Transcript
neocharge: What's up everybody and welcome to Shapes of Pooping, the weekly conversational podcast all about bidets that's unedited, unfiltered, and most importantly unhinged. I'm one of your hosts, Stat Minson, NeoCharge on PSN, and joining me for episode number 67 is the potty squatty encyclopedia himself, Hob Bariman, Leon Leon Hartley on PSN. What's up man, how's it going?
Leon Lionheartly: ah Ixnay on the Oderle April Ool's Fae.
neocharge: Yes, indeed. ah Also joining us, you know him, you love him, and he is an expert on tactical tush telemetry, Shaleb Kiff, Admiral Merps on PSN. What's up, dude? You ready to get into a conversation about plan cleaning your bottom?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I am. ah the The fun fact about this is I'm actually on the toilet right now.
neocharge: Excellent.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So if you guys want me to crank up that microphone to know how healthy I am, please just just ask.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah, definitely. ah On point.
Leon Lionheartly: Who does number two work for?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, it's me.
neocharge: Love it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's me right now.
neocharge: But yeah, we we wanted to ah take this episode and take this opportunity to talk all about bidets, why you should use them, why they're healthy for your butthole. you know I use a model, it's called the Ass Blaster 5000, I and it's ah It has three settings on it.
neocharge: It's ooh, and oh my fucking God, what was that? I like the oh my God, what the fuck was that setting? Because it really gets in those you know hard to reach places.
neocharge: And dare I say, it's a little pleasurable at the same time. Just saying.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I mean, you get what you pay for, quite frankly, when it comes to stuff like that.
Leon Lionheartly: I...
neocharge: Exactly. Exactly.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's that's at least my the way I look at it. i have I don't know exactly what model number. I think mine might be one of those beta early test options where there's just one called blast the ass.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's it. I mean, it's it's wonderful.
neocharge: I think I've heard of that one. That's, ah yeah, that's ah as one of those as seen on TV models, right?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Man, you peasants...
neocharge: They're like, yeah. Oh, what do you have? Tell the audience what you have because our audience, I mean, we've had a lot of write-ins about this.
Leon Lionheartly: ah
neocharge: They're like, hey, how do you guys clean your asses when you take a shit? And we just really wanted to take an entire episode and talk about bidets. So what do you use, Bob?
Leon Lionheartly: So mine's imported from France, Eau de Toilette. And, you know, I got to say, it does a really good job. But my favorite setting on there is the water drinking fountain.
neocharge: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, dude, you you got to have that. After you're done dropping a deuce, right? you You get thirsty. It's it's a it's a process. you You drop the kids off at the pool. You turn around. You get yourself a little drink.
neocharge: Yep. Exactly. So Lowe's has some good models. I like the Japanese models, ah ah honestly, because, yeah, well, dude, they have heated seats, right?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You would.
neocharge: i I like my ass warm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): do? Really?
neocharge: Yeah. And when you're when your ass is warm, the poop comes out a little easier.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's okay.
Leon Lionheartly: you Wait. well Well, no, no. I'm sorry. Warm toilet seat? Objection! ah Go into a public restroom and sit down and then wait until it's a warm toilet seat and you start questioning your life decisions really fast.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): See, the only problem that's, it's interesting you say that because one of the things that I do not like, I love my car's heated seats, but I can't use them that often because it does make me have to poop.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
neocharge: Makes you want to poop, right?
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's just science.
neocharge: It's kind of like...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I mean, so you're right. The Japanese have figured that out. That's, ah wow. Good on them.
neocharge: no ah No one...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i didn't even think about that.
neocharge: Yeah, no one likes a cold ass when they poop. It's kind of like ice cream, right? When you go to Cold Stone Creamery and you get that the the scoop, right? It's like the hand-scooped ice cream.
neocharge: It's all hard and shit. But then when you go to the soft serve, that's a little warmer, so it comes out a lot easier. So ah pooping is very healthy. Toilet paper is super toxic.
neocharge: If I wanted to bleach my asshole, I'd just go do it professionally, not wipe my ass with toilet paper. So bidets are where it's at, and...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): See, i I used to have my sister do it for for me.
neocharge: ah
neocharge: Yeah. Huh. Okay.
neocharge: All right. Let's do it. April Fools.
neocharge: We broke on that one.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): oh that's it. That's the episode.
neocharge: We broke on that one.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's it.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Shapes of pooping.
neocharge: Yeah. Thanks.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Shapes of pooping.
Leon Lionheartly: that
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's it.
neocharge: Shapes of pooping episode 67, six or seven depends on which episode number you want. ah And this has been, ah where can people find ah shapes of pooping, Bob, and get all the latest information on the hottest bidets out there so they can ah poop in peace and then wipe their butt with water.
Leon Lionheartly: Shapesofpooping.org backslash bidets specifically.
neocharge: Yes.
neocharge: Yep. Yeah. So, and yeah, we, Caleb is literally ah trying it right now and ah getting it, getting all up in there.
neocharge: So, ah ah right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Ooh.
Leon Lionheartly: yu you know You know what's really good?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: is go to look
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Whoa.
neocharge: What?
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): how do you how do you How do you operate? Jesus. This is...
neocharge: Uh-huh.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): All right.
neocharge: Uh-huh.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Science.
neocharge: Look, look into my eyes as you're, you're feeling this, Caleb.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Ooh. Ooh.
Leon Lionheartly: you're Here in a few minutes you're going to hear the blow dryer, so it you know makes it all nice and fresh.
neocharge: Oh my God, that was... Fucking trumpet over there. No, you know jokes aside, everyone, it is April Fool's. We are recording on April Fool's. This episode is actually going to go live April Fool's on the evening, so we can hit that April 1st. And that's just a little humor for you all here at Shapes of Gaming, the weekly gaming podcast ah that we do every week. And we're on episode 47.
neocharge: forty seven so That was fun.
Leon Lionheartly: We'll get to that magical number one day.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Episode poop D seven.
neocharge: Yes.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: Poop in seven.
Leon Lionheartly: Have you guys ever ah you know taken the the the toilets for a test drive at Lowe's?
neocharge: Oh,
neocharge: yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): like sad don government
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: I just straight up get naked.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: I usually poop naked. and I'm just like, all right, cool.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I take lows for a test drive on my toilet.
neocharge: Everyone's staring.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's what I do.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: Oh, man.
Leon Lionheartly: bad
neocharge: Yeah. No, we were, I don't know, it came up in conversation on another text string and I was like, it's April Fool's. I got to do this. And I hit you guys up and I'm like, hey, you want to do a bit? Do you want to know what it is beforehand? And they're like, nope.
neocharge: but So I was like, all right, buckle up. So that was fun. Very fun. So happy April Fool's.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I hope we pulled it off. I hope we pulled it off for you.
neocharge: I think so.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. With
neocharge: Dude, I hope people are like, what the fuck? And they just like stop it and they're like, i'm not listening to that.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): The least listened to episode in all of them is this one because it started that way.
neocharge: Right? what if it do this
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: What if it's the most listened to episode and it just like increases our listener count tenfold?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Do you guys, this like serious question, because you know how when you watch like YouTube videos, sometimes you can see the most watched sections of the videos where people scrub to?
neocharge: That'd be so funny.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): and Can you do that for for the listened to episodes to see?
neocharge: Yeah, on YouTube. On YouTube, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah Great.
neocharge: That's why I'm going to be curious about this one. It's going to be like five minutes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): One on Spotify. I didn't know.
neocharge: really
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. Five minutes, they're gone. Just peace out. Oh, well.
neocharge: yes yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Worth it.
neocharge: Fun fact, our most listened to platform is Apple Podcasts.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay. Okay.
neocharge: So, yeah. So, but yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Tim Cook loves Shapes of Pooping.
neocharge: Absolutely.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, he's our number one subscriber.
neocharge: he definitely. Uh-huh. Yeah. Who do you think w writes in all the questions about the bidets?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): tim it's It's definitely Tim Apple.
neocharge: so
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: and tim
neocharge: ah i I am Matt Stenson. This is Bob Harriman. That's Caleb Schiff. We are here for you all for Shapes of Gaming. Just wanted to have a little fun there. ah And yeah, let's get into the real episode. That was fun. But what are we drinking here?
Leon Lionheartly: ah Well, I am drinking the same thing from last week because I have been going nonstop. And somebody, we made an agreement, now owes me several six-packs of beer. So ah it is...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's awesome.
neocharge: I do. You bought my ticket to Bip Brigade. Thank you.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, in a happy bringing your ass along.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): awesome
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: But yeah, I'm drinking living from Living the Dream ah up here in beautiful Colorado.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: um And it's the Powder Run, which is the Cream Ale with Vanilla. And it is pretty much a cream soda.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: Had a baby with a beer. I love it.
neocharge: So good. So good. ah Yeah, you hooked me to that. And I still have, I'm out of Powder Run, but I still have the Powder Run cinnamon swirl, which tastes like cinnamon.
Leon Lionheartly: That's goading.
neocharge: Oh, it's it's amazing. So, yeah. I decided on a little something a little heavier ah tonight, especially due to the the intro of the cast. No. Um, it is, it is the, right.
Leon Lionheartly: a
neocharge: It is the old dude stout from Odell Brewing. Odell Brewing, of course, up in Fort Collins, Colorado. Uh, you still live like 15 minutes from the brewery, but yeah, it's an amazing stout, not too heavy, but a lighter stout.
neocharge: And it's just tasty. It's got like notes of chocolate and caramel And it's honestly just drinking dessert. So I love it. ah It is amazing.
neocharge: And you got to be in a good mood for a stout. You can't drink a stout on a warm day. And thankfully, we finally got rain here. It it was like it happened.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, yeah? You guys finally got some. Okay.
neocharge: It happened for like five minutes. Half of it was hail, but we got some.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: So we got some precipitation. um And Caleb, you are not drinking because you are...
neocharge: Drinking your chapstick.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I am drinking my chapstick, my giant water bottle of chapstick because it's Passover and I can't have any fucking beer. The beer that you guys have though, looks and sounds awesome.
neocharge: Yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Sounds delicious.
neocharge: Yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I would like, to i'm I'm actually a big fan of stouts. um I couldn't tell you what stouts I like because like I've mentioned on earlier casts, typically my friend here will just be like, try this one.
neocharge: Oh.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): and i And I drink it and it's like, this is awesome. And I forget what it's called, but I do, I do tend to like stouts quite a bit and and wheat.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: Mm.
neocharge: Heck yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): as Those are like my two go-tos and then the sour after that. But yeah, today it's just water, sadly. So drink for me, fellas.
neocharge: Indeed. we'll We'll pour one out. I don't want to do that because that'll go all over my Mac.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): to Pour it all over your mat.
neocharge: ah No.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): it's It's April Fool's. I'm sure it'd be fine.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, it'll totally be fine.
neocharge: No. ah Yeah, dude. Colorado Mountain Brewery here has one of the best stouts. You can only get it in December because they have unique brews every month because they're a craft brewery. It is a marshmallow stout and it is fucking amazing.
neocharge: So...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Ooh.
neocharge: yeah Yeah, I'm a big fan of stouts too.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh yeah.
neocharge: Especially in the winter.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Marshmallow. out
neocharge: Oh yeah, you're pretty good. ah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Is that what you say? Every time you drink a tasty beer, he said you should, you should.
neocharge: Absolutely.
Leon Lionheartly: of course
neocharge: I whisper, whisper.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Sometimes it whispers back, which is concerning, but you know, I just roll with it. so ah yeah So this is Shapes of Gaming. ah We are the the three stooges here for you all.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah
neocharge: ah to talk about. Yeah, we're going to go over some news, what we're playing, of course, a little bit of housekeeping. And Caleb is here, which we love you, buddy. We love when arere on the episodes for the state of the draft because we've had some pickups and ah we've had a lot release this month.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yes.
neocharge: Well, technically last month and a lot releasing this month, April. So that'll ah that'll be interesting.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: But before we get into all of that, how's life, fellas? How's the old life going? ah Caleb, go first.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Well, sure. I'll go first. Uh, Life has fortunately settled down a little bit. Like I said on the Resident Evil spoiler cast, the wife's father passed couple weeks ago. So haven't been doing much other than like dealing with all that.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah you know She's doing all right. Everybody seems to be okay right now, is which is cool. And i think, I guess, honestly, just yesterday, I finally...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): got to just chill for five minutes. I know that sounds crazy, but man, i just, I, was I was, was a little burnout, a little out of gas, but I'm, I'm doing okay.
neocharge: Nice.
neocharge: I bet.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Uh, had a, stupid, funny event today, which I won't take that long. but ah it So i my mother-in-law had a TV that broke about a year and a half ago.
neocharge: Cool. Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i We replaced it because I know my TVs. And when we were up there dealing with some of the family stuff, the wife says, you know, my mom still has that broken TV in her room.
neocharge: Yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And I was like, why? why the I mean, she had one job. So I said, you know what? I'll just take it. I'll recycle. I'll bring it back here. I'll recycle it the right way. And I took it to Staples.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's my go to. i did this today.
Leon Lionheartly: Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's my go to for recycling electronics. If you know I get points there and then Best Buy be the other one. Otherwise, I'll do it at the downtown location, whatever. But TVs are are like a tricky one for people who don't don know that.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Always took its staples. Everything was fine. So i walk in. The woman's like, hey, are you here to recycle? Because I had this TV and I just like plopped it on the counter. said, yes, I am.
neocharge: You should have been like, nope.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): No, I just just carry this wherever I go. ah Yes, I'm here to recycle this.
neocharge: Yeah. Aw. Sure.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And she said, oh, we can't take TVs anymore. And I said, what?
Leon Lionheartly: Ooh, what?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I know there's a fee, like which is annoying. I don't want to pay $20 to get rid of this the right way, but I don't want to poison Mother Gaia either. So what the hell?
neocharge: Sure.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And she says, yeah, we just don't take TVs. And I said, your website, I mean, I double checked before I came here. it says you can for 20 bucks. And she says, oh, well, we we can't. And I said, so somebody's lying. It's either you or the website. And I was trying not to be an asshole about it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): She said, I'm sorry. We can take monitors though. You realize that TV is is ah is a big monitor.
neocharge: Come on!
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And she just stared at me and I said, is this an April Fool's joke?
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i Seriously, is this an April Fool's joke? And she just looked at me like I was from Mars and She said, I'm sorry. And I said okay, do you know where I can take it? She said, no. So I just leave, take it back to my car, get in the car, look up a place.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And in Ohio, there's this thing called SWACO, S-W-A-C-O.org. It'll tell you where you can recycle stuff. They told me that the thrift store down the street took the recyclable electronics. No, it doesn't. that's That's bullshit. So I go there. They don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. Same thing. I go to the next place. Nobody accepts TVs anymore. ah So I feel like I just want to take a hammer to it and smash into a million pieces and poison everything around me.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So basically what I did today for two and a half hours was drive around my mother-in-law's broken television and then break in home. So when I say that I'm out of gas, I mean that literally and figuratively.
neocharge: Dang. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah just It's one of those stupid ah how and why.
neocharge: Huh.
Leon Lionheartly: you Yeah, you tried to save Mother Earth by disposing it properly, and then you helped destroy Mother Earth by driving around aimlessly for two hours.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And so that was enough.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I just, I gave up for the rest of the day.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Exactly. that The bitter irony makes me so upset. But yeah, there's not really a punchline to the story other than what the fuck.
neocharge: ah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Just, you know, what?
neocharge: hate
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): but what ah But other than that, sincerely, other than that, everything's ah pretty good. I got to clean a lot of the house today, which it's been in dire straits for the last three weeks or so.
neocharge: A little bit spring cleaning.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, that felt really good, if I'm being honest. I don't know if that excites other people, but I hate messes. I hate them so much.
neocharge: I feel that. I like like a good cleaning day, and then it's just everything's clean and smells good. I feel that, man. Maybe it's an adult thing.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. I mean, honestly, I do that because then when I play games forever or watch a show or whatever I want to do for fun, i don't feel like a lazy prick.
neocharge: so
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I did all this.
neocharge: Dude.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I get it out of the way so that I can just live my best life. And i don't know, highly do you recommend that to people that that are looking for something to do and feel guilty when they when they game, when they read, when they watch movies or whatever.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Clean, do some dishes, laundry, whatever might help.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Anyway, that's how I'm doing.
neocharge: That's it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): How are you, Bob? Sorry.
Leon Lionheartly: ah Going a million miles an hour myself.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: ah
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Life has been really fast professionally, personally, from the gaming perspective. ah So like I'm working extra hours at work to try and be because we've got a whole production thing that's going on.
Leon Lionheartly: And it's like, okay, cool.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay.
Leon Lionheartly: I don't mind. yeah you know I don't like... Idle hands are the devil's play thing, right? As they say. ah but And then I walk in and I'm looking at the at the wife family and I got two of them that are sick dealing with sinus infections.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Sure.
Leon Lionheartly: And I was like, I can't deal with this right now. um And then I looked at the game upcoming game list for April and realized I've got vacation planned. I got gun range planned. Oh, and by the way, there's like four games coming out.
Leon Lionheartly: So...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Right? It's insane, isn't it?
neocharge: Mm-hmm. April's fucked.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, that really is.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: But other that, can't complain.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Good.
neocharge: Cool, man.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): First world problems, I think, for us.
neocharge: Cool. ah Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. ah to piggyback on your conversation, Caleb, ah I always usually like to do a productive thing, too, before video games.
neocharge: So I don't feel like an asshole just like...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Mm-hmm. Sure.
neocharge: not doing anything productive and then going to game, right? And just spending like five hours. I wouldn't say doing nothing, but in the physical world, you're just sitting down, right? You're engaged digitally, but yeah, I feel that for sure.
Leon Lionheartly: I got to say, that you know, my trick getting older, I used to be like that, but now I'm older. My trick is I'll start a game and then about an hour, hour and a half in, I'll take a pause at a moment break.
Leon Lionheartly: And then I'll be like, hey, I'm going to go do the dishes.
neocharge: Hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: I'm going to go swap over laundry. I'm going to go wipe this down. And then I'm up and moving throughout the day and I'm getting in game time.
neocharge: ah Yeah, I mean, i don't I don't like cutting into the game. time like Sometimes I'll just lose myself in a game. so But whatever works.
Leon Lionheartly: That's fair.
neocharge: It's kind of the same concept, just a different approach, right? Oh, for sure.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Sure. And it does depend on the genre of game. You know, if you're playing a really story driven game, you probably get immersed.
neocharge: for sure
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): If you're playing a fighting game or something, or I don't know, do you play many mobile games, Bob, that are active or do you do like AFK arena type shit?
Leon Lionheartly: yeah um and Now I do Bellatro.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, sure. So you could do a couple hands, couple rounds of that, a whole, like a run, I guess, and then get up and do some dishes.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah I could see that. That that works for me.
neocharge: Yeah, for sure. ah Life's been good for me. I'm slightly busy. I mean, i't so I'm not too busy.
Leon Lionheartly: Mm-hmm.
neocharge: ah But we are on our way to the moon, which is really cool.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Artemis 2, right?
neocharge: ay Artemis 2 launched today, i think like a couple hours ago, ah a successful launch, and we will be ah orbiting or slingshotting the moon in like six days.
neocharge: So first time we've been in the range of the moon, ah what, in fucking 70 years?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Awesome.
Leon Lionheartly: ah Something like that, yeah. And I do know this is a test, from my understanding, of going around and then like doing a dry run, if you will.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's been a while.
Leon Lionheartly: So in another five to six years, ah they're actually going to go try and land on the moon again.
neocharge: Yeah. And ah put a colony, there like put a little base there, lunar base.
Leon Lionheartly: Lunar base Alpha and Zeta.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Are you guys sure this isn't just
Leon Lionheartly: Sorry.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): this isn't just really really good viral marketing for Steven Spielberg's Disclosure Day? Are we sure are they actually launched?
neocharge: oh dude, i saw I saw that trailer for project or before Project Hail Mary.
Leon Lionheartly: Well done.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yes.
neocharge: that That looks amazing. It comes out in July or June, one of the J months, right?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, summer summertime. some Yeah, I'm not sure.
neocharge: Yeah, I'm very interested. I think I'm going to see that in theaters on launch weekend for sure.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): For sure.
neocharge: That looks cool. That looks cool.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): For sure.
neocharge: So if you're interested in like sci-fi, alien based movies, go check out the trailer for Disclosure Day and go watch ah Project Hail Mary because holy shit, I've seen it twice and watching it a second time was even better.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Indeed.
neocharge: but Yeah, we are on our way to the moon. That was cool to watch the launch happen like two or three hours ago. ah Other than that, I made a revelation. i shared it with you, Bob.
neocharge: ah Caleb, you don't drink coffee. I've started to put butter in my coffee.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): do not.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Really?
neocharge: And... It's a game changer. Yeah. You want good butter. You want like Kerrygold or fucking Vital Farms, like the good kind that's not caught with a lot. If you can even get like ghee, make sure it's salted and put like a slice in there. Not only is it ah is it a pseudo creamer, but it adds a little bit of ah salt to your coffee, which salt is a flavor enhancer.
neocharge: So it enhances the flavor of your coffee.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Sure.
Leon Lionheartly: Yep. It also mellows the tannins in there. So it actually reduces the bitterness on a coffee.
neocharge: Yes. Yep. So butter and coffee.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'll have to try that when I make leases. I'll try
neocharge: I literally ran out of creamer. Oh yeah, you should try it out. I ran out of creamer, ran out of milk and roommates didn't have any. Cause sometimes I'll steal some of theirs, but, uh, and I was like, well, fuck, like I drink pour over, which is already really rich and, uh, very concentrated and it's light roast. So it's very like, I got to cut it with something. I usually cut it with some almond milk and some honey, but I didn't have any of that. And I was like,
neocharge: what the fuck can I use? Like, and I was like, Hmm, butter has cream in it. Fuck it. Why not? And I was like, Holy shit. What have I done? So was just on a whim.
Leon Lionheartly: Hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So it are you when you slice, is it is it almost ah similar to how much you would slice for a piece of bread?
neocharge: Try it out. What?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): The amount of butter, like how how thick the butter is or more than that?
neocharge: More.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay.
neocharge: More. Yeah. Probably like, uh, for bread, you probably want like a little so sliver, right?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): you Well, i don't I actually don't butter my toast either because I'm weird and I like dry toast.
neocharge: and Oh, gotcha.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So I would just look.
neocharge: What the fuck?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Well, usually when I have toast, it's with eggs, you know eggs over easy or whatever.
neocharge: Oh, yeah, so you use the eggs.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So yeah, that's typically what I do.
neocharge: Yep. Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And it's nothing against butter. i you know The wife is a baker. She uses a fuckload of butter and really good treats. So I'm not against that. I just don't need it.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So why add to it if I don't need it? But i will I will try this for her coffees that I make for her because haven't thought about
neocharge: Sure.
neocharge: Do it, yeah. It's like maybe quarter inch.
Leon Lionheartly: Maybe a quarter inch at most.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay.
Leon Lionheartly: At most. so and and ah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Quarter-inch slice of butter.
Leon Lionheartly: And that's for a standard like eight ounce a eight or ten ounce mug um worth.
neocharge: Yeah, a cup of coffee, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): The hardest part is going to be the salted because we have a ah shit ton of unsalted butter here as the baker.
neocharge: Hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: i can tell
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So
Leon Lionheartly: I could tell you I did it with unsalted because that's all I have in the household because I'm a cook, not a baker.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah, sure.
Leon Lionheartly: um and And then that can throw things off. ah So it actually just makes it smooth.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Definitely.
Leon Lionheartly: It really reduces the bitterness.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Ooh.
Leon Lionheartly: It does the same effect. So I can only imagine it's probably enhanced when you add salt. And welcome to Shapes of Cooking, everybody.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Shapes of cooking, chns of shapes of butter.
neocharge: Shapes of coffee.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: yeah No, I wanted to share that because it's like no one... i I went online and it's not too popular. I mean, people were talking about it, but I'm like, why? This is amazing.
neocharge: People should do this more often. So I have a bit of a platform, so I wanted to share it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's a good life hack.
neocharge: So yeah, a little bit of a life hack.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Much appreciated.
neocharge: Yeah, and it's a cheap creamer. Dude, most of the creamers out there, especially like 90% of them are bullshit. Made with paint thinner, all kinds of junk and nonsense. Super high in sugar.
neocharge: ah i don't like them.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): that's what I actually use paint thinner for Lisa's coffee.
neocharge: So I usually just... Nice.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's what I use right now.
Leon Lionheartly: Damn.
neocharge: Excellent.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): it's just
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It adds a little bit of bitterness.
neocharge: Helps her poop.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It does.
neocharge: ah ah But yeah, ah other than that, life's been good. Trying to get up to the slopes, but not a lot of snow up there. So unfortunately, I don't know if I'm going to make it up before next season.
neocharge: This season might be over.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Damn.
neocharge: So bummer.
Leon Lionheartly: damn
neocharge: Yeah, but we'll see.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Bummer, man.
neocharge: We'll see.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): More time for games.
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): but That's the good news.
neocharge: Indeed. all dude i've been diving into an an incredible jrpg on the heels of another incredible jrpg i'm just in it and i might play another jrpg if i can squeeze it in before brock mana probably not we'll see i'm in a crazy jrpg mode uh mood that i can't wait talk all about but before we get into what we're playing let's talk about the news or housekeeping and state of the draft which one do we want to do first
Leon Lionheartly: yeah I think the script stated a draft, but I don't care. I'm i'm happy to talk.
neocharge: Yeah, it's technically housekeeping. Yeah. So ah clearly you're not going to find us at shapesofpooping.org. where Where are people going to...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): No, it's shapesofpoopy.org backslash bidet Or forward slash bidet Duh, whatever
neocharge: Although, i wonder...
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: Backslash today. Yes.
Leon Lionheartly: i I respect your guys' memory because I totally forgot what I had said.
neocharge: Yes.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: You laughed at the joke and you're like, oh, that was funny. but Like, ah Bob, you said it. Like, oh, that's funny.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): really funny for whoever came up with that joke It was me Yep
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: i just
neocharge: then
Leon Lionheartly: I can't wait to have dementia, man. going to be able to play all games again, and they're go to feel like brand new, and I'll hear the same joke over and over again, and it'll still be funny.
neocharge: Dude.
neocharge: I already don't like wearing pants, so I can't wait.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I don't know.
neocharge: Yes, I got you while you were drinking. I don't like wearing pants already, so I can't wait to not wear pants and have an excuse. Just walk around pantsless. It'll be like, ah Mr. Stenson, you don't have pants on. And you look at me like, huh.
neocharge: What?
Leon Lionheartly: Neither did Leon S. Kennedy.
neocharge: ah do Did you know Charmander is the not ah the seventh Pokemon?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Man, I know you guys are kidding, but that shit scares the hell out of me. If i'm if I could just be real with you, that is terrifying to me.
neocharge: it It does. Same here. Same here.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i can't. I just, I don't know.
neocharge: I know.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I feel like, would I still be myself? Like that kind of existential shit, that drives me crazy.
neocharge: Dude, I'm right there with you.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But that's a benefit though.
Leon Lionheartly: I... I...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): that's that's a That's a perk. If you're looking at the silver lining, for sure.
Leon Lionheartly: Well... Yeah, well, it's like I've always told, I've told my wife, I've told Crystal for, her you know, we've been married almost 20 years now. I say, if I get to the point where I get dementia or I can't take care of myself functionally, just send me a my memory away.
Leon Lionheartly: I'll be happy. yeah I'll probably be happy and not know what's happening because I'm not having you take care of me for whatever, 10, 15 years at the end of my life as I'm going, hey, did you know Charmander's the seventh Pokemon in the Pokédex?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You do realize whenever this happens to all of us, this fact right here is going to be the only thing that we all remember consistently. Even me, be like, did you know that Charm Man, why do I know that?
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, this is why.
neocharge: it
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Right now.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): This is a cold memory that will be recalled at the end of our lives.
neocharge: e
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: It's funny because technically he's number four. But, Schemantix.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I wondered.
neocharge: Yeah, he's number four. Squirtle's number seven.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So who's one?
neocharge: Bulbasaur's number one.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Is it Bulbasaur?
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Bulbasaur.
Leon Lionheartly: Bulbasaur.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): My guy.
neocharge: Yeah. Dude, what?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): that's That's mine. that's That was my pick in the originals.
neocharge: like Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Nice. Oh, yeah. Charmander was mine. Did you?
Leon Lionheartly: Whoa.
neocharge: sort there What?
Leon Lionheartly: I was Squirtle.
neocharge: Oh, who are you? Oh, we have a full fucking starter team here.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): We were all three?
neocharge: Hell yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: It's amazing. I literally have.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Not to completely derail. It's because everybody wanted the dragon. Everybody else liked the... exploding turtle thing. I mean, that was what we thought it was when we were eight years old or whatever.
neocharge: Yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And I thought, what is this little fat cutie? That really was why I picked Bulbasaur. Plus when he yelled, Bulbasaur, I loved it.
neocharge: Yep. Bobasar!
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's all I needed. Yeah.
neocharge: Hell yeah. ah Did you know there's a small place in our brains if you played Pokemon? There's science behind it. When you were little, it imprints. like The Pokemon knowledge imprints on a specific space in your brain that is only there for that. There's science behind it. I read an article on it. It has to do with the size of the screen, how close it is to your face, and the age you played it on.
neocharge: But I was wondering, like why the fuck can i do I sometimes forget what I ate for dinner last night, but I can recite all 151 Pokemon? like And there I guess there's a science to it.
neocharge: So, yeah, that shit terrifies me too. But you know what? it's You got you got a joke about what terrifies you.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You do. You do. And silver linings. Really. i mean, that life's going to happen whether we like it or not. So might as well make the best of it, right?
neocharge: Yeah. Exactly.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I didn't mean to bring us down.
neocharge: No.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): just, I just, just that's that shit makes me so sad.
neocharge: now going to be old and I'm going to sit on one of those hot nurses lap and be like, Oh, I'm sorry, honey.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I remember when you were my age. What?
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Nevermind.
neocharge: Did you know Charmander's the fourth Pokemon and one original? Okay. Where can people find us? Okay.
Leon Lionheartly: We go right into that browser. Man, you got me this week. a Good job. ah Go into that browser. You'll type in shapesofgaming.com. That'll bring you to our little landing page where you'll find all the ah links to listen to us ramble on about bidets and Pokemon um and getting old and all the other antics we've got. We recently had a spoiler cast for Resident Evil Requiem. ah Almost five hours, I want to say. Yeah.
neocharge: it yeah four Four hours, 45 minutes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Sorry.
neocharge: It's got got some good views.
Leon Lionheartly: but Yeah, yeah.
neocharge: Or listens, I guess.
Leon Lionheartly: listen Listens in this case.
neocharge: listens
Leon Lionheartly: But yeah, ah go you can go check it out there.
neocharge: ye
Leon Lionheartly: You'll find the links to all our all of our socials. um So we're out there posting, doing what we got i can. We got a Discord. Come along. Say hi. I'm mean usually in there damn near every day, all day ah in some capacity.
Leon Lionheartly: So is Matt. So is rest of the community. So come check us out once again at shapesagaming.com.
neocharge: Excellent. Yeah, we have fun. We're all on there. And yeah, just a cool place to come out, come in, hang out with your friends. And we have channels for everything. If you love the podcast, subscribe. It's free.
neocharge: We don't ask you for any money. Everything's already so fucking expensive out there. This is free entertainment for your ear holes. So enjoy. so yeah, that's ah that's where you can find us. Now, let's get in into State of the Draft. but but
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): State of the draft.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Nice. All right.
neocharge: Thank you.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So ah when you last heard where we last left it, it would have been the very beginning of March. And now it is literally the very beginning of April. So we're going to cover what all happened in March.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm not really going to go in any specific order, ah just game releases that had that had happened in the month of March and how they scored, if they scored at all. So to kick things off, I'm I know we talked about it a little bit on the last episode, but it wasn't official.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Marathon. Marathon finally got a score. ah And I'm just going to interject very briefly here as a person who has not played Marathon but has watched plenty of it. I am super bummed that it was scored the way it was as early as it was.
neocharge: Mm-hmm. Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Luckily, though, for, well, Mason, who had drafted it, but also the actual fans of Marathon who been playing it. I know he's been playing it. Bo's been playing it. Bob's been playing it. They love it. It's great game.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): The score has been creeping up, which is great. So this number could change yet again over the next few weeks, but I do think it's relatively settled. Marathon released March 5th and it is now sitting at an 81, which is, that's wonderful.
neocharge: 74, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Can you guys recall when it first came, wasn't it like a 76 or something like that?
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: I want to say it was like a... Yeah, it dropped 74, think, at one point.
neocharge: seventy four yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay. Which was surprising for a bungee shooter, even though it's an extraction shooter. And some of the reviews... that were legitimate were you had legitimate complaints and stuff still didn't get that low i i just i don't know what the hell's wrong with people this year it's it's kind of nuts so uh anyway marathon came out congrats to those of you that love it and mason you got 11 points from that so that's fantastic uh and real quick do you guys want me to cover the games that are either out today or tomorrow that have scores or do you want keep that for next month
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Just because while I'm on Mason, he's got one that has a score that's dropping tomorrow. Okay.
neocharge: Yeah, yeah, let's go over that.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, yeah. Follow your heart.
neocharge: If it's dropping tomorrow, it's in April, technically, right?
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, go ahead.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): All right, cool. Well, yeah, it's not a March release, so I figured. But okay, so the other release that Mason has that's coming out tomorrow is Darwin's Paradox. For people who might might not remember, this was covered in the Konami section of the PlayStation third party ah blah, blah, blah.
neocharge: Mm-mm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I don't remember exactly what was.
neocharge: way to play.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, State of Play. just the State of pooping. PlayStation State of pooping.
neocharge: Stay pooping.
Leon Lionheartly: a
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): um But Darwin's paradox poop is always funny.
neocharge: Poop is funny.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Darwin's paradox is sitting right now at a 77, which is a little lower than I bet people were expecting, but it is a game about a kooky octopus. So if that score stays the same, he'll be netting seven points tomorrow, which is fantastic.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Uh, we do shoot for the double digits. So kind of a bummer on that again, Mason. I feel like the fantasy critic gods are shitting all over Mason this year. And that, that is a bit of a bummer for him.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I do feel bad, but that's what happens when you don't tell me about ah early access.
neocharge: Yeah. Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So.
neocharge: You feel the wrath of Caleb.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I feel for you, buddy.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: It's called...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): that That sucks. The other one that's a bit of a bummer, because this was another release that happened March 10th, also for Mason, was the Ghost of Yotei Legends release. The multiplayer, the co-op a multiplayer experience.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And it doesn't have a score right now because there aren't enough reviews yet. And I don't know what's going to happen with that because it's...
neocharge: know
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I mean, it's been three weeks, so that's a weird one. I actually haven't looked. I don't know if the open critic page even exists for it, but whatever. So he's sitting at a nothing for that right now. Hopefully that gets resolved so you get some more points.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah
neocharge: The open critic page does exist and it has six critic reviews, but not enough to have a score.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): What's it looking like since you have it open right now?
neocharge: 8 out 10, 86 out of 100, 8.5 out of 10, and 8 out of 10. If it doesn't have a score, I'll pretty much do the same thing like we're doing in Slay the Spire, take an average out of those and give them the points.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Just... Yeah.
neocharge: So, I mean, it sounds like he'll probably 84.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. 83 right now.
neocharge: Yeah. We got you.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So, so if you're listening to this Mason, don't fret. We got you, buddy. Even though you're a competitor, we got you.
neocharge: got you fifteen
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah Next up, we've got Boblin Goblin. He had, he had a couple releases in March.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): He's, he's ah flying pretty high right now with all of his, his slam dunks minus one. We'll get to that.
neocharge: Recent one hurt.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah Yeah, it did, which which, you know, it happens.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: Yeah, you're sitting pretty.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): We've all we've all had that that one little guy. I am a little surprised that that's as low as it is, but but we'll get to that in a minute.
neocharge: Yep. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So in no particular order, I'm going to try to go in the order they released, but Monster Hunter Stories 3, Twisted Reflection came out and got a pretty 86. So Bob got 16 points for that, which is a very good pickup.
neocharge: Solid.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Didn't cost you that much. You you were able to pick that up at at a relatively cheap price, which is fantastic for you. um I'm saving the the big boy for last on purpose.
Leon Lionheartly: fair Fair enough.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So yeah so ah next up, we have the bullshit that Bob pulled off with the director's cut ah that Matt and I have bitched about multiple occasions on this cast.
Leon Lionheartly: Okay.
neocharge: you
neocharge: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Super Mario Brothers Wonder for the Switch 2 plus Meetup and Bella Bell Park. They constituted it as a director's cut, even though we all know it's just a fucking re-release.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But Bob was able to get another 16 points for that.
neocharge: Bullshit. Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It an 86. So good on you. Like you said before, if if the... day or what What is that you say? If the... if the Danger sign is up. It isn't up and it's not you. You're not doing something right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): don't remember that joke, but you get the point. It's the reason that we have these fucking warning signs and these rules.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And then the last one of the month was super meat boy 3d. This is one that hurts you a little bit. This only released at 73. So we only got three points for this guy. And I think yesterday it was 74.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Cause when I, when I looked earlier, I thought, how did he drop below his total score of 70 points?
Leon Lionheartly: ah yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And oops,
Leon Lionheartly: It launched at like 79 and I was like, oh, that hurts. And then I saw it plummet and I went, oh that hurts even more.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): no so it's settled the wrong so but uh but the one that i've been saving for last uh because on the last state of the draft this was coming out two days later or one day later and it was pokemon pacoopia at the time it was sitting pretty in an 88 as i recall
Leon Lionheartly: Don't like that.
neocharge: Oh. Yeah.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): as i recall Which is awesome. Good for you. i do you remember what you paid for ah Pokemon Pocopia?
Leon Lionheartly: but Dollar.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. One buck. One dollar. And it is finally settled.
neocharge: Incredible ROI.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): At a 90. Bob Zabel, it actually got just higher than Resident Evil Requiem, and no disrespect to the Pocopia or the the points, not just because Resident Evil is the one I drafted.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I do find that fucking insane that it has a higher score than Pocopia, but I know they're very different genres, very different games for for different people, and and I've heard nothing but amazing things about this game.
neocharge: I do too. I do too.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So if you like those types of games... and you're a person who really needs to focus on score, it seems like critics and audiences love this. So just, uh, or can consumers love and gamers love it. So 90 points or 90 score, 20 points.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Great. Get on that guy, Bob. That's, that's awesome. Uh, next up, let's see, we've only got one release for Matt and that is Crimson desert, which I can talk about a little bit later as far as the game mechanics go.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But the good news is when this came out, it was a lower score.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): <unk> So it's now a higher score, which is great for you. The bad news is the game is kind of all over the place when it comes to reviewers.
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And this is one that I actually kind of agree with just because it's a love it or hate it. It really is. a You give it enough time, you're going to love it, but you shouldn't have to give it 10 hours just to start having fun.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): that's That's kind of nuts. But so Crimson Desert right now has settled at an 80.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So Matt scored 10 points for that. I know he was little bummed because it was sitting at about a 77, 78 score. and those single digit points really hurt. He at least got up to double digits.
neocharge: No hurt.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But yeah.
neocharge: I'm happy with it. i I at least want to hit double digits. The the consistent double digits is what you win what wins you drafts. so
Leon Lionheartly: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
neocharge: I'm happy it's double digits. Barely.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah But bob's Bob's super meat boy only getting three points while it sucks. His other games have performed admirably, so he's still higher than that average, which is great ah for him.
neocharge: Yes. Still sitting pretty.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But that was the only thing that dropped for Matt this month, or last month, excuse me. For me, this is kind of weird because as we talked about ad nauseum, not knowing the rules, ah which is, yeah it's a mess, but it's okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Slay the Spire 2, hit early early access, and so did Solasta 2 for me in the month of March. Those currently do not have scores because of the way early access is is handled.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And oopsie daisy, whatever, it happens. So what we decided to do ah because of the kerfuffle from the initial draft and onward, and this year only, this is not going to happen in the years to come.
neocharge: Thank you.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): They have agreed to give me the aggregate score based on actual early access reviews. The problem is I'm not going to make them updated every day. That's stupid. So I was going to give it a month, maybe a month and a half to let those early access scores settle.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I can tell you right now from the four early access scores of the Slay the Spire game, it would be about an 84. I think that might've changed if there's two or three more reviews out there, but I haven't looked because I'm It's fine.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): We have until the end of the year. No problem. So last two, I have no idea when I drafted that I fully expected it to get like 71. That was just a let's reach and see what happens.
neocharge: Nothing.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And then the early access thing happened, which kind of threw a wrench in that plan. so oops. So my score hasn't changed this month officially because both of those are reading it. Nothing, but that'll change. And lastly, but not leastly your grandpa's favorite Gooner gacha game.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Rito Supreme has still had zero releases because he had his March release delayed into April, but he's finally, finally, finally barring some crazy shit with mouse PI finally going to have a release this month.
neocharge: nothing
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So hopefully he gets on the board finally,
neocharge: Yep. Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): For him, I'm hoping that it does well and for gamers because the game looks cool. So quick score update total. ah Moving forward with that, I'll go last to first. Right now, I am in last with 30. Sorry, I'm in second place.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I was reading the wrong thing. Burrito Supreme is in last because he has no points. ah Fourth place is Mason with 16.81 points. Matt is in third place with 22.91 points.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I am in second place with 35.4 points. And Bob is in first place with 69.88 points. ah
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Bob has had five releases. I have technically only had two and then the other two that we'll add later. So I guess technically four. ah Matt has only had two releases. Mason has had four releases. He's Like I said, the fantasy gods are shitting on him this this year. And then Bo has had zero releases.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So, you know, it's still anybody's game early. It's early on. but But I do think Bob and Bo are the two to beat with their ah theirre lineups. it's it's They're pretty strong. Very, very strong.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But you never know. So the other thing we're going to talk about, and then we're going to go move on from this nonsense, are the upcoming releases. already talked about Mason's that releases tomorrow, so we'll skip Darwin's Paradox.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): The very next release is one that I'm very excited for coming out April 14th is Replaced. And I actually do have that drafted. So I'm hoping the game is going to be good. The trailers all look fantastic.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm really excited for it.
neocharge: I'm excited. yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So we'll see how that does. And then shortly thereafter is Bo's final, finally his first release of Mouse PI for Hire. That is April sixteenth And then Bob gets has the Pragmata draft, and we're all getting Pragmata because that game is going to be fucking excellent.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That comes out April 17th because they pushed it back and then they pushed it up, probably to get out of the way of Saros.
neocharge: Hell yeah it is.
neocharge: Right?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And I don't even know what else. It doesn't really matter because there's so much shit coming out this month.
neocharge: Well now Hades 2.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, Hades 2 is another one. That's not on here because we can't draft it, but we are all buying it.
neocharge: Nope.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): We are all getting that game, that game if you haven't gotten it already on PC or Switch 2.
neocharge: Yep.
neocharge: Day one!
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): a Day one! Day poop. ah Next up is another of Bob's releases, Saint Slayer, Spear of Sacrilege.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Bob, do you want to give people a brief overview of what this game is? Because it's not one of the big boys.
neocharge: Please, yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): No offense, it's not one of the big boys hitting in April, but you know that. So real quick, what what is it?
Leon Lionheartly: All right. So ah the reason I'm going to... I'll get into that, but I just want to say the reason I picked this up, because you guys are going to be like, what? um I heard about it through another podcaster I listened to. He co-owns a studio, and they release games occasionally. And I see this one...
Leon Lionheartly: And quite frankly, I'm a believer. This is the one for me. This is a 8-bit 2D side-scrolling action ah platformer. So ah it's got a lot of heavy emphasis on...
Leon Lionheartly: yeah Castlevania, particularly Castlevania 2, for those of you that don't know.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Excellent.
Leon Lionheartly: um I see a little bit of Super Ghouls and Ghosts in there, or Ghouls and Ghosts because it's the and NES era.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Sure.
Leon Lionheartly: um But ah this is a very small game. You're absolutely right, Caleb. a Small indie project, but this one, if you like that era... of the Ninja Gaiden, the Castlevanias, the Ghouls and Ghosts, that nature, go look into this.
Leon Lionheartly: It's going to be available, i think, the 20th of April, and it's going to cost $10 digitally.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: So absolutely go check this out.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. And once more, the game is called Saint Slayer Spear of Sacrilege. it I only watched or I only looked at a little artwork after Bob had drafted this because I usually know a fair amount of of releases that are coming out.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I had never, ever heard of this. So, of course, when you picked it was like, what the hell is this? And I looked it up. The artwork looks cool. It's right up my alley being an old school gamer. And again, I'm hoping for you, man.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): um I'm really hoping for you. ah
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): After that.
neocharge: It's a game made by a gamer.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, sorry. Go ahead.
neocharge: It's a game made by a game-ass gamer.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yes.
neocharge: Like, call Moriarty. He knows what's up.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: So, and he I think in he's a huge fan of Castlevania, and he really cares about the quality and content of his game. So, I'm excited for it, too.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, no, we're all going to pick. I mean, the only reason I'm not going to pick it up day one is because there's 407 games coming out in April.
neocharge: Great.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And I have a billion things to do in April on top of that, which will really eat into my game time, which makes for Grumpy Caleb.
neocharge: Uh-huh.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Well, unfortunately, I have to buy the the next game that that's on that scheduled release that you have because that's a day one purchase for me as well.
neocharge: Right.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yes. And that would be vampire crawlers, which looks awesome.
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Comes out April 21st. That is on my draft. Bob is mad at me because it was on my draft. He thought he could get it later in the draft. And I, he stole my fucking trails in the sky.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So I got vampire crawlers.
Leon Lionheartly: but
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah But yeah, it looks good. Matt, did you play the first one vampire survivors? Did you, was it not your thing?
neocharge: i I played it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay.
neocharge: i played it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay.
neocharge: ah Actually, Mason, when he was visiting the Springs, came over and he's like, dude, you got to play this. It's co-op. And I'm like, all right, I'm down. Let's grab a beer. And we played it for a bit. It is fun.
neocharge: it's It is a dangerous game for me.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It is. It is a dangerous game.
neocharge: It's very, yes, very addictive, just like Bellatro. I could sink hundreds of hours into this game, and I quite frankly don't want to, but I enjoyed my time with it, and it's very, very fun.
neocharge: Very mindless.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, it's an it's an awesome time.
neocharge: so Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I played it on on Steam ah back way back whenever the hell it came out.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And it's very similarly where I thought, man, i can't. It's awesome, but I just fucking can't.
neocharge: Right. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And then I stupidly picked up Crimson Desert, which is just a big version of that.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): for The fucking time sink shit, a million things to do. But no, it looks great. i Obviously, I'm hoping for me that it scores well, but for people who are going to to buy it and play it, I hope it's awesome. It it looks great.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): The first game was great. Sequel should be great. So here we Yeah.
neocharge: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah And then three days after that, another one of mine, Diablo 4, Lord of Hatred. I am i am a Diablo fan through and through. i fucking love Diablo.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Another one of those games that's just infinite time. Why is it all hitting at the same time? But I'm going to be playing gonna be playing with a good friend of mine, and that's that's the best way to play Diablo games, in my opinion.
neocharge: April's fucked. in
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So I'm really excited for this expansion.
neocharge: Very cool.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Warlock class, Paladin class, fuck yeah, those are being added to the game. So yes.
neocharge: noise
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): um And then a week after that, or just under a week after that, that Mason drafted, but we are all going to fucking get is Saros.
Leon Lionheartly: I
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And that releases April 30th. That is PlayStation exclusive. I don't know that it's coming to PC based on the recent news where they're kind of nixing their PC releases. i
neocharge: It isn't. Well, I mean, it not on launch.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): as far as we know yeah not on launch which is normal but who knows so if you have a ps5 if you have a ps5 pro and you want to play sorrows pick it up that game's going to be another potential game of the year i think nominee that it it looks awesome we've got like i said so many fucking releases in april uh and then and that would be it uh at least as far as now that we can draft so uh anything else you made to cover on the draft i i feel like
neocharge: Right.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, pickups.
Leon Lionheartly: pickups.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): we Yeah, and that that shouldn't take very long. Real quick.
neocharge: Nah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah All right. In March, you dropped Pokemon Winds and Waves because that's coming out next year. ah March 14th, you picked up Pokemon Champions.
neocharge: Yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And... Oh, no, you dropped, sorry, dropped Pokemon Champions. and Can I ask you why?
neocharge: Yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I wondered if you just thought it looked bad.
neocharge: Yeah, it was like a mad ass game because I'm a huge fan of Stadium Colosseum. Like I'm a big fan of Pokemon and like an arena based battle game is right up my alley.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: But then I found out it's also on mobile.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: They are prioritizing mobile and it has a subscription service specifically for the game.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay. That, that makes a lot of sense then. I mean, I, cause I was, it looked good to me. It looked exciting for, for being a person who at least knows a lot about Pokemon.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I don't play all of them, but I do. It's a great game series. ah So I was surprised cause I know that you fucking love Pokemon.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And I thought, haven't people been asking for a Coliseum light game since the last one?
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i don't even, it was that 20 some years ago? I honestly have no idea.
neocharge: Coliseum?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah know okay Okay.
neocharge: It was on the GameCube, 2004. Yeah. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. So years ago, that's,
neocharge: yes yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): fucking crazy. So I kind of figured, but that makes sense why you dropped it. And, you know, good.
neocharge: Yeah, it's just, it it was a mad-ass game. I was excited for it, but now I not only am not really excited for it, but I think it's going to score poorly because of the subscription service, and it's essentially a free-to-play now.
neocharge: So...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah Okay.
Leon Lionheartly: So what i'm what i'm what I'm hearing is you should have just drafted Pocopia.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Dude.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): mean, he thinks he should have, we all think of all the people i thought Matt would have, but
neocharge: a
Leon Lionheartly: you
neocharge: du
Leon Lionheartly: yeah yeah You know what? Win or lose this draft, i am so happy with the way that rolled out because Matt Tarr, was like, that's not going to score well.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah
Leon Lionheartly: It ain't get to fucking happen.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: And then now it's the best game of the year so far.
neocharge: I lost a six-pack on it, not only, but i yeah I hedged my bet on Winds and Waves and the Black and White remake, which none of them this year.
neocharge: And then Pocopia just but scored incredibly well.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oops Yeah Well it kind of came out of nowhere And that's that's actually one of the things That I really like about the gaming industry Is when that can happen
neocharge: And um I ate my words, and I bought you a six-pack.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): mean, Pokemon is obviously an established IP, so not as good as a, like a clear obscure situation that came out of fucking nowhere, but still it that's amazing that that can happen.
neocharge: Right.
neocharge: yeah
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Uh, and whether we all, you know, four of us have to lose this draft.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So, uh, whoever loses, it's just, it's cool that we all get to see the, the games that, that sing.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Um,
neocharge: And I'm so glad it scored well for Pokemon and you, Bob. I'm super happy for you.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah, yeah, it's, it's great. Even though it costs Matt a six pack, uh,
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. That's okay.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: it cost me $500, $600 because I had to buy a Switch 2 for the wife and a copy of the game.
neocharge: ah
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, so you deserve those 20 points. Are you saying that this fantasy critic is pay to win?
Leon Lionheartly: ah
neocharge: indeed
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): He's currently winning this.
Leon Lionheartly: ah know No, but it it could be because it was a...
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, I i knew what it was and i was like, eh, it might not score well. I might lose this bet. And then I saw the score drop and initially hit 88 and I immediately knew I was going to have to go get it for the wife.
Leon Lionheartly: like That was the telltale of crap.
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): All right.
neocharge: I'd be into it. I'm just not into Animal Crossing. I'm into Pokemon. I'm just not into Animal Crossing. And it's in Minecraft. I'm not into either of those. And it's basically a Pokemon IP that plays like Animal Crossing in Minecraft.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Right.
neocharge: And it's just not my thing. i'm I'm glad everyone loves it. And I hope it does well. But it is doing well. And I'm super happy to see it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): If I loved Pokemon and Stardew Valley, I would absolutely buy this game. but Just, I just like unquestionably, but I, again, we just talked about the 6,000 games that need to happen.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So that's no time for Pocopia.
neocharge: ah Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Bo ended up picking up the same time you dropped Pokemon champions. He picked up a game called blighted. ah Do you, either of you want to talk about this game? It's, it doesn't have a set release date this year comes out in the fall.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah It, I think it's same thing when Bob picked up St.
neocharge: with
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Slayer, I looked up some things about Blighted. I had heard the title before, but I didn't know anything about it. The artwork looks awesome. It it really looks like it's going to be a at least a beautiful game, but I don't know much more about it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I don't know the developer offhand. Neither you.
neocharge: Neither do I. It slips my mind what this even is.
Leon Lionheartly: So it's a Metroidvania battle through a psychedelic Western nightmare and it's a Metroidvania action RPG from the creators of Guacamelee and Nobody Saves the World.
neocharge: You have my attention.
Leon Lionheartly: It's from Drinkbox, gentlemen.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, yeah. Okay. So that game is going to be fucking great, by the way.
Leon Lionheartly: That game's going to fucking...
neocharge: You have my attention.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, that game's going to... Oh, dude, the art style looks like ah a more cartoonish version of Hades.
neocharge: Oh, interesting.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, that's that's all I saw.
neocharge: Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I didn't read anything else about it, but I thought based on the art style alone, another really, really good pickup by Bo. The only thing he has to worry about is if it actually releases this year. Honestly, I think i think it's going to be a hit.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I just don't know. I need to see a little bit more gameplay or and any gameplay. actually haven't seen any gameplay that I know. but So that was his pickup.
neocharge: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And then we're going to get, this is the this is the meat of ah the month of March with pickups. So I'm just going step ahead and and get the people who ah got it and just ignore the rest of the shit.
neocharge: Meaty March. Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I ended up bidding bitting on and getting The Eternal Life of Goldman.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So when this was unveiled a few years ago, I thought it looked really cool.
Leon Lionheartly: ah
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I did. I i was a little on the fence about what the gameplay would be I wasn't really sure, but I loved the art style. It was quirky enough. You're for, for people who don't know you're an old dude with a cane. It reminded me a little bit of the DuckTales game on the n NES with Chris Scrooge and his, and his cane.
neocharge: Yeah. help
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And, and there's more that you can do with Goldman's cane. I am intentionally not looking into it too much because i this was one of those. Soon as I saw it, the second time i i knew I was going to get it whenever it releases.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): There is a chance it still doesn't come out this year, but I do know there's a demo. It's either out now or it will be out within a week. I can't remember the date. I think it looks great. So I was pretty proud that I was surprised nobody else bid on it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Honestly, i I paid four bucks for it, but I could have done one, but whatever. What are you going
Leon Lionheartly: yeah I'll put it to you like this.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: I almost did, Caleb. I was really on the fence, but then I looked at my current lineup and I'm like, I can't sacrifice until the summer game fest and see what what the rest of the draft looks like.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: ah But yeah, that game, as soon as he shoved that cane in that like monster's face and pulled it out and it was just all bloody, I was like, I'm sold on this game suddenly.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Sure.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i
neocharge: We talked about it last episode, and i was I was just busy focusing on getting the other two that I got.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Sure. Yeah. Which is coming up next. um And this is one that, uh,
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm not going to give away my game plan ah because you know we're in the middle of the year, even though, even though like I said, i i i i didn't say it on the on the cast.
neocharge: Don't.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I said it to you guys that I'm kind of checked out because these fucking reviewers are all drinking their own pee.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's weird this year.
neocharge: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i kind of wish that we could all honor system rate stuff, it's just the five of us, and see, oh, hey, who won this year? Who had the best draft based on the games we played? But that's obviously not how it works.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I still think that'd be kind of a fun game.
neocharge: We totally could, but I mean, there will be a winner.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: But we could do that. like a oh who do you Who do we think won? So, maybe.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. they Just because you you know that even if I competitors, I'm going to rate the games that you guys pick up as fairly as possible because that's just the kind of person I am.
neocharge: Sure.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I like to be objective about stuff like that.
Leon Lionheartly: oo I have an idea, gentlemen.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: And all right.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: So next year, we can do it as a side if you want. You do the same thing. Everybody else in the draft, except for the person that got the release, provides a review of the game.
Leon Lionheartly: Here's the thing.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah i know what you're thinking. Well, then everybody's going to score your game low. But the shoe goes on the other foot. So that way, if you do that and you sandbag somebody, they're going to sandbag you.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah
neocharge: and
Leon Lionheartly: So you have the opportunity and potential for a little bit of sabotage.
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: But now we're also getting ah a spectrum of people that, well, don't quite frankly sniff their own farts because reviewers this year are smoking crack.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And plus, plus with counterpicks, if you are really getting something super low, whoever got the counterpick is going to get those points.
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: Uh-huh. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So I just feel like like for me, I don't need that rule. I would just be fair. I would just fucking be fair. That's but and I think that I think we would.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i think all of us would. i don't know about Mason. Just kidding.
neocharge: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm so sorry. you You've dealt with enough shit. Anyway, um so the next two big boys, potential big boys, let's say, there was a rumor, and I know I'm jumping ahead here but with maybe the news, but this goes hand in hand with the draft, so why not?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): There was a rumor. ah it Was it Nate the Hate, right? Was that correct?
Leon Lionheartly: yes
neocharge: Yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Very reputable leaker.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): who Yes. He's a very, very good leaker. I don't know how to... give him a modifier, but yeah, a good, a reliable enough leaker.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah And he pees a lot.
neocharge: He leaks a lot. he's He's very wet.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): He pees his pants a lot, ah which a little bit of, for people who don't know, it's in the trailer now.
neocharge: very big
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's, it's all over the news. Fox McCloud is in the Super Mario brothers movie. That's not a spoiler because Nintendo fucking said it on the poster, which makes me crazy, but they did.
neocharge: In the marketing, yes.
neocharge: Which...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): They shouldn't have, but because Fox McCloud is in it,
neocharge: God, that sucks.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): it was that that that actually holds a lot of weight to the part one of this rumor, which was there's going to be a Star Fox game coming out this summer. If that happens, I mean, going buy it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I mean, unless it's just really terrible, but I can't imagine. i can't imagine. I think it could be great. So that was one part of the leak. Part two was for the 40th anniversary of Zelda.
neocharge: Oh.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And this one, this one got me real prematurely excited. ah A full ass remake of the Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time.
neocharge: Ah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): which is a lot of people's favorites, arguably the best of all the Zelda games for a lot of people.
neocharge: of
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I would be all up on this shit. I feel like you guys would be all up on this shit. This is one of those that I am glad that I wouldn't have to score it because I'd probably give it a fucking Hondo if they do it justice.
neocharge: Dude. Zelda is my favorite IP of all time. And Ocarina of Time is my second favorite is Zelda game of all time. With Twilight Princess being my first because it follows a lot of what Ocarina of Time i originally did.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Plus Wolf.
neocharge: Ocarina of Time is is one of the great... Yes. the The Wolf and the Twilight and the Darker Story just kind of...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: I mean, they're neck and neck, right? But Ocarina of Time is all ah one of the greatest games ever made. And...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Nintendo has been ah rumored to be sitting on so many remakes just waiting to release them. So it does make sense for them to release this in the 40th year anniversary of Zelda.
neocharge: And if they do, my God, my God.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah know it's it's a brilliant It really is a brilliant move if if it's true. If it's not true, it's fucking stupid of them to not have done this. My only problem is I really wish it was the Oracle of Ages and Seasons first and then Ocarina of Time just because i that's a little bit more of a handheld situation for me.
neocharge: Right.
neocharge: Ah, yes. We'll get it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): um
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): but So both of those rumors came out and... Matt ended up with both of those games. ah He picked up both of those games for $16 a piece, which is pretty cheap, honestly, if they are true.
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): and The only two cents I'll throw in there is they are rumors, so we do not know. There is a ah obviously pretty big risk here that you've already had to drop your Pokemon ah for not releasing this year, and you only got two more of those if we have a delay, so that's that's a big question mark, but
neocharge: Yes.
neocharge: It is. Mm-hmm.
neocharge: Yep. I have to drop another one, too. I have to drop another one, too, because the rumor... Because the this announcement also came with we'll probably won't get a mainline 3D Mario title this year either.
Leon Lionheartly: Great.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Ah, yeah, right.
neocharge: So... I got to drop that. And it has an icon on it with the scales that ah I've never seen. But it means there are very credible reports this game has been delayed and therefore will not release this year.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, me either.
neocharge: The game is still counted as a will release game for drop purposes, but it cannot be counterpicked just like a will not release game cannot be counterpicked. So I think I have a window to drop this and it doesn't count as a super drop.
neocharge: So ah stay tuned for Saturday.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Correct. But the problem, I mean, and I'm not telling you what to do.
Leon Lionheartly: Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Obviously, it's your draft. Do what you want. It is still only April.
neocharge: Sure.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So that stuff like sucks for you because you drop it and then they do actually announce this.
neocharge: I know. know.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You'll be like, fuck, you have to bid with all of us to get it back.
neocharge: i know.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah Or you hold on to it and then Nintendo never tells you a goddamn thing, just like Metroid Prime 4 is direct. just You never know with Nintendo, so... Here we are. But again, as your friend and as a person who's a huge fan of both of these IPs, I fucking hope so.
neocharge: All right.
neocharge: Hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I do.
neocharge: Well...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i really do. I'll take last place if I can get a new Star Fox and an Ocarina of Time remake this year.
neocharge: wolf
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's fine. i
neocharge: Uh-huh.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I don't care.
neocharge: Well, my theory my theory still stands because I know that Nintendo will do synergy between the games and the movies, and I thought they were going to do synergy by doing the next 3D Mario game as Super Mario Galaxy 3.
neocharge: But because Fox McCloud is in Mario, they're setting up for a new Star Fox game this year.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: So that, my theory still makes sense, except it's just out of left field now. So...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You really, you want me to piss you off right now?
neocharge: ah Sure.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): What are you going to do if it's Super Mario Galaxy 3 featuring Fox McCloud? The game?
neocharge: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's just, what does the draft do in that case? Does the guy just go, none of these are correct?
neocharge: Hey, I didn't...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I don't fucking know what to do with this.
neocharge: yeah Well, i you know, with Fox in in ah the Mario movie, and I mean, I don't think this is going to be the first crossover, and I really think this might be the first movie in the MCU, the Nintendo Cinematic Universe, that is ah culminating to a Super Smash Bros.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: movie, which is fucking exciting.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I would... I I'm so glad that you thought of that as well. Cause all I could think of was, are we, we're not going to get a Kirby movie or are we all of these characters in a smash movie would be pretty great.
neocharge: Or are we?
neocharge: Right?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But so anyway, that's the state of the draft.
neocharge: Dude. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Unless there was anything else you guys wanted me to cover. i think, I think I spent a little bit more time on it than we intended.
neocharge: Nope.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm sorry. But there were a lot of game releases this year, or this month, and ah and i need we needed to glaze Bob a little bit because he's he's killing it.
neocharge: No worries.
neocharge: No worries.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): He is killing it the first half of 2026.
neocharge: and a ha Gotta glaze Gotta glaze them.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, I just got to keep that lead.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Glaze him just like...
neocharge: Yeah, April's so stacked.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah, so thank you, Caleb. I appreciate it. We appreciate it, and very well done. Love it. what do you say we get into the news?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Sounds good.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: i think I think that's everything for the draft. so
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, I think so. Until...
neocharge: and ah people can And people can follow it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): April is done.
neocharge: ah We have a channel specifically in our Discord that has the draft. And you can follow it real time. And ah yeah, it's public, so you can check it out.
neocharge: And it's a fun little thing we do. And it hasn't been fun with the review scores of the people smelling their own farts and just a review bombing games and shit.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: And it holds weight for some fucking reason. I don't know.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: But I know Super Meat Boy...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): and i We didn't... we didn't talk about this last time.
neocharge: go ahead.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm sorry that some of the reviews, or maybe we did, maybe we touched on it, have been confirmed to be AI, which is just fucking horseshit.
neocharge: Yeah. Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): When it, I mean, AI has done some crazy ass things lately, ah leaps and bounds, which is,
neocharge: I know.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): incredibly annoying and incredibly technically amazing, but it's still, come on.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's, that's just not cool.
neocharge: I know.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): it Oh, I gave this a four out of 10 because it's not identical to the games that other people scored high while feeding me this as an AI, like, fuck you for that.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So anyway, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I just forgot about the AI thing.
neocharge: No, no. It's good to talk about, and it's it's going to be more prominent for sure, and I hope they can you know wrangle that up and figure that out. So hopefully, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): me too. Yeah.
neocharge: What's in the news today, Bob, or this week, Bob? we got ah We got a big news item that we need to talk about. We'll save that one for last
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, I thought we had covered it it. Turns out we didn't. I checked my notes again. So we'll we'll we'll get there. But ah iting first things first.
neocharge: Yeah, it was it was announced on that Thursday, and we recorded that Wednesday. Right?
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, absolutely. That's what it was. That's right. See?
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: This whole...
neocharge: No, no. We recorded Thursday. It was announced Friday. For some reason, PlayStation announced it Friday. i don't know why, but whatever.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, they wanted to ruin everybody's weekend, but we'llll we'll get we'll get there in due time.
neocharge: Right?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: ah But thank you, Caleb.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: I knew the rumors for the Ocarina of Time, the leak from Nate the Hate was absolutely something people were going to want to talk about. So um I'm not going to cover it here. Thank you so much. yeah All I can say is I'm wearing my Nintendo 64 shirt.
Leon Lionheartly: um And Ocarina of Time is not only my favorite Zelda of all time, it is consistently at the top of the list of all time best game video game of all time. um When you look at Metacritic, OpenCritic, Game Informer, IGN, all of them.
Leon Lionheartly: um So, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): it was It was magic. It was magic when it came out.
neocharge: It's... Dude...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's it's one of the few that it was a magical game.
neocharge: It's a masterpiece. And we kind of got a remake-ster, I'd say, in between a remake and a remaster.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah
neocharge: Remake-ster. Yeah. Heard it first here on Shapes of Gaming. For the 3DS, I played that. And I mean, it it is kind of a remake, but I'm hoping like they, and I really, really hope they don't use the Breath of the Wild or Tears the Kingdom engine. Please don't. If you do, still play it. Day one. Whatever.
neocharge: But man, what if they go like realism on this? And like, Oh, I don't know.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So a real quick question for you guys about this, just because this is the last of that topic.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): um
neocharge: Sure.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Would you prefer a Final Fantasy remake slash rebirth slash refer off iteration? Or would you like them to basically have majority of it be the same game, but just prettier and smoother and more?
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): you know the fat but Not that they had long load times. It was an N64 game. But what would you prefer? Which one would you like? I was thinking about this when the rumors started because I do trust Nintendo loves their IP. They love their first-party IP. They do justice to these things. But I don't know which one I would prefer.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Do I want like a brand-new experience in the Ocarina of Time? Or do I want it to just be an even better experience that I already had because the original was so good? What do you guys think?
neocharge: right i'll go i'll go first i guess yeah uh stay true to the original and add that secret dungeon that they were talking to the light temple uh
Leon Lionheartly: Go ahead, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh yeah. That'd be pretty cool.
neocharge: Yeah, so stay true to the original, make it prettier, ah maybe change some things around, but really follow that formula. I don't know, man. Have you ever found Nintendo to really like make a remake on the scale and caliber of remake and rebirth of Final Fantasy VII for one of their titles?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): No, no, I don't think it will.
neocharge: I don't think that's going to happen. I think they're going to like I think it might... Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I just kind of wonder if I want that.
neocharge: So...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): if that's I mean, i'll I'll get it either way.
neocharge: Right. I don't.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I will get it either way.
neocharge: I don't think so Oh yeah, I'll be there day one, but I don't. Stay true to the original, add maybe some additional content and make it super pretty and super modern day graphics.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): What if you could play as Impa?
neocharge: Eh, that'd be cool, but it's just a deviation from the original.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But why? Yeah.
neocharge: Like, it why why ah fix something that ain't broke, right?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): agree.
neocharge: It's a masterpiece already. So, just make it prettier and better assets and better control, right? Better combat control. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You don't want that targeting?
neocharge: You can keep the C targeting, but maybe a better camera that it's not like, you know
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): sure Sure. All I hope is that it's it's every five steps is listen.
neocharge: so
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): the same Same sound and everything.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah. Oh, man. Dude, if they do this. oh
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It'll be voiced by jennifer by either Jennifer Hale or i was just trying to think who would be a really, really good voice for Navi.
neocharge: We got
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: Great. How about you, Bob? What do you think?
Leon Lionheartly: um You know what? Go a little bit different. um They're not available, so this is not happening, but it is my wish um that the ah wonder or not wonder i'm sorry Odyssey team and Bonanza team did this with their engine ah that they used for Odyssey and ah Bonanza because I think that would really so hit and keep true to the original formula, but include um in lost content, ah like you said.
Leon Lionheartly: the extra the extra dungeon ah include the master quest so like they did with the 3DS version ah include the master quest edition put in all of that in there um because there's there's some good stuff if you really want to go down a rabbit hole of like missing content and rumors and stuff go check out Ocarina of Time um and like you said magical people lost their fucking mind and insisting that you could like you could melt Zora's domain and stuff right
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I have one request for this game.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. Yep.
neocharge: What?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Delete the fucking water temple. Nobody likes it. Nobody likes it.
neocharge: Well, they added the added the the ah like quick swap for the um Iron Boots for...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: yep
neocharge: For the remake on the 3DS. So that made it a little more bearable.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That did help quite a bit.
neocharge: But yeah, that the Water Temple and is notoriously just fucking awful.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Oh, it does.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But for real, the game rules, like the original rules, the 3DS version rules. So I just figured I'd ask what you guys wanted because I was thinking about that right after the rumor and didn't have time to text chain it and get that the thoughts.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So I thought, why not here, right?
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Cool.
neocharge: There you go.
Leon Lionheartly: That's good.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: that's good
neocharge: Good conversation.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Well, I'm hoping we all love it.
neocharge: your Conversational podcast.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Oh, yeah. ah Well, I think we'll try and do a live reacts maybe for that direct because when they announce that direct, you know like there's a there might be a good chance we see that close the show.
neocharge: And I will cry and and be on the floor in a fetal position and be jumping up and down and screaming for joy. ah Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): How great would it be if they got Jeff Keighley to come out and be like, this game is going to take to so to just fucking fail.
neocharge: it That would be an amazing... This.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): like That would be the funniest shit. If he's like, I hate it.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I hate it. And then they just show Link holding up. like That be fantastic.
neocharge: I have a feeling Nintendo will do their specific specific specific event in the summer and it'll release this holiday season. i i I think that might be or they might fucking shadow drop this and Star Fox might be our holiday season game.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Who fucking knows?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You think they'd shadow drop a full-ass remake of Ocarina of Time?
neocharge: Who knows?
neocharge: i I don't know, Nintendo. I just don't know what Nintendo's plan is.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's true.
neocharge: They had three directs for the fucking Kirby game and zero directs for a Metroid Prime 4 game. I just don't know what they're doing over there. Just have it launch this year for many reasons, including the draft.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's going to be called Ocarina of Okopia. 90 points.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. Well,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): All right, Bob, on with the news, my man, before we get waylaid again by yours truly.
neocharge: Yes.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah boy lady
neocharge: that
Leon Lionheartly: um well Charge! Right into our first object here. This one is just a quick touch because we know we've been talking about it.
Leon Lionheartly: um
neocharge: Just a quick touch.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah Just a little one. ah
neocharge: a quickie.
Leon Lionheartly: Xbox ah always traditionally does their their own event at the end, tail end of Summer Game Fest, or at some point in there after the main stage. ah And we are getting a one thing confirmed, which is we are seeing in conjunction with the Xbox ah direct, we're getting a special showcase for Gears of War E-Day.
Leon Lionheartly: um This, of course, is a prequel to the original trilogy. And i'm I'm curious. I still haven't played anything beyond the first one or the remastered first one for that matter. um But ah ah consider me... a interested.
Leon Lionheartly: you know I'm not excited, but I'm interested. What about you, Caleb?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Well, first and foremost, this the article that we all saw on Game Informer, Matt, did you actually click, like do you have you read the article? Did you notice how many days away Summer Game Fest is?
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): so 67, your favorite fucking number.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: and
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I laughed so hard earlier when I read that. Yeah, so i I am a huge fan of Gears of War, personally, to answer your question, Bob. I am all about E-Day.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I actually almost drafted it last year on just a whim, thinking we might get lucky. And then with the other releases coming out, I didn't think it was going to happen. Bo ended up getting it this year.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I don't remember if he drafted it or if it was a pickup, but Either way, I'm excited for it.
neocharge: look.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I am very excited for E-Day. I i i can't really say that much without spoiling some of the other games.
neocharge: It was a draft.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): it was I thought it was an an original draft, but I wasn't positive.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But yeah, I can't really say what I'm most excited for, even though it's a prequel.
Leon Lionheartly: Sure.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I can't say much without spoiling... to an onward. And I, so I'm just going leave it at that.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I think it's going to be great.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): um The first reveal trailer we got, which what was that two years ago? Shit. I don't even remember. ah Was intriguing enough.
neocharge: Something like that.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It was sort of a return to form. And obviously I'm also very excited about the Xbox showcase because It's my favorite time of year. ah Summer Games Fest starts on my birthday this year.
neocharge: Wow.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Last year, I got the Switch 2 launching on my birthday. This year, I get Summer Games Fest, Summer Game Fest, and then, which is you know four or five or six shows back to back to back to back of just gloriousness.
neocharge: Amazing.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And I know Matt and I are pretty excited for the Apple WWDC around that time, typically.
neocharge: Always.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So yeah, first two weeks of June are going to be fucking killer, and I will eat it up.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): E-Day, the E-Day Direct might be one that I actually watch. I i don't normally don't stick around for these if I am on the fence about a game. I know what happens in all of the Gears of Wars, so I feel like I'm going to watch it if i have time.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But how about you, Matt?
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): What are you feeling?
neocharge: I'm super excited for this game. I played one, two, three and judgment. I never got around to four and five cause they were Xbox one exclusives. And i kind of checked out on the Xbox.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You never played 4.5 at all
neocharge: I didn't, I'm hoping they come to the PlayStation at some point, uh, loved two and three and I can't wait for two remake or remastered to come out, especially Bob has never played it and, uh, isn't familiar.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, you guys have to play it together.
neocharge: Oh, we will. And we'll stream it too. Uh, so yeah, I'm very excited for the reasons that we can't talk about here.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yep.
neocharge: ah Yeah, um obviously. But yeah, when this was announced, I love that they're going back to like Emergence Day. And it's ah it's going to be awesome. I'm really hoping that it's still multi-platform because I don't know with with Asha in charge now if they're going to you know pull back their exclusives to their themselves to to have a...
neocharge: like competition because PlayStation kind of doing the same thing. And PlayStation has never been on Xbox, but PlayStation is kind of pulling back from the PC, uh, multi-platform game.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Sure.
neocharge: So if it's still multi-platform, if it's still announced to be coming to PlayStation 4, I probably won't watch that direct just because I'm so excited for it and I want to stay dark on E-Day.
neocharge: um I'd say my excitement is pretty high for Gears of War E-Day. When it releases, I'm not sure. It has to be late summer, super early fall. There's no way they'll hit holiday because of Grand Theft Auto.
neocharge: So I don't know if it's still coming out this year. i think it might be early next year. I don't know, though. I don't know how far into the into the development process they're in.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: But... I'm super excited for this game. And yeah, Bob will probably play. It might be, wasn't four and five, like four player co-op too or something like that.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): the
neocharge: So
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I will say they did not hold a candle in my opinion to one, two and three, but they were still pretty fun.
neocharge: yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): They were, I mean, it's gears is ah over the top.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Ridiculous. I mean, this guy has a fucking chainsaw.
neocharge: Love it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): He's if if you'd made it of Marcus Phoenix in real life, he'd be about 600 pounds wide with his muscles and that's okay.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's a really cool art style. I like it. And they, they, they really hone into that ah and they keep that world.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): consistent enough in four and five. i If I'd have known that, I would have made you play it when you guys were here.
neocharge: Cool.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i would have made you start it because Gears of War four and five are are are pretty good.
neocharge: Damn. ah Totally would have, too.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But again, not like two and three.
neocharge: but we
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Like two and three were were just stellar.
neocharge: Okay. Yeah. Bob and Bob and I had a blast on one, remastered it would.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So...
neocharge: And that's the worst one of the three too. So like think of, it just gets, keeps getting better.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. And it's great. It's great. Yeah.
neocharge: i don't know if two or three is my favorite.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It does.
neocharge: They're kind of, uh, I think, yeah, I, Oh, it's so fucking good.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Two is my favorite. Two is my favorite by far. It's it's not even close.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: So it just, it gets better from here and I'm, I'm excited for you to experience for you to experience that Bob. So yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. i Really, Bob, you're going to fucking love Gears of War 2.
neocharge: Uh,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): If you enjoyed one as much as you said you did, I think you are going to just eat up Gears 2 when the time comes.
neocharge: We played on Insanity, too.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Hell yeah, you did.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, yeah, that's right. We did. We had to play on insanity. We had to fucking... We did all of the trophies that are not associated with multiplayer, essentially, is what we ended up doing.
neocharge: We did.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): and Fuck multiplayer.
neocharge: Right, yeah. yeah We're not going to farm 10,000 kills for 60 fucking hours. Not going to so yeah we honored
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That sounds terrible. but
neocharge: I know. We wanted to play Gear. It's still pretty crazy that Gears is on PlayStation, and I really hope E-Day comes to PlayStation. If it doesn't, oh, man. Fuck.
neocharge: we'll We'll just...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): E-Day is coming out the same day that Grand Theft Auto does, which is the same day that Ocarina of Time Remastered Remake does.
neocharge: wellll
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): They're all coming out November 7th. All of them. And Halo Campaign Evolved. All of them. Just all the fucking games.
Leon Lionheartly: Okay.
neocharge: Right. and How about you, Bob?
Leon Lionheartly: that's out with it
neocharge: You're excited for this?
Leon Lionheartly: oh
neocharge: I know you haven't played two and three, so you don't know.
Leon Lionheartly: um a Look, it's Gears of War. um There's a formula to the games that's really enjoyable. um We've gone over this. They just kind of missed me after the first one um because I played a type of that game that I thought was better at the time um and I'd love to see.
Leon Lionheartly: So yeah, sure. Why the hell not? It's like you said, the guy he's got more muscles than feasibly should happen in real life and he has a chainsaw on his gun. Why the fuck wouldn't I play that?
neocharge: Yup.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah that's That's a bad game right there.
neocharge: The fucking space laser. Hammer of Dawn, the space laser.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah yeah ah but yeah I'll definitely be there as long as it's coming to PlayStation still
neocharge: think so fun. Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I kind of hope it's four player so that at least three of us can play together.
neocharge: Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That would be sweet.
neocharge: Dude.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'd love to do that.
neocharge: Yeah, that would be cool.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Because you know I'll be playing it.
neocharge: Mm-hmm. And I'll be, yeah, if it's PlayStation, I'll be there day one. I mean, if Ocarina of Time releases the same day, I won't be there day one.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): No, Ocarina of Time, if that happens the same day, Zelda wins.
neocharge: But...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Sorry. But we'll still be playing E-Day probably 10 days later.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, what if what if my what if Xbox just shits all over everybody in June and just like, hey, guess what?
neocharge: Right. What if... Shit.
Leon Lionheartly: Here's Gears of War E-Day. Oh, by the way, it's out out today.
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: I just shadow drops it on people. Okay.
neocharge: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): fuck i guess i'm playing that in june that's all i can say yes
neocharge: right groman Caleb, I have a hypothetical. Let's say Ocarina of Time remake doesn't come out this year. It comes out next year and it drops on the same day as Final Fantasy Part 3.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): no no all right it's part three it's it's part three
neocharge: What would you choose? I don't even know what I would choose. It is? Okay. It's
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, am it's Final Fantasy 7 is my favorite game of all time. Final Fantasy is my favorite IP of all time.
neocharge: my second. yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I fucking love Zelda in my heart of hearts.
neocharge: Right. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): However, I am a crying, whiny bitch baby of happiness.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): When I played Remake, Almost all of it. Most of my tears were of joy.
neocharge: ah that
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): there were One of my tears were, were what the fuck are you doing to my baby?
Leon Lionheartly: Thank
neocharge: ah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But no, I, i this is the final one.
neocharge: Chapter 18. Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Uh, yeah, it's, it's unfortunately not even close, but it should be close.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's, it should be.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I just, I, seven is a, I'm a fucking simp for final fantasy seven.
neocharge: Damn. it's oh yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I, so yeah.
neocharge: Dude, I love love Seven.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): What about you? Would you choose Zelda first? It's, it's your favorite IP. I know.
neocharge: Yeah, i I kind of had this similar situation when Horizon Zero Dawn Zelda Breath of the Wild came out. I mean, it's not too similar, but I mean, too very. I played Horizon first, I think. ah I think I would play Ocarina of Time first because it's an it's a it's a quicker game.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Really?
neocharge: You know, play it. Don't rush it. We'll play it and then chew into Final Fantasy Part 3. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i think I think the hardest part...
neocharge: God, I hope this never happens. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i know, right? But I think the hardest part for me, even though I know the story, we know the story, we don't know what's happening in part three.
Leon Lionheartly: right.
neocharge: We don't know. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So those spoilers that somebody could really fucking piss me off, that's the other thing that's just not even...
neocharge: Oh, yeah, that's true. That's a good point. That's a good point.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And it not that Zinkler can't have spoilers, but what are they going to do?
neocharge: Anyway. Right. Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Zelda's really an alien and she summoned the moon dragon. Like, I just don't know what they could do that would be on par with part three. Cause part three could literally go fucking anywhere, any way, anyhow.
neocharge: Right.
neocharge: Fuck.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So that is the bigger, another big reason for me.
neocharge: You can put it Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Not trying to convince you.
neocharge: Fun hypothetical, right?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah No, it's not a fun hypothetical, Matt.
neocharge: No.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's the worst day life.
neocharge: I know.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah, it would be.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Shit. Hope that doesn't happen. Anyway, E-Day.
Leon Lionheartly: E-Day.
Leon Lionheartly: We'll see it whenever, what day it drops. Who knows? ah but
neocharge: Yep. We'll find out June 7th, hopefully.
Leon Lionheartly: okay Hopefully we'll find out then.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: um This next one coming... ah I pulled it from Video Games Chronicle over there. This one, i I'm kind of curious to see what you're thinking, man. I'll set it up for you, though, first. um So the United States Patent and Trade Office, also known as the USPTO, has revoked ah patents granted to Nintendo last year based on gameplay mechanic used in other games.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: um So... Two months. ah like ah So let me back up. Should I say Nintendo applied for some patents based on some game mechanics? um And then two months later, the USPTO director Johnny Squires personally ordered a reexamination of the patent.
Leon Lionheartly: um Now, as reported by Games Fray, the USPTO has decided to reject all 26 claims made in the patent, meaning it has now been revoked. This is a non-final decision. Nintendo has is now two months to respond, or longer if it yeah asks for it gets an extension, should I say, and there can be an appeal made to the federal circuit if it doesn't agree with the decision.
Leon Lionheartly: Nintendo's patent involved summoning and other characters making them fight for the player, obviously most related to Pokemon. um According to Squires, this is a too close for comfort, if you will, and I'm paraphrasing in this case, because he has ah already acquired, here it is, quoted, determined that the substantial new questions of patentability have arisen based on the publications of two previous patents named Yabe and Tora, which were given to Konami, and Bandai Namco specifically within the recent years.
Leon Lionheartly: So
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Nino Cooney. ah um
Leon Lionheartly: it was in 2002 to Konami.
neocharge: I think...
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. to kanami
neocharge: Nice. Okay. Okay. I think this is ridiculous and patents need to be way more detailed and more in-depth. You can't throw a blanket statement and be like, oh, we're going to patent the ability for to catch something and have it fight for you. No, dude. There's so many games that do this and I hope there's many more to come. So, good.
neocharge: Block this. Don't let it go through. You've got to be more specific with your patents. And maybe like in a red and white ball. How about that? Okay.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, I could see. And that's and i and I think that's the the USPTO's ah issue. is You're like, oh, we're just capturing monsters.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: And then they're not stupid.
neocharge: It's too big.
Leon Lionheartly: big
neocharge: It's way too big. Yeah, way too big. Because we wouldn't have Ni No Kuni if that was the case. Like, you capture familiars and then have them fight for you. And I fucking loved it. And dude, Pokemon can't gatekeep that. Because Pokemon doesn't do a lot of things that we want and other games do.
neocharge: So, don't get too close to that Pokemon formula. Like, you know, Power World got pretty fucking close, right? Especially with some of the
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I can't believe how close they got. I mean, that's...
neocharge: I know some of the monsters look straight up like so assets from the Pokemon. I still don't understand that, but yeah, this patents way too vague. You can't patent something that blanket. Uh, and yeah, don't, I hope this doesn't go through because competition is good for the consumer.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Well, it's, it's weird to me that you can try to patent something that is arguably creative interpretation. I, it's not, it'd be like me putting a patent on breathing.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Like you all can't breathe the same way that I breathe.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, whoa.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Like what the fuck?
Leon Lionheartly: Have you been following my Twitter, Caleb?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You know, that, no No? What? What?
Leon Lionheartly: I actually wrote what i replied to the article that broke this and said, good, because Nintendo would patent breathing and then sell you the subscription model.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yes I did not know that. That's fantastic. i This is why we get along, Bob.
neocharge: Great minds.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Because that's that's just as insane.
Leon Lionheartly: like
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's nuts to me. If you're going to patent something, yeah like you said, the specificity really, really matters. You need to... And i I actually wouldn't even know where to begin other than saying we could patent something for the way we make games.
Leon Lionheartly: here.
neocharge: you
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Nobody else can make games using our methods, using this... ah engine, I mean, as long as it was an in-house thing, even that I would say, fuck you. You have creative interpretation. But but that's just, you can't use this mechanic in a game unless you're us.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That is insane to me. You can patent characters, you can patent likenesses, and you can patent that sort of thing. But when when it comes to an actual evolvable force of gaming or or even, that would be like somebody patenting the way that you shoot a movie.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, my
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): There's a difference between saying, if you use an IMAX camera, you have to say IMAX was the camera, but to then go on and say, you can't use this angle anymore.
Leon Lionheartly: God.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That angle is only usable by Chris Nolan. Fuck that. That's not, that that to me is what Nintendo is trying to do here. And I, yeah, so I agree with you.
neocharge: Yup.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i think that it's also burn it to the ground. I'm so glad that all 26 of them were revoked, even temporarily ah put up that good fight. You know, that's, hmm.
neocharge: Yup. yeah It hinders creativity too.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): A lot.
neocharge: Like, yeah, fuck that.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Too much, i would argue.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, because if we didn't have that crap, we might actually have, I don't know, a system that was used in a game that's really beloved, um but the studio can't seem to get it over your head.
Leon Lionheartly: The Nemesis.
neocharge: Oh, yeah, Nemesis.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): God damn it.
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Fuck.
Leon Lionheartly: oh
neocharge: I know.
Leon Lionheartly: But...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm not going to say anything about it because this cast will go out another two hours if I bitch about the fucking nemesis system being lost forever.
Leon Lionheartly: I'm...
Leon Lionheartly: and i Oh, I'm with you, Caleb.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Shit.
Leon Lionheartly: Trust me.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah
Leon Lionheartly: You're not the only one. Oh, how about some other good news for you gentlemen?
neocharge: Love it.
Leon Lionheartly: Uh, keeping this going.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Lay it on me.
Leon Lionheartly: Um, so showering, it ah this broke actually today.
neocharge: Shower me with it.
Leon Lionheartly: Um, I want to say i it was the first thing I saw this morning. um ah which is why I was like, wait, this is April Fool's, right? This is coming over at Video Games Chronicle, but this was posted out by Shift Ups through a press release specifically. ship Shift Up, um as you gentlemen remember, is the developer of Stellar Blade.
Leon Lionheartly: Beautiful game. If you haven't played it, go check it out. um But they announced, oh gosh, the PC release.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yes, she is.
Leon Lionheartly: I was like, oh, this is bad. This is treading alive.
neocharge: no
Leon Lionheartly: it
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Thank you, Mods.
Leon Lionheartly: ah
neocharge: loved every minute of it
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Thank you, Mods.
neocharge: oh
Leon Lionheartly: if So ah they have acquired the Tokyo-based, all shares of the Tokyo-based studio Unbound.
Leon Lionheartly: Unbound is the latest studio um ah from the Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami. um from way back in the day. After he left Capcom, he went over and created Ghostwire Tokyo and Hi-Fi Rush's Tango Gameworks, which was just shut down in 2023. So he went ahead and spun up his new studio, Unbound. and They acquired all shares and they are working on an original IP with 50 employees at this time for all consoles and PCs. And PC, of course. um
Leon Lionheartly: I can make some speculation, ah but at the same time, I don't... i think this might be a survival horror i don't know if you gentlemen saw the video on it
neocharge: It's gotta be.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I did not. I did not have time. So we have confirmed that this is real. It's not an April Fool's joke.
Leon Lionheartly: this is a legit thing
neocharge: There's a, there's a whole ass video.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay.
neocharge: There was no April fools behind it or anything. It's a weird day to announce it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay.
neocharge: Right. I think it, I'm pretty sure it was announced like Japan time of ah March 31st though. So, cause it was like,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Or you mean April 2nd. Was it this morning?
neocharge: ah It was 16 hours ago.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So Japan, I believe, is 15 hours ahead of us.
neocharge: So April 16th, it'd be April 2nd. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay. Well, then that that does sit a little bit better then, Is it called Abandoned?
neocharge: Gotcha. Yeah. And they, I mean, it's a whole ass video. It's like a five minute video. It's got some really cool ah visuals too. Like that.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Sorry.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Sorry. yeah Okay. Well, good. I'm glad to hear that, that it's legit.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah. It's got to be a survival horror, right? With maybe some more action-oriented... i don't know. They said new IP, so it's not Evil Within.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: It's not Resident Evil. ah Capcom already owns Resident Evil anyway. So, i i mean, dude, I'm always excited for well-known studios, new IP, AAA, and if it's like survival horror meets a little bit more action like Stellar Blade, fuck yeah!
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Count me in.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Plus, you know the the damage and and torn clothing physics are going to be on point if it's shipped up.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): If they have anything to do with it, you know that they're going to do it justice there.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Not to like goon on this, but but for realism and stuff, I actually think that that could be a huge benefit for a survival horror type game.
neocharge: Uh-huh.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Not just being creepy. I mean, yes, I'm being creepy because it's funny and I'm a creep, but sidebar, it it also would be kind of cool see that done well, I think.
neocharge: Mm-hmm. Yeah. yeah And have we ever gotten like a high-action, high-octane survival horror game? Or does it kind of counter... That kind of cancels it out?
Leon Lionheartly: You could you could you could say Mikami's already done that because I could make an argument for Resident Evil 4.
neocharge: Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Uh-oh. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): The closest that I could come to would be Parasite Eve 3, not the greatest example, but that that's the kind of where I went when you were talking about those two studios merging and having some fun together.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: ooh
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And obviously that was a PSP game, so older. i would love to see what they could do with something like that now for sure.
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. I'm curious to see how this came about. like This is the the story that we don't have yet. Who knows if we ever actually will. Mikami, yeah, Tango is down, but that's not a small name in the in in the industry.
Leon Lionheartly: And he was starting his own thing. And then all of a sudden, ShiftUp, a Korean-based developer, is like, hey, we're going to buy all your shares. But it doesn't feel like a hostile takeover.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Right. Yeah. right
neocharge: right
Leon Lionheartly: So...
neocharge: Yeah, it sounds like a good partnership, and I i can't wait to see what they're cooking. because some of if you go Go watch that video, because there's a lot of ah CGI in the video of horror elements that could be foreshadowing a game they're working on.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: That's what I'm wondering. yeah like a lot of ah I immediately thought of Parasite Eve, ah and you'll see it if you go look at it, Caleb. i I kind of got those vibes from it, and I'm like, ooh, could you imagine if we got Eve doing a Parasite Eve like spiritual successor?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's good to know.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That would be nice.
neocharge: Dude, when Shift Up announced Project Eve, we all wondered, like, is this Parasite Eve?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Is this like a... And no, it wasn't. but Stellar Blade, phenomenal game. I'm glad it's what we got. I think they're working on... They said they're working on the sequel as well, so they're busy over there.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Stellarist, Stellarer Blade?
Leon Lionheartly: Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): What are going to call it?
neocharge: Stellar Blader.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): They need to know. Yeah.
neocharge: Stellar Blader.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): um I will go check out that video.
neocharge: but
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I didn't have time earlier today because I was driving around to fucking television for fun.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So, you know. ah
neocharge: Oh,
Leon Lionheartly: It's like four and a half minutes.
neocharge: You and your antics.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, it's always the smallest things in life are in Antic.
neocharge: You and your...
Leon Lionheartly: You're like a sitcom, but I love it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. No, it's true.
neocharge: You and your fucking cheeses. It's
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): There were no Cheez-Its in today's adventure adventure, but it was just another one of those, what the fuck is going on?
Leon Lionheartly: ah
neocharge: amazing.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So...
neocharge: know.
Leon Lionheartly: Caleb's a real-life Seinfeld, man. and love it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, you have no idea how true that is.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So my wife, every time I go to the store for something so minor, when I come back and I i just have a look on my face, she's like, really? You've been gone for 18 minutes. And I'm just like, this fucking guy.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): like There's always a thing, always. And it's always almost unbelievable until you know me. And then you're like, yeah, it's real. This guy's life is just that complicated.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's
neocharge: Start a Twitch channel and just live stream your life. And make money from it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm not going to fucking carry around that shit and be the annoying person. and That sounds stupid. But also, you would watch it. You would watch it, that's true.
neocharge: Oh, 100%. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: The life and times of Caleb. I would watch that.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, I'll sign in while I'm at work every day. Fuck it. Let's do this.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I feel like the first thing that would happen, because it's me, I would get about two minutes in and then drop my phone and break it and not be able to stream anymore. Then I could come home and rant about that instead.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Well, this is what you missed when my phone flew out of the car.
Leon Lionheartly: ah
neocharge: Oh, shit. Oh, love it. We love you, Caleb.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, well, how about I do this?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Thanks. yeah
Leon Lionheartly: We'll give you guys one last little bit of good fun before we talk about this and the downside of this week. um If you guys have, for the listeners out there, gentlemen, if you haven't either, go check this out.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yep.
neocharge: Let's do it.
Leon Lionheartly: Game Informer always does their April Fool's thing. IGN, everybody else does. We're recording on April 1st, so April Fool's Day. They have their Game and Farcer section back, and the articles are amazing.
Leon Lionheartly: There's about seven or eight of them They're well-written. They sound almost legit, ah but they they definitely give a poke and jab. um So i'll give you I'll give the listeners ah an example.
Leon Lionheartly: Game and Farcer. Hideo Kojima, shocked and disappointed Capcom rejected his Mega Man Robot Master contest submission. um And it's Naked Man.
neocharge: Oh, that's awesome.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I too am shocked and upset that they didn't accept his submission.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: but yeah
neocharge: I do believe Damon Farcer is like printed in the magazine. It's either going to be this issue or next, but it's, it's like a whole fucking section of like 16 pages of ah a fake magazine.
neocharge: And it's awesome.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Awesome.
neocharge: It's like the onion level humor. It's, it's, it's amazing.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, like I'll just give you those give you this clip hit and this is the shit.
neocharge: So.
Leon Lionheartly: ah i'm Sorry, it gets me. I had to. Capcom did not select his creation, likely due to copyright concerns, but Kojima scoffed at the the suggestion and went on a five-minute tangent about how fucking dumb Woodman is.
neocharge: yes
Leon Lionheartly: Probably.
neocharge: It's amazing.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Do you think his Naked Man submission would just be a nude of Norman Reedus?
neocharge: wo
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I feel like that would be, he'd be like, this needs to be in the game if it were real thing.
Leon Lionheartly: Probably.
Leon Lionheartly: okay
Leon Lionheartly: Oh.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Or Del Toro.
neocharge: I mean, we we got shower scenes with Norman Reedus, so checks out.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's true.
neocharge: The model's already created.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): that's a That's a prequel to the next Mega Man. Did you guys not know that?
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): the Death Stranding 1 and 2 is a prequel to Yeah.
neocharge: Dude, there there was another April Fool's joke from ah Capcom that they had Prognata. They're like, you got us. It is a Mega Man game. And Hugh comes up with Diana in a fucking Mega Man suit.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh yeah, that was...
neocharge: Dude, they made that Mega Man suit. That's going to be an unlockable in the game or it's got to be if they made it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's gotta be a DLC or something, yeah.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Plus, also good on them. That was really funny. That that was great, because everybody...
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I mean, they just went along with what we all thought couple years ago.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It was good on them.
neocharge: I never thought it. I never thought that.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Well, i mean, when they teased it and was like, is this like a Mega Man adjacent situation?
neocharge: That's no.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And it that was the internet zeitgeist for whatever fucking reason.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): When I saw the trailer, I said, this is the furthest thing from Mega Man aside from a Capcom association.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It didn't look like Mega Man to me, but there were some similarities with the sci-fi shit.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Just not, it's not Mega Man's palette.
neocharge: Yeah. It's reaching. It's some hardcore reaching.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, exactly. So good for them though.
neocharge: Dude, 17 days.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh shit.
neocharge: 17 days. oh So excited.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): When am I fucking playing?
Leon Lionheartly: Mm.
neocharge: m
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I don't have time.
Leon Lionheartly: ah um i'll I'll find a time. I'll find a way. Yeah. yeah
neocharge: I'm going to beat in Platinum Hades in three days. Hades 2. It's going to happen.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Well, I'll be gone when it releases.
neocharge: Just nonstop.
Leon Lionheartly: Without your pants on, right?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah
neocharge: I never wear pants when I game. What are you talking about? That'd be weird if I wore pants.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I wear pants on the top of my head like a bandana.
neocharge: It's quite breezy when I game.
neocharge: Yep. Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. It's really long years.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. oh
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's just me. I don't know.
neocharge: and
Leon Lionheartly: term.
neocharge: I've seen it.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, you know what? I lied to you, gentlemen. I'm sorry.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, my God.
neocharge: ah
Leon Lionheartly: um One other thing.
neocharge: boom
Leon Lionheartly: Just a good PSA for the... You you wrote you gentlemen have already seen this. This coming from PlayStation Blog specifically. ah The PlayStation Plus monthly games for April have officially been announced.
neocharge: Yes.
Leon Lionheartly: So Lords of the Fallen, ah the PS5 version, um the Tomb Raider 1, 2, and 3 remastered, both PS4, PS5 version, and Sword Art Online Fractured ah Dream.
Leon Lionheartly: is ah Daydream, sorry, fractured Fractured Daydream are going to be available as long as you keep your subscription. So go ahead and add them to your library and as long as it's active, you can download them at any time. um I would love to, but April's slush, so I'm going to add them to my library and we'll get to them maybe next year.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah Right. Who knows?
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): If ever. No disrespect to the games.
neocharge: That's cool, though.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Just, yeah, they it's ah it's a good month, it seems.
neocharge: Yep. Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: there was Yeah, absolutely.
neocharge: Solid entries, for sure.
Leon Lionheartly: Because we knew Lords of the Fallen was kind of quote-unquote leaked ah earlier this, like last week, I think I want to say late last week. And I saw Lords of the Fallen on their social media.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Sure.
Leon Lionheartly: It was like, well, you guys were right and with with the in conjunction with the announcement. So developers were having fun with it.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: um
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Unfortunately, also with the PlayStation Blog, um we got to talk about this.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Unfortunately, yeah, we do.
neocharge: Do we? Do we have to talk about it?
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah, I know.
Leon Lionheartly: ah This was...
neocharge: doesn't affect us.
Leon Lionheartly: Doesn't affect us. This was announced last Friday.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: So the day after we finished recording. um ah ah Starting April 2nd, which is when this podcast went live. But if you've been paying attention...
neocharge: Podcast is going live April 1st. We're going to hit April 1st because the April Fool's joke we pulled on everyone in the beginning. So I'm taking it live.
Leon Lionheartly: Aww. You just ruined it.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: I was keeping the thing going.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah
neocharge: why
Leon Lionheartly: I was telling it's April 2nd and then let you post it on the 1st. And then you really get confused people.
neocharge: so Oh, oh.
Leon Lionheartly: See? Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Wait, now we have to start over.
neocharge: Never mind, folks.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Shapes of pooping.
Leon Lionheartly: ah Ah, here we go.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Shapes of pooping.
neocharge: jamess
Leon Lionheartly: I guess I'll leave it.
neocharge: ah
Leon Lionheartly: This is Bob with Shapes of Poop. We're delaying the inevitable here. But yes, I did post a link anyways when this first broke inside of the Discord. So it has been out there. um But the PlayStation 5, the portal...
Leon Lionheartly: um and the pro are all going to be going up globally throughout all territories. Their blog specifically touched territories of the US, UK, Europe and Japan. But of course, they give the asterisk of check your local retailer for other regions. um In the US, which is ah relevant to us as players, ah the PS5 base edition is now going to be $649.99. So
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Jesus.
Leon Lionheartly: digital edition um is going to be $599.99, so And the Pro is going to come in at a staggering for a Pro.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That fucking sucks.
neocharge: Yikes.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah i was going to say matt you i say you hooking your collar there joe ah
neocharge: yeah Like, ooh.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah
Leon Lionheartly: sir you' kind of glad you got your investment early on
neocharge: Absolutely. Especially when I looked at the M2 storage I have in there.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, right.
neocharge: I have a 4TB M2 internal storage module.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): right
neocharge: I paid $250 for it. It is now It's nuts. Like, my setup is creeping to like a $3,000 setup. It's crazy. Yeah. it's nuts like my my setup is creeping up to like a three thousand dollars setup it's crazy ah Man, so for everyone else and for the majority of the population, it's unfortunate that the prices are this high.
neocharge: It's it's becoming more and more ah pricey and challenging to get into modern day gaming. um There are tiers, though. You can buy like base PS5, but I mean, base PS5 is now what, like $550?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): $6.50. $6.50.
neocharge: $650. $650.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Well, for the it's cheaper.
neocharge: six six fifty Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah
neocharge: Yeah. um From my personal standpoint, my situation, ah i don't think it's overpriced. I think it's expensive because of how I use it. And I play a shitload of PlayStation. I play a thousand plus hours a month. ah In my opinion, I find incredible value in the systems and the games. That's why I buy the games day one, $70, problem. I would pay more for this system if I had to. Do I want to? No, but I do i already find incredible value for what I get. Now, if you if you're just wanting a PS5 just to play around with it, play like, I don't know, 50 hours a year,
neocharge: that's not going to be a good value for you. But I squeeze out every bit of ah cost in my in my system. And when I got the PS5 Pro, we all got it on launch. I got the disk drive. I got the internal M2 drive. I got an external 4TB drive for my PS4 game. So I was already creeping on like $2,000. But I can do that. And this is like, I don't, I'm a, I'm a minimalist, so I don't spend a lot of money on things. ah But I do go all out when it comes to anything gaming setup wise, anything PlayStation hardware software wise. and my car and snowboarding.
neocharge: And that's about it. So personally, i don't care. I would pay more. That's just me ah because I find value, incredible value in it. ah But for everyone else, this sucks, man. And it's it's becoming a barrier ah for a lot of people. So um this is a bummer.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, I agree.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, that's very well played. What about you, Caleb? Is this going to put you on the fence for ah any future PS6 purchases possibly?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): No, I mean, it won't put me on the fence because very, I mean, I do agree with with a lot of what Matt said that I find so much, I get so much out of my consoles, my games, my television, my my movies, all that stuff is is my bread and butter.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And it's what keeps me sane, quite frankly. As as insane as I sound on this cast, I am more sane because of the things that I do and where I spend my money.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Imagine how bad it would be if I didn't have that outlet. But the way I look at it is is ah how this affects the future of the entire gaming ecosystem. Because if you've got your average person not able to buy in, and I'm not discounting the, the you used the really good example, Matt, of you buy it because you want to play it 50 hours a year. You know, that's not really a good value. You're not getting what you will have to pay ah you'll You're not getting that out of the system if you're paying such an egregious amount. That is absolutely true.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): However, for as much as I shit on the call of dude bros and the people that only buy the five sports games that release every year, and that's not shitting on them as people. It's just like when I game, I want all the games. I want all the things.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): If this locks them out, the cost is going to skyrocket even more for us. And it's it's really unfortunate for those that can't can't afford to keep up with this. Now, gaming has never really been a quote-unquote cheap hobby.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Affordable, maybe? i don't know. It just depends on where you would go. Nintendo used to be the ones that... you would be able to ah buy a newer system of theirs. It would be a lot cheaper than its competitors, Xbox and, or Microsoft and Sony with the Xbox and the PlayStation.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But it still was a lot for certain families. So for it to go up even further due to socioeconomic, political bullshit, whatever it is, even if it's just corporate greed, I fucking hate that.
neocharge: that's what trying to do.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): um But for me personally, I'm just thankful that I can, I can sort of weather that storm. I just, I look at people like my niece who loves this stuff. And I mean, yeah, she's only 17, but she can't fucking afford a thousand dollars for a system. And I, while I would buy it for me, i don't know that I would just drop a grand to get her one for her birthday. That's, that's a big ask. And, and for parents that don't really know any better, I mean,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Can you imagine if you had a kid who has a birthday in May and you're like, oh, they wanted PS5 Pro. And then you go to get, you're like, fuck no. Danny's in 6,000 donuts instead.
neocharge: All right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): like it just it's It's one of those things that I try to think of the bigger picture. And I'm not saying that you don't.
neocharge: Sure.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i' It's not what I mean at all. ah you you You really... you're right that it doesn't affect us and we are very lucky that it doesn't affect us now. I do think it will affect us later.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And i that that's my problem.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But you know it we've seen consoles go up too far with the PS3. lot of people rebuked that price and then Sony got smart and and listened.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): and it came back down. I guess right now I hope that it does the same thing that the housing market does where it bubbled and then eventually people are going to just not buy it or they can't buy it and then they got to find a way to to hit that price and bring it back down.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But don't know that I trust capitalism to work like it's supposed to anymore because...
neocharge: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): There's too much bullshit involved. And again, this is not a political podcast, but there that is just such a problem right now. All all spectrums, every everywhere. So yeah, I'm i'm a little torn.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i'm I'm sad for my fellow man, ah but I'm very thrilled that we did get rewarded as as early adopters. That never happens. We always usually front the big bill and then, oh fuck, this is on 20% off in a month.
neocharge: Yeah, right?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Now it's like, oh, I could sell it and make a profit.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): What? That's nuts.
neocharge: Right. Now,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i would never, by the way. but you know that's so what what about you, Bob? Where do you sit on this mess?
Leon Lionheartly: um I will say this much. i'm i I agree with all of you everything you guys have said. um The one thing that i will kind of I'm kind of thinking about is the price point.
Leon Lionheartly: I don't necessarily sit on the island that it's corporate greed. um because if you go into the diving and you look at the conversations and forums and things like that, um some data has come out and people are guesstimating based on what data is available that each PlayStation 5, so the base model, is running Sony anywhere between $720 and $740 produce, which means they have been a lost that means they've been really big leader
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, Yeah. Sure.
Leon Lionheartly: for a while and to price up ah to crank up the price one is kind of and chip damage, but number two, the high this kind of a high spike and you have GTA 6 coming in November, Sony had to have been really hurting in the hardware department sales and getting profitability. Yeah, they're generating revenue, but the question would be profitability on on the console. um So they might ah it might have hit that that break point.
Leon Lionheartly: um But i you're right. This concern, I personally am good. I'm, hey, I'm happy. I got my PS5 Pro. I made, the video gaming is my passion. It's my life.
Leon Lionheartly: ah You know, I have my career, I have my family, but this has been my defining ah characteristic since I was three years old, right? um Going on 40 years of gaming here.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: But the ecosystem is now scary ah because you've got 40 million PlayStation 4 users out there. You still have a couple of million active monthly active PS3 users. um You think about the nintenity the the n NES. If you compare it in in inflation scale, it's a right around where the PS5 is right now.
Leon Lionheartly: when the NES first launched. And parents still bought the NES because their kids were like, Mom, Dad, I want this. I want to be able to do this. And parents back then scrimped and saved and did what they had to to make it happen.
Leon Lionheartly: Because one, it was the thing that all kids were into at the time, whether they wanted to admit it or not. It was the new hot thing.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It was the family console, right? I mean, wasn't, wasn't that one of the taglines for the Nintendo, the like fun for the whole family or something like that?
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, that's specifically why it was in the toy section. Because of the video game crash of 83, Nintendo said, no, it's not a video game system.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: It's a toy. Which is why you really go down a rabbit hole.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Because that's why the ah the any NES in North America has the cartridge slide in the front and not the top. Because they were they wanted it to look like a VCR.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: So it was a family item, right?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah
Leon Lionheartly: In 2026... the in twenty twenty six That kind of money is not something for people to scoff at. And to be quite frank, if my kid came to me, don't want a PS5 Pro.
Leon Lionheartly: I'm going to laugh. I'm going I'm going to, you have to, you got to, you got to guide them and say, okay, let's look at something more realistic.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Right.
Leon Lionheartly: Or if it's what you want to do, try to help them get to get to that goal through their own means of power and use support. But this is not a oh, I'm going to get this by for Christmas and buy it for my kid kind of a purchase at this rate.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Sure.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. I think the other thing, just to piggyback on what you're talking about, because you're absolutely right with Nintendo's original cost versus you know if you adjust for today's inflation and stuff.
neocharge: Mm-mm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): um And I'm not saying that the original Nintendo didn't have the games that we have now making fun of it. that Obviously they couldn't, but one of the biggest problems with the current gaming ecosystem, and I, maybe you guys disagree and that's fine.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): The almost requirement for every player to have their own console And again, that works for us.
Leon Lionheartly: Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You know, if you guys come over, we can play a few things couch co-op like Streets of Rage 4. You could play the Turtles game, but we can't play something like if Stellar Blade had a co-op or a better example, Neo 3.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You can't both play Neo 3 on the same console. And that's fine because it's insanely taxing on a CPU.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I understand why we can't. But now if you have two or three children, and they all want to play this multiplayer game together, you need two or three consoles. And that's that's the potential problem I see with a lot of the popular games that are coming out.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And again, I don't really know what you do about that. I'm i'm not telling developers, hey, cut your cut your resolution in half and cut the game in half so that both both people could play it at the same time. That's not that's like creative newut neutering.
neocharge: Thank you.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): you know You're neutering the creativity. But that's just such a higher cost analysis to... Think about when you have a family because Nintendo had the family console and now you have PlayStations and Xboxes that while the whole family can play them, they might not be able to play them at the same time. And that is a problem to me. That's, that's just something that I've noticed and I don't have children.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I was thinking about this. If I, if Lisa and I decided to have a child 10 years from now, if my child was even a third of me, they're going to want to have their own fucking consoles. And so is dad. So now I'm doubling down on what I have to pay for, for me to be able to play with my child.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): If that makes sense, you know,
Leon Lionheartly: yeah It does. And that puts Nintendo in advantage.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): it does big time.
Leon Lionheartly: Real heavy with their with their games.
neocharge: yeah
Leon Lionheartly: ah Especially since you've easily got the cheapest console on the market. um You know how many switch Switches and Switch lights I bought in the entire life cycle of that thing because of Animal Crossing New Horizon and Luigi's Mansion and Pikmin and Splatoon?
Leon Lionheartly: I bought my Switch. I bought a light for three lights and then I bought another regular Switch.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): and
Leon Lionheartly: All for this family. um So, yeah, yeah it's it's rough out there.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You can have that or you can have almost a PS5 Pro.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): like Think about that math.
neocharge: Damn.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's what sucks.
neocharge: Well, oh, no, there are tiers, right?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Matt.
neocharge: Like you can get into the PlayStation ecosystem bare bones for what? 550? Was it 500?
Leon Lionheartly: Originally, now it's $6.50. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: So like the Pro is like the Ferrari of vehicles.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, it is the elite version, for sure. For sure.
neocharge: right Not everyone needs a Ferrari. Not everyone needs a Ferrari. And you can play every single game that you can play on the Pro on the PS5. Are you going to get 4K60 with games?
neocharge: Probably not, especially the newer titles. But the Pro is like the elite model if you're really serious about gaming. And usually if you're serious about gaming, you're going to game a lot.
neocharge: So you're going to find value in it. So ah there are tiers, right?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, that's true.
neocharge: And here this is this is here's the thing, right?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's clobbering time!
Leon Lionheartly: i
neocharge: These companies sell consoles at a loss, or at least they used to.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: And they depend on game sales. So in order to combat this, you're like, yeah I'm a consumer. I want these consoles to be cheaper. What can I do?
neocharge: Buy new games at launch and don't play free-to-play games. It's simple.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Well, there is one other aspect of this, though, that and and correct me if I'm wrong.
neocharge: And
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Do you remember how much the PlayStation 4 Pro or excuse me? Yeah. PS4 Pro was when it came out. Do you remember its MSRP?
neocharge: 399. 299. No, 399. 399. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Do you remember what the PS4's cost was MSRP when it came out?
neocharge: Sure. Right. Thousand plus after tax.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): The PS4?
neocharge: three nine nine
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. So here's what I'm thinking about with this, just just future thinking.
neocharge: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): If the PS5 Pro, which you're absolutely right, is more of the Ferrari version of the console base. If that's nine hundo, does not include a disk drive.
neocharge: right
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So 980, once you get a disk drive, if you want to if you want to play your your games.
neocharge: thousandus after attack
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. ah How much do you think the PS6 is going to be at launch?
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Which is not the Ferrari.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I mean, technically, if you think about it, it is the Ferrari for its time.
neocharge: Well...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Hopefully they they do it justice. I'm just thinking that that really pushes it to ah ah just a ah different level that kind of sucks.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): think
neocharge: i think i think they're unfortunately setting something up to be a little deceiving, and they're going to lower the price of the PS5 and all the models this holiday season.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: They're going to be like, oh, it's $100 off now. And it's going to be...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I might. I might.
neocharge: Yeah. So I think that's what they're going to do. um they i mean, there might be there's probably multiple factors affecting this, but we are all we are also catching up to inflation.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, for sure.
neocharge: We really are. I mean, games... I know, I know. And inflation is getting even worse, right? Games at launch for this day and age, for this price back then were $175 inflation. So...
neocharge: factor and inflation
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, which is just wild.
neocharge: so
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So insane to think about.
neocharge: ah Be glad that they're not... um And, dude, GTA might be changing that.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You think it'll be the first hundred dollar game?
neocharge: Honestly, I could see GTA easily.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, me too.
neocharge: Minimum.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Base. I think there's going to be...
Leon Lionheartly: I could...
neocharge: I think they're going to push $150 version with all the the digital stuff and maybe a subscription or something like that. But this is where we see ah the game... Because Nintendo just rose the prices of their games, too.
neocharge: So... Yeah, it's it sucks across the board. It's it's going to suck later. i hope it doesn't stick. But me personally, i just I find incredible value in the console already. And just yeah just like my TV, I i spare no expense.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: um i'll i'll give you that I'll give you that one.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: And you're right, because we have adult money. um We have adult money to be able to do this.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: But if you think about it, if you shrink the the the player base ah because they're they're not going to get in, and you shrink the player base, we're goingnna we won't be affected because ah directly because we're still going to be playing our games.
neocharge: yeah
Leon Lionheartly: But the studios are about to be affected.
neocharge: Mm-hmm. Right.
Leon Lionheartly: And if you're looking...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: If I were writing on the wall and I was working at Haven, If I was working at Bend, I'd start sweating bullets right now about my job.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: And I do not want and i don't mean to be a downer, but I would.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
neocharge: We're already seeing it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And that's, that's what sucks.
neocharge: They're closing studios left them right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's, it's a rubber band thing. We, again, like right now we might be in the sweet spot, but you pull the rubber band one direction.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): it thins out on the other side. mean, that's just, that's how it works.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And the studios let fewer sales, but, means that either our prices go up even more again because sales aren't happening as often as they are. it just it's It's a fine line when it comes to this kind of economic bullshit.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And I i call it economic bullshit because it's just just so, again, we don't want a five-hour cast, so we're not going to go into that.
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): that we you know applied economics for your daily life. You've seen your milk and eggs and your gas and everything else that whether it's politically charged or just because, oh there's a huge famine, so meat's going up. like That might not have anything to do with any government in the world.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It might just be because there was a bad year that happens.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But then when you add in all this other shit, it just becomes ah Tinder to just ignite. So a question for you, Bob, because you have done a little bit more of the deep dive research and you are the retro gaming encyclopedia.
neocharge: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Do you know how much of this is affected by rare earth metals and, and the price of that shit that's going on again, not politically, just wondering in general, because it's affecting a lot of other stuff.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, this this is coming down simply because of the ah chip shortage that's been happening. um And if you look at history, um so like you look at Nintendo, they had they dealt with the chip shortage because of the fire.
neocharge: Thank you.
Leon Lionheartly: And I want to say it was in Indonesia in the 90s, that car, when everybody else was on CDE and the N64 was struggling.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yes Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: And they had the same thing with the Super Nintendo. In fact, that's a very well-trained misplaced rumor that Mario 3 was being shortchanged copies because Nintendo wanted to shortchange the product so they could make price increases. um But it was because of the chip shortage back then that took place.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: um And that's where that whole thing with Nintendo, not to be on a tangent, got that name with like with the Amiibos and stuff. It all traces back to there, right?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Ah, okay.
Leon Lionheartly: um But ah this is this is all because of that. My hope is if you've been paying attention, um prices for the chips and the stocks have plummeted.
Leon Lionheartly: so like you said, a rubber band.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yes, they have.
Leon Lionheartly: um And it's for a multitude of reasons. i like but this I can spin up a whole special cast for that one. I'm planning on...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Sure.
Leon Lionheartly: We'll bring in Alex. He's the real expert on the PC side of the house. But that's really what it is, is those prices have gone up because even you've got not just the RAM, but you're talking about the M2 storage drive that's and included on the PlayStation 5 itself is also a high commodity item.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Definitely.
Leon Lionheartly: um And then, of course, you have ah throw the political turmoil, economical tur turmoil and all that stuff are on top of there.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: And it's just like a cherry on.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): The bullshit.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, that's just the cherry on fucking top at this point.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah Yeah.
neocharge: We're in a war and we're going to the moon at the same time.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): What? right Well, it's my i hope for all this.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah!
neocharge: Okay.
Leon Lionheartly: It's 1960 again!
neocharge: Oh, shit, right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Honestly, if you guys remember a a few years ago, it was it five years ago? I think when cars were having like the first ship shortage shortage we had that was affecting ah graphics cards and stuff.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It wasn't affecting it like it is now. I mean, now it's just gone through the roof, but vehicles were so hard to find. They they didn't necessarily increase the price so much. I mean, they did, but it was just hard to find them.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So it was one of those supply and demand things too, on top of just, oh, we can't afford to put this, like we can't have sunroofs in our cars because the chips that you need to operate this in the OS, it just, it doesn't exist right now. So buy the car now at a premium and we'll install sunroof later once all this gets fixed.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Eventually that did start to level out again, which was great. So I'm kind of hoping I just, the problem is once the price is up for a company like Sony or Microsoft or Nintendo or any tech company, it's really, really hard to bring those prices back down.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): They, they don't tend to not do that. So the only way they won't is, is if people don't buy it.
neocharge: Just like inflation.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Inflation.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Right. Yeah. Once inflation is up, it's really hard to get back down. It's kind of like your new baseline, which just fucking sucks.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. Yeah. Which does happen, but.
neocharge: Yeah. This is. Yeah. 100% bad news doesn't affect us as much. It will, though, in the future. So, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): but But really, for for people listening, that if you don't have one, I mean, obviously it's too late now because the price goes up April 2nd, I believe.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I think that's officially when everything takes hold.
neocharge: Right. Yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): um But be on the lookout for sales ah because you I think Matt's right.
neocharge: Mm hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I do think that they're going to run maybe a summer games fest. Hey, 50 bucks off if you buy it now with all these games or or the holiday season.
neocharge: i
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So here's hoping that it's not permanently this and never on sale again. That would really suck for Anybody that's been on the fence had this news dropped sooner.
neocharge: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): We hopefully could have told people and said, get your asses in gear and and go get one. But this was a surprise to all of us, unfortunately.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: o for sure yeah so bomber
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Bummer.
neocharge: So hopefully it doesn't affect ah the the gaming landscape too bad. But yeah, this will definitely ah shrink the footprint for sure. But PS5 is currently the fifth best-selling console of all time. Or seventh. Seventh, maybe fifth. I don't know Fifth or seventh. It's on track to surpass the PlayStation 4, which I think is the third best-selling console of all time. I think it's the fifth right now.
neocharge: Maybe. I don't know.
Leon Lionheartly: it's a little bit lower because you got what PlayStation 2 Switch irrelevant sorry
neocharge: We can look.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Five for five.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But so ah is there any other news or should we switch gears and talk about some happy, just what we're what we're playing?
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: that that's where I was going segue to his let's let's talk about some good stuff in our life who would like between you gentlemen who would like to go first this week
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): What we're playing. Awesome.
neocharge: Let's do it. Yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i I'll get me out of the way since I i will try to keep it short. ah Two major things that I've been playing this week. I already said earlier in the cast that I've been really, really, really busy and and for obvious reasons,
neocharge: Oh, two. Two.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): important reasons, spending time with the family and all that after a pretty heavy loss. But what I have been able to play of Crimson Desert, I got probably five or six more hours in, which is not that much for me. And it's definitely not that much for that game. That game is fucking bonkers huge.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): um I still, I am, I am enjoying it. But man, some of the convoluted not information, they just don't fucking tell you how to do certain things. And I know in the past I have praised movies and games for trusting the viewer slash player to figure it out on their own.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's cool. I love that they do that in this game. I do think they swung the pendulum a little too far the other direction. i Because there there's some stuff that's just... how do I, how do I do this thing that you want me to do? You think that it's a tutorial to explain to you how to do it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And ultimately it is a tutorial, but they don't tell you until after you've done the wrong thing, 600 times that you can't even fucking remember what the right thing was.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank
neocharge: Thank you.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And then they're like, now, you know what this pot's for. I'm like, I actually don't because I just hit a bunch of buttons and I don't know exactly what I did to recreate it. Also, if I do remember what I did, why why do I need to know that?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i am if you With your permission, can I give you the slightest of small spoilers to explain something?
neocharge: i'll never so I'll never play it, because you said this isn't a mad-ass game, which I kind of want to know like maybe three reasons why.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. It is and it isn't. you would love You would love it if not for all of its fucking problems.
neocharge: Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Because it is like the best worst game that I've ever played.
neocharge: Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Like it's so good when it's good.
neocharge: Dude, I keep hearing <unk>s shit like this about this game.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's... it's
neocharge: It's like, this game is awesome, but sucks.
Leon Lionheartly: Okay.
neocharge: And you'd love it, but you'd hate it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. it
neocharge: And I'm just like, what?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. So everything takes forever to do in the game. But because of that, it is really rewarding when you finally...
neocharge: Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You're like, oh yes.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But...
neocharge: Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): At the same time, when i'm playing a when I'm playing a game, and this is a personal thing, this is this is a subjective thing, sometimes I don't want to have to fucking do every little thing.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I feel like in this game, if they had an instrument to learn, you would have to actually spend like six years learning the fucking instrument instead of just you know spending enough time to make it feel like you've earned that play.
neocharge: Okay.
neocharge: Oh,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And if that's the case, I'd rather just learn the instrument in real life.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's just me. And I know some people love that realism. That's cool. Starting a fire, pulling out all the ingredients to cook it. it's it's They do have some things that eventually, like once you've learned a recipe, you can just pick the recipe. Thank God. If I had to do Zelda Breath of the Wild bullshit every time, i would be furious. That's actually one of the things that turned me off Breath of the Wild.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And and this this Crimson Desert feels a little bit like that in some regard, but you can just do fucking anything.
neocharge: oh yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And, and, then and that's an awesome idea.
neocharge: Hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): The creativity is through the roof, but at a certain point, I don't, I want a little bit of guardrails to tell me if I'm just wasting six hours of doing fucking nothing.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Like, is this a pointless endeavor? Oh, you can't solve this puzzle yet, but you don't know you can't solve this puzzle yet because you can't see the thing that you don't know that you might get later that you're not even sure what it is.
neocharge: Hmm. Okay.
neocharge: Um,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Awesome in theory, but in practice, if you end up in the wrong spot, like this, this fucking happened to me for real. I was in, I was working on this puzzle for like two hours and I am not looking up anything on the internet for this game. I want the experience to be authentic.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I broke this rule because I was like, am I just fucking stupid? What am I doing wrong? I have run around.
neocharge: Hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I've looked at all this shit. I have matched up all the things. And it turns out that I just didn't have something that That I didn't know I was going to get, by the way. And it didn't even tell me as in a game like, ah, you can't do this right now. You're wasting your time.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I realize that that does add to the realism. That's cool. But also fuck you for wasting my time, kind of. that That's why I'm so in the middle. I am having so much fun with this game when it works.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That when it doesn't work like that, I don't want to knock it too much because some people love that. But but yeah it's already going to be 300 some hour game.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I don't need it to be a 500 and some hour game because of stuff like that. And that's not necessarily me being dumb. I don't want to, Oh, I can't even, I can mark this on my map, but the map is so huge.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'd have better luck charting the earth than I would charting crimson desert. So that, I mean, that's, that's really like kind of how big it is, which is, which is a positive for it.
neocharge: Damn.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): There's so much to do in this game.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's nuts. Um,
neocharge: Huh.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But the small spoiler that I'm going to tell you guys, because it's it's not really a spoiler.
neocharge: Sure.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You get this this pot that sort of has like an infinite...
neocharge: No problem. Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You can put anything of any size in this pot so that you can carry stuff around that might be a statue, just as an example.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I actually don't know what I'm going to need it for because I just did this today. But... you When they're showing you how to use it, you like suck this thing in this pot. And it's like, you're going to need this for, and then it lists 15 things that I don't fucking know what any of that is.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): No idea what it means. And then there's the thing that I sucked into the pot that it's like, to if you want to spit out the thing, just use the pot. Well, I don't know what the thing is that I sucked into the pot, so I don't know when I'm going to need to use it.
Leon Lionheartly: laughter
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And i don't trust this game in five hours to be like, remember that pot? You're going to need it. No, I'm just going to walk up to this thing and they're going to be like, fuck you, dude, figure it out. And i that's going to be kind of funny, but also kind of frustrating when April has 15 games coming out that I want to play.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So I do, I really, i can't recommend it
neocharge: right
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Bo actually, his his I think it was his cousin, is his friend, I think said it best. where This is like the best game that I've ever played that I can't recommend to anybody. That's kind of how I feel about it.
neocharge: Interesting.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And that's a weird place to be. I really applaud Pearl Abyss for what they've done. They have made a very good single player MMO that is deep. It is...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I mean, it's almost too deep sometimes. um
neocharge: Hmm. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But every time I make a discovery of, I stumble upon something that's really cool, there is that spark, that endorphin release of like, man, what a fucking cool experience this was.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So I really love that. i The combat still, it's getting better for me, but it's still a little on the fence because, I'm getting better at it because skill points are very important.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Certain things that I didn't think I didn't know were not unlocked yet because in the beginning of the game, you could do two of them.
Leon Lionheartly: What?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And then I kept trying to do them and they weren't working. And I was like, what the fuck? And it turns out I had to buy them again in my skill tree. and tell me
Leon Lionheartly: why
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I found that out today, by the way, the dodge, the way you dodge in the game, that's like a real dodge.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You have to fucking buy it in your skill tree. I just 20 hours into the game.
neocharge: Huh.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And I've been wondering why whenever I dodge, I just get fucking hit. And I'm like, what is going on? That's again, part of that is me probably for not being thorough in the skill tree. But when you start the game with it, I feel like this isn't a Metroid where they just suck all your powers out of your suit.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Like what the fuck?
neocharge: right
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But yeah, so that's the one game. I really want you to check it out. when you come visit sometime, you can just see it. Cause I would definitely not recommend buying it unless it was on a super sale for you, Matt, Bob.
neocharge: be down for that.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I think, I think Bob, I think because of just the way that you game, I do think that you would love it after you got over the hump.
neocharge: Dismagfest.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I really do. i just, the hump is, is a big hump. It's a big old. So that's a big ask for somebody. um The other game.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, there's a fine line. Like you said, there's a fine line.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: You've got to thread that needle really good to get my attention because I get what you're saying ah with that game.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. Yeah. And and i'm I'm not complaining. Obviously, having a death in the family is not something to complain about, but it is the timing was a bit of a bummer.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah for this, it's obviously it's a bit of a bummer for everything, but for this, because the only reason I bought it at launch was because everything else got delayed into April. i was like, I got time to at least beat it. I might not platinum it cause it's going to be huge, but I can get through it. I don't think I'm going to be able to do that.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It lost like two and a half weeks of time almost. And again, not complaining real life shit happens. It's it's that sucks. ah But now I'm just in this weird spot of,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): what do I do? i don't want to rush through it. And even if I did want to rush through it, i don't think I can, because I'm going run into puzzles that are just fucking stupid.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So, um, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Just be glad the whole life stuff didn't happen next month because then you'd just be totally screwed.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh my God, dude.
neocharge: Right. o
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's don't even put that in the universe. I don't need that in the universe.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: i So what you're describing, I got to say with what you're describing on those puzzles, um may I make a strong not recommendation for you then?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): What's that? Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Stay the hell away from Hell is Us.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah
neocharge: ah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: That game will just be like, you're like, I know there's a puzzle or there's something there and I know I'm supposed to do something, but I have zero context on what I'm supposed to do. So I don't even know if I have everything, if I'm supposed to come back. um Yeah, please.
Leon Lionheartly: You'll just be ah ah just as frustrated with that one.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. It's there's weird. Another weird thing about the puzzles, just last thing about Crimson Desert, and then I'll move on to the other one. That'll be very quick. Um, Some of the puzzles, and i I don't know if it's a graphic setting thing. I'm not really sure. Certain things you have to you have to match up a visual, like ah a wheel you spin or something that has a painting on it or whatever.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I don't and don't necessarily want to crap on Pearl Abyss for this, even though who else do you crap on? Some of those things are really, really hard to read. Or the the puzzle is so finicky. you're You're turning this wheel and it might be just to make it easy for you guys to understand. Let's say there's a triangle on the top. That's your one clue. Like triangles on top for the final part of the puzzle.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You'll move it to where the triangle looks like it's on top. Nothing will happen. You'll move it a little bit more. Nothing will happen. You'll go move the three others that you're trying to line up and after an hour of fucking around with micro movements, it'll look exactly the same as the first time you did it. And it'll finally unlock.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And it's like, what, you know, it's it's a weird, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: ah
neocharge: That sounds terrible.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And it's not, this I don't want to say it's a bug, But it is frustrating. it's it's just It's frustrating.
neocharge: Hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's one of those, come on. You don't have to give me the answer, but I fucking knew the answer and you're not working that' it as intended. Whether it's because I'm dumb or because you weren't clear enough in this puzzle. That's that's another thing that's kind of weird.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I think they've gotten better with patches. But I don't know because I was so far removed for about a week and then I came back and couple puzzles were fantastic. And then today I was fucking around with one that did the same thing. I was like, what is going on? And then it finally worked. like Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So yeah, it's, it's weird, but I do think for their first time making a so a big ass single player game, they're used to the MMO world.
Leon Lionheartly: you
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It it's, it's impressive. Let me just put it that way. It's very impressive. um So the second game I'm playing, And Matt, you might want to just not listen to me for a minute because I mean, it is it's mobile garbage.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I have to.
neocharge: Go ahead.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): do It's my Dissidia that I was so fucking mad about when they announced it.
neocharge: oh yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And I'm still fucking mad about it because why give me a goddamn Dissidia game for my console that was like the PSP versions. Damn it all. But Counterpoint, it's actually really fun. it's It's really fun. It's going to be fucking pay-to-win bullshit.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I know that. i'm I'm just going to play it because, i like I said earlier, I simp for Final Fantasy. I always have. I love the Dissidia universe. I love the Dissidia music. that it I mean, it pulls in tracks from every game, but there's also its its own unique music that's that's pretty awesome, actually, if people don't know.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Go listen to it. D-I-S-S-I-D-I-A. Dissidia's Final Fantasy music is is awesome. um Quick, what this is, it's 3v3v boss.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So little bit like the marathon, but not it's not an extraction shooter. You're just trying to purify the crystals and destroy the boss before the other team. You can kill the other team. The other team can kill you while you're trying to do, but you're, but you're biting the same boss.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So it's controlled chaos. Let's say, um, matches are relatively quick. I would say between five and 12 minutes. I actually don't know, but it doesn't feel like they take that long. You can get steamrolled, you can steamroll, or it can be a really close match. That is exciting. And sometimes when you lose,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): you will be you won't be mad if it's if it was like a fair fight and the other team just had better tactics. What will piss you off in this game is when the other team has paid for their skills.
neocharge: Oh, no.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Because, i mean, it's all, everybody has, it's RNG gotcha bullshit for the skills, but duplicates of the skills can increase the levels of the skills and make them stronger and so on and so forth.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh...
neocharge: oh
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Here's the rub. Each character has unique skills and then there's a shared pool of skills. Each character, at least at this point in the game, has two. You are the the rarest skills, rarest rarity of skills that can make you briefly invincible while you're performing the attack.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So my characters, I will just say I have warrior of enlightenment.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): The four that you can get at the beginning for free essentially is warrior of light from the first game, lightning from 13, Tara from six and cloud from seven. And then the other characters come from a character draw gotcha mechanic, which actually isn't that bad.
neocharge: Thank you.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You get character tickets relatively often. So whatever, once you've unlocked the character, you can just use them forever. It's great. But I, we all talked about my shitty RNG.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I do not have more than like two UR abilities for any of my characters. so My Warrior of Light has one.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): My Lightning has one. That's it. I don't have one for Terra. I don't have one for Cloud. I don't have one for Onion Knight that I got today, actually. And I don't have one for Aroha. I got both of them today, but I didn't do any character ability draws.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So when I'm playing other players, like Cloud, one of his UR abilities is Omni Slash. We're all familiar with Omni Slash from the game, from Seven and and Remake. Or excuse me, Seven and and eventually Part 3.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): um I'm assuming Omni slash is going to be in there, but he's invincible for like fucking 20 seconds. Well, he just wails on you or the boss. And it kind of sucks when a cloud comes in and he just does that and wins.
neocharge: Dang. dang
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Now that's the, going to be the main problem with this game. Once the rankings are separated, when all these pay to win players are in the Omega rankings and all of us cheap bitches are in silver and gold, it'll level out. I'll even out, but it is, it is kind of a bummer when you lose to that. Cause you're like, well, I didn't have a chance.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): However,
Leon Lionheartly: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): When you get a good game or a good team together and you can do some mechanics for a mobile game, it is very fun. I don't like that it's pay to win, but the the art style isn't as bad as it was when it first launched or when it first did the beta.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's a cool idea for the art style. Characters are, it's an isekai game where they're in our world. in Shibuya Terminal, I believe, for most of it for now. They're over Japan, and they're like fighting bosses to keep them out of the world. So you've got Cloud in ripped jeans, and you've got Terra in a plaid skirt and a sweater. and And some of the costumes are actually... Yeah, yeah. So Matt, that's when you can pay attention.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): There's some waifus in the game for sure. They're Final Fantasy girls, but they...
neocharge: I'm going need some screenshots of this.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): They do have some costumes that I love and they have some that I absolutely fucking hate. You're going to have that in just about everything, but I play with everybody and almost, almost everybody in their original outfits.
neocharge: Of course.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I, you know, the the games they came from the warrior of light one is pretty cool. Cause he's just got a big, long white coat and he doesn't have his helmet. He's, so he's got like a trench coat and a sword and shield. And that's pretty cool. ah But again,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I played on my iPad. I hooked up my DualSense to my iPad because you can play this game with your controller. That was a big draw for me to it.
neocharge: That's cool.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): If it was just touch controls, fuck that shit. The fact that I can control with my DualSense, absolutely. I am on board. So... you know that If you're into mobile games, if you're into Final Fantasy at all, give it a chance.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Just play it for fun. You don't have to win all the time. like Don't waste $1,000 in this fucking game. it's just If you're looking for something that'll take up 45 minutes of your day, you can play and then you can move on. it's it I simp for Final Fantasy, so I had to give it a try.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And I actually do fucking dig it, and I hate myself for liking it.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah i wish i wish I wish it was a premium I'll say that because if it had been a complete experience that you had to like unlock as you played more or whatever um i'd I'd be all for that I played i paid 10 bucks to fuck around with Bellatro for 15 minutes a day when I'm on lunch or something right
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, me too.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I agree. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Right. Yeah. This was a godsend when I was at home with the family And at night when everybody would finally go to sleep and I just needed a little bit of time to myself, I just took my iPad out to the living room, used my DualSense, and I played 45 minutes because I couldn't play Crimson Desert. I couldn't play anything quote unquote real.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So this was actually, it dropped at a really good time that I could just do it and get my Final Fantasy and keep myself sane during this family stuff. That was that was nice. But anyway, so... If you have any questions about Crimson Desert and Dissidia, please feel free to ask. Otherwise, I'm a shut up and let these guys go.
Leon Lionheartly: Would you like to go?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): What are you playing?
neocharge: He's on Discord, so hit him up.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. Would you like to go first, Matt, or do want to knock this out? I got one game to talk about.
neocharge: I have two.
Leon Lionheartly: and Okay. All right.
neocharge: So you it's up to you. You tell me.
Leon Lionheartly: I'll just go and then you can close us out. All right. We'll do it that way.
neocharge: Alright.
Leon Lionheartly: ah I lied to you. I just have one other thing I got to mention. i am kind of ah getting back into the league scene because April 1st April Fool's.
neocharge: Oh no.
Leon Lionheartly: It's the April Fool's events. So they like they change map with funny little things.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Awesome.
Leon Lionheartly: And then like this Saturday, I was sitting at the computer and I was just kind of had the client open and I'm stoned off my ass and it's two in the morning and I'm just like, what do I do? And then I get a message from my kid ah who's in South Dakota.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: Hey dad, you want to play with me and my friends? And I'm like, sure. Why not? Let's do this. Right. um
neocharge: You technically have another one to talk about too, because I want to hear your thoughts on a new character.
Leon Lionheartly: But
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): so
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): just Gin's the one that you play as in League, right? With the number four?
Leon Lionheartly: yeah, he's he's my, he's what you would call my main. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): How pissed you going to be if instead of four, it's six, seven for April Fools?
Leon Lionheartly: Oh my gosh. ah yeah Oh, that would be...
neocharge: i did I did say this was episode 67 in the beginning. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You did.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, you did. i
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You mean poopisode 67? Sorry.
Leon Lionheartly: oh There's no way I would. I would even play, but... Oh, no. I don't... Curse you, and I hope you don't have toilet paper tonight when you go poop.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah
neocharge: We don't because we use bidets.
Leon Lionheartly: if Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's right. Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's true.
neocharge: We're the leading experts on bidets.
Leon Lionheartly: ah But yeah, that's that's yeah a side. Like I said last week, I finished Berseria, had a great time with it, talked all about it. um And I was like, you know what?
Leon Lionheartly: I made a ah deal with Alex. um I'm still in an RPG mood. I've got two and a half, three weeks until ah Pragmata hits, really, which is going to be like the next put down everything game. So I said, screw it. um I went ahead and bought and redownloaded my save file for Legend of Dragoon. because I previously played it for about six hours when I had premium and then just never purchased it again.
Leon Lionheartly: ah The deal is he's going to finish Death Stranding 2 and in exchange i will get the platinum in Legend of Dragoon because it's about the same it's about the same time when you break it down.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Hell yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: In fact, I think he has to do a little bit more.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's great game.
Leon Lionheartly: he has to do more hours, I think. So o I got the better end of the deal.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: ah What can I say about this? That's not going to sound really bad. ah
neocharge: but
Leon Lionheartly: This game is a early... um Actually, I want to say it might have even been late PS1.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It was PS1.
Leon Lionheartly: Let me look it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I think it came out in 99, I think.
Leon Lionheartly: um No, 2001 in Europe, so 2000 in North America.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, wow.
Leon Lionheartly: So this was a late PS1 era game from PlayStation Studios directly.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Damn. i didn't realize was that late.
Leon Lionheartly: So their early foray um as a direct developer instead of just a publisher.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You said O2 here in the States?
Leon Lionheartly: 2000, 2000. Europe, 2000 the States. Yeah. two thousand and one in europe two thousand here in the states um
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay. Okay. 2000 here. so Okay. I was a year off.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so you factor in when the PlayStation came around. By this time, we are had already had Final Fantasy VII, VIII, IX. We had ah Wild Arms. We had all that other good stuff at this point. um So this was a later one.
Leon Lionheartly: ah This is a very unique um RPG. It's a of the time. And what I mean by it is it has the polygons. It's all...
Leon Lionheartly: Sorry, you screwed me up. um But it's of that era. The difference here is it's very focused in what it wants to do.
Leon Lionheartly: um Combat is very so simplistic.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: ah You can attack. You can defend, and defending will you know reduce damage taken and let you restore a little bit of your health. um You can then go into Dragoon form after you build up a spirit bar, and that spirit bar in Dragoon form, you can attack, and that's your opportunity to use magic.
Leon Lionheartly: There you go. That's the summation of it. um It likes to use...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: ah ah rhythm-based combat, so you add additions to your attack, is what they call them, that has different advantages, disadvantages. You just kind of figure out what you want to do because after you use them so many times, you can level they level up, if you will, um and kind of improve and prove their base.
neocharge: That's awesome.
Leon Lionheartly: um I use the PlayStation Rewind quite a bit with some of this because there I don't know if it's the 30 FPS, if it's the porting, um but there's something where sometimes I know I was dead on and then it still said I missed.
Leon Lionheartly: And I'm like, get the fuck out of here. So I just rewind 30 seconds.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah
Leon Lionheartly: um
neocharge: ah it's awesome
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's convenient.
Leon Lionheartly: Combat's very...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: It is convenient. It is nice in that regard. Especially when like you guys will remember this and nobody who hasn't played this all in those contexts. But I'm using Albert and I'm trying to get Gust of Wind Dance maxed out. And that is a notoriously difficult addition.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. And he's slow to move and attack. It's like his agility shit. So if I screwed up one time, I might not get to attack with him for an entire combat again and try again. So I just rewind. ah This is, yeah it' you know what? It's in the features. I'm going to use it.
Leon Lionheartly: that's That's all I'm going to say
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, no, no. The game is old enough and and you are you're absolutely right. Just use that feature for sure.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, I would strongly recommend that.
neocharge: Mhm.
Leon Lionheartly: ah And I know it sounds like I'm crapping on this, but I promise i'm going to get around to the stuff I really enjoy. and This is just some of the things you want to be warned of if you are going to reach into this game. um It is very slow and very methodical.
Leon Lionheartly: ah Load screens are there. It takes forever for things to happen. um There is one advantage where you can go into the menu options and change your Dragoon transformations to short.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: So you get the first time you get to see the cool cinematic transformation. And then after that, it does the quickened version.
neocharge: Thank you.
Leon Lionheartly: And by quickened, there's a delay. And then you finally see a somewhat in animation and then it finally delays again. And then you have finally do it, your you attack 10, 15 seconds later. um So it is it is a little slow in that regard.
Leon Lionheartly: ah Outside of that, this music is really the music in this is really fucking good. This is top tier PS1 RPG music.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): awesome.
Leon Lionheartly: The battle music, the different towns, ah even the boss music, it's it's no one-winged angel, ah but definitely give it a try for sure. um I got to say, outside of that, the story is good. um It's a very good it original tale. You're talking about dragons. You're talking about fairies. You're talking about humans. It's kind of tro ah it's it's kind of like retreading the same ground, but it's told in a unique way. And the full-motion video sequences in here are really what takes up a lot of the space on the disc, and you can tell.
Leon Lionheartly: full full Full voice acting. um The FMVs are some of the best... um quite frankly, short of a Square Enix one, because you just don't defeat the king ah that that easily. ah But it is top tier. um You can see that's where the little things were put in with the voicing.
Leon Lionheartly: When you do your auditions and you get the, you know, Gustav Wind Dance, and it's like, oh, they actually said it?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah
Leon Lionheartly: You know, it's That's where a lot of the data came up. And I think you can see where they kind of had to trim down the game a little bit to make room for that. So keep that in mind if you are going to look at this game.
Leon Lionheartly: um It's still, there's something about it. It's addicting. I get irritated when I'm like, why is it taking forever to do this? Why did that attack not hit? what is Why is it that I can only carry 32 items? And then if I pick up an item, all of a sudden I'm screwed. And you get a little frustrated.
Leon Lionheartly: But when you do hit and you do your transformations, or if everybody is in full Dragoon form or a Spirit Bar and you can do the special a command, like those moments really hit. um so it's like ah It's like almost Crimson Desert in that regard now that I'm revisiting this 20 years later.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: it's like The parts that I don't like, I really don't like. The parts I love, I love. And... You can tell there was where they put a lot of effort into that production. The localization, definitely, you can tell Sony was early on as an actual developer and spreading their wings as PlayStation Studios because you see things where... um I'll give you an example. um One of the characters, he does Flurry of Sticks.
Leon Lionheartly: You go into the menu. The edition name is Flurry of Sticks. He says Flurry of Sticks when you do it. But on the screen, they always show the name of the edition when you complete it. It says Ferry of Sticks.
Leon Lionheartly: F-E-R-R-Y of Sticks.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah
Leon Lionheartly: ah So the it has a little bit of that rough edging in the localization, which is probably a good story. I need to go look up and see how that became and how they got past it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm glad they didn't fix it. Actually. I'm glad that they kept it the same. That that's just a, Hey, we're not going to put any more work into this because we want to fucking remake.
Leon Lionheartly: Yes. Yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Damn it. But yeah, it's cool that, that they just left it alone.
Leon Lionheartly: yes
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: That funny.
Leon Lionheartly: that's what That's my next point. is I think this game is ripe for a remaster, not a remake.
neocharge: um
Leon Lionheartly: or not ah that Sorry, other way around. Not a remaster, but a full remake and update.
neocharge: yes
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Because if you could smooth out some of those edge those hard edges that people are going to be turned off on. If you're interested in RPGs, just know this is a tough one to swallow because we haven't gotten anything updated.
Leon Lionheartly: This is a straight port. Give us a remaster or a remake of this and it will sing. Holy shit. It will clear up everything. You can expand on the story.
Leon Lionheartly: You can really do a lot of cool stuff about it because under the hood, there was some experimentation that I really appreciated, like experience.
neocharge: you
Leon Lionheartly: For example, you get a thousand experience, not that much. You get like a hundred experience and that hundred experience isn't given to each character. It's distributed amongst the party. ah So you have to really be wanting to grind. and And when you do level up, instead of going from zero to 100 and then I hit level two, now I'm at zero and I got to go to 150. It's I'm at 100 and then to hit level two, I need to go to 200.
Leon Lionheartly: or so on and so forth. So it steps up kind of like D&D, if you ah gentlemen know what I'm talking about.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: um There's some really cool ah design elements there that I think if we could get this game off of the fucking PS1, it would be an amazing RPG.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You know who would do a really good remake of this?
Leon Lionheartly: yeah What?
neocharge: Point.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, too soon.
Leon Lionheartly: What?
neocharge: Damn.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's what I was going to say. so upset.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm still so upset about it.
Leon Lionheartly: I know, right?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Give me Legend drew a legend of Dragoon.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: You know what? I'm not going to...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): All right, Bob, one question about this, just because you're revisiting it now. If you have one, who's your favorite character in the game?
Leon Lionheartly: I am still a fan of Dark.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, main guy. All right. I like it.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah he's You look at his stats, he's basically like even on stats across the board. um i really like his Dragoon magic.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Sure.
Leon Lionheartly: I love his Dragoon armor, the design, the the character. I really like him in that regard. I also really like him as a character. He's He's being a stoic, almost like Cloud or so or Squall.
Leon Lionheartly: Just this is what I want to do. And I am not interested in anything else. ah So you can fuck off, including the love interest part, which you guys know. um So that's why I really appreciate him.
neocharge: huh
Leon Lionheartly: he's he's a easy They say it's one dimensional, but I like it as a character who's true to who he is and doesn't flop around for the sake of what's happening in the story and just be like, oh, well now he's a good guy because that's where the party's going or whatever, right?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. I was just curious.
neocharge: ah nice yeah god just give us a remake but right
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. Very nice.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. Blue point.
Leon Lionheartly: And if I had to, oh, and if had to, my second favorite is it that the our favorite giant, Kongo.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Just kind of shows up. I like you guys. I'm going to hang out with you. And you have no choice in the matter.
neocharge: ha
Leon Lionheartly: And that's his whole arc. In all seriousness, that's how he got it gets to the party. There's backstory, but he just shows up and he's like, I follow you guys. You seem like good guys.
neocharge: Beautiful.
Leon Lionheartly: ah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You know, 20 years ago, for real, when I, ah went because the game was only 26 years old, so his game was six years old at the time, I really, because I was an undergrad, I was thinking about writing up a treatment to try to make a film of Legend of Dragoon.
neocharge: Love that.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Like if I could go to Sony and say, hey, I think we could make a really badass movie of this game.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah The movie wouldn't be 50, 70 hours long though, which is fine because you trim the fat, the shit you're talking about, that everything's slow and takes forever. That is part of the game's charm, but it's also part of its frustration.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I think Legend of Dragoon would make for an awesome film, personally.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, would. No, it's a cinematic game. 100% a cinematic game.
neocharge: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Hell yeah.
neocharge: And Claire Obscure was inspired partly by this game. So, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. I could see that. ah Claire Obscura's top button presses are a lot more forgiving and consistent.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: For sure. For sure. little more tight.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. yeah and yeah i
neocharge: Awesome.
Leon Lionheartly: Sorry, I gotta say that the one frustration is when I said you can defend and you can get health back, you also take reduced damage. If you defend, for whatever reason, the AI is coded in this game, if you just have one party member, you're like, I'm gonna top them off real quick.
Leon Lionheartly: The AI will just gang the fuck up on that character.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): but
Leon Lionheartly: Like, why did you defend instead of attack?
neocharge: ah
Leon Lionheartly: It it pisses me off every time.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yep.
neocharge: That's awesome.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You're absolutely right.
neocharge: Beautiful.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Memories.
neocharge: Nice.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Gust of wind dance. Now that's in my head. Thanks, Bob.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, you know what we said at my D&D night, right? Harpoon!
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): but I'm not mad about it. That's the
Leon Lionheartly: ah But yeah, that's it. I'll continue to ride this out and for the seeable future, and then we'll see if I got time before Pragmata. I should. It's just a matter of what I played before then.
Leon Lionheartly: Maybe it'll be...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So no, no marathon right now.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: What's that?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Are you, are you just taking a break from marathon?
Leon Lionheartly: I'm kind of on a break right now. um I want to. ah I'm going to try, that's for sure. Because Marathon really is a good fucking game. But I also know it's a live service game that I can just bounce out of and then bounce back in whenever I want.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, for sure.
neocharge: we yeah We did that a little bit with Borderlands. That's the other game.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, yeah, yeah. um I did...
neocharge: Borderlands 4.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: too.
Leon Lionheartly: i I guess I should probably mention that. and I totally forgot. I paid for the DLC for Borderlands 4.
neocharge: need two
Leon Lionheartly: Matt, yeah, he he he was like, dude, you need to play the new get a character, Cash.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Me too.
Leon Lionheartly: I don't know. Have you played them yet, ah Caleb?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): No, I know that he's probably going to be my worst character because he's got RNG.
Leon Lionheartly: Hey.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm just like, nope, not going to work for me, but I'm going to do it.
neocharge: and
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I just haven't yet.
Leon Lionheartly: He has some RNG elements to him, but he also has ah other elements that are more consistent. So his entire thing is as you perform certain actions and things off the skill tree, you get what's called fortune stacks.
Leon Lionheartly: These fortune stacks, you get up to a certain amount. And every time you gain one, you have an increased chance when you kill an enemy or automatically reload, not manually, automatically reload your gun, you go into this trance state that like increases everything across the board.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): okay
Leon Lionheartly: So it's ah it's a constant balance of cycling through those. um I really love him as a character. I'm doing the card slinging edition. So when he pulls up his cards um and then he answers that trance state, he can shoot them unlimited for a certain amount of time.
Leon Lionheartly: So I'm just throwing electric, acid, whatever, just nonstop, constantly destroying the enemy. Um...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So you're Borderlands Gambit.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, exactly.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That sounds awesome.
Leon Lionheartly: You have three modes. Gambit, summon plants, or totems as they call them, or you can do gunslinger mode where you just pull out a couple of pistols or shotguns and just go automatic shooting.
neocharge: Gunzerker.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, Gunzerker. This is an amazing class. I love the hell out of cash, but this is not a $30 DLC.
Leon Lionheartly: And 2K and Gearbox, get your head out of your ass. This game has still not been improved upon since the launch at all.
neocharge: No, it's still broke.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, really? ah
Leon Lionheartly: It's still broke as fuck.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): God damn it, Randy.
neocharge: But still so fun. Like, I hopped in with my girl Vex. I got the $30 DLC, too, because, you know, fuck it, whatever. ah There's only two major story DLCs this time around, and they're each $30, which is pretty crazy. ah But it adds a lot. It adds new levels, new enemies, new character.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Sure.
neocharge: Uh, but yeah, I, I, uh, rocked my girl backs. We're doing some ultimate vault on her stuff. I think we're on ultimate vault hunter level three. Uh, and it was, dude, it was so fun to get back in there.
neocharge: You want to join us. It's just kind of like a pickup and play. Uh, and yeah, let's, let's tank the frame rate again with Harlow.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Oh yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. Yeah. My Harlow is ultimate vault hunter level five or max because of course it she is.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So I feel like
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): that would be a lot of fun anyway, but it now i that I know that I've done all the hard shit, uh, would not recommend doing any of that solo, by the way, I did all my ultimate ball hunter stuff solo, um, because fucking sadist, but I would, did you guys end up finishing the DLC then?
neocharge: No.
Leon Lionheartly: No.
neocharge: My God. You're a unit.
neocharge: yeah Yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Or like,
neocharge: No, we haven't even we haven't even touched it.
Leon Lionheartly: No. No.
neocharge: We haven't even started it. So we...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): okay. so you just did the character. You just played cash. You didn't actually do it.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, because I just started him at level 30, and I'm trying to get him up while we're working on the ultimate vault hunter.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh yeah.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Which, by the way, there's a new level cap.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: It's up to 60. Oh.
neocharge: There is.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh my.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay.
neocharge: Yeah. So... And there's like a new... New things you gain throughout the the game. for It's just for cosmetics. But they're like vault cards. So...
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, it's ah it's a new shop.
neocharge: Pretty cool
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, okay.
Leon Lionheartly: It's really cool. You do things and then you get vault cards and then you cash those vault cards in for premium weapons like legendaries or cosmetics for your character.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's nice.
neocharge: cool.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I like that. That's cool.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, we will. i Honestly, when it released, I remember because I saw it at like 11.30 or 12 before I was going to bed. It was news of the games you play. And I meant to text you guys, but that was the next morning I had an appointment at 7 o'clock AM or something like that.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): was I gotta go to bed. I'll text tomorrow. And I just fucking forgot because I thought we could play this together. And then obviously I didn't have time anyway, so it wouldn't have mattered. But yes, we are we are going to play.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): We're going to do this DLC and the next one for sure.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Because I bought the Super Jesus Deluxe Penis Edition, whatever it's Because Borderlands DLC has always been pretty damn good.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: Smart. Smart.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So I did did take that risk, even though I don't like paying for something that's not out yet.
neocharge: Always hits.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): a la Assassin's Creed shadows. but People that got screwed on that, but
neocharge: Now... there's two different paid tiers and content. So did you get the ultimate like Jesus Christ, Borderlands?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah, I did.
neocharge: that day Okay, so you get you get the the bounty stuff and the story DLC. Because the bounty stuff is also like $11 each, and there's like five of them.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Jesus.
neocharge: And then the story DLC, there's two, ah which recently released, Matt Ellie and the Vault of the Damned, and then another one this fall.
Leon Lionheartly: you
neocharge: I believe, or early summer or late summer. ah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: So yeah, I mean, if you buy them all la carte, which, whoops. Oh, well.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): but But still, it you're wiser in general to do that as a gamer.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Not necessarily. I mean, you guys are.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But you've all played Borderlands. You you probably fucked up because you knew that the DLCs were on point.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But for for your average gamer, absolutely do not give them money before you know what the fuck you're buying.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's the dumbest thing in the world.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I admit it. I did that for this. But I also really like Borderlands. So once I knew you guys were in...
neocharge: Yeah, and notoriously, they've had amazing DLC.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: And from what we've heard, this is really good. It's short, but it's really good. And it adds a lot of new shit, which I can appreciate.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Short and sweet.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: So, yeah, it's getting like eights across the board.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Cool.
Leon Lionheartly: Yep.
neocharge: I'll have to look at the ah and new reviews.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, the DLC is? Yeah, that's that's kind of what I expect from a Borderlands DLC because you're going to rub some people the wrong way with the humor and stuff, but I'll take a solid 8 out of 10 for a DLC.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
neocharge: Right, right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's great.
Leon Lionheartly: Yep.
neocharge: Yeah. So we'll play more and we're going to stream it for you all.
Leon Lionheartly: Let's do it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Swell.
neocharge: Twitch.tv forward slash shapes of gaming. So yeah, I'm still playing back.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'll crash the game. for us.
neocharge: Oh yeah. so
Leon Lionheartly: Okay.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: i I promise since Matt reminded me, that's all I'm playing this week. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah
neocharge: Yep. I was going to talk about it, but you've been playing the new character. I'm still playing my girl back. So I wanted you to go into it and the new play style. So I'm glad we touched on that. So Yeah, I'm glad you're enjoying ah Legend of Dragoon, but, you know, it's shown its cracks, of course. I'm kind of going through ah a bit of a similar situation. It's not shown its cracks too bad because they really did a really good job on this remaster, definitive edition. Before I get into that, I did Platinum Ni No Kuni.
neocharge: ah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Congratulations.
neocharge: fucking loved every bit of that game. The battle mechanics needed some work, but we talked about that on the last cast. And very rarely, I platinumed it, and I didn't put it down.
neocharge: I went back and I played about another five hours of it because I wanted to catch more familiars. And that is very rare that I do that, because usually when you platinum, you see the whole game through. But I had some...
neocharge: i had I just wanted to hit some higher percentages in the Wizarding Companion, and I was still having a blast with it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): The game's so good.
neocharge: 95 hours in.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): The game is so good.
neocharge: It's so good. it's I told Bob, if I ah had to rank ah JRPGs and I could only do it from one one from each IP, this would easily be in my top five.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, it was just very, very special.
neocharge: So...
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And for the listeners, we ah I think on the last cast, I had told Matt when he platinumed it to post a picture so that I could also post a picture of mine to see exactly what the time difference was.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And he was just over 13 years after I platinumed mine on PS3. I played on PS3. But we both did it in March. I didn't i actually did not remember that.
neocharge: Oh, wow.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It was i it was you know March 9th and March 17th or so. I don't remember the dates, but it was really, really close.
neocharge: That's funny.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It was weird. 13 years almost to the day that he finally did it.
neocharge: Wow.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): He finally played the game that we've been bitching at him to play.
neocharge: It Yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And I'm so glad that you liked it.
neocharge: I platinumed it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, it's awesome.
neocharge: Yeah, I platinumed it. That platinum's so difficult. There's some crazy RNG in there for some of the last few trophies. But yeah, I loved the shit out of the game.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: if If you like JRPGs, Pokemon, Harry Potter, Even Tails. There's a lot Tails in there. ah go Go check out this game. it's It's a little old. It does show its cracks a little bit, but man, I enjoyed it through and through.
neocharge: so Thanks again for that recommendation. Both of you. I know a little...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Music is so good in that game, right?
neocharge: i like Oh, it's so good.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): that's All of it's great.
neocharge: So good. yeah Yeah. So ah that game actually inspired me to finally revisit the game I'm currently playing, which is Tales of Vesperia Definitive Edition.
neocharge: So both made by Bandai Namco. ah Tales of Vesperia is like a late Gen 3, early Gen 4 Tales, originally released on the Xbox 360 in 2008. And then they released the Definitive Edition somewhat recently, like seven years ago on PS4.
neocharge: in 2019 in the grand scheme of things, right? And I started it on launch, but then I had to put it down. Like, these Tales games are beefy. Like, they're 80-hour just base story games, as you know, Bob, and as you know, Caleb, right?
Leon Lionheartly: Mm-hmm.
neocharge: So...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, they're big boys for sure.
neocharge: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. ah And I put it, I got about 35 hours in and put it down. And that was on launch. So around like 2019, I was so inspired by the Ni No Kuni that I saw so many elements of Tales games in Ni No Kuni. I was like, I gotta, I gotta revisit Tales of Vesperia. And very rarely do I go from genre to genre, like back to back.
neocharge: But I'm so glad I did. This game is incredible. I'm playing on PS5 Pro. It runs like upscale 4K60. The cell shading's beautiful. It's probably one of the best games in the series. It's notoriously ah like in in fan a fan favorite, right?
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, yeah. is it It was 360 exclusive at the time, right?
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): When it when it came out.
neocharge: 360 exclusive.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: I still have my copy. Yeah. So when it came to PlayStation, I was like, oh shit. So I finished it on the 360. I didn't really complete it. Completing Tales games, platinum-ing ah is ah just hundreds of hours of an ordeal.
neocharge: So never did that. i Of course, it's by Bandai Namco. And ah yeah, it's a JRPG. So it follows Yuri Lowell and his trusty dog companion that's a playable character. you get this early on called repeat. Uh, and he's pipe smoking dog.
Leon Lionheartly: I'm in.
neocharge: Uh,
Leon Lionheartly: ah
neocharge: Dude, right? I sent you a picture of Rapide, and I'm like, this is a playable character. And like he's a playable fucking character in your party.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): but
neocharge: And I'm not going to tell you how many party members you get in this, but it's if you've ever played Symphonia, it's close to that amount, and it's more than usually any JRPG. There's a lot of playable characters, and they actually added two new playable characters ah in this.
neocharge: So...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Wow.
neocharge: That's really cool for like a remaster.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): For sure.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Honestly, it's kind of on the the the line of a remake, but a very well-known character. i mean, he's literally on the fucking cover. If you ever played it, ah he's playable.
neocharge: So our our boy is now playable, which... I was kind of bummed he wasn't playable in the original, but they this is in the marketing for the Defendative Edition. you can is Flynn is a permanent playable character.
neocharge: I won't tell you the other playable character because it might be a little bit of a surprise, ah but that character was also like... and fans gave Bandai Namco feedback and they're like, dude, like this guy is literally on the cover with Yuri and like, we can't play as him. And they're like, yeah. So I think they scrapped it and then they added it into the remaster, which,
neocharge: is incredible. And that's why I'm like, oh I'm all in. So, uh, I started this around the end of act one, about 35 hours in. And I think I'm like 60 hours in now, almost about to finish act two, I believe.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Wow.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, wow.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's not.
neocharge: So yeah, it's like a, it's like an 80 hour game. Uh, Yeah, I've, I played a ton of tales games. I'm, I'm a big fan of tales. Uh, and this is one of my favorites.
neocharge: Uh, it's, so the voice acting is interesting. There are some, some porting issues and some, uh, localization issues because I'm pretty sure I've heard three different voices for the same character.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): like
neocharge: Uh, a different one in skits, a different one in, uh, in engine cut scenes, and then a different one in, in game cut scenes. Like it's, uh, but Troy Baker is the main voice actor for Yuri Lowell.
neocharge: So, oh yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Was he back in 2008?
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay. i I mean, I knew that he would have been around then doing work, but I didn't know if he had jumped into tails.
neocharge: Yep.
neocharge: Yeah. Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So.
neocharge: Yep. We got young Troy as Yuri. And Yuri's an incredible main protagonist. He's a ton of character building. The whole party you know builds character. a ton of twists and turns. It's it's your typical JRPG. and And the world is amazing. The gameplay, the combat is... ah I think the best in the series because, Arise was pretty good, but this one, like you have your arts, right? And you have your tiers of arts, A-R-T-E-S. Those are like your abilities and you have your arts, your arcane arts, burst arts, altered arts. and you chain those, and you can get like a really long combo going. And then you have your skills that you learn from your weapons. So after every battle, I know you just went through this with Bergeria, because Bergeria took this from, I think Vesperia was the first to do it in the series. Final Fantasy IX did it before ah Vesperia.
neocharge: But ever after every battle, you're like, oh, skill popped up, going into my menu, checking the equipment. And yeah, so you're constantly in the menus, tweaking around things. ah The cast of characters is awesome.
neocharge: It's just ah a fun little adventure where, you know, you start doing missions and helping little old ladies. And before you know it, you're fighting God, right? It's a fucking JRPG.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, right. I was going to say, that's kind of it.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, that's how it goes.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: it
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But the my my main question is, you you heard three different voice actors for this character, but more importantly, were they saying, Harpoot!
neocharge: Yes.
neocharge: Yes. yes
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah
neocharge: now No, the audio balancing needs some work too.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Damn it.
neocharge: So, yeah, ah I don't know. I think it might be because they added those new characters in that they had to use older ah clips that, and so that's why they kind of like,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yep.
neocharge: ah pigeonholed him in there. So I don't know. It's beautiful. It's gorgeous. its It looks like an anime. And there are anime cutscenes. Not on the level of Studio Ghibli, right?
neocharge: But they're there.
Leon Lionheartly: okay
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Are they like a Lunar almost?
neocharge: and they're
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): like the the Okay, because that that's what I think of when I think of anime cutscenes done well in a video game.
neocharge: Yes. Yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I think that Lunar nailed those and anything that steals from that or just uses that, I'm on board with.
neocharge: Yep.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Vesperious one that I never actually played.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I was going to get it on my 360 back in the day.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And honestly, I don't know what came out around the time. i just never did. And every single person that I've spoken with, whether they were a Tales fan or not, it's like their favorite 360 game other than Halo 3.
neocharge: It's incredible.
neocharge: Oh, nice.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's that and Halo 3 are the two big ones and and Gears ah gear trilogy.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But Yeah, I've always wanted to play it. I will play Vesperia someday. ah So you would recommend this version?
neocharge: yeah. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Not.
neocharge: Yes. Yeah, the Definitive Edition is great.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay.
neocharge: And it runs very well, looks awesome. Like I said, there's two new playable characters. The localization needs some work, but it's not too jarring.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: ah And yeah, it's just awesome. There's there's crafting, there's alchemizing alchemization or whatever. ah And a thing that I really appreciate with these older games that we don't see often in the newer games is every item has its own little graphic icon.
neocharge: And I like that.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's cool.
neocharge: I fucking like that.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So you can just you can just get a quick look and know what it is?
neocharge: like eat Yeah, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Mm-hmm.
neocharge: Yeah, you get you get like a rock and it's in, I don't know, or like a leaf and it's just like, oh, there's like a little fucking icon for it. It's so cool. We're in like weapons. You can like see the weapon. Of course, you can see it in the the battle, but yeah.
neocharge: And this, ah going off the heels of Ni No Kuni for ah tweaking the game, like the party members and how they act. whole It is night and day.
neocharge: you can go granular. And this this was the first title in the Tales series that really took it to a granular level. like You can say, all right, my healer is going to be away from the battle, targeting a different enemy if she's going to attack it, and then she's going to heal people once they get to a certain threshold.
neocharge: But she's not going to use ah more than 75% her TP, technical points, And she can use items, but only if I approve them in the battle.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: And then ah she can use the the fatal strike. And it's just, you can get super granular with each character. There's four playable characters in the battle. And I got to say, sometimes I go around and I look for battles because this this battle system is so fucking fun.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Well, I know when you guys were talking about Missouri on the last or two casts ago, I think ah you mentioned the gambit system from Final Fantasy 12.
neocharge: And...
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And that that's really exciting because once you figure out how the gambit system works and you get all the gambits and you can tinker, it's it's actually a lot of fun, a lot more fun than I think people gave it credit for at the time.
neocharge: Yes.
neocharge: yes
Leon Lionheartly: Uh-huh.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But it also reminded me, and it was not this granular because the game came out in the nineties, but star ocean two ah had where you could tell your characters, your party members, what skills they could use, what skills they couldn't use and when to use items, when not to use items. And that was something that made each battle a lot more exciting because you could focus on your own character. And if you needed to swap around and use something that you told them not to for a certain fight, you could just do that.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah So I assume in Vesperia, you can switch to other characters in battle, right? Or can you not?
neocharge: Yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay. So, because that's the only problem I've
neocharge: Yes, on the fly. Not as good as Bergeria. Bergeria, you can just like switch and it just does it on the fly. But this, you have to go into the menu, but you can then choose which character you are controlling.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, that's good. Because I know some games, and I'm struggling to remember a specific one, but where you're controlling multiple, or you have multiple party members, three or four in a battle, and you can't change who you are in that set battle.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You have to change outside the battle. And that always frustrated me with those.
neocharge: No. Yeah. Symphonia was like that.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay, that might be what I'm thinking of then, because it was older JRPGs.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And I was just thinking to myself, fucking why? I mean, I know CPU, technical situations, but still, it's it's much more exciting when you can,
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): you know you might not want to be a melee character for this battle.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You might want to be a mage. And you don't know that the first time you play that fight.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So that's that's exciting to be able to do.
neocharge: Right. yeah And just like with so with Symphonia, you can ah do shortcuts on the buttons for your characters that are in the battle. So you have like you can just flip up on the right stick and your healer will start healing the person that's hurting the most.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's cool.
neocharge: so Or you can tell your mage, hey, do a fire spell with a flick down on the right stick. And then you can even go further and ah you hold L1 and that changes your... ah right stick shortcuts and then you can, and I have it on the paddle.
neocharge: So it's, it's awesome.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): No, yeah. So you've got essentially like two wheels, I guess, to since you can swap between the two or...
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: Five. So you have three with Yuri and two with your party members.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, it's fine. Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Ah, I see. That's great.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah. Because with Yuri, you have your, if you hold up and hit X, your X is the attack.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Those are four attacks. And then you can hold ah l one and hold like an X. It's just, it's like a fighting game, honestly, with the combinations.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Sure.
neocharge: So it's amazing.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I mean, they did a good job in Arise.
neocharge: And dude.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Obviously, that came after all of these.
neocharge: Oh yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): that But that that was a...
neocharge: I'm so excited for the next one.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Me too.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Arise is.
neocharge: Arise was, on it was great. Amazing Tales game, but it did leave a lot out that we've had before. So, yeah, it was kind of a condensed Tales game.
Leon Lionheartly: Mm-hmm.
neocharge: And lastly, the reason, one of the main reasons I play these games is the soundtrack.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, for sure.
neocharge: And holy fucking shit. Every town, every different dungeon, like, and there's probably 30 dungeons has ah its own unique soundtrack. And you're going in and just like, oh hell yeah. Like I got to this ice place and it was just like a new fucking track. I've never heard. And I'm like, yeah. So tales games have amazing soundtracks. Uh, and they're very range too.
neocharge: So yeah, the world is fun.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I feel like Vesperia has the favorite, doesn't it? Isn't it the favorite soundtrack of the whole series? i Or if not the favorite, I think it's top three for sure.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: i Yeah, it's it's up there with Symphonia. so And Brigeria actually has a really... And graces Grace's F has a really good soundtrack too. But yeah, it's one of the fan favorites across the board for everything, really.
neocharge: Combat, I think, notoriously, Vesperia has the best combat of this series.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay.
neocharge: So, yeah. I would argue that I like Brigeria's combat a little better ah because there's there's some things when you take down a monster and it's like laying on the ground, its hitbox goes away, which sucks.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's stupid. Yeah.
neocharge: I know.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah
neocharge: and then if you're And then if you're... And you can solve this by saying... Telling all your party members to attack someone else when I'm attacking this guy because I'm trying to get a combo on him. Because you're you're chasing grade the entire time. And that's the thing about these Tales games. You get ah a set amount of grade per battle. And then the grade, once you beat the game and you go to New Game Plus...
neocharge: Grade allows you to kind of break the game. Gives you maybe five times XP. On this one, you can do each skill point costs one point. When like some of them cost 15.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Wow.
neocharge: Yeah. So i'm I'm actually excited to finish it and then play it again.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's great. I'm glad to hear it
neocharge: ah because of the grade, because of the grade shop. And with this remaster, they didn't open the grade shop straight up, like right away. Because with Bergeria and Graces, ah for the returning people that have played the originals, they opened the grade shop right away. Like Bob broke his fucking game, like hour one.
neocharge: But in Vesperia, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, yeah.
neocharge: Vesperia was one of their first forays into the the remaster. They actually remastered Symphonia, but ah I really wanted to re replay Symphonia originally on the GameCube. 04, 03, 04.
neocharge: But they fucked it up. On the GameCube, it runs 60 frames consistently.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh yeah, you mentioned that on the on one of the other casts and I was i remember sitting in my car.
neocharge: Locked.
neocharge: On the remaster, it's 30 frames.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, that's just fucking travesty. I don't i don't know what they're there.
neocharge: So, yeah, i would have I would have started with Symphonia, but yeah, Vesperia, 60 frames, gorgeous, loving it. I'm about, I think, 60 hours in, so, and I, yeah, lot shit's happening, right?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Another to go for that
neocharge: So, oh, I am not going to platinum it. There's a speed run in this fucking game, which I will not be doing. 15 hours.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Even on New Game Plus?
Leon Lionheartly: Oh,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I mean, you can't just beeline it on New Game Plus?
neocharge: um look i I mean, I played this game. I beat this game. I'll look into the trophies after I get done with it, but in in the strategies, but I don't know, man.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Sure, yeah.
neocharge: If they're like, oh, yeah, it's easy. Just skip everything and I might do it, but that's fifth like even 10 hours of just speed running a game that is not meant to be speed ran.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, that's I had that problem with Final Fantasy nine when I was doing the platinum.
neocharge: Like.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I not the problem that it was difficult. The problem was I don't want to play the game this way. I don't like just to get ah I mean, sorry, spoilers for a game that came out 26 years ago to get one of your characters ultimate weapons.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You have to get to the end of the game.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And I think it's under 10 hours. It's either 10 or 12. It's it's it's crazy. Yeah. i never did it on PlayStation one because it just didn't sound fun. i was like, fuck that. I don't even care.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And then when it came to, you know re-release on, on PS4 and PlayStation network. I thought, eh, I'm never going to get the platinum because it's stupid fucking jump rope trophy anyway.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But I, I always wanted to know what the Excalibur two, sorry, that was the name of the weapon. Oops. I wasn't going to say it, what it was called and what it, what its skills were.
neocharge: It's okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I never even bothered to look it up back in the day because it notoriously, the play online guide was garbage.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So you had to go online to fucking find ah your answers.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): was like, why even have the guide? So I never actually knew. And then when my sadistic bullshit ass decided to do the, the jump rope and I got it, I was like, well, I was going to get the the weapon anyway, just to see, but now I kind of have to And honestly, that was the least fun I had had was because I just bum rushed the game and you get to use the weapon for 15 battles.
neocharge: Well, now you have to. All
neocharge: right.
neocharge: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Maybe mean, you could run around and try to get in a random fight, but so what at that point, that's fucking stupid.
neocharge: Yeah. Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So yeah, I don't,
Leon Lionheartly: Mm-hmm.
neocharge: I hate getting an ultimate weapon at the end, right?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, and they didn't even it wasn't even a new game plus in 9, at least, in Final Fantasy 9.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You just start over.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): was like, what the fuck? I didn't even get to keep it for subsequent playthroughs?
neocharge: no
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's stupid. So, sorry, I didn't mean to derail you there, but 15 hours for some for a Tales game.
neocharge: Yeah. No, you're good
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: But there is new game plus. that's why I love the shit out of Tales games for doing that because they just get better and better with each concurrent playthrough.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Sure.
neocharge: So I think I'm doing pretty good on grade and we'll see.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: But yeah, I'll i'll be playing this ah pretty much up until Pogmata.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Until Pragmata? Yeah. yeah
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Or Hades 2.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You'll be playing until Hades 2, maybe.
neocharge: Man. Here's the thing. All right.
Leon Lionheartly: Time.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's clobbering time!
neocharge: It's a hard time. I don't, I just don't know. Honestly, I don't know what mood I'm going to be in. I have been fucking waiting for six months for Hades 2.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: I've talked about it. Love the original. We recently picked it up. ah But Pragmata, man, it's going to be, I think it's going to be really good.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I know.
neocharge: So it just sucks.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): They're all going to be good. April is going to be insane.
neocharge: I know. i know.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: i know. So I guess, I guess I just got to put all my toys in a pile and be like, what do I feel?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: So, but Hades is the first one that drops. Now here's, here's the thing. ah yeah hot damn got all
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's clobber time.
neocharge: If it doesn't have a physical edition, I might be a little more hesitant to buy it on launch.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: So I haven't seen a physical edition yet. And there are rumors that they might be waiting and Alan Wake got me. Okay. I'm not going to get God again. Or am I? I don't know.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Actually, I thought that I had read there was a physical edition coming for Hades 2 with but a bonus soundtrack something, right?
neocharge: We'll see how I feel.
neocharge: coming yes yeah i sent that i sent that they said well we're gonna yeah we're gonna do the same that we did on switch two and we're gonna include the soundtrack and a bunch of cool shit and then i'm like oh awesome so but i don't see it yet when right so yeah i just don't know april's fucked i think we might have a an episode episode dedicated to all these games like we did so for september we just got to figure out an april uh song title hmm
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): it Yeah, okay, okay, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): but But when? Where is it? Yeah, okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): are you good Are you going to do seven-game spoiler cast all at the same time? just
Leon Lionheartly: You won't be invited then.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): All right, we have to finish all of them and talk about of all one 19-hour cast.
neocharge: Right?
Leon Lionheartly: you won't be invited then
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah
neocharge: No. Well, Hades 2 is sitting at a 90-fucking-5.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Nope.
neocharge: We know that game is incredible.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): a lot I'm sure it deserves it.
neocharge: So, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, deserves it.
Leon Lionheartly: It deserves it, but I can buy it and support the debt, but they got their money back. To be honest, I've already waited six months. Pragmata's sitting right there.
neocharge: I know.
Leon Lionheartly: i I am more worried about spoilers for Pragmata than I am for Hades 2.
neocharge: Yeah, that's another, that's a good point.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's fair. That's a fair point.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah, so I just don't know.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm just fucked. I'm just fucked.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I have all the games that I'm getting. i
neocharge: I'm only doing Hades 2, Pragmata, and Saros. That's it.
Leon Lionheartly: That's cute.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Replaced, Hades 2, Pragmata, Seros, Diablo.
neocharge: I know. Oh, replaced, fuck yeah, I'm doing that too.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yes! That's all of them.
Leon Lionheartly: Pragmata, 80s Chu, Mouse P.I., Saint Slayer, Vampire Crawler, Seros.
neocharge: Anyway.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. Yeah.
neocharge: Well, you're just fucked, sir.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah
neocharge: I honestly think Saros is going to be good. I really do. And I'm very excited for it. I might let that one breathe, though, because my experience with Returnal was soured because ah the one of the trophies were bugged.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, at the launch.
neocharge: Like the gold one.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Sure.
neocharge: Yeah. So I don't know. But yeah, Tales of Vesperia. Love it. Enjoying the hell out of it. Highly recommend it for any JRPG fan. And ah yeah, I'll probably report more on it the the more I play. I don't know how much more I can report on it because it's just kind of progressing the story. So who knows? Yeah, we're we're going to play some more Borderlands, hopefully, and we'll report on that. But yeah. ah Do you want to go into a two-hour conversation about bidets now?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah
neocharge: Because we're done with the actual cast. no
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. You guys.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, the bidet spoiler cast.
neocharge: The bidet spoiler cast. Yes.
Leon Lionheartly: Yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. Yeah.
neocharge: Yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Spoilers. It's shot water on my bum.
neocharge: Up your ass. Yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's it.
neocharge: Yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's the, that's the spoiler. It cast the water on my bum.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Wateraga? Cast it on your bum?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): The water gun. Yeah. It's because I've been playing this idea.
Leon Lionheartly: What a go.
neocharge: if
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's just, I'm using all those water spells.
neocharge: yeah
Leon Lionheartly: Inside that era was the Blastoise water cannon.
neocharge: Oh, shit.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Uh,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, it, it.
neocharge: Mm-hmm. Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay. Now you're cooking with squirtle.
neocharge: yes
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): seven. Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah. I, I think that's been episode 67. I mean, 47.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): up seven ah
neocharge: Poop D seven. This has been fun. I hope our, ah I hope our April fool's joke goes over well with the community. But yeah. We're going to get the hell out of here.
neocharge: um I'm going to get this posted right away so it hits April 1st because if the more time passes, it'll just say April 1st for our recent episodes.
Leon Lionheartly: Peace.
neocharge: So it'll be like, oh, it's an April Fool's joke. So yeah, we'll get it ah squared away. But thank you so much for listening. We really appreciate you all and keep the conversation going. Keep gaming and have a great rest your evening, night, morning, whenever the hell you're listening to this.
neocharge: And but maybe you're on the toilet using your bidet listening to this Who knows?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ummo ari gotto mis veratto Domo Domo, Domo.
