Mark Trobough:
And welcome everybody to the Game Junction Podcast, episode number 77. How's everybody doing? Good, good, good.
Brandon Hurles:
Friday Awesome Friday TGIF.
Mark Trobough:
Oh, I thought we were going with the with the Femboy Friday. I thought that was today's theme.
Brandon Hurles:
I mean, it can be a thing that we like do, like this Femboy Friday podcast.
Mark Trobough:
Just how's everybody's week been going so far?
Kerguhl Games:
It's great. It's great, it's been a week, I mean like it's not been bad.
Brandon Hurles:
It's just it's been hectic and crazy, A lot going on, a lot happening and then trying to keep up with stuff along the way. So I like don't get behind on the podcast, Like holy crap, is this year overwhelming, Like Jiminy Christmas. It just doesn't, doesn't stop. We say it every week. I'm like I figure there would be like a slow week, I'm not gonna stop. Yeah right, there's been April two, it's crazy and three, three big at gamer triple a game releases today.
Mark Trobough:
So Jay, it's been pretty big, obviously the headline for today's episode. Obviously you got some PS5 prospects leaked, some more information about the PSVR two and some new stuff about Godzilla I've been hearing about, but I guess we can dig it right in. Let's see if anybody else has anything to say before we go right into it.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, I mean we'll be talking a little bit kind of about everything. Uh, sandland demo, we'll dive into that a little bit, because that's one of a Kier's last works that you know, other than the Dragon Ball show Um, we'll be talking a little bit. We've got a good bit of anime stuff, a good bit of movie and TV show stuff, so quite a bit more than just gaming. Um, I will say, if you are a Marvel fan, this is your week to listen, slash watch, because there's been like two pretty big things this week, uh, among other things actually too. So, yeah, we're going to be talking a little bit about everything. I guess we'll just go ahead and dive in.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, I guess first and foremost, before we get to Kerr's segment, which is first up here, is there any kind of plugs or anything you wanted to put in real quick brand in or?
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, so, um, we have got the channel membership. So if you are watching on YouTube, channel membership is there. You just go to the channel and they'll be like a membership tab and if you're listening to audio, um, you can subscribe on. Buzzsprout helps us out, there's. There's a few other options as well. If you go to our link tree, there's some things there, but definitely want to plug merch. We're going to have new merch up this week again, but we've got a semi recent podcast design up and then there's a few other like regular game junction stuff. We're going to have like a collab design coming up for the podcast here soon with everybody's logo on it. So, uh, we've got that and uh, also, you can now just go to the game juncture podcastcom and it will take you straight to our Buzzsprout and all of our audio uh platforms. So that is a new thing and I think that's, uh, the last plug there.
Mark Trobough:
And definitely so. I guess we're getting right into a Kerr's weekly segment. We got to going on here.
Kerguhl Games:
Well, a couple of things happening, so I usually talk about, you know, the new releases, um, some of the free games that you can get, um, obviously, big, big things. Um. First and foremost, I wanted to talk about the, the free stuff. There's actually three different games you can get on PC for free right now. There is call of the wild, the angler and Adam Eve from Incredibles, um, and sorry, invincibles, um. That is an epic game store. And then there's also a book of demons, I believe it's called Um. That is on GOGcom, uh, so you can grab those games. There's also some really nice um spring sale. The actual spring sale on steam ended, but there's a couple of different events currently on steam where you can grab some really um cheap stuff.
Kerguhl Games:
There is the whole battlefield franchise has really really steep discounts. So if you want to jump into battlefield one, battlefield five or battlefield um 2042, now is the best time. Um, and there's also a free weekend for battlefield 2042. Um, I personally play it from time to time. It was terrible at launch, we all know that, but now it is a pretty decent, decent game, especially when you can grab it for like seven, eight, nine bucks. Um, there is also a couple of more other sales. There's some final fantasy um titles that are currently discounted on steam. There's um Star Wars Battlefront two uh heavily discounted. You can grab it under five bucks. And there's also Titanfall two uh, which actually still has a thriving online community Um, and you can grab it for $3 only on steam. So those are some deals you can, you can look through. Um.
Kerguhl Games:
Obviously, some really really cool new games that came out Um Rise of Ronin launched Um. It got a 76% um critic score. Uh. We're still waiting for um people to you know, actual people to to rate it um, because critics have no souls and they're not people Um, but moving on, uh, it's looks like a. Yeah, it looks like. Rise of Ronin is like uh, we just talked about it before we started. It's like a little baby that that Neo uh goes to Tsushima and um Sekiro had and it has guns in it and it just it looks really fun. It doesn't look like it's super deep in terms of the story, it's more like gameplay oriented or, like you know, the combat oriented, but it still looks really fun Um. So definitely check it. Check that out it. It looks really really cool Um. Moving on, we do have um Dragon's Dogma 2 obviously released. Uh, it is.
Brandon Hurles:
I mean, I don't know where disappointed, right yeah.
Kerguhl Games:
I think it's going to be a uh, we can talk about this later because this has been a thing with, you know, aaa games. Lately Everybody was so excited about this game. Um, it's been a what? 14 years since the first one and I watched probably over 10, 10 to 15 hours of live streams of it and the comment looks super fun. Um, but man, they really, they're really greedy. Um, essentially like long story short, and we can talk about this later more. But, um, there is 21 different options or, like my favorite, transactions that you can buy on steam store alone, and some of these include fast travel amount. Um, some, uh, from what I've understood, uh, like crystals that you can revive your pawns, which are like your, your allies or whatever. Um, I mean essentially paid to win in a single player game. Just just sounds weird, right, so dumb it makes absolutely no sense.
Brandon Hurles:
I'm actually kind of, I want to say I'm shocked because it's like I'm shocked because it's Capcom. Now, they have done stuff like this in the past, but it's not like they're not notorious for doing this sort of thing, Right, Like their DLC is normally pretty normal, Like you know, skins for a street fighter, pretty much nothing for, like, Mega man, Monster Hunter, you know like there's stuff there but nobody complains, right. So I'm I'm a little shocked.
Kerguhl Games:
Yeah, for sure. And as I said, go ahead, Mark.
Mark Trobough:
No, I was just going to say there should. There's no excuse to ever have micro transactions in a single player game. I think it's just cut and dry.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, yeah, I think it's stupid, but for sure.
Kerguhl Games:
And then there's a time and a place. I feel like with you know, with DLCs, and like if they're selling I mean I don't even know if they're selling costumes, like skins and stuff, I mean sure, right, but when you're baking functionality like fast travel mounts, it just it makes no say, it really makes no sense. I mean I'm also like another one is go ahead.
Brandon Hurles:
I mean like personally, like I get that like a few options or whatever for single player game. Some people like that right, like if it's a thing, I feel like it should be a thing later, but of course that doesn't happen anymore, that there's no like a post development. Oh we, we developed this. You know, a month later it was all made before. But you know, some people like that for single player right, like there's some things like even like Ghost of Tsushima had like a little bit of microtransaction DLC you could get and it's a single player game, it's got a multiplayer mode now, but like there's.
Brandon Hurles:
There's always been options, even since the PS3 for that. But like personally, I've never once ever bought a microtransaction for a single player game ever. And like I'm pretty good with whatever costume you give me or I earn in the game, but like more power to you if you you do like that. But having the options that are here for this game, like I think the developer said something like fast travel takes away from the experience, and I don't want to take the full quote away from that, but that I read something to that regard.
Kerguhl Games:
That's reasonable, like that statement is reasonable, but don't just bake it into a microtransaction, right it just. I mean the whole approach is just wrong and what's wrong. I feel like I guess we're having this conversation now and we can kind of continue later. But no, it's fine, but it's. It blows my mind that nowadays and this is why Baldur's Gate 3, I always use it as an example because it stood out so much with doing everything right you know, obviously it has its little hiccups, the development was rushed in chapter three, but I mean that was a full game. You get a full game. It works.
Kerguhl Games:
They don't beg you to spend more money past the. I mean Dragon's Dogma 2 is 69.99 in the US. In Canada, with taxes, it's over a hundred bucks, which is insane. And then on top of that you got to pay like right now I'm looking at the Steam DLC, dlc quotations for the listeners there's $42 worth of microtransactions. That is insane. And one among one of which, which is the most notorious one, which I think people are mostly pissed about, is the character editor, which allows you to edit your appearance. You have to buy, you have to pay money to change your character after you created it, right. And then the well, they say like oh, you can use in-game currency to do this. Why am I supposed to be locked into something and spend hours of my time grinding currency in order to change the way my character looks?
Kerguhl Games:
It's yeah makes no sense when you pay $70,.
Brandon Hurles:
I downloaded the stupid. I didn't realize at first it was only a character creator. But I downloaded the character creator and made a character that transfers over to the game because I expected to grab it right away. And now I'm like I think this is a sale game for me $70 plus all this other stuff you want me to buy. I think I'm good with holding off. Now, unfortunately, I'm very disappointed about this game, very, very disappointed. You know, I can't say about the gameplay, because I haven't played, but this whole deal you know, it's crazy.
Mark Trobough:
I was going to say. This is just the epitome of what the greed that triple gaming has come to For a little bit. It's one thing. If it's like that live service in a mo, I expect some, some micro transactions, especially if it's a game that's continuously getting updated and developed to some degree that you're putting hundreds or thousands of hours into. I can that kind of makes sense. But if it's a single player game, to me there's no excuse to ever have any micro transactions of any. I mean, we've come to expect even DLC, but that's just proof that you were too lazy or you want to. You want to cut content from the base game and recharge people to play, to continue, to do continue the actual story of said game. It's just an excuse.
Mark Trobough:
When it's gotten to a point now where people are like you're reaching too far, this is ridiculous. Like why does this exist? But even you brought the fast travel. I'm like sure, to some people or that's your opinion Some people like fast travel. That's like okay. So instead of fast traveling, I'm just going to walk in a straight line for the 10 minutes due to this location. Like I don't, especially if I've already. It's an area I've already explored and it's just back traveling, yeah.
Kerguhl Games:
I mean a good example, Go ahead.
Brandon Hurles:
Well, I was going to say my, my thing is is that like, I can get? Like, if that's their vision and that it takes away from the experience? Sure, right, but for me now I get there's a lot of games that do this where you unlock the fast travel, like you know, 15 hours in or something. I get that because then you get the time to explore the game a little bit, the map, but then, like, there becomes a time where the person is, you know, playing so much and has been around the area so much that you get tired of that. So then you unlock it. Right, you unlock that fast travel. Or you get the, the Ubisoft system, where you got to like, unlock the map and then you can fast travel, whatever, right, so, like, I get that, like I think that should be an option and it is, but you got to pay for it. I think it's just stupid.
Mark Trobough:
It's so tone deaf at that point. It's like it's not designed philosophy, but if you're willing to pay extra you can do whatever you want. I'm like that's the most tone deaf thing I've ever heard. If it's against your philosophy, then don't have it in the game at all, right. But to have it in the game, but you have to pay for it, that's that's. That's saying one thing and then you know doing it. It's just, it's complete hypocrisy, pr. It's.
Brandon Hurles:
PR speak and they're trying to save themselves.
Mark Trobough:
Uh, but it's not like they are like 58 critic reviews.
Brandon Hurles:
Like we, we all feel the same way about critic reviews. I could give a crap bless, honestly. But sitting at an 87 is a little shocking to me. But meanwhile it got review bombed on steam Um well.
Mark Trobough:
I mean, the core game could be good, but there's so much bad that overshadows it with with the microtransaction. It's like I don't even want to support this kind of it's kind of practice.
Brandon Hurles:
That's where I'm at, because if you support, it here.
Mark Trobough:
It's going to continue and get worse down the line with other games. Like you need to have a line in the sand where you say this is too much. We're going to, we're going to say no at this point.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, I can't support. I mean, that was my very thought. I'm like, okay, I'm seeing all this I'm actually legitimately seeing it from somebody stream. Like I personally can't support that. This will be a sale game where I can support them at the lowest cost possible.
Brandon Hurles:
And I'm disappointed because I love Capcom, they, they hold my my favorite series ever and you know, and I love Monster Hunter too and Street Fighter and like it's just disappointing. Like I loved Dragon's Dogma, played the crap out of it, grabbed Dark Arisen the day it came out, like I it's just really truly disappointing, cause I was really looking forward to this and this this reminds me of Dead Island two all over again. I know that you know there's a few people that like it or whatever Like. To me it looks like crap and I have no interest in it now. But Dead Island was the same way right. Like you had Dead Island, you had Riptide and then there was like a long, long development for two and it gives me that kind of vibes because it had the same sort of micro transaction setup at launch and that that was why I didn't grab it and I was just like I don't care at that point and that was also very hype for that game as well. So this is a. This seems to be a repeating pattern.
Kerguhl Games:
Yeah, unfortunately. Yeah, and and I was going to mention, you know, the the whole thing with fast travel there's a way to do it. Where, for example, in Red Dead, Redemption two is my most recent example I refuse to use fast travel there was maybe, I want to say, five times. I used it because I already explored that area. But even if I didn't, even if it was like a long ride, like a horse ride, I just let it go and I just enjoyed the environment and it was great, you know. And they made it somewhat difficult to fast travel, where you don't just go and open up a map and click a button. It's like you fast travel, no, you just got to set up a camp, select an option, blah, blah, blah. But still they worked it in in a way where they encourage you to explore and do things and I think it's really not that hard to do. But truly, it just blows my mind that they did this and probably thought like, oh, we'll be fine, you know, communities piss, so that was definitely all worth it for them.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah. Yeah, I mean as as they should be personally, but definitely yeah.
Mark Trobough:
Oh, is there any more you want to see on your little segment Kurgle before we move on, or?
Kerguhl Games:
Yeah, there's actually a saw alone in the dark, actually released, and let me just see what the name of the actor is. It's the. Is the guy from Stranger Things? Yeah.
Brandon Hurles:
What's his?
Kerguhl Games:
name.
Brandon Hurles:
I can't remember I haven't watched.
Mark Trobough:
Stranger Things so anyway, it's a.
Kerguhl Games:
It's like a cinematic game, it's like a Lovecraftian action horror game and it got decent scores and the the mocap work looks really nice. The cutscenes look amazing. Not my type of game personally, but it kind of went under the radar. It was developed by Pieces Interactive and he was published by THQ Nordic and it looks really nice. I mean, I don't know like there's a lot of people that like games like these and yeah, I watched a few hours of it. Somebody was streaming it so I just wanted to mention it. So you definitely check it out because I didn't see it get a lot of a lot of press.
Brandon Hurles:
It's also. It's also a remake. I actually played the. The original came out, I think, like on DOS, but I played it on 3DO. I still have it actually, so it's kind of weird 2008. No, no, the 3DO one came out in like 94. But yeah, that was a remake too.
Mark Trobough:
That was a remake, oh yeah. This is came out in 92.
Brandon Hurles:
92. So yeah, it's a old game. I think it was DOS first and then 3DO and there was a. There was a few like obscure systems, that it went on.
Mark Trobough:
But I know you were right, it was DOS first.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, okay, I thought so I, because I remember like the floppy disks and stuff back in the day for it, but this particular version of the game doesn't look like something I would enjoy. As much though I think I would like to grab it, maybe at a sale price or something to to give it a go, because I'm pretty nostalgic for that game. I've always really liked it and I like the 2000 what 2008 game that came out. I like that as well. Yeah.
Mark Trobough:
Game. I think all versions of this game have come out on so many different platforms.
Brandon Hurles:
Dude, it's so many. The original by itself was probably on like 10 different platforms or something crazy. Like like obscure, weird platforms too. I mean, like for most people even the 3DO is obscure, and it's really not, but kind of is like most people haven't played a 3DO.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, it's some weird stuff on here, like the PC, 9800, fm towns, classic Mac OS, risc OS, some weird stuff. I've never heard it before.
Brandon Hurles:
Let me tell you the FM towns Marty is one of the most expensive systems that you can grab now, like I've looked for years for that system, why is it so expensive?
Mark Trobough:
Is it just rare?
Brandon Hurles:
Does it something unique, or Very unique and didn't didn't sell so like there weren't very many units made, it's like very expensive system, like 1500 to $2000 all day. Oh.
Mark Trobough:
I guess yeah, they said what 500,000 units sold, which is not a lot.
Brandon Hurles:
No, no, not at all so yeah.
Brandon Hurles:
But it does look interesting, like it is a pretty game, like definitely you know, and it, like semi, has that feel kind of of the original, but I do like the sort of new coat of paint they gave. It is definitely way different than the alone in the dark games that came like the remake. And there were sequels and stuff too. I didn't play all of them, but it's a pretty notorious series, so I was kind of surprised to see this just sort of fly under the radar. I've heard zero people talk about it.
Kerguhl Games:
So yeah, yeah, that's why I wanted to mention it. I definitely didn't see a lot of coverage for it. And then I actually wanted to mention what the horizon forbidden West came out on steam and people are loving it and that's awesome. You know, you can enjoy it fully, maxed out, 4k. You know crazy graphics and all that. That's another little title.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, I think there was. I don't know what it called little, but yeah, there was one weird.
Mark Trobough:
There was one thing that I saw people complain about it, and that's that's the fact that the map is permanently mapped to the tab button. Even though you're supposed to be able to remap it, you can't because it used to be like how you brought up your weapon wheel, and it's just weird that tab, really good key, would be for a map which you don't really need that often. So I definitely saw a lot of people on the steam forums like almost everybody's complaining about that.
Brandon Hurles:
They got a key, they got a patch for that Right.
Mark Trobough:
Well, they one just came out today, but it was for for stuff related to like controller support, so hopefully some mapping stuff comes out fairly soon to fix these bugs.
Brandon Hurles:
What a problem on PS5. But I will say I actually recently heard some discussion and I was listening to a buddy's podcast and have heard other people talk about it, but it seems like there are always issues with PlayStation's PC launches Like this one might be the best launch for one of their games, but I remember like what was it God of War when that launched on PC and then Ragnarok had like major issues like screen tearing, like real bad and frame rate massive frame rate issue. I'm not sure what it is, but like their optimization team on PC has some like real problems.
Brandon Hurles:
But this seems to be the best launch, but I have heard nothing, and I haven't played any PC PlayStation games myself, so I just assume it's Asian.
Mark Trobough:
I mean, I assume for a lot of these studios they've never developed for PC. As well as these are games developed and then having to be ported over. So maybe it's just a mixture of everything, but I mean it's. This game came out two years ago, hopefully moving forward Eventually these problems won't exist, but maybe it's just kind of like we'll do the bare minimum and these things got to get fixed. We'll fix it later, whatever.
Kerguhl Games:
Yeah, and they also mentioned that they're going to focus on PC releases a lot more, because they realized, with the success of God of War and Horizon, the first game they just saw the opportunity and I think it's going to make sense for them to release it at the same time. Correct me if I'm wrong, I think we already talked about it, but they did make a statement, or the CEO talked about it Like they're going to basically release it at the same time, which makes a lot of sense. But yeah, I agree, there's probably just optimizing or porting. This is more of a port than it is optimization.
Kerguhl Games:
Always comes with its own challenges, because you're essentially on PC, you have so many different configurations of parts, processors, gpus, all of these different things that affect it. But, yeah, it seems that people are enjoying it so far. So those are a little bit of the new titles that are released. And then the last thing we wanted to talk about is Sandland demo. This is the last, probably a bit of work that Akira Toriyama worked on, and it is such a lovely little game. The map is huge, but the gameplay was just really really fun and I'm excited to hear Brandon talk about it because I know he also tried it out. I personally really enjoyed it. I love the art style. It runs pretty smooth. I gotta say I was expecting more hiccups, honestly, but it looks good, the world looks really cool and, yeah, let's talk about it a little bit.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, I guess I'll start off with saying it's getting really good reviews. Ign gave it a 9. And I think I have to agree. I was just based on the demo. Obviously I haven't played the full game, but based on the demo. If the full game is like this and way more, I think I want to be sitting around the same spot.
Brandon Hurles:
I enjoyed it so much I went back to it twice to really take it in Because I was absolutely blown away how it looks like. It's more like it's straight out of the manga. It just looks so much like it reminds me of Dragon Ball FighterZ. How that straight up looks like it's an anime episode. It looks like it is straight out of the manga. Colorized it is beautiful. The gameplay is so fun. You can see the early thoughts and things that were brought over to Dragon Ball later on.
Brandon Hurles:
The series came out before Dragon Ball. You can see what the capsules and how it creates the vehicles. You throw down a capsule and then you've got your mech and you've got your bike and exactly the way the capsule core works in Dragon Ball. Yeah, the character design. I always thought the character design for Sand Land was really good. It just translates very well to a 3D game.
Brandon Hurles:
I think this is the. I could be wrong on this, I don't know, but I think this is the only other form of media that we've ever gotten for Sand Land that I'm aware of and it works very well in a game form the enemies there's not a ton that you get to see. I think I maybe saw five, six different ones throughout my playthrough of it. Maybe there might have been a couple more. But super cool, you've got a ton of customization Just in the demo alone. You could, straight up from the beginning, customize each vehicle that you had. You only got the C3 of them. You got the motorcycle, the tank and then the mech. The mech was really fun to play. The motorcycle was a little, I felt, a little hard, kind of floaty A little hard to stop.
Kerguhl Games:
It felt overpowered, though, in my opinion.
Kerguhl Games:
It was fast. It was really hard for bigger enemies to do anything to you. The mech was the most fun I had because it felt very impactful when you started landing those hits. There's little things that I saw explored, like two or three ruins. You need to use the mech to hover over like a little cliff so you don't fall. It has a little propeller up his butt. You can hover over little obstacles. Then you would use the bike to jump off a ramp. They kind of thought about ways to make you use other vehicles, even if you enjoy a particular one more than the others. From a demo perspective, did they do a really good job with that? Which enemy type did you like the most?
Brandon Hurles:
I think probably I don't know the name, but when you get over to that tower there's the other guys in the mechs. I thought those were cool because they just felt more powerful. I guess the giant bird was a little tricky because you had to shoot it unless you were able to hit it when it swooped down a lot. It took forever. If you tried to do it that way, it really liked all the enemy designs that I saw. This translates very well. I almost think that this looks better than the anime did.
Brandon Hurles:
It just translates really well to a 3D animation. That normally for me, a 3D animated anime loses me. I feel like they're all the same now and it just isn't the same. I like the hand-drawn stuff, but this takes that hand-drawn, makes it 3D and it just pops. I was shocked at how good it looked.
Brandon Hurles:
I wasn't expecting this I'm super stoked for it. I'm sure that this will get some sort of DLC later. I don't know that there's anything like announced for that sort of thing. I didn't read anything in reviews about that sort of stuff. This is a game I would like to see have DLC that's developed later, because I could see myself wanting to keep coming back to this game.
Brandon Hurles:
I am curious how long you get out of it, because the two articles I read didn't really say the map is bigger than I thought it would have been. It's interesting because it's like a wasteland. It's kind of like the deal with it. It's interesting seeing the enemies in random places and encountering things along the way. I'm excited to see the sort of stuff that you can discover along the way of playing the story. Super cool, man, super cool. Hopefully this makes some people go back and read the manga or watch the anime and get excited about some of this other work that Akira has worked on. This is one that has probably gone more unnoticed than anything. More people talk about it as art design from Dragon Quest and things like that than they do this series. Most people didn't even know about it.
Kerguhl Games:
I personally never knew about it For sure. I agree I was shocked how a lot of the times, when it comes to outlined graphics, like hand drawn stuff, that gets translated into 3D, it doesn't look as sharp a lot of the times just because of the nature of how it's presented and how it works in a 3D space. But they did such a good job. It felt very. The structures didn't feel cartoonish, they felt real. The character still had that. I don't know how to explain it I don't know what the word is that I'm looking for but they felt like they had character. They weren't washed up. For example, some of this stuff in I love Borderlands, but some of the stuff that you would see in Borderlands, like environments and stuff it just felt too cartoonish. In a way, it felt like flat and cartoon.
Brandon Hurles:
That was the art style that game was going for, but to me it felt flat in a lot of areas. There's nothing to it or repetitive Areas would look exactly the same.
Kerguhl Games:
For sure.
Brandon Hurles:
It does. I think is going to do the series justice, because just a demo was a lot of fun. I can only think of a few other instances where I wanted to go back and play a demo again Super cool. It would be cool to get something from Dr Slump or something One of the other obscure series that he's done. I don't know if we've ever gotten any. I'm aware of any game adaptations of that series, but he's done a lot of other works.
Brandon Hurles:
Hopefully this makes people dive a little deeper into the series and stuff. Mark, I know you haven't played it yet, but I think you're looking forward to it.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, I just haven't had the time this week. I'm pretty busy with work, but I'll definitely give it a go to playing the demo this weekend.
Kerguhl Games:
I think you're going to enjoy it, especially since you told me you were watching that Panzer Girls anime. You're going to have a ton of fun in that tank.
Brandon Hurles:
Dude, the tank actually controls really well.
Kerguhl Games:
Yeah, it's definitely good to know For sure.
Brandon Hurles:
What's it called again Panzer.
Mark Trobough:
Tank, girls and Panzer. In English it's Girls and Tanks or Girls and Tanks or whatever it is, but it's in German, it's a German title, but yeah.
Kerguhl Games:
Interesting, but yeah, that's a fun little game. Definitely check it out, guys. It's pretty fun, yeah, for sure.
Mark Trobough:
What else?
Brandon Hurles:
we got here. Looks like we're going to have.
Kerguhl Games:
I think that's it for the titles that I wanted to mention. Personally, there's obviously always new things coming out and new games. The one that I guess we can mention and I don't know if you guys saw it I don't know if it's anybody's cup of tea, but Bellattro is a game that came out a couple days ago and it's a poker roguer. Yes, I want to try that and everybody's going crazy for it, so I'm going to try to snag it if it goes on sale. It looks really fun, but it's like a deck building game, roguelike so you're kind of doing new runs all the time. Yeah, looks fun, check it out.
Brandon Hurles:
I actually thought that was a switch exclusive so I'm a little out of the loop. But yeah, I've seen a lot of people talking about it. It looks like I don't know anything about poker, but it sounds kind of interesting. Yeah, for sure.
Mark Trobough:
No, but I guess, going from that into some of the minor headlines, that we had, apparently the next Xbox controller reporter to be called the nocturnal vapor, hit the market April 9th priced at $70.
Kerguhl Games:
I don't know why they're calling it that, but yeah, I'm not, because it's going to be overheating and there's going to be vapors coming out of it.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah right, it's supposed to be like the competition to the DualSense Edge essentially, which is weird because we already have the what's it called the PlayStation Elite controllers. There's a one and two, but it's a. I guess. The difference is it's going to have haptic feedback and that sort of stuff. It's supposed to be better than the DualSense Edge's haptic feedback, so it'll be. I guess that's interesting. I like haptic feedback. I think that's what makes the.
Brandon Hurles:
DualSense stand out. I think it's an excellent controller because of that, because there are some games that really take advantage of that, where it's just like it's kind of crazy, like even like the, the Speaker and stuff, like implemented into some of the games, is like really kind of cool, like it adds to that haptic, haptic feedback haptic feedback.
Brandon Hurles:
So it looks like it's coming out in April. Yeah, I think I mean the haptic feedback. I'll grab it. No, a lot of people will grab an Xbox controller just for their PC. So I'm sure that this will probably sell, well, probably sell out. Speaking of selling out, I did just want to bring this up real quick because I did not add it into the notes. But PDP released the new guitar hero guitar. It's called the Rig Master or the Riff Master, I think it's called, and it sold out in three minutes. It was $150, I want to say Because I was like interested in it and I was like I did not think at all that it was going to sell out. But there's like an Xbox version and a PS5, ps4 version and, yeah, it immediately sold out. And the stupid thing is they are only making 500 units, yeah, so like, Can't have anything nice because of the bots.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, I mean like, obviously, like selling out in three minutes. Bots were related. I can't even imagine I'm sure on eBay they're $400 plus right now and only making 500 of them, Like the sort of demand for guitar hero guitars even now are crazy.
Kerguhl Games:
Didn't they announce it when we talked about it? It's kind of it's definitely like a FOMO tactic. I have a feeling like it was more of like hyping it up than it was them just making 500. Like 500,000 units just for making it that much Like I really feel like companies nowadays are just exploiting definitely the fact that if you kind of create that fear of missing out, like, oh, we're only making this many units, I bet you anything like half a year or a year, they're going to be like, oh, we're doing this special edition, you know, and you're just going to be able to grab it.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, and I mean people buy into the FOMO is like a real thing man, people really buy into. I'm looking at the last sold one here, which is the Xbox one, and I kind of surprised because I would think that would be the lesser of the two. But $487 sold today Last one, so more than I even thought. It's just crazy.
Brandon Hurles:
They really made this for Fortnite, for that mode in Fortnite, but because it is backwards compatible with the previous systems and PC, you can also play it, you know, with the last guitar here that came out on PS4 and Xbox Series S or Xbox One. So yeah, I mean I get it. The demands there. Like if you look at the aftermarket prices for old guitar here guitars, you'd be shocked at the prices.
Mark Trobough:
So crazy. That is crazy. But I don't know exactly how many they've got for the Nocturnal Vapor, but pre-orders start April 2nd and then it's releasing a week later, on April 9th. It's priced at $70 here in the US, Another $70 in Europe for the Euro and $65 in pounds. At least as far as what Gameraan said, the market availability is in the US and Europe. We don't know about any other market as of right now.
Brandon Hurles:
I'm actually surprised on the price. I'm actually shocked that they're putting it because that's what the Series X controller originally was priced at, like the standard controller.
Mark Trobough:
I mean, it's what the DualSense is marked at. So I guess, just Well, in the DualSense Edge we're going to go with the shame.
Brandon Hurles:
The price of the DualSense is $200?. It's $200. The DualSense Edge? But just like looking at a few more details, it looks like it's using Xbox Wireless 2 technology. New mobile app features precision haptic feedback, dca haptics, double S speakers so it does have speakers, accelerometer, quieter buttons and thumb sticks. Rechargeable and swappable batteries. So, wow, they're actually doing away with the AA batteries. Now you can repair and disassemble it, so that's good. I think that's a thing that, like, most companies are going to be doing now, because there's like a big hot topic there for a while New modular thumb sticks you can take those off. Improved longevity, continue to build improvements and firmware updates, lift to wake, and there's going to be a few different additions available, apparently S-E-L-E-X-D-L options, as expected. So weird, because what's the point of the elite then? It seems like because that's like a $150 controller. So what's better?
Mark Trobough:
What's the better controller? Yeah, I don't know no idea at this point. I think the regular DualSense works for me. You don't have an Xbox. I'm like it's a controller. I don't need it to do all this fancy crap, I just need to be able to play my game at this point.
Kerguhl Games:
But do you mainly because I know you have a PC do you mainly game when you're a PlayStation?
Mark Trobough:
I was for a while there, but I'll go back and forth between the PC at this point. I'll play my exclusives on my PS5 and then any other game on the PC preferably. But I mean it doesn't really matter as long as I can play the game. I was never huge on. I don't care about the haptic feedback. It's nice but it's not going to affect my immersion in the game or something like that. This is nice, but it seems like it's super niche and just a way for people to buy another controller and get more money from them.
Kerguhl Games:
I mean to me from what Brandon was talking about and what the updates are. Essentially you're getting a better controller with mode technology for the same amount of money, which I mean. That's a win for a consumer. That's great. For your average consumer, that's awesome, and the way to repair it is something that definitely has been really bad lately, so really happy to see that for sure.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, I just just what we were talking about earlier. Mr Coffey was commenting about those guitars. Apparently a friend of his sold the Xbox One guitar here, a USB dongle, for $60.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, I've sold a dongle too. I think I sold mine for around 50, but the dongles are harder to find for the wireless ones in the guitar.
Mark Trobough:
At that point. So the dongle get a new Xbox controller.
Brandon Hurles:
They're expensive, man. Actually, it's funny, I just sold a wired one last week. It was a PS2. It depends on the system that you're selling it, for. Ps2 is pretty sought after, but I think I sold it to a friend for $45.
Brandon Hurles:
I sold it to someone for like 70 or something. So yeah, I don't know. I was looking too at the Elite Series 2, still $180 at Best Buy. So I know that those have like crazy because I have one. I bought mine on Marketplace so I didn't pay anywhere near that. And I'll be honest with you like I'm not a guy that like the only thing I've switched out is the D-pad before, but I don't really like switch out buttons and care about all that too much because I don't play like competitive first person shooters or anything.
Mark Trobough:
It's really niche for competitive games or something like that. That you see like high level players do, but at that point you're just going to buy a third party controller that does everything, probably better than what Microsoft's ever going to do, for sure.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, I'm happy to see that it's at the price that the original controllers were and I don't know. At this point I have to see like a sort of review breakdown on what controller is better now, because I'm curious if this is better than like the Elite Series 2. I'm sure that I'll grab one at that price point. It's not going to be like the DualSense Edge it's $200, which is just crazy to me. So I'm sure they'll probably grab one. I like the haptics and mostly for the non-issues with being able to break it down, because I've already gone through two Series X controllers with issues, so I'm sure that I'll need the replacement anyway.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, so I'm enough about one controller Apparently Fatal. Fury City of the Wolves fighting games trailer revealed new and returning characters English and Japanese cast in an early 2025 release. I know I'm not big on fighting games, but I don't know who you are. Brandon, what do you got to say about this?
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, I'm pretty excited about this one. So this is a follow-up We've never gotten one to Garu Mark of the Wolves on the Neo Geo. It's like a $15,000 cart and we've never really gotten a follow-up. So I mean, basically that's a spin-off of the Fatal Fury series but Garu was like its own standalone game, got like an anime and manga and all this stuff like that. But it's just like a really I would say like God tier fighting game. That one is perfected to the T for Retro 2D Fighter. So I'm definitely super interested to see how this one does.
Brandon Hurles:
The recent SNK outpuddings for fighting games have been really, really good. They've been really on point with their fighting games and it looks like it's already going to be playable EVO and I'm sure that this will be one of the first to go in line for the next EVO event. I can see this being a long-running EVO event game Because SNK tiles are usually at the top really of the fighting game competitions. And yeah, I mean it's cool to see a new installment. We haven't had a Garu game since like 1991 or something In the 90s, maybe mid-90s, I forget when that came out. But yeah, if this is like the original, it's going to be pretty cool and I still think it's stupid that a cart is like $15,000. But fair enough, don't collect the Neo Geo, it's too expensive.
Mark Trobough:
Unless you're like a millionaire at this point. Yeah, crazy. I did see somebody brought in the Pokémon games in chronological order, which my first viewing on this is. It doesn't really make any sense Because there's technically multiple timelines in Pokémon, but I didn't know if you had any opinions on this. Either you had opinions on this Pokémon, the game timeline.
Brandon Hurles:
I just thought it was kind of interesting Because I think that the order that they have them sort of does make sense, although I didn't know until recently I thought that let's go. Pikachu and Eevee were supposed to kind of be like direct remakes, but they're actually not. And it makes sense because I didn't pay as much attention to the story as I probably should have, because it's both my game.
Brandon Hurles:
It is completely different and it's not like a direct remake. I was like, oh crap, yeah, there are all those correlations. So to me this does make sense, but it pretty much just goes chronological, other than like the. I guess the interesting things are the let's go being added in there and Arceus.
Mark Trobough:
So, for those that aren't aware, the order in which this fan made list is it goes from the oldest to newest Pokémon Arceus, pokémon Red, blue and Yellow, also with the remakes Fire, red and Leaf Green, if I can speak. Then it's the let's go games, pikachu and Eevee, then it's the Gen 2 games Gold, silver, crystal and their remakes Ruby and Sapphire, emerald with their remakes Diamond and Pearl, Black and White, black and White 2, x and Y, sun and Moon, short and Shield, and obviously the remakes are kind of side and side. But playing through some of the games, like the Gen 3 remakes, omega, ruby and Alpha, sapphire, are technically in the same timeline as the X and Y and I believe that's. I don't know if that falls in with the Arceus, I just can't remember. But because there's certain types of evolutions that exist in these specific games that don't exist in other games.
Mark Trobough:
So while there's no official time on it, it makes sense that it is in a different timeline, because the actual at least for the Gen 3, because it's the most recent that comes to my mind is it's a whole new story which is very similar but it's very different than the original Ruby, sapphire and Emerald. Like the story is intentionally different and it references like hey, it deals with dimensions or something that I remember. It's directly tied to the X and Y because I think it had the Omega evolutions, if I'm not mistaken. I'm not going to be getting that wrong, but it's different than some of the other timelines when I think the original Gen 1 through Gen 5, the original games probably would fit in the same timeline, even though between generations there's really no connection with the actual games. But once you got to X and Y it started doing something different. So I would see some issues where a lot of people would kind of be like nah, this is. It kind of makes sense, but not really.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, the other thing is too that, like you have to take into account because they've always done this, the discussion was brought up when Legends X A I can't remember whatever it's called- Like a ZA or something like that.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, za was brought up. They were like, well, they didn't fill out Zygarde at all in the game, like you just caught him and that was it. There was no story. Well, it was brought up. That that's because the anime that tied directly into that filled out the entire. There was a whole arc on Zygarde and filled out the entire thing. That essentially the game did not give. And like that, I guess, makes sense, because, like I always thought that too, I'm like you know, it's just kind of like a random legendary Pokemon. But then, like you look, and so I did a, I watched a YouTube video that went through all of that anime because I was going to watch it, and that sort of makes sense. I think a lot of this like stuff gets filled in with the anime and we don't watch it.
Mark Trobough:
So like there it's not a good way to tell a story, like you have to watch this other medium that you probably don't even care about.
Brandon Hurles:
But I mean, isn't that how like all mediums are with their stuff? Now I mean, like you look at, like the MCU, you got to watch like a movie and then you got to watch TV series and then there's tie in comic books to the MCU.
Mark Trobough:
And, like you, know they do that, but it's not a good way to tell a continuing story. If you ask me. Yeah definitely. And the MCU has to me a ton of issues that I think Disney's just ran that, that series into the ground. But that's a personal opinion.
Brandon Hurles:
And then I guess the other thing would be it'll be interesting to see where ZA fits into this, because, like, what's interesting about that? The quick trailer that we got it looks like very like advanced or technology that's coming out right yeah.
Mark Trobough:
Okay, the next game that comes out.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, because Arceus was like the beginnings of Pokemon, sort of like it was like a prequel. I mean, like you even see, there's no, there's no official timeline.
Mark Trobough:
There's no, each game is like its own, each generation of games or their own standalone store. They don't really connect to one another for the most part, but it's obviously connected to the X and Y, but if it is, it'll just be those two games for sure. Kind of like, Arceus is definitely connected to what is it? Gen three that it was connected to.
Brandon Hurles:
Or am I mistaken on that? Arceus was yeah, or was it Gen four? Yeah, gen four, or was it Gen?
Kerguhl Games:
in.
Mark Trobough:
Pearl, yeah, or was it definitely tied into that one? But there's no official timeline for how these games and the timelines, everything's kind of fan made. I can't imagine that changing anytime sooner You're going to end up with a with a Zelda issue or just yeah we pulled a timeline out of our ass. That doesn't make any sense.
Brandon Hurles:
That's what I was going to bring up is like is Nintendo eventually going to do that with Pokemon? I mean, zelda had been around longer and it took ages for us to get like an official timeline then ended up being there's three timelines and now it's split into four with Breath of the Wild and Theors of the Kingdom.
Mark Trobough:
So yeah, I get, yeah, they get to these new games. Like we need a soft reset this timeline. All these games, they don't. That doesn't make sense.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, I don't, I don't know. And so to where, like ZA would sort of like actually like to us fit into the story, since it's like so far advanced from Arceus. That was like sort of a semi-origin story of Pokemon. It wasn't, but like it was, you know, the earliest game, like it was the earliest we saw in the Pokemon universe.
Mark Trobough:
All weekend wise, since the trailer didn't. I mean it had teases, but for the most part there's really not a lot in there to go off of. We just know it's tied to X and Y in some way, and as we get closer to the game release, we get more trailers and we'll probably find out something something closer. But that's really all we have to go on right now.
Brandon Hurles:
Yep, so it's kind of interesting, I guess.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, yeah, we spent way too much time on a Pokemon timeline. If you ask me, that's a whole. That's a whole 30 minutes. If you're like, some of these hardcore Pokemon fans could probably argue about it for days. Oh, I'm sure, I'm sure. And then I guess the next major thing was also after a surprise announcement no real announcement date. It's also being alleged that GTA 6 is facing a major delay. Yeah, and behind it's behind its expected development, probably going to get pushed to a 2026 window based off rumors.
Brandon Hurles:
I am. I'm not really surprised with the scope and how big this game is going to be. Like I don't know if you guys saw the map in comparison to five, but absolutely ridiculously massive. But yeah, it was rumored for spring and, like they did, say 2025. So it's saying like fall or early 2026.
Mark Trobough:
Now I mean to be fair, they were forced to prematurely announce it at all, before they wanted to, because of the huge leak which they put that kid in prison for whatever it was, whatever BS that that action was, or he was fine, it was BS but they were forced to announce it, probably a year earlier. They probably really wanted to. And then it's just kind of like a yeah, this is really early development. You have at least another two to three years for this game. It's probably really going to come, realistically going to come out, and this delays probably just another symptom of yeah, we thought this was going to what we were going to be because we had to now come out and say something. But obviously the development so early in stages it's really hard to tell when it's going to be done. But I mean, best case scenario take your time, don't rush it, even if it gets delayed a year or two.
Brandon Hurles:
This so great. Here's what's interesting. I bet you know, with that leak, investors are like you. Guys need to announce this now. I guarantee.
Mark Trobough:
They had to. They were pushing to a corner.
Brandon Hurles:
This says the higher ups are said to be concerned about the company's ability to wrap up the final stages of GTA six development without letting the game slip into 2026. Should everyone keep working remotely? So apparently they're still working remotely on this.
Mark Trobough:
Oh why? I mean, I think you have to go to a point, you have to get that remote works. Gotta gotta end. Eventually it's probably going to cause more problems than expected.
Kerguhl Games:
It only cause problems. That worries me Really.
Mark Trobough:
I don't know that's. That's a personal opinion. I, if I work remote, I'm going to be lazy. Then if I'm actually in the office, I can mentally get into a workflow a lot better.
Kerguhl Games:
But yeah, I work from home and I feel like it. It actually motivates me to work more efficiently because then I can have more free time. But that that's just personally how how I see that situation. But it's also interesting because they're releasing still. I mean, I don't know if you guys follow like GTA five, but they released like two DLCs. It's not like DLC, it's more like a GTA online expansion, whatever right Additional content. They released two of those in the last five months, six months. So I'm not necessarily feeling bad for them because oh, they made so much money with online.
Kerguhl Games:
It's ridiculous, yeah, but that's my point is like do they actually, you know, are they actually bogged down with GTA six, or are they like just not the you know pushing enough resources into GTA six development?
Brandon Hurles:
That's a great.
Kerguhl Games:
Making, their making so much stuff for GTA five right.
Mark Trobough:
But to be fair, since we're so far out even from when they originally announced it, it's just like that games far from done. It's kind of hard to tell what's going to change, even the next year or so, because game development is such a hassle.
Kerguhl Games:
Yeah, yeah, I mean, if it comes out as like our Red Dead Redemption two, like I'm all for it. Right, yeah, just do a good job with the story, because and this is not a popular opinion, I feel like is I care much less for GTA five story than I did for GTA four. Yeah, it just I feel the same way. I feel the same way. I think that's probably not a popular opinion.
Brandon Hurles:
But yeah, I feel the same.
Kerguhl Games:
It just blew my mind Like I just by the end of it. It just didn't care about the characters you know yeah.
Brandon Hurles:
I imagine that they've got a pretty big team still on GTA online and I bet the resources are probably pretty split and that's got a lot to do with this Because I mean they are they are making so much money from GTA online, like they've made billions and billions of dollars from that game alone. So like I imagine they're like oh, we can't let this slip until this you know other game comes out because we don't want to lose our money. So my thoughts are they're not going to downsize their GTA online team in favor of this.
Mark Trobough:
I assume that the team is going to be permanent, because then they're just going to move the online from the five to the six. Yeah, probably a dedicated team that you're not working on this. You're going to work on it once this game is done and now we have to transition. Yeah, however, the online works to five to six, which is probably going to be some time after they get close to done or it's already done. There's going to be some kind of transition.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, that's 100%, just moving over.
Kerguhl Games:
Yeah, yeah, I have a feeling they're going to try to do some kind of transition like a GTA online transition to, and that might take them additional time because in reality it's such a product in its own Like when you think about it. It released what 2008?. Yeah, it's been around for a long time 2008.
Mark Trobough:
When did when did five come out? I like a lot, it came out before 2008. No, it's 2008.
Brandon Hurles:
We've gotten three gen or three gen releases for this, so it's been for GTA five or GTA online.
Mark Trobough:
GTA five, gta five I thought it came out later than that 2008,.
Kerguhl Games:
I think, or this is 2013.
Mark Trobough:
Or five. It feels like it had to have come out 10 years, three gen. Gta four came out in 2008.
Brandon Hurles:
I was like I said GTA five.
Mark Trobough:
It had to have come out later than that.
Brandon Hurles:
It just came out later. It's only been 11 years, it's been 13. It's had three different console releases. That's insane, wow.
Mark Trobough:
There's been no incentive to make a fifth game. It's kind of like Elder Scrolls Online we're just never going to get a you know a six out of that series.
Brandon Hurles:
You just get like 50 expansions. It's frustrating.
Kerguhl Games:
Oh my God, I hope they make it meaningful and I hope they make it good. It's just like with things like this, you kind of start losing interest at this point. You know, and I'm sure, there's going to be a ton of people that play it and you still have like maniacs that play GTA online RP like every single day. That's all they play.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, I don't write up in the comment section. This is Gigi. Five is a PS three 360 era game. Yeah, crazy. Well, hey, we got. Okay. You think it's going to come to the switch to?
Brandon Hurles:
I do. You know what they're. Definitely they want to. I know that. I know that they want to. I guess it depends on how beefy that hardware is, but you know dang well that Rockstar wants to release on everything they can, because that's going to sell.
Mark Trobough:
It's not going to have the, it's not going to be able to sell. It's not going to have enough power, if you ask me. But that's just based off that. Red Dead Redemption. Switch to is.
Kerguhl Games:
Yeah, red Dead Potato, yeah With that.
Brandon Hurles:
I mean, I don't know Like. I guess we'll see it depends on the hardware.
Mark Trobough:
We don't, we don't know or anything, pretty much.
Brandon Hurles:
DLSS. That's all we know. I mean, if that really is implemented, they're using, you know, like DLSS three or whatever.
Mark Trobough:
That would be enough, outside of it just being like a it's on the switch but you have to stream the game at that point because it's the hardware doesn't exist on the switch or switch to actually play this game.
Brandon Hurles:
They did a lot of those stream only releases there too for a minute. Like control was a stream only game. I don't know It'll be interesting. But we do have some breaking news. It's completely didn't have in the notes because it was just posted earlier, but apparently there's a rumor from a well known Capcom leaker that Resident Evil nine maybe an open world game, adding that dragons dogma two is partially to think for that.
Kerguhl Games:
Oh smart, More micro transactions. Can't wait for that.
Brandon Hurles:
Dragon dragons. Dogma two uses the re engine. I actually didn't know that Interesting. So yeah, it looks like maybe open word. That would be kind of insane to see an open world resident evil game, because that's like, wouldn't that make it less like scary?
Mark Trobough:
isn't like a point of those games that you're in a lot of that scripted yeah, like it's supposed to be claustrophobic and stuff like that yeah yeah, that's why it'd be really really weird.
Brandon Hurles:
I mean, like so four or five and six got very action oriented and not scary and then seven brought it back, kind of like return to form, but in first person, where that game was like. That was like a legitimately scary game, where there were like some of the scenes that happened like actually scared me playing in the dark, Like that is a. If you don't like horror games like that is not one to play because it is like a pretty brutal game. But yeah, I don't know, I don't know how that would go. I don't. It sounds like to me the first thing I think of is like dead rising or something like that. I mean, I don't know Interesting.
Kerguhl Games:
Yeah, it's certainly interesting.
Mark Trobough:
I don't know how that works, but I've never been a big Resident Evil fan, so I've not played like one or two of those games.
Kerguhl Games:
So yeah, but I also feel like and then on that note, with like delays and stuff I didn't put in the notes, but riot to me, riot, even though their games make me want to pull my hair out. They make good games and their MMO that everybody's been talking about and I don't know how much you guys like MMOs or play them, but I was a very hardcore MMO player for in my early years and I was, I've been looking forward to this game and they just announced two days ago or yesterday maybe, that they're basically, you know, wiping the slate clean, they're starting over, and they said like we're in a position where we, you know, we build this universe out. We built it out and we looked at it and it just doesn't seem like it's a, it's unique or innovative enough for you guys. And I was like, holy sh*t, a developer that actually kind of like thinks about these things. You know, I think it's amazing because they're in a position with and you know, league of Legends, as everybody knows, is huge.
Kerguhl Games:
The TFT, which is a team fight tactics, the auto battler, is huge. They have so many funds coming in that they can afford to do that and I think it's really cool and I can't wait for them to like take freaking seven years from now, I don't care, I'm going to play that. I'm going to be, you know, running around with four kids with a steam deck on my chest like this, and they're going to be like trying to play to them and mobile and handling kids is going to be great. But yeah, I just wanted to say a little kudos to Riot for kind of taking a different approach from a lot of developers nowadays, especially the triple A studios. But, on that note also, I really hope the GTA 6 has a meaningful story and that they do the single player right, because, as I said, gta 5 felt it was really fun. I just did not get. I did not care by the end of it, like who I'm going to take out as the character or whatever. I just didn't feel as meaningful as I thought it would.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, we can move on Now that they have this point. I just need to have Gator wrestling in this game and then I'll be sold on GTA 6.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, man, everybody loves Gator wrestling.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah. So next up, we got a Brandon's retro spotlight and switch. You got going in here, brandon.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, so we've got in. Playing Sand Land made me think of like some older Dragon Ball games I played back in the day, so I had picked out Dragon Ball Revenge of King Piccolo. So this follows along pretty closely. What no, go ahead.
Kerguhl Games:
I'll be silent to hear about this.
Brandon Hurles:
So this follows along pretty closely to the anime. It kind of just plays out the anime arc essentially, but it's like a really fun like sort of beat-em-up style game. I have always said I'm a bigger fan of the original Dragon Ball than IMZ. I still like Z a lot, but I've always loved the original Dragon Ball because of like the adventure aspect versus like the focus on fighting. So this like gives that sort of adventure aspect of it and it's cool to see the series is like a sort of beat-em-up game where, like, you are following along the story but it actually gives more than like that arc gave, like it goes more in-depth. So like, if you want more, like essentially follows along more of like the manga than the anime did.
Brandon Hurles:
But there is actually a multiplayer mode too where there's like a beat-em-up style sort of like fighting game. It's not like a straight-up fight or it's like a beat-em-up, but it's like also like a 3D platformer at the same time and it's really unique because we haven't had that many like Dragon Ball related games like that. I considered putting like Legacy of Goku on there, but I figured less people would probably heard about this game since it was a Wii exclusive and it's actually kind of fetches a little bit of value still today and is just like a really good game. I don't know anybody else that's really played it or talked about it, but I absolutely loved it when it came out.
Brandon Hurles:
I got it when it was new, like anything Dragon Ball during that time I could get my hands on. You know, I grabbed the multiplayer mode was really really fun too. Played that with my sister and brother and stuff and have a lot of good memories with that. But yeah, it follows along with the Red Ribbon army and all the stuff with the Demon King and all that jazz so pretty fun released in 2009. I think that.
Mark Trobough:
One question the only ones I've played with the Budokai games. Hey, what's up?
Kerguhl Games:
Just one question about you. Said it follows the story, so does it follow the moment where Goku is slamming Bulma's crotch to see where her parts are?
Brandon Hurles:
I don't remember, but I'm going to guess no, because it's on the Nintendo Wii. I don't remember the Nintendo. Wii.
Kerguhl Games:
That's my favorite Dragon Ball moment. Oh my God. For people that don't know, goku is just this little kid and Bulma kind of goes on this adventure with him and they're in the little trailer. She falls asleep. He comes up to her and just smacks full open hand on her crotch and he's like where are your private?
Brandon Hurles:
parts. I'll tell you what. I have always thought that Dragon Ball was a lot more perverted than any of the other series.
Mark Trobough:
Oh my God, it's so bad.
Brandon Hurles:
I just felt like because, yeah, you had Master Roshi and Z, but I felt like he was the only dynamic with that. In Dragon Ball you had Goku, that was that way, and even Bulma would say stuff, oh for sure, and of course, master. Roshi, and that was still very perverted. So that series was definitely unique. It had a lot of comedy, it had a lot of adventure.
Kerguhl Games:
Of course there was some fighting, but I felt like it just offered a bigger room and also fighting felt more meaningful on that note Through comedy and all that stuff. And then all of a sudden it gets serious and you're kind of on the edge of your seat and you're like, oh sh*t, this things are happening all of a sudden, in a sense, when in Z it's a lot more, as Brandon said, you'll have 15 episodes in a row just straight up like a tournament. They're just smacking each other.
Brandon Hurles:
Oh, beyond that I remember there was like eight episodes straight of them charging up for a fight, like one whole episode of just Goku, literally just charging the whole time, and you like pan over to some filler thing that's happening and goes back and Goku's charging up again.
Mark Trobough:
You brought that up and just maybe think of the Namek arc where it's like no Goku's coming, it's going to take 50 episodes, but he's coming.
Brandon Hurles:
So like I'm nostalgic for that stuff, but like the times I've gone back to watch, like I had to watch Kai because like I just couldn't sit through all of that again. There are ones that I've specifically gone back to watch because there are like some filler episodes I really like that are just like stupid. There's always the anime trope of a filler episode where they're like on the beach and it's like a beach day or like a po-deh, like I don't know if you remember that mark, but like it seems like every anime from that era did that. There's it's like a random po-deh in between the next arc that starts.
Mark Trobough:
It's the mandatory beach episode. Yeah, always. What's the most thing about it?
Brandon Hurles:
Always Pokemon did it, digimon did it Like everything I can think of from that era did it. Yu Hakusho like they all, all of them did it. They all had a like a beach pool episode. There was like some random filler that made absolutely zero sense and was usually pretty boring Not so Definitely. So yeah, that's a, but it's a cool one, released by Bandai, of course, and yeah, I should check it out if you get the opportunity. It's really really fun. There is two different modes to and stuff too. There's like this Kamehameha battle mode too. So it was like completely different, like a separate mode from the story to offer like different content, but it's a lot of fun. Like it'd be like arcade style beat em ups, but like that adventure aspect too, like the 3D platforming, like it'd be right up your alley, whether you like Dragon Ball or not.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, mr Coffee brought up. He was renamed as Hyphel and I don't know if it was like that in the original, but I do remember watching the DBZ bridge. It was a home for infinite losers, that's what they called it.
Brandon Hurles:
I don't remember, that's what it called in the original dub.
Brandon Hurles:
I remember that, yeah. Yeah, we did a whole discussion on that bridge last week, so funny. I love that. Yeah, he brought up Origins too. That's another one that actually released on the Wii and DS and, like he said, it's like an isometric RPG. It's again like a different style, for the series doesn't usually have like those type of games, so that's a really good one too, I think. The Wii I preferred the Wii version over the DS, which is kind of surprising for me, but I thought that we offered a little more content. It was a little a little bit more fun. But that's another good one. To actually debate it on, which one of those to put on there, but I feel like less people would probably heard of this one.
Mark Trobough:
So yeah, probably. I mean, I guess, if you're done with that, we can get into one of our first of our main stories. Apparently, the PSVR 2 headset production has been paused by Sony Surprise, as of right now, they were saying there until it clears its existing inventory, which probably signals they're not selling that well.
Brandon Hurles:
What I wonder is is there going to be a price cut? And there's no way they're going to completely, there's no way they're going to completely stop development for this. It's at a year Like they didn't even do that to PSVR 1 and it it sold less units than the PSVR 2 has. So like it's not. You know it's doing better than the last one, but he's my nose, it just sorry, audio listeners. Yeah, I don't. I don't know. I'm not surprised.
Mark Trobough:
We talked about this a couple of times because it's popped in the news about like the studio that laid off 900 developers that pretty much worked in with their VR, which means it's not doing enough for them to do. It could be, it could be to support in this, but apparently they were also testing PC compatibility with it to try to, I assume, to salvage it to some degree. But it seems like it's just the. The PC VR is just killing it. Nobody, nobody, cares for PlayStation VR.
Brandon Hurles:
It sucks. It's crazy because I actually had this weird random with a stranger yesterday with these treatments that I have brought up VR and we were talking about VR and it was like I really liked the meta quest three. She saw I was wearing like a Zelda shirt and had my Demon Slayer hat on or whatever, and we got into discussion with that and she's like I'm 54 and I use the meta quest three to work out and then I play this game called Gorilla Tag with my kids and like they all got their own headsets.
Kerguhl Games:
That is awesome.
Brandon Hurles:
I've heard one other person talk about it. I know nothing about it. She said all, all of her kids have their own individual meta quest three headsets which, by the way, are $500. So I was like oh dang most guys some money. But we were talking about it and she's like, yeah, we had the PS VR one, we had looked at the two, but I just don't like it being courted Like. I don't like the court, that's that's that's fair.
Brandon Hurles:
I mean, like you know, the what's the, not the steam, the who is it that made the like the first one, that was big.
Mark Trobough:
Was it not the meta quest? No, there was a C. There was that one.
Brandon Hurles:
Hdc, that one and another one that, like I literally just saw that they're going to discontinue or something. I don't know the guys that did half valve, the valve index, oh, yeah, yeah. Wait they're discontinuing about index. I'm pretty sure that's what I saw, pretty sure. Yeah, I think that they announced a while ago that they're doing a new one, and there there was a report saying you can do it wired and wireless, which is the move Like that's.
Brandon Hurles:
I think that that was one of the downfalls of this is like not having a wireless option for it, like there could have been something they did, even at like an accessory, a batter, I don't know something right that they could have did, but I think that the the PC compatibility would be huge for this.
Brandon Hurles:
Would, it will outsell the meta quest three. Absolutely not. I don't think that any headset at this point is that it's going to outsell. That has its own dedicated hardcore fan base. At this point. People love it. It's $50. This is technically still more powerful than the meta quest, which makes sense because you do plug it in. It has to be wired, so you're getting that direct technology versus being just straight up wireless. But like at what cost? You know what I mean. Like at the cost of not selling at all this hour. Matter if at that point, yeah.
Kerguhl Games:
I feel like VR is still in its stages, where there's some games that look amazing, like I played Blade and Sorcery with my what is it called?
Brandon Hurles:
It's the HV.
Kerguhl Games:
No, it's, is it HTC Vive?
Brandon Hurles:
or no.
Mark Trobough:
The vibe, yeah, the vibe HTC.
Kerguhl Games:
I guess, or something or s. No, rift s Okay, rift s, and there are some really cool games like this one. You have to plug it in and I have a really decently powerful PC, but the games that I had the most fun with usually look like crap. Yeah, you don't really need a super powerful computer to have fun in VR. Like the more of it is like, like that, the monkey, what is it called?
Brandon Hurles:
the monkey tag, gorilla tag. I still have seen gameplay for it, but you got to see it.
Kerguhl Games:
It's insane Like there's a guy on YouTube that just does videos of like him there scaring like little kids in that game. It's hilarious.
Brandon Hurles:
There are a lot of VR streamers, like I tried to do it. You can go back. I'm embarrassed, very embarrassed of them, but they're on the channel, whatever. Go back and I did three VR streams and like I knew nothing, right, like I had not even played VR before, so like I didn't know there's. There's all this equipment that you realistically got to have for the VR. You can't just like straight up, do a normal stream and VR, right, because I had it where they were seeing what I was seeing but also seeing me. It just wasn't set up right. I think it's cool the way people do it, but I do think that, like I said, the PC compatibility would be huge for this. That blatant sorcery, by the way, is coming to the PS VR and it's an updated version of that.
Kerguhl Games:
Oh yeah.
Brandon Hurles:
It's like an expanded version or something.
Kerguhl Games:
But it doesn't. It doesn't have multiplayer in that version, right.
Brandon Hurles:
I dad, I can't tell you was in the last PlayStation. It was in the last PlayStation event. They did like a whole highlighted section on the PS VR to like it was interesting. It was all third party developers, of course, you know. But yeah, I don't want to invest in it.
Brandon Hurles:
I will say, like the horizon game on it that came with mine, like about the bundled version, is amazing. Like it looks beautiful, like it plays really well, I stop and beat it. I have to be honest with you. I haven't played my VR headset very much. I haven't spent a ton of time with it. So I would like some other things to draw me back in, but for me it's like it's a bit of a headache because it's like a whole extra thing.
Brandon Hurles:
I got a clear outspace, like it forces you for that game specifically to make it scan your room and you have to have a certain amount of space and, like I just don't have the space. There's three games that I bought physically because, like physical PS VR, two games for some reason, are like they all go up in value and there aren't that many of them. I think there's like something like 30 of them in total, but three of them I can't play at all because you have to have so much space for the games they require you. They won't let you continue to the game at all. I'm like this is frustrating.
Brandon Hurles:
That is so stupid. Like give me a mode where it works with the space I have, then Like get you know what I mean, do something like there's got to be something that's and that kind of peed me off and I like I can't play three of the games I got. Like makes me mad. But the horizon game the time I spent probably put a good like three hours into it it is like a full game. It's pretty lengthy game. From what I understand, it's really good and it connects directly into the story and I know people love it. I wish they'd bring over that Astro Bot game from the PS VR one because I know people absolutely love that game. And I saw an article the other day the guy talking about I've heard on YouTube too that that was a launch demo. It was like actually it wasn't a demo, it was a full game. It was a launch game for the PS VR one and it's still the best, best. They said the best use of that, that it's a really good game and it's really.
Mark Trobough:
You don't, you don't have to, you don't really have to do a whole. You just use regular control and to sit there and play it, and then it plays just fine.
Brandon Hurles:
You just get like the depth and feel of it. But yeah, that said, it's still like the best use all the way up to the last. Actually, there's still PS VR one games coming out, believe it or not, like there's been limited run releases and stuff like that. But yeah, the fact that they are pointing that over tells me that they really don't give a crap. And why even release the thing? Because they're selling this at a loss too.
Mark Trobough:
The technology doesn't, doesn't know what to do with VR, they just blunder everything.
Brandon Hurles:
You know who I wish would do VR. I legitimately wish Microsoft will get in the game because they have the funds to do it. They have the actual funds to do it. They've got a beefier system. They've got PC. They're fully on board of PC game pass all the jazz like they own windows, like they're all on board with PC as much as they are with the Xbox. I wish they would get into it. They have more money than any of these companies doing it.
Mark Trobough:
You know, maybe they see it as too much of a risk to lose money because it's like oh, we already on PC and everybody outside of Sony that does VR doesn't on PC. So like what's, what's the incentive for them to do it specifically?
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, it would just like competition is good. Right, competition in general is good. Unfortunately, at PlayStation is like losing out again because, like the PS VR one did well and I think by the end of it they I think they weren't selling it at a loss and like they ended up like discounting those. You know they were discounting on pretty low and like just people bottom up and people liked it Like I know a lot of people that liked it and it. I know that it was pretty like ass from what I understand.
Mark Trobough:
So yeah, but people still loved it.
Brandon Hurles:
Like it had a pretty hardcore fan base. I knew people that were like collecting, going for like full sets of the physical games for it just absolutely loved it. Sony even made it to where now, of course, this piece you can no longer order and goes for crazy, crazy money. And I kind of wish I had owned one so I could have got this. But there's an adapter that you can. You you'd have to buy it, like on eBay now, but there was an adapter for the PS five to hook up the PS VR one to the PS five. But now that adapter goes for like crazy money. But before, if you had the serial number to the PS VR one, you got it for free, they mailed it out to you, so it was like a free accessory to be able to play. But of course you know now that's they don't offer it anymore. So I don't know guys, I don't know, kergal, do you play VR often? Is it like a regular thing to you or not anymore.
Kerguhl Games:
I used to play it like literally all the time and unfortunately, like lately, it just been I just had, because of the baby, less and less time really. But when I did play and that's why I was asking if Blade and Sorcery and that like updated version has what you call it multiplayer, because there's a multiplayer mod that you can get on PC and it was like some of the the graphics are not amazing or anything like that, but it was such a blast. I had so much fun playing that game for probably like three weeks straight, just like doing everything. The physics are hilarious. You can do a bunch of things. Now they unlock like new areas for multiplayer.
Kerguhl Games:
It just it was just a ton of fun. So I think definitely people should, should, should give it a go and yeah, the the whole thing with Microsoft it's it makes no sense. But at the same time maybe they're going to be doing more, because really the problem with VR is just I don't know if you guys follow the, what you call it, the Assassin's Creed VR like it didn't sell well at all. Yeah, I know, I would like that I want to play it.
Kerguhl Games:
It looks really fun. It looks really fun, we're not doing this again.
Brandon Hurles:
We're not doing any more VR because exactly Exactly.
Kerguhl Games:
So yeah, I mean I don't know, I think it's still so early. There's a couple of games that I played in VR that just it blew my mind how fun it was, like for real. It was Well go ahead.
Brandon Hurles:
Have you played Half-Life Alex?
Kerguhl Games:
I have not, I haven't, I haven't bought it yet, but I played a ton of Pavlov, which is like a counter strike for VR, and it has like custom mods. You can play hide and seek modes, you can find a ton of different things, prop hunt, you can play a zombie mode, you can play gun game, you can play all these different things, all these different weapons, and people make mods for it and it's just like super fun, like I could literally just if you made me choose one thing or like one system, it would be VR, like 100% Dang. It is so seamless. The multiplayer is super fun, you know, even during you're in this virtual world, it's like you feel closer to your friends when you're playing with them because, like you know, you have your hand gestures and you can like do stupid things and it just so, so fun. It's sad to see that it's it's not doing that well.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, the reason I asked about Half-Life Alex is I know like pretty universally from all the conversations I've had and just like everything I've seen is like it's like the best VR game apparently. Like people absolutely love it and I watched a ton of game play some big Half-Life fans and it looks amazing Like you can't really see the depth when you're watching videos, but like for sure, when you know I've heard people talk about it and all this stuff. Like it looks like a really, really fun game and it's supposed to be coming to the PSVR to, but I don't. I don't think it ever actually got released. I remember last year, because I reported on it, that it was announced that PlayStation did get the rights from Valve to bring it over, but I don't.
Brandon Hurles:
I don't ever remember hearing that it actually got released. Like I was trying to look it up and I can't find anything. I see it PSVR to is reportedly getting. This is when I reported on it last year getting the best VR game of all time, like one of the articles. And yeah, I don't know that it actually has come because that would make me break out the headset to play again. I've wanted to play that for so long but like I'm not going to, I would not buy just the Valve system to play that.
Kerguhl Games:
But I mean that's why, like, if you have Rift S or something like that, it's, it's affordable, you can find it used for like I mean 200 bucks nowadays. And because it uses hardware from your computer, it runs amazing, it looks amazing. I mean really really low, low price to enter that space with a PC. Yeah for sure.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, they need to. I hope that PC compatibility comes to PSVR to, because it's already. It's already powerful, but it can be, you know, tenfold. It could do a lot more like, because it's, you know, the most capable right now on the market as far as specs go, and that would be cool to see because I mean like that, that would give it incentive, just like the rest of PlayStation wanting to put a focus on PC, which they should, because they're they're missing a whole demographic, and PC gaming, I would say, is like bigger than it's ever been. However, it's still not at the console market, but it's still big. They're missing out on a gigantic crowd of people.
Kerguhl Games:
Wait, there's I thought, and correct me if I'm wrong. I thought that there's. The PC market is bigger than both consoles.
Brandon Hurles:
I feel like it is. There's no way it's bigger than the Switch. There's absolutely no, because there's so much.
Mark Trobough:
There's so much overlap already, but there's a lot of people that only only game on PC. Pc has to be the biggest.
Brandon Hurles:
Well, there's a lot of people that only game on Xbox or only game on PS5. I mean, it's the same deal. I think, honestly, that's hard to gauge because there are also a lot of people that have, you know, multiple, like I. Like I said, it's very.
Mark Trobough:
There's, there's a decent that that's a crossover that counts towards both, both markets to some degree.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, I wonder if there is like an updated definitive article. But from my understanding, because consoles are just like easier for people, right like that's, that has been my problem. I'm finally getting a desktop PC soon and I'm still gaming.
Mark Trobough:
The bar to entry is not always that high because a lot of people that get into PC gaming they don't build their own, they'll buy a prebuilt prebuilt console, which is more expensive.
Brandon Hurles:
It's already got. Building your own usually I've been, I've been you already get a crazy on it the past year.
Mark Trobough:
If you're already going to do that, if you're already, if you already want to spend that kind of money. It's negligibly more expensive. Maybe you're.
Brandon Hurles:
OK, more expensive. It depends, yeah, so there's market share.
Kerguhl Games:
Market share from a grand view, research industry analysis. For the gaming industry it looks like mobile is the biggest.
Brandon Hurles:
Well, yeah, ok, we don't count. Despite this fight. No, no, no, no, no no no, no, but listen, listen, so.
Kerguhl Games:
So gaming is the biggest, and then we have the console devices experienced growth with around 31 percent of market share in 2021. And then what does it say for PC? What is what's the percentage for it?
Brandon Hurles:
I don't know.
Kerguhl Games:
I just read on the graph on the graph it looks similar, but yeah, pc gaming is is much, much bigger than people Way way way bigger than it for sure was.
Brandon Hurles:
Because I mean, I was, look, I was PC gaming when people didn't care about PC games at all. Because, like, pc gaming is realistically like during the period of time when I was like, like, like hyper focused in the gaming, like I was. I think I started PC gaming when I was, I think I was nine, because I would go over to my grandma's like that's, you know, she had a high end PC at the time.
Mark Trobough:
I actually got graphics cards and updated.
Brandon Hurles:
I mean because she worked from home so she had her laptop that she would use and I was back there all day in this dedicated computer room and like I mean, I was playing everything. I had the floppy drive, I had to disk drive everything. So I was playing like old stuff and you know everything with the virtual machine and like I had a lot of fun. But then there was a long gap after that, after I had grown up and stopped going over to my grandma's play PC was no longer a kid. I would say by like the age of like 14 I stopped doing that and then there was just that gap where they just lost me after that and I just got out of the loop and had stuck the consoles after that. But, like I, it's 100% bigger than it was then, because I can remember at that point in time Nobody talked about PC gaming.
Brandon Hurles:
Mark, I think you can probably attest to this because we, we semi talked about it, like even we go over to your house. I remember us playing like of course we play like cartoon orbit, right, but other than that we played like civilization maybe, and I can't really think of anything else that you know and you even said at that point in time, like you did play on the PC a little bit, but it wasn't like console, and I think that was just a general consensus for most people, because I feel like at that point in time PC gaming was really an adult thing, like it was more geared towards adults, like it.
Mark Trobough:
More adults or MMOs and stuff like that.
Kerguhl Games:
Yeah, yeah, I just thought it's so funny when you guys talk about it because it was completely like in Eastern Europe it was. That was the way you played games like then. Nobody like the only, like the rich families had like consoles. And it's funny to me because, you know, maybe that's why we have such different tastes in video games too, because we didn't have anything besides. Yeah, you know, so, like Age of Empires, like that might might have seemed intimidating to people here in the US, thank you, but you know who me, you know you're good.
Mark Trobough:
No, but I do know what you're saying because I do know, like, when you a little bit, it's changed now. But if you go back like a decade or plus, like just because I know Age of Empires too, like the competitive scene, it always seemed like the top players come out of Europe, like like the top player was, yeah, europe.
Brandon Hurles:
It makes sense. But I will tell you this one of the other reasons like a mid grade PC that we would then upgrade from. My grandma spent $1,100 on a like I would say at the time it was like a mid grade because we still upgraded the graphics card from it. Like six months later it was $1,100 for for this Dell and of course Dell made really low and cheap like entry level PCs too, but like it was expensive and then you've got the game cube that is $300.
Brandon Hurles:
So, like that's the reason here, it was definitely if you were getting into actually playing games and like even running like something like wow At the time or whatever, like civilization at that point in time, like it was just. It was just a different landscape. If you're wanting to play the new FPS is, it was totally different. You had to have a rig that could run Counter Strike.
Brandon Hurles:
You know what I mean, like you would have to have a built rig to run it, because I tried to do it with the stock $1,100 PC and it I couldn't even run these games. So, it like it it must be just entirely different, like with the market, like as far as cost of cost of PCs versus consoles there, which makes sense because I mean you've got.
Brandon Hurles:
I'm sure that there's like, like what was a PC brand that you grew up with? Like what was it a pretty common one that we have here? Was it? Are there other brands that?
Kerguhl Games:
were just in Europe. I mean, yeah, honestly that I cannot remember what, because when we were kids like you didn't really your parents would usually get a computer and it was like a I don't even know how this started, but it was you would have a family computer right so that your parents wouldn't get it cheap for you to play video games. Like you know, it was just a computer that a family had in the living room and that somehow I don't even know how it just because it became a standard for, like most homes, it and did.
Brandon Hurles:
I agree we didn't get one to wait, we were poor. So that's why I said going to my grandma's like that's how I got my Game boy and any of the handheld systems or anything I had was from her like never got anything here. We were always behind, got the budget stuff and at the end of the life cycle but yeah, I mean you're right, like as we did eventually have like that family computer that everybody shared and I hog for my space and hogged up the phone lines and you know that's when, by the time we got one.
Brandon Hurles:
That's what I was doing, like it was so.
Mark Trobough:
I need to get on Facebook. My farm needs me.
Brandon Hurles:
I need a friend to grow Barville.
Mark Trobough:
The OG's. I used to be the sh*t back then.
Brandon Hurles:
Were you guys on my space.
Kerguhl Games:
My, I kind of never cared about that era. I was I was playing Wow and was that you're like?
Mark Trobough:
top five or top eight or whatever it is.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, basically you're saying I didn't get any girls, that's basically what you're saying I was a giant nerd Dude that's all I did man at that point in time, like it was my space and Finding what to do that we had Bear share.
Kerguhl Games:
I think it was called what bear share. Yeah, it was like a.
Brandon Hurles:
It was like a Like a spot, if I would.
Kerguhl Games:
No, it's like Spotify with like social media features. It was really weird, interesting. Yeah, it is.
Brandon Hurles:
It's weird what my space turned into and I get it always was kind of like music oriented, but it was very, very popular. I mean, like I don't think I didn't move over to Facebook until it was out for like Probably four years. Like, I was there too. I was on my space till the end. Man, I did not want to. I was like I don't want to set up a new profile. Dude, I've got all my. I got my top 10 already set up here that people have argued over like, like.
Mark Trobough:
I never had a nice space. I only ever had a Facebook. Then I was reluctant to even get on Facebook at that.
Brandon Hurles:
I did not want to get on Facebook At that point in time. I was like Like I held on to the end.
Mark Trobough:
And then I did because we talked about this a while ago. As far as the market share stuff, I found something from New Zoo dot com or something like that. Or as it stands in 2021. This is J soft revenue, but the PC market had 19% of market revenue, consulate 22% and obviously mobile gaming has 59% of this 180.1 billion market revenue and gaming in 2021. And actually year after year, both the PC and the console are shrinking. They're technically not shrinking in percentages, they're just getting mobile, the mobile market shares, just out of them as far as revenue.
Mark Trobough:
But as it stands right now year after year from 2012 to 2021. The console market is growing at a 2.3% rate and PC is growing at 3.1% rate. As far as the revenue goes, Like. Pc is on track to eventually out Outshine console as far as the revenue of this were to take place, but they're continuing to shrink overall market revenue just because the I mean the mobile market is just so big.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, everybody's got a phone and mobile games are getting better. I mean, we just learned that. What, what new? There's some new releases that are like coming out for phone, or like the next iPhone Because it has the OSS.
Mark Trobough:
You have like your fortnight, your call of duty, because even Sony and then it's like oh, here you can play your games. Just snap this little controller on and you can play your games on on mobile.
Brandon Hurles:
now, with this mobile app and stuff like that, yeah, yeah, I mean they're very, very capable devices, even like with even my 14. Like there are full on games like you saw what GTA 5 went to, the Netflix app thing where you could play on there Like that's crazy, and just all these things. And the iPhone 16 is supposed to have some crazy chip in it. That's also going to make it cost much more. That's very, very gaming capable, plus having DLSS, because they've got that into Mac. I actually was going to throw this in the notes, but that yeah, it's really, it's a really good chip.
Brandon Hurles:
They've got the ultra version of it now.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, they keep getting better versions of it.
Brandon Hurles:
And I was. I was both shocked and not shocked at the cost of this because, like if you, if you compare to like a high end PC, I guess, like it is, it's beefy is all hell. But the problem is is that you can't can't really upgrade these, but that the M2 ultra.
Brandon Hurles:
So I was looking at their, their best model, essentially with the most cores, and it had some like 72 cores or something crazy. It was hopefully I can pull it up kind of quick. But I was shocked at the price it was. It was something like $15,000 or something like that, like a really, really high price and I knew it was going to be expensive. But the lower tier M2 ultra this I forget what the actual computer is called, but the one that has an M2 ultra chip that the cheaper version is eight grand.
Kerguhl Games:
So that gives you an answer.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, it's not made for gaming, though, like that's, that's professional, that's for professional work, pretty much at that point.
Brandon Hurles:
It is, but it also is used for gaming, because I mean, there are people that you can use it for it, but I mean that's.
Mark Trobough:
But, it's not just a game. Unless you have just that ridiculously amount of extra money, just piss away.
Kerguhl Games:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's not, it's not necessarily it's well, I'm saying because of compatibility. Yeah.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, yeah.
Kerguhl Games:
It's just the fact that developers just don't make games for Max anymore, which I mean. I think it sucks because it does suck man even even Linux has like some crazy support lately. Yeah, when it comes to, when it comes to like games compared to I, compared to Max.
Brandon Hurles:
My buddy was really trying to convince me to go the Mac route versus the thing.
Kerguhl Games:
So not your friend, is what you're saying.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah Well. So here's the thing a lot of because working with like film and the stuff that I do with with film school and all that, like a lot of people do edit prefer to edit with Mac and I found that the software is way easier to use. And then Adobe Premiere. I mean Adobe Premiere is very in depth but it's either Adobe Premiere or you're editing on the Mac. Like those are the only options when it comes to like film, like that's. That's it that people don't edit film or any of that stuff on DaVinci, resolve or anything like that.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, there's just not enough options. Max are good like Mac, like the Macbook Pro and the other versions that. They're good for what they're do. They're just not. They're not designed for gaming. It's designed for professional, like photography and film and stuff like that. That's really what it's designed to do and it does it really well, which is why I never got the the art between Mac and Microsoft's PC. They're designed to do two very different things and they do both of them pretty well, like if you're going to game, you, you just get a regular PC. If you're going to do professional work, you do Mac, and if you're associated path, you go Linux, I mean yeah, yeah, I would not go Linux, linux is good for a very niche thing, which is usually something arbitrary.
Mark Trobough:
That's not not the average person. I have issues with Linux.
Brandon Hurles:
I use back in the day and I liked it, but it's been many, many, many years. So, by the way, I kept saying that for for audio listeners. I apologize, I was talking about the M3 chip, but their Mac, ultra Mac studio, if you go with the highest end model, is 80 GPU cores and I was trying to pull up a price to none of these one, I don't know. I went straight to the website and not giving me a price, but anyway it's. It's insanely expensive and but it it's got some juice, man. The thing that sucks about those is when it comes time to upgrade, you just got to buy a whole new unit. That's the problem.
Kerguhl Games:
They're not modular. That's what they're targeting. Yeah, but that's what they're targeting. You know, you don't buy a Mac to upgrade it. You buy a Mac because you have the money.
Mark Trobough:
But I mean, they're targeting not individuals, or targeting like companies and corporations to buy their stuff, not, not the individual. That's why they're so expensive. Yeah and at that level you don't care. If you're just going to upgrade easier to upgrade other stuff, well, I mean like Mac, mac stuff just works and it works really well. I, as much as I wish it worked better for gaming, because I love the whole Mac operating system is just as many issues as it has. It's very well.
Kerguhl Games:
It's really very easy to use, yeah but also you got to, yeah, and you got to consider, you know the development between the two, right, like iOS is built on devices that they know what they have, right, you know you have this this much RAM, this much CPU processing power, this much GPU processing power. It's much easier to optimize and make it efficient, yeah, compared to Windows, which you can slap a freaking potato on the CPU slot and it's, it's going to work. It's going to work terribly, but it's going to work.
Mark Trobough:
But that's the issue from the Microsoft, where it's an open source code, where Apple is a closed source code, but everything works within itself really well, yeah. Yeah, I mean, they each have their own issues.
Brandon Hurles:
Just picking, choose what you want to what you want to use at the end of the day. I mean, and Mac is just plug and play to. That's why a lot of people go that they don't want to mess with, like building a higher end.
Kerguhl Games:
PC for video Plug and play. What? Because there's no games for it.
Brandon Hurles:
Okay, yeah well, mr Mr Coffee. Mr Radar did want to hit a few of his comments here. Sorry for anybody commenting, not ignoring you. He said farming simulator is huge in Europe. Also said that he had an HP gateway, pentium 3. Hp gateways are very popular then.
Kerguhl Games:
Okay, that's maybe what it was, because because we always had Pentium like one, two or three, that was like, and they usually what was around, they were cheap too.
Brandon Hurles:
You could. You could get, like you know, a low grade for like three, three hundred dollars. He said he got it with 500 megabytes of storage and my friend was flipping out that was too much space. He said he would never fill it up. He said he was on your top 10 friend list on my space. Well, mark wasn't, because he wasn't on there. I was Tom on there. Tom was on there. Actually did as a joke.
Mark Trobough:
I love Tom on Tom Everyone ignored Tom. He was the real OG I never had my space, but Tom was always there. He never left.
Brandon Hurles:
He never left anybody. I mean he was an OG. Also said you forgot the GTA collection that came on the consoles was port the mobile version, yeah, so yeah, it's actually pretty funny. Like, have you guys ever played the Grand Theft Auto stories games? I haven't no, they're actually both my my favorite GTA games still today. So Vice City Stories and Liberty City Stories.
Brandon Hurles:
They were actually they were on PS2, but their ports of the PSP game because it came on PSP first. It was really interesting to see a PSP game at that point in time, when that console was new, what it looked like on a PS2. And let's just say the PSP version is still better. He said well, you can maybe that is Microsoft endgame to have a streaming service for Mac users to use. So yeah, so we talked a bit about Mac there. What do we got next now?
Mark Trobough:
The next big article we got is Git Labs confirms it removed. So you a fork of Nintendo Switch emulator, you do? Yes, you guys. So they disabled the accounts of its developers. After receiving what appears to be a, from what the the article says, from the Verge, a scary email from the DMC takedown request.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, so I did a little this one I was able to do a little bit of a deep dive on. So yeah, there was it's not confirmed about that DMCA takedown from what I understand. But I think that Git Lab was just like hey, let's get this off here for now. We're going to remove it just in case, because of the stuff. It's weird because, sue, you was literally a copycat clone of you to replace it.
Mark Trobough:
So I'm confused where the scare factor is, because like the potential loss, they don't want to deal with a lawsuit from Nintendo.
Kerguhl Games:
Yeah, they're working on a new one called Zuzu.
Brandon Hurles:
It's the replacement of you, zuzu, from the loss, the lawsuit. So that's why I'm like why are they afraid now? So maybe that that did happen, but from what I understand, there was no like actual confirmation that a Nintendo employee like threaten them or lawyer or whatever I'm not employee, like lawyer, what it would have been. But yeah, git Lab is 100% just going to move this somewhere else on the internet and it may get a different name, like this is.
Mark Trobough:
I don't think it's going to get forgotten about.
Brandon Hurles:
Well, and the other thing is, there's, there's another, there's another big Nintendo switch emulator to right now, so like it's not the only one, I just think it seems really really stupid to me to go and name it something really close to the thing that just had a lawsuit. I mean, they, they paid out the rest of their lives on that lawsuit from that, so why would you even go and do that.
Brandon Hurles:
That. To me that is stupid out of spite. It's like all right, screw you. I do you want to risk the money involved with that spite like? I don't know what the what the league?
Mark Trobough:
of what they actually got nailed on. I don't know anything about the lawsuits. I don't know exactly what got them nailed the lawsuit so they might be like well, this is technically a workaround, it's still a gray area, but you got it for this, so we're just going to do it differently, that you can't necessarily come after us the same way again. I don't know.
Brandon Hurles:
Well, I'll tell you this I still haven't got my switch cart yet, so not not too happy about that. Got robbed brother.
Mark Trobough:
Those damn Russians.
Brandon Hurles:
The mix. Which man? What is going on? Yeah, the other emulator is called Ryu jinx and you can actively go on it right now on your desktop and use it. So I still pretty peed off trying to be able to give an update to you guys about the mix switch, because I was pretty excited about it and like apparently people have gotten it. So like I don't understand, some people have gotten it, others are having, and like they're worried that now they're not going to ship out the other units and there's no refunds.
Kerguhl Games:
They heard you buy Nintendo games at full price, so they got pissed. No, I'm sending it on.
Brandon Hurles:
Well, I'll tell you what I did.
Kerguhl Games:
I'll tell you what I did. Maybe it's in the mail right now.
Brandon Hurles:
Maybe it is. I hope so. But I'll tell you what I didn't buy at full price. Mark, I've talked I don't actually don't know if I talked to you about it, but I've talked about it on one of the last like 15 episodes, but I didn't even know they were still around. But QVC runs these deals all the time where you get this disk and you get like $20 off a new release game. So I've used I've gone through four emails now to keep using it so I got the. It didn't come today, even though it's released. It kind of pisses me off. But the Princess Peach game, I got it for like $31 because I also had like a $5 coupon from my last purchases or my last purchase.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, you're stealing food out on Nintendo's mouths because of that, I mean for a $60 new release game $31 man, I'll take it.
Kerguhl Games:
I'll make a Nintendo employee suffer and starve.
Brandon Hurles:
But look, you don't not just switch games, like any of these games coming out, like you can use these codes on there, just a general code like welcome 20 or whatever the code is for the week for them, and like, seriously, people take advantage of this, like get these. If you want to get these new release games and not wait for like a sale price, like be able to play it like Dragon's Dogma 2, you could have got that on there 20 bucks off. Like taking advantage of it.
Kerguhl Games:
You can buy the, so you can buy the microtransaction. Is you got to save that money? I mean it's not like the.
Mark Trobough:
It's not like the Nintendo's losing money, because the whoever is selling it already paid Nintendo for the product and then they got to resell it. So I guess they're they can either take the loss, they're hoping you buy other stuff.
Brandon Hurles:
That's the time or you just keep making emails and you don't buy other stuff.
Mark Trobough:
You just abuse the system.
Brandon Hurles:
The other cool thing that they offer to is it doesn't matter the price of the item. You can do it for something that's 10 bucks. But they've got like a free plan thing where you can do in five split payments, so like if you want to get something, use this code and then you could just do that. They don't work through a third party service for it either. It's like straight through QVC. So like if you want to buy your game now and pay, like you know, eight bucks for it right now and every two weeks pay another eight bucks, you can do that too. So seriously, jump on that. Like there's some games that you want to get that's new release.
Brandon Hurles:
Like a game like that for me. Like I'm excited to play it I played the demo and mostly like to play it my daughter but like it's just a platforming game. It's like Mario, so I was looking forward to it, but I wasn't like super in love with the demo or anything Like it didn't feel as good as like Super Mario Brothers Wonder, but it was still fun. So like it felt like Kirby to me, because you get all these abilities, you get like a ninja ability and like that's what it felt like. It felt like Kirby, but more like, less like floaty and like I had a real story with like actual cinematics and I mean some of the Kirby games do too, but like I had real like cinematic cutscenes, like an actual story.
Mark Trobough:
So maybe, maybe it actually is a Kirby game and Kirby just is taking over Princess Peach's life.
Brandon Hurles:
Maybe Isn't it crazy we've only ever gotten to Princess Peach games like, and however long 40 years, not really.
Mark Trobough:
Whatever. So that's how I look at it, so I don't take that with a grain of salt.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think we got something about Larry in studios, right.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah. So it was announced, like I think, yesterday, that they're not doing any. They're done with with Baldur's Gate 3. No DLC, you got the game yet, the full game, but they're also done with it not playing on a fourth game. They're moving on to something else after this. Good, I say good, yeah, a series that actually gets an ending, just not forever Halo games.
Kerguhl Games:
Nah, honestly, like I don't blame them. They probably heard so much crap from Hasbro, like because they bought a license, right. So, yeah, I can only imagine like, and Larry, and it's such a, such a good studio, because they kind of they're even an article came out like an hour before we went live, but an article came out and talked about a developer like a lead developer who was leading a team on working on a DLC for Baldur's Gate 3, and they scrapped it because they weren't feeling it. Like. How many studios, studios can say that like we don't feel, like we don't feel like making this, we don't feel like we're passionate about this project or about this deal? See, just doesn't feel right, we're not going to do it. I admired them for it.
Brandon Hurles:
Honestly, I do too Same thing as with Riot, like with a, like with a game that did so well too. They're like we just don't care.
Mark Trobough:
It's like right on man, we can make a better game just as good with a different IP.
Kerguhl Games:
Exactly, and they have Divinity Original Sin, which, you know, a lot of people know about, but that's a game that did well. Not a lot of people were crazy about it, but they can take the knowledge and experience they got from Baldur's Gate 3 and just apply to a new Divinity game.
Brandon Hurles:
What's yeah, what's crazy is that Baldur's Gate 3 like really introduced people in the series. But, man, I'm telling you, one and two are such good games too, like they're. They are so good. Like, if you, you really like Baldur's Gate 3, I would say, like there's, you know, a lot of improvements with Baldur's Gate 3, but, man, they hold up so well.
Brandon Hurles:
Because I played Baldur's Gate 1 again, not not that long ago, probably 2020, on the GameCube and like that's how. That's the only game to this day that I can remember actually sitting down with my dad and playing through the whole game. I don't remember anything else like that I actually sitting down and playing through the entire game. It's just so much fun, like you could just just so much freaking fun, man, and like there I was almost like mindless fun because like you don't have to really be thinking about it and you can sit there and local co-op and and talk with your friend, and you know what I mean like you can run through the dungeons and just just have a good time, I mean you're talking about a game that's a blast from the past.
Mark Trobough:
That came out in 98, so it's not going to be a step. It's an older game for sure, if you're going to get into some of these other, these older Baldur's Gate games.
Brandon Hurles:
But but it holds up very well and there's now a double pack on the switch which I haven't played, that version that they're like wrong masters, they released it on the switch Interesting.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, yeah, baldur's Gate. I'll double check, but yeah, I'm pretty sure they came out on the switch and yeah, I mean like that's a good way to go back to it, like to me, if you really like Baldur's Gate 3, I see, yeah, it's confirmed. It did come out in a double pack on the switch, or enhanced edition. Holy freaking crap. Why are they going for $150, $300, $350 on eBay? Jesus, it's the first thing that popped up.
Brandon Hurles:
Oh my God, well, get it digitally this is one time I do recommend getting it digitally because do not pay that price. But yeah, like you know, super fun games and I just I really like, I really really like all the Baldur's Gate stuff.
Mark Trobough:
So yeah, and it looks like, as far as Steam goes, both Baldur's Gate enhanced edition and Baldur's Gate 2 enhanced edition are both 1999 on Steam right now.
Kerguhl Games:
And then Dark.
Mark Trobough:
Alliance 2 is $30.
Brandon Hurles:
I was going to say have you guys played the Dark Alliance games?
Mark Trobough:
I haven't played any Baldur's Gate game before.
Kerguhl Games:
No, so, besides Baldur's Gate 3, that was a freaking blast.
Brandon Hurles:
So good man. Dark Alliance games are a lot of fun man, really a good time. But I played on GameCube, but it came out on Xbox and PS2 as well, so highly, highly recommend those as well. Very fun games. I think I actually like the. I think I prefer Dark Alliance 1 and 2 over the regular games. Personally, there's a lot of nostalgia attached to that. So I don't know, I don't know, you know, but Wizards of the Coast is also having issues, so Larian is smart to get out and Mr Coffee took advantage of that deal. You might have been watching when I told about that deal, but I got $20 off of Mario RPG, so that was another game I use it for as well. Yeah.
Brandon Hurles:
So good on you saving 20 bucks. I'm all for the deals and the coupons yeah.
Mark Trobough:
And I didn't know why what was going on. I didn't experience anything, but I don't really use my PlayStation all that often, but apparently the PlayStation Network went down yesterday or partially went down yesterday.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, I did not sign on either, but.
Kerguhl Games:
PlayStation is dead.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, I didn't sign on either. I don't know what caused it, but there were some rumors going around that there may have been another hack like situation. There were no other reports that I had saw that had updated on exactly what happened, just and went back online, but it was fully down. People couldn't access multiplayer, couldn't do anything. So for it to fully go down like that with like no notice, like something happened I couldn't tell you what, but it came up just in time for just in time, it says, for the dragons don't want to and rise of the Ronin release window, so they were either like working their butts off to make sure that people weren't peed off about that, because I'm sure people were literally waiting to the minute for both of those games, yeah, so yeah, there's something small there.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, and I guess the next big thing that we kind of already talked about. But Capcom also put out another tone deaf apology about dragons dogma to. They came out and said we would like to update you on the status of the following items, about which we have received numerous comments from the community to all those looking forward to this game. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience. Didn't even address what people were upset about, just no they're sorry, give us money.
Kerguhl Games:
Yeah, didn't they? I think they posted on Twitter that like they basically stated like you can get these items or get these things through like in game currency, which is, like it completely misses the point of why people are pissed, you know, but yeah, nothing new.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, that's, that's why I was bringing up that. Like they were saying that takes away from the experience of the game or whatever, and it's like, yeah, you can again, like we said first of the game, forcing me to spend more real world money on your $70 game.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, you can buy it in game but you have to grind for it. I'm like, oh, what's the point like that?
Kerguhl Games:
Yeah, like the whole thing was like free to play games is, especially when they're single. Multiplayer is like you get this game for free. It costs us a ton of money to develop it. You can buy micro transactions to support us right, like that's fair. Or you can buy micro transactions to win, or like play to win or pay to win sorry, which is still I hate it personally. I hate pay to win.
Mark Trobough:
Pay to win. Should never pay to never agree. It doesn't matter.
Kerguhl Games:
But ethically or morally, whatever you want to call it. It makes more sense if a game is actually free, right, yeah, that's OK.
Mark Trobough:
But this is a $70 game. That exactly came out and it's like oh here's another $70 game to get stuff you can get in game. What's the problem? We just want you to pay us because you can get it in game, but it's going to be an inconvenience.
Brandon Hurles:
I mean, here's the thing the price raise the $70 right, like we get it. Like these studios are having major problems, it's it's their fault for spending the type of money that they are. Well, it's their fault for spending the money they are people awful.
Mark Trobough:
We're still making a record profits. Exactly, I was about to say you're just talking to your ass to that point.
Brandon Hurles:
And with the price increase like this, this makes me even more angry. Like it's just so dumb at $70. We should not be paying to that strap. Like what is going on? Why it seems like are these companies not learning? Week after week, with all the news coming out, with all this, all this stuff happening in these studios having problems and like entire studios just getting shut down, they're like good studios and they're learning absolutely nothing. And if this absolutely bombs for them which it's not, because it's already sold crazy gangbusters and numbers and already, I think, outsold the first game, if I remember reading correctly. So they're not going to lose on this. But I wish that there would be a sign people are just going to continue to buy right, like we can make our stance and like not support it but like the general public, I think at generally just doesn't care. I think like a lot of people are willing to spend money.
Mark Trobough:
If you don't care, they're going to keep f*cking you over. That's just not going to stop. The only way to get this to stop is to stop giving them money. Agreed Because there's closing studios down, because, well, we want to save money and we don't want to our profits drop. So we'll close down this dude for a game that probably was barely going to sell and, what is, increased the price so we can continuously make more and more money.
Brandon Hurles:
I mean like don't put stupid money in the games that you don't know we're going to sell, or like, definitely don't. I mean Saints Row, the reboot like comes as a first thing to come into mind. That game was at, every aspect of that game was so stupid and the cost of that game was Dumb. They screwed themselves in so many ways with that game, like the politics they shoved into the game and the money they spent on it like it was an abysmal failure. That is one that they did lose massive money on, which doesn't happen often where, like this, they completely like just lose a crap ton of money. But yeah, I mean that studio that shut down too. So yeah, yeah, I don't know. There was like a whole dev notes on Twitter with the dragons, dogmas, stuff, if you want, like want to go check that out for audio listeners. But yeah, what a, what a freaking bummer man.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, it's you. I'm not saying anybody has sent me this to say nothing. We just pretty much addressed that whole issue. Yeah, I'm over it. I'm over it. It's got terrible Steam reviews.
Kerguhl Games:
Yeah, it was overwhelmingly negative and now it's mixed again, I think. Is it Probably?
Mark Trobough:
because Steam's going into deleting reviews. Oh, probably They've done it before in the past. Yeah, they've done it before.
Kerguhl Games:
But also another thing is you can't, because of the way that the save structure is done in the game, you have to go into system files and delete your save to be able to make another character. It's like because of the auto. I've heard like people getting stuck in like the textures and not just basically being soft locked and then they have to delete all of their progress because there's no save point. It's all auto save based and you got to delete your character in order to like get to that point again. It just that's frustrating.
Mark Trobough:
I don't know.
Kerguhl Games:
I mean, it was so promising and they just like messed it up Like it sucks.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, this is a discount game, and wait a long time for this to get heavily patched and fixed, I do you guys think I guess? One last thing on this do you think that they'll roll back where they change anything with those micro transactions? Do you think the backlash is going to? Nope, nope.
Mark Trobough:
Because, at the end of the day, the player count, the sales are there, so that'll just like a mine, a vocal minority of trolls. They're going to wash it away. They'll have the media run, you know, run a defense form, and then they're just going to continue to do the same thing, yeah, until the sales for it utterly fail. Nothing's ever going to change.
Brandon Hurles:
And we'll get an ultra deluxe super addition at some point where it'll have everything packed in and be like dark yeah there's the industry industry leaders.
Kerguhl Games:
Skyrim and GTA five like just follow their tactics. I mean dark, dark.
Brandon Hurles:
It was the same game with like an expansion to a new island and like some very minor like improvements, with with like the actual game itself, but like there was no need to grab both. Yeah, so I wonder if they'll do that. It sucks it does.
Mark Trobough:
On a little bit of lighter news, apparently the world's first Dragon Ball theme park is going to open in Saudi Arabia, of all places. Yeah so unless you're a millionaire, it's kind of hard to go here.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, I thought I was like a little interesting that the place Well, visit on YouTube. Yeah. Yeah right, you would think Japan right, Like I mean maybe they have something there for Dragon Ball. That I'm not aware of, but oh well, no, it says the first theme park dedicated.
Mark Trobough:
So yeah, so the Quidia investment company behind the project shared details about what to expect from the development. The park will span 500 square meters and features seven themed lands based off different Dragon Balls. There will be more than 30 themed rides across the lands, plus five major attractions, hotels and restaurants. And because it's Saudi Arabia, it's going to be expensive.
Brandon Hurles:
So basically, saudi and Arabian Prince, with billions of dollars funded this funding.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, more or less.
Brandon Hurles:
He's a big Dragon Ball fan and wanted to think.
Kerguhl Games:
Yeah, it was probably like oh, I like that show, let's build a whole thing for it.
Mark Trobough:
Right, it doesn't matter it probably looked dope, but it's probably going to be expensive to go to. It looks like the nationals, expensive.
Brandon Hurles:
The rendered images for what they're doing look really really sick Like looks. Looks pretty cool. So it says they're going to stay pretty accurate to what they have there. So yeah, that looks really cool. And they're basing it on the Dragon Ball manga, so that's even cooler.
Kerguhl Games:
Oh, nice yeah.
Brandon Hurles:
So it's all original Dragon Ball themed, not Z, from my understanding and what I've read. So that's pretty interesting and I'm sure that they'll expand like into the other stuff. But yeah, it looks. It looks really cool. So yeah, something on a lighter note Saudi and Arabian Prince funds Dragon Ball.
Brandon Hurles:
His own personal park. That's. That's what he won. Like I said, he's a big fan that there was a whole like league of that Saudi Arabia I think it was a golf league or something and like pro players here were like moving there during like 2020 and 2022 and like sighing with this league because they're paying like gangbusters just to go golf there because the they legitimately was a prince was like a big golf fan, so he wanted to see his own term.
Mark Trobough:
It's like well, nobody's going to come in or out, You're just going to live in your own little bubble, so you can just play golf all you want, I'll give you bank.
Brandon Hurles:
I mean, if you get an offer for you know the kind of money that they can afford, like you'd be an idiot to decline.
Mark Trobough:
So yeah, everybody's got a price.
Brandon Hurles:
Everybody's got a price.
Mark Trobough:
I guess the last of the major mainstayers we had so far was the new Black Panther Captain America game from Amy Hennig, unveiled at the state of Unreal 2024. I've already spoken I'm not a huge MC fan. Have you all actually seen the trailer, or do we know? How far developed we are.
Kerguhl Games:
It looks amazing, even though I'm not I don't follow either DC or MCU If it's anything close to gameplay wise to what we saw in the trailer, which is obviously just a cinematic in game trailer, I'm probably getting that. I'm a huge fan of World War II. The history of it, you know. It affected my heritage.
Brandon Hurles:
Did you know? This is based on a true story. Like Black Panther and Captain America were really there.
Kerguhl Games:
Yeah, black Panther and Captain America was in Serbia defending us from Nazis. It was great. But Amy worked on Legacy of Cane Games, which are beloved by many, many people, and she actually worked on the what was that new game that flopped? Oh, amy, hennig, it was. I didn't know what to talk about. It flopped so bad. I don't remember the name of it. It's For Spoken For.
Brandon Hurles:
Spoken, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's For Spoken, because it's actually pretty fun Like I enjoy it.
Kerguhl Games:
Yeah, and she worked on the first on four different Uncharted games as a writer and game director, so she has potential to do something great with this. I really like the setting and there's like four different playable characters.
Kerguhl Games:
Yeah yeah, yeah, but yeah, it looks really really cool, apparently like the Black Panther and Captain America have their own little agents or whatever who are also playable characters, or four playable characters in the game, and then Black Panther and Captain America kind of butting heads on who's gonna, I guess, take out Nazis faster, or something. We don't get too much information, but it just looked cool. I feel like they have the budget to do something very cinematic, but also very good. Now, as I said, cautiously optimistic about it. Yeah.
Brandon Hurles:
I'm excited because you know, like I read a lot of these comics growing up and stuff. So I read like sort of through the story of all this and like as far as I understand, this is the first game that like Howard Stark has ever been in which founded Stark Industries. So that's kind of cool to be able to see some like real backstory there, like some early stuff. You know, this isn't, this isn't like MCU, this is like a game. I don't think this has any connection to MCU, but this is really really cool. I thought the trailer was awesome. Again, no gameplay. So like we can't really like make huge assumptions on even like the sort of style. But you could tell this is going to be a very heavy story based game and I'm all for it. I love, you know, I love a good story in a game, as long as the gameplay is good. You know I'm all for that story. So this was totally unexpected, at least I don't know if this was announced before and just like shown now, maybe it was.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, apparently the Dominic butchering the name Rebillard was the director of that canceled Star Wars 1313 game that everybody and their mother was looking forward to. That game looked amazing, but he was hired by Skydance Studios for this game so that game had like a really good direction. It was like probably the only Star Wars game I was like legitimately really looking forward to at the time and that was like pre announced, like pre those last two Jedi games. But yeah, it looks really cool. Man, I love Black Panther. I think he's a great character. I like I like Captain America to. He's not my favorite, always, always say it's kind of boring, but like this era of of Captain America before you got frozen and all that is really cool, like really cool era of Captain America, like seeing like this early stuff.
Mark Trobough:
So he's no Tony. He's no Tony Spark, but I mean.
Brandon Hurles:
Tony Spark.
Mark Trobough:
Who can be Spark?
Kerguhl Games:
Industries.
Brandon Hurles:
Spark that missed opportunity.
Mark Trobough:
I was in stark. I am mispronounced it.
Brandon Hurles:
I was wondering if you did on purpose or not. I did.
Mark Trobough:
I just, I missed, I missed pronounced it.
Brandon Hurles:
You guys are you guys heard it Tony Spark. Oh man, that's great, yeah, but it's cool to see Howard Stark in there. He's an interesting, interesting fella. Hopefully they dive into some of the craziness with him. But yeah, that looks. It looks really really cool for sure. So I know we got what's some cyber cyberpunk stuff.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, so a little bit. Some smaller articles coming up. Apparently the cyberpunk 2077 sequels to provide a unique fusion of film and game. Apparently they want to continue to add more like cinematic stuff into their next sequel. So it's pretty much a CDPR pretty much. Come out saying, yeah, there's going to be another cyberpunk game coming out after this as well, as obviously we're getting another Witcher game. I don't know where they're going to be at with the development cycle and stuff like that.
Kerguhl Games:
Yeah, they had a big announcement about all of that. They're working on two or three Witcher universe games and then there's two cyberpunk projects, I believe.
Brandon Hurles:
I mean that would make sense.
Speaker 4:
Yeah With the success after you know yeah, expansion came out, yeah.
Kerguhl Games:
Yeah, um, guys, I'm getting a full call. I got a hop. I'm so sorry, I didn't realize how late it was, but it was really fun talking to you guys. Brandon and Mark have a couple more things to talk about and thank you guys for listening. I'll see you all next week. Peace, see you later.
Brandon Hurles:
So but yeah. So I mean, I don't know Two cyberpunk games coming. Is that the deal?
Mark Trobough:
Uh, I don't know exactly, but I mean well something.
Mark Trobough:
Well, I took away from this is they want to keep the semac appeal. They brought some some Hollywood-esque. You know people slipper into it. So definitely it's a as far as, if you like the cyberpunk game and the cyberpunk universe, it's a good sign that, okay, eventually we're going to get a sequel to this. We just don't know exactly the development for it, how long it's going to be out. But I mean they want to double down on uh, like the whole cinematic aspect of the first game, but definitely go into the second one, uh, which which, outside of outside of its botched mechanical launch, it's cyberpunk one, is uh, or cyberpunk 2077, is a really good game. To me it's just too short, like it's a really short game.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, it is very. You can beat it in like six hours, six, seven hours um especially even if you're like a hundred percenting all the content.
Mark Trobough:
I'm like it's you could do it under 40 hours, which is not not long for for an open world game.
Brandon Hurles:
It's not. I don't like the fact that it's being brought up about bringing actors in, because I've talked so many times about that is something that's cost raising on these games and like I mean you just you never know, like it, sure it's cyberpunk, it's still a new franchise, like I'm it's going to sell, but I'm so against, uh, at this point, like raising the cost where I like. To me that doesn't sell me anymore. About you, you're bringing an act and they could be Brad Pitt and I could care less. You know what.
Mark Trobough:
I mean, I mean they haven't, they haven't confirmed anything, but after they brought in, obviously Keanu Reeves was was there at the launch, and then Idris Elba, as far as the uh, when he came in with DLC Phantom. Liberty.
Mark Trobough:
They they have had that one connection. But I think Keanu Reeves was the original your, because he was essentially the you're one of, the one of the, the main character. Slashing tagging is power. You want to. You want to view Johnny. I mean, he was like a one of the large marketing, he was directly modeled after him, he played him and everything else like that. So I feel like from the ground, like he was always intended to be there, and then they just put the DLC like oh, let's bring somebody else in. Yeah, but I don't know how much, uh, you know it costs to bring both of them on.
Brandon Hurles:
I bet the cost goes up for Keanu Reeves If you know he's he's involved in the next game or anything like that. But I.
Mark Trobough:
You see that's hard because that depends on which ending of cyberpunk that they they can't. It's after the added it goes there's what like eight, like six to eight endings or something like that. There's a bunch and either V is either him or V. But uh, depending on the ending, either V will live at the end or they both die, or you have Johnny. I mean the game's not for a while. You know it's a bound, but I mean like it depends on which ending. But I mean I don't, I would like.
Mark Trobough:
it's kind of hard to tell I assume he's not going to be back in the next game.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, You're probably right. I you know, I never even went through and watched. I saw the endings on YouTube or anything. I just finished the.
Mark Trobough:
I've played them all, but outside of maybe marketing with Keanu, I don't know how they bring Johnny back, unless they're retconning and be like here's another DLC with the actual candidate we're going to move forward with, but who knows?
Brandon Hurles:
I would love to see um see if there, if there are two games coming, I would love to see something centered around um the cyberpunk anime Cause. Oh my God, was that so good? That was so that was unexpectedly good.
Mark Trobough:
They added a quest into the game based off the anime, but it's kind of like the. The anime takes place like what? A year or two before the actual game does.
Kerguhl Games:
Yeah.
Mark Trobough:
And that that anime has a definitive end to it. More or less it's just and it's canonized in the game as far as the one quest goes, for the most part, but you know it, it I mean, I don't know what they do. The story that that story was was done and told and they've already come out and said if we do a second season of this, it's going to be completely different characters. These characters, the story's already been told. We're done with them.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, the only thing that I could see them doing is that I mean A. It's hitting a very niche crowd because it isn't anime. So making the anime again, I guess, doing a prequel game, but maybe they do it differently, Maybe they, you know, I mean it's a game, so there's more that could be offered.
Mark Trobough:
Um so maybe, maybe.
Brandon Hurles:
like there is like hey, we're doing a prequel game and we're doing a sequel game. Like I wouldn't, I'd be on board for that myself, I loved edge or an edge.
Mark Trobough:
I think it was great, isn't the in the board game take place? Like 20, 30, 40 years before 2077, like it's so much further in the past and there's so much added lore that you don't really get that in depth in in the game? Like you have to go into like the, the added books that have come out recently with the cyberpunk red.
Mark Trobough:
some of the older board games are really fully understand, like why the world is the way it is, how the corporations are the countries, Like it's a really good lore, but it's just not in the game.
Brandon Hurles:
See, we were just talking about that earlier, like talking about the different mediums of Pokemon. I mean this is even crazier. I mean I just saw that board game for the first time, actually the other day, and but I mean this is like a what a?
Mark Trobough:
a, a tabletop RPG from the 80s Like this is a really old tabletop game, like it's been around for a while, so it makes sense that it's really developed lore, but it's in the past. They wanted to kind of separate the game. So it's kind of going the future, which means I think I think there was either a book or another tabletop book or something like that that had to they put out within the past few years that they kind of bridged the gap between the, the original timeline of the tabletop game in 2077, because obviously a lot changed within the world itself that they kind of had to bridge and be like this is canonized what happens for for you know, the world to go from where it was to to the game itself.
Brandon Hurles:
Right, and so they confirmed this too to to make sure. But there is a new cyberpunk tabletop game that also expands the, the war, Is it like?
Mark Trobough:
is it red something? Yeah?
Brandon Hurles:
Cyberpunk red combat zone is the name of it.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, cause I think it also had to come out to kind of bridge some of the lore and stuff like that, cause there's such a huge time jump See this is one of those things where it's like a little frustrating cause.
Brandon Hurles:
Like I'm not against like offering different mediums to expand story, like you seem to be more against it earlier when we're talking about Pokemon. Like to me, like, yes, I would like to have all that packed into the game, but I do semi get it Like with something like Pokemon, right, where you only get so much of a story in a game anyway, right? So like the anime.
Kerguhl Games:
It's a little different.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, they kind of make sense. The tabletop story doesn't isn't overly relevant to the game itself and they they allude to stuff in game because I have to go out of your way and all it really is at this point. It's just added lore to the universe. That obviously happened in the past. But even if you're going to do it right, do it like what they did with the anime, where it's in the universe it, but it's its own story. It doesn't have any impact on the game.
Brandon Hurles:
It's just added lore, kind of stand alone, yeah, yeah.
Mark Trobough:
Or it doesn't, if and it's not really, I mean it's referenced cause it cancels it in the game, but it's such a niche out of your way thing where it's like you could completely ignore it and no impact on this game or the story or the world as at large, pretty much.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, I get that. I mean I'm sure that you know people will be super excited about this one. They, mr Coffee said Cyberpunk DLC did have Idris Elba and it was really good. So yeah, it was very good.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, I think they, I think he was for anybody. He was the right choice. I mean, I think the DLC with him was really well. It fit perfectly into the world and the lore and everything like that.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, I mean that's fine.
Mark Trobough:
I'm not sure where that article is just at this point. We just know they want to continue the cinematic aspect of it and it just pretty much confirms if we you didn't already know. We're getting another Cyberpunk game, because outside of the botched launch guy played it at, launched on PC, like it's a good game. It just had a bunch of technical issues with it. But they've added a lot of stuff in Like it's a really good game and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's just I would say the same thing at launch it's just not enough content in the game for me, for, for, like I would, I would. I would like a game where I could spend 80 hours in universe, like really spend a lot of time, you know, learning more about the universe, doing a lot more side quests and stuff like that. Yeah, the main quest. It's really like you said you. Probably, if you just bum rush of the game, ignore it, all the context or all the audio and stuff like that, it could take you, you know, under 10 hours to beat the main story.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, I've seen people do speed runs even shorter than the six to seven hours I mentioned. Like if you just run through the game, it it's like even with everything for a game like that, it's pretty dang short. Like, even if you're doing everything, it's. It's not a long game, which is okay too, because like look, I don't want every game to be super long, Even these AAA games. Like not for me, not every game needs to be so dag on long, Maybe like another 10 hours with a content.
Mark Trobough:
I think the DLC brought in enough content to make it feel more fleshed, because oh, I think it's like one of the other 15 hours of content that game for for the small area you get access to, there's a lot of added, added quests and stuff to it, but it just it's like I I might have spent a little bit more time because there are some areas of the map that feels like it content got cut, like there's just you're here in this one big empty area for like one quest. You're like this just feels like it's such a big area to have not a lot of content to it. It just felt like some I think it probably happened with the rush development where some areas just got cut.
Brandon Hurles:
Which that game, yeah, had that crazy crunch, because that that was one of the big games that got brought up during that time, where the crunch was brought up, the whole like conversation of the game industry crunch. So, yeah, I I think that probably has a lot to do with it. The problem is, though, like it's so hard to to defend any of that, like even the crunch, because that came as a development for so long, and it's kind of shocking how short the game is.
Mark Trobough:
Well, to be fair, I mean, the game had what realistically like what four or five years of actual development.
Brandon Hurles:
I mean, I don't know, I have to look it up.
Mark Trobough:
Well, no because when they announced it they were still working on the Witcher 3 when that game got announced. So it was. It was an early development for a long time, Like it didn't fully ramp up in development until the final Witcher DLC came out. That's when full development really kicked off on that game. So, based off when its first trailer came out, compared to when it came out, it had, you would think it had a really long development cycle, but it actually didn't. It really had a good four, maybe five years of actual good development on that game.
Brandon Hurles:
I'm sure, because there was like a good, a good three years. It was on pre development 2012,. May 2012 was when it was announced. Why, yeah, like that. That comes into the question of why Like, if it was announced too soon.
Mark Trobough:
Do we know that? Because they the Witcher 3, they still had DLC coming out? Yeah, we do know, because, based off Witcher 3 DLC coming out at the time, you know that they couldn't have gone into full development and stuff like that.
Brandon Hurles:
Well, full development, but they're, I mean they split teams like studio for that Pre development? Yeah, I don't know, but the.
Mark Trobough:
CDPR is not a is not a massive studio like like Ubisoft. Having all these studios, it's not a huge studio.
Brandon Hurles:
So wait here just a second, because it's not entirely true that the following year they had their first full trailer for the game. So that means that they pretty much did start development like almost right away.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, pre development, but a trailer you could. You could bring up. But you can make a trailer in a month and make it look like what you want the game to look like. That's all pre rendered CG, what we think the game is going to look like. That doesn't mean they've got. You can put out a full trailer with no work done on a game.
Brandon Hurles:
I mean, come on, like the Metroid Prime trailer you mentioned before, you told me that didn't have any work put into it. That logo took forever to make, bro.
Mark Trobough:
The Witcher, the Witcher 3, wild Hunt yeah, the accumulation of everything came out in 2015. So you're thinking realistically around that time frame is probably when you know Cyberpunk 27 really ramped into into development probably 15, 16 around there.
Brandon Hurles:
CD Projekt Red is massive and they 100% have split teams for Witcher in this because we we already know that the Witcher game, the new Witcher game, has been in development for also a very long time. We knew it was coming. There was an announcement a long time ago before I feel like the announcement for that I could be wrong, but I feel like the actual like mention of it was brought up before Wild Hunt even came out, which has been a while. At this point I mean I got that on Switch in like 2020.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, but I mean, if you look at it, the final, like the Witcher, was fully done 2015. Cyberpunk comes out in 2020. I'm like really, let's get a good five years of building a brand new game from the ground up and who knows how many if it was scrapped early on and they had to restart development. There was any issues within that development period, Right.
Mark Trobough:
And then I mean it didn't have like a seven year development cycle. It probably had closer to a four or five, with potentially issues in the way of what they were doing. Could you go on from a you're going from a third person like a sword action game to you know something with more shooters, something they probably never really they haven't worked on like a like a shooter type game like this before. So there's probably a lot of stuff that had to get scrapped or changed or it's like this isn't working. We have to completely scrap. You know six months worth of work we've done. I mean, obviously we're probably never going to really know. But I think there's a huge misconception that this game had like seven years of development in it, which it just. It's just not true.
Brandon Hurles:
Josh is saying hello, and then Mr Coffee said CD project red has offices in eight countries with up to a thousand employees.
Mark Trobough:
So Is that like Kern or back then. I also don't know how many of those employees are actually development developmental employees. Probably good chunk of those are office workers who don't really do a whole lot with the game. But I don't know.
Brandon Hurles:
I always, I've always had a CD Just as important as everybody else. Dang Mark.
Mark Trobough:
I'm being realistic. I don't know, I've never thought of CDPR as a AAA studio, but oh I I mean that's just me Absolutely new.
Brandon Hurles:
Witcher, I mean massive, massive series. I feel like you know how they said Skull and Bones is a quadruple company. Oh, this, this to me would be a quadruple with the success of Witcher. I'm actually a spawned of Netflix series. For God's sake, it's absolutely a AAA studio and has so much funding behind it that it's not even funny. I can't even imagine the funding behind the studio.
Brandon Hurles:
I'm curious what happened as far as like stocks and investors and everything with the launch of cyberpunk, with how just crazy that that whole deal was. I'm curious if, like there was, you know, the the mention of like this studio is getting shut. That was like a big deal and I know you remember that was like a big, big deal for people and people are so excited about the game and I can't even remember hearing a single good thing about it and, like I, my experience with it was I had my, my game crashed three times. Of course, I played on the PS five, so next, pc. Those were the two best ways to play a parent.
Brandon Hurles:
I think the series X version was just as optimized to. But if you're playing on like an Xbox one or a PS four, you had, you had issues, especially like a base PS four, xbox one. But for me now I will say I was very frustrated because I I didn't have like recent save points or anything for when my game crashed, so I had to keep like restarting points when when that did happen, but from the most part, like I didn't have all the crazy bugs that people were were seeing and things like that In my original playthrough. I still do think to this day, though it's dumb that they didn't launch that for the current consoles.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, we are. I brought up something like this and it's mentioned on Wikipedia, so take it with a grain of salt. But there is a portion of this, as the game's development began following the release of the Witcher three wild hunt blood and blood and wine in 2016. The game was developed by a team of around 500 people using the red red engine for game engine. So it's even later, so you're talking, you know, probably closer to you know three, four years of actual proper development on that game, 500 people. I mean it's still a decently sized team, but I mean yeah, yeah, I mean yeah.
Brandon Hurles:
So there's that we got some more cyberpunk coming. I pretty much expect in that though.
Mark Trobough:
But I guess the only thing I really remember being discussed is like well, this was announced in 2013. Why is it so bad? And it's like, well, probably because it it was announced then it probably still had wasn't really in development. It's like, hey, there's our next game and it's going to be in pre-production for a few years as we try to nail out you know the story, the world and you know get everything that we want. So when the developers actually start working on it, they have like an idea. You know what needs to be done and obviously it's. It's you know how.
Mark Trobough:
You have like a peripheral view of like how complicated game development can be at times, especially with large studios and stuff like that, with how many people you know have inputs on it and stuff like that. So but I mean, it's still no excuse for that game to be delayed almost a full year and still be a buggy mess, because then it's the other thing it came out 2020, supposed to come out 2019. It was delayed a whole year and it was still that buggy launch, which begs the question. That game probably was rushed from the get go. I feel like 2016 to 2019, that's, that's three years.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, and that was absolutely zero excuses for that launch of the game. Yeah, with that, that delay, it was shocked because I saw at least knowing what we know now.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, yeah, I mean like I'm not going to just just because I like the game now and especially with, you know, expansion, and like I liked it. I liked it when it came out, but like I was, like you know, seeing my friends gameplay, like their screen recordings and stuff the game, I was like this is ridiculous, like it almost made me like want to return the game and not support it, even though I was enjoying it. I'm like I paid full price for supporting a studio launching an absolutely buggy mess.
Mark Trobough:
I guess all I can say is I was glad I played it on PC because, outside of some pop and some minor stuff, it was for the most part, a playable game with, you know, some buggy Issues compared to people on like PS4s and stuff like that who, just like this, is an unplayable mess on like last gen consoles at the time.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, I had very minor issues. The crashes were the biggest thing and, like I said, it happened a couple of times. They they launched a patch out real quick and I don't think I had a crash after that.
Mark Trobough:
So I mean, outside of the buggy issue, the technical issues and some, probably some of the cut content because of the rush. I mean there was a good game there that was there. It was just for, and because of, you know, investors and stuff like that. The the the only thing in the game was just put it out now and it just made it cause so many issues, so many refunds and stuff, absolutely ruining the industry. When it ruined the CDPR's reputation. Oh, 100%.
Brandon Hurles:
I mean I feel like it's they've come back around a lot to people because they did.
Mark Trobough:
They're going to have to prove the next game isn't a broken buggy mess when it comes out. Cause, immediately, the next time the next games come out. You do, you know this. This launch of this game is going to be brought up.
Brandon Hurles:
All games media is going to be talking about that. It's going to be. Is it going to be the the launch of 2077 all over again?
Mark Trobough:
You're assuming, like polygon, like a taco, still exists back when this next game comes out, comes out.
Brandon Hurles:
I think the taco's getting shut down right.
Mark Trobough:
I mean a lot, a lot. A lot of these studios are on their, on their last breath. But that's a that's an issue for another day.
Brandon Hurles:
It is kind of funny, though I did see something about. I guess I can go ahead and bring this up before we jump into the next thing, Cause I mean, why the heck not I want to cover all the industry stuff, but apparently there is Kataku content change. This is like the all the controversy stuff going on around it, but there was something like 50,. Hold on, Let me. Let me make some reading this, right.
Mark Trobough:
Cause, mr Coffee, you're talking about the, the editor-in-chief, who quit. Yeah, so the editor-in-chief oh because the I do remember hearing about it where, like, the head came down and says no more politics in when you're talking about games or something along that line, and she just quit. It was like okay, so you're just an activist within the games media, yeah, yeah.
Brandon Hurles:
So Kataku editor-in-chief, exit, exits due to parent companies, new guide directive. So yeah, essentially they were forcing a couple of employees to pump out like 50 guides a week, like like, I think like 10 employees or something. So they went in like 50 full guides put out every single week. So I absolutely would. Yeah, I mean I would, I would have resigned too. I mean that's, that's just crazy.
Mark Trobough:
But to be fair, there is a push was like focus more on the games and stuff.
Brandon Hurles:
It means in just about an hour and a half and then it would be you get back for two 9 to 10ots just to have attention, stores broke July 3rd and two 8 to 10 ид of room and glurm and 4 years and 40 minutes strategy to deprioritize news and favors of guides as fundamentally misguided given the current infrastructure of the website. The decision is directly contradicted by months of traffic data and shows an astonishing disregard for the livelihoods of the remaining writers and editors who work here. According to a source familiar with the matter, kotaku staffers are expected to create 50 guides in a total of a week. Undermath notes that the site's landing page area, a space typically home for major stories and breaking news, has been replaced by tips and guides, and it looks like she's hired back in. I mean, she's only been there since October of 2023. And with her exit, kotaku lost another editor in chief in under a year. I mean, there's a lot of problems wrong with.
Brandon Hurles:
Kotaku, like we've known that for a long time but like, yeah, I get it Like that. That was the focus. Right Was like the guides and stuff like Kotaku gives.
Mark Trobough:
I mean you talk about games. Talk about the games, not other controversy, other BS that most people, if they read your article, it's the laugh at you. But like this is worthless, well I like let's be real.
Brandon Hurles:
I don't want to miss say this, so I'm going to try to look it up 100%. But we know about all of the political stuff going on and so apparently a Kotaku writer tried to de-platform RGT85, big gaming YouTuber I'm sure that anybody that listens or watches podcasts knows what I'm talking about Very big gaming YouTuber, and he did a whole video. So I, after you watch your listeners podcast, I recommend that you go over to his channel where he does two different videos talking about it, sort of as it happens, and he learns about the de-platforming and all the he gives a background and context of oh, this is true as well as in a PlayStation employee, and all he was doing was speaking his peace and mind and opinion on the sweet baby ink stuff. So basically he talked about it and instantly there was backlash and you know this goes into the sweet baby ink, the Gamergate 2.0 discussion.
Brandon Hurles:
Like you know, he was like the only gaming YouTuber and that's there's like a sort of circle because he's a part of the Sponcast as well. So, like all of those guys, as far as I'm aware, he's the only one that's really spoken about it, at least in video, and so, like they instantly went after him and there's been, like you know, different controversies or whatever throughout the years, supposedly like around him and stuff like that. I can't, you know, confirm and, like I watch most of his videos, I really like him. He's always been pretty good to me when I've had conversations with him. But I just think it's, you know, interesting that like how about spend less time worrying about trying to de-platform a YouTuber who literally just covers gaming news and does reviews and stuff? Stop being political and like do your job, do what you're supposed to do Games media is not politics media but apparently it is.
Mark Trobough:
If you don't want to know what the epitome of Kotaku is, because I know some of the other YouTubers that I follow that have brought up in the past, but you know, if you don't already remember, back in July 1st of 2020, Kotaku put out the infamous article about, you know, playing Animal Crossing with a butt plug. Oh God, Like this is the epitome of what the site has been for the longest time. It's just like what are you? What is this?
Brandon Hurles:
I didn't know about that it's complete crap.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, I mean it's not a long article and they're talking about, they're responding to some, some random tweets from some you know crap company, but it's just kind of like nobody cares. Why is this a thing?
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, so I got blocked. Didn't really want to speak on it, but I'll just. I'll put it this way. I got blocked on Twitter by my opinion out there on the whole ordeal with all that, with the GamerGate 2.0 and the sort of BS around it, because I was following it like real time. Once I started to understand what it was like, I had sent you some things and I didn't quite understand yet, but then on Twitter everything's like real time, like this there was stuff happening in real time and one of my friends, smash JT, has been doing a bunch of videos on it like constant. So he got like blocked and like, hey, just like all kinds of you know, derogative stuff from this particular circle of people that I think are just like straight attached to.
Brandon Hurles:
Sweet Baby Inc. I'm not sure.
Mark Trobough:
This whole thing started with Sweet Baby Inc. And there was. I don't have that pulled up in front of me.
Brandon Hurles:
Well, Katalkin got involved at some point, because I know that they got.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, but you're talking about media. Who's going to protect other media entities? So it's kind of like a whole mess. But it had to do with somebody from Sweet Baby Inc Between somebody around a forum that had popped up on Steam like a Steam community forum that had popped up around. Hey, these games are involved with Sweet Baby Inc.
Mark Trobough:
Don't buy these games or just be aware of it, because there's a whole other boatload of crap that has come out, you know, with the whole, with whole Sweet Baby Inc. If you want to get into because it definitely gets into you know, social politics and stuff that goes back to the whole OG Gamergate stuff where people are like you know, the issues with the media, with games, media and everything else around that. It's been a while so I've definitely looked into it, but it's a whole sh*t show.
Mark Trobough:
There's no better way to say this when it comes to gamers and games, media developers, people behind the scenes that they're like you have no business being in the games, in game development, like why do you even exist, type thing.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, so I can't pull up the actual names because I can't remember. There's been so many people involved.
Mark Trobough:
There's actual better YouTube channels that have been following this whole Sweet Baby Inc that could describe it better and stuff like that. It's not hard to find.
Brandon Hurles:
One I'll recommend too. That's also been covering it. So my buddy SmashJT, but also 8-Bit Eric, has been covering the whole thing and RGT did one video on it and then the whole D platforming thing happened. So he made a video discussing like the beginning of that and like another one. He's like I'm done talking about it. I'm going to move on to my regular content. I don't care. Yeah, like the type of attitude that, like me and you would have so, but yeah, like, if you want to dive more into it, like it. I just it's all BS, but like Sweet Baby Inc Privated their Twitter account and it's just crazy man, because like there's politics behind everything and it's just. It's unfortunate to see some of the things that I saw said on Twitter that if you're not like a particular person or are a particular person, you don't matter.
Mark Trobough:
I'm thinking you don't matter, that was my first thought Two of the channels that I know that fall. They're not specifically gaming, but they're kind of in this area and obviously they cover a lot of general drama stuff. So you can, you can have your own opinion about these YouTubers, but both the Rev says Desu and Yellow Flash if you've ever watched them, they are like almost constantly, daily, have some kind of like video on it. So if you want like a day by day, you can watch them. But obviously if you have an opinion on them, you know that's on you. They're just the two you birds that I know that have definitely followed. You know a lot of this, a lot of this crap that's gone on, but they fall. A lot of game, journalist, news, media type type crap, that kind of goes on. Yeah, but I mean obviously they've got their own bias which is anti, anti a lot of these media, media outlets. So I mean kind of kind of already know what you're going to walk into with these guys.
Brandon Hurles:
So I just want to say real quick, real time. Obviously, if you're listening to audio, this is later, so I posted. I did want to bring this up to you and I'm assuming you didn't check this on out either. I was really hoping I could have talk with somebody about this. But there is a game, there's a demo that you can play on PS5 right now for free and it's called Potato Sack Racing Simulator 2024. And the developers just tweeted back to my post and they said the full game is way better. I wish that I had like screen sharing set up the way that I would like to do it, or I would.
Brandon Hurles:
But just go to my go to the Game Junction Twitter at Game Junction one. If you're an audio listener, you can look at this. This is a. I posted this on 321. So it depends on when you're listening or watching. But absolutely hilarious, I'm going to tweet back real time, amazing game. I absolutely love it. Yeah.
Mark Trobough:
And this is last time, just because I know Mr Coffee kind of brought up and then we'll kind of move on to. You know some, some better stuff.
Brandon Hurles:
But like racing simulator 2024.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, so he's about. You know that's a major concern. The parent company has their worry that they can get sued like the whole messed up dead. Spin over the kid dressing up at the chief's football game or in the face paint stuff. I mean, that's a few months old, that was a whole whole sh*t show. Then he says yeah, it's a steam forum, but that's weird Was the creator wasn't saying anything bad, all I did was posting up the games to 2BB. Ink advertised, pretty much saying hey didn't really say anything. It was like a sweet baby ink who is a company that does this type of thing. These are the games they've worked on, so so you can make an informed decision whether you want to use by these games or you don't want to buy these games and stuff like that. Right, and it just kind of. There was a tweet and then it it blew up on YouTube and then the whole thing just kind of blew up.
Brandon Hurles:
I know I pulled up, but I think Josh had a question that we had passed over as well. I'm trying to get up, you too.
Mark Trobough:
And then I just wanted to bring this up before we go on. Mr Coffee Raider was saying my whole, the whole thing personally. You know, video games are supposed to be a fun breakaway from reality and this kind of stuff just kind of I agree puts a whole, a whole black guy on the whole. Whole games Should community.
Brandon Hurles:
There should be none. None of that. And I mean this is, you know, this is for gaming, for me, as my escape from, from the crap you know what I mean. It's my way to turn off my brain, or turn off my brain to think about something else, because we have enough like just crap in the world, man, right now.
Brandon Hurles:
And like yeah there's just there's too much. And then you know, most of us got full time jobs and families or whatever, and like it's our sort of escape and we have to hear about this news constantly, no matter where you turn. It's on your phone, it's on your computer, it's on the radio.
Mark Trobough:
This is like one of the last things, because this is kind of why this whole Gamergate 2.0, whatever you want to call it blew up the way it is, because people are saying like, I don't care about your own personal political views, your own personal ideology, I just want to play games, but you're at odds with with, you know, certain developers and with certain media, and it's this is why this whole thing kind of bloated to begin with, because people there are, there are a vocal portion of these people that are sick of it and like, if I have to to make it crap for a while for this to end, this is what I want to do. But I mean it's, it's a whole. It's a whole crap show.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, it's but yeah, we can move on to this next question and kind of move on to better stuff. No-transcript.
Brandon Hurles:
So we've got Josh asking I didn't have it pulled up Is there a guilty pleasure of a TV show you like to watch? Mine would be live PD on the weekends. There's definitely been many guilty pleasure sort of shows that are either like absolutely awful or people don't like them, or they are just like mindlessly stupid.
Mark Trobough:
But I have to thank I haven't watched TV in forever. I mean like I watch shows and stuff like that, but I got to sit there and think about one for a second.
Brandon Hurles:
I mean the first one I could think of, and this is like going way back. I haven't watched it in a long time, but like those nights that you couldn't sleep at, like two or three in the morning you wake up or whatever in George Lopez is on.
Mark Trobough:
Oh, I saw it on the internet. I posted it. You stayed up too late.
Brandon Hurles:
I posted that the other day, so that's why it freshly came to my mind.
Mark Trobough:
I do remember that. Yeah, you wake up at like two, three in the morning and it's just the yeah.
Brandon Hurles:
Like I hit the theme song, I got.
Mark Trobough:
You're like oh wow, I think I could go bed.
Brandon Hurles:
I feel like I remember just that theme song, like waking me up. But it happened, it was like all the time. So it wasn't like a one time thing that happened all the time. But you got. You got any. I'm trying to think of something like maybe semi I don't really watch, I just don't have time. I'm trying to think.
Mark Trobough:
I don't feel like I'm going to watch something like that Because I haven't watched. I haven't watched TV in years.
Brandon Hurles:
At this point, I mean I don't have to have a cable in over 10 years myself, Like at this Like, well, I mean, I'll pay for TV during, you know, football season.
Mark Trobough:
That's about it. I only ever watch football. I'm like guilty. I watch random YouTube videos. That's what I watch more often than anything else anymore. I don't know, maybe I'll turn on like a two hour history or World War II documentary and just watch that. Or how about this one.
Brandon Hurles:
Girls and girls. And what is this?
Mark Trobough:
2006. I got a step to one AM so I can watch the girls gone wild commercials.
Brandon Hurles:
Oh, my God.
Mark Trobough:
Tiddly. The thing I'm going to see is like a. It's like a 12 year old.
Brandon Hurles:
I saw the bus for that twice in my life. The actual bus came through Circleville twice.
Mark Trobough:
It was always the big thing around spring break down, like Miami or Florida or something like that. Oh, it's all the average, that's all. The commercials were like I was put this way.
Brandon Hurles:
I always wished I could have gone on that bus. I remember the first time I saw it I was like eight or something, I was like young, and my dad pointed it out.
Mark Trobough:
You say that now I was like all right, take a black light on that thing. You don't always change your mind.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're probably right. You're probably right there. I didn't think about that. But uh, uh, mr Coffee says night court news radio. I will say, um, like I really really like, uh, I really like like true crime. So I guess I don't know if it's really a guilty pleasure to say that or not, but like I, I still liked going back and watching the old episodes of, like unsolved mysteries. That's one. It's not really a lot of people love the show, so it's not really a guilty, I never cared for those.
Brandon Hurles:
I liked it especially when they did that Circleville episode.
Mark Trobough:
That was pretty crazy Um yeah, let's find something dark about where I, where I, where I grew up. Oh, you got it.
Brandon Hurles:
I haven't watched that, or even just look up there's, there's several videos on YouTube about that whole um, that whole thing that happened Pretty crazy stuff.
Mark Trobough:
Um but, I have no idea what you're talking about.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, you have to look up some letters and just look up letters of Circleville when you get time and you know. You know I'm talking about. I don't live in Circleville or anything, but it was a place that we grew up, so but I've no interest in ever going back.
Mark Trobough:
I mean, yeah, no, I don't want to go back to our group at all period I had, I had.
Brandon Hurles:
Josh said the commercials for GGW were LOL, oh yeah.
Mark Trobough:
So but I mean, I guess you know back to back to some you know gaming articles. Hey, there's apparently yeah apparently Final Fantasy 16 reveals the release date for the rising tide DLC, that's the uh Final Fantasy MMO game. It's supposed to be coming out April 18th for $20 or include uh for for the standalone or $25 for the expansion pass which I've never actually played.
Brandon Hurles:
This is the last like new installment. Is it 14?
Mark Trobough:
It's 14. Yeah, my bad. I see DLC and I'm thinking like oh, is this another expansion to that MMO or something like that.
Brandon Hurles:
No, so this is the last last main line. Obviously, we got rebirth. This is, this is the one that came out.
Mark Trobough:
What I have, it sitting on my shelf, is still in the plastic, because I haven't I haven't even opened it yet.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, oh, you bought it. I don't even know you bought it, so I'll tell you this, I bought it. It's. You said that you're not like a big Final Fantasy fan. Um or have, I don't know, haven't played a lot of them or whatever.
Mark Trobough:
I'm waiting to hear right now.
Brandon Hurles:
This is like you're good Um this. So I don't dislike the game at all, but it's not even in my top 10. I think most people said that it's like not a bad game, but it is like, if you're like trying to start or want to get in the series, this is like one of the last ones I think I would ever recommend uh, starting or trying to get in this. It doesn't represent the series Like I feel like almost at all. It's like it is like games of Game of Thrones to a T.
Mark Trobough:
That's what it is. Oh, it doesn't even sound like a Final Fantasy. It's a very dark game.
Brandon Hurles:
It's the darkest one ever Like.
Mark Trobough:
very, very dark I was. I was just going to say like if you really want to start and get in the Final Fantasy, play Final Fantasy one and then just go from there. I mean I don't disagree, I mean it's gonna be a smartass about it.
Brandon Hurles:
No, no, I mean like that's then just skip X and X to well, they made the Pixel remasters which sold gangbusters and are very recent releases. Uh, you can get on PS five and get on switch. I mean, there did. You can get them digital. They're on steam. But no, seriously, that is a good, a great starting point. They completely redid those games, like from the ground up, essentially, and like they're good, they're really good and they like fixed I don't want to say fixed, but they made like combat quicker so like people you know, you can get through the games quicker. If you don't want to, you know, spend all that time, essentially the grind time of those classic RPGs.
Mark Trobough:
They cut a lot of that down which, you know, depending on the type of fan you are, you can still do that, but you could still do it and the grinding aspects of the of those games right, but with it's my son. People play certain games like I play it for the grind and then once I got what I want, all right, I'm done with them. I could do something else now.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, for someone like me that's played Final Fantasy one in multiple iterations, like there's been other Final Fantasy ones been remade on the PSP, it's been remade on the GBA, there's been other collections and stuff for it. So, like for me, like that's perfect, and I did play one through three. I haven't gotten through four through six yet, but for you I feel like that's an excellent starting point for you. They cut down all that grind time for people like us that don't have a ton of time to game Like that. Is that actually, honestly? That's my suggestion. There is to start with that.
Mark Trobough:
I already had a bad, bad introduction with Final Fantasy X and then Final Fantasy Zero. Yeah, not terrible introduction, not the pinnacle of this year.
Brandon Hurles:
I don't. I don't think it was the worst things ever, but they're. They're again, not even in the for me, not in my top 10 discussion.
Mark Trobough:
Like. I'm also less than two hours and zero before I dropped it and I never picked it up again.
Brandon Hurles:
Zero.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, I got less than two hours into that game. You mean, are you?
Brandon Hurles:
talking about type type, zero Type zero. Again, that is not a good representation of this year. It's like it's a spin off.
Mark Trobough:
That was one of my first introductions in the series. That's the problem.
Brandon Hurles:
That's the problem, because it's shocking to me that, like you've made the comments that you have about Final Fantasy because I'm like this seems like a Mark series but like it seems like you, you pick the exact wrong games, even attempt to start with the games that were somewhat hot at the time when I picked them up.
Brandon Hurles:
Type zero like I. Legitimately. I can't think of anybody that played it or talked about it at all, but I it's not. It's not like a true Final Fantasy game. It is a legitimate spin off. That's a whole other style of game.
Mark Trobough:
I mean I played a mainline, I played X. I'm like I have it on the, on the V there or something. Then I just didn't care for it.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, I mean a lot of people, a lot of people, don't like it's not their favorite. I do know people that it is their favorite and X2 was better than certainly that. Or 10, two, I guess, was certainly better than 10. It definitely was in my opinion. But yeah, 10 was not it's not my favorite by any means. And honestly, like the pixel remasters great suggestion. But the Final Fantasy remake series like great, absolute, great starting point they. They also did the crisis core reunion which was a remaster of the PSP game, so it's set during those games.
Brandon Hurles:
I still don't 100% know. I'll have to like look it up. I've been meaning to do it for a while whether that is now or whether that has remained being part of this new Final Fantasy remake timeline. Like this new story Cause this. I'll say this I won't give any spoilers because I'm not even super far into the game and I don't even think I've reached a point where it does get kind of crazy, but like there's a reason it's called rebirth.
Brandon Hurles:
Like they don't remake was more along the lines of, okay, we're remaking the series, but realistically, here's what's crazy about Final Fantasy seven remake it really only goes about like 15 minutes into the original game. That entire gigantic game is really like 15 minutes of the original game. Like literally like you make to like one of the pretty early scenes, but no rebirth, like throws, throws the entire story on its head. This is like a full blown remake and with three, who knows the direction they're going to give. I've been spoiled a little bit, which I'm a little angry about, unintentionally reading stuff that popped up, freaking tweets. So I sort of know something that's going to happen, but I'm not even halfway through the game. I'm actively playing it.
Mark Trobough:
It's like the only game I know about is a was a Tiefen era than the Pekinian Internet just lost their collective minds over it. Well, I have. Only I knew about the game.
Brandon Hurles:
I haven't read that. I will say there, if you want to, it's died down.
Mark Trobough:
That came out like that's when they first advertised like the new game and stuff like that. I lost its click of mind over it.
Brandon Hurles:
Well, don't they about every video game character.
Mark Trobough:
Well, not a negative way. In a simpy way, pretty much, you kind of catch what the Internet collectively loved it for the most part.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, sounds about right. But yeah, I mean, like I can't recommend Final Fantasy 7 rebirth enough Again, I am not even halfway through the game and like it's one of those games where you could spend a ton of time doing side quests, like if you want to. But yeah, like 90 percent of them are required. And there's also like other stuff too. Like there's this simulator thing that you can jump into and it has like different tiers of taking down bosses.
Brandon Hurles:
Essentially, you have to like I tried the first one that it makes you do and intentionally you can't beat the the boss because you're nowhere near powerful enough, but like the power levels are just insane. So like you've got to really get your, you got to level up and get the right weapons and things attached to your weapons. But there's like a ton of like extra content. They've got like a like a card game inside the game, which was in the original as well, but like you can play through this entire like sort of story with the card game, even if you want to. So there's like all this extra stuff you can do and or you don't have to and you can just play through the the story straight, so good stuff.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, fair enough. Uh, kind of going back to a few things you've kind of already talked about. Baldur. Gate 3's director blames gaming layoffs on greed. So I was going to pretty much I mean, it's a it's not the longest article but I was going to get down to is the quote that the article got him on off of a game rant. He pretty much came in said uh, you can make reserves, just slow down a bit. Slow down on the greed, be resilient, take care of the people, don't lose the institutional knowledge that's been built up in the people you lose every single time. So you have to go through the same cycle over and over and over. It really pisses me off.
Mark Trobough:
Uh, don't know what happened with the brain, but I mean, from what I understood from when I was reading with the article has to deal with, uh like, you're going to lay off people you know, probably people that are, you know, been around for a while, know how game development works, and then you're going to hire new people, inevitably, who just don't have the same, the same knowledge and stuff like that. So it's, you know, constantly, you don't have this you know everlasting person that just knows how it works. This is that this is what you need to do, this is, this is what works. It doesn't work and stuff like that. You always have to go re go through like a a learning process with with a younger talent. That older talent, you know, would already kind of like have and know and understand and stuff like that.
Mark Trobough:
Obviously, larian studios, you know, can make good games and isn't held by greed because we're not going to put a bunch of DLC in a single player game, all the you know, uh, dragon's Dogma too, and that whole, that whole crap. But I mean, yeah, it really comes down to it. We lay people off and increase the price because we want to keep making money, but we're just going to fire you because we don't want to potentially not make as more money year on year. Uh, god forbid we, we make the same money year after year. We lose a little bit of money at the top and stuff like that. It's just, it's straight greed and comes down to, you know, uh, shareholders and stuff like that kind of getting into the whole the whole games industry. Uh, I have no idea what's going on with Brandon right now. He's just he's doing his own thing. But I mean, yeah, it just comes into.
Mark Trobough:
You know, you know all the, all, the all the layoffs coming off. There's a lot, of, a lot of good talent that's probably being being laid off and, uh, my, hopefully, you know, laying somewhere else. But you know the studio they left. You know you're losing a lot, of, a lot of talent, probably Cause it probably wasn't his fault or the developer's fault, uh, that your game sucks. Whoever's in charge of the game making poor decisions? Uh, is why, uh, you know, game after game has come out as as complete crap.
Mark Trobough:
But uh, kevin, uh, does anyone here remember the Scooby-Doo project? It was a parody of of Scooby-Doo and the Blair Witch Project. Man, that was wild. Uh, I mean, I have to ask Brandon, I was not aware of that at all. Uh, I don't really know a whole lot about the Blair Witch Project, cause it's just not my cup of tea, but I mean that that does sound crazy. But I mean it makes sense that it would kind of. You know, scooby-doo kind of does the whole semi creepy thing, um, just depends on whether it just went completely, you know, fan made wild, where it just was like completely, completely like negative, or it was like an official type thing.
Mark Trobough:
Uh, mr Coffee, play Final Fantasy I on the PSP. It's pretty good, updated sprites, music, yeah, um, I need to look around to probably get into, you know, some of the better Final Fantasy games. But uh, I already have a massive backlog of games I need to play. Who knows when I get around to playing my next Final Fantasy game, as is. It's kind of crazy. Since Brandon's taking his time, I guess we'll go on to the next one. It's a little bit smaller for those of you that are into the whole. I'm not trying to throw up mobile gaming thing, uh, but we come back around uh, new.
Mark Trobough:
There's a new Pokemon Go event that will feature, uh, the debut of three new shiny Pokemon. Uh, so the Pokemon Go's sizable surprises. Uh will debut shiny Wimpod, cartana and Calisthia Castelia, castelia. I'm just trying to put you in that the Northern Hemisphere battles uh Cartana while the Southern Hemisphere battles Salistein. In this new event it can. It looks like there's about 800 plus shiny Pokemon, a Pokemon Go which probably covers most, if not all, the Pokemon they have. Uh, they brought uh Pokedex. Yeah, I don't know what region they're from.
Mark Trobough:
I was trying to see if this says exactly Uh, ch-ch-ch. Oh, here's the actual treat. Uh, I mean Pokemon will kind of put out a tweet uh, ch-ch-ch. Oh. So it is the sizable surprise event. I'm just stupid, I I read it and kind of forgot about it. Uh, from Thursday April 4th at 10 am to Tuesday April 9th at 8 pm Uh, is like the time for this event where you can catch some of these uh or uh, you can catch, or there's like a increased chance to said catch, it's shiny. It's kind of hard to tell what they're going to do with that, but yeah, it's just kind of small for those that kind of play Pokemon Go. Uh, from the 4th to the 9th, like a like a extended weekend type thing they got going on. Um, mr Cofi, oh yeah, my backlog is bad. Yeah it's, it always is Backbone's crazy it's crazy.
Mark Trobough:
It's crazy. It picked up PS2 and BA Street, ssx and NFL Street Back, when you know sports games were actually good.
Brandon Hurles:
I love the street games. Those were fun. Yeah, Good good days of a good days of sports games.
Mark Trobough:
Definitely, uh, and apparently, I guess the next thing up uh, shin Megami Tensei 5 Vengeance is releasing sooner than expected. Uh, so the release date moved up to June 14th, 2024, a week earlier than planned. Uh, we don't know why the big thing is, but it's coming out a week earlier for those of you that are the you know fans of this series.
Brandon Hurles:
That doesn't happen very often.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, or it's a week earlier. Yeah, because apparently, uh, yeah, because they came out, uh, of the official Atlas West tweeted it out, uh, two days ago, on the 20th. Oh, wow, that that's coming a whole week earlier, sir. Maybe it's you know. The development's going better. It's long since already been done, I don't know, but it's it's you know, in that, that positive at the end of the day.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, yeah.
Mark Trobough:
Usually it's this game's getting delayed. Yeah, hey, you're getting it a week earlier now.
Brandon Hurles:
Always Like how often does that happen that you're getting it earlier? I actually, um, I actually sold off my my copy in anticipation for this one, because there's like literally no reason to own the the other game at all now. I mean it's got everything, everything on it. So I went ahead and sold that one off.
Mark Trobough:
It comes out pretty soon, so yeah, the only the only negative thing about this game is uh. Atlas includes uh DeNuvo DRM on the PC version. Uh, which usually doesn't. It's a complete waste of time. If you know anything about about you know illegal torrenting it. At times uh gives you like a less than perfect experience.
Mark Trobough:
It does You're playing it legally and all it does is a is a speed bump to to playing it illegally, and it might slightly lower the quality. But if you play games illegally anyways, you don't really care about the the slight drop in quality of the game, cause you know you're you're paying for, you're getting it for free. Who cares?
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, which is?
Mark Trobough:
always a big discussion within you know, the PC gaming community when it comes to anti piracy cause. Like it doesn't stop piracy at all, like you're not, you're not combating it at all.
Brandon Hurles:
No, and DRM. All it does is make performance of your game worse, like it actively affects your game. So that's like really really stupid, really dumb.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, I mean, and I've heard the argument that the best way to combat piracy for those that otherwise would buy it is just make it easier to get your game, cause some areas it's like it's it's ridiculously expensive in some countries that just don't have the the economy for the equivalency, like a $70 game in the U? S, and even the U? S like you know what's going to drive people to piracy. You're driving up the price of your, of your games when they come out 70, maybe eventually $80. That's going to drive people to piracy Cause, like I'm not paying that for a game. Like screw you. Yeah, I don't.
Brandon Hurles:
I don't understand that. There are people that think like that. I don't understand the whole thing. See, like, in a situation like this, I'm like don't grab the PC version. I mean don't, just don't like a DRM. First of all stupid to begin with and then, second of all, it dramatically affects your performance. So, like I wouldn't, I wouldn't grab this. There's plenty of people that prefer to game on PC. They just don't have the DRM aspect.
Mark Trobough:
But like, get rid of this Just gives us a bad experience to combat, absolutely. It doesn't do anything for people getting this game. They want to play it illegally. You're not going to stop them. Nope, like, you're just not going to. You might make it harder, I might take it extra a week for them to get the game, but they're going to get it eventually. You're not going to stop that.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, I think it's. It's just, I think it's stupid, it's just really stupid yeah. That's. That's a bummer to hear. I didn't know about that actually, so yeah, but that's.
Mark Trobough:
That's a, that's an ever growing it, that's a thing that's going to be an issue forever. I mean, Atlas is a, is a, whether like a Japanese based studio, which definitely makes a lot more sense, if I'm not mistaken, or the the company. I should probably double check that.
Brandon Hurles:
What.
Mark Trobough:
Atlas yeah, are they an American company?
Brandon Hurles:
They're owned by Sega, so no, they're a Japanese yeah.
Mark Trobough:
They're headquartered at a Tokyo. So yeah, that definitely makes sense, cause it's just, I don't know. These Japanese companies love to add DRM to everything. They're, they're basically you know what's your companies do the same thing.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, they're basically Sega's studio for all the JRPG stuff, for the most part Almost a knot, not everything, cause like Atlas doesn't do like the Yakuza. Well, yakuza, what wasn't a JRPG before, was more of a like beat them up style game. But anyway, like that's just a straight up. Sega title, but they do most of the like heavy Japanese focus JRPG games.
Mark Trobough:
So yeah, cause Mr Coffee brought up he's like Sega owns the brand and I just I've just pulled it up yeah, sega's the official parent company that owns them. Just if there was any like doubt, which I don't think there was for you. But no, sir yeah.
Mark Trobough:
So there's two other, I guess, articles before we get to the next section. Apparently, now three classic Bungie games are making a comeback, so Bungie has recently announced that the original marathon trilogy will be available on Steam soon. Marathon is a beloved Bungie franchise and old school fans will be pleased to know that they'll be able to play these classic games with revamped graphics. Oh okay, so there is now a Steam page up that they're bringing these games back and there's no release it. I don't know how old this game actually is. Classic Marathon, yeah, no.
Brandon Hurles:
I don't either actually I don't know or the classic marathon trilogy.
Speaker 4:
So it's all three of these classic marathon games Apparently like immediately. I never heard about this game before.
Brandon Hurles:
No, yeah, well, it's a series. Yeah, they were all in the 90s, it looks like says the first one's released in 94. Second one Don't know the release date but that was during all. And then Marathon Infinity. I have a mildly played, but I didn't beat it, didn't get far into it, thought it was fine. But I mean that's cool. This is like good era Bungie. This is heading into Halo Bungie. Before the Dark Times yeah, I mean, they're absolutely.
Brandon Hurles:
Did you see, we actually I don't think did you put any notes about the PlayStation talking about Bungie thing. What was it exactly? So basically, I don't have something straight in front of me for the direct quote, but I'll try to find it. Basically, playstation regrets buying Bungie. That was the statement out there. I didn't see that.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, so I guess. But I was looking at something else Like. I just want to say like, because I was looking at, like the graphical UI for classic marathon. It definitely reminds me of the old, like early 2000s, windows media player. You remember that? Yeah. Of course I just looking at like the UI for that game, I was like like the first thing that came to my mind.
Brandon Hurles:
It's very interesting. I haven't played the first or second one, but I, like I said, my own play though, yeah, but a lot of people.
Mark Trobough:
my first introduction to Bungie was with Halo, so yeah, like most people.
Brandon Hurles:
But yeah, I just want to quickly mention this because we didn't have it in the notes but basically PlayStation was saying that what changes they need to make with Bungie? There was like some discourse put out there about basically people like I saw a bunch of people say this they wish that they had not allowed Bungie to stay like like they own them, obviously, but they allowed them to stay like sort of independent as a company, so like kind of separate from PlayStation, like they did their own thing, but PlayStation own them. Yeah, because then I mean, like look at what Bungie has turned into, like it's completely changed and shift from like Bungie that we knew. But basically they regret the acquisition. So I mean they paid three point six billion dollars for the acquisition, so yeah, I don't know the long list of Sony making bad decisions.
Brandon Hurles:
I mean, yeah, like all these, like big companies are acquiring these other studios. I mean, look at Xbox and like 2020 to 2023, the beginning like they were just buying studios left and right and like we've seen almost nothing from these studios yet which, like it takes. It takes time to develop stuff, but there there probably would have already been stuff in development for these studios, like the only one I can. What's the big one that came out? The end of the but the?
Mark Trobough:
other studio they acquired. Yeah, the as it has to be one of the bigger ones.
Brandon Hurles:
Well, yeah, the Bethesda game, Star Starfield Sorry, that's the only one that I can think of. That's like a big thing that came out from a studio they acquired, so which I would say I think that's the biggest one they acquired to, because, I mean, bethesda is massive.
Mark Trobough:
They own so many huge, huge properties. Yeah, because it's obviously you think about that. Bethesda game studios is the subsidiary of the actual parent, bethesda, and they own a bunch of other stuff.
Brandon Hurles:
But yeah, yeah, and I mean, like you know, there's even other stuff like Wolfenstein and Doom and like not even like the first things that people think of. So yeah. Yeah, crazy stuff, crazy stuff.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, I guess the last article I had was don't know how many people are into like the Street Fighter scene, but apparently pro Street Fighter player Michael Broly legs Bigum has died at the age of 35.
Brandon Hurles:
I heard about that. Yeah, there was like a dedication, yeah because he was.
Mark Trobough:
he had a disease called atherogearosis I don't I can't pronounce medical terms, but he had some some. Some issue that you know limited his mobility but he's still like one of the top ranked Street Fighter, like players in the world and stuff like that.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, if I remember correctly, he had like a dedicated device because he had like mild use of his hands. Yeah like I'd struggle using his hands. So like that's, that's amazing that somebody that you know can do that still at that level, and I'm thinking, wow, man, I suck, but yeah, it's great to see the fighting game. Community support His family. I could be wrong, but I think there was a fundraiser set for him. I think I remember reading and, yeah, it's sad. There's a pretty much to his backstory and everything.
Mark Trobough:
So yeah, but I mean it's, it's. I mean, at the end of the day it's still. You know, a good story could just show somebody overcoming like a severe, like disability, to become a really good at something that they really like to do at that.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, yeah, I mean, and, as you know, fighting games are just that, the competition is just insane. So that's such an such an awesome fee. And, yeah, capcom has spotlighted a video on him. It looks like the spotlight video is called Brawley Legs the fighter.
Mark Trobough:
So that's definitely good for them to do.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, there's been, you know, despite Dragon's Dogma 2, they're not all bad, so, but it looks like he has a, he has a book that you can buy and it looks like lives on through his book and the unique method he used to compete, inspiring the game community. So it looks like there's a book out there that you might be able to purchase to help support his family. But, yeah, I mean 35, you know that's that's a bummer, a huge bummer. Sounds like a massive loss to the fighting game community. So, yeah, definitely, absolutely Sad to hear.
Brandon Hurles:
So it looks like we are jumping into what's your weekly segment name.
Mark Trobough:
I guess we'll do anime of the week or something like that. I still kind of like all over the place. But the soft transition from games to, you know, pop culture, anime, stuff like that.
Brandon Hurles:
This guy can't figure out a name Like no, I can't. You know so much anime, come up with something unique like right here you got. You know you're about to say this anime Mike's are Mike Mark's anime, spice of the week or something. So, Mike, I don't know.
Mark Trobough:
I'll think of something eventually. I obviously didn't put a lot of thought into it because it's just kind of like pulling stuff out my butt to some degree. I'm not good with names. I'm sorry, you do that a lot with the butt, so like when I want to find a name I use said good name for quite a while.
Brandon Hurles:
So, before you jump into that, it looks like Mr Coffee said some of the lore of marathon was the basis of destiny, which I didn't know. He said also, marathon lore was also hidden Easter egg and Halo games. I thought the main reason Sony bought bungee was for its knowledge on building a live service system. Bungee was responsible for the cancellation of the last of us multiplayer, which is true, so that dives into a little bit of a deeper topic.
Brandon Hurles:
There is that, yes, sony came out and said we want to focus on live service games. Like they said that and then they they were planning I forget the percentage that they put out there, but like 60% of their games are going to be live service focus and this was a little bit before. You know, live service has gotten such a backlash because people were people were playing bungee like crazy at that point time and like they we discussed it so many times there is just a couple of live service games that really successfully do very, very well. Yeah, 95% of them absolutely flop. I mean, we've seen ones come out and they're out for less than a year Godfall, for instance, like I'm thinking of that that came out in PS5.
Mark Trobough:
Well, I mean the problem is, if those games aren't like immediately successful, they're just a cash dump that just eat up all this money with these servers. They're not successful, they can't last long.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, what was the other one with the Mac? Where you like control the Mac.
Mark Trobough:
I know what you're talking about. I can't think of the name of the game.
Brandon Hurles:
I thought this was a.
Mark Trobough:
this came out like a few years ago yeah, a few years ago, but that was another one.
Brandon Hurles:
Huge amount of money put in that game, massive flop. What was that called? I cannot remember, but yeah, that was a. He's that Hawken? That's not the one I'm thinking of, but that is another one I cannot remember. It's like Scarlet Nexus, I think, is that it Is that the one that's a.
Mark Trobough:
That's a Japanese game. It's a JRPG or like an action JRPG nodes. It's a completely different game.
Brandon Hurles:
Okay, that's not what I'm thinking of, then I can't remember of it. But I can't remember it. But yeah, whatever that was. That that one instantly flop yeah, whatever it was instantly flops and did not do well and like just control terrible and stuff from the get go. So it was crap at the get go. It's a live service. People are going to move on. There's a dozen other live service games that do the yeah, the live service, well, if you will. And then apparently, like Titanfall 3 supposed to be live service, which sucks.
Mark Trobough:
Just tell me the game is going to fail immediately.
Brandon Hurles:
It's a bummer because I like those games, but yeah, whatever. So we'll go dive into your coffee set anime corner. There's a yeah something.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, I brought this up because you know it's a show that I haven't watched in a while. We definitely talked about it last week with the with the light novel stuff, that the whole fiasco with that, and because apparently I didn't realize how quickly there there's a new, new, new series coming out, like a week or two. Get into that little bit later part of the segment stuff. But have you ever watched an anime called Spice and Wolf?
Brandon Hurles:
I have, and I've read the manga. I used to be a big, big fantasy.
Mark Trobough:
Yes, there is manga. It's an anime, it's one of those animes that's based off of you know, based off something else. So originally there was the light novel, which came out in 2006 and it's still ongoing today, the light the, the manga which came, which, the original manga, ran from 2007 to 2017 and then it picked up again in 2019. The original anime that most people would be familiar with came out in 2008 and 2009,. The first two season, one and two, which kind of came back to back, which is about 25 episodes, which is a really good show, but it left off on a cliffhanger. And then obviously, we're getting the new, the new anime in April 2. But the one unfortunate that I found out about that was it's not a, it's not cartoon. The story it's a, it's a reboot of the series, which I was really upset about. I'm like the original was good, just continue the story.
Brandon Hurles:
And you just look nicer. Yeah, and the, the manga continued for so long. There's so much story there. And you said, the light novels are still continuing to this day.
Mark Trobough:
My novel from from 2006 to this day see that as far as what I pulled up. It's still ongoing. That already is like a very established anime, like a lot of actually I brought that up and I was like, can I read in something? I was like at present I thought it was done. I thought the light novel was done, but maybe I'm wrong. I mean, I remember I should double check because I pulled it up from I think I pulled it from from one of these, from like the, the wiki sites.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, I'd be interested to hear if like that is still continuing like that, because that's, that's pretty crazy.
Mark Trobough:
Unless it's like a unless you're kind of like a spin off light novel is kind of the same thing.
Brandon Hurles:
But I saw that I thought that was done already, but maybe I'm wrong, because the manga I remember when the manga ended it was like six, seven years ago or something, something like that. I remember when it ended I did not finish the manga but I did read very far into it. But, yeah, it had continued past the point of where I had stopped reading manga or watching anime for like a long time.
Mark Trobough:
And OK, so I don't. Maybe there's a different arc that I'm misreading, but now there's still the last light novel that came out came out in 2023. Springlog, volume seven.
Brandon Hurles:
So yeah, it's definitely still continuing.
Mark Trobough:
Did you know this?
Brandon Hurles:
So like I'm not to, interrupt your your segment, but I wanted to throw this in there. I thought it was kind of funny. I actually found out not super long ago that there are a couple of spice and wolf dating Sims for the DS.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, I did have them in here as well.
Brandon Hurles:
Did you? I hadn't even.
Mark Trobough:
I hadn't even look. It's actually pretty much like the next thing, because most other stuff was like Could I put in the other? It's a reboot, not a continuation, which was kind of sad. Hopefully we can you know this. This anime will continue on further than the original run.
Brandon Hurles:
I will be OK with this if they do it the way that they did like Hunter Hunter, because I thought that was a really good and full metal alchemist to like brotherhood.
Mark Trobough:
Well, I mean to be fair, there wasn't. It wasn't like it was a bad adaptation, it just wasn't popular enough to get a continue, a season three pretty much.
Brandon Hurles:
I don't know. I felt like it was really popular. I. I felt like it was one of the more popular.
Mark Trobough:
Maybe here in the West, but at that time the anime community is much, much smaller and you're talking about a time where the Japanese community was going to determine whether or not it was popular enough to get a follow up at that time. You know 2008, you know the 2010s to the even even into the 2010s like the anime market was still fully dominated by the Japanese domestic market. It's only recently where the international market is kind of getting an attention, is kind of helping influence, for better or for worse. You know, you know some anime stuff.
Brandon Hurles:
Is the picture that you grabbed. Is that an audio drama?
Mark Trobough:
because it says unabridged and that usually I think it's just probably a pretty sure it's a glad just point was pulling an image. It's not the original one I grabbed, but you know Windows didn't like the original JPEG that I pulled. But it was just just an image, Just the same image. It looks like it's just a somebody reading the actual actual light novel. As far as the image that I pulled that literally nobody else can see, so that, yeah, no, it's funny.
Brandon Hurles:
So, that new one comes out in just like two weeks on the second yeah, april 2nd.
Mark Trobough:
Hopefully we get the same day sub that comes out, but it'll probably be out with it, usually without the week, or at least may actually watch that thing, because I don't, I couldn't, I didn't look into it. I just know that's when it comes out. I don't know, as far as when it comes out, where it's going to be. Probably end up on crunchy roll as much as I don't like crunchy rolls, probably who's going to have it.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, I don't. I'm definitely not going to resubscribe for for one show.
Mark Trobough:
Did you have a crunch roll in years? I haven't even part of a decade at this point.
Brandon Hurles:
It's been a long time for me to. Did you ever watch the OBA, though? For that?
Mark Trobough:
I can't remember. If I did. To be honest, it's good I don't remember.
Brandon Hurles:
It's good. I really liked it.
Mark Trobough:
Probably is, because for those that don't know, that's kind of going around it spice and wolf it's pretty much takes place in. Essentially it's a fantasy world, but think like medieval Europe. It's like the time frame for the show pretty much, and it deals with some like it's her name is hollow or hollow. There's always some confusion about or some contention about the name, or there was back on the day. And then Lawrence, the main character, where he's trading between trow towns. I think he's bringing in like furs or trade because you think an old, old medieval, like like trades and stuff like that, and then she just happens to stumble upon him or she's trying to leave said village who used to worship her Now they don't really, they've kind of gone on and essentially then she follows him on his travels as she tries to kind of get home. She didn't get involved. You kind of get a dabble and like old medieval trade and stuff like that, where it's like how you know some some old school finances, trade, trading and stuff like that works there's because she's supposed to be some kind of deity to some degree, that you get issues with the, with the church and stuff like that Kind of trying to come after her and you know, a whole bunch of shenanigans get involved.
Mark Trobough:
That's just the anime. Like novels. Obviously it's very different, but the story goes a lot longer. Obviously we're about to get a new, new anime adaptation, so we'll see how much. How much changes are there? Just retelling? You know essentially the same story, but it was always told as a it's like a for most people that at least back then around 2012 or 2010 when I watched it I can't remember exactly when I first watched it was always around the whole. You know it's an old medieval finances with a with a cute wolf girl type thing, and there's always the you know some other other fun stuff. It's classified as like an adventure, fantasy, romance and the romance is kind of there in the, at least the original anime, but the story just doesn't go far enough for that, that thing, for that to actually, you know, be a thing. That's super major, but it definitely starts to dabble in the manga.
Brandon Hurles:
The manga goes a little bit more into that. I probably and that's the whole reason it got dating Sims, because it's there. Like the elements there, but yeah.
Mark Trobough:
Okay, no, sorry, I was reading a message from you, but yeah, I mean it's. It got technically. It got four games, two of which were in Japan only that you kind of talked about. So in 2008 and 2009 there were two Japan only DS games Spice and Wolf Hollows in my one year, and then the win. That spans the seer, more or less dating sims. I know the first game was an explicitly a dating sim. The second one didn't, from some of the stuff I read, didn't explicitly say dating sim, but it probably was fairly, fairly similar to what that was, which is kind of why those games were Japanese only at the time. Yeah, and then they got in 2019.
Mark Trobough:
In 2021 there was a spice and will VR in VR2 that came out worldwide on almost or on most VR kind of platforms. I don't know exactly what type of games those were. I just didn't have the time to kind of pull that up. But I mean, if you're talking like 2019, 2021 VR, it's probably not gonna be the most complex game in the world. I don't know, it doesn't make sense.
Brandon Hurles:
It'd be a dating sim that's what I was wondering, like what type of VR games would those be? That's very interesting.
Mark Trobough:
I did not know that it might be more of just like an interactive story, but I can. I can pull up the steam, log what it says yeah, like, like a sort of visual novel, so it says because VR2 is the first one I popped up, I think exactly what it classified. It as it classifies as a casual, but it didn't really say a whole lot it doesn't.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, it didn't tell us anything.
Mark Trobough:
I that's very intriguing, though, because this does not seem like the sort of so, the so, the so the about the game says, at the end of his journey with the wolf goddess hollow, former traveling merchant, lawrence settles down with her and opened a bathhouse. The couple was blessed with an adorable daughter and an idea, idealic life. However, the beautiful wolves have a weakness for delicious meals and their food expenses are a source of headache for Lawrence. One day, as Lawrence is going about his first side business to further fill the family coffers, a slight incident occurs. To further complicate things, hollows saunters in with quite the feast and it's supposed to be a sequel to the first game. Pretty much the game is a 30-minute story in a game mode where you can watch part of the anime alongside characters. It seems more like it's just like an interactive VR story more or less.
Brandon Hurles:
This makes no sense unless they're talking about using it with the labo kit, but it's actually on the tend to switch and you can buy it right now on the e-shop for the first one, for 12 it's also.
Mark Trobough:
It's also one steam, so the level kid doesn't make sense. For that, though okay.
Brandon Hurles:
So I don't know what, why it's called VR, then, if it's not just, because it's a VR game.
Mark Trobough:
It, from what I've read and what I looked at, it just looks like a. It's an interactive VR story where you have some interaction to some degree, but you just watching it for a story it's mostly a visual novel, but yeah yeah, like a VR visual novel is definitely what I reading. That look as well, so I'm like, yeah, that's I don't. I couldn't think of visual novel at the first time around so I wonder if this expands.
Brandon Hurles:
It sounds like maybe like it expands on the story, or wonder unless it's an inner.
Mark Trobough:
I would say no just because it tend to not be. But if it is, it's much further on the story. But I'm not far enough of the light novel to have any idea if this is even close to reality. It feels like it's just a spin-off for fans of the series. But I mean, I mean, who knows?
Brandon Hurles:
yeah, yeah, it'd be interesting to know if it is. But yeah, most, most anime games for them there's. There's a few I can think of, but most typically aren't canon have their own story and retell the story.
Mark Trobough:
It's a fairly light story. It's fun to watch, it's it. While it does get serious, it doesn't get at least as far as the original two anime series. It doesn't get too serious. It's, for the most part, a lighthearted story with you know some light. You know stuff with the church who's trying to hunt her down because of a try to think of the actual word like a, like a heretic or something like that. And you deal with medieval trade, stuff like that, like oh, this is how the market, like a really dumbed down version of like how medieval finances in the in the market worked and stuff like that and trading and stuff I do words like instead of like dollars. It's like you know trading, you know one product for another, you know weights of coins and silvers and stuff like that kind of gives you a brief overview of medieval finances yeah, I agree with that.
Brandon Hurles:
It's one that you can just like kind of sit down, chill out, turn your brain off and watch.
Brandon Hurles:
But I didn't want to say just to wrap back around to the VR real quick. I got a little bit more info on it. Looks like it was a crowdfunded game and upload VR comm says it plays out like a 2016 promotional tie-in to a movie, not a VR project worth the $292,000 in crowdfunding, let alone a price tag anywhere north of a few dollars. If you're a series, die hard. You'll probably enjoy the fan service on offer. Everyone else should steer clear. It's available on steam and Oculus for PC VR and is on psvr as well as Nintendo lab o VR I was right and as a quest to be fair, so it is on lab only.
Mark Trobough:
Only a fan of the series would even get this VR to begin with it's wholeheartedly fan service.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, it's correct. A crowd. I can't believe how much money it raised, but yeah, I mean it's.
Mark Trobough:
That shows how dedicated of a fan base there is to spice and wolf.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, so that might be.
Mark Trobough:
It might be a small, semi-small niche can community, but they really love, love. The next one. The light novel has been going on for so long. You know I've you never absolutely love it.
Brandon Hurles:
I do want to get one just to try it out, and I know they're not at least I don't think they are a they might have won up price. But the lab of your I've never gotten to try that. Out of curiosity's sake I really want to try it. I mean, I know it's not gonna be great, but I heard like it's not like the worst thing in the world and for like the price. It's like there's like a whole VR mode for Breath of the Wild. I want to say that's like exclusive to if you have the lab of your.
Mark Trobough:
I have no idea about that yeah, I'm pretty sure, and I've never gotten to try that out, so yeah, I mean for my might be Super Mario Odyssey, I can't remember one of them has like a lab of VR mode but the last thing I kind of put on here was, depending on where you, what region, you're in, it was advertised to be on Hulu, amazon Prime, and Crunch Road was streamed, though if you're in the US it's probably gonna be on a country roll than the other two, or you can be like me. You know, still have an interest in physical media. That you can tell.
Brandon Hurles:
I bought this, used I do like physical media, just kidding, yeah, I do even though this I got any to get a new case.
Mark Trobough:
This case has been beat up and kind of falling apart. I got it. I need a new case that I think it was already damaged when I bought it, but I bought it used.
Brandon Hurles:
I don't know if I told you but that that high school DXD Blu-ray that I have, it's called for like upwards of $100. You know me.
Mark Trobough:
Episodes seasons of it. I think it is a fourth season.
Brandon Hurles:
I know there's four.
Mark Trobough:
I can't. I think there's a fourth season. I don't know if I have it on Blu-ray, though yeah, it's.
Brandon Hurles:
It's a very expensive I was like a little print. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a really popular series.
Mark Trobough:
It's one of those series. It's you, you. You watched for the fan service. You stayed for the surprisingly deep and interesting story it did legitimately have a story.
Brandon Hurles:
But yeah, the very, very service see to be fair.
Mark Trobough:
That makes sense. You're talking about an anime. It's very the definition of what an etchy series is really perverted series is. But like spice and wolf that that's a high school DD or DXD, whatever you want to call it. It's originally a light novel and it's still an ongoing light novel oh which makes sense why there's such a good story to it. But it plays into, it knows what it is. It doesn't change that the main character is a complete pervert yeah, it reminds me of some of a tension me because I mean he, you know that that whole series a little different.
Mark Trobough:
It's.
Brandon Hurles:
There's still harem, but tension is fall, as if he's not really a pervert though not not no way you would think nowadays no, but I, if I remember correctly, and one of the OVA's or maybe it was multiple, because I can't remember how many OVA's there were he was different than he was in the anime. He was definitely a pervert well, it depends.
Mark Trobough:
Are you watching the tension, tokyo, the tension universe, or the OG OGA tension?
Brandon Hurles:
movie series. I was, it was.
Mark Trobough:
It was the original, but whatever, that would be the OVA. The OVA would be the original yeah that's still technically ongoing.
Brandon Hurles:
Interesting, crazy that is yeah, I didn't know, it was still ongoing man, I have it's like five OVA's for it is there? What's the last tension movie series to come out? Uh, I think Mr coffee said, wasn't tension more of a waifu anime? I mean? Like it was it was a harem, so it was like very centered around the girls.
Mark Trobough:
I think technically it's the fifth OVA, but there's another series coming out about one of the spin-off light novels I can't remember the think of what's called it's. It's something Ward or something like that. That's, if it's not out, it's coming out soon. But I mean most of what he I'm like on the name, the actual creator, because I don't look it up in forever. I what he's been doing like feel like the last 20 years since the 30 V a came out like 2002 or 2003 along with the, the GXP anime. He's been working on it for forever, a handful of of manga or manga panels and some some side stories, but mainly he's been working on the GXP light novel for like the bulk of that time and there's a spin-off light novel.
Mark Trobough:
That's what the new anime is kind of coming out on, because he as much as I like the G tension movie with GXP anime, it's technically not considered canon because he absolutely hated it and it had a weird sense of humor that I kind of like. So he essentially retold the GXP story in a light novel that's still technically ongoing and so there's technically the OVA timeline has like three spin-offs, that kind of tie into it. So you have the early one that most people know was the war in Jiminar, which technically takes place, yeah, after OVA 5. And what OVA 5 bridges together? Because the fourth OVA was kind of a test dive into the series as well, as it started to tie together a bunch of series, the fourth, the fifth OVA, or at least in the West, very contentious, and I don't think it was received the same way in Japan.
Mark Trobough:
But it's oh, I'm sure, essentially trying to tie together a bunch of series altogether. So you have a another spin-off and I'm it's kind of like can't get the name the GXP light novel, and then the war in Jiminar is kind of all getting tied together as well, as the fifth OVA leads directly into the war in Jiminar story and fills in some of the gaps of kind of what's going on and stuff like that. People didn't like those because they're very dialogue heavy OVA series, but I kind of by necessity, that's kind of what they needed to be.
Brandon Hurles:
I, I was. I can see the middle ground, kevin, in the chat and if you're listening to audio, there's a comment about asking if I was thinking about war in Jiminar. I definitely watch that one. I feel like I watched all the OVA's, all the ones that you're talking about, cuz I, I mean, I like Henshin movie because of you, like I got into it because of you.
Mark Trobough:
I really like the GXP. Yeah, the fourth and the fifth OVA came out. I don't have anything pulled up from like. I think the fourth one came like around 2019 and 21 22 is when the fifth OVA came out and stuff like that. But essentially I might be getting this wrong, but the whole for I understand and it's been it's been six months or so, so I've looked at stuff. I'll be getting some stuff wrong. But I thought he said, like Tenchi story is pretty much wrapped up and done because he hasn't focused on Tenchi in that that game for like the better part of 20 years. He's been focusing on the two, the main two spin offs, mainly the GXP and then the I think it's warred paradise or paradise war thing is with the other spin off.
Mark Trobough:
That's what he's been mainly focused on but they, yeah, but they're also tied into the whole OVA universe. The problem is most of what he's been working on since the third OVA and GXP came out around 21 to 2003 has been stuck in Japan only like there's no this GXP light novel cuz I think I showed it to you like last week or some there's no official translation. You're stuck with either learning Japanese to read it or you're reading fan translations. There's no legal way to read any of this into the stuff he's written outside of the animes and stuff like that.
Brandon Hurles:
Well, this is kind of frustrating.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, that that is frustrating, but I mean that's like part of the course, at least for really, yeah, but you're talking like as it stands right now, or really small, really niche series which obviously just doesn't have the popularity to come over to the West, which it's me that sucks. But I mean, we got some light novels, but they were more of the that. We got three of the true Tenshi Muyou novels that came to the US, but those are very different, those more of like hey, here's more background. We're tying a lot of stories together based off the original Tenshi Muyou stuff, but it definitely goes back and it's trying to like fix a lot of the or come to. It's like hey, some of the stuff that we referenced, this kind of like fixes a lot of that stuff that's just not addressed in either the anime or some of the other light novels.
Mark Trobough:
I remember a lot of background for some characters.
Brandon Hurles:
I remember you buying one the light novels when we went to some store in Columbus, probably like 2015, I can't remember it. It's been a long time, but I was going to some stores.
Mark Trobough:
I don't remember what I would have bought, though yeah, I, I remember you.
Brandon Hurles:
You're buying one there, but this is 2022. But yeah, this is bringing up the Tenshi Muyou GXB Paradise Shidohen, which is Paradise Begins Arc. The anime will be tied into the Tenshi Muyou GXB spinoff series.
Mark Trobough:
This is kind of like a spinoff of a spinoff and it's weird because in the fifth OVA you get you see both the GXB and the Paradise War spinoffs in that OVA, but the stories are kind of not fully done. It makes sense if you've read those light novels when you when the fifth OVA came out. The problem is, if you weren't in Japan, you never read those. So it's super confusing yeah, but it ties.
Mark Trobough:
It ties into stuff that if you've been, if you were in Japan and following it, all this all makes sense. It ties in. You know it.
Brandon Hurles:
The time makes sense, yeah it doesn't to us because we miss so much stuff it looks like the entire thing is based around all the novels, so yeah, we wouldn't, wouldn't have my big thing is.
Mark Trobough:
I was like, okay, hopefully this Paradise War does well and then we can actually get a proper adaptation of the GXB light novels which are flashing it still ongoing to some degree. But then again, this is how crazy he's made this OVA universe. The it's not until the GXB light novel, but it also ties into another work that he worked on in the late 90s, is it? Oh my god, if you go if you watch dual parallel trouble, that's technically tied into the attention to you.
Brandon Hurles:
Ova series so I didn't notice. In 2014, there was a short-form anime that had over 50 episodes. Oh, you.
Mark Trobough:
I is a complete waste. Don't watch it. Ai, I think you mean yeah, well it'd be, it'd be I in Japanese, or something like that would be straight.
Brandon Hurles:
AI, but you remember it's more. I got us. Do you remember that anime?
Mark Trobough:
and yeah yeah did you ever like that one it was okay. I never really got into it. It was too slow-paced for me what about? You could say that about some other series though that I like so what about fruits basket?
Brandon Hurles:
do you remember?
Mark Trobough:
that one I remember, but I never watched it. I like that one it never came off as one that I want, but no it's.
Brandon Hurles:
I was just gonna say GXB was on to Nami, so like it, you know it. I love it as much as he hates it.
Mark Trobough:
But I mean, it's his story, so I get why he didn't. He didn't like the humor and some of the changes. But that OVA timeline is so convoluted because the the dual parallel trouble sure sound clearly was never, was never designed to be tied into it. It's just left open, ended and some stuff doesn't make sense because it's based in Japan, but Japan is in Tenshi Muyu, but this is supposed to be like a thousand plus years in the past or like a hundred thousand years in the past it's just like wow, this is called it, and there's a handful of mongered slash dojin you need to read.
Mark Trobough:
There's a bunch of light novel you have to read for this to all make sense. It's just kind of like a see, that's another one of the things we talked about twice today.
Mark Trobough:
You got it yet I think that you have to come down as when, what I've understood, this is kind of like a necessity, like he wanted to keep telling his story but he couldn't get an anime adaptation or an OVA series. So it's like, well, I'm just gonna continue telling the story in in light novel form primarily, and then we'll address some other dojins when, when they're there. But like, for like the longest time he had, there's only one way to tell it that wasn't light novel format, so it's more by necessity it sounds like it's even.
Brandon Hurles:
It makes it convoluted. It sounds like it's even niche in Japan. If it's such an issue to do that, it must really be very niche there, because it's a nice series straight up like it.
Mark Trobough:
There's no way to get around it. Even in the US it's not a super. It was back then because it got a to Nami adaptation or it was on to Nami, but I mean like it became really, really niche?
Mark Trobough:
okay, because everybody in the chat has there are fully aware of it and new titles, if you if you watch that in the Warren Jeminar was kind of it's Tenshi Muyu, but it was kind of its own thing, probably for the better. The way that series kind of works, it's it's directly tied into it. But the way the show does it itself it's very, very lightly tied into it. But the actual story is not related, not until the fifth OVA. Is it like hard, you know connected and stuff like that? But it's, it's a, it's a series that I love and it's always my favorite. But god, I'm not trying to correct it. Damn, is this a super convoluted timeline as far as, like, the main OVA it sounds like it's crazy than I would want to ever mess with which makes it hard for a barrier entry.
Mark Trobough:
The problem is because I mean, I watched it.
Brandon Hurles:
I watched it. I read some of the manga. I don't remember.
Mark Trobough:
I definitely did not read any of the light novels, yeah, but if you ever look into what people, especially here in the West, don't like about the fourth and fifth, you be like this doesn't make sense. I'm like, yeah, because we were missing so much of the of the work that he did never got adapted from them, from the dojins and light novels in the West, which is directly what this is tying into. So if you're in Japan, it makes sense and it was fairly popular, successful from my understand, or else the fifth OVA wouldn't have gotten made. And the fourth, if you ever watched the, the third OVA, the fourth OVA pretty much just retells the ending of that, with the whole his dad kind of getting remarried and stuff like that and everything else around it kind of retells it. But it also kind of felt like it was just testing the waters to see if there was still even an appetite for it to get another OVA series, which it did because it got a fifth one, like 15, like within six episodes. You're jumping through like 16 years. But she's kind of out of necessity because it's like you only have so many episodes and you need to get to where you tie into the, to the, to the war in Jim and our cuz that's. The whole series deals with the I'm playing on like is it Kenchy or something like that is his name from from war on Jim and our, but the whole series based around him getting ready for whatever he's supposed to do as far as the fifth OVA is concerned to war and Jim and our. So it's kind of like a don't know when I'm gonna have another episode. So I've got force this story in six, six episodes that are about 40 to 50 minutes long. I mean, they're not short episodes, yeah, but it's like minus.
Mark Trobough:
It felt like my necessity. It's like I've got for sure this one shot to tie this in. I need to take advantage of it and then whatever happens next, luckily the the paradise war got an adaptation. Hopefully it does well. I've never been, I never read the light novel, so hopefully it's a good adaptation. I assume he's gonna be fairly heavily involved in it. But yeah, I could talk about this all day. There's probably a lot of research I could do like all right, now I'm loaded, now we can go, you know, hard into this, but I'm passionate about it cuz I grew up. This is the first anime that I that I watched for, the first one that got me back into it, and I've, just I haven't. I love it so, for all its faults, you know, yeah, I'm a dedicated fan yeah, that's fair.
Brandon Hurles:
I mean I enjoyed. You know what I watched and where I had been involved in it. Yeah, I hadn't got that deep and I'm I wonder if there are fan translations of some of the light novels that haven't been there at least I don't.
Mark Trobough:
I don't look to the paradise for but for the Jxp, at least up fairly close to where they're at right now. There are fan translations, but I mean you're taking a shot with accuracy and it's you have to read it online and stuff like that. So you take it with a grain of salt, cuz it's not a proper translation.
Brandon Hurles:
That's how I used to play a lot of JRPGs and Japanese yeah, that's how? Still the only way I've ever been able to play earthbound 3.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, it just sucks that I'm not a good translation does like a hopefully this is a good dude. Obviously some of it's done machine machine translation and then a human goes in after the fact. From my understanding it tweaks some stuff.
Brandon Hurles:
It can be way more accurate now with with AI. I mean, obviously there's still gonna be issues, but like, yeah, legitimately you know how much close because it's somebody here translating it. So it's like they, they for years and years and years I mean you saw it with the dub and even the manga like even official translations were never, like always, super wrong.
Mark Trobough:
Oh, they always always the only way to get an accurate is to learn Japanese and then go back and read.
Mark Trobough:
It's the only way that you're gonna proper adaptation so this is also a series that delves heavily into old Japanese culture and stuff like that, because people were like that's weird, you're marrying like his half sister or a distant cousin. Like yeah, today in the west that doesn't make sense. But if you look at any kind of royal family tree lineage it's kind of par for the course to some degree and it's got a oh, it's definitely tied into old Japanese like like mythology to some degree and how it kind of acts. It's definitely not.
Brandon Hurles:
It will never be like mainstream as right now so I was looking up the tinchy video video games, because I've never played any of them, and there's actually one called Rio Reuki FX and it's actually on, I believe.
Mark Trobough:
Reuki.
Brandon Hurles:
I briefly mentioned. No, you're good, I briefly mentioned this system slash computer to you before. But NEC, who did the Turbo graphics and PC engine. They made a game for the NEC PC FX which was essentially like a beefed up PC engine. That was also a computer, yeah, and it was like home to 90% light novels. There were some like other like legitimate video games on it, but they're very, very, very few and far between. It never came out here but it's interesting just watching a quick like trailer of this because this is a perfect example of most of the games that you would get on this system. This is one I've been after for for many, many, many years. I've never been able to find one that's working. I found one that was broken years ago and I passed up on it. But there are some like actual non-visual novel anime based games on there too and it's like a.
Brandon Hurles:
It is like an anime slash gamers dream console because like there are so many adaptations, or like exclusive story games that are attached to the PC FX like tons based on anime and manga, like it is it because, if you like old anime and manga, like this is like literally the system for you, but and there's a fan translation to for the Super Nintendo game and it's Tenshi Muyo game hen, which translates to game edition, I think that's the game I have for the Super Famicom.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, there's one of the games that I bought it at a con in Atlanta a few years ago, but yeah, I was looking at like the the one you were talking about, that Tenshi Muyo Ryuki PC FX game like it's not. Like on eBay it's a pretty affordable. The game itself is pretty cheap, it's like $40 oh that's not bad or around there. It's like well a lot of these games are well under $100 for the PC FX, but it's probably just the console itself.
Brandon Hurles:
It yeah that's hard to come by the console is hard to come by. I saw somebody actually a few weeks ago posted that they found one complete in box and they got like a steal of a price on it. They paid like 200 and complete in box for that. That console is absolutely insane. Now it is like not a the. The problem is there is now okay, you know retro gaming, there's a market for everything. It's not a crazy expensive console because you can get it loose for like I don't know 250 or something like that, but yeah based off of what was clearly the control what's on eBay and some of these actually have the controller anywhere from like 250 to $400 on eBay.
Brandon Hurles:
Some of them say they have the controller within the picture, so I assume they they're selling it together because the controller by itself, like I think loose is like 50 bucks and you can get them boxed from upwards of like 120 or right now hopefully it's it's.
Mark Trobough:
It works if you bought it off of eBay, so it's it's. You know it's kind of like a hit or miss, but I mean it's still cheaper than a PS5 right now yeah, I, I will say this is like I said.
Brandon Hurles:
This is one I very much. Okay, so I do have one. I have a couple of collecting goals right now. I pretty much like steered off of any like real collecting goals, but I've got three and right now my three are actually collect every NEC system like I want all the variants and releases.
Brandon Hurles:
I'm a massive, massive, massive turbo graphics and PC engine fan and also my childhood is attached to that system. You know, I had it as a kid and I was very upset when my dad sold a lot because you couldn't find games anywhere and if you did, they were hundreds of dollars even then, like it was, it was absolutely insane. And then just a few years later then games were getting discounted like 20 bucks and if you know anything about box turbo graphics games, that is a steal, because if you you can get so turbo graphics games come in a a jewel case. But they actually come in a box too and it's like a thin, thin box and those boxes are very, very rare for just about every single game, almost every single person, through the, the outer box away. It's sort of like a Super Nintendo box, right, but inside it came in a jewel case, so they just kept the jewel case. Well, what sought after is the actual boxes. But there are some very expensive PC FX games too.
Brandon Hurles:
But this is one that like, if you're an anime fan, like a manga fan, in any capacity, like I highly recommend grabbing this and it's it's a 32-bit system, slash computer and it does have like computer functionality too, so I can get a keyboard for it and like the whole nine. But it's a legitimate console with, you know, legitimate software. But I have seen some of these games go upwards of seven, eight hundred dollars crazy. There might be some more expensive than that. But my three, three collecting goals are every Pokemon game, every NEC console. And then my last one is I want to have every first-party switch game and like that, that once that's achievable and easy, right, like like I'm not that switch libraries insane, but I mean collecting every first-party game. Like that that's easily achievable. I'm pretty much waiting until switch 2 comes out and like a lot of these games drop because, like I don't really want to pay 60 bucks for Mario Golf.
Mark Trobough:
I want to play it, but you know I'm not trying to pay 60 bucks for yeah now I did have a question that I was just kind of scrolling to the eBay is there a difference in PC FX and the PC FX duo? Our console, yes, looks different and it's like twice as expensive as like $800 for this one posting that I saw so the duo are.
Brandon Hurles:
Also plays PC engine games, so like original PC engine games. So plays the huge. They're called Hugh carts. Instead of carts they're little, they look like credit cards and it also plays the Hugh carts, so like that is the ultimate way so that is for like even looks completely different yeah, for like an unmodded console like that is the best way, even to this day, that you can play PC engine games like unmodded.
Brandon Hurles:
And it would be next to like there's a system called the super graphics that also plays PC engine games, but essentially it was a beefed up PC engine that only had like seven games released for it. But yeah, I mean it's.
Mark Trobough:
It's basically that but I mean to be fair, the, the PC FX kind of looks like it, like a, like a, like a, like a 90s computer tower to some degree yeah, yeah, and then there's the.
Brandon Hurles:
There's a RX as well. So, like there's, yeah, there's a few variants and I, if I, if I remember correctly, the RX is the most expensive and I think it like it was like minor stuff, like having like an earphone jack and like like a couple of like quality of life improvements. But yeah, I mean it, those are even rare. So you're getting deeper and like, if you want now look, granted, like you could just get a PC FX and then get a PC engine for they're not like crazy expensive.
Brandon Hurles:
You could get one for relatively cheap and just play them that way, but like it's, the RX's are stupid expensive, so they're even more expensive than the the dual are.
Mark Trobough:
So it's not surprising that, like all these, at least as far as the eBay is concerned, like 95% of what I saw, they're all shipping from Japan what.
Brandon Hurles:
PC FX yeah, so any see, pete, pete, turbo graphics is the American version of PC engine. So if you ever hear PC engine, it's all Japan. We got the Turbo graphics, the Turbo graphics Express, which I have, that's the handheld and then we got the Turbo graphics CD and then we got a Turbo graphics tur. It's called Turbo duo, so it plays the, the hue cards and the CD base games in one console.
Mark Trobough:
So those are what. That's the, that's the. That's the. The do, oh yeah, that's the what the American version of the duo are so the duo are. It's a kind of sort of the duo are different. Yeah, it's, it's it's different.
Brandon Hurles:
It plays the, the FX games, but also plays a CD base games for the PC engine CD basically so it's a little just because I need to not collect these.
Mark Trobough:
I mean, I'll collect these games by console to play them on and then hopefully one day I can understand what the f*ck there be. There's a sentence games.
Brandon Hurles:
I would just grab a PC FX. There's actually a I will look up what it's called but if you want to save a lot of money and have the, the better route. Just recently there is new, new hardware put out for it. Essentially there is a new Bluetooth adapter so you can play it with any controller that you want. That's like 25, 30 bucks so you can use your PS5 controller with it if you wanted to, or you just played the original way.
Brandon Hurles:
And then I also want to say that there is I gotta make sure on this, because I remember seeing something about it. I feel like there is a way to play all the games. Now, I could be totally wrong. I could be totally wrong on that, because I have the turbo everdrive pro, so I can play all of the PC engine games turbo graphics games, turbo CD, pc engine CD but I can't play. I can't play PC FX. And I told, I told you about the everdrive so many times, but it's at PGA, so it plays it identical to the, the original car. There's absolutely zero difference. But yeah, I mean like if you were to, I would. If I were you, I would totally just grab the, the PC FX itself. Now, I mean, if you find a deal on there, you know, deal. A little bit of hunting around, I would I mean grab the grab the R or the R.
Mark Trobough:
I mean it's probably not gonna happen for a few months because I got those, you know, financial stuff. It's one of those things like I gotta add this on the list of stuff I need to get, just because, as much as people, you might have your own opinions. I'm such a big tinchy, a Mu-yu fan like I've been trying to hunt down as far as just the Western releases, like every release of the OBA or all these series, like every copy of it let's both DVD, blu-ray and VHS, just to have it. My collection, like that. I'm just it's like the one series I'm like such a nerd for, like I just absolutely love.
Brandon Hurles:
I guess I just like everything that I can. How big of a nerd I am for NEC, so like I, I too, am after the PC FX, but for me and there's a way that nerd. I want the PC FX and the R in there.
Mark Trobough:
X so somehow not because you were somehow still connecting like anime and video games together.
Brandon Hurles:
That's great yeah, and I mean like there's even like a. It's stupid expensive. But, like I said, there's a mouse and keyboard for the FX so you can play that way. The mouse, I want to say, is like several hundred dollars, I can't remember. It's been a while since I've seen the prices of these things. But if you ever dive into now, not only is a PC FX have a lot of anime releases, but the PC engine and PC engine CD do as well.
Brandon Hurles:
So, like, if you are interested, like if you look up I am you'll have to see what's cheaper now at this point or unless you can like swipe a deal or win an auction, but it either the PC FX, if you care about the other ones, that is, the PC FX are, or just grab a PC FX and get a cheap, because there are what they call budget model PC engines. Now, at this point they're not. They're not like really budget, but there's like cheaper models or several variants of it. There's one that people call like the shuttle PC engine. Shuttle, it's all. There's the core graphics, which is a PC engine, and that is like just just the.
Brandon Hurles:
It's a small form factor of the PC engine and it's the cheapest model you can get. I mean, you can get them, you can find them oftentimes, for you know hundred hundred twenty bucks, something like that. Like it's just a straight up base model, small, you know no extra stuff. But then there it can't. You can still attach the super module unit to it which allows you to attach the CD drive, so like if you wanted to buy the CD rom 2 drive, you could still attach it to that. It's, I think it's called the interface unit. So like there's and like you can find deals on getting all three of those together.
Brandon Hurles:
I've seen them I I saw a deal not long ago that I regret having passed up having all three bundled together for like 250, which is a pretty good deal, I mean because the CD rom drive some oftentimes goes for more than the console itself, and then the interface unit you have to buy separately which attaches the CD drive. So but I will. I will tell you they did make. Now the turbo graphics mini is very expensive, but they made a turbo graphics mini and a PC engine mini and these are moddable so you can add games to them and I do believe you can add PC FX games to either. Pretty sure they work on on those, but I got. You have no idea how bad I want a turbo graphics mini I. I still am upset myself for not having pre-ordered that because the pre-orders sold out and they never made any more of them. And these mini consoles are like $300 if you were to get it in the box, which for this I absolutely one or percent have to get in the box but I've never.
Brandon Hurles:
I've never. I've never seen a loose turbo graphics 16 mini. But yeah, I'm curious I'm gonna look it up for our audio listeners how much one's going for right now. Yeah, first one that pops up 270 in the box, and Konami. Konami release the the. I actually didn't realize that Konami release the turbo graphics mini. Interesting, nec is the company, so that's interesting. But yeah, I mean you look up, like here's one loose 250. Yeah, I mean like it. The crazy thing is this it's a cheaper to get a real turbo graphics than it is to get the mini, because here's one right now loose for 170 the original console. Like it's cheaper to do that which I've got, one of those two I've got any see. Why is?
Brandon Hurles:
all I have is the turbo graphics 16 and the turbo express, but I want you to look up something for our audio listeners. Go ahead and look this up if you're listening. This is called the PC engine LT and it is my holiest of holy grails. This is something I have looked for for many, many years and even 10 years ago was going for a lot of money, but now it's going for about quadruple the cost it was then. But yeah, I mean they're well upwards of a thousand dollars and essentially, yeah, I it's.
Brandon Hurles:
It's like a better version of the, the PC GT, which is the handheld unit, like I've got the turbo express. The PC engine GT is the same thing, it's just a PC engine variant. Well, this is like a foldable with a bigger screen, plays better, runs the game is better. It's just like a better unit overall and it kind of looks like a portable DVD player, but like you put the hue card right in the front of it and it's got a nice screen and has controls on the actual unit and you can play with the controller.
Mark Trobough:
It's just, it's incredibly cool, super cool piece of history yeah, I'd better say, the first one I brought up on eBay was going for like four thousand dollars, but I found I found one as cheap as like five hundred and sixty on eBay. Obviously it's probably gonna be a different and yeah, it didn't seem like the right one, though it said oh no, never mind, it's the, it's just the PC engine. Super graphics.
Brandon Hurles:
I was gonna say I wanted why it was even broken with a crack screen.
Mark Trobough:
Everything's going for more than five hundred yeah, I don't know why it popped up the way it did. I yeah, that's not me, but yeah, the first one immediately. The first one that came up was going for four for grand on eBay.
Brandon Hurles:
As far as the USD, but yeah, the PC engine itself is not, like, overly expensive.
Mark Trobough:
The turbo graphics is slightly more fear to get the base unit okay, but like I'm looking, I found one for 2175 well, this one doesn't have a box to go with it, so if I'm being honest with you, I've never seen an LT box.
Brandon Hurles:
I've never seen a PC engine LT by. I don't even know what it looks like.
Mark Trobough:
You never see the first one that's over with it. This is PC engine LT console system. Pi TV 9, boxed, tested, free shipping. I see the whatever that thing is, it's going for 4k 78 watchers.
Brandon Hurles:
Wow, that is such a beautiful unit. I mean, that is just such a cool piece of history. Man like I yeah, I mean like with it folded box with it folded, it looks like a GBA SP slash. An original came boy does.
Mark Trobough:
Oh my god, it's got one of those old little antennas used to have on those portable TVs. So I'll just show you mine.
Brandon Hurles:
The Express has a separate TV unit that you can buy for it and put on the side. I'll show you it sometime. But I've done a short on it before and what I've done is I plugged essentially I've got the adapters, I've got all kinds of crazy cables that I've ordered to do weird ridiculous stuff with before, but I played a Wii game on my turbo Express using the TV antenna, plugging in through the audio cable. I plugged in video cables and played a, played a Wii game on my turbo X, but there's a short on the channel of me doing it crazy.
Mark Trobough:
So was this also like a TV? Because I was looking at one of the pictures and it's that's like you know yeah, I had channel, call channel plus channel, mice and stuff like that looks like you can actually with the little antenna. It's like a portable TV as well as well as a gaming console so that's like.
Brandon Hurles:
That was like one of the like things, for that was marketed with this because it the GT itself didn't have one. The GT is like a hand. If you look up the PC engine GT, it's a handheld that looks like a game boy.
Brandon Hurles:
There's one down below and PC GT yeah, it can't, but there was an external unit that you could buy a TV adapter for to watch TV on. Well, this had it built in already, so like that was the one and it had a better screen so was marketed with a better screen is marketed, you know, obviously with having the option to play it straight from that controller adapter. And people don't know, because you can't do this with the Express, obviously, but you can attach. There's a special CD ROM unit that you can attach to the back of this and you couldn't do that with the Express. The Express was just a straight-up handheld. You can play PC engine CD games on this crazy handheld and turn it into a home console essentially.
Brandon Hurles:
But I think that's called the printer. Remember what that's called? The PC engine CD for the LT? I can't, I think it's called the super CD. I want to say, or I can't remember, but its own special unit in my buddy. Oh yeah, nec super CD ROM too. So it's the special version to attach to the LT. But my buddy actually picked when I went to what convention was I at last year in Chicago video game summit? My buddy that I've talked about before he picked one up there because he's never been able to find one either, and we were amazed. There was a Japanese vendor there and he collected NEC for years and years and years and he had the craziest stuff I've ever seen in my life. I'm talking like NEC promotional items, so like these turbo graphics gloves. They came in these packages. They were like $700.
Brandon Hurles:
They were gloves, oh my god promotional gloves, like he had everything, all the accessories that you can imagine. There were things that I had never seen before, I didn't know existed. Like he had the craziest collection I've ever seen. Like that that was. If there's one company in the retro gaming sphere, that means you know a ton to me it's NEC. I've always been very attached to NEC and I just they have phenomenal games. Like there's this console, so overlooked. I would like to say, hey, I like the Neo Geo more because the Neo Geo is an amazing console, but that is a uncollectible console. I mean that you look up Neo Geo prices. I mean I just told you Garu Mark of the Wolves is a $15,000 cart and that's not even even remotely close to the most expensive one like Metal Slug for it. I'll look up how how much Metal Slug is for the Neo Geo, but like it's just because the console didn't seem like it was that on a four-wheel on eBay.
Mark Trobough:
But maybe it's the games that are expensive what console the Neo Geo yeah like the Neo Geo. Yes, yeah, you can get one for like what? For $400 right now like the Neo Geo X? No, which one specifically is Neo Geo X? Is a new thing that actually came out like 2010 and actually what's the what's the what's the one that's hard to come by, then, which Neo Geo so the, the AES is the home unit and the MVS is the arcade unit.
Brandon Hurles:
They are basically the exact same thing, except the MVS takes gigantic carts and it's a arcade unit. Basically it's just yeah, but the AES is the home unit. The Neo Geo CD is cheapest to collect for, but that's because the load times are atrocious and the games they don't run as well as the, the carts as as well as AES.
Mark Trobough:
But but the AES is the one where the carts are just crazy, crazy expensive like you, I mean that as far as a console, I'm seeing from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars between the actual console itself for the AES.
Brandon Hurles:
So yeah, I'll look up to see what you're seeing there, but yeah, the console, like you, can get the last recollection of prices, because I actually do.
Mark Trobough:
You want to grab all, there's the metal, metal slugs here it's talking about.
Brandon Hurles:
It's going for like $4,700 on yeah, right now yeah, I think the first metal slug is the most expensive, but yeah, like three is like a is yeah, some, they're all crazy prices, but no, there's, there's. There's Neo Geo, like there's a Neo Geo website dedicated to this and there are only I forget, but I think there's like two people in the world that have the full Neo Geo set, but there is.
Mark Trobough:
Oh my god. I just saw that apparently it's the brand new old stock new Geo Japan AES, silver, nh, ngh system, console, snk and OS going for like $17,000 right now yeah see, I mean, that's a great that's like. It's a lot like the plastic you can see in the picture, like they're still consoles and plastic and sh*t like that.
Brandon Hurles:
So you can barely. You can only see the edge right. Where I'm pointing right here is an MBS mini. They sent it out to me about a month ago for review and essentially it's supposed to emulate the mini. It's supposed to be like an, an MBS mini, the arc, the home arcade unit. But I also have the Neo Geo mini which is basically the a. It's like 30 AES games put in there, so there's a bunch of fatal, fatal fury. All the metal slug not all of them, but most of the metal slugs, just a bunch of random any. The Neo Geo minis are cheap, like $100 pretty much. There's like 27 variants of them, of the minis, like literally. But the MBS mini is the newest one and it's put out by Unico.
Brandon Hurles:
But I highly recommend grabbing. It's really cool if you want to experience some Neo Geo games and not pay the crazy prices. It's it's well worth it. But like I was looking up the rarest, the most valuable Neo Geo games and, trust me, like it's phenomenal, phenomenal console phenomenal games. But like I'm looking here, kazuna encounter $35,000 to $50,000, ultimate 11 this is a soccer game, keep in mind $35,000 to $45,000, and the list continues, like it just continues, and I know that that top one is not the most expensive one, because I saw the most expensive game recently that was like unreleased but got like there's a few copies out there and it was well over like a hundred grand. I'm trying to think of what the game oh look, new turf masters loose price. This is a golf game. This is a golf game $14,000 complete in box raised three that $30,000 and $800. It's just yeah it.
Mark Trobough:
Can you imagine being alive when these games came out, looking at on the store for retail price and then how much they're going for now, all these years later?
Brandon Hurles:
well, that would just blow your mind the crazy thing is these games were several hundred dollars retail when they were new. Because here, here was. Here was the thing with the system. Right, the deal with the system was it was the first console that had. It was, like I would say, like a 99% accuracy. You can't even tell the difference. It was a first console to have like actual home arcade ports, because the MVS was the arcade unit. But this home console it obviously had gigantic, massive carts too, but it's it has like pretty much an arcade board inside that massive cartridge and like so. It was targeted from the beginning for high-end, rich families who can afford to play arcade games at home like that it was from the beginning.
Brandon Hurles:
So like there were already carts that were three, four hundred dollars brand new. So yeah, it from the beginning it's been an expensive console and like I've never known anyone growing up that ever had one, who ever could have afforded one, and it like it's one of those ones that I absolutely love. But what I do want to do is grab. I really, really, really want to find an AES and I know this is going to sell out immediately, like this is going to be gone again in a few days and I just saw it pop up again yesterday. But your best option is, grab one of those consoles, grab an AES, find the best deal that you can. But there's actually a FPGA option for it. So there's the new SD Pro and it's back in stock on the website. It went up for pre-orders, sold out immediately. It's currently back up for another set of pre-orders on it's.
Brandon Hurles:
This is from Terra Onion, so Terra Onion is kind of like Crick's products, but they only have a few. They've got like three FPGA options for systems. They've got the mega SD which I have, that's Sega Genesis, and they've got a Neo SD Pro for AES and MVS. They're both currently, as I speak, you know 322. They're available right now. They're going to be gone. This is a. Basically, after shipping, it's $650 for the cart. You can play the full library FPGA versus. You know, a $31,000 game by itself. So crazy. If you want to play the game the way it originally played, like it's an original car, this is literally the only and best option out there to play FPGA. So after diving into your anime corner and getting into that, I like it though
Brandon Hurles:
you're learning things too. He said Hugh cards, crazy how those carts were the size of a credit card. Talking about the turbo graphics, he said also look up the super graphics, that's another model. Yeah, I was telling you about that earlier. The super graphics is really interesting because I only had like seven games made for it, but it also played the original. It played a turbo graphics game or PCNG games too, so you it, you could play those like. I think it was like seven games. You can play those seven games that came out for it, but it is the coolest looking model that there is. It looks like a motor, like it legitimately looks like an engine because it is called the PC engine like it looks crazy yeah, so did you see that one?
Brandon Hurles:
yeah, I did, yeah, yeah, stuff. So yeah, I guess we're gonna go and dive into. We got quite a bit of there's some other anime stuff here as well, but we got some movie stuff, tv stuff, a bunch of other pop culture stuff. There's been a lot this week and there's a lot happening. So I guess off the top we'll go and mention because I can talk about this one, x-men 97. First two episodes dropped I think two days ago, it might have been yesterday, I can't remember. Everything blurs all the time, but I watched both of those very good. So there's gonna be 10 episodes total for this quote-unquote season. This. That's all that we know about I'm.
Brandon Hurles:
My hope is that, with how good these two episodes were, that they do continue on the story because they could, they could go very, very far with this. The storytelling that they brought back for this very much gives me like anime vibes, like that, because anime you know the difference with not all, of course, not all, because like the original series of this wasn't that way but versus being like episodic, it's very much a in-depth, continuing story and it feels like very, very kind of alive and like just a continuing thing that there's a lot of lore for, because the X-Men animated series got comic books, it got video game adaptations, like it had a lot to just a specific cartoon series and which is, you know, one of the reasons people absolutely love it. But the ending of episode two like holy crap, like they left off at a cliffhanger and I kind of wish they'd just drop the whole season. Because I'm there enough. I'd be honest with you, like finding the time to watch things that I want to watch and do. Like I planned on trying to do Ghostbusters tomorrow, which we're gonna get into, but unfortunately I don't think it's gonna happen because Godzilla comes out next weekend and I'm 100% going. I already got my ticket. I want to be able to do a video on it. I think we talked about maybe, if we can work out getting you to go, we might be able to do a collaboration on that.
Brandon Hurles:
But anime series like starts off right where the original did. It's just, it's super interesting because there was like five seasons of the original show. Like it was a very successful show, 70 some episodes, and I guess I can't I don't want to give any spoilers. It's brand new. It's hard to like say some of the things because there wasn't like a lot that happened in two episodes like the the first one back here, like it's spent about half the episode building the show back and like sort of getting you know.
Brandon Hurles:
That means, yeah, I don't recommend diving into this if you haven't seen the previous series, but or at least any of it you know. Like, maybe watch a few episodes or something you can, because I mean it continues a story, but like any like comic book type thing, like people pick up an issue like anywhere and like you have no idea what happened in the last thousand issues. But it's very, very good, really, really enjoyed it. Animation looks really good, you know, it keeps to that original style while having an updated animation and it it's good. I highly recommend it. What I watched I mean solid, probably eight out of ten for the first episode and maybe like a nine out of ten for the episode to the character that is coming, but you'll see it. Episode two insane, it's gonna open up you know a lot of stuff, so really good. And then we've also got, before diving anything else, ghostbusters drop today and yeah, so have you seen anything about the new Ghostbusters yet?
Mark Trobough:
frozen Empire outside of the actual trailers for it. I know nothing about it. I mean, I was, I saw it, I was skeptical out to the last one. Was it go special 2016 or whatever it was?
Brandon Hurles:
but if you are, you talking about the female one or the the last one that came out? Oh yeah, well then disregard that one. Did you watch the one before?
Mark Trobough:
after that. I didn't know there was one after that.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, yeah yeah, there was a previous one that leads up to this, but I mean, like it's cool to have a bunch of the original cast back and I am I'm really excited about. I'm massive Ghostbuster fan. I got like four or five shirts. I got a hat that I wear all the time. I like I have. It's a series that I've always loved and I think it's great, very classic series. However, I've been seeing some stuff online about it and I've been hearing some real mixed things and like real, real mixed. And so, for instance, metacritic critic score sure, we don't care, but I was actually excited the critics were as low. For once it's at a 46.
Brandon Hurles:
However, what's upsetting is that the user score is at 4.4, which is the only one that I care about and I was like all the the Metacritic scores low, maybe it doesn't have a bunch of politics in it and a bunch of BS and stuff.
Brandon Hurles:
So I was like, oh, maybe that's a good thing. My buddy watched it and he said it's like very like just middle of the road. He's like it it's Ghostbusters, but like it just doesn't have the, the whole soul of the, the franchise behind it. And he's like I just it felt kind of soulless. He said it felt like just another another movie, kind of like a almost like a cash in cash grab sort of thing, like it sucks, because the last one I thought was really really good. But there are quite a few positive reviews out there too because, like, looking at the, actively looking at the, the Metacritic now of course that's as we're live with the episode for the audio listeners but I'm looking at a few recent, the most recent reviews and like the most recent one, or at least one of the most recent ones today, he gave it a 10 and the guy I love that game, it a 10.
Mark Trobough:
So I was gonna say, based off the, metacritic is a, it's a 4.4, but there's only 20. As far as Metacritic website goes, only 26 user reviews so far. So maybe it's because maybe just came out, maybe I'll give it a few more days to see if it, if it, there's more good than bad and stuff like that.
Brandon Hurles:
But yeah, it looks like as, as we're talking about this now. Of course this will change over the next few days, especially being the weekend, but there's 10 positive ratings, which is at a 36%, 12 negative ratings, for user score at 48% and 4 middle of the road. So yeah, I mean it sounds like that's kind of a bummer and then here, in like first hand, that was just like very much, just okay, like he's like if I had to rate it would have been, it would have been a five out of ten. So now, trust his judge. Many is another big Ghostbusters fan. So, bummer, I mean I'm, of course, still gonna watch it and still looking forward to seeing it, but that kind of kind of sucks. I kind of busted my bubble of excitement for it. So you know, I don't like my bubble?
Mark Trobough:
definitely wasn't there for it.
Brandon Hurles:
Dang okay.
Mark Trobough:
I'm just saying, based off of what we've gotten in the past, I was already tipper to be going into it.
Brandon Hurles:
A moment of silence. I will have to cut out for audio listeners, which you will have not heard that. There was just silence of me staring at Mark. Yeah, so let's go ahead and dive into the other stuff then.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, so one of the first stuff, because some of this was what you brought up. Apparently there's a Chibi Godzilla Raids again anime sequel. I didn't even know this first one, to be honest.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, yeah, it got an actual trailer.
Mark Trobough:
Definitely looks like a children's Godzilla show. Yeah, it is Just based off the visuals.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, it very much is. It gives me the vibes of I'm trying to think of that classic kids anime. It gives me the vibes a mix of the Hello Kitty universe stuff, but also whatever that blue. I can't remember if he's a dog, but it's a very popular children's anime. If you know what I'm talking about. He's like blue. I just know he's blue. I don't know if he's a dog.
Mark Trobough:
I'll stop it. I just can't remember now, yeah, but I mean it comes down to about two weeks and April 3rd. Yeah, I'm gonna watch it.
Brandon Hurles:
It's short, I think. It's just like a short film, sort of thing.
Brandon Hurles:
I don't know if it's a film, or if it's a series, but it just says sequel oh, the anime will feature a turning cast. Anime premiered in April 2023. Talk about the first one. So I think it is like a short. Alright, okay, the original was a series of animated shorts, apparently, which was in 2020 on the Godzilla YouTube channel, and then they made it looks like a picture book after that in 2018. And then after that, they made what looks to be like this short film and now it's getting a sequel. So it was like a consecutive.
Brandon Hurles:
Apparently it's an ongoing series. I had not heard of the original YouTube series or the series that was streaming on YouTube, which is called Tidima Chibi Gojira, and it translates I'm Home Chibi Godzilla. So yeah, apparently this is a series that's been going on since 2018 with the picture book and then turned into a series on the actual YouTube channel, which I think is pretty cool. Yeah, I mean, I definitely think that's pretty cool. I'll watch it because I'm such a massive Godzilla fan, but I'm probably, probably not going to watch it, but that's just me.
Brandon Hurles:
You don't want to talk about it.
Mark Trobough:
Come next episode doesn't grab me as a series that I would even be interested in. To be honest, it's like a short thing.
Brandon Hurles:
It's a short film. It's for all ages. This is age appropriate. This is can like. How can you make that cannon? I don't know, but it premiers on the 3rd of April, so coming up soon, a few episodes would be able to talk about it. I'll at least give it a go. I think it's like super, super short, so you can go on the YouTube channel to watch that.
Mark Trobough:
I guess I'll see yeah, we'll see.
Brandon Hurles:
It's going to be relatively short and I don't know what you're saying. It'll be on the Toho animation Japanese YouTube channel, so just want to hit and subscribe.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, so I don't. I haven't been following this series forever. You know what's coming up with this new Transformers one movie, apparently.
Brandon Hurles:
I know very little about it, so I actually just learned about it yesterday. So this is apparently going to be a prequel movie. So this will be set on Cybertron and my assumption is that it is a prequel before even Bumblebee, which was a prequel to the other movies where Bumblebee was brought the Earth, essentially, and like he was the first one here. But yeah, so this this is something that I have wanted to see for a while and in a good movie format, like the first image you see is of my favorite Transformer, a second favorite, I guess, soundwave. Soundwave and Grimlock, and you actually see Grimlock in the background. Those are my two favorite Transformers and this will cover I assume this is going to cover all of, like, the War of Cybertron, you know, the sort of destruction of Cybertron.
Brandon Hurles:
These are just guesses, but it looks like Cooley or Josh Cooley, who was attached to Toy Story 4, which is a phenomenal film. This will be his first film or no, he's talking about his first film to take home an Academy Award of Toy Story. So it looks like he's worked on a boatload of animated movies the Incredibles, cars, ratatouille and up. He co-wrote Inside Out. This will be his first action movie. So, yeah, it looks like it's going to be a prequel and tell the War of Cybertron before the Transformers came to Earth, which is what I really wanted to see, because I mean, like it's a little confusing for people that they've only watched the films. They're pretty much immediately on Earth and like it kind of starts from there and you miss, like the whole gigantic backstory of what happened and why, why they're even on Earth.
Brandon Hurles:
So, yeah, I mean I think this will be really good. The movies are very hit or miss for me, like I still, yeah, they are. I think the best two are the original movie and Bumblebee. Bumblebee is a really good movie. The first movie, I think, is really good. The other one's, like pretty much, are all either mediocre or bad, which is really unfortunate because my two favorite non-video game series are Godzilla and Transformers.
Brandon Hurles:
So I was really excited to hear this and I'm really excited about the stuff happening with Godzilla right now. So I really hope that weI hope that this goes the direction that Bumblebee was going, because that was a really good film. But I mean Transformers I gotta be honest, as big of a fan as I am, like it has just been so hit or miss with the franchise as a whole for a while. Like the last cartoon I watched two episodes and I was out Like I just didn't care for it. Yeah, I mean, like the original Transformers series is still one of my favorites and if this covers all that, the War, forbasically like the Transformers movie, the original one from 88, the animated movie, like if this covers that stuff where Optimus Prime Spoiler Alert dies. This will be really cool so yeah.
Brandon Hurles:
I think it's to be pretty neat. Yeah, I mean, do you have any interest in this one?
Mark Trobough:
I haven't watched one in so long. I'm just like maybe we'll see what it's reviewed as. If it's a good movie I might entertain it. But who knows when it's gonna come out and what it's gonna be competing against. So I'm very Stingy when it comes to what movies I'll actually go and actually watch.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, I am too. I haven't seen anything in the theater since I saw.
Mark Trobough:
Super Mario Bros Last movie in Barbie with my daughter. I guess the last Western main movie would be the Super Mario Bros movie. Technically, but like I haven't watched an actual Hollywood movie in forever, like the last few times I had, to tend to go to the theaters. I tend to watch foreign films just because they tend to be better than anything that Hollywood's been pumping out recently I Like last decade for that matter.
Brandon Hurles:
I don't regret not going to the theater for anything other than Godzilla minus one, like literally every single movie that's come out. There's been stuff that's interested me, but I'm totally fine. I'm not going to the theater to see it. It's gotta be something I really love and care.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, Well, sometimes I'll just be in. I like I'll be in Salt Lake Theater or something like that. I've got an evening where I've got nothing to do, so I'm like I'll see what's in town. But there's a lot of theaters down there that show foreign films. There's a theater that shows a crap ton of Bollywood films, which I will never watch because I hate them. I think this is stupid.
Mark Trobough:
But, they show a lot of films like this, show a lot of reruns, like some of the studios will just reshow old Ghibli films or some other kind of films that I'll periodically go watch. I mean, sometimes there's trash I won't go watch anything, but there's another. Is this a film there that I might be interested in? Some of those theaters down there were showing the. I brought it up before the. It was one of the anime movies that just came out.
Brandon Hurles:
Oh, the Boy and the Heron.
Mark Trobough:
No, no, it's an actual Based off like an actual ongoing anime.
Brandon Hurles:
Oh, Demon Slayer.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, the Demon Slayer movie. They was even showing the whole, like they're top the DX or whatever, like the big theater screen. They were showing it on as well, but I'm so removed from that. Yeah, of course you got that From the actual story. I didn't actually watch it, but more often than not I just I don't really care for what's going on at a Hollywood, because it's usually garbage more often than not.
Brandon Hurles:
I don't either. There's too much agendas pushed in. I mean even like the Barbie movie which when that came out, talked about in the podcast because pop culture and like I went with my daughter to go see it and like I liked it in general but there was some stuff that I could have did without. No Like, in general it's a good film, but I was shocked Like an idiot. I didn't look up ratings or anything like that because it was a Barbie movie.
Mark Trobough:
I thought like yeah, you're not thinking a whole lot about it.
Brandon Hurles:
Well, there were two things said back to back on it that I did not appreciate when taken or there, and I was like, had to explain and I'm like why would they put this in a Hasbro Barbie movie? Like, there was just a few unnecessary things. Yeah, a little bit. I guess I didn't really notice it in the theater because we just send the moment and I was talking to my daughter and we were having fun, but there was like some weird like sort of a couple of weird like political things that could have sort of been left out of it. But other than that pretty okay movie but it yeah, anyway, I was the last thing that I saw and that was because of that.
Brandon Hurles:
I was going to try to go see Ghostbusters tomorrow. I think I'm going to get and pass on doing that. But Godzilla, I know that I want to be the first movie review on the channel. I'm like I'm really like legitimately really excited to do that, to have something else. So, yeah, so going to see that Saturday, can't Friday, because the podcast it comes out next Friday. So Saturday evening I got to go to, I'm pretty sure, a late showing, which kind of sucks because it's really long and I got to drive 45 minutes because the closest one is sold out for that Saturday already. The next closest one is already sold out for Saturday all day, so I have to drive to the farther one yeah which sucks, but oh well.
Brandon Hurles:
But yeah, if you can watch it that weekend, that would be awesome to cover it, because I think that would be a pretty cool. You saw a minus one. I didn't get to, so you get that aspect.
Mark Trobough:
I was like I'm going to watch this without watching probably any movie that came before it, which is good. So you got to take it in.
Brandon Hurles:
You saw a few of the original films. You saw minus one, you saw the one before minus one too right.
Mark Trobough:
Shin Gazzle. Yeah, no, I've watched the In-Depth Review on it, but I haven't actually sat and watched the movie. The In-Depth Review actually spoiled the whole story and I was like, yeah, this is probably better than actually watching this movie.
Brandon Hurles:
But yeah, it was. It's not a bad film, but the transformation stuff was awful and it's definitely not my favorite, but I still found it better than some of the stuff that we got in here and I might I don't know maybe I'll watch a review for these other movies leading up to it, just so I'm not potentially completely lost in the sauce.
Brandon Hurles:
But I do think that it is good to get the point of view of hey, here's a mild Godzilla fan. He's seen some of the original, some of the 80 stuff. Saw minus one, which was the last movie. Have you seen any of the legendary movies? Because it might be even better if you have or haven't.
Mark Trobough:
Don't even think so. Okay, I don't think I've seen, not none that I can immediately be like. Oh yeah, I'm for sure seeing that movie.
Brandon Hurles:
Because I mean there's, there's. There's Kongsco Island, there's Godzilla, then there's King of Monsters, and then yeah, I haven't watched any of those movies.
Mark Trobough:
I know that for a fact.
Brandon Hurles:
The only thing I haven't seen like minus one was like the first.
Mark Trobough:
God, I was going to say my Godzilla, my first Godzilla movie that I've seen in years.
Brandon Hurles:
Well, that's perfect Cause you're coming at the point of view of okay, I haven't seen any of the legendary movies, I know minimal about Godzilla. Here's my take on it. So you're getting a review of a non biased Godzilla fan.
Brandon Hurles:
Cause I'm not the legendary movies I'll never be like biased with. I'm not. I'm not a biased guy Whether I love the franchise or not. I just said I love transforms and most of those movies are crap. Godzilla, like, like I said, legendaries. I have enjoyed all of them but I still and I've told you I think, probably the past two podcasts, I think the first Godzilla legendary movie, um, it was. It was too much of a slow burn. You saw too little of Godzilla. You. You started to see him like through building glasses of him walking by and, like you, you just didn't see him for like most of the movie and there wasn't like big character development anticipation for me. That I was like super interesting, that was super interesting. That made it like okay of it. You know, not seeing Godzilla and him not being there for most of the movie.
Brandon Hurles:
I didn't think the character development was great, now later, like King of monsters, I think is great. There are a ton of the kaiju in there a ton. And then you get the girl from stranger things is in there, obviously, and like her connection to Godzilla is pretty cool in that movie. So I did like that. She's like connected to Godzilla and I don't want to like spoil it for you depending on what you do or whatever, but that one's really good and you get to see some really good kaiju. I still am not a fan of the design particularly Definitely not my favorite but I'm also like an old school suit actor Godzilla fan, like I like that. Yeah, you know, and I think that, like some of the other CGI stuff later did, was fine.
Brandon Hurles:
You know, apparently Godzilla minus one is fine, like are really good Shen Godzilla, you know fine, you know some weird design choices in that movie. But yeah, but yeah, so I'm really really excited.
Mark Trobough:
And I just re looked it up. Obviously the Metacritic is kind of different, but on Rotten Tomatoes both the critic and the audience score for minus ones, like at 98. Wow See, I mean pretty, pretty high for that movie on that site, Especially when doing with the audience, where there's something they see they absolutely hate. You're going to know it.
Brandon Hurles:
Right, yeah, I mean, I know it's universally beloved. I've heard from people that aren't even Godzilla fans enjoy the movie. So if it's like there aren't too many movies that can do that, you know what I mean. Like there aren't too many movies that, if you're not a fan of the series, you can still enjoy that You're not going to like it.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, it's like. It's like the sort of thing with, like Baldur's Gate 3, like you know, people aren't even fans or, like you know, like big gamers and like enjoy the game. But I was looking at this Says this is from Gizmodo. It says the biggest way Godzilla Kong New Empire has evolved from a predecessor. You're going to learn more about Kong in the film which I feel like we got. That's the thing. I feel like this is going to be like a pretty good chunk of it. I feel like it's going to be lean more on the Kong side, which I think is good.
Brandon Hurles:
I don't know that, but my guess, just based on the trailers that we've seen, having backstory for Kong is really good because his backstory is very interesting and, as you know, there's a lot of King Kong movies too, like a lot. Yeah, it goes back to the 1930s pretty much. Yeah, yeah, I mean it predates Godzilla by quite a bit. But yeah, I mean like, have you ever seen the original King Kong film, that original? No, so it's interesting because they go and trap Kong from Skyland, which is sorry if you don't know this already, it is spoiler alert for an 80-year-old movie. But they trap him from Skyland and bring him to New York City and then that's where the famous scene of him climbing the skyscraper and getting out and all that stuff. So it's like a very much is reminiscent of the original Gojira in many ways and kind of the aspect of it and, like it's been told, that inspiration from Godzilla came from Kong as well. So that's how they ended up clashing together because they're, you know, we're in no way related whatsoever in franchises. So the first time we got Godzilla Kong, you know, a Western film with a Western, what is now known as, I guess, as a Kaiju, is very interesting. And plus, kong, you know, originally was way, way, way, way smaller than Godzilla and you can look up scales of the evolution of them and then like how big they scaled them up for the Godzilla, the original Godzilla vs King Kong movie, which is an absolute. It's one of those films that is so bad it's good it's. You just look up the fight scenes of them, like rolling around on the ground together and suit actors. It's hilarious, that's crazy. But it says the things that excite me about this film aren't even the action, even though, as you know, we have tons of action in the movie Wingard told I own. So part of the movie there says to me it was being able to see the monsters just interact with each other in between the action scenes. That to me, is more exciting. It's almost like a character spot study, but with monsters.
Brandon Hurles:
The idea came early on the process when Wingard began to think about what a second film featuring Godzilla and Kong would be. I was never like, okay, we've got to top Godzilla versus Kong, because we knew we were doing something special and different. He said I knew right out of the gate that we weren't copying ourselves, because my emphasis was always on trying to break new ground. I wanted to do a movie that really leaned into the monster point of view, and so just by making that decision alone, I knew we were going to do be doing things that we weren't even able to do in the last film.
Brandon Hurles:
And then you obviously get the introduction, what you see in the trailer of Skar King, which is the baddie of the film, which I don't know too much about. So I'm interested there. That was my concern of the film, though, because I didn't necessarily care for that part of the trailer. Skar King, I mean, who knows, like there might be stuff that we just have no idea about, but to me he seems very uninteresting. Skar King does, so I am going into this with.
Brandon Hurles:
I want to go in with low expectations so I'm not disappointed or anything like that. But yeah, I really have no idea. So yeah, Are you? Looking forward to it.
Mark Trobough:
I think I am. Hopefully I'll be able to. I haven't looked at like tickets or anything like that, but I'll definitely look into that for like next weekend and stuff.
Brandon Hurles:
Okay, so looks like the premiere is on the 25th and then it releases on 27th, which is next Friday. So a week a week from this live podcast, and if you're an audio listener, it'll be just a few days away.
Mark Trobough:
Right around the corner.
Brandon Hurles:
Yep, we have some comments. There are a few, all right.
Mark Trobough:
Mr Coffey was saying if you like, if you like animation, godzilla is so good. Yeah, the all sanctioned Godzilla is a more political type because of the bureaucracy. Yeah, and the one view at least this was the video that I did to watch on it His opinion was he hated that aspect of it, the whole bureaucracy, political aspect of the Godzilla. And this isn't he. It's like that's not, like. It's not that it's there, but it's it overstays its welcome too much For minus one.
Mark Trobough:
That was obviously. That was obviously no for Shin Godzilla oh Shin Godzilla, yeah yeah, at least for what he didn't. He didn't like it, ever Like it's. It's just too much. But I mean and you know everyone's got different opinions on on movies and stuff like that what about Pacific Rim versus Godzilla? That would be interesting. I don't know how you make that lore work with Pacific Rim and Godzilla, but I, I only watched the first Pacific Rim movie I think there's two of them, I'm not mistaken and I, I, I enjoyed it. I didn't think it was a terrible movie, yeah.
Brandon Hurles:
I, I didn't.
Mark Trobough:
I didn't watch. Pacific Rim too either it's a giant mech I like. I like mech shows.
Brandon Hurles:
So Mech versus Kaiju is literally what it is. I don't know why I haven't watched the second one. I I thought the first one was just okay. Like I wasn't like a Uber fan, I thought it was okay.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah.
Brandon Hurles:
I didn't particularly like the Kaiju designs. Like I didn't like that. Yeah, it's kind of weird, but but yeah, I probably should watch that second one at some point.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, Kevin was saying I'm watching the Godzilla series based on the 98 film right now. My condolences. Uh I haven't seen Shin Godzilla yet, though I did see minus one on Osprey. I wish these movies would focus more on the monsters. Uh well, that's what they're saying they're doing on this one.
Brandon Hurles:
So that was the whole.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, but that was the whole beauty of minus one is it went back to the original. Well, like he's there and it's wild, since you probably go back and find a Godzilla where the, the human character is actually decently well written, but it's like, uh, he's not like the core of the actual story, but he's like this force. That's like just either they. And then I was like, even with this force of nature, that's just does nothing. But you know destruction, for you know, you know whatever he wants to do. That's what I liked about. It Kind of went back to that whole horror movie-esque type of like the original 54 Godzilla.
Brandon Hurles:
The thing is, though I think I told you before go Jira. So like the actual original Godzilla before we got that American one. There's a lot less of that, because I dislike the original Godzilla. Now, going back, go Jira is a much better film, in my opinion, that that news news reporter that they shove in that original Godzilla. Oh my God, it's so annoying. He's not in at all.
Mark Trobough:
They're trying to I watched the movie. I watched the original original subtitle. So it's not like you watch go. Jira.
Brandon Hurles:
The original, yeah, okay.
Mark Trobough:
Well it's. I think he's still called go Jira, because that's just how it's pronounced. It's phonetically Japanese, but yeah.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah yeah, the original is go Jira. And then they made the American one, I think, a year after, which was just Godzilla.
Mark Trobough:
Just a dubbed version of Godzilla, yeah.
Brandon Hurles:
Well, it wasn't just dubbed. They threw in a freaking news reporter that was in half of the movie. That had nothing to do with the film, like he's just, oh God is attacking is attacking the city. What are we going to do?
Mark Trobough:
But you brought that up. I'm like I've never I was like I don't even know you brought the news portal. Like I have no idea what you're talking about, Like I've never, never, seen a news reporter in the original Godzilla movie.
Brandon Hurles:
So yeah, see, I thought you watched the American release.
Mark Trobough:
I call it Godzilla just because it's easier pronounced. And go, jira.
Brandon Hurles:
But yeah, he's super annoying. They just throw he's as absolutely like completely different shot scenes obviously because they're American shot scenes that like really don't fit into the film, and it's just him complaining oh now, now he's did this and that and blah, blah, blah, blah. For comedy's sake you should go back and watch that at some point. But they take away a bunch of the cool Godzilla scenes from it and then, add him in to fill out the movie. It's like really dumb.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, that's stupid. Yeah, mr Gavi was saying minus one is huge, one of the highest grossing movies in Japan. Yeah, and it definitely. It's a. Really. To me it's probably one of the best Godzilla movie that I've seen. Yeah, sure Of the ones that I've seen. Kevin was saying it's been announced that on April 15th all eight Spider-Man movies are going to be re-released in theaters to celebrate Columbia Pictures 100th anniversary.
Brandon Hurles:
Oh wow, Interesting.
Mark Trobough:
So obviously we're only watching Spider-Man 3.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, apparently that's the case. I did. I did want to mention the topic of Godzilla. We'll figure out what here that we have left as most important. Getting off late my time, but we got. I did want to just mention that Godzilla Kong, the new Empire, says, is paying a very specific homage to Godzilla minus one. Godzilla is so massive that the only thing that can cast a shadow on him is another Godzilla, and that's exactly what happened between Godzilla minus one, the Toho released Oscar winning Spanish sh*t. So yeah, there's going to be some sort of homage directly to minus one. I knew that they're working on a Godzilla film, but I didn't know concretely anything until everybody saw the trailer at the same time we did. We were over halfway done with the movie at least, and I do remember being inspired when I saw the trailer.
Mark Trobough:
So there's some sort of homage to so as far as I know you're on time, I pretty much chopped down, so it was only like like five or six ones that probably mattered and it shouldn't take too long to get through some of those. Ok, just some of the bigger ones, and I saw this as far as the, apparently for the first time, or not for the first time, but like all in one thing, apparently nearly all the Macross anime is coming to Disney Plus.
Mark Trobough:
I saw that Because it's not it's. It's originally called Robotech, which was the first SDF Macross and then two other unrelated series. In my opinion, Robotech is a bastardization of Japanese animation, but that's a personal opinion.
Brandon Hurles:
That's what I was first watched, because that was the only option there at that time yeah like I didn't even know, macross was related or later.
Mark Trobough:
For the most part it does. The original SDF Macross for the most part right, except for the added subplot that they added for their own Robotech series before it gets in the other unrelated. So it's for the most part a faithful translation, with some things that obviously they intentionally changed, but because of I can't remember this, I thought it was Honey Something Studio. The way they trademarked it or dealt with it here in the West essentially blocked any other dub or proper release of the rest of the Macross series here in the US.
Brandon Hurles:
Wasn't. It was a HJC that released it, or what was that studio's name that released? Like you always saw their name on a bunch of the VHS from that time.
Mark Trobough:
Let's try to pull it up. Harmony Gold USA is the reason we never actually got any of these Macross series, which is a studio founded in 83. It's a really old series but I mean, they're pretty much the reason we don't really get any of the rest of the Macross series here in the US.
Mark Trobough:
Because they own the rights to Robotech and there's some other crap that went on. So we never really got proper any of the other series and it's a really Macross as far as the Mac series and the Idol series and in the Idol genre, very influential in both of those genres because it smashed both Mac and Idol culture together. Yeah, pretty much all their series.
Brandon Hurles:
It's a very interesting series. It's one I've always, always really enjoyed, so it looks like we're getting like a ton of stuff brought over. From what I saw look like 170, some episodes of the show and some of the movies.
Mark Trobough:
The Super Def. So SDF Macross Flashback 2012,. The music video derived from the original anime SDF Macross 2, lovers, again, which is kind of like a movie mini series, macross Plus, macross Plus, the movie edition, macross 7, that it's movie. Another Macross Dynamite, Macross Zero, the Frontier series, and it's two movies Macross FB7 and the Macross Delta series. Some of these are kind of like it's a movie or it's like a series and like two movies that kind of go with it. But I mean it's a series where it definitely mixes mech and Idol culture which is blew up in Japan probably around the same time. That makes any sense. I love Mac, have mostly hatred for Idol culture, but I mean it is what it is.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, I'm not into that myself, but I mean I think it.
Mark Trobough:
It's a very influential series, both like all over the place yeah.
Brandon Hurles:
And I mean it's a long, long running franchise with a lot of entries and a lot of lore. It's still fairly ongoing Video games, light novels, manga, toys you name it, it's everywhere.
Mark Trobough:
So yeah, there's Lin Min-Mei, the OG of God. I hate her. Oh, we're getting the OVA's.
Brandon Hurles:
Some of the OVA's as well.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, lin Min-Mei the original guy. You watch it and you realize, oh she is. There's no better way to. She's kind of a bitch who allows herself to be manipulated by her cousin or whatever he is or something like that, I don't know. I came to hate her as a character, though her Japanese voice actress really really good, really good singer. But yeah, I had issues with the whole robot tech version of it. That's just because I don't like when the West changes anime for literally no reason.
Brandon Hurles:
But Back then they thought that we they had to.
Mark Trobough:
yeah, yeah.
Brandon Hurles:
I mean like Super Mario Bros 2, we never got the real one because they thought it was too hard and they think that Japanese culture wouldn't mix well with. I mean that all changed honestly with like Dragon Ball once that hit. I mean they couldn't have gone over that.
Mark Trobough:
The only other major thing is this is going to be on Disney Plus. So they picked the worst streaming site ever. Because I refused to give Disney a dime of my money, because I absolutely hate that company with every fiber of my being.
Brandon Hurles:
So you don't want to be watching any of this will you?
Mark Trobough:
I mean, I used to do what I do already just touring it because it's still Up until now, most of these shows you had to stream illegally or touring them to a watch to begin with. But I would rather tour them before I give Disney another dime of my money. Yeah, but, that's unrelated, I just don't. I have hatred for Disney.
Brandon Hurles:
That's fair, I get it.
Mark Trobough:
As a corporation.
Brandon Hurles:
They've ruined Star Wars for me. They're butchering now Marvel MCU, so yeah.
Mark Trobough:
I already thought I did that there was. We did one I wanted to bring up but apparently the Dragon Ball Super Manga is going into an indefinite hiatus for obvious reasons because of a Tory I'ma passed away. But this was officially announced yesterday that the Super Manga was officially going under hiatus and I probably should have brought up earlier when we talked about it. But I mean, it is sad he passed away and who knows if this is ever gonna. Well, there's probably a chance this might never, might just be incomplete forever. Yeah, because I have seen some manga where the author dies and there's kind of like nobody else is ever gonna touch this, ever again.
Mark Trobough:
so this story's kind of left incomplete.
Brandon Hurles:
I can't remember if it had a manga too, but like that I think it was called RWBY series.
Mark Trobough:
Ruby, is that yeah? Yeah. Yeah, that's what it's called the creator, and I'm playing on his name.
Brandon Hurles:
They completed it for him. But yeah, Because yeah, like.
Mark Trobough:
I'm pretty sure they changed a lot of it, but yeah, they kept going on with it to the whole. Rwbyster TEETH issue became very, very divisive.
Brandon Hurles:
Which I mean could happen to this.
Mark Trobough:
That's the problem, right, Like you don't know If somebody else picks it up, you know, will it feel like not the right thing to do. Or are they just gonna forever just be like we're just never gonna be forever incomplete? I mean, who knows how much he had worked on Like.
Brandon Hurles:
I know that they worked pretty to the pace with chapters so, like oftentimes, the one piece Magica would talk about, you know he would be crunching the next chapter to get it out. Like he would be up to the point. So who knows if, like, there was anything left or if no, like, literally, what he had worked on was pretty much it, and he started the next chapter or if they do anything, it's a rushed ending to the series, if anything.
Mark Trobough:
But I mean there's an equally good chance that they continue with it, that they don't. If it was not as popular as it was, I'd say there's a good chance. It just never gets complete. But with how popular it is, I think there's a chance they might wait and then continue out with chapters. But who knows, that's gonna be up, that's up to Shonen Jump at this point, because they're the ones that publish it and own probably a good portion of the rights to it.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, it's. I mean, who knows what happens there? Honestly like it.
Mark Trobough:
The Dragon Ball Dima anime comes out soon, so Obviously the continuation as Magica is gonna affect Dragon Ball Super and every other project that comes after.
Brandon Hurles:
So yeah, my wonder is what gets continued there. Do we get the season one of that show and that's it, or do they continue on?
Mark Trobough:
That's hard to tell at this point. Yeah, I don't know. I'm not anywhere near a position of decision making for this, so it's kind of hard to tell. The only reason I think it has a chance to continue on with how popular it was, but obviously that might also potentially backfire on it If people are just kind of like.
Brandon Hurles:
People might get mad, I don't know. I'm upset that they continue.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, there's a chance that the fans might just be like, just leave it as is so. I'm gonna tell I haven't read Dragon Ball Manga pretty much at all, so it's not really gonna affect me, but it is sad for everybody involved.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, it's a bummer. I don't know exactly where it left off, how, if it was in the middle of an arc, if it was starting a new arc, if I don't know.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, because I know Mr Coffee brought up the whole GT, which he didn't have any say, but obviously this is I don't think I'm thinking that I don't know if that was a monger of the straight anime, but obviously he's had input up until this point, so who knows what they're gonna do? And obviously GT wasn't received very well.
Brandon Hurles:
So yeah, I'm actually pretty sure that GT was an anime first and then got a manga. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it didn't have a manga first. It got a manga adaptation that obviously Kiyama didn't Toriyama sorry, yeah, I mean it's hard to say because it could end up being like a GT situation or it could backfire, where fans are upset that they do continue or there's gonna be fans that are upset that it isn't continuing. So it's like this is probably a really tough decision for them on what to do, I imagine, with such an established franchise and his entire vision.
Mark Trobough:
And then, unfortunately, there's some more sad news that came out earlier in the week. The Tales of RPG series artist Mutsumi Manap I said that correctly apparently had passed away back on March 10th, which is a very well-loved series, obviously, and that may not be creator but had really heavy influence on the art of that series. So it seems like a lot of bad news all the way around.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, I saw that earlier in the week and I was like I have no idea.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, because it looked like she worked as an animator. She got into the series in 79, late 70s, early 80s when she entered the series. So she's been around the block doing a lot of work on a lot of different series. Oh yeah, she's done a lot of stuff.
Brandon Hurles:
And she has that classic 80s anime art style that I like and she's evolved it over time because she stayed involved with the series. And she's been a cover and has adapted to it very well, because you know Tales of Arise and things like how it's sort of evolved but still kept the sort of classic influence design to it. I don't know how much, I mean, they kept that general character design over the years. I don't know how much people would receive the anime art style of the 80s now versus you know I like it.
Mark Trobough:
I like it too. The problem with the 80s is it's an art style that's more or less dead at this point. That's full on hand drawn cell animated. None of this. There's no digital involved or it's very minimal. It's all every. Not that maybe these cells are the right word, but every frame is hand drawn. Obviously there's other work and stuff, some copied over to everything. It's kind of done hand work. You can also see the layers on the animation when it gets dark, as you can see the dirt of the imperfection where different layers are kind of stacked on top of each other, which I thought brought a charm to some of those older animations.
Brandon Hurles:
And stuff like that. Personally, much, much prefer the hand drawn art style. I love classic anime. Still that is kind of where I'm attached to the 80s and mid 90s sort of art style.
Mark Trobough:
Some degree, there's still a heart and a soul. Compared to some of the digiores, it looks good, but it's just too clean sometimes. I want to see some imperfections.
Brandon Hurles:
It feels very stale. It's almost at the point where every single new anime looks the same, has the same look to it.
Mark Trobough:
I'll say this because you kind of had that with the animations that the hand drawn to some degree I get. The only time digital animation really stands out is the top of the top, the super best like movie, where there's a lot of money put into this and it just looks amazingly good in some movies. Then you've got the studio jibbly aspect where this is still hand drawn animation into this. It's not to the same degree but there's no digital animation because of I'm not making it on his name, but a studio jibbly doesn't really believe in it. I'm terrible at names sometimes.
Brandon Hurles:
I didn't know that she actually did the art design for Future GPX, which is a throwback. I love that. I really love that.
Mark Trobough:
It's one of those artists where their name doesn't get thrown around, but she's worked on a lot of good, like influential stuff, or she's just been around the industry for so long she worked on a lot of stuff.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, yeah, a lot of the Tales games and it lists a bunch of them Tales of Destiny 1, 2. It was all the way up the Tales of Graces, mentioning some of the ones that she worked on.
Mark Trobough:
Just because kind of game related adjacent. Apparently they do this weekly where there's Japan's game rating from the fourth to the 10th of March had just come out and it's pretty much based off of weekly sales out of that week. It's also interesting because you'll see the same game on there multiple times just because it's for different consoles. They kind of break it up.
Brandon Hurles:
Unicorn.
Mark Trobough:
Apparently for yeah, it was the Nintendo. Switch version of it. The. Ps5 came in three, so it was like 40,000 copies and then 24,000 beating out Final Fantasy 3 birth, surprisingly.
Brandon Hurles:
Wow, holy crap.
Mark Trobough:
I thought it was funny, though Apparently number six of that week, and obviously Japan is not the biggest market in the world, but the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is like number six on here. I thought it was funny. Oh my God, like these games been out since launch on the Switch and still selling. It just keeps selling.
Brandon Hurles:
That's why we didn't get a Mario Kart 9 on Switch. It just keeps selling. They don't have to do it To be fair.
Mark Trobough:
Only three of these games on this list are not on the Nintendo Switch, which just shows you how dominant of a market this has.
Brandon Hurles:
Japan is all Switch man.
Mark Trobough:
It's rebirth at number two, Unicorn Overlord at number three and then Unicorn Overlord for the PS4 at number eight, because every copy of that game.
Brandon Hurles:
I didn't even know that. That's funny. Wow, it's on there three times.
Mark Trobough:
It's split in three, all three versions of the game.
Brandon Hurles:
Like Minecraft is on there. Oh my God, I had number 11. Animal.
Mark Trobough:
Crossing New Horizons on the Switch.
Brandon Hurles:
Pokemon Scarlet at number 15. Wow.
Mark Trobough:
I mean to be fair. There's like 4,000 copies sold in that week, but it's still interesting that the Japanese market is just dominated. Nintendo just owns this, because half of these games are Nintendo's, like the publisher for these games.
Brandon Hurles:
Yep and Fitboxing is only on there because it has Hatsune Miku featuring oh yeah, probably the collaboration. And that's number four. That's hilarious Wow.
Mark Trobough:
Yeah, it's crazy. Is this one of those funny things? They usually do this weekly thing for both anime and games. These are the most based off ranking. They say ranking, but usually what sells the most in said week. Yeah, it goes back like two weeks but it probably takes it long for them to, or whoever is putting this together to accumulate all those sales and stuff like that.
Brandon Hurles:
That is absolutely hilarious. Oh my gosh, I was in need.
Mark Trobough:
Funny thing that I saw and I was like, yeah, bring this up. Like, oh my God, mario Kart, still on there. Like what the Are you?
Brandon Hurles:
car. That is hilarious. Oh my gosh, did we have anything else to bring up?
Mark Trobough:
I mean there was some stuff. It was pretty much some small, small minor stuff, unless you saw something you wanted to, you wanted to see. I know you said there were. You were kind of crunch for some time. So I was just picking out some of the some of the major stuff for those.
Brandon Hurles:
Yeah, I think I think I'm pretty much, pretty much. I did see the Gundam scene, Dune collaboration, part two collaboration. I thought that was kind of cool to mention.
Mark Trobough:
They pretty much just like recopied the whole Dune scene, but with the, with the, Mobile suit Gundam Seed. Seed to. It's a. I haven't watched the show in like two years. I'm trying to get the actual two characters names and then I don't know if they're on here. I like his client. Yeah, kids, it's Kieran Lackas. For the other two characters. Obviously, I just get it on the name for a second. I haven't watched it.
Mark Trobough:
It's just like the poster and it is like and like just recreates the the the Dune Dune logo. I dig it it looks really cool. Yeah, it's the simple, the two characters just walking in the sun, but obviously it's got the two at his two little, uh, kira's two, like mechanical birds falling behind them. But I mean it makes sense because the Seed movie just came out as well. Yeah, in.
Brandon Hurles:
Japan. Well, that's early on.
Mark Trobough:
Unfortunately it's not really getting a proper US release. That's it of a one time showing in like New York and LA, which just robs pretty much all of us of of getting to see it in theaters.
Brandon Hurles:
But Of course, Of course, all right. Well, I think it's going to eventually get it here. Yeah, yeah, I think that wraps up episode 77. Appreciate everybody that has watched live. Any recaps, mark or anything that you want to mention before we close out?
Mark Trobough:
Uh, I mean, just as usual. You know, don't forget to tip your waitress. Uh, say hi to grandma, Don't drown your goldfish. You know the same thing, All right.
Brandon Hurles:
Uh, you're watching live. Consider, or you watch this later Consider becoming a channel member. That helps us out a lot, helps a show. Keep going. Uh, we do have membership tiers up on there. Starts at that. I've set it the lowest cost I could and I think there's up to four tiers. So that helps out a lot. It's all in the description below. And then, if you're an audio listener, you are able to subscribe on Buzzsprouts or some of the other platforms on there. If you check our link tree, which I'll drop in the chat for live viewers, you are able to help support show there with Patreon. There's a few different options, and then as well as on the discord. So if you check the link tree, it's got all the information there. Again, it'll be in the description of this video.
