Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Hello. Welcome back to from 8bit to 4k where we're going to talk all things games. I'm Pillow Pet, your host this week and with me I have two other co hosts. We have Mike of many names.
[00:00:21] Speaker B: Hello. Hello.
[00:00:23] Speaker A: And Jack Soman.
Yes.
Like, like every week I want to start off by giving a shout out to our Patreons.
Codex, Ninja, Skippy is Esquire, Labana, Uncle Chrisco and Yeetadab for supporting us at the shout out tier. Speaking of our Patreon, we have a patreon. Go to patreon.com the forward podcast. I'm sorry, mouth vomit.
Patreon.com the four wards podcast and come support the podcast.
$1 a month just tells you that you love us. $5 a month gets you an exclusive feed of some behind the scenes where we talk about the show before. And sometimes it'll be a lot of small talk and sometimes it'll be quick.
[00:01:12] Speaker C: Sometimes we just literally tell stories that we didn't want to talk about on the main pod for whatever reason.
[00:01:17] Speaker B: Yeah, that happens.
[00:01:19] Speaker A: And then $10 a month will get you an exclusive feed and we'll also shout your name out during the intro of every episode. This also extends to our League of Legends podcast, the Four Wards podcasts. We also have a Discord. Come join our Discord. The link is in the episode description. You can come talk with us about games and tell us what you think of our opinions and topics, give us some ideas and tell us what's going on. We've had a few people pop in there and give us some love and we appreciate that. Thanks, you guys.
[00:01:50] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm gonna talk about one of them in a minute here.
[00:01:53] Speaker B: Absolutely. Please come in and tell us if you've been a listener of just. Just this podcast as well. We're gonna have some sections that are just for you guys to talk about, Give us topic suggestions, things you want us to talk about. There are always things we want to hear.
[00:02:08] Speaker A: Yeah. And I mean, it's just nice to know like this. This podcast is just a labor of love from some guys that love playing video games and talking about video games. So we love to know that if you guys are enjoying it. So yeah, come, come into the Discord, pop in, give us some support. We really appreciate it.
That being said, the same way we start off every episode, we're going to get some small talk going. So, Jax, what have you been up to?
[00:02:33] Speaker C: So a couple episodes ago we got a request from a listener, Taz, who asked me to talk about Illusion of Gaia.
Now I have played Illusion of Gaia before and Soul Blazer, the game that came before it, because it's actually part of a trilogy. But I've never played the third game in the trilogy, Terranigma. It's something that's been on my list of I should play this for many, many years because it's generally considered one of the best RPGs on the Super Nintendo.
But it's been like 20 years or more since I've played Illusion of Gaia or Soul Blazer.
So since Taz wants me to talk about Illusion of Gaia, I decided I'm just gonna play through the trilogy on stream. If you've been watching my streams, I have been playing these games on Twitch tv. Jacksonman. I am only playing on stream. I'm not playing these off stream at all.
And I finished soulblazer. I'm about four hours into Illusion of Gaia. So today I'm gonna talk about soulblazer, the first game in this trilogy. Next episode I should be onto being able to talk about Illusion of Gaia because I think I'm about halfway through that game. So Soul Blazer is a top down action rpg.
It's a hack and slash type game. You run around, you slash your sword, you kill monsters. And the conceit of Soul Blazer is that the demon Lord has basically trapped every living thing in the world within monster layers.
So you have to go exterminate monsters to restore the world to its rightful state.
[00:04:03] Speaker B: Monsters don't count as living, apparently.
[00:04:06] Speaker C: I don't understand. It's. It's an old weird video game.
Um, the plot is nonsensical.
Literally. The premise is that a king of the most powerful kingdom in the world made a deal with the devil where for every soul the devil got to collect with the king's help. He. He got. The king got one gold piece. I have no idea what the fuck the king plans to do with all this gold when there's no people to trade with. Gold has no value if you can't trade with people. This king did not think things through very well.
But the actual game itself, it's not bad.
But it's old and it wasn't amazing even when it was new. Um, it's very clunky. You can't move on diagonals. You can't.
There's no knockback when you hit enemies with your attacks, so they just kind of tank your sword as you cut through them.
The translation is iffy.
It is a Japanese developed game. This was made by Quintet all of all of the games in the trilogy are known as the Quintet Trilogy because of the company that made it and published by Enix, the company that made Dragon Quest before Square bought them up.
Visually, it actually the UI shares a lot of DNA with Actraiser. I wouldn't be surprised if the same engine is being used. Actraiser is a really good game, but I wouldn't recommend picking up Soul Blazer yourself to play unless you are nostalgic for has magic. The magic sucks. Literally. The second spell is the only one that I found useful the entire game. The boss fights are generally pretty bad.
They're very, very simple patterns.
Basically just look for the windows where you're allowed to hit the boss. And also all of your magic spells are useless on every boss fight except the final one where magic is the only way to hurt him.
Because Reasons I like bits and pieces of it.
I like the because as you restore the world, like if you restore a goat, for example, maybe his pen comes with him and now there's a goat pen in the town or there's a bunch of mermaids and fish in the underwater kingdom you restore. You're not just restoring humans is the key here. Like there's a town of animals where it's all moles and dogs and birds and stuff like that. So it's got some charm to it in that. And some of the music is actually pretty fun. There's a couple bops in there.
I'm really glad to be done with Soul Blazer. Illusion of Gaia is a lot better and I'll talk about that next episode.
[00:06:54] Speaker A: I've never heard of these games so I'm going to be interested. I'm going to have to tune in and watch you.
[00:06:59] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:07:00] Speaker A: So get an idea of these.
[00:07:01] Speaker C: Again, I'm not going to talk about Illusion of Gaia in depth this week, but Illusion of Gaia is one I would recommend.
If you like Super Nintendo RPGs, just download a Rama of Illusion of Gaia and play it. This entire trilogy, by the way, are lost media. They have never to my knowledge been re released on any platform anywhere. There is no legal way to play these modern, so just pirate them.
And that's I think the biggest tragedy of the Quintet trilogy. Because like I said, the third one that I have not ever played yet is supposed to be one of the best JRPGs on the Super Nintendo period.
Like people talk about it in the same vein as like Secret of Mana, Earthbound, those kinds of games. It is held in that high of a regard Generally considered to be slightly worse than like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 6, which are pretty much the two best on the Super Nintendo. And I don't think anyone disputes those being number one and two. The only dispute is which one is number one and which one's number two. But like Terranigma is supposed to be as good as all the other amazing RPGs on the Super Nintendo. So I'm looking forward to getting to it.
But yeah, mostly it's just it's a lost media trilogy. Like I don't understand how these games have never been re released ever since Illusion of Gaia was relatively popular over here and Terranigmo never got a US release by the way. So I will have to play a fan translation.
[00:08:26] Speaker A: All right, well yeah, keep us updated. I can't wait to hear about your opinion. The best one in the franchise. Mike, talk to us. What do you got going on?
[00:08:36] Speaker B: So I will start at the opposite end. I'll leave video games for the last bit a little bit after about a week ago went to go see family go visit him up and we were all really excited to go see Project Hail Mary because while anyone who's seen the Martian see same same author wrote them. These are books that were made into movies.
They are very good movies. This is my, my thing for them. Project Hail Mary benefits significantly more the less you know going in. And so to talk about Project Hail Mary is to start spoiling things and that actually is a major detriment to Project Hail Mary. The entire like what that book was what I expected from it changed about a third of the way through the book. This is one of the, one of the like better written sci fi and it is more on the science fiction portion than it is on the science portion. Like the Martian was more science heavy than this is because you can't get post solar system. So there's a lot more hand wavy things that have to go on for Project Hail Mary to function. It's, it's, it's a genuinely good book. It is one of the best and proper uses of amnesia I have ever seen. That's not a spoiler. You find that out in the first five minutes. The main character is amnesiac and is very slowly regaining memories and there's a very good explanation for why and how it was done. This isn't just a hand wavy thing. These are appropriately like well thought out ideas instead of convenience. Which is one of the reasons that I, I think this is a book that you should read after you watch the movie. If you haven't seen it. This goes into a lot more little finicky detail that gives you a lot more interesting things. And honestly, the character, it's not take channel, it's.
Oh, I forgot who the main actor is for project Hail Mary is. He does a great job. In fact, he's probably too good of a job.
He's. He's too charismatic for the character. He's too charismatic. He's too good. Oh, I forgot his name. And this annoys me because he's a great actor and I love him. I'm going to.
[00:10:53] Speaker A: Oh, you want to look at that? I'll move on to mine.
[00:10:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:57] Speaker A: All right. Well, while he figures that out, I haven't been up to a whole lot.
[00:11:02] Speaker B: Ryan Gosling.
[00:11:03] Speaker A: Pretty busy Ryan Gosling. I'd say he's. He's pretty popular.
But I haven't been up to a whole lot. Been having a whole lot. Since we're in the process of building a house, I've been out there cleaning up the property and getting things done. But when I'm at home, I've been sitting down and replaying through let's Go Eevee. If you don't know what let's Go Eevee is, it was a Pokemon game made in the likeness of the first generation when it came out of red, yellow, blue and the elusive green. If you got one of those.
And what it is is if you've ever played Pokemon Go, you pretty much just though all the Pokemon spawn in the Overworld and you run into them and you throw pokeballs at them. You know, there's no battling of wild Pokemon unless you throw like there's some certain, like you. You battle the Legendaries, you got to weaken them first before you can catch them, etc.
It's just a faster paced version of Generation 1 when your starter is either going to be Eevee if you get let's Go Eevee or Pikachu if you get let's Go Pikachu. And all of the original Pokemon are available to catch. Like you can go catch Bulbasaur, Charmander, Squirtle, all of those. You can find them in the wild. You, you can find people to trade for them. The Aloan versions are also in here of the Pokemon. And I've been playing through that because it's a fun little sit down, casual comfort game. I enjoy the shiny hunting. So that's all I've been up to. And I'm about to get to the Elite four.
And after that I get to Start my Shiny Hunt from Mewtwo.
But one thing that has been nice about it, and I didn't know they did this, is you can transfer your Pokemon from Pokemon Go into. They got rid of the Safari Zone and you could transfer your Pokemon from Pokemon Go into it and go catch them.
So I had transferred my Articuno and it was a level 15. So I get to level up my Articuno from level 15.
And there's a few other fun quirks to it, but it's been keeping me busy when I've been sitting at home. And it's easy to play with my kids running around because I don't have to pay a whole lot of attention. Have you guys ever played any of the let's Go games?
[00:13:31] Speaker C: I have not. I have no interest in a game that doesn't have battling to capture Pokemon.
[00:13:36] Speaker B: I'm gonna be honest, I kind of hate them.
[00:13:39] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, that's general consensus.
[00:13:41] Speaker B: I'm more than just a hater on it. I think they are a detriment to the entire franchise. And I'm a little annoyed they made them to begin with because we didn't need another remake of the original games.
[00:13:52] Speaker A: I think it would have been a lot better if it was a true remake, like in the 3D form that they want. Like, that's cool. Like having a Pokemon park, like the
[00:14:01] Speaker C: Overworld up remake instead of like adaptation remake.
[00:14:06] Speaker A: Like, I know what they're trying to do. Like, they're trying to bring in the. Let's like the Pokemon Go people.
The Pokemon Go people. And they're trying to bring it in and let them get into the franchise. Like, I get it, but like, for me, and we're going to get more into this later, it lost its. It didn't give me that, and it's not giving me that. That satisfaction of curating my team, you know, to be the best that it is. And it's. I don't. I don't like the not battling like you said, but it has been a fun little playthrough of just kind of itching that nostalgia and stopping me from going and buying Fire Red to play it on my switch.
[00:14:51] Speaker C: So fair enough. Yeah. But don't give Nintendo the $20 or whatever to play a GBA game. It's fucking stupid.
[00:14:58] Speaker A: I would love if they remade Gen 2 in this 3D atmosphere. That'd be great. But I've been having to itch to go back and play all the generations and I've been like, stopping myself. I need to just pull them out and play them on stream a little bit at a time. Because I really enjoy all the Pokemon games, especially, like, how hard they were, like the original ones. But we'll get more into that later.
All right, Jax.
[00:15:27] Speaker C: All right, so my other thing I want to talk about this week is not even a video game. I want to talk about some anime. I've got two anime recommendations, one of which, Mike, I believe you were excited for this one. So there is an anime about rakugo that has started airing called Akane Banashi.
[00:15:46] Speaker B: I love Akane Banashi.
[00:15:48] Speaker C: Here's the best part, guys.
It's on YouTube officially. Like, officially released on YouTube. I am putting the link in the episode description when we publish this, so you can just go watch this anime. It's got English subtitles.
It is official from the Akane Banashi, like, people on YouTube, which is wild.
It will also be on Netflix in May, apparently.
But the basic premise of Akane Banashi is that this is an anime about the Japanese art of rakugo, which is like, kind of like a mixture of like a storytelling art and a little bit of like, stand up type comedy, but not necessarily having to be comedy specifically, but it's like a. It's a stage performance storytelling art. And it is a show about this woman who is the daughter of a Rokugo person, and she wants to prove that he is worthy of being a rakugo master and rakugo, because it's a traditional Japanese thing, very male dominated. So she faces a lot of trials and tribulations around just the fact that she's a woman.
I know, Mike, you were very excited about this existing. So next episode, let us know what you think after you've actually watched it.
[00:17:14] Speaker B: I'm a big fan of the manga. The. The translator is actually like a really nice guy. I got to hear from him in a bunch of things, if you want. Like, there is an English. There's a guy on YouTube who does.
In English, a. He's a. He's a white guy who, like, is an introduction into Rokugo, if this interests you at all.
Sunshine San is what he calls himself. And it's. It's a very interesting way to, like, understand what Rokugo is, if you're at all curious. So, like, take a look at that and then go into a kanabanashi. I think it's a great combo to do. Yep.
[00:17:45] Speaker C: And like I said, I will have a link to the YouTube playlist that they are posting the official releases of the episodes. It's on YouTube. Just go give it a watch. It's free. You don't need to be subscribed to any specific service.
The other anime.
Yep, exactly. The other anime I am going to recommend. You do need to be subscribed to Crunchyroll to watch, but it's really good.
So this anime is called Witch Hat Atelier and I'm just going to read the official synopsis. Okay. In a world where everyone takes wonders like magic, spells and dragons for granted, Coco is a girl with a simple dream. She wants to be a witch. But everyone knows magicians are born, not made, and Coco was not born with a gift for magic. Resigned to her unmagical life, Coco is about to give up on her dream to become a witch. Until the day she meets Kyfri, a mysterious traveling magician. After secretly seeing Kyfre perform magic in a way she's never seen before, Kok Kokosu learns what everybody knows might not be the truth and discovers that her magical dream may not be as far away as it seems. So that's the official synopsis. What that leaves out is this is a gorgeous anime. Like it's visually stunning and the world is really interesting. Almost the entire first episode is spent just on world building.
And it sets the stage for then a show where the magic system in this show is very specific and detailed and technical, and there was a lot of thought put into it. And the way like secrets are kept that could change the foundation of how this world works and is viewed by its denizens is super interesting because they did such a good job with world building.
If you like fromsoftware games, you should watch Witch Hat Atelier because this is a masterclass in that type of worldbuilding where there's tons of little details, background elements that you don't necessarily need to notice to enjoy the show. But if you do notice them, then suddenly so many things start making more and more sense details. Like in the first episode we see this Ki free character literally flying around with magic boots. And if you're paying attention when they teach how magic works, you figure out how his boots work before the show actually bothers explaining it because it's very deliberate and systemic. Like magic is a science in this world. It's really good. I want everyone to go watch Witch Hat Atelier.
My wife was bored for most of episode one because not much had happened yet because it was doing the world building and setting the stage. And by the end of episode one the there were two episodes out at the time. She was like, don't you dare Turn it off. We watched the second episode immediately because it was. It's really compelling. It's really good.
[00:20:48] Speaker A: I'm gonna have to check that out. I gotta get Crunchyroll because I've been wanting to watch like Fullmetal Alchemist and Inuyasha again.
[00:20:55] Speaker C: Those might be on other services. I don't have to figure it out.
[00:20:59] Speaker B: Are fun to watch.
[00:21:01] Speaker C: Other than that.
[00:21:02] Speaker A: Fullmetal Alchemist.
[00:21:03] Speaker C: There are a lot of really high profile sequel anime this season.
There's a new season of Ascendance of a bookworm re0 reincarnated as a slime Dr. Stone.
Welcome to Demon School. Irma Kun, which is my personal favorite. Actual Shonen.
There's a bunch of them. There's. There's a third season of the fucking vending machine anime.
So there's a lot of sequels as well if that's what you're into. But which had atelier is the one I want everyone to watch. And I wanted to talk about Akane Banashe because I know Mike was excited about it and because it's on YouTube so literally everyone can go watch it.
[00:21:41] Speaker B: And season two of One Piece is coming soon.
[00:21:46] Speaker C: Yeah, the live action one.
[00:21:47] Speaker B: No, I mean they officially ended the first season of One Piece at 1100 episodes. What the fuck? So the season two is starting.
[00:21:59] Speaker C: What?
[00:22:00] Speaker A: I just binge watch that in a weekend.
[00:22:03] Speaker B: Yeah, One Piece is hilarious. It's also like another thing if you're a fan of One Piece. One Piece is a big world building thing, so maybe you can bounce from one to the other.
[00:22:11] Speaker A: Yeah, I did watch a little bit of One Piece. But I might binge the first season again coming up. It's only 1100 episodes.
[00:22:20] Speaker B: I will probably be talking about the live action of One Piece soon because that should be talked about. It's something special.
[00:22:28] Speaker A: Speaking of Mike, you got a couple more things you want to talk about what you got going on?
[00:22:33] Speaker B: Yeah, I will continue with something special. As I was going on with this Babylon 5 I was watching a little bit earlier. I was talking about it got through season two. There are five seasons of Babylon 5. Each of them is a year on the station. Season two is sort of the reset into how the show is going to move forward. Because the original season, Season one is really much. A lot of things are being planted. You're being introduced to who characters are, how they act, what's going on, the basics of the world, the basics of the universe around you.
Really, really fine work. But it's mostly, except for a couple of instances, almost everything is Episode of the week. And then there are, I think two or three two part episodes. And then there's a couple that are like this, you need to see before this, before this. But they're not remarkably important to watch one before the other unless you're like explicitly watching the whole season straight. This is like a classic thing. So these are one hour episodes. There's 22 to 23 episodes in a season. So you have content in a season, tons of stuff. And season two changes who the. I would say primary, but there's a lot of primary characters who. The captain of the station is the, the main focus of the station. And this is a new character because the original, the actor, he opened up about this. He was having real big problems with schizophrenia and he decided he could not act anymore.
And he and the director, Jemma Kostrazinski made this deal with, hey, if you are ever feeling good enough to come back, we will bring you back. But if you don't want anything else about this, we will retire it and see where it goes. And so he takes a leave and makes maybe one or two cameos throughout the rest of the show. And that's really it because his health degraded after that for the most part. And so unfortunately, the first couple episodes of this season are really introducing another character who would not have been introduced originally. But they take it and they roll with it. And this character is phenomenal. Captain Charnon. He is a stereotype and he's a great stereotype. He's a war hero. He's a war hero with a heart of gold who has remarkable principles. He's a stereotype through and through. And it's really interesting to see. All right, you have to go from being a ship captain to actually maintaining essentially a small secluded country, because that's what a space station is. It's a country in space. And you are now the dictator of a country. You. You control their fates. And this is really about him understanding this new dynamic. And then the world building adds in and then you get the bits and pieces of history and then other character development follows through. And it just goes to such a wonderful place. The season two really, like there are some, some bold punches of what, what it means to be free, what individuality is, what duty, what honor actually means to people. There. There are some really, really fine details in this season that really start to enhance what was built upon in season one. This is a very.
You want to see season before season because they're enhanced significantly by the previous characters do change throughout and they grow and they learn and you need to understand that development. But for the most part, again, episode of the week. So you can watch mostly out of order, for the most part, except for really the one conflict between two other alien races that start a war. And what happens when. This is a diplomatic facility. This is where we were supposed to do what happens when diplomacy fails. And it really starts to dig deep into these things. It's a great, great show. Great season.
Season three is where things skyrocket. Amazing. I think season three and season four are two of the best seasons of tv, period. There are some of the best that are ever written. But we'll get there later. Right now it's time to talk about a game that I was playing.
And this is where I. I give a first initial advocate.
If you have Amazon prime, pay attention to your Twitch drops, because Twitch is linked to that. And if you have Amazon prime, you have Twitch prime for free. And Twitch gives you games for free. Sometimes they're little tiny games that you don't really give a shit about, and sometimes it's tiny. Tina's Wonderland, a game that I was trying to buy initially and is out right now for free.
[00:27:21] Speaker C: I love it.
[00:27:21] Speaker B: I love it so much. This is somewhere between Borderlands 2 and 3 was when it was written and released. And it shows because it doesn't have the sheer drop off that Borderlands 3 has in terms of like, quality of writing. In fact, I think this might be the best writing that they have had. It is funny as. Especially if you play D and D. The jokes that they bring in are wonderful. Some of the things are like you. If you have played D and D, you will immediately go, that's. That's it. That's it. He did the thing. There's the trope that I. Oh, let's mess with that trope. Let's go. The class design for what the characters are actually feels remarkably different from just playing Borderlands.
I was playing the wizard equivalent, whatever we're going to call starts off with. Obviously you can cast a spell, which is your grenade replacement, and you have your ability, which in my case is turns people into sheep. And then you get your other option, which was for me, you drop your sheep and you can equip another spell. And now I have such a low cooldown between the two that I can bounce back and forth between my two spells and almost not have to use gunplay at all. I'm mostly just casting now, every so often shooting a sniper or a shotgun when things get too close.
It's a completely Separate playstyle. That feels really good. And I feel like a wizard for the most part. Another buddy of mine, I've been doing a duo with him and then I've got a little solo character. It's. It's great. It has a. Another different feel to it from Borderlands in which there is like an Overworld map where you're like a Chibi mini and you wander around the overworld and there's no combat in that overworld but you can do like random encounters and it's. It's gonna. It's gonna D and D map fun.
I don't. I don't know how else to properly describe this game. Just like if you like Borderlands, especially Borderlands 2, this keeps that feel whilst having a new feel. Enough of a new feel on the gameplay to make it. So that is not a stale, but it is also very similar feeling. If you like Borderlands, you can pick it up and go, right, well, I've been look.
[00:29:29] Speaker A: Oh, it's actually why you're going through and talking about that. I got on Prime Gaming trying to find. And they got a ton of games on there. Like a lot more than I expected. I always forget about it. Like the last time I really checked out like Prime Gaming was when like Riot was hooking up with Prime Gaming and they're handing out like free boxes all the time.
[00:29:50] Speaker C: I miss it.
[00:29:51] Speaker B: Yeah. Creative assembly. Go check the guys who do Total war frequently have drops on there. Like, I think I've gotten most Total War games out of it for free.
[00:30:00] Speaker A: Go check out the Prime Gaming. It's a good way to get free games.
Guys, have anything else you want to talk about before we move on to our main topic?
Right, so our main topic tonight, we were trying to figure out what to talk about and we came up with. We are going to debate games from. Each of us picked a franchise or some games and we're going to debate about or talk about these games.
So Jax, you're on here first. Let's. Let's get into yours first. You got dmc, which is Devil May Cry. Let's. Let's talk about it.
[00:30:36] Speaker C: All right, so there are a total of six games in the Devil May Cry franchise.
Devil May Cry 2 is universally considered terrible and deserved. It's a genuinely bad game. Devil May Cry 3, 4 and 5 are exceptional. Devil May Cry 1 is flawed, but it's also the first game, so it kind of gets a pass on some of the flaws. And it isn't a bad game. It's good. It's just it's much more dated than
[00:31:02] Speaker B: the rest of it is simply old. It feels hard to play because it's that old.
[00:31:06] Speaker C: Yes. But there's one other Devil May Cry game that I think has gotten an incredibly bad, undeserved bad rap.
This game is called DMC Devil May Cry. It was released in 2013.
It is a reboot of the franchise that is on its own because devil may cry 5 came after and returned to the original storyline. So it. It is just a standalone basically. Devil May Cry spin off at this point. This game was developed by Ninja Theory instead of the usual Devil May Cry developers.
Ninja Theory.
Other than this game, I'm trying to remember what else they've made.
Um.
Hellblade, Senua's Sacrifice. It's these people and DMC is generally. People hate it because Dante's kind of an asshole in this and I don't mean the way he's an asshole in the other games. Dante in every other Devil May Cry game and the Devil May Cry anime, both of them is a little bit of a dick. But like a good hearted dick.
He's only an actual for real asshole if you're a for real asshole or a demon.
So he's kind of like the antihero a little bit. In all of the other Devil May Cry games in dmc, Dante is an edgelord teenage asshole. Like an actual just. He's a dick. He swears constantly. He's crude and insulting.
And that's a lot of why people don't like this game. There's a famous clip of. There is literally a point in the game where there is a screaming match between Dante and the first major boss of the game where they just yell fuck you back and forth at each other like five times.
And that really set people off the wrong way. A lot of people think this game is genuinely bad, but I'm here to tell you it's not.
I actually recommend highly pick this up on a Steam sale. I think it's $5 on every steam sale nowadays because it's not that popular.
But it. First of all, the combat in DMC feels really good. It's smooth, it's stylish, which is kind of the whole Devil May Cry thing.
It feels extremely responsive in a way that up to this point Devil May Cry did not. This game was released after Devil may cry 4. Devil may cry 4 feels stiffer than DMC does. DMC feels smooth the way Bayonetta does.
It's very smooth to play. And that is one of the things the Devil May Cry five developers took from this reboot. They were like, hey, this reboot did this better. And they adapted some of the combat changes that the reboot made into devil may cry 5 as well. Because the reboot genuinely has good combat.
Other than the combat. The other thing I think Devil May DMC does really well is it does a better job of building a world than any of the mainline Devil May Cry ever have.
Worldbuilding has never been this series strong suit, but DMC is set in a city that is basically subjugated by the demons.
And you get to see bits and pieces explaining this and giving subtext or just outright explaining and like, being details of it. The humans are cowed because an energy drink called virility is literally making them weak and easy to subjugate for the demons. And you learn that it's literally being produced by this disgusting slug like monster. That's a succubus. Apparently the energy drink is her secretions.
It's gross. It's very gross in a way that the Devil May Cry franchise usually isn't. It's not a gross franchise at all. But this one is. This one is very gross.
But that's cool. That's. That's world building. Like, there's an actual explanation for why things are the way they are in this world. As opposed to every other Devil May Cry, which is, yeah, Dante's a demon hunter and he's also a demon. But it's cool because he kills other demons and he's a good guy. That's literally the entire world building.
There's a story, but it doesn't build the world. It's just the plot, which I think is an important decision.
[00:35:42] Speaker B: Are different things.
[00:35:44] Speaker C: Exactly. Devil May Cry as a franchise has storytelling, but this is the only one that does any world building.
But the absolute best set piece is the second major boss.
There's three major bosses.
The second major boss is a newscaster. He's a demon. And he's basically a cyber demon. I don't mean like in the doom sense. I mean like, he's basically.
He is the like evil media controlling the population with information.
Just, just.
It's really good. It's an amazing set piece. The whole level leading up to him is great. He is so unbelievably hateable, which is a good thing when you're talking about a villain character.
Um, it's so good. And I feel like, because this game got a bad rap when it first came out, most people have never played far enough to have seen this. But, like, A. The. The whole. Like, this guy's like J. Jonah Jameson from Spider man in that he's like painting Dante as a terrorist to the populace of this city.
[00:37:02] Speaker B: But.
[00:37:02] Speaker C: But with the added Dante. Yes, but with the added of. He's literally a demon mind controlling people through the noose.
And it's. It's so good. Like, this is genuinely the best segment of the entire game.
It's worth $5 on a Steam sale just to play this section of the game. Frankly, I don't want to spoil the actual, like, boss fight or anything.
You should play dmc.
After that, it definitely starts retreading classic Devil May Cry a bit more.
One of the big complaints people had of DMC is that it's a different Dante canonically. It's really not. By the end of dmc, he's more or less turning into the Dante you know and love.
[00:37:52] Speaker B: The. The thing that I vaguely remember hearing is angels play a much bigger part in this than they have in any of the others.
[00:38:00] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:38:01] Speaker B: They shouldn't have anything to do with Dante, if I remember rightly. And they do, which was one of the other complaints.
[00:38:09] Speaker C: That is one of the other complaints. I.
I'm not going to argue one way or the other on whether that's good.
But, yes, that is. That is a plot point. In dmc, the angels are involved. When the rest of the Devil May Cry franchise, angels basically don't seem to exist.
[00:38:29] Speaker B: I think there's a brief thing in four and then that's it.
[00:38:31] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm not sure, but that might
[00:38:34] Speaker B: just be the church. Who knows?
[00:38:35] Speaker C: Yeah, so it's. It's. Devil May Cry usually has a lot of, like, demons pretending to be angels kind of themes.
[00:38:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:38:45] Speaker C: But in dm, there are explicitly angels.
[00:38:48] Speaker A: Wish I could bring more to the discussion on this, but I never played a dmc. I told you guys that, like, earlier. But you did mention that it's very similar to the earlier versions of God of War.
[00:39:02] Speaker C: It's the same genre.
[00:39:03] Speaker B: So, like, these are. These are hack and slashes.
So, like, the. The closest game franchise to this is. Is Bayonetta, which, yeah, pretty much took what Devil May Cry did and expanded upon it.
[00:39:15] Speaker C: I mean, Bayonetta is literally made by Hideki Kamiya, who I believe is the creator of Devil May Cry.
[00:39:20] Speaker B: Yeah. And as far as I'm aware, Bayonetta 2 is like the peak of the entirety of the. The franchise. So, like, hey, DMC learned a lot from some of the other ones. And if it's the gameplay you want, because the gameplay is good. DMC is one of the better ones.
[00:39:40] Speaker C: Hideki Kamiya is also, by the way, the creator of Viewtiful Joe and Okami, which are both considered fucking masterpieces as well. The dude is legitimately a legend.
[00:39:50] Speaker B: Viewtiful Joe needs to be talked about at some point in time because that fucking game is fantastic.
[00:39:54] Speaker C: I will talk about Viewtiful Joe at some point because I fucking love Beautiful Joe. It's so good.
[00:40:00] Speaker B: I thought it was Okami because it's just a painting brought to life. But that game is. That game is so.
[00:40:05] Speaker C: Okami is. Okami is the best Zelda like game not made by Nintendo, period. Yes, but as far as DMC goes for Pillow, you've never played a Devil May Cry game before. I strongly recommend when you find it on sale on Steam because this one's also usually like 5 bucks on Steam sales pick up Devil May Cry 3, the PC special edition port is fine.
Devil May Cry 3 is still probably the best Devil May Cry game story wise.
[00:40:36] Speaker B: I agree.
[00:40:37] Speaker C: 5 is definitely a lot newer and more refined and 5 is really good.
I'm not sure if I think DMC is better or worse than devil may cry 4. They're about the same. And I don't think there's any reason to go back and play the first Devil May Cry unless you're a huge fan of the franchise. It's just really dated, but like definitely
[00:40:58] Speaker A: gonna check them out.
[00:41:00] Speaker B: I would do like a watch through or like a story thing for Devil May Cry 1 and 2, because 2
[00:41:05] Speaker C: you should not play 2 is genuinely bad. It is like a 5 out of 10 video game. Whereas like Devil May Cry 1, I'd give like a 7 out of 10 nowadays. And that's probably about what I'd give. Devil may cry 4 and DMC, like they're both flawed games in their own ways. Whereas like Devil May Cry three and five, I'd give nine out of tens.
Yeah, they're. They're just genuine, really goddamn good.
But yeah, people have this perception still that dmc, if they even know DMC exists, they think that it's a bad game like on par with devil may cry 2. And it's just, it's not. I think DMC, if you play it today, is a better game today than going back and playing Devil May Cry one, period.
[00:41:49] Speaker B: I agree.
[00:41:50] Speaker C: I'm not sure if I'd put it better or worse than four. They both have flaws in their own ways. They're different flaws.
[00:41:57] Speaker B: Well, I mean the big flaw that a lot of people see from Both of them is you don't play as Dante initially throughout the first half of Devil May Cry, for which a lot of people didn't progress past. So they never get to play Dante.
[00:42:11] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:42:12] Speaker B: And then in dmc, it's not the same Dante, you know.
So, like, that seems to be the main objection for both games is this isn't Dante.
[00:42:22] Speaker C: Yeah. Whereas Devil May Cry 5 does learn from that. It switches between its three playable characters regularly throughout the story. So you're always getting chances to play as Dante or the others.
Devil may cry 5 is easily, like. If you're not talking about, like, financial cost, I would say just pick up devil may cry 5. Play it. It's so good.
[00:42:42] Speaker B: You. You might want a lore primer before you go into five. But I. I would. I would do that first.
[00:42:47] Speaker C: That. But also, devil may cry 5 is significantly more expensive than the other games. You can pick up both, or you can pick up 3, 4, and DMC for less than you can usually pick up just Devil May Cry five.
But all right, yeah, don't sleep on dmc. It's actually good and it's regularly five bucks on Steam.
I will say the version you can play now is much better than it was on release. It deserved more of its criticism on release than it gets than it deserves.
[00:43:15] Speaker A: Now go check out dmc, guys. Especially when it's on sale.
[00:43:19] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:43:20] Speaker A: Try it out. And then work your way up to buying five if you want to get it.
[00:43:25] Speaker C: They're really good character action games, Mike.
[00:43:28] Speaker B: Yes, Indeed.
[00:43:29] Speaker A: Dark Souls 2.
[00:43:30] Speaker B: Dark Souls 2.
[00:43:32] Speaker A: Let's talk about it.
[00:43:34] Speaker B: Talk debate. So the. The big thing that most people who talk about the the Souls franchise say is that Dark Souls 2 is a uncategorically low point in the franchise. And I'm gonna argue against that heavily. I think quite literally. I would not be a fan of the franchise without it.
So to start it off, really, when you hear Dark Souls, the first thing you. You hear is you hear, wow, this game is hard. Get good. That is. That is the general consensus from when you hear people talk about the game, man, it's. It's a brutal fucking game. And then you hear people going into. Yeah, but the lore is so really fucking cool. And there's so much shit hidden in the circles and yada, yada, yada. And my initial feeling of Devil May Cry was entirely or not Devil May Cry. I'm sorry, Dark Souls was. Yeah, but why would I want to bash my head against a wall 50 times?
Because that just doesn't look like it's fun. And having watched enough people like friends especially and walk into the rooms while they're playing Dark Souls and and see again and again them doing something and it just over and over and the frustration builds.
Why would I want to do this? And then the trailer for Dark Souls 2 came out and it changed my mind in its initial just the trailer with what it did to express this. This dark fantasy, this really like, it's a depressing game, this depressing world that you have these untold challenges in and you are a cursed individual. How are you ever going to maintain this? And then, okay, I'll bite. I need to play this.
So I started the game and I. I couldn't do for the first 20 hours I played. Essentially I didn't even beat the first major boss in the first 20 hours I played. That's how brutal this game was to me when I first played it. I was very close to. To frustratedly hanging up this game. And then I, my friend who's really big into the franchise went, why don't you try something else? Here, let me help you get another weapon. And I got a different weapon. And things clicked. And I think Dark Souls 2 is the perfect game to introduce anyone to the franchise with because you have the ability to branch path make your decision on how to start this game. Those first 20. I spent 20 hours before I could do jack and in this game and I was nowhere essentially. And then a friend went, hey, let's, let's see.
[00:46:14] Speaker A: What.
[00:46:14] Speaker B: Let's. Why are you banging your head against this wall? What are you doing with it? Well, I want to. Why?
Just because I was doing it this way. No, you don't have to do it the summer I did here. I know you like these things better. And he's right. I do like big smashy weapons better. So he helped me get a big smashy weapon. And once I got my big smashy sword, the game clicked and now I could play the game. And that is the core of what Dark Souls 2 brings to this is this wonderful introduction into the franchise. It still has the deep hidden story, especially if you go with the like special scholars of the first edition where they re change up some things and add in some actual story beats that weren't explicitly said but were discussed like they were hidden deep throughout the game. And the DLCs, the DLCs are all included in that edition as well. So you don't have to worry about that. And there are three for this game.
So it has some of the most content.
It has the ability to actually like in that first 20 hours, I was in three separate major zones. No idea what the fuck I was doing. I think you can maybe get into two in the original Dark Souls if you want to try and progress anywhere. People talk about the non linearity of it and then yeah, it feels like there is an illusion of an open world with Dark Souls. One there isn't. There are three linear paths that you can go on, but the design within those paths is branching and sprawling. And they decided to trim down some of that to make it more accessible to people.
[00:47:43] Speaker A: My only issue that I've ever had with the Dark Souls games, and I'm going to exclude Elden Elden Ring from this because I really enjoyed Elden Ring is how of course you've talked it up, brought it up, was how difficult they are.
And it is really hard for me to want to.
When I'm using video games as like, you know, a time to chill out and relax to justify spending money to a company that's literally just abusing me and torturing me. And like, I get it. Some people love the genre. Like I really loved Elden Ring. Like I need to spend time and go back through it and just do a vanilla playthrough of it. And I really enjoyed. I've enjoyed it because it left it. That game felt more open and more available or accessible for more casual player as myself. When coming into that, I tried a Dark Souls game and very quickly, I don't remember which one it was. I was scaling like a mountain or not a mountain, a castle or something. Getting shot at the whole time. Okay, yeah, one. And it was brutal. And I gave up very quickly, like, wow, this game really hates me. And I put it down very quickly, like within, you know, I probably played it six to 10 hours. It was like, okay, that's enough for me. I'm gonna go play a game where I feel safe there.
[00:49:11] Speaker B: There are some. Like this franchise is big, big into. You learn patterns and if you don't learn patterns, good fucking luck. And then.
But this does not just extend into the bosses. This extends into the world in general. And this is where like the hardest learning thing is for a lot of people is we see a thing, we want to go do the thing immediately. Now in Dark Souls, all of them really, if you can see it, you can go there for the most part. And so like if you see it on the map, you go, oh, I see a thing. I'm going to go there. It's hard to. But you can get there. However, that sort of Puts blinders on for a lot of people when they're trying to get to a place. And that's where Dark Souls kicks you in the dick. Because they hide things or they explicitly put things in points to be like, nah, you're, you're not. This is not an easy journey. You are going to be beaten down and fought for every inch you want to move forward. And you start learning these things like, oh, there's a bunch of skinny bridges up there. I wonder what they're going to do to me when I get to those bridges. And then as you progress forward, you see a man with a giant arrow who's going to knock you off the bridge.
So you, yeah, you start learning these tells. And if you do not learn the tells, you're gonna have a bad time. This, this is not a franchise that's forgiving.
[00:50:28] Speaker A: And like looking back now, like myself, like, I can appreciate what they're doing. It's a very rewarding game when you're, when you beat something, you finally get
[00:50:37] Speaker B: that final clicked on. It's incredibly rewarding.
[00:50:40] Speaker A: But my patience, what was this price? When was the game Dark Souls 1 came out was what, 20 years ago?
15 years ago.
[00:50:48] Speaker B: Almost 15. Yeah.
[00:50:50] Speaker A: Yeah. So 15 years ago. I remember playing it when it came out and I didn't have the patience for it then. Like I was, that was just. Wasn't my play style. But now I can probably, I can go back and revisit and go into two, like you said or whatever and really like appreciate, you know, I'm a better gamer now and I could probably appreciate the game for what it was supposed to be and when it. But when those games came out, like that was a whole new genre. Like that was like people weren't meant. Like people aren't used to being the victim in a game where you're supposed to be the main character.
[00:51:27] Speaker B: Yeah. And it really, it, it's meant to teach you lessons. And Dark Souls 2 is, it is the easiest of the franchise. And that's a good point. It is also the least shame story driven. And by that I mean like the story that's within two takes remnants from one and builds into what three becomes. But the story that's told in two is told mostly separate. And that you can build this story and learn this world without needing to understand everything that went down in one. But it makes you curious. And then so a lot of people who like me played through Dark Souls 2 and then went, well, what the fuck were they talking about? And then they go back and play One and one has maybe the best of the stories of the initial like three games in the franchise. Threes. Threes is fantastic because it does not end the way you expect stories to end. And one's ending is like the the main thing that you learn through through Dark Souls 2 is.
And this is maybe what people really dislike it for. Well there, there's three things that people dislike DM Dark Souls 2 For God, DMC is with me, making me keep wanting to say it.
There are too many dudes in armor in Dark Souls 2 and I can, well, I can go, okay, yeah, it's a pretty common thing. You see dudes in armor everywhere. Yeah, sure, fine. It's a common enemy type and boss type, etc. 1 valid criticism. The next one is, and this is also sort of a valid criticism, but it's part of the storyline which was whatever choice you made at the ending of Dark Souls 2 doesn't matter. And that's the point. Whatever grand scheme you played through with with two, whatever your grand design was, someone else did the opposite. And that's the point that that cycle never ended. And it went again and again until you got to this grand design of the cycle is all. And that is where you get to In Dark Souls 2 is this. This teaches you that essentially, yeah, that choice didn't matter because you are not the only person to try and do this. There will be others who do just like you. Whatever choice you made initially, someone will change it and the cycle will begin anew. And a lot of people didn't like that. And then Dark Souls 3 really opted and went yes, but here's the point of that and this is what it was becoming and this is where that decision leads to and it really ties the whole trilogy together in a really great bundle. But Dark Souls 2, and this is probably my biggest criticism about this in in the modern day, it feels the worst to play nowadays and that is because it has noticeable problems with the gameplay that Jax has always hated. This is the commitment to move to movement and animations were by far the stiffest in this game in comparison.
And the original game, it also had pretty stiff animations, but it's gotten a remaster and that remaster has brought it up to at least Dark Souls 3's quality. And even Demon Souls has a PS5 remake to bring it up to that quality. Dark Souls 3 feels much faster. They learned from what they were doing with Bloodborne, which is a much past faster paced game with much quicker animations.
None of that is true with Dark Souls 2. Dark Souls 2 is the most deliberate but also the most stale in movement. And that is the real tragedy for the game right now is having played through Elden Ring and Dark Souls 3 and Bloodborne and Sak Row, going back to Dark Souls 2 feels like you're trudging through a swamp.
[00:55:06] Speaker A: All right, well, we're on a little short on time. I have one thing I want to bring up and, like, debated, which I think we could probably spend a long time talking about these, because there's a lot of games.
But I briefly want to go through Pokemon from Generation 1 all the way to the current generation. I think, what, nine.
And I just wanted to get your guys's input of where you feel like you're like, okay, Pokemon's not for me anymore. Like, it got. You know, everybody has that point, and it has a game.
So quickly I'm going to go through.
So Generation one through nine. So in Generation one, and I had to pull them up, make sure I got them all right, because there's a lot.
So we got red, blue, green, and yellow in Generation one that take place in Kanto or Kanto.
Then you got Generation two, which is your Gold and Silver and Crystal, and that takes place in Jodo. Generation three, where you get your Ruby Sapphire, and I do believe Emerald. Yeah, Emerald is on there. And this is also when they remade Fire Red and Leaf green. And that takes place in Owen. I think I'm pronouncing that right.
Generation four, Pokemon diamond and Pearl. Okay.
Pokemon diamond and Generation four, we got Pokemon Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, and then they remade Heart Gold and Soul Silver.
And that takes place in Sinnoh Slash. Hisui.
[00:56:37] Speaker B: Hisui is the old name. It's only really relevant for Legends. Arceus.
[00:56:41] Speaker A: But yeah, okay, I got these just pulled up going down the list, because this is a lot to remember.
Generation five, you got Black and White, and then Black two and White two. And those were in. Let's see.
Yep. Unova. The next one is Generation six, which took place in Kalos, which. Which is Pokemon X and Y. And then this is when they remade Ruby and Sapphire with Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. Alpha Sapphire. Then we got Generation seven, which is the Galar region.
And this is where. No, I really felt like Generation eight. Oh, you're right. This is Alola. Generation seven, this is where I personally felt I lost complete interest in the franchise.
This is where sun and Moon came out. Ultra sun and Moon. And then your favorite that I just talked about. Let's go Pikachu, and let's go Eevee. So when Generation 7 came out, and this was in 2016-2018, this is where I lost complete interest, but I will get to that later. Then we got Generation eight, which is the Galar, which is Sword and Shield. And then they remade diamond and Pearl. And this is when they also came out with the Legends series. Is this is when I kind of regain interest again with the Legends. And then we got Generation nine, the current generation. And this is Paldea, and this is Scarlet and Violet. And then you also got Legends Za, which also. I think that takes place in Sinnoh, maybe.
I can't remember. Kalos, the big city with. What is it?
[00:58:31] Speaker B: It's in Kalos.
[00:58:32] Speaker A: Kalos, okay. It's got the big city with the. Almost the Eiffel Tower, the Frenchy vibe. Yeah, the Frenchie vibe.
All right, so we can all agree Generation one's great. Generation two is great. Generation three was great.
Gen three and Gen two, kind of a toss up for me on which ones are my favorite. My favorite Pokemon are in Gen 3, but my favorite gameplay was in Gen 2, because I liked how I could go back and revisit Kanto or Kanto, whatever, and redo, like, the gym and fight the Elite four over there. And I thought that was brilliant. Like, to this. I don't think they've done that at all in any other games for any. For some reason where you can go revisit another.
No reason.
[00:59:16] Speaker B: Why.
[00:59:17] Speaker A: I don't know why, which doesn't make sense to me, because it was great. But I want to talk about why in Generation seven, specifically, you know, sun and Moon, why I lost interest.
And I can tell you right off the bat why is because the tutorial of sun and moon took, like 17 hours to get through in the whole game. I felt like the whole game I was being led through.
Like, that's where the game, to me, felt like they got super easy and it lost its.
What's the word I'm looking for? It lost its charm.
It became flavorless. You know, it just kind of just like, here's some new Pokemon, and here you go. We'll lead you on the entire journey. I think this is when they got rid of, like, HMS too. Like, HMS weren't like a big deal anymore. Like, to me, it just lost its whole identity. That's the. That what I was looking for.
What about you guys? Did you. Did you have a generation where you're like, okay, this isn't it. I'm done.
[01:00:21] Speaker C: I have a couple.
[01:00:23] Speaker B: So. So I still own Every. Every region I've. I have a game from every region.
[01:00:29] Speaker A: I do too. Even though I was done, I still bought them and tried them.
[01:00:32] Speaker B: In fact, the only game that I have not, like, bought and worked with. I've never done the let's Go franchise because I don't like it and I didn't do Legends ZA. Mostly because I want to get a Switch 2 before I would do anything with that. And realistically, anything that is a Switch game that comes out in the next year or two or has come out in the past year, I will be holding off until I can get a Switch two because I just. I think my Switch is starting to die on me. And I want to. I want to upgrade that as soon as possible and get into a place where I can feel good about playing the games I'm playing.
I think I agree with you a bit in that Alola, there. There are games in the franchise that I have not beaten, which feels weird to say coming from someone who has put so many hundreds of hours into Pokemon. But, like, I didn't beat Alola. But I know that the end of Alola is actually one of the hardest end games because at least the. The. The final boss section. But Alola was weird and that they. They tried a lot of experimental things in Alola and then they went, let's back off on a few of those things. Like there's no Elite four, there's no gyms, there's no Champion. So it's. It's a very weird feeling in Alola.
[01:01:45] Speaker A: I will say, like, the world building in Alola was really nice. I really like the whole Hawaiian vibe that they're putting out on it. Like, it felt cozy. Like they hit the cozy vibe. But with you, like, there's. There's several of these games that I never end up beating just mainly because I lost interest.
[01:02:03] Speaker C: So for me, the reason I lost interest started with X and Y.
I cannot stand the franchise's modern obsession with dumb gimmicks. X and Y introduced Mega Evolution. Mega Evolutions are fucking stupid. Sun and Moon had Z moves. Z moves are fucking stupid.
[01:02:21] Speaker B: Disagree with the Megas, but I think the problem with Megas has always been they gave them to the wrong Pokemon.
[01:02:27] Speaker C: We can agree to disagree.
Sword and Shield had the gigantamax, which was genuinely worse than either Megas or Z Moves. It was fucking stupid and should have never been a thing.
I will admit I have not played Scarlet and Violet. I have not played Legends ea. I skipped Scarlet and Violet just based off pure. They had performance issues. At the ass.
[01:02:48] Speaker B: Tech issues were terrible.
[01:02:49] Speaker C: Yeah, from what I understand. Still aren't fixed unless you're on a switch too.
[01:02:54] Speaker B: It sounds like if you're playing in any of the newer areas, the DLC spots, they're all fine, but I don't know.
[01:03:00] Speaker A: Yeah, I have za and I haven't ran into any issues.
Yeah, that's one of the games I never beat because I like linear pathing in Pokemon. I like going from one town forward and not just being able to pick what gym I go to first.
I get, I get lost in the game because I'm like, okay, I want to go here, then here. There's way too much to do.
[01:03:26] Speaker C: Okay, but hear me out. The original Pokemon Red, Blue, Green, Yellow opened up after the first two gyms.
So you're on a fairly linear path. You go to Viridian City or Vermillion City, you go to whatever the fuck Future City and then Cerlan, Cerulean City, that's linear. But after that it opens up. You can go to Celadon, you can go to Lavender Town.
[01:03:57] Speaker B: That requires everything.
[01:03:59] Speaker C: You can't do everything in all of those places. But it starts being more open ended and then it collapses back to a. Okay, you now need to go here to head to Blaine's Island. Cinnabar I think is the name. Yeah, even in the first game, the very first game in the franchise, there's some open endedness to it and it throws a lot of different things for you to do to sidetrack you from the main quest of gotta beat all the gyms in a good way. And that's in the very first game. So I don't hate the more open world design of the. Some of the newer games inherently I think they're really poorly executed. But the execution is my issue with it, not the fact that they're making it more open ended. I think open world is a perfectly reasonable, logical direction for Pokemon to go, but they need to put a shitload more thought and effort into making it a compelling open world experience.
[01:05:00] Speaker A: Yeah, I never thought like Gen 1 really is being open because there is like paths that you take that just feel natural. They kind of like corral you like, hey you, you need to go here. And then you're like, well you can't do that because Team Rocket took over that city over there. So you can't really do this, but you can come here. Can't really do much, but you can go there.
[01:05:21] Speaker B: And I really 4, 5 and 6 in just about any order.
[01:05:24] Speaker A: 4 the levels are kind of the same.
[01:05:26] Speaker B: But like that general quadrant is all like you can wander around, around in those for a while and then figure it out. And then forces you to do the Team Rocket thing that brings you towards plane.
[01:05:37] Speaker C: Yeah. And like the game tries to lead you to do it in the 4, 5, 6 order. But you can just go beat up Koga before the other two if you want. It doesn't prevent you from doing so.
[01:05:48] Speaker A: And you know, Kanto region is like the smallest region for obvious reasons. I mean, there was extreme limitations on the hardware.
And then like Generation two, why I felt like it was my favorite one is because it had a day night cycle on it. Like for some reason to me, it just felt so much more immersive.
Like it had a time clock and you know, certain Pokemon came out at night. You could get a hoot Hoot, which you're, you know, your bird Pokemon or you could get a pidgey during the day. And I really enjoyed the like, they had the bug catching contest.
Team Rocket was back and took over the radio tower. You got to listen to music.
[01:06:37] Speaker C: That's the other thing that annoys me. Newer Pokemon games have gotten dumber and dumber villain teams.
They started being a real problem starting with Gen3, and has only gotten worse since. The villain teams in Gen 3 are fucking stupid. They are so much worse.
They're so much worse than Team Rocket was. Team Rocket being like an organized crime syndicate. They're clearly yakuza inspired. They run legitimate businesses as well.
Is a great bit of world building.
[01:07:12] Speaker B: And their leader is a gym leader.
[01:07:14] Speaker C: Right? Exactly. The leader of Tim Rocket is literally the eighth gym leader. He's a legitimate entity in the world who also happens to be the head of a criminal organization. Like that shit's great. And starting with gen 3, they just throw all that out the window and they're like, no, they're the villains. So they're team whatever. And their motivations make no fucking sense. Their objectives make no fucking sense. They are terrible villains. And it is universal for every Pokemon game since Gen 3, all of the villain teams ass.
[01:07:47] Speaker B: The villain teams in 3, 6, 7, 8, 9. All of them are ridiculous. 4.
He is. I'm going to be fucking God. Let me take God and rewrite reality to my whims. He is a villain. That makes sense. It's weird as fuck because we went to God in four. But like, yeah, that's. That's a symptom of.
[01:08:09] Speaker C: That's why I don't count it. It's still fucking stupid.
[01:08:12] Speaker B: That's a symptom of the legendaries. But Five has probably the best villain ever because it's. It's actually a villain who is. I'm going to manipulate this kid into believing that he truly is this savior to Pokemon and that people in Pokemon shouldn't have a thing. People shouldn't have Pokemon. You gotta free them all. Only we're allowed to have them because we're the only ones who understand it. By the way, kid, I've been doing this as a power play so I can take over the region. Fuck you. He's. He's a legitimate villain with a legitimate like wow. Holy shit. He actually like thought things through.
[01:08:50] Speaker C: I want them to go back to Team Rocket style villain teams where it's organized crime. It's. They're evil, but not like world threateningly evil. Team Rocket never had aspirations to take over the world. They just want to steal Pokemon to make money.
[01:09:05] Speaker A: Steal Pokemon and make money?
[01:09:07] Speaker C: Yes.
But they weren't looking to create Mewtwo specifically for the purposes of world domination. Although that's definitely something Giovanni could have then gone if we had an.
[01:09:16] Speaker B: We're really not sure because the whole like story never got to go too far and it's really told better throughout. Like diamond or not diamond and Pearl, Heartgold and Soul Silver and the. The remakes of Fire Red and Leaf Green. So you sort of get some of the stuff.
[01:09:32] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:09:33] Speaker B: And it really paints a much, much more interesting picture of Giovanni.
[01:09:37] Speaker C: But even then, like the motivations they give for him wanting to have Mewtwo created are more about wanting more power for himself.
[01:09:45] Speaker B: And he's political. Yeah, he's a political.
[01:09:47] Speaker C: It's a political power. It's. It's. I want to have this, this pocket ace in my hand so that no one can ever break up my criminal empire. I want to make sure I have always have the ability to keep making money kind of thing. As opposed to I want to become God or I want to take over the world or all the other dumb motivations. Because the other motivations are somehow even worse.
[01:10:11] Speaker B: Yes. This, this, this might be like me mixing up anime manga plus other things. But if I remember rightly, Giovanni is royally pissed that Lance beat him to become champion and has been trying to tear him down ever since politically. Because Giovanni was the champion before Lance.
[01:10:29] Speaker C: Yep.
[01:10:29] Speaker A: I don't remember any of that. I just know that I hated Son of Man.
[01:10:33] Speaker C: But it's good. The Pokemon anime is legitimately good.
[01:10:37] Speaker A: By the way, first one you'll probably cry in is the Butterfree episode. Yeah, maybe the first episode too, if. If you're into it.
When Pikachu finally starts to appreciate Ash, which, you know, Headcanon. Ash actually died in episode one and ho. Oh. Brought him back to life when he flew over. And that's what made Ash stay ten for the forever.
[01:11:00] Speaker B: Yeah. His wish was I want to go on an adventure forever. And that's why he's forever 10.
[01:11:05] Speaker C: I like that Headcanon.
[01:11:07] Speaker B: That's one of. That's one of the two. The other one is that fucking Celebi fucked him up when she brought him back in time and just left him there. Whoops.
Well, you're 10 forever. Who cares?
[01:11:17] Speaker A: Guys, with that I'm going to end it.
We're running a little late, so.
But thanks for tuning in for Jack Zoman and Mike of many names. Have a good night. Bye bye.
[01:11:30] Speaker B: Good night everybody.
