Final Fantasy Resonance and Future JRPGs

This summer, serve up the cookout cllassics, Oscar Meer hot doogs and Heinz mustard Grill up a dog, add classic yellow mustard, or load it Chicago style We all know it's not a cookout without Oscar Meyer and Heines Under where Tropicana got its name Troics And every time you enjoy a glass, you're not just drinking juice. You're taking a trip. Stepping into sunshine and embarking on a flavorful journey into the tropics where ripe fruit is crafted into wildly delicious juice. And the best part, no passport required Strawacanna, give life some juice Did you know with the Sams Club app you're technically in the club, no matter where you are? Like, this is a club This is also a club Oh And this is Come join us Sams Club. This episode's brought to you by Video Game Town, an independent website that strives to pay some of your favorite writers to build a new community for smart and fun daily gaming coverage. Check them out at Video Game Town and on every social media platform. Experience hits technology with the new Pro X two Superstrike, the fastest mouse Logitech G has ever Head over to loogitechg d. com to grab yours and start clicking faster from the competition If you want to get our shows ad free and our exclusive shows, go to patreon. com slash kind of funny Welcome back to the kindind of Funny Games Cast for Wednesday, june seventeenth, twenty twenty six. Of course, I am your host Tim Gettyies. I am joined today by Roger Pcorney. Dirty zero suugar mountain Dew cream soda Dew. s a lot of wear out of doby swing. what Andy's drinking right? Let Andy It looks dirty. It looks dirty. It does look d. Yeah, I mean, look, I'm not going to defend any of this. I you know, Roger at all the different words and said, oh shit it's it's also you know, low calorie, five calories per bottle. It's not good. I don't like Oh, you don't like it. No. I just, you know, this is my first time trying it. Okay. I think I've seen you with this one Yeah you think you did. No You No no, no, no. the fuck not No. is supposed to look ' I think something's wrong. No that is this is a little lighterough. This is No, but that does look way know the burgers always look puffy on an advertis. burg. Yeah, it's a little light. Yeah. We also have Andy Cortz. It does look like it came from a faucet Like what when when this looks like what AOC brings out in Congress and This is the drinking water. You think it's fine? You have a drink. Look at what your what your A data centers. And of course, we have Greg Miller as Hi Tim. Hello. Here's the fun thing. Bring a ding te. I have a secret challenge for this episode. Oh it will be one winner I'm not going to tell you what the challenge is. but the winner will get a high five for me. No And that means you know. The challenge has been complete. No way. Nice. I like that. That' stupid If you're watching live, you can be part of the show by super chatting on YouTube. com slash kind of fununny games. Remember, we couldn't do this without our producers on patreon d. com slash kind of funny. So thank you to Carl Jacobs Omega Buster and Dlayy the Som Tining and Lax Noan. I'm so used to Having Delaney be the final one. Yeah So I always car I have to add another bllack nomad Sot tos laax notax. For now let's start with the topic of the show. The Adventures of Elliot, the Millennium Tales review. Thee description. is as follows. A brand new action RPG from the creators of Octopath Traveler and Bravely D deffault, The Adventures of Elliott the Millennium Tailes combinine stunning HD two D visuals and exciting action adventure gameplay for the very first time. from Square Enix released on june eighteenth, twenty twenty six. metacritic A seventy eight A seventy eight, but where do we fall to that. We will We're about to find out I actually don't know. I forgot it. I forgot like that's great for me Be you have on the team. I mean, I counterpicked it against my Oh yeah. that's great for That's not that's not about. There was there was a lot of worry going into this like Anytime we would seeet it again, I'd go man, I'm going to get JRPG on this. Yeah. I think that this game may be like sort of fine or whatever during the demo period. and it's going come out in ninety two. I'm going to be like, how the fuck come on guysot it. Okay okay. But didn't you counterpick it and think it was a different game No, Mike thought it was Okay. But then back to thinking that like acting as if it was the game he was Yeah Yeah ye yeah. I love that. So then real quick, I just want to get a super top level. the game Roger. No. Andy. I have rolled credits. W. Greg. Yeah, I've rolled credits twice on two different endings. I love that then. Let's start with you, Greg Miller. What review score on the kind of funny scale do you give I've been waiting for the adventures of Ellie and his dumb hat for quite some time. Obviously, you know Octopath T traravelers on my game of the year last year and a big fan of the Octopath series in general to so to see them go to RPG mechanics and gameplay. I was incredibly excited for it. Sadly, this one does not live up to my hopes and dreams. I think my Steam clocks is twenty eight hours invested in Adventures of Elliot. It's hard because of the saves and jumping around and whatever going on. so we'll I think it's a little bit less than that, but I don't know how Steam adds it all up And I would give this a six point five on the kind of fununny scale. I think this is okay Um, I think There's a lot to criticize and a lot to enjoy in this game. but I think what's most telling is when I rolled the second set of credits last week, I put it down and moved on to a different game and I have not thought about Adventures of Elliot at once. There's a true ending that I have not doubled back for because the story just doesn't matter for this game. I have no connection to any of them And the idea of doing that is not exciting and I've had my time and my fill with it for a game that is enjoyable to play. like I think it's important that They're going to get another bite of theapple. because Square of course, lets their teams try again, which I appreciate so much about them. And I will be very excited for whatever comes next for Elliott and his dumb hat. I think there's a lot to enjoy here mechanically in gameplay wise, but it also isn't reinventing the wheel and does not live up to the story expectations I have after Octopath And is a fine time, but I struggle to know who I would recommend this to. If you were to stop me like, o man, lots of games all the time now. shouldhould I be playingventure I'd be like no, you don't need to go play Adventures of Elliot. You're fine I want to ask you a specific question.lease last time I talked to you maybe over a week ago, you were sitting at a seven. Yeah. What happened? I took a week off I took a week off, No legitimately. this is like one of those things we talk about with our jobs and reviewing games and how much fun it is, but then also All right, here's the game Its on Thursday and you got to review it on a Tuesday like, fuck fuck fuck you just play, play, you come out and you're hot and this is what it is, right U yeah, I was settling in while playing I'm like, this is a seven. It's good. It's a good game, but It A sitting and marinating on it, like again, I've had grants in twenty some hours of an experience with it Nothing's compelling me to go back. You know what I mean? I still have Octopath Traveler zero on the steam the ROG and my Steam library because I still need to go get that true ending. That haunts me that I don't have that true ending. I need to still put in like twenty more hours to go get it, right? A you in bed and nland cant Godam Michael every time I fucking run into Michael Ha Ro do? No you know gets so mad at me for not doing it. Yeah, like this one is a game I played. I enjoyed for what it was and moved on from. And I think if I wasn't reviewing it, I could have put it down way earlier. There was a great conversation at SGF. I had a very romantic dinner with the one and only Russ Frushstick And he was talking about trying to play this on the plane and kept falling asleep. And I'm like, yeah, you know, it's not great as this the other, but I'm like, you know, I got a good he's like, how many hours I you know, fifteen twentyies like Greg, you can stop No no, he's like, no you don't You can do a Besties review. If we played seven hours we get it. we don't like it. Yeah.ike I'm like, no, I like it and there's a lot to enjoy and like, but like In. I said like a lot there. That's embarrassing In terms of me ever being like, at the end of the year, I'm not going to think of Aventurures of Elliott for any of the top ten lists, any of that jazz, you know what I mean? Like it's got the art style I love. It has One of If not the most annoying characters I have ever heard in video game. to the point Tim that I switched to Japanese to give myself a break. So I didn't have to hear this person anymore. And even in the fucking menu where you can turn down how much they chime in, they still chime in way too fucking m with that grading goddamn I have a great fun game. It's you you can have fun here. There are games doing what this is doing so much better and And I think, you know, especially in a time where as somebody who did the preview for Mina with Andy and then walked away from Mina like Minas lights out such a better game than this and so for it to be in its shadow of like, hey, we're like Zlda. It's like,' go play the other like these are both trying to be Zelda G play meute. Andy Cortz. I rolled credits once, right? I didn't I don't really have a whole lot of urge to go back I think Adventures of Elliot is a super serviceable fine game. I I struggle to say that it's not a seven at least because it's The gameplay is can be fun, right? The gameplay is like not this thing that I'm dreading or whatever. It's not the most Greg said, it's not reventing the wheel, it's nothing that you're going to go, dude. The way I tell people If you care about Zelda likes, play Alabaster Dawn that Mechanically gameplay wise, puzzle wise Fucking holy shit. canannot wait for that game to fully come out because it's in early access right now And I always wondered would this game kind of be living in that would it be fighting those ghosts of Alabasard Dawn and Sure enough, it did because I Not to say that if I didn't play Alabasad Don, I'd be way higher on this. It's just Really, really tough for Adventures of Elliot. I will say If I were to do the Game Pro you know, super smiley face, the, you know, you know, maybe mediocre, not too stoked face or whatever and their rating system The soundtrack This is a ten out of ten soundtrack Music in his game phenomenal. thousand legitimate good. It will be in my smileies like soundtrack of it what it will It needs to win shit. It is fucking great Um Story wise. you know, I'm The laugh I'm okay with a game not having good narrative. I'm all right with that It's just like, You know If I told you, Greg that You know, if you don't like pepperoni on that pizza, you could just peel it off. Yeah. And then I give you the I give you the pizza and there's ninety thousand pepperonis. you're like, fuck That's a lot crust is made of pepperoni. That's that's the thing that I you know, experience a lot with you know, um even with Okabat Traveler, although Later on They did some really cool shit you And this unfortunately never kind of gets there. Yeah. I was always hoping for that shoe to drop. Yeah. We're gonna to turn the corner and this is gonna to go somewhere But Adventures of Elliot, guess what, Tim? Elliot Is an adventure? He's an adventure. That's the job That's the whole gos title. I'll do it I'm an adventure. man. Why do you do good things? I'm an adventure. I adventure. You're an adventurer, Go adventure. I feel like it never gets there narratively and like Greg mentioned The There's just so much writing for it to be this bad. Like If you don't have a whole lot to say, you don't have to be talking. be doing a whole lot, right? And just like Greg mentioned in the settings, there's a fucking I need to clip this out, but when I played the demo on stream and I was like, oh, yeah, she she's kind of yapping a lot. me Let me go into the settings and there's a setting where you could go from talkalative or whatever to reticent go to reticant And we walk into a dungeon. It looks like you can move that block there And it's like I thought How did you get so good at this? Let me fucking double check these settings and make sure that I. I turn I hit that godam setting Everywhere I go I am having to double check. Did I tell I wasious I turned back once and I went it back and I'm like, didid they update the game and default the settings? No was I didn't know what the word reticent meant. So I was like, is that just that talkable work And did you know what the word meant or did you just contextually No, I knew. yeah. Yeahah, yeah, yeah. I've never I'm a great speller and a lot of that comes of context G ye a lot of that stuff But like Greg mentioned, I still think it's it's a fun game. I think there's really Cool moments of combat. some fun boss fights And if you Don't mind that and if you don't mind skipping through dialogue, like by the By the latter half of the game, I'm just skipping to everything. L nothing you're saying is interesting. It's not well written. It's not really well acted either. And it's really grading. I turned the voice the speech volume all the way to zero. Um it's just It's just a lot. They They're doing it a lot It's like when you when you don't have Curry three pointer green light Take the shot as much as you are It's okay And that's my problem with like, that's why whenever I played, you know, something like No three or Ninja Gaiden, the most recent one, I'm this yourself, Andy, you not need to But I have to because No but I have to because you know what I mean? It's okays throw that in there. It's okay to to be more reserved if you don't have a whole if you know that my team doesn't have the talent narrative wise You don't got to shoot the shot as much as you guys do. Just be reserved just like Give me You could just fucking do the bullshit thing of going like, well, we want the gamers' kind of like, you know, it's up to their interpretation. You can just lie and have like the most minimal dialogue and I would have enjoyed the experience a lot more of a man you are trying to really succeed in that department and you rarely ever do. So this it's a bummer of an experience. but gameplay wise, I would say it's still fun a lot of moments and it's really, really gorgeous and the music is outstanding Before we get to your thoughts, Rog You guys made a very clear point here at how you feel about the the amount and quality of the narrative. Do you think that there will be people out there that really do vibe with it? Is it a like a style thing or is it more zero percent I would say like if they are, like I can't believe I vote in the same country as you. Well, like we're we're at that level. I I kind of want to guess end you, but like I think my thing is if I was like twelve to thirteen years old, would I would be digging this. Not like the not loving it, but I would be like, oh, this is like a cool little h on. like after like experiencing so many different stories and so many different RPG stories, I just don't understand how an adult can get vibe with it. Man, I don't know. I likeike You know, after playing link to the pass earlier this year O obviously there's no voice acting, but You know s it's efficient And it's giving you just a line here and there and you get what you need to know and you move on and you keep playing the video game and man, they really want succeed here. It it's like they really want to show off that we can do this. It's like, dude, you can't man. You know, we just did prereviews and me and Mike talked about it yesterday of Minecraft Dungeons two, stick with me. And that we're talking about it's Baby's first action RPG ARPG, right? Your first Diablo, right? I feel to your point, Roger Adventures of Ellleot could easily be your first action RPG of this genre of this ilk if you've never played as elder or done that stuff That's my problem with it is that It is enjoyable, but it's so basic that I feel like nothing gets out of that point where the story we've already lamented and I'm sure we will to to some degree again, but it's also the fact of the narrative, I should say, in the writing. It's also the fact that the gameplay Tim, while enjoyable for sure The actual enjoyment I get isn't the moment to moment combat because I feel like that's super simple and granted, you can turn up the difficulty, but just more hit points, right It's the removing the fog of war from the map as you go through, right? And you do that. Like that was where I was finding like, okay, let's just go let's go get it's the map is littered with Treasure chests and temples to go get your next piece of heart. It's literally just fucking Zelda to get a new fairy power to increase this time. Like there's cats to fucking just collect in the world and stuff. So they are voiced by humans. M And they all have different like personalities. The meows. You walk up to a c it's like meow. And there's a cat boy too. It's like that. That's cool. I like that. Yeah, no no,. When I have the speech volume down, I'm not expecting a you. And it still happ. It doesn't count as. It doesn't count as my lugs. Yeah. The back littered with stuff to go do and like I could see so many people being like, this is my podcast game I just want to sit down and go have a un an adventurer tale and have again I not know what the tail is into the thing or whatever. Bosx bitightes, I do think are really great and enjoyable. But then they also squander a really cool idea Tim, where this is the millennium tail, You know what I mean here. So there's four different time periods you exist in and you can go between them and stuff. And when they introduced that, I was like, oh, this is cool. We're going to go back. I'm helping the king right now. I'm going to go back. I'm going to change something. I will come back to the the future, the present. thenen he won't be king anymore. It'll be none of that happens. Like you're just doing these things and you'll even bop into people and be like, Oh, hey, I know I know that guy I'll go bop over there and you talk like it's frictionless in that way. The boss fights are my favorite part. So much deja vu being at this exact desk, you and I talk about Dragon Quest remake like the exact same problems Yeah there. That's funny. R Yeah, talking about Groundhog Day and everything. I feel like I'm in Groundhog Day playing this game because I'm only like seven hours in, but it's my like Before I go to bed video game, it's replaced the Kindle now, I'm just playing video games because you I'm a bad person.ing. And I'm booting this up And I like play thirty, forty minutes and I'm like, man, I'm enjoying the combat having fun. The boss battles are really good, the music's fun. And then I just sure shit hit some point of like story. and I truly am falling asleep. Like I need to talk to Russ because it is every single night I am falling asleep playing this video game when it comes to the story. and it's like almost want to compare it to like Saturday morning like anime that you watch as a little kid, but that's a disservice to anime because like this is so surface level. There is the story is just a big old Nhingburger. And yeah, it's everybody's point. like there is there's no way to escape it. Like there was one moment last night where I'm fall asleep, like literally struggling and Lance is like Can you save like can you get to a saable and like, no, babe like there is they're talking so much dialogue. And like can you save no? No, can't sayve. I' got to figure this out now Aant they the amount of writing they think they're like David Fincher Yeah with like like, hey, we got the skills that man people will people will sit through this four hour long, you know, Quent Tarantino, we're all sitting in a cabin together. It's like, you don't got it like that dude. No Don't do that. You really don't Um But yeah, no, it sucks because they had an octopath. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I would imagine there's part of that where We're going to do it and we're going to have this HD style and we know we're doing and the music and we're going to be able to deliver the same caliber story. And I really feel like there's one narrative thread with a couple But I'm like, all right, like I'm interested in this, but not like I was with Primse in Octopath Traveler one, right? Not like I was an Octopath Traveler zero with just in general the revenge I'm trying to extract. Yeah. And something about it's fucking Eio bro and his dumb ass hat. like he he's just it feels like Andy Cortess stand up He did it. He gets the high five. Ny Cortz was the last person not insallult the h the h. Oh, wow, yes. Yeah was on it immediately. I fucking hate this head. I. I think well I'm just an adventure and he does God he fucking los. But the fucking Ellio man, he's walking around and he like all he feels like a side character in an anime that you would like because he only shows up in one arc And then he just completely disappears and shows up maybe ten ten seasons later. you're about to die. wave com in Yeah ye. But like being the main character, it actually made me, I think during our hot takes episode in gaming or whatever. I said like, oh, all of these we're fresh off of Dragon Quest. And I was like, man, I wish that all of these characters just the main characters had voice acting I fucking take that back. I wish this guy didn't speak. He did not need to speak as much. I think if he did not speak, I would actually have a not a lot more fun, but I think the story would go by a little bit faster. Yeah. I think it was, you know, just Barrett was also playing he's off this week and he was checking with me here and there and one time he checked and he's like After playing this I am now more staunch than ever that Link should never speak. L It's just not good. Yeah someomebody in the twwitch ch I said, yeah, these Th these HD two D games just aren't for Andy. I disagree. I think if you you I think if you pull back the amount of dialogue and make just the writing more enjoyable. I'd say that this is like an easy recommendation becausecause like the gameplay is serviceable but still like fun in a lot of moments. but When I again, thinking back to my time with just the twelve hours I played of the Alabaster Dawn early access. Yeahet Alabaster. There's no there's no voice acting The writing is Quick and efficient and it's It's got heart. It's got feeling. It got my hairy pig I'm talking to and I like that guy I like it I'll kill Barry I'm with it. They're quk Elliot. They're quirky, they're witty, they they're creative with it and this just u It's just It's just not enjoyable to experience. But again, A lot of people will say, hey, I don't need the narrative there. totally fine. I think if you play this, not giving shit about narrative, you'll have a in time. Yeah, that's me last night is that I found a dungeon that actually made me like smile. It was like a nice little puzzle with mirrors and everything. I was like, Ohh wow, this is really nice. But then yeah, immediately right after that just hit with with the story of it all. And again, that's, you know I feel like as lame as the I'm an adventurer part of it is like that's where you if you lean in, you're going to have fun to where it isn't even about what you're doing and who you're talking to. it is about get let's uncover all the map. Tim, one of the things that I think some people might find find frustrating. I enjoyed quite a bit was the looking at the map and o, I need to get up into the northwest corner and you start heading that way and you just hit the hit a wall. Yeah. and you walk along the wall al and it's like, oh shit It isn't direct. So then it's like you got to work your way back of like fast travel is incredibly simple. There's a lot of fast travel points. So it's like, well if I fast travel to the southwest and then I work my way to that cave there with the question marks, there might be a connector that gets is like That whole thing of like trying to piece together how to get is part of it. being in these dungeons and it being like Cool, I still have one treasure chest over there. How do I get that treasure chest? Okay, how am I going to figure that out? Like that's the enjoyment factor here for me personally. Again, combat, I think sererviceable is a great way to put it where it's like I enjoy it fine, but since it doesn't offer a challenge, nor do I feel it offers a great reward, it was just something I'm doing. And I was like, okay, cool, I like this more than turnbase because I like being active, but I'm also not v It's one of those where the story isn't amazing and the gameplay isn't amazing. And so for me right there, it's like, okay, well what's going on here. And so to be talking about surface talk about this. It's like the things that it excels at I think are the art style is the music is that feeling of exploration of going through and doing things. I never realizeed the hat was on the A All Yeah, yeah. It is yeah,' right you're right, you're right. I love that. last time I thought that was fay. you're right, That is the hat. That makes me even more angry now. We got some super chats. Some of them are hat based. Joshu Frog says the hat's cool. I' never wear it, but it's cool And the guy says hot takeake, the hat's getting too much hight Play the game because it also just doesn't fit in the world. It just doesn't know why' let's talk about that. Apparent clearly was trying to walk into fucking packs West and went through a portal and now he lives here and he' fucking living with all these rural people in the kingdom. Apparently look look, I know less about a lot of like JRPG lineage and things like that, but a lot there's several people going That's what Red mages wear. I don't want my fancy charters with cowboyats. I'm sorry I don't like him I get a hood R. He's I'm age, you know? I don't know. I'm a hater on the hat. I just like making fun of it. but I mean, it is fine. I mean, it's the only redeemable thing about this guy's character. You know what I mean? Like it's interesting about him. Remable Oh you didn't get to the point of I was ye. We're staling all those kids crazy. Mike Like Music says the demo was my bedtime game. It gives those vibes. For sure. helpels you fall asleep. And then Fate says, have any of you played any of the mana games? like Visions of Manna? if it's the same as that. This game's heavily inspired from Mana from Dev interviews This looks I mean A lot of these images of of these red hats with the red mages, these look a lot more like like red bloodborne hats. Elliot's just kind of has like a full ass brim though. I don't know if these look like the same hat Yeah, but I think they're dumb here too See, I disagree. they're like these are bies. Th These hats have some kind of style. like he's just wearing a red Fedora. Well, let's see the actual key art of Elliot. If we could pull that up ' I want to see it. I like the ones with the point of the front, you know? like bloodboard. Yeah, but like a lot like Elliot's just look like a cowboy has. a Fedora. Well we're going have to figure this all out after a word from our sponsors. 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It's just a normal ass Fedora was a yellow feather G me the back angle going all the life. you know, that'd be way cooler with that Does anyone else wear a real hat in this game? No. su me. I was frustrated The true ending is gonna be he was fucking walking into twenty twelve Mackax. That into a wormbole. Here he is.. I also I wanted to bring up just that quick you were talking about Kyle Bondier says in all caps, it looks good. Kyle, I'm gonna to find you right now and see what your fucking fashion sense is. I't I I wish that there was more creativity with the whole time traveling thing like Greg was mentioned. there were several times that I even tricked myself into going Okay, well If I were to enter cave in this time period. I may be able to do this and then it willll unlock something in the place where I needed to be and it's like No that they were There' four different time periods, but they're all separate. they're not affected by each other. They're just like Things are different about them, which is cool You know there are caves that, you know, maybe you can explode that wall now and maybe you can't do it in the other eras. But I was hoping for some sort of interconnectedness and I was wanting them to mingle a little bit more, but they just that doesn't really happen unfortunately. Yeah it just feels like a way to kind of remix the same map a few different ways. Yeah Let's talk a little bit more about the actual gameplay Greg. Oh I knew it. Kyle Bond VA Ghosts to panks. How many Fidors do you own? How many vors do you own? Kyle. That's. I don't give a shit. I got dead to write.ice go You're lucky, you only have seven photos on your Instagram becausecause I guarantee on your phone you got one you wearing a fucking Fedora. I dead to write. Here's a little g. Kyle Bond, I know you got a Fedora photo on your phone. You put it on Instagram right now R I'm five this page after I answer Tim's questions. I'm better see a goddamn Pedora photo there. that surprising. What was your question? Gameplay Right. So again, action gameplay and Tim as somebody who you haven't touched this at all, right? No Zeldv just straight up. like you start with your sword, you eventually get your shield, the mirror shield where you can parry back with stuff. Of course, you're getting bombs, you're getting a boomerang. I mean, you just name it, you're getting these things that Elliot is using and just ripping off from Link. But again, this two D HD art style works really well, is enjoyable. The entire combat thing and what I I really appreciated was experimenting with the kit You know, you start off and you have the sword of course, then you get your bone and arrow and okay, cool, I was pretty committed to my bone and arrow. Then they have this thing called magicite in there, which is your way to augment all your different ability, your different weapons, right? So you start with a very small magicite box, which only allows you to say to I'll say Tim, let's just say let's just say ten is I would started as I to say six, but have ten to a sign. And so as you're beating up creatures and unlocking chests, you're getting new magicite fragments and then You can use those to go trade in for Magicite abilities or sometimes you find the ability in the bigger chests. And the really good magicite might be eight points. you only have two left. exactly that sort. You understand this. And then of course, you take the money you're earning and you can buy a bigger magicite box so you can keep increasing your kit and really build it out By the end I was I had my boomerang had turned into like a glaive from Dark Sctor. that was pretty fucking cool. I didn even call it Death glaive. It's purple. I loved it. But you could send it out, it you know, kills people and I'd add it in making it bigger and you know different attacks, elements and ya, yada yada to charge. There's always a different. But O of the things I was doing that I really appreciated was on the sword I had gone into him and said, okay, cool, I'm using the magic site to make sure I'm getting more critical attacks, that they're doing more damage etcetera, etceter And then with the glaive, I'd put a new ability on that that was is if it's out, myit chance is up twenty percent or something like that. So it' be this thing of walking into a battle and just throwing it out at somebody and then just killing everybody and slice. I'll tell you what I love doing go into a big ass open field of grass. thow in that boomerang and I had it set to a slower speed with one of the things where it's like It becomes bigger, but it's slower. So I'd throw it out and I would just run and and it would follow me and cut all the graround that's real satisfying stuff. Yeah That reminds me of Laks of the past where you get the run ability and you just love so good. But speed of Lak to the past, Andy. how does this compare Just playlist fast not too long ago feel wise in terms of the action combat. Well, I mean, it's it's The modernized version of it, you know, like Greg mentioned with the Perry, you're not just holding block to block. Now everything else I wouldd say animation wise, I wish they did a bit more to kind of you know, up the presentation because the art style is so gorgeous. but Like my first issue that I had with it when I first played the demo was When you spam X, it's just the link jing, ding, ding, ding, you know, you're just you're just swiping the sword. I was hoping for bit more flourish or whatever, notot a whole lot of production values there, unfortunately the um Like are there it's as responsive as you would want it. There's no dodge, but you do have a jump And there will be Boss you know, att tacks where there's a wave on the ground. you got to jump over it at the right time And so it's the modernized version of it, where it's meant to be a bit more actiony. Do you give an example of a game that does the more stylish swipes Talibasadter Don. Alabaster Don. Hyperl drrifter you know, there's a lot more like flourish to the animations There are a lot of different abilities in this game because not only do you have your kit, like Greg is mentioning, and when you when you're in battle You can hold right trigger and it brings up the little weapon wheel and you could set, you know, X is set to whatever weapon, Y is set to another weapon and you can on the spot like, you know, hot swap out your weapons, but then your little fairy also has abilities and your little fairy Hellaster Dawn, what everybody play this game? Y little fairy can light things on fire, your little fairy can have you teleport to it. There's a lot of like different abilities and Eventually you could run, you can fly you know what I mean? I get pushed around with it, which I know Roger saw me doing hours and he's like, how the fuck did do that? Yeah I'm desperately in need of a dodge in this game of some type of dash or something. I'm like Seven hours in I was like every every time every play session I'd be like, this is the play sess. I'm gonna get it. I'm gonna get the m and And it just never happened for me. And I think that that's like buting up against me having like a really, really fun time where I just doesn't feel like I had that agency to like doodge roll, do something. L I just got the ferry. I see the chat right now. We have Kyl Voning, I don't have a fid door, but I made a post with my doorky on All right, let's blow it up. Well, Greg is doing that U Y ferry does have that ability there's an ability that you could Um You could teleport to it You could also make a clone of yourself wherever your fairy is and they just don't do enough thing There's there was one moment where A bunch of arrows were being shot out of a wall and I couldn't cross it without dying. so I had to U the right stick to control the ferry to go around the wall and then I teleported to it. and I was like, Cool, give me more of that. I just never really had more of them Unfortunately. Yeah because you control the ferryy with the right stick. It's a little bit like a little too slow. K kindind of annoying. you can use it in combat, but it doesn't really work out. there it is. Okay, yeah, there we go. There's the hat That's but again. That's a nice hat. All right, Kyle. That's a good hat. Now we can' talk shit about this hat. So what I did is I about that for sure. I don't believe him So I made artist surrendering I'm wearing too much red pedora pack I passash. W. Wow.y That's what I'm talking about.actly what I'm talking about I penence, you have to post this on your. That's a great job. That's. Its all my skills Um, But yeah, not enough, not enough creative puzzles, you know, there aren't There were not any moments in this game where I say, o shit nice. you know, I figured that out. I can't I overcame that challenge. Everything is Very, very obvious. It could be a good like baby's first Zelda game. But there's Zelda for that Yeah. Yeah. you know, there would be moments in Zelda when I was a kid that I'm like, how the fuck do I How do I figure out this dungeon? There's none of that here. Like I feel like this is it's very, very su Yeah the amount of dungeons I would walk in and be like, oh my Godd, there's seven floors. This is going to be confusing. And I think it speaks being frictionless and being welcoming that never happened. It would be you just keep going and eventually maybe you hit the wall, but there's probably a fast travel point there that you could get back to or whatever Yeah, the fast travel is very nice. like Greg as mentioned, you could can fast travel to any of the little bonfire checkpoints or whatever. But also in dungeons, I would often forget that I could fast travel. and it was always so youre double going all the way back to the front door. That happened a couple of times and then I was like, why you could just fast travel back to the other spot in the dungeon. it was very helpful So they they do a lot They're doing enough there to lessen the frustration Um, because I always think back to devs of of Fantom Blade Zero and then mentioning like when you're h when you're hitaka Miyazaki and you're making a souls like You're giving a lot more grace and when you're not him Players are quicker to give up and say like, I don't want to deal with this frustration. So I'm happy that they made some concessions and said like, no, let's just you fast travel right off the rip Let's let the player explore as much as they want and quickly get around and adventure to their heart's content. Rogge, there was the system you wanted to talk about. I was the what magicide The magicide things, which is I think it's an early game situation right now where I'm just basically the there's no like traditional upgrade system for any of these, you know, weapons, right? So you're just kind of going to the dealer and you're getting a bunch of random ones where you finding them around the world. So the ones that I'm getting, I feel aren't really like doing anything that I can kind of figure out. Of course the crit damage is kind of nebulous to me right now, but it seems like it goes to a place that gets crazier as you go on. You eventually will interested with it. Yeah, you'll find two star than three star versions of those weapons. And then as you level up the box you get you earn more, you have a better chance at getting those high star ratings. And then you can But it's also back to just the fact that the game doesnn't challenge you to make this worthwhile to a deree. Yeah I feel like I could have equipped n Magicy been fine. I did make a mistake in the like leading up to the final boss of whatever the first ending that I sold like all of my magicitees just to try to get money. and then I realized like, oh shit, I'm kind of screwed right here because so I had to go do a couple of other things to get just some things to add on or whatever. But You get to a point when you upgrade your bag or when you upgrade The amount of the The amount of gems that you're making will level up Rarity of the magistite you're getting right And when you hit level five, I believe you then get the ability to make Magicide for specific weapons. And you don't have that initially.. It costs more So if you, you know you could just make like, if I have twenty magisite, you know, gems or whatever. That's four random gems that I can make because they cost five gem. they cost five, right? Yeah. If you want to make If I just want sort of ones, they cost ten. And so each if you want to make specific ones, they would cost ten. So they cost a little bit more, but you would know I'm fucking with this sword. I don't want to get gems for weapons I'm not using. Let me just make gems for this sword. I think I' like level three right. Yeah and they all pop up and, you know, they'll all be like You know, after a parry your crit does this or you shoot out three waves of energy now. the swipe is a lot larger, you know, they they do get um, a bit They get a bit more detailed, I would say, you know. One of the basic things that I think turn me off I'm glad I went through it because I think it's gotten better the more weapons I get is just the way that you move your characters and you and your character and you fight is that it's on a eight axis, right? So you can't, you don't get like that full three hundred and sixty of movement. So there was a few moments where I'm like trying to attack somebody and they're just in that in between area and I'm just getting that annoying hit and it's like, okay, I need to kind of adjust and restart it Of course it gets better depending on what weapon you use, and of course, when you have like bigigger, you know shock waves and stuff like that, but in the very beginning that turned me off a little bit there. Yeah, what's the readability like? Because I'm watching this and I haven't played, but seeing some of the boss fights because of the HD two D art style and' being way more action focused than the turn based ones we've gotten in the past, like it does seem a little bit difficult to read. Like did you've experienced that I didn't. That's usually my complaint with like beat them ups, or right even cosmic invasion or something like getting annoyed. Personally, I didn't have that issue here. I thought I was able to deflect or, you know, bounce it back or get in their attack everywhere. The bosses, I think again are the stellar standout of the combat here. likeike they are inventive with them. I wish there was more of them. The ones you get into are real cool. Oh I should say that My secret delight for this game table is there's a frog who plays a saxophone that then puts a little bubble around his friends. I like that guy a lot. Really fills them up Re good tune. We should get that for our album. guys are going to love Chrono Shger Like when they finally do just decide the timing is right when you iss you two D Chrono trigger. There's a lot y'all said at this that I'm like, that's the game for you. Yeah,. That's exciting was a frog in it right now. I've started Cr trigger several. Yeah. I got I got to the frog guy in Crown T trigger It was turned offver I don't top. All right. Anything else y'all want to talk about I bummed that I didn't love this. I really when everything we were seeing for it, I was like this looks like exactly what I want from this studio, from this art style from this blah. So the fact that it didn't all come together stinks. I mean, again, I think it's an okay game. If you're hearing us talk about it and you want a bedtime game. you want just I mean in the chat says after playing the demo and hearing all this Illeit can't wait. this game iss seven out of ten, I'll love like a ten out of ten J just nice junk food before bed and on a plane. I like that Yeah If you got time for it, absolutely. I just yeah, I'm at that point where I'm like There are a lot of awesome experiences out there that are about to come out or have already come out Al shut up backlog. Yeah and it might You know, I don't I just don't know if it would be worth my time then, but I will say shout out to V games New York I Iis video games I went to the I went to the video games New York retro store, you know, used game store did you buy A the Acrobat No, I didn't buy early acc. Did you kind of look at it and kind of remember how he looked L looked at him. I was like, yeah, he's a bet. Yeah. He's bet I did I was looking at their their inventory. I was like You got adventures of Elliot? Is that Elliotet? He's like, Nah, but we could sell it. Break a Street D love that. was. Anyways, even though this one didn't live up to my expectations, I'm very excited for a sequel. I'm very excited for the next octopath that they'll do. I still really love this art style in this studio, so yeah I should say this is my first HD two D game that I've actually like snced any time into. And you know what N not fully not fully blown away by it. I like HG two D fine. It gives me like a little fan game vibe. I don't know. That's just like my weird take. I don't hate it I'm not like a hater on it. It just like doesn't blow me away in motion as much as I thought it would. I I think when it first came out, you know, we've had this discussion of like it may have lost its luster I think this is the best looking form of it. There are no squirrels with misnumbered or miss sized pixels I will say that. Oh here the game they do a great job. I swear of God. they listen to that game's gast. I swear of God because it was just play perspective because there's a there's a thing that you do in game development that's called like a Imagine like a noise map Roger. Yeah. like a noise map that's like tlable. so it just goes everywhere, right? And you often do that with close up textures where like I can I can, you know, texture in all the wrinkles on a face, but then you can add a pores noise map that you could add a bunch of pores and you could make the map bigger so they get larger or whatever but they're all tilable or whatever. This game all over the environment has like a sort of like square by square Um Like it's just, you see a bunch of squares all over the ground, like pixels. As if like they want everything to look to scales. like they listen to that podcast. They know that like, man, we can't disappoint Andy on this one. Yeah. All the stones have the same size pixels as Elliot does. It's a great job. Great job T out of ten game. They did it They did it everybody Um, well cool That's the addventures of Valley.s mom Lonll. I want a doctor passass T travel Zero Play Alabaster Dawn. playay Ala Andy Fuck playay Alabaster Dawn, dude. I wanted to bring up another game that I've been kind of rocking with recently. It's a game that I recommended to Greg and R Rer Rer I'm gonna I'm bring it up right now and you think so I can get that link for Kevin. It's called the spepell Brigade. Maybe Kevin can get it faster than I can pell Brigade. spepell For anybody who fucks with Vampire Survivors games That sort of genre This is a multiplayer style video game And it is so much freaking fun. It's ret much vampire survivors, but you could play with up to four friends or just solo And the art styles very like leeague of legend. So if you're I know when we played vampire crawlers Bess didn't really Less doesn't really fuck with like different clashing art visual styles of the vampires games, you know, like how they do their their visuals. This game looks a lot more like League of Legends has like a lot more of a you know, u, The art style looks like it was made by one person. And it's not really all over the place. so if that bothers you, This will kind of help that out. But Um It's it could be up to a four player multiplayer. You can go res your friends whenever they get downed. you can turn off like friendly fire The I'm having a lot of fun with it right now. It's twelve and ninety nine and it's definitely a lot more active than What vampire survivors is there will be like just random quest that pop up that say, go collect all, you know twenty of these things on the ground and you have to go search for them while also trying to not die. And all the abilities so far are a lot of fun. I think it's like A really, really cool promising time. I don't know if it's early access or not I assumed it was. No no, it's out. Okay, so it's fully assed out. All right, that's awesome. But yeah, the Much like vampire sururvivors, much like you know, Mega Bunk or any of those, you start unlocking new different characters that have different perks about them.ool Yeahah, it's really fun so far. I would say play with PlayStation five and Steam is Wth w. Wow Fully ass out U Speaking HG two D. Oh Final Fantasy Rance. Resonance. any on your hype level for that game after I am I'm hoping like I'm hoping the writing is good. That's that's A lot of it comes down to that for me, like I want characters to care about. I want I want someone to drop a bar and go like, Dann, that's hard. Like that's a cool thing to say right there in that moment. I just I want my characters to feel cool and lovable and I want some people to really hate and just like go, damn, you are so easy to despise in this moment. There's I'm thinking of one in Octopath Traveler Zero that really stuck with me by the end of it and I hope that it can offer things like that can't wait This doesn't yeah, I I'm the opposite of Roger. I eat up this two DHD stuff. I love it. Obviously having such a history with Octopath, another one like that and bringing in Final Fantasy, which I've never really connected with with the exception of rememake that one time. I'm excited to see what they got their sleees for. Yeah, I'm worried about it because I think it looks great. like I think that for the HG two D style, it does look like it's doing something things differently. likeike there's a lot of new effects and ilt shift not just on the background, but like on some of the characters like you saw that dragon and it looked like it had multiple layers to it, which I thought was really cool. and just some of the particle effects and just kind of like fog and stuff. like it just looks like Not next J HG two D, but like kind of a step forward I find that I don't really like the everyone is here type games and like this happen like summonable like final fantasy. was like last here little too gimmicky. It reminds me of like Fire and Bloom Engaged, which did pretty much the same thing and This I love crossovers. likeike y'all know, I love Smash Bothers. what Spider Vverse does so well is it For the most part, like into the Spider Vverse movies, they kind of created their own characters. like they didn't really rely on Yay Andrew Garfield and u, you know, u Christopher Barnes like the ninety, Spider Man or whatever they're just cameos. they're not even in it Well, whatever You get what I'm saying. Yeah. Spectacular Spider Man is a cameo in that. but their cast of sppider peopleople like the Peter B. Parker, That's just a new character that they were able to just have a full story for. And so things can happen to that character that I'm not constantly thinking is like feels out of character for how he would have acted in this way or whatever. And so it just doesn't feel like it's really them You know what I mean?? So they're having Cloud and Terrra and stuff, I'm just like, well, it's not really them, so why are they here? What And I just can't get over that. They are summonsed so they won't like They're not going to be with you out of battle Yeah, but like why I don't know. know about it I'm with you right there I'm like I' rather just be big monsters. I'd rather than be big creatures in that moment. What's the word on that game? because I've saw that of course the announcement, but like it's based off a mobile game. Is is this octopath zero level It's beyond that it's beyond that. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah where they like they Ham had a thing in his we talked his thing Jesus Christ his preview that went live right around it where we read it out loud. and it was even more than that. I can try to find a for you Okay, M, that's exciting.. Yeah, this, I mean, I'm jazzed about that. Every year I look for one JRPG to pull me in in a fucking HT two D fininalantasy game. I mean, it's huge. definitely got to try that out. fact that they're putting the final fantasy name on this. it's like That's we'll see This see what they what they do with it. Yeah, that's that's crazy that it's so close U And then the final super chat of the day. Now you might be thinking how this is like how Octopass Travelerss here was a revamp of the mobile game Octopath traravelers, champion of continent. However, residence is a lot different This is not a port or even a remake of Brave Exodus. Rather, it serves as the narrative foundation with a whole new combat system in oververworld. Its story has been tuned for a traditional RPG that's informed by Brave Exus first season with everything else built from the ground up It's got airs shhips, Choobos and the summons you know and loveve and an HD two D art style. Gre L That's a made up word I'm say I if I refuse. Talk Sarge says, have any of you played a JRPG called Chained Echoes? I fell in love with it recently and has a nice art style combat system that felt fresh I is recommended often whenever I talk about just being bummed out with narrative It came out like three years ago, I believe, two years ago. Yeah, I have it open here. It came out twenty twenty two. Take up your sword, channel your magic or board your mech. Chained Echoes is a sixteen bit style RPG set in a fantasy world where dragons are as common as pilot mechanical suits. It's funny.s great. I'm on the kind of funny YouTube account And we've watched this trailer before. That's awesome. It's come up. Yeah. this is yeah, chain echo. It has a great art style. It does seem like it keeps on getting brought up whenever we talk. Maybe we should just play it and stop complaining about. other games that maybe we don't love. just in general. I love the art style Can you look up another one up for me, Kevin called Sacrifier It looks like theyre to sacrif. play It's an R at the end instead of a. Did you really hit the sac there? Sacrifier? I do sac do. It was like, how do you spell that one? Sacrifier is another one I think is not out yet, but it is coming out. Sacrifier. Sacrifiire We're fine caught Iunity spell check on that way. S A C o No I F I R E Yeah. they keep making fucking terrible. I each names. Are you challenging me or do you need help with it And then he also wanted to challenge you Yeah, it's like the word sacrifice You've replaced the C at the end with an R. so it's sac for a fire S S A C RI Just a laugh from Kevor. Are you going to bring it out Kevor? S S A C RI S A C R and then the word fire. put an O in there for some reason. Oh yeah. Yeah I heard it. I heard the o. heard I heard the o. Holy Sorerer. And I spelt it for him and he was st. I was talalking over him. sm it. I was doing the thing for you. Here's sacrifiire. Here it is everybody Was Was any of this worth it? Yeah, but it's got sort of that similar HD two D look. without a lot of the tilt shifting A love letter to classic JRP Sack and fiireres an upcoming RP gene boasting a unique combat system, elaborate pixel art and music by genre Legend Motoy Sakuraba U Ezekiel, a young priest, struggles to keep his faith in the world he loves when it's threatened by a war between gods and demons. The adventure begins oming in twenty twenty six, pixelated milk is the dev. That's hot I'm adding looks pretty sick. That's awesome. That looks cool. prettyrety good. How sacrifer ac Sacrroore. So you get that over there everyone. Let us know in the comments below if you are still interested in Adventures of Elliot, the Millennium Tale. And what you think about Final Fantasy resonance And if you think it's going to be good I really want to know. I'm made over it not to get it on a fantasy critic Yeah I't think it's roll of the dice but I was like h. Mh. Michael get it Did no one get it? Elliot. Mike has it. No, no, no someonely residident. Oh, don't he get someone I got dragons about Dogma too Dragonsogma. Dragon's Dgma two, Dark Aison. You think it's gonna to get enough reviews Yeah And also comes with a bunch of updates this isn' be great Yeah yeah.vival see. We'll see. It's got a snowy place now. You got a snowy place? That's all you need. it a snowy dayace. Okay y'all..