Transcript
Speaker: She goes, it'll be on your skeleton when you're dead.
Speaker: And I went, sold.
Speaker: I want one of those.
Speaker: I want one of those.
Speaker: And it's about the same price, depending on market value.
Speaker: It's just that people want one that'll blend in.
Speaker: Sure, that makes sense.
Speaker: For other ones, yeah, let's have them blend in.
Speaker: But for this guy, gold.
Speaker: I want a gold tooth.
Speaker: For this guy, you just got to, you know what?
Speaker: Sometimes in life, ladies and gentlemen, you just need a gold tooth.
Speaker: You need a gold tooth, man.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I need a gold tooth.
Speaker: And you know what else is gold?
Speaker: What's that?
Speaker: Hey there, everybody.
Speaker: Welcome back to Pixel It.
Speaker: My name is Kevin.
Speaker: With me as always is Phil.
Speaker: And today we are finishing up Eco Castle in the Mist.
Speaker: Solid gold.
Speaker: It's solid gold, baby.
Speaker: Beautiful.
Speaker: It's a beautiful book.
Speaker: It's a beautiful book with a beautiful cover.
Speaker: And I thoroughly enjoyed our time with this book.
Speaker: Thoroughly enjoyed it.
Speaker: So did I. So did I. Like right off the bat, just to get it out there, really enjoyed this book.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: Where did we last leave off?
Speaker: What had just happened when we left off?
Speaker: That's a really good question, actually.
Speaker: Where did we leave off?
Speaker: Because, let me see.
Speaker: Because we got into part three, which is all about Yorda.
Speaker: And I believe that's the name of chapter three, all about Yorda.
Speaker: No, all about Yorda.
Speaker: No, we left off when she went to the top of the tower and she viewed out over the ocean and saw for the first time the petrified merchant vessels and that sort of thing of nearby kingdoms that ended up coming, trying to see them and basically basically saw for the first time, you know, the the the work of her.
Speaker: What hath the queen wrought.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: So we get in this kind of a. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We're picking up pretty much at the end.
Speaker: We're picking up speed.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's the end of chapter three.
Speaker: And just after Yorta, this is 3.10.
Speaker: And this is basically just after Yorta is in her room doing her spyglass.
Speaker: fun times.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's a conversation between her and Ozuma and Ozuma is telling Yorta that what she saw was an emissary from the Zugrenda Sol Empire that had been sent to her mother's kingdom as just like, hey, let's, you know, let's chat.
Speaker: And her mom was just like, nah.
Speaker: Didn't go well.
Speaker: And stoned them all.
Speaker: um so she wants to um uh yorda basically she wants to get inside of the tower of wind um and basically ozuma is like you know what you're probably going to need something so that the shades don't attack you some sort of mark
Speaker: to identify you and this is um it's not it it's not a direct tie into the mark that eco wears but it's kind of using the same verbiage to describe like oh okay yes this is the thing that eco is wearing is is kind of doing something similar to this yeah so there's a parallel there there's a parallel here yeah
Speaker: So Yorta prays to her father like, hey, pops, I need you to I need you to help me out one more time.
Speaker: And she sees she goes to the trolley and she sees her father and two other ghosts standing in one of the trolley platforms.
Speaker: And she recognizes that the two other ghosts are.
Speaker: two of his advisors that disappeared around the time that her father died and she thought nothing of it.
Speaker: And she's like, like she has this dawning realization of horror that like, oh, once my father died, these two guys were just killed.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's kind of hilarious because her assumption is like, well, yeah, he stopped being king, so they had to move on with their lives and they weren't going to advise the next king.
Speaker: The next king wants to have their own advisors.
Speaker: That's just how this works.
Speaker: It's like, oh.
Speaker: Oh, boy.
Speaker: You really were putting the blinders on, kid.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah, it's all confirmed that, you know, there are ghosts standing there.
Speaker: As she approaches, the ghosts kind of disappear.
Speaker: And what's left behind is her dad's signet ring.
Speaker: And the ghost of her father then tells her telepathically, I think, or ethereally.
Speaker: However, however, the voice comes ghost talking.
Speaker: Yeah, ghost talk.
Speaker: That this is probably the last time he's going to be able to talk to her.
Speaker: And also, shit be crazy in the Tower of Wind.
Speaker: So, you know, be careful.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which at this point, I think we all gathered.
Speaker: I think we all, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, we all gathered.
Speaker: Thanks for the heads up.
Speaker: I think we figured that out.
Speaker: Thanks for the heads up, Pops.
Speaker: You know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So chapter 3.11, Ozuma breaks down to Yorda what the Book of Light is.
Speaker: And she's like, well, that must be the thing in the Tower of Wind.
Speaker: So to the plan, basically, Nathan Felder basically coming in with, all right, the plan.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Here's what we're doing.
Speaker: And she begins to she gets into the tower and she begins to climb the tower because there's a cage up at the top.
Speaker: Much like every time we've seen the tower in past, present and future, there's always this cage up at the top.
Speaker: She begins to climb the tower.
Speaker: There's stairs that are breaking and shades that are appearing.
Speaker: But the signet ring manages to keep the shades at bay.
Speaker: And then she lowers the birdcage down to the ground and she finds her father's bones.
Speaker: And inside the skull is the Book of Light.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And she grabs the Book of Light and the skull begins floating and attacking her.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This, by the way, this is the most jarring moment for me.
Speaker: Because I remember reading this and I was just like, oh, like when you realize that her father has been kept in this, you know, fucking gibbet cage for like however long.
Speaker: She like sees like a wisp of his hair sticking out of one end of the robe and realizes that her father's corpse is in there.
Speaker: And you're like, that's actually, it's really effective and really,
Speaker: spooky and really sad and like finding her father's corpse.
Speaker: And then all of a sudden it's like, I'm the skeleton come to bite you.
Speaker: And it literally.
Speaker: I'm Skelly man.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's just the biting skeleton.
Speaker: That's the alarm system.
Speaker: Bitey skeleton.
Speaker: She's just like dodging and the skeleton bites her shoulder.
Speaker: Just keeps chomping on it.
Speaker: Just like just which look, that's gotta be like, I'm sure magic skeleton do powers.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But that's still gotta be an inconvenience at best.
Speaker: It's like, fuck her.
Speaker: Get off.
Speaker: Like, ow.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just like it's trying to bite my throat.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: She realizes it's going for her throat.
Speaker: which is funny.
Speaker: I'm going to have a really bad bruise.
Speaker: It reminds me, Shadowkeep had a moment with a floating skeleton head.
Speaker: Yes, the lich.
Speaker: I thought of the same thing.
Speaker: That was their very, but that one, it didn't like attack them.
Speaker: Oh, did it?
Speaker: Forget.
Speaker: It did, yeah.
Speaker: It shot laser beams out of its eyes or something like that?
Speaker: It's something like that.
Speaker: It shot laser beams or something.
Speaker: It was a little more outlandish.
Speaker: It was a little bit more outlandish than just a skeleton.
Speaker: And in my head, I just imagine it just like, it's like a 1950s horror movie and you can kind of see the wire that the skeleton is being suspended.
Speaker: Right, yeah.
Speaker: That little glimmer of it, yeah.
Speaker: It's just like, rah, rah, rah, rah.
Speaker: Just Ed Wood style, rah, rah, rah, rah.
Speaker: Or it's like a black background and if you look closely, you can see the black like glove of the hand in the puppet.
Speaker: It was all practical effects.
Speaker: It was a better time.
Speaker: It was a better time.
Speaker: Movies were better back then, man.
Speaker: Movies were better when there was practical effects are 100% flawless.
Speaker: Could CGI make a bitey skeleton quite like that?
Speaker: I do not think so.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: I do not think so.
Speaker: It would not be real.
Speaker: No, man.
Speaker: It's not the same.
Speaker: Not the same.
Speaker: It's not the same.
Speaker: Not the same.
Speaker: So she fights off the bitey skeleton.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She sure does.
Speaker: She sure does.
Speaker: She uses the power of the ring to destroy the skull, shatters, and then there's like a big old bright light.
Speaker: And then basically the skull is back where it was, and the book is just sitting on top of her father's corpse.
Speaker: And she grabs it.
Speaker: And once she grabs the book, like all the ghosts appear and start flying away.
Speaker: And she's like purified the tower.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And and she gets a, you know, if you build it, they will come moment with with her dad.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Dad shows up again.
Speaker: Good luck.
Speaker: He just kind of floats away into the air.
Speaker: And that's picture wrap on Old King Dead Guy.
Speaker: Old King Dad.
Speaker: King Dad.
Speaker: King Dad is, I think, yeah, like his soul's now at peace and he can just be.
Speaker: His soul's at peace.
Speaker: It's gone into the ether.
Speaker: The void.
Speaker: The void.
Speaker: So, oh, by the way, there's one of the next Marvel movies, The Thunderbolts.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I heard rumors, speaking of the void, that the sentry might be the villain.
Speaker: Oh, now, geez.
Speaker: All right, now, all right, if they're going to do the Sentry, are they going in, like, the full Bendis, like, he's a comic character, like, a myth, like, that whole thing?
Speaker: Right, like, so, maybe.
Speaker: I think that would be kind of, that's kind of interesting, where basically he was, he was, he actually was one of the original Avengers, but everybody's, like, basically everybody's mind, memory of him was wiped away.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: And it's just he just exists as a fictional comic book.
Speaker: He just exists as this fictional comic book character because that's the only way people actually remember his existence.
Speaker: That would be interesting because that's like you do a lot of wall breaking with that kind of shit.
Speaker: Yeah, fun.
Speaker: That could be fun.
Speaker: For those of you who don't know is what we're off topic now, but for those of you who don't know, OK, the Sentry is he is.
Speaker: He's basically the Marvel Universe's version of Superman.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But and I know Superman fans really know Superman's strong.
Speaker: OK, Century would fuck him up on a good day.
Speaker: Like that's the thing about Century is that he could easily destroy everybody and the universe with the level of power that he has.
Speaker: The problem with him is he's a big old sad boy.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He's completely cracked.
Speaker: He's he's he's sitting in his room.
Speaker: He suffers from from anxiety and depression.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And agoraphobia.
Speaker: So he's afraid to go outside.
Speaker: So it's.
Speaker: And I know what you're saying.
Speaker: I know what you're saying.
Speaker: You're saying, Kevin, Phil, if.
Speaker: I, with all of my anxiety and depression, had infinite godlike powers, we would not be here.
Speaker: Just out of a completely random panic attack that I had over something that my dad said when I was eight years old.
Speaker: And me too.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Now you're getting why he's a... You're understanding why he's a threat, right?
Speaker: He's a... There's also the void is basically the evil version of the sentry.
Speaker: It's not like Moon Knight, where Moon Knight has Dissociative Identity Disorder.
Speaker: The void is basically just a mirror version of him.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That exists because he exists.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But it's also him.
Speaker: It's weird.
Speaker: It gets super metaphysical, but.
Speaker: I tell you, though, that Bendis run of New Avengers was frigging great.
Speaker: I really, really liked that.
Speaker: That was the last time I think that I was really keeping up
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: With comics on a weekly basis.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I was just talking to somebody that the last time I was keeping up with comics was there was an arc.
Speaker: Basically, Emma Frost was in charge of the X-Men.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I get the occasional trade here and there for specific books.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Occasionally dip back in.
Speaker: I think it's more important to just occasionally have a character that you want to, you know, occasionally dip back into.
Speaker: Check back in on.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: That is fun.
Speaker: Check out, get some trades.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know.
Speaker: And none of this has been brought up because I'm hopelessly addicted to playing Marvel Snap.
Speaker: Yeah, I can't stop.
Speaker: Almost done with the Black Panther storyline.
Speaker: The last chapter opens tonight.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: I know what I'll be doing.
Speaker: That was $10 well spent, by the way.
Speaker: Like that bought me, they are truly like, like really holding it back when it comes to monetization here.
Speaker: Like they were like, Hey, it's the new challenge for November and it's 10 bucks to take part.
Speaker: And you get all these, you know, the more you play, the more you unlock these cool things.
Speaker: You just need to give us 10 bucks and you're in.
Speaker: I was like,
Speaker: Yeah, sign me the fuck up.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm in.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm in.
Speaker: Like, that's friggin' awesome.
Speaker: That's a great way to go about it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, so I'm still really enjoying that game.
Speaker: Fuck.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And anyway, we're talking about Eco now.
Speaker: Eco.
Speaker: Eco.
Speaker: Castle of Nest.
Speaker: Which is a book that we like.
Speaker: Classic.
Speaker: Classic.
Speaker: Classic text of video game adaptation, Eco.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: All because one of us said void.
Speaker: That's all it takes.
Speaker: That's all it takes.
Speaker: Wow, we really are just, God, we need to, we need to, you know, if we ever open a Patreon, we need to do like the, the non ADHD version where we do the episode a second time, but after we've like taken, you know, ADHD medication or something like that.
Speaker: And there'll be like 20 minutes long.
Speaker: I'll just read, I'll just read straight through my notes.
Speaker: And that's really tight.
Speaker: And every now and then you'll hear me go, that happened.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: Okay, see you next week for Bioshock Infinite.
Speaker: So Yorta leaves the Tower of Wind and whoopsie daisy, there's Mommy Dearest.
Speaker: She's standing on the other side of the bridge to the tower.
Speaker: She's got her black cloak on.
Speaker: She's none too pleased.
Speaker: They tried some words and then Yorta uses the book on her mom.
Speaker: Her mom basically dissolves and disintegrates into the air.
Speaker: And then everybody tries to kill Yorda.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because the enchantment is now broken on the city.
Speaker: And all the people start...
Speaker: Like she's basically ordered.
Speaker: She dissipated into like a mist and is like.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then absorbs herself into everybody.
Speaker: Like their eyes go completely jet black.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And now she's controlling them.
Speaker: And they're all chanting, kill Yorda.
Speaker: And then everything looks lost.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And then Ozuma comes running the rescue.
Speaker: And I love this little detail where it says Ozuma is just cutting people down.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Ozuma is like, yeah, I can't save them, by the way.
Speaker: Fuck it.
Speaker: Like.
Speaker: At no point is he like, huh, these are actually, just seconds ago, these were innocent peasants and people.
Speaker: Oh, fuck it.
Speaker: Azuma's like, nah, fuck it.
Speaker: Got to cut them down.
Speaker: They're in my way.
Speaker: They're part of the darkness now.
Speaker: They're vampires.
Speaker: They're vampires now.
Speaker: Azuma catches up to her and he's like, well, only one thing left to do.
Speaker: And they jump off the bridge.
Speaker: And we finally come back to present day.
Speaker: And Iko basically, all of this has been one gigantic vision that Iko has been hit with all at once.
Speaker: So he's basically absorbing all of Yorda's memories.
Speaker: And Yorda remembers who she is and she's like, oh, this is the boy, all that stuff.
Speaker: And we move into chapter four and Eco now with all of her memories unlocked, he begins to start like talking to himself.
Speaker: He's like piecing the story together of what happened next because the point at which her memory stopped being transferred to him.
Speaker: Still left a lot of questions, you know, like.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The story isn't over at that point.
Speaker: Because, yeah, at first when I when it ends like that, because they jump into the water and it's like it.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: And and and we go and I was like, so wait, did they drown?
Speaker: Like, yeah.
Speaker: But then you realize what happened.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So a whole lot more happened.
Speaker: We got a whole lot more happened, as it turns out.
Speaker: And he does a little.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Eventually the author went, oh, maybe I'll just.
Speaker: Hmm.
Speaker: Maybe I'll stop doing a flashback and show them.
Speaker: Yeah, let's just move it and groove it.
Speaker: Iko does some math for everybody who's wondering.
Speaker: The emperor who led the attack was the fifth emperor of the Zagrenda Sol Empire.
Speaker: The current emperor is the 18th.
Speaker: So, you know, it's a fair number of years.
Speaker: Five generations at least.
Speaker: 150, 200 years.
Speaker: Maybe, depending on the average lifespan of the Emperor.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: You know?
Speaker: Give or take.
Speaker: Give or take.
Speaker: So the Shades continue to attack, and they're basically playing the whole, you know, you should just let us take Yorta, buddy.
Speaker: Buddy, it's her fault.
Speaker: pal.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They, they move on.
Speaker: Like, is at first they were like, Hey, you're one of us.
Speaker: You should be like on our side, which is kind of sad and vague, but now they start going, Hey dude, she's an asshole.
Speaker: Like they actually start.
Speaker: Fuck her dude.
Speaker: Like, do you know who you're helping?
Speaker: Have you seen her Twitter account from last year?
Speaker: Like God, it was such, it was such a fake apology.
Speaker: I didn't buy it at all.
Speaker: Hashtag cancel culture.
Speaker: Am I right?
Speaker: Shades, my fellow shades.
Speaker: Fucking SJWs, I swear.
Speaker: I didn't like the way that tasted in my mouth.
Speaker: I didn't even like that as a joke.
Speaker: It didn't even come out right.
Speaker: You know, it just kind of, yeah.
Speaker: So yeah, the shades are doing their thing.
Speaker: And, and Yorta seems to kind of be blaming herself as well as to why the, she, she takes the blame as to why the queen won.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And then they keep moving and they reach a cistern.
Speaker: Eco jumps down into it and he has another vision.
Speaker: And the vision is of prisoners.
Speaker: This is a chapter 4.2 now.
Speaker: Prisoners at the castle.
Speaker: And while he's in the vision, a knight taps him on the shoulder and starts speaking to him about once the enchantment was broken, everybody in the castle started killing each other.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You guys got out of there and they didn't just go, oh, good.
Speaker: They're gone.
Speaker: Now we can get back to our lives as normal.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: No, there's fights.
Speaker: There were mass mass executions and everyone died.
Speaker: And this actually ties back to the earlier scene where Ico is in the room with the chandelier.
Speaker: um where there is there was all those people just hang being hung uh off the ceiling um and the queen did this so that she could feed off of the malice that was generated by them killing each other and became more powerful uh after basically she grew in power once all this happens yeah
Speaker: Chapter 4.3, they continue on.
Speaker: Iko has another vision of a woman killing herself, a handmaiden.
Speaker: Things just get darker.
Speaker: Yeah, it's, you know, the difference between the first half of this book and the second half of the book is, is.
Speaker: vast just because it opens.
Speaker: It's always got a little darkness, but it's this kind of charming coming of age thing.
Speaker: Yeah, it's like coming of age here and the dark undertones here.
Speaker: And then it's like the second half, it's like whoo.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, it's bleak.
Speaker: It's really bleak.
Speaker: It's really bleak.
Speaker: The shades attack again while they're while they're running through an area.
Speaker: And eco at this point, having listened to the shades, having seen like heard about the prisoners all killing each other and the people all killing each other and the suicides and the executions and all that stuff.
Speaker: He sees the shades surrounding Yorda and he's on the other side of a jump that he just made.
Speaker: And he's like, she can make it.
Speaker: And then he sees the shades and he's like, maybe I should just let them take her.
Speaker: Like, he actually starts to think like, maybe.
Speaker: He really does.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Maybe she is the bad guy.
Speaker: Maybe I shouldn't be doing this.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: For the first time, he's just like, this actually, is this, he finally thinks, is this juice worth the squeeze?
Speaker: Like after all of this bullshit.
Speaker: Which is a fine question to ask, 10 year old.
Speaker: Finally, you got there.
Speaker: Proud of you.
Speaker: Proud of you, buddy.
Speaker: Good job, kid.
Speaker: Then Ozuma from beyond speaks to Eco ethereally and basically gives him the slaps him on the face from the afterlife and says, no, you better save her.
Speaker: You fucking asshole.
Speaker: What the fuck?
Speaker: What is this all about?
Speaker: And t hen he starts- And then Ozuma makes Iko's horns feel like they're on fire.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: fucked up moves.
Speaker: You're like, hey, dude, you've got horns too.
Speaker: You know how fucked up this is.
Speaker: And Iko's like, fine, fine.
Speaker: He saves Yorda and they continue on.
Speaker: They get down to the arena and they find a Iko finds a sword in the arena.
Speaker: I didn't actually get understand this particular moment about the sword.
Speaker: I don't know if it was like a translation issue, but it's like they found a sword.
Speaker: Somebody was trying to
Speaker: prop open a window to reflect light onto one of the globes that opens the gates.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There's a line about there's a streak of light in the sky that the shades wouldn't dare touch or something like that.
Speaker: I feel like this must have been some sort of translation of one of the puzzles in the game.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: I've watched through some of the game.
Speaker: I haven't played it and I certainly didn't watch all of it.
Speaker: on the long throw I saw, but it felt like, this felt like, if this was not in the actual game, like using one of the old light reflection puzzles.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: If that is, I would be very surprised if that wasn't actually directly out of the game, because yeah, it gets very specific suddenly.
Speaker: It's like, all right, you're flashing the light off the sword, bouncing it off onto the globe, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker: That feels like a translation from the game itself.
Speaker: Adaptation, rather.
Speaker: That's my guess.
Speaker: Yeah, it feels like a mirror puzzle.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I don't know.
Speaker: I didn't get it, but they continue on.
Speaker: So it was just a brief paragraph, but it threw me for a loop because I was just trying to figure out what exactly it was referring to.
Speaker: And Iko, we're in 4.4 now.
Speaker: Iko is noticing that Yorta is not looking too hot.
Speaker: She's he's like her skin is looking waxy like she's she's she's got the flop sweats.
Speaker: You know, her hair hasn't been brushed in eons.
Speaker: You know, she's just a mess.
Speaker: You think she'd like, you know, run a comb through her hair or something.
Speaker: She's got company over.
Speaker: She's got company over.
Speaker: This is her house.
Speaker: Like, what is she doing?
Speaker: You know, Yorta, come on, babe.
Speaker: Dignity, please.
Speaker: I shouldn't call her babe.
Speaker: Come on, sweet cheeks.
Speaker: Get on with it.
Speaker: Just to take a bite of my apple.
Speaker: Delicious apple.
Speaker: Nutrition.
Speaker: Nutrition.
Speaker: Something that Yorta and her stringy goddamn hair clearly hasn't had any access to in her stupid birdcage.
Speaker: Yorta probably has a mild case of scurvy going on.
Speaker: I would have to.
Speaker: Yeah, I think we got loose teeth.
Speaker: You know.
Speaker: Her hair is falling out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We got some scar tissue that's not behaving properly.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Not sexy red hot chili pepper scar tissue.
Speaker: Just all kinds of keloid bullshit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Case of the scurvy.
Speaker: Anyway.
Speaker: She got the scurvies.
Speaker: She got the scurvy.
Speaker: They continue, they arrive in what appears to be the queen's throne room.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There's a chair upon a dais.
Speaker: While they're looking around, Yorda just sits down on the throne and Iko's like, what are you doing?
Speaker: And then he sees a vision of the past of Ozuma and the priest king standing over the queen and
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: The queen in air quotes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And Ozuma chops her head off.
Speaker: And Yorta just kind of stands there and doesn't say anything because it wasn't the queen.
Speaker: It was the chief handmaiden made to look like the queen.
Speaker: So Ozuma and the priest king's victory is all for naught because...
Speaker: uh yorta basically doesn't say anything because she still thinks that she can protect or save her mother that's that's her thing that yorta believes deep down that she can save her mother uh if given the chance yeah actually yeah so she just keeps her mouth shut on that one she just keeps her mouth shut um and uh
Speaker: Yorta is then possessed by the queen and she takes hold of Iko.
Speaker: And in chapter 4.5, we have a pre-showdown showdown.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: The warm-up showdown.
Speaker: The warm-up showdown.
Speaker: The talkie showdown.
Speaker: So Iko and the Queen, speaking through Yorda, have a debate about what love is and what family means.
Speaker: And I thought this was actually a really interesting discussion they have.
Speaker: Because ego was like, it's like your biological family is not the thing that matters.
Speaker: It's the people who love you because he's like, I'm adopted and they love me and they are my family.
Speaker: And the queen is like, love doesn't exist.
Speaker: The only thing that matters is blood or something like that.
Speaker: There's no such thing as love, you silly, petulant child.
Speaker: Facts don't care about your fear.
Speaker: She's a real Ben Shapiro.
Speaker: She's got, yeah.
Speaker: She's like, let's just say.
Speaker: Let's just say.
Speaker: Let's just say.
Speaker: Hypothetically.
Speaker: Hypothetically.
Speaker: Hypothetically.
Speaker: That family matters.
Speaker: That I could turn you to stone.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Let's just say.
Speaker: Let's just say.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's a, it is a big, it's a very talky showdown.
Speaker: I did find it really interesting and it's funny because as it, as it started, I started to go, Oh, what are we doing?
Speaker: Like, because you know, just the big stretches of dialogue in, in other books in the past have always bummed me out.
Speaker: But yeah,
Speaker: It's just like a lot of things.
Speaker: I remember in playwriting class, you know, one of my earliest playwriting classes, they said, you know, you don't write monologues, don't write monologues.
Speaker: And and then someone, you know, I correctly think think correctly said, well, you know, what about all of these other plays that have monologues in them?
Speaker: Like, why if we're not meant to write monologues?
Speaker: And then my professor basically said, well, they earned that.
Speaker: Trust me when I say that you do not need to write monologues right now.
Speaker: Just write your damn stories and eventually you'll get to a point where a monologue is necessary and you'll know what to do with it.
Speaker: And it's because a monologue can be so, it can destroy everything.
Speaker: And these long, rambling, philosophical conversations have absolutely ruined stories and books in the past.
Speaker: They have, yeah.
Speaker: This is not one of those situations.
Speaker: I was genuinely intrigued and kind of.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's restating the two sides.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Where it's the one side is saying it's the power of love.
Speaker: It's your found family.
Speaker: It's the people you love and you cherish.
Speaker: That's what matters.
Speaker: And the other side is saying the only thing that matters is hierarchy.
Speaker: And which is, you know, a very.
Speaker: We said Ben Shapiro, but it's also like Jordan Peterson.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Talking about fucking lobsters.
Speaker: No, you're absolutely right.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: I can't believe I missed that.
Speaker: I can't believe I went with the easy Shapiro when I should have gone with the intermediate Jordan.
Speaker: You're absolutely right.
Speaker: It's a degree of difficulty in reference.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I think you fucking nailed it.
Speaker: Like, that's absolutely true.
Speaker: Like, the parallel there is absolutely true.
Speaker: She is, because she's arguing for that hierarchy and people need to kneel and the strong need to rule and-
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And she even argues in terms of like, you know, think, you know, think of all the cruelty in the world that, you know, can be avoided and et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker: It's like, you know, clearly self-serving, but it's one of those arguments that can be intoxicating to all the wrong people where it's like.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: I can save people if you would only kneel.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I've been listening to it recently on Behind the Bastards, Robert Evans.
Speaker: It's a good show.
Speaker: It's a good show.
Speaker: It's a good podcast.
Speaker: Robert Evans, we're here.
Speaker: We can do a guest spot on Behind the Bastards whenever you want, buddy.
Speaker: You want us to come on?
Speaker: Huh?
Speaker: You got a bastard.
Speaker: There are plenty of bastards in the gaming industry.
Speaker: There's probably even more in the publishing industry.
Speaker: Yeah, we can sit down and have you talk to us about, you know, bombing the Great Lakes.
Speaker: Bombing.
Speaker: Bombing!
Speaker: Yeah, so on the recent episodes of Behind the Bastards, you've been talking about billionaires and this concept of long-termism.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: It's like a philosophy where they think...
Speaker: And I'm trying to remember the other name for the philosophy.
Speaker: Basically, it's billionaires think that they are predestined to be the ones that save the world ultimately.
Speaker: And they don't believe that the small things like
Speaker: Basically, they filter everything through like bullshit trolley problems.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: you know, from having lead in their water or I could save the planet.
Speaker: But how about I could say instead of saving the planet, I could terraform a new planet.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: And it's ultimately- Because it's sexier and more interesting.
Speaker: It's sexier and more interesting.
Speaker: And it's like, it's going to save the world.
Speaker: And that's what- Right.
Speaker: So Elon Musk and Peter Thiel and all these fuckers
Speaker: this is what they believe in.
Speaker: And that's why they are terrible people.
Speaker: And that is why, yeah, that's why they're bad.
Speaker: And that's why the queen is bad in this book.
Speaker: Tying it back around.
Speaker: We didn't get off track for too long there.
Speaker: The queen, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, or Teal, I think.
Speaker: Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, just a litany of
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Fucking assholes who do nothing good for nobody.
Speaker: Nothing.
Speaker: Nothing.
Speaker: Fuck all of them.
Speaker: Listen, guys.
Speaker: I don't want to get political here.
Speaker: I don't.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't.
Speaker: I know that.
Speaker: I know that we get off on rants and everything like that and everything.
Speaker: But do you remember?
Speaker: Do you remember not too long ago when it took us five episodes to get through the first Resident Evil book?
Speaker: We have improved.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We are way better.
Speaker: We are way better.
Speaker: We are efficient machines.
Speaker: And part of that efficiency is you got to give us these rants.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Not, we don't, we just, just a little bit of fat to make the steak taste so good.
Speaker: Just a little bit of fat because you know what, the best burger is actually a mixture of different fat content ground beef, right?
Speaker: You got your 90% and your 70%, I want to say.
Speaker: You mix them together.
Speaker: One provides the flavor, the other provides the structure.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: You ever cook up a burger and it shrinks up into like a little ball and you're like, why the fuck did it do that?
Speaker: Why do the burgers?
Speaker: It's because you're not using the right mixture of ground beef.
Speaker: Just like the queen in eco.
Speaker: You ever look at a steak steak?
Speaker: And you see that marbling, those little veins of fat that go through.
Speaker: If you look really close at the veins of fat, what that actually is, is rants from two chubby white guys talking about why Ayn Rand is stupid.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: That's it right there.
Speaker: We provide the flavor.
Speaker: All the flavor and all the stakes in all the world are generated from the rants in this podcast.
Speaker: You're welcome.
Speaker: You're welcome.
Speaker: You're welcome.
Speaker: So the queen admits to destroying the old... This is where we really need like commercial breaks.
Speaker: Scott does it right.
Speaker: Like even, even before it's probably not aliens before they even got sponsors.
Speaker: So like, we probably, we could probably use a sting here where we like sting here and then we'll pick it up after.
Speaker: No, baby.
Speaker: We're, we're too good for that.
Speaker: No, man.
Speaker: We don't have a producer.
Speaker: This is all producer in our year.
Speaker: Just telling us.
Speaker: No,
Speaker: To stop talking about bombing the Great Lakes.
Speaker: Pixelit is the one cut shot of Goodfellas wandering through the back of the restaurant and making your way out to the show.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Just more references.
Speaker: More references.
Speaker: I may have spent the Thanksgiving holiday with me and Kevin's partner Keeler.
Speaker: who is the king of making obscure pop culture references.
Speaker: He has similes and metaphors.
Speaker: He really is.
Speaker: Undisputed.
Speaker: We love him for that.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: You know who else loves him for that?
Speaker: The queen admits to destroying the old capital of this Grandesoul Empire.
Speaker: Just go, just go, man, just go.
Speaker: Just go.
Speaker: So the old capital became the stone city.
Speaker: The stone city that we see earlier in the book is the original capital of this Grandesoul Empire.
Speaker: And she also reveals to Iko that she turned Toto to stone in the city.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which is a real heartbreaking moment for Iko.
Speaker: That's so sad.
Speaker: It's so sad.
Speaker: And probably a really bad idea.
Speaker: Like that maybe, she maybe should have left that one.
Speaker: She should have left that one alone.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then she also reveals a double twist that it was the priest king of the Zagrenda Soul Empire who used a spell on Yorda to stop time in the castle to prevent the queen from enacting her plans.
Speaker: And the sacrifices were not from the queen.
Speaker: But we're from the priest king and Ozuma, basically Ozuma cursing his own bloodline to out of guilt for the part that he played in the failure to stop the queen's tyranny.
Speaker: And because they ended up having to use Yorda as this pawn to to freeze time in place.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then the queen basically is like, well, you can join me.
Speaker: You know, we can, we can go rule the world together.
Speaker: And then she's like, I'll let you think on that.
Speaker: And she leaves.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's like your dad's a real asshole, huh?
Speaker: Like your great, great, great granddad.
Speaker: What a dickweed.
Speaker: Think it over.
Speaker: Talk to you later.
Speaker: Talk to you later, pal.
Speaker: All right, bye-bye.
Speaker: Here's a black flag record.
Speaker: Listen to that.
Speaker: Be angry.
Speaker: He's like, I'm going to leave some Elliot Smith playing before I go.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Just soak that up.
Speaker: You know, it's... You're going to have a good cry with Angela's.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So she goes, and the last line of this section is, Iko was alone, the dark truth his only companion.
Speaker: God damn it.
Speaker: This fucking Alexander Smith is such a good translator.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's beautiful.
Speaker: So after 4.6, after moping for a bit, Eco apologizes to the shades.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then he has another vision of Azuma and he begins to follow it.
Speaker: And we learn a little bit more that Azuma returned and remained because he believed that there was love at the castle once before.
Speaker: And with the assumption of, and there could be again?
Speaker: Never really said, but that's what he's like, I believe in the power of love is his intention.
Speaker: his thinking and he tells Eko go find the sword just listen to the rhythm of my heart just listen to the rhythm of my heart alright we're going to end soon alright how did it pixel it end I don't know the darkness was listening at a really random moment the darkness was randomly listening yeah um
Speaker: That would be my book.
Speaker: Every day.
Speaker: So Iko realizes that he's never going to be able to find the sword by going through the castle because the queen is the castle.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's like, how would you be able to find the sword walking on the...
Speaker: I didn't write down the exact metaphor.
Speaker: It's like walking on a giant's palm or something like that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You're in their hands.
Speaker: You're never going to be able to.
Speaker: So he makes an executive decision and he fucking jumps off the bridge.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which fair enough.
Speaker: Fair enough.
Speaker: Because you know what?
Speaker: I got to get out of the castle.
Speaker: And he does.
Speaker: So he gets out of the castle and he lands in the water, washes to shore, and he starts finding his way through several areas of cave and platforming sections, which I believe were probably written in because they were from the game.
Speaker: And, um,
Speaker: There's this really good moment.
Speaker: I mean, the beginning of the chapter is like, okay, yeah, he's getting through.
Speaker: All right, whatever.
Speaker: But then he finds the sword and it's this really amazing moment where the sword begins to reflect memories back to him.
Speaker: And some of them are his own, but then he starts seeing that they're not just his own.
Speaker: They are the memories of each of the sacrifices that had made their way to the castle.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: It's interesting.
Speaker: It's memories of their foster families, of their lives before going to the castle.
Speaker: The sword had saved and entrusted the memories of all of the shades so that they weren't lost to time.
Speaker: It remembered all of the sacrifices because nobody else was really necessarily going to.
Speaker: I was like, okay, that's...
Speaker: That's a pretty, pretty great.
Speaker: That's a, that's a good moment.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's a good moment.
Speaker: And it, and it, and it helps him to further appreciate that these shades, these sad ghosts have been fighting with him that have been like blocking his path and that they're all each one of them.
Speaker: He sees them smiling.
Speaker: He sees them working in the fields and living their lives.
Speaker: And they all, each one of them has a story.
Speaker: Each one of them has a story to tell.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, it's a really cool moment.
Speaker: It's really, really cool.
Speaker: So Iko takes the sword and for him, it's as light as a feather as opposed to earlier in the book when the knight took it to cast that spell.
Speaker: He couldn't he could only drag it along the ground, you know, because it wasn't meant for him.
Speaker: Yeah, it's like a minor Mjolnir kind of kind of.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: A little little Mjolnir-y.
Speaker: So we're in 4.8 now and Eko arrives back at the chamber with the sarcophagus, sarcophaguses and or sarcophagi.
Speaker: sarcophagi um and uh they begin to drain him and the sword of his energy they got some weird snake emblems on them and they're they're they're described even though they're just stone sarcophagus they're like they're described as like animals with these moths that are just sucking in the energy yeah yeah
Speaker: They're leeches.
Speaker: They're leeches.
Speaker: And it also finds Yorta has been turned to stone, which, you know, that's a bummer.
Speaker: So Iko decides to, he breaks out of his trance because he wants to do something for the shades, right?
Speaker: And he begins to destroy each sarcophagus with his sword.
Speaker: And they're just he's just able to smash them apart one after the other at the other.
Speaker: And like the shades begin to like help him.
Speaker: He like falls off a ladder at one point where the shades catches him and puts him down on the floor and he destroys all of them.
Speaker: It's a real link with clay pots kind of a moment.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He just wrecks shit in there.
Speaker: Just wreck shit and get those rupees.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then the shades kind of like surround the statue of Yorda while he continues on into the throne room.
Speaker: And, uh, he gets to the throne room.
Speaker: The queen's like, Hey, you know, you, you, okay.
Speaker: You, you say you've chosen to do this.
Speaker: You've chosen to fight me.
Speaker: And they begin their final battle.
Speaker: And it's basically, uh, the queen just keeps blasting him with this winds that can turn things to stone.
Speaker: It knocks the sword out of his hand.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Ico gets bruised and battered and tossed about.
Speaker: And then the shades, and this is, it's thematically appropriate.
Speaker: The shades begin to surround Ico and act as a barrier between the queen and him.
Speaker: And he refers to them, he thinks of them as the army of sacrifices.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And they're getting killed by the queen's like stone spell.
Speaker: But he's able to advance onto the queen.
Speaker: And it's like it's thematically appropriate because like, OK, it's that found family.
Speaker: It's the power of love.
Speaker: It's all that stuff.
Speaker: Yeah, and true sacrifices.
Speaker: And true sacrifice, self-sacrifice, selflessness.
Speaker: And Iko is able to get close enough to the queen to give her the old whack with Lizzie Borden's axe.
Speaker: Yeah, dirty whacks with a wet noodle.
Speaker: And she dies.
Speaker: She's gone.
Speaker: She's gone.
Speaker: And all the energy is released.
Speaker: And the shades disappear.
Speaker: They vanish.
Speaker: And Iko passes the fuck out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And rightfully so.
Speaker: I think he's earned it.
Speaker: He's had quite the day or year or however long he was there.
Speaker: However long this has been.
Speaker: It's not really clear.
Speaker: It's not super clear.
Speaker: And then the castle starts becoming undone because the only thing holding it together really was the queen's presence and she is dead.
Speaker: Yorta is wakes up.
Speaker: She is free from the stone and she finds eco and she carries him down to the water and finds like a plank to put him on and kind of like pushes him down the river.
Speaker: And she decides to stay at the castle as it falls apart.
Speaker: And we get a nice moment of Ozuma's statue.
Speaker: It doesn't break at all.
Speaker: It just falls off into the ocean.
Speaker: Like whole cloth falls into the ocean as opposed to like shattering or whatever.
Speaker: We cut over to the stone city and we get some positive news.
Speaker: Everything starts crumbling in the stone city except Arrowwinds.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Wakes up.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And is like the horse, Arrowwind, is like, okay, what the fuck?
Speaker: I'm running.
Speaker: And just starts running back to the town.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Ego games, they really can't stand to let a horse suffer.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Between this and Shadow of the Colossus, they got a good theme of being like, ah, the horse is fine.
Speaker: The horse is fine.
Speaker: We didn't do anything wrong.
Speaker: We're not going to punish the fucking horse.
Speaker: We're not going to punish the horse.
Speaker: Horses are great.
Speaker: Horses are awesome.
Speaker: So the wind that is released start like the bells in the capital city start ringing and all the like the windows blow open where the priests are.
Speaker: And back in town, Toto wakes up from being stone.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then we get an epilogue of Iko waking up on the beach, unable to remember what happened at the castle.
Speaker: And he walks and he finds Yorta on the beach.
Speaker: He's pretty sure he knows her and he helps her to her feet.
Speaker: And that's the end of the book.
Speaker: And you know what?
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: Not the end of the book, I mean, but like, I'm glad that Iko didn't have to, like that poor kid, like the least he could get is a clean slate where he doesn't have to think about frigging shit.
Speaker: Just let him be a stupid kid for God's sake.
Speaker: Yeah, he doesn't have to remember what happens.
Speaker: All that shit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's earned it.
Speaker: He's earned it.
Speaker: So Phil, final thoughts on the ball.
Speaker: That was great.
Speaker: That was great.
Speaker: I think I still have a minor to moderate quibble with the choice of the whole...
Speaker: hundred and some odd page flashback chapter with Yorda.
Speaker: I think that's, it was, it was still great stuff.
Speaker: Like I said, last episode, I question the way that we got it in one big lump like that.
Speaker: And, and it, and getting back to the world, it did take a little doing because of that.
Speaker: But outside of that, I mean, this is seriously one of the best, in my opinion, one of the best examples of
Speaker: how to do a good job with expanding on your source material.
Speaker: Because Ico the game does not get into this detail.
Speaker: The stakes are far simpler.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And that game studio is known for telling wonderful stories with very little active storytelling, if you will.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so to take all of that, and there's a clear respect for the source material.
Speaker: It's not just for a paycheck.
Speaker: It's not a suspiciously, you know, like, I was already working on this kind of thing, even though it could have been because so much of it is original work.
Speaker: to the game.
Speaker: I mean, gosh, the vast, vast majority of this is original to the game.
Speaker: You are not getting a walkthrough of all the puzzles in Ico with this game with some narration over it.
Speaker: I thought it was terrific.
Speaker: I think the translation's great.
Speaker: I think the tone throughout keeps with the game.
Speaker: I think it's wonderful.
Speaker: It's in my top five of the books we've read on the show for sure.
Speaker: Usually the top five of the books that we've read.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: Where it falls in the top five for me personally, I'd have to think a little bit about what else is in that top five.
Speaker: I know this is in it.
Speaker: It kind of becomes apples and oranges at that point anyway.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Ranking is more of an exercise you do for fun rather than for any real critical measure of a work.
Speaker: But we'll probably do some sort of tier episode, tier maker episode at some point.
Speaker: But yeah, I wholeheartedly agree with a lot of what you said.
Speaker: I think I was a little bit more fine with the flashback just only because it gave only for the sake of giving Yorda more agency rather than just kind of like a princess that is, you know, the princess in the castle.
Speaker: I think that was it was probably a very conscious decision by the the female author of of the work to kind of like
Speaker: Hey, here's Yorta doing stuff.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Oh, and I think that's great too.
Speaker: It's just the pacing of it.
Speaker: The pacing of it was a bit of a change up.
Speaker: It was a bit of a change up.
Speaker: Whereas the rest of the book was all fastballs.
Speaker: Absolutely, yeah.
Speaker: That chapter was a bit of a change up.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: Exactly, exactly.
Speaker: But yeah, no, I totally agree.
Speaker: I think it's a wonderful book.
Speaker: And before we read it, you and I were talking about how, oh, this book is one of the ones, one of the video game novel adaptations that everybody says is one of the best ever.
Speaker: And I can see why.
Speaker: I can totally see why people say that because it's...
Speaker: The prose is wonderful.
Speaker: You know, some of that is a lot of that is going to be with the intentions that Miyabi wrote it with, but also the translation by Alexander O. Smith.
Speaker: You know, there's a there's a great style and sense to the prose and to the.
Speaker: The way the characters are written, they are fleshed out.
Speaker: You understand how they're written.
Speaker: Each character speaks in a unique voice, which is something that we don't necessarily call out too often.
Speaker: But coming off of Dark Souls Mask of Vindication...
Speaker: I think it bears pointing out.
Speaker: It's warranted.
Speaker: I think it bears pointing out that it's good with that.
Speaker: So, yeah, I'm glad that we read this.
Speaker: And I'm happy we have this one down in our catalog.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: What a treat.
Speaker: Really enjoyed that one.
Speaker: What a treat.
Speaker: Speaking of treats, Phil, I got one question to ask you.
Speaker: Go on.
Speaker: What are you playing?
Speaker: Oh, well, I am, I have been- I love every time I ask it, you're surprised that I ask it.
Speaker: Oh, well, it's just such a delightful question to ask.
Speaker: I'm always surprised to hear the merchant here in the studio with us.
Speaker: I have been playing mostly, despite dropping a small chunk of change on the Steam autumn sale here, whatever the sale was, the Thanksgiving sale, the most recent one.
Speaker: Oh, God, too much.
Speaker: Yeah, I invest in a few games that are going to it's I've got this little to play playlist on my Steam account and I and my goal is to have it there in front of me to hold myself accountable.
Speaker: So I whittle down these games that I pay for and and it just it just it's not going anywhere.
Speaker: It's only getting bigger.
Speaker: But no, I'm still playing Against the Storm.
Speaker: I've actually logged in a lot of hours in it.
Speaker: It is fucking great.
Speaker: I am just so satisfying.
Speaker: It's great.
Speaker: The roguelike elements are fantastic when you start to get the hang of the city builder and what everything... You know, you gotta just fail several times.
Speaker: It's gotta be worth it to you to fail several times just to figure it out.
Speaker: But when you get the hang of that, it just really starts to flow.
Speaker: You start to get into rhythms and, you know, I'm an achievement guy and the achievements are basically built into how you get power ups for future eras of your kingdom and everything for that roguelike element of it.
Speaker: So you look at it and go, okay, this round I should try to do this, this, and this so I can earn some points.
Speaker: And eventually you get the rhythm going and you want to up the difficulty a little and you can do each individual settlement at different difficulties.
Speaker: So you can test out a higher difficulty level without investing the entire game in that, which is really cool.
Speaker: And I think it'll be valuable for people who are just trying to get used to the game in general.
Speaker: I can't recommend it enough.
Speaker: I freaking love it.
Speaker: I'm up to like 20 hours in it right now and I'm really enjoying it.
Speaker: I did, however, take a little bit of time and go over to play Model Builder.
Speaker: which is, I think I learned something about myself when I played Model Builder.
Speaker: Model Builder, that one came out last year, and it's exactly what it's like.
Speaker: It's a sim where you have inherited a kick-ass
Speaker: kind of geek shed that has all the paints and clippers and airbrushes and files and, you know, all the stuff that you want and display cases.
Speaker: And you enter contests and put together toy soldiers and airplanes and, you know, Warhammer style figurines and shit like that.
Speaker: That sounds extremely you.
Speaker: Very me.
Speaker: It's very me.
Speaker: You got to follow the instructions and, you know, do it just so and you can win contests and then you can display, you know, the figures and everything.
Speaker: And I'm going to go back into it.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: The thing is, I've played a lot of these kind of sim games.
Speaker: I did a review not that long ago, I guess, of Lawnmower Simulator, which I really enjoyed.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And this whole thing for me, and I think for a lot of people, started with years back.
Speaker: when Euro Truck Simulator came out.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Just trucking across Europe and that kind of thing and listening.
Speaker: It was just these kind of, these sims were like great ways to kind of waste some time, listen to your podcasts and dull your senses for a little while.
Speaker: And, you know, the joke everyone makes is it's kind of like the same thing as Guitar Hero when that was popular.
Speaker: People are like, why don't you just learn how to actually do the thing?
Speaker: It's like, well, no, it's not that simple.
Speaker: You know, obviously this is meant to waste a little time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Model builder for me might be too similar to what I actually do when I'm.
Speaker: Is it a bridge too far?
Speaker: It might.
Speaker: For me.
Speaker: For me.
Speaker: One toke over the line.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think some people, I think some people will really enjoy it.
Speaker: If you've like always wanted to like put these things together and you want to like fantasize about that kind of thing, you don't already have a desk with paints and fucking minis and like, you know, clippers and all the shit that you, all the accoutrement.
Speaker: If you haven't already invested in that, I can see where it'd be a lovely way to, to, you know, get a good feeling about that sort of thing.
Speaker: But for me, it was the first time with one of these sim games when I was playing it, or I'm doing it, and I was like, I literally got like hundreds of dollars.
Speaker: I've just got a delivery.
Speaker: The fucking... Yeah, the Darkest Dungeon.
Speaker: Does that have models in it to paint?
Speaker: This has models upon models upon models.
Speaker: This is just one of the boxes.
Speaker: I got two boxes.
Speaker: And this just contains models.
Speaker: And it's got so freaking many of them.
Speaker: I would open up and it's got like boxes and boxes and boxes.
Speaker: And it's like hundreds of models in this thing.
Speaker: And for the first time ever with these sim games, I truly felt guilty of like, I could just, if I want to listen to a podcast and paint some miniatures, why don't I sit down and paint some miniatures?
Speaker: Paint the miniatures that you actually bought and have to paint.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And so I will never criticize anyone for enjoying this game and playing this game at all.
Speaker: But for me personally.
Speaker: I just have an image of you sitting there playing the game and like stacks of like.
Speaker: of like models that are just like ready to go, that you need to paint and like the paints and all the tools and like your wife walking in and seeing you playing a digital version of building models while you have your actual models like collecting dust.
Speaker: Gathering dust right next to you.
Speaker: It would be a tough one to explain.
Speaker: It's already, you know, when you marry a non-gamer or something like that, there's already like some explanations.
Speaker: There's a level of disconnect in explaining things.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Because it becomes a little hard to be like, okay, well, and you realize that you don't have the bridge to cross.
Speaker: No, and this is probably the only time that if she looked at me and said, why...
Speaker: You know, if we were playing Guitar Hero or something like that and she was like, why don't you just play guitar?
Speaker: Because I don't play this well.
Speaker: And it's a power fantasy and it's just a party game.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It's not meant to be work.
Speaker: You know, you could do that kind of.
Speaker: But if she came in and said, why are you playing this model building game when there's literally like this orc sitting next to you that you've been meaning to paint for a month and it's got nothing, you're going to have to brush the fuck out of it because it does actually have dust on it.
Speaker: I don't have an explanation for it.
Speaker: You would not have a good explanation.
Speaker: Not in that situation.
Speaker: And I realized it with one simple thing.
Speaker: When you get the model, you open it up, it's in a box.
Speaker: And just like with most models, it's on little sprues.
Speaker: And you've got your clipper thing.
Speaker: And if you've been modeling for a long time, you realize that you don't necessarily go in as close to the sprue connecting to the model as you can.
Speaker: You go a little further out.
Speaker: And then you use like, you know, an exacto knife or something like that to get the rest of it off so that it just, it's a cleaner edge there.
Speaker: And it's not as obvious when you're painting it.
Speaker: And so when I have my clippers in the game and my sprue, and so it was like, you know, snip here to disattach it from these things.
Speaker: And I go, okay.
Speaker: So I get...
Speaker: it just right, and the mouse is kind of sensitive, so I'm getting it just right where I would clip it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And when I do, it just automatically clips it flush to the thing.
Speaker: Oh, I'm way over, this isn't for me.
Speaker: I don't think this is for me.
Speaker: This is not for you.
Speaker: I don't think this is for me.
Speaker: And then the painting sections, I was like, oh, this will be interesting.
Speaker: And it's very, it's terrific.
Speaker: It's a lot of fun if you've never, if you just,
Speaker: If you're interested and you've never done this kind of thing before, it's a fun little time waster.
Speaker: I think it might not be my thing.
Speaker: I think I might be.
Speaker: I think I may have barked up the wrong tree.
Speaker: I may have flown too close to the sun.
Speaker: A little bit too close to the sun.
Speaker: A little too close.
Speaker: Your model of Icarus and your model of Daedalus are too close to the sun and the paint peeled right off of them.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I think other people might enjoy this.
Speaker: I can't, I can't, I can't justify it.
Speaker: For once, I can't justify the time.
Speaker: I just can't.
Speaker: So Kevin, what are you playing?
Speaker: Oh, I have a, I have a whole, I have a whole thing.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So between, we didn't, I, I didn't talk about immortality last episode, did I?
Speaker: No, but you guys have been talking about it in the chat.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I was I watched a Jacob Gellar's video on it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I am very intrigued.
Speaker: I'm very, very intrigued.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: So I was like, I was here's the thing is like I saw I saw Jacob had released the video and I was like, I knew it was going to spoil a little bit of immortality.
Speaker: And I was like, all right, I want to I'm just going to play the game.
Speaker: It's been on my to do list.
Speaker: So Immortality is it's a tremendous, tremendous game.
Speaker: It's an FMV game.
Speaker: Basically, you play the part of
Speaker: you assume some sort of digital archivist who is looking through old film spools on a movieola.
Speaker: And when you go to the when you're looking through the clips, you can click on something in the clip and it takes you to another clip, like a match cut of that thing in another clip.
Speaker: So like, all right, I'm going to click click on a cup and it like, all right.
Speaker: And it takes me to another clip.
Speaker: When you discover another clip that has a cup,
Speaker: with at like the same angle or what have you.
Speaker: And you're unspooling the story of what happened to this actress named Marissa Marcel.
Speaker: And and why?
Speaker: What happened?
Speaker: Where did she go?
Speaker: Why?
Speaker: She's she was in three feature films.
Speaker: None of them got released.
Speaker: And it was like in the late 60s and in 1999 where the were the three films.
Speaker: And it's amazing.
Speaker: And the amount of work that Sam Barlow, who is the creator, and his team did to create three films that thoroughly replicated the styles of the eras that they were shot in.
Speaker: So the first film is called Ambrosio.
Speaker: It's like an erotic thriller, like postcode European erotic thriller about a monk who is tricked by the devil into having sex and lusting and all that stuff.
Speaker: And it's directed by this guy who's like kind of like a Hitchcockian kind of guy with his misogyny and all that stuff.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: And he and it's shot in in like the in full frame.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So it's got kind of like that four by three aspect ratio because it was shot in full frame.
Speaker: Thirty five millimeter.
Speaker: And then the next one is a detective story.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, about an art about a murder in the art world and in Manhattan and it's shot in like the cinema scope that you would find in like a 1970 early 1970s movie.
Speaker: Yeah, the two thirty five to one aspect ratio and all that stuff.
Speaker: And then the final one is shot on like, it's like regular 16 by nine.
Speaker: It was shot in like, it was like 1999 and it's lit like, you know, you'd find like a movie in 1999.
Speaker: It's, it's.
Speaker: Kind of like a film student's dream.
Speaker: Yeah, it is.
Speaker: That's just the aesthetics.
Speaker: And that's the thing is I don't even want to get too far into the story because there is stuff in the story that absolutely blows your mind.
Speaker: And I think it's worth kind of like discovering it for yourself when you go through and play it.
Speaker: So once you go, once you play it, go and watch Jacob Geller's video on immortality, which does a tremendous job kind of re like analyzing one particular scene and and and describing what the the nature of the game is to you.
Speaker: So immortality, it's not that long.
Speaker: It only takes a few hours to play through.
Speaker: And I was being pretty precise.
Speaker: Like I was I was clicking on every scene and all that stuff.
Speaker: And I didn't even find all the scenes.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You don't have to find everything to quote unquote beat the game.
Speaker: You just kind of complete the story.
Speaker: So that's Immortality.
Speaker: The other thing that I've been playing is Signalis.
Speaker: I'm so glad you played.
Speaker: I just got that.
Speaker: I was reading about it and it sounds fucking great.
Speaker: I'm looking forward to that one.
Speaker: Yeah, it's really good.
Speaker: I'm playing.
Speaker: So it's like the best way to kind of describe it is if you took old school Resident Evil and
Speaker: in terms of tone and survival horror nests and like lack of resources.
Speaker: And you matched it with Metal Gear Solid 1 in terms of like camera angle.
Speaker: And you'll understand as soon as you play it, you're like, oh, OK.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like there's actually like little labels, like the way a little thing, like the inspect thing pops up.
Speaker: You're like, is that the Metal Gear Solid font?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Oh, I love shit like that.
Speaker: And some of the sound effects and all that stuff, but also like the general camera angle.
Speaker: It feels like Metal Gear Solid 1.
Speaker: It's really good.
Speaker: I've been enjoying my time with it.
Speaker: I actually...
Speaker: I actually ended up restarting it because it was one of those moments where I was having a lot of trouble and I basically realized I'd wasted way too much ammo like in my initial run.
Speaker: And I was like, I'm going to go back through and just basically save ammo.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Once you learn how to run around things, you're...
Speaker: Like you get more healing items than you do ammunition.
Speaker: So it's like it's like balanced more towards avoid and maybe take the occasional hit rather than kill everything, you know?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: So, yeah, that's signalis signalis, whatever.
Speaker: I'm also trying to install on my Steam Deck.
Speaker: I don't know if the episode will be out by the time on bullet time, by the time this comes out.
Speaker: It might actually be like the following week.
Speaker: I'm trying to install Die Hard Vendetta on my Steam Deck, which was a PS2 game.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And I'm doing it all legally.
Speaker: Uh-huh.
Speaker: Uh-huh.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: I think it's weird that you felt the need to even say that.
Speaker: I think we all assumed that you were.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's all above board.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So Die Hard Vendetta.
Speaker: I got it running on my Steam Deck.
Speaker: It's a god awful game.
Speaker: But, you know, James James said, well, you know, people call Die Hard a Christmas movie.
Speaker: So let's play a shitty Die Hard game for the Christmas episode of Bullet Time.
Speaker: So me and James and Tisnaker are are playing it.
Speaker: And it's a great it's a great game.
Speaker: It's wonderful.
Speaker: It's it's very, very good.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: And Marvel Snap.
Speaker: Marvel Snap just could.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, that's just going to be.
Speaker: I don't have to mention Marvel Snap again.
Speaker: It's just in my mobile game rotation.
Speaker: It's really kind of funny because I haven't had a cigarette in over two years now.
Speaker: And most of my mobile gaming was done while having cigarettes out on my porch or something like that.
Speaker: So I actually haven't played a lot of mobile games.
Speaker: And Emily, on the other hand, loves her little mobile games.
Speaker: She loves that stuff.
Speaker: She plays Sudoku and stuff like that all the time while we're watching movies.
Speaker: And I think there has been this happiness coming from her while we watch a movie and I'm playing Marvel snap or something like that, because I think she feels guilty being the only one watching the movie over her phone.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so when I do it, she's like, I, she actually said, she's like, I think it's awesome that you like this game so much.
Speaker: And I was like, thank you.
Speaker: I guess.
Speaker: I don't know what that means.
Speaker: Yeah, no, I agree.
Speaker: We do the same thing.
Speaker: I mean, April and I basically will do that.
Speaker: We'll sit, we'll chill out and, you know, we'll have something like 99% of the stuff that we watch is not like necessary to to be a thousand percent paying attention to every single shot.
Speaker: You know, I do indeed know what you mean.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So it's like.
Speaker: Like, yeah, we have, you know, well, she has, she'll have her switch out and she's playing, you know, tending to her Animal Crossing Island.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You know, I've got, I've got Snap out.
Speaker: Ooh, I think the new, new, the new week just dropped for Marvel Snap.
Speaker: Oh yeah, I think it did.
Speaker: Yep, it sure did.
Speaker: Okay, great.
Speaker: Here we go.
Speaker: Here we go.
Speaker: And on that note, we'll wrap it up here.
Speaker: Ladies and gentlemen, kings, queens, and thampers, it's been fun talking about eco.
Speaker: Next episode, we're going to have a guest on to talk about Bioshock Mind in Revolt.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: I believe is the title of it.
Speaker: Yeah, this will be a one shot.
Speaker: It's a short story.
Speaker: Short story.
Speaker: Real brief.
Speaker: So until then, please follow us on Twitter, which is still standing at PixletPod.
Speaker: On Instagram at PixletPod.
Speaker: Go ahead to our website, PixletPod.com.
Speaker: And from there, you can find our Steam Curator page.
Speaker: You can find a link to our Discord.
Speaker: You can also subscribe to our newsletter.
Speaker: And people who are subscribed to our newsletter, get the episodes a little bit early.
Speaker: than everybody else.
Speaker: Incentive people.
Speaker: Incentive.
Speaker: Subscribe to newsletter.
Speaker: Get the episode early.
Speaker: And early will vary from week to week.
Speaker: We don't have a system here or anything.
Speaker: We don't have a system.
Speaker: It's not like I have an editor on hand.
Speaker: But early equals when I'm done editing it.
Speaker: Maybe a couple of days.
Speaker: Maybe four months.
Speaker: Because that's how far in the future we are.
Speaker: That's how it rolls, baby.
Speaker: And Phil, we're on Goodreads now?
Speaker: We are on Goodreads.
Speaker: It occurred to me that it's awesome that we have a Steam Curator page where we can talk about the games that we're playing during what are you playing segment and everything like that.
Speaker: And I thought we really should be on Goodreads.
Speaker: so we can actually officially share just the reviews and links and everything like that.
Speaker: So right now, there's no proper backslash Pixelit thing, but if you go to Goodreads and search for Pixelit, you will find us.
Speaker: I'm going to be working on getting the backlog in there, so to speak, along with, and I think this is going to be fun, we're going to have the want to read section there.
Speaker: which will be a big collection of other video game adaptations that we have talked about doing, we've thought about doing, we've seen in lists, etc.
Speaker: So it'll give you an idea of what might be coming down the pipe from us, and it'll give you an idea of maybe things that we haven't heard of.
Speaker: And you can reach out and say, I noticed that this game is not on your list, and you need to read it now, which is what we want.
Speaker: So come and find us on Goodreads, you know, because...
Speaker: It's a, we're just the wave of the future here with social media.
Speaker: Wave of the future.
Speaker: That's, I mean, ghost of future, the ghost of future past.
Speaker: Wait, the past, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, something will do with Scrooge.
Speaker: Fuck it.
Speaker: Yeah, fuck it.
Speaker: We're good.
Speaker: Anyway, have a good night, everybody.
Speaker: Good night.
Speaker: Bye.
