WEBVTT
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All right, Hello everyone. You are listening to Pixel Project Radio,
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00:00:18.800 --> 00:00:21.719
the video game discussions and analysis podcast. My name is
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00:00:21.800 --> 00:00:25.800
Rick as always, my name as always anyway, and today
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00:00:25.839 --> 00:00:28.719
we are talking about Kana Bridge of Spirits, a twenty
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twenty one PlayStation five game at first PlayStation five game
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action adventure. It's got some souls in it, it's got
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00:00:36.119 --> 00:00:38.920
some platforming in it, it's got some Pixar in it,
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00:00:39.079 --> 00:00:43.159
arguably actionably that and so much more. It's going to
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00:00:43.200 --> 00:00:45.600
be a great time. And part of the reason it's
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00:00:45.640 --> 00:00:47.679
going to be a great time is because of my
11
00:00:47.799 --> 00:00:50.000
co host, who is here today, new on the show,
12
00:00:50.039 --> 00:00:52.920
first time on the show. We have got Jake from
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00:00:52.920 --> 00:00:56.359
the pre order Bonus podcast. How's it going, Jake, thanks
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for stopping by.
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Yeah, of course, thank you so much for having me here.
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And I'm super excited to talk about this game in particular. Yeah,
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I'm doing great. It is now let's see summer I teach.
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The semester is over, and so I'm feeling a whole
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lot of freedom these days, and it's a good feeling.
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That's awesome. That's awesome, man. I'm sure that it's well
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deserved to well earned. Rest I've taught at various levels,
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so I feel both your joy and your man So
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if you are new to the show, first of all, welcome,
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We are glad that you're here. The way that the
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show works as we are going to talk about some
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00:01:34.239 --> 00:01:37.799
stuff upfront, general high level thoughts before moving into the
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disparate parts of the game, things like the art style,
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the mechanics, the music, and we're going to end with
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a story with a narrative discussion. Cana is a little
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bit different than some of the games that we've done previously,
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things like Pentment, Outer Wild's Final Fantasy, all of those
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sorts of things. It's not quite like that, so it
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won't be as lengthy, perhaps or perhaps not. Perhaps the
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conversation will take us away and move us into various
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areas that I could have never expected, and that would
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be delightful, And of course that would be unsurprising because
1
00:00:15.480 --> 00:00:18.760
All right, Hello everyone. You are listening to Pixel Project Radio,
2
00:00:18.800 --> 00:00:21.719
the video game discussions and analysis podcast. My name is
3
00:00:21.800 --> 00:00:25.800
Rick as always, my name as always anyway, and today
4
00:00:25.839 --> 00:00:28.719
we are talking about Kana Bridge of Spirits, a twenty
5
00:00:28.920 --> 00:00:33.280
twenty one PlayStation five game at first PlayStation five game
6
00:00:33.560 --> 00:00:36.119
action adventure. It's got some souls in it, it's got
7
00:00:36.119 --> 00:00:38.920
some platforming in it, it's got some Pixar in it,
8
00:00:39.079 --> 00:00:43.159
arguably actionably that and so much more. It's going to
9
00:00:43.200 --> 00:00:45.600
be a great time. And part of the reason it's
10
00:00:45.640 --> 00:00:47.679
going to be a great time is because of my
11
00:00:47.799 --> 00:00:50.000
co host, who is here today, new on the show,
12
00:00:50.039 --> 00:00:52.920
first time on the show. We have got Jake from
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00:00:52.920 --> 00:00:56.359
the pre order Bonus podcast. How's it going, Jake, thanks
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00:00:56.359 --> 00:00:56.960
for stopping by.
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Yeah, of course, thank you so much for having me here.
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And I'm super excited to talk about this game in particular. Yeah,
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I'm doing great. It is now let's see summer I teach.
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The semester is over, and so I'm feeling a whole
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lot of freedom these days, and it's a good feeling.
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That's awesome. That's awesome, man. I'm sure that it's well
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deserved to well earned. Rest I've taught at various levels,
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00:01:22.239 --> 00:01:27.239
so I feel both your joy and your man So
23
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if you are new to the show, first of all, welcome,
24
00:01:29.920 --> 00:01:32.239
We are glad that you're here. The way that the
25
00:01:32.280 --> 00:01:34.159
show works as we are going to talk about some
26
00:01:34.239 --> 00:01:37.799
stuff upfront, general high level thoughts before moving into the
27
00:01:37.840 --> 00:01:40.719
disparate parts of the game, things like the art style,
28
00:01:41.200 --> 00:01:43.879
the mechanics, the music, and we're going to end with
29
00:01:43.959 --> 00:01:47.680
a story with a narrative discussion. Cana is a little
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00:01:47.719 --> 00:01:50.120
bit different than some of the games that we've done previously,
31
00:01:50.280 --> 00:01:53.400
things like Pentment, Outer Wild's Final Fantasy, all of those
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sorts of things. It's not quite like that, so it
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won't be as lengthy, perhaps or perhaps not. Perhaps the
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00:02:01.159 --> 00:02:04.760
conversation will take us away and move us into various
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areas that I could have never expected, and that would
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be delightful, And of course that would be unsurprising because
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Jake has done this before. So what is Cana? As
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I said, it is a third person action adventure game.
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It has a deceptive, souls like gameplay style, deceptively difficult,
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I should say souls like gameplay style. There are environmental
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platforming puzzles that make up a big part of it,
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and a pick star esthetic. Those are what I perceive anyways,
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these sort of idiosyncrasies that make up this game. How
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would you describe Cana. What did I leave out of
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there that you would like to tack on?
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I largely agree. I think with everything in here, I
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would just heavily emphasize that deceptive sort of feel to
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it in that. I think a lot of how this
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game showcased was that it would just be like a
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third person action game. I think it kind of launched
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on PlayStation. Maybe you would dovetailed a little bit with
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the associations that PlayStation has right now, But yeah, no,
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this is exactly how I would describe it.
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Cool. Good. I'm glad to know that I am not
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totally off base. I've said this to I've said this
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on the show to the listeners in the past. Third
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person action games, action adventure, Soul's games, they're not really
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my forte. I have grown Soul's games in particular. I
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have grown to have an appreciation of and instead of
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a disdain toward, and I think that's great. More on
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this game and how it relates to those sorts of
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inspirations in a little bit. I don't want to get
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too ahead of myself here before we get into her
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personal histories and overall thoughts. Community Forum. You're new to
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the show, this is a section of the Discord Server,
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which is free, by the way, where you all of
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those that are in there can contribute your thoughts, opinions,
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feelings about the games we're talking about, or about the topics,
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and we will read them. If you write them, they
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will be read. Behave yourselves with that. For Caana, we
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got nothing nobody wrote in, but that's okay. It happens sometimes.
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Maybe a lot of you weren't familiar with the game,
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and hearing today's episode will guide you in a way
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to whether or not this game is for you. And
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speaking of the game being for you, if or not,
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let's do some personal histories and overall thoughts. Jake is,
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what has your experience been with Cana? When did you
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first become aware of it? When did you first give
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it a try? And how do you feel about it overall?
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I first came let's see, I first saw it when
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it was being heavily marketed as like this awesome game
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for PlayStation. I want to say, if I'm remembering correctly
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for PS five specifically, I remember looking at some trailers
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and thinking, yeah, this is a gorgeous looking game, just
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totally being blown away by the art style. Let's see.
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At the time, I didn't have a so I wasn't
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really thinking about it. Ironically enough, I bought Keina, I
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mean when I had a PS five later. But when
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it first launched for Xbox, they were running at a
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pretty good, pretty good discount on PlayStation and so I
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was like, oh, I think, I guess this is the
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time to pick it up. I picked it up, just
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not quite on a whim. I had heard some positive
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things about it. I had heard that again it was
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just a gorgeous game to look at, and that there
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was some pretty good combat. I just said that the
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combat was good. I don't remember ever being familiar with
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how difficult the combat would be over the course of
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the game. So I was like, Okay, you know what,
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this might just be a good kind of popcorn action
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game that I can pop in and play when I
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feel like it. So that was kind of my lead
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up into it. My overall thoughts, I'm a little torn.
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I think I came away liking it quite a lot,
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but also, pardon me, was like, I don't know, I'm
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so torn. I can't totally formulate my thoughts here. I
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guess part of it for me was maybe expectation. I
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just wasn't expecting this to play out the way that
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it did, and so I had a little more friction
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with the game than I wanted from the experience. I
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think if you under I don't know, I think that
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there's a better approach to how to playing this game
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than how I did. So anyway, all that out of
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the way, the art, direction of the environments, everything that
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I had liked visually about the game was there. I
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think the combat is pretty solid, aside from a few
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little nitpicks and maybe a few little nitpicks with bosses,
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but otherwise, I think overall I could say that I
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liked it.
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And when you say sorry, I'm already forgetting what you said,
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because podcasters don't listen, they speak. When you say that
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you maybe didn't maybe didn't play through it in the
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best way, do you mean just having those expectations before
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coming in.
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Yeah, exactly. So my expectations about this was going to
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be way more laid back than it was, and then
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it wasn't. This is not a laid back It's not
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a laid back experience in my opinion, So it didn't work.
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It didn't do that for me.
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Yeah, it's funny. You if you type Caana and Reddit
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into Google, which you know the latter part you have
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to do in twenty twenty six. If you want any
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real information, you type Caana Reddit. Everything you were going
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to see is like, is this game really that difficult?
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Or why is this game so difficult? You know it's
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it's and you don't expect it either because it does
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look like something from Yesteryear's Disney Pixar. It has a
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very family friendly sort of esthetic, and it's deceptive. It's
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not exactly the experience you might find m exactly. That's
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how it was for me overall. Would you recommend this
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to folks that are fans of, you know, souls like?
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Do you have any like caveats for your recommendations?
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Ooh, I would probably caveat some recommendations. I would say,
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if you are interested in souls like and you want
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a shorter souls like experience, Cana is a good one
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for that. Like, if you really want to test the
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waters of souls like games, this could be a really
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good one. There. I still think kind of the way.
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Top picks for recommending a Soul's Like game would be
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like another Crabs Treasure. I think that would probably be
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my top pick if you want to test the waters there,
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But this one, I think because it is shorter and
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considerably shorter than most Souls games. If that's something that's
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important to you, then I would pick this one over
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another Crabs Treasure.
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Interesting, that's not the first time I've heard that game's
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praises being sung. I'll have to check that out. Crabs Treasure.
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It looks very funny. It looks very goofy, I guess
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is a better way to put it.
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This is obviously this episode's on Kena, but just a
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quick note about another Crabs Treasure. This is another deceptive game.
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I would say the first two thirds three quarters of
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this game are mostly ocean jokes, but then it gets
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into some pre serious topics in a much more heavy way.
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I do recommend it as my number one Souls Like
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if you want to test out this game because it
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has so many different sliders when it comes to how
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you want to approach your know accessibility for a Soul's
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Like game, and I think it does those masterfully, so
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that would that's really why I recommend it.
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First, you know what I have to say about all
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those ocean jokes, right, good grief, good grief? All right. Anyway,
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now that I've exposed myself as being terribly unfunny my
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personal histories with Kana, I've been adjacently aware of this
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game for quite some time. You see it all the
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time on PlayStation plus. I'm I think at one point
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it was like a like a free game that you
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could get on there. It's it's on sale pretty often.
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I ended up buying it on PC at some point
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when it was on discount, and since there it's been
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in my library. It's been looking at me. And I
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actually ask you for several suggestions on what we could
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possibly do, what you would be interested in talking about,
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and Cana was one of them. And out of all
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of your you know, three four, however many suggestions you gave,
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I chose Kana to have something that we could both enjoy.
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I you know this, this will be interesting. I this
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is the first game in quite a while that we've
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done on the show that I've come away feeling fairly
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negatively toward. I don't think it's a bad game. I
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want to get that out of the way right up front.
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It is a perfectly cromulent game. There's nothing about it
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that I find repellent. I don't think there are any
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like egregiously bad things about it. There are things that
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I don't like taste wise, largely in the combat, but
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you know that'll be later. The word that I continue
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the two words that I continually come back to when
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thinking of Cana in terms of the writing, the narrative,
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the art style, the battles, the physics is derivative, are
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excuse me our derivative and shallow. I think the team
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should be proud Amber Labs that this is their first game.
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I think they released a first game that is perfectly good,
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and I think they should be very happy about that,
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and I have I wish them nothing but success with
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their second with their sequel, which has been announced Keina
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two Scars of Kosma twenty twenty six. Do you know
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if that has a release date outside of just twenty
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twenty six.
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I do not, and I did kind of scour the
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internet before coming on, so I haven't seen anything.
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And I hope people like it. A lot of people
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really like Keana, and that's great for me. The best
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at its best points outside of a few a few
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scenes with the admittedly quite strong visuals and compositions. A
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lot of my feelings from Keina came down to this
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reminds me of X and I wish I were playing
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that right now, or I wish I were watching that
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right now. If we're going with Pixar. Yeah, I don't know,
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And I think this will be very cool to talk
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about because I don't think that, you know, I don't
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necessarily think that that is the gospel on this game,
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and I am glad to be talking to somebody that
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feels more positively toward it to help fill in the
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gaps that I maybe missed or have a great conversation
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around it. So to that end, well, I was gonna say,
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let's keep talking, but then I was like, well I'm
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about to talk even more. So sorry about that, Jake,
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and sorry about that, listeners, but let's talk a little
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bit about how this game came into being. Was released
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in twenty twenty one September after a few delays PlayStation
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in PC Epic Games Exclusive First, which cued so many
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tomato throwings and etc. Came to Xbox where you played it.
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He said in twenty twenty four in August, came to
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switch to very recently this past March at the time
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of record in March twenty twenty six. You can see
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the full credits on the wiki or in the credits
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of the game if you want to beat it. But
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of note, this was developed and published by Ember Lab,
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which is comprised primarily, I should say, created by two brothers,
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director Mike Greer and producer and writer Josh Greer. The
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design on this was done by Jacqueline Yea composed by
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Jason Galadi and again first game. They had done some
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previous animation work in things like you know, commercials, product
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placement sort of things, and their brief fame before this
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came in twenty sixteen with a viral short based on
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the legend of Zelda Majara's Mask titled A Terrible Fate?
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Have you seen this?
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I have not seen this?
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What uh? I made the grave mistake of not watching
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it before coming on to here? What uh? What is it? Why?
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What made it go viral? I would love to know, like,
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I mean, like, is it it does look very good?
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I mean, is it? Is it very cute? Is it
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very dark? Or you know, is that their trick. Ember
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Lab like a deceptively cute appearance with a kind of
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dark or otherwise antagonistic force underneath it.
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It's gotta be okay, I actually just pulled it up here.
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It's got sixteen million views, right my god. It just
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it looks gorgeous. I mean, actually looking at this, I
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see this is where Keina kind of comes from in
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a lot of ways.
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Okay, cool, I'm gonna I will link that into the
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episode notes, along with a couple of other things I
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found in reading about Kena and reading about some of
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the inspirations behind Kena. I'll link all of that cool
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stuff that Jake and I have to share in the
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episode description so you all can check it out. I
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did end up watching a Terrible Fate, which I will
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link in the episode description as well. Jake is right,
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you can totally see the style of the Cana team,
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and I'll be honest, I think in some ways this
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is more impressive from an animation standpoint than Kana. Now,
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I'm not an animation specialist, obviously, I am a lay person,
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but just on a first and second brush, it seems
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to me that there's more depth than a lot of
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the textures and the environments and the color. It's very impressive.
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If we do have any animation specialists, I would really
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love to hear your thoughts on this, What makes it
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so special, How it differs, possibly from the animation used
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in Cana. It's cool stuff. Oh and I guess I
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should say what it is. It's the origin story of
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skull Kid. It's a tribute to Majara's mask, showcasing skull
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Kid and how he came to be in possession of
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the mask. Check it out. One more quick note, speaking
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on things I might end up linking or editing in
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many games of this era, the early adjustment period that
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was when working from home became a necessity at this
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At that point, this game was originally slated to release
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in twenty twenty in September, I believe, but it was
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pushed back a bit to Q one of twenty twenty one,
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because again, you know, working from home brand new on
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a very collaborative project like making a video game that
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is extraordinarily difficult. It got pushed back even further again
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to September. And I have to say too, almost universally,
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I support this idea. I would much rather something be delayed.
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I was just listening to somebody whose YouTube videos I
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very much like. I don't remember their name though they're
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a new addition, but they were saying how they're just
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not interested in the Elder Scroll six anymore because it's delay, delayed, delay,
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And I don't know. I always think about the feeling
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I get in retrospect of like, oh, you know, I've
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got the game, now, why was I so mad about
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the delays. I would rather come out in a state
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that is, you know, that is agreeable and makes the
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artists proud, the creators of it proud, rather than something
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that makes the shareholders and the folks that are making
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money distributing it proud. You know what I mean. I'm
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totally fine with the delays.
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Yeah, I'm with you there.
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I think you.
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I trace the history pretty well here of what ember
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Labs is doing, kind of what happened here is you
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have this big transition in how your workforce is operating,
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and I mean, yeah, I mean that's going to cause
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some time to adjust. I'm not an expert on the
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video game industry and how to operate per se, but
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from what I understand is that there are a lot
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of moving parts and when there's one hiccup, it ripples
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pretty hard into every aspect of game development. So yeah,
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this to me just seems the same thing. And I
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like the way that you kind of talked about your
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framing there when you're playing the game in that moment,
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like playing the game, are you mad that it was delayed?
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I have never once thought about delay while playing a game.
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And conversely, when a game is rushed out the door
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and it comes out unfinished, that's the first thing folks
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talk about. What was the one Maybe I'm thinking of
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Horizon zero Don's PC port that was rushed and just
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totally unoptimized. But you know, I'm sure there are many
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examples of stuff getting pushed out the door real quick
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and then getting passed and it's like, oh yeah, now
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it's fine. Cyberpunk, That's what it was. Cyberpunk's release just
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full of bugs and game breaking. It was the joke
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of the internet for over a year and now you
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would have never known. And you know, was that because
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it was rushed? I don't know, but yeah, it's when
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there are so many moving parts that one hiccup can
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cause a title wave. If we'll go back to the
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ocean puns, then you know these delays. I mean, it's
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all right, there's an infinite number of video games to play.
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One other thing that I have here in my notes
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that I will edit this in if I find new info.
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But I am really curious if you know anything about this.
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I did see some lists of some accusations that came
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out against ember Labs regarding the idea of delays, specifically
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insofar as things like overtime and crunch not getting proper
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compensation for that some folks I thought. I saw some
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folks saying they weren't compensated very well at all, and
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some aspersions against ideas of equity. I believe is a
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phrasing that I saw. Do you know much about any
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of these? I didn't want to just brush them under
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the rug, but I didn't find anything before coming in.
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No, I know very little about this, and I think
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I think you're right from what I do remember. It
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probably has to do with the delays as they happened.
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But yeah, I haven't heard too much about this, and
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since then this hasn't become like a go to example
358
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of crunch or unfair labor practices.
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That's good, I hopefully, I think I saw that Ember
360
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Lab responded in apologies. If I continually get that singular
361
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and plural mixed up, they both sound good to me.
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But I think I saw somewhere that they had released
363
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like a documentation saying like, no, these these accusations just
364
00:20:10.720 --> 00:20:14.920
aren't true or something. If I find anything to edit in,
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you folks listening at home, will hear this sound effect
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that will indicate that future me is talking. Just so
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we don't get our wires crossed. If future me finds
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anything cool about the art music mechanics wants to correct
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something that passed me in his idiocy, said, that's what
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you'll hear. And no, this sound effect is not from Kana.
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I usually like to put in the sound effects that
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are from the games that we're talking about to keep
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it relevant. It just seems appropriate. But I couldn't find
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any from Kana that didn't have music in the background
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or in the foreground, that were loud enough, that just
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didn't have other things going on. It was a little
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too difficult. I just couldn't find any. So I thought
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this was all right, But let's talk about some of
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the most interesting things of this game, the things that
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make it special. And I thought we could begin are
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talking about the art style and the presentation. This is
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the first thing, folks, notice. I want to hear what
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you have to say first, Jake, what do you think
384
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of the art direction? What did you think of it
385
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before coming in? I know that deception that you and
386
00:21:36.759 --> 00:21:39.599
I have both touched on a little bit has come up.
387
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Talk to us about the visuals.
388
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Yeah, absolutely, this is one of those games. I remember
389
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when I first saw the trailer for this, I was thinking, Okay,
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is this you know, is this what the game actually
391
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looks like? This is really what it looks like. As
392
00:21:56.000 --> 00:21:59.359
we're saying what the t excuse me, I'm tripling over
393
00:21:59.480 --> 00:22:03.960
myself as what the trailer here is actually presenting? And Yeah,
394
00:22:04.160 --> 00:22:09.519
I think the association directly with Pixar is super valid.
395
00:22:09.720 --> 00:22:13.720
If I remember correctly that there were people in animation
396
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who had previously worked maybe not for Disney Pixar, but
397
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maybe for Disney Pixar as well. I'm really fuzzy on
398
00:22:19.400 --> 00:22:22.920
those details. And yeah, so I think for me, the
399
00:22:22.960 --> 00:22:25.839
first thing that stood out to me was that association,
400
00:22:26.039 --> 00:22:30.440
particularly with Keena's face and the faces that we see
401
00:22:30.480 --> 00:22:32.920
in different Pixar movies. But the thing that I really loved.
402
00:22:33.039 --> 00:22:35.440
Is I love a really good looking environment. I think
403
00:22:35.839 --> 00:22:39.119
something that's really difficult to pull off is to have
404
00:22:39.640 --> 00:22:45.519
your environments look organic but also have really strong level design, right, Yeah,
405
00:22:45.880 --> 00:22:48.839
especially in a game like this, right where you were
406
00:22:48.880 --> 00:22:51.039
going to have you're going to be traversing through the
407
00:22:51.119 --> 00:22:53.319
wilderness more than anything. You're not going to be in
408
00:22:53.359 --> 00:22:56.599
a ton of interior locations. It's hard to make that
409
00:22:56.720 --> 00:23:00.319
level design look super organic and free flowing, right.
410
00:23:00.799 --> 00:23:01.640
You just need.
411
00:23:03.000 --> 00:23:05.119
As opposed to like, if you're in the interior of
412
00:23:05.200 --> 00:23:09.720
a house, oftentimes the house might feel nonsensical, or you
413
00:23:09.880 --> 00:23:12.519
just throw a bunch of like broken furniture, or you
414
00:23:13.079 --> 00:23:15.559
make it very clearly known that a door is shut,
415
00:23:15.680 --> 00:23:18.279
and that kind of gates and determines how you're going
416
00:23:18.319 --> 00:23:20.839
to progress through a level. So, yeah, the environment here
417
00:23:20.960 --> 00:23:25.119
looked just really, really fantastic to me. It is interesting though,
418
00:23:25.200 --> 00:23:27.759
because out of all the kind of Disney Pisar films,
419
00:23:27.799 --> 00:23:31.000
this one looks the most like Raya in The Last Dragon.
420
00:23:31.480 --> 00:23:33.319
I don't know if you're familiar with that film or.
421
00:23:33.359 --> 00:23:34.200
Not, I'm not.
422
00:23:35.119 --> 00:23:39.880
It's I mean, it also is loosely kind of basing
423
00:23:39.960 --> 00:23:42.640
some of the things that it is showing or illustrating
424
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on Southeast Asian culture and mythology, So the associations there
425
00:23:47.359 --> 00:23:50.440
kind of makes sense to some degree. Yeah, those are
426
00:23:50.480 --> 00:23:52.200
the two things for me. It's like, Okay, I see
427
00:23:52.240 --> 00:23:54.519
picksar in the face, in the faces of the rots,
428
00:23:54.599 --> 00:23:56.759
but also in the face of Quina. But I'm also
429
00:23:56.960 --> 00:23:59.839
seeing something that I find to be really stunning in
430
00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:04.960
the environments that feel and look pretty natural and you know,
431
00:24:05.039 --> 00:24:07.799
something that would occur naturally, not just strict level design.
432
00:24:08.559 --> 00:24:11.240
Yeah, I'm glad that you mentioned the environment right up front.
433
00:24:11.920 --> 00:24:16.119
It is just well, overall, it is a very pleasant
434
00:24:16.200 --> 00:24:20.599
and great looking game. It looks very good. No qualms there.
435
00:24:20.920 --> 00:24:25.359
The environment, I believe I saw Japan and Bali cited
436
00:24:25.480 --> 00:24:29.759
as their big influences, particularly the more mountainous, you know, lush,
437
00:24:29.920 --> 00:24:33.400
verdant regions of those places. You see a lot of
438
00:24:34.400 --> 00:24:38.279
I geez, I don't think there are like any actual,
439
00:24:39.240 --> 00:24:41.920
like real kanji that you could just read, but a
440
00:24:42.000 --> 00:24:46.039
lot of the symbols are based around kanji, based around
441
00:24:46.319 --> 00:24:50.880
symbols from Japan, from Bali, things like that, And it
442
00:24:50.960 --> 00:24:53.480
might maybe I'm just getting this crossed up with the
443
00:24:53.559 --> 00:24:58.400
animation studio Sparks, who helped a lot with the animation
444
00:24:58.599 --> 00:25:01.599
and with the music stuff, but I would be surprised
445
00:25:01.640 --> 00:25:06.400
if Venamese culture wasn't also a bit of an influence
446
00:25:06.440 --> 00:25:10.440
here too. As far as the environment goes, let's let's
447
00:25:10.759 --> 00:25:13.200
camp out here for a moment full of the bad
448
00:25:13.319 --> 00:25:18.680
jokes man. What did you feel that I'm asking this
449
00:25:18.799 --> 00:25:20.880
in such a biased way because this is how I felt.
450
00:25:21.279 --> 00:25:23.119
Did you feel that there was a bit of a
451
00:25:23.200 --> 00:25:29.200
disconnect between how sprawling the environments looked. They look amazing,
452
00:25:29.319 --> 00:25:33.079
lush forests stretching for miles, rocks, riverbeds, mountains. Did you
453
00:25:33.160 --> 00:25:37.279
feel any conflict between that and the reality of where
454
00:25:37.480 --> 00:25:40.759
how much you got to explore. I did feel I
455
00:25:40.960 --> 00:25:44.279
was trying to explore everything, and I just didn't feel
456
00:25:44.400 --> 00:25:46.839
like I didn't feel like they wanted me to go
457
00:25:46.960 --> 00:25:47.880
everywhere I wanted to go.
458
00:25:48.680 --> 00:25:51.920
No, I agree for sure. As much as I'm praising
459
00:25:52.000 --> 00:25:54.440
kind of the art direction for feeling and looking natural
460
00:25:54.599 --> 00:25:57.799
right and not just looking like level design, this game
461
00:25:57.960 --> 00:26:04.079
is pretty straightforward, point B level design right. It's interesting
462
00:26:04.640 --> 00:26:08.200
I personally kind of in my experience because I started,
463
00:26:08.839 --> 00:26:12.359
I think with the visuals like that was my big hook,
464
00:26:12.759 --> 00:26:15.039
but then eventually I realized, no, I actually have to
465
00:26:15.119 --> 00:26:18.480
really figure out this combat. And so I think this
466
00:26:18.640 --> 00:26:22.160
is something again really hard to balance as a game developer,
467
00:26:22.559 --> 00:26:26.079
all the different systems and how they intertwine. For me,
468
00:26:26.519 --> 00:26:29.400
I started looking at the environment more just through the
469
00:26:29.519 --> 00:26:33.960
vistas and less on the what I was able to explore,
470
00:26:34.559 --> 00:26:37.440
just because combat just started demanding a whole lot of
471
00:26:37.480 --> 00:26:41.400
my attention, right, So I don't know, I wasn't paying
472
00:26:41.480 --> 00:26:44.079
like super close attention to that. I do think that
473
00:26:44.160 --> 00:26:45.960
this is a good question, no matter how biased you
474
00:26:46.039 --> 00:26:49.519
might feel about it though, because you do get some
475
00:26:49.920 --> 00:26:54.279
really remarkable vistas, right. I'm thinking early on one of
476
00:26:54.319 --> 00:26:56.720
the levels, right, you have to climb up a mountainside
477
00:26:56.759 --> 00:26:59.519
a waterfall and towards the top of year in these
478
00:26:59.640 --> 00:27:03.240
like tree dwellings, right, And if you were to look
479
00:27:03.480 --> 00:27:06.359
back over all of the level that you have just
480
00:27:06.440 --> 00:27:09.200
platformed your way up to get to that spot, you
481
00:27:09.400 --> 00:27:13.960
still see like something incredibly gorgeous and wonderful, and it
482
00:27:14.079 --> 00:27:16.680
does kind of inspire you to have that breath of
483
00:27:16.720 --> 00:27:19.039
the wild moment where it's like can I go there?
484
00:27:19.119 --> 00:27:22.000
I would like to go there? Like what's between me
485
00:27:22.160 --> 00:27:25.160
and there? But this is this is like not that game, right,
486
00:27:26.400 --> 00:27:29.960
So it's interesting. It kind of makes me wonder because
487
00:27:30.039 --> 00:27:32.880
now that the sequels announced, from what I've seen from
488
00:27:32.920 --> 00:27:35.519
the sequel, it's going to play an awful lot like
489
00:27:35.680 --> 00:27:39.880
this game. But it would be curious. I would be
490
00:27:39.960 --> 00:27:43.000
curious to know, like if this game or if this
491
00:27:43.079 --> 00:27:44.960
studio had made a game that's kind of like the
492
00:27:45.160 --> 00:27:48.279
Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order or more like Star Wars
493
00:27:48.359 --> 00:27:52.440
Jedi Survivor right where you have hubs to explore, but
494
00:27:52.559 --> 00:27:56.319
maybe not like an entirely open world game. Because and
495
00:27:56.599 --> 00:27:59.359
I'm you know, as you said, we're camping here, and
496
00:27:59.400 --> 00:28:02.400
I'm camping here a little bit, and I'm curious about
497
00:28:02.480 --> 00:28:06.880
this because these environments look so dang good. You know,
498
00:28:07.480 --> 00:28:10.400
this is something I would want to explore. I would
499
00:28:10.440 --> 00:28:12.599
want to walk over to that hillside. I would want
500
00:28:12.599 --> 00:28:14.480
to check out that waterfall and kind of see what's
501
00:28:14.559 --> 00:28:18.920
behind the corner. Yeah, it looks very inviting as it is.
502
00:28:19.519 --> 00:28:23.279
That's a good idea. I haven't played. That's Survivor is
503
00:28:23.319 --> 00:28:26.480
the sequel to fall in Order, right, correct, Okay, I
504
00:28:26.880 --> 00:28:29.039
haven't played that one yet. It's been a long time
505
00:28:29.160 --> 00:28:32.119
since I played the first. That idea of them having
506
00:28:32.240 --> 00:28:36.000
hubs and then sort of having you know, several disparate
507
00:28:36.079 --> 00:28:40.039
areas hubs that are smaller but have far more attention
508
00:28:40.519 --> 00:28:43.279
paid to them. I think you know, given what they've shown,
509
00:28:43.319 --> 00:28:47.000
they can do animation wise with this one, with as
510
00:28:47.079 --> 00:28:50.680
you said, those gorgeous vistas, the cameras whenever you are
511
00:28:51.319 --> 00:28:53.920
doing those platformings and turning around to look, or when
512
00:28:53.960 --> 00:28:55.920
you sit down to meditate, as you're able to do
513
00:28:56.000 --> 00:28:59.400
at certain spots, and you get these shifting camera angles
514
00:28:59.519 --> 00:29:04.000
of the land escape and looking out, very scenic, very
515
00:29:04.640 --> 00:29:08.440
very good looking. It's it's clear in this area they've
516
00:29:08.519 --> 00:29:12.200
got the juice to do something really special. I'm with you.
517
00:29:12.279 --> 00:29:15.119
I think that's a great suggestion, great idea suggestion. Yeah,
518
00:29:15.160 --> 00:29:17.400
you hear that, Ember Lab I think it's a great idea.
519
00:29:18.200 --> 00:29:22.799
I'mchair dev Jake over here has an idea for you, No,
520
00:29:23.000 --> 00:29:26.039
I would say, and it would be really interesting to see.
521
00:29:26.960 --> 00:29:30.000
And this is much more I think you know, possible
522
00:29:30.240 --> 00:29:34.359
for the sequel obviously in Bridge of Spirits. Keen of
523
00:29:34.400 --> 00:29:38.160
Bridge of Spirits say, absolutely nail these lush forest, mountainous
524
00:29:38.240 --> 00:29:41.160
areas and some water you know places as well too,
525
00:29:41.240 --> 00:29:45.079
meaning like mostly rivers. I would love to see them
526
00:29:45.119 --> 00:29:47.799
do more in different locations as well. Right this game
527
00:29:48.000 --> 00:29:50.839
largely I again, I'm really torn on this. I think
528
00:29:51.079 --> 00:29:54.119
narratively it makes sense to kind of keep this localized
529
00:29:54.160 --> 00:29:56.559
in terms of biomes, rather than just running you through
530
00:29:56.720 --> 00:29:59.319
like here it's a plains area, here's the forest area,
531
00:29:59.400 --> 00:30:02.200
here's the snow area, here's the lava area, here's the desert,
532
00:30:02.200 --> 00:30:05.720
you know, instead of just kind of going through those motions, like,
533
00:30:05.880 --> 00:30:09.000
it makes sense that this game takes place in the
534
00:30:09.079 --> 00:30:11.079
locations that it does, and it looks the way that
535
00:30:11.200 --> 00:30:13.759
it does. Although maybe I was starting to get a
536
00:30:13.799 --> 00:30:15.960
little tired of some of the caves after a while.
537
00:30:16.000 --> 00:30:18.279
I'm like, Okay, I feel like I've done this cave before,
538
00:30:18.480 --> 00:30:20.920
you know. But yeah, like you said, they've got the juice.
539
00:30:20.960 --> 00:30:25.279
They have just absolute prowess here when it comes to environments,
540
00:30:25.720 --> 00:30:27.640
like what ones could they cook up? I'd love to see.
541
00:30:28.200 --> 00:30:30.920
Yeah, I agreed, and I'm glad that you called out
542
00:30:30.960 --> 00:30:36.880
that connection. The narrative significance of the environment is you
543
00:30:36.960 --> 00:30:40.279
could argue it's the most important narrative theme in the game.
544
00:30:40.519 --> 00:30:42.960
I'm not so sure that I would make that claim immediately,
545
00:30:43.039 --> 00:30:45.440
but it is important that it's taking place out here
546
00:30:45.799 --> 00:30:48.519
in these lands as opposed to, like you said, a
547
00:30:48.640 --> 00:30:52.480
planes area versus a forest area and then mount you know,
548
00:30:52.759 --> 00:30:55.000
things like that. So I get, yeah, maybe they did
549
00:30:55.119 --> 00:30:57.160
think of it and they chose not to. I don't know.
550
00:30:58.119 --> 00:31:00.319
It'll be very, very interesting to see what they do
551
00:31:00.400 --> 00:31:04.279
with the sequel. So we both touched on the pixarness
552
00:31:04.440 --> 00:31:07.279
of it all. I feel we should probably talk about
553
00:31:07.279 --> 00:31:10.160
that a little bit. That is one of the first
554
00:31:10.200 --> 00:31:13.480
two things within five minutes ten minutes of playing the
555
00:31:13.559 --> 00:31:20.200
game that I clocked was it seems extremely Pixar influenced. Yeah,
556
00:31:20.400 --> 00:31:22.480
the other one, and I don't know if this is Pixar.
557
00:31:22.599 --> 00:31:25.680
I went I went on a whole twenty minute googling
558
00:31:25.720 --> 00:31:28.240
spree trying to find an answer to this. There is
559
00:31:29.480 --> 00:31:31.559
there is an animation style that I'm going to try
560
00:31:31.599 --> 00:31:34.839
to explain on Mike for the listeners. This is going
561
00:31:34.920 --> 00:31:38.599
to be tough. There's an animation style where and Kana
562
00:31:38.720 --> 00:31:41.359
does it. Everybody in Caana does it where they talk
563
00:31:41.559 --> 00:31:43.880
in such a way where they move their head like
564
00:31:44.880 --> 00:31:48.160
in an undulating motion forward and their mouth kind of
565
00:31:48.559 --> 00:31:52.000
goes off to the side like that a little bit. Yeah, yeah,
566
00:31:52.240 --> 00:31:54.440
shake their head a little bit. I thought like, I
567
00:31:54.599 --> 00:31:56.599
was like, is that rankin and Bass? No, Ranking and
568
00:31:56.640 --> 00:31:58.640
Bass was like Rudolph, like the old school Rudolph like,
569
00:31:58.720 --> 00:32:00.680
and then yeah, I listened to the songs from that
570
00:32:00.799 --> 00:32:04.079
for like five minutes and it was great. I cannot,
571
00:32:04.160 --> 00:32:06.599
for the life of me remember what that's called. But
572
00:32:06.720 --> 00:32:10.160
that's for some reason I associated with Pixar, and they
573
00:32:10.319 --> 00:32:13.599
just they do it for everything. Everybody talks like that.
574
00:32:14.279 --> 00:32:16.319
I love that you brought this up because this is
575
00:32:16.559 --> 00:32:19.799
it's like one of those quirks. It's a very stylistic thing.
576
00:32:19.960 --> 00:32:22.839
I feel like where it's like, Okay, how do we
577
00:32:22.960 --> 00:32:26.079
want how do we want to stylize our characters in
578
00:32:26.160 --> 00:32:28.839
their facial animations and how they speak, and how do
579
00:32:28.880 --> 00:32:32.279
we make this recognizable? But also, I mean, when someone's speaking,
580
00:32:32.319 --> 00:32:34.079
you're supposed to be paying attention to them, and that
581
00:32:34.319 --> 00:32:36.359
you know, this stuff really matters. I feel like almost
582
00:32:36.400 --> 00:32:40.039
on like on a psychological level. Yes, I'm glad you
583
00:32:40.119 --> 00:32:42.599
brought that up. I couldn't give you the name for
584
00:32:42.759 --> 00:32:45.680
that term either, but it is something that I feel
585
00:32:45.720 --> 00:32:51.039
like that is utilized quite often in stories that are
586
00:32:51.079 --> 00:32:56.720
adjacent to Keena Bridge of Spirits right where it's it's
587
00:32:56.799 --> 00:32:59.880
not subtle acting, you know that you would see like
588
00:33:00.119 --> 00:33:04.079
in more serious drama films, And I think this is
589
00:33:04.160 --> 00:33:07.160
part of it's details like this to kind of add
590
00:33:07.240 --> 00:33:10.319
to this deceptive nature of Quina, where this is something
591
00:33:10.359 --> 00:33:13.440
that I would associate a lot more with something that
592
00:33:13.599 --> 00:33:19.000
is going to be not as heavy. Yet Keina has
593
00:33:19.079 --> 00:33:22.640
this weird contrast where it will start talking about heavy
594
00:33:22.759 --> 00:33:26.440
things or in a more heavy way, which is something
595
00:33:26.480 --> 00:33:28.720
that I would associate like thinking about just like facial
596
00:33:28.799 --> 00:33:32.599
expressions to be much more aligne I'm thinking of film now,
597
00:33:32.680 --> 00:33:35.400
but like with subtle acting, where so much of the
598
00:33:35.440 --> 00:33:38.720
acting is done by things that are seemingly uncontrollable, like
599
00:33:38.799 --> 00:33:41.759
the brightness of an actor's eyes when they're expressing a
600
00:33:41.839 --> 00:33:45.079
specific feeling or whatever it is here though, yeah, I
601
00:33:45.599 --> 00:33:48.079
don't know, maybe I'm not expressing myself super well here,
602
00:33:48.119 --> 00:33:49.559
but I do feel like that this is a good
603
00:33:49.599 --> 00:33:51.440
detail to point out because I feel like it figures
604
00:33:51.480 --> 00:33:54.319
into a list of details that kind of contribute to
605
00:33:54.359 --> 00:33:57.720
a specific style that is associated with Pixar.
606
00:33:58.359 --> 00:34:01.319
No, I think you're expressing yourself forly well. Do you
607
00:34:01.599 --> 00:34:03.799
see that as a pro to the game's package as
608
00:34:03.839 --> 00:34:06.440
a whole, Like, do you think that this I can see.
609
00:34:06.519 --> 00:34:09.079
For example, we're about to talk about mechanics in a second.
610
00:34:09.119 --> 00:34:12.960
I can see an argument that personally, I think doesn't
611
00:34:13.000 --> 00:34:16.039
hold much weight of saying that that, you know, the
612
00:34:16.960 --> 00:34:19.880
subversion of how it looks versus how it plays could
613
00:34:20.000 --> 00:34:22.719
feel like a bad joke or in you know, a
614
00:34:22.920 --> 00:34:26.639
deceptive Some might even say I again, personally, I don't
615
00:34:26.960 --> 00:34:29.119
think that holds much weight, but it sounds like you
616
00:34:29.480 --> 00:34:32.960
you view all of these animation choices and visualizations as
617
00:34:33.280 --> 00:34:35.920
a pro which I do as well, to be frank,
618
00:34:36.000 --> 00:34:37.159
So is that about right?
619
00:34:37.800 --> 00:34:39.199
I would yeah, I would say.
620
00:34:39.280 --> 00:34:39.320
So.
621
00:34:39.840 --> 00:34:42.559
I'll save most of what I'm gonna say now for
622
00:34:42.719 --> 00:34:44.880
when we get to the narrative. I think that this
623
00:34:45.800 --> 00:34:51.559
story occupies kind of this awkward space between initial coming
624
00:34:51.639 --> 00:34:56.199
of age and like seasoned veteran. From what I gather
625
00:34:56.320 --> 00:34:59.880
from the story, it feels much more in line with
626
00:35:00.079 --> 00:35:02.519
something that you would see in the second part of
627
00:35:02.599 --> 00:35:05.440
a trilogy, where this is a character who has learned
628
00:35:05.480 --> 00:35:07.559
some things. They've done their coming of age, they've kind
629
00:35:07.599 --> 00:35:10.800
of chos They've been given this role, whether it be
630
00:35:10.920 --> 00:35:13.920
like the Chosen One or whatever it is, but now
631
00:35:13.960 --> 00:35:16.719
they have to test their metal and so a part
632
00:35:16.760 --> 00:35:20.480
of me is like the facial animations and all this stuff.
633
00:35:20.519 --> 00:35:23.440
It does straddle this awkward line between something that is
634
00:35:24.559 --> 00:35:28.679
much more lighthearted versus something that's more serious. But like
635
00:35:28.760 --> 00:35:30.480
I said, I'll save most of this for the narrative
636
00:35:30.519 --> 00:35:33.280
because I just think that there are a lot of
637
00:35:33.360 --> 00:35:36.480
really fantastic ideas there. I'm not sure if all these
638
00:35:36.559 --> 00:35:39.679
details help execute those ideas very well?
639
00:35:40.320 --> 00:35:43.000
All right, pin in this part of the conversation, then
640
00:35:43.599 --> 00:35:47.400
doubly so, because I love the comparison to the second
641
00:35:48.199 --> 00:35:52.400
iteration second part of a trilogy. I think that is
642
00:35:52.480 --> 00:36:06.199
apt in a lot of ways. Before we get to
643
00:36:06.199 --> 00:36:08.639
the mechanics, let's just talk about the rot for a second.
644
00:36:08.719 --> 00:36:11.400
The rot is kind of like this game's mascot. This
645
00:36:11.599 --> 00:36:14.239
is if anything is going to be actionably Pixar, I
646
00:36:14.320 --> 00:36:17.440
think it's this. It You could have if you would
647
00:36:17.480 --> 00:36:20.519
have showed me this and I hadn't known what Quina is,
648
00:36:21.159 --> 00:36:23.480
I would have maybe thought this was like from a
649
00:36:23.559 --> 00:36:27.159
New Disney Pixar movie. Yeah, how would you describe these
650
00:36:27.199 --> 00:36:27.840
little fellers.
651
00:36:28.159 --> 00:36:30.639
I'm gonna try really hard not to use the word adorable,
652
00:36:30.719 --> 00:36:34.760
because it's not wrong, but I think it's you know what,
653
00:36:34.840 --> 00:36:37.280
I mean, it's more of a challenge for myself. The
654
00:36:37.480 --> 00:36:44.239
rots are like little plant bubbles that just poof around
655
00:36:44.320 --> 00:36:48.960
you and are supposed to be super charming and endearing,
656
00:36:49.119 --> 00:36:51.400
and I think they are. They're kind of and I
657
00:36:51.519 --> 00:36:54.480
use like plant bubble because I'm thinking like, they have
658
00:36:55.000 --> 00:37:01.280
largely bubbly personalities, and they do come across as quite lighthearted. Yeah,
659
00:37:01.559 --> 00:37:04.920
they're They're super cute, and they're fun to collect. They're
660
00:37:04.960 --> 00:37:08.840
fun to get little hats for. Right, it does feel
661
00:37:08.840 --> 00:37:11.000
a little dissonant with other things that are kind of
662
00:37:11.039 --> 00:37:15.000
going on here. Okay, again, I have to restrain myself.
663
00:37:15.159 --> 00:37:19.119
We'll get into narrative later, we will, right, But yeah,
664
00:37:19.159 --> 00:37:21.360
that's how I would describe them. They're little plant bubbles
665
00:37:21.400 --> 00:37:24.440
that follow you around and that you you just want
666
00:37:24.559 --> 00:37:28.400
to They're very squeezable, huggable critters with the.
667
00:37:28.480 --> 00:37:31.599
Big Disney Pixar eyes like that is the thing, and
668
00:37:31.719 --> 00:37:34.519
that's that's where the adorableness comes from, because all of
669
00:37:34.559 --> 00:37:38.960
the expression of these little I don't know, pillowcase mini
670
00:37:39.039 --> 00:37:43.239
pillowcases with stubby little arms and legs, little coucheballs. It
671
00:37:43.400 --> 00:37:45.679
comes from the eyes and they're gonna be looking up
672
00:37:45.719 --> 00:37:49.039
at you. They're gonna be, you know, wide and delight,
673
00:37:49.679 --> 00:37:52.760
a little sad at some points, and they want like
674
00:37:52.880 --> 00:37:55.280
and don't get I think I do think that they're cute.
675
00:37:55.320 --> 00:37:58.239
I think they're adorable. Ties into a bit of like
676
00:37:58.400 --> 00:38:03.800
some cultural shared touchstones that I think Cana relies a
677
00:38:03.800 --> 00:38:09.639
little too heavily on. But they're very cute. They're adorable. Unfortunately,
678
00:38:09.760 --> 00:38:11.360
Jake and I didn't have the time we would have
679
00:38:11.559 --> 00:38:13.760
liked to go deeper into the story due to some
680
00:38:13.960 --> 00:38:17.440
scheduling conflicts, so I didn't touch on this later on
681
00:38:17.920 --> 00:38:20.199
in the episode. I did want to make a post
682
00:38:20.360 --> 00:38:23.159
edit here to elaborate though, because I think it ties
683
00:38:23.239 --> 00:38:27.280
into a larger deficiency of the overall writing in Kena,
684
00:38:27.559 --> 00:38:32.559
particularly that of the characters. Earlier, I used derivative as
685
00:38:32.639 --> 00:38:35.320
a descriptor for much of the design philosophy, with the
686
00:38:35.360 --> 00:38:39.320
two most prominent examples being the combat and the art design.
687
00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:43.840
The combat uses the soul style that's become ubiquitous across gaming,
688
00:38:44.639 --> 00:38:47.400
maybe even to a fault, if you'll forgive me. While
689
00:38:47.440 --> 00:38:50.159
the art lies only a skosh away from that of
690
00:38:50.360 --> 00:38:53.280
earlier Pixar, it isn't a one to one. I would
691
00:38:53.440 --> 00:38:57.039
hate to be misconstrued here of accusing this team of plagiarism.
692
00:38:57.559 --> 00:39:00.880
That is by no means what is going on. But
693
00:39:00.960 --> 00:39:03.679
there is an idea I picked up from reading some
694
00:39:03.840 --> 00:39:07.800
literary criticism and essays regarding that of the technique of
695
00:39:08.760 --> 00:39:14.639
shared cultural touchstones, shared recognitions that we all have. Using
696
00:39:14.719 --> 00:39:17.079
these becomes a sort of technique in and of itself.
697
00:39:17.199 --> 00:39:20.960
And when techniques are used, they have a nasty tendency
698
00:39:21.039 --> 00:39:24.800
to call attention to themselves. They needn't be flawless. But
699
00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:27.960
when techniques aren't done in a way that serves the
700
00:39:28.039 --> 00:39:31.400
overall work, when they're a little clumsy, when you're over
701
00:39:31.480 --> 00:39:34.039
ambitious and tried to do something that maybe you're just
702
00:39:34.199 --> 00:39:37.360
not comfortable with. I know I've been there in music,
703
00:39:37.519 --> 00:39:42.559
especially when that happens, attention is called to the technique,
704
00:39:43.559 --> 00:39:46.920
and it takes away attention from the fiction, from the piece,
705
00:39:47.000 --> 00:39:50.199
from the overall work. And to me, that's a little
706
00:39:50.239 --> 00:39:53.400
bit of what's happening here. We're getting a lot of
707
00:39:53.480 --> 00:39:57.440
illusions and references to a lot of DNA from Souls
708
00:39:57.480 --> 00:40:00.639
and from Pixar, but there isn't very much, much, if
709
00:40:00.800 --> 00:40:04.400
any character development outside of that. It seems to rest
710
00:40:04.599 --> 00:40:08.000
on the laurels of these where in me as the viewer,
711
00:40:08.199 --> 00:40:11.880
as the player, I associate the gameplay with souls. I
712
00:40:11.960 --> 00:40:16.480
associate the characters, the art with Pixar with that sort
713
00:40:16.519 --> 00:40:19.480
of esthetic. And that's where it sort of begins and ends.
714
00:40:19.639 --> 00:40:23.519
There isn't anything that is being written, that is being said,
715
00:40:24.000 --> 00:40:29.559
that is being designed. While designed maybe is the least
716
00:40:30.320 --> 00:40:32.400
good example here. I mean, I think they do do
717
00:40:32.559 --> 00:40:36.599
some design decisions that are definitively Cana, But in the
718
00:40:36.639 --> 00:40:40.039
writing especially, there's not much that's being done to make
719
00:40:40.800 --> 00:40:43.880
us as viewers and players and readers care about these
720
00:40:44.000 --> 00:40:47.039
characters and the lore. They don't go deep enough to
721
00:40:47.280 --> 00:40:50.760
make Kana feel real, to make her feel realized, and
722
00:40:50.880 --> 00:40:55.719
to make this game, this universe feel realized. They're trusting
723
00:40:55.800 --> 00:40:58.960
that our affection toward them, toward Kana, toward the rot
724
00:40:59.360 --> 00:41:02.719
toward the world old will be had from the cute factor,
725
00:41:03.360 --> 00:41:07.079
from the disney esqueness of it all. And I don't
726
00:41:07.079 --> 00:41:11.719
think using these shared touchstones, these shared recognitions, I don't
727
00:41:11.719 --> 00:41:14.360
think that's a bad thing in and of itself, of
728
00:41:14.440 --> 00:41:17.760
course not. The trouble is when it's used as a
729
00:41:17.880 --> 00:41:22.760
crutch to getting those to eliciting those feelings, Because when
730
00:41:22.800 --> 00:41:26.039
that is the greatest impetus to get us as readers
731
00:41:26.079 --> 00:41:30.320
as players to care to feel something, to feel anything,
732
00:41:30.440 --> 00:41:33.280
even if it's a negative feeling. When it doesn't go
733
00:41:33.440 --> 00:41:37.599
beyond that, when it's not crafted further, when the recognition
734
00:41:38.039 --> 00:41:42.079
becomes the characterization, that's when it can seem as a
735
00:41:42.159 --> 00:41:46.400
crutch to me, That's when it can seem hollow. This
736
00:41:46.519 --> 00:41:48.760
becomes much more apparent in the story later on when
737
00:41:48.800 --> 00:41:51.960
they begin to touch on things that are genuinely interesting.
738
00:41:52.400 --> 00:41:57.519
Thematic ideas and motifs, especially those of nature interesting as
739
00:41:57.559 --> 00:42:00.320
well whenever they start to delve into Kana's backs, but
740
00:42:00.360 --> 00:42:03.119
they don't really go anywhere with it. At the end.
741
00:42:03.239 --> 00:42:05.519
There are a lot of threads that are maybe brush
742
00:42:05.679 --> 00:42:09.440
up against and introduced, but no further attention is paid
743
00:42:09.480 --> 00:42:12.320
to them. And at the end, I'm left feeling that
744
00:42:12.559 --> 00:42:17.119
my greatest impressions from Cana were those other works of
745
00:42:17.280 --> 00:42:20.079
which I was reminded. To put it in another way,
746
00:42:20.639 --> 00:42:25.000
the biggest Cana made me feel was toward other mediums.
747
00:42:25.119 --> 00:42:28.880
Was toward other games, Dark Souls, Securo, was toward other
748
00:42:29.239 --> 00:42:33.239
animation styles and companies and works like Pixar. Those were
749
00:42:33.239 --> 00:42:36.280
the strongest feelings I felt. We're thinking about those and thinking, wow,
750
00:42:36.360 --> 00:42:39.440
Cana reminds me of that. As Ever, of course, I
751
00:42:39.480 --> 00:42:41.280
don't want to be the final say on this. I
752
00:42:41.320 --> 00:42:43.320
would have loved to talk more about this with Jake,
753
00:42:44.199 --> 00:42:46.360
and I invite all of you in the discord to
754
00:42:46.440 --> 00:42:48.840
continue this, to push back on it, to let me
755
00:42:48.960 --> 00:42:52.280
know maybe why you agree or why I might be
756
00:42:52.320 --> 00:42:55.000
a little bit off base. I'm open to that. You
757
00:42:55.079 --> 00:42:57.159
can do that in the discord. Links are in the description.
758
00:42:58.239 --> 00:43:00.559
I didn't go out of my way after a certain
759
00:43:00.599 --> 00:43:02.519
point to look for the hats, but you know, if
760
00:43:02.559 --> 00:43:05.159
I had enough, I was putting them on everything. You
761
00:43:05.239 --> 00:43:10.039
can get, a little mushrooms, little horns, little flower wreaths.
762
00:43:10.599 --> 00:43:13.199
It's nice if you're a if you're a collecting type,
763
00:43:13.599 --> 00:43:16.639
there's plenty to do both in terms of the hats
764
00:43:16.679 --> 00:43:20.239
and the rot. You're not like required to collect everyone.
765
00:43:20.280 --> 00:43:22.320
I don't think you are. No. You can, you know,
766
00:43:22.400 --> 00:43:25.000
do special platforming challenges, do a little bit of exploration.
767
00:43:25.079 --> 00:43:28.800
You can find them in these little abandoned houses, under
768
00:43:28.840 --> 00:43:31.960
a rock, under a log, things like that. And speaking
769
00:43:32.159 --> 00:43:34.639
speaking of that collecting part, let's talk a little bit
770
00:43:34.679 --> 00:43:37.880
about the mechanics. I'm curious, do you would you say,
771
00:43:37.920 --> 00:43:40.159
this is about right. I think you can break this
772
00:43:40.360 --> 00:43:44.719
game's mechanics down into two primary parts, exploration and combat.
773
00:43:45.280 --> 00:43:49.920
Exploration having two sub sections of collecting and platforming. Is
774
00:43:49.960 --> 00:43:50.519
that about right?
775
00:43:50.960 --> 00:43:52.000
I absolutely agree.
776
00:43:52.079 --> 00:43:53.559
Yeah, so where do you want to start.
777
00:43:54.800 --> 00:43:56.960
Let's start with the platforming if you don't mind.
778
00:43:57.400 --> 00:43:58.800
Yeah, let's see.
779
00:43:58.840 --> 00:44:01.280
I thought the platforming handled pretty well. I thought the
780
00:44:01.400 --> 00:44:06.400
challenges were handled pretty well as Also there are I
781
00:44:06.480 --> 00:44:08.719
think I think there are a surprising amount of timing
782
00:44:08.840 --> 00:44:12.880
based platforming challenges where you would perform some type of
783
00:44:13.079 --> 00:44:15.280
action that's you know, some sort of ability that you
784
00:44:15.320 --> 00:44:18.360
would use outside of combat, and it would maybe put
785
00:44:18.440 --> 00:44:21.199
platforms into place, and then you would have you know,
786
00:44:21.679 --> 00:44:23.440
it would only be there for a moment, and you'd
787
00:44:23.480 --> 00:44:25.800
have to skip away your cross in order in order
788
00:44:25.880 --> 00:44:28.119
to progress in the game. I was kind of surprised
789
00:44:28.119 --> 00:44:30.000
by the number of those, and I was also surprised
790
00:44:30.119 --> 00:44:34.320
just by the number of puzzles that required that sometimes
791
00:44:34.440 --> 00:44:36.440
I didn't love those. I would say that that was
792
00:44:36.519 --> 00:44:39.679
maybe my hang up. I don't know, I feel like
793
00:44:39.920 --> 00:44:42.199
it's never bad and I don't think they're like I'm
794
00:44:42.199 --> 00:44:44.719
not going to say it's wholesale bad to have platforming
795
00:44:44.960 --> 00:44:48.440
challenges that are tied to timing. I would just say,
796
00:44:48.599 --> 00:44:50.960
in this game, you use your bow a lot to
797
00:44:51.159 --> 00:44:54.159
shoot like a crystal or an icon that's going to
798
00:44:54.159 --> 00:44:56.599
be in a it's going to have a weird angle
799
00:44:56.920 --> 00:44:59.760
in order to hit that thing to unlock the platform,
800
00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:01.519
And so I felt like I was doing a lot
801
00:45:01.559 --> 00:45:04.440
more scrambling to get into the exact right place to
802
00:45:04.519 --> 00:45:07.360
hit a precise shot, and then scramble to make sure
803
00:45:07.400 --> 00:45:09.199
that I was getting to the platforms in time to
804
00:45:09.280 --> 00:45:13.960
progress forward. And so just my opinion and experience without
805
00:45:14.239 --> 00:45:17.519
those kind of platforming challenges was that I think in
806
00:45:17.719 --> 00:45:19.719
essence and in design they were fine. I think I
807
00:45:19.760 --> 00:45:23.360
would have appreciated just a touch more forgiveness or a
808
00:45:23.400 --> 00:45:25.679
little more time, or a little less precision on some
809
00:45:25.760 --> 00:45:28.000
of those shots. So I didn't feel like I was
810
00:45:28.400 --> 00:45:32.480
waffling or stagnant too much in my progress. But otherwise
811
00:45:32.519 --> 00:45:35.440
I think like when it comes to three D platforming,
812
00:45:36.079 --> 00:45:38.800
Kena's largely got what you're going to expect from a
813
00:45:38.880 --> 00:45:42.239
three D action platformer. It's not leading to harden this.
814
00:45:42.400 --> 00:45:44.360
There's not a huge movement suite that you're going to
815
00:45:44.440 --> 00:45:47.239
learn or memorize, like you wouldn't like just something that
816
00:45:47.360 --> 00:45:51.840
is a straightforward three D platformer. So here I thought
817
00:45:51.880 --> 00:45:54.719
it felt fine. This is just a small a small
818
00:45:55.440 --> 00:45:58.599
side or note. But for the double jump, you spin
819
00:45:58.719 --> 00:46:02.360
in a circle, which is instead of like doing a
820
00:46:02.440 --> 00:46:06.360
flip or like another more dramatic jump, you spin in
821
00:46:06.400 --> 00:46:09.000
a circle. Is this a problem? Does this matter? No,
822
00:46:09.199 --> 00:46:12.760
it's like largely cosmetic. But to me, I thought, this
823
00:46:13.000 --> 00:46:16.239
is odd. Why are we spinning in a circle here?
824
00:46:16.639 --> 00:46:18.920
Well, it does affect momentum, right, And I mean, if
825
00:46:18.960 --> 00:46:21.400
I had to choose something about this platforming, that is
826
00:46:21.480 --> 00:46:23.960
the one thing is the double jump. I mean, it's
827
00:46:23.960 --> 00:46:27.719
obviously required because it's platforming, and they know real They
828
00:46:28.320 --> 00:46:32.039
have made a pretty al right platforming sections throughout this game,
829
00:46:32.519 --> 00:46:35.559
and so the double jump is required and you get
830
00:46:35.559 --> 00:46:37.960
it from the beginning. So no, I think you do anyway,
831
00:46:38.000 --> 00:46:42.000
So no harm there. But that little spin I think
832
00:46:42.239 --> 00:46:45.960
maybe contributes to this like weird sense of abrupt slowing
833
00:46:46.039 --> 00:46:50.880
of momentum with the double jump. That affects your not
834
00:46:51.519 --> 00:46:54.840
your vertical ability, but your horizontal ability, you know, in
835
00:46:54.920 --> 00:46:59.039
other platformers with double jumps set three D. For some reason,
836
00:46:59.119 --> 00:47:00.960
Kingdom Hearts came to me, which is not a great
837
00:47:01.000 --> 00:47:05.239
example of a three platformer. But the double jump's not
838
00:47:05.320 --> 00:47:08.760
going to affect your velocity going forward in Kina, if
839
00:47:08.800 --> 00:47:11.800
you're running and you jump, you know, those physics are normal,
840
00:47:11.960 --> 00:47:14.800
you're jumping through the air. But when you double jump,
841
00:47:14.880 --> 00:47:18.599
there's an abrupt slow down horizontally like in terms of distance.
842
00:47:19.079 --> 00:47:22.559
That just always threw me for a bit of a loop.
843
00:47:22.639 --> 00:47:24.199
And I don't know if it was an intentional They
844
00:47:24.239 --> 00:47:27.199
might not have even thought of this, but it made
845
00:47:27.239 --> 00:47:30.039
me misjudge so many of these distances when they are
846
00:47:30.159 --> 00:47:34.360
timed through some of these platforming segments. It's not enough
847
00:47:34.400 --> 00:47:35.920
for me to say that I don't like it. It's
848
00:47:36.039 --> 00:47:37.760
just it was a bit of a weird choice.
849
00:47:38.320 --> 00:47:41.199
Okay, Okay, you've played it more recently than I have,
850
00:47:41.280 --> 00:47:45.079
and I hardly popped in I'll be honest to in
851
00:47:45.159 --> 00:47:48.519
prepression for this episode. But I think you're right, right,
852
00:47:48.559 --> 00:47:50.519
And that's what I remember is you would spin and
853
00:47:50.639 --> 00:47:54.599
your second jump felt much flatter, right, like, much less
854
00:47:54.760 --> 00:47:58.960
verticality gained as you were going. Yeah, so maybe that's
855
00:47:59.000 --> 00:48:01.000
why they just I died to make it a spin
856
00:48:01.159 --> 00:48:03.599
rather than a flip, because you're not it's not adding
857
00:48:03.599 --> 00:48:06.679
a whole lot of height to what you're doing. But
858
00:48:06.760 --> 00:48:08.719
I don't know, it was just an observation that kind
859
00:48:08.760 --> 00:48:10.639
of stuck with me. It was like, huh, we're gonna
860
00:48:10.639 --> 00:48:11.639
spin rather than flip.
861
00:48:12.239 --> 00:48:15.760
Mm hmm. Yeah. As far as the platforming goes otherwise,
862
00:48:15.840 --> 00:48:19.519
I mean, that's I suppose that's really my my biggest nitpick.
863
00:48:19.880 --> 00:48:23.360
Some of the platforming started to feel pretty samy throughout it.
864
00:48:23.960 --> 00:48:26.639
But also this, you know, they didn't build this as
865
00:48:26.639 --> 00:48:29.440
a platforming game. It's just a game that happens to
866
00:48:29.519 --> 00:48:33.400
have some platforming in it, and not all of it,
867
00:48:33.599 --> 00:48:37.039
but a decent amount is optional if you want, if
868
00:48:37.039 --> 00:48:39.159
you're wanting to collect the rot and the and the
869
00:48:39.320 --> 00:48:44.480
currency and the hats. So I don't know, it's it's fine,
870
00:48:44.920 --> 00:48:47.360
it's fine that it's there, but it's not what I'm
871
00:48:47.400 --> 00:48:51.480
going to remember come a year from now. About about Cana, yeah,
872
00:48:51.599 --> 00:48:53.239
I think I'd largely agree with that.
873
00:48:54.280 --> 00:48:56.599
It does what it needs to do to help with pacing,
874
00:48:56.760 --> 00:48:58.559
so it's not just like a boss rush or like
875
00:48:58.639 --> 00:49:03.280
a total combat game. I would say. Going back to
876
00:49:03.400 --> 00:49:06.800
the caves, that's where the game, not just visually but
877
00:49:06.880 --> 00:49:09.800
also in terms of platforming, started to feel a little
878
00:49:09.840 --> 00:49:12.320
more sluggish. It's how many times do I want to
879
00:49:12.320 --> 00:49:14.199
spin up some rocks? How many times do I want
880
00:49:14.239 --> 00:49:19.000
to cross chasms? And then yeah, yeah, I would I
881
00:49:19.000 --> 00:49:21.639
would say agree, like it wasn't really a hindrance, right,
882
00:49:21.679 --> 00:49:25.159
because I think it probably the net was more positive
883
00:49:25.199 --> 00:49:27.639
than negative with the platforming in this game. I was
884
00:49:27.719 --> 00:49:31.800
never like super frustrated, like oh man, platforming or movement
885
00:49:31.840 --> 00:49:34.039
in this game is impossible, Like I never felt anything
886
00:49:34.440 --> 00:49:37.679
along those lines. But yeah, some sections I was just like, Okay,
887
00:49:37.800 --> 00:49:39.079
I'm ready to move on.
888
00:49:39.199 --> 00:50:07.920
Though, And you had mentioned the bow and spinning the rocks.
889
00:50:08.480 --> 00:50:12.159
There is a puzzling aspect to this game too, mostly
890
00:50:12.320 --> 00:50:16.519
dealing with platforming, not always, I guess, but mostly wherein
891
00:50:16.679 --> 00:50:19.320
you can use some of the in game weapons that
892
00:50:19.400 --> 00:50:24.679
you get through progressing the story, mainly your bombs, spirit bombs,
893
00:50:24.760 --> 00:50:27.679
and your bow and arrow that you get taught how
894
00:50:27.719 --> 00:50:32.599
to use, and these play a really integral role in
895
00:50:32.920 --> 00:50:36.519
getting through some of these puzzles and platformings. You with
896
00:50:36.719 --> 00:50:39.239
the arrow. For example, with the bow and arrow, you
897
00:50:39.400 --> 00:50:45.679
can shoot rocks, flowers, et cetera to activate the sort
898
00:50:45.679 --> 00:50:49.239
of spirit energy. These weapons that Kina has, including her
899
00:50:49.880 --> 00:50:53.480
main one, the staff, are all imbued with this spirit
900
00:50:53.599 --> 00:50:56.760
energy because she is a spirit guide, a spirit tamer
901
00:50:56.880 --> 00:51:00.199
of sorts, so she works with this. So when you
902
00:51:00.559 --> 00:51:05.480
use these weapons on identifiable obstacles in the environment that
903
00:51:05.719 --> 00:51:08.400
have this blue glow to them, like rocks, when you
904
00:51:08.559 --> 00:51:11.400
use your bomb or arrow, depending on the situation, you
905
00:51:11.519 --> 00:51:14.039
can change the environment. You might spin up some rocks
906
00:51:14.079 --> 00:51:16.400
in the air to make platforms. You might shoot a
907
00:51:16.440 --> 00:51:18.880
flower with the arrow and it turns functionally into a
908
00:51:18.920 --> 00:51:24.039
grappling hook. Things traversal tools like that. You know. I
909
00:51:24.199 --> 00:51:26.239
from what I was reading online, people are really mixed
910
00:51:26.280 --> 00:51:29.559
on this. I thought they were fine. They did certainly
911
00:51:29.599 --> 00:51:32.239
become a bit samey. I abused you had mentioned the
912
00:51:32.280 --> 00:51:35.599
time limit aspect. I don't disagree at all. I however,
913
00:51:35.719 --> 00:51:37.800
I did abuse the heck out of the slow down
914
00:51:37.840 --> 00:51:40.880
feature when you're aiming. That's an optional power up you
915
00:51:40.920 --> 00:51:42.880
can get when you're aiming your bow. You can press
916
00:51:42.880 --> 00:51:46.320
an extra button slows time down anytime I'm using a
917
00:51:46.360 --> 00:51:49.239
bow in any game. I love that, So I abuse
918
00:51:49.280 --> 00:51:51.800
the heck out of that, and that was a bit helpful,
919
00:51:52.199 --> 00:51:54.679
But I don't know. They felt a bit samey. But
920
00:51:54.760 --> 00:51:58.239
there were a couple that I thought were really slick.
921
00:51:58.519 --> 00:52:01.440
There was one in particular where I said that out loud.
922
00:52:01.440 --> 00:52:04.239
I was like, oh, this is slick where I can't
923
00:52:04.280 --> 00:52:06.199
remember if you have to shoot anything with your bomb
924
00:52:06.239 --> 00:52:08.159
or arrow or whatever, but you get onto this pillar
925
00:52:08.920 --> 00:52:11.400
and you have to use the rot to move it.
926
00:52:11.760 --> 00:52:14.119
That's another part of solving these puzzles is you tell
927
00:52:14.159 --> 00:52:16.920
the rot, hey pick this up, and then you quote
928
00:52:17.000 --> 00:52:20.639
unquote aim and shoot quote unquote where you want them
929
00:52:20.679 --> 00:52:23.440
to go. And this one puzzle, you jump on a pillar.
930
00:52:23.559 --> 00:52:25.599
You have to have them pick up the pillar that
931
00:52:25.679 --> 00:52:27.480
you're standing on, and then you tell them where to
932
00:52:27.519 --> 00:52:30.079
carry you. And I thought that was really neat. There
933
00:52:30.119 --> 00:52:32.519
weren't a ton of those, but there were just enough
934
00:52:32.559 --> 00:52:34.519
that I was like, ah, yeah, I like this. I
935
00:52:34.679 --> 00:52:37.880
like this. Not too tough, a little samy, but I'm
936
00:52:37.960 --> 00:52:38.920
into it. I like it.
937
00:52:39.679 --> 00:52:42.039
Yeah, I mean, I think I also agree here where
938
00:52:42.039 --> 00:52:45.000
it's just mostly the platform sections that worked. It was
939
00:52:45.079 --> 00:52:50.440
great for pacing. There's one section it's about the halfway point,
940
00:52:50.480 --> 00:52:54.599
maybe just past halfway, where it is maybe the most
941
00:52:54.679 --> 00:52:56.840
open hub like area of the game, where you're in
942
00:52:56.960 --> 00:53:00.559
this village or this farm stead, yes, right, and I
943
00:53:00.840 --> 00:53:03.400
liked that section stood out for me. For the platforming.
944
00:53:03.480 --> 00:53:06.119
I think at that point or in the puzzles puzzle
945
00:53:06.119 --> 00:53:10.840
platform specifically, you have a large suite of your repertoire
946
00:53:10.920 --> 00:53:13.480
unlocked at that point, and so I felt like with
947
00:53:13.639 --> 00:53:17.480
more tools disposable for the player, that means the developers
948
00:53:17.559 --> 00:53:20.239
get to flex a little more creativity in how they
949
00:53:20.320 --> 00:53:22.920
want to design the puzzles. And so that was one
950
00:53:22.960 --> 00:53:25.039
section that I remember I really enjoyed, just like kind
951
00:53:25.079 --> 00:53:27.559
of cruising around setting things up, trying to figure out
952
00:53:27.559 --> 00:53:29.400
how to get over a wall or into a house,
953
00:53:29.519 --> 00:53:32.119
or how to move, you know, rot from one place
954
00:53:32.199 --> 00:53:34.679
to another. I'm glad that you brought up the rot
955
00:53:34.719 --> 00:53:37.280
and how you use them, because this is like, it
956
00:53:37.400 --> 00:53:40.000
reminded me the tiniest bit right of Pickman. That's how
957
00:53:40.039 --> 00:53:43.000
the rock get utilized, is you have them execute certain
958
00:53:43.039 --> 00:53:46.199
tasks for you and they help in the in the
959
00:53:46.239 --> 00:53:47.039
puzzle platforming.
960
00:53:47.079 --> 00:53:49.960
In that regard, is it going to get like like
961
00:53:50.000 --> 00:53:51.639
an oh my god reaction if I say I've never
962
00:53:51.679 --> 00:53:52.639
played Pickman.
963
00:53:53.159 --> 00:53:56.559
No, because the only one I've played is Pickman for Okay.
964
00:53:56.599 --> 00:53:57.800
I think I've heard that one is one of the
965
00:53:57.840 --> 00:54:00.559
best ones. Maybe I really enjoyed it.
966
00:54:00.719 --> 00:54:01.760
I had a great time with it.
967
00:54:02.400 --> 00:54:05.159
Okay, the rot for what it's worth. I think I
968
00:54:05.280 --> 00:54:08.079
forgot to mention this in the development They originally you know,
969
00:54:08.199 --> 00:54:10.119
they know what they're doing with the animation. They're very
970
00:54:10.159 --> 00:54:12.760
good at it. They toyed around with the idea at
971
00:54:12.800 --> 00:54:16.199
first of making Kana an animated short, an animated series
972
00:54:16.239 --> 00:54:18.519
of film. But it was the rot. It was those
973
00:54:18.559 --> 00:54:21.880
little fellas that made them move to the more easily
974
00:54:22.199 --> 00:54:26.480
immersive realm of video games. And I like the concept
975
00:54:26.599 --> 00:54:29.440
a lot, as you know, I've never played pigment. But
976
00:54:29.840 --> 00:54:32.480
you telling the rot to pick something up just to
977
00:54:32.559 --> 00:54:35.280
gain currency, that's pretty cool. And you're cleaning up the environment,
978
00:54:35.320 --> 00:54:37.920
which is you know, love to see that, or telling
979
00:54:37.960 --> 00:54:41.159
the rot, hey move this statue over here and then
980
00:54:41.280 --> 00:54:44.320
that unlocks you currency or a hat or another rot fella,
981
00:54:45.280 --> 00:54:48.440
it's cool, or or here's something that I didn't even
982
00:54:48.440 --> 00:54:51.880
write down. You use them in combat too, if you're rots.
983
00:54:52.800 --> 00:54:54.599
It plays into the kind of cuteness of it all.
984
00:54:54.960 --> 00:54:56.880
When you get into a battle, the rot have this
985
00:54:56.960 --> 00:54:59.320
little icon at your lower left of the screen and
986
00:54:59.400 --> 00:55:02.159
they look scared air and with with those big eyes.
987
00:55:02.599 --> 00:55:05.039
And if you collect enough of this currency through battle
988
00:55:05.199 --> 00:55:08.760
called courage, they can help you in battle. One of
989
00:55:08.840 --> 00:55:11.480
my favorite things to do that one of the most useful,
990
00:55:11.519 --> 00:55:13.639
I think, is when you have flying enemies, like these
991
00:55:13.639 --> 00:55:17.239
annoying little moths that shoot a little fire blast statue.
992
00:55:17.599 --> 00:55:20.199
If your rot have enough courage, you can sick them
993
00:55:20.239 --> 00:55:23.760
on them, and generally it's a one or two hit ko.
994
00:55:24.039 --> 00:55:26.239
If the rot just shoot at them, they can help.
995
00:55:26.360 --> 00:55:28.719
Or they can bind enemies together and like distract them
996
00:55:28.760 --> 00:55:31.159
so you can flack them all you want. Yeah, I
997
00:55:31.400 --> 00:55:32.760
like that a lot. That was nice.
998
00:55:33.639 --> 00:55:38.840
Yeah, I guess just with the combat, I it's interesting, man.
999
00:55:39.079 --> 00:55:40.559
Sorry, do you want to you want to move?
1000
00:55:40.760 --> 00:55:42.079
We're moving to combat? Is that all right?
1001
00:55:42.480 --> 00:55:45.239
Let's do it. We we have agreed on basically everything
1002
00:55:45.320 --> 00:55:47.239
so far. Maybe this will be the fight. Maybe this
1003
00:55:47.360 --> 00:55:51.599
is where we'll tussle. Maybe this is a yeah after
1004
00:55:51.639 --> 00:55:52.199
the combat.
1005
00:55:52.639 --> 00:55:57.239
The combat in this game, I man, there were strokes,
1006
00:55:57.280 --> 00:55:59.000
there were there were moments of brilliance I think of
1007
00:55:59.039 --> 00:56:01.400
this combat, and I think are moments of brilliance with
1008
00:56:01.920 --> 00:56:06.639
the bosses as well. Right, I think it gets uneven
1009
00:56:06.760 --> 00:56:10.280
in an execution in some of the like multi phase
1010
00:56:10.440 --> 00:56:13.559
mob fights, where you'd go into an area and essentially
1011
00:56:13.559 --> 00:56:15.559
you had to take out three different waves of enemies
1012
00:56:15.599 --> 00:56:19.400
before you could progress. I did not realize early on
1013
00:56:19.880 --> 00:56:23.440
playing this game how much you would depend on your
1014
00:56:23.519 --> 00:56:28.159
abilities for crowd control. Specifically, you would get so many
1015
00:56:28.280 --> 00:56:30.719
enemies coming. You mentioned the flying kind of moth ability
1016
00:56:30.840 --> 00:56:34.840
or moth enemies, which were extremely frustrating unless you had
1017
00:56:34.880 --> 00:56:37.079
the courage built up, unless you had unlocked kind of
1018
00:56:37.119 --> 00:56:40.960
the right abilities in order to handle them and then
1019
00:56:41.239 --> 00:56:46.000
other enemies simultaneously. Oftentimes, when I'm playing an action oriented
1020
00:56:46.079 --> 00:56:49.639
video game and that has a pary, early on, I
1021
00:56:49.719 --> 00:56:52.239
will just kind of decide, Okay, is this a pairy
1022
00:56:52.320 --> 00:56:54.320
game or not. If it's a pairy game, then I
1023
00:56:54.360 --> 00:56:56.519
will sit there and I will learn the pary and
1024
00:56:56.599 --> 00:56:58.239
I will use it and it will carry me through
1025
00:56:58.280 --> 00:57:01.880
the game. Early on in this game, I had determined
1026
00:57:01.880 --> 00:57:04.039
that it was not a pery focused game, and so
1027
00:57:04.119 --> 00:57:07.360
I was like, Okay, I'm going to think about other things.
1028
00:57:07.599 --> 00:57:10.320
And then I got to some bosses and some enemies,
1029
00:57:10.360 --> 00:57:13.360
and I was like, no, this is a pery focused game.
1030
00:57:13.679 --> 00:57:16.039
If I want to get through some of this combat cleanly,
1031
00:57:16.320 --> 00:57:20.239
I've got to switch my play style. So I ended
1032
00:57:20.320 --> 00:57:23.800
up kind of I don't know. I started down one
1033
00:57:23.880 --> 00:57:26.840
path and I started specking all my abilities into this
1034
00:57:26.960 --> 00:57:29.320
one path, and then I felt like at one point
1035
00:57:29.400 --> 00:57:31.159
I was like, I can't remember which boss it was,
1036
00:57:31.239 --> 00:57:33.440
but it was one specific boss. I was like, I
1037
00:57:33.599 --> 00:57:35.519
have to parry this thing if I think if I
1038
00:57:35.599 --> 00:57:37.840
want to get out of this boss fight without spending
1039
00:57:37.880 --> 00:57:39.840
hours at it, I'm going to have to figure out
1040
00:57:39.880 --> 00:57:42.559
the perry. And then I made this pivot halfway through.
1041
00:57:43.159 --> 00:57:46.920
So I don't know. For me, I think my overall
1042
00:57:47.000 --> 00:57:51.320
thoughts were when it worked, it worked beautifully, and when
1043
00:57:51.599 --> 00:57:53.719
I felt like I had made all the wrong decisions
1044
00:57:53.760 --> 00:57:56.079
in my ability tree, I was like, all right, we're
1045
00:57:56.119 --> 00:57:58.480
going to slowly clink away at this guy's health or
1046
00:57:58.559 --> 00:58:01.320
these enemies because I don't think my abilities are going
1047
00:58:01.360 --> 00:58:01.960
to work for me here.
1048
00:58:02.880 --> 00:58:07.320
Yeah, okay, so regrettably we do agree mostly here as well,
1049
00:58:08.159 --> 00:58:11.760
just you know, jokes aside. I'm glad that you brought
1050
00:58:11.840 --> 00:58:14.320
up the hordes, one of the first things you had
1051
00:58:14.400 --> 00:58:17.239
mentioned to me when I just mentioned, you know, off Handilia,
1052
00:58:17.239 --> 00:58:20.480
I've heard this as difficult, and you said, consider crowd control.
1053
00:58:21.039 --> 00:58:22.400
So I had that in the back of my mind,
1054
00:58:22.840 --> 00:58:27.519
and that's one hundred percent accurate. Crowd not crowd control.
1055
00:58:27.599 --> 00:58:30.239
Throwing hordes at you is something this game does a lot,
1056
00:58:30.800 --> 00:58:34.599
and you know, caveat on full display here. I am not,
1057
00:58:34.960 --> 00:58:38.159
you know, the Soul's third person action. That's not my forte.
1058
00:58:39.039 --> 00:58:42.480
To me, the most difficult parts were the hordes. Just
1059
00:58:42.559 --> 00:58:46.480
having to focus my attention everywhere. It feels like an
1060
00:58:46.800 --> 00:58:51.960
artificial difficulty enhancer, not dissimilar to just making something a
1061
00:58:52.000 --> 00:58:57.320
bullet sponge wherein the challenge is not at all integrated
1062
00:58:57.360 --> 00:59:02.400
with the gameplay. It's just something added that sort of
1063
00:59:02.599 --> 00:59:06.360
bulks everything out, if that makes sense. It like nothing
1064
00:59:06.360 --> 00:59:10.679
about the bosses up to a point felt like like
1065
00:59:10.920 --> 00:59:14.400
my like my skill was being challenged so much as
1066
00:59:14.679 --> 00:59:17.920
just my eyes knowing where to be, which itself is
1067
00:59:18.239 --> 00:59:19.840
in and of itself. That is a that is a
1068
00:59:20.000 --> 00:59:23.159
valid way to challenge somebody, But for this kind of game,
1069
00:59:23.239 --> 00:59:25.800
the Soul's like kind of game that wants you to
1070
00:59:25.880 --> 00:59:29.440
focus on learning patterns and learning timings and learning hit
1071
00:59:29.519 --> 00:59:33.000
boxes and hurt boxes, I do feel like the hordes
1072
00:59:33.119 --> 00:59:36.239
are a bit of a cheap way to influence. I
1073
00:59:36.280 --> 00:59:37.559
don't know, if you know, I'm startin to talk like
1074
00:59:37.639 --> 00:59:40.920
Keino a little bit with my mouth. I don't know,
1075
00:59:41.079 --> 00:59:43.840
I might be off base, but I did have that
1076
00:59:43.960 --> 00:59:46.639
thought several times, like this is only difficult because they're
1077
00:59:46.719 --> 00:59:47.920
just populating the screen.
1078
00:59:48.559 --> 00:59:50.920
Yeah. Oh, I'm going to try to keep I have
1079
00:59:51.159 --> 00:59:53.079
many thoughts on this topic. I'm going to try to
1080
00:59:53.159 --> 00:59:54.320
keep them succynct right now.
1081
00:59:54.360 --> 00:59:55.519
No, the floor is yours man.
1082
00:59:56.639 --> 00:59:59.480
Something that matters a lot to me in video games,
1083
00:59:59.599 --> 01:00:02.719
especially ones with really quick movement or just a lot
1084
01:00:02.800 --> 01:00:07.840
of enemies, is what I understand to the information saturation.
1085
01:00:08.079 --> 01:00:09.679
This is actually a term I learned from my dad,
1086
01:00:09.840 --> 01:00:12.639
who's a pilot. And then the notion here is that
1087
01:00:12.920 --> 01:00:17.239
when you have a lot of different things on a
1088
01:00:17.400 --> 01:00:21.159
dash blinking at you, providing you lots of information, it's
1089
01:00:21.280 --> 01:00:23.880
easy for your brain just to see all as one
1090
01:00:23.920 --> 01:00:27.000
big blur and not focus on any one piece of
1091
01:00:27.119 --> 01:00:31.239
information as it's needed. And so this is a skill
1092
01:00:31.360 --> 01:00:33.360
or something you have to cope with, as he's explained
1093
01:00:33.360 --> 01:00:36.800
it in aviation. And I feel like in video games
1094
01:00:36.880 --> 01:00:41.920
you need to have really good signaling and just audio cues,
1095
01:00:42.079 --> 01:00:44.880
visual cues, but arranged in such a way that if
1096
01:00:44.920 --> 01:00:47.320
you're going to bombard me with a ton of enemies
1097
01:00:47.800 --> 01:00:49.800
or something that I need to do, like with lightning,
1098
01:00:49.880 --> 01:00:52.400
quick reflexes. I have to be able to process that
1099
01:00:52.519 --> 01:00:55.400
information and then respond right. This is why for a
1100
01:00:55.480 --> 01:00:59.519
game like Keenough for me, crowd control is so important
1101
01:00:59.559 --> 01:01:02.760
because it helps it gives me player agency to reduce
1102
01:01:02.840 --> 01:01:06.400
the information saturation that's on screen. And so all of
1103
01:01:06.480 --> 01:01:09.480
this to say that again, I mostly agree with what
1104
01:01:09.599 --> 01:01:11.840
you're saying here where I felt like with some of
1105
01:01:11.920 --> 01:01:16.159
these mob fights, I felt like I had just specked
1106
01:01:16.239 --> 01:01:18.719
maybe wrong or whatever it was. I didn't always feel
1107
01:01:18.719 --> 01:01:20.320
like I have the tools to kind of handle the
1108
01:01:20.400 --> 01:01:23.880
information saturation of all these different enemies attacking me in
1109
01:01:24.000 --> 01:01:27.480
different ways and requiring different responses on my part in
1110
01:01:27.679 --> 01:01:30.679
order to navigate all of those fights. And so there's
1111
01:01:31.239 --> 01:01:34.039
one fight in particular, I couldn't tell you exactly where
1112
01:01:34.039 --> 01:01:35.760
it is in the game, but it's about three quarters
1113
01:01:35.800 --> 01:01:38.559
the way into the game where I remember. It was
1114
01:01:38.639 --> 01:01:42.360
this wave based room and I just kept getting hung
1115
01:01:42.480 --> 01:01:45.480
up on a few enemies that I could not do.
1116
01:01:46.679 --> 01:01:49.480
I couldn't damage, I couldn't really even get near them.
1117
01:01:49.559 --> 01:01:52.280
It felt like because it kept teleporting away while I'm
1118
01:01:52.280 --> 01:01:55.519
getting chased by smaller enemies, and it just felt like, Okay,
1119
01:01:56.320 --> 01:01:58.239
what am I doing here? I feel like the enemies
1120
01:01:58.320 --> 01:02:03.639
are not allowing me a space to breathe in order
1121
01:02:03.719 --> 01:02:06.280
to even process who I need to respond to first
1122
01:02:06.320 --> 01:02:09.639
and how I need to attack them. I think bosses.
1123
01:02:09.679 --> 01:02:12.320
On the other hand, aside from ones that I felt
1124
01:02:12.360 --> 01:02:14.599
like I just had to really figure out the perry timing.
1125
01:02:15.079 --> 01:02:17.039
I felt like that they were telegraphed well, that all
1126
01:02:17.079 --> 01:02:19.480
the information that was being thrown at me was much
1127
01:02:19.519 --> 01:02:22.280
more streamlined, and I was able to sort of process
1128
01:02:22.360 --> 01:02:24.280
what was going on. But yeah, there were a few
1129
01:02:25.039 --> 01:02:28.840
bottleneck you know, hordes that I was like, Okay, I
1130
01:02:28.960 --> 01:02:32.639
need to sit down, let my brain settle, and then
1131
01:02:32.719 --> 01:02:34.920
come back into this and come up with a new plan.
1132
01:02:35.559 --> 01:02:38.840
That's well observed. I wonder, then, would you say that
1133
01:02:38.960 --> 01:02:41.760
this is maybe at least somewhat close close to the truth,
1134
01:02:41.840 --> 01:02:46.840
then that maybe they're weighing their own like battle philosophy
1135
01:02:46.920 --> 01:02:51.199
scales on like the soul side of it, like tells timing,
1136
01:02:51.239 --> 01:02:54.679
et cetera, and the more for lack of a better term,
1137
01:02:54.679 --> 01:02:57.599
shoot them up style like hordes visual awareness. Do you
1138
01:02:57.679 --> 01:02:59.639
think maybe those scales are just maybe a little too
1139
01:02:59.679 --> 01:03:00.400
on beat balanced.
1140
01:03:01.280 --> 01:03:03.440
I would say that they're a little off. One thing
1141
01:03:03.519 --> 01:03:06.679
I will say about souls games, and I'm thinking games
1142
01:03:06.679 --> 01:03:10.599
specifically from Software, is that if you are in a
1143
01:03:10.679 --> 01:03:14.880
scenario where you are completely overwhelmed by enemies, it's likely
1144
01:03:15.000 --> 01:03:17.559
that you are missing some sort of environmental queue or
1145
01:03:17.679 --> 01:03:21.199
shortcut to get the upper hand on that room. And
1146
01:03:21.400 --> 01:03:25.000
this is something I think that from Software does especially well.
1147
01:03:25.719 --> 01:03:28.559
Is very rarely, if ever, are you left in a
1148
01:03:28.639 --> 01:03:31.360
room with wave based combat. But you could be in
1149
01:03:31.440 --> 01:03:34.400
a room with an overwhelming amount of enemies, and there
1150
01:03:34.559 --> 01:03:38.039
is an expectation that you will run past some of them,
1151
01:03:38.559 --> 01:03:41.159
and that you will be able to find a clear
1152
01:03:41.400 --> 01:03:44.480
path or make a clear path, that you will be
1153
01:03:44.519 --> 01:03:47.039
able to scale down the number of enemies that you
1154
01:03:47.159 --> 01:03:52.239
have engaged simultaneously. And I think in Keena and other
1155
01:03:52.400 --> 01:03:55.960
Souls likes one of the reasons why it's really tough
1156
01:03:56.079 --> 01:03:58.880
to hit that standard that from Software has set in
1157
01:03:58.920 --> 01:04:01.599
their games. And I'm not even talking bosses, but I'm
1158
01:04:01.639 --> 01:04:06.000
just talking like, outside of boss fights, they do allow
1159
01:04:06.280 --> 01:04:09.800
for some sort of path and which you can minimize
1160
01:04:09.920 --> 01:04:13.159
how many enemies you are engaging simultaneously, and then it
1161
01:04:13.199 --> 01:04:16.840
can be much more manageable. Part of the fun for
1162
01:04:16.960 --> 01:04:20.199
somebody like me is Okay, what's that path? How do
1163
01:04:20.320 --> 01:04:22.000
I figure out, how do I get through this area
1164
01:04:22.079 --> 01:04:25.280
that's completely overrun with enemies? What tools do I have
1165
01:04:25.360 --> 01:04:29.679
at my disposal to minimize who I'm actually up against?
1166
01:04:30.079 --> 01:04:31.719
And I can try to make the fight as fair
1167
01:04:31.760 --> 01:04:32.480
as possible.
1168
01:04:33.239 --> 01:04:35.559
You know what's funny hearing you explain it like that
1169
01:04:35.960 --> 01:04:38.480
is it almost makes it sound like a core design
1170
01:04:38.519 --> 01:04:41.800
element of a Soul's game. At least it's Frum's iteration
1171
01:04:42.079 --> 01:04:45.199
of it, you know, being the granddaddy's of it, right,
1172
01:04:45.519 --> 01:04:49.280
is not just challenging the player mechanically, but challenging their
1173
01:04:49.320 --> 01:04:52.320
conception of what it means to play a game, you know,
1174
01:04:52.440 --> 01:04:54.480
not being tied to the idea of I have to
1175
01:04:54.840 --> 01:04:57.079
beat every enemy that's thrown at me because honor and
1176
01:04:57.280 --> 01:04:59.440
that means I'm good. It's like, no, you have to
1177
01:04:59.519 --> 01:05:03.480
challenge that part of you and think smarter, not harder,
1178
01:05:04.000 --> 01:05:06.119
you know, work smarter. Excuse me, work smarter, not harder.
1179
01:05:06.480 --> 01:05:09.000
I love that. I don't think Keena did that very
1180
01:05:09.039 --> 01:05:09.559
well though.
1181
01:05:10.239 --> 01:05:13.800
I don't think Keena did either, And that's that's kind
1182
01:05:13.800 --> 01:05:15.440
of one of those elements to me that like what
1183
01:05:15.639 --> 01:05:18.639
makes the souls like a Soul's like obviously like bonfire,
1184
01:05:18.760 --> 01:05:22.360
like checkpoints, bosses that are really difficult with telegraphed you know,
1185
01:05:22.480 --> 01:05:23.079
moves or whatever.
1186
01:05:23.119 --> 01:05:23.320
It is.
1187
01:05:23.880 --> 01:05:26.119
Part of that for me too, is in so many
1188
01:05:26.159 --> 01:05:28.760
from software games, you need to determine when am I
1189
01:05:28.880 --> 01:05:32.599
just going to sprint? How is that the best way
1190
01:05:32.639 --> 01:05:34.880
to get through it? And sometimes you'll go from one
1191
01:05:34.960 --> 01:05:37.519
bonfire to another, you'll sprint through most of it. You'll
1192
01:05:37.519 --> 01:05:40.280
stop at that second bonfire. That's when you turn around
1193
01:05:40.679 --> 01:05:43.079
and you're like, Okay, now I'm going to explore this area.
1194
01:05:43.559 --> 01:05:45.559
Now I'm going to see maybe what I was missing,
1195
01:05:45.639 --> 01:05:48.360
if there are any secrets or whatever it is now.
1196
01:05:48.440 --> 01:05:50.880
And I think Keina in that way it is balancing
1197
01:05:51.280 --> 01:05:54.599
that aspect of a Soul's like game design with action
1198
01:05:54.840 --> 01:05:57.199
RPG like you said, like kind of shoot them up
1199
01:05:57.280 --> 01:05:59.400
or like old shooter styles where they just throw a
1200
01:05:59.480 --> 01:06:02.840
ton of enemies at you. It's funny because I've recently
1201
01:06:02.960 --> 01:06:06.199
just finished a mouse Pi for Hire, which is absolutely
1202
01:06:06.239 --> 01:06:10.239
a boomer shooter because that term is caught on anyway.
1203
01:06:10.920 --> 01:06:13.559
But you are given you are the overwhelming force of
1204
01:06:13.679 --> 01:06:16.599
power in that room despite there be dozens of enemies.
1205
01:06:16.960 --> 01:06:20.360
Keina has this weird halfway point where it's a Soul's
1206
01:06:20.559 --> 01:06:23.760
like in terms of its difficulty and how enemies are
1207
01:06:23.800 --> 01:06:26.559
telegraphed and how they're attacking you. But it just hucks
1208
01:06:26.599 --> 01:06:28.840
a ton of enemies in a room with you, and
1209
01:06:28.960 --> 01:06:32.000
there's no clear path to try to be smart or
1210
01:06:32.280 --> 01:06:35.199
super intelligent. I feel like about how you're navigating it,
1211
01:06:35.639 --> 01:06:37.719
It's much more it comes down to, oh, do I
1212
01:06:37.800 --> 01:06:40.639
have the right abilities queued up? And that's where the
1213
01:06:40.719 --> 01:06:43.519
player intelligence comes into play. Is it like, am I
1214
01:06:43.679 --> 01:06:45.719
using these abilities in the right moments on the right
1215
01:06:45.880 --> 01:06:49.239
enemies versus can I actually find a path to victory
1216
01:06:49.320 --> 01:06:52.079
in this room that is logical and repeatable?
1217
01:06:52.960 --> 01:06:56.039
Okay, I think that is. I'm glad that I have
1218
01:06:56.440 --> 01:06:58.360
someone like you here to speak with me about this
1219
01:06:58.480 --> 01:07:01.639
that is more familiar with Soul's game. You know, I
1220
01:07:01.760 --> 01:07:04.719
still I don't think that I would necessarily retract what
1221
01:07:04.800 --> 01:07:07.320
I said earlier that it does feel derivative of all
1222
01:07:07.639 --> 01:07:11.679
most of its inspirations, Souls being a big one, but
1223
01:07:12.719 --> 01:07:16.599
hearing from somebody that is far more intimate with the genre,
1224
01:07:17.280 --> 01:07:19.960
it's maybe more of a case of yes, comma butt
1225
01:07:20.159 --> 01:07:21.800
rather than just yes period.
1226
01:07:22.400 --> 01:07:25.320
It sounds like to me, Yeah, I guess to try
1227
01:07:25.400 --> 01:07:28.760
to summarize or make my thoughts a little shorter here
1228
01:07:28.800 --> 01:07:31.519
because I tend to be long winded. I feel like
1229
01:07:31.599 --> 01:07:35.559
I'm Keina when you're in the combat encounters. Yeah, it
1230
01:07:35.840 --> 01:07:37.559
for me, it was like, Okay, I need to make
1231
01:07:37.559 --> 01:07:40.400
sure I got the right abilities set up, otherwise I'm
1232
01:07:40.400 --> 01:07:43.480
going to be stuck here, plinking away at enemies, trying
1233
01:07:43.519 --> 01:07:45.360
to figure out how to manage everything, and I don't
1234
01:07:45.400 --> 01:07:47.440
feel like I have the tools for it. And that
1235
01:07:47.599 --> 01:07:51.280
to me feels more like a non soul's action RPG game,
1236
01:07:51.760 --> 01:07:54.840
a third person action game. You have your abilities and
1237
01:07:54.960 --> 01:07:58.159
you fight the enemies and then you move on right,
1238
01:08:00.079 --> 01:08:02.800
So I don't know, Sorry, I have a tendency to
1239
01:08:02.880 --> 01:08:06.039
do this. It reminds I'm mentioning another game, but this
1240
01:08:06.880 --> 01:08:10.239
this to me, the combat feels more kin like outside
1241
01:08:10.239 --> 01:08:13.119
of bosses. Just to clarify, we're still talking outside of bosses.
1242
01:08:13.119 --> 01:08:14.599
It feels a little more kin to me to something
1243
01:08:14.679 --> 01:08:18.680
like Final Fantasy sixteen, where in Final Fantasy sixteen like
1244
01:08:18.960 --> 01:08:24.039
your sword does nothing. It's all about your abilities to
1245
01:08:24.199 --> 01:08:26.119
do damage and to set up so that you can
1246
01:08:26.199 --> 01:08:29.880
actually overcome a room. And I feel like Keena's combat
1247
01:08:30.239 --> 01:08:31.840
skews towards that.
1248
01:08:33.359 --> 01:08:35.720
It's been a minute I don't quite remember how that
1249
01:08:35.840 --> 01:08:39.359
felt in Final Fantasy, but I am sure that that
1250
01:08:39.520 --> 01:08:40.640
is not off pace at all.
1251
01:08:41.239 --> 01:08:44.039
That's my problem with bringing in a thousand games at once,
1252
01:08:44.279 --> 01:08:47.119
is like, do you happen to have the same dozen
1253
01:08:47.159 --> 01:08:48.680
games fresh in your mind like I do?
1254
01:08:48.880 --> 01:09:08.319
If not, then I just well. Speaking of combat, though,
1255
01:09:08.760 --> 01:09:10.399
I did want to touch on this a little bit
1256
01:09:10.640 --> 01:09:15.119
because for the longest time playing this game, I could
1257
01:09:15.199 --> 01:09:19.800
not figure out why the combat specifically just felt so
1258
01:09:20.000 --> 01:09:22.239
bad to me. I knew it did not feel good
1259
01:09:22.920 --> 01:09:25.399
to play, and I couldn't figure it out. I was
1260
01:09:25.520 --> 01:09:28.920
racking my brain and the best I can come up with,
1261
01:09:28.960 --> 01:09:32.119
and I have no idea if this is accurate, is
1262
01:09:32.199 --> 01:09:39.279
that there's something about the consistency from moving, walking, jumping, running,
1263
01:09:39.840 --> 01:09:43.920
and hurling your weapon that feels off. The time from
1264
01:09:44.000 --> 01:09:47.760
actuating a button press to the time of your hit
1265
01:09:47.840 --> 01:09:51.880
box connecting with the enemy's hurt box. It feels to
1266
01:09:52.000 --> 01:09:55.279
me like that's almost lopsided, and there's like a sudden acceleration,
1267
01:09:55.560 --> 01:09:57.960
like it starts slow and then there's an acceleration and
1268
01:09:58.079 --> 01:10:00.439
you hit. And that happens with the enemies, by the way,
1269
01:10:00.479 --> 01:10:03.720
not just Quina. It's also how the enemies rush you
1270
01:10:03.800 --> 01:10:06.760
and charge like with their attacks. That made it feel
1271
01:10:07.840 --> 01:10:11.880
I don't know, it made it feel in not conducive
1272
01:10:12.039 --> 01:10:15.199
to judging some of these patterns and Perry windows and
1273
01:10:15.279 --> 01:10:18.159
things like that. The perry which, by the way, we
1274
01:10:18.239 --> 01:10:19.720
don't have to sit on this, but I just want
1275
01:10:19.720 --> 01:10:21.920
to get it out of there. Give the pery button
1276
01:10:22.159 --> 01:10:25.479
its own button. Don't put it with this shield that
1277
01:10:25.680 --> 01:10:29.439
drives me nuts. Don't do that, like give it one button,
1278
01:10:29.720 --> 01:10:33.920
lb Perry button or whatever. Make whatever button it just don't.
1279
01:10:34.079 --> 01:10:38.760
Don't complicate it man anyway anyway, But do you does
1280
01:10:38.840 --> 01:10:41.520
that make any sense at all? Like the it feels
1281
01:10:41.560 --> 01:10:44.720
like the acceleration of movement is just it's weird in
1282
01:10:44.840 --> 01:10:48.079
some way. That made some of these timings feel it
1283
01:10:48.159 --> 01:10:51.159
felt like I wasn't trained for this. And there could
1284
01:10:51.199 --> 01:10:53.479
be a counter argument saying like, well, that means you
1285
01:10:53.560 --> 01:10:56.159
have to learn Keina the game, and sure, I mean
1286
01:10:56.199 --> 01:10:58.359
you could say that about just about anything. But at
1287
01:10:58.399 --> 01:11:01.279
the same time, everything else about the way Kina moves
1288
01:11:01.640 --> 01:11:04.039
with the you know, double jumping not being in real
1289
01:11:04.119 --> 01:11:08.880
life aside, everything else feels totally normal and natural. It's
1290
01:11:09.039 --> 01:11:13.079
just the combat swings. I don't know, am I touching
1291
01:11:13.119 --> 01:11:15.520
on something that I just can't explain, not being familiar with,
1292
01:11:15.640 --> 01:11:16.399
like souls games.
1293
01:11:17.199 --> 01:11:18.880
I mean, I think part of what you're getting at
1294
01:11:19.079 --> 01:11:22.520
is like telegraphing attacks, like when exactly and how is
1295
01:11:22.560 --> 01:11:25.399
an attacking a land right? But also what I noticed,
1296
01:11:25.439 --> 01:11:27.199
and I think we're talking about the same thing here.
1297
01:11:27.319 --> 01:11:30.960
Correct me if I'm off here, But I feel like
1298
01:11:31.159 --> 01:11:36.640
when you swing your staff it has the slightest rubber effect.
1299
01:11:36.640 --> 01:11:37.319
You know what I mean.
1300
01:11:37.760 --> 01:11:40.760
It doesn't swing like a stick in one motion, but
1301
01:11:40.960 --> 01:11:44.279
like it bends a little bit by your hands, and
1302
01:11:44.479 --> 01:11:47.920
then the tip of the spear will or the staff
1303
01:11:48.039 --> 01:11:51.640
will hit just a half second behind, And so I
1304
01:11:51.720 --> 01:11:54.640
feel like part of that is an animation thing. I
1305
01:11:54.880 --> 01:11:57.760
loved the sound design in Combat because I love that
1306
01:11:57.960 --> 01:12:01.720
woody thwacking noise that would you know, I thought that
1307
01:12:01.800 --> 01:12:05.720
was really fantastic. But I did notice something similar, and
1308
01:12:05.920 --> 01:12:09.640
I was wondering if that was a stylistic choice because
1309
01:12:09.640 --> 01:12:12.199
I felt like the animation kind of operated that way,
1310
01:12:13.760 --> 01:12:15.239
or if it was something else.
1311
01:12:16.039 --> 01:12:17.640
I actually, you know what, I actually think that that
1312
01:12:17.840 --> 01:12:20.039
is exactly what I was noticing. Now that you say
1313
01:12:20.079 --> 01:12:22.800
it like that, I think maybe it is an animation thing.
1314
01:12:23.560 --> 01:12:26.199
Something about it though, like I actually re downloaded you
1315
01:12:26.279 --> 01:12:29.479
and I just behind the curtain, behind the curtain stuff.
1316
01:12:29.720 --> 01:12:32.279
You and I had originally talked about Sekiro, and about
1317
01:12:32.319 --> 01:12:34.720
ten hours later, in a moment of pure frustration, I
1318
01:12:34.840 --> 01:12:36.960
was like, I'm sorry, man, I can't do that, and
1319
01:12:37.239 --> 01:12:39.159
I do. I regret that for what it's worth, but
1320
01:12:39.279 --> 01:12:41.760
I re downloaded it, and I downloaded you know, I'm
1321
01:12:41.800 --> 01:12:44.319
playing through Stellar Blade as well. I redownloaded seki Row.
1322
01:12:45.479 --> 01:12:47.920
There was something else that I'm just losing that. I
1323
01:12:47.960 --> 01:12:50.039
can't remember what I downloaded, but I wanted to feel
1324
01:12:50.079 --> 01:12:52.800
other systems, like what is it about this? And maybe
1325
01:12:52.920 --> 01:12:56.279
that's exactly it. Maybe it's the animation. Maybe the animation
1326
01:12:56.439 --> 01:13:00.800
is tuned in a more Pixar style that's just not conducive,
1327
01:13:00.960 --> 01:13:02.920
for lack of a better words, it's just not conducive
1328
01:13:03.279 --> 01:13:05.840
to something like a Soul's game. Maybe that's it. Maybe
1329
01:13:05.920 --> 01:13:08.000
those are just ever so slightly misaligned.
1330
01:13:08.560 --> 01:13:11.800
I would say, you know, I can't perfectly diagnose this,
1331
01:13:11.960 --> 01:13:14.720
but that would be my assumption. That was something that
1332
01:13:14.800 --> 01:13:16.560
I just had to get used to. And I think
1333
01:13:16.600 --> 01:13:18.960
that's one of those contributing factors that led me to
1334
01:13:19.760 --> 01:13:22.600
all right, I have got to make this a game
1335
01:13:22.640 --> 01:13:25.479
that where I learned the perry because I am not
1336
01:13:25.800 --> 01:13:28.920
reading these timings well and so I'm going to sit
1337
01:13:29.000 --> 01:13:32.560
down and utilize the mechanic that really forces me to
1338
01:13:32.800 --> 01:13:34.239
understand the timing.
1339
01:13:34.319 --> 01:13:38.399
Here man, I'm I'm so glad that you call that
1340
01:13:38.479 --> 01:13:41.119
out that I think that might be the ticket. I
1341
01:13:41.239 --> 01:13:44.640
hope so. Yes, as we said, I do think we
1342
01:13:44.680 --> 01:13:46.960
should maybe move on to music and sound, especially given
1343
01:13:47.640 --> 01:13:49.199
that you just mentioned that you like a lot of it.
1344
01:13:50.399 --> 01:13:52.119
As we said, the deception part of it, it does
1345
01:13:52.199 --> 01:13:55.560
get a bit difficult whether or not you like their
1346
01:13:56.159 --> 01:14:00.840
style and philosophy of creating difficulty aside, it is not
1347
01:14:01.199 --> 01:14:05.359
as easy breezy as the rot's little cute eyes might
1348
01:14:05.439 --> 01:14:08.520
make you think. It can get pretty challenging, and I
1349
01:14:08.600 --> 01:14:12.239
think Jake's advice is spot on. Crowd control is your
1350
01:14:12.319 --> 01:14:32.399
best friend. You should take advantage of it. So let's
1351
01:14:32.479 --> 01:14:36.079
talk music and sound real quick, Galady. The composer g
1352
01:14:36.239 --> 01:14:40.000
A L l a t Y was heavily inspired by
1353
01:14:40.279 --> 01:14:44.119
Gamalan music, which is Gamalan is an Indonesian sort of
1354
01:14:44.199 --> 01:14:47.079
percussion based ensemble, and this soundtrack is going to have
1355
01:14:47.199 --> 01:14:49.840
a lot of that. And that's when I think it's
1356
01:14:49.880 --> 01:14:52.800
at its best. There was one track actually I think
1357
01:14:52.840 --> 01:14:56.720
it's the final Boss track that is really heavy on
1358
01:14:56.840 --> 01:15:03.840
low brass, especially just this Wagnerian powerhouse host lasting low brass,
1359
01:15:04.359 --> 01:15:08.000
really really good. But aside from that, the more orchestral
1360
01:15:08.079 --> 01:15:12.279
things felt significantly more like backdrops or just cue music.
1361
01:15:12.720 --> 01:15:15.880
The percussion stuff is where it really shines. You get
1362
01:15:15.960 --> 01:15:19.279
and here in this score and in Gamalan music too,
1363
01:15:19.840 --> 01:15:23.319
percussion is used both pitched and non pitched. What that
1364
01:15:23.479 --> 01:15:26.800
means is non pitched percussion. Think of a snare drum.
1365
01:15:27.600 --> 01:15:30.640
Snare drums do technically have pitches. There's a little bar
1366
01:15:30.760 --> 01:15:32.920
fact that you can use next time you're chatting up
1367
01:15:32.920 --> 01:15:35.600
a nice lady or fella. They do have pitches, and
1368
01:15:35.680 --> 01:15:38.239
you do tune them, but they're not pitched as we
1369
01:15:38.560 --> 01:15:40.920
know it. You can't sing a note pitched percussion like
1370
01:15:41.039 --> 01:15:44.920
marimba for example, vibraphone, xylophone they do. Gamalan has a
1371
01:15:45.000 --> 01:15:48.520
lot of that. I don't know the specific instruments off hand,
1372
01:15:48.640 --> 01:15:52.880
but it has a very strong articulation, very striking, and
1373
01:15:53.840 --> 01:15:56.199
that style of music, from what I've heard as a
1374
01:15:56.479 --> 01:16:01.359
very very lay person, is very rhythmically driven. There are melodies,
1375
01:16:01.439 --> 01:16:04.399
there are definitely melodies, but it's very focused on rhythmic
1376
01:16:04.520 --> 01:16:07.439
cells and patterns, and that's what gives them the sort
1377
01:16:07.640 --> 01:16:12.720
of the sort of progression forward, not chord progressions. To
1378
01:16:12.840 --> 01:16:18.079
that end, Gality actually worked with this Gamalan group Gamalan Kudamani.
1379
01:16:18.640 --> 01:16:21.680
It's a C with a little uh, little squiggly tail
1380
01:16:21.720 --> 01:16:24.039
at the bottom c U d A M A n I.
1381
01:16:24.960 --> 01:16:28.880
They helped with through composition and recording. What I love
1382
01:16:28.920 --> 01:16:33.000
about this there are there are two things. At first
1383
01:16:33.239 --> 01:16:36.880
they asked, and one of the folks in the in
1384
01:16:36.960 --> 01:16:39.920
the Gamalin ensemble said this. They said, quote, I'll be
1385
01:16:40.000 --> 01:16:42.159
totally honest. I told the guys this, but my first
1386
01:16:42.239 --> 01:16:46.600
reaction was like, no, Saraswati was their name. They go on,
1387
01:16:46.720 --> 01:16:49.520
they say, no Gamalan in video games. Dea and I
1388
01:16:49.640 --> 01:16:53.039
are traditional artists, right, so this gets into more complex problems.
1389
01:16:53.079 --> 01:16:57.000
But sometimes there's a sense from traditional artists that things
1390
01:16:57.119 --> 01:17:01.479
like video games are things that were working against all
1391
01:17:01.560 --> 01:17:05.039
the time. That's the end of the quote. I love that.
1392
01:17:05.319 --> 01:17:08.600
I understand it. I don't. I mean, don't get me wrong.
1393
01:17:08.640 --> 01:17:12.159
I think that's antiquated thinking, but I get it. He
1394
01:17:12.319 --> 01:17:15.439
goes on to say, Sarasquati does I was like, oh wait,
1395
01:17:15.520 --> 01:17:17.720
this sounds kind of cool. I very quickly realized that
1396
01:17:17.760 --> 01:17:19.359
I had my own prejudice that I was working with,
1397
01:17:19.720 --> 01:17:21.560
and then I needed to allow this team to explain
1398
01:17:21.600 --> 01:17:23.800
what they were doing. The themes are so beautiful and
1399
01:17:23.880 --> 01:17:26.439
resonant with our culture and our values and philosophy. And
1400
01:17:26.560 --> 01:17:30.279
you know, it's exciting to see that end quote. I
1401
01:17:30.319 --> 01:17:32.319
think that's a very cool little package and something to
1402
01:17:32.359 --> 01:17:35.600
put in one of these interviews. I'll link it into
1403
01:17:35.640 --> 01:17:37.960
the notes. I don't even know what I want to
1404
01:17:37.960 --> 01:17:39.680
ask you to respond to there, because I just kind
1405
01:17:39.680 --> 01:17:41.800
of went off for a little bit, but a lot
1406
01:17:41.880 --> 01:17:42.520
of cool stuff.
1407
01:17:43.439 --> 01:17:45.239
I mean, it is very cool. And I love the
1408
01:17:45.359 --> 01:17:48.840
quotes that you pulled here because this is really tricky
1409
01:17:49.039 --> 01:17:51.439
in I would you know all art, right, if you
1410
01:17:51.560 --> 01:17:56.479
were interested in the artistic practices or mediums or whatever
1411
01:17:56.520 --> 01:17:59.279
it is, The art just generally have a culture that
1412
01:17:59.439 --> 01:18:03.560
is not yours. What's the correct way to represent or
1413
01:18:03.600 --> 01:18:06.319
include that in a way that doesn't feel like it's
1414
01:18:06.439 --> 01:18:10.760
diminishing or otherizing that cultures art, you know what I mean?
1415
01:18:12.319 --> 01:18:14.239
And so I love that this is like a conversation
1416
01:18:14.399 --> 01:18:16.800
here and that people you know people from but from
1417
01:18:16.840 --> 01:18:19.359
both sides. They have to kind of negotiate and understand like, Okay,
1418
01:18:20.520 --> 01:18:22.720
what is this music doing in this video game? Is
1419
01:18:22.800 --> 01:18:25.520
it something that's representative, is it uplifting? Is it pointing
1420
01:18:25.640 --> 01:18:30.000
towards you know, different cultural practices and musical stylings, or
1421
01:18:30.039 --> 01:18:34.000
is it something that is you know, bastardizing, colonizing, taking
1422
01:18:34.039 --> 01:18:37.560
advantage of something that sounds different and exodifying it. So,
1423
01:18:37.760 --> 01:18:39.680
I mean it's a super tough balance, and I just
1424
01:18:39.800 --> 01:18:42.600
love that, like as something it's it's very easy for
1425
01:18:42.680 --> 01:18:45.800
a player like me who's pretty unfamiliar with the cultures
1426
01:18:45.840 --> 01:18:47.800
that are being drawn from here to listen to this
1427
01:18:47.920 --> 01:18:49.960
be like, oh, this sounds like something new, This sounds
1428
01:18:50.000 --> 01:18:54.039
really cool, right, And which I don't think is like
1429
01:18:54.079 --> 01:18:57.800
a bad reaction necessarily, but the packaging absolutely matters in
1430
01:18:57.920 --> 01:19:00.520
terms of if you're making a video game that is
1431
01:19:00.640 --> 01:19:05.119
borrowing from a culture that you are new to or
1432
01:19:05.159 --> 01:19:07.359
one that you respect and really like but maybe don't
1433
01:19:07.399 --> 01:19:11.399
have the talent to replicate. I mean, that's a pretty
1434
01:19:11.479 --> 01:19:13.800
hefty responsibility to have on your shoulders.
1435
01:19:14.600 --> 01:19:17.319
You. That is such a perfect segue into the next
1436
01:19:17.399 --> 01:19:20.560
quote that I pulled here too. To their credit, gality
1437
01:19:20.600 --> 01:19:23.479
and Mike Greer. They both traveled to Bali to record
1438
01:19:23.560 --> 01:19:25.640
with this group, like they wanted to make sure they
1439
01:19:25.680 --> 01:19:28.279
did this right, not bastardize it like you said. And
1440
01:19:28.479 --> 01:19:33.600
this group, Kudamani's founding director Dewa Putu, the Rata, they
1441
01:19:33.680 --> 01:19:37.920
work together. They created original composition based on footage and descriptions,
1442
01:19:38.359 --> 01:19:43.199
and when Galaty himself presented samples of sacred music, Barata
1443
01:19:43.640 --> 01:19:46.600
would work with them and if it was inappropriate, they
1444
01:19:46.720 --> 01:19:49.359
would work together to create something with a similar feeling.
1445
01:19:49.880 --> 01:19:51.800
For example, one of the things that I pulled here,
1446
01:19:51.960 --> 01:19:56.079
Gality was inspired by an Indonesian funeral chant, and once
1447
01:19:56.119 --> 01:20:00.720
they discovered like what its origin was, Susilo and Barata
1448
01:20:00.960 --> 01:20:03.359
used it as an inspiration for a new piece, not
1449
01:20:03.520 --> 01:20:08.439
wanting to disrespect the origins of it. That is like,
1450
01:20:08.680 --> 01:20:10.439
you could not have gone about this in a better way.
1451
01:20:10.640 --> 01:20:11.600
That is perfect.
1452
01:20:12.359 --> 01:20:15.039
Yeah, I totally agree. That to me seems like, Okay,
1453
01:20:15.479 --> 01:20:17.359
this is something that we admire, but we want to
1454
01:20:17.399 --> 01:20:20.399
be respectful of It can be a cool opportunity for
1455
01:20:20.560 --> 01:20:23.640
players who like me, you know, I'm familiar with where
1456
01:20:24.039 --> 01:20:26.880
this music comes from, to suddenly take an interest and
1457
01:20:27.039 --> 01:20:29.760
learn more about it as well. So yeah, I think
1458
01:20:29.800 --> 01:20:32.399
that's handled incredibly well. I love the sensitivity in there.
1459
01:20:32.760 --> 01:20:34.800
What about the soundtrack as a whole, Like, did you
1460
01:20:35.000 --> 01:20:38.600
enjoy it? Were there any standout pieces or even sections
1461
01:20:39.079 --> 01:20:39.359
for you?
1462
01:20:40.600 --> 01:20:44.439
You know, I think I enjoyed it. This tends to
1463
01:20:44.600 --> 01:20:48.399
happen when I get really keyed into a combat oriented game,
1464
01:20:48.520 --> 01:20:54.079
like with Bosses. Sometimes I'm listening harder for audio cues
1465
01:20:54.119 --> 01:20:57.279
than i am to the music, and so actually, in fact,
1466
01:20:57.479 --> 01:21:00.199
with Keena, I did go into the settings and I
1467
01:21:00.319 --> 01:21:03.319
turned the music lower so I could pay better attention
1468
01:21:03.399 --> 01:21:06.560
to the audio cues and perform better in combat. So
1469
01:21:06.800 --> 01:21:10.359
I regret to say that, Like I have pretty superficial
1470
01:21:10.439 --> 01:21:13.000
memories of what I was listening to in this game,
1471
01:21:13.399 --> 01:21:15.319
but I do remember, and I agree with what you're
1472
01:21:15.319 --> 01:21:19.239
saying here, like the percussion in here. To me, again,
1473
01:21:19.359 --> 01:21:21.079
I think they achieved what they were going for. It
1474
01:21:21.319 --> 01:21:24.279
sounded different, it sounded cool, and it was a different
1475
01:21:24.439 --> 01:21:27.880
way than I'm used to just just like feeling kind
1476
01:21:27.880 --> 01:21:30.359
of this adrenaline rush of what's going on. So I
1477
01:21:30.479 --> 01:21:33.119
really enjoyed it, but I couldn't point out any favorite tracks.
1478
01:21:33.720 --> 01:21:36.439
There's a former colleague of mine in the Discord Server.
1479
01:21:36.560 --> 01:21:40.039
His name is Matt, who's a percussionist, and I'm wondering
1480
01:21:40.079 --> 01:21:43.079
if Matt could maybe listen to the soundtrack or if
1481
01:21:43.119 --> 01:21:46.399
he's played the game and share some thoughts, because I
1482
01:21:46.560 --> 01:21:48.920
don't want to say, like, oh, yeah, it's steel drums,
1483
01:21:49.000 --> 01:21:53.399
because I know it's more complicated than that. It's probably
1484
01:21:53.439 --> 01:21:57.840
an Indonesian specific instrument, like a folk style instrument. There's
1485
01:21:58.000 --> 01:22:00.960
much more to Gamalan music then you might expect, and
1486
01:22:00.960 --> 01:22:02.680
I would hate to do it a disservice as a
1487
01:22:02.760 --> 01:22:06.600
lay person just reading sources from the internet. So I
1488
01:22:06.600 --> 01:22:08.159
don't want to get two in the weeds with this
1489
01:22:08.359 --> 01:22:13.520
and take the chance of misrepresenting a culture's music, especially
1490
01:22:13.600 --> 01:22:16.439
a music that I've become quite fond of. What I
1491
01:22:16.479 --> 01:22:18.199
can say is this, from what I've read, there are
1492
01:22:18.239 --> 01:22:21.880
two major types of gombal On music that from Java
1493
01:22:22.000 --> 01:22:25.279
and Bali. They're going to have slightly different instruments, but
1494
01:22:25.439 --> 01:22:27.680
by and large, it is still all going to be
1495
01:22:27.800 --> 01:22:31.479
pitched percussion, struck percussion instruments that produce a pitch of
1496
01:22:31.600 --> 01:22:34.640
some sort. And these aren't the struck percussion, the pitch
1497
01:22:34.680 --> 01:22:36.920
percussion that you're going to find in a typical orchestra
1498
01:22:37.479 --> 01:22:41.399
or any Western ensemble in credit where it's due too.
1499
01:22:41.560 --> 01:22:43.720
This is one of the better Wikipedia pages that I've
1500
01:22:43.720 --> 01:22:46.239
stumbled across, which is something that you find a lot
1501
01:22:46.319 --> 01:22:49.239
in ethnomusicology. I've found it's not going to be edited
1502
01:22:49.359 --> 01:22:53.119
just by some Joe six pack like me in his
1503
01:22:53.239 --> 01:22:55.520
bedroom on his laptop. You're going to see a lot
1504
01:22:55.600 --> 01:22:59.039
of passionate experts talking about this. To that end, you
1505
01:22:59.039 --> 01:23:00.920
can see a lot of the picture of these instruments
1506
01:23:00.960 --> 01:23:04.359
as well. The struck percussion instruments like the kenong and
1507
01:23:04.520 --> 01:23:08.399
bonong and demung likely mispronounced by me and I apologize
1508
01:23:08.399 --> 01:23:11.119
about that, as well as some that look more percussive
1509
01:23:11.159 --> 01:23:15.239
in nature and less focused on pitch, things like gongs
1510
01:23:15.239 --> 01:23:19.239
of different sizes and types, something called a klenong, a
1511
01:23:19.399 --> 01:23:23.239
ken dong sort of drum. It's very, very fascinating and
1512
01:23:23.439 --> 01:23:27.079
I highly recommend checking out some of this Gamalan music.
1513
01:23:27.560 --> 01:23:30.479
It's very available on YouTube, and if you're in the States,
1514
01:23:30.520 --> 01:23:34.359
there are even ensembles, some that are affiliated with universities
1515
01:23:34.720 --> 01:23:38.840
that have an online presence. California in particular has a couple.
1516
01:23:38.920 --> 01:23:42.600
The La phil has a page for Gamalan murdu Kumala,
1517
01:23:43.199 --> 01:23:46.720
which is a sort of community ensemble. It's fascinating stuff.
1518
01:23:46.720 --> 01:23:49.079
I'm going to put a link to a performance that
1519
01:23:49.119 --> 01:23:52.359
I particularly enjoyed in the episode description for you to
1520
01:23:52.479 --> 01:23:56.520
check out if you're interested. But if you type Gamalan
1521
01:23:56.560 --> 01:23:59.239
into YouTube and just listen to any smattering of things,
1522
01:23:59.800 --> 01:24:02.960
it doesn't sound dissimilar from Keina at all, which to
1523
01:24:03.079 --> 01:24:06.159
me is somebody not familiar with that style or that culture.
1524
01:24:07.159 --> 01:24:08.920
It tells me. It tells me one of two things.
1525
01:24:08.960 --> 01:24:11.359
It either tells me that I just happened to check
1526
01:24:11.399 --> 01:24:16.119
bad examples, or which is the actual case, This team
1527
01:24:16.760 --> 01:24:20.359
compositionally did everything right, and I'm not gonna lie to you.
1528
01:24:20.479 --> 01:24:23.319
I'm not gonna lie to you, Jake. At first, I
1529
01:24:23.439 --> 01:24:26.159
wasn't crazy about it. I was like, Eh, you know whatever.
1530
01:24:26.800 --> 01:24:28.600
But the more I listened to it outside of the game,
1531
01:24:29.399 --> 01:24:30.760
I'm thinking, I like this a lot.
1532
01:24:31.520 --> 01:24:32.680
Yeah, very cool.
1533
01:24:33.039 --> 01:24:34.760
And that's not to dismiss by the way, that's not
1534
01:24:34.840 --> 01:24:38.039
to dismiss the the sound design of like the thhacking
1535
01:24:38.520 --> 01:24:42.000
and the voice acting too. We're going to talk about
1536
01:24:42.119 --> 01:24:44.880
writing here in a second. I'm not crazy about that.
1537
01:24:45.279 --> 01:24:48.600
The voice acting, though it's perfectly good. It's perfectly fine,
1538
01:24:48.680 --> 01:24:50.600
especially especially given that they were all doing this for
1539
01:24:50.680 --> 01:24:54.520
the first time, remotely, very very good. The combat is
1540
01:24:54.680 --> 01:24:58.439
pretty satisfying sound wise. So you rely a lot on
1541
01:24:58.560 --> 01:24:59.600
sound cues, you said.
1542
01:25:00.119 --> 01:25:03.000
I do. That's something I learned about myself in combat
1543
01:25:03.079 --> 01:25:05.079
oriented games is that I rely quite a lot on
1544
01:25:05.199 --> 01:25:05.760
sound cues.
1545
01:25:06.560 --> 01:25:10.720
Interesting, I man, I'm not gonna lie. I I don't
1546
01:25:10.720 --> 01:25:13.600
remember a lot of sound cues playing into my experience
1547
01:25:13.680 --> 01:25:16.960
here I was, And to be fair, I'm much more visual.
1548
01:25:17.039 --> 01:25:19.840
I'm looking for like their you know, swing backs before
1549
01:25:19.880 --> 01:25:23.079
they swing at you did I just did? I miss
1550
01:25:23.119 --> 01:25:23.520
a lot of that.
1551
01:25:24.119 --> 01:25:27.439
I mean, that's it. I don't often turn down the
1552
01:25:27.560 --> 01:25:30.159
music just so I can hear the audio cues better,
1553
01:25:30.199 --> 01:25:32.159
but I did do it for this game. So it
1554
01:25:32.319 --> 01:25:34.079
might just be that they were a little more subtle
1555
01:25:34.600 --> 01:25:36.479
than than typically is common.
1556
01:25:37.000 --> 01:25:39.119
Hey, there's and there's nothing wrong with that too. I mean,
1557
01:25:39.159 --> 01:25:42.119
different learning styles for everybody. A game that can do
1558
01:25:42.279 --> 01:25:44.920
all of them in such a way that promotes success
1559
01:25:45.039 --> 01:25:47.039
no matter who's playing it all the better.
1560
01:25:47.560 --> 01:25:47.760
Yeah.
1561
01:26:03.560 --> 01:26:06.720
Okay, so we're at the very end here. We're going
1562
01:26:06.760 --> 01:26:11.399
to talk holistically about the narrative, the plot. Those are
1563
01:26:11.560 --> 01:26:14.439
technically separate, by the way, for allus, the writing, the
1564
01:26:14.520 --> 01:26:18.680
play experience as a whole. This game isn't like your
1565
01:26:18.720 --> 01:26:22.520
Clare of Scurits. It's not that kind of plot, plot,
1566
01:26:22.560 --> 01:26:25.720
beat driven game for the bulk of this game. In fact,
1567
01:26:26.239 --> 01:26:28.479
you are sort of dealing the bulk of this game anyway.
1568
01:26:28.479 --> 01:26:30.640
You are dealing with these two different people and their
1569
01:26:30.640 --> 01:26:34.800
spirits and their pasts. That does not progress the plot
1570
01:26:34.840 --> 01:26:37.640
at all, the story at all, but you are getting
1571
01:26:37.640 --> 01:26:40.720
glimpses into the past of what happened in these people's lives,
1572
01:26:41.760 --> 01:26:43.439
so to that and this isn't typical. We're just going
1573
01:26:43.520 --> 01:26:46.199
to talk about everything as a whole. Keina is a
1574
01:26:46.319 --> 01:26:49.600
spirit guide and her mission here just as her father
1575
01:26:49.720 --> 01:26:54.199
did before her. She is going through and helping these
1576
01:26:54.239 --> 01:26:57.800
spirits of this village move on. Their spirits are hanging
1577
01:26:57.880 --> 01:27:01.119
back because they feel unfulfilled. They feel grief, They feel
1578
01:27:01.199 --> 01:27:05.199
regret at how their life ended and the circumstances around it,
1579
01:27:05.279 --> 01:27:07.239
feeling like they could have or should have done more.
1580
01:27:08.520 --> 01:27:12.159
Grief I would say grief regret is one of the
1581
01:27:12.239 --> 01:27:16.239
two primary themes in this game, along with that of environmentalism,
1582
01:27:16.920 --> 01:27:22.359
specifically humans' impact on environmentalism, are two of the thematic
1583
01:27:22.399 --> 01:27:25.399
ideas in this game that are present this may and
1584
01:27:25.520 --> 01:27:27.920
maybe this is This is where you and I might disagree.
1585
01:27:28.039 --> 01:27:30.159
This is where I felt the game was at its weakest.
1586
01:27:31.239 --> 01:27:34.079
The dialogue writing I didn't feel was very strong, but
1587
01:27:34.920 --> 01:27:37.840
it felt to me like they're touching on interesting things.
1588
01:27:38.239 --> 01:27:40.199
I thought for a very long time in this game
1589
01:27:41.039 --> 01:27:45.640
the thesis was going to be that the environment doesn't
1590
01:27:45.680 --> 01:27:48.279
have a moral compass. Nature doesn't have a moral compass,
1591
01:27:48.680 --> 01:27:51.439
So what you perceive as hostility from it, from the
1592
01:27:51.560 --> 01:27:55.039
land fighting against you, that is not That is only
1593
01:27:55.079 --> 01:27:57.399
through your own lens. And this is really just how
1594
01:27:57.640 --> 01:28:01.079
the ecosystem of nature works. This is the natural process
1595
01:28:01.159 --> 01:28:04.560
which the main antagonist is explicitly told in this game.
1596
01:28:04.880 --> 01:28:08.960
He is told that. However, when you turn then and
1597
01:28:09.760 --> 01:28:15.479
sort of have your confrontation with him, the resolution functionally becomes,
1598
01:28:15.720 --> 01:28:17.720
just as it is with the other two throughout the game,
1599
01:28:18.560 --> 01:28:21.560
Keena saying you don't have to feel grief, It's okay,
1600
01:28:21.720 --> 01:28:25.079
you can move on. And it felt like they had
1601
01:28:25.199 --> 01:28:27.720
something to say, They knew what they wanted to say,
1602
01:28:28.640 --> 01:28:32.000
they just didn't go deep into it and pulling that
1603
01:28:32.159 --> 01:28:34.159
pin back out. By the way of this feeling like
1604
01:28:34.239 --> 01:28:36.319
the second and in a trilogy, I can see that
1605
01:28:36.520 --> 01:28:39.960
and I totally agree. But to that end, it didn't
1606
01:28:39.960 --> 01:28:44.399
feel like they did the necessary character work to make
1607
01:28:44.439 --> 01:28:46.560
these characters come alive. It felt through a lot of
1608
01:28:46.600 --> 01:28:49.159
this to me like the characters weren't characters. They were
1609
01:28:49.239 --> 01:28:53.800
just vehicles for the writing information that the writers wanted
1610
01:28:53.840 --> 01:28:57.800
to put into our brains, which is a sin in
1611
01:28:57.920 --> 01:29:02.680
fiction that to me. And look, I'm if you enjoy
1612
01:29:02.760 --> 01:29:06.039
this narrative, listeners, if you enjoy this narrative, Jake, I
1613
01:29:06.159 --> 01:29:10.119
am not telling you you're wrong, but I am also
1614
01:29:10.840 --> 01:29:14.159
very very consciously trying not to use the phrase this
1615
01:29:14.359 --> 01:29:18.359
isn't for me because it's too much of a crutch
1616
01:29:18.479 --> 01:29:22.680
I think, and I think that the writing, the story
1617
01:29:23.680 --> 01:29:28.079
has seeds in it that were just not fertilized or planted.
1618
01:29:28.920 --> 01:29:30.840
Just that's just how I felt throughout it.
1619
01:29:31.239 --> 01:29:35.800
Yeah, No, I would say, yeah. Second in a trilogy,
1620
01:29:36.079 --> 01:29:40.199
and which is I think a bold and can be
1621
01:29:40.319 --> 01:29:43.359
a really interesting way to start a story. I mean,
1622
01:29:43.359 --> 01:29:45.279
if you could start a story without having to do
1623
01:29:45.359 --> 01:29:47.960
the coming of age exposition of why Quina is the
1624
01:29:48.000 --> 01:29:50.319
spirit guy that she is, and you can launch us
1625
01:29:50.319 --> 01:29:53.119
into a story where she is refining that practice, like
1626
01:29:54.000 --> 01:29:56.720
you know, that could be really fertile, no pun intended.
1627
01:29:56.760 --> 01:30:01.840
I guess territory to develop like how characterization happens in
1628
01:30:01.960 --> 01:30:05.439
this game, and I think that there's absolutely an attempt
1629
01:30:05.680 --> 01:30:10.000
at really strong characterization of Kina. What I admired about
1630
01:30:10.079 --> 01:30:13.279
her as a character was that it seemed like she
1631
01:30:13.479 --> 01:30:18.119
didn't have to deal with kind of like the immature
1632
01:30:18.239 --> 01:30:20.720
brush it off. Yeah, I'm kind of a chosen one,
1633
01:30:21.000 --> 01:30:23.479
Like she didn't need to be humbled at some point.
1634
01:30:24.079 --> 01:30:27.680
Something that really bothers me in the current trend of
1635
01:30:27.920 --> 01:30:30.920
a lot of popular stories across whatever medium, whether it
1636
01:30:31.000 --> 01:30:35.119
be like novels or games or movies, is that you
1637
01:30:35.239 --> 01:30:39.279
have this brash, know it all protagonist that's highly skilled
1638
01:30:39.399 --> 01:30:43.760
for whatever reason, and they don't actually learn humility. They
1639
01:30:44.039 --> 01:30:47.640
just learned that they need to talk less and people
1640
01:30:47.680 --> 01:30:50.960
will like them more. I find that to be a
1641
01:30:51.079 --> 01:30:54.840
really frustrating protagonist because I think with good characterization, and
1642
01:30:54.920 --> 01:30:58.039
this is what I tell my students too, a sign
1643
01:30:58.159 --> 01:31:01.079
of good characterization is when you have a character that
1644
01:31:01.159 --> 01:31:04.439
meets a plot event and they have a clear decision
1645
01:31:04.600 --> 01:31:07.560
about whether how they want to handle that and whether
1646
01:31:07.600 --> 01:31:10.359
they're going to allow that plot event to fundamentally change
1647
01:31:10.520 --> 01:31:13.159
how they view the world, what their motives are, and
1648
01:31:13.359 --> 01:31:18.159
what their goals are moving forward. In my opinion, you
1649
01:31:18.319 --> 01:31:21.439
can have a character that runs into these moments, moments
1650
01:31:21.479 --> 01:31:24.560
of change and opportunity through plot events, and they can
1651
01:31:24.720 --> 01:31:28.039
choose never to change every time they're like, I'm not
1652
01:31:28.119 --> 01:31:30.920
going to change, and that character doesn't have to be
1653
01:31:31.039 --> 01:31:34.199
one dimensional. You just have a character that's choosing and
1654
01:31:34.399 --> 01:31:37.640
resisting opportunities of change and growth, and I think that
1655
01:31:37.760 --> 01:31:41.640
makes for some interesting characters, right. It's frustrating, though, when
1656
01:31:41.760 --> 01:31:46.319
you have characters that simply are you know, devices of exposition,
1657
01:31:47.199 --> 01:31:50.279
or they simply they come into these plot events and
1658
01:31:50.359 --> 01:31:52.520
they turn to somebody else and they say, okay, well
1659
01:31:52.560 --> 01:31:54.319
what should we do and then I'm just going to
1660
01:31:54.359 --> 01:31:57.439
follow the leader here. For me, that's poor characterization and
1661
01:31:57.560 --> 01:31:59.960
bad writing because you don't give them opportunities to really
1662
01:32:00.199 --> 01:32:03.760
do much. I think with Keina, I think a lot
1663
01:32:03.880 --> 01:32:09.159
of that story has happened before this game begins, but
1664
01:32:09.279 --> 01:32:11.800
that doesn't mean that that shouldn't continue to happen in
1665
01:32:11.960 --> 01:32:14.840
this game. And so I think my biggest hang ups
1666
01:32:14.840 --> 01:32:17.119
when it comes to the writing in the plot in
1667
01:32:17.199 --> 01:32:20.560
kind of how this game progresses, is that Keina doesn't
1668
01:32:20.880 --> 01:32:24.720
really get to confront any scenario that allows her to
1669
01:32:24.880 --> 01:32:28.439
have any pivotal decision making in who she is and
1670
01:32:28.520 --> 01:32:31.439
what she wants to be as a spiritual guide. But
1671
01:32:31.640 --> 01:32:34.680
rather we have a very limited cast of characters. I
1672
01:32:34.880 --> 01:32:38.920
kind of anticipated there to be meant much more, and
1673
01:32:40.239 --> 01:32:43.079
she is commentating more on what these other people are
1674
01:32:43.119 --> 01:32:46.800
doing rather than us being able to see character growth
1675
01:32:46.880 --> 01:32:49.479
in her. So I liked her. I wanted to root
1676
01:32:49.560 --> 01:32:52.600
for her. She wasn't this annoying, brash protagonist that needed
1677
01:32:52.640 --> 01:32:55.520
to be humbled. But at the same time, her characterization
1678
01:32:55.680 --> 01:32:56.399
was stalled.
1679
01:32:56.760 --> 01:32:58.439
And to that end too. If I were one of
1680
01:32:58.520 --> 01:33:01.439
your students and you gave that explanation to me of
1681
01:33:02.000 --> 01:33:07.439
character motivation, which is a good explanation, my immediate question
1682
01:33:07.640 --> 01:33:11.720
back to you would be, well, well, one it does.
1683
01:33:11.840 --> 01:33:15.079
In this game, Keina is functionally just being told to
1684
01:33:15.119 --> 01:33:18.119
find the three mcguffins, the three relics for each of
1685
01:33:18.239 --> 01:33:23.079
the spirit she's helping by, not Russu. Who's the old man.
1686
01:33:23.199 --> 01:33:28.079
Zaju uh No, TOHI is the leader. Russu is the
1687
01:33:28.119 --> 01:33:31.039
one that gives you the boy, and it's it's Zaju, right,
1688
01:33:31.199 --> 01:33:35.239
the old guy the village. Yes, yes, yes, yes, She's
1689
01:33:35.359 --> 01:33:37.960
basically she's being told what to do by him, and
1690
01:33:38.760 --> 01:33:43.000
in some respects to the spirits like Hannah. Hannah are
1691
01:33:43.119 --> 01:33:46.479
are helping as well. My question to you then would be,
1692
01:33:47.039 --> 01:33:50.039
you know, if that's the case, it doesn't seem like
1693
01:33:50.239 --> 01:33:53.319
Keina is making very many choices at all. And to
1694
01:33:53.439 --> 01:33:56.239
be honest with you, I couldn't tell you a single
1695
01:33:56.359 --> 01:33:59.439
character in this game outside of maybe Benny and Siah,
1696
01:34:00.159 --> 01:34:02.319
the two picks our children that you meet in the
1697
01:34:02.399 --> 01:34:06.199
beginning of the game, that really set the bar for me,
1698
01:34:06.520 --> 01:34:10.000
and you know, nobody else met it. I don't think
1699
01:34:10.119 --> 01:34:13.439
many characters in this game have a personality, even they're
1700
01:34:13.520 --> 01:34:17.159
drawing on these connections like a father. You know, we've
1701
01:34:17.159 --> 01:34:20.279
all lost a family member or know somebody that has,
1702
01:34:21.159 --> 01:34:23.600
and that's a shared connection. But I don't know anything
1703
01:34:23.640 --> 01:34:26.720
about Keina or how she felt about her family. I
1704
01:34:26.880 --> 01:34:28.680
just know that she's here. I just know that she's
1705
01:34:28.760 --> 01:34:31.079
doing this, and I know that this is her job
1706
01:34:31.159 --> 01:34:33.840
because it was her father's job, and that's you know,
1707
01:34:34.239 --> 01:34:37.279
she loves her father, same thing, you know, to a
1708
01:34:37.520 --> 01:34:39.840
different extent. We don't have to go through every single character,
1709
01:34:39.920 --> 01:34:42.760
But I don't know. I think I like what you
1710
01:34:42.840 --> 01:34:47.159
said about these characters having they have to move forward
1711
01:34:47.239 --> 01:34:50.239
intentionally through the plot through their own devices. But it
1712
01:34:50.319 --> 01:34:53.319
felt to me like the person making those decisions were
1713
01:34:53.319 --> 01:34:56.520
the writers through the mouthpiece of the characters, and me
1714
01:34:56.640 --> 01:34:59.079
as the player, just because that's what you do, like
1715
01:34:59.199 --> 01:35:00.439
you move forward.
1716
01:35:01.000 --> 01:35:03.840
Yeah, if I remember correctly, I want to say that
1717
01:35:03.960 --> 01:35:07.720
the Woodsmith and I just double checked her name, Adira, Yeah,
1718
01:35:07.800 --> 01:35:13.199
probably has the most flushed out person hood, you know.
1719
01:35:14.159 --> 01:35:17.000
I felt like that was a story that we understand
1720
01:35:17.039 --> 01:35:19.159
her grief and why she won't move on and kind
1721
01:35:19.199 --> 01:35:23.560
of what has happened to her. I think with Keina
1722
01:35:23.680 --> 01:35:27.159
it would have been rather than us being peppered with
1723
01:35:27.239 --> 01:35:30.359
a ton of flashbacks about who she was, I honestly
1724
01:35:30.399 --> 01:35:32.800
think a little bit of monologuing would have gone in
1725
01:35:32.880 --> 01:35:35.279
a good way. Not monologuing kind of in the signposting
1726
01:35:35.359 --> 01:35:37.720
way that I see a lot of people get bothered about,
1727
01:35:37.760 --> 01:35:40.359
like oh, we should do this thing next, but monologuing
1728
01:35:40.439 --> 01:35:43.199
in terms of like when she's encountering these spirits, if
1729
01:35:43.640 --> 01:35:46.039
how she feels that she is doing her own job.
1730
01:35:46.600 --> 01:35:48.399
I think that would have kind of helped us get
1731
01:35:48.439 --> 01:35:52.560
into the interior of how she understands what she's doing
1732
01:35:52.600 --> 01:35:54.960
as a spiritual guide, maybe where she'd want to do
1733
01:35:55.039 --> 01:35:57.000
things differently than her father, and then we could see
1734
01:35:57.039 --> 01:36:00.439
some character growth. And maybe because the story there's not
1735
01:36:00.560 --> 01:36:03.039
like really branching narrative or anything, the story happens as
1736
01:36:03.039 --> 01:36:06.760
a story happens. It would have been interesting, especially for
1737
01:36:06.840 --> 01:36:10.199
something that feels like the second in a trilogy, for
1738
01:36:10.279 --> 01:36:13.079
her to reflect on what she thinks she is doing correctly.
1739
01:36:13.680 --> 01:36:15.880
She starts to do this, I feel like towards the
1740
01:36:16.000 --> 01:36:19.199
end of the game with the main antagonist, she starts.
1741
01:36:19.439 --> 01:36:22.039
But for me, that was way too late in order
1742
01:36:22.119 --> 01:36:25.520
for us to get a really strong characterization of Quina
1743
01:36:25.560 --> 01:36:29.000
as a character. So I think my feelings on her
1744
01:36:29.079 --> 01:36:31.479
as a character are like, there's so much there that
1745
01:36:31.560 --> 01:36:34.199
I do admire and I really want to love, but
1746
01:36:34.960 --> 01:36:37.920
it was way too slow in developing. And then, like
1747
01:36:38.039 --> 01:36:41.359
I said, there's a small cast and it's hard for
1748
01:36:41.479 --> 01:36:43.960
me to really figure out what I think each cast
1749
01:36:44.119 --> 01:36:50.359
member contributed to this main story, which I thought would
1750
01:36:50.359 --> 01:36:53.000
be the main story of Keina. Kind of you know,
1751
01:36:53.399 --> 01:36:55.760
she is a spirit guy. There's no question about this.
1752
01:36:55.880 --> 01:36:57.359
She doesn't have to pass some sort of you know,
1753
01:36:57.680 --> 01:37:01.239
right of passage to become this spirit like that's it.
1754
01:37:01.479 --> 01:37:04.439
She's done that already, but I would have loved to
1755
01:37:04.439 --> 01:37:05.960
see more moments for her to refine that.
1756
01:37:07.000 --> 01:37:10.720
I agree, well, yes, I agree on both of the
1757
01:37:10.800 --> 01:37:14.039
points there with the monologuing, this isn't a novel, so
1758
01:37:14.159 --> 01:37:16.800
we can't read her internal thoughts. And if they're not
1759
01:37:16.880 --> 01:37:18.680
going to show us that in some way in the game,
1760
01:37:19.119 --> 01:37:21.399
it's got to be done through spoken dialogue and there
1761
01:37:21.399 --> 01:37:25.039
aren't any other characters to I'm with you. I want
1762
01:37:25.119 --> 01:37:28.319
to care about Kina. I want to hear why she's
1763
01:37:28.399 --> 01:37:30.119
doing that. I want to hear why her father means
1764
01:37:30.199 --> 01:37:31.439
so much to her. I want to hear why she
1765
01:37:31.520 --> 01:37:36.600
feels fulfillment doing this, But we don't get that. And yes,
1766
01:37:36.720 --> 01:37:41.039
I agree. Toward the end is where, at least from
1767
01:37:41.079 --> 01:37:43.439
my perception, it feels like that's when they started to
1768
01:37:43.520 --> 01:37:46.760
get comfortable and confident with what they were doing. And
1769
01:37:46.920 --> 01:37:51.359
that's when there is this scene where the village, there's
1770
01:37:51.439 --> 01:37:55.279
the village elder Zaju and the chief named Toshi. Toshi
1771
01:37:55.439 --> 01:37:58.880
is responsible for the blight and the corruption on this
1772
01:37:59.039 --> 01:38:01.920
land because he chose to fight back against it. He
1773
01:38:02.039 --> 01:38:05.119
didn't heed the warnings from Zaju that this was just
1774
01:38:05.479 --> 01:38:08.720
the natural cycle of nature and that we just we
1775
01:38:08.840 --> 01:38:11.800
exist within it. We have to just move forward. He said, no,
1776
01:38:11.960 --> 01:38:14.439
I want to fight back. That's man's folly. This is
1777
01:38:15.039 --> 01:38:18.399
classic conflict man versus nature. And I was when I
1778
01:38:18.439 --> 01:38:20.279
got there, I was like, finally, Yes, this is what
1779
01:38:20.399 --> 01:38:24.079
I wanted the game to. Yes, but they don't do
1780
01:38:24.359 --> 01:38:26.880
anything with it. They even the scene is beautiful too,
1781
01:38:26.920 --> 01:38:30.520
because he confronts the very characterization of nature in this
1782
01:38:30.640 --> 01:38:33.560
like giant rot beast sort of thing, and he's asking
1783
01:38:33.640 --> 01:38:35.680
why are you doing this and what does it do?
1784
01:38:36.159 --> 01:38:39.319
It just turns around because it's an animal, it's nature.
1785
01:38:39.479 --> 01:38:43.199
It doesn't have that sort of moral like compass continuity thing.
1786
01:38:43.279 --> 01:38:46.520
It just exists. It only fights when he attacks it,
1787
01:38:46.680 --> 01:38:49.359
and it precedes it as a threat. And that's exactly
1788
01:38:49.439 --> 01:38:51.760
what happens in nature. Man. A shark doesn't attack us
1789
01:38:51.840 --> 01:38:55.359
because it hates humans. It's like, I'm just a shark, dude.
1790
01:38:55.800 --> 01:38:58.800
Oh what are you your meat? I'm kind of hungry,
1791
01:38:58.960 --> 01:39:01.880
you know. It's like yeah, yeah, I don't know. I
1792
01:39:02.399 --> 01:39:05.279
hope that responded to something that you were saying. I
1793
01:39:05.680 --> 01:39:08.039
feel like I didn't. I feel like I'm just talking.
1794
01:39:08.720 --> 01:39:12.319
No, it did, because I think, yeah, the final moments
1795
01:39:12.359 --> 01:39:15.000
of this game are really cool narratively, Like and what
1796
01:39:15.119 --> 01:39:17.960
you're talking about here, like as it starts talking about
1797
01:39:18.840 --> 01:39:21.720
what the rot actually is and I don't know it
1798
01:39:21.920 --> 01:39:25.000
just yeah, maybe a little lopsided. That final quarter of
1799
01:39:25.079 --> 01:39:27.439
the game, we start really getting these things that would
1800
01:39:27.479 --> 01:39:30.479
be more juicy, more interesting, much more to latch onto,
1801
01:39:30.520 --> 01:39:32.319
I think, is what I'm getting at, right, And I
1802
01:39:32.359 --> 01:39:34.439
think this is what you're saying as well too.
1803
01:39:34.520 --> 01:39:35.399
You have too many.
1804
01:39:35.279 --> 01:39:38.760
Characters and the themes of grief and loss are pretty
1805
01:39:38.800 --> 01:39:44.439
stripped down. Honestly. We have these moments with the two
1806
01:39:44.600 --> 01:39:48.720
Pixar children, right, the sort of cherubs that are we're
1807
01:39:48.840 --> 01:39:55.319
following around, And yeah, I think I would agree with
1808
01:39:55.439 --> 01:39:58.880
you definitely in that when it comes to grief and loss,
1809
01:39:58.960 --> 01:40:02.760
that's where this game starts narratively, okay, Like it's like, Okay,
1810
01:40:03.039 --> 01:40:05.000
this is the theme we're talking about. Then it gets
1811
01:40:05.039 --> 01:40:07.800
into the environment and that's where it gets It's much stronger.
1812
01:40:09.439 --> 01:40:12.840
I would be really curious just knowing that a sequel
1813
01:40:12.960 --> 01:40:17.359
is coming. I'm really curious to see where they are
1814
01:40:17.439 --> 01:40:19.920
going to handle, like what they're going to do with
1815
01:40:19.960 --> 01:40:22.840
the narrative, because as a spiritual guide, she does have
1816
01:40:23.000 --> 01:40:26.279
this profession that has her be much more focused on
1817
01:40:26.600 --> 01:40:29.520
grief and loss, but the narrative was so much stronger
1818
01:40:29.600 --> 01:40:33.840
with the other I mean, secondary themes. It's like kind
1819
01:40:33.880 --> 01:40:35.079
of like, Okay, well, what are you going to do?
1820
01:40:51.239 --> 01:40:53.479
There is so much we could talk about here, and
1821
01:40:54.439 --> 01:40:56.319
that in and of itself, that the game gives you
1822
01:40:57.119 --> 01:41:00.600
ammunition with which you can speak about it and speak
1823
01:41:00.840 --> 01:41:04.279
around life through the game I think is valuable in
1824
01:41:04.359 --> 01:41:08.079
and of itself. Thank you for coming on today, Jake.
1825
01:41:08.159 --> 01:41:11.239
I really appreciate it, and especially appreciate it doubly so
1826
01:41:11.399 --> 01:41:15.920
triply because this is your first time coming. You said yes,
1827
01:41:16.000 --> 01:41:17.399
I would love to come, and I said I would
1828
01:41:17.399 --> 01:41:20.640
love to have you. And because we're all about loving,
1829
01:41:21.000 --> 01:41:23.680
I want you to tell the listeners why they should
1830
01:41:23.720 --> 01:41:27.399
love you and love your show, the pre Order Bonus
1831
01:41:27.479 --> 01:41:29.680
Podcast that in my head I just call the pre
1832
01:41:29.800 --> 01:41:32.319
Order Podcast, even though it's wrong, but I keep doing it.
1833
01:41:32.680 --> 01:41:35.439
So please tell us about the pre Order Bonus Podcast,
1834
01:41:35.800 --> 01:41:38.000
where they can find it, and what you're all about.
1835
01:41:38.760 --> 01:41:40.199
Well, thank you so much for having me on. This
1836
01:41:40.319 --> 01:41:42.159
has been a while in the works and I'm super
1837
01:41:42.199 --> 01:41:44.000
grateful that we could sit down and make it happen.
1838
01:41:45.359 --> 01:41:48.680
As far as Preorder Bonus podcast goes, we are most
1839
01:41:48.800 --> 01:41:51.960
active on Blue Sky, so you can find us there.
1840
01:41:53.039 --> 01:41:55.319
Just a little fun fact about us, Our show has
1841
01:41:55.439 --> 01:41:58.640
terrible seo because preorder bonus is associated with about a
1842
01:41:58.720 --> 01:42:01.920
thousand things. But if you go if you go to
1843
01:42:02.039 --> 01:42:04.199
Google and you type in pre order Bonus Jacob or
1844
01:42:04.279 --> 01:42:06.840
preorder Bonus Cameron, you will find us. We're one of
1845
01:42:06.880 --> 01:42:10.840
the top hits every time. Yeah, so we're on Blue Sky.
1846
01:42:11.079 --> 01:42:13.279
We are a podcast that you can find on all
1847
01:42:13.399 --> 01:42:17.640
major podcasting platforms. It's pretty similar to what happens here
1848
01:42:17.720 --> 01:42:19.960
at Pixel Project Radio, and that we talk about things
1849
01:42:20.039 --> 01:42:24.439
in categories the narrative, the game design. We'll talk about
1850
01:42:24.439 --> 01:42:26.760
the art direction also, and then we'll talk about impact
1851
01:42:26.840 --> 01:42:29.520
on the industry where we kind of feel like a
1852
01:42:29.600 --> 01:42:32.520
game fits within the grander screen scheme of things within
1853
01:42:32.600 --> 01:42:36.880
the industry. If you like listening to me specifically, you
1854
01:42:37.000 --> 01:42:39.520
can find me on Twitch. I stream part time at
1855
01:42:39.560 --> 01:42:42.079
twitch dot tv slash tip at eighteen. I also write
1856
01:42:42.119 --> 01:42:45.359
written reviews of indie games for so many games dot
1857
01:42:45.520 --> 01:42:49.000
co dot UK, So yeah, that's where.
1858
01:42:48.880 --> 01:42:51.239
You can find me, absolutely and I've read some of
1859
01:42:51.319 --> 01:42:53.800
those reviews. I can I can vouch for them. I
1860
01:42:53.840 --> 01:42:55.960
think you should check them out. You can find links
1861
01:42:56.000 --> 01:42:58.319
to all of that in the description and in particular
1862
01:42:58.399 --> 01:43:02.279
too the pre order bonus podcast. This show PPR lacks
1863
01:43:02.800 --> 01:43:09.000
industry over not oversight, industry insight pretty majorly because it's
1864
01:43:09.239 --> 01:43:12.359
just not something that's in my specialty or wheelhouse. So
1865
01:43:12.880 --> 01:43:15.079
you can fill in a lot of gaps and more
1866
01:43:15.319 --> 01:43:18.479
if you listen to the Careator Bonus podcast, which you
1867
01:43:18.520 --> 01:43:22.199
can find linked in the description. In the episode description,
1868
01:43:22.279 --> 01:43:24.720
you can find links to our stuff as well. You
1869
01:43:24.800 --> 01:43:27.439
can find links to the Pixel Project Radio discord server.
1870
01:43:27.800 --> 01:43:30.640
It is free and I encourage you to join. If
1871
01:43:30.640 --> 01:43:33.319
you're feeling extra generous you really like the work that
1872
01:43:33.439 --> 01:43:35.720
we're doing over here, you can check out patreon dot
1873
01:43:35.800 --> 01:43:38.279
com slash pixel Project Radio. You can see what we
1874
01:43:38.399 --> 01:43:41.399
have on offer there. If you join for free, you
1875
01:43:41.479 --> 01:43:45.039
can see blog posts and previews of the patron exclusive episodes.
1876
01:43:45.800 --> 01:43:48.600
Here's above that. You can vote on Patreon episodes and
1877
01:43:48.680 --> 01:43:51.640
hear them in full. You can vote on main feed episodes.
1878
01:43:51.680 --> 01:43:54.000
We've got a couple main feed episodes chosen by the
1879
01:43:54.079 --> 01:43:57.680
patrons coming up in Final Fantasy for and earth Bound,
1880
01:43:58.760 --> 01:44:01.399
and the Patreon episodes as I said, those are exclusive
1881
01:44:01.479 --> 01:44:05.000
to the patrons. You can hear talk on games like Grondia,
1882
01:44:05.479 --> 01:44:09.520
like Simpson's Wrestling, like Sonic three D Blast, one hundred Line,
1883
01:44:09.600 --> 01:44:12.199
Last Defense Academy, a bunch of those things. You can
1884
01:44:12.279 --> 01:44:14.960
hear all of that in there, but again it's no pressure.
1885
01:44:15.399 --> 01:44:18.680
You can also find links to our social media socials media.
1886
01:44:19.079 --> 01:44:21.840
Those are going to be Blue Sky and Instagram. Those
1887
01:44:21.960 --> 01:44:25.479
are the active places, mainly Blue Sky, but you can
1888
01:44:25.520 --> 01:44:28.680
find links to them in there, and that about does it. Jake,
1889
01:44:28.760 --> 01:44:31.560
thank you once again for joining. It's been a pleasure
1890
01:44:31.640 --> 01:44:34.039
to speak with you. Thank you listeners for sticking around
1891
01:44:34.039 --> 01:44:38.000
to the very end and listening to this conversation. Would
1892
01:44:38.039 --> 01:44:40.359
love to hear your thoughts in the discord or in
1893
01:44:40.720 --> 01:44:44.079
the episode comments, depending on what platform you're listening on.
1894
01:44:45.079 --> 01:44:47.039
And until then, I think we're signing off for now.
1895
01:44:47.479 --> 01:44:50.640
Thanks once again, everybody, Jake listeners all hope you love
1896
01:44:50.680 --> 01:45:06.319
the show today. Take care, folks at the head