Hear Me Out, Pathologic 2, Tomb of the Bloodletter | Noclip Crewcast

Thank you, yo.

What up?

Gamers and non-gamers, welcome back to the noclip crewcast.

This is episode two six seven, and we're here uh, talking.

I'm so sorry, starting off on the wrong wrong foot um, we're actually short of foot.

This episode.

Danny is off this week.

He is on his way to the developers international conference expo.

What does dice stand for?

What does that mean?

You sounded so confident when you said it.

See, that's how you lie to people.

What does dice stand for?

Let's see.

Jeremy jane center investment conference.

Is that actually what it stands for?

I don't know, that seems fake.

Design innovate communicate, entertain.

Is that what it says on the website?

Is that the official one?

That's oh, the data center thing.

That's something in virginia, that's okay, i thought you were making that up too.

Oh Uh yeah, I think we need to design innovate communicate, entertain.

I like that.

Okay.

That's actually it.

That sucks.

All right.

Well, whatever.

I hope you're having fun, Danny.

Um, but we're here to have fun with you listeners for this episode of the crew cast.

We're talking about some video games later in the show, but first off, because this is Valentine's week and also this episode should be going up on Friday, the 13th.

Couldn't be more cursed.

We are going to be, uh, playing a little game, which we'll explain later.

In a second here, it's basically we're going to reveal all of our secret kinks to you live on air.

I mean, sort of a little bit, you know, it's not too far off from that.

Before we do that, we do have to thank all of the people who support the work that we do here at Noclip and Noclip2, but especially Noclip1.

Noclip1, can I call it that yet?

Are we legally allowed?

Okay prime, I like that better.

No clip zero.

Yeah, shout out to all our battle pass holders over at patreoncom slash no clip.

Who keep this podcast for now ad free.

That was a real ominous for now.

I threw in there, and that list includes Brian Baru.

Sorry again.

By the way, if you are added to this list from the previous week, we don't have access to it, so apologies if you're not on here.

Little toast, love Preet yet.

Dwayne the Rock Lobster, Anthony Thomas, Nico Passeteri, It's-a-me Ferrario.

Senator Armstrong, Reed Dredge, Harry Flanagan, Joosh Arno, Matt Pearson, Mark Rojas, quote Tucker Morgan, David McGarry Goddison, Sven Hooster, Pez Bone Mold.

I don't know why Danny always gets caught on that.

It's just bone mold, right?

Every time he says it, he's like, he reads it bone mold.

And he's like, I thought I was bone mold.

And every time I'm like, wait, didn't you just say the same thing twice?

I still don't know what's happening.

I think he's pin pen merging.

You know, it's like peeing and pan.

It's all sounds the same in his head.

He's trying to do different sounds.

I don't know.

John Akers.

You int Nate.

Tim Robinson.

Forest Pruitt.

Dark Insanities.

Jonathan Kreming.

Kremen.

Sorry.

Eric Hamilton Schneider, Christophe Fetoui, Enox, Grizzly Mug, Cameron Ladd.

Fake out.

Zachary Snader, Alex Cuchet, George Sarkotis, Jacob.

God serve, bless up, Entheogen, James Med, and Rison.

Thank you all so much for your support.

You keep us podcasting, toiling away for you to create content that hopefully you enjoy, because we enjoy making it for you.

So, like I was saying for the first half of this podcast, we'll get back to the regular conversation stuff later.

I'm sure you want to hear it.

We have tons of emails.

So thank you so much for sending those in.

Can't wait to talk about those.

A couple of video games to talk about.

Some controversy, it seems, to talk about as well.

But first off, let's start light.

Let's warm up.

Let's get excited.

I suggested to the guys that this week and we are all guys we talk about our favorite characters that we want to have a relationship with.

Part of what some may call the Hear Me Out Challenge, we came together and each individually put together lists to shout out into the void or, I guess, into the listener's ears of what characters We want to go on a date with.

Now, the rule of this, I suggested, was we don't pick conventionally attractive characters.

That is sort of the way you play a hear-me-out style thing.

Do you guys know anything?

I brought this up in the meeting and it looked like you looked at me like I was quoting a wizard from the 1600s or something.

No, I'm not.

Yeah, I'm like well aware.

The problem is just like it's like it's like it's like I have to say I'm so depraved.

I'm like, oh, what's a mild suggestion?

I have a safe one.

It's funny that that you say that, because I did sort of I prefaced it, thinking I don't want anyone to pick a conventionally attractive character for Jeremy.

I was worried you were going to pick like toe fungus creatures, which is what I want.

Yeah.

But you're like, no, no, no, I'm picking Venus Vacation characters.

Like, I'm going all in on that.

Oh, no, that's like, no.

Oh, that's too easy?

Okay, good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, I want to hear the lists.

Okay, you know what?

Let's just get into it.

Hear me out.

Hear me out challenge here on the Noclip Crewcast.

We're really scraping the barrel for the content on this one.

I got some fucking good ones.

No, no, this is going to be good.

Scraping the barrel of gourmet barrel.

You're up in Napa Valley and there's a barrel at a store and you're like I bet whatever's in that barrel is delicious.

It's whatever they make that high quality bamboo ramen.

I want to scrape that shit like a good barrel scraping.

Scrape that barrel.

All right, Jeremy, since you're so excited to scrape some barrels, let me hear it.

Let me let me hear what you're excited to go on a date with.

What?

Who?

All right.

Place.

What building?

Give me the names.

All right.

Hear me out.

The terrorist from Counter-Strike who wears the balaclava.

You can't see his face.

Okay.

All right.

Let me substantiate that.

What does he look like under that mask?

Maybe he's really handsome.

He has kind eyes, I think.

I can't really remember.

There's a few different models of him.

But more importantly...

What what drives him to you know, what motivates him?

Is he like?

Maybe he's just like some sort of fundamentalist and it's really just sort of like an uninteresting and binary quest he's on.

But maybe there's like an interesting maybe he has like maybe his family where I don't know.

I don't get too real and geopolitical here.

But, I mean, you could, maybe there's an interesting backstory, you know what I mean?

Maybe he's, like on a quest for vengeance against the Western forces that have, you know, colonized his home.

Or maybe he's just a bad guy.

You've convinced me.

And if he's a bad guy, then maybe it's like maybe he's your problematic boyfriend after that.

And you're like, so you can fix him.

I can fix him.

This is less here beyond and more.

I can fix him.

You're like a CIA operative trying to recruit new people.

I can fix him.

I could get him to flip.

Yeah.

Well, you guys like in a cute way.

Where would you go for your first date?

B tunnels.

Yeah.

I was hoping you would name a map and not like an actual place.

That's good.

We would go.

OK, I know.

I know a cute little spot.

We'd set up a table like a little Italian bistro at the bottom of the stairs and B tunnels where it connects with mid.

You know what I'm saying?

Like by the spiral staircase.

It'd be like Venice.

Beautiful.

Would you candlelight?

What are you eating?

Oh, you'd eat candlelight because it's dark in B-Tunnels.

Well, of course.

Yeah, yeah.

You could also use the flash on your phone.

I don't know.

That's not romantic.

Or flash grenade.

There you go.

I can't really see.

Honey, could you light a fucking flash bag while I open the wine as well?

So, yeah, that's my first one.

That's a great one to start on.

I'm sure we'll become more depraved over time, but that's a fantastic opener.

Frank, do you have anyone you want to drop here quick?

The one I sincerely thought about was Mokujin from Tekken.

Mokujin is like the wooden dummy in Tekken 3.

There is a female Mokujin that's more like curvy or whatever.

That's not as good.

The thing with like Mokujin that's generally fascinating is it's like it's the same thing as like Ditto and Shang Tsung.

These are all three characters.

I thought about where it's like their whole gimmick is.

They can be any character.

But, like with Mokujin, the problem is they changed their like body language, but they're still like a wooden block.

But like there's something that could be seductive and cute of just like ooh, I can be Nina Williams.

Whatever, I don't know.

But it's like oh Mokujin, and I feel like, and I feel like Mokujin's maybe an obvious pick, but I was just like that's like, but I really thought about it.

No, it's not, Frank, just to be clear.

I got a picture of Mokujin in a bikini.

That's relevant.

That's good.

Yeah, that's what I mean.

Again, it's a very good Tekken character.

But then I was thinking deeply.

If you want to cuddle or whatever, hold hands, you might get splinters.

But I don't know if Mokujin shaves down because there's wood carp.

I've had a bamboo cane that's smooth.

You could do stuff with it.

But then also, is it warm?

I feel like cuddling it or engaging with it on a physical level could scratch you or be dangerous.

But then he can mod it like Cyberpunk and do – I generally don't know.

It is just wood.

You can attach anything to Mokujin.

That's true.

Consensually, of course, as long as Mokujin is okay with it.

I want to be clear.

Everything is consensual here.

And I don't think Mokujin talks, but they could communicate.

I don't know.

I feel like they're someone who is yearning to express themselves and that's why they dress up and stuff like this.

It's like, oh, Mokujin is kind of – yeah.

I would be down to hang out with Mokujin.

Again, I'm – it's like –

Never mind.

Say it.

You started it.

Everyone's been in situations where you don't know the other language the person's speaking, but you're still doing stuff.

It's fine.

So you could be holding hands going down Shinjuku or whatever.

I don't know.

So mocha gin's cool, or they can trade you in martial arts, whatever.

But then I was also thinking of like ditto as like another similar body shape.

I don't know if ditto is like a pile of sludge, if it's gelatin, if it's silicone.

You don't like, but ditto is like a, that can be the thing that can transform to anything.

So I don't know what ditto is.

And then Shang Tsung I thought a lot about.

Because Shang Tsung can transform.

Shang tsung can.

That's his whole thing.

He's trans, he transforms into, he can be.

He can be katana, he could be melina, he could be any like he could be, you know.

But why would shang tsung want to mess with me?

He wants to steal my soul, but but it's like the whole thing of like a siren is like oh, maybe you entertain that the few moments of joy before you're killed.

So, but i'm not.

I'm not opposed to shang tsung, but i feel like i told you we're gonna reveal our kinks.

I told you that's what's gonna happen.

No, I mean, it's like, I like it's maybe it's role player acting before he's putting on performance like wrestling.

It's like doing a show.

So it's like, but I like the idea of like the the the the, the fighting game trope of, just like the shapeshifter.

They can be anything.

So I was like, yeah, I know.

But Mokojin is like, oh, that's like, I generally like that character.

And, um, Yeah, I think with Mokujin is there.

So it seems like they'd be really good at doing sort of whatever they need to be for whoever they want to be with

Feels like they get around.

And unfortunately, I feel like someday you'd come home to Mokujin.

You would be caressing their beautifully wooden body.

And then you would notice like I don't know King was here, carved onto the side of Mokujin and just be like it's over.

Our relationship ended.

Yeah, I want to know who all these changelings Interesting date opportunity, because you're like I want to know who you are Ditto.

Like, who are you for you, you know?

You're always becoming someone else.

You're always becoming a Pikachu, but with Ditto's eyes on it.

But who are you, Ditto?

Is this who you really want to be?

Is Ditto... This begs an ethical question here.

Is Ditto an animal?

Because I feel like Mokujin... is anthropomorphic enough that it's okay.

Okay.

Every Pokemon might be an animal.

This does not mean that there is not copious amounts of sexual fantasizing about Pokemon on the internet, but I do feel like I wonder.

This is a very good question.

I feel like... they eat meat in that universe.

So if they're also fighting with the animals that are Pokemon it just now, we're asking different ethical questions.

To begin with,

Do they eat Pokemon in Pokemon?

I don't know if they eat Pokemon, but they definitely eat like meat and stuff, right?

I'm Googling, do they eat Pokemon in Pokemon?

They must yes, they have to die eventually.

What are you just gonna betray their, their corpses to the earth?

You gotta?

Yeah, i guess it would be a waste.

The game is explicitly this is a reddit comment.

Thanks, reddit.

So you know, it's true, this is book is mustard.

Oh, so i mean with a name like that, the game's explicitly mentioned eating pokemon and their byproducts, slow poke tails being some of the earliest examples from gen 2, that's.

This is really sad.

I hate that.

Uh, and the restaurant power-up dishes in gen 9 even show pickled toads cruel, i don't know who that is there you go.

That answers your question where, if we're eating them, then everything's on the table, including their corpses, apparently.

I don't want to eat a pokemon.

All right well, you're a vegetarian, you wouldn't anyway.

That's a good point.

They are opening a pokemon theme park, i think, like this month in japan, and i'm like they've got to have like restaurants where it's like pika burger and stuff.

You know, i mean the kids will be so sad.

I don't know, but i'm curious what the pokemon amusement park like, what their fucking, what their food options are?

Jelly donuts, but they look like onigiri.

Yeah, i believe it wasn't, isn't a?

Is it universal japan?

At the jaws ride they serve like shark nuggets or something.

Shark nuggets.

I feel like that's fucked up.

Even though jaws is the villain, i still feel like that's fucked up.

That'd be like if you had a killer whale nuggets at the free willy exhibit.

Yeah you, i don't think you should have the food.

Be eating the flesh of a character from the film.

That's a, that's a hot take.

I have.

No, I get what you mean.

Like if you go to the, I guess Nintendo probably does something like mushroom related at the Mario thing.

Right.

At the Nintendo.

Whatever.

Yeah.

Yeah, you're right.

But it's a little.

It's a little different if you're eating like a cake that's shaped like Toad's head versus like the like Toad's flesh burger.

You know what I'm saying?

That's a good point.

There's a real ontological and psychological difference to that.

It's like you're not eating like mushroom burger, though.

I bet it is good.

I bet it is a great mushroom burger.

Yeah.

But in the world of Mario there are mushrooms that are like the power-ups.

I don't think are sentient.

And they're mushrooms.

Although they do have faces.

I don't know.

You ask?

No.

Yeah.

They got eyes.

They don't speak.

They've never spoken.

They think, therefore they are.

I heard.

Yeah.

Well, i have a lot of thinking to do.

I was reading michael pollan has a new book, the uh food journalist, food science communicator journalist guy and uh, i read an interview where he was talking about it and he was talking about interviewing this guy.

It's all about, like consciousness and in the new book he interviewed this guy who was talking about how uh, there's like more evidence than he was comfortable with that plants feel pain and i was like that sucks man, i could like if plants feel pain, i'm just gonna die because that's that's it i don't want to like.

If my existence is predicated upon causing harm to other things, that like, maybe i'll just fucking stop existing.

It's like that bit in uh, scott pilgrim versus the world, where it's like i'm a level four vegan, i don't need anything to cast a shadow.

Yeah, there you go.

I feel like I've met some guys like that.

Oh, yeah.

Well, the last point on this vegetarian shit.

Everyone makes the joke of like, oh how can you tell if someone's a vegan?

They'll let you know.

I go so out of my way to not talk about being a vegetarian because I feel like that shit is like the carnivore guys are way worse about it.

Yeah, true.

And also it's like if you tell someone that you're like oh, i think like pigs are cute, and then for the next 80 years you get for christmas, you get like pig shirts and statues and whatever.

Every time anyone talks about food, they're like oh my god, i had the best burrito the other day.

I mean, you wouldn't have liked it because you're a vegetarian.

It's like bro, you can just, i can, i could just like you.

Just tell me you had a good burrito man, it's fine, You don't have to qualify it.

I don't hear you have a good burrito, and I'm like, wow, you're going to hell.

Yeah.

Wow, I can't believe that.

I'm not going to, like, wag my finger at you for enjoying a piece of chicken.

Chicken burritos are delicious.

Don't ever shame me, please.

Okay.

All right.

Can I give you guys one of mine?

Yeah.

While we're on the conversation of, is animals acceptable?

Batlin from Metaphoria Fantasio.

Okay, wait, hold on.

Yeah, yeah.

You go ahead.

You look them up.

Batlin?

Is that not his name?

I feel like a fool now.

No, I got Batlin.

Hold on.

Like the bat creature guy?

Yeah, oh, sorry.

Batlin's the wrong person.

I was looking it up, and I was like, yeah, it gave me bat guy.

What's his name again?

See, I sound like an asshole now.

No, no, I know what you're talking about.

Is it Heismay?

Heismay?

Yes, Heismay.

Sorry, Batlin is the wrong person.

It's been a while since I played.

I thought his name would have Bat in it because Atlas is usually pretty good at naming things.

Can you give me a spelling on Heismay?

Oh, I got it.

I got it.

Okay.

All right.

No.

Oh, yeah.

I remember this guy.

This is where I stopped playing the game.

Okay.

Good.

So you know who... I'm not spoiling anything for you.

That's good.

I mean, he's on the cover, I guess.

Yeah.

Heismay, not Batlin.

Apologies.

Fake fan.

Heismay is just so cool.

He's such a great character.

I love his arc in the game.

And also...

He looks adorable.

I want to scratch behind his ears and I want to take him out and I'll feed him.

I don't know what a bats eat.

I'll feed him small bugs, probably caterpillars.

I'll do that like like I'll hang.

I'll dangle it over his mouth as he's laying in the grass, and we'll enjoy a nice view in the world that we saved in Metaphor, Rephantazio.

He's great.

I love that character.

Look at him.

I like that one.

He is cute.

I feel like, unfortunately, I have the most normal one to start with.

You guys really raised the bar or lowered it.

So I got to step it up for the next one.

All right.

I got one.

The Emerald Weapon from Final Fantasy 7.

OK, good.

Great.

Hear me out.

It's they're mysterious.

They're wandering the overworld.

What are they up to?

What is what are they doing out there?

You know?

Oh, my God.

Look at this thing.

And also they're thick as hell.

Yeah.

God damn.

Which I'm allowed to say, because it's not a person, and I have a girlfriend and she would get mad if it was a person.

If I said that about a person, it would be unethical.

But about like a robot monster, I feel like it is.

That is a good point.

Is you got to save your ass on this one and not be like yeah, I'm really into this?

I mean, you know.

I don't know if she's listening to this, but honey, I'm just joking.

That's why all of my answers are either men or like monsters, or non-anthropomorphic female characters.

Oh, I'm going to be a dad.

My kid's going to go back and listen to this.

Like, this is what you were talking about two months before I was born?

This is the conversations you were having?

Okay.

All right.

What do you put in the sockets?

This looks like where you put the materia.

What are we thinking in there?

Isn't that what the lasers shoot out?

Is that what the lasers are?

Okay.

They look like the materia orbs.

Yeah, they probably are materia that are used to shoot lasers.

I feel like you go all red.

You could put like cool, like one is like a materia that has like music, that's like blasting, like 311 and Sublime.

Yes!

Another materia is, like, the ability to use skateboards.

Another materia is, like, I don't know, maybe they have, like, a cool...

Or maybe they work at Hot Topic and get you discounts on stuff.

That's a really good material.

Yeah, the employee discount.

It also applies to the mall food court.

Dude, 5% off?

I'm so glad I hooked up with Emerald Button.

Yeah, he's equipped this material for 10% off.

They got a materia where they can always get a good table at the restaurant.

Hell yeah.

Don't have to call in advance or anything.

This is great.

All right.

Love it.

Oh, hold on.

This is such a this is such a rich area of thought I've never examined is just mundane materia.

I love that so fucking much.

Like materia from Final Fantasy seven that instead of doing magic they just enable.

Like like the ability to make a really good Italian sub.

The special one that you haven't been able to enjoy in so long?

I mean, it's fucking lost forever.

The place where I ate it as a kid, it's... Well, actually, I don't know.

Maybe it's still good because I don't eat salami, but... They need to figure that out.

We've got fake chicken.

We've got fake beef.

Why can't they do fake salami?

Maybe they can.

Where's the fake salami?

That's what I'm saying.

Where's the fake salami?

That's the stuff they put in, like, Lunchables.

That's true.

No, man, that's just sliced up rat.

That's not real food.

That's not...

I hate those things.

Okay, Frank, what do you got next?

You had Mokujin last.

Something more wholesome is there's Mimi from Super Monkey Ball.

The idea of you're actually going on a date or doing activities.

The idea of just being in one of those giant balls.

You could go snowboarding or whatever.

I don't know.

But the idea of just being in those balls is crazy.

I don't know.

The complicated maps of Super Monkey Ball are scary because you can fall and die.

But maybe Mimi can guide you.

Or two people in one ball.

Has that ever been done?

I don't know.

Maybe.

That sounds...

But I'd let them drive it.

That's awesome.

I hate driving.

I mean, driving's not bad, but I'm rare.

I'm never like a passenger in a vehicle.

So, you know, I was like, what's any racing game where the girl's the driver?

Dude, OutRun, but you switch it.

The girl is, oh, the chick from OutRun.

All right.

That's my pick.

The chick from OutRun.

I need to see this.

Oh, my God.

Okay.

All right.

I played OutRun 2 SP.

And there's a mode in Outrun 2 where it's like it's called.

I don't know if it's called girlfriend mode or girl crush mode.

So, like traditionally in Outrun, these games are playable in Yakuza, the old school Sega driving game.

Again, this will come up nonstop for like the next six months.

I've been playing every Japanese racing game.

Oh, I love it.

I love it.

So Outrun, you're driving down the California coast essentially.

And then there's like just a blonde girl ponytail in the passenger side.

It's just a free aesthetic.

Outrun 2, there's a mini game where your girlfriend is constantly giving you commands.

Like, I want to see a cool drift.

I want to see you like get 10 near misses with cars.

I want to go this route.

And like her crush meter swells up.

And by the end of the date, at the end of the thing, it's like if you get to like s rank, maybe get a kiss, if you get anything below s rank, there's like a cut scene where you get to the end of the destination and the girl sees you.

You're sitting on your like lamborghini or whatever, and the girl has these heart size, she runs towards you, you stand up to give her a hug and she runs past you and she hugs the car instead.

So but like yeah, i would, i would, i would generally like to go on a date with a, with the outrun 2 chick, and then just, i want to go on a date with the outrun car.

Yeah, that's the ending.

She picks the card instead of the guy.

But the girl from Outrun would be good too.

She sounds so toxic though, because you guys are out and she's like I want to see you fight that guy.

You're like, what do you mean?

I want to see you almost hit 10 cards.

Do you want to see my crush meter keep building or what?

What the fuck are you talking about?

Go jump off that.

You're like, I don't want to do that.

Anything for you, sweetheart.

Can't you just chill?

You know, that's what love is.

That's the cost of love, okay?

Emerald Materia or Emerald Weapon would never make me do this.

Okay, well, you know what would make you commit some heinous crimes?

My next pick, Knifey from High on Life.

Now, listen.

Listen, that game is...

Dumb as hell.

I enjoyed some of it.

I thought it was.

You know it's got that Rick and Morty humor, but it's still.

I think it worked at points and it was actually surprisingly an okay game.

But Knifey is this Australian voiced knife that just wants to stab things constantly.

It will vocalize the fact that it wants to do stabbery.

It's like people are like hey, don't stab me with that knife, man.

It looks like it's going to stab me.

I'm ad-libbing.

Please laugh at my joke.

And then they get stabbed by your cool knife.

Now, the reason I want to go on a date with Knifey or perhaps begin some sort of courtship is I think I could fix him.

And I think I could.

You know if I could sign him up to start doing work.

You know I don't want to change someone to make them fall in love with me, but I feel like he's got so many opportunities to really elevate himself in his career.

Like, you know, you've got all these talents as a knife.

You could do so many things.

It'd be like a sort of reverse Ratatouille situation, where you're the knife, not controlling the person.

The person's controlling you.

And you you, you create a relationship built on a mutual understanding for the love of food and cuisine.

And then he could cook for me.

And that would be great.

And he's got a great Australian accent and has a short fuse.

So I have to teach him how to regulate his emotions.

I like that one.

I haven't played this very hard about this.

No, I like this.

I like the ratatouille angle as well.

Having a sentient knife.

That is like guiding you through, through.

You know, chopping an onion or whatever.

Yeah, exactly.

They could still do it for me, but they let me take over sometimes.

It's like you know when you're you're doing pool with somebody, like you're playing pool and not in the pool behind them.

Yeah, you're like, exactly.

He's guiding me.

Exactly.

Yes, we're doing pottery together.

But instead of pottery, it's it's cutting up vegetables and then cooking a delicious meal.

The thing is, he can't do the cooking.

He's just a knife.

He would have to do all the cutting.

He'd be a great sous chef. but not quite a good, you know, chef, chef, chef, chef.

Yes, chef, chef.

That's a good one.

OK, you're hard to do anything with them, though.

Kind of sharp.

Yeah, that's true.

All right.

I got one.

Yeah, let's go.

I got I got to get this one out there.

OK, hear me out.

Game show where Ornstein and Smaug compete for your affection.

OK, all right.

Duo boss from Dark Souls one.

So like a like a dating game style situation where you're like on one side and it's like contestant number one.

You know, if you had a giant hammer and you were going to beat the shit out of Jeremy, where would you hit him first?

Yeah.

Also, like they're always they're always teaming up against me.

I would like them to compete for my affection instead.

Sort of an inverse of the boss fight where they beat the shit out of you in that room with all the pillars.

You know, I like that.

That's good.

It's like the ending of Double Dragon.

They got to fight for your love.

Yeah, that's good.

I don't know that reference, but that sounds correct.

I swear it's real.

I think Frank was nodding.

OK, good.

We're good.

Yeah.

I don't know.

And also they're like, I want to get to know them.

What are they all about?

You know, Dark Souls is so mysterious.

And the lore is like.

You find that you know, like a penny on the ground that is like this was John's penny.

John was known as.

Well, unfortunately, that would be the answers you would get would be like riddles.

It would be like, you know, if you're going to take Jeremy on a date, where would you go?

And they'd be like, well.

Back in 1193, Philip the Gore.

Yeah, yeah, like exactly.

You'd have to listen to Vati Vidya explain to you why you shouldn't or should, go on a date with Ornstein and Orsmo at the same time.

Oh, that's a great, he would host, Vati Vidya would host the game show.

I think this is great because you're just pitching a video we should do on Noclip too.

Yeah.

All right.

Let's get up body and it's going to be a dating show with Dark Souls bosses.

Perfect.

I love it.

I looked at a list of every Dark Souls boss to see if there were more of them for the hear me out.

But we're seeing small seem like the strongest one.

I will say, though, there was a lot of a lot of strong candidates.

Vicar Amelia for Bloodborne, you know, the dog that the dog has a towel on its head.

True.

Good.

There's a lot of good ones in Bloodborne.

A lot of freaky freaks in that one.

Yeah, actually, can I drop a Bloodborne one right now?

Yeah, absolutely.

Hear me out, Father Gascoigne.

Okay, Gasqueigne, hopping in there.

What are you doing with Father Gascoigne?

Are you attending Sunday Mass and then see what happens after?

We're going to do what I always used to do when I lived in Oakland, which is go to the cemetery and smoke a fat one.

Okay, that's actually lit yeah, because that's where he hangs out already.

You know what i mean.

So he's like cool, he's kind of i don't know, he's kind of hot, i uh.

He's got like a weird blindfold on but he's got like a nice face and outfit.

He's kind of dripped out with this, you know dickensian uh, witch hunter kind of.

Look yeah, and uh yeah, i don't know.

And if things go poorly, i mean you know, and he gets upset at somebody, say someone tries to mug you in the middle of the night that seems to happen in that sort of world.

You can just turn into a big freaky dog monster and save you.

Yeah, for sure.

I feel like that one doesn't, I don't even really, that's not even really a hear me out.

It's just like, if you say Father Gascoigne, people are like, yeah, he's hot.

As soon as you play the game, you're like hey, I want to, I want to hit up Father Gascoigne for sure.

It's sort of like a Beauty and the Beast situation.

How much I'm not going to Google it, but how much rule 34 porn do you think there is a father?

That's going so much like unlimited amount.

He probably took over Tumblr.

It was him in the once.

We're just like hanging out for hours.

If you Google father, he has going daddy.

I feel like a you'll be put on a list and be you'll have a wealth of materials.

He is quite zaddy-pilled, for sure.

I look at him and I'm like, yes, that's my boy right there.

Father Gascon.

Okay, Frank, what's up next?

What are we hearing out?

I did look it up.

It looks like there's 48 pieces of art of Father Gascon on Rule 34, so there's a handful.

That's substantial.

Yeah, I don't know.

I feel like I vaulted all my, like, creative ones.

I mean Bijou from.

I was trying to think of characters outside of video games, but there's Hamtaro, Ham Ham Heartbreak, which is technically a video game.

Oh, yeah, okay.

So, like, Bijou the hamster's cute.

I don't have Bijou.

I have Hamtaro, but, like...

Hamtaro, like the, the, the, the girl in Hamtaro Bijou, the like cute little French hamster.

I don't know, but you can't, it's a hamster, but you could put it in a cage.

Oh, with like the little bows and the hair coming off the side.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

I don't know, but it has like a French accent.

Oh, Hamtaro, you know, are the Japanese version.

In this situation, are you yourself a ham ham or are you Frank Howley?

It could just sit on top of like, like I have so many figures.

It could just sit on the shelf in a cage, whatever.

I gotta do much with it.

You can just get a hamster, man.

You can just do that.

I don't want, I don't want to be responsible.

Like I don't, I barely take care of myself.

My mom is doing a good job.

I don't, I can't, you know, I don't want to look after any other life form.

That's fair.

Okay.

Bijou is a good pick.

I like that.

Bijou is cute.

Yeah.

I feel like they'd be great to go like do crane games with.

Cause if you don't win, you can just send Bijou in there and they'll steal it for you.

Oh, my God.

Yeah, see?

Okay, okay.

I like that.

I like the way you think.

It's got utility.

That's cute.

I like that one.

Okay, hear me out.

A bean from Among Us.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

One of the little Amongers or whatever.

Oh, it's not a fall guy.

It's the same shape, right?

Same, same basic idea, yeah.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I think from the same place Jeremy's coming from.

With the terrorists, you can't see what their face is.

The terrorists from Counter-Strike is you can't see what their face is.

So it's like, it's intriguing.

What's under there?

Are you really an astronaut?

They got to have money, right?

Like, if you're going into space, I have to assume you've got like a career, you've got some cash.

You know I'll be your pay pick or you can be my pay pick.

That's the order.

That's the way I want it.

And I also just they seem good at tasks like household chores.

I feel like they'd be really useful.

They could do things for me that I need done.

And also, I kind of want to know what's going on under there, like past the face.

What's your anatomy like?

Because I've seen the scans, and I don't know.

I don't know everything else going on underneath that suit.

Yeah, it's just one bone, right?

Exactly.

Is there a second bone that I want to know more about?

Now we're asking the real questions.

You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, I like that one.

Danny's gone for the most Danny thing.

He would love this.

Dog from Half-Life.

That would be his pick, probably.

Dog from Half-Life?

He'd be all over that.

The antlion from half-life yeah oh man, got a lot of legs very long.

Um yeah, being from among us, i feel like they'd just be a great partner.

Uh jeremy, you got anything else?

Yeah, hear me out.

I'm not gonna elaborate on this one, because i feel like it explains itself.

I'm just gonna say the name and then i'm gonna immediately do a second one.

Hear me out, miss pac-man.

Okay, yeah.

I said no conventionally attractive people, but that's fine.

I just.

There's a million jokes I could do and I'm not going to do them, but you could.

Hey, this is a Waka waka.

This is a BYOJ.

This is a Bring Your Own Jokes segment.

Ms.

Pac-Man, just think about it.

Just think about her whole thing.

Her whole thing?

Let's move on from that.

All right.

Goro Majima.

Wait, actually, could I... Goro Majima's great.

I said again, no conventionally attractive, but he's kind of scary.

But I follow up to your Ms.

Pac-Man.

I have the orange Pac-Man ghost.

Oh, OK.

Right now, double date.

Yes.

Well, no, they wouldn't get along.

So, well, no, that's fine.

That's that doesn't matter.

You and I get along.

Doesn't matter if your partner gets along on the double date.

We're going because we're friends and we're hanging out.

We brought our partners to, you know, when we need a second away from each other, we can go to them.

That's what double dates are for.

But what if you and I go to the bathroom at the same time together and they're at the table alone?

All right.

Then they'll both scroll on their phones the entire time and like, maybe ask each other if they watch the recent sports game.

Neither of them will have watched it and then they'll just go back to scrolling.

What if Miss Pac-Man eats a power pellet and then she eats your date?

Well, let's not go to the restaurant that has power pellets.

The problem's all.

That's true.

All right.

Now, you seem to have thought this through a lot.

So, you know, I don't want to say this is a fantasy I'm trying to share, but, you know.

The reason it's the orange Pac-Man goes, by the way, is he looks like he tastes the best.

I feel like the red one would be a little too tart for me.

So you're going to eat your date?

Well, look, I don't want to get too specific about what's going on after the dinner, but you know.

Okay.

What flavor do you think the Pac-Man goes, sir?

Oh, that's a that's a really good question.

I mean, you eat a Pac-Man ghost.

Let me get the names because one of them's like Blinky, right?

Yeah, we got Clyde, Blinky, Pinky and Inky.

OK, well, Pac-Man is lemon flavored, obviously.

But yeah, is Miss Pac-Man also lemon flavored?

Hmm.

Okay.

Pink lemonade.

Okay.

I like that.

I don't know why she's pink lemonade, but I do like it.

Because it's a more feminine form of lemon, I think.

Okay.

How about we stop gendering flavors?

I mean, guys can wear pink, but I'm just saying pink lemonade has a certain feminine quality to it.

That's a good point.

I don't know why I'm being picky all of a sudden.

This game is hilarious.

Okay.

Blinky, red, strawberry, right?

Or cherry.

What do we think?

Yeah.

Cherry or strawberry.

Yeah.

Okay.

And then pinky is blinky is cherry and pinky is strawberry watermelon.

Uh, watermelon's okay.

I kind of like like cream something, some sort of cream like cream soda, but like that flavor is not quite good.

All right.

Clyde is orange.

So it's orange.

Yeah.

Duh.

Problem solved.

Uh, inky is blue, freezy, specifically blue, freezy flavored.

I'm thinking Inky is Riptide Rush, like Gatorade.

Okay.

That's probably roughly the same flavor.

So I like that.

That's good.

Or Baja Blast.

Inky could be Baja flavored.

Yeah.

All right.

Thank you for humoring my inquiry.

There's one more we need to go over.

What's Sue?

What would purple taste like?

Wait, no, sorry.

That's a stupid question.

Sue is a purple ghost, apparently.

Sue would just taste like purple.

There's no question there.

Done.

Problem solved.

Oh, okay.

She tastes like purple drink.

I forgot about Sue.

She's sassy.

Yeah.

She's only a Ms.

Pac-Man, it looks like.

Oh, all right.

Yeah, she'll show up at the restaurant with another date.

Frank will bring Pinky and we'll be like, hey, wait a second.

Or not Pinky, sorry, Sue.

We'll be like, whoa, it's a reunion.

OK, you were also saying Goro Majima.

Yeah, I mean, conventionally attractive guy.

But but for those, you know, no spoilers, obviously.

But for those of us who have played Yakuza 0, he's a band with some real like depth to him, you know.

As the Yakuza franchise.

So you're dating Yakuza 0 Majima, not the rest of the series Majima.

I like to think that underneath the I'm like a psycho clown facade that he wears most of the time, he is still the same man.

So I'm saying that the Majima that I prefer, the Majima that I like and value, is deep beneath the facade, the WWE persona that he puts on in most of his appearances.

But I know underneath there, there's a real man of depth, a real man of sensitivity.

And much like the Yakuza franchise has veered into...

You know, at some point they did a sub story where there's like there's a wacky sub story and this guy like shits his pants.

And then they were like, oh, my God, people love this.

Let's be wackier.

I feel like I like the more grounded side of Yakuza and I want to see the more grounded side of Majima.

You know, I want to get to know him a little better.

Frank, do you have thoughts on this?

Because you're you're the master of the Yakuza series at this point.

Do you feel as though Majima is a guy who goes home and takes his mask off, or is he just the Joker all the time?

No, I mean, like, there's so many.

It's so funny because pirates, you spend the whole time with them.

But, like, in pirates, he is so, like, sweet to this kid, and he puts that mask down with this kid.

So I'm like, yeah, you know, I feel like.

Also, Majima's got to be the most well-connected man.

True.

You know, he can get you into anywhere.

I need a friend like him.

This guy's just okay.

This guy's just cool.

Trust me.

Yeah.

But, yeah, Majima's got so much depth.

He's cool.

Okay.

Perfect.

Yeah.

I like it then.

That's good.

Where are you taking him?

Batting cages?

First date?

We're going to the cabaret club he works at.

No, I would probably take him... Yeah, batting cages would be a good one.

Although in the Yakuza movie, he's very angry at the batting cages.

And he hits that guy with a baseball bat because he doesn't read the Nikkei enough, the Japanese stock newspaper, or whatever it is.

So I feel like maybe something a little lower key, like...

I don't know, get some takoyaki and walk around, walk over that bridge by the elevator.

Ooh, walkie-talkie-yaki would be good.

Walkie-talkie-yaki.

Sorry, sorry.

That'd be good.

I like that.

Yeah, yeah.

Mmm.

But see, if you get them all sweaty at the batting cages, that might be fun too.

Different reason yeah, i guess.

So i just don't want to get him all worked up because it's like i want to know the sensitive side of him and i feel like as soon as i get him in the batting cages, he's fucking.

He's doing his like here, you chan, you know, he's like getting all fucking worked up and it's like yeah, that might be a before you take him home thing to do.

Yeah, with the batting cages, get them all, get them all revved up, get the engine warm.

I take him to like a, to like a bookstore.

Okay, you know what i mean.

Yeah, Like a, just like a coffee date and like a very casual.

Let's get to know each other.

We get a coffee and we walk around the bookstore.

We'll go to Indigo.

Sorry.

We'll go to Barnes and Noble.

Wait, what's Japanese bookstore.

What's the, is there like a brand?

Is that, I never know the name.

I've been, I've been, I've, I've gotten a handful of, I don't know the chain name.

Okay.

Uh, well you go to a Japanese bookstore, whatever it's called.

And you guys do the, the book exchange thing.

You, of course, get him like Dostoyevsky, cause you're, you have a you know brain in your head and he gets you, I don't know, like a good night moon or something like that, a children's book.

I feel like he's really into that.

He's hating him, but like brothers karama karamazov, whatever the fuck it's called, and he's like i don't, i don't want to read this.

There's no pictures.

I've never read that book, so i wouldn't buy it for him.

I only have one eye.

This is very disrespectful of you.

It's too many letters um, really good one thing you could.

If so, there's book off which is like the secondhand store.

But a cute thing to do is go to the movie section and maybe jeremy picks out like an american or, you know, pick out like a toy.

So yeah, so yes, and he picks like an american movie for you.

I don't know.

But you guys, you can browse the secondhand dvds and be like oh, have you seen?

Uh, speed break, that's fast and furious, or whatever, like fast break um, but yeah yeah, picking movies together.

He would pick you out.

Supersize me if you were picking up.

No no, like you guys like this stuff.

Right, i would get him like a tokyo twilight and he would get me like um, lethal weapon three Oh, wow.

Oh.

Terrible date.

All right.

Love it.

What, you're a big Lethal Weapon 3 fan?

No, I don't even know which one that is.

Oh, okay.

I've seen some of those movies.

I don't know which one.

Four is where they bring in Jet Li, I think.

See, that one's good because it has Jet Li in it.

Yeah, Lethal Weapon 3.

It's the one with Joe Pesci, yeah?

Yeah, yeah.

I'm looking at it here.

Wait, there's one with Joe Pesci?

Yeah.

I might have skipped this one.

It's funny because on the poster they look like they're all roughly the same height, but you know they're not all roughly the same height.

I'm going to watch this tonight.

Yeah, you should do that.

We should do that as the movie pod for this month.

Lethal Weapon 3.

There is like a Super Nintendo.

I think there's a Super Nintendo Lethal Weapon game.

There you go.

We figured out a way to do it.

Let's do it.

All right.

Come to Patreon.

No, I don't know.

We got to do something, though.

OK, I think we're coming up on the end of this, but I do have a couple more here.

Jeremy, this one's for you.

We've been talking about the SimCity 2000 a couple of times.

Hear me out.

The Darko Arcology building in SimCity 2000.

Go ahead.

Look it up.

Go ahead.

Look it up.

Hold on.

That's a deep cut.

Darko Arcology.

Yep, from sim city 2000.

You said from sim city 2000.

All right, let's see.

Oh wait, the one that's kind of like um trapezoidal or whatever sort of uh no, it's.

There's one that looks like a uh, like a xenomorph almost yes, or like a building from the black panther movie.

Okay, look at this thing.

No, i like that.

I want to see what's going on inside.

I want to go in there.

You know, not even in that kind of way.

I just I want I want to take it out to dinner.

I want to ask it what its dreams are.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

How did you end up like this?

You know, because this is a weird shape.

You know, what are your parents like?

I like this pick and it makes me think there are so many giant evil corporations in the world, and especially in America.

Dude, in the building suck.

How are none of them in a big evil spire?

Yeah, it's brutal.

Why isn't Palantir in this building?

Yeah, the closest thing I can think of, and I don't know what the building is actually for.

It's the only thing I can think of.

In Macau, I don't know how you say it.

There's that one giant building that looks like it's something from Final Fantasy VII.

Let's look it up.

M-A-C-A-U building.

It's like it's the one building everyone talks about.

It looks so sick.

That looks like where Jeff Bezos is supposed to live.

Like no disrespect to that city or the people who own that building.

But like it looks like that's a supervillain.

Like it looks like it's going to fly off of Earth and like shoot a laser at us or something.

This building looks like it was designed so that Alex Honnold could not climb it.

They finally figured it out.

They beat his ass.

They're like, all right, we'll be safe at the top of the tower.

They're like, sir, but what if that guy from Free Solo comes?

Fuck, I didn't think of that.

Slayer it outward at the top.

He'll never reach us up here.

It's a V7 at least.

That's for all my climbers out there.

Okay.

Is that something that comes up in Cairn, by the way?

Do they do that?

They do talk about grading of boulder problems in the beginning in the training gym a little bit.

They don't talk about it.

They just have graded problems.

What a video game.

What a cool video game.

I want to play more of that.

Can I just briefly say I made a video on Cairn and it's coming to Noclip 2 soon.

It might be out by the time this is out.

I don't actually know.

Please watch it.

I've seen the video.

It's good.

You should watch it.

Yeah, it's great.

Thank you.

Jeremy's really good at talking about why things are good.

Can you believe it?

He's been doing it for years.

Frank, I know we're coming up on the end of at least... your list, right?

You were sort of... You got all your good ones out.

Is there anything else that's come to mind since we've been talking?

Yeah, I was, like, thinking of the world of, like, survival horror.

Like, everyone knows the nurses from Silent Hill 2 are... That's, like, conventionally attractive.

I was like, hell yeah.

But then I was thinking, like, alright, Resident Evil's got Lisa Trevor and, like...

I was thinking, can you rehabilitate her, introduce her back to society?

You know, because she comes out of the caverns screaming.

What if she just wants, you know, just a friend?

I don't know.

Bro, you're let me fixing her.

Let me fix her-ing to a woman who wears her parents' skin and lives in a basement.

Yeah, I don't know.

That's a challenge.

Imagine trying to teach her how to play DDR at round one.

You'd be like, all right, try level three.

Where are you at?

She'd probably be good as hell at fucking Tycho Drummaster smashing the drums.

Might break the machine and it has the call attendance sign come up.

But I don't know.

I feel like someone should give Lisa Trevor a shot.

I'm not saying she's for me, but I don't know.

I feel like they were too quick to push Lisa Trevor into the cavern abyss.

I don't know.

I hope Lisa Trevor comes back in Resident Evil 9 or whatever that's coming out in two weeks.

She generally might.

There's like a... I don't know.

But...

And then I was also thinking survival horror, just the idea of taking the ghost from Fatal Frame on a date.

Okay.

Well, don't take any selfies with it.

Yeah, I don't know.

There's something like – then you're not alone.

Maybe when I'm going to round one playing TDR by myself –

Oh, this is awesome.

Yeah, I don't know.

I just like the concept of taking the ghosts from Fatal Frame out.

Because they're stuck up in that mountain town.

That shit sucks.

Take them down to Nagoya or something.

I don't know.

Take them on the Shinkansen.

I don't know.

Bring them out from the... Or even the mannequin freaks from Silent Hill.

I mean, those are already hot.

But like, you know, I don't know.

I don't know.

Just get them out of the country.

Bring them to, you know, the city.

I like the Lisa Trevor one, especially because you know the scene in every 90s, early 2000s rom-com where the girl takes her glasses off.

It's her, but she's taking her parents' skin off of it.

Underneath all that horrible skin, she's beautiful.

Her arms are bound.

What if she didn't do that?

Then she could take care of herself.

Wash, shower, put on makeup.

She's really misunderstood, I think.

No one's giving Lisa Trevor a chance, you're right.

Yeah, yeah.

That's a great pick, man.

I like that one.

Jeremy, do you have any more or are you all tapped in?

I got two more.

Okay.

One is real.

And Well no, they're both conventionally attractive, but they're still both interesting.

Okay.

Jenova from Final Fantasy VII.

Okay.

Googling.

Spoilers incoming for Final Fantasy VII for the next one minute.

Very mild spoilers.

Well, no, kind of a big spoiler.

Okay.

Funny to date Jenova.

She's attractive.

She is, again, spoiler incoming, three, two, one.

Jenova is an alien.

That's interesting.

She's also Sephiroth's mother, kind of.

So, like, you could be Sephiroth's stepdad.

You could be Sephiroth.

But it would be hilarious to be his stepdad.

Like how funny is that you could be the, the seph that stepped up or whatever.

Yeah, i don't know something like that.

Uh like just imagine, like he's already such a moody piece of shit sephiroth is.

That'd be so funny that he's like he's like the most.

You're not my real dad, ass.

Oh yes, like a personification of you're not my real dad, Yeah.

So being his stepdad is so funny to me.

Do you just piss him off?

He slams his door and just has Avenged Sevenfold playing it like way too loud.

Turn that shit down.

No son of mine is going to listen to Black Sabbath.

So, yeah, mostly that one is I feel it's a little I'm not like using Jenova.

I think she is a beautiful alien lady.

But but mostly it's funny because you're Sephiroth's stepdad.

I'm looking up Jenova here.

I didn't know any of this, by the way.

I don't care about, no, it's fine.

I don't care about spoilers.

I love that this is the opportunity to like make this all happen.

Because I thought for whatever reason, she was like a body on her own that she could control.

But this is just like a woman in a tank.

Yeah, nothing she could do, just like come visit her every a couple days.

Hey, you know she.

Just so.

You know sephiroth ate all of the slices of cheese and he didn't even make a sandwich out of it.

She comes out of the tank at some point, but it's uh.

Yeah, i don't need to spoil the game anymore.

All right, we'll just have to wait for final fantasy 7 revive or whatever the last one's called.

No, i don't play that shit.

Come on, it's the best way to play it.

Square enix told me so.

Nah, Don't you want to see your future girlfriend Jenova, or potential wife, in full HD on your PlayStation 5 Pro?

No, because I'm just going to play Crisis Core, and she looks amazing.

Okay.

I did play Crisis Core, so I guess I knew that, but I just forgot.

That's all right.

I don't know how much lower they drop in that.

That game's long, man.

We never watched the fucking Final Fantasy 7 movie.

Oh, yeah, Advent Children.

Yeah, we were supposed to watch that.

Holy shit.

We can still do it.

All right, let's do that.

It's February.

It's the month of love.

Also Black History Month.

So that makes perfect sense.

Which for me is the month of love.

Exactly.

It's, yeah.

Good save.

Sorry, you don't have to.

I meant it in a positive way.

Martin Luther King Jr.

I mean, that's not even hear me out.

He's a hot piece of ass.

Yeah, that's true.

He is.

I don't know.

I say that respectfully.

The most kindness you could offer is that Martin Luther King Jr. is a piece of ass.

He's a wise and intelligent piece of ass, is what I meant.

All right.

Awesome.

Love it.

Okay.

Hear me out.

I'm never going to top that, but whatever.

I got two more here as well, or one more here.

Hear me out.

The Ultra Hand from Tears of the Kingdom.

Okay.

Yeah?

Yeah.

Not the body, not the spirit, just the hand.

I want that.

Sell me on this.

Think about it for a second.

You have a wise, knowledgeable, sweet voice coming around with you everywhere.

Yeah, yeah.

They tell you what's going on.

They can tell you the history of the world.

And they also help you manipulate objects at your own will.

Imagine what you could do with that.

A lot of fun stuff.

Yeah.

No, I like this.

The hand has kind of a like a little bit like cool, scary guy quality to it as well.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, it's a little dark.

It's a little.

It's a little fucked up.

You know, kind of looks like one of those things that you could you'd get tattooed on you and people think it's cool.

Yeah, I like that one.

It's got ridges, too, so it's ridged for your pleasure.

It's nice.

You can do a lot with that.

You lost me.

All right.

Well, that's fine.

You can attach stuff together.

Think of the... Like, we were talking about Mokujin.

You could attach stuff to Mokujin.

You could attach anything to anything with this Ultra Hand.

You could make Mokujin.

Yeah.

You could.

It's true.

And then you could date Mokujin instead.

Yeah.

Yeah, I like that one.

Okay, okay.

What's your last one, Jeremy?

My last one is Mesper the Impaler from The Elder Drake DLC.

Mesper the Impaler.

Because he's a hot Nepo baby and he's problematic and he's like a spoiled rich kid.

So it would just be fun to like do MDMA with him and be like get into clubs in New York or whatever.

I don't know.

I don't know what you do when you hang out with Nepo babies, but I feel like it'd be a fun one night stand.

Okay.

Is Mesmer the inhaler?

The impaler, not the inhaler.

Sorry.

That's the guy with asthma.

You're thinking of a different guy.

Mesmer the inhaler just like can't run for more than two minutes.

Okay.

All right.

Now I'm seeing the design.

I wrote.

I originally wrote Mesmer the inhaler and I was getting a bunch of like fat suit characters.

I was like, I don't think this is the lanky, exciting character that Jeremy's talking about.

Oh, my God, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Wow, that's great that someone else has made that fucking bit.

Yeah.

Oh, I love that.

Okay, Mesmer the Impaler.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I dig it.

I dig it.

This is a cool look.

Plus, it's Elden Ring, so you could go anywhere with him.

You could, like, ride horses together.

That'd be nice.

Yeah, you see that restaurant over there?

You can go there.

You can climb it.

It's pretty nice.

Miyazaki would approve.

Okay, my last one.

The Insolindian Phasmid from Disco Elysium.

That's a great one, yeah.

Yeah, I feel like we shouldn't talk too much about this one because it is spoilery, but I love this one.

I mean, it could just be a concept.

You, if you played the first 10 minutes of the game, you get the idea of dating, a cryptid of some sort.

Whether or not it's real, it's exciting to get with them.

You know, that's true, I love that.

Yeah, so many places you could go.

All the all the places we could go like uh, somewhere else in the world of Disco Elysium, any anywhere else but that city, I don't like that place.

And he said oh, the places we can go.

My brain was like oh, you can go to Japan.

True, true.

So true.

Like, it's already kind of like got chopstick fingers, right?

So it's like you could just get right in there.

You don't have to carry utensils around.

It's perfect.

Get some udon.

Frank, if you're going on a date with a large bug, consider this for a second.

In Japan, where are you going?

What are you getting for a meal?

I want to go to the Toyota Museum.

Oh, wait, no.

You're eating cars?

What are you doing at the Toyota Museum?

All right best honestly, i like going to sushiro.

It's the rotating sushi place, but like oh, that'd be good.

Compared to america, it's so cheap.

The legit best place to go is uh, tori zoku, which is a the yakiniku place and it's like you know, you can get chicken skewers for like two bucks each, and what large uh uh, strong lemon sour.

So you get mugs of alcohol and it's so cheap and everyone hangs out.

It's awesome and like it's not infested with tourists.

It's weird.

I thought like i didn't go there till like my fourth trip.

It's, it's well, it's a super well-known chain in japan, but it's not like the, the like oh, it's like, if you don't, you don't see that many guys in there um, in my experience.

So tori zoku is like a great place to go with friends.

So sure, lots of places we can get small bite seat but um yeah, in terms of like that next level stuff, i don't know i'll i'll, i'll come back to my japan trip, probably more knowledge, i don't know.

Yeah, but tori zoku you can go anywhere.

It's fantastic.

This looks awesome.

I'm looking it up now.

The menu looks great.

Like, it's nice to have budget food like this.

I wish we had more places like this in at least in Canada.

I know we have a lot of Japanese restaurants, but not like cheap, quick eats.

It's a lot of like sit down a la carte or like all you can eat.

But, you know, you got to pay 40 bucks and you got to get your money's worth.

And then it's like I'm eating 10 pounds of sushi I don't want.

That's why like, the only time, that's why like, i think there's like a weird thing where i compact all my joy in the japan trip because it's the only time of the year.

I'm like oh, i'm gonna go out to a restaurant.

When i live home i am so hyper frugal i don't spend you know like like, but um, but when i'm in japan.

But also it's way more affordable and i misspelled it.

Or it's torii kizoku okay, but um, but yeah, in japan everything is like the equivalent of the end.

Exchange is like half off and stuff is already and you also don't have to tip because they pay everybody.

Like it's like, it's yeah so, so.

But tori kazoku was kind of like the spot where i was like oh, this is, any night of the week is fun and it's a good thing to go with friends.

It is funny that part of uh, part of the joy for you of going to japan is just like what if i lived in like a place that was walkable and affordable like, because japan has its own amazing things about it culturally, it's like whatever.

But it's funny that that's.

I always have this like sharp, like weird, like fomo thing of like.

When i'm on the train getting out of the airport and i'm just like driving past these neighborhoods, my brain was like oh, my god like, if i like grew up here, lived here, i did the traditional salaryman life so i could have a family, all this stuff, and it's like another life, you know, it's like, but it's like it's so sharp and profound, you know but um, it's a fun feeling to chase.

I do like that.

You're like on the train and you're like, oh man, if only I had a nine to five that like made me want to jump out a window.

More like an eight to eight.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

True.

Yeah.

You have to go drinking with superior.

If you don't, then you get then then the office politics are horrible.

And then you miss the last train and you got to fall asleep at the train station.

But now I, now I start following all of the Otaku OG song, all of the the guys like me, all the guys who go to all the wrestling shows and follow the girls.

Um, I follow their Twitter accounts and they all have unconventional jobs.

You mean like follow them on social media, right?

You shouldn't phrase it that way.

They're not following them to convene.

You know literally like, but the wrestlers will be like.

Come to my next show.

I better see you there.

Like they're working the crowd too.

Okay, but like one guy follows a forklift driver and it's like Oh, so he like.

So it's interesting to see like a lot of people, some people literally work at like um, like a food stand, and they shut their food stall down for the day to go to Tokyo to go see the wrestling.

Oh wow.

So it's like it's.

It's interesting just following other just old men or like yeah, like older men, on on, on on Japanese Twitter and like seeing what it's like.

Oh, they don't do a nine to five, but they still got all these wrestling shows.

So it's possible.

So if I can get a forklift certification and, and, You know, I play Shimmer.

That opens up opportunities everywhere.

You don't even have to go to Japan.

You could be a forklift operator here.

They make good money.

Frank, you should apply for the.

They have a digital nomad visa, which I The term digital nomad is fucking unbearable.

But regardless, that is actually what it's called.

I'm not inserting that.

Digital vagrant license.

You gotta carry one of those little sticks with a bag on the end of it.

Yeah, yeah.

Hobo bindle.

Yeah.

They have a digital nomad visa, which is I think it's like three or six months or something.

But it means you can like it's a longer term stay where you can work while you're there remotely.

Yeah, I feel like that would be a cool experience.

Yeah, you should do that.

That'd be fun.

Just an idea.

No, I have, I have looked it up.

You have to meet a certain salary requirement, which I'm not at.

So it's just like, and also they just had an election and it's been like the most far right nationalistic, anti-immigration election.

Are they fighting the vacation stuff?

They're fighting all tourism immigration, like only one district was like blue compared to so like it's like.

Oh, that's why I'm like, I'm like I'm about to go to Japan the month before they're they're enacting a bunch of tourist fees.

So like, like, But again, it's not going to stop me.

I'll still...

Fred gets there and he's like, yeah, we need to shut the borders.

As soon as I'm in, we need to shut the fucking doors.

No, let everyone in.

I want all my friends there.

I want everyone there.

It's just for us Japanese people, but it's Frank saying it.

I had a friend.

Yeah, and a lot of the wrestlers are hyper-nationalistic too, because WWE is poaching all of their talent and AEW.

So they're like, fuck international wrestling.

New Japan, all of their talent's gone.

Whatever.

It's going to be the 1800s in Japan all over again Close all the ports.

I had a friend who might be doing this.

There's a wrestler named Taka.

Funny enough, he used to work at WWE, But he has his own wrestling promotion And for a thousand bucks a month You can just live in their dorm And train to be a wrestler.

So it's like oh, that's like a loophole.

I can just.

And so rent's cheap.

You get free rent.

You get rent.

You can train to be a wrestler.

And you get to live in Japan.

He sponsored your visa.

You learn just enough Japanese.

You wear a mask the whole time.

They'll never know.

Yeah, you're set.

That's actually genius.

That's like Nacho Libre.

You could just do.

You should pivot into IRL streaming and just stream your ascent to stardom.

And I don't I don't mean stardom wrestling.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

That's good.

I like that you could call it ascent to stardom.

Oh then, maybe no, i was like, but they hear me out, and all the like japanese restaurants they have like little robots that deliver you water, something like that.

Oh, you want to go on a date with them, the little yeah, because it's like it's like it's like it's like it like will chirp in like robotic japanese, like here's your water.

I'm like hey, you want to come back to me.

Hey hey, you and me we got a good connection.

I feel like Yeah, they can speak Japanese for me.

It's awesome.

They can probably get me in.

Or can I get a visa with the robot?

Marrying the robot?

I like that.

Get your green card somehow, right?

Yeah.

So Shiro has the little water robots.

It's awesome.

All right.

Water robot is maybe my favorite of the day.

That is the ultimate pick for a Gear Me Up for sure.

I think you win.

All right.

Well, that was actually a lot more fun than I thought it was going to be.

No, that was awesome, thank you.

That was like i was like nervous just because, like i don't know, i don't know, like i say i'm always like so hyper self-conscious here because it's just like i could like i stream like 10 hours a day just doing my indulgent crap that when i'm here i'm like oh, it's a different audience.

I don't, i don't want to like derail the show with my you gotta put on your tie and like yeah yeah, so.

And i did the same thing when i was teaching like high school.

Like it was like oh god, i had literally wore like dress shirts and like hi kit.

Like i i was very like neutral and here, like everyone here is like artistic creative.

Our audience is super supportive, but it's like i have such a hard time like.

But also we literally recorded later in the day where i don't hate myself as much, so like oh, my god, like my brain has to defall the negative um thoughts that unpack themselves while i'm sleeping.

So thank you guys for being here and listening to me and if you don't like it, i'm sorry, but Dude what?

No, this is the best.

It's funny that it always happens when Danny's not here.

That's not indicative of anything.

I just need to start later in the day.

I again, I, you know, Jeremy and I are happy to start at like 3 p.m.

So that makes it easier for sure.

Well, thank you for being so candid here and coming up with all these great picks, man.

This is great, yeah.

And if we were, I also was afraid that the segment would be three guys being like oh yeah, this lady's hot.

I was also worried about that, but look, you know us.

That's what my Twitch is for.

That's there.

That's what the big dogs do, all right?

That is on the menu elsewhere.

No, yeah, here we're, you know, we're, you know.

I did just want to say if there was one actual attractive lady from video games, it would be every Gerudo woman from Zelda.

Every single one of the Gerudo ladies.

That's a good pick.

I just had to put one reel in there.

I just respect to them.

I don't have any reels, so.

All right, good.

I don't think that's what this was supposed to be or should have been.

No, that's fair.

Yeah, that's good.

All right, well, that was our hear me out challenge.

Let me know who you want to go on a date with.

That would be a funny character.

Yeah, I was framing it as go on a date is very like wholesome and sweet.

Yes.

I didn't even – you could take any character to Tokyo Disney.

Boom.

Easy.

Done.

Everyone loves Tokyo Disney.

True.

It is the best one.

Or Disney Sea.

Or so I've heard.

Is that what they call it?

Disney Sea?

Disney Sea.

Yeah, because you literally walk in and it's like – it kind of looks like CS Italy.

No.

Honestly, it is very European.

It really is.

It's, like, European waterfront, like, music, wine.

It's very, like, European when you walk in.

So like you literally walk in and all Joshis are like taking pictures and doing TikToks and stuff,

And it's, like, oh, my God.

And all the wrestlers I follow on their days off are just going to Tokyo DisneySea.

So it's, like, it's, like, all that.

Oh, dude, you're not joking.

It looks so, yeah.

Yeah.

I went and all the lines are like two hours.

But if you just walk around, they also serve wine in the park.

Disneyland doesn't serve wine.

California Venture does.

So you can get like hot wine, like warm wine.

Like it was like it was like it was it was really cute.

Can you do a sake bomb at DisneySea?

I think in the restaurants, there's probably sake.

But again, that's the thing.

In Japan, drugs is so criminalized.

You can't have weed.

You have to detox a few days before to be safe.

But in Japan, it's alcohol 24-7.

It's like, that's how you get by.

Only way you can make it through hours of the heat and the children screaming and yeah.

This is not the place to go into a history lesson, but there is an interesting history behind the relationship of Japanese culture to cannabis and a lot of the like.

Hyper criminalization and taboo around drugs is a post-World War II artifact of America being like all right now we tell you how to run shit and like we hate fucking drugs.

But cannabis and hemp have a long history in Japanese culture.

That has there are.

There are some people doing like historical preservation work to sort of preserve that, because it now it's this taboo thing where it's kind of Downplaying the relationship.

I'm not even saying like everyone in Japan used to smoke weed, I'm just saying like, like the fibers that were used in various like textiles and stuff.

There's a Fuck what's it called?

There's a textile pattern.

I actually have it He's getting his hemp rug It's I'm not even joking.

I'm like half joking.

This is a.

This was a gift for my girlfriend for Christmas, but this is a pattern based on the cannabis leaf that is very popular in Japanese textiles.

But this is a plate.

Oh, it's a plate.

Well, that was an optical illusion.

You threw me for a loop there.

I thought you were holding up like a tile.

No, it's a... It's like inspect object in Resident Evil.

Yes, yeah.

Check the under... Is there a code under that?

On the back, there's a password.

Yeah, yeah.

One green herb.

All right.

That's awesome.

Yeah, I had no idea about that with the hemp.

That sounds yeah, similar to America's history, on its own turf, of like banning it because oh, we ban hemp because the Mexican people smoke weed.

And it's like, that's...

Weird.

Oh, and then World War Two happened and they were like it is your duty, your patriarch duty, to grow.

There's a video called Hemp Victory, a propaganda film, where they're like if you're a real American farmer, you're growing ham.

Wow.

So we don't have to import it from the Chinese.

Literally in that video, the way the guy says China and Chinese is so fucking funny.

It kills me every time.

Is that like four syllables?

Is this the way Trump says it?

China?

It's a little more like, it's kind of like how Jimmy Stewart would say it, I feel like.

He's like, you know, I used to get it from Indonesia or China.

China, I want to live again.

All right.

You guys want to talk about some video games, or is there any other pressing information we got to get to?

Okay.

All right.

We're going to take a quick break.

When we come back, it's video game time and email time.

Catch you in a second.

And we're back.

It's gaming time.

Time to talk about video games and other things.

No more fun facts about Japanese history.

No more fun.

It's time for work.

It's work time, baby.

Let's get fucking serious, guys.

I hope you care about video games very much because I know that we do.

Got some cool stuff to talk about this week.

Tomb of the Bloodletter.

Yakuza Kiwami 3's controversy, which I think we mentioned in an earlier podcast but didn't get into quite as much as we maybe should have.

Frank's playing DDR at home, finally.

I love seeing the video of that.

And Jeremy...

I don't know if you're feeling up to opening with this, but you were telling me about it.

You got me very excited.

But Pathologic 2.

You started playing Pathologic 2.

Not the newest game in the series, but you are here.

Why 2?

And what do you think of it?

How are you liking it?

So first, let me just say I have been keeping this game for a special occasion.

And by that I just mean when I felt like the time was right because I knew I was going to.

I had a strong feeling I was going to like it.

And the way people talk about it is like...

It's one of those games, like Disco Elysium, that people who click with it, they become evangelical about this experience.

They're like you gotta fucking If it seems like you are a person who might like it.

They're like you owe it to yourself to play this.

And I get it now.

I played the first five hours of Pathologic 2 and it is.

It's unbelievably good, like it's it's so weird and so frictional and so interesting and like has such an idiosyncratic like cultural texture to it um, and it's just fucking great.

It's also way more of an rpg than i thought it was gonna be.

Uh, i played a little bit of pathologic classic um, maybe like an hour or two, and i was like this is cool, i should check this out someday.

Um, but pathologic 2 is essentially a remake of what.

So pathologic 1, you can play as three different characters.

Um, Pathologic 2 is a remake, but only from one of those characters' perspectives, I gather.

But Pathologic 2 adds a lot of features and quality of life stuff that looks really nice.

And essentially just seems like a much grander, more ambitious version of what Pathologic 1 was trying to do.

And...

Yeah, it's like.

It reminds me a lot of a first-person, very Eastern European version of what Fallout 1 and 2 feel like.

It reminds me a lot of Fallout 1 and 2.

And... it's just fucking great I'm trying to I don't want to talk like too specifically about stuff because I feel like people owe it to themselves to go in as blind as possible but the I don't know it's just it's it's the most a game has affected me in the way that Disco Elysium did since I played Disco Elysium whoa Uh, it, it is, it's given me a lot of that sort of like literary depth and thematic depth and systemic depth that all kind of culminated into this experience where it, uh, yeah, it feels like it fucking elevates what video games can do.

And it's also just like, it's also just a fun ass fucking first person RPG.

Like it reminds me way more of, of Fallout 1, 2, and also kind of New Vegas than I expected.

It has a lot of that like first person RPG feel to it, even though it's more about kind of the narrative and the characters and decisions you're making rather than, like I got to get a level 27 power armor.

But I don't know, man, it's just fucking great.

And the beginning of Pathologic 2 is so fucking frictional.

I was streaming it to my girlfriend and she was like I would have quit this game a hundred times by now.

It just you start the game and just everyone fucking hates you.

And you just like I got beat up like a hundred times and just dragged into alleyways.

And it's so funny to just start a game.

And because like the conventional wisdom of game design is like.

You got to get people on board.

You know, the opening has to be strong.

It's got to be you got to have like the inciting incident.

And it's like, all right, I'm hooked in.

Now the title drop.

It's like five minutes in.

I'm like, all right, I'm cool.

I want to see more of this.

The beginning of Pathologic 2 is a bunch of esoteric bullshit that you just like, especially if you haven't played Pathologic 1.

I just had no idea what was going on.

There's like a.

There's a message that pops up at the beginning of 2.

That's like hey, by the way, you're going to not know any of the shit that people are talking about.

That's fine and it reminded me of the feeling of reading i used to really like as a kid, especially like up through high school just pick a random piece of classic literature and read it, and one of my favorite things about that um, it's a very like literary feeling that i feel like games don't often strive for, where you're thrown into this world and people are using jargon and referring to like places and names and concepts that you don't even know what they mean.

They're calling you like words that are not in english and you're like i don't know what the fuck that means and it's, it's like That's what it feels like to be steeped into, like a weird, mysterious world is.

You know, it's not as much as I like the quality of life thing where I can mouse over a thing and it's like hey, a bullhorn.

And then I mouse over it.

It's like bullhorn is a term of endearment used by the step people or whatever.

Like, I like to fucking not know.

I like to be like a weird stranger disempowered in this world.

And this is a game that starts and people are telling you about shit.

You don't know what it means.

And then everyone's beating the shit out of you and you're trying to sneak and you're like dying of thirst.

So you sneak into the schoolyard to get water.

And then, like one of the teenagers starts punching you because he thinks you're a murderer, and And then like two adult men come in and they start punching you, and then you punch the kid and then he dies by accident.

And now you're like, now I have blood on my hands.

OK, what you're describing sounds like this is an immersive sim, is it?

It's like a linear RPG.

Like, is the stuff that you're doing stuff that the game is telling you to do?

Or are you just beating up a kid and like you're you're beating up a kid?

Joy meter is filling up like what?

No, it's the reason for doing that.

It's an open-ended RPG.

So the it's the only story thing I'll give away is basically that when you arrive in the town where the game, there is a sort of a more like a on rails intro.

And then once you get to the town, the game opens basically wide open.

Like, it's just like, here's a bunch of stuff that you should look into.

And here's like a story set up.

And then there's just a time of day meter that progresses through days.

And as you progress, it'll like take over into day two and it'll just be like, certain opportunities have been lost forever and you don't even know that the game doesn't tell you what's time sensitive it doesn't tell you that's interesting what'll go away can it be stuff that it doesn't even tell you like yes there could be things that you don't even know characters could like die off screen at the end of the day it was like this many people died and i'm like who i don't know who those people like i don't know i don't know seven people that died today so some shit happened away from me um and that to me is like that's like the magic of video games is when things are happening off screen this is why I like in Kenshi in Kenshi it'll be like wolf den 27 has been eliminated and you're like I don't even I don't even know what that means like someone is fighting wolves out someone made wolves extinct and I didn't even know it was happening that is that's the feeling of being in like a not just like a game but in a world that's And I think that that's a really powerful feeling that games evoke, whereas in a movie or a piece of literature in linear media, when that happens, it feels less impactful because it's like and somewhere I had the feeling that like Wolf Den 27 had been eliminated.

It's like it's like the authors just they just made that up and they're just telling it to you.

But when it's happening, due to like systemic factors, whether they're scripted or not, it still feels very immersive because it's like I know that they're the possibility space allowed for me to maybe not intervene but to interact with those people before whatever happened to them happened um, and so there's a very sort of like systems driven emergent feel to everything.

It feels like you are in this real town that is on the verge of a plague outbreak kind of thing and everyone's fucking losing their minds and you're just like going around meeting people in whatever order you please and uh, And it has a lot of that like early Fallout, weird moral ambiguity, where people you'll meet people and they'll be like I got a situation here where like, this guy is bad.

But then you meet the other guy and he's like did some bad shit, but it's like a good guy.

And you're like, all right, well, which one am I going to nuke?

Yeah, basically.

But like no one is it feels like no one's like the the obvious good guy.

It's not like, oh, do you want to side with the the good heroes or the evil villains?

It's just like it, like a philosophical debate of like which one you have to get rid of one, or what situation you want to deal with.

Sorry, I know you don't want to get too much into stuff.

I'm just like so curious.

The stuff you're describing sounds amazing.

I just I never heard anyone talk about it like this.

Yeah.

So I'm about five hours into the game.

I gather that a full playthrough is somewhere like 20, more than 20, less than 30.

So I'm still pretty early in the game.

But it's yeah, the decisions are more like it's weird because the town, as much as it, starts to get weird and violent and violence breaks out.

The way that people talk about their town is that it's like this is a town where people don't kill each other.

And that's very interesting because in in most literature, in most media, when they're trying to like scare you with the town, when the town is like, come to this place and it's all fucked up, they're like this is a town of villains and scum and we kill each other.

And this town.

They're like yeah no, we just like, we don't do that here.

It's like what it's supposed to be, like the fucked up place.

They're like yeah no, i'll like beat you up and drag you in an alley, but we don't kill people here.

But then that shit starts popping off.

So i guess it creates contrast.

Um, But it's just yeah, the decisions are kind of like just deciding within morally gray situations who you want to side with.

And so there was like a guy who really helped me out.

And then someone else was like, oh, he did some egregious shit.

Will you go kill him?

And I was like, I don't I don't know.

They're like, all right, we'll bring him to us and we'll deal with him.

And then I went and talked to him and the guy was like, yeah, I did it.

But like, also remember that time I saved your life?

And I was like, yeah, but like... Oh, that stuff is so good.

I love that.

What?

That's really... It's unbelievable.

I love it.

I can't stop thinking about it since I played it.

And I'm excited.

I'm going to play the entire thing.

It's really, really great.

Wow.

Okay.

I mean, you're not the first person to say it, but yeah, Pathologic 2 definitely sounds like...

Like a winner.

If you get to a certain point in Pathologic 2 where you feel like it's either you're done with it or you actually hit the credits, are you going to give Pathologic 3 a try?

Are you going to give it... Yeah.

Are you going to wait a little bit?

Yeah, no, I... Yeah, I kind of put it back on my radar when 3 came out just because...

I don't know yeah I don't know nothing like triggered me into being like now I have to play this game it just felt like I was hanging out my girlfriend on a discord call and I was like you want to play some games or something we couldn't decide what to play and I was like I've been waiting I've been wanting to play this for like seven years and she's like I'd love to see that and then 10 minutes and she was like you could turn this off whenever you're ready I don't want to watch you play this anymore. uh yeah no no we fucking we we loved it i think just the she was like getting beat up by everyone in the town for the first two hours of the game seems so it's it's it's such a frictional design that she was like i think i would have hated this because it feels like you're losing over and over it does sound like a bug it does sound like you spawned into grand theft auto 5 or 4 or whatever with like cheats on and everyone's like riot mode or whatever yeah yeah um it does feel like that so uh but uh yeah actually i i guess i could tell there i won't spoil anything but basically like the you the character you play as people assume is a bad guy for various reasons when you first show up um And so his name is Artemi Barak.

And so when I, when I showed up in town, there was a gang of people when I was like halfway to where I wanted to go, which was like a place I knew I could sleep and I was exhausted.

So I had to get there.

There was a gang of vigilantes surrounding this guy like about to like beat him up.

And I went up and I was like, hey, what's going on here?

Like, who is that man?

And they're like, oh, that's Artemi Barak.

We're about to like beat the shit out of him.

And, and my options were like well like, go easy on him, or like that man isn't Artemi Barak, because I am Artemi Barak.

And I was like, well, they're going to fucking they're going to turn on me.

But I was like I can't do nothing because I don't want to.

In video games it's like an opportunity to do things that you might not be brave enough to do in real life sometimes, right.

Sure.

So it's like not only will I take the heat off that guy, but I'll use my intellect to talk them down.

So I was like, no, that man can't be Artemi Barak because I am.

And they were like...

Oh, and then all six of them just started punching me.

And I was like, no, no, everyone knows that I'm the guy that everyone hates.

Oh, no.

And it's just.

It's such a fucking funny thing to do with the game to just like shit on you as soon as you get into the world.

Yeah, it's like hostility right out of the gate is something that I don't think you don't really see often in games, which is, you know, I think, probably for good reason.

But it's cool when it works.

Agreed.

And the last thing that I want to say to that effect is that when you pick difficulty in this game, there are three difficulties and they're like cocoon, something else, and then like imago.

It's like you know easy medium, hard or whatever.

Uh, but it says even the easy one says this is not story mode, like this game still is difficult.

And then the hard version says this is the intended difficulty.

Oh, and it says I love this so much.

This is why I pick a lot.

I have a fucking ton of respect for now that I kind of like understand what they do.

It says when you pick the hard one, that's the intended difficulty.

It says this is the intended difficulty.

Difficulty is one tool that we as game developers use to to tell stories.

And like this game is going I think it says it's going to be like unbearably difficult, but that difficulty is one of the tools that they use to like curate a certain feeling and like narrative experience.

And I fucking love that.

I think that's so cool.

See, they should do that in Dark Souls games.

Just open like that.

Have your difficulty options.

But, you know, every option tells you don't do this.

It's wrong.

Go play on hard.

Don't be a baby.

Yeah, they can add difficulty options to Dark Souls if the options are like like coward, like little little tiny ban or like intended.

That does sound like a Dark Souls difficulty option setting, too.

They should do the the Wolfenstein style thing, too, where like it's different versions of a face.

But like, instead of it getting more melted, it's just like you start to look more like just like a regular guy from baby face.

I guess they do that.

I want to.

Yeah.

But yeah, Pathologic 2, that sounds amazing, man.

I had no idea that it was that deep.

I thought it was just, like you know, a sort of third person walk or sorry, first person walking around talking video game.

Like.

I like those kinds of things, but it sounds like it's a lot more involved than than I anticipated.

That's really cool, man.

Yeah, it feels like an art house Fallout game.

Or something.

I actually kept thinking about that quote from Rostov from the Disco Elysium documentaries, where he was like the Eastern European mind when it attempts to create a video game just like recreates Fallout.

And I was like, this is the most proof in the pudding thing of that I've ever seen in my life.

That sounds about right.

Yeah, there you go.

Yeah, Ice Pick Lodge is also still really busy.

They're making a Darkwood 2, right?

Oh, cool.

I forgot about the sequel to that.

I would love to chat with them.

Yeah, I was actually saying to you off off the pod that I can't believe that if anyone was going to do a documentary, it would be no clip.

I can't believe that you haven't yet.

I guess it's a blind spot for our team.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, I might be the first person on the local team to.

I mean, if anyone was going to play this series, it would be you.

Well, I'll I would love to chat with them.

We're putting it out there.

Gauntlet's been dropped.

Feel free to hit us up.

Let me beat Pathologic 2 and then start Pathologic 3 and then I'll hit the rock.

Yeah, good point.

Yeah, yeah.

You don't want to get halfway through it and be like, this actually sucks.

Why didn't I think this was good?

Or I just like, I'm interviewing them and I'm like, so like, what's the deal with this game?

I played day one.

It was really neat.

Yeah.

Could be that.

Just talk about the beginning of the game.

Be very funny.

The whole documentary just on the first 30 minutes.

That could be cool, depending on what it is.

All right, let's step on over to something that might titillate Frank's feet a little bit more.

I got to stop talking like that.

We were getting too raunchy at the beginning of this podcast.

Frank Howley regale us with the tale, first off, of you acquiring your own metal, real at-home DDR dance pad.

Yeah.

So I've spent like six months embedded just nonstop playing DDR, talking to people working on a video.

And, um, it doesn't stop.

Like it's like, like I, it's part of your life now.

Yeah, no, it's become a routine.

It's also become like a social thing.

Like every Thursday and Saturday, if there's nothing else going on, I will go to round one.

I'll hit up people.

I have like two different groups of friends I've been playing DDR with at the arcade, et cetera.

And um Yeah, it took like one friend to play DDR and they got so into it.

Then they messaged me like yeah, I just ordered a pad.

I was like, oh!

And then my brain was like, oh, shit, no, no, I gotta, maybe I need a pad, too.

And so, like, the thing just, like, launched in my head.

And then next time I went to an arcade I talked to one kid and he's like profound.

I didn't interview him for the thing because it was after I kind of had wrapped, but this kid was playing at like level 16 or 17, which is like super super, like the peak is like 19.

Um, i'm like 11 and 12 and i can do 13, but i can full clear 12.

Um, this kid was playing at like 16, 17.

It was like he wears like gloves when he's holding on to the rail.

It's like hardcore.

Um, and i was talking, i'm like yeah, what like?

How are you so good all that?

He's like oh, i have a setup at home and at home i'll like practice the songs.

I'll go, section by section, master it, so i know the whole piece and then i'll go to the arcade and set the score for real.

And I was like hmm, okay.

So it's like the next level is like you really just got to start practicing at home.

And I think I was literally, like, streaming at the time.

And it was on my head.

I was like, let's just look this up.

So I was, like, Googling around.

The thing my friend had ordered is called Eltech.

And that's, like, the premier, like, this is the best one.

The base for, like, the good model is, like, $350.

And I was like, damn, that's a lot.

But I really like this.

I think I still want to do this.

Maybe treat it as a reward for finishing this DDR video.

Yeah.

And I was going to go to checkout.

And then, oh, shipping is going to be $150.

Okay.

And so they're shipping from Poland, which is also very funny.

The highest caliber DDR pad is from Poland.

But also Poland's, so far from Japan, that to support the European market.

It's like oh, they had to literally make you know.

So that kind of makes sense.

You're just going to keep making DDR videos to pay for DDR accessories.

All the money.

Yeah.

And that's kind of how the root of it was.

I want to play DDR.

I was like, how can I do this but also for work?

Oh, what if I made a video about DDR?

But yeah.

So I messaged my hyper tech friend, Jordan Jones, who listens to the podcast.

And I messaged him.

I was like, I want to get an L tech.

This is too expensive.

What do you think?

And he was like, well, you know, I see DDR pads on.

So this is my friend, my Jordan's.

Jordan's thing is he always browses, like Craigslist and Facebook marketplace.

And he will like take, whether it's computer parts hardware, anything He knows when he sees a good deal or something, and he'll just collect stuff.

And he has a computer lab at home with tons of parts.

He's rescued a Peloton bike and repaired the monitor.

He gets stuff for free from people who are moving, repairs them as good as new and then gives them to friends, whatever.

And so he's like, oh, I just saw something on Facebook the other day.

He pulled it up.

Someone was selling a $500 metal DDR pad for like $100.

And like, it looked like kind of like dusty as hell.

Like hadn't been using forever.

It looked like shit.

And that, so no one bought it.

And my friend Jordan's like, yeah, you can just wipe that off and you're okay.

I can fix it up.

So my friend bought it.

He repaired some screws.

We had to literally go to home Depot to find missing screws for it.

It has a bar and everything.

And so he gave it to me and we tested at his place.

And so, um, Yeah, I came home and now for like the last three days, I've been playing DDR at home.

And so I didn't touch on Step Mania because this is a whole other realm in the DDR world.

But yeah, I've been using Step Mania, which is like the app that's been around, I feel like since 2002.

I feel like when I was 12, I was playing Step Mania.

That's the traditional, you're just playing on the keyboard.

But real DDR enthusiasts will like plug their DDR pads into the computer.

You know, emulate stuff on step mania.

And the scene is insane.

You literally, my friend linked me to a Google doc that has every release of DDR.

And so I've downloaded like 2000 plus songs I have.

So I can literally, I'm literally emulating the cabinet that's at round one DDR world.

I have all of those songs on my computer.

Now, Playing at the arcade is way better.

There's people.

There's air conditioning.

It's socializing.

It is still – the hardware is really good at the arcade.

It can't be beat.

But this is really awesome to have at home.

But now I've been playing like – I'm playing at like an hour sessions at a time, which you can't do at the arcade, because that's like 30 – you're going to drain your round one card doing that.

But like I've just been going nonstop.

And now I've kind of – my feet have kind of learned this new pad.

And now I'm like –

Oh God, I think I'm getting really like the biggest thing.

Once you get to a higher level, it just becomes pattern recognition.

Like okay, and your body kind of goes and it's like I don't know, it's like even doing combos in Tony Hawk.

You don't think about it.

You're just sight reading going for it.

But it's been so insane just to see, like, the mod scene, the emulation scene of DDR at Home.

And then also the people are just making like jokes, song packs and stuff.

And I am just every day I'm playing this and streaming it.

I keep downloading and importing more and more songs.

And now it's this like euphoric thing of like, oh, my God, I can play.

I mean I can't play DDR after 10 pm because I'm banging this fucking metal pad so loud.

I don't want to.

I have upstairs neighbors, there's been no been issue, but i don't want to like.

I don't want to like.

I don't want this to be a problem.

So i'm after 10 pm, i won't play it, but it's like, oh my god, any point i can just play it.

So i've been playing it and streaming it and i am getting like the most i.

I'm like hitting these brand new levels on my calorie counters.

It is like, oh my god, if i think i do this, i think i'm actually going to be losing weight and getting really good at ddr and um.

Yeah, and I feel like it was kind of a miracle that we got such a high-value pad for only 100 compared to 500.

Did someone steal it?

How'd they even get this in the first place?

So my friend said i think they had it just in their collection, but they were moving and so they're just trying to get rid of shit.

And i was like, oh my, and i think they were like in camp pendleton, which is so isolated.

It's like the camp pendleton is in the middle of like the highway between orange county and san diego, so they're kind of remote.

So i think they're really like, just just take, like i think they're just really trying to clear it, and i think my friend drove all the way up to pick it up for me.

I was like, are you serious?

Like i think yeah, it's very, very sweet.

Um, So yeah, so it's kind of a miracle because, like yeah, I was looking online.

Like, you don't want to eBay it because you have to get it shipped.

Yeah.

And like DDR isn't – I feel like there was definitely an era in the PS2 era where GameStops probably sold pads, but it was like shitty plastic pads and stuff.

But like yeah, so I feel like I stumbled on this and maybe – and again, my friend Jordan, I think kind of like tightened the bolts and stuff, but I don't think this thing was used much.

So like, I'm like, damn, I got like a really good covered in dust.

I guess it probably wasn't that much.

No.

Yeah.

Right.

Like, so I don't know.

So now I'm just like it's, it's so.

It's been really fun like exploring uh, the homebrew scene of this.

And now my Twitter is more infected with like Japanese rhythm game players.

I'm seeing people make like beat mania controllers out of like Daiso bins and just mod like people.

People are so creative with doing at home rhythm game setups.

And it's like, Oh my God.

It's like, this is truly cyberpunk.

It's so exciting exhilarating, but yeah, it's just very surreal to have been spending six months trying to find DDR everywhere.

And now it's like, Oh, I can do that at home.

I don't want that to replace the social element, but it's kind of this nice reward of just like oh, and I can practice this.

So now I've been practicing DDR for three days straight.

We released the podcast Friday.

This Thursday, I'm hoping to go to round one, but now I'm like, oh, I'm going to kill it.

It feels like wrestlers working on their spots in the ring when there's no crowd and then when it's time to perform, oh my God, they can do all these moves and stuff.

So it's just like, yeah, I don't know.

It's awesome, but it's also cool to truly feel it from a physical sense.

Yeah i, i did like a sweat and like i'll get into a flow state and where it's like i'm not gonna stop playing because i want to full clear the song and then i'll stop.

I was literally on the ground here, so my legs kind of locked up, like it was like oh, i gotta like, oh man, i played so much.

But also it's like i i hadn't the only time i exert my body that much when i'm walking around japan.

So it's like oh, i'm kind of, i'm kind of training myself to to be that physically active, but like Yeah, I don't know.

It's just been a really fun – This pad's got the bar too, right?

Like you can do everything on this thing.

I have it like tucked around my bed.

But, yeah, it's literally a bar.

We've tightened the bolts and the screws and stuff.

So I'm using the bar as I'm playing.

And it's not like 100 – it's like 70 – it's like 85% stable.

So it's good enough.

It's good enough.

Right.

But, yeah, so it's – I'm like shocked how awesome it is.

And yeah, it's also again so fun when i'm i'm downloading some stepmania files.

They're like 17 years old and it's like, oh my god, and it's so fun just loading these up and it's just like it.

It's, it's incredible, it's such a wild scene, that's just yeah.

The homebrew rhythm game music scene is like always, for every part of it too.

Like Spin Rhythm DX is a game I was playing a couple of years ago.

It's a rhythm game that you can play with like a DJ hero game pad.

You can also use like any MIDI DJ controller, which is really cool.

Like it's a very fun rhythm game.

But Clone Hero, I was really into for a while there with Guitar Hero.

I love Guitar Hero in elementary school.

But like, yeah it's, it's wild that lengths people are willing to go to continue playing these rhythm games because it's just there's nothing else like it.

Like Dance, Dance Revolution, from a social aspect and from a gameplay aspects, like how many games actually have you standing up?

And like physically interacting with it with your legs.

It was what the the Wii fit.

That was probably about it.

How many balance board games were they?

This is amazing.

Do you have any interest in like making your own step mania stuff?

I'd love to see you.

No.

Honestly, there's only like two or three insane clown posse stepmania files, but they're like joke files.

You got to switch it up, man.

You got to do it for real.

So that's the thing I'm seeing is like there's a lot of songs I'll download on a site and it's like oh, these are made for people to literally like you can't play this on a set pack because you need all four fingers at once.

Like, they're joke files.

And I'm like no, I want the like.

There's like a David Blunt's file, but someone made it as a joke.

And it's like, no, I want to play these songs for real.

The problem is I can't use the in-game set mania editor because I have too many files that it crashes.

Oh, wow.

Where it's like, which song you want to edit?

Oh.

So it's like oh, I could, I could have that on a separate like thing, but like yeah, that's what I'm trying to ask.

Like my friends are like, I was like, are there people who already do this?

So I need like, but it'd be a fun thing to yeah, it'd be a fun thing to learn the way Jeremy's learning game design coding.

It's like, but this is the thing where it's like, there's no ICP set.

There's no sincere ICP set mania tracks.

I have to do it.

Okay, cool.

But then like, there's so much other stuff and it's like, I imagine it can't be that.

I mean, that sounds so naive.

It can't be that hard.

But like, I wouldn't mind doing a shitty version.

Is it just literally listening to a song and like, ah, just mash it out on the keyboard.

But then maybe the timing syncs it up.

So you do it four by four, 60 notes, whatever.

Try it and modify.

I don't know.

But like, I think that might have to be an experiment.

I also literally had I told this to my friend Jordan Jones it'd be very funny, once the DDR videos like out, to then take that audio and video file and then chart that, the idea that then you could download the DDR video and watch it in step mania.

I'm like, that's genius.

That would be funny.

It's a way to get people to watch it.

But I'm like Oh, that's a genius idea.

Is to to have like Yeah, because that was a whole new level of guerrilla marketing to advertise your video in the step mania charts?

The kid I was talking to at round one, he was telling me like, yeah, some people train.

There's like 10 minute.

There's like stamina packs that people download where it's like there's a 10 minute.

Most DDR songs, because they're made for arcade, are two minutes max.

Right.

But people are making stamina charts.

Here's 10 minutes.

And it's like, oh, so the idea is like, no, just do this to build your stamina and timing.

And it's like, oh my God.

So the custom scene of this is like insane and endless.

I want to see the Ken Burns Vietnam series as a Stepania track.

Yes, yes.

Imagine during Machine Gun Fire.

Yeah, that's what it really picks up.

It's very slow sometimes because you just get whatever his name is Peter Coyote, whatever the fuck his name is the narrator talking very like.

And then on Hill 37,

And that's when you can get your rest in.

But then the Machine Gun Fire starts.

You got to fucking step it up.

You got to be careful.

Yeah.

That's amazing.

Well, good for you, Frank.

I'm glad you have a way to play that at home.

Like you said, it's I remember you talk about it actually pretty early on in your DDR journey.

You were like, I don't want to pad at home because I like going out and hanging out with people.

So it's good that you're still sticking to that.

But now you have the opportunity to become like a ringer.

Now you can just get really, really good at it and come in and be like a pool shark.

You can hustle people.

You guys want to go 100 bucks.

I mean, I have it's been a while for me.

Full metal pad leading into your bed at home.

One thing that the DDR and again, once is that would be fun to actually talk about it, too.

But like one thing that drives me crazy at conventions and arcades is when there's a cue to play DDR, people line up.

And sometimes a lot of the times, one person will go up to machine play, do their set, get back in line, go up.

This is groundbreaking.

What I do, I go to the machine.

Do you want to jump on?

And then there's two people playing.

And like it's just, I hate when people aren't like.

Like sometimes people want to just do doubles or pick their own songs.

But it's like, I now, six months ago, I was afraid to talk to anyone in the DDR scene.

Now it's like, oh, I recognize people.

Now I'm like, but I am like inviting people like, okay, yeah, you can jump on, pick the songs.

I don't care.

I just don't want to, I don't want to wait.

I hate waiting for anything.

I can't, you know, I hate waiting for the DDR video to come out.

Like I hate waiting. but like it's so like i like that now i'm comfortable at the arcade like ddr i'm now i've evolved into those people at the start where i'm like can you tell me how to change the difficulty level i literally had to ask a guy that six months ago and now i'm the one that's like oh yeah jump on the machine i don't pick the songs i don't care i just am happy to play ddr anytime any song any difficulty level where it's like oh my god now i and again literally started my friend like a few weeks ago it's like now i'm teaching them how to get set up whereas you few months ago my friend kang who listens to the podcast and he was teaching me so now they've passed that knowledge so like yeah it's it's uh it's it's not i'm not gonna like disappear from the scene i think it's so cool and if anything hopefully this ddr video encourages more people to get in i would i would love to be able to make more stuff in the scene or whatever but i'm also eager for the response to it but yeah the set mania thing is just like oh yeah i'm getting deeper into this but um it also just has like and it's also why i'm excited go to japan go to game centers is the hardware maintenance is a really big thing like like people like again bless my friend jordan for like finding the right screws and tuning it up because so many arcades i remember in the early 2000s fell into disrepair because people weren't the the owners weren't repairing machines and stuff it wasn't worth the maintenance yeah Right.

And so I like round one because they have their maintenance tax.

The game centers in Japan, every machine has a QR code.

You scan it.

It alerts someone to come fix it.

It's great.

So it's like, and so my my friend Jordan, we were at round one, San Diego.

Uh, my friend Jordan noticed like Oh, this machine's missing some screws.

We literally could have taken one of these machines for, to fix the pad at home.

But I thought that was really funny.

It's just like, I don't know.

Now I'm like Oh, I care about the, I care about the hardware behind these machines.

Now, when I never noticed it.

And now I know, like in the case of this 500 thing, I'm like, Oh my God, like The pad, you play the, what you play, the how, the why.

There's so many layers you can get deeper and deeper and deeper into.

So it's I don't know.

I feel it's weird to like add that to my belt of like, oh, yeah, I know DDR.

But also, though, like the homebrew scene, too.

Maybe in the future you'll be one of those guys who, like the one remaining person in Japan who makes or maybe it's not Japan

Maybe it's a Chinese city who makes like neon signs, like the one person left who knows how to do that.

You'll be the expert.

They'll come to you.

Frank, do you know which aisle the screws are in Home Depot?

I can't remember.

That's awesome.

Well, you know what?

Good for you, man.

I'm glad that you've got the access to this.

And hopefully, like from the way you're saying it, I think it'd be really cool obviously, if you can keep doing stuff in the DDR space.

Yeah.

But now you have this access to like any other part of it, like an extension out from DDR, like people who are big fans of what's it, Taikin?

No,

I'm sorry.

Tycho drum master.

I'm really obsessed with beat mania.

Cause the, the, the skill scene on that is like free is like, Oh yeah.

People are nuts.

Or the O's scene.

Even like the talking to people who are into that is like, how does your wrist work?

How often do you have to wear the splint?

Yeah, there you go.

Rhythm Games with Frank Howley.

Look forward to that video eventually on Noclip too.

I think it's going to be great.

I think Frank's so good at just exposing all these different niches and he gets so obsessed with things.

So it's exciting to see that video.

I mean, I've seen a version of it.

I don't know what the final one's going to end up looking like.

I'm excited to see that one too.

But even just the interviews you did were great.

So hats off to you, brother.

Can't wait to see you step in some more in the future.

So we've had a lot of fun here.

And as Jeremy said, it's the no fun zone.

We're not supposed to have any fun.

You've got the links in here.

You brought it up.

Okay, going on with.

I've heard bits and pieces as this story has evolved.

Regarding Yakuza Kiwami 3, the reviews for it are out.

I've read a couple of them from some great writers out there.

Lex Luddy's review 20 out of 100.

It was actually a very interesting review to read from a longtime fan of the series, but something we mentioned sort of briefly in passing earlier in the year regarding Yakuza Kiwami 3.

Jeremy, you want to get into this a little bit more.

You've definitely done the research.

I've just read the articles you've linked here.

Yeah i, i i won't spend too long on this because it's you know people.

I will provide links for people to read the article if they want to read the full story.

There's a lot of um, a lot of depth to get into here, but essentially it's a couple reasons that yakuza kiwami 3 is sort of uh, getting on the bad side of.

A lot of long-time yakuza fans uh, some of whom i have spoken to and who are very disappointed by this.

People who are very diehard about the series feel kind of betrayed for a number of reasons by this.

One is that i've just on like a tactical level, i've heard that kiwami 3 is just kind of like polygon, referred to it as uh, not only like the technical stuff is not up to par, but also just sort of the like revisions that they've made for the game polygon, referred to as yakuza, and entering its um uh, george lucas star wars remake era oof ow, when lucas started adding like cgi shit to the old 70s star wars, like stuff that didn't need it uh.

The other big thing is there is a voice actor in the game.

Uh, i believe it is teruyuki kagawa.

Is this correct?

Uh yes okay, i just wanted to make sure before i fucking talk about somebody did something bad.

I needed to make sure it was the right fucking guy.

Um Uh essentially there uh, this person was, you know uh, sexually harassed.

Two women uh, and an alleged third victim in 2019.

Um, uh, some of this involved legitimate sexual assault that was like confirmed.

This is not just, you know, a hearsay.

This is like a fucking on the books, like admitted and apologized for it.

And, uh, people were saying like, don't fucking work with this guy.

Like the Yakuza series is a series that is so much about.

Uh, The contrast between these honorable characters, who have moral fiber and an ethical code, and the romantic side of organized crime in general and Yakuza specifically, is that it harkens back to this almost chivalric code of knights.

And you see the same thing in Italian mob films.

There's the people who are like, you know...

You live or die by the code.

And then it's always contrasted in these crime films, these genres, by the people who are like yeah, you got to do whatever it takes.

You know, like this is the core tension of these things.

The hypocrisy of it.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

So to see the leadership in the Yakuza franchise sort of being like excusing This I'm not justifying it but by working with this person who has done sexual assault, it signals to people who care about the series and care about a character like Kiryu who is so fucking overtly, like you know, in defense of women.

And like I'm not saying the Yakuza series is always perfect in their depiction of like no, certainly not of women and of like you know, it's not that they have completely avoided all misogyny and are like a paragon of virtue or whatever, but regardless, the the messaging in these, in the text of these fucking games a lot of the time, is that like, i think the shit that they're doing by working with a uh, someone who did sexual assault, uh is, i think kiryu would have fucking, he would beat the shit out of this guy, no question, he would fight this man in the street, throw bicycles at him uh, and so yeah, and the justification from one of the higher ups on this project was that uh, it feels like when you hear this guy voice act, that it's like oh, but he feels legitimately slimy and like you know, like working with a bad person communicates a certain authenticity to their performance as a bad person and i just think that's kind of fucking bullshit.

I've heard this from like, I went to fucking film school dude.

You know how many guys I met who were like, oh yeah, we got it.

Like we got.

If you capture bad shit happening in front of the camera, that's like authentic, that's real.

And it's like, no, what do you think?

Like any villain you've ever liked?

Like, do you think Alan Rickman was a terrorist?

You fucking, I don't know.

I don't mean to get all worked up about this.

This is also, it's like Josh Shaft.

He had a similar thing recently with uh Yeah, Marty Supreme, a movie that I think is absolutely fantastic, but also features Kevin O'Leary, perhaps Canada's most vile creature.

Like starring as a character who is himself a vile creature.

And it's like, oh, it works because Kevin O'Leary sucks.

It's like, dude, Daniel Day-Lewis is so good at being a piece of shit monster.

It's like, you don't need to do that.

Jake Gyllenhaal is a creepy, scary weirdo and nightcrawler.

I don't.

I don't think he's, maybe he is, i don't know, but like he didn't have to be a crime man first before, i was like now he can play a crime man.

Finally we've replaced him.

Did they have another reason for why they replaced the original voice actor in yak as a three, or was it?

Is it just the case?

If we want to do something different here?

I don't know the original actor.

I actually I'm not 100 sure.

I do know that Yakuza at one point removed an actor for drug charges for a different project.

Okay, and so I think the hypocrisy runs even deeper, because it's like so if you do drugs, like Frank was saying in Japan drugs, drugs are worse than sexual assault.

It seems like That is what they're communicating by doing this.

And it's like, it doesn't make any fucking sense to me.

It's just very ethically and morally inconsistent.

It kind of just feels like they could get away with it or felt they could get away with it.

And so they did it.

Um, and it's also just like a fucking seems like it's just not a good remake and there's already two versions of Yakuza.

Three

And so, uh, I would say if you... This is... I will never tell anyone what to do.

I will never get up on my soapbox and tell people what they should do.

I think people should not buy or play Kiwami 3.

I think maybe if you really want to play it, maybe wait to get it used or something.

I don't know.

But I don't think that you should...

I don't know.

I feel like RGG are cashing in a lot of goodwill on this for no reason.

And I feel like they have drifted away from any sort of adherence to the ethics and morals that Yakuza's characters espouse.

And so it's like...

When the people making these games are acting more like the villains in Yakuza than the heroes, I think you have to question whether this is something you actually want to support and whether or whether you want to throw money at people who are sort of just like making money off of these creative works by just remaking them without standing by the things that they actually depict or stand for.

Yeah, and it's not great either that, even if you are a fan of the series, like obviously I think all that all that moral stuff is.

You know, like you said, people can make their own decisions.

But ultimately, you know.

You can look at what's going on, but I do think there's an aspect to it that is especially terrible from a preservation aspect, of like.

If you are the sort of person who loves the Yakuza series and wants to go back and play Yakuza three, it's

Like, legally, it's locked behind a $120 bundle now, right?

Like, you can't just buy the game separately.

It's part of the Yakuza Complete collection or whatever.

You have to get Kiwami 3.

This version of it is replacing the classic one.

Yeah, I'm not fully aware of the availability of the different versions of Yakuza 3.

I just know that there is the original version and then there's...

Isn't there like a PlayStation 4 remaster as well?

Yeah, the thing with like.

They did it with like Yakuza 0, which is when Yakuza 0 Director's Cut came out.

They took off Yakuza 0 from the store.

So you had to buy the premium extra edition.

And so it sounds like Kiwami 3 Remastered is no longer going to be available.

So if anyone... Just from a game collection standpoint...

The physical PS4 copy of Yakuza Remastered is going to skyrocket.

Yeah.

Because that's going to be the only way to get Yakuza Base 3.

The original... Not the original.

Oh, my God.

Sorry.

There's Yakuza 3 on PlayStation 3.

There's Yakuza 3 remastered on ps4.

That's the version i played.

So that is like the, the pure version.

If you want to get that, the physical version, that will probably skyrocket if it's not, if it hasn't already.

But yeah, pc steam, i think like yeah, you're not going to be able to like legally get uh, yakuza 3 remastered anymore.

Um, so i don't know if there's second yankees and get of that if you want to get it, but that that's.

That's like the.

Yeah, the the game preservation standpoint of it was just like Oh shit, they're taking off.

Like the, the, the, the in between remasters are disappearing.

Yeah.

And that sucks.

That's why, like there are certain remakes that I don't have a problem with, but generally I'm very anti remake.

And I think that it is sort of this um, Not to make like a fucking slippery slope argument, but I do feel like the general acceptance of remakes as like a just standard operating procedure for the games industry I think is a negative.

I think that there is a case to be made for remakes.

I think sometimes games can be updated in ways that you know.

I mean, I just talked about Pathologic 2 is a in some sense a remake of Pathologic 1, but in other ways it's a reimagining of Pathologic 1.

And it adds depth to it.

It adds complexity to it.

It adds systemic complexity.

And it looks fucking great.

And I think that that is a use case where it is a sequel that is a remake.

It's not like Pathologic Remake.

It's Pathologic 2, right?

But you can make the argument that that's a good use case for a remake.

Whereas yeah, i don't know or like i, i was not big on the silent hill to remake um, i think it.

I, i appreciate what people like about it and i think that it's cool.

I think that even with something like that, that is a good remake.

There is still a danger now that when people are like, oh you know, i heard silent hill 2 is good, i should go play that, that like there is now a lessened incentive to go play the original thing that inspired the remake, the original game.

And I think that remakes insidiously, whether it's the intention or not, can replace the originals.

And so, even if there's still equal availability for these old versions of the games, for the original text of this, I still do think there is a way in which remakes supersede them in the cultural mind, in the cultural zeitgeist.

Yeah, it's like people want to go for the thing that's the path of least resistance, right?

They're always going to lean towards something that they understand how to interact with.

And Silent Hill 2 remake, the 2024, 5 version of it, right?

23, something like that.

That version is much closer to what we would consider a typical AAA game.

So if I'm going to tell someone to play Silent Hill 2 yeah, they probably should go back and play the PS2 version.

But if they just want to see the story and it's close enough, they're just going to go play the remake.

I think it is a good remake.

To be clear, like I don't, it's for me that's not like they fumbled it.

To me, it's like they did such a good job that it runs the risk of creating a, a path of least resistance that will make people avoid interacting with the original.

And I think that, like if you, if you value Silent Hill, that I think that like knowing it's, like interacting with the original thing is so important.

I don't know, even if the remake is perfect, even if it's a shot for shot remake that just plays a little different and looks a little different, which I know this is not a shot for shot remake exactly but um, But no matter how faithful it is, I do think that there's a risk of being run with remakes.

So yeah, just a little cul-de-sac there about why remakes are something that I take a heavy grain of salt with.

Take offense to.

I get it.

I understand.

Very offended by them.

Yeah.

That's, that's the worst thing about this story is what I'm getting from it is that they did a remake, not anything.

Yeah.

Sort of like how, you know, Epstein was, uh, talking to Kodak about, uh, uh, loot boxes or whatever.

The worst thing in the Epstein files.

Yeah.

There's a, there are discussions about the, the lesson.

No.

Okay.

We're just, we're all, we're just vamping.

We're vamping.

We're i'm.

I'm obviously joking there.

The human beings being harmed in real life will always infinitely take precedent over fucking games.

Preservation, which is a cultural luxury on top of basic human decency um, but regardless, i just think that, like i don't know, i wouldn't fuck, i'm not gonna fucking buy this game.

That's fair.

I wasn't gonna buy it because i'm playing all the kiwami games.

I want kiwami too.

I like these games.

It's okay.

You can just play yakuza 3 remastered.

Buy it right now, before they take it away.

Make sure you get a hold of that version.

Or just watch someone play it on YouTube.

Or really, you're still in that generation where you know how to torrent stuff.

So just, you know, I mean, legally acquire it from your own disc.

Chelsea has four different copies of Yakuza 3.

Oh, yeah.

You're dating like the queen of Yakuza.

I'm dating the biggest Yakuza head in the world.

So I'll be fine.

Yeah.

Just ship it to you.

But not everyone has access to a Yakuza super fan.

True.

I think we all need more of those in our life.

It's nice having Frank and we can sort of just be like, hey, what is this like in the game?

Yeah, Frank, do you know anything about this character?

Does this make any sense to you?

You played Yakuza 3 pretty recently, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, my honest thing is I had a friend who worked on the game, so I'm going to get it.

I'm excited to support my friend.

And I totally get, like, the controversy of it.

And it sucks because, like, oh, my God, yeah, Yakuza's been on fire.

So it's been a bummer to see.

And yeah, it definitely sounds like a thing where the Japan company was like, made this decision, didn't back off from it, and now it's like months years later like oh my – people try to tell.

So it's a bummer.

And also because, like I generally want to see – I'm not interested in playing – three again, because I just played it.

But there was a prequel or side story thing that I think, regardless, I'm still going to check out.

But yeah, it's a weird situation to see.

And yeah, I am honestly... No, I'm just going to speak my thing.

I never, In terms of characters or story.

I skip a lot of cut scenes not in yakuza.

So like casting stuff doesn't bother me.

Like in the, in the sense of just like i never remember who the hell is playing who, so i don't.

So like i have no affinity for the old one seeing the new stuff.

Like there was a filmmaker.

I i obsessed with this filmmaker named sean sono.

I was like this is the best filmmaker i was talking about.

You guys gotta watch cold fish, guilty of romance, all this stuff.

And then around 2017 2018, it was like oh, he abused all the women on set and it was just like, and I've just never touched any of his films ever since.

And so it's like, yeah, so it's always complicated when this stuff comes up.

But like, yeah, it also sucks when it's a series you like.

It's like, oh shit, I fucking love Yakuza.

So yeah, it's a bummer to see.

And I totally get everyone's grievances with it.

And yeah, it seems like a...

You said it perfectly where it's like drugs is such a horrible offense to Japan compared to sexual assault?

And like Japan's sex industry is like it's insane.

And so, yeah, it's just I don't know.

And it sucks as a fan.

Right.

I'm sure, as a fan, it's like you see this sort of stuff happening, even if it's you know wherever you lie on it, it's it's seeing the reaction to it, right.

Having, having fans of the series for the latest version of a game from the series that you can buy.

This is the reaction that they're having to it.

It's like, that just, that just sucks.

Yeah.

Cause everyone has, is in goodwill of like, no, we want to support this.

Like, you know?

Yeah.

People love it.

Every negative review that I've read is from a legitimate fan of the game.

Like, they love the Yakuza series.

They loved Yakuza 3 for all of its warts.

And they end up coming to it and they're like, oh, this is the experience now.

It's lessened.

There are technical issues with it that weren't present in the original version.

There's the controversy around it regarding this actor who clearly...

Probably shouldn't have been cast.

They're already sort of justifying the choice to do so in ways that don't really read well and sort of communicate priorities that don't make any sense.

And it's like, what does this mean for the next game?

Are there going to be scrutiny around it that isn't required?

Like now it's.

It's sort of got this label on it, the sort of cloud hanging over it and casting a shadow of like what?

What next weird unnecessary, dumb thing are they going to do that's going to keep tainting what is such a beloved series?

Hopefully nothing.

Hopefully they get the message here.

And it's one of those things where they're like OK, moving forward, let's be more more reasonable about things.

I hope people being upset.

Hopefully that that leads to better things for the series.

I think, I think Yakuza has a lot of vocal fans and it's it's a shame to see it this be the conversation around it, instead of how sick the games are.

Like, that should be the number one priority all the time.

Pirate Yakuza Hawaii is a great game.

I started playing it the other day, Frank.

It's fucking fantastic.

It's so much fun.

Like it's That should be the conversation we're having, but instead it's around this controversy that shouldn't even have happened in the first place.

And like like, well said, with like oh yeah, kira would have, you know, beat up the actor.

Where it's like yeah, the yakuza games are about like love and family and are so sweet and wholesome and so for that to be like pierced by this very real world thing, it's like oh, what the fuck?

Whoa yeah, it compromises yeah, yeah.

And it's like yeah no, goshi's whole thing too, about kiryu was like here, you would never harm a woman.

Like that's like one of the core design pillars of this character.

Um, and so to see them be like oh yeah but, but this is the bad guy.

It's like yeah, but you're fucking, i'm gonna make a world war ii game and i need like a really evil nazi.

That doesn't mean i'm gonna go find like the biggest white supremacist i can find to be the actor.

You know what I mean.

Like, it's fucking called acting.

Can I can I fucking go back to the Softie Brothers for one minute?

Because yeah, have you seen the, the update on why they split, why they started directing separately?

No, I didn't.

I heard there was something going on with Josh and that like the production on Marty Supreme.

Some people were there was something going on there.

I didn't look into it too much.

But what happened with their split?

So I will not go into too much depth because I really wanted to hire the rock and Josh didn't.

I get it.

That makes sense.

All right.

That's all right.

Go on.

Now I won't go into too much depth because it's like a little too fucking, it's too real and it's too sad.

It's too fucked up.

But like I, since pre good time I have been saying that the Softie Brothers to me, and I say this I went to the same film school as the Softie Brothers.

We had some of the same professors.

Like, we come from fucking the same, like, world of, like, learning film.

Like, I have an affinity for these dudes and I have really liked some of their films.

But even before Good Time, I had this feeling about some of their stuff that they use... grittiness as a manufactured form of authenticity and like I said earlier this is a thing to say film bro behavior I've seen so many times that like oh it's okay that like you know that like real human suffering or misery is somehow like grist for the mill of good art and I think that like that's very easy to say if you're a suffering artist and it's your art that is the it's your suffering it's your art but when you have actors who are suffering for your art it enters this other world where i think a lot of a lot of film bros just like fetishize you know they all want to be like like early herzog where it's like yeah you got to be like out in the jungle and like people you know you're threatened the actor you are threatened to shoot each other and like you have a klaus kinski who's like actually a terrible person but it's like this arresting presence on screen i I get why that's like interesting and has like texture to it.

But I've always felt like the Softie Brothers kind of veered a little too close to to like suffering porn or something.

I feel like a lot of the times they depict subjects that are like about people in really hard situations, and they do so in a way that doesn't, that is, is less empathetic and more look at the spectacle of like the underbelly of humanity.

Look how gritty this is, and it's something that has been stuck in my craw for a long time, even though i do like some of their films.

Um, and i guess what happened is, in one of their films a uh, an underage woman was put in a sexualized role and the other person acting across from her was a legitimate, like convicted felon who was out on release.

Okay.

And some untoward things happened and I guess part of their split from I'll say allegedly, because this is just what I read

This is apparently what happened.

Apparently... I always forget which is which.

Is it i won't say which softy brother?

I guess one of them found out later that this woman was underage and had been hired and they didn't know that and they were like that's really fucked up, that uh, no one like told me that or made me aware of that.

So, um yeah, i just think like the reason i'm bringing it up is i just think that like you can make art about suffering and about gritty shit, and like i don't know, if i wanted to make a movie about heroin addicts, i wouldn't go call up the heroin addicts i've known who have struggled with that shit, partially because some of them are dead, and that gives me real empathy for people who go through this shit.

And partly because it's like other people's misery is not like a.

It's not a a color in your fucking paint set.

True.

Yeah.

It's a man.

That's really disappointing to hear.

I really enjoyed uncut gems and, uh, Marty Supreme.

So.

I think they're great artists.

I just think they veer a little too.

And I don't I don't know.

I'll wait for more details to come out before I do any sort of like condemnation or whatever.

But but that is just the latest that I have read on it.

And it was very disappointing to me as well.

Damn.

OK, sorry.

No, sorry, everyone.

OK, let's talk about Tomb of the Bloodletter.

Let's talk about a video game that is very, very good.

Very, very good.

Jeremy, you started playing this last week.

Did you you were already following the developer, right?

Ethan's secretions.

Ethan.

Yes.

Yeah.

Tell us about it.

Tell us about the game.

I've been following this game for a while.

It caught my eye because I liked I like roguelikes that are clever and not just like number go up, I like.

I like the art style.

It's very like charming and quirky and weird and just bizarre and mostly I was taken with the idea of this like almost Scrabble-like, word-driven roguelike.

So the core mechanic of Tomb of the Bloodletter is a sort of turn-based combat dungeon crawler, where your spells are cast onto the keyboard in front of you, like the typing keyboard is visualized on the screen.

Spells attach to letters and say that the letter O has a spell that does one damage on it.

You have to type a word in that is a real word in the dictionary, like POOL, and when you type in pool it does two damage because there's two O's in it and each O does one damage.

That's the base level.

It gets insanely complex from there.

There are enemies that restrict what words you can put in.

There's a snake enemy where you have to have an S in the word and you get more spells, and the spells interact with each other in weird ways.

There's a spell that does damage to you, but when you do damage to yourself, it fills up a fury meter, and when the fury meter gets sufficiently high, your spells do more damage.

So there's like a million overlapping systems, but the thing that I think is most brilliant about it is

I'm struggling to even think of another game that does this.

It is a roguelike that draws upon knowledge exterior to the game world for you to be good at it.

And so it feels so fucking good to be in this position where there's so much openness that it's not like oh, am I gonna attack, defend or cast a spell or use an item?

It's like, can I think of a word that uses the letters that I need to use in order to get out of this situation?

And it feels so radically open in that way that like when you're like, oh my god, I'm dead, I can't do anything, and then you're like, wait a minute, defenestration.

And like it feels so fucking good to come up with a huge, long word that fits the parameters you need and just fucking win.

It's when you type in syllogism and you see all the letters light up and you're like dude, i'm like i might be the smartest person on planet earth.

Yeah, tomb of the blood letter is such a clever video game to take, like you're totally right that it's all external information um, and it's all just based on your ability to conjure up a word or recognize a certain pattern of letters.

Because like, you can pull up a and you know i'm not gonna lie, i did a couple times pull up a website that has, like I need a word that starts with these letters, has this letter in it and ends with this letter.

You could do that shit.

But like, that's only useful if you can recognize patterns and type them in in that order.

Otherwise, it's just giving you a bunch of random things.

And like, you need to be very considerate of the order that you input the letters.

Because like, okay, C does damage.

And then R has a thing on it that makes it like...

If I took damage this turn, I deal four damage to the enemy.

So I have to do the two letters in that order.

But if I only notice them and I'm thinking they got to go first well, maybe they don't have to go first.

Maybe they go in the middle of the word.

So you have to be so considerate of so many layers there.

Like it's such a...

It's one of those games where, like every time, I'm playing it, even though I've sort of, I think, seen the limit of how many different interactions there are, or all the tools.

Like, I've seen a lot of different tools.

They're literally tools and mechanics in the game.

Now that I've seen all that, it's like playing a different game.

Like you said, it's trying to find words.

It's trying to like, remember patterns or consider things that you can do like.

I think early on, when i was playing the demo months ago, ethan had hit me up and was like hey, love the pod, check this game out, check out my demo.

Um, and i was.

I played one round and i was like this is gold.

You have mined gold and put it right in front of me.

Um, i noticed early on a thing i was struggling with is i was trying to spell words that were like using the individual letters.

I didn't realize you could repeat it.

No, the best thing to do in this game is to find a word that is just like the same two letters over and over again and just keep spamming that.

So now I have strategies in this game where I am constantly looking for like, how do I type the word?

Because

How do I get, like, if I got two Zeds, how do I do pizza?

Like, how do I, you know, make all this happen?

You have, like, strategies in a roguelike in a way that you don't in other games.

Like...

In Hades or in Binding of Isaac, it's like you're looking for tools in a specific order.

You're waiting for the random number generator to give you the right things.

Where?

Here it's like there is part of that and it's definitely built around the player having strategies.

Like you can do different things.

Like I've got like short word strategies that work really well for me, or ones where you're like repeating letters you, you play off the fury meter.

Some of the characters have special abilities that benefit from you taking damage or dealing damage to heal yourself lots of cool stuff like that.

Like one of the characters Jeremy, is like 26.

They have 26 knowledge, which is a stat you have that makes a A certain number of letters per turn.

Always have a spell on them, right?

But every turn, the number of knowledge goes down for that character.

Is that what it is?

So like that's a totally different way of playing the game from the first character, who has, like no special abilities, and the second one, who heals off their first attack.

Like, so many different ways of interacting with the systems.

And even, like, I think...

One thing that I thought was really cool is they use the keyboard for everything.

Like not literally everything.

Like, once you've hit start, you kind of don't have to use your mouse anymore outside of like picking tools if you want to use them, or hovering over stuff if you want to get the information.

When you're making the path in the roguelike game, you are typing in a word, because the letters on the keyboard get like rooms in a roguelike game placed on top of them.

And you're typing out the word to get the path that you want.

So not only are you thinking about it from a combat perspective, you're also thinking about it from like a how do I build the path I want?

I want healing at the end.

So I have to make sure that there's healing there, but I can't type a word that has a Z at the end, because there's not that many.

Like, It's so smart, man.

Every layer of it.

The more I play it, the more I see and realize so many more things.

It's such a like it's just, it's one of those games you play on like it's that I owe for like way too long.

But it works fine on Steam Deck.

If you have a keyboard attached, I would never play this just on touchscreen.

But it's it's really, really fun.

Like I'm so every time I go to play it, I play for like three hours.

I can't put it down.

It's so much fun.

Yeah, I cleared my first.

It's also I found it very, very difficult.

It's very hard.

I think it's a challenging.

You know why I think it's hard?

I think it's hard because it's to your point.

It's like the thing that they're designing around is not their own, not the players physical capabilities, or like their, their ability to understand the systems.

They're designing around the dictionary, like being able to just type in anything like ask for a word.

They have to design around the player doing that.

When you use the spells, they like shuffle up which place the the magic is at.

Like it, the spells move off of the keys after you've used them into different locations.

I feel like the um, The random number generator, is scaled in some way or like there's some sort of waiting where like, vowels don't typically get a letter or a spell on them.

And like Z, X and C, I feel like I always got some on Z, X and C. Yeah.

Oh, my God.

Sorry.

I cut you off because I just I keep thinking about this game and it's like so many parts to it.

No no i, i think that's super valid i i yeah, i don't know.

It's just like i found that the the way which roguelikes work, is often, unless they're roguelites, it is just sort of like now i have mastery of this thing.

It's just it's interesting to me that the mastery in this game is so split between understanding the, the game world and the game rules, and also just like building the, a specific set of vocabulary, like a lexicon in your head that lends itself towards this.

Yeah, it's.

It is cool how much of it is just like, how much of the game mechanics is just happening in your head.

It's like it's using your brain as part of the part of the like systemic emergence is you know?

Now you're like OK, like you said, like knowing, like pizza.

It's like all right now if a z comes up instead of a z being this like and run ender.

Now i have like z words in the pocket ready to go, exactly.

You're just like pulling them out later when you need them.

Or or like maybe you'll notice a pattern of letters and you're like what if i did disregarded instead of just regarded?

Hmm, that's more points and it's also it's also one of the funniest things that it is when the word that works is like it feels.

It feels great.

When you get a word like you know, like defenestrate, and you're like hell yeah fucking, i'm so smart.

But sometimes it'll be like ah, like there's an attack on o and there's an attack on p and i only need to do like four damage, what's a four letter?

And then you're just like all right, i'm gonna kill this guy by just typing poop yep, and it kills him and it's uh, it's very demeaning, but it's very funny.

Or like when you're at the very end of a round, like you know you're gonna lose.

You know what I mean.

Like, there's no way out.

It's like in a strategy game or in a tactics game, where you're cornered, you have no ability points left, like everyone's coming at you.

You can see the turn marker it's like your character and then 17 characters are about to attack.

This game's version of that is you have like three health left, the attacking enemy is gonna do four damage and you have to somehow like weave the keys together in such a way as to like make a word happen.

You just can't do it.

I've sit, i've sat there sometimes for like five minutes on a screen where i think i'm gonna die, typing in different setups of words, being like oh man, defenestrate is good, but like what if i did?

Uh uh uh, you know polyglot, does that work?

Oh no god, like i'm typing in words i've never used before.

I'm pulling out my jeopardy words Because it feels like the possibility space of this game is so fucking wide that like you can sit on a turn that's a run ending turn, where you're going to take run ending damage and be like oh like, if I just think hard enough, I can think my way out of this.

And very few games allow for that.

You know what I mean.

Like even things that are pretty radically open, like Divinity, Original Sin 2.

It'll be like okay well, if I, just if I throw that barrel, it's full of water, the barrel will break and the water will extinguish the fire.

The fire won't damage me, so I'll take one less.

Like that's the fun of games is like strategy crafting, but there are always sort of there are limitations to the number of like possibilities that exist.

It feels like because the possibilities that exist for this are the whole fucking dictionary.

I sat for 15 minutes just staring one time and I was like I was so close to the end of Iran and I was like I can think my way out of this.

And it turns out I couldn't.

But it's cool that you got to spend the time trying it and legitimately thinking can I make that work?

Yeah.

And and again, like nothing is happening in the game.

Everything that 15 minutes, nothing happened in the game.

The game didn't do anything.

It was just my brain, like looking at the words or the letters and trying to make words out of steam coming out of your ears, trying to figure out what goes in here.

Like literally, I tried to play this game tired a couple of times and I was like, I can't do it.

I can't do it.

This is a brainy roguelike.

This is that kind of game where, like what you're describing, I think, is the ultimate comparison in terms of compliment because, like we're saying, Baldur's Gate three, a tactics game that is largely about weird interactions and almost systemic moments.

And it's like, oh, I threw a fireball and I set the oil on fire.

And then this guy in the chandelier fell.

This game's version of that and the way we've been talking for the last like 10, 15 minutes, is dude.

I was really stuck and I was trying to remember how to spell axolotl.

And it was like that was how and then I made it out like that.

But it sounds like obviously it's not exciting.

But if you've played the game it's like weirdly, that's an exciting feeling to remember a word that fit in and like saved you in this weird circumstance.

Like every word had to start with an S. And if I used an E, I took damage, but I didn't use the E.

But I, or sorry, I did use the E so I took damage.

So the spell that does damage, if I take damage, like stuff like that, it's just, oh my goodness.

What a smart little clever video game.

It's just like scratchy pixel art in a keyboard.

It works perfectly.

It's so much fun.

Yeah, it is.

It is weirdly thrilling in the way that um uh, when you're doing like a coding problem and you have to keep all these variables in your mind, where you're like, all right well, this has to do this, but it can't interfere with this and this, like it doesn't have access to this.

So how can i work around that?

You're like holding all these things at once.

You're like, all right, i have to use an s, but i can't use an e, but if there's no x, i'll take damage, but i can.

I need to have the o in there, because the o will double the damage, and you know what i mean.

Yeah, it's like it's just fun to hold all of those things at once and just stretch your brain a little bit.

It's a great fucking roguelike.

It's fantastic.

Yeah, check it out.

Tomb of the blood letter.

It's on steam and that's probably.

It's probably also on itch.

Right, i didn't look, but it's dirt cheap.

Hio, is it not crazy?

It must be tomb of the blood letter.

Well whatever,

Pick it up on Steam at the very least for not too much money.

It's like five bucks, right?

Six bucks at the moment.

It's on sale.

It's on sale until February.

Yeah, it'll be on sale when this airs.

So six thirty nine right now.

It's eight bucks full price, but it's worth every penny.

I mean, six bucks is basically five bucks and eight bucks is like ten bucks or something like that.

Right.

Yeah.

Oh, money's funny.

Yeah, check it out.

I think it's it's it's fantastic.

It's this year's.

Oh, God, what was the game?

Nathan Ranney.

God, I feel so bad.

So typecast.

Yes, it's this year's typecast.

There you go.

Amen.

All right, those are all the games that we had to talk about this week.

Real mix of stuff.

Pathologic 2, Tomb of the Bloodletter, Frank Howley's DDR Excursions and, of course, Yakuza Kiwami 3, which you can buy if you want or, in Jeremy's words, maybe don't.

But we do have a lot of emails to answer here as well.

Frank Howley, take it away.

Yeah, please.

If people want to write to us, send us a letter.

Podcast at noclip.video.

Send us a letter.

Yeah, or my address, 60, no, I mean, hey, snail mail's nice.

Send fan art.

Let me see, let me see.

Oh, and on the Noclip Prime, Discord or Patreon, if you're in the podcast chat channel, send at me at Frank.

You can write questions there, but email podcast at noclipvideo.

We have a few right now actually a lot, but Zach wrote in what is a piece of art media.

You love that you want to see deeply influence a video game.

I remember when I was getting into Death Grips it made me crave a game that was ultra violent, with industrial hip hop music and surreal glitchy visuals, like maybe some deep ride, brutal boomer shooter or maybe a spin on Hotline Miami.

Do you have any non-game media that has given you ideas about potential cool games you wish could exist?

Okay, first off.

Mad World.

They already made a game that you want.

It's just called Mad World.

Go play it.

It's on the Wii, unfortunately.

But, you know, find an emulator or something.

Play it.

It's fantastic.

Perfect Days.

When I watched that movie I was like I just want a game that's just you doing chores and like hanging out with people.

And then I just played.

Um, not Boku no Natsu, Boku no Natsuyasumi, but the, uh, the other one, whatever from that studio.

Uh, I started looking at other games.

Yes.

Thank you.

Natsuman 20th century kid or something like that.

Um, yeah, great game.

It was very nice.

I, I'm glad that they made stuff like that.

Do you guys have any that stick out?

Uh, my number one answer is the game I'm currently making, so I can't say, okay, no spoilers.

Uh, but I will, it will all will be revealed this year.

Um, Yeah, I don't know.

I was going to say Ozu.

I want an Ozu video game.

I feel like Boku no Natsuyasubi is so inspired by Ozu movies.

That is kind of the answer.

So maybe I need to watch some Ozu.

Make them fucking in English, please.

For my Japanese is too bad.

Just play 20.

It's not the same thing.

Don't don't don't.

I don't know.

It's not exactly the same vibe.

Not too much, but it's still it's pretty good.

I'm sure it's great.

I just want to play Boku no Natsuyasumi 1 because I'm a fucking freak for like that era of graphics.

That's fair.

It does look very nice.

Boku 2 is great, though, and that has an English patch.

There you go.

Frank, you got any things?

Yeah, like the initial thing that comes to mind is like we're always very close to it, but like I love Harmony Corrine's Spring Breakers and like Hotline Miami is a lot.

Like that, like that, like that retro wave, that like neon core is bleeds and everything but like.

Specifically with Spring Breakers.

It's like I want to be like Bacalao wearing bikini chicks, robbing banks and shooting guns.

When I played GTA Online, I designed my character like that, but that's like your custom.

You're bringing it to it.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Florida-based GTA 6 has a lot of those Spring Breaker elements, but also even the way Spring Breakers is very visually trippy and weird and stuff like that.

So again...

Hotline Miami is kind of like that GTA online gets close but like let's make more of that would be cool.

And then I said this yesterday kind of sincerely we're like we're watching a stardom pay-per-view.

And like, if this was still the PS2 era, we would absolutely get a Japan exclusive stardom game. yeah we don't have that and in the 90s there were like women's wrestling games for playstation japanese exclusive but like yeah we don't have that world of like japanese exclusive like place like they're they're they're not they're still that that exists but not at that scale now the closest thing is downloading custom characters in wwe 2k but like yeah i still want like a legit joshi wrestling game but custom characters spring breakers um those are like the initial things that come to mind My dream game is, and I think that RGG's, whatever, Project Century, is that what it's called?

I forget what it's called now.

Oh, they changed it?

I think they gave like a formal title.

Stranger Than Fiction or something like that?

Or Stranger of Paradise or something?

With Will Ferrell?

Stranger Than Heaven.

Stranger Than Heaven, that's what we have.

With Will Ferrell, you're right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He's just hanging out back in the past.

I don't think this will be quite.

I think that's maybe the closest to what I'm about to describe, but I want a Go watch Akira Kurosawa's Drunken Angel.

I want a post-war Japanese economic depression Yakuza game.

That's just about going around and being a drunk ne'er-do-well in an incredibly depressing era.

Or like Ikiru.

There's an open sewage pit in town.

It's like a hybrid of Drunken Angel and Ikiru.

And you're the Yakuza who's going to lean on the town officials to get this malaria-ridden cesspool cleaned up in town.

You're like the Yakuza with a heart of gold in this era.

I think that would be the, I don't know.

I'm going to pitch this to negotiate studio and he'll make it do it.

He's got the money now.

I like that.

Um, I think similarly memories of murder or, uh, memories of murder game would be awesome.

I want more hard, like, uh, Oh my God.

Detective style video games that are like also have action bits.

I know judgment and lost judgment are sort of in that direction.

Um, But I want I want more.

And then also, dude, I watch No Other Choice a couple weeks ago.

I want shitty Hitman games.

I want Hitman games where you're bad at it.

That's so funny, man.

That was a good movie.

And I would play a game like that like 100 times.

Just like that general concept of it was very, very good.

I thought that was a fantastic movie.

So much fun.

Next email, Frank.

Yeah, Phil wrote in.

This kind of ties into Valentine's stuff a little bit.

Phil asked What are your thoughts on game characters directly telling the player I love you, and has it ever affected you in any way?

The only other example my friends and I could think about was Mass Effect, which didn't quite have the same impact, perhaps because Shepard is always Shepard.

Curious about your takes.

Okay.

This is an interesting question because it's like There is part of me that feels gross when I'm playing a video game, trying to get someone to like me in the video game.

Because, like, I don't know.

In real life, there aren't bars to fill up.

Like, there's no obvious depiction of, like, my social link with strangers.

It's just...

People like you.

It's a vibe thing.

And in video games I can almost.

Coerce feels like the wrong word to use, but you can.

You are kind of coercing people into liking you.

Yeah.

You just want to learn what Sims interaction they like the most.

And then you tell them jokes for two weeks until they marry you.

Danola.

Yeah, I think this has a.

My biggest feeling on this is kind of in the email, which is that I think when you are the character, it feels a little different than when you are a predetermined character.

Because then if it's like john the protagonist and it's not me, then it's like i'm trying to get this, i'm trying to find love for him.

You know, like i'm setting him up, it is not, this isn't for my benefit, and no one is going to look into the camera and be like i love you, you the player at home, like there's no crossing of that boundary where i'm like, oh no, i've like manipulated the digital life form.

It's just like now john has love in his life, you know, Yeah.

That's the more ethical form of game romance for me.

I get that.

It's like you're participating in a narrative.

Like when Geralt falls in love with Yennefer or Triss, if you have better taste, it's like there's something about it where it's like oh, I helped Geralt get to this point with the character, as opposed to like.

I made Triss fall in love with me.

I don't see it that way.

Like it's not, or I made Yennefer hate me.

Like that's not, I don't think about it that way.

I made, I got Geralt to the point that his story makes sense for me.

Yeah.

Which is, I'm not Geralt.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, I think that's an important distinction.

I don't think it's inherently immoral to have a game where the player is like the player and their name and then I don't know.

But I do think The sad and guilty thing to me.

I get why you would feel that way, because it is weird when a video game tells you I love you.

It's like when...

I don't know.

It's like when a content creator like, ends a stream and they're like I just want you all to know if you're listening out there.

You're my best friend in the world.

I love you so much.

You're not like stop telling people you love them.

You can say that like I appreciate them as like a collective, but like don't I don't know.

You shouldn't like you shouldn't feed into.

Well, I do love the people who give me five dollars a month much more than the people who don't, just just if anyone's curious.

Frank, you play a lot more of these sort of like.

Yeah.

I was going to say romance games, I guess, but I don't know if that's necessarily the goal of playing those games.

What about them?

Do you feel similar?

I guess not because you keep going back to them.

No, I was trying to think like because like in the case of like Persona games, I never make Frank.

It's like I don't like myself in that traditional sense.

I always like give myself like oh, I always, I always use the name Utami, which is a wrestler I really like.

And so like, yeah, there's a disconnect.

But when you, when I play specifically, I can remember like less so for, for I'm excited for, like we were just talking about remakes um, the four remake whatever that comes up, but like both in the case of three and five, not in the so much the romance, but like the friendship thing of like people texting you Hey, how are you feeling today?

Or like and I do have friends reach out to me, but like The feeling of like hey, you want to go fishing today?

Like, getting, like, oh, my God, I have so many friends when I'm playing.

It's, like, I kind of, like, embrace that warm blanket.

It is, like, a nice feeling when you get into the rhythm of those games.

And then, like, there was, like, one character in Persona 3 that's so cute.

But, yeah, it's always, like, detached from the route.

It's like I know I'm not like, But I was trying to think like at the end of like Dead or Alive Venus Vacation, like when you're looking at the Star Festival and they look up and oh, we should kiss.

It's, like, this weird feeling of, like...

Of like I get it's.

It's like not, I'm not like lulling myself into this false seduction.

I'm like oh, this is awesome, but there's a layer of separation of like where it's like oh, this is so stupid, but this is all.

Yeah, I never like get lulled into it.

Like you're.

So, you're full of joy, like finally I got what I wanted out of this.

She told me she loves me and then the screen fades to black and you're like, oh shit, it's just me.

It's like watching a movie.

Or like you're not.

Like yeah, i'm never.

Like i wonder if i played stuff like in vr, if that's more intense.

But like yeah, i've never, i've never, it's never like a replacement for that feeling.

It's more like oh, this is crazy video games letting you like do this stuff.

Or like yeah, i just, i don't know, i haven't.

Like i wonder if, like reading novels sometimes i'm trying to think of the last time i really felt like a connection like that.

I don't know yeah, i don't know i i um, I am.

So if there's a game that can make me feel that I'll play it, please give me anything.

But yeah, I haven't been swooned by a game too much.

Oh, I mean there's characters alike, but not but in terms of the narrative of saying I love you.

It's like that has never affected me.

Yeah, I was also thinking that I remember playing Harvest Moon 64 when I was very young and the romance element of it was very engaging and interesting, but it was never because I was like now I am loved.

It was more like now I like, I like this character and I want to have them play a deeper role in my life in this game.

And, like you know, there there are also like systemic elements to it, like having a family and like a stardew or whatever is like an interesting dude.

I won love, i did it.

I beat love.

One one thing that's nuts.

I remember loading into my animal crossing island, maybe like a year or two ago, and then opening it up and like here's letters from ex-girlfriend being like i love you.

And i saw that i was like fuck, oh.

So it's like that's like the end, so it's like the inverse for characters within it.

Like you know what i mean where it's like you're, you're reading like that and like that's still on my switch.

I'm like i'm not gonna delete the island because i do.

Like it is funny.

I remember like Garrett of Mega64 told me this story

It might have been on the MegaStore podcast, but he talked about my interview thing like 10 years ago.

When he played Final Fantasy VII at the time he named the characters like his girlfriend at the time and he still has that memory card.

And so, like, there's something like that.

I think in my case, with, like, my previous girlfriend, it's, like, Animal Crossing...

I think that's the only fresh.

I mean there was so many games with my last relationship where it's like that era of stuff, a lot of COVIDs.

I even talked about like Monster Hunter, previous generation, where it's like oh my God, there's so many.

We'd always write jokey messages and those are still in my save file.

So if I open them up, it's literally like love letters and shit.

And it's just like, oh God damn.

But that's, like, that extra raw trenchant, like, oh, that's a cool emotion.

Like.

That's a really unique way a game can affect you is like being these time capsules of love as opposed to the fake, like you know.

If Marie Rose says, I love you, senpai, I'm like, oh, cool, but this is a video.

It's bullshit, you know.

Yeah, that is interesting.

That's a very dark but fascinating emergent phenomenon of Animal Crossing I'd never even imagined.

Little time capsules for love.

All right, next question, Frank.

Yeah, Riven asked Frank, as a fellow trophy hunter do you ever have your opinion of a game change because of trying to platinum a game?

I'm playing through Epic Mickey Rebrushed, which features a good and bad path with different endings and corresponding trophies.

I was one level away from getting the last trophy, but due to some choice, it automatically defeated the boss in the good way, wiping the entire run.

Boo!

A few times now I've found having to replay games for trophies has had more of a negative outlook because you see all the unskilled cut scenes, bad to use design, et cetera.

Yeah, my rule, I only get the platinum trophy if it's fun to do so, if I love the game.

Usually anytime I beat a game, I just did this, I think, with Yakuza 5.

I beat the game and then I spent like an extra day, maybe two, three hours, like all right, let me do like this trophy, this trophy, this trophy done.

Uninstall time for Yakuza 6.

In the case of like Pirates, I platinumed because it was a more recent game.

So the trophy set was like oh yeah, this was easy, infinite wealth.

That like the last three hours i started to get sick of it, but like it kind of held the fun level.

So for me, if a if a thing isn't, i can't be.

If it's not fun, i don't like.

I'm not that obsessed with trophies.

To me, trophies literally are the carrot to get me to finish the game.

If i still want to keep playing oh, i can do this this, this.

When i've kind of finished that, like again, if it gets beyond my comfort and it's not fun, i'd rather start a new game or do that.

So like Yeah, but again, like my friend Ryan, funny enough, was addicted to getting platinum trophies and then he got married and now it's like I don't fucking care anymore.

Like, he had something more fulfilling coming to his life.

So, like, and so, like, that's why I'm gonna say, like, I'll play, like...

I don't know.

That's why DDR is fun.

It's like I don't have that much like I love wrestling shows.

I really don't have that much motivation stuff in my life right now.

So it's like, oh yeah, I'll play Yakuza 5, I'll do the pop idol thing, I'll play air hockey with a cabaret girl.

That's a trophy, but yeah, but I won't sit there and rinse a thing if it's not fun, like I don't know.

Yeah again.

Yeah, I don't know, so I will.

I don't go that extreme with it.

No, that's good.

I feel like there's a lot of people who end up falling into that trap of, just like I got to platinum everything I play, which you know sometimes sure, Spider-Man 1 or whatever year that was 2018 or something that easy to platinum.

Buddy, I'm not, I tried platinuming, or whatever it's called on Steam, I don't know, 100%ing.

Skyrim, terrible idea.

Oh, God.

I don't know why I did that to myself.

I bailed half.

One of them was, like, collect all, like, 30 Dragic artifacts.

Yes, and there's no, like, map markers for the artifacts.

You got to just find them.

Drives me crazy.

Yeah, I gave up.

Also, it was a PS3 load time.

Oh, fuck.

I was looking up.

Jeremy was talking about Pathologic 2, so I looked up the trophy guide and the guide was like your first playthrough you should have no spoilers.

Don't look at this guide until you've beaten the game once.

Oh, that's awesome.

So i.

So i like that.

Even in the trophy guy they're like hey honestly, if you want to enjoy path, don't look at this yet.

So i feel like that, between that and the disclaimer about difficulty being like part of the game, i feel like ice pick lodger, like so fucking tuned in to like all of the shit that we talk about at games where it's like you should you should know nothing about a game, you should go in totally fucking blind and you should get the shit beat out of you.

That's the ideal way to play a video game.

Yep, and they're like yeah, that's what we made the game.

That does that Perfect.

It's great.

I'm going to have to play these games.

You've done something.

Can we do Pathologic 2 book club?

Yeah.

Oh, dude, I would love to do that.

If anything, I can get trophies.

There's a guy that you could check on your second playthrough, too.

So, yeah.

All right.

Last email here, Frank.

Yeah, this one, good timing.

Puke asked, our friend Dov Puke, I think.

I'm catching up on podcasts and came across 233, where he expressed a solid interest in dabbling in old and wayward video games, as presented by a delight in finding out about F13, the 2000 PC game where Stephen King emits a new function key on a keyboard.

Oh, yeah, really?

Blind spots. that are both humorous and educational in some sense.

It would also pair well with the return of very popular fat sessions for games that are more suited for longer dives.

You've definitely shared interest for a few games for that as well, like Jesse playing the new Digimon game.

Funny, you mentioned what a smarty pants puke.

Um yeah we, uh.

They'll hear this answer, by the way, in about 44 episodes, so we'll see you next year.

Oh yeah, that's true.

Hopefully you're listening contemporaneously as well.

Uh, we have been pushing the crew has been pushing for a while to do shit like this uh, and it seems like we're gonna do some stuff soon.

So yes, we all still like old, weird games.

Uh, i think that it is important.

I think it is.

It is, if you only focus on the games that are coming out now, you have such a narrow view of what games are and can be, until something new comes out that disrupts that status quo, which is not every fucking day, and so i think like, if you're, if you're paying attention to what's coming out now, but also you're playing like an acrodox, all of a sudden you're like mixing it up in a way.

Oh, my god, i was trying to think i was like what's an anachronistic game, and then i was like oh, an um.

I think that is good as, whether you're someone who makes games or someone who thinks about games, you should be constantly disrupting your own concept of what a game is and what a game can be.

So uh Yeah,

And it just there's fucking the mode of production was different for games in different eras.

Team sizes were different.

Fidelity was different.

I talked about this and I don't know where I talked about this.

Some one of the videos we made about how the Deus Ex could never get made now, because Deus Ex is a game that has low fidelity and it's low fidelity is something that empowers the making of a game of that scope and scale.

And so it's like if you made a Deus Ex that looked like fucking Elder Scrolls 6, you wouldn't make Deus Ex.

Or, if you did, you would have a larger team and a larger budget and it would become a different game as a direct result of those increases.

Was it the Karen video?

I don't know.

Where did I talk about this?

I heard you say it recently, and I remember the clip of- Was it Game of the Year?

It was the clip of the opening.

It might have been.

I don't think so.

But whatever.

It doesn't matter.

Anyway.

Wherever I talked about fucking Deus Ex.

Wherever Jeremy said something smart, good luck finding that.

Like he doesn't do it all the time.

Citing someone smarter than myself talking about it.

Yeah, fair.

That's the key.

Now I think it's very important just as like a fan of the medium, to go back and look at the stuff that doesn't work.

And by go back, I don't even just mean like 20 years ago.

I mean, two months ago.

I do feel like there's times, even here, where we're sort of like hyper obsessed with whatever's going on this week or next week or last week.

And it's like dude sometimes.

Stuff came out six months ago that nobody played like Whiskerwood a game I had not heard anything about, that launched November of last year.

Looks so up my alley.

It's like a.

Excuse me, a city sim of like where you're playing as a bunch of little cats or something like it gets like insane.

It's like factorial levels.

Eventually you're like building spaceship platforms.

I'm like, what do you mean?

I thought this was like a little game where you're building a log city, but nope, it's.

It looks insane.

Stuff like that we miss out on if we're only ever looking forward or at what's currently going on.

I mean, this week.

We're talking about what?

Tomb of the Bloodletter fucking Dance, Dance Revolution.

Pathologic 2 not even the newest Pathologic.

And this week, Romeo is a dead man.

The new Suda51 game is out.

Mugenics is out, which we've covered a million times in the past, but we're not talking about it because none of us got like keys or anything.

Like there's all this new stuff that we're just not focusing on, I think, because this whole crew loves video games in general, not just like keeping up with what's new and hot.

We love just going back and playing good old stuff.

Jeremy does it all the time.

Frank's constantly talking about like weird, obscure shit that he's down and into.

That's Japanese as hell.

And like, it doesn't get made anymore because there's no market for it.

Like that's the stuff that inspires newer games.

Like everyone was talking about how sick it is to play something like expedition 33 and look how great this game is.

It's only kind of AI generated.

Like it's so much fun.

But You look at the games that inspire those developers and very rarely is it like a game that came out three years ago.

It's like a list of JRPGs that nobody would fund anymore because there's no market for it.

Quote unquote.

You know, it's not HD 2D, so we don't want it.

It's like that's the stuff that that drives the industry and makes the most.

I mean, also, it's people who are. obsessed with stuff that isn't video games um but a lot of those games was like there's a reason that we still get cool shit and it's because people like love golden sun on the game boy or they play some weird ds visual novel thing and they're like what if we made paranormal site and it's like yeah sure absolutely let's keep doing weird shit that's you know it's it's important as a both a fan and i think to understand like jeremy said where games were where they are now where they're going to be in the future it's always when you look at the past you can see what's coming next More than just looking at what's going on.

Because, as someone who looks at what's going on a lot, it turns out everyone's doing the same thing from six months ago, but worse all the time.

It's, you know, no shade, but there's a lot of bad indie games that look all exactly the same yeah, and even at the triple a level, like shit's going fucking bad.

Yeah, like the fucking the layoffs and liquidation.

And i we have an interview scheduled for next month about a very specific story within that world that i think will be really cool.

Um so yeah, hopefully.

You know, we're constantly trying to split our focus between telling the big picture of why games are great, where they come from and where they're going, and also uh, why the what the fuck is going on right now and why yeah, absolutely.

And then, like for me, with like arcade preservation, hardware stuff, like again, even over the holiday break, I played Automata Lista like a 2002 racing game.

And that kicked off my brain of like, oh, I've been ignoring this genre.

I want to play everything.

I am so excited in a month to go to every game center and just try to play old racing games because they announced Rave Racer, which was the last arcade Ridge racer Namco made before they started.

Porting the series to PlayStation is coming out like as an arcade port, but you can play the original 30 year old rave racer cabinet in Japan.

And because all those machines are maintained, I realized the big thing playing the the Wong gone midnight maximum tune, which is a game from 2017.

Um, having forced feedback on these old, like arcade.

I want to, I want to get behind the wheel of a 1995 rave racer.

You know, like the idea of piloting these arcade cameras as if they are actual, proper JDM cars, like and I'm going to film all this stuff.

So hopefully I can put that in the video and put it on no clip too.

But like, it's like, I'm going to do this.

And I'm, I'm constantly in pursuit of stuff that just interests me.

That keeps me alive.

And right now, if I can sit in a rave racer cap and it's somewhere in Japan, whether it's Nagoya Kyoto Tokyo, wherever Yokohama, I will find that machine.

And that's like my drive right now.

So it's like, yeah, I don't know.

I'm, I'm always interested.

And like, yeah, I don't know.

Like uh like, it's literally with me watching WCW like like again, the death of my father shook me up in such a way.

Like my dad constantly talked about world war two oral history.

And now that my dad's dead I joke with my friends like dude.

No one talks about world war two anymore.

What the hell every day?

Sorry that's not that funny, but it's really fucking funny.

No seriously, every day is like yeah, i was talking to my friend, a pilot you know he's a play like but my dad was keeping a little tradition of oral history alive no one's fucking talking about, like on my job.

Why aren't we talking about the raiding of the juno beach?

Why don't we talk about that more?

But really yeah, it's like the oral history.

Like, I talked about Mokujin from Tekken 3.

Like, the oral history is great.

And so if you're constantly concerned what's out this week and limiting yourself to that, it's fucking boring then there's no stimulus.

Like, I don't know.

So, and again, thank you, Noclip, thank you, Danny, thank you, Jesse, Jeremy, everyone being interested.

And please, in the comments, talk about the stuff you want, but like yeah it's, it's um.

Video game is immediate, art history isn't just.

Hey, these are the five new paintings that came out this week.

We're never gonna talk about.

That's not how film school works.

No one's like all right, these are the five new movies in theaters.

No, we're fucking studying, like curacao, whatever like And and and.

No, talk about whatever interests you or what I don't know.

But but that my thing is like I'm going to talk about the stuff I want and think like I'm always afraid it's like not the MO, but thankfully everyone here is down with that.

But I mean yeah, we did docs on half-life and everything that you know, so so I feel like we're in good company.

Yeah yeah no, that shit's important.

I mean there's a the the climbing video that's coming out that i did for noclip too.

That's coming out this week, i think.

Uh, i talk about like fucking 1800s french oil painters, like it's there.

There is like weird alternate perspectives that actively tell you a lot about what's happening in games right now and i think if you're just like focused on the last three years of games, you will you will lack real understanding of what what games are and where they came from and why they're important and where they're going.

Nothing but truths here on the Noclip Crewcast.

Truthcast.

I don't like that.

That feels oddly right wing to me.

It was conspiracy.

Welcome back to the truth cast, brother.

Y'all watch the turning point.

All right.

Well, that was the crew cast for this week.

Lots of great emails.

Thank you so much for sending those in.

As always, send them to the podcast.

That no clip video, or in the discord for no clip prime, or wherever you want to do it.

Carry your pigeons.

DM Frank for his address.

You can send it to his P.O. box.

Whatever works for you.

Uh, we have a lot of stuff coming out.

Like we've been talking about on no clip and no clip to uh.

The rest of the disco Elysium documentary series should be out shortly.

Uh, Danny is currently at dice.

The, I don't remember what it was and I don't care anymore.

Intent.

Right.

Uh, destroy ice.

I think that's what it's short for.

Um, yeah, they should have that.

They should host every week.

Yeah.

Check that out.

I'm sure we'll be talking about his time at the event.

Once he gets back, he'll give us an update on what's going on in the industry.

Lots of big, important people and, you know, indie developers.

They're all talking shop.

Lots of cool stuff coming out.

We got I guess we got to figure out something to do for the patron podcast for this month.

We could do Advent Children.

I think we still should.

That'd be very fun.

I think we should watch Battles Without Honor and Humanity.

OK.

Yeah.

That's Isaac Yakuza.

Yeah, right.

Exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

So there we go.

Perfect.

Let's do that.

I like that.

Or Advent Children.

Or something else.

I'm equally down for either.

Okay, what about Super Mario Galaxy, the movie?

No, that's later in the year.

That's later in the year.

We'll do it.

We'll do it eventually.

I promise.

I'll force Jeremy to do it.

You know how much he loves the Mario Bros.

Anyway, yeah, that's been the podcast.

Support us at patreoncom slash noclip or patreoncom slash noclip2 if you want to support the work that we do over there as well, covering video games old and new.

Well, hopefully soon old, but new for the time being.

Yeah, check us out.

We'll see you next week for another episode for number 268.

This has been episode 267.

All right, buh-bye.

[The 'Hear Me Out' Challenge and Deep Dives into Gaming Culture]-[Hear Me Out, Pathologic 2, Tomb of the Bloodletter]

📋 Summary

Episode Overview: The Noclip Crewcast 267

The "Hear Me Out" Challenge

Gaming Deep Dives: Pathologic 2 and DDR Culture

Industry Controversy: Yakuza Kiwami 3

Final Thoughts: The Value of Gaming History

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript

[The 'Hear Me Out' Challenge and Deep Dives into Gaming Culture]-[Hear Me Out, Pathologic 2, Tomb of the Bloodletter]

📋 Summary

Episode Overview: The Noclip Crewcast 267

The "Hear Me Out" Challenge

Gaming Deep Dives: Pathologic 2 and DDR Culture

Industry Controversy: Yakuza Kiwami 3

Final Thoughts: The Value of Gaming History

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🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript

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