruining the game,
• 48:03
  but the presentation from top to bottom, including
• 48:06
  the UI. I don't want to say, it feels cheap.
• 48:10
  That's all I'm going to say. I don't want to
• 48:12
  say it's bad. I feel like it feels cheap. There's
• 48:15
  a lot to love in the game. And I think if you've
• 48:16
  got like an online multiplayer server to play
• 48:18
  with your friends, obviously any game is better
• 48:21
  like that. But yeah, ignoring all of the legal
• 48:26
  issues or what have you, I think Power World
• 48:29
  is a game with some really interesting ideas,
• 48:31
  but I would like it to be visually cohesive and
• 48:35
  more engaging. uh really that's something they
• 48:40
  can get to over time because it's clearly it's
• 48:42
  a success they've got as we speak there are half
• 48:44
  a million people playing it on steam absolutely
• 48:47
  yeah yeah the player numbers have been insane
• 48:49
  and and people have been mildly annoyed that
• 48:52
  i gave it a three out of five it's like even
• 48:54
  if that style is cropped it's cribbed from somewhere
• 48:57
  else because like that was the thing i remember
• 48:58
  about genshin when it launched right is that
• 49:02
  yes it sort of nicked that style from breath
• 49:05
  of the wild but it at least had that style yeah
• 49:08
  yeah absolutely and powell robs a couple of things
• 49:12
  from breath of the wild too i mean everybody
• 49:14
  robs you know you know yeah that's the whole
• 49:18
  debate about this game right is is it's the good
• 49:21
  artist copy great artist steal the old steve
• 49:23
  jobs adage and ultimately um if they actually
• 49:29
  actively as was alleged at certain points stole
• 49:33
  like from the Pokemon company, that's a massive
• 49:37
  problem. If you want to make a Pokemon alike,
• 49:41
  there's a great write -up from Rebecca about
• 49:43
  Honkai Nexus Anima, which obviously is Mihoyo,
• 49:48
  the Genshin people. It's their sort of Pokemon
• 49:52
  adjacent thing. And, you know, that's fine. If
• 49:59
  the game's good, competition's good, right? I
• 50:02
  mean, because Pokemon has had a lot of quality.
• 50:04
  issues over the years because they've been in
• 50:07
  the only the only game in town that feeds that
• 50:09
  particular niche so i don't know i don't know
• 50:12
  i can't see myself necessarily going back to
• 50:14
  power world maybe i will maybe i should there's
• 50:17
  some go on no go ahead no no no i want to hear
• 50:21
  you now okay uh i actually had no interest in
• 50:24
  playing this until i saw someone on blue sky
• 50:26
  uh post about how one of the songs is like a
• 50:29
  dream theater track from the 90s and i was like
• 50:32
  okay be downloading it I need to try it. So that's
• 50:35
  all it took. Yeah, very good. As I say, I do
• 50:39
  like the game. But as you said, Alex, it feels
• 50:42
  unoriginal is the nicest way to put it. But luckily,
• 50:47
  as I said before, those mechanics did come together.
• 50:49
  Is it the monster catching, the base building
• 50:51
  from other survival crafting games? They come
• 50:53
  together in a way which I feel is really harmonious.
• 50:55
  Surprisingly so. And if it didn't come together
• 50:58
  so well, so uniquely, I would be like. fuck pal
• 51:02
  world but it but they they it has a unique nugget
• 51:06
  of a really really good gameplay idea i think
• 51:09
  if they sort of go back to the drawing board
• 51:11
  with some of these some of some of the base game
• 51:13
  aspects like uh slime rancher is is is kind of
• 51:17
  in a way another survival crafting game uh but
• 51:20
  it's very very from a unique perspective because
• 51:22
  the creatures are also your resources and you're
• 51:25
  like hoovering them up with a crazy vacuum there
• 51:27
  are more interesting ways i think to resource
• 51:29
  gather than to stare at a thing and press the
• 51:32
  harvest button until it's harvested, personally.
• 51:35
  I think if they take it back to the drawing board,
• 51:36
  have a cohesive art style throughout, I think
• 51:39
  a Power World 2 could be really, really genuinely
• 51:41
  great. You've got half a million people. Maybe
• 51:44
  you don't do a 2. Maybe you just iterate, iterate,
• 51:46
  iterate. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I
• 51:48
  could see that for this game. I could see it
• 51:50
  becoming something. Really special over the years.
• 51:53
  Certainly seems like at one point that was a
• 51:54
  big improvement on the early access launch as
• 51:56
  well, which I played back in the day and even
• 51:58
  did some guides for and stuff and just was like,
• 52:01
  I don't want to play this anymore. Anyhow, so
• 52:04
  yes, you can read Bryn's full review over on
• 52:07
  Video Games Chronicle, vgc .news. Speaking of
• 52:11
  news, some quick other little bits that you might
• 52:14
  want to know about. There's a Crazy Taxi World
• 52:17
  Tour closed network test coming in September.
• 52:20
  You can apply for that now on the official website.
• 52:22
  There's also, and I wanted to shout this out
• 52:24
  because I just think it's cool that they're still
• 52:26
  doing it. There's a new update for Spider -Man
• 52:28
  2 where they've added two new suits, one based
• 52:31
  on Tokom, the Marvel fighting game that's coming
• 52:33
  up, and one based on the new movie, Brand New
• 52:35
  Day, and some enhanced PS5 Pro performance as
• 52:38
  well. I just think it's really good that that
• 52:40
  game is how old now? Three, four years old? I
• 52:44
  think it's three. Yeah. And they're still adding
• 52:47
  stuff to it, right? respect to them for that
• 52:50
  um and lastly uh probably not the most surprising
• 52:54
  news in the world but there's been a new interview
• 52:56
  with mark darrow who was formerly one of the
• 52:59
  high ups of bioware um and he was really instrumental
• 53:02
  in the creation of dragon age in particular and
• 53:05
  he says that he doesn't think a mass effect style
• 53:07
  dragon age trilogy remaster is possible as there's
• 53:10
  nobody left at bioware who knows how the tech
• 53:13
  works this should not be any surprise i don't
• 53:16
  think because literally The other thing about
• 53:18
  Mass Effect is there was a lineage with those
• 53:20
  games. They were all roughly built one on the
• 53:23
  other on the other, whereas Dragon Age, each
• 53:26
  one of those games was something new. Dragon
• 53:27
  Age 1 obviously was more of a Baldur's Gate -style
• 53:30
  game, more of a CRPG. Second one, which is weird,
• 53:33
  inspired by Mass Effect, developed extremely
• 53:35
  quickly. And then the third one was this open
• 53:38
  world. So it's not even like you've got to work
• 53:40
  with three different hex stacks. He also said
• 53:44
  he doesn't think there's anyone. yeah he doesn't
• 53:47
  think a new dragon age would make it through
• 53:49
  the pitch process at ea which i also think um
• 53:54
  seems seems fair enough um you know what i saw
• 53:59
  with dragon age i have not actually finished
• 54:01
  a single dragon age or mass effect game like
• 54:03
  that's something i'm happy to admit but when
• 54:06
  i uh when i was told to play dragon age origins
• 54:08
  i downloaded it on steam it doesn't have controller
• 54:11
  support so i deleted it because i don't do that
• 54:13
  uh Then I found out the only way to play it with
• 54:16
  controller support on a modern system is Xbox
• 54:18
  Back Compact. But then if you download that,
• 54:20
  it looks kind of shit. So I'm looking at GOG
• 54:23
  mods now because I was reading the CRPG book,
• 54:25
  which I'm going to be writing about soon. And
• 54:27
  that has so much on Dragon Age and Mass Effect.
• 54:30
  And I'm like, you know, 1000 people tell me to
• 54:33
  play these games like every week. Maybe I should
• 54:35
  finally give them a go. And like when there's
• 54:37
  time to play games for fun, which I don't know
• 54:40
  when that's going to happen this year. If you're
• 54:42
  going to play one of them, in my opinion, Mass
• 54:44
  Effect is the one of the two to play. But saying
• 54:47
  that will upset someone, as it would if I said
• 54:49
  it the other way around. I'm going to tell you
• 54:52
  right now, I'm surprised you got to the need
• 54:55
  a controller point, because my experience of
• 54:59
  playing Dragon Age Origins on Steam these days
• 55:02
  is won't run, won't boot, need mods to make boot.
• 55:09
  It has the EA dogshit launcher, which is also
• 55:11
  as bad as the Ubisoft stuff. I think this is
• 55:15
  why consoles exist, because you don't want to
• 55:16
  deal with this trash. I remember when I bought
• 55:19
  Red Dead 2 on Steam to play it on Steam Deck,
• 55:21
  and that launcher was so pissing off, and I'm
• 55:23
  like, just port it to Switch or something. Just
• 55:26
  end me now. I have... Go on, Alex. Go ahead.
• 55:32
  I have a couple of tiny Dragon Age tidbits for
• 55:35
  Mikhail specifically. The console and the PC
• 55:38
  versions of Origins are actually super, super
• 55:40
  different. The console version is like massively
• 55:44
  simplified and it's actually more of an action
• 55:46
  game. Whereas the PC version, it wants to be
• 55:48
  like a top -down isometric CRPG style game. Yeah,
• 55:51
  it really, really does. It's so strange playing
• 55:54
  one back in the day and then playing like another
• 55:56
  one years later because it's like this. It feels
• 55:58
  like a different game the way they want you to
• 56:00
  approach the combat system. It's really, really
• 56:02
  strange. like how they had that warhead and the
• 56:05
  other crisis on console warhead was just a different
• 56:08
  game right warhead was just a cheap warhead was
• 56:11
  a cheap although you are right base crisis you
• 56:13
  were sneaking around a lot and warhead was just
• 56:16
  like a an action game where you played like some
• 56:18
  jason stay from lookalike yeah did you did you
• 56:21
  play bg3 mikhail yes Yeah, so basically, you
• 56:25
  know how it has like turn -based mode and the
• 56:27
  real -time mode? Essentially, the console Dragon
• 56:29
  Age Origins was just always in real -time mode.
• 56:32
  You could put it into tactical mode, but it was
• 56:34
  made for real -time mode. And then the PC version
• 56:36
  is made for tactical mode, made for turn -based.
• 56:40
  But yeah, it's something to like try at some
• 56:42
  point. But like you said, right, the launcher
• 56:44
  is like at that point, like I got a Steam controller
• 56:46
  specifically to play like Pillars 2 on PC because
• 56:49
  it doesn't have controller support. But just
• 56:51
  dealing with the EA launchers, like... I'm not
• 56:53
  wasting my life on this. Yeah, it'll hurt. Well,
• 56:57
  I mean, we will see. Obviously, one thing that
• 57:00
  happened last week that we didn't discuss on
• 57:01
  the pod is that the European Commission has approved
• 57:05
  the sale of EA to the Saudi Public Investment
• 57:10
  Fund for $55 billion. Really, it seems to anyone
• 57:17
  that I've spoken to about it that the belief
• 57:20
  is that really they're interested in... sports
• 57:22
  stuff so you know i'm a command and conquer fan
• 57:27
  and i think what i hope for out of that deal
• 57:29
  is hopefully the um if the saudi pif isn't interested
• 57:32
  and they do want to just want the sports that
• 57:35
  what remains of the studios and the ips get sold
• 57:38
  yeah once this deal closes and i think that that's
• 57:42
  actually your path now to a new dragon age or
• 57:44
  two obviously there's a massive 18 production
• 57:46
  i really hope it comes out but i have to admit
• 57:50
  i feel like i'll be quite surprised if it does
• 57:52
  Yeah. And also, I got to say, the EA Sports Game
• 57:56
  fans are probably the ones that are least likely
• 57:59
  to object to EA being Saudi -owned because their
• 58:01
  favorite teams are anyway. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 58:05
  yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, not everything they do
• 58:07
  works, right? The golf thing has sort of fallen
• 58:09
  apart, I think. I think, I haven't looked it
• 58:13
  up in a while, but I just know, yeah, the Saudi
• 58:17
  funding has peered out and they've literally
• 58:19
  just yesterday. cancelled their grand finale
• 58:23
  of the year um so i'm sure that the champagne
• 58:28
  corks popping at the pga um offices israel they're
• 58:33
  going to be in mass effect 5 though well this
• 58:36
  is what i mean that's what i said i i just i
• 58:39
  i i don't think that game fits with this saudi
• 58:42
  portfolio and who knows we've just seen with
• 58:45
  xbox what happens when new leadership comes in
• 58:47
  so when this deal closes They're going to come
• 58:50
  in and evaluate the entire EA business and they're
• 58:52
  going to decide some bits of it fit, some bits
• 58:54
  of it don't. And we'll have to see what happens.
• 58:57
  And hopefully it doesn't result in more bloody
• 58:59
  job losses. Hopefully, if they decide they don't
• 59:02
  want stuff, it just results in sales. But we
• 59:04
  will see. Ronaldo and Madden. All that. Yeah.
• 59:11
  But I suppose that's the other thing, though.
• 59:13
  It's like you could point to SNK for that, but
• 59:15
  it's like they didn't buy SNK for Metal Slug.
• 59:18
  They bought SNK. for fighting games, for esports.
• 59:22
  And frankly, I wonder if it was affordable. I
• 59:25
  think it was very affordable. Yeah. And lastly,
• 59:31
  as always, let's have a little retrospective.
• 59:35
  There's a few games that I wanted to point out
• 59:37
  that are having birthdays this week. Earlier
• 59:43
  in the week, the slightly trashy Xbox 360 action
• 59:46
  game Bullet Witch turned 20. Not a particularly
• 59:50
  famous game, but I just have some fond memories
• 59:51
  of it. It's on Steam, I think. Is it? Yeah, I
• 59:56
  think it's on Steam. I don't know if it runs,
• 59:59
  but I bought it. I might have to replay that.
• 1:00:02
  If I replay it, I'll probably ruin the positive
• 1:00:05
  memories I do have of it. Also 20 years old Mario
• 1:00:08
  Hoops 3 on 3. Wow. That was the first game that
• 1:00:13
  Silken actually did music for. Well, I was going
• 1:00:19
  to say, it's your one chance to see a Moogle
• 1:00:21
  and Mario sidebust. Your one chance? I don't
• 1:00:26
  know. Maybe. There's got to be another case,
• 1:00:28
  right? Is that the M &M's one? Also Square Enix.
• 1:00:36
  Neo, The World End of You, five years old. Feels
• 1:00:38
  like that series is dead now. That game really
• 1:00:43
  seemed like it did not do well. It was dead before
• 1:00:45
  that as well. It's okay. Yeah, it's one of those
• 1:00:47
  things where it's like, I feel like they did
• 1:00:49
  not do it justice in how they pushed it, especially
• 1:00:53
  with the absolute clusterfuck of that PC port,
• 1:00:56
  where they announced it at the same time, said,
• 1:00:57
  oh, it'll be out later, then it was on Epic Games
• 1:00:59
  Store, and then they just fucking shadow dropped
• 1:01:01
  it on Steam like a year later. It's like... COVID,
• 1:01:04
  right? It wasn't... Yeah, it wasn't going to
• 1:01:07
  sell that well regardless, but I feel like there
• 1:01:10
  was a path to making it... blow up I just remember
• 1:01:14
  the vibes around that game were really weird
• 1:01:16
  I remember doing an interview for that game with
• 1:01:18
  like the director and the producer or someone
• 1:01:20
  and then we were like two minutes two three minutes
• 1:01:23
  into this team's call for this interview and
• 1:01:26
  it went and an extra person joined the call and
• 1:01:29
  camera on but covered so not camera off camera
• 1:01:34
  on but camera covered so it was just a black
• 1:01:36
  screen did not speak did not say anything just
• 1:01:39
  lurked there for the whole call to see you tomorrow
• 1:01:42
  And as soon as he joined the call, their vibe
• 1:01:44
  completely changed as well. And they just clammed
• 1:01:46
  up because I think they were worried about getting
• 1:01:47
  in trouble. So the vibes around that game were
• 1:01:51
  really weird. Couldn't he use like an amiibo
• 1:01:52
  or something? Like, why would he just come with
• 1:01:54
  a camera? We need to get him in touch with you.
• 1:01:57
  Shin Megami Tensei, Devil Survivor 2, 15 years
• 1:02:00
  old. I don't really have much to say other than
• 1:02:05
  I like the game. I do. I do, actually. I bought
• 1:02:10
  the game on DS, but never played it there because
• 1:02:11
  they were doing these 3DS ports of everything.
• 1:02:14
  Like I think Atlas released like 500 games on
• 1:02:17
  3DS in those like five or six years. And I believe
• 1:02:21
  this was, yeah, this was like, I remember this
• 1:02:24
  specifically because it did not fit on my 3DS
• 1:02:27
  SD card. It was like one of the biggest games
• 1:02:29
  and I had to upgrade for this. I love the game,
• 1:02:33
  obviously, but yeah, the first thing that stuck
• 1:02:34
  out to me is when I got the review code for it,
• 1:02:36
  I could not download it because I did not have...
• 1:02:38
  You remember they had those Pikmin blocks or
• 1:02:40
  whatever for storage because Nintendo didn't
• 1:02:43
  want us to know what a gigabyte was back then.
• 1:02:45
  So, yeah. That was the fond memories of that.
• 1:02:48
  They should port those games. Like, what are
• 1:02:50
  they doing? Atlus. I guess they're just... The
• 1:02:54
  Weeknd is playing their games. Remaking Persona
• 1:02:57
  3 for War. by the time their four's out and six
• 1:03:00
  is out they'll probably start thinking about
• 1:03:01
  what they can do to five and be trapped in a
• 1:03:04
  loop and never remake persona one or two um solomon's
• 1:03:06
  key really interesting game i think really interesting
• 1:03:09
  techno nes game from back in the day is 40 years
• 1:03:12
  old this week um it's weird it's like a platformer
• 1:03:18
  like a puzzler um it's very unique And it's one
• 1:03:25
  of those games that just, I think, if you have
• 1:03:29
  an opportunity to go back and play that, there's
• 1:03:31
  a few different versions. There's an original
• 1:03:34
  arcade version, but it got ported to the NES.
• 1:03:36
  It got ported to, I think it was a Game Boy version.
• 1:03:39
  There was definitely a Master System version
• 1:03:40
  because that's how I first encountered it. It's
• 1:03:44
  definitely worth checking out if you're a retro
• 1:03:46
  game lover. It's a really weird, interesting
• 1:03:52
  thing. Also, last couple, there's a lot of really
• 1:03:58
  cool games that came out on this day, this weekend.
• 1:04:02
  Golden Sun, 25 years old. Absolute fucking banger.
• 1:04:06
  Bring that series back. That's all I really have
• 1:04:10
  to say about that. That and the way those two
• 1:04:14
  games interacted. Maybe now that Mario Tennis
• 1:04:17
  underperformed so much that it changed Nintendo's
• 1:04:21
  entire philosophy with how they're pricing their
• 1:04:23
  games now, maybe they'll let Camelot out of the
• 1:04:26
  minds to actually make something that's not a
• 1:04:28
  Mario sports game for once. Put fucking Isaac
• 1:04:32
  in the next Smash, and then maybe that will generate
• 1:04:35
  enough groundswell in the same way that Marth
• 1:04:37
  and Roy being in Melee did. I really like Golden
• 1:04:40
  Sun. The third one was sort of ass, to be fair,
• 1:04:43
  but the DS one. But it's sort of in that same
• 1:04:46
  mega zone as Star Fox where it feels like they
• 1:04:49
  really struggle to get away from that core story.
• 1:04:54
  Do a Suikoden -style remaster or remake and just
• 1:04:56
  package the first two GBA games in one remake.
• 1:05:01
  Do it that way. Yeah, great HD 2D game. Super
• 1:05:05
  Monkey Ball Adventure, 20 years old. Good game.
• 1:05:08
  Great game. and my favorite is a few of us overcooked
• 1:05:16
  is 10 this is the police is 10 what how is it
• 1:05:20
  overcooked then what the fuck i know that is
• 1:05:22
  frightening right because when i i was doing
• 1:05:25
  my research for this section and i saw that and
• 1:05:27
  i was like that can't be right i googled it but
• 1:05:29
  nope um overcooked originally came out it'll
• 1:05:33
  be sunday that it has its birthday originally
• 1:05:36
  came out on the 2nd of august 2016 I think, yeah,
• 1:05:42
  it's slightly crazy. What a game though. Yeah.
• 1:05:47
  Wait a minute. That means Persona 5 is going
• 1:05:49
  to be 10 in like a month. No, that can't be possible.
• 1:05:56
  No, I can't think about it. This is the Police
• 1:06:02
  also is a really cool, I really enjoyed that.
• 1:06:05
  Back in the day. I never played the sequel. Makes
• 1:06:07
  one play a sequel. And my particular favorite
• 1:06:09
  this week, Streets of Rage, 30 years old. My
• 1:06:13
  ringtone on my phone is still the Streets of
• 1:06:15
  Rage character select music, which greatly amused
• 1:06:22
  the composer when I met him once and my phone
• 1:06:24
  rang. But yeah, that's just an old timer. The
• 1:06:29
  fourth one was all right. I can't believe that
• 1:06:31
  was five years ago. Six years ago at this point.
• 1:06:33
  Yeah, that was decent. But what a game. I'm that
• 1:06:37
  rare person where I actually prefer Streets of
• 1:06:40
  Rage 1 to 2, which I know is blasphemy. I just
• 1:06:43
  like the vibe of 1. I can't explain it. The other
• 1:06:46
  day, just for the sake of it, I booted up the
• 1:06:49
  Master System version of Streets of Rage. You
• 1:06:52
  don't really want to play the Master System version
• 1:06:54
  of any of those. No, but it was kind of fun.
• 1:06:56
  I was like, they did more than I expected them
• 1:06:58
  to. It's better than I expected from a Master
• 1:07:03
  System. Yeah, it's, I mean, a lot of them were
• 1:07:07
  impressive. I remember OutRun being quite impressive.
• 1:07:11
  Did they do a Master System version of OutRunners?
• 1:07:14
  Don't know. I don't remember. They did do OutRun,
• 1:07:16
  I'm not sure. No, they didn't. It must have been
• 1:07:20
  OutRun, original OutRun then. Bring back OutRun.
• 1:07:23
  But actually, we didn't talk about it, but if
• 1:07:26
  you know that NVIDIA, whatever it's called, what's
• 1:07:30
  it called? James, you'll know the game remaster
• 1:07:32
  thing. What's it called? I'm drawing a blank.
• 1:07:36
  I know what it is. I just don't remember the
• 1:07:39
  exact... It's not actually asset generation.
• 1:07:41
  RTX Remix. RTX Remix is not DLSS 5. That's a
• 1:07:45
  totally different thing. RTX Remix is like a
• 1:07:47
  framework to actually insert new assets. To inject
• 1:07:50
  assets. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's not necessarily
• 1:07:52
  like AI gen. That's like a game -wide toolkit.
• 1:07:57
  AI is connected to, right? But where AI is connected
• 1:08:02
  to, it's generally the good, the non -evil type.
• 1:08:05
  But there's a RTX Remix version of Outrun 2 coming
• 1:08:10
  up, and it looks amazing because they've injected
• 1:08:14
  ray tracing and high -res texture and stuff into
• 1:08:16
  this arcade classic. Anyway, that was a bit of
• 1:08:20
  a tangent. Last but not least on our anniversaries,
• 1:08:24
  Gal Gunn Double Peace turns 10 years old, which
• 1:08:27
  does mean that it is finally getting too old
• 1:08:31
  for its target audience. GGDP's coming out? Oh
• 1:08:35
  my god. Shout out to Connor from PG247 for that
• 1:08:41
  one. I'm sorry to have done that to you, Connor.
• 1:08:46
  Anyway, I think that's going to be it for this
• 1:08:48
  week. Please don't forget, you can hit up the
• 1:08:51
  website at respec .net, R -E -S -P -E -C dot
• 1:08:55
  N -E -T. You can also, via that website, get
• 1:08:59
  to our Discord, hang out with us, chat with us.
• 1:09:01
  We're just sort of shooting the shit. And if
• 1:09:04
  you like what we do, don't forget you can back
• 1:09:06
  us on Patreon. For even more of this, there's
• 1:09:08
  an after hours podcast that we do as part of
• 1:09:12
  this that we're going to record straight after
• 1:09:13
  this. We've got some stuff, some extra stuff
• 1:09:15
  to talk about. There's also other bonuses. Tom's
• 1:09:18
  written a great article this week for the Patreon
• 1:09:20
  users about how he came to own one of the worst
• 1:09:24
  games ever made. And it's a typical Tom Horry
• 1:09:27
  story, really. Yeah, you can support us on Patreon.
• 1:09:31
  That is Patreon. forward slash RespecNet. So
• 1:09:35
  the same as our URL, but without the dot, or
• 1:09:37
  you can hit the Patreon link on our website.
• 1:09:41
  That's it from me. Brains, do you got anything
• 1:09:43
  you want to plug? Well, there you go. He's a
• 1:09:46
  modest man. James, Mikhail, you got anything
• 1:09:51
  you want to plug? I recently had a chance to
• 1:09:55
  check out... That new Silent Hill game for a
• 1:10:00
  previous session over at MMORPG, is that site
• 1:10:02
  still broken at the moment? Because I literally
• 1:10:04
  tried to link it to someone earlier and it wasn't
• 1:10:07
  loading. It's still broken at the moment. So
• 1:10:09
  you can't read it at the time of this recording.
• 1:10:11
  I mean, I hope 12 hours later by the time this
• 1:10:14
  goes out, their website is back up. Otherwise,
• 1:10:16
  they might be having a problem. Yeah, yeah. Game's
• 1:10:20
  neat. And Mikhail? I think you should watch one.
• 1:10:25
  Peace. Oh, interesting. See, Breen's missed a
• 1:10:30
  trick there, you see? You can just say that,
• 1:10:33
  damn. I can't pick that line. You could have
• 1:10:37
  just said that. You could just say that every
• 1:10:38
  time you're on. Anyway, that is it from us. Say
• 1:10:43
  goodbye, everyone. Goodbye. Goodbye, everyone.
• 1:10:48
  And we'll see you next week, unless you're a
• 1:10:49
  patron, in which case we will see you whenever
• 1:10:52
  your podcast uploads the next episode, which
• 1:10:55
  will probably be in like five seconds. See ya.