Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
The Dragon Frequency, Sonic Racing, and an Atelier Side Quest
63 Plays13 days ago
This week on Unqualified Game Chat, Azario and Spencer attempt to define the chaotic "Dragon Frequency" while battling embargo exhaustion. We dig into the surprising addictiveness of Atelier Resleriana, break down the unexpected joy of Sonic Racing Cross Worlds, and tease some spicy thoughts on Death Stranding 2. Also: Canadian Thanksgiving lore, back pain, and one very tall coworker.
00:00 Intro
01:48 – Defining the Dragon Frequency
07:57 – The Curse of September & Canadian Thanksgiving
10:27 – Mark's Tallness & Camera-Induced Back Problems
11:10 – Atelier Resleriana Impressions
16:41 – Spencer's Early Thoughts on Death Stranding 2
18:48 – Sonic Racing Cross Worlds Review Talk
21:58 – Comparing Sonic Racing to Kirby Air Ride and Mario Kart World
23:45 – Hades 2, Favorite Series Hints, Too Many Games
24:33 – Wrap-up & See You Next Week
Recommended
Transcript
Revisiting a Viral Meme
00:00:21
Speaker
Hello and welcome to episode
00:00:30
Speaker
twenty one remember that meme ah time No, i wish because now I feel left out. is that Is that he goes, what's nine plus 10? And the little shirtless kid goes, 21. And goes, you stupid.
00:00:44
Speaker
It's a classic Vine for all my... This is a good social experiment to see what it's like when you when you show a meme to someone who doesn't... When you explain a meme to a friend. and yeah Dude, I do it all the time. And then I have to just pull out my phone and show them... like Look at low. why No, it is funny. It is.
Humor Dynamics in Memes
00:01:05
Speaker
I'm not doing it right. It is funny.
00:01:07
Speaker
It's I so frequently do I think about I don't know what movie it's from, but that one scene where Jonah Hill's like, dude, everybody knows your references are off the chain. that's me That's me. The hell movie, the yeah. Oh, yeah. The end.
00:01:25
Speaker
Yeah, dude, your references are sick, bro. Yeah, everybody knows your references are off the chain. It's like, yes, mine are. It's true. I was R Lopez. This is Spencer, the legacy here.
The Concept of 'Dragon Frequency'
00:01:38
Speaker
I will say also, I stayed over at Spencer's editor in chief's house, our website owner's house um the other day to attend a press event.
00:01:50
Speaker
And on the same topic, I thought it would be funny to and get a little high and talk about this bit that I've been thinking of where I convince everyone that I believe that I'm on a dragon frequency and that makes me, uh, my eyes open.
00:02:10
Speaker
And I, yeah and I was explaining to will is his name. Uh, how I would go about doing this bit all while his eyes are just glazing over. Like he is, he doesn't know if I'm being serious or not. yeah And I don't blame him as, and it's, it's a meme.
00:02:32
Speaker
A dragon frequency is a thing. um If you end up on it, congratulations, you're on the dragon frequency, but don't try explaining it to people. It's a lifestyle. Really? Is it like that?
00:02:44
Speaker
Every very rarely, I'll have like a second where I'm like, I'm alive. and And it seems like a really interesting, amazing thing that I'm alive. And then it passes immediately. And I'm so i'm like, well, all right.
00:02:55
Speaker
You know what? You know what? Let's say it is. might be that thing. we wait. The dragon frequency is ours to do what we want with. it's yeah it's ah It's a piece of clay, a piece of ah damp clay to to shape and form.
00:03:09
Speaker
It is the moment true self-awareness where you go. I go around you and ghost with you. as where This is life. We're making clay together. we're making yeah Yeah, you're behind. I'm in front. I'm pedaling.
00:03:23
Speaker
Let's get on that track frequency, baby. Yeah. maybe Maybe everyone who listens to this podcast is on the Dragon frequency. um Maybe it is a bit.
00:03:33
Speaker
We're the key to the Dragon frequency. It's 488 hertz. Yeah. even know what that's happening. don't know, man. I don't know what that is. I'm going to be honest with you. you know what? If there was a Dragon frequency, I guarantee it would 48, 488 hertz.
00:03:51
Speaker
but Is there a significance to dragons I don't know about? Or is that just like your gut? Spencer, I can only riff and make up things for so long. didn't know if that riffing or if that was what scientifically backed. So that was that was the issue that I ran into with Will. yeah that like he didn't know He didn't know where the joke ended and reality began with me.
00:04:12
Speaker
Yeah, I have a running joke with my one friend that i have I showed him a picture of Chris O'Neill from OniPlays. I was like, this my cousin Arnold.
The Running Gag of Cousin Arnold
00:04:21
Speaker
And then I've been talking about, like he constantly...
00:04:24
Speaker
I'll be like, my other friend's in on it, Eric, and he'll be like, oh, didn't your cousin Arnold play that game? And I was like, yeah, but he didn't. He like she saw like the first episode Breaking and the last episode of Breaking and that's all Arnold watched. And so there's just all this like meaningless Arnold lore, and to this day, just believes in the aid my cousin Arnold. Arnold's a patriot, man. Arnold's a patriot. So one day, will find out Arnold's not real, but not yet. know what? It's going to break his heart.
00:04:51
Speaker
He's going break his damn heart. we're gonna He's going to be ready to fly out to go meet Arnold. Catfished. Catfished by a bit. Well, anyone out there, whatever you want the Dragon Frequency to be on, just know that you're on it and let us know oh how you manifest it because it's yours to to to do what you will with.
00:05:13
Speaker
and And if we're all on the Dragon Frequency, then better. Then we're all better for it. quote syndrome in the Incredibles if we're all on the dragon frequency are any of us on the dragon frequency no one's on the dragon frequency I forget what he says that was a bad job of quoting if you're not if you aren't now then you never were I'll say that if you're on the dragon frequency now fine but if not now then never What does he say? Everybody's special.
00:05:42
Speaker
Nobody will be. If everybody's on the Dragon Frequency, nobody will be. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. That's for me. If everyone had wings, we wouldn't think wings were cool.
00:05:53
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I think that's what Syndrome was trying to say in the movie.
Podcast Schedules & Subscriptions
00:05:57
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. This episode or this podcast is recorded every Wednesday, hopefully, and posted to our Patreon early. That was me. Early.
00:06:09
Speaker
Yeah, we so we missed last week, but did well but did but if but if the podcast misses a week, did that week even happen? you know Did that week even happen? If a podcast falls, did anybody hear? And no one's around to hear. Because it didn't exist.
00:06:23
Speaker
It never did. and you know what? Last week sucked anyway. Yeah, last was a long week. It was a long week. Boring. All the fellas. Last week was boring. Oh, September? Oh, lame month. Who cares? Who cares?
00:06:37
Speaker
Dude, September sucks. There is nothing good about September. It has the the unfortunate side effect of being before October, which is arguably the best month of the entire year.
00:06:52
Speaker
I would say, oh are we going fight right now, dude? Are we going fucking fight right now? It's not on the lower side. It's not on the lower side. It's I'm a big summer head. Cause we don't really have that much here. So when we get warm weather for three Wear jacket, put a jacket on. When we get warm weather for three months, it's delightful. All I can think about is like Mario beach music.
00:07:14
Speaker
I'm like, Ooh, Oh, it's so relaxing to be outside without having to wear three layers. o ah then i love the side of it for the it just me Oh, there's snow.
00:07:25
Speaker
Oh, Christmas. And then and then and then October. Yeah, so like it's better than spring. Spring is just like nothing. October, you can watch scary movies and it's more fun.
00:07:36
Speaker
and holy yeah he had the Halloween's in it. ah You have a little bit of an excuse to candy. We have Canadian Thanksgiving in October.
00:07:47
Speaker
oh that
Thanksgiving Traditions
00:07:49
Speaker
doesn't that's all made up. are You know what? My other American friend tried this on me. And through research, we learned that Canada did Thanksgiving first. Wow. We stole it from you? Mm-hmm.
00:08:01
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Well, not in our history books. Golf of America, baby! Is that still called that? I don't know.
00:08:12
Speaker
and know That's the first time I've ever said that out loud. That's the first time I've ever said that word out loud. That's true. ah Every week you get this on our Patreon, so go subscribe. It comes out a week later, so you'll have to wait a week to get this ah chemistry in your ear holes. Unless you open up that wallet.
00:08:33
Speaker
yeah and by You can give up one of your OnlyFans accounts. Yeah. pay travel That one that hasn't posted in like eight months. And they haven't paused their thing because they don't care. She's not going to come back.
00:08:46
Speaker
I don't know how OnlyFans works because oh I was raised Catholic, so I'm very sexually repressed. oh Yeah. He's a chastity on right now. it's like Yeah, it's exactly. No one has the key yet. assume because on Patreon you can pause, you can have it so like you get monthly money, but you can pause it for like, oh, if I make videos and I don't make them for 12 months, like I was Ace Bonanza or something, um you can pause it so that you don't, you're not taking money for nothing. positive
00:09:17
Speaker
pa Surely OnlyFans, they can do that too. So I don't think you can. But you can cancel it and then just turn it on later on. like It saves all your stuff that yeah if you bought stuff.
00:09:31
Speaker
Not that I know. Not that I know. was going say, know lot. ah Zarya studied
Personal Anecdotes & Humor
00:09:38
Speaker
a lot of payment methods and subscription methods. right he was yeah we We were looking at a noisy pixel only fans for a second.
00:09:44
Speaker
Times were tough. yeah it was rough feet Mark's feet were looking real juicy. They were looking sharp. They were looking real sharp.
00:09:55
Speaker
Dude's got 13. He doesn't skip leg day. No, he doesn't. Dude has a 13...
00:10:02
Speaker
13 size shoe. Wow, that's even bigger than mine. That's surprising. He's a big boy. I'm 12. He's tall. He's very tall. And you don't see him because he's not on camera, but he's he's taller than me. He's tall in real life. That's true.
00:10:14
Speaker
Because I'm 60 tall. he's like 6'2 or something. Yeah. He wears it good though. He doesn't look tall in, in, in. No, he doesn't look like lumbering. looks like. Yeah.
00:10:25
Speaker
Yeah. Nice build. Yeah. He carries around all those camera things all the time, but it's fucked up his back. So he has to go to physical therapy like every week to fix his back. Yeah. Covered by noise. Yeah.
00:10:38
Speaker
Covered by a noise pixel. with Me in the alley with the doctor. Yeah, you're like, alright, so... Paying for... I mean, like, we can get you down a bit, you Justin Foulkes. Whatever you want, man.
00:10:55
Speaker
We gotta make this PAX content. Yeah. It's a problem if he if he gives out partway through, so you give us the good shit. ah I swear we played games this week ah
Game Reviews: Atelier Reslerania & More
00:11:08
Speaker
and last week.
00:11:09
Speaker
um I played Atelier Reslerania, I believe. Now he's going to Atelier all about it. Ooh, do you say Atelier? do you say in your French?
00:11:22
Speaker
i've never played Yeah, Atelier. I've never played one, but reading that with my French second language brain, it would be Atelier. Okay, yeah, yeah. Atelier is what they try to say, but... Atelier.
00:11:35
Speaker
I don't say... I don't like Atelier. Yeah, that's fine. I played Atelier Reslerania. It's a... it's a um It's a branch off of the mobile...
00:11:46
Speaker
game of the same name. I think that game has like a sub text of like the polar something, whatever. And loosely these characters that are on the mobile game that's already shut down in the West.
00:11:59
Speaker
um Yeah, it's a gotcha game. um But loosely, these characters exist in this new game. But Reslerania is only a supporting character in this story. Instead, you have ah two main characters.
00:12:14
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. She's really not. She's the Reslerania. Reslerania. But i just wondering you know what? Like an anime costume. You know what?
00:12:25
Speaker
She's risen. She definitely has Riz. Mm-hmm. Yeah, you control one of ah male protagonists or female protagonists. called ah The girl's name is Rias.
00:12:37
Speaker
um And the boy's name is Slade. That's cool name. Slade fucks. It's a sick name. But it's cool because the person you choose does have like their own story beats.
00:12:49
Speaker
So there are they are kind of different. and The last time they did this was... um way back on Eska and Loggi. I think that was the mysterious, um, trilogy.
00:13:00
Speaker
Um, but this game is such like a callback to like the secret trilogy or it's now four games now, but, um, as well as like just like a lot of classic Atelier like systems.
00:13:16
Speaker
But the game loop... Dude, i i I started playing this game expecting to hate it. like I was like, this is a phoned-in fucking Atelier game. It's not going to be good. um I'm going to have to really scrape to figure out what I would like as a fan from this and what doesn't work.
00:13:33
Speaker
The more I played, holy shit. like ah Addictive. like A game loop where... Everything you do on the field bleeds into the town systems, the item crafting or the item selling ah mechanic, ah because you're rebuilding the town, but you're also selling stuff in it's in ah in your shop.
00:13:56
Speaker
So those are two so different sim mechanics. But fighting, material synthesizing, and story progression all tie together in this nice loop of just how every fucking thing you do.
00:14:11
Speaker
pushes you forward. And the more time, and du it takes like 10 hours to roll out all of the game systems, but the pacing of these systems and how they they allow you to just surface level use them throughout the entire surface level, use them throughout the entire game, right when they introduce them, but you there's depth there. like Like as you're crafting, you can get more out of it as much as you want, really, um by just like but doing things like upgrading your tools that that gives you more materials. that
00:14:51
Speaker
And by the end of the game, like every atelier, you're like, we need specific traits. um And and the crowd in the synthesis system this time around is also really cool because there's no levels tied to your synthesis um because Rius doesn't want to really want to be i alchemist maybe she does i don't know jury's still out on that one but she's not an alchemist she just stumbles upon an alchemy um but ah She doesn't have a level.
00:15:21
Speaker
She doesn't level up. So everything you can create, you already have kind of access to, but you have to create it. And that goes into this like remix and mixing engine. And there's this enhancement engine next to it. And it's so fucking fun, dude. why The shittiest thing about this is it's supposed to be like a ah reuniting of like all the past Atelier games.
00:15:42
Speaker
And they don't really capitalize on any. Oh, Yeah. They have the characters in and some the like Sophie joins your party and Thothory joins your party. um But there's only six playable characters.
00:15:55
Speaker
um And you have three in the front line, three in the back line. So like, really, you're only playing with three characters at a time, but everyone levels, everyone gets um experience during battles. I think it's I think I honestly think they're just trying to sell more characters later on the line. They're like, hey, you can buy these this character pack for character you really want.
00:16:18
Speaker
Yeah, they're available in a bundle. Yeah, Aisha and all them. i more I believe they're going to do that easy. And then like the past characters, they don't even have voices. They just kind of show up on your town.
00:16:32
Speaker
That's kind of a bummer because some of those early ones are just really fun to see actualized in 3d and like, yeah, it's like a emblem engaged, how you could see. them Yeah. Yeah. yeah yeah Yeah. It's, it's fucking cool.
00:16:46
Speaker
Um, Yeah, it's it's ah it's a fun game. ah My review should be out by the time this posts. So go check out my review if you haven't. um That's a game I've been spending a lot of time in that I could talk about.
00:17:00
Speaker
What about you, Spencer? i have two I
Death Stranding 2: First Impressions
00:17:04
Speaker
can discuss. um One, I haven't played a ton of ah because it was right before Reviewtopia.
00:17:12
Speaker
um But I started Death Stranding 2.
00:17:17
Speaker
You went on a walk. ah Yeah, I went on a damn. I was like, you know what? It's time. um One act three, think. um Just as weird.
00:17:30
Speaker
Weirder, I'd say, than the first one. um It's just like it's it's a fun game to zone out with. And, you know, you're like listening to something and just walking around Wasteland.
00:17:43
Speaker
with stack of things up to here, carrying them to different bases. uh, it's a interesting. Does anyone ever walk in on you playing it and are just like, what are you doing?
00:17:56
Speaker
Yeah. They're like, what is this? I'm like, theyre like it looks real. I'm like, yeah, this is, this is, this is real life packages. Yeah. Like, oh, in a game. I'm like,
00:18:07
Speaker
no Yeah. But there's ghosts. So yeah, it's the rain sometimes. Sometimes it rains and that makes you old. George Miller's there. ah is that the guy from Walking Dead?
00:18:21
Speaker
It is. It advertised a TV show when you pooped, but they edited that out. ah But yeah, no, so that's, I was, I was pretty intrigued by that, but yeah,
00:18:35
Speaker
Then came a flood of review games, most of which I can't talk about, but I can talk about Sonic Racing Cross Worlds.
Sonic Racing Cross Worlds Review
00:18:46
Speaker
Oh, did you review it?
00:18:48
Speaker
Yes, that goes up tomorrow. am
00:18:55
Speaker
giving it... I'm going between 4.5 and a 5 out of 5. Oh... because It rocks. I like it more than Mario Kart World. It looked... Yeah, it looked fascinating, to be honest.
00:19:09
Speaker
It's just... like Sonic Racing Transformed rocked. um And this just improved on everything from it. So it's you know boats and planes and cars again. But you can be like...
00:19:22
Speaker
pretty much like almost everyone you would want from Sonic. um They all, I think every character has rival dialogue with every other character. Like I saw on YouTube, the all rival dialogue was three and a half hours long.
00:19:37
Speaker
And wow rival dialogue is like, Hey Sonic, it's me, Eggman. You're dumb. Well, Eggman, you're done like, it's, it's better than that. But i mean, like that's how long it is. So three and a half hours tells me,
00:19:50
Speaker
That whole roster is surely yeah has every combination, which is insane. um But it's, yeah, it so it has that. ah It feels so smooth to to drive the courses, the way that, like, the whole, the core conceit is for lap two, ah like a dimensional ring comes down and then changes to a different track for the second lap.
00:20:17
Speaker
And laps, some laps, uh, courses are exclusive to that ring. So you get to see these exclusive levels like that. And it's, don't It's super interesting. The music is amazing.
00:20:29
Speaker
It's super colorful. There's tons to do. I really, really like the the little rival dialogue stuff. Cause it fleshes out a lot of the characters that like that you haven't seen a long time it has the people from Sonic riders in it, which is and like a good choice, but it's very strange.
00:20:47
Speaker
Um, But yeah, i've been I've been having a great time ah playing that. And they just added Miku. Oh, that's cool. Vocaloid heads can play as Miku. And they're adding Kasuga from Yakuza. And they're adding Joker from Persona.
00:21:07
Speaker
So, ah you know, we got a... I'm hoping that... there Some of the... The one weird thing to me is that the premium DLC characters are like primarily Nickelodeon.
00:21:21
Speaker
Um, it's like SpongeBob and Patrick and avatar characters and people from Minecraft. It's a very weird grouping. The Mega Man one feels right, but I'd like to see more Sega stuff, but, um, yeah, it's, uh, it's great.
00:21:38
Speaker
I'm, I'm loving it. I'm, uh, having a very good time with that. And I will definitely play it with friends in the future. What about, what about that versus like Kirby air ride? Career. It's interesting. I, I only really played it at my one friend's house, but we did a lot.
00:21:53
Speaker
And I've heard like a universal story where like everybody else who played it with their friends did the same thing where you just go into like, think was called city trial and like,
00:22:05
Speaker
like role play everyone every kid I know they like pick Kirby and a thing and they go into the town and they like make up stories and drive around and like and that's what I did so I that's like my primary memory of what is this idea of because I haven't played Mario Kart World either but what is this idea of um
00:22:26
Speaker
Nintendo kind of making you wait in these lobbies for an extended amount of time. Oh, the big lobby thing was um you couldn't... I think it was like you had to pick random if you wanted to do just three laps on one course instead of a lap, go between to a new course, a lap.
00:22:47
Speaker
And people didn't like that, I think. And then they removed the ability for random to do that or something. It's very weird, very Nintendo... thing to like like make it we really want you to see this we really want like no you have to do it this way yeah and everyone was like that's a circle hole yeah so um like mario kart world's great uh but i mean i'm a sonic sonic boy at heart um it um honestly looks more fun to me. It's so fun. It's so cool. Like the courses come from across the whole franchise. There's like tons from Sonic unleashed. Cause that game is like around the world. So there's all these, there's like a course that's very inspired by China. There's the Greece course. There's ah the, I think rooftop run is France, I think, or England or Italy.
00:23:35
Speaker
But it's like, theres there's so many cool, I wish there was a little bit more Sonic adventure one prep. That's my favorite. um But ah otherwise, like it's it's so fun.
00:23:47
Speaker
It's crazy. i I was worried that they were coming out so close to Mario Kart World, but i think you know it's a I think it's a serious competitor. So they're they're doing well. Yeah, it's one of the few like games that I didn't review, but while I was editing the videos, I was like, god damn, this looks fun.
00:24:05
Speaker
yeah Other games that look fun is haiti Hades 2 looks pretty fun. Yeah, that does look great. But there's just too many games out. And we'll play and i believe I believe we're both reviewing our maybe ah favorite series but that we can't talk about.
Conclusion & Future Content
00:24:21
Speaker
Right now. But if you know if you know listeners, our favorite series, and you know what games are coming up, hey, we'll see you in the comments, Losey.
00:24:28
Speaker
I have a little inkling of what's going on. Mm-hmm. Due to time and that I have, like, five are three embargoes in five hours. yeah We're going to cut this podcast. This is short ep. I promise you, we could talk we could talk for a long time, but we got work to do.
00:24:51
Speaker
ah Yeah, it's a busy week, but we didn't want to leave you hanging for two weeks.
00:24:57
Speaker
um I'll see you next week and ah we'll have more to talk about. There was a state of play. Go check out our coverage on monstervine.com and lazypixel.com.
00:25:07
Speaker
Do that right away. That's your home. We'll see you next. We'll see you next week. Bye everyone. Bye.
00:25:26
Speaker
What is it, XO? pixel