Episode 8: 1000xRESIST

Sessh has chosen the debut game from Sunset Visitor, 1000xRESIST. Beware spoilers.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
That was Jordan sesh start us off.
Yeah, so this week we played 1000 times.
Resist I think is how you're supposed to say it, even though
I've been saying X the whole time.
I say X Yeah, I. Think it's supposed to be 1000
times but doesn't matter. This is the first game it was
developed by. The first game developed by
Sunset Visitor. Released on May 19th, 2024.

(00:20):
Published by fellow traveller who's most known for publishing
Citizen Sleeper I it's a sci-fi thriller adventure game like
borderline visual novel where you play as watcher, a clone of
the pall mother who is a human that is immune to a virus that
aliens called the occupants brought the earth.
You're trying to discover the truth of the world around you as
things may not be as you're told.

(00:42):
I mainly chose this game becauseI heard comparison to this game
to near automata, but I didn't bring that to you guys because I
didn't want to like change your opinion or for you to come in
being like oh, that's not like near near so much better blah
blah blah. So.
Yeah. So two things.
Number one is I guess actually only one thing.

(01:05):
I say 1000 times resist. In my brain it started off as
1000X resist but it morphed into1000 times resist as I kind of
realized what like the meaning behind the title was.
And also, am I the only one who didn't realize how obviously it
was also meant to be like rearranged to be 1000 times

(01:26):
sister I? Don't think it's that obvious, I
think it's cool. It's not obvious, it's not
obvious 'cause I would have never noticed someone who told
me. I saw it in the video that I
leaked and I was like, oh, that's fucking brilliant.
I didn't watch that video, I should have.
Yeah, you you probably would have benefited from the least
'cause I feel like you were probably had more info than the
video did. I watched the video and didn't

(01:47):
even catch that part That's cool.
Yeah, you had to see it because he he doesn't even like say it.
It's just when it's like a visual thing he does.
Yeah, that would do it. Yeah, that's all I wanted to
say, I think. I mean, I'm kind of similar in
terms of the title thing. I definitely started this

(02:08):
thousand X resist and then I watched that video or the
interview with the devs and I was like, oh, 1000 times resist.
That makes sense. And then as I thought about what
it meant, like Thomas, I grew tolike that as the name.
So same kind of art, but different order.
I still hate the name. For the record.
I think it's a fucking shit name.
It is a very, very East Asian name, I'll just say that.

(02:32):
I still say X cuz I don't know, I'm just too lazy.
I'm like, like, I don't particularly carry the way it's
muscle memory. It's weird because when I say
the full title in my head it's on 1000 times resist, but when I
type the like shorthand like initialism for the game which is
just one X1X1 KXR, there we go. Like as you just heard, I just

(02:59):
say X. Oh yeah, you're not supposed to
say one K * r in that for sure. Yeah, that don't make any sense.
That just sounds like a King of Hearts title, yeah.
For sure, I mean this borderlinewhat this is.
Very, very East Asian, like I said.
Well, I mean, let's just jump right into the gameplay.

(03:20):
I don't know about you guys, butI feel like gameplay is where I
am going to lampoon this game the most by quite a bit.
So if you guys would like to start with something you liked,
so I'll tag along and we'll go from there.
I got nothing I. Mean there was a much like for

(03:44):
what it's worth, I enjoyed what was there and I think I don't
know, I'll let you go first timebecause I'm sure you have a lot
to say and like elaborate. I don't really, I don't have
much to say, but I am positive on it.
So like. Yeah, as am I.
I think like if we, if we talk about a game like Edith Finch,

(04:05):
which is like literal 0 gameplay, and then a game like,
I don't know, let's off the top of my head, let's just say
Astraya, which is all gameplay. I think that this lands
somewhere like far enough to theright of Edith Finch that I
actually enjoyed it quite a bit.Like there's there's enough to

(04:31):
do when you're actually playing it that isn't just slowly
holding W the whole time. That like even the communion
sections where you're just kind of L2 ING around the place were
kind of fun. I have a feeling this is just a
guess, but Seth is probably going to complain about like

(04:54):
maybe some of the confusing navigation of the game because
navigating around the actual orchard at first is a real pain
in the ass. Then it just kind of gets like
emblazoned into your brain and it's fine.
But like even in some of the communion sections where like
they intentionally obfuscate theroute, it's like why?
Like why did why did this have to be so complicated to just get

(05:17):
from point A to point B inside of this very easy like pseudo
platforming section? But given the fact that this
game is like is kind of visual novel forward, there's
definitely enough there that it kept me engaged and I liked
that. Yeah, there was one part where I
got lost in one of the communions and I I'm sure this

(05:41):
is intentional, like where the autosave was.
I was like, fuck this. So I just died and loaded up the
autosave and it puts you like right at the spot where if you
just are like a tiny bit more observant, it shows you where to
go. So I I appreciated that.
But in terms of the gameplay, like when you bring up like the
navigation of the map, I was going to bring that up in the

(06:02):
UI. But if we're going to bring it
up here, yeah, that that shit was I don't know with it.
I mean, I know what they were thinking with it right?
Like it's obvious. And I do appreciate that like
they they would like the extra ever feel like that immersive
factor with like the the map, but it's not a very usable map,
at least in my opinion. So fun fact, the reason I

(06:26):
brought this up in gameplay is because I feel like level
designs kind of more gameplay oriented.
And also that map was not in thegame at launch, they patched
that in later. Yeah, I read about that too.
So yeah, I. Don't think the map even really
helped. I think it was a shitty map.
Yeah. I used it a lot in the very
beginning, but. I used it a little bit, but 10.

(06:48):
1000. Percent real.
Gonna be 10,000% real. I had no idea there was a map.
This is my first time learning about this.
Yeah, I think if you hold like LB or something, it comes up.
I like the map. I play it on KBM.
It's like a cooler flavor thing than it is like functionality
because like why they wouldn't put where the MPCS are on the

(07:08):
map is like a travesty. I mean, I kind of touching on
Thomas's point points, a lot of which I agreed with.
Like this game is definitely better in gameplay than Edith
Finch to me. And it's it's pretty much dead
center like A5 or A6 for me overall.
There's a couple questions that I have broadly, but in terms of

(07:33):
what you were kind of predictingfrom me, I actually don't.
Wait, what? What exactly was your criticism?
Is it like the level design of the orchard or which did you
mean in terms of your predictionfor me?
I just thought you and I was pulling this out of my ass
'cause it was kind of one of my criticisms at first, but I
actually grew to like it as kindof a like anti ludic design

(07:56):
choice of how like kind of labyrinthian and confusing the
navigation can be. And like, if you have to find a
specific NPC and all you have isthat little compass at the top
and they're standing in like, the one place where it's really
annoying to find the crevice in the map that you have to walk
through to get to them is kind of annoying, Yeah.

(08:22):
In terms of that, the only criticism I had was UI stuff
that I'll talk about later, which is specifically the thing
that I wrote down that you just said, which is like the waypoint
on your like compass navigator thing.
I have criticisms for that. But otherwise I, I was fine with
most of that. Like actually moving around in
the areas was fun. Like I think I had some issues

(08:45):
on KBM specifically where there was like some unresponsiveness
with the movement that was really weird or like like it
felt really clunky for some reason.
Like I would press a button and it would take like a two second
delay. It was very strange, but I I
didn't have like huge. Issues with that?
Whatever. But in terms of I like, I
actually have some highlights for gameplay that I wanted to

(09:06):
mention that I thought actually served as the narrative really
well. For example, I think it's which
chapter is it? Is it chapter 5, Chapter 6?
I think it's chapter 5 when you are talking to the occupants and
it's the first time you get the like resonance thing.

(09:27):
You guys know what I'm talking about.
Yeah, that was absolutely a highlight in terms of gameplay
for me. I consider that gameplay because
it's kind of like Chance of Sennar, like you're trying to
understand what it's saying to you and then interpreting it.
I thought if the game did that in like every single chapter,
the gameplay could have easily been like a Nine or A10 for me.

(09:49):
Like if they just did that in every single chapter, it would
have been fucking incredible to me.
But it absolutely had low points, the biggest of which is,
and this happened a lot, any time the game forced me to talk
to everyone to progress the game, I hated that I could not
stand it. It only does that once.

(10:09):
Doesn't it? It does it multiple times.
It does it when you're in old time for the first time, I think
Chapter 6, I think that is. And it does it right before that
in Chapter 5, right after the occupant event.
And I think there's a couple more times than that, but it
does it pretty frequently well. And also I noticed it.
So here's here's like what I sayto that, I guess, which is like

(10:33):
when you brought that up. The only, the only place I could
think of where the game forces you to do that is chapter 6 when
it wants you to go around and talk to all of the like, I
forgot what they call them like the directors or whatever.
And I feel like that serves a purpose in Chapter 5 because
like they're telling you all of the like different ways that
they want you to interpret the occupants poem and you're

(10:56):
supposed to like figure it out from there.
So I feel like it made sense to do it there.
It's like part of the puzzle. But but like, I don't even, I
don't even think you have to talk to all of the people there.
I don't think I think you can just go straight to the occupant
and try to understand it. You have to talk to all the
people or else you don't have all the statements.
OK. Talking to people on lots of

(11:18):
statements. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that happened
to me. No, yeah, I, I don't know if
that, I I still just feel that it would have been slightly
better if you got like if you could just rush straight to the
occupant, talk to it, and you have all of the dialogue
options, but you can only truly understand what you're saying or
trying to communicate if you hadtalked to all of the people in

(11:40):
the area. I don't want to criticize that
part 'cause I actually love thatpart.
But in general, like being gatedbehind talking to every NPCII
feel like is not very good gameplay.
I feel like it's very bad for the narrative flow of the game.
Well I guess what I'm saying is I don't feel like I was ever
actually gated. Like I the most of the
achievements are talk to every NPC in chapter X and I don't

(12:02):
have all of those achievements. I mean, there's times where you
don't have to for sure, but I like that's three times just now
that I can remember off the top of my head.
I didn't write all of them down,but I happened multiple times.
I mean I don't remember like thedetails of everything
specifically, but I imagine if they made it unskippable the

(12:25):
thing the they I guess they may have determined that the
information you learn from thosespecific cutscenes were worth
making. Like pseudo mandatory.
Yeah. I just, I just don't agree with
that fundamentally. Like I'm thinking of the part in
chapter, I think it's chapter 5 when the occupant event happens

(12:45):
and you have to run around talking to everyone in like the
subway station or whatever. And some of them are literally
just like dead on the ground andthere's a dialogue, but you
still have to interact with them.
Oh, OK, yeah, that that one was that one was dumb.
I forgot about that one. That was, yeah, that was the one
that stood out as the worst to me.

(13:06):
But other ones, like there's therate, the timed race to the
finish at the end of the game, Ithought it was like reasonably
fun. Like it was fine, but kind of
uninspired. And then kind of related to that
one, the communions where you just zip top swooping around,
like it, it feels good. It's kind of fun, but the

(13:28):
gameplay is. Weak.
It's kind of mid. I'm kind of fine with it being
mid because, and this I, I speakonly for myself, but I had a
difficult time playing through this game, like emotionally.
So I'm glad that the gameplay was pretty bland so that like I
could like kind of like process that shit while I'm just playing
it. And then at the end of the game

(13:48):
with that race part, that like pressure part, like it was kind
of an inversion of how I was feeling while playing because I
felt like really motivated to fucking get to the end and like
make things right. And I feel.
Like I could have done that if the gameplay was more if it
asked more of me, you know what I mean?
Yeah, and I'm not, again, I'm not calling that part bad.

(14:11):
I thought it was fun, just uninspired.
Like I, and to be clear, I I meant to say this before I
dropped that word, but uninspired in this context of
that 5 minute timer gameplay section is the only time I will
use the word uninspired this entire time.
This game is incredibly inspiredoutside of that one portion.
Yeah, it's actually funny about like the the rings, specifically

(14:32):
the the zip zip rings, the gravity rings, because I
remember when I was first playing through the game and I
was thinking that this is the thing that I was going to
criticize love. Like there's no like connection
to the game world of the world building.
Why are there these Superman 64 rings?
They're just, they're just to facilitate gameplay.
And I thought I was going to hate them.
And then like later on when I found out that it's like the

(14:54):
shape of like the occupant, likeanatomy is like, OK, so there's
like a little tangible effect. And then like it was just, I was
fully in support of the of the ring gameplay during the last
section, during the the five minute time limit section.
I was just like, I felt like at that point I, maybe I just came

(15:16):
to the same conclusion as the developers were.
They decided that they needed some kind of gameplay and this
mechanic they chose, I think, atleast for me, was like the right
something like the right kind ofmechanic to have because it
yeah, I guess that's really upset.
I didn't really like pre plan anything to say on this.
So yeah, I'll have to stop here.I mean, I got to get my

(15:40):
negativity kicks in while I can and this is the only section
where I think we're going to be negative, so.
Oh yeah, for sure. Like this game, any game where
you can like compare the amount of gameplay to Edith Finch, Like
I feel like it's fair to that's just you have you have to allow
that. Yeah.
And hold on. I I need to double check if this

(16:01):
was one of Sasha's questions. I don't think it was, but I want
to make sure. I mean, it's a narrative, so you
could, yeah. They should all be narrative
related. OK, yeah.
I just want to ask this questionbecause I've been mulling it
over a lot in my head over the last couple days but I still
feel like I haven't come to a strong conclusion.
Do you guys feel like this should have been a game?

(16:23):
Like why? Why we keep dropping the word
visual novel? Why wasn't it just a visual
novel? What are your guys opinions?
On that, I think it was a visualnovel.
I think the only thing that benefits as a game is basically
the zipping around. And I I don't think I don't
think that they made the decision of we need to put
gameplays to put zips in. I think they made the decision
of we want to go through these fucked up environments like

(16:44):
these really split environments.But how can you do that by
moving around? And that's how they came up with
the zip system. I don't think they were
considering like we need to givethis more gameplay than we can
go visual novel style game. But I mean.
Sorry, go ahead. I was just going to say, in
terms of like, actually having to navigate around the orchard
and like talk to everybody, it would have been so much better
if it was like Phoenix Wright where you just literally click
on like healer's room, Fixer's room, shit like that, instead of

(17:05):
having to walk around because itwas just fucking like tedious
and asinine to move around the orchard.
See, here's where I disagree with that.
And that is where I find visual novels just kind of in general
really struggle to keep my attention because they're just,
they're not that engaging. And I feel like it forces me to

(17:27):
read at a pace that is much slower than my normal pace.
So I kind of end up getting bored.
So this game having at least like a modicum of gameplay that
is not like Edith Finch level, but it's like at least a step or
two above that works. In addition to the fact that

(17:50):
there is a myriad of environmental storytelling
aspects to this game that would get totally lost or
recontextualized if it were a visual novel, because the
environmental storytelling in this game is like second to
none. Yeah, I don't think it needs to
be a visual novel, but I think they need to give you
conveniences of moving around, like to what Seth said earlier

(18:12):
with like the control sucking. Like a big issue is if you do a
180, you can't move your character for another second.
Like if you just pivot in the other direction, you can't move
again. I'm actually there's.
A controller too. Yeah, yeah.
I was curious. About that 'cause there was a
setting that said like enable like player, like acceleration

(18:32):
or something like that and I waswondering if that has to do with
that. I didn't touch that setting.
The only setting I thought was sick which I was going to bring
up in UI is the fucking turn offringing noises that I've like
never seen before. I didn't turn it off, but after
playing through the game I realized why the button is
there. Oh, I turned it off immediately.
I was like, this is sick. Yeah, I don't know.

(18:55):
That shit doesn't bother me. And I was like, I saw that
option on I like made a point totry and like think about where
that would get used and I couldn't think of a single time.
But also, like I said, I'm I'm not, I'm not sensitive to that
kind of shit. So that's just me.
'Cause I thought, I, I thought Iheard like throughout the whole
game, like just all the time. Probably every.

(19:16):
Time there's an explosion was probably a big time.
But like going back to the wholevisual novel thing, like I, I'm
very torn on it. And that's why I wanted to talk
to you guys about it because like I, I agree with Thomas like
whole fucking hog. This is one of those games that
comes up much like control for me, where the cinematography is
just so strong that like that alone can carry it as a game, I

(19:40):
think, which is I, I think another word for what Thomas was
describing is environmental storytelling.
But like at the same time, the structure of this game feels
perfect for like a really solid anime.
I remember reading some commentson Reddit or something where
people were talking about how they felt like they were
watching Evangelion for the first time again.

(20:00):
And I don't know, like I'm. I'm so torn on it because like I
said, some of the gameplay sections definitely worked.
I wish they'd committed to things like the resonance bit
more, but at the end of the day I came away feeling like I just
wish I'd. Read a visual novel or watch an
anime or something, I don't know.

(20:22):
Yeah, I don't know, I disagree. I think that there's there's
just enough gameplay there to that it works.
And I think that some of the like confusing navigation
aspects sort of work with the game's themes, like
holistically, like it's very intentional at the orchard and
even what the hell is this old Old Town, Old Town plus new

(20:44):
Orchard or Old Orchard. I guess like they're they're
very intentionally meant to be set up as confusing and
disorienting. Like that is very much the
point. So for me, I think all of that
kind of comes together to justify its existence as a video
game because like a game that I think of when I think back as

(21:07):
like a game that I rated negatively because I had
thoughts of why the fuck was this a video game at all?
Is To the Moon. And To the Moon has more
gameplay than Edith Finch probably, but it's all just like
these shitty puzzles inside of RPG Maker game.
So to me, that game is like the embodiment of why was this a

(21:27):
game? There's not enough gameplay here
to keep me engaged or interested.
Whereas I think that this has, I'm not going to say it like
vaults over that requirement, but it definitely has just
enough that it satisfies it. I mean I like the free form
adventure game style more than the visual novel style.
I just think they didn't have the quality of knife, the

(21:48):
quality of life in the navigation to make it like
enjoyable to do. I think that's where they
failed, not that they they should be a visual novel.
Well, you know, that's what I'm saying is like, I feel like if
you include some of those quality of life aspects like
Click to go here, then it undermines like the whole reason
why it's confusing. And I like, that's why, that's
why I was saying I like backed off of that as a, as a criticism

(22:11):
for me, because I felt like it just it, it worked with the
themes of the game, like it's labyrinthian, it's alienating,
it's confusing, it's anti ludic.I think it just, it all serves
like the greater narrative of what the game's trying to
convey. I think, but I, I think
realistically it's negative because what it was built as was
supposed to be like a fucking like bastion of existence and

(22:35):
people who like the smartest minds in the world aren't going
to build a fucking labyrinth where you're going to exist in
when fucking society can't existanymore.
So. OK, but you also have to
remember the fact that Iris restricted them to this very
small part of the generational ship right?
Like the orchard is a tiny fraction of the hole that she
locked them inside of, basically.

(22:56):
Sure, I think it's due to. I I like I like at least from my
perspective, I have no issues with the labyrinthian quality to
the quote UN quote overworld, But like something I I feel like
they absolutely should have donethat.
They did it for like a single point was just add those zip zob
zoop points into the orchard. Like they're I forget when

(23:18):
exactly it happens. They they do it like I I forget
when exactly it happens. Maybe during the?
Like chapter 6? Yeah, it's around there.
Yeah, like they're in there for a little bit, but why not just
have them in there for the rest of the game?
It would be. Fine.
Yeah, it's end of chapter 5. Yeah, I remember what you're
talking about. Yeah, I agree.

(23:42):
Yeah, like I don't. Know that's God.
Yeah, it's like to Sasha's point, like I don't think the
game should have like a literal like menu select for the
navigation because they're like there's certain like hallways or
position that depending on whereyou want the story, Like the way
that you like enter like a door and they like frames the way

(24:04):
that you see the NPC that you'resupposed to talk to you.
Like I think that stuff matters.So I think that like having a
menu where you can bypass that kind of stuff a few like it
would take away the way that like you would know because it's
not there. But like AI think that there is
value that is added from having an actual environment to
explore. But I do agree that's something

(24:24):
needed to be done. Even if it went went against
their like their whole like diegetic immersive stuff like
the mini map, like there was just a mini map that was just on
the screen the whole time. I feel like I would solve every
problem. Agreed.
I mean, I mean, obviously peoplemust have like complained about
this, right? Or else they wouldn't have
patched in a map. So.

(24:45):
At least from my side, that's all I really had for gameplay
and that's the worst of the negative that I have for this
game, so. I hated the save system.
I thought the save system was dog shit.
Like they had to get to some arbitrary checkpoint that they
set up and they never tell you where the checkpoint is or like
if when you're saving, when it'sgoing to do that or any of that.
But like, either don't let the player save, or tell them when
they're saving that this isn't actually the save point.

(25:06):
I think that was just a bug because there's like a Steam
thread about it when Ben and I got that in Chapter 2 and they
mentioned something like, oh, we're going to look into this
and. I don't think it's a bug.
I think it's intentional and there's one chapter where it's
pretty egregious, like way lateron, it might literally be the
last chapter where I was checking pretty often because I

(25:27):
I saved some, I saved some this game for whatever reason.
You don't need to for anyone listening you, you really don't
need to, but I did and I would just and I did it half the time
literally just to check to see if there was when the thumbnail
would start appearing. And I think in that last chapter
it takes a really long time. So you have to do, you have to
do like that whole, you have to play that whole section in like

(25:50):
1 session really, Yeah. I was going to say I figured.
I feel like the last chapter. I'm surprised they even have a
checkpoint. Yeah, yeah, I'm kind of
exaggerating it, but like, it took a while for the thumbnail
to appear I guess is all I'm saying.
Also just want to comment because I saw some of what you
guys said earlier. Like Ben, were you saying that

(26:11):
you could basically just lose a shit ton of save progress if you
fucked up somehow? Is that what you said?
That, that was my first impression because I, that was
when I thought it was a bug where like I literally just
couldn't save anymore. And if I wanted to see it, I'd
have to like literally get to the next chapter and trigger the
auto save. That was what I was thinking.
But what I discovered is that basically what how they designed

(26:35):
it, I think, is that at the beginning of every chapter,
there's just a whole section where there are no checkpoints,
no save points, and they just expect you to play it kind of as
like a forced introduction to that chapter, OK?
And then you're able to start saving after that.
I checked, so the I checked a couple Steam threads and it's a
bug. By the way, I.

(26:56):
I don't care if it's a bug or not, it's still in the game but
it's on fixed. Literally, literally from
developers saying it's a bug. Now they keep saying they're
looking into the issue. They never fixed it, but yeah,
it's not intentional. I mean, I'll, I'll just make the
strong statement. Luckily that bug did not affect
my experience. Like I just didn't see it.

(27:18):
If it had affected my experience, if I did lose half a
chapter of progress I, I probably would have subtracted
the full letter point or a full point value from my score for
this game. Yeah, and I don't think you ever
really lose that much progress. I think you're probably looking
at like maybe like 5 to 15 minutes or worse, but it's still
fucking annoying when it happensbecause you can't skip anything
in this fucking game. Yeah.

(27:40):
Yeah, it never affected me because I played the game in one
fucking city, so. You guys want to move down to
UI? We're kind of skirting around
it, art, audio, etcetera. Yeah, I'm good with gameplay.
Yeah, sure. Same.
Do you guys have any strong feelings on what you want to
talk about here? Because I definitely do and I

(28:01):
don't want to dominate like I feel like I did for the last
one. I have no opinions on anything
other than the music owns. Yeah, that's something I
something that and this has to do with like the way that I've
been playing games recently, especially for Tash, where like
normally if I play a game at my PCI have obviously like easy
access to a keyboard, I can easily take screenshots and

(28:23):
record. But like a lot of this game I
played on the ROG Ally sitting in a massage chair.
And like I do remember there were like so many moments where
I was like the fact like that this song is played during this
like crazy intense moment and I'm just letting it sit there
playing this music and like thisis amazing.
But like I can't remember any specific one because I didn't

(28:45):
like record it and I was also like super high the entire time.
So there were definitely like amazing.
There were many amazing standoutmoments and I can't describe
like a single one. The one I absolutely want to
highlight for the song, it's theone that plays like how to keep

(29:06):
mixing up my chapters, but it's when you're talking to the
keeper, like Secretary Keeper atthe very end of the game.
The song that plays during that is fucking incredible.
I don't, I don't share the same opinion, I can't remember a
single song from the game and while playing it the whole I
intentionally played this game like with headphones and shit
and like nothing ever jumped outto me.

(29:26):
The like, the thing about the the soundtrack of this game, it
is not a soundtrack of bangers. It is like an Outer Wild
soundtrack for me where like, I'm not gonna like pull up
YouTube and Add all of these to my fucking favorite playlist or
whatever, but every single song fits every single scene fucking
perfectly. It's haunting and beautiful when

(29:47):
it needs to be. It's chunky and stressful when
it needs to be. Like the song that plays right
after the Occupant event and you're underground is so goddamn
good for what's going on in the game at that point.
It's got this like chunky synth that's going on in the
background to just keep making you stressed out.
Very good soundtrack. Oh, and there is one song that
like I do remember liking a lot and it and it and it's really

(30:09):
amplified by the section it's in.
But again, the five minute time limit, like race section, that
song it like I was locked in like when I was doing that shit.
Yeah. I actually, I think, yeah, no,
this is true. This is the first Tash game

(30:31):
we've played where I actually did go back and listen to the
soundtrack for pleasure afterwards, because I think that
this game's soundtrack is fucking amazing.
It's like a ambient Tangerine Dream kind of thing in some
ways. Yeah, this is like the kind of
soundtrack that I would put on for like studying or getting

(30:51):
high. I don't even, I don't feel
strongly enough about my opinionto like to argue it like I could
do with like the clear obscure style shit.
Like I just literally like nothing's jumped out to me and
nothing made me go like oh this is sick or anything.
Like it just had no impact on me.

(31:12):
So I I mentioned earlier I had some issues with the UI, like
with the compass thing and the markers that it puts on NPCS.
Why the hell does it make them disappear when you're a certain
distance away? That that really rubbed me the
wrong way. Yeah, that compass thing sucked.
I would never. Use Yeah, I think this game

(31:33):
suffers from like trying to hidea couple things as like air
quotes puzzles, but it's just air quotes annoying and that's
one of them. Yeah, they like, I just needed
like straight up yellow pen. I'm not even gonna lie.
Like it would have made it better.
But there is no reason like for some of those zip line things,
they like kind of hide them and it's like, what's the point?

(31:55):
Like there's no fucking point for these to be like, hidden.
There was one example of that ina one of the community sections
towards the end where it's like very loose as to where you go
next. Like normally those communities
where zipping around is pretty obvious, but there's one where
she's like dressed in black and she's on top of a black plane or
some shit. Like.

(32:15):
How the I'm I'm again? I'm very lucky that I monitor
sooner cuz it would have been bad otherwise.
That is one of the ones where I did get lost and then I did the
trick where I just I killed myself, left the game like load
the auto save and it just puts you kind of where you need to go
next. Yeah.
Yeah, those sections like I liked.

(32:37):
So my thing with those is I feellike you either you either
commit to it or you don't. And there's just like a couple
times where they committed to itand it just felt unnecessary,
kind of annoying. All the other notes I have for
UI stuff is I just thought that it's like pretty simple, but I
thought it works like making thetext of each sister, the color

(33:01):
of their like suit and whatever like that worked pretty well for
me. I liked it.
I wanted to ask you guys how youfelt a lack of animations for
like 99% of the game. I felt like like, again, I'm,
I'm a little bit torn on it. And that's why I'm asking you
guys because on one sense, I felt like it added this like

(33:22):
cold, lifeless and robotic quality to the characters.
And I wanted to ask you guys if you felt like that was
intentional or unintentional, and if it was intentional or if
you feel like it was intentional, why would they add
in animations for the bigger cutscenes, like the start of the
game, for example? So this is kind of why I had no

(33:42):
opinion on this section is because I think the the the
actual graphics and model stuff of this game are incredibly mid.
They are like they they just they barely surface for air
above serviceable and that is about it.
And some of the some of the animations were actually like

(34:02):
all of them. Yeah, really.
So yeah, that's pretty much my opinion on that.
And to be honest, so I like Citizen Sleeper, but I would not
expect the developer Citizen Sleeper to make a bunch of good
models and animations given whatthat game is so.
Just to clarify, it's publisher,not developer.
This developer is the first timedeveloper.

(34:24):
That's the same publisher as Citizen Sleeper.
I gotcha. Fuck this is a banger debut game
then. Yeah, they're all, they all have
like, like liberal arts backgrounds.
Like that's why it's so cinematographer.
Yeah, some cinema. Whatever.
Cinema. Cinema, Yeah, I think.
I don't know what. Yeah, yeah, I fucked myself up.
The language as well. I didn't do like a lot of
research, but I remember in the credits it looked like they

(34:45):
partnered with like a universityor something like that.
Would make sense or? Did I make that up?
I knew there was like there was something to do with like
Project Asian Women representation or something like
that, like AWR, which I'd never heard of until I saw it in the
credits of this game. So I knew that there was some
kind of like educational, like establishment, kind of like
connection with the development of this game.

(35:06):
They did also it. Wasn't a lot of people.
That's all I thought. They did also mention in that
interview that I think three of us have listened to one of one
of the reasons that they didn't make this like a movie or a show
or whatever, or, or like a lot of them were into like dance and
choreography. Like they actually performed in
theater and shit. One of the reasons that they

(35:27):
didn't perform it as like a playor something is because they
they would, they would have to find like 25 kids and then like
make all those kids look similarto each other.
And then like the scene they're referencing was one of the early
shots where it's like all the kids floating around when the
fires hit. Like, OK, we would have to get
like pulleys and harnesses and set them up on this and get

(35:50):
insurance. So I thought it was funny.
That was one of the reasons thatthey didn't go with that medium.
So I said I had no real nothing to add here, but I have since
thought of two things to add. So I guess I'll start with
something that we've kind of already touched on, which is

(36:12):
like the actual cinematography in the framing of this game is
some of the best I have ever seen in any game.
Very good. That's very cool.
Actually reminds me this this may, this may sound a little
weird, but it may, it actually reminds me a lot of like, oh
man, what's his name? Rodger Deakins, the guy who did

(36:33):
a lot of cinematography for likeBlade Runner and Blade Runner
2049. Actually reminds me a lot of his
style, like the way that he has these, like horizontal, like
crosscut shots, like. Yeah, very, very Rodger Deakins
I. Think it's probably for me the
best part about the game. I think they did some really
cool shit, and it's like it's things like that that all you

(36:54):
need is ideas. You don't need a budget, right?
Because this game clearly didn'thave a budget.
Yeah, for sure. And so when I say Roger Deakins
like or later on, we're going tohave like our favorite like
still frame shot award or whatever.
And the one that I have, the first thing I thought when I saw
it is in in Seth and Ben, you might know what I'm talking

(37:16):
about here is that straight on horizontal shot in sicario of
the family sitting in like the pergola outside.
Yeah, the shot in this game thatI picked for that just reminded
me of that a lot. I.
Suppose you don't see more shit like that in games because of
the absolute freedom you have over the camera.
Seems like it could be like really.

(37:37):
Easy. I absolutely think it's a shame
that more games don't abuse the fuck out of that particular
quality of their medium because like like to the point you guys
are making. The only other game I can think
of that was as good as this gamespecifically on cinematography
was Control, which was like lauded but I don't think it was
lauded for that reason. And the fact that this like

(37:59):
random fucking debut indie game did it as well as I don't know
if Control's considered a AAA game, but like a game that's
that well known, it's it's like fucking insane that that's it's
not more well. Used so I can think, I can name
22 developers off the top of my head that I think do actually
leverage a lot of good cinematography in their games.

(38:22):
Number one is Naughty Dog like Last of Us.
Last of Us 2 and the Uncharted games are both shot very well,
like shot in a way that they knew that they were going to end
up as movies or TV shows one dayand someone I don't like playing
their games but definitely has an eye for this.
Jim, yes. Yeah, for sure.

(38:43):
That's fair. I think also just to.
You know, be the guy that. Always brings up Dark Souls.
I think Fromsoft is also really good, maybe not at like
cinematography in the way we're thinking of it, but they're very
good at creating set piece moments with how the camera is
framed. Like when you first step foot
out into the Lands Between and you see the herd tree, for
example. They're very good at creating

(39:03):
those moments. Yeah, they're very good at
creating those. Like, wow, like holy shit.
Like big scale moments like theyare.
That's like their calling card. I think near automata also has
like cool camera ship but I think it's more like gameplay
integrated camera than like cinematics.
Yeah, there's, there's a couple really good ones in Automata,

(39:24):
yeah. Yeah, that's what I mean, not
the my. Microphone's cutting out.
I'm sorry, I don't know what's going on, but the two I'm
thinking of is any of the shots that are like the Last Supper
for Adam and Eve. Those ones are always really
good. And when to be to be stabbed?
Yep. Yeah, for sure.

(39:46):
No, yeah, I 100% agree with that.
I actually, I was actually thinking about that because a
few weeks ago when I was flying home from my work trip, I was on
the plane and I kind of got bored of playing Torment, Tides
of Newman Era. And the only other game on the
Steam Deck that I had installed at the time that was like this
looks kind of fun was Automata. So I just played through like

(40:08):
the first two hours of Automata.And the way that that game like
plays with the camera as it jumps from like the schmutt
parts to like third person action to side scrolling
platformer like and then top down sections, it's, it's
fucking awesome. I don't want to get off on too
much of A tangent, but that is definitely a game that leverages

(40:29):
it well. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I think like bringing it back to this game, this game
kind of does that because this game does like the first person
perspective, the side view perspective, like it does a
bunch of different perspectives.And I think it does that
because, like, Near kind of did that.
Yeah, But I think Nier did it obviously, like way more
interesting because this game doesn't have, like, that kind of
gameplay depth to it and to be able to do anything interesting
with it. But I think it was still cool
that this game did a lot with the camera.

(40:50):
Yeah, Nier. Nier used it in its gameplay and
this game used it more in like acinematic.
Way. Which is fine.
Yeah, they they serve as the narrative more with the the the
other thing I absolutely want togive this game praise for in
addition to the cinematography. Maybe this is just
cinematography, but the lightingin this game, Oh my fuck God,
the lighting is amazing. Holy.

(41:11):
Yes. Look into None.
I really liked it. They're like certain like
desaturated sections like in like the communion style levels
where you're like inside the thethe apartments, like the the
really soft shading of that lighting looks really nice.
Like if you go to the the Orchard, look at the beginning,

(41:34):
that shit looks like Fantasy Star Online running on the
Dreamcast hardware. Like it's Oh yeah.
Look, I don't understand, like how these are in the same.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, like. Let me be clear with one of my
criticisms here. Like all of the good stuff in
this game feels like it is thereto just out shadow all of the

(41:56):
bad stuff to just wash it out completely.
Lighting and cinematography are an example of that.
Because kind of what you're saying, God, I remember running
around in the orchard and there's some assets in the
orchard that they just look likethey're from fucking quake, Like
they're just like shaved in thislike smooth diamond Y way that
like that makes it sound better than it is, but it it just it it

(42:19):
just didn't look good. I don't.
Know how they describe it? They look like unironic
vaporwave assets. Yeah, I mean, I I like that
stuff, but it's because the gamethat Ben compared it to is like
one of my favorite games of all time.
So I didn't mind that it looked like a Dreamcast game.
But I mean what you guys said with the lighting and
everything, that's kind of they use basically the technology of

(42:40):
the engine to be able to out produce the budget that they had
basically. So that's why I think that you
basically don't have any graphicsettings because if you change
any of the if you if you like turned bloom off in this game,
it would look like dog shit. Because everything that looks
good about this game is like lighting and like vibrant color
related. Yeah, for sure.
Speaking of Speaking of Ben mentioning something

(43:02):
desaturated, I just wanted to bring up really quick.
At some point in the channel, wewere talking about how this game
was like near ish and I was like, I wonder if you guys are
gonna like get to the same pointI did where I was like, oh, this
game is like hella cribbing off of near.
And it was the point at which I think it was maybe the beginning

(43:24):
of the beginning of either chapter two or three, I forget.
But watch her like wakes up in her bed and you have that shot
through the window of her layingdown in her bed.
And it's all like desaturated like whites and Grays.
And I was like, oh, this is literally to be waking up in the
moon base. Like it is it is.
It is the same shot I remember. Many shots that gave me that

(43:47):
kind of vibe in like narrative moments at times too.
However, I just want to say right off the bat, talking about
this, I felt like this game in almost every regard
differentiated itself enough from Automata that I, I don't
even like. I don't know if we're going to
levy that as a criticism to thatgame, but I certainly don't
want. To Oh hell no, I think that this

(44:09):
this this game, the only thing it shares in common with near
automata is like surficial at best.
It like in terms of like the visuals or like just very like
first order plot points. Yeah, I guess like just based on
the vibes I was seeing in the channel and like all the
comparisons people seem to be making to Automata, like on the

(44:32):
reviews that I saw from this game, I just like like, yeah,
they're there if you like, like if you just look at things one
to one, I guess. But like this game just has so
much more to say and is so much more than just like a simple
comparison between the two games.
It's not just a carbon copy RIP off.

(44:53):
I would disagree that it has so much more to say because I think
they they just say different things like.
That's what I meant. That's what I meant, yeah.
Yeah, just like the the comparison to near for me pretty
much begins and ends at a bunch of robot babes trapped in a
cycle of violence. Like that's that's where the
near comparison pretty much starts and ends for me.

(45:15):
Yeah, I think it's only like certain shots and stuff like
that that you guys mentioned. I think it there's like clear
inspiration, but I think it's it's fucking different.
Yeah, definitely inspired by butnot like.
Yeah, it's not celebrated. Yeah.
And even then, like I, I just feel like some of those sources
of inspiration, like like legitimately, I don't know if
this game was direct, like in those moments that feel like

(45:38):
it's quote UN quote copying Automata.
I don't know if they were actually copying Automata.
I just think that they shared a similar source of core
inspiration. So like there's a lot of those
like kind of 2D shots and stagesin this game like Automata has.
I I legitimately think they justdid a lot of that because they
fucking love theater and they just created a stage.

(45:59):
Yeah, honestly, the only one where I really had like a oh,
that's that's straight out of near is the one that I
mentioned. I wonder if I took a screenshot
of it. But outside of that, like I,
that is pretty much that was thebeginning and the end of me
thinking like, oh, this, this game is like very much trying.
To. Imitate aspects of near.

(46:20):
It's just that that one shot, that was exactly just how I
described it. Yeah.
I don't think like the stage or anything that you mentioned is
like related to near it all. I think like you said, that's
just completely different, like from different source material.
In terms of imitation, there aretwo points or two sections that
are, I swear they're like almostlike straight lifts from Deus Ex

(46:41):
Human Revolution. The previously mentioned like
apartments that are desaturated and the like the Hong Kong style
like cyberpunky, like street corner where bartender was in
chapter 6. Like if you guys play Human
Revolution, you get those parts,you'll be like, it's literally

(47:02):
like the same aspects and everything, like same colors,
same placement and everything. Yeah, now that you say that, I
do agree because like you've gotlike something like almost akin
to the basketball courts back alley section like yeah, yeah.
No, now that you say that and I'm picturing in my head, I
agree. I still, I still don't know if

(47:25):
they would if they've even been exposed to that game though, or
if that's just like they both came from the same source
material, right? Like.
Yeah, guarantee it came straightfrom the fucking game.
Not like stolen, but like it wasclearly like, I feel like it was
clearly like an obvious like nodto Deus Ex.
So maybe I have no idea. Cuz like with stuff like that, I

(47:47):
just never know if they're like if they're getting their
inspiration from that or if bothgames just imitate a Hong Kong
St. corners really well, you know?
Exactly I. Don't know.
It's so close. Like, I know that you guys would
have to just take my word for it, but still.
No, I I do agree with you and insome respects like I can

(48:09):
definitely see that, but also I could also just see it just
being sort of like a generic like cyberpunk back alley design
that will just look the same kind of no matter what it is.
But I I do see what you mean. Yeah, I mean, it could be like
what Seth said. I mean, cuz these, I think these
developers are from Hong Kong and if not, they definitely have

(48:29):
like deep ties to Hong Kong. So maybe Deus Ex literally just
took their environments as a Hong Kong inspiration and then
they both just came from the same like it's Hong Kong.
I believe, I don't want to make anything up, but I'm pretty sure
that like the two people in thatinterview that we watched, I
believe that they are Chinese Canadian.

(48:50):
So there were at least some members of the staff that had
Chinese heritage. Oh, there's no doubt in my mind.
I just don't know. Like, yeah, yeah.
Because the game, like, tackled like the whole Hong Kong
revolution. That should.
In the game. Yeah, so that's why I like
clearly and their fucking name. Like Sunset Visitor on Steam
also has like the Chinese characters for Sunset Visitor

(49:11):
after them so. Yeah, if you told me that these
were literally like a bunch of Mandarin guys who made a game or
I guess Cantonese of Hong Kong, like, I would have believed you.
Yeah. They they do speak Cantonese
right in the game. Yeah, that's what that's what
their parents speak, I believe, I think because.
They do speak both. I think jazz.
Speaks Mandarin? Yeah, Jazz speaks Mandarin.

(49:34):
Jazz speaks Mandarin and Iris and her family speak Cantonese,
which I think it's like a point of contention.
Exactly. Yep.
I thought, I hope that's true. Hopefully my racism isn't
showing, but I'm pretty. Sure, I'm going to let my racism
show. If you asked me what the
difference was between the two, I I could not fucking tell you.

(49:54):
The one the one fucking Asian guy in this chat.
Exactly what? Did you guys think of the voice
acting? That was going to be the next
thing I brought up. I thought it was very, very, it
was very, very good, if uneven at times, but like 97% really

(50:16):
good, 3% a little bit kind of. It was it easily cleared chaos
force me. There was one the dad, the voice
actor for the dad sounded exactly like a Co worker that I
was working just for like the past two years.
Like he said, they sound exactlythe fucking thing.

(50:36):
So it cracked me up every time he spoke, which was kind of
fucked up at some parts of the game.
Oh yeah. Yeah, I thought the voice acting
like kind of like Thomas said itlike 99% of the time it was
stellar, like clear, obscure levels at times I felt.
But I had issues with it that I,I as I was playing, I really

(50:57):
couldn't put my finger on it. I think there's an issue with
the sound mixing. I'm not confident in that.
But I think there's an issue in the sound mixing because there's
there's some lines where I felt like I was hearing microphone
pops. I felt like the sound was
incredibly uneven and that was affecting my perception of their

(51:17):
performance. It it was very strange.
For me, I think there was just like a few like one off
characters or one off voice lines.
Like like like from characters who only have maybe one or two
voice lines where it was like they just grabbed someone from
the break room and were like, hey, record this real quick.
And then like the kid who does the fucking rap in the high

(51:39):
school. That just.
Sounds. That just sounds that.
Was that was like my favorite part.
Like why does he sound like he'sabout to cry it?
Was so, yeah, I think that's thepoint because he's infected with
the virus at that point, right? So he's already starting to,
like, lose his fucking mind. Oh.
Shit, that's a good point. Yeah.
It's, it's not an award, but I absolutely want to give best

(52:01):
voice actor award to, I believe it's Johnson the 50.
Oh my fucking God, that guy's good. 100% agree, that guy was
really fucking good. See the crazy part is I thought
the voice acting was dog shit across the board like.
That's crazy, yeah. That's crazy.
I thought all, I think, I thought all the sisters were

(52:22):
terrible, but all the performances I thought were
crazy bad. That's insane.
I thought. That I'm surprised to hear you
guys like it that much because I.
Thought I mean. I don't agree with that, but
it's too short I guess. I like.
I mean I. The most part.
Like I I think about this a lot because I want to like dabble in
voice acting and shit once I have a halfway decent
microphone. I felt like for the most part

(52:45):
their performances were really good.
The worst criticism I could giveis that sometimes they're kind
of one note. Like some characters just sound
the same in every situation. I mean, I can tell you that's
because all the sisters are the same person.
Yeah, yeah. And that's like that's part of
the point. They're all clones.
They're all these like, childlike clones.

(53:05):
And so like Fixer, for example, like I could see just in a
vacuum, seeing that character islike a pretty bad performance.
But like, these people are basically like toddlers, like
adult toddlers. And so for that reason, their
performances really work well for me.
Yeah, like I think if I had to point to a single performance

(53:28):
that I think was like just extremely fucking good,
actually, I'll pick 21. Is BBF Bang Bang Fire extremely
well performed or nowhere? Either one of those You can.
You can pick either one and theyare both extremely fucking good.
I think I have a minority opinion.

(53:48):
My favorite by very far was the mother.
I thought she was. She was good.
I thought she was terrible. I thought Iris was like the
worst one. Really real kid Iris.
No, when I say mother, I'm talking about her mother.
Sure, yeah, I'm I'm talking about kid Iris because kid Iris
shouldn't be like what you guys are describing.
She should. She's more like sociopathic and
like doesn't have like the lack of I I guess the fucking clones

(54:14):
don't shouldn't either because they're fucking 2000 years old
or whatever the. Fuck, I feel like she definitely
conveys that. Like sort of like nihilistic?
Oh sure, well don't give a fuck like high school teenager.
Yeah, for me, I I just feel likeit cuz I did very little minor
research about this game and in developing this game they want

(54:35):
to explore like what it feels like to be a part of like the
second a generation immigrant, immigrant, like diaspora.
I think that's what the word is.Yeah, exactly.
And as someone, I guess that is literally that.
Like I thought the voice acting was like spot on for like
literally everybody. That's just me.

(54:57):
I agree that Johnson was good. I can tell you there's one
that's like really good but it'slike they all have pockets of
being good. Like I think BBF was good and
then became bad when she like started the basically after like
chapter 6 or whatever. Then I think like BBS
performance is like a different character basically.
She, but she is. She lost her fucking shit.
Yeah, I mean, and also I don't Idon't, I didn't like the

(55:18):
character after that turn. I think Healer was really good
during her communion and like just felt like it was like a
different performance for the rest of the game.
Like Healer was awesome in awesome in her communion and
then it just felt like the character like disappeared after
that. I remember too, I was going to
say I will agree with Sesh and maybe this is a hot take, but I
really thought Zhao's performance was terrible.

(55:38):
I thought that was really bad. I thought Xiao.
Was perfect. I feel like that was no whack.
Yeah, like exploring in terms oflike embodying like the
diaspora, like that Zhao character is yeah, like is like
laser focused. She actually dude, they
literally, they literally, they literally call her fobby like
she is fobby to the Max like sheis supposed to be exactly what

(56:01):
she is. In, in terms of that, in terms
of representing the second generation diaspora, that's
that's fine. Like, yeah, she does that, but
there's a point in that interview where they give the
actress a prompt like, OK, we want you to be like sappy or
happy or sad here or whatever. I can't remember the prompt.
But if you told me that she was just not given a single prompt

(56:23):
for any different line of dialogue, I would 100% believe
you. Because when I said earlier that
some of the characters are very one note, Zhao is the absolute
worst fucking offender of that. Every single contact.
She does not sound different from picture Zhao to Candy jow
to Toffee Jow. All of them sound the same.
I think that's intentional though, yeah, here's.
I think it's. All here's here's why I disagree

(56:43):
with that. It's because a, she's like a
brand new immigrant to the country who can barely speak
English and is like repeatedly called Fabi.
And she is like mostly, I think every single line of dialogue
you hear from her is directed atIris, who she is like
unhealthily infatuated with. So like her being one note or

(57:08):
kind of like sort of over the top, like just makes total
sense. I would agree with you more if
that was not true for the three Jows post chapter 5.
But they're not the Jow, they'rethey're just a Jow.
That would be like trying to compare Watcher or Healer to
Iris. Well yeah, exactly.

(57:28):
So they should sound different, like Watcher and blue sound
different. Why do all the gals sound the
same? They absolutely sound different
and also they're also trying to fucking run an underground
rebellion so they don't want to like stand out too much.
Yeah, the standing out thing is I think the key thing here is
because like I think by them sounding very similar, it it

(57:50):
like cements them as like a supporting role.
Yeah, I mean, my question reallywas, was the was the
performances intentionally weirdand bad?
Because I I thought we were all going to say they're bad, but I
thought it was going to be are they intentionally fucking like
weird Because they're they're all weird except like Johnston,

(58:11):
is it Johnson or Johnson? Like, I don't remember, but that
guy was Johnson. Yeah, he was good.
I. Don't know, I just.
I guess I didn't think it was weird.
I. Also, I also like the secretary
of the the Watcher secretary, not not blue secretary.
Yeah, I agree. I I really wish.
They I agree with that, the samevoice I I did not like the new

(58:33):
secretary. I thought the Watcher secretary
was sick though he was great. You reminded me of what's his
face? Emil Yeah, exactly.
That's now that you bring that up, I think that's like a huge
inspiration like that. That felt big time.
Emil Energy. Yeah, I thought the the younger
secretary performance absolutelyhighlighted the like kind of

(58:56):
dreamlike, airy qualities that alot of the other performances
give at times, which is also true for all of the 50.
I could. I could listen to Johnson's
voice for today, his whole mole.He was great.
Well man this is crazy. I thought everyone across the
board was going to be glazing the fucking voice acting because
I thought it was like after the just the after the narratives

(59:19):
like the best part of the game in my opinion.
I thought it was all over the fucking place.
Like I thought during the each character's communions they were
like like elevated. And then after that they just
like the performance just dialedback.
And I thought like, yeah, even like Watcher's performance.
I thought it was like meh, Bluesperformance.
I thought it was extra man. I want to ask Sessions opinion

(59:39):
on one thing. Did you hear Fixer's song?
Yes, I thought that part was cool.
But did you feel like like the performance was good?
Yeah, I thought that was fine. I I think it's just like the
delivery of individual lines that I think is very weird
because they're like all over the place.
OK Yeah, I don't think that they're necessarily like a bad

(01:00:01):
voice actor. I think it's just kind of like
inconsistent delivery and like, like, it's just like weird tones
and like, yeah, like you said, like the mixing kind of felt off
at sometimes. And yeah, like she just like the
voice actor ran out of breath and her volume just got really
quiet and then they didn't do anything about it.
It was weird. This way this motherfucker has
the lowest sentiment score. No, I mean, I, I don't know,

(01:00:23):
I'm, I'm like a happy middle ground because I thought the
highs of this game were fucking literally like, I don't want to
say AAA quality, but like some of the 10 out of 10 games we've
given quality and other ones like Jiao just really stood out
to me as not great performances.Maybe the directing was fine.
Like you guys are kind of getting it more of the directing
and the style that they were going for and that's fine.

(01:00:44):
I just didn't get a strong senseof performance from that.
I don't know, to me she was supposed to be an awkward
infatuated like brand new immigrant with a lesbian vibe
and the character was exactly that.
It jow didn't bother me that much for the record, Like I just

(01:01:07):
thought it was like whatever, like kind of like you guys said
and like if that's kind of what the character is supposed to be,
so that when I kind of was like more forgiving of.
I do agree that blue is kind of underwhelming though.
Oh, I thought was, I don't even know why that character's in the
game. I I thought, watch it.
We'll get there. I'll talk about that later.
But yeah. No, there, there's a reason.
And they, yeah, I feel like theyexplicitly spell it out too, and
I do accept it even though they watch her.

(01:01:29):
More. Yeah.
I mean, I just, I just, yeah. I just mean her performance is
like, yeah, yeah, yeah, like maybe 1/2 step down from the
rest of the sisters. But that's also mostly because I
think the rest of the sisters are fucking incredible.
I also thought Principal wasn't that good.
Principal was better written than she was performed.
I agree with that, but that's not bringing her down by that

(01:01:49):
much. Sure.
Again, I think all the characters like have high points
like during their communions. I think they're fucking
fantastic. And yeah, I think I think
Nowhere is pretty good too, but it's I don't think it's complex.
I don't think it's a complex performance, but Nowhere is
definitely the most consistent performance for sure.
I think nowhere is the most complex character in this game.
Well, sure, I'm saying it's not a complex.
Performance of the yeah, yeah. Yeah, well.

(01:02:12):
I think those things kind of go hand in hand in some ways,
though not. In this game as much, I think
it's she's complexly written, but like the performance is very
consistent and I think that's kind of what the character is.
It's a consistent character. Yeah.
Like if she wanted to convey more of the complexity of her
character in her performance, I would expect more like kind of
withdrawn, like trying to hold back tears during like the for.

(01:02:35):
Example. And I think diving into this
point takes us too far in the narrative.
But. Sure.
I don't think you're ever supposed to feel like Noah is a
person who would ever, like, breakdown into tears.
You're supposed to see Noah is aperson who is willing to, like,
do whatever it takes to survive.Yeah, which I think, I think

(01:02:56):
that's contributing to the simple performance, right?
If if a character like that breaks down into tears, that's
suddenly like a more complex performance.
Yeah, but it's made complex by the fact that she's willing to
do whatever it takes to survive,but is also trying to go against
like, the authoritarian leader to keep this other person alive.
Like to her possible detriment, like she's walking this crazy
tightrope. I like what is it?

(01:03:18):
What is it in her performance that is saying that is what
we're asking? Yeah, because I'm, I agree with
you in the writing they heard the writing of that character is
phenomenal. Because she never like belies
exactly what it is that she thinks.
Like, I mean, I don't know aboutyou guys, but like it took me
forever to like deduce what I thought about nowhere.

(01:03:38):
Because I think, fuck it, let's just segue in the narrative.
Fuck you guys, that a big theme of this game is like the line
that someone can cross that makes them irredeemable and like
what that point is. And I think that this game like

(01:04:02):
through performance and through writing, tries to convey how
complex that line can get blurred.
And nowhere is like part and parcel, the like embodiment of
that theme. And I think that through her
performance being very intentionally understated, like
you don't have to fucking screamand shout and have like Oscar

(01:04:25):
moments to have a good performance.
Her performance is good via being understated and not giving
her character away and like whather motivations are and what
she's trying to accomplish. I feel like she kind of let you
know what her motivations are very early on, where it's like
nothing is worth dying for basically.
So why would she like not just immediately hand over Watcher to

(01:04:49):
be executed? That's the easy way to survive
in her predicament. I mean, I guess I don't even
know what the character is reason for keeping watcher alive
is. Like I like.
I guess all I'm trying to say with regards to the performance
is like like clearly a line should be performed differently,

(01:05:13):
whether it's or or if it's between nowhere like quote UN
quote relaxing and like you're talking to her at the library or
whatever, like nothing stressfulis happening versus she's like
literally torturing one of her sisters.
Like I there's a difference between giving something away in
terms of like her character motivations or whatever and
having a performance that just hints at it a little bit like

(01:05:37):
the performance I'm thinking of to kind of agree with you.
Thomas is Ryan, Ryan Gosling andBlade Runner.
Like he's very good at being a very understated but
communicating a lot with what he's acting and how he says his
lines. I, I, I feel like to really like
cement my opinion on this. I would literally have to like

(01:05:58):
listen to some of her isolated lines to say.
But as I was playing, I, I just it's not a bad performance.
I'm not trying to say that. It just was not one of the more
stellar ones compared to like Johnson, for example.
I don't know, I thought she was like along with BBF and Johnson,

(01:06:18):
those would be my top three in this game for sure.
And again, I think it's just sheconveys, she conveys that like
wanting to survive at any cost, but also like this desperation
to protect this person that she loves that is caught in the
middle of her like prime directive in a like perfect way.

(01:06:43):
I think an issue now that I'm realizing I have is that like
none of the characters like everconvey sadness or like wanting
to cry or anything like that. I.
Think there's a reason for that?I I don't know if I agree.
Which character cries in the game?
It's not that they cry, but I think they still convey crying.
Like fix your song for example. Well this also just dives

(01:07:06):
straight into narrative and I know I said fuck you guys, but I
don't know if you actually want to move on from all the UI sound
stuff. I don't really have anything to
talk about in UI, I just. Didn't want to lose my point.
Yeah, I don't have anything elseto bring up for UI stuff.
They're. The same.
Yeah, so in my opinion, I think that the reason why you never

(01:07:28):
see the clones or at least the sisters in like a heightened
emotional state is they are clones of a sociopath.
Like, I think that's just part and parcel kind of the thing
because each each sister kind ofrepresents a function of I
guess, a literal function of like some portion of irises like

(01:07:51):
inherited like generational trauma.
And given the fact that she's very clearly a fucking maniac, I
would not expect any of them to like breakdown and cry or like
lose their shit. Like the one exception to that
is BBF who is like the meant to be the like foil to that where
she's kind of like the childlikegoofy side of Iris.

(01:08:17):
I think, I think to me personally, I think it would be
more interesting if some of the characters would have picked up
kind of like emotional ways to like over the 2000 years or I
don't know how exactly. It's at least like 1000 years
that they've been like isolated together.
So yeah, like I understand that part of it, but that's why I
also think that the like the a lot of the acting is like

(01:08:39):
simpler performances because youdon't have to go into like those
deep emotional realms. Yeah, but keep in mind, too,
that like, I mean, that touches on one of the biggest themes in
this game, which is like the waythat your memories and trauma
get passed from generation to generation.
With these sisters. Nothing is getting passed from
generation to generation. They're being cloned from like

(01:09:01):
the same piece of DNA. It's not like they're evolving
or passing on, like, traits and genes.
They are being born from the same person with the same
genetic code over and over again.
Am I? Am I crazy for just completely
disagreeing that these characters don't show emotion?
Or am I putting words? No.

(01:09:21):
No, no, they they show emotion. I just, I think that yeah, they,
they don't, they don't get big emotions, big sadness, big and
big mad. When they get big mad, but they
don't get, they don't like no one cries and like, yeah, it's,
it's anger is the emotion that they show.
Yeah, and I mean, that makes sense, right?
Because Iris is very clearly thefucking rage filled individual.

(01:09:46):
Yeah. I just think it would be
personally like more interestingfor the performances if like
maybe like Watcher or something figured that out because it
watches and goes, hey, we're missing this or something, you
know, like not to go too far into like here's how I would
write it. But that's why for me, I think,
I think that's kind of like a big thing for me because I like
in performances a lot. Like kind of that when

(01:10:06):
characters get like really emotional on that side, like
Verso and kind of all that shit.I'd rather them just be
consistent and I felt like they were all very consistent.
I, I, I guess if I were to give one criticism in that regard,
it's kind of a crying shame thatthe actual like super highlight

(01:10:27):
emotional moments in this game don't have much in the way of
performances as they're happening.
I'm thinking of like when when Watcher smashes secretary.
Can you guys sorry, I think my mic's looking at it again.
No, you're good. Like when Watcher smashes
secretary or when she stabs the all mother.
Like there's a couple lines, I guess, but there's not much that

(01:10:49):
is said period. There is not much to give a
performance of. But I'd like that's not
necessarily a criticism of like what's happening, like like the
fact that there's not a line. I don't think it's a bad thing.
I think it's still it's fine. I don't know.
I think Secretary's performance is great, getting smashed.

(01:11:11):
Did he say stuff while he was getting smashed?
I was more thinking. Yeah, there was definitely like
a wait, no, please don't kind ofthing.
All right, let's get off the performances and officially dive
into narrative. Jordan, I think you can probably
direct this one a little bit since you've got like the

(01:11:31):
questions and shit. Sure.
Yeah. So question number one was, was
the payoff from all the mystery that the game was putting down
Satisfactory or did it fall short?
And is this like the big mystery, something that you
value in games generally been? I guess in this particular game,
I didn't really value the mystery so much as I did just

(01:11:51):
the motivation that I felt towards making sure that all the
characters got as good of an ending as possible.
So I guess like you could, I mean, this is a super stretch,
but finding out if there is a good ending, is that a mystery?
I don't think so. So I guess I don't know, when I
was playing through the game, the mystery, like I guess I just

(01:12:14):
kind of assumed that everything would be explained and I guess
that's kind of a cop out answer,but I, I don't know, I was just
so emotionally wrecked. I didn't.
I didn't really want to spend that much time trying to like,
piece together everything logically in the moment I guess.

(01:12:34):
Yeah, I can see that. Sorry, that's all I had.
I didn't mean to like. No, you're good.
Do you want to? Go sure.
So I I feel like like a quote UNquote big mystery is better

(01:12:59):
served when it happens naturallyand isn't like a focal point of
the story. So the thing that got me like
thinking after I read this question is like lost, right?
So with something like Lost, it's like, it's always, well,
not always, but it's usually going to be nearly impossible to
live up to the mystery that it builds up.

(01:13:20):
Because I think we as human beings have a tendency to like
build up a ton of like contrivances and like story
endpoints in our heads that likeend up in an idealized version
of that story and what it is that you actually want.
So anything less than your idealized version is just going
to naturally be worse. And by the end of it, you're

(01:13:43):
just going to be like, well, whydidn't they do this?
And this would have been so muchbetter.
And they didn't answer this and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
So like, with that in mind, I didn't really get a huge sense
that like the overarching mystery from this game.
I, I didn't get that huge sense like I was watching something

(01:14:04):
like Severance or Knives Out or whatever, right?
Like, and then rewinding back toloss.
Like JJ Abrams describes his storytelling technique right as
like the mystery in a box or whatever.
And so the way he describes thatis you drop people in the middle
of the mystery, like while the mystery is in progress, and that
leaves you as the audience wanting to know answers in both

(01:14:27):
directions. And so to me, this game is less
about using a mystery in that way as a hook and more about
using it as like a lens that it wants to use that mystery to
constantly like reframe the story and what you're seeing.
So to me, like there isn't really like the game doesn't
really dangle a mystery box. It's going to blow the doors off

(01:14:50):
the room when it's opened. It's more about using some of
the questions it has to try and shift your perspective on things
that you're already aware of. So like to me, it never really
felt like the game was looking for a pay off to that mystery so
much as it was looking for like a satisfying emotional
conclusion. And I think that the game hits

(01:15:11):
on that, like, perfectly. I used to like it.
Seth, do you want to go? Yeah, I agree with a lot of what
Thomas said, but I I think I might be coming at it from a
slightly different angle. If I understood everything he
said correctly, my answer to thequestion is just a simple yes.

(01:15:31):
I felt that the payoff for all the mystery the game was putting
down was satisfactory. And I have a very specific
reason for feeling that way. And that is that when the game
starts and you see Watcher killing all mother, you kind of
get the sense that that is goingto be the end of the game.
Or at least I felt that way. Like all of the events of the

(01:15:51):
game are going to lead up to this moment.
And maybe there will be like a chapter afterwards for the
fallout, but it'll probably end somewhere around there.
So I was actually really surprised when the game kept
going and it set its I wasn't necessarily surprised that the
game didn't stop there after I, you know, played the rest of the
game. But what I was surprised by it

(01:16:12):
was that it actually set its scope fairly wide.
And I felt like that was a much better pay off for the mystery
than like answering the the kindof question that you're posed at
the start of the game. I felt like if this game was
purely about the mystery, then for example, at the start of the

(01:16:32):
game, it wouldn't have shown youwho killed the all Mother.
It would have just shown someonekilling the All Mother, and then
you would get to see the events leading up to it, try to figure
out, OK, one of the sisters is going to kill Leon mother.
Who's it? Who's it going to be like?
This game didn't feel like it was about mystery to me, kind of
like Thomas was getting at. It felt like it was more about
the emotional moments. And for that reason, through the

(01:16:53):
frame of this question, I feel like it did work for me.
You fucking asshole, you basically stole my answer to the
next question. Yeah, because when you were
talking about that, I thought you were actually talking about
the next question, but. Well, I mean, yeah, that that
they were a little intermingled for me.
Yeah, And that's fair because it's it's hard not to like just

(01:17:15):
crisscross all over the place. But when you brought up the word
scope, it made me think about like how I thought about like
the first couple of hours of thegame.
I was actually pretty iffy on the game when I first started
because I was actually really concerned that like, this shit
was going to be like just white noise drama for women for the
first couple hours. But then like chapter 5 and then

(01:17:37):
six came around and then it became like this.
Like I don't I don't want to saylike this is like super novel or
unique. I'm sure there's like lots of
media that does this. But like it made me like the
entire experience, especially inthe latter half made me think of
like Isaac Asimov, where like you take like this ordinary
situation and you add like a weird like external impetus of

(01:18:03):
change. And then you like, and if that's
not enough, you have to like take that.
And then you extrapolate it for like 10 generations in the
future. And you just ask like a bunch of
what if questions and like just like what happens like 1002
thousand, 3000 years from now? And like it's like this weird
like sci-fi angle to it that I guess that was the mystery of it

(01:18:26):
for me is like, where is this going next?
Like. Yeah, Yeah, exactly.
And also to kind of differentiate my discussion for
the next question, A lot of whatI was referring to is like the
fact that they they answered themystery surrounding the virus.
They give you like very clear, explicit stuff about what the

(01:18:46):
occupants were up to. And there's enough vague there
to let the mystery continue being interesting, despite the
fact that they're willing to give you all of this insight
into like, why the virus startedand stuff.
That's why it worked for me. Like they set the scope very
wide and they didn't get in the way of themselves in the process

(01:19:07):
of that, I guess. Kind of like what Ben said where
like the first few hours was like weird.
And I think kind of that's in the vein about why I asked this
question, because I think the game would be better if it
wasn't just trying to be like anobfuscated mess for the first
half. Because like there's so many
things where it does with like the redaction and everything
where it's like this is just if it feels like it wasn't adding
anything to me. It was only being like, what the

(01:19:28):
fuck? And then when they like got rid
of that and they were just like,hey, here's kind of just like
everything that's going on afterlike Chapter 6, then it was
like, oh, this is much more likea normal kind of story without
like random mystery that I feel like was kind of just a little
bit shoehorned in personally. Yeah, I guess it was a weird

(01:19:49):
question for me to approach because like, I don't know if
you meant this, but when you usethe word mystery, I thought you
meant like, if I like, really like, mulled over, like, who are
these people really like, what are their relationships?
Like who is Iris really? Who are her parents?
And like I guess. Like for some reason I just
didn't really care about any of that stuff and I don't know if

(01:20:10):
anyone else did like as much as like what they represented in
story. Emotionally, that mattered me a
lot more than like any kind of like hidden information.
Yeah, no. I agree.
Yeah, I I didn't know that otherthan the game framing it this
way. I didn't know I was supposed to
care about all of that until theback half of the game.

(01:20:31):
Basically, yeah. I wasn't invested I guess is
another way of putting that. Yeah, so we're showing the
Watcher. It was showing that Watcher
kills the All Mother. Is one of the first things you
see a nice glimpse into the future.
Or does it spoil what could havebeen a very surprising moment?
Seth? I don't feel like it spoils it,

(01:20:51):
but I, I don't know, I, I mulledover this question a lot, which
is why I was glad that you posedit, and also kind of why I
brought it up in the previous question.
I I don't feel like it spoiled it and I like that they did it
and I don't know how. I think if they didn't show the

(01:21:13):
first scene of the game, the first three, maybe 4 chapters
would be incredibly dull. But I think it's very engaging,
like I'm not going to talk aboutlike the quality of it or how
good it is or whatever, but I think it's very engaging to
watch this like fall from grace type of thing.

(01:21:34):
Like how does someone like watchher who's so devoted to the all
Mother through like chapters oneand two?
How does she go from that to killing the all Mother?
That's like a fun character arc to watch.
And I think it's, I don't know if you need the first scene in
the game in order to illustrate that, but I, I think it was
still good. I don't think it spoiled it for

(01:21:56):
me. It would have been actively bad
if when you get back to that scene, it didn't have another
even bigger reveal, Maybe not even bigger, but another reveal
that it would have been bad if the principal didn't show up
there and then like the real game unfolds.
It would have been bad if that didn't.

(01:22:16):
Happen. Yeah, I pretty much agree with
all of that. Yep.
I think I like what Seth said, what Seth brought up when he was
answering the first question, which was like, what if it was
like a shadow and you didn't know who killed him and you're
trying to figure that out or something?
Because I actually really, really, really, really, really
didn't like that. They just showed you that in the
beginning. Because then I'm, I'm basically
just like, OK, how do we get there?

(01:22:37):
And like, I'm not as interested where like the whole because
like, you know, Iris is going todie, right?
So then you're just like, OK, how do we get there?
But if you don't know Iris is going to die, then when she
shows up there, you're like, oh shit, is she actually going to
kill her? Where she shows up there, you're
like OK, this bitch is dead. Yeah, like I, I, you know, kind
of like you, I don't want to approach the like, this is how

(01:22:58):
it should have been written territory.
But I, I think there's a lot of ways where you could have shown
that scene and dropped a lot of hints and foreshadowing and and
like made it kind of a whodunit.But I think that also gets in
the way of the rest of the themes of the game.
So I don't know if they should have done it.
I I don't know. I like I said, I have mixed.
Feelings on it? But I I again, I don't feel like

(01:23:20):
it's spoiled that moment becauseof the principal having a time
there. That's something embarrassing to
admit because I honestly forgot that they showed it because like
I remember when you posted thesequestions and I read this
question, I was like they did. So I looked up the the I just
typed into like YouTube. I typed in like 1000 X resist

(01:23:42):
intro and I clicked it and literally the first second of
the game is the scene and when Isaw that I kind of like just
crank the voice. I'm so dumb.
It's like, it's like the first thing.
It's like the first thing they show the fucking steam.
Yeah, that, that is true. I saw that afterwards when I
when I went back to the Steam page, I bought a copy for my

(01:24:03):
sister. Then it's like, I wonder if Ben
had like the true authentic experience of not seeing that
scene then. Oh my God, yeah, I think I did.
I unless you I I've been talkingfor a bit, so if you guys want
to jump in, go ahead. But I have one more thing that I
want to say with this question. You're good, at least as far as
I'm concerned. Yeah, I mean, I disagree with
you guys, so we'll get there. I mentioned earlier that I felt

(01:24:31):
like this game should have had more moments like the resonance
with the occupant and I keep forgetting Chapter 5 I think,
where you like collect the phrases and have to try to
understand what he says. I thought the start of the game
actually did that a bit and I really wish they had leaned into
it more because I really even more than watching Watchers kind

(01:24:53):
of fall from grace, I fucking loved remembering what the
dialogue options were at the start of the game and trying to
understand what they meant. I I fucking love that and I
really wish the game had learnedmore into that.
Yeah, I agree. I love those.
I also thought it was interesting that they just kind
of like, told you what it was. If you just went to the library.

(01:25:15):
They were just like, yeah, here's where all these come
from. I thought it was going to be
like a lot more of like a fucking find the tablets that
Moses threw off Mount Sinai or something.
Instead it was just like, here you go.
Yeah, like I really wanted a little bit of that like kind of
chance of Sennar thing from thatfrom the rest of the game.
Like because like I like you hear some of those pieces of
dialogue before you go to the library, depending on where you

(01:25:38):
go exactly. And trying to understand what
those lines meant before being explicitly told I thought was
very engaging to me. I do think that the way that the
game like tells you what all of those like little catch phrases
means or catch phrases mean. And then like as you go through
the story, it's sort of like recontextualizes it over and

(01:25:59):
over and over. And I think that that still like
makes it really worth it, like the like because you learn what
like red to blue means, but the game uses red to blue so many
times in so many different ways that it it always like keeps the
phrase interesting. Same thing like hair to hair.
Like the only one that doesn't really evolve is like 6 to 1 or

(01:26:22):
like hecky, whatever, because it's just a typo, but I guess
maybe just just red to blue. That's like very interesting to
me, I guess. Yeah, I was gonna say I didn't
think I didn't feel like hair tohair did, but red to blue was
definitely like the most interesting one.
And it's like the one that I feel like they like focused on
the least too, in terms of like the character saying it and
everything. Well, you want my answer to this

(01:26:46):
question. Yeah.
So kind of goes a little bit in line with what Seth was saying
before. So I do think that showing it
right away does undercut like a small part of the mystery that
the game's trying to propagate. But it's not the mystery that I

(01:27:07):
think that this game is interested in.
So I think that it was a good decision to shift the suspense
from what happens to why does this happen?
Because that results in a like completely different set of
questions that the game's tryingto ask you.
And I think in a game that is more interested in exploring

(01:27:29):
things from like the side of thematics than like a
conventional like story like story beat to story beat kind of
nature undercutting some part ofthat story's events that you can
focus on those thematic questions like works in its
favor. So like yes, you do lose some of
like the plot twisty, shocking betrayal, holy shit kind of

(01:27:51):
reveal, but the core mystery of the game lives on like in
exchange for sort of a deeper dive into the questions that the
game's wanting you to ask about,like the characters motivations
and their morality. So like, to me, the game never
really wanted you to go from like, oh shit, she did it as
much as it wants you to think like, what's going to make her

(01:28:11):
do this? And will I agree with her
motivation when she finally does?
So ultimately, yes, it does kindof like undercut some of that
mystery, but I think it serves the greater purpose of like what
the story in game are trying to do.
Yeah, I mean, I I agree with that, but I don't like how the
first like 3 or 4 chapters were framed like hyper mystery, like

(01:28:35):
throw you all over the place, make it seem really confusing.
Like I think that kind of goes against like what you said of
like why they would do that. What qualities of the first
couple chapters made you feel that way?
Made it feel like it was just super mystery.
I mean, they were just like throwing you all over the place
and just kind of like talking about not like it was just like

(01:28:56):
everything was just like, oh shit, what's this going to be
kind of with like the occupants and everything.
And then like eventually they just give up the goat.
And then all like that mystery stuff just kind of breaks away
because like, I think they're being like intentionally obtuse
in the first couple chapters of like telling you certain things.
And I think maybe it's to hide the principal reveal with

(01:29:17):
anything. I don't know if there's really
that much mystery with that because I felt like like all
those, at least a lot of those things were like so allegorical
that it was just obvious, like what their purpose was.
Am I too high for this? No, because I agree with you.
Like fuck, I lost my thought. Hang on, it's coming back.

(01:29:43):
Nope, it didn't come back. But I guess moral of the story
is that I do agree, like sort ofin general.
With what been a saying where I don't think the game was ever
like putting the occupants in front of you or like Iris in

(01:30:04):
front of you and being like, whois this person?
Like what are they going to do? What's going to happen?
It was more just like, here are the things that happened and
why. Like what?
What did the characters do that led to this and why did the
characters act the way that theydid?
Which is like a much more interesting question to me than

(01:30:27):
who are the occupants and why did they put a fucking cube
around the earth or whatever. Yeah, I mean, I agree, but I
felt like like they hide the year and things like that where
like they just hide a lot of theinformation that's like the
beginning of the game. And like a lot of the things
like Iris has redacted memories and like those random redacted
words and redacted conversationsthat like literally just use

(01:30:48):
redaction and like that's the part that I don't like.
Yeah. I mean, like, if you like, if
your opinion is essentially thatthey hide too much information
from you in service of the mystery, I would probably agree
with that. But at the end of the day, like
the way I approach this questionas I was playing as well, is how

(01:31:09):
would my experience of the firstcouple chapters be if they
didn't show that the watcher wasgoing to fall from grace like
that? And I think it would have been
significantly more boring that that's kind of the beginning and
end of my analysis of whether ornot it should have been in the
game or whether it spoiled the moment.
I felt like it serviced the narrative and it made those
first couple chapters, which otherwise would have been kind

(01:31:31):
of boring, I think, more palatable and interesting.
Yeah, and I think to some degreeas well, like when I think about
it, like the alternative to not allowing some of those like
secondary, tertiary sort of plotfeatures unfold naturally

(01:31:51):
throughout the story would be the game starting with this like
obnoxious exposition dump where it's like a fucking Star Wars
scroll of the occupants came to Earth and they made everybody
cried to death. And no, I don't, I don't want
that. I really like the like sort of
Brechtian super out of order waythat the game presents itself to

(01:32:13):
you with. And the only reason why there
really is even a mystery to begin with is purely because the
game is telling itself out of order.
And I think it unfolds. So here's here's kind of the way
to sum this up is by the end of the game, I the only question

(01:32:33):
that I really had left as far aslike what happened in the story
was did they ever tell me what Iris said to Zhao in the gym?
Like that was the only thing I was like, did did they tell me
that? Because I feel like there wasn't
enough huge mystery that I was enveloped in it, and they gave
me answers that sort of like a naturally satisfying pace.

(01:32:54):
Yeah. I mean, yeah, that's why I think
like the second-half is better than the first half at it,
because I think the first half is asking all the questions in
the second-half answers all of them.
Do we want to do the next question?
I'm ready. Yeah, I'm ready.
OK. Did you resonate more with the
game's journey with the characters or with the themes

(01:33:15):
that the game is trying to get you to think about, such as like
the mercy versus justice or the memory equals existence,
etcetera? Tom.
Yeah, easily the themes, not even like particularly close,
so. And that's not even like a knock
on the game's journey or its characters, but the game is like
always very much trying to get you to dwell on its themes.

(01:33:36):
So like every single character in this game is emblematic of
the game's themes in some way, shape or form.
And like 90, 5% of the characters are just sort of the
inner machinations of Iris's psyche and how she got where she
went. So just sort of writ large, I

(01:33:58):
have a natural predilection for art or media that puts something
complex in front of me. Like asks my reading
comprehension if it's sharp enough to like, deduce what's
going on, and then tells me to dwell on my thoughts within that
comprehension rather than like, just sitting there and telling
me to simply consume it and moveon to the next thing.
And it's not that there's anything wrong with the latter.

(01:34:20):
It's just that I, I mean, I lovedoing that too.
But the former is what keeps games lingering in my mind like,
forever inside of the pantheon of what I think are the best
games of all time. And this game, very much like,
asks the questions that will linger in my head very long
after I've finished this game. I can go next if you guys want.

(01:34:46):
Go ahead. All right, so I'm actually kind
of the opposite. It was all about the characters
for me. And that's not to mirror your
point. That's not to say that it failed
on the themes for me personally.Like a lot of like the like the,
the lessons about and the themesabout like morality and ethics

(01:35:07):
and all that, like that they were using.
I felt like the, the way they implemented it was a little bit
too allegorical for me to like genuinely resonate with.
But the characters like super fucked me up.
Like there were so many moments in this game that I honestly
like, I cried. I cried like real pathetically a
lot during this game. There were like 2 moments in

(01:35:31):
particular, the one where a watcher's dying and you're
trying to convince Fixer to go see her that and she's like,
you're just being dramatic. That shit fucking destroyed me.
And the one at the end where Iris is in her all mother garb
and she's talking to her mom, that shit fucking destroyed me

(01:35:51):
too. So yeah, for me it was all about
the characters like 100%. And I do have like, I kind of
want to shoehorn into question because I bought this game for
my sister, but she's kind of holding off on playing it
because she looked at the Steam page and they're like a bunch of
like trigger warnings. And it's kind of a big thing for

(01:36:13):
her. So I do think it's actually good
for her to not play it, at leastright now.
But she did ask me something that I thought was interesting.
She showed me a screenshot of a Steam review.
And like, it's like one of thoselike super high effort Steam
reviews that they have like a format, you know what I mean?
Unfortunately I do yeah. Where you have to click click
the check boxes and shit like. That and keep going.

(01:36:35):
OK so so this exact section was the check boxes like target
audience and it said like kids, teens, like young adult adults
and the person had every field checked.
So she wanted me to ask you guys, should kids play this
game? Fuck no.
What? The fuck?
That's what I said too, but I just wanted like a sanity check

(01:36:58):
from you guys real quick. I don't think any if you're
younger than like 23, I don't think you're gonna get anything
out of this game, like literallyat all.
I don't think anyone younger than 23 is beating this game
except like maybe maybe a small handful of like really artsy
kids. It's.
Yeah, I could see like an older like like 16 plus year old
getting stuff out of this game, but if yeah, any anything

(01:37:21):
younger than that. And the only reason I even say
that is because I think there's some like relatable high school
scenes that should in there thatyou can I.
Agree. I agree for sure.
But anything below the age of like, 16 and it's all just gonna
like, fly over your head, probably, yeah.
I think that's like that accessibility, that emotional
accessibility is a strength in aweird way, because I didn't even

(01:37:41):
think about it until you said that just now.
We're like, it's like to get into it to connect emotionally,
you literally just need like your, your edginess education
needs to only go up to like Linkin Park and you can connect
with the game, you know? What I mean, Yeah, yeah,
definitely. Yeah, I.
I kind of, yeah. I think like for a lot of people

(01:38:04):
of that age, I I just literally don't think they would
understand this game. Like literally I don't they
would be able to follow the plot.
I think, I think if you have like an upbringing that's kind
of similar to Iris, then I thinkthat's when it's going to hit
the most for like someone of that age.
But other than that, yeah, no. Shot yeah.
And that's actually the number one reason why, like even I
recommend to my sister, she shouldn't play it right now

(01:38:26):
because like she like there are some parts of this game, in my
opinion, were very, very intense.
Sure. Oh yeah, yeah.
Like the most intense part of this game, IMO, not not even
close, is I think it's a communion, maybe a communion
scene where you're seeing like Iris shortly after they get to

(01:38:49):
the generational ship and they're like experimenting on
her. And then you like, press X to go
to the next scene and it's just like loud blaring alarms with
redacted all over the place. So it's like, oh fuck.
Like, did she just like, totallycompartmentalize this or fucking
delete it? And like, what the hell
happened? And I probably don't want to

(01:39:09):
know. I think the most intense
personally for me was when watcher gets her eyes to be
stabbed out because I have the Ihave an issue with I shit so
that was very specific. Oh, me too.
Oh yeah, me too. That shit fucked me up.
Along with like everything else going on, yeah.
The sound effect was gross. It's all like squishy.

(01:39:30):
Oh yeah. I forgot to bring that up, but
this game's like sound design I thought was fucking awesome.
But I. Think I agree.
I want to respond to Ben really quick and just say that like
basically that I think you and Iprobably got like the same thing

(01:39:54):
out of this game. I think it was just that, well,
I think the journey for the characters for you, like I feel
like if I was you, I would 100% have the same opinion because
like, because, because for you it must like there must be so
many aspects of this game that hits so.
Yeah. And that's, yeah, that's why,
like, yeah, like it doesn't surprise me if people don't feel

(01:40:16):
the same way. And that's also why I said the
best voice actress was the like,the old lady mother.
Like that shit was brutal for mepersonally.
Oh yeah, I think it was like. Talking to my own fucking mom.
Yeah, I didn't really call it out, but I think that for me, I
think the best one is the dad. I like the dad's performance a
lot. Yeah, I, I oddly enough, and I,
I don't mean to draw racist caricatures, but oddly enough,

(01:40:38):
those two performances remind mea lot of the two parents and
Everything Everywhere. Just in the sense of just in the
sense of like how earnest they are.
Like I mean it's so authentic. I don't think that there is any
sort of like, I don't know, racist caricature because like I
feel like they serve very similar roles.

(01:40:59):
Like the dad is like the upbeat glue to that family, right.
And even at like, the end, the, the scene that Ben was talking
about, that's gonna come up again later, like Iris asks her
mom, like, what kept you going, like, while you were dealing
with all of this and trying to raise me?
And she literally just says yourdad that's it's straight out of

(01:41:22):
Everything Everywhere. Yeah.
It reminded me a lot of that. Shall I go?
Yeah. As is the case with Everything
Everywhere All at Once, for me, I will take the middle ground
between these two people that side with the characters versus

(01:41:44):
the themes. But I'm going to justify it.
But before I do that, I'm going to answer it with characters.
The characters resonated with memore than the themes.
That's not to say anything aboutthe quality of the themes.
However, in my mind, when I'm playing a game, the plot, AKA
the journey with characters, if that's how you want to describe
it, is what is going to carry methrough the game and make me

(01:42:08):
enter the next room, make me turn the next page, whatever the
themes are, what are going to linger in my mind for however
many weeks, months stays whatever after I play the game.
So as I was playing and like, yeah, I'm picking up on the
themes and I dig them, but like I'm not going to get I'm not
going to get the full frame of reference of what this game is

(01:42:28):
trying to convey to me until I actually finish the game.
So if you have a game that's like all theme and no plot, like
maybe objectively from your 1000foot view, that would be a great
game. And maybe it is, but I think
that is a much more difficult game to play if it doesn't have
any plot. Whereas a game with all plot or,
you know, just characters and nothemes.

(01:42:50):
I mean, that's, you know, that'sjust going to be your shitty AAA
game. It's going to be playable, but
you're not going to remember it a week from now.
And as I finished the game and kind of deliberated, I, I do
think that the themes are powerful, they're incredible,
they're great. There's so much to think about.
There's so much to think of the interconnectedness between the

(01:43:12):
events of the game and how they affect the characters.
And like Thomas mentioned, the recontextualization of
everything, like everything has like a triple, quadruple meaning
when you really start digging down into it.
But for me, none of that works without really good characters.
And for that reason, I just think that the things that are

(01:43:33):
happening to these characters, it's like the characters
responses to them are what's interesting to me, I guess is my
best way of answering that. Yeah.
And I, I would actually actuallyagree with you.
Like to me, if you just have like thematics that are deep as

(01:43:56):
the ocean, but characters that are like an inch deep, what you
have is a philosophy textbook. And that's that's not that
interesting. But, and I guess alternatively,
if you have the same like super deep themes with super thin
characters, that also in my eyestends to come off as just

(01:44:18):
fucking pretentious because likepeople still want to enjoy the
shit that they watch, right? Like I don't give a shit what
sort of like Hegelian dialecticsyou want to try and fucking
convey to me through your two and a half hour long movie if
your characters are boring as shit.
So it's it's really important tomarry the two.

(01:44:40):
Like in order to in order to carry the themes, you have to
have good characters. I don't think the opposite is
true for me at least, where goodcharacters can carry shitty or
boring themes. But I think in order to have
like the sort of 10 out of 10 narrative that I think this game
has you, you have to have you have to have both.

(01:45:02):
And I definitely think this gamehas both.
Like I was saying how much more I like the themes than the
characters. Or, well, I guess I wasn't
meaning to come off that way if I did, because I think both are
fucking outstanding. Yeah, I guess like what I'm
trying to communicate is like, you are both correct.
But the reason that the characters resonate more with me

(01:45:24):
is because of how they react to like, I, I, how do I describe
this? Like the themes are conveyed
through the crazy fucking shit that happens to all of these
characters, like the the virus and all the insurance and outs
of that. And the character's response to
that is what resonates the most with me.

(01:45:48):
And like the the mother and father are like the best example
of that. Like they showcase every single
thing that this game is trying to communicate.
Yeah, and I mean, I would agree with that, but I think I think
that just gets summed up in the way I answered the question,
which is like the moment to moment character interactions
are what's going to keep you turning the page, but the themes

(01:46:11):
are what's going to keep the game living in your head for
like weeks on end. Yeah, I don't have much to add.
I mean, I think the characters resonated more than me than the
themes, but yeah, I mean, I would basically just be
rehashing mostly what Seth said and Ben said on the character
side, so. Jesus, did I just take all of

(01:46:33):
your guys's words with every question?
Fuck me, I mean that. Would have particularly.
I literally feel like I would just be saying the same things
you guys said so I don't want towaste at least.
I do have. I don't know if I want to ask
this question. I'm not sure.
OK, it's about the ending. It's kind of weird and it kind
of goes with what I've been likewhen I talk about stuff like how
Allegory is using this game. I was wondering how you guys

(01:46:56):
think about this one specific example of like the intersection
of theme character, and that's the ending.
So there's like that Evangelion section where you kind of like
choose who lives and who dies. I love the ending, like the
actual outcome that happens, butlike I felt kind of weird kind

(01:47:22):
of hitlery deciding like very two specific groups of people
that share specific phenotypicaltraits.
You guys get the fuck out of here, everyone else gets a limp.
It felt kind of judgy to me. I don't know, maybe maybe I'm
looking too deep into. It No, no, no real quick can I?

(01:47:43):
I just want to ask a super quickquestion.
Did any of you guys get a bad ending on your first try?
Yes, yes. I did it.
I went through the ending and. Logically.
I, I, I, I think I did it the way it was intended.
You let everyone live, you see who the problem was, you merge
that person, you see who the next problem was, and then you
get the good ending. So yeah, so the first time I did

(01:48:06):
it, I let everyone live except the Red.
The Reds, What are they called? Is it the Reds?
Red Guard? Red Guard?
Yeah. Which just, I don't know if you
guys know how the ending works, but yeah, that just gives you
the bad mauve ending. Yeah, I think on the mine I I
forget who all I let live or die, but I know I let Mauve live

(01:48:30):
because I I really like the ending.
Kind of like Ben said and like the style that it's going for.
But my interpretation when I wasgoing through it and the Keeper
gives you this like very philosophical understanding of
what you're doing by keeping or killing these people.
And I took that to be philosophical, not literal.

(01:48:54):
So when I kept mobile live, color me fucking surprised when
she just straight up fucking kills everyone when the keeper
is like framing this as. Oh, you will be.
Like forgiving this person or whatever.
Like Oh well, I guess I. Fucked up, Yeah.
No, I had sort of the same reaction.
And I also want to agree with Ben because I think this is

(01:49:18):
maybe one of the games only likenarrative, sort of, I don't
know, both paws. Yeah, is like I said before, one
of the one of the core themes tothe game for me is at what point
does someone cross the line intothe irredeemable where like all

(01:49:40):
of the every single character other than maybe Iris's mom and
dad or like the random kids in the high school.
They all have these moments where they reach some sort of
like inflection point where you as the player have to decide
whether you want to judge this person as evil or not.

(01:50:00):
Like some of the Pacific 50 people, Iris herself, some of
the clones like nowhere especially and and then move.
And then the game gets to the very end and it does such a good
job of like, framing every character as like, not quite
crossing that line because you can justify their actions, like

(01:50:26):
the means justify the ends for alot of these characters, right?
Like, maybe other than the lady who experimented on Iris is like
maybe the one, like objectively evil person.
But even then, you know, she's still like, looking out for the
future of the species, right? And then it gets to Mauve, and I
feel like the game just like, casts this huge layer of
judgement over her where it's like you cannot let her live or

(01:50:50):
the game's fucked. And yeah, I did not like that at
all. Honestly I don't even know why I
mauve is some of them. Why that character was such a
big fucking deal. I feel like I like.
She the reason? She the reason?
Like she was the one who came upwith the bomb idea, right?
Or was that someone else? That was someone else, right?

(01:51:13):
I mean, she was, she was part ofit.
I don't know if she came up withit though.
I thought that was the Chows. Because she was captain
whatever, So she was the one whobrought you The detonator, I
think as part of it. Yeah, she was the explosive
finish. Yeah, I mean, I think every
ending that's not Epitopes Red, Epitopes Blue was trash.

(01:51:36):
I didn't experience any of them.I went back and looked at them
afterwards, but I think they're like the ones that bring you
back and don't give you the credits are like supposed to be
trash. I.
Didn't know there was another one.
I just saw the blue 1 and I justassumed that was.
It is epitaph's red, epitaph's blue, and it's just depending on
if you let a principal live or not.
Yeah, I I love the dichotomy between those two endings, too.
I think it's really oh. Fuck, I might have to turn on

(01:51:57):
the game again. It's it's not different.
It's not that you should do that, but.
I think it's cool enough. But it's like no effort to do it
'cause you have the chapter so. Yeah, yeah, true.
I think it's cool enough too, for sure.
I think the dialogue the principle gives is good enough.
I I would call it a like a functional difference between
like the ending of 9S versus theending of A2.

(01:52:18):
It's like close ish to that. I think it's a gotcha.
I think 9 SA 2 is a little bit more diverse.
I think this is just kind of like a like you get insight into
principle if you redeem her. I mean, I think the whole thing,
right, is that like probably like if there was an umbrella of
the themes of this game, like the very tippy top of that

(01:52:40):
umbrella is like memory and the way that we as humans like
interface with memory. Yeah.
And I think it's cool that like those two endings, even though
they're like damn near the same thing, it's like a way of saying
here's how like, like the victorgets to write history, right?

(01:53:03):
And that's sort of what both of the endings are like split on.
And I think that's cool. I thought that was great.
Yeah. I mean, I thought, I think the
ending specifically going to allthe epitaphs pissed me off for
the same reason that like going to all the sisters pissed me off
of like oh God I'm having to navigate the shit again.
That one pissed me off a lot less for some reason.

(01:53:25):
Were those waypoints always on the screen?
Yeah. Or did I imagine that?
At the top you say waypoints. You mean like the top compass
thing? Yeah, yeah.
That's always there. Some for some reason, I thought
for some reason I just felt a lot less frustrated that at that
part than at earlier parts, and I won't know why.
It's not as ridiculous as finding some of the sisters in

(01:53:46):
earlier parts, like they're in alot more like obvious spots for
sure. I really, I actually really
liked that aspect of it just because of the way that they,
like, twisted it where you're running around as this like
unknown, like child, I think. Yeah, where it's like, well, how
the fuck did they produce a child?
And I did it as read and initially.

(01:54:07):
And so you run around and you see all of like the ghosts of
Watcher and stuff. And like that one spot in the
ending where you see like Watcher and Fixer projected
together is like like kind of a subtly and very emotionally
impactful like moment that I don't think you would get if you
weren't just kind of aimlessly running around the orchard at.

(01:54:28):
The end. Yeah, for sure.
I think the coolest part of the ending is the fucking the male
pilot that talks. I think that's like the most
like holy shit part of the wholefucking ending.
What's it called Ephemeral? Ephemeral.
Yeah. Yeah, I.
Think the cool part with that islike it, it kind of alludes to
the fact that like maybe one of those other people that the

(01:54:49):
occupants chose like lived and got out earlier or something and
like has already started to likere establish society.
Yeah, I think that's the a very good kind of open to
interpretation of an ending because there's also an
interpretation of like maybe they just use the DNA from the
bodies and the ship to clone them or some shit.

(01:55:11):
I did RIP that straight out of the video.
Yeah, I mean, I think, I think it's cool that they mentioned
that there was like a shit load of other kids, but then they
just don't bring them up again. So it's just like completely up
to us. They're going to have 1000 times

(01:55:31):
resist expanded cinematic universe with the other with the
other bases that fall out. I think.
I think they said they're doing something shorter in scope like
a manga styles thing. Manga cut style for their next
game or something. I wouldn't expect anything
crazy. Well, whatever it is, I hope
it's a game because I'll buy it.And if it's not a game, I won't

(01:55:53):
buy it. I'm really that simple as.
Far as, as far as I know, I think it's going to be a game,
so yeah. Where do you guys want to go?
Do you guys want to do anything else with the narrative?
Do you want to jump to awards? Where do you want to go from?
I wrote a fucking book about thenarrative of this game, so I'm

(01:56:14):
not going to like bore everyone with that.
So I'll just I'll go wherever. And if you guys want to talk
more about the narrative, then by all means.
I have a question I'll pose. One of the more interesting
aspects of this game to me is the way that the reconstructed

(01:56:37):
Jow that presumably is inside ofIris's head sort of floats
around in the narrative. And so I'm curious what you guys
think of that reconstructed Jow as far as like, do you think it
is bringing Iris some degree of comfort or do you think it is

(01:57:00):
holding her prisoner inside of her own head more than she
already is? I thought it was a.
Symbol of guilt personally. I I feel like I'm not
understanding what what is the reconstructed jow like the
picture? About the picture, jow, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Oh, I thought you were talking
about the one that. No, no, no, no, not not the
cloned one, the one that like, as far as I could tell, probably

(01:57:22):
only existed and like like the clones couldn't see her, right.
So just just picture Jow. And I'm sorry, now that I
understand that, could you repeat the question?
So do you think that this reconstructed like picture Jow
is more of a comfort or more of like a prison for Iris?

(01:57:45):
I'm just curious about your guys's take on this.
I guess I would have to say prison because I just literally,
I said she was like kind of a symbol of guilt to me.
So I guess that errors toward the side of being a prison.
I thought it was more like comfort, like kind of like the
only friend that she had, you know, was kind of gone.
She's trying to like, bring thatback.

(01:58:07):
I can see it both ways for sure.Yeah, I agree.
I think that's why Tom's asking the question, really.
Honestly I I don't feel like I have a strong enough opinion on
this to say for. Sure.
I mean, stemming from this question, that kind of makes me
wish that they focus more on like Iris overall after becoming

(01:58:28):
the whole mother, even though they kind of did.
I don't know. I think because I think that
there's a lot of cool shit therethat I don't know, like such as
this question. Well, I think.
I. Think my interpretation of that
would be Iris probably just likestopped evolving as a person by

(01:58:49):
the time that she gets Stibby stabbied and by the time that
that happens like she has sort of reached like the terminal
endpoint of who she is going to grow into as a person.
So there probably just isn't that much to really explore
there because like, again, a bigportion of her character is just
like being stuck in this like cycle of like inherited genetic

(01:59:13):
trauma to a degree. And so that's again, represented
by the clones in the best way. But that's that's basically why
I'm saying like as she's been trapped inside of her own head
for so fucking long that at somepoint she just kind of hit the
brakes and stopped. I thought that's because of the
keepers. I thought the keepers like
basically melted her fucking mind from all the communions

(01:59:34):
that like she doesn't know how much time passed and everything
like when she saw principal and everything.
Yeah, I guess that's also probably true too, right?
Where Like maybe the Keepers like zipped up Zoopy debopped
all of her fucking memories and then she also just kind of
stopped. Yeah, no, I I agree that she
definitely stopped development, but I I thought it was more
because like the keepers basically forced her to stop
because of all the the memory sharing and everything more.

(01:59:56):
Than so this gets into another fun question that I could ask
that is actually directly and like 1 to one tied with this,
which is how you would interpretthe occupants Riddle in chapter
5. Like, would you interpret that

(02:00:17):
as something that is more hopeful in terms of like what
they're trying to say is like? The baby thinks I can change.
Or are is it more like fatalistic where they're just
saying like, Nah, you're you're trapped in this cycle and you
can't get out of it without all our help?

(02:00:40):
I'm with the Riddle is again. It's the whole thing in chapter
5. So like there's a star and a
star and a dangerous gravity, etcetera.
And I think that I think that reading into that poem gives you
like really big insights into like the overall things that
this game is trying to say and how you choose to interpret that

(02:01:02):
would would sort of answer the question that you were posing as
far as like, did she stop growing because of the Watchers
sucking her brains out or just because that's who she was?
And that's like, that's like, ifyou haven't spent time looking

(02:01:22):
or thinking about that Riddle, now is not the time to do it.
But yeah, something I would recommend doing.
Yeah, like, I don't, I don't know, as I was playing at least
the the Riddle, just obviously there's more to it, but it just
felt like it was describing the story of the occupants slash the

(02:01:44):
story of the occupants plus humans.
And like, I'm sure there's more to it than that, but yeah, I
don't know. You know, a theme I completely
like, forgot about was the pigeon thing until like right
now, I completely forgot that they were doing the whole pigeon
thing and that seemed like a bigfucking deal.
Oh yeah, what was the deal with the pigeon?
Now that you say that, I forgot about that fucking.

(02:02:04):
It's it's because, like, the pigeons are always like,
destined to go back home. Yeah.
And there there is a ton of imagery with that and how it
relates to father and mother andlike returning to Hong Kong and
like the repeated plane motifs that go along with pigeons.
I. Completely forgot about that,

(02:02:25):
but I think that's really cool. I thought, I also thought it was
really cool that like that's like one of the first weird
things that they show you. Like it's the fucking giant
pigeon and it's like beware of bird on the ground.
Yeah, I feel like I don't know if I'm going to play the entire
game again, but I'm probably going to go through Chapter 1
again now that I have some understanding.
Yeah, like there's there's a reason why on like Wednesday or

(02:02:46):
something I was like, God, I should really play through this
game again. Some of that being first of all
this game is fucking dense and 2nd I did literally basically
played in one sitting and by thetime I was done at like 1:00 in
the morning my brain was fuckingfried.
Oh yeah, for sure. I have another Steam medic

(02:03:08):
question from my sister. So again, stemming from her
concern about like how she'd be able to handle like all the
triggering content, she wanted to ask me to ask you guys why
this game was in a Steam sale bundle called Feel Good Bundle.
It's was it? Ironic.
Happy. Ending I I just looked it up, it

(02:03:30):
is in that bundle. But do you want to know?
The other mouth in the bundle. Yeah, is it?
Is it ironically named because it has to?
Be I. It's two games.
It's this game in mouthwashing. It's.
OK, ironic. OK, yeah, no way.
Mouthwashing is terrific. I I never played mouthwashing,
but now, now that. Yeah.
I have. I have.

(02:03:51):
Sexually, earnestly, last I knew.
I have to understand, Sir. Last I knew mouthwashing was one
of the games that got fucking removed on Steam after the
fucking pay service shit, if that tells you anything of.
The one oddly enough this game mouthwashing have a lot in
similar. I I actually actually I agree
with that actually. I'm thinking specifically of the

(02:04:12):
opening of both games. Mouthwashing is a lot more like
harsh though, isn't it? With the like the trigger shit
that it does? Yeah, I know where it goes.
Does 1000 times resist is like baby shit compared to
mouthwashing, At least in terms of like the horror, yeah. 1000

(02:04:34):
times resist has like like literally like mathematically
1/5 the amount of triggering shit as mouthwashing.
Yeah, and that is like the, and that's like that committing
suicide shit. I don't know if I could play.
I wasn't gonna recommend it because I didn't think Jordan
could play it. So I also, I mean, this is also
the very end of the game, but Ben absolutely could not do the

(02:04:57):
ending sequence with the big wormy snake thing through the
fence. Oh.
Hell no. Oh hell no.
Yeah. It's bad, it's bad.
It would fuck you up. What do you guys got as far as
narrative? Because like I said, I could
talk about this all day, but I don't want to.
I've kind of expounded everything though.

(02:05:19):
Yeah, you. Feel free to bring anything up
that you want to bring up because yeah.
Yeah, I just like, like honestly, as I was like writing
stuff down for this game. I did most of my notes today,
and the reason I had so much to say in the first few sections is
because that was before my boss decided to spend 4 hours on the
floor and bug me the entire time, so I didn't actually have

(02:05:40):
time to write anything down for gameplay even though I have a
lot of positive feelings on it. Narration, yeah.
Yeah, and like I said, like the narration of this game is like
just Omega Omega fucking dense. So I.
Need. There's so much to it.
I need to ask if this line is intentionally wrong or if it was
just written wrong and then voice acted wrong.

(02:06:01):
Kind of just boasted it. It's how aimed can an arrow from
a bow that can't bend and Bang Bang Fire says that and it broke
my brain. I think that's intentional.
I have like, I literally don't if it if that's intentional like
a flip, I have no idea what that's going for.
When I say intentional, I think it's like intentionally like,
like esoteric. I don't know, like maybe that's

(02:06:24):
the wrong word, but like. I don't think that the syntax is
incorrect, it just sounds reallyweird.
It's supposed to be how can an arrow aim be from a bow that
can't bend? That's how you would say it if
like if it was a correct. Aim is in the wrong spot, but
like to like. You could read it as.

(02:06:44):
OK, I see what you're saying nowsush Fuck.
Yeah, because I thought it was supposed to be how can an arrow
aim from a bow that can't bend? But she spoke it how aim can an
arrow? And I was like, there's no way
this is a double typo. Yeah.
It's like make me think. It's intentional, I just don't
know why. Yeah, I don't know why either.
I think it's almost certainly intentional because of the
character the Bang Bang fire is,but I like syntactically aim can

(02:07:07):
an arrow. I think that's incorrect.
It just sounds fucking weird. I just had to bring it up
because it fucked me up so bad. I I think that BBF just sort of
has a lot of video idiosyncrasies in her speech and
I think that just kind of like plays into it rather rather
because I can't imagine through all the iteration and voice line

(02:07:30):
recording someone wouldn't have been like.
That's exactly why I'm like whatthe fuck?
And then like I just don't get why it would be spoken in that
way though. Like unless it was like her
brain is just like broken at this point and I think that
there would be more obvious waysto do that especially.
I think that's. Go ahead.
I think that's column A, and I think column B is like bang,

(02:07:53):
bang fire is, you know, the military person, right?
And bows are invoking this imagery of like medieval
militarism. And that line is spoken or
written in a very old Englishy kind of way, like a very
medieval way that maybe it's trying to invoke.
That's the best I got. Yeah, that would make sense.
I just think that that that should use like now or
something. Sure.

(02:08:17):
And then yeah, I just, I wanted to paste.
Like what I forgot was like my favorite moment with Secretary
where where he's just doing the fucking faces and making noises.
Fucking cow emojis that she was so sad.
That was great. I forgot that happened, but
yeah, Dan knows also. Yeah, honestly, the, the the

(02:08:37):
comedy in this game really was solid.
Like, Oh yeah, even though again, the hot take, even though
Zhao's performance kind of bugged me and it made me dislike
that character. I I thought she was fucking
hilarious. OK, there's a lot of great ones.
Is she the one who says why are you fat and sad?
Is that Zhao? Who says that she said that
about Zhao? And dumpster Zhao.

(02:08:58):
Yeah. I mean, to your credit, she is
designed to be a little a littlehateable on purpose.
Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah, she's definitely
meant to be cringe. Especially from like Iris's
perspective, right? Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, because like she is, she is supposed to be the thing that
demonstrates to you that Iris isreally a fucked up person

(02:09:22):
because of the way she treats Jo.
Yeah. Why do you guys think that they
didn't reveal what was said to Zhao if it's supposed to be this
inflection point of what Thomas just described?
I. Don't I think this is I'm
pulling stuff so far out of my ass that like my intestines are

(02:09:43):
empty. I don't think that they ever
really wanted to straight up come out and say like with
fervor that they were lesbians. And my assumption is that Zhao
made some sort of like profession of love, like be with
me sort of thing. And Iris was like, what the fuck

(02:10:05):
is wrong with you? Get away from me.
I was going to take the storytelling reasoning, and it's
the same reason why you don't know what's in the suitcase in
Pulp Fiction. Yeah, it's not.
There's that too. It's not as interesting to know
what The thing is rather than just knowing that it is a thing
that does a thing and it's better for us to talk about.
What do you think? She said.
Rather than it just being like she called your mom ugly or

(02:10:28):
something, you know? Yeah, there's that.
That's definitely like the motivation behind not saying it,
but like, gun to my head if I had to, like, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah. What I think they like wanted to
say is what I said. I could.
It could. It definitely seems like it's
some kind of like Jow had a crush on her and wrote something
about it in her diary and Iris read it and told people like,
Can you believe that? This bitch wants to?

(02:10:49):
Yeah, and I think the game like is, is OK with like sexual
themes and shit because like shows the vibrator on her bed
when she's grabbing stuff, you know, right.
So like it kind of has already throats that topic.
So that could easily be what it could be.
Yeah, but it does like patently avoid it sort of everywhere
else, right? Like with the redacted scene I
was talking about. I.

(02:11:09):
Can. I can only imagine what that had
to do with and it would not be pleasant.
Yeah, and the same thing with Mimi being like, we should
impregnate her and Johnson's like go fucked herself
basically. Yeah, that's.
God fucking Johnson, what a character.
Yeah, that goes great. I actually wish he was utilized
a little more than he was. Or I I wish he had like a more

(02:11:30):
like a better send off. I feel like he just kind of
fucking died. Well, I mean, I feel like
everyone in there just kind of fucking died.
Which I don't like. I don't like that at all.
But yeah, go ahead, Seth. How did sorry?
How did he die in the? Because I know it's in Chapter 9
or 10 or whatever, but I don't remember how he does.

(02:11:52):
Iris got the power from the occupant and then killed
everyone else that was around. OK that's I wasn't sure if he
was one of the ones who got shotor some shit.
No, he, he lived. But when they went to the
surface and she got that, she killed them all.
All right, I have a question to pose.

(02:12:13):
Go ahead if. You.
Could. Alter one of Iris's memories
inside of a communion. What would you change and why
are? You talking about like some
mirror shit from Torment? I mean, that's what that's

(02:12:34):
literally what communions are, right?
They're literally just mirror spheres.
Yeah, but the part about like literally change the events like
or changing that person's memorysuch that it becomes her new
reality. That's kind of what that's kind
of what Watcher did, right? She fucking lived through Iris's
like memories 870. Whatever, dude.

(02:12:54):
Yeah. That's the whole point the they
say that you like. The point of communions is to
go. Oh yeah, you're right.
It was like that dog. You're right.
I'm. Sorry, yeah, change variables.
Yeah, I thought they were one way.
Communication though, didn't they say that?
Say again. I thought they said communions
were one way communication from the like the communer to the
community. I think that's true.

(02:13:17):
I mean, it's not like. Yeah, I don't mean reality.
Yeah, I think it allows for bothto be true at the same time.
I, I don't know, I I thought it was only change possible to
change reality with the like keeper communion at the end.
I don't think anything is changing reality.
I think you're just going into amemory and observing A slight

(02:13:38):
change in a variable. But it's not.
It's not altering reality in any.
Sort of, yeah. Yeah.
I guess what you're saying is different than it's not.
It's not like a mirror, mirror caster.
It's basically like a simulation.
Yeah, like if you could go back in one of the communions and
change something for Iris to seethe outcome, what would you do?

(02:14:00):
OK. I know my answer.
You should say because like thisI don't even know what I would
say. Maybe a second before you say it
all. Right.
If Seth, that's something he canbring it up.
I don't know, this is a hard one.
It is a hard one. OK, go ahead.

(02:14:20):
Tom, that's enough. I would I would go back and see
what would happen if she never put her hamster in the
microwave. That was such a fucked up scene.
I forgot about that one. So you just brought it up.
Still fucking unnecessary. Again, just there to show you
how fucked up she is because like you, I think this game goes
to great lengths to like not allow you to really sympathize

(02:14:42):
with Iris until Chapter 7. So you you guys thought that
Iris was the focal point of thatscene?
What do? You mean?
I thought that I thought the most important part of that one
was the parents. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I see what
you're saying, but yeah. Yeah, I didn't mean like derail.

(02:15:10):
I think I just had a misunderstanding.
No, I think I think both are right.
I guess The thing is if you change too much of her past it
makes the occupants less interested in her.
Then she probably just dies to the virus.
Yeah, I mean, like if we're justobserving, I don't even know.

(02:15:35):
Like, is this something I can change?
Like what if she stayed with herparents?
Well, I I don't like. Go ahead, you can.
Respond to that. I I mean, that's like that's all
I'm asking it like like that's what I'm saying.
I think it would be interesting to see what would happen with
her parents if she stayed with them.
Like maybe probably just died ofthe virus or whatever, but I

(02:15:56):
think that would be an interesting sequence of events
to watch by comparison. Not to say that the other is
uninteresting, but like if I could watch an Auckland
alternate reality, that's one that I.
Would like to watch. Yeah, I feel like she has like a
few big inflection points and that's one of them.
'Cause she does kind of just. Leave.

(02:16:18):
And I think that's a big part ofwhat fucks her parents up, if
I'm remembering correctly. Like maybe even if she doesn't
stay, but at least like gives a proper send off to them, you
know? Yeah, she's a very callous
person. I don't, I don't know if I would
change any one of them because Ifeel like every part is like

(02:16:40):
integral to the character. Well, sure, but like, if you're
a watcher and you're watching this shit 867 times and you want
to go for the 868th and you wantto see something real
interesting this time, what would you do?
Like some. Morbid shit, like like just for
fun, just anything like Jesus Christ.

(02:17:01):
Then there's like Infinity, likeOh my God.
But they're all fucked up. All the things I come up with
are fucked up, so they're just for good.
Fun like something as innocuous as like.
What if she took the whale in her backpack?
You know I. Was thinking about the vibrator.
Yeah, I think that would have been my fun answer, yeah.

(02:17:21):
I mean I'm thinking like what ifI can't remember the
specifically about Iris, but like what if youngest didn't
pull clone Zhao out early? I think that's the implication.
And it was like like a fully manifested version of Zhao.
Like how would that have changed?
That's a cool one. Fallout yeah, that's a good one.

(02:17:43):
I think. I think it would have been the
same, but I think it might have been a little less intense,
Right, you guys, That is a good one.
Can you like remind me why she hated that clone so much?
I think it was, I think it was 2parts #1 she was recreated in a
hideous form which probably justlike exacerbated the guilt she

(02:18:08):
was already feeling. And two, I mean they they
committed the first sin that they ate the fruit from the
fucking tree, which she explicitly told them not to.
And authoritarian rulers typically don't like people
breaking their one rule. Yeah, I guess it's just because,

(02:18:29):
like, Iris is fucked up, then you gotta like remember that the
whole time because like, obviously that's not like a
reasonable response. I did like how like Super Saiyan
that scene was, though, just to kind of like bring that up.
I was like immediately just fucking killed that bitch.
Hell force behind that dude. Yeah, that's just.

(02:18:50):
Oh, man, while I was playing, I just want to say that was the
best, the best example I can think of of a Chekhov's gun in
video games. It is the best example I can
think of where she's holding theknife and she's like, ready to
cut the cake or whatever, like before.
Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I'm like, that's a big fucking knife.
What do you have to do with thatthing?

(02:19:11):
And OK, one minute later. All right.
You used to Chekhov's gun. Good job.
Nice. Well, I have nothing else to
discuss if you guys don't. No, I'm good.
I. Just want to bring up the cool
moment of where like the occupant fucking like chases and
kills chow or like it's like theonly like horror moment in the

(02:19:33):
game. I forgot about that until like
right now basically. Yeah, that part was great.
Yeah, I thought it was really good.
It was like the only. Part that was like a jump scare,
so just so like in your face andlike jarring.
Yeah, I think the game in like the first couple chapters said
really good, like jarring cuts like that.
Like it was fucking awesome. Including the like Iris killing
Jow's clone. And like, I, I feel like I don't

(02:19:55):
have a lot that I want to bring up right now just to like
explain it why I'm not saying a lot here, I guess is like I, I
don't feel like I have a lot to discuss.
And that's not to say there's not a lot to chew on.
I just, I just have things that I can like praise this game for.
Like I just think that the the way that the keepers interpret
the discordance of. Of humans being interpreted from

(02:20:19):
Bach and turning that into the discordance of the virus with
crying and everything like all of that is just.
So I thought that was. Cool.
As an idea, it's it's fucking great.
No, I agree, I think that's fucking bad ass.
I also like the fuck you and fuck Bach or whatever Iris says.
Yeah. And there's just like so many
little things like that that I think are just great, Like the

(02:20:42):
reveal of like BBF and Fixer still being alive and like when
BBF kills the Red Guard. Like, like there's so many good
individual moments that it's hard to really discuss them
narratively for me. But there is just so much that I
want to praise this game for. You know, I agree.
I think there's a lot of cool small things like that for sure.

(02:21:07):
Yeah, I think the mechanism thatthe by which the virus works is
really cool, like the way that they feed on memories, right?
And they figure out that people crying generates fat memories
and they end up literally makingpeople cry to death so that they
can feed on big memories, big emotions.

(02:21:29):
I think is a very like, interesting, like narrative
choice. Yeah.
And, and like I, I feel like there is like, like there's so
much unique creativity to this game with stuff like that,
because I feel like that kind ofidea, like if you zoom out a lot
has kind of been done before. This is going to sound crazy,
but like I'm thinking of WalkingDead style zombies where like

(02:21:51):
you make like sound and they congregate and they become a
horde. And that's what attracts the
source of nature to you. The idea of people just getting
really sad and that attracts these God like aliens to
basically accidentally kill you is so enthralling to me.

(02:22:11):
I think it's so good. Yeah, yeah.
And I even like like the weird sort of like interpretations of
like how the occupants like, I don't know, whatever you want to
call it powers, I guess work, which was like, and this is me

(02:22:33):
like making some assumptions where I kept trying to figure
out like, why the fuck can we live or why the fuck can
secretary access Iris's mom and dad's memories?
And the only thing I can come upwith is like actual like genetic
sequencing where you have genetic memories that get passed

(02:22:57):
in DNA and secretary can access those.
And I think that that's like a weird cool little detail.
I thought it was because like all the memories were stored in
the planet. Like that's why they preserve
the planet, so they have access to them forever and ever.
And then Iris, and then they showed him with Iris because
obviously they're that they're pertinent to her.

(02:23:20):
Yeah, I didn't. I wasn't sure like how the scope
of all of that worked. I definitely don't know.
I still don't really know why. Watch why they kill people I
don't. Like the I guess the reason why
I thought that is just because Watcher seemed like she could
only access memories that were pertinent or related to Iris.
I just, I mean, I think the reason they kill people is the

(02:23:43):
discordance idea. Like they thought that humans
enjoy this level of discordance because of like the vibrations
of tones and yadda, yadda yadda.And they thought that they were
helping by like creating the virus in the way that they did.
They like, I don't know if it's intentional.
I just don't think they see the people dying as a bad thing for

(02:24:05):
us or for them. Yeah, because everything is
trapped in the cage anyway. Yeah.
Yeah, I definitely don't think that the occupants were meant to
be viewed as like a malevolent force.
Like, intentionally, yeah. I just didn't understand, like,
why when there's a lot of emotion, they show up and kill
the things that are there. That's the part that I didn't
get. Well, it's not.

(02:24:26):
That they kill it, it's them being present exposes people to
the virus, I think. Well no, I thought they killed
some because like what's his name in the the ship?
They all have like masks on a ship but it looks like that they
like got picked up and then likeslammed or some shit.
Well, I think that's because Iris had some degree of like
controller agency over their actions at that point because

(02:24:50):
she was like, Yep, here's my memories.
I know you're real interested inme now.
I can like levy some degree of control over you.
And she leveraged that control by making it fucking kill
everyone. Feel like it needed to.
It shows up because of the like the intense emotion and then
like it's Iris's manipulation that kills them.

(02:25:12):
That's my reading of it anyway, yeah.
Yeah, basically it's it's attracted though.
It's attracted there or it's insinuated to have been already
nearby, like lurking the entire time, like the alien and yeah
yeah, midnight. Them doing that shit 'cause it
to come inside. At which point Iris could be
like, oh that's convenient, let's go all of them.
OK. That's the one I didn't know

(02:25:33):
because like I don't understand why they would kill the people
because I understand everything else about like why they like
memories and like the discordance and thinking that
they like it, but I just didn't know why they showed up and
killed motherfuckers and those shit and.
That is a little confusing now that you brought it up in that
way, but I guess what about thisgame isn't?
Confusing maybe? I don't know, maybe I just took

(02:25:53):
everything at face value, but I just assumed it was them feeding
on the memories or something. And because their quote UN quote
language is so alien to us, theydon't understand that they're
literally killing those people or something like that.
That's close. I don't think that they feed on
it at least. I might be wrong, but they don't

(02:26:13):
understand like the concept of death because they think that
like memory, as long as memoriesexist then that is existence.
So like death to them means nothing.
Yeah, it's it's basically like like are you dead when you sleep
or whatever? The the occupants don't have a
concept of death. They just see data loss or data
transfer. Exactly.

(02:26:34):
And to them, death is not data loss, it's just transference
because they have the cage. No, but that's what they say.
Yeah, they say that exactly right.
They say like death is nothing more than lossy transfer or
whatever. Yeah, and then they have the
cage, so it doesn't matter anymore.
Yeah. I don't know about the feed part
though. Like that could be right and I
could have just missed it, but Ithought that they, I thought

(02:26:56):
that they weren't like evil at all.
Like there was no sense of evil.It was just the circumstance of
them being around that killed people.
Yeah, I think that's, I think that is 100% correct.
Yeah, I mean, that just like goes into some of the things
about like communication and miscommunication and different
interpretations that the game touches on.
Like it's an alien species that we couldn't communicate with,

(02:27:18):
and there was a fundamental mistranslation on so many
levels. I mean, if there's anything that
is like directly near inspired, it's those guys with the virus
and like, yeah, and Project Gestalt and all that.
Like that's the biggest near inspiration that I see the game
got from. Yeah, let that again.
That's why I praised that idea by itself because that's the

(02:27:39):
closest something has gotten to the near Desalt replica
situation and like any game I'veplayed since then.
Question for you guys, did the when the occupant event happens
in Chapter 5, but was there actually an occupant?
Like what? Happened, I think.
I think the answer is no, but I never found an answer to this

(02:27:59):
even close to anything that I looked at.
That's a good question. Because like, like that, that's,
I was gonna bring that up when you guys were talking about
whether or not they're malevolent, but like, what the
fuck happened if there wasn't one there?
I feel like it was like principal or something that
staged it, but I have no info for this whatsoever.
How could you have even done that?

(02:28:20):
You just need access. Alarms.
Yeah, you just need access to the ship's controls, right?
And they already have access to the sky and everything, so I
imagine it's just in the same place, but they don't allude to
it at all. I always assumed that it was
some sort of like, foul play because like at that point it's
pretty much said that there's only one occupant left.
Yeah. And it is the occupant that's

(02:28:41):
like obsessed with Iris or whatever.
And so, like, why would it have like left anyone alive?
Because I feel like clearly it'sgot like the power to just like
merk everybody. Exactly, like if it wanted to
like at the end where it catchesyou, like if it wanted to show
up, it would fucking show up. And the fact that you don't see

(02:29:02):
it is why I think it's like a stage fucking false flag event.
Well, yeah, that is a tough question and.
Maybe I need to play chapter 5 again because like that like
that thing where it pivots to this guy an occupant event is
such like a shift that I just completely lost all memory of
what was happening up to that point.

(02:29:23):
It was something cool, right? Where like things kind of felt
OK for a second. Isn't that what happened?
I remember feeling that where itwas like fuck man, things were
just starting to feel OK. Yeah, they they were about to
like, do some kind of celebration.
I can't fucking. Remember.
Oh yeah, it was. It was the the new the new fix
of graduation. Yeah, that's.
What it was? Oh, right, yeah.

(02:29:44):
And then that bitch died. Immediately died.
I merked. Oh, we should probably start
moving towards wrapping up. Do you guys want to do?
Awards. Sure, sure.
Let. Me get back OK.
What was the first one? The everybody's favorite sister,
Ben. For me, I put bartender.

(02:30:09):
Bartender is a good one. I wish they gave more spotlight
to bartender. I was only thinking of the core
sisters. I didn't think of the
extraneous. Yeah, you could pick anyone.
You could pick fucking one like Germaphobe Sister if you really
wanted to. I thought she was the main
sister in my heart. Yeah, bartender was awesome.
I wish bartender like had more of a spotlight for sure.

(02:30:36):
Tom, you want to go? Yeah, my favorite was Nowhere,
for all the reasons I've talked about 1000 times.
I just think she's like one of the most like layered and
difficult characters to kind of like absorb.
And I think anytime she was on the screen, something

(02:30:56):
interesting was happening. Yeah, I the the cool thing about
this one is I don't think there's a wrong answer except
principal. Like I think if somehow you
landed on principal is your favorite sister.
I think that makes no. Sense.
I mean, if you. If you wrap up like principal
and the youngest I could maybe see.
Like yeah I can see principal for sure, but not move.

(02:31:17):
Definitely not move. Yeah, if you pick move, you're a
fucking freak. Despite all of the, like,
rallying cries we said earlier about how the game seems to
judge her too harshly, she does fucking suck.
For a serious answer I'll say BBF, but my heart wants to say

(02:31:39):
not Iris, the actress that playsIris in the play.
Oh yeah, so relatable too so. Relatable.
Like wait. What's my motivation here?
But just go off script. Oh.
OK. Dude, the fucking the don't
press the button moment where she's just doing the fucking
creepy ass like tell me that youmiss me kind of shit was funny.

(02:31:59):
Call me a good girl. Yeah, that shit was awesome.
And that is also an example of agreat performance.
Yeah, I I wish they didn't fucking like even make that an
option like to press the button early.
Like, I think that's a mistake. Oh yeah, I agree.
I think my favorite was probablyhealer because I really liked

(02:32:21):
like healers like fuck you you gave up on fixer communion
thing, even though I think kind of in the second-half of the
game they just kind of forgot about her.
I. Don't think they forgot about
it. I feel like she kind of like, I
feel like everyone who isn't nowhere kind of lost the
spotlight after their communion happened.
The communion happened. Rather it was more about like

(02:32:43):
just Watcher and Iris and Principal and everyone else like
Fixer kind of took the spotlightback a little bit.
I. Don't think I disagree with
that, but I also don't see it asa bad thing.
Yeah, yeah, I'm not seeing it asa bad thing.
She probably did need more of the focus.
So I do agree. And I agree with like literally

(02:33:04):
everything that was just said, Iguess, by everybody.
Yeah, same. What's the next one?
Favorite chapter? Which I think this is hard
because all the chapters kind ofblend together.
If. Anybody has any?
They're all very. Like discreet, in my mind, it's
tough for me to remember what happened in 4 versus 5 and then

(02:33:24):
six versus. Seven, basically.
Yeah, 2. 2 through 4 specifically kind of run
together. For me, exactly.
All of the rest are very like distinct, yeah.
And then I think like 789 happened so quickly that I think
that I could easily flip what's in what in there.
I don't remember what the chapter number was, but it's

(02:33:45):
ever whichever 1 is when you're.Kind of synchronizing.
Blue with Watcher and it although it was like it was like
at that point of the game where like it started feeling like I
started having agency and I could start to like positively
affect the outcome. That's when I started getting

(02:34:06):
like super invested and it was it was around that part where
like you awake as or like kind of watcher kind of comes back
from the dead. You know what I mean?
Is that whatever chapter that was, was it 7?
It might have been. I think that was 8.
It's eight. Yeah.
OK, it's 8 then. Well that's my favorite chapter.
Nice. If you want to go, I'll go.

(02:34:33):
If that one was 8, then I believe this one was 7 the.
The Watcher. Interrogation chapter which I
believe I could be wrong, but I believe that's also the chapter
when mother and father dance. And that.
Is a 10. Out of 10 scene was that the
same chapter? I think it was because you like

(02:34:54):
flashback through the interrogation rooms, right?
OK, so in my. Mind, then, seven and eight are
the same. Chapter or like they blend
together for me because well. I guess like, yeah, they're
they're good. Wait, did you say the did you
say the Riddle chapter? Seth?
No, I can hear you. No, I said the what?

(02:35:15):
I I said the the interrogation of.
Watcher chapter oh. The OK, yeah.
And. Then I heard that my brain
thought of that as like the fucking Riddle part with the
occupant. My bad.
Oh OK, that one was really good gameplay.
Wise, that is the same yeah, that's a good one yeah.
I I mean, I think the dance is the.
Same but. Yeah, no, it is for.
Sure, Yeah, 'cause yeah, you flashback through the entire.

(02:35:38):
Yeah, that the dance ship was super cool.
I was confused at first when I. Went to it because I thought I
had to interact with it. Because when you get to the old
but that last scene. Hit so fucking hard.
Like I cried during that part. Yeah, that part was super cool.
Yeah, I think for me, I think it's Nowhere, the chapter with
Nowhere's communion with. Like the the Riddle with the.
Occupants and everything. It's four or five, I have no

(02:36:00):
idea which. One it is, but yeah, I thought
that one was badass. Did Thomas go?
I don't think so. Tom, what do you got?
Mine is also. Chapter 7.
I think. Chapter 6 was like a really big
left turn in the. Plot and then Chapter 7 serves.

(02:36:20):
As like. The like real sort of epistemic,
like pivot point where you startreally kind of crystallizing
like what the story's message isabout.
Yeah. And I think it it, it really
like, it examines like the core theme of memory and a lot of

(02:36:41):
like in a variety of interestingways.
Like you're in an interrogation,right.
And so the interrogation is likea way of trying to mold
someone's memory into a new shape or like trying to not a
single like rope of causality. But Watcher's mind literally
can't focus long enough to actually allow that to happen.

(02:37:05):
And she's just sort of drifting like in and out of these
different memories. And I think it felt like Chapter
7 was the point where they took all.
Of these like. Clones and robots and sisters
and really humanized everyone. Every single person gets

(02:37:27):
humanized to a huge degree in Chapter 7.
The parents, Iris, nowhere, likeliterally everyone.
And I think it, it shines a big light on their motivations.
And I think it was really, really important for them to
take the time to frame Iris in amore tragic way, because up till

(02:37:49):
then, they were just framing heras completely fucking monstrous.
And the way that they did it, I thought was like one of the most
beautiful fucking things I've ever seen in a video game in my
entire life. Which was taking the scene of
the first communion between Irisand Watcher and Knower and just
showing the, like, mundane videoof her mom's life in Hong Kong

(02:38:14):
as they just, like, drove aroundand was that was that Chapter 7,
too? It's the end of Chapter 7.
Yeah. And Oh my God.
I just thought that that was like a really quietly like.
Poignant way of. Anchoring Iris and her sisters
in like the real, like the capital R quote, real past
rather than like the the the performative way that the

(02:38:37):
communions operate. And it grounds them in something
like really anti romantic and ordinary in a game that like
refused to like accept ordinary it before that.
And so, like, I think I think itwas a really cool way of just
trying to say that like, not everything in the world is like

(02:39:01):
worth saving has to be this likebombastic, mythical or tragic
thing. And sometimes like the memories
worth preserving are just ordinary St. sounds and
overgrown grass. I fucking love that chapter.
Yeah. I, I, I just want to say now
that I'm realizing that all of that is in the same chapter,
that that chapter is absolutely.Like fucking 10 out of 10.

(02:39:24):
Fucking incredible storytelling.Like goaded shit, 'cause like, I
think in the hands of a significantly worse writer that
it, it could have been an incredibly gratuitous chapter
where you're just watching, you know, the character that you
played for five chapters. Get fucking.
Tortured and all of this shit and it would have been just
misery porn. And I think that a worse writer

(02:39:47):
would have seen that as kind of the end of a 2-3 end of the
second act of a three act structure and think, oh, OK, my
character has to be at the the bottom of the barrel so that we
can rise up in the in act three in chapters 8 through 10.
And I think that, you know, the the writers and creators of this
game, they they have that theatrical background, so they

(02:40:08):
understand the three act structure.
And I think that with that understanding, they saw that as
too much and decided to Add all of these like moments of elation
and calm and serenity into what would otherwise have been
occurred to this chapter. I I just think that's fucking
massive lies. Yeah, abso fucking lutely.

(02:40:28):
And I think it like parlays intotelegraphing that like Watcher
is going. To die like like by the end of
that chapter when Fixer and BBF like break into the
interrogation room, like it's, it's like self-evident, like
Watcher is is just not going to make it.
And it sort of like casts the chapter in like a weird sort of

(02:40:54):
light where like the entire timeyou're watching nowhere like
just toe the line between torturing her, but also trying
to save her. And like for every, for every
like decent thing that she does,there's like a horrific thing
that she does, like almost immediately afterwards or vice

(02:41:15):
versa. And there's, there's just so
fucking much going on in that chapter And, and all of it's
good. It's like, so it's for what it
is, which is just like a single perspective through like a
person in a padded room. There is so fucking much going

(02:41:35):
on, it's crazy. That's all we got to say.
Yeah. I just, like, wouldn't watch
her. Woke up and they were like
whatever. You do.
Don't do a communion. She's like you.
Communion, now that was great, yeah.
Yeah, like I said, like at that point, like, she knew she was
fucking toast so might as well. But she didn't.
Though, did she? It was like it seemed very much

(02:41:59):
telegraphed that she was going to die at the Oh no, no, no,
but. She did she.
We knew that. Secretary had to tell her Yeah,
and Secretary thought that like we were a fucking iris plant or.
No, sorry watcher. Thought that we.
Were an iris. Plant until secretary.
Was like, no dude, you're dying.During the communion, like the
player knows for sure. I mean, you're, you like you're

(02:42:20):
both correct. It's yeah, yeah, yeah.
All right, you guys. Want to go to camera shots, you
guys got any screenshots? I didn't take screenshots, but I
can I the. The ones I.
Described. I'm sure you guys will remember.
I mean mine is like I I wanted. To go with.
One that I didn't think you guyswere.
Going to pick and it's so it's this one and it's how early they
just show you the fucking alien,how sick this fucking shot is.

(02:42:41):
That was my third, I almost wentwith it for my first.
You're mad. I screenshot of that too.
It's not my favorite but I did screenshot it.
Try to pick because I like the obvious one.
That I was going to pick. What I didn't have a screenshot
of is when What is it? Iris is talking to her mom.
The one that you posted. Earlier, Tom.
So that's two of my top three right there.

(02:43:04):
Oh yeah, the Dance 1 is fucking awesome.
And that one's like like, yeah, that's a big lighting highlight
for sure. And then even if we're.
Absolutely. Like first place, not close.
One of like the greatest shots I've ever.
Seen in any sort of artistic medium, video game, movie or
otherwise. Is this bad boy right here?
Yeah, that one's really good. Even if we're just posting those

(02:43:25):
screenshots, Maybe describe themfor listeners.
Go ahead, Tom. Wait, what am I doing?
Describing for the listeners. Yeah, so.
The one that I posted. Is the scene.
Towards the end, I believe it. Is I.
Believe Chapter 9 towards the end of Chapter 9 when Iris is

(02:43:47):
getting her memories overwritten.
So that they can. Overload the occupant and it's
just her sitting in the stairwell with the red shadow or
red lighting cast over her with her mom sitting or standing
below her in the stairwell with the blue lights.
As Iris is just asking her mom, you know, like, how did you,

(02:44:09):
like, manage to cope with motherhood as, like, they're
kind of mutually bonding over it.
And her mom is sort of lamenting, you know, like, yeah,
it's a good question. How the fuck did I deal with,
you know, being a mother and dealing with, like, post
traumatic paranoia and all of this shit?
And the outcome of that as, like, the colour sets the stage

(02:44:33):
with, like, Iris's, like, harsh red fucking rage and her mom's
sort of soft Blues underneath. And she just answers that it was
her dad that was keeping everything together.
I think that that is a very poignant, beautiful scene.
Shortly before Iris stops existing entirely.

(02:44:58):
Yeah. Yeah.
I'll have to steal this one. This is.
Yeah, this is like one of the best scenes for me.
Yeah. And then the other two that.
I posted just as like stuff thatI really fucking liked.
One is the dance scene in Chapter 7.
Absolutely incredible just to the way of like demonstrating,

(02:45:18):
like even in times of like global tragedy, global trauma,
like sometimes it's just important to try and fucking let
loose to just reorient. Yourself.
Back into the like almost absurd.
And then the other one I posted,I think that's from chapter 4,
maybe when youngest is staring up at the quote UN quote sky,

(02:45:41):
not the real sky, but with the watcher in the communion
standing right behind her. And then the one that I posted
is basically it's in chapter 1. It's one of like the first like.
Crazy things that you see, whichis just seeing the like.
The occupant in picture Joe on top of the rooftop of the
school. Mine I'm I'm going to get 2

(02:46:07):
answers because like I can't decide.
I think I have. A favorite, but for different
reasons. I wish I had taken screenshots
of them, but the first one I'm sure you guys will remember.
I'm pretty sure it's in chapter 1 and I think it's when you go
into the gymnasium for the firsttime, I think.
But all of the floating kids with the spotlight shooting down
on them, you guys remember that one?

(02:46:28):
Oh yeah. The floating is that when
they're all like blacked out andthe Halos around them.
Don't remember if they have Halos, but it's.
Showing like all. The kids that got hit by the
virus, there's like the. Bright white light in the.
Background, they're all just floating.
It's like, OK, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.
Yeah, I don't think that's chapter 1.
Because what? Jordan posted I think is the end

(02:46:50):
of chapter 1 and I don't think you go into the.
Gym but but regardless, I'm not.Sure.
What you're talking about. In any case, that's one of them.
And the second I mean. The dancing.
Scene with mother and father in chapter. 7 is pretty fucking.
Goaded especially for what it means and the story and it
compared to the other one I mentioned.

(02:47:11):
The dance scene also has that great aspect of moving backwards
in time, so you just keep seeingthem move through all of the
different memories still dancing.
I think that's very powerful. Fuck yeah God this game is for
a. Game whose fidelity is dog shit

(02:47:32):
boy did they use. The camera to great effect Yeah,
I think when I saw the fucking like the Sky One that you
posted. I think the reason why it didn't
resonate with me as much becauseI hated the sky texture.
That they used, but I think that's very nitpick.
You started to bring it up. Did you?

(02:47:53):
Did you want to do favorite knock knock knock?
Joke. I figured you guys probably
didn't even write 1 down, and ifyou did, it's probably the same
one that I wrote down. But yeah, knock.
Who's there, tank? Oh, it's not the same.
One tank who? You're welcome.
That was good. I forgot.
About that one. By default I just said whatever

(02:48:14):
the last. One was because like.
Just it had a narrative purpose that was kind of like inverted
from like. Being humorous, you know which
one was the last one? It's the one where Blue actually
told says Knock, knock. Oh, isn't that one sick?
Yeah, like, no. One's there or something.
Yeah, I remember being so good, but I don't remember what she
said, but like, yeah, no, I'm with the fact.

(02:48:35):
That she was the one that said knock, knock.
Yeah, no, I'm with you it. Was sick, but I don't remember
what it was at all. It's something like no one's
there or yeah, I can't remember.Is that the only the outside
couldn't remember? Any of them, because I also
think that the only one I saw was.

(02:48:57):
I can't remember I I was trying to find it on the wiki or
something but I couldn't but it it was a very dry 1 towards the
end of the game where it's like.Very.
Dark humor kind of knock knock joke.
Like, I can't remember. We might be talking about the
same one. It might be the same one.
I mean, it might be mine, which is knock knock who's there.
Snow. Snow who?

(02:49:17):
Snow use. This joke.
Will never be funny. It might have been that one.
Yeah. When BB after that I.
Was like damn. That's fucking.
Hilarious. Now BBF is.
Great. Are you?
Going to do scores I don't thinkI really.
Got into it when I was talking about favorite sister.
But like BBF? I I think out of like the core

(02:49:38):
sisters. I think she's just fucking
incredible. Because she's You could maybe
make this argument for nowhere, but I feel like BBF is the most.
Easy example. To understand one of the core
sisters that really struggles with her purpose and I I think
it's just very engaging the likearc that she goes through.

(02:50:04):
Yeah, I agree. I think that.
It's it's very. Interesting.
Like I think she is the sister. That has.
The most pronounced like arc, like development like she by far
changes the most from beginning to end.
And the fact that they made thislike super kind, compassionate

(02:50:25):
class clown like childlike character.
The fucking like military defense person is like crazy.
Also funny how they're it's likenowhere watcher all this fucking
like what they are and then BangBang fire is the one that should
be called like attack or whatever.
Yeah. I, I think everything about that

(02:50:45):
is great. Yeah, I mean, I think so for me,
like the reason why I picked thehealer over.
BBF was. It's basically like.
The same thing like it's. It's the easiest to like.
Kind of sympathize with like herstruggle of like having to
constantly clone these bitches and then they just like die and
all that shit. But I think, I think she didn't
have as cool of a transformationas BBF did though.
Like because BBF felt like she evolved a lot in the

(02:51:06):
second-half. And I feel like healer just kind
of. Felt the back line.
I think if I ever play this gameagain I'm going to be keeping an
eye out for the thing they mentioned in that dev interview
where they talked about healers toxic positivity because I.
Didn't, I didn't catch a lot of that when I played and it
sounded interesting. I that's interesting.
I'd have to play that again because I definitely got the
sense that she was like, like. It wasn't toxic positivity as

(02:51:31):
much as it was just like almost,what's the word like just I
can't think of it, but. Like she doesn't give.
A fuck, but she does, you know, like she's.
She's really. Trying to put on a front that
like nothing's that serious, butyou know, she's fucking
crumbling underneath. I think, I think that plays into

(02:51:54):
kind of what I wanted to see in characters, you know, like them
having emotions and I think, butI think because her base is
Iris, she. Can't really have that emotion.
I think she's like the closest thing to like super like,
sympathizes to like the tragedy that they're all experiencing.
Fuck on. I need to play this game ago.
You want these scores. Ben, do you want to start with

(02:52:16):
your? Score.
Yeah, sure. Wait, how do we do this with the
reveal? Oh.
Yeah, we were going to reveal after.
He says it got. It OH.
OK, so should I just give the score?
Yeah. No, no.
Yeah, go ahead. My bad.
Yeah, give your spiel. I give 1000.
X resist a 10 out of 10 that. Was a great fucking game.

(02:52:36):
I almost want to play it. Again, not right now, but at
some point in the future and I don't replay games that often
anymore. It also helps that it doesn't
take a lot of effort to play this game.
I didn't consider the lack of effort angle.
I think I only. You didn't think Ben gave this

(02:52:58):
game A10? Oh fuck, I thought I hedged at
9.50. God damn it.
I fucked up. Wow, you guys fucked up.
I, I swear to God, I. Think I, I think I made like a
second guess today and I thoughthedging at 9 was.
Gonna be better. But I think I I think I
initially had it at 9.5 I thought.

(02:53:19):
Cause. Ben always has very insightful
comments with the UI stuff I thought he was going to tear
into this game's. UI and I thought that was gonna
bring it down, but I was just way off.
I guess things that I hated about the UI are not the things
that normally concern me like. Like the like.

(02:53:40):
Visually, like the principles ofart and design were implemented
extremely well. Like the very near?
Automata esque UI. The parts about the UII hated
were things about like kind of like the functionality of the
mini map and stuff like that. But like, the stuff that offends
me about UI are usually like things that, like anyone can

(02:54:02):
tell just by using their eyes that it's wrong.
You know what I mean? Where is the things that I
dislike are things that like. You can't really.
Get bothered or frustrated by unless you play the game like in
deeply like try to feel it out. Gotcha.
One day I'll one day I'll understand.
I can't believe you guys didn't look at his like this is a war

(02:54:22):
crime when he posted Astrobot and then go.
Oh, he thinks this is a. Test that is Astrobot.
Are you fucking joking me? If OK this might be a hot take
but if this game came out this year would be game of the year.
For me, you did rate it higher than Clare Obscure.
I did. I did that on purpose.
I I I actually felt obligated torate this game a 10 out of 10.

(02:54:44):
And I mean. Yeah, I think this game is
absolutely on a similar like Echelon this Clare Obscure I
think do you want? To go next then Tom?
Sure. I sort of neglected to.
Write up one of my like big bombastic.
Closeout statements. So I'm just going to go off the

(02:55:06):
cuff here and just say that gameplay wise, mechanically,
this game's totally fine. The moment to moment gameplay is
engaging enough that it keeps itout of like the Edith Finch,
like this is barely interactive at all territory.
The UI is fine sometimes. I like it a lot actually.

(02:55:27):
I like certain elements are awesome.
I think the music in this game, even though I don't know we if
we really talked about it as as much as I thought we should
have. I think the music in this game
is fucking absolutely outstanding.
The visuals are just kind of OK,but the way that this game uses
color and lighting elevate them to be vastly more than the sum

(02:55:48):
of their parts, but narratively is where this thing swings for
the fences like fucking Ken Griffey Junior and absolutely
blasts it 700 feet into the fucking next town over.
I think the way one thing about this game that is another thing

(02:56:09):
we didn't really touch on is that even though this game is
very dense and has very high emotional points and there's a
lot going on, like in all of thevarious junctures, it was
written with a very deft hand. Like one thing that can drive me
crazy in games like this when they try to have a lot of

(02:56:32):
thematic depth is just kind of like bashing you over the head
with it and just being like really, really heavy-handed.
I would even accuse Claire Obscure of doing that sometimes.
But this game did it in such a subtle and brilliant way that I
don't think I would like fault people for having trouble

(02:56:54):
analyzing certain aspects of this game just because it is so
subtle and so complex, despite the just like bombastic fucking
nature of it. And so I think given all of
that, like one of the first things I thought after I
finished this game. Was Holy fuck I.
Need to play this game again, like just to try and really wrap

(02:57:17):
my head around some of the the fucking onion layers that is the
plot and theming of this game. So I'm not going to, I'm not
going to drone on too long. This game is a 9.5 out of 10,
and it is very close to a 10. I think there's just a couple
inconsistencies and the way thatI wish that visually this game

(02:57:42):
stacked up to the quality of everything else.
But yeah, it's a very high 9.5 out of 10 and this game is
incredible and should have been game of the year over whatever
the fuck Astropod is. You all nailed it.
Yeah, I hedged A9 for you because I thought you were going
to be again like. It's basically just like hedge

(02:58:04):
like this ban. I would pick a 10.
Every day of the fucking week. Because I knew he thought it was
a 10. Without his comments, I probably
would have thought he was somewhere between like 9 and 9
1/2. If I think if I think a game is
A10, it will be like really obvious.
Yeah, that's why I was like, I don't think Tom's going to 10.
And so I don't think he's going to 8 point.
Five either, so I'll probably just put 9 because I think it's
an easy edge. Sechell, do you mind going next?

(02:58:28):
I want to see if I'm going to bea dark horse or not, so I could.
Say I don't I obviously I thought like the gameplay.
Was like either serviceable to frustrating.
I didn't talk about it because Ithink I'll I'll bring up the
same point every fucking time. But if you have a forced walking
segment, you better. Be doing something.
Interesting during it, and I think that this game never did
that. Every time I was forced to walk

(02:58:48):
and that drove me crazy. And then again with like the
performances I thought like the performances like weren't,
weren't stellar and I think thatthey're a lot of it is.
Based in like ours being like. Sociopathic and everything like
that, which like I understand, but it's still like that's
something that I like in games. And then the music just didn't
resonate with me. Like you guys said.
I'm not saying that the game hasbad music.
I just it didn't click with me like at all.

(02:59:10):
I thought the game had great like sound effects though.
Like I expected this game to completely just have like fully
library bullshit and to not havelike anything that was like cool
sounding. But I think that they didn't
like surprisingly well with that.
And then yeah. So for me, it's going to be an
8. Oh, did I get it?
I think that's what I guess nailed it.

(02:59:31):
God, I nailed. It on the money.
Nice. And bad things.
I hate games. That was terrible.
Tonight I did almost go lower. I think I.
I think I. Tempted.
The thought of seven. Based on what you said leading
into that, I thought it. Was going to be a 7.
No, I think the the everything the game does in the narrative.
Like I just I basically wanted to highlight why I was giving it
an 8. Like I think like everything in

(02:59:52):
the narrative is like super cooland interesting and.
There's like a lot of small things that add up to more than
like, the overarching thing, because I think near and clear
obscure does like an overarchingthing better than this game.
But I think this game has a lot of cool, like, small Nuggets all
over the blaze. Yeah.
Like I think the thing that separates the like the 10 out of
10s from the 9 1/2 out. Of 10s for me is just like even

(03:00:16):
though like there's small flaws that you can point to in those
games like they are the whole fucking package.
Like they are fun to play, they are fun to listen to, they are
fun to like see the story of like everything is just like
incredible. Whereas the thing that knocked
0.5 points off of this game is just like how how could I

(03:00:39):
justify near automata being on the same tiers this game when
the game is like so much more fun to actually play as a video
game. I think.
I think for me like the performances of the music held
it back like probably the most like specifically the music.
I think this game had like a near music soundtrack.
For me, or like Clare Obscura, Ithink it would probably be like
a nine and a half almost. But like, I don't know, like I

(03:01:01):
just, I just I like I literally can't think of like any of them.
And every time I try to think ofsomething, it's just like kind
of simple piano things that like, remind me of like
Blueprints music kind of thing. Really the things that turn out
to me the most are like the electronic tracks.
Yeah. The fucking Tangerine Dream Like
Spacey synth tracks those are. Fucking so good.
I don't know, like while I was playing they just didn't

(03:01:21):
register. At all, like I think they might
be. But yeah, that's why I could
just say like, it didn't hit forme.
Well, what are you going to do? Yeah, what do you, what do you
got, Seth? So the the beginning of this is
actually going to. Be a little similar, almost
segue ish from what sesh was. Just talking about with the.
Gameplay. The experience of 1000 times

(03:01:46):
Resist to me was a 10 out of 10.However, this game is not a 10
out of 10. If I'm judging a game, I'm going
to judge. It as a game if.
I'm judging a movie. I'm.
Going to judge it as a movie. If I'm judging a show, I'm going
to judge. It as a show.
This is a game and I'm judging it as a game, even if I felt it
should have been in a different medium to a more powerful effect

(03:02:09):
in my opinion. It's OK if you guys disagree
with that. Similar to Sesh, I felt that the
gameplay was extremely lackluster the vast majority of
the game. Where it could have been
engaging, I felt there were several missed opportunities.
Like I highlighted earlier, I thought that even though this
game did a fantastic job of likemitigating whatever losses, like

(03:02:37):
mitigating its lack of assets, it did a fantastic job of that,
it still didn't have that many like stellar assets that I was
super impressed by. I'm thinking of things like the
lack of animations or the lack of committal to no animations
because they still had scenes with animations and shit like
that. However, that all might sound

(03:03:00):
like, Oh my God, it's going to give this like A6 or A7.
No, I think that the narrative of this game might be one of the
best narratives of any game I'veever played.
For me, the narrative itself is.Up there with.
Automata or the original Near orClaritzkir.
It might even be a little past that for me because of the
incredibly unique way that it presents everything and the

(03:03:21):
creativity and understanding of the theatric medium like I
described earlier. Like if I were to just judge it
as that, or if it was maybe in one of the other mediums that I
described, this game would probably be a 10 out of 10 for
me. But it's a game.
I will judge you as such. Thus, it is a nine out of 10.
It's higher than that though, for sure.

(03:03:42):
Oh, that's not what we all thought, Savage.
Yeah, like I said, you guys metagame does.
We had no information I. Didn't meta game you?
I didn't say anything. You met if.
If it makes you guys feel any better when I finished the game.
I had a strong. Feeling that it was going.
To be an 8 out of 10 for those same reasons.
But as I thought more and more about the narrative, the themes

(03:04:06):
and how they lingered in my mind, much like Claire Obscure
did I, I felt like I had to bumpit up a little bit.
Hey Jordan, what was your score again?
8.08 yeah. Yeah, I I kind of waffled.
The same way that set that but from like. 7:00 to 8:00 and then
yeah. I think I I this game could like

(03:04:28):
literally never be higher than. An 8 for me, but I don't think
it'd ever be like lower than an 8 either.
Like it could almost be a 7.5, but I think that's kind of a
little bit of an injustice. Yeah.
I feel like the difference between me and Sasha's ratings
just comes down to our disagreement on the performances
and music. I feel like that's.
All that comes down to I thoughtyou were agreeing with me on the
performances for the most part. No, I thought the performances

(03:04:50):
were incredible. Oh, OK, I mean.
Why? I just thought there were a
couple that stood out as sure, sure, sure.
I I think a lot of mine is. Music.
I wonder if. I didn't totally represent.
Myself, great. Earlier.
I I the. The performances could be good,
or they could. Be bad, I just don't.
Know how much they were given. To work with at times, you know,

(03:05:12):
like, I don't know, I mean, I think there's a hold on it, but
I I think I have a higher opinion on the performances that
I do. Yeah, I don't think the
performances in this game would.Like perfect.
Like I said, I think there's a few like glaring instances where
it's like pretty. Uneven but.
Like I said, those are like typically for me anyway, they
were like one off characters whoonly have like a couple voice

(03:05:34):
lines. So it wasn't.
Like a big. Detractor and a game that's got
thousands of voice lines that a few of them were kind of shitty.
Yeah. Like at the end of the day, like
did my feeling about Zhao bring my opinion on that down a little
bit? Yeah, But like.
You guys are right, she was still representing what she was
supposed to represent. I just did not view it as a

(03:05:56):
powerful performance as I interpreted someone like Johnson
the 50. I'm really quick.
I just want to say how pissed I am.
I know I had guessed Ben at 9.5 because I knew I.
Was going to hedge in either. Direction and if I had kept that
because I guess I must have had brain fog earlier today when I

(03:06:17):
was editing my guest for. Seth.
It would have resulted in Ben and I both having perfect guest
scores for each other. Damn I can't believe Seth is at
9. That's crazy.
I I really wasn't sure. If I was going to.
But I don't know man game. Lingered in my head, yeah.
I think I, I think I actually had you at a. 7 and what I

(03:06:39):
changed was bringing you up to 8and that's why I changed Benz to
9. Just curious, why'd you think I
was? At A7, if I did, you think I was
A7 like leading up to this, is that what you mean?
Yeah, Yeah, OK, sure. Like before before we.
Started talking when I made my guesses I had you literally said
0 words about the game. I had no information.
I I thought that there was goingto be like the lack of like

(03:07:01):
riveting gameplay and then I think I just projected my like,
music didn't hit. Onto why I think you were going
to go down to like 8. So there there is.
There is only one game for me ever.
That is an 11 out of 10 and thatis Outer Wild because the base.
Game is a 10 out of 10 and then the DLC made it an 11 out of 10.
If this game had like automata levels of gameplay, it would

(03:07:22):
have been an 11 out of 10 easily.
Yeah, that's fair. That's kind of what I was saying
earlier where I think if you do want to be like.
I I struggle to think. Of a like.
Visual novel that I could. Rate 10 out of 10 just on
principle, to be honest. To be fair, this isn't really a
visual novel. Yeah.

(03:07:43):
And that again, that's my issue with it if I was judging it as a
visual novel. I would have had a higher
opinion. I like.
I like no gameplay adventure games.
Like more than visual novels butbut nobody does this.
Yeah, like I was saying. Before, like with visual novels,
the thing that drives me crazy is that I read so much faster
than the visual novels go, so I feel like I'm like.

(03:08:04):
I'm being neutered in my abilityto like, digest the novel at the
pace at which I want, and something about that just drives
me nuts. I think.
I just think the lack of free exploration to go like see cool
rooms is kind of what visual novels truly lack.
Like you wouldn't be. Able to go see like the prayer
room with the mirror room with like the fox skull or whatever
the fuck animal it is or things like that.

(03:08:25):
If you're in a visual novel. Like if you did, it would be so
fucking annoying. Like you just go to a screen
that doesn't do anything. Like go fuck yourself.
Oh, why don't we go ahead and get wrapped up since we're now
over 3 hours, Thomas. Would be like to spin the wheel.
Can't really hang out. Oh shit, I forgot about.
That who am I? Who am I spinning for?
It's not just me and you, buddy.Oh.

(03:08:47):
Has it not been either? The Ben I I did.
Torment. So the rotation.
Oh yeah. The the last.
It saves the last. Thing I had in here, so it's
just between Seth and I, no. No, wait, isn't it?
Hold on. Ben wasn't included.
We we just reset. What did Ben pick?
He picked Final Fantasy 16 in Torment.
He. Didn't pick three games, did he?

(03:09:08):
And he picked he picked life lessons as Intermezzo.
No, we did it right. I'm I.
No, we did it right. We did it right.
Trust. Trust me, it's Thomas and Speth
are left. No, but I don't it has.
Something weird to do with the fact that Ben.
Came in like in the middle. Of our rotation and so we added
him on at the end. So I kind of screwed up things.
All right, well, I've got two people telling me that it's

(03:09:30):
right and I don't know the answer, so I'm just going to
spend I I still stick with it. It's.
Wrong. But I'm not going to.
I don't. I don't feel like it's worth it.
I hope it's not me because I don't know what I'm going to
pick. They can.
Just steal my pick if you want since you've been talking about
1. But you said you're going to,

(03:09:50):
you literally said in the channel never.
Mind, I know what I'm going to pick.
Earlier, yeah, but. I'm waffling you're.
A bastard. Fucking spin.
Oh. He spoiled it.
What? Does it mean How?
Do you know? Because you said, oh, thank God.
Yeah. That could mean anything though,
Yeah. It means it wasn't you.

(03:10:11):
Look. Look whose name it's on.
In the. Thumbnail.
Yeah, it's Seth. Let's get to the end, bitch, OK?
Here in we discuss. Baldur's Gate 3.
And I will only. Be choosing Baldur's Gate 3.
With unanimous consent. From everyone in.

(03:10:34):
Here, at this moment. Recorded SO.
I have proof that we can play Baldur's Gate Three.
Yeah, I'm good. Yeah, I think Bulger's Gate 3 is
fine because what I was going tochoose could operate as an inner
mezzo, maybe. Possibly.
We'll have to talk about it. Yeah, So I know, Sashu said.
You can't stick around, so we don't have to.

(03:10:57):
We can like talk about it in. Chat channels later, but for
listeners we're going to play Balgus Gate three.
More than likely what's going tohappen is we're dividing it into
three separate episodes with twoto three weeks in between each
one. One episode for each act, and
we'll have inter mezzo games foreach week that we are not

(03:11:19):
discussing Balgus Gate 3. So because next week we'll
obviously need an inter mezzo game.
I brought it up enough. That I, I kind of just want to
get your guys's opinion on it and it'll be like a super short
one because I don't think we need to go deep.
Into it so. I think for the first inner
Mezzo game, if I'm allowed to pick, I will choose Mimic Logic.

(03:11:41):
So, and to provide some additional context, all of us
have played through Baldur's Gate multiple times other than.
Jordan, who will be playing. It for the first.
Time. And how long do we want to give
ourselves to get through Act One?
I don't think any longer than three weeks.

(03:12:02):
Yeah, I don't think any less than two and I don't think any.
Longer than 3. I was thinking probably like,
yeah, I was thinking probably. Either 3/2.
Two or three 2-3, I'm not sure which, but Act 2 is almost
certainly. Two weeks.
Yeah, Act 2 we can definitely pare down a little bit.

(03:12:23):
Yeah, I. I I think that works.
I think that's, I think that's. Acceptable and we.
Can just kind of pause it intermezzo games amongst
ourselves after mimic logic and to be clear, if we're giving
ourselves three weeks that means.
Our discussion of ACT. One would be on the 25th, right?

(03:12:49):
Yes, yes, OK. So that.
Means we'll need an another inner Mezzo game for the 18th
so. I actually like the game that I
was going. To put forth and the reason I
say it's a. Perfect for inner Mezzo games is
because it's three games and that was the Hello Charlotte

(03:13:10):
games. The first one's like 2 hours,
the second one and the third oneare both like 3 or 4 hours
apiece. I know they total up to less
than 10 hours on how long to beat between the three of them,
so we could just do like one a week maybe if you guys wanted
to. And we'll call that an episode.

(03:13:32):
Fuck yeah.