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Episode 9: Phantasy Star IV
74 Plays2 years ago
Poly & Kj take on one of the best Genesis JRPGs! Come see what they thought!
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Transcript
Introduction and Game Choice
00:00:00
Speaker
All right, so we are live. Welcome everybody to the next episode of Turn Based Tangents. We are covering fantasy star four for the sake of Genesis. I'm joined by my wonderful co-host Polly. That's when you're supposed to say hello. Oh, hi. I was already reading my notes. Hi, yes, hi. Okay. So yeah.
00:00:30
Speaker
It's very interesting. Because it's a shorter month, we decided we wanted to do a shorter game. And this game was only like 20-ish hours. And because of the fact that we could play it in the Genesis collection, it was pretty easy to obtain.
Gameplay Enhancements
00:00:50
Speaker
um yeah i got to play it in the um the switch collection yeah like the switch where it has the genesis games that's where i played it off of yeah i i have the like actual like yeah you had the actual so you didn't have like the rewind buttons did you i did have rewind buttons oh you did okay oh no i didn't have rewind i had oh no you know it did have a rewind yeah but it was
00:01:13
Speaker
There was a fast forward and a slow down, I think. I don't know if it was an actual rewind. If there was an actual rewind, I didn't use it. I specifically just used the fast forward, which it was very nice. Playing a game that came out in 1994 that is not remastered or anything, having a fast forward is really nice. And here, I like the rewind buttons. Yeah.
00:01:39
Speaker
Wait, the rewind button allows you to go back on what you did, doesn't it? Yeah. Oh, that is so cheap. No wonder why you beat the game so fast. That is not why I started before you. I had to suffer. When I died, I was dead. And I had to do everything over.
00:02:01
Speaker
This one over here being like, oh, you, you redid things, but I'm fast forwarding. So I think we've, we've canceled each other out while I was lost. I couldn't fast forward. Like I couldn't fast forward battles because if I fast forwarded battles, they don't explain anything. So I would just die. I didn't fast forward anything. I didn't even know that was an option to be fair.
00:02:28
Speaker
Yeah, no, the fast forward, the fast forward was super clutch, especially with some of the like, talking. Okay, wait, no, let's, let's get into it.
Game Review and Experience
00:02:37
Speaker
We're already on two different tangents as well. I don't want to spoil the, like what I was about to say. I want to see your notes. I didn't take any notes for this one. I just kind of was winging it. So, um, Oh, you can actually post your notes. Okay. Wait, did you?
00:02:52
Speaker
No, no, no, no. I have them all written down. I just like it was more like things that I wanted to point out during the podcast. OK, so where do you want to start then? Yeah, so.
00:03:06
Speaker
Do we want to, where do, yeah, where do we want to, where do we start? Okay. Like let's introduce the game. So we played, uh, we played fantasy star four. Um, it was nice to do a shorter game after we did tactics. Okay. Reborn because tactics or reborn was really long.
00:03:23
Speaker
really long. Great game, but really long. And so it was great to like pull up like a game that was play time to beat about 20 hours or so. Oddly enough, I don't know where on the Switch it would tell me where because like it didn't tell me my play time. So I actually don't know how long I took on the game. I don't know either.
00:03:47
Speaker
But i beat it like partway through this month so i think i started directly after we finish the podcast episode and then i beat it two and a half weeks ago two weeks ago so i'd be like two weeks ago yeah so then i would have been two and a half weeks ago that because you beat it a few days after that i did so.
00:04:05
Speaker
Yeah, so it was kind of nice to have have that and it's a Sega Genesis game, which is great Because I haven't played a whole lot of Genesis games at all Growing up. I didn't have a Genesis And so I've played very few of them So I was really excited to play this game because I had played fantasy star online I believe on the GameCube or the ps2 one of the two and
00:04:33
Speaker
and liked it, and I was really intrigued to dive into it. And everybody said that we could play this game without having played one through three. Which is true, by the way. While you might miss a few Easter eggs, you can get through the game without having played any of the other fantasy-star games that came before it.
00:05:03
Speaker
But but yeah, we had neither one of us have a physical copy of it. It's very expensive to buy a physical copy of it. I think when I was talking to you, Shane, about it, he had said that it was like pretty expensive when it came out to. And I know Shane's in chat, too. Like, I think it was like I think he said it was like 100 bucks when it came out. Oh, so it was quite it was quite a bit then. Um.
00:05:31
Speaker
So it's about the same now, except for like CIB is like $200 or $300. So that's kind of crazy. That was really expensive back then. So yeah, neither one of us played on physical. KJ had a Genesis pack, so has like the pack on Switch where like you buy the Genesis and games and stuff like that, where I had the emulator thing that
00:05:59
Speaker
Nintendo releases that the NES Supernet NES all that sort of stuff. I had the Genesis one So I played off of that. So so we kind of had identical experiences Apparently he fast-forward. I apparently rewinded a bit Those were kind of handy for like an old-school game, but neither one of us have the physical copy of it So we can't like show it off unfortunately But
00:06:28
Speaker
Uh, yeah, so, uh, that's what we, that's what we played. Uh, and it, it was, it was kind of fun because, uh, by the time I got like halfway through the game, that's when, that's when KJ started. So I was like, Oh, Oh, I could do this first. And then I suddenly, I had all this motivation to beat it first, because as everybody knows from previous episodes, I have not beaten one first. I could have beaten star ocean, the divine force.
00:06:58
Speaker
first but I got sidetracked with the minigame and I spent like 30 hours in the minigame. So that's kind of my own fault for that one but it was it was kind of like a little extra little bit of fire under my butt to to to get it done first and and then seeing his reactions to the parts where I got to
00:07:22
Speaker
and see my little blacked out notes and just kind of laughing at it. It was fun being the one ahead rather than the one behind this time. So yeah, it was a different experience playing this one with KJ off-stream. And I'm excited to talk about it because there's a lot about this game that I'm excited to talk about. How about you, KJ? Are you excited?
00:07:52
Speaker
Yeah, we'll call it that. Hopefully I'm not too loud. I'm like adjusting my mic settings. Yeah, I figured that I kept kind of rambling a little bit because I figured you were fixing some audio stuff or whatever. Yeah, sorry about that. One of these days we'll have it perfect, but it's just like streaming, right? It's always a balancing act with audio.
00:08:14
Speaker
Um, and it's, it's something that you're forever like tweaking, um, especially on the fly. So we appreciate everybody's, uh, uh, patience while we do that. And, uh, cause, uh, yeah, that definitely, I definitely do that too. Yeah, no, it was, it was definitely fun. I had a, like, I had a fun time playing through the game for the most part, I will say. Um,
00:08:40
Speaker
Just kind of like, I'm just gonna kind of jump right into its pitfalling. Like, so it did a lot of the general, like very typical RPG story things. Give you a character that's super OP, take that character away from you, have a bunch of ridiculous party splits for some reason or another. It was the, the general, the general, like,
00:09:11
Speaker
atmosphere of the game was great.
00:09:13
Speaker
because I really, really like space. Being in space was super awesome. And jumping from planet to planet was really cool. I also really thought that the game did a great job with the vehicles. In the beginning, just walking around was really painful. Walking around was really painful. And then once I got the vehicles, I was like, oh, OK, this is dope.
00:09:43
Speaker
Yeah, I will say, though, one improvement with the walking around is at least you didn't have to put on shoes.
Character and Story Analysis
00:09:50
Speaker
I'm looking at you, Final Fantasy six, where you could actually like speedwalk. So I really liked in this game that you automatically were walking faster. Mm hmm.
00:10:01
Speaker
Which is great because I find a lot of JRPGs and stuff like that Especially like more older ones. So like ones on super to dead donut everything Tend to have that where you've got that really slow walking speed Some of them have it where you get items where you can make it go faster Some of them just don't and it's just kind of a very slow sort of like walking speed so I liked right away instantly I was like, oh wow, like the sprites move like
00:10:29
Speaker
relatively fast, even just walking. Yeah. No, I definitely agree with that. Especially like walking around towns and stuff like that. That definitely took a lot less time.
00:10:40
Speaker
But but yeah, do we want to start with like we want to start with like the art style and maybe like the music and then we'll dive into like gameplay stuff. I'm going to be I'm going to be completely honest. I'm pretty bad. Like the music is I'm pretty bad about it. I turned the music off very early. I was not the biggest fan of it was.
00:11:06
Speaker
And hopefully you can hear me well. What I'll say about the music is that it was very
00:11:12
Speaker
Good for the, again, the atmosphere, where you were in the game, right? It definitely gave me a spacey sci-fi feel, but it was not for me. It was not for me at all. I did not really care for the music all that much. The art style, I think, is the best part of the game. I think the art style is absolutely the best part of the game. That's where the game thrives.
00:11:39
Speaker
Like the way that like the way that they did like the paneling for the cutscenes and everything was just absolutely incredible. It reminded me of like an 80s anime comic strip the way they did it. It was it was awesome. But pixelated, which is really cool.
00:11:56
Speaker
Yeah, no, I totally agree with that. Like I think it was it was it was absolutely fantastic to like be able to kind of go through that and say, oh, OK, well, this is like this is how this is going to be. And yeah, it it was a great feel. I really enjoyed that.
00:12:14
Speaker
Yeah, it it made honestly, I wish more like pixel JRPG games would do that because it made me feel like more connected into the cutscenes when they happened and it made me feel more for the characters when things were happening because it would like zoom in on their faces. You could see their facial impressions, which you kind of lose that a little bit with sprites like some some JRPGs do a good job of like
00:12:39
Speaker
Moving animating the sprites in a way that you're like, okay I understand that they're upset or they're angry or they're you know sad or whatever or happy or whatever and But with this it was really cool that when it would like zoom in the cutscenes you'd like zoom into them the details of their faces and stuff and like you could it felt like you're a little bit more immersed it was like it it was like
00:13:03
Speaker
It was like having interactive, like, Final Fantasy cutscenes back on a Genesis game. It's just, it was just pixelated kind of like comic book layout of like, of quadrants and stuff. It was, I was just really, really charming. And like the 80s style anime look of everything was just really, really cool. I will say a lot of the character designs through the art style later on were great, but like,
00:13:34
Speaker
I kind of wasn't really super attached to the main characters. I first thought the main character was going to be Alice, but then it ends up being Chaz. And Chaz I wasn't super attached to. But a lot of the designs and stuff like that, I was like,
00:13:50
Speaker
Okay, like I like some of the characters as they came through and the unique of it and that really neat blend of like fantasy and sci-fi it was neat because like you'd walk around and it would be like fantasy towns ish, but then you would get into like a ship
00:14:06
Speaker
or dungeon that's part of a old ship and then you get all the sci-fi kind of stuff so it was just like really like the pixel graphics of this game were absolutely beautiful from the dungeons to the towns to the little cutscenes to the sprites everything was like super unique and a really fun blend where if you look at other fantasy and sci-fi
00:14:29
Speaker
JRPGs, things like Star Ocean, for example, it's very heavily more towards the fantasy side of things than the sci-fi, where I feel like this game did a really good job at balancing it.
00:14:43
Speaker
Um, which was, which was really cool for, uh, again, I keep saying this for a Genesis game because it's like, this came out so long ago. And, uh, it's, it's, I have to keep reminding myself and had to came out so long ago. Cause I was like, okay, this, this looks really neat. Like it looks really cool.
00:15:02
Speaker
There were definitely some things that I was like, whoa, this game came out in 1994. Like, there's no way. And I think you covered you covered most of it, like seeing how the like.
00:15:15
Speaker
Seeing how they did all the paneling and everything, that was really cool. And the great work was fantastic. I also really enjoyed the character party, and they never once did the character join your party instantly. They actually walk behind you.
00:15:39
Speaker
And you can see the sprite move behind you, and I'm like, oh, that's cool. That's a good touch, and that's how it should be. It shouldn't just be like, poof, they're in your party all of a sudden. So I did really enjoy that as well. Yeah, it was so nice to have it. And then if you had, this was really, really cool. If you had status elements, or if a character was dead in your party and you were walking around, their sprite didn't move anymore.
00:16:04
Speaker
So the sprite would walk, and if they were dead in your party and you were still walking around, it just floated and hovered. It was so funny. I didn't notice that. You didn't notice that? Although, to be fair, whenever someone died, I immediately teleported out of the place and went to an inn. Okay, that's fair. That's fair. I didn't really walk around with dead party members. Sometimes I walked around for a while with dead party members, because that's yellow. I'm just going to keep going. Forget it. I don't want to warp back.
00:16:32
Speaker
Nope. So you'd see their sprites animating as if they're walking, and then the dead party member just floats. Oh, that's cool. So it's little things like that that I'm like, the attention to detail in this game, which I'll talk about a lot as we cover more of it, is a lot for a 1993-1994 game. So developed probably before 1994, but released in 1994.
00:17:00
Speaker
So to me, I'm just kind of like, this is super cool. There's so many little things like that that I was like, okay, they thought about this and really gave the user experience an easier time on that front.
00:17:21
Speaker
But with that segue into gameplay mechanics, we both I think are very opinionated about the way the game sets it up, makes it feel like you absolutely need the manual. Oh yeah, you need this as a game, you don't play without the manual. Either you play this game with a manual, or you play it with friends that know the game.
00:17:45
Speaker
Because I 100% hit up Shane and I was like, what is going on? They're not telling me anything. And Shane had the hookup and filled me in on some things, but like.
00:18:01
Speaker
Yeah, the expectation, because it is a Genesis game, is that the manual is necessary. One hundred percent. Yeah. And there's a lot of cool things in this game. There's actually like a good amount of spells that do various different things, although I will say a lot of the spells are just instant kill spells, which is really weird.
00:18:24
Speaker
Like there's like four or five different instant kill spells. And it's like, but why? I didn't end up using like half the spells because it's like I didn't necessarily even need them. But yeah, I use them as like group attacks.
Game Mechanics and Strategies
00:18:39
Speaker
So this game has very similar to like Chrono Trigger. It has like the team up attacks, but you can set them. What's better about this is that you can set macros that
00:18:52
Speaker
basically force the group attack to happen as long as the character's speed is, like, as long as the characters act right after each other. So it's basically like, oh, you would set, like, for example, I would set, like,
00:19:12
Speaker
Chaz and Rune back to back, and then they would be able to do like Grand Cross, I think it's called. But what I did, what the real strat was, was to first turn, not use macros, and instead use the speed-up, like the speed-up attack. So that way everyone was faster.
00:19:35
Speaker
Exactly. So that way everybody was faster than the enemies. Then you could go ham with the macros. Yeah. I 100% had like a macro set up, but later on you get a character who could speed up your entire party.
00:19:51
Speaker
Which is super awesome and so you speed up the agility and then you do the next macro where you could do the combo attacks or you could do the aoe attacks and Hit all characters because there's a lot of times where you were fighting three four, you know, I think up to five Enemies at once and maybe you only had three or four maybe five party members and
00:20:16
Speaker
Oftentimes, some of them not the strongest. You rarely had five party members. That was rare. You often had three or four.
00:20:26
Speaker
Exactly like you very so so you often were outnumbered So if you had everybody attack and let's say everybody had great damage doing it You were still like that one little straggler enemy that was you're just like, okay So it was great to like speed up your characters and do these aoe attacks or hit all attacks um, and later I ended up being like super in love with a with a particular character you get that um
00:20:53
Speaker
Depending on what weapon you put them on hit all and did like hit all with crazy damage hit all and I was like, oh So like the macro system in the game so when we're talking about macros They have this thing where you could set up a pre-arranged that your party can do so that way you don't have to go through a click every single time and every single NPC battle or every single random battle that
00:21:22
Speaker
you didn't have to constantly go through it. So it made the game more enjoyable because you didn't get bogged down by a lot of the random encounters because you could just macro attack. Like, yeah, you could just macro attack. So you select your macro that you want to use, which you're like, okay, I want this person to do an AOE attack. I want this person to hit all. I want this person, these two people to hit this particular enemy at the same time. So they do a special move.
00:21:48
Speaker
And, you know, you just keep doing that and hitting that button at the start of battle and they would do it every time, which was which was fantastic. I wish the one thing I wish I and as if I remember correctly.
00:22:02
Speaker
I wish you could, yes, cats just brought it up. So I wish that it like, you didn't have to redo your macros with how often the, um, the party member switch, or I wish that you could edit the macros in battle. Like if I could have edited the macros in battle, I wouldn't have had as much of a struggle with, um,
00:22:29
Speaker
having the macros like switch like kind of basically do whatever it wants when you remove when they remove party members because this game takes out party like this game takes party members out and puts party members in like
00:22:48
Speaker
There's so many party splits in this that it gets tedious because you have to reset your macros every time you have a party split. And they do it so often in this game because they want you to experience all the different characters that you can get in the game. Um, and it's, I realize it's setting it up for later on, but because of that, it gets so tedious resetting those macros every time. And like, you're right. If we would have had a way to like do it on the fly in battle wouldn't have been a problem.
00:23:17
Speaker
Like you have that little screen where you like you set up that you're going to attack or are you going to set up? You're going to do your macro or are you going to try to flee? So you have like these three things before you even get into the battle. It would have been really nice if it had like an edit macro button. Yeah.
00:23:34
Speaker
And that's why, like one of the first things I said, I said this to you, I said this to Shane. I was like, wow, this game is definitely in need of a remake or a remap, like a remake to like just clean up a lot of, or even like just a good remaster to clean up a lot of the
00:23:53
Speaker
a lot of like the jank that is. Yeah and it's not even like you can argue saying oh this jank is because of its time period when we have other JRPGs who came out sooner like Final Fantasy 4 for example that came out in 1991.
00:24:09
Speaker
These other ones like kind of were less janky So it was one of those things where like I think it would really really benefit from a quick remaster Because there's so much of this game that is is enjoyable Uh in its in its style in its uh cutscenes in its uh, you know like it did so many good things that I wished other jrpg games like some final fantasy games and some things did
00:24:35
Speaker
And then other things where it was just like all the set it back so like I think a remaster where it cleaned things up a little bit and even if you could just like hover over top of one of the moves and it tells you what it does Would have been like just tiny little quality of life. Yeah that I think would put this at a much higher
00:24:56
Speaker
uh tier for a lot of people playing it because like I think it's one of those few Ones where I think even just not even like changing the style or anything leave everything alone art style was uh, just fix some of the little like some of these issues um because like
00:25:18
Speaker
There's so much of this game when I was playing it that I actually, I wished other games did. Like it was, yeah. For me, it was mostly the macros, the macros, like. The macros, the moves, even like, because this ain't like, I understand back when you probably would have bought the game, you would have gotten the manual and stuff like that and you would have had access to it. So that's a different story.
00:25:43
Speaker
but that doesn't help with later on for the games like Lifespan and stuff like that that go exactly try to find the man like it's very rare you're finding this game complete with a manual anymore so you're reliant on wiki guides or friends like you said who have played it or know the different moves and know the different combos and stuff that can help you through it
00:26:07
Speaker
Because there's there's a lot of moves and a lot of names and stuff like that with moves that I would have never guessed did what they did because you know, it's it's different and like some RPG games you get where it's like, oh There's fire. I'm like, okay. I'm assuming this is gonna be I fire the enemy like I don't need an explanation there but these ones had a lot of name like different names like said are and like, you know, like all these different like
00:26:36
Speaker
And I'm sure if you played older fantasy star games, maybe like because it's probably it's probably thing where it carries it between. I'm guessing that it's it's definitely a system, a system where. So now that I know I know going forward, if I'm playing fantasy star games, I probably going to figure I'm probably going to know what the spells do now because, you know.
00:26:56
Speaker
I figured it I, you know, looked at some guides, figured out what they were doing. And I'm like, OK, now I know the names and what associated I'm like, OK, this was the heel spell. This one's the sleep spell. This is the yeah, yeah, yeah. So I didn't use like any of those. I used heel. I used to revive. I use fire, water and like defense up and speed up. And that's it.
00:27:21
Speaker
Yeah, I didn't end up using a whole lot of the magic either. Like I ended up reading what the magic did, but then I was like, I'm killing everything so fast. Forgetting. I was like, okay. There's a lot of spells to be perfectly fair. There was a lot of spells and techniques and skills. I learned like on the snow planet,
00:27:47
Speaker
that there was a, like, heal all spell. That's when I learned, I was, yo, I tough this out. Like, I'm not even, yo, I'm not even lying. Because I did look at the spells, but then I was like, I don't want to keep going back to look at the spells and do this. So, like, I'm just gonna go on, like, I just was like, yo,
00:28:08
Speaker
I've played RPGs before. I know what I'm doing. I'll brute force this. I'll figure it out. Trial and error. And again, trial and error is what brought me to the full heel party spell. Because I was like, eh, fuck it. I've never used this. What does it do? And it highlighted my whole party. And I was just like,
00:28:24
Speaker
Or no, it didn't. It didn't highlight anybody. That's what it was. Because that's the thing. When it spells that hit everybody, I don't think it highlights anyone. And I was like, oh, this is a this is a heal spell or something. So I used it and it healed my whole party. And I was like, oh, this is a game changer.
00:28:40
Speaker
This just changed the whole game. So what you're saying is you were pulling a Polly and tried to brute force this game. Yeah, I played this game on hard mode for like a good half the game at least. And then here's Polly finally learning to read the manual. And then you look at stuff and I'm like, oh, there's a heal-all spell that you get fairly early on. I'm like, this is so much easier. Nope. And the thing was, I
00:29:04
Speaker
I was I was going through and then Shane sent me the the combo thing. So now I'm like just using all these combo attacks. But I was like, oh, I'm thinking of a little under level. Like there were areas I was like, I think I'm a little under level, but I'm just going to keep going. And I just like I said, I barreled in there and brute force the hell out of things and like I made it work. But I didn't know you could do combos till very late game.
00:29:31
Speaker
Um, cause I didn't look anything up. I didn't talk to anybody. So I was just going through, but then I also didn't need to do combos. It's a very late game with a few of the bosses that made it a little bit easier. And I just stumbled on it. And, and, and Enno can attest, he was like behind me, like listening to this. And I'm like, Oh my God. And he just laughed really hard. And he's like, aren't you like at the end of the game? And I was like, shh.
00:29:58
Speaker
But we'd ruin and Chaz having it and like and then I even stumbled across one where it was like what the Android guy that you get Him and there was a combo between him and I think Chaz or whatever and I was like what?
00:30:16
Speaker
Like there is some some OP combo moves you could do in this game. But like literally tiny quality of life upgrades would be like to like give you an idea that these I would have been totally fine if like we had to find. So I wish they would have set it up like like like where you have to find the combo attacks rather than accidentally doing them.
00:30:45
Speaker
Like, I feel like, so with, with legend of La Gaia, like you can accidentally stumble across them, right? Like legend of La Gaia, it's like button inputs to do different things. I wish you, yeah, I wish you had to like find something to figure it out. Like basically like.
00:31:00
Speaker
Yeah, like like Shannon said in chat like some book or something like if they had books Spread across the entire like all the planets and there were like extra things that you had to find and it's like oh This book tells you that if you do these two things you get you you would get a certain spell but you could also stumble upon it if you knew if you if you ended up coming across and you were like Oh these two things did
00:31:26
Speaker
did that so that's I wish there was some a little bit more guidance on that because if Shane didn't tell me that I would have played the entire game not knowing that like I was going I was going on um I was going on like just the spells that I saw doing the strongest
00:31:45
Speaker
So for me, it was like, oh, like I have like cross slash or something like that. And I was like, that hits everybody and it does a fucking ton of damage. I'm going to use that. And that was like, I basically had certain spells and or like abilities that each character
00:32:02
Speaker
would use. And so I just macroed all of those. And I was like, all right, this is just gonna nuke whatever. I was like, this is just gonna nuke whatever I have to fight. And like, I'm just gonna click that button. And I'm gonna click that button until the enemies die.
00:32:17
Speaker
yeah and honestly that would have implemented you actually having a reason to go into houses because one thing that like other like it never made any sense but they always had it where in other jrpgs you would go into different houses find chests loot chests blah blah blah this game like severely discourages you from doing this like you try to like
00:32:38
Speaker
Yeah, there's dialogue that says hey, don't be stealing from people And you're like, excuse me, don't call me
90s JRPG Context and Impact
00:32:46
Speaker
out. This is jrpg get off my back And so but there would have given you more reasons to go into different houses because there's a part in the game Where KJ was like I'm lost and I was telling him and I'm like you needed to talk to this random bartender and he's like what? I would have never
00:33:03
Speaker
It was the only time it did that throughout the pretty well the entire game. And it was like, it was one of those things where it was trying to encourage you to explore. But I'm like, it didn't give us any rewards for exploring. So very early on, I stopped really going into different houses because I didn't need to because you couldn't loot, you couldn't do anything. So would have given a great little thing Shane saying that it was like a book because there was a lot of bookshelves you can interact with.
00:33:29
Speaker
but it didn't really do anything it would be really cool yeah if you would have talked to some of those bookshelves and found out these different combos throughout the game where i would be like with my little notebook writing down the combo be like okay if i use this move with this move then it's gonna do something cool because i only ever experienced two or three of them and i'm sure there's way more combos than just two or three
00:33:52
Speaker
And it's because I just kind of stumbled on them so I kept using them and while I tried to do out there different moves I was so late game that I didn't end up stumbling on any other ones. So
00:34:04
Speaker
I think, I think it's kind of funny because like so many JRPGs just have like these random chests and I always make the joke. Why are we stealing from these poor people? And then this game literally is like, no, you can't steal from these poor people. And I was outraged instantly. I was like, excuse me. I'm the hero. I need this more than that.
00:34:25
Speaker
Was like instantly put off with the one game that tries to be realistic like no you can't steal from it It's like random people. What are you doing? It's got get out of random people's houses Yo, sometimes you need that random loaf of bread that somebody is like keeping in Their storage closet. I don't know or like That random potion that's actually just in that person sock drawer like
00:34:55
Speaker
or like the 13 cents that you're gonna find underneath their pillow. Like- So many JRPGs, so many RPGs in general do this. And it's just like, this one game, it's like, no, we're gonna be the real one and call you out every time you try to loot. And it's like, depending on who you had as the party leader, they called you out at certain severities. Oh, really? I didn't know that.
00:35:19
Speaker
Yeah, so like you would interact with with like uh chas as your main party member and he'd be like we really shouldn't do this and then rune's like why are you doing this and and rent's just rent is just like I really don't think this is a good idea logically speaking kind of thing like they all have like different responses and I was like interest So I didn't actually note like
00:35:42
Speaker
Also, I didn't really change my party leader. Once I decided I didn't really like Chaz, I just made Ren my party leader and just walked around with Ren.
00:35:53
Speaker
That was pretty much how that worked. And after the third town of trying to talk to every inanimate object that was in every house, I was like, oh, there's nothing. I'm not doing this anymore. I was thinking, oh, it's a retro, it's a 90s RPG. There's definitely going to be stuff that are in random bookshelves and drawers and dressers and all. And there was nothing.
00:36:20
Speaker
And I was just like, oh, no, I'm all set. Like, I can't. I'm not getting anything from this. I'm all set. To explore the towns outside of finding the inn and finding the weapon or armor our item shop. That's it. Once you saw those little logos, those were the houses you had to go in. The only reason I know characters change dialogue was not because I like I stopped just like, hey, Jay, I within the first town realizing, OK, this is not going to let me do this thing.
00:36:49
Speaker
I'm like, I don't need to go into these houses anymore for any other purpose. I stopped. The only reason I did it later game when I started to switch out party members is because I just wanted like, there was so many little quirky things this game did. I wanted to see how far they went with these little quirky things. I was noticing the dead party members just floating there. I was noticing dialogue changed depending on who your party member was.
00:37:16
Speaker
the lead party member was when you clicked. I will say though, and this is one of the most annoying mechanics in a game, every time you accidentally click the action button, it told you off being like, there's nothing here, why are you doing this? Oh, that drove me nuts. And I'm like, I accidentally clicked like 10 centimeters away from this eyeball game, give me a break.
00:37:45
Speaker
And it would do it every single time you accidentally clicked the action button where there was nothing involved in front of you, or you were just shy of the person you were trying to talk to, or the object you were trying to interact with. You were just slightly off. It was just like, there's nothing abnormal here. Or Alice was just mad being like, there's nothing of importance here. Let's move on.
00:38:11
Speaker
I'm sorry game I didn't mean to press like I'm trying to interact with this person stop yelling at me and the reason why it was very annoying is because it was literally every single time you click the action button it would do this and I'm like it doing it once
00:38:29
Speaker
Get it. Okay. Nice joke. But literally at doing it for the entire duration of the game. And because it's an older JRPG game, sometimes it's like, you don't know if you're right next to the thing. The pixels don't line up. And all of a sudden you're talking, you think you're trying to talk to somebody and really it's trying to search the ground next to them.
00:38:46
Speaker
yeah exactly it was it was so annoying and i was like pulling my arrow at some point because i've tried to interact with this thing and i'm just like pixel off and it's like and you're talking to the crowd i'm like don't try to talk to the person you're reminding me of the things that i didn't like about this
00:39:07
Speaker
Yeah, I think because we beat it, like the funny thing is when we beat it, I got a lot of like, a lot of the stuff was like, KJ was writing down a lot of like, I didn't like this, I didn't like this, I didn't like this, I didn't like this. And I was like, yeah. And then now that we've had a bit of a breather, I'm just like, you know, there were a lot of these annoying little things.
00:39:31
Speaker
But there were still strengths towards the game and that I'm glad that we both beat it early enough. Because I think if we would have beat it and then had like the podcast like a couple days later, I probably would have been a little too nitpicky with it. Oh, I would have had nothing but bad things to say.
00:39:48
Speaker
If I if I would have if we would have talked about this right after we beat like right after I beat the game out of it nothing with bad things But I like playing maybe that processing time Yeah, because the thing was I really didn't care too much about the story personally like there were some pretty obvious plot twists and like
00:40:12
Speaker
I don't know. It was just a very, very average, like, standard story for me anyway. The way that they, I will say, the way that they delivered the story, again, was great. Oh, yeah. Delivery was beautiful. But overall, I was like, wow, this story was really, really obnoxious and like, or not really obnoxious, but just like really boring. And because I didn't really like the story,
00:40:35
Speaker
Like there was only what I realized is a a bad or even average story can only get me so far in a game until it starts to make the game feel like it's worn out. It's welcome. And like that's kind of where I was by the time I was like.
00:40:55
Speaker
I would say 80% through the game, I was like, okay, I'm ready for this to be done. Because I was like, I don't really care about the story. I've been able to predict the plot twists.
00:41:08
Speaker
while I like the the combo system and things, I was a little like taken aback by the fact that I had to be told about it as opposed to being a little bit more just like a little bit more hinted at. But now that I take a step back and look at it, I'm like, OK, this wasn't a bad game. Like it's not a great game.
00:41:33
Speaker
But it's not a bad game. It was definitely playable. It was it definitely were like more irritating in the moment because we're so used to so many other ones that don't do those irritating things.
Narrative and Character Development
00:41:46
Speaker
So it's one of these things like thinking back, going way back to the like going into 1993 or 1994 when this game came out. There were so few JRPGs and stuff like that for us over on the Western audience.
00:42:00
Speaker
to have been playing or had our hold of because so many so few of them came over here to begin with um that we would have like I think I would have like definitely I see the appreciation people have for this game same look like thinking back to that time period and going okay you could like overlook a lot of those things because one there wasn't a whole lot out there for you for like jr produce and two it was just vastly unique
00:42:27
Speaker
which to stand out back then, kudos to the Phantasy Star team because this game stands out in both visually and the way it presents the story. A lot of like, none of the stuff. Sometimes I feel like JRPGs kind of all piggyback off of each other a little bit, sometimes with the spells. You hear Cure is being used in five different games and yada yada.
00:42:56
Speaker
I'd much rather that universal. Personally, I am just like, just tell me what the spell does. If it's going to be a spell. I mean, if they would have had the highlight feature, like I said, it wouldn't have mattered they renamed everything. But they were trying to make their own universe and make their own thing and stuff to truly be unique. And this game definitely stands out as being unique. So thinking back, I'm like, these tiny little grievances probably wouldn't have bothered me so much back then if I played it.
00:43:21
Speaker
because I wouldn't have had a lot of I wouldn't have had a lot of JRPGs to compare it to even. And and so I feel like I can like push those asides as being like just kind of like weird mechanical things that they were trying to figure figure it out. But I will say echoing KJ, one of the biggest disappointments of this game was the story was just kind of. Yeah.
00:43:49
Speaker
It's like you start off, like it doesn't even thoroughly really explain to you right at the beginning. And they kind of just give you bits and pieces going on, which I mean, that's a lot of JRPGs do that. You can't really knock it for that, but you start off as like two hunters or whatever, investigating something. And it kind of spirals from there that it's just, you keep uncovering more and more and more of this technology that had like kind of crash landed there.
00:44:16
Speaker
and you dealing with androids and robots and all this other stuff. And it like advances the thing. But the the characters were the one character I enjoyed because they were very quirky. They rip away from you very early on. She spoiler tagged it because we have like a chat that we go back and forth and she in Discord, she spoiler tagged it and said, wait until you get to this part.
00:44:42
Speaker
And it was so funny that like, once I got there and she's just like, this is absolute BS. Like, she was just like so mad. I was so upset because like, honestly, it moved me a little bit because like the way the cut scenes are presented and the way, so we're talking a little bit about spoilers here. This happens early on enough in the game, but still. Yeah, it's pretty early into the game.
00:45:09
Speaker
But so she like pushes your like what I really I thought she was the main character and I was like, oh, this is gonna be interesting. Like another day where there's a woman main character that I didn't realize existed. They were definitely like it was I felt like when I looked at the levels, it was obvious what they were doing. And I was like, oh,
00:45:28
Speaker
Oh, see, I didn't really pay attention to that at all. So like, yeah, she was like, pushes her younger, like subordinate out of the way and takes the blast. I was like, okay. And then you go on this whole, like a little quest to like save her. And then she like basically dies in your arms. I was like, I hate this day.
00:45:49
Speaker
but like in a very like I was upset that she had gone she was like my my attack all characters she was like she was spunky and everything and I I had a funny feeling they thought like when she got knocked out I thought she was just gonna be out of the game like I just thought it was gonna be this like you go on without me I didn't think they were gonna kill her off and I was like excuse me please like I was a little I was a little emotional there but like
00:46:16
Speaker
I don't know if maybe the dialogue got lost in translation too. It might have been that as well, that it just felt like a lot of the characters and their responses to things were really bland and kind of all more or less universal, or like they all kind of reacted very similarly. And they tried to make Chaz a little bit more... Also, what kind of fucking name is Chaz?
00:46:42
Speaker
Sorry to whoever's in chat who has the name Chaz, I'm sorry. The game called him out with his name, so I feel like I'm okay to call that out.
00:46:55
Speaker
He they tried to make him a little bit more unique out of the rest of the squad The problem is he ended up going a little bit too much into like I was just yelling at him being like stop being stupid and do the thing you're supposed to do Because he's just like nah, I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want I don't know what I want of like would you make up your back? It's like going going out to eat and you know what? I'm calling myself out a little bit here. It's like going out to eat and being like so what do you want to eat like? Oh
00:47:23
Speaker
No, I don't know what I want and it's like 20 minutes of that and you're just like, oh my god I just pick something pick something pick a direction like like
00:47:34
Speaker
I was yelling at this main character a lot because he's just so indecisive. I know they were trying to make it more unique and build up that suspense of what is this decision going to be? I'm like, of course he's going to save the world. Come on. Yeah, it was rough. That part was definitely rough. I don't know.
00:47:57
Speaker
Yeah, and then they weren't entirely clear on Oh goodness, what was her name the the The pointy eared at first I thought they were trying to lead that she was an Android But apparently she was like Cuban raised by androids. I don't know
00:48:14
Speaker
or species raised by androids. It was kind of unclear in the beginning. I thought she was just being good. And I sassed KJ about this too, because he's just like, they're freaking robots. I'm like, they prefer the term Android, actually. And I was like, sassy KJ, as you say. But then we both realized later on, it's like she wasn't actually, because there was actual androids that joined your party, and they're different. And they even made it very obvious they were different, because you couldn't heal them with normal magic. That was the worst.
00:48:44
Speaker
You could only heal them with special moves they had themselves or items like repair kits and stuff like that. So they made it very obvious when they weren't human, um, or like humanoid, I guess, technically, because I mean, you get a bird guy in your party. So I can't really say human, but like humanoid. Um, so I thought, I thought this character where she's like, I had dual claws and pink hair. And I, I like this character. She was like, Oh, no, no, no.
00:49:12
Speaker
cool designs I liked, but they didn't really kind of like, and it could be lost to translation that they didn't really explain that she wasn't an android, but she was like kind of acting like one. And then at the end of the game, she was kind of acting like one and then didn't, I don't know. It was very like, eh. So I wonder if a lot of like, maybe the story a little bits might've been a little bit lost to translation.
00:49:40
Speaker
A little bit more because you would have got that a little bit more back then because of I mean there was there was a lot of like Translationy issues and stuff like that with the the JRPGs from like PlayStation 1 and back Especially like there's a lot even just in Final Fantasy like four five and six for example
00:50:01
Speaker
Well, four or five, technically. So I don't know. Sorry, but I I don't necessarily know if I think it was like lost in translation so much as I do think that and I think this is a really good point. I think they were just limited with the amount of things they could put into the game because because of the fact that like they they were it was it was on a cartridge, right? Like.
00:50:30
Speaker
I think that that's a very limiting. Yeah, there's that too. And they were already pushing it. One thing I will say, they were already pushing it with the design of the whole game.
00:50:49
Speaker
it had a lot more to it than the average JRPG sprite game back then. A lot of the times you had the little interaction with the little sprites and stuff like that. You didn't have full-on pixelated cutscenes and stuff. So it did give you a lot more of substance and stuff like that there. But I found I was more motivated to beat this game because I wanted to beat it first than I was because of the story pulling me through.
00:51:20
Speaker
But that aside there were so many things to this game that made it unique that made it interesting at least Like like the vehicles and then having a whole vehicle were cool and having a whole separate combat system for the the vehicles too was kind of neat And they looked really cool that you would like get in like, you know You're in first person point of view of your vehicle and like shooting things that it was just like, okay. This is kind of neat
00:51:46
Speaker
And and while they kind of give you the ship in this game, it was a ship going to different planets and like satellites and stuff. And you're like, OK, all right, we don't get an airship in this game. We get a ship. It was I could go. That was another thing I will say that if we would have just had a
00:52:11
Speaker
If we would've just had a menu or like a button for the different vehicles, as opposed to them being embedded in the inventory. An item, yeah. That you couldn't sort. You couldn't, oh yeah, that was another thing. You could not sort your inventory, which was such a pain in the butt when you were looking for something specifically. Also, you could have only very few items in your inventory. I never hit an inventory cap.
00:52:35
Speaker
maybe i just didn't buy enough were you just like hoarding items listen uh listen polly wanted her gun that hit all her gun that hit one her gun that did fire damage
00:52:50
Speaker
I got rid of every weapon. That's why you hit an inventory cap. The inventory cap was not that big of a deal because I had like six, like six pages. You didn't end up needing any of the items, technically, really. I mean, I used healing. I didn't even use them in the boss. I didn't use any items in the boss. I used healing items throughout to like save my MP, basically. Like in dungeons, that's that was how I that was how I did things, but
00:53:20
Speaker
Yeah, no, I definitely just like, I was like, hey, I'm gonna use these cause I, what else am I gonna do?
00:53:32
Speaker
I mean, that's just me and JRPGs. I'm always hoarding all the items. Like, I never wanted to use anything. And I didn't like that each individual vehicle took up an inventory spot either. Because I was like, no, I want you to be like a rare item thing so that I can have those two extra spots. And the funny thing is that like for the like what I realized we were going into endgame, it's very obvious in this game that you're going into endgame, which is great.
00:53:55
Speaker
Um, I was like stocking up on a bunch of like items and stuff because I was like, okay There there there's gonna be a difficulty spike. There has to be and I didn't use a single one But that was the only time I ever like ended up having to sell things and clear off inventory space because I had no more room
00:54:13
Speaker
Um, but, uh, the vehicles being like their own separate thing would have just been handy just for the fact that you didn't have a sort button. So it was like, sometimes if you had a few pages of items, you were like, okay, where's the stupid vehicle? Where's the snow digger? Where is the, the hover?
00:54:30
Speaker
chip thing. Like, well, the good thing was once you got a later vehicle, you were able to like, once you got a later vehicle, you were able to push through like you were able to use like it basically covered everything that you were that the previous one did pretty much other than the ice breaking, I think.
00:54:58
Speaker
But yeah, it got to the point where I was strategically using my items so that, um, strategically using my items so that way, um, all of my vehicles were at the first page. Like I strategically did that because I was like, I just want all the vehicles at the front. Like if I have all the vehicles at the front, I'm happy. Like this, everything will be good. I just need the vehicles at the front.
00:55:29
Speaker
Yeah, and like I kind of like how like the snow one like you could give like plow through little snow snow hills I was like, okay, this is kind of neat and then the next one you get you can like go across water. Mm-hmm Which was kind of cool Like they had this whole like a little side section of the game that you could completely ignore it and void by the way Which I think you did which section
00:55:51
Speaker
It was where you could do side quests, so you do hunter's guild stuff. Oh, I never did any of the guild stuff, no. I did do one extra area. It was actually the best area I found to grind, and I got a bunch of equipment from it, and then you could get the Android healing items. You could get unlimited Android healing items from it.
00:56:18
Speaker
I can't remember the name of it, but it was like a random place that you go to, and then as soon as you go, Ren is like, oh, this is an area that you don't actually have to go to. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the place that I told you was the weapon plant where I'm like, this is a nice little place to level if you needed it. I totally forgot that you had said that, and I just went there, and I was like, oh, this is an optional dungeon? Fuck it. I'm going to explore. And I did, and it was worth it. It was definitely worth it.
00:56:48
Speaker
Yeah, and like the weapons plant is like a good, and it was very obvious it was a side thing because it tells you like Ren walks in and it's like, oh, we don't actually need to go here. Let's continue on to this thing. And I'm like.
00:57:01
Speaker
No, we're going in like I was like no like my my contrary side that comes out very very rarely very much it came out to be like I'm Not gonna do because you told me to because this whole game keeps saying I can't loot I can't look at the ground randomly This game has been like restricting me and then finally it's like we don't need to be here. I'm like, yes, we do. Oh
00:57:25
Speaker
But it was a nice little place because yeah you got like the endless repair kits Which I thought were pretty handy for to revive your androids Because you couldn't heal them normally and so Without like you had to use their own healing spells I guess technically But there was some robots that if you weren't careful they could insta kill your Android
00:57:49
Speaker
which I came across in some areas of certain robots, they would literally, it's to kill your Android. And I was like, I don't think I ever came across this. So those repair kits came in real handy for that.
00:58:04
Speaker
Just for the matter of like maybe you never ran into them or maybe they never got their move off either Um, sometimes they were like really weak enemies that if they got us like like I said There was like five of them in their own if you didn't kill all five that one did a move and an insta guild um, but there was also these like enemies that they combined into a stronger one which was I
00:58:26
Speaker
So I clicked the wrong macro and I had everybody in defense and then they like defense macro. Yeah. So I had a defense macro. I don't know. I thought I would need it. I'm like, I don't know. Other games.
00:58:42
Speaker
you know, welcome defense votes. I had a defense macro that I never used except for accidentally hitting it during this fight. And then these, these little enemies like Voltron, like they totally, they combined it together to make this super OP enemy. I was like, excuse me. And it was like wiping out my party. And I'm like, it's like, what? And I finally kill it. And it gave so much exp that I'm like,
00:59:06
Speaker
I am going to let these little guys Voltron every time. Oh, I do know. I do know what you're talking about. Yes. I remember those. Some of these enemies like combined together like Voltron and I was like, okay. And I was like seriously purposely letting them do it because then you got a stupid amount of exp for it. And I was like leveling up like crazy with those kind of enemies. So, um, but those also enemies every now and then also had like it's to kills for your Android party member. And I'm like,
00:59:36
Speaker
I don't remember it being insta kills for androids like insta kill I just remember insta kill moves being insta kill moves, and I don't remember too many things having them It was a specific electric move that if it hit your Android. They just like
00:59:51
Speaker
and had a chance to like kill them. Yeah, which it made sense in like the the whole mechanics of this game, which they seem to keep like they kept trying to like make things like more or less a little bit more believable. So they would do this like electric move and every now and then it had a chance that if it did hit your guy, like your guy would dodge it. But if it did hit your Android, they would instantly die.
01:00:14
Speaker
Which I was like, oh, interesting. Like they'd had so many like little interesting things like that in battles that I was like, yeah. But I ended up doing the whole hunter's guilt thing because like, otherwise I would have really beaten this game too quick. Cause I was very motivated in this game to do it. That said, would you have been, you would have been very underleveled though if you didn't do those things, right?
01:00:41
Speaker
I would have been about five or six level. No, no, see like the hunter skilled ones, there was only one that I found like help level me a little bit. It was the weapons plant that I found actually helped leveled the hunter skilled things were just like a little extra story a little bits. Like you help the kid that fell down on what
01:00:57
Speaker
Well, not a well, but like fell down the crack and you're like go and save them like the enemies were easy enough Oh, there was one Okay I wanted to talk about one of the because a lot of them were like funny little side questy thingies like I didn't find I really gained much about them I gained money though, and I loved that so that I could buy my really expensive equipment late game That was that was more or less why I did the the hunter guild
01:01:22
Speaker
uh, games. Um, but I think, I think I was pretty over-leveled for most of this game. Yeah. You were legitimately like five to eight levels higher than me. I had characters. So like I beat the game with my highest character at level 42 and I had characters still in the high thirties. And I think you had said you were like mid to late forties. I was 45 for my highest and then the, everybody was above 40.
01:01:51
Speaker
Yeah, so I think I literally, I think I literally was a little bit over level, but I want to talk about one of the side questions because you didn't get, yeah, I love money. Listen, please. This game, I spent most of this game being broke because a lot of like the really OP items and stuff like that were really expensive. And I was having fun like when you're like driving around in the vehicle, I was like killing a bunch of stuff because you would get exp, you just wouldn't get miseda, which is their money currency.
01:02:19
Speaker
I hope I said that right. M-E-S-E-T-A, Meseta? I don't know if that's right or not. But they're currency in the game. But you wouldn't get any if you were in the vehicle killing things. You would only get experience if you were in the vehicle killing things. So I got to a point where I was just like, I kind of want to buy cool equipment stuff.
01:02:41
Speaker
But I can't because I can't afford it. So I would do these little hunter. I would always fly back to the hunter guild periodically through different plot things to see if there was any unlocked. And there was this one side quest that I literally was both very angry and outraged, but that I laughed hysterically the way they set it up.
01:03:01
Speaker
So, and I know, I know KJ didn't do this one at all. So let's, let's, uh, I think cats in chat did this because I think, I think she knows, I think she knows what she's on about the things. So you start off this quest where you're talking to the, like, it says the hundreds like, like, Oh, this guy is having problems with, um, with, uh, birds, uh, eating their crops.
01:03:25
Speaker
uh please go help them deal with the birds and i was like just to fucking birds why okay whatever so you go to this town and you talk to him and he's like and it and i didn't catch this
01:03:38
Speaker
until later on, but he's a little bit hesitant with you, but he's like, oh, oh yeah, the farmers in the fields, we're having issues with our crops because these birds keep coming and eating them all. Can you go to this cave that is west of town and kill these birds for us to stop them from eating our crops? And I'm like,
01:03:58
Speaker
okay cool whatever so your your main character's like yeah sure we got this we're hunters we can do this so you get into the cave and the birds are so cute there are these pudgy little birds of different colors they look like chocobos almost but like not chocobos like obviously they're not copying squariness or anything but like they're like these pudgy little birds and they're really really cute and they come
01:04:25
Speaker
they they they come in like different colors and you're going through it i'm like i was sad i was murdering these birds i'm like why would you kill these birds they're so freaking cute i'd let them eat my soul i don't care they're cute like and they did they had like these little antennas and they they attacked you through like psychic abilities through their little antennas and they were really freaking cute
01:04:47
Speaker
And so you go through this and you get to the end where there was this giant, I swear, I swear, fat chocobo was based off of this. There was this giant bird and he's big and he's pudgy and he's massive. And I'm like, can I keep it? Can I just like, can I just eat this bird and it be my party member instead of rune? Can I just get rid of rune, moody rune? I just keep the bird.
01:05:16
Speaker
Um, I wasn't a room fan. Um, so, so you're, you, you're fighting this bird and I'm like, I'm like freaking out. Cause I don't want to kill these birds. They're really freaking cute. I kept running from battles, but it wouldn't let you run from the last battle because obviously it was a boss battle. And so you're fighting the bird and like you, you beat it. But then the guy who sent you on the mission comes running into the cave and he's like, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold up. Don't, don't kill him. Don't kill the bird. And I was like, no.
01:05:46
Speaker
Excuse me. You sent us here to kill the bird. And so the bird flees and I'm like, oh, phew. I don't actually have to kill the bird. I was actually relieved to be perfectly honest. The bird got away. I was very happy. And, and he's like, no, no, no, don't kill the bird. And they're like, and Chaz just immediately was like, your main character's like, okay, what's going on? Why are you told us to come and kill the birds? I thought they were bugging the crops. And he's like,
01:06:09
Speaker
Actually so funny story about that I swear he's doing this this is this is what he's doing he's like funny story should mention a chance like just spit it out what's going on and he's like I kind of found these birds.
01:06:24
Speaker
and I was raising them and then they got too big so I threw them in this cave and then and then they started eating the crops and I didn't want anybody to kill my baby birds so I figured if I hired hunters and the birds slaughtered the hunters then the townspeople would leave the birds alone and you're like wait he wanted us to die from these birds and Chas is like so outraged oh my goodness he's so
01:06:54
Speaker
That is terrible logic. Also, fun fact. So a couple of people have mentioned that there were these these birds are like with are in the franchise and they're in some of the online games. I played fantasy star universe online. It was like a beta. It was like a weird sort of online, like half MMO beta thing on the 360. I remember the birds you're talking about.
01:07:24
Speaker
Okay, they're stupid cute. Yeah. I'm pretty sure they had like a rare drop. Their feather was a rare drop. Okay. Yeah. Cause I figured they were going to be like a franchise thing. They were really cute, adorable. They were like out of place at this point. So I was like, okay, this must be like, like kind of like the moogles of the chocobos and the, you know, stuff of final fantasy, right? So this is a fantasy sort of thing.
01:07:47
Speaker
And like they had cats at some point too where they like look like kind of like They were cats but they were like alien kind of cats So I was like, this is also probably a fantasy star thing and I thought was really cute But these birds were really cute. Yeah, this guy hires you To get you murdered by birds so the towns people will leave the birds alone So his baby birds don't have to die and I was like, can I murder you?
01:08:11
Speaker
It's like jazz is just like pissed off, sensible way. So you go back to the guild and they're like, um, there's no money here. Didn't, didn't you just say you completed the quest? And we're like, yeah, they're like, well, they didn't pay. I'm going to send like loan people after them to make sure he pays. And we're like, no, no, no, no. It's all, it's all good. And they're like, are you sure? So you don't get paid for this mission because he hires you to die. So you didn't die. So you wasted time, basically.
01:08:42
Speaker
Oh, and that is not the worst side quest. So that would at least had cute, adorable birds. Whereas like, I got to see the fantasy star birds. I'm really invested in these birds. I want to protect them at all costs. I knew them for five seconds and I wanted to burn the whole game down instead of kill the birds. I was like, nah, just blow up the planet. Let the darkness, the darkness. Oh yeah. The trending thing of this game is the darkness is attacking.
01:09:06
Speaker
The darkness, take over the world and blow it all up. As long as the birds survive, I'm fine with that. The other useless one, which I put in blacked out text just in case KJ stumbled across these and decided to want to do any of these guild hunts, was one where it was, I shit you not. The story is that these daughters left from home
01:09:34
Speaker
and their parents can't find them, and you find them in prison because they went on a shopping spree and couldn't pay their bill, and to bail them out is 50,000 miseda, and the reward for completing the quest is 50,000 miseda.
01:09:52
Speaker
But if you get stuck in this quest and you don't have enough money, you can't go and do another quest until you get enough money. And you literally pay to free them to get the money back, basically. That's so dumb. That is infuriating. Luckily, it was the last quest I did. Let's just say it never got completed because I was angry.
01:10:21
Speaker
And I was like, I'm not giving you 50,000% or just to get 50,000% of back. I had like, I had like 45,000 or something like that when I did this quest. And I was so mad. I'm like, I'm not going to grind money to free these. No, you guys could stay in jail. You went on a spending spree. You couldn't pay for it. You had no money. You just stay in jail. I don't care.
01:10:43
Speaker
Like, at least the bird one was humorous because it's like, I was angry, but then I laughed, but the birds were cute. So I was like, all right, but that one was a total waste of time. And I'm like, game. It's not cool. It's not cool.
01:11:00
Speaker
So those are like the highlights of the I think there was eight or ten of them side little questies in total, not including the weapon plant, which you already did. But yeah, some of the other quest that I wasn't even a quest. It was just like a random area that I ended up going into where I got like a weapon. It was like a tusk or something like that.
01:11:32
Speaker
A tusk? Yeah, I'll have to. I should have taken notes. I don't know if I did that. I don't remember a tusk. Yeah, I definitely got like a tusk from. Oh, wait. Yeah, no, no, I do remember that. Yes, yes, yes. Yes. Yes. The dry cats. Yeah. Because I just literally. Yeah. OK. Yeah. I did that dude. I did do that too. Because that equipping that on to Rika, Rika, whatever her name was.
01:12:01
Speaker
Equipping it onto her made her do some crazy damage to a couple of the bosses I didn't even realize so I just left it on her But or or she could like insta kill enemies with it or something I don't remember what it was But yeah, I went to did the little side like cat thing and the cats were really cute too Like the like I said the cats and the birds I feel like are like franchise like they're in like every fantasy star game. Yeah, I have no idea I I have no clue if they are but
01:12:29
Speaker
Yeah, that was that was something I stumbled upon. I was like, Oh, okay, word. Like, that's that's pretty clutch. Like, I can do that. That's no problem. And it wasn't it was like a little bit of fighting. And then I got the I got the weapon. I was like, Oh, cool. I'm happy. I'm happy. This went the way it did. Yeah, but like, I
01:12:50
Speaker
Honestly, that bird quest was like, I mean, the highlight of the game for me. I'm not going to lie. Like, like KJ said, a lot of the plot was predictable and the ending was really predictable. And like the ending was very much of like, like a classic JRPG. So we're going to be spoiling the ending now a little bit, but it was very classic JRPG of like, everybody goes their separate ways. Yeah. Everybody's happy and happily ever after.
01:13:17
Speaker
Basically, yeah, and I mean but I will say the end boss
01:13:24
Speaker
having the different phases, but looking increasingly cooler. Yo, the end boss was dope. Yeah. Like the pixel graphics on that end boss, like the pixel graphics on any of the enemies or anything in the game were great, but they really went went over the hill for the end boss. And I swear it was like,
01:13:48
Speaker
like Sephiroth and Seymour, like birds together. I don't know. It was just like, like, like it was, it was so cool. It was so cool. But that final dungeon. Oh, that hurt my eyes. It was so painful to look at. That was so painful to look at. Like, oh my goodness, that drove me nuts.
01:14:15
Speaker
But the end boss was fucking dope. And I loved the fact that like, I don't know, I like, I would much prefer a, I'd much prefer a boss that has like multiple phases.
01:14:33
Speaker
than like a boss rush of like nine bosses. Like just give me one fight where it transforms in the fight, as opposed to a bunch of consecutive fights. So that I was, or like a party, I was worried this game was gonna be like, oh, party split time, because there's so many characters. I thought it was gonna be like, we're gonna cut the party in half and
01:14:59
Speaker
You're gonna have four characters for this fight and four characters for this fight. I expected that 100%, like two party type system. I was so worried about that. The fact that I could just go in with my main party and just be like, all right, yo, we're gonna run it. Let's do this. I was very happy about that.
01:15:16
Speaker
the little bit at the end there where it set you up with that fifth party member where you had lost you lost the person went back to the town so that you were down a party member again uh so like you had the old guy who was an OP healer he collapsed and was sick so he was out then you got like the spear lady who could hit all and then she leaves so that you're open and then this party member joins in and I was so angry because it was like I didn't think something could be weaker than Han
01:15:45
Speaker
but they gave us something to get character weaker than on. I thought it was hilarious when that party member ended up transforming into a boss. I cheered, because I was like, thank goodness. I knew it was coming. I knew it was fucking coming.
01:16:02
Speaker
There's no way. There's no way that this is another character for this random dungeon that they were just I was like, there's no shot. So I didn't think he would stick like I was hoping he wouldn't stick. I didn't quite think that he would transform into a bad guy. But but I I did. I was hoping he wasn't gonna stick and they were just gonna like troll you a little bit being like, here's your fifth party member. And you're just like, like, okay, this just it's
01:16:28
Speaker
Seemed I let him die and then I didn't revive him. That's how I like he was floating the whole time I was After I got the like after I got the item I saved stated I was like there's no way this dude like this is there's no way I got to the top and there's no real boss fight and I'm just like oh I got the thing so I saved stayed and I was like I'm gonna remove this guy's armor Just in case
01:16:57
Speaker
And then I fought him and I was like, oh, this mother... I walked out and I was like, oh, this motherfucker is ready to fight. And then I was like, okay. And I was able to sell his armor and get free money. It was great. Me, I let him die in the first battle. I let everything just hit him till he was dead. Wow. I put everybody else in defense. I let him die and I was like, you can stay dead. Polly said no new friends, just nope.
01:17:20
Speaker
No, my friend squad is full. I don't have any more room. That's wild. No, I did not want to. I was just so like, no, I was like, nope, this character is not. I took all his equipment off. I let him stay dead and I went through the damage. I didn't need him. Everything was like easy. You were overleveled. I was like, I was happy when they gave me another character. I'm like, word, I got another character. Let's go. Especially I was pissed. Like when they take the old Raja or whatever his name out of your party,
01:17:49
Speaker
Yo, I had the perfect setup. Like he was such a good healer. I was like, oh, we're good. Like the rest of this game is about to. That was also right around the time that I was I found out about the like Shane told me about the combo attacks. So I was like, oh, this is a wrap. I got the combo attacks. I got a healer now. I got like a dedicated healer. Yeah. No way. This dude has like 300 MP like I'm good. And then they came out the party and I was like,
01:18:17
Speaker
And because his intelligence was so high, he healed for more than everybody else did. He healed for so much too. It was so OP and then they took him out and I was like...
01:18:27
Speaker
No, no, no, you're not doing this to me again. If I remember correctly, you also had a skill that allowed you to regain MP. Yes. Okay. So he had. Yeah, he had. I don't remember the name, but like miracle or something like that, where he literally you would do it. Yep.
01:18:48
Speaker
Yeah, all their tech points would be like, not all of them, but some of them would come back and I'm like, he is way too OP. But also I was just like, he was perfect and I loved him and I was so upset. So I was really excited at the end when Seth or whatever his name was revealed to be a bad guy. I was like, okay, that's good. You were dead in my party anyway. And revealed, and then you get to the end thing and they let you pick.
01:19:16
Speaker
And I always got stupid excited. You could pick between the bird guy, um, the, um... I wanted the bird guy to be cooler. I'm not gonna lie. I wish- I wish he had some cool- He was kinda lame. I was- But in the very beginning, I was like... I was- I was so hyped. I had a funny he-be-your-guy. I was like, this is gonna be KJ's guy. And then like halfway through the game, I'm like, oh, he kinda boring. This is not gonna be KJ's guy.
01:19:41
Speaker
He needed, yeah, no. He definitely needed a glow up. So there's him. There was the other blue haired lady that came from the same place room. Khan came back who was like...
01:19:58
Speaker
Okay, who picked on like I need I need to search the internet world and be like which one of y'all picked on out of the Opie lineup of like even like like Raja comes back. So you have the opportunity of Raja you have Android lady who was pretty strong you have like, you know, the blue-haired lady was decent you had you know, I
01:20:21
Speaker
Gris, who was like a little lackluster, but then you had Han. At least they gave him levels. At least they gave him levels. They could have left him at like level eight. He left the party so early and he comes. So what I did was I actually, cause you can swap the characters out. So I actually picked all the characters and like looked at what they had.
01:20:43
Speaker
And I was just like, okay. Oh, I didn't do that. Yeah. So I looked at all. I saved and I was like, Justin, I thought Han was coming in at like level 15. No, no, no. He came in at the same level. Everybody basically came in at the same level. Still, though, it's Han. Yeah. So I started looking and I was like, OK, what's what does everybody have? Like, what can I do? And I was like, this is a no brainer.
01:21:10
Speaker
I was like, this is a no brainer. I'm going to take the heels and we're good. And yeah, it was. Yeah, I didn't even like I was like, no, it was Raja. I love Raja. Maybe it would have made the end boss a little bit harder if I picked on or Gris or something like that. But like Raja was my boy.
01:21:29
Speaker
And I was like, I like your healing skills. Thank you. And so he's who I picked to at the end sequence. But I thought that was kind of neat that they let you pick your fifth party member. I thought that was kind of cool. I agree. I totally agree. And by that point, you had Rika, Chaz, Ren, and Rune for so long that it's like,
01:21:48
Speaker
Like swapping any of them out wouldn't have made any sense at that point. So like just having that fifth party member being a complete choice to you for the end boss was kind of neat. I actually I thought Han was just going to come in at like level 15 and I was like, OK, you're just going to be like Seth to me and just die and stay dead. Polly hates Han. Confirmed. OK, I don't hate Han. Han just could have been better in so many ways. He was doing his best, you know.
01:22:17
Speaker
Well, sometimes your best isn't good enough. Anyway, that it. Yo, y'all heard it here first. Polly is ruthless. Y'all think I am ruthless when it comes to like random characters and not using those characters. Polly just showed her true colors there. Oh, you're not useful in her party.
01:22:38
Speaker
If I could have had a choice to have all my ladies, I would have had all them. I liked Alice. I liked. I liked. Oh, what's her name? The green haired one starts with a D. I'm going to. It's going to be driving me nuts. The I just had all the ladies and like Ren, like you could just get rid of Chas. I'll just keep Ren with my giant. It was so OP.
01:23:04
Speaker
Oh, yeah. So like I hate like I didn't write ruins personality ruins personality kind of clashed a little bit with. Yeah, but he was still OP. He was OP. Yeah. He had some really OP spells. And then I kind of came up with this thing. I don't know if this is a thing, but I decided that he was just going to be my magic user. So I just stuck him with a bunch of shields. No weapon. I just had him do magic the whole time.
01:23:32
Speaker
Yep. I did the same thing. And I did the same thing with Raja only for heals. So like I had him where he would like boost the party's defense or something like that instead of attack or do one of his magic moves as an attack rather than actually and then put a bunch of shields on them because you can equip two shields. And I always thought like at the beginning of the game, I'm like, why would you ever go into battle with two shields at the start? I'm like, what?
01:23:56
Speaker
Why is this the thing to do? I immediately saw it and was like, oh, I need to equip anybody that's not attacking with multiple shields. I immediately recognized that as like, oh, shit, they're giving me the ability to just like buff my mage defenses.
01:24:14
Speaker
Most games don't do that. So it makes you have some kind of a weapon or no weapon at all, but this game literally let you have two shields. So as soon as you get, not the first time, because Rune's really OP when you first get him, and then he leaves, and then he comes back, and then he's not OP anymore because he's not super high level anymore. But when he comes back the second time, I was like,
01:24:36
Speaker
You're just going to be my magic user. That's what you're going to be. And like stuck up with a bunch of shields and just had him doing magic the whole game. And then when we got Raja, I was like, Oh, even better. I'm like, you were just going to be a magic user too. And stuck up with a bunch of shields. And I'm like, now I see why this mechanic makes sense. Yeah. Um, but like, like little things like that now that I'm talking about it with you, it's like, it set this game apart from a lot of JRPGs for me. This game is definitely unique. I totally agree there.
01:25:06
Speaker
Like I don't know if that was like something they planned to do in the game or if it was just something where they had forgotten you could accidentally click two shields, but it certainly made Rune less squishy. Rune and Raja were less squishy with the double shields. They were at least like similar defense as the rest of your party. So I was like, okay, I'm just gonna keep this.
01:25:29
Speaker
strategy up for the whole game. And I'm like, it's great that you actually did the same thing. Because I was like, No, I saw it. And I had to I was just like, especially because early on, like,
01:25:42
Speaker
The characters were just like, especially I did that with, I think I did it with Han too at first. Cause he was kind of useless. Oh, that would have been smart. I never actually, yeah, I never, oh, he might've been like, cause he died a lot right at the start of the game for me kind of thing. It's so funny. The character that died the most for me was Chaz.
01:26:01
Speaker
Oh, no. Yeah, he was he was like lower level than the main like like the leader all the time. No, he wasn't. Oh, oh, he was. I ran with my and that that was the thing. Once I realized that, like, OK, Chaz is dying a ton. I made Ren the leader because I was like, well, at least he'll stay alive. Yeah. And so I made Ren the leader. Chaz died.
01:26:26
Speaker
And it was probably a domino effect, right? Like, it probably was a lot of cause and effect. Like, Chaz died in a few different boss fights. Like, the boss fight where you have to use the one that you got stuck at, you said. The one that you had to use the rod or whatever to break down the shield. Oh, yeah, yeah, because I didn't realize he had to do that. Yeah, so that fight, Chaz died. And that was like 70,000 experience that he didn't have.
01:26:55
Speaker
Yeah. So eventually the levels are leveled for like the rest of the game for you, basically. From that point on. Yeah, the cycle. Yep, yep, yep, exactly. Yeah, the cycle one. After that, I was like, oh, OK. I like I guess I'm just winging it. And yeah, that was a thing.
01:27:18
Speaker
Yeah, I had one of these things where I didn't realize when I was in that fight against Zio, I thought they were going to do it automatically. I didn't realize I had to go into my inventory and use it. So I spent part of that. I'm like, everybody just keeps getting, dying quickly. I spent most of it just reviving and then I was looking through items and I saw it there and I was like,
01:27:43
Speaker
Oh, what are the chances I supposed to use this stupid thing? I realized I realized that I had to use it as soon as I went to equip it.
01:27:57
Speaker
And it was significantly worse than all of the rest of my stuff. And I was like, oh, this is definitely used. I was like, this is like a huge or like a throw item. Like a hard boss. Like, I just thought he he was just going to be a really hard boss. And I'm like, OK, I'm doing like little damage. Maybe he's just like, it's going to be one of them. We're hitting for one.
01:28:16
Speaker
Yeah, I was doing like no damage and I'm like, okay, well, maybe in my brain, I'm like, okay, well, maybe it just lowered his health. So I was like, rather than having like five, maybe he only had like a hundred HP. So, you know, one damage each. I mean, eventually I'll get to a hundred and he'll die. And then when people just kept wiping, I'm like, no, I'm doing something wrong. And then when I saw it at the inventory and I was like, Oh, I'm probably supposed to use this. So I used it. And then I started doing damage and I was like, Oh, okay.
01:28:43
Speaker
I feel dumb. And it gave me golden to Trident vibes. Yeah. Which I okay. The funny thing is, is cause you rushed into the stream being like, did you equip the thing? And I'm like, Oh yeah, I equipped this thing. And you're like, Oh, I just did it. I was like, okay. I just did it in my gold. You just would have done that for this. But that gameplay mechanic taught me that there was a couple items in the games where they did magic.
01:29:13
Speaker
Oh, I didn't know that. The only one I figured out was the Thunderclaw. So if you left the Thunderclaw in your inventory, because I had bought, I actually accidentally bought three. I thought I only bought two, but I bought three by accident. And so I had like three Thunderclaws and then I equipped the two on Eureka and then I had it just in the inventory. I'm like, wait, why does it say I can use this in the inventory? And I used it and it did like an electric spell and I was like,
01:29:42
Speaker
Okay, well now Rune's going to do this instead of using it. That's funny because I totally. But he's the only one I figured it out. I don't know if there's more. It's oh my goodness. That's so funny because you say that.
01:29:59
Speaker
I did not use items that weren't healing items, like I said earlier, like anything that wasn't a healing item. So I used healing items and I used items to teleport. If it wasn't those two things, I sold it or equipped it as soon as I got it. Oh, OK. If it wasn't something that was better than the equipment I had, I sold it.
01:30:19
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. So like I, I did do like a lot of like selling and stuff like that. But like I said, I had accidentally had like three thunderclaws. No, that makes sense. I didn't, I didn't realize I had bought too many and then I saw it in the inventory and I was like, what, why can I use this? And I just like, what, whatever. Maybe I pictured it would just be rude chucking a claw at an enemy. And I thought it'd be funny. I was like, okay, maybe there's this like throw command I didn't know existed. And no, it did like a lightning spell and it stayed in my inventory. And I was like,
01:30:46
Speaker
that's pretty cool oh okay so I realized that partway through a dungeon so that I could like save ruins magic so that I can use it against the end boss because it often didn't give you a way to heal your tech points before boss or anything so I just got him using that as a macro where he would just
01:31:05
Speaker
So I don't have to go through and click go through the pages of items and click on it again. I just set up up as a macro. That makes sense. And then that was his attack for for a portion. I probably should have set up macro like I probably should have set up macros for like healing and stuff, but I was worried that it wasn't going to be. I was worried the healing wasn't going to heal the person that I wanted it to heal. So I was like, yeah, whatever.
01:31:35
Speaker
But yeah, no, I definitely, I think that the item system was
01:31:40
Speaker
Well, it's not the worst inventory. It is not the worst, no. Yeah, it's definitely not sweet code in one levels of bad inventory. Oh no, don't tell me that. Y'all are making me try to play that. That's literally the only thing that's bad about sweet code in one, is the inventory system. The inventory system is very, it's worse than Lunar. And Lunar's inventory isn't great either.
01:32:09
Speaker
Yeah, Suikoden 1's inventory system is pretty bad. You can lose key items in Suikoden 1 inventory. Yeah, it's bad. It is not great. Give me that. If I have to play this game up, please give me this one. No, no, no, no. I'll make sure that you don't have to lose any. You'll be fine.
01:32:28
Speaker
I would cry. I was so scared of this game too. I'm like, can you sell the Psycho Wand by accident? I'm like, do I still need the Psycho Wand? But it wouldn't let you sell it. So I was like, okay. I like games where it's like a key item. They don't let you sell it. Or in Golden Sun's case where you could sell it and get it back. Yeah.
01:32:52
Speaker
Like you could sell a lot of like their key items and get them back. Some of them you couldn't, but some of them you could and just go back to an artifact place and you can buy it back or whatever. So that was, that's kind of nice and golden stuff that they did that. But, uh, but yeah, so this game like wouldn't let you actually sell anything that was important. So I was like, okay, okay. All right. I won't end up like accidentally selling something. I need to get it. I definitely tried to sell the first vehicle. And it was like, you can't sell, you can't sell this. I was like, damn.
01:33:21
Speaker
Oh yeah, cause you didn't need it anymore at a certain point. I didn't even think to try to sell that. That's hilarious. I was like, maybe this is like, cause you had sent me a screenshot of like how you had so much money. And I was like, maybe this is how she got so much money. And I tried to sell it and I was like, nope, she just went ham.
01:33:38
Speaker
it was all the like little hunter guild quests and stuff like that giving me a ton of money because like the last one you do I think the last one was the one with the birds actually and it gives you a hundred thousand no not the one with the birds because you don't get anything for the birds there was one where you got like a hundred oh you have to go through another
01:33:59
Speaker
you get a little bit of story with it. And it's basically one of the backup system, like mainframe, like so they made like you have the mainframe that Ren like connects into, right? And then you they made a backup system just in case that one failed. And your quest is to go and stop that because it's
01:34:18
Speaker
gonna call it it's trying to kill everybody um and it's because the backup system like was corrupted and whatever so you basically like have ren and rica being like we're so sorry we have to like shut you down and like the computer's like no don't shut me down i'm here to save people blah blah blah but it's like killing everything um but you get like a hundred thousand meseta for that one wow um but i was i like that it gave you a little bit of like
01:34:43
Speaker
more like plopped in of the like that technology and stuff like that. And you got a little bit more dialogue between Rika and Ren and stuff like that. So that was kind of nice. Okay. That's pretty dope. Yeah. And it was like a really good place like Kalandra saying in chat, it was a really good place to grind to like you, you, you, you know, those things I told you about that, like combined. Yeah. You, you fought those normally, but like, oh, oh damn.
01:35:13
Speaker
Okay, so you got like how you were so high level I had so much money by the end of the game where I'm like I'm rich I was very rich by the end of the game
01:35:29
Speaker
And I was like also like full on inventory of like the highest like res and healing items.
Potential for Remake and Improvements
01:35:35
Speaker
I had those, but I didn't have I didn't have money by the end. I made it too easy. Honestly, like with him being able to heal your MP, I was like in him being able to heal and resurrect and it was still a grind. Like the final boss was not.
01:35:49
Speaker
easy for me, but it wasn't super difficult. Um, it was, it was what I expected from a final boss fight, right? Like it was just, we, we just, I liked it, but I think I, I think I was a little overleveled for the boss. I think you were. I found it a little too easy.
01:36:08
Speaker
But that's my problem sometimes with JRPGs. I get too overleveled for the embossed. It happened in a lot of my RPG playthroughs like Final Fantasy 7. I was way too overleveled with Sephiroth. I didn't even use Knights of the Round against him. I was just way too overleveled for Sephiroth. There's a few of them where I just ended up too overleveled and I'm like, okay. And I think that's what happened this time around is I just got too OP. But, you know,
01:36:39
Speaker
I was there anything else in the game I wanted to mention? I there's nothing else that I wanted to mention. I wanted to ask you a question. Oh, yeah. Would you do it again? I told you I was going to ask you this question. I even asked you before we started recording. Yeah, you did warn me about this question. Um.
01:37:04
Speaker
I'm glad that I played it in a way because there was so much about it that was different and it kind of opened my eyes to certain mechanical things that could be adjustments for other JRPG games that I feel like they should look at Phantasy Star IV and take a
01:37:20
Speaker
The macro system, I think is the macro system is great. Even just the pixel cutscenes. If you're going to do like pixel animated stuff, like think how cool it would be if you had like pixel cutscenes and stuff like that, too. Like I think that I think that was just really cool. And I like that because it was like a sci fi and fantasy blend, they did a really good job blending that where I find like it's either one way or the other. It's like to sci fi or it's
01:37:47
Speaker
two fantasy, but they did a really good job blending the two of them together. I would do it again just for the experience of saying I played this game because it was unique. But there was aspects of the game that I definitely, I might maybe necessarily not have beaten it if it wasn't a podcast game because I wasn't super invested in the story. Yeah, I probably wouldn't have been if it wasn't a podcast game either.
01:38:14
Speaker
For me, I have to be really invested in this story to want to really get to the end and beat an RPG game. And if I'm really not enjoying the story or if I'm not super into it, I feel less inclined to do that. And especially how I played this game and how easy things became because I was a little bit too OP, I probably would have stopped. Really? Interesting. I probably would have gotten to the end or something like that and just got distracted with another game and moved on.
01:38:45
Speaker
which has happened before. Even though it was such a breeze, that's the surprising part. I could understand if you were playing it. I still had a lot of little frustrating things. I did have to rewind a couple times because I got party wiped one time for a stupid technicalality, which was really frustrating, so I'm glad I had to rewind for that.
01:39:08
Speaker
Um, I didn't ever like save state or anything. Like I saved where I needed to do. I didn't fast forward a bunch. Cause I was just like, like the save state was just my save. I think about halfway through the game is when I became a little OP. So I did struggle for the first bit. So I probably would have gotten to be about halfway through the game. Maybe I might've not a push through it just because like, I would have like, Oh, I've absorbed all the uniqueness of this. I don't, I'm not really invested in the characters of the story. So I'll just move on.
01:39:38
Speaker
from it. But because it's a podcast game like I really wanted to beat it to to go over the entirety of the experience. But like I know keep saying to me like that's also reviewed itself being like not beating it is also like hey I wasn't like wouldn't have been super motivated to beat this game.
01:39:57
Speaker
Um, and, uh, yeah, it's just, yeah, I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have beaten it if we did make this podcast. And I know you echoed that because I knew, I knew you were really pushing to get through it. And you were getting like, so you were, you were to a point where you're like, Oh, and then I kept trying to reassure you being like, you're almost there. You're almost there. You're so close. And then you like, just pushed through that one day and beat it.
01:40:24
Speaker
I think the biggest thing for me is like so I mean, to answer my own question, like I typically don't replay games anyway, but like I definitely I would see myself replaying this if there was a remake. Because I'd love to see this. Yeah, I'd love to see this in a like in a light that really can or in a form that can really like
01:40:50
Speaker
get rid of the quality of life issues, because I do think there are a lot of quality of life issues in this game. And I think they would have made the story a little bit too, because like, you can see it between like, older JRPGs with like between I know you haven't played these two, but between Breath of Fire one and two.
01:41:07
Speaker
There's such a quality of life upgrade between the two and you're more invested in the story and characters and two as opposed to one So I feel like yeah, even if they like Like if they remastered or remade this game, I totally agree like they'd fix a lot of little quality of life things but I also think they would have made the The like the adjusted the dialogue a little bit to be a little bit more like pulling you into those characters maybe really interesting because I actually
01:41:35
Speaker
I actually kind of liked the characters outside of Chaz. I didn't like Chaz, but I felt like I felt like they did a pretty good job of making the characters. I liked Rika. I like that she was kind of like, you know, eyes wide, like, oh, this is the world and like never been outside her little electronic area before.
01:41:59
Speaker
I think the characters had good personality. I didn't like the only ones I didn't like was Chaz Han and I'm not. Rune was a trope in anime and video games and he's just that personality trope. I'm not it. I'm not like super.
01:42:17
Speaker
100% like sold on uh like at times or whatever i'm like okay yeah sure but like he just seemed to needlessly conflict with chas like it didn't even feel like you know like sometimes you get that trope with like the the character just like trying to push the main character like to be everything they had like he just like he just picked on chas a lot and then it was just like there's like no reason for it and then he was like oh but there's a reason and then
01:42:44
Speaker
Okay, so the thing is, usually, I don't like those kinds of characters, but because of the plot twist, which was kind of obvious at a certain point, because of the plot twist surrounding Rune, I was like, oh, there is at least a reason why he's doing what he's doing, because it's almost like,
01:43:11
Speaker
feeling him out and like trying to sort of like push him by being so combative and being like attacking him and things like that. So yeah, I personally like I like all the women.
01:43:26
Speaker
All the female characters, all the lady characters in this game were like, I like them all. I liked Alice, I loved her sacrificing herself. The fact that they killed, oh, it still bothers me. Tell Chaz or Han, please. See, you agree. If you just kiss those two characters, if you take Chaz and Han out of the party and then give this a story with more depth,
01:43:52
Speaker
Yes. Oh, you have a problem and get rid of and get rid of the quality of life issues. You have a fucking like top tier RPG, especially with Alice as the main character, because you get that strong woman lead and like she's quirky. She's fun. Like you have like this weird like she's, you know, giving googly eyes a little bit to ruin. You go, you got that love relationship going on. Did you talk to the there was a
01:44:23
Speaker
Oh, my goodness. There was a town where like you walk in and like everyone is like in love with her and like praising her. I was like, holy shit. Like, oh, yeah, I remember that. It was so weird. I was like, I was like, what is happening? It was so weird. And then like the one like guy like like runs away. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's love.
01:44:46
Speaker
See, like you're 100% right. What if we just take Chaz and Han and trade them for Alice and then we've got the perfect team. You got Alice, you got Ren, you got Rune, you got Rika and you got Raja. There we go. We're good. Perfect team.
01:45:04
Speaker
Like, like, come on, like, we just get rid of Chaz and Han. We don't need them. And, and I mean, Seth too. Well, Seth ended up not being a party member anyway. Um, but yeah, you get really, honestly, yeah, I, I, I think you're right. I think my thing with the character development was literally just, I was just not into the main character at all.
01:45:26
Speaker
Didn't like Han. Grizz, I think, or Grice, or whatever his name is. I feel like they kind of did him a dirty. They kind of pulled an armorant with him. Like, I feel like Amorant, where I feel like if he would have just gotten a little bit more, he would have been a favorite for me. Or maybe like a Frey or whatever, how everyone explained it in Final Fantasy IX. There's a few characters in Final Fantasy IX where they kind of just like, eh, you're done.
01:45:52
Speaker
You mean all of them that aren't a select few? Yeah, that's fair. But I feel like Charisma would have been a little bit more engaging.
01:46:05
Speaker
I mean, the blue haired lady, I mean, she was, I don't even remember her name. I feel really bad because I was like, she was kind of in and out of your party so quickly that I was just like, you, you like save her from the, from the tree overgrown tree plant things. And I was like, okay, this is interesting. And I thought they were kind of setting up maybe a Chas in her sort of scenario. And then she's just like pieces out of your party. I'm like, okay, bye.
01:46:32
Speaker
I was like alright bye I guess so like I didn't get enough I guess my gripe with hers I didn't get like too much of her um and I was just kind of like okay and then apparently it was Chaz and Rika all along I'm like what the hell where did this happen
01:46:48
Speaker
I played this game from start to finish. Where was the jazz? There was like, there was one moment where jazz was feeling bad. It was on the rooftop where he's like feeling bad. And she's just like there. And she's like, yep. And then she starts crying. And he's like, oh, Rika. And I'm like, why is she crying? Like, excuse me? Looks like it's his like person who died. Excuse me, lady. But like, yeah, they hinted at it a little bit there. But at the same time, I'm just kind of like, OK.
01:47:18
Speaker
OK, sure. Why not? OK. Where where is this game fall? What is let me let me hear. Let me get some. Let me get some rankings. Let me get some ratings for it. So so we're doing ratings. Yeah, you don't want to go first. Nope. I'm going to let you go first. You sure? I'm positive.
01:47:39
Speaker
Damn it. I forgot. Because I want a definitive answer from you. So, shit. That way, when I give my definitive answer, you can't just be like, Oh, yeah, well, I'm in between this and this, like,
01:47:57
Speaker
Okay. Okay. Calling me out. Mr. Mr. Oh, okay. Um, this one's tricky for me to rate because like, I would say uniqueness and a lot of stuff. It's like, ah, seven or eight out of 10, but the glitches and the story not being super pulling through and the fact that I wouldn't beat the game pulls it way back down. So it's, it's tough for me. Um,
01:48:25
Speaker
I think it's pretty well a similar Oh, I'm gonna I feel really bad because like there's just now that I'm like like look like there's a lot of little bits of this game that are really really good and Like I hate to be like this is a lower score game for me But it's just because a lot of the quality of life upgrades do kind of stack and again, I was very truthful I would not have beaten this game had it not have been a podcast. I probably would have put it put it down and Played something else
01:48:54
Speaker
Um, and so, um, Oh, this one's hard to rate. Cause like,
01:49:05
Speaker
I think it would have gotten the same rating if I would have played Koudelka and never knew it connected to Shadow Hearts. Koudelka was another game where it was like there was a lot of uniqueness to this game, but a lot of my pull for it is because it ties into Shadow Hearts and Shadow Hearts wouldn't exist without it. Whereas Phantasy Star IV is a similar kind of lower
01:49:31
Speaker
Yeah, because I think, and this was said, this is a standalone game, but there's references and things if you play the other ones, so I can understand that. And I was kind of lying with KJ too about the music. I feel real bad saying this, but the OST didn't really do anything for me. There was a couple tracks that I was like, okay, there was a feature of the game that I thought was really interesting that you could listen to the whole soundtrack at the title screen.
01:49:59
Speaker
I thought that was really cool. I don't know if I hit that, like stumbled across that on accident or if you noticed that, but at the title stream for the game, you could actually listen to the soundtrack, like the whole soundtrack, each individual track, which I'm like, I wish more games would do that.
01:50:16
Speaker
And like give you the name of the track too so that like if you're like looking it up or stuff like that You know the specific track that you like but I wasn't like super engaged with the music either like this is like oh, this is painful because I'm like, this is like a Five and a half
01:50:34
Speaker
Maybe no, I don't even I can't even like give it a six. I don't think because it's just Maybe a six I mean That's my that's my answer definitively definitively, I would say six because the quality like for me quality of life is really important and Fix the quality of life things. I think this game is like an eight. I
01:51:01
Speaker
You know what? I can agree with that. So that's why I'm hesitating, right? Like five and a half, six for me because you're right. Cause it's like it, the quality of life stuff brings it down. The story kind of be boring also doesn't get me hooked into it. And there's, but there's so much of this game that are like, like fun, quirky things that I'm like, yeah, I think if they would fix a lot of like the little glitches that we said, a lot of the problems and stuff with it. Um, and maybe
01:51:30
Speaker
fix up the story just a little bit. I liked all the women characters and I did really like Ren. I thought he was kind of cool. He had a bazooka that was just enjoyable. Oh, for real though. He had a freaking bazooka. Come on. I love the art style and I loved all those things. There's so much about it for me.
01:51:52
Speaker
But like yeah, I think it would be a higher rating like a like an eight eight and a half or something like that somewhere higher if if if it got a remaster where it fixed all those things and maybe gave me a little bit more
01:52:07
Speaker
a little bit more of a story. Give me a little bit more on the characters. Give me maybe even some side bitsies to give me more on the characters. I don't know. Give me a flashback of Rune back in the day, or his ancestor or something. I don't know. Just give me a little bit more there, and I think all the uniqueness, I would have been starstruck.
JRPG Historical Comparisons
01:52:31
Speaker
There was just so many things that I liked, but unfortunately, it was like,
01:52:36
Speaker
It was a game where I was just like, ugh. When a game isn't enticing enough for me to beat it on its own, that's a low score for me. That's like a five, a six, at most, at that point. Because I'm like, I want to be pulled to beat this game, or at least pulled to get to the end.
01:52:59
Speaker
And see, it's really funny because I think my, and so I'll give a little bit of background on, because I think I am a tough critic when it comes to games, right? Like it's funny because I have some conversations with some people that are like, every time I come into your stream, you're playing a new game and you're like, yo, I love this game. Like this game is so good, blah, blah, blah. And it's funny because like I said, I think I am a tough critic because for me,
01:53:24
Speaker
I think there are games and this is, and these are games I did not grow up with, right? Like I did not play, I played Final Fantasy VI for the first time in 2021. Like I played Chrono Trigger still like almost 15 years after it came out, right? Probably longer than that actually. Yeah, closer to 20 years after it came out.
01:53:48
Speaker
Um, but those games held up very, very well. And so for me, when I look at any game, like I'm looking for, like it holding up and standing the test of time does matter to me. And I think that that's what kind of makes it a, like it makes it a, it's kind of like, I, I realize I acknowledge I can be a tough critic, um, when it comes to that. So like.
01:54:17
Speaker
that's the that's the kind of that's the kind of hard part and don't get me wrong like i understand and yeah this this was mentioned this was mentioned in chat too cats said it in chat like comparing things to chrono trigger isn't necessarily fair um let's compare it to a game that came out around the same time so this is where i don't like it did come out like
01:54:37
Speaker
Literally the next year, yes. But let's just say Chrono Trigger had like a crap-tub of funding. It was square, whatever. I mean, Chrono Trigger did have... It had a bunch of money thrown at it. I was going to say, it did have like a big all hands on deck effort. Let's compare it to a game where it didn't have a whole lot of funding to it. Breath of Fire. This is equal to me to the Breath of Fire game. So like, Breath of Fire had a lot of unique stuff about it and having a character who could transform into dragons and
01:55:05
Speaker
Like it was unique for its time period. But the first Breath of Fire game has a lot of quality of life issues and a lot of backtracking in it that makes it really hard for me to even recommend people go out and play it unless you're like really big in the Breath of Fire series and you want to see its origins. Breath of Fire 2 though, coming out shortly after it, had a lot of quality of life upgrades that makes it a way more enjoyable game and experience.
01:55:32
Speaker
and for like for like fantasy star four like it's like i'm i'm literally comparing it to games that it came out around the same time like final fantasy four came out two years before this game like again yes it is square they probably got a bunch of money but final fantasy four
01:55:49
Speaker
even playing the og4 doesn't have a lot of these quality of life issues um and still holds up a test of time how to engaging enough story that you're impactful with again depends on the person saying some people didn't like for um but for me with this one it's like
01:56:08
Speaker
I want to be fair to it that I look back on it for its time period and while Yes, I probably would have really liked it if I played it way back then with having very little other jrbgs But comparatively looking at at it with breath of fire I think is a better comparison because breath of fire had a lot of quality of life a lot of back Oh my god, that game is just a backtracking nightmare and like and so
01:56:38
Speaker
But Brother Fire 2, it's like they took everything and they expanded for it. So for me with this game, I think a remaster would have really helped it. Oh, definitely. And if this game got remastered, or it's also not enough of a thing to be like, I don't want to try any of the Phantasy Star games. No, this actually intrigues me enough that I'm like, I want to actually
01:57:02
Speaker
I do want to actually see where they went from here. What were the next games? Where did they go? And now thinking about it with online, I didn't play it a whole. I played some of it. But I'm intrigued of maybe I want to go explore that. So it was enough that, same with the Breath of Fire series, the first game was still
01:57:23
Speaker
like unique enough for me that i'm like i still want to play breath of fire games so i moved on to two and three and four and yada yada uh where it just feels like it just keeps getting better and then three and four i feel like are on par with each other as being really really good jrpgs that stand the test of time like like they 20 years from now will still be like oh yeah that looks good like and fantasy star is also something where i feel like 20 years from now i'd still look at it go like yeah
01:57:53
Speaker
Like, this is unique. It just needs a few little things to push it back up for me. I agree. I think, like I said, I look at
01:58:12
Speaker
I look at everything and there are some games that came out after some other games and I'm like, wow, this game is garbage in comparison to games that came out way earlier than it. Because some games do just hold up really well. And I think, yes, I do think it's fair to say
01:58:37
Speaker
Phantasy Star 4 was a game that really, it had, it had a, like it had improvements on the previous games. And I think if you look at some of like, honestly, and Toffee makes a great point, like,
01:59:04
Speaker
the development of Phantasy Star IV, I think personally would make the earlier games feel like I couldn't play them. Like I probably won't go back and play them. Like for me, when we picked this game, I was like, okay, if I love this game,
01:59:20
Speaker
then I'll go back and give the other games a shot because like, yeah, they'll have I'll deal with the fact that they won't be necessarily as polished. But like, if I love this game, I'll go for it. But but with the quality of life already still being kind of like issues and for it doesn't actually make me want to go back and play one or two or three personally.
01:59:42
Speaker
And it's kind of the same with Breath of Fire like that's why I always recommend people start with two and go from there or like honestly even then like I'm like go with three or four like you don't have to play them in order which is great but like I often tell people to skip one um and like I think that might be why we were recommending I love the fucking game stuff
02:00:02
Speaker
Um, I, I think that's why we were recommended to play four because maybe the quality of life issues were an improvement on four as opposed to maybe one, two, and three, but that already makes me go, well, then I don't think I really want to go back and play one, two, three, unfortunately. But at least with this being so unique and an interesting like universe, it makes me intrigued enough to go forward. At least.
02:00:28
Speaker
in my opinion with this, rather than necessarily backwards. And some franchises just do that. Sometimes it feels like you'd rather go forward than backwards. With Breath of Fire, that's kind of how I feel, except for the most recent one. We just pretend that doesn't exist.
02:00:47
Speaker
So some some franchise like you feel like okay like this just brings you forward sometimes it's like oh this was really good I want to see where where its origins come from and maybe the quality of life drops a bit but it's still that unique world that you're like okay.
02:01:02
Speaker
Like I'm, I'm captivated by this enough of it. And that's where I say like, that's when you go back to breath of fire one. If you're like, if you really love two, three, and four, just seeing where it started is just interesting for your brain to be like, okay, this is how they started that this is where they got to. Really? Like, like even with like the enemy types and stuff like that throughout the game. So like that's, that's when I'll recommend one, but I can't, I can't like people like, should I start with one?
02:01:33
Speaker
You can't say that. I did ask you if I should play Breath of Fire 1 and you said watch somebody play it or just don't play it.
02:01:42
Speaker
Yeah, and I always feel like Breath of Fire 2 is like the remaster of one. I mean, I know this sounds silly, but it's like everything I wanted one to do, two did, and just built upon that universe to make it a little bit better for me. So like, if like, there's a lot of like, they even, they tactically even connect like timeline wise-ish. Interesting.
02:02:07
Speaker
Um, so one is one is referenced in two ish um and two takes place a lot Later in the future to one but like so they it's kind of like the remaster of one already so that's why I often just kind of tell people to avoid one because i'm like you play too and
02:02:27
Speaker
play to it, you're fine. It still has a couple little things here and there where I was just like, these didn't age well. But for the overall majority of it, yeah, that was my comparison with it. And like one, two, three kind of thing. And then four kind of went on there out there. But four is also the most unique of the breath. Well, not the most. People argue Dragon Quarter is, but I just ignore it.
02:02:54
Speaker
Four visually, if you're just talking about the four numbered ones, visually is the more unique one out of the four of them. But doesn't connect technically-ish. But they're games you can play all on their own.
02:03:10
Speaker
But yeah, so fantasy star four for me like this if this is Better than one two, three, which I'm assuming it is quality of life correctly like for those. Yeah, that's what everybody said Everybody everybody said for us to start at four or everybody
02:03:27
Speaker
It makes me want to go forward because of you. Yeah, like I'm intrigued by this. Where it goes from here, kind of. But there's not really anything to go forward to like after this for I'm pretty sure after this, they went to online games. Oh, so online was literally the next. Oh, see, I thought there might have been something else in between. Now you got you got like online. They went from like Genesis to PS2. Like what? I think they went Genesis to Dreamcast.
02:03:56
Speaker
Oh, sorry. Yes. No, that makes way more so. Which makes sense. No, no, no. I was like, because I think I played Phantasy Star Online on the PS2 or the GameCube, but you're right. It was on the Dreamcast. I just never got it for the Dreamcast. Or did I play it? Maybe I played it on the Dreamcast. It went Dreamcast to GameCube, if I remember correctly.
02:04:15
Speaker
I think I played it on Dreamcast now that I'm thinking about it, which makes sense going from Genesis to Dreamcast. For something in my brain, I'm thinking of like a whole other console generation. So I'm like, did they just forget about the fantasy star world and just not doing anything for a console? I think in terms of like the turn-based RPGs, they died off, but... They did. So four is like the last one then, like in the...
02:04:41
Speaker
turn-based RPGs and then they went on the online. Oh, that's, you know, that's kind of, that kind of bums me out a little bit, actually. Cause like, this is, this is enough intriguing that I'm like, I had a C star five.
02:04:58
Speaker
Oh, that kind of bums me out. I didn't know that. See, like, like I said, I don't want to go backwards. And I might not have beaten this if I didn't have the podcast, but it's an intriguing world enough of it is I'm like, it's got enough there that it could be like a whole like,
02:05:15
Speaker
15 game Final Fantasy universe, you know what I mean? So that's what I thought was was this universe, but it's it's really not So they do online and then what else is there? I'm so ignorant in this world I'm pretty sure it's just the online games like they made a bunch they made a few different online games They made a few different online games and then that was it. Huh? That's kind of a bummer
02:05:40
Speaker
Maybe other people back in the day couldn't get through the quality of life issues, no. No. People love this game. Yeah, I think that's kind of... It's also really funny, and I think there's gonna be some people in chat that... I mean, I think some people are gonna agree, some people are gonna disagree, but like...
02:06:01
Speaker
I look at these games and then I look at something. And yes, there are different types of RPGs, but I look at these games and then I look at the Shining Force games. And that's kind of my comparison of do these hold up? How do these feel?
02:06:20
Speaker
Oh yeah, because you really love Shining Force, and I like watching you play it. A lot of people said to me like, Fantasy Star 4 is like the best RPG on the Genesis, but like, Shining Force 2 is like, it holds up, it holds up a lot better in my opinion. And I think, I think Shining Force 2, I know this is a podcast episode about Fantasy Star.
02:06:44
Speaker
We're talking about, I knew there was going to be some Shining Force in here. But here is my push, like everybody play Shining Force 2, because that game is fantastic. OK. But I also agree that like, and this was brought up in chat by Katz, like there's a level of. There's that line and either you've crossed it and you've you play both turn based RPGs and
02:07:14
Speaker
You play turn-based RPGs and like strategy type RPGs, or you don't. Like you either play one or the other. And it's very common that like people will not cross over between the barriers.
02:07:29
Speaker
I played that one bad Fire Emblem game, which everybody, like you keep telling me, like you literally played the worst one. And I'm like, okay, that's great. Because I play Fates. And then I never really touched tactics games ever again, because I just kept comparing it to being bored in that game.
02:07:46
Speaker
And so we play Tactics Ogre Reborn and it was like this whole world like opened up and I was like, wow, this is beautiful. I love this. I want to play more tactics games. So with Shining Force, yeah, it's like I could see it being argued that Phantasy Star IV is the best JRPG for the Genesis because Shining Force is a strategy RPG. So it is, like you said, a different crowd of people.
02:08:13
Speaker
But at the same time, it's also got me more excited now that I've played tactics game and really enjoyed it. I'm like, I kind of want to almost play the Shining Force 2 game just because I want to see it in comparison to this and then make a judgment of which RPG, whether turn-based or tragedy, is better.
02:08:36
Speaker
I don't know if there's any other, I can't think of JRPGs that were on the Genesis to be perfectly honest. And so maybe saying like it is the best RPG for the Genesis, if there isn't a whole lot of RPGs on the Genesis, I mean, that's like, you know, that's not saying a whole lot. It's different when you get like Super Nintendo, which had a lot of JRPGs, even, you know, even though we didn't get half of them, there was still a bunch of them even that came over.
02:09:04
Speaker
Uh, you can argue like, like people can argue. Um, it's, it's like, at that point it's like, is it crown or trigger or is it final fantasy six AKA three or like, which is the best on that console? And people can argue that, but with Genesis, if there's literally not really any much competition.
02:09:23
Speaker
My thing is that when you told me I misunderstood. So you told me people were saying this is the Chrono Trigger Final Fantasy 3 slash six of the Genesis. And I thought based on quality, not based on the fact of it revel, like it being the JRPG to play for the Super Nintendo. Like I, I was like, Oh hell no. This is like breath of fire. Are you? Excuse me. I was so mad.
02:09:50
Speaker
He was so mad. I was just trying to say, basically, everybody says, this is the best, this is the cream of the crop for.
02:10:02
Speaker
I haven't played any other JRPG on the Genesis, so I have no comparison what other games are on there. I saw you play Shining Force 2 a little bit and looked kind of interesting. I like the pixel graphics and everything. It held up all these years later. But I don't know actually what's on that console, so I'm completely ignorant to it. So I thought people were comparison it to style of RPG. And with it being super unique right at the start, I was like,
02:10:28
Speaker
Okay, it's gonna be really big but like in terms of like quality Control wise it was funny Yeah, I was I was so upset cuz I was like How are they doing this but then now it made sense? Oh, I get it now. This makes way more sense that it's because it was like it for the console it was like the shining jrpg of its time and
02:10:54
Speaker
which, you know, there's a lot of aspects of this game that was enjoyable so I could see why people enjoyed it. And if there wasn't a whole lot of JRPGs for the Genesis, I mean, there's not a whole lot. I don't know. I don't know. It's kind of like turn based RPGs for the Genesis. I know there's the Saturn definitely has more like just, I mean, I'm just more.
02:11:13
Speaker
like I know more about the Saturn library based on things that I've like wanted to basically like either play it a little bit of or want to play so okay yeah see I don't know at all on those consoles like I know Dreamcast which now I'm thinking I must have played fantasy star online on Dreamcast
02:11:33
Speaker
I must have. Because when I borrowed the GameCube from my friend, I only really played Bat and Kaidos. I played Bat and Kaidos. I played Twilight Princess. So, yeah, I think I played Phantasy Star online on the Dreamcast. So, Dreamcast, yeah, I'm like, okay, I know RPGs that were on it, like Skies of Arcadia, even though I didn't get to play it. Poor. My family kind of hit a rut right when the Dreamcast came out, so we didn't get very many games for it.
02:12:03
Speaker
We rented a lot of games for the Trinkast.
02:12:06
Speaker
What's that? I said we rented a lot of games for the Dreamcast. We didn't buy them. Yeah. And for us, like at that portion of the time, like even renting games was a little bit rough. Like, yeah, my dad had lost his job and it was a big ordeal. Anyway, but yeah, so like for that console, like I could think of a whole wack of Jeremy just by kind of think of really any for Saturn or Genesis. I haven't like researched to do it. So I can't say if like there's other ones that could even like compete with it.
02:12:36
Speaker
Whereas like Super Nintendo there's a lot of JRPGs like there's the Breath of Fire series. There's the Final Fantasy series. There's the Secret of Mana. There's the... There's Chrono Trigger. There's so many different Star Ocean. There's Star Ocean 1. There's so many JRPGs that were on the Super Nintendo that Tales of Fantasia that like
02:13:01
Speaker
It gives saying like Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy 3 for people is like the best. It gives it that little bit more of a like.
02:13:10
Speaker
Yeah, because it had all these, this competition and giving that thing. But like, I don't, I really don't know what's on the Genesis. I feel a little ignorant there. Like it's making me after this podcast want to like research what other JRBGs and stuff like that were there for the Genesis era. And like, I mean, maybe like this, maybe this is the best of it.
02:13:36
Speaker
But yeah, yeah, it's yeah, I think this one. I think this is one of the games where I wish they would like pick it up and remaster it. I really I really wish they would and not lose the art style of it all. Yeah, no, I agree. This this could definitely. Yeah, I think that. This could definitely get.
02:14:00
Speaker
This would get significantly better if the quality of life things weren't there. And I think what it ends up coming out to be is that the quality of life issues that it had were probably because it didn't necessarily have all of the best people on the project and stuff like that. And maybe not even necessarily the competition either for the console.
02:14:26
Speaker
It didn't have squares hands on. Let's be real, in the 90s, especially around that time, it didn't have squares hands on it, so it wasn't as powerful as a game.
02:14:41
Speaker
That's why I feel like it's more accurate to compare it to like Breath of Fire one or two because it's like Square kind of was like it's unfair to compare JRPG games back then to a Square game because Square was a giant back then. They are a big reason why we have the JRPG industry that we do.
02:15:05
Speaker
Uh, because they had so much funding into it and had their hands and like they had the dragon warrior games, too I always forget about that or now that's edX but still yeah, but like at the same time it's it's like it's really unfair to compare like I don't want people going in like that's why I was like throwing hands initially because i'm like I don't want people to be comparing grotto trigger in final fantasy 3 to fantasy start 4 I think that's really unfair because it's like it's two very different developments. I think
02:15:34
Speaker
Breath of Fire would make a way better comparison. Even if you say, well, with the Genesis, they didn't really have any competition, but comparably game-wise, it's more like a Breath of Fire game than those sort of things. And for people who are big fans of the Breath of Fire series, they can put up with one's quality of life downgrade.
02:15:54
Speaker
because they can play two, three, and four. Because they could play two, three, and four. And I feel like with Phantasy Star IV, it was almost defeating hearing that there's nothing.
02:16:06
Speaker
But the online game. I thought that you knew that there was nothing. I didn't. I didn't have any idea. Like it was a little. We definitely deflated Polly. You broke Polly. We deflated. I'm sad. But like at the same time, I wish that I don't know what company made this, but I wish they would go back and remastered to bring it back a little bit, a little bit of life into it. Like.
02:16:35
Speaker
Yeah, a little sad cuz it's like like I said like at least with breath of fire I have like two three and four like it continues on it just got better and better and better in my opinion Like and I completely agree with cats being like don't compare it to like Chrono Trigger don't come player to Final Fantasy 3 a lot of like you can't because square was a giant back there that are like they were like the
02:17:00
Speaker
AAA billion dollar company, but back then for JRPG. So like they were able to put a lot of hands on deck. They were allowed to like, they had the money to bringing composers that made beautiful music. Nobu Amatsu, I'm looking at you.
02:17:15
Speaker
Like, you know, like they, they had this kind of money or Yasunori Matsuda and stuff like that, that they could like put into the game and really get their idea out. And like fantasy star four, I think even just like having a little bit of an extra love that funding might've made adjusted the quality of life upgrades and stuff like that to it. It might've been like a really strong contender for me. It might've been a breath of fire two or three or something like that for me rather than a breath of fire one for me.
02:17:46
Speaker
But it kind of made me sad to hear that they didn't think. But again, I guess it makes sense for that time period. They went into the online world because it was hard to compete with Square. And especially with Square merged with NX.
02:18:02
Speaker
For a while there, it was kind of a little dicey. But then when PlayStation came and they made it open source and everybody could develop on the console, like they were just a big stab to Nintendo for that. Like it just all of a sudden, all these companies got their shot and there were so many.
02:18:20
Speaker
I think another thing that really is important to highlight is this is Sega that we're talking about. Sega wasn't necessarily in the RPG.
02:18:34
Speaker
No, they had like business like for me kind of it's like right. Like they I think Sega has like looking at it like with Sony where Sony did a Legend of Dragoon where it was just kind of like like Sony did like I mean like other like Sony Sony didn't so.
02:18:52
Speaker
So they didn't do it. They had their like action adventure platform, like 3D platformer type games. And that was they didn't have the JRPG.
Exploring RPG Diversity
02:19:02
Speaker
So like like Sega having this like fantasy star game that was a JRPG, like kind of breaking the molds like that is is really interesting to me because it's just like, well, because there's a lot about this that was very interesting, my opinion.
02:19:19
Speaker
But when I think of the Genesis and the Saturn, and I'm sure a lot of people think this way, which is unfortunate because this game just will continue to get buried, I think, as a result. When you think of those consoles, you think of Sonic. You think of platforming games. You think of fighting games. I don't think of JRPGs when I think of Sega until the Dreamcast.
02:19:43
Speaker
Man, when I think of when I think of the Dreamcast, I think fighting games. That's just me, though. Oh, really? OK, maybe you say you say the Dreamcast and my head immediately goes to the laundry list of fighting games. I wasn't like big into fighting. So maybe that's like a thing because I like I had the PlayStation and the Dreamcast. Right. So like my PlayStation library was like
02:20:05
Speaker
Random random ass games. Like I had like I was in love with Twisted Metal. Like that was just a random ass game. But I also played a lot of Twisted Metal. Yeah. Like I love Jumping Flash, which is a ridiculous robotic bunny platformer game, which I think you would actually really hate. That sounds like hell. I think that's hell to you. That sounds almost as much as the as much hell as the the barrel.
02:20:32
Speaker
You've really had to had to wait. You needed to find a little moment. We've been talking about we've been talking about Sonic and like it just made sense. That's that's fair. That's fair. Yeah. So that's actually why I grabbed the shirt. I was like PlayStation as JRPGs. And then when we had the Dreamcast, we just got more JRPGs for it. I don't really think JRPG when I think Dreamcast, like I said, I'm thinking I'm thinking fighting games like
02:20:57
Speaker
I'm thinking Power Stone. I'm thinking Marvel vs. Capcom. I'm thinking Project Justice. I'm thinking the Street Fighter games. And then I'm thinking Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2. That's basically where I'm at. Also Dead or Live. Yeah, to be fair, every time I just think of Sega, any other consoles, I think of Sonic.
02:21:19
Speaker
Yes, I mean, that makes sense. Even though I don't even play it. So even though I'm not like a Sonic gamer, I instantly just think about that. But when I think of Super Nintendo, I think of a mix of JRPG and platformer, because that's what I played. That's really interesting, because if you say Super Nintendo, I still
02:21:44
Speaker
I played so many RPGs on that game at that console. I had more RPGs on that console than I had of any, like a lot of anything else. And then we started getting like other games because like my parents, like it was like my, my dad and my brother and stuff like that were kind of like, I want other things. So we get a lot of random platformer games. So like, I think of platformer a lot for that, but I also think of JRPGs, but like the big console, I think of it as PlayStation for me.
02:22:13
Speaker
PlayStation and PlayStation 2 is just the ones that come to mind for the most. But like, yeah, so like when I think of Genesis and like Saturn and stuff like that, I don't think of it, but maybe there's a bunch of treasure troves on those consoles that we just haven't like looked into.
02:22:27
Speaker
Yeah, that's actually really funny. It's it's really funny when you think about it, too, because, like, there are quite a few PlayStation games that actually came out on Dreamcast. Weren't even, no, not even Dreamcast. We're like older Sega games, like. Oh, yeah. So, Lunar came out. Lunar came out on Sega consoles first. I believe Suicoden came out either at the same time or came out. I think so, yeah.
02:22:51
Speaker
It might have been, it definitely came out on a Sega console. Grandia? Grandia as well, yep. Were on Sega console first. Sega definitely had its hands in. That's what I was trying to say with Dreamcast for me, but it's because by the time I got to the Dreamcast console, I had a type of game I liked. It was JRPGs and survival wars, and I can't think of any for Dreamcast that I ended up going on to.
02:23:19
Speaker
So I ended up just getting RPG games for the Dreamcast. But I know a lot of people don't think that way because they might not have been exposed to JRPGs and stuff like that that much until PlayStation. And like Dark Sane in chat, a lot of people didn't realize Lunar was on a Sega console before it was on PlayStation. Yes, we couldn't come out on the PS1 first.
02:23:45
Speaker
Um, so he couldn't, so he couldn't come out on the PS one first. And then it came out on the Saturn, but it was only in Japan. Um, but I think grandia and, um, grandia one. And, uh, Lunark, I know Lunark came out first on, uh, yes, it did. Uh, it was nice that that we had the PlayStation version because they like, they put more in, like they, like, they, they made it a more of a complete package. They, they adjusted a few things and added a bit, but I believe for the PlayStation version.
02:24:15
Speaker
from the the Sega version but yeah like I like a lot of people don't realize that like even like people a lot of people don't even know skies of Arcadia exists and I knew it existed I just never got to play it interesting that is a
02:24:34
Speaker
I talked to a lot of like, even just people who are like, I like RPG games from back that era. And I'm like, you know, I start listing ones to see if they, and they're like, what? Oh man, you're about to get me to go on a rant. Polly is trying to get me to go on a rant. I'm sorry, maybe she's trying to get me to go on a rant. Oh my goodness. I have been, I touched on this a little bit earlier when I was talking to some people.
02:25:02
Speaker
I mean, it wouldn't be a turn based tangents podcast without a nether tangent. All right. It's it's happening. My biggest thing, my biggest thing about about these games and like I'm gonna I'm looking at you. Final Fantasy. Oh, here we go. Square, don't listen. Plug your ears. No, it's fine. Listen, because you've you've put out games that are more than just Final Fantasy.
02:25:32
Speaker
So I really enjoy the Final Fantasy series. And I agree that a lot of people will compare these games. People will say Final Fantasy II sucks. People will say Final Fantasy XIII sucks. In the grand scheme of things, these are all solid games. All the mainline Final Fantasy games in the grand scheme of things are at least average.
02:26:00
Speaker
Yeah, it just chalks up to taste and people's tastes very, very between the games. That's what I like about the Final Fantasy world. Yes. You can find a game that you generally like. If you like JRPGs, you'll find one of them you drive with. And my biggest thing is that I think it's a... And I think we're getting better about this as a whole, but...
02:26:29
Speaker
Final Fantasy is a great gateway into RPGs. I don't think there's any better way to say it. Because there is a Final Fantasy game for everyone, Final Fantasy is a great gateway into RPGs.
02:26:53
Speaker
There are so many fucking RPGs out there that got overshadowed by damn Final Fantasy games. Like, oh, my goodness, it drives me nuts. I've the more I play these games, the more I'm just like, wow, like I can again, I will do this. Like I don't I hate. I've been trying to not compare games, but like the fact that
02:27:21
Speaker
the fact that there are so many people that are like, I love Final Fantasy VII through IX, but I've never touched Sweet Golden II.
02:27:33
Speaker
Oh, it hurts me so much. And I used to be one of those people. I used to be one of those people. And even there's people like me who had a more of a rioting palette when I was younger. I did play Breath of Fire games. I did play Grandia II. I did get out of that final, like Lunar. I played Lunar way back when it first came out.
02:27:58
Speaker
uh well for the playstation i ended up getting it for the playstation so not when it first came out but like when it came out to the playstation and like i played legend of dragoon way back when it first came out and like i i was somebody way back in the day that i was a little bit more adventurous because i realized i loved storytelling and video games so much
02:28:16
Speaker
And the RPG elements of it that I was like, I really want more of these. There's gotta be more of these. And I would like, I found tales of destiny. I found thousand arms, which by the way is really fucking out there. And I can't wait to throw that on stream one day because I don't think it's going to hold up to my nostalgia, but I think it'll be hilarious anyway. Cause I don't remember much, much of it, but like I played a lot of those and growing up, it was miserable because I would run into people. And if I said an RPG game, they'd be like.
02:28:46
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I love Final Fantasy. I'm like, well, what other games do you like? Oh, like like what freaking retro just said in chat. I literally grew up with that where I started to like internalize a lot of my RPG love because I just people looked at me weird. And then I'd be like, oh, yeah, I played Call of Duty last night. Let's go.
02:29:07
Speaker
I just like I just wanted like so bad like I was tired of people looking at me like weird and stuff like that and then the internet opened up and my whole world opened up and I'm able to meet people like you guys that like echo this that there's so many other games out there than just the the typical like Final Fantasy Kingdom Hearts
02:29:29
Speaker
Dragon Quest, Secret of Mana, Square Touch, or not Secret of Mana, it's not Square Touch, but Chrono series, Square Touch things. There's so many other ones out there that unfortunately did get overshadowed and a lot of people don't know exist and there's so many good stories and that's why I like that we have streaming as a platform now and that
02:29:49
Speaker
you know KJ and I focus a lot more on like retro RPGs or RPGs that may not necessarily be a Final Fantasy game or a Kingdom Hearts game or those things because it just helps open people like I my playthrough of I am Setsuna and Tactics Ogre Reborn were like like fun aspects because like so many people in chat were like I'm gonna go get this game and I'm gonna go try it
02:30:14
Speaker
And I'm like, do it, this game's beautiful for I am Setsuna. And then Tactics Ogre Reborn, it was just like, oh, I want to play alongside you, because I want to see your experiences for never touching this Ogre series really before, except for way back on the PlayStation, but I don't remember it a whole lot.
02:30:29
Speaker
Um, and like, it's just, it's just so sad back in the day. And I wonder if fantasy star four was another one of those games that just got, because it was on a console that wasn't really like having a lot of RPG games, maybe it got overshadowed too. And then they just kind of like put it aside and then did the online things to maybe try to be different and stand out. Right. Mm-hmm.
02:30:54
Speaker
So like I, I love, I love that we have this platform and like a lot of you guys in chat who also play all kinds of things are even open to trying new ones too. Like once that you've never even heard of before. And like we had this podcast and literally it was recommended. We play fantasy, our fantasy star forum. KJ and I were like, yeah, sure. Whatever. Let's do it. Yeah. Like, why not? Why not? Like, let's do it. Like maybe we are, we were like, let's play something retro.
02:31:22
Speaker
That's legit what we were like. Let's play a retro game. Let's do it. And that might be a little bit shorter in time time because of the the in between because we had tactics over reborn. And then we knew we wanted to both do Octopath two. But I knew I wanted to like mostly do that game off stream just because of how long and in depth Octopath was. And like we needed an in between game.
02:31:45
Speaker
that was like short, that would have been like super, super long, that might have dragged into the other two, right? But yeah, I 100% echo what KJ is saying, and it's just really sad that back then there was just so much. And then even talking to people today that may not are not watching streamers and stuff like that, it's still a thing where it's just like, what other RPGs?
02:32:14
Speaker
RPG is a Final Fantasy thing, isn't it? I know it's a square-touched game, but I know they kind of threw it under the bus and then pushed the people to leave and then they've formed their own thing, but Xenogears is another example. A lot of people don't even know that exists.
02:32:33
Speaker
Paulie bringing up Xenogear. I love this. I love this. I love this. I love this. This is so perfect. This is like on par to like, like some of like my favorite Final Fantasy games. Like it's story. Like you're slowly climbing the list. I love it. I love to hear it. She's hooked.
02:32:51
Speaker
I am. Xenogears fans out there. We got her. We did it. And that seeing you playing Wild Arms 2 just makes me even more excited to play it at some point or this week. I did series because I've heard so many good things. There are so many games that came out. There's so many more JRPGs for us to experience. And I'm glad that we're not only doing this, but we're also streaming as well, trying to like go outside the box and get those two. I would never have thought to play Golden Sun. And like I would have ridden, I would have ridden Polly.
02:33:21
Speaker
out of the experience of buddies. And that's just, that's a crime in itself. Listen, I like my buddies, okay? Yeah, no, there are, there are a lot of games that I, I think just got overshadowed and it's unfortunate, like, but it happens. Like there's all kinds of like, generally just like the hype that you can have through marketing, through word of mouth, through just like, again, people like, like when you have a,
02:33:51
Speaker
tried and true like product, like something like Final Fantasy, like you're coming off of Final Fantasy 6, you get Final Fantasy 7 and it's like people like they had so much marketing and they were able to push they were able to push the limits of the PlayStation because they had all of the people that
02:34:12
Speaker
were all of the best developers in the industry, they were able to really do that. And so that's what happens. So many games that came out in the 96 to 2000 timeline got overshadowed by Final Fantasy VII through IX because
02:34:32
Speaker
Yeah. Those games had all the hype, all the funding. The big studio behind it by that point, the one that was established for years. Yeah. It's so sad. And despite our lower ranking maybe of this game, it's still something I would recommend people go out and try because it's just so unique and it's different in the JRPG. And that's a big thing that I'm starting to see in Square's games.
02:35:00
Speaker
and now playing a lot of ones outside of it or teams that no longer are there that founded other studios. Just the uniqueness between the JRPGs and just how different they are and how you could find really interesting, unique stories like Brandia.
02:35:17
Speaker
Like, I remember thinking when I was playing that game way back then, I thought it was like a little bit kitty, like a kidsy kind of vibe. And I didn't, stuck, I didn't do it. So when KJ was like, yeah, let's do this for the podcast. I think it was our first game, wasn't it?
02:35:33
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Um, I was like super excited about that because like, I'm like, okay, let's give this game another shot. And I'm so glad we did because it, it wasn't like, I mean, there was some childish things in it, but it was such a great game. Uh, really unique, really interesting style and stuff like that, that I'm like,
02:35:52
Speaker
There's so many of these, and I know we're just scraping the surface, and we're going to keep digging and finding these gems that got maybe buried over time. It's just unfortunate because thinking back, if we had the internet as powerful as we do today, back when those games came out, way back when, do I think they would have gotten as overshadowed? Probably not.
02:36:16
Speaker
I have one that's on a Sega console that is a working designs game that does not have a good translation, but it looks like it would be a lot of fun. Shane was actually playing it today. Oh, really? Yeah. Albert Odyssey. I am itching to play that game.
02:36:45
Speaker
What's it called, sir? Albert Odyssey. I've heard that the, or I've seen, the translation is not good. The translation is not good, but the game looks like a lot of fun. There's also another one that I'm gonna be, I'm gonna play this on my own time at some point, is Vanguard Bandits. That's another working design. Oh yeah, see, I'm looking into that one too.
02:37:14
Speaker
There's also a very, very, very great story. I'm, I'm really into. Oh yeah. A bigger story is, is a bigger story square. Oh, it is. Yeah, that's true. Um, uh, what was that game that I mentioned to you that didn't have, it never came over here in Japan or didn't come from like it was a Japan only game for a while, but I heard some of the music in that.
02:37:48
Speaker
playlist or whatever I sent you. And it was a series I was really interested in because now it has really good fan translations.
02:37:58
Speaker
Um, and some of the older games look like, like super, super interesting. Um, I'm just pulling it up. We're just rambling at this point. Grow Lancer. That's it. Grow Lancer. Yep. Yeah. Has anybody played the grow, the grow Lancer series and stuff like that? Cause like the music sounds good. It's got like anime style, like its own unique style. It's got like its own little cut scenes and stuff. It's finally got a different, um, fan translations, but I'm intrigued by that.
02:38:28
Speaker
Some of the games in that that series too, but that's a way out there like I never even heard of the studio that made that before But We turn face tangent turns into roundtable rambles Yeah, we just we're just all over the place right now, but okay. Maybe we should let's let's wrap this episode up We continue to we can continue to chat
02:38:51
Speaker
But yeah, thank you, everybody, for joining us for this episode. Still go play this game, even though our ratings are lower. Definitely go play this game. Yes, good point. But thank you, everybody, for joining us for this episode of Turn-Based Tangents. Our next game will be Octopath Traveler 2. So we're going with a more modern game after playing a retro game.
02:39:15
Speaker
And yeah, like I said, please, please, please play this game. Formulate your own opinions. Yes. That's all I can say. I think even with our lore scores, it's worth to try it. It's worth to do it. And maybe you guys will be able to suffer through the quality of life things better than us. But it's one of those things where it's just really unique. And it's fun.
02:39:42
Speaker
Gameplay and stuff like that wise so like I yeah 100% go play this game. Yeah It still stands that the only game that we've played that I won't tell you to at least try yourself is Koudelka Any last words Polly? No, okay perfect we can wrap up
02:40:07
Speaker
Okay. Okay. Listen, speaking of turn-based tangents going on tangents, you come after my Conellka like that. You were mean. It's going to be like, I visit KJ for PAX and it's going to be like, he's going to go in for a hug and I'm just going to slap. Okay. But no, for real. Thanks everybody for joining us.
02:40:36
Speaker
All right, we're no longer like recording our audio side portion of this now.
02:41:06
Speaker
Oh. Oh. OK, how do I like save out the recording, though? OK, OK, OK. I just won't close the thingy until we figure that out. OK. OK, we won't close it.
02:41:34
Speaker
Okay. Hi, chat. Polly turns up for packs wearing a Kodalka tee. Oh, I should. Oh, I should. I should. Oh, I should wear that the day I meet, not meet, the day I come in visit KJ. I should, I should. Hi, I am, I am, I am, I'm the KJ channel now. This is, this is all mine now.
02:41:57
Speaker
Polly has absorbed into the KJ channel. Um, but yeah, I should, I should make a Kodelka shirt. Just being like, Kodelka's good regardless of what KJ says. And then be like, going for the hug then. Just like take off my coat and be like, that's the shirt I'm wearing. That's what I'm gonna do.
Community and Gaming Plans
02:42:17
Speaker
Oh, I thought the stream was ending. Oh, end here. Yeah, we record this for other platforms too, which is audio only. So we're like recording it on the side as well. And so we do like a wrap up for that portion of recording, but then generally we continue talking for a little bit longer. So we're still going about
02:42:41
Speaker
I still want a physical copy because you got me. So KJ was like really late. So KJ really wanted me to play. I am Satsuda. So this was the story. He had played it. He liked it. He knew how much I loved Corona trigger and he's like, oh my God, she's good. She has to play this game. So he helped get me the digital copy of it. Um, and so I played that and I played that on stream and everything and oh my God, he was right. So like, I want to get a physical copy at some point.
02:43:06
Speaker
Um, it's the same with tactics over board because square gave me that copy. Um, I want to get a physical copy of that, but then I'm also thinking, Oh, what if I got the PlayStation version? That'd be really cool. Um, but, uh, but yeah, like I want the physical copies of these now, but.
02:43:21
Speaker
I'm a little, little jealous. Little jealous, yes, the I am Sitsuda copy, physical copy. But yeah, Ender in chat is a new friend and it was so funny because like they ended up in Forgotten Stream and then KJ's like, oh my God, I just met somebody who's like I am Sitsuda fan because their username is I am Sitsuda. And I was like, what? And I like came running over to Forgotten Stream. I'm like, where are they? It was.
02:43:55
Speaker
Yeah, like, uh, so I, I like rushed over whatever because like, KJ was telling me about it. I love meeting people who actually like, like I am Sitsuda or give it a shot or who's actually played it even. Um, I'm trying to get my friend Tochi to play it because she'll cosplay from it with me if she, she will cosplay as, um, I affectionately named her, uh, hoodie girl.
02:44:19
Speaker
Uh, forget, forget it. Now I get, but she'll cosplay that and I would cosplay Setsuda. So. There's so many PSP RPGs I've never even touched. Yeah.
02:45:17
Speaker
Yeah. It's going to block out one of us. It's fine. Yeah, that's my secret power. My secret, secret power.
02:46:01
Speaker
Oh yeah, go for it. It blocked me, it's fine. This is not the recorded part of things, we're good. My hair's a mess today too, so just block me out. I'm super hyped for that last story. I was so happy I found that game.
02:46:35
Speaker
Yeah, we're trying Sky. So we understand that Chain Decos is going to be out before that, but I think it's out now. But we wanted to wait till the physical copy, because we both wanted to support and get the physical copy. And we think around August, September is when the physical copy will come out. So that's why we put it there.
02:47:12
Speaker
Oh, we might like this. This is a list of what we want to do, but we might swap the order. Yeah, so we might swap that in and yeah.
02:47:29
Speaker
Yeah, and technically Shadow Hearts from the New World, it was just kind of there because I don't mind playing through it again and Gage has never played it before, but we could probably swap that one out too for Sea of Stars or something like that if we wanted to do because it wouldn't be too big of a jump to switch out of it because it's like I've technically beaten Shadow Hearts from the New World. It'd be a refresher for me, right?
02:48:09
Speaker
Thanks, Kalandra. I'm back.
02:48:40
Speaker
Yeah.
02:49:28
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Raiders. Come in.
02:50:11
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Welcome. Hi.
02:51:03
Speaker
Yeah. Monster hunter story. Yeah. Oh, no. Are you still going to try to push to beat that before you start octopop?
02:51:33
Speaker
Ah, okay. Be fire. I'm engaged at that. Do octopath because y'all kind of start before me. I've tried. So, so the reason why I keep teasing KJ to like push it out is because I'll be, uh, starting octopath on Wednesday on stream. So.
02:52:01
Speaker
Yeah, honestly, it'd be really cool because like if we both did it Wednesday because you stream Wednesday evening, right? That's true, you do. Site like on its way, like is it?
02:52:32
Speaker
Yay. So we're going to get Pepsi man content of four packs.
02:53:02
Speaker
It's gonna be so much fun. I am like crying that that was like I I was I was chanting that and okay, so so KJ played a was playing shitty Saturday games where the community voted on them
02:54:11
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I do, yeah. I don't have the game yet, but it would have been probably something I threw up or whatever and grabbed. Radiant Historia, he has one. I also really want to do Bravely Default, but KJ and I decided that, because I think I want to do Bravely Default on stream, the first one, and then we would play Bravely second off stream for the podcast.
02:54:39
Speaker
So that might be more of a 2024 podcast game, but that's another one that's on the list of ones that we want to do There's also another game. That's kind of like I am Tsitsuna. What was it called? Losphere. Yeah Yeah, yeah, there's that one. I've also wanted to like play that one at some point. Oh
02:55:18
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Bravely Default looked really, really good. One of the community members got it for me my birthday, and then you got me Bravely Second, I think. Or did you get me both?
02:55:45
Speaker
Yeah, I think you did. Hang on, never a community member. KJ's right here. Yeah, because I was like, oh, right. Because the one I was thinking was, got me the couple Tails games. That's what it was. So you got me the Bravely games, and then they got me the Tails games. But yeah, I really want to play. And KJ talked to me, and he's like, I think you should stream Bravely default. So I was like, yeah, because neither one of us, he's never played Second, yeah.
02:56:15
Speaker
Oh, okay. Yeah. So is it? Oh, okay. You've played it. You just haven't beaten it. Okay. Shane and gang.
02:56:29
Speaker
No, that was an honest mistake, though, because I got you and Ralph mixed up, technically, because he got me the Tales games to the Tales games, and then you got me the both Bravely games. And I was like, I just got them mixed up. It makes more sense that you got me the Bravely games. And then, yeah, because you haven't played the Tales games that he got me. No, Vesperia was one of them. So I have Vesperia now. I do own that now. I think I might do that one off-stream, though.
02:57:09
Speaker
I think a business is short enough that that one's one of them. I hope you do.
02:57:25
Speaker
I really hope you play the older Tales games, like Tales of Destiny wanted to. Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's right. We were going to play two for the podcast at some point, maybe two. Two is just really expensive. Two is so expensive.
02:58:04
Speaker
Oh, yeah. I think Tales of Destiny is like fun and quirky enough. And it's not like a super long game that you probably could get a dude on stream and, and it'd be fine. It'd be fun. One to watch. It's a fun one. It's very quirky. Oh, really? Are you actually going to throw? Okay. Cause I was one of the ones you were trying to get me to decide and then
02:58:34
Speaker
Like I narrowed it down to, yeah. Because that'll align you actually closer to what the remaster. If the remaster comes out with better voice acting, absolutely remaster 100%. But if they... Oh. Oh, I didn't reel it. Oh, okay.
02:59:01
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. So if it's a Japanese voice actor with English subtitles, that's going to be fine. Yeah. Honestly, when you play that on stream, I might actually play it off stream because I would love to replay bat kairos and I want to play the remaster. So like with you stream thing, I'm like, oh, I could play that off stream. And then. Yeah.
02:59:23
Speaker
They did, yeah. It's, oh, dark. It was, it was a little, yeah. It was, it's one of the only things I would say was a flaw with that game. Cause there's so much of that game was great, but that, yeah, the voice acting was brutal. It was brutal. It was, uh, and I can't even say it's a product of its time because there was a lot of like pretty decent voice acting for like PS2.
02:59:49
Speaker
Gabe Kubera. So like, I can't I can't even say it was a product of his time. Oh, who is just not the greatest. Oh, yeah, it did have that weird distortion sound, didn't it? Like, like almost like it was being put through like. Yeah.
03:00:15
Speaker
Uh, you know what, dark, you're revitalizing something. I think it was like, it sounded like was, was it where it sounded like it was like kind of like in a tunnel almost or like weirdly. Yeah.
03:00:31
Speaker
Yeah, that's it. Okay. Yeah, that's what that was the problem. Yeah. It was like weird recorded. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. I remember that now. It's been a while since I played the game. So I would be excited to play that alongside you and then be extra powerful mod. I don't think anybody's going to come in and spoil. So I think we'll be fine on that one.
03:00:55
Speaker
Yes, we need to wrap up. You have a yes, and you were going to get a serve bot head given to you. So you put it on the thing. If it gets hit, you have to. Yeah, but you have to do it if it gets funded. That's what you said. Chat. Chat, be there tomorrow. Be there to rage yourself so everybody just stays here. And then they're here for start tomorrow.
03:01:29
Speaker
Come on, please all right
03:02:35
Speaker
Yes. Yes. I will be living in that stream tomorrow.
03:03:02
Speaker
You could put up the thing, just cover me again. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's right. Cause you just got it done today. We have to at least get the 500 for Peach.
03:03:32
Speaker
He just waited a long time for Banjo. Can the Colab stream be Banjo-Kazooie?
03:04:04
Speaker
Does it double the time? It goes for two hours and four hours?
03:04:30
Speaker
We'll talk about it. I think if Enno and I get the big printer and we just dedicate the big printer to it, I think it would be fine. But we'll see. Yeah.
03:04:49
Speaker
I mean, I could make it like I could even like even go like all foam. It's a foam head. Yeah. It's not a hard shape and it's not a hard thing to like actually like build. So I'm sure I'm sure we could work it out. Oh, come on. I didn't want to have to give you eye holes. That's
03:05:14
Speaker
Oh yeah, definitely gonna have a fedora on top of a dark, like there's no question about it. We'll put it like, cause it, cause it like indents at the top, right? Cause it almost looks like a Lego head, right? And then you just put the fedora where it's just like attached to the top of the little indent. It'll be fine. Gimp mask with that.
Technical Challenges and Solutions
03:05:40
Speaker
So that is the controversy of Star Ocean 3. People either love it or they don't like it. Yeah, there is.
03:05:51
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to spoil and don't don't even suggest anything even remotely. It's just it is a defining divided game in the franchise for fans. A lot. There's a lot of people who love it. Think it's great. There's a lot of people who like are like really didn't like it. Yeah. So it's like kind of like a 50 50. But I still think you should play and stream it.
03:06:31
Speaker
Uh, I have, okay. So looking at it, I was trying to find people playing like maybe something like retro, like, like we were talking about. And I was like, final fantasy, final fantasy, final fantasy, final fantasy. There is. Yeah. I was just about to say, uh, I think we know the same person. They're playing super Mario RPG is a dapper. Yeah. Yeah. We could go say die to dapper.
03:06:45
Speaker
because I think you should experience it for yourself.
03:07:03
Speaker
Colandra! Is Phantasy Star IV going to be Michael Delca? He did, yeah. I said more five and a half. So this is like the first time in podcast history that this has happened.
03:07:29
Speaker
Oh, I get to call Delca deserved it. You take that back. Yeah, we forgot to like set up a command for. And then. It's fine, it's fine.
03:08:11
Speaker
Hey! Hey! Okay, are we ready yet? Bye! I love you guys!
03:08:41
Speaker
Okay, but you're like gonna be cut off in sentence. Whoops. Oh, that's funny. What were you gonna say?
03:09:10
Speaker
Oh, right. Oh, shoot. Well, rip. Rip. I was echoing.
03:09:38
Speaker
Oh, that's weird. Because that hasn't happened before. Oh, wait. I can hear myself right now. Did you take your headphones out? Okay, okay, okay. Yes. No. So that's really weird because that hasn't happened before. No. No, I don't I don't hear the double anymore.
03:10:07
Speaker
Uh, local backup, cloud backup. Okay. Um, how do I save this out just before we get like, if we start talking or whatever, I don't want to like, uh,
03:10:35
Speaker
That would really suck. OK. Where would I see MP3? So I have the toggle status items. Yeah. No. I don't see any of that.
03:11:10
Speaker
It is saying that there's a local backup and a cloud backup of my audio. Yeah, it says there's a local backup and a cloud backup and they're matching in MB, so I'm assuming. It won't let me click on them though.
03:11:31
Speaker
Oh, when I click on my, like my bar, there's a little thing that says toggle status items. And then there's like health check pass just to make sure that everything's working. My mic is working. It says storage unknown. And then local and then cloud, but I don't know how to access that because it's not clickable. Well, did I only dip a little bit?
03:12:03
Speaker
Like if there's only like, if it only lost me a little tiny bit, we could like cut it. Wait, why? What happened? Oh, I can't, I can't click yours at all. I can only click mine. No. Uh,
03:12:34
Speaker
Mine says 184 out of 184. Yeah, I don't want to leave this until we figure this out because I don't want to lose the audio, right? Because I think mine looks different than yours because you're hosting.
03:13:09
Speaker
OK. Weird. Whereas mine looks like yours on my end. Mine shows yours and mine in the green. No, I don't have that at all.
03:13:34
Speaker
That's so strange. Is there any way that I can get that button? I can't download audio with Sam Castor. A host or guest has a slower, unstable, and a host or guest experience to separate disruption to the internet, such as a disconnect. The guest leaves recording.
03:13:59
Speaker
Oh, file stuck at 100% uploaded. OK, let me see what this says. This is a support of this. Oh, I'm just reading the support to see if there's anything we could do. When an audio. Yeah.
03:14:17
Speaker
What does this stuck 100%? See, yours says 100 years upload a file. Yeah. For several minutes, this means the file may have stalled while uploaded to our servers. On the record page, the host says 100% uploaded on one or more files. What causes this? So maybe a temporary internet flex. Can be troubleshooted if the guest did not use an incognito or private browser window to record.
03:14:41
Speaker
The guests should not clear their browser cache or cookies. Troubleshooting steps are for if the upload progress is stuck not moving. If the upload progress is moving, but slowly it is recommended to wait for the upload to finish. So it hasn't, like it's just stuck in that 99%, right?
03:14:57
Speaker
The host makes sure they have stopped the recording. The guest refreshes their page. The guest immediately returns to the recording page by clicking join recording in the green room. If the upload resumes, the guest stays on the page until they see their files turn solid blue with download areas. OK, so yeah, I'll do that. OK.