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Episode 13: Sea of Stars
39 Plays1 year ago
Poly & Kj pivot from the planned indie RPG (Chained Echoes) to play a different indie RPG! Come see what they thought of both of the games!
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Transcript
Introduction and Game Platforms
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Turn Based Tangents. I am KJ. I'm Polly. And we're going to be reviewing Sea of Stars today. So one thing to note, we did both play Sea of Stars, I believe, on the... You played on the Switch, right?
00:00:19
Speaker
No, I actually played on Xbox. You played on Xbox? Oh, OK. Yeah, I went way out there. That's right. You played on Game Pass, right? Yes. Gotcha. OK, so I played on Game Pass. I played on the switch. Unfortunately, we don't have physical copies, although I do have a physical copy that eventually will be shipped out to me. I don't know when.
00:00:40
Speaker
So yeah, I'll be getting the physical copy to you because ghosty fun to that. And I was like, I could get the physical copy or I could play or I could get it on switch or I could get digitally or I could play a game pass.
Kickstarter Reflections and Game Memories
00:00:54
Speaker
I get the physical. So that's what I ended up doing. Yeah, I was like. Kind I was like the second wave of kickstarters. So like I'm not in the game because like.
00:01:06
Speaker
I mean, not so spoiler spoiler that they did do like a section where they kind of a lot like put people that kick started it in the game, which is pretty cool looking for your name. I thought I could. I don't think I was. I thought I was there. I apparently I was supposed to get like a code if I was. So I wasn't there. But it's all rip. OK. Yeah, it's all good.
00:01:32
Speaker
But yeah, I think generally speaking, I think we both have a lot to say about the game. Obviously, we started this a while ago, so there might be a couple of things that are a bit rusty, but overall, I think I retained a good amount of the things that I had to say about the game. The story specifics might not, for me, might not be super on the top of my head, but
00:02:00
Speaker
Yeah, I think I'm trying to find a way to. OK, there we go. One of the. One of the biggest things for me, but I think. Things will probably be more fresh for you, Polly, I know.
00:02:15
Speaker
You do not blitz through the game like I did, because I'm crazy. Nah, no, you're totally fine. I mean, I would have, I would have if Sir Freak says it's really different. I'm trying to look where I'm sorry, I'm distracted because I'm trying to look the right way. There we go. I got married and that just took over everything. True. But.
00:02:41
Speaker
But yeah, so there's a lot of things that are still kind of fresh in my mind, but there was also kind of some downsides to doing it that way, which I think I'm pumped to talk about because. Yeah. So, I mean, why don't you kick us off then? Let's just jump into
Switching from Chained Echoes to Sea of Stars
00:03:00
Speaker
it.
00:03:00
Speaker
Alrighty, yay! So this is our review. Wait, should we talk about chained echos first? Actually, yes, let's talk about chained echos. Okay, our chat's literally gonna like throw hands if we do not talk about how this was our second choice. Yeah, so originally we were gonna play chained echos for this. And then we played chained echos.
00:03:25
Speaker
And it was pain. And by pain, I mean, I actually put the game down. It was, Polly was going through it. You were, I feel like you were fine. I was ahead of you. I was like so powerful. I'm like, I'm ahead of KJ for the first time, like six months. I struggled so hard with that game. I was like, I can't do this. This game sucks. Like I, the game was so bad that I forgot that we played it.
00:03:55
Speaker
I almost jumped in to see a star's conversation. I almost put 10 hours into the game. And I was just like, I can't it's a snooze fest. And it wasn't fun. Like, and I also wasn't a big fan of the aesthetic either. So it was a combination of a bunch of different things. I was like, well,
00:04:19
Speaker
This game ain't it. But yeah, I was just like, yeah, this game ain't it. Apparently it's from what a lot of people say it's a good game. I, however... I don't think I'm ever playing that game. Again. Playing that game again. Yeah, exactly.
00:04:44
Speaker
Yeah. So KJ was feeling it a lot less than I was. I found the aesthetic pretty
00:04:56
Speaker
jarring because the like the sprite work for like the characters in the animation doesn't match the background very well and as an artist I kept like really like at first I was like oh this is pretty and I just find myself looking at the background art until I started to like really piece it together and I was like
00:05:14
Speaker
This this is separate styles. So I found it a little bit aesthetically. My brain was just not competing really well with it, but I kept kind of pushing it through one because I felt powerful. I was ahead of KJ as anybody's tuned into one of our episodes before he usually is ahead of me and or beats games before I do. So I was like almost like pretty close to, I think,
00:05:40
Speaker
Act two or chapter two I believe it's broken up into chapters or acts or whatever I was getting really really close at the part where one of our community members and dear friend of ours P stone had said that this is where it gets good and either one of us made it by the way
00:05:58
Speaker
I apparently made it close to the end of Act One as well. Like I was close. You were just by the end because I hadn't played it for a couple of days. And when you finally dropped it, you were like a half an hour, an hour behind me or something like that. You were we were very, very close. I think I either just hit act two. Yeah, I think I just hit. I think I hit like just hit chapter two or act two or whatever. But
00:06:26
Speaker
I feel like a lot of people love this game for a few reasons. One, it mixes a lot of RPG game elements into it that a lot of people like from other RPG games. It was done by a single developer and a composer. So there's more support for that. Like shout outs to doing an entire game pretty well to yourself. That's incredible feat, even if it wasn't my cup of tea and everything. But for me,
00:06:56
Speaker
The slow is is a long period of slow. The battle system was really like mushed together with so many different other battle systems like kind of like shoved together that it just it just felt like
00:07:11
Speaker
I saw where they pulled all their references from and they didn't really make it. He didn't end up really making it in his own thing. He just kind of like mushed it. And while I was really intrigued for some of the characters and I found myself just kind of like overanalyzing like the backgrounds of the sprite work and stuff and really kind of pushing through it.
00:07:29
Speaker
Um, when KJ was just like, I am really not feeling this. This is a snore and he was really dragging him on. I just was like, do you want to pivot? Because we had another game in our back court that both of us wanted to play as well, which was also an indie game, which is the game we're reviewing today.
Sea of Stars: Inspirations and Music
00:07:47
Speaker
See a star. So I was like, do you want to just pivot to this? And he's like, would it be awful if we changed? And I was like, no, man, like, I'm not going to force you through this.
00:07:57
Speaker
Because some of the community members ended up beating Chain Decos. Shout out to them. They keep joking that they're going to take over the podcast one of these days and they're going to do the lost episode, the Chain Decos episode. Are they going to wear like a poly wig? That would be hilarious.
00:08:22
Speaker
But yeah, so we basically did like a complete 180 and we just were like, hey, we're gonna play Sea of Stars instead. And I think
00:08:35
Speaker
That was good for both of us, because I think we both clicked with Sea of Stars way more. I mean, both games, I think there's a lot of parallels you can draw between the two games in the sense of like, both of them were definitely inspired by a lot of other retro RPGs and stuff like that. So I do think that you can at least kind of
00:09:04
Speaker
go from that. But in general, comparing the two, I mean, I only played the two or the like nine hours, but with a chain echoes, but I was just wasn't for me. But yeah. And as I just mentioned in our little chat there.
00:09:23
Speaker
I was so disjointed and I found out that like some of the assets and stuff like that were, were bought or whatever. And that's why the art style is a little weird, but like, I get it because he's making a whole game and got kickstart funded and stuff. But if you go back and you look at the early previews of chain decos on Kickstarter and the early development, I actually like the style better, um, because it looks more like it looks more cohesive and more, more.
00:09:51
Speaker
what he was going for, and I think that would have actually portrayed that a little bit, but I might be in the minority of that opinion. But yeah, so we both kind of thing, and then we talked about it, and we're like, nah. And ultimately, we like to do these things, and a review of saying, hey, we didn't make it through the game is still a review, but... Yeah, you get two reviews today for the time of one.
00:10:15
Speaker
Yeah, so like our quick review of chain decos is like we both dropped the game. We were, we were bored. I could tell our community members who were trying to play it alongside us was also bored. So for the most part, I think, I think Pstone's one of the, like, I think Pstone's one of the only ones I know who beat it. Pstone and Dark beat it.
00:10:39
Speaker
Yeah. Peace. Don't beat it. Dark beat it. And then any, anybody we've talked to who liked the game, it's obviously beat it. But, uh, anybody, a lot of people who were playing it alongside us were kind of struggling like we were. Put this on record. I did not drop Koudelka.
00:10:56
Speaker
This okay, I want to say this cuz like like best twin best when you better still be listening Okay, she played through co-delta, but would not It's better than chain echoes carding KJ say what I said All right, oh Goodness
00:11:27
Speaker
Okay, so we're gonna get into, we're gonna, yeah, we gotta redeem ourselves in terms of like,
00:11:33
Speaker
the indie RPG community or they're going to be canceled by the indie RPG community because they're wonderful. We don't want to be canceled. I've already said enough about a lot of the mainstream RPG companies on this podcast that we can't get canceled by the indie RPG community or we're literally going to get canceled by everyone. So let's start doing good things. Let's start giving our thoughts on CS stars.
00:12:00
Speaker
Yeah. So, as the game we pivoted to, Sea of Stars is also dubbed by Indie Studio. A little more than just one person. I think the team is in the 20s. Yeah, but I'm not sure how big the team is. I'm not 100% sure. They've put other games out before. They've done other games and stuff or whatever. Sea of Stars was also Kickstarter funded. So, it was another portion where they were funding on Kickstarter and it like blew their
00:12:29
Speaker
uh, goals out of the water. Um, so much so that they're doing, they, like KJ had said earlier, he has the physical copy coming. Um, they did do a run of like people being like, do you want a physical copy of this? And collectors being like, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. So, um, which is really, really cool. So, uh, similarly to the chain echoes, it was also Kickstarter funded.
00:12:50
Speaker
Uh, took a few years into like development or whatever it was released. It was the other game we were both interested in and we were torn between doing chain decos or sea of stars. We kept kind of going back and forth. Um, so we pivoted to sea of stars and we both actually beat it. We did actually beat the game. You're not wrong. Sorry. I had to throw that in there.
00:13:13
Speaker
Um, we need to, we need to counter and chat of how many times from here on out, we're going to grow shade at Shane. That goes, that's really bad because again, it's, it just wasn't our cup of tea before anybody comes in and yelling and canceling our entire podcast. It just wasn't our cup of tea. We realize there's a lot of people who love it. Uh, there's no flack towards the developer. That's incredible. What he did with, with himself and the composer, like it's great. It just wasn't our cup of tea and something we wanted to.
00:13:42
Speaker
Uh, keep pushing through in hopes to, for it to pick up and everything. It was just like, so it's like, you know, sometimes that happens even with big games, big RPG games that are, um, done by triple a studios. Uh, I'll just, I'll put that vaguely triple eight studios. Uh, sometimes those don't jive with us and stuff like these either. So it's just a matter of it comes down to personal taste. Um, and we didn't like chain dev echoes for numerous reasons, but for those same reasons, we didn't like it. Other people liked it.
00:14:12
Speaker
So yeah, go out and try it and see if it's your jam or not. Like, you might like it, you might not. Our community was kind of 50-50 divided between finding it really boring and didn't want to go through it and whatever, and then actually really loving it. And in actual fact, we have a few community members who love it more than Sea of Stars.
00:14:35
Speaker
So yeah, that is true. Yeah, so anyway, let's jump into the actual game. So I think the first thing I want to comment on is the music. The music, fantastic.
00:14:49
Speaker
So that's something that I think, because I think a lot of the other talking points about Sea of Stars, we're gonna start comparing to other games and talking about the inspiration. But I think in general, Sea of Stars definitely felt like it had its own feel, music-wise, at least for me. I didn't necessarily feel like it was overly drawing inspiration from too many other places. I know, I think there is,
00:15:17
Speaker
one track that did remind me of something in Golden Sun. But overall, I felt like Sea of Stars had sort of its own identity from a music perspective. Yeah, from the OSC, and honestly, I found myself listening to the music a lot. During the playthrough of the game, off the playthrough, heck, a lot of my starting students
00:15:43
Speaker
things on stream featured the OSTFC stars because it was just, it was really, really good. And like you said, like there was a song, and I know the song you're talking about that kind of sounded like Matoi influence, um, and, uh, and everything, but like.
00:16:02
Speaker
It was really good. They do reuse tracks. It's kind of a typical thing of old JRPGs where they'll do some tracks and then they'll remix those tracks as being slightly different. Well, Sea of Stars does this too, which I think is a nice little throw canny that not a lot of people caught.
00:16:22
Speaker
to older RPGs and stuff doing that. But they do it in a way that was really, really clever. And we'll get into it a little bit later when we get into the spoiler topic of what I mean by how they did it cleverly. But even when they were using the same tune,
00:16:39
Speaker
but they like slightly altered it later on in the game. It was still, it was still a jam. Like you still were like, yeah, that's great. It didn't feel like, Oh my goodness. I'm listening to the same song over and over and over again. I agree. They, they put enough of a twist on it on any songs that they reused to make it feel like it was different.
00:17:00
Speaker
Exactly, yeah. The OST, I have no, not even a single minute complaint whatsoever of these music.
Character Writing and Design in Sea of Stars
00:17:08
Speaker
The music was freaking fantastic. They did a really great job. Was this the game that Yasunori Mitsuda did a song? Mitsuda had a song on it, I believe, yeah. Yeah, had a track with it, which, I mean, he's a legend in all himself. So for those of RPG fans have heard his music and Croto Cross and
00:17:28
Speaker
and Chrono Trigger and things like that and Xenogears and stuff. He liked the looks of the game so much, I think he reached out to them and was like, hey, I want to do a track for this game.
00:17:41
Speaker
I think is how it happened. So yeah, he ends up doing one of the tracks for the game. And it took me a little bit to figure out which track it was. And I can't, because it took me so long to play through this game, not because of the game itself. It was because of life stuff that I forget which track it ended up being. But yeah, I ended up being like, this is it. And I looked it up and I was like, yes, I was right. I just listened to the music and I'm like, this sounds good. I'm happy.
00:18:09
Speaker
If your game doesn't sound good, I'm just going to mute it and keep playing.
00:18:13
Speaker
Yeah. And that's the thing is like, especially because so, so Steve stars doesn't have any voice acting, which is totally fine because it's paying homage to like the, like pixel RPGs and stuff like that. Right. So, well, I mean, pixel RPGs can have voice acting, but I mean like the older pixel JRPGs and stuff. It's more trying to go in that direction. Um, so it's totally fine. I actually didn't find that I needed voice acting at all. I didn't either.
00:18:37
Speaker
The game picture how the characters were like just from how well it was written. Like the characters were written really, really well in terms of like how you think they would sound. And so I didn't I didn't need it. It was an overly dialogue heavy to the point where you felt like, oh, my goodness, I'm reading so much that I need. Yeah. Yeah. Like it felt true.
00:19:04
Speaker
Wow. It felt like it was enough that it was like, OK, I can read through this. I get the the personality and the development of the characters, but it's not like I'm reading a novel.
00:19:23
Speaker
Exactly. Yeah. They have enough development, but it's not, like you said, it's not pushing its luck where then you kind of wish there was voice acting with it. And so, because you don't want to read a book, more or less.
00:19:39
Speaker
Um, and so yeah, they do a really good job with that and the art style honestly was fantastic. I can see tiny bits of references in it. Like when you're on the overworld and you're, you go like mini version, um, that was like inspired by Chrono Trigger. Absolutely. Like, I mean, I think a lot of the game, a lot of the game, a lot of the game, there was like so many little hidden things that were not even hidden. Pretty obvious legs.
00:20:06
Speaker
of, like, they loved Chrono Trigger. You could tell the developers of this game loved Chrono Trigger, and they wanted to keep sliding these little references in it. But they did it in a way that, while, yes, I recognized it, it wasn't like, oh, this is just Chrono Trigger. Oh, this is just Chrono Trigger clone. Oh, this is just copying this. It didn't, it never felt that way at any point playing through this game. It was more like, oh, I know where they got that. Oh, yeah, I remember that.
00:20:35
Speaker
such a like gameplay wise, even like little things like you said like very, very small details.
00:20:47
Speaker
It was like, wow, they pulled this from this game. They pulled this from this game. I think I was keeping a list at some point and there were like six or seven different RPGs that I was like, oh, wow, they pulled stuff from this and they drew inspiration from this. So honestly, in that regard, they definitely captured that sort of retro feel by sort of drawing inspiration from so many different things.
00:21:11
Speaker
Yeah. And not making it super like this is now what this game is and losing itself. So sometimes when games take inspiration from other games, they can get overclouded to the point where your game becomes just that other game or a clone of that game or that sort of stuff. Right. There is a too far. This was definitely, I want to throw these aspects into the game as like a respectful, like
00:21:39
Speaker
throw to them kind of thing and see if the fans who've played these games will recognize it. But it wasn't so over the top that I felt like it overtook the game and lost its game identity because of it. So they did a really good job at balancing that. Like there was like a little like enemy where the two enemies are kicking the enemy between them and it's like, roll it like they're kicking the enemy between each other. And I was like, well, that's a Chrono Trigger enemy right there. Like you're very close to the start of Chrono Trigger game. You end up with enemies like that.
00:22:08
Speaker
But it was more like, that's funny that they did that.
00:22:11
Speaker
Yeah. They even did the thing. There's a I don't remember the exact details in Chrono in Chrono Trigger, but there's an NPC that you talk to and they basically just like like basically tell you to get out of there, get out of here or whatever. And if you keep talking to them, they give you something that literally happens before you leave the first area in Sea of Stars.
00:22:38
Speaker
It's like, yeah, all the person just hanging out by a random cliff. And I was like, I'm going to keep talking to this person until they give me something, because I know that this is going to be a I know that this is going to be a Chrono Trigger reference. And sure enough, it was. Yeah, exactly. Like, like little things like that, where it's like, it's more for like fun aspect of it than it took away from anything. Like that was just a random character that.
00:23:00
Speaker
didn't have any significance to the plot or anything. And some of them, the random enemies, they had stuff like that. And some of the moves the enemies did or some of the moves that you learned throughout the game were homages to different RPG games and stuff like that, too. But all of it was like little things that made it. You're like, oh, yeah, this is what's going to happen. And it kind of rewarded you as a fan of those other RPG games it was drawing from, like Chrono Trigger and stuff.
00:23:28
Speaker
It rewarded you because you knew to do that, right? You knew the guy standing on the cliff was a reference to Chrono Trigger as you just keep talking to him and you're like, I know I'm going to get something if I keep driving this NPC nuts, right? So it was something like that where it's like as a fan, but somebody playing Sea of Stars and never playing Chrono Trigger before or any of that sort of stuff might actually miss that.
00:23:50
Speaker
or miss that little aspect. They might've talked to him and like, okay, whatever, and keep going. Like, why is there this random NPC in the middle of a, like an area surrounded by like any bees, more or less. And, and they might've just like kind of moved on with their day and not caught it. And it wouldn't have been any worse or like, it wouldn't have been any, like, not gone into it. It didn't necessarily take away from the experience. Yeah.
00:24:14
Speaker
Yeah. And so like they do a lot of little bits of that, that kind of bring it in. And then the overall pixel style they went with and the characters, like the characters were so detailed. Yeah, the character designs were fantastic.
00:24:28
Speaker
Yeah. Like I instantly fell in love with one of the two main characters, Valir. So this pulled a little bit of a star ocean sort of thing where star ocean two sort of thing where you got to pick ish, not as in depth, nowhere near as in depth. But again, they had a little bit of thing where you could choose which of the main characters you wanted to be. Did you want to be Zael or did you want to be Valir? And so I thought, first of all, already, I was like, thank you for giving us an option.
00:24:58
Speaker
But also too, I fell in love with her design right away. The blue hair aesthetic. I was like staff kind of was just my jam. I was like right away. I'm like, yep, failure it is. That's who I'm going to be. And so and all the different characters had so each one was so unique to the next one. Um, that like,
00:25:23
Speaker
I found myself using everybody. Yeah, no, I used all the, I definitely used all the characters. Cause I think they were like, cool. Like they all looked cool. They had all great animations. They all had different special abilities. Like it was fun. Yeah. And they all, they all also had like different, um,
00:25:40
Speaker
like elements we'll call them, for lack of better words. But I think going back to that point that you made about the choice, one of the things that really bothers me in games, and it's funny because it even comes up in my favorite RPG of all time, right? The illusion of choice.
00:26:04
Speaker
The illusion of choice is really obnoxious for me. And it's something that, again, it bothers me. They give you these two characters. And my thought was, OK, there's going to be some difference. As far as I know, there is no difference between which character you choose. No. So that is something that I think is a little rough.
00:26:35
Speaker
I don't think
00:26:54
Speaker
difference I think there might have been slight dialogue changes maybe but yeah because they let you choose but then you need both of them yeah you pretty much like throughout yeah there aren't the game you you're using both of them like yeah
00:27:10
Speaker
Which is also kind of like what Star Wars 2 does, but the difference between the two is that Star Wars 2 has it where you have different endings you can get for the different characters and different aspects and stuff. And you see different scenes depending on which character you are. You get different party members depending on which character you are. It goes that layer deeper where it makes you feel like your choice ended up mattering.
00:27:35
Speaker
because it does change the game. Whereas this one, like it's still, you need to use the two characters, but the choice really doesn't seem to matter on which character, like at all. And I'm with KJ, I don't think there was, besides a few little dialogue changes, there was a difference. That is a really good point. It does say that it doesn't matter too much, but even if it's still giving you the choice,
00:28:03
Speaker
makes it feel like a little bit. I don't know. And at least they actually told you right at the start in the little menu, this won't really affect your gameplay.
00:28:15
Speaker
But you're right, still having the choice there. It was like, okay, why does this matter then to give this option? But also, at least they were a step ahead of it and being like, okay, before we complain too far of it, we as developers are gonna put this disclaimer there. That was great.
00:28:39
Speaker
they did as we continue to talk about the game, you'll like we can talk about how there were a lot of quality of life things that they did to make it feel like to do that, to basically make you feel a lot better about various things. So, yeah, I think in that regard, I agree.
00:28:59
Speaker
Even though they did give you a choice and the choice doesn't really matter, at least they warn you that it doesn't really matter all that much. That's at least better. But I think going back to what you were saying about the character design and all of that, the character design is fantastic. And the battle system, we can kind of talk about that a little bit here, but the battle system does force you in a way to either
00:29:23
Speaker
Like you can brute force it. It's not gonna be fun, but like you can brute force it but it does kind of force you to use all of the characters because of the way that like the Lock like the block like break system thing works where it's like you want you need to use like different elements and stuff like that and each character that you get has Specific elements. So it's like you pretty much have to
00:29:53
Speaker
use those different elements to be able to to go through. And again, you can force it, but it's not going to be nearly as effective. Yeah, you're going to have a bit of a hard time if you try to just only use the same three party members all the time, which honestly is great for a game to make you use your party, like actually use it, because there is so many RPG games that I've played where there's characters I've never used.
00:30:23
Speaker
Oh yeah, same. And there's times where I've played through them multiple times. Yes, and still not used them. I've played through Final Fantasy. I've beaten Final Fantasy 10 three times. I have still never finished a playthrough with Kamari. Same. Yeah, I've never used Kamari. It's just one of those things where some characters, they just don't vibe with you.
00:30:53
Speaker
Yeah. And like final fantasy nine, I have never done a play through with amaranth. Um, and actually used amaranth. Um, and I know you don't, you you've never used like Freya or you've never used in final fantasy nine. Nope. Yeah. So I've used, I've used amaranth. Like I've been through the game because you just like, like in those games, yeah, you gravitate to particular character and amaranth wasn't my jam, but amaranth was your jam. Yeah.
00:31:19
Speaker
In this game, they get you to use everybody. You can't have a favorite party you default to, which is what I did. I had a party that I defaulted to based on skills and different things like that. But you often, and we'll talk a little bit about it, speaking of Final Fantasy X, Sea Stars does something that Final Fantasy X does.
00:31:42
Speaker
but a little bit better in terms of making you use your party. So Sea of Stars had it where you could swap your party around mid-battle, which is a thing that Final Fantasy X does. And it's something that I wish more games would do, because I think it's really cool. And it was such an awesome aspect of it. But where Final Fantasy X lost it a little bit was certain characters, like you said, like Kamari, you didn't ever really actually had to use.
00:32:08
Speaker
Whereas in this game, because everybody has a certain element or certain skill set that is necessary depending on certain enemies that you're fighting or certain bosses that you're doing, or even just certain components of the game that you're doing, you constantly had to switch between them. But you could do that mid-battle, so it took that and then was like, hey, we like this idea, but we're going to make it so that you have to use all the characters.
00:32:38
Speaker
And you're gonna have a party you default to, but it's so easy to swap them in and out and you don't have to worry about going back into the menu or being weak during that fight when you're like, oh crap, I have three characters in my party that don't do very much damage to these enemies right now. You just swap it right on the go, which is fantastic.
00:33:01
Speaker
I love that. I love that. It reminded me so much of Final Fantasy 10, but just took it that little step forward to make you use everybody and made everybody feel important. Yeah. And it's funny because as it's coming up there, I am notorious for picking
00:33:19
Speaker
my favorite characters and then sticking with them. Like that's what I do. I play a game. If I play an RPG, I find a party that I like. And unless you give me a party split or you force characters into my party, I'm picking those characters. And so like there was one time in particular, the Lost Odyssey. It's a five character party and you get like, I don't know, like 10 or 12 characters. And
00:33:43
Speaker
I was like, end game. I'm like fighting super bosses. And one of the super bosses requires this certain character. My party was in the 60s. The character was level 20. Oh, oh, no. He was like the annoying little kid. And I just never put him in my party. I'm like, he's not good. He's like he's absolutely garbage. And
00:34:08
Speaker
It's not worth having him in the party. And then I needed to put him in the party. So I had to level him up. Good thing I was able to power level him. I just put him in the back and just defended the entire time until he got to like level 50. Then I was like, all right, now you can do something, I guess. And see, I kind of find those aspects trash where it's like, unless it was a gameplay mechanic where he was forced into your party a lot early on or at certain points, I feel like that's kind of like real frustrating to do that. I know it was a super boss, so it's probably optional. So that's.
00:34:36
Speaker
super like into the thing. But there are games, RPG games and stuff like that, where like they force certain characters into your party, party regularly to get you to use them more. Or sometimes where it was just like, okay, now you need to use this character and you've never used them for like the entire game. Have fun.
00:34:58
Speaker
I like how CS stars did it. It made me use all the characters. It made me appreciate them and their different quirks and abilities more because I would have defaulted like you to my party that I liked. Like, you know, the three are three characters that I really liked. I would have just like kind of defaulted to. But this game was like, no, no, no.
00:35:22
Speaker
You're going to use everybody. And I was like, OK. And then I got appreciation for like all the characters in the end. See, I guess while we're talking about the characters, I I struggled with some of the characters. And the reason I struggled with some of the characters was because. It was either one extreme or the other, I felt like either. They like. With the main characters.
00:35:51
Speaker
They were silent protagonists that weren't actually silent protagonists. If you catch my drift, in the sense of like, they...
00:36:02
Speaker
I feel like- Because the choice didn't matter? Not even just because the choice didn't matter. It just, they felt more like this is the player rather than these are two characters in the game. Like they just, it didn't have personality. The personality came from all of the rest of the cast, literally. All of the other playable characters had far more personality than the actual main characters. And that for me,
00:36:32
Speaker
is one of, if not the thing that I struggled with. Like, one of the things that I struggled with the most, if not the thing I struggled with the most, was that, like, by the end of the game, obviously I had the main characters in my party, like, because I was using all the characters, but, like, if I could have just locked in a party, it would have been everyone that wasn't the main character.
00:37:03
Speaker
Oh, fair enough, yeah.
00:37:06
Speaker
thinking about it. How do I feel about that? Um, I think, I think maybe they went like kind of too much in the middle. So where it was like, they were trying to give a bit of personality, but then they were also trying to make it the character you. And then like, for example, I actually thought Valir had a few more lines and it definitely felt like she was more the one that people hoped she would, you would pick. She was definitely the favorite. Definitely the favorite.
00:37:35
Speaker
There's a few little dialogue things where it made me kind of skew to that. And I found she did have a little more, a little bit more to her than Zael. I did kind of fall flat with Zael. He's just like, every time you had the camp and he's just doing pushups at the corner being like, yeah, let's do this thing. I'm like.
00:37:54
Speaker
what the fuck? Okay, cool. Um, but like, funny enough, I picked Valley or so. I don't know what she would have been doing if I was sale. Um, but, uh, but yeah, I,
00:38:08
Speaker
You're right. I feel like they could have maybe given, given the two main characters a little bit more considering how much personality they gave or just completely not at all like a chrono and chrono trigger where like he, he has no lines pretty well. Um, whereas Valir and Zael and stuff still had lines. It just, I guess, I guess maybe at certain parts it lacked a little bit of,
00:38:35
Speaker
develop well not development but a little bit of I don't know character feeling I don't know like I got a little bit from it from Valier that's why I ended up like like she ended up becoming one of my favorite characters but I also admit that I liked her abilities and I liked her aesthetic and those were the more the draws then
00:39:04
Speaker
Um thing, but I mean I guess we could talk a little bit about the story so And I feel like it kind of came a little bit with the story and how they don't react to it too Definitely. Definitely. They so the whole thing is that um, they have they have souls so they're kind of like a world with this village that has these solstice warriors, so
00:39:29
Speaker
What I mean by Solstice Warriors is that they have one from the sun and run from the moon kind of just get dropped off by a stork. It's a little weird. When they're like babies and like they dropped into this village and then they get trained on these powers and one has the power of the moon and one has the power of the sun. And so from babies, they were kind of like dumped.
Main Character Critiques and Potential Improvements
00:39:52
Speaker
So like,
00:39:53
Speaker
they don't know who their parents are or any of that sort of stuff. They were just kind of like, to be like, you have the task of saving the world now. And they're like, but, but, but, but children. So when they're like little kids, you see a little bit more of their mischievousness. Like you see Zael being a little bit more mischievous and like trying to sneak out and valor being like, ooh, and they have their like little friend. And as kids, they had a little bit more to it and kind of being a little bit defying, but still,
00:40:22
Speaker
being like, okay, we understand that we eventually have to do what we're tasked to do, but we're little kids, he, he, he, we're gonna, we're gonna kind of goof around a little bit, which is right at the beginning and stuff. But yeah, it's, it's hard to say because it's like part of the plot line, but then also, I don't know how they would have been able to do it better.
00:40:42
Speaker
So I think, so here's my thing, right? Like I made a comparison to, so I think the comparison can be made to Yuna in Final Fantasy X, right? So it's one of those situations where, like you were saying, they were dropped off, they're basically like sheltered children that have a single purpose, but they still have a friend that can kind of open things like,
00:41:11
Speaker
open up like have them open up in terms of like their personality with with their friend girl. Right. Yeah. And then they're also sort of able to see.
00:41:23
Speaker
how the generation of solstice warriors before them are kind of interacting as well. Those, all three of those characters have far more personality than Valer or Zael, in my opinion. Both the previous solstice warriors as well as Garle, right? And I think that this is where I think that the story kind of could have been more in the sense of like,
00:41:50
Speaker
In the case of Yuna, yes, Yuna in Final Fantasy X, very monotone, very like, she starts off very closed off. However- Which is kinda sheltered. Yeah, and like her only interaction was really with her, with her guardians, right? Or with her father's guardians.
00:42:08
Speaker
Right? So she didn't get that as much. But as she starts to go on her adventure and starts to be around Titus and then be around the rest of the Guardians and have various different experiences, she opens up a lot more.
00:42:25
Speaker
Now, you're true. Yeah, it's kind of like by the end, you're more into Eunice character. I felt like from when they were old enough to basically control or at least semi-control their powers and you're like playing with like playing as them as adults or teenagers or whatever you want to call it. That was it. That like they.
00:42:50
Speaker
It didn't feel like there was a couple of other events that like really made them sort of go like progress, but like it still did. They still felt flat.
00:43:10
Speaker
They still felt that to me. Yeah, even with just like at the start or whatever, you have the two of them and their best friend, Garl as little kids and stuff like that. And that's where the mischievous comes out of is because Garl is being also mischievous. He's not supposed to see them and he sneaks sees them anyway.
00:43:27
Speaker
um sort of idea and um he ends up right at the start getting injured because of them just kind of being like we're kids we can do it let's go do this cave and they he gets injured by an enemy protecting them it's really really sweet and stuff like kind of a learning lesson but that learning lesson more cave with like garl than the other two and
00:43:51
Speaker
he kind of had the personality of the, like, he kind of like carry, carried the two and stuff like that. And they were a little bit more like, yeah, okay, we're, we're going to be heroes. Let's do this thing. Let's just go forward. And neither one of them had a varied personality of each other. So it wasn't like, Oh, Zayo was like, always like running in headfirst into the battle and they'll be like, no, and Valir's like the one who's like thinking through, it wasn't anything like that. It was just kind of like they were both.
00:44:19
Speaker
the same and having two character types, the same as your main character, I get because they allowed you to choose and they didn't want you to, I guess, maybe feel like your choice actually like hindered your thing. But at the same time, yeah, they do give a lot of personality to the other characters. So I mean, all the other party members you get, you get some pretty in depth, um, like emotions from them.
00:44:49
Speaker
Even the non-emotional by the end, or the freaking, one of the characters or whatever is a freaking glass or whatever. But like, yeah. I do VST, which you mean?
00:45:07
Speaker
He's my guy. But like, yeah, so I could see where they did kind of miss the mark where if maybe with Falir, they would have had like a little bit more of something to her rather than her and Zael just kind of always being the the two to do everything, the two that are kind of like carbon copies. Having one character like that is not so bad, but I like having both of them like that. Like maybe if they would have given just a little bit of something or a little bit more of
00:45:36
Speaker
emotional reactions. I feel like I had more of an emotional reaction in this game at times. Certain things, but we can get to that later. But I think for me, that was one of the things it was like, like I said, I couldn't get attached to the main characters. So it felt like the things that were happening in their world
00:45:59
Speaker
I couldn't like that broke immersion for me a little bit. And I think it's one of those things where like now it's almost in my opinion better for me now that I've had a lot of time to think about this game and think about how I feel about it. Cause again, I really enjoyed the game, but I think now that the hype has died down for me a little bit, it's like, okay, this game was good, but I had a lot of issues with it in that regard. So.
00:46:26
Speaker
That's fair, and that's completely valid. I think I bonded with Valir quite instantly because of aesthetic and weapon choice and just her play style. I will still argue that she had a little bit more to her than Zael, because I do believe that their developers very much believe she would be the favorite, so they gave her just a little bit more. But I can definitely see having the personality be all the other characters.
00:46:53
Speaker
um, kind of separating your feelings to it. And like, even so at the start of it, they're kind of growing up as little kids, but there's already two solstice warriors for the sun and the moon that kind of become their little bit of a mentor in the beginning of the game. And
00:47:14
Speaker
they actually had at least one of them. Um, I feel like the other one just kind of being like, um, do what you say, um, have a little bit more personality to them, even though they had been tasked for the same thing. Um, there's reasons why we will talk about in the spoiler section of stuff, but, um, yeah, I think if they,
00:47:38
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. I see. I see what you're saying. I guess, I guess for me, that didn't take away from the game for me when I went through it, but I can understand somebody. I can understand yourself being like, nah, this took away from me, which is totally valid because you want to see your, you want to see a portion in the main character that you connect with. Like.
00:47:58
Speaker
in other games and stuff like that. Like even like for example, Isaac is technically a bit of a like a non-talking character in Golden Sun. Not even 100% Isaac is a silent protagonist in Golden Sun. You can super connect with him because you're able to do like the choices and stuff like that. And they're scripted like there's not scripted but like
00:48:22
Speaker
It's an illusion. It's the illusion of choice. So like you can kind of get the personality because you still have like you can't actually make a decision. But a good point was brought up that Valera was probably the. Supposed to be the main character, but there were probably like some for some reasons, whether it was budget or time or whatever that you like, she probably wasn't because again, like going through the game,
00:48:52
Speaker
There was a drastic discrepancy in the number of enemies that were weak to the lunar attribute versus the sun attribute, like the solar attribute. It was massive. It was a pretty big gap, yeah.
00:49:14
Speaker
It was a pretty big gap. Yeah. Like most of the enemies being weak against lunar magic, which means you had to have value in your party a lot more. Um, honestly, I think, so this is what I actually think they should have done. I think they should have made value or the main character.
00:49:28
Speaker
And then while yes, Zael is there and they're having to do the duel thing, because I think that aspect of the game was also really fun. Having like the whole sun and moon sort of like scenario and like there's aspects later on in the game where that kind of happens and you're like, okay, this is kind of fun. Um, but they should have let Zael be a secondary character with a lot of personality built into it. Like girl, like, like the other characters that you get, if they would have just,
00:49:59
Speaker
went head first into Valir being the main character. And then kind of like if they still wanted her to be a little bit more like the silent protagonist thing, that's fine. But give Zael something or vice versa. I have a thought. It's going to be a little spoilery. So I think we'll. I'll give anybody a chance to like.
00:50:27
Speaker
kind of anybody that's in chat, a chance to kind of mute or anything like that. But I have a thought as to what they could have done with Zael if they went the route of making Valer the main character, because I think they could have very easily. Lipped a couple of things and that would have actually made it a bit more interesting.
00:50:51
Speaker
Rather than having yes, this is a little bit spoiler again mute if you don't want to hear this If you have a piece of my drift as to what I'm what I'm saying. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so so like yeah, I think yeah, you know what? So we're gonna we're gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna be We're gonna get the game got changed to sale. Yes Rather than having budgets Satteros and minority from Golden Sun and instead
00:51:18
Speaker
Instead, putting Zael in that position, and with one of them, it didn't have to necessarily be the other, but then making the other one a playable character in place of Zael, I think that could have been really cool. Yeah. Or even if they still wanted to give the element of choice, and this would have been taking the game to the next level almost, they give the element of choice,
00:51:47
Speaker
Whoever you choose, the other one becomes that type. And then the game shifts a little bit of like the elements being weak against one or the other. Yeah, that would have been awesome.
00:52:01
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it's such a, but like in the scope of things, it would have been a big drastic change to the game. But in terms of like the character personalities and the development, I feel like Zael kind of gets pushed aside. I feel like a lot of people I've talked to don't, we're just like, eh, you there kind of thing. But with Valir that she was like, yeah, she was there.
00:52:26
Speaker
but she's cool. Like, you know, you know what I mean? It's a very different, um, when you hear people talk about value or rather than sale, I have not somebody who was like, yeah, sale. Nope. And I think that would have actually added that little extra layer because I mean, those two had that like development
Connection to The Messenger and Character Introductions
00:52:44
Speaker
thing. And like you said, it definitely, it definitely felt like golden sun. Definitely felt like old set with those two. Um, they could have easily taken that aspect out and yeah, put it as the other character you didn't choose.
00:52:57
Speaker
Um, and it would have been like kind of a game changer. I think that whole element that develops between those two, um, as the, like the mentors of the, of the kids or whatever, and everything that develops there, that being one of the kids. I think would have, I think that probably would have solved the, um,
00:53:17
Speaker
Um, I think that probably would have solved the feeling of that the, we had these two main characters that were bland. Yeah, I agree. And apparently like some of, so one thing that we do have to keep in mind and isn't, yeah, isn't this like a sequel to a game they already did? I believe this is a sequel to the messenger, which is an earlier game that they put out. But the problem that I have with that is it's in a different genre.
00:53:46
Speaker
it's more of like a platformer, not exactly the Trevania, but like kind of, or it's a prequel to the Messenger, sorry. So like, that's really tough for me because- I almost think they should have just- Made a separate game. Not tried to connect the two. Yeah, I agree. Because I think that would have allowed them a little bit more- Freedom.
00:54:14
Speaker
freedom to to make the story a little bit better or make it make it make a little bit more sense without because I do think there were parts of the game that if you played the messenger. You probably were a bit more excited about because it's like callbacks to the messenger and stuff like that, so. I don't know, it's it's tough, it's really tough.
00:54:42
Speaker
Yeah. And like, I haven't played the messenger. I do want to play it, but like platformers are a little bit more my cup of tea than yours. Um, but I do, I do want to give it a shot to kind of see like the connections and stuff by that. But yeah, I think almost, I think almost they would have, I would have been a little bit better if they just kind of did their own thing. Even if people were like, Hey, this kind of connects to this other game they did. And they're like, Oh, I don't know. They could have had a little bit more freedom to do what they wanted with particular characters, I guess, maybe.
00:55:12
Speaker
Yeah, but I mean, overall, I think, again, they did a good job for all of the like situation that they. Yeah, and honestly, this this was pretty impressive for for the small team that put it together. We'll talk a little bit more about the characters and stuff like that might be a little bit spoiler for anybody who doesn't know all the characters of the game or which characters you get.
00:55:40
Speaker
But the other characters that you can get in the game is Garl, which you get him pretty early on. He's kind of the goofy, fun-loving, positive, always looking on the brighter side of things, best friend of the two main characters. And he also starts off being like, the only thing I could do is cook.
00:56:04
Speaker
And it's like all right cool and Kind of goes from there. So he's one of the characters you get right away and he's just kind of like fun-loving And And then you who do you get after him? Do you get yeah you get Sarai where she's kind of like this mysterious like running with the Pirates kind of kind of gal and
00:56:28
Speaker
Um, she's got, she's, um, uh, she's got some, like, she's more like where girl was just kind of like, he's just regular. Uh, he doesn't have an element or anything. Uh, but with her, she had like poison element.
00:56:44
Speaker
And a really broken ability. That's that. Oh, yeah. The disorient I used to delay the delay. Oh, yeah. It's called disorient and it just delays the enemy's turn again for a couple of rounds. So the really cool thing about the combat of this game is when you're fighting enemies, they have like a little number above their head, counting down to when they get to
Battle Mechanics and Relics
00:57:06
Speaker
attack.
00:57:06
Speaker
So sometimes that could be a strategy to kill the enemy that has the highest number before they ever get an attack, or if you could kill the enemies before they get an attack off and stuff. I thought it was kind of neat. Yeah, the combat system is awesome. Yeah, it's fantastic. So Sarai has this ability where, let's say it's got down to one, she can like go up and kick the enemy and knock it back to three.
00:57:31
Speaker
So it has now three more turns it has to go. And I abuse this ability so much in boss fights so many times that I found myself using Sarai almost all the time. Because I would just build up her MP again, do that, and then just kind of like keep going kind of with the aspect, right? And just like delaying them, delaying them. And it was stupid broken and it didn't cost that much MP.
00:58:00
Speaker
to it and I found I was doing that a lot with the mechanics and the mechanics was really really cool the game because you could like time attacks so that's really fun like you attack an enemy if you press the button right away you time it but you also could time it defense this is very Super Mario RPG if you've ever played that game before it was a game that came out in Super Nintendo it just recently got a remake in November which is cool
00:58:24
Speaker
But it has the time attack and time defense. So when an enemy attacks you, even if it's multiple times, you could time defending, which will reduce your damage taken. But if you time the attacks, you do an extra attack, which makes you do more damage. And then all of their special abilities also are timed.
00:58:45
Speaker
all of them. It took me forever to realize Garle's like nourishability where he he throws an apple at you and heals. If you time that he throws a sandwich and it's like a guaranteed full heal. Yep. It took me forever to realize that could be time. Like I just kept thinking like the attack ones were times.
00:59:05
Speaker
But like, yeah, you could do some like major damage and then you can even time the heals to make the heals better. And it was just the combat system I found myself loving play fighting enemies, fighting enemies, fighting bosses and stuff like that. And like,
00:59:26
Speaker
All the enemies had different weaknesses. Sometimes they're weak against different elements. Sometimes they're weak against different attacks. And sometimes you could even do a scenario where you know how I said the little counter goes down, so they have a three or two above their head before they attack. Sometimes they have a few little, they'll show a couple swords or a couple hammers or a sword and a poison.
00:59:54
Speaker
And if you do those before they get off their attack, it breaks them, which is like it breaks them. You do more damage and stops them completely from doing the attack, which is the other way to stop them from attacking that disorient, which is the rise move. And so I think that aspect of the game made boss fights a lot more interesting because a lot of the bosses had that a lot of the bosses had.
01:00:21
Speaker
It was it was also very interesting because and I kind of saw this similar to like Octopath where it was like the patterns were always the same for certain attacks certain formations different things like that so you could kind of
01:00:37
Speaker
regroup and get your turns if it was an attack that wasn't exactly going to do all that much or wasn't gonna be that bad and then when there was an attack that was going to be a problem you could then sort of figure that out and I think it was funny I felt like in a lot of boss fights what I did was I was scouting and like had my like uh my
01:01:02
Speaker
full heal that Zael and Valer had, and then it was just like, okay, I scout, see what's gonna happen, see what the big attack is, use the full heal, and now I'm basically gonna go through and say, okay.
01:01:16
Speaker
What do I need to guard against? How can I just like do damage until I'm ready to like really try to break and then go from there? So it was really interesting to kind of plan things out like that, because again, it felt like I was playing Octopath where I was that that's literally how I did it, where it was like, OK, I'm going to plan out each and every one of my turns to make sure I can just break the boss when I need to when it's the most convenient and then go from there. So good. It was so good that you had that like power and like
01:01:44
Speaker
Every time you leveled up, so you leveled up as a group. So you had a group leveling system. So every time you would attack, kill enemies, you would get experience to the overall. And when that got down to zero, you, all of you leveled up, everybody leveled up.
01:02:00
Speaker
And you got to pick what stats to put your you got a choice between four stats would come up on the screen of each character. Sometimes it was MP sometimes it was HP sometimes it was attack defense or tack up magic magic defense up or physical defense up.
01:02:19
Speaker
And so you had the ability to choose these, but every time these came up for my characters, I dumped it generally in MP. Oh, same. MP and HP were my, like, I tried to balance- MP, HP, unless they weren't there. I tried to balance, I'm not gonna lie, like I did try to balance it out, but there was a point where I was just like, okay, I need to go MP because being able to use these abilities was just too good.
01:02:47
Speaker
Yeah, the abilities were fun. It added that little extra layer of strategy to the boss fights and the fights that you were doing. And it was just so good. So you wanted to get as much MP to every character as you possibly could so that you could have more to use those special abilities and have fun with it. So, uh, yeah, I did the same thing. I started out with like Valir. I put into attack. Zael, I put into defense. Oh, I don't know. Garl, I put into defense. Zael put it, went into magic.
01:03:16
Speaker
And I was kind of doing that for a little bit, but then I found yeah, it made more sense to throw it in MP and HP Yeah, no, I was I went MP early
01:03:26
Speaker
And then once I realized, okay, I don't necessarily need to just do MP, I can also make sure that I'm attacking and then getting more of the magic that you can use with your weapons, with your regular attacks and stuff like that. I was like, okay, I just want to be doing more damage now. So then I just went damage numbers.
01:03:49
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And it was neat that it gave you that control, too. So like if you wanted to just do crazy damage and stuff like that, you could do that. If you wanted to spam the MP moves, you could do that. It gave you that little extra bit of control over your characters, which I think was really cool. And shaped them a little bit more like my Sarai had so much. She could do disorient, which you could like kick somebody like three times in a row. Yeah, I think it was like three times. Yeah.
01:04:17
Speaker
Yeah, it was it was way too OP. And oh my goodness. And throughout the game, as you keep kind of progressing the game, you start getting like you you end up unlocking ultimate abilities. So every character has an ultimate ability as well. And did you ever notice if you could time those? You can. Can you? Okay. Because I was never sure if I was ever timing it or not.
01:04:45
Speaker
Yeah, everything in this game has a timed hit. I'm pretty sure like I'm I'm like 99 percent sure you can time those special abilities. I kind of tried to mash the attack button at certain points of each of the cut scenes to see where it was. But I don't know if it ever gave you an indicator if it did. Aside from more damage. But but yeah, that was the only thing where I wasn't 100 percent sure if I was seeing the damage go up or not.
01:05:14
Speaker
with the ultimate abilities. They're the only ones that I wasn't sure if they actually were timed, everything else was, including all the different heals and all that sort of stuff too, which was really, really cool. And the thing is, is like Zael's heal getting better when you timed it tipped me off to Garle because I did it and I was able to time Zael's and I was like, wait,
01:05:40
Speaker
I wonder if I could do this with girls nourish, too. And I just ended up getting the sandwich one time. I'm like, oh, it is different. Got the I got the sandwich early. And then I was like, oh, I can time this. OK, cool. Yeah, I didn't. I didn't. I just I just for some reason, my brain went to heels. You didn't have like heels. You didn't attacks. You did. And then I'm like, wait, wait. When I was timing, it was a I was like. Wait, and then I got the sandwich was like.
01:06:07
Speaker
Yeah, I think and on the on the topic of the timing thing. So I didn't use really any of the relics. So they had this was something I thought was really cool. They basically had like there wasn't a difficulty setting, but they had these items called relics that you could turn on and off.
01:06:26
Speaker
to do like different things so they can make the game easier, they can make the game harder, they can like add like quality of life stuff. The only relic I used was the one that showed the indicator for the timing.
01:06:39
Speaker
Oh yes, yes, I put that one on too, yeah. Basically what would happen was there would be like a star basically that would come up whenever you timed it correct. So that was something that was really nice. And honestly, that's something that, so this whole timing system and all of that is very much a callback to Mario RPG, as Polly mentioned earlier. And one of my problems with playing the original Mario RPG
01:07:06
Speaker
which I played fairly recently, like a year, a little over a year ago for the first time, is that I never knew when I was perfectly timing some of the hits. So for me, it was like,
01:07:21
Speaker
I knew like I had played Paper Mario before, so I knew the attacks and the defense like you could time stuff, but it was really hard to know that. Whereas in the in the.
01:07:39
Speaker
and Sea of Stars, with that relic on, it was really easy to see, oh, I'm timing my attacks at the right time to do more damage. I'm timing my healing to heal more HP. I'm timing my defense to make sure that the enemies are doing less damage. So it was definitely a case where that relic, albeit the only one I used, it was fantastic.
01:08:05
Speaker
Yeah, that was the only one I used too. You're right. Cause I liked that too, because at first when I was doing it, like I could tell with the attack because you know, they would attack and then attack, right? So I knew when I timed it, I would get two attacks. Great. But some of the moves you're right. It was, it wasn't very obvious if you timed it or not. And so having that relic on where it showed the little twinkly stars,
01:08:29
Speaker
when you timed it was so nice. And it was also so satisfying. I found every time I see those stars, I'd feel a little bit satisfied. I'd be like, yeah, I did this. And I like that aspect. It was the only relic I think I ever used to. I don't think I used any of the other ones, because the other ones were like to help with the difficulty of the game or that sort of thing. And I didn't feel it was that bad.
01:08:56
Speaker
No, exactly. I'd say maybe if somebody struggled with timing their attacks regularly, that maybe they might struggle in some of the fights and stuff like that of doing enough damage in time for things. It would just make things go on longer, maybe be a struggle that way. But for the most part, yeah, I didn't see a need for any of them at all.
01:09:17
Speaker
Um, but maybe like more beginner players into the RPG or, uh, um, timed RPG kind of games. Um, maybe that would have been more helpful for them or even like just a new player who just wants to play through this game for the plot line, uh, turning some of them on would have made things, uh, easier to kind of like zoom through. Um, yeah, I could not have, I could not have made the game easier. I think I game over.
01:09:45
Speaker
once or twice and the first time, I think I came over to once and it was because I didn't heal before a fight and it was like in the tutorial. I didn't heal in the. Oh, yeah, that's right. It was with the.
01:10:00
Speaker
Elder, I did not heal in the tutorial and game over because I saw your rage on that. Yeah, I was like, you got to be kidding me. Like you came over. Yeah, that was the only time that I really like I didn't I don't like. If you're somebody that has played a lot of RPGs, you probably will be fine.
01:10:23
Speaker
Yeah. And honestly, there's also, I think there's also a couple or at least one relic where it makes the game harder. There's multiple harder. Yeah. If you, if you really want, if you're like, Oh, I'm just breezing through this and you're like, really want to challenge, you could also put on a couple of them to make harder, which I think is freaking fantastic. All of them are easily obtainable.
01:10:48
Speaker
No, they're not. Kind of some weird spots and you're just like and one of the one of the wings that made it easier was in kind of a struggle spot, if I remember correctly. So it was like, OK, but they were fun little things to like kind of find around. Like you said, I you didn't use it. I didn't really use it except for the showing the indication when I got the timing. I also just found that noise satisfying.
01:11:13
Speaker
like the noise of the sparkles alerting me that i timed it well was just satisfying to to to have noise but it it was a good indication fair enough fair enough um yeah so uh with the rest of the characters uh so with surai uh then you get this like
01:11:35
Speaker
all-powerful alchemist guy who's like it was really really cool because the story like he's telling the story a little bit which is kind of neat um and then he sort of joins your party for a while and stuff and uh he has ish and he has a very
01:11:54
Speaker
interesting mechanic like he throws like jars and you have to like time the jar perfectly like he has two jars he throws one and another you have to time them perfectly so the two jars collide and like the timing with that one was took me a little bit to get used to but uh was really fun and the gameplay of him was really uh very unique in that aspect um he had a few moves that like pulled enemies together or healed the party or
01:12:21
Speaker
that sort of stuff. So he kind of, but he also very much made it clear when he joined your party that he would not be using his power to its ultimate. Cause he is like, he has to be more neutral. So he will like assist, but assist at your level, which I thought was kind of fun. Cause it was like, okay, at least you're explaining why you're not dummy powerful on like some RPG games where the character is stupid, crazy, powerful. And then you get them in your party and they suck. So
01:12:52
Speaker
or they're crappy, and there's no explanation why. Whereas in this game, they thought about it. They're like, okay, he's an all-powerful alchemist kind of character. We're going to add this in as an actual plot thing of being like, no, no, no, he has to still remain neutral, so he has to lower his power to your level, which I was like, okay, I can respect that. That's why you're not stupid powerful anymore. Got it?
01:13:15
Speaker
Um, so he was really cool. And then as you kind of go through the game, your last character, you got a whole, you got a whole time zone. He had a whole time zone and he was one of the most unique characters for an RPG party.
01:13:37
Speaker
He was made of glass. I'll let you talk about your boy. It was honestly, it was just like, I felt like it was, it's really interesting because this is, I'm going to catch a lot of, I'm going to catch a lot of slack for this, but like, I think almost everybody's favorite character in this game was Garl. Except for me. Except for you, I was going to say.
01:14:04
Speaker
No love for warrior cook. No, it's not that I like I girl was not a bad character. I just I talked about earlier. I wanted him to push the main characters more to open up and I felt like they tried to do too much with girl in the beginning of the game, making him like.
01:14:27
Speaker
both the adventurous character and the comedic relief and stuff like that. Like they just tried too hard to make him fit too many roles. And I don't know, he just wasn't, he wasn't for me. Like I think
01:14:47
Speaker
when they added this character in, I was so hyped, because I was just like, this is what I wanted Garl to be, but it's just like they added him into the game late. I also think I do have a slight soft spot for characters that get added into games late, just because like- I was gonna say Amaran, anybody? Because like, they don't get a chance. They never get a chance. Nobody gives them a chance, usually. In this game, they forced you to, but like,
01:15:14
Speaker
I'm going to continue to call him BST because I thought it was funny. I looked at it and I was like, that's a time zone. So yeah, no, that was, that was my boy. The funny thing is, is you called him BST. I called him just like, you know how you do your cats going. I just kept being like.
01:15:37
Speaker
I'm pretty sure it's like beast or beast or bust or something. I know I'm not getting the direct right at all. But like, yeah, I think. Yeah, I like to girl like girl ended up winning my heart a bit because of his personality. But you're absolutely right that when your time zone living glass guy comes into the party, yes, it's late, but he's so strong.
01:16:06
Speaker
like he's so strong his attacks are really high he looks cool when he's fighting because his glass morphs like when you're like walking along an edge he turns into a wheel
01:16:19
Speaker
Or we're near the water, he's a bottle. He's just a bottle floating in the water. He changes his shape a lot, which is super interesting. His ultimate move is he floats up to outer space, drops, turn into a giant alligator thing and eat everything and blow everything up. It is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen for a freakin' finisher in an RPG. Well, probably not the most, but one of the.
01:16:49
Speaker
And like, he's just so entertaining to keep having at the party because I was like, look at him. And I kept pointing to Enno and be like, look, he's in different shape. And Enno just kept laughing at me. He's like, okay, I get it. But it was always like funny to me. It was always like, oh, I love this. I want to see what shape he'll be next.
01:17:06
Speaker
Um, because he's literally like molded glass with like this like ghosty pink with cutesy eyes in the center, big thing, glass robot thing. And he just changes his shape and stuff like that. So, uh, I thought honestly for him coming in late, he was still one of the most interesting characters of the game. Oh yeah. And that's kind of what I meant by like the personality thing. Like.
01:17:36
Speaker
All of those characters had personality. Yeah. It hurts. It hurts. I think they could have done. They could have done a little bit more. Yeah. And I think going back to your idea with the sale thing, I think that would have been genius. I think that would have been cool as hell.
01:17:51
Speaker
Even if they had it kind of revert back by the end and to keep it in line with the lore and everything, I think that would have made the main characters a little bit more. But at least we had some pretty awesome party members. And Living Glass was pretty great. Sarai was pretty great with her broken move, oh my god. And then the Alchemist guy was just an interesting mechanic for me, so I found myself using it.
01:18:17
Speaker
Carl does end up a little flat for me, but they start off the game basically setting you up for that because he's like, I can cook. And he just grabs a random pot lid and goes, OK, this is my weapon. So like he was very much just like a regular guy being along for the journey. But because of his positivity and his personality and stuff accomplishes great things, which is like, OK, cool. That's that's fine. So I was forgiving with him like being not as like
01:18:46
Speaker
not as strong at the end of the characters and stuff like that. I still found myself switching to him or whatever for like the nourish ability or the healing ability or sometimes with some of the combo moves. So you start unlocking or you you don't unlock them. You find items in the game that unlocks combo abilities between characters. And I didn't end up finding them all. I found most of them. I think I had them all.
01:19:10
Speaker
I was very close, if not, no, I think I was still missing like one or two by the end, but I was just so tired. Fetch quest the game that I was just like, whatever. But yeah, so you went around and in certain chests, there were these combos that you would unlock between the different characters and stuff, which I think maybe a few of them you learned when you got the character or something like that. But a lot of them were hidden in like chests and stuff like that, which I thought
01:19:38
Speaker
was also like puzzle chess like things that you had to do puzzles and stuff like that yeah yeah exactly and i kind of like that in the sense of like it gave you a reason a little bit more to like explore more and like loot chests and stuff like that because you might get you might get really cool equipment but you also might get this cool combo between your characters that suddenly becomes op
01:19:59
Speaker
So there's a lot mechanically of this game that's done really well and like the overworld and all that sort of stuff. Like when you went to the world map, I thought it was well put together. It's really neat that in the game, once you get the ship and you can like kind of go around, there's a bird on the ship that if you click on different islands, it tells you if you're missing anything on those islands. So like treasure.
01:20:27
Speaker
and stuff, which is really cool. They made it a little bit easier that way. The one thing that I felt was a letdown mechanically was the fishing game. I was sad. I love fishing games in RPGs. I could spend like 60 hours doing them sometimes. But Sea of Stars, while they had the fishing mechanic in it, it was really simple.
01:20:56
Speaker
really didn't mean anything as opposed to a couple instances of game where you needed to do it but otherwise it doesn't really do anything except for giving you a little bit of food to cook with so it just didn't feel like it just didn't feel necessary and the mechanics weren't
01:21:18
Speaker
intriguing enough for me to want to sit there for hours and fish.
Mini-games: Fishing vs Wheels
01:21:23
Speaker
Well, that's because the real mini game was wheels. Yes. So I wanted to talk about the bad one first so that you could talk about the good game. I spent so much time playing wheels. It was so good. Like, oh, my goodness. It's just like- Describe wheels to us, Cajun. Yeah. This is just a mini game that most people preferred. It's a combination of like, I don't know, you get each to...
01:21:47
Speaker
On each side you get like a couple of different pieces. You get two pieces that you can choose and your objective is to attack your opponent directly and like do like 10 points of damage or whatever. And so you basically are like playing Yahtzee but with like slots and you're stopping them and then
01:22:10
Speaker
leveling up your characters and like leveling up a wall for you like there's a bunch of different things you're leveling up and stuff and then once you level stuff up to a certain point there you're attacking and it's just you have to play it honestly it's one of those games where like it's hard to really explain like I was trying to explain it to somebody fairly recently and I was like
01:22:32
Speaker
I can't really explain this. You got to play it. It's so much fun. It's kind of like a chess tower defense kind of like little it's it's yeah, it's really hard to explain. But what it's really the funny thing is, it's hard to explain what kind of mini game it is, but it's really easy to pick it up.
01:22:49
Speaker
Like I found it was very good at explaining how to play. And then kind of like, just like letting you, okay, now trial and error. And until you sort of figured it out yourself. And like, I learned better by like doing, so it's like, blah, blah, blah, blah, not reading the manual, just going to do this thing.
01:23:10
Speaker
Yes, that has burned me in so many games. I mean, with with wheels, I just was like, OK, I'm going to learn how to play this. And that's pretty much what I did. I was like, this looks like a game where they're going to explain stuff and it's not really going to matter all that much because I'm just going to have to play it. And then you start as you get more pieces, you start realizing how different pieces interact with each other. And it's just so good at wheels.
01:23:41
Speaker
Wheels was the best part of this game, like easily. If they made a wheels, if they made a wheels side game,
01:23:53
Speaker
I'd pay like 30 bucks for like, I'd pay like 30 bucks for like 15 hours of wheels. Easy. Easy. Like that is wheels. Wheels was so much fun. Like I had such a good time playing wheels. Like I could, I could legitimately sit down and just play a wheels game. Hell I might load up sea of stars after this just to play. Just to play more wheels. Yeah. I don't know if I've had more fun with a mini game.
01:24:21
Speaker
Then it's kind of like how the Witcher took went out of the Witcher and made its own thing. And people like we're so happy over that. And people play GWENT like crazy because they love the minigame so much. I would love Sea of Stars are the creators to do that with wheels. I think it's so much fun. It can be so much more. They could add so many more layers to it. They can make it its own thing. And people would love it and spend money on it. Yeah. Wheels pretty much was
01:24:52
Speaker
Honestly, I think, other than there's a mini game, there's a Trails mini game. Those are probably my favorite two mini games. There's a Trails mini game and wheels. Those two mini games are probably my two favorite mini games. The Trails mini game doesn't come until like, Cold Steel III, but yeah. Oh, all right, well, Rip. Yeah, no, you've got a long way to go. It's like a year and a half away from me. You've got a long way to go.
01:25:20
Speaker
But wheels, wheels was a freaking blast like and every time I found a new area, it was like, all right, I don't care what's going on in the story. Who's trying to play some wheels? Like, where's the where is the wheels table? Where's the in? That's probably where the where the wheels table is. That's where I'm going. Like, easy. Like, that was that was one of the first things on like from like a completionist. Like, I didn't 100 percent the game or anything crazy like that. But no, I didn't mean it is standpoint.
01:25:50
Speaker
I went to get all the wheels, trophies first. Nice. Yeah. And it's cool because they allowed wheels and like every pretty much every town, every main had wheels. Yeah. There was a few few other areas that you could unlock later or whatever by doing different things that you can unlock more wheels to play until you finally do like the ultimate match or whatever. I was just saying one of the things they were like,
01:26:17
Speaker
If you get everything, you can play the wheels grand master. And I'm like, oh, that's going to be me. I'm going to be the wheels grand master. You know what they should do at PAX East is like the creators of see a star should go to PAX East and just have a tail table where you could play like wheels in real life against people. That would be so cool.
01:26:37
Speaker
sake about it like because they could just 3d print the little different characters you could be you could set it up like it'd be very easy to like just 3d print a lot of the components of it and then just literally play wheels like think about it i would just sit there at PAX East i would not leave the wheels table
01:26:56
Speaker
We all would be so much fun. I would. It was so good. But yeah, it's just a fun sort of mechanic. It was one of the more fun minigames I've played in a really long time. It's up there for Gwent. I play Witcher 3. I'm notorious of never beating the game. Because every time I load it up, I get into Gwent and then it's like a card game in the game. And I get super addicted to it. And then I just don't beat the game. I don't play the game. Don't forget Star Ocean.
01:27:22
Speaker
At Star Ocean, yes, we did that for the podcast. Last year, it was last year we did Star Ocean, right? 2022. No, the year before. 2022, yeah. And so we did Star Ocean and Divine Force, and there was a minigame in there. KJ wasn't too fussed about this one, but I liked it because it was kind of like a chess sort of thing, but the big thing is they gave you pawns,
01:27:45
Speaker
of characters from different Star Ocean games. And I just suddenly was like, I need all the pawns from every game. And I just like got stupid addicted to this mini game to collect all the pawns. And I ended up being very close if not got them all. And that was how KJ was with wheels with Sea of Stars. And he's like, I'm doing wheel. The funny thing is, I was like, yeah, I'm at this point. And KJ's like, I'm doing wheel. Like every time I talked to him about the game, he was doing something with wheels.
01:28:15
Speaker
I definitely played some games of wheels that just extra like it was like, oh yeah, I already beat this person in wheels. Well, screw it. We're playing again. Oh my goodness. Wheels are so good. I think they'd be so great if they did like they made wheels its own thing and did like a multiplayer aspect where you could go against other people. I would be I would do I would do a freaking stream of wheels like, all right, who's challenging me?
01:28:40
Speaker
Um, but yeah, like I, I think it's a great mini game. I really hope they don't just like leave it and see his stars and never do anything with it ever again, because it's one of those mini games where I'm like.
01:28:51
Speaker
Nah, this is such a smart idea. I like the, you could pick like different pawns. Like one was like a little mage and like a little soldier and a little Archer and a little thief. And like, it's just, and then they did different abilities to attack like the other person. And like, it's so neat, but it's so hard to explain. So it's like, guys, just place your stars for wheels. You'll understand. You'll understand. Yeah.
01:29:16
Speaker
We should just do a video for YouTube for after this of like, just you playing wheels. And that's like a 10 minute video. Like a thing of you doing all the different wheels games. Just to show people what it actually is. But yeah, so I forgave the fishing mechanics being bad because they at least had a mini game in it that was good.
01:29:43
Speaker
It was unfortunate the fishing kind of got like thrown to a side, but I see that they put a lot of focus into the wheels minigame aspect of things. Yeah, I mean, they definitely put more time into wheels than they did the fishing minigame. I feel like the fishing minigame was like kind of like more or less an afterthought.
01:30:07
Speaker
like here here you could fish in this game but yeah so I'm glad that we still got like a pretty good mini game in the end and like one that's like I've not
Spoilers and Endings: Sea of Stars
01:30:17
Speaker
seen a game do quite like that before that's why it's so hard to explain
01:30:24
Speaker
Yeah. So should we should we jump into like I guess it's always tough because we want to talk about more of the story, but we also don't want to spoil too much. And I think I think it's such a hard time to get a balance of it, right? Yeah, I think there's what we probably should do because we've already alluded to one of the spoilers earlier. We might want to stay away from that one.
01:30:46
Speaker
I think we should talk about, because one of the most controversial things about this game is the ending versus the true ending, right? So I think we might want to talk about that and in turn that's going to inherently spoil something big that does happen.
01:31:07
Speaker
We are gonna jump into some pretty big spoilers for Sea of Stars. If you do plan on playing and want to avoid spoilers, please do so because our us talking about this is gonna in turn spoil part of the true ending.
01:31:23
Speaker
Yes, so probably spoil both of the endings a little bit. It might also spoil a little bit of what happens about halfway through the game and stuff like that. So yeah, this is this is spoiler time. If you haven't played through this game or you plan on playing through this game, maybe maybe right click mute the tab for now and we'll say in the chat when we're done, we'll we'll type in the chat when we're done talking about spoilers so that you can jump back in.
01:31:54
Speaker
We'll type it in the chat when we're done talking about spoilers so you can tune back in. Yeah, so first bit that I want to talk about before we get to diving into the endings, because I think that's where both of us are going to kind of go ham a little bit on our opinions.
01:32:14
Speaker
But one thing I want to say is that I should have expected this with the name Sea of Stars because Star Ocean did this to me too. But halfway through the game, there's like a world shift. And I actually really like how they did this world shift in Sea of Stars to the point of making it easy to go back and forth.
01:32:39
Speaker
when you've missed something or need to do something or whatever purpose where the game sends you back or forth and back and forth or whatever. I did actually really like that portion of it and I feel like it kind of, the atmosphere, everything of the second world is so dang depressing and bleak
01:33:05
Speaker
From the music to the art style aesthetic to all the NPCs conversations in that world to like the more you learn about the characters from that world.
01:33:20
Speaker
And dive into it is so bleak. And this is what I wanted to comment on with the music. So I said earlier in the podcast about the music having similar songs repeated, but then done in a way that was clever. This is where they did it. They repeated some of the music from the first world, but they made it sound
01:33:43
Speaker
bleak, sad, or more mechanical sounding with like mechanical kind of noises and beats and stuff like that to make it sound more cyborg-y sort of thing because that's kind of what the other world features a lot of and I thought that was incredibly clever because it pulled me right back in again into the world.
01:34:05
Speaker
So it made me really connected. The music, even though it was some of the same tracks from the other world, they did a really good job of like integrating it and making you feel like you were, you know, there and the other one, but still connected into the sea of stars universe sort of thing. So they did that so well. I was really impressed with that. It was cool. I do think like.
01:34:28
Speaker
And I think the game in general did a good job of that, just like setting the tone for the game. Yes. With the music. We talked about the music earlier, but it was really good. I 100% echo everything you just said there.
01:34:46
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And they do a great job with setting up the story. They do a great job at pacing and all that sort of stuff. And then when you switch, when you finally figure out who a character is in your party, and then it switches to that other world, I was like, this is depressing. But in the sense of not that the game was bad, just that I was like, this world is so sad. This is so awful. I can't believe it was the worst case scenario happened.
01:35:13
Speaker
and like actually worse than the worst case scenario. And so- You're making me feel like such a bad person. I was just like, Ooh, I want to learn more. I'm like, give me more lore. Yeah, I was like, I was like feeling so many emotions in this game. It was wild. And this is one of the aspects of it.
01:35:41
Speaker
And so yeah, on the topic of emotions, that is a very good segue. So the spoiler that we were talking about, so about halfway through the game, the fan favorite character dies, gets killed off. So- I cried. I bawled my eyes out. I was full fledged tears. I will admit it. I know KJ wasn't, but I will. I was just like, damn, they did him like that? That's crazy.
01:36:10
Speaker
Especially because at the very beginning of the game he like jumps in the way when they're little kids it gets like his eye taken out Yeah, they still they already did him dirty And then they're like halfway through the game they're like yeah, we're taking it all now
01:36:28
Speaker
But okay, so that is a really see coming. I didn't. This is one of the first times in a long time to care. Well, not true. Their character does usually catch me by surprise. But like this got me this actually got me in the fields because of the way they built up Garth throughout the game as being like kind of like the level of positivity.
01:36:49
Speaker
And everything, I saw a little bit of myself in him, and then suddenly they took him away, killed him off, and I was falling, and I hated it, and I was mad, and it was so hard to keep playing the game. I almost quit the game at that point. I was so upset over this character dying. I almost stopped. I almost stopped playing the game. And I admitted that into talking to some of our community members who were also playing the game.
01:37:15
Speaker
I like straight up admitted like, this is really hard to push through. And everybody kept encouraging me being like, no, no, no, keep going, keep going. Like, and I was like, I was just so upset. I had to put the game down and be done with it for a few days and go back to it. Yeah. And see, for me, it was just like. I'm OK with character with minor character or like support character death or something like that, especially
01:37:44
Speaker
if it pushes the gameplay of, or the progression of the other characters, right? So character dies, it's like, oh, okay. If that pushes the growth of the main character or supporting characters or whatever, then I'm cool with it. And it definitely felt like it did that a little bit and it gave them more of a sense of why they wanted to keep going.
01:38:13
Speaker
And then unlock their ultimate moves, too. Yeah. And and I enjoyed that. I think I do think that even though I don't think the characters had much growth or development, I do think that that definitely was the big moment that pushed them. Now, my problem with this is and this happens in a lot of media is when a big character death like that happens,
01:38:41
Speaker
And I mean, depending on the form of media, like in TV shows and stuff, a lot of people complain and then they kind of like somehow figure out a way to ease a character back in or some crap like that. Yeah, my problem is with the true ending. So, I mean, I guess I have a couple of problems with the ending. I think you can talk about the one thing, but I'm going to talk about this because my problem is you you have such a powerful moment.
01:39:12
Speaker
And then with the with the true ending, you end up in a situation where you basically revert that and it's like. It's fine, like story wise, it makes sense. Story wise, why they did or how they did it, why they did it, all of that makes a ton of sense. However. I don't like it because. I would rather the character stay
01:39:40
Speaker
stay dead and them sort of their death means something to the characters. But like, really, what happened was this character died. So they just took the character away from you for 30, 40 percent of the game. And then the true ending happens and it's like, oh, well, now I guess they're kind of back. And it's just like this is it.
01:40:10
Speaker
it reverts a meaningful moment in the game. And it's such a powerful moment. It was the, it was, it was the, it was the moment of the game. It was the most like, I know they probably like the hinted little bits of it, but like you're going through the game and stuff like that. He definitely foreshadowed a little bit, but it's still one of those things that like, I mean, it's the same thing.
01:40:37
Speaker
Final Fantasy VII spoilers coming for anybody that hasn't heard. Yes, thank you for talking about this. But it's the same thing as all of the conversations with Final Fantasy VII Remake, where people are like, oh, people don't think that the iconic character that dies in that game originally is going to die in Remake. And if that happens immediately,
01:41:03
Speaker
I'm not going to play the rest of Final Fantasy 7 Remake because I have my issues for that with how they've set everything up, but I will still respect the game as a good game. I acknowledge that. If they don't kill off that character and they continue to call it a remake, that game is trash. I don't care. Like if they don't, if they remove the most iconic scene from that game,
01:41:32
Speaker
and don't recreate that and try to call it a remake, that game is garbage. I'm sorry. I do actually agree with you strongly on that because it is such a pivotal moment of that game that if they do not still have it there,
01:41:49
Speaker
I think they've lost a big pivotal moment piece of that game. And for me with with Garle and the way Sea of Stars did it is that if it was the biggest moment, one of the like, there's a few little reveals and a few little things with the secondary world and stuff like that that were big, but like that was the big, that was the big moment. That was the oh my God, my heart hurts. That was the part where I almost stopped playing the game. Like I was super sad about it. Like that was the thing. And then they just,
01:42:18
Speaker
snap their fingers and everything's better and i get that that is a trope with movies and tv sometimes tv shows and stuff like that where they they set this up where this big iconic character dies or this big person thing and then they somehow like foreshadow them of being alive they kind of again i don't want to spoil with final fantasy eight for people whatever
01:42:39
Speaker
But they've done this like kind of in like they've done the reverse in Final Fantasy games as well as as doing it in like Final Fantasy 7 where they took the pivot. But in Final Fantasy 7, they took the pivot like that moment and they kept it. And that's why with the remake, I agree with you that if they do not keep that in the game, I feel like they've lost a big part of it. And not only for that character,
01:43:08
Speaker
Or a lot of characters for a lot of. Oh, you're talking. OK, yeah, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I agree. Yeah, yeah. Multiple in the sense that so it's one of those things where it's like when when you go through the boat, when you go through the normal ending. It stays that way, but the problem with the normal ending on so many different levels is it's boring as shit.
01:43:33
Speaker
Yeah, it just falls flat. You basically... I'm sorry, but the normal ending was absolutely just... You don't get any closure. You don't get any closure. You don't get a final, like, real boss fight that's, like, tied into things. Like, you get kind of like a side kind of final boss thing, but you don't get the final thing and everything. And you just kind of get, okay, they're gonna do this thing for the rest of their lives.
01:43:59
Speaker
But the pivotal moment of the game is still canon in there. Yeah, he's gone or whatever and that's that And you're okay with it But the ending was bad like the endings just bad all the way around and it felt incomplete it felt thing and I get Kind of why because they want to encourage you to go for the true ending my problem is is they put the true ending behind so much and
01:44:28
Speaker
fetch quest stuff and so many little things you now have to do before you can even unlock it, that you're basically, while you're not 100%ing the game, you are getting a vast majority of like doing the game over and over kind of thing, parts over and over again, finding stuff that it was, it was, it was real hard to push through to get that ending. And then
01:44:52
Speaker
I will say at the very least some of the fetch questy stuff they at least they added like the parrot that you're talking about earlier so yes quality of life so that's at least good I'm so happy they had that life for the the parrot so it can tell you like where the rainbow conscious are which rainbow conscious being the collectible item was pretty cool considering that's like another throwback to the chrono chrono cross yes and chrono trigger but like
01:45:18
Speaker
Having to find the rainbow conscious and there's 60 of them and they're spread across all of the different areas so and they're also spread across between like doing random side quest type things for Various characters and stuff like that Like there's a lot that you have to do for that and that's only one like there are like seven or eight different things that you have to do Unlock it and it's like some of them are like it's like
01:45:45
Speaker
beating secret like super bosses. Like there's all kinds of different things. So I wouldn't say super boss, but like secret bosses and stuff like that. Like there's a lot. There is a there's a lot to get the true ending. And like I think I would have been OK with the extra character development bosses for the like the side things and stuff like that, because you do get a little bit more lore on the character and the world and stuff. That part was fine.
01:46:10
Speaker
the fetching the damn rainbow coaches and having to get all of them when it wasn't like it's not like like, yeah, they're kind of like an optional thing in the game, which was fun to find. But it wasn't like super clear at the beginning that this would be a thing that going getting to the end of the game and realizing you have, I don't know, 25 or 30 of them missing.
01:46:35
Speaker
and to go back through all of these levels where you are super overpowered by the way, but you can't not get into combat? And that's not even the worst part, I don't think. The worst part is that there's no like escape rope.
01:46:50
Speaker
There's no escapers. When you find the item, you can't just teleport out of that area. You have to go all the way back through to get back out, which was infuriating when you're making this true ending put behind where you have to find these hidden items, 60 of them, by the way, all over the game and all over the different maps in the different worlds.
01:47:13
Speaker
Give me a way to get the hell out of that dungeon when I found the last one in that area. Please. Like, give me a way to warp out, give me an escape rope, give me a thing so that I don't have to go through all those enemies trying to dodge them and not fight them because they're stupid weak and then go through these maps over and over and over again. And then when you think you got everything and then realizing with the parrot, oh, no, there's still actually one there. So you have to go all the way back in and then all the way because you can't get out and figure out if there's still one there.
01:47:44
Speaker
That was also a frustration because I couldn't like, like, I, or I think, can you talk to the parrot? Not for you have to be on the boat. Yeah. So you have to be on the boat in order to talk to the parrot to give the hint. So you could be in the level thinking you got all the rainbow coaches, like the rainbow shells, and then get out and it tell the birds telling you now there's still one there. Yeah. So I was lucky in the sense that like, I found like 40 of them before the final dungeon.
01:48:14
Speaker
Yeah, I only had like, oh, sorry, you don't have to be on the boat, but oh, no, you don't have to be on the boat out of the area that you're in. So what I did was I just pulled up a guide and then I would check to see what areas I needed them.
01:48:30
Speaker
And then I would just look at every single one. I would go to every spot that I needed one. So I was able to basically just knock off all areas. And the nice thing is once you complete an area, there's like a silver star next to the area. So I did like no more things in that area. So that was at least nice. But in general, I think that that whole situation, how they handled that was just rough. I think the idea that that silver star also counted for just regular chess, too.
01:48:58
Speaker
not just the conscious, which I feel like if they would have given us the thing, but they get the parrot. Like if you go through the parrot and the parrot doesn't say there's any more rainbow thing there, then you know you've moved on. But then when you get the, I think when you get the stars is when you've gotten all the treasure from that area. I think. I think you're right. I don't remember.
01:49:17
Speaker
Yeah, I don't really remember that little aspect because I had just already done that. But my issue was I had to follow a guide for it to find all those conscious and stuff like that because I wanted to streamline it a little bit because I did miss some. I only had like 33 or 35 or 36 or something like that by the end. And so going back through, there was a few that I just naturally missed. And then there was a bunch that I missed because I didn't have the mechanics yet.
01:49:46
Speaker
Which I don't really punish myself for that because it's made for you to go back and do it My issue is sticking the true ending behind that and not just having that be some sort of like an Easter egg like if they would have taken that fetch portion out and let people do that if they want to and maybe they get a little special Easter egg if they did but like the It had nothing to do It had nothing to do with the true ending
01:50:16
Speaker
the side content and things like that.
01:50:20
Speaker
was mentioned in the true ending. So, like, your guy, the living glass guy, says in the ending sequence being like, you know, when he's going through the aspect, he's like, you let me be the world champion. You helped me become the world champion. I owe you, like, sort of thing. So they bring up, like, the side content that you did in the true ending for several of the different characters. And so it made
01:50:50
Speaker
sense that, yeah, the optional bosses, the optional things to unlock stuff would be great. Um, I wish they would have just left the rainbow fetch, finding the secret rainbow shells as a side thing that you can just do if you want to do it, just like getting all the treasure, getting all the treasure in the game is an achievement on the, the, uh, for Xbox and PlayStation and stuff. So, um, yeah, it could be just like an added little thing like that, putting the true ending behind that.
01:51:21
Speaker
And then literally my advice is how you and Pea Stone did it. And that's just go ham until you get them all all on the same day. Just play the game until you get all the rainbow things that don't stop until you get them all. If you do it like I did, it is almost unbearably painful.
01:51:44
Speaker
because I only had like 20 minutes to a half an hour a night to be able to do it because I was so busy with like wedding stuff and convention stuff that I was only able to do little bits. So I'd get like one rainbow or two and then I'd have to shut the game off. And I did that for like two weeks. And it was
01:52:06
Speaker
incredibly painful to the point where I just wanted to rip my eyes out. By the end, I was just so upset and frustrated. And my circumstance is very different than most people, but it's also not everybody has the time to just sit down and go ham and do it. So they might only have a little bit to get the pieces. So I don't think that should have been a part of it. I am a very strong, that sucked some of the fun out of the game for me. I don't think they should have put that 60 rainbow shells
01:52:34
Speaker
Maybe if you really wanted to put it in 30, half of them. If you get half of them, it unlocks it. Great. If you get the other half, you get a few little bonus things and you get a little Easter egg or an achievement or whatever, whatever people who want 100 percent. It's tough. I think like I would have been fine with it. The true or if the like. Original ending.
01:52:59
Speaker
gave some closure and was better and the true ending was then better, I think I would have been okay with that. Like, I'm fine with locking true endings behind things that can be challenging. If the normal ending wasn't so bad, yeah, I might agree with you.
01:53:21
Speaker
If the normal ending was better. Yes. Yeah. But because it was so bad. No. Yeah. I'm still not a fan of locking. Like, don't get me wrong. In general, I'm not a fan of locking and ending behind extra content, especially if it's if it's the true ending and it's if it's the canon ending. I'm I want that when I play through the game. However, if they're going to go that route, make the endings better that way.
01:53:49
Speaker
It feels worth it. Like I didn't feel like don't get me wrong. My problem was I played through the game, didn't feel like the ending was good. So I didn't feel like. I didn't feel like I got the closure that I felt I deserved for playing the game. Which literally meant I had to do the true ending. Yes, to get that closure, and I didn't like that.
01:54:17
Speaker
Yeah, that was my you you're 100% you hit the nail on the head if they would have had the normal ending be better and being more fulfilling and then have the true ending being something a little extra that you could do and then doing all the the rainbow and stuff like that it wouldn't have felt so jarring and it wouldn't have felt
01:54:34
Speaker
as disappointing because the regular ending just didn't feel like an ending, a conclusion, anything. It just was slapped there for you. And I feel like they really missed the mark on that one. And I'm kind of disappointed. And then when it was set up that, oh, there's a true ending, that will be a better ending, they then stuck it behind all of that additional content.
01:55:02
Speaker
that yes, I think that's what made it bad. If they would have just had kind of like Final Fantasy 10 two does it this way. Final Fantasy 10 two you can get a third I think there's three endings, two of them you could get just through
01:55:18
Speaker
through your playthrough. You could get a third one if you 100% it, but the third one isn't as important to the storyline or the plot line. You still get an ending conclusion through Final Fantasy 10-2 just by regular playing the game. It's an extra thing to do all the stuff to get. That would have been fine if they did that with Sea of Stars as well. If we would have got a good ending that felt concluded and fulfilling, and then they put the stuff
01:55:47
Speaker
to make you get a true ending, I probably might have been able to do it with a little bit more of my head held high sort of scenario. But because the ending is so bad, you feel forced to do it if you want any kind of a good conclusion. Otherwise you just have a bad taste in your mouth with the game that like I didn't want to end the game off because every so much of this game was so good that I was like, I can't, I can't leave this off of like just doing this ending and moving on with my life and being like, this sucked.
01:56:16
Speaker
Like, because that's just going to zap a lot of the fun and love of this game out for me. So I felt pressure to do it and also like forced to do it even just by the game because the ending sucks so bad that I putting all those rainbow conscious and all those things and like building up the town and all these freaking things into it made it way more painful than it should have been.
01:56:43
Speaker
And if again, if I didn't do a lot of that stuff while I was playing the game, I definitely would not have. I would have been. Yeah, I would have more of a sour taste in my mouth than it did. Like for me, I missed some. I missed so many of the conscious and stuff like that, because again, I thought they were just an optional thing. If I was told at the beginning that I would need them all, absolutely freaking thing. And that's what I encourage people when I hear people are newly playing this game. I was like,
01:57:09
Speaker
Follow a guide to get these damn things. Do it. Like, just do it. That way you can get them as you go through the game. So there's not as much. You'll still need to backtrack because there's ones locked behind mechanics. But you won't have to do as much as I did. Because again, I thought it was an optional thing. And I didn't think I was going to be so disappointed by the ending that I would feel so hard pushed to do it just to get
01:57:36
Speaker
a better scenario to leave it off on and be stuck with it. So it was really, really difficult. And it wasn't just that. You had to build up the town and find people to be in the town and all these stuff. And then even when I was following the guide,
01:57:55
Speaker
All the guides online show you how to get a rainbow shell, rainbow conch, specifically a certain way in the port of brisk before mid game serial happens and it changes location. Yep.
01:58:13
Speaker
And that infuriated me. I went around for almost two hours in that town trying to figure it out because it was the last stupid one I needed. And I could not. And I got so dang frustrated. I stumbled across it by accident.
01:58:30
Speaker
I just like I was like wandering around and pushing against things and then suddenly I went into the side room and there it was and I was furious because all the guides online do not show it afterwards. I followed like IGN I followed like I think IGN I followed a few other different ones I looked at them they got to that component and they all showed it before.
01:58:52
Speaker
the town got destroyed. I got the same thing. Shout out to shout out to Meach for showing you. Yeah. Meach saved your ass on that. And then when I told him the thing, he's like, Oh yeah, KJ needed my help for that. And I just had figured it out. So like, I just like pushed against the thing and I figured it out, but I was about ready to just like throw, like be done with the game fully and be like, fuck it. I'll just spoil it through ending a light or something. I was so mad.
01:59:17
Speaker
It was like two hours because they, like, I get that the guides did it because you could get it so early on. I get it. It's something I missed early on in the game. But like goodness gracious, what are the guides please? Just what happens when it's the app afterwards? It's like, oh my God. So like I just kind of stumbled across it. I was very, very lucky. So I think we've dragged the ending sequence enough.
01:59:46
Speaker
Yes. So let's talk about the true ending a little bit. Oh, I thought we were. Oh, are we going to be done? I think we're going to wrap up on. All right. So the true ending does give you more substance, but it does, like we said earlier, undo a pivotal part of the game, which I think we both agree that we both didn't like that. Yeah. And but it gave you a little bit more and it actually felt
02:00:11
Speaker
concluded now. Yeah, I did feel concluded by the end of the true ending. So we did finally get the conclusion ending of it, even though I don't really super agree with them changing such a crucial pivotal point of the game. As much as I loved and adored the character, this is coming from somebody who cried when they died. I didn't, I didn't like the whole, yeah, they're back.
02:00:38
Speaker
sort of portion of it. And I get it, they kind of set it up. And it was kind of genius, a little bit the way they set it up and how it all went down and yada yada. And you're your guy coming in at the end saving the big day. Like, you know, of course, he's the true hero. And that sort of stuff was great. But like, anyway,
02:01:03
Speaker
So I guess with all of that, we'll we'll leave we'll leave playing the game to the listeners like we want to make sure that y'all play the game. No spoilers, right? Yeah. Know that you're going to want the conscious and you're going to and whatnot. But yeah. So I'm curious. Where do you stand on this game after after all of that? Oh, I had I had quite quite a roller coaster with this game.
02:01:32
Speaker
Personal circumstances and stuff like that did not help Personal life stuff that was going on did not help so I tried when I was really thinking about how I was gonna rate this game I tried to put all of that aside because that Would have hindered any game. I was playing it would have Playing games for only like a half an hour to maybe an hour at most a night was just
02:01:56
Speaker
Brutal and not even be able to just sit there and play games for like three or four hours, especially for RPGs was really really hard And I didn't like it Ten out of ten would never do that again. So I want to put that aside I want to put that aside that like the getting the rainbow shells at the end and stuff like that was painful, but it was also extra painful because of circumstances so that aside though this game up until the ending and
02:02:25
Speaker
was pretty well a nine, nine and a half for me. Um, it lost a little points with the main characters, um, uh, and stuff, but it was pretty high up there. It was probably close to a nine, uh, nine ish. Okay. I probably say more like a nine rather than my nine point five, because I want to give nine point fives and tens to like damn close to perfect or perfect games. So I think, I think probably generously around a nine.
02:02:56
Speaker
Because the music was great. The gameplay was great. It lost a little bit of the main characters, but the story was good. The other characters were good. There's so many things. The minigame wheels was fantastic. There's so many aspects, but that ending is hard.
02:03:16
Speaker
to recommend people play this without telling them a few little spoiler things advance by saying, make sure you're getting a bunch of things and stuff. Cause you kind of need the ending. You need the true ending and to go back and try to do it all. If you haven't been getting some stuff, um, is
02:03:37
Speaker
is really hard to tell somebody because in good faith, they're gonna be pushed to do the true ending.
Game Pacing and Future Podcast Plans
02:03:44
Speaker
And I don't, it was rough. So if you're the type of person who can just binge for like, and have the time, sorry, not the type of person, but have the time, the big thing is the time. Yeah, four, five, six hours to wait when you beat the game and you're like, ah, what? And you're gonna be pushed to do the true ending that you could just sink that time into getting it.
02:04:06
Speaker
I think it would have been a lot of better experience for me personally. And I encourage that. Or if you're first playing the game and you might not have that time when you get to the end of the game, following a guide to get those Raybo conscious as you go will help big time for when you get to the end of the game and you'll just feel pushed to do the true ending. Or it's 2024, YouTube that shit.
02:04:35
Speaker
or yeah, fair, fair, or don't even just YouTube the ending. That's the real answer. I mean, it still counts as you beating the game. You could YouTube the ending and save yourself Polly's like two week pain. Please don't do this to yourself. Yeah.
02:04:57
Speaker
But I don't want to like, ding it too. It's so hard because for me, when I'm playing an RPG, there's so much of it, but the ending I want to be.
02:05:07
Speaker
Good. You've got to stand your ground here. The suspense is killing me. Sweet Good and Two slipped for me a bit in points because of the ending. Because even the true ending, I was like, I'm there. It's giving me the same. Okay, no.
02:05:30
Speaker
Not as, not a, no, not as bad as, no, I, that's mean to see a star. It's not as bad as the, the sweet go to two, what they did to me with the true ending. Anyway, I don't want to go into spoilers for that. So I'm going to say, I'm going to give an 8.5. It loses, it loses points is for me with the taking the pivotal portion away for the, the, the main ending.
02:05:57
Speaker
Um, and then the push to, for the, for the regular ending to be so bland, like they could have given me something, they could have given you something more. And that may, that regular ending, I think that, I think that knocks points for that. I'm going to say 8.5 for me, because I still have characters and everything else of it.
02:06:13
Speaker
That's where I was throughout the entire game. Like, I don't know. I had problems going through going through the game. I had problems. It was fun. I'm not going to. I can't knock it on that. It was fun. The story was the story kept me on the edge of my seat at times. It was good. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed a lot of the plot twists. The characters again, I expressed my my issue with the characters. It was really
02:06:39
Speaker
really tough for me to get behind the main characters. And I think, especially when I'm getting into a game, if everything else isn't overwhelmingly incredible, then the characters will break immersion for me very quickly. So if I can't love or hate characters very quickly in a game, then the immersion is broken.
02:07:04
Speaker
And I think that's something for me. I know that's a me thing, but yeah, that's definitely something. Yeah, I think eight and a half is where I land as well. But I would recommend it. I would recommend it too. And I think that I guess it just depends on what your general mindset is.
02:07:26
Speaker
When I was going through because I was enjoying it, I was like, okay, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna look for these things. I'm gonna collect all these things. I'm gonna talk to everybody. And so I kind of just did that. And I had a sneaking suspicion that the conscious were gonna be important. I didn't think it was gonna be true ending important. So I was trying to get as many of them as possible. So I think that was another mindset. I was expecting them to be like an ultra, like some kind of super weapon or like ultimate weapon or something like that.
02:07:54
Speaker
I was gonna be quite as many in the game as they gave you because by the time like it they don't tell you it's almost halfway through the game when you finally get to that person who you can exchange them with for items.
02:08:06
Speaker
So I actually didn't know how many, I thought they were going to be a lot less than what you, what I like. I thought I was pretty on par because I was looking for stuff or whatever. I just, some of them I missed in some obvious places and I was really kicking myself when I had to go back and grab them. But I was talking to people like going through and stuff like that. And the one thing is, is like I accidentally like just script over brick brisk. When you get to brisk and you do the thing and then you leave, I just left. Like I didn't explore the chat. I was like, this is too big. I'm leaving.
02:08:35
Speaker
There's like 10 of them there I was so mad Cuz like again, I thought they were gonna be a lot more rare So I thought they were gonna be a little bit more sparring than they were and then when you finally talked to the guy who's like, oh, yeah, there's 60 I was like
02:08:52
Speaker
And by the time you get to him, it's almost halfway through the game or that component almost halfway. And so then I'm like, oh, well, maybe I'll still keep fighting the question mark. And so, yeah, so I again, I didn't think they would be ending specific, though. I thought they were just going to be like cool ultimate weapon or something like that.
02:09:14
Speaker
But yeah, yeah, I would recommend this game. It's beautiful. The graphics are great for the most part. The story's really good. The music's really good. The minigame wheels, even if you just play the minigame. Play the freaking minigame. It was so much fun.
02:09:33
Speaker
and and everything that but it it knocked points it knock points off like the main character stuff or whatever it knocked points off um um it knocked point one for fishing i was a little i'm somebody who likes fishing minigames in games so i i knocked a point one of a point off my score would have been 8.6 no it might have actually had a little bit more maybe 8.7 or 8.8
02:10:01
Speaker
if the mini game, fishing mini game would have been better, but that was kind of disappointing. But yeah, I think it's settling at like the 8.5 myself because it's like, it's good. I would recommend it. It's just not quite to the...
02:10:18
Speaker
Fair enough. But it started out in the nines for me. It did start off strong, I agree. It starts off pretty strong, yeah. And I know there's been a couple complaints of people saying it was slow in the beginning.
02:10:37
Speaker
But I only found it, like it wasn't like Chained Echoes nine hours into the game still slow. It was like maybe a couple of hours of like going from them being kids to adults. They got through that pretty quickly, but that's the only aspect that I could imagine that was slow. Besides the end of finding all this stupid consciousness. I'm gonna be salty for that forever. All right, so with that,
02:11:07
Speaker
Um, I think the way we're going to do this, or the way we should do this is for the recording, we're going to announce what the next game is going to be. So the first game of 2024. And then we have a little video trailer for all of y'all that are in the YouTube chat. We do. We do. KJ worked hard. KJ worked hard.
02:11:29
Speaker
We have we have a list of games that are going to be that we're going to be going through. I think it's eight of them. We've kind of combined a couple of months because, like, depending on Polly's con schedule or like I have a bunch of like weddings and stuff I have to go to this year, like vacations that are taking so.
02:11:46
Speaker
It's going to be the case where I'm going to be out for a couple of weeks at a time in some cases. So yeah, we're going to be playing eight games this year. The first game that we're going to be playing is Grandia 3. So we're going to be starting that and going forward. So a couple of changes. So our general idea of this is we're going to be trying to shoot for either the last Tuesday or Thursday of the month for every live podcast episodes.
02:12:16
Speaker
And then by the end of the week where the live podcast airs, we'll make sure that everything is pushed up to all of the other platforms, whether it's Spotify or Google or any of that stuff. So by the end of the week and everything, yeah, basically, yeah, basically by the end of the by the beginning of the following month, we'll have the.
02:12:42
Speaker
uh recorded podcast up so there is that um and yeah i think that's that's gonna be huge i think we're gonna we're trying to basically stay super consistent um we are gonna have y'all probably see us on now twitter and tiktok so we'll have
02:13:02
Speaker
both tweets that we're gonna be going out trying to like get interaction with the general community as well as TikToks that we'll have mostly for like the games that we're playing, but as well as just like general stuff. So that's generally how we're trying to do things. We're trying to get more of a presence and then build up a community. And then after that, we'll probably start growing this thing a bit more, so.
02:13:27
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so we wanted to give you guys a timeline to always sort of expect. So as we're playing the game through the month, or some of the games are doubled up, where it's like, for example, there's one game that's like March and April. So we will aim to do the podcast episode either the last Tuesday or the last Thursday of the final month. So for March, April, it will be the end of April.
02:13:56
Speaker
But the thing that we realize is doing that or whatever might lose a little bit of that energy and stuff, so we want to get more on TikTok, Twitter, and even doing YouTube Shorts and shorter videos and stuff like that to keep you guys engaged with everything, but also to just build it up and build awareness and everything during while that's taking a while.
02:14:21
Speaker
And we tried to put longer games, longer RPGs that will take longer anyway in those doubled up months that we had to do so that we had a little bit more time to complete it and get as much of the game done as we possibly could. But also for anybody joining in with us who want to play the game as well, you also get a little bit more time.
02:14:44
Speaker
Cajun, I have been talking a lot about it. We were really excited about it. We're really hyped to come back at things at full swing. And so expecting very soon, tomorrow, there will be a Turd-based Tangents Twitter account, as well as a TikTok one that him and I are going to be doing videos and stuff for, which is going to be great. We're going to be experimenting with some stuff to kind of keep regular social media kind of presence and stuff like that.
02:15:12
Speaker
You know that you guys could comment on and see the post and see the videos and and react to and stuff and maybe sometimes it'll be like a little bit of the game of like a Situation in the game that happened or whatever like stuff like that. But yeah, we're gonna be trying to like tie it back into everything but I'm really excited about it. He's really excited about it And yeah, so grandia 3 is the first game We did grandia 1 as our it was first game we did for the podcast wasn't it?
02:15:41
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Grandia 1 was our first game that we did for the podcast when we first started. And so Grandia 3 is now the first one to start off 2024 for our month of January. It is a game that I've played about
02:15:59
Speaker
eight hours of it and put it down and I can't remember for the life of me why. This is back in Polly's high school college years where I tried a little bit of an RBG, put it down and got too busy or whatever. KJ's never played it at all.
02:16:18
Speaker
and everything. So yeah, so we're going to be starting with Gradia 3 and I'm really excited to dive into it because we both really loved Gradia 1. I've played Gradia 2 and I really love Gradia 2. KJ's planning to play it I think this year. I think Gradia 2 is on your list or is on your list. Yeah, Gradia 2 is on my list, yes.
02:16:42
Speaker
And, uh, and then, um, so grandiose two, he's going to be streaming it, uh, or playing it, uh, this year. And so we have grandiose three. Luckily we don't have to play it. Like they don't, they don't, you don't play them in order. That's why we're going with three is first. Are we, I think we're good, right? Yeah. Let's show the trailer. You worked so hard on it. So we'll, we'll wrap up here. So.