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Pope Remake Just Dropped
3 Plays4 minutes ago
Join Dave and Jake as they talk about Dota 2, the new pope, Destiny sunsetting, game remakes, Silent Hill lore, and Death Stranding 2 in this week's episode!
Intro:
- Prey OST - No Gravity
Outro:
- Prey OST - Into the Tunnels
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Transcript
Introduction & Weekend Plans
00:00:00
Speaker
a
00:00:08
Speaker
are are
00:00:25
Speaker
a How's it going everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake and I am joined by my co-host as always Dave. How's it going today Dave?
00:00:36
Speaker
How's it going today Jake? It's going well. So anyways, first topic that we have. No, it is going really well. Very bright outside. I drove to grab some lunch and it's a nice day. I'm not going to be experiencing it.
00:00:51
Speaker
It's a weekend. I'm staying inside. It's a little bit too wet, I think, to mow the lawn still. So I'm giving it like an extra day at least. That's fair. I haven't like checked, but I wanted that to be true.
00:01:04
Speaker
So. Well, I will say um when I went out for a walk out at, let's say like two to three hours ago, ah the grass felt pretty dry. And that was definitely flooded the past two days.
00:01:17
Speaker
Dang. Well, maybe, maybe, um maybe this is cope. This is cope on my part. And ah really, I just want to wait to mow the lawn until tomorrow, but that's fine. We'll, we'll make it work. Um,
00:01:28
Speaker
Yeah, nice outside and ah things have winding down a little bit, you know, catching up on a couple games, playing, playing a couple things, started playing a new game, which we're not going to talk about right now.
00:01:40
Speaker
um But that went well. um So just to keep, you know, vaguely introducing topics that we're not actually covering in the podcast. um How about you? What have you been up to?
00:01:53
Speaker
Um, not too much. i mean, a lot of it has been, um appreciating the nice weather when it is nice. I try to get outside with the dog at least a couple times a week.
00:02:06
Speaker
Yeah. Um, dogs love that stuff. Dude, they are, um don't know if you knew this, they really like the outside. They're kind of a fan.
Gaming Frustrations & Toxicity
00:02:17
Speaker
A lot of my gaming stuff has kind of been back to old habits where I'm still trying to not suck at Rivals of Aether 2. is very depressing for me at times. so nothing And I wouldn't say I'm trying to get better at Dota 2, but I have played it.
00:02:33
Speaker
Um... And I'm sure there's some people on my team who were like, this ain't it chief. I don't know if we ever, I know we we talked about it to some degree when we talked about Dota as a like for its episode a long time ago. Um, but the emotion, maybe emotional is wrong.
00:02:56
Speaker
Um, toxicity Dota or expectations for one's own performance in that game or your team's performance.
00:03:07
Speaker
Um, those are a lot of the reasons that I basically stopped playing. And I think like the last time I played was last year for like one game with you, I think so.
00:03:18
Speaker
Like, and it's not anything. Well, actually i do think part of it is part of the MOBA format. but they're easy to get emotionally invested in.
00:03:31
Speaker
ah I mean, I guess it is easy for people. um For me, it's it's a game. I want to obviously win. I want to perform well.
00:03:42
Speaker
So I'm not disappointing myself or my team. But like as long as... we're doing okay or having fun on the journey i'm usually content with that that's because i do remember the earlier days of moba where it's you got to be the best you got to win they got to shit on people who aren't as good as you like this whole thing and i was like oh this is so much energy i'm channeling into something that ah Hey, did you know was good at League of Legends in college? Uh-huh. Cool.
00:04:13
Speaker
Yeah. don't know. It's just... I didn't feel like it was ah warranting the time I was spending on it. Mm-hmm. So you're saying this is coming from your recent experiences, your...
00:04:28
Speaker
trying to do a little bit better but it's not from a place of toxicity you're not beating yourself up over it you're not like depressed if the game doesn't go oh no no it's in general try and do your best try and not feed and other stuff um but like if it doesn't happen i'm not gonna like cry about it later or be like oh i need to take a break or i need to do practice game no it's a game it's really just meant to play with people and that's it That's good. That's a lot better than my experience with MOBAs at their lowest.
00:04:58
Speaker
I can engage with them like that, but for the most part, part that's like hots. yeah I couldn't accomplish that with Dota. And to a way that's kind of, dot it's to Dota's credit, I was so invested in the matches. The matches would run longer. I cared more when I was playing it, but I cared too much.
00:05:20
Speaker
Like I'm trying to get a job somewhere, right? Like um I was too invested. And so the way I described it to friend of the show and special guest Ian was um when you lose ah the MOBA match, it feels miserable because you felt like you should have done better to win.
00:05:41
Speaker
And when you win the match, you feel neutral because it's like, oh of course, you know, that's this is the expected outcome. um Not the best environment and definitely better to do other things if that's where you've ended up.
00:05:57
Speaker
um But that's also me. I'm glad you're not in that spot. Yeah, I feel like in general, the best multiplayer games are just co-op games. True. Yeah.
00:06:08
Speaker
I agree with that. occasionally do like the playing against people stuff, but don't know. A lot of people are just shitters. Yeah. I think like friendly competitive can work, um but I also just...
00:06:23
Speaker
I I enjoy the experience a little bit more if ever all of my friends are kind of like on my team. Right. We're like, OK, we're all working together for this.
00:06:34
Speaker
So like um I think that that also helps even in MOBAs. Like if you're playing with friends instead of trying to like queue solo a whole bunch, um it can kind of improve the experience because whether you win or lose, you You're playing with friends at least, right?
00:06:52
Speaker
Yeah. And friends for me will always liven things up because like when we get into a game, I'm like, OK, try and be OK at the game. Try and be vigilant of stuff happening on the map.
00:07:04
Speaker
um Whereas other other people might be just kind of jovially talking about something else or like hyping up a play that's happening in the lane and then i can kind of feed off that a little bit and then bring my energy levels up like oh let's go team let's go smoke and then find this person kill him right yeah And you know how people are going to react to that, right? That's also I know a lot of people when it comes to multiplayer games, it can be more difficult to be assertive or more vocally part of the team.
00:07:36
Speaker
um Like it could be like Overwatch. It could be Dota. I don't think League has voice chat. It's probably for the best like. um any any of these types of games, when that first time that you start talking to your team, you don't know how randoms are going to react, right?
00:07:52
Speaker
Is someone having a really bad day? Are they having a really bad day? Like, we're going to have to report them for whatever they're about to say that day. um You don't really know.
00:08:04
Speaker
Contrast that with friends, where it's like... It's a it's a safer place, I guess, yeah right? It's like... um you kind of know how they're going to react. And even if they're going bust your balls or whatever, it's like, you know, the intent behind it.
00:08:19
Speaker
Yeah, it's still from a ah place of love. Yeah, exactly.
A New Pope & Cultural Comparisons
00:08:25
Speaker
ah Beyond that, though, got a new pope. How do you feel about that? New new pope just dropped.
00:08:31
Speaker
I do not care. All right. Sounds good. ah This one's from Chicago. so there are a lot of good memes out there. ah yeah I've been seeing a lot of memes.
00:08:43
Speaker
Also, apparently a lot of America's hype because it's a originally American pope. Yes. Although, to be honest, he spent like 20 years in Peru is what I read.
00:08:56
Speaker
So like he's kind of technically born in Chicago, but spent most of his time doing missionary work in South America. um So he's kind of like best of both worlds, I guess, from the from the Cardinal standpoint when they were making their decisions because they're like, um he's really, really not an American, right? He's basically Peruvian. He has dual citizenship. We can we can send it. So...
00:09:21
Speaker
um so I also, I'm not Catholic and I'm nowhere near Catholic adjacent. um But I love the little like rituals and things that they have around electing a Pope. I love the, ah the white smoke.
00:09:39
Speaker
Yeah. bunch of people like we just waiting outside. They're like, Oh, the smoke is black. Okay. Well, they're going to have to vote again or whatever. Oh, the white smoke. Oh my gosh. but Everybody freak out. It's like, it's very funny and like archaic.
00:09:53
Speaker
To me, it's like so in Pennsylvania, I mean, it happens in Pennsylvania. It's obviously a much more um countrywide thing. But Groundhog's Day. Yeah. Mm hmm.
00:10:04
Speaker
Pencil but pencil talking. Yeah. Again, this is. tiny bell Yeah. This is us consulting a groundhog. Now, granted, it's not the same groundhogs. This has been like a very old tradition.
00:10:17
Speaker
Well, I mean, they say it's the same groundhog. Oh, sorry. Yeah, it's the exact same one. It's a very old groundhog. um If it comes out to check its shadow,
00:10:29
Speaker
how is one weather determination? Yeah, there's like weeks of three more weeks of winter or something like that. if it sees its shadow, there's like three more weeks of winter. Or if it doesn't, it's like, all right, spring can happen, something like that.
00:10:44
Speaker
Yeah. um I don't know what its success rate is as far as that quote-unquote prediction. But again, it's like a super archaic tradition where people like, yeah, it's a, yeah, yeah.
00:10:57
Speaker
They even have like a guy with a top hat is the official like groundhog keeper, basically, that like deploys the groundhog, interprets the results, returns that to everybody else.
00:11:09
Speaker
It's insane. Yeah, it is kind of crazy.
00:11:15
Speaker
But I get it, right? it's It's culture at the end of the day. um And that's fine. As long as you're not hurting people, that's fine. Keep that in mind, by the way, Catholic like Church in the coming years.
00:11:30
Speaker
As long as you're not hurting people. One thing I do like is that, i mean, the previous pope, don't know his name, seemed to be a little more progressive than previous popes. And also this latest pope, Pope Leo XIV, seems much more progressive.
00:11:51
Speaker
And I think in his... election speech yeah his acceptance speech whatever they call that uh he was apparently shitting on the united states administration which i think a lot of people are happy with that like a yet another major religious figure is like hey you're kind of a piece of shit uh-huh yeah how much of that is do you think because jd vance killed the previous pope though Because, I mean, that would that would bias me a little bit. Yeah, it did. It did definitely kind of turn the Pope eye onto them.
00:12:27
Speaker
Maybe if JD was a little more subtle with it. Right. Not the day before. Yeah, see, that's just like the worst. it was incredible timing, to be honest. ah Like, obviously, this is, you know, a joke and stuff like that, but because he was he was ill for a long time.
00:12:46
Speaker
But for the unaware, j d Vance visited Pope Francis, and then the day after Pope Francis was pronounced dead, it was very much a requiescent pace, Assassin's Creed-esque scene.
00:13:00
Speaker
So, yeah. ah At least he's not Catholic or no, no, he actually might be. He is Catholic. Yeah, that's the reason he was going there. That's got to also be, you know, because he's part of the religion, right? As as as a good Catholic.
00:13:18
Speaker
a Catholic I can't really tell you whether he's good or not um you meet your religious figurehead basically in earthly form at least you know um and then the day after they pass away I would in that situation I'd be like did I actually do something right yeah you like maybe like left leave out a banana peel or did something get into their drink and I was responsible something like that yeah Yeah, hopefully the ah hopefully the new one, Leo, um can do a good job, still push some you know somewhat progressive. It's not difficult to be progressive in the Catholic Church, by the way. They're known for a bunch of non-progressive stances.
00:14:04
Speaker
um But yeah, Francis did a a fair amount. You could look it up. There's plenty of things that he didn't do as well, right? Like he drew the line or he like walked back some things, but compared to his predecessors where they're just like, is it wrong?
00:14:20
Speaker
to abuse altar boys man don't know the bible doesn't really say and francis is like yeah yeah it is though don't really kind of is um stop get some help like if your major religious figurehead is like hey we're not sure about like the whole um molesting children but hear me out ah You know what we will now allow fish on Fridays.
00:14:49
Speaker
Mmm. That's good deal. Like you're concerned about what thing you're eating because of again arbitrary archaic thing from a billion years ago and you're like well yeah but like at least i'm not eating fish.
00:15:02
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's definitely also just like ah groups, minority groups of people who previously were not really accepted in the Catholic Church, LGBTQ, all of that.
00:15:18
Speaker
um Like a lot of people obviously were not accepted into ah traditionally very conservative churches and things like that. And Francis pushed that.
00:15:30
Speaker
um a decent amount. And so my hope now is that this isn't like what's going on with the military where it's like, hey, we don't like gay people. OK, you can come in now because, you know, someone said that you could.
00:15:43
Speaker
All right. ah But what are we going to do with trans people? OK, you can come in now, he said, because he said you could. And then we're going to change our mind. All of you have to leave, you know, like get out of here. you know, we're going to excommunicate you or whatever.
00:15:56
Speaker
Like, I, I hope, I hope that the Pope, um, can make it better, you know, continue to move things in the right direction for people. Cause again, like I said, don't hurt people. That's basically your baseline. Yeah. If your belief system is specifically cutting out other people or being like, Oh, these people are wrong. Cause they're this way. And I'm not that way.
00:16:24
Speaker
Your religion is probably shitty. Yeah, I mean, honestly. um And I get change takes time, but i mean, they've had time. so it's They've had a lot of time. Yeah.
00:16:40
Speaker
So anyways, that's the first piece piece of gaming news. You know, the Pope. If there's any other... Well, so the other thing I learned somewhat recently, or maybe I remembered, was that the previous Pope was given a copy of Undertale, apparently.
00:16:54
Speaker
Yeah, I think it was some YouTuber MatPat. I'm not sure of the situation. The Game Theorist guy. Oh, okay, that's him. But that's just a Pope visit. Yeah.
00:17:07
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not sure ah how that necessarily came about. um Right. But Undertale being an indie video game, granted, ah has become much more popular, but not...
00:17:20
Speaker
world-renowned type thing and then for like the pope again the head of the catholic church uh-huh to receive a copy of it is it's it feels like a big meme but it sounds like it would never happen yes no you think the the pope has a copy of under two why would you even ask me that well yeah why would you think that was true it it seems like an ai generated article or something like that at this point you just making up nonsense And then eventually, like, he also had a live performance of Megalovania, which is also very, very funny. So in my head canon, uh,
00:17:59
Speaker
which, you know, obviously is biblical canon because of the Pope. ah he He is an Undertale fan. I don't know if he ever stated it, but he clearly played the game and then asked to make Levanian be played in that live concert. so He's like, i I felt bad for really killing every single character in the game.
00:18:21
Speaker
But I came across this banging track. Uh-huh. Yeah. That is true, actually. That would be that would be the news. That's the follow-up news I need to know. Like, now that Pope Francis is dead, when his biography comes out, I'm hoping that they tracked what kind of route he went through for Undertale.
00:18:43
Speaker
He immediately went to genocide, you're saying? Yeah, it's like, it's crazy. You're supposed to be forced to neutral, but he he did it somehow anyways. I don't know. ah That would be concerning.
00:18:56
Speaker
That would legitimately concern me, actually, if someone was able to commit to a genocide play through an Undertale. And that was my first impression of the person. If I knew them otherwise, maybe, you know, you know, I'd be like, OK, well, maybe you're just trying new things, whatever, you know, like an old generation parent to you like a young kid who's trying they the the ways are changing. You're like, OK, well, I mean, you're going through things. You're trying genocide routes. All right. I mean, it's OK. You'll come back.
00:19:27
Speaker
But if like someone walked up to me and they're like, yeah, the first time I played Undertale, I killed everyone. They're like, nah, don't think so.
00:19:37
Speaker
I mean, like I kill a lot of NPCs in Elden Ring, but that is always on Baldur's Gate 2. We killed almost everyone. It's usually a subsequent run type thing.
00:19:51
Speaker
Yeah. um I think in our specific scenario, there was a bit of RP going on. There was a little bit. Yeah. Where my character was a very power hungry warlock. Mm hmm. And my character was actually just spawn of, i I guess I won't spoil that just in case. But anyways, yeah, very murderous.
00:20:13
Speaker
We did what needed to be done. Yes. Yeah, yeah.
Legal Drama in Gaming
00:20:17
Speaker
Um, in other news though, so, uh, Bungie creators of halo, uh, people might know them from that. They also made marathon the old game and marathon the new game, uh, which is coming out later this year.
00:20:31
Speaker
And this, this little indie darling, um, they don't spend a lot of time on it. It's not really gone on for that long. Destiny two and destiny, I guess, but destiny two has gone for ah very long time.
00:20:43
Speaker
Um, I probably around 10 years now because the, uh, ah The final shape was the culmination of the 10 year light and dark saga or whatever. Um, they get sued sometimes as a lot of big companies do.
00:20:59
Speaker
um And the situation here was they are sued by an individual who claimed that he wrote um a lot of the concepts that ultimately made it into the Red War for Destiny.
00:21:18
Speaker
This is their first campaign, right? Yes. This was like... i You start out the game. ah There's cut scenes and things. There's an attack. You lose your powers and you have to go through this whole arc um ah with all of these.
00:21:34
Speaker
Honestly, some interesting characters and things. I kind of like the Red War. I thought it was fine. um But the concepts that this guy says that he's written are things like. a large spaceship like floating above the earth or something like that. Like they're super, super vague. It's clearly, um, copyright trolling basically. Right.
00:21:56
Speaker
Um, and maybe, um, legally, I, I guess I don't know, but that's what it looks like. Right. It really does look like it. And if they, if the guy had evidence, like, Hey, they literally just stole all my ideas. I think that would be more front page news.
00:22:10
Speaker
Um, But what was funny was in the discovery portion for this case, which is like where people are getting all the information together, sharing it with the other side. So everyone has all the facts.
00:22:24
Speaker
um Destiny and Bungie were like, hey, We actually can't build the game where this content was available. It might have also been Curse of Osiris. I can't remember.
00:22:36
Speaker
We can't build the game where this content was available. um So we can't get live footage of all of this. We can't make that available to you. So here is, i think it was a 10 hour long. My name is Bife.
00:22:50
Speaker
video that they like submitted into evidence and they were like this has a lot of gameplay from someone going through it and like here are the sections where you can see you know how we use things and it's a little bit different than the story or whatever um and by the way that's just like a lore creator for destiny right he's just like primo destiny nerd um it's incredible that this was introduced as evidence It is kind of wild it'd be like, hey, um we sunset that and we, I guess, changed everything so we can't remake ah that campaign in the current state of the game.
00:23:35
Speaker
Yeah. And then be like, ah here's a YouTube lore video. Uh-huh. On multiple levels, right? Because like even you touch on that, I should have mentioned it.
00:23:48
Speaker
It's because they have this process of just removing content from the game that people pay for, right? Like they are always making the content from previous seasons unavailable after like a year.
00:23:59
Speaker
Um, and there's entire campaigns that have been removed from the game. Um, like, by i don't think there's a, a reason to do that.
00:24:10
Speaker
Well, their reason, and we we could talk about whether it's valid or not, is the game size would be gigantic if they kept them because like in order to have the game on PC and consoles, they do the thing everyone does now where like assets aren't really compressed.
00:24:27
Speaker
Um, And it would be like 300 or 400 gigs to just have like the entirety of destiny to, um
00:24:38
Speaker
that's what they say. Like that's their, that's that their argument that they need to take that stuff out of the game.
00:24:46
Speaker
I mean, i don't have an immediate solution to that. So that as a, at least high level on paper concept, it seems like a fine justification. Um,
00:24:59
Speaker
It's just like time. Wouldn't you still have a legacy build or something archived yeah or videos of your own game? Right. mean, I've worked at several different companies, and one thing that's always very common is you have backups of things.
00:25:16
Speaker
Yeah. whether it's a document, whether it's like a project, like you're not just like, oh, that was the one thing changing. Oh, we can never get that back. Uh-huh. Yeah. We're going to keep working on this production deployment and not roll it back because we can't.
00:25:31
Speaker
We need to fix everything live. And it's good to do that to but also be legally defensible, right? Like to have facts that you can deploy in case something like this happens um and you get sued. Yeah.
00:25:45
Speaker
Now, I'm not sure how this guy, what evidence this guy is using that Destiny infringed. That's the part. I hope that there is a follow-up to this new story where they kind of explain like what the arguments being made in court actually are.
00:25:58
Speaker
Yeah. I would think that the burden of proof, again, should be on the claimant's
00:26:05
Speaker
And that's true. um And since this is a civil case, it's not like it's easier for the claimant to um to cross that threshold compared to like a criminal case.
00:26:17
Speaker
um Because like for civil cases, it's more likely than not ah the person's guilty. And for criminal cases, it's beyond a reasonable doubt. The person's guilty in the US. That's the way works, at least.
00:26:30
Speaker
um But. Yeah, regardless, I want to see what the arguments are because it really just seems like it's made of smoke. And um but I mean, any any reason to just ask Destiny to come up with a better model than taking the content I paid for out of the game.
00:26:50
Speaker
It's it's always going to be frustrating. It's always going to be worth talking about and shining a bit of light on because you could say like, oh, it's because the game's so big. We had to remove this old content or whatever. And it's like,
00:27:03
Speaker
Is there no other option? right Is there no other path? Is there a way that you can optionally allow people to download add-ons that included raids and things that they want to do for the people who have the space?
00:27:15
Speaker
Or do you really just have to have everyone have a super installation size? like Activision literally already solved this, basically. um Not to give them credit for anything. With um Call of Duty, right?
00:27:28
Speaker
Because that that game's gigantic. And then they split Warzone out, so they're like, well, if you don't want to play Warzone at all, yeah it's like, it's 100 gigs or 140 or whatever it is on its own, but you don't need it.
00:27:42
Speaker
So... Yeah, you could honestly... It's a side thing. some of those things as separate applications. Yeah. And WoW solved this too, right?
00:27:53
Speaker
Like a long time ago, when you when you started playing WoW, it would only download the areas that you were adjacent to in the game. And it would do it with background downloading.
00:28:06
Speaker
So it's just like, oh, if you just do the trial, you have like a 500 megabyte client or something like that because it's literally just the first area of the game. And if you just quit the game, great. Everyone saved on bandwidth. But if you keep playing it, it'll download the rest of the areas and you could opt into pre-downloading them. But like there's all kinds of solutions that they could think about here.
00:28:26
Speaker
But instead, they're taking the content that people paid for away. That's crappy. Yeah, I think as a consumer, you if you've spent money on something and you've received that product, you're like, oh, this is mine now.
00:28:44
Speaker
And basically somebody's sneaking in the middle of night to be like, but not this campaign. Uh-huh. Yeah. this This part I'm taking. Right. Yeah. But they've done it how many times? Like yeah Titan's not a planet anymore.
00:28:57
Speaker
What the fuck? Yeah. I mean, it's part of their standard content development roadmap actually right now is that the old seasons and the cut scenes and the characters and things like that, those all fade away.
00:29:11
Speaker
um They literally have to have, and they have this on the galaxy map, which a timeline where you can like click it to read and like watch a couple cut scenes and things like that about all these events that used to be in the game that you literally cannot experience anymore.
00:29:27
Speaker
um it's insane. So whatever. probably away no Yes. Um, hopefully marathon is good.
00:29:39
Speaker
Uh, anything else help happened recently or anything else you want to talk about? Um, the news section or things going on. Um, I've seen mention of one or two remakes being a possibility. Okay.
00:29:54
Speaker
ah One of which was Chrono Trigger. Interesting. I think that'll be very successful. I think so, too. um Because, I mean, one of the most prolific soundtracks, I think a very banger. Oh, yeah. yeah um I'm curious to see how it even would be remade.
00:30:15
Speaker
hmm. Like, are they going to keep the pixel style? Are they just going to redraw everything? Ooh, that's fair.
00:30:24
Speaker
It's tough, right? It's tough when you kind of already have that retro style. Because making it hyper-realistic, that's not going to really make people happy either, is it?
00:30:34
Speaker
I think maybe you could get away with doing some 3D stuff, but yeah it would really have to look like... the original to a degree. Yeah.
00:30:45
Speaker
Like you can't have Chrono with his look and spiky red hair be like a different character in 3D. hmm. Yeah. I don't think they could go as far as say like Skweenix went for the Final Fantasy reboot. Oh dear God. No. Where they're like, oh, we're going to like change events and all this stuff and change the gameplay and all this stuff.
00:31:08
Speaker
Like so much of that is baked into Chrono Trigger. i don't know. i don't know how they could get away from that.
00:31:20
Speaker
Yeah. like Again, for some of these, I feel like it just needs to be accessible on modern hardware.
Game Remakes & Innovations
00:31:27
Speaker
Yeah. And that, I think, is a lot of it. Making it look better, too.
00:31:33
Speaker
Maybe remastering some of the soundtracks. Mm-hmm. But yeah, again, it's just who carries around Nintendo or Super Nintendo in general. Not a lot of people.
00:31:45
Speaker
Consoles still exist, but it's like usually collectors for the most part. Right. But if it's something that you're like, oh, I can play this through e Steam. Pretty much everybody has a computer.
00:31:56
Speaker
it would be accessible to them as an option. Right. Yeah. I think making it accessible, that part's easy and there's plenty of ways to do that. It's probably like far under one megabyte, the entire Chrono Trigger game. Uh, no, that's, that can't be true, but no, yeah, definitely not true for that, but, uh, well under, you know, 500 megabytes or whatever, it would fit on a CD easily.
00:32:21
Speaker
Um, it's fair to say, The question I would have would be if you're justifying a remake, if you're justifying a remaster or something like that, so many decisions would need to be made for like how it's going to play out.
00:32:38
Speaker
And I having played, this is one of the actual old RPGs that I did play. It was that big. It was so big that even I played it. Um, I don't know how you do that without like hurting the core of the game.
00:32:53
Speaker
Um, but I guess we'll see, right? They'll release more information on it. Yeah. How do you feel about some of these games being remade? I mean, there has been a good handful of them during like Resident Evil 4, Silent Hill 2.
00:33:13
Speaker
Yeah, i mean, I i suppose in contradiction to what I just said, I'm a fan of it if you change enough things to make it worthwhile, right?
00:33:25
Speaker
um Or it's faithful enough but improved enough that ah it feels good to to play it. Right. So like I haven't played the dead space remake, but I know that did really well.
00:33:41
Speaker
um And I've just honestly played a bunch of dead space in general, so I don't feel like the need to go back and play it. um But the benchmark I think you should hit is if you have one of these re-releases, like one of these remakes is like,
00:33:54
Speaker
No one's going to recommend the old game. They're only going to recommend the new game. And it's the entry point for people that might not have ever had the opportunity to play the old game. um that's That's what I want to see, right? Like, if I had both those games in my library, I would uninstall the old one.
00:34:13
Speaker
I mean, I did get a chance to play it through. believe it was Game Pass. don't think actually bought it, but it really just everything looks so much better. yeah Not that Dead Space when I played it looked bad,
00:34:29
Speaker
But you can definitely tell like, oh, this is way more modern. Yeah. But it still has the same feel. Like you're in that. way Oh, it's dead space.
00:34:40
Speaker
Yeah. You're still weighty. Isaac Clark. Things are slow. thetomp one of The I mean, obviously the enemies are a little more detailed. But again, you're like, oh, it's that enemy. That's the baby with three things coming out of it.
00:34:56
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah.
00:34:58
Speaker
But they also did, I think, some gameplay improvements in general where um enemies and items could respawn at points. So it didn't feel like, oh, I already cleared this area. I'm safe to go back through all of this.
00:35:13
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, I think... And that's a really good example of when developers, they understand... They understand the game that they're remaking or remastering enough to be confident to make improvements.
00:35:29
Speaker
Right. um That's also really helpful because there's to be completely honest, there are not that many absolutely perfect games. Most games have one or two things that could be improved.
00:35:41
Speaker
And it is very, very difficult. And the line is and the sand in a different place for different people between an unnecessary change that detracts from people's nostalgia or their experience and a change that actually just improves the experience and makes it a better game.
00:35:57
Speaker
um But if people have the the confidence to make those changes, then i think they absolutely should because I'm kind of of the opinion that like,
00:36:12
Speaker
you You should definitely be pushing pushing forward the gameplay, even if it's a remake, right? Like, I don't want to just have a ah I'm not a big fan of the games where you can just press a button to change the graphics back to the old version. As cool as it it is, but like nothing else about the game has changed, right? Because I'm like, eh, graphics are fine.
00:36:33
Speaker
Yeah, it's a ah visual upgrade. Cool, but...
00:36:39
Speaker
Yeah, it's just that alone isn't really not enough of a thing, especially if you're like, hey, we're selling this to you. Exactly. Yeah. I'm like, well, I have the old one, right? This one looks better. I'm like, and and what else, though?
00:36:54
Speaker
Yeah, because I mean, not to besmirch artists, but just improving the graphics, just improving the audio. It's still going to be the same game. I want something better, right? i want I want the better cyberpunk. I want the better dead space or whatever.
00:37:13
Speaker
um Because really, your the fact that the game was chosen to be a remake at all was saying, like, there are some really core ideas in this that we think are awesome.
00:37:23
Speaker
And we think that like players will enjoy this and we think people will buy this. um And if you respect it enough to pick it for a remake, then you should also respect enough to not just do a cash grab but and also find ways to improve the game.
00:37:38
Speaker
Right. Like Metal Gear Solid Delta. Yeah. There was, um, might've mentioned it already, but the, the main thing for the oblivion remaster, which I've still been putting time into is they changed almost nothing.
00:37:54
Speaker
In fact, so many bugs in the game are exactly the same. If they were not like massively gameplay impacting in a bad way, but just like wonky, um,
00:38:05
Speaker
But the one thing that they changed was the leveling system. And I'm like, I saw one person really, really vehemently popping off on Reddit that this is like a terrible change. i was like, I generally get along with people and I accept that maybe my opinion is wrong.
00:38:23
Speaker
Right. And that maybe other people are correct. But this person was objectively wrong. Right. Like facing away from true north wrong. And It's just like, nah, it's just better. It's kind just better, bro.
00:38:36
Speaker
They literally just made the game good in a way that they should have the first time. ah And the leveling system, as you've described it to me and some other people, seems like the most janky thing ever designed.
00:38:52
Speaker
It was insane. Yeah. So kind of flattening and normalizing that. Awesome. Yeah. Because I don't think there are any old games. I'm like, oh, I love how convoluted this one mechanic is. Yeah.
00:39:07
Speaker
It's like, is it really worse to have like a level select or like a jukebox feature or the ability to pause or more detailed menus or, you know, like there's all kinds of things you can do to games beyond just the core gameplay.
00:39:25
Speaker
um So adding accessibility stuff because that's exactly a lot more recent as well. Yeah. Yeah. So. Also, Bethesda should have fixed the bugs for a game that they remade.
00:39:42
Speaker
Oh, you well for like what I was saying for Oblivion. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, when I there's two categories for bugs when it comes to Bethesda. There's like, oh, that's funny. That's kind of endearing or whatever.
00:39:54
Speaker
And like my game just crashed. ah The game just crashed bugs are the ones that actually like really hamper the experience. Those ones, I think they absolutely should have fixed. And clearly that wasn't the case for all of them out the gate.
00:40:10
Speaker
I will say when I played most recently, I didn't have any crash until I tried to quit. And then it crashed, which was funny. But didn't hear it that You to get out of here? We're getting out of here.
00:40:22
Speaker
Self-destruct. Yeah, you're like at the bar and you're like, I think it's about time that i start heading out and the bouncer just grabs you, throw throws you out the door. um There was another game. I can't remember what it was, but it always crashed when I quit.
00:40:38
Speaker
um And so I just incorporated that into my expectations for the game. It's like, there it is. There's the crash in round. um I think Bethesda has gotten a pass with that for a very long time. oh they have. yeah We'll do find a lot of those bugs in Deering, like a floating horse or some weird talking interaction, even though you're like, you're very far away. um Yeah.
00:41:04
Speaker
But the other one, that should not be the, the hallmark. No, as much as, Oh, this game was awesome because of the gameplay, the side storylines, et cetera.
00:41:17
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's fair. um And some of some of the stuff, like another minor bug is like the physics can be wonky sometimes. So like books are all placed on a bookshelf.
00:41:28
Speaker
There's like a bowl on a table, a nightstand or something like that. And you leave and you enter the area again and like everything's just... like thrown about like your house is ransacked and it's just because like the physics aren't stable or something like that and you're like yeah that that can be fixed that's not gonna offend me if they fix that um and yes they they they are known for bethesda buggy um so um i'm fine if other people do it better yeah hot take
00:42:01
Speaker
again, I think Demon's Souls is one of those examples of something that I can now accessibly play. Yeah. Cause I missed PS3 era as I'm sure a lot of people did.
00:42:12
Speaker
And now I get to suffer like everybody else in better graphics on a modern system. Yeah. Way better graphics compared to Demon's Souls on PS3. Um,
00:42:25
Speaker
um Yeah, and the other thing is just like for some of these games that people would never play them unless they were remade. um They just... They're just out ah outside of the horizon. So...
00:42:40
Speaker
ah Even when I was really like Dark Souls and I anytime I saw Demon's Souls, i was like, this looks incredibly janky. this Oh, yeah. This looks very bland. Even the combat just seems like a step down from Dark Souls.
00:42:56
Speaker
I don't think I'm super interested in this. Yeah, it's it's very hard to go back when you've played some modern dual analog stuff. like, oh, this is how I run. This is how I attack. This how I jump.
00:43:10
Speaker
And then they're like, hear me out. um If you get like, quote unquote, a running start, you can run. And then if you let go of run, you can jump. h Why the actual fuck would you have it that way? That's what it was.
00:43:26
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, I was talking to someone recently about playing the older Souls games, like after playing Elden Ring. I was like, it's going to be tough for some of them. It's going to be tough. Because each of these games built off the previous.
00:43:42
Speaker
And I guess maybe that's kind of what I want almost. in And the ideal remake the ideal remaster is In some ways, it should be closer to a sequel. You should tell the same story. You should have the same characters, whatever.
00:43:55
Speaker
um You should have the main mechanics be the same. But like look on ways to improve it. That will, you know, actually make the game better.
00:44:07
Speaker
But that was tough. It was tough to be like, hey, i you're going to really love the combat of Dark Souls 1 after playing Elden Ring. you're like, no, you're probably not actually. ah We still have backstabs.
00:44:18
Speaker
sound Is that something you want? In fact, if you love backstabs, you're going to have so many of them in this game. Walking on in Stranger World. It's going to get you through some bosses, basically.
00:44:33
Speaker
Yeah. But yeah, I digress. Hopefully the remakes are good. I do hope. yeah In a similar vein, I did want to get your two cents um because I also saw that they were looking to make a Silent Hill movie.
Silent Hill & Horror Themes
00:44:51
Speaker
Another one. and Well, this one, would it's called Return to Silent Hill, I've heard. And I think it's supposed to be of the story of Silent Hill 2.
00:45:01
Speaker
Interesting. So our boy, James Sunderland. Yeah. I mean, this is my understanding is that this is basically the I'm going to offend a lot of people, but this is basically the only good Silent Hill um or at the very least the best Silent Hill.
00:45:23
Speaker
And it wasn't even originally supposed to be a sign Silent Hill game. And then it got converted over to be. And that's one of the reasons it's so different. But it has so many of the fundamental like concepts that make Silent Hill good.
00:45:40
Speaker
And it's the best example of them. um In ways that like. Even the other remake. What was the other game that was remade recently? And it got pretty good reviews. It was a Silent Hill game.
00:45:54
Speaker
um They like redid the combat and some stuff like that. Silent Hill 2? Was it Silent Hill 2? wow that's That's the one that had the the remake. yeah Oh my gosh.
00:46:06
Speaker
For some reason I forgot that that was Silent Hill 2. Um, but that checks out. Okay. Uh, they redid the combat, which was kind of weak, but anyways, um, the things that are interesting about silent Hill to me are like the Japanese take on horror, which is like, it's different than the American slasher type,
00:46:27
Speaker
um and that you're pretty much in purgatory right like that is the thing that makes silent hill interesting to me because the other silent hill movie is just like gore and horror and stuff like that yeah the u.s s made it yeah because the u.s s made it you're like oh the person just got their freaking skin ripped off thrown at a door that's pretty scary pyramid head is a scary guy I feel like lot of our adaptations for stuff is way too terse or blunt. We're like, oh, there is this is a horror game?
00:47:00
Speaker
Violence. Violence everywhere. um Because it doesn't mean anything, right? Yeah. But that's that's the reason that Silent Hill is compelling. Especially Silent Hill 2 is compelling.
00:47:13
Speaker
is because like there actually literally is a meaning for what's going on, right? Yeah, and the whole time you're trying to figure out what that is and how these other characters are in a similar boat as you, but you're not exactly sure what their stories are either.
00:47:29
Speaker
um And yeah, like there is horror elements. There is some combat stuff, but I think a lot of that is more so to... keep you on your toes, keep you uncomfortable versus, hey do you remember this one fight thing? That's not really the the takeaway. Yeah.
00:47:49
Speaker
Because I think, like, if ah James, James is the protagonist, I'm sure, has his name if he dies in Silent Hill, that's fine. It's not that he's invulnerable or whatever. Like, the threats can kill him.
00:48:04
Speaker
So he has to try to survive. But in like American horror, the question why me is just because like, because you're the black guy or you're the cheerleader or whichever person in the conga line of murder you're in, like whatever position you're in.
00:48:22
Speaker
um Or maybe you split up or something like that. Right. And then from Silent Hill, the question of why me? It's like, well, you've done some things, right? Like it's finding your guilt essentially, and then judging you on it.
00:48:41
Speaker
And that's the reason, like one of the most interesting concepts in the silent hill lore to me is that it is actually, um not dangerous at all for the innocent.
00:48:53
Speaker
like the Like truly innocent. um I think there's an example. It might even be from Silent Hill 2 like a little girl who just like literally can't even see the monsters. um Because why would she be judged? Right. She's not here going through her purgatory. She's not trying to learn something.
00:49:12
Speaker
um I love that. I just love that. That's such a cool concept. I said, yep. I can use it a little fuel myself. Yeah. This literally happened to me the night before, so I'm i'm very fresh on the lyrics. ahha um But yeah, it's all about the...
00:49:32
Speaker
the mental side of things. Exactly. Exactly. Cause I think, i know you and I have discussed many times how like the most engaging stories are typically about people and their interactions.
00:49:44
Speaker
Yeah. More so than events. Like if you look at something like the, um, Well, the original kind of Gundam storyline.
00:49:58
Speaker
Interesting at like a high level, but it's more so like the players involved, why they're deciding to do things. What are their motivations? How are they going to act on those motivations? Right. um This is all a long winded way to say I'm kind of interested to see more about Silent Hill F. Mm hmm.
00:50:18
Speaker
Which is, I think, the newest one that they've had trailers for. hmm. where it's supposed to be specifically set in Japan. Right. Yeah.
00:50:30
Speaker
I mean, i I still don't really like Konami, ah to be to be honest. But if they want to start redeeming themselves, there are steps they can take. yeah There's a 12-step plan.
00:50:43
Speaker
We'll get them started near the top. Public apology to Kojima. Uh-huh. Um...
Death Stranding 2 Speculations
00:50:50
Speaker
You mentioned Kojima. I recently... This isn't a full topic or anything like that. I just thought it was a funny quip.
00:50:56
Speaker
Because like early impressions are coming out from Death Stranding 2. um Some people got flown out to play it for like a couple days. Which is great. As far as saying that the game is progressing.
00:51:09
Speaker
um But...
00:51:13
Speaker
Kojima mentioned, he's like, there's a lot of a ah stealth and like infiltration and stuff like that. And even he said, even my own team was concerned that there was too much tactical stealth espionage action and that some people might be confusing it a little bit with ah with Metal Gear Solid.
00:51:42
Speaker
And it's like, Kojima, that's okay. all right like We'll be okay if you take the reins on Metal Gear Solid. Unless it's like specifically copywritten, because obviously code Konami has the rights to um Metal Gear franchise. Yeah.
00:52:04
Speaker
Also, i this was popping in my head. Dayo. Dayo. I'm the only at the beach. Yeah. Yeah.
00:52:16
Speaker
ah we'll We'll see. i know that there's you can get early impressions already. I haven't watched them, so i'm not going to comment on them. It does seem like Death Stranding 2 is going to be very much in the same vein as Death Stranding, which is to say I'll enjoy the logistics and moving and gameplay that like a lot of people would say isn't gameplay.
00:52:38
Speaker
And then whenever characters are talking or introducing themselves and I'm hearing their names for the first time, I'll be groaning. Yeah.
00:52:48
Speaker
Like I remember enjoying the progression of the world as I unlocked more areas, built roads, um built other things to improve transportation.
00:53:00
Speaker
Yeah. um And I think some stuff can show up in other people's worlds. Yeah. It was a community infrastructure. So like if you built bridges, other people could see them and things.
00:53:12
Speaker
That was like something that they were trying to like push in the game, even like story-wise. It was cool to see that in like ah ah the gameplay implementation as well. Yeah. But yeah, I didn't give two shits about the storyline at all. Yeah.
00:53:28
Speaker
But yeah, I am kind of curious just because... I played enough of Death Stranding 1 to be interested in Death Stranding 2. i really just hoped that they would improve certain things.
00:53:40
Speaker
Because I don't want it to be a terrible slog. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, like, that was the trick, right? There's if whether you enjoy Death Stranding one or two was could you find your Zen place when it came to moving packages between locations?
00:54:00
Speaker
um Could you become you really feel like the Amazon delivery driver, right? Like, um
00:54:08
Speaker
But they also nailed the feeling of progression in a way that like a lot of games miss. Like the feeling that I'm going to have a better way to do this in the future. I'm going to have better tools available to do this. And then by the end of it, you're just like, here I am on my mech suit packages in each hand, these massive crates or whatever. Let's freaking go. and then just blaze it straight to the, to the delivery or whatever, or it's all in a truck or something like that. and you're like, this nice.
00:54:42
Speaker
And that would have been useless, right? Like if you just started in the truck, With all of your packages in the back, you wouldn't have had any of that sense of building up towards it or or progression.
00:54:54
Speaker
um And they nailed that. That's the biggest thing from that game. um But then the story is like nonsense. It's kind of like that. ah Instead of like me giving you a car, I want you to like work for your car.
00:55:10
Speaker
Yeah. So you can appreciate the like how much money it is to buy this. And now that you've invested so much time and effort into it, you're going to appreciate it more because you're like, hey this is my blood, sweat and tears.
00:55:25
Speaker
Exactly. Yeah. You know what it's like to not have a car. Yeah, like if you've been just walking, you're like, oh, that sucks. Oh, bikes are a thing now? Oh, hell yeah. yeah And then you're like, okay, bikes are maybe not the... Then you find better ways to do stuff and...
00:55:42
Speaker
I mean, what's what's the opposite where you just kind of like I have either the shitty option permanently or I have this option that makes things kind of trivial.
00:55:54
Speaker
Right. And then you're kind of losing the whole transportation part of the game. And they would do that to you in the gameplay as well. Like if you suffered a breach or something like that, where like all the you got detected by the I think the BTs, something, whatever the ghost enemy alien monsters are called.
00:56:15
Speaker
Um, and it's like just a sea of ink basically floods out all over the place. Your truck breaks down and you're like, well, I can't carry all this stuff on my back anymore. Really? Like, do I try to fight them off all that?
00:56:28
Speaker
Like you felt deprived at certain points in the game, which made you feel better when you had access to your resources. Um, But a lot of people aren't into that, it turns out. And they're just like, I'm play game that's fun.
00:56:43
Speaker
Like, fun, don't know. Fun is kind of a kiddie concept, right? We don't really do fun here. Oh, you want it to be easy? You want to walk from point A to point B? Uh-huh.
00:56:54
Speaker
Fast travel, what are you talking about? Sure, you can fast travel. We're going to put a lot of little rocks that you can trip on. Uh-huh. Also, ghosts. Yes. Also, the rain is bad for you.
00:57:06
Speaker
It's very bad, yeah. not the best ah Not the best environment, as it turns out. but i mean It's similar to a survival game, in a way, where it's you start out kind of with nothing, and then you collect resources, build yourself like a small shack, and then you build more defenses, fortifications...
00:57:28
Speaker
It's cool to see the yeah the progression of the tech and then also physically see it and like, oh, this is the base that I built. Yeah. I don't have access to all of this technology and ah maybe something that was very difficult early on is now kind of seemingly trivial.
00:57:46
Speaker
You don't have to worry about trash mobs anymore. You're good. Yeah. And there was like, i I know this is one of the selling points, but I do agree with like what Kojima was saying when he was talking about the community build for like infrastructure and stuff like that, because people were like rebuilding the highways, like in order to actually have roads instead of terrain and roads are,
00:58:09
Speaker
primo in Death Stranding. Like if you have a road in front of you and you know that the road extends the entire way to your destination, you're just on the radio. You're just cruising. There is nothing that can stop you. It is going to be so fast. You're not going to have any problems. traffic, by the way. Yeah. No, you're good.
00:58:26
Speaker
um But that's because a bunch of people contributed resources to build each of the sections of these highways. um And you can see like the top contributors to these various things. Or it's like you come up to a river and normally this would be an absolute pain. You'd have to try to go like go a long way around it or something like that And some Samaritan put down a deployable bridge yeah like right over the river. And you're just like...
00:58:57
Speaker
I'm just going to like this, you know, because you could like give people likes in the game um and be like, thanks, brah. And then like as you go into the game, if you were engaging and building things for other players or contributing to roads or whatever, it would tell you like people have traveled like this many mile on the roads that you built or like this person just liked something that you did, like something you constructed for them when you log back into the game.
00:59:22
Speaker
And it was like it was a really, really cool idea. Yeah, I like the idea of connecting players indirectly. mean, obviously, like with that river situation you were describing, you're like, oh, I don't have a quick and easy way to deal with this. So you're already kind of plotting, oh, I might need to go all the way around this or find a much shorter point to cross.
00:59:47
Speaker
um And then somebody has essentially done everybody this niceness, but you get to take advantage of it. And so later on, when you come across like um an obstacle, you're like, actually, i might might leave a ladder here.
01:00:02
Speaker
Maybe I'll construct something here. would be a good place for road or a bridge. I don't have immediate use for it, but maybe I will in the future. Maybe someone else will get benefit out of it.
01:00:14
Speaker
Right. And it kind of builds that paying it forward mentality. Mm-hmm. And you might not even have enough resources to finish the bridge, right? So that even that like ties the community together even better when later you get the message that someone finished building something that you started or whatever.
01:00:31
Speaker
um I put down the first piece of cement and then... Yeah, you did one person and everybody else contributes everything else. ah The last thing, and I'll get off that stranding here, was they also had ah community corpse runs in a way.
01:00:47
Speaker
If you had died... um or you lost your packages, you couldn't deliver them. They could show up in other people's worlds as packages like in that area.
01:00:59
Speaker
um Then they could pick them up and actually complete the delivery for you. They would get the full rewards, but then you would also get partial like rewards for someone else having picked up the slack.
01:01:14
Speaker
um And that was, it's just such a cool social concept. My concern was that was a very cool social concept. What are they doing for Death Stranding 2?
01:01:27
Speaker
It's not going to be as novel this time. We played that. That is that Art Nouveau game is out there and it's called Death Stranding. What are they going to what are they going to sell us on for this one? You know, I mean, we'll see.
01:01:43
Speaker
Yeah, we will have to see, obviously. But I mean, it it is Kojima. So at the very least, it's going to be a wild story with interesting characters. um But I would like to obviously see them build on it. Because if it is kind of like the same gameplay.
01:02:00
Speaker
And again, I'm probably not going to be that invested in the story. would I not just play Death Stranding 1?
01:02:06
Speaker
yeah so at the very least i want them to add more technology um more options for stuff and then also just kind of like expand it as a whole yeah that's what i'm looking for What did you want to do in Death Stranding 1 that you guys did not have time to develop?
01:02:26
Speaker
I want to see that shit in 2. That is the correct question to be asking, I think. um And we'll see. Hopefully it's not just more characters with punny names.
01:02:39
Speaker
um But yeah, for the people that enjoyed it, I feel like it's probably going to be picked up. But see where it all lands. I'm going to wait for the the donkey video probably.
01:02:50
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Man, I do remember his video for Death Stranding 1, and he's like... I agree with his sentiments are so on point so much of the time, but it was like, this game is super repetitive and I'm just delivering these packages. I'm just tripping over things and stuff keeps happening to me. That's like frustrating and I'm going through it. I'm doing this and why can't I stop playing? Right. That was basically the takeaway.
01:03:20
Speaker
ah That's, that was my experience as well. But, Yeah, it is weirdly engaging.
01:03:29
Speaker
Hopefully they can carry that through. And Death Stranding 2.
01:03:34
Speaker
But hopefully carry through long enough for you guys to get all of the enjoyment you need from our podcast because we're done. We're out of it. No more podcasts today. Whatever day it is you're listening unless you have other episodes to listen to, in which case we'll be here providing for you and your needs.
01:03:51
Speaker
Thank you for listening. If you want to send in feedback, ideas for new episodes, ah just want to say hi Socials are in the description. And as always, we'll see you in the next one. Lali Lulalo.