Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
What makes a Final Fantasy game (spoiler-free) & Xbox takes the stand at trial - Add to Party 06.28.23
4 Plays1 year ago
This week we give our (spoiler-free) impressions on FF16 and recap the news from the FTCvMicrosoft trial.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Self-Introductions
00:00:14
Speaker
Welcome to Add to Party, the Friendship Simulator masquerading as a new show. I'm your host, James Hartwell, and I'm joined by Charles Jumaud, and I'm joined by Andy Kane.
00:00:25
Speaker
Good evening. Good evening.
Milwaukee's Air Quality Issues
00:00:28
Speaker
You know, we were just talking about cloudy days before we hopped on. Milwaukee holds a special record today. What's that? We have the most polluted air in the world.
00:00:43
Speaker
Oh, really? Oh, finally. Right. You get some of that now. Thanks, Canada. So it's weird. It's like like is it orange over there? Not explicitly, but like when the light shows through it, like into my apartment, it's orange.
00:01:02
Speaker
Um, which is super strange and it smells like a campfire. Did you take any pictures? Uh, no, no, I haven't. I would just say it just looks like a honestly like a cloudy day, like a foggy day. Um, I should take a picture of the lights. The light is so eerie. Um, but yeah, so, um, I'm living that best air quality life and it's not great. Avalanche was right. Yeah.
00:01:30
Speaker
Are you wearing your mask or anything? Do you have a fire?
00:01:35
Speaker
Well, I don't have an air purifier. I close my windows and it's not exactly cold outside, so it's heating up in here, but I had to go outside for a bit and it's like I just can't get over how I'm smelling a campfire in Canada. Like it's just my brain can't comprehend that distance. It's so wild. Well, don't worry, Andy. Let's not marginalize it. You're not smelling a campfire. You're smelling the entire.
00:02:05
Speaker
That's fair. That's fair. You're using an entire important ecosystem. Just grow the dust. Also, I didn't know what that smells like. I only know what a campfire smells like. Doesn't your state share a border with Canada? It's not that far.
00:02:26
Speaker
Well, yes, that state in particular, if you just keep going. Yeah. North ish can get to Canada. Yeah. Like we got it in Boston, Andy. That's the thing about that distance. Yeah. Now, to be fair, like our air, I learned all about air quality listeners at home. Your air quality is supposed to be under 50, whatever that means, like 450 today.
00:02:54
Speaker
So no, we were casuals. We're only 250. The worst actually happened by you, James. It was like up to 400 by you guys. Yeah, no, that's when New York City was like orange. That's when it was like in the 450s. No, the sky's not orange, the light is. It's weird. It's okay. I mean, obviously, I'm not suffering the worst of it. My country isn't on fire, or at least my part of the country isn't.
Vision Quests and Hypnosis Humor
00:03:19
Speaker
But you know, the biggest bummer for me, tomorrow, I was supposed to go to an outdoor vision quest session under the stars. Have you guys ever vision quested? I mean, I've smoked weed.
00:03:36
Speaker
The point is that it doesn't use drug alterations or whatever you would. Oh, what's even the fucking point? It's about exploring and expressing your mind. OK, I want to. So I had never heard of this until like three days ago, but it sounds incredible.
00:03:56
Speaker
You just lay down and someone guides you through. I'm assuming it's some type of like meditation or whatever. But as you focus on the beat of a drum, you can let your brain create a world like create a story and just experience yourself in the world more deeply. And I was really excited to do that. But I don't know if I can now that Canada's on fire, guys. Maybe a little rough on you.
00:04:23
Speaker
Yeah, I really wanted to do it under the stars. There's something that just sounds so beautiful about that. Yeah, I mean.
00:04:31
Speaker
There's nothing to say that it won't be rescheduled. That's very true. I don't know. Nothing seems time dependent on going on a drum based vision quest. That's true. But it had my hopes up and I didn't want to lose that. It also seems fairly co-op. Is this like based on some sort of Native American ritual or?
00:04:54
Speaker
Um, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm new to all of this. So I don't want to speak one way or the other. Isn't this what you do in the yard, Andy? No.
00:05:06
Speaker
Although it would be awesome to do it in the yurt. But no, the yurt is reserved just for alcohol and edibles. Nothing too far beyond that. And then trying to smoke and then coughing a lot and then being embarrassed. I'm just not good at it. But I wanted a division quest. My friends said that they stepped outside of time. And I want to know what it's like to step outside of time.
00:05:33
Speaker
They could see all their life at once. What does that mean? I want to feel that. God. Charles, did you watch The Good Place? No. Oh, there's a great joke about the time knife. So like one of the characters steps outside of time. It's like, I saw time folding on itself like a, like a brilliant knife made of a thousand folds of iron. He goes, yay. The time knife. We've all seen it.
00:06:00
Speaker
Oh, look out. I was excited to see what kind of story my brain would create. I don't know. I bet you could practice that by yourself. Yeah. Meditation is a thing you can do. Yeah, but stepping outside of time.
00:06:17
Speaker
You can't do that yourself. Couldn't you? Yeah. What kind of restraint does the drummer break upon you? It's the spiritual energy of community. Okay. You have your window open. You take in that 240 plus air quality area.
00:06:40
Speaker
You mix that in with yourself, right? There we go. That's community. That is community. You've never sat like on your couch or something and just kind of listen to the humdrum of your city, just whatever's existing outside your window and just kind of let yourself drift.
00:06:59
Speaker
Yeah, I love it. That's the same thing. No, it's not the same. I'm not stepping outside of time. I'm just like, I'm just like letting myself be. So when you don't step out of time, when you do this, what's the, what's the feeling going to be?
00:07:16
Speaker
Wait, if I were to only enjoy my immediate ambient environment. Yes. I enjoy that. That's nice. Okay. I think it's nice to be quiet. I've been trying to spend more quiet time. I don't need to fill it with music and podcasts and all that stuff.
00:07:34
Speaker
Why can't I just let the world be my soundtrack? I also think there's a certain level of hypnotism involved in those. Oh, 100%. Yeah. And some people are just more resistant to hypnotism than other people are. Charles, have you ever been hypnotized or attempted to be hypnotized? I've attempted to be hypnotized. Didn't take. No.
00:07:56
Speaker
Yeah, me either. I was disappointed. I felt hard into hypnotism. Wait, no, hold on. Now, does that mean you were hypnotized or you went through a hypnotism phase? I mean, I was hypnotized. OK, yes. And I just I just let myself to it and it was awesome. It was awesome. Yeah. The only way I would describe is it just feels like like you genuinely know what you're doing the whole time and you just really want to do it.
00:08:26
Speaker
That was about it. You just want to do it. I didn't fall over when they did that. I shot up and like screamed or something. I don't know. They made me like hold up my middle finger. It felt very.
00:08:40
Speaker
I felt very bad. I remember doing that. They were like, you're driving a car. And I was like super into like reenacting it. And they're like, someone just blew past you. Give you give them the finger. I remember my whole body was trying to hold me back. But I was in college when like those like on tour hypnotist would come in. Charles, that's exactly when it happened. I know. How did I know? That was. But you know, a more recent experience with hypnotism as an adult.
00:09:12
Speaker
I run into a lot of hypnotists as an adult, but go ahead. Well, let me tell you about this group. I was at an anime convention with a friend and they had a late night panel for hypnotism.
00:09:26
Speaker
And we're like, oh, OK, let's go check this out. And we went and there was a lot of people there and there was two presenters and they were kind of going through like what hypnotism is, kind of the history of it, kind of the boundaries that you set with hypnotism, making sure that the people there who are being hypnotized have full expectations of what's going to happen, how to call out if it's making them uncomfortable.
00:09:53
Speaker
And then they moved to the next slide and they said, and we have to tell you guys, this is about BDSM. And I guess BDS or hypnotism is a code word for BDSM. That's how you get your panels in anime conventions. This is big in the kink community, Andy. Oh, sure. I mean, I support kinks. God bless. But don't call it hypnotism. I was all excited.
00:10:21
Speaker
Oh, I bet you were. Well, we left alongside a lot of other people.
00:10:29
Speaker
I'm like, I don't I don't know if this is if this is it. But I didn't know that, that hypnotism is hypnotism, BDSM, no, is BDSM hypnotism? No, no, it's not. BDSM stands for bondage, bondage, domination, masochism, sadomasochism, I think is what it is. So I think it falls into the domination.
00:10:55
Speaker
Oh, I guess I didn't make that connection. Hypnotism is domination. Yeah. Oh, well, just let you know if you're attending a hypnotism panel after 10, they're probably going to be talking about some other stuff. I hope my vision quest doesn't turn into that. I didn't sign up for BDSM. Well, I don't know. Is there a large consensual form that you have to sign before you step outside of time?
00:11:23
Speaker
I don't know. We're going to hear the story a couple of weeks from now about Andy getting arrested in an outdoor orgy. Yeah, yeah. He was under the stars, you guys. Yeah, that's exactly where it is. No rules. But yeah, I forgot how we got here, but I'm glad we did.
00:11:45
Speaker
And that's that's my problem right now. Let's talk about what else is under the stars specifically the one red star of Metea in the in the world.
First Impressions of Final Fantasy 16
00:11:56
Speaker
You know, fantasy 16. Oh, the messenger to the moon. Yeah, I don't trust that. I don't trust that. And she thinks the active time losses. Yes, exactly.
00:12:09
Speaker
I kept it actually took this board to have a we're transitioning to a final fantasy 16 discussion now spoiler free, by the way, because Andy is still. Oh, I want to say in the first 10 hours of the game, I've gone 19 hours into the game. Yeah, you're in the first 10 hours of the game, but you are. Let's say you're in the you're in the first year. Yeah.
00:12:32
Speaker
He's he's in the first quarter. I hear how far I am around the time I did that. It was like my day two or three. And by then and I did like eight hours, eight, eight hour days on each time. So well, we can discuss this, too, because we have very, very different play styles. But also, I would say, too, I don't trust that star for a lot of for a lot of the game. I was like, is that star new? Then I was like eventually I was like, oh, no, it's been there forever.
00:13:04
Speaker
Uh, in, in the game, there's a red star that is right next to the moon. Everybody loves looking at it. Yeah. So final fantasy 16 is out. I have put in 25 hours. Uh, my PS five says I am about.
00:13:19
Speaker
Just about 75 percent of the way through the game at this point. Oh, wow. He says I'm 35 percent of the way. Yes. Close to what I was. All right. Whatever. That was pretty close. And then, Charles, I think you're just lagging right behind me. You're probably at the 50, 60 percent range. That's it. I'm at it's a 65 percent at 40 hours. Jesus Christ. This is what we're going to get to the different play styles. Yeah.
00:13:49
Speaker
Um, I, I won't go first. Uh, which one of you two wants to go first with your impressions? I want to hear yours. No, no, no. We have a, we're going to branch off mine for discussion points. I'd rather you two, I rather you two go first as the, as the preeminent final fantasy fans. And you don't want to go and then we'll probably build off of each other.
00:14:12
Speaker
Yeah, go ahead. No, but do you want to go first? Oh, me? Yeah. Yeah. Cause you've had the, since you've had the least experience, it's probably best to start with you. That's true. Listen, apparently I've been dawdling in these 20 hours. Yeah, you have.
00:14:28
Speaker
And honestly, it hasn't felt like that. I have been really enjoying my time with the game, you know, entering it with some reservations. Right. It doesn't I don't know. I would say it doesn't look like a Final Fantasy immediately, but somehow it still has the heart there. And it's been enough for me to get 20 hours in in a couple of days. That's huge. What do you say? Look, what do you mean?
00:14:56
Speaker
Um, well, to me, it just looks like a muddy, like boring kind of just like the design, like the overall world design. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. This is a low tech Final Fantasy, which frankly, this might be the lowest tech Final Fantasy since the original games.
00:15:16
Speaker
Maybe I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Certainly not as colorful as the other ones. But that was their intention. That's a style choice, too. But no, it's been a lot of fun. It's it's the combat system is more so a character action than anything they've done before. I don't know. I don't know what to call 15. But and so but they still made it fun and they didn't make it overwhelming.
00:15:46
Speaker
I guess maybe because I don't want to go on too long, but just to sum it up, they made an accessible game that could very well fall into smashing Square, but they make everything feel easy enough to use and chain together that I have just always been having fun in combat. And I've been having fun mixing and matching moves. They've just made it accessible enough in a way that it doesn't feel like
00:16:12
Speaker
You still feel engaged in having fun, and it doesn't make you too scared that they changed Final Fantasy too much. But I don't know what my thoughts will be for the next one that comes out what I want it to be. But it's still been an absolute blast, an absolute joy, and I absolutely recommend it. What about you, Charles? Oh, no, let's compliment sandwich this, James. No. No, you go next, because again, I have the divisive opinions. I know. That's why we compliment sandwich it.
00:16:43
Speaker
All right, fine, fine, fine. I don't hate the game to be clear. That's it. That's a very the
Combat System and Storytelling in FF16
00:16:48
Speaker
lead too much. I think it is a fantastic game. I'm certainly enjoying my time with it. I I find the combat interesting. I do find now towards the end of the game and I've gotten a lot more abilities. I am settling kind of into like routines almost a little bit with my with my combat. And that's causing me to just kind of avoid combat.
00:17:13
Speaker
Like I'm enjoying kind of the big fights, but like I'm done fighting MOOCs and at a certain point you'll get a mount in this game and when you get that mount, you can run straight through all the little just encounters that are littering the.
00:17:28
Speaker
littering the map and you can just kind of go from place to place, which is good because it stops you from kind of like artificially extending the game. However, I will say like the first part of the game where honestly, you still are, Andy, I did feel a little slow on that, where it did kind of feel like I was just walking cutscene to cutscene for a long time in this game. And I think they were trying to set up stuff, which is fair.
00:17:52
Speaker
Um, it certainly did it much better than 13 did, which was what infamously famous or infamous for having like a 30 hour tutorial to set up the story of that fucking game. Um, see, here's the thing though. I don't like, I don't mind cut scenes and I didn't even mind the road in 13 to be fair.
00:18:10
Speaker
I take me on a journey, give me long cut scenes. I guess it doesn't bother me, but I can understand how I can make other people. I want to, but I want to play the game, not necessarily watch a movie sometimes. Right. And it's, and when I don't feel like I'm necessarily progressing the story, like via like the agency of fighting or doing the actions where I'm like, Oh, I'm just kind of like this thing happened and now I'm here and then this thing happened. Now I'm here. Like it takes a while for the main character Clive to kind of become
00:18:38
Speaker
I don't know, I guess like to do things in his own story, right? He's kind of tagging along for the first third of the game. And then he becomes the main lead, which is a good, you know, standard storytelling trope. I just think I've seen it necessary. I've seen it executed better in games.
00:18:55
Speaker
And then I think my other thing is, and this is the divisive part, doesn't feel like a Final Fantasy game to me. And this is where I've kind of gotten this feeling as I've gotten the game going on.
00:19:12
Speaker
You don't have spell casting in this game. You have your icons and your icons have their own specific attacks, which are really based on the attacks summons would have from previous games. But you're not casting fire fire. You're not casting. You're not casting haste. You're not doing all that shit. Right. And in fact, you have no party management, right? You only manage the inventory of Clive and that's it.
00:19:34
Speaker
You have party members who pop in and out of your party as the game goes. Um, Torgo, your dog stays in the game for pretty much all of it. He's always there, but other people come in and out and Torgo has like stats, but you can't affect those stats. So I don't even know why they're necessarily showing them to me.
00:19:53
Speaker
It's like here's Torvald's meter and it shows how great he is and I'm like that's cool I'm not doing anything to change that so why are you telling me? Frankly the inventory system is broken down to just three gear slots and three items or three accessory items I don't necessarily it's
00:20:16
Speaker
like it's kind of just whatever the best one is put it on like after I finished a main series quest I remember the blacksmith I just put on the best thing and then I go on like there doesn't feel like there's a lot of hunting in this game to get like cool weapons and stuff maybe that'll come later maybe you know I haven't obviously have not finished the game yet
00:20:34
Speaker
But it's still like I I'm missing that inventory management piece of Final Fantasy where it's like, oh, you know, it's fun. It's like, oh, put this weapon on this character. And in the same way, party management. Right. Because that I'm only focused on Clive and I'm only focused on essentially kind of the action combat part of the game. I'm like, this is not what I've come to expect from Final Fantasy games previously. Right. Where there was that kind of empowering your party playing with the the
00:21:03
Speaker
playing with, you know, how you focus on maybe charging up this person or, you know, focusing on their abilities, even 15. I don't you have to remember because it's been a good time since I played 15. Could you take control of the other characters in 15? Or did you always play as Noctis? You played as Noctis and then you can you can get prompts to get them to do team ups. Okay.
00:21:25
Speaker
OK, that's so you still only played as Noctis, but did they all hatch that in to switch characters? I could have sworn the the they might have been a patch for that. But like the main times you control them is in the DLCs. Yeah. Yeah.
00:21:43
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, either way, I mean, that's the most I'm just kind of comparing the two most recent ones, right? So this feels like even kind of more straying from or 15 was where Noctis was like the main character. And yeah, you put gear and you had upgrade paths and like.
00:21:59
Speaker
ability paths for your partners. Now you don't even have that. It's just Clive and only Clive. And I miss that. It makes every other character in the game feel hollow to me. Sure. And I think I said this in our chat earlier this week or this weekend, which I was like, this game feels more like Mass Effect to me. And I feel like even then Mass Effect does a better job at it.
00:22:25
Speaker
So I'm curious on that because I famously don't like mass effect. Yeah. And I curious, what does mass effect feel like then? So, and, and what I mean by that is like mass effect has a very, very light, like RPG element attached to it. Right. Where it's just like, Oh, you know, this gun and you know, you, if you're,
00:22:50
Speaker
you know, shoot gun better, you know, and those kinds of things. Right. So it's it's it's very light on the RPG element side. The main the main show of Mass Effect was honestly the character interactions and the living world that you were in. So I feel like this is Final Fantasy's attempt to make a Mass Effect style game, but they didn't do a good job of it where they didn't like like Mass Effect with
00:23:17
Speaker
would still have the amount of config, you know, the amount of play with your other characters where you'd be like, fucking, I love Garris. I'm going to make sure Garris is always has the best shit. Sure. And it's like I want to make sure like, hey, I don't want him to go down. Right. Like I'm going to make sure that I take care of him battle to make because, you know, he's my boy.
00:23:35
Speaker
Mm hmm. But it's like if your other party members, they're they're essentially they're not even there. As far as you're concerned, they don't have health pools that you can see or anything like that. So really, they're just kind of window dressing as you're running around the fights is cloth. Mm hmm. And I'm like that it feels hollow and it feels like a lack of like what I come to expect to Final Fantasy, which is to come to love a group of people, not just one character.
Character Depth and Party Management in FF16
00:24:01
Speaker
And that's a great way of putting it like party management and using a party is a way of storytelling or bond. Yeah. Yeah. I think that I don't have that in this game and I feel a little empty about it like and it's I like the story. I like where it's going.
00:24:19
Speaker
Although it's getting a little weird now towards the end, but honestly, that is very final fantasy. Yeah. Um, but I just, I don't know. Something feels off about this game when people go, Hmm, I don't, you know, it's, it's not a final fantasy game. I, I feel a pang of going like, kinda. And it's not like, if it's not turn based, it's not final fantasy.
00:24:44
Speaker
My favorite Final Fantasy is 12, which has the gambit system, which is like the most divisive fucking combat system in Final Fantasy history.
00:24:53
Speaker
Um, but I don't know. It's just doesn't, it's a great game that doesn't just feel right. It honestly, what it makes me, and I've said this all about several games of people's first time out, like Yoshi P's done a great job with 14. Um, obviously not his first game, quote unquote, right? But this is his first like single player take on the reigns final fantasy mainland series. They definitely should go another shot. I think they will. Cause I've,
00:25:21
Speaker
You know, this game still scored high eighties, nineties, and I think that's a great place for this game to be. But I, I, I'm really curious to see how he takes feedback from this game and it goes on it again, either as a sequel or like a final fantasy 17, you know.
00:25:37
Speaker
So that's where that's where I'm on. I love that. Charles, I want to hear your thoughts because I and then I have some thoughts, too, about what made me have it feel like a Final Fantasy because I've been thinking about this a lot. But Charles, what about you? This game is a Final Fantasy. Fuck you, James, you're not a real fan. I'm hearing you. And then Charles, I'm curious. You say that so definitively. Why do you say that?
00:26:04
Speaker
So my thing with Final Fantasy is, I kind of talked about this before in our earlier discussion. Yeah, but go ahead. It was just that the expectations of a Final Fantasy are white every time a new major game comes out for me.
00:26:19
Speaker
Like, I don't have any real expectation because of the wild changes. Every story goes through like that. They even went and said that this is an action game. I was like, I wasn't necessarily against or even willing to change. I was just like, I was like, you know what the traditions are? Have a said, have a move, have moogles, have chocobos, maybe get a big and wedge if you can fit it in and anything else. And that's enough.
00:26:48
Speaker
I think there's a general prevailing feeling you get with the Final Fantasy. A lot of Final Fantasies, they have all these light references that kind of fits it all together and you're like, that's neat. For instance, there's an early boss that you even fight in the demo.
00:27:09
Speaker
their Pose references Final Fantasy IV. The moveset they use is all the same movesets from Final Fantasy XIV. And they use the voice actor from Final Fantasy XIV. And it's like, for fans that know these other games, they get it. They see it, and they're just like, got it. That's really cool that they did that. And it's littered across the game. It's really fun. My thing with the story and the people and the cast surrounding it, I love everybody.
00:27:39
Speaker
Whenever I see another side character, I'm like, it's blah, blah, blah. And I'm just like, I'm happy to see them. I'm happy to see that doing well. And I just want to know how they're doing. And to be honest with you, I just, in general, for lots of these major story games, I like to delve into what, you know, about every character.
00:27:59
Speaker
And with the active time where we talked about last week, which is just basically Wikipedia entries that are no longer than a paragraph, which makes it nice and easy to read for almost every major event and character and everything else, it's really useful. It's just like I get to go back, read everything, go like, oh, okay, that makes sense for all these characters. This is how they interact and this is how they're tied together. I get it. I know all their motivations and all the,
00:28:27
Speaker
all the stuff I really need to like understand the impact of what they're doing in the story. Makes sense. As far as the combat goes, I think one of the fun parts I have with the combat is we've
00:28:42
Speaker
Everyone has a lot of different approaches to it. I know because of the Devil May Cry director, there's a way that you can play like Devil May Cry. It's not the one that I ever played or even approached to playing, but I have a different approach where I favor a slightly more aggressive style with the least amount of actions involved.
00:29:05
Speaker
And I'm happy with it. I have fun every combat. I tend to also wipe an entire map before I go anywhere else, just to make sure that I find all the treasure chests, get all the items on the ground, and just have a bunch of stuff and also get AP to learn abilities later. It's been very fun for me. That kind of inflates my hours a little bit, but even now,
00:29:31
Speaker
If James is over 75% and I'm at 60%, I don't think it's really pushed me too far behind just to enjoy it. As far as the story is going, I like the story overall. I think it's
00:29:44
Speaker
It's a good story to tell. There is a weird decision from Square Enix about not having non-white people in the game, but that is a valid criticism they have. But Japan's weird, and they always get a pass on slightly racist things, but you kind of get it.
00:30:08
Speaker
Hmm, what else do I want to say? I don't know. I think I am easily accepting of change, especially for new things that have no, that start with no expectations. I think I'm completely fine with the direction they took, everything they were going through. I've been enjoying it, having a lot of fun. Like I've told Andy before, I sometimes worry when I start the game because I'll start it and then suddenly it's 1am.
00:30:35
Speaker
And no matter what I was doing, I was like, well, I was having such a good time. Oh, I still have to plan a D&D thing. Gotta do that too. Make sure I don't forget all the other things I've been doing that I've been having so much fun with. But I'm hopeful that I could probably finish it today or tomorrow, actually. Oh, I know.
00:30:58
Speaker
Ooh, I don't know about that. Well, I guess that depends how many hours you put into it. But I think I know that the end is supposed to be pretty. Yeah, it's the one other interesting part. I know, James, you were talking about like story pacing and everything else is thanks to one of my favorite podcast story break. They talk about
00:31:18
Speaker
It's now it's now a defunct because they stopped doing it a couple a year or two ago, but they used to always talk about a five act story structure. First act setting up the initial world, second act, the change that pushes the main character into action. Third act is when they actually start doing it. Fourth is their low point or false victory. Five is the conclusion.
00:31:43
Speaker
I was trying to, whenever I played the game, try to gauge where I am in that structure. And I was having fun because I was like, OK, based on what's happened here, I feel like I'm past the second act. I'm probably in the third. I've not seen the point with the fourth act of the story. So it's been interesting and fun to kind of go through all that.
00:32:09
Speaker
But yeah, I don't know. I've not really noticed any of the problems of like a long beginning tutorial or story pacing just because I've just been enjoying the world. And like, I read everything.
00:32:23
Speaker
is just the thing I do. I think they crafted, at the very least, they crafted a very fun world for people to get. Yeah. Yeah. I like this world. I do hope they make sequels for it. Yeah. But yeah, I guess that's all I have. I'm just throwing out words now, Andy.
00:32:40
Speaker
I I am just fascinated with this idea now of what feels like a final fantasy, because I think change is a part of what final fantasy is. Like every final fantasy has been different, right? In terms of the world, in terms of its approach to combat. James, you even called out your favorite is the gambit system on which everybody compared to an MMO and hated at the time. Yeah.
00:33:06
Speaker
But now it's appreciated because we all got over it, kind of like with Wind Waker. Everybody was a big baby when it came out.
00:33:13
Speaker
People play the gambit system. I thought it was pretty acclaimed once it was re-released. But I so I don't think change. So I've been trying to figure out why didn't this feel like a final fantasy to me? And at what point did it? And like, I think there's a couple themes, like usually final fantasies have a really strong art direction. And I think this has some strong direction, but is weak in many ways in terms of it's just to me, it's just
00:33:43
Speaker
village, stone village, yeah, like, look at that armor. And I get like part of it is that we're conditioned to like the Nomura style of character design. But also, I'm just like, I'm used to I feel like there's usually more, there's more personality to the world.
00:34:04
Speaker
I also usually feel like there's more personality to the music. I think this music is much more subdued, where in Final Fantasy I expect themes to be more forward in the music. Subjective opinion, I don't want to trash on it, but there's some times where it feels like Final Fantasy music, but other times it just feels like stuff to be in the background.
00:34:26
Speaker
And then, but the one thing that made me feel like it was a Final Fantasy was when was the icons or whatever, right? Like these those have visual design, those have color, and those they pop, they have meaning, they stand out. And they really reminded me of when I was younger,
00:34:49
Speaker
I just loved summons. I loved the GFs. I loved every name they've had, primals or whatever they were. They were such a fascination to me because they were, number ones, they were an example of the power of the hardware, right? I feel like one part of Final Fantasy is that it's always a showcase.
00:35:07
Speaker
It is always like it's technically pushing itself. It's always at the front. I think that is a requirement for being a Final Fantasy. And I think that's always been what a Final Fantasy is. It's always a showstopper. And a lot of times, at least when I was younger, I was obsessed with watching all the animations and all the stuff. They were just so cool to me.
00:35:27
Speaker
And I think they just nail it in in this in 16. And that's what made me feel like there was a final fantasy that like I think that's what made it stand out for me. And then obviously I enjoyed all the other elements. It's still a good game with all the other elements. But that's what made it feel like to me. That's what made it feel like it because James, I was hearing some of the stuff you said. Like I I also don't feel like I'm connecting as much. It's not that I don't like the characters. Yeah. Different way of experiencing them. They're still good. Yeah.
00:35:57
Speaker
Yeah. But there is something to them being in your party, being in, managing their equipment, you know, just seeing their profile pictures when you hit start, right? There's a type of like, even like intimacy that happens when you're seeing them that much in that way. And not that it has to be that way, but I get it.
00:36:20
Speaker
And I think that element kind of fell away for me, too. There's a criticism, too, that I heard recently, which I think has been bothering me, but it didn't really click until someone said it, which is all the side quests are written from the perspective of Clive being alone. So your party members never interact during a side quest. Oh, that's interesting. Because you do them because your party fluctuates so much over the story.
00:36:44
Speaker
Which I guess again, it feels so laser focused on Clive and I like Clive, which so it's fine. I don't know. You guys are talking about what makes the Final Fantasy. And I was thinking about what makes other games. Right. And it almost kind of came to an idea of like persona like her. If they took out social links in a persona, would it still be a persona? No, no.
00:37:08
Speaker
Yeah. And the first two personas didn't have social links. Well, yeah, but I think there's eventually games defined there. Yeah, that's fair, too. That's fair. Yeah. So I don't know. I feel like this can be an associate like we all have our different associations with games. I associate Final Fantasy with party party management and, you know,
00:37:31
Speaker
crazy-ass Japanese RPG stories. I got one. I didn't get the other. Yeah, so I don't know. It's certainly a good game for me. It falls short, I think, partly because of expectations and partly because I think it's trying something new and it still needs to figure out some of those things.
00:37:56
Speaker
Oh, by the way, too, watching I've been I've been playing in the trailers, which is it's funny to rewatch these and go, oh, hey. But the game does choke sometimes. It even on performance mode, it shows a lot going on some. Yeah, no. And that's fair during those icon battles. There's a shit ton of fucking graphics going on. But there's almost to the wall.
00:38:21
Speaker
And it's so beautiful. And I'm almost to the point like I almost wish these were pre-rendered cut scenes instead. Sure. I would. And I don't know. There is so much visual noise during some of these games. I'm like, you need to die. Like at one point, there's a there's a clash mechanic where you spam square during the icon battles. And while you're doing that, it also brings up these weird, wavy lines on the side of the screen. And I'm like, why the fuck are you doing this?
00:38:50
Speaker
You're distracting me from how good this game looks. Yeah, I agree with that. The QTEs were a bad call. They were. They're OK. We talked about it with some of our other friends about the QTEs. Yeah, it's.
00:39:05
Speaker
They need to be, we need to come up with new mechanics instead of QTE. I say just let me watch it. I love it. I mean, sometimes they have those in games where it's just like QTEs are just automatically succeed. I did fail one during one Titan battle, which now makes me wonder. I'm like, I wonder what would have been different if I succeeded because I just hit our one. I was expecting it to be a clash instead of a dodge. So I hit like square instead of our one really quickly. And then it was like, oh,
00:39:35
Speaker
I got the shit kicked out of me there. I wonder what would have been different if I didn't fail. The game is not better for that. Well, I don't understand QTEs. I understand at the time, like when they first came out, they felt incredible and engaging. And now it's just like, oh, what do you replace them with? Just watch it. Just watch.
00:39:58
Speaker
I don't care. Like this is meant for well, no, it's meant to bring in new people. It feels like I don't know. There's a couple of moments that felt like a bit pandering, which is fine, which is fine. But I think it's definitely trying to speak to the people coming back.
00:40:15
Speaker
Oh, by the way, I will say, too, we very briefly talked about the icon. We just were just talking about how beautiful they are. They are not just QTE things. There are full fight sequence where you are essentially playing the game like you would play as Clive, but as a giant fucking monster to the point where I was thinking about like, you know what? Yoshi P would make like a good Godzilla game if you gave him. OK. Yeah. Yeah. All right.
00:40:41
Speaker
That's kind of the vibe it gives, yeah. Yeah. And they're incredible. And I think, honestly, I really believe that's what makes, to me, I think this is what makes it a Final Fantasy, is this. Yeah. That's where they're... No, I'm not here saying it's like they've ruined the franchise. No, I didn't take it as that. It's more of just kind of like, ah, swing and a miss for me.
00:41:01
Speaker
Okay, cuz you're having fun. Yeah. Yeah, it's a good game and I can't I I want to honestly be playing it right now as I'm sure you two do as well I was playing it right before this and I think I liked the point you made to or at least maybe I'm Identifying with it is that I like I understand why they did this I think this is what they needed to do for Final Fantasy I think they might be able to knock it out of the park with the next one and
00:41:27
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I'm also super curious what rebirth is going to be like as they kind of learn these two lessons. Like, cause I feel like I like the remake rebirth style. I don't think they can necessarily make anything drastic changes.
00:41:43
Speaker
Oh, and that's a rebirth. No, no, no, no. But I'm curious how much of like 16s development bled into rebirth or how do you I don't know if I followed that. How do you know? I don't know if it necessarily will either. Depending if creative business unit three was the group that did it. It's an entirely different development team. Yeah.
00:42:02
Speaker
Well, I don't know. I don't know how Square operates. Right. And how much of a just independent silo they all work as. But I don't know. I'm just thinking about as they try to push. They're trying to push the the Final Fantasy brand in like two directions right now. And I'm curious which one's going to win out. I think they might just do both. Yeah.
00:42:21
Speaker
My conspiracy theory is that they're doing kind of like what they did with Yakuza, is that they're like splitting the different gameplay types into two different like lines of games. And I think because I like as I was playing 16, I didn't know if I wanted 17 to be like this either. But then I remembered I have Rebirth, right?
00:42:43
Speaker
And I think after Final Fantasy 7, they're probably going to remake nine. And I'm sure they're going to experiment with what turn based could look like in a modern day with that game. And then I think mainline is just going to be focused more on either character action or they might do something completely different again, because it's Final Fantasy. And it's always been experimenting. But I think they want to happen. Andy, why were you playing Strangers in Paradise this weekend?
00:43:09
Speaker
Oh, I was playing with a friend, just like a multiplayer hangout thing. I was like, why does he play strangers? No, no, I didn't just jump to play it. But you know what, though, as I was because this is what was making me like challenge myself on it as I was playing 16, I was like, why wouldn't this just be a stranger of paradise, if that makes sense? Like, why couldn't this just be a subtitle game? What is making this a mainline game? Well, yeah.
00:43:35
Speaker
And I get there's difference, and yeah, a different developer did it, blah, blah, blah, all these differences. But I was kind of comparing them in my mind of why is this a mainline? Why did this deserve its own numeral and not just a subtitle? And I think, for me, my conclusion was how they handled icons. And then, obviously, it being just a graphics powerhouse is just freaking gorgeous.
00:43:57
Speaker
Yeah, it's real pretty. It's it's real pretty, but I'm fine now with their direction because I have remake and rebirth. That's how I've settled on it because I loved remake combat.
00:44:09
Speaker
I anticipate that we're probably going to take next week off just because it's for July next week and I doubt there'll be too much news. So maybe when we come back next week and this is not the end of the podcast, maybe when we come back in two weeks, we can give. Hopefully we'll have finished the game at that point and we can give maybe a short kind of, you know, thought on the overall game because I've heard a lot about the end of this game and I'm looking forward to it. So. Ooh.
00:44:37
Speaker
Well, I'm loving it now. I can't wait to love it more. Yeah. Any last thoughts, Charles? I guess not. My thing here is let me think about it. Oh, man, I wish I didn't see that about Odin. Yeah, I know. I saw I was like, man, that's a weird spoiler they put in that trailer. That's OK.
00:44:57
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. I would say that it's very fun. If you're not really into Final Fantasy, this is a good one to jump into just to enjoy one of the mainline ones.
00:45:12
Speaker
Like despite, you know, what we're talking about and we're getting like into the weeds about like being a little bit more philosophical than we necessarily had to like, um, like new people, you don't need to care about that. Oh yeah. This is very much, uh, yeah. Um, I think it's interesting.
00:45:31
Speaker
It is, but like, you know, I don't want people to think like everybody should play this. I mean, if you have a passing interest in Japanese RPGs and character action games, you should play this game. Yeah. No. And end of story period. Yes. Right. Yes. Yes. We are sitting here talking about like the idea of games and what they mean to us and how can they be better or worse? And why even call it a final fantasy? Yeah.
00:45:58
Speaker
It doesn't hit the highs that I wanted to hit in the things that matter to me, but that doesn't. You're a monster. Yeah, exactly. You know what? Some highs. No, no, that's the thing, Charles. You're right. It hits some fucking highs. I was laughing out loud at how ridiculous some things were.
00:46:18
Speaker
Yeah, I was a smiling with a stupid grin on my face. Yeah. No, I know. I know. Really, it was just like it like I don't know. Childlike joy is the right way to describe it, but it was like unashamed. Like it was it wasn't ironic. It wasn't cynical. I was it was just joy as a real absolute contentment. Right. Yeah, it was.
00:46:42
Speaker
And probably because of nostalgia right like I'm playing these icons are represented in so many of the other games, but also just it embracing the absurdity, but also being cool and also feeling powerful, and also just being a graphics powerhouse it's like I'm seeing things.
00:46:59
Speaker
I'm seeing things rendered on a machine, at least for me, that I haven't seen in that type of fidelity and in that type of way. And that's what Final Fantasy is to me also, right? It pushing it. And I think that also just brings an excitement to enjoying the game. And I think also Final Fantasies are probably best enjoyed when they come out.
00:47:19
Speaker
Like they are products of their times, and I mean that as a compliment. And I think enjoying them now or even a couple of years, but like enjoying them now is the best time to experience it. Yeah. So play it. Well, you have the awakening trailer from two years ago. It changed. Tighten up. He doesn't have this weird slasher smile. Yeah, they did. Yeah. They change the model a little bit there. Yeah. Well, there was something now that you reminded me, but I guess.
00:47:48
Speaker
It's gone. Can't remember. All right. Well, we've spent 50 minutes talking about 16. I mean, this, this, this is, this is our review to a greater set. Like I said, we'll come back in two weeks and maybe just kind of give our final thoughts on it. Not for 15 minutes, but well, maybe not. I'll see how many, how much news comes out in the next two weeks. But yeah, I think again, all three of us, even at our three different places say this game is a must play. So yeah.
00:48:17
Speaker
I love it. And don't be scared by the character action. It holds your hand enough. This isn't devil makeup. It'll hold your hand as little or as much as you want. Don't be scared of that. I also have a whole thing about how it compares to Tales of Arise.
00:48:36
Speaker
Oh, you know, I remember now what I was going to talk about. It was the performance thing. Yeah. I was going to say real quick. Yes. There are, there are weirdly these performance problems with Final Fantasy 16. I did not notice them during the icon fights where I assumed it would be the most strenuous. I thought that was weird. And sometimes in towns of chugs too. I've noticed that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But like the part that it does care about, thankfully it was not an arrest. That was quick.
00:49:04
Speaker
Yep, go for it. Yeah. Well, man, I'm at a loss. I don't have a segue. So let's just move right into it. I don't know if you've ever not had a segue. I've I've I've not had segue sometimes. I'm tired. I've had a busy day. It's fair.
Xbox Legal Battle and Industry Insights
00:49:21
Speaker
Xbox is current. They're due at the FTC. The Xbox legal battle is currently going on this week and a lot of dirty laundry has come out.
00:49:32
Speaker
So much so that IGN literally has a recap page to for every fucking story that has come out. A lot of good, a lot of good news or not good news, but a lot of saucy news. So I'm just going to run. I'm going to run through a couple of them fast and we can kind of pick out our favors. One reveal Xbox Cloud is Game Pass Ultimate's least popular feature. Nobody is using cloud gaming.
00:50:01
Speaker
Xbox's Matt Booty says the decision has not been made if Outer Worlds 2 will come out on the PlayStation or not. Outer Worlds 1 did come out on the PlayStation. Microsoft expects the next generation of consoles to come out in 2028. Jim Ryan himself, while on the stand, says that he is pretty sure we will continuously call duty on PlayStation for many years to come.
00:50:26
Speaker
Pete Heinz says Starfield wouldn't be out in nine weeks if it was released on PS5. Basically saying to the fact that if they had developed for two consoles, they would still be way behind.
00:50:39
Speaker
Uh, Microsoft claims body, Bobby Kotick demanded a bigger revenue share to put call of duty on Xbox, basically saying that Activision went to Xbox said, give us a bigger cut, or just not going to release on the Xbox. And Microsoft went, how about we just buy you?
00:50:55
Speaker
Well, yeah, basically, that's how it kind of went down just to make it. Yep. Phil, Phil Spencer took the stand on Tuesday and said basic Tuesday or Monday. I don't know. Anyway, Phil Spencer took the stand and said that they had Microsoft also had tried to pride Zynga before take two did.
00:51:19
Speaker
Um, Microsoft, uh, Minecraft doesn't have a PS five version because Sony didn't send Microsoft dev kits. I curious if Microsoft sent dev kits to Sony for the Xbox series X. I didn't see that note in this point, but it's an interesting, he says, she said thing. Uh, Elder Scrolls six is still five plus years away. They have on there undecided if the PlayStation will be coming to it.
00:51:49
Speaker
Uh, Phil Spencer also confirms the starfield also was potentially going to skip the Xbox if they didn't head by Zenny max slash Bethesda. Um, Jim Ryan also again took the stand and said that he admits starfield Xbox activity is not anti-competitive because guess what? That would mean he would have to admit all the Sony exclusives are anti competitive. Um,
00:52:16
Speaker
And I'm trying to think if there's anything else that really came out that was interesting. Another point, too, was there is some public emails between Phil Sensor and Pete Hines basically kind of going, hey, you know,
00:52:34
Speaker
You're really kind of putting us in a bad fucking spot about Starfield by going, yeah, we'll release Call of Duty on PlayStation. But at the same time going, but what about other scrolls in Starfield? And Pete Hines and Todd Howard have to go to fucking conventions and be like, well, you know, it's different.
00:52:54
Speaker
Um, so yeah, there's, there's a lot going on with this. Um, this is much like the Epic Apple lawsuit where all the dirty laundry kind of got, uh, I believe tomorrow this continues and executives from Nvidia and Nintendo will be taking the stand. So we get even more spicy news from that. Let's go. But, but, uh, what about you two? How, how have you been following this news? Andy, go for it.
00:53:20
Speaker
Um, I've only been on the outside, like I haven't been following it too closely. Um, but it's like every time I hear news though, it makes me wonder, I was like, is it anti competitive for Microsoft to go through with this?
00:53:36
Speaker
Like, is there something there? And I don't know. I think the one thing that kind of like made me doubt it is I forgot if you said it, James, I'm sorry. But I didn't hear me. Ryan even said they didn't think that Call of Duty like would not be exclusive. He expected they would see Call of Duty on PlayStation.
00:53:55
Speaker
Like that wasn't even a concern, but I thought that's the trumpet they were sounding when it was first going through. Mm hmm. And I get why a company is going to do that. But and of course, they're going to say different things behind the scenes. But like with that, it made me think like, I don't know. I don't I honestly, I don't know my thoughts. I don't know. I don't know. It's a big purchase. And I just assumed it was going through. But I don't know. I maybe let them have it. I don't know. I don't know.
00:54:24
Speaker
I don't know. Large companies buying other large companies is bad. So no, my overall stance on this is that they probably shouldn't. And Andy, let me, do you guys ever see Meet Joe Black, the early 2000s, late 90s movie?
00:54:43
Speaker
No. Brad Pitt, Dennis Hopper. Brad Pitt plays Dan Pitt and Anthony Hopkins. Oh, Anthony Hopkins. Excuse me. Yeah. You're a monster. I am. I like Anthony Hopkins. It's a good movie. I recommend people watch it. It's one of my favorite older movies. But there's a character in it who is the CEO of a major media company.
00:55:03
Speaker
And one of the conflicts of the movie is another person wants to buy the company and the CEO has to make the decision whether or not they sell to this bigger company. And there's a speech by the CEO, which is played by Anthony Hopkins and a lovely, great actor. And he just says,
00:55:24
Speaker
You know, this has been a company we've had for many years and we've gained the respect of everybody in the industry through our integrity and everything else we want to do. And that person over there just wants to buy us.
00:55:39
Speaker
And I think about that scene whenever a major acquisition comes through. Just like, it's a shortcut, which not necessarily bad, but that's what it is on trying to get this stuff. And so my natural stance is to say, don't let these bigger acquisitions come through. It was a big wave when Microsoft bought ZeniMax and acquired 30 studios at once.
00:56:07
Speaker
getting Activision Blizzard, another giant publisher that owns a lot of big I.M. IPs is another would be another great shakeup and would trigger more acquisitions from everybody else to try to stop it. And so I don't like to speed up that type of process. That being said, like this is a large company arguing with other large company. Right. And ultimately, they're they're all they're all in it to get our money.
00:56:38
Speaker
So it's just kind of like it feels dumb to try to pick a side.
Thoughts on Corporate Acquisitions
00:56:44
Speaker
Fair. So my entire thing is, yes, I'm not surprised that people said some things and then said something else internally to each other or anything like that. I'm just kind of like, hopefully it doesn't go through just on principle because I don't think.
00:56:58
Speaker
acquisitions are that great, like such big acquisitions really are that good. But it's fun. The dirty laundry is very fun to watch. And I love to hear how everyone thinks of each other and what they say. I love Pete Heinz email question to Phil Spencer like, Hey,
00:57:19
Speaker
just double-checking and it's very professional and like, how about the wording of that when you said we'll call it duty multi-platform? Didn't we hear something different when it came to Starfield and Elder Scrolls? And then to the other Bethesda people, because Pete Hines works at Bethesda, he's like, did he not think this through? The mask is off.
00:57:41
Speaker
Right. It was still business polite, but yeah. It was business polite, but it was a lot more, you could tell it was, he was a lot more frustrated on his internal email to Bethesda versus the one to his boss, Phil Spencer. Yeah. And I was like, oh, haven't we all been there?
00:57:58
Speaker
You can't hold that against anybody. We've all been there. Right. It's just it's just fun to see like these are the very big companies, right? And it's just fun to see like the same politics, internal politics happen everywhere, no matter where you are. It's just fun.
00:58:14
Speaker
It's it's it's weird to a certain extent because that I think Charles I agreed with you more when this first started I still wanted to happen because I hate Bobby Kotick with a fiery passion But you know when we talked about Redfall and how like 70% of their devs left the fucking studio
00:58:31
Speaker
I'm starting to think like all these acquisitions buy people as IP, like studios, it's almost like a cyclical cycle. Like you could buy studios as fast as you want, but new studios form and then they create the new thing and then they get bought. You know what I mean? It's almost a whack-a-mole in a way. So really all you get out of this is IP. And I don't know this, then you get into the Disney problem of like the Disney vault and IP rate being trapped behind things for thousands of years.
00:58:57
Speaker
I don't know. The leg up of it doesn't strike me as is important nowadays. I I do think Call of Duty is that weird one where it's like it holds such a weird unicorn place in the industry. But for everything else, it's almost like I don't know. It's weird. I think I've just become numb to it.
00:59:18
Speaker
Oh, I mean, yeah, we have because there's literal trillionaires. And yeah, when this all first started happening, I was extremely pessimistic. Now I've just kind of accepted it, which I don't like, but that's how it is. I don't know.
00:59:33
Speaker
I don't know. I think I'm on like with you Charles like perfect world it wouldn't go through but also this is these are big companies buying big companies. Like I don't know if we're losing the spirit of anything right. This isn't like you know a scrappy studio you know doing interesting new things. These are giant places making you know money printing machines. It's like who cares if who owns who.
00:59:56
Speaker
I compare it to like when Microsoft bought Mojang and then we all realized, uh, fucking notch was insane. We got it out of notches hands, you know, actually, yeah, that wasn't the worst. Like.
01:00:11
Speaker
And Minecraft hasn't gone totally bad. They've even kept the Java version open for all you modders out there. That's true. They could have taken that away. That's true. I mean, it's it's still the unregulated capitalism is bad. Oh, absolutely. It is bad. It just so happens. This is one where we're like in a weird position of being like, but it could be OK.
01:00:35
Speaker
I don't know when it's ever been a good decision. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the other, the other highlight of the problem is just that like, um, I've noticed this more because I have to, I have some, I have to deal with a lot more international policies at work nowadays that I, I'm like, Oh man.
01:00:53
Speaker
Europe's got they care about things a lot more. Yeah. But like, boy, the laws that required for other countries, a lot stronger than the ones in America. Sure. A lot stronger. Let me tell you, just saying. Oh, yeah. GDPR, baby. Yeah. And just saying like, yeah, US not really good at this stuff. No, it is not. No, no, no. And it's called un-American.
01:01:22
Speaker
if you try to make it better for anyone. Yeah, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. Oh, we'll talk about that more on another episode of Add to Party, a friendship simulator masquerading as a new show. I've been your host, James. Oh, man, I had something in this gone.
01:01:41
Speaker
This is the first time you've never said something. I know. I mean, it's been I've been running all day all day. Here I go. James, celebrate the independence of your country by blowing up a small part of it. Hartwell, a classic Simpsons quote. And I've been joined by Charles, second dominant of fire, your mom. And I've been joined by Andy. Um.
01:02:12
Speaker
I don't know. I like 16. It's a good time and I can't wait to play. Wrong. No, you're fine. What did I do? I said you're wrong. I was joking. Oh, James. Enjoy what you want. As long as it's between consenting at all. Good night. Oh God. Good night. Good night. I'm wet. All over.