Transcript
Speaker: Hey everybody, welcome back to Pixel It and the last episode of Bloodborne.
Speaker: Here with me as always, is my good friend Phil.
Speaker: Hello ladies and gentlemen, we're here to talk about Bloodborne.
Speaker: How are you?
Speaker: Well, answering for the ladies and gentlemen, I think they're fine.
Speaker: I bet they are.
Speaker: If they're listening to a podcast, they probably don't have too much to worry about.
Speaker: Unless they're listening to the podcast to get away from the horrors of their current life, in which case I'm going to shut up about it.
Speaker: in which case welcome and uh and we hope we can we can help you out on those on that journey um or you know if you're just doing chores like that's how i listen to podcasts absolutely is when i'm usually working when i'm doing dad work around the house that's that's my that's my podcast time yeah that's that's pretty much the same for me i'm usually working
Speaker: Oh, boy.
Speaker: So that's the high point of this episode.
Speaker: It's all downhill from here.
Speaker: It's going to be a tough one.
Speaker: Yeah, it's going to be a tough one.
Speaker: If you're a Bloodborne fan, if you're a Bloodborne graphic novel fan.
Speaker: Well, you might have tuned out after after episode three of Bloodborne in which we had we had harsh words.
Speaker: If you're a Bloodborne graphic novel fan, stop.
Speaker: Stop.
Speaker: Get some help.
Speaker: Get some help.
Speaker: Insert the Michael Jordan get some help gift here.
Speaker: Stop it.
Speaker: Because this is bad.
Speaker: This is bad.
Speaker: It's so frustrating because if you guys need to
Speaker: channel back to the first couple of episodes of our Bloodborne series.
Speaker: It was only it only started a few weeks ago for y'all.
Speaker: We were excited about this.
Speaker: So excited.
Speaker: Yeah, we're actually like, oh, they're taking this and like it's in a slightly different direction, but it's still Bloodborne and it's got something really special going on here.
Speaker: That's kind of cool.
Speaker: And and then then it comes to
Speaker: Bloodborne volume four, which I believe is called the veil shut the bed.
Speaker: So that's, you know, that tells you everything you need to know.
Speaker: They just, you know, at least they're honest.
Speaker: Oh, no, that's not what it's called.
Speaker: It's called the veil wrapped around dog poop.
Speaker: Yes, that's right.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: The poopy veil, the poopy veil.
Speaker: the the veil oh poop oh man i feel like this is the meanest we've ever been but at this point it's kind of deserved because fool me once uh i forget how that goes i mean it's actually kind of hard it's hard to remember because george bush screwed it up so spectacularly i can't remember i can't remember how it actually is supposed to go you can't
Speaker: You can't decide the bloodborne decider.
Speaker: It's just, yeah.
Speaker: And it's frustrating.
Speaker: And because Kevin and I are both artists, we both work in artistic fields.
Speaker: That's how we met.
Speaker: And it's very difficult for us to really come down on someone for at least trying and for doing something.
Speaker: And that's, that's never something we're ever going to,
Speaker: You know, we're not here to crush spirits.
Speaker: We don't take pleasure in it.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: If anything, all I wanted was for this to be pretty kick ass because last week we started to kind of it was starting to get into a realm that we weren't so keen on.
Speaker: It was feeling weird.
Speaker: We were not thrilled about it, but there was still time.
Speaker: There was still time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Period.
Speaker: There was still time.
Speaker: And they wasted that time, Kevin.
Speaker: They certainly wasted that time.
Speaker: They wasted that time.
Speaker: The time is gone.
Speaker: Oh, man.
Speaker: Oh, man.
Speaker: And this is the last of the Bloodborne graphic novels, as far as I know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, I think we're good.
Speaker: We're fine.
Speaker: We're fine.
Speaker: You know, and...
Speaker: Yeah, just fine, really.
Speaker: I'm going to put them up on my bookshelf next to all my other graphic novels and let them sit.
Speaker: And then in a year or two, someone will come to visit and they'll go, oh, neat.
Speaker: Bloodborne graphic novels.
Speaker: I didn't know they did that.
Speaker: And I'll turn and I'll suddenly look really haggard and have one eye and I'll be like, you shouldn't be touching cursed things.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And they're like, well, you know, I just, I was just kind of, I used to love that video game.
Speaker: I like, I thought it was like, no, stay away from this cursed item.
Speaker: Torn from the devil's butthole.
Speaker: He'd be like, are you sure?
Speaker: I can't.
Speaker: I mean, I'll give you, I'll give you a 10 bucks for him.
Speaker: We're like 10 bucks.
Speaker: Yeah, here you go.
Speaker: Good luck.
Speaker: Good luck.
Speaker: Good luck, kid.
Speaker: You can actually you can still flip through them and admire the art, the actual the the art in it.
Speaker: Yes, that's fine.
Speaker: Yes, I have.
Speaker: I have nothing but good.
Speaker: I have nothing but good thing to say about this.
Speaker: Nothing but good thing to say about the artwork.
Speaker: And that's really 50 percent of it.
Speaker: But the other 50 percent, the writing on this.
Speaker: We liked the first one.
Speaker: We liked the second one.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We were hoping number three was better than it was and it wasn't.
Speaker: And then number four was a repeat of number three, but kind of more warmed over.
Speaker: It's like, it's like instead of,
Speaker: It's like being number three was put into a microwave and heated up, but not quite, not quite to the right temperature.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So like the outside of it is hot, but the inside of it is still cold and you're still eating it anyway because you have no shame.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But then after you finished the slice, the heartburn sets in and the more you think about it, the more you're like, well, what the fuck?
Speaker: I didn't need that.
Speaker: I wasn't that hungry.
Speaker: I wasn't even hungry.
Speaker: I was just bored.
Speaker: I was bored.
Speaker: I was bored.
Speaker: And I said, if I only that slice of the pizza, then my girlfriend is going to go in there and she's going to say she's going to.
Speaker: I don't want her to have that pizza.
Speaker: That's my pizza.
Speaker: God damn it.
Speaker: So I put it in and it was that there was that pan pizza, which never reheats right.
Speaker: Nope.
Speaker: You know, you put it in the microwave and it just becomes a goddamn brick.
Speaker: It's too much tomato sauce, not enough cheese.
Speaker: Your stomach.
Speaker: God, my stomach hurts.
Speaker: I made some bad decisions on takeout this weekend.
Speaker: I'm sorry.
Speaker: I'm a little frustrated.
Speaker: Just really just relitigating your your food choices.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm just I'm just I'm mad, but for a lot of reasons is what I'm getting at.
Speaker: Jesus.
Speaker: So let's get into why we don't like it.
Speaker: Let's let's let's actually explain in specifics what we mean.
Speaker: Let's explain.
Speaker: We don't have to.
Speaker: We could just, you know, stop right now and play Mario Kart for the rest of the night.
Speaker: But we could do that and just upload the audio file of us talking trash while we play Mario Kart.
Speaker: You guys would like that.
Speaker: Yeah, you would like that.
Speaker: I might actually make for a pretty good bonus episode.
Speaker: Yeah, I think that would make for a good bonus episode.
Speaker: Play that new Mario Golf game.
Speaker: Oh, how was that?
Speaker: I haven't played it yet, but it looks good.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: It looks fun.
Speaker: Looks like a chill time.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Speaking of not chill times.
Speaker: Basically, this book starts with our protagonists.
Speaker: who I guess he's a protagonist.
Speaker: He's just kind of a dude narrating things that are happening to him.
Speaker: That is exactly what I was going to say.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Just you make the meet the definition of a protagonist, man.
Speaker: I remember.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: We're not even going to get into it.
Speaker: I'm still I'm still I'm still going to rant here.
Speaker: I remember being about 14, 15 years old, and it was when I first started writing fiction like in earnest, you know,
Speaker: And my dad at a used bookstore found the classic.
Speaker: Any writers out there know exactly what I'm talking about.
Speaker: The Writer's Digest novel and short story publication book.
Speaker: And it's just one of these big fat books.
Speaker: They come out with them every year.
Speaker: And it's got all these different publications and that sort of thing.
Speaker: And it's a resource for writers to get their stuff published.
Speaker: And I was so excited.
Speaker: I didn't know that thing existed.
Speaker: So I start just...
Speaker: hammering out stories.
Speaker: And I'm 14 years old and all I do is read Stephen King.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So it's all horrible.
Speaker: And I'm writing stuff that I think is pretty brilliant.
Speaker: I think I'm a genius.
Speaker: Nothing's changed.
Speaker: And the thing that people kept writing back to me, these editors who bless their hearts.
Speaker: And by the way, if you're a writer trying to get published and an editor takes the time to put ink to paper to give you personal advice on the stuff that you wrote,
Speaker: you thank your lucky stars and you listen to everything they have to say because they do not have time for that.
Speaker: They just don't.
Speaker: And I got real lucky with a couple of editors who wrote me back and said, Hey, here's the deal.
Speaker: And, uh, and I'm sure it's part of it's because they've seen these stories from 14 year olds.
Speaker: And the thing they kept saying was like, we want a story where a protagonist does things, not has things done to them.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And now that I'm, you know,
Speaker: years old you know and i have written some things gotten some things published and i know a little more about it i totally get that how how is it that a writer who didn't take the advice that i got when i was 14 years old managed to get this shit published i do not understand it because he you're right but you nailed it he's not
Speaker: I guess he's a protagonist in the sense that he's our main character, but he doesn't do much.
Speaker: Things are done to him.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's basically if Nick Carraway, which is a great Gatsby reference, if Nick Carraway, who is probably one of the more famous passive protagonists in literature,
Speaker: If Nick Carraway was dumped in Yharnam and decided to commit double homicide after a threesome.
Speaker: But we're getting ahead of ourselves.
Speaker: We are.
Speaker: We are.
Speaker: We are.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: Yeah, fuck it.
Speaker: Let's just go.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: Let's get into it.
Speaker: So basically, this guy is a scholar, I assume.
Speaker: He's in a library.
Speaker: He's reading, but he's also having these flashbacks.
Speaker: and forwards, I think that's part of it is that there is no clear delineation as to when time is, which is fine once.
Speaker: And we had that already.
Speaker: No, we've had that, the flat table thing with the Eileen, the crow thing where it was time is a flat circle, whatever you get away with that.
Speaker: Once you can do that arc once in a larger setting, you do it once and you get it out of the way.
Speaker: And even in recollection, this made me feel that the Eileen and the Crow story was brilliant in comparison.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: I'm so glad you said that because I totally agree.
Speaker: Like, I feel like I was like, maybe I was too harsh.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: In volume three, I am like, man, I was too harsh because this this is nonsense.
Speaker: This is nonsense.
Speaker: This has very little connection to.
Speaker: It feels very disconnected from Bloodborne itself.
Speaker: It absolutely does.
Speaker: I have a feeling I know possibly...
Speaker: which character this might be.
Speaker: But if it is that character, it's a character that has, is of such a minor importance to the game.
Speaker: And I believe they are found in the DLC and they're, they're not the main purpose of the DLC.
Speaker: They are just, and you can miss them.
Speaker: I think I have a feeling I know who it is, but it is a very, very specific character.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Person.
Speaker: So basically the first issue is kind of these looping memories of our guy.
Speaker: He's been on a battlefield.
Speaker: He's not from Yharnam originally.
Speaker: He's got he's got this kind of Conan quality of like he's a he's a he's a scholar.
Speaker: He's a soldier.
Speaker: He's an adventure.
Speaker: He's a thief.
Speaker: He's boring.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: You know, except Conan's not boring.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's yeah.
Speaker: He's lived this big life.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: He's lived this big life.
Speaker: He's gone to he's he's.
Speaker: I'm not even sure what his motivation is.
Speaker: And I feel like there is part of it is almost a little.
Speaker: I want to say it's almost a little insulting because it's relying on tropes of mental illness that I find a little uncomfortable.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There are some... It's never outwardly said because obviously this isn't something that would be found... That wouldn't be discussed necessarily in Bloodborne itself.
Speaker: And a lot of Bloodborne and Lovecraft and all that stuff has...
Speaker: It's not even the subtext.
Speaker: It's the text is losing your mind, right?
Speaker: There's a difference between losing your mind from the exposure of eldritch horror to trying to tell a story and not doing it very well or very...
Speaker: I want to say cautiously or in a way that takes the matter seriously because the guy has displays the tropes of like schizophrenia, right?
Speaker: In one moment he's, and I'm not even saying that these are, this is how, what schizophrenia is.
Speaker: I'm just saying it's the way media has portrayed it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it makes me feel very, made me feel kind of uncomfortable when I'm looking at it because at one point the guy is like,
Speaker: normal and then he's like grinning wildly and he has the his razor blade up to his own throat yeah apropos of nothing and let's you know what let's let's go through the motions just be for beat real sure just so that people know exactly what we're talking about so this this this guy he starts out in a library uh uh you know
Speaker: We don't know what he's looking up exactly.
Speaker: He flashes back or forward to a war zone.
Speaker: He appears to be the only survivor.
Speaker: Flashes back or forward to him falling asleep.
Speaker: He's woken up in the library.
Speaker: I guess he dreamt about the death and the mayhem.
Speaker: Maybe he experienced it.
Speaker: Maybe he didn't.
Speaker: He makes eyes at a young lady and a young man, both in a bar, which woohoo, good for you.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: We at Pixelit love our bisexuals.
Speaker: Good for you.
Speaker: Good for you.
Speaker: He cuts forward or backward.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: To him in an old fashioned.
Speaker: I did dig this.
Speaker: An old fashioned scuba.
Speaker: You know, the big thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he is going down, down under the ocean and he finds what appears to be some sort of tear in reality with some sort of face, you know, peeking out from behind.
Speaker: It's a literal veil torn asunder.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah, there you go.
Speaker: It cuts to him back somewhere in a happy looking sink.
Speaker: I don't know what a happy looking sink looks like, but this is it.
Speaker: It's a Bob Ross looking sink.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And he's thinking about some fortune teller giving him a fortune, as you would say.
Speaker: Thinking about, you know, he's shaving himself slowly.
Speaker: You get the little kind of
Speaker: a little tension of the razor close to his throat.
Speaker: He goes back to the bedroom where the young man and the young woman who he was making eyes at in the bar are nude, which is just scandal scandal.
Speaker: And then, and he goes out for another evening walk.
Speaker: We've got some more chained up coffins.
Speaker: Always love it.
Speaker: And, and he's just,
Speaker: grinning like a madman at the buildings which all seem to have faces staring out at him and then it cuts back to him in the bathroom considering maybe maybe he's going to cut his throat I don't know
Speaker: And then he's back on the street being accosted by a horrible, long legged, monstrous looking thing in a hooded robe, carrying a bag over its over its shoulder filled with God only knows what.
Speaker: And those.
Speaker: Yeah, the bag is filled with other bodies.
Speaker: Oh, good.
Speaker: That's it's something called a snatcher.
Speaker: Okay, so that's straight out.
Speaker: I should have guessed.
Speaker: Yeah, running into, I believe it's called a snatcher.
Speaker: Basically running into one of those, if you let one of them, it's actually kind of neat because it's like a secret, it's a hidden area.
Speaker: It's a place that you end up going to in the game regardless, but you can get there earlier if you run into one of these guys and let them kill you.
Speaker: Basically, if you let them kill you, the idea is that they put your body into that bag.
Speaker: And when you wake up next, you're somewhere completely different.
Speaker: Oh, OK.
Speaker: OK.
Speaker: That's pretty cool.
Speaker: Yeah, it's pretty cool.
Speaker: And that's what this that's what kind of what it references at the beginning of the next.
Speaker: Issue, I think.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's I think it's a section.
Speaker: There's a big symbol that comes up, but I don't think it's the end of the.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm not sure if it's the end of the issue myself.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But yeah, by the way, real quick, by the way, you listeners might be thinking, OK, you guys are tearing through these actions that are happening.
Speaker: Well, what is he talking about or thinking about while this is happening?
Speaker: To which I might answer.
Speaker: Nothing.
Speaker: Nothing.
Speaker: It's meaningless.
Speaker: There are words.
Speaker: There are certainly words.
Speaker: They're in English.
Speaker: They are in English.
Speaker: They are competently spelled.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Some of them are complete sentences.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Some of them.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's just him talking about the truth and the thing that's inside of him.
Speaker: And this is vague sense of madness that you get from somebody who's never actually read H.P.
Speaker: Lovecraft, who really wasn't that good of a writer to begin with.
Speaker: Let's face facts.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And they've heard people talk about what Lovecraft is supposed to.
Speaker: It's like third generation Lovecraftian nonsense is what he's kind of babbling.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I heard Lovecraft once.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I heard somebody talk about Lovecraft once is kind of what the vibe of the dialogue is at this point.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And that's the gist you're getting here while he's and he's flashing backwards and forwards kind of the same way that we saw in volume three.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And volume three had the.
Speaker: And now I'm in retrospect pumping up volume three because volume three had the core subtext of there is a real wound at the heart of the character that has to do with losing somebody that she cherished deeply.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: There was a single thing.
Speaker: There was a single thing that it's that it's all circling around.
Speaker: This is not circling around any one thing.
Speaker: It's circling around a dozen things.
Speaker: Which could work if you're writing a novel, maybe.
Speaker: If you were writing a novel and you had pages upon pages to work with, lots of lots of lots of room to play, and you were a competent writer, then maybe you could make that work.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But that many things in a brief graphic novel with this kind of
Speaker: kind of weak narration is just frustrating yeah so he wakes up after being captured by the snatcher naked and in a completely different part of town and there is a low red moon hanging in the sky which we have seen that motif several times already to kind of signify that it is something has changed in yharnam
Speaker: And it kind of puts this in a time and place, so to speak, that all the other stories ultimately end up in is this time around the arrival of this red moon and Yharnam, which is fine.
Speaker: That gives it some sort of cohesion with the rest of the stories.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: It doesn't have any internal logic or cohesion because we continue to flash backward and forward to scenes that we've already seen, sort of like the guy falling asleep on top of the book at the library.
Speaker: Things subtly change in each of the scenes, which makes sense and could have been a nice touch.
Speaker: But it could have been a nice touch with more meat on the narration that actually gave us some understanding of what the character is going through other than the truth is the truth and the truth is reality and et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker: Just stringing these...
Speaker: quote unquote deep words together because we cut back to his bedroom and now the couple is dead.
Speaker: He killed them.
Speaker: It looks like with his razor.
Speaker: We yeah, we haven't been given the full extent of it, but you can see him in the background splattered and all that stuff.
Speaker: And yeah,
Speaker: The writings on the wall, you get the impression, you know, you get the gist.
Speaker: You don't.
Speaker: And if this was meant to be a surprise at that, if this was meant to be a surprise for later, if this person assumes that people wouldn't notice, then it's kind of an insult.
Speaker: But I'm going to I'm going to give benefit of the doubt.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And we all know what what that all means.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Then he witnesses a battle between two giant beasts.
Speaker: The significance of which for I'm not sure what these two if these two are supposed to be supposed to be significant in this moment to the story.
Speaker: I know which two bosses these are.
Speaker: The one on the left is Dark Beast Parle.
Speaker: And the one on the right is called The One Reborn.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: They're pretty kick-ass monsters.
Speaker: Yeah, they're pretty kick-ass monsters.
Speaker: They really don't have much to do lore-wise.
Speaker: I don't think they have much to do with each other other than geography.
Speaker: You encounter both in the same general vicinity, but I don't think there's any real reason...
Speaker: There's no reason for the two of them to be fighting, if that makes sense.
Speaker: There's no connection between these two monsters other than they're at either end of the area.
Speaker: If I'm recalling correctly from the game, they're at either end of the area that he has woken up in.
Speaker: Yeah, and I'll tell you what, the significance to me that wasn't lost on...
Speaker: on me, I think this kind of tells you a little bit about everything that is sort of wrong with this volume.
Speaker: And it's goes back to what I was talking about for our protagonist witnesses, these colossal kick-ass beings fighting, just going in about once throwing fire at the other one, one's biting the other one.
Speaker: It's like, it's like a goddamn, you know, spray paint,
Speaker: collage you'd see on the side of a metal kid's van.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, it's, it's bad-ass stuff.
Speaker: It's really cool.
Speaker: You know, Lamb of God should be playing in the background.
Speaker: It's fantastic, you know, and, and he starts thinking back to the dead bodies on the war zone and the horrible face under the ocean that he saw.
Speaker: And he starts basically having a vision of himself burning up,
Speaker: watching these, this battle take place.
Speaker: He slowly is, is being consumed by the flames because the veil is being torn asunder apparently.
Speaker: Um, and it,
Speaker: Nothing.
Speaker: He's not doing anything.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He's not doing anything.
Speaker: Things are happening to him.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And it's and that's the thing.
Speaker: And I know some of y'all are going to listen and some of you might think like this is some serious like.
Speaker: bullshit, you know, freshman English stuff you're throwing down on me.
Speaker: You know, what if I like this?
Speaker: What if I'm good with this?
Speaker: If you like this fucking awesome, man, that's good for you.
Speaker: I'm glad you're enjoying it.
Speaker: But the fact of the matter is, is a lot of people could see this and they might feel a little left a little hollow.
Speaker: when they see a scene like this in a comic or a movie or something like that, and they don't know why they aren't enjoying it more than they should.
Speaker: And that's why we like to analyze this stuff because it gives you an idea.
Speaker: And that's why if you watched this and you're like, this should be kicking more ass.
Speaker: Why doesn't this kick more ass?
Speaker: Like this is solid C plus B minus work.
Speaker: Why?
Speaker: But I should be loving this.
Speaker: Why am I not loving this?
Speaker: The answer is probably, uh,
Speaker: Because our protagonist, who we should be rooting for and everything, is doing nothing while it's all happening.
Speaker: There's no sense of stakes or urgency or anything.
Speaker: The protagonist isn't doing anything.
Speaker: And we also don't have any real thematic connection between what he is saying, what we are seeing, and the thrust of the plot.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: We don't know why this is happening because it's all just vague.
Speaker: You know, the truth swallows the truth, swallows the truth.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Truth forever devoured.
Speaker: Like this isn't Dante, man.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like this is this is you can you can do better than this.
Speaker: Like this is this is frustrating because we know for a fact that the author can tell a cohesive story.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: We've seen him do it.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: If this was volume one, then we might go, oh, we're in for a lot of fun with this.
Speaker: This is going to be garbage all the way through.
Speaker: But we've seen this guy do good stories.
Speaker: The first two volumes I genuinely really, really enjoyed.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And that's my proof to show that I'm not just here to be a hater and shit on somebody.
Speaker: You know, it's like, I think this is the first time I ever used the expression, be a hater.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But it's like just nothing happens.
Speaker: Our protagonist stands there in the nude and is devoured by flame while this fight happens.
Speaker: And then suddenly he's back in the bathroom.
Speaker: He's back in the bedroom.
Speaker: He's reading one of the, you know, esoteric texts.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That characters like this reading these things.
Speaker: And then suddenly we get a backup and we realize that he has, he has murdered the, the, his, his bisexual friends there.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And, and, and he has this, you know, moment there of realization.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he says, I must face the truth of my situation, which, you know what?
Speaker: That's pretty good, actually.
Speaker: That's a good line.
Speaker: That's a good line.
Speaker: I think had... I can see a way that this story is better.
Speaker: I can pull aside the veil of what it is, and I can see a better version of this where we...
Speaker: Because we have to connect with the protagonist in some way, right?
Speaker: There is something that has to draw a line, even if it's just a faint dotted line between the audience and the protagonist, in order to really follow them through the plot.
Speaker: Because plot is plot.
Speaker: Who cares about plot?
Speaker: It's all about character.
Speaker: And if you're not with the characters, if you're not...
Speaker: If you don't even if it's a villain, you still have to do something.
Speaker: If you're telling something from an antihero or a villain's point of view, you still have to.
Speaker: You know, you still kind of wish pull you pull for Tony Montana, you know, like you pull for for for.
Speaker: Even if you don't actively pull for him, you don't actually pull for them.
Speaker: You're still invested.
Speaker: That's exactly it.
Speaker: That's the word I'm looking for.
Speaker: You're still invested in who they are and what their journey is.
Speaker: You're not invested in the plot.
Speaker: You're invested in their journey.
Speaker: And you never actually know who this person is.
Speaker: So there's never a chance to become invested in a more perfect version of the story.
Speaker: Not more perfect because that's bullshit.
Speaker: No story is ever perfect or closer.
Speaker: A better version.
Speaker: In a gooder version of this story.
Speaker: In a gooder version of this story.
Speaker: you become familiar with who this person is and you're drawn into them, right?
Speaker: You're drawn into and invested in the character.
Speaker: The, his realization, his, his,
Speaker: The realization that he has to confront the truth of his situation should also be the audience's realization that he must confront the truth of his situation.
Speaker: He's telling you a lot of what he needs to do.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He's telling you that he needs to do it.
Speaker: You're not realizing it with him.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You're not you're not because you don't know anything about him.
Speaker: We've also this is basically the story of some guy slipping into madness, which, you know what?
Speaker: Classic storyline.
Speaker: Nothing wrong with that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And we've seen it in this very series before with the with the volume to the scientist.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: And we got to know them.
Speaker: And we got to know little things about them.
Speaker: Women that one guy has a crush on, you know, a little bit about their background, just little bits, just little moments that make us go, okay, I know who you are.
Speaker: You know, there are authors that definitely overdo that.
Speaker: You know, Stephen King, if he wasn't so obsessed with that, it could have been, you know, three or four hundred pages long.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But, you know, but it's it's something and we're not getting any of that.
Speaker: We're getting little glimpses of his past.
Speaker: Like, I guess he was in a war, you know, but nothing.
Speaker: And I guess he likes to fuck.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: You know, but all of his dialogue.
Speaker: And I think, you know what I think would have made this better, Kevin?
Speaker: Another character.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like a single other person for him to talk to.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like just to relate with as a human being.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That I think might have fixed a lot of problems.
Speaker: I don't know if it would have been.
Speaker: a great storyline, but, but it would have fixed a lot of problems.
Speaker: Because right now the story is being entirely told through a disembodied voice.
Speaker: Basically it's being told it's, it's goodfellow rules.
Speaker: You know, we're, I, we're really, I don't think there's a, I don't think there's a single.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: No, I was wrong.
Speaker: I was wrong.
Speaker: There are, there are like a handful of word bubbles in this.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Less than 10.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Everything else is is inner monologue.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's Garfield.
Speaker: He's Garfield.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There is there's a brief interaction with Eileen the crow out in the middle of the woods, similar to the interaction she had in the previous issue, the previous arc.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Well, actually, and I think that is interesting.
Speaker: You know, you figure the author probably knew this is his last storyline on this particular book because he starts to interact with previous moments a lot.
Speaker: You know, he's watching.
Speaker: He joins the werewolf being crucified moment that we saw in the first volume.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And the what was the I think was that he's on the bridge nude again.
Speaker: He's nude.
Speaker: He's just constantly nude naked a lot.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he's one.
Speaker: He's in the city of Yharnam on the bridge where he's watching another fight happen.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Fighting the fight with the cleric beast.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And just witnessing all this stuff.
Speaker: He witnesses.
Speaker: He's Mark from Rent.
Speaker: And Mark from Rent is the worst.
Speaker: And the only people who don't think so are 14 to 17 year old soon to be theater majors and 14 to 17 year old soon to be theater majors are the worst.
Speaker: You were a theater theater major, were you not?
Speaker: I was.
Speaker: I was a theater.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I, and I, and I liked Mark.
Speaker: Uh, so, so I'm coming from, I'm coming at you real.
Speaker: I'm, I'm the former like drug dealer who comes to your elementary school and tells you about how, you know, the only people who like dope are dopes.
Speaker: Like I'm that guy.
Speaker: Uh, you're coming at it with a good, with a nice level of self self loathing.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Just, just enough.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So, yeah, and that brings us to what you were talking about before with him nude in the forest, interacting with Eileen the Crow.
Speaker: And it's kind of his only actual speaking moment when he asks Eileen if she can see him.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I actually...
Speaker: And this is actually pretty good.
Speaker: And it's frustrating to me because it's not bad.
Speaker: He asked Eileen if she can see him.
Speaker: And she says, I can see a shape.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Is it you?
Speaker: I guess assuming maybe that this was the brother that she was referencing now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he says, I'm a traveler.
Speaker: And she says, aren't we all?
Speaker: Does the Herm thing, which is straight out of Watchmen.
Speaker: That's a Rorschach reference, if I've ever saw one.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then then seems to sense that the forest is burning, even though it isn't.
Speaker: And asks him, what have you done?
Speaker: Which is fucking cool.
Speaker: Yeah, that's good.
Speaker: Like it's nothing.
Speaker: It's a nice chilling.
Speaker: What have you done is one of my favorite Jacques lines that you can say to somebody.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: That's so good.
Speaker: What have you done?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like that's, that's, that's just, that's, it's so loaded.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: It's not, it's not, have you done something?
Speaker: It's, it's not, is, do you have something you want to tell me?
Speaker: It's, I know you've done something.
Speaker: What have you done?
Speaker: Oh, it's a good line.
Speaker: And, and it's kind of wasted here.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And and then he's back to the city and the city's in flames.
Speaker: And we're meant to believe, I suppose, that he's somehow responsible for it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We're somehow.
Speaker: Yeah, we're we're he's supposed to be responsible for it.
Speaker: I guess we get into the next like chapter and he's witnessing the scene from the first.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: The first volume one, volume one, where the hunter is taking fish boy and,
Speaker: Oh, fish boy, I miss you.
Speaker: I miss you, fish boy.
Speaker: We didn't know what we had with you, fish boy.
Speaker: It was a simpler time.
Speaker: It was the exact moment where the fish child...
Speaker: navigates the hunter around the amygdala monster yes great moment it's a great moment and the fish boy sees our traveler dude in the background and then he disappears again and now he is in a classic padded room yep classic straight jacket padded room stains the whole nine yards yep
Speaker: And he's just, it's just, yeah, he's back in a, back in the, he's in the loony bin.
Speaker: Why else should we call it, why should we call it anything else?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I believe this is a reference.
Speaker: This is where I think he's the character that I think he is.
Speaker: I didn't bother looking it up, but, because there is a moment where you do cross through what appears to be like an old school insane asylum.
Speaker: You basically are cutting through it.
Speaker: You're not,
Speaker: you're not really staying there.
Speaker: It's, it's like a set piece that you kind of cut through between a, after a boss fight.
Speaker: So, yeah, he starts having more visions while he's in this padded room.
Speaker: He sees the corpses of fallen soldiers piled up so high that they form the emblem of two weeping women that happen to be matched the emblem that is on a door, I believe, out front of the building.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: And, you know, we just we have more of the there's more of the thought bubbles, but they're they don't shed any more light than what we have already said, because it's stuff like what would you need to hear from me?
Speaker: What purpose would it serve?
Speaker: Am I helping you not to see me?
Speaker: Is this why you came to me to avoid it all the same way I ran away in my adventures?
Speaker: And oh, and then and then we get the greatest part, the greatest thing.
Speaker: least self-aware moment in the entire volume.
Speaker: And it's accompanied by a pretty amazing piece of art.
Speaker: He's supposedly, I guess, in the sewer somewhere where the old blood first came to the people of the city.
Speaker: And he says, do you want to know about the great old ones whose blood began at all?
Speaker: Do you want me to tell you a story?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes, we do.
Speaker: Tell a story.
Speaker: That's a novel idea.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: How?
Speaker: How?
Speaker: How?
Speaker: We're fucking unselfaware.
Speaker: 85% of the way through this story.
Speaker: And now it's do you want to hear a story?
Speaker: I'm like, yeah, we kind of did on page one.
Speaker: Yes, we did.
Speaker: That's why I bought this.
Speaker: I wanted a story.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Call me a child.
Speaker: I thought maybe a story would be interesting.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I didn't realize that you had a treatise prepared for madness written as written by someone who's only ever heard of madness in episodes of Are You Afraid of the Dark?
Speaker: But yeah.
Speaker: And then it's, there's like a, there's like a middle finger to the reader on the next page where it says a simple story that satisfies you.
Speaker: You're like, Oh,
Speaker: Fuck you.
Speaker: It's exactly what it is.
Speaker: It's exactly what it is.
Speaker: The story of a man gone insane by the traumas he incurred.
Speaker: That sounds fun.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: But, you know, stories have beginnings, middles, and ends.
Speaker: They have plot lines.
Speaker: This is just, and I guess now he's drinking the blood of the old gods.
Speaker: Yeah, that happens.
Speaker: It kind of like hints that, you know, maybe he was the person who found the old blood first.
Speaker: Maybe.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I think that makes maybe that makes him Lawrence.
Speaker: I'm not sure that that's the thing.
Speaker: Tell me just in case.
Speaker: Tell me who that is.
Speaker: Let's just in case.
Speaker: I'm dusting off some memories.
Speaker: Lawrence was a scholar of Bergenwerth.
Speaker: who believed that the old blood could be... I'm probably half remembering this because it all ends up running together eventually.
Speaker: I believe he was a scholar of Byrgenwerth who believed that the old blood could be used to heal, and then he split off and formed the healing church, maybe.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But I'm not sure that would make this him...
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: It's out there.
Speaker: I would have to dig through the Bloodborne lore.
Speaker: That being said, it shouldn't matter.
Speaker: You shouldn't have to in order to enjoy this story.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Yeah, and it brings us to, we get the classic shining moment of like, if the ghost isn't real, then how did it unlock the door, basically?
Speaker: He's in his straitjacket and a dead soldier from all of the moments he's been picturing in his mind of the war zone he's been a part of, basically unties him from the straitjacket.
Speaker: And he wanders through a mental house that is just...
Speaker: Filled with dead bodies.
Speaker: Everyone's dead.
Speaker: He's the only survivor.
Speaker: Yeah, everyone's dead.
Speaker: And he makes his way out to the city, which is on fire, pokes his own eyeballs out with his fingers.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And asks us if we are entertained.
Speaker: And I think it's clear that what our answer is on that.
Speaker: And our final shot is the face that had peered out from him underwater at the veil is basically a part of the flames that are consuming the city.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that is bloodborne the veil comma torn asunder.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The end.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So, okay.
Speaker: Hmm.
Speaker: Hmm.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Yeah, that happens.
Speaker: This is, this is, this is, you know what, you know who I feel really bad for, Kevin?
Speaker: The artist.
Speaker: The artist!
Speaker: Yes!
Speaker: Yes!
Speaker: Thank you!
Speaker: You see, you get it.
Speaker: This is why we're doing this show together.
Speaker: You fucking
Speaker: Yes, that's immediately where my mind went.
Speaker: I was like, this is such good work.
Speaker: He's such a good artist.
Speaker: He has wonderful sense of, like, action moments.
Speaker: He can make a landscape, a cityscape, monsters, everything.
Speaker: This artist is fucking nailing it.
Speaker: And it's like if you're in a play...
Speaker: And you're in a duo, you're playing two characters.
Speaker: You're playing one character.
Speaker: This other guy's playing another character.
Speaker: And you go home and you study your lines.
Speaker: You study your choreography.
Speaker: And you fucking come in every day ready to go.
Speaker: And he comes in stinking of Jägermeister.
Speaker: And maybe he gets a quarter of his lines.
Speaker: And the fact that you're actually trying almost makes the entire performance look worse because it's that stilted.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: That's what it's so frustrating.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because this guy is good.
Speaker: It's, you know, in film terms, I would say it's, I think Tim Burton is wildly overrated.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: It's basically Bo Welsh, who is his production designer, who is basically responsible for the quote unquote Tim Burton aesthetic as we know it.
Speaker: Oh, no, that's fascinating.
Speaker: Bo Welsh is Tim Burton's production designer, and he's been the production designer since forever.
Speaker: He's been working with Tim Burton forever.
Speaker: I don't know if he's still working with him, but Bo Welsh is the one who actually turns Tim Burton's ideas into reality for film purposes.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So it's like Bo Welsh, who is basically knocking it out of the park every Tim Burton movie, because that's the one thing is the Tim Burton movies never skimp on the production design.
Speaker: Absolutely not.
Speaker: But then it's Tim Burton and he casts, you know, because Tim Burton, he cast Johnny Depp in a wildly miscast role and you have to just live with it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You just have to deal because that's what he does.
Speaker: And that's just it.
Speaker: It's like and I think it's extra frustrating because as we've pointed out before, we know this writer can write.
Speaker: Yeah, we do.
Speaker: It's like when your dad pulls the whole, like, I'm not mad at you, I'm disappointed.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like, if we started this, you and I'd be able to go, we'd be able to go through all the volumes and go, oh, well, we know the writer fucking sucks, but at least, you know, we're up front.
Speaker: No, this writer doesn't suck.
Speaker: Writer, if for whatever reason you're listening to our, you know, show.
Speaker: God, I hope not.
Speaker: I hope not.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This point.
Speaker: Good Lord.
Speaker: I I'm going to say for certain, I don't think you're a shitty writer.
Speaker: I think that something, something happened with this, this series that he just lost.
Speaker: He ran out of steam.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He wasn't ready because as you pointed out already, the stories have less and less to do with bloodborne as they go on.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, this could have been just any, this, this might as well have been a short story.
Speaker: you know, some measly short story that the problem is that we wouldn't have gotten sold otherwise.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You know, this by itself, without the Bloodborne franchise to back it up, you couldn't have sold this.
Speaker: No one would have read this.
Speaker: No one would give a shit.
Speaker: It's, it's, it's love.
Speaker: It's diet Lovecraft.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's, it's written by, it just sounds like a storyline of somebody who,
Speaker: who has heard of Lovecraft from a friend, but not never actually read it or, or something like that.
Speaker: It's like, I've read books that were based on Lovecraft and I read fan fiction.
Speaker: No, no, I read fan fiction that was based on books that were based on Lovecraft.
Speaker: And I took that to be Lovecraft because you know what?
Speaker: I'm just going to say it.
Speaker: I'm going to say it.
Speaker: And if y'all need to, you know, revoke my geek card or come at me or something like that, bring it nerds.
Speaker: But none of you really like Lovecraft.
Speaker: Like there's like there's like a there's like a handful of you who actually enjoy Lovecraft.
Speaker: I like aspects of Lovecraft because I'm a monster guy and Lovecraft made some kick ass monsters.
Speaker: Let's face facts.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But have you read Lovecraft?
Speaker: It's painful.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If I'm going to be honest, I've tried and quit several times.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And we are lucky enough to live in a world where there are some really great artists who have taken the better parts of Lovecraft because those parts do exist.
Speaker: and taken the better aspects of it and taken and interpreted the words and the world that he was trying to make.
Speaker: And they took that, those, the obtuse writing of that man out of our plebeian hands and, you know, or plebeian or whatever you want to say, you know, and, and said, here, let me make something that's a little more digestible and interesting.
Speaker: And that's how we get Bloodborne.
Speaker: That's how we get Darkest Dungeon.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Darkest Dungeon.
Speaker: You know, which,
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Which I think might be one of the greatest Lovecraftian video games ever made.
Speaker: It gets it.
Speaker: It gets the horror.
Speaker: It gets the, you know, it's still an action RPG.
Speaker: Well, not an action RPG, but you know what I mean?
Speaker: It's still got monsters.
Speaker: Because the whole point with Lovecraft is you can't win.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You cannot win.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's very grimdark and it attracts certain people.
Speaker: Like it appears to have attracted her author.
Speaker: And so it does have aspects of like fighting and, you know, succeeding every now and then.
Speaker: But ultimately, you know, you're trying to take care of your sanity and your mental health.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's crazy.
Speaker: And it's really well done.
Speaker: And thank God we have those game designers and writers, you know, who are inspired by that kind of thing.
Speaker: They can distill it down to the essence of what made it interesting and discard literally everything else, including the racism.
Speaker: Right, right, right.
Speaker: And, you know, it's like so many people...
Speaker: They're like, oh, I love H.P.
Speaker: Lovecraft.
Speaker: And I can very confidently say 95% of you do not love H.P.
Speaker: Lovecraft.
Speaker: You have a Cthulhu plushie.
Speaker: And that's it.
Speaker: And that's fine.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: That's fine.
Speaker: That is fine.
Speaker: Cthulhu is a fucking kick-ass design.
Speaker: There's a reason that he's as popular as he is.
Speaker: There's something about him that's a great design.
Speaker: It's spooky.
Speaker: The cosmic horror is appealing.
Speaker: But this feels like, you know, this feels like someone who, God, he was trying too hard or he wasn't trying enough.
Speaker: And I can't figure out which is which.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: With this guy.
Speaker: It's frustrating.
Speaker: And I know I'm going off on a tear.
Speaker: No, I appreciate the tear.
Speaker: It's just so frustrating because it's like,
Speaker: Were you under a deadline, dude?
Speaker: Probably.
Speaker: Is that what it was?
Speaker: I wouldn't be surprised if it was, if it was, all right, you got to crank out 16 scripts because that's what it totals out to, 16 scripts.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You got to crank out 16 scripts, you know, break it out into four, four issues of four, and you got to have them, you got to have them turned over to the artist in three months or something like that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And it feels, it feels like he was just like,
Speaker: He just didn't have a plot for this last volume at all.
Speaker: And basically just did the weaker aspects of volume three, which, like you said, I'm starting to grow and enjoy more and more.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And just because if you're if you're a halfway intelligent guy, especially let's say if you're a halfway intelligent white guy, especially.
Speaker: There is a level that exists in all of us on a certain level that we have to come to grips with where we just kind of feel smarter than everybody sometimes, you know, especially if you're creative and especially if you're like 22.
Speaker: And thankfully, some of a lot of us grow out of it.
Speaker: Most I would I would argue most.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: At least at least beyond the most obnoxious, blatantly, you know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Horrifying.
Speaker: Almost every white man is exceedingly mediocre and doesn't think that they are.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And and and if you but if you have a little bit of intelligence, I can see where you'd make a script like this because you're like, oh,
Speaker: If I wax poetic enough, if I get real purple with my prose and get real drifty and dreamy and all that shit, then no one will notice.
Speaker: But people will think I'm a genius because they don't get it.
Speaker: And none will dare argue that I don't know what I'm talking about because I'm clearly...
Speaker: I clearly have this huge mind.
Speaker: What do they do?
Speaker: What's the meme with the galaxy universe?
Speaker: Yeah, the galaxy brain.
Speaker: Yeah, I got a galaxy brain.
Speaker: And, you know, and with this guy's kick ass artistry and this franchise that's well respected and loved backing me up, no one will fuck with me too much over this.
Speaker: And I'm here to say, fuck you.
Speaker: And I hope that I'm wrong.
Speaker: I hope that I'm wrong.
Speaker: Well, not hope.
Speaker: I don't want to hurt anybody's fucking feelings, man.
Speaker: I don't want to.
Speaker: But the fact of the matter is, is this is not good work.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: This is not good work.
Speaker: It's pretentious.
Speaker: The artist is wasted on it.
Speaker: The monsters are wasted on it.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: He's got it's got almost nothing to do with Bloodborne.
Speaker: Bloodborne at its core.
Speaker: I'm sorry, is about fighting big, scary monsters.
Speaker: It's got it's got a lot of this lore and it's got all kinds of shit.
Speaker: But when you get down to it, when you play Bloodborne, most of your time is spent fighting big, scary monsters.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And when you have a whole volume, you have four whole issues.
Speaker: And all that happens with any of those big, scary monsters is your protagonist watches them fight and goes, oh, you fucked up.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: What a dire frustration.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What are we reading next, Kevin?
Speaker: We are reading Far Cry.
Speaker: Far Cry Absolution, I believe is what's next.
Speaker: Far Cry Absolution.
Speaker: Oh, I'm sure that can't be fucked up.
Speaker: So Far Cry Absolution is based on what?
Speaker: Far Cry 5?
Speaker: Far Cry 5, which I actually am a...
Speaker: a giant nerd for Far Cry in general.
Speaker: And I really enjoyed Far Cry 5, so I'm actually really looking forward to this one.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm looking forward to it too.
Speaker: I wonder how it's going to deal with the fact that, I believe, isn't Far Cry one of the games where the creators are like, oh no, it's not political at all, or they kind of shy away from, it's like maybe... Is it Ubisoft?
Speaker: Ubisoft, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, then definitely.
Speaker: It's like one.
Speaker: It's like only dipping one toe into the water and of being political.
Speaker: Like, no, we're not talking about white extremism.
Speaker: And the next one.
Speaker: And the next one takes place, I think, in like Mexico City.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's Giancarlo.
Speaker: Is it Giancarlo Esposito?
Speaker: Oh, God, I love that man.
Speaker: I love that man so much.
Speaker: He's such a good actor.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm really pumped about it.
Speaker: The thing for me with with Far Cry is it's yeah, it's kind of like Grand Theft Auto with a nice squeezing of Hunter S. Thompson on top of it.
Speaker: I guess really drug fueled and insane.
Speaker: You know, but but it's still got these kind of stupid moments and characters and jokes in it where you're like, who the fuck are you?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Jesus Christ.
Speaker: But mostly it's like just a big explodey adventure in paradise nine times out of ten.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, so I'm basically going to take this as an opportunity to, to play some more fire cry five.
Speaker: And then when the six one comes, I really hope that I really hope it's mostly just exploding us and, um, and, and some nice action.
Speaker: It'll, it'll be a break.
Speaker: I want it to, I'm hoping it's straightforward because I don't really have the tolerance for, uh, any more veils being torn asunder.
Speaker: Let's keep those veils in one piece.
Speaker: Let's keep those veils in one piece.
Speaker: Who's tearing the veils up?
Speaker: Please.
Speaker: Who's doing that?
Speaker: Who's doing that?
Speaker: Which one are you?
Speaker: Which one are you doing?
Speaker: It's such a fragile material that the veils are made out of.
Speaker: Who would do that?
Speaker: Someone paid good money for those veils.
Speaker: It's a waste.
Speaker: It's a waste.
Speaker: But it's done.
Speaker: That's what's important, David.
Speaker: It is done.
Speaker: So, Bloodborne, the Bloodborne series as a whole, what do you rate it?
Speaker: Oh, man.
Speaker: It starts out, I'd say, like an eight to seven and a half, and then plummets to like a three as it goes on.
Speaker: I'd say if you could evenly...
Speaker: to, you know, kind of do the math where it's like even drops from a seven to a five from a five, you know, or, you know, something like that.
Speaker: I would say that's how it was.
Speaker: And anything, and I will, and I will not, cannot give it a zero or anything like that simply because the artwork is just fan fucking test.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And that counts for something because it's a comic book for Christ's sake.
Speaker: You know, so that's always there.
Speaker: So, yeah, I'd say I'd say the first one's an eight.
Speaker: Second one's a six.
Speaker: The third one's a four and the last one's a two.
Speaker: Yeah, that's pretty much how it steps down.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If you're if you're a Bloodborne fan, then, yeah, pick up volume one and two and you're probably fine after that, unless you've got a real love for Eileen the Crow.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And or you just like collecting the entirety of things.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, if you want the whole thing.
Speaker: I don't believe there's any intention, and based on the writing, you get the distinct impression that this is it.
Speaker: I think it's just the four volumes.
Speaker: This last one came out last year at some point, so I think we'd have a fifth by now if there was one.
Speaker: But you know what?
Speaker: We'll keep our eyes peeled.
Speaker: We will keep our eyes peeled here at Pixel It.
Speaker: Thank you all for listening to us ramble on about Bloodborne, the Veil Torn Asunder.
Speaker: Just as a reminder, you can follow us on Twitter at PixelitPod, and we are available on every podcast platform, so tell your friends.
Speaker: And we do have a Discord now, so please check our Twitter for more information on how to get into that.
Speaker: We have Phil and I are in there.
Speaker: Phil's on there occasionally, but I'm on there every now and then.
Speaker: And we have some friends on there.
Speaker: It's just a good time.
Speaker: So if you want to hang out, you want more timely updates on the status of the podcast or what have you, then consider joining our Discord.
Speaker: That'll do it for us today.
Speaker: I've been Kevin.
Speaker: I've been Phil.
Speaker: And take care, everybody.
Speaker: Bye.
