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A Rebirth for Final Fantasy with RedPandaGamrRPG
45 Plays7 months ago
WARNING: This Episode Contains Minor Spoilers of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth from the 1 hour mark to the 1:47:00 mark. Viewer Discretion is advised.
Tony is Back in the Game Lounge with RedPandaGamrRPG and the two talk a lot of FF7 Rebirth, Stardew Valley, Elden Ring and your weekly Gaming News and Upcoming Releases.
Follow Tony: https://twitter.com/tonysgamelounge
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Follow Red Panda: https://twitter.com/RedPandaGamR
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/redpandagamrrpg
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RedPandaGamrRPG
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Transcript
Introduction to Tony's Game Lounge
00:00:00
Speaker
Disclaimer, all views expressed on this podcast represent the host and his guest and not the companies or agencies they are associated with. Welcome to Tony's Game Lounge, a biweekly podcast that covers everything in the world of video games, TCG, tabletop and more. Here's your host, Tony Fourteen.
00:00:22
Speaker
Hello everybody and welcome back to another brand new episode of Tony's Game Lounge. I am your host as always, Tony14, and joining me this week, returning to the podcast. I loved the first conversation that we had on the podcast.
Guest Introduction: Red Panda Gamer RPG
00:00:37
Speaker
He's a great dude and a Final Fantasy fan. It's Red Panda Gamer RPG. Panda, welcome back.
00:00:46
Speaker
Hello. Hi, Tony. How's everything going? Oh, pretty good. Pretty good. Just want to clarify to the listeners. Panda is a bit under the weather today. So he sounds a little bit different than he did last time. But you know what? He was feeling well enough to still do this. And he's a trooper. And we appreciate you coming back on today.
00:01:07
Speaker
Absolutely. I just have so much to talk about when it comes to Final Fantasy because I love it so much. So hopefully by the end of today, you don't lose your voice. Yes. Oh my gosh, you're right. Oh my gosh. Yes, I have to tell you things. But yeah, we'll definitely get to that. We'll get to that point.
00:01:24
Speaker
But yes. Well, we do have a brand new opening segment for returning guests, and that is hot takes. Well, our guest gives us their hottest video game take. Oh, my gosh. Are you? Oh, I have no clue.
00:01:44
Speaker
Oh, my God. So, Panda, what is your hottest video game take that you can think of right now? You know, it's so funny. OK, so I think it's just because of recent scenarios. I mean, I don't give two craps about Pokemon. You know what? I'd say, OK.
00:02:07
Speaker
I know a lot of people that don't. And with how even with how massive that franchise is, I know that there are people that just do not care. Yeah. Well, it's just, you know, growing up, like that was kind of a thing that I did when I was a kid, you know, traded all the cards, you know, even doing you and all that stuff. But at the same time, it's like, you know, here I am 32. I don't really like they have not been very. Oh, God, what's the word I'm looking for? Like in
00:02:36
Speaker
Recency the recent games have not been up to par. No, they haven't been up to par nor have they been reinvented It's almost like pokemon is literally just copy and pasting copy pasta everything
00:02:48
Speaker
Yeah. And granted, no, granted, that is really what Pokemon needs to do. It's a very basic RPG turn based system. Catch the Pokemon level them up to win the game. But it does bring the question of like they haven't made any new spinoffs of recently, which is how they've done the reinventing of Pokemon. And I think Pokemon could definitely like.
00:03:10
Speaker
They could use, like, a new spinoff. Now granted, Legend ZA sure is not like a mainline Pokรฉmon game. It is kind of a spinoff, but it's like it follows that core Pokรฉmon thing of catching Pokรฉmon battling them with the open world aspect, but it doesn't do much more than that.
00:03:28
Speaker
Yeah, it's so funny. And I think that's why pow worlds was such a big hit. It was just a lot of fun. It's just weird. And yes, it's almost like a parody of Pokemon. It absolutely is a parody. Yeah, I mean, that's how it was. That's how it was. That was how it was marketed is like it's a parody of Pokemon. Well, we didn't know at the time that it was it was going to be a survival crafting game, which is I don't think we I don't think we knew that at the time of the initial trailer. I think we're like, oh, Pokemon with guns.
00:03:58
Speaker
Yeah, I mean that alone is funny, but it absolutely is. It absolutely is hilarious. I will never deny that. But I mean, I played the game. I played the game. It's just it's all right. It's just not my cup of tea. It's yeah. It was like, you know what? It had its oh, this is kind of fun. And then like after like five, six hours, I'm like, okay, it's
00:04:22
Speaker
kind of dull especially once you catch them all it's just i mean i didn't even try catching them all because it was like the catching mechanics uh we're not even that like intuitive no it's just yeah you shoot the you shoot the pals or hit them with your pickaxe
00:04:40
Speaker
Yeah, and then it's like you throw the ball down far enough. You get them down far enough. It's just like that is like, I mean, well granted, that is kind of how monster tamer monster taming slash catching slash. Yeah, those focus games are when it comes to that. It's just like Pokemon kind of had that recipe down for a long time with how they've done it. Everything. There's not there's not even shiny pals that I know of.
00:05:06
Speaker
No, I don't think so. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's the thing. It's like the gameplay loop of those kind of games. I just don't care. I think, you know, that's I guess that's my hot take. That's fine. That's that's a it's a hot and it's Pokemon.
00:05:21
Speaker
Don't care.
Stardew Valley 1.6 Update Discussion
00:05:22
Speaker
Well onto our headline of the week now the big story of the week a lot of people were excited for this Eric Barone on Twitter the creator of Stardew Valley it's out Stardew Valley's 1.6 update is finally out and people are playing Stardew again over a hundred and fifty thousand players were playing Stardew on the day of the 1.6 release and
00:05:51
Speaker
Skyrocket numbers because people just love Stardew. I think Stardew is the epitome of what a farming slash a life sim should be. I think it nailed the formula perfectly. I still love I love Stardew. I've played it with mods without mods. It's fantastic. Now, what did 1.6 add? Well, you now have a honeymoon period for your spouses so they can't just lie in bed all day if they're mad at you.
00:06:18
Speaker
You can now critically throw your baby. And when I say critically throw, I mean, no, you're not throwing them at the wall to deal critical damage. How it works is whenever you throw your baby up in the air, it increases their love slash friendship towards you. Like, I believe it's like up to a heart. If you get a crit throw, it increases it more than one heart, basically.
00:06:45
Speaker
I'm not kidding when you said that I was like, I was thinking of Baldur's Gate where it's like you rolled a one and then yeah, they just like explode midair. Yeah, no, not like that. It's not like that. No. We can now put hats on our cats and dogs. We can drink mayonnaise. We can eat pickles. We have a new turtle pets that you can now obtain. My goodness.
00:07:10
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's a crazy that like you could make mayo and pickles before but you couldn't like eat them which granted I don't know why you always want to drink mayonnaise, but now you can But the pickles I'm like, okay pickles now, that's nice. That's that's nice There's a new little juice you can cook on pickles
00:07:29
Speaker
We have a brand new farm, the Meadowlands Farm, which is a new pre-starting area farm of the Meadowlands. Also, there are three new festivals. You have the Trout Derby and Squid Fest, which are two smaller festivals that will happen.
00:07:48
Speaker
Sort of like the other fishing festival that happens in the winter, I believe these will happen in two other seasons. I don't remember the exact seasons. The third festival, the massive one, is the desert festival, where your main currency is desert stones or something like that. There's some new mini games.
00:08:08
Speaker
The Skull Caverns will have a new ore when you go, when you're in this, when it's in the festival season. And that's basically how you trade for all the new items and whatnot. And a whole bunch of new things. We have broccoli, carrots, powder melon, and summer squash as new plants that you can grow. There is a giant, a new big tree quest line, which gives you access to the new neighbors, a bunch of raccoons!
00:08:35
Speaker
because that's how you get your new seeds, essentially. That's how you'll be getting all the new seeds in the game. Trash pandas. Trash pandas, exactly. Yay. They also add support for eight player, multiplayer, and skill books have been added as well in a mastery system for your tools, which can get you even more cool new items and tools. And a whole bunch of new items were added and so much more. The game has been entirely overhauled. Once again,
00:09:04
Speaker
And of course mod support for the game, of course, is still functional. I'm sure that with more future 1.6 updates, ConcernedApe will be adding even more mod tools for the community to make more with this. Which is always great to see, because honestly, it's a great... Have you played Stardew Valley?
00:09:27
Speaker
I have not. I have not delved deep into it. Yeah. I've kind of been listening attentively, though. Yeah. No, absolutely. If you ever get the chance to play, it's a great way to just waste time and sink time into it. It sounds silly, especially this eight-player multiplayer. That's great. Eight-player multiplayer, yeah. That's going to be nutty. Yeah. Nutty, nutty.
00:09:52
Speaker
That's like, yeah, crit throwing babies, drinking mayo and eating pickles. Dang. If you go to if you go to the concerned ape Twitter over like the course of like the days leading up to the release of the update, he would tweet. Oh, hey, guys, here's another thing that got fixed that
Warner Bros' Multiverse and Among Us TV Show News
00:10:09
Speaker
I like fixing like a patch note or something that's getting added. And he was just it was these weird things like that player is now able to drink mayonnaise.
00:10:20
Speaker
It was like, that's a great way to just lead up to this. So it's fantastic. It's great. I haven't touched it yet, but I'll probably play it again later this year when I've done some other big games that we'll be talking about later on in this podcast. Oh, yeah.
00:10:42
Speaker
But before we get to that, of course, we do got a whole two weeks of gaming news that we gotta go through in the Week in Review. Recapping the major stories of video games and the world of tabletop, looking over recent releases and reports from the Game Lounge crew, it's the Week in Review.
00:11:01
Speaker
Starting off with some of the games that came out last week, in the last two weeks of gaming, here's what came out. We had Melatonin release, the Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection, which had a very rocky release that I will talk about a little bit later, because I think I put a story in here.
00:11:18
Speaker
Hi-Fi Rush came out for PlayStation 5, which is a fantastic game. Go play it now on PlayStation, no longer an Xbox exclusive. Dragon's Dogma 2, Princess Peach Showtime, and Rise of the Ronin also released in these past two weeks.
00:11:33
Speaker
In the world of video game news Multiverse is kicking things off with Warner Bros releasing a brand new I guess announcement trailer saying that hey Multiverse this will be returning May 28th Because as we know the Warner Bros fighting game was taken off after God I can't remember how long he was on there for and then they took it off because they said they were gonna work on it a lot more
00:12:01
Speaker
And Ron James was broken. Yeah, like he was absolutely broken. Leon Multiverse is coming back. I know that they were doing that as almost like a demo beta. Yes. Is that how they kind of started out? Yeah, that's how it was started. It was like it was like a slash.
00:12:18
Speaker
It was like a beta alpha beta testing. They lasted for a couple, like a month or two. And then it's like, okay, guys, we're going to work on it. I believe it's like entirely in the unreal engine five now. Like they made like a lot of overhauls from what they're, what the announcement trailer said. So may 28th, it'll be returning. I believe it's still going to be free to play, but don't quote me on that. But I think it is still free to play.
00:12:43
Speaker
Interesting. That gives me concerns, but... Yeah, a little. Because platform fighters are hard to do. Yeah. Because when you look at platform fighters, the one that does it right, that feels like the best when you're using a controller is Smash Bros. Smash Bros has got the formula down. They have the physics down. It feels so good to play. And that other platform fighters don't feel as good as that, that it's harder to pick up.
00:13:13
Speaker
Yeah, that's how I find that's how I've found platform fighters to be yeah platform fight I was like really the only one that does well at Super Smash and Multiverse this is like it was it was fun to see the characters, but yeah, just how like the mechanics and the fact that you could do like oh God like group up team attacks and stuff. It was so weird and
00:13:34
Speaker
And like I said, there was just a few things that were just very broken about it. And it was very like you could easily exploit attack moves and stuff. So but even free to play, like what are they going to micro transact some? I believe it's like I believe battle passes battle. I believe that's what they did. I believe that's what they did with the beta session as well as they had a battle pass or two that they used.
00:13:59
Speaker
Yeah, because I couldn't see that being like a free to play. That's weird. OK, but yeah, that's I'm sure costumes as well like that. Yeah, that's how they get you with the free to play stuff. But that's multiverses in news. I wasn't expecting to see these past two weeks. It's among us. Well, they've revealed part of the TV show cast.
00:14:25
Speaker
What does among us as we know we've known that it's getting a TV show. Well, we finally have some of the cast Randall Park Randall Park from oh, what was the show he was on? He's been in some Marvel movies. I know that much Randall Park is gonna be the voice of red Ashley Johnson the voice of purple Yvette Nicole Brown as the voice of orange and a lie show would
00:14:48
Speaker
as the voice of green that's so funny so that's what we have for the among us cast so far we'll probably get more cast uh reveals uh maybe later this year that's great in the best beaver at build a bear news bdoof is the latest pokemon to get a build a bear collaboration
00:15:09
Speaker
Which I think good for Bidoof. That's cute. I like that. Very good for Bidoof. And in PAL World news, PAL World has announced its first new PAL arriving to the game since launch. Belanwar, or Belanar. Belanwar, probably is how you pronounce it. And of course, like all the other PALs in the game, the Pokรฉmon fans are saying, hey, this looks like an emo version of Gardevoir, which even I'll say, I'm like,
00:15:37
Speaker
Yeah, this looks like very frickin' similar to Gardevoir. That's funny. I just don't care anymore. Like, Pokemon's doing... They're looking into everything that Palerwell's done. There hasn't been a whole verdict yet on anything, so... I just don't care anymore. I heard they were taking them to court, but at the same time, they haven't because they didn't. They're not taking them to court. They're doing the investigation on whether they'll take them to court or not.
00:16:05
Speaker
I mean, I don't like I know that they kind of look similar, but that is just no. I mean, even at that, you could go into the past and be like, Pokemon rip this off of. Well, yeah. Oh, I mean, people did with this whole debate, happy. Like, well, Pokemon ripped off Dragon Quest. I'm like, yes, fair. Pokemon didn't rip off their designs. They ripped off. Oh, this is they did a bat and we will do a bat Pokemon.
00:16:26
Speaker
Yeah, which they designed their own designs. Palworld with the whole debate with Palworld is they took assets that certain Pokemon had and kind of just went fusion on them a bit. And I'm like, OK, I can see how that kind of makes an argument. But at this point, I just don't care anymore. No, if Pokemon decides to pursue legal action. OK, if they don't. OK,
PalWorld Updates and Steam Sales
00:16:51
Speaker
I don't care. Palworld to me is a dead game at this point.
00:16:54
Speaker
Yeah, it's so funny because I could get into this too, but I'm just like, Oh God, like right when I started, I just got exhausted and gave up. Yeah, exactly. I was literally about to go into it. Yeah, but Bella noir is the first pal raid boss for pal world. So raids come into pal world. Uh, in news that I'm putting here because it just ended the steam spring sales, uh, happened.
00:17:21
Speaker
I didn't buy anything this time around because I didn't really need to. I completely missed it. There wasn't like a whole, whole lot that was like really cool. Like a lot of the Final Fantasy games were on sale. Also, I just realized, I'm like, oh, yeah, because I was looking at this. I'm like, oh, cool. Like every Final Fantasy game is on Steam, except for 16, obviously.
00:17:48
Speaker
Yeah, which, well, I mean, I guess we'll get there too, but...
00:17:51
Speaker
Yes, but it's like looking at I was looking at this. I'm like, wait, why is the Final Fantasy 13 trilogy on Steam, but not on consoles? Oh, gosh, is that really? Yeah, I'm like, oh, so I totally can't play like on modern on the modern hardware that I have. I can play every Final Fantasy game if I wanted to. It's just I can't play the 13 games on console. Interesting. Which is like, wow.
00:18:20
Speaker
They've never remastered or done. They haven't done like a remastered recollection for them. Like they're each their own individual game that you have to buy on Steam, but still like it's still oh, this is weird. Why haven't square has a square done this? Like they could easily get people would buy it, obviously, because, you know, 13.
00:18:40
Speaker
Yeah, I was just about to say, I was like, if all the Final Fantasy games, you should probably play that one last anyway. Obviously, yes. Yeah, I get that. It's like considered like one of the worst, but it's still, you know, for those who want to experience all the Final Fantasies, it's like, yes, if you only have console, it's the only trilogy that you can't experience on console. Yes, that's crazy.
00:19:04
Speaker
It's like if you want to see where Final Fantasy went divisive. Yeah. Play 13. Play the 13 trilogy. For Mario news, Mario Day came and went and Shigeru Miyamoto announced a brand new Mario movie is coming 2026.
New Mario Movie Announcement
00:19:21
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Which I mean, the first one did really good.
00:19:26
Speaker
So they said that they want to expand the Mario cinematic world a bit. So it won't just be in the Mushroom Kingdom. It sounds like it'll be like more Mario based locations, which is always cool. So, yeah, looking forward to when we get more details on that. And they're working with Illumination again, obviously. It's like Illumination's best movie that they've done.
00:19:54
Speaker
Yeah, it was really it like I was actually kind of surprised because what I heard that there was a mario Movie I was just like oh god well even at that I watched it too, and I was like You know how do you make a story out of Mario?
00:20:08
Speaker
You know what I mean? Yeah. They answer that pretty well, I would say. Yeah. I mean, you know, albeit a little cliche, but at the same time, it's just that's, you know, it's Mario. It's Mario. What else? Yeah. It's like he's after Peach. She's in a different castle, all that stuff. It's like, no, that was funny. Yeah, exactly. Jack Black killed it as Bowser.
00:20:30
Speaker
Yeah. Peach's song. He's got Kung Fu Panda 4 coming out and somehow I'm going to say it. Fucking Jack Black, the tenacious D cover of Hit Me Baby one more time. That goes hard. Holy fuck.
00:20:53
Speaker
Wait, when did that happen? Oh, it's like, it was like, it was like, Oh, what was it? They did it for Kung Fu Panda 4. They released like a short version of it. They released like a short version of it. If you were like, I want, we want the full version of this because it goes, it rocks.
00:21:10
Speaker
It's just like god damn jack black's just cooking. Yep. I know what i'm doing after this podcast. Hell. Yeah, we'll be watching that That's hilarious Okay in star wars stuff. Oh boy star wars battlefront collection. Here we go. So it launched it launched I was you know and somehow Yep, somehow
00:21:32
Speaker
for a simple game that's just an HD graphics. So basic. So basic. For a game that's 20 plus years old, it had a terrible launch because servers didn't work. There were only three servers that could hold 64 players each to a 10,000 to like a 10,000 player launch who were playing it at release.
00:21:55
Speaker
Which is dumb. And also the game is like 50 gigs. Yeah, it feels weird for a game this old to be that big. I actually did look it up at 63. Yeah, it's like it's big horse, which is like why is it this big? It's it's two games that came out like like 20 plus years ago. Yeah.
00:22:20
Speaker
Now granted, are they fun still? Yes. Like I played Battlefront II with my friends. It's still fun to play it with the homies. But I mean, is it worth this kind of money for the kind of release it went through? And I mean, is it the price of a full-fledged game? No, it's like really like $35 Canadian. Absolutely. Yeah, it does. Well, especially with most HD remasters, I don't understand why they're so expensive and so
00:22:50
Speaker
Large because again 63 for those games It's like eight for just like with the only real difference being online multiplayer and Graphic just up enhancing the graphics a little like HD the graphics the graphics are the exact same as they were there They're just brighter more vibe more. Yeah crisp. I think is the right word to use there Yeah, a little sharpened a little more crisp. Yeah, exactly
00:23:19
Speaker
It's just so weird because no I know that we talked about this like what a couple days before And you were like really excited about it because you know I only really ever played Battlefront 2 once and it's like I never really had a chance to play it with my
00:23:35
Speaker
My friends, because they always only like my friends grew up with this. I'm like, I never really did. So it was a good way to just experience these games, even though you could easily get them on Steam individually for not even 10 bucks, probably for each one. It's just like, I just want to play them. You know, I just want to play it with the friends. I don't.
00:23:54
Speaker
I don't really care. But for this, it was like, wow, this was a bit of a disappointing launch for a 20 year old game. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. It's like, you know, my family had this one. We played it as well as friends come over, you know, with the split screen stuff.
00:24:10
Speaker
I mean that was just classic stuff like playing it on a big screen over at a friend's house or something so much fun but it's just like this was such an easy win and I still don't understand why Battlefront is still kind of like
00:24:25
Speaker
Not a thing, like not a big thing as it like used to be, especially with galactic conquest and all that stuff. Yeah. And you see galactic conquest, galactic conquest still in Battlefront, this Battlefront too. And you can still do it with a buddy, but it's either you're doing it in the split screen mode or you're doing it, if you want to do it on Steam with a buddy, you gotta jump through some hoops and you can still only do it with two people. I would love to do galactic conquest with like more than two people.
00:24:54
Speaker
Absolutely. Like that should be a risk game with like 12 people. It'd be fun. It'd be fun. Like if they just expand it on galactic conquest, I think that would be. That's like that's a game right there. Just do that. Like I'm so confused on why they I don't know. It's like Battlefront has just kind of turned into crap. And I don't. I mean, granted again, the game is the game fun with your friends with like a private online server. Yes, it's still fun.
00:25:24
Speaker
But should these issues have happened? No, absolutely not in E3 E3 quotation mark news summer game fest because there's no E3 anymore summer game fest is returning on June 7th that is with that massive live stream will be and of course that kicks off the week of of the the week or two or the whole month of
00:25:48
Speaker
Game reveals, game shows, all of that stuff. June 7th, Jeff Keeley takes the stage to show us more stuff, more video games. As being a Jeff Keeley, he finally addressed the layoffs in the gaming industry, finally. Oh, God, I heard about that drama. I believe it was, yeah, because now, as of course we know with the Game Awards last year, Larian Studios, when they won Game of the Year, they were kind of the only ones that brought up the
00:26:17
Speaker
The the layoffs and all that stuff briefly because of how much time they were given for their speech Which also game speeches? We're not given a whole lot of time for that It's like the game awards should be more balanced between the reveals and the awards section because it just felt like another
00:26:40
Speaker
Reveal after reveal after reveal of games that we don't care of games that were like are like, okay these look cool But these are brand-new world from years that we just kind of don't care about right now because you don't know you're not showing us much
00:26:55
Speaker
Well, even at that, it's just like this is supposed to be the celebration of the game, the games that came out this year. And here we are like, you know, again, it's like E3, but it's awards that are just as the ads in between. That's almost another thing is it's those reveals that are also paying for. Yeah, like they're paying for the spots to be revealed on this show like that is how they get they're able to do the game awards in the first place.
00:27:23
Speaker
Yes, but it's just as I said, it's like I don't think this should be I think it was like I think it's like a two hour show or like a two and a half. It needs to be like either three hours or like three and a half. They need to extend it. That way you can still have the same amount of reveals that you did, but also be able to focus on the games that came out and have a better award section.
00:27:46
Speaker
Yeah, that's what I think they should do I know they probably won't but that's what I think they should do just extend it Let's make the show longer give people the chance to shine give us those at a nicer pace So that way we're not feeling rushed
00:28:00
Speaker
Yeah, and also like 30 seconds to give your speech and then get the fuck out. Like, I'm sorry, that's like, that's awful. That is an ad. Like your speech is an ad length. So there's more, there's trailers that are longer than their speeches are.
00:28:16
Speaker
like at least do a minute minute and a half like give them the respect because i i will say like again last year's the funniest thing was when chris judge came on and then it's like he started talking to present the award and they played the wrap-up music because of how his speech was two years ago i think that was hilarious it was very light-hearted but then it's just like everything else went by fast it's like
Criticism of Game Awards 2023
00:28:40
Speaker
Well, everything about Chris Judge that year, even his little knock on Call of Duty's campaign. The Call of Duty devs got mad about that. My speech was longer than the Call of Duty. They're paid. It's like, Jesus, man. So funny. Again, shout-outs to the six or seven people who got a Steam Deck during the Chris Judge speech. Yeah.
00:29:04
Speaker
Uh into some nmo news the runescape creator as you gounder goner has announced his new mmo brighter shores Which is coming out later this year. It's a game that's been in development for 10 years. Yeah, it will be free to play That's crazy because this is the one that's on um, oh god, is it riot? No
00:29:28
Speaker
No, no. Who's he doing this with? Is he doing this with somebody? I didn't see that. I thought it was just like a solo thing, sort of like Runescape. Oh, OK. Maybe I'm thinking of something else. No, that's a hotel. Did I look this up wrong? No, the first result for Brighter Shores is a hotel. Is that the name? Here we go. Maybe put MMO in front of it. Here we go.
00:29:56
Speaker
I knew yeah, yeah, it's all solo. There's no like it's not attached to riot or anything Oh interesting. Okay, for some reason I thought he was doing this through like a different company Okay, but yeah, that's uh is we free to play coming out later this year in
00:30:11
Speaker
Wordle News, which I didn't think we'd have any World News for a long while, but New York Times has filed a DMCA notice against coder Chase Wackerfuss, who created a Wordle clone called Reactle and posted the code on GitHub. The DMCA notice isn't just aimed at Reactle, but at all Wordle clones that have forked off the open source Reactle repository, which is close to 2,000 Wordle clones.
00:30:41
Speaker
So, Wordle is about to die. Or at least, Wordle is about to be the only Wordle on the street. It's about to pull up to your house, your mom's house, your grandma's house, your uncle's house, your pappy's house, your friend's house, your friend's friend's house, your friend's cousin's nephew's house, and so on and so forth. It's about to hoo.
00:31:06
Speaker
So hopefully, however, if you didn't use that GitHub code and you use something else, you're fine. But if you did use that, you better hide. In more news, Alpha Protocol, which is Sega's formerly delisted game, is back on the stores. It was originally taken off as a music license expired within the game, but now it's back, and you can purchase it again.
00:31:32
Speaker
We also got a first look at Amy Hennig's World War II Marvel game called Marvel 1943 Rise of Hydra. It has first story trailer and it's coming out next year. Oh, wow. It looks cool. It revolves around Captain America, obviously, and Black Panther.
00:31:52
Speaker
uh okay oh with the previous king of wakanda probably yes the pretty okay gotcha yeah i was like yeah no not not to tell the different one different the the pretty old yeah he uh he's uh yeah yeah actually the chala believe it or not he's like fucking 80 even though he looks 30 yeah no it's the four it's the former the former king
00:32:15
Speaker
That purple Kush has really solidified his life. That vibranium, man. You do. It's more than just armor. It's a drug. But yeah, the trailer looks like a story trailer. Story trailer looks really cool. I'm probably. Yeah. That's actually all. I didn't look this up at all. So I was just like, oh, my God. OK. Yeah, it looks cool. I'm interested. Nice. In.
00:32:44
Speaker
Controller news. PDP's Riftmaster guitar controller is now available for pre-order. Now this is huge news because this is the first new guitar controller in years. And it's only $129.99, where in some cases getting a guitar controller used can be upwards of $500 on eBay. What? That sounds like when you said only $129.99, I was like, that's too much.
00:33:13
Speaker
Well, yes, it's expensive. But it's also this is also like a high quality guitar controller as well. OK. I'm like, does the price verify it? I mean, for the for the die hard guitar hero rock band fans. Sure. It's also wireless. So it's like I think you just plug into one thing to the console or the system that you need to plug it into. And then once you're done.
00:33:37
Speaker
And lastly of gaming news, according to Hollywood Reporter, there's going to be a Sims movie. Oh god. The director for this will be Kate Herron who directed the first season of Loki. See this is another one though, a Sims movie.
00:33:55
Speaker
Yeah, I don't I don't know what they're thinking with this one. Yeah. What was that one with the Ryan Reynolds that came? That was Barbie. That was. Oh, wait. Ryan Reynolds. Sorry. No, that. Oh, yeah. That. Oh, the video game that he was in. Yeah, because the guy made. Yeah. I was like, that was cool, though, because that was like a whole what if an A.I. became sent here within a video game. And that was cool. Like that. Yeah.
00:34:21
Speaker
Did they get jacksepticeye as a cameo in that movie as well? They did some cool things with that one this I don't know how this is gonna work. I'm interested to see a concepts trailer of this but That's all I have to say on that
00:34:39
Speaker
Well, exactly. I was like, Sims is it's just a building world simulator. Yeah, it's like, hey, do you like building houses, interior design, fashion and seeing what would be if you and your crush got buried? And do you like buying all of our expansions, even though Sims 4 is a free game, do you want to buy all our expansions that cost upwards of $400? Oh, geez.
00:35:06
Speaker
If that, if you do, then this is the game for you. But yeah, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's everything for the world. For general gaming news in our live service game news, starting off with Final Fantasy 14 stuff.
00:35:22
Speaker
Little Ladies' Day and Hashing Tide celebration event is on now. By playing the seasonal class, you can earn yourself the pink flower crown goo-boo bounce, called. So if you want a pink goo-boo, go play, go do the event. It's a seasonal event. There's not much to it. The goo-boos remind me of potato sacks as well as potatoes.
00:35:50
Speaker
I see the potato sack. I see the potato sack resemblance. Yeah, I just love how stupid they look. I love. And also on the twenty fifth cross region data center testing will begin for Japan, Europe and North America as all three of those data centers will be able to travel to the Oceania data center.
00:36:17
Speaker
Which means if you have Australian friends that play on Oceania and you live in North America, you can finally go play together.
00:36:24
Speaker
Oh my gosh, we actually have a couple of people from Australia. And you can also see a bunch of Europeans and Japanese players go there as well. This is to test it eventually. So that way this is a testing phase. So that way we can eventually go to every data center in the game. That's actually pretty dope. As a North American player, you can visit Europe and Japan servers. Hey, without having to get a plane ride.
00:36:51
Speaker
Exactly. Exactly. And of course, if you have an Xbox system, Final Fantasy 14 is now officially available on Xbox. Yeah. I did hear that it was a little, little janky. I mean, to my knowledge, the beta tests might have been, but that's what during the beta phase, to my knowledge, the watch itself went pretty fine.
00:37:19
Speaker
it's fine okay yeah i just remembered that it was a little janky when i actually did come out on xbox that might have been the beta you're right but yeah it's now available uh so welcome to a or is the xbox gamers i'm gonna squat in front of you intimidatingly
00:37:38
Speaker
You got to show off all your your special weapons. I'm going to show off my shiny weapon that I spent all of my tome stones on. Because that's all the Vanderbilt weapons are for the latest. Like all you do is just spend tome stones. Like the latest relic weapon is honestly, if you want a relic weapon and Walker, do the Vanderbilt quests and get the Vanderbilt weapons. They're the easiest ones to actually get. And you can feel like you accomplished something really difficult.
00:38:08
Speaker
If you want to feel like if you want to get a real relic weapon go to the irrelevant board one Just go do it get yourself the zenith the zenith relic weapon do it. It's just it's it's not the hardest It's just the most expensive and the most right in the most mind-numbing Everything like I know I complained to you about that when I was doing the heavens ward one. Nah, man The ARR one is worse
00:38:36
Speaker
Hey everybody, this is Future Tony here to give you a quick update that Dawn Trail was just given its release date of July 2nd or June 28th for those who get the game earlier. So that was just announced at PAX along with a bunch of other things including the pre-order bonuses, the physical collector's edition, and a lot of other things that we'll be covering in the next episode of Tony's Game Lounge. Now back to your regular scheduled program.
00:39:04
Speaker
In the world of battle royales and shooters, the second season of the finals launched, adding a new Power Shift game mode, allowing more environmental destruction to the game. And Overwatch 2's Cowboy Bebop collab is now live, and also the new Hero Venture will be launching next season in Season 10.
00:39:24
Speaker
And for the first time of this game's history, won't be locked behind a battle pass because Overwatch 2 has announced that all future characters will now be free for all when they launch.
00:39:38
Speaker
Which is better. It's better that way because you don't have to spend money on a fucking battle pass anymore to get a character, which I think is absolutely ridiculous to fucking do for a free to play game by Blizzard. I just have so many. I could tear that apart, but I'm not going to. I just well, even they're old. They're a recent thing. They've completely, you know, it's made now, too. So.
00:40:03
Speaker
Oh, yeah, that whole thing. What is Overwatch 2? What is Overwatch?
Overwatch 2's Accessibility Changes
00:40:08
Speaker
It's Overwatch 1, but free. Yes.
00:40:12
Speaker
And like 5v5 instead of 66, I think. Exactly. They downgrade it. Yeah. Yeah. And we do have a special Hoya is worse than one. Sorry. No worries. As for this week, we do have a very special Hoya report from our Hoya himself. Hello.
00:40:35
Speaker
Polokai Star Rail 2.1 is turning the game upside down, and we finally have updates for Zenith Zone 0. My name is Mello, and this is your Hoyo Report. Phase 1 of Into the Yawning Chasm is coming soon, with previews of new Light Cones trailer, mutual healing, and a like before you leave. Just like how you should leave a like on the podcast if you can do that, please. Thank you. As well as some cleanup and optimization in Panakani.
00:41:06
Speaker
After two long years of waiting, Hoyaverse is ready to release Zenma Zone Zero, which still doesn't have an official release date, but it's coming soon. Don't you worry, it's happening. A beta test is being given out to people that qualify either on mobile, PC, or on console. If you sign up and then qualify, don't worry. You can always take a look at the characters and world the game is based in.
00:41:32
Speaker
New characters Nekomata and Zuyuan will be waiting for you in new Eridu. My name is Mello, and this has been your Hoyle Report. Thanks for that, Mello. In the world of Destiny 2, the two-month series of updates into the light will begin April 9th. Now, these updates will be leading into the final shape. Three livestreams are set. The first one has already happened, revealing the brand-new Horde mode onslaught.
00:41:59
Speaker
where basically you survive wave after wave to get loot. If you survive all 10 waves, you get double the loot. And you can attempt this solo as well as in groups, obviously. The other two livestreams are set for the 26th of March and the 2nd of April.
00:42:23
Speaker
And in esports news, a massive hack happened at the Apex, uh, massive Apex Legends tournament. And with more on this and the tournament itself, we have our Apex reporter, Mist, on the scene. It's ya boy, Mist here, with your update into all things Apex Legends related. Now I promised you regional finals results, and I have them.
00:42:45
Speaker
Well, most of them, but we'll get into that after. For those of you not familiar with Apex Finals matches, here it is. A team cannot win the tournament until they do so on match point. What is match point, you ask? A match point eligible team is one that enters the game at 50 points or more, and the tournament can only end when a match point team wins. This means that games can go up to what is currently the record of 11 games
00:43:09
Speaker
played at the very first match point finals in Sweden of 2020, and with the current minimum record being four games played, set only recently. A new rule last year made it so that if any team won match point before six games, they would still win, but be taken out of the lobby so as not to be able to grief, and the other teams would play up to game six. This was done for consistency, for teams and playstyles,
00:43:31
Speaker
so that the number of games was consistent from pro league to finals. So a team who maybe had a bad start doesn't get instantly destroyed and from their prospects of going to LAN because the team won real quick. This did not stop Team Reject from APAC North though, who won in four games, and even though they didn't play in game five and six, they still held first place by over 25 points. One of the most dominant performances ever seen in Apex. Here are the qualified teams for LAN. In APAC North, we had Fnatic,
00:44:07
Speaker
So those are the 8 teams from APAC North, with Reject Winity winning the regional finals. In APAC South, we had Tom Yung-Kung winning regional finals. However, for the overall standings, we had Wonton Dumpling, Legends Gaming, Tom Yung-Kung, MDY White, Team Burger, Serenity,
00:44:23
Speaker
boogie borders, and heroes. In Europe, Middle East, and Asia, we had Team Aurora, Navi, Team Alliance, Team Made in Heaven, Team 07, Team Passion UA, 2R1C, and Team Olmet, with Aurora taking the win at regional finals. In North America, I do not have results for you.
00:44:40
Speaker
For during the North America finals, two players were hacked. Do not be worried though, the scare was very real for a couple of days, but it seems that the hackers don't have as much power as they may be threatened they did. They also said it was just for fun, although I'm not sure what's fun about ruining prospects at a million dollars. Scrims have finally resumed, and the scare seems to be over, as the team at Respawn has been working overtime to investigate and make new security changes.
00:45:02
Speaker
What's also exciting, and also maybe controversial, is a new update coming March 26th. With it, we got a new collection event with 36 items and a new death box, new heirloom, lots of cool things, a new LTM mode called Lockdown, and it's gonna be a 3v3v3v3, that's right, four teams of three, very similar to Gunrun, but instead of fighting through other weapons, you're fighting for hardpoints, and many new balance changes to the new Legend Perks that came out just this season.
00:45:27
Speaker
A very overall W update and W patch notes as they're listening to feedback and really trying to make bad characters viable in the current meta, in the current scene. So that is your Apex news for this week, and this has been ya boi Mist, signing off, Legends.
00:45:42
Speaker
Thank you for that mist. In the world of TCG news, Pokemon Temporal Forces is out now as the latest Pokemon TCG set. Twilight Masquerade releases on May 24th. In Yu-Gi-Oh! with Master Jewel updates, the March 2024 Jewelist Cup has come and gone.
00:46:03
Speaker
That's really all we know for Master Duel at this moment. Bent with the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG, the Legendary Dex II box set is out now. The Speed Duel GX Midterm Destruction is out on the 29th. Legacy of Destruction is out on April 26th. The 25th Anniversary Rarity Collection 2 comes out on May 22nd.
00:46:21
Speaker
And Yu-Gi-Oh Worlds was announced for September 7th and 8th with four specific categories. The TCG, Master Duel, Duel Links, Speed, and Rush Duels. So four things to qualify for Yu-Gi-Oh Worlds. Good luck to all those vying for a spot.
00:46:43
Speaker
In Magic the Gathering, Universes Beyond Fallout is out now, so you can play with a bunch of new Fallout cards in the game. Outlaws of Thunder Junction releases April 19th, and Universes Beyond Assassin's Creed releases in July. And in Lorkana news, Disney Lorkana, Into the Inklands is out now, and Ursula's Return, the brand new set that they just revealed, that will be out May 31st.
00:47:10
Speaker
And lastly, in tabletop news, two massive things in the tabletop world, the smaller of the two being Shin Megami Tensei has announced a tabletop RPG with resource books, which are now available for pre-order, which means you can now have Jack Frost and identify... There was a whole tweet about, oh my god, they identified Jack Frost as a he-him, where it's like, well, I get you know, Jack Frost should be identified as he-ho!
00:47:36
Speaker
because that's all Jack Frost says and it's a very funny joke. But the bigger thing in the world of tabletop news, Critical Role's homebrew tabletop RPG Daggerheart is now in open beta and it is very different from D&D on like
00:47:55
Speaker
core course rules obviously they have their own unique classes characters customization all that stuff but the big thing is it relies on hope and fear dice which are 2d12s that's how you're making your main actions and it's a really cool thing that Mercer and the
00:48:16
Speaker
what the lead developer of the game sat down to giving an overview video.
Critical Role's Daggerheart RPG Beta
00:48:21
Speaker
I watched this and I'm like, holy shit, is this what gets me back into D&D? Because this might be what gets me back into D&D. Because this is different enough with how combat works and how everything works. This might be what gets me back into D&D. Not gonna lie. So if you're into D&D and tabletop stuff, go give the Daggerheart trailer a look at to see if this is for you.
00:48:47
Speaker
And that's everything in the world of gaming news this week. Any thoughts on any of those, Panda? No, but I don't know. I'm going to give another couple of hot takes. Are you ready for it? Absolutely. Destiny 2 is terrible. Oh, I mean, yeah, even our Destiny insider, our Destiny 2 insider, Jackson, who has like over 3000 hours in the game says that the game is terrible, too.
00:49:17
Speaker
Okay, I guess that's not a hot take that damn it. Yeah It's like that's he's a roller coaster like oh, it's so great. Oh, it's not good. Oh, it's so great. Oh, it's not good Yeah, like it's been on a roller. It's been on a roller coaster for a while like it's not new We all know that Destiny 2 is they're trying. Oh, they try and I
00:49:40
Speaker
but that's about it really they ain't succeeding though well isn't this supposed to be like one of the last the final shape is set to be the last expansion for this game at least for this saga who knows where they're gonna go after the final shape is out
00:49:58
Speaker
Like the one thing that excites me about the final shape is Nathan Fillion is back as Kate six Which is like, you know because Kate six was my favorite character when I played destiny and destiny to Should never have left. Well, I mean He laughs because of the it was I'm pretty sure it's because of the rookie that he left Which is his cops his new cop show, which is actually really good It's a lot I get a lot of clips in my tick-tock feed of that show and they're really good actually like
00:50:27
Speaker
I want like a party wants to sit down and go watch the rookie, but it's like I don't have that kind of time to invest, but regardless. Yeah, no, I just yeah, that's the I just have no interest in. It's well, yeah, I think that's the kind of like Star Wars. And I'm more so talking about the TV shows and movie. It's sporadically entertaining.
00:50:52
Speaker
Yes. There's one that does well and then the next two suck. There's one that does well, one that's bad, one that's great, and the other one that's terrible. That's kind of a good analysis, actually. It's just sporadically entertaining. All the more reason why, I don't know, I'm one of those people who I love consistency. I love when I know that something is going to pop out and it's going to be good.
00:51:20
Speaker
Like those are kind of the games that I gravitate towards. All the more reason why, well, if we're talking about, you know, all these layoffs, guess what layoffs are happening. It's more so in the live service gaming than anything else. I don't think a lot of people have really like delved deep. It's like live service, but also the big ones because Sony had like just massive layoffs recently as well. Yeah. A lot of the bigger ones, but it's because of this, it affects a lot of the smaller companies as well.
00:51:49
Speaker
It forces more people to go indie, which is why you're like, oh yeah, the indie scene is thriving right now. Well, yeah, because all these game developers need to do something. So they'll either form their own indie studios if they're kind of well off from what they were doing before. But again, there are some people that just can't, that aren't able to because
00:52:11
Speaker
Again, but that it goes into like the oh, well, what's the living situation and like the house is like It goes into just general life things. It's just like I'm not here to cover that stuff I'm not qualified to talk about that
00:52:30
Speaker
Well, I mean, I just say it's like a lot of these layoffs, especially the ones that Sony were because it was their live service section was being kind of cut off as well. I mean, you know.
00:52:43
Speaker
I don't have anything against like online multiplayer stuff. I think they're great when they actually do work. But this whole idea of being sporadically entertaining, you are putting more money into live service than just making a game. You know, just make a game that stands alone, that does well. People will love it and people will continue to love it word of mouth and then over time you make your money back. Live service is very much the opposite where you put too much money into it in hopes
00:53:13
Speaker
that you at least break even or benefit off of it.
00:53:17
Speaker
It's so weird. And then there's Final Fantasy 14. Yes. The outlier of it all. Shout outs to Creative Business Unit 3. Absolutely. And Yoshi P. Should we, should we, oh my God, go for it. Should I talk about Final Fantasy 16? I mean, I know that there was like some new art was released of like the new official Leviathan art was like releasing. It goes hard.
00:53:43
Speaker
Actually, literally right before we got on, should I tell you this? Sure. Breaking news?
Final Fantasy XVI DLC Announcement
00:53:50
Speaker
Yep.
00:53:51
Speaker
April 18th wait actually yeah, wait actually oh my god. No Yoshi P. What are you doing? No, I still need to play reapers It literally just happened when we were talking this morning so actually oh my god Okay, April you already hear first folks April 18th rising tide DLC releases
00:54:15
Speaker
Yep. It says it right here. Rising Tide, April 18th, 2024. Well, OK. Well, OK. Well, I guess I'll start. I'll start at that seven rebirth and then I'll take a break to play the rising tide DLC. I know. It's like I can't believe it's like here we are. Like what? Like two, three weeks away from that date.
00:54:35
Speaker
And I'm kind of like, well, that just put a wrench in like the next month moving forward. One, two, three, about okay. We're four weeks away. Technical. Okay. Yeah. So if you have it, if you, if you're like, if you're, I would say if you've started and you're currently like in your FF seven rebirth play through, I think you'll be fine to get to the 16 DLC.
00:54:58
Speaker
Finish your first finish like a first playthrough of rebirth and then you'll be you'll be fine You'll probably be done early even if you like if you're like a hard hard hard core gamer Even I think even if you like only have like a couple hours each day. I think you should be fine to like yeah I can't I can't imagine the rising tide being like that long of a DLC I mean even if you look at what they kind of did with the first one I mean with the first one, but then again, the first one was really just it's a dungeon with Omega at the top
00:55:28
Speaker
Which is it was phenomenal. Oh, it was that was it was great. Holy shit like the fucking like a soaking remixed fucking yeah The escape is so good. It was good like soaking went hard there Rising so they did say the rising tide is gonna be a longer DLC though. So I'm expecting like maybe
00:55:50
Speaker
I don't know what to like expect, though, because they said that there's probably going to be a few side quests, too. They want to get more to Jill and to spoiler Joshua. Yeah. So I guess that is a spoiler, isn't it? It is a spoiler if you had to play 16 yet. Sorry.
00:56:11
Speaker
I feel like the trailer showed that the kid died. The game's been out for a year. Now we can talk about it freely. I don't give a shit. Well, I mean, yeah, that's the thing. It's like it's been out for a year and also there's concept art of them all over the place. Exactly. Yeah, they officially released his concept art. Like he's a grown man. Yeah. OK. Well, I mean, even at that, Yoshi is still sticking to his guns about the whole like a year later, it will release on PC.
00:56:40
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, hey, maybe maybe around the April 18th will get will know more if they're like when the PC release will be exactly. Yeah, so Yeah, you know Yoshi piece said yep. I'm sticking to my guns with the whole like year release thing. So Yeah, that's it sounded pretty positive on the PC release happening as soon as possible. Basically. Okay. Well good to know. All right
00:57:04
Speaker
Well, we still got more to get through before we get to our main focus today. Let's see what games are going to be on your radar from March 25th to April 5th. From AAA titles, indie hits, hidden gems and hot pieces of garbage, here are the games coming out that should be on your radar.
00:57:22
Speaker
Alright, here we go. Time for the rapid fire. Can Tony get through this in a single breath? Let's find out! Starting on Monday the 25th, Acolyte of the Alter releases for the PC, as well as Between Horizons and Palia. On the 26th, Bulwark Falcon Year Collection comes with PS4 and Xbox One. Grandia HD Collection also for the same systems.
00:57:44
Speaker
Planet Zoo Console Edition comes to the PS5 and Series X, South Park Snow Day comes to the PS5, Series X, PC, and Switch, Outpost Infinity Siege comes to the PC, and Wrestling Cardboard Championship also comes to the PC. On the 27th, Necrosmith 2 is the only release for the PC.
00:58:00
Speaker
On Thursday, the 28th, Ghost Trick fans of Detective makes its way to Android devices. Open Roads releases on everything, Outward on the Switch, Peppergrinder on the Switch in PC, and Medieval Dynasty New Settlement comes to the Quest family of systems. Madison comes to the PSVR 2 on the 29th, and on the 2nd of April, Mini-Shoot Adventures comes to the PC. On the 3rd of April, Deceit 2 releases, and on the 4th,
00:58:27
Speaker
Freedom Planet 2 comes to consoles, and Turbo Golf Racing comes to PS5, Series X, Xbox One, and PC. Deceit 2, by the way, comes to the PS5 and Series X. And that is everything. Nice. In a breath and a half. A breath and a half. I had to take a half breath there. That's everything that comes out over the next two weeks that we know of that wasn't like, surprise, it's out. The bigger games, I guess you could say like one of the biggest games that we've known about is South Park Snow Day.
00:58:57
Speaker
Really? Oh, God. That's just because of trailers and whatnot. Open Roads is by Annapurna Interactive. They're publishing it. So that's one to keep an eye out on for indie lovers. Planet Zoo is essentially your new Zoo Tycoon. So being able to play that on console is always nice. That's really all I've got to say.
00:59:30
Speaker
It's really about it. It's not a super big week this week. But that's what should be on your radar. With that, it's now time for us to dive into what we're talking about this week in the Game Lounge. Conversations of past and future games, the state of the gaming industry, how big decisions affect gamers and anything else that's important to us. Here's what's going down this week in the Game Lounge.
00:59:55
Speaker
Oh boy. Yep. So I'm going to preface this right now. We may talk, there might be some small spoiler talk. We are talking final fantasy seven rebirth, a game that I was hoping to have played at least a little bit by now, but I can unfortunately say I have not
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Experience
01:00:15
Speaker
yet. However, Panda here has. So
01:00:20
Speaker
I'm gonna start by asking this how far are you in the game? How many hours have you put in the game? Okay, so no joke only 50 hours and Get this I'm only on chapter 7. There's 14 chapters. So I'm literally exactly halfway through and get this
01:00:40
Speaker
I'm streaming the gold saucer tonight. Oh, that's where I that's where I stopped. So I mean, the gold saucer is going to be fun. And oh, my God, is this this entire game has been like mini game simulator for sure. They are everywhere. Yes. I know that one of the things you said when I stopped to buy your stream recently was like it's kind of Yakuza esque.
01:01:03
Speaker
it really like yeah okay it's i have to kind of say this because i think one of the questions is how does the open world mechanics or how does it yeah how does the open world feel yeah so this is the weird thing because i know that i think the combat director yamaguchi
01:01:21
Speaker
Maybe I forgot who said it. So don't quote me on the specific person. But he loves the open world of Horizon. And I was like, oh, God, you know, I hope it's not like, you know, kind of the story progression of Horizon, because I you know, I love Horizon. It's not a bad series at all. It's just I can't necessarily say I really cared about any of the characters and or story.
01:01:46
Speaker
because the only person I remember is Aloy, because they say your name so many times. I don't know who anybody else is. So my fear going into Rebirth was the fact that it was going to be very Horizon-esque, where there's just too much open world, not enough people, not enough story. That's what I was kind of afraid of. But what they do here is that it feels like Horizon, where you collect all the things,
01:02:16
Speaker
You know, there's like little icons that say what you can pick up. Yeah, because in the open, the big like thing of like your overall map is like progression with Chad Lee as well. Yes, exactly. Yes. So there's a lot. There's a lot with Chad Lee. There's like combat simulators. There's still summons.
01:02:35
Speaker
So about the combat simulators real quick I'm sorry that I'm kind of going like all over the place with this but it's like I do I do kind of want to know compared to remake where the combat simulators were like very Limited on where you did certain ones because like I know that you can only access some of them after chapter after like in the endgame part
01:02:53
Speaker
Are you able to just do them whenever you want? Kind of, it's one of those, this is what I thought was genius about the game. You know, again, obviously, this is spoilers. But like the Greenlands, the place that you open up in, you basically do Chad Lee's simulators, you know, like Intel assessing enemies, combat stuff, like in the open world section that makes the summon
01:03:21
Speaker
in that section like a little easier to fight. Oh also each section of the open world has a summon that you have to fight in the simulator that you've been unlocked.
01:03:34
Speaker
Yes. And that's I thought that was genius, especially because they actually give a lore to these certain summons, which is something that I don't know, like early game Final Fantasy games, it's just like, you know, you came across a summon. Good for you. Now you have them. Like, there's not really like a story behind it.
01:03:54
Speaker
It's like, OK, why is Titan here specifically? You know, why is Bahamut here specifically? But yeah, no, it's like every yeah, every major open world section has a summon that is attached to it. And you actually get like if you want to find that lore, it's like, oh, go find it.
01:04:12
Speaker
yeah go find it that's kind of like isn't that kind of like dark souls ask of like yes that's kind of cool actually holy shit see no joke i was like this this entire game is like it yeah you know the horizon open world aspect of like
01:04:27
Speaker
Finding items and then transmuting them on the spot like you can make potions in your inventory. Oh, that's nice Not needing to go to a specific place to make stuff is nice. Yeah, or buy it you literally just pick up
01:04:43
Speaker
Yeah, you craft you craft on the spot so you can make 99 potions if you just run around Oh beautiful the urban world, you know, I save my guild for other things Yes exactly. Yes, just literally craft craft like crazy because even at that the more you craft I believe Your experience in crafting goes up
01:05:06
Speaker
So you can make mega potions after level six. So yeah, it continues to expand. So that's where the horizon part kind of comes in. It's just really with like open world aspects and crafting. But that's it. That is it.
01:05:26
Speaker
The open world layout is Horizon, but when it comes to the Yakuza section, it's the characters, it's the weird story, it's the overly animated people.
01:05:37
Speaker
It is so funny. Like this game is funnier than I thought it would ever be. Huh? Because Remake had moments where I was just like, that's hilarious. You know, even Eris saying shit when she's about to fall off a ladder. Yeah. Like it's just like those like it had its comedic moments, but it was still it still very much felt like Final Fantasy 7.
01:05:59
Speaker
yeah exactly it wasn't like it wasn't like overly hilarious but there were moments where i was just like wow what a great moment what a great way to modernize this a bit yeah and that's the thing i actually took a screenshot of people in the background talking
01:06:16
Speaker
Oh my gosh, I have to read one line to you because, you know, Jules, he's the like the weight lifter. Oh, the trainer. Yeah, because he was. Yes, he was in remake as well, isn't he? He's voiced by somebody that's like, I recognize, but I can't remember who. Exactly. I don't know who who they are, but it's just like, yeah, Jules, obviously everybody that you meet in a remake is in this game. Oh, which is great. It's a continuation of everyone.
01:06:46
Speaker
But no, it's like I took a screenshot of like the actual gym. And there's literally a guy in the background that says, eat a dick, lactic acid, lost limits, die fat deposits. Like even the background characters, freaking hilarious. Eat a dick, lactic gas. That's funny. That's funny. That's funny. Holy fuck. That's funny. Yeah.
01:07:11
Speaker
It's just a random guy in the background who says that too. So this game is a lot funnier than I thought it was going to be.
01:07:29
Speaker
My little tippies eyes have been tainted forever. Well, I mean, it just makes me laugh, too, because it's like even in the original Final Fantasy seven, like, you know, they because it was no voice actors, it just had like special characteristics when like Barrett or Sid would cuss.
01:07:47
Speaker
So it's just like, yeah, you know, you never really knew what the hell they were saying, even though you kind of filled in the blanks. But this is like, it's forefront. It's all up in your face. Yeah, there's a moment where it's like you do for Condor and Barrett says the funniest thing. He's all like that polygon piece of shit.
01:08:09
Speaker
What a dick move. Like he just says that right after a Fort Condor match. And it was just, yeah, again, it's just like, well, yeah, like I said, the the actual story characters and just kind of like how they develop feels very over the top and silly like Yakuza. Oh.
01:08:28
Speaker
Okay. Like even the side quest missions are just so silly. Okay, side quest wise, how many side quests have there been? Like how much side quests have you like come across? Well, even with the world intel, you know, gathering the summons stuff or doing Chadly nonsense.
01:08:50
Speaker
I love it. I have I have such a fun time doing all of it, but there's oh god So much because even in the open world It's not like overwhelming Like you know, you're not doing everything every step which in some open world games can get a little annoying But it's just enough
01:09:12
Speaker
that it doesn't feel bogged down by a bunch of nonsense. It's just like, I'm doing a combat thing for Chad Lee to gain intel to get materia. It's all for something. It's not just random. The side content feels worth it on the progress through the main story.
01:09:30
Speaker
Absolutely. Gotcha. Okay, everything is a payoff. Even when it comes to like side questing, everything has a character motivation. Everything has a materia or an item or a new weapon. I don't know. There's just like a bunch of things that like it never feels like a waste of time, which is a lot of what open worlds do.
01:09:57
Speaker
Okay, so I do have to ask, sorry, sorry, so you're 50 hours in chapter seven. How many of these open world areas have you been to at this point? Yes, it's so funny. I was literally just going to like
01:10:12
Speaker
kind of go straight into that because um it basically goes like city open world cave open world city open world cave system gold saucer open world like it does like the combat i mean
01:10:32
Speaker
The loop is just perfect. Yeah, like I said, I was like, you know, there are linear parts, but they're mostly caves to get you to the next to the next area. Yeah. The next open world area. And it's just it's perfect. And it's just the game. This is a this is a question important for me being a completionist. I am. Does it give you a warning if you like go to a place like, oh, hey, if you come here, you can't come back to this part.
01:10:58
Speaker
So get this. Fast travel is a thing. Oh, so you can just go back to any places you've been to before? Kind of not. OK, so this is a weird thing. No matter what. Well, I mean, when you get the dune buggy, I'm pretty sure you can travel anywhere you want. But I believe that is after Gold Saucer. And this is just my memory from Final Fantasy 7 OG. Yeah, once you get the dune buggy thing, you can go anywhere you want to.
01:11:27
Speaker
Man, that's a hard one because ultimately you can go from open world area to previous open world area through means of doing a side quest to unlock the chocobo wagon to take you, you know, from one place to the other. Oh, God. OK, so gotcha. So the open worlds are connected. You just have to unlock the ways to get back to them. If you did go ahead, like if you had to go back back tracks to an area to go do things, yeah, whatever.
01:11:54
Speaker
You just have to in your new area unlock your means of travel. Yes. So like, OK, everything is beneficial. So I would say do everything because it's helpful. Gotcha. OK, good to know because being the completionist that I am, I am probably going to spend the 200 plus hours to platinum this game because I platinum remake. Nice. I just wanted to know like how that system kind of works.
01:12:20
Speaker
Yeah, on the topic of characters again, jumping ahead again. It's so funny that obviously we start with the characters that we left off with at the end of remake being Cloud Tifa, Aerith Barrett and Red. Yeah. When with you being seven chapters in, how many of the rest, how much of the rest of the party have you obtained?
01:12:48
Speaker
You know, like I said, halfway through and I still have the main five right there. We don't even have that. Oh, I guess you fee as well. You have us. Oh, yeah. Main five as in. Yeah. You show. Oh, oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So my fault. They so as well. What about Kate?
01:13:08
Speaker
Kate Sith, I mean, you know, even in original Final Fantasy seven, it happens at the gold saucer. So, oh, oh, so you're OK. So that is where Kate that is where Kate said it gets OK. Yeah. So I'm about to get Kate Sith. OK. And I kind of got spoiler or spoiled on that one because Kate said does have like dice rolls that he does actively.
01:13:31
Speaker
So I already know how like Kate sit as combat goes and I'm like, no joke. He's actually pretty fun. At least he looks like a lot of fun. Okay. But so that's where that is. So there had, you have not encountered the other two characters that we are missing of the main group yet being Vincent Valentine, voiced by Matthew Mercer and said,
01:13:57
Speaker
I don't know what Cid's last name is. Cid Highwind. It's Highwind, okay. Yeah, it's literally the name of the actual ship itself too, so just kind of correlates. There you go. Mr. Cid Highwind. Not to be confused with Final Fantasy XIV's Cid Garland.
01:14:14
Speaker
Yeah, because I'm so used to saying yes, it's Sid Garland. Yeah. I got to get you. So yeah, it's just Sid this time. So good to know because I was curious. I'm like, OK, what do we get about what chapter wise do you do? We get Yuffie added to the party. Oh, gosh, Yuffie is June on, which is like chapter three. Like you almost get her right away. OK.
01:14:38
Speaker
And Red 13 is playable right when you start. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right. The start because he was with the group where we left. Yeah. And I'm not kidding. The combat for for Red 13 is amazing. Like I love him so much.
01:14:51
Speaker
I was like, like, if you were to ask me, like, who was my main characters in original Final Fantasy 7? It was Cloud, obviously, because you can't really get rid of them. Yeah, unfortunately. I mean, sorry, I'm gonna go back to that. But Vincent, Sid, and Red XIII, you know, again, no offense to the ladies or Kate Sith or Barrett.
01:15:16
Speaker
But for some reason, the main four that I did my original Final Fantasy seven is probably what I'm going to end up doing in this series, too. By the end of life with a trailer with the third game, obviously, because I believe they even said that, hey, Vincent and Sid, you won't be playing as in this game, but we're giving it to you in this game.
01:15:36
Speaker
Yep, which I got really sad about that, but whatever. I'll get over it. We have one. We'll have one more game, which we do. OK, I question. And I just want to do we know where rebirth ends exactly? Like, do we know where exactly in the story of seven rebirth ends? Absolutely. And this is where I didn't get spoiled on this.
01:16:07
Speaker
Actually, I do want to bring up. Did I ever tell you how I thought Rebirth was going to end in the last podcast? I think I think we theorized it probably ends where you at the infamous of the original F7 scene of Aerith getting shafted by Sephiroth. Yes. I love the ancients. Yeah, that's it's exactly there. It is.
01:16:37
Speaker
And I think I was also right in the speculation of something else, but I don't want to bring that up quite yet. OK, because it is. It is pretty dramatic. OK, now, big question on story again, and we're all over the place here, but it's it's where my mind goes for thing to thing about this game. Yeah, it's just so much to talk about, especially because it's like, you know, you know, the first like
01:17:06
Speaker
Great open world Final Fantasy experience like I really did like to be fair of like open of open world Final Fantasy games We have the two MMOs of FF 11 and 14. Yeah, you have fifth and then you have 16 kind of
01:17:26
Speaker
See, I would say 16 is open world. Well, it's zones. It's yeah, it's zones. It's like granted, like some zones become closed off as you're focusing on certain story things. But like before the end of the game, the world is fully open to.
01:17:41
Speaker
Yeah, you can literally go anywhere. But I mean, like even the earlier Final Fantasy games, I mean, even Final Fantasy seven is technically an open world. I mean, I guess you could say that each Final Fantasy game is technically open world because you've got to go to other places, but they are more scale. Yeah.
01:18:01
Speaker
it's not like real like a to still exactly yeah but that's the thing it's just this has been such a dream come true that like in my opinion if remake if final fantasy seven series like the remake trilogy here if this fails we will never see any other final fantasy i mean
Digital vs Physical Game Debate
01:18:23
Speaker
It hasn't failed yet with how remake did good. It did what you do with a solid foundation. Rebirth has knocked everybody's socks off. I have heard nothing but good things. But here's the thing. They've been silent on giving reports.
01:18:40
Speaker
sales and it's been I mean I feel like I mean I feel like we don't really need to worry that much about that though because they're probably either because it's like we as much as I would like to know how much sales I feel like they're still tallying it up it will probably know end of this I would say maybe next month maybe end of this month because it takes a while to get all those numbers
01:19:08
Speaker
yeah there's been you know again just like that little twitter drama which i don't necessarily like doubling into but people were saying like um uk in physical copies as well as japan again physical copies um in japan it only did like 280 like 280 000
01:19:27
Speaker
Which again, is actually really good. Yeah, that's all physical though. But you also gotta realize that like the way of like physical games is kind of going... It's a little dead. Yeah, it's a little like you don't see a bunch of like that because you can just download it on like they're making storage sizes on consoles bigger, obviously PC-sized storage. It's like digital is kind of starting to be the way to go.
01:19:54
Speaker
I feel like they'll do physical releases still for a bunch of things until they realize that we can just do everything digitally. But I still feel like we're still a couple years away from everything being just digital when it comes to modern gaming.
01:20:11
Speaker
Truth. I mean, that is a whole new topic, too, that I could get into because I'm also kind of scared about having just being digital, because that also means that they can change whatever they want to whenever they want to, and they could even pull it. So a game that you bought, they could literally steal it back and you have no say. I mean, so I feel like if they were ever do that, though, there would probably be a really good reason as in the game is really, really, really, really bad.
01:20:39
Speaker
Yeah, we need to fix it from the ground up. Let's start over. Exactly. Exactly.
Zach's Role in FF7 Rebirth
01:20:45
Speaker
Back to the point that I wanted to ask. Yes. Obviously with the trailers, there was a bit of a bit of a focus on another certain character who has big ties with FF7 by the name of Zach.
01:21:01
Speaker
I don't know if you've heard of this guy. I don't know if you've heard of this guy kind of looks like cloud black spiky hair carries a buster sword Don't know if you even heard of him, but he seems to have some really Has he appeared within the first half of the game or is there?
01:21:19
Speaker
Has there been a sighting of him in the first half of this game? Here's the thing. I don't want to spoil it for you, Tony. I know you don't. How about a yes or no? Exactly the first half of this game.
01:21:34
Speaker
Absolutely. And here's the thing. I'm not going to. This isn't really a spoiler because I kind of expected it. He is absolutely playable. He is playable. OK. Yes. So now is he playable in a sense of like is like the Nibelheim flashback thing or different than that?
01:21:54
Speaker
different. Okay. So again, I don't think that's a spoiler because I was, I don't know. In my opinion, that was absolutely expected. Um, but again, it's so funny, Tony, you're gonna probably freak out when you start playing the game. Oh, God. Oh, I mean, doesn't, doesn't it start with the Deebelheim flashback though? You? No. Oh.
01:22:17
Speaker
it doesn't get that so the demo was literally technically the second part of yeah there were two demos that they released the first part of it was the navel high flashback in this way where you play as cloud yeah okay with that navel high flashback does it work like the rest of the game were you able to switch between the characters or is it you just have cloud and sephiroth and sephiroth is like so non in a sense
01:22:41
Speaker
No, you get to play as Sephiroth. Oh, okay. That's kind of cool. That's kind of cool. Okay. Okay. No, it's absolutely a lot of fun. Um, but it kind of sucks because it's like, I really wanted to do more with Sephiroth, but you only get like that maybe a half hour with him.
01:22:57
Speaker
Yeah. OK. I mean, that's fair. That's fair. That's that's fine. I was curious about that. And then obviously with the second the second part of the demo was your first like real look at the open world part of things. Yes. So really, I mean, it's funny because the Nibelheim incident is part two of the actual open. So, yeah, you haven't even played the opening yet. And therefore I don't want to say anything. Let's just say that. And I think you know what I'm getting at.
01:23:24
Speaker
I want to take a guess of how the game starts. I mean, I guess so. Does the game start with the ending of Crisis Core? Did I get it? Yeah. Oh, that's so cool. Oh, that's so cool.
Crisis Core Continuity in FF7 Rebirth
01:23:44
Speaker
See, it is absolute. Like, again, this is a Final Fantasy 7 dream come true.
01:23:49
Speaker
So, I mean, like I literally just got goosebumps with your reaction because I got so excited for you. Oh, that's gonna be so cool. I hate that I got spoiled, but I hate that I spoiled myself on this, but I don't care. I don't care. That's so cool. It's all the more incentive for you to actually play and be like, okay, where's Zach? When do I get a, when do I get to see Zach? Oh, that's gonna be so sick. But I'm not gonna tell you when he's playable.
01:24:16
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, no, you don't have to take that. That's I'm happy with just that right now. Oh, I'll take genius. That's absolute genius. Fucking start. Holy fuck. Yeah. So therefore you start there and then you get the Nibelheim incident. So it's just like, oh, you know, again, for people who don't know the game. It's still a surprise. It's still an absolute like, holy shit, what's going on here? Yeah.
01:24:45
Speaker
I'm glad that I preface preface this section of like, hey, we'll probably talk about a spoiler or two here. And so, uh, hopefully if you're still listening at this part and you haven't skipped ahead, uh, you know, you haven't spoiled yourself as well, uh, to, to listeners out there. Cause I don't want to ruin this game for y'all.
FF7 Rebirth: Graphics vs Performance Mode
01:25:04
Speaker
Uh, this is, this is, this is because go play the game. If you have a PlayStation five, go play the game.
01:25:10
Speaker
It's juicy stuff. I'm not kidding. This is probably one of the best Final Fantasy experiences I've had probably in like, yeah, like 12, 15 years. Now there is one, another thing I do have to ask, a big point, have you run into any bugs, issues, or any of the like with the glitches, any of the like with the game? Have you run into any? You know what? There's very few, but they're very tiny. And well, performance mode as of yesterday got a fix.
01:25:38
Speaker
Yeah, there was like I know that there was like a recent update to the game as well. So it's like it's like even better for me because I probably won't run into any more any issues. Exactly. Yeah. No, I mean, I'm not kidding. Performance mode, especially during the demo, I was like, wow, this looks like a soft focus was put on like, you know, how like back in the day, how there's like a lady of a certain age and you didn't want to make her look all wrinkly and shit. You basically have a soft focus filter. Yes.
01:26:08
Speaker
so she looks like you know 10 years younger instantly but that's almost what it felt like in during performance mode it's just like there's this like weird little sheen that made everything blurry and out of focus like it really sucks because i keep telling people it's like if you're gonna play your first playthrough do it on graphics mode but you're only getting 30 frames
01:26:33
Speaker
on performance mode you're getting like a really yeah you're getting 60 but it's like this blurry out of focus almost 1080p visual so so which mode do you prefer which mode would you recommend for people to play on then um first playthrough at least at the moment i would say stick to graphics because oh my god it looks so good it's native 4k
01:27:01
Speaker
it is so it's beautiful um like i said uh performance mode it does it's like a blurry out of focus soft focus like 1080p it's really weird but you're getting 60 i'm personally doing the performance mode now that the change just happened yesterday i'm doing it sharp performance mode it looks better
01:27:25
Speaker
But it's still, you could tell that it's no graphics mode. Gotcha. Yeah, like it's definitely no graphics mode. Gotcha. OK, good to know. What's, how's combat?
FF7 Rebirth Combat Mechanics
01:27:42
Speaker
Flawless. Absolutely flawless. The synergy abilities. Beautiful. Oh yeah, that's like the one thing they added upon. But combat's basically the same kind of thing as remake was.
01:27:54
Speaker
Yes, it's weird. Okay, so I don't think this is a hot take I think I prefer Punisher mode by cloud in remake. Oh, yeah, cuz he had the two modes that he could switch through Yeah for some reason they don't he doesn't have that anymore. He only has one now or it's still basically like the same mechanic, but it's a different Attack. Oh, it's really strange
01:28:17
Speaker
I mean, you could tell that they kind of customized it for an open world setting. So he kind of zips back and forth like left to right to kind of like gather or hit as much as possible.
01:28:29
Speaker
Instead of just focusing on like one specific creature or character. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. OK, so yeah, remake his Punisher mode is very focused while. In Rebirth, it's very literally open world where he like, yeah, zips back and forth and it's a larger area. OK, such a small difference, but it's actually it's not a big deal. I just preferred Punisher mode in the first one.
01:28:55
Speaker
But core combat is basically the same as remake where you have your regular combo attacks where you build up your AP bar to do magic and other abilities and whatnot. Yep, everything is the same except for now you have ticks. So every time you use an ability, there's like five little ticks that are right next to your ATB gauge.
01:29:20
Speaker
So there's five ticks and say a synergy move with red 13, you need three ticks in order to use it with red 13. Therefore, you need to use three abilities that add up to three ticks in order to then do a synergy move with another player. Okay, gotcha. So fricking cool. Oh my God. The synergy moves are amazing.
01:29:47
Speaker
Which characters in the game so far? Because I mean since you have like all that Kate says really who is your favorite to use at least here to use You know what outside at the moment? Everybody is so much fun. I think the only one that I find
01:30:02
Speaker
Well, I mean, it's Barrett. I think I don't think Barrett is really that fun to play because he's literally a dude with a gun on his arm. He's the slowest Dodger. Like he literally is. Yeah, I agree. I mean, for remake alone, he definitely has had those issues of like.
01:30:20
Speaker
Yeah. All you're really doing is just walking slowly to make dodging a bit easier and just shooting. Yeah. And then ideally just charging up to use the magic that you have on Barrett's, really. Yeah. I was like, Barrett is, you know, again, he's just the long range tank, which both of those I really don't care in gaming in general. Yeah. And that's fair.
01:30:45
Speaker
Yeah, so I mean, I just find him very boring to play as, but very helpful in the party. And the fact that, like, okay, so Yuffie and Kate Sith, again, if you were to ask me, like, original Final Fantasy VII, which two characters did I use the least? Those two. Yuffie is the funnest, like, even an intergrade.
01:31:04
Speaker
I was like what a massive improvement. Yuffie is actually fun. Yuffie plays very uniquely but it's fun of how Yuffie plays. She's absolutely fun. Like I love playing as her. So I mean yeah right now my main three. I mean even Aerith. Aerith has better moves now that actually make her really fun.
01:31:27
Speaker
But I would say Cloud is just absolutely fun to play as, no matter what. I mean, you kind of have to. Again, you can't take him out of the party, so he has to be the best of the best. But Red13, Yuffie, and Tifa, that's kind of like my main switch-around party. So much fun. Absolutely fun. And again, I can't wait to get Kate Sith, but from what I've seen,
01:31:52
Speaker
Again, like if you make Yuffie and Kate Sith fun, you're doing a great job. I want to ask, when you level up characters, do reserve characters at a party level up as well? Like, do they still get experience? Or is it only those who are in combat that get experience?
01:32:10
Speaker
Oh my gosh, get this. So the two characters that, well, I mean two characters at the moment because I only have five. But the three main ones are the ones that are doing the main combat, but the other ones are actually on the outside still shooting.
01:32:23
Speaker
Oh, so there's still a part of the fight. It's just it's almost like to reduce clutter. They're just on the rim of the actual. So they're doing minor. There's so they're actually doing minor chip damage during the fights as well. Yes. Oh, got it. You. Holy shit. Yep. So they still say gain experience to after the fights as well.
01:32:48
Speaker
Yeah. So there's party experience as well as individual experience. Like if not just so the people at your party will gain more experience than your reserve party, but the reserve party still gains experience. Absolutely. Okay. Good to know. Yes. Very good to know. Absolute genius. And oh my gosh, speaking of the whole Dark Souls scenario and like from soft or whatever, um, there is
01:33:14
Speaker
perfect dodges, again, kind of like remake, but they also added an immune perfect block system. So if you block at a very specific time, it's completely immune. You don't get hurt whatsoever.
01:33:33
Speaker
So they actually did introduce dodging and blocking mechanics that are a little more beneficial towards the player. Like obviously, yeah, you gotta really master it because all enemies are different and whatnot, but good to know. Yeah, so if you block at a very specific time, no damage. No damage whatsoever. And actually, you can stagger creatures faster if they're like a head-on attack and stuff. It's so freaking cool.
01:33:56
Speaker
All right, one last thing I want to ask before we because obviously we could talk about this all day. Absolutely. One last thing I want to ask. What do you think the title for the third game will be? You know, OK, I know that we've like since remake started and even kind of before that, a lot of us on, you know, the channel, we kind of made fun of it. We were like regurgitated.
01:34:19
Speaker
Final Fantasy regurgitated. Final Fantasy, you know, resurgence. I don't know. That's, you know, we kind of came up with a bunch of ridiculously kind of stupid ones. Yeah. But honestly, the more that I think about it, I really like the idea of Final Fantasy 7 re-written or rewrote.
01:34:37
Speaker
Re-written isn't a bad one. It might be re- maybe Reunion. Well see, Crisis Core Reunion is this. I mean, that was Crisis Core's though. Yeah, see again Reunion was like, yeah, when the remakes trilogy was announced, I was like, oh yeah, it's gonna be Reunion, duh. But yeah, no, that Crisis Core came out that winter and I was like, uh, well, maybe not. So, I don't know, but... Well see, that's the thing, a lot of the
01:35:07
Speaker
like remake goes along with remaking the like remaking not only the game but also the story rebirth I'm still not a hundred percent sure on what that's about unless that's the rebirth of Zach
01:35:23
Speaker
Oh, so, yeah, you know, they all tie in to the actual all time. Maybe, maybe there is. Maybe there's an end credits scene that says, oh, yeah, we have the title of the third game. And it's I hope so. It's because I doubt that really coded Kingdom Hearts case.
01:35:44
Speaker
Re-chain of memories Okay, okay tomorrow we get it you want us to play Kingdom Hearts Oh Speaking of okay, this brings up one final point. I want to bring up because the moras There were some tweets about all the moras doing it again except this time he's making final fantasy 7 like freaking Kingdom Hearts because Characters from the mobile game ever crisis
01:36:14
Speaker
Are in rebirth. Oh my gosh. Well, I mean, again, that's a sport. You probably should not have been reading that. I mean, I don't I never played. I never I didn't play ever crisis. I'm not going to play ever crisis. Like how important I guess I should ask how important to the story are these ever crisis characters? Here's the thing, because I actually know the ever crisis story, I would love to give you like a brief synopsis real. Yeah, absolutely. A brief synopsis would be great.
01:36:43
Speaker
OK, you know, again, long story short, there's three first class soldiers. They are on missions in Wutai. You know, this is during the Wutai War or whatever that's leading up to like Sephiroth becoming a full fledged like, you know, the ultimate soldier ever. It runs along with crisis court.
01:37:06
Speaker
Yes, it's kind of like very much. Well, it's a time to that too. Okay. Okay. So it's even before the events of crisis. Okay. Yeah. I mean, this is like Sephiroth when he's like fucking 13 or 14 years old. Okay. He's literally a soldier at that age. But this is like during the Wutai war that, you know, again, like spans like 10 plus years or some shit. But, um,
01:37:31
Speaker
But no, get this, so three first-class soldiers, well, soldiers at the time, basically go behind enemy lines in Wutai, but then become Wutai sympathizers. So they're almost like the OG avalanche.
01:37:49
Speaker
but working with Wutai. So they're basically, oh God, what's the word where you swap sides? Turncoats. Which one? A turncoat. Yeah, a turncoat, yeah. So they basically like, they're soldiers fighting Wutai soldiers, but then they become Wutai sympathizers and now they're a part of like the Wutai uprising or like resurgence in Final Fantasy VII.
01:38:17
Speaker
God, so really, oh God, what's his name? Glenn? I think it's Glenn. Yeah, Glenn is in the game and I'm not kidding. When I saw him, I was like, no way. They literally brought a phone game into this as well.
01:38:34
Speaker
Which again is probably where people are saying that no more a thing is happening. Yeah, it's like But in reality, it's just hey, so it's so it's actually not so it's not as bad as like the fucking Kingdom Hearts scenario It's more of just like hey, there were these three characters that were like they were former soldiers They became they essentially were they became who type a part of who tie and yes like
01:38:59
Speaker
Instead of them just being like normal NPCs that you would have seen if this was like regular FF7 They're actually oh if you had play if you did this you know a bit more about who these people are
01:39:12
Speaker
Yeah, they're a little more flushed out MPC characters in this world than anything else. Now, do they give them enough like detail or whatnot that if I never played Evercrisis, do I get to kind of know what these people are like in Rebirth or do I need to play Evercrisis if I really want to get to know what these people are like?
01:39:30
Speaker
the moment I'm not 100% sure because they only showed up for like not even five minutes so far. Okay but so far but that was where you gotcha. But when I saw Glenn they kind of do a little flashback scenario with Rufus. I mean you'll see it but um yeah no I mean at the moment I don't know what
01:39:53
Speaker
what they do or what they are. But again, even in remake, there was like, you know, Leslie, of all characters had a flushed out backstory for some odd reason. Kyrie, a roach, you know, they're just kind of adding stuff. They're not really taking away from the overall final fantasy seven story. They're just there doing things in the background with other people. Cool.
01:40:19
Speaker
All right. That's all I wanted to know. That's all I wanted the clarification for. Let's see people saying that, though. Yeah. Because again, because again, tomorrow has done things with phone games in the past with the arts. And it's just it's just the thing about, OK, it's not as bad that OK.
01:40:40
Speaker
No, we're not like changing the entire story like Kingdom Hearts. It's more of just like, hey, here's some NPCs. Here's a little bit of like what they did. You're welcome. Yes, that's all. Absolutely. Good to know.
01:40:54
Speaker
You are getting ready for another night of adventuring with your friends and you realize, wow, I haven't leveled up and it's been two whole sessions. Well, I have the solution for you. Just ask your game master again. Your GM will understand that after a straight RP session and one encounter with a bunch of CR1 goblins, your level eight character needs to be thrown about. Forget about experience point counting or preset milestones that GM had already established.
01:41:22
Speaker
asking your GM again is the tried and true solution that does not come across as annoying at all. So did you level up? Just ask your GM again.
01:41:31
Speaker
All right. I think with that, let's go talk about our second topic of the day, which isn't really a very long one. It's only like a few. It's a shorty, but a goody. Yeah. We'll keep this one short, I guess. Yeah. And that topic is Eldering, and a bit of a future of it.
Elden Ring DLC and FromSoft's Future
01:41:52
Speaker
First things first, what are your thoughts on the upcoming DLC? I mean, I'm excited for it. I already kind of know what it's about.
01:42:00
Speaker
Um, through the gameplay trailer and just kind of what Miyazaki said in interviews so far. So I kind of know what the shadow of the urge tree is. It's literally a place that existed in the world. Like it's literally a part on the map, but that has been shrouded in darkness due to America basically saying like, Hey, we're going to excommunicate these people. So it's literally a place that exists on the map.
01:42:30
Speaker
But you can't see it, nor can you like walk there, nor can you like fly or take a boat to get there. But now you'll be able to. Yep, through the hand of Mikala. And it's crazy. Okay. It's absolutely nuts. And I'm really excited for it. But at the same time... Elden Ring has kicked my ass so many times before that I... But that's a Souls game. That's how it works.
01:42:57
Speaker
Yeah, I mean the kick your ass until you kick its ass. Yep. And then you memorize things and then the next time you can kill Milania in 10 minutes as opposed to five and a half hours.
01:43:09
Speaker
So, fuck you. I figured out your game from some. That's fair. That's fair. A big thing just with Eldering in the future for you is you have plans to make more content within the game. Absolutely. Yes. So, what exactly is it if you would like to diverge into what exactly is your planning? What exactly is it that you're planning?
01:43:32
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, we're just going to do a bunch of like silly skits and whatnot. Like I literally have like 37 written right next to me. My God. And well, I mean, 10 of them, I would say are just absolute like dog shit. Like they're stupid. But I have 37 at least. So that's a good start. But here we are literally exactly three months away because it's June 21st when the DLC comes out.
01:43:58
Speaker
So basically we're just compiling a bunch of like, kind of Robot Chicken style Eldid Ring videos. Where it's just a bunch of random nonsense, but just putting them into like short form. Like I'm not kidding, like anywhere between like three seconds to a minute. And it's more so gonna be a parody and like a playful
01:44:23
Speaker
I don't know, just kind of jabbing of Elden Ring. It's just going to be fun. It's going to be a bunch of random nonsense. That sounds really cool. I can't wait to see what what comes of that. It's going to be so dumb.
01:44:39
Speaker
One last thing I want to ask you about just on FromSoft itself. What are you expecting from FromSoft after the DLC release? If it's a new Soulsborne title you're hoping for, what are you hoping for? You know, it's crazy because I mean, Armored Core came out last year. So that's the thing. FromSoft has always done like two games at once.
01:45:08
Speaker
Because Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3 were being made at the same time. But again, different release dates, obviously. Elden Ring and Sekiro were being made at the same time. Obviously Elden Ring's bigger, so different dates on that. But they've consistently done like two, three years apart.
01:45:29
Speaker
But now that Armored Core kind of happened last year, DLC is happening this year, I could easily see something maybe in the next year or two. And I want to see a brand new thing, because if there's one thing that the FromSoft series has always done, and Miyazaki specifically, is he likes making solo, independent stories and then being done with it and moving on. As if there's always DLCs too,
01:46:01
Speaker
you know, his expand on them. Yeah. Yeah. Like he could expand upon the game that previously existed. That's fine by itself. But, um, yeah. And the Dark Souls trilogy was not supposed to happen. Um, Dark Souls two happened because FromSoft wanted it to happen and forced FromSoft's B team without Miyazaki to do it. Oh, that's why Dark Souls two isn't liked very much.
01:46:28
Speaker
No, it's not light very much. And the DLC saved it because halfway through production, they were like Miyazaki, we need you to do this for us. And Miyazaki says like, I don't want to make anything a sequel. But he came back to fix Dark Souls 2 with the three DLCs that he made, which again, it's the three DLCs for Dark Souls 2 is better than anything in Dark Souls 2.
01:46:55
Speaker
That makes a lot more sense because that's what I heard. I'm like, I don't get it. Well, how is this DLC better than that? That makes a lot more sense now.
01:47:02
Speaker
Yeah, and also it's just weird how like, you know, there's no Bloodborne 2, there's no Sekiro 2, there's no Demon Souls 2. It's only the Dark Souls trilogy right now. So a lot of people don't know that Dark Souls 2 was not supposed to happen. It was not supposed to happen. Miyazaki was like, no, I do standalone one time games and then I move on to the next standalone one time game. Yeah.
01:47:28
Speaker
So it's just, he does that so well. Again, Blood Board, I would love to see a Blood Board 2, but I don't care if I ever get a Blood Board 2. I think more people would just love to see Blood Board off of PS4 exclusivity. Yes, it would be great to have it, a PC at 60 frames. Because again, that's one that's locked at 30 on the PS4. Yeah. And here it is, it's been 10 years. It's been a decade.
01:47:57
Speaker
since Bloodborne. That's so weird. And it's still one of the most, like, beloved FromSoft games ever. So I mean, again, it's like, I don't care if I ever see a Bloodborne 2, it would be fun. But the reason why these games work so well is because they're just by themselves. Like, yeah, you know, you look at the Dark Souls 2 scenario, people will compare it. People will tear it apart. People will be like, why is this even a part of the series?
01:48:29
Speaker
You know, that's what happens when you get into franchises. Franchises are bad. Don't do that.
01:48:38
Speaker
I mean, not all franchises are bad. So there are some there are some good ones, but like there's always a stinker in a franchise. Yeah. Well, I mean, even if you look at like, oh, God, you know, oh, God, what is two faces quote from like The Dark Knight? Oh, I live long enough. Oh, if you live long enough to be the if you're if you're a hero, you eventually become the villain.
01:49:04
Speaker
Yeah, or something along those lines. I I know of that quote. Yeah. Yeah. It's like I strongly believe that in franchises though, because if you make one too many, it starts to lose it. Yeah, it's like what? No way to know when to stop with a franchise. Yeah. Know when to stop, which that's the thing. It's like these corporations are very greedy. Let's look at Blizzard. Let's look at Bethesda. They don't stop. And people just absolutely tear them apart because they find them as
01:49:34
Speaker
hollow cash grab nostalgia bait nonsense. I mean, again, look at the MCU. They literally just canceled five movies that were supposed to happen this year and next year. Yeah, if you live long enough, you basically turn into the villain. If you go too long, too much, people get pissed about that. And you start jerking them around and you're... It becomes more about quantity than quality.
01:50:04
Speaker
Yeah, it completely dilutes into a bunch of, why did I even watch this? This was a waste of my time and money. Again, look at live service. I think the exact same thing. Destiny 2 is a good example. It is sporadically entertaining, which you're going to piss more people off than actually get people on your side.
01:50:27
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. All right. Yeah. It's a great way to end it now. Little insider business nonsense. Sorry, everybody. All right. Well, with that, I think it's time for us to start closing things out and head on into today's bonus level. Crazy lists, great deals and recapping gaming history. It's all here in the bonus level.
01:50:52
Speaker
And starting off, we got this week in gaming history from March 25th to April 7th. Here's what happened in the past. Starting off with some major events. And on the 28th of 2010, Nintendo released the Nintendo DSi XL in North America for $189.99 USD.
01:51:12
Speaker
On the 29th of 2003, an anonymous hacker reveals a method to run Linux on an unmodified Xbox game system by exploiting a buffer overflow flaw in the save-load game function of James Bond 007, Agent Under Fire.
01:51:28
Speaker
The flaw exists in several other games and can be used to load and run software on the Xbox. The hacker is now eligible to win a $100,000 challenge funded by Windows founder Michael Robertson. And in 98 April 2nd, Sony CEA sells the $10 million PlayStation video game in North America.
01:51:56
Speaker
As for games celebrating their birthdays, here's what's turning what on the 25th, back in 2008, Crisis Core, Final Fantasy 7 was released. So that turns 2008 to 2024. That is 16. It's 16. Holy crap. 93 on March 26 with Star Fox. So that turns 31.
01:52:24
Speaker
Wow. 2001 March 28th and Pokemon Stadium two turns 23 2006 March 28th Kingdom Hearts to turn. Oh my gosh. 18. Wow. Kingdom Hearts two can drink in Canada.
01:52:43
Speaker
1998 March 29th parasite Eve turns 26 Wow, okay. I feel like all these games were like I remember them like they were yesterday 2007 April 3rd Final Fantasy fables chocobo tails turns 14. Oh my god 14 No, not 14. I'm wrong about that math. Oh 17 17. Yeah, I got you Thank you
01:53:13
Speaker
2017 April 4th persona 5 turns 7 What? That's how she got what I feel like I just played that like last year That was crazy. Actually, it's only seven years old and 2012 April 6 Xenoblade Chronicles turns 12. Oh, yeah gosh Well, I mean, okay. No joke, especially if we're talking about like remakes and whatnot. Oh
01:53:40
Speaker
especially in the square soft squaring this category. I believe parasite Eve needs to make a comeback. I know. I've heard a lot of people say parasite Eve should have like a remake or like of something like real bad. Like it's actually a great game and it's totally worth it. I can't believe that that is almost 20. It's almost 26. 26 four years. Hey, maybe in four years we'll see something a parasite Eve.
01:54:06
Speaker
I hope so. Well, you know, like I said, I was like, if Final Fantasy 7 fails as a remake trilogy, you will not see anything else. That is a fact. No, that is a fact, which I don't think it will fail. No, I don't think so either. But I'm just like, OK, I don't know. I'd love to see Parasite Eve make a comeback. Moving on to top five. Oh, yeah. Top five Final Fantasy 7 OG slash remake slash rebirth fights so far in your opinion.
01:54:33
Speaker
Oh my gosh, top five? Yeah. Well, I mean, the three summons were a lot of fun.
01:54:39
Speaker
which is Titan, Phoenix, and Alexander. And I'm not kidding. I did the full might on all of them. So you know how I said you could go through the world and make them a little easier? I decided not to. You could skip all of that and just fight them as they are, which is really hard, I'm assuming. Very. It is very hard. In fact, I'm not kidding. I was like, Alexander took me like 12, 13 tries.
01:55:04
Speaker
before i finally got him yeah and apparently like i even went online it said like best time to fight alexander chapter nine here i am in chapter seven and i got him yesterday
01:55:15
Speaker
It was a dumb idea because it took like an hour, hour and a half-ish. It was hard. I don't know why I did it. I should have looked that up before doing that, but whatever. So that's great. What would the other two be in here? Yeah. I think this is no spoiler whatsoever. Technically, Genova on the boat in Costa del Sol.
01:55:41
Speaker
That was actually wild. That was crazy. What the hell just happened in that boat? It was awesome. And the fifth one. Midgar Solmir. I'm going to say it, even though I fucked, I sucked like I like that fight was an embarrassment, but it's also like one of the first big boss fights that you actually come across in birth. Yeah, rebirth. Midgar Solmir is the big snake dude.
01:56:12
Speaker
with the chocobo hair. Whoa. A snake dude, not a dragon?
01:56:21
Speaker
No, it's a big snake. Oh my God. Yeah, bigger soul mirror in Final Fantasy 7 is the first obstacle right after a chocobo bills. Interesting. Yeah, he's a big snake because when you said mid guard, so we're like, what do you mean the big ass dragon from Final Fantasy 14? No, he's just making this one. And honestly,
01:56:47
Speaker
It was an embarrassment. It was like one of the worst fights I've done in this entire game.
01:56:52
Speaker
All right. Sober actually kicked my ass. It was bad. We now move on to head to head. Two games enter, one game leaves, and I've got meta. It's two in-game card games. It's triple triad versus Queen's Blood. This is going to shake some feathers, but Queen's Blood for the win. Okay. Queen's Blood won 100%. Okay. I love it so much. Okay. It's addicting. Okay.
01:57:20
Speaker
I want to ask, but I'll learn Queen's Blood another time. We're low on time. I don't want to go over two hour mark. I can talk about Queen's Blood all day too. Moving on to Tony's game poll, which is a question I ask every season going forward. It's a poll that changes every season. If Kingdom Hearts 4 was to add any Disney Pixar world, what would you add? You know, I hated.
01:57:48
Speaker
Well, I didn't hate Kingdom Hearts 3. I did not enjoy it. Big Hero 6 was dumb. I mean, it wasn't dumb. It was fine. Sorry. I would say it was fine. With what they had, it was fine. The world was cool, but the plot-wise of it, it could have done better with it. Oh, it was pointless. It's like, of all of the Pixar, you did Big Hero 6.
01:58:11
Speaker
like of every single one. You know what? This is gonna be weird. I actually, I'm gonna say, this is gonna be kind of weird. I'm gonna say inside out. Inside out, okay. Because you could actually go into the mind of somebody and help them out in terms of heartless and all that stuff. Like you could literally go into their mind, fight heartless so they don't actually turn into a heartless or a nobody. I'm saying weird one.
01:58:42
Speaker
Fucking. All right. Really? All right. Strange one for the first time. I can say this. We have a lead on the poll and inside out now has a two vote lead of the four guests we've had on. Yeah, that's crazy.
01:58:57
Speaker
Okay. Well, that's our game poll so far. Again, we'll be telling up the final thing at the very end of this season. So you guys still have time. So our guests will still have time to add to this. What are the other ones? What are the other ones? We have Incredibles and we have. That's the obvious one. Let's do. We have Wally. Okay. Those are the other two that have been said so far.
01:59:18
Speaker
I mean, WALL-E would technically be impossible. I mean, not really, because again, they've taken place like... Sora's gone to places like during the movie timeline as well. So you have the spaceship that's in WALL-E that you'd be able to do it with. Oh, I guess that's true. Because ultimately the Earth is just trash. Yeah.
01:59:38
Speaker
I mean the earth is trash and there's also heartless there. And so you got to save Wally there and then you just go to the plot of the movie where you go up on the spaceship with him. But can robots be heartless? Oh, I guess I can. I mean, yeah, because Tron, a program, you could deal with heartless. So like, well,
01:59:59
Speaker
No, you're right. Well, especially because that's I think that's why I said inside out because I was like I was thinking of Tron like going into something and as well as Except it's not a program. It's just it's a person. So yeah, it's a person further and well even like Winnie the Pooh you go into a book. Yeah, exactly There's no heartless in the hundred acre woods. Yeah, it's just a mini game. Yeah scenario. It's just mini games are so you'll be fun to see more of that and
02:00:25
Speaker
Yeah, sorry. Our deals of the week this week for Epic Call of the Wild and the Angler and Invincible presents Adam Eve are free until March 28th and the Epic Games Spring Sale is on until the 28th as well. The achievement of the week is in Dragon's Dogma 2, an eye for an eye, which is to petrify a Medusa. And the game of the week is Open Roads. And lastly, our guest game recommendation. If there's one game, new or old, Panda, that you would recommend to the audience, what game would that be?
02:00:56
Speaker
Parasite Eve, I guess. It's a good choice. It's a great choice. Panda, thank you for coming on today's episode of the podcast. Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, my throat's still a little fucked up, but I mean, made it through it. Oh, yeah. Where do we find you on the Internet? Oh, my gosh, I'm all over it. I got a tick tock. I got the I got the X. I got the Instagram and Twitch all at Red Panda game RPG.
02:01:26
Speaker
And that's no E on gamer and two Rs. It's weird to spell it. But yeah, I love all the things on YouTube because I'm trying to make that a thing. Yeah. Hell yeah. It's a bitch. It's an absolute bitch.
02:01:47
Speaker
And of course you can find me at Tony's game lounge everywhere as well Instagram Twitter tick tock twitch and YouTube Day of recording this actually. It's the last day of my 60 hour sub-a-thon. So If you didn't catch any of that live you can find it on I'm not say I didn't save the VODS because
02:02:06
Speaker
12 hours a day is a fucking long time for me. I'm not going to post that on YouTube. It's long, but you can catch them on the Twitch channel. There are guys on the Twitch channel, so you can go catch those there. Panda, thank you once again for coming on. Of course, it's always fun talking to you, Tony.
02:02:22
Speaker
Thank you the listener for tuning in be sure to like share follow the podcast on whatever platform you're listening to it, too We will be back in two weeks and we will see you there next time right here in the game lounge. Bye
02:02:39
Speaker
Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Tony's Game Lounge. New episodes release every two weeks. Make sure to follow, like, and share the podcast on your streaming service and follow us on Instagram, YouTube, Twitch, and X.