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download now to learn more. Hello,

1:08

Tis I, your rotten,

1:10

fested bruiser millennia. I

1:13

mean, Holden McNeely. I'm

1:16

an asshole that heals whenever I hit

1:19

you. Oh, you're the worst. Wait a

1:21

minute. You're the worst. Holden, I've

1:23

heard rumors. Are you the blade

1:25

of Mikala? Yes, queen. I am

1:28

the blade of Mikala. I rule

1:30

the school and I also suck ass

1:32

to deal with for hours and hours.

1:35

Oh, it was so annoying, but I

1:37

beat you millennia. I beat you so

1:39

good. Soul odor. We're

1:42

talking about elder ring, Jake, what are you? Oh,

1:44

wait, and I am your grafted

1:47

bruiser, Jake. Holden,

1:49

four fathers, one and all

1:51

bear witness. Now watch me

1:53

roll around on the ground

1:55

like an asshole forever or

1:58

together. What

2:00

was I gonna say? I was gonna say, I'm glad you're

2:02

finally getting those skin grafts done. Cause you

2:05

really needed that. The

2:07

graft did, Jake. Our God is

2:09

a cosmic God. He is gold

2:11

and he's from outer space. He

2:14

talks to us through fingers. Our

2:16

God is an awesome God. There's

2:19

also a bunch of other gods

2:21

we don't really talk about them.

2:23

You find them in weird little

2:25

caves. There's a lot of fucking

2:28

gods. Talk to the fingers cause

2:30

the Elden God ain't listening. Yeah,

2:32

that's right. We are talking

2:34

about Elden Ring, the 2022 open world action

2:37

RPG developed by From Software

2:40

and directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki.

2:43

Yes, we are talking about the game where

2:45

players take on the quest to repair the

2:47

Elden Ring and become the new Elden Lord

2:50

by battling a relentless array of horrors and

2:52

a world map that at times seems endless.

2:55

This is the culmination. Is this the

2:57

one where you play as the, the

2:59

action one? I don't believe

3:01

so. No, you were a tarnished my friend

3:03

and you were maidenless. Oh God. Hey, fuck

3:06

you, man. Really? That's

3:08

the first thing you tell me out the

3:10

gate is I ain't got no, I ain't

3:12

got no ladies. I ain't got no, nah,

3:14

nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, maidens,

3:17

nah, nah, nah. I am so

3:19

excited to finally do this episode. Yes, we've done

3:21

a Dark Souls episode. I do want to give

3:23

shout outs to Bloodborne and Sekiro though as well

3:25

because I want to give, I would always want

3:28

to give them their own episodes because they're

3:30

incredible and we're not covering them really here and

3:32

we're not, we didn't cover them in the Dark

3:34

Souls episode, but here we are. We have to

3:36

talk about Elden Ring, the game that took

3:39

the world by storm. It's like my, you know what

3:41

it is? It's very similar to how I've felt as

3:43

a Swifty. I started being,

3:45

I got really into the Dark Souls games.

3:47

As a weird joke. You started as a

3:49

weird joke. Started as a weird joke. And

3:53

then all of a sudden I became

3:55

extremely, actually a huge fan before

3:58

it was so cool. when

4:00

it was like you Dark Souls weirdos are weirdos. And I

4:02

was like, I get it, but it's the only game I

4:04

ever wanna play. And then

4:06

much like eras, Elden

4:09

Ring comes out and all of a

4:12

sudden everybody I know is talking about

4:14

Elden Ring. Elden Ring's the hottest game

4:16

on the planet, just like Tay.

4:19

I got into Tay on Reputation, the Dark

4:21

Souls of Taylor Swift albums. It

4:23

was very like, you

4:25

know, not like the time, right?

4:28

If the Taylor Swift analogy falls like

4:30

together, you went on board during Dark

4:33

Souls 2. That's when you

4:35

decided to be a Dark Souls fan in

4:37

this analogy. Which kind of is the truth?

4:39

Like, well, not exactly. I became a FromSoft

4:42

fan off of Dark Souls 1.

4:45

You know, I talked about it in our

4:48

Dark Souls episode, right? Like, yes, but

4:50

yes, I wanna clarify what you said

4:52

earlier. Like me, my friends, Kellen and

4:55

Kep, ended up getting a

4:57

copy of Dark Souls, I think on the

4:59

PS3, I don't

5:01

know, maybe Xbox. And it

5:03

was kind of as a joke. We

5:05

were like, let's get this absurdly hard

5:07

game. And what happened

5:09

was exactly what we wanted.

5:11

We were dying laughing at just

5:13

how like bad we were at

5:15

the game, how funny the deaths

5:17

could be in that game, how

5:19

just brutal and insane, and

5:22

just the screaming you would do fighting

5:24

some crazy boss, and just barely winning

5:26

or losing. And just, it was a

5:28

fun game to trade the controller around.

5:30

Getting through the skin of your teeth,

5:34

down to one HP, and you're just

5:36

desperately looking for a goddamn bonfire, and

5:38

then you see a chest and it's

5:41

a fucking mimic. And you're just like,

5:43

hours of effort, just erased. That kind

5:45

of thing. And so, yeah, initially it

5:47

was this sort of joke, and

5:50

it was only a game we wanted to

5:52

play like passing the controller around. I

5:54

refused to solo

5:56

this game. I refused to do that. This

5:58

is not what this is. But

6:00

then eventually we all found ourselves getting so

6:03

into the series that we were all playing

6:05

it on our own time. And for

6:08

me, I remember I got stuck about

6:10

halfway through, put

6:12

it down, picked it back up a year or

6:15

so later, ended up beating it and that was

6:17

what it was. The day

6:19

I beat Ornstein and Smough, I

6:21

became a lifelong FromSoft fan from

6:23

there on out and played all

6:25

of them. Dark

6:27

Souls II, III, went back on

6:29

Demon Souls when the PS5 version

6:31

came out. Bloodborne, I got a

6:33

PS4 so I could play Bloodborne.

6:35

And Sekiro was like just such

6:37

a revelation as well. Talk about

6:39

a game where I got

6:41

about halfway through it and I

6:44

didn't even know if I liked the game. I

6:46

was like, this is so, I

6:48

just hadn't clicked in with the combat. And

6:50

then I got through this one boss fight

6:52

and tutorial was unlocked and all of a

6:54

sudden I was, now Sekiro might

6:57

be my favorite FromSoft game. And

6:59

then Elden Ring, I

7:01

remember the announcement. I remember

7:04

feeling so much excitement for

7:07

what looks like was gonna be this next

7:10

evolution for

7:13

FromSoft. Seeing like

7:15

they definitely, they're gonna make the Super World

7:17

game being a little hesitant. I think a

7:20

lot of what I like about Souls games

7:22

and still like about Souls games that

7:24

sometimes it points, I have a little bit of

7:26

an issue with Elden Ring is I like how

7:28

direct those games are in terms of like, this

7:31

is where you need to go. Like there's exploration,

7:33

there's discovery, that's such a big part of Souls

7:35

games. But at the end of the day, it's

7:37

like, this is where you need to go. This

7:39

is the boss you need to be. And that's

7:41

that. Whereas Elden Ring comes out and it's like,

7:44

hey, this is a

7:46

big wide open world. And yeah, there's

7:48

a boss here you should probably defeat.

7:50

You definitely have to defeat this one,

7:55

to move forward, but it's so loosey goosey.

7:58

And the funniest thing is they're like, Head

8:00

to the north to fight the monsters in

8:02

the castle to move forward in the game.

8:04

And then the first thing you need to

8:06

actually do is

8:09

go in the opposite direction. Is go south.

8:11

You go south to the southern peninsula and

8:13

that's like tutorial island. And

8:15

that is the game itself just being like,

8:18

yeah bro, forget what you,

8:20

everything you learned in terms of that shit.

8:22

Like we want you to, we

8:25

want you to not only like go

8:27

other places to discover, hey maybe there's

8:30

some easier shit over here that

8:32

you want to do first to like

8:34

grind some levels and make some, get

8:36

some items and stuff like that. But

8:38

also, we also want you to like

8:41

ride that horse into the bowels of

8:43

hell just to like unlock some more

8:45

map. Pick up that item that you

8:47

shouldn't necessarily feel like you should get

8:50

this early in the game. Pick up

8:52

that staff or that sword, you know

8:54

that makes you feel OP. Like

8:58

one of my favorite things with the game that happened

9:00

early on that everybody got a kick out of, I

9:02

don't know if it happened to you Jake and your

9:04

play through you did recently, but you

9:07

find this settlement or this like decayed

9:09

structure and you go down beneath it

9:12

and maybe there's a boss fight. You

9:15

go into the treasure chest that inevitably

9:17

passed the boss fight. You open it

9:19

and there's not an item. Instead, there's

9:21

a cloud of smoke and all of

9:23

a sudden you wake up and kale

9:25

it which literally does look

9:27

like hell on earth. It is red. Everything

9:30

is covered in pustules

9:32

and boils and fungal

9:34

atrocities. Horrific beasts that

9:36

just seem like they were just created by

9:40

the devil himself. You take your big overpowered

9:43

spear and you're like, I know what to

9:45

do here. And you watch that health bar

9:47

go down like two pixels. And you're just

9:49

fleeing. You're just running and screaming in terror.

9:52

And that happened to me in my play through

9:54

and that was what really opened my

9:57

eyes. Like, oh man, FromSoft is really trying

9:59

to like. Ghost

12:00

who then guides you to the basement of

12:02

a catacomb catacomb leads you to a boss

12:05

fight and that leads you to another thing

12:07

And now it's three hours later, and you

12:09

forgot why the fuck And

12:11

one of the best moments in the game You're

12:13

in the woods and you're headed towards this fort

12:16

where there's probably gonna be some good items you

12:18

see a castle on the map What's gonna be

12:20

there? But before you get there you find this

12:22

like it looks like almost like

12:24

a mausoleum or something like that some structure

12:26

in the middle The woods and you walk

12:28

into it and you step on what appears

12:30

to be an elevator and the elevator starts

12:32

going down Oh, what's gonna be a this

12:34

must be some? Catacomb entrance right something like

12:36

that and the elevator keeps going down and

12:39

keeps going down and keeps going down Holy

12:41

shit, and then all of a

12:43

sudden the the you get far down

12:45

enough where everything opens up and you

12:47

can see that Oh my god what

12:49

I'm actually beholding right now is this

12:51

massive Underworld

12:53

this giant egg hole other map

12:55

that I didn't even fit new

12:58

Existed in a

13:00

situation where there was already hey

13:02

plenty of map We were

13:05

already pretty intimidated by the fuck it has its

13:07

own entire on sky it's So

13:11

cool that stuff was so cool

13:13

and so constant and

13:15

yeah, we were doing our study session And

13:19

somebody on there was like why do you

13:21

say? this game

13:23

that this intimidating game this Why

13:27

do you say that this is so accessible? more

13:30

accessible than any other game to the newbie

13:32

and You know I think that that's

13:34

such a big part of it is like This

13:36

game just wants you to be in this

13:39

world and just like constantly be discovering new

13:41

things and and there's so many other

13:43

ways Too that it allows you besides. Yeah,

13:45

it doesn't allow you to switch difficulty from

13:49

Normal to easy to story mode whatever

13:51

right I mean you can make that

13:53

happen on your own very easily Especially

13:56

on PC, but this game does Give

13:59

you a enough to finally, I think FromSoftware

14:01

is finally giving you enough to like, still

14:04

feel that sense of

14:07

overcoming hardship and

14:09

all this kind of stuff while also

14:12

giving you plenty to get you through.

14:14

And so it just, it's so cool

14:16

to finally see, just like

14:19

that world opened up to me in

14:21

that elevator to see the world embrace

14:26

in the real world FromSoft and

14:28

what they came here to do on a

14:30

level that, you know, what

14:32

inspired me to go back and finally

14:34

defeat millennia without using a summon or

14:37

ashes was watching Kai Sinat, the most

14:39

popular streamer on Twitch that is not

14:41

known for playing any kind of game

14:44

like this drop everything

14:46

in his life to play Elden

14:48

Ring all the way through and

14:50

defeated millennia without summons with melee

14:52

combat after in a two day

14:56

straight, I think it was a day and a

14:58

half. It took him to actually do it too.

15:00

And uh, seeing that was

15:02

so crazy. I mean that waterfall dance ain't

15:05

nothing to fuck with man. That waterfall dance

15:07

is very tough to get through. That's just

15:09

fine too is like, and then you learn

15:11

how to fully dodge the

15:13

waterfowl dance and then that's just

15:15

like the fucking

15:17

not, they there's so

15:19

much more training to

15:22

get past. So yeah, it's yes, there's stuff in

15:24

that game. That's a fucker. I'm not going to

15:26

lie. Like there's plenty of stuff that was very

15:28

hard. If I didn't, you know, my

15:30

ashes run. So ashes, by the way, is a

15:33

thing in the game, game. That's new. That's

15:35

not in any of the other games where

15:37

you can like ring this bell, right? It's

15:39

a bell and a summon

15:42

in different like creatures to the

15:44

game. Depending on

15:46

which one you have equipped. So the first

15:48

one you find usually is the dogs and

15:50

they're great. The big jellyfish is great, you

15:52

know, and eventually you get

15:55

the mimicked here, which literally creates a

15:57

second you using all the

15:59

weapons you have equipped. everything brings into

16:01

the fight and is pretty smart like

16:03

and does good damage and honestly

16:06

my first playthrough of Elden Ring as

16:08

a Souls veteran using Ashes was

16:11

like a cakewalk. Yeah. I kind of pranced through

16:14

that whole game not gonna lie. I mean just

16:16

the idea that there's a second which is how

16:18

it kind of worked in the previous games with

16:21

just having friends come in and

16:23

join your game or spirits

16:25

that were in canon because you talked to the

16:28

right person and then they like you did a

16:30

quest for them and they're like oh I'll help

16:32

you you can summon me now but

16:34

giving you instant access to that in a

16:37

variety of ways just so there's something else for

16:39

this fucker of a boss

16:41

to like pay attention to so you

16:45

can like not just be constantly on

16:47

the receiving end of just all this

16:49

fucking damage. Yeah. Yeah it definitely helps.

16:52

So many things that this game does weirdly

16:55

enough it improves quality of life in

16:57

a huge way just something as simple

16:59

as letting you run without

17:01

using stamina when you're not in combat.

17:03

Yeah. Stuff like the fast travel system.

17:05

The horse. The horse is a horse

17:07

of course of course. Double jumping horse

17:09

are you kidding you can get anywhere

17:11

so fast. Hello Ed

17:13

Larson and Amber Nelson from the brighter

17:16

side here to check in with you

17:18

see how you're doing. Is your day

17:20

more disappointing than a gas station sandwich?

17:22

Are you trying to put one foot in front

17:24

of the other in a glue factory? Did you

17:27

try to throw your air fryer in the bathtub

17:29

but nothing happened because you were too lazy to

17:31

plug it in first? Then the

17:33

brighter side podcast is

17:35

for you. Each

17:38

week we take nasty, duking,

17:40

stupid, dumb, stinky, no good,

17:43

doo-doo factory, caca like topics

17:45

and try to find the

17:48

brighter side. Hey Amber what's

17:51

the brighter side of waking up chained

17:53

to a bed in Russia? Um at

17:55

least they have free health care. That's

17:57

right so start your weekend off right

17:59

every Friday. FMV

30:00

footage of this of your skateboarder you beat

30:02

it with like doing all these cool tricks

30:04

or in Metal Gear Solid Like beating some

30:06

boss and getting that and that just so

30:09

you can like tech in beating beating tech

30:11

and threes You could get all the different

30:13

character cutscenes at the end and something became

30:15

lost with that cutscenes became a dime It

30:17

doesn't it just wasn't I don't

30:20

know it lost its luster. So now The

30:22

reward feeling only comes from if

30:24

I beat a boss and finally

30:26

more of the world is opened

30:28

up Mm-hmm. I can see more

30:30

of this crazy this fascinating place

30:32

and that To

30:35

me needs to be a reward right

30:38

that I can only achieve by Overcoming

30:40

a challenge then it feels like a reward whereas if

30:42

it was all just handed to you It wouldn't feel

30:44

that way this kind of is from this by the

30:46

way is for me personally I'm not saying that this

30:49

is how it needs to be for everybody, but I

30:51

appreciate that I think I realize this so

30:54

much is that like I still want that

30:56

sense of reward like when I beat The

30:59

first big boss in the blood-borne DLC

31:02

I remember I had that feeling of like

31:04

I'm just so happy I beat this boss

31:06

because I'm so excited to see What

31:08

they're gonna throw next to me like what

31:10

and not even what boss or what enemy

31:13

but like just what crazy arcane? Environment

31:17

they're gonna put throat at

31:19

me, you know and and and it's

31:21

gonna make the story Open

31:23

up even more and talk about story to

31:26

the the involvement of George R. R. Martin

31:28

and the way they handled I can't wait

31:30

to get into it that is so smart

31:32

for them and really took their lore shit

31:35

up a Massive not now the

31:37

first thing you gotta know is

31:39

the Elden ring is not a

31:41

ring It's a very fancy series

31:43

of squiggles that controls everything get

31:45

into it All right, you can

31:47

add and remove squiggles Yes, now

31:50

sometimes you give the squiggle to

31:52

your imperian shadow wolf now that

31:54

the appearance the tooth the fingers

31:56

Talk to space and they can give

31:59

the space pick you can be

32:01

an imperian and you get a special wolf. You

32:03

can give a special squiggle to your wolf and

32:05

then nobody dies anymore. It's a very simple

32:07

story. I mean, he talks silly about it, but

32:10

it is very cool, I think. We'll

32:12

talk about it very soon and

32:14

is abridged away as we can.

32:16

But let's, we gotta start with

32:18

a, just a very brief history

32:20

of From Software and Hidetaka Miyazaki.

32:22

Hidetaka Miyazaki is

32:24

just absolutely the major

32:27

force in all of this. And Jake was

32:29

saying this before we started recording, but I

32:31

agree where you're like, oh sure,

32:33

it's one person's name associated with this thing,

32:35

but it's a ton of people, and it

32:37

is a ton of people involved making this

32:39

happen. But he truly is

32:41

this incredible visionary that is incredibly

32:44

controlling over the work, over

32:47

these games, extremely involved in

32:49

every element of the game development. And

32:52

we'll talk about that philosophy and everything

32:54

else. But first, From

32:56

Software, founded in Tokyo by

32:58

Naotoshi Zen in 1986, they

33:02

initially were developing business applications. I love this

33:04

part of the story. Over the years, I

33:06

know, right? Over the years,

33:08

they found themselves, though, working on PC

33:10

games during downtime between projects and eventually

33:13

decide to actually put a full-fledged game

33:15

out. A dungeon crawler called

33:17

Kingsfield, which they managed to get published

33:19

on the PlayStation after pitching it to

33:22

Sony. Kingsfield is first person and

33:24

immediately has the element of difficulty

33:27

to polarize the audience. However, word of

33:29

mouth made it an eventual success leading

33:32

to sequels. Kingsfield is like

33:34

such a hilarious game

33:36

to watch as like a absolute

33:38

rudimentary precursor to Souls games. It

33:40

is so clunky, it's so dumb

33:42

looking, but it has

33:45

that arcane, weird

33:47

challenge to it. But I mean, at the same

33:49

time, a lot of games from this

33:51

time had that, you know? I mean, this is not-

33:54

It's the fact that it's

33:57

oppressive. There's like traps.

34:00

that punish you like kind of

34:02

needlessly without warning. Letting your

34:04

guard down for even a second is just

34:06

immediately punished. And

34:10

on top of that, you have

34:12

to navigate like PS1 tank controls

34:14

and like really, it just feels

34:16

awful. And it's oppressive.

34:19

It's not fun to watch. It's

34:21

a lot going against it. But

34:24

they continue to put out games after that. Their

34:26

next big hit series, really the thing that keeps

34:28

from soft to float until we get to the

34:30

Souls series is their mecha combat game Armored Core

34:32

released in 1997. And

34:35

if you go look, I mean, they put out a

34:37

buttload of games before we get to Demon's Souls. I

34:39

mean, we're talking, you know, they started in the 90s.

34:44

And Demon's Souls doesn't come out till 2009. And

34:48

these are adventure games, survival

34:50

horror games, third person shooters,

34:53

and more, just all sorts of stuff.

34:55

But mostly in the realm

34:58

of like mecha sci fi or high

35:00

fantasy. So the major player,

35:02

though, of course, as I already mentioned,

35:05

Hidetaka Miyazaki, he loved

35:07

reading growing up. But often he would

35:09

get two chunks of text that he

35:11

didn't understand. So he found himself using

35:13

his imagination to fill in the blanks. The reason why he

35:16

came grew up in a poor family. And

35:18

so the only way for him to

35:20

get books was at the library. Oftentimes

35:23

he would borrow books from the

35:25

library that were way outside

35:27

of his league in terms of like where

35:29

he was at as a reader. So he

35:33

often found himself using

35:35

the pictures in the book and

35:38

what he could glean off of them and filling

35:40

in all these blanks. And it really is. It's

35:44

between that and his later playing of eco that

35:47

like color his approach to

35:50

storytelling in the way that he

35:52

does with souls games. Yeah, like

35:54

reading half understanding the English rule

35:56

book of some tabletop RPG. Like

35:59

my dude made. environmental storytelling innate

36:01

in his understanding of what a

36:03

story is. And he loved it

36:05

because he felt like he was

36:07

co-writing the story with the author,

36:09

you know? Which is very D&D,

36:11

right? Like, you're coming in and

36:14

bringing your own thought towards

36:16

it and filling in these blanks

36:18

to create the story, co-create the

36:20

story yourself. And so

36:23

he describes himself, you know, though, as,

36:26

this is hilarious, like, he describes himself

36:28

as like not an ambitious kid. He

36:30

didn't have a dream growing up. He

36:32

was a decent student, but nothing special.

36:35

And he went to college, he got a degree

36:37

in social science. He was just kind of flailing.

36:40

He ends up in IT for a

36:42

handful of years at Oracle. So this

36:44

is very clutch, is you

36:47

mentioned he did not come from a

36:49

wealthy family, and he's mentioned that he

36:51

would have gone into games earlier, but

36:53

there was a financial responsibility that

36:56

he needed to get a regular

36:58

corporate job and in Japan,

37:01

getting a job out of school

37:03

is like an entire process. They

37:05

have these large hiring festivals every

37:07

year and, you know, statistically,

37:11

there are not as, you know, it's

37:13

very cutthroat, very competitive. They have,

37:15

they beat you in, like

37:17

an LA gang. Like, they beat you in

37:19

to get into the company. It's

37:21

brutal. I mean, yeah, like your

37:23

time is completely forfeit. You also

37:25

have to be, you know, go

37:28

out drinking with your superiors, like

37:30

a lot of late nights, you have very little

37:32

personal time. Cybersloots kind of

37:34

looked at whatever biographical information they

37:37

could find, and it seems to

37:39

be that he had to work

37:41

at Oracle because his sister,

37:43

his little sister needed money for college,

37:46

and he was the only member of

37:48

his family that could make that happen.

37:50

So he literally deferred his own dreams

37:53

of being creative, of doing social work,

37:55

of doing like anything that like resonated

37:57

with him to work

37:59

in this. this IT role in

38:01

this massive corporation for

38:04

her sake, which is very, very nice.

38:06

And that led to him, like

38:09

when she was finally out, he was given

38:11

like at least a little bit of freedom

38:13

and he wanted to play video

38:15

games. By this point, you

38:18

mentioned Ico, also Elder Scrolls,

38:21

that like Morrowind Oblivion era was

38:23

happening, like he had this, this

38:26

like love of games and

38:28

storytelling. And honestly,

38:31

it's insane to

38:33

leave a stable corporate job in

38:36

Japan and pursue your dreams. That is

38:38

not something that happens. Most major game

38:40

companies are not even equipped to take

38:42

on somebody that they didn't handpick the

38:44

second they were out of school and

38:46

train them up while and like break

38:49

them in. Like this was,

38:51

he was going extremely against the grain

38:54

by quitting his job and going into

38:56

games. And it honestly feels like From

39:00

Software was the kind of rinky dink

39:02

operation that is

39:04

the only place he could have

39:06

become Hidetaka Miyazaki, the Dark Souls

39:09

guy. Like Nintendo, Sony, even

39:12

bigger places like Bandai or Capcom would not

39:14

have had room for him. And if they

39:16

did let him in, there's no way he

39:18

would have had the opportunities to express himself

39:21

and like prove himself. He's

39:23

a singular guy that really

39:25

bucked a lot of culture

39:27

on social forces and

39:30

found himself in this unique

39:32

situation where he could like kind of prove

39:34

and let people know what he was

39:36

capable of. Yeah, they decided to just take a chance

39:38

on him, you know? I mean, and it's so crazy

39:40

too that like any one game,

39:42

you know, he says of Ico, that

39:45

game awoke me to the possibilities of the medium. I

39:47

wanted to make one myself. And

39:49

a lot of that was because Ico's looked

39:51

at you know, it's the precursor to Shadow

39:53

of the Colossus. It's one of the games

39:56

that people point towards back when we had

39:58

that silly, our game. and

40:00

art form, is there artfulness in video games?

40:02

You know, we talked about it in the

40:04

Shadow of the Colossus episode, you take on

40:06

the role of a boy helping a girl

40:08

companion get through several obstacles in the castle,

40:11

but all the storytelling is really like, subtle,

40:14

it's told, you know, in discoveries that you're making,

40:17

you're not really hit over the head

40:20

with it at all, and this kind

40:22

of reignites his childhood love of piecing

40:24

a story together using snippets of text

40:26

and illustrations, and you know, he just

40:28

is so fully inspired that he lands

40:32

this FromSoft job as a coder on an

40:34

Armored Core game. This is in 2004, and

40:36

this soon leads him getting to try his

40:41

hand at directing some games, and you

40:43

know, this is, I think, I

40:45

love story elements like

40:48

these, and we cover success stories

40:50

for people like Miyazaki and companies

40:52

like From Software. He

40:54

saw a game that was failing, and

40:57

he got in and said, I

41:00

love that he, what did he say, here's

41:03

the quote right here, there's a game called

41:05

Demon Souls that's in development of the company

41:07

that is just absolutely flailing and falling apart,

41:09

he said, the project had problems and the

41:11

team had been unable to create a compelling

41:13

prototype, but when I heard it was a

41:15

fantasy action role-playing game, I was excited. I

41:17

figured if I could find a way to

41:19

take control of the game, I could turn

41:21

it into anything I wanted. Best of

41:23

all, if my ideas failed, nobody would

41:26

care. It was already a failure. I

41:28

love that piece

41:31

of advice for people, trying to

41:33

get something going for themselves. Just,

41:36

hey, find a failure, you know,

41:39

win-win. It either fails, which it was

41:41

supposed to, so you win, so

41:44

no harm, no foul, or you manage to

41:46

turn it around and become known as the

41:48

guy at the company that managed to do

41:50

that, and that's what he did. He

41:54

jumped in, he changed pretty much everything about

41:56

the game, and it comes

41:58

out, it sells terribly. and

48:01

their like kind of leader there, Ryan Morris, who

48:04

worked hand in hand with Miyazaki

48:07

all the way back in Demon's Souls, because as

48:10

part of his dark fantasy dream, he

48:12

wanted like English voice acting. He

48:15

wanted that weird kind of ethereal

48:17

authenticity. And Ryan

48:20

Morris did a lot of work like alongside

48:22

Miyazaki, trying to craft his

48:24

ideas into things that

48:26

made more sense in English, but

48:28

like still giving Miyazaki the room

48:30

to like explore his imagination. Just

48:33

like for example, Solaire of

48:35

Astora, that way

48:37

a lot of that was Ryan

48:40

Morris's own like interpretation of Miyazaki's

48:42

ideas for the character. Picking out

48:44

all of these like very memorable

48:46

voice actors, this like this somber

48:49

tone, this mythical regal

48:51

like gravity to everything. And

48:54

Ryan Morris worked alongside Miyazaki all

48:56

the way up to Elden Ring,

48:58

where the voice cast there is

49:00

just phenomenal. So that is also

49:02

part of the FromSoft magic, I

49:04

think, is that

49:06

collaboration. And yeah,

49:08

no, it's just a snowball.

49:11

Every Souls game, every Souls born, whatever

49:13

you wanna call it, more fans are

49:15

picking it up, more people are seeing

49:17

the memes online, are seeing the fan

49:20

videos, are seeing the guides, are seeing

49:22

the playthroughs and being like, God damn,

49:24

there's something here. And

49:26

it's just building and building on each

49:28

one where this, what was supposed to

49:30

be this niche product for weirdos, more

49:33

people are taking a chance on

49:35

it and discovering what it has

49:37

to offer. Absolutely, and then talk

49:40

about collaboration. I feel

49:42

like this is such a important part

49:44

of Elden Ring's success, though it is

49:47

as subtle as the storytelling within the

49:49

game. Bringing in George

49:51

RR Martin for Elden Ring to

49:53

expand on the type of storytelling

49:55

that From Software could be capable

49:57

of was such a huge boon.

50:00

I think first from software Miyazaki Miyazaki actually

50:02

reaches out to George RR Martin not because

50:04

of Game of Thrones Surprisingly enough even though

50:07

I feel like you could sense a lot

50:09

of Game of Thrones like things Within

50:11

the game during a game awards I

50:14

don't have the exact date because I'm

50:16

very sloppy with my note-taking But Miyazaki

50:18

was in Las Vegas in order to

50:21

like promote and be there for Dark

50:23

Souls 3 And he was

50:25

spotted with a big sack of walking out

50:27

of a DVD store With

50:29

like all of season one of Game of

50:32

Thrones because it hadn't like reached Japan Japanese

50:34

stores Hilarious. So like he was in he

50:36

was a fan. He was a fan, but

50:39

he Claims that it's

50:41

actually George RR Martin's vampire novel,

50:43

which I really want to read

50:45

now It was published in 1982

50:47

titled fever dream that really Was

50:50

the thing that made him a huge George RR

50:52

Martin fan and really made him want to meet

50:54

him and talk about lore This is a book

50:56

set in the antebellum, Mississippi River Centered

50:59

around a group of vampires traveling on

51:01

a big fancy riverboat and it combined

51:03

it combines though It makes sense It

51:05

combines like the opulence and decay that

51:08

Miyazaki's games are known for and it

51:10

feet and he feels that quote the

51:12

book is quote a masterpiece among vampire

51:14

fantasy and Absolutely loves and

51:16

that makes sense because Miyazaki he's he

51:19

he's more gothic He's more

51:21

into like that style thing

51:23

that you know, then even like a game

51:25

of thrones He loves

51:27

a flying buttress. Yes. He

51:29

loves a desecrated temple totally

51:33

Michael Moor cocks Elric

51:35

slash Eternal champion saga

51:38

which involves the story of like this

51:41

eternal warrior That

51:43

is called upon throughout like

51:45

the scale of thousands of years

51:47

to whenever needed Bring

51:49

balance between the forces of order

51:51

and chaos often fighting for alternate

51:54

sides as like things are out

51:56

of balance Which if you Michael

51:58

more cocks, I'm a fan