Family is Complicated | Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Analysis (Ep. 153) - Pixel Project Radio: A Video Game Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey there, folks.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
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(00:23):
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(00:43):
the show. Also, at one point, someone's audio picks up
a bunch of cicada noise. Nothing I could have done
about it, didn't notice until afterwards. Sorry, Now onto the
episode for real. Welcome back to Pixel Project Radio. This

(01:12):
is part three of our ongoing Claire Obscure Analysis. Forrak
from the three Do podcast, frackofs podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
Joins me again. How's it going for AC? It's going great?
How are you pretty good, my friend? Pretty good? We've
got a lot to cover today. Act two.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
As you said in the last episode, rack is quite long.
I had forgotten how long it was compared to the
rest of the game.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
So there's quite a bunch in here. We're going to
get through it.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
I want to start with some forgotten community forum responses.
I had put up the call for responses a little
bit late, so we had a couple of stragglers, and
I'm going to read them now. First up is from
doctor toot Ted Doctor Todd. Here's what doctor Todd says.
A triumph so rare has a game's premise felt so

(01:59):
spectacularly singular and alluring from the opening steps taken in
Loumi Air. This is a world painted in rich color.
It's color with a you, which makes it fancier, steeped
in folklore, and drawn to convey a fundamentally human story
with a balance of levity and tragedy. Claire Obscure is
a high wire act that somehow succeeds on every level.
In short, I'll say that my save is resting just

(02:21):
before the game's final sequence, as this is a world
that I just do not want to leave editing these
for just a little bit more brevity. By the way,
I think I can co sign all of that.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
Yeah, sounds great. A lot of people. I've heard this
from many people saying that they just really didn't want
to leave the world because they just enjoyed it so
much and like did all the side quests and all
that stuff.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
So yeah, I've never been able to relate to not
finishing a game or a book or a movie because
you don't want it to end.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
But I can understand it.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
Usually usually by the end, I'm ready for it to
be over, you know, But sometimes I want to revisit it,
you know, which I think is a different feeling We've got.
Adam from the Specter Approved Pod. Adam says this what
I like to describe as Hell's Paradise meeting Final Fantasy
in an amazing homage to the greats of the RPG genre.

(03:14):
Fantastic characters with actual backstory, a bunch of great battle systems,
creative and thematic weapons, and ridiculous hairstyles and clothes, and
a game that gave me a mime phobia. By its conclusion,
definitely a Game of the Year contender for me. Did
we talk about the mimes. I was just about to say,
I don't think we ever talked about the mimes.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
Yeah, the mimes have a terrific soundtrack and soundtrack a
terrific theme that's playing right now. It's one of my favorites.
They're a cool fight because they force you to break
them if you want to do any actual damage to them.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
Yeah. So for those who don't know, the mimes are
these like kind of secret bosses I guess you can
just find throughout the game. I was able to beat.
I think it's the first one, like at the very
start of the game. I was able to beat him,
and then but it was a tough fight, like even
right then. And then occasionally I would find another one

(04:09):
and I'd be like, hey, let's just see and then
I would attack it and it would it would like
take off so little damage it didn't even show on
the bar, and I went, oh, I'm f this is
not gonna go very well for me. So yeah, I
was only able to beat one of them, But I
mean they're they're I like that they're there, you know,
these kind of like Marceau Marceau looking guys. You know.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
Fortunately, they've only got two attacks, and the attacks kind
of catch you off guard with the spacing between each hit,
but once you get the timing down, they become fairly easy.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
I think I will I will believe you on this one,
because I never bothered to deal with them. After a
certain point, I'd be like, I'm good man. You get
you get alternate hairstyles if you do, which is cool,
Oh that's cool. Do you get wacky Final Fantasy hairstyles? Well,
some of them, like you can get a bagette hairstyle.
That's like like Lune will wear a and sunglasses. But

(05:01):
some of them are like, yeah, just normal hairstyles. Okay, okay,
because if they were looking like I can't remember his name,
but it's like like the main film and Final Fantasy X,
like if you if you get his kind of wacky hair,
I think you mean Seymour, right, that's probably who I'm
thinking of. Yes, yeah, he's got he's got a wacky hairstyle.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
H yeah, mimes are sick. And lastly, Genova's child and
I think this is their first community forum correspondence. They
say fantastic game in a much needed fresh ip, and
in parentheses of they write, cringe to the AA RPG
Space Double A RPG Space the AARP. While I loved
the majority of the story, there are some big swings

(05:42):
in Act three that for me undercut the fantastic world
building and brilliant character development that precedes it.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
The majority of the.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
Combat was interesting, even though pictose management became cumbersome. Over
reliance on dodge and parrying meant that many bosses were
simply impossible without mastery, something I lack. I should have
saved this one for the next episode when we get
to Act three and talk about some of these optional bosses,
because everything that Genova's child is saying will be more

(06:12):
relevant in the next episode. So maybe we'll bring this
one back whenever we talk about all that.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
Yeah, though I do agree a lot of what they
are saying here, and I don't think it's cringe to
say a fresh IP. I don't know. Maybe the cringe
part is that they're like thinking it's much needed.

Speaker 2 (06:29):
I have heard arguments that overuse of the phrase IP
is indicative of the normalization of capitalist language. Sure, I
haven't given it a ton of thought, but I see
that argument's point.

Speaker 1 (06:42):
If that's the way they're going with it, which is,
you know who I do not know, so I can't
say one way or the other. But you know, one
thing I like about Exhibition thirty three is that it
is something new, something we haven't seen before, especially in
an industry that feels like it's relying more and more
on known products, like known entities and just like sequalizing them,

(07:03):
remaking them, remastering them. It's nice to see such a
big project that is like new and it's just kind
of like, you know, sweeping everything you know, and most
likely we'll be sweeping awards at the end of the year,
I hope.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
So thank you folks for contributing. If you want to contribute,
just as a reminder, you can join the free discord
and contribute there. The next one is Final Fantasy Tactics,
and it's still up for submission, so let's dive into
the game.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
Let's start with a little talk of the Grandest.

Speaker 2 (07:31):
We left off at Minoko's station last time after fighting
Minoco with that killer soundtrack, but we didn't mention the Grandest.

Speaker 1 (07:39):
What do you think of the Grandest track? I'm trying
to refresh my brain. The grandest is that, oh, that's
that character there? For some read I can't remember him
right off.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
Yeah, yeah, that one guy, you know, he's there, he's
looking at me. The grand is there, like those big
rounder creatures that look like they've got large mustaches.

Speaker 1 (08:02):
Oh okay, I'm seeing a picture of them now.

Speaker 3 (08:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
Yeah, I like the look a. They're pretty sweet.

Speaker 2 (08:08):
I don't want Okay, I don't think this game needs
a sequel or a DLC. I think it's fine to
just have work stand on their own. That's totally cool
and preferable.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
Yeah to me.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
But if they were to release DLC then involved like
more side quests. I would love to see more of
these guys because they kind of begin and end here.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
Their whole deal.

Speaker 2 (08:30):
Is there a non violent race, like they settle disputes
with poetry, like poetry battle slam poetry.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
That's great, like battle rapping.

Speaker 2 (08:39):
Yeah, I'm looking at the wiki and it said that
they would hold oratory games every four years, and one
debate lasted for ninety six hours.

Speaker 1 (08:48):
They're pretty cool. You can get bonus.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
Outfits by talking to one of them, finishing his poems
for him, like he gives you line A, you give
them line V.

Speaker 1 (08:56):
That kind of thing. The answers are all super duper obvious.
What they're looking for, but it's really neat.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
I like the idea of this pacifist race existing in
this dystopian sort of healthscape.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
After the fracture. Yeah, I agree, that's really cool. But
to touch on the sequel or DLC thing, somebody on
the development team said that them they're going to do,
They're going to make some kind of successor to it,
that like Claire Obscure is the name of the franchise,
and that like Exhibition thirty three is just one of
the stories that they want to tell. Now I don't

(09:29):
necessarily know what that means, but I guess they are
hinting at there's going to be more in this world
later on, which I get why they would do that,
But I just hope that Sandfal doesn't just become like
the team that makes the Clareub Sciar games, you know
what I mean.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
Agreed, Yeah, I will support them, however, and I'm rooting
for them and I want to be proven wrong.

Speaker 1 (09:51):
However, that's a little bit of a bummer for me. Yeah,
a little bit for me too, because I just there's
just something nice and round about this game, you know
what I mean.

Speaker 4 (10:02):
It's just it's a nice hole so.

Speaker 2 (10:17):
So let's get into it. After we leave Minoco station.
There are some camp conversations. There is a great line
from Scia if you talk to him with Verso, where
he uses the line I have a big brain.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
I am the big brain, which.

Speaker 2 (10:31):
I am absolutely going to clip for future podcastings show
smart you are, but uh don't and don't forget too.
Verso and Ska have a history. It is very clear
they know each other and have been friends for a
very long time.

Speaker 1 (10:45):
Yes, and it always plays into whenever they chat with
each other, which I love. You know that they'll give
like details about past things, but in like that kind
of conversational, friendly, friendly way. It's not it's not like
doing exposition so that the player knows what's going on.
They're just like, oh, remember that one thing, and they're like,
oh yeah, and you did the thing you know. I

(11:06):
like that, Yes, exactly.

Speaker 2 (11:08):
We'll talk more on their conversations and the character's side
quests in the next episode.

Speaker 1 (11:13):
I think.

Speaker 2 (11:14):
For now, the plan is to go to Old Lumier
to destroy the Paintress's heart which is there, which it
follows will destroy her. This is Verso's plan, so he
takes us there. We're at Old Lumier. I like this area.

Speaker 1 (11:27):
I think it's neat.

Speaker 2 (11:28):
It's it's got the standard deconstructed detritus that we've seen
throughout here, buildings in disarray. Is this the one with
the ferris wheel? No, that was Gustav was there because
CEO asks him about a date. Yeah, this is a
little bit later. If I remember correctly, this is the
area where there's like the like the big house hanging

(11:49):
off the cliff a little bit.

Speaker 1 (11:51):
Further on, I believe you.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
What I remember most from here are the giant swords
sticking out of the ground with like lava like material
dripping off them.

Speaker 4 (12:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (12:01):
It's metal, is shit? Very metal? Yeah, dude, it can be.

Speaker 2 (12:05):
That's the second most metal thing in this game. The
first metal thing is an optional boss.

Speaker 1 (12:10):
That we'll get to later but that I really dislike.
But that's another day. We get more talk on the fracture,
which might get illuminated in this episode or the next,
but largely the group still doesn't know about it. I
think that's cool.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
I like that there are still mysteries in the world
that the characters don't know. Oh yeah, so we get
up to a building we've got to go through it,
and Minoko says he'll destroy.

Speaker 3 (12:33):
It, just admit you come to it yourself.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
And he sure does, but he also blows our party
away entirely. It's pretty funny. This leads into a classic
split party section. You know it's a JRPG, you've got.

Speaker 1 (12:46):
To have it, Yeah, exactly. You know, Oh that silly Minoco.

Speaker 2 (12:50):
Yeah yeah, it's pretty funny too. Group one is Monoco, Luna,
and cl and when we see them, Monoco is just sobbing,
almost uncontrollably.

Speaker 1 (13:01):
He's like, I fucked up. I'm sorry. I fucked up,
But no coup. Why the hell did you sorry?

Speaker 3 (13:10):
I fucked up.

Speaker 2 (13:13):
We just have to regroup.

Speaker 3 (13:15):
The others should be fine. Verse. I said, the heart
is in the center of old Lumier, Right.

Speaker 1 (13:22):
I killed everyone. He was like, I just wanted to
show off. It's pretty funny. I just wanted to be cool.

Speaker 3 (13:30):
Don't you like me?

Speaker 1 (13:33):
Oh the HiT's too close to home?

Speaker 2 (13:35):
Yeah I know, right. Lunai is pretty pissed at him.
Ceew more pragmatic, wants to keep the peace. I don't
remember where this happens. I wrote it out of order,
but you can see an apparition of the fading man
around here, like we've seen the fading young guy. Yeah, yeah,
and I want to read a little bit what the
fading man says again, not voiced, not sag eligible, but look,

(13:57):
you can hire me. The fading man says this. These days,
I am just a man who sits and thinks. When
she was young, she'd get sad thinking about mortality. But
when I asked her about her sadness, her answers surprised me.
She who painted nevronds She wasn't scared of death itself.
She was sad because there are more works of art

(14:18):
than she'd ever be able to see in her lifetime,
all the beauty in the world she'd never get to experience.
That saddened her. He goes on, It's important to remember
the ones we love, to keep them alive in our
minds when they are far away. I really this really
resonates with me. I think about this a lot. Yeah,

(14:39):
it's very poignant. Yeah, this idea, and this is why
I have no problems putting a game down if it's
not speaking to me, maybe come back later, maybe not
putting a book down.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
Whatever.

Speaker 2 (14:51):
Even frak even if you and I only played red
watched things that we would love we knew that we
would love or really really like, we will never get
to all of that in our lifetime.

Speaker 1 (15:01):
Never, yeah, exactly. And and even even if we just
did things that we liked, there's always that one thing
that we miss that could have been our favorite thing,
you know, Like there's just so much in the way
of like you know, art and media and entertainment that yeah,
as you said, we will never truly get to experience.
And it's a weirdly like it makes you think about

(15:26):
your mortality, you know that, like the idea that like, oh,
I may never discover like my all time favorite band
if I had heard that, right, you know what I mean,
like that kind of thing, or even like play my
all time favorite game. I mean, I don't know how
any think it topsnic for your knuckles, but you know,
maybe something out there good, but there's a chance I'll

(15:47):
never know.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
It does You're right, it does make you think about
mortality a lot. I've been thinking about that, I swear
ever since Outer Wild's maybe maybe even a little before that. Yeah,
but it's I don't know, it puts me in this
like gridlock state where I can't think about it because
it's it's disconcerting, but I want to. So those conflicting
forces just kind of hold me tight and I can't

(16:09):
really move internally, you.

Speaker 1 (16:11):
Know, yeah, Like sometimes I get way too into that
like idea that like, oh I'm gonna die one day, yeah,
you know, and then and then like you think about
it too much and then it just you You can
feel yourself kind of freaking out almost, you know, like internally,
and I'm like I'm like disassociating almost, and it's like

(16:32):
I need to come back. I need to come back,
because you know, when you think about it too much,
it's just really it really fucks with you. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:40):
As John faul Sartre said, we must find our own
way in the life, though existence precedes essence exactly.

Speaker 1 (16:46):
One thing I find interesting about the Fading Man is
there is that his face. You don't see his face,
like his head is like you see everything else like
the hat, the suit and everything, but his face. It's
just an empty spot. Because with the Fad Boy, you
see his face. Uh, I don't think you do. I
thought you did, or at least you see the like

(17:08):
the hole where his face would be. I thought you
saw that on the man too. I feel like it
wasn't there like, there wasn't anything, like no neck even
either way there.

Speaker 2 (17:17):
I think the important thing is their face slash head
is obscured in some way. Yes, it's cleared in some way. Yes,
by the way she who paints Nevron's Uh, of course
we assume that's the paintress. We're gonna learn more about
this and I love it. Probably next episode, maybe this episode.
Back to our group, though, doubts about Verso begin to surface,

(17:39):
specifically from Luna and Ceo. Luna says, you know, I
trust him only in so far as it seems like
he'll help us reach our goal. But what's his deal?
What's his background? Why is he here? What's going on?
And they try to ask Minoco, but he seems a
little cagey about it. You know, He'll they'll say, what's
Verso's How do you know Verso?

Speaker 1 (17:56):
I knew him all my life? How did I meet Verso?
He just doesn't want to talk about it. Yeah, I
mean we're I think we're getting to that point where
it feels like Versa is kind of just becoming normalized
in the group. So I think it's smart of like
the of the writers to be like that. The character
should be going, you know, where did this guy come from?

(18:16):
Why is he here? Why is it like something here?
Is is kind of weird that he just kind of
showed up and that's the big deal. So, you know,
and with Minoco and being cagey about it, is in
a way kind of telling oh yeah, oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:32):
Lune finds his journal fifty eight and we don't know
what she's reading. She's reading silently, but she immediately becomes worried.
She's like, what the fuck, and then she says we
have to look for Mayo. Before it cuts to our
next group two. Versus Mayo, Minoko says.

Speaker 1 (18:47):
Versa would never hummer, getting a little bit of a cliffhanger,
a little bit of a red herring in a way, Yeah,
because we don't know this guy. He could be looking
to harm myo. Yeah, I mean, I mean there's the
whole you know, renarsitchuation where it's just this guy appeared
out of nowhere and just caused all the harm. It's
like Verso could be you know, more of like a
secret agent type of deal, you know. Yeah, uh double

(19:10):
O fifty eight.

Speaker 2 (19:13):
So we cut to Versa and Mayele Noko is there too,
we're going to talk more about Noko in a little bit.
We'll see Versa and Maele get further separated here, and
while looking for him, Male finds this grand manner seemingly
frozen in time, well intact, despite the overall destitution in
old Lumier, and she can't shake the feeling that she's

(19:35):
been here before, that she knows this place. Did you
make this connection pretty quickly? I thought it was fairly obvious.

Speaker 3 (19:43):
What about you?

Speaker 1 (19:45):
What the connection that mile had been here before? No? No, no,
that this is the manner that we go to if
we go into the doors scattered the read. Yeah, I
did make that connection. It just it made too much sense. Yeah,
you know.

Speaker 2 (19:57):
Yeah, she sort of transfixed, like it's got a hold
on her and she doesn't know if it's like hernicious
or just nostalgic or what. But she approaches it and
the door opens and we see I can't remember, is
this the first time we see this woman?

Speaker 1 (20:13):
I think I think it is. I think it is too.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
It's a curator esque woman, think of the Curator, but
with long hair and a feminine body. And that's yeah.
The door opens and she's there. This is where verso
comes out of nowhere, jumps forward. He says, I knew
you'd open the door for her, and outwalks renoir and
he says, really, Versa, this was your plan. We see

(20:36):
Alsia is with them, Remember the white haired girl.

Speaker 1 (20:39):
She hugs the woman.

Speaker 2 (20:40):
Verso looks on incredulous as the door closes on the
two women renoirs just outside now and he poses an
interesting perspective.

Speaker 3 (20:50):
How many times must you hurt our family?

Speaker 1 (20:54):
No? No, you don't get to let you me fon family?

Speaker 3 (20:58):
Why do you refuse to see I'm doing this for us,
yet you insist on rushing toward death. You'll try to
stop the wrong cycle. You're doing this for yourself. Of
course it's easier for you to think that, Isn't it

(21:22):
easier to betray us if I'm the villain.

Speaker 1 (21:25):
You haven't told her the truth yet, have you? Son?

Speaker 2 (21:28):
This is sort of the big reveal. Luney and CEO
come in at that moment and they confront vers So
Renoire is his dad?

Speaker 1 (21:35):
Yeah, it's the first kind of unraveling of what's going on,
you know, and like like they're not playing their whole hand.
But I feel like when you first see these two characters, together.
You almost get the sense that, oh, there is a
connection between them, Like, you wouldn't assume it's for meal,
but I mean that's what it ends up being, and
it kind of makes sense, especially the further you get in. Yeah,

(21:58):
you're right, you.

Speaker 2 (21:59):
Wouldn't assume that it's familial, but it's so clear that
they've got history just based on how they talk to
each other, you know. Yeah, yeah, I didn't necessarily see
this coming, but I wasn't surprised either.

Speaker 1 (22:13):
Like, up to this point, I knew that there was
something between the two of them, but I wasn't sure
what it was. You know. I didn't want to spend
all my time playing the game speculating about what was
happening next. I was just kind of more letting it
do its thing and then I would just kind of
react to it. You know.

Speaker 2 (22:29):
Yeah, that can be a bit overwhelming going through a
book or a game or a movie and constantly wondering
what's coming next.

Speaker 1 (22:36):
I don't know about you.

Speaker 2 (22:37):
Like for this podcast, what I've been doing is I
take my notes afterwards. Generally not all the time, but
I take them afterwards as I'm watching cut scenes or
like a let's play that way I don't get fuddled
up and all mixed up mentally during the game, and
I can save my analytical thoughts for afterwards. I don't know,
that's just what works for me.

Speaker 1 (22:58):
I mean, I think that's a good way of doing it.
It allows you to kind of view the story from
a more fresh perspective, you know, and they're not worried
about like, oh, I got a mixture, I'm playing the
game correctly, you know, you can just kind of soak
in the story from an observer.

Speaker 2 (23:12):
I think music critics, and I think music critics and
literary critics have an easier time with this.

Speaker 1 (23:16):
It's generally quicker.

Speaker 2 (23:18):
To get through an album or a book unless it's like,
you know, Dostoevsky or Anna Karna or something. But like,
you know, I always think of that jay Z quote
that Dunky put in a video where he's like, you know,
people rush to write an album review the day of,
but he's like, you can't learn everything from an album
in one listen. I think that's totally correct, Like you
can't learn everything a work has to tell you in

(23:40):
one go around. It takes more than that.

Speaker 1 (23:43):
Yeah, I completely agree, though, I think in these days
with the Internet culture, people just want that immediate reaction.
So that's why, I mean, there are so many people
now who just like react to things and then just
make YouTube videos of it. They're like, oh, I'm gonna
listen to this thing, and then when they're done, there's like, oh,
that was pretty cool. I guess, be sure to like
and subscribe, and it's like, how are you getting like

(24:03):
thousands of views? I don't under Yeah, that's why you
get so many hackneyed and amateur and trite responses and reviews.

Speaker 2 (24:11):
Just because people need to be the first to get clicks.
And it happens with big publications too. And I feel
a little bad because the journalists just I mean, they're
fighting for their lives out there. That's not a lucrative career.
They need to do it to survive. But the result
is a lot of shoddy coverage.

Speaker 1 (24:26):
Yeah, and then it makes like the people in the
journalism field who actually do good work, yes, they do exist,
it feels like they kind of get, you know, taken
advantage of. Because I think absolutely in the musical world,
in the book world, even in the video game journalism world,
I think there are people within that who are like
doing legitimate, like good work, and I like and I

(24:49):
like what they're doing. It's just you know, people are
to attack them because they don't agree with me. We

(25:10):
get into a Renoire fight. This could be kind of tough.
His attacks have.

Speaker 2 (25:14):
Varied speed, he can heal himself. He can also vanish
your team, which happened to me on my first goal.

Speaker 1 (25:21):
I can't remember if it happened to me. I know
I had to fight him twice because the first time
I got him like about half and then I kind
of like messed up my strategy. Oh, it's because I
was still learning his like Dodgers and Perry's the first time. Yeah,
so I was like I got lucky a couple times,
but he wiped my party. But then the second time
I was more comfortable with what he was doing, so

(25:43):
I was able to take care of it. But I
remember when we got to this point, or when I
got to this point, I thought to myself, I'm like,
they're treating this like it's kind of like a major
moment in the game or you know, like it to me,
it felt like this boss had a little bit of
like Final Boss energy, just a little bit. But I
was like, it feels like it's too early and with

(26:04):
everything going on that like, like especially when we get
to the end of the fight, like it says some
things where I'm like, eh, this doesn't feel like the
end of like say this character or this arc, you
know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (26:15):
Sure, I can't remember if this is where the really
good boss theme plays, but it definitely plays well. This
isn't really a spoiler and a later renoir fight we'll
talk about it. Then it's not a spoiler because we
win the fight here, but we lose in the cut scene.
Classic JERRPG trope.

Speaker 1 (26:35):
It's not normally an issue with RPGs. I mean, it's
kind of with games in general where they put you
in those like fights where it's like, oh, you're supposed
to lose or whatever. It's like, then don't give me
the option to try to win, because then people will
try to find a way to win, and then you
do and then you realize, yeah, it was all for not.
It's like that was annoying where at least could have
been a cut scene. This could have been an email or.

Speaker 2 (26:54):
At least or at least stop the fight like three
fourths of the way through. And I know that's being
kind of like you're putting that much emphasis on a
health bar really, and it's like, yeah, I am, because
that's representative of their fatigue, of their weariness.

Speaker 1 (27:07):
I don't know that that's the medium. What do you
want from me? It's always kind of annoying when they
do it, but you know, it is what it is.
I guess somebody likes it.

Speaker 2 (27:16):
So Renoirre makes this huge blast of chroma. This is
my third take saying this, and when the dust clears,
we are injured but ultimately fine. Although Noko is dead
or broken as they say this threck, I don't know
how you feel. This death did absolutely nothing for me. Yeah,
it didn't do anything for me either. I mean, if

(27:39):
you're trying to do like deaths like this, I mean
it kind of does it earlier with a gustave, like
you have to give people a reason to be sad
when it happens, you know what I mean. And Noko, No,
it didn't really do much for me. So yeah, he's
part of it because we just don't know him very well.
His whole personality is to occasionally chime in and be

(28:00):
kind of funny with the way he talks.

Speaker 1 (28:02):
I want to be the best person.

Speaker 2 (28:03):
Ever, Now, I will say Minoco gets extraordinarily melancholic about this,
and his side quest explores why. I get that that's cool,
but we don't learn about that for a while.

Speaker 3 (28:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:17):
Yeah, it's fine for like, you know, other characters to
feel that way, for sure, But I think it's it's
kind of difficult to portray deaths of like comedic characters.
You know, sometimes they just kind of come off weird
that they just kind of expect you to care, you know.

Speaker 2 (28:35):
So Mael is enraged. She attempts to attack Renoir. He's
shielded by that like fourth shield chroma shield that he's got.
He says, why can't you accept who you are? He
goes to attack Mael, Verso shouts Alicia move. She and
Renoir clash swords.

Speaker 1 (28:56):
Really badass scene, and then she's in me imediately put
into a black and white filter again. I get so
excited every time he's come up. It's French new wavetime.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
Yeah exactly, man, time has stopped, aspect ratio has changed monochrome.
Miele comes face to face with Alicia, and remember they
look very similar. Yes, the game is not being entirely
subtle about this. It's not heavy handed.

Speaker 1 (29:23):
But it's not like it's not too subtle, yea.

Speaker 2 (29:27):
Alicia removes her mask and it reveals that her face
is burnt horribly. This is where Mile begins to see
visions of a fire.

Speaker 1 (29:37):
She hears screams.

Speaker 2 (29:38):
She asks for her name, but Alicia silently walks back
into the Manner, which is on fire. And this is
where my two takes. Before that, I had to retake
time resumes. Manner and renoir are gone.

Speaker 1 (29:53):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (29:53):
I started to put the pieces together here, at least
in terms of those two pretty quickly, which is an
bad thing.

Speaker 1 (30:01):
Yeah. I think this is like the beginning of you
kind of like if you're trying to put the pieces together,
you're like, oh, yeah, there's something more going on than
what is like initially being perceived. I guess not to
mention when Verso yells Alicia move at my l Yeah. Yeah,
you get the sense that you know, there, you know,

(30:22):
something something funk, something funky's going on here. You know,
I feel like I'm tearing into Professor Layton. We go
back to camp. Obviously, everybody is pissed at.

Speaker 2 (30:32):
Verso, even col and he tries to explain himself as
to why he didn't bring this up, he says.

Speaker 1 (30:38):
Because it's private, it's painful, and it's none of your business.

Speaker 3 (30:44):
Well, I cut ties with him decades ago.

Speaker 1 (30:46):
Lying by emission is still lying. Crack is lying by
omission still lying. Oh you're really gonna ask me that question?
I am really going to ask you that question.

Speaker 3 (30:56):
You know?

Speaker 1 (30:57):
In some ways, yes, I think it depends on what
it is you are omitting, because I mean, if we're
honest here, we don't tell everybody everything. Are you saying?
Context is important? Yes? Context is key? So like it like,
if you view lying by omission as like kind of

(31:17):
a blanket term, then we're all lying to everybody because
we're not telling them everything. Right. So, but but there
are situations where not giving somebody the whole picture could
definitely be seen as a lie for sure. And in
this case, I think Verso was, you know, because like

(31:39):
it's like, oh, this like weird old guy who's trying
to murder us. You're related to him and you're like
with us, so that makes us like even more of
a bigger target. You know, I understand why they would
be upset about that. Yeah, the key thing is Verso
acted with duplicity and intent to fool them. So yeah,
I mean he was absolutely lying by an Whether or

(32:00):
not he had good motive to do so, is you know,
another issue, But he was lying. Yeah. Yeah. The best
intentions reminds me of that. I don't know why, but
I always remember this quote from Jurassic Park three where
Sam Neil says, some of the worst things in humanity
have been done with the best intentions. And that's always
stuck with me. Oh yeah, the road to hell is

(32:23):
paved with him.

Speaker 2 (32:26):
It's a weirdly deep quote in a Jurassic Park movie. Yeah,
in a movie with fucking Chris Pratt. No, no, this
is Dress Park three. He wasn't there yet.

Speaker 1 (32:36):
Oh is that not the Chris Pratt one. No, that's
Jassic World. Oh okay, and that came right after three,
quite a few years after. Dress Park three was two
thousand and one, and then Drastic World wasn't until like
twenty fifteen or something like that. It's the whole thing.
It has William H. Macy in it. I reveal my
movie ignorance once again. Bring me back on. We can

(32:58):
talk about the Jurassic Park.

Speaker 2 (33:00):
We talk about the hit PS one game Warpath, which
is a fighting Jurassic Park game.

Speaker 1 (33:07):
Yeah, that surprisingly has a deep story with moral ethical dilemmas.
The deep story is bite, claw, scratch eat.

Speaker 2 (33:16):
Monoco gives Noko a send off. He puts them in
an urn. Again, we'll hear more about them later, gestures reincarnate.
It turns out, but not like in a holistic way.
It's a ship of theseus situation. When he reincarnates the
Noco we know is gone, it will be a different Noko,
same show, but different inside.

Speaker 1 (33:37):
Is it bad? I thought it was kind of funny
that they put him in an urn. Yes, it's just again,
it's just my brain, Like whenever I see an urn,
I just think of the Undertaker. I'm sorry, I can't.
I just think of like Paul Bear holding it up
and going, oh es, It's just my pro wrestling brain.

(34:00):
I'm sorry. I think it's sweet that they let Minoko
do this. Yeah, it is nice, though it is.

Speaker 2 (34:05):
Verso feels sympathy too, because him and Minoco are tight
as tight can be. Speaking of Verso, he says that
the Paintress's heart was in the manner that's why we
went to old Lumiere. So now that that's gone, we're
kind of sol But this is where Lunai confronts Versa
about Expedition fifty eight. He was with them, And in
that journal is where it says Verso and Renoir are

(34:28):
father and son.

Speaker 1 (34:29):
Son and father.

Speaker 2 (34:31):
And in that journal it also says there's another way
to get into the monument. Verso says, no way, can't
do it, too hard, impossible. That's when we approach the curator.
Turns out he's not just a creepy guy that upgrades
our weapons. He has a larger role in the story.
He can make a weapon that can pierce the Monolith's barrier,

(34:52):
and all he needs is copious amounts enormous amounts, extreme amounts.

Speaker 1 (34:59):
Of pure cocaine. Oh sorry, yeah, which can only be
got in those quantities from these beings called axons.

Speaker 2 (35:08):
Verso is like, no, it's not possible. They're so big,
they're so powerful, they are Kaiju times ten.

Speaker 1 (35:13):
We can't do it. So of course we're gonna do it. Yeah,
of course, I mean, what's more RPG than killing a
giant monster? Killing god with the power of friendship? Absolutely,
and social links. There are social links in this game, so.

Speaker 2 (35:32):
We're gonna do that. Interestingly, in journal fifty eight. It
says that both Verso and Renoir spent years trying to
kill these axons to pierce the barrier. What I like
about this game is it doesn't fall into the easy trope,
the easy trap of a one sided villain, a mustache twirling,
comic book kind of antagonist that just wants to see

(35:52):
it all burn.

Speaker 1 (35:53):
This might make folks mad, but I'm thinking Keefka. You know,
I was just about to say, what's wrong with Kafka?
He's great. I Kefka is not a nihilist, and I'll
die on that hill. I just love the HeSE, just
like a diabolical guy like I like that. And this,
by the way, this isn't lambasting retro games. Like you
think back to those cartridge games, especially, a lot of

(36:15):
the dialogue in writing was toned down because of memory limitations,
like f F six, especially when not Richard Honeywood he
did Zeno Gears Ted Woolsey. When Ted Woolsey did his
first draft of f F six, they said, this is great. No,
I'll make it half as long because we can't fit it,
you know. Yeah, So it's hard. It's hard to fault them.
Those spoony birds exactly that comes up in Final Fantasy

(36:38):
Tactics and it made me laugh real hard. It's a
great line.

Speaker 2 (36:41):
But yeah, character depth is important, and we see so
much of that here.

Speaker 1 (36:45):
I really like it.

Speaker 2 (36:46):
Yeah, so we get another camp scene. This is where
Verso tells Mael about Alicia being his sister and about
the fire. The thing is, though, is Verso has no

(37:09):
idea why they're trying to see myele. He's surprised even or.

Speaker 1 (37:13):
At least he tells us that they have a sweet
little bonding moment here.

Speaker 2 (37:17):
I really like this where he offers to give the
armband back and he says, I feel like a fraud
wearing it, and she says no. You know, she Gustav
was trusting, so she tries to be too. And besides,
it's the actions that count. She has learned two universal
truths as she continue and and she continues to try
to put them in action, That family is complicated and

(37:40):
that family can be chosen irrespective of blood. She has
gone through that transformation, She has lived that transformation since she.

Speaker 1 (37:47):
Was a kid. Yeah, because I'm trying to remember, I
don't think like Gustave was like her blood brother, right.

Speaker 2 (37:55):
No, No, she was kind of taken in. I mean
they say that early on, like you know, I'm I'm,
you're my sister or something, and Gustav says, well, at least.

Speaker 1 (38:04):
That's what the papers say. Yeah. Yeah, it's more like
I guess, like a like an orphan type deal.

Speaker 2 (38:11):
So we are going to take on the axons there
are technically there are three, but.

Speaker 1 (38:15):
We're only going to take on two.

Speaker 2 (38:18):
Verso suggests attacking one first because it was weakened by
a previous expedition. C I was like, let's take on
the stronger one first because we can, and he's like.

Speaker 1 (38:28):
Are you fucking crazy? Do you not listen to what
I tell you?

Speaker 2 (38:33):
Look, apologies, we are going to compress this section because
of time, because there is so much more than I
was expecting here.

Speaker 1 (38:39):
Yeah, this is this is a part where a lot
of like optional I think content opens up and you
can kind of like you know, grind and kind of
like do a bunch of other stuff.

Speaker 2 (38:49):
But the thing with both of these axons is that
there will be two optional bosses in each area, well
actually three in the case of one, that you can
take down to weaken the axon, which honestly.

Speaker 1 (39:03):
You really should. Yeah, that way.

Speaker 2 (39:06):
But let's talk about them as a whole. Uh, why
don't we talk about the visage island first.

Speaker 1 (39:12):
Let's do it.

Speaker 2 (39:14):
He who guards truth with lies? What did you think
about this section?

Speaker 1 (39:18):
I again, I just I liked the uh the aesthetics
of it because I think it, you know, kind of
maintains it's the consistency. It was an area I found
myself kind of getting turned around in more than I
was expecting, like especially for especially for you know this game,

(39:39):
because that that happened to me quite a bit in
certain areas, just because of the lack of like a
good map or good like markers to keep track of
where you were. But overall I liked it because this
is this is the one with all the various masks.
I think, yeah, it reminded me a little bit of
Final Fantasy nine with the scene on Tara or right
before Tara.

Speaker 2 (39:58):
There are tons of masks everywhere that are fashioned into happy, sad,
and angry. What's really cool about these three areas is
you go in the nevrons are acting in whatever way
the area is so like my favorite one in the
sad area, going to the sad mask. Every it's a
blue hue. The nevrons are around like mourning. I don't
remember if they're mourning other nevrons, but they're like in circles,

(40:21):
just looking down and they won't even attack you unless
you attack them.

Speaker 3 (40:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (40:25):
Yeah, it just kind of hits. Yeah, Like I think
they're just like I just think that area is just
like filled with sadness, so I think they're all just
kind of like sucked into it without maybe any necessary reason.
But correct me if I'm wrong there. The three masks,
aren't they like representative of like traditional like theater, you know,
like the happy, sad, angry masks?

Speaker 2 (40:48):
They could be I've only ever seen the happy and
sad mask together. I don't know if there's an angry one.

Speaker 1 (40:54):
I would say I've I've seen a third one before.
I can't remember if it was angry or not. But
like if I'm really combing through my brain, I feel
like there was a third one, But I could just
be making that up because I I think where I
remember the masks from are like those old Three Stooges
shorts that you that they would air on TV, and

(41:16):
like they would have the opening and sometimes they would
have the masks in like the corner when they were
doing the opening credits. I think that's where I originally
saw them. Yeah, the Three Stooges, Happy, Sad and angry. Well,
and it was also originally a stage play before they
filled oh no kidding, Yeah, yeah, they started doing it
before like film was a thing. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah yeah,
yany how about that? So you go through each of

(41:39):
these areas.

Speaker 2 (41:40):
The axon here is called the mask Keeper. There is
some talk about you know, masks, masks conceal who we
really are, et cetera.

Speaker 1 (41:50):
It's it's it's the billage Ol song the Stranger. All
have a face that we hide away forever. We take
it out and show ourselves and everyone is gone.

Speaker 2 (41:56):
He does say, the mask Keeper says, people want so
badly know what's behind the mask front back, recto verso
intentional word choice by him.

Speaker 1 (42:05):
Great. Art is both window and mirror, whether it's your
mask or theirs. I like that. I agree with that
that art is both window and mer Oh yeah, yeah.
Art is as much of a window of the soul
as it is a reflection of society. You know, art
imitating life, life imitating art, that kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (42:25):
Not just well, I agree with you, but not just
a reflection of society. I've been talking a lot on
this show recently about interpretation being a co creator, a
co creation between the author and the viewer, you know,
So in that way, yes, it's a mirror because it's
reflecting what you see within the work. Yes, So if
a mask is a mirror, you, the viewer, are interpreting

(42:47):
that mask, that persona. If we're using Youngian or Atlas terms,
I was.

Speaker 1 (42:53):
Gonna say, it all comes back to persona, doesn't it.
God damn it, it always does, God damn it. No. But yeah,
I think that's you know, correct, you know the whole
Like you know, like certain like the where people have said,
like the art comes from your interpretation of it. Yeah,
not necessarily from what the artist creates, but like you know,
when you stare at it. So like if you if

(43:13):
you stare long enough at at certain pieces of art,
you may actually like get something out of it.

Speaker 2 (43:19):
You know, totally, there is a once this is over,
I feel like this is the most bizarre choice they
could have done. Once it's over, the mask keeper puts
a bunch of you know, masks on everybody here, and
they're struggling to get it off. Cel gets hers off
and says, this mask can't hurt me. It is me,

(43:40):
And she's got this big main character moment where she
hits the axon and everyone is saved. This felt so
out of place to me, like there's no reason for
this to happen, there was no setup. It felt so corny.

Speaker 1 (43:55):
Yeah, like maybe they just kind of wanted to like
give her care or like a little moment, and they
kind of like shoehorned it in a little bit.

Speaker 2 (44:04):
You know, Lune has one with the next ax on too,
but that's at least a little bit telegraphed because she's
the most susceptible to being beguiled by it. But we'll
get there in a second. One interesting thing though, before
we move to that is Versa at the very end
to himself says that was verso, wasn't it. Renoir kind

(44:25):
of recontextualizes what the mask keeper said, But again that's
on a replay through. Like so many things on a
replay through, so much becomes telegraphed and clear. This is
a very focused game.

Speaker 1 (44:37):
Yeah yeah, I think. I think if I were to
replay it too, there would be things where I would
be I'd be doing the the Leo meme of like,
oh yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (44:45):
Let's talk siren. Siren is the next ax on, the
second axon. I don't know if I'm off base with this.
This area is like vaguely Middle Eastern.

Speaker 1 (44:56):
It has that vibe, it definitely does. I mean, maybe
it's because it has like, you know, the Mexico filter
on there, but like it looks a little like like
kind of Persian. Oh you know a little bit that
kind of like maybe it's like all like like the
rugs that you see and just like the kind of
decorations like I mean, I hate to say it, but
it gave me like almost like a Ladin vibes, just

(45:18):
that kind of like ascetic no I get that kind. Yeah,
it's various shades of browns and yellows, sandy rocks, large
beautiful pillar architecture that has been destroyed by a lot
of previous expeditions. All of these in the air flowing
and floating ribbons, and even a lot of the enemies
have those flowing ribbons as well.

Speaker 2 (45:40):
Yes, in in that I love the seductive and mildly
mournful flute soundtrack too.

Speaker 1 (45:46):
It was actually one of my favorite pieces in the game.

Speaker 2 (45:48):
Before we talk those enemies. Sirene is this enormous humanoid shape,
kind of almost like a gesture in terms of like,
you know, looking like a doll humanoids, long flowing green hair.
She who plays with wonder is what Monoko calls her.
She is able to dance and beguile and capture anyone

(46:09):
who is around her. She can capture their minds, and
she does so with the Expeditioners. They're under a spell totally.
Luna is the first to succumb to this. Monoco kind
of snaps them out of it.

Speaker 1 (46:20):
But if I'm correct on this, I believe her name
is a reference to the Sirens. I'm sure it is
like the old Greek myth. Yeah, yeah, the Sirens. If
you guys know your Greek myth, you might know. I
won't go into it now. You mentioned the enemies.

Speaker 2 (46:37):
That's a contentious point to this dungeon. A lot of
folks don't like this that all of the enemies here.

Speaker 1 (46:44):
There are some.

Speaker 2 (46:44):
Enemies in this game that you can only shoot because
they're floating, they're quick, they can't be hit generally by
normal attacks. The whole dungeon is like this here, you
can only shoot them did that bother you?

Speaker 1 (46:57):
No, I mean the game had introduced these of enemies before,
and what I learned was some of these enemies you
actually can hit like with a normal attack. It's just
it's just a very low percentage chance. But it didn't
It didn't bother me because any like like kind of
like special attacks you would use, like any chroma attacks

(47:17):
would hit them. It was just like your standard melee
attacks you wouldn't be able to hit them with. But
by this time I had a pretty like almost kind
of like a routine of when I would like enter
an enemy counter, I'd be like, Okay, this character's gonna
do this, and this one will do that kind of
a thing. And this was an area where actually grinded
like quite a bit to get out some levels because

(47:38):
the enemies weren't super powerful, and with my routine it
was able, I was able to knock them out and
like maybe like two full turns kind of a thing.
So yeah, and yeah, the enemies that like you know,
oh you have to shoot them, it's like it's not
that big of a deal. Like the way the game
handles the kind of shooting mechanic, I actually like really

(47:58):
like it's not like saying, you know, persona where you
can just like just shoot them or whatever. Like here
you have you can aim and there'll be like certain
weak points that certain characters if you hit them, it'll
do like a bunch of damage and even do like
like splash damage to other characters, to other enemies as well. Right,
So there's a little bit more thoughtfulness in it and

(48:19):
creates more of a like different types of like battle strategies.
So I actually liked it. I didn't know people didn't
like it.

Speaker 2 (48:26):
Yeah, I've heard a few folks say that they weren't
a fan of it. It didn't bother me, you know.
I mean, like you said, Act Too is comparatively long.
I didn't mind a dungeon that, you know, just let
me go through a little bit mindlessly. Also, I felt
like this dungeon was a little bit longer. I don't
know if that's true.

Speaker 1 (48:42):
It felt longer. I think it's just because it had
a lot of different branching paths for like secrets and things.
It was definitely one of the easier dungeons in the game. Like,
it wasn't throwing all these crazy difficult enemies at you.
So right, maybe that's why I contributed to the length,
but I mean it was actually one of my favorite
dungeons in the entire game. So let's talk.

Speaker 2 (49:03):
Well, that's funny you say that this is one of
my favorite fights in the entire game. Yeah, I guess
we're not being too compressed with this. After all, before
you fight Siren, you walk up to her and by
the way, the scale is enormous.

Speaker 1 (49:17):
She is humongous.

Speaker 2 (49:20):
You walk up to her if you are about to
fight Flower, pedals are raining down, and once again, she
transfixes the entire party. We're under her spell and everybody
is seeing their departed families. Lune sees her parents, mil Sies,
Gustave cl On my first play.

Speaker 1 (49:37):
Through this, this hit me really hard. Cl sees her
husband and a child, implying she lost to a child somehow. Yeah, yeah,
I remember that because yeah, when you meet her, she
liked references you know, losing her husband and all of
this as well. But then realizing we had a child
connected as well, Like shit, because cel is one of

(49:58):
my favorite characters in the game, so seeing her have
that emotional moment to get me a little emotional as well.

Speaker 2 (50:04):
Minoco sees Noco, Verso, Stern and unbreakable, and in fact,
I think back to the previous Axon where he says,
this is Verso, isn't it Renmore? If you can interpret
who this might be this Axon, or at least who
it's based on, and would how would you say it?
See the reluctant but dignified and diligent fire in Verso's eyes.

Speaker 1 (50:32):
It's an incredible shot. I love it.

Speaker 2 (50:35):
But this begins the Siren fight. This is so cinematic.
The battle animations are just sweeping. The camera is moving everywhere.
It is fantastic.

Speaker 1 (50:46):
I really liked it too, the sweeping cinematic stuff. It
was almost borderline affecting, like the gameplay. But I think
I think there are some later battles where I think
the scope gets so big that you kind of lose
track of your characters, and but I think, like this one,
it's it's almost bordering on it. But it's not that bad.

Speaker 2 (51:09):
There's definitely a fight coming up where I felt that, yeah, yeah,
we might be thinking the same one.

Speaker 1 (51:14):
I bet we are. Yeah, this one's not so bad.

Speaker 2 (51:20):
If you get charmed, if you don't beat the extra nevrons,
you'll get charmed constantly.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
That sucks, so bad, which I did.

Speaker 2 (51:27):
I didn't eat one of the nevrons because it puts
it up into a near well do I want to
say that? It puts it into a near replicant position
where the Neverron isn't attacking you, And it's just like, well,
this Nevron.

Speaker 1 (51:40):
Doesn't seem so hostile, are you sure you want to
kill it? And I thought they were gonna do something
with that, but they don't. So if you don't kill it,
you get punished. Yeah, I just said, screwed and just
kill them. Tract doesn't care GTA mode. Well, I'll well,
I haven't played any replicant, but also you know, I'll
accept whatever consequences happened. I can get reckless in in
games because I'm like, oh, if I don't have to

(52:02):
do that, then I won't do it next time.

Speaker 2 (52:04):
Sure, Lunae gets the main character moment here. She hits
Siren with a dragon Ball Z energy blast. It's a
little more set up here since Luna was the most
susceptible to it, but I don't.

Speaker 1 (52:15):
Know, It's fine, Yeah, let her have her turtle with
back at camp.

Speaker 2 (52:19):
Now that we've got both Axon hearts, Mayel is given
the barrier breaker from the Curator. Extremely strong weapon by
the way, when powered up to thirty three, it was
my second strongest weapon I think that I had.

Speaker 1 (52:35):
Yeah, like on. Once Male gets this, she's pretty much good.

Speaker 2 (52:40):
We get another black and white scene here where the
white haired woman. I don't think we've learned who that is, right,
I don't think so. No, I don't think so either.
She attempts to attack Mayel, but the Curator blocks the attack,
and it's at this point Mael is like, who are you?
And I wonder that too. There are two scenes I

(53:00):
want to talk about. First, you find out here. This
cracks me up that Eska is made out of wine,
like Verso stored wine inside of Ska his personal stash.
The way you find out cracks me up. This will
always make me laugh. He and I'm gonna put the
audio in here.

Speaker 1 (53:20):
He like. Seel is like, I found out a little
something talking to Skia and he's like, I'm sorry. Verso
in mid sentence, he just starts fucking puking.

Speaker 5 (53:31):
Esk and I had a chat.

Speaker 1 (53:34):
I'm sorry, promise me sweet.

Speaker 4 (53:42):
What sucks is that wine?

Speaker 1 (53:47):
I forgot about this? This this reminds me of like Okay,
I'm not like, I'm not the biggest family guy enjoyer,
but I'm not like a hater either. This reminds me
of when they drank ipacac and they're just like I
don't and yeah, this stuff, Oh that's such an iconic bit. Yeah,
it's like my head's sides are on fire. But yeah,

(54:11):
they all get drunk that night. Mayo asks for apple juice,
which I was like, that's what a stupid line, But yeah,
they all get drunk that night. She well, she is
under the eight Uh does that rule even matter in
this world? No, of course not. Also, she's sixteen. I'm
pretty sure that's drinking age in France. Yeah, I think

(54:32):
drinking agent France is like five. He complimentary wine when
you enter elementary school. But there's also a serious scene
that happens here, and it's honestly, it's really beautiful. Verso
is like standing by himself looking at the monument, and
Alicia appears to him. The two of them stand looking
at the paintress. No words are spoken, none are needed.

(54:55):
She gives him a letter, but he doesn't open it yet.
He stores it away and he removes her ma, you know,
revealing the burnt face. She is clearly extremely bashful, self
conscious about it. And I can't insert the line because
the music is just too unbalanced and loud for this.
But he says, my beautiful sister doesn't need this ugly mask.

(55:16):
It's really sweet, and they embrace it's it's just really
clear that they have a good relationship. But then ren
Water appears and he sort of twists the knife.

Speaker 3 (55:26):
He says, you embrace her, yet you're condemning her to die.
Have you thought through the consequences, not just for you
or even me, but for them, their memories, their dreams,

(55:48):
they're love for each other. Who really is the one
painting death and who paints life instead?

Speaker 1 (56:00):
And then they all stare like as a family.

Speaker 2 (56:03):
They stand there as a family looking at the monument,
something they haven't done for a long time. It's a
really touching scene and it just makes me appreciate so
much more that they're giving us an antagonist with motivations
that he believes is true, that he believes is.

Speaker 1 (56:21):
Valiant and just, and he will go to.

Speaker 2 (56:23):
The ends of the earth to achieve them, even though
from our perspective he is in the wrong.

Speaker 1 (56:29):
Yeah, yeah, And it's just kind of further detailing this
kind of femial connection and maybe it's planted in your head.
At least it was for me at this point that like, oh,
I think Mayel is somehow related to all of this,
but I still wasn't sure of her connection. But considering
her and Alicia looks so alike, it's easy to be like, oh,

(56:54):
maybe you know she's a part of this family drama
as well. Yeah, yeah, those threads are starting to come together.

Speaker 2 (57:02):
It's a great moment. It's one of my favorite scenes.
There are so many scenes that I could say is
my favorite scene.

Speaker 3 (57:18):
Though.

Speaker 2 (57:26):
With that, it's time to go to the monolith. My
Ol breaks the barrier with the sword inside. It's a
straight path to the paintress. It's lined with candles memorializing
the dead. There are hundreds of thousands of them.

Speaker 1 (57:39):
Though.

Speaker 2 (57:40):
Yeah, it gives the whole thing a reflective and sort
of spiritual feel.

Speaker 1 (57:45):
It also reminds me a little bit of like a
funeral as well, yeah, you know, or like a like
a death march type of deal. A funeral and a
death march for whom that is the question. It does.

Speaker 2 (57:57):
As we so we approach the paintress, massive continually mourning.
She doesn't even notice us, head in her knees, grieving
for what we don't know, for whom we don't know.
It does a trope that I really love. This works
for me every time, and that's a big boss battle
with extremely sparse or serene or soda voce music works

(58:22):
for me every single time.

Speaker 1 (58:24):
And for me when I got to this part, I
guess it didn't really sink into me how big the
paintress was in size. Maybe it's just because you always
see her from such a far distance and she's like
always within frame. If you look hard enough, you can
always see her. But now we're at the point where
it's like, oh, we're right at her feet, And to me,

(58:46):
it just like it really emphasized the size and the
scope of this character. Gargantuan, Yeah, yes, humongous. We attack
her and it does literally nothing. She doesn't even notice us.
My own forward and we get another black and white scene.
I don't think this is.

Speaker 2 (59:07):
We're connecting all of these to the well I almost
said their last name doesn't matter. We're connecting these to
Renoir and Company. Verso is is here though, myle and
Verso see the curator esque woman walk forward. Suddenly, everybody
but Verso catches on fire. They're screaming, screams, ring from
scorched throats. This is a targeted message for Verso. It

(59:29):
ends as soon as it starts, though, this is the
real Paintress, this curator esque woman.

Speaker 1 (59:34):
That's when we all kind of realized.

Speaker 2 (59:37):
Ye follow her all throughout the inside of the monument.
There are these monochrome memories, like all of a sudden,
the screen will turn monochrome and we see these apparitions,
these specter like ethereal chroma based apparitions of the paintress
or well, I mean, I think it's obvious. They even
say it's her memory. So paintress fighting with her husband

(59:59):
with which very clearly looks like frenoir.

Speaker 1 (01:00:02):
I don't know if you thought that, but oh no,
I did. Immediately.

Speaker 2 (01:00:06):
I was like, oh, okay, yeah, teaching her children to paint,
arguing with one of the girls, teaching a young child piano,
which if we remember a previous scene with Verso playing
the piano, we might start to connect some dots. Then
we see the young shadow boy again and he takes
us to his hometown via a train. I love when

(01:00:27):
children conduct locomotives. He's taking us to Loumire. Freg Did
you find this journal entry from Aileen in here? You
find it in like the manner? Maybe I did.

Speaker 1 (01:00:38):
I don't remember.

Speaker 2 (01:00:39):
I can't remember if we know who Aleen is. So
I'm gonna hold off on that. But it begins about talking.
It begins with talk of a child, but then it
says I want rage to consume me, anything to fill
the hollow, but rage won't come. I just float in
an endless nothingness. The person I cannot be around is Alicia.

(01:00:59):
Her pain is a broken mirror, the shards reflecting back tenfold.
This is like the I wrote suckibus esque, but I
don't even know if I believe that it's It's the
deleterious sort of spiraling, seductive nature of grief and depression.
I want to feel angry, but I feel hollow. The

(01:01:21):
rage won't come. I just endless nothingness, despite wanting to feel,
even if it's something as fi not File, even if
it's something as flaming as rage, but I can't feel anything.

Speaker 1 (01:01:33):
Yeah, when like when you realize that the grief and
has like completely consumed you to where there's just there
is nothing there right.

Speaker 2 (01:01:43):
You know, grief is an incredibly complex thing to talk about,
and you know this game would need to be like
three times as long to explore every a facet of it.
I think it does a really good job of parsing
out the different manifestations of it, though.

Speaker 1 (01:02:00):
I really do. Yeah. Yeah, it's not going to be comprehensive,
but I don't think it needs to be. I think
it just needs to showcase the matters of grief that
it thinks is most serving to the story, and I
think it accomplishes them.

Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
Yeah, and we get several two prominent and several other
iterations of it. I yeah, I think we can both
agree it does a good job on too lumier. So
when we arrive very somber, pensive. I know I've used
soda voce like several times throughout this soda voce means
under the voice. In music, it typically means there is

(01:02:37):
one voice playing, maybe one voice above sparse accompaniment. That's
what that means. I think here it's piano. I might
be misremembering, but I think it is. It's the Lumier
we knew from the beginning, but it's in its autumn,
both in terms of the golden leaves, and in the
metaphorical sense, autumn is when things begin to die, begin

(01:02:57):
to wilt, weigh, it's desolate. Eventually we get to a
field and Renoir appears.

Speaker 1 (01:03:04):
Uh who says this? Verso?

Speaker 2 (01:03:05):
Verso says we're taking her down. Renoir gives an interesting response.

Speaker 3 (01:03:11):
She's not the only one who grieves the pain of
losing you. She made me inherited punishment, perhaps for not
being there when it mattered. I refuse to lose my son.

Speaker 2 (01:03:34):
That son was a stranger. Verso responds, but you're not
one thing about here, Thrack. You're a musician. You probably
noticed this perfectly placed arpeggio. I think it's half diminished.
Don't quote me on that from the initial gomage is
here that swell of emotion.

Speaker 1 (01:03:52):
Yeah I did notice that. Yeah, I noticed that that
was really a placement.

Speaker 2 (01:03:58):
Yeah, hair stand on in kind of m Verso repeats
miles words here to Renoir. He says family is complicated,
which signifies his full transformation. He is no longer of
Renoir's ilk. He is his new family is his found one. Here,
Renoir gives a classic villain line. If saving you means
losing you, then So be it. If you're not with me,

(01:04:22):
then you're my enemy.

Speaker 1 (01:04:25):
Don't make me kill you. Oh basically, dude, Hayden Christiansen
gets so much shit. It was the script. I will
stand by that. It was the script that brought his
acting down. I defend those movies.

Speaker 5 (01:04:40):
I like him.

Speaker 2 (01:05:02):
Okay, So here is where I was talking about before,
Killer Boss music theme.

Speaker 1 (01:05:06):
Yes, what I love.

Speaker 2 (01:05:08):
About this too is they do something that you can
see a lot in chamber music and orchestras. The male
voice and the female voice are singing in the same
general pitch area, Like if you were to plot these
notes on the piano, they would be either unison or
close together close voicing, which means the female voice is

(01:05:29):
in the mid to low register and the male voice
is in the high register. And what I love about this,
and this happens cello, violin, tenor, Sacks, soprano sacks.

Speaker 1 (01:05:40):
What I love.

Speaker 2 (01:05:41):
About this dichotomy is the female voice, being in the
mid to low range, is going to be shimmering, piercing, strident,
and shining, whereas the male voice, being in the higher tessitura,
loses some of those overtones and is skier and powerful,

(01:06:03):
a little darker. The two together just make an amazing
blend of power and shimmering brightness.

Speaker 1 (01:06:12):
It's fantastic and all of it was done by just
some dude they found on SoundCloud.

Speaker 2 (01:06:17):
I know, dude, I know we said this before, but like,
this makes me think of how amazing humans are, and
like how many people, whether through poverty or just lack
of learning opportunities.

Speaker 1 (01:06:29):
Will just never get discovered in the amazing things they
can do. Exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:06:36):
It's crazy, man, it's crazy. Never discount somebody because of
the lack of education.

Speaker 1 (01:06:41):
That's something that I used to do when I was younger,
and it's a horrible, horrible thing, or any other like
underlying factors that would, you know, maybe make somebody think
about like, oh they shouldn't be able to do this
because of blah blah blah. Great exactly, this boss is
a fucker. That is verbatim what I wrote. Oh yeah,

(01:07:02):
I could. I have nothing to comment other than yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:07:06):
He again, He'll vanish your guys. Halfway through he summons
this like proma lion that one, yeah one. It fully
heals him too. It makes him enraged, which is a
status effect that lets.

Speaker 1 (01:07:16):
Him go twice often four times in a row because
you know he'll attack two times on the term meter,
which times two is fourth. And then I wrote again,
he's a fucker. Yeah, very difficult, like more difficult than
what you had been seeing previous, Like even though the
game can be challenging with the dodge and the perry stuff, like,

(01:07:39):
I think this time you fight rent Aar is just
much more challenging than what you've been dealing with previously,
and it's only going to get harder from here. Kids.

Speaker 2 (01:07:48):
Yeah, Oh, here's something I wanted to touch on.

Speaker 1 (01:07:52):
Have you played Pentiment Threck No?

Speaker 2 (01:07:55):
Oh, I don't know if you would like it, but
it's one of my favorite games, and one of my
favorite games from whatever year I played at twenty four,
twenty three, I don't remember.

Speaker 1 (01:08:05):
See, I've been wanting to play it. I mean, it's
an Obsidian Joint, so it's on game Pass, yeah, and
I've always like looked at it and I'm like, I
really want to give it a try, but I just
haven't really been in the mood to try it. And
you know, I just get so busy with other games
I have to play for content or whatever that it
just keeps getting pushed to the side. Unfortunately, but one

(01:08:26):
of these days I will get to it, because it
does look like an interesting experience that I want to
give a proper shake too. I don't know if I'd
like it or not, but I wouldn't know unless I
gave it a shot.

Speaker 2 (01:08:37):
I will vouch for it. Pixel Project Radio did two
episodes on it.

Speaker 1 (01:08:40):
Check it out. Tentiment is pentiment.

Speaker 2 (01:08:44):
The title is based on a term called pentimento, which
in art is when paint starts to peel away and
underlying layers begin to show. There's a lot of symbolic
and metaphorical implications of this impentiment, but the physical effect
in pentiment is some of the older characters you can
see their paint starting to peel. Everybody's kind of painted

(01:09:06):
in that game. Older characters, their paint is peeling off.
Here we see something similar. Renoir and later characters will
see have these black and white and gray splotches, typically
around their face. It's kind of the opposite effect of pentiment,
almost as if, let me be deliberate about this, almost

(01:09:28):
as if coats of paint were being added and added,
and splashes of paint were rebounding off of the brush
off of the canvas and affecting other areas. In other words,
as we repaint and repaint and repaint, the spittles and
splashes of paint are getting everywhere and causing splotches. That's

(01:09:49):
what it looks like here to me. I don't know,
do you remember this at all?

Speaker 1 (01:09:53):
Kind of like vaguely. I know things are starting like
they were starting to do that kind of effect, which
I think suggested to me me that almost like the
world was starting to kind of like crumble around what
was happening, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:10:06):
Yeah, yeah, if you're not paying attention, you might notice
this and think like, well, you might not even think anything.
I think this is such a subtle way to prime
you for what is to come. I chose my analogy purposefully,
although I don't think it's all that deep. I don't
think I'm profound. I'm just that's what's happening, and we'll

(01:10:31):
see more of that. Renoirre is downed. He is bloody,
and Mayel wants to kill his ass, but he says
something to make us reconsider. Remember who your real family is.
It's not her, it's your sister, your mother, me. You
would condemn us all to die for what? Who do
you really save? With your sacrifice. This is where Mael

(01:10:53):
starts to put it together, and he says, let us
celebrate the second destruction of the Dessange family. But before
he can, before he can unleash his attack, the Curator
comes out and the two of them have a dialogue.
Renoir says, love lost, quit.

Speaker 3 (01:11:10):
Right, this is all you have left of your son,
destroying it and bring your wife back. People only destroying
the last time you have to eatjother.

Speaker 2 (01:11:31):
The Curator takes Miles's hand and the two of them
gamage Renoir, same exact thing that happened in the beginning,
yep and Renoir. Renoir has a tragic line once you
know the context. As he's being gomaged, as he is
fading away from existence, he says, I love them too.

Speaker 1 (01:11:52):
Love that line. And of course Andy Cirkus does it great?
It is circus right, yeah, Andy Serkis. Yeah, he has
given such a fantastic performance throughout this entire game. Amen. Yeah,
he's incredible. They spent their budget well on voice acting,
that's for sure. Yeah, that you can tell, that's where

(01:12:13):
a lot of the budget went. More dots are being connected.
Mael has the power of the paintress. Why might that
be hm. Verso plays dumb, completely dumb. It's like I
don't know. Yeah, yeah, he clearly knows, but he doesn't
want to say. And with that, it's up to the
monolith Peak to fight da Paintress, which is what I
wrote for some reason, du Paintress. Why not du bears?

(01:12:38):
This is the curator's wife. We put that together.

Speaker 2 (01:12:41):
She looks right at Versa and says, you've come back,
but the fire are you really here?

Speaker 1 (01:12:47):
She says that to Mayeo.

Speaker 2 (01:12:48):
She refers to Mayel as Alicia. The gang just reasons, well,
it's because Mayel reminds.

Speaker 1 (01:12:54):
Her of her lost daughter. It's just that it's just
a memory. Yeah, nothing else. Now she turns to Verso.

Speaker 2 (01:13:00):
And she says, come along, let's go home, and Verso,
fighting back tears, voice breaking, says yes, you need to
go home. And this brings up the Paintress fight. The
Paintress is convinced that quote he is tricking us. You're
not my Verso. No Verso's dead, and this is a

(01:13:22):
paintress fight. She can be super tough.

Speaker 1 (01:13:25):
Yeah, this is the fight where I was complaining earlier
about the cinematic scope of it, because yeah, if I
remember correctly. The it has two phases, and the first
phase is more just kind of your phases two, where
the first one is just kind of like almost kind
of standard. But then you do the second phase or

(01:13:46):
she gets like massive, and you're just kind of on
this little teeny like island, just kind of floating in
the sky. And this is where like the cinematics that
we we saw with the previous Syrian Fight really come
into play. And it's again, it's awesome, it's great. The
scope is just incredible. Yeah, but this is the one
where it's like some of that scope they kind of

(01:14:09):
lose the like, oh, we still have to like do
the dodging and the parrying, and still like the mechanical
parts of the game that they had, you know, made
such an important focus in the battles that it feels
like they almost half forgot about it at this part
because there are so many JRPGs that will do this
big scope for like a near the end boss fight.

(01:14:30):
But when it's just like a standard turn base, it's fine,
you know, you can just kind of let it play out.
But there were so many times where it was like, oh,
I'm supposed to parry now, oh, like you kind of
get lost in it, you know, or like she'll have
certain attacks that just it's like when you summon I
forget what they're called in Final Fantasy, but like, you know,
the big Beast to do the damage. Yes, I thought

(01:14:56):
they had a different name, the different depending on what
entry you're playing. Fair Enough, they like they'll have that
sort of vibe to it, but which is great and
is awesome. But there were many times where I took
a hit purely because it kind of got lost in
everything that was happening.

Speaker 2 (01:15:14):
Yeah, yeah, I definitely, I don't disagree the it's the
Z axis that's tough to navigate on this one. It's
tough to tell how far away something is on the
Z axis, and by the time it gets close enough,
it's really coming down quick. Specifically, it's it's like one
attack that's the troublesome one.

Speaker 1 (01:15:33):
Yeah, Like I struggle with the z axis through pretty
much like the back half of this game in general.
So getting to this point with this kind of crazy stuff,
I got a little frustrated. I'm not gonna lie in
that Phase two. You know, we are fighting.

Speaker 2 (01:15:48):
The giant interests, you know, not the curator Escalady but
the giant representation of her grief vers So and it
really the scale of it all crazy. Verso calls Ska
over and turns out Verso head. Sorry his rock that
gives Ska flight the whole time. He gives it to him. Uh,

(01:16:11):
and the battle takes place on Ska's back. That's right,
that's where we're filling on Ska the whole time.

Speaker 1 (01:16:16):
Yeah, super cool.

Speaker 2 (01:16:18):
You see the shot of Lumiere through the hole in
the chest of the catress.

Speaker 1 (01:16:24):
Yeah, like that's that's such great like that, that was
such a great placement of that and and all that,
like all this stuff is happening, and then you just
see Ska just kind of floating there with like like
when he flies, he sticks his arms out, you know. Yeah. Yeah,
So it's just a little bit of like, oh there
he is, you know, a little big the cat guy.

Speaker 2 (01:16:42):
He's in good Oh god, he's in good humor throughout
the whole fight. You know, he comes in, he's like,
I got you. Here's something. During the fight. She's going
to have combat lines, like she talks during combat. We've
already established that she's the curator's wife, but she says this.
She says Renoire can however he likes. But I get
to grieve my own way. So now there's a connection

(01:17:05):
between Renoir and the pats.

Speaker 1 (01:17:07):
So you beat her. It can be a tough fight,
but you beat her. Yeah, it's a long fight too.

Speaker 2 (01:17:13):
Oh yeah, she knows she's defeated. Now she's back down
to the curator escorm.

Speaker 1 (01:17:19):
Phase three. She knows she has done. She is on
the ground.

Speaker 2 (01:17:25):
She looks pitiful. Phase three forces the player to continue
attacking her as she heals you. She uses her turn
to heal and protect the player. You have to fight her.
This gave me flashbacks to the absolutely asinine brain dead
takes that would go around for games like Specofs, where

(01:17:46):
it's like the game makes you do bad things and
then says you're bad for doing it. Really, you know,
like those kinds of takes just totally media illiterate kind
of deals.

Speaker 1 (01:17:57):
Yeah, like not taking the full like if you're not
about tops the line, like not really seeing the whole
game for what it is and what it's like trying
to say with it making you do those things. Yeah,
I could see that. I would say this bit reminded
me a little bit of Metal Gear Solid three, where
at the end of that game spoilers for Meligar Solid three.

(01:18:21):
So Threc delivered a whole lot of Metal Gear Solid
three spoilers at length, and to be on the safe side,
I'm cutting them all out. You'll just have to trust
me that thrac made cogent points and decent connections. But yeah,
that's like a like a big emotional moment, And this
reminded me a little bit of that where it's like

(01:18:42):
you have beaten the big bad, but you know there's
more to the big bad than you think, but the
game's still making you finish it out, you know, even
when you're starting to feel like at this point you're
feeling conflicted about it because of what's going on, but
the game's still like, no, you you have to do it.
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:19:01):
I'm sure if I ever played the series, I will
not remember that. So the Paintress, once we deplete her
health bar, once we debuff her health to zero, Verso
takes her into his arms and gently lays her down.
She looks at him and just says one thing. Why
Once again, he's choking back tears, and he says, rest now,

(01:19:24):
things will be better soon. This is not the triumphant
victory our team was expecting. They do celebrate it that way,
not knowing the history behind her. Mayel especially seems to
not feel happy. She doesn't know why, but she doesn't
feel this sense of jovial celebration that everybody else seems

(01:19:45):
to feel. I mean, to be fair, Lune Cil. They're
in disbelief. They're not like jumping up and down. But
after they realize it, they're like, it's done.

Speaker 1 (01:19:53):
Like we did it.

Speaker 2 (01:19:54):
We did what other expeditions could not do. We have
made our fall rather in sacrifices mean something.

Speaker 1 (01:20:04):
Yeah, that they had finally accomplished what like seventy plus
expeditions could not do. Making them mean something is not
what I meant. I misspoke, but you know they they
redeeming them. Yes, their deaths weren't in vain kind of
a thing, and yet like it's not a jovial, triumphant victory.

(01:20:25):
But honestly, I didn't from how the game was going,
I didn't expect like that at all. I was like,
I don't think we're going to get like that happy ending, right,
you know, because it would have come right the hell
out of nowhere, and I honestly think would have hurt
the game. It would have just don the oh everything's fine.

Speaker 2 (01:20:42):
It would have come out of nowhere. And the game
has perfectly spotlight the idea that Renoir and the Paintress
have motivations that are unclear to us.

Speaker 1 (01:20:54):
Yeah, like things still aren't settled.

Speaker 2 (01:20:56):
Yeah, So we fly back to Lumier on s and
there's a celebration, you know, we fly back, the children
and everybody are very interested in Monoco and Ska Ska
is dancing. He loves the attention. Mael breaks the news
to Gustav's apprentices that he's not coming back, but overall
it's it's an atmosphere of exhausted celebration. Verso finally remember

(01:21:22):
the letter that Alien not Eleene Alicia gives to Verso.
He sits by the sea, on the pier, on the
harbor and he reads the letter. This is too long
to insert. It would be like two and a half minutes,
and I would feel bad doing that, so I'm just
going to read this.

Speaker 1 (01:21:37):
It's important, though.

Speaker 2 (01:21:39):
The letter reads, brother, I tire of the conflicts and
deceptions that plague our family and theirs. So I entrust
you with this letter. Whether you give it to her.

Speaker 1 (01:21:49):
Is up to you. I'm at peace with what's to come.
When the time comes.

Speaker 2 (01:21:53):
I hope you will be too, Miel. It's a strange
feeling watching you with my brother, laughing and smiling, without
the scars or the memories that afflict me. Alicia as
she was meant to be, not this painted version that
I am, My family a facsimile of yours, and this
world a mirror painted by your mother, the paintress to

(01:22:15):
stave off her grief. Seeing your expedition through would plunge
us all into the abyss, for in ridding the world
of the paintress, you'd lose the sole force standing against
the one who would erase us, the one who invokes
the flowers of the Gamage an act of love, for
he does love her, your father. On her monolith, she

(01:22:36):
paints a warning for us, all of the few she
can save. As her power wanes. We all wish for our.

Speaker 1 (01:22:43):
Families to survive. Your family, however, believes only one can survive.
But perhaps you'll find another.

Speaker 2 (01:22:49):
Way, you who have lived amongst us. Perhaps you differ
from your father and your sister as I differ from mine.
Your mother paints life whilst your father death.

Speaker 1 (01:23:01):
What will you.

Speaker 2 (01:23:01):
Paint This is a bombshell moment to learn that the
paintress is Male's mother.

Speaker 1 (01:23:17):
I mean, I think with like context clues, I think
you could maybe like piece it together that kind of
a thing, but like, yeah, it's a bombshell because it
just lays it out for you, like, yeah, this is
here's the connection.

Speaker 2 (01:23:31):
And not just that, but the fact that the gomage
comes from her father and that it's an act of love,
and that the numbers are a warning. Yeah, now, I
admit to get the full scope of this, I did
have to look on the wiki for one thing that
I was just a little bit confused on. I think
we'll begin the next episode by laying out exactly what

(01:23:55):
the deal is with the paintress, with Renoir, with the curator.
I don't want to do it now, just in case
folks didn't get that far. It is technically an act three.
But there is one last thing that happens here. After
Verso finishes this letter, the monolith disappears in a shock
wave rings out. The world is rendered in a mild

(01:24:18):
gray scale, and everybody, including our party members, begin to gamage.

Speaker 1 (01:24:23):
One by one, they start fading away.

Speaker 2 (01:24:25):
Cil Lune Gustav's sister, who appears for the first time
but hasn't actually said anything, Gustav's apprentices, everybody is fading away.
Mayela is the last one to do so, and this
begins the final act of the game, as Alicia wakes
up and we take control of her. This is where,

(01:24:47):
well technically, this is where epilogue Alicia begins. M h,
I think that's where we're going to cap the episode today. Huh,
I thought, man, I thought this episode would be significantly longer.

Speaker 1 (01:25:00):
No, we kind of kind of at a nice brisk pace. Yeah,
I feel bad. Did we skirt around anything? Did we
not get into deep enough conversation you think? No? I
think we did all right.

Speaker 2 (01:25:13):
The next episode will have a lot to talk about.
This is where the themes of the game start to
really fill in. All of the puzzle pieces, all of
the dots begin to connect. The yarn thread conspiracy board
is finally complete. We'll also talk about optional bosses. We'll
talk about why the nevrons exist, We'll talk about how

(01:25:33):
the Curator and the Paintress and Renoir all fit together,
character side quests, and then obviously the end of the game.

Speaker 1 (01:25:43):
Yes, yes, for the next part we're just gonna wrap
it off up, and the final act too. There's a
bit in the beginning that you have to do and
then it's like Final Fantasy Six's World of Ruin. It
lets you go to the very end if you want to.
This can be the shortest of the game if you
feel like wrapping it up. But like we said, there's

(01:26:03):
a lot that you can do that's optional. Frankly, some
of it shouldn't be because it really enhances your understanding
of the game. I'm specifically thinking of one boss that
shouldn't be optional. I am O. I'm most likely glossed
over it, so that is a I'll get to learn
about it. Oh that's okay. You could get a.

Speaker 2 (01:26:24):
Decent summary by watching it on YouTube, especially if you
don't want to go through the fight, which I'm gonna
be honest, I did beat it. The only boss I
didn't beat was the True Ultimate Superboss because I just
got pissed off and I was like, this isn't worth it.
I made a build that one SHOT's the first phase,
but I just I couldn't get through the last two phases,

(01:26:47):
so I just said forget it. Looked it up on YouTube,
not a good use of my time, I don't think,
but we'll talk all about that next time. It's really fascinating,
it's really cool. Act three is divisive. A lot of
folks don't like it. As we heard from I believe
it was Genova's child at the beginning in the community forum.

(01:27:08):
This is a divisive act for a lot of people.
They a lot of folks think it takes the wind
out of the sales. I'm going to keep my thoughts
to myself for now.

Speaker 1 (01:27:16):
I will, too, like I'll spend the time between the
recording of this to kind of gather my thoughts on that.
And it's going to be an exciting last episode. I'm
really looking forward to it.

Speaker 2 (01:27:25):
If you've been sticking around since episode one, thank you.
I've been really pleased with how this episode has turned out.
I think it's been exciting. I think it's been I
think there have been meaningful conversations. I think it's going
to end really strongly. Until then, once again, thank you.
Let's hear a little bit frack about what's going on
in Frack Ops. I understand that you've got some new

(01:27:46):
stuff coming.

Speaker 1 (01:27:46):
Out well, as mentioned at the top. In case you're
not aware, I do a little side series called Call
of Duty thrack Ops, where I've been slowly working my
way through the Call of Duty franchise because I feel
that was a series that in our little podcasting circle
wasn't getting a lot of a lot of talk, and
I thought, you know, I'll take it upon myself to

(01:28:08):
discuss propaganda and shooty Shooty Bang bang games. So at
the time of recording this episode, I have I'm up
on to episode three talking about Call of Duty two,
and right now I'm working on the next episode, Call
of Duty two, Big Red one, So I'm looking forward
to talking about that one because it is an important
entry in the series for a few reasons, but I

(01:28:30):
will save that for the episode. And if you're interested,
wherever you're listening to this podcast, you can find thrack
Ops there as well. And also my main show is
The three D Experience, where me and Bill are chronicling
the entire history of the Panasonic three D zero, the hardware,
the company, the games, during the console, and even after

(01:28:51):
the console. So check that out as well if you
enjoy my sultry tones.

Speaker 2 (01:28:56):
Absolutely, as far as I know, it's the only active
three D O podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:29:00):
That is true and even our pal Rick here has
been on an episode talking about the great virtuoso. So
go check that out.

Speaker 2 (01:29:08):
It's true and it's funny. Another podcast I listened to
like two weeks after we did our episode put out
an episode on it as well.

Speaker 1 (01:29:14):
Oh really.

Speaker 2 (01:29:16):
Yeah, it's a show where like they cover the game
for like five minutes and then you know, do improv
digressions comedy for the next like twenty.

Speaker 1 (01:29:25):
It's one of those that's fine. I like it. None
wrong with that, yeah, none wrong with that. Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:29:30):
Check out the episode description. You can find links to
all of Thrack's stuff in there. You can also find
links to our stuff. I don't know if I put
a call for this at the beginning, but just in
case I didn't. If you like the show, if you
appreciate what we're doing, please consider sharing the show on
social media. That's the number one way, the best way

(01:29:50):
you can support. You can also give us ratings or
reviews wherever you do so Spotify, Podcast, Attic, Apple Music,
all of that. If you really like the show a lot,
you can join the free discord or subscribe to the
Patreon for exclusive content as well as just showing you care,
really trying to up the listenership as we approach the

(01:30:11):
end of the year into next year. You can find
info on that in the episode description, along with Frack's stuff,
thrack Ops and three d oo. Until then, I think
we're gonna call it for today. We've got one more episode,
very excited about it, a lot to talk about. So
until then, Frack, thank you once again, thank you, and we'll.

Speaker 1 (01:30:31):
See you all next time. Peace out, take care,

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Family is Complicated | Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Analysis (Ep. 153)

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Family is Complicated | Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Analysis (Ep. 153)