Transcript
neocharge: What's up everybody and welcome to Shapes of Gaming, the weekly conversational podcast all about video games that's unedited, unfiltered, and unhinged. I'm one of your hosts, Matt Stinson, NeoCharge on PSN, and joining me, as always, you beautiful son of a bitch, Bob Harriman, Leon Lionheart, Leon, and the other one.
neocharge: For episode number 45, we're on, Bob.
Leon Lionheartly: 45. We're almost there, folks. Almost a full year. And I'm still here.
neocharge: Right? Right? Yeah, we're still kicking it. We're still gaming, of course, and talking about games as well as drinking. So what are we drinking?
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, right into business. See, I like this.
neocharge: Right into it.
Leon Lionheartly: Efficiency. Let's get this shit done today.
neocharge: I got some Nino Cooney to play.
Leon Lionheartly: you can't tell, it works. Yeah, I was going to say, if you can't tell, we got we're excited to play some games go out ah right now.
neocharge: Yeah, we are.
Leon Lionheartly: ah But no, ah same thing from last week. I'm still kind of ah churning through it because I was dealing with a little bit of a stomach issue earlier in the week, and you don't want to drink on that stuff.
Leon Lionheartly: So um from the local leg Red Leg here in Colorado Springs, we got the cinnamon roll.
neocharge: new Nice.
Leon Lionheartly: It is the oatmeal pastry stout. This thing is, if ah if Powder Run makes cinnamon toast crunch in a can, this is Cinnabon in a can. and
neocharge: Ooh.
Leon Lionheartly: i I fucking love this drink, man.
neocharge: Hell yeah. Nice. We need to go to Redleg. Because, I mean, it's literally local to us. Ooh. That's what we call the cast crack. Hey.
Leon Lionheartly: Yes, sir. Hey, giggity.
neocharge: Very good. Giggity.
Leon Lionheartly: Phrasing? Are we not using phrasing anymore?
neocharge: Giggity.
neocharge: phrasing yeah archer man what a show is that still going on or are they still doing episodes don't think so probably not yeah right we're
Leon Lionheartly: I don't know. They kind of... They had their jump to shark moment several years ago, and I kind of fell off of it. um American sitcom, Archer. Let's see. Yeah.
neocharge: gonna look it up for you all while you look it up i'll talk about what i'm drinking uh
Leon Lionheartly: Oh. ah
neocharge: Living the dream, but a twist. It's not powder run. It's actually, it's called Fly Real Amber. And i ah yeah, I saw it there it's ah It's a traditional amber ale.
Leon Lionheartly: who
neocharge: It's got a really good quote on the top, Bob. And it resonates with me. It says, live the life you have imagined.
Leon Lionheartly: ah See, I i was i expecting to get the live the life you want to live kind of thing.
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: ah ah Looking at you, Solid Snake, but ah that, I like that. The one you imagine.
neocharge: Yeah. ah Deep in color and perfectly balanced with Colorado root shoot malt and hops. This dry, crisp amber is perfect for ale lovers and anglers alike.
neocharge: I am an angler because I do go fishing. Not in the pond, though. yeah
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: Ass crack.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah cat are you Am I being catfish here?
neocharge: yeah Because you know what they say. There's plenty of fish in the sea. And I go fishing.
Leon Lionheartly: and ah Yeah, that's true. But the sea's... Yeah, but the the ocean's a big place, man. so like Or the sea, if you will.
neocharge: It's true.
Leon Lionheartly: I'm
neocharge: That's why I fish local.
Leon Lionheartly: going to get you a big-ass net for for your birthday.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Okay. m
Leon Lionheartly: But no, to answer your question, Archer finally ended on in 2023, December. So um nine seasons.
neocharge: okay
Leon Lionheartly: I don't know if I watched that final one, but I think I'm going to go back. and that's ah That's a series I need to revisit.
neocharge: Yeah, dude, I was just saying, ah i was I'm trying to find a TV show to just like, because when I'm eating dinner, I usually just get takeout. I don't fucking cook anymore. But when I get dinner, I get takeout, bring it home. I'm just eating there. And I'm either listening to a podcast or just scrolling on my phone. And I'm like, dude, I need to start a TV series. Because you can't one thing you can't do is eat dinner and game.
neocharge: I mean, efficiently, right? You got your your your fucking hands and the food and everything. I don't do that. I do not. I might eat snacks, but I'm not touching them. All right. I'm not a fucking savage over here. But eating dinner and gaming is almost impossible. I don't like doing it. So maybe like a passive form of entertainment, like a TV show or something. I used to do that. So I need to get back in it.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, you you could do that. um I will say I will eat while I'm gaming, but I don't. Here's the rule of thumb. I don't eat finger foods unless I can use any utensil with it.
neocharge: Exactly.
Leon Lionheartly: So you give me a fork or a set of chopsticks, anything of that nature. I'm okay. But don't have me trying to eat fucking Cheetos. That shit drives me up a wall.
neocharge: Oh, yeah. No, we we we don't do that here. ah and I don't even know.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: Even with a fork, like a dinner plate and like dinner with utensils, i just you're you're you you and you need two hands to game. Right.
neocharge: I mean, you can get good with one hand, especially playing cellar blade. Oh, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: No!
neocharge: ah But you need two hands to game. And you're constantly putting that the controller and going to take a bite. It's just too much motor ah function there with two different things. I can't do it. I don't eat dinner and game. I can't do it.
Leon Lionheartly: Well, I will say this is absolutely true. But two things off of this is one, my kiddo just ah over over here and as they're doing laundry in the other room.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: And dad, you can eat Cheetos with your chopsticks. Okay.
neocharge: Yep, that's true.
Leon Lionheartly: All right.
neocharge: That's true.
Leon Lionheartly: That's true. That is true. And secondly, remember, the most one of the most famous scenes in all of video game history it revolves around food because whatever, I got chicken.
neocharge: oh yeah yeah shit uh i don't know man it's just like the plate of
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
Leon Lionheartly: ah Oh, you know what? do we need to dis stamp that? Because that that's like an old reference, by the way.
neocharge: tell the audience oh yeah oh yeah good old world of warcraft uh how's life been man life treating you good
Leon Lionheartly: the The Leroy Jenkins moment. If you don't know, go look it up in Google.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah Yeah, treating me busy, but it's treating me good. ah I'm going through a reset right now with my sleep cycle. ah the wife My wife finally got moved from ah night shift to day shift, which is the preferred place for her to be.
Leon Lionheartly: But that means instead of being ah done at like nine o'clock at night, which, by the way, interrupts gaming time. um
neocharge: Yes.
Leon Lionheartly: She's now starting at 7 in the morning and is done by 3.30 in the afternoon. Leaves the we ah leaves everything wide open. but Now that means I got to be up a little bit earlier in the morning than normal so I can get her to work. and but then i have It's one of those awkward situations. um I don't know about you, but officially i don't have to start until 9 a.m. m I usually go in little earlier. But if I have to drop her off by like 7 just before...
Leon Lionheartly: What is the fucking point of going back home to sit?
neocharge: Yeah, no.
Leon Lionheartly: I'm not going to game because by the time I get into the game, I've got to go to work. So I just go to work now.
neocharge: Yep. Yeah, ah that's a respectable shift. That's a better shift, seven to three. can't Can you maybe like start work earlier and just end work early?
neocharge: like Is there a set shift you to be there?
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. So how do we... ah the The hours are more like... They're not rules. They're more like guidelines, if you will.
neocharge: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: um And it's been particularly weird ah this week ah because most of our company is doing a big project. And I was one of the people that was selected to stay behind and like keep the lights on and and work on some things in the back end.
Leon Lionheartly: So I go into the office and there's like two cars in the parking lot.
neocharge: Nice.
Leon Lionheartly: And so I go into my office, close the door, crank the fucking music, listen to a podcast and just go to town.
neocharge: Oh, yeah. Nice. Yeah. i My commute to work is, you know, up 15 feet. ah i work i basically I live and work in my basement. Sometimes it's kind of boring. But, yeah, I kind of just... I'm project-based, and i work starts when I get to my desk.
neocharge: So that becomes dangerous when you're gaming at night, and you're just like... I can game a little more. can just sleep in a little. That's not... Oh, God.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: It's always a struggle, especially with this fucking game, dude.
Leon Lionheartly: A very slippery slope. I've been there, dude. you're he that And then you wake up and it's like, oh shit, it's 10.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: And you have a panic, heart attack.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: um But yeah've it's never caught me off guard, but it's it's good to recognize that because some people can't handle that.
neocharge: Yep.
neocharge: Yes.
Leon Lionheartly: ah I've seen so many guys throw away their entire careers, um their lives essentially.
neocharge: Oh, yeah. No.
Leon Lionheartly: you know Look, I love video games just like anybody else. That's why I'm here, but I'm not going to destroy my life over it.
neocharge: Yeah, it's all about a balance with video games. Like, we can just get inundated with these fucking things, especially the the game I'm playing. I, like, looked down. i was like, cool. I got four hours. I looked back down. I'm like, oh, shit, it's been three hours. What the fuck? So it's just, it's always a balance, right? With any hobby. And we we take, we get our shit done. We pay our bills, you know, and we, as long as you're doing that, game as much as you fucking want.
neocharge: So... it's always It's always a challenge, though. You're like, am I gaming too much? i've I've been really leaning into gaming, man, a lot lately, especially with this game I'm going to be talking all about.
neocharge: ah it's It's got me hooked, and it's it's pulled me in, if you will. The nights I'm like, maybe I should go out and meet some people because, you know, I'm just here alone. Yeah.
neocharge: Or I could just jump in and Nino Cooney.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: ah And yeah, it's usually ah just jumping in a Nino Cooney. I did go see a movie today, which was cool. ah I went and saw a movie that recently just came out. It's a sci-fi movie with Ryan Gosling, and it's called Project Hail Mary.
neocharge: It's based off of a book, ah and the same guy that did The Martian. So...
Leon Lionheartly: so Yeah, I heard that. this Doesn't this thing have like a 97% both viewer and critic rating on Rotten Tomato or some shit?
neocharge: I don't know, but it was fucking fantastic. I loved it. It was great. ah It was in the echelons of Interstellar and the Gravity. Great space movie.
neocharge: i it's you know In the trailer, it's it's an apocalyptic movie. The sun's dying and he has to go save it. So he's on a project Hail Mary. ah And it's very well told. Gosselin's acting is incredible. And ah it's in the marketing, but I don't know if people... that he There's some surprises up there.
neocharge: So let's just say that. ah Very well done. Great storytelling. Some twists and turns. And the soundtrack, man. There's a part where something happens. And I was like, this is on the fucking level of Interstellar. Like the soundtrack.
neocharge: It was...
Leon Lionheartly: Ah.
neocharge: Really good. So I haven't been to the movies in a while. I went with a friend and it was fun. It was very fun.
Leon Lionheartly: Yep.
neocharge: I like the movies. You know, it's a good experience. I get the medium popcorn, not too much butter, right? Because, I mean, it's not really health. It's kind of health reasons.
neocharge: But, dude, the fingers, the fingers get all buttery. I can't stand that. So get a medium popcorn, light butter, and I bring my own huge fucking 42 ounces of ice water because I'm not overpaying for the drinks there.
neocharge: I'll overpay for the popcorn, but I'm not overpaying for those fucking drinks. Popcorn's already like $8. eight dollars So that's kind of a hack. ah You can just... A lot of people think, oh, you can't bring beverages in. Yeah, you can. They don't care anymore.
neocharge: they They know they're ripping you off. Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: Well, they're also trying to get people in because, you know, if you think about it, the reason popcorn, I mean, if you look at, go down a rabbit hole. If you're like, if you've got my kind of, ah I don't want to say tism, but if you got my special tism, man, you go down a rabbit hole and you'll see where the reason prices are so high is because that's how the theaters make their money.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: You look at why Coke is so dominant.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: Coca-Cola. ah in the US market.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: It's because of the theaters. But um yeah, i I like it.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Good call. Light butter do or to medium butter. do not go heavy. I hate that crap.
neocharge: Wow.
Leon Lionheartly: I'm with you. um
neocharge: ah
Leon Lionheartly: And lastly, Project Hail Mary. I did have to check because I thought I saw something this week. It's on Rotten Tomatoes. Take what you will for the website. It's 95% on the tomato meter and 98% on the popcorn meter. So
neocharge: Hot damn.
Leon Lionheartly: this is If this was a draft, this is go in our draft, this is Godi.
neocharge: This is Godi. Or Moody.
Leon Lionheartly: Modi?
neocharge: Moody of the movie of the year. So, yeah. No, it was great. Highly recommended. If you like sci-fi action thrillers. look but Way more comedy than I thought it would have. I was laughing out loud many times. And the jokes were were hitting. So, it was about two hours, 45 minutes, three-hour movie. Long movie. But, yeah.
neocharge: Just great all-around. Highly recommended. What's the... ah ah We're not going to go see Super Mario. What are we going to see? Street Fighter? or Mortal Kombat?
Leon Lionheartly: We got four then. So Mortal Kombat.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: um I definitely want to see Street Fighter.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: And I know if I go see a movie, you'll be there because I don't go to the movies that often.
neocharge: Yep.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: And then ah Scary Movie and then The New Jackass Movie in June.
neocharge: Oh, yeah. I'll be there. Scary movie. Yep. Yes, the new Jackass movie. Yes. Hell yeah. Awesome. Yeah, dude, I hope theaters thrive. I try and do my part and and go. I just like the experience. We saw in IMAX.
neocharge: I'm a bigger fan of XD. It's a little more higher quality, but IMAX, you got that huge screen and things are literally sometimes shot for IMAX. So space movies in IMAX are premium.
neocharge: They're awesome. So yeah, man. ah I literally just got back from that. So that was fun and a highly recommended. Really good movie. made make
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Made me think. Those space movies sometimes make you think about existence and humanity, especially the apocalyptic movies, you know? So, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, I agree. And I'll tell you, you mentioned it, IMAX. going bring this back to video games for us so we can get this properly out started.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: um i don't know if you saw, but a certain individual in the community is not happy with the movie industry because his father was not mentioned. in the in memoriam this year during the Oscars.
neocharge: Let me take a guess because I know his father did either Dolby or IMAX. Jeff Keighley?
Leon Lionheartly: I'm at, uh, yep. I'm at specifically, uh, because his father was a proponent and huge, uh, space within the IMAX launch.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah. yeah Yeah. That's a bummer. I wonder why he wasn't mentioned. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: i I don't know. For what it's worth, guys, you can go look. um Let's just say this is how the quickly the internet forgets because now suddenly everybody loves Jeff Keighley again because he reached out and said, this is kind of bullcrap.
neocharge: yeah
neocharge: Yeah. Good.
Leon Lionheartly: And ah they kind of ah whoever it is on the board over there blocked him on social media and was like, oh, that's our response. You can go pound yourself.
neocharge: Dang, that sucks, man. I've always liked Jeff Keighley. I met him at the Game Awards. He's cool dude. He's been in the industry for a while. He started the Game Awards for a good reason. There are some interesting things happening recently, and the way he handled that situation wasn't great. I wish there he just would have maybe said something like, ah, my bad.
neocharge: we'll We'll try better next time. But he just didn't. And it's kind of like, oh, you smug son of a bitch. But I still love you. And he's doing great things for the video game industry, putting video games in the limelight.
Leon Lionheartly: I...
neocharge: And I look forward to both of his events every year. So we got Summer Game Fest coming up. I honestly 100% think because there's a lot of rumors stirring around ah Square.
neocharge: that they will be closing and ending the game or or the Summer Game Fest with Final Fantasy VII Part III. Reborn.
Leon Lionheartly: ah I don't know about the title, but I would absolutely agree with you. um i i'd be willing I'd be willing to bet.
neocharge: It's time.
Leon Lionheartly: The timeline matches. It's on a hot streak.
neocharge: all
Leon Lionheartly: um You just got the the newest releases and ah going to other platforms. platforms like Switch 2, and we know already because of the leaks that the part 3 is going to be in the same engine, which kind of sets up everything up.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: that You've got landing, go finish it, hit it strong, especially since after the optimization of Rebirth a year later and what they do with patches, dude. It's going to be great.
neocharge: disc three on Final Fantasy seven. We won't spoil Final Fantasy seven because it's, I mean, part three is literally coming out. And if you haven't played it, ah what are you doing? Go play it. But ah I'll say this for everyone that if you know, you know, but the weapons.
neocharge: Oh, man.
Leon Lionheartly: You know, that that's one of them.
neocharge: The
Leon Lionheartly: That's one one of the the big things that i'm I'm curious about are the weapons.
neocharge: Highwind.
Leon Lionheartly: um And then obviously what we get to, yeah, the high wind.
neocharge: The Highwind.
Leon Lionheartly: That's all we can say.
neocharge: That's all we can say. That's kind of if you know, you know, if you don't, then you have no idea what we're talking about. Go fucking play Final Fantasy seven. What are you doing? ah I think i'm I'm going to finally replay Rebirth when the day just in in fucking spite of it. GTA comes out. GTA six. I'm going to just start Rebirth.
neocharge: So yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Ooh, what do I play then? Because, no.
neocharge: Rebirth.
Leon Lionheartly: if
neocharge: yeah
Leon Lionheartly: No, that that's a good point.
neocharge: But it it just got updated again on PS5 Pro because I played it launch day one, my game of the year. Fucking love that game. Can't wait for the third one. But I didn't play it on the hard mode. And I was like, you know what? I think it'll it'll be better on the next system. And holy shit, it's got one of the best glow ups of all of the games that are on the Pro. And then they did PSSR 2.0 for it too.
neocharge: And the, uh, performance mode that runs in 60 looks better now than the graphic fidelity mode that ran in 30.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh,
neocharge: Oh, Oh, going to cry like a little bitch 42 times again playing that game. Rebirth is is special, man. I fucking, I loved, loved Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, and I can't wait to play it. So whenever GTA comes out, if that's this fucking holiday season, awesome. I'm going to replay Rebirth, and I'll stream it for you all.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, no, that should be this November. um I don't see GTA getting kicked.
neocharge: Oh, you should.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, I don't see GTA getting kicked again. So but that's a good point.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: and I'm going to have to figure out what game am I going to play for Grand Theft Auto? um
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: Maybe I'll finally get around to playing Crimson Desert because I got a feeling it's going to be a lot of time.
neocharge: right
neocharge: never Darksiders 2?
Leon Lionheartly: I could have it done. i'll There's a chance I have Darksiders 2 done by then.
neocharge: Okay. um Okay. Yeah. ah Yeah, it's it's going to be every... No one's going to release any games during that, and it'll be a good time to just dive into a game that you want to play and you haven't played in a while, or a backlog game, or something you've been sitting on. Or if you're interested in GTA, go play GTA. Whatever flavor you'd like.
neocharge: ah Yeah, other than that, ah we we attempted a spoiler cast last night, and... For you all. ah We had some technical difficulties.
neocharge: Let's just say that. Some hilarious technical difficulties. And we might release that B-roll someday. I don't know. But yeah zen let's just say Zencaster was basically...
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: That's the platform we used to record. Zencaster was like, nope. And just stopped the recording. And we were like... It was just like... So ah there were there was some problems on Ohio's end, unfortunately.
neocharge: and But we still got that planned. We're going to do a Resident Evil 9 Requiem. Resident Evil Requiem spoiler cast for you all. And yeah, it was a good hour run.
neocharge: And then Zencaster was like, I can't do this anymore, guys. I'm sorry.
Leon Lionheartly: I'm tired, Grandpa!
neocharge: so He took the podcast out back and... fucking put it to sleep so yeah old yeller so yeah we're we're still working on that uh we're we got it scheduled again so hopefully sometime next week we have a lot of thoughts on it and we can't wait to share them uh we have a tiktok now i don't know if anything's on it but it's on our uh shapes of gaming.com
Leon Lionheartly: ah Old Geller, yeah.
neocharge: link tree. So you can go there and we got a tick tock now. So follow us there and, uh, working, working people find us. Oh, we got a lot of new discord members. So that's been awesome.
neocharge: Uh, and thanks. If you're listening and you recently joined discord, thanks. We appreciate it. Welcome to the community. Welcome to the insanity that is shapes of gaming. And, uh, Yeah, you're going to learn real quick that we when we say we're unhinged and unedited and unfiltered, we fucking mean it.
neocharge: So ah let us know how we're doing and give us a like. ah Subscribe to the podcast. It's free. We're not asking for anybody at all. But if you go and you like our podcast and subscribe to it, that helps us. That helps the community. That helps you because you're the community. So it's literally a win-win here. So yeah, thanks to everyone that's part of the community.
neocharge: ah We got some really good conversations going and everyone's playing games, drinking beer, having a good time. And if they're not part of the community, Bob, where can people find us?
Leon Lionheartly: um You go onto the internet, I guess, this newfangled thing that I keep hearing about, and you know open up that browser, and you'll just find yourself over at shapesofgaming.com. That's going to bring you to our landing page with all of the good links that you're going to need to to hear us, ah to...
Leon Lionheartly: you know, watch us play video games live. Well, specifically me, um, as I fumble as a middle-aged gamer in 2026, uh, check out the discord.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: We've got a couple of new members. Thank you for joining us always. Um, and then of course, while you're there, give us the, the thumbs up, uh, the comments, uh, the nice ones or bad ones. I don't really care what you say.
Leon Lionheartly: You're in your, you are your own person. Um, and, uh,
neocharge: yeah If you're an asshole, just make sure it's funny. And be an asshole to us, not other not our other community members. Because dont if you're an asshole, you're going to get kicked. Don't be an asshole. You can be an asshole to us as long as you're funny.
neocharge: If you're not, you're just an asshole then. You could be a funny asshole, which is funny and entertaining, but then if you're just an asshole, you're just an asshole. So don't don't do that.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah no Nobody likes the guy that's just mean to be mean. Be mean and be funny about it. And you'll find that it goes over with the crowd.
neocharge: Yeah, be funny about it.
Leon Lionheartly: um But yeah, just go in there.
neocharge: Exactly.
Leon Lionheartly: Check us out. Shapesofgaming.com. And once again, thank you for the support.
neocharge: Yes, absolutely. We really appreciate it. And yeah, we're almost a year into this thing, man. Holy shit. It's been a crazy ride. do you say we get into the news, Bob?
neocharge: We got to few items.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, we got a couple ah couple of things to talk about this week. um it ah you'll You'll see a theme here. so I'm going to sandwich all of those theme ah items in between two articles for us to discuss this week.
neocharge: A news sandwich.
Leon Lionheartly: um A new sandwich. I try to do that. Give us a give
neocharge: Yeah, exactly.
Leon Lionheartly: Get us in between. um that's sort This first one here, um i actually, it kind of, what what what we get into it, this is coming from gamesindustry.biz. It circulated a little bit, but ah but this is where I first saw it. um Nintendo of America has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government over, quote, in initiation and administration of unlawful trade measures last this year.
Leon Lionheartly: In the complaint attained by aftermath, lawyers for Nintendo are asking the U.S. Courts of International Trade to refund tariffs paid, quote, with interest, end quote, since they were imposed. The filing accused various U.S. government agencies of collecting more than $200 billion ah dollars two hundred billion dollars excuse me in tariffs on imports from nearly all countries
neocharge: The cough.
Leon Lionheartly: Yep. Yep.
neocharge: You're good.
Leon Lionheartly: I'm still getting over the sickness, but yeah. um mean
neocharge: yeah
Leon Lionheartly: meant Nintendo's going... Now, I want to do as a background. This is one of many ah lawsuits that have been implemented across the world.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Nintendo just happens to be the one that's associated with ah within our realm that's coming that that's relevant to us in our community here.
neocharge: Right.
neocharge: Right. ah I don't like this. I don't care. And the reason I don't like this is I would like it if so if something was different.
neocharge: Nintendo already charged consumers extra for the tariffs that were applied. And now they're asking for more money when they already made the extra tariff costs on their consumers and the end user.
neocharge: and now they're getting double paid from the government. That is ultimately our money as well because we pay taxes if you work. But they're just they're going to get double paid. like i don't if you're If you're going to get this from the government, then reimburse your users or your consumers somehow. like You're just you're just just getting double money because you already got it from us. We already paid that tariff charge that you tacked on to the fucking Switch 2, the extra $50. We all paid it.
neocharge: So are we are we going to get it back or are you just going to keep it? I think you're just going to keep it
Leon Lionheartly: ah We'll get a digital code for a free game on ps on the on the and NSL.
neocharge: That'd be cool.
Leon Lionheartly: I'm kidding.
neocharge: I'd be cool with that then. And that'll never happen, but I would be cool with that. Be like, hey, the government definitely realized ah that we we do deserve that money. We got it. So thanks everyone for being a fan. Anyone that bought a Switch 2, here's a $50 fucking NSO gift card.
neocharge: I would be totally fine with that. But... They're just fishing for more money when we already bared that cost. they They didn't. they might have They might have ate a little bit of it, but they ultimately pushed it onto the consumer.
neocharge: so and that's but i mean if If the government is imposing these tariffs, the companies, it's the it's the cost to them.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah,
neocharge: right They have to pay it And they have a choice to either eat that in their profit margins or push that extra cost onto the consumer. They usually push that extra cost onto the consumer.
neocharge: But that's that's on them. That's the fucking company. So, yeah, I don't i don't like it.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah no yeah but that That's totally fair. that's totally fair um I mean, at the end of the day, I guess you ah you are correct. It's ship damage over time. um A little bit here and there. Even if it was $50, $50 is a game. And Switch 2 didn't have many games.
Leon Lionheartly: It's getting some, but it didn't have a lot a good launch title.
neocharge: i I still haven't bought a Switch 2 game.
Leon Lionheartly: law Oh, shit. Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: that's all That's true. No. Well, you got you got Metroid Prime.
neocharge: We're going on a year. i bought the Switch 1 version and upgraded the switch to Switch 2 digitally. I still have not bought a Switch 2 game.
Leon Lionheartly: I paid for one.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: ah Well, technically two of them, but yeah you know what's funny?
neocharge: Yeah. Is Pocopia Switch 2 only?
Leon Lionheartly: is ah Yeah, that's why I had to get a Switch 2.
neocharge: Oh, wow. Okay.
Leon Lionheartly: that's the other reason That was the other reason it's such a pain in the ass to find, because along with Switches, is because it's so fucking popular, a surprise, that you can't find it um in stores.
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: ah for them most It's very hard.
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: let's Let's leave it like that.
neocharge: Giggity. And it so ah to be clear, we're not trade experts.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: I mean, we know what tariffs are. We don't know the ins and outs or why it happened. I'm not, but we're not getting political on here, but we are not experts in the the trade of economic economics across the global fucking economy. And I just, I just like break things down simply, right?
neocharge: Nintendo already pushed the costs on the consumers. So we paid the tariffs. They've been paid. And now they're asking for that to re be reimbursed.
neocharge: That's just, I don't know. i don't There might be more to it, but if you if if that's the simplistic breakdown of it, it's not cool, man.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: We already paid that tariff. So do we get reimbursed? No.
Leon Lionheartly: No.
neocharge: we're just get fucked.
Leon Lionheartly: No. No, man. Let me be honest.
neocharge: Okay.
Leon Lionheartly: I don't know. we We're swimming on this rock going through the planet yeah or through space at hypersonic speeds.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: All I got to say is this is I'll leave you like this. Nintendo is a very litigious ah video game company. We know this.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: They have a history of it. And I'm not talking the last couple of years. They've been doing this since the 80s. And all I will say... um You know what? This is kind of like for me, kind of like Godzilla and King Kong going into battle.
Leon Lionheartly: Somebody's going to lose a house.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: I just hope it's not mine and I can grab a popcorn bucket so I can watch it from my front yard.
neocharge: Exactly. Dude, yeah, I'm just riding this wave of ah into oblivion, man. At least, I mean, it's exciting. I'm still drinking beer and playing video games. i don't care. So, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: But yeah.
neocharge: Well, we'll see how it shakes out.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: And a lot of companies are doing it. And I don't i don't know the math on how many companies push this. I mean, usually it's 100%. 100% of the extra tariff is on the consumer.
neocharge: And now, if these companies are like, oh well, Our consumers paid us. We want more money. It's just fucking greed. It's greed. And it's just running rampant in the world. So I don't want to get philosophical or anything, but yeah, I don't give a fuck.
Leon Lionheartly: down where Look, all I'm saying is let these two guys collide because at least it'll be entertaining.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: And that's in this is where people, if you remember back to the Microsoft acquisition of EA,
Leon Lionheartly: Blizzard um is you've got discovery. You've got the positions. This opens up a whole inside of the of the companies and parties involved. And sometimes you get insider baseball, knowledge only you if you will, or stuff you normally wouldn't get. And Nintendo...
Leon Lionheartly: is very tight lipped for the most part. um A lot of our history in recent Nintendo in the last five to last six years or so became ah came from the Giga leak. um And that required literal hacking of their servers to get the the information on cancel games and stuff.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: So I'd be curious yeah to keep my eye out on that kind of stuff.
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: 200.
neocharge: Yeah. I mean, even if they knock 50 bucks off the next console, that'd be nice, but they're they're never going to do it. If they make this big chunk of money, don't know. They're probably asked for like billions, right?
neocharge: ah
Leon Lionheartly: two hundred
neocharge: They get this big chunk of money and then they're like, okay, now we have a surplus. We made that back. Let's, instead of releasing the OLED or the next console for $550, let's do it for $500.
neocharge: I'd be okay with that too. Just somehow pass the savings on to the consumer and stop being fucking greedy and charging $10 for your goddamn tutorial game that should have been baked into the system.
Leon Lionheartly: i no If a water was here with us, uh, RIP and peace, we, we'd, we'd, we'd get a kickback. I almost guaranteed to We would, but.
neocharge: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Wii Sports was with the Wii. It's yeah. It's just whatever. My Switch 2 is <unk>ve I've been playing a little bit of Pokemon here and there.
Leon Lionheartly: I'm deep.
neocharge: Just kind of like there's some hype with the new Pokemon news and winds and waves. And I'm like, oh, yeah. and But other than that, man, I really don't use my Switch 2. So thankfully, I'm in a position where I can just buy it because I can.
neocharge: and it can sit around, and I don't have to utilize it, but you know I wish wish there were some fucking games to play on it.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, um I got a couple of games I could recommend for you. um And you know...
neocharge: I don't need a recommended game. I have plenty of games. We've got Pragmata coming out. I'm playing Ni No Kuni. I'm probably going to jump right into Vesperia, Tales of Vesperia remastered after Ni No Kuni. Ni No Kuni is giving me that Tales itch, even though it's like Tales. But yeah, no, I don't need recommendations. The next time I'll play my Switch 2 is either a 3D Mario or a Legend of Zelda game.
neocharge: Or winds and waves, if none of those fucking come out before holiday 2027. like
Leon Lionheartly: i I hope we do. see I hope we get something before. Yeah, like whenever. that It says 2027, but they didn't tell us a hard date, huh? They just said year.
neocharge: It'll be. Yeah, it's always holiday. Their main lines always hit holiday. It's their holiday system selling title. It'll be their marquee title for the year. And ah I'm hoping we hear some news that Super Mario Galaxy 3 is releasing this holiday because they we don't have a marquee title for a holiday season for Switch 2.
neocharge: And it ain't going to be Zelda. And it ain't going to be Pokemon. So what other big hitter do we have for their IP? Mario. And what movie is coming out in two weeks that skipped World and went straight to Galaxy?
neocharge: So, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, with Pikmin in it.
neocharge: I know, right? And, yeah, other characters that ah might be setting up for something really cool. The N.C.U.
Leon Lionheartly: Ooh, I like that.
neocharge: Nintendo Cinematic Universe. Yeah, but I wonder what, because Zelda, the new Zelda's live action. we Whoops.
Leon Lionheartly: oh Oh, man, that's that that's a that's a topic for another time, dude.
neocharge: My mom.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, I still hurt thinking about that one.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: well
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Well, you know, speaking of the Switch, um see, this is that transition of material, folks.
neocharge: Ooh.
Leon Lionheartly: ah maybe there is a
neocharge: Smooth.
Leon Lionheartly: ah smooth Maybe there is a reason for you to go back to some games. um As noted, ah this is coming from Game Informer, um one of my favorite sites on the Internet. um Nintendo released an update this week ah for it says for both Switch and Switch 2.
neocharge: That's what I thought.
Leon Lionheartly: But here's the big thing. um The big piece it includes enhancements and or bug fixes. The big one comes off of the Switch 2 side. um The headline feature is that, quote, Switch games running on Switch 2 can now be ah run in handheld boost mode.
Leon Lionheartly: On Switch, games played in handheld ah handheld mode ran in 720p, but in Dr.
neocharge: Beautiful.
Leon Lionheartly: TV mode, they ran at ah ten eighty p The new Switch 2 setting allows Switch games to basically run in TV mode while being played in handheld mode on the Switch 2, boosting the resolution to 1080p.
Leon Lionheartly: There are some asterisks, though. you can go look into them. ah Just like the PSSR 2.0 or anything like that, you got to have a game that supports it, turn it off if you get problems, things of that nature.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: But what that means is now we get the best Switch edition ah best version and enhancement of a Switch game within the handheld mode of Switch 2.
neocharge: Yeah, this is this is awesome. Big win for Nintendo. ah This should have been way earlier, maybe on launch with the Switch 2. They should have done this like out the gate, but I'm glad we have it now.
neocharge: It is a little late into the the Switch 2 release, ah but this is awesome, man. ah it I mean, I don't know what was hindering it because the Switch 2 just has... way better internals and way more technologically advanced. You'd think it would just run Switch One games better. ah But PS4 Pro had the same. It had boost mode for PS4 games that weren't Pro enhanced.
neocharge: And it doesn't require a patch, which is even better. And I have heard the comparisons. It is significantly better. I mean, going from 720, going from DVD to Blu-ray, ah that's a big jump. And you're going to notice that.
neocharge: so And that's cool. It's on handheld. So yeah, ah I was actually thinking about revisiting ah Pokemon Legends Arceus because, man, there's some Pokemon in there you can only get in that game.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah yeah
neocharge: and But it does not look great on Switch 1 and it does not run great. But Switch 2, without a patch, ah now it'll look a little better and it will load a little better too.
neocharge: So that's kind of cool. And that's a big win. that's a Nintendo didn't have to do that. So good on them. And ah yeah, go go play your old Switch 1 games now. You got to go play Metroid Prime Remastered, ah Zelda Breath of the Wild, Tears of Kingdom.
neocharge: Love those games. Great games.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. um You can go play the Xenoblade Chronicles series. Not X, because X did get a Switch 2 upgrade, but the the the OGs, ah just regular Xenoblade Chronicles and then 2 and 3.
neocharge: Okay.
Leon Lionheartly: I'm half tempted to check them out because ah I put 215 hours into Xenoblade 2 alone. Okay.
neocharge: That's a lot. Dang. Yeah. You got Mario Odyssey. You got Metroid Dread. ah You got... ah ah don't Don't play the Switch 1 version of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. Just don't do it.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, and and and it's funny. I don't know if Skyline Firelight did, but I know a couple of the games we mentioned did. I think the reason this didn't come right away, um and it's a little weird, but I get it, is because one of the asterisks or caveats, whichever way you want to say it, of this update is, if you remember, some Switch games changed how you interfaced with the game depending on if you were a doctor or not because of the touchscreen.
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: um So just note that that's probably what kind of held it up a little bit um is is that physical...
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: ah medium touch, if you will, of how you play the games.
neocharge: Gotcha. Yeah. I mean, if this is only switch two, then yes, definitely play Scarlet and Violet on switch two. It's honestly the only place to play them. In my opinion, I played it on switch one back to back. I guess I fucking love the shit out of the games and, and, was blind to the performance and atrocious frame rate. ah But oh man, especially when you when you're in the water, I swear I was getting like 15 frames a second.
neocharge: Like it was crazy.
Leon Lionheartly: Whoa, ouch.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: That's like ah that's like a ah Crimson Desert. I don't know if you saw it. Or not.
neocharge: Oh wow.
Leon Lionheartly: no Nope, I'm sorry.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Back up. Not Crimson Desert. ah It's ah Death Stranding 2 on ah on the port ah what what's Steam's handheld, the the deck.
neocharge: Got it. okay.
neocharge: Steam Deck.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, apparently it's running... It's not verified, and people tested it out anyways. You get like 15 to 25 frames a second on that thing.
neocharge: Oh, no.
Leon Lionheartly: ah so So the community is like, do not play it this way, because Death Stranding 2 is a fucking gorgeous game.
neocharge: That's not good. Yeah.
neocharge: Oh, yeah. Yeah, it is. But, yeah, Switch 1 had a great library, and it's good to see Nintendo is giving it love. So, they have a lot of good titles on there, and they will be crisper on your Switch 2.
neocharge: So, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Okay. Yeah, go check.
neocharge: That's cool.
Leon Lionheartly: But yeah, definitely go check that out, man. i'm um It's got me interested in jumping up borrowing this wife's Switch 2.
neocharge: There you go.
Leon Lionheartly: um It's not mine. It's hers. she's She's reminded me that a couple of times.
neocharge: Household switch too.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. um Well, you know, speaking of updates, let's just go right into the next one here. um This ah launched this week. um It's on the PlayStation blog. I'm pulling it from Game Informer as well. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Sony announces the PlayStation 5 Pro upgraded PSSR 2.0, and it launched this week.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: I do know I had to manually download it, so keep that in mind. You also have to manually um update this. um It is... ah So... Included with this on their upgraded ps ah PSSR, um ah several games were added to the list that now so are in support of PSSR, which includes Silent Hill F, Silent Hill 2, the 2024 remake, Dragon Age of Veil Guard, Control, Alan Wake 2, Senua Saga Hellblade 2, Throne,
neocharge: o Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Rebirth, we discussed earlier, Rise of the Ronin, Nioh 3, Monster Hunter Wilds, and Dragon's Dogma 2.
neocharge: Love it.
Leon Lionheartly: All games that absolutely are gorgeous by themselves. So um like you mentioned earlier, this allows you to get more power out of there, which is really interesting because it's just a software update, man.
neocharge: Yep.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
neocharge: Yeah. what ah What a lineup. It's great. ah One glaringly omitted one. come give Give some Final Fantasy XVI some love, Square. Come on, man.
neocharge: Shit. But yeah, great lineup. And yeah we're really... We might be seeing the legs stretched of the PS5 Pro and the ah ROI starting to ah make a little more sense on a $700 console. $800 if you get a physical fucking disc...
neocharge: that you attach to it. So
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. Hey, you know what? It's been money well worth, uh, well spent so far, but, uh, I don't,
neocharge: yeah, 12, 1200. If you're like me and you get a four fucking terabyte internal drive for it as well, because you don't like doing that storage dance. And now you have 10 terabytes of storage on your PS five pro, including your four terabyte external SSD for PS four games.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah Dude, that's so nuts. ah ah You know, and that's made it even funnier. I believe I sent you a message earlier, not game related, but to think, i i am half tempted to get that new Apple, Neil, just because i looked and I'm like, the 512 gig storage option, which you're soldered onto the board, sad, but it's $700.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: met him Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: could ass computer that could...
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: i i could have a whole ass computer that i could
neocharge: 600 without the Touch ID.
Leon Lionheartly: Without the Touch ID. Yep. I could do all of that for the less than the price of a PS5 Pro.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: Right. Get a whole ass Mac computer. Yeah. the The Neo is pretty impressive. Just don't try and do anything but web browsing, maybe some photo stuff.
neocharge: ah It's not going to do any like video editing or anything like that. So, but yeah, it'd be a great little gaming companion.
Leon Lionheartly: No, no, it definitely won't. um But dude, i I looked at this
neocharge: So, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, no, it would be. I thought it would be a great like podcast companion or something like that or a streaming companion um because if you do cloud-based, all of the processing is done upstream.
neocharge: yeah
neocharge: That's true. That is true. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: um
neocharge: Get it, man.
Leon Lionheartly: That'd be kind of...
neocharge: A Mac would be good.
Leon Lionheartly: Maybe someday. let me ah Let me pay off the new the second Switch 2 that I've already bought in a year. And I don't even own, folks!
neocharge: God damn. dress Right.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah Yeah.
neocharge: What the fuck, man? Crazy.
Leon Lionheartly: ah yeah Yeah, supporting a gamey family is much more different than a supporting a gaming hobby.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: Oh, for sure. i i can't imagine. But yeah, dude, PSSR 2.0, we saw it in action on Resident Evil Requiem. ah And man, just everything I saw, I was super impressed. I'm very excited for Rebirth to have it because I was already going to replay it. and I've been waiting a little bit, so it's getting even better, which is awesome. ah Control.
neocharge: you haven't played Control, now's the time. Originally released for the PS4, there's a PS5 version. It got ray tracing, and now it has PSSR 2.0. Like, yeah. like yeah Really happy to see the PS5 Pro, like I said, stretching its legs finally. So we saw a little bit on Death Stranding 2. We definitely saw recently RE Requiem.
neocharge: Monster Hunter Wilds, that's awesome that it's getting a PSSR 2.0 update. ah So yeah, I love it. I love it. Make our games prettier and give us a a reason why we bought this $700 console.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, dude, there's i pretty much anything on here. i I'm pretty outside of Hellblade 2.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: I own every one of these games. um So I have a vested interest to go check these out.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: Yep. Yep. Alan Wake 2 probably helps with the shimmering. I know PSSR 2 helps with the the shimmering and like the the fog artifacting, stuff like that. So, yeah. Love to see it.
neocharge: Keep it coming. Square, for the love of God, please update Final Fantasy XVI. Thank you. That is all.
Leon Lionheartly: I love that. oh i agree, though. I absolutely agree. um
neocharge: Yep. Dude, it looks real bad in 60 frames and runs like 30 frames locked in fidelity. Like it's a PS5 game.
neocharge: Come on.
Leon Lionheartly: Come on, man.
neocharge: Come on, man.
Leon Lionheartly: Well, you know, it I'll say this much. um Well, I got two things for you as we go to the next one. One, um there is you if if you guys are listening and you pay attention to the industry, our listeners out there, there is a article that is going to be glaringly omitted. um ah It has to do with recently with NVIDIA.
Leon Lionheartly: I am not a PC gaming expert, so this is kind of a surprise for you, Matt. This is probably a topic that I'd like to ah digest and dissect, if you will, individually, one-on-one.
Leon Lionheartly: So looking at doing some additional content, and I think i'm going to cover that as a possible first episode. of a bonus episode with our fellow PC resident and musician, um Alex Meese.
neocharge: Love it. Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: So I definitely think we'll be talking about that. So please, if you are keeping append attention, you you go give me that meme, the the Leo meme, go, um there's a reason for that.
neocharge: Yep. All right. Excellent.
Leon Lionheartly: But
neocharge: Well, if I'm not on that cast, it looks fine. Don't modify assets. That is it. That's all.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah Well, that's that's fair. I'd like to bring in if you'd like to because we could get a good outsider's perspective on that.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah. I think I'll be part of that for sure.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, we're so we're still kicking it around. Got to get that set up. But I thought it kind of struck me this week.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: um But speaking of updates, maybe this one will finally get you over the fence.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: I doubt it, but i would I'm hoping. um This is coming over at Video Games Chronicle again. um Not only did the PS5 Pro get an update, Matt, The PlayStation Portal got and know got an update.
neocharge: Oh, the portal, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Well,
neocharge: I'm sold on the portal, okay? I'm sold on the portal. I owned one. I want an OLED. I want a Portal Pro. The moment it's announced, they will have my fucking money. I will pre-order it and I will get it day one. I'm not going to get a portal without an OLED. That's it. I'm sold on the concept.
Leon Lionheartly: well
neocharge: I'm ready to go. I'm like that fucking meme. You got the card. Take my money. Give me an OLED. $500. I'll pay it. I don't give a shit.
Leon Lionheartly: Okay. um the well this will this ah Would this ah change your mind ah by chance?
neocharge: yeah
Leon Lionheartly: ah
neocharge: Okay. Is it a screen that each individual pixel is its own light source?
Leon Lionheartly: No. But...
neocharge: Then no. Okay.
Leon Lionheartly: Come on. But this new update is including ah higher ah visual fidelity, smoother interactions, and more seamless overall experience. They changed the bitrate on the system so that way net when you're streaming now and you get higher quality instead of being just like with Switch 1 games where it's seven at 720p, you're now up to 1080p.
Leon Lionheartly: So once again, you're going from DVD to Blu-ray. um
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: So then this can be enabled on the portal. And I i i know you're on the OLED. But I did fire up and I tested out the new update. All I can say is $200 less than half the price of a fucking Switch 2 and the PS Portal has no right being this fucking good, man.
neocharge: Bring it over next time you come. I want to see it.
Leon Lionheartly: ah You got it. Because yeah I've been playing with it. like i so i mean Because I've been at work so early. like I was at work at like midnight last night for so ah to get some stuff knocked out. and then i was back at 6. Don't mind me, folks. I'm i'm neurotic. um And I was like, I wonder...
Leon Lionheartly: Does the portal actually go through our guest Wi-Fi? um No, unfortunately. But I almost tested it there. But I did test it on the side here in the house.
neocharge: Okay.
Leon Lionheartly: And I'll show you. I'll bring it over. um And we'll exchange some beers. And I'll show you. ah Because I'm telling you, man, you don't need to know that this thing is great.
neocharge: Yep.
neocharge: I had one, man. I had it in my hands. I was playing it. And i was I was like, I would just like the screen to be better. That's it.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: That's it. And the battery life is going to be better with OLED, too.
Leon Lionheartly: it we way we That is the one thing that's kind of that even I can't defend is the is the battery life on it is not the greatest.
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: ah
neocharge: Because there's a fucking flashlight behind the screen.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, there there is.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: hey There is. And you know what? That's okay. Because even at the end of the day, handheld is still kind of...
neocharge: For sure.
Leon Lionheartly: Even if I play Switch 2, I'm not going to play it for more than two hours before I'm like, all right, I think I'm done and put it on the the dock.
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: So that's what I did. I bought an external charger for the portal. It plugs right into the PlayStation. So when I'm done with the portal, I just go put it on the dock like it's a Switch 2 or ah a Steam Deck and I walk away.
neocharge: Nice. Nice.
neocharge: Beautiful. Yeah. i'm so I'm sold on the concept. I just want that screen. Maybe better Bluetooth. Even then, I might have get those speakers that are external, that are wireless, put it on each nightstand.
neocharge: Fuck yeah. Just game in bed.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, dude.
neocharge: oh
Leon Lionheartly: Play some matt are wonderful games with awesome soundtracks. I mean, you've got everything from Death Stranding 2, Ni No Kuni, Tales games, Final Fantasy.
neocharge: room
neocharge: Final Fantasy.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, absolutely. Go check it out. Alan Wake, dude.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: Imagine playing...
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: ah You know what scene I'm talking about. Imagine playing that on those speakers.
neocharge: Oh, yeah. Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: ah But, well...
neocharge: Oh, yeah. That section was awesome. I did. i played it on fucking home theater 9.1 or Dolby Atmos.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, yeah, that's right. I gotta to go check that out. um ah well You know what?
neocharge: yep ye
Leon Lionheartly: Maybe I come over next time. You gotta fire that up for me because I want to see that scene. If we if we have a save file nearby, because holy shit, I love that scene.
neocharge: okay yeah Oh, yeah. Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: All right. um Well, if you you haven't got a portal ah and you are on the fence, take it for my word. You can take it to the bank. That gave that thing's awesome. So... um
neocharge: yeah mean Oh, yeah. It's great little device, incredible price, and I am thrilled that it's getting better and better.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. Well, things that are not getting better and better, unfortunately, um as we move into this next one. This just broke ah today as we were just discuss ah as we're recording. um i and This comes over at Video Games Chronicle again. um But Ubisoft is ending development and ah of the Tom Clancy studio, Red Storm, resulting in 105 job losses. Red Storm was founded in 1996 by Tom Clancy, and they developed some of the first Rainbow Six games um that came out, most notably their like latest projects where they were working on Werewolves Within within in 2016, Star Trek Bridge Crew 2017. They worked on that Assassin's Creed Nexus VR game in 2023. But their last project they worked on it was canceled, but is a crying shame ah to the community is, do you know which game that was? Very beloved.
neocharge: Rainbow Six, right?
Leon Lionheartly: The Division Heartland.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: ah
neocharge: Dang, okay. They're part of that team, too?
Leon Lionheartly: They were the team that was working that.
neocharge: Uh-oh.
Leon Lionheartly: um This is including... the so the to for For frame of reference here, ah the entire studio is not being closed down. um They are being shifted into it so ah basically IT t support for Ubisoft.
neocharge: Okay.
Leon Lionheartly: And customer service as well. So only a few staff, but...
neocharge: Gotcha.
Leon Lionheartly: um Dude...
neocharge: Siege is still going, right? like That's still getting updated and stuff like that?
Leon Lionheartly: i
neocharge: Rainbow Six Siege.
Leon Lionheartly: They are. um I don't know if they are part of the Rainbow Six Siege, but they might have been part of the collective support studios that were, ah they've been helping it out um most of all.
neocharge: Gotcha.
Leon Lionheartly: um But Mass Eventers, Montreal, Ubisoft Montreal takes care of Rainbow Six Siege. So I guess they were probably um doing support studio work for it while trying to spin up the heartlands.
neocharge: Yeah, gotcha. So, dang. That's, ah man, people losing their jobs left and right. Sucks.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, it's it hurts, man. And I don't know about... Did you ever play Rainbow Six on the PC back in the day? Like...
neocharge: No.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, dude. Such an iconic game. That box art cover um is...
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: ah Let me send you this link, man. Just look. It's that picture right there in the beginning. um i I remember this game. ah And that cover art...
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, that cover art sticks in my head rent-free. But that game was brutally hard ah from from being able to play it because... This was before doing online became like really big. So you would have your entire squad trying to complete missions, ah host your ah um hostage rescue missions, bomb spuzzles, anti-terrorism missions, things of that nature. And ah you had to tell your teammates in command, hey, I want you to go do this. I need you to breach this door. You're going to go this path. And you would actually determine what the path was as you were ah doing this. And it was pre-planning, almost like a strategy game. And ah
Leon Lionheartly: If you failed once or if you made one mistake, you were getting one shot by the enemy AI and you were down and the mission was a failure.
neocharge: Oh, dang. Okay. Hmm. That's cool.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, so.
neocharge: Yeah. I've heard nothing but good things. So
Leon Lionheartly: it's a little It's a little rough. Maybe we'll get a remake someday, but ah such an iconic game. I love that thing.
neocharge: yeah. Yeah. But yeah, bummer. Just more layoff news in the video game industry.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. And unfortunately, I think we're not done because this is Ubisoft and they said they're trying to they're trying to shed like 200 million or 250 million euros, ah re recurring ah costs, by the way, um in by the end of this year.
neocharge: ah yeah. Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: So who knows?
neocharge: Wow.
Leon Lionheartly: ah And I feel bad for everybody over there.
neocharge: Yeah, me too.
Leon Lionheartly: Well, um that is all I have there for the news this week. Like I said, there is one glaring thing to too missing from here, but um well
neocharge: We're
neocharge: going to a whole ass podcast on it.
Leon Lionheartly: we'll talk about it. We'll bring in a few. It'll be part of a whole cast. We're still working out the details, but i look forward to the to ah a more clear announcement and date in the near future.
neocharge: Please look forward to it.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Oh, man. What are we playing, Bob? Yeah, we're playing some awesome games.
Leon Lionheartly: ah
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: You want me to go first?
Leon Lionheartly: I mean, know you know what? I can follow up. I got two things in the pot and then I'll toss it off to you because I know you want to glaze it up, if you will. Um...
neocharge: I talked a lot about it on the last cast, but I'll give i'll give some brief updates on it for sure.
Leon Lionheartly: Okay. um Yeah, I'm doing the same thing. Brief updates. I'm still playing Marathon and with a couple of community members, ah specifically Bo, BoRitoSupreme. We've been having blast, man.
Leon Lionheartly: He's killing it more than me. I can't play i don't get the opportunity to play as much, but... ah
neocharge: Right. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Marathon's a special game. ah is there is There's some awesome clips of ah the...
neocharge: yeah
Leon Lionheartly: I hope I got them captured and you guys will see them if you've been watching the streams. where It's just last almost last minute and we've got our third party member and they yeah they they're able to ah down the enemy team and then we're like, oh my goodness, yes, yes, and and then revive us back and at the very last second we're able to extract with our equipment ah because there's that tense of that tension.
Leon Lionheartly: You go in with like a free kit and so you're out your loadout has no value and then you down an enemy team and then you all of a sudden your value jumps up to like $3,500 $5,000 and and you're like, shit.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: I've got all of this good equipment, but my mission's on the other side of the map. And you have to make a decision. You're like, well, do I just push forward or do I fucking extract so I can keep my loot? I love it.
Leon Lionheartly: It's it's high stakes, high rewards. ah And I will say, the new ah the final map, if you will, um we got a trailer for it today.
neocharge: That's awesome.
Leon Lionheartly: ah i don't know
neocharge: The cryo archive, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah Yeah, the Cryo Archive. um You have to ah do several things in order to unlock it. um and At the individual level plus the community level.
Leon Lionheartly: um And Cryo, yeah, community levels all but done.
neocharge: oh
Leon Lionheartly: So on your individual count, I think you need to be level 25. You have to unlock all the factions and ah you'll have to go in with a certain level of loadout, like value, dollar value.
Leon Lionheartly: So...
neocharge: That's cool.
Leon Lionheartly: ah get out there. that That makes sure that everybody's in is in it and you're not doing a cheap freebie and then yeah taking out people who are trying to do this mission with their high value gear.
Leon Lionheartly: Griefing, if you will. So ah I'm going to be streaming it.
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: I'm going to be playing it more this weekend. um Marathon, if you're not if you're slightly interested in Bungie or first-person shooters, go check this out. It's $40.
neocharge: Yeah, I've been hearing nothing but good things about it. The reviews, they're not... None of the big outlets have reviewed it because Bungie has asked them specifically, hey, wait for us to release the final part of this game because it's not finished. And they did the same thing with ah Destiny and the Vault of Glass. The Vault of Glass is still...
neocharge: to this day, one of my favorite co-op experiences of all time ever. And it's the best raid in Destiny. So a lot of people were like, and there's not a lot here. But then Bungie's like, yeah, we we haven't released the Vault of Glass yet. And then when they did, they're like, oh shit, this game is so good.
neocharge: So ah they kind of were preemptive this time and were like, hey, just so you know, we're like all the review outlets like, hey, we're the the whole game isn't out. We're kind of letting the community like play it for a little bit and then they need to unlock this part.
neocharge: And I, I love that aspect. So, and that's really cool.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: It'll be high stakes that you have to be a specific level because yeah, the vault of glass, you had to be a specific level, uh, to even get into it. So didn't lose any shit though.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: So that's, uh, that's crazy. When you guys do that, you got a stream and I will watch. Cause that's, uh, it's basically like kind of like a raid, isn't it?
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, from my understanding, that's what it's going to be.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: um As well as they're including ranked mode, which ah you can go look into.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: ah Bo gave me the details on this, but it sounds like you've got to be a certain level and it's only opening on the weekends. ah So...
neocharge: Oh.
Leon Lionheartly: Which is awesome. ah That means I'm not going to be fighting against streamers who play the game 24-7.
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: If I go under ranked, we'll see. You never know. But ah definitely, I got to if i got to say, i played enough at this. Pre-Cryo Archive, this game is a solid 8.5.
neocharge: Cool.
Leon Lionheartly: If you're, if we're giving it a number, um, I know and I really don't like doing that unless it's related to my draft. Give me all tens.
neocharge: Sure.
Leon Lionheartly: So cryo archive only looks like it's going to go up from here. Do not, the reviews, the review scores are not reflective of the the quality of content in this game.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah.
neocharge: Nope. Uh, the major outlets are probably going to be releasing their reviews. Uh, I'd say sometime early next week if I were to guess.
Leon Lionheartly: ah yeah Yeah, because it it ah it opens up this weekend, I believe.
neocharge: So
Leon Lionheartly: So ah definitely, we'll expect to see those next week.
neocharge: yeah.
neocharge: Yeah. I'm, I'm thrilled it's doing well and I'm always, uh, a champion of Bungie. I want to see them succeed. They got to be working on destiny three. Let's hope it's different.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. Let's take a look at that. um Other than that, I am still hammering away at Tales of Bragiria Remastered. ah i I have to go look. I'm 25 hours, give or take, into this. um It's been hard to juggle between that and life and a few other things, but ah i made a mistake.
Leon Lionheartly: And there are, if you do do this in Tales games, folks, there are what they call a grade shop. You earn grade, and then that grade is used in a special shop for when you replay the game.
Leon Lionheartly: In the remastered for Berseria, the shop and all of its options are open. And what I mean by the shop is think of them like quality of life features or modifiers to the system, similar to how Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster happens.
Leon Lionheartly: ah I made a mistake. I was playing with... I thought all of the EXP modifiers were off. The problem is there are two options for EXP modifiers. um So I ended up overleveled and ah eventually realized my mistake and I just turned it all on.
Leon Lionheartly: I'm not going to lie to the you, man. I turned it all on. I'm like, fuck it. Really lean my shoulder into this one.
neocharge: There you go. There you go.
Leon Lionheartly: ah
neocharge: That's all right.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah You know, this game... it it becomes an action RPG, like saw how rebirth becomes to becoming, I don't want to say Musou, cause that's not right.
Leon Lionheartly: Um, it becomes a lot more like a Xenoblade Chronicles where you're just beating the fuck out of things.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Um, or a Ni No Kuni where you're just looking, you're just itching for a fight at this point. Um, it, it definitely changes the dynamic a little bit.
neocharge: yeah
Leon Lionheartly: It does not ruin the experience at all. The music still hits really good.
neocharge: All right.
Leon Lionheartly: Um, There are little things that I appreciate about this specific one because I don't remember them in Arise or post-battle messages or or interactions um where the characters...
Leon Lionheartly: Instead of like the the Final Fantasy 7 fanfare what or or Final Fantasy fanfare, what happens at 7? Cloud spins his sword, puts it on his back, and that's pretty much all you get. um Here you get dialogue between the characters.
Leon Lionheartly: um it's a lot Some of them hit. Some of them I'm like, I don't know about that, but I love them.
neocharge: Yeah, that's tails.
Leon Lionheartly: I love them. But that's Tales for you.
neocharge: Japanese humor.
Leon Lionheartly: Uh-huh. There's some interesting... I did see some interesting skits ah in the dialogue. It's dialogue, but they're presented in little skits. ah There are some, and I've got one in particular. i want um how do i I'm not trying to spoil it, but it had it deals with the witch and the little boy....
neocharge: Okay. Oh, yeah. I know which one you're talking about. I got screenshot of that one. I was like, oh my god.
Leon Lionheartly: Yes, that hit a line to where you went, ah excuse me, officer.
neocharge: Yep.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: ah and I'll leave it like that.
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: But I still laughed. It's Japanese humor.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: That's the way way it goes. Play a Yakuza game if you're if you're if you for a frame of reference.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: all right ah
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: And like I said, the music is good. It's very reminiscent of the Xenoblade series. ah
neocharge: Really? Okay.
Leon Lionheartly: Yes, where every area is its own orchestral piece.
neocharge: this Did this come out before Xenoblade? it was
Leon Lionheartly: Xenoblade came after. um at least Xenoblade Chronicles.
neocharge: Okay. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: But ah the studio behind Xenoblade has around as long as Berseria has been around, man.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: But yeah. um there's a So it's definitely got that a that that little bit of ah that anime flair that I kind of love. um Honestly, about the biggest thing that was just, and it could have been my mood, is just back up off the dialogue a little bit, please.
neocharge: Oh, yeah, yeah. They like telling their story.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. yeah they do there was a couple of there was one time where i was just like oh my god are you fucking serious because there was an area i wanted to get to and i in like i had unlocked some things for equipment and things like that that i wanted to do but in order to do it i needed to get through this like little segment and then it was like all right cool here's a two minute skit and dialogue i was like cool awesome go into the next room here's another two minute dialogue and
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: This is not in of Tales specifically. This happens with RPGs all the time. And it is a pet peeve of mine. Octopath Zero does this shit and I'm just like, shut up.
Leon Lionheartly: I have rewards in my bag.
neocharge: yeah
Leon Lionheartly: I want to look at the shiny things that I got for beating the bad guys. Let me do this, please. um But
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: other than that, I love the characters. I'm pretty sure I have all the party members. ah They've all got a unique story. They've all got their own stuff, ah their own reason for being in the party. Some of them better than others. um I definitely have a fan. Rogoku.
Leon Lionheartly: I think that's how you pronounce it.
neocharge: Rokaroo. Rokaroo.
Leon Lionheartly: Rokuru.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: He's my spirit ah ah spirit person.
neocharge: He's so good, dude.
Leon Lionheartly: i'll I love him.
neocharge: He's so good.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: His story just, oh, it's great.
Leon Lionheartly: Yes. And then it ties in with that NPC ah later on. And I'm like, this is this is awesome.
neocharge: Uh-huh. Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: it's It's beautiful. There's also collect-a-thon going on. You've got to collect a lot of these these little... so i don't want to I don't want to call them what they are, but they're little orbs.
Leon Lionheartly: And you've got to collect them by the hundreds in order to open certain chests.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: And I've gotten a couple and I'm like, well, there's no way I'm getting that chest anytime soon. I guess I'll come back later or I won't.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: um And then I did, maybe you can help me with this.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: I thought I noticed something and I'm like, is it just me? Or am I like, was I really high and forgot this? ah I go back to other older maps. So you you do bouncing bouncing back and forth in some parts, right?
Leon Lionheartly: I go back to an area that I started 10 hours earlier and then all the treasure chests on the map are repopulated with items in them.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Okay, so that did actually happen and I didn't.
neocharge: if they're If they're consumables, yes. But like equipment, they won't.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh.
neocharge: Or they'll will change to a consumable. and
Leon Lionheartly: So the bronze one's in.
neocharge: Yes, exactly. The bronze ones, they do close back and you can re-farm them. ah and it The orbs definitely encourage exploration. I love that.
neocharge: ah let's just say this game kind of does a death stranding and you get a lot of tools in, as you play to go back and explore easier.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Let's just say that. So.
Leon Lionheartly: Yes, there are some. ah There's one in particular. I'm like, you could see the patterns. So like there's one in it particular.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: I'm like, come on, that's literally going to create a ah shortcut, if you will. I know it's there.
neocharge: Yes.
Leon Lionheartly: i don't have the whatever it is. um And that's how I'm kind of gauging where I'm at in the game.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: ah So i'm i I have no clue context where I'm at, how far. And honestly, don't care. i'm I'm loving this game, dude.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: It's got me in RPG mood. I'm probably going to play some more after if I have time before Pragmonic.
neocharge: Beautiful.
neocharge: Good. Awesome. I'm so happy to hear that. Bergeria is such a special Tales game. ah It probably has the best cast, if not one of the best, top three easily in the Tales series. So music just hits, story's awesome.
neocharge: And the combat, are you seeing the bones of Tales of Arise in there?
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, I'm seeing that. ah The combat also has a lot of, I know I referenced it earlier, but it's got a lot of the action RPG elements. So you look at Rebirth, you look at the Xenoblade series, you look at any of those, and they're there.
Leon Lionheartly: um in In a very, not one-to-one, there are big distinctions in them and they ah to to help stand out, but I definitely see it.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: moving
Leon Lionheartly: ah i It's unique, but it's familiar at the same time, if that makes sense.
neocharge: yeah yeah rebirth kind of took what tales of bergeria did have you controlled any other characters besides velvet cool yeah
Leon Lionheartly: ah Yes, ah for a couple of different reasons. ah But absolutely. i they i i haven't this so I like playing as... I'm sorry, I like playing as Velvet, though.
neocharge: yeah yeah
Leon Lionheartly: yeahp The others are nice, um but it's really good, particularly if you've got mages in your group. and I'm just like, all right, cool. I want you to just nuke the enemy, and I'm going to go in close quarters. And the AI actually does a decent job with controlling and combat.
Leon Lionheartly: It's not like Minokuni or...
neocharge: you I was just about to say. Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: Yes. ah they They're actually competent. So ah ah so definitely, that's that's a good call, man.
neocharge: Yep. Yeah, and you can really dial it in. right You can say, don't use TP, which is technical points, ah further than 40% of your remaining.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Or ah heal yourself when you get to 25% health. Or heal yourself when you get 75% health. Or be my healer and make sure the the party's healed. But...
neocharge: And you could just, there's all kinds of dials for that with each character. So in Bergeria, they really dialed it in. Vesperia did the same thing. Vesperia brought this to the Tales series, the the intricate dials of your AI behavior in yeah the combat. So I i really love it. I was, and it was unfortunate when I was like expecting that in No Kuni and I was like, ah there's like five fucking options here. So yeah.
neocharge: so
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, no, that's it. um You're right. This is very in-depth. It's kind of like almost not quite, but it's damn near our Final Fantasy 12 levels.
neocharge: Oh, yeah. The Gambit system?
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, yeah, that that guy.
neocharge: Yep. I played Final Fantasy XII. Didn't beat it. I still need to beat it.
Leon Lionheartly: ah
neocharge: so I know.
Leon Lionheartly: Get on that one.
neocharge: I know. I am.
Leon Lionheartly: The Zodiac Age is so good.
neocharge: I'm playing. I know. and I'm playing a game that you recommended first, okay?
Leon Lionheartly: ah ah yeah Come on.
neocharge: Shit.
Leon Lionheartly: yin You ain't done this 100 hour RPG yet? we're the What the fuck?
neocharge: yeah if If you had to guess how far, how many hours do you think I have in Ni No Kuni?
Leon Lionheartly: ah You probably put 50 hours into this game, haven't you?
neocharge: I started when you started Bergeria. No.
Leon Lionheartly: It's fucking wild, man. Well, you know what?
neocharge: no
Leon Lionheartly: That's all I've been playing this week other than usual suspects. So please, without further ado, take it away.
neocharge: Cool, cool. ah Dude, I'm so happy you're enjoying Bergeria. And 25 hours, you know how our JRPGs. You haven't fucking you haven't even seen anything yet. so ah Yeah, no, I'm really still enjoying Ni No Kuni.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: This is an incredible action-based JRPG from Level 5, published by Bandai Namco. I'm playing it on the PS5 Pro, and it's ah It's just a Pokemon-like Harry Potter story-esque JRPG Studio Ghibli inspired with the animation and the design our game.
neocharge: So i I really got my Pokemon fix the other day when I'm... I don't know how far I am, but it feels like I'm in Act 3. It feels like it, but it might be the, oh, I'm in Act 3. Just kidding. That was Act 2.
neocharge: I think that might be what's going on, but I don't know. But I'm 55 hours in. I don't know how long this game is. I don't look at the the game times. And i there's probably like 10 hours of padding in there because I have just been grinding.
neocharge: just to grind levels. I found a really awesome spot. to To give you reference, I'm at a point, like level 50, where 300 EXP is average from enemies now.
neocharge: I found a spot where this enemy, and he spawns, I'd say he's got 25% spawn rate. He gives you 9,000 EXP. And sometimes there will be two instances in one battle.
neocharge: So there was one battle. I found him, beat both of them, and I got 20,000 EXP. like A level one jumped to level 30. It was crazy. So, and then I was going through the book. The wizard's companion has everything you need for it. Reminds me of tunic. Honestly, it's like a game manual inside the game. It's a digital manual and it's cool because it's got like alchemy as well. So you can, and I love this shit. Like it's basically kind of cooking or combining items to create equipment or healing items or weapons or something like that. And so you go into the the book, you look at the,
neocharge: alchemist uh recipe and you're like okay i need a fucking moon flower right i'm like okay so then you back out you go into the provisions chapter of the book and you're like where do i find a moon flower then it's like oh this uh particular enemy drops this moon flower and then you're like okay and then you back out and you go to the enemy section and you're like okay where are you at And it tells you where the enemy is. And you're like, okay, cool. You back out, you go to the fucking map section of the book.
neocharge: And you're like, okay, this enemy's here. I need to go here. And I need to steal from this enemy to get this item to craft this weapon that will allow me to craft another weapon on top of it. I fucking love that. It's it just it's hitting a fucking itch in my brain. That is just incredible. And the Pokemon aspect, right? You go into the book, you can see all of the monsters or all the familiars. And I saw this one and I'm like, I need you.
neocharge: i want you. It's like this dual ah it like light and dark cat, winged cat, sphinx creature. It's called the Aurora Lynx.
neocharge: And I'm like, okay, where the fuck is this thing? look at the the location. I'm like, oh, cool. It's kind of where I'm at. And it's where I found the, ah to grind for the high XP.
neocharge: But it's got an incredibly low spawn rate. So it's all random with the battles, but sometimes they'll show up on the map. And it's got an incredibly low catch rate. So to catch these, you can't just catch them with every battle. In Pokemon, you start the battle, you weaken the Pokemon, you throw a fucking Pokeball, that's your RNG.
neocharge: And if it catches, awesome. If not, it pops out a Pokeball and you try again, right? Well, Ni No Kuni, you basically i weaken the enemy to a point where you would otherwise kill it, but then it either dies or it allows you to catch it. And that's the RNG.
neocharge: And dude... i I've hunted a lot of Pokemon. This is the worst RNG of any Pokemon-esque hunting.
neocharge: So, yeah. And then a particular character does something and catches the familiar. I not only ran into the Aurora Lynx, but every familiar or monster has a sign.
neocharge: But they can also very rarely have a twin sign. So you have moon, sun, star, and planet. Planet's super rare. And then you have twin star, twin sun, twin moon, twin planet.
neocharge: It's incredibly rare to find a twin sign of a particular familiar. And I found a twin moon Aurora Lynx.
Leon Lionheartly: Too shiny.
neocharge: And not only that, I was like, oh, well, fuck. That's that's awesome. That's cool. It... It activated the catch. So it's incredibly rare to find an Aurora Lynx. Yeah, it's like a shiny. It's incredibly rare to find an Aurora Lynx already.
neocharge: they're they They have a very low spawn rate in that particular place, like 5% or something. On top of that, I found a Twin Moon Aurora Lynx. That's probably another 1% on top of that RNG.
neocharge: And then on top of that, it has one of the lowest catch rates in the game. So let's say you fight 100 Aurora Lynxes, 10 of those 100 times, it's going to allow you to catch it.
neocharge: So all of those stacked, and I got a twin moon Aurora Lynx. And holy shit, their stats are broken. It's crazy. So or her stats are broken. I called her Luna.
neocharge: um You can name them. It's awesome. I've been building the party. I got a fucking dragon. i got a wing cat. I got this vampire, ah i don't know, familiar, called her Lilith.
neocharge: And it's just fun. It's fun to... ah to basically shiny on and, uh,
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: catch Pokemon. So, and not to mention the story's amazing. Having a blast with that. I'm having a blast creating new items, hunting for items, you know, going around, finding the items and crafting shit.
neocharge: ah There's side missions and it's just, it's a collect-a-thon, like you said, of of familiars, of items, of everything. And the story's been really fucking good.
neocharge: And I have a theory that if they're, if right, the story's fucking goaded, dude.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, it's you're going to see a lot of RPGs in this year or games if you haven't already.
neocharge: So,
neocharge: oh yeah, oh yeah, I already have. So i yeah, ah I've been having a blast with it. It is a masterpiece of its time.
neocharge: So there are some unfortunate glaring issues. We just talked about it. The ai your party downright is not good. And I would not, if you play this game, I would not recommend putting them on anything but either figure it out yourself or like balanced or just control them.
neocharge: Because you can control anyone. You switch back and forth and each party member has ah three familiars. ah And yeah, you want a tight match. So if you find like a Sun familiar in the wild, you want to bring out a star to counteract it And you have just a little bit more of a damage buff and you're a little quicker when attacking. So ah Yeah, the AI, not great.
neocharge: I am finding myself switching manually. And yeah, you can you can have a healer. But dude, I set Oliver. let's just I'll call him out only. I'm not going to talk about other party members. But Oliver, I set him to... Make sure the party's healed. The motherfucker would cast Ward constantly, and Ward costs like 19 MP, and he would burn through the MP casting Ward ah constantly, and I would die. Like, the AI is not good. So I don't like that.
neocharge: I don't like the the evolutions or the metamorphosis of the familiars. It's it's a little lazy. They just kind of reskin it.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: So with Pokemon, you get new, fresh new models. And some of the, like Aurora Lynx, she actually gets a new model, which I was, like, impressed. So I wish there's, like, 400 fucking familiars.
neocharge: Like, to give you to give you reference, like, the original Pokemon had 151.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: And the Gen 2 had 100. So I would have loved to have seen them really focus on a ah a fourth of the familiars and give each one a new character model. Opposed to, oh, it's new because it's got a fucking red stripe on its belly now. So it's like, guys, come on. i I see what's going on here. So the quantity over quality, eh, not great.
neocharge: But these are minor gripes. And it was it's an RPG of its time. ah And yeah, i'm I'm just loving it. The mid game was a little tricky too, because I finally found my grind spot.
neocharge: And that's like when you hit that apex of a JRPG and you're like struggling.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: And you're like, fuck, I just keep dying. That's when I had a problem with the AI. i was like, fuck, I die, and I'm just out of MP, and I can't heal. But I figured that part out, and then I got to the the grind spot.
neocharge: So now I'm just fucking wiping the floor with people. like I think I grinded in that spot. I got probably a total of 100,000
Leon Lionheartly: yeah yeah
neocharge: To give you reference, 100,000 XP will probably take you from level 1 to 60.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: And, ah you know, i'm um' like i got I just beat the the big boss, and he was not hard at all. i was
Leon Lionheartly: laughs
neocharge: I annihilated him. So ah the power creeps really cool. You get stronger and stronger and it makes sense to the story, which is awesome. So this game runs and looks beautiful.
neocharge: ah There are literal, literal studio Ghibli ah animated cut scenes, which anytime it comes up, I'm like, oh yeah.
neocharge: So what an incredible animator. The soundtrack, like I said, is awesome. I just keep hearing new stuff and I appreciate that.
neocharge: Like I just got to this town in a unique area and it has a unique soundtrack. I'm like, well, ah holy shit, that's awesome. So ah there's a lot of diving into the menus when you're like crafting stuff. And sometimes I'll just go to a specific town because I like that music because I'll be in the menu for like 15, 20 fucking minutes just looking through the book, trying to find these recipes, and I'll find a town in which I like the music. So, banger fucking soundtrack.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: You spent a lot of time in menus. You know, I got to say, yeah I forgot to mention, that's one of the things that is unique about Tales that I kind of like. The Berseria that they put a twist on are those titles that you can get and they're equipable um titles.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
neocharge: Yes.
Leon Lionheartly: But you can ah you upgrade them and unlock them by doing certain things in the game. And we're not talking just... you know, oh defeat 100 monsters. There's some random things that are assigned to characters that I'm like, what?
neocharge: oh
Leon Lionheartly: You have to sit in the menu for like 300 minutes to max out one of them?
neocharge: ah
Leon Lionheartly: I'm like, why? you have to be in battle for 350 minutes?
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: it's It's crazy.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: I love it, though.
neocharge: So, oh yeah, the title ah trophies for Tails are usually the Platinum Killers. There's so many.
Leon Lionheartly: Ha ha ha ha ha!
neocharge: And some of them are so stupid, dude. They ask like ridiculous things like, be inside not doing anything, standing still for fucking 30 minutes and you get a title.
neocharge: It's yeah, it's crazy, but I'm seeing so much tales in Ni No Kuni for sure. Older tales, I'd say probably Symphonia age. So this game was a product of its time and maybe it was, it was the first game, ah first IP of the developer.
neocharge: That alone is extremely impressive, but it might be like five, 10 years, little late to the game with the the mechanics and stuff, but 9.5 out of easy.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Easy. And it could be... it's It might be my personal game of the year. It won't be like my game of the year, game of the year. Game of the year attributes to what has released this year, but it might be my personal game of the year because... ah I'm just having a blast with it. And i was I was a little concerned, man. And I was a little... Because it I kept getting hit, right? And I've been going through some life stuff and whatever. But I was a little cold on Ghost Yote. was a little cold. I put Death Stranding 2 down for a bit. And I straight up just had a big problem with Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined. And I was like...
neocharge: is it Is it fucking happening? is it finally Am I getting out of video games? Nope. i've I fired up Ni No Kuni and I just was a kid in a candy store again. And I was like, oh my God, it wasn't me. It was those games. It could have been a little bit of both, but like I finally have that, well, what do I do tonight? Do i go out or...
neocharge: ah played the I should probably play Ghost of Yote. No, it's like, I'm going to eat my dinner as fast as I can so I can go play five hours of Ni No Kuni and go to bed late.
Leon Lionheartly: That's awesome, man. I love it. ah
neocharge: Yeah, man.
Leon Lionheartly: I'm so glad you're in there. knew that you would love this one.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: That's why I specifically said the first one and not Revenant Kingdom, the sequel. um And there's spinoffs.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: You're right. This is a PS3 game, just like Brageria. So there are... i the a i'll I'll put it to you this way. The AI was definitely ah fixed or improved upon.
Leon Lionheartly: Not fixed, but definitely improved upon um in the sequel.
neocharge: Okay. Cool.
Leon Lionheartly: So there there is that element there. um And... i I just, i can't believe it took you this long because Level 5 has made some fucking banger games over the year.
neocharge: I know. Well,
Leon Lionheartly: ah Going back is the PS2, Dark Cloud.
neocharge: Oh, yeah. i I need to play that, too. Caleb, Bo, almost everyone are like, why? You haven't played Ni No Kuni? And i guarantee you, it's like Studio Ghibli Pokemon. And I was probably like, yeah, I'm playing Pokemon now.
neocharge: It's fine. i don't I don't really want to play another Pokemon game. How wrong you were. You stupid son of a bitch. What have you done? I am glad I did wait for the remastered because, oh, man, I looked at some comparison videos and how it ran and how it looked.
neocharge: ah Because it was a PS3 title originally. But PS4, man, it sings. And it's beautiful, crisp, clean. And did they redo some of the soundtrack?
Leon Lionheartly: Uh, yeah, I think they did do redo some of it.
neocharge: person Yeah, because it's orchestral.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: there's There's strings and drums and all kinds of themed music that fits with the place or the area. ah There was a specific area where I was like, oh, okay, we jam it now.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah I want to, I want to talk with you cause I think I know where you're talking about, but I want, i want to hear it afterwards cause I don't want to spoil it for the cast, but you're,
neocharge: Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, we're not going to spoil anything. If you like, if you love Pokemon, even like Pokemon, if you are even interested or play some JRPGs, if you're a huge Harry Potter fan and you are a ah fan of Studio Ghibli movies, any of those four, I'd say the most important thing, you got to like JRPGs. If you like JRPGs and are even a small fan of Pokemon, Harry Potter, or Studio Ghibli, do yourself a favor Go play this game. i I own it digitally and physically. I found it on sale for $20.
neocharge: I got it on sale for $20 on PSN a while back. Go play this game. it's it's gonna it' You got to sit with it for a while.
neocharge: and there is some challenge mid-game. But get past it. And it's just a gem of of a title, of a story. And I just got to a story beat where i was like,
neocharge: Oh, okay. All right. Holy shit. but So.
Leon Lionheartly: I'm so glad you're loving it, man. I i couldn't...
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: the that The mark of a good RPG for me is a battle music.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: A battle music needs to get you that way when you're you're jumped in, you're like, oh, yeah, here we go. Final Fantasy has a lot of them. We know that. Wild Arms is one of them.
Leon Lionheartly: Ni No Kuni is one of them too, where I can just hear that music as soon as a battle starts. That ba-ba-ba-ba.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: And I'm like, here we go, baby.
neocharge: me Yep. Watch this. a When Oliver goes in with the the party, he'll say something.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, when he goes in...
neocharge: Yeah. And I love it.
Leon Lionheartly: and
neocharge: He's he's like a little kid. He's like 10. And it's like they leaned into it. He's like, watch this. they just I'm so high level. I just annihilate everything. And when i I'm going back to earlier levels in the game, that's always fun in a JRPG, right? When you're struggling in an area and then you go back you just one shot everything.
neocharge: It's just like, yeah, fuck you you you. You pissed me off before. Now I just one shot you. and i I stole the item I needed. i i was a i stole your thing and then fucked you up.
Leon Lionheartly: left to but ble ah bloodied and beaten on the roadside.
neocharge: So, yeah.
neocharge: Exactly. ah Yeah. And the world map, dude, the traversal, the thing I got, it's your your typical JRPG. You get all the modes of traversal and they're it's ah one of the best modes of traversal. i like I think I clipped it when it happened. I was i had an idea of what was happening, but when it actually happened, I was like, I like laughed like a little fucking kid.
neocharge: Like no joke when you, when you get the thing. um
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: so yeah, I'm having a blast. I can't wait to play more. I'm going to go get some in and out and play some Nino Cooney. So thank you.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: they I want, I want to thank you for sure. And, uh, I'm sorry, Caleb and Bo, I didn't listen to you. And anyone that is listening to the cast that i recommended this game, I'm sorry.
neocharge: I didn't know. And i to to be fair, Bob basically had to force me into it. And i just I really wanted Bob to play Bergeria. And he's like, all right, play Nino Cooney.
Leon Lionheartly: So good.
neocharge: And I was like, i almost was like, ah no, man, it's too much. And then I was like, you know what? I really want you to play Bergeria. So, okay. Okay. little and now i've i'm i've put more double the time into fucking nino cooney i was even like oh well if you're starting brujeria i guess i'll start nino cooney that's that pokemon ghibli game right my it's my personal game of the year and it it could be in my top five uh jrpg ips of all time
Leon Lionheartly: i mean
Leon Lionheartly: so good
Leon Lionheartly: I knew. i knew. From a moment when I'm like, this is mad-ass game.
neocharge: yeah yeah
Leon Lionheartly: there's There's some games that you're just like, nope, that's for you. um and that's that's but And that was the reason I was just like, no, you need to go play it.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: It wouldn't really say much else because I didn't want to spoil anything else.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah. It's hard, right?
Leon Lionheartly: The experience Yeah, that first time experience of you opening the Wizards Companion. I was like, Matt, you're going to love the Wizards Companion.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: It unlocks more as you complete the story and as you find things. That is so you.
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: The Pokemon is self-encasing. It's action RPG, which is your style versus mine as a turn base. I'm like, dude, this is all you all day long.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: So I'm so glad you're very welcome. And hopefully ah we can get you to play another one, with a recommended one when you're ready.
neocharge: Persona 5 is on the list.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: So I'm excited to play that. And like I said, I'm leaning more into just, you know, fuck it, I'm gaming tonight. i'm Fuck it, I'm gaming this week. Fuck it, I'm gaming this month. And that's it.
neocharge: Because... just it's it's ah It's amazing. It's cheap. It's a cheap hobby. Once you get everything and you have it, it's ah it's an expensive hobby up front, getting the things you need and the things to play the games. But once you have all that, it's like, do I go out to a bar and spend like 50 bucks on drinks, food,
neocharge: I meet a chick, you know, her drinks and food, or I have all this here. And I literally have beer in the fridge. So the investment is already there. And the cost is zero.
neocharge: So it's really fucking enticing to just be like, I'm just going to fucking play video games. i already own all this shit. I have an awesome setup. Whatever. So, yeah. Leaning more into video games. Leaning more into JRPGs. So i'm going to play Tales of Vesperia. Might play Tales of Graces as well.
neocharge: I'm a persona five Royal going to knock all of them out. So I'm excited.
Leon Lionheartly: um I'm so glad to, dude. You've got me wanting to play Ni No Kuni as well.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: um
neocharge: Like I said, I'd i'd love if if you figure out your save, I'd love to like compare and see like what party you used and stuff like that. So.
Leon Lionheartly: To be honest, I may just say screw it. And if I have to, I'll start from the fucking beginning because that game is...
neocharge: do the remaster, like i I was like, this is runs really well. like I thought this was an older game. And I was like, oh, this is a remaster. I wonder what the original looks like. And I'm like, oh, this is worlds better.
neocharge: So...
Leon Lionheartly: Same thing with Bergeria.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: and ah there there's it was ah you you you mentioned it. You're like, man, the item pickups are so much better. I was like, what are you talking about?
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: I went and looked and I just was like...
neocharge: yeah Dude, originally on the PS3. So, yeah. ah ah keep Keep these remasters coming, man. I know people are like, ooh, just rehashing the game. Whatever.
neocharge: I don't care. Like, 60 is the pinnacle now. A lot of these games ran at lock 30. Unfortunately, dude, I really wanted to go back to Tales of Symphonia, originally on the GameCube.
neocharge: And... They released a PS3 port, and but then they also released a PS4 remaster. And it runs at locked 30.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh.
neocharge: The GameCube version ran at 60.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh.
neocharge: The remaster runs at locked 30. That's probably why it's sitting at a 64 on fucking OpenCritic. And the original is sitting at a 92. Like, Symphonia is my favorite.
neocharge: And I'm like, guys, come on. So I was like, I'm i'm not playing this 30. Sorry. i Not going to do it. I played this at 60 in 2004. So. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, that's and that and please keep those up.
neocharge: so
Leon Lionheartly: Like you said, this is what... this is There are certain series that you do this.
neocharge: yes
Leon Lionheartly: Tales of a Arise, I think, is starting to go. Well, the Tales is going back because of Arise. Persona 5 is the reason why we're getting P3 and P4 and all these other remakes.
neocharge: have
Leon Lionheartly: um So please keep this up because sometimes the quality of life features when you come back 15 years later are amazing. um You got to make it worth it. Don't give me a Last of Us Part 2 Remastered Director's Cut Edition.
neocharge: Right. Yeah. Give it, give like 10 years, at least in there, not like a game that released late PS4. It's like, here's a PS5 version. Nah, nah, nah.
Leon Lionheartly: and Yeah, we're good.
neocharge: So. Yeah. ah Yeah. So what you say we get the hell out of here Get some dinner, then play our games.
Leon Lionheartly: I agree. Let's go do it. Very well said.
neocharge: Oh, yeah. Awesome. ah Yeah, thanks for listening. This has been episode 45. Gushed about some JRPGs. Had some news. i what a are do you like JRPGs? What games are you playing?
neocharge: We got a Discord for all this conversation. And trust me, if you're like, oh, I don't want to post anything. No one's going to say anything. No. like We got a pretty engaged community. Say whatever you want. Don't be an asshole. usually keep it about games. And if it's not about games, we got all channels or different types of nerdism out there.
neocharge: So ah yeah, let us know what you're playing. And if you like JRPGs, we can talk about JRPGs or whatever you want. So yeah, thanks so much for listening. Thanks so much for being part of the community. We appreciate you all.
neocharge: Have a wonderful evening, night, or morning, whatever the hell time it is right now.
Leon Lionheartly: Peace.
