transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:34] Welcome to the next 8-4 Play podcast, your first only greatest hope for talk about Japan and games and Japanese games. With me, we have some folks who are very qualified to talk about that, some special guests, plural, you might say. But before we get into who those people are, I am your host, Mark Gageson-McDonald. With me, I'm back. By the way, thank you, I assume, Gabe, for handling duties while I was out there.

Speaker 2:
[01:03] As far as you know, we recorded episodes.

Speaker 1:
[01:05] That's right. Let's see. Out from his latest stint at the Vampire Survivors Addiction Survivor Wellness Center.

Speaker 2:
[01:12] Hey-oh.

Speaker 1:
[01:12] Just in time for Vampire Crawlers.

Speaker 3:
[01:14] Oh.

Speaker 1:
[01:15] That's Gabe Turbo Wildcard, daily on.

Speaker 3:
[01:18] I have no interest in Vampire Crawlers.

Speaker 2:
[01:21] What? Who even are you?

Speaker 1:
[01:22] I'm shocked.

Speaker 3:
[01:23] I'm not a card person.

Speaker 2:
[01:24] You haven't planned them yet? It came out like yesterday.

Speaker 3:
[01:26] Oh, did it? I'm not a card person.

Speaker 1:
[01:28] Like you add cards and I'm immediately like, I thought there must be some kind of mistake on the rundown when that game was not on the games you've been playing list. I think people can refer back to this episode, either next episode or one after that to you being like, oh yeah, I'm not really that interested in it. I'm not.

Speaker 3:
[01:47] Look, if Ponco wants to give me a code to give it a shot, sure.

Speaker 1:
[01:51] But I know how does one like Vampire Survivors as much as you do and not just be on board for anything. Like the series, the survivors, the serial, Vampire Survivors movie, anything, Vampire Survivors, I think you would be when it got announced at the front of the line.

Speaker 3:
[02:08] I was at the front of I was running to the front of the line, pushing grannies and four-year-olds out of the way. And then, as they said, card, I was like, huh? And then they said, dungeon. And I was like, oh, crawler. Oh, no, I'm going home. Like, they just, duh.

Speaker 1:
[02:28] I think there's gonna be like a two-day stretch between the latest, hottest games that you're playing, and your curiosity is gonna get the better of you. We'll see. We can check back in on that. Sure. We can also check back in on a man who eats, drinks and shits Mario now.

Speaker 2:
[02:45] Oh.

Speaker 1:
[02:46] John Little Squirt Ricciardi.

Speaker 2:
[02:48] Oh. We talked about that last episode.

Speaker 1:
[02:52] Oh, yes. See, that's what happens when I'm not here. Why don't you, for the sake of the special guests, why don't you just give the ClipNotes version of why.

Speaker 2:
[03:01] He's talking about the Mario Galaxy ice cream that you guys must have eaten, the special guests who also live here in the land where it is available, where allegedly your poo tones turns blue.

Speaker 1:
[03:12] So allegedly, so it did not skip to the good part.

Speaker 2:
[03:14] Not as far as I noticed. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[03:16] Interesting. They also have Mario donuts at Krispy Kreme.

Speaker 2:
[03:22] Why those two?

Speaker 1:
[03:23] We just were, you did. We did. No, nothing to report about your stool.

Speaker 3:
[03:28] No. Okay.

Speaker 1:
[03:29] No. No, probably functions.

Speaker 3:
[03:31] Technical term.

Speaker 2:
[03:32] I will. I did it last time, though, and I'll say it again. That ice cream is like delicious. It is amazingly good. Really, really good flavor selection. And it's a bummer that it's only going to be around for a couple more weeks.

Speaker 1:
[03:42] Speaking of delicious, just back from PAX East and boy, is his beard tired. Raj, Late Night Joshi, on loan from the folks at 17-Bit in Kyoto. How you doing?

Speaker 4:
[03:56] I'm great. Welcome to my home. Please take whatever you like.

Speaker 1:
[03:59] First appearance since our TGS episode, I believe.

Speaker 4:
[04:03] I was in the background.

Speaker 1:
[04:04] You were in the background. Okay. So some of the loud cheering and stuff like that.

Speaker 4:
[04:10] Somebody had to drink everything in the kitchen.

Speaker 1:
[04:12] So first time. So yeah, in front of the mic, but you've been on here, what, two or three times before?

Speaker 4:
[04:17] Maybe a couple of times. It's always an honor and thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1:
[04:21] Absolutely. Yeah. I want to hear more about PAX and what you've been busy with. But first, your partner here, no surprise to anybody. How many times have you been on this podcast? Nobody can count.

Speaker 5:
[04:34] More than I got fingers.

Speaker 4:
[04:35] 17 times.

Speaker 1:
[04:36] But for the first time on more than 12 hours notice, due to scheduling snafu, we actually knew three days ahead of time, that our special guest was going to be appearing. That's right. It's the hurricane, Jake 17-Bit. Hello. Welcome back. Not talking about physics this time, I'm sorry to say.

Speaker 5:
[04:54] I got plenty. I got plenty.

Speaker 1:
[04:56] No more physics talk this time, but we are going to talk Oasis. We're getting closer and closer to launch. Raj was at PAX East as we talked about. I'm curious to check in on the scene there. John's been playing Tomodachi Life and a little Pragmata. Gabe, as we've established, sadly not been playing Vampire Crawlers, but I'm sure you have some other terrible thing you've been playing to talk about. I'm just filling time here. So, yes.

Speaker 4:
[05:31] I think we should make a game out of him throwing old ladies and young kids out of line. That would be a pretty rad game.

Speaker 1:
[05:38] I didn't want to throw Final Fantasy IV under the bus like that, but it's not the hottest game on the docket, you know what I'm saying?

Speaker 2:
[05:46] And we talked about it last episode.

Speaker 1:
[05:49] And apparently you talked about it last episode.

Speaker 3:
[05:51] A little bit, yeah, all right.

Speaker 1:
[05:52] I shouldn't say terrible.

Speaker 3:
[05:53] It wasn't like I was trying to rush it to get it done, to be ready to talk on the show about it and give my impressions and had a notebook and all this stuff. You finished it? Yes, I finished it.

Speaker 1:
[06:01] All right, Gabe, all right, 60 seconds, starting now.

Speaker 3:
[06:05] Oh, no, well, dance monkey, dance, is that what this is now?

Speaker 1:
[06:09] Yes, monkey, you now have 55 seconds.

Speaker 3:
[06:11] Yeah, I don't like this mark when he drinks. It's so mean.

Speaker 1:
[06:13] Do you have the notebook or not?

Speaker 3:
[06:15] No, not with me. All right.

Speaker 1:
[06:17] No, but seriously, do you want to just chime in now that we're talking about it?

Speaker 3:
[06:20] Yeah, no. So I never played Final Fantasy 4 ever before, and I have been-

Speaker 1:
[06:27] Are you playing the retranslations? What version is this? 600 versions of it. Pixel remaster, okay.

Speaker 3:
[06:32] On the Switch 2, so Switch. Very good version of it.

Speaker 1:
[06:35] Is the Spoonie bard line still in it?

Speaker 2:
[06:38] I think so. I think they kept that. I mean, you got to keep that.

Speaker 3:
[06:40] You got to recall the Spoonie.

Speaker 2:
[06:41] Biblical.

Speaker 3:
[06:42] Okay. There's some zingers in that translation, at least in the version I played. But as I said in the last show that I really like 3, and I liked it a lot more than 2, and now John said, oh, well, they're just going to get better. And he's right, because I really like 4 a lot more than I like 3.

Speaker 1:
[07:01] Oh, see, yeah, I went back to American numbering for a second, because I was like, what the fuck? You liked 4 better than 3? Okay, now 6, right. Okay, got it.

Speaker 3:
[07:10] It has such a strong presentation, and you see them getting into their groove of playing with their storytelling through the mechanics of using the turn-based battle and all that stuff. They didn't do that before, and telling the stories.

Speaker 2:
[07:24] That was the first game with Active Time Battle, right?

Speaker 3:
[07:26] Yes. Yes, and I got a game over once because I didn't know that early in the game.

Speaker 1:
[07:31] So are you playing them in order now? I'm sorry, did you say? Are you going to play 5?

Speaker 3:
[07:36] I might take a break. I hear 5 has refined the job system to almost perfection.

Speaker 1:
[07:42] Yes, the first real pure implementation of the job system, like fully operational power of the job system.

Speaker 3:
[07:52] Yeah, and then that pushed me through Xenoblade Chronicles 3 because they had a similar sort of class system type thing. So then I'm like, oh, okay, well, no one really talks about 5 in terms of story, but mechanically, if it's there, then I'm interested in it. But 4, they just, their cut scenes, their story, some of the execution is a little clunky and like, okay, this is like 1991 or whatever, but their narrative strokes and they're like what they're trying to do with this RPG system. It's just like, whoa, there is such a jump between original three and four. And I had a really great time.

Speaker 1:
[08:33] It's really cool that when a team like that can be focused on, I mean, they were releasing a game every what, like two or three years, every 18 months basically. Refining, refining, refining, refining, and it got so good by six slash three.

Speaker 2:
[08:49] Yeah, they were just starting to really hit that Zen thing they were in for years, and it was like starting around the time of four, I feel like.

Speaker 3:
[08:56] Yeah, and I will say that I was a little disappointed with Kane. I thought he'd be a little bit more compelling because I was always like, oh, Kane betrays you, Kane betrays you. And I'm like, oh, I can't wait. I'm going to be part of the memes. And then you play the game and realize what's actually happened. You're like, oh, all right. Well, shit.

Speaker 4:
[09:14] We can betray you.

Speaker 1:
[09:16] Speaking of the memes, do you know, you know, you might not know Ultros. Do you know Ultros? Not yet. Maybe not yet. He's really from 6-3.

Speaker 3:
[09:25] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[09:26] But then has gone on to become like a big meme. You know the Ultros boogie? Ultros boogie? Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[09:31] You don't know that video?

Speaker 1:
[09:32] Okay. There's like a meme video from like early, early Internet days, like pre YouTube, I think even. It's hilarious. Google it if you've never watched it, Dorito it. But that video just has all the characters from 6. It's focused on Ultros, but it has all the characters from 6 and you realize like, that game has like 20 characters who are all incredible and incredibly memorable and all just like very distinct. And it's like a novel or something. It's just like crazy how many great, very memorable characters there are in one game where you're lucky to get one or two in a lot of games.

Speaker 5:
[10:10] I think Fancy Nine kind of still kills that. I think I've always been so-

Speaker 4:
[10:13] Uh-oh.

Speaker 5:
[10:14] The cast is amazing.

Speaker 4:
[10:15] The characters are so-

Speaker 5:
[10:17] Yeah, amazing.

Speaker 1:
[10:18] There is a precious moments figurine, like art design of that game.

Speaker 5:
[10:24] Also precious to me. While I'm up here, apparently there's those Chrono Trigger, like beautiful action figures available at the Square pop-up in Ikebukuro. That's on my shopping list this weekend. Oh, I haven't seen that.

Speaker 1:
[10:33] Really?

Speaker 5:
[10:33] They're really nice, and I'm really excited. I love Chrono Trigger.

Speaker 1:
[10:36] Are they realistic? Or are they like picks?

Speaker 4:
[10:37] To get away from the criticism?

Speaker 1:
[10:40] Yeah, exactly. Are they like pixely?

Speaker 5:
[10:41] No, they're nice. I like that.

Speaker 1:
[10:44] Tori, I'm a heart.

Speaker 2:
[10:45] No, I mean, there is the Final Fantasy IX. There is a collective of people who really worship that game. And I get it. I believe that it is a very good game, but I also, at the time, couldn't get over the characters. I did not like the character design.

Speaker 5:
[10:57] It's so good.

Speaker 1:
[10:58] I'm shocked.

Speaker 5:
[10:58] It's so good.

Speaker 1:
[10:58] It's so good. You of all people.

Speaker 5:
[11:01] But what about the characters? The characters, the character design. Everything has such personality. Each person is so unique and so memorable. I just remember that whole game. I was like, man, these guys just kind of kill it with the character design. In a way that I- It's Sakaguchi's favorite one, which I don't think I can think of another game that actually was like that blown away by the different characters.

Speaker 1:
[11:20] Let's talk about your game. Let's skip over that because that's just going to go ugly. Nothing good is going to come up talking more about nine.

Speaker 4:
[11:27] I would like to pick this up later.

Speaker 1:
[11:31] Let's talk about Oasis. Speaking of character design, you have a freaking awesome character designer.

Speaker 5:
[11:35] World class.

Speaker 1:
[11:36] Behind that game. Remind us his name and what he's worked on.

Speaker 5:
[11:39] Satoshi Matsuda, or Matsuda Satoshi here in Japan. He worked at Square for a long time on the non-realistic branch of the Final Fantasy stuffs. He worked on Mother 3. He worked on Seiken Densetsu 4. He's worked on a bunch of different stuff. Pokemon, he's been around for a long time. I think he's an absolutely brilliant world class character designer.

Speaker 1:
[12:05] He did all your characters, enemies, main guys.

Speaker 5:
[12:07] All the stuff for Oasis.

Speaker 1:
[12:08] You want to refresh people about what Oasis is, by the way?

Speaker 5:
[12:11] Oasis is the best game you haven't played yet. It's coming out this summer. It's a one-to-four player physics-based action-adventure game that's really aesthetically inspired by my love of the 16-bit action-adventure games, especially the square one, Square and Enix, really. Yeah, we're getting close.

Speaker 1:
[12:33] Like a brawler, like you referenced.

Speaker 4:
[12:34] Dungeon brawler.

Speaker 1:
[12:35] Yeah, dungeon brawler.

Speaker 5:
[12:36] Dungeon brawler. Yeah. Imagine Power Stone meets gang beasts that's dressed up as Chrono Trigger.

Speaker 1:
[12:42] Okay, that's a good one.

Speaker 2:
[12:44] I like that he's dressed up as like he's going to throw all the best things of all time in there. Little Mario 64 mixed with Ocarina of Time.

Speaker 5:
[12:50] Yeah, there's a lot of Mario 64 in there.

Speaker 2:
[12:52] There's a lot of physicality.

Speaker 5:
[12:53] You don't want to talk about physics, but it's a Mario 64. Mario 64 was a game that blew me away in terms of how physical it felt, and it's never left me. And I think that I'm sad that they've given up that quest.

Speaker 1:
[13:06] You reference like four swords a lot.

Speaker 5:
[13:09] A lot of four swords.

Speaker 1:
[13:10] You reference like Minecraft Dungeons. A lot of it's like pick it up, play with your friends, well, you know, all ages, whatever, just like have fun, get some loot.

Speaker 5:
[13:20] Get some loot. The fighting is really fun. In fact, the reason that Raj and I are up here this weekend is there's a giant kind of nerd mega conference out at Makahari Messe this weekend called Niko Choukaigi.

Speaker 1:
[13:30] Choukaigi, yes, yes.

Speaker 5:
[13:32] And there's a bunch of fighting game competitions and stuff like that.

Speaker 1:
[13:34] It's kind of like TwitchCon. It's Niko Niko, which is the streaming site. It's their like annual convention. And so there's going to be a whole bunch of streamers streaming everything, but you're saying they have like some tournament set up or something?

Speaker 5:
[13:47] Fighting game tournaments and somehow Oasis got placed in there. So I'm thrilled for that.

Speaker 1:
[13:53] So fighting game, known fighting game people are going to be competing in Oasis.

Speaker 5:
[13:58] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[13:58] Oh, really?

Speaker 4:
[13:59] 16 streamers are going to compete against one another.

Speaker 1:
[14:02] Very cool. Does that happen Saturday and Sunday? Saturday at 11 a.m. Saturday at 11 a.m. Awesome.

Speaker 5:
[14:08] Yeah. So I don't know what to expect. We're going to be there on site and, you know, hoping to just kind of meet people, talk about the game and get them excited about it. Hopefully, this will follow up to more streamer attention. But it's a huge opportunity for us, obviously. And the fighting part of it is fantastic. I mean, it really is a really deep, layered physics-based brawler that's kind of cute. I mean, it's closest to Power Stone, but you've got to bring in all those kind of gang-beast physics.

Speaker 1:
[14:31] And we should mention that the game, so there is like a PvE section of the game, but there is also like a little PvP, little side tournament.

Speaker 5:
[14:41] The campaign, you know, the story mode, you can run one-to-four player through 24 missions. You know, it's a decently long game, about 15, 20, 25 minutes even per mission. And then we have the whole PvP mode, which is King of the Hill, straight-up deathmatch kind of PvP. And then we have this game mode called Brawly Ball, which, because it's physics-based, I just was like, this would make an amazing soccer game, I bet.

Speaker 1:
[15:04] That's like that Halo, Forge, what was that variant that they made that was so popular? Do you know what I'm talking about? That was basically like a soccer type thing. Anyway, which one are they going to be doing at the Shokai?

Speaker 5:
[15:15] So this one is going to be straight, just the straight-up PVP. This is the first time that the PVP is going to be really seen publicly, broadly. And so we did a cleaned up micro version of the game for this build. We're testing everything, we're getting ready to go into submission season here. So it's been pretty nuts. And these demos all take us offline in a way, but they also force us to really clean up some stuff that needs to be cleaned up for public view.

Speaker 1:
[15:40] So yeah, that's what I thought would be interesting maybe for us to talk about, is just kind of like general, you know, making a game thing. So now you're barreling into the last, you know, what you say summer, so six months of production. The game's been in development for a few years. So like, what's that like? And Raj, you were at PAX East. You were having... And Day of the Devs. People play it.

Speaker 4:
[16:02] Yeah, GDC and PAX East.

Speaker 1:
[16:03] GDC, Day of the Devs. Very cool. Yeah, like what's that like? What are you seeing? What are you noticing? How's it going back into the game?

Speaker 5:
[16:10] I'll go first, and then I'll let him fill you in on his part of the story, because I didn't go to those shows. I was at DICE. But it's a really interesting time, because the team, all the engineers, all the different team members are kind of working on their own parts of the game. And everybody's kind of heads down and focused and cranking through tasks and getting stuff done. But no one's looking like sort of really holistically at the project, except for a handful of us, particularly me. That's my job, is like the guru at the top of the mountain, just kind of looking at everything. So now we're going to submission season, which means we're trying to get through all the submissions with these different consoles, which is, as you guys know, it's a nightmare, but they kind of go through everything, make sure everything's legit, above board, works.

Speaker 1:
[16:49] So the time for adding, let's just be clear, the time for adding new features, new ideas, new enemies, new whatever. That door closed? Pretty much closed.

Speaker 5:
[16:59] Closing goo.

Speaker 1:
[16:59] A little pinky finger kept in there.

Speaker 4:
[17:02] The building is on fire. Grab what you need most, what you care about most, and run.

Speaker 1:
[17:07] But it's interesting because now is also the time where, paradoxically, where you're finally seeing everything to come together and like, oh.

Speaker 4:
[17:14] The building is on fire. Just did X. Do you discuss how much that blanket matters to you?

Speaker 1:
[17:19] Yes.

Speaker 5:
[17:19] No, but it's fun because everyone's, like, this week, our assignment for most people on the team that aren't, like, completely underwater was play the game through, finish the game. Play every level, like, go through, watch the economy, watch the progression, like, fight all the bosses. Do the whole thing. Everybody, I want to hear everybody's feed back, start to finish, finish the game, and then let's sit down and talk, because at this point, we switch gears from, like, new features to, like, how can we improve existing stuff? How can we get in there and really, this is, like, the delicate part of the painting, where you're in there with doing the highlights and putting the ones, you know, highlight on the guy's eyeball. It's like, this is the time.

Speaker 1:
[17:54] But sometimes that little highlight can actually really dramatically change. Sometimes an integer changing, like, the health from something to something, the zoom on a camera, slightly more or less.

Speaker 5:
[18:07] The Bungie guys talk about Halo, how the whole game was a barnstorm, and it came together in the last month. And you're trying to predict that game being anything less than brilliant. It's still one of my favorite games of all time. But I can see now, I mean, obviously, I've been doing this for a long time, but it's true. You come together and the parts are there, and all you gotta do is connect a couple things here and there, and it really seeks together and becomes a cohesive union as opposed to a bunch of parts.

Speaker 1:
[18:31] You know in your head, yeah, oh, and this music is broken, but I've heard the music separately, and then this effect isn't working, but I've seen it separately. But then when you see it all, it becomes more than a sum of its parts. And yeah, the bungee guys always talked about the cathedral self-assembling as it's coming in for landing. And it's like, well, this looks so beautiful and put together and well planned, but it's like, oh, that just fucking happened.

Speaker 2:
[18:57] No, that's a universal thing, too, because we see so many games in localization that are, we see them from pretty early stages all the way down to the end. And so many times it was like, this is just a total fire. It's just a disaster. And then all of a sudden in the last month, it's like, wait, all of a sudden it's amazing. They saw this all along. But as the outsider who doesn't know all the ins and outs of everything being planned, it's kind of hard to see that.

Speaker 5:
[19:23] And it is an impossible job, right? You're juggling a million different things. There's all these things that are co-dependent, and this won't get done until this thing's done, and that stacks. But then five plates all of a sudden will land in a row perfectly. You're like, today was a big day. Like it really got, and people are like, feels good. Even people who are kind of bummed about certain things, like suddenly they're like, wait, I hadn't played it in a week, and all of a sudden it makes sense. Like what happened? I'm like, well, the parts came together and we had one or two, you know, turns the wheel to kind of crank it together and tighten it up a bit. So this is my favorite part of the project, besides the very early prototypes, when you first kind of like, you have that first moment of like, yeah, this is the thing, this is going to work. Because part of my job is being the director, is like having the vision and kind of convincing everyone to just stick with me through the dark stormy night, you know, until we get up in the morning and the sun comes up and like, it's a shitty part of the project, but like it's the most exciting for me. Like again, pulling it together and then they see the excitement in the team and people really kind of like seeing the game for the first time in the way that it's meant to be seen, because everybody's so focused in their little lanes and they're like, you know, they're nailing this thing, but they're not looking at the broad strokes of what that means and how that balances and how that changes the whole game. And it's difficult and there's flare ups and there's tempers, but you know, there's also a lot of excitement and a lot of passion and a lot of happiness when things come together and people, there's a real sense of real, a lot of weaving coming together. No, seriously, it's really coming together and really being like, you know, we fucking did it. Like, oh my God, like, you know, it's hard to see until it kind of is there. It's always late. It's always like, whoo.

Speaker 4:
[21:03] Have you ever built a home or reformed a place? You know, it's like, it's a hot mess until it's like move-in day. Even then, it's not necessarily done, which is why they have DLC and patches.

Speaker 5:
[21:13] Day one patches and things like that.

Speaker 4:
[21:15] But you know, you see everything framed up, and then one room has like all the walls up and the wallpaper up, and you're like, oh, wow, that looks pretty cool. And then you walk out of there and you're like, oh my gosh, do we still have this much work to do? But everything's coming together and it's like raising a child. You know, you invest so much and you hope, and you give, you put all these things into it, and you're hoping that all comes to coalesce into an amazing person. And the cool thing about video games is that you don't, the video game doesn't have to listen to you. You're watching it grow up, you're nurturing it, and you see what it wants to be, and then you try and answer that, and then you can do it. There's no teenage resistance years on the video game.

Speaker 1:
[21:55] How was PAX? Tell me about modern PAX and different from the old days, because I haven't been to a PAX in maybe 10 years or so. And it used to be like, you had to go there. Like as an indie game, you're going to PAX, of course you're going to PAX and whatever, and then that completely pendulum swung entirely the other way. It seems like it's kind of starting to come back.

Speaker 4:
[22:14] Oh, it's definitely heavily indie focused. And I did do GDC, which was an amazing...

Speaker 1:
[22:23] End of the mic!

Speaker 4:
[22:25] Hello, everybody.

Speaker 1:
[22:26] Yeah, we're talking.

Speaker 2:
[22:27] We really need to be around there.

Speaker 1:
[22:28] I can hear myself.

Speaker 4:
[22:29] I guess I sound like I'm in the back. PAX was awesome, and we hadn't been there in 10 years. So, going...

Speaker 1:
[22:36] Is Indie Megabooth still around?

Speaker 4:
[22:38] Indie Megabooth is not there anymore. But, all of PAX is an Indie Megabooth. It is 100% except for the Nintendo section, which is this monolithic section where they were showing Mario Wonder, which was curious, and they were giving out stickers. So, if you see a sticker around, you know who's the troublemaker. But, yeah, there was Nintendo, but then everybody Indie. And it was really amazing because the people, I don't know, it's not just Boston, right? Like, whether it's Gamescom or PAX West or wherever, you have everybody coming from around. There were two guys I talked to that had come from Texas, and they had planned their trip out like a year in advance, and they were coming out because they loved PAX.

Speaker 1:
[23:22] There's no PAX South anymore, right?

Speaker 4:
[23:24] Yeah, there's no.

Speaker 1:
[23:24] There used to be one there, too.

Speaker 3:
[23:26] Yeah, it was a brief one, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[23:28] So, everybody there has so much heart, cares so much about video games. They couldn't ask for a better audience. We had a sweet-

Speaker 1:
[23:37] That's good to hear, because it was such a great vibe. Like, PAX was always so much, and everybody was there, and there wasn't as much of the pressure and weirdness of like an E3 or a GDC to have to be doing stuff on the business side, even though a lot of business got done, but it wasn't so much more fan-led that, but yeah.

Speaker 5:
[23:53] It was great for us. I mean, the first year the Indie Megabooth was up, we were in there. I think the first one was in Boston.

Speaker 1:
[24:01] Was that with Galaxy or was that with Skulls?

Speaker 5:
[24:03] No, I think it was with Skulls. So that was back when it was in Boston, but yeah, we were like the first five packs that had the Indie Megabooth, we were a part of it, and I made lifelong friends with that crew. I mean, these guys are all doing the same thing at the same time. In fact, I just got back from a couple of weeks in Melbourne, Australia, we went to the Game Expo, which is kind of like a pack.

Speaker 1:
[24:20] Oh yeah, actually, I want to hear about that too.

Speaker 5:
[24:22] And my good friend Trent Custer is with League of Geeks. I've known him for years.

Speaker 1:
[24:27] Front of the show.

Speaker 2:
[24:28] Awesome dude.

Speaker 5:
[24:28] Yeah, great to catch up with him and hang out a bunch. And he had a good time hanging out with my kids. And we just had a great time. And by the way, Melbourne is a cooler city.

Speaker 2:
[24:36] We know, here it comes.

Speaker 1:
[24:37] I know, I know.

Speaker 5:
[24:38] I was going to say it if you didn't know, because no one told me.

Speaker 4:
[24:40] This just in, PAX East was awesome. So let's talk about the fans at PAX East.

Speaker 5:
[24:45] The point is, some of these friendships that I developed through that indie scene, through those early years where everyone was traveling around, going to all the same shows, hitting the same circuit.

Speaker 1:
[24:52] Right.

Speaker 5:
[24:53] And it was just fantastic. And I missed that.

Speaker 1:
[24:55] I really did miss that.

Speaker 4:
[24:57] And that's it. You would have enjoyed PAX East because it was booth after booth of indies. And there were people there that we had known over a decade showing, some of them showing the same game, still selling, and some people showing new games. But there was definitely a pulse and a heartbeat. And I was super appreciative to be out there. And the reception on Oasis was amazing. And part of it was that you can play up to four player co-op locally. Right. And people loved that. We had strangers coming up and playing and having a great time with each other. And you can you can grief each other in the game. And people are doing that to total strangers, but having a good time. But I was really happy. It resonates inside of you. You wonder, you know, you're you're working in the mines, you're you're digging, digging, digging, trying to find the gems and elevate them into the game and nonstop. And it's a video game development is not easy. It's it's a it's a lot of work. I mean, all jobs are a lot of work, but this is like definitely in there certain nodal points in time where you you get the the air that you need. You come out of the mine and you get that deep breath air. And Pax East was definitely that breath of fresh air.

Speaker 1:
[26:08] Yeah, it helps fuel because it's really hard, especially at the end, but I had a lot of different milestones and like an announcement or, you know, yeah, having people play the game or like having people react to it can definitely help like fuel the team. Will you guys be at BitSummit by the way?

Speaker 5:
[26:24] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[26:25] I mean, will you be, you have a booth?

Speaker 5:
[26:27] Yeah, we're at the far, if you're looking into the booth in the second floor, the top floor, we're basically at the far left exit.

Speaker 1:
[26:35] Okay. You're here first, folks. Come check it out on the third floor? The upper floor.

Speaker 5:
[26:41] So the first and third floor are two main floors, and we'll be on the third floor at the far east exit, I guess.

Speaker 4:
[26:48] In the 17-Bit's 17th year.

Speaker 1:
[26:50] Oh, shit. What the hell? Was there not a logo and a fucking fanfare associated with that?

Speaker 5:
[26:56] We're also very busy trying to ship this fucking video game. So no, there's not a lot of fanfare around that. We might maybe do something a little bit bigger later. I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[27:05] We got to do some.

Speaker 5:
[27:06] I know, but I am running as fast as I can.

Speaker 1:
[27:09] Just do it during the year from what is the exact date? Is there an exact date?

Speaker 5:
[27:14] I mean, the week that my son was born, I took a week off of work and was like, I'm going to be super busy. Then my mom and my wife were like, kind of had things handled. And I was like, I'm going to start noodling on this video game thing. And it was June.

Speaker 1:
[27:25] June, right. Okay, so you have a whole year starting in June. Is that right? Yeah. Okay, then there you go. So ship the game and then focus on 17-Bit, including getting me one of your fucking hoodies, which I'm very upset about that you guys have these amazing King of Games hoodies. And my King of Games Mario hoodie finally fell apart from being worn. Fine, fine. Just nonstop for years and years and years. I think large.

Speaker 4:
[27:54] We got you.

Speaker 1:
[27:54] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[27:56] Youth, so small.

Speaker 1:
[27:59] I forced you to commit on the podcast. Now you can't take it back. Check them out at, definitely, at BitSummit. Give them the eight-four bump. So now there's a lot of testing, I'm sure, including you're an online multiplayer game that has shipping on multiple systems. So PlayStation, Xbox, Steam, and that's cross-play between all of those platforms. So that's going to be an incredible ball ache of testing.

Speaker 4:
[28:27] It's a nightmare.

Speaker 1:
[28:28] Yeah. It's a lot.

Speaker 5:
[28:31] And that's outside of balancing the game economy and making sure the combat is tight and varied and going in. It's so weird how you'll come in the next day and stuff that works fine is suddenly broken. And something's missing. This guy comes to work and he's always wearing a hat. He put on a hat and then one day he's just having a hat. Where's his hat? Where's your sunglasses? Where's your keys? What happened to everything? I don't know. Nobody knows.

Speaker 2:
[28:58] It sounds like life after 40.

Speaker 4:
[28:59] It's almost like dealing with Jake.

Speaker 5:
[29:03] It's crazy though how many things subtly break and then you get numb to it and then you're looking at it. You're like, something feels off here.

Speaker 4:
[29:10] This was feeling really good.

Speaker 5:
[29:11] What is it? I'll do video clips and record it and watch frame by frame. I'm like, dude, he's not playing his hit reaction. Or I'm bouncing out of my stun in one frame instead of over the course of a second. No wonder. But you have to stop and look at it. When did that break? Asking people.

Speaker 1:
[29:29] To really know the game and really be paying attention.

Speaker 5:
[29:31] It's just terrifying because you're like, we have to have everything on the table, hot at the same time, we have to get it all back up and some sort of the table's not even big enough. All of a sudden, you're like, shit. It's just like this constant Jenga game.

Speaker 4:
[29:44] It's like a potluck and everybody's cooking at the table.

Speaker 5:
[29:50] This guy's allergic to peanuts and it's crazy. Making video games is a crazy job. Only crazy people do it.

Speaker 2:
[29:56] I was hoping that's what he said.

Speaker 1:
[29:57] Hello. Crazy job, crazy people. Let's talk a little bit ahead of BitSummit, why don't we, about the Kyoto indie scene and what's going on there and what the vibe is lately. It's tough all around the industry, I think in general, very obviously. Very tough as in indie also. Very obviously, like the funding and what publishers, like what you have to have to get funding and stuff like that is tougher than ever. The amount of budgets is smaller and smaller. There's been a lot of press about that. Do you feel that in the Kyoto? Kyoto has always had a very strong, proud indie scene. Do you feel that at all more there or what's the vibe?

Speaker 5:
[30:39] To be fair, we haven't signed a contract in four years.

Speaker 1:
[30:45] Yeah, but you're talking tacos with these people and drinking with these people.

Speaker 4:
[30:49] Jake and I, we sleep a full eight hours every night. We definitely don't wake up at four in the morning panicking.

Speaker 5:
[30:56] I mean, it's changing. The industry is changing. Everything is changing. It's tough on a good day. We're at a point now where we need to start getting the next thing dealt in. And I really want to stick with Oasis. I love this game. I've worked so hard to get it up to 1.0. All I want is to do more of this stuff and really continue to juice it up and let it really find its footing. But then we've got other ideas, too, for other stuff. And it's just really kind of, we're talking to different publishers.

Speaker 1:
[31:26] Well, not just about you. Not just about you. But let's not make it about you, Jake. Let's not make it about you, okay?

Speaker 5:
[31:31] What I'm saying is that it's a tough time. And yeah, you've got to be nimble. You've got to...

Speaker 1:
[31:37] That's what I'm asking, though. Do you feel like, it seemed like for a time, like anybody with a fucking dream and a fucking satchel over his back is heading to Kyoto and I'm fucking making an indie company or whatever. Do you feel like that's still, is it still growing? Do you feel like it's contracting? Do you feel like it's just kind of on standby? Like, what's the vibe?

Speaker 4:
[31:56] I think that because of the availability of the tools, right, a lot of people have access to be able to make stuff they want. And a lot of the funding options, like you were saying, are a lot smaller than they used to be. And that's great for like a one, two, three-person team. For people who want to make stuff like us, which is more like AA, it's getting harder because-

Speaker 5:
[32:19] Triple I, whatever. Somewhere in between. Triple I, right.

Speaker 4:
[32:22] But publishers are asking for a lot more, for a lot less. And even though we're in Japan and the cost of development is dramatically less than it would be if we're in Los Angeles or Seattle.

Speaker 5:
[32:33] I'm very thankful for.

Speaker 1:
[32:34] Yeah. That's a nice thing that you will not have this go round, is the yen will not depreciate 50% over the course of your next project. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[32:44] You can buy cheeseburgers for the whole team for the price of one American cheeseburger.

Speaker 5:
[32:49] Pretty much.

Speaker 4:
[32:51] We've been doing a lot of business development and talking to people about stuff. And to Jake's point, we would like to keep working on Oasis, but it's super hard to get a sequel signed to a game that has yet to launch.

Speaker 1:
[33:01] Imagine that. That's weird. How crazy is that? New IP. Nobody wants to sign a sequel before the first game comes out? What a bunch of weirdos.

Speaker 4:
[33:09] But we used to sign a game based on a paper pitch.

Speaker 1:
[33:12] Sure.

Speaker 4:
[33:13] We used to be able to sign a game based on a rudimentary prototype.

Speaker 1:
[33:16] Right.

Speaker 4:
[33:16] Now people want to see like, okay, hit your vertical slice, which for those of people who don't know, it's like a fairly polished subsection of the game. You're talking about a circle that's like 15-30% of that circle. That's a lot of development time.

Speaker 5:
[33:31] 15-17 guys on payroll, it's no joke.

Speaker 1:
[33:35] So it does seem like it's the same as it is in other places, and not like Kyoto is not very different because the two or three team people.

Speaker 5:
[33:42] We go for worldwide publishing, right? Right. Most of our deals, in fact, all of our deals so far, has been with first parties in America.

Speaker 1:
[33:48] Again, not about you, Jake. Why does it have to always be about you? Just try to zoom it back out, okay?

Speaker 5:
[33:55] The point is, it's not like Kyoto has anything to do with funding. All the Kyoto funding dried up. No, there is no Kyoto funding. It's a worldwide market, and so the fact that we're in Kyoto saves us a couple of bucks, but we're all competing for the same publisher cash, and most of that is coming out of the States. There's European stuff too, but the United States is a big funding market, and that's where you got to go.

Speaker 4:
[34:18] A lot of money is limited there. Sometimes the breadcrumbs to that is coming from Japan, thankfully, for this most recent project. But BitSummit is a real testament to the Indie chutzpah that is coming out of Kyoto and Kansai. You will see a lot of amazing Indie talent at BitSummit. It's a convention that has all the big players in it, but also has a lot of Indies showing up, and you're seeing the creativity outside of some of the squares and the Capcoms and the critics from Japan. So there are funding sources out there, and I think there are other studios who have made their money in Japan, like Power World, or not Power World, sorry, that's the game. Yeah, they are helping people, so there is money funding back into Japan. But-

Speaker 5:
[35:11] Did you see Toei just announced?

Speaker 1:
[35:13] Yeah, Toei just announced, yeah.

Speaker 5:
[35:15] Toei, for the record, for those who don't know, is a film studio that's been around forever. Godzilla, right? I'm a big fan. Yeah, Toei, Godzilla, all the old anime that I was a huge fan of, that really inspired Skulls of the Shogun in the first place, and a lot of the stuff we do. They're still one of the biggest anime publishers here in Japan, and they're finally doing game stuff. They've got three games they're about to announce. They have a website that's kind of cool. It's like a really pixelated version of the original Toei, film opening and draws and art space.

Speaker 1:
[35:44] It's weird that it's only now happening in 2026, but I guess over the past five years. Suisha did it too, right? Yeah, media company. I mean, so many. Kodansha.

Speaker 5:
[35:53] What's the Parko building? Yeah, Parko. In Tokyo, they're doing game publishing now. I mean, it's happening. Things are happening here.

Speaker 1:
[36:00] Yeah. Okay. Well, awesome. People definitely check you guys out. Why don't you give your socials now, we're doing it at the end, but if they want to watch the streaming this weekend as this podcast goes up, you're going to post it.

Speaker 5:
[36:14] A friend of the show, Jake Smith, who has done a bunch of stuff for you guys for the websites, is currently cranking away on a Japanese version of our website just in time for the Niku Niku Choukai-Gi 2026 Superfest tomorrow. So oasis.jp is up tomorrow, maybe today.

Speaker 1:
[36:31] That's oasis.jp, A-W-A-Y-S-I-S. And you have.com already? Yeah, cool.

Speaker 5:
[36:38] But the Japanese one is up and Jake has done a fantastic job. It looks great. He's been a long friend and really a cool...

Speaker 2:
[36:46] You know, the contractors, we get a little cut of everything.

Speaker 1:
[36:48] Yeah, of course. He'll be in town. We should also mention, by the way, I just remembered it, a friend of the show. We are imbibing from Steve Pharma's gift to us here. Also brought some street waffles, as he's wanted to do, was in town. Thank you, Steve.

Speaker 4:
[37:05] I definitely can see straight right now.

Speaker 1:
[37:08] It's very good. We're very happy to say. Let's talk about a couple of games.

Speaker 5:
[37:13] Wait, we need to get to our socials.

Speaker 1:
[37:16] Find them on your website, right? Come on.

Speaker 5:
[37:18] Go to Oasis.jp. I'm at J-K-O-O-Z-A, and we also have at 17 underscore B-I-T on the major socials.

Speaker 4:
[37:26] You can also find Tree Joshi on Roblox and MaraQuest.

Speaker 1:
[37:31] There you go. John?

Speaker 4:
[37:34] We're on Instagram and all the other things. We don't actually post on X very much, but we are on there. But we have.

Speaker 2:
[37:40] You kind of have to be if you're in Japan for better or for worse. It's for worse. But anyway.

Speaker 1:
[37:45] Yes, you've been playing a couple new modern recent games.

Speaker 2:
[37:50] Oh, yeah. Tomodachi Life slash Collection.

Speaker 1:
[37:53] We'll start there.

Speaker 2:
[37:54] Came out.

Speaker 1:
[37:55] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[37:55] Is no one else playing that?

Speaker 1:
[37:56] No, I see the ads for it on the train. I see the ads for it on TV. I would love it. It looks like I mean, I kind of feel like I know what it is. Having played previous.

Speaker 2:
[38:06] Yeah. I mean, it's the same thing. I mean, you know, for also for better or for worse. I mean, I think like Tomodachi Collection, if you've played it before, you know, you put together a bunch of me's, throw them in a on an island and then kind of you're their god. You basically like let them live their lives and you kind of put people together and you.

Speaker 5:
[38:29] Peter Molyneux presents Nintendo.

Speaker 2:
[38:32] I mean, yeah, maybe.

Speaker 1:
[38:35] It's more personality based though. It's kind of like, oh, I mean, this is kind of predicated on the time when everybody had me's of their friend group and their family. And so it was like, oh, what the hell? Like Jake was like kissing grandma behind the apple tree or whatever. And like, oh, so Raj is break dancing with, you know, some other, just like the funny situations that people end up in.

Speaker 2:
[38:59] And my experience with the past games, or at least the 3DS one, which was the first one that was localized was like, I had a great time for like three weeks. And then when you start seeing things happening again, you know, it's like, okay, the sort of the façade is like, right?

Speaker 1:
[39:15] It's lifted.

Speaker 2:
[39:16] Right. And so have there been more than that?

Speaker 1:
[39:18] There have been more than the, have there been more than one other? There's been three. This is the third one.

Speaker 2:
[39:23] There was DS, 3DS, and then I'll write DS. They spent nine years working on this. They talked about in the interview that went up on the developer, asked the developer. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[39:31] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[39:32] That's a lot of years. Yeah. Well, you know, I, it's not clear that it was necessarily like, I don't think they were like grinding the whole time, but I think they just, there was an idea that developed over a long time and then they finally got where it is.

Speaker 1:
[39:42] They probably just added and kept adding and adding and adding more different situations.

Speaker 2:
[39:46] They got the voice synthesis. Cause the, so all your me's, when you make them in the game, they speak and they speak in voice synthesis, but they got that so good that they actually turned it down because it was too good.

Speaker 1:
[39:55] It actually sounded real.

Speaker 2:
[39:57] But, but it's great. It's really funny. I mean, you build, so like, you know, you start off, the game drip feeds how many people you can have in your town. You start with one and then you can make a second and then you got to do some things and you can make a third and the downside to this is that you have to make everyone yourself. So I think with 3DS, I feel like it was easier. Maybe you could street pass or something, or I guess you just means we're part of the sort of 3DS, like, you know, universe to begin with ecosystem. And so what I ended up doing, though, you can actually get your means off of your 3DS. I was going to say, yeah, because you can register one me to every amiibo at a time. I took out my 3DS. I took out my switch. I took out a single amiibo. And then it was like, all right, it was like a little process for like 15 minutes. Like, put them on there, move it over, click, take it off, you know, over and over. It was like a little factory thing.

Speaker 1:
[40:43] That's kind of rough. There should be, that should have been like a prioritized feature.

Speaker 2:
[40:47] You should be able to like send your means to people.

Speaker 1:
[40:49] A ton of celebrities share, yeah, like just as a database of like...

Speaker 5:
[40:53] That whole social aspect, they really kind of dropped it. I mean, the, we had that great, just the means and stuff like that. That was such a fun...

Speaker 1:
[41:00] That was fun as hell.

Speaker 5:
[41:02] You knew exactly who it was.

Speaker 1:
[41:03] Well, dude, even just this time when you posted, I thought that was really fun when you posted on our chat, the group of means and some of them were cut off. It didn't say exactly who it was, but you want to talk about who all you had in there?

Speaker 2:
[41:14] You can tell exactly who was in there, right? Because I had like, you know, like Hideki Kamiya and like Shigeru Miyamoto, who was actually, I street passed with him to get his actual means. That is his means.

Speaker 1:
[41:25] The official means.

Speaker 2:
[41:26] You know, Yamauchi, the former Nintendo president.

Speaker 1:
[41:31] A bunch of our friends.

Speaker 2:
[41:32] Some of our friends from the 3DS days. It was like people's actual means. And you know, and it's fun. You get that kind of mix of people together in your town and have them kind of go at it. And I think that's sort of-

Speaker 5:
[41:45] You say go at it. What do they do there?

Speaker 1:
[41:47] Go at it like fucking rabbits, Jake. They just go at it. They're just F and S-ing everywhere in the entire-

Speaker 2:
[41:53] When you start the game, when you start the game, everybody gets a house. They have their own little house and you can decorate the house. And after a couple of days or a couple of steps in the process of moving forward in the game, like a shop will open up and then you can start giving them clothes. And they want clothes because they're like, I don't like the way I look and you give me some stuff or whatever. And you buy food to feed them because if they're not, if they're hungry, they're kind of cranky or whatever. And then shops open up that let you buy things to decorate the town. And eventually it gets like Animal Crossing in this one where you can actually rebuild the town itself, the island. You can actually like terraform your island and have an endless amount of me's living there.

Speaker 5:
[42:35] And so it's like Animal Crossing meets what?

Speaker 2:
[42:41] Well, it's unique. I mean, it's Tomodachi Life. If you've played it before, it's just like, it's like The Sims, I guess, kind of.

Speaker 1:
[42:48] There'll be a little bit of The Sims.

Speaker 5:
[42:50] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[42:50] Animal Crossing meets The Sims. The thing I was going to say, though, is about the me's. This is the saddest part about this is they have continued to evolve me's. And so it's so it bones me out so much that me's aren't a part of like the Switch.

Speaker 5:
[43:02] Exactly.

Speaker 2:
[43:03] Because now like they have ears, they have all, you can do two-tone hair. Like they added a bunch of features and they're all cool.

Speaker 1:
[43:09] They never had ears?

Speaker 2:
[43:10] I guess not. Or if, yeah, and I don't think so. And the me's, like remember that crappy avatar thing on Xbox, like it was disgusting. Like they did, it was not cool at all. Everybody looks stupid. Me's are awesome. Like they are like so animated and they have so much personality.

Speaker 5:
[43:26] Minimalism is insane.

Speaker 2:
[43:28] Yeah, it was a lot.

Speaker 5:
[43:29] Minimalism is hard.

Speaker 1:
[43:30] And it's where you draw the line between including the detail or not. And that's what looks like.

Speaker 5:
[43:34] Ironically, that allowed for more. Like I would see me and I was like, holy shit, that's that person.

Speaker 1:
[43:38] No, totally.

Speaker 2:
[43:39] And if you want to make something interesting, you got to do crazy. You got to take the wrinkles on their face and cross them over and move them upside down and do all this shit. And we made our cats. So my wife's playing, too, and she made her cat and I made my cat. And they're so different, which is hilarious also. But there are hairstyles now that kind of look like ears. And you can actually draw on them now, too. So there's like a...

Speaker 1:
[43:59] Oh, you can?

Speaker 2:
[44:00] Yeah, it's like Mario Paint. You can literally draw stuff on your characters.

Speaker 5:
[44:03] Wow, actually, Nintendo, bring it back. Bring back to me.

Speaker 2:
[44:05] It's awesome, man. That part of it is endless potential, I feel like. But, you know, it's only been out about a week, I guess. I don't know how long it's been. So I haven't played that much yet. But like what I've played so far, I kind of already can tell, yeah, maybe I'm going to go a little farther in this one, but I will eventually get tired of it. But at the moment, it's just really fun. Just, you're seeing your family members, you're seeing your, you know, the people you've added to your town. Like I started with me and my wife and my, and our cats, but then the next person I added was like Kyle, like our friend just randomly. And then I added like, you know, Miyamoto. And then like to see like Miyamoto in the park hanging out with Kyle or whatever, or like, you know, my cats chasing each other around.

Speaker 1:
[44:42] That's what's genius about the game is because that inherently is like, oh, and you want to now post that on socials and say, hey, look, this person, Michael Jackson, you know, was in town. It's really, it's good old kind of weird Nintendo. But I do feel like they haven't quite maybe cracked the nut of what the game of it is supposed to be. You know what I mean? Beyond being a novelty, which I think it's awesome for, and like, oh, it's funny now that they're singing karaoke with these people, and it's lots of funny, interesting situations, but it seems like that's most of what it is good for, and that kind of wears off.

Speaker 2:
[45:26] They fall in love, they get married. There's all kinds of stuff that can happen. There's relationships and life. And you might have seen some of this. So you mentioned, I don't know if you were heading towards this or if you accidentally glossed over it, but the social part of it is actually, I think, a big bummer, too, because on Switch 2, you can screenshot and video your games, and you can still do that on this game, but then you can't upload it to your phone like every other game. They've stopped that on this game. But on the other hand, you could say whatever you want, and you'll say, what are you interested in? And you could be like, whatever, really dirty things, let's just put it that way. But you can do anything, and it would be fantastic for socials, but then you can't do it if you have a capture card, but the average Joe can't. So I was going to show you guys screens, and then I was like, wait, I can't even show you because they're not on my phone, because I can't get them there.

Speaker 1:
[46:13] What I think this is the ultimate form of this, and maybe it will find this, or maybe it will take some other form or whatever, but I love it, and I think the idea hasn't quite gelled yet, but I think if it was like, for example, the Mii Plaza or something, it seems to beg for like, check in on it for a little bit each day, and then go do something else kind of thing. Not like, okay, boot it up, concentrate on it, play it for a few hours, and then put it down.

Speaker 2:
[46:41] No, it's very much a little bit a day.

Speaker 1:
[46:43] If it could be like you turned your system on, and the background of your screen was like, there's Michael Jackson walking around your cats, you're like, wait a second, what the fuck is going on here? So you go in and check it, and then you see what's happening, and you check in on everybody for 10 minutes, and then you go about your day. Seems like it's much better. There's no real way to do that, but that's the kind of thing I think it begs for. I think it's such a cool, interesting, great idea. And then yeah, the shareability thing of it too, is just kind of like, that part of, is kind of clashing with the other part of like, this cool, interesting Nintendo idea, and Nintendo's reluctance to be like, you know, that open and direct with sharing and social media and stuff like that. For good, you know, there's a reason they do it, which is because kids have so much of their audience, and so...

Speaker 2:
[47:31] No, totally. It's not all bad too, because again, they're not limiting what you can do and what you can say.

Speaker 4:
[47:35] It does seem weird, though, that you can't share the imagery, but you can say whatever you want.

Speaker 1:
[47:39] Well, that's why one is because of the other, like they're letting you do that. That's their reason, is they're like, well, we're just gonna make it where it's not easy to share it, and so therefore, if people go around it and do it, then they have to really go around it and do it. If that was like, hit a button, and it's on your Instagram or your Twitter or whatever, that would be a whole different also ball game.

Speaker 2:
[48:02] I think sales of this game would probably be double, whatever, and I'm not saying they're not necessarily good, but I bet you they would double. You can do it with your friends locally, interestingly enough. So we were in there, we're playing side by side, and I can send me to her, and I can send things that I made in my town, with the crafting, and you could draw and stuff. You can send that stuff, but you have to be locally in the same vicinity. It's not going to be that.

Speaker 1:
[48:26] What percentage of people are going to actually use that? It's pretty damn small.

Speaker 2:
[48:30] It's really cool, though. It's fun. I think it's like, I'm glad they made it, and it's going to be a good time for a little while, but we'll see how long it lasts. I think that's going to be the question.

Speaker 1:
[48:39] I hope they keep at that series. It seems like maybe this isn't the one. It's another good just entry in the series, but that it gets its Monster Hunter Worlds moment, you know what I mean, where they finally crack it, and it's like, oh, yes, this is the ultimate form that this idea could have taken, because it is so interesting and fun, and just weird and unique, and just not...

Speaker 2:
[49:00] It would be interesting if it was like an MMO or something, but you're not controlling the character. Your characters are living in a world, but the world is, everybody's in it.

Speaker 1:
[49:08] It makes me so happy, though, still the proof that Nintendo is still sometimes pursuing just like ideas, and like because it's an interesting idea, and like there's like a toy almost in a lot of ways, and just like, yeah, not being bottom line driven as much as people, you know, criticize them for that recently.

Speaker 4:
[49:27] I actually have a question for you. I mean, you guys, I think, are more plugged into that. Is there still that magic there?

Speaker 1:
[49:35] Like in general with Nintendo?

Speaker 4:
[49:37] With Nintendo, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[49:40] I mean, I think so. Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[49:42] I mean, I think, I think, there's a good one, Switch 2 is maybe the best game ever made.

Speaker 4:
[49:46] I know, but when was that released?

Speaker 5:
[49:49] Well, the Switch 2 version was, you know, fairly recently.

Speaker 2:
[49:52] I mean, they're still doing stuff, you know, they haven't been putting out quite as many games as I think everybody was hoping on Switch 2, but a lot of the stuff they've put out, I've had a pretty good time with. I mean, we talked about it last episode, but Mario Wonder, I had a great time with. Again, that is a little old, but it was refreshed for Switch 2. That's kind of the weird thing, is a lot of their games are getting refreshed, and so I feel like you've got a mix of old and new. It's not quite new. It's old with a new coat of paint or a new feature or something.

Speaker 1:
[50:16] Very much so. And even with Switch 1, it was all Wii U. It was like, well, shit, let's put this out on a system that people are actually going to buy for many, many years. And so there was not, I mean, you can't say that there's the level and what, frequency of pure invention that there was and kind of had to be in the earlier eras. I think there's much more, there's definitely things that are more cognizant as there is on the industry overall of the bottom line, including remakes and remasters and how you price those and how you do that. There's definitely that side of it, but I think, yeah, again, things like this do prove that there is still...

Speaker 5:
[51:01] The weirdest thing is they are still sitting on multiple titles that people are dying for a rebirth of, or just a remake or a remaster, whatever, and they're still holding on to Mother 3 and Wind Waker.

Speaker 1:
[51:15] There's more IP than they can actually do anything with, which is a problem, a quote unquote problem, but Sega, Konami, lots of people deal with. Well, and that's one of the things that they did do. It has been a bunch of years ago now, but they did have indie devs taking, like, we can't make a Zelda game as fast and as many Zelda games as possible, like, audience interest in it, so let's engage.

Speaker 4:
[51:39] 17-Bit is ready.

Speaker 1:
[51:41] Why should they're just down the fucking street? Why don't you go knock on...

Speaker 4:
[51:44] No, no, we keep throwing stones at them. We're riding on the trains, we lower the windows.

Speaker 2:
[51:49] You know, throwing stones at them, that might be why they're not answering you.

Speaker 1:
[51:53] You've been to the museum now twice.

Speaker 4:
[51:55] Is it all the mooning?

Speaker 1:
[51:56] You saw the Mario movie five times. What more can you do?

Speaker 4:
[52:00] I think the problem is I keep going back and forth. I'm vacillating between, wait, I bought a Switch 2, why are there not more games? And then I go look and I say, okay, they are releasing steadily, like game after game after game. So it's kind of an emotional reaction to you release this new console, but there's not so many games. But if I go look academically, I say, okay, they are releasing steadily. And I think that they're thoughtful about it. My only problem is that it just feels like there should be this wave, this overflow, this tsunami of games that are coming to hitting. Like, if you are on Steam, you can't even keep up with the amount of games that are coming. And so I'm not interested in the lack of quality. But I look to Nintendo and I say, I know you're going to release stuff that has quality. But why don't you give me a reason to make myself feel proud of myself for having bought your console day one?

Speaker 1:
[52:59] The new one, yeah. I think there has been a dearth of titles that really show off the hardware that aren't also available on Switch One more so than previous.

Speaker 2:
[53:11] I think the second half of this year should be the test for that, right? I mean, we don't actually know, I guess, yet. I don't because I'm not paying attention when Dusk Bloods is coming, but that's going to be like a date. No, that's what I'm saying. I said we don't know. Yeah, but I assume it's this year sometime.

Speaker 4:
[53:26] Same with Elden Ring. Splatoon is coming.

Speaker 2:
[53:29] Elden Ring, I don't care. Not that Elden Ring is great, but we've done that five years ago.

Speaker 1:
[53:33] $80, Gabe. $80 for that game.

Speaker 3:
[53:35] Day one, baby.

Speaker 2:
[53:36] We'll see.

Speaker 1:
[53:36] On Switch 2?

Speaker 3:
[53:37] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[53:38] You're going to buy it again?

Speaker 3:
[53:38] Haven't beaten on Switch 2 yet.

Speaker 1:
[53:40] What?

Speaker 3:
[53:41] Game.

Speaker 1:
[53:42] What?

Speaker 4:
[53:42] Who are you?

Speaker 1:
[53:43] You see.

Speaker 3:
[53:44] The one that likes Elden Ring.

Speaker 1:
[53:45] You have vampire crawlers, not?

Speaker 3:
[53:48] No cards in Elden Ring.

Speaker 2:
[53:49] Just to keep this moving though, is anyone playing Pragmata or is it just me?

Speaker 1:
[53:53] I wanted to ask you about that.

Speaker 5:
[53:54] Hard good things. I'm curious. I'm curious about perhaps dipping my toe in, but I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Speaker 2:
[53:59] Well, I'm only three hours in, so I haven't played a ton of it.

Speaker 5:
[54:03] The reviews have been quite good. And some of the hard to curve games on my team are also really into it.

Speaker 2:
[54:07] Really? Yeah, yeah. I've been seeing a lot of people talking about how it's like a PS3 era sort of action shooter or whatever. And I guess that's because it's kind of moment to moment, like set piece to set piece, moving through the world and exploring and upgrading your gear and stuff. And maybe that's true to some degree, but I wasn't really into it in the first hour. I've only played three hours, even though it's been out for a little over a week here, because I was kind of like, I don't know, man. But I will say I went back last night and played, I guess, hour number three or so, and it's starting to pick up. Actually, the area I was in last night was pretty cool. It's very early in the game, so everybody's probably way faster now, but the thing is you're on the moon. They've got this technology with lunar filament, I think it's called, they've got tech to basically make anything with this stuff. It's like a 3D printer that can print cities and stuff. It's starting to turn up in creative ways. The area, the second area in the game is basically this chunk that looks like New York City on the moon, like Broadway, with all the shops and neon. There's a lot of places to explore and nooks and crannies and thing. Then these also crazy enemies you're fighting. The battle system is interesting too because the girl, who you've seen in all the images, Diana, she's on your back and she hacks. You use her to hack an enemy. Whenever you see an enemy, you hack into them with her, and then you use the action buttons to move through a grid. I think it's like maybe a 16-block grid. Actually, it changes size. But you move around the grid to get to a green dot, and then when you get to the green dot, the enemy is hacked and then you can do more damage to them. You have different kinds of guns. You have the weak pea shooter that refills endlessly. You've got the stronger guns that do different kinds of things, like some can stun enemies, or some will do a lot of damage if you're right up in their face, and those are in limited supply. It very much has that old school action game.

Speaker 1:
[56:04] Do you do hacking, basically, every enemy?

Speaker 2:
[56:06] Every enemy so far, yeah. It's starting to get interesting. There have been a couple of enemies that are really terrifying looking recently that are like, a shield will go up on their face, and that shield will block the hacking, and so you have to use your eyesight, basically, to shoot down the pieces of the shield to open up the interface on the hacking window to then be able to hack. So it's kind of interesting. And you can hack stuff in different ways, too. There are enemies that shoot rockets at you, and if you hack the rocket and flip it around, you can send it back to the enemy and stuff like that. It's really beautiful, too. It's a very pretty game. The environments are typical RE engine stuff.

Speaker 3:
[56:43] How's that hair tech?

Speaker 2:
[56:45] So I'm playing on a PS5 Pro, and her hair is amazing.

Speaker 3:
[56:48] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[56:49] I've seen her on Switch 2, and I was like, oh, on Switch 2, she looks like she got some shit in her hair. You know what I mean? She hasn't washed her hair in months. But no, because it doesn't move. But on...

Speaker 5:
[56:57] Something about Mary.

Speaker 2:
[57:00] Come on, dude. She's a child.

Speaker 5:
[57:02] Well, she looks like one.

Speaker 1:
[57:03] I saw the RE9 version, the Switch 2 version of RE9, basically, recently too. I got to say, very impressive.

Speaker 3:
[57:10] Yeah. It runs well too.

Speaker 1:
[57:11] Really.

Speaker 2:
[57:12] I've heard that the issues with Switch 2 are less about visuals and more about performance and frame rate and stuff, but it runs really nice on PS5 Pro. It's tricky.

Speaker 5:
[57:21] Can I just jump in for one moment to just throw a shout out to Microsoft Flight Simulator coming out in PSVR 2 this week?

Speaker 2:
[57:28] Oh, really sweet. I saw people talking about it. I didn't know it was new.

Speaker 5:
[57:31] Insane. And that game was amazing on a 2D screen, but being in that cockpit and being able to flip all those buttons and just flying around wherever in the world you want to.

Speaker 4:
[57:41] Is this really coming to PSVR 2?

Speaker 5:
[57:42] Yeah. And I have a PS5 Pro and I have not been to this in a while. It's crazy. Have you played it?

Speaker 1:
[57:49] No, I want to see it.

Speaker 5:
[57:50] It's a simulator of being in an airplane. If you've ever been in a small airplane, it is thrilling. It's terrifying and thrilling. But you can join.

Speaker 1:
[57:58] I'm like a person who's the first time seeing a flight simulator. I was like a caveman describing, it was as if I was in Medorbox in the sky.

Speaker 5:
[58:09] Years ago for Galaxy, I went back to Minnesota with Andy McNamara in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which is where my family is from, Minneapolis area. And my mom's cousin-

Speaker 1:
[58:19] I didn't know that, my first time hearing this.

Speaker 5:
[58:21] My mom's cousin has an airplane. And so he took me up in his little, like a little, it's called a Cessna.

Speaker 1:
[58:27] It's not a Cessna, it's like a sunbird or no one cares.

Speaker 4:
[58:31] How many seats?

Speaker 5:
[58:31] It's like a Cessna, two. Anyways, we flew over the old family homestead and flew out of the city and flew over the hills. I could see where my grandparents grew up and all this kind of stuff. And you realize you're up there and you're like, this is like a Volkswagen. It's like a 68 bug with wings. There's no structure. There's nothing that's going to protect you if you go down hard. Nothing. It may as well be made of balsa.

Speaker 2:
[58:56] That doesn't sound exciting or enticing to me.

Speaker 5:
[58:58] It was very exciting. Very exciting.

Speaker 2:
[59:01] Terrifying.

Speaker 5:
[59:02] Terrifying, but also at the same time exciting. And then we went in for a landing. And just getting off the path here a little bit, but we were going in for a landing and the wind was really hard and he was really good at what he was doing. Also, I was barfed and he was really nervous because we didn't have a bag and he gave me a map and I was like, I'm trying to hold it together. Anyways, so we're coming in for a landing and he got real serious all of a sudden. He's like, all right, I'm going to have to cruise into the wind and then at the last second, turn almost 90 degrees and hit the runway. And I was like, this is how people die in small planes. I get it now.

Speaker 1:
[59:32] I totally get it now.

Speaker 2:
[59:34] And therefore, Diana has great hair.

Speaker 5:
[59:37] The point is, I can grow hair. I can relive those moments without actually having a clenched sphincter. And I'm just really excited about going on these little airplane adventures.

Speaker 3:
[59:47] You got Golden Week. You can do some real-time flights.

Speaker 2:
[59:50] This episode brought to you by the single Malt Scott Driskey, delivered by Steve Farma.

Speaker 1:
[59:54] Thank you, Steve.

Speaker 5:
[59:56] The point is, it's coming, and I'm excited.

Speaker 1:
[59:58] It's a good time for the news, maybe, then.

Speaker 3:
[60:00] Sure. All right.

Speaker 1:
[60:13] Nice lead in there.

Speaker 3:
[60:14] Now, I have to talk.

Speaker 1:
[60:15] High energy.

Speaker 3:
[60:17] So a lot of movie news related to video games coming out.

Speaker 1:
[60:21] Mario finally comes out.

Speaker 2:
[60:22] Got my Mario tickets, baby.

Speaker 3:
[60:23] Mario.

Speaker 1:
[60:23] This weekend. Don't do that. Mario finally comes out here, only the homeland. It only took it a month later than I know.

Speaker 3:
[60:33] Basically a full month, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[60:35] If only it was a Japanese movie.

Speaker 2:
[60:37] Did everybody collect all their Mario cards in the Nintendo Today app?

Speaker 1:
[60:41] I'm really happy I didn't because you didn't end up getting shit for it, did you?

Speaker 2:
[60:44] I guess they turned gold or something.

Speaker 1:
[60:46] I thought you were going to get a free popcorn bucket or something for doing that shit.

Speaker 2:
[60:51] I will get mine tomorrow.

Speaker 5:
[60:53] Did you see the Mendo and Grogu popcorn box?

Speaker 1:
[60:55] No.

Speaker 5:
[60:55] It's like a giant ad at Walker.

Speaker 2:
[60:57] Don't get me started on popcorn. This is a thing in the last several years.

Speaker 5:
[61:01] Everybody loves it. Everybody loves it. Everybody loves it.

Speaker 4:
[61:06] Everybody loves it. Everybody loves it. We have the popcorn slash light up stuff from the US. It is a thing. I have Yoshi and-

Speaker 2:
[61:16] You got the Yoshi popcorn thing.

Speaker 1:
[61:18] Oh, okay, from the original, from the original first Mario movie.

Speaker 2:
[61:21] No, the new one.

Speaker 4:
[61:22] From this new one.

Speaker 5:
[61:23] Oh, shit, cause he's already there. He's already seen it, cause he was in the States.

Speaker 4:
[61:26] Tiny bit of popcorn in his butt, and then the stars-

Speaker 1:
[61:29] $100, how much do those things cost? Is that like three of them, or four of them?

Speaker 4:
[61:32] There's like $45 to $50 each. We have no choice but to get insane, man.

Speaker 1:
[61:38] I think it's less a thing here just because there's not physical space to hold that shit, but they are coming here and there.

Speaker 3:
[61:44] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[61:45] What was the famous one? Was it Dune? That it was, okay.

Speaker 3:
[61:48] Oh, yes. Yes, yes, yes. It's the worm. Oh, yes. So Super Mario movie, Miyamoto has come out and said he's surprised by the harsh criticism that the second movie is getting.

Speaker 5:
[62:00] Oh, really?

Speaker 3:
[62:00] And he's sort of like, come on, guys, it's a fun movie. Like he's like, I get it.

Speaker 5:
[62:04] But like, you know, don't forget weed is not legal here.

Speaker 3:
[62:07] No, it is not.

Speaker 4:
[62:10] So nobody's seen it here.

Speaker 1:
[62:11] No, no.

Speaker 3:
[62:12] Okay.

Speaker 4:
[62:12] I've seen it and I am allergic to spoilers. So I will say is this is different.

Speaker 1:
[62:17] Okay.

Speaker 3:
[62:18] Okay. All right.

Speaker 4:
[62:19] But enjoyable.

Speaker 1:
[62:21] All right.

Speaker 3:
[62:21] That that movie franchise has already grossed $2 billion. You stop that. Um, moving on the link.

Speaker 1:
[62:30] Street Fighter movie stuff in there. There's a new trailer for that, right? I haven't seen it.

Speaker 2:
[62:34] Yes, it's bad.

Speaker 5:
[62:35] I think it looks kind of good.

Speaker 2:
[62:37] I'm on Team Street Fighter.

Speaker 3:
[62:38] It's bad and you should feel bad.

Speaker 1:
[62:39] The last trailer looked like garbage. I haven't seen the most recent one, but people were saying the last one looked good.

Speaker 2:
[62:45] And I'm like, no, it doesn't look exactly the same.

Speaker 1:
[62:48] All right.

Speaker 5:
[62:48] Then it takes place like in that era.

Speaker 2:
[62:51] I'm kind of I'm kind of on board and I got to say it feels like the video game or like the anime come to life and in not in the way that I wanted to.

Speaker 1:
[63:00] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[63:00] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[63:00] Sounds to me people who say that are giving up on it being actually good and are retreating back to like maybe it's kind of like just bad and cheesy.

Speaker 2:
[63:08] I'm not going to ever expect it to be good in the first place.

Speaker 5:
[63:11] We're judging it from a trailer. I'm just saying if you're going to go real live action and goofy, like embrace the funk, it's over. It looked like they're right up in it. And so far, straight up props.

Speaker 4:
[63:21] Street Fighter VI, anybody play that game?

Speaker 3:
[63:25] I did until Graham humbled me into retirement.

Speaker 4:
[63:28] I'm sorry about that.

Speaker 3:
[63:29] That's all right.

Speaker 4:
[63:29] It looks so good. I like it so much. And kids like it too. John's looking at me like I'm crazy.

Speaker 3:
[63:36] Are you talking about the magical girl that just came out?

Speaker 4:
[63:39] No.

Speaker 3:
[63:40] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[63:40] That's what you're talking about. What was this movie story about in the first place? Where were you going with it?

Speaker 3:
[63:44] The Mario Brothers series grossed two billion. There's a bunch of movie stuff.

Speaker 5:
[63:48] To be with the billion?

Speaker 1:
[63:50] Well, the first one, the first one by itself was over a billion. So, okay.

Speaker 3:
[63:56] Yep.

Speaker 5:
[63:57] But this one's only been out a month. It hasn't even hit Japan yet. And you're saying that one's over a billion already?

Speaker 1:
[64:01] The whole series.

Speaker 2:
[64:02] The first one is like 1.4 or something like that.

Speaker 3:
[64:05] It's already broken 340-something million.

Speaker 2:
[64:08] Probably more than that.

Speaker 3:
[64:09] More than that because two weeks ago it was 340-something.

Speaker 4:
[64:11] Jake Castell has tried vulture's crystals for the first time.

Speaker 3:
[64:14] We got a Legend of Zelda teaser. Deferred? Well, you can look at this picture right now, is Jake.

Speaker 2:
[64:22] You're talking about the Umami picture?

Speaker 3:
[64:23] Yep.

Speaker 2:
[64:24] Somebody posted a picture of the call sheet or I don't know what it was. It was something from the movie.

Speaker 3:
[64:28] The snap thing.

Speaker 1:
[64:29] Oh, right.

Speaker 2:
[64:30] The snap thing, yeah.

Speaker 5:
[64:31] I guess the code name was Umami?

Speaker 3:
[64:32] Yep. Code name of the movie is Umami.

Speaker 1:
[64:34] Needless to say, the whole rumor of there being a teaser trailer with the Mario movie must not have been true. Or we would have probably heard about it by now.

Speaker 3:
[64:43] But you know what is true?

Speaker 1:
[64:44] Oh, that's right, actually.

Speaker 3:
[64:45] You know what is true?

Speaker 1:
[64:46] What is true?

Speaker 3:
[64:47] They're making a Bloodborne movie.

Speaker 1:
[64:49] Oh, yes. With Jack Septic Eye.

Speaker 3:
[64:53] Some YouTuber.

Speaker 1:
[64:54] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[64:56] I guess.

Speaker 2:
[64:56] He's probably famous in the YouTube circles.

Speaker 3:
[64:58] Probably.

Speaker 1:
[64:59] He's a big deal.

Speaker 2:
[64:59] Show some respect.

Speaker 3:
[65:00] Okay. Respect.

Speaker 1:
[65:02] He's a big deal.

Speaker 3:
[65:03] It's going to be an R-rated anime.

Speaker 4:
[65:05] Respect and with respect.

Speaker 3:
[65:08] It's going to be an R-rated anime movie. Sony can't make a Bloodborne remake, but they can do this. So that seems to be what they're doing.

Speaker 1:
[65:16] I hope to check in with Tina on that next episode. Get her reaction.

Speaker 3:
[65:19] Yeah. And then I think, all right, it's back. The Metal Gear Solid movie is still happening apparently.

Speaker 1:
[65:25] It is. You're kidding.

Speaker 3:
[65:27] There's another story that just came out.

Speaker 4:
[65:30] Just in time.

Speaker 3:
[65:31] Just in time. Hollywood Reporter.

Speaker 1:
[65:33] Is there a new producer got a hold of it? It's not the same, what's his name? The big guy who? Ari.

Speaker 2:
[65:40] Yeah, Ari something.

Speaker 5:
[65:42] Is this guy still in Zelda?

Speaker 2:
[65:43] No, no, no.

Speaker 5:
[65:45] Isn't his name Ari too?

Speaker 2:
[65:46] I don't know. He's a young guy.

Speaker 1:
[65:48] Do you think there's more than two guys named Ari in Hollywood?

Speaker 4:
[65:50] The fans are out there.

Speaker 1:
[65:51] That would be crazy.

Speaker 3:
[65:52] The new game movies.

Speaker 5:
[65:53] I'm just kidding. Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[65:54] They say strike while the iron is hot, but it's like strike while the iron's iron.

Speaker 3:
[66:00] Well said. And that'll do. Oh, and the Elden Ring movie.

Speaker 1:
[66:05] Oh, yes.

Speaker 3:
[66:06] Has started casting.

Speaker 1:
[66:07] I saw a bunch of pictures of crates and barrels and shit. Did you see that? The set pictures?

Speaker 3:
[66:14] The set design stuff.

Speaker 1:
[66:15] Which is like, I guess that's what should be in a fucking Elden Ring movie props.

Speaker 3:
[66:19] We got a dodge roll.

Speaker 5:
[66:20] Do you do an Elden Ring movie years after Elden Ring if you weren't going to do a follow-up game?

Speaker 1:
[66:28] Of course, they're going to do more games, but I don't think the movie necessarily, one game was big enough that could justify it.

Speaker 2:
[66:36] Maybe they're going to do Street Fighter, the movie, the game. They're going to do like Elden Ring, the movie, the game. I mean, like real footage of actors.

Speaker 1:
[66:44] I mean, anything George RR. Martin is involved in too.

Speaker 5:
[66:47] I miss Elden Ring.

Speaker 1:
[66:48] Something. Mark and I had a lot of hundreds of hours together.

Speaker 3:
[66:53] I was there for that final boss.

Speaker 5:
[66:54] It was good stuff.

Speaker 1:
[66:55] It's like our Dunkin Egg adventures in the land of in between.

Speaker 5:
[67:01] Mark, you give me a little shit because I like to drink sake and I would start off pretty crisp by the end of the night.

Speaker 1:
[67:07] I was not drinking at the time too, which definitely made a big difference. It was like, all right, we have to prioritize what we're going to do because I've only gotten for so much time.

Speaker 4:
[67:17] Mark always had the egg timer at 45 minutes. Okay, Jake has a useless... Where are we?

Speaker 1:
[67:23] Well, no, it became, yeah, I used you for different stuff then. Then you became the decoy. When I needed you frosty, we would do certain activities. And then when I just needed you to attract mobs, then that's what we do.

Speaker 4:
[67:38] I was just telling the other day that I'm sad that I didn't just tune in and watch you guys play because there was no way for me to finish that game. I got my butt handed to me so repeatedly.

Speaker 1:
[67:48] That was part of why it was good to be playing with somebody else because I think individually we were not that great.

Speaker 5:
[67:53] It was tough individually.

Speaker 1:
[67:54] You got your poison fucking dragon breath thing though which started...

Speaker 5:
[67:57] Which I leaned on too much, I admit it, but it's really good.

Speaker 1:
[68:00] It was fun too though. It was fun even feeling like you were getting one over on the game.

Speaker 5:
[68:06] It's a good feeling.

Speaker 1:
[68:07] The early parts of that game and just not even knowing what all the game was and what the limits to it were. We raided that caravan that was rocking on and was like, dude, I just found this thing.

Speaker 2:
[68:16] Oh, I'm over here.

Speaker 1:
[68:17] I'm up in the ruins.

Speaker 2:
[68:18] Where are you?

Speaker 5:
[68:19] I'll find it.

Speaker 1:
[68:19] It's casting a spell on me. It's casting, what the hell? Wait, I think it knows we're here. It's like all of this shit that was just like discovering it in real time with another person. It was like what I really liked about Destiny Raids. But yeah, that was like magical. I was like top 10 gay moments ever.

Speaker 5:
[68:35] Getting out of this just for a moment. Are you a marathon guy?

Speaker 1:
[68:38] I did play it and I would be playing it more if I was a college kid who had no family or career or responsibilities.

Speaker 5:
[68:47] I kind of bounced off it, but a lot of our friends are moving into it.

Speaker 1:
[68:50] It needs so much time. It asks, I feel like, for so much time to get much out of it. And again, the clock is ticking because every three months it's going to get wiped.

Speaker 5:
[69:00] Why? What are you talking about?

Speaker 1:
[69:01] Well, because they just wipe all of your loot and everything, except for your cosmetic stuff every three months.

Speaker 5:
[69:09] Oh, I was not aware of that.

Speaker 1:
[69:10] Yeah, because new people need to come in and you don't want to feel like everybody's just going to get stomped on. You're not going to get stomped on by people who have been playing it the whole time and have just built up, because it's kind of PVP anywhere you go, right? But there's so much fascinating, interesting things about it, and I love the world and I love so much about it. I just, the overwhelming feeling was like, I wish I was in college. Like, if I had my quake amount of time that I had to pour into something like Quake, and again, all my friends were into it the way that they were, that's what it would take. But like, I don't know anybody who's playing it and I do not have them on time.

Speaker 2:
[69:51] What happened to our creators? The greatest game ever.

Speaker 5:
[69:54] I haven't played a video game outside of Oasis, really, since I went to Australia. Like, I've been so busy lately. I'm dying, I want to play games more.

Speaker 4:
[70:01] But he does talk about it daily.

Speaker 5:
[70:02] I'm just like, ugh, I gotta get back to it. Like, I'm desperate, but I, you know.

Speaker 4:
[70:06] And the cool thing is our sound designer, Ali, Ali Mobs, he's like, what are those people over there? We should go tempt them and shoot at them and so they can come attack us and try and murder us.

Speaker 5:
[70:19] We play together all the time and he's like, I've been MIA and he just keeps going out and get his butt handed to him. So he's waiting for me to come back and I'm desperate. I love that game. I want to get back to it. I've been so busy though, just kind of like between everything going on and trying to finish this game, which has got to be the priority right now.

Speaker 1:
[70:34] Yep. I know that feel, man.

Speaker 5:
[70:36] It's just, it's that time.

Speaker 1:
[70:37] I know that feel as it should be. Yeah. You need to put that time into it.

Speaker 2:
[70:40] It's about time to put in this podcast.

Speaker 1:
[70:42] Speaking of that, yes.

Speaker 5:
[70:43] Is there more news?

Speaker 1:
[70:44] Beautiful.

Speaker 3:
[70:45] Time is money and you know what's cheaper. Game Pass Ultimate.

Speaker 1:
[70:49] Oh, yeah.

Speaker 5:
[70:50] That was interesting. It's true. Just in time, because I know a really hot shit game pass game. Everybody get on the train. Let's go.

Speaker 1:
[71:00] Some say that's why she lowered the game.

Speaker 5:
[71:03] That's what I heard.

Speaker 1:
[71:03] She needs more people. We all want more people.

Speaker 5:
[71:06] She's like, this Oasis thing is going to blow up. We got to get everybody in line there.

Speaker 1:
[71:09] Get Call of Duty out, Oasis in, game pass price down.

Speaker 5:
[71:13] You heard it here first.

Speaker 1:
[71:14] That was the three bullet points in the e-mail.

Speaker 5:
[71:16] Oasis, let's go.

Speaker 2:
[71:17] I got to say, I can't argue with that decision to take Call of Duty.

Speaker 5:
[71:20] I don't think anyone can argue with that decision.

Speaker 2:
[71:21] As a business, you probably want your most popular franchise to not be free on day one.

Speaker 5:
[71:28] The idea that they're just bringing the price down and they're making it more affordable again and making it more attractive is something that's attractive to me.

Speaker 3:
[71:36] The Japan price drop is actually like almost 50 percent.

Speaker 2:
[71:39] No, in Japan, it's like dirt cheap. It's like 1,500 yen or something.

Speaker 3:
[71:42] It's gone from 2,750 back to 1,500.

Speaker 2:
[71:44] If you really want your Game Pass, buy a bunch of it in Japan right now because it's so cheap.

Speaker 1:
[71:47] $10.

Speaker 5:
[71:48] You can buy it.

Speaker 2:
[71:49] It's probably less than a McDonald's hamburger in America for like a year. Is it a year? It's a year of Game Pass, right? Or a month.

Speaker 3:
[71:54] A month. A month.

Speaker 5:
[71:55] You just buy one of those cards at the convenience and just stack them.

Speaker 1:
[71:57] But you can. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[72:00] People don't do that anymore. You buy them on Amazon.

Speaker 5:
[72:02] Anyways, you heard it here first. Oasis is the new Call of Duty. Confirmed.

Speaker 3:
[72:06] You know what else is confirmed, Mark?

Speaker 1:
[72:08] Weekend confirmed?

Speaker 3:
[72:09] The end of this podcast.

Speaker 1:
[72:11] Oh my god. Thank you for that, Gabe. And yeah, I guess why don't you tell the nice people what they can do with the next two weeks of their life.

Speaker 2:
[72:20] The next two golden weeks.

Speaker 1:
[72:21] Besides watching the Nico Nico Chokai Gi this weekend.

Speaker 5:
[72:25] The biggest news of the planet for sure. Nico Nico.

Speaker 3:
[72:27] That sounds fun. I will actually.

Speaker 5:
[72:28] 11 a.m. Japan time.

Speaker 3:
[72:30] You can find us on our home page, 8-4.jp. We have a thread on Resetera. Feel free to leave a comment. We have five star reviews on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen to the show. And finally, you can follow the show on Blue Sky at 8-4 Play. You can follow me on Blue Sky at Gabriel de Leon and my adventures of the blowing up, maybe, RTX 5090. Raj, where can they find you?

Speaker 4:
[72:57] You can find me on Instagram at PotatoDonkey or anything at PotatoDonkey. And please say hi to SuperShadow. My son's name is Tree. He is at the fourth grade, St. George, Seattle.

Speaker 1:
[73:08] Let's not give his address and phone number, though, Raj. Maybe stop a little short.

Speaker 2:
[73:12] What's his social security number again?

Speaker 1:
[73:14] Yeah. Here's the word that we're supposed to only family members who pick him up from school are supposed to know.

Speaker 4:
[73:19] Exactly. His uncle's name is Toy. He doesn't like it when he hugs him too hard.

Speaker 3:
[73:24] John, how about you? Just JohnTV. Mark.

Speaker 1:
[73:28] Mark MacDowell.

Speaker 3:
[73:29] And Jake.

Speaker 5:
[73:31] At most platforms, I am J-K-O-O-Z-A, Jake Housa.

Speaker 1:
[73:35] Yeah. And check out oasis.com or.jp to find out.

Speaker 5:
[73:40] Check out the new stuff. Also, fun fact, Jake Smith. I met him. I liked him immediately. I have the poster he did, that Mega Drive poster from years ago.

Speaker 1:
[73:48] Yes, we do too.

Speaker 5:
[73:48] It turns out he's born one year, one month and one day after I was.

Speaker 1:
[73:53] Wow.

Speaker 2:
[73:54] You guys should go play lotto together.

Speaker 1:
[73:55] Coincidence? I think not. Exactly. On that note, figure out the conspiracy. Connect the dots, folks.

Speaker 5:
[74:02] Jake, I promised.

Speaker 1:
[74:04] With that, I guess, who wants to take us out?

Speaker 5:
[74:09] All the people say things they like to eat. Cheeseburgers with cheese.