Episode 14: Hello Charlotte EP3

We wrap up the Hello Charlotte trilogy - was it all worth it?

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hello Charlotte, my old friend. Well, start us.
Off with Hello Charlotte Thomas.Sure, I don't have an actual
intro though. I assume if you're listening to
this you probably listen to the other two, and this game doesn't
really need much of an intro. It's Hello Charlotte 3.
It's the last of the mainline series.

(00:22):
It was made by an Estonian chick, and it's all about
Universal for Sonas. All right, so let's just hop
into everyone's favorite part ofthe Hello Charlotte series,
which is the gameplay. So as far as core mechanics, how

(00:44):
do you guys feel? Like I feel like a lot of the
way we can frame some of this discussion is talking about the
third game in a vacuum and then kind of like comparing it as it
like evolved over the course of the three games.
So I'm curious how you guys feltabout, I guess some of the
puzzle design would be a good starting point that it evolved.

(01:10):
The only thing I want to say before isolating the game in
that way is I might be a little bit Stockholm syndromes maybe,
but this game like like pretty much all the gameplay felt
significantly more palatable than the last two episodes for
me. Yeah, 100% agreed.
I felt like, I felt like there was a really good sense of like

(01:35):
where to trim the fat and like get rid of the annoying shit and
actually create puzzles that weren't just like running around
pressing Z on shit. Although that did happen at
least once. But there's like logical like
through lines and bread crumbs and shit that I agree made it
much more palatable. Yeah, noise.

(01:58):
Like legitimately engage with puzzles out of curiosity?
Nope. Yeah, why wouldn't I?
I knew, I knew. That's actually why I asked some
questions. I definitely did.
I only did slightly because there were not steam
walkthroughs that I could find like for the last two games.

(02:20):
So. There was it was in a different.
Guide was there. Yeah, it's terribly named.
It's called like HC3 Puzzle Guide.
And that's what it is, yeah. That's.
The the reason why New Sesh did not engage with the puzzle then
neither did I is because I checked his like achievement
history and the way that Etherene wrote it, she she knows

(02:41):
she just knows she's like you get this achievement if you did
it in one try or you use the guide.
That's what. That's what the.
Achievement. Says Oh no.
That achievement though is just taking screenshots, which I
always do for memory game puzzles.
So I cheat. I cheat that the legitimate way.
Oh. Yeah, what it was.
Oh yeah, the other one too. Didn't use Honecker
Honeckerpedia once which is the in gaming system for the for the

(03:05):
like the escape room part that'sthe one that's like you probably
cheated. Oh yeah, I cheated.
I didn't read any steam guides and I got that achievement and I
don't know what the fuck the honeckerpedia is.
That's it. That's a like, probably the
worst thing about like the gameplay design is that she puts
a bunch of fucking items in her inventory that you never

(03:25):
interact with because it's so far away from gameplay.
I. Mean in any case, I will agree
with one of the original points you're making, Thomas, which is
that there are like logical through lines for pretty much
everything. I think the only puzzle that I
just acted, if you can even callthe puzzle, I really didn't like

(03:46):
the quote UN quote stealth section where you have to like
kind of just guess whether or not they're still in the room or
not. I didn't like that very much.
But everything else, yeah, I just felt like it was a
noticeable step up. And even though I'm saying it
like that, it's still to me justkind of feels like the like a

(04:06):
like a point and click adventure, which I still don't
love, but it's at least better than the other games.
But I'll if you, if you do just want to look at it like
isolated, don't try to stop comparing it to the last two.
No, I think comparing it to the last two is important because I
think like a core, like a critical thing that I'm not
going to talk about that much, if at all, is just kind of

(04:28):
watching the artistic evolution of the game was like literally
my favorite part, just like how everything evolved over time and
like every Ave. like we'll talk about it later.
But like even the music in this game was fucking sweet and I
know Heather and didn't make that, but regardless, so I think
do not. No, she has one Twitter.

(04:51):
She has one Twitter. She follows one person on
Twitter I believe, and it's the composer that makes her music.
It was the same composer for allthree games.
I I'm that's a good point. I guess I actually don't know.
I could just be talking out of my ass, I'm not sure.
First two games have like 2 tracks.
I guess it's still not really something to like complain about

(05:13):
though. I'm not saying we are
complaining about it, but like Idon't see the fact that if she
just got someone to do their music is a bad thing.
Like if she did that and the music in this episode was a
banger, hell yeah love that. Yeah, absolutely.
It's not a bad thing she she charged money this time around.
So there's going to be some likestandard.

(05:34):
There's one very specific thing I have to complain about.
It does have to do with the movement, since you've written
movement slash puzzle design here.
So at the beginning of the game,I was actually really happy when
I saw that the move speed was fast and I didn't have to hold
Sprint. And then like, at a certain
point when a certain pivotal event happens and your movement

(05:57):
speed comes down, yeah, it goes back to the original old speed.
I was like, you got to be fucking kidding.
Yeah. I still wouldn't have known
there was a Sprint button if youguys hadn't mentioned it last
time, and getting through that part if I didn't know there was
a Sprint button would not have been fun.
The the early games print buttonis fucking insanity.
Like it's, yeah, actually too much.

(06:21):
The game where? I move too fast.
Yeah. But to be fair, there was only
one instance of like you accidentally walking into like a
a dialogue trigger. So that was that was an
improvement. Yeah.
Yeah, I think the conventional solution is to make it so that
when you have a character touch a trigger box like that, where

(06:43):
it's like a, the player can't expect it because it's
invisible. You kind of just rest control
away from players, disable theirinputs and have the character
like automatically walk forward a little bit and then start the
dialogue. Yeah, like literally just at the
top of the like, dialogue instantiation script or
whatever. Just like turn whatever flag
state controls the spread, turn it off, Yeah.

(07:07):
I think the only part of the gameplay I liked was like the
follow the color puzzle and I mean that's it's like basically
just like a maze with one extra level to it.
Other than that I thought like all the gameplay was pretty
bland, better than the previous episodes but still like nowhere
near fun. Yeah, like that's kind of where
I'm at, where like nothing is standing out to me as like

(07:27):
fucking goaded, like Overton fucking Baba zu puzzle design.
But it's just not grading to play.
And that was important for me for this episode.
Yeah, like I, I actually enjoyedinteracting with some of the
puzzles, like Floor three, the floor 3.
Is that the first one you go to with the people that sing about

(07:49):
the prism? I like that whole floor because
I actually liked going around, like talking to people.
It wasn't Even so much the puzzle as it was just
interfacing with the world around the puzzle because it was
cool. There's also that environment to
where and you were talking aboutlike the artistic evolution of
these games. That's like the first area where

(08:09):
I was like, yeah, this is like, I don't know if earthbound is
the right word, but it was something like that she wasn't
doing in the previous two episodes, and then she kept
building on that. Yeah.
And kind of related to that, I wanted to comment on the
incredibly smart decision to just completely get rid of the
combat system. And for the first like third or

(08:32):
so of this game, I thought it was just going to be like what I
had wanted it to be the entire time, which is just like a nice
little visual novel experience. I'm sorry.
I fucking love the first third of this game for sure.
There is a dialogue at some point that talks shit about the
combat system in the second game.
I wish I could remember exactly what I.
Thought Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember.
It was funny. I mean, there's a lot of like,

(08:54):
cell phones. Like, like, clearly when she was
making the game, she was like, yeah, there's like some stuff
that I probably could have done better.
And she just talks shit about itin her own game.
Good stuff. I think it's funny that says he
liked the first third of the game and I like I actually hated
the 1st 3rd of this game more than anything else in the entire
series, probably more narratively, but yeah, I'll.

(09:19):
Get into it in. There is that because, well, I
guess that's part of the narrative.
Yeah, that's. Why I pointed out that point?
Because I I feel like I'm the opposite in that sense.
So. We'll think, yeah.
You too. I will say I've not had enough
time to really let the story of this game like simmer like I
fucking I beat the game at work at like like five hours ago.

(09:43):
I think that this game has a very complex narrative.
I've I've wrapped my head aroundall of like the main beats, but
this is a game I wish I had finished like four or five days
ago so I could have thought about it more.
Yeah, I agree. You don't want enough pushed me
off and tell me if I'm just stupid, but I swear to God, the

(10:07):
entire like last act of the gameas you're controlling Scarlet,
you can't you can't save right. Like you can only get to the
various like checkpoints that they that they give you.
You can't actually open the menuand save, can you?
Maybe I just tried it like random like.
There was definitely a section where you couldn't save.

(10:27):
I don't remember like how long it was, but I think like they,
they gave a very brief like narrative reason for why you
couldn't save. I can't remember, but I think
that it was there. For not being able to save when
I wanted to save. So yeah, there might have been
like a certain spot that I didn't try to save during it, if
so. Yeah, I'm trying to save a shit

(10:47):
ton, like literally in the last hour, hour and a half of the
game, and I swear every time I press the button there's nothing
happened. Was like, well, all right.
Oh yeah, that is that is a thingfor me.
Where like I was saving the mostin this game despite feeling
like I needed to the least because of the last two games.
Yeah. Yeah, agreed.

(11:12):
Like there were a bunch of timeswhere it felt like there were
going to be fail States and I was going to be thinking like,
oh man, I really wish I had saved, but then it doesn't kill
you. And I was like.
Were there. Even there even any asthma, That
too. I mean, the main one that I can
think of because I kept fucking it up, was the like when you're
stealthing and if you come out at the wrong times then they'll
kill you. I think there's a couple more,

(11:33):
but yeah, there's not a lot. Oh yeah?
What's what stealth section are you talking about?
It's, it's when you're trying toget away from the fuckers and
like if you're in the pile of bodies and if it's just like it,
it's really hard to lose there because if you try to leave
early, it's like, Are you sure you want to leave?
And then if you say yeah, then you lose.
No, I guess I just like randomlylike one shot looks after that

(11:54):
because the game was like, it may be a good idea to wait.
So I was like, OK, I'll wait. Yeah, exactly.
I waited. I waited one time and then I
popped out the second time and Ihave no idea what you're even
talking about. I mean, it's pretty railroaded.
You kind of have to choose to fuck it up.
And I did, and I got hard stuck.Wait, when you say what do you

(12:16):
mean you get hard stuck? I had to look up a video to see
what I was fucking up because every time.
Because like when to get out of the like flesh pile isn't the
only time you can die. You can also die when you go
into the room with the 2 doors to the basement or outside.
They can catch you there too, no?
I didn't know that. I don't either.

(12:36):
I don't think I saw a single bedand I just didn't know that
there were any. Although no, that's not true,
because when I was reading the guide for the puzzles, I saw
that you failed the puzzles, you'd die, and I assume there's
a bad end waiting for you. Yeah, that was one of the bad
endings at least. Yeah, I never, I never saw a
single one. Is it like the escape room
behind the door? Is there like 1 there like the

(12:58):
thing that's waiting behind the door or not?
Talking about we have commissioned bomb.
Yes, because you have to like blow the door up and kill
whatever is behind the door whenit comes through I.
Don't remember killing anything,I just remember setting the bomb
and getting in the little cupboard thing and.
Yeah, because you're hiding as abeast.

(13:19):
Oh. But I don't know if you can lose
that or not, or that's just the reason why you have to blow the
door up. I thought I was hiding from a
bomb blast. I thought you're hiding from a
beast. I don't know.
I just assume I was blowing up abomb.
And typically you don't want to like be close to those, you
know, just as like a matter of course.

(13:40):
I don't remember anything about a beast, but.
I remember that there was like weird breathing shit and you had
to, I don't know, I might have made it up.
The silence from Seth Ben makes it feel like they don't know
either. No, I don't even know what you
guys are talking about. I did what AI did, what a video
told me to do, and that was it that.

(14:03):
That section was my least favorite of the game.
The escape room part. God, there's so many annoying
sections of that. Oh yeah, I just, I just did a
guide for the whole thing. So I guess I mean even with the
guide who I wouldn't describe itas fun, so.
I mean, I don't know why the hell you would have needed a
guide for this game. There's like nothing difficult
or hard. But I just, I didn't even try to

(14:24):
engage with any pretty cool thinking.
I just wanted to just get through it.
So that's why I did it. Like that's the problem with the
puzzles in all of these games isthey're just so non.
It's like a point and click gamethat's just so non thought
provoking that I just don't evenwant to engage with it.
Exactly I. Don't know, I felt like at no
point did I feel really railroaded by a puzzle or not

(14:47):
railroaded Rd. blocked because they're all just kind of pretty
paint by numbers. I mean, I think that if I did
actually do the puzzles I'd feelthe same way, but I didn't even
give them a chance like this is what I'm saying.
For me it was in like the floor where you have to like find shit
or whatever. There is something like in the

(15:08):
gallery or something that you needed to do and like I didn't
like I forgot to use an item in my inventory or something and I
was like, yeah, fuck this game and lost my patience for trying
to figure it out. Yeah, I don't know.
The only puzzle to me that was just annoying was the one in the
last escape room where you just have to combine all the
ingredients to make a bomb. God, just like.

(15:29):
OK, is this going to work? Nope.
OK, is this going to work? Nope.
OK, is this going to work? Yeah.
OK, on to the next one. Yeah, it.
Was the first game and it was that puzzle.
You would have failed every time.
You do the wrong fucking combination.
Oh yeah, just been a bad end freak.
I would have, I would have fucking preferred that because

(15:50):
at least then I would have actually like figured out how
the puzzles. Prefer it's a trial and error
with no consequence. Yeah, I would say as far as like
gameplay goes for all three of these games, it's pitfalls are
definitely in like massive fucking levels of tedium where
so much of the game and the way that you were actually

(16:12):
interacting with it as a game isjust like running around
pressing Z on as much shit as you possibly can until something
works that is. That is not fun.
Yeah, it's, it's I, it is possible that I had a higher
opinion of the first third or soof this game than everything

(16:32):
else because yeah, the gameplay is just, it only detracts from
the overall experience. Yeah.
It's not even that it's not there like the.
If it just wasn't there, that would.
Be like the first. Third, yeah, yeah, OK.
That's why you like the first third, because it's not.
There, Yeah. I'm still glad that, like, the

(16:53):
puzzles did, like, evolve in terms of complexity, like
there's some new shit going on. It was definitely better than it
was the first time. And the second time, it's still
not exactly what I would have called like good, but it was
definitely better. Yeah.
I mean, I, I like the color ground puzzle thing.

(17:13):
I thought that was kind of like.A cool way to do.
A maze. I also felt like in general
there was just more communication to you, the
player, what is expected of you.Like when you're doing the
escape room stuff and you can talk to Felix or like just in
general just felt like everything was kind of spelled
out for you, which is not a bad thing given the kind of game

(17:34):
that this is trying to be. It would be a bad thing in a
game that's trying to be a puzzle game.
Yeah, like for all this shit that I was talking about the
puzzles, like I could tell just from looking at them at face
value that like, it's something that you can figure out if you
want to. I just didn't.
Yeah, like the only reason I told you to just play with a
guide for the first game is because they were so obtuse and

(17:55):
stupid. Oh yeah, 'cause like, yeah, that
and that's definitely a contrast.
The first game. There is no way I would have
done it without a guide. It just would not have happened.
Well, what else you guys got I. Feel like yeah, but why is
that's about it. There's not much gameplay to
speak of. I'm.
I don't know where to bring it up, but I think of all three
games were combined into one, it'd be a lot better game.

(18:20):
I can see that. I don't agree but it's for it
was that may be a better. Re engineered though, because
like the third one does some fucky stuff with like the new I
don't know if you call it new game plus where like yeah, I
think that no, not I think, but I take it back.
I think they do have to be 3 separate games because I don't

(18:43):
know, one is quite a bit like I would say that two and three are
a little bit more similar. Yeah, for sure.
One is it feels like a not necessarily a different game,
but like it's like a different vibe it.
Feels like a fever. One felt like it was never
really like, meant to like turn into what it did.
So it's just kind of its own like, weird little fever dream,

(19:05):
like Seth said. But like I said, like, I don't
know, like I said, I really likewatching the evolution of how
the things changed over the years as it got worked on.
And I think you would have lost a lot of that if it were like
one big game. It may have worked better as a
game, like as a literal like I Ipress buttons on my controller

(19:29):
game, but I think everything else that I like about it anyway
would have suffered a. Narrative because yeah, I think
that's, I think it's probably more narrative suited just.
Want to move into our audio UII don't have much else, yeah?

(19:53):
I got enough now. Same music of this game is a
fucking banger Ranger. Dude what the hell.
Fucking most interested player award.
Yeah, I actually paid attention this time and I even like
recorded some of the tracks. Well, when I say record, I did
like this what is it like windowG button or whatever and I just
like got some loops just so thatlike AI could listen to them

(20:16):
later. Yeah, like I, I found myself
actually because like I played these games with the volume
turned down a bit through Windows I might add, instead of
in the game. But I actually found myself
turning it up for some of the songs, like the one that plays
during the like, white society murder torture scenes.

(20:37):
I fucking love the song that plays during those scenes.
There, there was one track that I record.
Well, there was two. Well, there's one that I want to
bring up. There's like that elevator
elevator music jungle, which I think it's like like it must be
like a like commercial free music because I've heard that
elevator Jingle like so many times.
But there's this other one that was reused from the first two

(21:00):
games and it sounds like the first 3 seconds of like an
Emancipator song. I don't know if you guys know
what I'm talking about, but it'slike fuck, I'd have to look at
my recording because I recorded it because I was like, I hear
the song, I'm going to record itthis time so after this I'll
find it. But it's like, I swear to God if
I just like, booted up like an Emancipator song, yeah.

(21:24):
I think you should do that later.
Make it to us like as an emancipator intro.
I just have trouble placing the actual song that you're talking.
About yeah, but I, if I fetch itfor you, you'll be like, yeah, I
get it, but I have to get it. It's like I, I took so many
screenshots this time around because I played, I didn't play
it in the massage chair. So actually I took screenshots

(21:46):
for a lot of different reasons. Number one thing was to like
record like narrative beats thatI definitely would have
forgotten. And unfortunately I forgot
anyway, but at least I haven't recorded so so I can at least
reference them. Yeah, my favorite track is the
loop that plays in the fucking school.
That thing's a banger. I.

(22:07):
Forget how that one goes, but I remember it being good.
I remember like the first time that you walked to school on the
first day, like some shit that you did so many times in the
second game. And then like just zoning into
it in this game and just being like, oh shit.
They're just like sitting there listening to it.
Because I was like, not expecting the music to be as

(22:27):
fucking sick as it was, I feel. Like in general, the sound
design too was a little bit better, like not just the music,
but like like some of the voice of quote UN quote voice acting
and like environmental sounds, Iguess you would describe them as
were much less grading. Again, much less grading than

(22:49):
the other games. Still not great, still not
amazing, but better than the other games.
So I'm Stockholm. Syndrome.
So what was better than other games?
Like in general the sound designlike just how like voice acting
for example, sounds. I think the mixing was as worst
as it's ever been. Like what?

(23:11):
Because you can't change the levels of anything?
Like some of the sound effects were still just so loud that I
think I missed out on some of the songs that you guys said
because of how low I had to turnit down so I didn't get my ears
blown out by stupid shit. The problem that was in all
three games. One thing that was annoying in
this game that was unique to this game specifically was with
like the little Banjo Kazooie sounds.

(23:33):
Like a lot of the way that I I read through dialogue was by
pressing shift because it would just like immediately bring up
all the text so I could just read faster.
And when you do that, it just kind of like lump sums all of
the Banjo Kazooie sounds at you.And when you're talking to like
fucking like Charles in the dream world at the end or

(23:56):
whatever, who has like these fucking super echoey symboli
sounding Banjo Kazooie sounds? It's just like it.
It just dumps. And it's very unpleasant when
you're reading very quickly because it's just like rapid
fire. Yeah, I felt the the same way
with that because there were there were some of those that I

(24:16):
like appreciated just for what they were going for.
But then exact same experience for me where like something that
sounds good by itself does not sound good when it just becomes
one unanimous screen I. Think that's like just kind of
general QOL stuff that like thisgame, like severely LAX, just
kind of like, yeah, like those kind of use cases of just like

(24:38):
you gotta figure something out 'cause it's like an actively bad
experience when you experience it.
Also, though, the one that Ben posted, the song that Ben
posted, like the bottom left oneof like the Scarlet Eiler 1.
I didn't like that one because it reminded me of like the Ben
drowned fucking Majora's Mask ROM hack.
But that's not that's not that'snothing like a slide against

(24:58):
this game. It's just, yeah, I correlated
that in my head and I was like, this is stupid.
Yeah, I have. Kind of the opposite experience
with that, because it kind of reminds me of the song that
plays when you get to the Sun Station and Outer Wilds and it's
all, it's all probably united under the same thing, which is
that it's music played backwards.
Yeah, the only notable song. I don't.

(25:19):
I can't even tell you how it goes.
I can tell you that I noted downthat the song was sick.
It was close to when Charlotte Kors do the hard word.
I don't know what song it is or anything, but that's when I was
like, oh, the music's cool, but I think I had the volume down
too much because of the bad mixing.
I just played the lower left onethat is the emancipator 3 second
loop that I was talking. About.
Oh, that's funny. I can't hear it.

(25:42):
It's the Emancipator song I'm talking about.
It's called First Snow. It's the intro and if you hear
it you'll be like OK. There's also that song that
plays when you go in Doctor Huxley's lab.
Is that the bottom right one? I don't think it is.
Like in the house you mean? Yeah, when you go down into the
basement like early on in the game, and there's the like

(26:03):
clones of Felix. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's
that's that's not where you're describing it, but I do know
what you're talking about. Yeah, I just.
Like the mat board? Yeah, I just wasn't sure if it
was the same song or not. I think I want to think about if
it's different. Yeah, no, music was definitely

(26:25):
better than the other games, no question.
In fact, I won't even say it's better than the other games.
I would say the soundtrack of this game is just good.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I agree.
The soundtrack of this game is just legit good.
But I'm also a person who liked the soundtrack of the first
game, so take that how do you will.
Well, I I agree in the sense that like, I feel like this game

(26:48):
just took some of the ideas thatEpisode 1 was doing and just
refined a lot of them and then also added a lot of bangers on
top of that. Well, I mean, the first game too
is a lot of like kind of scratchy, noisy, like unpleasant
shit that if you don't like listening to noise you won't
like. But that doesn't describe me.

(27:11):
So I actually enjoyed the music of the first game quite a bit.
Oh yeah, that's what I'm saying.I think this one has a lot of
that too. Like that top right one that
then posted? Well, I'm just saying I feel
like it's just a totally different like genres of music.
But yeah, the top right one is definitely more like that.
But also I feel like top right is still more like melodic than

(27:33):
anything in the first game. Yeah, very true.
The problem with the first game is that I don't know if I liked
or disliked it, because at that time I wasn't really paying
attention to music, which is my own fault.
So it's possible that I would have liked it, I just didn't
really pay too much attention toit.
Oh, we probably need to talk about the art.
This game easily had the best art out of all three.

(27:54):
You know, consistent ramping up.Yeah, one thing that I really
liked about is how Wolf, one thing that there was like a not
necessarily a protagonist switchup, but when you changed like
your point of view, like we wereplaying the environment changed
to like fit with how they would see the world.
And I like that a lot to like how Charlotte, when you start
out with her, she's got like that like a kind of like

(28:16):
penciled like sketchbook look. And then when it was Bennett, it
was like watercolor. And when you were Scarlet, it
wouldn't kind of back to like a kind of strict pixel art.
I like that a lot, kind of just to differentiate them.
Yeah, very cool. Wasn't that like in the universe
too? Wasn't there like a soft

(28:37):
explanation for it? Yeah, I thought that was cool.
I thought the gallery edition was fucking awesome too.
I actually hated it because it you could only navigate through
it using Q&E on the keyboard andI played on controller.
Oh yeah, you could not. You could not go to the next
page in the gallery machine keyboard.

(28:59):
I mean, I like that the gallery existed like he came with
everything the QOL struggles. Yeah, it's crazy.
This might be a cringe take, butI actually think I liked the a
lot of the art in the second game more.
Like pound for pound. I think I liked the second game
more. The third game had like more and
it was still very good. But yeah, pound for pound second

(29:21):
game has some fucking kooky coolass shit.
That's definitely possible. I just feel like that like since
her style is already really good, that just having so much
of it in this game was very, very nice because it just meant
that like the characters could be way more expressive.
Like I, I don't know why this always stood out to me, but like

(29:43):
when you get to the first white society scenes and it's just
like a couple different frames bouncing back and forth between
like, like Charlotte's face or whatever.
And like, it's literally just two frames, but it adds so much
bounciness to it. And I wouldn't have expected
that in the other episodes. And then also, I thought it was
kind of funny because you talkedwith her three friends at the
start of the game, and then whenyou get to a white society

(30:05):
scene, you like kill one of them.
And I just thought it was funny because it's like, yeah, you're
killing Girl B and she just has a face in this scene now.
And I was like, she didn't need to or this didn't need to be
done for the game, but I'm glad that it was.
There is something I want to revisit from the past few
episodes. I think from the first first
episode actually, where Thomas, you asked a question about like,

(30:28):
was this this art a nerve view? And in the first few games, it
didn't even come close. But in this one, there was one
part where I I finally was like disturbed.
And I think the reason why is because only a small portion of
it was like fucked up and the rest was like just conventional
anatomy. And that was this one that I

(30:50):
just pasted right here. This is the first time that like
I was ever nerved by the art in this game.
Give a credit. But to be fair, that's also just
like, probably the most unnerving scene in the whole
fucking game. Yeah, I actually like this
light. I like the background, like this
whole car is awesome. But I did want to just point
this out specifically because I like fucking beat grinder face

(31:11):
that. Yeah, that's when I when I
looked at this one was like, yeah, I finally get it.
This is grossest shit. Yeah, this game got like a lot
of points for me just in generalbecause it fucking ratcheted the
horror up like big time. And I appreciated that it like

(31:32):
it was, it was like fucking pretty no holds barred.
I mean, with all the execution shit and everything else, yeah.
So it doesn't surprise me that there's some unnerving shit.
Yeah, like, I didn't expect the extent that was gone to on some
of the scenes, like actually showing, like, especially with

(31:53):
the first girl that gets torturemurdered and then like, less so
with the second one, but it's still there.
And then also the scene where Charlotte gets like knocked out
and basically drugged I thought was like Oh my God I can't
believe you included this but I'm glad that you did.
Yeah, as usual for these games, no notes on the art.

(32:14):
That's fucking great. But this time, it had the added
benefit of the music actually being fucking sweet.
She experimented a little bit more in the art.
Actually, there's some she addedlike these commercials that were
like vapor WAVY and reminded me,I don't know how many people
played Metal Gear Assault for, but like when you're installing

(32:34):
the game, they play a bunch of like in universe commercials
that it reminded me a lot of commercials in this game.
They they served like a very similar purpose, kind of like to
it was like a little bit of world building and just show
like how fucked up things are. But in that like I don't think
she did too much vapor wave, if at all in the first two games.

(32:55):
And this one is the first time Inoticed it.
Yeah, I don't remember it at allin the in the first two games,
but yeah, she had the fucking deep fried meme shit going on.
Yeah, you're right though, I didlike that too.
Yeah, I felt like the, I don't know if the other two games were
like this, but I felt like the colors just really popped out a

(33:16):
lot more in this game for me, which is intentional and good, I
think. Yeah, I think there was
definitely like way more like commanding use of color palette
going on. And that's like one of the most
obvious things in the fucking planet.
If you look at the games like Evolution, like the fucking 95%

(33:39):
of the first game is just black and white.
Yeah, it's very, very good colortheory shit in this game,
without a doubt. Yeah, by this game, like the
word that kept popping into my head while I was playing this
game was confidence. I felt like there's the scheme
was made with way more confidence than the others who

(33:59):
like, settled into what she was trying to say and like knew what
she wanted the end product to look like.
Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I can't disagree with that
confidence. I still feel like it's just the

(34:21):
absolute abundance of what was already in the game facilitated
the confidence I guess. What do you mean?
Like into it's kind of like you were saying earlier, I feel like
individually, like tit for tat, the panels may not have been
better from the previous two games or they're at least equal.
But just because there's so muchof it, it's, it just comes off

(34:45):
as better because, yeah, if you're not afraid to show what
you're thinking and bring to life the characters that you're
trying to articulate and everything, you know.
Yeah, for sure. And I I felt like they were very
small parts where she pushed it,like she pushed the boundaries
of what she did in the other twogames.
Like, and that screenshot you posted where Charlotte like kind

(35:08):
of eviscerates Scarlett with like the appendages.
And then after this fart scene, it goes back into like the RPG
maker environment. And she actually like had Sprite
work for her getting impaled, like using the regular RPG
character art, and I thought that was pretty cool.
Yeah, and I think you mentioned it earlier, but there's also,

(35:32):
especially in the first third, which again, I think this is
intentional, but the first thirdhas such prolific use of that
kind of crayon art style. Like you can see it in that
first white society picture. The girl on the right has that
kind of style, and a lot of the school environment had that.
I really like that art style. I mentioned it for Amore briefly
last episode when we talked about it, and I think when you

(35:55):
use it to affect, it's really, really good.
Yeah, like so many of the like parallax environments use that
style and I felt like it was like 2 super, super good effect.
Like, especially in the house inparticular, like there's so many
moments that because like, you spend so much time in this house

(36:16):
over the course of the three games, right?
And for it to go from the like monochrome squares of the first
game to like the fully fleshed out crayon style the third game
is pretty fucking sweet. All good stuff.
I believe that I personally havegushed enough about the art now.

(36:37):
Same. Personally, what have gushed
enough about the art now? OK.
Yeah, it's just going to devolveinto me posting screenshots
because I'm just looking at the fucking unpacked data file for
the game and just scrolling through all of them.
Yeah, I think, I think this gamedefinitely has more art and I

(36:59):
think it has like more polished art overall.
I think the second game just haslike a couple really like stand
out like monstrosity drawings that this game doesn't really
have. And that's why I think Tom
thinks that the second one's better.
I think the second game just hasas higher peaks.
I think if. If we're stalking, if we're
still like talking about like comparisons with the older games

(37:22):
I don't like, I don't think anything tops the first game for
me, specifically the one seen near the end with the Oracle.
Like I don't think anything in any of the three games has
topped that for me personally. Not that.
In terms of just art. Or like just yeah, like the
composition, like like everything about it in the way

(37:43):
it was like animated, like usingthe RPG Maker engine and yeah,
exactly that part where like everything starts fading out and
breaking down. Like that part will always be
super memorable from me. Where is.
I mean, I guess there's like a lot of memorable stuff in the
more so in Episode 3, but like, I felt like, I don't know, this

(38:05):
the first game. That one moment was like if I
had to pick my favorite movementout of all three games, that's
the one. That's a good pick.
I really love that part too. It's.
Definitely like the best finale,like the high point of like any
of the games for sure. I'm still just going to stand by
preferring Episode 3's art just because I I really feel like it

(38:28):
facilitates the like character development and expression to
the characters. And again, I think that's really
important like this, even if objectively some of the other a
piece of art might be better notobjective.
Yeah, yeah, cuz like if we're talking about fidelity, I don't
think, I mean, I think everything in episode 3 looks
better than the art in this screenshot, the one that I said

(38:50):
is my favorite. No, no, I I don't necessarily
mean fidelity. I just mean that I feel like
Episode 3's art had the most expressiveness that it showed
from the characters, and I felt like that was.
Oh yeah, for sure, for sure. No, yeah.
I mean I agree and I don't. I don't I wouldn't fault you for
saying any of the three games had your favorite art.

(39:11):
I think they all have different strengths.
But if that is like the metric that you're judging it by, you
are like 100% correct. So.
But all three games look fuckingamazing.
I know. I feel like I do still need to
bring up the I said it like the exact same way last episode.
It is still a travesty that there is no UI anything at all.

(39:36):
Oh yeah, not being able to resize the window.
It's all the same shit, like it'll be nothing different.
Yeah, there's there's nothing new to say, but the longer that
goes on the. Worse, it's still terrible.
There's a reason I asked the third question.
Or whatever the hell it was. Yeah, I just want to briefly
mention it. They're not going.

(39:57):
Well, I got nothing else in our audio UI.
It's time for narrative good. Ready for nerd?
Oh yeah. So I think if you, I spent a
little bit of time today, like Isaid, I didn't have much time to

(40:19):
really like prepare anything forthis.
But I spent some amount of time sort of collating the general
like opinion of this game, like from the fandom or whatever.
And it surprised the fuck out ofme that apparently the third
game's narrative was very divisive.
Like a lot of people just straight up hated it.
And I was like, what the fuck 'cause I felt like the narrative

(40:43):
of this game was like such a fucking leap and bound forward
from the second game, which I kind of thought was a little
messy, good pros wrapped up in alittle bit of nonsense.
Whereas this game I felt like was way more cohesive and like

(41:04):
easier to follow and written with more purpose.
And once again, the C word confidence.
So I was really surprised to learn that apparently just
people like shit all over this thing for its narrative.
Well, that that's that's coming off strong.
But yeah, it was divisive. Yeah, that's surprising me too.
Like if you're, it makes sense to me.

(41:25):
Like if you're the kind of person that would describe
yourself as a Hello Charlotte fan after the first two
episodes, then the narrative of episode 3 kind of flips
everything. On its head, the whole fucking
errand theory, yeah. Yeah, and now, now we're in the
opposite camp. Or we didn't like the first two
episodes, but I assume most of you guys like this one more, at

(41:47):
least narratively. So we liked it more.
OK, that makes I did just because there's actual cohesion
and there was something that thestory felt like it was working
towards. Say that again.
I liked it more. I liked the third game more than
the first dude, because this game actually felt like it was.
There was something there was working towards and it wasn't
just like random thoughts that were put together to showcase
schizophrenia, which is what thefirst game felt like.

(42:10):
The second game just felt like abridge to get to this game.
Yeah. Like I felt like outside of the
kind of first act of this game, they're like everything was
always building towards something.
Like there was always kind of a goal in mind at all points.
And even that in the first act, I was OK with their not being
goal because like, it's just introducing you to this
scenario. Like what's going on with
Charlotte, the fact that she's not a good person and what's

(42:33):
going on. Like the confusion of that I
thought was fine. But yeah, I like that.
I don't want to say it was a traditional structure to a
story, but there I felt like there was something to anchor
you with through most of the game.
Yeah, for sure. I would say it is absolutely
fair to say it's not like a standard structure.
I think some of that is probablythe fact that it just wasn't

(42:54):
really planned out ahead of timein my opinion.
Like like you say, the second game was a bridge to this one in
my opinion. I felt like there was like, to
me, I felt like there was a lot of like circumnavigation because
she kind of wrote herself into abit of a hole with the way the
the second game ends. And I felt like there was a lot

(43:16):
of like, having to tidy some of that up in the third game.
And then the first game, I mean,the first game is just a fucking
manic fever dream. I think she just wanted to draw
a bunch of fucking cool shit andput some words on top of it.
But yeah, I forget where I was going with all of this, but.

(43:36):
Because like the second game doesn't resolve at all.
It's been like fucking Umbrella Man shows up and he's like, you
know, we're making Charlotte. And then like it just fucking
ends, you know, like there's no like resolution.
The first game has a resolution in this game has a resolution.
That's why I think of the secondgame is like a bridge.
I think it has a resolution, it's just not a nice one.

(43:58):
Like I, I feel like all three games kind of stand on their own
like as a story, but the third one has the benefit of kind of
like backsplaining the other twogames and like filling in some
gaps here and there. But like as stories, I feel like
it's definitely not a traditional structure by any
stretch of the imagination, but there is like a like point A to

(44:20):
point B where B is the end like story.
You guys feel like if after playing episode 3 you played one
and two again, you would enjoy those narratives more?
Or like if you hadn't played oneand two and you went back and
you played for the first time. Two maybe.
One. Probably not.
Yeah, I feel that way too, I think.

(44:42):
I would like 3 more if I didn't play 1 and 2.
Why do you say that? I would agree with that.
Yeah, actually. Because I think 3 has like an
actual it. Like I think what the 1st 2
games are lacking is like to be like a definitive like purpose
for like why everything's happening.
Besides just like just kind of like a trying to explain like

(45:03):
society's bad, which is what like the second game felt like.
And really like the first game alittle bit different, but the
worst game full felt like a perspective of this is what it's
like to be a schizophrenic. And the second game just kind of
felt like it was like a commentary on things.
This game actually felt like it was a story with like a
resolution and like purpose. I mean, the first two games
definitely have purpose. It's just like there's so much

(45:27):
abstraction and allegory behind it that unless you were really
like trying to deep, like reach really deeply in, it's hard to
extract some of that narrative. Like like the second game I feel
like is like a fucking indictment against religion.
I don't think it has really muchof anything to do with anything

(45:50):
other than that, to be honest with you.
And the first game, I mean, I don't even know, again, like
layers of abstraction. I don't even know if there was
really meant to be any kind of like cohesive actual narrative
in that thing outside of what istold in the tale of the Ink
Princess. But yeah, this game was
definitely much more like on rails in terms of like it still

(46:13):
has a lot of really rich like allegory and metaphor in it like
that fucking fuck ton. But it it dials it back a lot
more. Well, I won't even say it dials
it back. I think it it it just doesn't
obscure as much in front of it. I think it has all of that, plus

(46:33):
it has like a like an actual like typical structure that you
would expect to see in a story, which is why I like this one
more than the other two. Would you say it's like the the
most character focused out of the three?
I think the first one is the most character focused and that
it's all like about Charlotte, and the second one I think is

(46:54):
probably more character focused than this.
One, yeah, I was going to say the second game I felt like was
more character focused. I don't think that it's
necessarily character focus. I think it's just because I, I,
for me, it's because it feels like we're working towards
something. The first game we felt like it
was just kind of falling througha house and then eventually you
got to an end point. And then the second game just

(47:15):
kind of felt unfulfilling. And the character relationships.
This game had like a cool amountof like mystery for me from like
that transition from like Episode 0 to 3 and like intrigue
that the other two games didn't get for me even a little bit.
I feel like for me the second episode feels the most character
focused, but the only reason I feel that way is because there's

(47:35):
nothing else going on in that episode.
Exactly. Yeah, that it's all the.
Character relationships. How do you guys feel about the
multiple endings? Because this might sound weird,
but I think I enjoyed episode 3 more because I got the one
ending and I couldn't and because I had saved in that
final room with the the credits basically in the afterward I

(47:58):
couldn't go back and get the other ending.
Whereas in the second game, likeI just did all three endings
back-to-back and then I forgot like which one was like the one
I like the most or which one is candidate, the most important.
I get it's a person, just say I'm basically, I still think I'm
the same person as Ben when it comes to play games.
Everything that just had happened to me so.

(48:20):
I didn't even know there's more than one ending.
My shit said true ending so I never went back and checked.
That's funny. Yeah.
I was talking to Ben about it because it's when you could just
you choose to destroy the TV or not.
There's a different ending there.
What's the one if you don't destroy it?
Don't know. Didn't you?
But it's it's in the achievements, it's described as

(48:41):
the happy ending versus the trueending.
I mean that I feel like sense. I feel like to answer the
question like if you're going toput multiple endings in your
game like that, that are like meant to be right at the ending
on like some of the endings for Automata, for example, I guess
you'd like you better make it really easy to rewind to that

(49:04):
choice to be able to see both endings so I don't have to look
up the YouTube video. Like the way that Expedition 33
and the way that Automata did itare perfect.
And yeah, I don't know, in termsof like isolating alternate
endings, if you have to do a shit load of work to do it then
I tend to find it just annoying unless it's adding a lot of
gameplay. To build off of what you said, I

(49:29):
agree that Near and Expedition 33 did it really well and I
don't know why the second game for this game didn't do it well
because it's basically the same thing.
But like like Ben said, they allblend together in my head and I
can't really remember like the other ones that happened.
For the question specifically, Idon't like multiple endings

(49:50):
typically and if so I like them to be dramatically different
like how Undertale has like different runs need to basically
treat the whole run differently to get to the end.
I usually don't just like a decision at the end changes the
end scene. I prefer it that way because I
don't like playing games more than once so I don't have to
fucking slog through everything just to see a different cutscene

(50:10):
that I can just spend 15 minuteswatching on YouTube.
Like, yeah, like, I'm, I'm OK with it if it feels like a
completely different game, almost like genocide versus
pacifist run Undertale, Yeah. But.
If it if it's not that, then it better be like Automata or
Expedition 33 where you can justrewind and see the other option.
Yeah. So those are like the two

(50:31):
extremes where like both extremes are good in the middle
sucks. And I guess to kind of summarize
what you guys were saying, like if you wanted to be like, not
necessarily like monumental effort to see the multiple
endings and the journey needs tobe like meaningfully and
significantly different, right? Yeah.

(50:51):
Yeah, Yeah. Because then that would I agree
that would also apply to ballotsGate 3 in that case, which I
would agree with. Yeah, because that was, that's
why you're I was trying to thinkabout like where Wrath of the
Righteous, for example, would like fit into this like whole
discussion. I feel like that game is just
too long that. Well, I mean, OK, outside of its

(51:13):
length, like just if I can say like Balder's gate one or
whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I see.
I know what you're saying. It's just that the length kind
of disqualifies that game specifically for me.
But I see what you're saying. But I feel like the CRPG is more
generally like, I, I mean, I'm only thinking of Disco Elysium

(51:36):
and Balder's Gate 3. Like with like with those games,
the ending is affected by your choices so much that it doesn't
feel like, oh, I'm just missing out on content because I didn't
select the other option. It's all just like a culmination
of every other thing that you'vedone.
And the core events are still the same.

(51:57):
Like I don't really want to spoil either of those games, but
like, yeah, the the core events are going to be the same.
And then since everything else is a culmination of your
actions, it doesn't feel like I get the negatives that I do
otherwise with other games, yeah.
I I agree and I I think and you explaining that I also figured
out why I like expedition dirty 3 and and and near is because

(52:20):
when the game, when it's a choice and then it's good
ending, bad ending, that fuckingsucks when it's a choice and
then it's like complicated ending one and complicated
ending 2. That's when it's good.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
Like when there is no right choices, when it's good, but
when you pick a choice and that's the good one, you pick a
choice and that's a bad one, that's when it's bad.
That's why like 1000 X resist, Ithink has that a little bit like
when you pick like mold, but it's like, oh, that felt shitty.

(52:43):
Oh yeah, that's it. Yeah, that's a great counter
example because I was just trying to think of games that do
that, and that's a perfect example of that.
Yeah, that's never good. So one thing about, and this is
there's no real like meat on this thought, but I kind of like
the way that it was framed. But one thing I liked about the
course of the three games is howlike the narrative scope felt

(53:06):
like it was a fucking camera that was like slowly zooming out
where it was. Like the first game just takes
place entirely within the house.The second game is all within
the house and the school. And then the third game zooms
way the fuck out and you enter into this like cosmic fucking
abyss. And I'd like that like fucking

(53:30):
rapid escalation from each thingthat just like, like I said, it
just makes me it just like it inin my mind's eye, it was just
like someone with a camera just walking backwards and just
pulling the curtains back more and more.
I think that's another reason I really like the narrative of
this game is that like there's like a world outside of the
world rather than like that's kind of like alluded to in the

(53:51):
in the previous games with like the puppeteer and shit.
But then this game is really like, hey, here it is with the
true realm. Died if if there's like one
compliment that I can give this game, it's that the narrative of
this game justifies the existence of the previous two
episodes. Even if I still don't really
like the previous two episodes as games, I feel like just the

(54:12):
fact that they exist in the context of the narrative of this
game makes this game better because of that like kind of
scope creep that you're describing.
So basically like you use this game as comparison to that those
games and that's why it makes you like this game more because
of like how zoomed out this gameis.
Like, like basically it, it, it's kind of like reading, it's,

(54:35):
it's like the difference betweenreading a short story and
reading a full novel, where likethe first two episodes feel like
short stories and the third one feels like a novel.
Like if I were to just read George RR Martin's Dunkin Egg,
I, I haven't read them, to be clear, but I am going to enjoy
them more if I have the context of the Song of Ice and Fire
series where that might not be true in reverse.
And that's how I feel about the first two episodes versus the

(54:58):
third. To me, I feel like the narrative
of this game, like I, I feel like the phrase, like greater
than the sum of its parts, has never fit something more
perfectly than this series. And I don't think that would
have been even remotely close totrue without the third game.
Oh yeah, without a doubt. So, Seth, do you feel like you

(55:19):
liked the first two games more if you went back and played them
again? I think you asked this question,
but I don't think you answered. It yeah, I asked you guys.
I don't think I, I don't think Iwould like them more just
because I feel like then the annoyances of the gameplay would
stand out even more to me on repeat playthrough and
especially after the stuff that episode 3 did to kind of fix

(55:39):
that stuff. But would I enjoy the narrative
more 10,000% like a fucking billion percent.
I would enjoy the narrative more, like I would probably
actually pay attention to the narrative of the second game if
I played it again. Yeah, something that I don't
wouldn't expect ethering to do, but I think would be really cool
is to remaster this and put it into one game like how Lisa just
did basically. And then kind of like try to

(56:00):
morph it into like one big thingand to see if there'll be any
changes that she would make to like the product basically other
than Polish. Yeah, that would be cool.
I feel like the games are so like episodic that it would be
interesting to include some likebridges between the games as
well. Yeah, you could have like like

(56:21):
true realm cutscenes between each episode or something.
Yeah, the only issue is that fucking second game with. 3
endings. Yeah, true.
Record. I don't think, I don't think
that she will, or I don't even think that she should.
I just think that it's a cool thought experiment because Lisa
just did it. Well I'm not sure how you could

(56:42):
have like interspersed true realm cutscenes because it would
just be like Charles in a fucking coffin 6 feet under or
whatever. Oh well, it doesn't.
I guess he's in the ocean. It doesn't need to be
chronological, but I can't use. Him.
So across all three games, what was your guys's like?
Favorite story beat Story moment?

(57:04):
Across the games that well, I think I guess I already
mentioned it, but it's the the one in the the Oracle at the end
of the first game. Yeah, I figured that would be
yours. I think it was for me, it was
like coming to the realization of like it was, it was towards
the end of like Episode 0, near the start of Episode 3 where you

(57:25):
kind of figure out like what Charles is and like what's going
on and everything. I think just kind of like that
realization of like, oh shit, here's here's what's going on
was really cool for me. I feel like for me it's it's
either when Scarlett chokes Charlotte and becomes her that's
really hard to say. Charlotte.
Scarlett chokes. Charlotte.
That's really fucking hard to say.

(57:45):
That's a funny one. Or something in the kind of Act
1 of this game, like maybe when your friends turn on you and you
have to like, like that entire sequence somewhere in there.
Yeah, my favorite was definitelyCharles wandering out into the
ocean. One just pops up the dialogue
box at the end of Chapter 0 withthis is a story about giving up.

(58:10):
I was like, oh fuck yeah, all good choices.
You know what I noticed? No picks from the second game.
The second game. I could, I could just say that I
was you mentioned earlier though, like it was a very like
divisive game like narratively. And I think that's just because
the 1st 3rd of this game is likea real like fuck you to anybody

(58:32):
who would have liked the first two games because it turns the
protagonist that you like into just a complete piece of shit
psychopath. Yeah, so wait, Sash, we needed
to talk about that. Is that the reason that you
didn't like the first third of this game?
Oh for sure. And like you guys are more like
horror centric than me. But like, yeah, I don't like
that she's just fucking killing random people because of social
media posts. And like I understand it's like
meant to be like commentary and like that's the whole point and

(58:54):
everything. But while it was happening I was
like, this game is fucking awful.
Like for me, as I was like, reading it and watching it, I
was just thinking like, wait, what the fuck happened 'cause
it's obviously like a huge shiftfrom the previous two episodes.
Yeah. And like, this is going to be
the ACT where you want to introduce questions like that to
answer later on. And I'm very glad that they did

(59:15):
answer those and they answered them directly.
So I liked it at first 'cause it's like, you know, I like,
it's like you said, I like the horror.
I like the fucked up shit. And it made me intrigued.
It had me asking questions, you know?
Yeah, for me, it's just like, I knew it wasn't the same
Charlotte because every Charlotte in all three games is
a different version. So I was like, oh, we're in.

(59:38):
We've got the version of Charlotte who's a fucked up
serial killer. Okie, Dokie.
Also I don't like the vaporwave commercial things either, I
think that's just cringe so thatthat didn't help.
I separate. I separate it from cringe
because the game was made duringthat era so.
Yeah, that's how I did it too. Like I I thought they were
enduring. I'm not going to say that they

(59:59):
were like the best things ever, but I liked them.
Am I the only one that liked Scarlett more than Charlotte?
No, Scarlett's great, OK. Like the the Scarlett of this
episode compared to the Charlotte of the last two
episodes. Is that what you mean?
Yeah, I mean, Scarlett, Scarlettof this game is Charlotte from
Episode 1, right? So I mean, that makes sense.

(01:00:21):
Wait, is that Canon? Like is that?
The ending of this game is literally her turning into
Charlotte from the first game. Like the same dialogue.
You're right, Yeah. I just didn't remember that.
But I do remember like, yeah, I even took a screenshot of that,
and he was like, my favorite part of this game.
No, yeah. I mean, I mean, I think she's

(01:00:43):
intentionally framed as like, I,I mean, you play as her.
She is the protagonist, right? But she's very like, empathetic.
You know what's like one of the first things she does, she stops
Henri from getting murdered, right?
Like it's the third of those murders, it's about to happen
and she gets to swoop in like a hero.
I think you're supposed to like her.
And I think it works. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

(01:01:04):
One thing that I am I would be curious to go back to the second
game and look at is her suicide at the school, because I could
not remember details of that at all.
But I'm kind of curious how thatscene could be reframed with the
knowledge of the third game in tow.
And trying to think about it now, it still feels

(01:01:25):
inconsequential and random. Yeah, the memory I have of it is
that. How did you guys feel about the
true realm scenes like Charles talking to online friends and
shit I. Thought I was sick, but I was
like like probably the most likeintriguing part just because

(01:01:47):
it's kind of like mystery that'slike in front of you versus like
crazy abstraction that's going on.
Yeah, I liked him a lot. I thought it was a nice way to
ground in between the madness. Yeah, I would agree.
It felt very important to humanizing that character, which

(01:02:09):
is something that it feels like we didn't get it all in Episode
2, so it was nice to have in this one.
All right, so this game plays with player complicity in a very
similar but profoundly differentway than other games that have
tread similar ground. How do you feel like it sits
alongside them? Let's start with Seth.

(01:02:33):
Can I can I steal the start as like a just a question back into
you guys. What are other games that play
with player complicity Undertale.
I tried to think of that. I.
See. OK, Last of Us is a good one,
Undertale. I don't agree that it's the same
thing. I I actually bring up the same
thing. I bring up both of those as
examples in my answer if you want me to go.

(01:02:56):
Yeah, go ahead. So to kind of ground this out a
little bit, one thing that stoodout to me at the start of the
game is that the Charlotte you play felt much more willful and
in control of herself compared to the others.
I think that's intentional because she is that like fucking
psychopath character. And for me it created a very

(01:03:17):
uncomfortable dynamic. Like, I'm in control of the
character, but it jumps to her torture, murdering people in a
way that, again, intentionally makes you feel very
uncomfortable. I think that particular style in
the beginning third of the game is quite good.
It's similar to forcibly killingthe doctor at the end of The
Last enough The Last of Us, but different enough to stand out

(01:03:41):
because like, you're still controlling the character when
you do it in Last of Us. Like you have to hold the stick
forward and it makes him do the action.
But in this game it's a little different because you do the
action and then Charlotte responds.
So I think it's meaningful enough to like stand out with
something unique, but it's also different enough from the under

(01:04:03):
Undertale genocide route becausethe genocide route is opt in.
It's something you choose to do and it's something that most
people aren't going to do unlessthey're a a super mega power
game or in a game that wasn't designed for it, except it was
designed for it because there's the genocide route.
But yeah, I just feel like the like complicity in this game

(01:04:24):
stands out because it's like a weird interesting in between of
those two games that I kind of like.
Yeah, that's kind of, that's kind of why I asked the question
because like I there's like so many ways that this game plays
with player complicity, but alsolike in a weirdly different way
because of how those like games structured narratively.

(01:04:47):
So yeah, for sure what you got, Jordan.
Yeah, I mean, it's basically like just what's that said?
Because yeah, I'm trying to think about this question.
I was like, I don't, I can't think of another game that does
like complicity like this game does.
Because undertable, it's a choice.
Last of Us is a good example because it's not a choice.
So that's why I wanted like moreexamples from you guys so that I
could like answer more in real time if you guys had any other.

(01:05:08):
Spec OPS the line. I didn't play that game.
I know that game's fucked up in that though.
Oh, I guess kind of Dragon Guard, but I don't think you
guys know Dragon Guard about. Dragon Guard One.
Yeah, Dragon Guard one where like it kind of plays on like
the mass murdering is like a normalcy kind of thing, even
though you're a mass murderer even, but like you're a good

(01:05:28):
guy, but you're only a mass member kind of thing.
I mean, I guess it's similar to the original near as well in
that sense. Yeah, exactly.
That's kind of like, yeah, that's that's been that guy's
like MO basically since the 1st.Game.
Yeah, that was going to be my other example, as well as the
first New Year game. Like basically just anything
that is trying to make you feel morally responsible for the,
like, horrible shit that you're doing, right?

(01:05:49):
So yeah. I I don't think this game, this
game has you more as like an observer kind of controller
though with like the whole puppeteer thing.
So I think this game is definitely like super unique
over everything in that regard. Yeah, so like my answer to this
was like I felt like the game makes a business out of
constantly calling attention to like your role as the player.

(01:06:10):
But it's not, again in that likesuper annoying 4th wall-e
gratuitous, manipulative, manipulative kind of way.
It's just like it takes that like 4th wall power fantasy and
turns it inside out. And then like, looks at you
like, you guys know that meme with like the people at the

(01:06:33):
party and it looks like some guyjust like shit his pants and
everyone at the party's like, looking at him like what the
fuck? Like that's how it feels to be
the player in this game. It's like the game is constantly
asking like, what the fuck? Why Like, why are you still
here? Go away.
Like you feel like you're like this accepted but totally

(01:06:54):
unwanted like voyeur. And yeah, it's interesting in
the way that it just reassigns like the God role, like in these
meta games, like, I don't know, like black and white, I guess is
a very like literal example for anyone who remembers that
fucking game. Like you're, you're framed as
the deity pulling the strings. But here, like that position

(01:07:18):
belongs to Charles and we're just kind of here.
We're just like fucking intruders.
We're not the omnipotent gods pulling the strings.
We're just a fucking nuisance. That's kind of in the way.
So yeah, like I think it, it definitely separates itself from
Undertale from Last of Us, from Near in that way where again,

(01:07:42):
you, you're not being made to feel morally responsible, you're
just made to feel like you're fucking annoying that they don't
want you there. So it's like, obviously the
choice in this game is mostly ornamental, right?
Like there's really no, there's really no choice.
So it's like you're complicit not because you could change

(01:08:05):
anything, but because you keep watching even when the game and
the characters don't want you to, which I think is a cool
twist. Yeah.
And I think it's like, you're definitely right about like them
not wanting you to watch them orwhatever, But then that's also
kind of inverted at the start because like, Charlotte is like

(01:08:28):
social media advertising the torture of these people.
So kind of plays with both. Yeah, exactly.
For sure. And Ben said to skip him because
he misunderstood. The question.
All right, we'll, we'll let you start the second question then.
So how did you interpret Charlesby the end as a creator, a

(01:08:50):
victim, A manipulator, or something else entirely?
Where'd you land, Ben I? Was very, I guess sympathetic
towards him, like the way that Isaw him by giving the games that
to me he was kind of like the Painters and Expedition 33, if
that makes sense. Or I guess he's kind of a mix of
all those things, creator, victim and manipulator.

(01:09:12):
Although like if I were to like rank them proportionally, I
guess victim would be the most that he was in person to the
other two. And I, I just really liked the
dynamic with him and Scarlet andthat kind of like colors a lot
of how I feel about it 'cause I like Scarlet a lot.
And I just looked up what the happy ending was and I wish I

(01:09:34):
chose it, but regardless, I'm just going to talk about the
ending with that I did get, which is the true ending.
And so in the last two episodes when we talked about this game,
I kind of talked about how maybelike I'm I'm not like socially
adjusted enough to like feel anything from these games at

(01:09:55):
all. But this game had one moment
where I actually felt something like genuine and that is in the
the the route to the true endingwhen right before Charlotte
breaks the TV. Yeah.
So this one where she when Charlotte is talking to Scarlett

(01:10:16):
slash first Charlotte in the TV,right before she breaks it, she
explains kind of like Charles's motivations.
And Charles like felt so bad about Scarlett that when when he
created Scarlett in the world, he made it so that everyone was

(01:10:36):
nicer, all the NPCS were nicer because he just wanted her to
have like the best life possible.
And yeah, that's I know that's not directly related to this
question, but it's like the partthat makes me sympathize with
these characters the most. I know that we're talking about
Charles only here, but I can't like really separate the two

(01:10:58):
because there's, I feel like their fates are so intertwined.
Well, yeah, I mean, Charlotte isbasically Charles is like
subconscious on some level most likely, right?
So. Yeah.
Like if he's basically a fuckingAO3 fanfic writer who did become

(01:11:23):
Verso. Hi, Jordan, What do you got?
Yeah, so I mean, I think he's, Ithink he's like all of the above
except something else entirely, though for me, yeah, like he's a
creator who is a victim of abusive circumstance, right.
And then he uses manipulation ofof reality as a coping

(01:11:45):
mechanism. So yeah, I think, I think he's
kind of like all of the above all.
Right, Seth, what you got? I don't have a super solid
answer either. And part of that is just cuz I
like Thomas. I haven't had a ton of time to
like sit and Stew and like understand him as a character
cuz I think he's probably one ofthe more complex characters.

(01:12:05):
But I did some wiki research andI just saw under the trivia that
his favorite philosopher is Nietzsche.
And I thought that was really interesting because he's, I
mean, he is literally a creator,right?
But he somehow feels both more than that and less than that.
But that is what he is. So he's this like, you know, he

(01:12:29):
created the world, but he's so like detached, but also tied to
it at the same time. It's it's a lot of there are a
lot of paradoxes with them that I think are really interesting
that I don't have solid answers to, but like to give a firm
answer. I mean he is the creator.

(01:12:49):
Again, I don't and like there are other aspects to his
character but like if I just hadto get one answer it would be
creative. Yeah, I mean, I, I, I'm kind of
the same boat as Seth, where I could have a much better answer
to this if I had another 24 hours to think about it.
But I mean, to me, he just feelslike a traumatized, stunted kid

(01:13:16):
who like constructed this entireworld as a coping medic
mechanism and then just never found a way out, like literally
or emotionally. So the whole setting of this
entire game and like one thing that would be interesting for me
to go back and replay them wouldbe that the setting of these

(01:13:40):
games just feel like the fuckingecho of a life that ended too
early. Like you are watching someone's
fucking suicide notes spiral outinto an infinite universe is
just like how this entire world feels to me, like looking at it.

(01:14:00):
So like when I look at it now, Ijust think of them as just
someone totally trapped in theirown like trauma and imagination,
like combined and mixed togetherin a blender.
And he's someone who lashes out in small ways, but he's mostly
just a fucking human being who'sstuck as shit.

(01:14:23):
And I think some of that too is I think this game does a good
job of of good job as a way, a weird way to phrase it.
But I think 1 interesting thing that this game does is judge you
as the player. And so I think that Charles's
character makes the game's judgement of us land somewhat

(01:14:44):
harder because we're like made to feel like we are just
wandering through the aftermath of someone's fucking tragedy.
So I'm I'm won't to call him really anything other than a
victim, even though he is absolutely a creator, but at

(01:15:05):
some point he definitely took a wrong fucking turn and and
developed a little bit of villainy.
I do just want to say without without ascribing too much to
Etherain herself, I got a strongfeeling that Charles was

(01:15:25):
Etheraine's like self insert like like almost literally at
times. And all I want to say about that
is I hope F Rein had some friends that played this game
and reached out to her to see ifshe was doing OK that that's
that's all I felt. Did you read The Death Wall?
Yeah. That's what I was going to say
that basically that the afterward basically just

(01:15:47):
confirms that the. Tooth.
OK, that's good. Well it confirms that Charles is
herself insert too because she said that she wrote this game
for somebody who never got a chance to exist.
I think is how it's hurted. Yeah, exactly.
Do not need to guess, I have that screenshot.

(01:16:09):
That's sweet. I like that.
Yeah. It's fun to wonder about that
too, like, contextually. But yeah, Charles is a very,
very interesting character. Like, interesting both in the
moments where he was alive and in the fucking hellscape that he
produced after he died. God is dead, as a certain

(01:16:35):
Nietzsche won't say. Oh yeah, this game is nothing
but Nietzsche and Kurt Vonnegut references like fucking
everywhere you turn at the rain.Definitely fucking loves
Vonnegut. Another rain.
I love you for that because Vonnegut is one of my favorite
authors all. Right, ready for the next one?
Yeah, this is this will be a funone.

(01:16:55):
Do you have something? Oh no, I said.
Yep, as in, let's move on to thequality of life discussion.
Yeah, so I figured I would give you guys a, a free reign chance
to just like RIP into this shit,and then I'm going to bother
writing up my final rating paragraph while you guys dump
all all over this fucking thing.So what do you consider to be

(01:17:18):
the minimum quality of life or accessibility bar for a video
game? I'm going to start with Jordan.
I think that man has a lot to say.
I mean, I, I, I feel like we've kind of already said it, like
especially in the 1st 2 episodes.
But yeah, I mean, like to not even have an options menu in a
game is insane. Like to, not to not even have
like options. And then I could turn subtitles

(01:17:40):
on and off or something. Like for it to not even be there
is like like unthinkably bad. Like if, if we weren't if if we
weren't doing it for this, I wouldn't not even gotten close
to in the first game from not being able to resize the window
and. Oh yeah, that's a.
Probably primarily that that's an.
Honest all. For me, yeah, that's a bad on
all right there. I'm more in this question think

(01:18:02):
of like what quality of life does this game provide and
besides the Sprint button it's like almost nothing.
I wouldn't even call that quality of life because it turns
out to be a fucking detriment. Yeah, like, yeah, I tried to
like, think of like, what's an interesting way to answer this
question? It's like, OK, what quality of
life does this game give you? And it's like, I guess fast
travel in the Omni Cube, even though it's done really

(01:18:23):
annoyingly, like, I don't know, there's nothing that's like, oh,
that's great. I mean, I mean, I will say being
able to like skip to the end of text is quality of life.
At least that's an important onefor this game.
But I mean, like, like for my answer, like if we're talking
absolute minimum quality of life, it's kind of a, a boring

(01:18:44):
answer for this part, But I mean, it's the standards.
I need volume control, I need resolution control, brightness
and darkness isn't like required.
But you know, if I'm playing a game late at night and I have
the lights off, yeah, I kind of need brightness control.
I, I feel like those are really required for your game unless
you're doing it for like a very particular reason, like you're
going to mess with meta shit like I think Undertale and Void

(01:19:07):
stranger did like closing out ofyour game and shit like that.
Like if you at least have the purpose of not having some of
that stuff, fine, but it's stillgoing to bother me.
But something I did want to talkabout just tangentially related
to the question is like, yeah, that's the minimum for quality
of life is just like the essentials to play the game,
right? But like, what is the ideal

(01:19:29):
quality of life accessibility stuff for games?
And so my ideal game for stuff like that is World of Warcraft
because I'm a World of Warcraft guy.
And granted a lot of it is because of the abundance of
add-ons, but add-ons in World ofWarcraft allow for everything
that the game wouldn't allow UX wise.
It's so good that after like 20 years of not having it, Blizzard

(01:19:52):
is finally adding in options to like manipulate your UI in
stronger ways and like in game boss mods and shit like that.
But like. Sometimes when I'm playing other
games, like especially especially especially ARPGSI
find myself wishing that they had stuff like We Coras.
In other words, like if you're playing Diablo 3, I mean any

(01:20:15):
ARPG, I'm sure like you guys play Path of Exile and there's
like a buff or something that you want to track that's
important. Like in Diablo 3, it's always
going to be at the very bottom of your screen right next to all
of your skills. But like that's not where you
want to be looking and fast-paced RPGARPGS, you want to
be looking at where your character is so you're not
standing in shit. And so I want to be able to move

(01:20:35):
all those icons and buffs and shit right next to where it's
important by my character. And so few games allow for that.
And I wish more games did. And that's my extrapolation of
this question. I just.
Could you imagine having add-onsfor something like Hello

(01:20:57):
Charlotte? But I mean like even like kind
of relating that to Hello Charlotte, like allow me to like
expand or minimize the size of the menus, you know, like the
pause menu. Yeah, for sure.
It's like small stuff, but I feel like it's or or like the
the text box, like there's no text expansion or whatever you

(01:21:18):
there, there's no text size option, just more
customizability. Good.
I think it's not impossible for a game like hella far to get a
fan remaster because I want to be the guy has one because of
how piece of shit the whole gamewas.
So I think if we give it 10 years and people like it enough,
but at least the first two that don't cost money, I could see
that happening. That'd be cool.

(01:21:41):
There definitely need to be an engine change for this game or
series to have any kind of like,acceptable quality of life
because RPG Maker VX Ace, that ain't it, I'm sorry.
It's not. It's not the engine's fault.
It's it's like it's a bad engine, but you can resize the
fucking window in the engine that's not the engine's.

(01:22:01):
Fault. Are you sure?
I don't actually know enough about VX Ace.
Dude one shot does great well VXace I think is one shots.
I would have to go back and check.
I'm not sure but I can tell you One Shot is a version of RPG
Maker and it does crazy shit that I still haven't seen other
games do. Like any game.
OK you're right, I just AIO review says yes you can return

(01:22:25):
the game window and RPG Maker VXAce.
Oh wait no nevermind I lied. But it requires a bit of work,
often involving a script as there's a default resolution
limit of it's 480P essentially you have to bind alt enter.
So no, you basically. I mean, you can resize the
window, but it's not. I don't think it's AI overview

(01:22:47):
misunderstood what we wanted well.
I could say Lisa's older than this game, so there's no way
it's on a newer version of RPG Maker and Lisa did not have
problems that this game has. OK, so Lisa the Painful and
Joyful were made in VX Ace, the first made in 2003, which is the

(01:23:07):
only version I've ever used first.
The first doesn't count, the the1st is crazy.
You might not have been able to recess someone doing that game.
I didn't know Lisa was that old bullet mullet.
Yeah, Lisa the first sold as fuck.
It feels like the first game of this, which is funny that
there's a 14 year separation. Well, the thing about RG Maker
2003 specifically is like a lot of games were using it after

(01:23:28):
2003 because it's actually visually quite different from
all the other RG makers. It's much more, it's much more
like thick pixel, if that makes sense.
It's like it's unique among all the RBT makers.
Like if I saw a game I could tell if it's using 2003 or not,

(01:23:51):
right? Yeah, I just don't want to give
this game a pass thinking that the year 2015 or whatever the
fuck when the first one came outis some pre history fucking pre
Internet thing where you couldn't just go on stack
Overflow and be like go get someone help me.
Yeah, and the old center thing is so it's like I know that

(01:24:14):
everyone could just use a keyboard when I, when I, I, I
had to choose not to play this game in the massage care because
like I did for Episode 2 and I, I had to like bind buttons for
alt and enter so that every timeI opened the game, I had to like
press them both at the same time.
It was so fucking annoying. I'm sorry but just the way you

(01:24:36):
described it as the massage chair is so funny to me every
time. It's I love the thing, even
though I think the reason why I love is because I didn't buy it.
It's just their. Joy, I think, I think to answer
the question in another way thatI forgot was free bindable
controls because yeah, that's, that's mandatory.

(01:24:56):
Yeah, I forgot to. I forgot to include that in my
answer. If I'm playing, if I'm playing
on a controller, remapping is required.
Like I, I have to have that otherwise I'm going to get mad.
This game has it, but it's like fucking the way that Toho does
it and that it's like you set key one to X and you're like
what the fuck am I doing? So it's basically doesn't have

(01:25:18):
it. I don't even know if bed knows
that it hasn't. No I did.
Is it in the game or right click?
File you right click the border of the window and then go like
control and then it opens up. Literally like the Toho.
Fucking it opens up like a Toho old school like Toho Key.
Configurator, did you figure outhow to open the fucking dev room

(01:25:39):
Is that's what it sounded like you were describing?
No, I found it when I was tryingto resize the window because I
right clicked on the window border to try to do maximize and
I was like what the hell. Oh my God.
Sweet Jesus did. You want to answer the question,
Thomas. I don't really have anything to
add other than like my own personal tastes.

(01:26:01):
Is that if I find something intriguing enough, or I care
about something enough, my tolerance for annoying bullshit
like this game stretches out into Infinity.
I am the most patient man in theuniverse.

(01:26:21):
So like this I I understand where you guys are coming from.
I understand the depth that thisgame sinks to and it's
accessibility options, but at the same time I just every time
I play this game, I just launched it, I press alt enter

(01:26:42):
and I had arrow keys and Z and shift and I didn't need anything
more than that. But again, I'm a very patient
man, so I'm not patient when I don't give a shit.
Though I will say that like if it's like a AA or AAA game, like
3 strikes, you're fucking out and and those strikes can come

(01:27:04):
very arbitrarily. 3/3. Oh, shit.
All right, well, let's, let's goahead.
Let's rank these bad boys 1-2 and three rank them 3312. 312.

(01:27:25):
312 Dang, what were you? What were you, Jordan?
What did I say, 312? Yeah, Ben you.
Or 321? Sorry, 321.
Mine's a countdown. Oh good.
Yeah. Yeah, mine was 3.
One yeah, you all motherfuckers talk too much. 312 Jordan.

(01:27:47):
OK, I'm the only countdown. I'm 321.
All right. I'm 312 as well.
And Ben, you were 312 as well, right?
I just. Had to go.
Based fucking 312 goats. I just had to go based on the
rankings and yeah, I remember how bad the first game fucking
gameplay is. And that's, that's, that's 321.
Yeah, I yeah, 'cause I rated onethe lowest, but in retrospect,

(01:28:10):
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think I like.
It I listen, even if the puzzlesand everything else about
episode 1 gameplay wiser shit, at least it doesn't have the
fucking combat. Yeah, the combat would have.
Been that's as much of A sin. The combat would have been cool
if it happened exactly once I think as just kind of like a
funny like little like inner mezzo meme.

(01:28:32):
A1 combat thing where it's like the principal comes into the
classroom and that starts to combat instead of fucking random
encounters. Why?
Yeah, for sure. I it also would have been a lot
cooler in 2017. I well, didn't this game come
out in 2017. That's what I mean.
OK, Yeah. If you if we played it in 2017,
it would have been a lot cooler.Yeah, for me, I, I felt like I,

(01:29:00):
I like the abstract think piece bullshit of the first game a lot
more than you guys I think. So I sort of figured I would
rate that game a little higher than you guys would like. 1 is
actually closer to three for me than you might think.
I actually really liked one. Yeah, I mean, I'd like like to
me, episode one in hindsight wasa really good introduction to

(01:29:24):
the weird ass world that this shit is.
Like even if a lot of it and even if a lot of the lore I feel
like in episode 1 doesn't get super expanded on.
Like how often did we hear the word pytheon after episode 1?
I I feel like it still sets the the tone and the weirdness fives
right? Yeah, like I said, I think a
really good aspect of how these games were written was like that

(01:29:47):
slow zoom out of the scope of the world.
And I think the first game playsinto that, like very
importantly. And then with episode 2 like
it's it's literally just white noise to me.
I didn't care about the characters and the narrative.
Found the gameplay grading and annoying.
Like honestly, like 1 and 2 are pretty close to me, but number

(01:30:09):
one, I give episode 1 props because it's the first game like
it's not it it like I said, it'ssetting the tone.
It's it's starting game off a sequel to that episode 2 should
be an upgrade compared to episode 1, but it didn't do
anything to stand out from the other two episodes there.
I feel there's nothing in episode 2 that is better or that

(01:30:29):
is the best from the other. The there is nothing in episode
2 that is the best among the three episodes.
There we go. So the thing the thing about
episode 1 is you guys like the idea of episode one more than
what episode 2 is. Episode 1 sucks to play, but the
the further you get away from ittime wise the more you are, the

(01:30:51):
more you fix it on the idea of episode 1 rather than the
experience that you had playing episode 1.
I mean, I played through episode1 twice so I remember it pretty
well. Tom-tom was standing.
I know you're obviously going tolike one more than two, for
sure. I think it's for the other two
of us. No for sure because I actually
remember the like we did the Tash for episode 1.

(01:31:14):
I remember when we got to the gameplay section, which is the
first section, I spoke 1st and these are the exact words I
said. I.
I think that's the thing with the first game, like the first
game has a lot of cool ideas andeverything, but like the
execution of it as a whole, if you have to play it, fuck it
sucks. Yeah.
And I mean I mean I. Yeah, it's a great idea.

(01:31:36):
I think I did actually like detract or subtract points from
episode 2 because I still did have that.
Like, I'm kind of rating Episode1 almost on like an axis of
yeah, potential, which, right, it's not how you should do it,
but it's how I did it, so fuck off.
And I mean, that's fair. And yeah, when 2 did not live up

(01:31:58):
to that, it was definitely like kind of a boner killer.
Yeah, it's like, again, to me it's episode 1 was setting the
tone. Episode 2 I felt like was trying
to expand the characters and it just if that was the goal of
episode 2, I just feel like it completely failed and actually
getting me interested in it because I just did not care at
all. I feel like 2 is more about

(01:32:21):
setting like the themes like setting like episode.
How do I describe this? Episode 1 is like walking into
your grandma's house and it smells like farts everywhere and
there's a bunch of weird shit but it's your grandma and she
has cool pictures on the wall. Episode 2 is your grandma

(01:32:42):
setting like, the silverware down on the table while you sit
down and get ready to eat? And then three is eating, Yeah.
That's yeah, that's why I said Episode 2 is like a bridge.
Oh, I disagree that 2 doesn't doanything the best because I like
I said, I've already said I feellike 2 had the best art, like it

(01:33:04):
had the best instances of art, Iguess would be a better way to
say it. Yeah, I think 3312 for me like
makes the the most sense. I just wanted to remind everyone
else how much 1 was the sticker.Yeah, that that game's God awful
to play. I will call back my scores.
My ordering here is consistent with my scores.

(01:33:24):
That's all I'm going to say. OK.
I think mine will be as well. I think.
I don't remember. I honestly, I don't remember
what I rated the first game six.That sounds right.
Yeah, I'd stick by that too. I stick by that 6.
I don't remember what I rated 2 but it feels like a four.
Four and a. Half.

(01:33:44):
I stand by that too. I'm consistent.
All right. You guys got anything else you
want to say about the other games before we all?
Right. Are we just jumping down to
awards? Did you have some in mind?
I didn't have any awards in mind.
I skipped over the awards this time and wrote an outline
instead. That's fair.
I I feel like I like the only one I could think of is like

(01:34:09):
best art panel but there's so many that I literally don't want
to choose. Yeah, I feel like best awards
just kind of gets wrapped up in the overall discussion, so it's
kind of pointless in some instances.
Anyway, I also think that since this is the third time we're
doing Hello Charlotte would justbe the same fucking awards with
the same fucking idea. I think it's definitely
pointless in this context. Yeah, yeah, I'm cool.

(01:34:31):
Just going down to the ratings. All right, and what's the start?
I can start. I thought this game was a little
bit better than the second one, but I still wasn't in love
because I thought there was still just a lot of like
gameplay issues with it. And I think while the narrative
was like good and like cohesive,it wasn't really like I still
think it wasn't really like enough time for typically like

(01:34:53):
bake to be into something that Ithink would be like an all time
great. So for me it's a 40.
Hell yeah. Oh, I nailed it.
I lost I'm so. Good.
All right, Ben, you're up next. You guys aren't ready here.

(01:35:18):
Nailed it, Nailed it. Nailed it.
Nailed it. Nailed it.
I like not. Even one, but I suppose.
You count it, you're. Right, that's fucking dope.
I I actually had you know what'sfucked up?
I had a higher guess and then I had to fucking troubleshoot the
bot and then I was like, hey, I'm going to lower my guess.
I don't think I think it was 7.5though so it don't even matter

(01:35:39):
but God. Damn it, it's whose lines
anyway, again? You got anything else to add
other than your rating? No, that's about it, in fact.
If you look. At my.
That's all I wrote. I think that's all right.

(01:36:00):
You want me to go or you want togo stuff?
That's not true. I do.
I do have something to add goingoff of my previous ratings and
also going back to logic bombs where I gave it that 86 for the
craftsmanship. I gave ethylene the
craftsmanship points for this. You gave back of.
The logic bombs poisoned in a fucking well.

(01:36:24):
Shit, that's funny. All right, Seth, do you want me
to go? Do you want to go?
I don't care. Mine will probably be short, so
I'll just knock it out real quick.
Yeah, like I said, I mean, this was my favorite of the three.
It did a lot of return to form. I felt from some of the stuff
that I liked in episode 1. I felt like this episode was the
closest to a visual novel out ofall three of them at at least in

(01:36:48):
the 1st, 3rd, and like, I guess back third midpoint was kind of
a drag, you know? I still can't call this a good
game because the actual gameplayparts were still there.
They were just less grading to play.
But there was nothing I could really think of in this game
that like brought it down below average for me.

(01:37:11):
And then the stuff that I did like brought it above just a
straight 5, but it's still not agreat game.
It's just good art, good narrative, and just generally
fine. So I think that 6 out of 10 is a
fair rating. Damn.
But it's like, it's like a strong six.
Like I'm happy with that six. It's almost a 6.5, but it's a

(01:37:31):
six. Ben nail.
But Ben did nail it. Me and Tom were of the same
mind, which is funny. Yeah, he hated the 1st 2 so
much. I did not think that trend would
buck. Yeah, no, to me, the like, I
don't know, sometimes I feel a little bit like Keith in terms
of like what really bothers me about some indie games or if it

(01:37:53):
just has no Polish. Sometimes it's just going to
grate on me in ways that are hard to describe.
But like I said, I feel like this game just moved away from
all of that and just added the stuff that I liked so.
I. Can't argue with that.
Well, for me, Episode 3 felt like the point where the game

(01:38:16):
finally kind of revealed what it'd been building towards.
So like the first two games, in my opinion, were these really
like, interesting sketches, You know, where the first one is
like really raw and scattershot and like, discombobulated.
The second game felt pretty ambitious, but it was so uneven

(01:38:38):
all over the place. The third game, like clicked the
pieces together into something that like finally really worked.
I mean, the core gameplay mechanics of this game slash
these games never deviate from being like clunky and shitty.

(01:38:59):
But I felt like in this game it really embraced its identity as
clunky and shitty in a lot of ways, and that kind of made it a
little more endearing. And the gameplay became more
like a frame for the mood and the meaning with what it was
having you doing. The art direction and the sound

(01:39:20):
design of this game just pulled double duty.
They lace every hallway and dreamscape with these fucking
unease and melancholy. And the music is better than
both of the other games put together and multiplied by like
3. So obviously this game is as far
away from flawless as something could possibly be.

(01:39:42):
A lot of the puzzles still meander, still kind of stinky.
The story can kind of sprawl into some like, abstraction
territory that's not going to work for everybody.
But Episode 3, in my estimation,makes the journey worthwhile.
It's it's, I thought it was a pretty striking finish and it
transforms the trilogy into me. What started as kind of just a

(01:40:05):
experimental curiosity into something that was a singular,
memorable work of indie game art.
I want to close by saying that gorilla art like this shit is
what I fucking live for. Because to me, the most
important thing in any piece of work artistically is that it

(01:40:26):
comes off as authentic and real to its creator.
I want to feel every single emotion that the author felt as
they were pinning it, coding it,drawing it, painting it,
whatever. I want to feel that anger, that
pain, that hurt, and that want to feel it in a way that makes
it feel genuine and unique to the person behind the curtain.

(01:40:48):
And these games do a very, very good job of it.
In fact, that is what these games do well is it feels like
you are connecting with a human being behind that curtain.
So while these games again, are extremely flawed, this game and

(01:41:08):
these games in general are goingto linger in my head for much,
much longer than many games thatI have and will rate
significantly higher. So bravo ethering.
Seriously, you put together something really fucking special
and I'm rated 7.5 out of 10. There is something I want to
bring up after you said that when you were talking about how

(01:41:30):
you felt like you're communicating with Ether
indirectly, I've actually felt the same way for all three
episodes. And that's why, like, I know we
had the discussion where like wewere trying to like stray away
from like referencing her or like sound like we're talking to
her directly. But I felt like it was really
hard to do that because of that aspect of it where like it felt

(01:41:50):
like you should be talking directly for sure.
Especially like with the narrative, I think it was more
just in like the gameplay stuff.Like I, I, we didn't want to
frame it as like, oh, why'd she do this?
Why'd she do that? But yeah, yeah, yeah.
This game is obviously like a very personal journey.
So I think thinking of it as anything other than like,

(01:42:11):
Heather Rain's treatise on her life is very mistaken.
Because like, there's a reason why in the second game, I was
holding so much water for her ability to write.
Because that feeling of like, there is a person behind these
words. Like there is a human being who

(01:42:31):
is saying these words and I can sympathize with them and I
understand what they're going through.
That's not an easy thing to do in a medium like this where it's
just these like dinky ass fucking RPG Maker sprites.
And she does such a fucking goodjob with like really making you
feel the weight of what she's trying to say.

(01:42:54):
So hence bravo. Hell yeah.
Do you guys have any closing thoughts before we get Craig out
of here? What are you doing next week?
We finished up Baldur's Gate. Yeah, yeah.
Next week we are finishing the Behemoth of Baldur's Gate 3.
After that, maybe Silk Song. We might need to add some time

(01:43:18):
for Silk Song, but we'll see. That is the plan.
Boost.