Transcript
Speaker: Ah. I can't believe it's been nearly 300 episodes since we began. Where's the time gone? oh Martin, what's wrong? Mr. Satsu, I don't feel so good. Come on, stay with me, man. It can't end like this. I see the light and it's full of, ah, pianos and baguettes. No, don't say that. i Full of what now? Ah, the grammage has me. Farewell, Satsu.
Speaker: Ahem. Martin, are you throwing your own rose petals at me? Maybe. Is this an elaborate way to tell me that you want to talk about Claire Obscure, Expedition 33, Game of the Year, 2025, enfonce? Is it working?
Speaker: Well, it would explain why I keep getting angry voicemails in French. Welcome to Chatsy - Stop that! None.
Speaker: Hello everybody and welcome to the first part of this 300th episode special. My name's Satinami and joining me today is none other than mon ami, it is Martin McAllister. Martin, welcome back. Bonjour, I did. four years of French at school and I remember nothing.
Speaker: So bit is a complete goner. So I was actually going to ask you this because yes, spoilers, the game we're going to be talking about today is indeed French. But yeah, I was wondering if you'd actually taken French in school because, and this is how old we are, because back in the day, it was either French or German you took. None of this Spanish anymore. Yeah, so were you a French learner as well? I was, I was. Libyan, Libyan. I've been to France multiple times and I've driven through it. Not just like the tourist destination. i've driven through it multiple times and usually there's a point and it kind of tends to work to be fair i was the same in china i was like this yeah thank you yeah because remember we used to have activity week in school and it was like if you were lucky some kids got to go to france or europe or places like that and it was like a lot of the kids going over were using their standard grade and it was like you would delay on pom what is it not pom de terre that's potato frites pomme de frites that's it thank you now the learner has become the master I know food or the professor but yeah it was it was like I honestly wonder, you know how when you go to the highlands here and you see the wave of tourists? Do you think it's like in France, you see the wave of school kids and they go, oh, no.
Speaker: We're going to get asked about Bondi Fleet again. People are going to ask him what his favourite school subject is. We know you live in Scotland. You have a flag wrapped around you. You keep singing ABBA. Oh, World Cup reference. Anyway, the World Cup is long over by the time this episode comes out. I can't believe that Spain, I can't believe that Argentina won. Anyway, that's it. I too love Messi and I love Spanish player here. I'm not going to lie, every Spanish player has just left my mind. I'll put it on the spot. It's like, oh yeah, Mbappé. Oh no, he's French. Speaking of French and getting you out of tough situations, today, as I said, we are indeed celebrating 300 episodes of Chatsanami. I mean, technically this is the 299th episode of Chatsanami, but because of the topic and because it's so meaty, or yes, as the French would say, gross tête. got that reference already i'm so happy and if you didn't i apologize before we get into the subject honestly it is amazing isn't it that we've nearly reached 300 episodes it's yeah unbelievable i don't like when you say where's the time gone because i have to think about it but yeah you've done an incredible job 299 episodes plus a whole bunch of other stuff consistent output that's where the time has gone is that your elevator pitch for the podcast pretty much if i get stuck in a lift where i was about to say uh joe rogan then i was like no i don't actually he can pitch the podcast to us I thought you were going to say Andrew I'll tell him about the podcast he's already on you ever heard of stop drop and roll initiative Andrew if you're listening to this I'm so sorry 299 episodes. Yeah, unbelievable. Where has the time gone? Yeah, in all seriousness, it's been an absolutely fantastic journey. I mean, from podcast awards to being invited to Fan Frontier and all the Comic -Cons and things. Yeah, it's been absolutely fantastic, honestly. You know, I was genuinely trying to wrap my head around what we could talk about for the 300th episode celebration. And, you know, I thought, could we do a Q &A? Could we do this? Could we do that? And then I decided to dive into what I call the voice. a .k .a. the backlog of games that you keep recommending me. And I decided, because it was between you and, of course, the friend of the channel, Wonko, who was saying, oh, you should be playing the game we're going to be talking about today, Claire Obscure Expedition 33. But yeah, it's honestly, I mean, it's only been a year granted since it came out. But yeah, out of curiosity, before I dive into my thoughts and everything, what was your experience with Claire Obscure? See, when you heard about it, were you one of the first adopters of the game or? Yeah, I was pretty early. Early on, I'd seen the trailers and stuff and I was kind of like, yeah, that looks interesting. But I think I have like a low, and we've discussed this before, but I get interested in lots of things. I have a low critique rate. So if I see something that's interesting, I'm like, oh, cool. But then the chances of that actually converting into purchases is quite low. So, clear of the screen, it looked cool. And then I think within the first week of it coming out, it's one of the newest games that I've ever picked up. So I think I had it within the first week of it coming out. And simply because, and we'll probably dive into this a bit more once the episode starts proper, but so many people were saying it was how it was a love list. to Final Fantasy, specifically Final Fantasy X, which is one of my favourite games. And yeah, we'll jump into the Final Fantasy stuff a bit more. But we've had the conversation in the past about Final Fantasy and you said to me, what Final Fantasy games do you recommend? And typically I turn around and say Final Fantasy VI and Final Fantasy IX are my favourite games of all time. Do not play a Final Fantasy game in 2026. They were very much of their time, I think, just in terms of gameplay, quality of life. I do think the 2D ones have held up better than the early 3D ones, but typically I would struggle to recommend. them because they're gigantic games you kind of need a guide to play them they released it in that time where they get packaged with a guide so you can have to spend an extra tenner no internet back then the graphics were weird the games were very experimental there's a lot going against them and I feel like as soon as people started saying this is like the modern love letter to Final Fantasy I was like I need this game because I can now recommend when people say to me what Final Fantasy game should I play I say Expedition 33 and then I have to do that entire spiel but that was kind of my experience with it and I picked it up I loved the game I'm very excited to talk about it today I recommended it to absolutely everybody including yourself and it actually made it out of the backlog void yeah surprisingly so or lay void as the French call it Duolingo is doing me a solid here this episode is sponsored by Nulligan but yeah I don't know what compelled me to buy it because I think I'd finished I can't even remember what game but I'd completed the latest game was on my backlog and I thought oh right okay I've got Expedition 33 kind of on a periphery version maybe I should go and buy it so I ordered it off of Amazon I decided to play it and I instantly fell in love with it initially I wasn't sure what to expect because I don't know about you but see when you start a new game and especially a big game do you get a kind of trepidation going into it you know like you have to learn a whole new mechanic set and everything maybe not trepidation but i do get what you're getting at yeah i think especially you more than me on this case but for other games when a game's been so hyped as well i think sometimes that can make it almost worse you know because then you're like oh when's this game gonna get to the amazing bit you know i mean like there's a bit of that as well when are we gonna get to the fireworks exactly exactly and i will talk about that moment because there's a few moments in this game but Yeah, there's like a mix of when you're starting the game, you're like, when does this come alive? And I think that's where that's trepidational for me. It's like, I wasn't expecting it to be as amazing as it turned out to be. I played it before it won all the awards. But yeah, still, you sit and look at this game, you're like, how long is this game going to be? And I found out it's like a swelt 30 hours. And I was like, oh, I like to hear that. I have to say, though, see when I fired it up on the PlayStation and this is actually what sold it for me. And I'm a sucker for dramatic music. I'm going to be honest. But as soon as I put it in. one of these tracks i think it's alicia starts playing and it's just such a powerful and really enticing song it's like i know i've used the phrase siren song as a bit of a you know joke but genuinely it was just such a beautiful song and that was before i loaded the game the main menu was there and i was like right okay press x to load the game and i just i listened to the music and i'm like wow this is such a powerful song and then of course i went into the game and then you get hit by the same song but then you're just like on Honestly, the presentation is just top notch. And again, you're completely right. Just touching on that point of, it is amazing how a game that is so, you know, praised and everything can also cause that sense of, again, I use this in the lightest term possible, that kind of worry that you're going into something that's been overhyped or only a certain niche will like it. And especially when it won all the Game of the Year awards and, you know, spoilers, it deserved everyone. But when it won the Game of the Year award, Everyone was making fun of it. They were doing all the memes on it where it's like, oh, for this completely unrelated topic, who's going to win it? And it was like Expedition 33 and they all get up and the guy's fuming in the background. It was honestly, that's all I saw from it. And then spoilers, I went into the game. I absolutely loved it and it was brilliant. So just a bit of backstory, see before we dive in. Out of curiosity, do you know much about, see the development history of this game? Very vaguely. So it's an indie. game would be the overall quote for it isn't it it's like it's an indie game it's got like a small ish budget as far as i'm aware the soundtrack was composed by someone still at college or someone they got off a soundcloud there's some weird story there yeah no you're completely right they were off a soundcloud and this is the thing though see for a game this massive and ambitious and everything you would genuinely equate this to a modern triple a title and i was so shocked to realize that it was an indie game and i mean that in the best way possible because i mean you know me we both love an indie game but this raised the bar i feel as if this is like how people felt when they played hollow knight you know they're like oh my god this is more than just a game basically it's art i'm kind of spoiling my thoughts going forward here but the game from start to finish is just a fantastic art piece and the guy who made it the guy's named gilliam brosh who worked at ubisoft apparently he worked initially in games like, I think it was a Division 2. And then he became the, and again, I want to say narrative director, but some kind of storytelling director for a mobile game for Might and Magic. I'm going to be honest, for a mobile game, I don't think he was getting job satisfaction from that. So he decided that he was going to leave. The game took six years to make, would you believe? I think it was 2019 it must have started. And then what I find really interesting as someone who also started you know podcasting during covid and everything i think a lot of the creators who got involved in this game and then the whole process decided oh well life short you know we're at a loose end why don't we come work on this game and do you know how many copies of the game they sold in 12 days i do not two million copies two million for an indie game and that honestly blows my mind of course it was developed by sandfall interactive who was found by the aforementioned Julian Broch, the technical director, Tom Gilman, and the producer, Francois Mewis. And apologies if I've totally butchered those names, but then they would soon be joined by three other people. Lorien Testard, who is the aforementioned SoundCloud artist. Nicholas Maxson -Francombe, who was the art director. Incredible work. I'm just going to throw that out there. And Jennifer Svedberg -Yen, who was the team. lead writer but
Speaker: ah Apparently, I think she was initially cast as one of the voice actors from the main characters in the early days of the game. But then she moved to the lead writer. And because it was such a small team, everyone kind of had to chip in into different departments and things. So it was really interesting seeing that. But out of curiosity, and you might not know this, but do you know why it's called Sandfall Interactive? I do not. I genuinely didn't know this until today either. But apparently it was because that was the initial working title for X. Expedition 33. So when they used the assets and things, I think they wanted something to do with time. And then they thought time, egg timer, but sand timer, you know what I mean? But sandfall, something like that. And a lot of the early versions of the games had unity assets that were very kind of steampunky. And it is really weird to see. It's very Victorian England kind of steampunky. And then obviously they moved to 19th century France, which I'm going to be honest, definitely the right call. because there's a dime a dozen of steampunk games isn't there i was gonna say i think this is the only game i can think of off the top of my head apart from maybe that one assassin's creed game that's set in this kind of time period obviously it's not an actual time period but that kind of aesthetic yeah especially compared to victorian london steampunk i can't remember the exact date but eventually it would be published by kelper interactive limited who what i don't realize as well because i was thinking about how all the pieces fell perfectly into place at the time because this studio was founded in september of 2021 and they produced other games like chia scorn and sifu which is absolutely wild and then they put another feather on the cap with expedition 33 and yeah it began when gilliam recruited people from reddit to take part so he went on to subreddits where it was i think free voice acting or things like that and he was like oh do you want to come in and work in my game and everything and i think it was just that perfect mix of people being at a loose end during the lockdowns and everything and taking a chance on this game. Honestly, I'm kind of kicking myself that I wasn't looking at it because it would have been incredible to be a part or something like that. It was honestly just absolutely fantastic how this all unfolded. And yeah, as we were saying, the music was composed by Lurien Testard with lead vocal performances by Alice Dupont -Piercier. And again, if I get these names wrong, I apologise. I am not French. Wonko will be able to tell me off next week. He lives in France. He can speak French. I cannot. Not to a high degree anyway. But honestly, between the music and everything, between the art style, the writing and everything, it's honestly just such a fantastic game. Next week, of course, we are going to be deep diving more into the heavy themes and things. But this week, we're just going to take it easy, say aren't we? We're just going to talk about things from the gameplay. We're going to be talking about a wee bit of the story as well, the music, just everything that makes this game so... fantastic this is how good this game is this game is so good that i immediately ran to you after finishing that saying we need to do an episode unlike the k -pop demon hunters i had two people at the same time yourself and monko saying we have to do a two -part episode it's like yeah you know what let's do it so yeah martin are you ready to deep dive into it i have never been more ready let's spill some paint let's erase this canvas i'm ready coach let me in let me into the painting we'll be right back after these messages Welcome to Chatsanami, a Scottish variety podcast that discusses topics from gaming and films to anime in general and interest. Join me, your host, Satsanami, as well as the rest of our Chatsanami team for our takes on these very important pop culture topics. Sir, it's clearly a trap. I accept your place! That happens three times in the film. Every time that general goes, don't do this one thing, he goes... Do you know what I'ma do? A zigzag.
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Speaker: And we are back.
Speaker: So, Martin, I've got a question for you. See, before we go into this. How do you feel about the fact that this game plagiarized Super Mario 64? Oh, sorry, I should say going forward, there's going to be heavy spoilers. See, for the story and everything, genuinely, if you want to watch a walkthrough, if you want to go play it, please do. It is worth the effort. It's worth the time. But this is your one and only spoiler warning going forward. But yeah, anyway, back to Mario 64. All right, the paintings, I get it. I see. I see the vision. Well, between that and Logan's run, take a look. Yeah, Lego Movie was my comparison. Oh yeah, I forgot you mentioned that. Yeah, Lego Movie being the perfect spoiler for it. One of the things, and I don't want to get too deep into this just now, but the whole Mario 64 thing is quite interesting because that opens the door to sequels, which is in a different way than maybe just the actual world would have been without sort of Super Mario -ish -ness to it. I assume this will be a lot about what you were talking about with Wonko, but I overall quite like that twist and I'm hoping it opens the door to more of the same. All joking aside, we will talk about... it later don't worry but yeah the story itself is just so fascinating and it's one of these stories that it doesn't really ease you into it does it or hold your hand it's like immediately as soon as you load into the game you start playing as one of the main characters gustav we'll get on to that and yeah you see this vision of a warped eiffel tower you know it's all lopsided it's twisted and everything there's things floating in the air and whatnot immediately you just get slapped with exposition. And I mean this in the best way possible. I don't want to be like an angry video game nerd being like, ooh, where's the hand holding this? No, I absolutely love it. You know, that kind of... etherealness to it where you start off in a town called Lumiere which again is very similar to Paris there's definitely Parisian influences in it I mean other than the Eiffel Tower obviously but I mean the streets as well and everything they're all fractured throughout it you hear the other characters talk about this thing called the Gamage and the fracture the fracture being the world was fine and then one day as the name suggests it literally fractured a new absolutely known nothing see before we get to what happens with the gamage at the very beginning how did you feel see when you were first dropped in what was your first impression it's funny you mentioned the no handholding because it kind of sets you up to think that it's going to be handholding that's kind of like the joke of the first twist i think in that they have you go around the town you talk to people and there's a funny joke where there's a guy in a bin and he gives you an item and you can pick items for the future there's a mime there's like funny stuff and you get a little bit of tutorial how to do the fights and how to move it And it feels like they are going to be in a world with this and we'll teach you this and this is a magic system. You know what I mean? It feels like they're going to do all that for you. And then cutscene number one, the most devastating cutscene ever to exist. And for the next 20 minutes anyway, it's the most devastating cutscene for the next five minutes of your life until the next one. It's just a conveyor belt, isn't it? But yeah, it really sets the tone for the whole game of this. Just when you think you've got the concept of what the game is, it shifts itself. Maybe not in terms of genre, but in terms of tone and seriousness and that. That's exactly what it does here to such a fantastic degree. This was one of the first, as we were talking at the start there, I was saying about moments in the game where you begin to realise they are being serious about what's been game of the year. And this was the first one for me is this. Ha ha ha. Oh, it's a big celebration. Bang. Yeah, this is what the grammage actually is. I got a semi -smoiler for the beginning. Not so much about that, but I stupidly, I asked Wonko, said, what's a grammage? He said, you translated it for me. And I was like, huh. So then I was kind of expecting. at thinking right okay something is gonna happen because you know that way i'm not gonna pretend like i knew exactly what was gonna happen here but i had it in the back of my mind that something fell off about it there was the brightness of the square and everything people were partying it was basically like a fair you know everyone was chatting away and then as she said there's this kind of mix of seriousness looped in with this kind of sinister undertone because there's one woman that you talk to who berate so basically when you're going through a younger girl called Mayel tells you to go see your ex -girlfriend Sophie and you're like right okay I'm gonna see her and you're chatting away and they're very serious because they're saying oh Sophie's gonna die soon and everything and I thought oh this is actually quite heart -tucking as it were and then you go and meet her and you're like oh they're a really sweet couple but then you go to the square and you meet people who start berating Sophie well rather one woman who says you should have had babies you know and everything is like whoa whoa whoa what's her problem obviously you find out very soon why she was saying things like that but yeah you explore the square i will admit i missed the mime the first time i played this and i was looking up you know the walkthrough for where to find the mimes yeah and it was like saying oh there's one in lumiere and i'm like oh how do i get back you don't it's like oh shoot so you have to start a new game and relive the heartbreak but yeah you finally get to the end of it it's like oh do you want to go to the harbour and experience the gamage i'm not gonna lie man i teared up at the ending of this sequence where you go down to the pier and there's this giant woman in the distance who's sitting beside this massive monolith and there's a number 34 and again it's quite ominous because everyone's looking and they're talking about this entity is called the paintress who decides when everybody goes and when i was talking about logan's run i was half joking but basically when the number counts down and this was the day that this number would count down from 34 to 33 which I feel really stupid because I was making jokes like oh Expedition 33 haha wait till they make Expedition 34 and I was like that's not how it works It's the opposite. Technically the expedition 32, but yeah, the number counts down to 33. And then all of a sudden, all of the people who are affected by this, who are 33, they get snapped away or they disappear into red rose petals. And it's just heartbreaking. I got really annoyed. This is a slight side tangent, but I got really annoyed because there was this TikToker who was saying it is one of these games that it tries to make you feel bad and manipulates you. And then went on to say, now the last of us. that's a game that you could cry out and it's like it does the same thing Yes. I hate that argument and like whether that's games or people always talking about Pixar being like yeah Pixar's trying to make you sad it's like yeah that's called emotional response yes correct that's what you want from movies and games do you not that's why I'm here yeah yeah yeah like I want to feel an emotional response oh look out this game's gonna make you happy oh damn right it does friend slop as I go to play Sonic Adventure for the first time Sonic slop it's nowadays a happy slop I know sorry I was gonna say something to McDonald's for your happy slop but no and I'll see how did you feel were you in the boat of tearing up or just emotionally gut punched oh totally like such a shift you know what i mean so it was i think i just kind of sat there once you can start playing the game again i was just like what the
Speaker: but so I mean, you're not wrong. I don't know if I text you, but I definitely text Wonko through tearful eyes. And I'm like, I don't like this game. It was so heartbreaking. See, when that game gets me, I immediately go, you know what? This game is definitely going to resonate with me. I know I'm going to love it. And the fact that this is the opening 30 minutes of the game, it's honestly incredible. But then you have to suffer through, because the reason it's called Expedition 33, and we'll get to the clear obscure part in a minute, it but the reason it's called Expedition... in 33 is because of the painters putting down the numbers every year that people from lumiere go out on an expedition well beyond the shores of the city and they try and stop the painters keep in mind it's gone from a hundred hasn't it or has it gone from a hundred eight hundred yeah yeah it's like a hundred all the way down to 33 so they're not doing good to be honest but then again you get that rug pill this game should be called clear obscure rug pill because immediately as soon as you land on the shores there's this oh shit moment where you see this old man walking towards you i'm not gonna lie and initially i was like oh is this gonna be like a time travel thing or is it gonna be someone from the future i did not know where this game was going i'm gonna be honest and then he basically bodies the whole way expedition except for a handful of them so you're like again i did not expect it and the game just kept doing things like that and i will talk about the twist at the end of act one which i have a lot of thoughts on that and a lot of trauma to get out but yeah see going on that point and then getting to grips with the combat and things from a gameplay perspective how did you feel about this game obviously once all the story's kind of done you're kind of left with a bit of the actual game typically the two for me anyway you kind of go down one or two streets for games and it's either the gameplay is completely bleh and it doesn't really matter
Speaker: So one of my favorite games, Uncharted, right? Uncharted 2, particularly the second one and the fourth one. I would say the gameplay for those are meh. I wouldn't play it just for the sake of playing it. You know what I mean? I play it as a vessel to play the story. Well, I feel like this game was a fantastic marriage of gameplay and story. As I mentioned before, I'm a massive fan of JRPGs and this, even though it wasn't made in Japan, so I don't know if you have to call it like a sparkling RPG, but this is effectively a JRPG and it's turn -based and it's world traversal and kind of the way it's all set up. It's very JRPG. There's very few games nowadays that commit to turn -based games nowadays. They've really gone out of fashion. Final Fantasy being one of the people that used to be like a big adopter of it and then they ditched it. Really, as I was messaging you about this today, about the sort of the, who is still the games that are the height of this kind of turn -based JRPG. So Persona, we will probably talk about more about Persona as we go on with this. I think there's a lot of parallels, but the combat system in this is very reminiscent of Persona. And the other one, and hopefully we laugh at this, but the other really big JRPG turn... based franchise I like that I think this reminded me a lot of was the Digimon games right and there's a lot of similarities between how that's kind of set up and this but I think the gameplay is immaculate I think it's possibly the best turn based game outside of maybe Final Fantasy 10 is the only one I can think of off the top of my head that's better but as I kind of mentioned I was like predispositioned to like this game so I'd like to hear your thoughts a bit more because I know you're not as much a turn based guy than I am so I'd like to kind of hear your thoughts on the gameplay oh you're talking to a Pokemon champion here I mean come on that's true Pokemon is like the most simplified version of that kind of style. I mean, I have played quite a few, mainly creature collectors, I have to say, because I'm a sucker for that. My God, I sound like such a hipster being like, I've played a lot of new ones, like Overmagica, Temtem, Cassette Beasts as well. Love Cassette Beasts, 10 out of 10 game. But you know, those kind of games where it's like very static combat. And that's the way I was kind of conditioned to play these types of games. You know, turn -based. games so whenever i got into a game that had turn -based combat in it or whatever i was like right okay this is it you stand there you get hit a bit like british warfare in the 1800s it's like you take your shots you stand there you get shot yeah it was like okay there's nothing really this will sound terrible but there's nothing really engaging with that type of turn -based gameplay it's very static it's like oh you've got pretty visuals and things maybe well depending on what pokemon game you play but there's not anything really beyond that but when i played this and i realized there was a parry system i'm not gonna lie man that blew my mind that genuinely even in persona i've only started playing persona 5 great game but i don't think there's even a parry system in that is there no this is pretty unique to this game i can't think of i'll probably be corrected but i can't think of one off the top of my head that's done this kind of interjecting no i can think of final fantasy 8 had a mechanic where you could increase your attacks by interacting with the attack button and stuff as you're attacking but very much you actually have to pay attention between turns which is terrible for me i usually make dinner while i'm playing these games so
Speaker: yeah it's like playing it with one hand just spamming the a button being like attack attack attack you know whenever you have to grind for levels and things whereas you're completely right with this one you have to actively parry i mean you can get hit if you want but you're not gonna have a good time i'm gonna be honest is honestly it genuinely blew my mind i was like wow where has this game been all my life because it makes you feel like an active participant it doesn't make you feel as if right okay my turn is over hit me with your best shot what are you gonna do you blast me with an energy beam? Size man who's about to get disintegrated, but it was honestly game -changing, literally game -changing for me. The only thing I kind of got mixed feelings in is with every act, they seem to bring in more mechanics, don't they? I don't know about Act 3, but definitely between Act 1 and 2, it's like you think you've got a handle on the game, and then in Act 2, they introduce new characters, they introduce gradient attacks as well. Yeah, what were your thoughts on that? Do you think it was well -paced in terms of game? play yeah i think so i'd kind of got used to the gameplay loop so but as soon as he started throwing things in gradient attacks you text me about this at the start but the timing is very slightly off on it i will admit that that's like something i think they didn't do a very good job of introducing the concept but i did like how they kept adding things and adding like status effects and various things and then when the dlc came in that had different status effects i think they did a good job of consistently adding to it in a way that i want these games to get more complicated as i play it because i want to feel smarter you know i mean like oh i've mastered it they were super smart which is like a big appeal of turn -based games is to make you feel like you're doing something and yeah so I actually really liked the added complexity my sort of feeling on that not so much the complexity but I didn't like the Dark Souls free boss mechanic of like every enemy had to then wind up in a really peculiar way and psych you out and do like a wee dance before it hit you so that parrying things got harder and harder but I don't know how else they could have done it so I accept that as the drawback of the gameplay you know what I mean like that's an acceptable thing that was my main complaint with the combat because certainly when it got to the fight with the Pinterest for example she's like tearing the world in half and throwing things out and there's meteorites going off and there's at one point it just intentionally zooms out the camera which I thought was a really funny way of making you it's like a very rhythm heavy rhythm heaven kind of gameplay loop of no you just can't see what you're doing that's how you're gonna have to deal with this and stuff like that I think it's funny I don't think it always works funny you should mention that because I was actually asking Wonko because obviously he's on next week if he would like me to mention anything in this episode and I was saying like what do you think about the general gameplay that kind of thing and again he's very much on the same camp as you he was saying it's an overlap between Persona 5 style combat and Sekiro and he asked that exact question he said is it secretly a rhythm game in disguise yeah you know like wario ware or something you're completely right though because it is trying to get the parrying down there's times where i was playing it really late at night maybe later than i should have been and you get into that kind of flow state where you're just like tap tap tap tap tap okay it's like you know doing kaylee dancing in school it's like that tap tap one two three but it is it's like kind of getting into the groove and adapting but there are definitely some some enemies that were just an absolute nightmare for that one of the worst ones and i don't know how you feel about that but you know the i can't remember what it is but you know the ice monster that you fight with monoko or rather you fight for monoko when you first meet him and it's like the stalag oh yeah bang bang bang bang bang bang bang yeah no but it's like he goes to stamp his foot down but it's like at a really awkward angle i could never get the first i could get all the other ones but i could never get the first one then i was like god damn it hated fighting them i tried to go for them you see me making a beeline i'm gonna get you you me but yeah see what you mean i feel as if there was a very heavy mix of them cries and simon
Speaker: that's the one downside of the parry mechanic because i actually think there's a really fantastic job oh yeah of the whole combat and when you do introduce something like a parry system into turn -based games you do have to crank up the punishment for not doing it you mentioned about you can not parry but your health does not last you are set up to dodge everything and especially when you mentioned like simon but especially when you start reaching the end game it's like if you don't parry the combo you're dead it's a one and done you get two chances out of 15 hits to miss and that's it well you know a normal turn -based game simply doesn't work like that you know in that you've got hells to last though i understand how they got there you know i mean like i'm not mad please don't tell them i'm mad see out of curiosity and i'm just thinking back to pokemon again because this is something that i found quite interesting that you're only allowed three particular characters to fight with but see if they die then it automatically sends out well if you choose it automatically sends out the reserve team how do you feel about the fact that you can't just change them mid -combat Yeah, it's a funny one because the developers spoke a lot about Final Fantasy X and this will come up a lot because Final Fantasy X is what I would say the closest in terms of the combat. In Final Fantasy X, part of its makeup is it allows that to happen. It wants you to swap characters in and out. And what that game does is each character has certain skills that are unique to them. Very similar to what X -Person 33 does, but certain monsters can only be damaged by certain characters or certain skills can only damage certain monsters, sorry to give it fair. So say you get a random encounter and the... there's a boss, sorry, there's a monster that's flying. Well, you need to then change around your characters to get someone out that can hit the flying monster. That's kind of like how that's set up. So yeah, once they started adding the party members, I was like, oh, that's obviously how that's going to be. But yeah, they didn't really do that, which I thought was unusual. Typically, if I lost a boss fight and the main team went down, I would usually just resign. I think very rarely would I send in the reserve team because if I'm not playing as a reserve team for a boss fight, it's because I don't want to. You know, I've already picked my tactics. But with that said, the fact that you only have two people in the reserve team means that tension is on when they get sent in the boss maybe has a sliver of health left and you've got two characters and those were some of the moments I loved the most one of my most memorable fights in the game for me was is it the duelist he's called the guy with the two swords that you fight after the bridge collapses and I was down to one character I think it was her name CL CL yeah CL I was down with just her she had like one hit left in her and I just managed to get off the right amount of moonshots whatever you call them and that was what won me the whole fight and I remember that because that will remain probably my favourite fight from that whole game because it was so tight so yeah there's pros and cons if i'd been able to switch in and out characters that tension would never have been there what was kind of your feelings on the reserve team yeah initially i was a bit disappointed that you couldn't but at the same time i thought it was a cool mechanic because it forced you to commit to those characters it wasn't just like yeah you had to learn how to play them like especially with the different variations you know with cl as you said you've got the twilight ability i think you've at the moon and the sun foretell i want to say it's foretell i'm gonna be honest i still don't know how it works it's just like there's a trophy you can get or an achievement where it's like use 20 foretell and one move or something like that i had to look up a guide because i'm like i still have no idea i'm at the end of the game i have no idea how this works and i was like oh brilliant no idea but amazing character you've got looney who is basically like a witch yeah she's following the closest like a standard black mage yeah because she uses all the elemental powers it's so damn cool luny was one of my mains by far until i realized how to break the game but i'll get on to that but i just loved her abilities being able to use the elements and use the different abilities to be able to either slow down the enemies or whatnot the one thing i didn't like is when i was hammering them with thousands of points of damage and then the words absorbed came up no yeah that is Such a cool mechanic when you hit them and then it's like, oh no, they're the same element, so it's healing them, it's not hurting them. Oh no! You have to rethink. I thought that was amazing. You also have Mael, who she uses more of a rapier sword and she can get broken. I have to admit, initially, I thought she was quite weak at the very beginning. Boy, was my face red at the end of the game. Yeah, she's probably the best character in the game by miles. Yeah, she's the reason I bet, Simon. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. okota i had to break the game in order to defeat him but we will come on to that probably later you know you've got minoko who has such a interesting mechanic where he collects the creatures of the worlds which are called neverons he collects their feet and he absorbs their powers initially i was like what is going on in this game because i have to say see when i first met minoko i initially was like i don't know another character oh he's quirky all right he's got a son and then as soon as he joined the and you got to see more of his character, I was instantly hooked. I was like, you know what, Minoko, you come over here, you're part of the family. Try and think of who else. I mean, there's Verso slash... Yeah, Verso and Gustav. Okay, we've got to talk about the Gustav in the room. Can I admit something to you? And again, this is a massive spoiler, so you've been warned, but I did not realise they were going the way they were going. with Gustav. I did though read a spoiler stupidly. Well, a half spoiler because I was trying to figure out, you know when you go to the Gestrol village and Gestrols are basically like the Klingons of this world. They're just warriors that always want a good fight and everything. Well, they're a cross between that and bombs, essentially. But there's a thing where it's like, you know when you talk to some of the merchants and it says find an expedition? Did you ever figure out how to unlock that? Because I can never figure that out. Well, I assumed it was getting Verso. So it pops up if you've lost Gustav and you're just buying stuff for Gustav or if it's stuff for Verso and you don't have them yet. Ah, right. So it's whatever one you don't have is what it was complaining about. So I looked it up stupidly and all I saw was that Gustav perishes. It didn't tell me any more than that. And I was kicking myself going, oh, he dies. It must be this heroic sacrifice at the end of the game. That was my headcanon. I'm not going to lie. I was like, OK. So then you get to the end of Act 1. you meet another character called esky who is actually on my keychain for My car, please. I got it at PowerCon. Fantastic. But yeah, I genuinely, I thought, right, okay, we've got Eske, who is basically like the Tom Bombadil of this world. He's got really broken powers. And yeah, he's like this creature that helps you traverse the world. Amazing character. So is Francois. Huge shout out to the goat, my main guy in the show. But yeah, so I was like, right, okay, we're ready to go and everything. And then all of a sudden, the white haired man, which it kind of annoys me because he doesn't really have white hair. And these guys. scenes but the white haired man comes up and he basically bodies him i want to talk about you about this fight this fight has got this is one of the other the next moments for me that i was like oh this game's incredible yeah is while this is happening while this fight between gustav and andy circus is happening the camera leaves the battle which is something i have never seen in an rpg you know sometimes it would be like again using final fantasy's example maybe as a fight's going on the camera will pan up to maybe an enemy in the distance so you should attack this thing or you know you know the classic over the top summon animation where it goes off to somewhere else entirely but the way that the camera like span rounds to zoom off to go to someone else and then to come back and to see why was this not happening why was this where were these people doing this fight and it was that mingling of cutscene and gameplay but it felt really frantic in a way that turn -based shouldn't i wasn't sitting debating what to do i was like oh my god hit the button go go go go hit the gun bang bang back to you know it felt frantic and the way this was like another moment that i've never seen in any kind of jrpg and i was like This is unbelievable. That fight, until obviously it ends, but that fight was like a one of a kind. I've never seen it and they didn't even do that again within the same game. They were that proud of it. They were like, no, no, this is its own moment and they never repeat it and it's phenomenally clever. And oh my God, see the cinematography in this game. I don't know if that's the right word, but the framing and everything where you hear the banging of the cane and it echoes and it keeps cutting to black and then coming back in and Gustav is so unaware and he's like, oh, I've got a good stone and it's, you know, that Breaking Bad meme hitting the... And that was the moment I was like, no.
Speaker: no they're not going to kill him off here this is the main character you named a chapter after him and then he's talking to mael and he gets well for a chance an army friendly reference the move that kills sonic He gets impaled by this beam of energy and Mael gets trapped in this bubble of energy that she can't escape, at least for now. And I was devastated. It kept punching me down and I couldn't get up. And again, it's like Mael's yelling at him, oh, run and everything. And remember what he quotes, it's like when one falls, we continue and everything. And he does like the anime move where he holds up because he's got a, I haven't really mentioned that, he's got like a prosthetic arm that you can use an electric kind. a punch you have to charge it up and everything he charges it up and he punches this mystery villain as it were at the time and you know it comes up with zero xp and the other thing i was thinking was this guy's got a skill tree so he can't die he's got a skill tree yeah again he does the whole you know dramatic push and everything and then he just he gets impaled by this new antagonist and you know he's just yelling at him saying why are you doing this and everything and he just doesn't answer back he has that smug look of superiority to quote stuff but he is he's just looking at him like he's dirt under his shoe and he just he kills him right there and then and honestly as you said you put the controller down and go what the What's up? I couldn't believe it. I take it you felt the same way. Yeah, 100%. But then we get introduced to the Gustav replacement who is Verso. I'm going to be honest, I have never disliked a character more at the very beginning. Don't get me wrong, I think you warm up to him later on in the game and I understand he struggles and everything. But say when you were introduced to Verso after the untimely death of Gustav, what were your thoughts on that? Oh yeah, I think they play with this intentionally. You mentioned like the skill tree. They almost... like for like replace him yeah you know but it feels quite lazy at first which is almost i don't want to say they intentionally did something bad to do something good right yeah but it does feel like that you know it's not until you start expanding the skill tree that you realize it's not a like for like replacement but you you know it's like oh it's electricity power it feels very similar to what you've just lost and i think they've done that intentionally and then yeah they really don't explain his character they have him drop in the middle of this and then it's like oh no you're playing as him now very few games manage that i think in a way and it's just kind of clicked with me as you were saying that about the ideas of loss and things because one of the major themes of this game is grief and the idea of loss because the game starts I mean for god's sake with you losing your ex -girlfriend in half of Lumiere it almost feels as if it's a meta commentary isn't it of you've lost a character you've become so attached to and then you've suddenly got this replacement and they've just said oh yeah this is Verso he's your new friend deal with it continue fantastic writing 100 % so typically I don't like protagonist replacements in games I can't really think of many games that do it well and I know obviously like Red Dead Redemption Grand Theft Auto probably the ones that most people would kind of point to they do a good job of it but typically I'm not a huge fan of that but what I think they do very well in this is you are allowed to dislike them because your party is built up of characters that you like already you know what I mean so you've got Mael and Looney that you already like and Esquire's there as well and you like him and then he's to vouch for verso and the other characters probably come around to like him at the same time as you do you know and there's a lot going on with like you say that kind of meta thing where they've done a really good job of pacing it in and then it also helps that verso's got his own story that unfolds as you go along but purely gameplay wise as well like he fits in the exact slot that gustav left and that's a fun kind of meta thing as well of his relationship with mael and so on with that they've played a very risky one of many risky ideas in the game and i think they absolutely nailed it yeah it's safe to be honest that's probably one of the only minor criticisms I would have with the game with Verso that there are some moments that I would say they kind of stumble when the execution of them again not enough to strip out of game of the year or anything like that or to be like oh no it can't be because of it but there's some clunky moments I want to say mainly with the party kind of just accepting them and adopting them like a stray cat like Minoko I can understand I mean look at him he's Minoko go. No, jokes aside, there's a couple of scenes, especially the scene where you go to Old Lemire, which is so damn cool. I'm sorry, the art direction in this game is superb, where it's got all the light swords and everything sticking out of the grid. Oh, so good. And you try to get to the manor house where the paintress is residing in with this very similar looking young teenage girl with white hair and a burned face. And you try getting there and there's one scene where I think when she beat the main antagonist who turns out to be a man called Renoir I can't remember I think he tries to attack Mael and then Verso yells somebody else's name as he defends her and I kind of suspected that's where they were going with that that oh there's some kind of relation there but it kind of felt like they were saying look jangle on the keys look it's definitely a you know connection and there was kind of some clunkiness of when they revealed that Renoir the the man who's been attacking them was also Verso's father and I feel as if see if that was you would you just kick him out the party right away yeah they do try and kind of gloss over that but I think that's gameplay over still yeah oh yeah absolutely you have to do that in D and &D I suppose just glossing over being like yeah no we've got to play together otherwise there's no point of us being here they do make a good job though from you think of it from the party's point of view though of like desperation is the number one key to survival here and it's something they kind of reflect a lot in the game as you go along but i think under usual circumstances yes they would have cooked him out but under the circumstances here you've got so little chance of survival that i do understand why they were just kind of like oh my god fine you know we kind of had to just accept it see when you first met verso and then you found out about the twist were you still amicable towards them or were you thinking that as well just like i don't want this guy in my team oh yeah there's definitely a point with that i genuinely and again i go back to the time travel thing because I was seriously coping with Gustav. I was like, oh, maybe it's Gustav from the future. I did think there was something because, like you said, they jangle the keys with Alicia and Mael. My assumption was there was a lot of doubles. That was kind of my version of that. a I assumed that if she was a double of her, some kind of doppelganger or some kind of replacement, then Gustav and Verso were the same person. That was a very similar thinking to me. Speaking of doppelgangers and things and storytelling, especially, I want to briefly touch on the music again, because let's face it, the music is absolutely fantastic. And the very first song that you hear is Alicia, who is the name of the white haired girl. And spoilers here, but you find out later that that is like a double of Mayel, but you don't quite know why. You don't know what's going on here. And trust me, we'll get to that. But in the score, what's quite... interesting is apparently for the song alicia the language that they use is is a made -up conlang have you heard about this vaguely yeah there seems to be a bit of debate about this because some people say that the language is occitan which is like a language derived from french and maybe a bit of spanish and italian you know it's like a kind of offshoot of a romance language but then other people say no it's just made up and everything but what's brilliant is when you find out later that Mael is exactly the same as Alicia. You hear Mael's theme and it's one big spoiler because it's all in French. It's the same song. And it's like, that is just so good. And it's the same with Gustav's theme where his theme is based off of the Lumiere theme. You know, the one that goes... did did do do dooo do do And, you know, it's like very bubbly. It's very upbeat. You can imagine going through a Parisian street and being like, oh, this is such a bad... but then you hear gustav's version and it's just the complete opposite mood of that they honestly do such a good job see with storytelling with the music and everything yeah what are your thoughts on the music yeah no unbelievable the motifs and stuff that they reuse for different characters are just really good but i love a good battle song and typically with the jrpg you get like one or two yeah you know what i mean or maybe you get like one of extra so persona 5 has five battle themes i think overall this game has about 20 and they're all bangers All of them are phenomenal. A bunch of them made it onto my top played songs of 2025. No wonder. Because, yeah, I was putting the game down and going to the gym and just putting Simon's theme on and stuff like that. That is so good. So I've been listening to that quite a lot recently. I think it's called We Lost or something like that. Simon's got his own, just called Simon the Divergent Star, which is phenomenal, yeah. But yeah, the We Lost ones also, that's where the goon are, boss fights. Oh no, the one that I have to point out for Renoir is the Enviate. Yes, that's insane. oh's so good especially it gives me goosebumps every time see when I hear the and again I'm not sure if it's this one or another one but it's the second time I think you fight him but you fight him as the main party and it's Verso who says oh we only need to incapacitate him and Mael's like we're going to kill him and everything and it builds up and it builds up and then it's the oh so good and what I adore it as well is I don't know how you feel about this as well see when you hear a song and you think oh that it's a banger i don't necessarily understand the lyrics because it's in a different language but you know i think it's a banger and then you look up the lyrics and you're like my god this is just a different dimension because the song on via tem is i think it translates as a life to love you or something like that and it's basically like a love ballad between two grieving parents i cannot emphasize how good this song is honestly loren testard you are a master at this this is gorgeous It is fantastic. And I will get to that in a minute about the significance behind it. But it's beautiful between that, between the, as you were saying, the Simon theme. It's weird because there's few games that I can think of where I listen to the soundtrack and I think of specific moments from the game. You know, when you listen to the Simon theme and then you can hear that character's voice whisper in his ear saying, rise, your enemies are awaiting you and things. And it's a dramatic buildup again. You're like just popping off. essentially one thing i think they do really well i'm a big sucker for this style of music but see when you do orchestral but then you put electronic under it that's kind of the sound they achieve with the underwater songs there's this very robotic kind of technical sounding stuff under it it's not like the forefront of the music it's still very much that violins very violin heavy very french sounding music but then under it there's this i don't want to say daft punk because i feel like i'm just quoting french things now but there is that very electronic thing under it that's constantly going off they want to is that one of the underwater themes that's just like a popping sound say butop
Speaker: boop. do it do it and it's like such a good little motif that just follows the song around and i just love it to bits um so yeah i think while they do amazingly epic epic epic stuff it's the everyday themes just bind together so well and it's like electronic on the current i think it's a really nice touch the only one i do find weird and i don't know if you find this area i think it's called white sands or something sands and it's like you go there and there's not really anything there i think there's like a few collectible things but you're sitting there and then there's a french person that Yeah, the jump scare. The audio jump scare. Yeah. And he's just whispering and then you hear it and you're like, I'm sorry, who are you? Juvedlian Pomme de Fleet?
Speaker: I don't know what you're saying. So I asked Wonko what he was saying. He did not have kind words to say. It was like, it's just a French guy just saying slam poetry. He said, I don't know what to tell you. And I thought, fair enough. Yeah, that was one of the few things I looked up online because I was like, I feel like I'm missing something in this room. And all the comments on Reddit and stuff was like, no, this is just a room. There's a lot of theories that that was going to be like the DLC kickoff point. But no, it's just a guy yapping. Good for him. Start a podcast. But I have to say that is one. thing i love about the although i didn't appreciate the change in perspective that really threw me off see the first time you go into the overworld and everything i don't know how to describe it but it drastically changes the way you move around and everything and i did i think i texted you at the time i'm like is my game broken like why am i in this really wide perspective and everything was like no no no that's supposed to be it yeah so i'm gonna briefly touch up into this because this is again this is one of these tributes to g rpgs and that was like how they would move around the world map so they tried to modernize it so like typically if you play the old final fantasy games it's big character little surroundings i think it is a really weird and off -putting and i think that's intentional so much so that my wife walked past when i was playing she went oh that all looks like it's not real and i thought that was such a brilliant i wish she'd known this was before i found out the twist of act two but almost like the whole world of the game is not hanging together properly i think that's such a great whether that was intentional again but yeah i really liked that visually it's very weird but i think it's another example of them taking something from an old jrpg and modernizing it so that's that very overall stuff but now you've got actual movement options you can see enemies it's like a really good combination i think of trying to get that we're traveling great distances but we're representing that rather than actually making you do it because that is one of the things in this game that i genuinely appreciated that although it was off -putting to begin with that it encourages you to explore whether you get something cool like you get a french man doing poetry in your ear you know it's like a A Russian roulette, you're going to get either or. But I thought that was just so cool that you could go around and you could find audio logs and things. And maybe it's just the bias and maybe because I love Bioshock. But you know that kind of, you pick up an audio log and that's the idea of these expeditions that they go out to the far reaches of the fractured world and everything. And they've met different fates along the way. Like some of them have been killed by Nevrons. Some of them have bumped into the gestrules and everything. Some of them do range from... quite funny to genuinely tragic and it is really heartbreaking in some moments where you're like oh my god this is horrible to listen to but there's nothing really obviously you can do it's quite voyeuristic in a way where it's like you're listening to the last moments of this expedition or these characters getting an insight into their pain and everything which sounds very french That's artistic direction. But it was really cool because I never felt as if, well, maybe one or two instances, but I never really felt as if I was like backtracking and then being like, oh my God, I have to do this. Maybe except the lost gesturals. That was a bit annoying towards the end. I had to look up a walkthrough for that because I think I got seven of them naturally. And I was like, where the hell are they? Yeah. And again, that extends to the gameplay as well. Bar, again, maybe one or two bosses. off simon or that big electric eel in the sky i never felt as if they were overly unfair if that makes sense it felt as if you could come back to it or you just had to get better at the parrying system it made you feel as if i want to do this i want to overcome this yeah i think something just to kind of touch on something else you mentioned just to kind of tie us together but talking about exploration and one thing this game does really really really well is the punishment for failure is so low which it almost contradicts the story in many ways But the actual punishment for failing at the game is pretty low. So you get the sad death scene, whatever. But you can explore without fear of losing hours and hours of work. You still get punished for it if you come across an enemy that's 20 levels higher. Again, this is like another classic Final Fantasy bit of nonsense. There's Final Fantasy V. There's a bit where you go underneath a castle and it's like endgame level enemies. It doesn't tell you it's going to happen. And if you didn't save in the last two hours... unlucky you've just lost two hours of progress well this game you will stumble across enemies and they highlight the chromatic enemies to you early on like by the way if you fight these guys you're probably gonna get your ass kicked but you can beat them at any level you can do this and I like the padding thing lets you do that you can fight enemies that shouldn't be in your level but the consequence of failure is we punt you back five minutes you know you know it's such a good risk reward you never feel on no actually I'm gonna say I never felt I was being absolutely unfairly punished for trying something in the game I mean even Simon And like phase one of that, that was absolutely, well, it wasn't fine, but it was manageable. And even before I found out how to break my L and basically barrel through them, phase two, that gives me nightmares. Like I could block a few of them, but then it was almost too quick for it to register. I was parrying it and everything. It was just a mess. But again, people have done it, so it is possible. So, and the words of the cool kids, it is just a skill issue, isn't it? Because, you know, oh, the game's broken or whatever. speaking of broken gameplay though can i just mention one thing that we haven't touched on yet the gestural beaches yes did you complete all of them i did this is another push up the glasses final fantasy moment here the director of the game actually does specifically mention this these are intentionally stupid it's again another tribute and you can google us another tribute to final fantasy and the final fantasy was full of crap minigames that you had to complete final fantasy 10 had when we had to dodge lightning strikes 300 times to unlock a certain weapon i finished them they didn't need to be in the game really You know, there's some things that might be better left in the past. This is probably one of them. The only up one was kind of funny. Yeah, yeah. The one where you dodged lasers up the thing. The volleyball one, I can get lost. Yeah, not a huge fan. I get the joke. Doesn't need to be there. I'm glad it was optional. You called me a dog when I said I was doing them. Well, you do know what you unlock for them all. It's because you were doing them so early as well. I mean, the one there. Rather wanted his entire team in swimsuits for the start of the game. Oh, that is actually, I just want to touch on that. Yeah, genius thought there. Before I rant about the Kestrel beaches, but if you manage to unlock all of the swimsuits and you put all your characters in swimsuits, then when you go to fight Renoir, there's actually an Easter egg where he'll turn up in a swimsuit. And I thought that is amazing. That is absolutely... incredible and one thing as well i want to point out speaking of customization because again it's not something we've touched on but you can obviously customize your weapons and things they've got different abilities that's expected of a rpg game but you can also choose different outfits which don't really affect you stat wise which i'm really glad because i'm not a big fan of that in games you know when it's like oh you have to wear this armor because it's got the highest stats and you're like this is the ugliest armor i have ever seen in my life i'm not wearing that it's like i'd rather die in the game but what they've done as well as they've added an option where it's like you can change the cut scene so that it'll keep their default yes it's on there was somebody who said they put gustav in a swimsuit for a laugh and then they got to the rainbow scene when he gets killed off and he's like my gustav died in his swimsuit and i'm like how many people do you think went through that and they were just like whoops also another very depressing fact if you're collecting the music records if you go back to the place where gustav got killed and i think it's stone wave cliff something like that then you get gustav's song from there which was so heartbreaking i was like oh wonder why it's here and then i was like oh my god this is the place he died oh no his body's still there oh no oops but sorry going back to the guest show thing i hated them i thought they were an interesting idea and everything but i thought the only up game this game is not made for platforming i'm gonna be honest it feels very clunky and as someone who's played a copious amount of platformers it was not a fun time but again there was this weird sense of i was getting really frustrated with it but i also didn't want to be beaten by the range.
Speaker: So I was like, you know what? I'm going to persevere with this and I am going to beat them at their own game because I did not want to lose. And that is the whole game, isn't it? It's like you might get beaten down a couple of times in the game, but you don't want to just stay down. You want to get back up again. Literally, when you finish a battle, the message when you click X or A or whatever, and it says next or any variation. In this game, it says we continue. For such a small detail, that is so powerful. be like yes we continue we are going forward whether you got absolutely wrecked in that initial fight or not it's just such a great touch and the small details in this game just chef kiss absolutely fantastic the amount of times i cackled at the way it fades out into slow motion especially my l using either the grammage or the giant sword spell which i forget his name but either of those two it would go into slow motion you would just see the enemy disintegrating and i cackled so much with that you guys Maybe cover this in more detail in your episode. But the first time I used the Grammage attack, the thought of my elders doing it to someone and the other characters from Lumiere just being like, what did you just do? And she's disintegrating this person out of the canvas. It doesn't even tell you how much damage it does when you kill, which I always thought was hilarious. And then I think the first, it tells you like the max damage you do at the bottom of the screen. And it was like the first time I ever used it. She does the hand action. The game doesn't even look at the character you've hit it with. And it just came up with damage done. Nine million or something. it was like some outlandish number and i cackled so hard but yeah that was one of my vote touches was that instead of doing like the victory theme thing like you typically get in jrpgs it was like this fade out and i thought that was phenomenally funny especially as you said when you get nine million or whatever for the first time and then you realize that the game can be broken which initially some people might think oh that's not good you should keep within the limits of the game and things but it's the fact that you can use the items in the games like the pictos which are skills, aren't they? And they add to your damage. They add to your abilities and things like that. You can get insane damage. And it is so cool to have that option because it is, it's like you can decide whether you want to stick to, you know, the limitations because there's a picto that you can get called Painted Power. And Painted Power essentially makes sure that you can deal more damage above 9 ,999. But you can decide whether you want to leave that off. or keep it on i saw a masochist on youtube leave it off for a fight with simon insane i was like all right cool he's fighting simon 9999 i was like you maniac that is horrifying honestly again i never felt anything was unfair and what i find funny sorry you were saying about the gamage and everything see if you do new game plus i think you take those abilities with you and it's so funny at the very beginning being like oh yeah we're gonna fight the lamp master something or we're gonna fight francois gommage what sorry i mean is that the perfect place to talk about the finale of this game and the quote -unquote twist go for it and again don't worry we will get into this next week but what ends up happening is basically you defeat renoir at the bottom of the monolith and everything and then you go up to defeat the paintress and you're like oh i can't wait this is the end game this is what you've been building up to sorry before i go on how did you feel about the initial twist see when you went to attack the paintress and they did nothing yeah that was mad the paintress fight itself as well is broken into sections i don't know if you're gonna get into that and it's a really clever way of doing that but yeah the first assault on the painters goes very badly yeah she's just like i don't want to play with you anymore it's like oh oh no be right when you get to the actual paintress fight is oh it's incredible isn't it yeah it's just so good and again you get the dramatic music and everything and then you defeat the paintress and yay well done champ you can go home and you have a big party in lumiere everybody's cheering well no sorry it's before that so something just to mention about the actual paintress fight though is you get that rush of like oh my god you're fighting on and you do get that and then all of a sudden the musical drops out and you're just fighting a woman who's just not fighting back and that's like the first time that the twist starts to come in and that's such a great bit of that audio gameplay mix of the music drops out she's not fighting back she actually I think she heals you as well if you're at low health and the game just kind of stops playing for a bit you don't need to do anything it just kind of stops and it's such a great bit of am I the baddie kind of thing going on you know I love that bit and it makes the next before you go back to Lumiere but that sort of next bit feels quite hollow that's such a great bit of storytelling plus gameplay plus music kind of combo but sorry as you were yeah eventually you get back to Lumiere and everyone's celebrating and everything and then i do love that the way they're all falling over sk and monoco and it's really cute but then you also get the bittersweet moment where mael gives gustav's apprentices who are like these orphan children his journal to be like yeah he didn't make it sorry and that is something that you can add to although i don't know if you have to add to i always did because i felt bad yeah but i don't know if it makes a difference or not if you don't add to it i think it's just more of a storytelling because you get when you're in the overworld you get a camping mechanic where you go back to the campsite you can talk to different members of the party you get to learn about them which is utterly heartbreaking and trust me we will be talking about that next week but there are so many heartbreaking moments so you breathe a sigh of relief thinking okay the game is over i kind of thought well
Speaker: I can see why this was game of the year. You know, yeah, that was a pretty decent game. And then you get the twist where you realise that by removing the painters, you have essentially doomed Lumiere and the entire world completely. And you get this through a letter that Alicia, who is the white haired girl and the sister to Verso, she basically admits this to say, oh, by the way, you've unleashed something far, far worse. GG, good luck. And then it's like, wait, what? and then you find out the twist and yeah the whole city just gets wiped out in an instance everybody gets gemmaged except for Mael and I think Mael, Verso and maybe Minoko I think I think Erski's still there but definitely Mael and Verso are there it is just again pulling the rug I was just like, what? Because you think, okay, although it's the end of Act 2, that's weird. It's not in a three -act structure. And then you're like, oh, that is why. How did you feel about that? Just to see when that scene happened, when it's like, oh, by the way, you've unleashed something far worse. You've deleted your whole world. I had guessed, because you mentioned about Act 2, I'd kind of guessed it was going to be three acts. In Dragon Quest XI or XII, whatever the number was, the most recent one, it does a really good job of like introducing a next act where it's like, you won, but... there's still more to clean know up. And then things kind of open up and it's very gentle. Maybe not gentle. It does a twist, but nothing like to this level. And you think after the twist of the first and second act, I would have been like, I'm ready for another rug pull. I still wasn't. I actually was like, I was angry. You know what I was like? Why? I've done all this. like I've stopped all this. Why is it happening? You know what I was like? Anger and bafflement and just like all sorts of emotion. Yeah, it was a very confusing. And then the game takes you out into the quote unquote real world. so were due to believe and it's clever how it slows everything one down and it's like you really have to sit here's the big twist but we are going to make sure you understand this twist again it's like a slap in the face you're like yeah i'm sorry what because you're right you get pulled out into the real world and you get told before the grand imagining as it were yeah you find out that this whole world that's been created and again as you were saying there's a reason why everything feels very alice in wonderland -esque only with more creatures that are going to rip your heads off but it feels very fantastical and everything and then you get dragged to the real world and you get dragged into this big mansion which you've been visiting a version of it within the canvas and there's this character called the curator who helps you who not a good being but we will get to that but you play as alicia and she is completely different from my l she is very withdrawn half of her face is burned she struggles to speak she's very introverted compared to her sister anyway who is very outspoken very brash and everything and then you get into the deep lower of this world has people called painters who can create these worlds but they're also at war with people called writers it is honestly it's like a such a fantastic twist but at the same time i genuinely didn't know how to feel about it because What ends up happening is Alicia goes in to try and save her mum and dad because they're both kind of frozen and they are fighting each other in the canvas. And the reason they're fighting in this canvas is because their son, Verso, was killed in a fire in the real world. So Aline, who is the mother slash matriarch of this household, she basically takes, I think, one of his canvases and just paints her family into it and lives this kind of deluded life, you know, that, oh, right. right, I've got my family in here, but then her actual husband tries to pull her out of it. So she traps him at the bottom of the monolith and everything. And it is just such a powerful piece of storytelling because then it really hits you that all of this grief that you've been feeling has been building up to this point. And especially when you listen to that song in Viet Em where, oh my God, that's the love ballad between Aline and Renoir who are two sides of this very group. saving coin as it were there's no real see when you get to that reveal did you realise oh there's no real antagonist in this game anymore yeah they actually almost have to not scramble but they do almost have to get Renard back up really quick they have to get him back up and running very very fast to get that almost antagonist role back again because yeah it is very much everyone has their own story and everyone has as you were talking about the grief but different ways of dealing with grief yeah it's quite a fun not fun maybe the wrong word but it's a very clever way of doing it to then have to not backtrack but he's the villain but you still understand why he's in the situation he's in just touching on something you said earlier the reason that you have duplicates of the characters is because elaine has created this almost false family within the canvas what i think is really clever and it's the way they kind of play off that mile doesn't actually get that revelation because she accidentally gets reborn and has to start a life from zero which i think is a really clever get out of jail free card for like why she doesn't understand the lot why she's the protagonist of the game but yeah she basically lives out an entire life in the canvas while this is all going on in the real world she's completely none the wiser up until this reveal as well which i think is quite a fun way of bringing you along for the twist it's very much you're not seeing it from the canvas inhabitants point of view where they've just found out their world's not real you're not finding it from versal's point of view who already knew all this it's from her point of view as she gets revealed to her and it was like the only way this twist could have possibly worked was guided from her point of view you and i thought that was a stroke of genius oh no absolutely and it builds up to the finale so great where renoir is trying to plead with his daughter and say listen i have to destroy this canvas because it is just a walking tomb essentially of verso's life and even verso verso makes a big point about wanting to but not leave the canvas but basically he just wants to die but it some haven't brought up that he is immortal and this canvas he literally cannot die no matter what happens to him which is kind of a meta commentary I suppose in gaming but I think he's like hmm, maybe Renwar has a point. And Mael's like, no, no, no, we're saving the canvas. And she unlocks her painter power. She brings back Ciel, Lunay, Minoko and everyone. The only kind of minor thing I would say is I feel as if it becomes the DeSondra family show at that point. Lunay and Ciel and all of the other characters, they kind of become sidelined. I get why, you know, from a narrative. It's not a game breaker or a deal breaker, but it does feel like they're kind of put into the side of. yeah yeah yeah you can come along to talk about this family's grief session as it were but no it's fantastically done and then you get to the finale where oh god But it's so good. you fight Renoir in his curator form and then he summons a axon which is essentially just like a kaiju there's like three of them throughout the game and he summons one of them back and you're like oh how are we going to deal with this or you know it's just essentially it's a back and forth you're having to fight and you're trying your best to go through it and then Aline comes back into the canvas despite the protests of Renoir and oh that is so good the fact that she transforms into her Pinterest forms and she just punches the axe on the face well I mean did you have a hell yeah reaction to that oh yeah by this point the game is just throwing it out you're in it for the finale it's going hell yeah I see the game playing and I say we and I've gotta ask before we wrap up and everything what ending did you go for because I didn't realise this was an optional ending game I don't know if I'm gonna tell really
Speaker: Maybe I'll keep it to myself, because I assume you two are going to discuss it next week, and a you know you can save the reveal for then. All I want to know is, do you agree with us that there's one ending that is objectively worse than the other? Yes. Okay, right, that's fine. We're on the same page then, because I played through both of the endings, and yeah, there's one that a lot of people were really defending, especially on Reddit and things, and I was like, how did you get to this particular conclusion? It is absolutely... crazy to be fair but honestly see if we talked about the story and everything this could easily be like a good four or five hours us worth of content but as a summary what are your overall thoughts see about this game and i know obviously you've been talking about it but what are your overall thoughts of this game and why should people play it today i think it's the perfect jrpg it's come at an age for us where the people who made this game grew up playing the games that i love and they've taken everything that made those games great and they've modernized it i often struggle with recommending older games because i feel like you had to be there for a lot of stuff you know people bang on about mario 64 being the greatest platformer of all time and it's just not it was when it came out it's just not today it's battle of wonderland
Speaker: Those are fighting words right there. No, it's basketball. I was going to say, just wait till season seven where we talk about Bowen. Yeah, and what was the other one? Mighty No. 9. Oh, Jesus. That's going to be a fun episode anyway. Anyway, and so I always struggle to recommend games from a certain era. And I feel like for my personal, if I was to write out like a list and the greatest run of games ever made by a games company is Final Fantasy 5 to Final Fantasy 10. I think it's the best run of games ever made in a row. I think very few other companies can boast such. a high quality run of games in a row you know I think maybe the only other thing I can think of that would match it is Rockstar off the top of my head I'm sure there's others but in terms of one franchise and just this insane run of games but I struggle to recommend these games as the quality of life is so bad the graphics are poor the gameplay is only engaged to a certain degree the stories have aged poorly Expedition 33 fixes pretty much every single flaw these games had it modernises everything it's an incredible story an incredible soundtrack there's no restrictions on the game itself it came in the greatest era in terms of having no technological restrictions it's got an incredible voice cast something that you know the old Final Fantasy games didn't have up until 10 was it Final Fantasy 13 that had the guy laughing on the beach that's 10 10 right okay yeah tie this which is that total side an incredibly emotional phenomenally written scene that got taken out of context and memed he's intentionally doing a fake laugh anyway that was the first game that had voice acting in it by Final Fantasy and the voice acting is rough this isn't this is the opposite of that it has all these quality of life improvements I was talking about It has a lot more character depth. It has the campsite stuff from Baldur's Gate. And if you like that kind of thing, it's got secrets that actually reward you as opposed to just adding numbers on a screen. I think it's the perfect JRPG. I think whatever game they make next will never top it. And I'd love to be proven wrong, but this game was made for me. Genuinely, this game was made for me because the people that made it love all the same things that I love. Would I recommend this game to someone else? Absolutely. Will they enjoy it as much as me? Unlikely. Because you would have picked it up by now.
Speaker: No, never say never. Never say never. I took a year to play this game. I completed it out a few months ago and I was like, wow, what a great game. When did this come out? A year ago. Oh Jesus, I'm behind the curve here. I just mean in terms of the games that I love, this is a love letter to all the games I love. It's perfect. Yeah, over to you. Honestly, I can only co -sign that. This is to me what a perfect JRPG should be. Again, is it perfect? It's near perfect, I would say. I feel as if, and this is an example I bring up a lot, but you know how there's that one. film or one game that changes your outlook into a genre and for me in terms of action films the one that changed my mind was the raid just by how incredible you know so the choreography everything just kind of blended together into this amazing film and for me this is what clear obscure is like it is something that takes all the elements of jrpgs turn -based combat things like that and that adds on to everything that makes it good as i said before it rewards the player for or wanting to explore the story wanting to find out what happened to this particular expedition that particular expedition it is such a fun and rewarding game and I unintentionally I ended up getting the platinum trophy for this game and the only reason was because I checked the list and I thought well I've only got a few left. What's a few more hours? And I was so shocked at that, that I'd played through this game and I wanted to 100 % it because it's something you said to me. You said, yeah, you should really 100 % this game. And I thought, yeah, I'll complete the story. It'll be fine. But because at one game of the year, they announced DLC. So you had Versus drafts, which was definitely a lot more comical. It was kind of candy monsters. And it's basically his childish imagination. And it is so well done. Except that... I can't remember the name of it. It's like Barapapa or something. It's a move I hate with a passion. Basically, I think it actually translates as candy floss in French and that really blew my mind. I was like, oh um my God, they've done it again. It's like a move where if you get hit by it, then your output of damage gets reduced to one. So you have to keep hitting to get rid of it, but then they attack you again with it and it's just a cycle. It is horrible. I hated it, but you can use it to your advantage later on. That's all I'll say. But things like that, the exploration of the world, it's just everything blends together. And I genuinely could not recommend this game enough. As I said, it's so good that I had to do two parts for this game. Maybe we'll do two parts for Persona 5. You never know. But I have to say, after playing this game and then going back to Persona 5, yeah, I'm enjoying Persona 5, but I miss the parry and I miss everything else about it. I'm like, yeah, Persona's cool, but there's... No chroma or anything. But no, honestly, it's a fantastic game. Both are. And as you said, it just blends everything that people love about the genre and they just do a fantastic job. The developers, I think, got knighthoods in France for this game. Totally deserved. I was going to say, not a big enough credit. Oh yeah, exactly. As you touched on there, the voice cast was fantastic. I did not know that Charlie Cox played Gustav in this game. He didn't either. Have you seen any interviews with him? He doesn't like games. Yeah, that really baffled me because I was like, oh, cool, he was in the game. And you know that way some voice actors are really, yeah, obviously he's got Daredevil and everything to do and that, Disney money coming in. But when he was like, yeah, as you said with the interviews, when he was like, who's Gustav? And he's like, oh yeah, that game. How the hell did they get him? Because I mean, they got him, they got Ben Starr as Verso, fantastic voice actor. They got Jennifer English, who was Shadowheart and Baldur's Gate 3 as Mayel. My friend. Andy Serkis oh aye did you meet him yes nice guy I completely forgot you met him my main man it's like yeah yeah yeah where's Gollum can you put a blue suit on sorry I don't recognise you I don't recognise you without the dots on your face
Speaker: ah But no, honestly, they were all fantastic. In fact, Andy Serkis was so good in this game. I genuinely didn't realize he was in this game. People kept saying, oh, have you heard Andy Serkis yet? Oh, have you heard him? I was like, who the hell is he in this game? Because I've talked to hundreds of characters. No idea. Is it like background never on number five or something? And it was like, no, no, he's Renoir. And I was like, oh, oh, wow. What a talent. Fantastic voice acting. But yeah, closing statement. Go play this game. What are you doing listening to this? Go play if you have. already you don't mind spoilers but no honestly this is a fantastic game definitely go see it on that note martin thank you so much for yeah not only joining me in this episode but also joining me in the other 299 episodes of chazanami i cannot wait to celebrate 300 next week so thank you you're absolutely welcome i can't wait to get my party hat on and celebrate episode 300 and of course before we wrap up where can the amazing pandalorians at home find your content you can find me across Instagram and TikTok at Mark McAllister. You can also find me on Facebook, but it's basically just Instagram and reposted. I mainly talk about wrestling and my weird, wonderful life in the wrestling ring. However, there is more stuff to come on the horizon. So if you follow me now, you get an early look into what that is. Apart from that, you can find me on podcasts such as Chatsanami. I've heard Chatsanami is really good. Oh, really? Award winning. Many are calling it. Award nominated. Thank you very much. It wasn't an award for me. Thank you. Award nominating. I'm still nominated for Euro. Yes, I give the award to Scottish Wrestling Network. God damn it. Billy, if you're listening to this, I'm gunning for your title. This is my call out. Yeah, but if you would like to listen to the double nomination podcast, then of course, do you know I've been putting that in my CV, by the way? Hell yeah. Then you can check us out at our website, chattsanami .com, as well as all good podcast apps. I also want to thank our amazing Pandalorian patrons, Robotic Battle Toaster, Ghosting Cryptic 1991. Thank you so, so much for supporting the show. And if you would like early access to episodes, bonus content commentary tracks from martin and i we have some amazing commentary tracks as well as a whole host of other juicy exclusive content then you can check us out at our patreon page patreon .com forward slash chat tsunami this podcast is a proud member of the pop -up collective for more information check us out our twitter slash x page at pop back collect until next time thank you all so so much for listening and thank you for yes supporting us on this journey to 300 next week as martin and i were saying we'll be deep diving into the story the lore and all the juicy themes of clear obscure expedition 33 stay safe stay awesome and most importantly please don't get gamashed before the next episode oh i thought you're gonna say parry it oh yeah well parry it i can't believe we never made it
Speaker: Peace!
Speaker: No, I've got nothing. Right. See you later. Bye. Oh!
