0:04

You see power correct, then

0:06

let us form a pact. Since her name

0:08

has been displaced already, When I make

0:10

a podcast and wreak havoc, join

0:13

us with a single word persona.

0:18

Welcome to Triple Click where that just happened.

0:20

This week, we're talking about the persona series

0:22

on the eve of Persona five finally coming to

0:25

non place platforms. We've got class

0:27

in the morning in demons to fight after school, so

0:29

let's put on our uniforms and get to it.

0:35

I'm

0:35

Kirk Hamilton.

0:36

I'm Maddie Myers.

0:38

And I'm Jason Shrier. Hello.

0:40

Hello. It's us.

0:42

Hey, bro. Again.

0:42

Here we are. Yes. Once again. We

0:45

are back. And, man, boy,

0:47

am I sleep deprived? coming

0:50

to your children is no joke as it turns

0:52

out.

0:52

Wake up, Jason, it's time for school. It's time school.

0:55

It's time

0:55

for school. It's like

0:57

demons. Oh, no. This is actually

0:59

a dream. I had instead of not podcasting

1:02

-- Yeah. -- that you were having a dream about

1:04

needing to sleep. Oh, man. You remember that Kelvin

1:06

Hobbs where he's trying to fall asleep and he

1:08

can't fall asleep and then his mom wakes him up.

1:11

Oh my god. One of the most nightmarish Calvin

1:13

and Hobbs.

1:13

That's like the million Calvin and Hobbs

1:15

is Do you mean the one where he, like, imagines

1:18

that he can't sleep, but that's actually a dress that

1:20

he's having, and

1:20

it's like a horrifying reveal. And it

1:22

ends with him being broken up by his mouth.

1:24

Yeah. Right? because it's actually actually morning, Lewis. And

1:27

he was like, this is gonna be a long day or something.

1:30

So JC is Calvin

1:32

right now. Well, we feel for man. I

1:34

am. Except only getting three hours

1:36

at a time. It's like the

1:38

the feeling the best comparison I can make is, like,

1:40

you know how when you go to bed, but

1:42

you know that you have to get to the airport

1:45

for a foreign AM flight the next night and

1:47

you're like, okay. No. I'm gonna have to wake

1:49

up at two. I'll try to enjoy this. It's just

1:51

a little bit, but it'll it'll it'll be

1:53

over soon. Imagine that except every

1:55

single night for, like, forever, at

1:57

least three months.

2:00

And that sounds super fun. Yeah. Also super

2:02

fun being supported by listeners.

2:05

Yeah. Yeah. So

2:07

too, it is fun being It's

2:09

fun. It's fun. It's a

2:11

rip roaring type. If that was a video game, I would

2:14

play it often. It would be fun.

2:16

So we are a listener supported show as we

2:18

say at the side of every episode. you probably

2:20

know this, but maybe this is your first time listening to Triple

2:22

Click. In which case hey. Welcome to Triple

2:24

Click. We're glad you're here. And did you know that we're a listener

2:26

supported podcast? because we are And

2:28

if you'd like to support us making this show,

2:30

you can become a member of maximum

2:33

fun, which is our podcast network, and

2:35

that supports us, that supports the network

2:37

and also gets you access to bonus episodes

2:40

of our show and other podcasts. But we

2:42

do one every month, all sorts of different

2:44

things. and there's a backlog

2:46

going all the way back to when this show started. So

2:48

you get a whole bunch of stuff if become

2:50

a member. So you can become a member

2:52

at maximum fun dot org slash

2:55

join. That's the place to go to sign

2:57

up. And we sincerely appreciate everyone who

2:59

is a member. We don't have ads. We don't have sponsors.

3:01

We totally just do this thing with your support,

3:03

which lets us make exactly the show that

3:05

we wanna make, and that's really cool. Mhmm.

3:08

Also, we're gonna be doing a

3:11

another bean's cast this month on a

3:13

movie. Yeah. And it's a very exciting

3:15

movie that everyone's been talking about,

3:17

the Super Mario brothers movie. Now

3:21

you might be asking, well, wait, did the Triple

3:23

Click crew get an early copy

3:25

of the upcoming animated Mario movie?

3:28

No, in fact, we are talking about the nineteen

3:30

ninety three Super Mario Reducer movie,

3:32

which stars Dennis Hopper and John

3:34

Lebizamo, looks to me like some

3:36

sort of drug induced fever dream,

3:38

a movie that I've actually never seen and that Maddie

3:40

I know, like First has never seen it, which is

3:42

a huge reason why this is being first upon

3:44

Kirk. for one Jason and I are

3:46

now the ones who have. Gotcha. But

3:49

I haven't seen it since I was a kid. So,

3:51

like, I have zero memory. Right.

3:53

Whereas, I have seen it multiple

3:55

times as an adult because I kind

3:57

of love it, and I

3:58

think it helps. And it's so serious.

4:01

I'm a little

4:01

obsessed with how horrifying

4:02

it is. Like Mario and

4:04

real life as a movie. Why would

4:07

that happen?

4:07

This movie dares to ask that. It answers It

4:10

did happen it happened and saw it and came

4:12

out and we're gonna watch it. We're gonna talk about it. So that'll be the

4:14

bean's cast for this month. I'm certainly

4:16

excited and I hope that all of you

4:18

are as well. anyways, maximum fund dot org

4:20

slash join become a member, get access

4:23

to bonus episodes, including us

4:25

talking about a horrifying Mario movie.

4:27

Alright. Let's get into this episode's

4:29

topic. It's time to talk

4:31

even more about the persona

4:34

series. Yeah. So it's finally

4:36

time for a whole episode about

4:38

persona. Is it

4:41

gonna be ninety hours long or more like a

4:43

hundred and ten hours? Or It depends. If

4:45

you try to listen to the whole episode, it's more

4:47

like ten hundred twenty hours, but

4:49

if you really Min Max, you can't do

4:51

it in the right order. And

4:53

you might do stuff, so just be

4:55

really careful. You can visit

4:57

polygon dot com for a lot of helpful tips.

4:59

So about you how to get a few days of five

5:01

days. Just look like episode on what

5:03

the deal is in persona. We will be publishing

5:05

that guide right upon release. That's

5:07

a joke. It's funny we joke, but because I've been

5:09

playing percent of five, I've been on Polygon so

5:11

much because y'all have those guys. There's so

5:13

many that really are very useful. Anyways,

5:15

Let me give a little spiel here about what persona

5:18

is for anybody listening. Who's heard us talk

5:20

about it? And maybe kinda knows what it is, who would

5:22

like a refresher.

5:24

Persona is a series of Japanese

5:26

role playing games that dates back to the nineties

5:28

though its second more modern act

5:30

arguably began with two thousand and

5:33

six's Persona three. There have

5:35

been two mainline games since then,

5:37

Persona's four and five and

5:39

each one has seen the series profile grow a

5:41

little bit more in the west in

5:43

North America. There's still niche games

5:45

compared to a mad or a Call of Duty, but

5:47

they're less niche with each passing

5:49

year. Each persona game of that

5:51

Milk three four and five, they tell a similar sort of story,

5:54

at least in the broad strokes of an unlikely

5:56

band of Japanese high schoolers who discover a

5:58

dark demonic world hidden beneath

6:00

our own and who go on to harness

6:02

the power of their inner selves, their

6:04

personas, to do battle against

6:06

those demonic forces. Each story

6:08

plays out more or less over the course of a school

6:10

year. And during that time, as battle

6:12

their own personal demons. And as they

6:14

resolve their inner conflicts and strengthen their

6:16

bonds with one another, they grow all the

6:18

more powerful in battle. Each entry

6:20

in the series blends anime visual aesthetics,

6:22

funky jazz fusion music, visual

6:25

novel style storytelling, dating sim elements,

6:27

and elaborate involved turn based combat

6:29

into a one hundred plus hour saga

6:31

that is both exhilarating and occasionally exhausting.

6:34

The series live for many years, cordoned off

6:36

as a PlayStation exclusive, though has begun

6:38

to change recently with the twenty twenty

6:40

port of Persona four to PC.

6:42

And finally, PC and console ports

6:44

of twenty seventeen's persona five that is happening

6:46

this week. Persona five is coming to Game Pass.

6:48

It's coming to DC. It's finally gonna

6:50

be available for people who who

6:52

don't have a PlayStation platform and would like to

6:54

play it somewhere else. So it's finally time

6:56

to talk about it. Here we are. We're gonna talk

6:58

about persona and I'll just say I

7:00

have played persona three portable. I

7:02

played percent of four golden. I then

7:04

played again. I was playing persona four golden

7:06

yet again on the steam deck and have been

7:09

playing through persona five Royal

7:11

after beating Persona five back in twenty seventeen

7:13

and reviewing it. So I have a lot of experience

7:15

with that part of the series with three, four,

7:17

and five. But I'm curious, I guess, upfront,

7:20

what are the two of your experience

7:22

levels with this series like? Jason, I know you've

7:24

played these, so I know you go first. Yeah. Well, so first

7:26

of all, I just wanna say that you can you can

7:28

always tell from a triple click intro,

7:30

which one of us is no

7:32

longer a professional games journalist and no longer

7:34

has to write about games all day. And the

7:36

therefore, the labor bar just really

7:38

funny when you Simon readjacent or,

7:41

like, off the cuff. What I

7:43

almost just copy pasted the summary

7:45

of the percent of series that I wrote in my

7:47

review of persona five because it was pretty good and

7:49

I spent a moment on that. I was like, very nostalgic

7:51

fun little tip for the fan. And I write

7:53

a new one. I wrote an all new one just for

7:55

triple play. This is the exclusive

7:57

place. But I yeah. I just sort of say, one of us

7:59

one of us has one of us has the bit the

8:02

mental bandwidth to build the fucking

8:04

stuff about games and there's a fair time.

8:06

We're It's pretty fun to write about video games.

8:08

It's fun thing to write about. Pitch Polygon,

8:10

maybe. I think the

8:12

three of us were probably gonna be viewing

8:14

towards the newer games in the series. So

8:16

apologies to anyone out there who's hoping that

8:18

we'll talk about Persona one and two

8:20

because we're probably not gonna

8:21

We're, like, Should origami Ten say

8:23

or what

8:24

Well, I played I played those games.

8:26

Those are -- Totally different. -- totally different

8:28

games. There should be time origami sensing games. But

8:30

as far as persona, My

8:32

experience starts with persona three,

8:35

which I believe Kirk Ewan and I

8:37

discovered at the same time during my first

8:39

year at Kentucky until twenty twelve.

8:41

We both started playing that game, and

8:43

then we both jumped into Persona four

8:45

Golden on the Vida, and we both got

8:47

really into both of those games. And then,

8:49

obviously, I played persona five. I played through the

8:51

entire game twice, which is

8:53

pretty pretty wild. That's like a lot of

8:55

hundreds. A hundred and fifty the hours of my life, then

8:57

I'll never get back. So yeah. So

8:59

I spent a lot of time with these games. I never

9:01

actually finished three. I

9:03

finished four. And

9:05

then finish five four, of course,

9:07

has a particularly memorable ending

9:10

because it's a the whole game is a murder mystery. And

9:12

at the end, you have to figure out who

9:14

did it. which is a fun a fun reveal.

9:17

And so, yeah, that's that's my experience of the

9:19

games. I've played a lot of the newer ones.

9:20

Nice.

9:21

How about you, Maddy? I am the least

9:23

person and a literate on

9:24

the on the podcast. So,

9:27

of course, as a not liking

9:29

of turn based

9:30

JRPGs. Mhmm. Her

9:32

sona games were really hard sell for

9:34

me. Although, I have many friends,

9:36

including the two of you who love them,

9:39

So I feel like it's a TV show

9:41

I haven't seen, but I know a

9:43

lot of the plot beats. I

9:45

specifically feel like I know a lot of the

9:47

beats of persona four because I

9:49

remember that being a really big turning point

9:51

just for people I know. I'm not as

9:53

familiar with three, but I remember four being

9:55

when I really started to hear about this

9:57

game, especially from

9:59

marginalized people and like

9:59

queer people I know being super into

10:02

it but also super uncertain

10:04

how to feel about the homophobia

10:06

and transphobia in the game because it's a

10:08

game that arguably has a trans

10:10

character as a main character, but the

10:12

game doesn't really treat them very well.

10:15

but people really love the game and there's

10:17

just so many, you know, emotionally torn

10:19

Tumblr posts written to this

10:21

effect. And I've read many of them and

10:23

enjoyed reading about them. and all

10:25

that was enough to wear me down

10:28

when persona five royal came out and

10:30

I played through the first

10:32

what are the temples called? Are they the Sessions,

10:35

Palaces. Yeah. Palaces. I played

10:37

through to the end of that, which is

10:39

ten hours Yeah. Yeah.

10:41

That's a long first thing. Oh, so much as

10:43

cut scenes.

10:43

Nothing wrong with that. But I

10:45

did get to the end, and I kinda wished it

10:47

were an anime, and I still

10:50

kinda wish it were an anime. I It

10:51

is an anime. Because

10:53

I just I think that

10:55

the turn based combat and we can get into it.

10:58

It's great. but it is still

11:00

turn based for RPG combat. So the fact that I'm

11:02

saying it's great is a very high compliment

11:04

for me, but it's

11:06

still it's still a hard sell. So we we can get

11:08

into why that is. Yeah. Well,

11:09

that's why it's perfect that it's now on

11:11

switch and the deck which

11:14

seems like when you're watching TV. Yeah.

11:16

Like,

11:16

precisely. Yeah. And it also

11:19

feels more like a book in that context.

11:21

So unbelievably I am considering

11:24

buying it yet again or

11:26

downloading it yet again just

11:28

playing it on the steam deck or something or

11:30

the switch. I don't care which, just so

11:32

that I can maybe finally get through one

11:35

persona game. And maybe this is gonna be

11:37

the conversation. that convinces

11:38

me to do The royal version, as

11:41

percent of five, the original had

11:43

a little bit of homophobic stuff,

11:45

like gross stereotype stuff. Royal

11:48

tones that down a little bit. I think

11:50

it's still there if I remember correctly, but

11:52

it's It's tone down. Yeah.

11:54

I mean, there's

11:56

plenty in

11:56

these games that we could get into

11:59

as problematic.

11:59

Like, the treatment of female characters

12:02

across the board. Not ideal. But,

12:04

hey, this is not That's somewhat why you

12:06

go to a persona game. You

12:07

go for the high school drama. You go

12:09

for the the tropes themselves

12:12

interplaying with one

12:12

another in thing. The buffy buffy the

12:15

vampire's there. I remember we were

12:17

talking a while ago. It's twenty percent of

12:19

four and three are actually

12:21

what started split screen

12:21

and then triple click. So without triple click without

12:23

persona, we wouldn't have triple click because that's when

12:25

I started this feature on Kentucky in twenty

12:28

twelve called burning questions. Mhmm.

12:31

familiar sounding feature. That

12:33

was essentially an excuse of us to

12:35

just, like, put a transcript of our, like,

12:37

Slack comers. So I am conversation

12:39

about persona three. and that,

12:41

like, we eventually started doing that more

12:43

regularly and then eventually turned it into a

12:45

podcast. And so that is eventually what

12:47

became split screen. And then, of

12:49

course, Matti Myers came along, and we

12:51

became the powerhouse that we are today.

12:53

But, yeah, persona has some some

12:55

important persona lore in our history. A

12:57

social link was formed.

12:58

It's true. I've spent the

13:01

better part of this year playing

13:03

through persona five royal because

13:05

I it had been full price on PlayStation and

13:07

I just wasn't willing to pay sixty bucks

13:09

or whatever to play a game I'd already played. But then

13:11

I found it on sale and was like, alright. Fine. I'm

13:13

gonna get it. I've been playing it

13:15

entirely in remote play using

13:18

Chiyaki that app that lets you play playstation

13:20

games, streaming to your

13:22

steam deck I've been playing the whole thing on steam

13:24

deck. And I'm far. I'm

13:26

like eighty some hours into it. This is

13:28

just chipping away at it every

13:30

couple times a for months and

13:32

months. I've just did my whole year. It's like

13:34

going to the gym. You just gotta do it a couple of times a

13:36

week, and you'll make a lot of progress. So

13:39

Exactly. The gym is gonna make you

13:41

feel more energetic. It's gonna really

13:43

put a prep in your step because you're

13:45

playing persona five a few times a week.

13:47

Exactly. So playing through this

13:49

game has I've a few things about the game has

13:51

struck me. And one is that

13:53

it's not really about the depth

13:55

of any one aspect of it, of the

13:57

world, of the characters, the storytelling.

14:00

It's not that it's so fleshed out.

14:02

It's actually the opposite. So

14:04

I really like going to brunch. I I

14:06

love going to brunch. and I I really missed brunch

14:08

during the pandemic and haven't really actually had that

14:10

much time for brunch. But whenever I go to

14:12

brunch, I like to get a lot of things because that's

14:14

kind of the fun of brunch as you got you

14:16

know, your your eggs and your toast and your

14:18

hash browns and maybe a side dish

14:20

and, you know, maybe -- Right. -- some kind of you're

14:22

splitting some French toast with people

14:25

on there. and you got your orange juice

14:27

and your coffee and your water. So there's a

14:29

variety of things and you can kind of go from one thing

14:31

to the other to the other and that's what I really like about

14:33

that meal. It's very different than just You have a

14:35

sandwich and you just eat the sandwiches all kinda stacked

14:37

on top of each other. French is basically how you

14:39

play video games too. It's just like,

14:41

I'll take the whole sandwich platter. also

14:43

how to try not to play

14:45

video games in the past. Not

14:47

succeeding. Yeah. I was gonna say it's a lot of times,

14:49

sometimes it is. This year, it been because it's

14:51

been a weird year. But a lot of times, it's actually not a I'm

14:53

more of a sandwich kinda guy where I'm just like, I'm

14:55

eating this whole sandwich. I'm just finished the

14:57

hell damn thing. to the bitter end. And then

14:59

when you finish it, you wanna eat it again. So

15:02

I guess the video game will cool, it's

15:04

like you throw it up let

15:06

me just go back to the

15:09

restaurant to the same sandwich place, which I

15:11

do. It's a food metaphor working. How's

15:13

this working? Does it make sense to me? I think it's

15:15

perfect. No. I I think if you go back to the same place

15:17

and you get the same sandwich again because it was so

15:19

good, which is certainly how I am

15:21

with my local sandwich place. So

15:23

anyways, that's kind

15:24

of the thought I've been having as I've been playing

15:26

persona five is what kind of sandwich is

15:28

persona five? It's not a

15:30

sandwich. It's it's breakfast. That's what I'm saying. That's

15:32

a chicken meal. Within the game

15:34

itself, it's it's a little of

15:35

this. It's a little of that. It's a it's a journey.

15:37

Of course. Yes. So

15:40

that's the experience that I've had playing it is

15:42

that there's not really a lot of depth to any of the

15:44

characters. And going back and playing through

15:46

these social links again, I've just I've

15:48

been kind of blasting through it going pretty

15:50

quickly. I played it already, so I really know how to

15:52

min max my character and move through it.

15:54

And that's not really the thing

15:56

that I appealing about the game. In fact, I

15:58

really barrel through all of the social

16:00

stuff and it's it's kind

16:02

of just the rhythm of it that I'm enjoying more

16:04

than any of the specific

16:06

content. The way that I've been playing, I have these

16:08

power ups that recharge my

16:10

mana and my power while I'm in dungeons, which lets

16:12

me just play through the whole dungeon

16:14

in one whack, which I think I've mentioned this

16:16

before is kind of not the most fun way to

16:18

play because the dungeons are big. In

16:20

persona five, especially if they're really involved, there's all

16:22

this level design, there's stages and

16:24

there's a whole story to each dungeon.

16:26

And because I don't wanna waste multiple

16:28

nights in the schedule, I go through the whole

16:30

thing and then it winds up just being that I

16:32

spend a lot of sessions playing the

16:34

game going through the dungeon. And then also

16:36

that I spend a lot of time

16:38

just marathoning through social stuff.

16:40

And that's more fun. I really like all

16:42

of the social interactions, but each individual

16:45

social link that you build up with a character,

16:47

you know, each time you hang out with them, rank

16:49

up, you learn a new thing about them, your character

16:51

your your relationship kind of

16:53

matures or gains some you gain some new

16:55

insight into them. It's made me realize

16:57

how each character is actually pretty shallow

17:00

in in this game, and I don't feel

17:02

any real meaningful connection any of

17:04

them. Like, we joke about, you know, oh, Makoto

17:06

is like, she's the girl that you have to date, but

17:08

like, she's barely a character. I

17:10

mean, she's is totally this archetype

17:12

of the overachieving student

17:14

council, you know, character. And each each one of

17:16

your friends is just this archetype and

17:18

even getting that involved in in any given character for me

17:20

is kind of a bit of a goof. Like, I'm I'm

17:22

just sort of projecting onto the game. And

17:24

the real appeal is just that

17:26

schedule. It's the structure and

17:28

it's the feeling of just a little bit of this, a little bit of that.

17:30

I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna go to momentos for a

17:32

night and hang out this person. I'm gonna go

17:34

and try to eat a big hamburger so that'll make my

17:36

stats go up. gonna play a video game,

17:38

and you just get into that rhythm of the schedule.

17:41

And to me, that's definitely the most

17:43

appealing thing about these games. It's funny that

17:45

you're playing in the success series that, like, heal

17:47

your man your magic points.

17:49

My SPSP skill points.

17:51

because I feel like that kind of

17:53

ruins the game. Like,

17:55

The whole one of the appeals of the dendritic part

17:57

of it is that there's a rhythm to it

17:59

and that your skill points kind of because

18:02

you're essentially using skills in every

18:04

single battle, they almost represent your, like, level of exhaustion.

18:06

And in some senses, it's literal.

18:08

Like, yeah, I think

18:10

when you get to a restroom or at

18:12

some point, like, with voice over Makoto

18:14

or sorry, not Makoto. Or not, I will

18:16

be, like, you guys are looking tired. Maybe you

18:19

should tap out. and it kinda gives

18:21

you natural stopping points for

18:23

when it's time to leave the deck. Well, the game is

18:25

designed around this. I mean, as how we play

18:27

the game more and more, you can buy

18:29

more as p replenishing accessories.

18:31

You can get them from the doctor. You can get stuff that

18:33

-- Sure. -- in the rest areas, heals you. So it's kinda

18:35

like over the course of the game, they wanna make it

18:37

easier for you to go along this. think it's

18:39

a lot more fun if you don't play. Like, if you it's

18:41

the game's a lot more fun if you don't max it first of

18:43

all. If you just make kind of organic choices.

18:45

But second of all, if you

18:47

take the dungeons a little bit more

18:50

leisurely. And there are also kind of

18:52

force stopping points in most of them where

18:54

it's like you have to go out

18:56

and defeat this other guy in momentos before you can keep making

18:58

progress or whatever. Yeah. I think

19:00

the way that I'm playing it the second time

19:02

through is just different than the first time. That's how I

19:04

put it the first time. But this time through, I'm in more of

19:06

a min maxing mode because the second time you

19:08

play a game like this. It's like it

19:10

it's just a natural thing to fall into. I really

19:13

wanna see the new stuff, so I max

19:15

out the old stuff. But also, I would say that

19:17

even playing this the first time, I bet some

19:19

people really fall prey to that.

19:21

I think that's one of the challenges with this kind

19:23

of game where you know that any

19:26

moment, you know, any choice that you make,

19:28

there's an opportunity cost. And I

19:30

explained this a bit in the preamble,

19:32

but this game is on a schedule and there's a limited amount of

19:34

time. And sometimes there's really like a limited amount

19:36

of time to kind of, you know,

19:38

cause a major story development

19:40

happen. Like, you have to get a person's social

19:43

link to a certain level by a certain date.

19:45

And usually, those are pretty easy to do. They're not

19:47

always easy. I remember Naoto. Like,

19:49

maxing Naoto's social link in persona

19:51

four was actually really hard because

19:53

she's only in your party for, like,

19:55

a month or something like that. So you had to really know what you were

19:57

doing, and I totally failed to do it the first

19:59

time through. And there is that kind of

20:01

niggling feel that you get

20:03

when you're playing through a persona game and

20:06

then you realize that you're being closed off from

20:08

opportunities and, oh, maybe I didn't spend my

20:10

time optimally. to your

20:12

point about it being a poo poo platter, I

20:14

agree with that. I think that's the salient point.

20:16

And I also think in addition to,

20:18

like, that that kind of being the joy of

20:20

it is going around the same way because it's also

20:22

the vibe, the music, and the rain, and the

20:24

coffee, and the curry, and all that stuff. I've

20:26

talked about that in the past, but that is really

20:28

what makes Just like feel

20:30

like, oh, man, I wanna spend time in this

20:32

world. Mhmm.

20:33

That was something that I really liked

20:35

about it. And as somebody who didn't

20:37

super enjoy the dungeons, I

20:40

really liked the fact that there were so

20:42

many other things to do,

20:44

especially because Even though I agree with you,

20:46

Kirk, that none of the characters are that deep,

20:48

that's almost not the point because it

20:50

is fulfilling the fantasy of you

20:52

participating in a sort of Buffy,

20:54

the vampire ensemble cast

20:56

type of high school scenario. Like,

20:58

you're all fighting demons and each of you

21:00

has a different personality trope that shines

21:02

up above all your other personality tropes and that's, you know,

21:04

you're the you're the the beater, the

21:07

the mage, whatever your D

21:09

and D classes are. and that

21:12

fantasy is the best part

21:14

of the game. I yeah. I

21:16

really wish I liked the combat more

21:18

because I feel like that would have been enough to

21:20

push over and wanna beat

21:22

it because everything else about the

21:24

game is so great. Like even just the fact

21:26

that it is constrained to you you

21:28

can only have meals at certain places

21:30

you can only visit certain places, a certain

21:32

number of times per week. That's

21:34

really cool. Like, not that many

21:36

games do that to you. I'm so used

21:38

to games where it's like you press pause and

21:41

like the media is never gonna hit the

21:43

planet. You can just go run around and

21:45

explore infinitely and character will warn you at

21:47

the gate, like, hey, if you leave here, you're

21:49

never coming back again. And persona

21:51

is just not at all afraid

21:53

to cut you off and be like,

21:55

nope. You're done. Like, that's all you did today. And

21:57

also the the clock keeps going.

21:59

It's

21:59

sorry. And it's coming. Yeah. And

22:02

you can waste your time. You can, like, do a

22:04

socially with someone and not even

22:06

get close to, like, level and

22:07

exercise. strike out with people

22:09

as it were and make

22:12

have sort of dice rolls not on your side

22:14

with people or just pick the wrong things because

22:16

you don't know, which is also what I was doing

22:18

when I was playing. I was I

22:20

wasn't using a guide. I was just messing

22:23

around and enjoying it. And

22:25

I'm sure I missed things as a result. But it

22:27

felt more like real

22:29

high school experience of not always knowing

22:31

the right thing to do and just kinda messing

22:33

around. Is this unsated thing underlying

22:36

a lot of persona where if

22:38

you choose the right thing in every

22:40

conversation, you will maximize someone's

22:42

friendship toward you, and it kind of systematizes

22:45

relationships in a way that's actually pretty

22:47

creepy when you talk about it. Yeah. And

22:49

it's it's a funny thing about this game

22:52

that there's this neatness to the fact

22:54

that every social relationship works according

22:56

to these very clear rules, but

22:58

that's not actually how the real world isn't. If

23:00

it were, that would be really weird because then

23:02

you could like hack the game and

23:04

make everybody like you, which is not how

23:06

life works. So I think that that's actually

23:08

an interesting aspect of this game that

23:11

I wasn't super aware of the first time I played it through when I was

23:13

reviewing it, that in persona five, at

23:15

least, when you're, you know, having a

23:17

conversation with someone, usually when

23:19

you are doing one of the social

23:21

link hangouts. You know, you go out to get ramen

23:23

together and you're talking and, you know,

23:25

they're talking about their problem. You know, we usually

23:27

got kicked off of the track team. And so he's

23:29

talking about how much that bums him out. And then

23:31

you're given three options. And you

23:34

can choose from among those three options, you know, you

23:36

can kind of support him or you can kind of give him

23:38

the hard on his truth, or you can act

23:40

like you don't know what he's talking about.

23:42

And for a while, I was kind of roleplaying in

23:44

those just for fun, I'd maybe give him the heart on his

23:46

truth or pretend I didn't know what I was talking about.

23:48

And then I realized, what you really need to

23:50

do is kind of play into someone's

23:53

desires and tell them what they want to hear a lot of the

23:55

time because then you get the most little notes

23:57

over their head and that means that you get the

23:59

most points toward the social

24:01

link progressing. when I started to look up guides

24:03

and I don't use guides on this level, but there are

24:05

guides for every social link that tell you

24:07

exactly what thing to choose in

24:09

every conversation which

24:11

really does kind of once you see

24:13

that whole social matrix, it

24:15

makes you realize that

24:17

if you wanted to spend a lot of

24:19

time thinking about what this game is saying, about social relationships.

24:21

Like, it's kind of a

24:23

weird uncomfortable thing that

24:26

it's saying. even though I don't actually

24:28

do that that much. And what I find a feeling about the

24:30

game is actually the way zoomed out

24:32

view of it like you were saying, Manny, just the feeling of

24:34

being in this big group and going on this

24:36

big adventure. I mean, you can take that one step further

24:38

because there's romance is in the game. Yes.

24:40

Yeah. When you max out a

24:42

woman's one of your girlfriends

24:45

social links, you can turn them into your

24:47

girlfriend. And that's another kind

24:49

of weird aspect of this whole thing. It's

24:51

like, not only if you say exactly what someone

24:53

wants to hear. They'll be a better friend

24:55

to you. Also, if you say

24:57

exactly what this girl wants

24:59

to hear, or it doesn't even matter if you

25:01

say, like, if you brute force it and just spend

25:03

enough time with them, they were all in

25:05

love with you. No matter what. Right? It's

25:06

that classic dating sim problem.

25:08

It is. I I also if

25:10

you go even further than that, there is

25:13

actually a lot that's being said about social

25:15

dynamics in the game because of how the

25:17

palaces work and the very nature of

25:19

reality that's at stake here.

25:21

Like, the whole game is about the

25:23

idea of unlocking other

25:26

people's problems by figuring out the

25:28

demonic manifestation of

25:30

them in their own brain.

25:32

and it's a very gamer way

25:35

to approach any

25:36

type of societal problem to

25:38

just be like, well, what if

25:40

instead of therapy you could go into

25:43

somebody's head and then just like

25:45

beat the shit out of their problems as

25:47

little manifestations of

25:49

little demon guys. and

25:51

then fight like the evil version

25:53

of them. And then after you did that,

25:55

you'd you'd get back out and then they'd

25:57

be great. It's like it's

25:59

it's the most maxed out

26:01

possible version of

26:02

what we're describing in terms of gamifying

26:05

social interaction. and societal issues.

26:07

Right. It's and, you know, persona this is persona

26:09

five, which each game does have

26:11

a slightly different -- Oh, fair enough. -- when it comes

26:13

to the dungeons and persona five, yeah, it's

26:15

you're kind of it's it's very it's the

26:17

picaresque fiction thing where you're these these bandits

26:19

or the phantom thieves and you break into

26:21

people's hearts and then it really borrows from inception

26:23

or in it's the same kind of ideas,

26:26

inception where you're going deeper and deeper and deeper

26:28

into their psyche until you steal the thing they

26:30

want most, and that changes

26:32

their heart. Persona four is

26:34

interesting because it it flips

26:36

the script a little bit and most of the

26:38

dungeons you do, they're not all this way, but the

26:40

early ones are actually the

26:42

psychies of your soon to be party

26:44

members. So instead of

26:46

playing through the villains,

26:48

a dungeon or a palace like you do in persona five. Each of the

26:50

palaces is based around some new

26:52

targets, some horrible persons, some villain.

26:54

In persona four, it's usually a

26:57

hero, a friend, and they're having

26:59

some sort of a, you know, personal

27:01

conflict. And that winds up being interesting because

27:03

you go into their psyche and then

27:05

you kind of try to figure out what's wrong, and

27:07

they learn to accept themselves, and that's when they

27:09

kind of accept their shadow self and gain the

27:12

power of the persona. In persona five,

27:14

Frutab, the character is

27:16

the closest thing to that where she is a future

27:18

ally, but you go into her

27:20

into her palace and you have to kind of fight

27:22

this version of her to help her reconcile

27:25

her feelings. And that stuff is really cool. I think

27:27

the that that bigger picture

27:29

view of of how, like, the

27:31

collective unconscious works and

27:33

how all of our brains allow for these phantasmagorical

27:35

spaces that we could adventure through. Like, that

27:37

stuff is really neat. And also, I

27:39

I like this sort of shared subconscious

27:42

that's going on especially in persona five

27:44

of Mementos where there's also

27:46

this endless dungeon that's just

27:48

under the city of Tokyo and it's like Everyone's

27:51

just feelings all just

27:53

create this huge subway system dungeon

27:55

that winds up being really important to

27:58

the story. Yeah. It's just too bad. That

28:00

narratively, it's interesting. It's just too bad

28:02

mechanically. Percentage of four's engines are not

28:04

interesting at all. No. Percent of

28:06

three and four, unfortunately. their

28:08

dungeons are just like series of randomly generated

28:10

hallways, whereas persona five has like

28:12

these meticulously designed dungeons

28:16

with like winding paths and shortcuts and keys

28:18

and all sorts of cool stuff and

28:20

scripting encounters, and they

28:22

feel more like proper video games. It's

28:24

hard to go

28:26

back to Persona three and four, I think,

28:28

at least for me personally because of those

28:30

random engines. Yeah. I've been going back to

28:32

Persona four. Like I said, when I first got a

28:34

steamed deck, before I had figured out how

28:36

to play Playstation games on it, so I wanted

28:38

to play persona just because I'll

28:40

always associate for with handhelds. I played

28:42

through persona three, and, specifically, there's a

28:45

portable version. And that's actually the version that's

28:47

being ported to PC, and I think

28:49

switch into this PC. the better

28:51

version. Yeah. and that's the one that I played through.

28:53

And actually we should say, Persona three

28:55

portable is the only one of these games

28:57

that we're talking about where there is the option to play

28:59

as a female protagonist. which

29:01

I really wanna do. I know that percent of

29:03

three isn't gonna hold up mechanically, but

29:05

I never did that. I played as

29:07

a male protagonist the time that I played

29:09

through it. And I think that that would be really interesting to do

29:11

that again. But I always

29:13

associate these games with handhelds, and so I was

29:15

playing through persona four on steam deck.

29:17

It's great on steam deck. And

29:19

there is something about that game that

29:21

I still prefer to Persona five even

29:23

though Persona five is so much

29:26

superior in so many ways, just audio visually in

29:28

terms of how elaborate the story is, even

29:30

the simulation like the amount of

29:33

options that you have on a day are way. You just have way

29:35

more to do. Everything is really blown

29:37

out. But persona four is the same core.

29:39

It's very clear that persona five

29:42

was you know, basically, p studio

29:44

took persona four and said, okay. This one really worked.

29:46

Let's just basically do that again, but

29:48

pull everything up to the point where even the

29:51

character archetypes fit. There's like a detective and

29:53

the troublemaker friend. Like, it's it's

29:55

very very similar. But I like the

29:57

cast of persona four better. And

29:59

Jason, you mentioned something you were talking about

30:01

the vibes. and you said the

30:03

rain. And I think when you said that you were talking

30:05

about persona four because in persona four,

30:07

a big part of that game is

30:09

the range. it's not set in a city. Like, percent of five,

30:11

you're not in Tokyo, you're out in the country.

30:13

No. I was talking about five, but yeah.

30:15

Four also has cool rain.

30:17

So five, Five has that specific

30:19

music track that plays when it rains

30:21

and it's awesome. Okay. But I

30:23

guess the rain is an important

30:25

story aspect of Persona four, and I really associate Persona

30:27

reign with Persona four because

30:29

in that in that game, you go inside

30:31

the TV because there's another

30:33

collective unconscious thing within the TV. And the

30:35

only times when you're gonna go in there or when you can

30:37

go in there are after it rains because the

30:39

fog comes and then people get kidnapped and taken

30:41

to the TV. So it all ties

30:43

in with the weather in a way. That's really cool where you have to

30:45

watch the weather forecast every day on the TV.

30:48

And then when it's gonna rain, that's when you

30:50

know you have to whatever you're doing because that's

30:52

gonna be the next chapter in the story. And

30:54

then there are these animations. Your character will

30:56

be in his little room and you can hear

30:58

the rain coming down on the

31:00

roof and he'll go over to the window he pushes it open and

31:02

you can see that it's kinda raining outside

31:04

and it'll say, I don't remember the exact prop

31:06

but something like it's raining you

31:08

should check the midnight channel. Mhmm. And there's just something

31:10

to that. Like, that energy is

31:12

my favorite thing in all of persona

31:14

in all of persona in every persona game.

31:17

and it's from Persona So playing it again, it took me

31:19

back and I I still love it. I still love

31:21

that more than any one thing in

31:23

Persona five despite that game's many strengths.

31:26

So in

31:26

persona four, if you're

31:29

only going into your friend's

31:31

minds, is there ever a villain?

31:33

Like, how does that play

31:35

into

31:35

it. Well, so it's a murder mystery

31:37

like Jason said, and so there is a villain, but

31:39

the villain is cloaked in mystery for

31:41

most of the game. There it isn't like this

31:43

series of big Right. Right. Big

31:46

talking villains like in personify that you have to

31:48

take down, it's more there's this

31:50

ongoing threat. And so what happens at the

31:52

beginning is someone turns up dead. and

31:54

no one knows how they've been killed. And then it

31:56

turns out a person gets sucked

31:58

into the TV somehow, and then they

32:00

appear on this thing called the midnight channel that's

32:02

a kind of urban legend among the kids

32:04

where if it rains, then, you know,

32:06

at midnight, you turn on your TV and you'll see

32:08

I don't know. They say they don't know what it is.

32:10

But what you're actually seeing is the TV world.

32:12

This sort of collective, unconscious, dungeon.

32:14

Mhmm. And whoever's been kidnapped and thrown

32:16

into the TV appears there. So

32:19

soon, it's your friend appears there and you think,

32:21

oh, no. you know, Yuquico has been kidnapped.

32:23

She's inside the TV. We have to go get her out.

32:25

So you go into the TV and the mascot

32:27

character in there, Teddy, who's just like Morgana and

32:29

persona five. explains what's going on and

32:31

you go and there's a new sort of

32:33

dungeon themed around the character YukiCo

32:35

and her own, you know, inner

32:37

insecurities. and you have to then fight through that until you

32:39

reach the end and you rescue her and

32:41

she joins you. But the big

32:43

boss is basically just there's someone doing

32:45

this. There's some killer and you're trying to figure out

32:47

who it is. Well, and if you don't rescue her in

32:49

time, she dies. Which is the whole

32:51

premise of, like, the murderer that was Right.

32:53

It's like this one murderer or so you

32:55

think is this one murder who's, like, doing all the

32:57

kidnapping and throwing people into the TV

33:00

world. Mhmm. Is

33:01

it because they have insecurities

33:04

that they susceptible to the TV world? Or is

33:06

that just happenstance?

33:08

I can't remember. I think I don't wanna reveal too much

33:10

for people who haven't played because I think some of the

33:12

facts of that, like, reveal --

33:14

I just think that's true. -- one of the more

33:16

interesting pieces of persona five

33:18

to me and would maybe also be true

33:20

for is just the idea

33:23

of the human mind being something

33:25

that other people could help you

33:27

through. I mean, that's the piece of it that

33:29

I like. although

33:29

I was sort of joking around about therapy

33:32

earlier. I I

33:32

mean, I think that probably works better than

33:35

inviting friends into your on

33:37

mine. But I don't know. I've never tried the latter. I

33:39

do like the idea of it though, which I

33:41

think is that other people

33:43

can help you through your problems

33:45

in a way that you can't do on

33:47

your own and that you might not even be able to

33:49

fully understand on your own. As far as

33:51

themes go, I think that's a pretty

33:54

strong one. the

33:55

equivalent of you inviting people into your mind

33:57

just you telling people to play super Metroid

33:59

for a while?

33:59

Yeah. Yeah. It's very similar.

34:02

Yeah.

34:02

It's that's why I do it. I

34:04

just want people to understand me. I think that is the,

34:06

like, metaphorically, the strongest footing

34:08

of the series. And it's it's it is metaphorical because

34:10

you invite the people into your mind and then they

34:13

Use magic to kick the shit out of your insecurities

34:15

until you feel that job. But, of course,

34:17

you don't have to see it that directly.

34:20

Right? It's more oh, through the power of

34:22

our of our new friendship we're gonna

34:24

support you through this. And then that's also

34:26

reflected in the way that as you become better friends

34:28

with people, they become

34:30

more effective in combat. And I really like that too. It this is an old

34:32

thing in RPG's and in JRPG's where

34:34

just this happens kinda

34:36

naturally in any

34:38

JRPG where as a character gets

34:40

more powerful, they come through for me more

34:42

in combat and I like them more and

34:44

I just feel like I have a fleshed

34:46

out relationship with them. partly because, you know, in

34:48

these games, like, like, that we've played, like, Sweet Cotton

34:50

or or Final Fantasy

34:52

six. Yeah.

34:52

Even if it isn't actually part of

34:54

Sweet Code under those other games. It still feels like it is because you

34:57

remember certain characters and you're like, oh, I like

34:59

that guy. That guy's

35:01

And because you honestly spend more of your

35:03

time with the characters in combat than anywhere else because there's

35:05

so much combat in this game. So the

35:07

most meaningful part of

35:10

your relationship is on the battlefield. And so when they're coming through for

35:12

you, it's, you know, you kind of form a

35:14

relationship or I form a relationship with characters

35:16

anyways. And in persona, that's then taken to

35:18

a kind

35:20

of a more heightened level because, you know, as you level

35:22

up your social rank with someone, they'll get the ability to

35:24

come and slap slap you out of it if you get

35:26

some kind of negative status effect or

35:29

they'll take a hit for you if you're about

35:31

to be killed. And this series annoyingly still

35:33

has a thing where if your main character gets killed

35:35

in combat, it's an instant

35:37

game over. But That sucks. But the thing they mitigate it by

35:39

having, you know, characters take the hit for you, which then

35:42

makes you think, oh, this is cool. This character I've

35:44

gotten to know is now

35:46

kind of more helpful to me because because we trust one another a little bit

35:48

more. Yeah. There the Shimba got me tense day

35:50

games, which is the kind of main series of

35:52

persona as an offshoot of

35:56

have way more cheap deaths than, like, instant death

35:58

spells, like, just like you'll get into a random

36:00

encounter and lose an hour of progress

36:02

because some

36:04

enemy douche bag cast and instant death spell on you. So,

36:06

yeah, it's it's definitely a

36:08

thing, a vestige of the past in

36:10

this series that should probably be

36:14

eliminated. casa instant death on instant death spells. Something

36:16

I've noticed in royal is just

36:17

you can see them in real

36:20

time identifying some

36:22

of those frustrating things and

36:24

then trying to fix them because I don't know

36:26

if there's more of these in Royal. It seems like

36:28

there are there's definitely a lot of small

36:30

mechanical changes. And there are all these

36:32

abilities that you eventually get that say something along the lines of instant

36:34

death spells won't kill you. You

36:36

know, like ways of mitigating

36:39

this extremely annoying thing because, yeah, there are these

36:41

light and dark spells that will

36:43

just instantly kill you. I haven't really

36:45

run into those. as much in p five in

36:47

episode four. was constant and in episode three too. And it's

36:50

just it's a spell that just kills you. You

36:52

can't do anything about it, and then you get a game

36:54

over, which

36:56

just It seems like someone somewhere along the line a little earlier than now should

36:58

have said, you know, this this isn't

37:00

really fair. It's not a good feeling. This is

37:02

a good feeling. Yeah. It might not be fun.

37:06

Yeah. That's what that feels. That'd be a good So persona

37:08

five also has more liberal

37:10

use of save points unlike

37:12

a lot of RPG's you can't

37:14

save anywhere. So if you're in a dungeon and you're between save

37:17

points and you get a game over, you have to go

37:19

back to the previous save points. So

37:21

there's there's that tension is always there. But in

37:23

persona five, it doesn't it's not quite as probable because

37:26

there are so many save points and they're very frequent.

37:28

And you

37:30

can always you you always have a feel for when is cut when one is coming

37:32

up in the dungeon. And either someone will say

37:34

something in your party or it'll be like, alright.

37:36

It's been a while. I feel like one is coming

37:38

up soon. Right. Plus you could

37:40

never lose that much progress if there's a lot of

37:42

save points naturally. Exactly.

37:44

You can't, though, I will say the other night, I

37:46

texted Jason

37:48

an angry dream of texts because I was at fighting a boss

37:50

near the end or but I'm not the end. I

37:52

guess there's a ton left in person. Was it like a

37:54

multistage boss? That's always

37:56

the worst.

37:58

And it was I mean, and the boss was down to a sliver of health and then

37:59

just pulled off this ridiculous,

38:02

essentially unblockable thing that killed my

38:04

protagonist and I had to start the whole

38:06

fight over. and I was mad and

38:08

then whatever I I beat the

38:10

boss. But if that happened in dark souls, you'd

38:12

be like, oh, what an amazing

38:14

game now? Yeah. I'm not sure what I'm just kidding. I guess

38:16

maybe I would. The dark souls is Oh, and

38:18

dark souls it would have really taught you something about you.

38:20

Right. And dark souls, I would

38:22

have got into your mind

38:24

palace and to tease them. If there is

38:26

something different, right, about having a dark souls boss

38:28

beat you when they have a sliver of health left that

38:30

just feels at least to me a

38:32

little bit less annoying than when it's just some out of nowhere turn based attack that I couldn't

38:34

do anything. Well, it's because it's because

38:36

in one of the games, it's

38:39

your fault in the other game. It's the game's

38:41

fault. Right? Yeah. Of course. When it's turn based

38:43

combat and it's just a random death spell

38:45

or whatever, it's there's nothing

38:47

you can done better whereas in dark souls, it's always like, well, I could

38:49

have dodged the bat attacker. I could

38:52

have been less cocky going into the fight.

38:54

Right. It's it's kind of a

38:56

difficulty spike thing in persona, like that when I

38:58

rethought that boss, I was more

39:00

cautious, which you can be by buffing

39:02

your defense a lot. Like, I just

39:04

always had my defense up because I knew now that the boss was able to pull out this Wambo combo that would

39:06

just kill my protagonist. But

39:10

You know, there are these spikes you shouldn't have anticipate those those do still kind of exist

39:13

in this series. There are some wicked spikes in

39:15

persona four. I remember one.

39:18

god. It was like a boss with big tall legs. I know all I remember is

39:20

that because I saw that boss over and over and

39:22

over again. It's sort of midway through the game.

39:25

and just for whatever reason, it was just my bane.

39:27

And percent of three certainly has that.

39:29

And there's way less saving in percent of three,

39:31

which I think Maybe there will

39:33

be save states or something, some way of

39:36

of mitigating that when they rerelease it. I

39:38

hope so because that would make that game

39:40

a lot more palatable to replay. Yeah. So

39:42

history, we haven't really talked about this. Yeah. I was

39:44

about to ask you about that.

39:46

What's what's percent of three's

39:48

premise. It's kind of an interesting vibe. Just

39:50

like percent of those five, you're it said in high

39:52

school, you plays a bunch of a group of high

39:54

school students, very buffy

39:56

ish cast of architects and

39:58

cactus. The most buffy ish I would say too,

40:00

because you're explicitly fighting evil. You're

40:02

in this group of evil fighting And you can

40:04

be a female character. Super I didn't Well,

40:06

it's a secret. You joined this group

40:08

you joined this group called. What is it?

40:10

CCSSES

40:12

Yeah. And it's

40:14

like this secret crime fighting organization where you

40:16

fight in the shadow world against these

40:18

monsters and you you're

40:20

not supposed to tell the world about

40:23

it, but you're you're finding evil every It was a very giles, like, I think I

40:25

did a Kentucky post that was basically the one to one

40:28

for every goofy character. Is that the

40:30

kind of -- Yeah. -- all

40:32

match up. Yep.

40:33

But there's not mind palaces in

40:35

there. It doesn't sound like your

40:36

nose is more of the shadow realm and

40:39

there is

40:39

the additional layer of

40:41

and you

40:41

can change people's minds or learn more

40:44

about them. If memory

40:45

serves, it's basically like momentous

40:47

in persona five where there's

40:49

just one dungeon and you're fighting

40:51

to the top of this huge

40:54

paranormal tower, basically. And then there are

40:56

points in the story where they'll say, we need to

40:58

reach this floor because something's happening there and we have to keep going. So

41:00

there are kind of waypoints established, but you're

41:02

really just constantly ascending and you

41:04

start at the

41:06

same point. throughout the game and then you unlock new sort

41:08

of way points on the elevator or whatever that you

41:10

can get back up to. Mhmm. And then eventually

41:12

get to the top. I got all the way

41:14

to the one of either the

41:16

final boss or you know since it's a persona

41:18

game, probably the third to final boss,

41:20

but really near the end. And then

41:22

I just I'd been kinda winging it through the game because I hadn't played a lot of

41:24

JRPGs at the time and didn't have a great

41:26

party. And then I was just getting worked by

41:28

this boss because it it's one of those

41:30

bosses where changes its elemental

41:32

affinity every two turns. And I just

41:34

didn't have the party that I needed, and I kind of

41:36

gave up and never finished it. But it'd be kind

41:38

of fun to finish it. I do I know

41:40

that that game has its fans, and I do like

41:42

it. It has a slightly more serious

41:44

tone, which the big change to

41:46

Persona four is that it's a little more playful and every it's

41:48

like sillier and there's kind of this fun loving

41:50

vibe and that game was really successful.

41:52

So then percent of five doubles down on

41:55

that and everything is very very silly and

41:57

fun even though it's, you know, it's like

41:59

capers and stuff, but it's not even a murder mystery. I mean, it's

42:01

really pretty light. Where Posoda three is more serious. It's you

42:03

know, we're fighting these demons. We're part of

42:05

this like serious group.

42:08

This is Gary end of the world stuff and we're trying to save the world.

42:10

And it's that's cool. It's got a it's got a

42:12

different vibe. It's a lot more like the

42:14

standard SMT games, which are

42:16

more serious

42:18

than a lot more just like fighting demons in this strange

42:20

world. Mhmm. And also you can actually

42:22

die and

42:22

the stakes are life or death. Where

42:25

percent of five is not to

42:27

say you can't act die, but the villains,

42:29

you're just fighting to change the mind of

42:31

regular people in the world as opposed to

42:33

well, maybe there's mass murders later on if

42:36

you're trying

42:38

to pick It escalates, you know, deflectors and so on.

42:40

But percent of five significantly escalates, but

42:42

it starts a little small. Yeah. It starts

42:44

off with just, like, a gym teacher, but it gets

42:46

into more powerful

42:48

people. Last thing I wanna mention is

42:50

Shoji Miguro. In particular, there are a

42:52

few developers who are associated

42:54

with this game, but Shoji Miguro as the

42:56

primary composers that there are other people who've

42:58

written music. Oh, yeah. He's not

43:00

talked about the music this whole time. Yeah.

43:02

Time. It's got to at least

43:04

mention it. It is incredible. Really cool kind of

43:06

jazz fusion with a little bit of sort of

43:08

wrapping and singing, but it's got

43:10

this just kind of an

43:12

inevitable vibe. It's funky. It's really up

43:14

tempo. And he's just a great writer.

43:16

And the way this series uses

43:18

music is I think

43:20

crucial

43:20

to the overall rhythm of it because it repeats

43:22

these songs. You hear them over

43:24

and over and over again. And,

43:26

you know, you just kind of start

43:28

to develop, like associate them with whatever you're doing, we're hatching a plan, or

43:30

someone's having an emotional breakthrough, or something

43:32

sad is happening, and someone's gonna

43:36

die, or shit is on and we're gonna go beat up the bad guys like whenever

43:38

it is, there's some piece of music that plays

43:40

whenever that happens and because these games are

43:42

dozens and dozens of hours long, those

43:45

situations replay over and over again and you always

43:47

get the same user. So it's exciting

43:49

in that way and then it's also exciting

43:51

when toward the end of the game when

43:53

shit is really going down, there will be new music

43:56

and this whole new song comes on and then you're

43:58

you're real, oh, man, like this is new music. I've

44:00

heard all those other pieces so many times that this

44:02

must really be important So, yeah, the

44:04

music in these games, I mean, all of it, the art

44:06

is incredible as well, but the music is something

44:08

special. Yeah. It's

44:09

really good and I remember feeling kind

44:11

of sad that I was listening to

44:13

pop podcast while doing the dungeons to sort

44:14

of, like, keep my brain activated

44:16

because I also really liked the music.

44:18

And I was like, there's no I can't there

44:20

isn't a

44:20

good way for me to deal with this

44:23

problem. I

44:23

just No. It's true. At least the

44:25

dungeons are repetitive. But, yeah, if you're gonna get the

44:27

music, you gotta listen to the music. It's true.

44:29

It's great. Alright. Well, that is our

44:32

kind of brief recap of

44:34

the persona series, of course, hundred hour

44:36

games would require hundreds of hours to

44:38

talk about them. But hopefully, this

44:40

will suffice. Anyways, that's Persona. Let's take a break and then we'll back

44:42

with one

44:43

more thing.

44:48

her

44:48

majesty served Great Britain and

44:51

the Commonwealth loyally for

44:54

over

44:55

seventy years. And

44:57

while, of course, we feel a

45:00

profound sadness,

45:02

we must

45:02

remember she lived a long life and

45:05

died in such a way that I think many of

45:08

us would want for

45:10

ourselves. She was

45:11

at home surrounded

45:13

by her family. And

45:15

of course, she was listening to the

45:18

Beef and Dairy Network

45:20

podcast. The Beef

45:22

and Dairy Network podcast is a multi award

45:24

winning comedy podcast and you can find it

45:26

at maximum firm dot org or wherever

45:29

you get your podcast.

45:31

You're in a theater. The lights go down. You're

45:34

about

45:34

to get swept up by the characters and

45:36

all their little details and interpersonal dramas.

45:39

you look at them and think that person is so

45:41

obviously in

45:42

love with their best friend. Wait. Am I

45:44

in love with my best friend? That character's mom

45:46

is

45:46

so overbearing. Why doesn't she just stand

45:48

up to her oh god, do I need to stand up

45:50

to my own mother? If you've ever

45:52

recognized yourself in a movie, then join

45:54

me. Jordan Kirchiola for the podcast.

45:56

Feeling seeds. We've

45:57

talked to author Susan Orlean on realizing

45:59

her own

45:59

marriage was falling apart after watching

46:02

adaptation, and adaptation of

46:04

her own and comedian Harry Kondibulu on why Harold and

46:06

Kumar

46:06

was a depressingly important movie

46:08

for Southeast Asians. So join

46:11

me every Thursday for

46:13

the feeling scene podcast here

46:14

on Maximum Fun. And we're

46:16

back

46:17

for one more thing. Jason, why

46:19

don't you go first? Yeah.

46:20

This is really exciting. There's nothing I love more than,

46:22

like, playing a game that nobody's talking about

46:24

and discovering that it's secretly amazing.

46:28

So I'm playing a game that has skyrocketed. Well, I just finished a game

46:30

that has skyrocketed to the top of my

46:32

favorite games of twenty twenty two

46:35

list. It is called

46:37

the case of the Golden Idol.

46:40

And it is a mystery detective game. I

46:42

actually discovered this

46:44

game because Lucas Pope who was the creator of Return of the

46:46

Over Din tweeted about it. And

46:48

if so, if Lucas Pope tweets

46:50

his resounding approval of a game, I

46:52

will probably

46:54

look into it. And this game is incredible, you guys.

46:56

You guys will both fall immediately

46:58

in love with it just like I have. I have a

47:00

feeling that anyone out there who was

47:02

into, like, mystery

47:04

games, detective games, and especially

47:06

return to the over ten will be really into it.

47:08

So let me explain. First of all,

47:10

the art style is a little off putting at first, but you get used to And

47:12

I had actually really grown on me

47:14

as as I played along.

47:18

So the concept of this game is it's broken up into

47:20

chapters and then episodes within each

47:22

chapter. In each episode, someone dies.

47:25

and you have to figure out not just how that happened,

47:27

but also a sequence of events that led

47:30

up to that. And you do that by

47:32

kind of exploring this rudimentary point

47:34

and click world where there are a bunch of it's

47:36

these big two d landscapes and you can

47:38

move around the world and there are a bunch of

47:41

people and a bunch of objects. And as you're kind

47:43

of clicking through and looking into them,

47:46

you will accumulate a

47:48

inventory full of words. So

47:51

let's say you find someone

47:53

named Bob who's been

47:55

killed. You might first discover the name Bob because

47:57

you found the diary that he

47:59

was holding and it said

47:59

name is Bob. And then it might say,

48:02

I sure hope that Kirk doesn't

48:04

come and kill me tonight and then you'll discover

48:06

the word Kirk and then you'll discover the

48:08

word kill. And then the way to make

48:10

progress is you kind of flip from

48:12

investigate mode into think mode

48:14

and it'll say it'll it'll present

48:16

this kind of scroll of like missing

48:18

words, fill in the blanks, and you have to

48:20

determine what happened. So it might be

48:22

like, on a summer night,

48:24

blank was in the study

48:26

when blank came and killed

48:28

him with the blank and you have to fill in

48:30

all those words. Mhmm.

48:31

And it starts off simple and

48:33

then get super complicated and elaborate

48:36

and you have to do all this kind of

48:38

puzzling in your head and investigating

48:40

in sleuth work to figure

48:42

out each sequence of events as it happened, and it's

48:44

brilliant. By the end of it, I was like, oh, man,

48:46

this is so

48:48

cool. Because It's not a bunch

48:50

of self contained stories. Well, it is, but

48:52

it's self contained stories that are all

48:54

connected and add up to this, like,

48:56

larger story and larger

48:58

theme. So you might find that, like, you're investigating

49:00

this murder of someone you've never heard of

49:02

only for it to pop up later that actually this

49:04

person was super important for

49:06

this reason. and it's very

49:08

very well crafted in that sense.

49:10

It tells this incredible story about this

49:12

idol with magical powers and this kind

49:14

of like brotherhood of conspirators who wear

49:16

masks and have crazy

49:18

crazy rituals and stuff, and it

49:20

gets really,

49:22

really cool. And so much of it is just like relying

49:24

on your intuition and you're just like

49:26

logical thinking -- Mhmm. -- which is so cool

49:28

and so much fun to play. And it's just like,

49:30

again, one

49:32

those games just like over a den where you're like, wow. We

49:34

still don't even know the half of what detective

49:36

stories can do with, like, video

49:38

games can do with detectives.

49:40

and it's just so cool to play another fresh game

49:43

like this and just just such an enjoyable

49:45

experience.

49:45

Again, it's called the

49:48

case of the Golden Idol, I played it on PC. It took me, like,

49:50

six or seven hours to finish the whole thing. Yeah.

49:52

I was gonna say That's the best digestible. Is

49:54

it before the show, you told

49:57

us it was six hours, which Yeah. Absolutely. --

49:59

are

49:59

very easy. Easy to take down. I

50:02

mean, some people depending on your, like,

50:04

puzzle solving

50:06

skills, I guess. Some people might take a little less

50:08

time or a little bit more time, but that's generally

50:10

it. I had to pull out the notebook

50:13

for a couple of things, which is always just a thrill -- Oh,

50:15

that's good news. -- just like my other favorite game of

50:17

the year. Eldon Ring, no book required

50:19

or anything. Yeah, man. I just loved

50:21

it. I I think it's gonna be it's

50:24

gonna I'll certainly talk about it when Game of the

50:26

Year, time comes around

50:28

and highly recommend it, especially if

50:30

you're into Oberdaine, if you're into any sort of detective stories or mystery

50:32

stories, you will really enjoy this

50:34

game. And don't let the art style put

50:36

you off

50:38

because really grows on you, at least it did on me. At first, I was like, man, this

50:40

looks like it was drawn in paint or something, but

50:42

it actually really grow on me over time.

50:45

Cool.

50:45

Nice. I'm gonna change the golden title. Oh, yeah.

50:47

I'm absolutely gonna play it. I'm sure we will talk about it

50:49

on the show, Maddie. Let's hear one

50:52

more thing.

50:52

So I'm playing a bunch of games that are under embargo, which means

50:54

I can't believe that I have to then

50:56

make my one more thing. Hocus

50:58

Pocus one and two.

51:01

which really I didn't think I

51:02

was gonna talk about on this show forever.

51:04

But I never saw Hoker's

51:06

focus as a child.

51:08

As a somewhat famous nineteen ninety

51:10

three film in which Bette Middlers Sarah

51:12

Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimie play

51:16

Three Witches. and it's really goofy. It's

51:18

it's like peak kids movie.

51:20

This is like the thing where

51:22

I watched Princess bride when I was

51:24

a little too old and then I, like, had to wait till I

51:26

was even older to even think it was

51:28

good. Like, this movie is in that

51:30

zone where it's so

51:32

silly that, like, adults

51:32

probably shouldn't watch it for the first time when

51:34

they're thirty six years old. But I did that. Dino

51:37

also had never seen it before, and we both were

51:39

kinda like, let's just let's just see what this is.

51:41

you know? So we did that. And then we

51:43

also watch Chokka's focus too, which is,

51:45

of course, the twenty twenty

51:47

two reboot remasks everybody's back together again and all

51:49

the characters are gonna be little references to

51:52

what happened in one. And it's pretty

51:54

funny to

51:56

watch movies like that back to back in one evening, especially if you've never

51:58

seen the

51:59

preliminary

51:59

one. So I made a

52:00

game out of it where I predicted everything that

52:03

would happen in

52:03

the sequel. and

52:06

I did really well. So I wanted to

52:07

I can't rattle off some things.

52:09

These are not spoilers because these are things

52:11

that I was proven right about within the

52:13

first three minutes. of the second

52:16

movie. Nice. The first

52:18

movie almost entirely White cast. It's

52:20

pretty classic for the nineties. I

52:22

immediately predicted Second

52:23

movie, it's

52:24

gonna be really diverse. Don't

52:26

worry folks. There's

52:28

a whole diverse cast. the lead

52:31

character is this black girl who

52:33

discovers her witchy witchy self

52:35

or witchy fandom. Second

52:38

prediction, I was like,

52:40

okay, the witches are actually the

52:42

best part of the first movie, and they're quite

52:44

evil in the first movie. They're, like, out

52:46

here, murdering children within, like, the

52:48

first two sections. If they eat

52:50

kids, it's scary. But I was,

52:52

like, the problem is everybody

52:54

loves the witches. So how are

52:56

they going to fix that for the second

52:58

one? Mhmm. That is the entire

53:00

plot of the second one, is that everyone

53:02

loves the witches and that is the tension is whether the

53:04

witches are good or bad. And my other

53:06

prediction, which I can't

53:08

reveal, but I'll just say the movie gets

53:10

into it. and I've been thinking about this

53:12

a lot because I can't say I am playing bayonetta three and I did play replay

53:14

in my case, bayonetta one and two. The

53:16

tough thing about having a witch is your

53:20

heroin. is

53:20

that she is doomed to hell. She has signed a pact with the

53:23

devil. The devil is real. The devil is

53:25

a real guy. She signed a pact with them, and

53:27

she is going to hell. And that is

53:29

how she got her magic powers. And

53:31

that is the premise of the first focus focus. And for better versus the premise

53:33

of the second one too. They really can't get

53:35

around it. They introduced

53:38

a funny, valuable creature

53:40

character who you're supposed to hate. You're really

53:42

supposed to not like that guy. But

53:44

like the witches are going to

53:46

hell. And The end of Hocus

53:48

Pocus two kind of finds a

53:50

way to just be like, don't worry

53:52

about it. And that

53:54

was in credible to me. So I was

53:56

amazed. I kind of recommend

53:58

watching HOKRISfocus one and two,

53:59

maybe get

54:02

not

54:02

sober if that's something that you're into. I recommend that as

54:04

well. If that's something you're gonna do, but,

54:06

yeah, they're both

54:07

they're fun.

54:09

they're they're ridiculous. And if you're

54:11

playing bayonetta, it's like not a bad thing

54:13

to also watch on top of that. I

54:15

see that

54:15

companion companion watch. Yeah. I see that mixed up

54:17

with bed knobs and broomstick.

54:19

Yes. Me

54:19

too. There's a lot of, like, witchy movies

54:22

from that time period. I

54:23

haven't seen Redknobs in room six either. I

54:25

don't I'm I'm I'm out here not

54:27

watching these movies. I was scared of

54:29

everything as a I couldn't Too much supernatural action.

54:31

Mhmm. Nice. Alright. Well, my one more

54:34

thing is show that I think we're gonna

54:36

be talking more in the but

54:38

I just wanted to mention on the show

54:40

because I've seen some people saying that

54:42

they haven't watched it yet or that they weren't

54:44

sure about it. And I wanted to give it a hearty endorsement

54:47

and that is Star Wars and or the new Star Wars show

54:49

that's airing on Disney plus Which you

54:51

will not stop talking about

54:54

I know. I am also watching it. In part because of Kirk's

54:56

hearty endorsement, and I'm now caught up, and I'm

54:58

very glad I'm caught up. It is

55:02

very enjoyable. It's

55:02

a good friggin TV show. That's what I'll say about

55:05

it. So Andor is the story

55:07

of Cassian Andor who

55:09

is one of protagonists of Rogue One, one of the

55:11

doomed protagonists of Rogue One. So he was on the mission that

55:14

stole the death star plans and he

55:16

died, and this is

55:18

his story. So this is how maybe

55:20

he can

55:21

gorgeous Diego Luna. The the

55:23

remarkable

55:23

Diego is Yes. He has played by

55:25

Diego Luna. This series also features a

55:27

lot of actors that I'm not familiar with, though, some that I've seen in in other

55:29

things. I I'm forgetting the guy's name. Like, Stella and

55:32

Skarsgard, for example, you've probably

55:33

seen something

55:36

else

55:36

No. So he was the only other person I had down as someone I

55:38

was going to say that I recognized, but no. Yeah.

55:40

The guy who played John Carrie

55:42

Rue in in the dropout is

55:46

actually in this. And I really like that actor. I'm forgetting his name

55:48

right now, but he's he's really He's also in

55:50

the bear. Right? Yeah. He's in the Yes.

55:53

And he's also in the man. So this

55:55

is the story of Cassian Andor who at the beginning of this is kind

55:57

of just a guy like sort of

55:59

a smuggler

55:59

and then It's the long

56:02

story of how someone

56:04

becomes a member of a

56:06

rebellion under fascism, basically.

56:08

And it's a spies stories.

56:10

So the whole thing is very

56:12

muted, it's very low key, it's

56:14

very show don't tell, and the and it's

56:16

very paranoid and intense.

56:18

And that's kind of how I describe it. It's not a mode I've ever seen Wars

56:20

in. Me neither. And at this point, six

56:23

episodes in, it's it

56:25

doesn't even feel right to compare it to other Star Wars stuff,

56:28

like, to say things like it's the best Star

56:30

Wars thing I've ever seen, because I guess that's

56:32

true, but it's so

56:34

different than it just feels like watching

56:36

a really, really good,

56:38

beautiful looking, well acted,

56:41

well written fantastical spy story that happens to

56:43

be set in this kind of sci fi

56:45

world and that's also Star Wars. It's

56:47

kind of a heist too, by the

56:49

way, which I really enjoyed. Great. By the the

56:50

story of, like, watching how a guy

56:52

became what he is today. Like, it

56:54

sounds like better call solved.

56:57

sounds like the Star Wars version of Better Call

56:59

Saul. I mean, it's not. Is that as

57:01

funny or, like, sort of crisp or

57:03

Bob Oden Kirky as Better Call Saul can

57:05

only be? It's much more, I don't know,

57:07

tragic and meditative, but also

57:09

has exciting action nail biter

57:11

parts because there's the

57:14

thriller heist planning aspect of it all? And is the empire gonna

57:16

be That sounds like better felt

57:17

so. Yeah. Well, that part does for sure.

57:19

Yeah. It's nothing like better

57:22

felt so understand because

57:24

they're a spiritual company. I also wanna talk

57:26

about better console. I don't care about

57:28

your Star Wars now.

57:30

So to address one thing that

57:32

people have said, though, is do I need to have watched

57:34

all these other Star Wars shows, especially, like,

57:36

Boba, that and Obi wankenobi, these

57:38

shows that have been mediocre at best, which at least

57:40

I feel that way, No. You do

57:42

not. In fact, you almost don't have to have

57:44

seen Star Wars at all to enjoy this

57:46

show. You can if you get that the

57:48

empire is

57:50

this horrible fascist empire that's taking over everything, that's really

57:52

all you need to know. There's a couple of

57:54

references, you know, there's stuff set on Coruscant.

57:56

There are things that are from the movie, but

57:58

this is

58:00

the least Star Wars thing. Like, there is this big heist. The most

58:02

recent episode episode six was sort of

58:04

a a culmination, and there's a heist. And at

58:06

no point in

58:08

the heist, Does anyone look at another person and say I have a bad feeling about

58:10

this? Never happens. There's nothing

58:12

like that in this No one has the last

58:13

name

58:15

Skywalker. You haven't seen any --

58:17

There's no jets -- shaver so far. No. There haven't even been

58:19

any stormtroopers yet. It's entirely just

58:22

soldiers. There are very few aliens, which

58:23

is actually

58:26

a little add to me. That's probably my only thing where I'm like, I wish

58:28

there was a little more of the Star Wars

58:30

vibe. There was

58:30

a doctor at Star Wars

58:32

who is called doctor Kwakwa. side.

58:35

There's a couple of psychos, serious.

58:37

Hold on. Just in the background. You're

58:39

like, this is a series show about

58:41

real people. This is like, The doctor

58:43

has he's cutting in, like, several

58:46

months. This is doctor

58:48

Klapfas. Yes. So you don't learn his name on the show,

58:50

but you'll see when you watch this is he is a

58:52

minor character in an extremely intense and sad scene. Like, he's just a guy

58:54

with forearms, like, he doesn't a doctor with

58:56

forearms is, like, in one of the saddest

58:58

moments of the show and his name's

59:00

doctor Quadpa. So

59:02

For many conclusions

59:03

And and

59:04

the Cantina music is called Jizz.

59:06

I'm not talking about that.

59:10

I mean, what

59:11

can you do? It's Star Wars. It's still kinda

59:13

silly at the end of the day. But, like, this is the

59:15

least silly it's ever been for for better or

59:17

worse. No.

59:18

I mean, you've sold me.

59:20

You've Can you celebrate? I I know I've

59:22

sold you. I'm I'm I'm not trying not to sell you. I know

59:24

that you're gonna watch it. I don't think this show

59:26

is silly actually. I don't think that it's kind of

59:28

silly in Well, that's what I said. That's what I said. For what

59:30

I said, this is the least silly it's ever been. I would say, like, it's just a

59:32

fundamentally serious show about real people, and

59:34

that's the thing I keep saying to

59:38

myself, watch it is basically what is Star Wars was about real people.

59:40

It's just never quite felt that way, and that's

59:42

not a bad thing. Like at its best,

59:44

it's about these larger than life

59:46

characters, these

59:48

archetypes, you know, crashing into one another and these these big

59:50

dramatic, operatic things happening, this

59:52

is just not that. It's just about people.

59:54

They talk like people. They act like

59:58

people. And the way that it does its work and it builds to

1:00:00

these climaxes is amazing.

1:00:02

It's structured in these three so far,

1:00:04

it's been two,

1:00:06

three episode series of, you know, like mini movies

1:00:08

kind of. So episodes 123 which

1:00:10

they release all at once, that's its

1:00:12

own arc. and then

1:00:14

episodes four through six. That's a similar arc.

1:00:16

Apparently, seven is gonna be a standalone

1:00:18

thing, eight, nine, and ten, another three episode

1:00:20

arc, and then eleven

1:00:22

and twelve, ends the thing. Then it's gonna come back for twelve more episodes in

1:00:24

season two, and that's gonna be the end of The showrunner

1:00:26

is Tony Gilroy, who incidentally

1:00:28

wrote the

1:00:30

screenplay for Michael Clayton, and also directed it. That's so funny. one

1:00:32

more thing of my I had no idea. It's

1:00:34

totally random that I watched

1:00:36

Michael Clayton. And

1:00:38

actually, there's real Michael Clayton Energy to this show as well. And the

1:00:40

last thing I wanna shout out, maybe the most important

1:00:42

thing. You won't be surprised to hear that I

1:00:44

think this is the music.

1:00:55

for the show is composed by Nicholas Purtell. Many of you

1:00:57

will know him as the composer of the succession

1:00:59

theme among many other things, but maybe the

1:01:02

most exciting composer in

1:01:04

Hollywood right now He's done a lot of

1:01:06

amazing stuff, but this score

1:01:08

moves completely away from John Williams. It's

1:01:10

not even trying to sound like John

1:01:12

Williams. And that to me more than anything watching Rogue One. That

1:01:14

was the thing that didn't work for me in Rogue

1:01:16

One. Michael Giacino scored that one.

1:01:18

And it just it has

1:01:20

this theme Like,

1:01:22

it kinda sounds like Star

1:01:24

Wars, that theme. The Andor theme doesn't

1:01:26

sound like it at all. Buttel composed a ton

1:01:28

of music for this show. There's all

1:01:31

this experimental stuff, these beautiful,

1:01:33

like, string textures, these builds,

1:01:35

these dark oh my god. I could I'll probably on a dark

1:01:37

side because we'll talk about the music for

1:01:39

it. it creates this vibe and there's just a feeling

1:01:41

throughout this whole show that everyone's on the same

1:01:43

page, everyone's bringing their a game, everyone knew they

1:01:46

were making

1:01:48

something special, and it's the most excited I've been about a TV show in a long time. So I

1:01:50

just wanted to hurdily endorse it on the show,

1:01:52

tell people to go watch it if you haven't watched it yet.

1:01:54

It's so so good. It

1:01:56

rolls. I'm stoked. We'll talk about it more

1:01:58

on the show. Yeah. We will talk about it more on the

1:01:59

show. We'll watch it. That will

1:02:02

definitely happen. Alright. That's enough of me ranting about Andor. It's

1:02:04

good. This has been another

1:02:06

episode. After a book like, hey. We did

1:02:08

it. Hey. We did it. We did it. We

1:02:10

made it. It's

1:02:12

almost almost November. It's almost the end of the year.

1:02:14

Wow. Really? You know, it's almost Halloween. Cranking

1:02:16

through it. What a weird year? It's

1:02:19

really it's really on by. Alright. Well, we'll be back for

1:02:21

another episode next week. Until then, I will see the

1:02:24

two of you when I see you. See you

1:02:26

next week. Bye.

1:02:28

Triple Click is

1:02:30

produced by Jason Schrier of

1:02:32

Manny Meyers and me, Kirk Hamilton. I

1:02:35

edit and mix the show and also wrote our

1:02:37

theme music. Our show art is by Tom

1:02:39

D j. Some of the games and products we talked about on this

1:02:41

episode may have been sent to us for free for review,

1:02:43

consider link to our ethics policy in the

1:02:45

show notes. Triple Click is a proud member of

1:02:47

the maximum fund podcast network. And if

1:02:50

you like our show, we hope you'll

1:02:52

consider supporting us by becoming a member

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orgjoin. Find us on Twitter at Triple Click

1:02:58

Pods and email a triple click at next

1:03:00

month fun dot org and find a link to our discord in the show notes. Thanks for listening.

1:03:02

See

1:03:03

you next time.

1:03:25

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