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Episode 35 - Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo
1.6k Plays28 days ago
TEETH UPDATE! For the teeth enthusiasts and teeth curious, we unveil a brand new chapter in the PushingUpRoses Teeth Saga ™. Roses discovered a detective game that Matt’s been telling her about since day one and Matt played some demos!
Then, we dig deep into a world of horror, mystery, intrigue, and Japanese folklore in the Japanese ADV game Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo. We have A LOT to say about this one, folks. So much in fact, that we skip our ranking segment this ep. Sorry everyone, but this game left us feeling inspired, frustrated, enamored, curious, and ready to pontificate like mad.
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Bowl of Lentils - The Origins of Visual Novels: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wOtv-J7tOI
The Seven Wonders of Honjo: https://hyakumonogatari.com/2012/01/02/the-seven-wonders-of-honjo/
Games Mentioned:
- Rise of the Golden Idol
- Loco Motive
- Proverbs
- The Haunting of Joni Evers
- The Suicide of Rachel Foster
- The Fading of Nicole Wilson
- What Remains of Edith Finch
- The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
- Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector
- Disco Elysium
- Cabernet
- Fields of Mistria
- Hatoful Boyfriend
- Huniepop
- Danganronpa
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
- Mystery House
- Deja Vu
- Final Fantasy
- Paranormansight: The 13 Ghosts of Florida State University
- (Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo)
Recommended
Transcript
Teeth Troubles and Scent Adventures
00:00:00
Speaker
I have a teeth update. Everyone's favorite segment. The teeth up update. The teeth update. Oh my god, we should have a theme song for teeth update. Oh my god, I'm going to make one. or you you' Actually, you're very good at that. I'm going to make one. I'm less good at that. Teeth update.
00:00:29
Speaker
update. So here's here. Here's what happened, folks. I've been in teeth pain for like two months now. And a couple weeks ago, I had two emergency root canals, as I told you, I did not know that that was just part one of the root now, because it was ah it was like an impromptu emergency thing. So what that was, was I went in, they drilled into my teeth, didn't feel anything totally numb.
00:00:55
Speaker
Nothing to be scared of and they put medicine in my teeth. They put medicine to knock out like this cold sensitivity I was having and it worked. ah You could put ice on my teeth and I will not feel it. It is gone. But for the past week it had still been like throbbing and sensitive and hurting and I couldn't chew. I didn't realize they weren't done.
00:01:17
Speaker
So a couple days ago on Monday, I'll go back and I'm like, Hey, I'm still hurting. I know we have to finish up the work. And she's like, it's gonna go away. We have longer work to do today. I'm like, Oh, so they went back in, they drilled, they lasered, they put um permanent fillings in. And then I was so sad, Matt, not depressed, depression and sadness, totally different things. I want you to imagine a very sad, pathetic roses.
00:01:46
Speaker
wandering cow and face but the so face wandering out totally numb on one side. ah And I'm like, just like slumped in like, and so this dentist office yeah is connected to a shopping center. It's connected to like this huge outdoor mall, which normally I'd be stoked about, but I'm just like slogging around as the most bad person. So I'm like, I know, I know what I'll do to cheer myself up. I'm in a shopping mall. I'm around department centers. I'm currently into fragrances. I'm going to go into Sephora and sniff all the perfumes. That's what I do. That's what I do. Like a TikTok teen.
00:02:29
Speaker
say I was going to make TikToks, but anyway, I go- No, but that's what TikTok teens do. Yeah, it's true. It's true. But I'm super stoked. I recently learned, and maybe I knew this already, maybe you know this, but I learned that scent is the most powerful thing connected to memories. It is the most powerful sense.
00:02:48
Speaker
a sense so And now I'm very into fragrance. Now I'm always like looking for these joyous smells that'll make me feel warm and cozy. So I go into the Sephora, I go to the back wall where all the perfumes are, and I'm admiring all the beautiful bottles because I'm an artist. So I like unique bottles. I'm sorry, did you did you have a reply to that? No, no, no, no, no. I was just i thinking.
00:03:15
Speaker
Anyway, so I'm just like, oh, these bottles are so pretty. I'm going to smell all the warm gourmand florals. That's my set profile. So I bring one to my nose and I smell really hard and I smell like nothing. And I'm like, oh, this one, I guess I don't like. So I put it back.
00:03:34
Speaker
And so I'm like, look like a total lunatic. I'm like collecting those little test strips that you spray perfume on so that you can smell. I have like 10 of them in my hand. And I am spraying each one things I think I'm gonna like things I've smelled before. I can't smell anything but garbage. I smell the same toxic thing. I'm like, why do all these perfumes smell the same? Not realizing that because in particular, my sinuses are extremely connected to my teeth roots.
00:04:04
Speaker
Like more than your average person. Thanks dentist for letting me know that. I, I, I, after the fact, I'm like, oh, I temporarily, I'm not, I'm not smelling things correctly. So I left even sadder.
00:04:21
Speaker
Because now you can't smell anything. And then there was there was a coffee shop there. I can't eat anything for an hour. I'm going to draw this for you guys so you know what I looked like as I was sadly slogging out of the shopping center. ah So i this reminds me of the first time I had COVID. And I i lost my sense of smell. And not everybody does every time they get COVID. ah The second time I got COVID,
00:04:51
Speaker
I did not lose my sense of smell, but I remember, it for some reason, just losing my sense of smell made me so mad. I remember getting like furious, and I just wanted to hit stuff. du i was like running around my house grabbing stuff, and being like, I can't fucking smell it! And like I would like put my... i would like put my ah ah I would like put my entire face, so because I always have a giant like industrial sized bottle of, ah what do you call it?
00:05:26
Speaker
ah vinegar around because of my guinea pigs. It's a cleaning. Because they drink vinegar. They drink vinegar. Yeah. Guinea pigs are 20 percent vinegar. and Nobody realizes that. So ah I like sticking my face in vinegar, which I'm normally very sensitive to, and I can't smell it. hell And I'm like, yeah I'm getting so I get so angry. So that's that's my experience with something like that. Anyway, you want to start?
00:06:24
Speaker
You want everybody. welcome back I didn't know what you were doing. What were you? What? i No, no, no, go right ahead. Don't know. I need now. I need to freaking know. Well, I just wanted to let people know that i I can smell again. I didn't say that in the original story. And and I'm wearing a lot of perfume. All right. Do go on. Hey, everybody. Save your game. I just met our camp with me as always.
00:06:54
Speaker
Always? Well, as always when we're on the show. Oh, OK. I hope you're not with me always. It's kind of like the ah was it last episode, you said ah you had pictures of me. And now you're saying you're always with me. How did you think I got them? this is I'm starting to get concerned. And you know, like, listeners, if you don't hear from me on social media for like two or three days,
00:07:23
Speaker
have the police search roses his house they're
Spooky Month and Game Discoveries
00:07:27
Speaker
gonna find a bunch of stupid shit anyway sculpture made out of pop cans and paper clips what is this underneath this corpse Anyway, this is Pushing Up Roses. Hey, Roses. Hey, everyone. We have fun here. Yeah, welcome back to Save Your Game. I am glad to see you all again for Spooky Month, another episode of Spooky Month, my favorite thing in the whole entire world. Coming to the end. We have one more though, right? We have one more week of Spooky Month. Let's just keep doing it.
00:08:05
Speaker
This is my life. This is my life. we yeah ah ah Like I said to you, while the theme you were upset that the theme song is gonna go away it's going to go away after the after next episode. And I said, that well, that just means we have to keep doing this podcast for another year.
00:08:22
Speaker
And for like another 15 years until i like fifteen years in senile I'm like, we played King's Quest. It's going to be terrible. I've never played King's Quest. I don't think we just forget all the game. I don't think I like that game. What a point in clicking. I don't like it. um Oh, man. What all adventure games look like in what? How old are we in years?
00:08:48
Speaker
I'm 25. I don't know how old you are, but in 15 years when we're old if um I'm still gonna be young and sprightly even in my 50s and 60s. I plan on that What are you been playing roses? I'm so excited. Oh Jesus
00:09:10
Speaker
I am. Oh my god. So when I get excited, I get like, it's my world now. I know it's weird. Um, it's I think I tweeted about this the other day, but I've been playing the demo or played the demo for the Rise of the Golden Idol, because we played it on stream with a few other demos. And I particularly felt attached to that demo.
00:09:33
Speaker
And man, I got excited. i Dude, I almost felt sad that i I played the rest of it without you because I connected the demo to playing it with you on stream. And that's what I do. That's what my artist sentimental brain does. But I had to keep playing it because it's just that good. It's so good.
00:09:54
Speaker
And so I tweeted about it. I'm like, guys, this gives me such joy. It's like up there with like finding a cool leaf on the ground. It's like that. It's like, or or like seeing a cute squirrel. It's like this, this moment of intense joy. So I tweeted about that and the PR person was like, we'll set you up with a steam key for lunch. I'm like, thank you. I'm like, I haven't even played curse. I just, or curse a case.
00:10:23
Speaker
I've even played Case, so I have to play that too. team key yeah He gave me a Steam Key for Case so I can play it. People like me.
00:10:37
Speaker
steam key Don't you know that I am America's gaming sweetheart? You just throw keys at me. But no, no, I'm just, I i yeah love, I haven't used the key yet for Case, but I haven't played the demo for Rise. And man, I'm in love with this game and the format and the storytelling. It got a little hard, but I think that's only because I haven't really played a game like this beyond maybe Duck Detective. And as we we talked about Duck Detective, you know, that was a lot of guesswork for us.
00:11:12
Speaker
This is different. This is less guesswork. The game really, as ah as a mystery game, it really encourages you to look at clues, to revisit clues, to go back to a scene, to really connect things. And in the end, you shouldn't have to guess at your conclusions, hopefully. I mean, maybe maybe you did and you happened to get it right, but you don't have to is what I'm saying.
00:11:36
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, i there is there are mechanics that make it possible to guess, um especially your last couple things, but you couldn't, I think it would be impossible to, most of it you would have to deduct and you'd only be able to guess the last, again, one or two things. So I think- Oh my god, I love it so much though. What have you been playing?
00:11:56
Speaker
kind of kind of quite a bit. ah One thing I've been playing is under, this is weird to say, it's under embargo, so I can't talk about it till next week. ah what and our ease i can't even believe this And our next week's game is ah our next week episode is going to be like half about this this game.
00:12:17
Speaker
right yeah yeah um and says yes but what I've been playing a bunch of demos and ah that's been that's been really fun. On stream we played Locomotive and we played Rise of the Golden Idol, but on my own, okay, I've been playing, there's a time-wasting game, it's not really an adventure game, but there's a time-wasting game called Proverbs that is like a, it's basically like a fucking giant minesweeper.
00:12:46
Speaker
I saw that. Actually it it said what you were playing on Discord. I'm like, Oh, what's ah this? Is this an adventure game? So I looked it up. I'm like, Oh, he's playing minesweeper. I was just basically playing minesweeper for a long time. Um, so, uh, I've been playing the demo for the haunting of Joni Evers. And what it reminds me of is, and I think it's the devs first game. Um, but it's like a first person sort of you're in a haunted house and your narratives coming up, like, like, uh,
00:13:17
Speaker
Like a walking simulator, but you have little goals and you know, it yeah it divides itself into chapters. It reminds me of like Gone Home. Sure, right. but yeah So the thing it really reminds me of is the suicide of Rachel Foster. I don't know if you've ever played that game. I have not. um Where it's like a first person horror game and you are um you you go to visit the hotel that your family owned and then ah massive Blizzard strikes. So you're stuck there and some weird,
00:13:53
Speaker
stuff about your family history starts happening and you don't know if the place is haunted or not. um I got it confused, actually, and you cut it out, um yeah I hope. But because they are working on it on ah like ah at least a spiritual sequel to that game called The Fading of Nicole Wilson. So ok there's The Suicide and Racial Foster, The Fading of Nicole Wilson, but this is a completely different game called The Haunting of Joni Evers.
00:14:19
Speaker
That is also ah like a title format in adventure games that's used a lot is the blank of the blank on blank. especially this sort of like yeah this Especially this sort of like walking simulator horror game. there's like ah There's a ton of them. What's the Edith Finch one? The blank of Edith Finch, the blank? Yeah, there's um the, is it just the death of Edith Finch? Sorry, what remains of Edith Finch? What remains of Edith Finch? And what's the one with the little boy?
00:14:50
Speaker
the vanishing of Ethan Carter, maybe? There you go. that yeah yeah yeah yep yep yeahp There's just so many of these. and ah But anyway, it was it was pretty good. It was a very short demo, but it looked like it has promise. I also. It looks too scary. It's that first person scary thing that I just look away from kind of immediately. Yeah.
00:15:16
Speaker
The house got plunged into darkness. There seems to be a little bit of like a, um the supernatural elements are a little bit sillier than scary. At least from what I saw. But maybe maybe it maybe it changes as it moves forward.
00:15:31
Speaker
What else? so Oh, and then of course I played the sequel to Citizen Sleeper, that demo. um okay Citizen Sleeper 2, Starward Vector. And I've talked about how much I love Citizen Sleeper on here before. It's like a ah an immersive sim ah slash RPG. No, not immersive sim, a life sim slash RPG. It is a world where you can purchase an android that is based on you, like that is modeled after you as a human, then you go to sleep and your android, your sleeper, will work a job for 10, 20, however many years to earn a salary. Then it becomes obsolete and then you wake up and you reap the rewards.
00:16:19
Speaker
So you don't actually actually have to actually use your body and your time and to work. I don't like it because what if somebody does something weird to my robot body and I'm asleep and I can't stop it. Well, I don't know that you I don't think you have the memories of your robot body, but both both games are about you being a sleeper who escapes. Yeah.
00:16:43
Speaker
And now you need to maintain your body and you need to stave off the forced adolescence because your body just like starts immediately breaking down, right? um So you need to find something to keep you supported. The first one was all about ah You've just escaped and how do you survive? This next one ah appears to be you have been escaped for a while and have figured out how to survive. And now you're part of like an outlaw crew. And so there there is still the the basic hub of you being on a space station and you having to work jobs and make money and get and and maintain your body. But there is also this other thing where you hire crew
00:17:32
Speaker
onto your ship, and then you go on jobs. So basically, the way the mechanics of the game work is you get five dice every day, and they rolled at the beginning of the day, you can't change them, and then you put them towards different tasks. So if you have a task that's very dangerous um or very consequential, you'll want to use a six that you rolled that day or a five or something. Interesting. And if you rolled five ones that day, well, you're fucked.
00:18:01
Speaker
but You'll just want to go spend that entire day doing really low consequence stuff. So if you fail, it doesn't matter. OK, do you think I would like this game games? I don't know. They're very addictive and the stories are incredible. It's written. I would say the writing is ah on par with like disco Elysium.
00:18:23
Speaker
but okay a little bit less funny like it takes itself a lot more seriously and it's sci-fi instead of ah whatever it's an experience but the that loop of rolling your dice and then ah succeeding or failing on checks that you apply your dice to is really addictive and really fun. You know what it's gonna be? yeah It's gonna be one of those things where I'm like, the same thing with Disco Elysium, right? Where I'm like, I don't think I'd like this game and then I'm obsessed. I would put money on that would be what would happen with this game too.
00:19:03
Speaker
Yeah, i am i' am really I'm really into this demo. I really like this. You go on missions and you have your cruise dice to put towards tasks too. And there's a thing where every time you fail, um your stress level goes up and crises happen on the thing that you, like you're scrapping a ship and crises happen on the ship. So now you have to maybe put your dice to solving the crises before your stress level goes too high and one of your dice breaks and then it's worth less. I think it's it's going to be it's out in twenty twenty five and it's like this and Cabernet are probably my two most anticipated games of next year. Nice. Well, now, like ah for me, Rise of the Golden Idol is really up there. Oh, yeah. that Yeah. But that's coming out soon.
00:19:54
Speaker
Do you think it's coming up before 2025? We only have, we only have really two and a half months left of the year. I thought it was, but maybe I'm wrong. We'll see. I, yeah, I'm also, I'm, I, am and I'm sure you are too. I'm very eager for fields of mystery to be continued. ah Yeah, me too. I'm, I think I'm going to wait for, I might even wait for maybe two updates before I jump back into the mystery because I, I don't want to get sick of it again.
Exploring Japanese Adventure Games
00:20:24
Speaker
I know I'm already, and I'm already there. And I even have Cappy Barras on my farm and they're so cute, but I'm still sick of it. I think I can. I think I can.
00:20:36
Speaker
I got sick of it and I think I can rejoin. Like, I think I can go back to it as long as I don't play it between now and the next update. And like I said, I might even wait for the next like two updates from now yeah just to make sure it doesn't happen again, because I think if I get sick of it twice, it's unlikely I'm going to go back. So that's yeah, that's what I've been playing. um just demos, and again, a game I can't tell anybody about, but we'll talk about so much next week, I promise. Well, that sounds amazing. Okay, so today, everybody, we are gonna be talking about a ah you know a Japanese adventure game. ah We would call it a visual novel over here, but that's not exactly correct.
00:21:22
Speaker
ah it's It's a Japanese adventure game called Paranorma Site, The Seven Mysteries of Hanjo ah by Square Enix. And we might call it Paranorma Site, which is not a thing. ah just Just warning people now. Yeah, Paranorma Site, the 13 ghosts of ah Florida State University. Of Florida State University. but Let's roll that.
00:21:53
Speaker
but stinky clas on sleep
00:22:11
Speaker
everyone. Welcome back to save your game. I'm pushing a bros. This is my co host, Matt Aucamp. And I hope you're ready to talk about some very complex ideas and themes and narratives as we dive into paranormal site and history and history. Yeah, folklore.
00:22:31
Speaker
And we just so you guys know, if you guys didn't know or listen to the other episodes, Matt kept calling this game something different to me and that's why we're making fun of it. He initially called it like the 13 ghosts of who even knows. we were We were planning out our spooky month and I was just like, ah oh, we should play that visual novel. It's called, um God, I don't remember. It's like the, I think it was driving.
00:22:59
Speaker
So it's like, i it's the something, the 13, I think it's like ghost, the 13 ghosts. Yeah, you were sold on ghosts, man. out and you're And you're like, look it up. I'm like, all right. Nothing is coming up. I forgot that had paranormal site at the beginning. So I was just like, it's got to be there. Even if I'm getting the number wrong, it's got to be.
00:23:24
Speaker
And you were just like, and I was like, okay, go to ah like House of Fata Morgana and look at similar games. And I'm sure you were looking at the title, Paranormal Site, Seven Mysteries of Hanjo, and you were like, well, that can't be it. Like, I'm sure that your eyes just passed over it because you're like, yeah he didn't say, he didn't say I had this thing at the beginning and none of these words are what he said.
00:23:48
Speaker
I'm like, clearly it's a ghost story, so I'm not saying it. But yes, it is the the seven mysteries of Hanjo. This game surprised me a bit. i So I know you've played some visual novels. I've played a handful. um therere They're not my go-to. When I do play them, they're usually the like the dating sim kind of visual novel. So I'm talking about like Had a Full Boyfriend and honey Honey Pop, which barely counts. Let's be honest here. um And it may be a couple more than maybe I'm glossing over. ah
00:24:25
Speaker
But yeah, this one surprised me. So I've played like the Danganronpa games and I've played yeah the um Ace Attorney games. And a thing that I learned recently, ah there's a um So watch this thing, ah The Origin of Visual Novels by YouTuber, Boel of Lentils. um And he's talking about the way the adventure game developed in Japan and how, so technically all the things we just listed are not visual novels, they are they are Japanese adventure games. So it think about it like the way Mystery House,
00:25:05
Speaker
in the West turned into the point and click genre. And then the point and click genre sort of expanded in a bunch of different ways. And then we have the adventure games that we have to talk about every week, right? right um In Japan, Mystery House inspired a sort of game that was more like Deja Vu or... ok one of those games where it's like, it is very heavily written and there's a story, but you're clicking in scenes. Yeah. Oh God, that makes so much sense. and I'm like piecing together things in my brain right now. And generally solving mysteries. um And that's...
00:25:47
Speaker
And then, you know, over time and that developed in a bunch of different ways, right? Like it turned into the dating sim and it turned into um these like detective genre games like Danganronpa and Ace Attorney and Paranorma Site. It turned it ah also developed into what is called the visual novel, which is no interaction, you just click through and read the story.
00:26:16
Speaker
right and And these games were mentioning they do have elements of simply clicking through stuff. Like this is very these games are very narrative heavy and there are elements where I felt like I was doing nothing at all. Well, I say yes, though, they are all very narrative heavy. And and I felt like you feel that way in all the games that I just mentioned. But the thing that's different is we are looking in scenes, we are clicking around, we are answering questions, we are solving mysteries. So yeah.
00:26:47
Speaker
So that's what qualifies this as a Japanese adventure game. But anyway, I just thought that was really fascinating. Very, yeah. And this game, Paranorma Site. Another thing I didn't know was developed by a dude named Takanari Ishiyama, who was like a huge, virtually unknown here, but worked for Konami in the 1990s and worked on like Metal Gear Solid and, uh, and some other games. Um, and but like he met went on to be like a pretty big mobile game developer. Okay.
00:27:24
Speaker
And this was his return to non-mobile games. So this was like highly, so while people in the West barely heard of this game, right? They only heard of it because it started getting good reviews and um games journalists started talking about it. And also I think, you know, the developer developer attached, you know, so this is a Square Enix game, formerly Square Soft, of course, Final Fantasy, and those related games. That's a big developer.
00:27:53
Speaker
Well, right, and so I think that a lot of people here in the West were just kind of like, why did Square Enix put out this weird game? like ah this is This is a pretty random thing for them to do.
00:28:04
Speaker
And it's like, because in Japan, this guy's huge. yeah And people were like anxiously awaiting the release of his next game, which turned into paranormal site. Like his this is his return to the adventure genre that he did on mobile. And it's I think that's fascinating. It's just like both of those things together. And this will this is thematically related to what we're talking about today. um Both of these things together.
00:28:34
Speaker
indicate this like deep history that exists across the sea that we are completely unaware of. It's just like, we think of ourselves as living in this global culture, but we're not. Like each culture has its own, and especially in the East where the languages don't even work the same way.
00:29:00
Speaker
right Like written language does not work the same and in ah in the Far East. Far East, that's a kind of a loaded term in the in Eastern Asia. like Like the structure of language doesn't even work the same as it does in Western Europe and North America. So there are so there are things that just don't cross the sea and we don't hear of.
00:29:26
Speaker
And like i've got it's it's really funny, like I don't know if you had like notes that you were going to talk about, but I want to like tell the viewers that right before we started recording, I'm like, yeah, this game is based on real folklore.
00:29:39
Speaker
And that's like, what, what now? And I think that like that um like triggered your interests as like so somebody who is into folklore and yeah history. And we kind of went down like a small rabbit hole beforehand, which I'm glad about. I was like, I have to do homework tonight, so we're just gonna jump on the call, record the episode and jump off. yeah and And then I spent like a half hour digging through And not the seven mysteries of Hanjo, it's the seven wonders of Hanjo. The seven wonders, yeah. And go ahead. And I was going to say, and I was going to bring it up on stream, but i'm or on record, but I'm glad I didn't. So you had some time to ah do so a little bit of research.
00:30:22
Speaker
Yeah, because, so Rose has linked me to this one, and we'll put it in the show notes. She linked me to this one um website that outlines the real, ah yeah and just like in the game, there's nine, but they're called the Seven Wonders of Hanjo. And they're all in this city of Hanjo, which is a district in Tokyo.
00:30:49
Speaker
um And, We weren't able to, like, it took us a really long time to find other sources right of this. Eventually, we had to find it on the Japanese Wikipedia, not...
00:31:06
Speaker
the English Wikipedia yeah um and then translate the pages using like our browsers. And, you know, and then like the sentences don't totally make sense. Right. um And then like it like a like we kind of discussed prior, there are things that imply that this folklore has been told. You know, there's old art that that tells the story. There's a black and white movie that attempts to tell the story. So something has obviously been told and passed down.
00:31:36
Speaker
yeah You know, through centuries. There's a there's another game called ah the the Tuhu project that bases some of its stuff on the mysteries of Hanjo. Like they're interesting. These are this is known folklore that just isn't talked about over here in the West and to the point that we don't like I couldn't find any academic articles about it. I couldn't find like I searched Jay store. I searched Google Scholar and I couldn't find anything besides some occasional oblique references to this game. And I think that's really fascinating. Again, especially considering the subject matter of this game and how a huge theme in this game is how folk legends change and adapt and they they stick around, but they become something different and they can be, you know, in certain for certain people, they can be right in front of you and you don't know them.
00:32:35
Speaker
right And then once you know them, they suddenly have this deep and unabiding significance. Like a lot of games, like a lot of fantasy games ah that do have folklore influences, they are taking creative liberties here. So even though we didn't find like a lot, we found stuff, obviously, on The Seven Wonders. The game takes it to a whole new level that obviously that's where their horror is coming from. In fact, you know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of how Jane Jensen writes history. She does a lot of historical things, especially in like The Beast Within. you know She's using a lot of historical references and but and public figures, but she's also writing a fictional story based yeah around these very real things and and people.
00:33:22
Speaker
and yeah right and then and turning and turning classic uh opera composers into werewolves you what why not i also like werewolves jane johnson i yeah i understand um before we actually get like into the story i want to give my like brief description for the viewers i always i always have Like a brief description of what I think the game is and what like encapsulates it so to me This is this is Final Fantasy like imagine the most complex Ridiculous Final Fantasy characters that are all connected meets thriller meets Columbo This is exactly a square ah like an old square soft game
00:34:13
Speaker
with horror thriller elements. That is what this game is. If you like those things, you will like this game. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. There's, I could definitely. There's more, there's more to it than that, right? yeah But as I was playing this game,
00:34:32
Speaker
I realized how how square soft slash square enix it actually is because it does that thing where all the characters are kind of connected. They start to work together. They start to know each other. yeah their Their backgrounds are insane. i'm like well so I mean, you haven't played it yet. I think you should. But in Final Fantasy 8, there is this notorious idea that all the characters are related. And and I'm not going to spoil it for Matt, but if you know, you know, it's ridiculous. It's ridiculously coincidental. And I was getting that vibe from a paranormal site. However, that's not a bad thing to me. I like that Square has like this strange
00:35:19
Speaker
ah horror slash thriller slash mystery game in a totally different format than like say a JRPG. I think it's so interesting. That is really interesting. And this game tackles a lot of different kind of genres. And one of them I wouldn't say is like the soap opera. There does come a point where like this game starts out horrifying. Like it is such a scary game. And and ah like I would, I had an experience that I treasure.
00:35:51
Speaker
and I've talked about it on the show before, which is I started this game on my Steam Deck and I have i have a Steam Deck with the um OLED screen. So black on that screen is blackness black. is black so yeah if If it goes, if it if the lights turn out, my room is pitch black. So I had the lights out. I was on my OLEDs. I was by myself. It was the middle of the night. You get an achievement for playing this game in the middle of the night, by the way. Nice. I did. I must have gotten that achievement as well.
00:36:25
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, you did. I saw it. And it was a really horrifying and fun experience. like I highly suggest if anyone has the capability to do that, do that. I was really mad at you at first first. Because it was so scary? Because in the beginning, it's so scary. And really, because it is so so soap opera, actually, again, much like Final Fantasy VIII, it's very dramatic. It's very melodramatic in a lot of ways.
00:36:56
Speaker
um while also having serious moments. So that being said, since it does go in that direction, it doesn't stay, it is a horror game. It is a thriller. It doesn't stay um actively scary. Like you're not going to be jump scared the whole time. But that initial chapter that you do, the the the initial run of the beginning of the game,
00:37:20
Speaker
yeah is one of the most terrifying things i've ever seen yeah ah it's again you're in first person you're playing at night the settings are are scary at first and there's definitely a few jump scares i want to warn and their jump scares and the way that you know, sound plus visual in your face. Like suddenly you turn around, there's something there.
Narrative Paths and Complex Mechanics
00:37:43
Speaker
It might not even be a scary visual, but it's so startling. Yeah, they definitely play with you. They definitely play with you yeah they play so play with you in in a funny way sometimes. And like, there's this there's a so mad there's a sequence where you're hiding behind a tree to listen to detectives. And then you come back and all of a sudden one of us there is like, hi.
00:38:05
Speaker
And because you're already so tense, it's so scary, but he's just the kindest, sweetest little- Hello. We just noticed you were back here. I'm like, ah. And, you know, I think it's interesting because the game branches and I don't wanna, again, I do want us to get into the plot, but I think right now I wanna give some sweeping things. So if you haven't played this game, you can listen to this part and we'll tell you when we're about to start getting into the story. But there are some characters, ah the game does branch.
00:38:40
Speaker
And I don't think it's a spoiler to say that. um so It's not. No, i I think we can absolutely tell people the mechanic of how the story is told and how the gameplay works. I don't think that's a spoiler. So just in the in the genre, I want to stick to the genre for a second is like the beginning when you play as Shogo, that's your first character.
00:38:59
Speaker
um the it is It is just straight up horror. It is a horror game. And then it breaks out, you play other characters and it breaks out into a bunch of different directions and I won't... ah And one of them, when you play like Haru, it's like a thriller. It's like a mystery. yeah It's like a mystery. yeah and I'll say that, yeah. With Haru, it's like a mystery. You're playing a mystery game. You have a private detective with you. And he rules. We'll talk about him when we talk about the story. But when you play as Tetsuo, he's a detective. And it is it is that is the one that's more like a thriller. That's like a cop thriller. i See, I think those two are slightly related.
00:39:43
Speaker
without spoiling too much. I think those things are related. They're all related, but, yeah you know, Haru is like a thriller that turns into almost like a soap opera. Yeah. And it's very dramatic. Tetsuo is like a ah detective, i like a cop detective. ah Sorry. Haru is like a mystery that turns into a... Yeah.
00:40:06
Speaker
so but The only reason I call that like also a thriller is Haru's gets very deep and harrowing and it's connected to the same story as Tetsuo who is also a detective. So then the Tetsuo is like a fun and the the music also follows this right like when you play as Tetsuo, it is like this 19, and the whole thing takes place in the 1980s by the way, but it's like a 1980s buddy cop, like and ah ah weird funk music. yeah it is It is very funny and and it's silly. Like the Tetsuo scenes are silly. Your your partner June Irio is so weird and funny. It's a very, very sweet golden retriever boy.
00:40:58
Speaker
And then when you play as Yako and Mio, year hold you're like on a paranormal investigation. So it's like youre you're doing three kind of related but different genres all at once. And and mokco and ah Yako and Mio,
00:41:14
Speaker
ah They kind of hold up the horror end a lot stronger than any of the other. Agreed. They're they're telling a ghost story. Agreed. And this I won't spoil but there's also a story element that's like an escape room. ah Yes, yes. And that was a little more straightforward. But in in essence, you are playing ah from the viewpoint of ah different characters. And each character seems to get chapters that you can follow. But OK, I think it's time to get in the story. What do you think? Yeah, I want to briefly I want to do like a brief broad thing and then we'll get into the specifics. Oh, please. So I think this game
00:41:57
Speaker
is kind of a great introduction, let's say, into occult into folklore. um And it's also got like I kind of said off recording, it's got a little bit of a death game going on to it, um and like a most dangerous game kind of thing. So if any of that appeals to you, we are dealing with characters that they're interested in curses, they're interested in the occult, but most importantly, they're interested in this thing. called Is it called the right of resurrection? Is that the ultimate? resurrection So all of these characters, they've had something happen to them, where they really want to resurrect somebody in their life.
00:42:39
Speaker
However, as we've learned from stories like monkey's paw, <unk> etc. There's always a um ah circumstances there's always kind of bad circumstances and sacrifices you make to do that you can't just resurrect somebody you have to do something kind of morally unsound to do that and that is what this game is dealing with.
00:43:01
Speaker
So you have a bunch of different people that are all on a similar path and they are all trying to kill each other as far as you know. Right. And why are they killing each other? So let me, let me, you tell me if I have this right. Cause I have given this a lot of thought. Okay. Are we in spoiler zone now?
00:43:18
Speaker
We are in spoilers, ok so. Okay, all right. So if you if you are if you are intrigued and you think you wanna play this game, this game is highly dependent on surprises and ah and mystery. Yes. So you probably want to say,
00:43:37
Speaker
Okay. Thanks, Matt and roses. And then jump to our ranking segment at the end. Yeah. You know, you guys know what the format is. You know, kind of the sweeping themes and generalization. So if that intrigues you, I highly recommend you click off and go play and you can reconnect with us later. If you, and I would suggest it. I think this game fucking rules.
00:43:56
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. okay So when I say that this this game has like kind of a death game going on to it, what I mean is each character has something called a curse stone. So to to initiate this right of resurrection, like I said, all these characters have a reason for wanting to use the right of resurrection. We have a mom character who wants to bring her son back.
00:44:21
Speaker
We have one character who wants to bring ah an artist back, the great Hakusai, who painted The Great Wave of Kanagawa. Yeah, which you guys have all seen on like notebooks and windows backgrounds and stuff. yeah And that that actually is a painting that was done in the Ito period, yeah which is the period of the Seven Wonders of Hanjo, so it's all very related. It's a wood block.
00:44:47
Speaker
Yes. Correct. would Good job. Yay. Matt's an artist too. But anyway, um i so there's a person who wants to resurrect him. um Go ahead. I do want to say that is what we are led to believe at the beginning, right? Like everybody seems to have a reason for wanting to resurrect. And then you notice that a couple people don't, right? Tetsuo doesn't have anyone he wants to resurrect. That's true. he there so He's kind of the character that I think is kind of of sound mind who is trying to get people's curse stones so that they don't use them. And I do think we should explain the curse stones real quick. But also, I mean, there are other characters that end up that are curse bearers right that don't seem to have anybody they would want to resurrect. But the thing the thing that actually ties them together that we find out
00:45:39
Speaker
much later is the thing that ties them together isn't, it's almost like correlative that they have people that they've lost they wanna resurrect because the thing that ties them together is resentment. All of them having people- Oh, I didn't think you were gonna say that.
00:45:58
Speaker
All of them have a deep resentment, and every ah spirit that possesses these cursed objects also has a deep resentment, and the two connect, which is what leads these people to become murderous, and that's what leads them all to kill each other.
00:46:18
Speaker
yeah not Try to, at least. that's Because yeah, to actually be able to initiate the the right of resurrection, you have to have something called soul drugs, which is kind of almost what it sounds like. You have to be able to take somebody's soul bits in a way.
00:46:37
Speaker
And this is the most anime-ass part of the game. The rest of the game is is in like a Japanese style, but it doesn't feel that anime. This is the most anime-ass part of the game, is that you get soul dregs. Yeah. So if you are a curse bearer, if you have found a curse stone, and one could argue that the curse stones kind of find you because resentment attracts resentment, misery loves company, whatever. If you are a bearer of these curse stones,
00:47:02
Speaker
um there is a way that you need to use it to be able to kill another curse bearer. So what what's a really obvious one? What's a really, oh, I guess the one in the beginning, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. When somebody turns their back on you.
00:47:17
Speaker
If somebody turns their back and begins walking away from you, you can just kill them instantly. Yeah, with your curse stone. And each curse stone has a different rule, you know a different way that sets it off. And so as soon as that person walks away, they are dead and you can take their soul drugs and you need enough soul drugs to do this right, a resurrection. And now and it's really important that the curse stone bearers are worth, they have way more soul drugs. You can't you shouldn't just kill random people, you can.
00:47:46
Speaker
You can't, just people do. You'll get like a drag, and that's that's nothing. But it's kind of like you said, Matt, these curse stones play with the bearer's mind. They make them even more murderous and resentful. So there there are characters who will kill basically anyone to get drags. Obviously, the goal is to kill the other curse stone bearers. They are worth the most. And that's kind of where this kind of death game comes from. you know You're trying to, each cursed stone bearer has to strategically think about how they're going to use their curses, how they're going to get soul drugs, so that for whatever purpose they want, they can initiate the right of resurrection.
00:48:28
Speaker
And this leads to some of the most intense moments of the entire game. There is something towards the end, where Haru is in a room with a curse bearer. Well, Haru and, we've gotta talk about this guy, Richter Kai, are in a room with a curse bearer, and they the two do not know what each other's curses are.
00:48:53
Speaker
Right, so they don't know what kicks it off, yeah. But we know, yeah or like she tells us, the the other person, um whose whose name is, ah this ah this would be a pretty big spoiler, so again, I hope you all. Yeah.
00:49:07
Speaker
um Oh, yeah. Yeah. Whose name is Ayame. Yeah. yeah And she's the one who wants to bring back the artist. her It's strange. Her viewpoint is kind of more unhinged, I would yeah say. and We have a mother character named Haru. She wants to bring back her son because she's heartbroken. ah We have a couple schoolgoers who want to bring back their friend who is in a car accident. And then we have this girl who wants to bring back an artist because he's a genius. and she will
00:49:39
Speaker
Girl. I also, if you want to know about that, page if you've ever seen the book tomorrow, I just looked over and noticed it on my bookshelf. It's on the cover. that ah One of his paintings, woodblock paintings is on the cover of tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow, if you've read that book. Anyway, ah very famous painting. So there's this fucking moment where you know she tells Ayame tells us and we're playing Haru, tells us that she wants to kill us, that she was going to kill us the moment that the conditions for her, ah her curse stoner met, and we don't know what they are. So we're just having this really fucking tense conversation about like, and it is, that might be the most tense moment I've ever played in a video game.
00:50:28
Speaker
I was bad. I'm like, oh no. I was actually super afraid I was just going to lose on the spot because I... The game does encourage multiple ah ah solutions and multiple dialogue choices, and I don't know which one's going to to kill me, essentially. Did you get killed in that scene? I i did i did all the things, yeah. ok So I got the branch where I got killed. I got the branch where I killed killed her the girl first.
00:50:58
Speaker
um Yeah, it is very, very, very counts. In fact, I think you have to. I think you, now that I think about it, I think you have to do all three in order to. So I, the first thing that I did was lose that contest. Same. Yep. I lost. And I, cause her curse stone, and again, this is a big spoiler. So if you're going to play it.
00:51:18
Speaker
please don't listen to this. that You have to hesitate. You have to hold something away, hold something back from her. You have to not reveal something to her. And so you hesitate at one point and her face lights up and you, the player, go fuck. Like your stomach just sinks. You're like, I fucked up. Because ah the moment she's like, it's it goes like ding and her face like pops up and she's like,
00:51:46
Speaker
Oh, you did it. It's so good. The other really good most one of the other fucking tense ass scenes is the scene on the bridge where Tetsuo was talking to Fumachika Najima and Jun Erios pointing a gun at him. Oh, my God, that's a good scene. It's yes. And I do want to say what really makes this game more of a thriller mystery is that believe it or not, there's another bigger story going on. There is a serial killer in this story. Oh, yeah, we're gonna have to start from the beginning. Yeah, yeah, you're not bringing up. It's just like, holy shit. Yeah, we have to we have to walk people through this. um Okay.
00:52:27
Speaker
and that That's what I was saying, like Haru and Tatsuo, they are connected by their losses are actually connected to this serial killer who has his own story. And you're slowly unraveling that mystery. As you go through the branches, you're figuring out who it is, you're figuring out what they're doing, what their intentions are.
00:52:48
Speaker
I mean, the goal becomes we got to get this killer as well. You know, this is this is now beyond the curse stones. Now we got a serial killer who also has a curse stone. It's like the worst possible scenario that you can imagine. We can't tell you the story in detail like we do on other episodes because it is just too it's too long, too long, too complex.
00:53:11
Speaker
yeah um But basically, you start the game as this guy's shogo, and you wake up, and ah this this girl who you met recently, Yoko, who has has spirits a spirit sense, she's like, oh, I'm looking for these seven mysteries of Hanjo. Yeah, she's like super into the occult. And I'm like, oh, it's me. She's all bubbly about the occult. I can definitely relate to this.
00:53:33
Speaker
but So she is super excited about finding these seven mysteries and so what it is, so throughout the Hanjo region there were were like 200 years ago a series of legends that erupted in different places, right? Like there's ah ah the the whispering canal, which has this legend of like, if ah when you are fishing, you'll sometimes hear this this whisper that says like, put it back yeah and, or let it go or something like that. And you have to, and if you don't let the fish that you catch go,
00:54:15
Speaker
ah it pulls you into the canal and drowns you.
Folklore and Haunting Themes
00:54:17
Speaker
right Or do you wanna say a different one? I remember being interested in the fool's procession. um The easiest one is definitely like the foot washing mansion. Oh, the foot washing mansion is so insane. Okay, I actually do like that one and I like the art that accompanies it. So foot washing mansion is, there's this, in Laban's terms, right?
00:54:43
Speaker
suddenly a very dirty bad foot, like and it's like big, it's a giant foot, smashes through the ceiling ah like ah of somebody's house and demands the people in there to wash it. And so the servants like wash the foot. And I guess it's what? Yeah, the foot leaves, but then it keeps coming back. Yeah, it's like a constantly cursed, dirty,
00:55:13
Speaker
for Until the person is like, I'm sick of this and moves out and then the foot never appears again. and And I do want to say this, all of these seven mysteries, ah if you kind of look into the backstories, they are connected. They're all connected to um a guy who's into the occult named Simon. um And so this foot this foot was actually a cursed woman who was also trying to do something with a different curse. They're all connected in some way. So this this this person,
00:55:47
Speaker
the only part that was able to be cursed was her foot. And so the story goes that she just just like burst into somebody's house and is like, wash it. yeah However, it is a cursed foot, so you can never wash it. So when you say that they're all connected, I want to say so like these, the the ah paranormal legends are not connected, right? Like the ever burning lantern, right? No, I think they are connected.
00:56:17
Speaker
They're thematically, so the paranormal ones are thematically connected. um to the historical legends. And the historical legends are all connected to each other. Correct, the historical ones are, you're right. So like the haunting clappers, right, is where ah in apparently Edo-era Japan, and um that was a fire alarm, is you would clap two wooden clappers together and it would be loud enough to alert alert everyone that there's a fire rather than a bell ah in the West.
00:56:53
Speaker
ah So there's like one night a guy's clapping his clappers and he hears claps back. And he claps his clappers and he hears claps back. And then he goes to check it out and there's nothing there. Like that's it. right um That's not connected to the foot washing mansion, right? right But the- It isn't the historical account. but It is not in the game. Right. Well, what I'm saying is, so the haunting clappers, the second story that indicated that.
00:57:25
Speaker
was ah about a person who was lost in a fire. And the person lost in a fire story is connected to the woman with the cursed foot and is connected to the girl who was. So again, there's two stories for everyone. There's a paranormal story and a historical story. And you learn these all in the game. and The paranormal stories are not connected to each other. They are just legends that aren't true. They're just magical,
00:57:55
Speaker
Magical ghost stories, right? And the historical stories, which you also learn in the game, and you learn them every time you you play a character that collects a curse stone. The curse stone tells the story to you.
00:58:08
Speaker
yeah those stories talk about real the real historical events that inspired the ghost story. Right. though and it and like It encompasses this whole thing called the Hanjo incident, which is like, I guess the best way to explain it is like a really horrible chain of events, like yeah really bad. And then that's the basis of all all the folklore.
00:58:32
Speaker
there Also, you told about the Whispering Canal yeah um and the thing the thing there and the fact that they're they're connected to the curse. Remember we told you the Whispering Canal is, ah there's a yeah voice that says, leave it behind. And you have to leave the fish behind, that's the ghost story. The curse is when you turn around, right you can when somebody turns away from you, you can make them drown.
00:58:58
Speaker
right the story The historical story is that a girl ah was fishing used to fish with her father and one day her father disappeared, her mom left to find him, her mom disappeared, so she went down to the canal to look for her father and fell in a drown.
00:59:18
Speaker
right so if you can so that is a really easy way to see how the ghost story connects to the historical story and how both connect to the curse yeah and if you're listening to this like and if you're listening to this thinking this is a lot It is, I think personally that it is a lot to consume. yeah I highly suggest somebody, and what' we we'll go through, like again, just we're gonna keep going through the story a little bit, but I'd highly suggest playinging giving yourself some space, playing the prologue. Mm-hmm.
00:59:57
Speaker
And you won't, ah you yo we'll we' explain in a second, you won't know it's the prologue. Yeah, you won't know, it's true. Playing the prologue, you're thinking you're playing that entire game. So playing the prologue in sort of not necessarily one sitting, but one or two sittings, like play that one sort of keep going and maybe only read the codex, only read the entries that are coming up if they really interest you. But mostly just ignore those for now.
01:00:24
Speaker
and just focus on the game in front of you. Yeah, it just it is a lot of information. Yeah, it's a lot of story. It's a lot of history as well. And then it's almost too much. I would say after the prologue, if you then come back later when you're rested and then play the game at maybe a slower pace and then start as you're going through the game, then start reading. Yeah.
01:00:48
Speaker
the codex but like play the prologue without worrying too much about all this information. Yeah, that's kind of how I think I did it as I was kind of I was playing through and then later I kind of dove into all the information.
01:01:04
Speaker
And like I said to, in my opinion, it is a little too much. And the reason I say that is because it's folklore, but it's both like we have this paranormal part and we have this historical part that are not kind of related, but we're all going to put it in the glossary. And we also have a serial killer and everybody has their own stories and there are ghosts and there are Ouija boards and what in the world. So, uh,
01:01:32
Speaker
So you're playing a shogo and then what you find, so at some point, and this is such a this is also a really tense moment of the game, Yoko get look get it gets a terrified look on her face, points behind you. Also she tells you the reason she's chasing this right of for resurrection. And the right of resurrection, ah like Rose has said, is if you kill enough people and get enough soul dregs, you can bring somebody back from the dead. If you kill them enough people with these curse stones.
01:02:01
Speaker
So she wants to bring back her dog, which is also a little unhinged. Just a little unhinged. and So she points behind you and you look around and you're like, there's nothing there. yeah You don't know what her curse stone is yet. You don't know that her curse stone is when you turn away from her, you drown. So you turn around maybe twice and then when you look back at her,
01:02:27
Speaker
somehow she is drowned, she is dead, and she has water pouring out of her eyes and nose and mouth. yeah That's when you, Shogo, find the Whispering Canal, and at this point, you can start putting it together, but you probably wouldn't. like i didn't for I didn't recognize for a long time, wait, how did she drown when she had the haunting and the Whispering Canal? That took me more than half the game to start go to look back and go, wait, what the fuck? Yeah, yeah, I hear you.
01:03:01
Speaker
but So then you immediately become possessed by the Haunting Canal. You are Shogo, you're resentful of the fact that your friend Yoko just died in front of you and you don't know why. And so the Haunting Canal like takes advantage of you and turns you into like a murderous fucking psychopath. And you go around meeting other curse bearers and killing them. Right, yep. Which like I thought was gonna be the whole game. Me too. Yeah.
01:03:30
Speaker
and i do That's the scariest part of the game, too. That's pure just horror, you know, tense scariness. And I didn't love the fact that I had to play a murderer. Neither. But then this is this is what happened. So you go through a bunch of chapters. And then you.
01:03:54
Speaker
ah Die. Mm hmm. And you're like, what the fuck? And you're like, what? And then ah that's when you meet the storyteller and he tells you, oh, you have these branching paths. You can go back. Imagine if you didn't turn around. you Exactly. mind you This whole thing would have happened.
01:04:14
Speaker
It's just a setup, it's a setup to show you how to play the game. And so you do it, so you go back to that moment when Yoko is pointing behind you and you don't turn around, you refuse to turn around. You just like shake her back to consciousness. And again, eventually you'll realize what you're doing, she's doing it on purpose. She's pointing behind you so she can kill you. yeah And so you're like, well then how does shaking her out of it? How does yelling in her face do anything? And it's because,
01:04:41
Speaker
Every time somebody kills somebody, they're partially possessed by the spirit. That's making them do things they kinda wanna do, but don't really. right um And so you snap her out of that. And, cause then take it. Thank you. I was gonna cut that out, but thank you.
01:05:00
Speaker
So, well, you can still cut it out. um So you snap her out of it, and then you reach a different ending. And that is when you get the the opening credits. Yeah, it's the longest prologue I think I've ever played. But also one of the most and ah intriguing. intriguing. That's what maybe you want to keep playing it. Yeah. Yeah.
01:05:32
Speaker
So that's when your narrative, yeah, go ahead. No, go ahead. Oh, I was just gonna say, that's when your narrative splits and you you become Haru. who you ah Some of these people are people you met and killed in the prologue. Right, so you're probably like, unless you're not putting it together, you're just like, what? What just happened?
01:05:51
Speaker
So i you go back and you play Haru whose son was killed and you know this by now yeah um because she told you right before you killed her as Shogo. And she has the haunting clappers. ah when When somebody has fire or a fire making implement on them, she can,
01:06:13
Speaker
like them on fire. You play Tetsuo, who has the evergreen beach, ah which is when somebody lies to him, he can make them hang, um which is really cool because now the whole game, so Tetsuo never uses his curse, but now the whole game, you know when somebody has lied to you when you're playing Tetsuo. But he's a detective, a veteran detective. He's partnered with June Irio who rules. Yeah, he's great.
01:06:40
Speaker
Do you want to talk about June Erio for a second? Great characters. He's ah he' but but your ah ah very much a golden retriever boy. Very excitable. So it's kind of like this buddy cop dynamic where you have your old veteran detective who's seen some stuff. like He is weathered and salty. It takes no bullshit. at his And partner, June, is kind of new to the force. He's younger. And he's just excited. He looks up to Tetsuo.
01:07:09
Speaker
ah He's maybe a little over energetic. He's so cute. i But he's also serious about the job. Yes, he's serious about his job. And he also loves to mock Tetsuo. He does. Yeah. It's like his little show of affection, I think. So then you play Yako, who is in possession of the fool's procession and Her friend just committed suicide, right? Yeah. Allegedly, gotta say allegedly. Yeah, her friend just committed suicide and she wants to bring the friend, or she wants to ask the friend why. So she's, she just grabs the local goth girl and is like, hey, do ah do a Ouija board with me, which they call a spear board. That's what I do.
01:07:57
Speaker
as your local goth girl, I do a Ouija board every night. And through this Ouija, through this, you know ah you learn a little bit about, she learns that about the curse stone, she learns that she has the fullest procession. ah if If you can make somebody listen to the music that it plays without being seen for 30 seconds, yeah you can kill them, which and she can never achieve in the game. right ah She tries once as you get spotted.
01:08:26
Speaker
And also she tries because she's kind of in possession and that kind of hateful, um like like she almost can't control it. Yes. Yeah. um so yeah so she finds So then they go on like a journey. She wants to ah resurrect her dead friend Michio, but Mio has is becomes like her conscience and it's like, we're not going to use that stone. We are going to figure out how to stop this whole thing.
01:08:53
Speaker
yes We're gonna figure out how to stop all the curse bearers and the right of resurrection and everything. And it's through Mio who you find out is actually like a paranormal agent. It is through Mio that you learn all the all the lore of what's going on. That a bunch of people have these curse stones that this happened 200 years ago in something called the Hanjo Incident.
01:09:17
Speaker
where a bunch of people died, ah you learn that the, what the hell is it called? The Feast of Shadows or something? is It was like a spell that was,
01:09:30
Speaker
uh, intentionally cast to make this whole thing start occurring. You learn about a professor who published this stuff all of a sudden, right? or write Like you sort of learn these coincidences like, okay, your friend died a week ago. You suddenly get, then suddenly the feast of shadows is like a spell that gets cast on the town. Right.
01:09:56
Speaker
that makes paranormal stuff stronger than within that week. this professor publishes a paper about how the right of resurrection is tied to the curse stones. So clearly they're all connected. Yeah, clearly. That's kind of where I think kind of like that very square soft square enix storytelling comes from. And it's not that other games don't do it. It's just that square always does it with a flare with a look at like we said, this kind of soap opera, very high stakes. Yeah.
01:10:29
Speaker
Coincidences everywhere, connections everywhere, ah type of a type of a thing. Some major plot points that happen here are that Tetsuo gets a call from a serial killer that he put away 20 years ago. yeah That he is going to use his curse on and half of Hanjo. Right. The very next night. So you have 24 hours to stop him because the curse is only work at night. Right.
01:10:55
Speaker
and that he knows where his daughter is and he's going to kill his daughter too. And Ted's daughter who is, he's like, you know. Lost title. You learn from Yaku and Miyo's story that Michio probably did not commit suicide and that a bunch of people are claiming that they've been being stalked by Michio and people have seen Michio and people keep seeing Michio right where other people die and people keep dying in the exact same way Michio died. Yeah.
01:11:30
Speaker
with Haru you're kind of just investigating other curse bearers because you've got a private investigator that Rose is gonna tell you about but named Richter Kai and Richter Kai is also convincing you not to use your curse stone like Mio does with Yako, but is also saying, but I'll try and help you resurrect your son if if I can't dissuade you from this, which I i think you shouldn't do this, but I can't stop you. right So instead, I will help you find other curse bearers and maybe we can steal their stuff. Maybe we can get them to hand over their curse stone so we don't have to kill anybody, but we can still resurrect your son.
01:12:17
Speaker
yeah Tell us about Richter Kai. Which is fucking weird. Anyway, yeah. So Richter is this very flamboyant, very confident private investigator. He used to work, I don't know if it was for the FBI, but he used to be more in the police force and now he is, yeah. And now he's a private eye and he's the one helping Haru. He wears this very flashy fedora. He has long lustrous curly hair.
01:12:45
Speaker
His shirt is opened down to his chest. He's wearing a necklace and he likes to pose. He loves posing like he's in JoJo's Big Adventure or whatever. ah He is fantastic. He's great. Yeah, he's fantastic. He's not your average private eye. He's more effeminate, he's ah but also very level-headed. Again, doesn't want Haru to use her stone. is also kind of playing therapist to her helping her to come to terms with her son's death and maybe why resurrection isn't the way forward. Yeah, he's great. I actually ah when when he was in the prologue, when we before we even knew what was going to happen when we were playing shogo, I thought he was a bad guy. The game almost led me to believe that he had ulterior motives. But no, actually, he's one of the best good guys in the game.
01:13:40
Speaker
Yeah, he is he's like the best guy, because he's got him in Yaco, I think. I love Yaco so much. But yeah him, but Richter is this guy who is at once incredibly charming, but also incredibly intimidating. Like he's just got charisma off the charts. So he's talking to you and you're like, this guy's up to something and he's getting stuff out of me that I don't want to reveal. This guy is fucking smart as hell and that makes him dangerous, but you're also like,
01:14:10
Speaker
but I fucking love him, he's so charming. And he's also kid-like, like there's a mechanic in this game where you like, there's like hidden object, like you collect bird stickers and he's in love with these bird stickers. And there's one- Oh, they're so rare, I can't believe you found that one.
01:14:30
Speaker
there's a fucking scene where you're in a park and he's like and if you look at the playground it's like she's like it looks like Richter Richter keeps looking at that playground and he's like And she's like, do you wanna go play in that playground? And he's like, no, no, no, i just I was just looking at it. And she says to herself, he wants to go play in the playground. And if you keep looking at the playground, she keeps mentioning how he's looking at it, and then she's like, fine, you can go play in the playground. And he runs. And he comes back with a sticker.
01:15:04
Speaker
Yeah, he's great. He's I think he makes us go to a candy store just to get more stickers. Yeah. Okay, go ahead. No, he's just refreshing Lee. He's kind of in line with Juno who was the young guy on the force, but it's very clear that Richter Kai has more experience even though he has this kind of like childlike demeanor. He has more experience and he kind of knows what he wants to do and has definitely is of sound mind. um like And June and Richter went through police academy training together.
01:15:33
Speaker
Yeah, once again, in very square nature, everybody seems to have a connection, even if it's prior to the curses. You know what I mean? It just seems like everyone's connected somehow. And then the other character I like is Mio, who is Yako's friend, who is the the goth girl who is helping her um connect and kind of communicate with the friend that they had lost. Just try to find that mystery out. She's very smart. She's very calm.
01:16:03
Speaker
Yeah, very smart. Her mom, I guess was like a very famous psychic. So she also has these kind of senses, these abilities to kind of like talk to the dead and stuff. I'm like, Oh, that's cool. I like I like that character.
01:16:17
Speaker
There's a bad joke that keeps coming up where everybody who has spirit sense talks about it and the other person's like, oh, what, like alcohol? I know it keeps coming up. Why? This is a bad joke and you guys won't let it go. Maybe it's funnier in Japanese. I don't know. The game keeps being like spirits, because, Alka, because wine, because that can you do get it. Do you get it? I'm like, you don't game. Yeah, I get it. Also, this game is not does not suffer translation problems. But that joke aside,
01:16:47
Speaker
yeah There's not, you you're not like, oh, I'm reading a translated Japanese thing. No, it it it is very incredibly well written. Definitely, yes, I agree with that. I agree with that, hands down. um Okay, so now we'll start getting into this the very spoiler, like the end game of these stories because- Oh, don't even get me started. I'm just gonna blow a gasket.
01:17:09
Speaker
Everybody's going around just like solving mysteries and they're being revealed one by one. So we'll just, I'll just talk about like the biggest reveals. So Yako is being possessed by Michio. Yeah, that was a good reveal. Michio is dead, but she is possessing Yako and that's why people have been seeing her around. And there's a really, really moving scene where Mio is helping Jaco and Michio let go of each other. And it's sad. It's honestly sad. Because Michio has been through hell. We find out she has been being abused by her stepfather. She was being used as part of like this occult ritual. um She's actually the one who led Haru's son, Shuichi, to his death at the hands of her stepfather to fulfill a ritual yeah that
01:18:07
Speaker
Is that the ritual that started the Feast of Shadows, or? No, it's not. I guess I'm not entirely clear on what that ritual achieved. Okay. Yeah, I got either, but I'd have to, I did at the time, I'd have to go back and look at it, but these these are the rituals that are all connected to the end serial killer guy. Right. Yeah. um And,
01:18:34
Speaker
ah the um The other part, Michio was also being abused by a teacher who at turns up dead pretty early in the game, um killed by Yako through Michio. Right. What a horrible thing. Can you even put yourself in the mindset of being possessed by someone and you've killed someone? Yeah. That it is a harrowing thought.
01:19:02
Speaker
So Michio is being blackmailed and ah it implies sexually abused by a teacher ah in the school. um And she was just living this horrible life. She was like this bright, ah bright student who everyone loved who just got just torn down by the world and then ah run over by a car yeah for,
01:19:31
Speaker
seemingly no reason. She was run over by two other characters in the game. yeah And that helped in involve those two characters in this entire, you know, the ritual and the story and yeah like, that's what led to them having curse stones and ah what led to them being involved in this counter ritual. But regardless,
01:19:56
Speaker
They just, it she just died from, it wasn't connected to the mystery. She just died from a random accident. Yeah. to it that And that was an interesting reveal too, because this whole game is about trying to get to those reveals, you know, trying to get to the truth, basically. And yeah, that was just a sad one. Man, that's a sad storyline.
01:20:17
Speaker
So Haru, like we said, we find out who kills her son, it's the stepfather of Michio, and he was using he was doing it for some black magic ritual. We also find out that when she was a kid, she found a hand yeah in the river that led to the arrest of that serial killer we keep referring to. And Tetsuo was the detective who put him away. After 20 years, because they could only pin one murder on him,
01:20:47
Speaker
even though they knew he was a serial killer, after 20 years he got led out and given a new identity and he became the janitor at the school, which is why this is all happening here. yeah Well, there's two reasons it's all happening here, but he's the one who is, he didn't kick it off but he's taking advantage of it and he's why this whole death game is really going. If you ask me, I think Yoko is the one who really kicked it off ah and i think and I think the serial killer is the one that is causing everything to go ah bonkers.
01:21:20
Speaker
Agreed. Yoko, I think, kicked it off because she is the, and we're throughout the whole game, everybody's thinking it's this oh owner of a soap company. It's complicated. We're not going to get into that. Yeah, it's um it's way too complicated. But the owner of the soap company is the reincarnation of this the female rival ah during the ichio. What is it? The ah the incident of Hanjo?
01:21:44
Speaker
Is it just called the Hanzo incident? Yeah, I think it is, yeah. The Hanzo incident. so So Simon and this woman whose name I can't remember are the two ah instigators of the Hanzo incident. Hanjo incident, which led to all the curse stones, which 200 years later, it's repeating, and and we're led to believe that Simon ah has been resurrected, and they kind of imply that it's in the serial killer, and they imply that his female rival is in this soap company woman. It's neither. right right It's Yoko, and
01:22:23
Speaker
I'm gonna save it to the very end to tell you who Simon is. Okay. Possessing. Yeah, and I think you can probably see that from a mile away at what at some point. You might not be able to see it right away, but as you unravel intentions and the curse stones and what they do, eventually I think you'll connect it and you'll understand it. Right. The one thing you might not understand is who the ultimate person is. Right. um Who Simon actually is. Who you found out via a YouTube video, right? Like you didn't go get the true ending.
01:23:01
Speaker
No, shall we talk about that? In a minute, I think let's wrap up this story, because we're we're close to the end here. So turns out right that ahy yeah Ayame, who you've seen around, she was one of the people who ran over Michio.
Character Arcs and Plot Twists
01:23:18
Speaker
She is, and she's the one that wants to resurrect the artist. Yeah. the action She's actually Tetsuo's daughter. So and she kills the serial killer after he abducts her. Um, what, what, Oh, and she's the one that has the really, really tense and really cool scene with Haru. yeah Um, there's a really also amazing scene with characters we haven't really talked about.
01:23:42
Speaker
but there's a scene where Tetsuo and Miyu and Mayu, who we haven't mentioned at all, we'll talk about in a second, not and Junirio and Yako, they all band together to confront this one character, and it's so good. And Yako has already been freed of Michio, and we find out that Yako's like a badass. She always wants to fight everybody, and she's always rolling up her sleeves and making a muscle.
01:24:12
Speaker
but so um But yeah, there's one other character who, again, it would be complicated to explain how she's tied to everything, but you do play a fifth character named Mayu. who was the fiance of a cop that was killed at the beginning of this whole thing.
01:24:29
Speaker
and she's the one in the escape room scenario. Again, way too complicated to get into. um yeah But yeah. But the final conflict, and this is where you got angry, right? Oh yeah. um So you get you run into a lot of dead ends here. There's a lot of times you just die and you have to go back. And I assumed this was one of those times and it only kind of is. um Because this is the,
01:24:57
Speaker
This is the bad ending. This is the ending in quotes of this game. right you have Do you want to describe it? Do you want to describe what happens? Yes, I do want to talk about that because this is where the game lost me.
01:25:12
Speaker
and i'm i'm kind of It's really unfortunate when an ending is so unfulfilling that it changes your opinion of the whole game because what we've been talking about is so deep. We've been able to articulate a lot of themes and narratives and it is unfortunate that I felt punished.
01:25:31
Speaker
honestly, at the end of this game. So like you were saying, there are multiple bad endings. That's fine. i'm I'm fine with, you know, I'm fine with discovering a branch that is a bad ending. And then I go back and then I continue. But you have to understand, these bad endings are kind of interspersed throughout your journey.
01:25:52
Speaker
This last ending is at the end of the game when you think that you have solved the mystery. When you think that you're about to get a solution and a really good ending, you actually get a bad ending that ends up killing two of the best characters of the game.
01:26:12
Speaker
And like I said, this was at the solution. This is after we went through everything. you know the The serial killer was killed. We figure out who Tetsuya's daughter is. um yeah There's a few sacrifices along the way. We're getting to the end. We give we give ah Yaku's friend peace. you know We give her friends ghost peace. Everything's coming together. I'm so excited for this end. No.
01:26:38
Speaker
The final ending is a bad ending. It ends up that, yeah okay, at the very end, obviously major spoiler, you know that if you're still here, um June and Mio get together to, what are they actually doing? I kind of forgot, they're they're figuring out a final puzzle, I guess, to put an end to the resurrection, remember? so So I thought you were gonna talk about the bridge, what happens in the bridge. I don't care about that.
01:27:04
Speaker
Oh, okay, well then I'll just i'll just say. and Real quick, just tell the tell the people what happened. Yeah, and the bridge, what happens is you find out, Tetsuo lets Iyame know that she was adopted and that her birth father,
01:27:22
Speaker
was the serial killer who she just killed. yeah um And she's very resentful of her adoptive parents, but he ah but Tetsuo just will not stop declaring his love for her and his dedication to her. And she only realizes the moment after he dies,
01:27:44
Speaker
that he that she regrets it and that she loves him. And honestly, that should have been the ending of the game. OK. I will die on this hill. That was such a meaningful, poignant, powerful end. If you play it, you know it's it's it's very moving and it's very um emotional for the characters. That, to me,
01:28:13
Speaker
is where it should have ended. And then, you know, they maybe they collect the curse stones and that that's the end of it. This is the final sacrifice. And it's sad, but at least the right people have been put away, like the serial, not put away, because we killed them, but. Serial killers dead, Ayemi's going to prison. They have yeah all the curse stones. They've stopped the Feast of Shadows in the right resurrection. to yeah They've not stopped the Feast of Shadows yet, actually. This is what you're about to talk about. Okay, but I think and and maybe, I don't know, i um I almost feel like there shouldn't have been an extra branch where we're stopping an extra thing. I think it should have been implied at the end of the story. But much to my surprise, we get more gameplay, even though I think that was a solid end. It's not the happiest ending, but it's a rewarding ending. It felt right it felt appropriate.
01:29:06
Speaker
So at the very end, you're trying to ah do this puzzle to stop ah the Feast of Shadows. And you're playing as Jun, the young cop, and Mio, the goth friend who can speak to the dead. And they run into Yoko from the beginning of the game, the one who wants to kill you, the one that's in the prologue, you run into her and I'm like, Oh, no.
01:29:28
Speaker
What is happening here? Like I know, I just know something that I'm not gonna like is about to happen. And she ends up killing both of us with her curse stone. And you find out at the very end that Yoko is kind of the mastermind. Masterminds may be a strong title to give this character, but we find out that- They call them the mastermind. They call, okay. So yeah, okay, if that's the case. So yeah, she's the mastermind.
01:29:57
Speaker
And what you've what I had forgotten by this point is that because you changed the past, she never died. right So this every whole game, she has just been out there and not involved in the story at all.
01:30:13
Speaker
Correct, yeah, correct. um Probably what like maybe watching it from the shadows, maybe just lurking in the park. We don't know, right but yeah. And so yeah, she comes back and the two most liked characters at the end of the game, after the bridge scene, after that powerful ending, those two characters die.
01:30:35
Speaker
And that's another bad ending. And I was not impressed by this at all. i and and It sucks to unravel this huge mystery and not be rewarded with a decent ending. It almost ruined the game for me because even though you can go back, the game now expects you to find where you have to pivot. So you could get another another ending, which is the quote, good ending, which to be honest is very lackluster.
01:31:05
Speaker
It's not great, I don't think. it's just a It's just an ending where it's like, and then this person did this thing, and then blah, blah, blah. No, Matt, no. It should have ended at the bridge. It went on a little too long for me. And then it punished me for getting to the end. It punished me. And i I will die in this hill. I don't like that. It made me very upset. So I, so, okay. So I, uh,
01:31:31
Speaker
I disagree entirely. So this final puzzle is really, okay. So first I'll take the first thing you said that it should have ended with the scene on the bridge. With the scene on the bridge, we still don't know who the mastermind is, right? We still don't know who Simon and the woman were reincarnated as. We still ah don't know what's going to happen to, we still the Feast of Shadows is still active and we still don't know what's going to happen to all the curse stones.
01:31:59
Speaker
So we think we at least needed an epilogue. And then this epilogue has one of the coolest puzzles in the game, where you have to put the curse stones in order. And by doing that, you have to read through all the stories and realize they're all connected and put them in chronological order.
01:32:23
Speaker
And it is really, it' to me, that was a really cool puzzle. It's a really satisfying ending or satisfying solution. and And then that Yoko appeared. Again, I had totally forgotten that she was still alive. So I was like, what the fuck? And I was incredibly surprised. i was I was sort of blown away. And that is that moment where you're like, oh, Yoko is the other girl.
01:32:51
Speaker
Yoko's the reincarnated woman and the mastermind. So it puts the last pieces of the mystery into place. And with those last pieces of the mystery, now you suddenly, and they also, ah it it this also unlocks the counter curse when you open that, um when you solve that puzzle.
01:33:11
Speaker
yeah you get the counter curse. And the counter curse tells you, you need three things. You need the mind of Simon, you need the soul of Simon, and you need a descent, the blood of Simon. So the soul's in the curse stone, and the mind is somewhere that I'm gonna tell you at the very end. And the ah blood turns out to be in Shogo.
01:33:40
Speaker
um So you have to then think through, and there's, you you you can like look around for clues here, but you have to think through, where is a moment where the,
01:34:00
Speaker
what did he have, the one-sided reed, or did he have the, no, the beckon and light, no, the, the soul of Simon is in the beckoning. So where is a scene where a descendant ah is in the same room as the beckoning light? And there's only one place. And when you go there, the scene is changed. Yeah.
01:34:29
Speaker
And then it takes you to a, you know, like a ah ah Laura Bow style. right That's why I call it a very lackluster true ending. It doesn't have the same gumption as the bad endings do. So we don't, so at that point we don't, again, so if if it had ended at the Tetsuo part, we don't have everything resolved. And then,
01:34:54
Speaker
we get a really cool puzzle. Now, I do think one other thing should have happened. So every other time you open up, you change something about the past and open up a new path. ah The cracked TV screens that are the story chart light up, the one that you've changed lights up. This time it doesn't, so you have to find it. Which I think is interesting, like that was a puzzle that I found interesting, but I still had trouble figuring it out. And I think it might've been better if it just lit that TV up because I don't think solving that puzzle, I liked the final ending, but solving that puzzle wasn't like figuring out where they all coincided. It was really interesting to think about, but to solve,
01:35:43
Speaker
ended up being a little boring. Like I was like, Oh, oh, okay. I guess they're all here. I think what should have happened is it, you know, I understand your point of view is there were some loose ends that needed to tie up, but we needed to tie them up in that branch that we were on. Don't make us go back after teasing us with hopefully a fulfilling ending with a good ending. We are going to tie up these loose ends.
01:36:08
Speaker
And then we don't even know where we're going. It's just so deflating. At that point, I was exhausted and I didn't want to go find the good ending. And so I ended up looking it up.
Deep Themes and Cultural Reflections
01:36:19
Speaker
And to me, it wasn't worth finding. It was a very lackluster filling out the questionnaire, actually, I thought was really cool because they, you know, he you you can't guess he makes you you have to know the right answers here. Yeah. um And by doing so,
01:36:40
Speaker
By doing this other ending, um you do see different endings for every character, and all those people who died have a better ending. You know, um Shogo just moves on with his life. um And Haru,
01:37:02
Speaker
finally, in a way that she hadn't by the end of the game, by the by the the bad ending. She finally figures out how to put her son's death behind her. right um ah There's a funny scene between Tetsuo and Jun.
01:37:18
Speaker
um There is, ah it it shows some of the scenes, of the some of the more dramatic scenes of the game again, but just like kind of slightly changed um as what would have happened if the Feast of Shadows had been turned off and they couldn't, you know, what if that what if the curses weren't part of this? What if it was just the mystery?
01:37:40
Speaker
right um And a lot of those endings are like, oh, that is the ending I think that character deserves. And the only people who really die are some people we haven't really talked about and Yoko, the most evil of all of them. And it ends even with a redemption arc for the serial killer.
01:38:04
Speaker
yeah because the final scene is Tetsuo and the serial killer just having a conversation on that bridge where they had their show showdown. yeah um But instead of a showdown, he's not still murderous. The serial killer has learned to let go of the past because he didn't get possessed by a cursed stone. The serial killer is just kind of like,
01:38:31
Speaker
um Uh, you know, I have a new life, I have a new identity. I am, I'm just ready to move forward and try and be a productive citizen. Um, yeah. I mean, to me, as you're saying these things, like these are really cop out very generic, good endings. And I think that's why it's not connecting with me because there's so many good moments in this game that this ending is so disappointing to me.
01:39:03
Speaker
i just i can't get over it i can't get over it i think they're all generic good endings. Most of them are just the endings we already saw. um But yeah for example, there's one person who has a bad ending because the curses didn't happen. Ayami never gets over it. Never gets over her problem with her parents. ah Because like she's the only person in the story who her life is made worse. Yeah. but That's still a generic end. The fact that there's no curse stone, so she just continues on
01:39:37
Speaker
hating her adoptive parents and not knowing who her biological dad was. The thing that really stuck out to me in this game was this idea, this theme of just like,
01:39:50
Speaker
I was meditating the entire time on this idea of what a haunting is, right? um Because there's people who are haunted by ghosts, right? Everybody who gets killed by Michio is being haunted by her ghost, right? yeah All of them are being haunted by these ghosts of events, of people and events that happened 200 years ago at the same time. They're being haunted both by the people and and like like the violence of the event because the curse takes on the events characteristics, yeah then there's the idea of a culture being haunted by the traumas of its past, right? um All of Hanjo is being haunted by the buy two different things. It's being haunted by the serial killings of 20 years ago, and this is how they have affected all these people's lives 20 years later.
01:40:45
Speaker
um and being haunted by what happened, the Hanjo incident 200 years ago. And this is how those events have turned into legends and those legends have affected people's lives.
01:40:58
Speaker
Right. It's kind of like that idea of ah like metaphorical ghosts and hauntings, you know, not yeah just being haunted by a tangible poltergeist, but haunted by the past and the things that the chain of events that happened ah to cause those traumas. Right. And all those things sort of lead to like, ah you know, Tetsuya was haunted by his estrangement from his daughter, but that only happened because of the serial killings that happened 20 years earlier. right Then ah you know ah Haru is haunted by the death of her son. But again, that only happened because of what happened ah both 20 and 200 years ago converging in Hanjo. There's a scene about halfway through the game where Richter Kai and
01:41:50
Speaker
ah Haru are looking out over this river and Richter Kai starts talking about like um rivers used to be thought of as ah the, you know, the bridge between our world and the next and the people in Edo, um the Chuo civilization ah were on one side of the Sumida River and looking over and thinking of Hanjo as the other world, as, right you know,
01:42:17
Speaker
the the afterlife or something, right? Or the spirit world. And eventually, somebody built a bridge. And now Hanjo is part of Tokyo. And so this place that was the afterlife, right, is now i this you know, it's now a place where people live and exist. And so all these, ah this like, ah I guess you could call it like a like a cultural memory yeah of it being ah an unattainable paranormal place is still with them all today as these legends come out. Yeah.
01:43:01
Speaker
um And he also makes a point about how Hanjo became surrounded by manmade rivers. Right. which is good Which is kind of where almost like this cautionary tale and the chain of events that led to today kind of play in. Right. Like ah what are all these legends and all these hauntings, all these like ah curses? But manmade paths to the afterworld and that people have dug with their actions. As a person who digs into folklore all the time, as, again, as an anthropology major who has a podcast where I dig into the origins of old folk songs and how they evolved over time, right? Which is also another theme in this game, the way these legends, or the way this history turns into legend turns into folktale. Yeah.
01:43:59
Speaker
um It's a thing I'm tracking tracking all the time in my life. And so to me, this game was just like this really smart, ah deep dive, like this discovery of that concept. Yeah. And and I think that's kind of where our interests ah intersect because ah for me, like as an artful person, as an artist and and kind of a writer,
01:44:30
Speaker
and I look for ways to tell stories and continue folklore and express emotion through moving pictures and and just visuals and story. That's where it really hits for me too, is like the the folklore and the haunting and the theme of death and playing God and um and what are curses, not just like what you see here in the game tangibly, but something that was made centuries ago that started this snowball effect. So the yeah, I agree. To me, it's extremely meaningful and moving and has a lot of great themes and symbolism. And that's kind of where I stand with my art background, I guess. Well, and that is why I think Ayami's story is so important here, that she was trying to resurrect a dead artist. Because yeah what is making art but resurrecting
01:45:28
Speaker
the art of the past, right? Resurrecting people's feelings and emotions of the past. You're bringing your present feelings together with the techniques that have been developed over hundreds, sometimes thousands, sometimes, you know, hundreds of thousands, sorry, tens of thousands of years. For example, you make pottery.
01:45:55
Speaker
you are participating in an art form that has existed for, what, 50,000 years, 20,000 years, somewhere around there. And- Even if you go back even further, just drawing, the act of drawing, anything has been around since forever, since people were around. Right, and you are bringing your current mind and thought process into this art you were resurrecting this this ancient technique with and how is and that's like to me that is the exact same as what this game is saying you know there are these curses and they like they say in the game they can't make you do anything they can only push you towards doing things that you already want to do so right what everybody that's doing something evil in this game already had resentment
01:46:46
Speaker
They just wouldn't have taken the resentment that far. That's the same thing to me as art. Art, you have a feeling, you have an emotion, but it takes the building of techniques over hundreds or thousands of years to push that feeling out of you into the world.
01:47:02
Speaker
that That was very poignant, Matt. Thank you. Well, well they thank you. i mean that that' So that's the seven mysteries of Hondo.
Podcast Reflections and Community Engagement
01:47:11
Speaker
I think he did the 13 ghosts of Jacksonville, Florida, in the country of paranormal. I think we need a palate cleanser, Matt. I think I need to put on swanks. Haunting spookery now. Haunting spookery at all. Let's go.
01:47:43
Speaker
Hey, everyone. Welcome back. I hope you had a great break. I'm pushing up roses with me, your co-host, Matt Aucamp. Hey, Matt. Hey. So we want to tell you guys that we are not doing our ranking today because- So sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. So sorry. We really wanted to focus on this game and Spooky Month. As you can see, we had a lot to say about it and I really hope you enjoyed it.
01:48:09
Speaker
Huh? And we ran out of time. We ran out of time. And like, a yeah you know, we like to talk and that's just how it is. But this that doesn't mean it's the end of the ranking. We're still going to do the rankings. We'll probably bring it back ah next week and unless unless unless we do a special bonus. Oh, OK. I saying. Unless we fuck up a time again. A midweek bonus.
01:48:35
Speaker
I am down with that. I am always down with a midweek episode, like half episode, totally down with that. Just do bullshit for 20 minutes and then go. Anyway, we can't promise not listeners, but it'll, yeah, anyway.
01:48:51
Speaker
Anyway, we want to remind you guys that we are part of the adventure game hotspot network. Please go check out the website. It is for all of your adventure game loving wants and desires and needs. I love being in a community where we all love adventure games, as does Matt, I'm sure.
01:49:09
Speaker
And I also want to say that you should visit our Instagram. We made, well, I didn't make it. Matt made an Instagram for Save Your Games called Save Your Game Podcast. There's going to be fan art. There's going to be updates. You can comment. You can finally leave comments somewhere that isn't YouTube. as We all know that's a cesspool. And we will have um ah bespoke artwork for each episode. There will be yeah each episode is going to get its own individual artwork.
01:49:38
Speaker
ah on the, the logo will stay the same on your podcasting platforms, but on the Instagram, you can see each episode's original artwork. Yeah. Yeah. And honestly, that's the best way. I'm kind of bad with the email. Matt's more on the admin side of this podcast where I'm just, I don't even know what I'm doing, but Matt's really good about that. But if you want ah a response from me, if you want me to see a suggestion, leave it on the Instagram. yeah I'm very visual person. If we had to do like a, like a credits, it would be like this podcast is, uh, is, is,
01:50:14
Speaker
written and hosted by Matt and Roses, edited by Roses, produced by Matt. ah Matt, ending thoughts to this this wrapped up episode that we just did? Nope. Just email us, mattandroses, at gmail dot.com. Next week, ah we are going to be talking about all our favorite horror games, and that is going to include ah Again, that's under embargo. We can't tell. Oh my God. You scared me. I thought you were going to say it and i I was going to have to yell or censor. um and It might be out of embargo actually by the time this episode goes up, but I don't feel like checking. So, uh, it'll just be a surprise. It'll be a surprise. Yes. So please tune in next week. And I guess all I really have to say now, and it's very apropos to this episode is podcast is art.
01:51:03
Speaker
Oh, and also very apropos to this episode, artists suffer. Like major suffering. Like really suffer.